Catherine balanced on a railing, about to take a flying leap off the bridge, but I couldn’t save her. Even as she called to me—Harry was closing in. Then Catherine morphed into the buck-toothed social worker and jumped from the bridge, her body spiraling down into a churning Hudson River.
I sprang awake to the phone ringing and Catherine’s name on my lips. I rubbed my eyes. All the lights were on. I looked at the clock on the nightstand. Nine o’clock. I was confused. Was it morning or night? The phone continued to ring. I snatched it from its cradle.
“Hi,” the voice said.
“Okay,” I said.
“What kind of way is that to answer a phone? Were you sleeping?”
“No, of course not. I, uh, was watching television.” Why did I lie? Why do people lie when they’re caught sleeping? I still wasn’t sure if it was day or night. While I made an effort to unfog my brain, wouldn’t you know, Catherine asked me what program I was watching.
“Bonanza,” I said. “Why are you calling me?”
“Amos, that’s a dumb question. You don’t want me to call you? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Of course I want you to call me. I just don’t know why you’re calling me. I didn’t think you would call. I’m not used to women calling me.”
Silence on the line. “Is this a line you’re pulling on me, Amos?”
I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I laughed and said, “Ha, you caught me.” Then I heard another long pause, and I wondered what I was supposed to say.
Catherine helped me out. She said, “I think it would be a good idea if we went on another date.”
I sat up in bed. I was wide-awake now. “Exactly what I was thinking, but you beat me to it.”
Another silence. “Amos, are you sure you’re awake?”
I rubbed my eyes and slapped my face and said, “Look, maybe we could go to a club, some place downtown, even.”
“I was thinking of a movie.”
“Better. What day and time?”
“Sunday’s my only day off. Let’s make it afternoon, if that’s all right with you. Pick me up at three?”
“Three’s good. Hey.” I paused for effect and gave her full baritone. “I was thinking about you.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. I had just had a nightmare and she was in it. I heard her soft voice answer, “I’ve been thinking about you too.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I said, “I’ll be counting the days until Sunday.”
I heard her smile through the phone. Well, I imagined I heard her smile, but actually, she was cracking up, way loud.
She said, “Good-bye, Amos.”
I hung up. Oh yeah, now I was thinking about her. I’d probably be thinking about her all week. Well, shit. That was when I remembered I had no wheels. Baby was sitting on the northwest corner of Herman’s car lot with a for-sale sign splayed across her windshield. I fell back on the bed. Between now and Sunday, I’d come up with something.
Tomorrow I’d go by Harry’s and pay him. I pulled the covers over my head and tried to sleep. Didn’t work, so I stayed up to read a worn copy of David Copperfield and pushed to the happy ending.
Chapter 11
The next morning, the sky clouded over and drops of rain plunked a mournful tune against the windows in my office. A good day to stay in bed, but I had things to do and Harry to see. Yet here I was, sitting at my desk, drinking burnt coffee just waiting for heartburn. I was also waiting for the electrician downstairs to finish up.
Don’t you know, sometime during the night the electricity went.
Bleary-eyed, I awoke to Winnie banging on my apartment door. I answered the door in my boxers—the ones with the loose elastic. It didn’t dawn on me until Winnie blushed brown that I was an eighth of an inch away from exposing myself. But it didn’t stop her from gabbing at length and in great detail about the problem with the electricity. Since she handed me a home-baked muffin, warm from the oven, I silently forgave her for the flagrant violation of the office hour rule I had posted on my door just yesterday.
What the hell—the newest tenant in number 1, George, didn’t respect my sign either. He pounded on my door right after Winnie left, and handed me nothing but a lot of lip.
You would think that a grown man who worked on the trucks for the Sanitation Department could deal with a little inconvenience. Instead, George threw a hissy fit that would make even Wilbur sit up and take notice. He trooped upstairs from his basement apartment three times, bothering me. Now tell me, was it my fault that he was late for work? Did I blow the damn fuses? The last thing on earth I wanted was for any tenant of mine to miss a day’s work. Not me. And jeopardize their ability to pay me my rent? Hell no. I gave him a flashlight and told him to use it where it would do the most good.
Seltzer put in new fuses, but it didn’t do any good. Each time he replaced them, they blew. After the third blowout I was forced to call an electrician. He arrived three hours later and I escorted him to the cellar, where he played blind man’s bluff with Seltzer. They didn’t need me, so I came on upstairs.
And now I was sitting in my swivel chair, doing what I was supposed to do. Hell, I swiveled. And slugged orange juice—drops of which now dribbled down my chin. Great. I thought about today’s agenda. What lay ahead left me in a funk—as funky as the weather outside my window.
I turned once again to look at the gloom, when wouldn’t you know it, the sun broke through a stormy cloud—the devil was kissing his wife—and light radiated through the room and danced through the prisms of my empty juice glass. Rainbows of light cavorted across the notes hung to the bulletin board on the wall above my desk. I watched the light as it played across the paper, and then I noticed the forgotten scrap of paper with a name and number scrawled across it, winking eyeball height in front of me.
