Red Hats

by Damon Wayans

  “Get down, Alma! Show him what you got, girl,” they chimed in.

  After five songs, James decided to call it quits. The entire ballroom applauded as they made their way off the floor.

  “Can I get you a drink, Alma?” James offered.

  “Sure. That would be nice.”

  As she watched James step to the bar, Alma felt self-conscious and guilty. It was as if the whole room and Harold were watching her act the fool.

  When James returned with two apple martinis in his hands, Alma was gone.

  “Where did she go?” he asked Dee.

  “She got an emergency call and had to leave. She told me to be sure to tell you what a good time she had with you.”

  “That’s so strange,” he said still searching the room for her.

  “Are you going to drink both of those martinis?” Joy asked. Before James could answer, she relieved him of one of the frosted glasses.

  It took two cups of muddy black coffee to help lift the dark cloud over Alma’s head. She hadn’t had a hangover in many years and vowed never to have one again if she could only rid herself of this one. Alma was amazed that the other women at the table were so talkative and unaffected by the alcohol they had inhaled last night.

  Dee opened an assortment of medicine bottles and arranged a colorful mound of pills on the table before her.

  “You’re going to take all of those?” Alma asked.

  “Yeah. This one is for my sugar, and this one is to help with my blood. These two help the nausea from taking these two, and the other three are vitamins. I’m all messed up. But you do what you have to do to survive.”

  “You should stop eating so many sweets in order to survive, if you ask me.”

  “Sugar is my weakness. I tried to stop, but life just isn’t as sweet without it,” Dee said as she forced the pills down her gullet with the aid of a tall, cool glass of water.

  “She’s been dealing with a lot of stress since her daughter stopped talking to her.” Joy leaned in and whispered to Alma. “That little wench won’t even let her see her own grandchild. Be easy on her.”

  “I can’t be somebody’s friend if I can’t tell the truth,” Alma said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “If you really cared about her, you’d be saying the same thing instead of whispering in my ear for me to be quiet.”

  “So what happened with you and James last night?” Magdalena changed the subject.

  “Nothing. We danced, that’s all.”

  “He was looking for you all night. You must have really put it on him, girl. James can have any woman he wants. That man is a real catch,” Joy offered. “Any woman in her right mind would be happy to let him into her world.”

  “Well, I must not be in my right mind, because I know his kind. He’s nothing but a womanizer who thinks he can charm his way up under any skirt he likes. I’m not interested. I know a dog when I see one, even when it’s not on a leash.”

  “Well, do me a favor and send him my way,” Joy added.

  “You can have him. It’s too soon for me to be thinking about a man.”

  “Are you divorced?” Joy pried.

  “Whatever I am is none of your business. It’s just too soon. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “It’s never too soon for me. I’m tired of my rabbit,” Joy complained. “That thing is going to hop away from me I use it so much,” she finished.

  “I think the girls are just trying to say don’t let a good one get away. James is a good man. He lost his wife a while ago,” Dee offered, “and he isn’t as bad as he comes off. Just lonely, that’s all. And we all know lonely.”

  “Speaking of which, we’ve got something for you,” Magdalena said.

  “Me?”

  Dee reached under the table and produced a hatbox. She placed it in front of Alma.

  “I can’t . . .”

  “Just open it. You can’t say no if you don’t even know what it is.” Dee pushed the box toward Alma.

  Alma opened the box and pulled out a beautiful, large-brimmed, red-feathered hat accented with gorgeous strawberry-red brocade.

  “Welcome to the Red Hats,” the women said in chorus.

  “It’s beautiful, but I can’t accept it.”

  “Why not?” Joy asked.

  “Because I don’t want to be a part of no damn cult!” Alma exploded.

  “What makes you think we are a cult?” Dee asked.

  “You walk alike, talk alike, and dress alike. If that isn’t the signs of a cult, I don’t know what is. Besides, if I wanted to join the Red Hats, I would have asked to join. I don’t like anything being forced on me. You don’t know me. I don’t need this!”

