Had to be them. By the time John bought the red Eldorado, Sam was living off disability — oh, that leg-stealing train — and Dave was surviving on Jesse’s welfare check. Beulah told that too. She puttin all my business in the street. How she like me to show everybody her dirty draws? How Dave got Jesse pregnant when she thirteen. Hayseed-eatin country bitch, Dave said. How three babies popped out of her womb in three consecutive years — but weren’t there some twins? Lucifer remembered twins. Three pearls, Beulah said. Three crumb snatchers, Dave said. Dave cashed his paycheck at the liquor store. Might as well have used the money to feed them dead hogs at the factory. Fed them kids sugar water. Put newspapers on em for diapers. And Jesse. Jesse. Well — Lucifer could tell it from here, what Beulah both knew and imagined. How Dave could always get some from Jesse—My sweetness—how she remained a reliable piece until she had the stroke that sucked the life from the left side of her body and confined her to a wheelchair; Dave ran her til she had a stroke, dang fool, eyes buggin, her left arm hanging limp across her lap, trembling like a bird. So I took them poor kids, Beulah said. And brought em here to Decatur.
Sam ain’t never have any kids? Lucifer asked.
Sam never claimed any, Beulah said. Cept one by this girl when they was stationed over in the Philippines. One. A Filipino. The only one he claimed. But who knows all the places his blood done run.
20
SHEILA DRIFTED AWAKE in sunlight. The rising sky lifted like a blanket. Faint sounds rose in spirals up the stairwell. Hatch? She reached for Lucifer. Discovered a warm hollow where his body had lain. He sleeps very still, legs straight, hands crossed on his chest, an ancient mummy. Strange. He never rose before her. While he slept, she would make breakfast and prepare his lunch. Work-bound, he carries his lunchbox solemnly, like a miniature coffin. Ah, so that was him downstairs in the kitchen. He was preparing to bring her breakfast in bed. Not if she surprised him first.
She found him in the kitchen, shaved and fully dressed, drinking his coffee in five scorching swallows. Black. He likes it black. With four lumps of sugar. Ah, he would go early to work. Make up for missed time. Set right to right. He caught her eyes as he lowered his cup, and his fingers suddenly became unable to compass both cup and sight; the cup banged against the table.
Sheila.
Clumsy. She smiled at him in the remembered fashion. Touched the yellow bird at her throat, floating in its element. Swept into an empty chair at the table. Ran her bare toes up the thick hard logs of his thighs.
Sorry.
How are you this morning?
Fine.
Why you up so early?
His head rocked unsteadily on his neck. I gotta go.
What?
I gotta meet Gracie.
Why?
His look rose and settled on her, then flew away.
Don’t you remember? The phone call last night.
She watched him.
Remember, she called last night? You know, John. His eyes floated everywhere in his face. Away from her.
John again?
She had a feeling about John.
Two days in a row.
Well, she called. He rose from the table. What am I sposed to do? She called. Said John’s gone. He crossed the room and stretched her insides.
21
SUNRISE FOUND LUCIFER taking the long train ride to Liberty Island, his heart ringing and echoing against the warm bed he’d left. Coffee lay in a hot ball on his stomach. And Sheila lay somewhere even deeper.
He blinked behind sunglasses, looking through tinted glass, looking through the train’s speeding window. Bright streaming skyscrapers rose above his twin lenses as the train left Central, shaking and shivering like a dope fiend, and passed over metal scaffolding to the island. The horizon licked the bright slapping waters of Tar Lake. Licked sun from his glasses. Sun-day. A day that reminded him of Sundays reminded him of Porsha reminded him of Pappa Simmons cause it was hot and bright and Sunday when he and Sheila carried the newborn to Inez’s house, first showing her to the old man, spending the last of his years on the screened patio watching the grass and soaking in the quiet, and they made the trip every Sunday after that, Porsha making the journey by herself when she was old enough to learn the El, coming to hear the old man’s aged words—wrinkles slacken the face, loosen the tongue—words that memory and possibly the fear of death had forced out of him, and it was on a Sunday when Death took him, snatching him from under Porsha’s frog-witnessing eyes. She never grew out of her ugly.
Beneath his dark shades, an old feeling of stolen sleep. Each day, he rose early, the sun scratching his back. Gracie had robbed him of needed sleep. Healing in long sleep. Perhaps she had robbed him of even more. Sheila’s mouth formed into a taut line and tightened about him. For the second day in a row, he had crossed her. In the kitchen this morning, his eyebrows had raked in her startling form. He had shaded his eyes so that he might see only a little of her face at a time, first the chin, then the lips, then the nose, then — skip the accusing eyes — then her forehead. Yes, she was angry that John had drawn him away for a second day. If she knew all that he had thought and felt as night softened to dawn, she would understand why he was on his way to meet Gracie this morning. Once she knows — I must tell her, I will — she will understand.
He reached Twin Lakes station, walked to the Davis Street exit, and ran down five flights of El platform stairs — cool wind blowing past his ears — hoping the speed would wake him. Liberty Island. Cobblestoned alleys gave hollow force to the sound of his footsteps. Tall yellow fire hydrants. You only see those in museums. Tree-lined streets. Gardens smearing the air with scent and color. Groomed lawns and neat squarish brick houses. Liberty Island.
The hot ground came up through his shoes. He pressed Gracie’s doorbell. Removed his glasses. Fixed a smile on his face. Over the years, he had learned to hide his disgust for her.
She opened the door. Lucifer.
Shadows spilled out the house.
Gracie.
Sunlight filtered the shadows. The stairs curved upward just beyond her. Black. Black as a worn ass. She had lost some flesh. Always been a toothpick. A skinny chicken bone. Caught in John’s throat, his chest. Two scroll legs meant for stomping prayers in church.
You and John gripped your dicks like fire hoses. Pissed high as the hellfire ceiling. Pissed down Reverend Tower’s hot sermons. Fat women with Bible-weighted pocketbooks chased yall out.
You, Lucifer. You know better. Being the oldest.
Zip up your pants.
Do something constructive. Fix Miss Beulah a plate and take it over to her place. And take them nieces something.
You fixed Miss Beulah a plate (fried chicken, buttered dinner rolls, candied yam, and greens) — them nieces can fix they own — and ran to keep it warm.
My, my, Lucifer. Ain’t you sharp in your suit?