Red Light Wives (34 page)

Besides, it had become uncomfortable living next door to Helen's parents. I didn't see them that often, but even once a week was one time too many. The last time I saw Old Lady Daniels and her husband outside of that tomblike house they lived in, they were standing on their front porch looking at me with such evil eyes it hurt me just to look at them. It gave real meaning to the phrase “if looks could kill.” I'm lucky that I'm not telling my story from beyond the grave.

On my way to a trick from San Diego, staying at a hotel across the Bay in Berkeley, I came across an affordable apartment that was in a nice neighborhood and close to a school. The apartment manager told me that if he could verify my employment, the place was mine. When we needed to list a place of employment on credit applications, or any other documents, we referred people to that used car scheme that Clyde and his buddy, Lou, ran as a front. Not wanting Clyde to know my new address once I left him, I couldn't take advantage of the C and L Used Cars ruse. I
had
to get a real job now, or I'd be stuck forever in a situation that was slowly destroying me. No matter how good and easy the money was, what I was doing was hurting me now as much as it was helping me.

Rosalee's desertion had made Clyde so cranky. Something told me that if I wanted to avoid his complete meltdown, I'd probably have to go AWOL even sooner myself.

Just like Rosalee.

C
lyde had left me several messages since the day before, and so far I had not called him back. His first message had sounded quite casual, but by the time he'd left the last message, I couldn't deny the desperation in his voice. Losing a gold mine like Rosalee had crippled his spirit and his wallet, at least temporarily. Spending so much of his time with his daughter and grandmother, and supervising our movements didn't leave him a whole lot of time to go out headhunting for another wife.

Besides, Clyde complained all the time about how hard it was to find “a good woman” in our profession. I couldn't agree with him more. From conversations with tricks, I had learned a lot about the business. Things had changed from the days when a man could organize a stable of women, tell them what to do with their body parts and their money, beat them and get away with it, and expect to remain in control. Yes, there were still men out there running that kind of show and women who let them, but the new millennium had brought with it a whole new attitude in the sex industry.

Greedy strippers, porn movie heifers, and horny housewives—as if they didn't have enough to keep them busy—were boldly taking away business from the established working girls. It drove Clyde up the wall.

“Them cows! They ain't got no more class than them quarter peep shows and them life-size blow-up dolls,” Clyde complained when the subject came up. “And, it's them fuckin'
Pretty Woman
movies and other Hollywood foolishness that's hurtin' this business. New girls that buy into that shit don't wanna do no real work no more, thinkin' they can work it like Julia Roberts, and a Richard Gere is just around the corner!”

I mean it made Clyde so mad, he scared me. And, Clyde was a scary man when he was in a bad mood. That Glock that he usually carried in the waistband of his pants didn't scare me as much as his eyes when he got mad.

Clyde had nice eyes when he was in a pleasant mood. When he was with his daughter, his eyes were as bright as new money. But when he got mad, upset, or sad, his eyes took on a sinister look. The sparkle that was usually there would disappear and the pupils would get real dark. Like the flat, lifeless eyes you'd see on a doll or a shark.

I knew that I would have to face Clyde sooner or later, or haul ass the way Rosalee did, but right now I had other things I had to address first.

I could always count on my stepsister, Verna, and her lover Odessa when I needed them. I hadn't called or written to them back in Mississippi in weeks. Like I'd expected, Odessa picked up the telephone on the first ring the Saturday morning that I called, two months after going to Sherrie Armstrong's depressing funeral.

“Odessa, you must sleep with the thing right next to you on the pillow,” I teased, right after she'd mumbled a sleepy greeting.

“I sure enough do. When my woman is on the road, I like to have the phone as close to me as possible,” Odessa replied with an affectionate tone in her voice. It didn't take long for her to sound wide awake, which she should have been long before now. It was 9:00
A.M.
in her time zone.

“So my big sister's out on her job?” I kept a telephone close to me when I was in bed, too. When Clyde called, he wanted immediate attention. With Ester and I each having a bedroom extension, and a phone in the living room and our kitchen, one of us almost always grabbed the phone on the first ring when we got a call. And, everybody I knew packed a cellular phone. So, if somebody wanted to reach me, they could—if I wanted them to.

“Lula Mae, your big sister is always on one job or another. Lucky for me…” Odessa let out a mysterious chuckle. Then she made a slurping noise with her tongue.

“You nasty buzzard!” I hollered.

