“What for?” Brown said.
“’Cause you’re tired,” snapped Big Betsy.
“No,” Brown said, “I mean, why do you last as long as you can?”
Big Betsy glared at him. “I ain’t got time to be thinkin’ about shit like that. I gotta keep Leo’s mind off Jake. Poor Jake.” Big Betsy snorted heavily and turned away. “Leo, you black bastard,” she shouted over the noise of the bar, “there ain’t no such thing as shufflabode.”
The moderate mass of Willie T. was accelerated out of Charlene’s embrace by an irresistible force which, Willie T. saw from his rest position on the floor, had been administered by the sole of Cotton’s shoe. “What the fuck?” said Willie T. Cotton launched another place kick. Willie T. executed several rather unorthodox bounces, like a somewhat underinflated football. “Awfghlumphgh,” said Willie T.
“You sure is,” Cotton said.
“Leave him be,” Charlene shouted, waving a stained doily, which had lately adorned the back of the sofa upon which she and Willie T. had reposed, around in front of her in an unsuccessful attempt to conceal both her mammary glands and her pudendum from the eyes of a disinterested Cotton. “Leave him be an’ keep your goddamn eyes to yourself.”
“Shup,” Willie T. gasped, protecting his testicles with one hand and his face with the other.
“Shit, Willie,” Cotton said amiably, “you’d be better off coverin’ your belly to protect what guts you do have.”
“You let him be, now,” said Charlene, who had solved the modesty problem by rolling over to face the back of the sofa and holding the doily over her behind.
“Quiet, bitch,” snapped Willie T. “I’ll deal with this.”
“You couldn’t deal a game a slapjack,” Cotton told him. “Now where’s Leroy?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“I don’t know, Willie,” Cotton said sadly. “All I know is, you better come up with some idea, or I’ma have you eatin’ pabulum an’ fuckin’ jello for the next six months. If you live that long.”
“Why can’t you let him be?” Charlene demanded.
Cotton looked at her back. “Charlene, now, we’re talkin’ a little business here, an’ I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t keep on interruptin’ me that way. It upsets me.” Charlene’s cheeks quivered slightly and she made small whimpering sounds, but she said nothing at all. “Now, Willie, you tell me where Leroy is. Since you let him get away.”
“I tried to make him wait, Cotton, honest to God I did, but you know Leroy, when his mind’s made up it’d take moren me to change it.”
Cotton looked down at him in disgust. “I guess it would, Willie. I guess it would. It’d take moren you to walk a fair-sized poodle. Now where’d you leave Leroy?”
“He left me. He said he didn’t want me jogglin’ his elbow when he killed Brown. He just—”
“Just what?”
“He just told me to be around later to help get rid a the body.” Willie T. swallowed heavily and closed his eyes.
“Aw,” Cotton said, “whatsa matter, Willie, don’t you like dead bodies? ’Fore long you gonna be havin’ one a your very own, so you better start lovin’ ’em. Now put your damn clothes on.” Willie T. got up, rubbing his backside with one hand and his ribs with the other. “Move it, nigger,” Cotton snarled.
“I’m movin’.”
“You don’t move fastern that, you gonna be needin’ another hand.” While Willie T. struggled into his clothes Cotton backed up to the sofa and sat down. Charlene squealed. “Oops,” Cotton said, and got unhurriedly off Charlene’s head. She took a swipe at him. Cotton caught her hand and snatched the doily out of the other. “’Sides bad manners, bitch, you got a fat ass. You ready, Willie?” Without waiting for an answer he released Charlene and headed for the door. When he looked back Charlene was bidding Willie T. a soulful farewell. Cotton sucked in air, threw his head back, and bellowed. “Move!” Willie T. broke away from Charlene, grabbed his stingy-brim, and scuttled toward the door, wiping saliva from his chin. Cotton grabbed him by the elbow and propelled him down the stairs and out onto the street. Willie T. escaped from Cotton’s grasp and took refuge on the other side of a garbage can.
“All right now, nigger,” Willie T. said toughly, “I want to know what this shit is all about, an’ it better be good.”
Cotton looked at him, snorted. “Now, Willie, I don’t know where it come from, but I got this feelin’ you don’t want to die. Am I right? Now, I went on over an’ waited around outside a Gino’s place. You do remember Gino, don’t you? Anyways, I was settin’ around there for a while an’ here comes that Brown fella. You remember him? Well, he walks into the front damn door a Gino’s little front operation over there, you know what I mean. You, ah, gettin’ the picture, Willie?”
