by Mary Monroe
“I’m comin’ out there to bring my brother home and you, too, if you want to come. You can stay with us.”
“I think I’ll stay out here for a while. The motel manager said I can stay here for a while. He’ll let me stay in the room, if I help the maid. And he’ll pay me minimum wage. That’ll do until I can do better.”
“Well, you be careful out there. You ain’t in no country town no more, and all kinds of shit be happenin’ in California. Get some rest and we’ll get out there as quick as we can.”
The first day was the hardest. As much as I hated cleaning motel rooms, it kept me from thinking about what had happened to Bo. The motel manager seemed just as shady as some of the people who checked into the musty rooms, which some of them rented by the hour. Even though the shifty-eyed motel manager promised to pay me under the table and let me pay a lower rent, it seemed too good to be true.
And it was.
It was a Saturday night. I’d spent most of the day helping the regular maid mop up the motel’s filth. “Hurry up, hurry up so I can get up out of here,” the testy old Black woman insisted, waving a mop handle at me. “I gots to get away from here before it gets dark. And if you smart, you won’t go out your door after it gets dark.” When the maid left, trotting off toward a bus stop with a can of Mace in her hand, I felt all alone in the world. It was hard to tell what time it was from one hour to the next, because there was always a ruckus going on in the parking lot and in the rooms on both sides of me. With all of the moaning going on, it sounded like somebody else was being murdered in the parking lot and in the other rooms.
Not long after the maid’s departure, I crawled into the sad-sack of a bed, almost rolling to the floor when the mattress flattened out under my weight. I had just dozed off when a thumping noise woke me up. Somebody was coming in my door! I sat up and clicked on the dim lamp, clutching my heart and breathing through my mouth. It took me a moment to focus.
Jose, the motel manager, a sly grin on his wide, homely face was walking toward me, limping like one leg had suddenly grown longer than the other. I couldn’t tell which was more frightening, him or his huge shadow on the wall. His shirt was unbuttoned, showing off a belly the size of a watermelon you would only see in Texas. He stopped in the middle of the floor and smoothed back his long, oily hair with his slow hand.
“What the hell—what in the world are you doin’ in here?” I hollered. I was so scared and shaking so hard, it felt like I was in a vibrating bed. I was surprised that I was even able to get my words out. “What do you want, Jose?”
“Don’t get up, mami. You right where I want you to be,” he said, growling under his breath, sliding off his cheap flannel shirt as he moved toward me. I could smell his foul body odor from across the room. “You just relax. I know what you want…”
I rubbed my nose and tried to come up with the meanest look I could. “What do you want?” I yelled, not taking my eyes off his, which were so bloodshot I could barely see the whites.
“You know what I want. Shit, you want it more than I do. I seen the way you looked at me today.”
“You bastard!”
“Keep your voice down,” he ordered, holding up his hand. “As it is already, seems like these walls talk,” he added with a suggestive sneer. Then he humped the air with his wide hips.
He jumped on top of me, covering my whole body like a fleshy blanket. His dusty, hard, greasy hand covered my mouth. He slapped me when I bit his fingers, drawing blood.
“You Black bitch. If that’s the thanks I get for helpin’ you out, you can get the hell out of here!” he roared, shaking a fat fist in my face.
I kicked Jose to the floor. I was amazed to see a man his size jump up as fast as he did.
“I’ll leave first thing in the mornin’,” I said, pulling the musty bedcovers up to my neck.
“No, you’re leavin’ now or I’ll call the cops and tell ’em you tried to rob me. Bitch.” The angry man slammed the door so hard on his way out, a velvet picture of Jimi Hendrix caressing a snake fell off the wall.
I got dressed and tried to call Odessa and Verna back to let them know that I was checking out of the motel, but the telephone was dead.
I’d met a little Spanish girl earlier when I’d gone out to get something to eat. She had checked into the room next door. She seemed friendly enough, so I knocked on her door.
“What?” she barked, cracking open her door just enough for me to see the body of a naked White man sprawled across the bed snoring.
“Excuse me. I don’t mean to bother you, but I was wonderin’ if I could use your telephone. The one in my room don’t work.”
