Like a Woman (9 page)

“Nah,” I tell her. “I'm just gonna wake him up a little. Leave my mark.”

I slice up the behind of the trick that's gotten out of control. He yelps in pain, drops the white girl, reaches back to his bleeding ass and stares in disbelief at his dripping hands. Then I'm gone, watching from the corner. The white girl comes to enough to crush the heel of her palm up into the man's nose, breaking it easy. As he bends down in pain, she lifts her knee up into his head and he tumbles over. For a moment she stands there looking lost, confused. At this point she could either run or harm, but clearly she cannot remember the rules that govern those decisions. Finally, the white girl pulls cash from the man's wallet and walks away, spitting blood.

When in doubt, steal
. I laugh to myself. That white girl loves to steal. Everywhere she goes, everything she does, she's gotta take something with her. Me, I prefer to leave my mark, leave something behind for them to remember me by. My mama says when I was little she'd have to whip me for always writing in other people's books. “But Mama,” I'd tell her, “I've got something to say, too.” And I know that trick is going to remember my mark on his behind a lot longer than he will the few hundred dollars the white girl stole from him. I like to leave my mark. That's why I want to write. The white girl, she's just trying to get back something that was taken from her a long time ago. My mama says the white girl's a fool, says you can't ever get back what's been taken. You just gotta go on and make your way in the world. My mama says that white girl's nothing but trouble, tells me to stay away from her.

But I don't. I watch for her. My heart catches when I see her body coil for a fight. My stomach dips when she catches my eye, looks down at my knife, curls her lip. Then one day she steps into a bad situation where three guys have me cornered in an alley, trying to make me pay for something my brother did or did not do. She jumps right into the fight, hollers, “Hey motherfuckers,” slides me back my knife and busts open one guy's head and cuts another before she gets knocked out. Saves my life. I sit with her after it's all over, waiting for her to come to. She'll never make it through the night if I leave her, a girl alone in this part of town, unconscious. My mama says, “Get on out of there, girl, before those boys come back for you,” but I stay, holding my knife in one hand, hers in the other.

I've never seen the white girl up so close before. Her hair is wild; curls lie matted in blood against her forehead. I watch her breasts rise and fall; her belly is tight and flat, her long legs muscular and lean, black jeans tucked into her boots. I imagine what it would be like to lay alongside such length, wonder how my body would fit up against hers. Then she stirs and I jump back, kneel down and press my knife up against her throat.

The white girl lies still, respecting the knife but showing no fear. “Damn,” she says. “You're welcome.” She tries to smile, but her mouth is swollen and bloody “I know you,” she says, shifting her body slightly, stretching out her legs. “You're the one that cut up the behind of the trick what tried to rape me that night.”

It excites me to see the white girl lie still beneath the knife but show no fear. I send her away but then dream of her length, dream of her flashing green eyes, her cocky grin. Weeks go by and I do not see the white girl, not even down on the boulevard. Then one day, there she is, leaning up against the wall, talking to Trina, her Levi jacket and a duffle bag hanging over one shoulder. She watches me cross the street and walk toward them. She looks down at the right boot where I keep my knife and I open my hands and smile. She nods.

“Girlfriend needs a place to stay,” Trina says, hiding a grin. “Got any ideas?”

The white girl follows me home. We cut across the railroad tracks, up through the fields behind the power plant to a three-acre lot filled with wrecked cars. A huge Rottweiler comes lunging toward us, leaping up against the cyclone fence. “Hey, J. Edgar,” I call softly. “Good to see you, boy.”

I see everything. I watch myself lead through a tear in the fencing, tying it back up with a piece of wire. “Stand still,” I tell the white girl. “Let him smell you.” The dog snarls. The white girl stands still and easy, turns her head slightly away, dropping her hand, showing no fear. And my breath catches and I know that Mama's wrong, that the white girl's courage is a real thing, not just stupidity. Soon J. Edgar trots at the white girl's side, showing her the way. She is the first person, besides me and my brother, that J. Edgar has let into this yard.

