"In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future." |
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Taking the Village
And here, now, is an excerpt. Of course, I'd love to hear what you think. Chapter 1 The van hit a bump. It jolted Damonte Hall back to the present. He'd been thinking about the past and you had to watch yourself doing that. Bentley always said, your past is your past, but you're the one in charge of right now. You can look to the future while you're taking that step today, but watch yourself thinking about the past. Damonte looked out the window. My future's coming up fast now, that's for sure. He tried not to think about it too much, and listened to the snores of Evers on the seat next to him instead. That big white boy could snore louder than the crew mowers any day. Damonte had been listening to him sawing logs for close on four years now. He wasn't quite sure what it was going to be like without that noise lulling him to sleep. Wasn't quite sure what anything was going to be like. Damonte watched the buildings go by. They were headed out of the industrial area and through an outcropping of new “estate” houses, stuck out there on what used to be farm land between highway exits. Damonte had watched them go up, watched the guys crawling around doing roofs, slapping up siding. Could be me, he'd thought back then. Get myself the right skills, do my time. Could be me out there, not caring that my skin burnt browner in the sun, slogging down ice water from some big thermos and eating pulled pork from the trailer parked on the side of the road. Can't be thinking about the could've, would've, should've now. That was Bentley too. Can't be thinking about choices made then. Think about the ones for now. You make a choice now that leads you to having even more choices tomorrow, that was the goal. Widening or narrowing your path. That was the truth, the consequence, in every choice you made today. Make the wrong one, and you only going to have one choice tomorrow. Damonte only had one choice today. The van slowed, then lurched to a pitched stop on the shoulder of the highway. Evers jerked awake. He stretched out his ham hock forearms and shook like a dog coming out of a creek. “Come on, Mr. Hall. Day six and counting down,” Evers said in his thick, southeast Baltimore accent that said as much about his upbringing as Damonte's inner-city one said about his. Mr. Hall, he called him. Like the gym teacher Evers had had back in elementary school. He'd liked that teacher, and decided to like Damonte right off since they shared a name. Simple. Day six and counting down. Some things weren't so simple. Damonte followed Evers' form, ducking his head and blinking and tearing up when the sun hit his face as he stepped out of the van. Six more days. He knew that was what Evers thought. It was what they all thought since it was written down, the date typed clear on the notice he'd gotten.
They were excited for him and a little jealous. They thought he had so little time.
They didn't know how right they were. * * * * Libby Margolis cranked the van's air conditioning up with a swat of her hand. Jesus God, is it hot. She eased her window down by the electronic switch. “Come on, girls! We're going to be late,” then eased it back up, shutting out the thick humidity and the clatter of the garage door descending. “You've got extra water bottles? Everyone have shin guards?” “Yes, yes - can we just go?” The girls clambered in, a hunched tangle of long limbs and sport duffles. “Coach Grover's going to make us run bleachers if we're late.” Hannah belted herself, then expertly flipped her long, dark hair into a ponytail and secured it with a soccer ball-dotted scrunchie.
“I'm just trying to make sure you don't forget anything,” Libby backed the van out into the street. “Beth, you did remember sunscreen? I know you think that olive skin will protect you, but the damage is done, tan or burn.”
Libby could see in the rearview mirror as Beth rolled her eyes and glanced at her sister before answering.
“Yes, Mom. Hannah even did my shoulders and back for me.” A little lower, Libby heard, “Sheesh.” She chose to ignore it. She knew the girls were used to Mark taking them to practice, used to Mark's “Forgot it? Deal with it” approach, but Mark wasn't here and Libby was too proud of both her girls making the varsity team as underclassmen to let anything get in the way of a successful season. Even if she had to nag them to death.
“Music,” Hannah called.
Libby gave her a quick glance.
“Please?” Beth supplied.
“Yeah, music, please,” said Hannah.
Libby punched the radio knob. Let them have their music. Let them have some leeway, the counselor had advised when Mark had left, but don't let it go too far. Try to create a new normal.
A new normal? Libby gritted her teeth and pressed down harder than she meant to on the gas pedal. She had to brake hard at the stop sign where the road led out of the development onto the highway.