Willie T.’s jaw started to quiver.
“I see you’re gettin’ the picture,” Cotton said. “Now what I did was, I went on around to a pay phone, an’ I called up this white dude I know an’ got him to come over there. I sent him on inside to see what’s happenin’. By this time Brown’s been in there, oh, half an hour. You dig?”
Willie T. started to drool.
“You dig,” Cotton said. “Now the paddy told me when he got inside, there was Brown callin’ Gino a fat greasy wop. An’ Gino was laughin’.”
Willie T. grabbed a light pole and began to shake and whimper.
“Uh huh,” Cotton said. “Paddy says Gino bought Brown a drink an’ they talked for a while, an’ then Gino asted Brown to have dinner with him.”
Willie T. stopped drooling, whimpering, and shaking. He was absolutely still for a few seconds, and then he sank to the pavement in a dead faint.
“Shit,” Cotton said with a sigh. He stood Willie T. up against a wall and slapped him until he came to.
“Oh, Jesus,” moaned Willie T. “What we gonna do?”
“We gonna look in every damn joint on South Street until we find Leroy,” Cotton said.
“Right,” said Willie T., nodding his head, “right.” He stood there nodding his head. “Right.”
Cotton sighed again. “Willie,” he said gently, “we ain’t got all night.”
Willie T. nodded one last time, whirled jerkily, and set off down the street like a deer afflicted with a mild case of polio. Cotton trundled after him, shaking his heavy head.
He was watching somebody named Rayburn Wallace. He felt an incredible sorrow rising within him as he watched Rayburn Wallace talk earnestly with a fat, undesirable whore. The pity turned to acid and burned big holes in his stomach. He rose quickly and ran for the men’s room to bend, to sway, to vomit out the acid into the bowl, or onto the floor, or anywhere. Arriving, he found Rayburn Wallace there, too, bent over the bowl. He bent beside Rayburn and they vomited in unison, together feeling the relief, the painful tightening beneath the scrotum as the liquor and the pity gushed out into the cracked white bowl. He saw Rayburn Wallace in the mirror as he had seen him in the barroom: face strained and ashy, shoulders slumped.
“Rayburn, man,” he said, “you looks like a piece a shit the cat left out for the crows.” He giggled painfully, was pleased to see that Rayburn giggled too. It gave him a sense of connection, a feeling of unity. He pulled the crumpled beret out of his back pocket and set it on his head at a rakish angle. Suddenly the sickness welled up inside him again. He pulled the hat off, leaned over the bowl, feeling the tightening below his balls as the foulness inside him came reeking roaring upward. He prayed it would not go on when his stomach was empty. He rose, dunked his head in the sink and wet his face and hair, dried himself with a rough paper towel. He opened his eyes. Rayburn looked at him again. He put the beret back on his head, pulled it down over his eye, tried to look mean and badass. His stomach heaved. He grabbed the hat off his head and bent over the bowl, but it was a false alarm. He straightened. The room swayed. He stuck the beret in his pocket and turned toward the door.
Rayburn moved slowly on rubbery knees. The barroom swa
m before his eyes, from the far end where Big Betsy held lonely court beside the stool he had vacated, past the row of faces, all shades, all smeared, as if some master artist had portrayed them with painstaking care in infinite detail and then, in a moment of passionless carelessness, had smeared it all with his elbow. Rayburn’s vision crawled over them. The room went out of focus, jiggled, twisted, sharpened again as Rayburn’s eyes fell on the solid, massive shape of Leo, caught in the familiar motions of drawing a beer from a tap, wiping the bottom of the mug with his side towel, setting it in front of a round head and white-shirted back. Rayburn moved toward Leo, his feet shuffling across the hard floor, his velocity increasing until his motion became a fall that was arrested only as he fetched up against the bar. He grabbed a stool and managed to lower himself onto it.
“You okay, Rayburn?” Leo asked.
“Course I’m okay,” Rayburn said.
“You don’t look too damn good.”
“How about a drink?”
“All right, but don’t you be botherin’ nobody.”
“How’m I gonna bother anybody? Spit on ’em?”
