by Julie Smith
Without waiting to be asked, Talba sat down at the little plastic-covered table. Her aunt gave her the tea but didn’t sit, letting her know she wasn’t to settle in. She’d obviously made up her mind to get this over with as soon as possible. It was the worst atmosphere possible for Talba’s mission.
“Well?” Aunt Carrie had her hands on her hips. “What is it, girl?”
Suddenly, Talba’s feelings were mightily hurt. She felt her eyes start to water. Damn! This just wasn’t like her. She swallowed a few times. “I’m your niece. I thought it would be okay to visit.”
The older woman softened and sat down. “It’s okay to visit.” She spoke a little more kindly. “It’s just fine. What ya got on ya mind?”
“I just wanted to ask you something.”
Her aunt nodded. “Well, go ahead, then.”
Talba couldn’t think where to start. In the end, she blurted, “Why won’t anyone tell me anything about my father?”
“What?” Her aunt’s face clouded. She stood up, furious. “That what you come for, girl?”
Talba nodded and opened her mouth to speak again, explain, maybe, but Aunt Carrie wasn’t about to relinquish the floor.
“You come in here, no call, no nothing, scaring me out of my wits, thinking something’s happened to my sister, then maybe Corey, even La Jeanne. Couldn’t figure out what kind of ugly thing you bringin’.” She stopped and shook her head. “Umm umm umm. And then you bring up ya father. That what you come here for?”
“I don’t even know his name.” She heard herself whining like a three-year-old.
“Girl, you be glad ya don’t know his name. Last thing ya want to know’s that man’s name!” Marcellus, alarmed by the excitement, came in crying, and grabbed his grandma’s leg. She picked him up and cooed at him. “It’s all right, baby. It’s all right now.”
Talba thought, Why isn’t she like that with me? and remembered that once she had been. She felt herself going utterly out of control, letting go of the last thread of adulthood, regressing to about Marcellus’s age. “I don’t even know if my parents were married.”
“That’s what’s eatin’ at you? Whether you a bastard or not? They was married, all right. Umm umm.” She shook her head, as if she wished she could change history. “Rue the day.”
“No! That’s not it at all…”
“What is it, then?”
“It’s… I can’t put it into words. I just need to know, that’s all.” Suddenly she got righteous about it. “Don’t I have a right? What if I wanted to have a baby? Was he bipolar or something? I’d need to know that, wouldn’t I?”
Carrie grabbed her arm, hovering like a crow. “Ya pregnant, Sandra? Tell me ya ain’t pregnant. Break ya poor mama’s heart.”
“I’m not pregnant.” She felt defeated. “I just need to know.”
Perhaps she sounded so desperate her aunt loosened up, Talba wasn’t sure. All of a sudden Carrie stepped back and looked her in the eye. “Maybe ya do have a right. I don’t know, maybe ya do.” She seemed to come to a decision. “Ya daddy’s name was Denman.”
Talba took it in slowly. “Denman. Denman Wallis.”
“Denman La Rose Wallis.”
“La Rose? You telling me La Rose?” She could barely breathe. It couldn’t be a joke— Aunt Carrie was hardly a student of Shakespeare. The irony of it was smothering.
Her aunt shook her head in puzzlement. “That mean somethin’ to ya?”
“No kidding— that was really his name?”
“I tol’ ya it was. Prob’ly shouldn’t have, but I tol’ ya. Ya think I’d lie about it?”
Talba thought, Yes. At this point, I’d think anything. She said, “I guess not. I just don’t understand why everyone’s so secretive about him.”
“’Cause it’s over and done with, that’s why. That man nearly ruined ya mama life— didn’t do you and Corey no good either…”
“We wouldn’t be here without him.”
“It’s a miracle you here with him. I done somethin’ for ya, Sandra. I gave ya his name, and I done it for a reason. I want ya to promise me somethin’.”
Talba knew what was coming. She felt her stomach seize up. “What’s that, Aunt Carrie?”
