The Good House Part 13

The bathtub drain gurgled, ever so quietly, behind her. Angela heard the noise amplified against the bathroom's walls, just loudly enough to make her turn back around to peer into the dark. She saw her own long shadow in the light cast from the doorway, but she couldn't see beyond the bathtub's shiny white rim. She heard something splat into the tub, probably more mud, then that gurgling from the drain. The muted sound varied in pitch, lower and then higher, merry and playful. The bathtub seemed to be singing to itself.

Angela's fingertips tingled, ice-cold. So cold they seemed to burn.

Mom, can I talk to you? I have to give you something.

Angela expected something startling to happen, and it did.

Above her, outside of the house, there was a thunderous cracking, then the violent swishing of wet leaves. The sound surrounded her, descending with the promise of impact. With a cry, Angela crouched and thrust her arm upward as if to keep the ceiling from caving in on her. Angela was frozen, her veins p.r.i.c.kling.

She couldn't worry about the bathtub now. The walnut tree was falling.

"Oh, G.o.d-"

She was practically standing right beneath it. By the time it occurred to Angela that she'd be safer if she ran, the tree was landing. Its impact shook the ceiling and wall beside her in the hallway with an unsettlingthump . Angela felt the floor vibrate beneath her feet, and she cried out again. The decorative mirror at the front of the hall swung precariously right and then left, but came to rest at a crooked slant without falling.

And that was all.

Angela caught her breath, standing stock-still as she gazed upward, expecting to see zigzagging lines race across the ceiling as the tree fought its way inside the house. But there were no cracks, and there was no more sound. Nothing but silence now except for the rain. The tree had fallen, and now it was down, and there was nothing else.

Angela breathed again, and rational thought began to shine through. She wasn't hurt. The damage to the house might not be worse than sc.r.a.ped paint, or maybe a few displaced shingles. She was d.a.m.ned lucky. But Angela didn't feel lucky. She stood in the same defensive stance in the hallway, unmoving. Listening. Waiting.

Because therewould be something else. She knew that from a place that did not adhere to rationality, a wordless, unmapped place. She'd felt that tingling in her fingertips, the same sensation she'd experienced on the Fourth of July, and that tingling signaled big things, catastrophic things. She hadn't realized until now how much she'd been living in dread of the day that cold-burn would return, imagining what awful surprises it would drag in its wake.

And it had come. Tonight. Right before the tree fell. This time, she wouldn't ignore it.

Knowledge rustled inside her, trying to birth itself. Angela stood still, hardly breathing, because it seemed to her that if she stopped breathing for a short while, she would know why her fingers had tingled. The tree was only the smallest part of it. She knew that much.

Angela's heart ballooned and deflated in a manic rhythm in her chest. "Are you trying to talk to me, Gramma Marie?" Angela whispered. "I'm listening. I'm listening for you."

Her only answer came in the barrage of steadily beating rain on the rooftop, in a language she did not know.

Visiteur.

Fight the Power.

We've got to fight the powers that be.

-CHUCK D, PUBLIC ENEMY.

Eleven.

OAKLAND.

TUESDAY MORNING.

1A.M.

IT HAD BEEN SO LONGsince Tariq Hill had felt fine, he'd forgotten he was capable of it. But tonight he was fine and then some. He felt like himself again, better than himself, walking toward the entrance of Club Paradiso with his nephew DuShaun and three other rookies with an easy stride, the way a man walks when life is on good terms with him. As he and the players neared the warehouse-style club's velvet rope, the crowd outside stirred beneath the bright solar lamp. A tangible current sparked through the line as onlookers' eyes danced with daydreams of what it must feel like to make a stadium of sixty-three thousand football fans rise to their feet and scream.

Twenty-ten. That was a good win over the Rams, especially on Monday night. Something to make the Rams think twice when the team went to St. Louis later in the season.

"Way to go, DuShaun!" a woman shrieked, hoping to catch his nephew's eye. DuShaun glanced in the direction of the call with a boyish grin, waving. The woman who'd yelled was with a group of friends, college girls maybe, their bulging b.r.e.a.s.t.s fighting to pop out of their blouses, skirts riding up their a.s.ses. Almost like children playing dress-up, except for the way those bodies smoldered. DuShaun's eyes drifted away from the girls and he shared a glance with Tariq, as if checking to see if his uncle was still there. DuShaun was a strict Baptist boy dating a new girl he'd met at Bible study, and although he was only twenty-one, he was talking about wanting to get married before too long. He hadn't come to Paradiso looking for girls.

