Vigil

Julius Caesar Lewis was getting ready to close up for the night when she walked in carrying a thirty-eight special that looked like it had been dredged up from the bottom of the Olentangy River. Despite the heat she was wearing a knit ski mask with pink and turquoise snowflakes in neat rows from top to bottom. Shit. Julius had been having a pretty good day by his standards, about two hundred in the till, all cash. No checks or credit cards ever at his Palmetto Market and Carryout. He scrounged a living off the various addictions of some of the poorest folks in all of Columbus. Booze, caffeine, and nicotine were his stock and trade. The poorest blacks, the poorest whites, the poorest Mexicans; they all came to Mr. Julius for their over the counter fix. An integrated neighborhood whose citizens for the most part hated each other with equal opportunity. She leveled the gun at Julius, or rather she leveled her arm. The pistol was pointed at a spot roughly halfway between her feet and Julius. Her hand was shaking so badly that Julius feared she's pull the trigger accidentally.

"Give me the money, Mr. Julius."

"Raquel, what the fuck do you think your doing?" He didn’t like to use such salty language, but sometimes today’s kids needed to be brought up short. A well placed fuck was as good as an exclamation point.

"I ain't Raquel."

"The hell you say. I gave you that hat for Christmas last year. You think I don't know my own niece?"

"I ain't Raquel. Now give me the money, Uncle Julius." Her hand was really quivering and her breath was coming in gulps.

"What you on, girl? Crack? Heroin? What?"

"Please give me the money," she sobbed, her whole body was shaking now and he recognized the signs of withdrawal. The pistol fell to the floor, as did she when she tried to reach down and pick it up. Julius rushed over to her and gently pulled off the mask. Her once beautiful brown cheeks were pallored an unhealthy yellow and she was sweating profusely. She'd wet herself and there was a distinct chemical smell emanating from her.

"Who done this to you, girl?" She didn't answer, just lie there shaking in his arms.

Julius picked her up in his tree-trunk arms and carried her across the street to the garage behind his house, depositing her in the back seat. He ran back to the market and flipped the light switch and dead-bolted the door. The gangsters in the area were not the type to acknowledge a family emergency. He got behind the wheel and headed for Doctor's West. Julius' car was a solid '78 Ford LTD that he'd bought new back in the days when he still had dreams. He liked to brag that the car was "Ohio born and bred," and proved it by showing off the pristine 351 Cleveland engine. The car had never been wrecked and sported a three-year old glossy black paint job that shined like the Batmobile. The Ford was his baby. His wife left him back in '92, so she was the only baby he was likely to have. He rarely took her out on the road these days, preferring to keep her locked in the garage so that the neighbors wouldn't get ideas that he had money. He pulled her into the drop-off for the emergency room, got out and lifted his niece as gently as possible out of the car. He carried her inside, bellowing at the top of his lungs.

"I need a doctor! My niece needs a doctor now." It wasn't doctors but an off duty Columbus cop working security who was first on the scene. He took one look at Raquel and waved for the nurses. A stretcher appeared and Julius placed her on it. As they wheeled her away he used a huge finger to sweep the stray kinky curls out of her eyes.

"You've got to calm down, Mister...?"

"Lewis."

"That's right, Julius Lewis. I responded to your carryout one time when there was some trouble." Officer Scott was careful not to say that Julius had been robbed, because eight years ago the man had beaten a robber with a 1973 Willie Mays baseball bat and sat on him until the police could get there.

"That's right, Officer Scott. I have your card right here." Julius pulled out his wallet and leafed through a collection of business cards until he pulled out the right one. Scott smiled when he saw the cards of at least ten other of his colleagues. Palmetto Street was definitely not Northwest Boulevard in terms of socio-economic strata, even though the two streets were only separated by a few miles of real estate.

"Are you the next of kin? There is some paperwork that needs to be filled out."

"No, I'll have to call my sister."

"If you don't have a cell phone, there's a pay phone right over there." Julius equated the decline of 20th Century civilization to the invention of the cell phone. He walked across the room to call his sister.



Julius and his sister Cleo were sitting in the waiting room a couple of hours later when the doctor came out. Cleo jumped off the couch and ran over to the doctor, her large body undulating like a bag of bowling balls made out of gelatin. Julius hung back, judging the doctor's glum expression expertly. He didn't hear the actual words, but could tell by his sister's reaction that Raquel was dead.

"Oh, my baby. My Baby!" Cleo wailed and thrashed out at the doctor, who backpedaled to get away from her. Julius grabbed his sister a reeled her in against his billboard -sized chest. She clawed at his shirt with talons that would make an eagle proud, and drew blood was the result. They stood immobile for several minutes and he directed her back to their seats.

"Cleopatra, we need to talk."

"I know."

"How long she been on that shit?"

"Not long. She be actin' up, not going to school this year. Been hanging out with some skinny little white boy by the name a Eddie."

"White boy. We didn't raise her to be going with no white boy."

"She that age, Jules. She going ta do what she going ta do. I knew it was gonna be trouble, her hanging out in the village. 'Sides, the boy was kinda comical, always wearing Fubu clothes and talking crazy whack. Don't these white boys know what Fubu mean?"

"Exactly why they wear it. And all that shit is bullshit. You call me and I set that girl straight. What you mean, hanging out in the village?"

"The Wedgewood Village. Them apartments off of Briggs. Lotta shit going down in there." She looked dejected. The fact that Raquel was dead starting to sink in. "I know I should a called you, but I just wanted my little girl to be happy."

