Leaving Cecil Street

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  They went on like that for two years. Joe walked into that dimly lit room once or twice a month, as often as he could get to Philly from wherever he was on the road, Alberta turning the lights off before he could really see her face. When there was talking it was mostly Joe. Alberta whispered rather than talked. Joe was loud though. His voice filled the room and Alberta cuddled up to the sound of it as he’d tell her about the clubs he’d played, who he’d played with, what songs, what the people in the audience had shouted. He mixed in stories about his growing up in Pittsburgh, described for her the size of the bullet hole that had gone through his father’s head. Then he’d switch to something light, something funny that he could laugh about, he’d have Alberta laughing too. One night he told Alberta how some woman got saved during his solo at a club in Norfolk. “She started shouting and doing a holy dance right up on the little circle of a stage. People were laughing at first, then they were cussing and yelling at her that she wasn’t in no damn church, get the hell off the stage.” Joe laughed as he told the story. Then he found Alberta’s mouth through the darkness and traced it with his fingers and whispered that he wanted to save her. Would that be possible? “Me and my music, baby, could we stand a chance with you?”

  Alberta often laughed on the nights with Joe. But when he said that, she more than laughed. She giggled like a love-struck adolescent. Felt a giddiness that started in her toes, that started all the way to the day she was born; born not to a crazy mother who’d sunk her teeth in the middle of her forehead and marred her for life; born instead to the type of people she’d hear the drunks talk about: a mother who taught school and a father who was a doctor who kept his practice in a poor neighborhood and treated most of the people for free so that the people loved her and her parents and gushed when she walked down the street. The giddiness spread through her as she stared at the three unlit bulbs protruding from the ceiling and Joe nibbled at her ear, felt the giddiness in her chest and she was seventeen, but not like she’d been seventeen standing at the kitchen sink with Pat telling her she had to be a whore; she was seventeen sitting on the back porch of her parents’ summer home in places that she heard about as she tended bar, places like Ocean City. She’d just left church and her hands were still in her white lacy gloves as she sat on the two-seated wooden swing next to the fine boy from the Sunday school class. His hands were dark and strong and warm like Joe’s hands as he peeled her gloves and put her small hand to his lips and kissed her hand, then asked, “Can I stand a chance with you?” The giddiness was filling her up, all the way to her head, as Joe moved from nibbling her ears down to her neck. Usually by the time he started working his mouth the way he was now Alberta would be moaning, not giggling, but she was giggling now, uncontrollably. Her body was a spasm of the girlish sounds denied her throughout her life. Joe was grooving on the sounds, she could tell by the way he was moving, laughing now himself, asking her, What? Was she suddenly ticklish, had he hit her funny bone, tell him so he’d have the secret to know what to do to make her giggle like that. But right then the door burst open and frog-mouthed Pat was shouting that Joe’s buddy had been stabbed in the ass, get him out of here right now or they would never be let back in Pat’s Place again. Alberta had held Joe then, she’d never held him before to try to make him stay. “Let him die,” she whispered in Joe’s ear. “Don’t leave me, please.”

  Joe said that he would be back. Had he never not been back? he asked. He kissed her then softly, as if she was his bride and he was on his way back to work after the honeymoon. He got a gnawing in his stomach then. A burst of reason as he sat up in the bed. How could she be his bride, she’d probably been with more men than he had women; he’d been with a lot of women given the lifestyle of a musician on the road. This was wrong, her asking him to stay. She was breaking the rules, he was a john, that’s all. Then he did something he’d never done before, out of respect for her he’d never done it, but something about her desperation when she asked him to stay made him do it. He clicked on the light. She gasped when he did that and her hands went to her face to cover it, her face severely made up with lipsticks and rouges and mascaras, shadows and pencils that perverted her eyes. Though he did see her eyes. They were soft-brown beautiful eyes. He drew in a hard breath, said shit. Then got up and had to leave because he knew when he’d looked at her eyes, the desperation and longing and sadness in her eyes, that he’d fallen in love. Said shit again about having to spend a Friday night in an emergency room with a colored man who’d taken a knife to the ass. They’d treat a white man with a splinter in his finger first. Said shit a third time because it would never be the same again with her. Her asking him to stay had changed it; him glimpsing her under the light had too. In the dark she was a dream, a bit of a goddess who wasn’t completely real, who’d cry over the big things: the condition of humanity, the plight of the colored man, the untouchable, inescapable sadness that came with being alive, which he understood, which he thought she had too. But now she’d pinned down her sadness and made it too specific, made it about her needing him. So he said shit three times and left, promising her that he’d be back before the sun was up good, knowing that he was lying, had no plans to come back. Felt no guilt over it either. Felt hardened in that instant, as if he’d grown a crusty shell where his skin had been.