As low-down, funky, and nasty-minded as men were when it came to sex—and nobody knew that better than I did—lesbians could get pretty loose, too. I couldn't count the number of times I'd walked in on my stepsister and her lover licking all over each other, then describing everything to me that I'd missed.

“Verna's doin' a run to Mobile, Alabama, to drop off a pile of live chickens for this redneck motherfucker your daddy been doin' business with for years.” It saddened me to think about some of the other high-risk jobs Black women performed. As dangerous as my “job” was, I didn't have the nerve to drive trucks for a living like Verna.

“I see,” I muttered.

“What you been up to, Lula? We ain't heard from you in a cat's age.”

“Uh, I've been real busy.”

“Too busy to send anybody a postcard or to call us? What about your daddy and your stepmama?”

“I sent a birthday card to Daddy last month, and I called him. He wouldn't even come to the phone,” I replied sadly.

“Call him at work if you want to talk to him. If you called the house and he wouldn't come to the phone, it's probably because that witch he married wouldn't let him know he had a call. She do that shit to Verna all the time.”

“Oh. Well, I hope she's not interceptin' the notes and cards I send to him.”

“Like I said, if you want to talk to your daddy, and he don't answer the telephone himself when you call his house, you best call him at work. Now, what you been up to, girl?”

“Odessa, I met somebody. A bus driver. His name is Richard Rice.” No matter how hard I tried to deny my feelings toward Richard, and no matter how I had dogged him out to Ester, that man was constantly on my mind. Some days I'd walk around smiling, recalling the warm feeling I'd had sitting across from him at that table in the steakhouse. “Uh, I think I want to get to know him better. He might be my last chance. He's from Louisiana and…and, he's the kind of man every woman wants.” I had to pause because I realized I was beginning to sound like a love-struck schoolgirl.

“Not me,” Odessa reminded, laughing and sucking her teeth at the same time.

“Oh, you know what I mean. But, sister-girl, if you were straight, he'd be the kind of man you'd want. He's nothin' like any of the other men I've known so far.” I caught myself before I said anything too stupid. Odessa's brother Bo, my dead husband, had been one of the sweetest men to walk the Earth. “He reminds me of Bo,” I said as fast as I could. “Even looks a little like him.”

“Is that right?” Odessa asked, her husky voice sounding more like a woman's instead of a man's, which wasn't too often.

“Uh-huh. I'm goin' to call him up tonight to see if he still wants to see me. I've been thinkin' about him ever since we met a few weeks ago.”

I had to keep checking myself to make sure I didn't sound like a fool. Every few seconds I looked toward the door, prayin' Ester wouldn't walk in. I hadn't seen her in three days, but I knew she was all right. She'd left me several messages, telling me not to worry about her and that she was spending some time with one of her Latino friends in the Mission District.

“You be careful out there, girl. I know you don't think so, but your daddy still loves you. So do the twins, and me and Verna will coldcock you if you fuck up out there. We love you, too.”

“What about Etta? She ever ask about me and how I'm doin'?”

“Fuck that bitch. You don't need her. Verna's her own daughter and livin' right around the corner, and she don't have nothin' to do with her.”

“I figured as much. Well, when you see the twins, you can give them my phone number and tell them I said hi. Same for Daddy.”

I hung up and started searching for Richard Rice's telephone number. When I hadn't found it after ten minutes, I took that as a bad sign. I picked up the book I'd been reading when I met him even though I'd finished it. Wedged between two pages was the napkin that he'd written his telephone number on.

With my hand shaking, I dialed his number. He answered on the fifth ring. “You probably don't remember me, but my name's Lula…we met at Tad's Steakhouse a few weeks ago.” I held my breath.

“The sportin' lady I met at Tad's Steakhouse near the cable car turnaround?” he asked in a tone so dry and distant it made me uncomfortable. I wasn't sure if he was trying to be funny or sarcastic. I didn't like either one.

“Uh, yeah.” It felt like something was burning inside my chest, and I had to rub myself. I wondered if I'd made a mistake calling up Richard.

“I sure enough do remember you. How you been?” Now he sounded more than a little pleased to be hearing from me. “I'm so glad you called.”

“I've been fine.” For the first time in my life, I felt shy. Even though he couldn't see me, I lowered my head and kept my eyes on the floor.

“How's business? You workin' hard or hardly workin'?”

My face burned. “Business is good.” I cleared my throat. “You told me to call you if I wanted to hook up or somethin'.”

