by Mary Monroe
“He was into saving women even back then, huh, Frannie,” Melvina said, as a fact instead of a question.
“That’s not the half of it,” Franchetta responded, thinking back, with her face now wearing a saddened expression she couldn’t shrug off. “After we ditched the car and caught a rail all the way back East, I learned that Baltimore had a slew of chippies working for him, seven girls in all. I begged him to teach me the business and put me in his stable so’s I could earn my keep like the others. He fought me on it and told me it could be a hard life sometimes, but if I was sure, he’d do it. It seems like a million years ago and only yesterday, both at the same time. I kept after Baltimore until he made love to me, taught me how to do it right, and put me on the stroll, like I wanted. It was so much fun, for a while at least, all the shopping and partying we did. Every week was kinda like Christmas.”
“Wow, it all sounds swell,” Daisy cooed, her eyes cast upward as if she was picturing the best times a young girl could ever have.
“Yeah, he’s always been a swell fella, too, as far as swell fellas go,” Franchetta added proudly. “Although he’s no slouch, loving a man like him is harder than picking up a dime off a marble floor.”
“Is that why ya’ll parted ways?” Daisy asked innocently. “Loving him was too hard?”
“Nah, he up and left one morning while all of the girls slept. He shelled out three hundred dollars apiece of his own money to send us on our way,” Franchetta remembered unpleasantly. “None of us had to ask why,” she said. “Baltimore simply quit the business when he got tired of calling on men after they’d beat up on one of his women. That sorta thing riled him up something terrible. He said a man with the taste of a woman’s blood in his mouth would keep after it until he’d killed her. Baltimore wasn’t about to let that happen, so he’d protect us by leaving a cold body behind each time he had to call on one of those woman beaters.” When Henry considered Franchetta’s heartfelt words and his friend’s troubled past, he climbed to his feet and left Baltimore there to deal with it, alone.
An awkward smile eased at the corners of Melvina’s lips as she tried to make sense of Baltimore’s plight. “It must be hell, carrying all that around inside him.”
“Yeah, I think I fell in love with his misery before I fell head over heels with him,” Franchetta thought aloud.
“I’ll say,” whispered Daisy.
“Tell me about it,” Chick said, before turning her head away to hide her sorrow. “Tell me about it.”
As Franchetta squirted butter on two whole chickens with a turkey baster, she perked up, as if that time in their lives had come and gone. “Every so often, Baltimore comes back to me, and don’t ask me how he does it. In Chicago, he showed up at a stage play I had a small part in. One summer in Springfield, I was managing a cathouse for a sick old lady too mean to die and too ornery to trust anybody else with the money other than me. Low and behold, who strolls in with a baseball team barnstorming up and down the state, playing fairgrounds and city parks to scratch a living? Oomph, that was a nice weekend, but Baltimore never stays for long. One day I figure he might stay for keeps, when he’s tired of running maybe.” Franchetta peered up from the chickens to see three sets of eyes staring back at hers. She answered those wondering eyes before any of them had to ask. “Sure, I’ll take him in after he’s seen too many cold days and rainy nights to continue going at it alone. I’d be a fool not to. I just hope he can locate me when that happens.” She crammed the corn-bread stuffing inside both birds and slid them into the oven. “Baltimore put his brand on me. Ain’t nothing ever gon’ change about that. If something could, I wouldn’t want it to, nor would I be willing to let it,” Franchetta surmised, while summing up her affections for the first man to share her love and break her heart.
Hours later, dinner was served as everyone sat around the table in evening attire: long sleeves, dressy slacks, dresses, and heels. Henry said grace, thanking God for good food, good friends, and the wrongs He promised to forgive in the end, amen. During the meal, Baltimore teased Franchetta about the look on her face when the store manager had his paws dug in. She laughed so hard, she nearly choked on a chicken bone. Henry slapped her on the back and dislodged it, although she was concerned his technique might have left a bruise.
