But Ariyeh has had enough. “Stop it, both of you,” she tells Bitter and Reggie. Her eyes shine. “I’m trying to hear the music.”
“Fine,” Reggie says, throwing up his hands. “Wasn’t my idea to come.”
Bitter settles in his chair, stroking his chest. I squeeze his arm.
Sweat’s flying off Earclass="underline" a busted fire hydrant. “We styling and profiling!” he shouts. He leans over the brandy ladies’ table. “Yo’ mama do the lawdy lawd!” he croons, rasping, breathy. We’re jazzing on a Sunday night. If the Axeman is out there — I glance at the door — he’s pacing in frustration. I sip some more Hen Dog, close my eyes, and tilt my head, whirling with its rusty warmth. It tastes like an old door hinge.
“Have you heard? The bird, bird, bird — bird’s the word.” I open my eyes on the strutting man who’d spooned over Ariyeh earlier. Reggie stiffens, but she isn’t even aware of the guy. She’s watching Etta stuff bottles and wet paper towels into a Hefty bag. “What’s the matter, sweetie?” I ask. She looks horrified.
“It’s like … a child’s body,” she says, one hand to her mouth, the other pointing at the bag. “I keep picturing them, you know. The missing boys from our school.”
“See? It wasn’t a good idea to come here tonight,” Reggie says, smoothing her shoulder. “Let’s book, how ‘bout?”
“No, no. I like the music. I like sitting here with my cousin.” I lock my fingers in hers.
In the open doorway, now, the Axeman looms, raising his blade … but it’s only Bayou Slim, squinting through the smoke, bumping his old guitar case into the room. Earl and the boys step back. The crowd quietens. “Looks like death eating a sodey cracker,” Grady whispers, trembling, bony — he’s licked a few crumbs himself.
Slim doesn’t bother to tune. He thumbs his strings as if skimming stiff pages. “Heads or tails, you lose,” he croaks — not so much singing as thrusting his voice into the booze-fumed air. Only the old scarecrow is dancing now. Everyone else concentrates on the floor or the drinks in their hands. Even Etta turns away. “I am that I am!” Slim screams, holding his final chord. He whips off his frayed straw hat and collects a few dollars. When he slips out the door, the room resumes its buzz.
“Etta, doll, can we get a letter from home over here, please ma’am?” Grady calls.
She brings us a watermelon sliced into wide, red grins. I pass — again, I’ve had more to drink than I realized — and step outside to clear my head, though the air, even this late in the evening, is hardly a relief: dense, close, searing. It’s like standing by a barbecue grill, inhaling the heat. Roaches, big as cigar butts, twist across the gravel parking lot. Smaller bugs snick and skitter at my feet. I rub the smoke from my eyes. The Big Dipper tilts above the Flower Man’s house. An old song pulses through my head: “Follow the gourd …”
The streets are empty. I wonder where Slim could have got to.
“There you are.” Reggie lounges in the doorway, holding his bag. “I had something I wanted to give you.” He steps near, as warm as an old bed quilt.
“Oh? By the way,” I say, “I’ll be happy to write in support of Mumia.”
He squints at me, a tough, guarded look. “Thank you.” He pulls from his bag a fat paperback, gold and gray: The Angela Davis Reader. “Ariyeh told me about your run-in with your colleague.”
I’m not sure what he’s talking about. Dwayne? Before I can ask him, he nudges my hands with the book. “I’ve dog-eared a piece you should read.”
All my life, smart black boys have been telling me what to think. I look up at him, questioning, lean toward his body a little. Ariyeh appears behind him in the doorway. “School tomorrow,” she says, followed by a yawn. “I thought I could stay for a couple of sets — I really wanted to — but I guess I’ve got to call it a night. Can’t keep my eyes open.”
I thank them both for coming. “How often I get to spend time with my cousin?” Ariyeh answers.
“Are you okay?”
She nods unconvincingly. “You’ll call me, now, before you leave town?”
Bitter and his buddies laugh raucously inside. The Flower Man’s bottle tree chimes. “Sure,” I say. She kisses my cheek. So does Reggie. They throw their arms around each other and weave away, through the gravel and glass of the parking lot.
9
A WHITE PINE building, three blocks from Bitter’s house, GROCERY/RIBS painted on its side. There’s a pay phone in a weedy lot out front. Across the street this morning, on the porch of a rickety row house, four old men guzzle Forties. In front of the store three b-boys with a boom box smoke blunts and give me a cocky once-over. LL Cool J is rapping about knocking you out. (Yeah, this white chick’s heard Cool J, I could tell the boys. I don’t live entirely on another planet.) Sausage sizzles inside; a wet, earthy smell rolls from the open doorway. Next to the phone, near a stack of rotting boxes, a rat pulls a shank bone into some shade.
I punch in my phone card code, then my friend Shirley’s number. She’s been feeding my fish and birds. I call her a friend, though I see her socially only at the happy hours after work (she’s just down the hall, in Social Services). It rarely occurs to me to invite my coworkers home for dinner. I’m not sure why. Shirley is high yellow, too, so I feel comfortable with her, though we’ve never schmoozed about skin.
She answers on the third ring and seems happy to hear my voice. No problem, she says, take a few extra days. I promise to write her a check for the additional food when I get back. Maybe in the next two weeks I can talk Bitter into seeing a doctor. Maybe I can get my name on the prison’s guest list. “How are Crockett and Bowie?” I ask.
“Such good birds. Crockett’s picked up a couple new words. My fault, I’m afraid. I did like you said, made myself at home, spent a little time with them. The other night, while they ate, I stayed and watched NYPD Blue. Today, Crockett’s going, ‘Scumbag. Skel.’ Sorry.”