“I never was good at corners,” said Wages. “Believe it or not, it was the pressure. You’re out there by yourself, and everyone’s looking for you to make a difficult assist or an impossible shot. At least you have a chance with a penalty kick. A corner is shooting into a crowd, hoping to hit the right person, while everyone jostles to jump on the bullet.”
The high-pitched pandemonium of children’s laughter drifted over to them, galloping above the bel canto of the ducks. On the field behind them, smaller children played soccer.
“That’ll be you soon.”
“What? I’ll be young again? Go through this shit again? Fuck that.” Wages spat. “You know she did it so I won’t go back.”
“What?” asked Achilles.
“Got pregnant. It’s an emotional ambush,” said Wages, lighting a cigarette.
What about the photos, the starfish card, the closet they were converting to a nursery? He’d thought Wages happy.
“I sent her money and all. She didn’t need to work while I was away. It was better that she concentrated on school, on the nursing degree, and kept busy. She didn’t have to work. She had it all. That’s why I couldn’t save any fucking cash. Still she went and did this to me. I got to get up at the fucking crack of my ass every damn dawn to search people and make sure they aren’t stealing from a casino. I didn’t wear a suit before except for a funeral. Now I’m sporting these secondhand undertaker jobs and VFW bingo shoes because my feet are killing me from that fucking shrapnel.”
Wages held his hands palms up, like he was holding a bowl. “Eight years in. I was going career. I ran a clearing squad without a single casualty. I lead a team that rescued three POWs. I took down a sniper. And now, I’m making sure someone ain’t stealing from a casino? I’m protecting the bandits, like the first time wasn’t bad enough. There’s my supervisor, fat fuck, heaving and whatnot when he walks, can’t even halfway fit his fat ass through the door—no lie—a fucking pumpkin on toothpicks telling me what to do every day. He’s so fucking fat in the face and his cheeks are so big and his lips are so little and his goatee so wild it’s like having a conversation with a hairy asshole. I’m a fucking professional soldier. He pokes me in the chest sometimes. But, I got a kid on the way. I worked so hard to get out of that fucking old uniform. I started in the kitchen. Me! Catching the bus home in a uniform. You could change, then your clothes smell like that nasty dishwater. Imagine being on the bus with people asking you about hot slots.” Wages shook his head. He ground out his cigarette, abrading the filter and scattering the tobacco until there was not a trace. “You need a job? I can get you a job. I’ve at least got that pull.”
“No.”
“What’s up with your woman?” asked Wages.
“Nothing serious,” said Achilles, surprised by the sudden turn.
“Nothing serious doesn’t happen three nights in a row,” said Wages. “Playah!”
“I’m just Achilles.”
Wages laughed. “Right, Player. Nothing serious? That’s always how it starts. Then, you’re stuck. It’s not like I want anyone else. I just don’t want her making decisions for me. All the while before people were making decisions for me. You know what I mean, especially with Troy’s reckless ass. People do shit, then suddenly you’re obligated. Women will emotionally ambush you. The domestic I-E-D is ‘improvised emotional device.’”
A woman walked by pushing a stroller with twins.
“Remember the Krugers?” asked Wages.
Achilles nodded. The Krugers were three brothers stationed together. Everyone said it was a stupid idea, until two died on the same mission. Then no one mentioned it at all. “Kruger” became synonymous with bad luck.
“We’re lucky, ain’t we,” said Wages.
“Luckier than most,” said Achilles.
“What did Jackson always say?” asked Wages.
In unison, Wages and Achilles said, “God loves everybody, he just loves some of us more.” They fell into raucous laughter, bobbing their heads like rappers as they listed everyone that God didn’t like, chanting the words to the beat of Jay-Z’s Hard Knock Life, but changing the chorus to Jesus Christ don’t like that shit! Jesus didn’t like: the Taliban; the young, orange-bearded herder struck down trying to save his goat from being run over; Nintendo; the local who scrambled off with an armful of their bootleg DVDs and ran right into the minefield behind the school (everyone else knew it was there); all insurgents, everywhere, all the time; flat-chested women; or Kurds: many had incurred the Lord’s displeasure. On the other hand, God loved the Airborne, all Infantry, all Rangers, most Marines, some air force enlisted, three sailors, a few Canadians, good mess cooks, America, tits, Xbox, oral, and soccer players. By unspoken agreement, they didn’t mention Ramirez, Lionel Dinkins, Merri’s kid, or Jackson, who’d always hated that song.
