Baby Huey: A Cautionary Tale of Addiction (7 page)

She stopped and I thought that was it. But then she said, “Lewis, he looks just like Daddy. I look at him and I see my daddy, when he was healthy. Those fat cheeks, the bushy eyebrows, that nose…” She started crying, tried to stifle it. “That’s why I’m a little overprotective of him.”
A little?
“Just the thought of him suffering any of what I did…” She broke into loud sobs.

I couldn’t make the connection. Even if I were to suffer ten deadly diseases, I couldn’t imagine Lewis being tore up about it--unless my deathbed blocked the fridge.

“Maybe we’ll go fishing tomorrow,” I said. “The library lets you check out rod and reels. We’ll dig up some worms, go out to the river or Lake Conway. That’ll be fun.”

Doreen tried to say something but couldn’t get the words out.

I fell asleep as she cried on my chest.

Chapter 7

Two red bobbers rode waves stirred by bass boats circumnavigating dead trees in the middle of Lake Conway, thirty miles west of Little Rock. The temperature was in the low nineties.

Sitting on a rocky incline in the shade of a bridge that creaked each time a big truck crossed it, I watched Lewis throw rocks in the water. I watched Lewis toss a coke can in the water. I watched Lewis scratch his name in a steel beam with a rock.

I watched Lewis do a lot of things but watch his bobber, his the only one jiggling every now and then, once disappearing completely underwater, and by the time I grabbed his rod and reel, whatever had it was gone, the worm too.

When I told him we were going fishing he was giddy with excitement. Then, a minute after getting here, he’d lost all interest in fishing.

His bobber moved against the current and I said, “Lewis, you getting a bite.” The bobber disappeared and the rod and reel was sliding toward the water when he grabbed it and reeled in the opposite direction, the line unraveling on the spool. “Turn it the other way--you got him.”

The rod bent severely, the line in the water shooting in one direction then the other, Lewis, straining to keep hold, said, “I think I got something big, John. I don’t think I can hold--” Just then a big fish shot out the water, flipped in the air and landed with a loud splash.

“Damn!” Lewis said, and stared at me. “Oops. I didn’t mean to say that.”

Laughing, I said, “Don’t worry ’bout that--bring him in. Keep his head up.” He offered me the reel. “No, he’s yours. You got him.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “You got him, Lewis.”

The fish, a largemouth bass, five pounds or more by the looks of it, flipped and flopped as Lewis reeled it onto the bank.

“I got it! I got it!” Lewis said, and jerked the rod. The line snapped. I grabbed the bass by the tail just as it was flopping near the water’s edge. But I couldn’t hold it.

Lewis said, “Nooooo!” as the bass smacked the water, and with one flick of its tail, disappeared. “Aw, John, you let it get away.”

“Let’s go home,” I said. Lewis wanted to stay, thinking we could land the fish again. “Naw,” I told him. “The hook? You wouldn’t want to eat with a hook in your mouth, would ya?”

He didn’t answer, and I remembered who I was dealing with. Hook or not, if Lewis could open his mouth he would eat.

As we were riding back home, the rods hanging out the window, the wind banging the bobbers against the top, Lewis said, “A barracuda, that’s what it was. Nobody’ll believe it, though.”

Almost told him it was a bass, not a barracuda, but the look on his face stopped me. Watching him motion a truck driver to toot his air horn, I thought, get him away from his mother he’s not that bad. He needed a haircut, his light-brown wavy hair though cut low growing down the nape of his neck. Rubbing my head, I noticed I needed one too.

“Lewis, tomorrow you and I’ll go get a haircut.”

He turned and looked at me. “Mama takes me. You think she’ll mind?”

I told him she wouldn’t mind and when we were a block away from the apartment I let him sit in my lap and bring the Caddy in.

* * * * *

Three thousand square feet. Double garage. Three bedrooms. A fireplace in the dining room, an island in the kitchen, and a fenced-in backyard. Doreen just loved the split-level red brick house. And Brad Davis, an old white guy with a Santa Claus beard, liked Doreen, smiling as he focused the conversation her way.

His wife died a year ago, he told her. “I’m moving to New Orleans,” he said, “live near my daughter and my grandchildren.” He pulled a wallet from his gray trousers, showed Doreen pictures of his grandchildren. “I’m going this weekend to look at a house down there, but I’ll be back in two weeks.”