Baltimore helped Franchetta with the dinner plates afterwards, while Melvina served heaping helpings of hot apple pie. Henry took one look at his slice, turned his nose up, and adamantly refused it, making a grand spectacle of himself. “Uh-uh, apple pie is the root of all evil!” he ranted. “And I know what the preacher say, but he’s wrong on this account. Some men say money is the root of it all, others charge that it’s women who’s got money beat by a mile. But think about it. Ever since Eve brought Adam that apple pie from out the bushes, men folk haven’t seen nothing but troubles. Go ahead on and think about it.”
“Ooh, Henry, you ought to be shamed,” hollered Melvina, tickled as she could be.
“Well, I’m not,” Henry asserted. “Though I am still itching for something sweet. I know. I’ll run down to the corner and fetch some ice cream.”
“But it’s cold out,” Daisy argued as she forked another bite of pie in her mouth.
“Good. Then it won’t melt before I get back,” said Henry, with his mind set on sitting down to something that had nothing to do with Adam, Eve, apple pie, or the bushes he was sure Eve had baked it in.
As Henry hit the door, Chick opened the cabinet on a slightly used RCA Victrola stand-up record player and stereo. She slowly adjusted the radio tuner until the sounds of a Chicago broadcast came through nice and clear. “Hey! The Johnny Otis Quintet is performing live with Little Esther. I hope they shake up some of those ‘Low Down Dirty Blues’ like that time they hit Kansas City and almost burned down the Atlantic Club. Remember that, Frannie?” Chick danced to the soulful sounds coming out of the stereo speakers until she realized no one had answered. “Frannie?” she called out before turning to catch a glance of Franchetta ushering Baltimore through her bedroom door and closing it behind him.
“Chick, I’ve talked to Melvina, and I know how Daisy feels, but I want your say-so before going in there to convince Baltimore to promote and look after us with these out-of-town white men here for the automobilers’ convention,” said Franchetta. Daisy dried off a dessert saucer with her apron as Melvina looked on from the thick brown corduroy-covered divan.
“Well, we could do worse, I guess. I’d feel good about having him at our back if something came down,” Chick submitted. “Think he’ll give in and go along with it?”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Franchetta answered, with good loving on her mind. “I’ve learned a lot of new tricks since Chicago.”
Franchetta had been in the bedroom for an hour, while Daisy and Melvina listened just outside of the door. Chick pretended to be disinterested in whatever had Franchetta moaning passionately and screaming wildly, as if she was being tortured, in a good way, despite having lowered the volume on the stereo several times in the past five minutes. Then, suddenly, it quieted down on the other side of that door. Daisy hunched her shoulders and shook her head at Melvina, her snoopmate. “I on’t know Mel. It sounds like she’s laughing ’bout something.”
“Forget this. I’m tired of being left out,” Melvina complained. “I get men to pay me by the minute, and Baltimore’s got me standing out here, wishing.” She tapped at Franchetta’s bedroom door, hoping someone answered. “Hey, is it alright to open up?” she yelled against a wall of oak.
“Yeah, girls,” they heard Franchetta reply somberly, as if sedated. “Come on in.”
When the door cracked slightly, Daisy pushed Melvina from behind, and the door flew open all the way. It slammed against Franchetta’s expensive armoire. The girls had their mouths fixed to apologize for the loud disturbance until their eyes discovered a sight to behold. Franchetta was lying on her heavy iron-framed bed, at the foot of it, with her head facing them. She was totally nude, and so was Ba
ltimore, who was busy spreading peanut butter on Franchetta’s behind and licking it off while she caught her breath. Hence, all of the giggling emanating from the love nest. It appeared that Baltimore had picked up a few things since Chicago as well.
“Uh, we was kinda wondering if you had finished convincing him yet,” Melvina said slowly, her trepidations fading fast.
Raising her head just enough to view two of her roommates salivating, Franchetta smiled wearily. “Sounds to me like you wanna help some.”
When Baltimore sat up to return the peanut butter jar back to the nightstand, Daisy saw his thick penis lying on the bed, between his legs. “Frannie, don’t mean to tell me Baltimore’s been riding you around the mattress all this time on that big ole red thang?”
“Uh-huh,” she answered, falling off to sleep. “You ought to try convincing him some.” That was the go-ahead the onlookers needed to join in the business negotiations.
