Disappearing Acts

by Terry McMillan

  “I do sing. I just don’t make my living at it yet. I teach music at J.H.S. 189.”

  “You mean to tell me you teach junior high school?”

  “I do, and I also need to take a shower. So thank you very much for the coffee and offering to help, but would you mind leaving now? Please?”

  “I’m not finished with my coffee yet.” I wanted to mess with her, see if she really wanted me to stay. She probably did. Why would she let me in this time of morning if she didn’t wanna see me? I was just testing her, and so far she was passing with flying colors. She looked like she was trying to look pissed off, which was cute. She probably just embarrassed ’cause she ain’t all made up and shit. And I’m glad. “What time you get home?”

  “Why?”

  “I told you, all I wanna do is help you get some of these boxes outta here so you can at least move around, sit on that pretty couch.”

  She rolled her eyes at me, but then they softened. “I’m lying,” she said.

  “Finally, a woman who admits it!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing. What was you about to say?”

  “I do teach, but not summer school.”

  “Look, I don’t mean to come across like I’m macho or something. All I’m trying to do is be a nice guy. Don’t women like you know how to accept help from a man?”

  She looked at me all weird again. “What do you mean, ‘women like me’?”

  “Independent, that’s all I meant—I swear it.”

  Then she started smiling—shocked the shit outta me and damn, what a sexy smile. “I’ve got a lot of running around to do in Manhattan, but I’ll be home by six.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “So now that that’s settled, would you mind leaving? I really do need to take a shower.”

  I laughed. “Would you be needing somebody to wash your back for you?” She rolled those pretty brown eyes at me, but I was convinced that if I hadda walked in that bathroom behind her, she wouldn’ta made me leave. And if we was both tigers, we wouldn’t be playing this stupid-ass game. “Look, I didn’t mean to say that. Thanks for the coffee. You have a nice day, and I’ll see you later.”

  * * *

  The fuckin’ day dragged. I spent two hours at the gym—worked out, played some handball, steamed, took a nap—and came home and tried to do some woodworking. I looked at a tree stump I had dragged in here a few weeks ago, that I had planned on making a table out of. I had already scraped the bark off, it was good and dry, and I musta sat there for twenty minutes, just staring at the texture. How smooth it was—the same way her skin looked. I couldn’t concentrate on no damn wood. She was working her way inside my mind and pressing down. Franklin, you getting it bad all over again, man. Doing the same shit you always do. Smell pussy and gotta go after it. But this feel like I’m smelling somethin’ more than just pussy. There’s somethin’ wholesome about this woman, something right about her, and that’s what scares me. This is exactly how I always end up on the damn railroad tracks. All stretched out and ready to get run over. But not this time. Besides, this woman been to college, and she probably think I ain’t even in her league. And on top of everything, Zora—whatever her last name is—ain’t nowhere in my constitutional plans. Period. And she live too damn close to even think I can just wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am her. So fuck her. Let Eli—or whatever his name is—help her get settled, since he’s such a damn good friend.

  I went downstairs to break up the monotony, get some fresh air. Lucky was sitting on the stoop, looking pitiful.

  “What’s up, dude?” I asked, but I already knew.

  “That fucking Lady Libra—the whore—came in fourth in the fifth.”

  “How much?”

  “I don’t even wanna talk about it, man,” he said, throwing his palm toward the ground. It ain’t nothin’ I can say to Lucky after he done lost some money. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t stealing from those old folks at that nursing home. I can count the days he wins. I didn’t wanna watch him feel sorry for hisself, so I went back upstairs and popped open a beer. It was nice and cool in here. Last winter when I was working on this office building, they was getting rid of all these old air conditioners, so I brought two of ’em home. The other one is still sitting in the back of my closet. Everybody I knew cried broke when I tried to sell it.

  I turned on my box, stepped out of these sweaty clothes, and dropped ’em in the middle of the floor. I grabbed my Daily News, pulled the box around the corner, out into the hallway, and took it in the bathroom. The dude I share it with—this motherfucker—like to hang his drawers and shit on a clothesline he put up. I keep taking it down. He used to use up all my damn toilet paper and soap and keep his false teeth in a glass overnight. I cussed the motherfucker out I don’t know how many times, but since he cripple and everything, I won’t hit him. Now I keep all my stuff in my room. This is the kinda shit you gotta put up with when you live in a rooming house.

