Paper Lantern: Love Stories (11 page)

I pick three straight winners, something I ain’t done since that first night.

Lester’s pleading for Frank to loan him money to play, but Frank ain’t listening. We’re all in our separate trances. Frank doesn’t take the blindfold off between races so’s not to mess with our luck, and for the first time I’m not dizzy anymore. I lose count how much we’re up. Three, four grand. Frank that sumnabitch is treasurer anyway. We’re in the zone, Rosebush, he says, you’re going to hit the Pick 3.

I go, You always said combo bets are for suckers.

Not today. We started with the Daily Double; we’re ending with the Pick 3. Going for broke, Rosebush.

Then he sees my picks for the last three races and chickens out, just bets a grand cause I pick three horses from the same stable where they name all their horses Bunny—Pearl Bunny, Precious Bunny, and Cool Bunny—and Frank thinks blindfolded or not I’m picking cute names again. Plus, what’s the odds on three Bunnies coming in first?

Well, I can tell you the odds that night: forty-four to one.

Pearl Bunny and Precious Bunny win their races. By then Frank’s hoarse from hollering. His shout’s a raspy whisper. He’s going berserkers cause Cool Bunny is boxed in eight lengths back. The blindfold slips down. Who knows how long it was off before I realized I could see. I’m so overheated I’m shaking like I got chills. I can smell myself. I smell like the bedroom and I think everyone at the track can smell it.

You mind an older woman talking frankly, Rafael? I get the feeling I can be honest with you, that you ain’t someone judges people. Maybe that ain’t an angel’s job—judging. You just bring the messages. It’s all just life on earth, right? I imagine a guy with your looks got some stories hisself. What do those nudes tell you? Probably the same stuff they’d blab about dressed. There’s a difference between nude and naked. Nude’s like art, but naked’s exposing the soul. Hell, who ain’t got things they’d strip their clothes off and stand bare-ass in the middle a downtown rather than tell?

Everyone’s up cheering. But me, I’m sitting like I already know Cool Bunny will bust to the outside, the driver using the whip like that buggy’s hitched to the sparkle horse, like the other horses are in slo-mo, like we’re all in slo-mo and it’s Cool Bunny in a photo, by a nose, and me sitting there shaky like I caught Parkinson’s from Lester, still feeling that whip, each lash with its own fever, and then Frank’s kissing me and pounding Lester’s back, and we’re waiting for the total to flash on the board, and when it does, we ain’t just won forty-four grand. No, what we won was the Four Deuces. When Cool Bunny crossed that line, our lives crossed a line, too. We won things we wanted and things we only thought we wanted, and things we couldn’t imagine, things we couldn’t give back. If we hadn’t of won, that slut, the Widow, never woulda stepped into my life. Oh, I’ll tell you about her. We won every moment that followed—like even this moment, Rafael. Think about it. If we hadn’t won all those years ago, you wouldn’t be in here now. So, the night we won is connected to you, too. We won you and me getting buzzed, sitting at the bar with the afternoon light coming in through the open door, and me setting up two more shooters of Chopin to celebrate our victory.
Tak. Salute!

So, without waiting to catch his breath, Frank’s on to beating the system. He don’t wanta pay tax on all that money, and to call attention to all we ain’t reported. Still hoarse from cheering, he says, Lester, my man, you’re on disability, and black, you cash the ticket, and a couple hundred of it’s yours.

Should be more, Frank, should be ten percent, Lester goes, that’s the minimum a waiter gets for godsake.

Like I said, Rafael, who ain’t greedy? I mean, just twenty minutes earlier Lester’s begging for two bucks and a brat.

All right, Frank goes, meet you half fucking way, and before Lester can argue he gives Lester’s left hand a shake cause Lester got the palsy in his right. Then he gives Lester the ticket, and turns to me with a fistful of cash.

We can afford a cab, my sweet Bud, he says, my amazing, beautiful Rosebud, it should be a limo. Go home and put on “Wild Horses” and get your voluptuous ass ready to celebrate. And he kisses me so everyone at Sportsman’s can see. This is how life should feel every moment, he says, and he makes like he’s kissing my ear, and whispers that he gotta keep an eye on Lester, that he don’t trust no left-handed handshake, and that he’s going to give Lester a ride home to the housing project after Lester gets the money for the ticket.

