“Already have,” I said, which wasn’t true, but I figured it’d cool the asshole, which it did. He slams out the door, and by that time, at the bottom of the stairs, Tamara’s on her feet. I lock the front door and walk her back up to her own door. I ask her if she needs anything. She tells me no, but I just stand there for a while, not sure if I should walk her down to my place for first aid, or ice, or whatever.
You ever notice how beautiful she is? Cause I really hadn’t till then. I mean, I’d seen her a dozen times or so, more or less up close, at the mailbox, mostly, or passing on the stairway. But I’d never stood so close and face-to-face. She smells like gardenias and some kind of sweet spice. I like those almond eyes, the long lashes, her skin. It’s like smooth and the color of pecans. I mean, you have to be blind not to notice the hourglass body, but even with the swollen eye, the face is like love, like art.
Yeah, well, if it’s conventional it ain’t beauty.
Yeah, actually did call, when I went back down to my place. They showed up fairly quickly and I’m not sure my boy would have gone back to sleep at all if I hadn’t lain there with him for a while as the two of us watched the blue lights flash across the walls and ceiling.
Couldn’t tell you. We both slept till about nine.
All right, so I got back from dropping off the son, and there’s Tamara and this portly dark-skinned woman outside the landing in front of her door — her second door. You know, the one that—
Yeah. They were trying to fix it, see?
No, they weren’t changing the goddamn lock, Merce. The thing just doesn’t work, okay?
Can you blame these folks? How does she know you’re not one of those landlords who shine you on, put you off, blow you back, toss you out? You get used to things running a certain way in your world and you don’t bother.
Exactly. Let me go on. This isn’t about you.
I know I owe you money, but let me tell you what happened, all right? There are some things bigger than your money.
I know, I know, but listen.
They were actually having a good time. Giddy, giggling with frustration, seemed to me. “What are y’all up to?” I asked them, and Tamara smiles at me like I’m some kind of super Jesus and says, “Can you fix this, Reggie?” and I winced a little, but let it go, that Reggie, and just said back, “Did he break in?”
“Last night?” she said. “Naw, I let him in.”
Her friend says, “You don’t even need no credit card to open this door.”
And Tamara said, “You could blow on it and it’ll just lay open like a ho.”
“Girl,” her friend said, “you going to hell for that one!”
I told them I’d be back up in a second with my toolbox, and I was back up in two seconds. The only problem was the thing was loose, every—
All the plates and stuff, and needed a little machine oil. It was tight, and the only thing that could open it was the key. I told Tamara to buy a slap bolt for the inside, and I’d put it on for her, if they needed me to.
Don’t mention it, man. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you I’d been wearing sandals that day. And while the women were watching me work, Tamara said, “Dee, don’t he have some pretty feet, for a man?”
“You got that right, Tam. They some pretty dogs. For a man? Sheeit, I’d trade him straight up.”
“Reggie, how you get them feet?”
I know, what was I supposed to say, Footlocker, morgue, Mom and Dad, Homewood Cemetery?
Right, right, right: Well, you know how you just see feet slung up over telephone lines and on roadsides? Yeah, they’re all over the damn place. Take ’em home; throw ’em in the washer, presto! Lady’s feet, mahogany, good as new!
Anyway, it was quiet for two weeks, and I didn’t hear her come or go. Little music, TV off or turned down low after eleven, as per your lease agreement. Come to think of it, she was living pretty much as she had before the guy started coming around. Hadn’t even thought about how quiet she’d been at first. I got to figuring she was from a good home. I mean, she dressed well for her job, rarely worked the cleavage in her play clothes. But it was more than that. There was something... I don’t know, pristine about her. Yeah, that’s the word. I didn’t think she “belonged” here any more than me. Very middle class, I suppose.
She does? Okay, that proves my point. Everyone from there may know his name, or how famous he is, and they know he wrote a ton of books about Homewood, but few actually read him. Interesting.
I stopped using my fan. I was, you know, on alert, worried about her. Wanted to hear every sound. That’s why I heard all this horrible stuff last weekend.
No, he wasn’t there, thank God.
No, every other weekend.
Tell me about it.
The whole thing was so eerie because there were no voices. No arguing or screaming. There wasn’t any music, no Tupac, no Snoop, no Biggie, just hard tympanic thumps. The walls. Soles and heels rolled like thunder across my ceiling. In fact, that’s what woke me. Thought it was a storm. I lay there in the dark, Merce, and I hear knees and elbows splintering. You could hear the cracks and ghost strokes radiating back into the intermittent silence. You could hear furniture scraping across the floor. Something made of glass shattered, and pieces of it rattled and tumbled and skittered across the wood. Walls boomed; the whole frame shook and it was a good while before I picked up the phone.
Well, I don’t know, exactly, but I’m lying there and the phone’s, like, a fucking foot from my head, and I’m actually taking the time to think, He’s killing her up there.
I picked up the phone and the noise quit like someone’d thrown a mattress over it. Only thing I could hear was my ears and temples knocking. My blood rocked my whole body. I didn’t press a single button, not a nine or a one, and the thing began to bleat to be hung up, and it sounded like it was loud enough for him to hear it upstairs, so I hung it up, sat up, and listened. So, as my heart slowed, I could hear normally, more or less. Car engines, tires, woofers, tweeters. I heard drunken boys making like magpies as they walked past my window. One of them’s going, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it’s like he don’t even know when to stop and listen, so like I’m all up in his grille...” and as the boy’s voice fades, I hear in its place this low, steady, “Uh-uh-uh-uh,” and I mean it’s constant, but I can’t tell whether it’s a man or a woman. I can’t tell anything about it, but it goes on for a long, long, long, long time, and I’m pinned down there on my bed and pretty soon I tell myself they’re having sex, and I should mind my own business, and I got a right to be disgusted and pissed off and a right to some peace and quiet and sleep. I turn on the filter. I slept.
I’d have slept till noon or better if not for the smell of ammonia that socked me awake at about seven. No mystery as to why they use that stuff for smelling salts. I got up, stepped into my pants, walked the hallway from bedroom to kitchen. I stepped to the back window and gazed through the bars and dirty glass and down the fire escape. The ammonia drew tears from my eyes and I wiped them with my wrist. A nasty film ate at my throat. My feet didn’t quite touch the ground.