Attica Locke - Black Water Rising

The boat is smaller than he imagined. And dingier.

Monday morning, the hooker shows up wearing a neck brace.

Eddie Mae pokes her head into Jays office, where hes

Jay left home when he was fifteen. He took his

The next morning, he stands over the sink checking his

Charlie Luckman keeps an eye on the black girl, the

That afternoon, Eddie Mae finally manages to get the witness

Sometime late, after midnight, Jay opens his eyes, sure hes

The morning of, Bernie lingers a bit longer than usual

He doesnt remember when he stopped loving her. It would

The report to his father-in-law goes something like this: the

Two days later, not even a full forty-eight hours after

He has Jay pull into an abandoned rail yard, instructing

The name gets him past the mayors secretary. She puts

That was their M.O. back in the day.

When Jay first started practicing law, when he first went

On the first full day of the longshoremens strike, Jay

They bring in the defendants in groups of five.

Later that night, Rolly finally calls with a lead on

He told her he believed her. She put a hand

He wakes up alone, about an hour before dawn, his

He has a dream about dead ends. Streets in his

Its not until sometime after midnight that he starts to

Jay lost track of Cynthia sometime after his trial.

No one understands discrimination more than I do, the mayor

By the time Jay makes it to the Chronicles offices

Rollys girl at the phone company can give them sixty

The Blue Bayou is a bar on the north edge

He said he would never be back here.

The day he files the papers, Bernie goes into labor,

T EXAS, 1981

The boat is smaller than he imagined. And dingier.

Even at night Jay can tell it needs a paint job.

This is not at all what they discussed. The guy on the phone said moonlight cruise. City lights and all that. Jay had pictured something quaint, something with a little romance, like the riverboats on the Pontchartrain in New Orleans, only smaller. But this thing looks like a doctored-up fishing boat, at best. It is flat and wide and uglya barge, badly overdressed, like a big girl invited to her first and probably last school dance. There are Christmas lights draped over every corner of the thing and strung in a line framing the cabin door. Theyre blinking erratically, somewhat desperately, winking at Jay, promising a good time, wanting him to come on in. Jay stays right where he is, staring at the boats cabin: four leaning walls covered with a cheap carport material. The whole thing looks like it was slapped together as an afterthought, a sloppy attempt at decorum, like a hat resting precariously on a drunks head.

Jay turns and looks at his wife, who hasnt exactly gotten out of the car yet. The door is open and her feet are on the ground, but Bernie is still sitting in the passenger seat, peeking at her husband through the crack between the door and the Skylarks rusting frame. She peers at her shoes, a pair of navy blue Dr. Scholls, a small luxury she allowed herself somewhere near the end of her sixth month. She looks up from her sandals to the boat teeter-tottering on the water. She is making quick assessments, he knows, weighing her physical condition against the boats. She glances at her husband again, waiting for an explanation.

Jay looks out across the bayou before him. It is little more than a narrow, muddy strip of water flowing some thirty feet below street level; it snakes through the underbelly of the city, starting to the west and going through downtown, all the way out to the Ship Channel and the Port of Houston, where it eventually spills out into the Gulf of Mexico. Theres been talk for years about the Bayou City needing a river walk of its own, like the one in San Antonio, but bigger, of course, and therefore better. Countless developers have pitched all kinds of plans for restaurants and shops to line Buffalo Bayou. The citys planning and development department even went so far as to pave a walkway along the part of the bayou that runs through Memorial Park. The paved walkway is as far as the river-walk plan ever went, and the walkway ends abruptly here at Allens Landing, at the northwest corner of downtown, where Jay is standing now. At night, the area is nearly deserted. Theres civilization to the south. Concerts at the Johnson and Lindy Cole Arts Center, restaurants and bars open near Jones Hall and the Alley Theatre. But the view from Allens Landing is grim. There are thick, unkempt weeds choked up on the banks of the water, crawling up the cement pilings that hold Main Street overhead, and save for a dim yellow bulb at the foot of a small wooden pier, Allens Landing is complete blackness.

Jay stands beneath his city, staring at the raggedy boat, feeling a knot tighten in his throat, a familiar cinch at the neck, a feeling of always coming up short where his wife is concerned. He feels a sharp stab of anger. The guy on the phone lied to him. The guy on the phone is a liar. It feels good to outsource it, to put it on somebody else. When the truth is, there are thirty-five open case files on his desk, at least ten or twelve with court time pending; there wasnt time to plan anything else for Bernies birthday, and more important, there hasnt been any money, not for months. Hes waiting on a couple of slip-and-falls to pay big, but until then theres nothing coming in. When one of his clients, a guy who owes him money for some small-time probate work, said he had a brother or an uncle or somebody who runs boat tours up and down the bayou, Jay jumped at the chance. He got the whole thing comped. Just like the dinette set he and Bernie eat off of every night. Just like his wifes car, which has been on cement blocks in Peteys Garage since April. Jay shakes his head in disgust. Here he is, a workingman with a degree, two, in fact, and, still hes taking handouts, living secondhand. He feels the anger again, and beneath it, its ugly cousin, shame.

He tucks the feelings away.

Anger, he knows, is a young mans game, something he long ago outgrew.

Theres a man standing on the boat, near the head. Hes thin and nearing seventy and wearing an ill-fitting pair of Wranglers. There are tight gray curls poking out of his nylon baseball cap, the words BROTHERHOOD OF LONGSHOREMEN, LOCAL 116, smudged with dirt and grease. Hes sucking on the end of a brown cigarette. The old man nods in Jays direction, tipping the bill of his cap.

Jay reaches for his wifes hand.

I am not getting on that thing. She tries to fold her arms across her chest to make the point, but her growing belly is not where it used to be or even where it was last week. Her arms barely reach across the front of her body.

Come on, he says. You got the man waiting now.

I aint thinking about that man.

Jay tugs on her hand, feels her give just the tiniest bit. Come on.

Bernie makes a whistling sound through her teeth, barely audible, which Jay hears and recognizes at once. Its meant to signal her thinning patience. Still, she takes his hand, scooting to the edge of her seat, letting Jay help her out of the car. Once shes up and on her feet, he reaches into the backseat, pulling out a shoe box full of cassette tapes and eight tracks and tucking it under his arm. Bernie is watching everything, studying his every move. Jay takes her arm, leading her to the edge of the small pier. It sags and creaks beneath their weight, Bernie carrying an extra thirty pounds on her tiny frame these days. The old man in the baseball cap puts one cowboy boot on a rotted plank of wood that bridges the barge to the pier and flicks his cigarette over the side of the boat. Jay watches it fall into the water, which is black, like oil. Its impossible to tell how deep the bayou is, how far to the bottom. Jay squeezes his wifes hand, reluctant to turn her over to the old man, who is reaching a hand over the side of the boat, waiting for Bernie to take her first step. You Jimmy? Jay asks him.