The Night Gardener

CHAPTER 15

Ramone found Regina in their kitchen, leaning against the island countertop, holding a glass of chardonnay. It was early for her to be drinking alcohol. She had grilled chicken, boiled some green beans, and cut a salad, and all of it was ready to go. He kissed her and after their embrace he told her where he'd been and how it had gone.

'You see Helena?'

'No. She was in bed.'

'I'll go by tomorrow, bring them something like a casserole so they don't have to think about dinner.'

'They're loaded with casseroles,' said Ramone.

'I'll call Marita, then. She's a busybody, but she gets things done. Maybe we'll get a schedule together, where a bunch of us can cook something on a certain night and take it over.'

'That's a good idea,' said Ramone. 'Where the kids at?'

'They've eaten. They're up in their rooms.'

'I spoke to Diego on the phone. He seemed okay.'

'He didn't get too emotional about it, if that's what you mean. But he's been kinda quiet since I told him.'

'You know how he is,' said Ramone. 'He thinks he's gotta be hard, even at a time like this. He holds everything in.'

'And you're effusive,' said Regina. 'By the way, the school sent him home a little early today.'

'What now?'

'I'll let him tell you.'

Ramone locked up his badge and gun and went upstairs to Alana's room. She had lined up all her plastic horses in a row and was fitting her smaller dolls, Barbies, and Groovy Girls in the saddles. She liked to organize her things.

'How's my little girl?' said Ramone.

'Good, Daddy.'

He kissed the top of her head and smelled her curly hair.

Alana's bedroom was always in order, obsessively so, because Alana kept it that way. Unlike Diego's room, which was perpetually a mess. The boy just could not get it together, and not only in his personal space. He couldn't remember to make note of his homework assignments, either. Even when he completed them on time, he often turned the work in late.

'We need to get him tested,' Regina had said at one point. 'Maybe he's got a learning disability.'

'He's scatterbrained,' Ramone had responded. 'I don't need to pay someone to tell me that.'

Regina had had Diego tested. The shrink or whatever she was said that Diego had something called executive function disorder, which was why he had trouble organizing his day and thoughts. It was causing him to lag behind in school.

'He doesn't want to do his homework, is all it is,' said Ramone. 'I know what that's about.'

'Look at his room,' said Regina. 'You can't tell the difference between the dirty clothes and the clean. He doesn't even know to separate them.'

'He's a slob,' said Ramone. 'So now they got a big name for it. It cost me a grand to learn a new word.'

'Gus.'

Ramone was reminded of this as he knocked on his son's door, opened it, and saw the explosion of T-shirts and jeans on Diego's bedroom floor. Diego was lying on his bed, his headphones on, listening to go-go as he stared glassy-eyed at an open book. He removed the cans and turned the volume down on his portable player.

'Hey, Diego.'

'Dad.'

'What you doin?'

'Reading this book.'

'How can you read and listen to music at the same time?'

'I'm one of them multitaskers, I guess.'

Diego sat up on the edge of his bed and dropped the book at his side. He looked tired, and disappointed that his father was giving him the same old. Ramone could have kicked his own ass for riding Diego on a day like this, but he had done so out of habit.

'Look, I shouldn't have-'

'It's all right.'

'You okay?'

'We weren't, like, tight-tight. You know that.'

'But you were friends.'

'Yeah, me and Asa were straight.' Diego made a clucking sound with his tongue. It was something he and his friends did often. 'I feel bad, though. I saw him yesterday. We didn't talk or nothin like that, but I saw him.'

'Where was that? Where and when?'

'Over on Third, at the rec center. Me and Shaka were playin basketball. Asa was walking down the street, and then he turned up Tuckerman.'

'Toward Blair Road.'

'Yeah, that way. It was getting late in the day. The sun was fading; I remember that.'

'What else?'

'He was wearing a North Face. Musta been new, 'cause it's too warm to be rockin that coat right now. He was sweatin.'

