The Residue Years (21 page)

You call that gold? We must look like marks, I say.

Nah, nah, not at all, boss. Check it out. Got the fourteen-K stamp and all that. The shit's authentic plus ten percent, he says. Ask anybody. I do my business on the up-and-up day-and night, seven days out the week.

Half Man asks what's in the bag.

Oh, this right here? he says. This what I happened upon this morning. A few personal items. Household necessities and such. Got a twin sheet set with a thread count high as a house note. Got a nice comforter too. Calvin Klein drawls, got T-shirts, the premium kind with that thick-ass cotton, got flashlights and batteries, a coupla pairs of leather gloves. And you know them gloves gone come in handy. Be cold as an Eskimo's balls out here fore you know it. Altogether the shit come up to bout rent on a one-bedroom. But I ain't gone stick you up like I do them white folks. The shit's all yours for the fair bid.

Half Man slaps his bottle down and digs in his pocket. He spreads his offer into a fan.

You serious, dude says. For almost five times that worth of merchandise. All brand-new with the tags attached. Damn, boss, I know I'm fucked up, but you ain't got to do a brother like that!

Man, you want this money or what? Half Man says.

But that's bad business, he says. Can't do it for that.

Half Man stuffs his cash out of sight and dude tucks his black boxes and reties his bag. He fathoms the room and idles, begins to schlep off with his wares.

Hold up, I say. How much for the bedding?

He stops and turns and brightens and asks me what I think is fair. We haggle a second or two and settle. He throws in a pack of batteries, which is, as he calls it, a new business perk.

Me and Half Man split games and finish the rest of our brews. I'm good and buzzing by the last one but miles from slurring or swaying. Or so it feels. Meantime, one of the gambler girls wins big and brags about it to her friend. Sweets asks if we'd like another round, but I order water instead—another tenet of Uncle Sip's drink-for-life manifesto.

The side door swings open and in rushes a clique of dudes wearing black parkas and blue Chuck Taylors. There's a funny-ass joke running between them right up until the time they see us. Seeing us is the same as someone muting the laugh track on a sitcom. These clowns (in a city this small we all do) look hella familiar, but I couldn't tell you from where or name a single name. They pull up seats, place an order for a round of Rémys, and keep right on snickering. They glare at us and bet money they're measuring their reps against ours. I walk over and ask Half Man if he thinks there might be a problem and he says, Shit, if it is, it's for them, maybe.

Got to dig the homie for that. True, there ain't no superheroes here (all of the tough dudes end up dead or defeated), but some guys, guys like Half Man that live by pistols and pathos, there's just ain't no persuading them they're capeless, that, no matter, white tees over flesh never amounts to Kevlar.

The wannabes spread out. One of them (dude smells like a lit blunt) spreads quarters on the rail and hovers without a word. We take our time finishing, and play another game just because we can, and when we're done, Half Man snatches our bets off the rail, while I grab the stuff I bought for my mom. We blasé to the other side. It crosses my mind to hum.

On the other side we order our usual: burgers big as Frisbees, crispy fries, biggie pops. We grub by the big picture window. Outside, the wind throws trash across the lot. A trucker climbs into his semi. A woman flits towards the hospital with a thick parka up top, scrubs down below, and gleaming white nurse shoes.

Half Man asks about Mom.

She's cool, I say. But she needs to get out of that spot. I need to get her out of there.

Where she stay again? he says.

Piedmonts, I say.

The Piedmonts, he says. Damn, dog, I see your point.

She gave me a key, I say. I'ma shoot this bedding there ASAP. If she don't see me leave it, she might keep it.

Why wouldn't she keep it? he says.

Man, she been trippin, I say. Asking about where I get the money to help. On her holy shit again.

You still scheming on ya'lls old house? he says.

Yeah, that's the plan.

Oh, so they selling it now? How much?

Ain't got that far, I say.

You can bet that shit gone be a jug, he says.

Why you think I'm into it like this now? I say.

Half Man scopes the restaurant and cranes across the table. Dog, what you think about fuckin with meth? he says. It's crazy-low startup cost and stupid net. My homeboy knows some white boys in Southeast that be making bank.

Bad idea, I say.

No, serious, he says.

Me too, I say. How about we stick to what we know fore we get knocked?

My pager goes off and it's a lick. I chomp another bite of burger and scribble a fry in ketchup. You ready to roll? I say. Let's be out.

