Not Far From Golgotha Page 6

  He shuffled a couple of steps, his ring-less left hand coming up and flipping two switches in simultaneous and opposite directions. The bookshelves (fairly wilting under the weight of the books they held) and the posters were instantly rolled up in a cover of darkness. Next, came the distinct clunk of a deadbolt releasing, after which a knifing edge of light raced inside as if searching for a particular someone. Light illuminated the narrow, staircase/hallway leading out to the street. Naked plumbing and PVC connections served as make-shift railings. Building maintenance had hastily spread a cheap blue paint above them with an unexplained and somehow demented artistic flair several months back. The job was depressingly careless though. Some long-ago tenant had also hung a STOP sign directly in front of Ebenezer’s door, and even though he had lived in the building for the better part of twenty-one years he’d never taken it down. Instead he used it as a warning, a subtle reminder to consider each step as he descended. And he always did, walking slowly down the creaking, yielding staircase, one hand tightly on the rail while the other trailed along the roughly-textured surface of the opposite wall. The third step toward the bottom was an accident waiting to happen. For the last six months he’d been meaning to bring it up to the maintenance man, but no opportunity had afforded itself. If ghosts existed in the flesh, surely that man was their kin.

  Ebenezer paused at the landing, and pulled his keys out, shuffling through them until he found the right one. Then he walked the few paces left to the irongate. The paint was dirty and scarred with the memories of a multitude of now-defunct locks, even the newest one at the bottom of the stack of rusted holes showing the inevitable signs of wear. Weather was hard. Even so, he tricked his key inside, his hand finding the right rhythm as he coaxed it left and right, and then, quickly, pulled back. He stepped around and out to the sidewalk shining faintly in the feeble light from the pole, pulling the irongate closed behind him.

  He paused to blow his nose again before walking to the corner of the building. When he got there he turned right at Versailles for the modest walk to the Ripcord. And if anyone had been there to ask he’d have said his head already felt clearer.

  Chapter 16

  The entrance was much different, less theatrical, this time. No wind heralded Ebenezer’s presence like some returning, renegade prophet from a self-imposed desert sojourn. Rather, he came in humbled, a bent old man stepping quietly, taking a quick, cursory glance around as he made his way to the bar. And because of this incomplete inspection he seemed to miss Billy, hunkered down at an irritatingly lopsided table watching the door.

  Billy studied him, surprised how different the old man looked. But that was not the whole truth, he immediately recognized; not different really, just lacking in the animation that had painted the memory of the old man in his head. When the quick glance seemed to skip just slightly over Billy’s head, Billy’d felt an unwarranted, sinking neglect. However, he quickly dispelled such childishness. For God’s sake, he thought. His eyesight’s probably not very good. He’ll remember me. Still…

  Billy watched the barmaid draw up some Dinkel Acker draft and push it Ebenezer’s way with a smooth sweep of her arm and a wink. It didn’t appear she remembered the earlier conversation but Billy couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t hear anything the two said. The old man faced away from him as the barmaid busied herself with an incoming group of five boisterous souls. Ebenezer waved a bill in her receding direction and placed it near the tap. Then he moved away. Billy decided to watch and see if the man would acknowledge his presence, if he still had any idea who the hell he was in the first place.

  Ebenezer came closer, staring off absently in the opposite direction as he neared the wooden column concealing Billy from the openness of the room. Billy poised on the verge of saying something when Ebenezer stopped in the murky light and pitched something deftly onto Billy’s table. The voice that came next hadn’t changed. “That’s yours ain’t it, William? Or is it Billy? My mind ain’t what it used ta be, I suppose.” It was impossible, even in the dim light, to miss the smile painted on the old man’s features.

  On the table in front of Billy lay a crisp, ten dollar bill.

  “It’s ‘Billy’,” he answered in surprise, then, “and I guess it is if you say so,” awkwardly pinching the bill between thumb and forefinger. He made it disappear with clumsy embarrassment as the old man chose to look away that very moment. He said something to someone across the room and laughed heartily.