  Alma stood and tossed her money onto the table.

  “That’s for my coffee. Just stay away from me, OK?”

  “Alma, we give hats to all those who are special to us. We’re just trying to be your friends,” Dee tried to explain.

  “I don’t need no more damn friends! I pick my friends, they don’t pick me. Y’all keep that red hat, I don’t want it.”

  Alma hurried out of the café, leaving the Red Hats dumbfounded.

  chapter nine

  Alma couldn’t stay inside another minute and decided to take a walk in the park. The leaves were gone, and it was unusually cold. She enjoyed it nonetheless, at least until she saw Bob and Seymour playing a game of chess. They raised their heads to see her and give each other a look but did not speak. She didn’t speak, either. But she felt slighted. How dare they? The least they could do was show some respect on the strength of their friendship with Harold. But neither had been welcomed in her house for the longest. Why did she care now?

  When she entered the building, she noticed something different: the light was out in the hallway. Her heart began to beat faster, and not just because of the stairs. She was digging down in her purse for the door keys when she heard a voice.

  “Hello, young lady,” a male voice said.

  Alma didn’t give the words time to reach her ears before she started spraying the man in the face with her pepper spray. The man howled in pain.

  “My eyes! Oh, my God, Alma, I can’t see!”

  Alma recognized the man flailing about in front of her. It was James Debron.

  “James! Is that you?” she asked.

  “Yes, what is wrong with you, woman?”

  “What’s wrong with you, sneaking up on me like that?”

  “I can’t see. It’s burning!” he cried. “I need to wash my eyes.”

  “OK.”

  Alma opened the door and pulled James inside. She took him by the hand and led him to the kitchen. She turned the cold water on and leaned him over the sink.

  “Hang on.”

  She went to the bathroom and came back with a handful of face cloths. They seemed to stay there for the longest, splashing water in his face. After a while, he sighed and pulled back from the sink. Alma stepped back and watched, wondering if he was going to cuss her out or something. She noticed how nicely he was dressed and how the water was soaking the front of his shirt and messing up his nice cashmere jacket. She’d noticed how soft it was as she was trying to get him positioned to rinse his eyes. Her stomach was in knots.

  James opened his eyes and looked at her. He shook his head and smiled.

  “Now, what are you smiling for? I nearly put your eyes out. I’m sorry, but you scared the daylights out of me.”

  “You’re beautiful, even as a blur.”

  She felt her face turn hot and her emotions go haywire. “What are you doing here? How’d you know where I live?”

  James patted his pocket, as if he remembered something. He pulled out a glove. “You dropped this at the dance, and I wanted to return it to you.”

  Alma reached for the glove recalling that, yes, it had been missing.

  “Who gave you my address? Dee?”

  “No, Dee didn’t. She wouldn’t. She said you were private. I used to be a lawyer. I have contacts in the police department. I�
�m sorry, I should have called.”

  “Yes, you should’ve. I’m a married woman and—” She stopped in mid-sentence, feeling awkward about what she was saying. She stood up and gestured toward the door. “You have to go now. I’m really sorry. Thank you for bringing me my glove.”

  “Thank you for taking care of me, Alma.”

  Her eyes got big, and she wrung her hands, walking toward the door and reaching for the knob. He straightened his shirt and jacket as best he could and set the face cloth on the dining table.

  “Alma, take care of yourself. Listen, I was hoping we could, I could take you to dinner one night, sometime.”

  “Didn’t I tell you? I’m married.”

  She looked at the floor, then right into his eyes.

  “Please.” She motioned for the door.

  James gave her one last look and smile before walking away. She shut the door and stared at the glove still in her hand. She put it to her nose—it smelled . . . like James.

  Winter came fast. The trees were left naked and the ground bald with patches of slush and snow. Alma still spent most of her day at the window, fearful of what the outside had to offer. At night, she read her Bible, seeking comfort and understanding of why life had dealt her such an awful blow. It seemed as if nothing ever stayed the same in her life. There was always something to make life miserable.