Peoples, peoples, keep it one hundred with me. You've been wondering about us improvidents—my uncs, the booster, Half Man, the antiheroes on the other side of the Sham, me. You've been wondering, what is it that sets us apart, haven't you, wondering how are we all, all, all, all, one in the same?

So simple—but for her not much of a care.
—Grace

You steal one day off from no days off.

And laze.

Unplug the phone and carry in a radio. Tune it to a station that dulls the noise—a tantruming baby, neighbors barking back and forth, the thumpety-thump-thump of a neighbor that keeps his beat box blasting—that seems to never cease. You run the hottest tub you can, a temperature that steams, and, if you're short on essentials, dump capfuls—shampoo, dishwashing soap, liquid detergent—of something to bubble and foam. No one's home, but you close the door and seal off the world. Light a candle and place it close, and by candle flame pin your hair off your neck and take your time stripping out your clothes. Climb in one foot first to test if it scalds, then full in. Roll a bath towel and prop your neck. Fold a facecloth and lay it across your eyes.

Be who you want, where you want, for as long as you want.

Forever.

Soak, and when you're done, dry and rub down—cocoa butter and cream that's sweet—and get dressed, make a mug of hot tea or hot cocoa or warm milk, and saunter into the front room to be still with yourself.

The door.

The door and a voice I can't make out behind it calling my name.

I walk to the curtains and crack a slit and peek to see who it is. It's my caseworker here unannounced, which, pursuant, as they've told me, is well within her rights. I don't so much let her in as she rambles past as if she owns the place and leans her tall umbrella against the wall. She's dressed in a wool coat, checkered wool scarf, and the kind of low-heeled heels that—forgive me, God—they sell at stores for old hags. She tells me to help her out of her coat, that she prefers it hung on wood, and I scuttle off to the closet with it over my arm. She tells me to have a seat when I come back, that this will take as long as it takes. Then she's off down the hall and into the bedroom and I can hear her slamming drawers, hear her dragging open the sliding closet that never stays tracked; if she wanted, she could turn the pockets of my old coat inside out, shake my pants wrong side up, snatch the lid off my precious few shoe boxes. She'd be justified tearing off my sheets, shaking the pillow from its sham, flipping the mattress, and with the time she spends, this could be what she does. She stomps into the bathroom next, creaks open the cabinet, and rattles bottles and bottles of pills and makes a fracas of restacking them on the metal shelves. She uses the toilet and runs the faucet twice as long as anyone should. Then you can see her in the hall, rustling through the hall closet, a cubbyhole understocked with secondhand towels. She passes through the front room and into the kitchen, where she slams the cupboards, clangs the silverware, clashes the pots and pans; where she hounds through a drawer I keep stuffed with pens, papers, broken knickknacks, condiments from work. She opens the fridge and it grunts on
cue. If the fruit and vegetable bins weren't empty, she'd probably hunt them too.

It hasn't dawned on me until now what a former tenant might've left. That this woman could happen upon that last person's loose pill, empty gram packet, that she might find an ancient antenna pipe, a scorched spoon, a burnt pop can with a pencil hole punched through it. And if she does, it's trouble—a bench warrant, increased fines, a mandate for day-reporting, jail time that lasts for months, a possible request for revocation, a brand-new charge. She makes her way back into the front room. She takes my picture off the wall, snoops the seams of the curtains, kneels to check the innards of the baseboard heater. She ask-tells me to stand and pulls the couch cushions one by one. Not until all of this is done does she settle, take a steno pad—you can see the handcuffs attached at her waist—out her purse and start to scrawl. Looks like everything checks out, she says. Impressive.

Thanks, I say, and cinch the tie on my robe. So I've been wondering, is there a chance of me being cut loose sooner than my contract date? I say.

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of that, she says. But I'd listen. Where are you on fines and fees?

Caught up, I say. And I'd work to pay them early if need be. There's plenty hours down at my job.

She tells me I'd have to be finished, that we can discuss the prospect at my next scheduled check-in. She says it, too, as if it's so minute. The strings on my life low on her list of concerns. Makes you wonder if she's ever needed permission to come and go, if she's ever been afraid of what comes next.

The door. The door—again!

This time a bam, bam, bam that cracks it from half cracked to half open. It's who else? Seeing his face I could lie down and die.

MCA, don't act all like that, he says. I came to make amends.

Now's not the time, I say. Not now.

