The Dying Ground Read Online Free PDF Page B

Flea could’ve went.”
    “Nope.”
    I banged on the steering wheel. “Aw, man, Flea. Where you at, baby?”
    “Why you trippin’ that hard off that girl? She ain’t been wit’ you in months, and you still …” He shook his head. A frown punctuated his words.
    I knew that whatever answer I gave him, I could never make him understand. I had ventured out and allowed myself to love Felicia, a girl I’d never expected to keep. Holly, on the other hand, found women as easily replaceable as clothes. “Replaceable” wasn’t a word I could apply to Felicia. I didn’t expect, even with the benefit of two lifetimes, to find anyone who could even come close to her.
    “You think you gonna get her back if you find her?”
    “I just wanna find her, man.”
    “Who you talking to? You ain’t workin’ this hard just to get a little handshake.”
    “Leave it alone.” Holly’s habitual cynicism was not the remedy for my problems. He never permitted himself the bright side of things, while I continually hoped the bright side would make sense of all the darkness.
    I wheeled the car through a slightly yellow light and turned onto Chabot. An unmarked police car blocked the end of the street. Holly put his hand on the door when he spotted it. “Let me out at the corner. I’ll catch you later.”
    I rolled to a stop and turned to him. “You know, Billy came to see me a couple months ago.” For some reason I didn’t tell him there had been another visit after that.
    Holly looked surprised.
    “It was right after he made Flea quit her job at the Nickel and Dime.” My grandfather had given Felicia a part-time job as a cocktail waitress in his bar. Billy hadn’t liked so many players, potential enemies, having such easy access to her, so he’d pulled the plug on her job immediately.
    He never came right out and included me in the equation, but the unsaid spoke loud and clear. Despite Felicia’s commitment and love for Billy, there was no getting around the connection she and I had between us. Only once after we’d broken up had it strayed into something more, a lonely night between us both, me missing her, her missing Billy. We didn’t speak of it after it happened, and I never mentioned it to Holly, but Felicia saw it in my eyes whenever she looked at me.
    Holly jumped out of the car. “I’ll catch up with you later.” He pointed at me. “Don’t forget the package under the seat.” I’d forgotten that Smokey’s gun was stashed in the car.
    “You think she coulda killed Billy?” I asked.
    “Do you?”
    “Flea ain’t like that.”
    “But you don’t know what she was into.”
    “I know her.”
    “All you know, nigga, is that she left you.”
    There was no response to that so I moved to safer ground: the confrontation with Smokey. Since childhood Holly was used to playing my savior. Once my athletic ability made me a local star, Holly and Billy took to protecting me from fights. “Gotta save the pitching arm” became the code phrase for getting me out of trouble, and without a second thought, or Billy for backup, Holly fell into his old routine.
    “Man, I’m sorry about that shit back there,” I offered.
    “Don’t trip, it’s all part of being a hustler. It was gonna go down anyway.”
    Holly rarely apologized for the life he led, and he did not live in regret. He nodded, chin up to let me know we were cool, then continued, “And it ain’t like I didn’t know the rules.”

W ith Holly’s words ringing in my ear I waited until he disappeared into the shopper traffic on College Avenue before continuing down the street. Flea’s Victorian apartment house was at the end of the block, slightly detached from the others. I pulled up in front and looked to the attic window that served as her bedroom. She’d lived there since I’d known her, bypassing the dorms and their inherent lack of privacy. I killed the engine and waited, hopefully, for the flutter of curtains that would mean she was home. None