Gumbo

by E. Lynn Harris

  Ricky stopped the car as Rhonda turned and walked away.

  “Rhonda,” he called, trailing a few feet behind her now. “Why the hell you always got to bad mouth somebody. You don't wanna smoke. I ain't said a goddam thing 'bout smokin'. Hey! Quit walkin' away from me when I'm talkin'.”

  Rhonda turned, now thoroughly irritated. She recalled her last few encounters with Ricky. The bus ride home from DePaul when he tempted her unsuccessfully. She blamed him for her first relapse. And here he was blatantly trying again.

  “Ricky, just please let me be.”

  Rain began to fall, gently at first, more harshly moments later. She thought about her walk home, a walk she now dreaded.

  “Look it's pourin' now. I know you don't wanna walk home in this shit. Quit trippin'. Come on and get in the car. You ain't got no umbrella.” Ricky's voice softened.

  Rhonda's canvas tennis shoes were soaking up the wetness like a towel.

  “Take me straight home and drop me off in the parking lot.”

  A triumphant smirk flashed across Ricky's face as Rhonda walked toward the idling car. They sputtered down the alley.

  “We just got to make one stop.” Ricky said, studying her face in the rearview mirror.

  Saturday night. Champ pulled into the parking lot, circling twice in search of a safe spot for the Lexus.

  “It's packed,” Bump said, straightening the bandanna around his freshly braided cornrows.

  Champ maneuvered between two cars and killed the engine.

  “Stash the heater under the seat.”

  Bump pulled the gun from his belt buckle and slid it beneath the passenger seat.

  Walking toward the club they straightened, brushed, and looked themselves over. Bump wore baggy cargo pants and Timberland boots. A long sleeved T-shirt served as backdrop for a navel-length gold medallion. Champ wore leather boots squared at the toe, soft jeans, and a fitted silk shirt. Diamond studded earrings pulled at his lobes; a diamond ring and watch dazzled in the overhead light.

  Music pulsated. People glanced at them as they waded through the crowd toward the bar. Champ ordered a double Hennessy, Coke-chaser; Bump ordered the same.

  Heavy fog filled the room. Everywhere the clang of glasses, the buzz of conversations, the thud of base. Champ drifted through the crowd dispersing mandatory handshakes, hugs, and nods. Colors filtered through the room like light bending through crystals.

  He greeted everyone as friends, all with a smile of familiarity. He saw everything unfold in the third person, like he imagined a well-seasoned director would notice every detail of a scene. He cut through the dance floor, found an empty table against a mirrored wall, and sat sipping his drink.

  Champ's mind wandered, captured only faintly by the woman staring at him from across the room. He stirred the ice in his drink with a long straw watching it swirl in choreographed circles inside the glass. She sauntered across the room impervious to gawking eyes that followed her like radar. He stood, then leaned over and whispered, “How you doin', beautiful?”

  She smiled. “Fine”

  “What's your name?”

  “Raven.”

  “Very nice to meet you, Raven,” he said, extending his hand. “I'm Champ.” Lights reflecting at precise angles made his ring glitter. “You from around here?”

  “Moved here a few months ago.”

  “Figured that,” he said, almost stepping on her reply. “I don't forget pretty faces and I haven't seen yours.”

  “You talk a nice game . . . Champ.”

  Champ smiled. He liked the way she said his name. He loved the way she looked. Beautiful. Flawless mahogany skin, almond shaped eyes, mesmerizing long, toned legs.

  “I like your style . . . Champ.” She paused, overtly sizing him up. “Different. Not like the rest of the brothers I've met.”

  “Thank you.”

  He took another sip, more from habit than necessity. “You empty-handed or just not drinking?”

  “Just finished one. So I guess that makes me empty-handed.”

  “Well, drinks on me the rest of the night. A pretty lady like you shouldn't be empty-handed if you don't wanna be. Here, have my seat. What you drinkin'?”

  “Sex on the Beach.” She smiled, revealing a set of perfect gleaming teeth.

  Guilt crept up on Champ on his way toward the bar, his mind overwhelmed with thoughts of Kymm. He needed to hear her voice. He ordered the drink and took it back to Raven.

