“I’m only ever gonna get married once in this life,” Sono said with the solemn voice of a preacher. She reached out to touch Gerry’s arm, and in doing so, George’s little hand. “I mean I love Gerry but I was married to Tony and when he died I promised God that I’d never marry another man.”
“What he die of?”
The three young people, even child Hamela, went quiet. Soupspoon understood that something was wrong about the death. Sono and Gerry glanced away, but Chevette didn’t avoid his eyes.
“They thought he was a drug dealer, uncle,” she said.
“Who did?”
Chevette hunched her shoulders. “Nobody knows. But the cops said that Tony was wearin’ the same kinda purple runnin’ suit that somebody who stole from some uptown dope dealers was wearin’. They said that the guys prob’ly shot’im without makin’ sure who it was.”
Hamela put her hand up on her mother’s elbow; her big brown eyes, in the fluorescent light, were like moons.
“That was five years ago,” Sono said. “But if it was ninety-five Tony’d still be my only huzbun. Ain’t no other man gonna take his place.”
“Oh come on, Sono. You know you love Gerry,” Chevette said.
“I ain’t never said I cain’t have no boyfriend,” Sono told Soupspoon as if he were a judge reviewing her case. “Pinklon come an’ told me that he loved me. He come up here an’ spend my money an’ get me pregnant. And then when they cut me open for George he off wit’ his bitches an’ leave Hamela in the ’partment for three days by herself. If it wasn’t for Chevette, Hamela woulda died.”
“Hamela was scared of the dark,” Chevette said. “And her momma told her that she couldn’t play with matches, so she couldn’t light the candles.”
“Yeah,” Hamela agreed.
“Why didn’t she just turn on the lights?” Soupspoon asked.
“They done turnt off the phone, gas, and electric while I was pregnant. Said I owed them twelve hundred dollars includin’ deposits, an’ that I cain’t get it turned on till I pay’em. So I said fuck’em,” Sono said. “Only reason we got heat is that it’s steam an’ everybody gets it. Everybody should get they lights too.”
“So Chevy turned on the candles,” Hamela said. “And she stayed with me in my bed.”
“How come you didn’t take her up to your house?” Soupspoon asked.
“ ’Cause my a’nt is a bitch, that’s why. If you don’t give her no money she ain’t gonna spit.”
“Where she live?”
“Upstairs. My momma send me up here from Shreveport ’cause she got nerves. She kept Buster but I come up here, an’ momma send part of her welfare to A’nt Vella. Only A’nt Vella don’t care nuthin’ ’bout nobody ‘cept for how much money they got.
“When Hamela needed me I come on down to Sono’s an’ stayed.”
Soupspoon was listening but he was also watching. Watching Sono watch Gerry. Whenever baby George would begin to frown and move around, Gerry rubbed his forehead with his finger. Then George’s face smoothed out and Sono glowed.
Sono was all smiles for Gerry.
“Why don’t we take the babies home to bed and get some wine?” she asked.
Soupspoon got two bottles of good red wine in one of the liquor stores on Broadway and then treated for the taxi down to the girls’ building, not far from Rudy’s nameless club.
Getting a cab wasn’t easy for a gang of black folks and their babies. Every time they’d hold up their hands for a cab the driver sped up or turned on his OFF DUTY lights. Finally Sono stood out alone. She was the lightest-skinned one of them. The first cab she hailed stopped. The Pakistani driver was upset at first. But he liked Hamela, who sat on Soupspoon’s lap in the front seat. He drove them the crooked road to their big apartment building and Soup-spoon gave him a two-dollar tip.
“Black people could treat you right too,” he said while handing the man the money.
“Thank you, sir!” The cabbie nodded and grinned.
Soupspoon wondered if the young foreigner understood.
Sono’s apartment was large enough for the family and Chevette. Hamela had her own room and George had a crib next to Sono’s bed. Chevette stayed on the couch in the family living room. Everything was nice except that there was no electricity and no phone. The youngsters went around lighting candles when they got home. There were candles all over the house; in the living room, kitchen, and toilet.
The first thing they did was to put George in his crib. Hamela was crying and didn’t want to be left alone. So they all went in with her to put her to bed.
Soupspoon sat in the corner and played soft chords while Gerry told the story of the Lion Who Thought He Was a Man. It a was long rambling tale that was funny in places; all about a lonely lion who wanted friends so he pretended that he was something else. Sono and Chevette, only girls themselves really, sat beside the bed listening intently. Hamela was a little queen with her big teeth and drowsy eyes. She was asleep for five minutes before the adults could tear themselves away.
By the end of the first bottle of wine, Gerry had told of his whole dream to write a history of black people. He was a student at Hunter College and still lived with his mother in a big house in Queens. He was going to get his Ph.D. in history because “black people’s history isn’t all that dry stuff that white people have. Black people’s history is stories and words and music. Black people have built the culture of America with their play, and nobody knows it really because it’s not written down in books. You see, books make things seem real, and even if you’ve got something else just as real, if it’s not in a book then nobody cares...” He went on like that for a while. Sono beamed at him while he talked, moving his big hands in the air and looking into her Asian eyes.
They were sitting in Sono’s small kitchen; Sono and Gerry across from Soupspoon and Chevette. When Soupspoon pulled the cork out of the second bottle, Sono said, “I bet you never heard the music they play ’round here.”
“What music?” Soupspoon wanted to know.
“Down Charlton. Chili Morton and them.”
“Who’s that?”
“It’s a band like, play at this restaurant on Charlton.”
“What kind of music is it?”
“I don’t know all that stuff. It’s just that they play good and maybe you’d like it.” Sono turned to Chevette. “Why don’t we go down there?”
“Why’ont you an’ Gerry go on,” Chevette said. “Me an’ uncle stay here with the kids.”
Sono raised her eyebrows and caught Gerry by one of his big fingers. “Com’on,” she said. “Let’s get outside.”
Sono’s couch was just large enough to serve as Chevette’s bed. “I don’t mind sleepin’ in it,” she told Soupspoon. “I ain’t all that big, and at least I don’t got no big nigger runnin’ ’round tryin’ t’look in my drawers.”
“What you mean?” Soupspoon felt comfortable in the young woman’s company. Candles flickered around the room and the muted sound of salsa music came in through the walls.
Chevette was beautiful and knew it; but she didn’t care about it. She was open and friendly and sure enough in herself that she didn’t mind if somebody might not like her. Soupspoon saw home in that girl; life so hard that it made you good.
“When I used to live upstairs my a’ntee had this goofy old man named Willy up there. He always comin’ in on me when I’as on the toilet or in the bathtub. I had t’stop takin’ baths a’cause’a him. I had to come down here even if I had to pee.”
“So that’s why you come down here to live?”
“Uh-huh. Sono’s nice. She mad all the time but that’s ’cause she got these babies and a lotta bills from when she lived wit’ Pinklon and then when she was in the hospital. She work now, but a good girl cain’t make no money at Rudy’s.”