I get home, peel off the lucky white dress, take a long slow shower, and dab on perfume, Red, which Frank stole off the trains and says makes me smell like a Roman whore—that’s a compliment, by the way. I’m like in a trance beyond horny, achy to be touched. Hot as it is I put on the black nylons with what Frank calls the mysterious thigh-high scripture, that he kneels before and makes me raise my skirt so he can read with his lips. I been saving a negligee for a special occasion and I slip it on and check myself out in the full-length mirror, and don’t believe what I see. Showing right through the filmy fabric, my behind’s marked up. It makes me so dizzy I sit down on the bed. I don’t want Frank to see, so I put on a black slip instead. I put out cheese spread, crackers, olives, there’s a bottle of vodka in the freezer, and I put martini glasses in to chill, light candles. It feels too hot for candles, though I got all the fans humming, but I want it dark. I put on “Wild Horses.” I want it playing when Frank walks in, and I turn out the lights, and wait. And wait. The flames are floating on wax puddles by the time he shows up.

Why’s it fucking dark in here? he asks in a raspy whisper.

He’s like I never seen him, pacing, cursing, moaning in that hoarse voice. I’m pleading, Frank, calm down, tell me what happened. Where’s the money?

Gone, he says, motherfucking gone, and pounds the table, and the busted platter and crackers fly like confetti. Weeks after, I was still finding olives under the furniture. He yowls and grabs his hand, and I go, Oh God! You cut yourself.

God, my ass, Frank rasps. That sadistic bastard sets you up, dangles the score of a lifetime so he can bust your balls. Ever think about that on your way to mass, Rosie? Adam and Eve, Jacob and Isaac, Job, all them set-up suckers. Same story: kiss the Big Guy’s ass or else.

I think:
Blasphemy
, which is not a word I walk around thinking. Once a Catholic always, huh? After that night, Frank never got his voice back, even after he quit smoking. It made him a great bartender, like everything he told you was confidential. Women would tell him he sounded sexy, but I knew shouting at Sportsman’s he’d lost the sweet tenor voice that made him think he coulda sung opera.

I ain’t about to take God’s side, but it’s all I can do not to mention to Frank that if he’d just paid the tax instead of giving Lester a cut, we’d a been eating Ritz crackers and drinking martinis.

He slides down the wall and sits holding his head, a dish towel around his cut hand, telling me how he followed Lester to the window, just far enough behind so as not to look like they’re together, watching that winning ticket like a hawk. When Lester gets handed the money he glances over at Frank and smiles, and right then the IRS grab Lester and cart him away. Lester’s yelling, Racial harassment! Jesse Jackson’s going to hear about this!

An IRS guy looks right at Frank, so Frank vamooses to the car. He changes into his railroad clothes like it’s a disguise, puts on a Sox hat and sunglasses, and rushes back through the crowd filing outta Sportsman’s. He waits for Lester to be released, but they got him in some office, and by now the lights are blinking out on the track and in the concession stands, and the betting windows are grated, and Frank has to leave. He sits in the car waiting for Lester, not sure what exit to watch. An hour goes by, no Lester. Frank figures they musta took him away, that Lester probably snitched it wasn’t his ticket. Oh, goddamn motherfucker, Frank goes, like he’s having a coronary.

I say, Frank, they’ll let Lester go and he’ll come through with the money. And Frank inquires if I was born fucking yesterday.

You believe it? The sumnabitch who hadda beat the system, the big shot dumb enough to give our ticket to a mooch, is asking when was
I
born.

It’s human fucking nature, Frank says, the longer that crip has my money, the more it’ll seem to him like it’s his. He coulda figured out where I’d be waiting. He snuck out some other exit. I’ll have to kill him to get it and I would, but I don’t know what fucking slum he lives in, or what his phone number is if he even has a phone, I don’t know nothing about him. I don’t even know his last fucking name.

I’d know it if I saw it, I say, and get out the white pages.

What the fuck you doing? There’s millions of names in there and you’re going to find one fucking Lester?

I sit on a kitchen chair with the phone book on my lap, and Frank gets up off the floor to turn on the lights.

Leave them off, I tell him. Blindfold me.

Oh, Jesus motherfucker, Frank whispers.

He ain’t wearing the sparkle tie. His lucky clothes are still in the car. So he wraps the bloody dish towel over my eyes. You can do this, Rosebush, I know you can, he says like praying.

I got the phone book flipped open at random. Tell me like at the track, I say, and he takes my hand and in his hoarse voice says, Touch the names like you’re touching yourself.

More, I say. Dirty. Like those poems you wrote me.

