Things quieted down for a while, and that was nice. I had my schedule, Emmy had hers, and we spent as much time together as we could when we could. In a way, we had settled into the life I’d daydreamed about way back when Emmy stayed at our apartment for Christmas break. We had our goals and we were supporting each other and doing what we could to make each other’s lives easier. For her, that meant being home as much as she could during my off hours, and for me, that meant shouldering our financial and business dealings.
Emmy also resumed dealing with any personal issues that might arise among the strays, while I concerned myself with keeping them employed and housed. Of course, Michael and Donny really helped out in that as well, so there really wasn’t too much stress in that area.
Donny had proven himself to be a great asset as well as a great friend, willing to help out any way he could. After I’d switched majors he and I no longer had any classes together, but we continued our tradition of coffee in the mornings three days a week. It was on one of these chats over a steaming cup that he told me about the teacher of his molecular genetics class.
“Professor Gushwa is a world-renowned researcher in the field of genetic autoimmune disorders, Lee. I asked him the other day about Emmy’s condition,” he said.
“You did what?” I asked, surprised.
“Well, I didn’t use names or anything like that,” he hastily assured me. “I said that I knew somebody with an extremely rare genetic disorder that affects the immune system and leads to an early death, and that I knew for a fact that nobody had ever done any research into it.”
“Uh huh. And what did he say?” I asked, a bit skeptical.
“Well, he seemed doubtful, but I told him that it was absolutely true and the only reason this friend of mine hadn’t sought any medical attention is that she knows nobody knows anything about this condition, and she is concerned about her privacy. “
“Well, I guess that’s true enough,” I admitted.
“Anyway, he said that if it’s really true that this is an unknown syndrome, he would be interested in talking to Emmy. He said that everything would be subject to HIPAA confidentiality laws, and if he published anything in the literature no names would ever be mentioned.”
“He researches autoimmune genetic disorders, you said?” hopefully. “What was his name again? Let me google him and maybe I can talk Emmy into talking to him,” I said, thinking this just might be what I’d been hoping for.
“Leah, I know you’ve told me that you’ve tried to get Emmy to see a doctor about the whole ‘moon kissed’ thing and she’s said no, but seriously, this guy is a genius. If anybody can figure it out it’s this guy.”
That night I spent about an hour digging around online for any info on Donny’s teacher. Sure enough, the guy seemed to be exactly what Donny had said. These were clips of him speaking at international genetics conferences, papers he’d published, and so on. I saw nothing that raised any red flags, so I brought the idea up to Emmy.
“Em,” I started, unsure how to broach the sensitive topic. “I know you’ve said that you don’t want to go to any doctors about the moon kissed thing, but what if it wasn’t a medical doctor, but a genetics researcher? Would you consider getting tested to see if there is anything that can be done?”
“There is nothing that can be done, Leah. It it simply the way I was born, that is all.”
“Don’t you even want to see if there is some sort of treatment? Anything at all?” I asked.
“There is no treatment.”
“But-”
“No, no buts,” Emmy said with finality.
I didn’t understand her resistance, but really, it was her choice so as much as it killed me, I knew I had to accept her wishes.
Telling Donny about it the next morning, he didn’t seem surprised.
“Yeah, Sana said Emmy might not go for it,” he said, nodding. “She said it’s a cultural thing.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes cultural things suck!” I exclaimed in frustration. “I mean, the whole idea is to bring the Night Children into our culture, right?”
“Yeah… well, no,” Donny said, avoiding making eye contact.
“What do you mean?” I asked, wondering what he was getting at.
“A while back Emmy made it clear that it’s important that the Night Children retain as much of their culture as possible. She told me to help the Strays integrate, but at the same time, respect their heritage as much as possible,” he said.
I didn’t really have any response for that. It did seem like something she would tell him, and it did make sense, but in this case it was her life we were talking about! This was an issue we were going to revisit, I promised myself.
It was not long after this that Emmy’s music took her away from Palo Alto for a while. Since Jackson got to determine the direction of The Downfall’s third album and that direction was blues (yeah, big surprise there), the three of them made a decision to release it under a different band name and in a different way. It was going to be a straight-up blues record under the band name ‘Jay Cool’s Midnight Blues Band’.
