by Odie Hawkins
Benny’s shaking hand dropped the plate, splattering chicken bones at Elijah’s feet.
Elijah looked down disdainfully as he scrambled to put the food back on the plate. What the hell ever made him go out on a sting with Benny? Greed, he answered himself.
Benny stood up, hating the look in Elijah’s eyes.
“Look, ’Lijah, I been checkin’ out the scene down on the street … these dudes is fo’ real, they got regular patrols ’n shit out. How we gon’ get outta this?”
“Well, tell you what.” He shot a full smile across the room at Mabel. “The first thing we gon’ have to do is split up …”
Benny glanced enviously at Mabel.
“You done got yourself into somethin’, huh?”
“Maybe … at any rate, let’s split the bread, just in case.”
The music started, blaring out Benny’s answer.
Elijah pulled him across the room, thinking, on second thought, that it would be better to go off and take care business in a private place.
“You know how to move faster than a two step?” Mabel asked him as the two men approached her.
“Hey, lady … I was raised up dancin’, but lemme take a rain check for this one, where is the li’l room?”
She pointed down the hall, slightly pissed that he wasn’t dancing every dance with her.
Benny stood in the center of the toilet, looking pitiful.
“Well. C’mon, man … I don’t want to hang out in the shithouse all night.”
Benny, looking more pitiful every second, dug down in his pockets and pulled out a bunch of one-dollar bills. “I … uhh … I … this is all I got on me.”
“Fuck, you mean, this is all you got on you, where’s the rest?”
Benny pressed his chin down to his chest, looking, for all the world like a five-year-old caught with his hand in the jam pot. “I stuffed it in my coat pockets, all the rest of it, it’s down on the porch.”
Elijah turned a cold, hard, mean look on him, half a beat away from sticking boot to him. “Okay, let’s divide what we got here and go downstairs.”
Benny carefully divided the forty-six dollars he had.
Elijah looked at the money as though it had funky mold on it. Twenty-three fuckin’ dollars for risking his life.
He grabbed Benny by the collar. “Is this all?”
“That’s it, bruh … I mighta dropped a li’l taste, jumpin’ over fences ’n stuff, but this is it.”
“What possessed you to leave the bread in your goddamned coat pocket?” Elijah asked, more in anguish than anger.
“You told me to leave my coat, man! You told me! remember?!”
“I didn’t tell you to leave the dough in it! C’mon on! Let’s go git it!”
He ignored the curious stares of the two women waiting to get into the toilet. No time for any off-brand bullshit.
Mable stared at the backs of the two men, making their way, super-casually, it seemed at first glance, back to the kitchen. She followed at a discreet distance, determined not to lose Elijah, no matter what. Not this Saturday night, at any rate.
Benny and Elijah stood on the back porch, smoking cigarettes and looking up and down the dark alley below, trying to conceal their anxiety.
Mabel offered the sister selling food a hand, surreptitiously checking out the two men framed in the light spilling out onto the porch.
She wandered out onto the porch as they slipped down the porch steps. Was he trying to sneak off? Wowwww … I must really be losing my touch.
Elijah and Benny crouched in the darkness at the bend of the porch steps, halted by the sight of a couple slumped down on the sofa, cooing and caressing each other.
Elijah felt like spitting with disgust. Benny simply stared, intensely interested at the sight of the woman’s hand inside the man’s fly, and his hand under her dress.
Mable quickly returned to the kitchen as they quietly trudged back up the stairs.
“Well, it’s all safe for a while, I guess,” Elijah whispered, mad and disgusted, “unless they decide to push every goddamned thing off the sofa.”
“Nawww, they won’t do that, be more likely that they would be layin’ up on stuff.”
“I hope you right, Benny. I sure hope you’re right, for your sake.”
Mabel met Elijah as they re-entered the kitchen with a drink, ignoring Benny. “Here, here’s one on the house. What’s the problem? You look like somebody just stole your last dime.”
Elijah cut a mean look at Benny. “Somebody did, in a way.”