  Then he looked back, smiled, and sat down. Before he spoke he put the frothy mug he held to his lips and took a long pull. Setting it down he regarded Billy with heavy-lidded eyes. There was an unmistakable fatigue anchored there but Billy ventured no sentiments. Ebenezer’s look and carriage proposed a man ill-suited to sympathy.

  “One minute,” Billy said, standing up to get two Dinkel Acker drafts at the bar. He’d never had the dark, foreign brew but he figured what’s there to lose? Perhaps even, a new taste to acquire. Once there he turned to view the old figure at his table as the drafts were drawn. All he could see was the long, white hair and hunched shoulders, but it appeared the man was settling down, readying himself for something. “I see you found him,” came the husky voice as the beers slid across the bar.

  Billy turned back and smiled. “No, not really. He found me.” He winked as if they shared a secret. The girl grinned as she changed the ten. He thanked her and walked back to the table, setting Ebenezer’s draft next to its half-full predecessor. The old man’s thick fingers were wrapped around it like slow ivy. Billy sat down.

  “Thank ya, son.” Ebenezer pecked lightly at the new arrival as if testing the vintage, his manner that of a true connoisseur. Then it was his turn to wink. “I see ya got fine taste in hops and barley.”

  “Not exactly. I saw what you ordered when you walked in.”

  “Well, nonetheless.”

  Billy could hold his tongue no longer. “I didn’t want the money back.”

  Ebenezer waved this off like a pestering fly. “I know that, but it’s been a long time since I worked for money. Call it unexpected. Old people like me try ta maintain equilibrium; any little thing can throw us over the edge,” he said just half-jokingly. Then an immediate seriousness made granite of his features. “I don’t tell ‘em for money anyway. I do fine, I assure ya. No sense in a young fella like you passin out hard-earned money ta a worn-out somebitch like me when there’s plenty young ladies who’d be more’n happy ta help ya part with it.” He waved his hand in a broad, sweeping gesture.

  Billy attempted to acquiesce to the serious note by holding up his glass. He didn’t want to get on that track. “Cheers then…and forgiveness,” he said, trying to steer clear of any coming diatribe.

  Ebenezer’s face surrendered to another grin that’d been waiting. “That’s right, lad, cheers,” he affirmed as they clinked their glasses together. “Ta the night then,” Ebenezer offered and Billy nodded with the intensity of an apprentice to an old master.

  Chapter 17

  By one a.m. Billy had made up his mind to call in sick the following day. He’d found a new friend in the Acker, and their relationship would suffer no immediate separation. His older compatriot seemed revived and much better now, as if the beer responded medicinally somehow for his toughened constitution. The earlier nasal whine was now completely masked by alcohol and budding enthusiasm. “Why’d ya come back?” Ebenezer asked. “This ain’t no place for a sprout.” He looked around as if in confirmation. “Shit, son, nobody’s close ta your age in here ‘cept for Shelly and she’s kinda…awkward. Needs the money, though,” he quickly added in her defense. “Tries ta act tougher than she is.” He put up his hands to fend off any unintentional transgression to her honor. “Now I don’t mean a goddamn thing by that, nothin derogatory. ‘S jus the truth. She’s a damn fine girl.”

  Billy nodded and laughed lightly, wishing for a cigarette. He considered asking Ebenezer for one but wasn’t hip to the idea of a hand-roll. A little grass was all right
but he preferred his cigarettes (on the seldom occasions when he smoked them) to be of the store-bought variety. The only bit of snobbery he could rightly own. Anyway, since Ebenezer had walked in the old man had not smoked, and thinking back, Billy remembered the old storyteller had only smoked one that first night; and then only after the tale was told. This memory turned Billy to thinking about the story again, but he didn’t know how to approach it. Should he just blurt out that he wanted another?

  But once decided the approach was direct and simple enough. He said, “I liked the story the other night. It’s stuck with me ever since.” He stopped and looked Ebenezer in the eye since the storyteller maintained a rigid silence. “It was just a story, wasn’t it? I don’t know a lot about South Africa and World War II.”