  “Here you are,” he said, his voice flat. “It was cool meetin' you, but I got to make a call.”

  Raven's face twisted in a puzzled expression. Champ walked toward the far end of the club and told Bump he was going outside. He needed quiet to make his calls.

  His watch read 2:15. He dialed his home number; the phone rang three times before she picked up.

  “Hello,” Kymm's voice answered groggily.

  “Hey baby.”

  “Champ, why're you calling this late? I thought you were at the club?”

  “I am at the club—well I'm outside the club. I was just thinking about you.”

  Kymm didn't respond.

  “I was just thinking about how much I love you, that's all, and I wanted to tell you.”

  “What did you do? You must have done something wrong.”

  “No. I haven't. I just wanted to tell you that. Now go get some sleep. I'll be home in about an hour. I've got to drop Bump off.”

  Champ called his mother's number next, counting seven rings before hanging up. On the second call the phone rang ten times. His next call went to Bump's pager. He punched in his cell phone number with a 9-1-1 behind it.

  “Hey man, I'm ready to go.”

  “What for? I thought you were just going to the car for a minute,” Bump screamed over the blaring background noise.

  “I was, but I'm ready now.”

  “What's the deal?”

  “I just called my mom's apartment and she wasn't there. I'm gonna run by and check on her. You can stay if you want, but you gotta find your own way home.”

  “All right, bro. I'ma hold tight. Moved a little piece of work. We gonna lay up 'til the mornin'.”

  “Cool. I'll holla tomorrow.”

  “Eh, bro—don't forget about the heat. Let me know what's up with moms.”

  Rhonda stumbled along the back streets toward her apartment, the pant legs of her Taco Fever uniform dragging beneath a pair of men's tennis shoes, almost double the size of her feet. With her purse missing and the money gone, only one thing remained: home. A place for recuperation. She hated Ricky, hated him for exploiting her weakness. If it weren't for him she'd be home, not walking. Asleep instead of tearfully awake. Most important, she wouldn't be trying to shake another high. She blamed Ricky, even though she knew sole blame was completely hers. She despised her weakness, her vulnerability. But despising it wouldn't change the last day and a half. Nothing could return the wasted dollars. Her money and pride were smoke blown in the atmosphere.

  The shoes felt like blocks of cement. Sharp pains pierced her empty stomach. Nothing compared with the smell. An awful reminder that clung to her clothes and sank into her skin.

  Eight more blocks and she'd be home, she thought, walking with her arms folded feebly against the chilly air. Eight more blocks and she could forget this happened. Again.

  A car approaching from the rear highlighted Rhonda's stumble over a sidewalk crack. The car slowed, but she kept her head straight and moved as briskly as her weak legs would allow.

  The car pulled slowly to a cruise beside her. Still, Rhonda avoided acknowledgment.

  “Mama, mama,” the voice called.

  Rhonda's pace increased.

  “Mama, stop! What the hell are you doin'?”

  Rhonda froze mid-stride, then turned her head slowly; a reply was trapped somewhere between her throat and lips.

  “Get in.”

  They rode in silence. Painful silence infiltrated only by the steady hum of the engine and the faint soun
d of breathing.

  “Please just take me home, Champ,” she said, eyes fixed outside of the window. “Please just take me home. I don't wanna talk right now.”

  Quiet.

  Champ pulled into the parking lot, studying his mother in the faint overhead light. No words were spoken. He watched her exit the car and disappear behind the fence into the darkness.

  She trudged in the house and headed straight for her bathroom, where she inspected herself in the gray light. It was self-imposed punishment. Her hair was wild; her lips red, dry, and cracked. The sight of her chipped fingernails and blackened fingertips caused her eyes to tear. Eyes that were glazed, and frightened. Could he see all this in the darkness? A sharp pain stabbed her gut reminding Rhonda of her hunger. She walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Empty. The stomach pain returned—fiercer.

