Chicago Hustle (7 page)

Elijah forced himself to laugh back as he answered, “Nawwww, it's just that when you got the claps, it's hard to pee.”

He shut off the water to listen to Mabel's laughter. She really is a sho' 'nuff, down to earth, stone soul to the bone bitch.

She was still laughing, sprawled across her bed, when he popped out of the bathroom, a towel saronged around his waist.

He dived on top of her gently, feeling sleepy, playful and giddy because of it.

“Wait a minute!” she squirmed out from underneath him. “I have to take this tampon out.”

It was his turn to crack up as she went for her shower. So groovy to come across a deep sister with a sense of humor.

He listened patiently to all of her movements removing her make-up … the shower, the cleansing of the face, the clatter of jar tops, the cologne spray …

She stood nude in the doorway of the bedroom, showing him that her body was still firm after thirty-eight years of living and asked, seriously, “Elijah, you don't have v.d. for real, do you?”

His impulse was to say no, but he canceled it out, why spoil the fun so soon?

He pulled the corner of the cover back for her to get in bed with him.

“Ain't but one way to find out,” he said, using her serious tone.

She hesitated for a full ten seconds before sliding under the covers with him.

“You a devil, you know that?” she whispered before he kissed her.

“I know … I know I am …”

Mabel, in her starched white nurse's uniform, sat on the side of the bed, gently shaking Elijah awake, a smile on her face. “Elijah! Elijah!… I'm goin'. There's some sausage 'n eggs in the fridge and I made some orange juice for you.”

He stifled a yawn, turning to face her. “What time will you be home?”

“Ohhh, 'bout five-thirty, six.”

He folded her into his arms, pecking little thank-you-for-yesterday-and-last-night kisses on her face. “I'll call you this evenin'.”

“You don't have to jive me, baby … Momma's fo' real.”

“I know you are. I'm not jivin', I
will
call.”

Mabel pulled back. “Okay, if you do, you do. I won't be disappointed if you don't.”

“I heard my old man put that together once, a long time ago, in a different way … ‘expect,' he said,' at most, nothin', and ye shall, at least, not be too damned disappointed.'”

“Your ol' man sounds like a wise dude.”

Elijah played with the buttons on her uniform. “He was,” he replied, and traced a love trail with his finger tips along the side of her neck, trickled off into her ears for a bit.

Mabel, responding positively to his vibes, pulled gently at his nipple tips.

It had been a tender, beautiful experience … they said with their eyes, and their practiced, gentle touches. A tender, complete, beautiful experience. All of the right chemicals, the right feelings, beautiful.

Elijah reached out for her again, a more serious hug on his mind this time. “I gotta go!” Mabel screamed playfully, wanting to jump back in bed with him. “I gotta go! with all these bills 'n things I got, I can't afford to … call me this evenin'? okay?”

Elijah lay back, cooling himself out. “I said I would.”

She blew him a kiss and was off to her job.

He pursed his lips, looking up into the ceiling, and scratched through his pubic hairs with long indulgent strokes. Life sho' was beautiful at times. He scratched and flashed back through the events that led up to Mabel.

Yesterday. Only yesterday? he frowned at the thought. Sometimes the shit moved too quickly, took in too much. Doin' the short change scene with the Geech, the grabbing, back to the pad, knocking off a li'l piece with Leelah … opps, forgot about Dee Dee. Sorry 'bout that, Dee Dee girl. Making the set at the Tiger, off with Benny.

He gritted his back teeth together Benny the Bone, chickenshit, lame … oh well, what the hell, we got away with our asses still split down the middle, instead of cracks slashed crosswise.

He felt his rumbling belly and let out a long, low fart. Wonder what those motherfuckers would've done if they'd caught us? He smiled at the idea of being caught. Sounds like a war game or something. No doubt what they would've done … after they had broken both our legs for openers.

The party … and Mabel. His mind telescoped itself back to the moment. Mabel Stewart. He looked around the apartment. A little larger than his own. Nothing in it that was worth too much.

