Damned If I Do Part 9

Daniel regarded the rebel-flag decal covering the rear window of the cab, touched it with his finger.

"That thing will peel right off," Travis said.

"No, I like it." Daniel sat down in the truck behind the steering wheel. "Mind if I take it for a spin?"

"Sure thing." Travis looked toward the house, then back to Daniel. "The brakes are good, but you got to press hard."

Daniel nodded.

Travis shut the door, his long fingers wrapped over the edge of the half-lowered gla.s.s. Daniel noticed that one of the man's fingernails was blackened.

"I'll just take it around a block or two."

The blond woman was now standing outside the door on the concrete steps. Daniel put the truck in gear and drove out of the yard, past his car and down the street by the man and teenager who were still at work on the Charger. They stared at him, were still watching him as he turned right at the corner. The truck handled decently, but that really wasn't important.

Back at Travis's house Daniel left the keys in the truck and got out to observe the bald tires while Travis looked on. "The ad in the magazine said two thousand."

"Yeah, but I'm willing to work with you."

"Tell you what, I'll give you twenty-two hundred if you deliver it to my house."

Travis was lost, scratching his head and looking back at the house for his wife, who was no longer standing there. "Whereabouts do you live?"

"I live over near the university. Near Five Points."

"Twenty-two hundred?" Travis said more to himself than to Daniel. "Sure I can get it to your house."

"Here's two hundred." Daniel counted out the money and handed it to the man. "I'll have the rest for you in cash when you deliver the truck." He watched Travis feel the bills with his skinny fingers. "Can you have it there at about four?"

"I can do that."

"What in the world do you need a truck for?" Sarah asked. She stepped over to the counter and poured herself another cup of coffee, then sat back down at the table with Daniel.

"I'm not buying the truck. Well, I am buying a truck, but only because I need the truck for the decal. I'm buying the decal."

"Decal?"

"Yes. This truck has a Confederate flag in the back window."

"What?"

"I've decided that the rebel flag is my flag. My blood is Southern blood, right? Well, it's my flag."

Sarah put down her cup and saucer and picked up a cookie from the plate in the middle of the table. "You've flipped. I knew this would happen to you if you didn't work. A person needs to work."

"I don't need money."

"That's not the point. You don't have to work for money." She stood and walked to the edge of the porch and looked up and down the street.

"I've got my books and my music."

"You need a job so you can be around people you don't care about, doing stuff you don't care about. You need a job to occupy that part of your brain. I suppose it's too late now, though."

"Nonetheless," Daniel said. "You should have seen those redneck boys when I took 'Dixie' from them. They didn't know what to do. So, the G.o.dd.a.m.n flag is flying over the State Capitol. Don't take it down, just take it. That's what I say."

"That's all you have to do? That's all there is to it?"

"Yep." Daniel leaned back in his rocker. "You watch ol' Travis when he gets here."

Travis arrived with the pickup a little before four, his wife pulling up behind him in a yellow TransAm. Barb got out of the car and walked up to the porch with Travis. She gave the house a careful look.

"Hey, Travis," Daniel said. "This is my friend, Sarah."

Travis nodded h.e.l.lo.

"You must be Barb," Daniel said.

Barb smiled weakly.

Travis looked at Sarah, then back at the truck, and then to Daniel. "You sure you don't want me to peel that thing off the window?"

"I'm positive."

"Okay."

Daniel gave Sarah a glance, to be sure she was watching Travis's face. "Here's the balance," he said, handing over the money. He took the truck keys from the skinny fingers.

Barb sighed and asked, as if the question were burning right through her, "Why do you want that flag on the truck?"

"Why shouldn't I want it?" Daniel asked.

Barb didn't know what to say. She studied her feet for a second, then regarded the house again. "I mean, you live in a nice house and drive that sports car. What do you need a truck like that for?"

"You don't want the money?"

"Yes, we want the money," Travis said, trying to silence Barb with a look.

"I need the truck for hauling stuff," Daniel said. "You know like groceries and-" he looked to Sarah for help.

"Books," Sarah said.

"Books. Things like that." Daniel held Barb's eyes until she looked away. He watched Travis sign his name to the the back of the t.i.tle and hand it to him and as he took it, he said, "I was just lucky enough to find a truck with the black-power flag already on it."

"What?" Travis screwed up his face, trying to understand.

"The black-power flag on the window. You mean, you didn't know?"

Travis and Barb looked at each other.

"Well, anyway," Daniel said, "I'm glad we could do business." He turned to Sarah. "Let me take you for a ride in my new truck." He and Sarah walked across the yard, got into the pickup, and waved to Travis and Barb who were still standing in Daniel's yard as they drove away.

Sarah was on the verge of hysterics by the time they were out of sight. "That was beautiful," she said.

"No," Daniel said, softly. "That was true."

Over the next weeks, sightings of Daniel and his truck proved problematic for some. He was accosted by two big white men in a '72 Monte Carlo in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven on Two Notch Road.

