Where the Line Bleeds (29 page)

"You want to watch something?"

"I'm cool."

Christophe's eyes hurt: he let his head roll back and it hit the wall. A
knock sounded, and he thought it was his head until he realized someone
was tentatively tapping at the door. Javon set his beer on the floor, so hard
foam rose to the top and spilled from the mouth of the bottle like lava.
He ushered in a short, dark figure.

"Come on," he said, and the woman followed him into the kitchen.

Christophe knew her, but then, the entire hood knew her. Her name
was Tilda, and she was around his mother's age. She lived in a square,
sagging house with her mother, who everyone on the block called Mudda
Ma'am. Tilda had struck an uneasy balance: she took care of Mudda
Ma'am for most of the day, making sure she didn't wander outside
and into the overgrown woods in a spell of senility. Every few hours,
Christophe would see Tilda hurrying down the street towards Javon's:
her hair pulled back into a tight bun, her shirt tucked into her pants,
her hands in her pockets: Christophe knew she was fighting to appear
nonchalant, unhurried, straightforward.

In his time selling from his park bench, Christophe had only seen
Mudda Ma'am appear once: she wore a nightdress the color of wisteria and her gray hair was laid thick to her scalp. She walked with her head
down and her hips pushed forward, curving in toward her soft, paunchy
belly as if she were pregnant. She had tottered around the azaleas grown
riotous, the grass grown in angry long bunches to the lip of the ditch:
it had taken her twenty minutes. By then, Tilda was back, and she had
ushered Mudda Ma'am back into the sad mouth of the house, away from
the ditch where she had stood swinging her head blankly back and forth,
up and down the tree-shrouded street.

Christophe tried to keep his eye on the new video that looked to have
the same women as the last video, and he tried not to look at Tilda but
could not help it. She moved jerkily into the kitchen and disappeared
around the corner. The screen jumped into sharp focus, but then
Christophe could hear her soft voice and Javon's low rough one over the
scissoring, thudding music of the video.

"What you need?" Javon said.

"A dub."

Christophe willed himself to watch the women, gliding sleek and
oiled like seals in and out of the fluorescent blue water of a pool, lying on
their sides on white lawn chairs. The rapper wore a suit and fedora, and
he held a cigar between his fingers as he gestured.

Tilda followed Javon from the kitchen, and Javon sank down into the
sofa cushions next to Christophe. Tilda hesitated, then ducked her head
at Christophe and skipped past the television.

"Sorry."

"It's alright, Tilda," Christophe shrugged.

Tilda smiled; her teeth were brighter than they would be out in the
light of the day. Christophe knew the edges of the bottom and top front
pairs were brown from the heat of the glass pipe. He had seen her picture
in Cille's yearbook that she'd left behind when she'd gone to Atlanta.
Tilda's smile had been wide and all white.

"Don't let all my air out, Tilda," Javon said.

The door shut with a whoosh and a muffled thump. Javon's phone
rang. He took it into the kitchen. More glistening women jumped in and
out of watery focus. Javon returned to the sofa and pulled a sandwich
bag from his pocket. The bag was shredded and dirty. He tore one end of the greasy plastic and untied the knot, shook one small chip out of the
cluster, and twisted it up in the shredded corner.

"Marquise fixing to come over here. Say he want a dub to sell and a
dime sack. You got him?"

"Yeah." Christophe made his own small sack with one of a wad of
sandwich bags he kept secreted in his pockets like plugs of chew. When
he was done twisting the ten-dollar sack, he was surprised when Javon
dropped the crack into his palm. He gripped it, and it dug into his flesh
like a small pebble.

"What's this for?"

"For that."

A knock sounded at the door and Marquise opened it wide enough to
slip in sideways. A rapper slid over the hood of a lime-green car and wove
around streetlamps as he ran from the police.

"What's up, y'all. Good money today." Marquise didn't sit. "Thirty?"

"Yeah." Javon pulled at his beer. "Christophe got it."

Marquise pulled out thirty dollars, the bills faded and folded, and
dropped them in Christophe's lap. Christophe offered the crack and the
weed to Marquise palm up, feeling like his skin was shrinking away from
them. Marquise plucked the bags from his hand. His fingernails were
sharp and jagged.

