Biding Time Page 4

CHAPTER FOUR

  IT TOOK A LONG time for that hand to get better. When I first got back to school, I would catch myself looking for Eric. I knew he wasn't there, I just forgot. People who usually didn't even say hey came up and signed my cast. Everybody was real friendly. But nobody ever talked about Eric. It's like they had a conspiracy. Be real nice to the guy, but don't talk about it.

  The one person I talked to about it was Eric's brother. I hadn't seen Jefferson much the last couple years. After he finished high school, he took a couple classes at the University of the District of Columbia, and then he started working. Nights. He cleaned buildings for the government. I always thought he would play ball. Eric and I thought he was the best, but I guess he wasn't. Mama said any government job was a good one. Maybe. I didn't think I wanted to clean buildings, but I wasn't about to knock it.

  Jefferson had a new car. We sat in it while we talked. "Exactly what is it you want, Frankie?" He hadn't really wanted to talk to me about Eric, I could tell.

  "I'm just trying to.." To what? I wasn't sure myself. "Trying to figure out what happened."

  He looked at me closely, and I remembered the look Eric gave me that day on the bus, riding to the FBI. I decided it was a look of pain. "You know what happened that day. You saw it. So what is it you want to figure?"

  "Was he like, mad at somebody or something? What made him sell dope in the first place?" I asked.

  "You know why he sold. He sold to pay for his."

  Jefferson didn't have a lot to say about any of this. But, I still had to know. "Well, yeah. But, when did he start doing dope? Why did he do that?"

  "You think I don't want to know that, too?" Jefferson looked really angry. I hadn't meant to make him mad. I must have looked strange, because he stopped looking so angry. "Frankie, I tried to figure it out. It ain't what mom says, that's for sure."

  "What does she say?" All I'd heard her say was everything was fine when Eric played with me. As if we were still in third grade.

  "She says it was people he met, in the 'hood." He looked out the window, then looked back at me. "You know the kind of people I mean."

  Of course. I walked by them every day. After you say "no" a couple hundred times, they might leave you alone. Some of them never stop trying to sell you stuff. Usually crack. I nodded.

  "You met them, I met them. We didn't buy their junk. What made Eric do it?" He stopped, and I thought maybe he was going to cry. I didn't know what I would do if Jefferson cried. He was always the one who took care of Eric and me.

  "I didn't do it because...because I always had other stuff to do. But, so did Eric. We always did," I felt myself choking up, "everything together."

  Jefferson kept looking out the side window. "I know you did, Frankie." I saw him smile a little and he looked at me. "Anybody besides your mom and mine call you that?"

  "Not unless they want to get popped."

  He gave me a wide grin. "Well, I can probably still outrun you, but I'll try to remember to call you Frank." He stopped smiling. "Some people, they have to try dope. Maybe it's because they have to try everything, and that means drugs too. But Eric, he tried that crack, and he was hooked. That stuff is ugly. You smoke that lousy stuff, and you're gonna be a crackhead in no time." He looked straight ahead and didn't say anything for a minute.

  All I could do was nod.

  "I think," he said quietly, "I even know when it was he first used the stuff."

  I nodded. "Ninth grade, just after Halloween sometime." My memory was very clear on this. Eric and I had put white powder on our faces and gone to several of our friends' house. We knelt at the door when they answered and said 'trick or treat.' We were stupid sometimes, but it was fun. A couple days later, we were in the cafeteria, and I wanted to show Larissa Taylor what we did. I knelt down and wanted him to do the same. Instead, he walked up and shoved me so hard I fell over.

  Later, he said he was sorry, he just didn't want to be some white guy down on his knees. But it wasn't the push I remembered most. It was the fury in his eyes.

  I looked back to Jefferson, who nodded slowly. "That was the week," he said. "Eric and I never talked much after that. I had just started my job. He kept on me about pushing a broom instead of shooting a ball."

  I felt bad. Jefferson had always been real good to us. "I don't think Eric really meant that. The old Eric, I mean." I didn't know what else to say.

  "Yeah." Jefferson gave a long sigh. "I tell myself that. Listen pal," he sat up straighter in his seat and put his key back in the ignition. "How about I give you a ride home?"

  "Naw. I gotta go see some guys." I didn't, but I didn't want to stay in the car anymore. Jefferson was sadder than I was. I opened the door and got out, and gave him a wave. There wasn't anybody who would talk to me about Eric.

  EXCEPT BROTHER RODRIGUEZ. Just before school was out, he asked me what I was doing all summer.

  "Doing? I dunno. Try to get a job, I guess." It was the first summer I was old enough to work in a store or something.

  "I know a place you could work. My brother needs some help at the Veterans Outreach Center. Somebody to run errands and open up the place in the morning."