  FROM Only Twice I've

  Wished for Heaven

  BY DAWN TURNER TRICE

  The Chicago Sentinel Tuesday, November 8, 1994

  * * *

  Inmate Alfred Mayes dies of heart attack

  CHICAGO—Alfred Mayes, one of Illinois's most notorious inmates, died of a heart attack Monday in the Friersville Correctional Facility.

  Mayes, 82, was the street preacher sentenced to life imprisonment in 1976 for the brutal murder of 12-year-old Valerie Nicholae, a resident of the affluent Lakeland community.

  Warden James Delaney said Mayes's body was found by a prison guard at 8:04 Monday morning. According to the prison coroner, Mayes died in his sleep.

  CHAPTER 1

  Miss Jonetta Goode (that's Goode with an e):

  “And the truth about Valerie's passing and Alfred Mayes and that whole mess?

  Oh, the truth was buried nearly twenty years ago.”

  You see, I growed up in a place called Annington County, Mississippi.

  In my day, colored folk up and died whenever white folk got a notion for us to. Mostly our men, but sometimes women and children. You look up one day and they gone, like a speck of dirt just blowing on the breeze. Sometimes with grown-ups, you almost had to remember if they was ever there in the first place, because you couldn't tell who was who by the graves. But with the children, there was never no wondering. People always left rocks behind, sticks, X's, half-pushed into the ground. It was parents' way of burying parts of themselves with their babies. What remained, they numbed, just to get by.

  So we all learned to stand together; we learned to help one another. It was something nobody even thought about. A child needed you, you was there. You helped a little boy lean against a hoe handle until hard dirt crumbled. Then you stayed with that child to drop a seed or two inside. When a little girl was sick, you mopped her mouth and served her stew in your Sunday pot, with the biggest chunks of sausage and carrots and potatoes you could find. Wasn't no skimping, mind you. No skimping for a child. Or you hid a so-called wayward boy in your crawl space, telling him to hush up—hold his breath if he had to—until the sheriff's boots stomped off the front porch, back down that dirt road. . . . Many nights after Valerie died, I asked myself what could I've done to help her. How could I've saved that baby from so much sickness?

  Down south, we worried about white folks with their shotguns and lynch ropes, which made them God. Gave them the key to a heaven my papa wasn't rushing to get his girls to that fast. So in 1932, when we came up to Chicago, to Thirty-fifth Street, I thought I was a lifetime away from all that mess. Hell, the last thing I thought I'd have to worry about up north was black folks and their guns and lynch ropes and drugs, shooting all kinds of blues in their veins. And the nasty men, the Alfred Mayeses of the world, who liked to prey on little girls.

  One thing is sure, you don't get used to death. Oh no, honey. Even old, old folks want to live forever—even if before long all they can do is hang like antique pictures on the wall. Relatives come by and stroke their chin and nod and smile while looking at their old kin. Take a rag every now and then and knock dust off them when it's due. But when they leave this earth, it ain't easy to take. So you know it's near impossible to make sense of having to pat dirt onto a child's face.

  I saw Valerie only once, but after Child told me the hell her little friend was traveling through, I felt like I knowed her all her days. Could say I knowed her as good as I knowed Child. Just ain't fair for one person to have so much pain. Seems like God shoulda had better sense in piecing it out like that. Seems like since Creation, God had done gave Thirty-fifth Street's children more than their share of pain. Oh, Thirty-fifth Street was a horrible mess. For the longest, even the city had wanted to forget it was there. The mayor started by taking every city map and drawing a row of X's on the grid line between Thirty-fourth and Thirty-sixth streets. Stores hadn't been inspected in years. Mail wasn't delivered right, just left in one big pile. People never even had the dignity of a address. Thirty-fifth Street was all. Just Thirty-fifth Street. Only ten blocks made up the colored side of that street, and at every intersection, young souls was always dropping off. Like pecans from a tree. And not all of them dying in ways that call for burying, either. Sometimes that's the worst way.

  So when Valerie died and the city finally got a notion to close down all the stores—to do what the street preachers had been trying to do for nearly half a century—I must admit, I was happy to get my notice. But it left a great big old hole in my heart that that damned street couldn't go up in flames without taking them two little girls with it: Valerie lifted on up to glory, and Child, who was left behind. Left to roam this here wilderness.