I thought it was a bit corny, but never said so to anybody. I mean, the three of them were doing what they wanted to do, and so who was I to say anything? The approach to publicity the band took was also different this time around. Basically, there was no publicity at all. Not even a hint of what the band was working on to the music press or fans, just a “We are working on our next album.”
Emmy left it to Jackson to break the news one night when we all went out to dinner. “We’re goin’ to record the album in Austin,” he explained. “We’ve got a studio booked for two full weeks.”
Lee and Jen nodded, so it was obvious this wasn’t news to anybody but me.
Later, after we got home, I asked Emmy. “When were you going to tell me you were going to be out of town for two weeks?” I demanded.
“I am sorry, Leah, I have been meaning to talk to you about it, but it never seemed to be a good moment to tell you. Also, it is not two weeks. We will be in Austin for longer than that,” Emmy confessed.
“How much longer?” I asked, trying not to get upset.
“Two months,” Emmy said, not meeting my eyes.
“How long have you been planning this?”
“For the last month or so,” Emmy said in a small voice.
Sighing, I wrapped her up in my arms. “I wish you’d told me yourself,” I said, kissing the top of her head. “I understand you need to do this, really I do, but hearing it from Jackson like that was a rude shock.”
“I am sorry, Leah. I… it has been so good being with you here at home, I did not want to ruin the mood. I should have talked to you about it, before we made the decision to go to Texas.”
“Yeah, you should have, but I would have encouraged you to go. It isn’t V Ball season right now, so it’ll be easy for me to fly there to see you on the weekends every couple of weeks or something.” Then, a thought occurred to me. “Are Jen and um, Robin, isn’t that her name- going also?”
“I think Jen is, but I do not believe that Jackson has invited Robin. I do not think they have that serious a relationship,” Emmy replied.
“Well, I’ll need to talk to Jen, then.”
“About what?” Emmy asked, curious.
“Making sure you guys keep somewhat normal hours and don’t burn yourselves out,” I told her, but that wasn’t the complete truth. I’d also talk to Jen about making sure Emmy ate well and took care of herself. The three of them tended to work themselves to exhaustion, Emmy worst of all.
Keeping it on the Q.T., the band booked a gig at a famous Austin blues bar during South By Southwest and the club owner quietly invited a lot of press and music industry types to the show, telling them nothing more than “You would regret missing this.”
For the first time the band took on additional musicians to fill out the lineup, too. Well, at least for the live performance, anyway. On the record it was still just the three of them playing everything. On one weekend that I flew out I watched them rehearse in the space they had rented in a commercial warehouse district there in Austin. I was quite surprised to see Jackson playing guitar along with Emmy, some sort of lead/rhythm thing.
“I’ve always played the guitar,” he explained in his Texan drawl. “Playin’ the bass, well, I do that with The Downfall, because, y’ know…” he said, pointing to where Emmy was practicing a particularly flashy slide guitar solo. “I mean…”
I understood him completely.
When time came for the actual concert I headed back to Austin, curious as to how it was going to turn out. It had been a month since my last visit, and I couldn't stand being away from her any longer. Sure, we had talked plenty on the phone and I’d gotten updates from Jen on a regular basis, but it just wasn’t the same.
The bar was packed on show night- the promoter had obviously spread the word. I noticed more than a few Downfall t-shirts in the crowd, so I had to assume that the news that it was a Downfall project had somehow gotten out as well.
Jen and I found seats at a table, then when a Texas hipster couple asked if they could share we said OK, even though it made it a bit crowded. I could tell they recognized who I was but thankfully they didn't make any sort of big deal about it.
Our view of the stage was OK, but not great. I guess that didn't really matter by this point, since both Jen and I had seen Emmy and the boys perform too many times to count, but still… It would have been nice to be closer.
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Closer to the band, anyway. The tables were packed in pretty tight, and the woman at the table behind me kept bumping into me more and more and getting louder and louder the drunker she got.
Eventually I couldn't stand it any more and turned around, asking her to please keep it down. “Some of us are trying to listen to the music,” I said, while Emmy sang “I’m the jealous kind,” belting it out with her full, powerful voice.
