“Fuck,” Fire said.
“Lawyers draw up everything.”
“So you broke your contract with Claire, then?”
“Not exactly. Legally speaking the stuff I pay Lewis with are gifts. No judge will see anything wrong with that. But yeah.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But yeah … I broke a contract.”
Fire shoved his hands in his pockets. The ruffneck in his heart felt for his fists.
“So the girlfriend,” he asked. “She know bout this?”
“Who? Sylvia? Nah. She don’t know shit. All of what I telling you go down before she meet him. She’da leave him if she find out though. Definitely. Shit, she wouldn’t even cheat on her taxes.”
“So tell her then—” He caught himself. “No, don’t do that. But don’t pay him no more … we’ll work it out.”
“I haven’t paid him in a year. That’s why things stay the way they stay. Him threatening me with all kinda shit. Lawsuit. Immigration … because, as you know, I’m legally a citizen of France, and I’ve been over here for the last few years on an expired tourist visa. Yow, when I thinka how much work I gi dat pussyhole … I mussi pay him like a thousand percent interest over the last five years. From I born outta my mother womb I never see anybody so fucking—”
“So what have you learned from all this?” Fire asked. He was thinking of Miss Gita now. “I notice you’re wearing a chronograph. A regular watch wouldn’t do?”
Ian looked up at him, his eyes dimming then flaming—bulbs hit by a power surge.
“You know what I love about you?” he said as he picked up his clothes. “You always feel like you can judge me. Like you perfect.”
He pointed with an open hand as he dressed with the other.
“You waah know why I wear a TAG and you wear a Timex? Because you used to visit the ghetto on holiday and I used to live there. Because your father is a painter and my ole man was a thief. Because your mother was a pilot and mine is a maid. Because before I went to study in London I’d never been on a plane. For these and other reasons, Fire, I cyaah wear a Timex. I must wear a TAG. You know what your problem is, Fire? You like to be a savior. People don’t always need you, man. Trust me on that.”
The phone rang. Claire had had to leave Diego’s barbecue early and had asked someone to give Fire a number to reach her.
As soon as he got off the phone Ian said he had to go, promising to meet up with Fire later and do something.
“What?” Fire asked.
Ian said he’d figure it out.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice in an organ swell, the sound easing up then bearing down on the lick of a guitar. Al Green. “Love and Happiness.” One of his favorite songs.
“Hi,” he said, dancing with himself. “I’m a friend of Claire’s. She left this number for me. Is she there?”
The reply was churned to froth in the reverend’s wake.
“Could you repeat that, please?” Fire asked.
“She was here a while ago, but she had to leave.”
“Can you do me a favor, darling? Can you tell her, please, that Fire called?” He plugged his ear with a finger. “Tell her that I’m at the Fulton Inn … well, if you won’t be seeing her then this is probably a waste of your time then … aah, if you happen to hear from her, just tell her that Fire called and that I’ll probably be leaving here in another coupla minutes—What time is it now? Four and mash. I’m late—and … that I’ll call her.”
He stopped dancing and leaned into the phone. “Are you there?”
Her voice was fainter now … even more distant. “Yes … you should try her at the gallery. I think …”
“I’m sorry … I missed—”
“I think she’s at the gallery. Call her there.” Her voice was sharp.
“Okay, I’ll do that … and you feel better.”
“What do you mean?”
“You sound kinda hoarse, like you getting a cold.” He lay on the bed and muffled one ear with a pillow. “You know what’s good for that? Lime juice with honey. If you don’t like honey use some brown sugar.”
“Thanks … thank you … that was really nice of you.”
“You’re welcome … and remember, if you hear from Claire, ask her to call me … please. And if you don’t have a lime—you just need one, y’know—is awright to use a lemon. Awright?”
“Okay … bye.”
He called Claire and she told him not to leave, that she was coming over. And suddenly the room felt empty, and he began to wonder how long it would take her to arrive.
