Laughter. I clutch my cup.
“… blab and blab all you want about the legacy of colonialism in Africa, but I’m sorry, you do «oí kill babies …”
“… no, to me, Art is Romare Bearden …”
“… afraid of the stock market? Why? You know what a million dollars is? It’s just a stack of pennies like your grandma used to save …”
“God bless the child that’s got his own.”
“No problem, kissing ass. That’s why God invented mouthwash!”
“T, glad you could make it.” Ariyeh gives me a hug. Natalie nods hello. Reggie is deep in conversation with the tall, slender man I saw at the Row Houses today. “… on the Internet you have no skin,” Reggie insists, punching the air for emphasis. He bumps the painting.
“Precisely. You can be whoever you want without fear of prejudice.”
“So. Just so I’m straight on this. Six computers plus all the software — ”
“Whatever you need. And we can cover the initial hookup with AOL. Now, for us … should you make the arrangements, or shall I talk to her?”
For the first time since I’ve met him, Reggie seems indecisive. He crosses his arms. The man turns to me. “Rufus Bowen,” he says, extending a hand.
“Telisha is Ariyeh’s cousin,” Reggie says.
“Is that right?”
“A city planner in Dallas.”
“Well now. Tell me. Is it too late to save Houston?”
“No, no …”
He laughs. “I run a small Internet firm here in town. Civic health is of great concern to me. What’s your guiding principle as a planner? The New Urbanism? Village neighborhoods?”
Another smooth bastard. Gracious and poised. But he appears to offer a rare depth of attention that asks for a serious answer. Or maybe I just like rising to the challenge. I begin, slowly, “Aristotle? He said, ‘It’s most satisfactory to see any object whole, at a single glance, so that its unity can be understood.’ I agree. I favor buildings on a human scale.”
Rufus Bowen smiles. “Understanding unity. A good rule for sizing up people as well, would you say?” The crowd nudges Natalie closer to us; Bowen reaches past me to shake her hand. “I’m sorry, please excuse us for a moment,” he tells me and pulls her aside. She looks like a doe in klieg lights. I want to tell Reggie, Get her out of here. He touches my shoulder. “So. I was telling Ariyeh about your little flare-up.”
I take my eyes from Bowen. “It wasn’t a flare-up.”
“I don’t blame you, honey,” Ariyeh says. “I would have felt the same. I used to admire Angela Davis, but she’s gotten too extreme.”
“Look, I’m sorry I upset you. I don’t know what happened between you and your colleague, all right?” Reggie says. “I’m not making any judgments. I was just using Angela to point out that ‘black man’ and ‘rape’ are paper and fire — ”
I drain my wine. “Excuse me, Ariyeh, but I’ve got to say it. You are a prick,” I tell him. “You think I don’t know about racism — ”
“Hold on now — ”
“—and lynching? What do you think brought me back here, hm?”
“Bravo, honey.” Ariyeh links her arm in his, teasing him with a grin. Reggie shrugs, an exaggerated surrender. “Okay, okay. But I got you to think, didn’t I?”
“Jesus, Reggie.”
“I’m quite capable of thinking on my own,” I say.
“I see that. I’m glad.”
“What’s going on over here?” Ariyeh asks him.
Reggie glances at Natalie and Bowen. “A little discussion.”
“She doesn’t look pleased.”
To say the least. Her eyes flick back and forth but her jaw is fixed, puffing her cheeks. Her shoulders droop. The man looks taller in her presence, all upper arms and chest: an enormous held breath, ready to blow down the room. He’s Reggie without the attitude, Dwayne with Visa Gold, Rue Morgue on a higher evolutionary scale. Whatever arrangement is being made, a woman this uncertain has no business next to a man so assured. The power imbalance is as palpable as the cheese smell in the room. Nothing abstract here: hunter and prey, stark and real as hell. Is this how I looked in Dwayne’s cramped car, with his hands all over my tits? Is this how I carry my own vulnerability, an invitation like a bared neck? I turn away.
Ariyeh tells me this little soiree will wind up soon; she and Reggie and a few of the donors he’s working will then head over to Blind Billy’s, a blues joint near the Ragin’ Cajun. “Come along. You and I can relax and chat.”
Bowen squeezes Natalie’s arm, then swivels and shakes Reggie’s hand. “I’ll be in touch,” he says. He tells Ariyeh he was charmed to meet her. “Human scale.” He winks at me. “I’ll remember that.” Then he saunters through the crowd and out the door, earring flashing. Natalie slumps against the wall — hungering, I’ll wager, for Kibbles and Bits.
“You understand, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Reggie tells her.
“It’s a job, I guess.” She primps her hair and wipes some sweat from her chin. “Anyways. I gotta go pick up my daughter now. The babysitter needs to get home.”
“Sure, sure.” Reggie fishes in his pocket.
“It’s all right. I got bus fare.”
We walk her to the door. The gathering is thinning, but still loud. “… let’s face it, the whole notion of prisoner rehabilitation is completely outdated …”
“… culture of narcissism …”
“… old Saturday Night Live skit? White crime: guy goes to work, shoots a dozen people, then himself. Black crime: guy runs from a liquor store with a six pack, trips, gets snatched by the cops.”
In the doorway, Reggie kisses Natalie’s cheek. “We’ll figure it all out tomorrow, okay?” A bright Metro stops behind her, its doors sighing open. “Sleep well.” She nods.
Then, while Ariyeh and I wait outside, he plays the room one last time, pumping hands, smiling, laughing, patting backs. “He’s good,” I say.
“Yes.” Ariyeh rubs her eyes. “Too good. I don’t like the looks of this Bowen fellow.”
“It’s really impressive, the way he moves between worlds. Comfy with the money in there, whereas this afternoon he was getting down with the neighborhood boys.”
“He certainly doesn’t lack opinions, does he? I’m sorry about that book business. Sorry I ever mentioned — ”
I wave it off. I’m about to ask after the vanished schoolchildten when Reggie shows up saying he’s ready. An irresistible energy gust. Ariyeh tosses the rest of her wine, and I follow Reggie’s Honda down the street.
Blind Billy’s green wooden walls are lined with black-and-white photos from the thirties, forties, and fifties: KCOH, Houston’s only all-black radio station, now defunct. The DJs, King Bee, Daddy Deepthroat, Mister El Toro, in suits and ties behind long boom mikes, grip fresh-pressed 45s — “race records” before they were labeled “rhythm and blues.” Emancipation Park, Shady’s Playhouse, Club Ebony, and the El Dorado: places from which the station broadcast during June-teenth celebrations.
The long-gone DJs, encased behind glass, are among the few black faces in the place, and Blind Billy’s is a far cry from Club Ebony. The room is vast, with a dance floor, stage, and round plastic tables. Two hundred, three hundred people, young lawyers, investment advisors — well-educated, on-the-make professionals, the kind who pop in and out of the mayor’s office. Hart, Shaffner & Marx on his second pint of Guinness flirting with dainty, martini-soaked Talbot’s.
Signs for Route 66, Texaco filling stations, hand soaps, and seductive colognes — the signs are carefully tarnished and pleasingly scratched so as to appear old and authentic. The room smells stale and sweaty, but sweetly so, a mix of White Shoulders and organic shampoos.