11
LATE MORNING. Neighborhood quiet. And styling up the street toward me, the man from the Beamer. Shades. Overcoat. Heavy winter boots. I rise and head for the door.
“See, Miss Ann, see, your problem is this. You got a gotch-eyed view of players. Look here, don’t run away, aight? Just want to chat. I’m safe, see, all on my own ‘thout no posse. Ain’t even got a burner.” He opens his coat to show me nothing’s underneath except his slender frame in khaki pants and a T-shirt that reads, “According to the Surgeon General, It’s OK to Smoke Your Competition.” “Most days, I don’t leave home ‘thout my.22 Raven”—said gruffly to impress me. And damn it, it does impress me in spite of myself. “But I’s out looking for you this morning, and I wanted to dress proper for the occasion.” He gives me a smarmy grin: Welcome-to-Taco-Bell-may-I-take-your-order-please?
“What do you want?”
“I tol’ you, maybe we knock boots or something, eh? Aight.” He holds up a ring-studded hand. Creamy white palm. “I’m sorry. I’m moving too fast for you.” He looks me up and down. “Damn. You got a boy-thing or some shit going for you, hm? No hips, little tits. But you’re cute. Got a sexy move on you.”
“Listen, asshole, I’m not some street whore — ”
“No, you surely ain’t.”
“Then stop talking to me like one.” I breathe slowly, trying to quell my fear. “I want you to leave me alone.”
“Might be I got something you need.” He steps closer. “What’s your story, Ann? Your connection to the Row Houses?”
“None of your fucking — ”
“See now.” He lifts his hand as if he might hit me. “I make it my business to know who’s who and what’s what hereabouts. I see a tourist like yourself starting to settle in, I wonder what’s up. I’m the local caretaker, know’m say’n?”
I watch the man’s hands, step past him, down the porch and away from the house. I don’t want Bitter endangered.
He follows me. “Here’s how it goes, see. Kids from the burbs come by looking to get high. I stuff a few bread crumbs into a Baggie, pass ‘em off as rocks. Sell ‘em some oregano, they think they getting weed. So I bring a profit into the ‘hood and send the white boys home with health food. No muss, no fuss. They too scared to come back and bitch about it ‘cause they know I’ll bust their covers with their folks. It’s good business. Street smartology. Now tell me. What your business here, hm?”
I fold my arms.
“Looking for a man to take care your sweet little ass? Let me introduce myself. Street name Rue Morgue. But you can call me David. See how polite I’m being? Opening up to you and shit. Come on. What’s your name, cakes, hm?”
“Are you an Edgar Allan Poe fan?”
“Edgar what?”
“‘Rue Morgue.’ It’s a Poe story.”
He frowns. “Morgue’s where the farm gets bought.”
“Right. Never mind.”
Of course he’s got it, beneath all the crap: a genuine charm; the quick wit of my old schoolmate, Troy; Dwayne’s physical smoothness; Reggie’s certainty. He knows he’s got it, too. A good king. And he knows I’m responding to him on some basic level. Like soup on low simmer. With me, with men, hell — ever since the shut-in boy — it’s always been the basic that betrays, even when I know better. A twitch, a grin. A forbidden look across a room.
“Okay, don’t tell me. Let me show you something.” He touches my elbow. I pull away. “I just want to walk you over to the church here. What I’m gonna do to you in church? Two minutes. Don’t be skittish.”
“In the church?”
“That’s right. You want to understand this place, sugar, you need to peek inside. Come on.”
I follow him, warily, past a narrow alley. Grasshoppers and ants. Old peaches. Sour milk. A whiff of chicken compost, searing and rotty. A broken bottle of Bacardi 151. A couple of Chicano boys blast by us on bikes. One yells back at the other, “Ain’t never gonna catch me, ese, no way, entiendes?
The church is a small wooden furnace. A weekday service has begun. We stand in the open doorway peering inside. Beneath low-hanging light fixtures, waxy as milk cartons, people fan themselves with cardboard pictures of Jesus stapled to Popsicle sticks. Sweat and sweet cologne. Coughing. Grunting. A steel guitar player jump-starts a tune. He’s joined by drums and a Yamaha organ; together, they whip up a frenzy for the Lord, pumping train-car rhythms beneath soaring gospel melodies and a rap about the power of Jesus coming down to meet us. “Sacred steel,” Rue whispers, grinning. The guitar sustains a high vibrato: Mother Mary weeping for her murdered son. The worry of every mother here. As at Etta’s, no young men. Only a few older guys, eyes closed, nodding to the music next to their wives, who are wearing long print dresses. Rue indicates a line of young women in the front row leaning raptly toward the reverend in his thick purple robe. “This is what I want you to see,” he says. “Look at ‘em lusting for the preacher-man.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Watch their faces.” Bottle-cap eyes. Twittery smiles. Cornrows thick as coleus plants. “Every one of ‘em wants that man ‘cause he’s the only young fella they ever see, ‘sides players like myself, who’s worth a shit. All the other dudes, they wasted by noon every day, lollygagging on their porches or down at the happy shop.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Hey, I don’t force nobody to sniff, snort, shoot, or swallow. I see a need, I rush in to fill it, that’s all.”
“Caretaker.”
“Word. Who else looking after these poor motherfucking junkies? Me, that’s who. I’m the on’iest friend they got. Meantime, all the young ladies here suffering the scarcity of good men.”
The women are spruced up in high heels and low-cut blouses. I remember Shirley telling me back in Dallas, “Black women are always having to share their men. After a while it kind of whittles your spirit, you know?”
“God is a good, good god!” the preacher shouts. “He show you the path to Paradise! Ain’t no gas station map gonna get you there! Ain’t no Triple-A knows the way! Merciful Jesus!” The ladies bounce in their seats.
Rue touches my elbow and guides me back outside. “So. You gonna settle in here, Ann, you need a good man to look after you. Too much competition for the preacher.”
“But not for you?”
“I keep my ladies in line. One at a time. See? I’m respecting you, Ann. Ain’t lying to you. You the one cowering behind high yella. The one with secrets. Aight, fine. That’s your weight. All’s I’m saying is, don’t go getting high and mighty on me … ‘cause which one of us being honest here and which ain’t?”
“Why in hell do you think — ”
The hand again. Inches from my face. “Fuck the dumb, sister. Even a tourist like you can see what it’s like here. I do what I have to, stay in business. And in this outlook, my business the only going concern. Now some players, they don’t give a shit. Make their deals and move on. Me, I look after folks. Some poor asshole jonesing, can’t pay right away, I float him a while. I feed hungry kids. I’m the man what makes it all work. Last year? Listen up, last year ‘bout this time, some bad smack hit the streets, see. Suckers popping left and right — twenty-four hours later, big ol’ welts where they stuck the needle in and that’s it, sister. Next stop, heart failure. So I start cruising, gathering up all the shit I can find. Take it down to a doc I got an in with at the med center so he can analyze it. Clostridium.” He says the word slowly — again to impress me. “Bacteria in dust and soil. Me and my cornerboys put the word out. Public education. Community service. That’s what I’m about.”