“He wants you to hand him the camera,” Smilin whispers to Camera, tiltin his head to talk secret like they was in the jungle or somethin and come upon a native that don’t speak the language. The men start untyin the straps, and they put the camera into that great hand speckled with the hawk’s blood all black and crackly now. And the hand don’t even drop with the weight, just the fingers move, curl up around the machine. But Granddaddy lookin straight at the men. They lookin at each other and everywhere but at Granddaddy’s face.
“We filmin for the county, see,” say Smilin. “We puttin together a movie for the food stamp program … filmin all around these parts. Uhh, filmin for the county.”
“Can I have my camera back?” say the tall man with no machine on his shoulder, but still keepin it high like the camera was still there or needed to be. “Please, sir.”
Then Grandaddy’s other hand flies up like a sudden and gentle bird, slaps down fast on top of the camera and lifts off half like it was a calabash cut for sharing.
“Hey,” Camera jumps forward. He gathers up the parts into his chest and everything unrollin and fallin all over. “Whatcha tryin to do? You’ll ruin the film.” He looks down into his chest of metal reels and things like he’s protectin a kitten from the cold.
“You standin in the misses’ flower bed,” say Grandaddy. “This is our own place.”
The two men look at him, then at each other, then back at the mess in the camera man’s chest, and they just back off. One sayin over and over all the way down to the meadow, “Watch it, Bruno. Keep ya fingers off the film.” Then Grandaddy picks up the hammer and jams it into the oilskin pocket, scrapes his boots, and goes into the house. And you can hear the squish of his boots headin through the house. And you can see the funny shadow he throws from the parlor window onto the ground by the string-bean patch. The hammer draggin the pocket of the oilskin out so Granddaddy looked even wider. Granny was hummin now—high, not low and grumbly. And she was doin the cakes again, you could smell the molasses from the rum.
“There’s this story I’m goin to write one day,” say Cathy dreamer. “About the proper use of the hammer.”
“Can I be in it?” Tyrone say with his hand up like it was a matter of first come, first served.
“Perhaps,” say Cathy, climbin onto the tire to pump us up. “If you there and ready.”
Basement
WHEN PATSY MOTHER TOLE ME TO DO SOMETHIN, I did it. Cause she looked like Miss Anna May Wong. The hair mostly, them bangs. And she wore shiny blouses with long smooth sleeves and stand-up collars. And if there was one thing I’d learned, it was don’t mess with Miss Anna May Wong, cause somethin bad can happen to you. Like if she was the hostess in the casino and pulled your coat to bet no more, you’d be a fool to go against this sound advice and wind up with the bad guys jumpin you about them I.O.U.’s. Or like the time she was a hostess at the mysterious Grand Hotel and slipped a note in the towel for you to clear out and use the backstairs. Well, you just don’t stop to shave and ring room service for ginger ale, you move. Or say she’s the hostess at the waterfront club and tips you that the big guy’s layin for you and there’s a boat sailin at midnight. Quite naturally you get on the pier and flag that boat. Or maybe you some big-time pinky-ring gangster played by Akim Tamiroff with a ferocious make-up job around the eyes, and Miss Anna May Wong been your hostess for years and keeping a watch out for you. But this time you’ve fallen for a swell society dish and Miss Anna May Wong tell you to dig on yourself. And you need to check out what she saying cause never mind your big estate and the carpets and your rings and playin Mozart without lookin at the keyboard, you still a no-class Akim Tamiroff and need to listen what she sayin about your life. The swell society dish got eyes for somebody else anyway, some bright young promising man in a tuxedo with rosy make-up on his cheeks, cheerful stuff not like that grim mascara job they stuck you with on account of you a gangster with a foreign accent, and short besides. Not only that, Lloyd Nolan’s on your trail, so you better listen. Cause next thing you know Miss Anna May Wong got this sweet record on the Victrola and wearing this long shiny white gown and she hands you a champagne glass, and, honey, it’s all over. Not that she’d poison you. Worse. She gonna speak on your life and drop the truth in your lap. So real quiet and super-patient, the record playin out and the camera crowdin in on her face, she reveals how disappointed she is with you and your dumb self. And you realize you blew, but too late. Lloyd Nolan kickin in the door. But there she is, gorgeous for the occasion, so your life at its end will have good taste, though it has for a long time lacked good sense.
