Blanche Cleans Up

by Barbara Neely

  She immediately took the tapes up the street to the post office she’d passed on the bus. Unlike the Roxbury post office, this one didn’t have a thick Plexiglas partition between the workers and the patrons that let folks know they were so dangerous a barrier was needed to keep them from what? Touching? She took a couple of deep breaths and told herself to just fill out the postal forms: one for Felicia, one for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and one for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She figured that pretty much did it for Allister. She’d mail the original tape to herself at Ardell’s address when she was done with it. She handed the lot of them to the woman behind the post office counter and waved bye-bye to Allister Brindle.

  “I need you folks to do your homework at the library this evening,” she told the kids after dinner. “And stay there till I come get you,” she added.

  “Is this about whatever was making you smile like that on Sunday?” Malik wanted to know.

  Taifa came right to the point: “You got a boyfriend, Mama Blanche?”

  “I wish!” Blanche told her. “This is about my needing this house for a couple of hours.”

  Taifa and Malik exchanged one of those brother-sister looks Blanche could never read.

  “I ain’t got much,” Taifa said.

  “You what?”

  “I don’t have much homework.”

  “Then read a book. Library’s got plenty of them.”

  She didn’t often refuse to give them a reason why they had to do something, so she’d expected a lot of questions and attitude. But something in her voice must have told them that resisting would be a waste of time.

  Blanche was more nervous than she’d expected. Even Othello’s arrival didn’t calm her. He had another man with him: Elroy Banks—light skin and eyes, short, polite, and quick. Blanche was glad he was on her side. He and Othello looked around for a place to put their tape recorder, which for some reason made Blanche even more nervous. Othello explained that the tape was voice activated and would pick up everything they said, as long as she didn’t turn up the sound on the TV.

  But what if Donnie had a gun and just walked in the door and shot her without saying a word? He’d already killed Ray-Ray and Miz Barker to get this tape. He could do the same to her. What if he grabbed her by the throat but went on talking to her as though they were having a normal conversation so Othello and Elroy wouldn’t know anything was wrong? She was, she admitted to herself, afraid. She hoped she wasn’t too scared to play her part.

  At seven-twenty, Othello stepped into the downstairs coat closet. Elroy went to stand in the shadows at the top of the stairs. Blanche put the Brindle tape in the VCR, lowered the blinds, and turned out the lights, except for a small lamp near the TV. The revolver Othello had given her laid in her lap. Her pepper spray was in her pocket.

  The sound of glass breaking in the back announced Donnie’s arrival. The fact that he didn’t simply knock on the door was all the proof she needed that he meant to kill her and make her death look like part of a break-in, the nasty little shit. She started the tape, although she couldn’t look at it. She held the gun behind her and stood facing the doorway. Donnie soft-walked into the room. He wore a clear plastic raincoat and the kind of rubber gloves that doctors use. He looked from her to the VCR and back again.

  “You planning to kill me for the tape the way you did Ray-Ray and Miz Barker?” She gripped the gun tighter. She hadn’t expected the sight of him to make her want to hit him.

  “If Ray-Ray had been more cooperative, he’d be alive today. I hope you got more sense.” Donnie moved closer to the TV, watching Allister do his thing.

  Blanche thought of all those crocodile tears Donnie had poured out over Ray-Ray, all the sympathy she’d wasted on his evil ass, and felt her dander rising like yeast rolls. Keep cool, girl, she cautioned herself. You can handle this. There’s things I need to know before the boys take over.

  “What I don’t get is why you killed Ray-Ray and Miz Barker before you got the tape,” she said.

  Donnie reluctantly pulled his eyes away from the TV. “My one big mistake. I was sure I knew where the fucking thing was! I saw the old lady lock it in the drawer under the cash register. Who’d have thought that old bitch would move it and then have the nerve not to tell me where it was?”

  Blanche held her breath to keep from screaming. It was one thing to think Donnie had killed Ray-Ray and her old friend, but hearing him admit it as if he were talking about the weather made her want to give him back some of his own. She clenched the handgrip of the gun and willed her finger away from the trigger.

