Numbers (6 page)

The first couple of years after leaving Samuel’s house, she bounced around from shelter to shelter waiting for a vacancy to
open up in one of the subsidized housing developments social services would provide. In the meantime, she met her daughters’ father.

Elroy hadn’t come around much since Jenny had beat him with the frying pan. He reappeared on the girls’ birthday and like Houdini disappeared, never to be heard from until their next birthday or whenever he felt like it, which wasn’t often. He had the deadbeat-dad disease, too.

When he did come around, he was more concerned with getting back with Jenny than their well-being or spending time with his daughters. Once Jenny let him know she wasn’t interested in having sex with him, he’d catch an attitude and storm out until he felt it was time to try his luck again.
Screw him,
she thought.

“Jenny May Wallace,” a squatty, light-brown-complexioned man with salt-and-pepper hair read from his clipboard.

“Right here, Mr. Sampson.” Jenny stood up.

“Good to see you, Jenny. Come this way,” Mr. Sampson said. “How are the children? Are they in school today?”

“Thank you, Mr. Sampson. They’re good, and yes, they’re in school,” she lied. The twins were supposed to go on a school trip, but Jenny didn’t have the money to send them. She had Numbers stay home with them.

Jenny followed Mr. Sampson into a small office, where he took a seat behind his desk. She sat in the one metal chair in front of the desk and rested her coat on her lap.

“Have you been working? Is there a man living in your house? Anything you want to declare to me?” he interrogated.

“No,” she lied.

“Jenny, did you think about what we discussed last time you were here?”

“Yes.”

“Then are you going to take the high school equivalency test? You’re a very intelligent young lady, I’m sure you would pass it,” he pressed.

“Yes, Mr. Sampson, I’m ready…. I need this to better my life for me and my children.”

Mr. Sampson was pleased with her response. He genuinely cared about her well-being. He had only been her caseworker for the last year and five months. The change was the best thing that could’ve happened to Jenny. He was much different from the Caucasian lady, Mrs. Whiter, who had been her caseworker for the previous seven years. Mrs. Whiter was condescending, intrusive, rude, and did not care one bit about Jenny’s welfare. Mr. Sampson was more like a father figure than a caseworker.

“Okay then, Jenny, take these papers to Bayard Rustin High School and set up a date to take the test. Once you’ve passed the test I’ll set you up with some job interviews. I’m very pleased that you’ve decided to do this for yourself, and I promise you, you won’t regret it.” Mr. Sampson wrote some information on a sheet of paper and passed it to Jenny. “Next time we talk I want to hear that you have a high school diploma.”

“I won’t let you or myself down,” Jenny said confidently, giving Mr. Sampson a daughterly hug.

A month later, at the age of thirty, Jenny received her high school diploma. A month after that, she secured a job with the city doing clerical work at the health department. City jobs didn’t pay much, but the medical benefits were good for her and her three children. Money was still tight, but at least it was money she was earning herself. This was the first time she truly felt independent.

It was the fall of ’87, and Numbers’s birthday was right around the corner. On October 8 he’d be turning thirteen. Although he still enjoyed riding his skateboard, his interests were changing. He was paying more attention to the way he dressed, and to girls. And he was beginning to grow out of his baby fat, slimming down and looking more like his father every day. Jenny wished he looked more like her, although he did have her lips and eyes. Overall, she was pleased at how handsome her son was becoming.

The previous month, Numbers had spent all the money he earned in the summer from running errands and playing numbers on helping his mother get school clothes for him
and his sisters. His birthday was in seven days, and he was broke. He and Jarvis wanted to take two neighborhood girls to the movies. The one Numbers liked was named Rosa-Marie Vasquez. She was Puerto Rican, and she liked Numbers also, but her mother forbade her to go out with black boys.

One day, when Numbers went to Rosa-Marie’s house to get her to come out, Ms. Vasquez pulled him aside to speak to him. In an almost unintelligible Spanish accent, she said, “Dup’ee, you good boy. I like you. My daughter … you okay to be friends. But you no date her! Latino and Negro no good together,
comprendo?”
She nodded.

Numbers mimicked her nod but he really didn’t mean it. Ms. Vasquez believed a black man was not as good as a Puerto Rican man for her daughter. Numbers didn’t understand this logic. After all, her husband had left her to be a single parent just like Numbers’s dad did to his mother. He and Rosa-Marie would just have to sneak to the movies.

Numbers figured if he could hit a bolita (two-number betting) or the Brooklyn (three numbers), he’d have enough for his movie date with Rosa-Marie. Over the course of the next four days, he did errands and made number runs, but he didn’t hit any of the numbers he played. School was in session, so he was unable to play in the afternoons and could only play the late number.

After school on Thursday, Numbers walked across the street toward the number spot. Park Avenue’s traffic flowed east close to the projects side, then he had to walk under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, or the El, where people parked their cars. Crispy Carl always kept his light-blue Ford Thunderbird under the El. It wasn’t the latest model, but he kept it detailed. Numbers loved to walk by the car and admire it.

He crossed the street and saw Crispy Carl holding court on the bench outside the number joint.

“If that ain’t the truth, my name ain’t Crispy Motherfuckin’
Carl.” He always said that. When Numbers first met Crispy Carl, he actually thought Motherfuckin’ was his middle name for a while, until he said the name to his mother and she popped him in the mouth. Everyone in the vicinity reacted with a hearty laugh at what Crispy Carl had to say.

“Hey, Mr. Carl.” Numbers nodded as he walked up.

