Kiss of Noir

by Clara Nipper

  “Sure thing.” I sat down with a grin to eggs, grits, bacon, toast, and more chicory coffee. “You got to let me clean up,” I said, my mouth full.

  “Yeah, you do that.” Ellis threw his tie over his shoulder, tucked a napkin into his collar like a bib, and leaned carefully over his plate.

  I leisurely turned the pages of the paper Sayan left on the table. I was feeling fine, fat, and lazy. I begged something in the articles to catch my eye and keep my interest.

  “Today, you and Cleo have to clean up over there,” Ellis said between bites of bacon. “You know, wash the windows, sweep the sidewalk, sweep and mop the floor, clean the glass on the display cases, stuff like that, you get me?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” I turned page after page. Sports, International, Careers, Classified.

  “I mean it. The place has got to be kept up.”

  I looked at Ellis. “What’s wrong with you, Hambone? Don’t you notice a damn thing? Cleo and I do that stuff every day. The place looks sharp. We even cleaned the guns and polished the instruments yesterday. Do you think I’m not pulling my weight? What’s up your ass?”

  Ellis dropped his eyes. “Sorry, Nora. I’m just…” He shrugged. “Everything is moving so fast, you know? I been in control for so long and now I’m about to have a baby and it’s all…”

  I waved my hand, smiling. “You’re just PMS-ing. I get it.”

  “Yeah, you and Cleo are the best.”

  “And the cheapest,” I added. We laughed. I reached the local section in the paper and began flipping through it. Sayan clattered out of the bedroom looking fresh and rosy in a soft sleeveless top, pedal pushers, and sandals. She was fastening a necklace as she read over my shoulder. As I turned the page to the society section, I froze, glad I didn’t have food in my mouth or I would’ve choked. There was a glorious color photo of Julia in a spectacular evening dress that was nearly obscured by the sparkling cape she wore. She had one arm looped through her husband’s and the other hand at her throat as she laughed, surrounded by a small crowd of over-groomed glitterati. I just sat, immobile, trying to remember to breathe, the remains of my breakfast congealing on its plate. Sounds from the St. Louis cemetery filled my ears. Julia splayed out and me sunk deep inside her muff, Julia shrieking and screaming and shaking, biting down as I smothered Julia’s cries with my gloved hand, Julia’s pelvis pumping hard, me fucking hard, Julia’s tits bouncing, her neck and chest flushed, the knife shining…

  “Hey,” Sayan said, pointing. “Ellis, isn’t that one of your snotty white clients?”

  I made a grunting sound, trying to find my voice. Ellis looked over and snorted.

  “Yeah. She’s in the paper all the time. What’s she doing now?”

  “Ballet Benefit,” I said.

  “Say, what the hell?” Ellis stood suddenly and came to squint at the photo.

  “Ellis, I thought we talked about cursing,” Sayan said.

  “The baby’s not born yet,” Ellis muttered, distracted.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Ellis whipped a loupe out of his pocket and bent close to study the photo. “This doesn’t do me any good. All I can see is damn dots.” He straightened. “But I’ll be good and goddamned!”

  “Ellis!” Sayan said.

  “That motherfucking, shit-eating, white bitch!” Ellis put the loupe in his pocket, kissed Sayan, and left. The two of us heard the car start and roar out, tires squealing. Sayan and I looked at the picture again.

  “I don’t see anything, do you?” Sayan asked, her forehead furrowed in worry.

  “No, ma’am, not a thing.” I stared hard at the photo.

  “Well, I’m late.” Sayan grabbed her purse and kissed me on the cheek as she left. I was confused beyond utterance and could only look at the picture in the paper and hold my cheek where Sayan’s lips had been. Finally, I stood, put on an apron, and cleaned up.

  Later, I was still shaken by the photo and what it might mean to Ellis. I let myself in the pawn through the back door. I heard drilling and found Cleo attaching sheets of plywood to the window frames.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I set my mug of coffee on the wooden bench and cupped my hand around a match as I lit a cigarette. Cleo wiped beads of sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief and set down the drill.

  “Preparing for the worst and hoping for the best,” Cleo said, lifting the cigarette from my lips and taking a deep drag.

