Red Hot Blues (18 page)

I would have missed her if she left, and a
weight I didn’t know I was carrying, lifts off my chest.

Ace’s mom is released from hospital and stays
mostly in her bedroom, destroyed.

Fiona finally arrives, a simple looking
brown-haired girl who isn’t thin but who definitely isn’t
plus-sized like me. She has light brown eyes and wears a cross
around her neck. She and I don’t get along well. I keep my cool
because I’m trying to be polite, but having her scoff at me because
I’m sleeping in the same room as her brother—“unwedded”—rips my
nerves to shreds.

Eventually, I tell her where she can shove
her self-righteousness. This insults her enough to have her
hightailing it out of the mansion, the farm, the state, and our
lives.

Ace tells me she was just looking for an
excuse to leave. I wasn’t the last straw; I was simply the easiest
excuse she could find to blow town.

If she were to actually remain behind and
look
at the accounting books her daddy-dearest had cooked
all his life, she might lose her magnanimous opinion of the man,
Ace says.

In the beginning of the third week I decide
to fly back to Nashville to see Layna, my mom, and to sing a bit at
the blues club.

Layna sees Kenny Ray unsupervised for the
first time and I’m there when she does. And we spend the day
together, all three of us.

While Kenny Ray plays on the jungle gym,
Layna asks me about things. And I find myself going off like a
hose, just unloading all this tension I’ve had for over two weeks
since being there with him. I realize it hasn’t only been Ace who’s
been struggling under the weight. It’s been me as well.

“He’s stressed out all the time,” I tell her.
“We’ve stopped making love. The first two weeks, it’s all we could
do. And then, it died. Nothing. The place is still running,
somehow. Ace has his nose in books all the time—business books,
accounting books, farming books. Aaron’s gonna be on his feet again
soon and Ace wants to put him in charge of everyday affairs.
Because Aaron knows the farm backwards. But there’s this fiscal
threat, Layna. Bills unpaid, and no way of paying them. Ace thinks
his dad was maybe even cutting on taxes. How else would he have
survived so long? And if he was, then the whole place will crash.
Janice won’t be able to finish college. Aaron will be out of work.
His two daughters won’t finish college either.”

We’re sitting on swings. Layna, looking at
her son, says, “That’s pretty screwed up.”

“Yeah, great advice.”

Gin’s gone for three days. I think it’s good.
Because it shows me I’m getting back on my feet. It shows me I can
deal. I can deal with three days. Any longer and I wouldn’t be able
to handle it. She doesn’t know how much I need her. When I told her
all those times she should go back, I was doing it because I know
she has a life of her own. She doesn’t need a mentally disturbed
guy like me, and all his problems, getting in the way of her
life.

But she stayed. She stayed, and she got me
through.

I would never have gotten through the last
two-plus weeks without her.

Does she know it?

As soon as the pressure’s off my mind, I’ll
make damn sure she does. Damn sure.

The pressure is already easing. Fiona not
helping was a blow, but Gin was here. Gin kept me cool. Kept me
calm. And I plowed through the books and did my damndest to keep
the place running, someway, somehow.

I can’t wait to see her again.

I told her I loved her at the hospital. But
this is beyond love now. This is so much deeper than love. Dare I
say it? I think this is turning out to be...a
relationship
.

And I’m in it.

And I’m not running from it.

And that just makes me smile.

I put Aaron in charge of everything the
moment he’s up and running.
Everything
. And I give him the
house. Momma’s cool with it. She would’ve had him running the place
years ago if it wasn’t for my father getting in the way. And this
house is too large and lonely for just her. It was too large and
lonely for just her and dad for all those years already.

But daddy was a stubborn prick so he would
never consider rewarding his best worker with a better room and
better quarters.

Then again, he did pay that massive tuition
for Aaron’s daughters—

Wait a minute.

I very cold thought hits me. A very ugly,
cold, black, and dark thought...suddenly...hits me.

Janice.

That hand.

On her leg.

He paid for Janice’s tuition as well.

No questions.

No haughty remarks about her “running away”
from him as he’d done all those years before. When the time came,
he paid up.

As if he knew he was guilty and just wanted
to keep things quiet...

Goddamnit!

I have to sit it’s so clear as day to me
now.

