Mama, carefully, as if there was some special technique about it, pulled a cigarette from the pack on the table, put it in her mouth, pushed the matchbox open, and took out a match. She struck the match on the strike strip and lit her cigarette. She shook out the match and dropped it into a piled ashtray on the table.
She took a deep puff, pulling the smoke inside of her. When she let it out, she said, “I had such high hopes for you.”
Shit. Now it was coming. It was like that coffee was alcohol all of a sudden, not some hot, sobering cup of caffeine. I guess it’s what you might call a dry drunk. Whatever was wrong with her, it came in waves, and this was the start of one of those waves. Her face changed and her eyes seemed to darken.
“Just said I had something good about to happen.”
“But you won’t tell me what it is, so I got to figure it’s just talk. What? You might get promoted to service manager at the car lot? That it? An extra fifty dollars a month take-home pay?”
“Come on, Mama.”
“You come on. You need to make something big of yourself. Not get promoted at the car lot.”
“I never said that’s what I had in mind.”
“Got a new job at the post-oak plant, putting creosote on posts? Driving a goddamn forklift?”
I heard Melinda drive up.
“I’m doing my best,” I said.
“Your best seems wanting, don’t it?”
I didn’t know what to say. She was looking at me with a hard face and a set of eyes that looked charred. I barely recognized her. I stood up from the table as Melinda came in the front door. I could see her through the open door of the kitchen.
“Hey, Eddie,” she said.
“Hey, baby sister. Me and Mama were just talking about my bright future.”
Melinda studied us, and she got the deal right away. With her living there, she must have seen Mama’s dry drunk more than a time or two.
“Yeah, she talks about mine too, but making good for a girl. You know, fucking my way to the top of the pile.”
“You don’t need to talk like that,” Mama said.
“I’m going to find some old man with money who has one foot in a bear trap and the other on a banana peel, and I’m going to push him down so he can’t get back up, and then I’ll inherit his money.”
Mama had turned in the chair to look at Melinda, who had come into the kitchen and was leaning against the door frame.
“That’s silly.”
“But it’s in the ballpark,” Melinda said. “You want us to make it so you can make it, like our big brother has, who sends you some money every month. Money you spend on getting drunk and smoking cigarettes. It isn’t about seeing us do well, it’s about seeing you do well.”
Mama stood up, picked up her cigarettes and matches. “Neither of you are like your brother. You’re both losers.”
“And him being the full-on nigger and all,” Melinda said.
Mama started toward her. I thought she might knock Melinda out of the way, but Melinda stepped aside, and, moving faster than I had seen her move in a long time, Mama went on down the hall toward her bedroom.
“A family get-together is so refreshing to the spirit, don’t you think?” Melinda said.
“Would you like to go for ice cream?”
“I’d like to go for anything and anywhere, just as long as it’s away from here.”
(27)
I asked if we could go in her car and if she would let me drive. Where I was hoping we’d end up after the ice cream, I didn’t want a big, bright, memorable Cadillac parked there.
When we got inside her car, we both let out our breath, like we had been underwater for a while. I started the car and drove us out of there.
“I guess it was the lack of alcohol talking back there,” Melinda said, “but I tell you, big brother, I am tired of it. I say let her drink. I say I get out of the house and she can live on the money my other big brother sends her, which, for the record, isn’t that much and not that often. I bet if he was here, she’d be riding his ass. Hell, he’s my brother, and I would barely recognize him if he came through the door with his name on a sign hung around his neck.”
“We kind of got separated.”
“Mama separated us. She wanted to move here and start over, and she did. But starting over for her was a lot like not starting over, just doing what she’d done all along someplace else. Hell, she’s worse. At least when she and Daddy used to fight, they’d end up in bed. You could hear them through the walls in there, screwing like rabid weasels, the springs squeaking like a bunch of mice.”
“I remember, and I’d rather not.”
“Everyone likes a roll in the sheets, big brother. Even your father and mother. Even me.”
“Jesus, don’t talk to me about that. You’re a kid.”
“I have a birthday next month. I’ll be twenty.”
“Shit, really?”
“Yeah. Thanks for keeping up with my birthdays.”
I drove us to the drugstore. They sold ice cream there, but not in pints. We’d have to drop by a grocery store to get that for Mama. I ought to have just sent her back my best wishes, but I knew I wouldn’t.
Before we got out of the car, Melinda said, “You know, people here knew we had a drop of colored in us, they wouldn’t let us through those doors.”
“I know. And sometimes I feel like an impostor, and other times I feel like ‘Fuck all of you. I got the sneaky edge on you.’”
“I feel like I’d like to have something vanilla with chocolate topping.”
Inside we ordered up what we wanted, and I paid and they handed it over the counter to us. Two cones. Vanilla with chocolate topping and, for me, plain vanilla.
We sat at a table and began to eat the ice cream.
I said, “You know, I thought we’d have an ice cream, but I want to do something else.”
“Yeah?”
“I think I’m coming into some money.”