One of the younger kids shooting the free kicks overshot the goal, and the ball rolled toward them. Wages adroitly used his foot to pop the ball up to his hand, holding the ball overhead until the boy was close enough to hear Wages advise, “Use less toe.” Wages dropped the ball to his foot, balanced it on his instep, and lobbed it to the kid, who yelled his thanks. The kid scored on his next shot and beamed a smile at Wages, who waved back.
Wages pointed at the kids on the other field who were on their backs in a stretching circle. “Remember those three guys with their heads and feet all to one side?”
“No.”
“Outside Faizabad. All lined up like hieroglyphics.”
“Nope.”
“The three, all looking south,” said Wages, gesturing excitedly, moving his head and arms like a dancer in that old Bangles video. “Doing that sand dance. Remember?”
“Yeah,” said Achilles, though he didn’t.
“I knew I wasn’t imagining that shit,” said Wages, punching Achilles on the arm. “You going to be here on Turkey Day? We’re going to her parents’ on the North Shore.”
“I don’t know.” That was still a couple weeks away. Achilles hadn’t thought that far ahead. His plan B was reenlist. His plan A, he hadn’t yet conceived. “Should I be gone by then?”
Wages grabbed him by the arm and shoulder and gave him the micro, a close stare. “You don’t ever have to be gone. The pact stands. Wife or no wife, kid or no kid. There’s a place for you like there’s a place every time Bethany’s sister gets fired or her boyfriend gets sick of her tired-ass pussy and tosses her out. I endure all her friends and all the crazy couple activities. Movie and dinner. Wine-tasting shit. Even ballroom dancing, once. I endure those dudes run by their bitches. You dial them up and the wife wants to talk to you first. ‘How are you? How’s Bethany? Did y’all see so-and-so movie?’ Sometimes you just wanna talk to the man. I compromise a lot.” Wages nodded until Achilles joined him. “So, don’t insult me by saying you’ll be gone. And don’t worry if she looks pissy sometimes. It’s like a nine-month period and, anyway, a woman’s got to have something to be upset about. Besides, you’re the godfather.”
Achilles nodded. Did that include responsibility, or just fucking people up if they messed with the kid?
“Let’s get that beer,” said Wages. But instead of walking toward the road, Wages turned and walked closer to the lake. His back to Achilles, Wages said, “Don’t worry about her. I’ll say sorry, kiss her up, you know—flowers, chocolate, scrambled eggs—love her up, shoot her in the ass with the cat pistol to show her who’s boss. It’s not like I torqued her. A woman will always give you a second chance if you love her, right?” He faced Achilles. “I never did that before. I swear. You know that, don’t you Connie?”
Achilles nodded. “I believe you, man.”
“Really?” asked Wages.
“Of course.” And he did.
Wages took three quick, deep breaths as if making a wish. He held the last one as he kicked an egg-shaped rock down the bank. It cut a path through the monkey grass and hit the water with a subdued splash. He nodded with satisfaction. “Yeah. Don’t
worry about her. She knows I love her. I just got to keep it under control.” He kicked another rock and another, then tossed in a big branch that was sharp at the end and bent like an arm holding a knife. Without complaint, the dark water swallowed them all.
“Bethany’s mom can really burn.”
Achilles nodded.
“Let’s head back.”
“I’m in the other direction. I’m meeting Ines,” said Achilles.
Wages looked remorseful, like he had miscalculated terribly, calling in the wrong coordinates for an air strike.
“I swear,” said Achilles, even though he was lying.