  Today it was the heater. The radiator had been making loud banging noises for the past week, from not being bled, and all of a sudden, it upped and stopped working. She complained to the building’s assistant manager, who claimed there was nothing he could do. He suggested she use the oven to heat the place. What nerve! She went over his head and called the building’s owner, threatening to alert the authorities. Again, she was told this was a problem the city had to fix. The city, she thought. Who the hell is the city? It was too vague for her to figure out.

  She spent the day wrapped in a blanket on the phone trying to reach the city. Finally, a woman with the electric company explained to Alma that the problem was not the city’s and referred her to an agency you call for “got no heat.” They told her it was being handled and they should have it fixed within the next few hours. That was ten hours ago.

  Alma broke down and turned the oven on to stay warm. It was so cold she could see her breath. She pulled the love seat into the kitchen and set up a nesting place in order to stay warm and rest. Because it was Friday, she feared the problem wouldn’t be handled until Monday. City workers were off on weekends, so there wasn’t anyone to respond to complaints. To make matters worse, a huge snowstorm was in the forecast.

  Alma nodded off to sleep. Her subconscious dream state told her the heat must be back on, because she suddenly felt extremely hot, especially around her feet. It felt so hot it almost burned. Alma started awake, kicking the smoldering blanket from her feet just as the first flames took hold. She must have settled too close to the oven, and the flimsy blanket had caught fire.

  The blanket quickly ignited the tablecloth and then the kitchen curtains. Alma screamed for help as she fought to extinguish the flames with an even flimsier blanket. She panicked, seeing the two fires spread quickly. Within thirty seconds, the flames were too intense to put out. She couldn’t even reach the sink for water.

  Alma freaked out. She backed away, standing in the middle of the living room, screaming for help. Smoke filled the apartment, making it difficult to breathe. Not knowing what else to do, she grabbed the only thing that mattered to her, a framed wedding photo showing a smiling, unknowing Harold and her leather bible.

  Run, she heard her mind say.

  So she did. Alma ran from the apartment, yelling at the top of her lungs.

  “Fire!” Alma banged on every door she passed. “Get out! There’s a fire!”

  Doors opened, and mothers with children and husbands with wives fled for their lives. Fire engines could be heard in the distance.

  Alma huddled outside the building, wrapped in a nice, warm wool blanket Mrs. Johnson had put around her shoulders as she coddled the only things she had left in this world—a bible and a picture in a frame. She was too shocked to cry and more than a little angry, knowing that her apartment was the only one lost to the fire. All her antique dolls gone! She wished she could have stood the pain of the flames so she might have burned in the hell that was before her eyes.

  What now? People returned to their apartments. No one asked what she was going to do. They acted as if the inconvenience were all her fault. Where was the neighborly love she read about in the Bible? As she stood there alone, she noticed Bob, Seymour, and Rae Ann standing across the street staring at her. She pleaded for help with her eyes. As if choreographed, they turned in unison and walked away.

  A fireman suggested she go to a local shelter and apologized for not being able to give her a ride on the truck because of insurance issues. He was kind enough to give her cab fare and his deepest sympathies for what she was going through. Thanks a lot.

  Alma felt like a criminal as she stood in line at the downtown shelter. It was worse than the treatment she got at the police station, where the officer hadn’t even offered her a cup of coffee. He sat there sipping his own steaming cup as he filled out the police report, not even bothering to look up from the paperwork. Alma thought he was avoiding eye contact for fear he would see his own mother, sister, or daughter in her eyes.

  He allowed her to make a few calls to Jesse, who didn’t pick up. After leaving numerous messages, she gave up that option. That boy wasn’t worth a damn. Where could he be on a cold winter night?

  The attendant at the shelter told her she was lucky tonight because they had an opening. It was all Alma could do not to grab the woman and beat her to the ground. Lucky? How could she use that word? How insensitive could someone be?

