In the Night of the Heat (31 page)

“But let me call it like it was, since everybody else here is too chicken: When we saw that SoCal offense, a kind of a shock went through the stands. Remember? There'd been sit-ins and all these demonstrations in Tallahassee, our parents saying we were about to lose everything, and now here was this team with so many black players—four in the offense! One of them built like a truck! Holy shi**! (Show of hands: Who had ever seen anyone like Rubins?)

“And they could play too! Run fast! Catch! Maybe we wouldn't have noticed so much if they'd been more spread out, but they're all on offense, like we're being attacked on our home soil. There was this chant inside the stadium that echoed from the rooftop. Go home, Nig***! Every play, same chant. If one of them got shaken up (and let's face it, it was open season on those guys and the referees went blind), everybody cheered. Go home, Nig***! I was there, and a lot of you were too. Class of '67? Class of '66? All those alums? Nobody wants to say, like it never happened. Ain't it funny how life turns around and stares at you in the face?

“Not exactly a proud moment. But a GREAT game! Even though it hurt like hell to get our butts kicked, I kept looking for Rubins' name to come up in the draft. Never did. Didn't he get hurt at that game? It
might have killed his career. And one of them was T.D. Jackson's dad, so THAT goes without saying—like father, like son. (What a waste of protoplasm T.D. Jackson turned out to be, but that's another subject). I always wondered what happened to those players. I wonder what it felt like to be one of those black guys standing on that field with so much hatred raining down.”

It felt like it was time to kill you,
I thought. My teeth had clenched. Humiliating you publicly would have been a poor second best.

When I checked my watch, it was almost nine.

I hoped the barbecue place was open late.

 

Mercy was almost invisible at night.

There were long stretches without streetlamps, and only occasional homes with lights burning, most of them set way back on farms. Mercy was definitely rural. My headlights reflected against highway signs announcing a maze of obscure roads; not that I could have seen the roads well in the dark. Mercy's roads were noticeably bumpy, not well paved, and my headlights warned me that they were bordered by deep gulleys. I wouldn't be making any U-turns if I could help it. I was glad I had my navigator.

A single stoplight shone red ahead: downtown Mercy. The businesses lining the street were dark and shuttered; most of them identified with hand-painted signs:
ANTIQUES
.
FURNITURE
.
HUMAN HAIR
/
WIGS
!!! A plantation-style colonial building in the middle of the block on McCormack Way was probably the town hall. There was a bronze statue of a horse-mounted soldier in the courtyard, probably a Civil War hero, but it was too dark to see an inscription. Mercy didn't have much, but it was a proud of what it had.

At the gas station on the corner, Handi Mart, shopping carts and
the two dozen cars parked outside told me that a lot of locals bought their groceries at the convenience store. I could only imagine what they were paying. The Handi Mart was the only place in sight that was still bustling. That, and Hardee's—the Southern version of Carl's Jr.

I turned the corner at the light and crossed the railroad tracks, following my navigator. Just that fast, downtown Mercy was gone. Darkness. More than a half mile down, as the clerk had told me, the barbecue restaurant was the only light at the end of the street. The sign blazed red in the dark, lighting the crush of cars parked beneath it:
PIG'N-A-POKE
.

The sign was about the size of a car tire, a bright red ring circling a cartoonish, grinning pink pig with a chef's hat and a spatula. I wondered what kind of ghoulish, self-loathing cannibal pigs they grew around there. The logo made me think of Senator Donald Hankins: I'll swear it until the day I die.

The parking lot was packed. As I bumped into the gravel lot, which bordered an overgrown field, my headlights caught a house across the street so dilapidated that I was surprised it was still standing. Its wooden walls and porch were warped and sagging. The paint was so old that it looked unpainted, and there were cracks between the planks so large that I could see them even at night. In front of the house, near the road, five older men warmed their hands around a fire in a barrel. Sparks twirled up into the night, lighting their laughing faces.

I had found the 'hood.

Nothing on the outside of Pig'n-a-Poke made me want to go inside. The long, large building was virtually windowless. A light-colored German shepherd pawing the door at the top of the concrete-block steps seemed certain he'd be invited in before long. I hated to guess what Pig'n-a-Poke's L.A. County health code grade would be. I could see why the hotel clerk had never made it there.

