The Kingdoms of Savannah by George Dawes Green

Author:George Dawes Green
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Celadon Books

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WILLOU IS INFURIATED BY THE SIGHT of her niece standing there on the corner of Forsyth Park holding her bike and flirting with God-knows-what-boy, utterly oblivious to her aunt’s discomfiture. Or anyway pretending to be oblivious. Willou taps the horn.

Jaq gives her a glance and holds up a finger: one minute.

Keeps talking.

Willou’s ire grows. She does know the boy, after all: it’s that young Arthur Haverty, who wants to be a historian. Too nerdy for Jaq, Willou assesses. Jaq prefers dangerous guys, guys who live on the boundaries. And Jaq knows that, so why is she teasing him? And why is she making me wait? Willou loves the girl, has loved her from the start. She saw right away that little Jaq was intensely curious, and frank, and drawn toward justice. And of course she’s family. But just now, thinks Willou, she’s really pissing me off.

Finally Jaq gives the boy a kiss on the cheek, and wheels her bike up to the passenger window of the Escalade and says, “Hi, Willou.”

“Put your bike in,” Willou demands. “I’ll drive you home.”

“Sure.” Still that attitude. “If you like.”

She puts her bike in the back, and gets in, and off they go down Gaston Street, toward Bull.

“So,” says Willou. Tamping down her fury. “What brought you here?”

“Research.”

“Are you … seeing that boy?”

“Seeing? I don’t know what that is. No, I went there to find out something about Stone Kings. And I did. Stone is a woman named Stony, and she lives in a Kingdom and I just found out where it is.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I am. You know, the Historical Society is quite wonderful. It’s truly a temple of knowledge and progress.”

Still with a snarky edge to her tone. It’s hard for Willou to keep her equanimity. Particularly because she’s stuck now behind a horse-drawn carriage tour, which has paused to allow a gaggle of bridesmaids to use the crosswalk at Bull and Gaston. They’re drunk, they’re screaming. They carry a giant inflatable penis, holding it up for everyone to adore. And once they’ve finally staggered along on their way, the horse decides to take a dump. Takes its sweet contemplative time about it too. Meanwhile Jaq keeps going on about her research. About “Stony” and her “kingdom,” and how Guzman doesn’t want us to know about it so he’s trying to murder Stony, so “we have to get there before he does”—on and on in this vein as though Jaq has any idea of how criminal cases are really pursued and prosecuted, until finally Willou can’t hear another word and breaks in to say, “You cannot be this fucking stupid.”

Jaq turns to her.

“It’s a police matter,” says Willou. “Involving arson and murder and maybe a missing person, and there are right now many people working on it. If you’re honestly worried about Stony, just go to the cops. They’ll probably find her in twenty minutes, though likely she’s skipped town, which homeless people tend to do, you know, so it might take a little longer.

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