A Day Late and a Dollar Short (6 page)

Well, they all grown now, and from what I understand, or what Viola been telling me, each one got they own share of problems-but no more than most folks. I been trying to get Viola to keep her nose outta they business and let 'em run their own lives, but she don't pay me no mind. None whatsoever. This is another reason why I had to leave. Viola don't listen to me. She don't listen to nobody. She always right. But she ain't right all the time, and she gon' have to learn the hard way.

She been accusing me of cheating on her for years. But it's all in her head. Well, maybe once or twice I slipped up, but that's 'cause I was working late at the joints. I bent over backwards trying to show her how sorry I was, but my back broke. Apologizing. Now it's her turn to say she sorry, 'cause I ain't done nothing more than be myself.

What did I do? It was New Year's Eve. She didn't wanna go nowhere, so we stayed home and watched them young kids in New York City on TV. Stood outside in the front yard and watched the fireworks from the Strip and counted twenty-six gunshots and toasted with some Scott's champagne and then went on back in the house and went to sleep. I wanted to brang in the New Year with a bang, but Viola wasn't having it. She went on into her room, and I went into mine. First thang that next morning, I went over to Howie's house. We in his garage. I'm helping him fix some old air conditioners. We have a little taste we pass back and forth. We get tired and clean up enough to look like we ain't dirty and decide to stop by Harrah's for a hot minute. I'm hitting left and right, and when I get around to looking at my watch it's pushing close to two-thirty in the morning. That's what them tables can do to you. Make you forget about everythang, especially time. I felt like Cinderella. I ran to the cashier and cashed in all my chips and told Howie I'd catch him later.

When I pulled up to our little blue house the lights was still on. I turned into the driveway but didn't get out, 'cause I couldn't get out. The thought of being cussed out again was making my teeth grind all by theyself. I couldn't lift my hand up to open that door to save my life. Next thang I know I heard my name, "Cecil!" She yelling it. I'm hoping the neighbors don't wake up. I'm already embarrassed. Why she have to be so loud? "Cecil!" I rolled the window down. "Yeah," I mumbled. "Why you sittin g o ut there in the car like that?" I didn't know how to tell her the truth, so I didn't say nothing. "How much did you lose this time?" I didn't say nothing. I wanted to tell her that tonight I got lucky-I got over four thousand dollars in my pocket, and you can have it to do something to the house. "What's her name? Did you take a shower before you left?" I just looked at her, standing under the porch light, her hair looking like a silver blaze, and the silhouette of her big hips blocked some of the light trying to get through her nightgown. Viola was so mad she bent down and picked up a flowerpot and threw it toward the car, then she put her hands on those hips and I saw 'em swivel back and forth and saw her mouth moving a mile a minute and that's when I felt my right hand push that gear shift in reverse and, looking straight ahead, I backed out the driveway real slow. When I got out in the street I rolled up all the windows and just looked at her. Viola looked like a statue. Frozen. All except for her head following me. But I didn't care one way or the other what she felt. I turned on the air conditioner and then pushed "play" on my cassette. B. B. King helped me step on the gas and drive. I didn't know where I was going and I didn't have no place to go. I drove up and down the Strip until the brightest lights was coming from the sun.

I'm through with Viola.

Which is why I'm over there with Brenda and her kids. She used to come in the Shack all the time, mosdy around the first and fifteenth. I realize now how much I looked forward to seeing her. I got a rise out of her on more than one occasion. Nice to know you can still get excited standing up. Brenda ain't no beauty queen, but she can be pretty good-looking on a good day. She's very clean. Always smell good. She got the longest fingernails I ever seen on any woman. With litde designs on 'em. When me and Viola broke up, Brenda was so nice and sweet to me that one thang led to another. She always did flirt with me. She said she found me attractive, but I am attractive. I'm blacker than Evander Holyfield. We could be cousins. If you looked at me real hard and long and pretended like I'm thirty, you might could see some resemblance. But maybe not. I ain't no big man, but I ain't short neither. I used to be five eleven, but they say you shrink as yo u a ge. Viola got a little Amazon in her, 'cause she just a inch or two shorter than nie which is why she stayed on me about my posture so I could look taller than her. Even now, I can be anywhere and 1 bolt right up. Even though 1 don't wanna thank about Viola right now, she always find her way into my head, and I been standing out here in this rain like a damn fool for I don't know how long trying to get the nerve to go back up in that hospital room and get my keys. I'ma have pneumonia in a minute. Might need a bed myself. But 1 need another minute or two. To drum up some courage. What I'ma say this time.

