South Street (50 page)

Leo raised his side towel and removed the drops of Rayburn’s spittle from his face. “I think you had enough, Rayburn,” Leo said calmly.

“Awright,” Rayburn said. “But I owe ma buddy here a drink.”

Leo looked at Brown’s still-full glass. “It don’t look like he’s ready just now,” Leo said.

“I’ll drink it for him.” Leo shook his head, bent over and drew two beers, and walked away. Rayburn picked up one glass and maneuvered it toward his mouth. Brown turned his head and watched as Rayburn’s lips protruded grotesquely to embrace the foamy white head. Rayburn slurped the beer and set the glass down. “Where’s your woman?” he said to Brown. Brown looked back at the bottles behind the bar. “They’re all the same,” Rayburn said. “Every one. Bitches. Every one. Sisters, you know what I mean? You get right down to it, they’re all the same.”

“Yeah,” Brown said, “you and Rudyard Kipling.”

“Yeah,” Rayburn said. “You married? Don’t get married. Mistake. Marriage is just like one a them western movies: the good guy marries a woman an’ pretty soon the bad guy comes ’long an’ off she goes. Ain’t her fault. The bad guy, he got clothes an’ cars an’ money. Women just naturally goes for them things. So then the good guy’s got to go beat the shit outa the bad guy an’ bring the bitch on back. That’s marriage.”

“What if the good guy loses?”

“He don’t lose,” Rayburn said. “Nigger, don’t you watch TV?”

“What if he does?” Brown insisted.

“He
can’t
,” Rayburn said. “Listen, brother, the good guy, he don’t never lose. Now me, I’m a good guy. If I knowed where ma woman run off to …” He stared at his beer for a few minutes, then pushed himself swaying to his feet. “Hey, you goddamn muthafuckas,” he bellowed, “any y’all know where the cunt I married got to? Hey!” Leo moved quickly and clamped a hand over Elmo’s mouth.

“C’mon, man,” Brown said, getting up. He took Rayburn’s arm, forced him back onto the stool.

“Won’t none of ’em tell me,” Rayburn muttered. “They know I’d go get her back, kill whatever muthafucka she’s with, too. They know I’d go do it if I knowed where she was.”

“Sure,” Brown said, holding Rayburn steady on the stool.

“She’d have to come. I’m a good guy. The good guys, they always come out on top. Get right up there, right to the top.” He looked at Brown. “That’s right, ain’t it? It can’t be no other way, can it?”

Brown closed his eyes and swallowed.

“If it was any other way,” Rayburn said, “nothin’ would make no sense.”

South Street danced in the humid darkness, drinking the liquor of Saturday night, twisting hatred into anger, grinding anger into lust, battering lust into frustration, diluting frustration with watered gin. Blinking neon wrote the lyrics, mercury vapor hummed the tune, Vanessa’s feet beat out the rhythm, scuffing across the broken concrete, her heels on pavement conjuring fire. A thousand dreams went up in smoke, making the dark a little darker, the dripping neon more like blood. The door of Lightnin’ Ed’s was open. Vanessa paused outside it and tried to dab the perspiration from her face without ruining her make-up. Then she stepped inside.

The bar was not quite full. She surveyed the backs along the bar, found the back that belonged to Brown, went over and stood behind him. She moved her hand toward him, hesitated, drew it back, moved away. Brown turned around and smiled at her. “I don’t bite.”

Vanessa smiled weakly. “Are you—busy?”

“No,” Brown said, “I ain’t—busy, ’cept maybe for listenin’ to drunks tell me how marriage is a cowboy picture, ’fore they go off to get sick. You want a drink?”

“I want to talk,” Vanessa said.

“Well, you wanna drink while you talk? Because I definitely want to drink while I listen.” Vanessa nodded. “Leo,” Brown called. Leo came scuttling up the bar. “Could we have a …” Brown looked up at Vanessa.

“Sling?” Leo said. Vanessa nodded. Leo went to work on it.

“Well, hell,” Brown said. “You come here often?”

“Only when I’m tryin’ to make ma mind up about something.” Vanessa told him. Leo set her drink in front of her. “I’m sorry ’bout Jake, Leo.”

“Yeah, well,” Leo said, “Jake was just an’ old wino. I ’predate it, ’Nessa, but you know Jake wasn’t nothin’ special to me.”

“I know Leo, I know,” Vanessa said. “Hey, Leo?”

“What?”

“How come you so full a shit?” Leo looked shocked for a moment, then grinned ruefully. He waved away the money Brown offered, and trucked away. Vanessa looked at Brown. “There an empty booth?”

“We’ll empty one,” Brown said. He led her to the back, found a spot. Vanessa sat down. Brown started to slide in next to her, then moved around to the other side, facing the door. Vanessa lowered her head. “Shit,” Brown said, and moved around again.

