AFTER THE POLICE finished asking all their stupid questions, I turned to Daniel. "Is there any way this will stay out of the paper? I mean, here in the Observer building?"
"Everyone's already asking questions." He looked around at some of the other reporters who had gathered in the morgue. "The police record is open to us."
"Great, just what I need. More publicity. I want to go home." I turned to leave, but he didn't follow me.
"Harold will be fine. Don't worry about him." His voice slapped me.
I turned back to see pain in his eyes. "Sorry." Embarrassed, I tried to cover my selfishness. "I'm concerned about him, but you have to remember I was the one stalked and threatened; I-"
"All you think about is yourself. That's so like the Harris family." He turned and walked toward the elevator.
"Wait a minute. What upset you?" Anger boiled up in my throat. "Excuse me, but I did have my life in danger, maybe you wanted that to be me on the floor."
Daniel jerked around to look at me. "No. That's not what I mean. I just…" His voice trailed off. Swallowing hard, he bit his lower lip. "I'm worried about you. Why would anyone want to hurt you?"
"You mean besides being Charlotte 's token faggot?"
Daniel turned away from me.
I knew my words had hit him hard. "I didn't mean it was your fault."
"But," he said without looking at me, "this wouldn't have happened if not for my article."
I didn't have the strength to try to comfort him. The voice of the stalker haunted my mind; I needed to be back at Ruby's, somewhere, anywhere I might feel safe. "Daniel, let me know how he's doing."
Facing me again, he asked, "Do you want me to drive you home?"
"No, thanks. I'll be fine." I pushed my way through the police officers and newspaper workers, glad to be leaving the morgue alive.
I DIDN'T TELL Ruby what had happened; instead I headed straight to bed. "Be sure to lock up," I called with my toothbrush in my mouth.
"What?" Ruby yelled back.
"Make sure you lock the doors."
"Honey, those doors are always locked." She appeared in the bathroom doorway. Her crimson curls corralled in a hairnet, an emerald quilted housecoat wrapped tightly around her buxom form, for some reason she brought to my mind Miss Kitty from Gunsmokereruns. "You okay?"
"Yes, ma'am." I rinsed the toothpaste out of my mouth. "The newspaper article makes me a little nervous."
"A lot has happened since yesterday morning." She handed me a towel. "Don't worry about a thing. Walterene and I have a Peter Beater under the bed."
"A what?" I watched her go to her bedroom, crouch, and pull a baseball bat from under the bed.
She held it with both hands as if ready to bash the lamp. "My Peter Beater. Any man who tries to get in here will get his peter beat with this bat."
I winced and grabbed my crotch. "Invited men get to keep theirs, right?"
"Don't worry about your little thing."
"Hey!" I protested her choice of adjective.
"Nothing will happen to us with this nearby."
I pushed the bat down to her side and kissed her cheek. "Goodnight, Wonder Woman."
BEFORE BREAKFAST, I decided to take a run around the neighborhood. The cool breeze and brightening sunshine would cleanse the memory of the past night. I wished it had been a dream. Picking up the Observer from the driveway and scanning its pages for any mention of the incident in its own basement, I found nothing and set the paper inside the door for Ruby. "I'll be right back," I yelled to the kitchen. "I'll only run a couple of miles around the neighborhood."
"Don't go too far. Breakfast will be ready soon," Ruby replied.
Closing the door, I stretched in the driveway. Several cars and a school bus drove by-Friday morning rush hour in Sedgefield. I jogged up Wriston Place under the sheltering branches of oaks and elms, their new spring leaves bright in the rising sun. Their roots had buckled the old sidewalk, so I kept my focus on my path. The street ended at Dorchester where Saint Paul 's Methodist Church kept a steady eye on the neighborhood. Beyond its steeple, the Bank of America tower presided over downtown Charlotte 's skyline. Jogging over to Poindexter, I cranked up my speed to a steady run.
More cars traveled Poindexter, so I made sure I stayed on the sidewalk. One week, I thought, one week and all this shit has come down. Walterene's funeral had been bad enough, but seeing Mark made being back harder than I expected-although Kathleen had turned out to be okay. How would she react if she knew?
My mind went back to those summers with Mark home from Duke. His sister Margaret was married and out of the house, so was Mike. Aunt Irene and Uncle Vernon never seemed to be at home, so Mark and I would sit on the back porch of Vernon 's Queens Road mansion and drink beer and smoke pot, and talk. We talked forever on those humid nights; he told me about college and how he wanted to travel around the world. The plan we made was that he would graduate and get a job somewhere in the Northwest, maybe Oregon. Then, he'd build a cabin in the woods-a Harris dream always included building something. As soon as I graduated from high school, I'd join him. There, we could be free from our parents and be together.