  Every now and then, I think about the funeral, all them flowers surrounding Valerie's tiny white coffin, and a funny feeling still pass over me. Flowers are fine and good. But how come people forget to give children, especially little girls, flowers when they can enjoy them? Oh, the flower don't have to be a rose or a daisy. A flower is a “How do?” A kind word. A bouquet is no worries or cares or disappointments. It's giving a little girl a chance to enjoy a good breeze—to fix herself on a dream. And a child can't dream if she afraid to death to close her eyes at night.

  I remember the day Child come running into my store, telling me a new girl come to the class. “Miss Jonetta, Miss Jonetta!” She was running so fast, her uniform had turned sideways and she was bouncing like she had jumping beans in her britches. Well, back then that wasn't nothing all that unusual for Child. She was born under a busy moon. I told her often: “Honey, us girls ain't suppose to look like something the cat drug in, like we throwed our clothes up and plopped in 'em. And stop all that hopping up and down, too. That ain't right, neither. You take a chance on mixing stuff up and having them moving to places they ain't suppose to be.”

  But that day, I couldn't worry about her clothes or her carrying-on. “Miss Jonetta, Miss Jonetta!” she kept yelling.

  “Sit down and settle yourself first, honey,” I told her. She breathed in and out, swelling her chest up, like you do at the doctor's office when he say take a deep breath. “Now,” I said, nearly cracking my sides, “tell me what bug done got a piece of you.”

  “Today . . . in school? A new girl came to class,” she said. “And she sit right in front of me. She even seem pretty nice, not like the other Lakeland girls.”

  “I thought I told you not to worry none about them other girls,” I said. “They ain't got no color is all.”

  “I ain't worried about them,” she said. She took a peek down at those old brogans of hers like they was making more sense than me. But that day? Believe me when I tell you, nothing and nobody, not even those prissy Lakeland heifers, coulda made Child feel low.

  That year, Child was eleven years old, going on ninety. She thought nobody understood her. She thought nobody understood what it felt like to want to fly somewhere and be free. That's why she wandered over to Thirty-fifth Street. She was looking for a place to run to. Her hair was too red, so she thought. Her father didn't love her anymore, so she thought. And her family had just moved to this new hankty place where she felt s
he didn't fit in. With Valerie over there, and me on the other side of that fence, the two of us made her feel like she belonged.

  And the truth about Valerie's passing and Alfred Mayes and that whole mess? Oh, the truth was buried nearly twenty years ago. Only today it can finally be resurrected. All them years ago, I told Child that if she didn't want to tell the truth right then, she wouldn't have to. She had my hand to God that I wouldn't utter a word. But I warned her from my own experiences that secrets don't always stay down. They rise like hot bread; spread like melting butter. I told her one day she'd have to tell this thing. And it wouldn't matter if the miles stretched like canyons between us, because I would help her. One day she'd have to gather the events the way you would loose petals on a flower and piece them together again. Slowly. Into the whole story. From the day she and her family moved to Lakeland to the day that no-good Thirty-fifth Street finally went up in flames. And she and Valerie helped set all them souls free. I told her she'd have to tell it, when it was time.

  It's time. So listen.

  CHAPTER 2

  Tempestt Rosa Saville (“Child”):

  “When you learn the truth.”

  When I was a little girl growing up on the far South Side of Chicago, my father and I would sit on our back porch—sometimes it would seem like all day. The sun would be sitting straight up in the sky and my father would be watching me chase butterflies, running from rock to rock, jumping up on the limbs of our near-dead apple tree with my hands poised, ready to pinch at their shiny wings. To this day, I can sometimes feel what was left of the morning dew squishing up between my toes, and the rose thorns and weeds scratching against my little legs. My father would laugh at me when I'd finally get tired of chasing the butterflies and I'd plop right down next to him.

  Then when twilight would come and the butterflies had flown away, he'd see me smacking mosquitoes. “I hate them old ugly mosquitoes,” I'd tell Daddy. “I just hate them.”

  One evening, he looked at me and laughed.