He leaves the car off and we sit. I watch an old man hobble up the steps of what’s maybe still Miss Mary’s house. Watch a boy skip his scooter along the sidewalk. Mist gathers and Jude lowers his window and sticks his head into it. He reels himself in, straps on his seat belt, grabs the wheel on the numbers, and turns to me. Bud, whether they will or won’t, we hope for the best. And I’ll do all I can. All I can and more. But I can tell you one thing sure, he says. This won’t be cheap.
Chapter 35
Got it, got it.
I’m tired, tired, but early for the shift after the shift I missed. In the ladies’ room I soap stains — when was I supposed to have made it to a washhouse? — and splash my face alive. I step out of the restroom a tiny bit staggered and see Pam leaning against the wall with a clipboard tucked. She cuts her eyes at me and inspects nails this week she’s painted in triple fluorescents.
Missed you, she says. That’s how you do? No call, no nothin?
Oh, I say. Was I on the schedule?
Nice try, but don’t try it, she says.
Try what? I say.
Enough! she says. I told you from day one, I need workers I can trust.
It won’t happen again, I say. You have my word. Next time I’ll double-check.
If there’s a next time, it’s your last time, she says.
Got it, got it, I say.
Great, glad you do, cause I meant it, she says. Now tell me what’s wrong. Why you don’t seem yourself.
Just tired is all, I say, though as soon as I say it, I hate her for the fact she won’t seek the truth. Hate myself for needing to be pushed to it.
Pam shakes her braids — thick ropes plaited wide and pulling at the edges of her scalp — off her shoulders. Come, she says, and drags me into the office. She lays her clipboard down, collects time cards spread across her desk. I snatch off my visor and smooth my hair; what I wouldn’t give for another visit to the stylist. She searches her drawer for a stack of checks and hands me mines.
I know you say you’re tired, but I might need you for OT, she says.
That’s fine, I say, and stuff the check in my pants and walk out to the front counter.
There’s a baseball team — snap-back hats and raglans — in the lobby, boys about the same age as KJ, and it brings me low to see them laugh and joke. I open a till and wave over a scrawny boy with braces. Welcome to Taco World. How may I help you? I say, and wonder if he too can see this blight.
Chapter 36
Fucking refuse, do you hear?
The wind sends a broken branch into the same bed of sawdust where, one night, my girl stabbed my toothbrush so deep in the soil, you could only see the tip. Why? It’s a long, long story, both the original version and the extended remix. I’m trying as best I can to keep you from getting distracted. That’s a lie, but I’d rather not speak on it. I couldn’t stand any of you thinking less of me.
From the room where I keep my computer and books, I watch my neighbor, the one from across the hall, pull up in his dented compact. Dude’s a teacher, which I know because he corners me everywhere he can (in the laundry room, in the elevator, by mailboxes, near the trash) and dupes me into saga-length Q&A’s. I’m so serious, if he catches your ear, it’s the Indefatigable Express, with nonstops till you break, either that or smack (never did it, but believe me it’s crossed my mind more than once) him right in his trap! Guys like him, if I was less prone to fits of guilt and shame, I’d curse them to hell, but since I’m not, I cut him slack cause we know how it is with those college-educated middle-to-ruling-class whiteys: Everybody’s business (how else to keep the rest of us on lock?) is their business.
Tonight, Mr. Chat-You-to-Sleep lollygags in his ride longer than the norm. He climbs out, finally, holding a clutch of papers and a lunch pail. He loses a few sheets and chases them down. He presses the damp papers and his metal box to his chest and scurries inside. End of show.
The encore ain’t the chatterer, but a clique in letterman coats slapboxing their way along the block. Every few steps, they drop their bags, square off, start a new round. Nothing special really, but bam, just like that, I got an idea for my personal statement. An anecdote about the time one night I was coming home from a game and a carload of gang members cruised beside me, screamed, What up, blood? and dumped a few shots my way.
Now, having an idea is one thing, but the real work is turning a blank screen into words, into sentences, into a few fucking paragraphs. My laptop’s fan is whirring, that’s how long it’s been since I last tapped the keys. A slew of starts and stops, starts and stops and deletions then back to ogling the cursor, the glowing white screen. Wasn’t checking in the least for grad school before now and look? I want in on my accord, though. On merit or not at all. No handouts, no punk-ass affirmative actions for me. I get the few first lines tapped out, but after that — nathan. Just me fumbling for a next sentence and losing track of time. Maybe I was wrong: What’s tougher than a blank screen is a sentence or two and nowhere to go from there. I get up and walk again to the window, thinking it worked once, why not? I look far, far down the street and then up at the clouds, always the clouds, where a star or two twink. I slug into the kitchen, grab a two-liter (real pop too, none of that diet crap) out the fridge, and meander back to my laptop, where I take a swill that crawls down my throat. Then it’s me back gazing at the screen and praying for afflatus. A prayer answered when, I’ll be gotdamned, words arrive, begrudged, one word and then the next, and after a while I got a whole page and I’m dancing around the table. What is it? What is it? Kim says, from the front room. I carry my laptop to where she is and peep her doing what she does best besides harangue your boy: laze on the couch and channel-surf. She’s got her feet (bare toes cause the doc said polish could poison the baby) on the table and her shirt hiked above her tumescent belly. She pats the couch for me to sit. It’s the statement, I say. I think I got a start. Let me read it to you two. By the way, this reading to the baby is brand-new.
Not baby. It’s a girl. It’s a girl. We’re having a baby girl!
Tell me, what was the sense anymore in fighting it?
Yes, I was hella-resistant at first, but hearing the heartbeat did a retrograde number on my resolve. These days I’m a baby-book bibliophile: The New Dad’s Survival Guide, Man to Man on Child, Daddy Prep, A Father’s Firstborn… these days, I’m a neophyte baby-supply specialist, packing our closets with all things infant: the stroller, the car seat, the booster seat, the high chair, the potty chair, a swing, a bouncer, a bottle warmer, a breast pump; catch me stocking an oversized toy chest with rattles, dolls, building blocks, touch-and-feel flash cards. I’ve bought cases of diapers, wipes, bottles, washcloths, bought doubles and triples of baby soap and lotion and shampoo and oil, stockpiled bibs, burp clothes, blankets.
Got to the point where some mornings I stand at the mirror and sing lullabies. Cause between you and me the near birth of my future Princess has vulnerability levels dropped way down, any lower and I’d be on par with dudes like Jude, the proud owners of lifetime weep-for-free passes. But all in all in all it’s for best, right? Who among you would claim different?