So when Patsy Mother tole me to stay out the basement, I stayed out the basement. I’d throw the garbage from the elevator without gettin out, pull the door to, quick, pressing on the up button all the while. Or I’d stack the newspapers on the roof. Or set the bags on the fire escape. Or fling stuff out back. Or ride the can up and down on the elevator without me till somebody’d empty it and come to the door and tell my mother. And she’d give me this soft-spoken lecture about how the ironing cord was manufactured special for certain behinds which shall remain nameless. But it didn’t come to that. Wouldn’t’ve cared if it had. Beats gettin caught in the spooky basement any day. I mean, you could get yanked into the bedsprings or stuck into them bicycles and never escape. Or get dragged down into the coal chute where the rats with the bubonic plague would get you after they finish tearin cats’ ears off and chompin dog tails and finishin off milky-mouth babies for dessert. You might fall into the swamp there by the furnace and wouldn’t no one even notice the bubbles as you got dragged under or even recognize your hat floatin on top. And if you crawled out, there’s always the deadly gas leakin out the pipes, green and slimy behind the furnace, to smother you. That’s if you didn’t already get wound up in the lamp cords and spider nets and choke to death. And what about them crawly things in the big dirty burlap bag hangin up by the yard door? They’d snatch you up on that giant hook and you’d hang your own self. And the snow banked up gainst the yard door so you couldn’t shut out the wind makin them creepy noises, cause snow don’t melt in the dungeon-dark of the basement like it do in regular-type places. So, the wind’d make you run and you’d quite naturally get locked in behind the laundry room and all them whispers and roarins and scratchins give you a heart attack sure. And if you gasped still, havin survived all these goins on, then somethin fierce and hairy’d grab you by your braids and stuff you into the rag bin in the blackened brick of the wall smeared with your own sticky blood, which is smelly so the witches’re howlin for your corpse for the stew pot. And you try to escape and get sunk up to your head in the quicksand by the old dumbwaiter and get dragged down past darkness till there’s nothin else.
Actually, it was some time fore I got around to asking Patsy Mother just how come exactly I should stay out the basement. But she was mainly talkin with Patsy Aunt, grown-up and arguin. Me and Patsy were takin turns dressin up in the foxtails. Patsy Aunt in the yellow chair with her legs danglin over one arm of it, and her head over the other, puffin on a cigarette and sippin this highball. My mother woulda killed me. Patsy Mother in a green kimono with a gold dragon windin right around to her behind. She curlin her hair in the bathroom but comin in where we are to speak her speak, then goin out again to where the sterno and the mirror and everything else was.
“He oughta be strung up by the short hairs,” was what she said in the doorway, catchin the lump of grease sliding off her wrist. “Messin with young girls with his raunchy ole diseased self,” was what she mumbled back in the bathroom.
“Oh, Norma, you’re always ready to believe the worst about any man. Who told you he got the Norton girl pg?”
“And another thing,” comin from the bathroom fast, this time swingin the curlin iron so they click-clicked and curled their own smoke, “don’t let my attitude about men be more important than these little girls’ safety. You know for a fact, Fay, that you mainly stay in hot water cause you always try to
prove I’m wrong about some man.” And then, “Look here,” as she went away, then came back, holdin the iron still and tight like that would hold the heat in for one more curl, “I like men, always did.”
“Like hell. You give em as rough a time as your mouth can muster. If you could shut up for half a second and give a man a chance to …”
“If one kissable man would bite my tongue,” said Patsy Mother real slow, “I’d be silent for days to come.” She said it real clear and serious like somethin important was being put down. Like the old folks clear their throat, hold the rocker silent, and wait till the airplane go over and then lay the wise word on you. “That’s the truth,” she said, pointin the curlin iron straight at me and Patsy like we said different. “Men are wonderful-type persons,” she said. “And if you can find one, just one man in life that knows what the hell he doing, can maybe find his own socks, and don’t be bucklin at the knees or hittin you in the head or chasin around, just one man who halfway know who he dealin with and ain’t too ugly to climb into bed with, don’t look like he been hit in the head with a hammer, often, and enjoyed it …”
“See how you do, Norma,” said Patsy Aunt, climbin out the yellow chair and real careful with the highball. “You open your mouth and out it spews. Patsy’ll grow up with all the wrong ideas about …”
“Old ugly man,” Patsy Mother motioned toward the window and the yard as she headed for the bathroom, but comes back fore she get there. “Look just like a sick frog, don’t he? And think he cute is the worst part.”