“Well, la de fucking da,” was the drunk woman’s answer. “It isn’t like you don’t hear them all the time, you fucking dyke!” Just warming up, she went on to say “It ain’t natural, women fucking other women, much less marryin’ ‘em! You should go the fuck back to fuckin’ California, and take your black lesbo bitch with you!” She shouted, standing up.
I stood up, too, wondering where this belligerence came from, when she suddenly slapped my face, hard, taking me by surprise. I stepped back into the open walkway between tables, taken by the absurdity of the situation.
“What, you think I’m funny?” Shouted the woman, taking a wild swing at me, which I easily stepped back from. Enraged, she reached back to her table and grabbed a beer bottle, then actually did what I always thought was purely a fiction created by Hollywood- she broke the bottle on the edge of the table and then brandished the jagged glass at me.
I stepped back again, looking around for the club’s security, but saw the bouncer was having a hard time making his way over through the crowd.
The drunk woman made a lunge for me, but I easily side-stepped, grabbed her wrist, pulled her forward and then rabbit punched her. Her knees got weak from the blow but she didn’t go down, so I punched her again a bit harder. Since I was still holding onto her wrist, I lowered her unconscious body to the ground, avoiding setting her on the sharp glass of the bottle.
Just then the bouncer got there and I stepped back, holding my hands up to show I meant to do nothing else. He gave me a nod, then helped the woman to her feet and led her away. I picked up the broken bottle and set it on our table, looking over at her table to make sure that her friends didn’t have any plans on revenge. None of them even met my eyes, so I figured they wanted nothing to do with it. The hipsters at our table looked shocked as they kept looking at the broken bottle and at me, but seemed to calm down soon enough.
Jen leaned in once I’d settled back in my seat. “You know, you could have killed her,” she said in my ear so nobody else could hear.
“I didn’t hit her that hard,” I answered, taking a swig of my Coke.
“No, I mean, legally you could have killed her. This is a ‘stand your ground’ state,” Jen explained. “She attacked with a deadly weapon. You were legally justified in using lethal force. You could have killed her with the knife you carry around all the time and it would have been OK.”
Not understanding why Jen was telling me this, I asked “Why would I do that? I mean, she was stupid and bigoted and drunk, but that doesn’t mean it would have been OK to stab her!”
“What’s one more?” Asked Jen, shrugging her shoulders.
“What?” I demanded, standing up and grabbing Jen’s arm, pulling her up and out of her chair. I dragged her to the women’s bathroom, and I guess the look on my face made people get out of our way.
There were a couple of women in the restroom, but I told them “Out. Now!” And they all cleared out plenty quickly. I kicked the door stop under the door, effectively locking everybody else out while Jen and I had a little discussion.
“What do you mean, ‘what’s one more?’,” I asked, trying to keep from shouting.
“Well,” Jen said, looking around, trying to avoid my eyes. “I mean, it’s not like you haven’t killed people before, is it?”
“What makes you think that?” I asked, stunned to hear this from her.
“Well, um, from what I understand, you’ve already killed some people, right?”
“Who told you that?” I asked, stepping in closer, making Jen back up against the wall. There was somebody banging on the door, but I ignored it.
“I don’t know, Lee, I guess,” said Jen, trying to back farther away.
“And where did Lee hear this?” I asked, getting right in Jen’s face.
“Emmy told him!”
“Emmy told Lee that I’ve killed people?”
“Yes! She told Jackson, too! Everybody knows it!”
“When you say ‘everybody,’ who exactly do you mean, and why did Emmy say this about me?” I asked, my voice low and menacing.
“Just our friends, that’s all!” Jen said, clarifying that it wasn’t actually everybody. “I think she’s proud of it.”
“Emmy is proudly telling people that I’m a psychopath?”
“No! She’s proud that you’re brave and strong! She- she says you defended her, that you did what you had to!”
“Have you spread these stories at all?”
“No! It’s not my place! I would never,” Jen said, breathing a little easier when I stepped back.
She backed up right away again when I reached into my boot and pulled out Ol’ Stabby. “Did you mean this knife?” I asked, waving the tip back and forth.
“Oh, fuck…” Jen whispered, her eyes wide.
“Because you had better not spread these stories at all, or…” I hinted, slipping the dagger back behind my ankle.
“It’s really true, isn’t it?” she asked, but I didn’t reply.
