"Am I supposed to drink that now?" he asked. "It wasn't a cut."
She applied it to his cheek anyway.
The plan was fuzzy, but they'd been saving for years to leave, getting seven thousand dollars together. Most of it was in the bank, but they had enough cash to stay in a Big Eastern motel or something while he dived tomorrow, then catch the Greyhound west afterward, hopefully bound for Colorado Springs.
"I like the idea of Seattle," his mom said. "I mean, for a holiday. Of course we're going to Colorado."
Robert laughed while he polished off his spaghetti. "Seattle, because of that movie?"
"Sure because of the movie. Tom Hanks is my kind of man."
"He's as white as you can get! He's the white man's white man."
"He's white and all right," his mom answered. "White like sweet sugar."
Robert frowned. "Ugh."
"Put some white sugar in this black coffee."
"God, I get it, mom!"
She laughed and they packed, with Robert down in his basement bedroom and her upstairs.
"I always said that Green-O was a little shit," she shouted down to him after half an hour. "Greedy face, pug eyes, like a spiteful little teacup pig."
When they were all packed, three bags each of essentials and mementoes, he called the taxi, then stood for a final time in the basement that had been his room all his life. Beneath the raft of many posters, half of them of old female rappers put there by his sisters back when they'd all shared this space, the wall was bare concrete. He could smell the damp underneath, as he'd smelled it for years.
Here was his cot, with his one extravagance the games console; five years old but it still worked. By the TV was a rickety cabinet holding all his remaining dive trophies. He'd had to start culling them when they grew too numerous, getting a few dollars for each at the pawnshop, leaving only the biggest, brightest and most impressive. He wouldn't take any of them; too bulky to pack into a Greyhound. If Green-O didn't burn the place to the ground he could send for them.
He climbed the steep stairs to where his mother was waiting. She pulled him into a hug.
"Lots of memories," she said. "I know, sugar."
He cleared his throat. "We need to go."
"You're a good boy, Bobby. Good to all the least of your brothers and sisters."
He smiled. It was one of her favorite sayings, from the Bible somewhere.
He led the way down the narrow hall, pulling behind him two overstuffed suitcases and three plastic bags stuffed full of clothes, and opened the door.
Green-O was standing there. He had his gun held low in one hand, the other raised up to knock. Shock registered briefly on his face, then he peered past Robert to the bags in the hall.
"You idiot," he said, and raised the gun.
* * *
Robert dived.
It wasn't much of a dive, with only time enough to push with his ankles and get an inch or two of height, but it carried him into the air and over the threshold to hit Green-O with all the force of a wet kitchen towel.
He deflated across him, pushing the gun barrel down with his thigh, where it discharged with a BANG and crunched a bullet into the concrete path. Robert kicked his other foot off the wall of the house and drove Green-O backward hard. He staggered and fell, his back thumped on the cement walk, his head cracked off it loudly, and the gun fired with another brittle bang.
Robert grabbed at the weapon. Green-O's grip was limp and sloppy and his fingers opened easily. Robert took the gun and sprang back to his feet. Green-O was out cold and bleeding. He turned to survey the street.
The red Cadillac was there, parked three houses down. A skinny white guy in Sons of the Harp red was leaning against its side with an expression of stunned surprise on his face.
Robert raised the gun and pointed it at him. The guy's hands went up at once.
"Robert, wait," his mother called from behind. He ignored her and strode forward, filled with a sudden high tide of rage. He'd kept his head down, he'd paid his respects, he'd done everything they'd asked, and in return he'd just asked to be left alone.
He stopped in the guy's face with the gun barrel pressed against his clammy forehead, next to a zit.
"Robert!" came his mother's voice.
"Give me your gun," Robert said through gritted teeth. The guy reached gingerly into his waistband and fished it out, holding it between finger and thumb like a dainty tissue. Robert took it.
"Now run."
The guy looked at him bewildered. There was the glaze of dope in his eyes. "What, man?"
"Run away. Go."
