Disappearing Acts (8 page)

I know one thing—if Vinney don’t pay me tomorrow, we gon’ see what kind of job we’ll start in three days. Fuckin’ Italians. “Frankie, don’t I always take care of you, man?” he ask me at least once a month. And I always say, “Yeah, just like the IRS.” At least I get paid under the table. In cash. But if this Wop expect me to work on his new building, he’s gon’ have to come up with more money. Fifty dollars a day. Who the fuck can live off that? Shit, I got kids to pay for. I can’t even afford to
buy
no pussy, which is what it’s getting down to.

My beer was gone, and I felt muscle spasms in my shoulders, so I got up and rubbed some Ben-Gay on ’em, then poured myself a stiff one. I looked at the clock again and fell back down on the bed and closed my eyes. When I woke up, it was only two o’clock. I looked at the
TV Guide.
Soap operas. No more basketball games till fall. This is gon’ be a long summer. I hate baseball, especially the Yankees. Ever since Reggie Jackson left, the team ain’t shit. If they would get him back and keep that crazy-ass Billy Martin, they might win a game and fill up the stands like they used to.

I was bored shitless, so I decided to go to the bar. Since I was sweating again, I turned the air conditioner up, then splashed some aftershave on my face and put on a clean white shirt and some dress pants.

I was walking down the street before I even thought to see how much cash I had. I pulled out my wallet and counted seventy-three dollars. The music was coming from halfway down the block. Just One Look always got a crowd, don’t make no difference what time of day it is. Shit, half of Brooklyn is unemployed. When I walked in, wasn’t nothin’ happening. On Friday
nights, you can’t hardly get in the door. They got the best DJ in Brooklyn, right here in this little off-the-wall joint. A lotta black folks think they too good to come in here—mainly the new ones moving into this neighborhood. Faggots and black yuppies. All of ’em wear Gucci this and Yves Saint Laurent that. Driving BMWs. Sporting tortoiseshell glasses. All the dudes wear identical Paul Stuart trench coats. They sickening, really. It is a fact that a few people been shot and killed in Just One Look, but I ain’t seen nothin’ like that go down in the two years I been comin’ in here.

I sat down at the bar and ordered a Jack Daniel’s. I was hoping not to run into Jimmy, but that woulda been asking for too much. He was the first person I saw after I swiveled around on the stool to check out everything—which amounted to nothing.

“Brotherman,” he said, slapping me on my damn shoulder. Shit, it was still sore from putting in those floors. “What’s happening?”

“Nothin’, brother—you got it.” I took a sip from my drink. “I’m beat, but you get that way when you work for a living.” I love to fuck with Jimmy.

“I’m making a living, sucker. It’s work, any way you look at it. You ain’t seen Sheila in the past few days, have you?”

I shook my head no and downed the rest of my shot in one swallow. It felt good, so good that I ordered another one. Four is my limit. And when my cash is low, I drink beer, or I keep my black ass at home, buy myself a pint, get drunk, and watch TV till the static or a prayer wakes me up.

Jimmy hopped up on the stool next to me. “That broad owe me over a hundred dollars, and my shit is raggedy, man. I can’t cop till I get this twenty dollars. You ain’t got twenty on you till later on this weekend, do you, blood? I’m good for it, you know that.”

I knew that was what Jimmy was leading up to.
That’s what he always led up to. But the little fat fuck been my buddy since high school. We used to tease him ’cause he had gray hair when he was fifteen. He got a whole head full of the shit now. Jimmy was always able to get older women because of that hair. Back then, I envied him. “Man, you ain’t had it good till you got it from a thirty-year-old broad. Especially one that’s done had a baby. They know how to grab holda your shit.” I used to slap him upside the head when he bragged about it. I had just barely had a wet dream. But all that old pussy cost him. Last count, Jimmy had at least five or six kids in all five boroughs. He always have been dumb. That’s one thing we didn’t have in common. I didn’t drop outta school ’cause I was dumb; I just didn’t feel like being bothered. Shit, when I was seventeen, I started reading the dictionary so I wouldn’t sound stupid when I got older, but I only got up to the
K
’s. There’s a lot of fuckin’ words in the dictionary. Now Jimmy’s doing what everybody expected him to do: nothing. Yeah, he sell drugs, but it don’t amount to shit. One thing I
can
say for him—he ain’t like some of these scumbags out here. He don’t sell to kids or young girls. Only to the fools that’s been on the shit for years. And since heroin is outta style now, Jimmy’s into coke. I hear they smoking that shit now, and from what Jimmy tell me, he don’t indulge, which is obvious, ’cause the motherfucker still fat.