  “What, you mean the hurricane?” I sat on the bench and rolled another cigarette. I noticed that none of the other businesses along the street were boarded. The cordless phone next to me rang. Cleo hefted a second sheet of plywood into place over the second plate-glass window. The iron bars preventing robbery had been mounted on the inside, allowing for just such a weather eventuality.

  “Get that, will you? Sayan has called twice already. Tell her I’m doing it and not to worry.”

  “Pawn,” I said, my voice more tender in anticipation of Sayan’s concern and feminine flutterings.

  “God damn you to hell. I’ll get you,” a voice said and hung up.

  I rested the phone on the bench and smoked.

  “Well, what did she want?” Cleo used the drill to put bolts into pre-drilled holes in the brick building.

  “Wrong number,” I answered, sipping cold coffee, wishing I had my sunglasses and a hat like Cleo’s.

  “Done,” Cleo said, stepping back to look. Painted on the plywood, which had evidently been used for this purpose before, was DELANEY PAWN with the hours of operation on one sheet and CASH FOR ANYTHING, BEST TERMS ANYWHERE on the other.

  “Sayan make you do this?” I asked.

  Cleo removed his hat and scratched his head. “Yep. Every year. She and all her people are from here. I don’t know where she gets her jumpy, it’s like she’s from Los Angeles.” He settled his hat more firmly on his head.

  I laughed. “You have to do anything else?”

  Cleo grunted. “Not right now. Let’s have a break. Play bones?”

  I shrugged. “Sure. Where’s Drew today?”

  “Oh, he’ll be in, don’t you fret none.”

  Inside the pawn, which was now even dimmer and had the creepy atmosphere of being the inside of a smothering box, Cleo and I sat at the table and I washed the dominoes. Cleo set his hat down and wiped his skull and hair with his handkerchief and then replaced the hat on his head, after inspecting it minutely and brushing off invisible dust.

  “Where could I get a hat like that?” I chose my dominoes.

  “Can’t. My wife had it made for me on our anniversary when Ellis was just a baby.” Cleo held his dominoes lined up all across his palm in a peculiar, seasoned grip.

  “You’ve known Ellis all his life?”

  “Sure I have.” Our eyes met and held. “I don’t know why you and I never met, bad timin’, I guess, but I heard a lot of you over the years. Saw your prize fight on TV that brought you here.” Cleo put down a domino. “That’s a time.”

  My jaw tightened and I hung my head, sliding a piece out to join Cleo’s.

  “Naw, naw, it’s not like that.” Cleo smiled and his face glowed. “That was something.” Cleo laughed and shook his head. “Smack! TKO! That girl went down like a sorry sack of shit.”

  I grinned, feeling wide in my chest. I pushed out the double five.

  “Uh-oh, get back! Twenty-five points for little brother!” Cleo wrote the hieroglyphics.

  “Now I got you,” I said.

  “We’ll see. Don’t celebrate yet.” Cleo studied his hand, his gnarled fingers curled around his dominoes. “Easy does it.” With his other hand, he tapped the table absently as he studied the layout. “Paint my wagon, Nettie,” he whispered to the zigzagging black trail. “And fifteen for me.”

  “How’s that?” I said.

  “Hey, now, you won’t punch me, will you? I’d hate to tangle with your tough.”

  I smiled. “All right, all right, you sweet-talking cheat.” I set down the two/three. />
  “Who are you calling a cheat? Oh, now I’ll have to kick your black ass. You whupped a girl, but I’m still a man.”

  “What are my points?”

  “Five.”

  “Well, mark it down in your secret code.”

  “You telling me what to do?”

  “Yeah, and in a minute, I’ll take your hat.”

  “Take it, then.” Cleo plopped it on me. Even on my bald head, the hat fit as I already knew. It felt warm and comforting, like a good daddy hug. “Why, you look fine. Just like Ellis does in his.”

  I tipped the hat at an angle. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Cleo laughed. “Zip for me. Lotta money on that other end already. Harem scarem hickum slickum, slide all that to me.”

  I put down the one/four. “Not fair using voodoo.”

  Cleo slapped his forehead. “Dang! You cleaned up!” Cleo wrote on his pad.

  “I did?”