"Yeah, who's happy now?" Cleo started bawling again and Julius handed her his hanky. She bent over in the chair and a half-yard of garish satin panty came riding up out of her slacks. Any other time it would have been comical. Julius reached over and pulled his sister's blouse down to cover the impropriety. He was already thinking about how to go about finding this Eddie character. Who's happy now?


The day of the funeral the bulk of the kids at Columbus West High School turned out. Cleo Lewis was a drunken mess and Julius didn't dare leave her side as hundreds of grieving teenagers came up to pay their respects. Conspicuously absent was one white boy named Eddie. Julius put Cleo to bed early and babysat her house while the well-meaning freeloaders of the neighborhood ate all of her food and drank all her booze.

Julius sat brooding at the market for the next week; unsure of his emotions and afraid of what he might do and whom he might do it to. He casually interrogated the teens that frequented his store, getting the 411 on the drug dealers in the area, never mentioning Eddie by name. Most of the kids that came in were too young to provide any good info, the older ones too savvy to give up information to old folks.


On Friday night, Julius locked up the carryout at eight, just like always. He walked over to his house and changed into a black tee shirt and jeans. He put on a black leather baseball hat with no logo on the front. In spite of the heat, he put on a pair of black leather driving gloves. Then he reached up in the top of his closet and pulled out a shoebox. He took the box and placed it on his kitchen table. With two fingers he pulled out a handgun, a Glock 32 that some idiot had left in the carryout during a failed robbery attempt. With quivering hands he took out the clip and ejected the round from the chamber. He turned the pistol around in his hands, trying to figure out how to dismantle and clean it. A dirty gun could mean a jam or a misfire. He heard that somewhere. If he had to use it, he needed to make sure it would work properly. After fifteen minutes of trying to figure it out, he put the clip back in. He stuck it in the front of jeans, but it didn't feel right. He tried the back of his jeans, ditto. He engulfed it in his ham hock of a hand and walked outside to his garage.

The Julesmobile sat gleaming under the florescent light. Julius got into the Ford and set the Glock on the seat next to him. He turned the key over and listened to the throb of the big motor. He gunned it a few times and then let it idle, listening for ticks or misfires. The engine sounded perfect. He walked to the overhead door, hefting it up, and then slowly backed the car out. No newfangled garage door openers for Julius Caesar Lewis. He rolled slowly down the alley, and then out onto Palmetto. Seconds later, he pulled into the Marathon station on Broad Street that he always used. Marathon Oil, Ohio founded, owned by Americans. After filling her up and washing the windows, Julius cruised the Ford west on Broad into the dying sun.

The night was still a little too young for Julius' liking, so he pulled into Polly's Tavern and went in for a drink. The blue-collar happy hour was in full swing and the revelers were loud and raucous. It was a payday Friday and most of these people in the bar were determined to be broke come morning. Julius spotted a seat at the bar and squeezed himself in between a white truck driver and a Mexican construction worker. A skeletal bleach-blonde bartender sidled over to take his order.

"Double bourbon, up."

"Ten High is the well, that okay?" He nodded. "You want a chaser?"

He looked at the mirror behind the bar and parroted its ad copy. "Pabst Blue Ribbon."

The bartender sat the drinks in front of him and Julius took a big swallow of the bourbon. He instantly felt the gorge building in the back of his throat and almost upchucked on the bar. A swig of the Pabst cooled the burn. Julius wasn't much of a drinker, never had been, but if the night went down as he feared, he was going to need a little liquid courage. He finished the drinks, plus another shot, paid the bartender, and went back out into the night.

Two blocks later, Julius pulled onto Wedgewood Drive, and cruised slowly past the cellblock-like buildings sprinkled around the sparse lawns. Wannabe gangsters and delinquent teenagers crowded on every street corner like brazen cockroaches in a dirty kitchen. He followed Wedgewood out of the project and all the way down to where it dead-ended into Clime Road. He went around the block and then went down Briggs, cutting through the center of the project and checking out the access and escape points. Finally, after he'd criss-crossed the area several times, he pulled up next to a group of teenagers.

"Eddie around?"

"Nice ride, man. Ain't no Eddie 'round here, old man. What you need?"

"I got business with Eddie. You know, skinny little white boy?"

"Oh, that Eddie. What you want with his shit? I gots all the same shit that he gots, only better."

"Like I said, I got business with Eddie."

"Okay, your loss old man. He over in 863 building. You can park back in that parking lot over there."

Julius pulled the Ford into the lot and parked. To the left of him he saw 871, so he got out, tucked the Glock in the back of his pants, and walked over to the next building, which said 859. It looked like each building had several entrances, so Julius walked around the side of the building and saw 861. He continued around and came back to 859. Perplexed, he smiled, figuring the boys had pulled a prank on him. As he walked back out to the dark parking lot, he heard footsteps rushing up behind him. He turned to see the boy he'd talked to a few minutes before.

"Oh, it's you. Where can I find Eddie?"

"I done told you there's no Eddie 'round here."

"Why you play with me, son?"

"Son? You ain't my daddy. I ain't gots no daddy."

"Come on now. Where's Eddie?" Julius heard more footsteps coming from behind him. More boys bracketing him.

"The real question, old man, is where's your money."

"You going to rob me?"

"Yes, I am."

Julius reached behind him and took out the Glock, pointing it at the stickup boy. The boy just smiled.

"You gonna shoot me, old man? You might get me, but my boys gonna cut you down like a dog."

Julius yanked the trigger, not knowing that he had to pull the slide back to put a round in the chamber. The stickup boy rushed him and slipped a four-inch blade between his ribs and into a lung. Julius collapsed to the ground and the boys rifled through his pockets. As he lie there on the lawn, more dirt than grass, bleeding out, Julius heard the sound of his Ford being fired up. Oh no, not the Julesmobile.