The Night Before (9 page)

—

Joe was not waiting at the house. Though Mariel hadn't expected him, it was another small blow. She closed the door. Hannah and Christian moved across the living room, doffing their coats, winding down. At the bottom of the steps, Hannah called “Dad?” She looked at her mother. “Where is he?”

“It's a surprise. Something he's been working on.” The words were out of Mariel's mouth before she could stop them. She knew she had just dug herself a deeper hole; but was too tired to think of anything else. Hannah and Christian exchanged a glance, wondering if their dad might be planning one in a series of stunts that were amusing only to him. When that happened, there was nothing to do but play along and hope it wasn't too lame. They wished Mariel a good night and trundled up the stairs.

She stood by the front window, peering out onto the white street. Joe was too good a father to not be there when his children awoke on Christmas morning. She hadn't let herself think of a darker reason why he hadn't appeared. He had never been good at avoiding trouble. On this night, after what he had seen, who knew what might have happened after he wandered out? She wondered if it was possible that the tragedy could get worse. And then what would she tell the children? They would never forgive her and it would be her cross to bear forever.

In the next moment, she thought about him wandering in the night and said a small prayer for his safety.
Please,
she whispered to the cold glass.
Let him come home. His children are waiting.

The street outside lay still and silent and she felt a chill of fear that something else would go terribly wrong before the night was over.

Grant Street ran through a neighborhood populated by rundown frame houses that even the fresh coating of snow couldn't make over. Only a few of the residents of the narrow avenues had bothered with Christmas lights. Joe didn't see a single new car and some of the vehicles appeared to have been sitting for so long they had become monuments.

“It's down along here,” Nicole told him. Joe saw the way her eyes glinted in the dark.

The mother and daughter began an exchange of animated whispers as they drove along the street and Joe understood that the child was fretting over the fate of gifts that had been left behind. Her soft pleas irked Nicole to the point that she cut off the discussion with a curt word. A half-block further on, she nodded in a tense way and said, “This is it.”

Joe pulled over and shut off the engine.

Nicole said, “We'll be back in just in a minute.”

Joe saw something stark in her expression and said, “You want me along” She shook her head. “No, it'll be fine.” She didn't sound too sure. “Who's in there?”

Nicole was staring the curtained window. “Man I been staying with,” she said. “His mama's in there, too. It's her house.” Before Joe could inquire further, she said, “Okay, let's get this done,” and opened the door.

—

If the radio had been working, he might have missed the commotion starting. He watched Nicole grip Malikah's hand and they made their way down the slick walk and then up the front porch steps. They went missing in the shadows for a half minute and Joe was about to get out ask if there was something wrong when the door opened in a sudden spill of blue television light. Mother and daughter disappeared inside.

He twiddled the radio dial, received nothing but static, and had just switched it off when a squall erupted from inside the house, sharp and angry and loud enough to reach his ears. He rolled down the window as a man's voice joined the woman's, whining out a plea. Over the top came Nicole's hard soprano. In a matter of seconds, the three voices wound to a shrill pitch.

Joe climbed out and stepped around the front of the van, reaching the sidewalk as the door banged open in a second wash of pale blue. There were more angry shouts and then two adults and a child tumbled onto the porch in a clutter of shrieks and waving arms.

Malikah escaped down the steps first, shaking and sobbing as she jerked a plastic garbage bag that was too big for her over the snow. Her mother backed away from the door. A man's figure followed. Voices flared once more, his whine against her hard snap. The noise roused the neighbor next door and the light came on one porch over, illuminating the couple in pale yellow.

The man was begging Nicole not to leave. She hoisted a bag of her own in one hand and held out the free one to warn him off, then turned and descended the steps. The man came after her and had just reached the sidewalk when an old woman lurched into the doorway, a jagged silhouette.

“Terry!” The voice was thick, an angry rasp. “Get back in here!”

Terry didn't mind her, tottering behind Nicole in his stocking feet. “Nikki,” he moaned. “Malikah. Please. Don't go.” Tears streaked his pale cheeks as he hobbled along.

