As she crossed the living room, she reached for the beer can. It was a reflex, and she had to consciously withdraw her hand and leave it there.
Out drinking, doing God knows what to who.
She cut out the light in the living room but left on the one in the kitchen. The rubber bands she added to the baggie in the junk drawer. Crumbs on the table, a smear of sauce. Stove spotty with grease, orange peel in the sink. She felt helpless before the mess, and turned from it, trying to put it out of her mind.
She took her clothes off in the dark and shoved them in the hamper, slipped her robe on, and brushed her teeth. The tub beckoned in the mirror, but she was too tired. She flossed and did her Listerine, spitting then carefully rinsing the blue drops off the sink.
In bed she checked the clock. It wasn’t eleven-thirty yet. Her legs were jumpy, her insteps, but she couldn’t sleep. She had choir practice tomorrow, that was some comfort. And where would he be then? She knew he waited for her to leave, stole every second for himself. She thought of him at the Liberty (he wasn’t really there, she knew that, but she would not picture him with the woman, the way they laughed, the things they did at this time of night) and then of the wreck he’d made of the kitchen.
Like a pigsty, her mother would say. After her father left, she cleaned house to support them, something both Jackie and Daphne had been ashamed of, guarded from their friends like a dirty secret. Her mother was shocked at how nasty white people were, especially in the kitchen. Their stoves were caked with filth, their counters breeding grounds, swabbed with mucked-up dishcloths. Over supper, she described the horrors of her work for the girls, drumming into them the importance of a clean house. How many times had she heard the old saw: We may be poor but at least we’re clean. It was a badge of honor, the only one they could afford. How proudly she wore it! She remembered almost vomiting when her mother told her how white people kissed their dogs on the nose. “And it’s not like they don’t know where that nose has been,” her mother said. “There’s one place a dog’s nose loves to go, and that is not somewhere you want to be kissing.”
Wasn’t it the same with Harold? She knew where he’d been sticking his nose. Now, defenseless, with nothing to distract her, she briefly envisioned it, the raw pornography of what he was doing with this other woman, pictured the two of them, or just Harold bent to her, and she thought she would be sick. He was bringing that home with him, rubbing her face in it, wiping it on these very sheets, infecting everything. She could feel the disease seeping into her skin.
She flung the covers aside and heaved up out of bed. For a moment she stood on the carpet, holding herself, then hurried down the hall to the kitchen.
She crossed the floor to the sink in her bare feet and slapped the tap on. She had to pour the cold water out of the top dishes and set them on the counter to make room to do the pots, the big serving bowl with the worms of spaghetti stuck to the lip. The cuff of her gown got wet and she rolled it up. “You keep your dirt out of my house.” She did the bowls, the glasses, and finally the silverware piece by piece, clouds of steam rising around her, until the drainboard was full.
She wiped down the counters with a green pad and then a sponge. She did the table, saving the stove for last, lifting the burners, digging at faint, old stains with a Brillo pad. Always clean from the top down, her mother instructed, and now she looked at the floor, scuffed with a week’s worth of dirt.
First she moved the chairs into the hallway, then she swept, discovering a few Cheerios. She squirted the cleaner in snaky waves, dunked the mop in the bucket.
It was almost one when she finished. She had the mad idea of cleaning the fridge, throwing out all the green cheese and watery sour cream, but the shine of the floor and the stove was enough to satisfy her. She stood with her arms folded, surveying her work with a violent pleasure. Her mother would be pleased, she thought. See, she wanted to say, I learned. I did listen.
After a few minutes, she went to the silverware drawer and then turned off the light and lay down on the couch, sweating, her heart thumping from the exertion, a clean boning knife in one hand, waiting for her husband to come home.
EVADING
THE CAPRICE WAS where he’d left it last night, on Wayland, three streets over, behind Sacred Heart, the driver’s-side door lock popped. He almost didn’t expect it to be there, waiting for him in the rain. He was ready to pass by the empty section of curb, nonchalant, or even a police tow truck lifting the front end, the stubby screwdriver hidden like a knife in his pocket, the see-through plastic grip sweaty in his palm. But here it was, leaves plastered to the hood, the windshield beaded, the radio still in place.
