44
PATSY SITS NAKED ON THE EDGE OF CLAUDETTE’S BATHTUB. Claudette, who is also undressed, stands between Patsy’s legs, one hand rested on Patsy’s bowed head as though in benediction, the other hand holding a razor. They had just showered together after a morning of lovemaking. There in the bathroom, surrounded by the glow of natural light, the two women perform another cleansing ritual, undisturbed by the sounds of the city beneath them. Patsy allows Claudette to shave off the few hairs left on her head. She told Claudette to shave everything—something she would have never considered years before. She had grown tired of the wig. Tired of feeling old with it on her head.
A waft of air grazes Patsy’s neck and tickles her with a giddiness she has only experienced when the man at the embassy in Kingston stamped her passport with an American visa. Slowly, Claudette runs her fingers over Patsy’s almost bald head. It feels like magic on Patsy’s scalp. Patsy’s head is nicely shaved like a man’s, though the bald look happens to be in style for women nowadays. Very gently, Claudette rests her hand on Patsy’s shoulder when she’s done. Patsy stares straight at the mirror, feeling as though she’s sitting by a window that suddenly has a view.
45
TRU ARRIVES AT THE SEAWEED-GREEN HOUSE ON MONDAY AFTER school—the only day Pope doesn’t hold soccer practice. It stands tall—a fortress wall guarding a city. A silver satellite dish squats on top of its shingle roof against the cloak of gray clouds flung over Pennyfield. Dancehall music drifts like the balmy scent of wet earth from the house and into the street.
Inside the yard, which can hold a party of fifty or more, a game of dominoes is in progress. Male voices shout from under the mango tree when someone slams down a domino. “Seet deh! Game done!” No one looks up or questions what Tru is doing there. She walks confidently across the yard, stepping over sleeping mongrel dogs lying on their sides. Tru imagines how Hansel and Gretel must have felt when they came across the witch’s house, how their hunger must have been greater than their fear. She knocks.
Pope comes to open the grille, surprised to see her standing there.
“What brings you to my castle?” he asks in a mock-Shakespearean accent.
“I need to talk to you.”
Pope lets her inside. He’s wearing house slippers like Marva’s, a white marina, and jeans. He takes her to his spacious living room, with expensive-looking furniture, a wide flat-screen television bigger than any Tru has ever seen, a glass coffee table, and a large couch with leopard-print cushions and covered with plastic, where he gestures for Tru to sit.
“Diane!” Pope calls over his shoulder. “Bring out some lemonade for our guest, please.”
He sits across from Tru and lights a cigarette, which hangs at the side of his mouth like a forgotten toothpick. Tru notices the handle of a gun at his side, held by his belt. Just then a beautiful, petite brown girl with a mole above the right side of her mouth serves them two glasses of ice-cold lemonade. She looks about Tru’s age, with a short pixie haircut, gold hoop earrings, and a gold nose ring, which she surely wouldn’t be allowed to wear in school (if she even goes to school). She’s wearing a midriff top and short-shorts, and Tru can see a large red rose tattooed on one thigh. “Dis is Diane,” Pope says, introducing the girl, who blushes and smiles shyly. He caresses the small of the girl’s back. “My heartbeat.” He brings Diane to his lap, and she hits him playfully. When Diane wiggles herself free, laughing, Pope thanks her with a pinch on one of her exposed butt cheeks. Tru looks away. Once the girl scurries out of the room, managing to sway her narrow hips, Pope leans forward and lays his gun on the coffee table. The cold metal makes a heavy sound when it touches the surface. “I’m all ears,” he says to Tru.
She cannot help but stare at the gun, her father’s warning loud in her ears. “Stay away from dat man!” Pope, who must have noticed Tru’s hesitation, smirks.
“Wait, wait!” he says, springing to his feet. “Where’s me manners? Ah have coasters. Wata mess up furnicha. Dis is good furnicha.” He disappears inside the kitchen and emerges with a coaster for her to rest her drink. When he sits back down, he says, “Please. Continue.”
“You got to let me play. Football is my life,” she says.
“On a girls’ team,” Pope replies, leaning back and crossing his legs.
“I’ve been playing with these boys for years.”
Pope laughs. “Tru, rules are rules. ’Less yuh g’wan tell me seh yuh have superpowers to grow balls an’ ah Adam’s apple.”
