Cinque came in from the other room, sleepy, stiff-legged and bare-chested. Hitching his pants, he stuck a revolver in the waistband, undid the locks, and opened the door. Just like that. And Cujo watched, mouth agape.
It was Prophet Jones, come to call, six foot five and solid as a cannonball. Prophet Jones had first shown up late on the first night to check out his new tenants, scrutinize them in the wavering candlelight that illuminated the doleful space of the two rooms. He’d reminded them to lay low. Prophet Jones thought Fahizah might not have taken very seriously his earlier suggestion to that effect, made when she’d rented the place from him. He scolded them and criticized and looked from face to face, but mostly he stood looking down at Cinque while he did it. Cujo was in awe. Prophet Jones dressed down the Field Marshal as if he’d been just anybody. But he knew Cin was bound to respect him. It was the mutual respect that was only natural between a brother and a freedom fighter. Prophet Jones talked, and they all listened. Cujo loved that cadence; it jangled him right down to the white of his bones, set the marrow vibrating. Fungg-kayy! He loved the man’s name. He loved Fahizah’s story of the Malcolm and Huey posters on his walls, of his poised nonchalance when, in an effort to prove that she was indeed a general in the SLA, she’d pulled her submachine gun out of the Ralph’s shopping bag she was carrying.
Oh, how he couldn’t wait to be a real urban guerrilla! Oh, how he couldn’t wait to be black!
NIGHT IS FALLING. THE Nova is beginning to feel like bad luck rolling. Tania is still hungry, and all that neon against the darkening sky puts an edge on her appetite. Signs that rotate and light up in sequence, that point the way to satiety. A green arrow appears, and they turn. A circle shines yellow, and they speed up. Soon they are working through the cul-de-sacs again, the turn signal clicking and the brakes sighing softly, marking time.
“This car, it’s starting to feel a little, I don’t know.”
“I’m hip.”
“Dangerous, especially after the whole thing back at the shopping center.”
“Well,” says Teko, “I’m aware of that.”
“You always have to be, I don’t know, demonstrative that way.”
“Well. What do they say? Desperate times.”
“First the socks, then this gun thing.”
“It wasn’t socks. It was a bandolier.”
Entering a small, unheralded city called Lynwood, they turn onto Pendleton Avenue and drive slowly for about two blocks before Yolanda pauses beside a parked Ford Econoline van that has a FOR SALE sign taped in the back window, listing a phone number and an Elm Avenue address. As it happens, the address is directly adjacent to where the van is parked. Yolanda gets out of the Nova.
Dan Russell contours himself to accommodate the shifting shapelessness of the beanbag chair, his right hand inside a Claude Osteen model MacGregor fielder’s glove. The fingers of his left hand rest idly on the thongs that will allow him to fine-tune the glove’s Adjusta-Wrist. Tomorrow’s the big game. He takes the glove off and balances it on his lap, gazing into the dark oiled pocket. The weight of the glove on his crotch begins to give him an erection, and he puts the glove aside and prods himself through his jeans as he stiffens. Then he begins to think about Geraldine. Now, Dan Russell is not supposed to masturbate before he pitches. Coach has made this abundantly clear, using a number of creative and evocative euphemisms, the most memorable of which makes reference to “keeping the pearl jam in the jar.” Also, Dan is motivated to stop by his grave misgivings about masturbating while he thinks about the transvestite alter ego of a stocky black man. Yet his fingers undo the snap at the waistband of his Wranglers. He thinks: Geraldine is not a woman; she is Flip Wilson in drag. He works out a compromise: If he must jerk off, he will substitute for Geraldine in his thoughts Mary Ellen Walton: wholly female, about his age, warmhearted, levelheaded, white like him, enduring the Great Depression back in the forties or whenever with John Boy and the rest, and, if he didn’t mention it yet, someone who is both white and a girl.
These two characters compete against each other on TV Thursday nights. Which happens to be tonight.
But then Geraldine sashays back into his mind, wearing a saucy double knit skirt and bright rayon blouse. Dan Russell puts one hand on her arm, another around her waist. “Don’t you touch me!” protests Geraldine. “You don’t know me that well!” He silences her with a violent kiss on her big black lips. He pulses involuntarily under his cotton briefs and then frantically pulls his dick out of his pants. This is not anything anyone has to know about: not the jerking-off part, certainly not the Geraldine part. In his mind he is twisting one of Geraldine’s arms behind her back, yanking the skirt up and the panties down. The sudden idea of Geraldine with dick and balls makes his own dick throb with excitement. Then his brother starts in hammering on the door.
“Huhhyeah?”
“Open up, shithead.”
“Huhhwhat is it?”
“Stop beating off in there.”
“Fuuuck yoooooou.” Dan Russell leaps up and, with pants around his ankles, shuffles across the shag carpet to make sure the door is locked. He gets a shock when he touches the knob.
“Trying to stick it in the keyhole?”
“Fuck you.”
“It’d fit in there too, I bet.”
“Up yours.”
“Yeah bet you’d like it you homo.”
“Fuck you! What the hell you want anyway?”
“Open up and I’ll tell you. Someone’s here to see you.”
“Someone? Who?”
“Open up. A lady.”
“A lady? Who?”
“Open up. She’s got big knockers.”
Dan stuffs his penis back into his pants and slowly zips up. He gives himself a couple of flicks with his index finger to make his hard go down and then opens the door. His brother is leaning against the door frame. He crosses his eyes at the sight of Dan, then blocks his path.
“Where is she?” Dan says, by which he means get out of the way.
“Maybe she left already, dickbreath.”
“Fuck you. Where’s she?”
“She’s up front. She goes, I saw a sign, stud for hire. Hope he’s not shooting it all into an old sock with red stripes that his mom goes in front of everybody, how ever did you get this soooo dirty, Dan?”
Dan pushes his brother out of the way. “Shut up.”
“She goes, I’m here for some of that hot Dan Russell action.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Dan muscles past and begins down the hall.
“Keep believing it, shitforbrains,” says his brother.
He’s a good-looking boy, well built, with hair he constantly is pushing out of his eyes. His mother had stood there holding a semen-encrusted sweat sock, a look of genuine concern on her face, as if his foot were discharging some sort of toxic secretion.
At the end of the hall, Dan sees her silhouetted in the doorway She does have big knockers, and roundish hips, and long, straight legs that he imagines wrapped around his back, and a kind of pretty OK face. He pushes the hair out of his eyes.
“Hi,” he says. “You wanted to see me?”
“Well, I think you’re the person I want to see.” She smiles. “Are you the man with the van for sale?”
Something about the way she calls him a man just makes his day.
“Yes,” he says, deliberately deepening his voice. “Are you interested?”
“I’m very interested!” The woman smiles.
“Well, I’d be happy to show it to you.” He crosses his arms, turning the palms of his hands so that his biceps swell. “I’m Dan, by the way.” He smiles. They stand for a moment.