He leaned forward and put his little fat hands under that double chin. “Buy me a drink, Frankie.”

I just looked at him. “If you got a real job, motherfucker, you wouldn’t be in this position.”

“Don’t start, Frankie. Not today, man. I’m tired, got people waiting for me, and my shit is dragging. I’ma strangle Sheila when I find her.”

I whipped out a twenty and handed it to him. “What you drinking?”

“Chivas. Thanks, brotherman.”

I ordered the drink, they sat it on the bar, and Jimmy gulped it down. “You see the playoffs, man? What you think about that shit?”

“You know damn well I don’t miss the playoffs, Jimmy. You still asking stupid questions, huh? The Lakers kicked Philadelphia’s ass.”

“Yeah, the Knicks could use a few Kareems.”

“The Knicks need more than that. If Huey would get rid of that faggot-ass center, maybe they’d be able to do something besides lose. He dooflus, and scared to jump. You ain’t never seen
him
doing no sneaker commercial—that should tell Gulf and Western something. They should trade him in for a 1982 model. Let some of these young dudes in the game whose dicks can stay hard all night.”

“Yeah. L.A. took the money and ran, didn’t they?”

I didn’t answer Jimmy, ’cause I could tell he was just talking to make conversation. The playoffs was history anyway, and I wasn’t in no basketball mood. That woman was on my mind, and I swear, when I looked behind the bar, she was sitting on top of a bottle of White Label. Damn. I really didn’t need this shit. Not right now. I got too many other things to do. Some pussy would sure be nice. I can’t lie about that.

“Catch you later, man,” Jimmy said, sliding off the stool. I nodded.

By the time I finished my third shot, I decided to go ahead and take Pam some money. Wasn’t nothin’ jumping off in here. I stopped by the bank, withdrew my last forty dollars, and put twenty more with it. Shit, something was better than nothing. I walked all the way through the park to the projects, where her and the kids lived. I hated the projects, and the thought that she was raising my kids here always made me mad. Trash every-goddamn-where, and nobody cared. Young kids sitting around, looking like they high on everything. I used to do the same stupid shit, and look where it got me.

I pushed the steel door open and counted three bullet holes in the bulletproof glass. The hallway smelled like piss. I held my breath and got in the elevator that worked. A balled-up stinking Pamper was in one corner, a empty bottle of Thunderbird right next to it, and a old TV set was sitting in another puddle of piss. Did I really live here six years ago? It wasn’t this bad then, but it seem like the place just goes downhill year after year, and don’t nobody give a shit. Pam can do better; she just too damn cheap. A hundred and ninety-eight dollars a month for this? At least my room is clean. And from what Derek told me, she still working the midnight shift at some brokerage house, running some kind of computer. What she do with all her money I don’t know. And just wait. When one of the kids get in trouble, she gon’ be the first one to wonder why.

She answered the door—or I should say, took up the door. “How you doing?” I asked. “Thought I’d stop by and bring you this.”

She snatched the money and moved out the way. I sat down at the kitchen table. The same raggedy-ass plastic tablecloth was hiding it, dirty dishes was piled up in the sink, and the floor looked like it ain’t been mopped in weeks. She’ll never change, I thought. I watched her count the money.

“Is this the best you can do?”

“Look, Pam, I’m laid off for a few days, and yeah, this
is
the best I can do right now.”

“How many times have I heard that? You need to get a better job, that’s what you need to do.”

“What you think I’m
trying
to do?”

“Try harder.”

I wanted to slap her. “What about this dude I heard you supposed to be marrying?”

“Don’t worry about it. When I’m ready to marry
anybody
, you’ll be the first to know.”

“You free-fuckin’, or what?”

“That’s none of your damn business, Franklin. He’s doing more for the kids than you are, that’s for damn sure.”

“Speaking of kids, where they at anyway?”

“At camp.”

“I see you still finding ways to get rid of ’em.”

“For your information, they like going to camp, and it keeps ’em off the streets and out of trouble. The projects ain’t changed, or can’t you see that?”