She pauses.
“My point exactly,” Pope says. “Good pretty should neva be wasted. Dat shoulda been di eleventh commandment.”
“So, you follow di Old Testament like dat?” Tru asks. “If dat’s the case, then why yuh rob an’ kill people?”
Pope laughs. “Is who filling up yuh head wid dat foolishness? Yuh policeman father?” He blows smoke from his nostrils.
“You have a revolver, an’ yuh not no police.” Tru sinks her fingers into the cushions beneath her, almost ripping the plastic with her nails.
“I’ve neva killed a soul in me life. People kill dem self . . .” Pope says with a sneer. “I’m not di crook yuh should fear. I’m just di poor deliveryman. Does dat mek me a bad person?” he asks. “Yuh see dat preacher man in di pulpit? Him is no different from me. Those politicians ’pon dem high horse? No different from me either. Yuh know why, Tru? Because people look to us fah somet’ing. An’ we give it to dem. For what we offer di defeated is t’ings capable of numbing dem—be it di gospel or false promises of change. Or a likkle somet’ing fah dem nerves or headache from living on a monopoly board where dem ’ave no control. So yuh father is right not to like me. His gang—di police—rule an’ conquer using fear an’ bribery. My gang, on di other hand, help people. I sell trust. Ah mek t’ings easy. Ah don’t wait till people empty to break dem down wid a baton or fill dem back up wid biblical scriptures no different from a storybook wid lies.” Tru discerns his wry smile. “You’ll begin to see dat di world wasn’t created equal, Tru. Everybody deserve di best in life, which is why it’s important fah me to recruit yuh friends. Di only level playing field yuh friends will get in dis life is what ah give dem.”
“An’ what about me?”
“Dat’s different.”
“How is it different? Yuh contradicting yuhself.”
Pope lights another cigarette and takes a long drag. When he lets out the smoke, he leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “Let me ask you somet’ing—you mention dat ah did bad things earlier. Yet, is me yuh coming to, begging to be on my team. How can one man ’ave all dat power? An’ whose di contradicting one?”
Tru is stumped by his question.
“Tru, let me tell yuh somet’ing ah know fah sure. Ah know yuh mother. Ah know di kind a woman she is—har integrity. Years ago, ah offered to help har pay fah food, an’ yuh education. T’ings was hard fah har back then, since she couldn’t find a job—somet’ing no one could believe, since Patsy was di smartest in we class. Anyway, as an old friend, ah looked out fah yuh mother. Made sure nobody in di streets trouble har. Didn’t know where yuh father was, an’ didn’t care. My priorities was di people who live in my community. We family. But yuh mother always declined my help. She knew how ah mek my money an’ didn’t want none of it. Ah didn’t blame har. Ah didn’t even get upset when she tell me which hole me mus’ bury me money.” He chuckles to himself and shakes his head. “Yuh mother was a proud woman. Ah always admire an’ respect har fah dat.”
“So what does that have to do with me?” Tru asks.
“Dis is not yuh fate, Tru.”
“What does dat mean?”
“It mean yuh mus’ run. Run as far as yuh can away from me. Unlike yuh friends, yuh have a choice.”
“Please,” she says. “Football is my life.”
“I’m a businessman, Tru. Ah only compromise fah profit. I didn’t make di rules. An’ as often as I break dem, ah can’t break dem fah you. Ah respec’ yuh mother too
much.”
“Please . . .”
“We done wid dis convah-sation. Diane!” he calls over his shoulder. “Come walk dis nice young lady out.”
“I can walk myself out,” Tru says, getting up and walking away, anger boiling inside her like she’s a pressure cooker resting unsteadily on a fire, the urge to dig into her flesh to let it out in the stillness of a gentle hiss overwhelming.
