Dunfords Travels Everywheres

by William Melvin Kelley

  “You know him very well.”

  He leaned into the car. “Thanks for the ride, Butterfly.”

  “Good night, baby.”

  Carlyle closed the door, waved at Butterfly through the glass, watched the lemon-yellow boat-wide automobile glide into traffic.

  Standing in the cold air, he realized he wanted some barbecue and macaroni salad. He started walking toward the Silver Dinner Diner, sandwiched between two apartment buildings a few doors from the Grouse.

  Glora worked without her wig. Her natural hair made a large round headdress. “You seen Cooley, Carlyle?”

  “Not tonight.” He sat down on a counter stool, smiled at her, hoping she would give back her special smile, but Cooley owned her mind. “Give me some ribs, Glora.”

  “You want to sit here, or with your friend?”

  “What friend?”

  She pointed into the back. Hondo sat in the farthest back booth, his head hanging over a hamburger steak, an untouched pile of rice and peas.

  “He ain’t a friend; he’s a brother.” He got up. “You a sister or a friend?”

  “What you say, brother?”

  They both laughed. But she stopped quickly. Her full, soft mouth took a gold tooth well.

  “Put some macaroni salad with them ribs.” He walked into the diner’s shadows, slid in across from Hondo and waited for his friend to look up. Hondo continued to stare at his plate.

  Carlyle shook his arm. “How you doing, man?”

  “I look like I got my health, don’t I?” He blinked at Carlyle. “I look like I’m healthy, right? Or am I wrong?”

  “You’re right.”

  “Well, I’m dying this Thursday.” He spoke as if he expected Carlyle to doubt him.

  “Why you pick Thursday?”

  “It got picked for me. Ride that a minute.”

  Carlyle had begun to admire Hondo’s plate, now raised his hand, turned and told Glora to change his macaroni salad to rice and peas. “And punch E.7 three times.”

  “Three times?” From the street end of the diner, Glora smiled. “One time, then I’ll make my selections.”

  Carlyle shrugged. “Why Thursday?”

  “Because who knows why that devil picks Thursday? He just say Thursday.”

  “Who?”

  Hondo had waited for him to ask. “The Devil, man.” He paused, announced. “I have sold my soul to the Devil.”

  Carlyle nodded. “And Thursday he collecting?”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “How much you get for it?”

  Hondo had not expected that question, lowered his head. “Well, I didn’t exactly get no cash money. I made more like a trade.”

  “A trade? You mean you gave your soul to the Devil and didn’t get no money?” For once, Hondo had stayed ahead of him. Carlyle still did not know what game Hondo played. “What did you get?”

  “My mama’s health.”

  “Your mama’s health? When your mama get sick? You didn’t have to sell your soul, man. I could’ve let you hold some money.” He offered Hondo a handle if he needed one.

  But Hondo did not seem to want money now. “This happened a little time back, and not to say you ain’t doing good, but I didn’t believe you could let me have the money I needed for my mama’s operation. I needed more zeros than a zoo need zebras! I said, what? Doc, you must be crazy. When he told me the price. But I was crazy. Money. I needed money’s mama, bubbah.” He shook his head. “Man, I tried skleventy-eleven ways to get that money, couldn’t raise a damn dime. Until I seen this ad in The Citizen: WE LOAN TO ANYBODY, with a office right in the neighborhood, way over in the east one-thirties. So I walk over, bust in, and tell the man about my mama. Nice, nice, little fat Latin-like cat sat me in a chair in his two-room office suite, just him and a blonde of a secretary jumping around.”

  Glora arrived with his plate. Hondo waited until he had Carlyle’s attention before he continued.

  “I understand your problem, Mr. Johnson, he say. And then he says to me real calm, Carlyle, I’m the Devil, but he wasn’t handsome enough and he was too short. I didn’t believe him. But he deals his deal. My soul for my mama’s health. I got mad. You mean you ain’t even giving me some bitches on the side, and a car with a tank full of gas? He shaking his head. Souls’s cheap as chickens nowadays, Mr. Johnson. And he knows because I told him I can’t get the money from no place else. So I signed up, and tonight he told me this Thursday my bird gets plucked.”

