by J. J. Murray
"Yeah," I say. "The BM fits. Y'all take a rest break now?"
"You kiddin'? As soon as the scores are cleared, we start all over again."
During the second game, which is a replay of the first with NYTBM falling way behind, I smell beer breath at my ear and turn. A wheezy, wrinkled man with gold-rimmed teeth and Coke-bottle glasses smiles at me. "Why ain't you bowlin'?" he says as he sways.
Lord Jesus, an eighty-year-old, drunk, blind man is hittin' on me. The meat at this meat market is gettin' rancid. "I just came to watch."
He sits next to me, his knee getting cozy with mine under the table. "I haven't seen you here before"
I shift my chair away from him, his stank breath, and his nasty knee. "This is my first time."
He reaches over and squeezes my arm. "This feels like an arm just full of strikes." He releases my arm. "Bet you could break you some pins."
Is that a compliment? "Oh, I don't know."
Tonya comes to my rescue. "Reverend Moore?" My eyes pop. This geezer is the good Reverend Henry Moore? "Reverend Moore, your wife is that way."
Reverend Moore looks in the direction of Tonya's hand, then focuses on Tonya's titties. "I know that" He turns back to me. "Just getting acquainted with your friend here"
"Isn't it your turn to bowl, Reverend?" Tonya says.
He looks down the lanes. "It certainly is." He stands and shuffles away.
"That was Reverend Moore, Reverend Henry Moore from East Baptist?" I ask.
"Scary, huh?"
"But he all shrunk now." I see Jonas and his prune Junie in my mind ten years into the future and shudder.
"He thinks he's still the ladies' man. He hits on anyone new."
"I'm so flattered."
She laughs. "You havin' fun?"
"Not really."
"That's why you should be bowlin'." She hands me a few dollars. "Go get us some drinks, and make sure you get the bowler's discount."
I weave through the tables past the main desk to the "white" side of the bowling alley where the snack bar is. Figures it'd be on their side. While I'm waiting in line, I look at all the white men lookin' all serious as they bowl. They high-five each other instead of giving dap, wear these wrist guard things, and make the meanest faces. Dag, y'all, it's just bowling. It ain't like you're out to save the world or nothin'. Lighten up.
I focus on the back of one of the white men in lane eighteen, kind of a beefy fellow, the ball lookin' like a toy in his hand. He and the rest of his team wear Pittsburgh Steelers jerseys and hats. His body is perfectly still, and then-whoa! He charges toward them pins and rockets that ball, the pins literally exploding and flying all over the place! He claps his hands together once, turns, and
It's Dewey.
"Ma'am? May I help you, ma'am?"
I turn back to the girl behind the counter. "Uh, yeah. Three Cokes" I turn to see Dewey sitting down at a table not ten feet from me pawing through a basket of fries. He's here? What's he doin' here when he got a sick kid at home?
"What size, ma'am?"
I turn back. "Hmm?"
"I said, what size drinks?"
I see the cups and the prices attached to a wall. "Medium" I look back at Dewey and wonder about this man. I know Dee's probably sleeping, and I know it can't be any fun to be cramped up in a little apartment for two days with a sick kid, but choosing to go bowling over minding your own child?
"Here you go" I hand her the wad of dollars. I bet he needed to get out, to get away for a few hours. He just needed to get away from his troubles for a spell. Nothing wrong with that. Should I speak to him? Dag, Ruth, you on the white side of the alley. What would that look like?
"Here's your change, ma'am."
"Oh, did I get the bowler's discount?"
"Yes"
"Thanks" I collect the change and the drinks, and in getting out of the way of a little girl running by, I find myself standing next to Dewey. Really. I was just getting out of the way of the child. I don't mean to be standing here. I watch him finishing the last of his fries and notice that he's sipping water instead of beer. I'm about to leave him be when another child brushes by, my grip on the drinks slips, and I slam all three drinks down on his table, one of them almost spilling over.
Talk about a grand entrance.
"Oh, sorry about that," I say to him as he jumps back in his seat while I corral the drinks.
"No problem," he says, looking at me. "Ruth, right?"
I love a man who remembers my name. "Mr. Baxter. How you doin'?"