She had a new house, a new van, new furniture, scads of new clothes for the girls as they'd entered high school…
She was pretty damned sick of new. What she really wanted was old. As much as they had worked to get away from the old normal of struggling to pay for new cleats and - hell, half of the time, just for groceries - she'd take it back in a heartbeat. No fuss, no comment, just give me back my old life, please God?
The girls were singing along with something, something throaty with want.
“Hey, turn it up?”
“Please?”
Libby did so. The girls bobbed their heads and kept singing as the refrain hit. It wasn't so long ago that Libby would have known the lyrics by heart too. Amazing that her girls were listening to the same radio station whose music she and Mark had made love to for the first time, in the backseat of his mom's hand-me-down sedan, when both of them should have been studying for finals.
She had known all the lyrics then.
Libby sighed and stared out at the black asphalt stretched out in front of her, at the cars that streamed past her. Hannah hit a high note just a bit off and Libby had to smile. When it gets to be too much, just close your eyes and breathe, the counselor had said. And every now and then, try to force a smile. Just exercising those muscles releases endorphins and makes you feel better, she'd said.
Well, I'm not closing my eyes on this road, that's for sure. But the smile felt good. For the moment. And along with water bottles and shin guards, Libby thought she could remember to breathe.
* * * * Damonte scanned the passing cars while the weed-trimmer thrummed in his grip. Big white SUV…silver sedan…little blue coupe…school bus… No, that wouldn't be right. Not a school bus. And it had to be right. That was why he hadn't said a word to Evers. It was his plan and only his. They had to get that part straight. It wouldn't be right if they didn't understand that part. Crickets jumped like popping corn out of the tall goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace. Damonte cut the brush off at the knees and watched the stalks fall. Dumptruck…one of them little European jobs… That was a possibility. Got to be insured to the hilt with a car like that. But it was gone in an instant, fading up the road into the haze of gas fumes and still, sticky air. A line of sweat swelled along his temple, then broke free and streamed down the neck of his work shirt. He paused, letting the trimmer idle, its handle propped against his leg, as he untied, refolded, and tied back on the red cotton bandana around his forehead. The trimmer buzzed to life again and Damonte walked forward, spitting out a lifeless spray of vegetation as he went. Ahead of him on the steep slope that banked the road's shoulder, Evers was doing the same. He'd made sure Evers was ahead of him most of the time today, looking away. Not that Damonte thought Evers would be able to stop him, but he would sure try if he saw. And that wouldn't be right. As messed up as it all was, as much as he was beginning to detach from everything and everyone, nothing should happen to Evers. Damonte glanced back behind him, across the newly-shorn scrub to the van, a port-a-john on its trailer rising over the hood like a blue tombstone, marking the van's resting place. A guard leaned against the van's front wheel well. Looking forward again, Damonte saw the other guard up a ways, watching the guys with mowers. Dark blue four-door… puce VW Beetle…another white SUV, this one with gold grille and trim, just like the cap on Damonte's tooth, the one to the side of his front two. Maybe it was a sign. No, Damonte didn't believe in signs. Not anymore. You just made your choice and dealt with the consequences. He heard Evers' trimmer wind down and soon the hulk-like figure of him was lumbering back toward Damonte, then passing him with a wink. There weren't too many times that one of the guys would actually use the state-mandated port-a-john, but Evers did without fail. Give him a half-hour of walking along an embankment after a big breakfast and too many cups of bad coffee and Evers was sure to pay it a visit. Damonte watched him reach the van, throw a mock half-salute as the guard waved him on, and disappear around the back by the trailer. This would be the time. It came to Damonte, rising up in his awareness like a slow, thick bubble of oil. Evers safe, out of the way, Damonte moved his trimmer in a diagonal path down the slope, scanning the cars in earnest now. * * * *
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Taking the Village begins when, only six days before he’ll be a free man, small-time robber Damonte Hall walks calmly into the path of an oncoming van. Libby Margolis, the woman who hits him, comes from a Baltimore family of cops. As she struggles to comprehend his suicide, and the rippling impact it has on those close to her, she is drawn ever nearer to the secrets of a Baltimore development company’s founder. Despite his public persona and the praise he receives for rejuvenating the drug-ravaged North Village, he is a sick man who has never known a true family of his own.
Copyright 2005-08, Heidi Vornbrock Roosa