  Chapter 13

  CECIL STREET WAS trying to come back to itself, trying to use the setup for the second block party as a mood-enhancing activity to get beyond the tragedy with Neet. Trying to get beyond the edginess pervading the block even before Neet had attempted the abortion. Trying to get back to the way they used to be when the air on the block was loose and freeing, not thick and tight and sad. It helped that one of the block’s favorite sons had just come back from the war in Vietnam, by all appearances intact, ten fingers and toes, steady walk, still able to smile and laugh. Wallace. “Looks good” was the refrain jumping the banisters from end to end. “Old Wallace sure looks good.” They said it with relief, since the year before, Bunny’s son, who lived three houses from the corner, had returned nodding and scratching, addicted to potent jungle smack, and the Smiths’ boy from Ithan Street had returned and taken to directing traffic at Sixtieth and Spruce, imaginary whistle and all. But Wallace’s mental health seemed good, and he’d even grown an inch, standing at taller than six feet, with square shoulders and a strongly set chin and a mother-loving face with big, honest-looking eyes. Joe liked him. Had always paid special attention to him since Wallace’s mother was a single parent and Joe knew the life of a boy without a father. He’d turned Wallace on to jazz years ago and Wallace was a connoisseur. He was especially proud that now Wallace was college bound. He gave Wallace an enthusiastic multi-positioned handshake and they touched shoulders in a hug. It was a Thursday night and a half dozen men had gathered in Pinochle Eddie’s basement to firm up security for the block for the weekend party. Though Wallace wasn’t twenty-one yet, just twenty, but he’d been included because of his size and good sense.

  They sat around the table and drew cards for time slots. Joe drew Saturday evening between seven and nine. Then they filled Wallace in on the last party that had been for the most part crime free. There had been a lightweight skirmish between the Corner Boys and a rival singing group from Delancey Street; two girls had tried to scratch each other’s faces over some no-count boy. A couple of loud-talking bad-mouthers had too much to drink and hollered out insults to no one in particular. Nothing serious though: no pick-pockets, no silver salt and pepper shakers slipped out through the unlocked screen doors, no pervert tried to lure the children from the block. Though there was talk of the puffy-haired wild woman who’d challenged the Corner Boys. The story had grown so from when Johnetta had first fanned it until now. Now the story was that she’d appeared butt naked on the corner and asked the Corner Boys which one was gonna have her first. Then she’d gone straight for them and started pulling at their crotches and they’d shooed her away and she’d disappeared into the crowd. Wallace laughed
out loud. Said that story was definitely more rumor than fact because the Corner Boys he knew would never have let a female get away who was willing to pat them down. Then Tim said hell, he might not have let her get away either. Pinochle Eddie offered Wallace a Miller High Life bottled beer, saying as he did that though he wasn’t of legal age he’d probably seen as much, done as much in the jungles of ’Nam as any of them had right here on the streets of Philadelphia. Joe handed Wallace a cigar and said, “This is just our way of saying welcome home, young blood, we glad you made it back intact.”

  They drank beer and smoked cigars and pipes and cigarettes and got a card game working. Talked politics and women between hands. Talked about the big blue-black man who had gone into Sonny’s store looking for the puffy-haired woman who’d supposedly exposed herself to the Corner Boys. Tim said he’d heard the man was a Black Panther. Eddie said he’d heard he was a crook. Joe said so what, Agnew’s a crook. They all slapped hands in agreement about that, and that Nixon was an asshole, and that Valadean had the prettiest ass to sashay up Cecil Street since their wives were that young. Though Pinochle Eddie maintained that his wife’s ass never looked that good. Swore to God that he loved his wife with all his heart, but damn, he said, her titties been living on her stomach instead of her chest since the birth of their child fourteen years ago. They laughed as they talked, Eddie always turning the conversation back to Valadean and how much he’d love to get a taste of that honey.

  Joe didn’t flinch. Took an extra-large swallow of beer and gave himself an excuse to cough. He turned to Wallace then. Asked Wallace was it true what everyone said about Asian women. Wallace said he guessed it was about as true as what everyone said about black women. “I guess it’s all good when you’re into it, Mr. Joe,” he said, sliding the deck of cards in Joe’s direction so that he could cut.