“Numbers, get over here and give your man Crispy Carl some skin.” He beamed, slapping Numbers’s hand. “So, what’s the number for this evening, li’l man? I know you got a fix on it.”

“No clue,” Numbers said softly, unsure of himself. “Haven’t been feeling lucky lately.”

Crispy Carl took a swig of his Jack. “Is that right? Well, let’s see what we can do to make some greenbacks.” He got up from his post, placing the half-pint bottle of Jack Daniels in his inside jacket pocket.

He walked into the number spot with his arm draped across Numbers’s shoulder. The room was smoky with the usual activity. He directed Numbers to one of the nearest counters and joined him with his Big Mack number sheet, pen, and number slip. Carl gazed at the sheet as if in deep concentration. Numbers had grown to recognize that look on Mr. Carl’s face. He knew a story would soon follow.

“You know, Numbers,” Crispy Carl began, “most of the time when it comes to making decisions, the first thing that comes to mind is the right decision. When you think about stuff too long, you end up making the wrong call. I ’member when I was pimping down by the navy yard back in the days. One of my hoes came to me with a proposition. She told me this punk-ass pimp named Smalley had a sweet lick with some cadets on shore leave. My bitch, Lola, and one of Smalley’s bitches would work three cadets and in one night pull in four thousand dollars. My gut told me all money wasn’t good money, not to go in with the arrangement. But my little grimy bitch was like ‘Please, Daddy, let’s get this money,
please.’” He made a bad attempt to speak in a female’s tone. He abruptly ended the story. “So what was the first number you thought of today, Numbers?”

“Eight.”

“Why eight?”

“My birthday is in two days, October eighth, and the number was on my mind earlier.” Numbers looked at the clock on the wall. It read 2:55.

“How old you gonna be—twenty-one?” Crispy Carl joked.

“No, thirteen.” Numbers smiled. Crispy Carl always made him laugh. Numbers often wondered how it would be to have Mr. Carl as his father.

“Are you gonna have a blackmitzvah? You’re a man now.” He was laughing at the confused expression on Numbers’s face. “Okay, that’s the number we gonna play today: 108.” Crispy Carl wrote the numbers on the slip for fifty cents straight. “We playing the one-oh because October is the tenth month,” Carl explained, “and eight is your b-day. Here, take this up to the window.” He handed Numbers some change and the slip.

Numbers went to the window and placed the bet. By now the ladies at the window were used to seeing him.

“Hello, honey, how are you today?” Sally, the black lady, asked.

“Fine, thank you. Have a good day,” Numbers replied.

“You too, sweetie.” She’d already begun taking the next person’s bet.

“NOBODY MOVE. EVERYBODY STAY WHERE YOU’RE AT!” a chubby white man commanded. He wore black shoes, blue pants, and a dingy white dress shirt under an old beige-and-brown-plaid suit jacket. The detective was flanked by several uniformed officers.

A man tried to scoot out the door, only to be hemmed up violently by one of the officers.

“Didn’t you hear the detective, scumbag?” The white officer pushed the man’s face up against the closest wall.

The two women behind the window had already gone into action, throwing slips and money into a stash box in a hole in the floor as covertly as possible.

Lawry, the plainclothes detective, peeped the activity and quickly started making his way to the window. “Didn’t I tell you cunts not to move?” His path was deterred by Louie running interference for his workers.

“Hey, Detective Lawry,” Louie smiled. “We took care of the powers that be. Why you’s coming up in here busting up my spot? This is the second time this month.” Louie talked with a thick Italian accent.

“Louie, we’ve got to shut you down. Your time’s running out. The administration is cracking down on these illegal number holes now that the lottery is in place.” Detective Lawry spoke to Louie like an old acquaintance. “The game is changing. I told you last year it was coming to this.” Then something else caught Lawry’s attention.

Numbers was frozen by the window with the number slip in hand.

“See, this is exactly what I’m talking about.” He pointed at Numbers. “You got these underage monkeys running around here like they’re at the city zoo or something. Come here, little blackie. You ready to go to jail like the rest of your tribe?” he barked at Numbers.

Numbers didn’t budge.

“Come on, Detective Lawry, easy on the boy,” Louie offered.

“I said, come here, little darkie, right now,” Lawry demanded again. This time Numbers slowly took a step forward.

All eyes were on Detective Lawry, fearing what he had planned for the youngest person in the spot. Crispy Carl knew Detective
Lawry was as low as they came. In terms of dirty cops, he was landfill.

“Hold on now, Detective Lawry, he’s with me,” Crispy Carl said, said stepping up.

Lawry swung around without warning, catching Crispy Carl off guard—directly in the abdomen—with his fat fist. Numbers and the other regulars gasped as Crispy Carl crumbled to the floor with the wind knocked out of him.

“Did anybody ask you anything, nigger?” Lawry fumed, looking at Crispy Carl at his feet.

“That ain’t right. That’s totally uncalled for,” an older lady spoke out.

“You made your point, Detective,” Louie conceded, holding his hands up, signaling that he’d given up. “What do you want?”

“Louie, you know I don’t want to do this to you, but I got a job to do. Shut it down right now. The next time I have to come back here it’s going to be real problems.” He glared at the patrons as he made his way out of the spot. He stopped when he got to the door and studied Numbers. “Stay out of my path, little blackie.”

“Mommy, Numbers is bothering us,” the twins called out in unison. “Stop, doo-doo head! Get out of here, poopy face!” Lakeisha and Takeisha screamed at him.