“He really didn’t help us, Mr. Oglethrope.” A whine came into Wally’s voice. “We did it ourselves.”
“Dunford knows everything, Wally.”
“Please, Mr. Oglethrope.” Chin trembling, Lynn stood. “Please. Wally’s sorry.”
“Sit down, Lynn.” Oglethrope did not raise his voice.
“Can I go now?”
“By Tiwaz, sit down.”
Lynn did not obey, stepped away from the table. She wore a pale pink shirt-dress with a wide skirt and a button-down collar. She rushed from the dining room, her hands over her face.
Oglethrope pointed at him. “If there’s anything wrong with that girl, Dunford, I hold you responsible.”
“Me?” He put the note in his pocket, hoping Oglethrope too mad to see him do it.
“You, Dunford. Just watch yourself.”
He nodded, deciding not to answer. The longer he talked to Oglethrope, the longer it would take him to reach a place where he could read Lynn’s note. He swallowed a few mouthfuls of pork, drank some water, and excused himself from the table. “I’ll see you later, Wally.”
“I had him moved, Dunford.”
“Good evening, Mr. Oglethrope.”
He headed for the cabin, pausing in an empty passageway to read: “PLEASE HELP MEET ME IN YOUR CABIN LYNN.” He refolded the stiff paper, hurried on, opened the door, switched on the light.
She lay naked in the shadows of Wally’s bunk, smoking a cigaret, but not inhaling. The elastic of her underpants had etched red lines around her thighs. “Please help, Mr. Dunford.”
He closed the door, then wondered if he should open it again. “What do you want me to do, Lynn?”
“Golly me, Mr. Dunford. Don’t be silly.”
26
“OKAY. IF YOU TALKING that way.” Only Friday morning would prove Hondo wrong. He slid his key into the lock. “You hungry?”
Hondo shook his head. “I’m going home.” He lived in the nine-hundred block, a short walk.
“Okay.” Carlyle wanted to say something, but did not know what. “Later. I’ll see you.”
Hondo managed a shrug, a smile. “Fair’s fair, Carlyle.”
The small yard’s picket fence changed from gray to white as they stood and talked. In an hour, the sun would come up over the low brick rows of houses to start melting the snow. Carlyle watched Hondo away a half block, then stepped inside.
Mance, his brother, already dressed, knelt on the floor of his room, praying. They nodded, but did not speak. Just as Carlyle closed himself into his room, his mother’s alarm rang, a second, no more. His father grunted.
He undressed, got into bed, tried to lie on his stomach, but his face was too sore wither cold. They water was getting hotter.
“You woo and your sense of chillevry. Sour Lancealot! But Flutterybye, you sayd, Glalma’s my old gayrlfriend! We got a go to get her. We haifa do some ting! Like troy to breadk in the Poxmies parity. Get tressed up and even shined our shines and counterfrittered anviltations. Idle work, Butor. Id’ll wack. You think I heaven sent my lashes into a Peckpiece porty before. But I news what lines to expact. Wait a minute, beys, let mist ring up and isk if they rasking a visit from you. Buttorfly gets iround. And one lilting I learnd: Keep your part ties sepiarated from your swinegar vines and play the fool in the muddle.”
“But he so bettorful, Boat. Ease my man.” They water was up to Gleama’s waist, bubbling on her hedges. “Crylyle-sugar, could you get Chief Pugmichillo to tan down the steam?”
“You whore a stewpead bitch! Nor wander you neba can nest him, babylone. Tame down the stem! What dew he do, ax him? Exuse me, Chiff, but turndown the stamp, S.V. Pleas.”
“Honestly, you folks we people puzzle us.
The cold! you call: More coal, Jack Chill!
And now she haunts to hit our heat.
Of course, our code your systems frizz;
Fro Mafrica you came in boat.
Of course, the heat your systems bile.
We burn your meat to catch your wile.
You folks sure peoplepuzzle us.”
Chief Pogmy Chill is head; he shook.
But Mr. Charile still was wishing they was some way to get them to tone down the firelite, damp them. His face felt raw.
It grew dark already, the streetlight shining into his open front-room window.
He rose and went to the bathroom. Nobody had come home. His parents stopped in Harlem on Tuesday evening. Mance attended his meeting.