He inched sideways out from under the gun muzzle, then started to lope hesitatingly away, looking back a lot. Robert kept the gun trained on him until he disappeared round the bend of Riney Street.
Then he sagged. His mother was there to steady him.
"We have to go," he said.
They went.
They left Green-O unconscious on the path. They met the taxi halfway down the street after dumping both guns in a neighbor's abandoned fishpond.
In the cab Robert gritted his teeth through the shock reaction. His mom kept talking about nothings; that was her way to deal with it. The taxi drove on and he glared out of the window. They passed south out of Frayser, through the high-rises of downtown Memphis, pulling onto I-40 to roll over the Mississippi river on the Hernando de Soto bridge.
The first step west of many.
His mom pinched his arm gently. "Colorado Springs," she said. He nodded.
They pulled into a Big Eastern in Clarkdale thirty minutes later, and ate bacon and maple pancakes in silence in the motel's all-night restaurant, with their bags piled up around them. There wasn't much else to say.
Frayser had said its goodbyes.
3. THE DIVE
The next day dawned gray, dreary and intensely humid. Robert lay in the narrow, too-short Big Eastern bed with the too-thin covers that couldn't ward off the air con's drying chill and looked up at the stained cream ceiling. All of this was crazy, fleeing a city with your mother. Most people his age still dreamed of becoming rap stars or gangsters like Green-O, or they'd gone to college and were now starting careers in a far-off city.
Not Robert.
His first shot at serious diving had come at 16, only one or two years behind the most advanced in his state. He'd been selected for the national training camp, then his eldest sister Bethy had had a mental breakdown and he had to work doubles at the Yangtze fulfillment center in south Memphis to help pay the medical bills.
Something like that happened every year after. He worked hard on his diving technique, Coach Willings encouraged him, then another disaster would strike. His other sister got arrested. His mom lost her job in layoffs and was unemployed for a year. Throughout most of it his grandmother's cancer just went on and on like a dog barking through the night, until they were all so sick of her croaky, desperate pleas for water that any one of them was likely to end it with a pillow.
"Mom," he said softly, across the quiet room.
"Yes, son," she answered sleepily.
"If I get shot today, promise you'll go to Seattle. Find yourself a nice guy like Tom Hanks."
She didn't say anything cruel like, 'That won't happen,' or 'You're going to make it!', which he was grateful for. They were both adults and knew enough disappointment to be honest. Instead she said, "I promise."
In the restaurant they ate, sitting on sticky red leather seats and looking out over I-55, where semis whipped by in a fog of rain and spray. It was 6am and the meet started at 11, with his dives listed from 1. He didn't eat much, just a few egg whites and a small portion of waffles.
He got in a taxi alone and his mom waved him off.
"Good luck, sugar," she said, "focus and faith."
The taxi pulled away and he ran over his dive list, as they blustered down the highway in a flurry of rain. Ten dives, all of them easy except for the final dive: an inward arm-stand. Nobody ever did that dive because it was considered to be physically impossible. It meant spinning inward toward the platform, which was impossible on a falling, flicking arm-stand because arms couldn't 'jump' away from the platform edge like legs could. They weren't strong enough.
People broke toes attempting it. One guy had broken a leg, someone else had cracked his skull open.
Robert was different. Perhaps it was a freak of his physiology, gifting him with great upper body strength despite a lack of obvious, heavy bulk, or maybe it was technique. The first time he tried it, he'd skinned his forehead on the platform edge and Coach Willings told him never to try it again.
The next time he broke two toes, and the time after he half-knocked himself out with a solid impact. But the time after that he got it, and every time since, slipping by the platform edge by a whisker's margin. But a whisker was enough. If he could just pull it off today he'd be on the Olympic team for sure. They'd leave Frayser and Memphis behind forever.
* * *
Outside the University swim hall the parking lot was buzzing with the mood of a festival, despite the sodden gray rain. There was a dive meet and a swim meet that day, and bustling beneath banners announcing the Olympic assessment were clustered families, parents, girlfriends, boyfriends and small children clamoring for popcorn.
