Tempest Rising

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  And when they got home that evening and Ramona said that she was hungry, Mae told her to make herself a sandwich for dinner, and later, to take her bath on her own, to roll up her own bangs, to lay out her own clothes for the next day of school, to learn to say her prayers by herself. And Ramona, obedient child that she was, did everything Mae told her to, including the most important thing: She forgot.

  20

  Ness, Blue, and Show made a circle around Til as she talked on the phone with the buggy-eyed clerk giving her news about the girls. “Addison Street, hunh? Mae? Ramona? No, I’m not writing it down; Bic can’t invent a ballpoint pen that could scrawl out what you just told me and make it more indelible on paper than it is on my heart right now.” She hung up the phone. “We going to West Philly,” she said. “Addison Street. We gonna talk to some one named Mae or her legal substitute, her daughter, Ramona. Gonna find out what caused Shern to have to call here and moan into the phone line. Gonna call that scary-assed lawyer too. Put him on alert. Tell him that if I don’t like what I see, he might have to come and bail me out of jail later on today.”

  “I’ll call a yellow cab, Sister,” Ness said, stroking Til’s arms to try to keep her calm.

  “I’ll line the boots up in the vestibule,” said Show. “We surely won’t have a merry time walking down those steps.”

  “Maybe one of the neighborhood kids will come by to shovel,” said Blue. “I’ll go down in the basement and bring up the shovel, leave it out front since we don’t have time to heave ho at snow right now.”

  “Any excuse to get down in that basement to your stash of sherry, huh, Blue?” Til smirked.

  “Actually we do have time,” Ness called as she waved the phone. “Hour and a half delay on getting a cab delivered to our door due to the storm.”

  “Go get the shovel, Blue.” Til sighed. “I’ll do it. My muscles jumping all over the place at the thought of getting ready to see those girls, I got to move around right now. You go have yourself your nip; have one for me too. Just be standing straight and tall in an hour and a half so we can get right in the cab when it comes.”

  21

  Addison blinked hard to shut out the gray sky barrelling in through the living-room window and almost blinding him. He hated morning. Had grown up spending most mornings trying to stay asleep. But this morning he was up thanks to the commotion in Mae’s bedroom over those girls being gone. Little Miss Goody Two-shoes done run away, and now I don’t have any amusement when I’m bored, he said to himself as he pulled the string to draw the shade down some at the living-room window. Can’t wink at her no more and watch her cower, or try to touch her half-girl, half-woman parts and get off on her hysteria.

  He went to the closet to get his jacket, figured he’d rather slip and slide down the snow-covered block than be here to listen to the rumbling now coming from overhead in Mae’s bedroom. He wanted to spit when he thought about it. Bad enough he’d had to listen to the joker hollering half the night, he hadn’t even had the decency to leave before the sun got up so Addison wouldn’t have had to catch him trying to cover his ass. He was mad at his aunt too, a rare thing, just for letting him see her like that. She was his mother’s sister all right, he thought, shaking his head, trying not to remember the times he’d seen his mother scrambling to cover her own bareness.

  He stuffed his arms into his fleece-lined bomber jacket, decided he’d walk the streets and see what he could get into, maybe hang in front of Smitty’s and wait for him to open, play a little pinball. He was at the door, and right before he opened it he saw the police out front. He immediately knew they were police because they were in a ’65 Impala. The detectives in Buffalo drove the same car. Plus they had that unmistakable cops’ head, more forehead than dome. Usually that type car, those shaped heads would send him into a panic, have him running through the house for a back door, or a side window that dropped into an alley, even a crawl space where he could squeeze his tall, thin frame and elude them. But he’d been on relatively good behavior here, only shoplifted twice, a silver-toned cigarette lighter and a pack of Top paper; at both stores he’d escaped notice. No, these cops weren’t here for him this time. So he didn’t have to run through the house and find an exit into the alley. He could open the front door for a change, invite them in, offer them a seat, call them sir. He was getting amused at the prospect. His boys back home would never believe that he’d played good host to the police in the middle of his aunt’s living room.

