“I haven’t decided,” I told her, as honest as I could be. “I’m not sweating it though. A guy like me, I’ve got plenty of options.”
Mr. Not
by Hermine Pinson
Devil’s Half Acre
The Raggedy Ann was almost as tall as Tug, who looked not at the doll but at the hand of the man who had flung it on the couch. The man — Mr. Not, as Tug always referred to him, silently — reached up to pat an imaginary loose strand on his head, then looked around the room, as if to survey his property.
“Where’d you find that?” said Tug’s mother Velma. “And what’s that smell? Ray Harold, I thought you hated Tug having Marguerite. Now you bring him home another doll?”
“Oh, Vee, quit yapping. I got it at a toy shop over on Broad Street. The owner sprays everything to keep it fresh.” Ray Harold tore at the plastic bag the doll was wrapped in. When he had liberated the thing, he smiled a small, mean smile and thrust the doll at the boy.
“Go ahead, take it, Harold. I told you if you acted like a sissy, I’d treat you like one. You’re nine years old. Stop peeing in your bed and maybe I’ll buy you something for big boys.” Ray Harold bent down and stared into Tug’s eyes. The boy stiffened like a miniature soldier at the sour smell of liquor on Mr. Not’s breath, but he picked up Raggedy Ann from the couch.
“Thank you,” said Tug.
“Thank you, Uncle Ray,” corrected Velma. “Where’re your manners?”
“Thank you... Mr. Vermeer,” said Tug.
Ray Harold snorted in disgust. “Vee, pour me a drink. I need to sit down and catch my breath. Regina was at it again tonight, threatening to come over here and break all the windows.”
“Why don’t that woman take care of her own household and quit trying to interfere in mine?” said Velma while she poured her longtime lover a glass of Johnnie Walker. “Tug, this is grown folks’ talk. Take your doll to your room. You can watch that new Batman movie I bought you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Tug dragged Raggedy Ann by its stitched foot along the hardwood floor. He propped it in a child-size chair in the farthest corner of his bedroom, then inserted The Dark Knight into his DVD player and undressed for bed. He kept the sound low, so he could listen to the voices at the other end of the hall. Whenever Mr. Not came around, it was always the same routine. Tug, go play. Tug, go to your room. Tug, go downstairs. Tug, go next door. His mother had wanted him to call his godfather Uncle Ray, but Tug refused to call him anything to his face when he could get away with it, and when he couldn’t, he called him Mr. Vermeer. The name sounded to Tug like a cat howling to be let in at night. Vermeer. He thought it suited the man whose very presence in the house on East Leigh Street spoke no and not.
Ordinarily, Tug would become engrossed quickly in a movie, but he couldn’t concentrate with Mr. Not there. He never knew what was going to happen. Mr. Not changed the way his mother acted. When she wasn’t at work in the dining room office downstairs, she spent time doing things with Tug, playing checkers, playing cards, reading to him, taking him skateboarding. But whenever Mr. Not was in the house, her voice changed from being calm and almost musical to sounding whiny and high-pitched. Sometimes, when Mr. Not was around, she even called Tug “Harold,” despite the fact that she’d given him the nickname herself.
“Shhh,” Tug said to Marguerite. She was a bisque brown porcelain doll in a gingham dress, and he held her close to his chest and tiptoed to his hiding place behind the window drapery on the second-floor landing, midway down the hall from his bedroom. It was an excellent place to listen to his mother and Mr. Not...
Velma went to the refrigerator, removed a can of beer, and sat down at the kitchen table.
“Regina says she wants you and Harold out of this house by the end of the summer,” said Ray Harold, already on his third drink.
“I never asked to live here. I never did. I used to think you put me and Tug in this house because you loved me, but I now think it was just cheaper than paying rent on an apartment.” Velma popped the can’s top for punctuation.
“This house is the property of the Vermeer family. We have owned it—”
“For over fifty years,” finished Velma, wiping beer foam from her lip. “I know.” She glared at Ray Harold, then she laughed.
“The thing about you, Velma? You don’t have any class!”
“No, Ray Harold, I don’t. I wasn’t born the illegitimate great-great-grandson of a Confederate captain. I didn’t graduate from Hampton University. I didn’t grow up on Quality Row. And my grandfather didn’t work for Charles T. Russell, the famous black architect.” Velma sat down and faced him across the table. “I don’t have any class, but I do have you, may God have mercy on my soul!” She stood up again. “I’m tired and I’m going to bed. I want to take Tug skateboarding tomorrow, and later on I have some paperwork to do... for you!” She turned off the kitchen light and climbed the stairs to the master bedroom.
“For me,” said Ray Harold. “That’s right. The cancellation of that bid to renovate the Eggleston. And make sure you do it correctly.” He sighed and stared into the bottom of his empty glass.
“Don’t you worry about it. I always do,” replied Velma from the top of the stairs, dragging out the last three words to register her disgust.
Ray Harold was now climbing the stairs behind her. “Yes, you always do, you always do. But in return I let you live here in luxury. I paid for this house—”
“And now I’m paying for it.” Velma moved around her bedroom, finally settling at the vanity to wipe off her makeup.
“Don’t start that shit!” barked Ray Harold, stomping into the room.
“Start what? I don’t know how you treat Regina. I only know how you treat me. And sometimes it takes me months to recover from your brand of loving.” She rubbed her jaw as she checked her reflection in the mirror.
“Then why do you stay?” Strolling over to his mistress, he massaged her neck and shoulders with a gentleness that also declared his ownership.
“Good question.”
“Baby, let’s not fight. I’m going to go home soon and get this mess straightened out.”
“Uh-huh.”
Except for the rustle of sheets and some low groans of pleasure, things were quiet now. Tug guessed they had made up, so he tiptoed back to his room. He left the DVD playing and got into bed, holding his hand over Marguerite’s mouth to keep her from screaming out, Go home, Mr. Not! It took awhile before he fell asleep.
In his sleigh bed, Tug flew in living color. He was Mr. Spock looking down at a huge bright planet from his starship in space, a great wizard scanning a shining magic world below. He swooped down and surveyed blue pinetops and green grass that grew into a thick jungle right before his eyes. Then, as he floated in the quiet of dreamtime, clouds started to gather behind and above him, below him, all around him, and the air took on a strange smell with the sweetness of synthesized flowers. Uh oh! Was that a zig-zag? Was the Sandman near? The phone rang. Tug could see Mr. Not’s clown face and smeary smile when he talked. “Regina, I told you to stop calling here. I’ll see you when I get home.” Then Batman sat on Tug’s bed. I see what I have to become to stop men like him.
Tug woke to the feeling of a draft on his bottom. The odor of pee and sweat and sleep stuck in his nose. He got up and stripped the sheets from his bed.
When his mother met him coming out of his room, Tug didn’t bother telling her how the zig-zags had wrapped around his legs and squeezed his stomach until he had to land, and she didn’t ask him why he’d wet the bed again. She took the soggy sheets from him.