“You don’t have to be settin’ next to me if you don’t want,” Vanessa said.

“I don’t have to talk to you if I don’t want. I want.”

“Lucky me.”

“Yeah, lucky you. An’ lucky me. I’m glad you came.”

“I just came to deliver your mail,” Vanessa said quickly. She opened her purse and took out a small buff envelope. “I found it outside the door when I left this mornin’.” She reached into her purse again and took out her cigarettes.

Brown looked at the envelope. There was no stamp or postmark, just his name written in ink—not ball-point. “It’s from Alicia,” Brown said.

“I know that,” Vanessa said sullenly. “Why the hell you think I took it?”

“How did you know? I recognized her handwriting but—”

Vanessa blew smoke in his face. “The bitch’s
name
is on the back, Brown.”

“Oh,” Brown said, turning the envelope over. It was unsealed. “What’s it say?”

“How the hell should I know?” Vanessa flared. “I don’t go around readin’ other people’s mail.”

“No, just stealin’ it,” Brown said, grinning.

“I
didn’t
read it.”

“All right, I believe you,” Brown said. He opened the envelope, read the note.

“You goin’?” Vanessa asked. Brown looked up at her and laughed. “All right, so I did read it. That a crime or somethin’? You didn’t believe me anyways.”

“Nope,” Brown agreed, “I didn’t believe you anyway.” He put the invitation back in the envelope and the envelope in his hip pocket.

“Well?” Vanessa said.

“Well, what?”

“Are you goin’?”

“Goin’ where?”

“Don’t play them games with me, Brown. This bitch done invited you to a party, an’ I want to know if you’re goin’. I got a right to know.”

“What right?” Brown said. Vanessa glared at him. “What right?”

“You owe it to me.”

“Why?”

“All right, I just want to know, okay? I just want to know.”

“What difference does it make?”

“Damn your black ass,” Vanessa said, “you know what difference it makes.”

Brown smiled faintly. “I’m going.”

“Yeah,” Vanessa said, looking away and puffing hard on her cigarette, “I guess you are. I guess you tired a talkin’ to drunks an’ whores. You tired a drinkin’ gin, you want dry martinis.”

“You don’t just change your whole life overnight,” Brown said. “It takes time. Like lots a things.”

Vanessa snorted.

“You catchin’ cold, or is that just some a your goddamn nosiness comin’ out?”

Vanessa ignored him. She stubbed out her cigarette, blew out the last lungful of smoke. “You get over there with her, you ain’t never comin’ back.”

“Shit,” Brown said.

“Shit, yourself. You’d be crazy if you did. Ain’t nothin’ worth comin’ back to, is there?”

Brown looked at her. “Finish your drink,” he said. He stood up. Vanessa looked up at him in surprise. Brown leaned over and kissed her on the nose. She got up awkwardly and followed him as he walked toward the front of the bar, stumbling slightly in her high heels. She caught up to him and hung onto the back of his belt. Brown turned to wave to Leo and ran right into the oscillating form of Rayburn.

“I wanna talk to you,” Rayburn said.

“Later,” Brown said.

“Not you, nigger, you,” snarled Rayburn, looking beyond Brown to Vanessa. “Bitch, where’s your littermate?”

“Only bitch I know is your mama,” Vanessa snapped, stepping out from behind Brown.

Rayburn took a step toward her, but Brown shot out an arm and blocked him. “Just take it easy, now,” Brown said.

“I’ma ask this whore some questions.”

“Her name’s Vanessa,” Brown said.

Leo came out from behind the bar, working the thong of his billy club onto his wrist.

“You don’t move that arm, nigger, you gonna be dead.” Rayburn’s arm moved and the razor flashed. Brown blocked the stroke with his forearm and gave Rayburn a hard shot over the breastbone with the heel of his hand. Rayburn stumbled backward into Leo’s arms, gulping and gasping. Leo grunted in disgust and shoved him against the wall. Brown leaned over and picked up the razor. Rayburn moaned and looked at Vanessa. “Tell me where she is.”

“You know,” Vanessa said.

“Shup, ’Nessa,” Leo said urgently.

“I got a right,” Rayburn said.

“You know,” Vanessa said. “You pretend you don’t, but you know.”

“Tell me,” Rayburn said.

Vanessa looked at him, pity and disgust mingled on her face. “She’s with Leroy.” She stepped around him and out the door.

Brown looked at Leo, then at Rayburn. He held out the razor. “You keep droppin’ this,” Brown said.