  “Yeah, don’t you see? Right here. All this.” Cleo traced the print line.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” I grinned.

  “I bump,” Cleo said gloomily.

  “Oh, and I have the perfect place for this right here.” I placed my last domino. “I won!” I stood up. “I won! I won, right? Did I win?”

  “Yeah, you won.” Cleo totaled the points.

  I slammed the table with the flats of my palms. “I won! I won! I really won! Did I really win or did you rig it?”

  Cleo smiled into my face without answering. “Musta been the hat.”

  I removed the hat. “Hat hell, it was me. I did it. I can beat you now, old man. Let’s play again with bets this time.”

  “Naw, let’s not. Lemme just sit here and smoke a minute.”

  “Hey, roll me one, will you?” I asked.

  “For the victor?”

  “Yeah.” I took my seat, beaming. “Wait till I tell Ellis and Drew!”

  “Watch yourself, buck.”

  “Why? I won, didn’t I?”

  “Ellis has never beaten me. Might take it hard.”

  I watched Cleo roll the cigarettes. “Okay then, this is just between you and me. But I’m gonna do a victory walk.” I strutted all over the store, waving to admirers as Cleo cackled.

  “You sure are a good sport about it.” I sat and lit my cigarette.

  “Well, I’ll tell ya.” Cleo snapped open his silver lighter of such distinguished age and markings that I wished to give up my thumbnail match habit. “You’re almost like family.”

  “That’s right. Almost like a woman and almost like a man too, eh?”

  “That’s none of my business.” Cleo leaned back in his creaky chair and stared into space. “The way I see it,” Cleo picked tobacco off his tongue, “I trust God completely.”

  “What?” More religion. I leaned back, put my feet up, and stared into space, copying Cleo to maybe be in a tandem mindset with him.

  “God makes everything and everybody on this Earth, and He don’t make mistakes.”

  “Well, now, there’s something about God I can agree with.”

  “God lovers burned you pretty bad, huh?” Cleo asked, still dreamy.

  Startled, I glanced at him. “How—?”

  “From time to time, Ellis would tell me of some of your problems while you were coming up. Don’t be upset, Ellis came to me for advice about everything. We just stuck together, him and me, from when he was a boy.”

  “You know his mama?”

  Cleo nodded slowly, both the couple’s eyes still distant. “Yeah, I knew her.”

  I liked this new feeling that we were easing down a gray smoky path going deeper and deeper into each other.

  “I knew her too. She was always my sweetest auntie. She had loads of children, but just knowing her for five seconds, you knew Ellis was her king.”

  Cleo closed his eyes and sighed.

  “’Cause he was her firstborn, I guess.”

  “That’s not why,” Cleo said, his voice sounded slow and wet.

  I waited, smoking the last of my triumph cigarette.

  “I’m his daddy, but he don’t know it.”

  My feet dropped to the ground as I gaped at Cleo. He finally faced me with watery eyes. I had to remind myself to breathe.

  “This is a story you’ve got to tell,” I whispered, scared to break the spell. I prayed the phone wouldn’t ring or a customer wouldn’t barge in on us. The pleasant men were absent and they better stay that way for a while, I vowed.

  “Yessir, I got to tell it,” Cleo said, dabbing his eyes with his handkerchief.

  I rolled two more cigarettes to have something to do. They remained untouched in the center of the table. I straightened the dominoes and replaced them in their scuffed box.

  “Sidcoe…Sugar, I called her…y’all call her Sugar too?” Cleo asked.

  “Yeah, Auntie Sugar.”

  “Sugar and I were an item. I was going to marry her when I had to go away.”

  “The war?” I said, just guessing.

  Cleo didn’t reply to my question but said, “When I came back, Sugar was married to your Uncle Smoky and on her fifth child. So I courted her cousin Jet and found I could love her and was married happily to her till she died, God bless her. And Smoky looked something like me, dark and tall and lean with fine features. I guess Sugar liked that type, so it was never too suspicious, and we all got on fine. But she was my woman.”

  “Did Smoky know?”

  “No.”

  “And Ellis has no idea?”

  “No. And don’t help him figure it out, hear?”

  “Sure. No, I mean, I won’t.”