LJ looked back toward the corner, checking the wet, redbrick street and the heavy trees, the porches of the crowded row houses—their barred picture windows all watching him—then cut between the parked cars. Another look the other way and he grabbed the handle and swung himself in, knees bumping the wheel, locking the door behind him, sealing in the quiet. He ducked down, lying half across the new-smelling seat to see what he was doing with the steering column. Rain ticked against the roof. The plastic shell was cracked and jagged, the sky-blue white where it had snapped off. He fit the blade of the screwdriver in the ignition and twisted. It started on the first try.
He’d found the car three days ago over in Homewood, after a party, him and Cardell and some baby Treys they were breaking in. It was just a way home, a way of keeping the night alive until something else came up. He didn’t mean to keep it so long. It was stupid, he didn’t need it for anything, he wasn’t going to sell it, it was just something he’d started doing, driving around the city. It got him away from the neighborhood, away from B-Mo, who he knew was looking for him. It got him away from Nene’s things and from his Granmoms and from U, coming over the house at night and talking all kind of God nonsense, like he was trying to save him. Out of respect LJ listened, but he didn’t hear him. There was too much going on, too much noise from everyone after what happened, including himself. He’d gotten used to riding around with the radio off, letting the rhythm of traffic sift his thoughts. He knew it couldn’t go on forever, that it was dangerous, but every morning he came back to the Caprice, and there it was.
Today he decided to take a different route, across the river and then toward downtown, maybe drive around the North Side a while. It was neutral ground as long as he stayed down by the water. Go too far up into the hilly streets and he’d be in Riverview Crip territory, all projects. Nothing but dead ends and fences, concrete stairs leading nowhere. Didn’t want to be caught slipping, not by them.
He wasn’t strapping. He wasn’t going anywhere he’d need it, and if the cops popped him, it meant time. Without it, the most he’d get was sent to Schuman again. He still had another year as a juvenile.
There was a railyard near the prison. Maybe he’d sit there and watch the trains headed off for Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, cities he’d dreamed of without ever seeing. No, you couldn’t stay in one place that long, people’d get suspicious. It was the one rule of boosting cars: You were only safe as long as you were moving.
He liked it better when it rained. He drove slow, leaving his seatbelt off in case he needed to ditch. The big Caprice rolled through the turns, cruised high and quiet along the tight side streets, eating up the bumps. Blocks of low, brown-brick row houses, telephone wires dipping in threes. The porches with their steel railings slid by like endless boxcars. It was cool for September, the rain steady, and he set the heater to the far side of the red stripe, the fan to the first dot. The radio was basic, no CD or cassette player, and he left it alone. The wipers swept the water off the glass, paused to let more collect, then squeegeed it clean.
For the first few blocks he thought nothing, concentrated on signaling for his turns, an eye out for Five-O. The sidewalks were empty, and he liked that—no one trying to make his face. Once he swung it around Penn Circle and past Sears and down Negley Run, he’d be onto the long stretch of Washington B
oulevard beside the old driver’s-test place, and free of the neighborhood. He could be from Blawnox or Penn Hills for all people knew. He could be going home to a big house in Shaler where his mother would be vacuuming the living room, his father at work downtown in the PPG Tower, his office with a view of Station Square where the fake riverboats docked. Nene would be at Penn State—or no, working downtown in another building, maybe Gateway Center.
What would he do there? Something with money, a desk with a computer and neat stacks of paper, contracts from other businesses.
But Nene wasn’t good with money, he was always getting behind with B-Mo, asking him for another week, doing all his product then begging B-Mo to front him some.
He couldn’t picture it, Nene in some fine suit like the prom or the awards dinner he missed. This was always the hard part, finding him a job. Cleaning him up was easy; he remembered in eighth grade girls phoning him every night, so many their Granmoms said he couldn’t take calls after nine o’clock. She locked him in his room after she caught him getting into it on the back porch with Danita Coleman—the same Danita Coleman who turned into a straight headhunter later, skanky raspberry who’d do anything to get her mouth around that glass dick one more time. What was the difference between her and Nene?