Was it Claire? he wondered as he lay in bed. They’d been lovers for a short while, years ago. Was he still attracted? He didn’t think so. But he wasn’t sure. Blanche would’ve said yes, though. According to her he was weak for “the dark ones.” Which was true. His mother was dark and mellow like Guinness.
The feeling didn’t go away when Claire arrived, which made him realize that what he was calling emptiness was a part of him and not the room, because it clung to him like the smell of sweat as he rode on the back of Claire’s Kawasaki, his arms around her waist, his crotch up on her battyridered ass. Flatbush Avenue, a broad street, was clogged with shops and traffic—lumbering buses, sharkish livery cabs, and an assortment of coupes, sedans, and four-by-fours displaced by the cabs and buses into each other’s way—a clash of greedy metal through which Claire flew like a vulture into the stench of death.
Using the same instinct that allows one to understand the sentiment of a foreign language, Fire began to intuit that his feelings of loneliness were related somehow to that voice on the phone—to the texture more than the text, to the mood. Who was she, that woman whom he could hardly hear, but whom he was feeling now, her words coming soft against his ear? He was still thinking about her as Claire picked her way through a quiet neighborhood of narrow, shaded streets lined with brownstones and carriage houses. She stopped in front of a house, said something that didn’t come through his helmet, ran up the steps and rang the bell, and Sylvia came out to greet her.
She was shoeless, a spatula in one hand, the other hand clasping her waist above the knot that held together a gauzy blue sarong, a scrim of cloud through which her long legs shimmered like lightning in a storm. As he stood there beneath an elm, doing his best to steady the bike, the throbbing shaft of steel between his thighs, he felt her absorbing him, pulling the wetness out of him, the sweat from his pores, the spit from his lips, the oil from his wood, the blood—his very life—which he felt beating against his veins, wanting to spill itself at the corners of her house to protect her from any spirits that might be sent to harm her.
He realized now—felt it, rather—that she was the voice on the phone. There must be a reason why we’re meeting like this, he said to himself. He set the bike on the kickstand and walked toward her, his lug soles drumming the pavement like the hands of a shaman, a masked and feathered juju priest, intoning a prayer of thanks to the ancestors. At the top of the steps, he took her hand, which was smaller than he’d remembered, and thought about what Ian had told him.
“How are you, Sylvia?” he asked.
She replied, “Fine, I think.” The spatula was wet with molasses, which had dribbled over her toes, which he wanted to suck now, as the aroma of cookies wrapped itself around him like a scarf.
“Anyway,” Claire said, edging between them, “we’re going out for a ride. I just came to drop this off.” She gave Sylvia the receipt for the candleholders.
“What are we doing later?” Fire asked. “Should we all get together? Ian said Gregory Isaacs is playing Club Rio. Does anyone want to go?”
Sylvia tilted her head and gave him a smile, a subtle one that preserved the calm of her face. Why is it that I want him so? she asked herself. She was thinking now of the words that she’d scribbled on a notepad as soon as she’d gotten off the phone with him:
It’s funny you should have called just now because I was thinking quite intensely about you. It’s so hot and I’ve been wandering ar
ound here naked at times, luxuriating in my own sensuality and having all sorts of fantasies about you. Anyway, there I was, lying on the sofa, topless in my sarong, legs open, stroking my inner thighs, enjoying the tingle, wanting to feel your much larger hands there. To be honest, I spent some of this afternoon on my bed imagining you here. Oh, I just want to be with you, eat you, have you lick the salt sweat off my body.
“I think Gregory Isaacs would be nice,” she said. She hadn’t been to a reggae show in years. “What about you, Claire? Would you like to come?”
“Sure, if I’m welcome.” Claire pinched Fire’s elbow. “But we have to go.”
“And I have to finish my cookies.” She waved goodbye and turned toward the door.
“It starts at ten,” Fire said. “So we’ll meet you there at around nine-thirty, and”—he looked away, caught a smile, and brought it back for her—“I’d like to taste something from your oven … bring me a cookie later, nuh?”