CHAPTER 10
A FEW DAYS LATER, INES INVITED HIM TO DINNER, AND AFTERWARDS TO her place. Her spacious studio in the Warehouse District was nicer than the restaurant in which they had eaten, a soul food restaurant where Achilles had loaded up on hot sauce, licked his fingers, and, because in Nawlins it was an insult not to, wiped his plate clean. With the industrial wood metal accents and exposed brick, it could have passed for an art gallery and was decorated like one. Portrait-sized black-and-white photos of King, X, Carmichael, Hosea Williams, Huey Newton, and Bobby Seale graced the foyer walls, each one labeled with a brief bio like museum displays. In the halls, Gandhi, Cesar Chavez, the Weathermen; in the living room, Camus, Sartre, Baldwin, Ellison; and, in the kitchen, Martha Graham, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Toni Morrison.
“Big family,” said Achilles.
“Before I hung them, my friends called it Uncle Tom’s condo,” said Ines, leading him through the apartment.
Ines’s one-room studio was larger than Wages’s entire house. The bedroom was cordoned off by an embroidered tapestry, and the bathroom door was pebbled glass. Very little privacy. The transitions between living spaces were marked by changes in the floor: hardwood in the living room, tile in the kitchen, a rug in the sleeping area, polished concrete everywhere else. When he pointed that out, she complimented his keen eye. There was no point in explaining that he was used to reading the ground when on foot for trapdoors, and from the air for hot zones, safe LZs, weapons caches. So he merely nodded at the compliment. It was the kind of apartment Achilles had only seen in magazines. Obviously, her nonprofit business was doing well. He praised her apartment with reserve. Women were turned off when guys were too easily impressed. As she gave him the nickel tour, he pointed to the curtain around the bedroom and said, “The specialists’ area.”
She continued explaining how she had chosen the fixtures.
Tell no jokes. He didn’t want to fuck up when finally in sight of the prize. Persistance had paid off, but the apology cinched the deal. Sorry if I offended you by asking for that number. I thought it was a blind date, he’d said, neglecting to mention that he’d often been set up with women on the basis of race and that it never went well.
They settled into the sofa about a foot apart and slid closer with each drink. Achilles knew the strategies: make her laugh, maintain eye contact, convey confidence through open body language. Be interested but aloof, humble but cocky, bold but sensitive. Humorous. He could think of nothing funny and unoffensive. Maintaining eye contact was easy enough. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. But it was hard to make the move. A pattern emerged. She spoke, he nodded. She smiled, he nodded. She nodded, he nodded. No matter what Ines said, Achilles agreed, murmuring assent while imagining her naked. Did she have moles? Did those freckles go down her back? Would he have trouble unsnapping the bra? He hadn’t been with a regular woman since Janice, who did that herself. When he finally leaned in for a kiss, she turned so quickly it was obvious that she had long been waiting for him to make a move.
Their lips met, his hands found her body, outlining her form in the air, running his fingers down her neck to her shoulder and arm and then across her belly, each pass venturing closer to her breasts. Her lips were softer than he’d imagined, and her tongue sweet, like her piña colada, and shy, gliding across his lips but never entering his mouth. As their kisses grew more intense and her tongue bolder, he grabbed her breast and they fell onto their side as one, lying the length of the couch. He would go down on her. It was sex karma, earning him the right to do what he wanted.
After one long, breathless, lip-locked spell, she took his hand. “It’s shaking.” She kissed his fingers. Smacking her lips, she said, “You should wash your hands before you hurt somebody.”
He remembered the spicy meal and how his fingers had tingled from the peppers. He went to the bathroom and took a piss. The pain hit him while he was washing his hands. He tried washing his dick in the sink, but it was too late. On the bulb of his penis, exactly where he’d touched himself, a purple, star-shaped blister had erupted that looked and stung like he had an STD. He slapped the wall. “Are you okay?” Ines called out. “Fine,” he said, slathering on cucumber-scented lotion. It took quite a bit of cucumber to cool down. He flushed the toilet again before he went out. Ines was smiling as if she knew the answer when she asked, “Why do men always flush before they finish peeing?”
