Across the way, p.7
Across the Way, page 7
Odell stopped laughing and grabbed my arms. He held me in place until I was able to stand up straight on my own. “You got a headache? Baby, if you had told me you wasn’t feeling good, I wouldn’t have pestered you tonight.” He embraced me and started stroking my back.
“I was fine then. It started all of a sudden after we finished.” I sniffed and rubbed the side of my head.
“What about them pain pills you been taking all these years?”
“I ran out,” I lied.
“Well, I’m going to bring home a big supply from the store tomorrow.” He released me, put his hands on his hips, and shook his head. “I can’t believe the most educated colored woman I know would stand on her head to get rid of a headache. How could you believe such a cockamamie thing—especially coming from a dimwit like Yvonne? In the first place, a woman your size, standing on her head could lose her balance and hurt herself and have to go to the hospital. Lord! If I hadn’t walked in here when I did, your name might have ended up in the newspaper. Can you imagine what folks would say if they found out you’d done something so stupid and had a freak accident? Especially them folks you work with at the school and them students’ mamas and daddies. Not to mention how it would make me look.”
“I know and I’ll never do it again.”
That was three weeks ago. Since I hadn’t used up all of that neipee powder Clarabelle had given me, last night I decided to start drinking it again. While Odell was taking a bath, I mixed enough for two glasses. When I went to sleep, I dreamed I had given birth to a child that had the same sparkling black eyes, high cheekbones, and thick curly hair as Odell.
The concoction hadn’t given me the runs this time, so I decided to use it until I ran out. But I would never attempt to stand on my head for ten minutes again. If God hadn’t blessed me with a baby by the time I ran out of that neipee, I’d give up.
I sighed and shook those thoughts out of my head.
* * *
Twenty minutes after I got inside my house, I happened to look out the front window and saw Yvonne and Milton walking by. I didn’t waste any time running out to my front porch to greet them. “Hellooooo. I heard Sheriff Potts released y’all. Praise the Lord.” They stopped and stared at me with blank expressions on their faces. After what they’d been through, I was surprised they didn’t look more cheerful now that they were free. “It’s wonderful.”
“No, it’s Jesus. Without Him, we might never have seen the light of day again,” Milton said in a serious tone. He finally smiled and a split second later so did Yvonne. “We got out yesterday afternoon but was too tired to come over last night to let y’all know. Besides that, we got a few scrapes, knots, and bruises during the process.”
“They beat y’all, too?”
“Yup. But not as bad as they could have,” Milton added, sighing with relief.
I shuddered. “My Lord. I can’t imagine what being in jail is like. But since y’all spent time locked up before, I guess y’all knew what to expect.” They stopped smiling as I went on. “I hope y’all learned your lesson and will be more careful about who you let come to your house. Jesus might not come through the next time. I’m glad those roughneck deputies didn’t break any arms and legs.” I was talking so fast, I had to pause and catch my breath. “We don’t carry anything in the store to treat injuries that serious. But I’ll have Odell bring y’all some salve that’ll help heal those other injuries. He told me Sheriff Potts didn’t have enough evidence to keep y’all.”
“That scoundrel didn’t have no evidence at all!” Yvonne blasted. Now they looked upset and hostile enough to cuss out the world.
“I declare, y’all look so worn out. Go home and rest. I’ll come over in a little while. It’ll be nice to be around folks and have a few drinks again,” I gushed. I thought it would help if I kept up a cheerful attitude, but they still looked upset and hostile.
“We’ll be glad to have you, Joyce,” Milton muttered, glancing toward the street and then at my front door. “I hope Odell will come over when he gets back from his daddy’s house Sunday night . . .”
“He will. But I’m sure he’ll be thinking about y’all the whole weekend. He’s probably on his way to his daddy’s house as we speak.” I looked over their drab gray work smocks. “I’m glad to see that y’all went back to work at the grill already.”
“We couldn’t afford not to,” Yvonne said in a bone-weary tone.
“It’s a shame y’all couldn’t take off today just to rest and heal. But I understand about the money situation. I’ll talk to Odell and see if we can give y’all a hundred dollars. And it’ll be a gift, not a loan.”
