Free Black Water Rising by Attica Locke Page A

talking to a woman, a caller who’s sleeping with a married man, has been for years. She’s wondering if he’ll ever leave his wife, and if he doesn’t, where in the world will that leave her? The show is call-and-response, a rhythm borrowed from blues or the church, where black people come to lay down their problems. The callers have on-air names like CB handles. “This is Stormin’ Norman calling...” “Yeah, Wash, this is your girl Sunshine...” “Dark ’n’ Lovely here, Wash, and I got something to say...” They’re all calling in, hot to give their opinions, to tell the woman on hold that she’s a stone cold fool.

Chapter 5
    The next morning, he stands over the sink checking his cut in the bathroom mirror. It’s at least an inch long where the tree branch got him. There’s a thin slash just below his cheekbone, a little too high to be explained away as a shaving mishap. He would put a Band-Aid on it, but he doesn’t want to draw any more attention to it. It’s bad enough it looks like the scratch of a woman’s fingernail, an act of aggression or passion, neither of which would be easy to explain to his wife. He doesn’t want her to know where he was last night. Not yet at least. Not until he gets ahold of Jimmy’s cousin. For it has become fairly clear to Jay that he will have to make some kind of statement to police detectives. He thinks it’s better if he contacts them first, before they come looking for him. Bernie, were she to hear about the shooting in the paper and the woman’s apparent involvement, would demand that she and Jay march down to the station this morning, which Jay is not the least bit inclined to do, not without another witness, preferably one he’s not married to. He wants someone other than his wife to testify to his fundamental inno cence in this situation. Otherwise, how to explain his odd behav ior? The fact that he’s waited four days since the shooting to say a word about it or, more important, why he was at the crime scene last night. He feels sick when he thinks about the traces of himself he carelessly left behind—the Newport he tossed out the window as he was coming up the dirt drive, his footprints and tire tracks, and the shoe he lost in the brush—all of it just sitting out there, waiting to be discovered. He could hardly sleep last night for imagining the groundskeeper talking to homicide detectives, telling them about the stranger out after dark, sneak ing around their crime scene. Jay thinks all of it can be easily explained away, but he wants to talk to Jimmy’s cousin first. If the old man hasn’t done so already, maybe he and Jay can make a statement together.
    He opens the cabinet over the sink and pulls out a tub of Vase line. He rubs jelly into the cut on his cheek, then uses one of Bernie’s compacts to cover the mark with bronze powder. He tries to make it blend in, to make himself look at least presentable and, at best, credible. When he’s done, he wraps a towel around his waist and picks up the .22 that’s resting on top of the toilet’s tank.
    Jay has three guns: a .38 in his glove compartment, a hunting rifle in the hall closet, and the nickel-plated .22 he keeps under his pillow, always within arm’s reach. He’s tried to break the habit of carrying it into the bathroom with him. But most days it’s right by his side. Some people, when they’re in the shower, imagine they hear the phone ringing. Jay imagines people break ing into his apartment with guns drawn.
    He lost a buddy that way. Lyndon “Bumpy” Williams had been Jay’s roommate his first year at U of H, when the dorms were still segregated. It was Bumpy who joined SNCC first, who took Jay to his first meeting. He was one of Jay’s oldest and clos est friends. By the summer of 1970, the feds had some heavy intel on Mr. Williams, courtesy of COINTELPRO. They broke into his duplex on Scott Street while Bumpy was in the shower. He never heard them coming, never heard their