I collapse on my dad’s leather chair. Aaron’s
swirling a Bourbon I just poured him, standing. “Evathin OK there,
Ace?”

I look up at him, the room spinning.
Does
he know?

“Aaron—Aaron...the tuition...for your
daughters...”

Something flashes across his eyes, something
angry, something painful. But he hides it. “Yes?”

I swallow. “Why did he pay it for them,
Aaron? Honestly.”

He hesitates. Swirls the Bourbon. Looks up.
“He had a troubled heart, yo fahtha. Or maybe it was a troubled
mind. He’d do...some crehzy things sumtimes.”

I see his hand shaking.

“He touched them, didn’t he?” I say, not
beating around the bush.

Aaron’s glass shakes more violently. He sits.
“They needed an ejjucation, Ace. If they got that, they’d have a
future.”

“You knew about it?”

“I ain’t a ejjucated man, Ace. But one day I
caught im hangin around mah house, down there on the otha side o’
the field. Then mah daughter came out, mah oldest. Doin up her
dress. I don’t think he forced imself or nuthin. But Sheerah
wouldn’t look me in the eye. Not that night. Not the night after.
Not fuh many nights.

“I spoke to yo father. I told him I thought
summin funny was goin on. He said I been good to im. Said I
deserved the best. Maybe a reward. I tole im I needed no reward,
but mah girls needed good schoolin.

“He asked me if I could turn a blind eye.

“I said I couldn’t.

“He said he’d pay for their entire
ejjucation, at the best the country had to offer, when the time
came.

“I said thank you. Simple as that. There
wadn’t no better justice in mah eyes, Ace.

“We didn’t bring it up no more. But I had my
eyes open after that. One night, much later, I caught him again,
walkin down to the shed I’d seen him at a few weeks before. I’d
seen Sheerah goin in there earlier. So there was some arrangement
there. But I didn’t care none for it. Sheerah was sixteen then. Man
had no bidniss makin arrangements with a sixteen year old girl.

“I cocked my shotgun. Yo daddy saw me, shook
in his pants. I done learned a
long
time ago to always have
a shotgun in the house.

“‘Aaron?’ yo father said. ‘Out late tonight,’
he said.

“I tole him, ‘You too, Misser Travers.’

“‘Well, why don’t you go on in and get some
sleep, Aaron. Long day tomorrow.’

“‘Misser Travers,’ I said. ‘I think Sheerah
might wanna go ta school out of state. Startin tamorrow. You can
arrange that, can’t you?’

“I lowered my rifle so that it was aimin just
a little away from im. He looked at the barn where she was at, then
at me, smiled nervously.

“‘You sure about that, Aaron?’

“‘Yessir. The best.’ There was some silence,
then I said, ‘Misser Travers, can I get yo advice on a lil problem
I got?’

“‘Sure thing, Aaron. What kind of
problem?’

“‘It’s a girl problem, sir.’

“Yo daddy smiled a lil there. I wadn’t
smilin.

“‘I got me a girl I’m interested in. A
younger girl. But I’m an old man. And she got a daddy, sir. Crazy
daddy. Daddy who’d put a bullet in me if I step outta line. But she
some sexy booty, sir. But if I step outta line, I know that daddy
gohne put one in me, slowly, painfully. Maybe cut mah fingers off
one by one, sir. Slowly. Very slowly. What should I do, sir?’

“Yo daddy swallowed, Ace. Swallowed hard. He
said, ‘How old is this girl, Aaron?’

“I said, ‘Sixteen, sir.’

“‘Well, I’m sure that is some mighty fine
booty. But a sixteen year old girl might be a bit too young if
there’s a daddy involved.’

“‘
Any
age is too young when there’s a
daddy involved, Misser Travers. Especially when that daddy has a
shotgun, or when that daddy ain’t ejjucated in the laws o’ the land
and would kill without remorse or fear of goin ta jail.’

“Yo daddy swallowed again. He looked at the
barn again, then at mah shotgun. ‘You have a good night, Aaron,’ he
said. He tipped his hat, walked away.

“Next day, Sheerah was on a bus to a private
school. Her sister followed the day after that. When the time came,
they started up at Columbia, right where yo sista is. Justice, Ace.
Justice.”

