South Street

by David Bradley

  “I don’t know what the hell you brought it up here for. Here I am worryin’—”

  “If somebody died an’ left you a million dollars, wouldn’t you spend it?”

  “That’s sixty-cent rotgut, not a million dollars.”

  “It’s moren a million dollars,” Brown said. “It’s all his worldly goods.”

  “Are you drunk?” Vanessa demanded.

  “Not yet,” Brown said. He cut off the water, dried the bottle.

  “You sound drunk.”

  Brown looked at her. He twisted the cap off the bottle and took a swig. “I am not drunk,” he said carefully. “But it is none of your fucking business if I am drunk. If I am drunk it is because I want to be drunk or because I need to be drunk. Right now I am going to get drunk because there is not much else I can do right now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Vanessa said. Brown smiled, reached out, and squeezed her arm. “Can I have some?” Brown nodded, reached into the cabinet, and took down his two mismatched jelly jars, poured them full. He sat down at the table.

  “In Africa,” Brown said, “when someone died they would throw spears at the moon. A missionary told them it didn’t do any good. They told him they knew it didn’t do any good, but they had to do something. So the missionary taught them to give the Last Rites instead.” Brown raised his glass, drank the wine down, and poured the glass full again. “I hope they ate him.”

  “I thought you was dead,” Vanessa said.

  “No,” Brown said. “No, I’m not dead.” He got up and turned out the light. The chair creaked as he sat down again, in the darkness.

  “Leroy’s out to get you,” Vanessa said. “Mostly on account a me.”

  “Leroy,” Brown said.

  “He’ll let you be after I go back to him.” Brown looked at her. “He said he’d kill you. He means it.” Brown threw back his head and laughed. “He will,” Vanessa insisted. “He’s for real.”

  “I know,” Brown laughed. “I know he is. It’s just too damn real. People dyin’, an’ killin’ people, an’ runnin’ away from their husbands. It’s just like a goddamn soap opera. Any second now some fool’s gonna come tippin’ in to try an’ sell us some Ivory soap. Only what we need is D-Con.”

  “What you need is some sense,” Vanessa snapped.

  “If I had any sense I’d a jumped off a bridge a long time ago,” Brown said. He drank some wine. “You know, outside that damn hospital there’s this old watering trough. You know what it says on that fuckin’ horse trough?”

  “Maybe ‘No Parking’?” Vanessa said tiredly.

  “Not bad,” Brown said. “But what it really says is better. It says”—Brown raised his hand as if he were writing a message on the darkness—“‘A merciful man is merciful to his beast.’ How ’bout that?”

  “What’s so great about that?” Vanessa said.

  Brown smiled sadly. “Nothin’. Drink your wine.” He emptied his own glass and poured in the rest of the bottle. Vanessa peered at him through the darkness, raised her hand toward the dim outline of his face. Brown pulled his head away.

  “People die,” Vanessa said softly.

  “Sometimes,” Brown agreed. “And sometimes someone kills them. And sometimes someone lets them die. But they all go sooner or later.”

  “So what’s the point—”

  “You have to do something,” Brown said. He got up and carried the empty bottle to the window, raised the sash, leaned out into the chilly night. He dropped the bottle. It fell into the darkness, banged against a garbage can, shattered on the cobblestones. Brown pulled himself back inside, closed the window against the cold. “Blood frightens me,” he said.

  Vanessa stepped up behind him. “I’ll go back to Leroy tomorrow.”

  “You shut the hell up about that.”

  “Take your choice,” Vanessa said. “I can leave tomorrow mornin’, or I can stay until Leroy gets around to killin’ you. Might be a whole day’s difference.”

  “I’ll take the day,” Brown said.

  Vanessa wrapped her arms around him. Brown turned and kissed her, forehead, cheeks. She pressed her face against the cold skin of his chest. Brown laid his hand against the back of her head. For long minutes they stood motionless, then Brown bent his head and kissed her. His hands worked against the bulge of muscle where her shoulders met her neck. Her hands moved to his belt, his to her blouse. They freed each other from their clothes, slow rumblings in the darkness. Brown’s hands beneath her buttocks raised her, lowered her slowly, with straining creaks of muscle, short gasps. She hugged him with her legs, her arms. As he kissed her she tasted salt. Her tongue flicked out, licked at the tears, and suddenly she felt a sudden looseness in the pit of her stomach. She cried out, clutched at him, shuddered, felt her body shaking as if it had a mind of its own, and then she forgot it, forgot herself, went drifting on a dark cloud, almost unconscious. Brown held her so tightly her ribs ached. Suddenly she felt frightened. “Baby?” she whispered.

