“Like Ric Brandon?”
“Brandon’s an asshole,” he said, waving his hand. “You know what I mean. For instance, man, you don’t mind my saying so, I been knowing you a long time. And you did a helluva job today. But, Nick, you fuckin’ up.”
“How so?”
“You sweat your ass off moving stock, you come up through the ranks in sales, you put yourself through college to get to that management position you’re in, now you act like it don’t mean nuthin’.” He got right up in my face. “What’s goin’ on with you, man?”
“I don’t know, Louie. I just can’t convince myself anymore that what I do is important.”
“Important? Come on, man, wake up. Where in the world did you get the idea that the work you do in life has to be important?” He took a swig of beer. “Let me tell you something, man. When I was young-you don’t even remember the D.C. I’m talkin’ about-this town was split black and white for real. I couldn’t sit with you like this in a bar and have a beer. In the early sixties I went to work in the old Kann’s department store downtown, and when the riots went down, they had no choice but to make me department manager.”
Lee came back and sat next to me. We all had some of our drinks, and Louie continued.
“Well, you know they went out of business like everybody else down there. But I got hired as agotfont manager at Moe’s on New York Avenue. A couple of years later Moe died, his kids took over the business, and they went belly-up too. Then Nathan’s put me on as assistant manager over in Arlington. It was rough for a while, but I hung with it and eventually they give me this store.” He finished his draught and put it loudly on the table. “So I come a long way from the Colored Only section of this town to where I’m at. I don’t just work here. I’m the manager of a store on Connecticut Avenue, understand what I’m sayin’? I own a house and every three years I buy a new ride. I got me a kid at Maryland, one at UDC.” He paused and stared me down. “You want to know what’s important.”
A small man with a heavily veined nose wearing a tuxedo that fit like an afterthought walked into the room. He sat at the piano and placed his highball glass filled with straight liquor on a coaster.
“Welcome,” he said into the mike, “to La Fortresse.”
“It’s La FurPiece,” McGinnes shouted, and Lee jabbed me in the ribs.
“My name is Buddy Floyd,” the man said, and began indelicately playing the piano intro to “Tie a Yellow Ribbon.” With each chorus he turned his head in our direction and nodded in encouragement for us to sing along.
Mercifully, others began filing into the room, older couples overdressed for this joint and out for their idea of a night on the town. Most of them were half-lit, and some of the women were elderly enough to be losing their hair, their pink scalps visible through their bouffants. For some reason I felt a tinge of sadness and kissed Lee on the cheek. Buddy Floyd was singing “They Call the Wind Maria.”
“I’m pretty buzzed,” Lee admitted, finishing her second vodka.
“So am I. You want to go?”
“Yes,” she said. “Can we stay together tonight?”
“Sure. But let’s go to my crib, okay?”
“Okay,” she laughed. “But aren’t you a little big for a crib?”
We settled up by leaving a twenty on the table. Lee kissed Louie good-bye. Malone, who was whispering something to our waitress, looked up long enough to give us a wink.
McGinnes was behind the piano, one arm around an older woman with raven black hair in the shape of a football helmet, his other hand clutching a precariously tilted tumbler of scotch. He and the others grouped around the piano were laughing and singing along loudly to the Fabulous Buddy Floyd’s interpretation of “Hello, Dolly.”
At the district line I stopped for a bottle of red wine, then headed towards my apartment. We sat in the car in front of my place, talking and listening to some old Van Morrison. When that was over, we went inside.
A half bottle of wine later our clothes were thrown about the living room and Lee and I were writhing all over my couch. We ended it loudly and in a sweat, with Lee inclined in the corner, the tops of her calves locked beneath my ears, the soles of her feet s oe writhpointing at the ceiling.
Afterwards, I slid a pillow under her ass to catch the wetness, and watched t he sweat roll onto her chest and break apart as it reached her large, brown nipples.
My apartment resembled a bombed-out laundromat. The cat had Lee’s underwear on her head and was bumping into furniture. Lee pulled my face down and kissed me on the mouth for a long time.
“I had a good Saturday,” she said sweetly.
“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.” Then I pulled a white blanket up from the back of the couch and spread it over us, and we slept, holding each other until morning.
FIFTEEN
Lee asked, “Where are we going?”
After a slow morning of breakfast and the Sunday Post at my place, we were heading south on Thirteenth Street, passing large detached homes with expansive porches. Ahead stood three-story rowhouses crowned with incongruously grand turrets.
“We’re going to visit someone,” I said. “A friend of my grandfather’s.”
I turned right on Randolph and parked halfway down the block of boxy brick houses. There was little color in the trimwork or shutters here. Dogs barked angrily from alleys. Even on bright and sunny days, this street seemed to remain dark.
“This is my Uncle Costa’s place,” I said. “He worked for my grandfather when he was a young man. When he wanted to start his own business, my grandfather helped him out.”
“Let’s go in.”
“I just wanted to explain to you first, before you meet him. Let’s just say that some of these guys didn’t really assimilate themselves too well into the American culture.”
“You’re not ashamed of him, are you?”
“Not at all.”
“Fine,” she said, tugging at my arm. “Let’s just go in.”
As we walked up the steps, I waved to a man coming out of the next house who I knew to be a reverend. Behind us two gangly but tough-looking kids walked down the sidewalk, one wearing a Fila sweatsuit, the other with an Eddie Murphy “Golden Child” leather cap on his head.
A rusted metal rocker with moldy cushions sat on the concrete porch. Black iron bars filled the windows. I knocked on the door and waited, counting three locks being undone. Costa opened the door, looked at me, and smiled.
“Niko,” he said.
“Theo Costa.” I gripped his hand and kissed him on the cheek.
He was shosolesnt sizert and solid, with thick wavy black hair that was gray at the temples and slicked back, and a thin black mustache below his bumpy nose. Though it was Sunday, he wore a short-sleeved white shirt with two pens clipped in the breast pocket.
“Come on,” he said, waving us in with both hands. As Lee passed him, he looked back at me and said in Greek, “Your girl? Very nice.”
“A friend,” I answered, but he winked anyway.
I introduced her and they shook hands. A couple of cats ran by us and into the kitchen. The curtains were drawn throughout the house. Costa switched on lights as we followed him through the living room and into the dining room. The air was dry and very still.
We sat at a large table in ornate chairs with yellowed cushions. On one wall was a mirror covered with a blanket; on the other hung a sepia-tinted photograph of a man and woman that had been taken in the early part of the century. The woman, even shorter than the short man and wearing a long black dress, was unsmiling. The man wore a baggy suit, a very thick mustache, and a watchchain from vest to pocket.
“You want coffee, gleeka’?” Costa asked.
“Thanks, Costa. Nescafe for Lee.”
“One minute,” he said in Greek, jabbing a finger in the air and stepping quickly into the kitchen.
“He’s nice,” Lee said. I nodded and she pointed to the wall. “What’s with the mirrors? I noticed the one in the living room is covered too.”