“Well, Norma, just remember that every frog is likely to be Prince Charming himself under a spell.” Me and Patsy giggle with her, but Patsy Mother squint hard and point a sharp finger to hush.
“I leave toads strictly alone,” she said. “Likely to give you all kinds of warts. I leave em alone. See you do the same.”
“Yes ma’am,” I said. “So why must we stay out the basement?” I asked again while my mouth was open. Patsy Aunt come sit with us by the mirror and bury her face in the fox fur and giggle. Patsy Mother stare hard at the fox head around my shoulders like she waitin for them yellow eyes to blink.
“Cause the super and his cronies is a nasty bunch of low life, filthy bad, jive ass …”
“Because,” said Patsy Aunt drownin her out, “some men when they get to drinking don’t know how to behave properly to women and girls. Understand?” Me and Patsy nodded and got to brushin the foxes with the silver hairbrush from the World’s Fair.
“You see,” said Patsy Mother back again and with only one slipper, “it’s very hard to teach young girls to be careful and the same time to not scare you to death.” She came and sat down on the rug with us. “Sex is not a bad thing. But sometimes it’s a need that makes men act bad, take advantage of little girls who are friendly and trusting. Understand?”
We understood, but we didn’t nod in the mirror at her cause she wasn’t lookin. She was busy plasterin down them bangs and kinda starin into empty glass. Patsy Aunt take the brush and brush my hair and it feel good till she get to the kitchen. “They play checkers in the basement,” I said, just to get out the trance and get her out the knots. Don’t nobody say nuthin. And I get to thinkin about the super who I thought was O.K. before, because he smelled like bubble gum all the time. His clothes did. I figured he smuggled bubble gum into the country past the ration board in the linin of his clothes. Smuggled it in for little kids cause it wasn’t our fault about the war and why we gotta do without bubble gum just cause they need the rubber for the jeep tires. But then come to find that smell was not bubble gum but some purple tablets you suck on for your breath when you been drinkin. And I had to change my whole picture of him. So I didn’t like him for that. Plus he used to pee up against the wall when we played handball. So he was definitely on my list.
“The super pulled his thing out,” Patsy said after while.
“Say what?”
“He always do that.”
“Tell me that again,” said Patsy Mother turnin her full around from the mirror. “And don’t leave nuthin out.”
“Your temperature’s rising, Norma.”
“You shut up, Fay, and let the child speak. So?”
“I was jumpin in the yard …”
“After I tole you to stay your behind out the basement?”
“Let the child speak, Norma,” say Patsy Aunt with that highball.
“And the super come to the doorway—the one with the dirty snow up against it—and he got on these overalls with the straps real loose so they drooped low. And he put his hand in the side like he reachin for his pocket, and he pulled his thing out.”
“And what else?”
“Mighty talented man, the super. His thing reach …” Patsy Aunt got a look and shut up.
“He just did that. He waved it at me and Ludie and Charlane.”
“What’d you do?”
“I went on jumpin. It was my turn.”
“How come you didn’t tell me this part when you told me about the time he felt up Cora’s little girl?”
Patsy shrugged, then shrugged two more times. Patsy Mother wasn’t there to see. She was up and runnin and cursin and bangin doors and Patsy Aunt scramble up after her and set her highball on the coffee table. And we could hear them scufflin in the hallway and the door slammin and Patsy Mother tear past us to the silverware drawer and I’m scared cause I’m not supposed to even be in Patsy’s house and now the cops’ll be here sure. Patsy scared too, cause she always makin up stuff on top of the real stuff.
