Dirty South

21

At 3:45, Teddy boosted me onto his shoulders to grab the second-floor balcony of Malcolm’s house. I reached the lowest edge of the iron, got a good grip, and pulled myself onto the ledge. We’d spotted a French door ajar by his bedroom and outdoor Jacuzzi after ringing his doorbell about thirty times. Down from the patio, Teddy told me to come down and let him in. I looked down at Teddy, still in the bathrobe and slippers, and said, “No shit.”

I walked through the darkness of the house, white carpet, gold albums on the walls, and down onto the slate of his foyer and the front door. I saw a Brinks security system by the row of switches but it didn’t seem to be armed. But really I couldn’t tell if the red light meant it was on or off. I opened the door anyway.

Teddy strolled in, punching a code, and turned on all the lights.

Malcolm had a big open den with three big-screen televisions lined up side by side and a back bookshelf filled with CDs and dozens of pieces of Sony stereo components and Bose speakers. A few books on the Kama Sutra. Playboy s going back to the mideighties in leather cases.

“Quite a collection,” I said.

“He’s always been into freaks.”

“A man of classics.”

“Why you always makin’ jokes, Nick?” he asked. “This shit ain’t funny. Goddamn.”

“It’s gonna be all right,” I said. “Be cool.”

“Ain’t your ass.”

We moved upstairs to Malcolm’s bedroom. He had one of the last water beds I’d seen since the seventies and a ceiling that was completely mirrored. Prints of Janet Jackson and Aaliyah and some woman named Gangsta Boo hung on the walls. Gangsta Boo had even signed and dated hers. Thanks for that night in Memphis. In the photo she was grabbing her crotch.

“What happened that night in Memphis?” I asked Teddy. “With the upstanding young woman?”

“Don’t ask.”

Teddy and I looked through his chest of drawers and found a lot of sweats and Ts and jewelry but no check stubs or deposit statements. He had a small desk by a window but the drawers were all empty. The room smelled of cologne and sweat.

We walked downstairs and Teddy opened up his brother’s refrigerator, pulling out a couple of Eskimo Pies. He handed one to me.

I grabbed the wooden stick. I hadn’t eaten in a while.

We walked through the house like a couple of kids in a museum, eating ice cream and talking. He pointed out some family photos hung on the wall and a ten-foot-tall oil painting of Teddy leaning against his Bentley. “That was his Christmas present.”

The house was still and hummed with the quiet AC.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it,” I said. “I’ll stay with you, Teddy. All right?”

“No way.”

“Make me leave.”

He nodded and pulled me into his big meaty arms and rubbed the top of my head.

“Shit, man, cut it out,” I said.

“I love you, Nick,” he said. He hugged me like he always did after a game, whether we won or lost. He always acted like he just wanted to savor this one moment and keep it forever fresh in his head.

“Son of a bitch.”

“Really, man,” he said. “You the only one I trust.”

I found a little room by the kitchen with his washer and dryer, a bulletin board, and a tiny little desk. I rifled through the drawers and saw nothing, but reached high on a ledge and found a large box filled with bank statements and credit card bills.

Teddy helped himself to another Eskimo Pie. I had the same.

“What you think of ALIAS?” he asked as I pulled out a few slips of paper, looked through them, and passed them on to him for a second opinion.

“I don’t know.”

“He’s a good kid,” Teddy said. “Grew up in Calliope and lost his mamma about two years back. Heard she’d been dead for a couple of weeks before anyone called the cops. ALIAS wouldn’t call ’cause he thought the child welfare people would take him away.”

I didn’t say anything. We kept working, looking through the box.

“Guess we all know about that,” he said. “Right?”

“What’s that?”

“Losin’ family.”

I nodded.

“But you got JoJo and Loretta now and I still got Malcolm, that sorry sack of shit. Man, look what he did to me.”

We walked back in the TV room and sat down on the leather couch. The room was dark except for a couple of tall stainless-steel lamps Teddy had turned on by the windows. We were in a large cavern, twelve-foot ceilings, space big enough for a scrimmage. The place felt hollow, like the inside of a whale.

“ALIAS talk to you about ball?” Teddy asked.

“No.”

“Kid wants to be a DB,” Teddy said. “Sometimes I have him pickin’ off passes when me and Malcolm be jackassin’ around the studios. Man got vert, you know. If the kid could read, man, I think he could play.”

“He can’t read?”

“Can’t even spell his name.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Not somethin’ he talks about,” Teddy said. “Don’t mean he ain’t bright, though. You know that. Just never been to no real school.”

Teddy crossed his big fat legs and propped them up on a glass coffee table with the latest issues of XXL. He dropped the fedora’s brim down in his eyes, switched the old cigar – now just a nub – into the other side of his mouth.

“Good Lord,” he said, scanning a picture of a rapper in a gold bikini. Unfazed he was a few hours away from Cash.

“So we wait?”

“Nothin’ else to do.”

I looked at the television. Something had been taped on its blank screen but I was too far away to read it. I walked close and pulled off a piece of paper Scotch-taped to the fifty-inch Sony.

Someone had typed a note and torn the paper in half.

I read the note and then reread it:

To my big-brother Teddy and all my people at Ninth Ward,

Thank you for a great ride these last three years. Y’all made it happen. Put the Ward, NOLA, all of it, up on top.

But some of us make mistakes. Money make men be some evil people. Do evil things against family.

I ask for the Lord’s and my family forgiveness.

I can’t live another day takin’. I set up ALIAS and killed the best friend I ever had in Dio.

Lord forgive me. Bury me in the Ninth.

Y’all party, roll, and remember what I used to be.

I handed the note to Teddy.

I had to help him get to his feet. His whole body shook and he dropped to one knee. “Where’s the kid?” he asked.

“Home.”

“You sure?”