Doreen told him she loved the house. “What you think, John?”

How much?
“It’s nice.” To St. Nick: “You say you’re not selling through a bank?”

Looking at Doreen, he said, “No, I can finance it myself.” Then he told her he was an ex-car salesman, thirty-something years, knew all about financing. “Eliminate the middleman. Your credit fairly good, isn’t it?”

“So-so,” Doreen said. “It’s not great, but…My husband’s a banker, I’m a teacher. We pay our bills.”

Brad smiled, told Doreen he’d be willing to work with us, said he’d rather sell it to a young, professional married couple than someone single. Doreen said we needed a few days to think it over, we would let him know when he got back.

Driving home Doreen couldn’t stop talking about how blessed we were to find a Christian man selling a great house.

“He told you he was a Christian?” I said. “When?”

“I knew it when he said hello. You think he wasn’t a man of God he’d be so willing to work with us?”

“I don’t know. I got the impression you reminded him of someone he saw on a porno website. Notice he hardly said anything to me.”

Doreen shook her head. “John, you’re not killing my joy. I won’t let you do it. We’re going to buy that house. We can use that extra bedroom as an office…or a playroom for Lewis.” She grabbed my package. “Or a baby room.”

The light was green but I stopped. “You pregnant? I thought you were taking birth control pills?” A horn sounded and then a SUV passed on the left and flew through a yellow light.

“Watch what you’re doing,” Doreen said. “I’m not pregnant.” We were rolling again. “John, you’d like to be a father one day, wouldn’t you?”

Yeah, I thought, imagining my son planting a foot in her son’s butt when he started acting up.

“Look at you,” Doreen said, “you’re smiling.”

At the apartment Lewis waited an hour to tell me someone at the bank called.

Almost six-thirty on a Friday, the bank was closed. “You write down a name?” I asked him.

In the eight days Lewis and I had spent fishing, playing board games, getting our hair cut, and hanging out at Chucky Cheese, I didn’t mind indulging him for a few hours.

But now, as he ignored my question and continued staring absently at the stupid kid show on TV, all tolerance disappeared, replaced by an urge to take off my belt and whack him.

“You write down a name, Lewis?”

Not looking at me, he shook his head.

“Man or woman?” He didn’t know. “What exactly did he or she say?” He couldn’t remember. “How you know it was someone from the bank?” He managed a shrug, far more interested in those goofy twins who laughed all the damn time.

Doreen sensed my irritation. “John, what’s the big deal? The bank called to confirm that you’ll be there Monday morning. It’s not a problem. Relax.”

That made sense, and I wondered why I was getting upset about missing the call and Lewis not getting a name.

Doreen said to Lewis, “Remember what we talked about yesterday?”

Lewis gave her his undivided attention. “No, I don’t remember.”

“Your going to Mama’s, spending the night there, remember?”

Lewis frowned and said, “Oh, yeah, I forgot.” He looked at me and said, “John, will you take me over to grandma’s house?”

Right off I knew something was up. A Friday night, the fridge filled with food, and Lewis asking to go to his grandma’s? No way.

Doreen said, “Why’re you looking so suspicious? Oh, I see, you’d rather Lewis stay here and you guys pop popcorn and watch
Nick Jr.
all night.”

“Lewis,” I said, “when you want me to drop you off?”

An hour later Lewis got out of the Caddy and I was backing out the driveway of a coal-colored brick, two-story house when his grandmother, Gloria Banks, walked outside in a blue night gown and up to the car.

“How you doing, John?” she said.

Gloria had to be fifty, perhaps sixty, but looked forty in a black wig with red streaks in it. I said I was doing fine and she told me she didn’t feel her daughter-in-law was the right woman for her son.

“No drive, no motivation,” she said. “Can’t even hold a decent conversation. Pooh needs someone who’ll push him, somebody with imagination.”

Unable to meet her inquisitive eyes more than a few seconds, I wondered why was she telling me all this, wondered what she really thought of me if her son’s quiet, nervous wife was such a pain in the butt.

“You ever been in her house?” she asked. And before I could answer: “Filthy, just plain filthy. You can tell a house is nasty by the way the front yard looks. It don’t take much to pick up a broom--”

“Ma’am, I’d better get going. Doreen’s probably wondering what’s keeping me.”