46
THE CITY OPENS UP LIKE DESIRE. THE CURVED STONES REMIND Patsy of soft flesh, delicate under the warm glow of sunlight. She feels more like herself, or rather, more like the women she sees on television or on Fifth Avenue swinging their purses, their high heels clicking on the sidewalks. She looks to the left and cannot see the dark thing in her periphery anymore, because everything is so bright—the racks of scarves, hats, jewelry, and I LOVE NEW YORK T-shirts that line the sidewalks. Even her sense of smell is heightened. She inhales the hot apple cider coming from a vending cart, along with something reminding her of coconut drops from the opening doors of a coffee shop. Patsy and Claudette ventured once to Staten Island on the ferry, where they pressed their noses to the window inside the warmth of the lower deck to view the Statue of Liberty, Claudette discreetly reaching for Patsy’s hand, smiling, glad for the anonymity among the European tourists and the freedom of America. Here, Patsy is anonymous, inaccessible. There are no Pennyfield neighbors to recognize her. No one she knows, watching. She can afford to be careless. Do little things like brush a stray dreadlock out her lover’s face, close that troublesome hook on the collar of her lover’s coat, use her thumb to wipe away that extra stroke of berry lipstick she can’t bear to let sit there untouched in sunlight. Here, in a place where she’s alien, invisible, she can reach over to do this one thing—this one private thing without fear. The city has become an accomplice, making it so easy to fall in love.
Of all the places in the city, Patsy loves Union Square the most. The neighborhood makes her feel like she’s a part of the tapestry of New York City, she and Claudette interwoven threads. Patsy enjoys watching kids flip their skateboards on the steps and rails at the entrance of the park. Patsy marvels too at the marching, chanting men and women with signs. Every time she comes to Union Square, there’s a different protest going on. The protesters go around in circles like a merry-go-round as other New Yorkers walk by like it’s any other day, or, like Patsy, they stop to watch a Michael Jackson look-alike moonwalk to “Billie Jean.” Sometimes Patsy and Claudette watch dogs play in the doggie compound, or observe what Patsy calls “flesh-eating rats” dart like mongooses through the bushes. “Dey eat bettah than us,” Claudette muses. “Dey run dis city.” Today, the couple bypass the crowded maze of the Union Square Holiday Market to sit, talk, and people-watch. After a few hours, they walk to the Whole Foods. Another thing they like to do is shop for food. Claudette’s favorite place to go food shopping is the Whole Foods across the park. There, they stroll through the aisles together with a cart. Claudette likes to get raw nuts and fruit for her morning shakes, though Patsy tries to get her to save money by shopping at the farmers’ market instead. Claudette, Patsy learns, is particular about foods in a way she has never considered—like buying eggs marked as free-range, drinking almond milk instead of cow’s milk, picking up juice that promises no sugar or syrup, reading every last ingredient on a package before deciding whether to buy it. “Food is food,” Patsy tells her. “I know people who eat anyt’ing an’ everyt’ing an’ live to a hundred years old.”
“Yes, but it’s always nice to know what we putting inside our body. American food so full ah hormones an’ sugar. Everyt’ing processed.”
“How yuh know the t’ings dat say organic is really organic? What if dey jus’ put di sticker there, knowing people like yuhself will buy it?”
Claudette laughs. “I can tell di difference.”
“How?”
“Yuh feel different aftah yuh eat certain foods.”
“Rubbish. Is yuh mind an’ good marketing playing tricks on yuh.”
“Smart-ass.” Claudette rolls her eyes.
Once they get to a quiet aisle, Patsy tickles her side. They fool around like children, playfully tickling each other, surreptitiously reaching around or under to pinch while giggling and slapping away the wayward hand. They come close to kissing, but something halts Patsy. She happens to look up in the midst of a giggling fit and into an amused familiar face staring at them. There, at the end of the aisle, is Ducky crouched, cleaning up broken eggs. Patsy freezes when she sees him staring, his face as black as night, except for the gash of pink inside his gaping mouth, and the whites of his widened eyes, pinning her. “Patsy? Ah you dat?”
The blood drains from Patsy’s veins. Her hand drops from Claudette’s bottom. “Ducky? What yuh doin’ working here?”
Claudette is quiet, staring at both of them. Patsy notices her shifting uncomfortably too.
Ducky, whose real name is Percival Antonio Bedford, went to Sunday school with Patsy in Pennyfield. His mother, Miss Henrietta, sang the loudest on the choir, though she couldn’t sing. Ducky was born on Good Friday and christened on Easter Sunday. Miss Henrietta, being religious and superstitious, believed that Ducky was a born healer like Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The whole church and community believed this too. Who knew that this man, expected all his life to one day rise to greatness despite having heel-back skin, would be a Whole Foods cleaning man? For years, Miss Henrietta told everyone in Pennyfield that her son was a senior-somebody at one of the big banks in America.