Leroy Briggs sipped a cold Ballantine ale and peered through the halo of street lights at the dark rectangle that was Brown’s door. Below him, cars sped down South Street on whispering wheels, winos wandered, ladies of the evening loitered in purplish clots. Young men clumped at light poles, talking jive and drinking cheap wine from bottles cloaked in brown paper. Leroy looked down on it all, hearing nothing but the hum of the air-conditioner that pulled in air, cleaned it, cooled it, and left the odor of the street outside. Behind a closed door a thin, saffron-skinned prostitute named Doris practiced her trade on firm and silent springs. Leroy looked down at the dark doorway while he loaded and unloaded the gun.

The bedroom door opened and Doris came out, wrapping a thin nylon robe around her. “You still here?”

Leroy turned. “No.”

“You’re makin’ ma friend nervous,” Doris complained. “He thinks you’re gonna roll him.”

“Tell him only gumshoe niggers an’ greedy honkies works on Saturday night, not me.”

“Then what’s the gun for?”

“Pleasure,” Leroy said. “Pure pleasure.”

“Well, I do work on Saturday night. Can’t you go someplace else to get your rocks off?”

“Where the hell you go to get your rocks off ’cept a whore?”

“Call girl,” Doris corrected.

“Shit,” Leroy said. “I like your view. An’ you got air-conditionin’.”

“How about some music?” Doris said sarcastically.

Leroy turned back to the window. “That’s a good idea. Put on some Sam an’ Dave.”

“Jesus,” Doris said. She shook her head and went into the kitchen.

Leroy turned. “Hey, how ’bout that music?”

“I ain’t got no Sam an’ Dave.”

“What you mean, y’ain’t got no Sam an’ Dave.” Leroy stalked into the middle of the room and stood, arms akimbo.

“I
mean
,” Doris said, coming back carrying a tray covered with a small, oddly-shaped loaf of bread, several cuts of cheese, a bottle of good red wine, and two glasses, “I ain’t got no Sam an’ Dave. I ain’t got no Temptations, neither. I ain’t got no Supremes. I ain’t got no Motown at all. Berry Gordy can kiss ma ass.”

“Who?” said Leroy.

“Never mind.” She eased open the door to the bedroom, slid inside, closed it behind her.

“What is this shit,” muttered Leroy. He stomped over to the stereo and examined the record jackets. “Damn,” he growled, “who the hell is this?”

Doris reappeared. “Keep it down, will you? He’s nervous enough without thinkin’ I got one a Tarzan’s apes hangin’ around in ma livin’ room.”

“Who the hell is this Batch?” Leroy demanded.

“Bach,” Doris told him. “It’s baroque.”

“I don’t want to hear it anyways,” Leroy said, putting the record down.

“Ma customers like it,” Doris said. “I got a very sophisticated clientele.”

“What the hell’s that mean? They use scented rubbers, or do they just eat you out with a knife an’ fork?”

“You’re gross.” Leroy smiled, stuck the gun in his belt, and headed for the bedroom. “Stay out a here,” Doris screamed. Leroy pushed her out of the way.

There was no one visible in the bedroom, but there was a big pile of blankets in the middle of the bed that quivered slightly. Leroy went over and lifted a corner of the pile. “Peekaboo, I see—Jesus!” Leroy flipped the covers back and stared in amazement. “It’s a honky! Doris, why didn’t you tell me you was fuckin’ a fuckin’ honky in here?”

“What damn difference does it make,” Doris snapped. “You prejudiced?”

“It makes a lot a difference. Why here I thought you had some simple-ass nigger in here, an’ here it’s a white gentleman, a member of the master race.” The gentleman member of the master race was huddled in a tight fetal ball. Leroy spread the covers over his pinkness. “Beg pardon, sir,” Leroy said deferentially. “Didn’t nobody inform me you was payin’ a little visit to the cabins. I hope you’ll forgive me.” Leroy waited a minute, then drew his gun and prodded the pile of covers. “You do accept ma apologies, don’t you, bwana?”

“Yes,” said the pile.

“Let him be, Leroy.”

“I ain’t hurtin’ him,” Leroy said. “I was just tryin’ to apologize. I got to be on ma best behavior. I feel bad. Ma man here came down to get laid, an’ I done spoiled some a his fun. I want him to have a good time. You hear that, boss? I definitely want you to have a good time. I want you to go on back to your fuckin’, an’ I’ma go on outa here an’ let you be. But you know, if you wasn’t to fuck all night, I might think you didn’t have a good time. You wouldn’t want me to think that, would you?”

“No,” said the pile.

“Fine,” said Leroy. “I tell you what. You get on this hook—a young lady, here, an’ you have a good time. I wanna hear some screams a pleasure comin’ outa here. Ain’t no soul on the stereo, so I want you to take this fine black woman an’ make me some soul music. No fakin’ it, now, Doris. We gotta give our visitors the real thing.” Leroy paused to give the pile a last poke. “Nice seein’ you. Sorry we can’t spend more time together.” Leroy turned and strolled out into the living room.