Danny stopped and clutched at his chest. His muscles suddenly felt like they were constricting, pulling taut, and there was a brief moment when he thought he was having a heart attack. His heart raced and his head swam and panic began to take hold. But there was something more, too — an emptiness inside him, blossoming from deep inside him, as if anything meaningful in his life was somehow wrenched away. Everything around him struck him as immensely sad, from the vase of flowers on the table that would wither and die in days, to his own once-strong hands now trembling before him like leaves. And this woman, Maggie, was the saddest thing of all, her eyes now full of tears that broke his heart over and over again with each drop.
Eyes that were now intensely focused on Danny. And not just full of life again… full of sadness. Longing. Fear.
There was a gasping sob behind him, and Danny turned to see Anderson doubled over, his arms wrapped around himself defensively, weeping. Next to him, Dr. Abrams had one hand on the wall, another over his eyes, and his cheeks were wet with tears as well.
Danny slowly turned back to Maggie. “This is what you wanted,” she said quietly, tears running down her cheeks. “This is what happened. Is that what you came to see?”
Danny choked off a sob. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. Yes, this is exactly what I came to see,” he cried. “This is exactly what I wondered if you… you could do. You’re doing this. And, oh God, this is how you feel about what happened, isn’t it?”
Maggie’s gaze was cold, even as more tears escaped her eyes. “This is exactly how I feel. Each and every goddamn day. Morning, noon, and night. That boy, that father, those other people — they’re dead because of me.”
Danny tried to stand but could only stagger backward. He knew, somewhere inside himself, that what he was feeling wasn’t real. It was… manufactured. And with that came the sense of being separated from his body — that there was the real Danny, now more aware of his surroundings, and then there was the force that was puppeting him around, making him feel so incredibly, hopelessly bereft. He tried to focus past the sadness but simply wasn’t strong enough yet to wrest control back from his own emotions. His chair got away from him and he fell on his ass onto the tiled floor. “Maggie, oh, Maggie… I’m sorry. So very, very sorry,” he said through clenched teeth. “But I have to ask you now… please, I beg you, can you… can you rein this in? Can you please stop this?”
She looked at him and slowly shook her head, quickly wiping a tear from her face. “You think I can turn this on and off like a light switch? You think I enjoy what’s happening right now?”
Danny got onto his knees and put his arms on the bed next to her, as if he were praying for some kind of divine intervention. His mind flashed from thoughts of his mother, his father, and the horror of war and everything that ever made him miserable to the promise that this intensely sad woman had within her. “Maggie, what if we can find out a way to help you? What if… what if we can teach you to control it?” he sobbed.
And then, suddenly, the vise on Danny’s heart loosened. It didn’t go away, but it definitely stopped squeezing so goddamn hard. He still felt sad, foreboding, lonely… but there was something else there. Just a thin sliver of hope, enough to begin staving off the darkness a little bit.
Maggie looked at him intently. “How do you plan to do that, sailor boy?” she asked, menace in her voice. “You didn’t even know for sure until now what I could do. How are you gonna pull that off?”
Danny straightened up as best he could from his kneeling position before her, his self-control coming back in tiny bits and pieces that he desperately tried to reassemble. “I… I don’t know. But I can at least give you some hope. I… I think I just did. Maybe that’s something right there.”
Maggie stared hard, but something in her eyes relented just a tiny bit, and Danny felt like he could finally take a breath without holding back a sob. But she wasn’t done with him. “I know what I can do. This goddamn curse I have, I know what it can do to people. People died because of me. And you… you’re from the Navy. And the Marine over there. What do you even know about any of this?”
Danny felt a new stirring inside him… anger. He could see where arguing with her could escalate quickly. Even as his sadness waned and his temper rose, he clamped down on everything and focused on his answer. “Right now, Maggie, I can’t tell you. I don’t know exactly what it is, because I don’t know the extent of it yet. But right now, we’re the only ones who believe you. The only ones who even have a chance of helping you. Please. Come with us.”
Maggie regarded him for several long seconds, during which Danny’s mind cycled through every emotion in the book. Anger… fear… and hope. How much of that was hers and how much was genuinely his, he couldn’t say.
“Fine,” she said finally. “Let’s go.”
5
Calvin Hooks dumped bucket after bucket of lampblack into the vat of scalding rubber and chemicals in front of him, careful to avoid the giant metal paddles and blades continuously stirring the mixture. It was impossible to work with the powdery pigment, made from soot, without it getting all over his body, coloring his black skin even blacker and making his overalls look like they’d been hung in the chimney. He’d recently developed a nagging cough — a small miracle that he’d lasted six years at the factory without one — and had finally brought a bandana to work to tie around his nose and mouth, which he found was uncomfortable and cumbersome to work with, but at least his spit had turned a lighter shade. An hour into his shift, the red bandana was already as gray as the short curly hair upon Cal’s head.
Every single employee at the Firestone Tire factory in Memphis knew that lampblack duty was reserved for two types of workers: newcomers who didn’t know any better than to demand being transferred to a different station, and Negroes.
Cal always got the very worst jobs. And by far the worst companionship on the line.
“Hey, nigger!” called Rudy, whose job was to ensure the proper amount of raw, chemically produced rubber went into the vat. “That there’s a pretty bandana you got yourself there. Gonna go rob the corner store on your lunch break? Wouldn’t surprise me none.”
Cal had his back turned to everyone, but he heard the chuckles behind him. Third shift mixers — the workers who oversaw the “recipe” for proper tire treads — were not a kind bunch, God help them. Cal dreamed one day of making second shift but knew it was only a fantasy. The bosses came by the plant during first or second shift, and Cal had been told in no uncertain terms that they wouldn’t take kindly to seeing a Negro on the line. Even one on lampblack duty.
“I just insulted you!” the young man shouted. “Ain’t you gonna do something about it?”
Cal grimaced as he dumped another bucket of soot into the mixer, feeling waves of heat lash his face. Cal was a good six inches taller than Rudy and probably had fifty pounds on him. Years of hard labor — sharecropping since he was a boy, then the factory when the war broke out — had made him strong. There were times when Cal’s emotions got the better of him, and even though he was a good Christian, God-fearing man, he’d often imagined walking up to Rudy and laying him out. It would be quick and easy.