“How’s your aunt doing?” Cedric asked.
“Not good. She’s in there with my mom now.” Gerard nodded back toward the house. “Taking it pretty hard, you know. I think she feels like it’s her fault.”
“Well, you have my condolences. Really. I mean, I knew your cousin had problems. But still.”
They wound alongside Lake Maggiore, views of the lake flashing behind the houses that lined the shore.
“She’s not his real mom, did you know that? My mom had another sister but she died when he was a baby. He stayed with his daddy for a while but his daddy’s crazy. They had a falling out. Aunt Darla’s been keeping him since he was nine. She’s the one who really raised him... She almost had a heart attack when she heard what happened to him.”
“Damn. That’s rough.”
“Now she keeps saying how she thought he was getting better. You know, getting his life together. I think she feels bad she didn’t do something, but I don’t know what she could have done. It’s like she thinks she should have seen it coming.”
“Well, I imagine sometimes it’s hard to see.”
Cedric turned onto 27th and the car moved past New Beginnings Community Church.
“Wasn’t that hard,” Gerard said.
“What?”
“To see. Like you said, even you knew he had problems. My cousin always was a lot to deal with. Never made anything easy for himself or anybody else. Always been like that. Ever since we were kids. But he was still my cousin.”
They reached 26th Avenue and Cedric put on his turn signal. He looked at Gerard, trying to find the boy he used to know. Gerard was only seventeen when he left. They’d played football together, been real good friends in high school, but this was the first time they’d actually talked to each other in years.
He switched gears. “Hey, you know what? It’s good you called. Good you’re coming out tonight. Sounds like you need a break. For real though. I know you have a lot going on with your family right now, but you should try to put it out of your mind for a little while.” Cedric smiled. “Tony and Paulie are going to be there. I know they’re really looking forward to seeing you.”
“That’s nice,” Gerard said.
“A lot of people want to see you. Paulie said he would put the word out. Might be we could even get the whole team back together.”
“What about Shaun?” Gerard asked. “He gonna be there?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Yeah, probably. Honestly, Gerard? Shaun and I... we’re not as close as we used to be. Not like before. Don’t really associate much anymore.”
“No? Why’s that?”
“Because he’s crazy. Why do you think? You remember Shaun. Hasn’t changed at all. Still acts like we’re in high school. But I’m a grown man now. I got responsibilities, bills to pay. I don’t have time for foolishness anymore. Everybody has to grow up sometime. One day he’ll realize that too.”
The light changed and they turned onto 9th Street. The car drove past a group of five children playing in a gravel-strewn driveway next to an old Ford truck. Across the street from them, a man in a robe stood behind his fence watering the grass in his yard as he smoked a cigarette, his robe fluttering around his shorts like a flag at half-mast.
“Last night she started talking about that robbery,” Gerard said.
“What?”
“My aunt. You remember? Right before we graduated? That time my cousin got mugged? At least that’s what he told my aunt. Someone beat the shit out of him, that’s for sure. He wouldn’t talk to the police and never properly explained what actually happened that night, so she just figured he must have been someplace he shouldn’t have been, doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. In her mind it was some crazy drug addict that did that, somebody high out of his mind. I mean, it had to be someone crazy, right? Doesn’t make any sense beating someone up like that when he and his friend didn’t have but forty dollars between them.”
The car rumbled onto 22nd Avenue where the houses evaporated altogether, along with most of the trees. They were replaced by a gas station, a liquor store, and Atwater’s Soul Food restaurant.
“Now she says she feels like he was never the same after that. She told me that for like a year after he wouldn’t talk to nobody, and never even wanted to go outside after dark. He’d just go to work and then come home, eat dinner with her, and watch TV. Acting like he was scared all the time.” Gerard shook his head. “Which is hard for me to picture. We didn’t keep in touch after I left, but I remember my cousin. And he may have been a lot of things. But not scared.”
The car turned onto 16th Street and they rolled past a man in beige pants and army boots sitting on a bus stop bench. He nodded as the car passed, then lifted a small bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag.
“She says it wasn’t until a few months ago that he started acting like his old self again. Got his own place, a new job. Started going out with his friends again. And then this happens. Kind of makes you wonder if he didn’t have a reason to be scared.”
“You got to be careful out there, that’s for sure,” Cedric said. “Careful where you go, careful what you do. Make sure you know who you’re talking to. Sometimes you got to watch what you say. Lot of knuckleheads out there, people looking for trouble. I mean in general. I don’t really know what your cousin was into, so I can’t speak on his specific situation.”
“Someone strangled him,” Gerard said. “In an alley, behind a dance hall. That was his specific situation.”
They hit a red light and stopped next to the Blue Nile restaurant. Behind it was a brick building that had lost most of its front wall and stood carved open like an excavation site.
“Look, Gerard. What’s up? You have something you want to say to me? Because I thought I was coming to see an old friend. Why are you bringing up something that happened five years ago? I mean, I’m sorry about your cousin. But I don’t see what the two things have to do with each other.”
A woman in a long red dress clutched a Bible to her chest as she strode past the black and charred remains of some of the buildings set ablaze during the riots. Gerard watched the woman make her way to the bus stop on the corner.
“You were there that night,” Gerard said. “The night he got beat up like that.”
“Yes, I was there. A lot of people were. Who told you? Cheryl?”
“My cousin did, right after it happened. I didn’t understand what he was saying at the time. Didn’t make sense to me, thinking about my friends doing something like that to my cousin. Thought it was like my mom said, that he didn’t want people to know what he’d really been doing that night. I knew he hated Shaun and figured he was just trying to stir up some mess.”
“It was five years ago, Gerard. We were kids. It was stupid and I’m sorry it happened. But, like I said, I don’t really see what it has to do with anything now.”
“How come you never told me?”
“I don’t know. It had already happened. I guess I didn’t really see what good talking about it would do. We were about to graduate and then you were moving to Tallahassee. I felt stupid, just for having let myself get involved in something like that. And honestly? I think a part of me just assumed you knew.”
Cedric shook his head and looked out at the restaurant across the street, where three teenage boys pounded their fists on the window of the kitchen. It slid open and another boy, plastic hairnet festooned to his skull, stuck his head out and passed them a large doggie bag full of leftovers.
“What did your cousin tell you?”
“He said y’all were having some kind of party at Tony’s house. He said he wasn’t doing nothing but walking down the street with a couple of his friends. And you and Shaun just started hassling them. Said it seemed like you just went berserk. Kicked the shit out of him while everybody else just stood around and watched.”