August and Then Some (7 page)

“Probably.”

“Not that you got pots.”

“Excuse me, but do you live here?”

“Fuck no.”

I grab one of the two glasses out of the cabinet, fill it half with water from the fridge and excuse myself. In the bathroom I pop two Advil from their bottle, chew on them so they work faster—a trick my mom taught me—jerk my head back, then swallow.

I come out of the bathroom and Stephanie is looking at the futon mattress on the floor. “You got a mattress and a rock table on crates. That's it?”

“What else do you do in an apartment besides eat and sleep?”

“You
live
in it,” she says like I forgot my own name.

“I live in this.”

“Then you got a bare life. You don't even have curtains, yo. Cept the one over your bathroom door.”

“I might get some.”

“You think? Not even an answering machine on that phone. And where'd you get that shit from the nineteen seventies?”

“It's—”

“You must have a cell phone. You got a cell?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Trust me. I'm better not easily found.”

“What's in them boxes?”

“My clothes. And my books.”

She gives me a look that questions my sanity. Then she takes a deep breath in and scopes the entire apartment and a quarter second before exhaling changes her whole attitude. “It's a nice place, though.”

“Gee, thanks.” She rocks around on her feet not knowing where to park herself. “So where you gonna live? You know, when you have your kid?”

“That's definitely the question.” She keeps looking around the room like she's expecting to find something other than the mattress.

“Stay with your uncle?”

“Didn't ask him.”

“Does he know?”

She walks to the open window and sits on the sill.

“I'll take that as a no.” She gives me a look like she's impressed with my brilliance, then lifts a foot onto the sill, hugs her knee to her chest and looks down to the street. “What's up with your parents?” I ask. “I mean how old are you?”

“Which one you want me to answer?”

“Pick one.”

“Sixteen.”

“Parents?”

“Damn, you nosy.”

“You're right. You don't have to tell me shit. Who the hell am I. You want something?” I make my way towards the fridge. “I got water. Like you might remember.”

“I don't need anything.”

“OK.” I stop. We look at each other, I feel like I'm being sized up. I hold her eyes for a few not uncomfortable seconds, but then my hands don't know if they want to be on my hips, in my pockets, or just hanging down. They try all three.

She looks out the window again. “My mother's in jail.”

My hands freeze mid-pocket. “What for?”

“Drugs.”

“Selling?”

She nods. “And doing.”

I take a few slow steps and stand next to her in front of the other window. “You visit her?”

“Maybe.”

“How long's she been in jail?”

“Months, half year. I used to live with her uptown. Harlem. She went away and it was either my uncle or services. And fuck that.”

We're leaving enough space between our sentences to dare the other person to keep talking.

“Ralphie seems like a good guy.”

“Yeah, he's good.”

“I seen a couple kids in your place the other day. Those your cousins?”

“Yeah.”

“How many live in that apartment?”

“Counting me, five.”

All night I've felt myself connecting to something about her, but I'm not sure what. There's something nonchalant about the way she talks about stuff, even the big stuff, letting her words out like cigarette smoke. But that's not what I'm connecting to.

“Why you looking at me like that?” she asks, the nonchalance upgrading to defense.

“I'm not looking at you like anything.”

“Then what you doin?”

“I'm listening.”

“You looking weird right now.”

“This is my I'm-listening look. You just never seen me listen before.”

“I ain't seen a lot of people listen.”

She gets up and rubs her back where the window frame was digging into her. “I can't believe you live like this.”

“You wanna ease up on my domicile.”

“I mean, it's like … This ain't no home.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Your mother see you living like this?”

“Ha ha. No.”

“What you mean ‘ha ha'?”

“My mother was good at making our house look like people lived there. But really we all lived someplace else. You know what I mean?”

“You mean you don't like your family?”

“If I didn't answer that could we still keep talking?”

“Whatever.” And she works her hand under her shirt and rubs her back again.

“You know you can sit on the mattress if you want. It's more comfortable than the windowsill. Plus it's all I got.”

“Huh,” she kind of laughs, and plops on the edge of it, now hugging both knees to her chest. “What's that?” she asks, looking at the book sprawled on the floor next to her.

“A book.”

“You wish that was funny, right?”

“It's Gabriel García Márquez.”

“Who he?”

“A great writer. Apparently.”

“What's it about?”

“I have no clue. I'm reading it for a GED class, but I can't follow it for shit.”

She nods, she's cool with that. “Might be better in Spanish.”

“Can I ask about your dad?”

“Yeah. But you not gonna get a lot of answers.”

“Whudda you mean?”

“I mean I ain't got nothin to say about him. I don't know where he is or what he does.”

“When's the last time you saw him?”

“I don't remember.” Whatever she can remember slows her rhythm down and puts her deep into her head. Even with me watching, she flips though memory files. Mostly to herself she says, “Stupid shit.”

“What is?”

“My mother. I was like her gun. She took me to visit him a
couple times when I was young. She was fucked up about it. One time—I'm like five—she told me wear the clothes I had on yesterday. And no bath. I was like ah-ight, I didn't give a fuck, I hated baths anyway. And Moms, she usually took a bitch-bath in her perfume, but she didn't go near that shit that day. So we're walking there and she said, ‘Lemme see your hands.' Ah-ight, here's my hands. She looked at them like she didn't like what she saw, then she take a chocolate bar out her purse, unwrapped it and tell me to scratch it. I was like, ‘You crazy, Mom?' She say, ‘Scratch it like it's got an itch.' I'm looking at her like she wants me to fuck a dog. She say, ‘Just do it, do it now and you can eat it later.' So what do I know? She's my mom. I spend the rest of the day with chocolate bar under my fingernails. I didn't understand that shit then, but she was trying to play him like,
look at me and my poor dirty daughter
. Trying to make bank. Don't ask guys for shit. That's the only way you gonna get anything. She was twenty-whatever and she still didn't get it. He didn't say much. I do remember my mother askin him for money and him saying we should leave.”