  But right then he heard Mae and her all-night company coming down the stairs. They were arguing coming down the stairs, and Addison walked back to his bedroom, muttering curse words to himself; this joker was intent on ruining his day, first by being naked in his aunt’s bed, now by getting in the way of Addison having a little fun playing nice boy for the cops.

  He pulled his shed door to and then cracked it a bit, just so he could peep into the living room and make sure the joker didn’t try any fast moves with his aunt, loud as he was talking. He could see the half-dressed white man standing in the living room, buttoning his shirt as he yelled at Mae, “Now, Mae, they’re limits to what I can do. I’m not even gonna begin to promise I can keep this from being part of the public record. Missing children is a serious thing, a very serious thing.”

  “I thought you could do anything in this city,” Mae said, shaking her finger up to Bernie’s face. “Isn’t that what you’re always telling me, that you’re such a fucking power broker? Now when I really need you to broker some power, you tell me it’s too hard.”

  Bernie threw his shoes against the floor with such force that Addison almost flung his door open to tell Bernie just to hold up, don’t be getting all carried away now. He didn’t, though. He listened instead. “Now, Mae, every time you’ve needed something done it’s the most important thing,” Bernie said, stuffing his shirt into his pants. “Every time I’ve fixed the situation when your card house gets raided, or the kids report to their social worker that you’re never here, that it’s Ramona that’s always here, or when you’re late with your paperwork, even when you’re not rightfully next in line to get more kids, I’ve always fixed it. Haven’t I, Mae? But missing children, Mae, I’m sorry, I’m just sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sorry too, motherfucker,” Mae said, and Addison had to cover his mouth or he would have shouted, “Go ahead and tell him about himself, Aunt Mae.”

  Mae wouldn’t have heard him, though. She was like a typhoon blowing and spitting.

  “Dammit, now, Mae, it’s missing children. I can’t touch that—”

  “Well, don’t try to touch this, you whore-making son of a bitch.”

  Mae lifted her housecoat. Now Addison did turn away, out of respect. The doorbell sounded, and Addison jumped. He reminded himself again that the police weren’t here for him. He closed his door all the way shut, until just a minute later it burst open frantically, Bernie standing there, red-faced and sweating. “Wrong door, my man,” Addison said, matter-of-factly. “If you’re trying to find an alley to run through, you want the next door over.”

  22

  Ramona curled herself tighter in a ball on the girls’ bed still snuggled in Shern’s robe. She rocked and moaned and pressed her knees into her stomach to still the grief spinning there. She missed her mother. Had missed her since that day in the park when Donald Booker spoiled it for them. All those years of not being held and rocked and kissed good-night. Keeping her ears perched, waiting to be called lil darling. Waiting. All the time waiting. She reasoned that was why she hadn’t been able to leave. Why her feet would go to cement whenever she thought about walking out of that door for good. Why she would get a twinge that would propel her into grand irritation whenever someone mentioned how Donald Booker disappeared. Not a trace of him. Not his dirty sneakers, not his mean bat. Just vanished, they’d say.

  What must her mother have gone through, knowing she killed that boy? Her blood must have gone to ice water every time she looked at me, Ramona thought, probabl
y all the time waiting to see if I remembered. Probably why she treated me like she hated me all these years. Probably did hate me, probaby incapable of love, having to keep that day buried in her heart like that.

  This she said out loud as she unfurled herself from the bed. She fluffed the pillow, but a sag persisted in its center. “Guess you done had it with daughters mashing their faces into you of late, crying ’cause they miss their mothers,” she said to the pillow.

  She heard the doorbell then, smelled boot polish. Knew it was the police. She smoothed the robe out, tied the belt tighter around her waist, folded the collar down the way she’d seen Shern wear it. She started down the hallway to go to the bathroom to wash her tear-stained face. Then she would go downstairs to tell the police what they needed to know.

