The Unraveling of Mercy Louis (12 page)

“It must seem pretty unreal,” she says.

“Most days it's all I can do to open a can of chili for the kids, do my homework, help them with theirs. While he's just sitting there, mad as hell, watching us do this shit that means nothing.”

“That sucks,” she says. It's all she can come up with in the face of such awfulness. Maybe it's morbid, but one of the reasons she feels close to Lennox is because she knows he understands when she talks about Mama, though the difference is that Mama lives like she wants to die, while Mr. McBaine is ready to set the world on fire in order to keep breathing.

“I can't believe that asshole thinks he can win an election in this town.”

“Who?” she asks.

“Who do you think?” He sucks his teeth. “Mr. Big Shot.”

She thinks for a second. “Beau Putnam?”

“Annie told me. He'll announce at the ‘Purity Ball.'” He makes air quotes as he says it. “What a crock.” It all makes sense now, she thinks. Beau needs Annie to play golden girl at the Purity Ball so he can win in November. “You can see the GB apartments from here. You know how many times we change our air filters?” He pauses. “Once a week. We take them out and they're black as coal. Sanchez at least pays lip service to change, but it still doesn't mean shit happens. You think Beau Putnam's going to watchdog his own company? You think he gives a shit for the black folk on the Fenceline? For all the ignorant suckers like my dad who worked for twenty years at the plant only to end up with a death sentence?”

“Sands must be backing him.”

“Annie says he wants to be governor one day, and pity the fool who gets in his way.
He'd kill a man for that kind of power,
that's what she said.”

Illa decides not to tell Mama; the news will cut her to the core. Beau will make a public announcement soon, she's sure. Why not give her mother a few more weeks of ignorance? She watches the distant ship channel, the waves whipped to frothy peaks by the warm wind. She drinks the beer down in three long gulps, puts her hand out for another. Lennox opens two fresh bottles, then hands one to her before sitting down beside her. This close, she's aware of the warmth of his body, the bready smell of his sweat, the movement of muscles in his lean arms, which makes a fat pink scar just below his elbow dance.

“You could get some great pictures up here,” he says.

“Left my camera back in the room.” She places her hands flush against the cool concrete of the sculpture.
Danger, danger,
she thinks. The heat and beer have made her unaccustomed body slack and dreamy. With drunken boldness, she studies his profile: broad jaw, blunt, square nose, pillowy lips, a somewhat outsize ear, wild dark eyebrow parenthetical over amber eye, honey skin, a shadow of stubble. A shiver starts in her groin, moving down her legs to her toes. Panicked, she looks away, fixating on the red ship now gliding slowly out of the harbor. This is the feeling that makes girls into fools, makes them pine for boys like a body misses a bone. His thigh brushes hers and she shies away. No one ever regrets staying in control.

“Beau Putnam has to get his,” Lennox says. “I'd give my left nut to be the guy who gives it to him.” He sets his bottle on its side and lets it clatter down the concrete slope and disappear over the edge. The length of a breath, then the sound of shattering glass.

“How are things with Annie?” She can barely speak the words. From Lennox's silence, she senses that even this question is the wrong one and that no amount of beer will make it right.

“Beau caught us together a couple weeks ago. He called her
nigger lover
.” He spits over the edge of the Hands. “The man's scary when he's mad. I didn't want to leave her there alone with him raging like that, but there's no arguing with two hundred and fifty pounds of pissed-off beef.”

“You think he hit her?”

“Don't think he read her a bedtime story.”

Illa feels sewn to her spot. In the tiny openings between the Hands' fingers, she can see gulls coasting on the wind, snowy heads trained downward looking for food, their shrill calls accusing. A hiss as he levies another beer cap. She swallows, her throat dry from beery sugar.

“Man, Annie ran off the rails when her dad announced that stupid ball. She even stopped talking to Mercy. Thought she had something to do with it.”

Illa sits up. “But they're still friends, right?” She wants the answer to be no. With Annie around, it would be harder for Illa to find her way into Mercy's circle. Even though she knows she could be a better friend to Mercy than Annie Putnam—hell, a nutria rat could do the job better. Illa just needs a chance.

“No idea. Annie's not really the talkie type. Not with me at least.”

“Sorry,” Illa says again, feeling doltish.

“You ask me, it's stupid of her to wrong Mercy that way, after all the girl's done for her. It's bad news for everyone.”

“What does that mean?” Illa asks. “Why?”

He takes a slug of beer. “Without Mercy around, Annie's a ticking time bomb.”

A
NNIE'S PURITY BALL
is set for August, just before school starts, and Maw Maw has been busy with preparations.
Just in time,
she says.
Now the girl won't burn come December.
The women of the Purity Coalition are excited about the ball; they're glad to have such a high-profile family in for the cause. To start with, there's the budget—more than most weddings in town—and the coalition, made up of a dozen women from different churches around town, hopes it'll bring in lots of people.

