by Richard Dry
If he didn’t leave, her father would come home and kick him out and he’d just be on the streets and everything would be bad again, even worse because it was a new city. And what if Li’l Pit didn’t show up tomorrow?
He wanted to run out into the rain, to yell, to do something. He had promised Ruby he’d be a man, that he’d keep his promise, but now it didn’t seem like anything was going right.
There was a phone on the table by the couch, and Love picked up the receiver. It would be earlier there. He dialed and let it ring.
“Who is this?” Ruby answered. He could tell she’d been sleeping.
“Nanna?”
“Love? Where you at?”
“Dallas.”
“Honey, why you in Dallas?”
It was too complicated to explain.
“I thought you’d be in Norma by now,” she added.
Love took a deep breath. “We was on our way.”
“What happen?”
Love couldn’t answer. He felt the tears rising up in him, and he didn’t want her to hear him cry like a little boy.
“Where you callin from? You callin from jail?”
“Naw.”
“Where you at, then?” He didn’t answer immediately. The rain began to fall harder, and he heard it tapping against the window as it used to at Ruby’s when he was younger.
“A friend’s house.”
“Hold on just a minute, let me get myself up.” He heard her adjusting herself in bed.
“Okay now,” she said. “Why you callin me so late? You in some kinda trouble?”
“No.”
“Well, I’ve seen plenty of trouble come and go. You tell me what’s the matter and I’ll see how we can fix it.”
“It’s Paul.”
“I knew it. What’s he done?”
“I can’t find him.”
“What you mean?”
“I mean he’s somewhere, but I don’t know where.”
“You mean you lost him, or he ran away?”
“Both.”
He heard Ruby take a deep breath and let it out. “In Dallas?”
“Mm-hm.”
“In the station? You think someone mighta took him?”
Love shook his head, but he couldn’t answer. It was all his fault, and he’d promised her.
“How long he been gone?”
“Never mind,” Love said. “I’ll find him.”
“How long he been gone?”
“A few days. And we’ve got to be on the bus tomorrow.”
“Listen to me, Love.”
“It’s raining,” he said.
“Listen, Ronal. Have you done everything you can to find him?”
“I don’t know what else to do.”
“Do what you can. Do everything you can, but you just make sure you get yourself to Norma. I’m going to tell you something. I know I said I sent you out there to save your brother, that’s what I said, but it’s you I been prayin for, Ronal—Love. I hoped you could both be safe out there, but if you have to, you got to let him go and save yourself.”
“But I promised.”
“I know what you promised, you promised it to me. But you got to listen now. Not everybody can hold up hisself and someone else too. If two people fall in a river, sometime the one that can swim get pulled down under by the one that can’t. You understand. I don’t know what kinda trouble Paul got into, but I’m sayin he ain’t the reason I sent you out there. My mama’s near ninety, and when she goes, all that lan and the house will be yours, you hear?”
“It’s my fault,” Love said.
“You’re not hearing me. You’re the last person I still got hope for in my life. Don’t let me be disappointed, please Love.”
Love felt the tears rise in him again and it choked him. There was a long silence while he tried to get control of his breath. Finally he spoke up.
“I’m going to keep my promise. I’ll find him.”
“I want you to make me a new promise.”
“I got to get off. I’ll call you when we get to your mama’s.”
“You hear me, Love? I want you to make me a new promise.”
“We’ll call you from Norma.”
Ruby let out a long breath. “All right. You be sure to do that.”
He hung up the phone and kept his hand on the receiver. He stood there in the dimly lit room, and he could hear his own breathing like someone who’d just been running from something and ducked into a corner. He stood there until his feet got too cold on the floor and he went back into Joyce’s room to lie down again.
* * *
HE WOKE UP early the next morning to the sound of Joyce in the bathroom.
“You okay?” he asked.
Joyce didn’t answer for a second. He heard the toilet flush and the water run, and then she came out.
