Blackbird Read online

  “Awrite.” Marshall shook me by the shoulder. I wriggled out from under his arm (another erection was announcing its arrival), and said to Libby, “That’s it then?”

  “That’s it. We’ll rehearse Thursday and Friday nights, seven till about ten, starting next week for the next four weeks. That’s not a whole lotta time, so you’re gonna hafta learn your lines pretty much on your own. We’ll rehearse at my place. I’ll give you the address and the form for your Mommy to sign so she knows you’re gonna get raped onstage.”

  “And I get to do it,” Marshall said through a smile and a slow, insinuating eyebrow-raise. I blushed, albeit invisibly, and my ears sizzled. The thought of getting raped by Marshall MacNeill, on or offstage, really made my toes curl.

  “Well, I better go.” I started for the door. “I gotta get a bus or it’s kind of a long walk.”

  “You’re gonna walk home?” By Libby’s tone, you’d have thought I was planning to push a peanut all the way home with my nose.

  “Where do you live?”

  “Just off J Street, near Tenth.”

  “Marsh” – she slapped Marshall on the shoulder with a chubby bracelet-rattling hand – “take the kid home.”

  “No, that’s – ”

  “Libby, give a guy a chance to volunteer, why doncha. Sure, cutie, I’ll take ya home.”

  “No, thanks, really. I don’t mind the walk.” Which I really didn’t.

  I was used to walking. I did a lot of it, since I’d only had a driver’s license for about a month before I accidentally totaled my father’s V-W Beetle and Dad took away my license. Besides which, the thought of being alone in a car with Marshall MacNeill gave me a chill that I couldn’t entirely chalk up to the cold breeze coming through the wide-open door.

  This dude was messing with my mind. I mean, was he gay? Was he just teasing me because he could somehow tell I was gay? Was he hustling me, or was he like this with everybody? And was it my imagination, or did he just call me “cutie”?

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Libby. “You will not walk home.”

  “Yeah, don’t be ridiculous,” and Marshall, his hand at the small of my back, maneuvered me out the door. I could hear Libby’s “See you next Thursday” as we started down the hall.

  Chapter Eight

  It was the ugliest car I think I have ever seen. Even in the uneven light of the parking lot, I could tell this was one filthy beige beast Marshall MacNeill intended to drive me home in. It was shaped rather like a potato bug; I could see the rust freckles all over the body of it, a thousand dark specks in the yellowish lamplight. There was a thick sweater of dirt all over the car. Some thoughtful person, maybe Marshall, had taken a finger and printed WASH ME PLEASE across the back of the vehicle; that same person, or maybe somebody else, had written BOB across the front.

  “Door’s open,” Marshall said, opening the driver’s-side door. The passenger door fought me as if locked as I tried to open it. “Just give it a good swift yank,” Marshall advised. Which I did, and the door opened with a sound that reminded me of the guitar feedback on “My Generation” by the Who.

  There was a pile of debris on the seat that included one, maybe two complete changes of clothing, half a ham-on-rye, a copy of Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins, and one mateless rubber-tire-soled sandal somewhat worse for wear.

  “Just throw that shit in the back.”

  The seat squealed a protest as I settled in and wrestled the door shut (its hinges did another short Pete Townshend imitation). After a brief difference of opinion with the ignition, Marshall started the car’s engine, which sounded like it had eaten too much Mexican dinner.

  “What sort of car is this?” I asked over the sputtery sounds of the engine.

  “It’s a Saab. That’s his name on the hood there. Bob Saab.” He slapped the radio on, and Lou Reed was singing. And we sputtered our way out of the parking lot and onto L Street.

  Marshall didn’t say anything for what seemed a long while; every now and then he’d sing along with Lou Reed for a few bars, off-key, “Hey, babe, take a walk onna wiiiiild siiiide.” The lack of conversation was making me pretty uncomfortable pretty quickly, and I was just about to ask Marshall how he liked the old J.C., or something equally scintillating, when he suddenly said, “You wanna go over to El Taco, get something to eat?”