“I want ya to promise to let it be. Ya don’t know what ya do to ya mama when you bring that man up. I want ya to let her alone. Go on about ya business and leave it in the past, where it belongs.”
Talba hated this. Damn if she wasn’t tearing up again. Aunt Carrie, for all her gruffness, all the distance she was displaying today, had been an important figure in her early childhood, a nurturing second mother, often more tenderhearted than Miz Clara herself, who preferred Corey, anyway.
“I can’t promise that, Aunt Carrie. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
Carrie said, “God help ya then, girl,” and there was something unexpected in her eyes and voice, something different from the anger Talba expected. It was something soft and compassionate. “God help us all.”
What the hell had happened to cause that kind of reaction? Talba thought about it all the way home. He must have molested us, she thought. Corey and me.
It would certainly explain the secrecy, and the paranoia when anyone brought him up.
But Talba felt oddly distanced from the notion. She ought to be a bit more creeped out, it seemed to her, and thought it must be so thoroughly buried she’d have to dream to bring it back up.
Miz Clara had supper waiting when she got home. “Where ya been? I expected ya home an hour ago.”
Now or never, thought Talba. “I went to see Aunt Carrie.”
“Carrie? What ya need from Carrie?”
“Same thing I wanted to ask you.”
“About what?”
Talba wondered if she was pretending— if she didn’t even know how obsessed her daughter had become. “About my father,” she said.
“Ya father! Honey, you ain’t got no father. You an example of spontaneous combustion— or whatever they call that thang.”
Miz Clara had been ready for her— that was as close as she got to kidding around. Talba knew damn well she shouldn’t push it. “Mama, just tell me one thing. Only one thing, and I’ll never ask anything else.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Ya sound like ya ‘bout seven years old.”
“Just one thin fact; that’s all I ask.”
“Go ahead and ask. I ain’t saying I’ll answer.”
“Why do you hate my dad so much?”
It was evidently the simple three-letter word that did it. Miz Clara went up like Vesuvius. “What in the name of God ya mean ya ‘dad’? Sound like somebody ya know and see every day and helps ya mama raise ya, and even helps support ya. Tell me, girl, ya got one of those? I don’t want to hear none of this ‘dad’ stuff— not now and not ever. You mention that man to me again, and I swear to God I’ll boot ya right out of this house ya was raised in. Now you go to ya room, just like you was a little girl. And without ya supper too! Yeah! I mean it! And don’t you ever, ever bring up that man’s name to me again.”
Very seldom did Miz Clara get on such a high horse.
She’d never throw her own daughter out; Talba hadn’t the least fear of that. Somehow, she’d manage to stop herself on a technicality. But Talba sure wasn’t ever going to bring up the man again.
She went to bed and dreamed she had a baby and it was crying. Too trite, she thought. Too damn trite for words. If I had a shrink, I wouldn’t even tell him. In the morning, she picked a white blouse and blue skirt out of her closet and headed out to exercise her demographic advantage.
***
Baronial Records was huge, much larger than she expected, something like a campus way out in New Orleans East. She had imagined one dingy building, but this place looked like some kind of African-American Skywalker Ranch. It was a veritable anthill of activity, which excited her. Everybody looked jazzed, and almost everybody was black. She liked that a lot until she realized that almost everybody was male as well.
Wondering what her job was (but guessing it was filing), she made her way to the legal department, and announced herself as Liza’s replacement, poor Liza having awakened with the stomach flu.
As it developed, she was the assistant of a Ms. Jackson, Ms. Jackson being a lawyer, apparently. Ah— she was a legal secretary. Well, she could do it. If it involved a computer, there was no question she could do it. It and lots of other things. She practically smacked her lips.
She had a plan— a plan so simple it couldn’t go wrong. All she had to do was find out who Toes was, then get a picture of him, and get the kids to I.D. it. And they’d given her a computer to play with. If the word “toes” was in it anywhere she’d find it.
She went in and prowled. Ah, yes. Toes. Toes and more Toes. Though never as a word— always as a syllable. As in tomatoes, potatoes, even pimientoes. Certainly not as a proper noun.