The banging on the door had gotten more insistent, so I kicked the stop away and opened the door, only to face the club’s two bouncers.
“Are you OK?” The first big meatslab asked, looking me up and down.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “My friend just had a panic attack after that chick went crazy.”
“All right,” he said, satisfied. “You’re gonna have to talk to the police when they get here, though. They’re gonna need your statement.”
“No problem,” I said, taking Jen’s arm and helping her back to our seats.
The hipster couple had vanished, leaving the small table to just Jen and I, which was fine with me. Drunk crazy lady’s friends had all cleared out too, replaced by a group of rednecks who congratulated me on my epic takedown of an armed opponent.
Jen leaned in again. “I swear to you, I’m never going to say a word to anybody about it. Seriously.” Continuing, she said “You remember the club I worked at when you asked me to teach Emmy to pole dance, right?”
Puzzled by the sudden change of topic, I nodded that I did. “Well, there’s something I’ve never told anybody. You know, sometimes guys would offer me money to, well, fuck ‘em. It’s just the nature of the business, being a stripper, right?”
Again, I nodded that I understood. “Well, I’ve never told anybody this, but sometimes, if I needed money for textbooks, or rent was coming due and work had been slow, and the guy wasn’t too skeevy, I’d do it. Take ‘em up on it, I mean. They always had to use protection, and I made damned sure it was always someplace sort of safe, but still- it’s what it was.”
I turned and looked in Jen’s eyes, seeing she was serious. She leaned in to tell me more. “I mean, I’m pretty sex-positive and don’t think prostitution should be illegal and all that, but I’ve never told this to Lee and never will. It’s not that I’m ashamed of it,” she said, her tone belying her words. “It’s just not something that I think he would ever want to know about me, you know?”
Again, I looked at Jen, wondering why she had just told this to me. Once more, she leaned in. “Now you know something about me that I don’t ever want anybody else to know, so we’re equal, right?”
Turning to speak into her ear, I said “Well, maybe not quite. You just told me something that could make your boyfriend break up with you, but you know something about me that could get me the death penalty. I’m not sure that’s on the same level.”
“Maybe not,” Jen said with a shrug. “But it’s a trust thing, right? Emmy trusted her friends enough that she felt she could tell them about you, and now I’m showing that I trust you enough not to ruin my life. And now we will never speak of either thing ever again. It’s the biggest secret I’ve got,” she said, shrugging, “And I don’t want anybody to know.”
“What, biggest secret other than the fact that you want to climb into bed with Emmy and me for a three-way?”
“That’s not a secret,” Jen laughed. “Everybody knows that. Hell, Lee even said that if I ever get the chance he’d be OK with it!”
A few minutes later the bouncer came over and asked me to come talk to the police, so Jen and I went to give our statements. The police didn't seem interested in hassling me at all, so soon we were back to our seats. The rednecks at the next table had draped their jackets on our chairs so nobody would take our spot, so I bought them a ‘thank you’ round in appreciation and soon Jen and I were their best friends. They knew I was Emmy’s fiancée, and that didn’t seem to bother them in the slightest, to my relief. Soon enough we’d pushed the two tables together and Jen and I were learning more about the life of tractor mechanics than we’d ever expected.
Despite their trucker hats, plaid shirts and work boots the four guys were actually really well-spoken and good conversationalists. I’ll freely admit that my surprise at this fact reveals more about my prejudices than anything, but what can I say? I guess we all sometimes judge books by their covers without ever bothering to learn how wrong we might be.
In fact, Emmy and I went to a barbecue the following afternoon at Rawson’s house in Holly, a neighborhood in east Austin. He had thrown open the invite to everybody in the band, but the two of us were the only ones that didn’t have any prior commitments. The others really missed out, because the brisket that Rawson had spent many hours on was absolutely incredible.
“Sure, I’ve got a couple of home-made barbecue sauces,” Rawson explained as he loaded my plate with enough meat for three people. “But first, try it without. Personally, my feeling is if the meat and the rub are good enough, sauce just gets in the way.”