He points at his score. "Not too good"
I look at the numbers, and he has the second-highest score for his team. "Looks pretty good to me" And so do you, Dewey, but you got a little ketchup in the left corner of your mouth. If I had a napkin, I could just dab it off
"I just can't concentrate tonight."
Neither can I-now. I want to sit down so bad, but I don't because I haven't been invited to sit down. "Thinkin' about Dec?"
He nods. "You know anything about Ritalin?" He pulls out a chair. "Have a seat"
My little heart. "Thank you" I take a deep breath as I sit. I know a lot about antidepressant drugs but nothing about Ritalin. "I don't know much about that stuff."
"Supposed to help him, but I don't see it doin' much good. Makes him hyper for a bit; then he just falls out. Gonna take him tomorrow to get the dose changed." He looks down at my shoes. "You ain't here to bowl?"
I lie a little. "I'm a substitute on my friends' team. They all showed tonight, so I'm just a spectator."
"How heavy a ball you throw?"
Gulp. I don't know shit about this. "Think it's a ten"
"A ten? That's awful light." He looks up and stands. "My turn. Wish me luck."
"Luck," I say, and I watch him go to work, charging toward those pins like a bull; but he's light on his feet, almost graceful. The pins explode again, and a turkey flashes on the screen. Dewey Baxter can bowl. Maybe he'll give me lessons.
"Girl, where have you been?" Naomi hisses in my ear. "We are waiting for our drinks."
I hand two of the Cokes to her. I ain't gettin' up from this chair for nothin' in this world now. "Here they are"
She takes the drinks from me. "Why are you sitting way down here?"
The view is much better down here. "Talking to a friend."
She looks around. "Who?"
Dewey returns to his chair and smiles at Naomi. "Howdy."
Naomi doesn't even say hello (how rude!), blinks at me, and leaves. The ride home probably ain't gonna be as quiet as the ride here.
"Three strikes in a row," I say to Dewey. "Where'd you learn to bowl like that?"
He tilts his head down toward the "black" end of the alley. "Got my start in your league 'bout five, six years ago" My league? I don't know if I like the way that sounds. We are in the twenty-first century everywhere but Calhoun, Virginia. "But I was terrible then. Tiff helped me out"
"Who's Tiff?" And as soon as I ask it, I know.
"Dee's and Tee's mama" He didn't say "girlfriend." How ... impersonal. "She was kind of like my coach. Had me lining up my feet right, watching the arrows instead of the pins, getting me to approach in a straight line, even getting me to use a heavier ball. You sure you only use a ten?"
I shrug. "I really don't know. I don't bowl all that often"
"Bet you could use a thirteen, maybe even a fourteen. Get a lot more pin action that way."
And if I bowl, I'm gonna get me some pin action. Sorry, Lord. I know You sent those running children to move me closer to Dewey; but a girl's got needs, and this man is right up my alley! And I haven't had a strike in my alley in so long! It's almost his turn to bowl. "Does Dee like to bowl?"
He smiles. "Loves to. They put up the bumpers in the gutters, and he and Tee have a ball." He nods. "I should take them to do just that on Saturday, get them out of the apartment for a while."
"Sounds like a lot of fun"
He turns and looks at me with those soft brown eyes of h
is. Please, please, Lord Jesus, please let him ask me to go along! "Yeah. It's a lot of fun"
My heart droops a little, but I'm not sad. I mean, the man hardly knows me. Maybe when he gets home and reads the note-that his mama's probably reading right now! Oh, Lord, what will she think of me? And will she even show it to him? "Well," I say as I stand. "Better get back to my friends."
"Yeah" He stands. "Thanks for stopping by."
I nod and walk away feeling happy and sad and worried, but when I reach the table on "our" side, I am more happy and less sad and less worried because I got the chance I had been praying for. I've got an "On Time God"
Tonya joins me. ,We lost again. Only by seventy pins this time." She touches my hand, and I jump. "Girl, where you been?"
"I was talking to Dewey," I whisper.
She smiles. "Yeah?"
"He's bowling on the other side."
"Which lane?"
"Eighteen"
"Be right back"
I grab her arm. "Don't you be goin' down there," I hiss.