  Damn, sweat was dripping from underneath my arms. I took a whiff. I wasn’t exactly smelling like roses. I forgot to put on deodorant at the gym, so I threw my newspaper on the floor, got in the shower, and lathered everywhere with Lifebuoy. Today I was gon’ be one clean man. I heard static on the box, so I stepped out the tub to put it on the right station. One day my ass is gon’ get electrocuted. Dr. Ruth came on. I like to listen to her show sometimes, but the last thing I needed to hear about right now was how to go about making love. I already know how to satisfy a woman, so I switched to WBLS and turned up the volume. They was playing a cut from Ashford & Simpson’s new Street Opera album—“Working Man.” It’s a baad side. They write music that’s for real, and Valerie don’t look bad either.

  I finished, rinsed off good, wrapped the towel around my waist, picked up my box and paper, then walked back to my room. I fell across the bed, wet, ’cause this is how I like to dry off. I switched on the TV and turned the radio down. That’s when I noticed my fingernails was still caked with dirt, so I reached over to the dresser and got my file. What time is it? The clock said one. Damn.

  I know one thing—if Vinney don’t pay me tomorrow, we gon’ see what kind of job we’ll start in three days. Fuckin’ Italians. “Frankie, don’t I always take care of you, man?” he ask me at least once a month. And I always say, “Yeah, just like the IRS.” At least I get paid under the table. In cash. But if this Wop expect me to work on his new building, he’s gon’ have to come up with more money. Fifty dollars a day. Who the fuck can live off that? Shit, I got kids to pay for. I can’t even afford to buy no pussy, which is what it’s getting down to.

  My beer was gone, and I felt muscle spasms in my shoulders, so I got up and rubbed some Ben-Gay on ’em, then poured myself a stiff one. I looked at the clock again and fell back down on the bed and closed my eyes. When I woke up, it was only two o’clock. I looked at the TV Guide. Soap operas. No more basketball games till fall. This is gon’ be a long summer. I hate baseball, especially the Yankees. Ever since Reggie Jackson left, the team ain’t shit. If they would get him back and keep that crazy-ass Billy Martin, they might win a game and fill up the stands like they used to.

  I was bored shitless, so I decided to go to the bar. Since I was sweating again, I turned the air conditioner up, then splashed some aftershave on my face and put on a clean white shirt and some dress pants.

  I was walking down the street before I even thought to see how much cash I had. I pulled out my wallet and counted seventy-three dollars. The music was coming from halfway down the block. Just One Look always got a crowd, don’t make no difference what time of day it is. Shit, half of Brooklyn is unemployed. When I walked in, wasn’t nothin’ happening. On Friday nights, you can’t hardly get in the door. They got the best DJ in Brooklyn, right here in this little off-the-wall joint. A lotta black folks think they too good to come in here—mainly the new ones moving into this neighborhood. Faggots and black yuppies. All of ’em wear Gucci this and Yves Saint Laurent that. Driving BMWs. S
porting tortoiseshell glasses. All the dudes wear identical Paul Stuart trench coats. They sickening, really. It is a fact that a few people been shot and killed in Just One Look, but I ain’t seen nothin’ like that go down in the two years I been comin’ in here.

  I sat down at the bar and ordered a Jack Daniel’s. I was hoping not to run into Jimmy, but that woulda been asking for too much. He was the first person I saw after I swiveled around on the stool to check out everything—which amounted to nothing.

  “Brotherman,” he said, slapping me on my damn shoulder. Shit, it was still sore from putting in those floors. “What’s happening?”

  “Nothin’, brother—you got it.” I took a sip from my drink. “I’m beat, but you get that way when you work for a living.” I love to fuck with Jimmy.

  “I’m making a living, sucker. It’s work, any way you look at it. You ain’t seen Sheila in the past few days, have you?”