I couldn’t believe how quick their demeanor changed. Now they had wall-to-wall grins on their faces. I was surprised they didn’t do cartwheels. Especially Milton. He actually danced a five-second jig. “A hundred bucks would make us right happy.” He turned sharply to look at Yvonne. “Ain’t that right, sugar?”
She was grinning so hard now, I was surprised her jaws didn’t lock. “Sure enough. I’m so happy I could wrap it in eggshells,” she squealed, bobbing her head up and down like a woodpecker. “Joyce, we’d be lost without you and Odell.”
“I know,” I agreed.
CHAPTER 11
MILTON
DR. WILBUR PATTERSON, THE SHARP-FEATURED GENERAL PRACTITIONER from down the street, and his plain, pigeon-toed wife, Eloise, moseyed in our front door ten minutes after me and Yvonne got home. They was the first guests to show up Friday evening. “Milton, I hope we aren’t too early,” Mrs. Patterson said, with a apologetic look on her face. “I tried to get this man to wait an hour or so to give y’all time to get settled. But he was champing at the bit and couldn’t wait any longer. So, here we are.”
“Y’all right on time. We been itching to get back into the swing of things,” I assured her.
“That’s what I wanted to hear! I was so happy when I saw y’all walking up the street. I’m glad everything is okay, because I’m itching to do some socializing,” Dr. Patterson tossed in.
The four of us laughed and group hugged.
“Wilbur and I didn’t think Potts could make a case,” Eloise said in her high-pitched voice. “We were here Tuesday night and we sure didn’t see any teenage white girl on the premises. I hope y’all can still join us for Thanksgiving.”
“We’ll be there with bells on,” Yvonne replied with a firm nod. “We got much more to be thankful for now.”
“Y’all find a seat and I’ll get some drinks,” I piped in. “I’ll talk to y’all some more directly.”
The Pattersons plopped down in chairs facing the couch and I brung them large jars of white lightning right away. “If we hadn’t missed work this week, I’d let y’all have these drinks on the house. But . . .”
Dr. Patterson held up his knotty hand. “We don’t want to make matters any worse for y’all. We know how tight money is going to be for a while,” he said. I grinned, but I didn’t comment. Now that I knew how sympathetic he was, I had a feeling he’d give us a loan if we had to ask.
Within a hour, half a dozen more guests had came. We usually had twice as many folks on Friday night, but we was making good money anyway. Aunt Mattie waltzed through the door wearing some of her best jewelry. Her gray hair was covered up under a thick black hairnet, and she had on enough nut-brown face powder and blood-red rouge to paint the side of a barn. But I could still see the wrinkles and liver spots on her used-to-be-pretty face. The ankle-length, buttoned-up navy-blue coat she had on looked more like a choir robe. Under the coat was a low-cut blue dress that a woman her age didn’t have no business wearing.
All five of the women who prostituted for Aunt Mattie trailed behind her. Tiny, one of my regular pieces of tail, gave me a wink and made a slurping noise with her mouth. But the other four didn’t do nothing to acknowledge my romps with them, which was the way it was supposed to be. I was a very happy married man and I wanted to stay that way.
Aunt Mattie was pleased to be back in the mix. She couldn’t stop grinning and fluttering about like a butterfly. Four of her regular customers was in the house. Each one was grumbling and giving her mean looks. I assumed they was disgruntled about having to delay whatever romps they had previously scheduled for tonight. I knew that when Aunt Mattie and her girls left, them horny devils would follow them back to the whorehouse. I had a itching to drop in myself in the next day or so.
I gave Aunt Mattie a one-armed hug. Then I took her by the hand and led her to the couch. We dropped down at the same time. “I know this arrest thing done cost us a few customers, but I am so glad it didn’t scare you off,” I told her in my sweetest tone.
“This time. I don’t know about the next time, though.” She chuckled, but I knew she was serious. Her top moneymaker was a short-haired beanpole with a baby face named Wanda Sue Boggs. Everybody called her Sweet Sue. She had already hemmed Willie Frank up in a corner and was whispering in his ear. He was glassy-eyed and lapping up her words like the juice on a ham-bone. “Just look at that.” Aunt Mattie chuckled again. “I ain’t never seen a white man so fixated on a colored woman as Willie Frank is with that bald-headed hussy.”