But temptation was temptation. Tariq knew that better than anyone. "They might as well go stake out a street corner," Tariq said, steering DuShaun past the girls.

"That's cold, Uncle Tariq," DuShaun said, chuckling.

"Are you football players?" A small voice behind them. Tariq turned around and saw two teenagers huddled against the wall, not far from the entrance. The taller one was a slouching boy with overeager eyes who looked about fourteen, but it was the girl who'd spoken. Her spiked hair was the color of orange juice. Despite her four-inch heels and enough makeup for three, her elfin body was unfinished. She was tall, but she wasn't even fourteen. Where were her mama and daddy?

Instinctively, Tariq grazed his palm against her hair, gently touching the dry, p.r.i.c.kly tips. He'd always hoped he and Angela would have a girl, too, but things had never worked out that way. Things hadn't worked out any kind of way. "Sweetheart, you don't have a d.a.m.n bit of business out here," he said. "Go on home 'fore I send somebody out here after you. You'll have a long time to be a grown woman."

"Are you football players?" the girl repeated. She flicked a thin black strap from her bony shoulder, baring it to him. "My friend's got c.o.ke."

Tariq didn't want to break his good mood, since he had no idea when he'd have another one. "Take your little a.s.ses on home," he said, more firmly. "See what happens if you're still here in a while, when I come back to check. See if I'm playing."

As the steroid-inflated bouncer at the door waved him in, Tariq gave the kids a last stern daddy's stare. Their faces, staring back, were blank. The players patted Tariq's shoulder, laughing as they followed him. "Out here in front of the club preaching," Reese said. "Man, you're worse than DuShaun. You ain't gonna save no souls here. They ain't hearin' you."

"For real," DuShaun said. He sounded as if the sight of those kids was enough to make him nearly lose his appet.i.te for nightlife.

But this was a celebration. DuShaun had run a grueling seventy yards in tonight's game, and he'd stunned the Rams' defense when he'd taken a handoff from Gannon and thrown a perfect missile thirty yards down the field, setting up his team's last touchdown. The DuShaun Hill Special. Not only could the new kid run, but oh yeah-he couldthrow . Thought you knew.

Tariq wasn't a coach, but he'd decided to work on DuShaun's arm, remembering the precision of that kid's pa.s.ses when he was a quarterback in high school. As a running back at FSU, DuShaun never tapped that potential, but Tariq had figured his touch was still there. Tariq had run patterns for him a couple hours each day when the Raiders' practice sessions had ended that summer, forcing DuShaun to find him with the ball. Thirty yards. Forty yards. Fifty, sixty. The boy could throw. The Raiders had drafted him in the sixth round without much expectation, but DuShaun Hill was becoming a star, and the season was just getting started.

Tariq wanted to share the good news with Angie. She hadn't taken his calls since the divorce, but she was still his phantom confidante, the person he thought about first when he had news about his family. To Tariq, there were two Angies: the woman he'd made love to that summer in Sacajawea, who had shown him with every breath and word that she still loved him like she had at U.C.L.A.; and the new Angie, the raving Angie who'd emerged from the wine cellar.

He would call Angie's office later and leave a message for her about DuShaun, he decided, even if she never called back. Before Corey died, she'd always wanted to know how his brother Harry and his kids were doing, their safe harbor during difficult conversations. DuShaun was nearly her nephew as much as his, and it would probably do her some good to hear how well the kid was doing. DuShaun wasn't Corey, not by a long shot, but in the months since his nephew had moved in with him, Tariq had felt better in a way he hadn't expected he could.

That one good thing helped make up for the rest, the aspects that weren't good at all. Tariq had a doctor's appointment tomorrow, and he wasn't expecting any news he wanted to hear. Tonight, he felt like a new man, praise Jesus almighty. At least for one night.

"I'm about worn out. I'm feeling it now, Uncle Tariq," DuShaun said, his voice nearly lost in the rallying beat of Montel Jordan's "This Is How We Do It." For an instant, Tariq was blinded by the club's swirling white and red strobe lights. The dance floor was full, even if the rest of the club was half-empty because the bouncers only allowed people to enter in a trickle, making s.p.a.ce inside seem precious. All eyes in the cavernous room tracked them as they walked toward the bar; the effect was like flying, Tariq thought, as if he could float on those worshipful gazes.