Like you’re fingering that beautiful slick flame in the shadow between your creamy thighs. Like you know I’m watching you do it.

Dirtier. Tell me something you never told me.

Take those voluptuous tits out. I love it when your nipples perk up so everyone at the track sees they want to be sucked, but only I get to suck them.

They’re
our
tits. I gave them to you. You like them?

I like squeezing your nipples while I fuck your voluptuous tits. You like that?

Pinch them hard. Yeah, harder.

Tell me how you want it, you slut. Tell me the dirtiest thought you ever had.

Tell me you wanta whip my voluptuous ass.

What? he says.

Tell me, you sumnabitch. Like I’m your sparkle horse.

I wanta whip your voluptuous ass.

You gotta really want to.

Phone book’s on the floor, I’m over the chair, his buckle makes this
tink
as his belt slides from the loops.

Mark me, I say.

When the knot on the dishrag comes undone, he stops. We’re both breathing like we been racing up flights of stairs.

You okay, Rosebush?

I slide up my slip so he can see the marks.

He kneels and traces them with a fingertip, slides his finger lower. You’re dripping, he whispers, and wipes my wetness on the marks like salve, then kisses them. Never kissed me like that before, so gentle. The wicks are flickering out, making smacking sounds like his lips. I don’t tell him it ain’t his marks he’s kissing.

Some crazy night, huh, Rosebud?

Ain’t over yet, I say.

I’m shaky like electric’s running through me, and pick up the phone book from where it fell open on the floor, lay it on my lap, close my eyes, and run my finger along the page. To Lionel James. I look up the James column for Lester. There’s Leo and Leonard and Leroy, but no Lester. There’s L James, and Frank says, Let’s try him.

It’s a
her
, I say, but Frank calls anyway, lets it ring and ring this tingly ring, then asks, Lester there?

I can hear L James shouting through the receiver. Frank hands me the phone like it’s burning his hand: “Middle of the fucking night, you dumbassed shitkicking motherfuck.” A woke-up girl baby’s crying behind her.

It’s hopeless, Rosebush, Frank says, and starts to cry, too, his face pressed against my legs, the fans whirring at different
voooms
, me turning pages in the phone book. He’s got his head cradled in his arms like he’s mercifully asleep when I tell him, Frank, he’s one of them guys with two first names. It’s right here, James Lester living on Martin Luther King Drive.

Could be him! I don’t fucking believe it! Only Lester lives in a housing project. Frank gets up off the floor, grabs the phone, and starts dialing the number.

Better wait till morning, I tell him.

No fucking way. Maybe it ain’t him. The phone rings and rings like before, but this time it’s a man’s voice finally answers.

Lester, Frank says, what happened to you, my man?

Frank’s looking at me, smiling this nasty smile the whole time he’s carrying on his cheery, bullshit side of the conversation: Those racist bastards, Lester, and you with Parkinson’s … You got the money? Good man … Yeah, you earned extra for your trouble … We’ll discuss it … Don’t worry, of course we’ll renegotiate. I’m coming down … Where you living? They got it wrong in the phone book. No,
now
, Lester … We got to celebrate. You wait up for me. I’m bringing a cold six-pack and an everything pizza.

He moved to the Lawless Gardens project, Frank says. They named that right.

Let it wait till morning, Frank.

Can’t, Rosebush. Too much could happen between now and then. I got to get it before he brags to some friend who’ll immediately be figuring how to screw him out of it. Don’t worry, Rosebud, we’re still on a roll.

Don’t give him more percentage than the tax woulda been. He didn’t do nothing to win that money, Frank. Suppose he’s already told someone and they’re setting you up. It ain’t worth risking your life out there at this hour.

You let me worry about that, Rosebush. I wasn’t born fucking yesterday.

He loads the gun he stole off a freight shipment. Handguns were the most prized thing people at the railroad yard stole. You could always sell them, but this one’s a six-shooter, a cowboy pistol, and when he brought it home, Frank said it was to keep under the bar at the Four Deuces. Of course we didn’t own the Four Deuces yet, but Frank was planning for the future.

A night to remember, huh, Rosebush? Frank says, and he’s out the door.

I got a bad feeling about this. I fall into bed thinking I won’t sleep mercifully, too many thoughts, and lay there watching lightning, knowing I should turn off the window fan because a downpour’s coming to break the heat, but I can’t move and don’t hear the rain or thunder or nothing until that
tink
a Frank’s belt wakes me. He’s undressing. The window fan’s off.