I carefully nudged past the big gray shepherd to go in without him. He gave me sad eyes.

Inside, the scent of spicy, slow-roasting ribs blew across my face like a spring breeze, and B.B. King was singing “Let the Good Times Roll” on a jukebox, working sweet Lucille like a back-door lover. I'd come to the right place.

But it's hard not to stand out when you don't belong. I had two days' worth of razor stubble to try to make my features less noticeable—it's a face women notice, and that isn't always an advantage—but even in a denim jacket and jeans, I stood out like the neon sign outside.

Every sister in the room seemed to notice me walk in, so their men noticed, too. The room's hum of conversation dipped down. I sat at my first chance, at a table slightly hidden by the jukebox. The waitress might never find me, but at least I wouldn't draw stares. After the room noticed that I'd sat quietly—and
alone,
girlfriends acknowledged with sly grins—the conversation went back up a decibel.

The front room was boisterous, at least forty people under red-tinged lights, like a nightclub. Most of the patrons were dressed for work, whether it was loosened ties or muddied overalls. I saw women's pressed heads of jet-black hair and exposed cleavage. Most of them had too much eye makeup, the amateur's mistake, but their faces were prettied up. The women's clothes shared a fashion code: tight. Nobody came to Pig'n-a-Poke to be on their best behavior.

I grabbed the plastic-encased menu from my table, wiping off barbecue sauce. I was glad there were towelettes at every table.

The décor inside was Southern sports bar, with sawdust on the floor. A buck's head was mounted above the bar, and the walls were plastered with football banners from FU, Florida State, and Florida A&M. Above the entrance, I saw a framed chalk drawing of a huge tobacco barn.

A man in a beige-and-brown uniform who looked like the sheriff walked in soon after me, and the dog trotted in on the sheriff's heels, tongue lolling in triumph. The dog headed for a back room, as if he knew his way around.

The sheriff scanned the room, and the only thing out of place was me.

The sheriff was the only white man in sight. He was about my age, his graying hair cut low beneath a brown cowboy hat. His tin star was so big that it looked like a movie prop. He had a friendly face, but his eyes were like blowtorches. He looked alert and fit enough for me to wonder what he was doing in Mercy instead of a bigger police department. Hometown boy done good, I thought. The back of his neck was leathery and brown from the sun.

He was never out of my sight, and I was never out of his. After he floated around backslapping, ordering a beer from the bar counter, he drifted back toward me with his bottle of Miller Lite. On sight, I'm bothered by a cop in a cowboy hat. Maybe it's the Native American in me; Cherokee on my father's side, Seminole on my mother's. I don't like armed cowboys. Especially when they're drinking beer.

The sheriff stood above my table. “What brings you here?” he said.

His accent was thick; “brings” came out “brangs.” Nothing confrontational in his voice, but he was making more than small talk. He might already have decided he didn't like me, the way I didn't like his hat. If so, my visit to Mercy was off to a shitty start. The deputy's name-tag said
SHERIFF J
.
KELLY
.

“Here for the game, Sheriff.” I had a different cover in mind for Rubens, but I hoped I could brush the sheriff off faster as a football fan. I was wrong.

“If you're for Texas, keep it to yourself.” Sheriff Kelly didn't sound like he was joking.

“No problem. I'm a Bobcat.”

“What year?”

“Never graduated,” I said, trying to minimize my lies. “Dumbest mistake of my life. I try not to miss homecoming. I met my wife in school.” The truth, whether ugly or beautiful, is a living thing. A fine lie, on the other hand, is a mosaic of selective, plausible details.

“So where's your wife now?” The question surprised me. The sheriff was digging deeper in my business than casual necessity would demand. Maybe I'd tacked on one detail too many.

“Not a football fan,” I said. “Left her home.”

“Where's home?” He sounded less and less like he was making conversation. I needed a spritz of Cop-B-Gone. For some reason, badges always sniff me out.

My home address was on my driver's license, so I decided to tell the truth in case he manufactured a reason to pull me over on my way back to the hotel. “Los Angeles.”