"You're gonna feel it, a game like that. That was rock solid, DuShaun. I'm proud of you," Tariq said. "Let's hang out here awhile, then you can go crash. You've earned it."

The bartender was eager to take their drink order, antic.i.p.ating his tip as if he thought every ballplayer was a millionaire. DuShaun and his friends were rookies, and only Reese had topped seven figures when he was signed. But not for long, though. Not for very long.

While Reese and the others got Amstel Light, DuShaun followed Tariq's lead and ordered a ginger ale. In Tallaha.s.see a D.U.I. arrest had scared DuShaun off beer and pot in college, which was just as well, Tariq had told him, because addictive personalities ran in the family blood. He and DuShaun would keep each other out of trouble. Tariq wouldn't sneak off to the bathroom to do lines of c.o.ke the way he used to while Corey lived with him, until right before the end. Tariq had decided to get his act together and try to convince Angie to move to Oakland with him, and he hadn't looked at c.o.ke for six months before Corey died. Nor anytime since. He'd lost the taste for it. He'd even lost his taste for his Marlboros, and cigarettes were supposed to be the toughest b.i.t.c.h of all to kick. Corey's death had finally helped him do it. Sometimes staying clean felt so effortless that Tariq couldn't figure what had been wrong with him before. He'd rather have died a slave to c.o.ke than lose Corey getting sober, but if he couldn't have one, he'd settle for the other.

From where they stood at the bar, Tariq recognized a group of veteran defensive linemen shuffling to the music on the dance floor, three-hundred-pounders in tight black T-shirts and ill-fitting jackets surrounded by women with flowing weaves and transparent dresses. "DOOOOOOO-Shaun!" one of the tacklers called out, a warrior's whoop. The other players joined in, scattering applause.

"Good arm, dawg."

"Thrill Hill, baby!"

DuShaun raised his gla.s.s, smiling shyly. His broad, square-jawed face glowed.

Yep, Tariq thought, this was what he'd wanted. DuShaun rarely hung out with the players on his downtime, preferring videos and his sound system in his room. Tariq heard rumors that some of the players had mistaken DuShaun's choirboy mentality for an att.i.tude problem, but here at Paradiso, DuShaun could show his teammates he was one of them. His coming-out party.

Tariq's mood soared. He'd had a whole day of feeling good, from sunup until now.

Until he looked across the club and saw a man in a white jacket.

A nondescript middle-aged man with a U-shaped hairline was sitting on one of the club's plush black sofas across the room, not looking in Tariq's direction. Seeing him, Tariq somehow knew exactly how it would play out: The guy's drink was low, and he'd need a refresher. He was going to walk up to the bar and try to talk to DuShaun. And then he was going to get hurt.

The man was wearing a white jacket like he thought he was Don Johnson onMiami Vice -out of date for decades. Sometimes, Tariq felt kindred to that kind of man, the kind who had trouble figuring out which parts of his life were long done with, people who went through the motions for no other reason than habit. Tariq felt sorry for the man at first. But the man in the white jacket carried himself as if he had money-his watch glistened from across the room-and his sense of ent.i.tlement was going to get him in trouble. This was how Tariq saw it in his mind: The man was going to come up to the bar talking to DuShaun, saying things that were uncalled-for.

And Tariq was going to hurt him. That part, in his mind, was most vivid.

Tariq watched the man in the white jacket launch himself up from his seat, his empty gla.s.s in hand. He began weaving his way to the bar, past the bobbing bodies on the dance floor. Even his loping walk looked exactly the way Tariq had imagined it.

Tariq no longer cared how he knew when things were going to happen beforehand. He'd felt the sensation earlier at the game, watching from the skybox: Before DuShaun had even left the huddle, Tariq had seen his nephew cutting away after Gannon's handoff, twisting free of his first tackle and letting that ball soar. Tariq had seen it in his mind, and it had happened a beat later. His future sight was a startling development-frightening, really, like flashbacks in reverse-but with all the worries Tariq had been plagued with in the past two years, he'd come to see a drop of psychic ability as a small, useless thing. He hardly had the energy to notice.

Besides, he usually didn't like what he saw.

"You're DuShaun Hill!" the man in the white jacket said, arriving at last, and Tariq heard his voice slur. The man smelled like a couple hours' drinks, precisely as Tariq had known he would.