'What else?'

'He looked pressed,' said Diego. He had lowered his voice and he rubbed his hands together uselessly as he spoke. 'We called out to him, but he kept walkin. I wish he would've stopped, Dad. I can't forget the way he looked. I can't help thinking that if we had made him stop and talk to us…'

'Come here, Diego.'

Diego stood up and Ramone pulled him into his arms. Diego held him tightly for a few seconds. Both of them relaxed.

'I'm good, Dad.'

'All right, son.'

Diego stepped back. 'Is this one gonna be yours?'

'No. Another guy caught it.' Ramone stroked his mustache. 'But Diego, I would like to ask you something.'

'Go ahead.'

'Was Asa into anything we should know about?'

'Like weed and stuff?'

'For starters. I was thinking more along the lines of, was he deeper into it. Matter of fact, was he into anything criminal at all?'

'Not that I know. Like I say, we weren't all that tight this past year. I'd tell you if I thought he was.'

'I know you would. Anyway, we'll talk some more. Go ahead and read your book. Listen to music while you're doing it if you want to.'

'I wasn't really readin that book, tell you the truth.'

'No kidding.'

'Dad? I got in a little trouble again today.'

'What happened?'

'We had this fire drill, and while we were standing outside, this boy told me a joke and I laughed.'

'So?'

'I mean, I kinda laughed real loud. They suspended me for the rest of the day.'

'For laughing outside of the school.'

'It's the rule. Principal got on the intercom before the drill, warned everyone against it. I knew not to do it, but I couldn't help it. This boy just cracked me up.'

'You couldn't have been the only kid who was laughing.'

'True. Plenty of kids were joking around. But Mr Guy didn't mess with them. He came right down on me.'

'Don't worry about it,' said Ramone.

He left his son in his room. Ramone's jaw was tight as he walked down the hall.

Holiday poured vodka over ice, standing beside the Formica-topped counter of his small kitchen. There was nothing to do but have a drink.

He wasn't into television, except for sports, and he never read books. He'd thought about taking up a hobby, but he was suspicious of men who did. He felt they were fucking off when they could have been doing something productive. There were problems to be solved and goals to achieve, and here were grown men chasing little white balls, climbing rocks, and riding bicycles. Wearing those stupid bicycle-riding clothes, for Chrissakes, like boys wearing cowboy outfits.

Holiday wouldn't have minded talking to someone tonight. He had things to discuss, police-type matters, which went beyond bar conversation. But he could think of no one to call.

He had few friends, and none he could call close. A cop he occasionally drank with, Johnny Ramirez, who had a chip on his shoulder but was all right enough to have a beer with now and again. The guys at Leo's, them, too. He knew some of the residents of the garden apartments to nod at or say hello to in the mornings as they walked out to their cars and their cabs, but none of them were people he'd ask into his place. He lived in Prince George's, not the last white man in the county but feeling at times as if he were, because he had grown up here and it felt like home. The guys he had known were in northern Montgomery or down in Charles County now, or had left the area entirely. He'd run into someone locally on occasion, black men he'd gone to Eleanor Roosevelt High with, now with families of their own, and that was cool. They'd talk for a couple of minutes, twenty years of catch-up in a short conversation, then part company. Acquaintances with shared memories, but no real friends.

Sure, he had his women. He had always had a talent for finding strange. But no one he wanted to wake up next to in his bed. His nights were no more meaningful than his days.

This afternoon, Dan Holiday had driven a man named Seamus O'Brien, who had bought an NBA team after cashing out of a tech start-up in the late '90s. O'Brien had come to Washington to meet with a group of lawmakers who shared his values, and also to have his photo taken with a group of charter school students residing east of the Anacostia River. He had brought them signed posters of one of his players, a shooting guard who had come out of Eastern High. O'Brien would never see these children again or be involved in their lives, but a photograph of him and a bunch of smiling black kids would make him feel as if he were right with the world. It would also look good on his office wall.