“I didn’t mean to hold you,” she apologized, and then started up where she’d left off.

But for her being Doreen’s mother I’d have told her to give it a break, keep her nose out of other people’s business, and get away from my car so I can go!

She stopped midsentence. “Is that my phone?”

“Sure is,” I said, though all I heard was the traffic on Wilbur Mills Freeway that ran in front of her house. She told me to hold on, she’ll be right back. I said, “Sure,” and drove off the second the screen door closed behind her.

At the apartment a brown van was parked in my spot so I had to park two complexes down. Going up the steps I realized what was going on: Doreen wanted Lewis out of the house so she and I could have a romantic evening, the whole shebang, candlelights, staring into each other’s eyes, lap dances, oral sex…
Damn!

The lights were off inside and when I flipped the switch several people shouted, “Surprise!”

I wasn’t surprised, not at all. Almost ruined my shorts, but was not surprised.

Dokes, dressed in a white two-piece suit, Vida--as usual showing off her boobs in a skimpy candy-red tank top--Doreen, now in a navy-blue dress, and three women and a man, dressed casually, none of whom I knew, were all clapping.

A streamer saying Congratulations John hung below the ceiling along with a dozen or so red, white and blue ballons. In place of the missing couch in the front room was a sheet-covered fold-out table covered with platters of fried chicken, deli-cut meats, and an assortment of half gallon spirits. On the floor, on white bath towels, were two large coolers, the tops open, filled with ice, beer and wine coolers.

Doreen stepped up to me, kissed me, and said, “I wanted to surprise you.”

I wondered how much all of this cost.

Doreen introduced me to the three women and the man, names I forgot the second she told me, each saying the same thing, “Your wife has told me so much about you I feel I know you.” The man an obvious fag, several earrings in each ear, holding the handshake a little too long to my liking.

Dokes patted me on the back, shook my hand and gave me a bear hug.

Damn! A closet fag and a flagrant fag in the same room and they both gravitate toward me.

Doreen said, “John, you’re not upset, are you?” I shook my head. “I thought it was a good idea, you know, a little celebration to mark the occasion. Just a few friends.”

Before I could tell her that most of the people here were her friends, someone turned on the music. All the women and the fag started dancing to Nellie and Murphy Lee rapping about owning several pairs of tennis shoes. Doreen turned the living room light off and I noticed the silver ball hanging from the ceiling fan.

Doreen asked me to dance, I said no. Dokes said he would. After pouring myself a stiff drink of Hennessy I stood in the hallway and watched. Dokes was a little stiff, but, man, could Doreen dance, gracefully, a ballet dancer performing to a bass beat.

They continued dancing when Usher replaced Nellie and Murphy Lee, and danced to two more songs after that.

The doorbell rang. Tim and Sasha McDonald, the couple next door. Sasha fell into the mix while Tim fixed himself a plate of chicken and a drink of Hennessy. He joined me and started talking about his dog, a Saint Bernard named Spotty, pure breed, said he dropped a couple hundred for it, but figured to get that back and more in contest winnings.

Sweating, Doreen stepped up and said a slow song she and I would dance. The Hennessy was starting to kick in, getting me closer to dance mode.

“Sure, baby,” I said. “A couple more drinks I’m ready.”

“Don’t get drunk,” Doreen said before going to answer a knock at the door. More people trickled in, and I wondered if the other tenants would complain.

Before long the living room was filled to standing-room only, and there were a few people loitering on the balcony. A thick cloud of cigarette smoke flowed out each time the door open. Most of the food had disappeared.

Dokes joined me as I fixed my third Hennessy, this one with a splash of Sprite.

“Dude, you’re moving up,” Dokes said, barely audible over Eminem whining about his mother again. Man, I couldn’t understand why everybody liked that guy. “You get down there to the bank, make a mark, okay? You know not too long ago a black man could only dream of such a job. Things have changed, but not much. You work hard, move up the ladder, the next black man steps up it’ll be much easier on him.”

Here we go.
“Dokes, you’re not drinking?”

“You know I don’t drink. The mentality is still there, dude. You hear what that fat redneck said about Donovan McNabb? Talking about the man can’t play because he’s black.”