DuShaun, who had been sharing a private comment with Reese, looked at the man warily. Most people knew to keep their distance at the clubs, but there was always somebody who didn't. "Wha.s.sup, man," DuShaun said, always polite, the way Harry and his wife had raised him.

"What happened to your game, D-Hill?" the man said, using DuShaun's college nickname. "You were running a hundred-twenty, hundred-thirty yards a game at FSU. It ain't like college ball no more, huh? I thought you came to Oak-Town toplay."

Tariq felt the young players near him stiffen, mumbling. DuShaun was smiling some, but Tariq could see his nephew's annoyance in the angles of his eyebrows. "I don't know what gameyou were watching tonight, man," DuShaun said. "But I'm sorry. I'll try to do better for you next time."

Reese laughed, deep and loud, covering his mouth with his huge palm.

"I hope so, D-Hill," the man said, missing DuShaun's sarcasm. "I thought you were gonnabring it. That showing off you were doing out there today ain't nothin' but-"

"Watch your mouth," Tariq said.

Tariq's voice had cleaved the conversation down the middle, ending it cold. The man snapped his head to look at Tariq, and he must have seen his immediate future in Tariq's eyes. He took a step backward, raising his empty gla.s.s as if to deflect a blow. "Chill, man. I'm just tryin' to tell-"

It wasn'texactly the way Tariq pictured it, he had to admit that: In his mind, he saw himself s.n.a.t.c.h the empty gla.s.s from the man's hand and hammer it against his temple. Then, when the man bent over trying to see if his skull was busted, Tariq saw himself hoist his knee into this man's nose, flattening it into a b.l.o.o.d.y piece of clay. And that would be just to get himself warmed up.

That wasn't what happened at all. Instead, Tariq felt something like a flashbulb pop in his head. After that, the man was on the floor, skidding backward on his a.s.s. Tariq's palm had shot straight out, shoving the man down hard. The man would feel that handprint against his breastbone for at least a couple of days.

"What thef.u.c.k ...," the man said, cradling his chest. His gla.s.sy eyes had gone sharp and sober. He was more scared than hurt. He didn't know if that was Tariq's only blow, or if it was just the first. Tariq hadn't decided himself.

The club-goers in their radius moved away, eyeing Tariq to try to a.s.sess what he might do next. Tariq saw a woman give him a disapproving glare, and he felt a p.r.i.c.k. She reminded him of Angie, disappointed yet again. DuShaun took hold of one of Tariq's arms, Reese the other.

"Get your a.s.s on away from here," Tariq said to the rumpled man on the floor, keeping his voice measured. He didn't want to ruin this for DuShaun. "Next time, don't come acting ignorant."

The man crawled backward like a spider; then, when he'd decided his distance was safe, he wobbled to his feet and blended his way into the crowd fast. The tense moment left the club-goers' minds, and they resumed their conversations and drink orders. No blood. Nothing to look at.

"How's that dude gonna come up on us like that?" Reese muttered. "He was trippin'."

It hadn't ended soon enough, or maybe that flashbulb in his head had popped something vital, because Tariq's good mood had vanished. It was absurd to him that he'd been enjoying himself only a moment before. His stomach was hurting, and he could smell a familiar sourness rising from his pores. He remembered his doctor's appointment tomorrow, and the idea of it made him feel a tarry anger that settled over the entirety of his spirit. Again, he thought of Angie. He'd found himself thinking about her a lot lately, conducting one-sided conversations with her. Yes, he would have to get in touch with Angie soon, he vowed. He and Angie had a lot to say.

For one thing, Angie was in trouble she didn't even know about. Deep trouble. You-can't-walk-away-from-it-but-you-better-f.u.c.king-try kind of trouble. Sometimes, he could see that, too. In some ways, he could see that best.

"You cool, Uncle Tariq?" DuShaun said.

"Yeah," Tariq said. "You all stay put. I need some air."

Tariq Hill had a whole new vision in his head, and his future was waiting for him.

Twelve.

SACAJAWEA.

TUESDAY.

ANGELA AWAKENEDto the racket of chainsaws.

Last night's deluge had never stopped, it had only slowed, so there was a still a steady rainfall, a drizzle one moment and a clothes-soaking downpour the next. But the rain didn't silence the buzzing, popping, and loud idling of chainsaws in front of Angela's house, the sound of concentrated industry. More than that, it was the sound of community.