  “No thanks. I’m not hungry.” Which wasn’t true; I’m almost always hungry. The fact was that I was broke – I was only carrying bus fare.

  “Well, then, would you mind keepin’ me some company while I have something to eat?”

  “No, I suppose not.” I was obviously going to end up getting home later than I’d planned to be, and Mom was sure to have something to say about it. But this Marshall person really had me going. I wasn’t sure if I liked him or not, but he sure had me interested in finding out. Besides, he was driving.

  El Taco had recently become a favorite hangout for some of the school’s less study-oriented students, the sort of people I know only by sight and whom I tend to avoid at all costs. Through the glass front of the building I could see several such people sitting, standing, leaning, and sprawling around, some really redneck-looking guys and a group of black kids from the other side of town, with a wary aisle’s distance between the two groups. There was nobody in there that I knew or cared to know, and it was a toss-up as to which bunch made me more nervous. I was sincerely glad when Marshall pulled old Bob Saab up to the drive-thru window, ordered quickly, and pulled the car into a parking space way off in a corner, just outside the glow of the tall streetlamps that illuminated the lot.

  The spicy food fragrances coming off the greasy white paper bag in Marshall’s lap made me drool like one of Pavlov’s puppies. I was wondering how I was going to be able to stand it, sitting in this funky little car watching Marshall eat, when Marshall pulled a small white-paper-wrapped bundle out of the bag, and handed it to me (along with six or seven paper napkins).

  “What’s this?” I accepted the warm white whatsis only reluctantly, holding it rather as if it were ticking.

  “It’s a chicken taco,” he said, unwrapping his own. “You eat them. I believe it is the chicken taco that truly separates Man from the lower primates.”

  Still, I hesitated to open it.

  “I’m buying,” Marshall said, and took a big, crackly bite.

  “Thank you. Very much.”

  Marshall said “Forget it” through a mouthful of taco.

  We just sat and ate for a while, filling the car with crunching and smacking.

  I was in tastebud heaven – there are few things in life I enjoy more than a good taco. Marshall handed me the extra-large cherry Coke he’d been slurping, and when I went to lift the plastic lid off the cup, he said, “Use the straw, for chrissakes. I’m not diseased or anything.” Actually, I’d been concerned that he might not want a mouthful of my cooties.

  “So, you’re probably a senior, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Gonna be an actor when you grow up? Movie star?”

  “Eventually,” I said. I could tell he was making fun of me a little, and it kind of stung.

  “Eventually?”

  “Yes.” I handed him the cherry Coke back. “See, the way I look at it, I really don’t want to do the whole, you know, acting thing. You know, cattle calls and commercials and all that. I mean, there aren’t all that many parts for black actors, especially one like me. I’m not a type, or anything. So I figure, if I become a success as a singer first, well then, they write vehicles especially for me, see? I’m a singer, basically.”

  “Basically,” Marshall repeated. He turned to me and handed me one of those half-smiles of his and said, “You got it all pretty well figured out, haven’t you? For a senior in high school, I mean.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was razzing me or not.

  “Well” – I was starting to get just a bit defensive here – “I certainly don’t intend to hang around here after graduation.”
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  Marshall smiled all the way. “I see. Going to a major university, are we? USC?”

  “UCLA,” I said, a little smug pride leaking out from the corners of my mouth. “I’ve already been accepted.” I have to plead guilty to getting a little bit smug about being accepted to UCLA, I mean, nobody in my family has ever even been to college.

  “None of this junior college shit for you, huh?”

  “No way. Junior college is just high school with ashtrays.” That line I picked up from Efrem. Marshall lifted a thick eyebrow at me and I said, real fast, “No offense.”

  “None taken.” Marshall sucked taco sauce off his fingers. He had really nice lips.

  “What about you? You an actor?”

  “Nah. Not me. I’m only doing this one-act as a favor to Libby. I’m a filmmaker.”

  “Really? What kind of movies? I love movies.”