“Come on in. You gotta be quiet,” she said, snatching open the door and pulling me inside by the sleeve of my blouse. She had on jeans and a halter top. “I got company. Who you want to call?” She seemed rough and cold to be so petite and pretty.
“Uh, I need to call somebody out of state. Is that all right? I’ll pay you.”
“I don’t need your money. I got plenty. Go use the telephone.” She waved me to the telephone on the nightstand next to the bed. I hesitated when the naked man on the bed rolled over and coughed. “Go on. He’s dead drunk. He won’t wake up until mornin’.” The pretty little Latin woman laughed. I could see that she was getting impatient. She started tapping her foot on the floor and breathing real hard.
Then she strolled over and stood next to me, chewing on a vine of licorice as I dialed Verna’s number. The phone rang four times before she answered.
“Verna, I’m goin’ to have to leave this motel right away,” I blurted in a voice rattling with fear.
I heard my stepsister gasp and curse under her breath. “Somebody fuckin’ with you now?” she asked, breathing hard and loud.
“Somethin’ like that. I just had a, uh, disagreement with the motel manager and he said I had to leave tonight.”
“The one who gave you a job?” she said, wailing. “I thought he wanted to help you.”
“He wanted to do more than that.”
“Well, where you gonna go now?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll call y’all as soon as I get to another motel.” I hung up before Verna could say anything else. I knew that if I stayed on the telephone long enough, she would have broken me down and made me agree to come back home.
The girl folded her arms and looked me up and down, nodding.
“That Jose is the biggest scumbag I know. He would fuck his own ass, if his dick was long enough,” she told me.
“Thanks for lettin’ me use your telephone. Is there another motel around here? Real cheap?”
“You got money?”
“Some. I think I have enough to last me about a month. My sister and my husband’s sister are comin’ out here tomorrow and they’ll be bringin’ me some more money.”
With a concerned look on her face, the girl mumbled something in Spanish under her breath. “So, you ain’t got nobody out here?”
I shook my head. “Me and my husband just got out here yesterday. He got killed last night. He walked in on a robbery in progress at the mini-mart at the corner.” I stared at the floor. Strange unrelated thoughts started to flow through my head like hot water. Like how old the carpet was on the motel floor and how musty it smelled. I even thought about a comment that the maid had made earlier in the day about an operation she needed on her foot. I was trying to think about anything and everything that would keep me from thinking about the latest mess I’d got myself into.
“I know all about that. Uh, I heard some dudes talkin’ about it in the parkin’ lot,” my new friend said, crossing herself and mumbling in Spanish again.
“I want to stay out here.” I sighed. “There’s nothin’ for me to go back to in Mississippi.”
“Listen, I can help you if you want me to. I’m Ester Sanchez.” She held out her hand to me and I shook it. I was amazed at how soft and smooth her skin was.
“I’m Lula,” I paused then added, “Hawkins.” Even
though I’d only been Bo’s wife for a little while, I wanted to honor him by keeping his name and I planned to use it until the day I died. I’d never liked the name Lula Mae Maddox anyway.
“Lula, welcome to California.” Ester smiled and made a sweeping gesture with her hand.
“Thanks, Ester.” I didn’t have to ask Ester what she did for a living. How she got paid was obvious. What she did was her business, and it wasn’t my nature to judge people anyway.
“I got a real nice place on Athens Street. I live there all by myself. You want to come home with me? You can wash up there. And we can kick it for a little while. Then I can help you find a place and…maybe a job, too.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I don’t want to put you to no trouble. You don’t even know me.”
“If it was trouble, I wouldn’t be askin’ to do nothin’ for you. And you ain’t got to worry about me tryin’ to do nothin’ freaky to you. You almost twice my size anyway.” Ester laughed.
“What about your friend?” I nodded toward the bed. The naked man was in a fetal position, looking like a big white whale.
“Who, Henry? He can take care of hisself.” Ester waved her hand, dismissing the subject. “He’s a guard at San Quentin. If a big booger like him let somebody come in here and kill him, he deserves it.”
