He thumbs what looks like less than he gave me and holds it up for her to grab. Take care of me, you take care of her, she says. She pecks him above his eye and dodders out, the sweetest scent in her wake.
He apologizes for Kim, but I shrug it off. He asks if I’m hungry and tells me to stay put and goes into the kitchen. He fixes us breakfast — sausage, eggs, toast — which is more than I thought he could do. He makes me a place setting and serves me with that gap-toothed grin of his and sits across the table with his back against the chair and his elbows off the table just like I taught him when he was a boy.
Since when did you start cookin? I say, forking a mouthful.
Since I live with a girl who scorches meals on the reg, he says.
A man can only stand but so much suffering.
She’ll get better when the baby comes, I say. And the baby will be here before you know it. How are you two doing otherwise?
You just seen it, he says. And that’s been for weeks.
Hormones, I say. The first time’s the toughest. Be kind. Be patient.
Yeah, the estrogen attitudes I get, he says. But she’s been talking marriage.
Has she? What’s wrong with that? I say. That is how it’s supposed to be done.
Says who? he says. Not for me. A father now, yes. But a husband, hell no.
Champ, that’s foolish, I say. And selfish. Don’t be so selfish. You’ve got to learn to give, son. More than what’s in your pocket.
We finish and he digs the bag — it’s as swelled as it was when New Years I brought it back — from a closet stocked with boxes for my grandbaby. He carries it out behind me to the Honda. It’s filthy; its hood and roof are painted with bird drops. He drops the bag and kicks a hubcap. As you can see, it’s been sittin since you left it, he says. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to spend a few bucks on new juice. He loads the bag in the trunk while I circle the car checking for dents or a low tire. I climb inside and he closes the door and stands at the window while I settle, while I grip the wheel and let it go, while I adjust the seat and shift, while I flip the visor and case myself in the mirror.
He motions me to lower the window. He ducks inside and keeps balance on his arms.
If it ain’t enough let me know and we’ll see what else we got, he says.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, I say, and ask if he can get his brothers together before we go to court.
Done, he says. I got you.
Yes, you do, Champ, I say. And you don’t know what that means.
He taps the car and backs a step away.
Do you really think it’s selfish? he says.
Do it for you. For you and for her and the baby. Champ, you have to believe me. Living against the risk of love is no way to live.
She points to the sky, to where birds sail high and silent, a prayer in flight, their flock formed in the shape of a V.
Chapter 42
How are we supposed to do that?
This stays between us PEOPLES.
The us being you and me. The us being you and me and no one, meaning — No. One.
That cool?
Okay cool, if it’s cool with you then put that on something.
As a matter of fact, swear on what you need.
Mom says I’m selfish, but that ain’t it and though I can’t, no, I won’t say it to her, she should know. All this time I didn’t bare it because I couldn’t and I couldn’t because there was only so many times she could leave before the next time was it, before the next time turned me into another me. Wasn’t but so many times before that happened and I knew, even back then when I knew next to less than nothing, to be scared of who I’d become. So I put this abject slab where neither she nor no female could reach it forreal. And that’s where it’s been for so long you can’t know, where it’s been stashed until just this blink. But between us (what’s your word worth?), I’m going to risk it out again for my mother. It’s time to chance it out a last time for Grace and for me.
For the address that Jude gave, there ain’t no sign at all, just some copper-colored numbers (damn near nondescript) painted on a metal door smack between a tax prep business and Lock and Key Security. How I know, the windows of the others are scripted with company names, with phone numbers and slogans, the whole nine. The blinds are drawn to the window of Jude’s business, got me questioning whether I wrote the address down right or not. Even more uneasy, cause where Jude’s office is (or should I say where I hope it is) is out here where I don’t much roll, where most of the people I know don’t go either. Am I surprised when he answers? Let’s just say I wouldn’t have been shocked if he didn’t. Hey, he says with the zealousness of someone who’s lived evidence that the world plays fair. He slaps a sweaty palm in mine and invites me in. He tells me to have a seat and smashes into the leather office chair beneath a gargantuan plaque.
The Real Estate Guy
BUY. SELL. INVEST.
SINCE 1990
The office is sparse. An oak desk, metal crates stuffed with manila files, tweed-seat chairs pushed flushed against a wall, FOR SALE signs stacked in a corner. Jude tells me to pull up a seat and pushes a slab of bound sheets at me with the words BIG BUST written on the cover. I scan the top pages, peek to see Jude reclined in his chair, his super-sized dome pressed against the wall below his plaque. When the market is strong, people think the goodness will last forever, Jude says. That they’ve stumbled upon the gleaming gold gates of the kingdom of fortunes. And history says that’s all the people need to toss the old rules right out a high-rise window. Jude blathers (imagine a hella-effeminate Don LaFontaine) minutes more of voice-over, and might keep on if I don’t speak up.
What is this for? Research? I say.
You could say that, he says. But more pleasure. This is the best thing ever wrote on the twenties bubble bust.
Okay. Got it, I say. History’s cool, but I’d love to hear about the house? Don’t mean to be so direct with dude, but who has time for the sidebars? Shit, we all know my bind, slap a blood-pressure cuff on me right now and witness a nigger that measures close to a stroke.
The house. Oh, that old thing, he says, and laughs. Even his laugh is mellifluous.
The other day I told Half Man about Jude’s dainty timbre and its comfort to me, but the homie wasn’t hearing none of it: Fuck how he sound, dog. That shit could be cahoots. Here’s the thing — he could be right. But here’s the thing, too — the homie could be wrong. And peoples, this ain’t in the least about what I stand to lose if this whiteman is playing me for a mark; it’s about all we stand to gain, what we will achieve cause I spoken so (and what else must we need to make the universe acquiesce?) when this deal, that ain’t yet a deal goes through. Oh, you don’t know by now what that is? What, you ain’t been tracking? What’s in this for my beloved, for us few dear Thomases is this: a chance to resurrect and live. And for all the extraordinary bookie-types please, please, please tell me how much for that is too much to risk?
Jude tippy-toes to the window and twists open the blinds and brightens the office. The security company’s van pulls up (I know this because even the van has signage) and a duo of stiff rent-a-cop types hop out and strut into the office next door. Jude takes his seat and checks a file. He shakes his mouse and stares into his computer. Bud, he says. I’ve always believed in educating my clients. So here we go. The first rule of real estate is, it’s never about buying or selling. It’s always about wants and dreams. About who wants what and when.
The night the owner dreams of a condo in Phoenix or a ranch in Durham, that house is as good as yours.