  Mae ushered the police into the living room and sat quickly. She had to sit quickly, her knees were bending so. She was wearing one of Ramona’s better dusters; she’d taken it from Ramona’s room last night because she knew that Bernie was staying. But last night she had the barrel-shaped wooden buttons unfastened almost to her waist. She had them fastened up to the collar now, even had the drawstring at the top tied around her neck; she wanted to appear pious.

  The sound of the plastic chair covering breathing under her weight as she sat on the couch startled her, and she jumped. She rarely sat on the couch or even in the living room, for that matter. Her usual seat was at the dining-room table; she’d always been more comfortable with a table around her because a table was a prelude for a card game. But she wasn’t inviting these trench coat–wearing detectives into her dining room. She’d worked too hard for nearly the past two decades to keep them out of her house altogether, kept at bay in all that time the shadowy fear of this moment, detective police in her house, asking her questions.

  She breathed in and out, slowly, trying to quell the thumping in her chest. She didn’t want to appear nervous; do that, and they’d really go to snooping, she thought. Start to dredging up the present and the past, making the two blend so you wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other.

  She cleared her throat. “Have a sit down.”

  She was sure she saw them look at each other before they both replied, “No, thanks,” and, “That’s okay.” Had she said it wrong? she wondered. Something in her voice make them think she had something to hide. She glanced from one to the other. They were both tall, beefy, one silver-haired, the other just about bald. One was leaning on the banister that led up the stairs; the other stood in the center of the room, his coat pushed back, showing the silver handcuffs hanging from his pants pocket. A trail of dirty water sat on top of the plastic carpet runner where they’d tracked in melting snow. Mae was usually particular about her carpet. Had threatened people with their lives over not wiping their feet before tracking through on her new carpet. But now she just sat and watched the water trail off the runner and seep into the carpet fibers. She figured she’d need to keep her wits about her should they try to mess with her mind; she wouldn’t waste her good thinking rebuking them for bringing melted snow into the house.

  “Pictures?” the silver-haired one asked.

  Mae cleared her throat again. She told herself to stop clearing her throat. “Ugh, Vie, the case manager, I’m sure she has pictures.”

  “Describe them, please.” The bald-headed one said this and flipped open a top-spiraled bound notebook. “And also, if you know what they were wearing, that would be real helpful.”

  Suddenly Mae couldn’t remember a single item of clothing those girls owned. She couldn’t even remember the color of their everyday coats. “Funny what you remember at a time like this,” she said.

  “Excuse me,” the bald one said.

  Mae looked at him with his pen poised over his pad. She’d expected a tape recorder. Didn’t the police use a tape recorder on Perry Mason when they thought they were close to a confession? What confession? The girls! She let the words burst in her head. They were here for the girls, not for her, not for Donald Booker. “I’m just saying I don’t remember what they might be wearing. That’s all. And of all times, this time when they done turned up missing, I should remember.”

  She thought she heard the silver-haired one clear his throat as if he were signaling his partner. Probably getting ready to ask me what was I doing eighteen years ago that September afternoon, she thought. She decided then that she’d call them out on it, shit, who did they think they were messing with? Didn’t they know that some of the best card sharks in the city had tried to mess with her mind and lost? “Look,” she said. This time she deliberately didn’t clear her throat. “Don’t act like I’m saying something strange or acting strange. I see the way you and your bald-headed partner signaling each other like I got something to hide.” She looked from one to the other. Let her drooping eye blink out of sync with her good one the way she’d always do at the top of her game. “I mean I could tell you what my only child was wearing in September some eighteen years ago. A navy pleated skirt, sky blue nylon knee-highs, a sky blue cotton blouse, and her new maroon oxfords from Shapiro’s. Now. I can tell you that, okay. And I can’t tell you what those girls was wearing yesterday. Is that so strange? Well, if you think that’s strange, all I got to say is fuck you and your mommas.”

  “They got on plaid fleece-lined coats.” Ramona’s voice was calm and efficient floating down the stairs. “And their pictures were just in the Tribune when their daddy turned up missing a couple of months ago. I have that issue; I’ll get it for you.”