  “Is that why you hit her?” she asked him. “Because she wouldn’t tell you where she’d put the tape?”

  Donnie looked at her. Blanche shivered but didn’t drop her eyes.

  “Who knew the old bitch had a bad heart? She had so much mouth, I thought she was made of steel.”

  Something about his eyes made Blanche sure he’d have killed Miz Barker even if she had given him the tape.

  “I hope you’re not planning to put up a fight.” He turned from the TV and stood directly in front of her.

  “How’d you find out about the tape?” she asked him as if she hadn’t heard his last remark.

  Donnie turned his head toward the TV, where Allister’s upturned ass glistened like Siamese moons.

  “Ray-Ray was fucked up the night he heard about the tape. He came in the bar screeching at the top of his bitch lungs about Brindle being a hypocrite. The second he saw me, he headed for me like he always did. Only this time, he had more to say than how much he wanted to suck my dick.” He looked at her now with a grin, clearly hoping she’d be shocked. “And for once, I was glad to see his switchy ass. I could smell money before he finished telling me the whole story.”

  “So you made it all up, about the two of you loving each other and getting a place together, all those tears, and being scared the goons who killed him were after you.”

  Donnie grinned. “Good, huh? I was in the drama club in high school. Always could get right into a part.”

  “Yeah, well you may have been lying about loving Ray-Ray, but you sure did appreciate fucking him, and don’t even bother to say you didn’t, you rotten hypocrite! You ain’t even man enough to walk with your shit.”

  He moved closer to Blanche. She stood up.

  He made a noise that was supposed to be a chuckle. “Yeah, I knew you was mouth from the minute I met you. But I got something that’ll fix that.” He slipped out a knife from somewhere in his clothes. The blade was wide and curved. “I wish there was another way,” he said with what sounded like sincere regret—another bit of acting on his part. But she had some reality for his ass.

  She gave him a big smile. “Oh, there is another way.” She pointed the gun at his chest.

  Donnie shook his head. “You’re not the type, Mama.”

  Blanche used her left hand to release the safety. Donnie blinked. His smile did an instant fade.

  “You’re right,” Blanche told him. “I’m not the type, but why don’t you jump at me with that knife and see what happens?” She really wanted him to do it, wanted him to give her a reason to shoot him, one that wouldn’t keep her awake at night, a way that would avenge Miz Barker and Ray-Ray and rid her of the rage at having been fooled by him.

  “Take it easy, Blanche, take it easy,” Othello said.

  Donnie spun in his direction. Othello and Elroy landed on either side of Donnie and twisted the knife away from him before Blanche could see how it was done.

  “Black bitch!” Donnie twisted and turned until Othello got an arm around his neck. Elroy stuffed a gag in Donnie’s mouth and handcuffed his hands behind him. Blanche kept the gun trained on Donnie—not out of fear but because she wanted to see his face collapse in pain, his blood create a new pattern on his clothes. Despite the horror of having watched Marc Brindle blow his brains out, the desire to shoot Donnie was like hunger gnaw
ing at her belly. And that shocked her.

  Donnie continued to struggle as the two men hustled him toward the door. He gave Blanche a final look so hateful it might have made her step back if she hadn’t fortified herself with the possibility of killing him. She raised the gun as if to strike him and thoroughly enjoyed the way he flinched. She lowered the gun and spit directly into his face. “A little present from Miz Barker,” she said. It was an act so out of character, it made her feel peculiar.

  Othello left Elroy and Donnie in the car and came back into the house. He fished the tape recorder out from under Blanche’s chair, rewound a little, and listened. “Sounds like we got it all,” he said.

  Blanche was sitting on the sofa staring down at the gun.

  “You okay?”

  “I will be.” She held the gun out to him.

  Othello took it and her hand. “You did good, sister.” He held up the small tape recorder. “And we got proof.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “You want me to take that video off your hands?”