“I did and I do. Girl, I am so glad you called! I been thinkin' about you day and night.”

“Oh? You do remember
everything
I told you about myself, right?”

“Uh-huh. I just asked if you was the sportin' lady, didn't I? You said yeah. Hold on, baby. Let me get my beer.” He returned within seconds, breathing hard. “That's better,” he said, slurping. “Now, what do you like to do to have a good time?”

I felt more relaxed. “Oh, I like movies, goin' out to dinner, walkin' on the beach.”

“I see. I tell you what, if you ain't busy tonight, let me take you out to a movie, then dinner, and a walk on the beach.”

I had never felt like a teenager, even when I was one. I felt like a teenager at that moment.

“Where you live at?” Richard asked.

“Give me your address. It would be better if I came to you,” I said, sucking in my breath so hard, my chest hurt.

“Whatever.” Richard got quiet for a long minute and then he said in a rush, “You sure I won't get my black country ass kicked by one of your jealous gentlemen friends?”

“No, you won't. But it would be easier if I came to your place. I got this moody roommate, and I don't want to upset her.”

Richard gave me his address, but I didn't even have to write it down. I memorized it on the spot. Then he told me to take a cab and that he would pay for it, which I declined.

He was one man whose money I didn't want.

I
was hoping that Lula was out on a date or something. She'd been depressed lately, and I didn't like leaving her alone in the apartment when I was at Manny's for a few days.

When I'd called him to come get me the other day, I told him to park his car at the corner so he wouldn't upset my neighbors. The people on my street was not used to seeing cars like Manny's cruising around. I really don't even know exactly what kind of car it was. Something long, low to the ground, white all over except for a design that's suppose to be a flame of fire on the hood. He had a ornament perched on the front end of his hood. The same typical Latin foolishness I seen every day. It was one of them big-tittie women with a misshaped head and flaps that I couldn't tell if they was wings or a cape. A huge pair of foam dice was dangling from a string off the hook on his rearview mirror. The same place where normal people hung baby shoes.

Speaking of babies, I had to deal with one of my own. Don't ask me why, 'cause I couldn't say why God let some things happen. Up to now, my life had been more than a little crazy. But what happened to me in that alley in Manny's neighborhood put the icing on the cake. I didn't know none of them guys who jumped me and ripped off my panties and fucked the hell out of me. I didn't care then, I don't care now. It's too late to care about anything. Since I was in a fucking coma or something while I was getting fucked inside out on that ground, I couldn't say if any of them bastards used condoms. I should laugh at myself for even thinking something so crazy. Since when did rapists care about safe sex? And anyway, guys desperate enough to rape somebody, they probably already got every disease in the book.

I didn't tell nobody at first about me getting raped. Not even Lula. I had to tell Manny. And that was only because he was the one who found me sitting in my car that night with blood all over me and my clothes ripped to shreds. Calling the cops was a joke. They barely came to this neighborhood when somebody got murdered. I had left my car unlocked, but I'd lost my keys back at the scene of the crime. After Manny took me into his place, wiped me off, and put me in one of his big shirts, he went out with a baseball bat looking for them thugs. He didn't find them, but he did find my purse. My car keys was still in it, but my money was gone. My credit card was gone, too. But that worthless piece of plastic had been canceled by the bank anyway because I kept going over my credit limit and forgetting to pay the bill.

I was glad to be back in Manny's place. It felt more like my home than my own home.

Compared to my sharp apartment, the dark, musty (but clean), postage stamp-size place Manny lived in looked like part of a flophouse. The wallpaper was so cheap I couldn't tell if the faded designs was roses, balloons, or what. Why he even bothered to cover his windows with the drapes he had, I don't know. You could see straight through them things. But since Manny lived on the third floor he didn't have to worry about nobody peeping in on his business.

The couch in Manny's living room was so hard and lumpy, my butt and back was aching like I had been with ten tricks in the same day, back-to-back—as I had been just a week ago! But I wasn't sure then that I was with this baby. When I went to see a doctor he gave me some good news: I was pregnant and I wasn't HIV positive so I didn't have to worry about AIDS. But even before my visit to the clinic, I had promised myself that if I was pregnant and HIV, I still wasn't having no abortion. I was going to have my baby and do the best I could for as long as I could. I would give my child a better chance than my mother gave me. I wanted to do at least one thing in my crazy life that I could be proud of.