  Now the two beefy men did clear their throats and look at each other and at Mae. “Your mother’s tough,” the silver-haired one said.

  “Yes, siree.” The bald one half laughed, “Why she got to bring our mommas into it?”

  “Um, the shock, you know the girls missing.” Ramona pushed the robe sleeves up on her arms and then smoothed at the back of her French roll. “She has a perfect record in foster care, you know. Isn’t that right, Mommie?”

  Mae was just staring straight ahead, fighting to focus on the police, on Ramona, on the melted snow seeping into her new wall-to-wall. But Ramona had just called her Mommie, hadn’t called her Mommie in almost two decades. Mae’s focus was distracted at the sound of that word. And the air in the living room was going quickly from gray to green.

  “Um, come with me, please.” Ramona rushed her words to the police when she noticed Mae just staring into space like that. Even guided the silver-haired one by the elbow, curled her fingers to the bald head, “Come, come,” she said. “I can show you the girls’ room just the way they left it. I’ll bring you the newspaper with their picture in it. Coffee? Or water? Anything I can get for you? Um, please don’t mind my mother; you can’t imagine the shock for someone with a perfect record in foster care like hers.”

  They both pulled their attention from Mae. Ramona almost breathed out her great relief. She was almost pushing the silver-haired one up the steps, curling her fingers almost frantically for the bald head to follow. And she would have had them too. Would have closed the door on them in the girls’ room while she ran back to help Mae get reoriented. But right then Mae cleared her throat. It was such an impervious sound, and they all three stopped where they were. “Damn!” Ramona said under her breath.

  “I had on my fancy yellow sundress.” Mae’s voice was strained, weak. “I’m not a pretty woman, you know, not like my child over there, but I always felt so pretty in that sundress. So I put that dress on to pick Ramona up in, since it was the first day of school, so that the other children would think I looked nice too and maybe then they wouldn’t tease Ramona about the way my eye has a tendency to droop.”

  “Mommie, you’re talking silly.” Ramona forced a laugh. “Please, detectives, the girls’ room.”

  The bald head motioned for Ramona to be quiet. “The girls.” He drew it out, spoke very slowly as if he were talking to the hearing-impaired. “What happened to the girls? Did you do something to the girls, Mae? This is important, and you hav
e to tell us if you did.”

  “That boy’s sneakers were dirty.” Mae continued in the same weak voice. “Which was unusual for the first day of school because everybody wore their best shoes the first day. I could only conclude that his mother wasn’t taking good care of him, must not have been any grandmother or aunt around either, not even a good preacher or deacon’s wife to take an interest in the boy to make sure he had good shoes to start school in.”

  “Mommie—” Ramona’s voice was pleading.

  “I always made sure Ramona had good shoes on her feet. Everything I did back then was for Ramona. Mostly. Even when I took a man to bed, I was measuring him up to see what I could persuade him to buy for her, a new bike, some skates, a pink Hula Hoop. God knows I loved that child, that lil darling of mine—”

  “The girls, Mae.” The bald head cut her off. “What did you do to the girls? Why are they missing, Mae?”

  “No, you wanted her to talk, let her talk,” Ramona snapped at him, at the same time melting inside hearing Mae say what she just had.

  Mae jerked to then. All of a sudden. Ramona taking up for her like was just odd enough to bring her back. She jumped up from the couch, pointed at the bald head. “What the fuck you keep talking ’bout those girls for? What I’m talking about don’t have a thing to do with those girls. They ran away. Why you think you was called in? To find them. So why don’t you go on and do just that?”

  “Well, what were you talking about?” The silver-haired voice was smooth, persuading. “Who had dirty sneakers on, Mae? Tell us, please tell us.”

  “I’m talking about what I remember and what I don’t, okay. I remember everything about my child’s first day of school, okay. And I don’t remember what those girls were wearing yesterday. So why the fuck don’t you do your job and go find them? Find them! It snowed last night, and they’re out there in it. Dammit. Fucking find them!”