“That’s all right. I’ll just get my things and call a cab. Cabdrivers know where all the cheap motels are.” I sniffed, walking toward the door. I didn’t want to leave my purse and other belongings alone in my room too long.
“Girlfriend, if you can get a cab to come out here this late, I will give you a hundred dollars,” Ester said sharply, running to stand in front of the door, blocking my way. “And the bus stop is too dangerous. Especially for a pretty girl like you. If you don’t want to end up like your husband, you better listen to me.”
I was too weak to argue with this woman. “How are we goin’ to get from here to your place?”
“Someone is comin’ for me in a hour anyway with my car. My homegirl name Rosalee. I’ll just call her up and tell her to come now. We’ll go to her place instead. She’s Black and maybe you need to be with your own people right now. My man is Black, so I know all about Black folks. Relax and have a drink,” Ester said, strolling across the floor to a sorry dresser where she snatched up a bottle of tequila and a glass. “I think you need it.” She filled the glass and handed it to me so fast, tequila splashed on my foot, leaving a stain the shape and size of a silver dollar.
The alcohol burned as it slid down my throat. I didn’t wait for Ester to offer me another shot, I got it myself.
Chapter 8
ROSALEE PITTMAN
I usually turned off my telephone ringer as soon as I was in for the night. Once I had finished doing whatever I had to do outside my apartment, I liked to leave all that madness right where it was. I hated selling my body to men who saw me as nothing more than a piece of warm meat. But that’s exactly what I’d been reduced to. The long, hot baths that I took every night when I got home didn’t wash away the shame I wore like a second layer of skin.
I was very stingy when it came to my downtime. I didn’t want to see or talk to any human beings when I didn’t have to. I didn’t even leave my answering machine on once I turned off my telephone. Clyde knew that. And the other girls knew that, too. The only people who knew that I turned my telephone back on after midnight were Ester Sanchez and the people at the old folks’ apartment complex where I’d dumped Mama when she got too nosy about my activities.
Mama had been asking way too many questions and making comments that made me uncomfortable when I visited her. “Rosalee, how come I ain’t never seen none of your modelin’ pictures in the magazines or newspapers or even on the television? You just as pretty as that Tyra Banks and all the rest of them Black models I see grinnin’ and posin’,” she’d said.
“It takes time, Mama,” I told my mother, searching my mind for other subjects to bring up. “Did you record Bernie Mac last night?”
Mama ignored my question. “Time? Well, honey, time ain’t somethin’ you got too much of to waste. Clara, the White lady from across the hall, said you was kind of long in the tooth to just be startin’ out modelin’. Them girls always start out when they teenagers.”
“Not in San Francisco. And, I do not look my age. A lot of people think I’m still in my teens.”
“But you ain’t! You a twenty-four-year-old woman—with a husband.”
Mama had a way of making me sigh and hold my breath to keep from saying the wrong things. “Mama, things are different in California.”
Mama rolled her eyes at me and screwed up her lips. “And another thing Clara said was, maybe you was posin’ for them nasty man magazines. Butt naked. Girl, I sure enough hope you ain’t caught up in none of that ponygraphic mess. Your daddy would explode in his grave.”
“I’m not.”
To keep Mama off my back, I went out the very next day and had a portfolio put together with shots of me wearing a different outfit in each one. Clyde had snapped the pictures himself. I gave the bogus model evidence to Mama, and she shared it with all of her friends right away. That shut her up for a while about that subject, but she still called me up every day to whine about other things. Everything from losing the generous monthly allowance I gave her at the black-jack tables in Vegas to her fear of getting raped by one of the elderly men in her building. No matter what it was, I could count on it upsetting me more than it did Mama.
I had just talked to the woman I paid to look in on Mama from time to time. Other than complaining about a few new ailments, Mama was doing fine, so I knew it had to be Ester calling me exactly one minute after midnight. I was convinced that she’d been sitting by the clock with her telephone in her hand, counting the seconds to the minute she could disturb me.