His words skipped across her mouth. Her face became a rippling pond.
“Just one?”
“Yeah. Everything has to start somewhere.”
He arrived at ten-thirty and immersed himself in the crowd, a flash flood of humanity that had swept through West Forty-ninth Street, voraciously swallowing hydrants, Dumpsters, and mailboxes before stagnating in a pool, fatigued perhaps by the heat. The aroma of marijuana sweetened the air against the pungency of tobacco, boiled corn, jerk chicken, and floral perfumes. Gold was everywhere. Teeth. Bracelets. Hairpins. Necklaces. And rings. If some fabrics were not intended for some outfits, and some outfits not intended for some bodies, one would not have guessed. Gold lamé, crushed velvet, crinoline, satin, and raw silk proudly girdled bellies that had borne too many children too early. And hair? As much as money could buy.
There were a few rastas sprinkled in, steadfast in righteous drabness in the fashion Babylon, their only embellishment being the white girls strung around their necks. The white boys in grunge gear shared joints with their buddies and tripped out on the bass belching from the belly of a black BMW marooned at the entrance of a parking garage. Patois swirled and collided in midair, and burst into sparkles. “Why dem don’t let in de people dem? De metal detector business holdin up too much time. Dem have metal detector? Me better go puddown me gun and come back den.”
Gripping the straps of his knapsack to settle it, Fire edged through the mob, swiveling left and right, his eyes skimming the horizon like a periscope, his body pressed on all sides. Where were they? Was that Claire there? Before he could look more closely, his view was blocked by an exuberant weave, a fan-shaped piece of gelled hair-sculpture that eclipsed in size and range of color the open tail of a peacock. As the crowd began to evaporate from the narrow, cracked sidewalk, he drifted down the street to the stage door, which was guarded by a surly giant dressed in black, a chain-smoking southerner who seemed to know only four words, no and can’t help you, which he dispensed in a monotone to all who asked for help. Maybe both of them changed their minds, Fire thought as he returned to the entrance, sorry now that he was flying to England in the morning. He stood there waiting. Then left a message with the corn man and went inside to see the show.
Standing under the balcony of the musty old theater, Sylvia, in a lavender sundress, was lonely in the company of four thousand people. Taking a sip of her Campari and orange juice, she tried to flee the melancholy, tried to take her thoughts in a different direction, but they shadowed her, like the sharks that trailed the schooners west from the coast of Africa.
Claire, whom she’d summoned by phone as soon as she’d left Diego’s, had predicted this falling away. They’d spent the afternoon together on her sofa, most of the time in silence, a silence which became reflection, then later, after Claire had left, bacchanal—music, baking, dancing, and wanton masturbation, during which she stroked herself and pinched her nipples and buried into her mound of earth a plantain wet with olive oil.
She drained the glass, her fourth in the last hour, and began to feel a comfort with the music that she hadn’t felt at first. And as she stood there, caught in a tidal draft of bass, the snare smacking wet like a belly flop, the guitar slicing through like an oar stroke, the horns fine and light as sand in an undertow, she began to think of herself as a fish, and the people around her as blades of sea grass. With the onset of weightlessness she became more aware of her body, of how much of it she couldn’t feel, of how much of it she wanted to touch, to reexplore, to reassure herself that it was all there, all hers—all hers to give to whomever she pleased …
Gregory was drifting across the stage, in an orange three-piece suit, his skinny back swayed like a sea horse, his voice a rippling whinny. She closed her eyes, hugged herself, and listened through her pores.
They can’t get me with silver
They can’t get me with gold
They wonder why I love you so
Half the story has never been told
But they would never understand
What it means to need someone
All I need is you … only you will do
When she opened her eyes he was there, dressed in rumpled khakis and a blue T-shirt that smelled of laundry soap. For a second she wasn’t sure what to do. Her first thought was to smile. But his smile, the one that warmed her face now, was so bright that she feared that hers would not shine through—that it would be swallowed like a village on the edge of a town.