What I saw was that she was up to about three hundred fuckin’ pounds. I couldn’t imagine what this dude must be about or what the hell he saw in her. I couldn’t remember what I ever saw in her, really. And look at her now. It’s a damn shame how some women just let themselves go. You’d think they’d wanna look good for themselves, not just for a damn man. Shit, I work out ’cause it makes me feel good. Women get weak over my body, but that ain’t my fault.

Now Pam was sitting in front of the TV set—as usual—eating potato chips, drinking a soda, and crocheting. I was still sitting at the kitchen table, looking at the salt and pepper shakers I bought ten years ago. Damn. I got up and walked toward the door. “Tell the kids I said hi, I’ll see ’em soon, and tell Derek to stop by over the weekend to shoot some hoops. I’ll try to bring you some more money next week.”

“I won’t hold my breath,” she said, and put another potato chip in her mouth. She didn’t budge. I slammed the door on my way out.

*   *   *

At four o’clock, I watched “The Love Connection” on TV. I was anxious, trying to figure out if I was handling this thing right. If not, at least my motives would be clear: “I was bullshitting. And I ain’t interested.” I watched “The People’s Court” at four-thirty, and “Live at Five” with Sue Simmons—with her fine
self. By twenty to seven, I figured she’d realize I wasn’t coming and get the picture. My stomach was growling. I didn’t have nothin’ to eat, and didn’t feel like cooking on that little-ass hot plate, so I put on a clean T-shirt and went to get me some Chinese food. I had barely turned the corner, and who did I run into? Shit.

“You changed your mind?” she asked.

“I got hung up,” I heard myself saying.

“You could’ve called.”

“I couldn’t remember your last name.”

“It’s Banks. Zora Banks.”

She was pissed off. Damn, she looked even prettier mad. “I was trying my hardest to get there by six, I just had some other business to take care of, and it took longer than I thought.”

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she said.

“I don’t
have
to do nothing but die.”

“Look, I’m getting bad vibes about this whole thing. You’re the one who offered, Franklin.”

And she was right. What the fuck. It ain’t her fault that she turns me on, and I don’t wanna be turned on right now, but I do wanna be turned on, but not right now and not this way. Shit. “Look, I’m sorry if I messed up your plans.”

“You didn’t mess up my plans, I just wasn’t able to do everything I had on my list. If you want to know the truth, I rushed to get home by six so you wouldn’t be standing around waiting for me.”

That’s right, lay the fuckin’ guilt trip on me. But she was right. When I say I’m gonna do something, I usually do it. But what the hell was I doing now? I don’t like this feeling-confused shit, but I didn’t want her to think I was just another unreliable blood either. “Look, can you wait till my food is ready, or better yet, I’ll meet you at your place in a few minutes.”

“I’m serious, Franklin—you don’t have to feel obligated. I can get Eli to help me, like I told you.”

“Look, just let me run home and get my tools, eat, and I’ll come on over. How does that sound?”

“Sounds like you’ve got a guilt complex.”

She smiled at me and left. Okay, so I’m a sucker. All I’m gon’ do is put her stuff up and take my black ass on home. Simple as that.

When I got home, I gobbled my food, turned down the air conditioner, and left. I walked five doors to her building and rang the buzzer. Damn, she looked good running down those stairs. She was wearing some kind of Chinese-looking bathrobe. I couldn’t tell if she had anything underneath it or not. Tarzan jumped at the thought.

“So how did your day go?” I asked. I couldn’t think of nothin’ better to say to break the ice that had formed since this morning.

“Okay, considering.”

“So. You want me to start with the bed, the shelves, or the stereo? You tell me.”

“You
sure
you want to do this?”

“I’m here, right?”

“Yeah, but this time I’ll pay you.”

“You must got a hearing problem, Zora. I’ll tell you what. You can sing me a song.” This was her answer: she turned the fan up full blast, then aimed it at me. “When you feel up to it,” I said. “I’ll start with the bed.”

The phone company showed up with some outlandish excuse about why they was so late. By that time, I’d already finished the bed. Too bad she didn’t have a mattress. Zora started making one phone call after another, and since I was now drilling holes in the living room wall, it was so noisy she went in the bathroom and closed the door. I was wondering who she could be talking to. I know it was none of my business,
but hell, I wanted her to talk to me. When she came out, she sat down on top of a box and watched me work. Now, I dug
this
shit.