Holiday had listened as the man in the backseat of the Town Car talked about vouchers, prayer in school, and his desire to influence the culture of the nation, because what was money worth if you didn't use it do some good? His sentences were peppered with references to the Lord and his personal savior, Jesus Christ. Holiday had helpfully turned the satellite radio to The Fish, an adult-contemporary Christian program, but after one song O'Brien asked him if he could find Bloomberg News instead.

That had been his day. Driving a rich man to and from appointments, waiting for him outside those appointments, and taking him to the airport. A nice chunk of change, but zero in the accomplishment department. Which is why his eyes never snapped open in the mornings when he woke up, as they had when he was police. Back then he couldn't wait to get to work. He didn't hate this job or love it; it was an odometer turning, a ride with no destination, a waste of time.

Holiday took his drink and a pack of smokes out to the balcony of his apartment and had a seat. The balcony faced the parking lot and beyond the lot the rear of the Hecht's at the P.G. Plaza mall. A man and a woman were arguing somewhere, and as cars drove slowly in the lot there was rapping and window-rattling bass, and as other cars passed there was toasting, and from the open windows of still other cars came the call-and-response, synthesizers, and percussion of go-go.

The sounds reached Holiday, but they did not bother him or interrupt the scenario forming in his head. He was thinking of a man who would like to hear the story of the dead teenager lying in the community garden on Oglethorpe. Holiday had a sip of his drink and wondered if this man was still alive.

Ramone and Regina ate dinner and shared a bottle of wine, and when they were done they opened another bottle, which they normally didn't do. The two of them talked intensely about the death of Diego's friend, and at one point Regina cried, not only for Asa, and not only for his parents, to whom she was not particularly close, but for herself, because she was thinking about how completely and permanently crushing it would be to lose one of her own in that way.

'The Lord oughtta strike me down for being so selfish,' said Regina, wiping tears off her face and chuckling with embarrassment. 'It's just that I'm afraid.'

'It's natural to feel that way,' said Ramone. He didn't tell her that he feared for his children also, every day.

In bed, they kissed and held each other, but neither of them took the step to make love. For Gus especially the passionate kiss was always a prelude to something else, but not tonight.

'God is crying,' said Ramone.

'What?'

'That's what Terrance Johnson said. We were standing in his backyard, and it had started to rain. Can you imagine?'

'Not unusual for him to be thinking on God.'

'What I mean is, you'd think that if your kid died like that, you'd either lose your faith completely or you'd be so angry at God that you'd turn your back on him.'

'Terrance is gonna look to God now stronger than ever. That's what faith is.'

'You sound like Rhonda.'

'Us black women do love us some church.'

'Regina?'

'What?'

'You know, Asa's name… It's spelled the same way backward as it is forward. It's a palindrome.'

'All right.'

'You were on the force back when those kids from Southeast were killed.'

'I was still a recruit. But, yeah, I remember.'

'Those kids were found in community gardens, too. All of them, shot in the head.'

'You think this is connected?'

'I have to sleep on it. Tomorrow I guess I'll go ahead and open some files.'

'Tomorrow. You forget about it now.'

After a while Ramone said, 'Diego seems okay. He'll never forget this, but he's handling it pretty well.'

'He had a rough day, all in all. On top of everything, they went and sent him home-'

'For laughing during a fire drill. I wonder how many white kids laughed.'

'Now, Gus. Don't go hatin on white kids.'

'Fuck that school,' said Ramone. 'I've about had it with that bullshit, too.'

'Easy, soldier,' said Regina, brushing hair off his forehead and kissing him behind his ear. 'Your heart's gonna get to fluttering, you're not going to be able to sleep.'

They wrapped their arms around each other, and he felt his breathing slow. And holding her, smelling the scent that was only hers and feeling the buttery skin of her cheek against his, he thought, This is why I am married to this woman.

This is something I will never have with anyone else.