“Raw, I know you and I have had this argument many times,” said Charles, one of Rawson’s neighbors. “But BBQ just ain’t all it could be without that little bit of sweet and spicy that a good sauce brings.” Yes, he did actually call it by the three letters rather than ‘barbecue’ which is apparently too long of a word, and he did back up his statement by spooning some of Rawson’s ‘hot’ sauce on his brisket. His wife Jimena caught my eye and shook her head to show she disagreed with her husband.
“And you know I don’t dislike a good sauce, Charles,” Rawson replied. “But I do think that the meat should have the ability to stand on its own merits, y’know?”
I left the two men to continue their long-running argument and went over to the old-school picnic table in the shade of a big old sycamore. Sitting next to Emmy, I set the plate down so we could share.
Emmy introduced me to the tall, muscular man wearing a small girl on his shoulders sitting across from her. “Leah, I would like you to meet Daunte. Daunte lives across the street, and works with Rawson at the Caterpillar dealership. And that adorable little thing there,” she said, pointing at the girl, “is Cecilia.”
“I am not a thing!” objected the girl whom I guessed to be about four, or maybe a small five years old from her perch on Daunte’s broad shoulders.
Cecilia had the classic looks of a Latina, while Daunte’s milk chocolate skin certainly did not make it seem as if he was biologically related to her, even though she demanded “Daddy, put me down. I need to go potty.”
“Sure, baby,” he said, as he stood up and with practiced ease swung her down to the ground. “You know where it is.”
After watching the girl run into the house, Daunte ambled over to get some brisket.
A moment later he was back with a plateful of lunch for himself, and another plate with just a little bit of meat, beans and slaw for his little daughter. When she ran back and sat down he asked “Did you wash your hands?” Her only response was to hold them up for him to check, and when he was satisfied that they were at least damp he poured her some of his mineral water and she dug right in.
Rawson made a pass with the tray of brisket, making sure everybody had all they could eat. “Where’s Carlos?” He asked Daunte as he put another small piece of beef on Cecilia's plate.
“He had to work late, but he’ll be by as soon as he gets off,” Daunte answered. “If you could set aside a plate for him, that’d be great.”
“No problem,” Rawson replied. “No problem at all,” patting Cecilia’s head as he headed back to the smoker.
“Rawson is one damned fine pit master,” Daunte said as he cut another piece of brisket. “Damned fine. I keep telling him he should open up a restaurant.”
“I mean, this is really good, all right, but I have to admit to a certain level of ignorance on the subject of barbecue,” I replied. “I wouldn’t be able to tell really good from great, I don’t think.”
“Well, we here in this neighborhood consider him our secret treasure. We actually have a neighborhood fund to keep him supplied with all the brisket, chicken and sausages he can ‘cue,” Daunte explained. “He’s even been experimenting with tri tip,” he said, looking around as he didn’t want to be overheard.
“And this is why,” he said, waving at the meat on his plate. “It just don’t get any better than this.”
This got me thinking, and when Rawson finally sat down to eat I asked point blank the question that had been forming in my head. “Daunte tells me that the folks here in the area think you should start your own barbecue place,” I started.
When he nodded his head that yes, it was true, I proceeded. “Would you ever consider opening a restaurant?”
“Well, there are two problems with the idea,” Rawson replied in between bites. “First thing is, I make decent money doing what I’m doing now, and a restaurant, well, that’s a risky proposition money-wise. I mean, what if I go all in and don’t make enough to cover my expenses during a slow month or two? I just can’t afford that risk. The second thing is the upfront costs. I’ve got a little saved, sure, but not really enough. I’ve thought about just doing a Saturday morning takeout thing right here from the house, but it’s a commitment in time and money that I’m just not sure will pay off.”
“Besides,” he added, “these guys are just spoiled here. They love my ‘cue because they get it for practically free!”
“Now you know that’s not true, Raw,” said Charles. “I’ve sampled every notable BBQ place here in this part of the state and you know you can hold your head up high with the big boys.” Yes, he said the letters again.
Later, when Emmy was playing Rawson’s old guitar in the shade of the porch to a rapt audience, I told him that if he ever actually wanted to open his own restaurant I’d be happy to have our business analysis expert go over numbers with him and I’d even be willing to bring funding to the table as a partner. “You know my company has a hospitality division, right? We’ve launched a fair number of successful restaurants, nightclubs and bars,” I told him.