  “Not movies.” Marshall rolled his eyes like I’d just accused him of making mud pies out of doggie-do. “Films.”

  “Oh. You mean Art.”

  “That’s right, Sonny. Art. Somethin’ wrong with that?”

  “No, nothing at all.” And that was just about where my interest in Marshall’s career goals came to a halt so fast it left tire tracks. As far as I can tell, a movie is something you go see to have a good time, and a Film is something you go see because you somehow got the idea that watching it will make you a Better Human Being or something.

  Movies I love. Films you can keep.

  “So have you made any Films yet?”

  “One. I’m almost finished with the editing. I’ll be showing it soon. That’s why I’m here.”

  “What’s why you’re here?”

  “To make a film,” he said in a tone of voice that let me know it was his turn to get just a bit defensive. “And show it. Believe it or not, the film department here is halfway decent. But best of all, it’s cheap.

  Dirt cheap. Not everybody can go to UCLA.”

  Which made me feel a little cheesy for waving my UCLA banner all over the place like I was at the Rose Bowl or something.

  “Not that I couldn’t get accepted,” he continued, “but who’s got the money?”

  “Couldn’t your parents – ”

  “My father ended the dole the second I turned twenty-one. I’ve been living on my savings since – ”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Twenty-four?”

  “Well, you don’t have to say it like that.”

  “I didn’t mean – ”

  “You’d think I’d just told you I was Methus’lah or something.”

  “No, it’s just that – ”

  “Chicken – ”

  “I just thought you were younger than that, that’s all!” Which was true. I assumed Marshall was twenty or so – twenty-one, tops.

  “You just look young, that’s all!” I realize I was yelling. “God Bless!”

  There was a pause you could slice, dice, and julienne with a Veg-O-Matic.

  Finally, Marshall said, “God Bless?”

  “Leave me alone, huh?”

  “I’m sorry.” Marshall put his hand (warm and a little sticky from tacos) on mine, as if it were the most natural of acts. “I get real touchy about shit sometimes.”

  “I didn’t mean anything.” I couldn’t help looking down at Marshall’s hand – I guess I couldn’t quite believe it was where it was – and he took it away so fast you’d think it had caught fire.

  “I know you didn’t. I’m sorry.” He crunched his taco wrapper and napkins into a ball, stuffed them into the greasy bag, and dropped it all on the floor by his feet, then started the car as fast as it would kick over and peeled out of the parking lot.

  He drove in silence for a few minutes. I didn’t know what to say or even if Marshall wanted to talk to me at all anymore, ever.

  “I took a few years off after college,” he said suddenly, out of nowhere. “Went to Europe. Lived in Paris for a while. College isn’t everything.”

  “I don’t recall saying it was.” I hoped we weren’t going to fight.

  “My father thinks it is.”

  “What about your mom?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry.” I thought of life without my mom, and tears sprinted into the corners of my eyes.

  “I was real young. I hardly knew her. I was raised by my grandmother, mostly. She’s Cherokee. Full-blood.”

  “Really?”

  Marshall nodded once. “She gave me my middle name: Two-Hawks.”

  “Two-Hawks?”

  “It’s on my driver’s license. Wanna look for yourself?” He reached toward his back pocket.

  “No, I believe you.” And of course I did. My folks are from the Louisiana bayou country, and out there, people will name their kids just about anything. So there are some pretty unusual names in my family, too. I’ve got an Aunt Beulah Leola and an Aunt Toot (rhymes with “foot”) and a third cousin who was born the night the Russians launched Sputnik, and whose actual legal name is Sputnik. Unusual names are no big deal for me. It was only that it would never have occurred to me that Marshall MacNeill might be one-quarter Cherokee; mostly, I guess, because he wasn’t very dark – although now that he mentioned it, he did have cheekbones clear up to his eyes. And it was such a beautiful name: Two-Hawks.

  “You got some Indian blood in you too, haven’t you?”

  “Matter of fact, I do.” My mother’s grandfather was a full-blooded something-or-other. I’m not sure what. I just remember that they often referred to him as the Old Injun. “How could you tell?”