“She could have took him to court. Of course that don't always work out for the victim.”

“Yo, I don't know why I'm telling you all this, and I definitely don't know why you askin.”

“Me neither. But why does the why matter?”

She silently rips that question apart to see what's really in it, and her eyes squint into something that looks like an assault.

OK, now I see what I'm connecting to. It's a fight. Chick's got a constant fight going on. Her head is always slightly jutted forward like she's sniffing into the future for her next opponent. She's maybe five-two, maybe ninety and change. And she's squishy-cheek cute. Her whole physical package makes you want to pet her, but her attitude rests in something
more like an I-dare-you-muthfucka. I don't know if I should keep my gloves up or arms open. “Look, you wanna talk, then talk. You don't wanna talk then … I don't know, decorate my apartment.”

“That was a little funny.”

“Thanks.”

She scoots back on the mattress, leans against the wall. Her eyes focus on something inside her. “I tried to go see him by myself when I got older. I was stressing. It's weird going to see your parents when you don't even know them. I went to the building. It was like hard just walking there. I felt like I was pulling a whole subway car behind me. His name wasn't on the mailbox no more and I asked a woman walking out the building if she knew him, she said no. So I left. And then when I left I felt like I got rid of my whole train.” She laughs. “That train shit don't make no sense, I'm just tired.” Now she slumps off the wall, lies back on the mattress, puts the pillow under her head, and keeps her feet on the floor, knees up. “It wasn't like draggin a train. It was like … I don't know, like being fat.”

“That fucking sucks.”

“You telling me?”

I shake my head. “You have any other family?”

“I got two aunts. Ralphie's sisters in Dominican Republic.”

“I could hear your accent really strong just then.”

“What accent?”

“Your, you know, Dominican accent.”

“You didn't know I was Dominican before two seconds ago.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Where you think I was from?”

Very definitively I say, “Somewhere.”

“White guys.” She gives me a smile.

“What are their names, your aunts?”

“Lunie and Odalis. Valentine.”

“Heard the accent again.”

“Shut up, yo.”

“No, no. I like it. And Valentine—I like that.”

“Yeah.”

“Ever been there?”

“Naw. They send letters to Ralphie. I read em sometimes. I got cousins there too.”

“They your age?”

“Yup. Little younger.”

She takes the stretchy tie out of her ponytail and closes her eyes. A few strings of hair break away from all the gel on her head. “Your hair ever move?”

“When I want it to.”

She's slowing down now. All night she's been talking all kinds of fast and flashing faces at me, but not now. Her face is off duty and her voice is low.

“Shouldn't you be going out or something?”

“You kicking me out?” she asks without opening her eyes.

“No. I mean it's
Wednesday
night and all. Don't you usually go out?”

“And do what?”

“I don't know. Go to a club, get your swerve on.”

Now her eyes open and her head pops up. “Damn you gettin more white as this night goes.” She flops back down.

“I know it. Whudda you want me to tell you? My people don't swerve. They jig.”

“No you do not know how to jig.”

“I seen people do it at weddings.”

“Oh, shit.” She's cracking up. “That's some funny shit.”

“Not that funny.”

“Alls I can see now is you doing a jig. You wanna show me some?”

“Yeah, right.” I take off my boots and lie on my back on
the mattress about a foot away from her. After a moment, she pushes her sneakers off with her feet then turns on her side. Her hands fall into a prayer position then sneak between her knees, like it's what they do every night.

Now we're quiet. And I don't know about her, but I'm not trying to think of things to say. I like it like this. It's a different kind of quiet than the middle of the night quiet I'm used to. I feel calm. I think by us not talking we're saying we're cool with each other. Cooler, in a way, than we were when we were talking.

“Sometimes I like not talking,” I say.

“Um hum.” More quiet.

Then some more.

Stephanie says, “I can hear you when you say serious stuff.” She let that sentence out with a yawn.

“Huh?”

“Mostly when guys want to talk serious I can't really hear them. Like they mumble or they whisper.”

“I only whisper when I'm trying to get laid.”

She laughs. “You do that a lot?”

“Honestly, not really.”

Our voices are so heavy and uncensored, like the end of this day is the end of a life and how much could it matter what we say right now.

“You don't stress me out.” She sounds curious.

“That's good.”

Quiet.

“Right? That's good?” I ask.

“Um hum.” She snuggles her head deeper into the pillow.

Quiet again.

It's hard to tell if my tiredness is coming from her. I mean I can barely sleep with myself, so I just figured I couldn't sleep with anyone else, but now I'm thinking I can sleep with her. And I guess she's staying, although I don't want to ask.

I get up and make for the light. I turn it off and stand with my fingers on the switch making sure she's cool with that. Judging from her stillness, she seems to be. I take my fingers off it, go back to the mattress and shape the same position.

We lay here feeling out the new atmosphere.

“I don't want that shirt,” she says through heavy lips.

“OK.”

A few minutes later I flip on my side, my front inches from her back.

Noises jump five floors from the street through my window, so do the muddy yellow streetlights, and without curtains it's only dark as a rainy day in here.

Stephanie's breathing just got deeper. I look at her ribs under her shirt going up and down like a bow sliding on strings. Oh man. I really want there to be no other thought in my head, no other light in this room, no other sound, no other movement except her ribs. I stare, I mesmerize myself, but I don't see her ribs alone. Way too many memories of rivers and blood jerk around my brain. And not even this girl who trusts me enough to leave me alone with her breath can change that.