Angela had called Mr. Everly last night to tell him about the tree, asking if he could contact a removal company. "Nonsense," Mr. Everly had said. "If it's already down, I'll put the word out. We'll make sure no harm comes to the house."

Sure enough, when Angela looked through the upstairs window at the top of the stairs, she saw men from Sacajawea in the front yard below, most of them gray-haired retirees in hickory shirts, suspenders, and billed caps. She counted six men sawing the trunk or removing debris. Mr. Everly was there, of course, and Angela recognized the others: Logan Prescott, Gunnar Michaelsen, and Tom Brock, who had all been at her Fourth of July party; and a much older man named Rex, who occasionally gave talks at the historical society about the region's logging past. Even Art Brunell was out there, wearing a windbreaker and wool cap as he helped drag branches across the yard after the experienced loggers sheared them from the tree's trunk. Wood chips flew in mini-blizzards as the teeth of chainsaws chewed through wood. Faintly, Angela could hear their voices and laughter through the window-You sure you got that? Whoa, watch out for that one, Rex-both camaraderie and counsel. All of these men had seen logging accidents. Rex moved cautiously, unable to do much more than monitor the work and rake piles of twigs out of the way, but Angela couldn't remember the last time she'd seen so much pep in the old guy's step. He was happy to be a part of something again, however small.

They had come for a burial, she thought. A lost tree, a lost era. The logging industry was depressed, nothing like it had been, and these guys had memories of a different time. Angela felt a fresh sadness, seeing the tree's mighty trunk split in half, with one side bent toward the stone steps under the weight of its thick branches of leaves, the larger half resting on the house. But this was also a homecoming. She was back where she'd grown up during the best part of her childhood, and these people loved her. And if they didn't loveher, they had loved Gramma Marie. It was a good feeling, nearly enough to make her forget last night's fears. Nearly.

Angela went to get dressed. It was time to see the damage to the house.

Outside, Joseph Everly was breathing hard, coated with perspiration and fresh wood shavings. He spoke authoritatively, as if he were the foreman of a large site. "Knocked off a few shingles up top," he told her, shouting to be heard over the saws. "You can't see it from here, not until the last of that tree comes down, but I took a look up on the roof. That upstairs attic window has a nasty crack in it. We'll have to get that replaced. But aside from that, she's lookin' good, Angie. The house is tip-top. You've got yourself a minor miracle on your hands."

His wife would have his hide if she knew he'd been climbing on the roof with his bad back, Angela thought. Two men now on the roof were leaping so nonchalantly as they maneuvered around the immense tree branches that Angela was certain they would fall. Neither man was as old as Rex or Mr. Everly, but they were at least in their sixties. Gunnar Michaelsen, one of the men on the rooftop, had white hair and a matching white beard. He looked like he should be playing a department store Santa Claus, not standing on her roof with a chainsaw in his gloved hands.

"That looks dangerous up there, Mr. Everly," Angela said.

"It's only dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. And these boysdo." Mr. Everly's voice shook with pride. "I was with Weyerhauser thirty years. Gunnar, Tom, and Logan were with Sacajawea Logging twenty-five years apiece. Rex was with Morrell, I believe, goingway back. Rex, how many outfits you work for?"

Angela hadn't noticed Rex inching behind them, lured by their conversation. The older man's clothes smelled of pipe tobacco. Either he didn't have dentures or hadn't bothered to put them in, so his words were gummy in his mouth. "Ma was a camp cook for Morrell, so I started with them when I was twelve, stayed on 'til they closed. Then I went to Crown Zellerbach, and that was the biggest one in the forties, through the war. I cut trees 'til I was sixty, then I worked on the loading machine 'til I retired in eighty-five."

Weyerhauser. Sacajawea Logging. Morrell. Crown.

Angela didn't know a thing about logging except that her grandfather John had lost his life to that tough work in the woods, but she heard the names of the companies often, even those that were gone. In Sacajawea, men identified themselves by their logging affiliations like combat troops identified themselves by their military divisions, especially the older loggers. The lastgriots of a bygone time.

Suddenly, Angela missed Gramma Marie-not in the fuzzy way she'd settled into missing her in the thirteen years that had pa.s.sed since her grandmother's death, but reallymissed her, the way she missed Corey. The daily, empty kind of missing that made her life feel wrong, off-kilter. Stolen. What if the spirits of Gramma Marie and her grandmother before herhad lived in this tree? Where had they gone now that the tree had died?