Oh yeah, the paper that Seltzer had handed me yesterday. Okay, a sign for me to call this joker. I snatched the paper off the board. The thumbtack that held it zapped me on the chin and rolled under the desk. Was that another sign?
While I scrounged on the floor looking for the tack I thought, okay, if I could rent out another apartment, maybe I’d come out in the black this month. The tack stabbed me in the hand; I retrieved it, then bumped my head on the desk as I got up. See? I knew I should have stayed in bed. What was the saying? If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.
I dialed the phone. No answer. It rang fourteen times. Disgusted, I hung up and made the call I’d been putting off. I called Harry. It was near noon, about time for him to crawl out from under his rock. Lucky me—Harry picked up on the first ring.
“Harry? Amos here. Got your money. Be around this afternoon?”
It was difficult to understand Harry because he was wheezing heavy. Between wheezes he told me to meet him at his pool hall, his official place of business, around three. Wheeze or no wheeze, Harry also let me know in no uncertain terms that it was a good thing I called him, before he had to call me.
The sound of my front doorbell ringing interrupted the conversation, and I was happy for an excuse to terminate my call to Harry.
“Harry, my man, glad you’re glad. Got to take care of some urgent business. Later.” I caught myself before I slammed down the phone. With two hands I eased the receiver into its cradle. No need to upset Harry unnecessarily.
That done, I peered through my office window. In the rain, on the stoop, stood a tall, skinny wimp hefting a blasting radio on his shoulder that rattled my windows. What now?
He jabbed his finger repeatedly on the bell. I shot out of my office and wrenched the front door open.
“What do you want?” I yelled, over the disco beat that pumped out of his booming box.
“You Amos Brown?”
“Yeah.”
“Left a note for you yesterday.”
“Yeah?”
“About renting the basement apartment across the street.”
I frowned and indicated his radio. “Turn tha
t damn thing off before you electrocute yourself.”
Youngblood itched to jump bad with me, but thought better of it and clicked the radio off, his lips poked out.
Jesus, the kid’s music was not even good R&B.
Youngblood wiped the water that hung off the tip of his nose and said, “Uh, look, man,” he said, “it’s raining out here.”
Like this was news to me.
I held the door open and pointed him to my office. Asshole didn’t bother to stamp the water off of his feet, and left a wet trail on the carpeted hallway.
Young fool hadn’t stepped one foot good inside the door before he asked, “How about it?”
I looked at him like he was crazy. “How about what?” I said.
“Renting the apartment.”
I told him to slow his roll and take a load off. Then I sat in my chair while I inspected him from head to foot. A little too slick for my taste. Long sideburns and a nickel’s worth of goatee adorned his face. His pants hung low on his hips, and he wore sissy high-heeled white patent leather shoes that covered the boats he used for feet. Strung about his neck were a couple of gold chains of the clunky variety.
The water puddled at his feet. I shrugged off my irritation and asked him, “What do you do for a living?”
“Uh ... student,” he said.
The pause between “uh” and “student” registered. And his eyes darted to the left. Hmph. Kid had some con going, I’d bet on it.
“Rent’s three hundred fifty a month,” I said.
“No problem. Got a part-time job, and, uh, a scholarship.”
Lying his ass off. God, was this me, at his age? I hoped not. I pointed to his radio. “I got working people living in the building. You play that thing all the time?”
“Ah, naw, naw, man. Just, you know, sometimes.”
I gave him the once-over again.
He stretched his lanky body to put a hand into the pocket of his tight pants and extracted a wad of bills. Holy shit, twice the size of the roll that had a current home in my pocket. I resisted comment as he counted off ten one-hundred-dollar bills and offered them to me.
“Ain’t got no recommendation, but I can give you three months’ rent plus a deposit,” he said. “See, where I’m staying, ain’t a good situation. Need to move somewheres right away.”
I hesitated. “College boy, huh? Who says ‘ain’t’? Well, sonny boy, that’ll be three months’ rent, plus a deposit and a cleaning fee, which comes to sixteen hundred even. Can you handle that?” I smiled at him.
He smiled back, real cocky, and said, “No problem, Pops, and shit, ‘ain’t’ is good English where I come from.”
Thirty-eight years old, and he’s calling me “Pops”? It took as much as I could muster not to knock all the black off of him.
I asked instead, “Where you from, Youngblood?”
“D.C., man.”
He peeled six bills off his roll and pushed them at me. I blinked. Though I wouldn’t go so far as to say I snatched the money, the money passed from him to me in a definite blur, and I crammed the bills deep in my shirt pocket. You would’ve thought I was a magician, I moved so fast.
Then I unswiveled myself from my chair and retrieved the keys to the apartment from a hook on the wall. “Basement front is ready to go. Move in today if you want.”
I whipped out a lease from the bottom desk drawer and he signed it. Grabbed his hand, pumped it, and made him listen to my short speech about respecting the other tenants and the neighbors. I ended with a stern “Don’t shit where you live,” and crunched his skinny fingers between mine to make the point. He flinched, the pain evident, and agreed to every word out of my mouth.
Meanwhile Patty had tiptoed down from upstairs and stuck her head in the door and said, “Mr. Brown? You busy?”
