“Quinn, wait. I’ll go wit you,” he called.
Quinn threw up his hand to halt Remy’s pursuit. “No!” There was no room for argument. Suddenly the decor, the drab, stark nakedness, the shadows, the familiar scent of the back room, overwhelmed him.
Quinn raced from the building. His mind whirled in horrified disbelief. Of course it was some macabre mistake. They were wrong. Everyone was wrong. It happened all the time.
The Beamer assumed a life of its own as it hurtled down the darkened streets of Harlem, darting in front of cars and terrifying unsuspecting pedestrians. His entire life rolled before his eyes as if projected on some sort of larger-than-life screen.
He pulled to a screeching stop in front of the precinct house. For several moments he just sat there, staring at his hands that gripped the wheel to keep from trembling. Calling on something deep inside, he forced himself to get out of the car and put one foot in front of the other.
The rest of the night was a series of nightmarish snapshots taken from a house of horrors photo album—from the drive to the medical examiner’s office to his return home, where he found himself staring at the snow dancing across his television screen.
He had watched himself mindlessly follow the short, pudgy doctor with tufts of hair protruding from his ears down the long, dull gray corridors, the effort of walking zapping his strength like the grip of quicksand. The only sound was his own heavy heartbeat, thudding like tribal drums in his ears. A thick metal door ahead swung inward to reveal a frigid, stark and sterile room with bright white walls bouncing off highly polished stainless-steel instruments and blinding him to where he really was, projecting the illusion of virgin purity. He cringed as teeth-gritting sounds of metal hitting metal played a chilly tune to the backdrop of the whir and hum of unseen machines and the snap and pop of rubber gloves, while technicians went about their business of uncovering the mysteries of death.
The motion of the doctor removing the stiff white sheet from her face flashed repeatedly like that of a high-speed camera shutter every time he blinked. Wrapped in a sheet like dirty laundry, with a tag for pick-up dangling over her exposed, pink-polished toenail. Something deep inside of him gave way, and he seemed to choke on his own air. Icy fingers of disbelief ran down his spine and he shuddered. Instinctively he reached for her, seeking the warmth and assurance he’d always known, come to expect. Her hand, it was so cold. All the life and the warmth that was Lacy was gone. Her face was just as peaceful and pretty as it had always been, except for that deep, dark, black hole in the middle of her forehead that could have easily resembled the blessing marks from Ash Wednesday.
But he kept staring at her, rubbing her hand, begging her in the silence of his heart to just get up so they could get out of there. Out of this place that was too quiet, too cold, too lifeless, with its stainless-steel tables and rubber blankets, the stench of embalming fluid more pungent to him than the odor of the back alleys. Lacy didn’t belong in a place like this. She was too full of life, too full of energy. So why was she so still? Why wouldn’t she just get up, so they could leave? Dread swept through him. He wanted to run, to scream at her to get up. But the words wouldn’t come.
So he tried to blink the vision away. But it remained, unchanged. She could have been asleep, just as he remembered from tiptoeing into her room as a kid to tug her ponytails. She’d looked as though she’d open her mouth at any moment and make one of her smart-ass remarks, like when they were growing up and everyone always said how much alike they looked. “I’m just prettier,” Quinn would say, and Lacy would remark, “But my boobs are bigger.” And they would look at each other and crack up laughing. That’s all he wanted to hear. Just hear her laugh, tell him to eat and not stay out too late. He wanted to watch her face glow with pride when she read his work or listened to him play.
He wanted to tell her how important she was to him. How she’d made life bearable after their mother deserted them. How much it meant to him to hear her words of praise, and how much he loved her.
All he wanted was for her to be asleep so he could walk across the hall and smell corn bread baking in her oven. Then everything would be all right and this sick, unspeakable torment that had infected every inch of his body would go away. His fingers dug into his palm. When had he told her he loved her?
From his eyes they fell, silently, trickling onto his clenched hands. He looked down at the unbidden wetness, blinking, momentarily confused. “Big boys don’t cry,” he could hear his mother taunt. And Lacy would whisper in his ear, “It’s all right Q. It’s okay.”
It would never be okay again.
“Comin’ home from church,” he moaned, the force of his sobs shaking his powerful body. “Church! Praying to her God. Where were you tonight? Huh? Why weren’t you watchin’ over my sister, like she said you always did? ’Cause there ain’t no God. You ain’t real. I knew that when you nevah brought my mama back. But Lacy kept believin’, ’cause that’s just the way she was. So why her? Huh? Why? She ain’t never done nothing but good. And you took her. So whatta we got now, huh—God?”
Suddenly he lurched to his feet, staggering, his legs stiff and heavy from hours of immobility. He stumbled toward the window as the hazy orange sun began its ascent above the rooftop rows of tenements and high-rise projects.
Then, as if conjured from the depths of a personal hell, the agonized wail of a mortally wounded soul screaming to end its inhumane torture ripped from the bowels of his being, as his foot crashed through the curtain-covered windows.
“N-ooo!”
The service was a blur, packed with people he’d never even known were friends. His only moment of clarity was when Maxine stepped up to the podium and sang, “You Are My Friend,” in a tribute to Lacy that rivaled Pattie LaBelle.
He could still hear the haunting power of her voice, the painful truth of the words humming through his veins as he and Maxine made their way toward home.
Maxine took periodic, countless glances at Quinn’s drawn profile. He hadn’t uttered a full sentence in days. She was afraid for him, and at the same time she needed him. She needed him to tell her that everything would be all right, to hold her and tell her they’d get through it. She was hurting, too, more than she would have believed was physically possible. But Quinn had left them behind, as sure as Lacy had. He was visible in body, but the spirit of the man was gone.
He turned to her when they reached her apartment building. His hair had come loose from the band that held it, and it blew gently across his black-clad shoulders, touched by the stirring breeze.
“You’d better go on up,” he said in a barely audible voice. He wouldn’t meet her eyes, because he knew that if he did, she’d see the hurt and the fear. He couldn’t expose that part of himself to anyone—not ever again. Big boys don’t cry. It’s okay, Q. “Listen, I gotta go,” he said abruptly. His gaze flickered briefly on her face. Leaning down, he kissed her cheek. “Later.”
Maxine watched his long, bowlegged swagger until he was out of sight.
Several weeks later as Quinn was stepping out of the shower he was surprised to hear the faint ringing of the telephone. He had so isolated himself since Lacy’s death that those who knew him had backed away after repeated attempts at offers of support. That being true, Quinn couldn’t imagine who would have the heart to call just to get their feelings stepped on.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Parker?” came a voice, thin as a rail.
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Oh, thank heavens,” she rushed on. “I’ve been trying to reach your sister for days but she never seems to be home.” Quinn’s insides did a nosedive, leaving him momentarily speechless. “Such a hardworking girl, that one. It’s the main reason why I decided to hold the apartment for the two of you. She left your number on the