“Please let go of my hand,” Rev. Johnson gasped.
“My son wasn’t no fucking abomination!” Ike said. His voice was as cold as a mountain stream flowing over river rocks. He gripped Rev. Johnson’s hand tighter. He felt metacarpals grinding to powder. Rev. Johnson groaned.
“Ike, let him go!” Mya said. Ike turned his head to the right. His wife was standing outside their car. The line behind them was ten deep. Ike released Rev. Johnson’s hand. The minister spun tires as he rocketed onto the highway. Ike marveled at how fast the German engineering carried Rev. Johnson away.
Ike walked back to his car. Mya got in the passenger seat as he slid in the driver’s side. She crossed her arms over her narrow chest and leaned her head against the window.
“What was all that about?” she asked. Ike turned the key in the ignition and put the car in gear.
“You heard what he was saying in his sermon. You know what he was saying about Isiah,” Ike said. Mya sighed.
“Like you haven’t said worse. But now that he’s dead you want to defend him?” Mya asked. Ike gripped the steering wheel.
“I loved him. I did. Just as much as you,” Ike said between clenched teeth.
“Really? Where was this love when he was getting picked on morning, noon, and night in school? Oh, that’s right, you were locked up. He needed your love then. Not now that he’s in the ground,” Mya said. Tears rolled down her face. Ike worked his jaw up and down like he was biting the tension between them.
“That’s why I taught him how to fight when I came home,” Ike said.
“Well, that’s what you know best, ain’t it?” Mya asked. Ike clenched his teeth.
“Do you want to go back over there and—” Ike started to say.
“Just take us home,” Mya sobbed.
He stepped on the gas and pulled out of the cemetery parking lot.
THREE
Buddy Lee sat straight up in his bed. Someone was banging on the door of his trailer so hard it felt like the whole structure was shaking. He checked the clock sitting on the milk crate that served as his nightstand. It was six o’clock. The funeral had ended at 2 P.M. Buddy Lee had stopped off at the Piggly Wiggly and picked up a case of beer. He’d crushed the last can around 4:30. Then he had flopped on his bed and passed out cold.
The banging at his door erupted again. It was cops. It had to be cops. No one banged on your door that hard except Johnny Law. Buddy Lee rubbed his eyes.
Run.
The thought flashed in his mind like an LED sign. The impulse was so strong he was standing up and taking two steps toward the back door before he realized what he was doing. He took a deep breath.
Run.
The thought pulsed in his head even though he was ten years out of Red Onion. Even though he only had a jar of moonshine in the cabinet and two joints in his truck. Even though he’d basically kept his nose clean since he’d started driving for Kitchener Seafood three years ago. Well, he didn’t have to worry too much about keeping his nose clean anymore since Ricky Kitchener had fired him instead of giving him a week of bereavement time.
Buddy Lee cracked his knuckles and walked to the front door. The temperature had skyrocketed since he’d passed out, so he flicked on the AC unit before he opened the door.
A short squat man was standing on the four cinder blocks that made up Buddy Lee’s front step. His balding head was ringed by rust-colored patches of hair on the sides and in the back of his skull. His white T-shirt sported a week’s worth of stains. They spelled out his eating habits like indistinct hieroglyphics.
“Hey Artie,” Buddy Lee said
“Your rent’s a week late, Jenkins,” Artie said. Buddy Lee burped and he thought all twenty-four beers in the case were going to make a surprise appearance in his mouth. Buddy Lee closed his eyes and tried to conjure up a calendar in his head. Was it the fifteenth already? Time had taken on a strange inconsequential quality since the cops had shown him a picture of Derek’s face with the top of his head blacked out.
Buddy Lee opened his eyes.
“Artie, you know my son died, right? The funeral was today.”
“I heard, but that don’t change the fact the rent is due. I’m sorry about your boy, I really am, but this ain’t the first time you been late. I done let you slide a few times but I gotta have it by tomorrow or we gonna have to have another kind of conversation,” Artie said. His tiny rat eyes sat in his head dull and brown like old pennies.
Buddy Lee leaned against the ragged doorframe. He crossed his wiry arms.