“Me neither,” I agreed. He had raved so much about Sweet Sue’s bedroom talents, I recently had to check her out myself. He was right. But, to me, that still didn’t seem like enough to have a man like Willie Frank acting like a fool over her. Aunt Mattie blinked as I went on. “I appreciate you shutting down business tonight so you and all the girls could be here to help celebrate me and Yvonne’s release. I hope you have such a good time, you won’t mind missing out on all the good money y’all won’t make tonight.”
“Look-a-here, young man. Me being born a slave was bad. I still have nightmares about what I went through before Abe Lincoln set us free. But the slavery experience taught me some valuable life lessons. One is that good friends is way more important than ‘good’ money,” she said in the gentlest tone I’d ever heard her use. “I remember when you was a little bitty boy how often I had to chase you and your scalawag playmates out of my yard with a switch when y’all stole pecans off my trees and deviled my hound dogs. You turned your life around when you found Jesus while you was in prison. You must be one of the most righteous colored men I know. I’m pleased to call you and Yvonne my friends. There ain’t no other place I’d rather be tonight.”
My poontang tab with her was late again. If she said anything about it, I would remind her of what she just said. “I declare, you treat me more like a grandson than both my grandmamas done,” I said with my voice cracking. “Knowing you is a double blessing.”
Despite what I’d just said, I cringed when Aunt Mattie’s gnarled hand cupped mine and squeezed it. I cringed even more when I seen a big wart on her thumb. My mama had raised me to believe that warts was contagious. But I was more concerned about all the stories I’d heard about her using hoodoo hexes to get back at people when they offended her. She also claimed to have psychic powers and could see into the future. All that was far-fetched, but I wasn’t stupid enough to do or say nothing to find out firsthand if any of it was true. There was enough normal enemies causing us stress. We didn’t need to add no witch doctor. With that in mind, we bent over backwards to stay on her good side.
I was anxious to get up and mingle, but I sat as stiff as a tree limb while Aunt Mattie continued. “I can’t tell you how scared I was for you and Yvonne, not to mention myself. When them laws busted in here Tuesday night, they shook me up so bad I thought I was having a heart attack.” Aunt Mattie shuddered. “That’s why I couldn’t make it to the back door like everybody else. Hiding in your broom closet until things died down wasn’t no picnic,” she said with a groan. She leaned closer and whispered in my ear, “By the way, with all that’s done happened, I’ll let you slide on your tab. You can catch it up when you get back on your feet.”
I whispered back, “Thank you. I hope you don’t get mad, because it might be a while before I can get caught up. Money don’t grow on trees. In the meantime, can I still visit your girls? Until I get my bearings back, I’ll need a little something extra to take the edge off me . . .”
Aunt Mattie gave me a exasperated look and a neck roll. But she still told me what I wanted to hear. “I guess you can. Only once or twice a week until you get caught up on your tab. Poontang don’t grow on trees neither. Do you hear me, young man?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered, with my head bowed like a contrite puppy.
Yvonne was entertaining a bunch of guests on the other side of the room. Joyce occupied the spot on my other side. She was busy chatting with one of the men who worked for the railroad.
When he walked away, Aunt Mattie reached across my lap and tapped her arm. “Joyce, where is Odell at tonight?” she asked, blinking her beady black eyes. “Is he out in the boondocks taking care of his sick daddy tonight?” There was a suspicious look on her face. I didn’t think she knew Prince Charming was spending his weekends with another woman. But I had a feeling she suspected he was doing something other than taking care of his sick daddy.
“Yes, ma’am. That’s where he’s at.” Joyce rattled off the words in such a dry, low tone, I could barely hear her. She hadn’t said too much since she walked in the door half a hour ago. “He said we’d come back over here when he gets home Sunday night.”
“Uh-huh.” Aunt Mattie jabbed my side with her bony elbow, and added with a sneer, “With Odell living just one house over and being such a close friend, I’m surprised he didn’t come to welcome Milton and Yvonne home as fast as he could, like the rest of us. His daddy can’t be that sick . . .”