“Lean on ’em, maybe,” Leo said. Rayburn realized that he had been leaning heavily against the occupant of the next stool.
“Lord,” said Rayburn, straightening up and almost falling in the process. “I’m sorry.” He looked at the man. “Hey, don’t I know you? It’s all right, Leo, this here’s ma goddamn buddy. Right, brother? Say, what’s your goddamn name?”
“Rayburn, I think you done had enough,” Leo said. “You’re botherin’ folks.”
“He didn’t say I was botherin’ him. Hey, bro, am I botherin’ you?”
Brown looked at Leo, then back to Rayburn. “No. You ain’t botherin’ me. You want a beer?”
“Sure,” Rayburn said. Leo shrugged, drew the beer, and ambled away. “That Leo,” Rayburn said, “has got his damn nerve. Had enough, shit. There ain’t enough.” Brown smiled tightly. Rayburn leaned against the back of his stool and discovered that his stool had no back. Brown caught him before he fell. “Thanks, bro,” Rayburn said. Brown nodded and raised his beer. “Say, bro,” Rayburn said, “this stool ain’t taken or nothin’, is it? I mean your woman ain’t—”
“No,” Brown said.
“Oh,” Rayburn said. “Ain’t you got a woman?” Brown ignored him. “I ain’t got no woman.” He looked at Brown. Brown’s eyes were fixed on the ranks of bottles on the backbar. “She run off,” Rayburn said. “She run off on account—”
“On account of you was messin’ with some white woman,” Brown said.
Rayburn stared at him. “How the hell you know that?”
“I heard the story before,” Brown told him. “It’s a legend.”
Rayburn glared at him. The silence between them stretched out, a thin thread in the general clamor. Rayburn finished his beer and gave Leo a poorly coordinated wave. Leo planted himself across the bar. “’Nother round, Leo,” Rayburn said.
Leo raised his side towel and removed the drops of Rayburn’s spittle from his face. “I think you had enough, Rayburn,” Leo said calmly.
“Awright,” Rayburn said. “But I owe ma buddy here a drink.”
Leo looked at Brown’s still-full glass. “It don’t look like he’s ready just now,” Leo said.
“I’ll drink it for him.” Leo shook his head, bent over and drew two beers, and walked away. Rayburn picked up one glass and maneuvered it toward his mouth. Brown turned his head and watched as Rayburn’s lips protruded grotesquely to embrace the foamy white head. Rayburn slurped the beer and set the glass down. “Where’s your woman?” he said to Brown. Brown looked back at the bottles behind the bar. “They’re all the same,” Rayburn said. “Every one. Bitches. Every one. Sisters, you know what I mean? You get right down to it, they’re all the same.”
“Yeah,” Brown said, “you and Rudyard Kipling.”
“Yeah,” Rayburn said. “You married? Don’t get married. Mistake. Marriage is just like one a them western movies: the good guy marries a woman an’ pretty soon the bad guy comes ’long an’ off she goes. Ain’t her fault. The bad guy, he got clothes an’ cars an’ money. Women just naturally goes for them things. So then the good guy’s got to go beat the shit outa the bad guy an’ bring the bitch on back. That’s marriage.”
“What if the good guy loses?”
“He don’t lose,” Rayburn said. “Nigger, don’t you watch TV?”
“What if he does?” Brown insisted.
“He can’t,” Rayburn said. “Listen, brother, the good guy, he don’t never lose. Now me, I’m a good guy. If I knowed where ma woman run off to …” He stared at his beer for a few minutes, then pushed himself swaying to his feet. “Hey, you goddamn muthafuckas,” he bellowed, “any y’all know where the cunt I married got to? Hey!” Leo moved quickly and clamped a hand over Elmo’s mouth.
“C’mon, man,” Brown said, getting up. He took Rayburn’s arm, forced him back onto the stool.
“Won’t none of ’em tell me,” Rayburn muttered. “They know I’d go get her back, kill whatever muthafucka she’s with, too. They know I’d go do it if I knowed where she was.”
“Sure,” Brown said, holding Rayburn steady on the stool.
“She’d have to come. I’m a good guy. The good guys, they always come out on top. Get right up there, right to the top.” He looked at Brown. “That’s right, ain’t it? It can’t be no other way, can it?”
Brown closed his eyes and swallowed.