"Girl, I'm just gonna test him. If he don't look twice at me, it means he ain't interested in small, thick, sexy sisters." She pulls her arm away. "Besides, I wanna see if you got any taste in white men."
I turn to see Naomi staring holes in me from the semicircle bench near the lanes. Why she always gotta be pissed? Sometimes I think the more religious you are, the meaner you are, the more sour your facial expressions, the tighter your ass. Naomi is just too heavenly minded to be any earthly good sometimes ... like I was when I was married to Jonas.
Tonya returns and slumps into a chair. "Your man didn't even notice me."
Good. "What you think of him?"
"He big."
"So am I"
"He all right." She puffs out her lower lip. "But I don't like being ignored. Maybe I should gain some weight."
"Girl, you got weight in all the right places." I got all the weight it's just everywhere I don't want it to be.
She stands and groans. "Maybe. But when I can't even turn the head of a chubby white man, something's wrong" Dewey ain't chubby. He's just ... husky.
NYTBM loses all three games and the overall score by over two hundred and fifty pins, and the only person smiling is Mike, who finally broke a hundred in the last game. Naomi jams her shoes and ball into her bowling bag and walks out before Tonya can even get one shoe off.
"Why she so mad?" I ask Tonya.
"We lost."
"I thought you always lost."
"We do. Just not this bad."
But that isn't all Naomi is mad about, and I get an earful all the way home. "So, who was your friend?" Naomi says "friend" like it's a nasty word.
I decide to spill it all, and damn her if she can't handle it. "His name is Dewey Baxter."
"I know who he is."
No, she don't. She just sayin' that to piss me off. "He is the father of two children, Tee, who's six, and Dee, who's four. Their mama-"
"Died in a car accident this summer," Naomi interrupts.
Daa-em. "So you know him?"
"Yes."
"So why didn't you speak to him? That was so rude"
"It's because I know Dewey. I also knew Tiffany, and I know you are wasting your time."
Do I want to know any more? "Well, it's my time to waste, and nothing you can say-"
"He ruined that girl, Ruth"
That takes my breath away. "What you mean, ruined? He gave her two beautiful children."
"Who he did nothing for till the day after she died."
Boom. "How you know that?"
"Don't tell me you don't remember Li'l T."
Li'l T? What kind of name is that? "Li'l T, who?"
"You don't remember." She shakes her head. "You wouldn't because back then your head was so far up Jonas's butt you wouldn't have noticed her."
I still can't remember. "You gonna tell me?"
"Li'l T, also known as Tiffany Jones, used to come to Antioch till her mama died. She drifted away, dropped out of school, ran the streets, got arrested a couple times."
"Sound like that child was ruined long before Dewey," Tonya says, which is just what I was thinking.
"The story isn't over, Tonya. I got Tiffany to come back to church after she got out of prison, and she was doing fine. Had a job, had her own place, she was going somewhere. Then Dewey got her pregnant"
"And Tiffany had nothing to do with that," I say.
"Let me finish."
"You can't blame one person for another person's life, Naomi," Tonya says.
"Just listen. Tiffany expected Dewey to marry her, but he wouldn't and wouldn't even give her a reason why. He quit coming around, but when she had Tee, he showed up again. He wanted to see what he made"
"Tee is a beautiful child," I say.
Naomi sighs deeply. "Anyway, Tiffany told Dewey to beat it and tried to get her life back in order, and for two years, she did. She got her job back, raised her daughter right, started attending church more regularly. And then your friend Dewey snaked his way back into her life."
"She had to make the decision to take him back, Naomi," Tonya says. "She had a choice."
"Maybe.
"What you mean `maybe'?" Tonya snaps. "Girl could have held her ground and showed him the door again."
"Tiffany wanted something more. She wanted a marriage. She loved Dewey, and then he got her pregnant again. Same story, second verse. No marriage, no help, no Dewey till Dee is born. She almost named that child Dewey to get that man to be a man; but she didn't, and I am sure glad for that." She turns onto Vine Street.
I don't know what to say. "He said Tiffany taught him to bowl."
