The Guilty

Chapter 23

Tiara street.

It was full of tiny, ramshackle houses with dirt patches for yards and not a trace of hope in sight.

Robie had always thought the name of the road had to have been somebody’s idea of a very bad joke.

Billy Faulconer’s house was just as small and run-down as all the others. Robie didn’t know what his former teammate had done after high school, but it apparently didn’t pay much money.

And then the cancer hitting him probably meant he could no longer work. He might be drowning in medical debt. It was a sad situation for anyone, but even more so for a man in his early forties.

Robie knocked on the front screen door. There was movement inside, and a black woman appeared in the doorway. She was tall, thin, and worn. Her long hands were veined, her nails short, and her forearms wiry. Her dark, curly hair was rapidly spreading to gray. The lines in her face spoke of a hardscrabble existence on this little patch of Mississippi soil.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, wiping her hands on a not-overly-clean cloth.

“I’m here to see Billy Faulconer.”

“He’s not seein’ nobody right now. He’s not well.”

“I know. His son told me. I’m Will Robie.”

She clapped a hand to her mouth and dropped the towel. Tears sprang to her eyes and she gripped Robie by the hand.

“Oh my God, Little Bill told me you were in town and might come by, but I never thought you would.”

“I’d really like to talk to Billy.”

“Come on in, Mr. Robie, please.”

“Just call me Will.”

“I’m Angie.”

“Did we go to school together?”

“No. I’m not from Cantrell. Billy and me met up in Oxford. He was a trucker and was passin’ through and had some lunch at the diner where I worked. Then he came by again and again. Pretty soon we was married. And then I come to live here.”

“You had kids early.”

“Well, we just got the one. I was twenty when Little Bill was born. We wanted more, but God had other plans for us.”

While they chatted, she led him through the tiny house and out the back.

“When did Billy get sick?”

“A year ago. Lung cancer. Too many cigarettes, I guess.”

“He’s been seen by doctors?”

“The one here, yes. He said there was nothin’ to be done for Billy.”

“Did you get a second opinion?”

Angie stopped and looked at him. “No. I mean, the doctor here said the cancer had spread and that was that.”

“Did he go through an operation? Is he on chemo or did he undergo radiation?”

“None of that stuff. Billy said he’ll die like a man. He won’t hang on and suffer, and give us pain by watchin’ him suffer. And all that costs a lot of money. Money we don’t have.”

“Do you have insurance?”

“No. When Billy lost his job the insurance went too.”

“You could get a policy. They can’t refuse him now for a preexisting condition.”

Her face tightened and she said stiffly, “I think we’re okay on that score, Will. But thanks for your concern.”

They had by now passed through the backyard and turned a corner.

There stood a battered, old Airstream trailer.

When Robie looked at her, Angie averted her gaze and said quietly, “Billy likes bein’ out here. He got that old trailer from a friend of a friend. Fixed it up and now he lives out there. Says he’ll die there. We can just close it up and leave him there when he does. Least that’s what he says.”

Her words were said lightly, but Robie could see the undeniable pain in the woman’s face at this terrible thought.

She led him up to the Airstream and rapped her knuckles on the door. “Billy, I got a surprise for you.” She turned and smiled at Robie. “Got me somebody you used to know real good.”

Then she opened the door and motioned Robie to pass by her. “Thank you for comin’, Will, know it’ll mean the world to him.” She turned and hurried back to the house.

Robie stepped up into the Airstream and looked first right then left.

Right was a small table with dirty plates and cups on it.

Left was in shadows, but as he moved toward the darkness, it lifted a bit.

“Son of a bitch, Will Robie,” came the weak voice.

Robie moved closer and the man came into full view.

Billy Faulconer had been one of the biggest human beings Robie had ever known growing up. Now he looked like someone had deflated him to barely a third of his former size. His skin was far darker than his son’s or wife’s. Back when they were teenagers, folks in Cantrell would come to cheer the team on, every game. They treated all the players the same, black or white. But when football season was over, things went back to the old ways, meaning that Billy became simply black and thus shunned by white society.

He was lying on an old, raggedy couch, his head propped up by a trash bag that was filled with something. Robie hoped it was soft.

He had on an old, tattered robe and his bare calves and long feet stuck out from below the hem. His short hair was filled with gray. His face was gaunt, his sunken chest drawing in and out in slow, elongated movements. There was sweat on his skin and not much life in the eyes. An oxygen tank on a little rusted roller sat next to him, its attached lines running up to his nostrils. He seemed to suck greedily on the air.

Robie looked around. He found a little stool covered in junk. He set the items on the floor, pulled it up next to Billy, and sat down.

Wheezing, Billy said, “Shit, man, you look like you could still suit up for Cantrell High.”

“We both did our bit there.”

“You ’member that goal line play in the second quarter of the state championship?”

Robie thought for a moment. “Read option right, faked the handoff to Kenny Miller on the A-gap, faked the pitch to Junior Deacon on the end-around. I ran left, you crashed down on the end and then had enough gas left to pancake the OLB, and I scored standing up. Just like Coach drew it up on the board.”

Billy smiled big and wide. “That was so sweet. And then in the third quarter? ’Member that play?” he said. “’Member? Tell me you do, man.”

Robie cracked a smile, thinking back, way back. “Your moment of glory. On the sidelines you told me they were overcommitting to stopping the run, and the O-backer and the strong safety kept cheating up to the box. So when we went back on the field you checked in receiver eligible. I ran a fake sweep to Donny Jenkins on the weak side, pulled the ball back outta his gut, turned and lofted you the prettiest pass in the end zone on the other side. And you caught it in those big mitts of yours. And then you fell on your ass!”