How many apartments like this have I woke up in? he asked himself. The memories of some of them made him smile. The “bohemian” white bitch who had rented an apartment in the ghetto, in order to secure a ready supply of black dick. The twenty-two-year-old sister from Washington, D.C. … off into her own bag for the first time. The nymphomaniac with the foul breath and slack titties. The factory worker from Memphis who thought that her crummy little apartment was outta sight because, for the first time in her life, she was not sleeping all squeezed up with four other brothers 'n sisters.

He unconsciously shook his head, looking for some new patterns of thought. It never paid to hang too far back in the past for too long, that's the way a lot of dudes became stagnant. Mabel Stewart … nice, kind of clinger, but what could you expect from a broad thirty-eight years old?

He whipped the covers off, remembering the sausage and eggs she'd reminded him she had. Standing up and stretching, his eye was caught by a trio of brown envelopes sticking up behind a jewelry box on the dresser. He picked them up, read the titles lettered on each one. “Sears,” “Rent,” “Food,” peeked inside and counted a total of two hundred and fifty dollars.

He slowly replaced the envelopes and headed for the toilet. Eight-thirty, time to start the day off. Benny would be coming through in a bit, making excuses for himself and telling lies.

He wolfed down four eggs, four sausages, drank coffee and dressed carefully.

Gotta change clothes soon as I get home, he thought, sniffing the armpits of his shirt.

The doorbell ringing caught him off balance. Who could it be? One of Mabel's man friends, sneaking by to try for a li'l piece of wake-me-up?

“Yeah?” he called into the intercom.

“Me, Benny,” a nazalized voice replied.

He buzzed him in and waited, standing in the center of the front room. Time to get back onto the track.

“Heyyy, man, I hope I didn't hang you up or nothin' by takin' so long, but what happened was …”

“Skip it, blood … I didn't expect you here 'til 'bout this time anyway.”

Benny quickly slid away from the rest of the alibis and excuses he had prepared, unnecessarily. “You ready to go?” he asked.

“Yeah, let's cut out.”

He opened the door for Benny and started out after him. “Hold on a minute, Benny.”

He walked back to the bedroom and took the money out of the envelopes and stuffed it into his pocket. What the fuck! they'd never see each other again anyway.

He looked up into Benny's face, grinning at him from the front room. He decided not to make any comment about his actions. The less said, the better. “C'mon, let's git on.”

Benny bounced down the steps behind him, proud to be given the chance to hang out, if only for a little while, with, next to himself, one of the rottenest motherfuckers on the Southside.

Elijah slumped down in the seat next to Benny, feeling tired, despite the fact that he had been in bed for a whole day and all night.

Monday morning, ten-thirty, hot already. He looked out at the people in the corridor between the Westside and the Southside, the black folks who were not off to spend their day doing the white boy's work … the too old, the too young, the too lame, the too hip. Made matters very simple for the police … if you were on the street doing anything, anything at all, it was very likely that you might be stopped, searched, incarcerated, just like that. Simply because you were black, in the ghetto, and likely to be doing something illegal for those very reasons.

Benny paused at an intersection to allow five young brothers to cross the street. Obviously lacking anything else to do, they hung traffic up by stopping in the middle of the street so that two of their number could stage an impromptu karate exhibition.

Taking their time, they went through a series of violent movements. Benny sat patiently, whispering to Elijah out of the corner of his mouth, “Look at these assholes, blockin' traffic with they bullshit!”

Elijah said nothing, simply looked at all of the vitality and energy being wasted in the middle of the street.

Finally, drifting on, the gang members contemptuously released the traffic flow, satisfied with their show of strength. Elijah saluted them with a raised fist. They looked at his move scornfully … an older dude trying to be hip, into their thang. He slowly lowered his fist, feeling slightly put down, but understanding.

Yeahhh, it is a different scene, it's your scene now, li'l brothers, I sure in fuck hope y'all do a lot better with it than we did.

He eased out of the car in front of his apartment, anxious to shave, shower again, change clothes and take care business … it helped to have two hundred and fifty dollars to start the day off with too.