  19

  HE FELT FEATHERY-LIGHT, wondered if he still slept, then decided he did not care. Dream or not, she stood there—and he began to wave his arms and shout her name. He loved saying it: Wendy, again. “Wendy!”

  Wally followed, suggesting that Chig ask for her autograph.

  “Why, hello, Chig.” She looked down at him, raised her hand. She had tanned more deeply than he remembered her; perhaps she had spent the ten months on the Spanish islands. If he had concentrated on Spain, he might have found her. But he had found her anyway.

  “How’ve you been?” He cupped his mouth, shouted up at her. The sun on her orange shorts made him squint.

  “Go on ask her, Mr. Dunford. I bet she’ll give you one.”

  Wendy had spoken at the same time; he had not heard her answer. Except for the orange ribbon, she had not tied her hair. “What did you say?”

  “I said I’m fine. And would you buy me a drink?” She nodded, directing his answer.

  He began to nod his head. “All right. Where can we meet?”

  To speak to her taxed his mind; looking almost overcame him: she leaned over the railing, her hair glistening, her face an oval sun, warming him in its dark glow, her eyes wide-set, set deep and dark-brown, her nose broad at the bridge, a trifle hooked, her mouth, her lips full, talking now: “Did you hear me? I’ll come down there, to the third-class lounge.”

  “All right. All right.” He raised his wrist, tapped his watch. “What time?”

  “Four o’clock?”

  “Good.” He wondered what he would do for the next three hours, waiting.

  “See you then.” She wiggled her fingers, stepped back from the railing.

  “See you, Wendy.”

  “She didn’t hear you.” Wally owned buck-teeth, two little ivory doors set in his face of freckled skin. Two days before, he had told Chig that in his town some kids called him Red. “Did you hear me, Mr. Dunford? She didn’t hear you.”

  Chig smiled. “I know.”

  “You met her before, Mr. Dunford?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure, Wally.”

  “Huh?” His mouth opened slightly. “Hey, you want a drink? Alcohol’s real cheap on this boat. Me and my girl got really crashed last night.”

  Chig picked his comment carefully. “I didn’t know you had a girl, Wally.”

  “Sure. We’re on the same TYO Tour. We went to the same school, but I didn’t meet her until we both happened to be at TYO’s Upstate Fun-For-All in Gully City.”

  Chig felt confused. “I didn’t know you were on a tour.” He would have to arrange anew his impressions of Wally. “How many are you?”

  “Seventy, counting Mr. Oglethrope.”

  “Seventy? I thought you were travelling alone, Wally.”

  “With my Dad? He got real mad when I even first asked him about going to Europe. With TYO. Even though he’s in it.” Wally paused, opened his eyes with a smile. “Hey, would you like to meet my girl? Just as long as Mr. Oglethrope doesn’t catch us.”

  Chig wondered whether Wally wanted to tell him something, confess, seek advice or comfort. “Doing what?”

  “Huh?” The question surprised Wally, made him shrug. “Well, you know about TYO, don’t you, Mr. Dunford?”

  “Nothing.” Chig guessed. “But they don’t want you
to drink?”

  Wally’s eyes blinked. “Ya, ya no drinking.” He hurried back to his idea. “But what I want is for my girl to meet you.” He took Chig’s elbow, pulled him across the deck. “Come on, Mr. Dunford.”

  Chig wanted to prepare himself for his date with Wendy, but he allowed Wally to lead him toward the door of the third-class lounge.

  “She’s mad at me,” Wally explained. “We had a little spat. And we really shouldn’t be talking, but it’s real important she gets to meet you.”

  “Why me, Wally?”

  They stepped over a high doorsill into the lounge.

  “Because when we get married, she wants to move East, and I just want her to meet the kind of people she’ll meet there.”

  Chig smiled, but Wally did not see. “What kind of people, specifically?”

  “Huh?” Wally’s face seemed all round holes, mouth, nostrils, eyes, freckles. “Negro People.” His voice stayed flat. “I heard the East is full of them, just like you.” His gaze drifted.