  “Shh,” Brown said. “Shh.”

  11. Saturday

  THE REVEREND MR. J. Peter Sloan awakened in his broad bed and smiled with satisfaction as he regarded the ripe outlines of Sister Fundidia Larson, who lay beside him, invitingly draped with a satin sheet. The Reverend Mr. Sloan sighed as he recalled the details of the seduction of Sister Fundidia. The Reverend Mr. Sloan had taken it slowly, moving from dry martinis to a dry sauterne to a dry brandy and then on to Sister Fundidia, who by that time was rather wet. Mr. Sloan had congratulated himself on once again surpassing Christ’s Last Supper. Having supped, Mr. Sloan had moved on rapidly to the Crucifixion. He had been somewhat astonished by Sister Fundidia’s state of innocence, and a trifle disgusted at the bloody nature of the sacrifice, but he had managed to rise to the occasion. Sister Fundidia had proven quite athletic, and one of Mr. Sloan’s most vivid recollections was of her sitting astride him, spurring on to the Glory River, her breasts bouncing like chocolate volleyballs.

  Mr. Sloan glanced at his wristwatch and saw that there was plenty of time to get to the airport. He relaxed and reviewed his itinerary. The only problem with the Caribbean tour was Sister Fundidia, whom, in the heat of the chase, he had promised to take along. Now Mr. Sloan’s thoughts turned to all the West Indian women who would challenge him with their heathenness, and he shivered as he anticipated plunging the sword of Christian faith into a pagan mass of caramel thighs. Witchy-women, beaded and bangled, danced across his vision, shoved their bellies in his face, and Mr. Sloan wondered if his penis, in closer proximity to the headwaters of Black Power, would grow to enormous size. Speculation gave rise to fact, and so the Reverend Mr. Sloan peeled back Sister Fundidia’s satin wrapper, filled his fists with Sister Fundidia, dug his heels into her meaty thighs, and, riding high, gave her her head. Just as they galloped to the wire, neck and neck, destined for a photo finish, possibly a dead heat, Sister Fundidia’s eyes popped open. The Reverend Mr. Sloan spurted into the lead. Sister Fundidia failed to finish. “My Lord!” exclaimed Sister Fundidia. “Reverend Sloan, what are you doing?”

  The Reverend Mr. Sloan dismounted and lay on his back with his slowly softening member pointing toward heaven.

  “Oh, Lord,” wailed Sister Fundidia, grasping at her sopping pubic hair, “I’m ruined!”

  “You can’t be ruined,” Mr. Sloan assured her, “you’ve only just opened for business.” Sister Fundidia flopped over on her stomach and watered the mattress with her tears. “Sheet,” muttered the Reverend Mr. Sloan. He rolled out of bed, stomped into the bathroom, and began to brush his teeth, pausing from time to time to spit out a hair. Sister Fundidia wailed away, shaking the big round bed with her sobs. “Keep it down,” the Reverend Mr. Sloan ordered.

  Sister Fundidia rolled over again and glared at him. “You’re horrible,” she told him. “You—forced me.”

  Mr. Sloan strode out of the bathroom and presented his back to her. “You wanna tell me how I forced you to bite me?”

  Sister Fundidia
gazed in horror. “I did—that?”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Sloan told her. “Why, just as I was gettin’ ready to take you home, when I was puttin’ your sweater around your shoulders”—Mr. Sloan moved up behind Sister Fundidia and grasped her shoulders—“you caught my hands and forced them to your breasts!” With a convulsive motion Mr. Sloan grabbed a rubbery handful of Sister Fundidia.

  “I did that?” cried Sister Fundidia.

  “That ain’t all,” declared the Reverend Mr. Sloan, working away like a Wisconsin dairy farmer. “After that, you took one hand …” Mr. Sloan grabbed Sister Fundidia’s left hand and pressed it firmly against his scrotum.

  Sister Fundidia’s hand trembled. “I did that?”

  “And that,” thundered Mr. Sloan, “ain’t all. When you had aroused me beyond all hope of control, you ripped your clothes away, fell onto your back, and pulled me down upon you!” Mr. Sloan demonstrated the final phase, paying pious attention to detail. Bouncing up and down on Sister Fundidia, he glared sternly.

  “Um, um, um,” said Sister Fundidia. “I did all that!”

  “And you’ve done it again!” shouted Mr. Sloan. He stopped in mid-stroke and made to pull away.