  Tim put his hand on Wallace’s shoulder then. Said, “My young blood, I’m gonna tell you something I don’t tell everyone.” He went on to describe for Wallace the apartment he kept over his barbershop that his wife, Nathina, thought was not rentable because of rats. Told him that since he was still in his mother’s house, if he ever needed a little love nest, “Me crib, your crib, my young brother.”

  Wallace laughed, embarrassed, and Joe cut the deck of cards and slammed them on the table. Then Pinochle Eddie, back to Valadean again, said that from what he could tell, Valadean was already some lucky brother’s taste of honey because his wife said that Johnetta said that Valadean had gotten into the habit of disappearing for hours at a time and would return glowing but not talking. “According to Joyce, Johnetta said she gonna follow the girl one of these days.”

  “Slow as Johnetta walks,” Joe said, picking up his cards as Wallace dealt them his way. “Joyce probably said that shit to keep your ass in line, Eddie, to make sure you not the privileged one tasting that honey. In fact, where the hell were you between two and five today, nigger?”

  Rousing laughter then as they played the hand out, talking between moves. They talked about racism on the police force, on the Phillies, on the school board, on the election commission. Tim said that he had a call in to the ward leader requesting that he get to whoever he needed to get to so that any cops having a presence around the area during the block party would be brothers. Said he reminded the ward leader of his civil suit against the city from when he was stomped by the cops on Fifty-second Street. Said the young folks crowding on the block to have a good time would be waiting for some racist white pigs to start some shit.

  “You right about that,” Joe said. “These youngsters not about to join hands singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’ They’re gonna be looking for rocks to throw. That’s why we needed a black ward leader anyhow. You wouldn’t have even had to explain that shit if the ward leader was a brother.”

  They agreed on that and then the conversation went back to women, back to Valadean as Eddie told Wallace he should put the moves on her. Joe’s irritation broke through then. He asked Eddie was he trying to get off vicariously through Wallace. “Leave the boy alone, let him go after who he wants to go after.”

  “Damn man, calm down,” Eddie said, throwing his losing hand down. “Someone would think you boning her.”

  “If I was, I’d be there right now, sure wouldn’t be sitting here looking at your ugly ass,” Joe said as he tallied the score and declared Wallace the winner.

  “Probably not your type anyhow, huh, young blood?” Joe said.

  Wallace laughed, embarrassed again. Agreed with Joe that Valadean wasn’t his type. Said that he preferred city girls, liked girls better when they didn’t expose everything with their dress. Liked something left to the imagination.

  “That’ll change, tell him, fellows,” Tim said. Tim and Eddie leaned into Wallace then, telling him man things about how it used to be for them, how it changes over time. Joe got up to leave. Said he was taking his old ass home and their response was yeah, please take your old ass home.

  He was thinking as he walked out of how it had changed for him over time. Ten years ago every man on the block would have known he was hitting it with Valadean. A badge of honor back then. He knew better now. Knew how men let things slip during pillow talk about which husbands weren’t true blue, jealous possibly that it wasn’t they themselves running around. Increased their own pleasures that way too because what wife would deny such an honest, faithful man as the one telling on his cheating friend.

  He was outside now. The streetlights were on and the children’s laughter rose up from the steps where they played. The adults’ chatter from the porches blended over his head and reminded him of how much he liked the block on a summer evening. Except that now he thought he heard Valadean’s name from each porch as he walked past. He knew it wasn’t so, but just the fact that he imagined it made him go tight inside. He felt guilty in the first place that he was running around, and in the second place that he hadn’t gone to Valadean’s defense when Eddie and Tim had described her in such base terms. Angry with Valadean now that she dressed the way she did and provoked those kinds of comments. Worried now too that his time with Valadean was fraying at the ends, headed to raggedy, he knew, if Johnetta was making comments. Was going to have to think about ending it altogether with Valadean, he knew that for sure. He was at his house now. Shay was sitting on the steps with her head propped up between her fists. Joe sat next to her. “What’s going on, Daddy’s Girl?” he said.

  Shay shook her head. “Nothing much.”

  “Block party’s gonna be boss this weekend,” he said as he leaned into her shoulder, pushing her playfully.

  “Nobody says boss anymore, Dad.”