Well, hell. Toes had to be a friend of the Baron’s, didn’t he? He might even work for him. Therefore, somebody must know him. She got herself invited to go to lunch with a bunch of clerical workers and tried it out on them: “Ya’ll know anybody named Toes?”
Hilarity followed. Appendage jokes. Remarks about the things parents name kids. One woman had known an “Ears,” and someone else a “Sweet-eyes.” The one who knew a “Brown Nose” was probably joking.
The conversation was flying out of control. Talba tried to rein it back in: “No, really. He’s a good friend of the Baron’s— they call each other T and T. My sister met him at a party.”
More hilarity. “Girlfriend,” one of the ladies confided, “every stud in the state claims to be a friend of the Baron’s, black or white. Which color’s this dude? Or is he that soft creamy color I could eat with a spoon— you know, that color that’s mostly gold, with just a little red in it? Mmmmmm. Yeah.”
Evidently nobody in the group knew the gentleman. But maybe the legal department wasn’t the best for picking up on who did and didn’t know the Baron. After lunch Talba took a quick tour of the building, approaching the receptionist in each department with “a fax for Toes.” She failed to score, but it was barely a start— there were plenty more buildings, plenty more departments. She just had to be patient. Had to keep working there a few more days, asking around. Something might happen.
But they probably wouldn’t keep her. She had a pile of work when she got back to her desk, and it wasn’t computer work— she was very slow at plain old typing, which is what it mostly was. She was behind and probably wouldn’t be asked back. She had to think of something before the gig blew up in her face.
Somewhere near quitting time, she thought of it. The key was the Baron. He did know Toes, had actually been seen with him. The thing was to get to the Baron. And it could be done. All she needed was his schedule, which was sure to be in the computer somewhere.
Excited, she thought, I wonder if there’s something tonight?
And then it occurred to her that if there was something big and public, it would be on his website. She went there first, and wasn’t disappointed. There were three good opportunities, the first of which indeed was that night, and it was something she’d probably be able to get into, even this late.
But wait, she thought, I could have done this without wasting a whole day working here. So she went looking for his nonpublic schedule again, and found plenty of other opportunities. She printed it out and went back to her contracts.
Her last act before leaving that night was to call CompTask and, in the guise of Ms. Jackson, ask them to send Liza back.
Chapter 10
“No. No way. Negative. Uh-uh. Over my dead body.”
Talba stared at her email and thought perhaps there was room, after all, for the Luddite opinion that not all business need be conducted on the Internet. She had simply inquired of Darryl Boucree if he would care to accompany her to a program of indigenous rap and hip-hop music featuring national artists, and even offering to supply the tickets. Surely this was too strong a reaction.
She tried the phone. “Mr. Boucree, sir, I find that usually when I ask a gentleman for a date, I get a much more polite reaction. I just don’t believe you can say to my face what you said to my computer.”
“Ms. Wallis, ma’am, I don’t believe I heard you. Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone.”
“Perhaps we could trade. If you’d do this one little thing for me, no telling what I might do for you.” She spoke in a whorehouse whisper.
“Not on your life,” he answered. “Not for all the money in the world. Not even if…”
“I wasn’t thinking about money.”
“Not even for your precious smooth black skin.”
“Dark brown, actually. And surely you jest.” People liked her voice. Some had joked that she could make a bundle doing phone sex. She put all the sweetness she could muster into the last four words.
“You’re on your own, Ms. Wallis.”
She was getting exasperated. “Well, what’s the big deal? Rap’s an African-American art form. Why all the resistance?”
“It’s also a part of kid culture that I get all too much of. You know what that asshole calls women?”
“What asshole? There are three artists on the program.”
“You know what asshole. Baron Tujague.”
“I thought he came to your school, and you liked him.”
“All right, all right. He’s civic-minded, I guess. This thing tonight, for instance. It’s just that I hate that shit. It’s so slick and ugly.”
