Blanche Cleans Up

by Barbara Neely

  The sound of children shrieking and feet pounding on hardwood floors rolled out the front door, followed by that familiar Y smell: sneakers, chlorine, floor polish, roach killer, basketballs, and humans. Six little girls in snowy martial arts jackets ran by her while she waited for the receptionist to get off the phone. When she did, she took Blanche’s card and told her the combination to the lock on the door of what was called the Women’s Health Club—a title much too big for the two rooms full of lockers with adjacent sauna and a steam room the size of a large closet. The adjoining showers were hung with multicolored curtains. The place was small and modest but looked like people cared about it. Today, every face she saw was a black or brown mirror of her own deep-black, full-featured self. This was what made the place special.

  “Hey,” Blanche said to the woman already in the locker room—a short, muscular, dark-brown-skinned woman with closely cropped natural hair. She had a wide, inquiring face. She gave Blanche an easy smile and a hello with the West Indies in it. Blanche chose a locker in a corner. She dropped her bag on a metal bench and undressed. She was joined in the showers by the West Indian woman and her friend, who’d just come out of the steam room. They talked to each other in loud, laughter-laden voices.

  “Elmira, he ain’t no mon, dat one, he a worm!”

  “For true, he is dat. For true!” Elmira agreed, and both women laughed.

  “I tell him, buster, what you tink? I’ma put pus-pus in a drawer till you come bock? No way, buster. No way!”

  Blanche had no idea who they were talking about, but the ritual of their talk was one by which she lived. She thought of Ardell and friends in Harlem. The phone, a drink at the corner bar, dinner, a walk in the park, whatever occasion they could arrange to ease each other over the humps in the road with a nudge or a laugh, or a loan. She followed the two women into the sauna and watched the grace and strength of their movements as they slathered their bodies with coconut oil. They all grinned when Blanche took out her jar of the very same oil. But Elmira and her friend continued to talk in that girlfriends way that excluded Blanche and made her aware of how much she missed Ardell. Blanche oiled her feet and waited for the quiet to come.

  The hush thickened while they oiled their arms and legs and bottoms, sighed from deep in their bellies, then lay back into the waiting arms of the heat. Sweat rolled down Blanche’s back, silken as the silence surrounding her. What little light there was seemed to gather on her thighs and breasts, like the first few stars in a blue-black sky. Now, she thought, now. The silence deepened and turned purple. She closed her eyes and was free of her body, air-light, sheer as the finest hose, floating in a coconut-scented sea of heat and black women breathing one breath. She lolled there, completely relaxed.

  Someone’s cough finally called her back to her body. She opened her eyes. Elmira was gathering her towel around her. Her friend followed her. Blanche stretched and rolled to a sitting position, rested and strengthened.

  Elmira and her friend had already taken up their conversation when Blanche joined them in the showers.

  “…I gotta pick up my grandson at the pool down the street. I wanted him to come here, but his mama got her own ideas.”

  “Somebody drown in dat pool just the other week, ya know.”

  “Leastways, wasn’t no little one this time.”

  Blanche’s ears perked right up.

  “I know his mama,” Elmira’s friend said. “She a good woman. Decent woman.”

  “It’s hard for a mother,” Elmira added. “Especially if the son is, you know.”

  “I heard he was holding hands with some mon dat very night, you know.”

  “You mean somebody was wid him when he drown?”

  “Leastways somebody snuck in the pool wid he, and somebody leave widout he, and that somebody waren’t no stranger, you know.”

  “Speakin’ of strangers,” Elvira said, launching into a story about her sister’s new man while Blanche was still taking in their news about Ray-Ray. The two women were dressed and gone before Blanche thought to ask them who they’d heard this story about Ray-Ray from. She was sure they hadn’t heard who the man with Ray-Ray was or they would have said so, or at least hinted about it.

  She sat on the bench fiddling with her hair and trying to fit what she’d just heard into what she knew.