Standing beside each other, feeling the heat of each other’s body distinct from the heat around them, they did not speak, their silence an agreement that the music was too loud for them to hear themselves. With smiles and glances, furrowed brows and pouted lips they carried on a dialogue about the people around them, trying to deflect attention from the momentous opportunity that faced them—they were alone in a dark place without supervision. Frightened by this, Sylvia broke the silence, tugging at Fire’s shirt so she could lean his ear toward her, but she found herself unable to speak. Cautious as well, he spoke to her from a distance.
After the show, they decided as they covered the half block to Broadway that he would share a cab with her. Why not? they reasoned, as she linked her arm in his. They were both going to Brooklyn. And the cookie? Yes … the cookie that she’d promised him. She’d forgotten it at home. At home in Brooklyn where they were both going … together … in the same car. How convenient. So shouldn’t he just stop by and get it, then? Which was not a bad idea, considering that he’d brought her a gift of coffee. Blue Mountain.
Standing at the curb, conspirators in a crowd that did not know them, they felt the electric warmth of newness, of possibility, running through their bones. Below them, in the carnival of Times Square, the lights of the cars hurtled by with a wondrous joy that seemed to say: This is what it would look like if we screwed.
“The next time we’re out and there’s music, we should dance,” he said, leaning toward her. They were standing in the street now, between a Mustang and a Blazer. She was tipping to hail a cab. His languid words were germinated seeds of lust. His voice, strong but weighted, did not ascend above a whisper. “I should’ve thought of that inside. I should have asked you … but I like to ask for what I know I’ll get. I don’t handle disappointment very well.”
“I wouldn’t have disappointed you,” she said, bolder now than she would have been had she not been drinking. “Here’s what I would’ve done.” She wet her lips unconsciously, which signaled him that her mouth was a silken purse that would close itself around his pearls of joy. “I would’ve danced with you … fast or slow … however you like it. I hope it would be slow though. You have to be slow to be sexy. You do a lot of things slow, don’t you, Fire?” She didn’t wait for his reply. “You walk slow … you talk slow.” She pursed her lips and stroked his face with streams of air. “I’ve never seen you eat though. I hope you do that slow as well.”
“Well, it all depends on what I’m eating,” he said, pretending to tie his shoelace. She was leaning back again
st the Mustang now, her hips thrust forward, her thighs ajar. “It also depends on how hungry I am … and how much I like this thing … and whether or not I’m eating in public. Because as you know, none of us eats the same way in public as we do in private. In private you don’t care if the gravy runs down your chin. Cause if there’s enough to dribble then there must be even more to lick. And come on, now,” he grazed her shin with his cheek as he slowly rose. “Some things you just can’t eat with finesse. Like fried chicken. It doesn’t taste good unless your lips get greasy—your whole face, really. Your fingers too.” He flipped her hem with his nose. “Y’have a skillet?” he asked, standing erect now.
“Yes,” she said, spreading her legs, blind to the stares of passersby. Deaf to their giggles. He slipped a bare foot between her knees.
“And what about skills?” he asked, pinching her thigh with his toes. “Y’have skills? You need skills to skin the chicken, y’know. I don’t like mine with the skin on it. D’you know how to skin it and pluck it? I don’t like supermarket chicken, y’know. Chicken should be fresh. The meat must still be warm when you cook it.”
She smacked his knee and began to laugh. He wiggled his foot into his shoe and laughed with her.
“Are you out of your mind?” she said. “How can you just put your foot beneath my dress like that? So easily?”
“I must admit that pants would’ve posed a bigger challenge.”
“Shush, you know what I mean. How can you just step outside yourself and do things like that? Are you like this with every woman?”
“Only the ones that let me.”
“I hate you,” she said, with sparkling eyes. Her smirking mouth was drawn in a thin line.
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