He could see that Tyrone was grinning even from the back. His shoulders got wider suddenly, and his neck tilted. Boy got to learn how not to let his feelings spill all out through his muscles like that, Perry thought. That was his main regret over not having had a greater hand in his raising him, boy never learned the ways of city men, how to hold his face like stone even if he was melting inside.
Tyrone was at the window with Perry now. His whole body grinning. “Where is she, Pops? I don’t see her. Which way she go?”
“She gone, boy. Already turned the corner. You should get here early every morning; she walks past every morning the same time. See, you let her keep you up half the night, and then she still gets on up and out to work, and you all drained, dragging in here after nine.”
Tyrone didn’t tell him that Ramona wasn’t the one who’d kept him up last night. “Did she look in just now?”
“Wouldn’t matter. How many times I got to tell you? You can see out, but can’t no one see in, two-way mirror, Tyrone.”
“Yeah, yeah, I forgot. She’s fine, ain’t she, Pops?”
“You doing it, son.” Perry and Tyrone slapped hands, and Perry resisted the urge to lecture. Hell, she was fine. He couldn’t deny that.
Tyrone went back to spreading ink over the press, he hummed a few bars of “My Girl” until the press went so loud that he could no longer hear himself. Then he just held the rhythm in his head and sang it in his head, one bar he sang for Ramona because he truly loved her, the next for Candy because he loved the way she drew him out and held on to his explosion all the way until that last spark had fizzled into a tiny red dot. Not even Ramona held on like that. He’d been drawn back to Candy’s lair again every night since that Saturday night they met—it was more like a lair than an apartment, with fake animal skins covering the couch, chairs, most of the walls; candles burning in every room; smoked mirrors on the walls that were absent the leopard and tiger prints—and he was going to see her again tonight, and tomorrow. He couldn’t help himself. He’d start the day off planning to spend time with Ramona, and Candy would call, rather, purr in his ear, “Please, please come see me tonight. Young blood.” She was so attentive to him too, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet; no part of him escaped her attention, which was soft and thick and warm and creamy. He couldn’t pass it up. Would just have to think of some excuse for Ramona about tonight, and tomorrow. He smiled inside; he really felt like a man now, having to think up a lie to tell his main lady so he could spend some time with the one on the side.
He watched the inked pages run through the press so he could settle himself down. Thinking about Candy was gonna have his pants bulging for real in a minute. He concentrated on the pages running through the press, each page sharper than the last until the color and the clarity would be up to Perry’s high standards. Tyrone liked running the press. Liked the notion that he was a craftsman like his father. Also liked this feeling of having a woman on the side. Was so secure in his manhood now he didn’t even feel the need to brag to his father about the whirlwind week he’d had with Candy.
These blank reams he was sending through the press were becoming bulletin covers for the Palm Sunday service at his and Ramona’s church. A flowing white robe surrounded by emerald green palms and pink-centered lilies splashed out on the finished page. Four-color process was a challenge, though; he was studying the lilies, deciding if he needed to spread a bit more red ink to get a deeper pink. He almost didn’t hear Perry again. This time telling him that his maybe future mother-in-law was walking past.
“Your momma gonna have to send up some strong southern prayers to protect you from that Mae woman if you and Ramona should ever decide to tie the knot,” Perry said as they both looked out the window now. “She’s a tough gambling woman, all right. I don’t know where she pulls the nurturing from to take care of all those foster kids always coming and going. And that eye, look at it, damn, son, don’t you shake in your shoes a little when she fixes that eye on you?”
Tyrone would have laughed, but Victoria was with Mae, limping, hopping actually, her hurt leg bent so she looked like a bona fide cripple. Tyrone’s eyebrows dipped way low in concern.
“I’m only messing with you, boy,” Perry said as he noticed his son’s face, almost stricken-looking.
“Naw, naw.” Tyrone waved his hand. “That’s not it.” And then he was out of the door calling first to Victoria and then to Mae.