  I shook my head no and downed the rest of my shot in one swallow. It felt good, so good that I ordered another one. Four is my limit. And when my cash is low, I drink beer, or I keep my black ass at home, buy myself a pint, get drunk, and watch TV till the static or a prayer wakes me up.

  Jimmy hopped up on the stool next to me. “That broad owe me over a hundred dollars, and my shit is raggedy, man. I can’t cop till I get this twenty dollars. You ain’t got twenty on you till later on this weekend, do you, blood? I’m good for it, you know that.”

  I knew that was what Jimmy was leading up to. That’s what he always led up to. But the little fat fuck been my buddy since high school. We used to tease him ’cause he had gray hair when he was fifteen. He got a whole head full of the shit now. Jimmy was always able to get older women because of that hair. Back then, I envied him. “Man, you ain’t had it good till you got it from a thirty-year-old broad. Especially one that’s done had a baby. They know how to grab holda your shit.” I used to slap him upside the head when he bragged about it. I had just barely had a wet dream. But all that old pussy cost him. Last count, Jimmy had at least five or six kids in all five boroughs. He always have been dumb. That’s one thing we didn’t have in common. I didn’t drop outta school ’cause I was dumb; I just didn’t feel like being bothered. Shit, when I was seventeen, I started reading the dictionary so I wouldn’t sound stupid when I got older, but I only got up to the K’s. There’s a lot of fuckin’ words in the dictionary. Now Jimmy’s doing what everybody expected him to do: nothing. Yeah, he sell drugs, but it don’t amount to shit. One thing I can say for him—he ain’t like some of these scumbags out here. He don’t sell to kids or young girls. Only to the fools that’s been on the shit for years. And since heroin is outta style now, Jimmy’s into coke. I hear they smoking that shit now, and from what Jimmy tell me, he don’t indulge, which is obvious, ’cause the motherfucker still fat.

  He leaned forward and put his little fat hands under that double chin. “Buy me a drink, Frankie.”

  I just looked at him. “If you got a real job, motherfucker, you wouldn’t be in this position.”

  “Don’t start, Frankie. Not today, man. I’m tired, got people waiting for me, and my shit is dragging. I’ma strangle Sheila when I find her.”

  I whipped out a twenty and handed it to him. “What you drinking?”

  “Chivas. Thanks, brotherman.”

  I ordered the drink, they sat it on the bar, and Jimmy gulped it down. “You see the playoffs, man? What you think about that shit?”

  “You know damn well I don’t miss the playoffs, Jimmy. You still asking stupid questions, huh? The Lakers kicked Philadelphia’s ass.”

  “Yeah, the Knicks could use a few Kareems.”

  “The Knicks need more than that. If Huey would get rid of that faggot-ass center, maybe they’d be able to do something besides lose. He dooflus, and scared to jump. You ain’t never seen him doing no sneaker commercial—that should tell Gulf and Western something. They should trade him in for a 1982 model. Let some of these young dudes in the game whose dicks can stay hard all night.”

  “Yeah. L.A. took the money and ran, didn’t they?”

  I didn’t answer Jimmy, ’cause I could tell he was just talking to make conversation. The playoffs was history anyway, and I wasn’t in no basketball mood. That woman was on my mind, and I swear, when I looked behind the bar, she was sitting on top of a bottle of White Label. Damn. I really didn’t need this shit. Not right now. I got too many other things to do. Some pussy would sure be nice. I can’t lie about that.

  “Catch you later, man,” Jimmy said, sliding off the stool. I nodded.

  By the time I finished my third shot, I decided to go ahead and take Pam some money. Wasn’t nothin’ jumping off in here. I stopped by the bank, withdrew my last forty dollars, and put twenty more with it. Shit, something was better than nothing. I walked all the way through the park to the projects, where her and the kids lived. I hated the projects, and the thought that she was raising my kids here always made me mad. Trash every-goddamn-where, and nobody cared. Young kids sitting around, looking like they high on everything. I used to do the same stupid shit, and look where it got me.

