by Richard Dry
The hunger was awakened in him by the smell of food coming from somewhere in the bus cabin. He stood up and noticed a single light over a pair of seats six rows up. He didn’t know how he would do it, but he had to get some of that food. He walked up the aisle and heard the chewing. He smelled garlic and tomatoes, not that he knew the exact smells, but he knew it was spaghetti sauce or maybe a meatball sandwich or lasagna.
He heard whispers and saw hair wound up like a cobra’s on the head of a girl in an aisle seat; through the space between the seats, he saw the face of the girl sitting by the window, an oak-colored face, with short red hair as short as velvet. This girl by the window had a large red apple in her hand and opened her mouth as tall as a lion’s, as if her jaw unhitched. The juice dripped from the apple onto her chin. She laughed and quickly wiped it with the sleeve of her sweater, then chewed as she shoved part of it into one cheek.
Love slid into the empty seat across the aisle from them. They were older than he, maybe sixteen, and bigger. The two girls turned to him, the one closest, with the cobra hair, covering her full mouth with a smile. She was eating spaghetti with a plastic fork out of a Tupperware container. Love ignored her and talked to the one by the window.
“Let me have a bite of that apple,” he said.
“This apple?”
“Yeah. Come on.”
“Why should I give some nappy-headed playah like you some of my fine red apple?”
“’Cause you’re a nice person.”
She switched her speech from streetwise to gentle Texan: “I’m sure you must have me mistaken with somebody else, young man.”
Then she saw the desperate look in his eyes, like he was going to reach over and grab it whether or not she offered. She handed the apple to him over her friend, and he took a bite equal to her huge dent. Without chewing the first portion in his mouth, he took another bite.
“You’re like an alligator,” she said, with more fascination than disgust.
“Just one more.” He wasn’t asking.
“You want some of my spaghetti?” the cobra-haired girl asked. Love turned his eyes toward her as she held out the plastic container, his mouth still fixed into the apple. She was definitely the less pretty of the two girls, he thought, now that his stomach had stopped panicking. Her offer, her desire to be liked, made her that much less attractive, though he was glad to take the food.
“Where are you coming from?” the one by the window asked.
He continued to chew and shovel spaghetti into his mouth. He pointed with his thumb. “The back of the bus.”
“Well, where are you going?” the one on the aisle asked.
He paused to think about his answer. “Hell. One day.”
“If you eat like that, I guess you sure will.”
“What’s your name?” he demanded.
“LaTanya,” the one on the aisle blurted out immediately, as if she didn’t know the rules of flirting at all.
“I didn’t ask you,” he said. He handed back her empty spaghetti container. “What’s your name?” he asked the one by the window with the short red hair.
“Why should I tell you when you’re treating us with such disrespect? You should apologize to LaTanya.”
“I’m sorry,” he said without taking his eyes off the girl by the window. “What’s your name?” She pretended she might not answer, twisted her neck, and looked into the night.
“Whatever,” he said, and feigned getting up to go.
“You give up awful easy,” she said.
“So you gonna tell me your name?”
“Joyce.”
He nodded and waited, but she didn’t ask his.
“Love,” he said, and patted his chest.
“Love? That’s your name? Love? That’s not a man’s name.”
“That’s the only true man’s name,” he said.
“You’re nothing more than just a little boy.”
“Then you don’t know what a real man is. They must not have real men where you come from.” The sugar from the food was settling into his bloodstream and he yawned. Joyce stood up.
“Let me have that seat, LaTanya, in case I need to slap this boy.”
“Don’t you think you’re in enough trouble already,” LaTanya said.
“Shut up. Move over and let me sit there.” Joyce remained standing as LaTanya squeezed beneath her. Joyce had a fine body and strong arms that seemed like they could fight off a truck. If there were two things Love liked in a girl, they were a spirit that would never get tired and low-down, and the feeling that, if she got to like you, no one would get past her to mess with you.
“How old are you, little boy?” she asked him.
“Sixteen.”
“Yeah, and I’m a hundred and eight. You ain’t no sixteen. You more like nine.”
“You do look about a hundred an eight with your baldin head.”
“You better go on back,” she said. “Your baby-sitter probably waitin for you.” She and LaTanya laughed and gave each other a high five.
Love stood. “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am. You just reminded me of one of my grandmama’s friends.”
Love went back to his seat. There were still many hours left in the ride for the dance to continue. He closed his eyes and waited as Li’l Pit slept next to him.
It wasn’t twenty minutes later that Love felt something flick his ear. He looked up to see Joyce brushing past him on the way to the bathroom.
When she came out, she turned in two rows behind Love and then threw a wadded-up paper towel that hit him in the head. He stood up, and she waved him back. Love took the seat by the aisle.
“I can’t stay up there,” Joyce said. “LaTanya snores when she sleeps. That your little brother?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Love had his eyes closed, relaxed and cool, feeling he was in control of the situation since she had come to seek him out.
“What’s your real name?” she asked.
“Love.”
“Your parents named you Love?”
“Ronald’s my first name.”