Victoria heard him first, so unaccustomed to anyone calling her name on these strange streets. She stopped, glad to stop and lean on the side of the building that housed Perry’s printshop and rest her good leg for a second, and then really glad when she saw it was Tyrone saying her name.
Mae walked a few paces before she looked around and realized that Victoria wasn’t at her side. “What you stop for, pudding?” she called.
“It’s Tyrone.” Victoria pointed to Tyrone rushing toward them.
“Your leg’s still bothering you that much?” he asked, his face so worried-looking Mae thought there was something else amiss as she walked back to where they were.
“You shouldn’t be walking on that leg if it’s still hurting that much.” He was right next to Victoria now, and his voice and his face softened. “Where you headed anyhow? Why you not going to school today? Where’s your sisters?”
“I’m going to the clinic,” she said, putting her tongue against her chipped tooth and almost smiling. She was glad to be standing here with Tyrone next to her. The air got warm and spongy when he was around and dabbed at the pain and fear that was usually like silt clinging to her skin, absorbed the silt for a moment and her skin could breathe.
“You shouldn’t be walking on that leg.” The concern in his voice made it crack, and he cleared his throat and lightly tugged at the pompoms swinging from her hand-knitted cap. “You should be riding.”
“Mae doesn’t have a car. Ramona doesn’t either.” Her voice was low and dragging because she was tired and the slower she talked, the longer she could lean on the side of the building while Tyrone cleaned the air.
“I know,” he said as he lifted the pile-lined collar to her coat and pulled it up around her neck. It was the only thing he could think to do, hearing how slow her words were falling and thinking it was the pain in her knee coming out in her words. “But couldn’t she have gotten a ride or even a cab?”
Now Mae was where they were; she heard the part about the cab. “Lord, Lord, Lord!” she exclaimed before Tyrone could speak to her directly. “Do you know how much they charge you just for sitting in the cab? The meter jumps to sixty-five cents soon as you close the door, and then got the nerve to click every few seconds after that. Lord, no, I can’t afford no cab all the way down to Philadelphia General, especially not when the el’s right here.” She pulled at the ends of her head scarf tied in a bow under her chin and tucked them under the velvet collar of her tweed chesterfield. The coat used to be Ramona’s, but Mae had commandeered it, had it shortened, had the buttons moved over to accommodate her wider frame.
Tyrone noticed how off-centered the buttons were, and suddenly that angered him as much as watching Victoria being forced to walk. “Well, how she gonna get up and down those el steps? Looks to me like she can barely walk on the level ground.”
“We don’t have a choice, now do we?” Mae switched to her proper voice, the one she used for the caseworkers and judges. She pulled Victoria to her and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m explaining to you that I don’t have money for a cab. I mean, we’re on our way to see about her leg, what else can I do? I mean, I’m doing the best I can. Now maybe your daddy wants to loan you his big fine brand-new deuce and a quarter since I don’t think you have much of a car to drive, least every time I see you, you seem to be walking, so unless you willing to go one better than my best and give us a ride, in your daddy’s car, of course—”
Tyrone held up his finger to stop Mae, thinking what nerve this stump of a woman had, squirting him with insult
s, scowling up at him with her one good eye, when he was only looking out for Victoria’s well-being. He cringed at the thought that the likes of Mae had mothered his baby doll, Ramona. But since she was Ramona’s mother, his good raising kicked in, and he put lead to his tongue and instead reached under his printer’s apron to get to his pants pocket.
Mae watched him pull up a modest wad of bills. She licked her lips; it was unconscious, and when she realized she was doing it, she put her hand to her mouth and pretended to yawn.
“This ought to get you down to PGH and back in a cab,” he said as he peeled off four one-dollar bills and handed them to Mae.
Mae took the money quickly. Her first thought was of tripling those four singles at the table tonight at Clara Jane’s. She let the thought go in the same flash as it had come. They’d at least have to take a cab there, especially with him standing right in front of them; he’d probably hail them a cab, which he was doing right now. Who asked him to be such a gentleman? she thought as she guided Victoria to the opened cab door. Well, at least she’d be able to save the two quarters she’d just pulled out for their ride on the el. And they still might take the el back home. Hell, it would be a gamble him finding out, but a scared bettor never wins; Mae knew that more than most people.