As I neared South Boulevard, I stopped to catch my breath. Hands on my hips, I walked and sucked air; sweat rolled down my face. Got to stop smoking so much. Looking back down the road I had just traveled, I decided to walk a little more, and then broke into a jog back toward Ruby's house.
Oregon, shit. I laughed out loud at the thought. Mark was all talk back then; he still was. He'd fallen into line when his time came, just like everyone else.
The city skyline rose above the oaks and elms as I ran down Poindexter, and I wondered if he was in his office this morning. As soon as I pictured Mark working at his desk, Daniel's image overtook my mind. I smiled. I'll call him when I get hack.
My thighs ached, and my stomach cramped as I hit the distance when I knew the run was doing me good. Approaching Dorchester again, I decided to stay on Poindexter to extend the run. I liked the little brick houses and jade green yards of Walterene's and Ruby's neighbors. Azaleas bloomed thick and bright while tulips drooped their heavy heads; oaks stretched across the road to touch branches with elms; maples pushed their own bushy branches into the canopy as if they where missing out on what the bigger trees had going.
These oaks are massive. Mr. Sams' oak. The thought almost tripped me. That poor man, hanged from that tree outside Ruby's door. I tried to imagine Vernon and Mother, Walterene, Ruby, Edwina and Roscoe, and the various other cousins living in this town that Grandpa Ernest ruled from behind his desk. Did they lynch him?
I stopped running in front of a towering pin oak. Maybe the newspaper article had nothing to do with last night; maybe the scratchy-voiced man wasn't a gay-basher, but knew that I knew about Mr. Sams. Had he said anything about Mr. Sams? No, but a killer wouldn't reveal his motive to his victim, would he?
"I was there looking for information on him," I explained to no one as I walked and caught my breath. "If they did have something to do with his murder, it couldn't come out now, not with Vernon 's campaign in full force." A woman jogged past me, and I smiled at her, but kept on talking to myself. "Who knows what I know?" I took a step for each name, "Ruby, for sure; Mother? Valerie? Mark? Vernon? No I haven't mentioned this to any of them, unless Ruby has told them."
I began to run again. The low rumble of a car approaching from behind caught my attention. Turning onto Sunset Road where there was no sidewalk, I stayed to the right. The car still followed me. Go ahead and pass me, dickhead. I jogged closer to the curb. Why is he following me? Not wanting to look back at him, paranoid thoughts clouded my mind. I looked for other people along the street. No one. I was alone on the street, and a strange car followed me. From the corner of my eye, I saw the dark car creep up beside me.
I looked for an escape.
"Excuse me," a squeaky voice said.
Terror strangled me.
An elderly woman asked from the passenger side window of the Chevy sedan, "Can you tell me how to get to Park Road?"
Letting out the breath I had held, I almost laughed at myself. Squirrelly fear mocked my usual reason. After pointing them in the right direction and looking around to gauge how far I was from Ruby's house, I turned and ran back.
"GET IN HERE," Ruby scolded. "Your breakfast is getting cold."
I went straight to the sink for a glass of water. After gulping it down, I asked, "Who knows about how Mr. Sams was killed?"
Ruby stopped dishing out eggs in mid-spoon. "Who said he was killed? People said it was suicide."
"Walterene's diary said it was a lynching."
"She wrote that because she was mad when he got fired. Looking back now, I'm sure it was a suicide." She shook her head as if to get rid of the memory. "Now, why are you thinking about a thing like that on this beautiful morning?"
"Who else knows about him?" I asked.
She sat my plate on the table and shooed me toward it. "Eat before it's cold."
"Who else?" I asked again.
"Well, everyone," she sighed. "He was Papa Ernest's gardener for years. We all grew up with him there."
I considered it. "Who knows I know?"
Ruby leaned back in her chair and sipped her coffee. "I mentioned it to Valerie and your mother."
''When? When did Mother find out?"
"Wednesday night when you were at your young man's house." She winked at me. "Gladys called while Valerie was here. I told her you had a nice time at Mark and Kathleen's house, and she asked what else you had been doing. I didn't want to tell her about your young man, so I told her we had been talking about family.
"She wanted to know what I had said about the family. She's so odd about that. But I told her we talked about Walterene and Mr. Sams giving her the stuffed elephant. Gladys got all huffy about me telling you anything, so I hung up on her." Ruby smiled.
If Mother knew, then Vernon knew. Would he have someone try to scare me away? How much did Mark know?