Ester was a fast-talking Latino who had eased her way into my life and now called herself my homegirl. But I didn’t have any close friends, and hadn’t for a long time. The women I dealt with were “business associates” and I wanted to keep it that way. It made what I did to get paid seem less shameful and painful.
I didn’t have a naturally deep or strong enough voice to sound threatening, like some of the Black women I knew. I had to fake it. I swallowed hard, cleared my throat, and gave my best imitation of a growl. “Ester, this better be good. Shit.”
Ester let out an exasperated sigh then mumbled something in Spanish. Knowing her, she was cussing me out. But it didn’t bother me because I was used to it. “Doggie shit, girlfriend,” Ester grumbled, loud and clear. “Listen up, I need your help. Come pick me up at the motel. You know which one. Rapido, fast!” Everything this girl wanted, she wanted fast. But I didn’t do nothing rapido, for her or anybody else.
I fired up a joint first and took my time responding. “Aren’t you supposed to be at that party in North Beach with them horny dudes from the airlines?” I was stretched out on my bed, still in the leather skirt and silk blouse I had worn to “work.” My head, throbbing from the six shots of tequila I’d swallowed earlier, was propped up on two pillows. Every light in my bedroom was on, but a cloud of thick, sweet smoke oozed out of my nose and mouth, blinding me for a few seconds.
“I done that already. I done everything for them guys but ride a white horse. And I got the sore pussy and achin’ mouth to prove it. Come on, girl. You owe me some favors anyway.” Ester’s voice was ringing in my ear. “I never ask you for that much nohow.”
I rubbed my nose and ground out my joint in the dirt of a droopy fern sitting on the corner of the nightstand next to my bed. “My night is over. I told you that when I talked to you a little while ago. You with Clyde?”
“Fuck no, I ain’t with Clyde. I don’t have to see him until in the mornin’. You know that.” Ester paused, sucked her teeth, and let out a long, deep breath before she continued. “I tried to call Rocky, but that retarded girl who babysits her kids told me Rocky was still with you.”
“Yeah, Rockelle
is still here with me. We had that bachelor party tonight, remember?” I looked up at Rockelle, standing over me with her thick arms folded, fanning smoke I’d blown in her direction. Rockelle didn’t smoke weed. She didn’t even smoke cigarettes, claiming she cared too much about her health. But that didn’t stop her from gobbling up every greasy, fatty thing in my refrigerator. She was gnawing on a pig foot now.
“Well, tell Rocky to come pick me up. If she don’t wanna drive that rattrap of hers, give her the keys to my Jetta. Rapido!”
“Rockelle is restin’, Ester. She’s got to sober up, shower the funk and slime off her big ass, then get up out of here so I can get some sleep. A horny judge over in Oakland is sendin’ a limo for me tomorrow mornin’.” I winked at Rockelle. She rotated her thick neck and gave me a dirty look. Rockelle was not my best friend, just my wife-in-law and a “business associate.” We tolerated each other because of our relationship with Clyde, a man who treated us like he’d bought us by the pound. “You know Rocky can’t leave her kids for too long with that slow-witted girl.”
Why Rockelle trusted her precious babies with a retarded girl was beyond me. I’d left my old cat, Callic, with that same girl one night when I had to fly to Vegas for an all-night date and I haven’t seen that cat since. I winked at Rockelle again.
Nodding and chewing hard, Rockelle rolled her eyes at me and waddled toward my kitchen.
Ester gritted her teeth, her impatience at its highest level. “Stop bitchin’ me around, bitch. Don’t punk out on me tonight. Rosalee, I don’t ask you for much. I never say no when you ask me for a favor. I wouldn’t be callin’ you if I didn’t really need you. Come on now. There’s this girl, a Black girl, and she got some trouble. She need our help. Real bad.”
“Ain’t she got a man to help her out?” I had my own problems. I didn’t want to have to deal with somebody else’s, too. Especially some strange woman I didn’t even know.
“Not no more. Remember that man I told you got shot to death in that corner store by our motel last night? Dude was this girl’s husband. She from out of town and ain’t got nobody to help her out, see. Come on now. You always tellin’ me that you Black girls look out for each other.”