The woman screeched from the porch. “I don't want that bitch and her brat near this house no more! Terry! You hear me?”

Malikah reached the van, sobbing. Joe lifted the bag from her grasp and loaded it and her into the back seat. Nicole was a dozen steps behind and he took her bag, tossed it in back, and closed the door. She climbed into the passenger seat, pushed down the lock, and stared straight ahead, her eyes brittle. Terry stumbled along the sidewalk, still babbling pleas. Joe knew the signs and the guy had junkie written all over him: thin as a rail, sallow-faced and unkempt, in a dirty t-shirt even in that cold. A scrawl of tattoos ran down both arms.

Joe was blocking his path and Terry shot him a bitter glance, his mouth turned downward as if stitched in place.

“Who the… who the fuck is that?” He stopped to peer at the script on the side of the van, his lips moving as he read the words. “The Light of the…” He took Joe in with one harsh glance. “I asked who the fuck are you.” His voice broke high and raw. “What are you doin' here? This ain't none of your goddamn business.”

“Yeah, it is.” Joe raised a gloved hand, fingers splayed. “Now back up,” he said. “Leave it be.”

Terry's wet eyes flared and he sputtered out a curse. With a jerking motion, he tried to slap the hand aside and make a move for Nicole's door.

Joe didn't realize that he had slammed him with a forearm to the chest until he heard the
woof
of breath when he hit the sidewalk Sprawling on the shiny snow in his dirty t-shirt, the poor junkie appeared as shocked as Joe was to find himself there. He let out another curse and began to scrabble to his feet.

“I'll knock you out,” a stranger barked. In the next second, Joe realized that his arm was cocked and his fist clenched tight.

Terry heard the violence in his tone and had the sense to stay on his knees. The old woman had hobbled to the porch banister and now leaned over, displaying the splotched, burnt-down face of a dedicated boozer as she swayed up to grip the rail for support. She waved a flabby arm at Joe.

“Leave your hands off him, you!” It came out a drunken slur. “And get that bitch away from here! Else I'm calling the police.” She fixed an inflamed eye on her son. “Terry, you get the hell back in the house. I mean now, goddamnit!”

Terry rose shakily to his feet and began to weep again, his bony shoulders heaving. Joe backed around the front of the van and climbed in behind the wheel.

He could feel the eyes of the mother and child on him as he slid into the seat. He said, “Okay, we're okay” and then said it again. With the words came a bitter taste on the back of his tongue. His heart was running in overdrive and his stomach twisted and heaved. He had been ready to take Terry apart, tear up his poor junkie ass right there on the sidewalk. His fingers trembled so much that it took two tries to get the key into the ignition and crank the engine.

Terry stood gaunt in the glare of the headlamps. Nicole stared out the window, her face a ghostly mask. Malikah whimpered softly in the back seat.

Joe pulled out. When they passed under the streetlight at the next corner, he glanced over at Nicole and saw a tear glisten in her eye. He said, “Are you okay?”

She nodded. He glanced in the mirror. Malikah was huddled down in her coat, cuddling her stuffed alligator as if it could save her from drowning. Though her eyes were brilliant in the darkness.

Joe felt like he had to say something. “Malikah? You know it's not right to hit people, okay? To solve problems that way?” His voice sounded odd and weak in the tinny silence, but it was all he had.

“She knows,” Nicole whispered. “Can we please go?”

They covered the ten blocks in about that many silent minutes and arrived at St. Mark's. The square, two-story brick building was unlit save for one basement window. Nicole, Malikah, and Joe stared at it, a trio of dubious faces, two brown, one white.

Joe had managed to calm himself. “Okay, then,” he said and grabbed the door handle. Malikah said, “Mommy?”

Nicole said, “It's just for tonight.” They were the first words she had spoken since Grant

Street and they came out sounding weary.

Joe helped Malikah hoist her plastic bag to the curb. They circled the church to the basement steps on the back side. He rang the bell. He smiled at Malikah as they waited in the cold. “What's your alligator's name?” he said. She clutched the animal tighter and didn't answer, burying her face into her mother's coat. The door opened and a broad, black-skinned woman with thick glasses perched on her nose looked the curious trio up and down.