“When the cat's away…” He knocked on my tabletop, as if for luck. “Try the babyback special. You be good, now.”

He was only missing the word
boy
at the end, but I tried to be more amused than pissed off.
OK, I get it. This is how it works in Mercy.
I was glad I didn't live there.

“Know where I could find Wallace Rubens?” I said to the sheriff casually as he turned to leave. If Rubens had trouble with the law, the sheriff was a good place to start.

The sheriff faced me squarely again. “What for?”

“My dad told me how he played back in '67. Thought I'd like to meet him.”

For half a second, the sheriff studied my eyes like he was seeing me for the first time. “If you're in Mercy long enough, you'll meet Bear sooner or later,” he said, motioning to the waitress waiting behind him. “Janiece—bring this man some ribs.”

The fair-skinned waitress was just shy of plump, with a healthy bust, overly greasy curls and a face that needed a smile. Her frown diminished her face, which was slightly acne-scarred. Janiece barely met my eyes, shy in my presence. I guessed that she was nearly thirty—old enough to look silly in her low-cut uniform dress: parading pink pigs wielding spatulas.

“What's he having?” Janiece asked the sheriff, as if I wasn't there.

“Babyback special,” he said.

I'm not in the habit of letting other men order my food for me. It's especially irritating from a cop with a cowboy hat and an accent straight out of
Deliverance.

“I don't like pork,” I said. “I'll have beef ribs and chicken.”

Sheriff Kelly winked at me, not smiling. “Suit yourself. Enjoy your stay.”

I hoped he'd scratched whatever was itching. I slipped on the phony wedding band in my pocket. Then I pulled out the newspaper I'd been reading on the plane and propped it open in my hands. Every once in a while, a woman buzzed close to my table, pretending she wasn't trying to be noticed, and I pretended I didn't. Some of those women were tasty, but I wasn't hunting, so I never met their eyes. My ring sat on my finger, in plain sight.

Pig'n-a-Poke was a good-mood kind of place, filled with smiles. I watched as an overweight man wearing a dark blue jumpsuit from Minit Auto Repair was led by the hand toward the jukebox by one of the finest women in the room. The woman seemed out of his league—about twenty-two, in cherry-colored stilettos, with sturdy calves and a face I might have found in any agent's waiting room. Although the man pulled her close to sway to B.B.'s music, the way they avoided each other's eyes made me wonder if they had ever met before that night. For thirty seconds, I couldn't figure out the energy.

Then it hit me: The woman was a prostitute, and the mechanic was a potential john. Another scan of the room, and I spotted two other working girls. But the sheriff, who had taken his place at a card game on the far side of the restaurant, didn't glance in their direction. I chuckled, shaking my head.
Way to police the room, Gomer,
I thought.

Then I got it: Pig and a Poke. Part restaurant, part cathouse? That was nervy. Was the sheriff dumb as a bag of rocks, or was he bent? I guessed the latter.

I heard competing music from another open doorway off to the side, beyond the bar counter. Live blues, from the sound of it, but not professional; a jam session. Since my food hadn't arrived yet, I left my jacket on my chair and walked past the cluster of patrons at the bar to the doorway of the adjoining room, which was crammed with listeners in front of a stage. I couldn't see the musicians because everyone was standing.

The drummer's beats were loud and sloppy, and I wasn't impressed by the sour guitar. Still, I was impressed to hear live blues in a town the size of Mercy. I wished my ears were working better. Between the jukebox, the band, and the noise from the crowd, I heard mostly murmurs and babbles.

My waitress, Janiece, surprised me from my left side. She was holding a platter of chicken, ribs, and corn bread that looked big enough to feed a village and smelled like paradise. She leaned close to my ear.

“Bearzintherejamminrightnow,”
she said. She was a mumbler.

“Sorry, darlin'—what's that?” I said, leaning down with my good ear.

She only pursed her lips and shook her head, as if she was irritated. I followed her back to my table, where she set my plate of food down without a word. She wasn't from the school of
Can-I-get-you-
anything-else
and
Have-a-nice-day.
She was gone before I could order a drink.