“I’m fine.” She got back in bed and lay close to him again.
They both closed their eyes, but Love was thinking of Li’l Pit waiting in the bus station. He was sure to be there this morning. He might even be waiting already. Love opened his eyes wide in panic now, realizing that Li’l Pit might not know the trunk was in storage, and if he showed up at the station, he’d believe he’d been left behind.
He sat up and pulled on his shirt while Joyce slept. He looked at her and thought of waking her to say good-bye. He wanted to at least put his hand on her hair, but he felt himself getting sad and decided he’d just better go before he thought about staying again. She didn’t wake up when he closed the door and slipped out of the house.
It had rained all the previous night, and Love inhaled deeply the cleansed air as he walked away from Joyce’s. He walked along the freshly washed streets beside the wet lawns and felt a slight intoxication, a sort of beginning again, but he knew that somewhere in the city, probably in an alley, in a box or even a Dumpster, Li’l Pit had been sleeping in the cold.
He hurried toward the station with his hands in his pockets. He hoped that his brother had perhaps spent the night in the lobby, but when he arrived, he remembered that the benches were divided with ridges so no one could sleep on them. The lobby swarmed with morning passengers holding their Styrofoam coffee cups at arm’s length as they ran for their buses. The smell from the diner made Love wish he had eaten before he’d left, or at least gotten money from Joyce, but once he found Li’l Pit, they could rap for enough money to get food for the rest of the trip to Norma. They might get enough money to buy something at the gift shop to bring to Elise, like an Emmitt Smith T-shirt, but she might not even like the Cowboys.
Love hurried through the lobby toward the luggage depot. Then, as he stopped in line at the window, a calm settled over him. It was almost over. Soon Li’l Pit would show up and they’d be off together again, as if this detour had never even happened. He’d have kept his promise to Ruby to get his brother to Norma. And keeping a promise like that surely made you a man, although staying with the woman who you should maybe marry might make you a man too. He wished there was someone else he could ask, who would tell him he was doing the right thing; it seemed that most of the time, to be a man meant to pull yourself away when you felt like doing something easy and to force yourself to do the opposite.
The clerk at the storage window yawned as Love approached. Love handed him his ticket with the baggage tag.
“It’s fifteen dollars,” said the clerk.
“For what?”
“For the time it was stored.”
Love’s mind raced through all the options: the clerk was behind a wall, so he couldn’t get to him, or to his luggage; there were fancy people in expensive suits with wallets and flashy watches to steal everywhere; the store had easy-lift items; he could beg or rap the rest of the day, but fifteen dollars would be more than the food money he needed.
“I didn’t know it cost anything.”
“It’s a storage fee.”
“I don’t got fifteen dollars.” He wasn’t going to say it, normally he wouldn’t have s
aid it, especially after feeling like such a man. Then he said it, couldn’t help but feel it: “I’m just a kid and I didn’t know. I’m traveling all by myself with my brother. Can’t you let me send it to you or something?”
The clerk took a deep breath and got off his stool. “What’s it look like?” Love watched him search through the luggage racks and find the trunk.
“I’m not taking this out myself,” the clerk yelled. “You’ll have to come back here and get it.”
“All right. How do I get in?”
The clerk looked at Love for a moment. “Never mind. I’ll do it. Where do you want it?”
“I’m going to South Carolina at noon. I mean, it’s the bus to Atlanta, first.”
“I’ll put it out there later then.”
“No, it’s got to go out there now. My brother has to see that it’s out there in case I’m out looking for him.” The clerk shook his head and grabbed the dolly. After a minute of struggling to get the trunk on the lift, he wheeled it out to Love.
“Here. You can take it now yourself.” He dumped it on the ground. “No need for a tip.” He went back in and took his seat in the window again.