Last time I checked, I was tipping the scales at 225. I'm thanking about doing some kind of exercise this year, since they say it can extend your life, make you feel better, something about some metamorphins get in your brain and make you feel like you on dope. I ain't never wanted to know what dope feel like, but I know I could stand to drop a few pounds. Brenda said she never even noticed how big my stomach was, and when she did, said it didn't bother her none. She said it made a nice cushion. Plus, she said I'm a good man. Not many of us around. She been looking in the wrong places. But she said, "I ain't been looking nowhere. I wanted to be found." Well, I found her. And she love myjheri Curl. She got one, too. Sorta. Hers is long. But sometime Brenda s cousin who wanna be a hairdresser one day practice doing fancy stuff on her even though Brenda say she just really wanna get her hair braided when she get enough money 'cause braids cost a lot more than a curl. I'ma see what I can do about that.

She ain't got 110 father over there for them kids, which is why she on welfare. She don't like living in the projects (I don't either) and she been trying to find work, but what she really wanna do is go back to school to get her GED. She said she wanna do better for herself. And her kids. I'ma help her. But first she trying to figure out if she should go to AA. First thangs first. She have trouble realizing when she drunk. I like a little taste myself, but I ain't crazy about that drunk feeling: spinning and not knowing what I'm saying, or being confused about my whereabouts and what have you. This is another reason why Brenda likes me. She say I know how to control myself. But that ain't completely true. I got a continuing weakness for them tables.

To be honest, we both need help. I thank we can probably push each other in the right direction, but not until we get serious. I ain't quite threw the dice away yet. Even still, she appreciates me. And when I win, I brang it home to her. Everythang I do for her, she always say thank you. Viola could learn something from this woman.

Her kids is still kids. Africa, who they call Sunshine, is eighteen months. Hakeem is three. And Quantiana's five. I call her Miss Q. Why do young black folks give their kids names can't nobody hardly remember let alone spell or pronounce? And why would you name a child after a country instead of a relative? These kids is bad, but I like 'em. And they like me. They thank I'm they granddaddy, but it don't bother me none. Miss Q and Hakeem's daddy might be dead, Brenda ain't sure, but she heard somebody shot him last year. Sunshine's daddy is somewhere running around Vegas. I know him. Took his money in a crap game once. He ain't worth nothing. Somebody gotta take care of these kids, why not me? I don't mind one bit. It's nice to feel needed.

Get out the rain, Cecil. Go on up there and face the woman. She ain't gon' do nothing to you. Hell, she can't even talk, thank the Lord, and, Lord, please forgive me for thanking it. But those eyes of hen. She can cut glass with 'em. Ain't gotta say a single word. Do it, Cecil. Stop acting like such a chump. Besides, I need to hurry up and get home. I forgot. Brenda asked me to stop by the store and pick up some hamburger meat and ketchup. She making Sloppy Joes. Her kids is greedy. Don't eat nothing but junk, and that baby eat like a grown man. I don't know how they growing, and I told Brenda they should really be getting more vegetables. She said the only kind they'll eat come in a can: them waxed yellow string beans or creamed-style corn. This ain't exacdy what I had in mind, but it's a start. When she do get around to cooking, Brenda is something in the kitchen. She say she wish she could afford a housekeeper. She sure could use one. But it's okay. I ain't been there long enough to make no changes, but I will. As soon as I get settled in. When it feel like I live there and not just on a long vacation.

I like Brenda. I like the way she make me feel. Like I'm something. She say she thirty-one, but I thank she lying about her age. She look older than that. But I don't care. She was bom and raised right here in West Vegas. Her people live right down the street and around the comer, but they ain't no help to her. They worse off than she is, depending on how you look at it.

Move your feet, Cecil. And I do. This time I run toward the hospital entrance, and when I get inside I go over to the front desk. "I forgot my keys up in my wife's room. Her name is Viola Price and . . ."