  “Oh, Reverend, I’m so sorry!” cried Sister Fundidia, grasping him convulsively.

  “Release me, hussy,” Mr. Sloan shouted. He wriggled strenuously. Sister Fundidia’s eyes glazed over and she began to do some strenuous wriggling on her own.

  “Jesus and Mary,” screamed Sister Fundidia. “I see Jesus and Mary!”

  Sister Fundidia wriggled so much she pushed the Reverend Mr. Sloan out, and he banged himself painfully against her thigh. “Thou vile whore!” screamed Mr. Sloan. “First you ruin me as a Christian, and now you destroy me as a man.”

  “Oh, Reverend,” panted Sister Fundidia, “I didn’t mean it.”

  Mr. Sloan clutched himself and moaned, carefully observing Sister Fundidia through half-closed eyes. Sister Fundidia hesitated, then bent over and gently pried his hands away from his groin. “Ahhh,” moaned the Reverend Mr. Sloan.

  “Don’t worry, Reverend, I’ll make it all well,” said Sister Fundidia. She bent to kiss him. Mr. Sloan grasped her firmly by the hair and shoved himself halfway down her throat. “Ughcmlumphmmkhck,” said Sister Fundidia.

  The Reverend Mr. Sloan moaned in divine release and let her go. Sister Fundidia came up for air, looked around dazedly, and then planted a soupy kiss on Mr. Sloan’s lips. With a horrified shout Mr. Sloan applied the back of his right hand to his mouth and the back of his left hand, with considerably more force, to Sister Fundidia’s face. Sister Fundidia vanished beyond the far edge of the bed. “Don’t ever do that,” said the Reverend Mr. Sloan.

  “Yes, Reverend,” whispered the invisible Sister Fundidia. “I’m sorry, Reverend.”

  “Go brush your teeth,” Mr. Sloan ordered. Sister Fundidia got up off the floor and scurried into the bathroom. “And wash yourself while you’re at it,” Mr. Sloan called after her. “You smell like last month’s chitlins.” He climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom, where Sister Fundidia stood brushing her teeth with one hand and, with the other, energetically mopping herself with a washcloth coated with Ivory soap. “Y’oughta use Lava,” grumbled Mr. Sloan.

  “Eychgh guchgh ehchgh alhmochgh lichgh wchee wachs marichgh,” said Sister Fundidia, looking doe-eyed at the Reverend’s reflection in the mirror.

  “Spit that out and talk right,” snapped Mr. Sloan.

  Sister Fundidia obeyed. “I guess it’s almost like we was married,” Sister Fundidia sighed. “Goin’ away is almost like a honeymoon.”

  “Umm,” said Mr. Sloan. He reached out and took the washcloth from her. “‘If you gonna steal yourself a lamb, might as well have yourself a ram’—John 3:16.”

  Sister Fundidia smiled happily. “And when we get back we can get married for real.”

  In the mirror Mr. Sloan gave her a saintly smile, while congratulating himself on having had the foresight to buy Sister Fundidia a one-way ticket.

  “Good morning,” Brown said, grinning.

  Vanessa opened her eyes, blinked. “It’s still the middle a the goddamn night,” she complained. Brown, still smiling, licked his finger and touched the tip of her nose. “Ugh,” Vanessa said, rolling over.

  Brown bounced out of bed, dropped to the floor, and squeezed out seventy push-ups. Then he straightened up, sweat shining on his skin, and padded into the kitchen. He set up the coffeepot, turned on the stove, picked up the bag of garbage, and went to the window. Below him, in the alley, broken glass glinted in the morning sun. Brown swallowed heavily, dropped the bag, watching as it fell and burst. He turned away from the window. He sat at the table while the percolator perked, drumming on the tabletop with his hands. A bouncy rhythm—Brown wondered what it was. Then he remembered: Jake’s “pome.” Brown smiled wistfully, then stopped smiling and looked thoughtful. He took out paper and pencil and scribbled a few lines. Then he beat on the table some more.

  “That coffee I smell?” Vanessa called.

  “No,” Brown said absently, “what you smell is the collected sweat of several million exploited niggers an’ spies.”

  “Smells good,” Vanessa said. “Bring me some when it’s ready.”

  “Yes, missy,” Brown said. “Anything else you’d like? A ripe bird? A singing melon?”

  “Just the coffee.”

  “‘Just the coffee,’” Brown muttered. He beat on the table some more, scribbled a few lines. “You want some eggs?”