  Donnie said he hadn’t seen Ray-Ray again after their fight, so unless he was lying, he wasn’t the man with Ray-Ray at the pool. And from what she’d seen of Donnie, he was more likely to poison somebody than knock their brains out. But if Ray-Ray and Donnie were as much in love as Donnie claimed, why would Ray-Ray be holding hands with someone else? Of course, there was nothing like a fight to make you do something unfaithful.

  A little bell rang in her brain. What about Marc Brindle? She remembered how Donnie had reacted when she’d mentioned Marc’s name. Maybe Donnie and Ray-Ray’s fight had been about Marc? But no, if the man with Ray-Ray had been white, one of the women would have mentioned it. Then who? Somebody hired to bash Ray-Ray on the head and make his death look like an accident on the diving board, of course. But holding hands? She saw Ray-Ray preening himself, loving himself, and assuming everyone else felt the same. It probably wouldn’t take much to pick him up, to convince him you couldn’t wait to hold his hand, especially if he was on the outs with his lover. She finished dressing and tied a scarf around her damp hair.

  She stopped by the supermarket and picked up some chicken parts, potatoes, and broccoli for one of Malik’s favorite dinners. Did she think filling him full of what he liked to eat would make it easier to talk to him about the condom she’d found in his pocket? There wasn’t that much oven-fried chicken, garlic potato spears, and broccoli in black bean sauce in the world.

  She walked up M. L. K. Boulevard to Humboldt to Miz Barker’s store. She meant to ask Miz B why she hadn’t come right out and said that Ray-Ray was gay instead of going through all that he’s-special-and-different business, like gay people didn’t shit between two shoes and cry when they got the blues just like everybody else. She hoped by the time she got as old as Miz Barker, there wouldn’t be a damned thing she wasn’t prepared to say out loud.

  From a block away, she saw people standing outside Miz Barker’s store. Something about them made her want to turn around and quick-walk in the opposite direction. The skin on her upper arms and neck prickled the way it did when she saw a child run into traffic after a ball. She slowed her steps, but Karen, her borrowing neighbor, came to meet her. The voice inside told her to push Karen away, to cover her ears and run.

  “It’s a damned shame, killing that poor old lady like that.” Karen’s voice was loud and bugle bright.

  Something in Blanche’s chest closed like a fist and began to ache. “Miz Barker?”

  “Yep. Somebody hit her in the face. Hard.” Karen took a drag from her cigarette. “Knocked her down. They think she had a heart attack. You could see the nasty sucker’s handprint on the side of that poor old soul’s face.” She blew more smoke in Blanche’s direction. “These damned kids is goin’ to kill us all if we don’t figure out how to—”

  “Why you say kids?”

  “ ’Cause just this morning she had a big fight with some of them boys been hanging round her store. I didn’t see it, but I heard one of them was all up in that old lady’s face. Don’t none of them have no respect for nobody. Somebody said one of them come back by hisself. The next time anybody saw poor Miz Barker, she was dead on the floor.”

  They were both silent for a moment before Karen spoke again.

  “Funny thing is, I was just heading for her store to get some toilet paper. You got any I could borrow? I don’t want to have to go all the way down to…”

  Blanche was already walking past Karen toward Miz Barker’s store. She stopped in front of the padlocked door with an X of police tape over it and stared at the store as if it could tell her why her old friend, who had helped so many hereabouts, should be so completely without help this one tim
e she herself had needed it so badly. Blanche remembered how many times she’d been irritated with Miz Barker lately, and the fist in her chest closed tighter, until tears stung her eyes and she had to turn away.

  “…same boys who broke into her store a couple weeks ago,” a man behind her said.

  “It’s a damned shame, old lady like that!” a young woman responded.

  Other people were shaking their heads and talking the same kind of bad-kids talk. Blanche could smell their anger and sorrow—hot and moist like a storm brewing.

  She went around to Miz Barker’s house and knocked. Pam opened the door and grabbed Blanche’s arm and held on to it. Blanche could feel the chill of Pam’s hand through her sweater. A few older neighbors were in the living room. Pam pulled Blanche along to her bedroom and started talking, still clutching Blanche’s arm.