  “That’s why I stay close. To keep an eye on my boy and that grandbaby coming. It’s my only home.”

  I held a hand over my heart; my eyes felt like they were bulging like hard-boiled eggs. “But doesn’t that break your heart? Aren’t you busting to tell him?”

  Cleo shook his head. “Leave off talking that junk. I don’t speak that language. My life has been lived the best way I can and I get to see my boy every day. I been a part of the family. He took me in when nobody had a reason to and I’m not gonna shake things up now. Smoky was a good man.”

  “But Sugar and Smoky and Jet are all dead. What would it matter?”

  “Listen, I’m closer to that end than to the beginning and I guess I come from a different time. It would just hurt their memories and maybe cause pain. Why do it?”

  I shook my head, uncomprehending. My heart felt big and fluttery. Cleo put his horned hand on mine. “When you’re as old as I am, think on this again. I’ll bet different things will seem important to you too.”

  “Oh, Cleo!” was all I could manage. We both reached for the cigarettes and Cleo lighted them with his silver lighter. His hand didn’t shake at all.

  The phone rang and Cleo smiled in such a way that I knew the dreamy secret time was over and we were in the world again.

  The door pumped open and the pleasant men arrived, chatting about the approaching storm.

  I answered the phone, spoke for a few minutes, and hung up.

  “Hey, y’all.” Cleo greeted the men. They nodded and smiled, looking over the DVDs.

  “That was Sayan. She wants us to tape the smaller windows. And she says they’re sandbagging all over town. She wants me to go home and help her move her furniture upstairs.”

  “Then you do that, little brother. You helping Sayan is helping Ellis, which is helping me. So you go on. I’ll tape the windows.”

  “Right on.” I stood, feeling rushed but not wanting to leave Cleo. I wanted to hug him and smell his shirt or punch him on the arm or pat his back or something. All I could do was stare at my hands. “Cleo,” I began.

  Cleo stared at me, level and calm. “You go on.”

  “But I just…”

  “It’s time to go. You’re out of sync with the proper order of things, aren’t you? To be safe in the storm, you gotta be flexible. And if you’re not with Sayan in ten minutes, she’s t
he biggest storm you’ve ever seen.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I gathered my tobacco pouch and hesitated at the front door where I saw now that much had occurred during our talk. Tassie’s was boarded. The streets were empty. “Cleo, I—”

  Cleo cut me off by waving and walking into the back room for the rolls of tape.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  As I drove home, I glanced with increasing concern at the horizon. Navy and purple clouds warned of what was coming. I had seen hurricanes on TV and never dreamed I would be a part of one. The sun was now blocked by fat cloud banks and the wind was picking up. It stirred my blood with excitement and I wanted to stand in the storm face-first to see all it had. I suspected hurricanes were like sassy femmes. They just needed sweet-talking and good loving to be gentled down.

  As I neared the house, I saw the streets were being sandbagged by many volunteers. Far in the distance, I saw a line of cars heading north for higher, drier ground. I wondered what Drew, Ellis, Johnny, and Payne were doing.

  When I approached the driveway, I saw Sayan standing in the middle of it with her arms crossed, tapping her foot. I debated honking at her as a joke and changed my mind when I saw Sayan’s face.

  Sayan’s expression was thunderous irritation and queenly displeasure mixed with terrible worry, and as soon as I approached, it all melted into a pleasurable, relieved smile.

  She needs me, I thought, astonished. I’m the Ellis substitute; not quite a man, but close enough. Good enough to take care of her and make her feel safe in the storm. Man enough to move furniture. My mouth twitched.

  Sayan walked alongside the car as if escorting me to a parking place. “Thank goodness you’re here. We need to get started right now. I’ve tagged what all needs to be moved and you should start with the bigger stuff. It’s labeled where it goes, so everything is ready. When you’re finished—”

  I turned off the car. “Slow down, puddin’. Let me come inside.”

  Sayan pulled open the car door, grabbed my arm, and tried to lift me out. I laughed, easing myself to standing tall. “Just calm down, little mommy.”

  Sayan’s eyes blazed and she pinched two fingers hard on to my ear. “What are you laughing about? Don’t you know what time it is? Get your sorry ass in the house. There is work to do.”