Caught Stealing - Charlie Huston [89]
Paris has been taking the guns and the money to the Caddie, along with a few odds and ends from the house, while Ed and I flip through the few channels that come in clearly on this relic TV.
—How’s it feel, Hank?
—What’s that?
—Being wanted?
I think about that. I think about it for a while.
—OK, I guess. I haven’t really been wanted for a long time.
—Infamous.
—Yeah.
—Kinda cool, isn’t it?
—Kinda.
—Got no past, nowhere to go back to.
—Yeah.
—Just today and maybe tomorrow.
—Yeah.
—’Cept, course, you got people out there still. Right?
—Yeah.
—That’s tough, man, very tough. Me and Paris, we only got each other, so we just roll. Be tough to have folks out there worrying after you.
—Yeah.
—Best way to deal with that? Know what it is?
—What?
—Just don’t think about them. Just don’t fucking think about them at all.
Paris comes back in, walks over to the TV and switches it off.
—Fuckin’ thing will rot your brain. Let’s go.
Once again, Paris drives while Ed and I ride in the back. Bud sits in my lap, being mellow. The Caddie is vintage prime, so there’s no tape deck, but Paris grabbed an old boombox back at the apartment and he has it up in the front seat with him. He drives with one hand and, with the other, he sorts through a shoebox full of old cassettes, some store-bought, some homemade, none with cases. He pulls them out one after another, checks them out and tosses them back in the box. He pulls one out, reads the hand-lettered label on its front and sticks it in the player.
—Check it out.
He hits play. It’s Curtis Mayfield, “Keep on Keeping On.” Ed leans forward.
—Oh yeah, baby, oh yeah. You know this, Hank?
—Sure.
—Curtis. Wow.
He reaches into the front seat and turns it up. He and Paris sing along a little.
—Many think that we have
blown it.
But they, too, will soon admit
That there’s still a lot of
love among us
And there’s still a lot of
faith, warmth, and
trust
When we keep on
keeping on.
They start laughing and Ed squeezes his brother’s shoulder and leans back next to me.
—That was our mom’s shit, all the classic soul, all the funky stuff. Talkin’ all the time about the music of our people and a “positive black self-image.”
Up front, Paris is still singing along under his breath. Ed leans his head close to mine and whispers.
—That’s kinda why she washed her hands of us. Far as she was concerned, we turned out just another couple a nigger hoodlums and she raised us for better. I wrote her off years before, but Paris took it pretty hard, bein’ cast out and never talkin’ to her before she died. He’s my big brother, but damn, he’s sensitive.
We’re on the Queensboro Bridge, heading back into Manhattan. Ed points straight ahead.
—Take the scenic route. All goes well, none of us will see this place again, ’least not for a long-ass time.
Paris takes us west on 59th, along Central Park South, past the Plaza and the Ritz, to Columbus Circle and down Broadway. Someone visited me from California once and said he thought of Times Square as the pumping heart of New York. I told him it was more like the running asshole. But it is something to see, at night, in the rain.
By the time we reach Broadway and Astor, “The Underground” is playing. It’s all fucked up, distorted guitar and Curtis growling “the underground” over and over. Paris stops at the curb. I open the door and step out into pouring rain. I want to bring Bud, but Ed is afraid he’ll get in my way, so he’s making me leave him behind.
Ed sticks his head out the door. Rainwater streams off the brim of his hat. He’s holding Bud, keeping him from leaping out of the car after me.
—Now just do as you’re told this time, no fucking improvisation. We took you in this once.