Tyrone helped Victoria into the cab, but when Mae started to get in, he pulled her arm, told her that he had been meaning to talk to her about Larry, that something needed to be done, maybe an official complaint to keep him away from those girls; he was crazy, might pose a real threat to their safety.
“Oh, no!” Mae pulled her arm from his hand. “I can’t say nothing against Larry. Those foster kids are my livelihood, and his sister makes sure I always get a good supply.” She squinted her good eye at Tyrone. “And I expect you won’t be saying anything either.”
“And how can you expect that?” Tyrone’s head was pulled way back as if he were offended by Mae’s breath.
“I hear you already had one r in with Larry over at Brick’s.” Mae’s voice went low, chilly. “Oh, yeah, I heard all about it. I got friends who play cards down there, told me you was with some fast woman in yellow; I told them they lying, though, ’cause I know Ramona’s the only thing in a skirt you got eyes for. So we just gonna keep a closer watch over the girls so Larry can’t get near them, and then we just gonna forget any of it ever happened.” She tugged on the end of her flowered head scarf knotted under her chin and then climbed into the cab with Victoria.
Perry’s voice hit Tyrone in the face as he walked back into the shop. “Damn, boy, the mother got you giving her money. I can see you helping out your girlfriend, but you’ll never keep a dollar you start giving it up to Mae. Like feeding mice as much as that woman loves to play cards.”
“I just gave her for a cab. That little girl, one of the fosters she takes care of, fell and hurt herself last week. She didn’t need to try to be maneuvering no el steps.”
“Mnh, you always had such a costly soft spot, boy?”
Tyrone was defensive now. The feeling was back that his city slickster father thought him a head-scratching, foot-shuffling country boy. And now with Mae’s threat hanging, he was starting to feel like maybe he was in over his head. “It’s no soft spot. I got to know those girls through Ramona, nice girls.”
“That so?” Perry asked. He could hear the irritation in Tyrone’s voice, so he egged him on to talk about them to hold him there for a minute so that he wouldn’t go back to the press mad. A printer’s emotions came out in his work, so Perry believed. “My lady friend, Hettie, says they come from a little money.”
“Big money, Pops.” His voice rose in degrees as he started to talk about the girls. “And now they’ve been thrown into this world that’s got to feel like shark-infested waters when before now they were used to swimming with goldfish. I feel for them, that’s all. That’s the only reason I gave Mae for a cab.” He waved the bulletin cover in front of Perry. “Do I need more red for the pink in the lilies, Pops?”
Perry lined paper against the straight edge of the cutter and pulled the handle on the cutter and sliced through the seventy-pound card stock. He really wanted Tyrone to keep talking about the girls now. Had the feeling that Tyrone was talking about himself as much as he was talking about those girls.
“I’ll check the color in a minute, son. So how long you think those girls gonna be with Mae?” He lined more card stock on the cutter.
“Don’t know. I guess when their mother’s thinking comes back around and they let her out of the institute.” He lifted a stack of the card stock from the side of the paper cutter. “Is this stack ready for the press, Pops?” he asked.
“Yeah, son. Cute little sad-faced girl just out there.”
“You’d have a sad face too if you been through what they’ve been through.” The irritation was back in his voice.
Perry paused to bring the straight edge down over the paper. The paper grunted as it was sliced in two. He ran his fingers over the edges of the fresh-cut paper. That had been a good, even cut; the edges were smooth. “Tell me this, Ty.” He glanced at Tyrone, quickly, and then readied another stack of paper to cut. “Do you think those girls are scared, you know just walking through the streets in this part of the city since they’re so unused to it?”