“If it was any other way,” Rayburn said, “nothin’ would make no sense.”
South Street danced in the humid darkness, drinking the liquor of Saturday night, twisting hatred into anger, grinding anger into lust, battering lust into frustration, diluting frustration with watered gin. Blinking neon wrote the lyrics, mercury vapor hummed the tune, Vanessa’s feet beat out the rhythm, scuffing across the broken concrete, her heels on pavement conjuring fire. A thousand dreams went up in smoke, making the dark a little darker, the dripping neon more like blood. The door of Lightnin’ Ed’s was open. Vanessa paused outside it and tried to dab the perspiration from her face without ruining her make-up. Then she stepped inside.
The bar was not quite full. She surveyed the backs along the bar, found the back that belonged to Brown, went over and stood behind him. She moved her hand toward him, hesitated, drew it back, moved away. Brown turned around and smiled at her. “I don’t bite.”
Vanessa smiled weakly. “Are you—busy?”
“No,” Brown said, “I ain’t—busy, ’cept maybe for listenin’ to drunks tell me how marriage is a cowboy picture, ’fore they go off to get sick. You want a drink?”
“I want to talk,” Vanessa said.
“Well, you wanna drink while you talk? Because I definitely want to drink while I listen.” Vanessa nodded. “Leo,” Brown called. Leo came scuttling up the bar. “Could we have a …” Brown looked up at Vanessa.
“Sling?” Leo said. Vanessa nodded. Leo went to work on it.
“Well, hell,” Brown said. “You come here often?”
“Only when I’m tryin’ to make ma mind up about something.” Vanessa told him. Leo set her drink in front of her. “I’m sorry ’bout Jake, Leo.”
“Yeah, well,” Leo said, “Jake was just an’ old wino. I ’predate it, ’Nessa, but you know Jake wasn’t nothin’ special to me.”
“I know Leo, I know,” Vanessa said. “Hey, Leo?”
“What?”
“How come you so full a shit?” Leo looked shocked for a moment, then grinned ruefully. He waved away the money Brown offered, and trucked away. Vanessa looked at Brown. “There an empty booth?”
“We’ll empty one,” Brown said. He led her to the back, found a spot. Vanessa sat down. Brown started to slide in next to her, then moved around to the other side, facing the door. Vanessa lowered her head. “Shit,” Brown said, and moved around again.
“You don’t have to be settin’ next to me if you don’t want,” Vanessa sai
d.
“I don’t have to talk to you if I don’t want. I want.”
“Lucky me.”
“Yeah, lucky you. An’ lucky me. I’m glad you came.”
“I just came to deliver your mail,” Vanessa said quickly. She opened her purse and took out a small buff envelope. “I found it outside the door when I left this mornin’.” She reached into her purse again and took out her cigarettes.
Brown looked at the envelope. There was no stamp or postmark, just his name written in ink—not ball-point. “It’s from Alicia,” Brown said.
“I know that,” Vanessa said sullenly. “Why the hell you think I took it?”
“How did you know? I recognized her handwriting but—”
Vanessa blew smoke in his face. “The bitch’s name is on the back, Brown.”
“Oh,” Brown said, turning the envelope over. It was unsealed. “What’s it say?”
“How the hell should I know?” Vanessa flared. “I don’t go around readin’ other people’s mail.”
“No, just stealin’ it,” Brown said, grinning.
“I didn’t read it.”
“All right, I believe you,” Brown said. He opened the envelope, read the note.
“You goin’?” Vanessa asked. Brown looked up at her and laughed. “All right, so I did read it. That a crime or somethin’? You didn’t believe me anyways.”
“Nope,” Brown agreed, “I didn’t believe you anyway.” He put the invitation back in the envelope and the envelope in his hip pocket.
“Well?” Vanessa said.
“Well, what?”
“Are you goin’?”
“Goin’ where?”
“Don’t play them games with me, Brown. This bitch done invited you to a party, an’ I want to know if you’re goin’. I got a right to know.”
“What right?” Brown said. Vanessa glared at him. “What right?”
“You owe it to me.”
“Why?”
“All right, I just want to know, okay? I just want to know.”
“What difference does it make?”
“Damn your black ass,” Vanessa said, “you know what difference it makes.”
Brown smiled faintly. “I’m going.”
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