  The bed she was given was a hard cot with a dirty, brown, itchy blanket. God only knew where it had been. Alma was careful not to let it touch any bare skin. Lying there amid the smell of urine and cigarettes, Alma allowed tears to fall from her eyes. She didn’t care if the woman in the bed next to her listened as she cursed God for putting her through such pain. She felt like Job in the Bible. The prophet whom God had allowed the devil to strip of everything he knew and loved, striking him with a disease of malignant boils from head to toe just to get him to curse his God. In the end, Job proved his faith to the God he professed to love and was healed of the painful boils that afflicted him, then given back everything he had lost tenfold.

  “What kind of a God and Father puts his children through all of this?” Alma cried to no one in particular.

  “Amen,” the woman said as she took a long drag from her cigarette.

  “Show your face, you coward! Where is the God who saved everyone else? What happened to the miracle worker?” Alma cried with eyes closed. “Are you just going to let me suffer like this? Is this what I get for believing in you? Help me! God, please help me!”

  “Alma!”

  Alma opened her eyes to see Sister Dee standing over her, reaching out to help her up. She was wearing a ruby-red cloche with a matching feather jutting from its narrow brim.

  Alma took her hand and stood, then collapsed into her arms.

  “I’m sorry I said all those mean things to you. I’m so sorry.” She sobbed. “I didn’t mean it. I don’t know why I say the things I say sometimes.”

  “It’s OK. Let’s just get you out of here. This isn’t a place for a lady,” Dee whispered.

  Dee lived in a row house she owned in the Bronx. She rented out three of the four apartments and lived in the two-bedroom on the second floor. It was nicely decorated with antiques that were pieces of art to Alma. She’d always dreamed of having Tiffany lamps and Persian rugs like these. Dee set her up in her daughter’s room.

  “She never visits anyway, so I’m glad it’s finally going to good use. This old brass bed was my grandmother’s. You’ll sleep well tonight.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “You stop
thanking me, OK? It’s our duty as human beings to look out for one another. It is my joy to be here for you. One day, you may have to return the favor for me,” Dee said.

  “As God is my witness, I will,” Alma promised.

  “You go on and take a nice hot bath. I’ll bring you one of my gowns and robes to put on.” Alma noticed the hatbox the girls had intended for her sitting on top of a beautiful cherry-wood dresser.

  “That’s yours, you know,” Dee said as she left the room.

  Alma stared at the hatbox for a moment, then dismissed the thought of trying the gift on.

  Alma soaked in the hot tub for almost an hour, thinking about all she had lost—photos of her children and grandchildren, her dishes, family jewelry, old vinyl records, birth certificates, clothing, identification, bank statements, and her priceless antique dolls. Those were just a few that came to mind. She thought about all of the running around she had to do to get her finances back in order. How would she do that with no proof of who she was?

  When she climbed from the tub, Alma noticed how wrinkled her hands and feet were from soaking so long. Dee had knocked several times to check on her. The loaner gown was made from a fine silk that felt good against her skin. Dee brought Alma a warm slice of apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. She gave herself an injection of insulin so Alma wouldn’t have to eat it alone. It was disturbing to see how easily she took the needle, so matter-of-fact. No flinching or crying. She did it as if she were simply picking a piece of lint off her sweater. No big deal.

  Alma stared at the needle as Dee placed it on the tiny square alcohol swab now next to her wedding picture.

  “Here, sip on this.” Dee poured a healthy shot of expensive brandy into a crystal snifter. It warmed Alma’s insides right away.

  “This is nice,” Alma said.

  Dee noticed the needle near the picture frame and moved it.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s OK.”

  “What a handsome couple.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You must miss him.”

  Alma nodded.

  “I know that void. I lost my husband, too. Only he didn’t die, he ran away from me. Just like my Kelly, he was always running. I was just too blind to see it. Everyone saw it but me. He joined the army right after I got pregnant, so he could travel and see the world. That’s what he said. I wanted to see it, too, so I packed up and followed him to Japan. He transferred to Germany, then San Diego, California. It wasn’t until he wanted to go to Alaska that I figured out it was me he was trying to shake.