  Chig followed the line of his eyes to the face of a teen-aged girl, reading, now lowering her magazine to her lap, revealing her starched white blouse printed in tiny yellow flowers. She had pulled short, straight chestnut-colored hair back from her face with two large pale-red barrettes. “Hi, Wally.”

  “Hi, Lynn. You reading?”

  “Ya. But I was almost finished.”

  “Lynn? I want you to meet the man I live with. Mr. Dunford.”

  Her head swiveled slowly, two silver-blue pupils turning his way. “I didn’t see you.” Her eyelashes grew thin, her eyebrows smudges on her milky skin. “Hi. I’m Lynn.”

  “Hello, Lynn.” He waited in vain for her to extend her hand.

  “Wally and me had a fight.”

  “Yes.” He wondered why she told him. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “Sit down, Mr. Dunford, and I’ll get some drinks. You want one, Lynn?”

  Chig sat in a large chair welded to the boat, one of four such chairs around a low round table.

  Lynn looked up at the standing Wally. “Liquor, you mean?” She made a face; her silver eyes blinked once. “Are you having one?”

  “A little drink never hurt anybody.” Wally put his hand into a pocket of his chino pants, rattled his keys. “That’s what my Dad says.”

  “But Dad Burison doesn’t let you drink, Wally.”

  “Hell!” Wally dropped into his chair.

  “But you can have a drink if you want, Wally. I didn’t say you couldn’t.” She put her magazine on the table. Chig wanted to pick it up, leaf through it, but knew that would seem rude.

  “See, Mr. Dunford?” Wally appealed to him. “She’s just like my Mom. She didn’t want me to go to Europe either. But Lynn talked her into it.”

  “You said you were real glad Mom Burison liked me, Wally. And you wanted to go with TYO too. We both said we’d learn a lot.”

  “Wally’s probably a little nervous about your fight, Lynn.” Chig did not want to witness an argument. “And he wanted me to meet you.” She did not react. “He did, Lynn.”

  “I don’t know why if he feels that way, Mr. Dunford.”

  “What way, Lynn? What way? I didn’t even say anything.”

  “You made me out somebody’s mother who ruled them like a queen from the sky.” Her chin began to wibble.

  “Well, why didn’t you let me have one little drink?”

  “I turned up my nose because I didn’t want one, Wally.” Her chin stopped. “You know Mr. Oglethrope said TYO Tour Juniors weren’t to be allowed to drink.”

  Wally sat up in his chair. “But he made a lot of other rules too, that you break.”

  “You should be real glad—”

  “Did you notice, Wally? Everybody’s gone.”

  “Huh, Mr. Dunford?”

  Except for the bar steward, mooning at a porthole, the lounge had emptied. A game of cards lay incompleted on a nearby table. The old ladies, going to summer with sons they had not seen in decades, had left the big chairs they claimed each morning.

  “I’ll ask.” He stood up, wanting time to spend alone, to think of Wendy. “I’ll be right back.”

  The bar steward spoke English well enough to let Chig understand that everybody had gone to his lifeboat. “To go there if you will have to go there, sir.”

  Chig returned to Lynn and Wally. “He says there’s a lifeboat drill.”

  “It’s one-forty already?” Lynn took a pocket watch from her gray denim Bermuda shorts. “Mr. Oglethrope’ll be really mad at me. We’re in the same position, the second-class ballroom.”

  “Do we go there too, Lynn?”

  She stood up, making a fist around her watch. “No, Wally, it goes by room. Mr. Oglethrope sleeps across the hall from me.” She walked away on pink lowcut sneakers.

  Reasoning that the back of their door might bear the information, Chig and Wally returned to the cabin. They had guessed correctly. The assembly area was the third-class infirmary, which, if Wally remembered rightly, was two decks down. “I’m almost sure it is.”

  They left the cabin, and taking the nearest staircase, came out into a passageway a little too narrow and shabby for use by any but the ship’s crew. This passageway ended in two more, one going to the right, the other to the left. Under his feet, Chig felt the engine breaking itself over and over. “Let’s forget it, Wally. We’re lost.”