She was alive, tricking downtown. Nene was over in Homewood Cemetery, under the mud. That was the difference.
At Highland LJ had to wait for a bus, and he turned down the heater before pulling across the oncoming lane. The streetlights were still on, even though it wasn’t that dark. He was out of the side streets now, no longer protected, part of the overall flow of the city yet hidden, safe behind the thin windshield. He sat up straighter in the seat, as he imagined race-car drivers did, checking his mirrors without turning his head, keeping the needle at the precise speed, following the car in front of him at a reasonable distance. He took pride in facing the danger quietly, of being the only one aware of it, separate from the other drivers, and at the same time felt part of a larger body, the Caprice one cell in the blood of traffic pumping through the country, every street and road and interstate open to him, a possibility, as if he could leave. It was an illusion. He was nearly invisible, yet a second could change that, drag him out onto the wet pavement facedown, police’s knee in his back, a gun to his ear. No other feeling seemed so true to him, and it filled him like a drug, gave him strength.
Around Penn Circle now, staying in one lane past the basketball courts by the cop station, the cruisers lined up outside, parked on the sidewalk. They had Caprices too, it was like a joke to him; maybe that was why he couldn’t get rid of the car. He flicked his eyes at the rearview mirror; none of them had moved.
He caught the light at Baum Boulevard and headed up past the Chevy dealer where U worked. He glanced over at the rows of used cars, the rain dotted on their fresh wax jobs, and wondered if U would have to do them again. O.G. Trey cleaning up after white folks, all because of Jesus.
“’s fucked up,” LJ said.
He stayed sharp across Penn and around the other side of the circle, over the muddy busway and past the old-folks high-rise. The lights were on in the laundromat, some mothers filling the machines. There wasn’t much traffic, just enough to keep him busy, making sure he knew where everyone was behind him. He turned the heat off and got in the right lane to go straight on Collins, but the light was changing and he had to brake and then stop.
Beside him, a raggedy station wagon pulled up, a jitney, an older woman in back with her groceries, the driver waving his hand and laughing, telling tales. With the rain it was tough to see, but for an instant LJ thought the woman was his Granmoms, and a rush of panic shocked him, then evaporated, leaving him weak. The light dropped to green and he let the jitney beat him down the straightaway to Negley Run where it made the light and was gone.
She was keeping Nene’s clothes for him. She didn’t have to say it. They were almost the same size. He used to borrow Nene’s Raptors jersey, but now it didn’t seem right. He’d open the closet and under the sweet cedar and harsh mothballs he could smell him. And forget about shoes.
The hard part was over. Negley Run was a bypass cut out of the hillside; it connected East Liberty to Washington Boulevard so people could book out of there faster. No sidewalks, no shops, no stoplights, just grass and trees on both sides of the slope, and LJ laid back against the headrest and let the weight of the Caprice take it downhill through the long, easy curves.
At the bottom it T-boned Washington by the fire school, an empty brick building they pretended to burn down each week. He was going left, toward the river. If he went right, he’d end up in Homewood, and now he wished he did have a gun to settle his beef with B-Mo, bust some caps in his dumb, ugly ass. It didn’t matter that Fats had his soldiers smoke those two punks. Everyone in his set was waiting for LJ to take care of his business.
He could see it. He’d spent the last week thinking of it—here, at home, just hanging on the corner. It’s what everyone was thinking, but it was up to him to put it together, to put the shit into effect.
He couldn’t do it alone. He’d have to get someone to drive—Cardell, cause he was always talking garbage. Nighttime, a Friday while it was still warm enough to party outside. A dark car, four-door. He’d be in the backseat with the window open, Tek Nine ready in his lap, extra clip between his knees.
“Pull up,” he’d say. “Pull up here.”
