His Third Wife

Jamison tried again to busy himself. He pulled out his phone and looked for something he wasn’t really seeking. His last text message had been received at 10 PM. It was from Kerry: Are you coming to Tyrian’s golf tee on Saturday morning? He keeps asking me about it.

Jamison heard the other brothers in the bar cheering. He responded yes to Kerry’s message. He looked at her name for a few seconds. Looked at the talk button. Heard the cheering. Saw the girl’s boots on the bar. He remembered Kerry’s hair. How long it had been when they met. She’d always worn it out, too. He thought to press talk but knew it was the beer pushing him on. Then the phone rattled in his hand. It was a message from Kerry: You respond five hours later at 3 a.m.? Really? WTH?

The cheering stopped. Iesha had pulled the blonde off of Emmit, and the two girls, who Jamison had seen take on drink after drink, were stumbling to the back of the bar area, where there were two bedrooms and a bathroom.

“Young girls will kill you for sure,” Emmit said, elbowing Scoot.

“Nah, they won’t kill you until they get that money out of you,” Scoot said. He got up and tucked his shirt into his pants in a way that was meant to make him look dignified. He grabbed another drink off the bar and gave a military salute to his comrades before waddling toward the back of the bar area.

Emmit made the sound of a plane taking off and moved his stool over closer to Jamison’s. He was drunker than Jamison had ever seen him. His eyes were red and his breathing was so heavy his head tilted back and forward with each breath.

He seemed to notice how Jamison was looking at him and straightened up a little on the stool—as much as he could.

“So, tell me, what are you going to do about that Uncle Tom reporter?” Emmit asked.

“Guess I need to talk to him,” Jamison said. “Have to. I have a long way to go in office and I can’t have him sniffing around every time I fart. Got to find out what’s got him up my ass.”

“Fuck ’is ass!” Emmit declared harshly, and then he laughed at his outburst. “What the young people say—no homo?”

“I know what you meant.”

“That fool ain’t got no territory in this motherfucker. Just young and dumb. Thinking he can use his stories to make it to CNN. Take more than that.”

Jamison watched a few brothers trail one another to the back of the bar with their hands moving in and out of their pockets.

“He’s falling for that Obama post-racial America shit. We’ll see who gets his ass when the white people are done with him.”

“White people?” Jamison quizzed. The way Emmit said the words was so solid it sounded like he might have a clue who was behind Dax.

“Oh, no, man.” Emmit seemed to straighten up as he read Jamison’s interest. “I don’t mean it like that. I mean in general. But we can find out. I can have him pumped.” Emmit looked at Jamison hard. By pumped he meant he’d get a full folder of everything Dax had ever done in his life. Anything and everything. Deeds and dirt. If he loved his mama, Jamison would know. If he liked kiddie porn, Jamison would know. Politicians, bigwigs, and shakers used pumps to keep folks in line. None of the information was ever reported to the police—they were usually the ones who delivered the pump to the person being pumped. The person who requested the pump just used it to gain clout in the dispute, whatever it was.

“He’s clean,” Jamison said, even though he might not have revealed that much information to Emmit if he wasn’t drunk. He’d already ordered one the night after the scene at the courthouse.

“Clean?” Emmit laughed as he got up from his stool. “Ain’t nobody clean.”

Though no one had left, the bar was half empty. The only people left were couples sprinkled around on the couches, leaning into one another.

“Ain’t nobody clean. Ain’t no old lady clean. The pope—that nigga ain’t clean,” Emmit went on.

“I checked, Emmit,” Jamison repeated.

“No, you didn’t.”

“What are you saying?”

Emmit picked up a toothpick off the bar and pulled a little meat from his right front tooth that had been bothering him all night.

“I’m saying,” he said while sucking the little piece of flesh back into his mouth, “let me order the pump. My man is good.”

“Really? You’d have Dax pumped for me?” Jamison looked at Emmit crossly. This was the kind of exchange two men who liked each other or owed each other had. He was never really sure how much Emmit liked him, so he wondered what he owed him. What he’d want.

“Yes, young man, I would.”

“For what? What will I owe? Or do I owe you already?”

Emmit stretched and turned in a way that let Jamison know he was heading to the back of the bar with everyone else.

“You leave the Ras situation alone . . . stop asking questions, and we’ll call it even.” Emmit grinned and waited a few seconds before turning away from Jamison. “I’ll have the pump to you by the end of the week. I think my grandson has a golf tee with your son on Saturday. Be there and we’ll talk.”