I felt Grandmama’s cold lips against my face and as Ma pushed harder I felt the sutures that held her mouth closed. I was breathing rapidly. I was sick.
Thomas and I are sitting at a table against the wall, far away from the band, and Dizzy walks out and starts to play. They play a long version of “A Night in Tunisia” and then I start shouting, “‘Ornithology’! ‘Ornithology’!” Dizzy begins to play the song and I fall back into my chair with a smile across my face. My hand drops down next to me and lands on my saxophone and I decide to join in. So, I stand up and start blowing and Thomas is looking around nervously and Dizzy stops playing.
“Keep going,” I yell.
This big guy walks to our table and says, “You can’t play that thing in here.”
And I yell out, “Dizzy, I went fishing with Bud Powell!”
Dizzy just stares at me and starts talking to members of the band.
“You gonna lay off that thing?” the big guy asks.
Then I hear a familiar voice. “Boy, I want my money!”
I look over at the door and there’s Sid Willis.
“I said, I want my money!” Sid starts weaving his way through the tables toward us. I pick up my things and head for the nearest exit and Thomas is right behind me. When I push through the door a fire alarm is set off and the manager is yelling at us and telling us never to come back. Thomas takes my arm and pulls me off the main street and down an alley. We make it through alleys back to the house and there’s no sign of Sid behind us.
“What was that guy talking about?” Thomas asks as we walk into the house.
“I never saw him before,” I lie and I tell Thomas I’m real tired and I retire to my room and slip into bed.
I’m laying awake and I hear Mike and Larry in the next room. I figure it’s Mike and Larry because it ain’t Quincy or Thomas and I start to listen to what they’re saying.
“I saw you!” says one.
“Calm down,” says the other.
“I saw you pissing standing up!”
“So?”
“So, I’m the dominant one in this relationship! I piss standing up! You piss sitting down! I don’t want to catch you doing it again!”
“Please, Mike. Please, don’t hit me.”
“Promise me you won’t do it again!”
“I promise. I promise.”
Then I hear moaning and groaning. I try to block out the noise and I go to sleep.
Daddy told me I better go outside. Ma was screaming at me and I was shaking. I just stood there. “Go on outside, Craig,” Daddy said. I ran outside and sat on the church steps. It was hot, but I was shivering.
Martin came out and sat beside me. “What happened?” he asked.
I just looked at him and tears came out of my eyes.
“Aunt Edna’s really screaming in there. Aunt Cleo, too.”
Martin gave me his handkerchief.
“I want to go to France,” I said.
“What?”
“I want to go to France.”
Martin tilted his head and looked at me.
“If I was in France I’d be free of everything.”
“Come on, it could have happened to anyone.”
I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. Then the church doors opened and people started coming out. Martin and I moved off to the side. The coffin was marched past us. Aunt Cleo stared at me as she walked by and so did Aunt Edna. Uncle Ernest didn’t see me. They put Grandmama in the back of the funeral car and everybody got ready to go. Martin got into a long car with Ma. Daddy stood by the car with the door open and looked at me.
I shook my head.
He nodded.
I watched as the black cars rolled away. And in the middle of the procession of dark cars with dark people was McCoy.
I walked home and found Bud playing the piano.
“You’re back early,” Bud said.
I nodded and threw my coat down and stretched out on the sofa. We looked at each other silently for a minute. “I want to go to France with you,” I said.
“Oh, yeah? Why?”
“I want to be free.”
“Free, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s free?”
“Doing what you want to do.” I paused. “When you want to do it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” My eyes were wet. “So, can I go to France with you?”
Chapter 14
I wake up early the next morning and I head downstairs for breakfast and when I step into the kitchen I’m speechless. All four of them Chinese fellas are naked as jaybirds and I’m frozen in the doorway. Thomas, Mike, and Larry are sitting at the table and Quincy is facing the stove, his skinny butt turned toward the table.
Thomas sees me. “Good morning, Craig.”
I nod.
“Have a seat,” says Quincy, turning to face me.
I sit down at the table and Mike and Larry are reading from little books. Every few seconds one of them taps the other and points out something in the book, but they don’t pay me any attention.
“You picked a good morning to come down for breakfast,” says fat Thomas.
“Yeah?” I glance over at the pan that Quincy is working over.
“Yeah,” says Thomas, “we’re having yogurt-and-tofu omelets.”
“We’re having what?”
Quincy answers me. “Yogurt-and-tofu omelets.”
“Oh.”
“Here you go,” Quincy says, sliding an omelet onto my plate. There’s yogurt oozing from between the lips of the thing and I’m just looking at it.
“Before it gets cold,” Thomas says.
Quincy is back at the stove, cooking, and he looks over at me and smiles.
I cut into the eggs and slice through some of that tofu stuff and it looks like turkey gelatin or something. I slowly push a bite into my mouth. I don’t like it, but I eat it, and then I reach for the juice. It’s prune juice.
Thomas is smiling at me and then he winks and I wink back and his face sorta goes red, but more orange. Thomas makes me feel odd.
I’m sitting next to the phone, which is on a table in the living room, and I pick up the receiver. Mike and Larry are discussing their little books quietly in a far corner. I’m calling Lou Tyler.
“I’d like to place a collect call,” I tell the operator.
“Name?”
“Craig Suder.”
Lou’s phone rings and Lou’s daughter picks up. “Hello.” “I have a collect call from Craig Suder,” says the operator.
“Who?”
“Craig Suder. Will you accept the charges?”
“I’m a friend of your daddy’s,” I says.
“I’ll get my daddy,” the girl says.
“Hello.” It is Lou.
“I have a collect call from Craig Suder. Will you accept the charges?”
“Where the hell are you!” Lou shouts.
“Will you accept the charges?”
“Everybody here is—”
“Will you accept the charges?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Hello, Lou,” I says.
“Where the hell are you? You’ve got everybody sick wondering if you’re okay.”
“I’m in Portland.”
“What are you doing there? Come up here!”
“I was wondering if I could use your cabin at Mount Hood.”
“Get your behind up here!”
“No, I really need some more time to myself. Can I use your cabin?”
“You call Thelma?”
“The cabin?”
“Call your wife.”
“Okay. Now, can I use—”
“Yeah, you can use the cabin. Do you know how to get to it?”
“Yeah.”
“How are you?”