They were riding back to the LEC at almost midnight, both of them keyed up and tense. West couldn’t believe she had hand-delivered a reporter to that scene. She absolutely could not take it in. This had to be somebody else’s life that was happening to West on a dimension where she had no control, and she was reminded of a time she would never admit to anyone, when she was a sophomore at a very small, religious school, in Bristol, Tennessee. The trouble began with Mildred.
Mildred was very big and all the other girls on her floor were afraid of her. But not West. She saw Mildred as an opportunity because Mildred was from Miami. Mildred’s parents had sent her to King College to get saved, and to straighten out. Mildred found someone in Kingsport who knew someone in Johnson City who had dealings with a guy at Eastman Kodak who sold pot. West and Mildred lit up one night on the tennis courts where no one could see anything except tiny orange coals glowing and fading by a net post on court two.
It was awful. West had never done anything this wicked, and now she knew why. She lost control, belly laughing and telling outlandish stories while Mildred confessed she had been fat all her life and knew precisely what it felt like to be black and discriminated against.
Mildred was something. The two of them sat out on red and green Laykold for hours, finally lying on their backs and staring up at stars and a moon that looked like a bright yellow swing swelling with the round shadow of promise. They talked about having babies. They drank Cokes, and ate whatever Mildred had in her pocketbook.
Mostly this was Nabs, Reese’s Cups, Kit Kats, and things like that.
God, how West hated to think about that wretched time. It was her luck that, in the end, marijuana made her paranoid. A couple tokes into the third joint, she wanted to run as fast as she could, dive into her dorm room, punch in the lock, hide under the bed, and come back out in camouflage, a Tee-9 ready to go. When Mildred decided that West was physically attractive, the timing wasn’t good.
West believed women were great. She’d loved every woman teacher and coach she’d ever known, as long as they were nice. But there were a couple of problems here. She had never really contemplated the possibility of what Mildred’s interest might mean about West, or West’s family, or of West’s possibilities in the afterlife. Plus, Mildred grabbed West no differently than a guy would. Mildred didn’t even ask, and this was unfortunate, since West was in camouflage, at least in her mind. West turned into the LEC parking deck for visitors.
“You can’t do anything with that,” West said to Brazil in an accusing tone.
“With what?” Brazil asked in a measured voice.
“You know what. In the first place, you had no business talking to a witness,” West said.
“That’s what reporters do,” he replied.
“In the second place, the hourglass is something only the killer knows. Got it? So you don’t put that in the paper. Period.”
“How can you say for a fact the killer’s the only one who knows about it?” Brazil was about to lose his temper.
“How do you know it won’t trigger information from somebody out there?”
West raised her voice and wished she had never met Andy Brazil.
“You do it, and the next homicide in this city’s going to be you.”
“Yours,” he helped her out.
“That’s it.” West turned into the police deck. She was not going to have this squirt correct her grammar one more time.
“You’re dead.”
“I believe you just threatened me.” Brazil drew attention to it.
“Oh no. Not a threat,” West said.
“A promise.” She jammed the car into park.
“Find someone else to ride with.” She was the maddest she’d ever been.
“Where are you parked?”
Brazil yanked up the door handle in a murderous reply.
“Well, guess what?” he said.
“Fuck you.”
He got out and slammed the door. He stalked off into the dark, early morning. He managed to write his stories in time for the city edition, and he pulled off 1-77 on his way home and bought two tallboy Miller Lites. He managed to drink both as he drove very fast. Brazil had a frightening habit of pushing his car as far it would go. Since his speedometer didn’t work, he could only guess how fast he was going by the RPMs. He knew he was flying, going close to a hundred miles an hour, and it wasn’t the first time he’d done this. Sometimes he wondered if he were trying to die.