Blacktop Wasteland

Beauregard and Kelvin drive back to the garage in Red Hill and park the Duster inside. They discuss possible ways to raise money, since Bug has already had several extensions on his business mortgage and it is about to come due. Both Kelvin and later Bug’s wife of 15 years, Kia, ask him if he has considered contacting Bartholomew, whom everyone calls “Boonie,” Bug’s mentor and long-time family friend who is involved in various types of criminal activities. Leaving the shop, Bug goes to his double-wide trailer where Kia and his two young sons, Javon and Darren, are sleeping. He and Kia discuss the race, though Bug downplays what happened and says he is still $800 short of the mortgage payment.

The following morning, Kia takes the boys to her sister’s house as she goes to work as a housekeeper at a Comfort Inn in Gloucester. While he is getting ready for work, Bug gets a phone call from the nursing home where his mother lives. An administrator tells him there is a problem with his mother’s Medicare papers. He says he will come by to discuss the issue. Readers also learn in this chapter that Bug’s father simply disappeared some years ago and nothing has been heard from him since 1991.

Bug drives to Red Hill Metals, the recycling shop of Boonie. Bug asks Boonie if there is any work, meaning the illegal driving he used to do. Boonie says he thought Bug was finished with that life. Boonie points out that the Russians have taken over most of the area’s organized criminal activities and, unlike the Italians, they do not employ non-Russians in their schemes. Bug reminisces about his history with Boonie. Boonie had been an integral part of his life; he was what is called a “connect,” which means that he put groups of illegal actors in touch with each other to accomplish jobs and to move stolen goods or to dispose of things that no one wants the police to find. He was the person who walked Kia down the aisle because her father is in prison for murdering her mother. 

Kelvin gets to the garage at 11 a.m., before Bug arrives. A sketchy man arrives and says he has a message for Bug from his former white associate Ronnie Sessions, that Ronnie has some work for Bug. As the stranger is leaving, he asks Kelvin if he has any dope for sale:

‘Hey, you wouldn’t be holding, would you?’ he asked.

‘Why would you think I’m holding? Because I’m black?’ Kelvin asked.

The man frowned. ‘Nah. It’s just most everybody in Red Hill be holding. I was just asking,’ he said (32-33).

Bug goes to the Lake Castor Convalescent Home. He sits with the administrator, Mrs. Talbot, who tells him that his mother, Ella Montage, entered the nursing home with a $15,000 life insurance policy she did not disclose. When Medicaid officials found out, they quit subsidizing her stay in the nursing home. This means her account is $48,000 in arrears, which Bug must pay within the next month.

He goes to see his mother. In their brief conversation, Bug tells her she has to get rid of the insurance policy. He complains about her smoking; “She lit [a cigarette] and then inhaled deeply. A thin trail of smoke leaked out of the hole in her throat and encircled her head like a dirty Halo” (38-39). Ella is a stubborn, bitter person who does nothing to make Bug’s life any easier. He asked her to move into his house rather than the nursing home, but she refused to live with his family.

Back at his garage, Kelvin tells Bug that Ronnie’s brother has come to talk to him about a job. Bug thinks back to his last job with Ronnie, where they stole a racehorse and took it to South Carolina without realizing the horse needed medicine. When they arrived at their destination, the horse was dead. Since then, he’s wanted nothing to do with Ronnie.

While Bug spent five years in juvenile detention, his father disappeared, leaving the Duster with his mother Dora Montage. When Bug got out of detention, his grandmother gave him the car. Bug is convinced that his father, who never came back, is deceased. When he calls Kia to tell her he’s on the way home, she tells him she’s already picked up the boys and that there are two men on the front porch waiting for him. From their description, he realizes one of them is Ronnie. He tells Kia he’ll be there in 10 minutes, after which he pulls over to the side of the road and checks that he has his pistol in the glove box:

Beauregard thought about the clichéd scene in every crime movie where the main character who has gotten out of the ‘Life’ buries his weapons under a hundred pounds of concrete only to have to dig them when his enemies come knocking at his door. He understood the appeal of the symbolism for filmmakers. It was just unrealistic. You were never out of the Life completely. You are always looking over your shoulder. You always kept a gun within reach, not buried under the cement in your basement. Having a gun nearby was the only way you could pretend to relax (45).

When Bug confronts Ronnie and his cousin Reggie in front of his mobile home, he puts a gun in Ronnie’s stomach and tells him to leave immediately or Bug will shoot him, something he doesn’t want to do in front of his wife and children. Ronnie says there’s a big job that will make up for all the money Bug lost on their last job. Bug says they’ll meet at his garage in half an hour but tells Ronnie to never come back to his house again.

Bug enters the house and explains to Kia that the two men are offering him a job in his old kind of work. She doesn’t want him to take the job. When he explains his mother’s financial crisis, Kia says his mother’s problem is not theirs, and she wants him to sell the Duster. He says that is not an option, but she tells him he shouldn’t feel so bound to his father’s memory since his father was a “snitch” (50) and everybody knows it. Bug storms out of the house.

At the garage, Ronnie explains that they know about a jewelry store owner near Newport News who has a large incoming shipment of unregistered diamonds. Ronnie plans to steal the diamonds; he knows who will buy them for 50 cents on the dollar. As Bug considers whether to do the job, he argues with Ronnie about how to execute the robbery. Ronnie wants to do it as quickly as possible, while Bug wants to plan the job carefully, which will require a month.

On his way home, Bug sees a pink Mustang at a convenience store and recognizes the car as his daughter Ariel’s. He stops beside it and sees that while Ariel isn’t in the car (she is in the store), a young Black man is sitting in the passenger seat. Bug approaches him and starts a conversation with him. The young man identifies himself as Lil Rip, though his real name is William. Bug introduces himself as Ariel’s father and tells Lil Rip to treat Ariel well. When he shakes Lil Rip’s hand, he squeezes it intensely, aggressively hard: “Years of gripping pliers, stretching serpentine belts and pulling apart brake calipers ensured that was quite hard” (55). Lil Rip winces in pain. It’s an unspoken threat from Bug to Lil Rip, warning not to hurt Ariel.

Bug goes into the convenience store and talks to his daughter, who tells him she’s going to have to put off her first semester of college. As they speak, Bug thinks about how much he loves his daughter, every bit as much as he loves his sons. He wishes he could have done more for her. He goes through the litany of things he wanted to do but was prevented from doing, including getting custody of his child. As she drives off the parking lot, he realizes he wants to rob the jewelry store.