“That youngest ain’t scared of too much,” Tyrone said as he picked up a handful of the cut paper ends and threw them in the bin of scrap paper. He allowed a slight smile to turn his lips at the thought of Bliss. “That middle one, Victoria, yeah, she’s definitely a little shy. The oldest is probably more afraid inside of that house.” He thought for a second. “I don’t think they’re like trembling in their boots, but hell, they got to feel exposed, you know, unprotected. Like at any minute something could jump off that they’re not prepared for.” Tyrone thought about how unprepared he was for what Mae just said.
Perry watched Tyrone’s face go from right there in the printshop to some rough, spiky place. Probably back to last weekend at Brick’s after-hours spot. “Tyrone, I’ve been thinking.” Perry stopped the paper cutter and looked directly at his son. How vulnerable and exposed he looked standing here in the ink-spotted printer’s apron, his eyebrows raised, dark and thick and innocent against his smooth, maroon-toned skin. “I want to show you where I keep my piece.”
“Your what?” Tyrone resisted the impulse to scratch his head.
“My piece, my pistol, my gun.” Now Perry’s voice was irritated.
“What do I need with your gun?” Tyrone did scratch his head now.
“Shit, what don’t you need with it? Some rough cats hang out on Fifty-second Street after dark. And you travel solo a lot. You know, if you ever feeling threatened, out of your element, you know, my piece might help take the edge off—”
“You think I’m out of my element, don’t you, Pops?”
“Come on, son, don’t go getting all touchy. I watch my own back, and I was born and raised up through here.”
“So that’s why the sudden interest in those girls. You think I’m defenseless as they are, don’t you? Admit it.”
“Naw, naw, naw. Those girls are interesting; that’s why I want to hear about them. I mean, they got one hell of a story; even Hettie talks about them. Plus you obviously attached, they even got you going in your pocket.”
“Keep your gun, Dad, okay? I’m not exactly defenseless.” He tossed another fistful of scraps into the bin. “I’m actually pretty good with my hands. Had you been around more when I was growing up you’d know that.” He stomped toward the back of the shop where the press was. He’d figure out the pink for the lilies on his own.
“Don’t you run that press while you mad, boy,” Perry called behind him. “I mean it, I don’t have no paper to be wasting on your emotions that you need to learn how to keep in check. You run that press now, mark my words, you gonna have to run it again.
“And need to tone down that accent a notch,” Perry muttered, mad at himself too as he went back to cutting paper in fr
ont of his two-way mirror as pieces of this part of West Philly rushed on by.
14
Shern and Bliss walked faster than normal on their way home from school. Even their conversations were jumpy and rushed. Partly because at every turn, at every black iron-gated alley, every clump of hedges tall enough for a man to hide behind, every corner house with an alcove down into the storefront basement entrance, they slowed, looked around themselves, then darted past making sure Larry wasn’t jumping out, like he had last week, like a jack-in-the-box that would horrify these girls. Plus today Victoria wasn’t walking in between her sisters since she’d gone to the clinic earlier with Mae, and Shern and Bliss could feel the spaces in their conversations that Victoria usually filled. When Shern said she’d been threatened again by that gang of girls who insisted that she thought she was cute, Bliss said they should organize their own gang and take them on. No Victoria to say that Shern should maybe smile once in a while, at least say hello back when people tried to be friendly, go to the vice principal about the threats. And when Bliss told Shern how the whole science class laughed when she whispered out, “Mrs. Potato Head,” when her classmate walked to the front of the room and her feet flopped out of her loafers and showed holes in her socks around the heel, Shern said, “That’s so corny.” No Victoria to remind them how hurt their own mother used to tell them she would feel when she was teased about things she couldn’t control. And now when they were at the corner of Addison Street and the holy girls who lived on the corner dangled their rope pleadingly, said they were trying to jump double Dutch but they needed somebody else to turn the rope, Bliss begged Shern, said it had been so long since she’d jumped, but Shern said, “No!” She had to go to the bathroom, and she didn’t want to leave Bliss on the corner by herself. No Victoria to tell Shern to go ahead, she would wait while Bliss played rope.
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