  What did he care where I worked? "I dunno." What if they tried to talk to me all the time?

  "Think about it. You dwell on Eric. I don't want you sitting around with nothing to do." He smiled. "Bad for your mother's wall."

  I had to smile back. Sometimes Brother Rodriguez surprised you with what he said.

  "Tell me tomorrow. If you want to do it, you can meet my brother after school tomorrow. I told him I'd walk by."

  I thought about it. I didn't have anything else to do.

  Some of the men at the Center reminded me of Uncle Rudy. Sort of like they were waiting, but they didn't know what for.

  Rodriguez' brother wasn't so bad. "Call me Paul," he said, when I called him Mr. Rodriguez. "I'm not your teacher."

  I liked working at the Center. They all talked about 'Nam like it was just the other day. They kidded around with me. "You hangin' around here waitin' for a date?" This guy Steve asked me that every day. "You can see there's lots of pretty girls around here."

  One morning, when I was there by myself, a new guy came to the door. He pressed his nose against the glass, like a kid looking into the window at the bakery Uncle Rudy used to take me to when I was little.

  "Watcha want, man?" I hollered at him from the back. He was white. Anybody could come to the Center, but hardly any white guys did. I always figured they had their own place.

  "I need to talk to Paul."

  "Not here. We open at ten. He'll get here after that."

  "Lemme in, buddy."

  Not even the regulars could come in early. It was almost ten. Paul said never send anybody away. But he also said be careful when I was there alone. I looked at the guy real hard.

  "I'm not supposed to let anybody in before ten. Especially if I don't know them."

  He put his nose back on the glass and looked at me harder. "You're a kid. Where's Paul?"

  A kid. I started to turn my back, but Paul wouldn't like that. "You see that coffee shop across the street?"

  He turned and looked at it. "Paul there?"

  "No. But if you wait there a few minutes, he'll come over and talk to you."

  He hesitated, and looked from the coffee shop back to me. Maybe he didn't have any money for coffee.

  "You need some money for coffee? I got a dollar." Now why did I do that?

  He smiled. "Thanks, but no. I'll wait over there."

  Paul came in about quarter past ten. "Guy across the street waiting for you. Sounds like it's somebody you know."

  "Huh." Paul walked across, and came back a minute later with the man. They walked together like two old friends. Eric. The man, so tense less than half an hour ago, threw back his head and laughed at something
Paul said.

  They came through the door together. "Frank. You've got to meet Bill. Bill Marshall. Frank Myers." We shook hands.

  The man looked at me real funny. "I knew a Franklin Myers in 'Nam. But I didn't think he had a son."

  "102nd airborne?" Why did I ask him that?

  His eyes brightened. "Yes. Exactly," he paused. "Then you are his son?"

  "He was my uncle." Like I really looked old enough to be his son. I never even met him.

  "I'm sorry he didn't make it back." Marshall said.

  "He's MIA." Nobody said anything. "He died before I was born. He was my mama's favorite brother." It was dumb to say that to a stranger. Like he would care.

  "I'm real sorry, Frank," Paul said. It was the first time we had ever talked about it. I figured he knew.

  I shrugged. I wanted to know how Bill Marshall knew Uncle Frank. I never thought about Uncle Frank having white friends over there. "So, you knew him pretty well?"

  "Your uncle was a fine man. I never flew with him, but we were in the same unit. I saw him every day for, oh, at least six months. He was," he stopped.

  "Was what?"

  "He was just so alive. He paused. "He kept talking about how he was going to go to college when he got out. He was so certain of it."

  Nobody in my family went to college. I hadn't planned on wasting any time there. I didn't know what to say. "So, did you tell Paul what you wanted?" Like it was any of my business.

  "Actually, no." Marshall turned to Paul. "My nephew, James, is somewhere in this city enlisting with the Marines."

  Wow. The Marines. He better be tough.

  "I take it you don't think that's a good idea?" Paul asked.

  "It would be all right if that's what he really wanted to do. But I know it's only because his dad just died. He's confused, and he thinks he has to do this to support his mother. My sister. His mother." He was talking really fast.

  "Have you tried to explain to him that he has other options?" Paul had his counselor hat on now.

  "I would if I could find him. I thought you might know where he might go to do it."

  Paul hesitated. "We'll figure out something. If nothing else, let's look in the phone book under Marine recruiters."

  Stay out of this, I told myself. "What about the one near Metro Center?"

  Marshall almost grabbed me. "Where?"

  I stepped back. "It's easy to get to. It's by the big department store."

  "Good. Good. How do I get there?" Marshall asked.

  Paul eyed me. "Why don't you ride with, him Frank? Bill's not from here." Seeing my hesitation, he added, "You can use my farecard." He produced his Metro ticket from his pocket.