"Alright, nigga." Marquise slid back out the door. Christophe felt
a tongue of heat lick through the open door, and then dissipate in the
chill air. He shifted and the money slid down the crevasse of his lap. He
handed it to Javon.

"Keep it. I don't usually charge Marquise, so it's all yours."

Christophe thought about leaving, about dropping the extra ten to sit
on the sofa in his place. What if an undercover came in and Javon handed
to him to sell? Christophe would be guilty. But didn't Javon only sell to
established clientele? Then Christophe thought of Cille somewhere out
there in her bright, unfamiliar rental car.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Sides, you helping me out." Javon rolled his eyes. "I
done seen every one of these videos ten times. Want to play something?"
He knelt before the television, and Christophe slipped the money into his pocket. He barely caught the controller Javon threw at him, and as he
and Javon chose football teams and played, he lost. When the next knock
echoed softly at the door, he was almost not surprised when Javon paused
the game and dropped another soapy crumb in his lap. Christophe sold.
When the door closed and he resumed the game, he played until his fingers
hurt. He knew that Javon was giving him business by letting him hang
out there, but he was also manipulating him into taking a risk; he was
handling the crack-if something happened, he would take the charge.
He did not realize it was time for him to leave until Bone pulled the door
open and stepped inside, and Christophe saw the sun was skimming the
tops of the pine trees. He had sold all of his weed for the day, and his
money pocket was stuffed with bills.

Joshua was waiting for him in the parking lot.

"You want to drive?" Christophe asked him. Joshua paused in closing
the passenger side door. Christophe shook his head when he saw the sweat
dried to salt on his brother's face so that his skin looked lined with small,
white crevasses. It made him look old. "Never mind, I got it," Christophe
said.

"You did anything with Cille today?" Joshua asked.

"Naw. I brought her to get the car and then I sat by Javon's house."

"What she say she was going to do?"

"Visit some friends. Shop with Aunt Rita."

"So she supposed to be at the house tonight?"

"I guess so." Christophe hesitated. "Laila supposed to be coming
over?"

"Naw. I told her not to come over til Saturday." Joshua grinned tiredly.
"So, what'd you do all day?"

"Played some games." Christophe could not help it: he felt his voice
tighten with the lie. He tried to follow it with a truth. "Sold all my weed
today, though."

Joshua looked out the window, and when he spoke, it was into the
wind.

"They got a opening at the dock. Somebody quit." He fingered the
windowsill. "If you come in and drop off another application, you could
say I was your reference. It might help."

Christophe nodded imperceptibly. He should be excited. Christophe
saw a figure in the distance half-pedaling a bike. He was inching along
next to the afternoon traffic. His arms were skinny and he wore pants in
the heat, and he had a plastic grocery bag slung over the handlebars of
the bike.

"I'll come in next week," Christophe said.

As Christophe neared the man, he saw the bag hung slack: a few
bright aluminum cans shimmered through the opaque plastic. Something
sank in his chest, and he felt sick.

"Look."

Sandman. Pedaling weakly along the concrete and wood boardwalk
of the beach. He stopped and scanned the sand and grass at the side of
the road, and then looked back against the stream of traffic. His hair was
long and bushy.

"All the way out here in Germaine? On a fucking bike?" Joshua
breathed this against the palm of his hand. "No."

Christophe watched the speedometer. As they neared Sandman, he
tried to keep pace with the normal flow of traffic, but found himself
speeding up. He didn't want Sandman to see them. How long had it
taken him to ride his bike from Bois Sauvage to Germaine? Two hours?
Three?

"We on the other side of the median, Chris."

They neared Sandman and passed him. They saw him stoop in the
sand with his mouth open, and dig. When he pulled out a can, sand
sprayed from the dirt-logged aluminum. Christophe jerked his head back
around to the road, and put both hands on the wheel.

"Fuck," Christophe said.

Joshua wiped his face.

"Cille's probably home," Joshua said, and laid his head back.

Christophe pulled over into the right lane; other cars began to pass
him. He did not care. When he looked back over at his brother, he saw
that Joshua had closed his eyes with his mouth open to the wind.