A crooked grin spread over Billy’s features. “Ain’t a defender within five miles’a me. All I could think was ‘Don’t drop the damn ball.’”

“I met Little Bill. Nice young man. You obviously raised him right.”

Billy shifted his withered body a bit so he could look more directly at his old teammate. His glee fell away and his features turned somber.

“He done okay. But what he needs to do is get outta this here place.”

“Think he can?”

Billy nodded. “Got me a life insurance policy. Premium’s all paid so’s they can’t screw me now. Get him some money. Angie too. They be good.” Billy touched his forehead. “Little Bill’s smart. Good with computer shit. Ain’t nothin’ he don’t know ’bout computers. Don’t know where he got that from. I don’t even know how to turn one on.”

“Same with me.”

Billy looked him over. “You look like you done good for yourself. Where you livin’?”

“East Coast. Job’s okay. Nothing special. I go to an office, push paper around. Pays the bills.”

“You lit outta here right fast after high school.”

“Just wanted something different.”

Billy looked around the Airstream. “Ain’t we all?” He picked up a plastic bucket and spit mucus into it. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his robe and looked back at Robie.

“Know why you come back. Your daddy.” He pointed to a pile of newspapers on the floor. “Been keepin’ track of it. Ain’t got much else to do.”

“I guess not. Angie seems very nice.”

Billy nodded and looked away. “She wants me to come live in the house.”

“Why don’t you?”

“So she can look at my big beautiful face every day?” He swiped a hand through his hair and said, “Man, you think I want her to ’member me like I am now?” He started to cough so hard that Robie helped him sit up some more and poured out a glass of water from a pitcher on the small kitchen sink.

After Billy drank the water and had settled back down Robie said, “I think if you don’t have long to live you should spend it with people who love you.”

Billy shook his head. “I’m a drain on ’em, Will. Soon as I kick off they can get on with their lives.” Before Robie could respond he added, “How’s your daddy doin’?”

“Well since he’s in jail for murder, not too good.”

“You ’member Sherm Clancy?”

“Yeah, when he was a dirt-poor farmer.”

“He got him a good ride, all right.”

“Gas on his property?”

“Oil, gas. Somethin’ like that. But then he really hit it big with the casinos when they come in.”

“How did he get in with people like that?”

Billy shrugged. “Don’t know nothin’ ’bout that. But he done it. Then he was rollin’ in money. Built that house. Bought himself that car. One he died in.”

“With a neck slit maybe by a Ka-Bar blade.”

“Like your daddy had. I ’member seeing it when we was kids.”

“Good memory.”

“But I got me one of them knives, too.”

Robie studied him. “How?”

“My uncle was in the Marines over in Nam. He left it to me when he died.”

Robie nodded. “They find the actual knife that killed Clancy?”

“Not so’s anybody done said. And I been readin’ ’bout it every day. Like I said, all I got to do now.”

“What about Janet Chisum?”

Billy struggled to sit up more. Robie rose and helped him, adjusting the trash bag pillow to support him.

“What ’bout her?”

“If Clancy didn’t kill her, who did?”

“He was screwin’ her. Paid her to do it. What the papers say. That come out at his trial. Disgustin’. He was old enough to be her damn granddaddy.”

“And my stepmother provided the alibi.”

Billy nodded. “And your daddy maybe killed him ’cause of that.”

“You know Victoria?”

“Naw. Seen her around and all. But after you left I never spoke to your daddy no mo’. He just sort of curled up on life, so to speak. Didn’t see nobody. Just worked. He won that big case. Then he come back with Victoria and they bought the Willows. Like to knock everybody in town over with a stick when they done that.”

“And they have a little boy.”

“He ain’t talk none, so’s folks say.”

“I know. He doesn’t.”

“So you talked to your daddy yet?”

“Don’t think he wants to see me.”

“You left a long time ago. You ever talked to him over the years?”

“No.”

Billy fell silent and looked at his old friend. “Hell, Will, my daddy done beat me, too. Lots of daddies do that shit. I swatted Little Bill on the ass couple times is all when he was small. But I never hit him with my fist. Never took a switch or a tree branch to him. Never busted no beer bottle over his head. My daddy did that to me. And mo’. Lot mo’. Told myself I ain’t never doin’ that to my kids.”

“That’s good to hear, Billy. Kids have enough shit to deal with without somebody who is supposed to love them beating the crap out of them.”

“So was there somethin’ else then, Will? What made you leave?”

Robie ran his eye over the oxygen tank.

“Who’s the doctor that diagnosed your cancer?”

“Doc Holloway.”

“Is he an oncologist?”

Billy made a face. “A what?”

“A cancer specialist.”

“Oh, naw, he ain’t that. But he a good doctor. Took care’a all of us over the years. Everythin’ from a broken arm to some of Angie’s female problems. Kind’a jack’a all trades.”

And master of none, thought Robie.

“Do you need anything, Billy? Money?”

Billy waved this off. “I’m good, Will. But thanks.”

Robie rose. “I’ve got to get going. It was good to see you. If you think of anything you might need, will you let me know? I’m staying at the Willows.”

Billy nodded, looking pensive. “Hey, Will, you think maybe you might come back and we have a beer or two, talk some more ’bout the old days?”

“Sounds good, Billy. And I’ll bring the beer.”