Joe said, “Are you Ms. Walters?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Reverend Callum from the Light of the World called you?”

“Yes, sir, he did,” the woman said. She eyed them for another moment before standing back. “Come on in.”

She led them down a dark hallway that was adorned with children's drawings of Christmas and at the end of the hall, opened double doors on a large room. Thirty cots were arranged in neat rows, each one occupied by a sleeping form.

“Over here in the corner,” Mrs. Walters whispered and motioned for them to follow her. They skirted the wall to the end of the row and the only two empty beds.

Malikah said. “Mama, I want to go home.”

A woman on the next cot raised herself on an elbow. “People tryin' to sleep here,” she crabbed.

“It's all right,” Mrs. Walters said.

The woman continued to stare.

Malikah said, “Mommy?”

Nicole came up with a sharp look of her own and held it until the woman laid down again She dropped her bag onto the cot behind her. “We'll be okay,” she said.

Mrs. Walters had collected a clipboard from a narrow table along the wall and handed it to Nicole with instructions on how to complete it. Once she finished her spiel, she cocked an eyebrow at Joe, as if surprised to find him still standing there. She said, “Thank you, sir,” in a pointed way.

Joe found Nicole's face blank. She said, “We'll be all right now,” and managed a small smile. “Thank you for your help.”

Joe bent slightly and said, “Good-bye, Malikah. And Merry Christmas.” She gave him a searching look, but said nothing.

He ducked into a doorway a few paces down the hall and dialed the Light of the World. The phone rang six times before an answering machine picked up and the reverend's deep, rusty voice reported that he had stepped away and would be back directly.

Joe clicked off. Standing in the shadows, he could hear gruff mutterings from inside the large room. A child whimpered briefly and someone coughed. The corridor smelled of an acrid cleanser. He crept back to the doors. Peering through the safety glass, he could make out the mother and child perched side-by-side on the cot. Malikah was curled against her mother, who was in the process filling out the form on the clipboard with slow motions of the pen. It made Joe tired just to watch her.

He saw bags and suitcases in haphazard stacks about the room. It looked bleak and wondered if everyone would be allowed to stay tomorrow. Would they flush them out onto the streets of Christmas Day? Could that be? He conjured an image of Nicole and Malikah wandering the cold sidewalks, the child clutching her bag of gifts in a small, stubborn hand.

He stepped away from the doors, tried the number at the Light of the World once more and got the answering machine again. When he returned to push his face to the glass, he found the quiet scene skewed. The woman who had hissed at Malikah was sitting up again. Nicole was on her feet and Malikah was cowering behind her. The two women were locked on each other and there was no mistaking their angry profiles.

Joe pushed the doors open. As he cut through the maze of beds, he heard them spitting curses at each other. Some of the other women sat up, wakened by the noise. Mrs. Walters was moving in on the fray from her desk in the corner.

Malikah saw Joe, grasped her mother's sleeve, and said, “Mama?”

Nicole pulled her eyes of the woman on the cot. With a deft move, Joe stepped between the combatants and held Nicole gently by the arm. “I don't think you should stay here,” he said.

Mrs. Walters bustled up, put a hand on her hip, and addressed Joe. “I need for you to leave,” she said. I'll take care of this.” She treated the woman on the cot to a fierce glare. “You be quiet and go back to sleep. I mean now.” She turned to Nicole. “And you got to finish with the form, ma'am. You ain't registered ‘til you're done with that.”

“Go where?” Nicole said.

Ms. Walters tapped Joe's shoulder with a crooked finger. “Sir?” she said. “You got to leave. Right this minute.”

“I'll find someplace else,” he said. “Reverend Callum… I mean, he and I will. We'll help you.”

She was watching him with dark, uncertain eyes. Malikah huddled at her side. “Sir!” Mrs. Walters said. “Do I need to call security?” Joe said, “Please.”

Nicole stood still for a few seconds. She said, “You don't need to call anyone, ma'am,” and gathered her daughter with one hand and her suitcase with the other.