The Waking (2 page)

After the Chinese toilet, though, I was anything but straight, and Mary was there to welcome me home. She was there, praying as usual, running her brown fingers over black rosary beads, and she had just come out of the shower after getting off early waiting tables at the Crawford Grill, a jazz club on Wylie that used to host all the great jazz legends like Lena Horne, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dizzie Gillespie, and Duke Ellington. Yeah, white folks used to stream to the Hill for a party that never seemed to end. But now that the Hill’s on ice, one big parking lot for the Mellon Center and the Penguins, the party’s over.

My Mary still serves up wings and jazz at the Crawford Grill in a white starched shirt, black pants, and a black bow tie, and whenever white folks come in anymore, and that ain’t often, they get hugged to death in the middle of what they call African folk art under the sparkles thrown from a spinning silver ball. And Mary’s hair was all wet and kinky and long like I like it, and she was barefoot in sweats, and the new Steelers jersey I just got her was hugging her thick body just right, and we …

We kissed. That’s all. Nothing more. We kissed. All the loneliness, that stupid toilet—none of it mattered. I was in heaven, a place just this side of Mary Moore’s lips.

She pulled back from that blissful kiss, pointed at the scars on my arms, and said, “You’re still on that stuff, Manny.”

“
They’re scars, I swear,” I said, and they are because I don’t use my arms or the spaces between my fingers or toes anymore. I got a better place now that nobody knows about. Maybe God knows about it, I don’t know. He ain’t been around much in my life.

Then Mary said something like “What about that?” and pointed at a patch of skin on my leg, which isn’t really a patch of skin. It’s a postage stamp square of flesh where the skin used to be. That’s where I shoot now. I once knew a guy who did that and fooled the people at House of the Crossroads into giving him methadone, which doesn’t do a thing, if you asked me, when he was down on his money. Anything that only costs a dollar and only lasts a day can’t be that good for you. I think he was about to lose that leg when he started shooting in the other leg. He hops pretty good for an old guy.

But Mary wasn’t hearing me, saying something like, “Put a bandage on it so it will heal then.”

I tried that once. It only oozed more and turned green and hurt like crazy the next time I popped it through the scab.

Then she had some gauze out and some ointment and I should have just let her fix me up, but I needed a fix, and that’s when I realized I wasn’t good enough for Mary Moore. And at the rate I was living, I knew I’d
never
be good enough for Saint Mary Moore.

“
Be still,” she said, but I couldn’t be still.

“
I gotta go,” I said.

“
Don’t go” was all she said.

But I went.

“
I’ll pray for you, Manny,” she said.

“
Pray for me?” It seems that all Mary does is pray.

“
I’ll never stop praying for you.”

“
Well, you can stop,” I said. “There ain’t nothing to pray for.”

She fussed with the hem of that Steelers jersey. “There’s always something to pray for. I won’t stop. I pray for us, too.”

“
For us?”

“
Yeah. You, me …” She bit her lip. “And our child.”

“
What?”

“
I’m pregnant.”

“
You’re …”

“
Two months. Just found out today.”

Of all the stuff to happen now! “Your mama know?”

“
She
did the test.”

Oh, man! “How you know it’s mine?”

She batted a tear from her nose. “You’re the only one I’ve ever been with, Manny. I’ve told you that a hundred times.”

My buzz evaporated. “You can’t have it, Mary. Soon as I get enough money, I’ll take you over to—”

“
No,” she interrupted. “I’m having this baby, with or without you.”

I caught my breath, and I shook my head. “So that’s how it is?”

“
That’s how it is.”

We can’t be having a baby. I won’t be any good as a father. I’m barely good enough as a human being. “You don’t even want to talk about it?”

“
There’s nothing to discuss.”

“
But I’m …” I’m not the right man for you, Saint Mary Moore.

She gripped her rosary. “But you’re what?”

“
Nothing. Just nothing.” I’m nothing, and I’ve always been nothing. “I, uh, I gotta go.”

“
I’ll be here,” she said. “
We’ll
be here.”

“
Yeah. Whatever.”

I stumbled over to Auntie June’s house to get some money so I could get right before going back to Mary to talk more about this baby. I always make more sense when I’m straight. We had fussed and fought before, and a bouquet of roses and a night of simply holding each other until the front door rattled and I had to go out a window had smoothed everything over. This baby thing was a little different, but I was sure we’d figure it out.

Auntie June supposedly lives a block over from where that playwright August Wilson grew up, but a block over in every direction is no place for a famous writer to grow up. That’s probably another one of her stories.

Auntie June unlocked all five locks and three chains before letting me in. “You are a
sight,
” she said as I walked past her.

Auntie June is as close to a human raisin as anyone I know as wrinkled and black as she is, which is probably why no one ever married her. She locked all the locks and set the chains before joining me in the kitchen. I don’t know why she has so many locks. She ain’t got nothing but a big console TV that might be worth twenty dollars.

“
Auntie June, I need some money for Mary’s birthday.”

“
How many birthdays does Mary plan on having this year?”

Auntie June doesn’t really like Mary, mainly because Mary has such dark skin, but mostly because Mary’s a Catholic. “You ought to find yourself a light-skinned,
Baptist
girl, Emmanuel,” she tells me whenever I talk seriously about Mary. “Mary’s too dark and too much of a heathen for you two to have children.”

“
Just one birthday this year, Auntie June,” I told her. “I want to get her something nice.”