Melvina kicked the door closed with the heel of her shoe when Chick didn’t get up to put in her bid. “Hey, Baltimore, I just got to know. Do you sleep with a sock on it?”
Henry returned home minutes later to soft music playing on the radio and a familiar aroma in the air. He took off his coat, put the carton of ice cream down on the coffee table, and began sniffing the air. “What’s going on, Chick? I done gone all over hunting up some ice cream, and now everybody’s turned in.”
“Nah, they’re all in Frannie’s room, talking business with Baltimore,” she informed him from the other side of a half-empty brandy glass.
“Oh, that don’t make no kinda sense,” Henry reasoned. “Business, huh?” He marched over to the bedroom and put his ear to it just as the ladies had done. When the laughter started, Henry turned the knob and eased the door open. Through the thin crease, he saw Melvina smearing what appeared to be peanut butter between Baltimore’s legs. “Oh, my good-goodness,” Henry stuttered softly, trying to get the door closed without being detected. He turned to Chick, licking his lips. “They got a jar of brown spreading butter in there. How’s about us getting some strawberry preserves and going upstairs to talk the sorta business they’s got going on?”
Chick wrinkled her nose, sipped from her glass, and then went back to the magazine Daisy had left behind. “You’re outta luck, Henry,” she said coldly. “Let me tip you off to something so we don’t have to travel over this road again. I’m off tonight, and if I ain’t in the mood to sell it, I’ll just keep sitting on it before I’d give it away.”
Henry was fuming as he traced his steps back to Franchetta’s door. “Aw man, if three’s a crowd, there can’t be no more room for me,” he said to no one in particular. “Hey, Chick,” he called out. “Tell Baltimo’ I’m going to run downtown and see Hattie. He’ll know what I’m talking about.”
“You tell him yourself in the morning,” she snapped rudely. “He’s likely to be in there getting convinced all night long, and I’m going to bed with my forty-four,” she added, just in case Henry got the bright idea to come upstairs and try his hand at convincing her.
“‘Night, Chick,” he said on his way out of the front door, shrugging on the coat he’d only moments before taken off.
“Night, Henry,” she said softly after he was out of the door and gone.
CHAPTER 6
A FOOL’S PARADISE
It was just after seven in the morning when Baltimore found himself sitting behind a steaming cup of black coffee at the kitchen table. He’d showered and changed into dark slacks and a dress shirt, and he felt good about shaking off that bad luck shadow that’d been hounding him. Once the jar of peanut butter had been scraped out at about the same time as the girls’ will to continue, Baltimore had begun to think out his strategy for making the most of the next five days of his life. He smiled awkwardly, considering something his Bible-preaching father had said before disowning him at the age of eighteen. Following a thunderous argument, the pastor’s words had rung out like a loud clamoring against the sky. “Runnin’ women, drinking, and gambling all night long ain’t nothin’ but a fool’s paradise!” his father had shouted and then had thrown Baltimore’s clothes out onto the lawn. Now, more than ten years later, he was preparing himself to play the fool again, if he took stock in what the old man had to say.
Baltimore chuckled while staring into the cup of murky liquid sitting on the table. He remembered his own response to his father’s venomous rants. “Don’t think I on’t know about the black side of your devilment, too, you hypocrite!” Baltimore had growled back at him. “I’d rather be a fool in paradise than a preacher cabaretin’ his way to hell with the flock’s money burning a hole in his pocket. You damned right I run women. It’s good work if you can get it. You ought to know better than anybody, Brotha Pastor!” In all of the years he’d been away from home, the one thing Baltimore regretted was saying those vile things with his mother looking on from the bay window. Embarrassment had masked her expression, and it had nearly stopped Baltimore cold, but his father’s hatred had spurned him on. “See you in hell, old man!” he’d cussed loudly, dodging hard-soled shoes hurled off the front porch. “If I get there first, I’ll tell the fellas you’ll be down directly and have ’em save a spot for you!” Full of piss and vinegar, Baltimore had been too grown to hold up under another man’s roof and rules. He never made the same mistake twice.