“We’re out of rich relatives who might die and send us some dough. Mom’s people disowned her, and Daddy’s people, except for our big brother, will die owing money.”
“It’s another thing.”
“What kind of thing?”
“I want to find out before I tell you, but I wanted to do something just in case, while I have a bit of car-sale money in my pocket.”
“You always have car-sale money. You’re doing all right, Eddie. You don’t need to keep trying to be Rockefeller.”
“I want to get your birth certificate altered.”
Melinda thought about that. “You mean take out the colored-daddy part.”
I nodded. “I did it for mine. Sometimes, something comes up, you have to show a birth certificate, and, well…”
“Looks better if it’s all white?”
“Exactly. And listen, you want to go to college, that could come up. They don’t dig much beyond that.”
“We been over this.”
“Yeah, but now I’m talking having the money to send you somewhere like Kilgore College, plus enough to get Mama dried out. There’s a place in Dallas.”
“You got a lot worked out on a maybe.”
“I know, but we ought to get some things done. It would be better if we did.”
“And how do I do this, get a fake birth certificate?”
“It’s made to look like the original only we change one word. The place where it says ‘race.’”
“You put in ‘white’ instead of ‘colored.’”
“That’s it.”
“I don’t know how I feel about that, Eddie.”
“Let me do this for you. I got money for it, and this other deal I got planned goes through, there’ll be enough for the other things.”
Melinda sat and thought and licked at her ice cream cone. She looked small then, and I was reminded of when we were kids. I knew to wait and say nothing. I’d had experience. You pushed her, she’d lock up like a safe.
She didn’t seem all th
at happy about it, but she said, “Okay. I guess so. Okay.”
(28)
When we walked out to the car, a redheaded teenager standing on the corner whistled at Melinda.
“You best put that whistle in your pocket,” I said, “and keep it there.”
The teenager turned, walked down the block and turned a corner and was gone.
“I thought he was kind of cute,” Melinda said.
“You would.”
We drove over the railroad tracks and went along a narrow street, through the colored part of town, the biggest part of it, and on out in the country a bit to where there was a nice white house with a nice white Chrysler in the driveway. Out back there was an aluminum garage with one window cut into it, and an air conditioner was set in that window. When we got out of the car, we could hear the air conditioner humming along.
I knocked on the door of the house. No one answered.
“So we made the trip for nothing?” Melinda said.
“Car’s here. He’s here. Probably out back.”
We went out to the aluminum building, and I knocked on that door. There was a little peephole in the door, and though I couldn’t know for sure, a few seconds after I knocked, I had the sensation of being watched through it.
A moment later I heard a lock snick, and the door opened. Dash, who had a face that looked to have seen a bit of this and that and felt amused by all of it, was standing there. His processed hair was whipped back in a Little Richard pompadour, and he had on a white shirt and suspenders holding up his tan slacks. He had on tan shoes. He looked like he was dressed up to go to a party. He always looked that way, even if the bulk of his day was spent drinking beer and going to shit.
“Damn, man,” Dash said, smiling big, showing us that one of his front teeth was gold and had a silver star in it. “You got one fine woman with you.”
“That’s my sister.”
“Oh, man, I didn’t mean no disrespect. But damn.”
“May we come in?”
“I suppose you can.”
Dash moved from the door and walked through the building, which was nice inside. It had a thin wooden partition at the back, a big couch, and a TV set with rabbit ears on it, each of them topped with aluminum foil, and there was a refrigerator against the wall on the opposite side. There were soft lights.
Behind that partition, I knew, he had a camera for making false documents, a printing press, inks and pens and special paper.
Dash stopped at the refrigerator, reached in, and pulled out a bottle of beer. “Y’all want a cold beer?”
“That’s all right,” I said.
“I’d like one,” Melinda said.
“No, she wouldn’t,” I said.
“I’m old enough,” she said.
“No, you’re not.”
“Well,” Dash said, “I’m having one, and some peanuts with it.”
He went over to the couch and sat down, used a church key resting on the end table to open his beer, and took a swig. There were peanuts in a bowl on the end table. He reached out, picked up a few, and popped them into his mouth.
“Way you act,” he said, studying me in that way he had, a way that always made you think he knew more than you, “I got to figure you aren’t here on a social visit. I’m going to guess you need me to fix her up a birth certificate.”
“That’s right.”
“And the only thing you need special is for me to make her father white. You got the dough?”
“No. I’m going to trade you some chickens for it.”
“Here’s the thing. I’ve gone up. Ink has gotten more expensive.”
“I doubt that.”
“Then let’s say it’s the paper. Or, better yet, it’s going to cost you because I know you need it, and I’m a goddamn artist. Damn, man, you sure that’s your sister?”
“I’m sure, and you better be too.”
“You ain’t going to rough me up like you done Cecil, are you?”
“You know about that?”
“Who don’t on this end of town? He looked like he’d been tenderized with a mallet and then run over with a truck. Keep in mind a guy like that, he’s going to remember you. And, damn, girl. I’m not trying to be rude, but you are movie-star quality.”
