Back to Wando Passo, David Payne [little red riding hood ebook .TXT] 📗

“Did she mention she’s having an affair?”

“With who?”

“I’ll give you three guesses. One should do.”

Shanté took this in. “You’re sure?”

“Pretty goddamn much.”

“And you’ve asked her?”

“Gee,” he said, “I didn’t think of that….”

“You have to ask her, Ran.”

“I think, under Robert’s Rules, the burden of disclosure falls to the deceiver in the case.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Shanté said. “If that’s true, I’m very, very sorry for you.”

“Fuck it, Shan. Don’t be sorry for me. I’m a grown-up. I’ve had affairs. People do. You don’t end a twenty-goddamn-year marriage over them.”

“Sometimes people do.”

He turned to her and frowned. “What, exactly, did Claire tell you?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, Ransom. Only what I’ve said. Can I ask you something, though? How is your marriage anyway? Are you sure you aren’t just clinging to something that’s already dead? Because people do that, too.”

Ran felt something roiled and dark rise up in him. “I love her more now than when we met.”

“And Claire?”

“You’ll have to ask her that.”

“You’re the one who has to ask. That’s what you need to do, and the sooner the better.”

“I can’t go back right now.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t, okay? I need to get my thinking straight. I was hoping maybe I could stay here for a while.”

“Here?” The suggestion seemed to take her by surprise.

“Just until the Odyssey is fixed,” he said, backpedaling.

“I don’t think so, Ran.”

“Why not? Because I’m white?”

“That’s one reason. This isn’t someplace where unhappy white guys get to come and sleep in a grass hut and get some R and R.”

“So what about the family tree?” he asked her, with a bitter note.

She just stared at him the way her mother had through the screen that night so long before, with an expression in which sorrow and pity had made peace with something else resigned and hard.

Ran gazed down at the medallion in his hand. He pressed his thumb over the incising, hard. “You know,” he said, “those old bastards at the mill, my dad and them…In that bathroom I used to clean, they pissed all over the floor and walls.”

“Why did they do that?”

“To show how mad they were, I guess.”

“You think your dad did it against you?”

Ran stared at the medallion, uncertain of the answer. It didn’t take him long to find it, though. “No,” he said. “No, actually I don’t. I think he did it to get back at Kincannon. And do you think Big Herbert ever set foot in that place? Probably not one time in his whole life. Daddy knew that, too. He knew who was going to have to clean up after him and still pissed on the walls. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be that mad, Shanté, so mad you’ll hurt yourself and make a cesspool of your head—a place you and your buddies use a dozen times a shift—all in order to inflict a meaningless revenge on a man who’ll never even notice? That’s what Daddy did. He made it worse on me, on him, on everyone. Because that’s all he had to strike: himself. If you understand that, you understand a lot about my dad.”

“Is that how mad you are?” she asked.

He gazed at her with burning eyes. “We aren’t talking about me.”

Shanté held his stare and just said, “Oh…”

“You shat on me,” he said, sitting up. “You and Delores both.”

“How, Ran? Because I didn’t run away to Neverland with you? I wanted to explain. You never returned my calls.”

“That’s right,” he said. “Go ahead. Put the blame on me because I didn’t stay in touch. You think I don’t know the reason why you didn’t come? You were the closest thing I ever had to family, and you shut…” He looked away. “You shut the door in my fucking face, Shanté…. Because I wasn’t good enough.”

She shook her head. “That wasn’t why.”

“Don’t bullshit me,” he said. “You were middle-class and I was poor white trash. I wasn’t good enough then, and now I can’t even spend the night down here because I’m white? Where am I supposed to go, Shanté? I can’t go home; I’m not good enough for Claire. Her aunt Tildy informed me yesterday I’m not good enough for my own kids. You want to know why I came here? Because there’s no place left. I don’t have anybody else. You were the last card in my deck.”

He tried to hand her the Saint Christopher, but she closed his hand back over it. “It was a sweet dream, Ran. It was the sort you’re supposed to have at seventeen. I wouldn’t trade it, but it was never going to come to pass.”

“Why not, Shan? Why the fuck—”

She put a finger on his lips. “Shut up now and listen. I’m going to tell you what I think. I think you’re running away. I think you always do. You say Mama and I shut the door, but you’re the one who ran. Just like your name. What are you doing here, Ransom? What is this, road trip? Is this your ‘Freebird’ thing again?”

He put his hand over his heart. “Ouch, Shan, Lynyrd Skynyrd? That really cuts.”

“Fuck you,” she said, dead sober now. “If you’re on vacation from adulthood, Ran, do it someplace else, on someone else’s dime. Don’t waste my time.”

He started to get up, but Shanté pulled him back. “Listen to me, you son of a bitch. Among Simon’s people, there’s a saying: ‘Ku Mpemba kwatekila wa waku ukudila mvutu.’ It means, ‘In Mpemba, the land of the good Dead, there is one of yours who will assist you in your hour of need.’ If you dreamed of Mama, Ransom, that’s the reason why. White or not, you were one of hers, and she was one of yours, and so am I, goddamn it. So am I, Ransom.” She took his face between her hands. “I’m here for you, right now, today. If you’re having problems, spiritual problems, and they’re real, I’ll help you any way I can. But only if you