Woman, you said. Say woman. Lady signify.
Pappa Simmons blinked.
Lady like callin an Asian Oriental. A black person Negro.
Once, they met for dinner outside Davy’s Garden, her favorite restaurant, where fig-leafed and sandaled waiters and G-stringed and pastied waitresses served the tasty low-calorie semi-vegetarian dishes that she needed. To start, he was late — he was often late, as if there were two worlds, he a member of the one lagging slightly behind ours — but he offered no apologies, and she didn’t get angry, let it slide, put her tongue deep in his mouth. He played his palm over her ass.
Stop. You embarrassing me.
He gave her ass a firm slap.
Later, she said.
He opened the door and went inside. She waited outside. A minute later he came back.
What’s wrong? he said.
Be a gentleman. Open the door for me.
What?
Open the door for me.
His eyes widened. You ain’t handicapped.
Niggas ain’t shit.
So what does that make a bitch?
Yo mamma the bitch.
Why you comin at me like that? What I do?
Being a young ignant stupid low-life no-class punk-ass muddafudda, that’s all.
He grinned. Can’t we just chill?
She looked at him.
Sound like a personal problem to me.
Yeah, you the person.
SHE LIKED HIM, though he was rough around the edges, and didn’t hold the sharp weapons of money and power. With him, there was always something new under the sun. And not just the lovemaking, the wild gyrations of a twenty-year-old. Nineteen? What difference does a year make? They spent nights in Circle Park, near the Japanese garden, drinking and screwing. (She had scars on her knees to prove it — hi-riding the saddle of his crotch — manageable scars, nothing she couldn’t hide with a dab of Nu Nile cream.)
He puts his ear to her yawning vagina.
What you doing?
Trying to hear the sea.
But he wasn’t stuck on sex. He knew the value of a hug and would hold her all night sometimes, her head on the boulder of his shoulder.
Equally drawing were his wild dangerous moments. Once, they were standing in the lobby of Davy’s Garden, waiting for a table.
How long will it be?
I already told you, sir. Fifteen minutes.
Me and my baby want to eat.
I’m sorry, sir. Fifteen minutes.
Deathrow knocked the host’s head back with a short quick punch. Just like that. The host straightened his tie. Found them a table.
On another occasion, Deathrow shrouded his empty plate with his white napkin, then took Porsha by the hand and led her to the men’s bathroom. (She had not finished eating. His quick teeth always finished before her.) He tipped the bathroom attendant about half what dinner would cost. Instructed the attendant to, Give us a minute. Shoved the attendant out the door, bribe money in hand. Locked the door. Checked the stalls. Washed his hands and her hands — his soap lathered them a single skin — one finger at a time. Undressed. Naked, eyes closed, they climbed into each other, a thin black seam. She held her breath. Their work was sweat and light, sweat and light. When they were done, they made a distance from one another and breathed, outstretched on the warm tile floor, smiling, faces pressed against stone.
And then there was the time he just up and grabbed a waitress at Davy’s Garden. Some homely white girl who was working another table. Grabbed her by the arm and pulled her face next to his as if he had a secret to tell. He put his tongue in her mouth. He let her go. She cleaned her lipstick from his mouth with a cloth napkin. She tore up the check. He sat back in his chair, belly poked out with satisfaction.
Did you have to do that?
He looked Porsha full in the face. Clean draws can’t hide a nasty booty.
They would talk for hours in the darkness, their lips almost touching. So she learned that he got to his station in life by magic.
It ain’t where you come from, he said. It’s where you’re going.
She considered the truth of this.
Gotta take chances if you wanta get somewhere in this world.
What you know bout chances? Young boy like you.
Aw ight. Watch that boy stuff.
They breathed in the darkness, his slow hand on her body.
I know bout chances. A bitch is a bitch, but you got a vicious body, the curves that make a nigga wanna gamble. See, at Red Hook there this old bitch — cuse me, lady—
Woman.
Right. Woman. Anyway, there this ole ass woman live on the top flo of Buildin Three. Everybody say she a witch. Say she give you power if you go up in her. Some say she learn it when she lived way down South. Some say she got it from eatin cat food. Others say she throw parties fo the devil. All I know is, she got power. Power. And she got it to give. Why you think Freeze climbin so high up the ladder? He ain’t no better than me. Only thing is, he knocked her boots.
Freeze? Who’s that?
You ain’t never heard of Freeze?
She shook her head. Should I have?
Well — drop it. It ain’t important.
But—
Drop it. I’m fin to tell you about power. See, that’s the way it goes, either knock they boots or knock em upside the head.
Why you talkin like a lowlife?
I’m jus tellin you how the niggas see it.
I ain’t talkin bout them. I’m talkin bout you.
Sorry, baby.
Finish tellin me.
Well, people be scared of Miss Emily. Miss Emily, that’s the name of that ole witch. Nobody mess wit her. I mean nobody. And they always speak when they see her. They be like, How you today, Miss Emily? Fine. All she ever say. Fine. Ole bitch be throwin—
Do you have to use that word? It’s disrespectful.
Disrespectful? Baby, I got a lot of respect. All sorts of respect.
He kissed her on the cheek. A bird peck.
Anyway, Miss Emily always be throwin her liquor bottles out the window and bustin somebody head. You see her bout once a week. Be ridin round on one of those lectric wheelchairs and shit, you know, those ones that go real slow. Everybody be calling her Lectric EEL. EE. But we jus thinks it. Keep it way back in our mind. Call her Miss Emily to her face, cause she got power. Most ole folks be all scared to even leave they apartment and come out in the hall. And somebody crippled and ole too. But EE, she ride all round on that thing, all over Red Hook, circle all the buildings five or six times, jus creepin long in that slow lectric wheelchair. And you know the jets, all them buildings and shit, every lap bout eight blocks.
Porsha didn’t know. She had only driven to Red Hook once or twice to pick up Deathrow.
Niggas speak to her every time she pass. They be like, How you, Miss Emily? Fine. Do her last lap and she go right into the elevator on that thing. He pulled back, pausing to word it right. Like a worm in a dirty hole, or a roach in the wall or somephun, and ride up to her apartment.
She look jus like a witch too. Big-ass head with these two little tiny dots for eyes. And can’t hardly see. All this thick green stuff on her eyeballs. And her body all skinny and wrinkled up. Hands all balled up like crabs. And her arms all wrinkled up like some tree branch.
Don’t sound like nobody wit power to me, Porsha said.
That’s because you don’t know power when you see it.
How you know what I know?