How strange that Maw Maw now has more contact with the Putnam family than me. With each day that passes, I miss Annie more and more. That early-summer day with her at Crystal Beach, that perfect day, seems distant as a dream. We've fought before, but we've never gone more than a day without seeing each other. Without her, I wake disoriented, waiting on a phone call telling me to meet her at the field house or the gym or the seawall for a run through the soft sand. But the call doesn't come, so instead I try the Putnam house. Every morning I call first thing, only to have Lourdes tell me that Annie isn't feeling well and can't come to the phone.

To try to take my mind off of her absence, I throw myself into training. I go early to the track before it gets too hot, but even at six a.m., you can feel the day sitting on your shoulders while you run. I start in the dark, do ten four-hundred-meter sprints with two minutes recovery time between. Some days I run hills, sprinting the incline, feeling my hamstrings harden into steel bands before jogging back down the hill to do it again. By the time I finish, the sky is an ecstatic pink, clouds spread out like orange petticoats, the Gulf beginning to reveal itself on the horizon. Sweat-soaked and spent, I like to lie on the nubbly surface of the track and watch the day take shape. There is something satisfying about disciplining the body in this way; the completion of each punishing routine leaves me happy in the knowledge that, come the season, my feet will be winged.

Every other morning, I go into the field house to do weights. The place is built of cinder blocks so it keeps cool, and I don't mind the smell of stale sweat. Coach Martin would kill me if she knew I was working without a spot, but what can I do, with the other girls on the road playing AAU all summer? Alone with only the sound of plates clanging together between sets, I can count the beats of my heart. Clean-and-jerks, squats, wall sits, bench presses, pull-ups: I work my arms lean and strong, my calves into tight pistons. I talk to myself, count out loud, yell to get the last push like the guys do.

Evenings, I play pickup at Park Terrace, down near the shuttered elementary school. The first night at the playground, I'm nervous. I haven't played a real game since the semi, because afterward, even the smell of the gym made me anxious. When Marcus Drab passes the ball to me so we can shoot for teams, he ribs me: “Show me you're not all hype, Miss Mercy.” He's six-five, skin the color of caramel sauce and eyes just the same, his mama a Creole from an island she returned to without him long ago. When he slips the ball in the basket, his fingertips caress the rim. “She my lady, gotta be gentle,” he says, and the other boys say
Oooooeeee
as if they're in pain. I starfish my hands onto either side of the ball, squeeze hard; the leather surface has a pleasing tackiness. I dribble once, twice, bend at the knee, my arm arcing up. It is so quiet you can hear my fingernails drag on the surface just before the ball releases into the air. Then:
swish.
Such a soothing sound for a rough-and-tumble game.
My body remembers.
Standing here, I feel such a warming flood of relief that my legs noodle, threaten to go out. Marcus breaks the silence, snapping me back to the moment: “Thas right, there the Black Angel, she all
walk,
no
talk,
and she on
my
team!”

On that court with these boys, my game returns, and gratitude sharpens my play. After the semi, I was scared my touch was gone forever, but here I see that I just had a bad game.

At Park Terrace, I forget about Charmaine and Annie, the LeBlanc Avenue baby, and the coming Rapture. I remember only the feel of the ball in my hand and what it's like to fly. Playing good ball is like total freedom and total control, two opposing wires fused together to make me electric. And oh, I love to shock these boys. After I hit a three, Marcus crosses his wrists at his chest, flutters his hands like a dove taking flight. “Dang, snowflake,” he says. “Dang.”

Insects form clouds around the park lights as they flicker on. Cheers echo from the nearby baseball diamond where boys play American Legion, the announcer's baritone like a muffled blues horn, ball against bat ringing out like the sound of summer. Young women push strollers by, laughter bubbling up into the air around them. There are girls who come to watch us most nights, black and Mexican girls I recognize from school, Fenceline girls I never talk to because we're in different crowds. They wear candy-colored halter tops, jean shorts that end just below their butt cheeks; they jeer at the boys, say sassy things when a shot is missed, join the chorus of shouting when someone blocks a shot.

I know it's an act; that later, the candy girls will pair off with the boys and sneak away to dark, cool places—cars, movie theaters—and in private, they will go soft, giggling, whispering sweet words that the boys will store up to remember later, when they're alone. I wonder what it's like to have a boyfriend. In church, we aren't allowed. When we're ready to marry, we go through a father-guided courtship. I'm supposed to start mine after graduation, but if Maw Maw is right, there'll be none of that. I guess it's better to die a virgin, anyway, a real bride of Christ.

Here on the blacktop, this street ball is pure joy, the games ritual chaos, all pumping legs, swiping arms, forward-tilted bodies; I give myself up to the glorious mess of it, and I remember something I forgot in the struggle to earn hardware for Coach's trophy case: this game is
fun
. And I'm
great
at it. Quick first step, sure shot, fast hands. Yep, yep. These summer nights I feel God all around us, watching our bodies do these miraculous things. Though I'd never say so, I know Maw Maw's wrong about basketball, that it doesn't distract from the Lord but proves the potential of our flying bodies, built in His image.