C'mon, now, thought it was Christian to forgive. It been bothering me ever since, he says. He huffs a facsimile cloud and shivers and rubs the sleeves of his stretched knit sweater. He jokes he's far from weatherproofed and asks to come in. The man smells as you'd expect he would.

My caseworker appears at my back, exhaling what must be stones.

Oh, you got company, Michael says. He pats his misted afro. There's a cake cutter stabbed in it.

The way she says my name. Oh God, the way she says my name.

Michael beams that jagged yellow puzzle. He swaggers in and introduces himself. But pretty as you is, he says, call me what you damn well please.

May I ask how you and Grace are acquainted? she says.

He scratches his beard. Sheeit, me and baby girl go way back. Ain't that right, MCA? He stoops to tie his shoe. He gets upright and brushes the knees of his corduroys.

Interesting, she says. She tells him her name, her first name.

Beautiful name, he says. And biblical too. Now, if you don't mind me askin, how you know old MCA?

This is my caseworker, Michael, I say, and feel sparks in my chest.

Oooooh, Michael says. Oh, I see. You mean as in an outstanding member of our county's fine, fine Department of Community Justice.

Yes, that's correct, she says. And can you clarify when you and Ms. Thomas last convened?

Michael jabs his cake cutter into another spot. He turns to me—slow; he turns to her—slower. Now, that's a damn good question, he says. Hmmmm, let's see. Well, if I'm not mistaken … No, no, no, as a matter of fact, your forgiveness, please. The date seems to have escaped me. These days a brother's mind ain't worth a quarter, he says, nor nickels, he says. But I can vouch it's been a good minute. A good little minute, indeed.

She asks for his full name.

He gives her a false surname and bows and backs away.

Look like you two tendin official business, he says. Think that's my cue to get the hell outta Dodge.

I close the door with strength, and twist the locks back and forth, back and forth, and turn by increments to face her and all of what she is. She moseys over to where she left her purse and roots through it. She culls a pad and scribbles in the pad and packs it away. She touches the cuffs at her waist. Ms. Thomas, I take it you know the rules of your contract, she says. And the penalties for breaking them.

Wait, I say. Please let me tell you the truth.

She crosses her arms and cocks her neck. The truth, is it? she says. Let's hear this.

But now?
—Champ

This was after mom and Big Ken had split, a night KJ was off with Big Ken, so it was just me and Mom at the crib. It was one of those nights when my gut was doing Béla Károlyi backflips. One of those nights when I slunk into Mom's room with the hope of coaxing her into fixing a snack, fixing a meal, fixing a grain of anything. That night, though, I found her lying across her bed with her face smothered in a pillow. I asked what was wrong and she rose and told me not to worry, that what was bothering her was grown folk's business, and since it was, I should go on back to my room and lie down. And go on back to my room was what I did. But no sooner had my stomach settled and let me close my eyes than Mom shook me awake, rushed me to get dressed, and tugged me out the front door. She hustled me into our compact car and told me we were going to see Dawn (her best friend, my play aunt), that we wouldn't be but a minute, and drove us across town with me complaining the whole way till she promised me a Burger Barn burger, my favorite. We drove to a mangy motel at the end of Interstate Ave., climbed flights of stairs, and knocked on a room with its numbers scribbled in thick felt-tip. This man straight out a nightmare answered, raked us a good one with his eyes, and let us in. Mom's friend, my play-aunt
Dawn, was sitting on a bed cluttered with clothes, looking as though she'd been mauled by pit bulls. I may have been a month or so shy of finishing fifth grade but it didn't take no adult foresight to see what was happening was all to the bad. Mr. Nightmare cleared the clothes (beeper tags still attached) off the bed, turned on a show, and tossed me a tepid can of pop. I watched a black-and-white TV with bad V-hold till the credits scrolled on a kung fu show or a cowboy show or a hero show—whatever they played before the networks went off-air. By that time my bladder was good and full, but the problem was, Mom, Aunt Dawn, and Mr. Nightmare were locked in the bathroom. What could I do? What I could do is what I did: squirm with my eyes stinging and the pop about to burst an organ. About the time that I was about to erupt I scrambled over, stuck my ear to the bathroom, and heard whispers that made me hella-hesitant. Picture me doing a rain dance for courage. Picture, just when I worked up the nerve, Dawn cracked the door on a bandbox of gray haze. Picture clouds rushing out and my mother wild-eyed and sucking a pipe.