  Blanche told him she’d take care of it. When he left, she went to the kitchen and fixed herself a drink. Lord, she needed Ardell! She drank the gin-and-tonic slowly, trying to see around the memory of her desire to commit murder and what it meant, then went to fetch her kids before the library closed.

  FIFTEEN

  DAY FOURTEEN—WEDNESDAY

  Blanche woke feeling too heavy to move. The events of last night weighed her down like ten extra blankets. She could still feel the trigger of that gun against her finger, feel the surge of power, like a shot of pure caffeine, knowing she could end Donnie’s life as easily as not. She had been in a rage before, wanted to hurt somebody bad before, but always with heat, with anger pouring off her like sweat, with the need to defend herself. It hadn’t been that way last night. Last night, when she’d held that gun on Donnie, a part of her had been as cool and calm as if all she’d been thinking about doing was putting out the trash.

  She spent the morning tearing her kitchen apart and cleaning—not because it was dirty, but because she needed to keep busy. It didn’t help much. It didn’t get rid of or answer the question of how she was different from some kid with a gun and a grudge. Violence was the national measles, and she’d been infected. Now she had to find a cure.

  She took a large plastic container of her version of her friend Vanessa’s special International Negro Spaghetti Sauce from the freezer. She had no energy to be creative about food. The sauce was a deep, deep red and so thick and rich with ground turkey and kielbasa, it completely coated the noodles and the garlic lit up the house.

  After school, Blanche and Shaquita went to Cousin Charlotte’s. She and Miz Inez were due back in a couple of hours. They dusted and vacuumed and aired out the downstairs and Charlotte’s and Shaquita’s bedrooms. Blanche even bought a bunch of flowers for the dining room table. Anything to soften the blow. When they heard a car stop out front, they gave each other a nervous look. They hadn’t talked about how to tell Cousin Charlotte about Shaquita’s pregnancy, and now it was too late. They went to the door together.

  Cousin Charlotte levered herself out of the cab, adjusted her hat, paid her fare, and harangued the driver into carrying her bags up the short stoop to the front door. Then she reminded him that Inez had already tipped him when they’d dropped her off. Cousin Charlotte smelled of trains and down home. She hugged Blanche and squeezed Shaquita half to death.

  Cousin Charlotte gave them both a long look. “What’s wrong?”

  Neither Shaquita nor Blanche spoke.

  “All right.” Cousin Charlotte sank heavily into an armchair. She took off her hat and fanned herself with it. “Just tell me and stop actin’ like you killed somebody.” She stared straight at Blanche.

  “It ain’t my story to tell,” Blanche said.

  Shaquita raised her head defiantly, but when she looked at her grandmother, her eyes and her head both lowered.

  Cousin Charlotte rose and walked slowly around Shaquita. She stopped in front of Shaquita and held the girl’s chin in her right hand. “Whose is it?” she asked.

  Shaquita began to cry.

  Blanche stayed until Cousin Charlotte was through screaming “Oh my sweet Jesus!” before she hurried out the door and down the stoop. She knew she wasn’t out of the discussion and the sweet Jesuses yet. Cousin Charlotte would likely call before Blanche got home, and would certainly be in her face tomorrow, but for the next three blocks she was free—until she got to Miz Inez’s house.

  Miz Inez looked as though she’d lost twenty pounds. There were new lines in her face, and she moved like a woman who wasn’t sure where she was going.

  “I’m real sorry about Ray-Ray, Miz Inez.”

  Inez was quiet for a long time, then heaved a huge, slow sigh that filled the room with shreds of the pain eating at her insides. “Everybody keep tellin’ me I’ll get over it in time. But I ain’t got much time left.” She tried to smile and almost managed. “Well, I ain’t the only one. Poor Miss Felicia. We got something in common now, something awful. I called her the other day. She told me.” Miz Inez cleared her throat and sat up a little straighter. “Course, that boy of hers always was unstable. Funny, you know.”

  Blanche watched Miz Inez building herself a dead son who wasn’t gay. It was like killing Ray-Ray a second time.