"What are you doing with that on your truck, boy?" the bigger of the two asked.

"Flying it proudly," Daniel said, noticing the rebel front plate on the Chevrolet. "Just like you, brothers."

The confused second man took a step toward Daniel. "What did you call us?"

"Brothers."

The second man pushed Daniel in the chest with two extended fists, but not terribly hard.

"I don't want any trouble," Daniel told them.

Then a Volkswagen with four black teenagers parked in the slot beside Daniel's truck and they jumped out, staring and looking serious. "What's going on?" the driver and largest of the teenagers asked.

"They were admiring our flag," Daniel said, pointing to his truck.

The teenagers were confused.

"We fly the flag proudly, don't we, young brothers?" Daniel gave a bent-arm, black-power, closed-fist salute. "Don't we?" he repeated. "Don't we?"

"Yeah," the young men said.

The white men had backed away to their car. They slipped into it and drove away.

Daniel looked at the teenagers and, with as serious a face as he could manage, he said, "Get a flag and fly it proudly."

At a gas station, a lawyer named Ahmad Wilson stood filling the tank of his BMW and staring at the back window of Daniel's truck. He then looked at Daniel. "Your truck?" he asked.

Daniel stopped cleaning the windshield and nodded.

Wilson didn't ask a question, just pointed at the rear window of Daniel's pickup.

"Power to the people," Daniel said and laughed.

Daniel played "Dixie" in another bar in town, this time with a R&B dance band at a banquet of the black medical a.s.sociation. The strange looks and expressions of outrage changed to bemused laughter and finally to open joking and acceptance as the song was played fast enough for dancing. Then the song was sung, slowly, to the profound surprise of those singing the song. I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten ... Look away, look away, look away ...

Soon, there were several, then many cars and trucks in Columbia, South Carolina, sporting Confederate flags and being driven by black people. Black businessmen and ministers wore rebel-flag b.u.t.tons on their lapels and clips on their ties. The marching band of South Carolina State College, a predominantly black land-grant inst.i.tution in Orangeburg, paraded with the flag during homecoming. Black people all over the state flew the Confederate flag. The symbol began to disappear from the fronts of big rigs and the back windows of jacked-up four-wheelers. And after the emblem was used to dress the yards and mark picnic sites of black family reunions the following Fourth of July, the piece of cloth was quietly dismissed from its station with the U.S. and State flags atop the State Capitol. There was no ceremony, no notice. One day, it was not there.

Look away, look away, look away ...

Warm and Nicely Buried.

Warren Fragua was always eating pinon nuts and this night was no different. You could always find him because of his trail of sh.e.l.ls. Lem Becker liked Fragua because he knew more about fly-fishing than anyone he had ever met. Lem wished it were spring and that the two of them were down at the confluence of the Rio Grande and the Red River.

"You know these people well, Warren?" Lem asked, pulling out onto the main highway. The road surface was slick, the traffic melting the snow and the wind freezing the water.

"I arrested Jose when he was sixteen for stealing a car. I've checked on him from time to time since then. Not really a good kid, but I didn't think he was too bad. He and his old man fought like crazy, but that's not strange."

"Been in any trouble since the car theft?"

"Not caught for anything. I can't imagine him in anything big-time though. What the h.e.l.l's big around here anyway?" Fragua cracked a pinon with his teeth. "Sheriff doesn't think it was an accident. If that's true, then something big got those guys killed."

Lem turned the defroster on high and leaned forward, wiped the inside of the windshield with his glove.

"That just makes it worse," Fragua said.

"That's what I hear."

"You been tying any?"

"Bunch of nymphs," Lem said. "Some zug-bugs, Tellicos, some early brown stoneflies. And some gra.s.shoppers and little black beetles. You?"

"I've been tying a bunch of parachute Royal Coachmen. They're fun to tie. Fall to the water real nice, too."

They were silent for a while and Lem's mind returned to the sour business at hand. "Don't you hate telling people stuff like this?"

Fragua looked through the windshield as if studying something. "I'd like to say it's just part of the job. But it's always terrible."

"What were they doing out there?" Lem asked Fragua and himself.

"We'll know more when the State Police report comes in. Who knows, maybe the Marotta kid got picked up hitchhiking, and they stayed out there to smoke some dope." Fragua offered Lem some nuts.

"Yeah, right."

"Maybe they were transported there by aliens."

"That's more likely."

"Turn here," Fragua said. "They live down across the creek."

Lem followed Fragua's directions and they found the house after driving past it twice because of the snow. They walked up onto the porch and stomped the snow off their boots while they waited for someone to answer. A young woman opened the chained door, saw the uniformed men, and closed it. The door was opened again by an older woman.

"Mr. Fragua," the woman said, half smiling, seeming to see something in the officer's face and falling back a tiny step. "We haven't seen you for a long time." She moved back to let them into the house.

"I know," Fragua said. "I've been really busy, as I'm sure you've been."

"Yes, yes, very busy." She closed the door. "Especially with the church."