“Well, hey, let’s not let bad vibes spoil a good party.”
Elijah took a long sip on the water glass and smiled at Mabel, in spite of his mood.
“Where you from, Mabel?”
“I’m from Chittlin’ Switch, Miss’ssippi, honey, and we don’t be jivin’ when it comes to havin’ a good time.”
She grabbed Elijah’s hand and gently tugged him back through the hall, to the dance floor, her sense of power restored.
CHAPTER 3
Elijah was startled to see the streaks of daylight filter in through the front window. He looked over Mabel’s shoulder at the dregs of a party, people slopped over chairs, beer cans everywhere, stale cigarette smoke in the air, the music down into a mellow jazz groove now, James Brown and Aretha played out. Benny sound asleep on an overstuffed chair.
He released his grip on Mabel’s waist and held her back from him, to check her out in the morning light … the acid test.
She leaned back against the wall, completely aware of what he was doing. “Thirty-eight, thirty-eight, twenty-five, thirty-eight,” she recited in a detached voice, “and the circles are from stayin’ up with you all night.”
They both laughed, in tune with each other, and fell back into each other’s arms.
“Like I told you, baby, earlier, I’m a Cancer man and we like to be sure that the feelin’ is there before we give ourselves away.”
“Well, is it there?” she asked seriously.
“Uhh huh,” he answered without hesitation, and then suddenly remembered. “’Scuse me a minute, baby.”
He went over and shook Benny awake. “Benny! Benny! Wake up! Benny!”
Mabel looked at the two of them curiously as Elijah whispered urgently into Benny’s ear. “You been back downstairs?”
Benny yawned and blinked, trying to get himself together. “Downstairs? downstairs? what downstairs? Oohh, nawww, I ain’t been …”
Elijah resisted the urge to crack him in the jaw, moved quickly through the hall, to the back door and down the steps to the sofa. “Well, I’ll be a sonovabitch!” he cursed aloud, staring at the sofa, cleared now of the rags that had been there, of their coats, guns, and the money. “Well, I’ll be a sonovabitch!”
“What’s wrong? You lose somethin’ down there?” Mabel asked from the top of the stairs, Benny hanging back behind her sheepishly.
He jammed both hands into his pockets to keep from strangling Benny and mumbled, “Nawww, not really … not really.”
Mabel decided not to press the matter, knowing that he was not about to give her the straight of things at this point. “Uhh, Elijah, did you say you were goin’ to give me a lift home?”
Elijah glared fiercely at Benny, answering Mabel. “Yeah, baby … we’re takin’ you home. You got the keys to the car, Benny?”
Benny dug down into his pocket and pulled his keys out. “I always carry ’em in my pants pocket.”
Mabel looked from Benny’s petulant, sheepish-li’l-boy-done-wrong expression to Elijah’s scowl and put it all together.
“Hold on a second, you guys … I got to say somethin’ to Stella before I split.”
The two men stood at the front door waiting for Mabel to say a few parting words to her girlfriend.
“’Lijah, I’m really sorry, man … really I am.”
Elijah studied Benny’s contrite expression, decided to forgive him, a little bit. “Yeahhh, well, that’s the way it goes down sometimes
.”
Down on the early Sunday morning streets, Mabel linked her arms through theirs and asked, just as they were walking past the gambling joint on rubber legs, “Y’all held up the gamblin’ joint last night, didn’t you?”
Benny’s arm stiffened.
“Uhh huh,” Elijah answered, “and then we got robbed by the robbers … I guess.”
Benny fumbled with the keys trying to open the car door. “Where we goin’?” he asked slyly, as they positioned themselves in the car … single man driving, the couple being chauffeured.
Elijah and Mabel exchanged warm looks in the back seat.
“Four-three-seven-nine Warren Boulevard,” she answered after a slight, polite, pregnant pause.
Benny sheeled through the Sunday morning streets, glancing from Elijah and Mabel kissing in the rear-view mirror to sedate groups of churchgoers, off to seek salvation.