The lady holds up her hand and dangles my keys in front of me. "She figured you'd be back for them."

"Thank you," I say. I take them from her real slow. The keys is cold. And I feel bad. I feel real bad. I walk out the hard way, through those revolving doors, and head toward my car. It stopped raining. This time I don't bother to look up toward Viola's window, 'cause she might be looking at me. She might be thanking that she still got the power: over me. But she don't. When I get to my car, I know I should let it run for a few minutes, since it's fifteen years old, but I don't. I gotta hurry up and get to the store. I got some hungry kids at home. Maybe I'll get Brenda a forty. But, then again, maybe I won't.

Chapter 3

Clearing House
Sweepstakes

I don't Care what nobody say, ain't nothing wrong with me. In fact, I'm fine. Perfectly fine. My life is going along better than I expected. It ain't perfect, but it ain't as messed up as Mama and everybody else in my family seem to think it is either. To be perfectly honest, sometimes I wish there was a way I could start my life over. And sometimes I wish I'da been born white. Things probably woulda been a helluva lot easier. More like a straight line to some-damn-where instead of this S-curve to no-fucking-where.

But I ain't stupid. I know I was supposed to go to college instead of prison. Back then, I was stupid. Which is one reason why I read a newspaper and do a crossword puzzle every single day, and it's the main reason why I been taking college classes off and on for the last ten years. Mosdy business and marketing. Computers. Entrepreneurial-type courses. Plus, I try to take some kind of philosophy class whenever I can, because I pride myself 011 thinking 011 more than one level. It's hard talking to people half the time, and these classes give me the opportunity to exchange ideas without feeling ridiculous. I like being able to interpret shit. To look at life from a whole lotta different angles, not just the most obvious. Except this time 1 couldn't afford the inductive-and-deductive-logic class, so this semester I'm gon' have to do all my thinking by myself.

I got a job. But it's on hold. I'm on disability right now. Don't nobody in my family believe I got rheumatoid arthritis. Just like me, they thought only old people get it. Hell, I'm only thirty-six. It blew my mind when that doctor told me what was happening to my body. I don't know what I'm gon'

have to do to prove it to everybody. When I told Mama, she acted like I made it up. Like I invented the disease itself. But I'm at the point now where I can't even hardly hammer. Not all day. Not no more. For years, I pretended like wasn't nothing wrong with me, but the pain started messing up my income. Off and on, for the last six months I been putting in hardwood floors in these upscale housing developments for this guy Woolery who wants me to maybe be his partner if I could come up with about five or ten grand, but where would I get that kind of money? Opportunities like this don't knock a whole lot in my world, and even though I got two sisters with a little money, you think I could ask either one of 'em to lend it to me? No fuckin' way. They'd probably laugh in my face. They think I'm full of shit. Shaky. 'Cause it's been hard to finish things I've started. But it ain't always my fault. And they don't give me no credit for trying. Hell, I could be a crackhead. I could be out here breaking and entering. But I'm trying to be an upstanding citizen. It's a slow process, but I'm doing it the only way I know how and the best way I can. If they could see me without my clothes on they'd be shocked. Shit, I got knots on my wrists that look like acorns. Bones in my elbows that look like they trying to push through my skin. Some mornings they're so puffed up I can't hardly straighten out my arm. And I don't even wanna mention my knees and ankles. I'm on my way to deformity. Most of the time my right knee look like it's got elephantiasis. And ain't no cure for this shit. I live on Tylenol Extra Strength. Sometimes I eat ten of 'em a day. The doctor said it's only gon' get worse. But I ain't complaining. I been through more, much more pain than this.

The truth of the matter is, I wanna start my own business one day, 'cause I got some 100 percent guaranteed invention ideas which-if I do it right-could make me some real money. Hell, I got a garageful of ideas but I have to keep my mouth shut, 'cause people in a better position will steal your shit right from under you and call it theirs. I know how to go about getting stuff patented, but it cost money. And of course don't nobody in my family wanna hear about my ideas. They think I'm talking off the top of my head again. "Get a job first," Paris always says. "And try keeping it long enough to get some health insurance," Charlotte is guaranteed to throw in.