Love dragged his trunk through the station, stopping to rest every few feet. Finally, a man in a fancy suit asked him if he wanted a hand and helped Love carry it the rest of the way. When he got the trunk out by the bus gate, he positioned it behind the ropes but in plain sight. He sat down on it and waited, the sun coming up, reflecting a bright orange off the building across the alley behind the bus lot. He lay on the trunk, curled up in the fetal position, and fell asleep.
* * *
HE WOKE TO the blaring of a bus horn and sat up with a start. The corner of his lips stuck together, and his face felt pressed in from the side of his hand. His forehead was hot like he had the flu, and his stomach gnawed at him. He pulled himself off the trunk to find the bathroom, to wash his face and pee. But the trunk pulled him back like tar, and he had to struggle to stand up straight. As soon as he felt that he’d broken free, he realized that he was still lying on the trunk, asleep in a bad dream. He hadn’t moved, and his eyes were still closed. He tried again to wake up fully, imagining that he was standing on his way to the bathroom, getting away, but suddenly the illusion broke again and he was trapped on the trunk. He couldn’t leave the nightmare. Finally, he gave up the battle and went back to sleep fully; then, without any trouble, he sat up for real.
A line of people stood by the bus parked in front of him. A young man wearing a black “X” cap and holding a University of Pennsylvania bag waited at the end of the line.
“Hey,” Love yelled out. “What time is it, man?”
“Time to go.”
“No. For real, man.”
With some trouble, the young man turned his wrist over. “Eleven-twenty.”
“Where’s that bus going?”
“Colorado.”
“Right on.”
“All right.”
He definitely didn’t want to leave his post at this point, when there was so little time left, but he couldn’t ignore his bladder.
He was glad to see Joyce when she walked into the loading area.
“Stay here with my trunk just a second,” he said, as if he’d been expecting her.
“Why?”
He didn’t even turn back. He ran straight to the bathroom. But after he finished, his mind returned to the situation at hand. He couldn’t leave her alone with his trunk too long. If Li’l Pit came by, she’d just scare him off, and she might even get the porter to load his trunk into a cab. He ran back to the loading area as quickly as he’d run from it.
Joyce sat on the trunk, waiting with a smile.
“So you came to say good-bye,” he said.
“No. I want you to stay.” She stood up and grabbed the handle on one side of the trunk.
“Naw. I told you, I’m not staying. I’m getting on the bus today with my brother.”
“Let him go to Norma on his own,” she said. “You can find him and give him the ticket and make sure he gets on the bus.”
“He can’t do nothing on his own.” Love looked at her face. Her mouth was slightly open. Her shoulders were round and smooth and her breasts poked into her Tasmanian Devil T-shirt, which seemed a size too small for her.
“He’ll make it to Norma,” she said. She put her hand on his chest. “And you can stay. At least one more night. I’ll buy you another ticket.”
He looked her in the eye. “I want to, but I can’t.”
She turned and looked at the sky above the buses. “I thought you could do anything you wanted.”
“I guess I don’t want to, then.”
She took out a sticky note in the shape of a frog, with her address already written on it in large round letters. “Here.”
He took it and stuffed it into his pocket.
There was a high-pitched, sustained honk, but not from a bus this time, from a car in the alley behind the lot. A dark green Lexus, with its windows down, cruised by slowly and stopped with a skid. Love saw the driver look at him, and then a face in the passenger seat leaned forward. It was Li’l Pit. The car sped up again until it passed the driveway.
“Damn,” Love said. He jumped off the trunk and jogged through the lot to the alley. Joyce followed.
Love turned left behind the wall and jogged toward the car. He saw three heads in the backseat, but low, without shoulders, the heads of children. He couldn’t see Li’l Pit, but there was an older kid in the driver’s seat. Love approached the back of the car on the passenger’s side. Li’l Pit pushed the door open with his foot and got out.
“Hey, bro,” Love said.
“Gimme my jacket,” Li’l Pit said.
“Yeah, give him his jacket, motherfucker,” a kid yelled from the backseat.
“Shut up,” Li’l Pit yelled back into the car. “I can take care of my own business.”