“No, Patty, just finishing up business,” I said. “Come on in.” I noticed Youngblood’s eyes light up and skim over Patty’s body. I introduced them and Patty blushed. Then she crept into the room and pushed the blood red purse at me. Youngblood jumped back, eyes bucking.
“Ain’t right for Josie. She be eating the rocks and stuffing the feathers in her mouth, so I’m giving it back, okay?”
I took the purse from her. “Sure, I understand—should have thought of that myself.” Patty smiled, slithered around the wall, ducked out of the room, and went back up the stairs. Youngblood and I watched her go.
Youngblood turned to me and said, “You know what that is? You’d better get rid of that shit. That’s voodoo mess, Jack.”
“Yeah?” I looked at him and down at the purse, and felt my face grow warm. Shock, then a flush of understanding swept over me. A tremor, and I thought of Josie. I was steamed and with good reason. Zeke—damn his eyes. Had to be. To Youngblood I said, “Name’s Amos—and don’t forget it.”
Then I handed him the keys to his new apartment and pointed him across the street to my other brownstone. Told him I’d catch up with him in a minute. With one hand I waved him out of the room and dialed Herman’s number with the other.
While I waited for Herman to pick up, I fiddled with the bag and wondered what kind of vermin I had under my roof. Zeke and his shenanigans. The tree and now this.
Me, I never believed in that superstitious shit ... just didn’t like to see coincidences collide. It did make you wonder—Josie’s illness ... Naw, I dismissed the thought as unworthy, but grew hot again at the idea that Zeke would bring that foolishness around here, trying to put a hex on me. I had reached my boiling point and when I caught up with Zeke, he was about to get scalded.
I blew like a stallion and whacked the phone against the desk. What was taking Herman so long? And then I wondered. What kind of decent ride could I get for sixteen hundred bucks.
Chapter 12
No sooner had I finished talking to Herman than here she came, tipping up the front steps, shielded from the rain by a large umbrella, in all her paid-for-by-me finery. Gloria—I knew it was her. Must have sniffed the money. I took the money out of my shirt pocket, clipped it, and transferred it to my pants.
Gorgeous Gloria. There have been times in my life when I considered myself to be certifiable—and my time with Gloria was one of those insane times. At a crossroads, I thought wife, home, and family were what I needed. I made a mistake with Gloria. She wasn’t about to have a crumb-snatcher, it’d ruin her figure, she said, and pitched a bitch when I quit the numbers and the cash flow dried up. She had worked up to a cocaine habit that had gotten out of hand. A little bit of blow now and then had turned into a lot of blow—almost every night, it seemed.
I avoided home and her, and she avoided me—packed and went right out the door, taking every valuable thing she could lay her hands on. Me, I didn’t care. Tell the truth, I was glad to get rid of her. At any price. Well, here she was again.
She rang the bell. I resigned myself and answered it. After all, we did have unfinished business. Her peepers opened wide at the sight of me, and a practiced tear slid down one of her cheeks.
“Amos,” she said, and threw her arms around my neck. Her perfume tempted me—almost. I slid her arms from around my neck and led the way to my office. No need to play this scene out on the front steps. The neighbors knew enough about me as it was. I didn’t need to give them more fodder.
Gloria entered the office and glanced around, then slid one hand over her rump in that way she had, pelvis thrust forward, and waited for me—to what? To embrace her?
“Take a load off, Gloria.” And I offered her a seat.
She smiled. “How’s tricks, Amos?”
“Tricks?” I said. “I don’t know, Gloria. Tricks is more your speed.” That set her off.
“What are you talking about? I never tricked a day in my life, and you know it.”
“Yeah? What did you call our relationship?” I said.
Her eyes snapped. She refused to respond to that, but said instead, “I need some money.”
I chuckled. “See?”
�
�I ain’t tricking. We’re still married and I need some money.”
“Well, good luck in getting it. You came to the wrong person.”
“You look like you’re doing okay.”
“You do, too. Looks can be deceiving, now, can’t they?”
“Amos, look, I ain’t playing. They about to put me out where I’m staying.”
“Where you staying?” I asked.
“Upper West Side, Eighty-second and Amsterdam.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Pricey neighborhood.”
She bowed her head and fumbled with her fingers. “My friend Marvin—he put me up.”
A shock of recognition. Marvin the Gimp, I’d bet. Mafioso underdog, a non-Italian, but tied in deep with the mob. Hung out in all the black joints, loved him some black pussy. So he got next to my wife. Slimy motherfucker.
“Huh ... you talking about Marvin the Gimp?”
Gloria nodded, started sniveling, and fat tears plopped down on her lap.
“Put you up. Now he’s put you out, is that the way it goes?”
Gloria bobbed her head in short jerks like a puppet and sobbed.
I sighed and paused for a long and weighted moment. Her sobs got louder. Finally I said, “Got an apartment across the way you can stay in. For a month—only a month, understand? No money, I ain’t got it. But I’ll give you a place to stay until you get back on your feet.” And even while I said it, I peeled off a hundred from my money clip and gave it to her. Her eyes bugged at the cash I held in my hand.
Hard Luck And Trouble Page 5