Anyway, Manny had this lopsided chair across from the couch that was even worse. The last time I sat on it, I fell clean through the seat. He covered the seat with cardboard and a flat, musty pillow and that's where he was sitting, looking very handsome. Picture that movie star Andy Garcia, a little younger, looking a little rougher. That's the kind of handsome I seen when I looked at Manny. Now like I said before, I been knowing Manny since I was a real young kid.

During my teenage years when I rode shotgun with them outlaw gangbangers, Manny was already in OG territory. He was a veteran, and I had just started doing things like fucking and bleeding every month.

I had heard about Manny before I even knew who he was. The street reporters told everybody how Manny handled his business. Nobody got in his way, and if they did, they only done it one time. One weak-minded asshole who had to be crazy or new in town and didn't know Manny's rep tried to jack Manny and take his new Nikes right off his feet. He was the only man Manny killed and got caught for. But he only had to spend like five years in San Quentin.

I heard while he was in that place, he had some more trouble. Some White dudes into that White supremacy shit called a challenge to Manny, and that was a big mistake. Now from what I heard, Manny didn't even have to kill that sucker hisself. There was tons of the Mexican mafia in lockdown with Manny, and they had a lot of love and respect for him. He had them take care of that White punk. Before the deed was done, Manny got cut up in a few places and came so close to taking his last walk of shame, they had even called in a prison priest. But guys like Manny never die easy.

Anyway, once Manny got out of the joint, battle scars running up and down his back and belly, he had put all that shit behind him. Hell, he was even talking to young kids, trying to get in their heads what a precious thing life could be! And if that wasn't saintly enough of him, he sent money back to Mexico to help support some of his relatives. Now here he was: ex-con, ex-killer, ex-thug. Yeah, Manny was a changed man. He was somebody I could tell anything to.

“Manny, I'm goin' to have a baby,” I said during a commercial break for
Friends
. He was sitting next to me on that lumpy couch of his.

He didn't say nothing at first. He just looked at me and blinked, and then he started laughing. “So that's why you keep refusin' my margaritas.” He took my hand in his and forced me to look in his eyes. “Ester, you are a very lucky woman. You been blessed with a gift from God.”

I trembled. “What do you mean by that? Ain't you goin' to ask me who is the daddy?” I knew it was too soon for my baby to be moving, so it had to be my own heart slamming against the inside of my chest.

Manny shrugged. “It don't matter who helped you make that baby. You still need to give thanks.” Manny smiled, showing me teeth that was no longer sparkling with them cheap gold caps I sometimes seen grinning between the lips of too many people thinking they looking fly. He was still smiling when he scratched his neck and looked off to the side. “I hope it's mine.”

A pain shot through the side of my belly, straight up to my head, forcing tears into my eyes. Manny's words made my head spin and my eyes burn.

I was two months pregnant. I had just been with Manny, for sex I mean, for the first time just three weeks ago. No way was he the father of my baby. He got me to his bed after I'd finished with a really handsome and sexy trick that night—a very famous star from television! Every now and then I got a little pleasure from screwing a trick, but never the kind I wanted. Not even when it was a sexy famous person. The trick that night had almost done me some good. He would have if he'd done the job a little bit longer. One thing I never did was to try to get a trick to keep fucking once he had cum—unless he wanted to. A trick was all about business for me, not pleasure. So after I left the trick's hotel room, I drove to Manny's apartment, anxious for some sexual healing for myself for a change. I had been making my own orgasms for years. That was a sad confession for a woman my age, but it was true.

Manny did a good job in the bed, at least for me, he did. Nothing like that lazy, clumsy Clyde. Manny had a real nice body—most of it at least; six-pack across his chest, toned arms, nice butt, something nice between his legs. I overlooked his battle scars and skinny legs.

“Manny, look, I been in all kinds of shit these last few years.” The commercial was over, but we didn't look at
Friends
no more. Manny was still looking in my eyes.

“I know that,” he told me, sipping his second shot of tequila. I wanted some myself so bad, my mouth was itching. But I had my baby's health to think about.