  "I have mine. I'll show you where Metro Center is. But then I gotta come back here. Things I have to do." I didn't want to be mixed up in these white folks' problems.

  It was a hot morning. Marshall didn't talk much during the ride. Once, he asked, "Does your mother talk much about your Uncle Frank?"

  I shook my head. "I think she wishes my Uncle Rudy had died there instead of him." Mama would be really ticked if she heard me say that. It was true, though. Of course, Uncle Rudy hadn't even gone. Said he was too old.

  Marshall didn't say anything.

  We walked from the subway to Armed Forces Recruiting in silence. I figured I should follow him, at least until we found out if his nephew was there.

  Well, there was a white kid there talking to a black Marine. Sharp uniform.

  The kid looked up. "Uncle Bill!" He jumped up. Then he seemed to realize everybody was watching him. "Hi. What are you doing here?"

  "Well, I'm not here to reenlist." In two big steps he was across the room and hugging the kid. Lucky kid.

  I'd walked enough, so I sat down. The Marine nodded to me. Sort of stiff, but not unfriendly.

  Bill Marshall let go of the kid. "Look, James, I'm not here to tell you what to do. I just want to make sure that, well, that you're sure."

  James looked from his uncle to the Marine. "Yeah. We were just sort of talking about that."

  If I ever saw anybody look grateful, it was Bill Marshall when he looked at that Marine. He stuck out his hand. "Bill Marshall. 102nd airborne. Did a tour in 'Nam."

  The Marine seemed glad to meet Marshall. "Lieutenant Tim Hutchins. You're famous for it. At least in your own family."

  Huh. Uncle Frank wasn't famous. He was dead. Like Eric.

  "James," his uncle began, "I know you know how to make up your own mind. I just wanted you to know that..."

  "Actually, Uncle Bill," James smiled at Lieutenant Hutchins, "the Lieutenant here has been telling me a lot of the same stuff. I guess you and he kind of think alike."

  Marshall looked relieved not to have to make the whole pitch.

  James turned to the Marine. "I really appreciate your time, sir."

  "We'll be looking forward to talking to you in a couple years, young man." The Marine was smooth.

  Marshall turned to me. "I really appreciate what you've...My gosh. How rude!" He looked at James. "This is Franklin Myers. His uncle and I served together in Vietnam." We shook hands. "Franklin guided me down here."

  I could see a million questions in James' eyes. Like, "how did his uncle start out from somewhere where he needed me for a guide to get him here?" And so on.

  "Thanks, Franklin."

  James sounded like he knew he'd been a lot of trouble. "S'alright."

  Bill Marshall faced me. "If you ever want to know more about your uncle, I'd be happy to talk about him. He was a great guy."

  "Yeah. Well, Paul knows where to find me. I live near the Center."

  I didn't know if I wanted to give this man my address. Mama might not like one of Uncle Frank's war friends coming by. If Uncle Rudy had too much to drink, he'd say 'there goes the neighborhood.' He must have heard somebody get a good laugh with that line, because he used it every time he saw a white person go into a house on the block. Not that it happened that often. Except at the house at the corner, where they sold dope.

  Bill Marshall stuck out his hand. "I'll see you again." It was a firm handshake.

  "Yes, sir." Why did I call him sir?

  They left, waving at me as they went by the recruiting office window, going toward the Metro.

  I looked at the Marine. "I thought you were supposed to sign 'em up." What a smart ass I was.

  He laughed. "We like to do that. But you want to make sure a guy really wants to come." He grew more serious. "This is a tough time for James. He'll be able to make a better decision a little later. We may get him yet."

  "Yeah. You guys get to go to Bangkok?" I hadn't thought much about that since Eric died. When he wasn't giving me grief about why I wanted to go, he was saying he'd go with me.

  "We have a Marine detachment at the embassy, like we do everywhere. But we don't have a unit stationed there." The Marine was looking at me like I asked a weird question.

  "I gotta get back to work. At the Veterans Outreach Center." Why did I tell him that?

  "The one on Seventh Street?"

  I nodded.

  "You know Paul, then."

  Paul knew everybody.

  "He's a good friend of my dad's. They served together."

  Small world. "Anything you want me to tell him?"

  "Tell him Lieutenant Timothy Hutchins sends a salute." He grinned. "If he doesn't recognize that name, tell him Joe's boy Timmy says hey. He'll know who you mean."

  I held out my hand to him. "Maybe you'll see me again, too." Mama would have a fit.

  "Man, that'd be great!" He shook my hand up and down real hard. A bunch of times. "I'd really like that."

  I turned to go. "You want some literature, Frank?" he asked.

  "Yeah. I guess so." This was crazy. But, what mama didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Eric wouldn't have liked it. Maybe Uncle Frank would've. />