The camper on the wrecked Ford three-quarter-ton pickup is where I mostly live, but we climb inside the back of the totaled black stretch limousine. The front of the car has been crashed in, the engine pushed up into the driver's seat. But the middle is untouched and this is where I take the white girl. The sinks in the wet bar are dry and the television and phones don't work, but the leather seats are fine and the couch is big enough for two to sleep on. The white girl grins, sets her bag down, takes off her boots, and leans back onto the couch. I can't tell if she knows what's she's doing or hasn't got a clue but I slide in next to her, and she pulls me all up against her, her face in my neck, her arms strong around my back, her hands and her body moving like they know exactly what they're doing.

I didn't mean to take up with a white girl and lord knows it ain't easy. She's dangerous—Mama's right about that. And ignorant. I've never seen someone so ignorant. I even have to teach her how to put grease in my hair. “Haven't you ever had a black girlfriend before?” I ask her.

She smiles. “I ain't never had any kind of girlfriend before,” she says, reaching for the oil, pulling me down in front of her.

The white girl's different, that's for sure. I come home one day and find her laying across J. Edgar, pinning him on his back. She's got her teeth into his neck, growling, shaking him slightly and growling some more till he finally lies totally still. Then she lets go, says, “Okay, boy, you can get up now.” J. Edgar gets up, wiggling like a puppy, wagging his tail and licking the white girl's hand. “It's an alpha dog thing,” she says. “We're like a family now. You let a ninety-pound Rottweiler be head of your pack and you've got trouble.”

I laugh, taking the white girl down, growling into her neck. “I let
you
be head of the pack and we've got some
serious
trouble,” I tell her, and she lays still, trembling with everything but fear.

rotten

rotten teeth. rotten attitude. rotten life. so what. just another bad kid with a bad mouth. holes no one dares to notice, much less cares to fill. and the old, rotting bodies simply see me smile. yes. see me smile. see what you want to see. while i live out the difference
.

nothin' but trouble

So, you wanna know where we live. Well, which home you want to hear about first? Our oceanfront property? The garden estate? Perhaps our in-town residence? Or maybe the gated community— private, fenced, patrolled by a top-of-the-line security service.

Yeah, I'll show you that one first. Me and Jackson, we got two main residences there, one primarily for entertainment purposes and one for just daily living. Come on, I'll show you.

The side entrance is the one we mostly use, on the east side down by the railroad tracks where the chain-link fence has been bolt cut and then wired back together. You can't hardly see it unless you know what you're looking for, but even then you'd be so busy stumbling back from the ninety-pound Rottweiler hurling himself up against the fence, his snarling spit splashing across your face so bad, that trying to
open
that side entrance would be the last thing on your mind. The dog? That would be J. Edgar, our own private security service. J. Edgar don't let nobody in except us. Me and J. Edgar, we had to work a few things out from the jump, but now that dog will roll right over for me, give me his throat.

Anyway, once J. Edgar lets you in, which he won't, you gotta go down this
row
, or I should say
pile
, of Plymouths, past the cherry picker and the shed of engine blocks, out toward the back of the yard. Over there on the left, that's the stretch limo, crashed in front and back, but still good in the middle—got these wide leather seats, soft, creamy white like a bed, curled all around like a half-circle moon. Then there's the wet bar, which I don't got hooked up yet to water, but I'm gonna, and the refrigerator, which I got wired to the battery of a Cutlass Supreme. There's lights, too, but we can't ever turn 'em on, of course. So that's our entertainment residence. Not that we ever have anybody that comes over, but me and Jackson, we find our own damn selves pretty entertaining, if you know what I mean.

Now our main residence is that old three-quarter-ton Ford stepside over there. Primer grey, windshield busted, driver's side door gone, seats stripped, rusted out clear through the floorboards. My daddy used to say Ford stood for “fix or repair daily,” said Fords would bring you nothin' but trouble. Guess he'd know because he worked on 'em for years. But we don't need that thing to run; we just need it to hold up the camper shell on its back.

