Southern Cross the Dog (32 page)

Authors: Bill Cheng

R
obert watched the man at the bar pitch forward, then slump. The man cradled his glass and muttered to the barman and the barman nodded and said, Yes, yes, I know. Who doesn't know? I know. The rest of the juke had cleared and they were anxious to close. The chairs had been stacked, the barrelheads wiped clean. The other glasses were sitting in a tub of soapy water, and Robert propped himself on the table edge and fought against sleep. The man shouted something, then tried to stand.

Easy, Joe, easy, the barman said.

The man took his squashed hat from the stool next to him and placed it on his head.

You're right. When you're right, you're right, he said.

He shook the barman's hand.

Goddamn it when you're right, he said.

He smoothed out the wrinkles in his suit and made his way out.

When he'd left, the barman let out a sigh and grinned at Robert.

What was he saying to you?

The barman laughed.

Who knows? Who even listens anymore?

Robert cleaned the last glass and swept up behind the bar. The barman counted the money in the till and portioned out Robert's wages, stacking the soft bills on the counter. Robert reached for it and the barman laid down his big fat hand.

I want to say I really like the work you're doing here, he said.

Robert put the money in his jacket.

You've got spirit, you know? Not like that friend of yours. That layabout, G.D.

Go to hell, Robert said.

The barman laughed again. Don't forget to shovel out that shithouse tomorrow. It's been backed up for ages.

Four in the morning, they closed out the juke and chained the doors. Robert took a small oil lantern home to light his way. He looked over his left shoulder and saw the moon there, big and scarred and ugly. He climbed up onto the porch, set the lantern by the door, and went inside. Dora was already asleep. He could hear her snoring softly on the mattress. He undressed and lay beside her. She let out a soft moan.

What time is it?

Almost morning. You want to sit up and watch the dawn?

She mumbled something, then started snoring again.

Robert lay on his side and looked out the window. The night was solid black and there was nothing to see. He wondered how many more hours till first light would break through the pane.
Forget it,
he thought. He turned over and shut his eyes and felt the heat of the small warm thing beside him. Little by little, he felt himself slipping, sinking beneath his own body, through the mattress, the floor, into the cold earth, and deeper still in the yawning dark, to that place of lost and losing.

Epilogue

I
hear my black name ringing.

HERE, THROUGH THESE LOWLANDS, A
basin full of sky and aching. Here, through the towns I've worked and bled and danced and loved. Here, I hear my black name ringing. In the fields and levee camps and steel mills, in the out-turned churches and shotgun shacks, my black name rings. Bright and searing as the day.

Outside, the grasslands plunge. I see where my mama was born, an earth cabin where the ground comes up to the walls. There's clothing on the line and the jumpers catch the wind, dancing, personless. And down the way is the creek where they baptized me, where I killed my first fish and I told a lie to feel a girl beneath her skirt.

They razed the town and we built again. For months the trees were full of ash.

Here are the notches on the boughs.

Here is where I stole. Here is where they stole from me. Here, my mama closed her eyes and rested her head on a pillow of hair. Here is a coin in my hand.

And still the country rages on, sad fullâa cape of blue raised high over spruce and elm and hillocks, the villages and shantytowns. I danced in every hall, I beat my hands against the wallsâthe country rages, I rage.

The sun rises. I pass Leland, Indianola, and Moorhead, where the Southern cross the Dog. She roils and laps and foams. And through the air are the long slack ropes that carry spark and light. And I will follow her down, past the watering station, the grain elevator, a grove of Warren pears, at last into town, down a road to a high building made of brick and mortar. They'll put me in a suit and pomade my hair and I'll make my bracelets shine. And there I will stand and meet that man in a long black robe. And for you I will sing and dance and stomp my feet to beat the Devil.

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the generous support and confidence of a great many people. To these people I am forever indebted. Thank you to my parents, Betty and Peter, and my brother, Ben, and the great sea of Chengs and Paks behind them; to my editor, Dawn, her confidante, Shanna, and all the hardworking supporters at HarperCollins; to my agent Nicole and her crack team, Christie Hauser and Duvall Osteen, for pulling up a seat for me at the grown-ups' table; to fellow travelers Jeanne Thornton, Anton Solomonik, Kevin Carter, Miracle Jones, and Tim Miles, with whom I would proudly march toward Bedlam; and of course, to my wife Olga.

To the great giants of Hunter College and my brothers-in-armsâScott Cheshire, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Sunil Yapa, Carmiel Banasky, Brianne Kennedy, Tennessee Jones, Phil Klay, Katie Vane, Sarah Goffman, Lauren Holmes, Vernon Wilson, Victoria Brown, Alex Gilvarry, Liz Moore, Jess Soffer, Noa Jonesâthank you for the hours, for the blood and sweat and tears.

Thank you to Jonathan Landsman and Elyse Orecchio, who were there before the beginning, and thank you to Erin Propersi, who will one day finish this book and find her name here.

Thank you to Dina and Alex Pester and Zina Shturman, and thank you to Roz Bernstein of Baruch College, who has guided millions of lost lemmings away from the cliffs.

Most of all, a heartfelt thank you to P and N and C, whose names, while not cited here, have already been written large and in full upon this book and life.

And to the ghosts of Big Bill Broonzy, R. L. Burnside, Reverend Gary Davis, Honeyboy Edwards, Son House, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Robert Junior Lockwood, Blind Willie McTell, Charley Patton, Pinetop Perkins, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bukka White, and all the late great bluesmen who have given me so much and whom I shall never have the privilege to meet except by way of your music and your words and your storiesâthis book is for you.

About the Author

BILL CHENG
has received a B.A. in Creative Writing from Baruch College and is a graduate of Hunter College's MFA program. Born and raised in Queens, New York, he currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife.
Southern Cross the Dog
is his first novel.

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Credits

Cover design by Allison Saltzman

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SOUTHERN CROSS THE DOG
. Copyright Â© 2013 by Bill Cheng. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-222500-9

EPub Edition Â© MAY 2013 ISBN: 9780062225030

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