  “Your cheekbones. And the slant of your eyes.”

  Nobody said anything for a moment, and then Marshall said (to himself, I suppose), “They’re beautiful people. Native Americans.”

  I wanted to ask him what it was like to be without your mother, but then I thought: how would he know? So I didn’t say anything for a while, and neither did he.

  We seemed to be hitting every possible red light. At one of them, Marshall turned to me and said, “Sing something.”

  “What?”

  “You’re a singer, right? So sing something.”

  “Here in the car?”

  “No, at Carnegie-fuckin’-Hall,” he said, smiling. And I thought, what the hey. I closed my eyes (I usually do when I sing), and the first song that came into my head was “Drift Away.” It’s one of my favorite songs these days. One of those songs that, when it comes on the radio, I have to stop whatever I’m doing and just listen. And it almost makes me cry, every time I hear it.

  I sang “Day after day I’m more confused,” then decided the key was too high and downshifted about a third for the next line. When I got to the chorus, I was snapping my fingers in time.

  I did the chorus twice, by which point we were stopped at yet another red light. I opened my eyes, half expecting to find Marshall laughing his head off, but he was just looking at me, with an expression I couldn’t fathom. And he said, “Wow. You really are a singer.”

  And I was immediately pleased and proud and embarrassed all at once, and I looked away out my window and said, “Well, I’m going to be, anyway.”

  “You already are.” Marshall pulled away at the green light.

  “Why’d you pick that song? That’s one of my favorite songs.”

  “Really? Mine, too.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “Why you?”

  “I asked you first.”

  “Well …” I hesitated a bit. While I was taking a definite liking to this Marshall MacNeill, I still wasn’t too sure just how much I could trust him, how much I could really tell him about myself. How I felt about things. I went ahead, anyway. “Well, I guess it’s because to me, music isn’t just something to listen to. It’s like … it’s like an escape. It’s like no matter how bad it gets sometimes, the music’s always there. And there’s almost nothing so bad that music won’t make me feel at least a little better. I can a
lmost always just … well, get lost in the rock and roll. And drift away. Y’know?”

  “Yeah,” Marshall said, so softly I could barely hear him. “I know.”

  And I could tell he really did know. He knew exactly what I was trying to say, despite my not saying it all that well. And he felt the same.

  I pulled a Chapstick out of my pocket and waxed my lips. Before I could return the tube to my pocket, Marshall held out his hand.

  “May I?”

  I handed him the little black cylinder and I watched him apply the balm to his lips. It seemed such an intimate act to me, like a kiss almost. It made me shiver a little to watch it. When he handed it back, I couldn’t help but touch it quickly to my lips again before snapping on its little cap and shoving it back into my pocket.

  “There’s another song,” Marshall said. “You may not know it – they only play it on the jazz station. It says about when you’re feeling down and out, and don’t know what to do, and if you don’t get help quick you won’t make it through the day.…”

  And then he sang, as much as you could call it singing, “couldja call on Lady Day? Couldja?”

  He sort of shrugged and half smiled. “I’m no singer.”

  When we got to my house, I didn’t much want to get out of the car.

  “Well, thanks for the ride. And the taco. And everything.”

  “Hey, no charge.”

  “So I guess I’ll see you next week.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’ll see ya.” I held out my hand for Marshall to shake. It’s not as if I’m this big hand-shaker as a rule – but, boy, did I ever want to touch him. He took my hand and just held it, with very little in the way of up-and-down motion. And when we finally let go, Marshall seemed as reluctant as I was.

  And man, was my heart doing drumrolls. I just managed to gasp “I’ll see ya,” body-block the car door open (with the sound of wrenching metal), and sort of half tumble out of the car.

  I stood on the sidewalk, hands in pockets, and watched Marshall kick Bob into gear and take off down the street. He hit the car horn a rather anemic beep-beep as he turned the corner.

  Mom was at the stove making gravy when I walked in.