  Ebenezer’s eyes never left Billy’s. “Everythin’s just a story when ya get right down to it, son. Everythin we know; everythin we read. Whether we see it or hear it, it’s all really just a story, ain’t it?” He leaned forward at a severe angle across the table, shoveling his mug off to the side with a forearm. The moment held in silence.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right…somehow, I guess that’s how it is.”

  Ebenezer broke the tension with a quick straightening and a double slap to his knees. He laughed loudly, the loudest Billy had yet heard. “Ya’re Goddamn Right Boy!” the old man roared into his mug, sloshing some of the precious Acker over the edge. It took another moment to gather control of himself. When he did he asked, “So ya liked it?” choosing his bait like a fisherman with a secret, startling lure.

  “Yeah I did. Like I said, it’s stayed with me since…like…I don’t know, something I can’t put a finger on. I know it sounds stupid, but I’m really not that great at expressing myself. Not in words at least. Pretty sad for an English major, ain’t it?” Billy shuffled in his seat, grasping at whatever it was he was trying to say. “It’s like your story sparked some sorta ancient memory that gets lost as people get older. Least that’s how it is with me. I seem to remember a feeling like it when I was a kid, but the older I get the less it seems real. I don’t know…”

  The mood slowed, like a pond on a still day.

  “So ya came ta pilfer another one, huh?” Ebenezer said, smiling greatly. “I see that plain enough, and I’ll probably drum one up ta suit ya. The thing is my throat gets terrible dry when I go windin on.”

  Billy held out his hand, standing up again. “Say no more,” he advised, heading toward the bar. Ebenezer turned his head to follow the younger man’s progress. He smiled broadly.

  “So the kid wants another one,” the old man congratulated himself.

  Chapter 18

  Moments later Ebenezer coughed into his fist and shook his head briefly to clear any stray cobwebs that lingered. The move had all the flamboyance of a boxer warming up for a bruising night. Having done so, he then took a smaller sip than Billy was accustomed to seeing and actually grimaced as the dark brew slid home. He was far removed from the frantic pace he’d set out with the first time they’d met.

  Billy noticed the jagged tiredness lurking behind the old man’s eyes but could not bring himself to propose the story wait for another night. Besides, if the old man was ready and thought himself capable, who was Billy to deny him the opportunity? He relegated himself to silence and a vast susceptible anxiousness.

  *

  There was no lead-in; no mysterious preamble. “This thing happened in Norco. Ever heard a the place? Refinery town outside a New Orleans. Leavin the city it’s just off ta the left; at night it’s the only light shinin in the swamp. Jus sittin out there glowin like a lamp in the middle a nowhere. The name’s an acronym for New Orleans Refin’ry Company.” He paused for a sip before adding sarcastically, “Great place ta take the kids fa vacation…”

  Billy smiled back, nodding. He had seen the glowing refinery from a distance several times during late night jaunts to Baton Rouge, but thinking back he’d never considered real people out there. It had only been another light in the darkness.

  “Well,” Ebenezer continued, fresh from wiping a frothy rim from his moustache. “I knew this fella born and raised there. Black fella by the name a Buster Wells. Tall, skinny bastard strong as a goddamn ox. When I was younger in my strappin’ 20s, ‘round the summer a ’59 or there’bouts, this fella musta already been close ta sixty or so. Hard ta tell though; for me it’s always been hard guessin a colored’s age. They seem ta go different than whites. Don’t know what it is.

  “Anyway, this somebitch Wells used ta arm wrestle anybody for anythin. If ya was offerin a dollar he’d take it; if it was a penny, he’d take that too. He didn’t much care. I remember one or two a the younger bruisers takin him but that was somethin didn’t happen very often. Buster had arms like cables. Fuckin ship cables. And now I wasn’t no slouch either back then but Buster musta peeled five-six dollars off’n me that summer.

  “Comes a day after work I met up with him at one a the local dives. Had three watering holes in town them days; one for the whites, one for the blacks, and one a little brackish, workin fellas mostly who was use’ta one another. Now there weren’t a hell of a lotta whites in that place then, but I was tanned pretty good and with all the Cajuns and mulattos and a million other shades a yellow, one person looked damn near like another if they spent any time in the sun.” He looked Billy in the eyes with an irreverent smile on his face. “The sun has a way of evenin things up. Just like death does.”