“How’d you get to be called Love, then?”
“All the women call me that.”
Joyce nudged him with her elbow, and he smiled.
“I guess you got a girlfriend, then,” she said.
He considered this question for a moment. “I got lots of girlfriends.”
“You a playah.”
“You a playah-hater?”
“I guess I am.” She relaxed into her seat. There was time for silence on the long ride, but Love started to feel the need to talk.
“Where you from?”
“Dallas. I just went to see LaTanya in El Paso, and now she’s comin up to see me.”
“They got Gs in Dallas?”
“Why, you a gangsta?” she asked, laughing.
“That’s right.”
“A gangsta named Love? Now that’s a riot.”
“I’m a G, which means a gentleman for the ladies.”
“How old are you, for real?”
“Old enough.”
“How come you won’t tell me?”
“Same reason you want to know. You want to know if I’m down for the deed.”
“What you talking about? I ain’t doing no deed with you.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t even know you.”
“So?”
Joyce laughed. “Boy, you too quick.”
“I’m quick when I’m in love.”
“What are you talkin about? You named ‘Love,’ but you don’t even know what that is.”
“I got the feelin you about to tell me.”
“Love is you don’t do anything to hurt each other on purpose. Didn’t your mama teach you that?”
“I guess not.” Love stared at the back of the seat straight in front of him. “Anyway, my mama’s dead.”
“For real?”
Love didn’t answer. He felt Joyce being drawn to him.
“I’m sorry
,” she said.
“That’s awright.”
They sat in silence for a minute. Then Love asked: “So, what if you do something you can’t help?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean hurt them.”
“Then it’s not love.”
“But sometimes people do things they can’t help,” Love said again.
“I know.”
“What if someone couldn’t help themself, they just got into something? Does that mean they didn’t love you?”
She considered this for a minute and watched his face. She could see how seriously he was taking this, how important this was to him.
“I think it could still be love.”
He looked back at her and nodded.
“You got nice hair,” he said.
“I thought it was bald a-hundred-an-eight-year-old hair.”
“Where you think I’m from?”
“Los Angeles.”
“You think I’m a Blood from L.A.? I’m an Oaktown boy.”
“Oklahoma?”
“Naw, dog. Oakland, California, like Hammer and Too Short.”
“I don’t listen to hip-hop.”
“What kinda music you listen to, then?”
“Country.”
“Country?” He sat up and looked at her. “Country?”
“That’s right.”
“Country?”
“Are you so closed-minded you only listen to hip-hop?”
“That’s right. I don’t let none of that funky White shit touch my ears.”
“My daddy ain’t White, and he likes country music.”
“Man.” Love shook his head. “You southern niggers all mixed up.”
“You G-thang niggers the ones mixed up, singing ’bout shootin this and bitches that.”
“That’s how it is in Oaktown.” Love tapped his chest with his fingers spread into the “W” for West Side Oakland. “You got to be down or you goin down.”
“Yeah, right. Don’t you know that’s all just hype to sell you CDs?”
Love didn’t answer and Joyce opened her mouth to repeat her assertion, but she saw Love looking straight forward again, as if he were thinking about something else entirely.
“How’d your mama die?” she asked.
“She just did,” he said.
“You going to live with your dad?”
“He’s dead too.”
“Damn.”
“So now you know.” Love still looked straight ahead. Joyce studied his face, his high cheeks, dark red and smooth, and the strong but soft rim of his ear, open to her.
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then moved back and looked at his face again. He turned toward her, holding his breath. She leaned in to him again and put her hands on his narrow face, pulling him toward her. They kissed for a minute, his hands down at his sides. Her lips were warm and wet, and for the first time in his life, he felt a tongue reach into his mouth. It was a strange invasion, a piece of another person inside him, and it seemed to demand a response. He stuck his tongue out too and, not knowing where to put it but remembering a scene from a movie, licked around the outside of her lips. Suddenly he felt like everything was disappearing around him—the bus, the trip, Li’l Pit—and that he was falling into her and into an open space in his chest at the same time. A sudden panic seized him; the open space closed, and he pulled back.
“What’s up?” she said.
“Nothin.” He pushed the recline button on the armrest and laid his seat back. “What about being too quick?”
“That’s when I didn’t know you. Now we know each other better.”
“Aw, you scandalous.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” She nodded and, stretching her arm above his face, shut off the overhead light.
* * *
LI’L PIT WOKE up to an empty seat beside him. The daylight had just begun to stream in as the bus wove its way through the downtown streets of Dallas, past the Trinity River and the domes of the convention center, toward the Hyatt Regency with its giant ball on top. But Li’l Pit couldn’t tell if they were just pulling in to Dallas or if they’d already made a stop and were now headed back on to the highway. He jumped out of his seat and ran up the aisle, but before asking the driver any questions, he realized that Love may have just wanted to sleep in a row all his own. So he ran through the bus and came upon Love sleeping in a window seat with Joyce beside him, her head resting on his arm.
“Rah!” Li’l Pit barked at them.