He slid into a space almost in front of Mabel’s address, a canopied, third-rate, third-class, rundown hotel tenement.
“Awright folks, here we be.”
He waited, diplomatically, to see whether or not Elijah was going to go in with his new-found friend. When it was obvious that he was going to, he asked, “Whatchu want me to do, man … pick you up later?”
Mabel, on firm ground now, having caught, called out across the pavement, “What’s this ‘later’ shit? You can pick ’im up in the mornin’… if he wants you to.”
“Uhh … yeah, man … why don’t you pick me up in the mornin’?”
Benny shrugged behind the wheel. “That’s cool with me, what time?”
“I go to work at eight,” she answered promptly.
“I hear ya, baby … I hear ya!” Benny sang out as he screeched away from the curb, happy to have survived the night.
Elijah and Mabel shuffled up the dim, smelly steps to the third floor, each of them quietly excited by the idea of what was about to happen, old pros at it, but still enthusiastic.
He stood close behind her as she unlocked the door, curious as to how they would pull it off, how they would get it on.
She strolled into the apartment, made a sweeping gesture that said, “Well, here it is,” and pointed to the toilet.
“You can use that blue toothbrush, it’s never been used before,” she said to him, implications dangling in several directions.
Elijah brushed his teeth and impulsively decided to shower. He stood under the warm jet, trying to make something out of what was about to happen, but couldn’t. It was simply another piece of ass. Another piece of ass. Another piece of ass.
He stared down at the slow, throbbing erection the hot water had given him, wishing, in a way that he were at home, in his own place, with Leelah.
“You constipated, baby?” Mabel called through the door, a laugh in her voice.
Elijah forced himself to laugh back as he answered, “Nawwww, it’s just that when you got the claps, it’s hard to pee.”
He shut off the water to listen to Mabel’s laughter. She really is a sho’ ’nuff, down to earth, stone soul to the bone bitch.
She was still laughing, sprawled across her bed, when he popped out of the bathroom, a towel saronged around his waist.
He dived on top of her gently, feeling sleepy, playful and giddy because of it.
“Wait a minute!” she squirmed out from underneath him. “I have to take this tampon out.”
It was his turn to crack up as she went for her shower. So groovy to come across a deep sister with a sense of humor.
He listened patiently to all of her movements removing her make-up … the shower, the cleansing of the face, the clatter of jar tops, the cologne spray …
She stood nude in the doorway of the bedroom, showing him that her body was still firm after thirty-eight years of living and asked, seriously, “Elijah, you don’t have v.d. for real, do you?”
His impulse was to say no, but he canceled it out, why spoil the fun so soon?
He pulled the corner of the cover back for her to get in bed with him.
“Ain’t but one way to find out,” he said, using her serious tone.
She hesitated for a full ten seconds before sliding under the covers with him.
“You a devil, you know that?” she whispered before he kissed her.
“I know … I know I am …”
Mabel, in her starched white nurse’s uniform, sat on the side of the bed, gently shaking Elijah awake, a smile on her face. “Elijah! Elijah!… I’m goin’. There’s some sausage ’n eggs in the fridge and I made some orange juice for you.”
He stifled a yawn, turning to face her. “What time will you be home?”
“Ohhh, ’bout five-thirty, six.”
He folded her into his arms, pecking little thank-you-for-yesterday-and-last-night kisses on her face. “I’ll call you this evenin’.”
“You don’t have to jive me, baby … Momma’s fo’ real.”
“I know you are. I’m not jivin’, I will call.”
Mabel pulled back. “Okay, if you do, you do. I won’t be disappointed if you don’t.”
“I heard my old man put that together once, a long time ago, in a different way … ‘expect,’ he said,’ at most, nothin’, and ye shall, at least, not be too damned disappointed.’”
“Your ol’ man sounds like a wise dude.”
Elijah played with the buttons on her uniform. “He was,” he replied, and traced a love trail with his finger tips along the side of her neck, trickled off into her ears for a bit.
Mabel, responding positively to his vibes, pulled gently at his nipple tips.