Ever since Jackson took me in, that's where we mostly live. Jackson painted the outside with all them signs you see. Don't ask me what they mean. All that red, green, black—they just something her grandma taught her, marks to keep folks away, white folks mostly, I guess. Didn't work too good with me, though. Jackson said, once she seen me, her mama, she just shook her head, said it's been known for one to sometimes slip through, said only her god knows why and he ain't telling. Jackson's mama, she don't like me too much, even though I did save her daughter's life. She says a white girl can't mean nothing but trouble, says I'ma like to get her baby killed, says I'm just one more damn cross for an old woman to bear.

Anyway, aside from me, them old Africa marks do a pretty good job of keeping folks away from us. It probably don't hurt none either that J. Edgar has made his bed underneath this particular truck, or that this is where he gets tied up when men come into the yard to look for parts. Besides, there ain't hardly nothing left to take. This old truck's been picked clean as a chicken bone. The engine's gone, so we leave the hood propped up so everyone can see there ain't nothing but a hole gaping inside. A hole just like the socket in Jackson's mouth where her tooth used to be before that john tried to rearrange her face last week. I know he got the worst of it, guess she cut him up pretty bad, probably removing somethin' of his body parts if I know Jackson. Now, Jackson, she ain't like me, she don't like to fight, but you just try and mess with that girl's face and she'll cut you quicker than you can spit. That black, pearl-handled knife just flies around like it's got a life of its own. She especially don't like nobody messing with her mouth; that girl's serious as a heart attack about those perfect teeth, makes me steal her Colgate extra fluoride, mint floss, and a brand new toothbrush every few weeks, brushes like five times a day, even when we don't hardly got nothing to eat. And that girl don't never, and I mean never, give head or lip lock with a trick. Yeah, she's fierce about her mouth. Like right now she's standing there, acting all like a realtor, showing you our home with me, but inside I see she's got her tongue searching around, interrogating that hole, and I just know that someday, some way, somebody's gonna pay.

Anyway, this is where we live...maybe tomorrow we'll go check out our oceanfront property and you can see how the light from the twenty-four-hour Chevron sign shines down at just the right angle into the drain pipes off Venice Beach and you can just curl up in there, listen to the howling surf, and read as late as you want with no one bothering you. As long as the weather's dry, of course. And you got J. Edgar to watch your back.

the mouth screams on

the mouth screams on till i no longer hear. red lips curling hateful till i no longer feel. mouth distorted, smearing like a nightmare taking shape. out of the mouth comes the thick grey smoke surrounding my face no matter how i turn. out of the mouth come the pearl-brown teeth that sit in a jar on the bedstand all night long. sometimes i see them move. out of the mouth comes the racking cough, the phlegm pulled up from weary lungs that no longer hold together. out of the mouth come the strings of yellow vomit cigarettes and a whiskey sour, spewing out so loud i think she's gonna die. and all i really want to know is what happened to the kisses
.

dear Mama

Dear Mama,

It's Tuesday noon. Taylor hasn't come home yet. The sun's beating down on this metal roof something fierce. Taylor said she could get us some kind of green plastic roofing and build us some shade, but I told her we can't have this place looking like anything other than a broken-down camper. She said “Yeah” and got real quiet like she does and then said, “Yeah, well, but that don't mean we can't cool it off on the inside, now does it?” She says she might know how to get us some power, at least hook up a fan and maybe that old cooler so we don't have to keep hauling ice. Last night she went and borrowed us a battery from that wrecked Pontiac Firebird Jimmy just hauled in. Now she's out getting some wiring, and, if I know Taylor, probably also stealing a book to tell her how to do it. You just don't ever know with Taylor what she really knows and what she says she knows, but you can always count on her figuring something out.

I know, Mama, you don't like her stealing. I know you think she's nothing but trouble for me, but her and Jimmy and J. Edgar, they're like my family now, at least in the flesh. But Mama, I worry about Jimmy. He's doing good, all clean now, running his business.

But ever since he started hanging with the Panthers, working in that free breakfast program, the police have been all over this place. I don't understand, Mama. When he was dealing dope, they left him alone, but now that he's clean and doing something good, they're here all the time, shaking him down, rousting his car, sitting across the street watching him. It scares me, Mama. And Jimmy, he can't talk to you like I can, so I don't even know how he gets by.