  “No, really, Mr. Dunford, I know the way.” They took the passage to the left, which after a few steps, turned right into a carpeted passageway. Chig could no longer feel the engine.

  “Let’s stop, Wally.”

  “But we’ll miss the drill, Mr. Dunford.” He took a step away. “If the ship goes down, we’ll die.”

  He smiled at Wally’s joke. “I guess so. But I’m going back to the cabin.” He wanted to maintain civilized relations with Wally. They would share the same living space for one more night. “All right, Wally?”

  “We can open one of these.” Wally scurried across the carpet to the nearest door, knocked, no answer. He turned the knob and tried to pull, locked. “Maybe there’s somebody around who can tell us what to do.”

  “I’ll see you, Wally.” Chig started away.

  “I’ll try this door.” He did. It opened.

  A deep, rolling, mumbling rumble—he thought of elephants whispering—came from inside the room.

  “Huh? Hi. This the boiler room?”

  Chig stopped, because the rumble had stopped. “What did they say, Wally?”

  “Mr. Dunford? Come here, please. Maybe they’ll talk to you.”

  Chig returned to the door, looked into a room bigger than he had expected, completely padded, walls, ceiling, floors, lit with red bulbs, and hot, packed into its shadows with as many as one hundred Africans chained to the padded floor. Most of the Africans appeared to come from the West Coast. The two nearest the door bore tribal markings. In Europe Chig had seen such markings.

  He tried to think of something to say, but could only nod at one of the Africans near the door, brown-skinned, sporting a sparse toothbrush mustache. The African nodded back.

  “They don’t know anything about a lifeboat drill, Wally.”

  “Life bode drill?”

  Chig moved closer to the African with the mustache. The whites of his eyes looked pink, the pupils dark. “You speak English?”

  “Speaking Franch as well, ndugu.” He lifted his arm, showed Chig his manacle and chain. “You avez key?”

  Chig stepped back, smiled. “But what did you do?”

  Eight Africans near the door began to laugh. They all displayed beautiful teeth, straight and bright.

  “Sisi for to make slave.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Come on, Mr. Dunford.” Wally stepped in front of him, pulled the door s
hut. “Don’t pay any attention. They can’t help us.”

  20

  “CAN’T BE HELPED NEITHER, right?” Of course, he did not believe it. “Thursday you a cold turkey.”

  “At sundown. Get it? The sun go down and Mrs. Johnson’s son go down.” He smiled to himself. “But Mrs. Johnson’ll live.”

  Carlyle wondered if he would trust the Devil to keep his word. “For how long?”

  “Until she’s seventy.” Hondo leaned across the table, his eyes too bright. “She on a job with a good pension plan. So at sixty-five she’ll retire herself and then have five sick-free years, and by that time she’ll be old, and she’ll die in her sleep.”

  Carlyle nodded. “You made that deal with the Devil?”

  Hondo picked up his fork. “I don’t know why I got rice and peas. I don’t like no West Indian food.”

  “When your mama needed a operation?”

  “She did, but no more. Eat, man.” He put some rice and peas into his mouth.

  “Fool, how you know he’ll keep his word? And how you know he haven’t make her sick in the first place—if he’s the Devil.”

  Hondo cut into his hamburger steak. “You can trust the Devil; he give results. I seen my Mama dying-sick, and then, jump out the bed.” He pointed his fork at Carlyle. “All he did was come to the house and touch her head, and she bouncing on her feet, kissing, hugging me.”

  “You should’ve got her a hundred years.” He knew he would have tried for more than seventy.

  Hondo looked at his plate. “He told me not to waste his time with terms. The man said seventy and I took seventy.”

  “Finish your food.”

  They ate, arming against the cold, then decided to walk back to the Grouse for a drink. Snow had begun to fall, sticking. The wind had stopped. They went down the stairs into the toast-warm Grouse, took stools at the bar. In a moment, the barman Nods came to get their order. “Your brother came in looking for you.”

  Carlyle had left his brother at home, studying African history.

  Hondo’s spine pulled stiff. “I got two brothers.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Nods put a hand on his bar, leaned. “I thought it was just you and Cooley.”