Dirty South

Curtis’s shoulders shrank a bit. “Maybe it would make her more quiet.”

“You’re a lucky man, brother.”

He winked. “I’ll call.”

“I need this fast,” I said. “Today.”

I held his gaze and he slowly nodded, understanding. Some of the biggest fuckups I’ve ever known always come through in a pinch. Maybe they do because they’ve been in similar situations.

“What’s up?”

“My friend borrowed money from the wrong folks.”

“Greaseballs?”

“Nope,” I said. “A mucho bad motherfucker.”

“Man,” he said. “At least with the greaseballs you knew where the shit was flyin’. This city has turned to shit ever since the Mafia turned into a bunch of pussies.”

He wrote my cell-phone number on his hand.

8

I STOPPED AT THE MARKET and bought a large Snoball in a cup, black cherry, and sat on the back loading dock trying to figure out what to do next. I had to wait for Curtis, since ALIAS hadn’t given me anything to work with. I shared a little of the cone with Annie while a farmer in overalls unloaded crates of strawberries. She worked her tongue over the ice neatly as her tail wagged a lot. I scratched her chest and kept watching the man unload the crates.

“Dem dogs are nasty, no?” he asked in a deep Cajun accent.

“No,” I said, smiling. “Dogs’ mouths are cleaner than a human’s.”

“No human I know lick their backside like that,” he said.

“Annie doesn’t lick her ass,” I said, digging my spoon into the ice. “Very much.”

The old Cajun shook his head and disappeared with a dolly full of strawberries. I turned back to Annie.

“You want to stay with me?”

Annie wagged her tail, the twisted muttlike loop knocking against my arm. I thought about where she’d been in the Delta, days before. Starving out by a dusty road where she would’ve probably died under a truck tire.

I called Teddy from my cell and asked him about the DJ he’d mentioned. The guy who’d been sold out by Cash.

“Lorenzo Woods?”

“Where does he coach?”

Teddy told me. I laid the rest of the Snoball on the ground for my new friend. Annie scarfed it up and pawed at the Styrofoam when it was gone.

“What you wastin’ your time with him?” Teddy asked, his voice broken by static. “He doesn’t know shit.”

“He knows Cash.”

“Yeah,” he said. “They was tight.”

“And now he doesn’t like him.”

“Yeah.”

“JFK is on Wisner, right?”

THE SCHOOL’S security guard stopped us as soon as we hit the front door. He had a big belly and a small gun and snorted when he talked as if announcing a sermon on where dogs are welcome. Apparently school wasn’t one of them.

“That’s racism.”

“A dog ain’t no race.”

“It’s a species.”

“That ain’t no race, and it needs to be outside.”

He put his hands on his hips.

“Will you call Coach Woods?”

“Why would Coach Woods want to see some dog?”

“She’s the best placekicker in the southern parishes.”

He squinted his eyes up and shook his head, turning his back to us.

“Wait till you go pro, Annie,” I said. “They’ll all be sorry.”

Coach Woods found us a little while later on this old practice field where Annie and I were playing with a tennis ball she’d found. He was about forty and black. Wore a crewneck T that said KENNEDY D-LINE. LIKE A ROCK.

“You lookin’ for me?” He kept his hair short and it had started to turn gray at the temples. Annie trotted over with the tennis ball and dropped it against my leg. I took the slobbery ball, tossed it about thirty yards, and she took off for it.

“Heard you used to be DJ Capone.”

He just watched me.

“Heard that Cash stole your beats.”

Woods walked closer. “What you sellin’, man?”

“I’m a friend of Teddy Paris. Said maybe you could help me figure out Cash a little bit.”

“Teddy?” he said, smiling.

He squinted into the sun behind my head as Annie looped back and dropped the ball by my foot. Out in the field, the team still kept the old-school goalposts that were shaped like an H. They reminded me of a field with high grass in south Alabama where my dad coached. He used to have to cut the grass himself. Sometimes he’d make me weed the field as he slipped back into his office to drink some Beam on ice.

“You know Cash?”

I shook my head and dropped to a knee to slow Annie down a bit. She was still too skinny to be a healthy dog.

“He give you that scar on your face?”

“Got that myself.”

“Figured as much,” he said. “What business you got with Cash?”

“Teddy and Cash are fighting over money and recording this boy out of Calliope.”

“ALIAS,” he said. “Yeah, I know all about that.”

“I’m looking out for the kid’s interests.”

“Cash will kill you if you get in the way.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But would he really kill Teddy?”

“Teddy owe him money?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Teddy owes everybody money.”

“You want to take a walk?”

I hooked up Annie to her leash and we began to walk around a rubberized track that circled the football field. We kept looping around the field and I still felt like I needed to be weeding all these years later. I thought about ALIAS at fifteen, wondered how long he’d been out of school.

“You’re Nick Travers, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said and shook his hand.