  He waved his hand around in a circle. “I used ta frequent this partic’lar place once or twice every coupla weeks, the brackish one. I’d pick up a beer and look around; see if Wells was there. If he was I’d stay a bit and if he wasn’t I’d duck out. On days he was, we’d have contests ta see who could outdo the other; lying contests he called ‘em. I just said they was stories. And goddammit, I never did win.

  “Wells was from Des Allemands, southwest a here on Highway 90 t’ward Houma. Been down that way?”

  “No,” Billy answered. “Baton Rouge and Lafayette’s it. I’ve never had much reason to go south of here. No family or anything.” He eyed Ebenezer for a razor remark about his lack of geographical wandering but found none forthcoming. The old man’s grizzled face never even hinted that way.

  “All right. Well, if ya been ta Lafayette ya kinda know what I’m talkin about. It’s like time stopped around there for somethin ta catch up that never did. ‘A course it’s been years since I been Lafayette way and things has probably changed, but the memory in my head ain’t. The people seem older somehow, not individually but as a unit; tightly woven; more attached ta their place somehow. Shit, when I was there it was sometimes hard findin a person who spoke understandable English. And I don’t mean all that movie bullshit Paris-French talk either.” He shook his head and snapped his lips, tipping his mug as he looked to Billy for approval.

  “There’s a lotta strange goin’s-on among the folks in the lower areas, and with the blacks it goes even deeper. Maybe it’s because they mostly keep ta themselves with their superstitions and religion. Most times it’s hard ta find the line separatin one from the other as far as I can tell. Black cats, evil eyes, things howlin in the swamps, spilled salt; everythin has a meaning. A portent, if ya will. They don’t rely on money for power the way whites tend ta, and if we laugh at what we see as superstitions, well, that seems to suit ‘em just dandy ‘cause they don’t have ta worry ‘bout that being run off with too.

  “Now I’m back around ta where I wanta get started,” he said, twirling his fingers in circles in the dim light. “How ya doin?”

  “Fine. This is what I came for,” Billy replied. “Another?” and he raised his empty mug in persuasion.

  “You bet’cha,” Ebenezer shot back, and then grabbed Billy’s sleeve as he started to get up. “No, let Shelly bring it over,” he said, and yelled over his shoulder holding two fingers up. “I don’t need my rhythm gettin broken here.” Billy nodded his head. “Now, on one a those days just sittin around shootin the sh
it with Buster over a coupla cold ones, the conversation got around ta voodoo, magic, all that shit. When he starts goin on I kinda backed off a bit with this incredulous look on my face and told him what a load a bullshit I thought the whole racket was. But right then I could see that wasn’t the right thing because his already dark face darkened even m---“

  “Here it is fella’s,” Shelley broke in and the old man’s eyes bugged out of his skull.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Shelley! That was fast,” he said, turning to the girl and touching her arm at the elbow. “Ya know I can’t be cut off in the middle of my—“

  “And you already know, old man, I don’t like being yelled at from across the room. Besides I was already fixin to bring ya’ll another round. I know how long it takes you, you old goat!” There was a playfulness in her tone but her eyes told the truth. Ebenezer capitulated. “My darlin, pardon my sins,” he said before turning to Billy with, “Pay the nice girl.” Billy was already reaching for his wallet. When he paid she smiled and patted Ebenezer on the head before leaving. “God love her,” he said, watching her back to the bar. He turned back and took down some brew. “So where the hell was I?”

  “At the bar. You’d just told Buster you thought magic was crap,” Billy prompted.

  “Right, right. Well Buster leans over ta me and kinda whispers real low, like he don’t want anyone else hornin’ in, ‘Oh, voodoo’s real all right.’” And Ebenezer’s voice took on a different, lower rasp; perhaps meant as a dialectical illustration of sincerity and truth as it had come from the old black man’s mouth years before. The effect was uncanny. Ebenezer continued.