Patsy speaks up. “I—I should get going. Ah ’ave somewhere to be. Glad to see you’re well.”
Ducky nods. “Yes—yes. I’m busy too. Yuh know. Di banking hours can be hectic. Ah was in here shopping, an’ di eggs . . . you know.”
“Right.”
His eyes are on Claudette. Regardless of his status in America, Ducky still has a lot of power—his ability to tell people back home that he saw Patsy pinching another woman on her rump, an act of possession. She has sinned with her hands—a sin that is hard to forgive. She cringes, remembering the crimson rage in the other man’s eyes when he caught her and Cicely inside the house on Jackson Lane. But Ducky’s hands are clasped tenderly around the mop, aged. No man with hands like that could kill her.
More in embarrassment than terror, Patsy averts her gaze. When she gathers the courage again to look at him, she sees that his dark eyes have hollowed and his skin has taken on the glint of coal long after the flame dwindled. Something bleak and resigned has settled in his face. Gone is the bright, motivated boy who lived on Hagley Lane.
Ducky’s look of shame suddenly sets Patsy at ease; she has power too.
“I know how it is shopping wid too much t’ings on di list,” she says to him, her eyes on the wet mop and bucket next to him. And just like that, above the broken eggs in the Whole Foods aisle, a silent agreement of secrecy is hatched.
47
EVERY NIGHT NOW, WHEN TRU FALLS ASLEEP, SHE DREAMS OF feathers—red, black, green, white. They slip into her dreams, the death dance of roosters. They’re no different from the men cheering them on, pitting them against each other. Elbows flap like the wings of the birds, though neither man nor rooster can fly, will ever fly.
She wakes up in the middle of the night, her pillow drenched.
THERE’S SOMETHING DIFFERENT ABOUT SORE-FOOT MARLON, Albino Ricky, and Asafa since they started playing for Pope. Lately, when they think she doesn’t notice, they huddle like the Three Stooges, their foreheads touching. She’s reminded again of being an outsider, especially when they walk ahead. She has to run to catch up, and when she does, they stop talking. It’s like they’re six years old again, realizing for the first time that she doesn’t have a cow’s tripe hanging between her legs. Frustrated with their secrecy, Tru confronts them. “Why oonuh ignoring me?”
“What yuh mean?” Sore-Foot Marlon asks. “We jus’ had a long practice.”
“Yeah, but when ah come by you an’ Ricky, oonuh get q
uiet.” Albino Ricky scratches his head and looks the other way. Sore-Foot Marlon shrugs his shoulders.
“What’s going on?” Tru asks.
“Nothing,” Albino Ricky says, lighting up a cigarette he took from behind one ear.
“Walking away an’ getting quiet when I’m around isn’t nothing.”
“Tru, jus’ drop it,” Asafa says.
“Shut up. Ah wasn’t talking to you,” Tru shoots back.
“Tru, there’s nothing going on,” Sore-Foot Marlon says. “Trus’ me.”
“How you going to look me in di eyes an’ tell me dat?” Tru asks him. She doesn’t wait for an answer. Strangely, the anger she feels is almost soothing. She knows that she’s a liability, untrustworthy because of her policeman father. They see her as a threat. They also see her as an outsider. Pope has somehow removed the veil from her friends’ eyes. She looks down at the ground, aware of the distance between them, and says nothing more. She bids her friends goodbye and watches them walk away—the silhouette of their tall, slender frames merging into one shadow.
“Goaaaaaaaaaaaal,” Ras Norbert cries out in the distance, his eyes closed in sad passion, his dark face lifted to the downpouring light of the sun, lamenting to the gods for them all.
48
PATSY TILTS HER HEAD TOWARD THE SKY ON A VERY FESTIVE Flatbush Avenue where Christmas shoppers crowd the sidewalks, and notices that it might pour. Saturdays used to be errand days for her, but now with Claudette they’re adventures. She and Claudette have been searching through clearance racks and holiday sales bins at the discount stores to fill Patsy’s barrel—Patsy thinking of the little girl with sunbeams in her face, and Claudette picking out things she thinks a sixteen-year-old girl would like: handbags, lip gloss, perfumes that smell like fruit. Patsy has spent almost all the money she saved over the years to purchase the gifts.
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