At night I struggle to sleep. My body doesn't want to stop moving, even for a second. I'm hungry to play. Now that I have my game back, I start to dream about college again, the word
scholarship
a luxurious sigh. Sometimes, during breaks in play when I catch my breath, gulp down Gatorade, marvel at the shadow-shapes the trees make against the darkening sky, I catch myself wondering about Charmaine, if she got that letter I sent and what she thought about it.
Forget Charmaine,
I think just as quick.
She is as nothing to you now as she ever was, a letter is no better than a story; neither is flesh, neither is warmth.
Still, I remember how her letter blazed through me, leaving my heart bald as a flame-eaten hilltop.

One night when I get home from scrimmaging, my skin wet with the warm rain that has started falling, I hover by the phone, considering a call to Coach. I want to reassure her that I won't let her down again, not after everything she's done for me—the hours of game tape analyzed, the highlight reel she put together and sent off to dozens of college coaches. And then the follow-up phone calls, the update letters written to include each milestone I reached, each school or district record broken. Outside, the rain insists against the window and steam rises from the pavement, veiling the fresh darkness.
Why do you do it?
I asked her last spring, a few weeks before State.
Spend all this time, when you've got classes to teach and your own life to attend to?
We'd finished a team dinner at her house, and as the other girls filed out, she'd gestured for me to stay.
Because praying's not going to get you this scholarship, Mercy,
she said.
You need boots on the ground for the dirty work. That's me, that's my job. When your kind of talent comes along . . .
She whistled.
Boy howdy. As a coach, you just kind of wake up and go, Okay, this girl is going to be a big part of my life from now until she goes to college, I'm going to do whatever it takes to make sure she gets where she needs to go. And you thank your lucky stars
.

I remember that night as I stand by the phone, and tears gather at the corners of my eyes. With effort, I blink them back, eventually walking away without picking up the receiver. I'll get to that place with her again, I'm sure of it; prove that her time and trust weren't wasted.

AT PARK TERRACE,
people drop by the playground to watch us play, neighborhood boys dreaming of varsity, the candy girls, old men playing checkers who want to remember what it was like to be young. When Travis Salter first appears, I don't make much of it. Still, the way the boy moves catches my attention. He's tall, not thick-shouldered like the ballers but slender, and I swear, he
glides.
He has this guitar, and whenever one of the candy girls yells an insult at a player, Travis puts it to music, harmonizing with her yowling until the whole row of girls is busted up laughing. He must be angling for one of the Candies, with their suntan-oiled legs and big summertime hair cascading around their faces.

One night when I've got the hot hand, I float to the bucket and drop in a delicate layup for the win, despite the hulking boys who, flailing, try to keep the ball from its destiny—
thump, swoosh.
I whoop and say something obnoxious to Hector Hernandez, the guy guarding me. He has a blockish face covered in acne scars. As the words leave my mouth, I catch sight of Travis, who's got this grin on his face like he's enjoying the moment as much as I am. I stare a little too long, I guess, because Marcus starts in with the teasing: “Angel face got a
crush,
oooooh.” But Marcus is soon distracted by one of the Candies, and I scurry to where my things are piled up at the edge of the court. When I look up again, Travis is standing over me.

“Hey,” he says.

“Yeah?” I say defensively. Dadgummit, but where is Annie Putnam when I need her most?

Lord forgive me, but I'm weak. I look up and take in Travis's face. He's got a wide, expressive mouth, a dimple splitting his chin. Hastily, I glance down at my gym bag, pretending to dig for something. But then I look up again, feeling like Lot's wife, waiting to be turned to salt for my staring. Instead, there's just this strange sensation, my whole body the beating wing of a butterfly.

“Mercy Louis, I know I'm not the first to say it, but you're a natural,” he says.

I take off my soaking socks, slide into rubber flip-flops. “Thanks,” I say, still a little out of breath. He's not a jock, so I don't see much of him around school, but I know of him the way I know about everyone in my class. Each spring, he's playing a new instrument in a new band at the talent show, and every year, his band wins with some song he's written.
Emo,
Annie says, pretending to shove her finger down her throat—but I always found the music good-sad, like a happy memory recalled.

The boys have cleared out; even when they're on my team, they don't like to stick around too long if I've been the one to have the last word.

“You don't look happy when you play,” Travis says.

“Supposed to smile pretty taking an elbow?”

“You don't look unhappy, either.”

“God gives you a gift, you don't spit on Him with unhappiness.”

“You sure it's God? You look devilish out there sometimes.” I swear he winks, and though I'm not the kind of girl to giggle, I nearly do, it strikes me as so corny. “You look like . . .” He pauses. “Like you're in pain, a little. Your brow creases up . . .”

“Focus . . .”

“ . . . you purse your lips until there's almost nothing left of them . . .”