It had been a tender, beautiful experience … they said with their eyes, and their practiced, gentle touches. A tender, complete, beautiful experience. All of the right chemicals, the right feelings, beautiful.
Elijah reached out for her again, a more serious hug on his mind this time. “I gotta go!” Mabel screamed playfully, wanting to jump back in bed with him. “I gotta go! with all these bills ’n things I got, I can’t afford to … call me this evenin’? okay?”
Elijah lay back, cooling himself out. “I said I would.”
She blew him a kiss and was off to her job.
He pursed his lips, looking up into the ceiling, and scratched through his pubic hairs with long indulgent strokes. Life sho’ was beautiful at times. He scratched and flashed back through the events that led up to Mabel.
Yesterday. Only yesterday? he frowned at the thought. Sometimes the shit moved too quickly, took in too much. Doin’ the short change scene with the Geech, the grabbing, back to the pad, knocking off a li’l piece with Leelah … opps, forgot about Dee Dee. Sorry ’bout that, Dee Dee girl. Making the set at the Tiger, off with Benny.
He gritted his back teeth together Benny the Bone, chickenshit, lame … oh well, what the hell, we got away with our asses still split down the middle, instead of cracks slashed crosswise.
He felt his rumbling belly and let out a long, low fart. Wonder what those motherfuckers would’ve done if they’d caught us? He smiled at the idea of being caught. Sounds like a war game or something. No doubt what they would’ve done … after they had broken both our legs for openers.
The party … and Mabel. His mind telescoped itself back to the moment. Mabel Stewart. He looked around the apartment. A little larger than his own. Nothing in it that was worth too much.
How many apartments like this have I woke up in? he asked himself. The memories of some of them made him smile. The “bohemian” white bitch who had rented an apartment in the ghetto, in order to secure a ready supply of black dick. The twenty-two-year-old sister from Washington, D.C. … off into her own bag for the first time. The nymphomaniac with the foul breath and slack titties. The factory worker from Memphis who thought that her crummy little apartment was outta sight because, for the first time in her life, she was not sleeping all squeezed up with four other brothers ’n sisters.
He unconsciously shook his head, looking for some new patterns of thought. It never paid
to hang too far back in the past for too long, that’s the way a lot of dudes became stagnant. Mabel Stewart … nice, kind of clinger, but what could you expect from a broad thirty-eight years old?
He whipped the covers off, remembering the sausage and eggs she’d reminded him she had. Standing up and stretching, his eye was caught by a trio of brown envelopes sticking up behind a jewelry box on the dresser. He picked them up, read the titles lettered on each one. “Sears,” “Rent,” “Food,” peeked inside and counted a total of two hundred and fifty dollars.
He slowly replaced the envelopes and headed for the toilet. Eight-thirty, time to start the day off. Benny would be coming through in a bit, making excuses for himself and telling lies.
He wolfed down four eggs, four sausages, drank coffee and dressed carefully.
Gotta change clothes soon as I get home, he thought, sniffing the armpits of his shirt.
The doorbell ringing caught him off balance. Who could it be? One of Mabel’s man friends, sneaking by to try for a li’l piece of wake-me-up?
“Yeah?” he called into the intercom.
“Me, Benny,” a nazalized voice replied.
He buzzed him in and waited, standing in the center of the front room. Time to get back onto the track.
“Heyyy, man, I hope I didn’t hang you up or nothin’ by takin’ so long, but what happened was …”
“Skip it, blood … I didn’t expect you here ’til ’bout this time anyway.”
Benny quickly slid away from the rest of the alibis and excuses he had prepared, unnecessarily. “You ready to go?” he asked.
“Yeah, let’s cut out.”
He opened the door for Benny and started out after him. “Hold on a minute, Benny.”
He walked back to the bedroom and took the money out of the envelopes and stuffed it into his pocket. What the fuck! they’d never see each other again anyway.
He looked up into Benny’s face, grinning at him from the front room. He decided not to make any comment about his actions. The less said, the better. “C’mon, let’s git on.”
