Page 95 of Levi

“Why, Freddie?”

It’s out now and it won’t go back, and it’s got somebody else’s heat in it, an anger that doesn’t sound like mine. Nobody should be able to do this to you. Dante’s voice, furious on my behalf about a thing I’d quit being able to see.

“Why is it like this? Why can’t I—” and it tips, into the place it’s never been let go. “Why can’t I get at my own damn money without your say-so? It’s mine. I worked for it. It’s got my name on it. Why do I have to ask you for a hundred dollars like a kid?”

The room changes. Freddie stands up. He’s not angry. Freddie does the wounded routine instead.

“Why?” He says it back to me. “You’re asking me why. After everything I’ve done for you.” He spreads his hands. “I made you. You understand that? There is no you without me. I built Lee Streeter out of nothing. I found a nobody and made it the name on that stage tonight, the name people screamed, and you’re standing here asking me why.” Then, softly, the knife slid in clean and easy, a thing he’s said before and knows the weight of, “If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be singing in a church choir in the Smoky Mountains. Living with your daddy, working the farm. That’s what you were. That’s all you were. I’m the only reason you’re anything. Don’t forget it.”

Two weeks ago that sentence would’ve closed the subject. Two weeks ago, I’d have heard it and felt the old shame come up. The bone-deep certainty that he’s right. That I was nothing before him.

“And let’s talk about why I keep a hand on things.” He’s rolling now, because he thinks I’ve gone silent the old way, because the old way always worked. “You want to be turned loose with your own money. Sure. Let’s remember how that goes. Remember getting your stomach pumped when I pulled you out of a hotel in Austin? I’ve got a folder a mile thick, of the nights I made disappear so the world wouldn’t see what you do to yourself the second you’re alone. The DUIs. The bar fights. That’s you unsupervised. I’m not keeping you down, Levi, I’m keeping you alive, because every time I look away you try to drink yourself into the ground, and somebody has to—”

It’s true. I did all of that. The folder’s real. There’s just enough of me that falls apart the second I’m alone to make the story hold. And I can’t argue with my own arrest record. I mean, look what I put Dante through.

Except for the first time the lie has a big hole in it, and the hole is shaped like a person. Somebody got inside. Dante. Past the handlers and the employees, past the people who all draw a check from Freddie and need me to stay exactly what I am.

One man got all the way in, and he didn’t know Lee Streeter. He met a bearded nobody, and he liked him. He wanted the nothing Freddie says doesn’t exist, the man before all of it, the man that was supposedly never there.

So Freddie’s old line, you’re nothing without me, doesn’t square up now.

If I’m nothing without Freddie, then who did Dante haul around? Who did he feed?

I was somebody before the name. And Freddie’s life’s work has been making sure I never once suspected it. He did it with his circle of people. Every voice I’ve heard belonged to him. I never had anybody to say that’s not true, that’s not normal, you’ve got power you’re not using.

One person got in. And he’s gone.

Freddie’s still talking. I’ve stopped hearing the words. I’m looking at him across the kitchen island, and I’m not looking at the god who made me. I’m looking at a tired, corporate guy holding a phone. A guy who needs me not to ask what I just asked, whose power depends on me never asking it.

The door behind him isn’t locked. That’s what I see, standing there, and it damn near takes my legs out.

The door was never locked.

I could call the money people myself tomorrow. My name’s on all of it. I could say the words and everything tilts, and there’s not one legal thing Freddie could do to stop me. The lock was never on the door.

The lock’s in me deep, where he put it, and one cracked night doesn’t pick it. I can see the handle now and I can’t make my hand close on it, because crossing Freddie still feels like stopping my own heart. That doesn’t undo in one night just because I finally see what it is.

“Are you listening to me?” Freddie asks.

“Yeah.” The old voice. The going-along one climbs back up over the rest of it, because I’m not ready. I don’t have the hand to play yet. “Yeah. You’re right. Long night. Sorry. I’m just tired.”

The satisfaction settles back into his face. Question dismissed. Ingratitude noted and forgiven. He pats my arm and tells me to get some sleep, big day, more press tomorrow, and he pockets his phone and goes.

There’s a brand-new thought now that won’t go back in its box.

There might be a me. There might’ve been a me all along.

And I might be allowed to want the fuck out of here.

Chapter 36: Dante

The text comes in a little after eleven o’clock Sunday night.

I’ve got the Mitchell packet spread out, a closing checklist, the Atlanta buyer’s second-look notes. The phone lights up. A week ago that light would have pulled me out of the chair. Tonight it just sits there.

Levi: There’s a big problem with the house. You need to come. Now.

Then, before I can answer, a second one.