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I know you,” he said, pointing from his head to me. “Maybe you been mulin' shit inside every hole in your body from Mexico for the cartels like my three sisters. Or, maybe you been robbin' everybody in San Francisco but the mayor. Maybe you got some games I ain't never even heard of up your sleeve.” He shrugged, blinked. “I used to do all that shit and then some, but not no more. And you know what,” Manny paused and took a real deep breath, beatin' his chest with both fists, “it feels good. I didn't know what it was like to walk down the street and not have to watch my back until last year. I'm thirty-six fuckin' years old now, and I feel like I just was born. I feel…real good.” Manny had a beautiful smile, and it was aimed in my direction. I giggled like a little girl when he pulled me onto his lap. “Let me tell you somethin',
mamicita
. Even when you was a little kid tryin' to hang with the gangs, I had my eyes on you. You been comin' to me now,” he nodded and winked and motioned toward his cracker box of a bedroom, “sharin' with me my bed. I like havin' you here.”

“I didn't have nowhere else to go,” I admitted. “Nowhere. I ain't got nobody I can call my own. I still got a posse still alive over here, but, well…” The homegirls I used to hang with in the old days, the ones who started having babies at twelve and thirteen years old, now their daughters was strolling around them same streets with babies of their own. There was a lot of
grandmothers
in the Mission still in their twenties. I could have been somebody's grandmother by now. “I'd much rather be here with you than with them,” I said. I felt myself drifting farther and farther away from Clyde.

Manny squeezed my hand real hard. “Listen, you wanna be with me, I wanna be with you. If you down with me, ain't nobody gonna jack you up and get away with it.” He looked down at my stomach and patted it real gentle and quick. “Whatever you want to do about the baby, I'll be with you.” He sucked in his breath. “Now, you plan to have it or what?”

“Don't you want to know who gave it to me?”

“Do you want me to know?”

“It happened…that night.” I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. “I don't know which one is responsible.”

“Oh,” Manny said, sighing. He tried not to look mad, but I could see anger in his eyes. He bit his lip and rubbed the back of his neck. He slid me off his lap, and he stood up in front of me. “You want me to help you get rid of it?”

It took a lot to shake me up. My face got so hot, I felt like I was on fire. I stood up from that couch so fast, I almost pissed my pants. Manny moved back a few steps.

“I would
never
get rid of my baby. I don't care if a demon came straight out from hell and got me pregnant, I would never in my life turn my back on a child of mine,” I said. My voice seemed like it was coming from my heart instead of my mouth. Manny always knew about me, how I was left with the trash in that alley when I was born. It was something I didn't like to talk about, so most of the people who knew me didn't bring it up that much. “I got raped down your street by so many guys I couldn't count them. They didn't hurt me that much, and I got over it real quick. But they left me a baby.
My baby
.” It dawned on me that my mother could have been raped, too. That was all the more reason for me to keep my baby. I couldn't repeat my mother's crime.

Manny's handsome face dropped so fast and far I thought it would hit the floor. “Hey, I'm sorry. I just thought, well, you know, it bein' so hard to raise kids and all, chicks get abortions left and right. My landlady's daughter, cheesy bitch that she is, just had her
seventh
abortion.”

I sighed and sat back down. “Now that you know I'm keepin' some rapist's baby, do you still wanna see me? And even after my baby comes, will you? Because, maybe I'm gonna get me a real job.” Like Manny just said about hisself, I was feeling real good, too!

Manny's eyes slid to the side, and he looked kind of nervous. But then he looked at me and shrugged. “I went from workin' the streets, makin' bank, gettin' paid.” A sad look that I seen on Manny more times than I wanted to, slid across his face now. “At the same time I had so much, but still, I had nothin'. Cops and other hustlers always breathin' down my neck, so many guns bein' aimed at me I felt like I was facin' a firin' squad—even in my own house.” Manny then lifted his head high up and showed me a proud face, smile and all. “Now I'm a cook in a restaurant that's so bootsy it ain't even listed in the phone book. I don't make much money, but, I wouldn't go back to the old crazy life if you paid me.” And then Manny said something that just made me want to ball up and cry my eyes out. He said, “I want to live.”

Then I got serious, because I wanted to live, too. “I…If I want to get my shit together, I'm gonna have to move from my place, cut loose, uh, cut loose some people I been kickin' it with for a long time…” I couldn't believe the words sliding out of my mouth! Clyde didn't know about the baby yet, and I didn't plan to tell him until I had to. Soon, though. Things had changed so much with him. His daughter and his own expenses was still at the top of his list. He was still pissed off with Rosalee for running out on him, putting a dent in his income. Now he was losing even more money, left and right, because of me and Lula ignoring his messages and hiding out from him. Since Clyde ran his business in such a loosey-goosey way, instead of the way other men like him did, enforcing strict rules and using serious violence, he couldn't expect nothing better from us.