The driver kills the ignition, and with it the sound. For a moment we stand in silence, Leonie and I, relieved of the awful sonic pressure, returning the machine’s inhuman gaze. Then the door opens and out steps a young black man, who swaggers towards us. He wears a crisp white XXL tee shirt and jeans. Short dreadlocks poke out beneath an angled cap. As he gets closer I see his light-skinned face, delicate and mournful. Tattoos snake down both forearms, onto the backs of his hands. He shows me his left wrist. Numbers 8 11 18 23. Musician. To dream you hear one play foretells grief and sadness…
Do we feel lucky?
Even standing still before us, he is relentlessly in motion, rolling his shoulders, hands plucking at his jeans, his shirt, the brim of his cap. As if he is neurotically performing liveliness or perhaps merely aliveness, the continued absence of death. When he speaks, his voice is a surprise, a barely audible rasp.
—Yo. Who asking about Charlie Shaw?
He becomes theatrically still, even his stillness a form of motion. He scrutinizes us, stroking his chin with a thumb and forefinger. The passenger side window of the car rolls down. Someone else is watching us too.
—We’re not police, says Leonie.
—Why would you feel the need to say that?
I tell him Charlie Shaw’s sister lived on this spot. Lived here. A long time ago.
—What’s the name?
—Charlie Shaw.
—I know plenty of shorties, Charles.
Inside the car, the passenger laughs. He hangs an arm out of the door, an arm like a twist of black wire, ending in a gold-ringed hand holding a Big Gulp cup of purple soda. I am cowed by these men, conscious of my meager white body.
—What this guy do?
—He was a musician.
—No Charles, what he do? What you want him for?
—He didn’t do anything.
—So how come you need to talk to him, Charles?
—Something happened. A friend of mine owes him. Owes him money.
—And if I know this Charlie Shaw?
—We just need to speak to him. We—my friend really wants to make it right.
—Is this him, asks Leonie. Did you do something to my brother?
—Leonie, I say. This isn’t the guy.
—Step off. I don’t know you or your brother. Your friend wants to make it right? Well that’s OK then. Sure I know the guy. Charlie. He live just up the way.
—Really?
—Really? Fuck outta here.
The man in the car laughs again, spilling a little of his drink. A red cap is pulled low over his head. The driver bares his teeth and takes a step towards me, but for all his bluster I know he will not hurt me because we’ve been here before. I know I’m only talking to the messenger. The real power lies with the man in the car.
—I said get the fuck out of here, Charles. You ain’t deaf.
—No. I’m not deaf.
—So why you ain’t moving? Get in your fucking car and turn the fuck around.
—I didn’t mean.
That arm, black fuse wire. We didn’t mean.
—Turn the fuck around.
—Just chill out, says Leonie.
—Oh, and fuck you too bitch. You think Imma talk to you about who I know and don’t know? Fuck all y’all.
—Let’s go, Seth. Let’s just go.
Charlie Shaw is in the car and I need to speak to him. I need him to break his silence, to come out from behind the veil and say what it is he wants. If he doesn’t explain, I’m scared that this will go on and the next person it touches will be me. I am a good person. I have done nothing wrong. Carter was the one. The young man is stepping towards me, holding out his arms wide, the palms of his hands open, herding us into our car. He makes me feel insubstantial. It is not logical to feel this way. I am alive, I think as I fumble with the car door. The ghost is him.
All I can do is roll down the window and shout as we reverse away.
—You’re the one! You’re him! We’re so sorry! We didn’t mean any disrespect!
The passenger turns the music on high, drowning me in bass and that terrible, pitched-down drugged-out vocal.
Put me under a man called Captain Jack Wrote his name all down my back
The driver walks backwards, lifting up his shirt. He indicates a gaping wound in his side.
—Right through my motherfucking lung.
I slam the accelerator and we fishtail backwards along the track. We are still alive, I repeat, over and over. My mantra. We are still alive.
WE ARE CROSSING THE STATE LINE, leaving Mississippi. We are driving home. It’s morning and I’m eating eggs and drinking coffee at the counter. The cook is scraping burned food off the grill and the waitress is taking orders. It is dark. I am asleep in bed. It is dark and I am asleep in yet another motel room with thin walls and I hear the key in the ignition and I am on the porch turning the key in the ignition and the little boy is watching me. I’m trying to get Chester to leave. The boy scrapes the bottleneck along the wire and sings.
Pharaoh Pharaoh Pharaoh army sure got drownded Pharaoh
Chester has gone somewhere. I’m asleep in yet another motel room, asleep in old sheets that smell of lavender detergent. I want to go home. I am eating eggs at the whites-only counter and the vibration of trucks on the highway rattles the windows and the sheets smell of lavender and there is the sound of a key in a car ignition, outside in the darkness at the Saint James Hotel, a gearbox grinding as someone tries to find first.
And the next morning I am eating eggs and drinking coffee and Chester is beside me, unshaven, eating eggs. I butter a slice of toast.
—Did you go somewhere last night?
—Where? I went out for a smoke, if that’s what you mean. Where else would I go?