“Is that one of your lines you give women?” Melinda said, but I could tell she liked it.
“It is, but mostly with the others it’s a lie.”
“You are slick,” she said.
“I’m all kinds of things.”
“You’re also too old for me.”
“Man, just because I have snow on the roof don’t mean I ain’t got a fire in the furnace.”
“You don’t have snow on your roof.”
“I dye it.”
“Look, we’re going to give you the information,” I said, deciding to have a beer from the refrigerator, pulling one out for Melinda too, “then we’ll leave you to it.”
“You think I’m doing it this afternoon? I got other documents in line to forge. You think you can skip in the queue?”
I used the church key that was on the end table to open our beers. “Just one beer, baby sis. You’ve seen what this stuff can do to a person.”
“Just one,” she said. “And by the way, big brother, you think this is my first one?”
I had second thoughts, but I gave her the beer. I said to Dash, “I’ll put a big bill on top of what you want if you can get right to it.”
Dash thought about that for about two seconds. “How big a bill?”
“Big enough.”
“That case, I’m thinking some of these others can wait. I got a couple fake marriage certificates, a death certificate for someone that ain’t dead, but I can jump over that shit, way you’re stacking up the greenbacks. That there will move you ahead in line.”
“How much ahead?”
“About a week, you want it to look right when you hold it up to the light. If I do it the way it’s supposed to be done, and I will, then that damn thing is your birth certificate. You got her original birth certificate?”
“I don’t. But we give you the information, you can make it from scratch, same as mine.”
“You know your original is registered?”
“It’s just for show.”
“Like I said, no one will be able to tell which one is real and which one isn’t. You show one I make around, it’ll do the job, I guarantee.”
“That’s what I want. So, Cecil’s telling about how I clipped him. What kind of shit is he spreading?”
“Well, he’s just mad over the ass-whipping. He don’t know you got the nigger connection, I don’t think. Depends on what your mama told him.”
“She’s not proud of it, so I doubt she said anything, and don’t say that.”
“Say what?”
“You know what.”
He grinned at me, flashing that gold tooth with the silver star. “Listen here, Ed, those people play cards and such out at the country house, they don’t fuck around. They’re some bad dudes. They ain’t civilized like you and me.”
“They didn’t seem that bad to me.”
“You caught them good, all right, but maybe they wasn’t expecting much. Now it could get all exciting, like. Cecil, he don’t take good to being embarrassed and disrespected in front of friends.”
“I wanted to make an impression.”
“You did. Look here, Ed. You’re tough with a blackjack and a pistol, and I got to admire the balls you got on you—pardon me, miss—but guys like Cecil, they just looking to let the air out of them big balls of yours, make them go flat.
“Listen up, man. Know you got to take care of your mama, and I don’t blame you for wanting you and your sister to pass. If I wasn’t so black my shadow looked pale, I’d take advantage of that shit too, though the world would lose one handsome black son of a bitch. But I’m telling you—be on the lookout.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
“Jesus, Eddie,” Melinda said. “This
sounds dangerous. I told you that wasn’t a good thing to do.”
“I’m fine.”
“I was thinking about me,” she said. “Maybe he’ll have something against me. I drove you out there that night.”
“Yeah, but he don’t know that,” I said and looked at Dash. “About the birth certificate?”
Dash swigged the last of his beer and revealed his shiny white teeth. “Show me the money, my man. Show me the money.”
(29)
We went by the Piggly Wiggly and bought Mama some ice cream and then I drove Melinda home.
Before she got out of the car, I said, “I’ll get that certificate to you.”
“This is making me nervous. You rushing this birth-certificate thing, trying to get me and Mama moved off, and you talking about some kind of vague plan about money.”
“It’s all good, sis. Take Mama her ice cream, and you’ll hear from me soon enough.”
We got out and I climbed in my Cadillac and drove home. When I got there, I spread the tarp in the bathroom and started painting the walls with my new brushes and paint.
I finished, washed up a little, left the tarp lying there. I had deliberately splashed some paint on it, though I managed to get plenty on it in the process of painting. Drunk chimpanzees could have done as good a job as I did. I doubted I would ever need to worry about it, but if I did, the tarp would actually have paint that matched the stuff I had left in the cans. I was going to put them in the storeroom under the outside stairs.
I fixed myself a cup of coffee, making it a little heavy on water and light on coffee, then sat down on the couch and read a stack of magazines. I was thinking about Nancy, how she was doing, when the phone rang, and it was her.
“He’s gone,” she said. “Probably on his sixth beer by now. Time he comes home, if you could squeeze the beer out of him, it would fill the bathtub. Do I really have to wait for him to come home? I’m not liking how that might go.”
“Just stay the course,” I said. “We have to do it there, set it up at the creek. I got some of the stuff we need. You got bleach?”
“Why?”
“You got any?”
“Yeah, but again, why?”
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