  “I wanted her to stay home and wait for me to come back from the market. I knew something was up. You know how you can feel it sometimes?” Pam laughed without humor. “You know she didn’t listen. When did Gran ever lis—”

  “There’s nothing to blame yourself for, Pam. Nothing.”

  “But I’d have been there if I had a car! I missed the bus and I couldn’t find a gypsy or a regular cab and…” Pam increased the pressure on Blanche’s arm.

  Blanche pried Pam’s hand loose and held it in both of her own. “No. If you’d found a cab, you could both be dead,” she said as gently as she could. “Leave it alone, Pam. You’re not responsible, and feeling guilty won’t bring her back.”

  “But I came here to protect her, Blanche, to help her!” Pam fell into Blanche’s arms. Blanche held her until her sobs were finally stilled and the ache in Blanche’s own chest eased a bit. Pam pulled away to answer the ringing phone.

  “Oh, Mama!” she said into the receiver. Need and relief made her voice waver. Blanche could almost see Pam reaching out to her parent for solace. From the way Pam’s shoulders relaxed, Blanche knew Pam had made the connection she needed. Blanche patted Pam’s shoulder and left her quietly talking to her mother.

  As she’d hoped, the house was empty. She needed some time alone. Sadness lay heavy and hot on her chest. She didn’t cringe from it or wish it away. She knew that avoiding pain didn’t pay off. Tears came with memories: the times she’d watched Miz Barker slyly signify at folks, the way her voice took on a soothing tone when she talked to little children, the stubborn independence that made her her very own person. Blanche wiped her eyes. “May the Ancestors welcome you, dear friend,” she said.

  All three children had heard the news by the time they got home, and Miz Barker was the main topic at dinner.

  “I hope I don’t know him,” Shaquita said, looking worried.

  “Why it got to be somebody from around here?” Malik challenged Shaquita.

  “Boy! You got to be kidding!” Taifa said. “Of course he’s from round here. You heard what they said. He had on a Bulls jacket, dark green jeans, Air Jordans, and a black cap. You think somebody come in here from out in Randolph or someplace, dressed like the Germantown Street gang to give Miz Barker a heart attack?” Taifa laughed.

  Malik’s lower lip jutted out. He leaned across the table toward his sister. “You think guys from the suburbs don’t kill people? You sound just like those white people on TV, always calling us names, accusing us of every…It’s stupid. Stupid!” Malik’s palm slapped the table so hard, his juice jumped over the side of his glass.

  Blanche suddenly understood why Malik was so hot for Aminata’s lead poisoning–teen violence idea. He wants a reason for kids killing kids, she thought, a reason that says it’s not something in all black teenage boys’ blood, that violence isn’t natural to them. How could she not have realized that what kids were doing in the streets was even scarier for Malik than it was for her?

  “No matter what they say on TV we all know there are a lot fewer kids who get in trouble than there are decent teens out here,” she said.

  Malik looked at her as though he wanted to believe her but couldn’t. Blanche wished some of those so-called experts on black teen males who say it’s up to parents to keep kids out of trouble could feel the pain in Malik’s voice and on his face. They needed to know firsthand how it felt to be treated like the white world’s worst enemy. How was she supposed to overcome that?

  Blanche waited until Taifa was doing homework with Shaquita at the kitchen table before going upstairs and knocking on Malik’s door. He didn’t answer. She rattled the doorknob. Finally he opened the door and stood in the doorway like a housewife barring a salesman. Blanche held out her fist and slowly relaxed her fingers. She had to stifle a laugh at the look on Malik’s face—and the way he jumped back when he saw the silver packet on her palm. She looked in his room, smelled it, and beckoned him to follow her to her room. She’d lost the advantage of catching him off guard and getting him to talk before he had a chance to think, but there was no way she could think in all that boy funk.

  “Look, Moms,” he said the minute her bedroom door was closed behind them. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Oh? You mean this isn’t a condom and I didn’t find it in your pocket?”

  He flinched at the word, but either they were going to talk or they weren’t.

  “How old is the person you’re having sex with?” she demanded, and knew instantly that was the wrong question asked the wrong way. She watched him withdraw ten feet deeper into himself. An opaque window shade lowered over his eyes. She’d screwed that up. She had to remember she needed him to talk to her more than he wanted her in his business.