He pissed, flushed, and inspected himself in the mirror, his swollen face, his rooster’s hair. He could not reach Butterfly’s Salon before closing, and sitting in a chair for that long with a face that sore did not appeal to him.
Dressing, he combed his hair the best he could, and walked to Bronxwood Avenue for some barbecue. He returned home and ate in front of the television, a movie, a mystery, some news. The late movies started dumbly, so he left the house and went around to Blue’s Bar, drank some scotch and played six songs on the jukebox. But Hondo did not drop in and the new barmaid would not talk, so he walked the blocks home, undressed again, and climbed into that same kettle of fry, crussible as a cramberry.
They water was crocking Gluema’s spout. “We sure venjoy ouSelfs until dhis happend, Charcoal, travelng all over. In Pyres, we vstay at dEtrole, in Roam at dColorseam. Bugbeds n Rhumservice. What aTrip! DHay vmake me feel so muffiful! Just like dAirgent sayd. Futtyfour punds aPace, n dontworry aBat about dHot-wetter. Well, at least mMunions meltng, n I ntcomplainng, but Curelull, sugarabbit, do somethinthinkthing!”
“Just in Hel what expect you he can do, nigression? You must be under some very powerful stiff. You must hink your heir is changing so tomorrow won’t seem like yessoredays. We don’t give a dime; time isn’t any matter to the menu. Yar the history we said all about you. Yawl that property you read all about it!”
EXAFRA! Labor Content to Buy Forayon Deculturazed Whale’s Blabbet! Swang at the Sworemony. Dout it? Dot dit? dit? dit it it tt t t t t tixshirty, and he had long since quit the Boy Scouts. But he could not return to sleep. And the house filled with noise, the family washing, dressing, eating. He got up and joined them at breakfast.
“Look who getting up with the birds.” His father chewed roasted corn flakes.
Carlyle smiled. “I got night-time talent.”
“You should use it in the service of the race.” His brother drank only coffee in the morning. The day before he had taken his twice-monthly clean-head haircut.
“Man, how you be so serious at seven in the morning?”
His mother looked worried. “Don’t fight you two.”
“We ain’t fighting, Mama.” They answered together, and looked at each other, puzzled.
“Why you get your hair cut so short? You look like a cueball.”
“Ever seen a black cueball?”
Carlyle did not entirely trust Mance’s organization, the Black Jesuits, but at least they kept his brother straight, and had taught him to run a business.
They all had to hurry on to work: Mance to deliver bundles for a Jesuit store, his mother to clean a house, his father to guard a bank, gunless.
He stayed in the house until midmorning, then walked up the quiet street to Bronxwood Avenue to talk to Norman, who fumed because someone had tried to pressure him to sell MUFF, a little magazine of girls for young men. “I don’t sell junk. Not with so many kids coming in here.”
He drank a cup of coffee at Norman’s counter, then took the subway to Harlem, and, remembering his dream, put in number 684, then went on to Butterfly’s Salon, the first man to take a chair that morning.
“Baby, what happened to your head?”
“It got wet.”
“We’ll have to start from scratch.”
Carlyle shrugged, watched Butterfly dump powder in
to a mug, then told him to stop. “Cut it off.” He had no good reason, a joke on Mance. “Let’s start before scratch.”
“But, baby, are you serious?” Butterfly wrung his hands. “You’re so beautiful now.” He took up his clippers. Later, he used depilatory from a blue can.
Carlyle looked at himself. He recognized his eyes, but his face had become older and younger at the same time, Carlyle bald, Carlyle before hair, like the pictures his mother saved. He got back into the chair for a facial.
The second man in the Salon, a kid, a serviceman, had just returned from Asia, complete with a hard-packed duffelbag. They got talking, and it happened that the kid carried with him, at the moment, thirty pounds of allegedly high-quality smoking material.
“I slept with it, jim, and I kept my uniform very neat.”
They ducked into the back and sampled it, looking at the sky, talking on about Asia. The kid had liked the people, though they lived a different kind of life.
Butterfly banked him, and he bought the whole bag, knowing where he could sell it. In his head, he listed at least thirty secret smokers, men mostly, met at various parties in the Village, who, after conversation, had asked him to meet their demands.