I know my father’s dead. But I’m gonna exhume
his body and kill him again.

Aaron downs his whiskey. “Can I have another,
sir. Talkin this old stuff always makes me a little angry.”

I get up and grab the decanter, pour Aaron
another glass. And one for myself. “I’m not ‘sir,’ Aaron. And I’m
not my father.”

He laughs. “Oh, that you ain’t! Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

We down the drink. “Another?”

“Not until this hole in mah shoulder is
cleared up! Two fuh tonight has already been too much!”

“Aaron, did they get counseling or
anything...for what happened?”

“A good preacher’s better ’n any ‘counselor’
the world can offer, son. And mah daughters is godfearin girls. And
they can also always talk to me directly, Ace. What happened with
yo father was ugly, but gainin ‘justice,’ as our country likes to
put it, would have left me with nuthin—if I’d gone the courts
route. No job, and poor. I got mah justice. I got the best possible
justice I could. I got mah daughters what they needed. A parent
worth his salt only has that to answer foh in the end o’ his days.
Yo daddy touched mah oldest, at least once. There ain’t no changin
the past. But I changed the future. He never touched her again
aftah I found out. And I was prepared to get another kind-a justice
if he did. Me and mah shotgun. After that, I started carryin me a
knife right here, strapped to mah forearm, and little Betty, my
revolver, strapped to mah ankle. I talkin to ya about yo daddy like
this because I know you’s a man, Ace. He kept this place goin, and
kept these people workin here paid. But if I ever seen him touch
anothah young girl, I was goan kill im.”

“Is that why you worked for him for so long?
To put your daughters through school and college?”

“The
best
school. And the
best
college, Ace. Finally an end ta the Johnson family tradition o’
workin on a damn farm! They goan be the first who ever done
that.

“I was ready tah leave this place after what
I saw that first night. But I got me a good deal out of it. I
turned a bad sitchee-ation into a goodun.”

“You’re a smart man, Aaron.”

“I said I wadn’t ejjucated. Not that I wadn’t
smart. That I am. I’m smarter’n a poodle’s
bee
-hind.”

“It’s gonna be a pleasure working with you,
Aaron.”

“Pleasure’s all mine, sir. Good things come
to those who wait.”

“Aaron, don’t call me sir.”

“Yessir.”

Another month rolls by and the ache is too
much to bear. I’m on the phone with him almost every day. But he’s
a working man now, taking over his daddy’s farm.

I’ve flown over twice, and he’s flown this
way twice as well. A few days apart at a time, that’s all we can
manage.

So much for a quick fling and calling it
quits. Neither of us wants that.

And I don’t want to live in Virginia.

The more time Ace spends there, the more I
feel he’s mired into problems and responsibilities that were not
his, but which he must now deal with because it’s the right thing
to do. Because the people he loves and cares for will suffer if he
doesn’t deal with them. His mother’s not up to the job. What’s that
quote about greatness being thrust upon you? Well, it’s like that
with life’s duties as well. And Ace has the duty of keeping the
hundred-plus employees there, working, paid, alive. Not to mention
his mother’s livelihood. His sister’s.

I understand that all.

And I also understand that I don’t want to
live there. It’s not the life I want. Rural, quiet, away from my
friends.

Being away from him is becoming more and more
difficult.

It turns out his father
did
cut on
taxes. Ace found out about it and came clean with the IRS. So, in
addition to the debt, there’s now the threat of the IRS.

Ace worked out a payment plan with them. He
also got his mom out of her funk by getting her to help with the
things Aaron couldn’t do. Namely, stuff that required reading.

Aaron has a sixth sense about the farm, about
the production. About which chemicals work and which don’t. But he
can’t read. And he doesn’t want to learn. Old men and their
ways...

Ace is knee-deep in it all. And it doesn’t
look like he’ll be able to let go of the reins.

He’s not gonna leave the farm; not
permanently. I know it.

He used to be the guy that always ran, now
he’s the guy that can’t run at all. I’m proud of him. I am. Because
he busted through a personal barrier. He’s the bigger man now, for
staying.

I don’t push him, because I know he can’t
leave, but I’m getting tired now.

Maybe Ace
wasn’t
the one.