Joyce was sitting so close to me, I felt her body stiffen. At the same time, a mild gasp slipped out of her mouth. “Yvonne and Milton went by the store today. He’s already welcomed them home,” she said, looking at me. “Milton, I’m glad you and Yvonne were thoughtful enough to do that. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have known y’all was out until I got home. And I wouldn’t have been able to share the news with Odell until he got back home Sunday.”
“Well, everything is hunky-dory now. Joyce, is your drink strong enough?” I asked, eyeing her half-empty jar.
“Yeah, it’s fine.” She gave me a tight smile before she went on. “So, do you and Yvonne have any idea who made that telephone call to Sheriff Potts?”
“Not yet,” I replied with my teeth clenched. It was a struggle to keep my anger under control. “I’m sure we’ll find out real soon.”
“I sure hope so!” Joyce’s tone was so loud people on the other side of the room looked at her. She gave me a apologetic look, and lowered her tone. “I can’t tell you how surprised I was when I heard that somebody had called Sheriff Potts at home and told him such a barefaced lie.”
“Surprised ain’t even close to what I was when I heard the news. I was downright mortified,” Aunt Mattie snarled. “If I ever find out it was one of the men that come to my house to do business with my girls, I’m going to put a spell on him a magician can’t take off.”
I looked from Aunt Mattie to Joyce with a question shooting through my head like a bullet. How did Joyce know Sheriff Potts had been called at home? “Joyce, who told you that? I thought he’d received the call at the jailhouse.” I held my breath waiting for her to respond.
A smug look crossed her face. She puffed out her chest with so much pride you would have thought she really was Queen of Sheba. “Maybe the person couldn’t reach him at the jailhouse, and that’s why they called him at home.” She took a big gulp from the jar in her hand. She was on her second large drink, so she was more than a little drunk. That was the only reason I gave her the benefit of the doubt. She could have been talking off the top of her head and didn’t know what she was saying.
There was only one way to find out. I took a deep breath before I asked. “But how did you know the call was made to Sheriff Potts at his house?”
“Odell told me,” she answered.
CHAPTER 12
JOYCE
ABOUT FORTY-FIVE MINUTES AFTER I’D ARRIVED NEXT DOOR, Yvonne motioned for me to follow her into the kitchen to get more snacks. I sliced pieces off a large chunk of hog-head cheese and put them on a tray. She loaded hush puppies and pickles onto a large plate. “Yvonne, I want you and Milton to know that Odell and I are going to do all we can to help y’all readjust.”
She turned from the counter with a curious expression on her face. “You already said y’all was going to give us a hundred dollars. You talking about something else now?”
“We’ll still give y’all some money. But what I meant just now was, if they hadn’t let y’all out, Odell was going to get some prayer chains going. He was going to approach our preacher and have him start the first one. Then he was going to go to your preacher and make the same request. Do you think y’all still need that much spiritual assistance?”
“No, we’ll be all right, so long as y’all give us that money. We’ll save the prayer chains for another time, in case we get in another pickle.” Yvonne paused and gave me a thoughtful look. “I wonder why Odell didn’t mention that when we seen him at the store this afternoon?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure he’ll mention it later. But I wanted you to know now.”
“I appreciate hearing that, Joyce. And when I see Odell again, I’ll let him know that, too.”
When I got back to the living room, I danced a couple of times with two other men before Willie Frank pulled me out on the floor. As usual, he hopped around like a rabbit. I lost count of how many times he stepped on my toes and ankles with his steel-toe brogans. And when a slow song came on, he wrapped his arms around me and pressed his body so close to mine, I felt a hard lump between his legs. I was several inches taller than him, so it poked the top of my thigh instead of my crotch. It was so disturbing. Another man’s hard-on was something I hadn’t experienced since I met Odell. I was glad Willie Frank didn’t smell like tobacco or snuff for a change. His longish blond hair was so clean, I could smell the vanilla-scented shampoo he’d used. “I hope Sweet Sue doesn’t get mad at me for slow dancing with you,” I teased.