  “Well, okay then, groovy.”

  “Dad, please, that’s so white people.”

  “All right, well, how ’bout peace and love, my sister.”

  Shay laughed. The first time she’d laughed since the tragedy with Neet. Joe got filled up inside listening to her laugh. “Or should I just raise my fist and shout, ‘Power to the people’?” he said. Or ‘Sock it to me,’ or ‘Here come the judge.’” Shay laughed harder now. Joe kept it going, not loud though. He didn’t want to let himself get too loud for fear he might miss this simplest, greatest pleasure of the sound of his daughter’s laugh.

  Nathina’s daughter, Bobbi, came across the street then. She asked Shay if she wanted to go around the corner to Sonny’s Store and get a milk shake and play the pinball machine. She was three years younger than Shay, only fourteen, a lifetime separated them at that age, but Shay was touched by the gesture and she could feel Joe nudging her on. “Only if you quit it with the slang, Dad,” Shay said as she got up to leave and in her leaving gave Joe no other option than to go in the house.

  THE HOUSE WAS dark and quiet. Joe whistled as he walked through the living room, toward the kitchen where he guessed Louise would be cleaning up the dinner dishes. She wasn’t. The kitchen had neither the look nor smell of having just been through a meal. He was about to go upstairs, maybe Louise had turned in ea
rly though it wasn’t even nine. She walked in through the back door then. She was still in her nurse’s uniform and her eyes were red and wet. “Louise?” he said, concern wrapping around his voice. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he went to her.

  She pushed past him and went to the sink and ran the water and spit. “What is it, baby, your mouth?” he said at her back now.

  “I can’t find him, I think he’s dead,” she said.

  “Who? Who, Louise, look at me and tell me what you’re talking about.”

  She turned around and something about the sight of her now reminded him all over again of the first time they’d met.

  Louise was crying out loud now. Her mouth was puffy and Joe could see that she’d had more teeth pulled today, from closer to the front this time. It was difficult for him to look at her mouth, she looked so comic and sad, and he almost wanted to cry himself. He pulled her to him. Asked her again who was she talking about, who died.

  “Cat,” she said. “I’ve been up and down the length of every alley between here and Alden Street. I can’t find him. He’s not even coming home to eat. And the other day there was even blood and vomit in his bowl. I think he’s dead. Either that or he ran away. And if he ran away, then someone’s getting ready to die.”

  Joe held Louise close to his chest. He rubbed her back. He told her that he was sure that Cat was alive and well, just keeping a low profile the way cats sometimes do. “And that business about somebody dying just because a cat runs away is foolishness, Louise.”

  Louise gave in to the feel of Joe’s arms wrapped around her. Her first instinct was to pull away from him as if his arms were no longer meant for holding her. But his arms were so warm and solid. She held on to him. She cried and dripped blood from her mouth onto his shirt. Maybe it was the death of them, Joe and Louise as a couple, that had sent the cat away. She couldn’t stand the thought of the death of them any more than she could picture Joe really dead, in a coffin. But she worked in a hospital, felt death hovering around all day long. As much as the hospital discriminated, death did not. People left here, just that simple. Never mind that they left next of kin hollering after them not to leave. The way she felt like hollering right now, Joe, don’t leave us, give us a chance to live, to breathe together a while longer. But she had never been the hollering-after type. Didn’t even holler after her mother’s eternal stare. Sure wasn’t going to holler after a man. She pulled herself from the sturdiness of his arms though she wanted him to hold her like that forever. She said she was okay. He was right, the cat would be home. Her mouth was sore, she said, and the temporary partial plate the dentist had made didn’t fit right so she was gonna have to walk around with teeth missing near the front until Monday. She went back to the sink and ran the water to sponge away the blood that had fallen on her uniform. She said then that she hadn’t cooked dinner. Maybe he could go around to Sonny’s and get a cheese steak if he was hungry, she said, adding that Shay had eaten at Maggie’s and she herself wasn’t up for solid food tonight and anyhow he’d been keeping such irregular hours these days, who knew when he’d decide to come home. She surely wasn’t going to try to guess. Don’t look for her to plan meals around his schedule these days, she said as she walked past him. She needed to get the uniform off and soak it in cold water before the stain set, she said, telling him there was blood on his shirt too, and if he wanted, she’d clean up his shirt. “Going to bed after that, because I’m tired. You know what I mean, Joe. I’m tired.”