"Yeah, taught him so well that he won't bowl in our league anymore. He barely even speaks to anyone" She parks in front of my apartment. "Ruth, the only reason that man is being a father to his children is because Tiffany is dead. If she didn't die, he wouldn't be their father. You un derstand? You saw how messed up Dewey was the day he came to church. You sure you want to get to know a friend like that? That man isn't ready to raise any children."
"He's got his mama helping him."
She rolls her eyes and sighs deeply. "His mama is probably the reason he wouldn't marry Tiffany in the first place."
Another boom. That kind, little woman ... is a racist? "You don't know that for sure"
"Come on, girl. You know how white folks are when it comes to us"
I have to get inside to do some thinking. I let out a long, slow breath before answering. "Naomi, I'm not quite sure why, but the Lord seems to be leading me to this man." She scowls, so I decide to throw her words back in her face. "And the last time I checked my Bible, it isn't up to any of us to punish anyone" I get out and shut the door, but I don't slam it because at least I have some self-control.
"I'm not punishing him, Ruth," Naomi says through the window. "I'm just telling you the truth about that man"
I put my hand on the roof and lean down. "I remember someone who was happy I took Jonas back, and look what happened"
"Ruth, please listen-"
I hold up my hand. "You're my friend, Naomi, and all you can do is give me advice. You've given it, and I aim to think on it; but I'm not going to dismiss the thought of me and that man because of all that shit in the past, his shit and my shit. I'm through with the past, too, or haven't you noticed?"
"I've noticed, it's just that--"
I hold up the other hand. "Maybe God's bringing us together to start us both over, Naomi. You ever think of that? Maybe we're both gettin' a second chance" I smile at Tonya. "See you later, Tonya"
"Bye, Ruth"
"Good night, Naomi."
Naomi doesn't look at me. "Night, Ruth"
Once inside, I sit down on the couch with my bag of Peppermint Patties and think (I always think better with sugar running through my veins) and realize that I ain't in it yet. I can always fade away, no harm, no foul. I'll still work with Dee, though. Maybe that's what I'm supposed to be doing al
l along. I have to find a way to get that boy to speak. But all these little coincidences with Dewey are too hard to ignore. He shows up at my church the day after my gas attack which was the day after I flushed the pills and decided to eat right. A few weeks later, he shows up with his kids at Diana's. A week after that, I volunteer again at Avery and latch on to his child, who latches on to me. I go to a bowling alley for the first time in over ten years and nearly fall into his lap. He has my phone number and could call at any minute....
I pick up my bag and sit at the kitchen table. Dag, I hope these Peppermint Patties don't give me the runs. I got to get me a cord long enough to reach the bathroom.
So Dewey was a bad father. I never knew mine at all, so at least Dee and Tee know him and have him now. Better late than never, I say. So he wouldn't marry Tiffany. Maybe they weren't compatible. He seems the strong, silent type, and maybe she was a little too "street" or "ghetto" for him. She had been to prison. How the hell did they even meet? There's so much I don't know. Maybe he thought she had tried to trap him by getting pregnant. Here was a girl right out of prison looking for a hookup. She tried to trap him, and he wouldn't go for it. But hooking up with her a second time? What was he thinking? Or was he thinking at all? Maybe Naomi got it wrong and Dewey wanted to make it work after Dee was born, and she died too soon for it to happen ... though in four years, it should have been a done deal. Maybe he just wasn't ready to settle down. So what if his mama was against the two of them getting together. What mama of any race thinks any other person of any race is good enough for her son? Besides, Dewey Baxter is a grown man. He probably made up his own mind about it, and that was that.
I stare at the phone. "Ring," I say.
And it does.
I look up at the ceiling. Lord, what You up to? I cradle the phone and try to speak calmly. "Hello?"
"Ruth, it's Naomi." Damn. "I just wanted to apologize for the things I said. I had no right to judge you or anyone you're interested in. It was so rude of me to .. " And she talks on and on and on. I never know how to stop her. Folks who work for the phone company are like that, and religious folks who work for the phone company are worse. I pop a few more Peppermint Patties into my mouth, watch the clock, and wait for her to take a breath. "... I want you to be happy, Ruth-"