Love looked inside. The kid in the back had on a blue wool cap, a joint behind his ear. A girl sat on each side of him, and as Love looked in, the boy put his arms around their shoulders. The girls, like the boy, looked to be about twelve, but they were made up with braided extensions and wore tight satin shorts that outlined their crotches. The driver of the car, maybe Love’s own age, didn’t say anything. He wore sunglasses and stared straight ahead, chewing on a stick of cinnamon.
“You steal this car?” Love asked Li’l Pit.
“We didn’t do no stealin, Officer,” the boy in back said, and they all snickered. Li’l Pit left the door open and walked toward Love, but then passed him and kept going toward the lot. Joyce came from around the lot wall, and he knocked into her arm as he passed her.
“Hi, bitch.”
“Bitch yourself, bitch,” she said.
Li’l Pit stopped, turned to see if the people in the car had noticed, then waved her off and continued to the driveway.
Love slammed the door shut and walked after his brother. He followed him into the lot and caught up to him at the trunk, trying to pick the lock.
“Open this up for me. I got to get my stuff.”
“We’re leaving,” Love said.
Li’l Pit looked up at his brother. “What about her, the ho?” He thrust his chin toward Joyce, who watched them with her hands on her hips.
“We’re going to Norma now. It’s almost time.”
“I ain’t goin nowhere no more. I’m down with these dudes now. So give me my jacket.”
“You down with those punks? Those fools just got through sucking their mamas’ chitas. What you want to be down with them for?”
“Give me the key or I’m gonna bust the trunk open.” Li’l Pit stood up and kicked the case.
Joyce walked up behind Love and touched his shoulder. “Where’s the award he took?” she asked.
“I sold it,” Li’l Pit yelled at her. “It’s gone forever, just like I wish you was.”
“You better get it back!” she yelled.
Love walked up close t
o his brother. “You’re gonna get on that bus, dog. We got to get you out of this place. It’s the last day for the ticket. This is the whole reason we left Oaktown and now you’re just back in this shit again.”
“These dudes ain’t small-time like Cranston. They got Uzis and shit. They got money and they got bitches and we hoo-ride all over town. They let me stay at they pad the last couple a nights, and I told them about South Carolina, and they say it’s whack. I’m just gonna have to be out on some farm. They gonna give me a gold watch after we bring this car back. What you never gonna give me?”
“You got to think of your future, dog.”
“I is.”
“Naw, this ain’t no kind of future.”
“Whatever.”
“You got to come outta here, bro.”
Li’l Pit turned to Love suddenly. “I had to stay for you, now you got to stay for me. You got to come with us. I can get you in. They think we the shit, man, ’cause we from Oaktown.”
“Naw, I ain’t down with that no more. Come on, dog. We got to stick together. We brothers.”
“If we got to stick together, how come you don’t got to stick with me now? I been stickin with you.”
“Naw,” Love said. “We’re done with all this shit, man.”
“I guess you ain’t my brother, then. These gonna be my real brothers. They ain’t gonna take off on me like you always been doin since we was kids. Gimme my jacket.”
“I ain’t givin you shit.”
“Then I’ll just have to get my pahtnahs and we’ll come back and jack you up.” Li’l Pit walked out of the lot with a heavy side-to-side strut.
Love got his key out of his pocket and opened the trunk, then jammed his hands deep into the pile of clothes, blindly searching until he found the gun. Before bringing it out, he wrapped it up in a black T-shirt and then put it under his arm. The best game plan on the streets was to attack before being attacked. He looked back at Joyce.
“What’s that?” she asked, but he could see in her eyes that she already knew.
“See how I am?” he said. “See how I am? You should just go.”
“What are you doing?”
He jumped off the platform and headed for the alley with the gun gripped in one hand through the shirt. He rounded the parking-lot wall and saw Li’l Pit standing on the driver’s side of the Lexus and the guy with the cinnamon stick listening to him with his head out the window.