  They were both silent for a minute or two. Blanche had gone there wishing she could tell Miz Inez the truth about Ray-Ray’s and Miz Barker’s deaths. It would be so much better for Inez to hear it from her instead of the police. But if Miz Inez couldn’t accept that Ray-Ray was gay, there was no way Blanche could figure out to tell her about Donnie without telling her how Marc, her son’s other lover, had given Ray-Ray the combination to Allister’s safe so that Ray-Ray could steal the tape. Blanche really didn’t want any more people to know she’d even heard of the tape, let alone that she’d had it or had seen it. Allister Brindle was sure to catch hell over this, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t powerful enough to make her life a misery. Or end it. Her tongue felt thick and hot, swollen with what couldn’t be said.

  “They goin’ away, you know. Miss Felicia and Mr. Allister.”

  “Long enough for you to have to get another job?” Blanche asked her.

  “Wasn’t goin’ back there noway,” Inez said. “Nothin’ to keep me in this cold, prejudiced town. Goin’ back to Farleigh soon’s I can.”

  Blanche almost told her to go now, tonight, before the police showed up to break her heart beyond repair. She told Miz Inez good-bye and wondered whether her own life would now return to normal. She looked forward to her own day jobs. Most of the houses where she usually worked were empty when she cleaned them. In those that weren’t, she’d already established that she was not the shrink or the girlfriend and wasn’t interested in listening to secrets or giving advice.

  Blanche and both kids went to the community meeting that evening. Blanche wondered how many people filing into the room had any idea of what was coming. Most folks looked grim, as if they at least had a feeling that the news wasn’t good. Taifa wanted to go sit with some friends, but Blanche kept her by her side. She made sure their seats at the end of a row of folding chairs had a clear path to the door. She didn’t really expect trouble, but Samuelson wasn’t above playing rough, as she well knew. The same thing had obviously occurred to Aminata and the Community Reawakening Project. Ten men with orange armbands that said security stood around the room in clumps of two and three.

  Aminata knew what she was doing. It was dinnertime. She didn’t expect folks to pay attention on an empty stomach, so as usual, the back table was heaped with cold cuts and rolls, coffee and sodas, and milk.

  The room nearly vibrated from the premeeting hum. An older woman with serious hips fanned herself with a folded newspaper. A belly laugh from the back of the room rippled the air like heat. Taifa twisted and rubbernecked, waving to friends who’d already seen her and shouting to those who hadn’t until Blanche gave her The Eye. Malik was a
lready up front with Aminata and Othello. They were joined by someone who appeared from the back to be a short, blue-suited white man with a briefcase, who turned out to be a very light-skinned black woman.

  Aminata raised her hands for silence.

  “First of all, I want to thank y’all for coming. I know this is a week night and folks have plenty to do at home, so I’m gonna try to make this meeting as short as possible.” She looked around the room again. “We’re going to get started in a couple minutes, but first, did everybody get something to eat? Coffee? You kids get yourselves a glass of milk,” she told two little boys sitting in front. “Don’t want anything to go to waste.”

  A few people got up and tiptoed to the food table. Aminata shuffled the papers she had in her hand, had a short conversation with the light-skinned sister, then gave the room another one of those silencing looks.

  “There’s only one thing on the agenda this evening. Community leadership.” Aminata paused and looked around the room as if to make sure everyone was paying attention. “Now, I want to introduce you to the young man who made all of this possible with his determination, hard work, and concern for his community. He’s going to tell you how this project got started.”

  Taifa was nearly bouncing in her seat, and Blanche had to keep her own grin under control. Malik, on the other hand, looked and sounded as though standing in front of a roomful of adults explaining why he wanted to do a paper on Roxbury and the environment was an everyday thing.

  “…and I learned how to do a lot of things working on this paper,” Malik went on. “Like getting information from the state and how to interview people to find out what happened to them or what they know. The biggest thing I learned was how good it feels knowing what I did is going to help Roxbury and maybe make some little kids safer. I know there are a lot of teens like me who would feel good about helping the community, too, if people would treat them like Aminata and the other people around this organization treated me. Thank you.” He looked startled by the loud applause.