The taxi dropped Robert off in the thick of them and he overpaid to avoid waiting for change, rolling out smoothly with a hoodie drawn tight over his head and his gear bag on his back.
"It's not a movie, honey, there's no popcorn," he heard as he joined the throng; a parent patiently explaining to his daughter.
There was the smell of hot dogs on the air though, and greasy fried chicken from a tailgate party in the lot, sheltered beneath one of the big sycamores. For some this was all just good fun, with a friend's or a child's medal and position on the podium at stake. For others it was a moment where everything could change.
For Robert it was life or death.
He shuffled along in the thick of the crowd, sneaking glances to either side, but there was no sign of Green-O. It wouldn't stay that way, he was sure. He'd knocked a general of the Sons of the Harp out cold, pulled a gun on another, for which there would be no forgiveness.
He let the crowd guide him through the sports center's airy lobby, beneath more festival bunting announcing the names of the Olympic hopefuls, his included. There actually was popcorn on a stand off to his right, filling the air with its rich salt and butter smell, making an odd combination with the ever-present fog of chlorine.
He reached the sign-in desk and joined the line, keeping his head tucked low. Ahead there was a group of young, tall swimmers and he pressed up amongst them.
"Hey Robert," one of them said, and he mumbled a reply. They talked to him but he looked straight down until they tailed off. Green-O might be anywhere, looking out with a knife in his hand ready to shank him and move on.
The line progressed and he dripped with sweat inside his hoodie, almost at the front now.
"Robert!" came a cheerful cry.
It was Coach Willings. Robert looked up and saw him passing easily through the line as his many protégés parted like water. He patted Robert on the shoulder and peered into the depths of his hood.
"What have you got that thing on for, it's sweltering in here?" He flipped the hood off, and droplets of sweat flicked out. The Coach frowned. "God, Robert, you look half-dead. What's going on?"
The hood was off and anybody could see him now. His knees trembled. "Nerves, I guess."
The Coach frowned. "You never get nerves. Look, get on the lower boards and run through your early list. Once you hit the water it'll all become clear."
He nodded. "Thanks Coach."
"You've got this," the Coach said, and gave him a meaningful look, a squeeze on the shoulder, then headed off.
Robert dared a look around. Still there was no Green-O.
Someone spoke to him.
"Robert, hi, let's get you signed up!"
He was at the front of the line. The girl in front of him was a volunteer, a cute blonde college girl; he'd spoken to her a few times on the bus going home, her with her books and him with his gear.
He signed in, mumbling through her bright small talk, then let his legs carry him away. It felt like rolling on jelly. He passed through the crowds and up some stairs toward the upper gallery, heading for the disabled toilet; hopefully a spot Green-O and the Sons wouldn't be looking for him.
He ducked backward into the toilet and locked the door, then changed into his swimming kit and wrapped a towel around his waist. He stood on the toilet hand railing to stow his clothes in the ceiling, after shifting one of the plasterboard panels to the side, then dropped back down to survey the job.
At least his pants were safe.
Back in the hallway a few people noticed him striding purposefully along, bare-chested with a towel. Somebody wolf-whistled. He came into the dive hall down the bleachers, another unexpected route, and at the bottom looked out over the water. The tall blue platform stood before him, like a great statue of the gods.
A shiver ran down his back. He turned back to sweep the bleachers. There were twenty rows and already hundreds of people camping out to watch the warm-ups, but he couldn't pick out Green-O.
Something whacked against his back and he jerked away impulsively, almost toppling into the water.
"Jeez, Robert, what's got into you?"
It was Thomson, one of the swimmers up for a medal. They'd been friends for a while, before work at the Yangtze center had started taking up all his time.
"Nothing," Robert said, "I'm fine."
Thomson raised an eyebrow. "Big day today, I know that. I'm pulling for you, OK?"
Robert nodded and mumbled thanks. His head wasn't working properly, and it felt like he was living two lives at once; one his regular life and the other a crime thriller overlaid across the top.
"Alright then," Thomson said awkwardly and started away.