At the house, Christophe awoke Joshua by giving his shoulder a
shake, then exited the car with a slam. Joshua followed, his feet dragging
in the long grass. They'd have to cut the yard this weekend. He walked up the porch stairs and through the screen door to find a cluster of hot-pink
flowered plants lining the walls; they were smaller than azaleas, and their
stems were knottier and woodier. Bougainvillea.

Christophe was already through the front door, already kissing
Ma-mee on the cheek and falling into the couch before Joshua had even
crossed the threshold. Cille was standing in the middle of the living room,
smoothing a pale yellow pleated sundress over her legs. A tag hung from
the strap at her shoulder.

"What do you think?" she said.

The yellow of the dress caught the sunlight diffusing through the
windows. The color of the dress complimented her: it made her eyes seem
lighter in the dark, her skin burnished tan. She knew it; she wore a lot of
yellow. It was the color Joshua always saw her in when he thought about
her in Atlanta.

"It's nice," he mumbled.

He wanted to walk straight to the bathroom and shower, but he felt he
couldn't. He knew that she had probably been waiting on them to get their
opinion. Waiting on him. She should know she is beautiful, he thought.

"We need to cut the grass on Saturday," Joshua said. Christophe was
fidgeting, the hand he leaned on shook as he tapped his foot. Christophe
nodded against his fist.

"Lawnmower need to be fixed." Christophe clasped his palms between
his shaking knees. "Last time I cut it, the engine act like it didn't want to
crank. I'ma go out to the shed and see what I can do."

"Christophe, they got mashed potatoes and corn and fried chicken
on the stove." Ma-mee held out her arm to stop him as he passed by her
on his way out the front door, but her hand only grazed his T-shirt.

"Alright. Need to see about that lawnmower, though."

"You have any luck today?" Ma-mee shot out.

Christophe stopped and Joshua heard the hinges squeal.

"Maybe," Christophe called softly.

The door snapped shut.

"He like cutting the grass that much?" Cille said. She smoothed the
dress again and moved closer to Ma-mee. "What you said about the color,
Mama?"

"I told you I liked it." Ma-mee reached out and grabbed at the skirt of
the dress, rubbing it between her fingers. "Joshua, how was work?"

"Alright."

"Christophe told you what he be working on out in the shed? I asked
Paul what it look like out there, but Paul say it look mostly the same, like
Chris ain't really moved nothing." Ma-mee was kneading the weave of
her easy chair, plucking at a few stray threads. Joshua was doing the same
and then made himself stop. Cille was still standing in the middle of the
room, looking at him.

"He ain't cleaning up or nothing-I mean, nothing to talk about."
Joshua fumbled for the lie. "He be working on them saws and hedgecutters and stuff. You know."

Ma-mee seemed so bent in the chair, so old. She looked at him and
her eyes seemed more gray than blue, then, harder. She blinked and they
watered. "Tell him to be careful in there." She breathed softly. "Got things
that'll cut you in there."

"He get cut with something with rust on it, and then he have to go
to the hospital for a tetanus shot. Lord knows what he could catch up
in there. Y'all grown, though." Cille flicked the tag over her shoulder.
"Messing around with all that junk out there. I'm surprised you ain't got
Paul or Max or one of them to get rid of it since Daddy died."

"He left that for his sons and these boys here. I ain't got the right to
take what's left to them." She shook her head and directed her comment
to Joshua. "Go bring your brother some food, please?"

Joshua rose from the sofa and Cille grabbed him by the elbow and
tugged him with her toward her room. She left him standing in the
doorway.

"Yes, Ma-mee." Joshua called. Cille's bed was littered with clothes:
bright silks in flower patterns lay strewn across the bed. She held up a red
shirt against her shoulders and raised an eyebrow, and Joshua nodded.
She smiled and laid it down in a different pile, and then picked up a sky
blue dress and held it against her front. It made her look like a little girl.
He nodded again.

"So when I'm going to be able to see this girlfriend of yours?"

Cille was leaning over the bed, folding shirt after shirt; Joshua watched
her arms move, fat and smooth as a child's. She sat on the bed and peered at him. He didn't like the way she was looking at him: so expectantly, so
speculatively. Ma-mee must have told her.