“I’ll kill that black bastard,” Patsy Mother screamin and Patsy Aunt tryin to tackle her and wrench her coat off. Patsy hide her face in the foxtails and I can’t see if she cryin or laughin or what. And I’m thinkin bout the time we almost weren’t friends no more cause she told my mother I was under the stairs with James Lee. And my mother said to stay out of Patsy way cause she sex crazy and always talkin nasty. But I’m mostly thinkin I better go home before Patsy Aunt give up tryin to step on the back of Patsy Mother one houseshoe, who is crazy now to get out the door and to the super with the ice pick. But I don’t move cause doorways are dangerous when them two scufflin. Like the time Patsy Mother decided somebody up the block needed cuttin cause her number hit and they disappeared and Patsy Aunt wound up gettin the dresser slammed on her hand, then her face slammed into the police lock.
“He didn’t really shake his thing at you, did he?” I say when Patsy come up out the fur to see who’s winnin. Patsy don’t answer. Then her mother yank herself free and out the door and Patsy Aunt pick herself up and yell down the stairs that she hope the super hit her in her head, rape her in the snow, and strangle her with her own brassiere. And I know my mother gotta be hearin this cause she home from work and always wonderin where I am is listenin out. Then we hear Patsy Aunt jumpin two at a time and yellin to Mr. Taylor who getting his mail from the hall table to do somethin. And you can’t even hear his answers cause he speak proper-like and soft like my mother. So Patsy Aunt callin him a bunch of choice faggots. And I can just see my mother puttin on that camel-hair coat and reachin for her keys off the bookcase, comin to look for me. Then we hear the basement gate rattlin like maybe she climbin over or tearin it off the hinges one, so we go to the window. And the super standin there yankin on his suspenders, then backin into the snow with his hands up and there’s Patsy Mother swingin on him with that one houseshoe and I’m hopin she dropped the ice pick on the way.
Cause I know how she feel about evil folks. She speak on it every time she got a highball in her hand. Like the time she set me in her lap to explain it to me and all the while her relatives jumpin up and down sayin she crazy. And she’s tellin me that there is evil in the world and evil scars and tears your soul. And if you hand God a raggedy soul he don’t appreciate it much, cause it may not be in shape to give out to the next person waitin to come on in. So when you murder evil, you doin good twice over. You savin your soul for you and the unborn as well. So it’s not murder at all, it
’s fittin, is how she was tellin me till Patsy Uncle Washburn snatch me up on his shoulder and take all us down to Thomford’s for raisin-rum ice-cream cones, showin us all the dance steps him and Bojangles and the man in Father Divine barbershop taught to Fred Astaire, who not only not grateful but not doin the steps right, steppin when he should glide and stompin when he should tap and havin to depend on a bouncin cane stead of his talents.
“Here, hold this,” Patsy say, handing me the foxtails so she can get the nail out the window so we can really get out and see what’s doing. Patsy Mother beatin hell out the super is what’s doin. We see his stockin cap sailin in the air, though we can’t see him cause the window nailed permanent. Besides I gotta go fore my mother come lookin for me.
“Was he feelin Rosie’s tits for real that time, Patsy?”
And Patsy give me a look and suck her teeth and grab the foxtails back around her face, scrapin my neck with the claws so I get mad and gotta go anyway.
“I’m not gonna be your friend any more,” I said, and got up to get my coat.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” she said, pulling at my sleeve. “About the time me and James Lee did it on the roof.”
“You always tellin tales on people.”
She ran to the door behind me and tried to snatch my hat but it buckles. “If you stay I’ll show you a surprise.”
“What?”
Patsy stood there tryin to figure out what in the world she had for show. She spun around on her heels looking the house over for surprisin things. But I got my gloves on now and the door open and busy trying to get a story together for my mother when she ask where I been all day. Then decide to just tell her the truth and take the weight and let it go.
But I’ll leave out the part about how Patsy pulled her drawers down and her dress up and put her hand there, callin that a surprise. Some surprise. And just to make me stay and play with her and be her friend. Left out that part cause my mother don’t think much of Patsy and her family as it is.
Gorilla, My Love Page 11