Joyce and Love woke up and blocked their eyes from the sun.
“Hey,” Li’l Pit yelled. “Get off a my brother.”
“Come on, dog.” Love yawned slowly. “What you yellin at her for?”
“We got to make our rap so we can get some food.” He turned to Joyce. “Sorry, you got to leave us alone now.” Li’l Pit stared at her and breathed heavily through his nostrils.
“What’s he talking about?” Joyce asked.
“Nothin. Go on back to your seat, bro.”
“You tell her to get on back.”
“You let your little brother talk to your friends like that?” Joyce asked Love.
“He ain’t got no friends but me,” Li’l Pit said. “I’m his best an only friend.”
Joyce raised her eyebrow and looked at Love, but he didn’t speak.
“All right, if that’s how it is,” she said. “Have a nice life.” She stood up and headed to the bathroom in the back of the bus. Love felt like begging her to come back, but he knew Dallas was her stop, and soon he’d be alone with his brother again, so he let her go.
“Good. Now that bitch is gone, we can get to work,” Li’l Pit said, jumping into the seat next to Love.
“What you gettin in my way for?”
“I’m just doin my job. You told me to watch your back. Who knows what kinda places she’s been. We don’t need no bitch gettin between us.”
“Dog, you don’t know a bitch from a basketball. Aw, you too young to understand.”
“I am not.”
“Whatever.”
“Well, then you got to teach me.”
“I don’t got to teach you nothin.”
“But that’s what you’re sposed to do.”
“I’m sposed to get you to South Carolina. I ain’t sposed to teach you about sex.”
“I had sex.”
“You ain’t had sex.” Love looked at his brother’s face to see the truth. Li’l Pit looked into the pocket on the seat back and snapped the elastic, then looked straight into Love’s eyes. “Yes, I have so.”
“When did you have sex?”
“That’s my business.”
Joyce returned from the bathroom and went to her seat, throwing a long look at Love. The bus stopped and waited to turn left into the terminal parking lot. Both boys looked at the concrete structure and the downtown, with its glass buildings and traffic—in most ways, like any other downtown.
“You didn’t have no sex,” Love said.
“Well, I seen it.”
The bus parked, and while everyone stood up to get off, Love watched Joyce and LaTanya get their belongings from overhead. Joyce put on a miniature pink leather backpack, then looked back at Love. She leaned over and said something into LaTanya’s ear, at which they both giggled.
Love wanted to yell something crude at them, but instead, he waited until he and his brother were down the stairs onto the pavement where they waited for their baggage to change buses for Atlanta.
Love came up to Joyce and squinted at her angrily. He sucked through his nose and gathered saliva in his mouth to spit at her.
“You want to come to my place for breakfast?” she asked.
Li’l Pit’s eyes opened wide, and although he was very hungry, he shook his head at his brother. Love turned and spit at the bus tire.
“You’re disgusting,” LaTanya said and turned to Joyce, who laughed. “You don’t even know what you’re getting into.”
“So, you want to come or
not? My daddy’s out of town on business.”
LaTanya shook her head at Joyce.
“What are you having?” Love asked.
“I ain’t comin,” Li’l Pit yelled. “We can earn our own breakfast.”
“Well, I didn’t invite you, now did I?” she said to him.
Love felt hot. He took off his black leather jacket and tried to fold it in two, but the arms got in the way and stuck out in either direction. He cracked his neck from one side to the other. Li’l Pit and Joyce both waited for his decision. LaTanya put her bag down and placed her hands on her hips.
“You got to invite my brother too,” Love finally said.
Joyce looked at Li’l Pit, who smiled and stuck his tongue out at her.
“He doesn’t want to come,” she said.
Love opened his eyes wide and stared at her hard, in a way that Li’l Pit couldn’t see.
“All right,” she said. She turned to Li’l Pit again and got on one knee. “We would be honored if your grace would partake in some of our southern hospitality.”
He turned and spit at the tire too, then looked back at her. “I don’t eat no hospital food.”
She laughed. “Well, fine. You can have cereal.”
“But I don’t want to go.”
“How far from here do you live, anyway?” Love asked.
“I don’t want to,” Li’l Pit whined, but they ignored him.
“It’s only a few minutes in a cab. Or we could walk.”
“I don’t care,” Love said.
“Let’s take a cab,” Li’l Pit said. Love raised his eyebrows at Joyce and she smiled.
“Okay, then. Let’s go.” The bus for Atlanta left at noon, and Love had the driver move the trunk to the right baggage area.
* * *
JOYCE’S HOUSE WAS large with a lot of empty space, as if it were uninhabited much of the time. She lived in an upper-middle-class neighborhood on a block of large two-story houses with front lawns. Each home was different in shape or style, like they were trying to be better than the ones next to them by adding a marble column, a semicircular terrace, Spanish roof tiles, or a brass fish spitting water. Joyce’s home had a cactus garden running along the front of the lawn with a white stone path. She got out her keys and opened the front door, holding it for everyone to enter before her, like a guide to a haunted castle.