  I pushed the steel door open and counted three bullet holes in the bulletproof glass. The hallway smelled like piss. I held my breath and got in the elevator that worked. A balled-up stinking Pamper was in one corner, a empty bottle of Thunderbird right next to it, and a old TV set was sitting in another puddle of piss. Did I really live here six years ago? It wasn’t this bad then, but it seem like the place just goes downhill year after year, and don’t nobody give a shit. Pam can do better; she just too damn cheap. A hundred and ninety-eight dollars a month for this? At least my room is clean. And from what Derek told me, she still working the midnight shift at some brokerage house, running some kind of computer. What she do with all her money I don’t know. And just wait. When one of the kids get in trouble, she gon’ be the first one to wonder why.

  She answered the door—or I should say, took up the door. “How you doing?” I asked. “Thought I’d stop by and bring you this.”

  She snatched the money and moved out the way. I sat down at the kitchen table. The same raggedy-ass plastic tablecloth was hiding it, dirty dishes was piled up in the sink, and the floor looked like it ain’t been mopped in weeks. She’ll never change, I thought. I watched her count the money.

  “Is this the best you can do?”

  “Look, Pam, I’m laid off for a few days, and yeah, this is the best I can do right now.”

  “How many times have I heard that? You need to get a better job, that’s what you need to do.”

  “What you think I’m trying to do?”

  “Try harder.”

  I wanted to slap her. “What about this dude I heard you supposed to be marrying?”

  “Don’t worry about it. When I’m ready to marry anybody, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “You free-fuckin’, or what?”

  “That’s none of your damn business, Franklin. He’s doing more for the kids than you are, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Speaking of kids, where they at anyway?”

  “At camp.”

  “I see you still finding ways to get rid of ’em.”

  “For your information, they like going to camp, and it keeps ’em off the streets and out of trouble. The projects ain’t changed, or can’t you see that?”

  What I saw was that she was up to about three hundred fuckin’ pounds. I couldn’t imagine what this dude must be about or what the hell he saw in her. I couldn’t remember what I ever saw in her, really. And look at her now. It’s a damn shame how some women just let themselves go. You’d think they’d wanna look good for themselves, not just for a damn man. Shit, I work out ’cause it makes me feel good. Women get weak over my body, but that ain’t my fault.

  Now Pam was sitting in front of the TV set—as usual—eating potato chips, drinking a soda, and crocheting. I was still sitting at the kitchen table, looking at the salt and pepper shakers I bought ten ye
ars ago. Damn. I got up and walked toward the door. “Tell the kids I said hi, I’ll see ’em soon, and tell Derek to stop by over the weekend to shoot some hoops. I’ll try to bring you some more money next week.”

  “I won’t hold my breath,” she said, and put another potato chip in her mouth. She didn’t budge. I slammed the door on my way out.

  * * *

  At four o’clock, I watched “The Love Connection” on TV. I was anxious, trying to figure out if I was handling this thing right. If not, at least my motives would be clear: “I was bullshitting. And I ain’t interested.” I watched “The People’s Court” at four-thirty, and “Live at Five” with Sue Simmons—with her fine self. By twenty to seven, I figured she’d realize I wasn’t coming and get the picture. My stomach was growling. I didn’t have nothin’ to eat, and didn’t feel like cooking on that little-ass hot plate, so I put on a clean T-shirt and went to get me some Chinese food. I had barely turned the corner, and who did I run into? Shit.

  “You changed your mind?” she asked.

  “I got hung up,” I heard myself saying.

  “You could’ve called.”

  “I couldn’t remember your last name.”

  “It’s Banks. Zora Banks.”

  She was pissed off. Damn, she looked even prettier mad. “I was trying my hardest to get there by six, I just had some other business to take care of, and it took longer than I thought.”

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” she said.

  “I don’t have to do nothing but die.”

  “Look, I’m getting bad vibes about this whole thing. You’re the one who offered, Franklin.”

  And she was right. What the fuck. It ain’t her fault that she turns me on, and I don’t wanna be turned on right now, but I do wanna be turned on, but not right now and not this way. Shit. “Look, I’m sorry if I messed up your plans.”

  “You didn’t mess up my plans, I just wasn’t able to do everything I had on my list. If you want to know the truth, I rushed to get home by six so you wouldn’t be standing around waiting for me.”