He slammed the car door and leaned back in the window to lay a sarcastic parting shot on Benny. “Looka here, dog nuts … the next time you get ready to go stick somebody up, be sure 'n come get me, okay?”

Benny hung his head a little. “Awwww, well, you know how it goes sometimes, man.”

“Yeah, brother,” Elijah replied, a more sympathetic tone in his voice. “Yeahhh, I know how it is. What comes around, goes around.”

Benny shrugged and pulled away slowly, knowing that it would be most unlikely that he and Elijah would be getting together to do anything, ever again.

Elijah, off onto other motions, spent the two hundred and fifty bucks on his way up to the apartment he shared with Leelah, whenever the both of them were there together. Replaced the two hundred and fifty seconds before he opened the door with four hundred and something he would get, somehow.

He glided into the apartment, expecting to go through a little lightweight number with Leelah Almost in a state of shock, he closed the door; where were the clock radios, the six two-hundred-dollar suits, the two portable color television sets? and Leelah? where was Leelah?

He stumbled across the room to the dresser, to the small wooden box with the wristwatches in it. He fingered through them. All of the expensive ones were gone.

He rushed over to the closet to check on his own personal wardrobe. Nothing missing. He sat on the side of the bed and thought it out carefully. That dirty, dirty rotten bitch! She had taken all of the shit he had fenced from the dope fiends and made off. Dirty rotten punk bitch!

Tears swelled up in his eyes at the thought of her betrayal. It wasn't so bad that she had split … but to have taken all of his shit too. That was too much.

He sat, staring into space, for a few long minutes. His main lady, the one who was going to not only see him living on a hill, but the one who was going to help him get there. The bitch was gone … He stood up stiffly and walked over to his closet for a change of clothing.

Draping a dark ensemble on his body as an indication of his murky mood, he stood in front of the cracked mirror mounted over the dresser. Could you ever trust any bitch? he asked the image buttoning his shirt with wooden fingers. Could you ever trust any bitch, fo' real?

He felt vaguely like crying but he hadn't done that in such a long time that he wasn't certain if his bad vibes contained tears or not.

What should I do? he formed the words carefully in the mirror. What should I do? he almost spelled the words out to himself. Get drunk! his image said to him, and winked.

“Goddamned right!” he spoke aloud to himself and decided on the spot, at eleven-fifteen in the morning, Monday, July twelfth, to get sloppy pissy drunk.

“The bitch done cut out on me,” he mumbled once more, on the way out, two hundred and fifty easy pieces burning a hole in his pocket.

Downstairs, on the street, he paused in front of his apartment building, looking up one side of the street and down the other, both fists on his narrow hips, wishing that he could spot Leelah somewhere.

Walking south on Prairie, toward 47th Street, he somehow had the feeling that everybody on the street, even the old people hanging out on their porches knew about his woman's desertion.

Turning the corner on 47th, heading for the Tip Tap Lounge, he spotted Leelah's best friend and sometimes lover (whenever her love came down on her that way), Zelma Mercer.

“Hey Zelma!” he yelled across the street, untypical of him, and dodged some afternoon traffic to skip across to her.

Zelma, a firmly built lesbian person with a permanent scowl and a profound disgust for trifling niggers, like the one skipping over to her, glared at Elijah's approach.

“Zelma, you seen Leelah?” he asked breathlessly, trying to conceal his anxiety.

She showed her teeth to him in a caricature of a smile. “Yeahhh, I saw her, earlier.”

Elijah resisted the urge to throw a shot at her jaw. Never could tell, not with a bitch that looked strong as Zelma, and it would be terrible to get your ass kicked on the street … even if it was by a bulldagger … like, well, after all, she was still a woman.

He decided to spool out honey rather than spit vinegar. “Uhhh, how long ago? She asked me to cop a half a piece for her and I did, now I can't find her. And if I don't find her soon, I'm gon' have to do it myself … hahh hahhhah.”

Zelma, realizing that what Leelah had, Zelma could get some of … and she loved girl … blurted out, “I saw her a few hours ago, I heard her ask Mickey Mouse to give her a ride out to the airport.”

Elijah's jaw slopped down. “The airport! what airport?”