There’d be people hanging out on someone’s porch, smoking on the steps, lounging on someone’s brokedown couch, passing a 40 of Private Stock and clowning on his brother, how they wasted the cluckhead motherfucker. “Sliced and diced,” they’d be saying, Master P booming out the windows.
“Ha! Chipped and chopped that trick-ass bitch.”
“For real.”
He’d roll down on them, serve them straight off the top.
“Show ’em what you got,” Cardell would shout, and the shit would be on.
He’d see B-Mo sitting there with that fat, ugly grill of his, skeezer hanging off his arm, trying to figure out who was sweating his clique.
It wouldn’t be a secret; LJ would turn on the light inside so they’d know. “What’s up, punk?” he’d say. “My name is L-to-the-motherfucking-J,” and they’d see him and know what was up and try to bounce, but he’d have that Tek spraying, holding it with both hands, ripping that shit up, saying, “What’s my name?”
“Yeah,” he said, taking the left. “That’s right.”
There was another version where he walked B-Mo down Moreland to the spot Nene had fallen, holding a chrome magnum under his chin. People came out of their houses to watch. No one tried to stop him; they knew it was justice, point-blank.
They got to the spot and LJ moved the muzzle to B-Mo’s forehead, pressed it in so it left an O. He had him up against the fence, and people were crowding around.
“You got any last words?”
“I—”
“Shut the fuck up,” he said, and blew his whole head open. Then they tie-wrapped him to the fence and let the birds pick at his brains, let the little wannabes cut him for fun.
While he was driving around, these dreams of his soothed him, as if they’d already come true. He could pretend he’d already avenged his brother, that he’d earned back the respect they’d taken from him. He could drive like this all day, he knew, but eventually he would have to turn around and go home, and Cardell would be there, asking him what he was going to do, how soon.
U knew that. Everyone knew that, but U was the one asking him not to do it. U was asking him to forgive B-Mo’s people.
“Fuck that shit,” LJ told him. They were in his living room, and he was trying to be polite.
“You can’t keep living like this,” U said, like that was some kind of answer.
Now he was gliding past the old state police barracks on one side, the road up to Schuman on the other. He’d been in there once, GTA, possession and evading. It was basically the same thing he was doing now, excep
t that time he was dumb enough to have some bud on him, so he had to do drug school too, read these stupid pamphlets the social worker gave him and take tests. He had to pass or do the course over, so he read the stuff. Wasn’t anything he didn’t already know.
Down alongside the driver’s-test place, deserted now, a sign on the chained gate saying they moved. Spray kicked up from the car in front of him, misting the windshield, and with a touch the wipers slapped it away. A flat, dirty patch on the road was a squirrel. He got in the right lane so he’d be in position to get on the bridge, made the light and jogged the car into the chute for the on-ramp, the traffic in front of him bunching up for the turn even though they had their own lane. He braked, swearing at them, but once he was on the bridge itself and the view opened up, he forgot everything.
It was like flying. A hundred feet below, the Allegheny ran high and wide and gray as mushroom soup, poured frothing over the low dam. On the far shore a fleet of derelict barges bobbed, one half sunk in the mud. Upriver stood a black railroad bridge he’d only seen a train on once, and beyond it on the near shore, topping the wooded cliff like a ship, the VA Med Center. Now he wished he could slow down to absorb everything, to appreciate the way it filled his mind so he didn’t have to think of anything. He knew if he stopped the car in the middle and got out and stood at the rail that the view would lose its power and he’d turn in on himself again, think of Nene. He had to keep moving, that was the one rule; why did he keep forgetting it?
Toward downtown there was an island with nothing on it, just a rusty dredge that had been there since he was a kid. He used to want him and Nene to build a cabin there and swim all the time and make rafts and fish for their dinner. When he told their Granmoms, she laughed out loud. “I don’t think you want to eat anything that comes out of that river,” she said, and he was hurt, his plans demolished. He’d never been there, and the island still held some mystery for him. He would never get there, he thought. It wasn’t right. The thing was so close.
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