“Slick and ugly… mmmmm. Sounds like fun. Slick and uuuggly.”
He laughed. “God, you’re a sexy woman.”
She pressed her advantage. “Listen, this thing’s for the Musicians’ Clinic. How in the name of your profession are you going to find a better cause? And they’re each only going to do one number. Rich people are going to be there— think they want to hear rap?”
It was a promotional party for the second CD produced by the Musicians’ Clinic at LSU, this one all rap, all original songs. Darryl’s own band, the Boucree Brothers, had a song on the first. Tickets were two hundred bucks apiece, and Talba figured she could expense a couple.
“Why is it so important to have me with you?” Darryl asked, and she could see she just about had him.
She thought of something to say that finally convinced him— or maybe it was the way she said it. It had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with her feelings for him.
The thing was a two-hour deal at the House of Blues, a venue of which Darryl disapproved on grounds that the acoustics of the place were wasted on rap. But there was nothing, as Talba pointed out, wrong with the drinks. She was wearing one of her Baroness outfits, flowing fuchsia harem pants with tight shiny top and the hat she’d bought from Millie the Milliner.
Because the point of the CD was to promote health, and because much of the Baron’s fanship was perceived as being drug-friendly, to say the least, he’d been asked to write an antidrug song. And had. A song about dying and all your friends dying and leaving your kids behind, still little kids, “no daddy or nothin’, and your mama cryin’.”
“Rhymes with dyin’,” Darryl noted, but even he found it hard to find fault.
“Now, listen,” said Talba, when the songs had been sung and the pitch made, “you’re a famous musician. Here’s the deal. You go suck up to him, and while you’re at it, introduce your friend who could be his sister, their names are so similar.”
He smacked his forehead. “This is what it was all about.”
She shrugged. “Well, the other thing and this— the thing I mentioned.”
“You mean you love me so much you can’t stand to be away from me, even for one evening.”
“Well, yeah, sure. You know that’s true. Except for the evenings I can.”
“God, what I do for women.” He grabbed her hand and started to blaze a trail through the crowd.
“Better lose that plural,” she said automatically, but she
could see he didn’t really mind doing this for her, that in fact he was pleased about it, and she thought that if she had put it to him this way in the beginning, he might have been more forthcoming with the favor. But then at the time, she hadn’t really been sure how she wanted it to work. She’d just known she needed Darryl; the world of rap made her nervous. To be sure, she had a poet’s contempt for rhyme that wasn’t poetry, or if it was, then poetry in the service of commercial interests.
Yet she did feel there was nothing wrong with making money, and in a perfect world that all poets would make money. So what, she thought, was her problem?
Commercial poetry, perhaps, that promoted violence and hatred, particularly of women. Yet not all rap did, and she knew it.
It was just baggage she carried.
When Darryl had elbowed their way within a couple of feet, the Baron himself signaled him. “Hey, man— aren’t you Darryl Boucree? Been knowin’ your work for years. The Boucree Brothers are an institution. Ain’t that right, Thomasino?”
The man beside him, smaller and seemingly overwhelmed to be in the Presence, showed a good set of teeth, and said, “Tha’s right,” and followed up with a brace or two of nods.
“Hey, Kassim! Hey, Raynell— got somebody I want you to meet. Hey, Darryl, these are my buddies— and this is my brother, Thomas Toledano. Darryl Boucree, gentlemen, Darryl Boucree of the Boucree Brothers— one of the premier musicians currently residing in this town.” Kassim and Raynell were wearing gangsta rap outfits— baggy pants, backward baseball caps, the whole thing, but the Toledano brothers— if that was their real name— were dressed in casual slacks and shirts, out of respect for the occasion. Talba gave them points for that.
She also observed that the Baron definitely didn’t talk like a thug. He didn’t speak standard English, exactly, but he came pretty close. That interested her almost more than anything else about him, because she, who always spoke correctly, didn’t even say stuff like “I be ready” in jest, also wrote in dialect, and did it because, as she’d told Eddie, it was the only way she could imagine writing.