  “I don’t like eggs.”

  “You don’t mind exploitin’ niggers, but the hens is safe.”

  “I used to be one a them bitches lays them golden eggs,” Vanessa said sourly.

  Brown sighed, put down his pencil, went to stand in the doorway. Vanessa lay on her back, her eyes closed. “Don’t you go thinkin’ it meant nothin’, Brown, ’cause that’s exactly what it meant—nothin’.”

  “It happened once, it’ll happen again.”

  “That’s what they keep sayin’ about Jesus. We’re still waitin’.” Brown looked at her for an instant, then burst out laughing. “An’ just what is so goddamn funny?” Vanessa demanded. Brown, grinning, hummed a few bars of “Adeste Fideles.” “That ain’t what I meant,” Vanessa snapped.

  “Well, you was talkin’ about the Second Coming,” Brown said, and ducked back into the kitchen. He heard her give a low chuckle, but when he carried a cup of coffee to her she was frowning again.

  “What time is it?” she said, taking the cup.

  “Ten-thirty.” Vanessa groaned. “Ten-thirty,” Brown repeated firmly. “Ten-thirty on payday. I gotta go an’ get ma money.”

  Vanessa set the cup down, got out of bed, and followed him as he went back to the kitchen. “You can’t go out till I find Leroy,” she said.

  Brown finished pouring himself some coffee, and added milk and four sugars before he spoke. “I don’t want to hear any more about that.”

  “But I—”

  “I said I don’t want to hear any more about that. You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  “You don’t own me,” Vanessa snapped. “I do what I want. Don’t you be tellin’ me when to come—” Brown snorted. “Shut up.” She glared at him with eyes dark and smoldering.

  Brown sat down. “I don’t want to give you orders. I don’t want to tell you what to do or what not to do. If you want to leave here now and never come back, you go ahead. If you wanna peddle your ass up one side a South Street an’ down the other, you go ahead. You wanna kiss Leroy’s backside, you go ahead. But you do it because you want to, not for me. I ain’t no damn pimp, got to be sendin’ somebody out to do for me. Now, are you goin’ lookin’ for Leroy because you want to be with him? You want to go, or you want to stay?”

  “You know,” Vanessa said.

  “I don’t know nothin’ if you don’t tell me.”

  “I want to stay. An’ I want you to stay alive.”

  “All right,” Brow
n said. “You stay, an’ I’ll try an’ stay alive. An’ if I fuck it up, then you can call me names.”

  “You really could get killed,” Vanessa said. “You know that?”

  “Yep. Truck might get me. Might have World War Three, or eat a can a tuna fish that some unhappy wage slave shit in to show his contempt for the Great Society. You expect me to worry about pissin’ off Leroy when I got God to worry about? Leroy’ll probably forget all about me sooner or later, but God got pissed at Adam an’ Eve an’ the joker ain’t got over it yet.”

  “You’re a jackass,” Vanessa told him.

  “Now the deal was you was supposed to wait until I was dead ’fore you started callin’ me names.”

  “Jackass,” Vanessa shouted. She leaped at him. Coffee splattered all over the place as they rolled around on the floor. Vanessa got Brown’s head in a scissors and put on the pressure. Brown, half-laughing, half-crying, twisted at her big toe. When that had no effect he slid his hand on up her leg. “You’re cheatin’,” Vanessa protested.

  “That’s what Liston said every time Patterson hit him on the fist with his face.”

  “That ain’t ma fist.”

  “That ain’t ma face, neither, but it will be if you’re not careful.”

  Vanessa relaxed the pressure on his head. “I’m always careful. Ma mama always told me, if you can’t be good, be careful.”

  “Yeah,” Brown said, “an’ if you can’t be careful, please don’t name it after me.” Vanessa looked at him, jumped up, and ran for the bathroom. Brown stared after her, mystified. He shrugged and got up off the floor. In a few minutes she came back. “You’re good, anyway,” Brown said, with exaggerated blandness.

  “That was an accident,” Vanessa said. “Ain’t nothin’ changed.”

  Brown sighed. “You’re beginnin’ to sound like a cross between Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley.”

  “And who the hell’s William F. Buckley?” Vanessa sat down across from him, glaring.

  “William F. Buckley is one of the principal masters of the Tai Tass or Hung Oop school of moral and political philosophy, which maintains that what did not happen yesterday ought not to happen at all. Practically speaking, Mr. Buckley would love to send all the niggers back to Africa, but he can’t find enough clipper ships.”