  “Sorry, honey,” she said. “I guess I’m kind of in a state of shock. I mean, you’re only twelve!” Shit! That wasn’t right either. “I guess I’m just not ready for you to be having sex yet.”

  Malik shifted from one foot to the other. “Why are you searching my pockets?”

  Blanche had to laugh. Did males learn how to play that defensive game when their penises first developed?

  “Boy, don’t try that guilt-trip crap on me! I was washing your funky jeans as a favor to you. Now let’s get back to your sex life.”

  Malik sighed and swayed, scratched his arm, put his hands in and out of his pockets. “Just because a person might have something doesn’t mean he’s doing what you think he’s doing.”

  “Excuse me? Does that mean you are not having sex yet?” Too direct, she realized, but too late. “Look, honey, I’m not handling this too well, I know. But if you are having sex, then we need to talk about it. If you’re not…”

  “I’m not.” He spoke so swiftly and softly she almost didn’t hear him.

  She moved closer. She held his chin and lifted his head. “You sayin’ that ’cause you don’t want to talk about it,” she half asked, half told him.

  Malik shook his head. “Nah. Some girl was handin’ ’em out at school. I had to take one.”

  He didn’t have to explain. Not taking a condom would mean he wasn’t getting any.

  “Girls don’t even…”

  Blanche waited for him to complete the sentence; when he didn’t, she prompted him with an “I’m listening” kind of sound, but he shrugged—the teenager salute. Blanche was torn between relief and suspicion. She hoped what he was saying was true, but it sounded just like the type of lie she used to tell her mother.

  “Let’s talk anyway,” she said.

  Malik squirmed and said “I know, Moms” a hundred and fifty times while Blanche told him everything about his own and girls’ bodies that she thought he needed to know, as well as giving him a good strong talk about AIDS and other STDs. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard it all, but that didn’t stop her.

  “You know, Joycelyn Elders got fired as the surgeon general because she said she thought everybody, especially young people, should masturbate more and…”

  Malik leapt off the bed where he’d been sitting beside her. “Ah, Moms! Come on!”

  “It’s not like this is the first time we’ve ever talked about
masturbation, Malik.” She waited for him to settle down. “Like I told you before, masturbation is nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s healthy. When you feel all sexy, it’s another way to satisfy the feeling. It’s the only real safe sex, you know. And at your age, masturbating can prevent POTB.”

  “POTB? What’s that?” He sounded like he thought it might kill him.

  “The last three letters stand for ‘on the brain.’ You figure it out.”

  “Mom!” he roared with shock, then bounded out of her room.

  Blanche fell back across her bed. She deserved a reward for this. At least a paycheck. She ran her hand down the front of her body and chuckled. She could have told Malik she was a masturbation champion, it had been so long since she’d had any other kind of sex. She pressed her hand against her crotch and sighed and dropped her hand to the bed. It wasn’t a do-it-yourself orgasm she wanted, but sex with all the trimmings. A shower would have to do.

  She was wrapping a towel around herself when Shaquita knocked on the bathroom door and told her Ardell was on the phone. Blanche grabbed her robe and ran to her room.

  “At last!” Blanche nearly shouted at her old friend. “Girl, how are you? How was it? I sure missed your ass. Did you have a good time?”

  “Humm. Now, Blanche, if I was to tell you that with all those questions you ain’t giving me a chance to answer, you sound just like your mama, I guess you’d wanna cuss me out, so I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ like that, but…”

  “Oh yes, your smart ass is back!”

  “But no, I ain’t back yet. I’m down here in Bermuda with these fools for two nights, and then it’s back on the boat. We won’t get home until late next week. And will I be glad! A cruise to Bermuda ain’t exactly a cruise to Bermuda when you’re with the world’s two wildest children and their simpleminded parents. I’d probably make out better if the parents had stayed home. Every time I get these two ignorant little maggots actin’ like they might be third cousins to human beings, along comes mummy and poppy to let the kids kick and cuss and generally act like they need to be locked up and drugged.”