“
Didn’t you get paid today? The rent’s due, and I don’t have all of it. I’m okay for groceries for a change, and I planned on using your fifty to keep the landlord away. You have a fifty for me, right?”

“
You never needed money for rent before.”

“
Haven’t I been telling you how rough the winter was, Emmanuel? And you weren’t around to plug up all the drafts, now were you?”

“
I was working.”

“
So you say. Anyway, I’m going to need fifty, okay?”

“
Oh, no, uh, they had some payroll problems, maybe Monday, they said.”

Auntie June, though, has ESP. She knows me too well. “I don’t have any extra, especially for any birthday gifts, and even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you. Your great-great uncle Terrence was in a bad way once, only his demon was hooch, and—”

“
I don’t need no history lesson right now, Auntie June,” I interrupted. “I need a hundred for a gift for Mary.” And maybe a little extra for some flowers.

“
A gift for Mary. Emmanuel, about the only thing you haven’t given that girl is a baby, and I am praying
hard
against that day.”

Her prayers hadn’t been answered, but I was not about to tell her that. Not then. Not when I needed a fix and some flowers. “Auntie June, you know I’m clean. I been working steady for over a year, right? I haven’t had time to do that stuff.”

“
You come in here smelling like a brewery expecting me to believe …”

Auntie June wandered to the TV, the top covered by all sorts of religious stuff, like praying hands that light up and little statues of black Jesus. She buys them from every preacher that comes out of that TV and keeps
The 700 Club
on twenty-four hours a day since the day she got cable. She’s worse than any Catholic, let me tell you, when it comes to praying and going to church.

“
You need healing, Emmanuel,” she said, “so come over here and put your hands on the TV.”

“
No.”

Auntie June thinks God can heal even brain cancer if you put your hands on her TV just right.

Auntie June looked at the screen. “It might just be Pat Robertson right now, but if you just believe, you’ll be healed.”

No white preacher can heal me. “Give me a hundred, and I’ll be healed.”

“
For a few hours. You need a
permanent
fix this time, Emmanuel, now come over here.”

She grabbed at me with her claws, and I tore away. “It won’t work no more, Auntie June. I’m a grown man. No radiation or whatever comes out of that old set will heal me.”

She grabbed me harder then.

“
What are you doing?” I howled.

“
Trying to love the badness out of you, Emmanuel, just trying to love all the—”

I pushed her back. “It won’t work.”

“
It might if you let it. You have a spiritual heritage, Emmanuel. Your great-great-great grandpa was a
great
spiritual man—”

“
I’m tired of your stories, Auntie June. Give me some money!”

That’s when I started feeling it in my mouth. It’s getting to be like clockwork, this feeling. My mouth was as dry as the Alabama cotton Kazula was supposed to have picked, and my feet were feeling as heavy as the Alabama swamp mud Kazula lived in.

Auntie June did as she’s always done, and she gave me the money. She didn’t let go of it right away, though. “If you take this money, I’m done with you. You can’t come back. I’m closing accounts with you right now.”

“
Right.” I snatched the money and went to kiss her, but she turned her head.

“
I’m not kidding, Emmanuel. This is it. The locks will be changed by morning.”

“
Uh-huh.” She didn’t have enough for the rent, but she was going to have enough to change all those locks?

“
I’m not kidding, Emmanuel. You’re bad news. You weren’t always this way.”

Here we go. Now I get to hear
my
history thrown back in my face.

“
You were such a good little boy. Remember when you were over at Grace Memorial? Remember Project Success? And that gardening project? You were so good with all those flowers. Remember Camp Allequippa?”

“
I remember, Auntie June, I remember.”

“
And that time you were in the Steel City Sprinters? I was so proud of you, out there running and winning that race.”

“
I never won a race, Auntie June.” I came in third once or twice. I just had too much white in me to be a sprinter, I guess.

“
But at least you
belonged
somewhere, somewhere
good,
Emmanuel. At least you were fighting for something. Whenever you fight for your life, it praises God.”

Here we go again.

“
You fight and keep on fighting so God can know that you appreciate Him creating you. Now look at you. You belong nowhere but the street. Your mama would be so ashamed of you.”

I headed for the door and unlocked the locks. “She should be the one who’s ashamed for leaving me.”

I almost had the last chain unhooked when Auntie June spun me around. “What did you say?”

“
I don’t want to argue with you, Auntie June. I’m tired of arguing tonight.”

“
Did you say that your mama left
you?
” Her eyes were fierce. “
And
she
should be ashamed?”

“
I didn’t mean it.”

She squeezed my arm. “You better not mean it. She didn’t ask anyone to kill her.”

I didn’t want to think of any of that. “I know, I know.” I flipped the last chain. “I’ll see you soon.”

“
Emmanuel, you aren’t seeing me anywhere but church. Your clothes will be outside the door.”

Auntie June is stubborn, but she has always backed down before. “So I’ll see you at Ebenezer on Sunday.” I don’t know why she goes to Ebenezer. The choir only has maybe twelve bodies, and the only song they sing with any feeling is “He’s My Rock.”

“
Don’t come into God’s house looking like that.”

I opened the door. “I thought God accepted everyone as they are. Besides, how am I gonna get cleaned up if you change the lock and leave my clothes out in the rain?”

“
You have Mary for all of that, right?”

I wasn’t going there, so I left and took the money first to Centre and Kirkpatrick, hanging with some old crows until the “word” said go to Wylie and Elmore. Then I migrated with the crows, spinning like human ashes past graffiti shouting “Street drugs are bad luck.”