Henry stomped through the front door, rusty and reeking of alcohol. Baltimore glanced over at him as he plopped down at the small wooden kitchen table. “Where you been that’s got you looking all spit out?” Baltimore inquired suspiciously. “Seeing as how you passed on joining me and the girls last night, I figured you and Chick was upstairs getting acquainted.”
“Hell, naw, Chick wouldn’t have nothing to do with me, and I don’t pretend cottonin’ to brown butter spread nor trying to satisfy a crowd, neither.” It was obvious that Henry was exasperated over something, but Baltimore didn’t have time to concern himself with it.
“Here you go, Henry. Start off by drinking some of this,” Baltimore suggested to him. “Then you need to get your head straight, ’cause we’ve got a mess of business to get on today.”
“Done spent most of the night getting my head straightened over at Hattie’s, and then I woke up with somebody jiggling on the bedroom doorknob, wanting to get in,” Henry explained. “I reached for something to strike back with but came up nellow. I was about to let loose and fly, with my Johnson dangling, when three of the ugliest little children kicked the door in and commenced to hopping up in the bed.”
“Three of ’em?” Baltimore asked. “What’d you do then?”
“Who me? I hid in betwixt the covers and kept quiet,” Henry answered, glaring at Baltimore, who was trying to hold his laughter down to a mild roar. “Man, it wasn’t nothing to laugh about. Hattie could’ve told me she had three of them monsters all younger than school age; a mama with the gout, living in her basement; and a man who done run off last fall. That ain’t the worst of it, though. When Hattie peeled of her clothes, she had more stretch rings than a mighty oak tree.”
Laughing again, Baltimore sipped from his cup before asking an obvious question. “When are you going back again?”
“We got another date tomorrow night,” Henry replied nonchalantly. “Yep, can’t pass up on all that, especially this thing she does where her yams flap together. All night long, it sounded like somebody was in the bed with us, cheering me on.”
“Catch a bath, and get on back down, Romeo. I’ll put on another pot of coffee and start up breakfast. It won’t be long before the girls wake with a powerful want for something to eat.”
“I’ll bet they’re tired as hell of that brown butter spread,” sneered Henry.
“Don’t matter none. We finished that off around five or so this morning. It took me damned near an hour to get all of it off everything I aimed to keep,” joked Baltimore as he opened the round-faced icebox to hunt for ham and eggs.
By nine o’clock everyone had eaten and discus
sed Baltimore’s strategy to best utilize their time throughout the week. Before Pudge arrived, Baltimore explained how he and Henry would set up an office to take the calls and prime the cow from both ends and in the middle; that meant working the men and the money. If he went about his business the right way, he figured to have everyone up to their eyeballs just after dinnertime the same day. Baltimore understood how some white men liked to let their hair down while out of town and sample some of the local delicacies in the process. He also understood how quickly those men would pass the word around, raving about how good the steak would be if he did an adequate job of selling the sizzle. So, that was what he and Henry set out to do when Pudge pulled up to the curb and tooted on the horn.
“Hi ya, fellas,” Pudge hailed from the driver’s side of the taxi. “Where are we off to first?”
“Hey there, Pudge,” Baltimore hollered back as he approached the long blue and beige automobile.
“I’d like to know that myself,” Henry said, breaking down the front part of the brim of a light-colored felt hat.
“Run us over to Unca Chunk’s,” Baltimore decided as he counted his money over again, as if it had multiplied in his front pocket since the last time he counted it. “Me and Chunk’s got unfinished business.” When Henry heard the cold tenor in Baltimore’s voice, he was glad he’d borrowed a hammer from the car shed out back of Franchetta’s house. He never could tell when he might need to bring something along with him that was harder than Baltimore’s head.
Uncle Chunk’s was a watering hole and pool hall on the east side of town, just off of Troost Avenue and Eighteenth Street. The building sat on the corner like a shady gangster surveying the intersection, with a broad gray brick face and a high roof that flattened off way up on the second floor. The establishment was the most popular hangout among local and visiting jazz musicians looking for a redhot jam session after they’d finished playing paying gigs earlier in the night. Uncle Chunk’s offered everyone who walked through the door a no-holds-barred good time, as the music burned brightly until daybreak, and frequently deep into the next morning.