He made phone calls from a bar down the street, scheduling appointments, stopping at fifteen to call Hondo. “I can’t make all the drops in one day. So meet me by Air Chance’s place.”
The proposition did not catch Hondo’s interest.
Working alone, he would have to do fifteen today, and fifteen tomorrow. After moving the duffelbag downtown by taxi and into Air Chance’s place (“Oh, Juan, look at your beautiful head! You spending the afternoon with me? I fly tonight.”), he began his deliveries. He wore his work clothes now, a short leather coat he left for emergency changes with Butterfly, had broken down the duffelbag into little-brown-bagfuls of what passed as sandwiches and coffee.
He stopped delivery at five, after fifteen, lightly threatened Air Chance against tampering with the duffelbag, and returned to Harlem for dinner. Later, at the Grouse, Cooley told him he would buy the remaining fifteen pounds. “But move it to Brooklyn for me, will you?”
Carlyle borrowed a car and drove downtown, wondering why he had not mentioned Hondo to Cooley.
Air Chance had flown to Europe; her roommate, expecting him, asked if he wanted to stay for a sandwich.
“No, baby, not now, but I’ll be right back.”
He returned straight to Harlem from Brooklyn, waited in the Grouse. By closing time, Hondo had not appeared, so he took a taxi home, hid his money, and went to bed.
“Too bad we kant order a caveyair with the alleycart. Art’s? O din’t you just love his prosiddick design, and those personelized cages with the foolusall-pattern? Whammerful, woterful, waterball we had! We can’t white for simmer to finish til Thief Tschill says we can attack another two wreeks vancwation.”
Dhay was already eatng. Him was the plotter in the table of the moddle.
“Pass a slice of peas of buff, Vili? Anybady want the Thaibone? Juno, I never believed genous could taste so kneet. I think we should pause a raisolution to atest to the effact that Cook Hinchill dide a reil good jab.”
Day dicker doom:
“Tortle, nt-you wonder why Mr. Charcarl lieng like dhat dWay he have thave it?”
“Show o do, Rapit. Come on up out o’dPlater, Mr. Charleyle! Dhis dreamatic Epic-ode vfinishd almost.”
“Pereodin me, jointlemen, but if you don’t mind, wee’d like to see your rentrance cards. We know about these threed here, but you tude seem a shadowwhirlier set of wranglers. You do carry some fum of fidentificaution about you, don’t you?”
“No, Mr. Hatchillmein. No. We vntcurry no imvitations. Sit up, Mr. Chacarl. Gater up yBones n Tings n we llready tmuvaut. No, Mr. Chencill, we vntget no Invitizements, just aDoom fo yTicker, aStick fo yFigure, aStone fo yImurge, doomdoom fo yBottom, tickertick fo yTope, toptop fo yTapper, boom-boom fo yBama, ticker doom tickticker, ticker tomb tickticker, bickerdoom tickertick, tititick dumaduma, tictitick bubbah-rhubbah, tatatow! Tow, titaw!
“Doomdoom doomdoom doomdoom doomdoom, abcdeeef-ghhijklmnoooopqrrsttuuvwxyz, d-d t t d-d d-d d a a a a-a, kiki kikiki w-w-w ww wi-wi-wi wikik! Bbbbb b b brow! ow! run! F!F!F! aaaa a-a-a kssss, juju jujuju mmmmp z.O.o. vuvua daDa Dada dadhat dagdad lulu dalulu ae! zizzizi zeee, dhadow aa-daw awda alawd awdit oriold Dogone!”
“Dhey takeng care aBusiness!” Carlyle opened his eyes, sat up, smiled. “And did you see me duking in there?” He shook his head, looked at the clock: three-thirty; he had returned to his normal schedule.
In the bathroom, he surprised himself with his shaven head. He would have to get the clothes to go with it.
Left-over stew waited in the refrigerator; he warmed it in a frying pan. He would have grits, bacon and eggs for dinner, before he returned to bed.
The phone rang just as he sat down over his steaming plate.
“That you, Carlyle?”
“Yes, Mrs. Johnson. How you doing?”
“Well, a little better. Is Warren there?”
“Sorry, Mrs. Johnson.”
She started to cry, and he asked her why.
“Warren said he gone to California today.”
“Dhey takeng care aBusiness!”