The curtain was pulled back, revealing a woman’s bed: two box springs piled high with pillows of various shapes and thick, tasseled spreads, all red and gold, like the tapestry. Before he reached the bed, his dick was burning again. After a few minutes of kissing, he was perspiring heavily and worried about sweat dripping into her eye. The CD had ended, and the only background music was the wind against the windows, their breathing, and the sound of their bodies grazing against each other, the rub of jeaned thighs, shirts chafing against the bedspread, the gentle strum of hands caressing faces. The more excited he became, the more his dick burned. His movements grew more pronounced, aggressive, and she responded, moving faster as well. Together, they pulled her shirt off. His hand on her breast, an asterisk. She squirmed out of her pants, writhing as if shedding skin. He kept his pants on to hide the blister, not to mention that the burning threatened to snipe his erection at any moment. Ines reached into his fly, cupped his balls, and tugged twice. He came in her hand.
She froze like a thief caught in the act. He looked down at his feet. As Ines slowly withdrew her hand, he offered his shirt as a towel.
“I guess I have the touch.”
He heard Margaret laughing about this over tea, her manly voice, I knew a guy at Spelman, who … Blah blah blah … Ma ma sa, ma ma sa, ma ma ma coo sa …
“It’s okay,” said Ines. “It’s early.”
He nodded, absentmindedly rubbing his fingers on her belly and kneading her leg.
“Are you going to eat me or something?” asked Ines.
She was bold. He wasn’t yet in the mood, but that would get him off the bench and back into the game. “Okay.”
Ines pinched his cheek and sat up, her breasts swaying as she laughed. “I meant the way you were squeezing my leg, it was like you were … but you meant …” She doubled over, holding her sides, her back heaving, her shoulder blades fluttering like sprouting wings. She pointed at him again, eyes wet, “You’re such a darling. You were going to do it. You must have thought, ‘Damn that bitch is demanding!’”
The laughter took the edge off, and Achilles made his move. It was quick like they were hungry. From the moment he put the condom on, until the moment they came, they never let go, saying nothing. After a nap, he went down for seconds. The light played on her body, all curves and arcs, gentle saucers and bowls, the flattening of the thigh where it met the bed, the hollow of the hip. Ines glowed like she was carved out of moonlight. He traced the gentle bends of her body, the earlobe so smooth save for the piercing divot, the highbrows high and regal, the gentle swoon of calf into ankle, the tip of the toe, the rising swell of thighs that gently bowed to her pelvis, the arc of her momentous ass, momentarily arrested by the bed.
She was a land he wanted to survey, to settle, to colonize. Were there shortcuts? A tickle at the diamond of the neck, a nibble of the toe, a run of licked thumb down the spine until it crashes into the warm embrace of her ass? She was flesh perfectly
punctuated, all commas and question marks. Soon his dick was hard again. They did it again. Afterwards, they spooned. This was a new sensation, one he enjoyed. He and Janice brushed the dust off. In Goddamnistan, they wrapped sheets around themselves and shooed him out, frowning because the longer he stayed, the less they made. Sometimes he and Aiko held hands afterwards, but never for long because the only place she was willing to go where they could be alone was her garage. So they were always in a rush, trying to fit everything into the twenty minutes between school and when her mother arrived home. He pressed his nose into Ines’s armpits and neck, inhaling and holding it in, the he way he would around opium smoke, curious about the effect. He put his ear to her back and listened to her heartbeat.
“Why’d you pick New Orleans?” she asked.
He felt the vibrations travel through his head and down to his throat. “I knew people here I hadn’t seen in a while.”
“How long are you staying?”
“How long do you want me to?”
“A black male volunteer that’s not being forced to do community service? You’re a role model.”
“What was that?”
“You’re a role model.”
He liked that. “Is that why you want me to stay?”
“I never said I wanted you to stay.”
He pressed his ear firmly against her back. “You thought it. I heard you.”
Ines laughed.
“What about this boyfriend?”
“What about him?”
“Is he still around?”
Ines scanned the room. “Not now. But he’s not gone either.” She sat up. “Just because we had sex doesn’t make us a couple. Are you one of those brothers who thinks he owns a woman after sex?”
Achilles shook his head. Was this related to gender advising?
“I’m joking. I said that because I thought you were stalking me. You weren’t, but that’s how it looked.”
Hold It 'Til It Hurts Page 17