His tragedy was always in his face, even from the beginning. You could see it in his eyes.
We listened to “Take Care of Our Brothers,” the charity single that caused poor Michael so much grief. It raised a ton of money for relief, but half his fans called him a sucker, said it was an amelioration anthem—so he disclaimed it, and then the other half of his fans said he was letting himself get pushed around, boxed in, politicized.
Sometimes I think he never recovered from that. Sometimes I think he spent the rest of his life trying to escape from all that shit, from what our country is, but of course he couldn’t do it. Of course you can’t.
God, those songs, though. That voice. It carried us all the way down.
“Evenin’. What can I do for y’all?”
This man wore no name tag. Either this motel, the Rambler’s Roost, did not provide uniforms for its employees or the desk clerk was happier in his rumpled plaid button-down shirt, worn unbuttoned to show off a beer-company T-shirt. He surveyed us warily from behind the desk.
“We just need a room, thanks,” Martha told him.
I hung back, hovered in the shadows of the dark, unpleasant lobby of the Rambler’s Roost, with the mismatched armchairs and the smell of burned coffee.
“Just the one room, eh?” said the old cracker.
“Yes,” said Martha.
“And how many beds?”
His eyes were moving slowly back and forth between the two of us: me and Martha, Martha and me. The Rambler’s Roost was in Pulaski, Tennessee, fifty miles north of the Fence, but of course it got thicker the farther south you went, that coefficient of difficulty involved in doing even the simplest tasks. I think of it sometimes as a pressure in the atmosphere, like walking under water: the extra effort required to get served at a restaurant, make a purchase at a store. Check in to a motel.
“Whatever you got is fine.” Martha spoke through clenched teeth. “Do you have a room or don’t you?”
“Oh, I reckon I might.”
The clerk turned with his hands on his hips to look at the pigeonholes on the wall, nearly every one of which had a key inside. He pulled out number 12 and placed it on the counter, but when Martha reached for it, he put his flat, heavy hand on top of hers and whispered.
“Listen, hon.” Hoarse, plenty loud for me to hear. “Everything all right here?”
Martha didn’t answer. She pulled her hand free from under the old man’s, as though she were escaping from a trap. He shrugged, pushed her the key.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Checkout is at ten thirty.”
Room 12 was no improvement from the lobby. An indistinct and unpleasant smell; tattered curtains over a streaked window; a thin rug spattered with a grim archipelago of stains. There was one bed, a twin, and a rollaway cot on the floor beside it. Martha grimly lifted one corner of the bedspread, looking for bugs, I figured, and I felt a jolt of regret for bringing her here—for bringing myself here—for all this. Martha disappeared into the tiny bathroom, and I watched the door shut. I had no choice. I had a mission here—a goal. But this girl…
There was a mirror tacked to the wall above the dresser. I looked into it. I told myself it was okay. It was all going to be okay. This time tomorrow, Martha would be back in Indianapolis, picking up Lionel from her sister’s place. By this time tomorrow, all this would be a strange dream—in twenty-four hours I would be a dream she had woken from.
Our deal was simple: clean and clear. Money for service.
The money had come from my petty cash, all the unmarked money Bridge provided me with for incidentals, money that—after the next couple days—I would never need again. I’d had twenty grand in a lockbox within the safe of the hotel room. I’d had five thousand in a false bottom of my rolling suitcase. Another $5,200 in the glove compartment of the Altima. Four hundred-dollar bills from one wallet and two hundred-dollar bills from a second wallet; a final two thousand sewn into the lining of a tan sport coat.
From this I’d counted out Martha’s $29,500 and brought it to her in the laundry bag.
I told her the truth—a version of it. A portion, calved off from the whole. I was an agent of the Underground Airlines. I was going down into the Four to recover something that had been lost, a weapon in the battle against the old foe. All true; no lies. All true.
And no black was permitted to travel into any of the states of the Hard Four without a white companion to vouch for his whereabouts and be responsible for his conduct.
I needed a white person.
“I know this is a lot to take in,” I told her.