27
“NOW, DON’T YOU BE SILLY.” He eased his hands into the pockets of his suit-coat, attempting to make himself appear more fatherly. “Whatever bothers you, well, you’ll forget it tomorrow when the ship docks.”
“Think so, Mr. Dunford?”
He had not averted his eyes—inspected her body, saw it clearly—collarbones, wrist-joints, blemish and hair. “I’m sure of it, Lynn.”
“Don’t you know what’s bothering me, Mr. Dunford?” She sat up, dropped her cigaret into a silver bowl beside the bunk.
He shrugged. “Well, maybe I don’t know exactly, but…”
She crossed her legs Indian-style, her elbows on her knees, her chin on her fists, as if listening to a story told at a campfire.
He talked: “But what I’m trying to say is that whatever it is that troubles you—understand?—it’ll pass.”
“Huh?” She scratched the bridge of her little nose with a snub-nailed index finger. “Come on, Mr. Dunford, first touch me all over with your big warm hands.”
He took his hands from his pockets, grabbed the doorknob behind him. “Listen, Lynn, you don’t really want to do this.”
“You take a lot for granted, Mr. Dunford.” Her voice rose higher, stayed flat. “Just because you’re older than me doesn’t mean you can tell me what I want to do.”
“All right.” He sighed. “I’m just trying to tell you that…” He thought, dared to speak honestly. “Sexual intercourse with me won’t solve your problem, Lynn.”
“Golly me, Mr. Dunford. Don’t make me beg.”
He leaned toward her, held the doorknob tightly. “Excuse me?”
“It’s not right. Every time I meet one of you fellows you always make me beg.”
“Beg?” One of who? “For what?”
“To golly me.” She spread her arms, displaying her breasts. “Come on. I’m only fourteen years old.”
“Fourteen years old?” She looked at least five years older.
“Did you read my file, Mr. Dunford?” She shrugged. “But my true age is seventeen years old.”
“Lynn, wait a minute.” He held up his hand, reminded himself he could trust his ears. “Look. Why don’t you get dressed, and if you want, we can go to the lounge—”
“You can’t golly me in the lounge.” She looked puzzled, then smiled. “That would be real funny.”
“But I’m not going to…golly you.” He used her idiom, inspected her pale outline against the dark blankets. He wished Wendy lay there, scolded himself. “All right?”
“It’s
just not right! I know it’s only an assignment, but it’s not right for you to go out of your way to be mean. All the TYettes said you fellows acted very nice about going golly, but every time I…” She paused, looked at him. “Hey, Mr. Dunford, you’re not Family Center-north, are you?”
He shook his head, trying to keep up.
“Some TYettes warned me about Family Center-north, said they’d kidnap you, but they said the Family West-northwest talked tough, and demanded respect, but could get real sweet, and you know, and that Family Center fellows liked to go golly when they weren’t working, because everybody knows business comes first with the Family.” Her silver eyes glazed to mercury. “Though Mary-Joan Dinley even lived with a Family Center agent when she was assigned to the Cameroons. Until the authorities found out.” She shook her head. “But she went too far, having a baby and all. But I’m assigned to you so take off your clothes.”
He still did not understand, but her mention of Africa interested him. Hoping she would continue to talk, he began to unbutton his shirt. Then he realized he still wore his suit-coat, took it off and hung it on the doorknob, continued with his buttons. Besides, she no longer seemed the troubled teenager, and after Wendy, quite suddenly, he felt mean. “You’re making a mistake, Lynn.”
“You must be new, Mr. Dunford. Didn’t any Family tell you about the TYettes?”
“I don’t think so.” He pulled out his shirttail.
“They should’ve. All we do is go sneakers and golly.” She reflected. “I was fourteen when Daddy signed me up, and I don’t remember doing anything at all. But after Basic, I was just like everybody. Hurry up, Mr. Dunford. Wally’ll come in fifteen minutes.”
He stopped unbuckling his belt. “Fifteen minutes?”
“I go very fast.”
“Where’s Wally now?” And how did she know?
“Over in the office with Mr. Oglethrope. We might even have time for two.”
He chanced one more question. “With the slaves?”
Her silver eyes snapped shiny. “With the cargo. Ya. You recording, Mr. Dunford?”
Dunfords Travels Everywheres Page 13