Living Right on Wrong Street (17 page)

Read Living Right on Wrong Street Online

Authors: Titus Pollard

BOOK: Living Right on Wrong Street
2.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Chapter 19
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.
John 10:10
 
 
The next morning, Delvin took a walk in the yard,
The Art of War
under his arm, hoping to enjoy the rays and breathe the stale, concreted air. He propped himself against the corner of a building about ten feet from a guard tower.
He saw a craps game going on where one pale, shaggy redhead was gambling for the leftover belongings of a Middle-Eastern inmate who died from a blanket party some inmates had given him the previous evening. Comrades in the same cell block got word that the poor wretch had been sympathetic to terrorists on American soil. That gang thought it best that the Iranian or Iraqi or whatever he was, needed to be returned to the dirt from whence he came, with his personal remnants distributed among the lucky.
Delvin walked a few feet past the commotion and opened his book, but before he could engross himself in a page or three, Stinson's fresh-like-the-morning voice boomed as an unwelcome diversion.
“Man, you're in the big time now!” He piled the morning edition of the
Scottsdale Tribune
in his face. “Take a look for yourself.”
 
Celebrated Teacher's Home Is Leveled
 
Delvin scanned the article several times over, and then bunched it in his hand. “Where'd you get this from?”
“Relax man. Murphy gave it to me, and told me to see to it that you get it. The little man had something else to do, personal-like. Otherwise, he'd have given it to you himself. You umm, had something to do with this?” Stinson pointed to the paper.
Delvin folded the article and placed it inside his book. “Coincidence.”
“Oooh. Really?” he said with a boorish jest in his voice.
“Yeah, man. Nothing to do with me.”
Stinson lowered his voice, his wild and graying brows blazing with rudeness. “Remember. . . I know ya.”
Chapter 20
Confess your faults one to another.
James 5:16a
 
 
At 5:30
A.M.
, Job awoke with arthritic bones and uncooperative muscles. Yesterday's shirt and pants had matted themselves against his body. With his face still buried in the pillow, he flung an arm across the coarse sheets and panicked. No Monica. Oh yeah, she was still in the hospital. And he had crashed in someone else's bed.
The exact sequence of events was somewhat faint, but he remembered that not too many hours ago, he'd made a trip to CVS Pharmacy for personal essentials and then drove around the corner to the Best Western on Central for overnight reservations.
It occurred to him why he was there.
The Maricopa County register of deeds may have had 2333 Rong Street documented as a four-bedroom, single family residence, but it was currently a quarter-acre vacant lot. And dilapidated.
That was the moment he allowed all his emotions to overload. His tears washed themselves through the pillowcases down to the pillows. He attempted to put a throttle on his outpour of anger, disappointment, and frustration. It was impossible.
We've moved to Phoenix and nothing's changed.
After rolling off the side of the bed, he stood with arms at his sides. Memories came at him, but he refused to let them penetrate his soul. He was drained of more than his energy. His spirit had taken a beating. Monica had given all the time, concentration, and love she wanted to give; now it was up to him. He had to spend that day recreating life.
Job went to the bathroom, removed his clothing and turned the shower up as hot as it would go. Wrinkles needed to be removed and freshness needed to be restored to the only set of rags he owned, so he steamed them while he cleaned up. It felt good to watch part of his anguish seep down the drain.
The next order of business was to call Monica. Her tone was gentler than last evening, it even sounded a bit cordial. She told him that Fontella and Isabel had already called that morning to check on her. “The doctor's discharging me around nine-thirty.”
“I'll be there. That gives me time to do a few things before I pick you up.”
“Don't be late,” she said.
Job didn't take her response as fussing. She just didn't want to spend another minute there if she could help it. He told her, “We'll get through this, I promise.” He pulled his face away from the receiver to stifle another set of tears that dropped from nowhere. “Don't worry, baby. I'll be on time.”
There was a brief silence on the line until Monica said, “I had a talk with God. He got onto me about some things, things I've been doing wrong in our marriage.”
“Oh?”
“For some reason I can't explain, I feel ... sure that everything's gonna be all right. Today, it's a new day, a better day.”
No matter how many times Job swallowed, he couldn't remove the lump in his throat. “I'll pick you up in a few,” was all he said before they hung up. Monica's words clenched him. He felt out of the ordinary and somewhat liberated.
Is this how I'm supposed to feel when God's doing His thing?
He stretched his arms toward the ceiling and took a few short breaths for energy. It was a new day but a day he'd lose if he didn't get a move on.
He made a call to the school district's substitute line to get his classes covered. He decided to use one of his personal days. An explanation to Bianca for his absence would have to wait.
Job checked out of the hotel and drove back to the house under the possibility that something, anything, might be salvageable from the blackened debris. When he got there, he noticed that two sets of tape surrounded the property. He expected the fire department's orange. There were also strips of yellow tape, the kind police officers use to designate crime scenes. His emotions tried to resurface, but he kept them at bay.
He didn't understand the dual quarantine, and there was no one around to give an explanation. It occured to him to call Statewide Insurance to report a claim. Then he scribbled himself a reminder to call the fire department later that day.
There was enough time to withdraw funds from an ATM before picking up Monica.
He arrived at the hospital, took a direct path to the room, and found her sitting in a chair, scanning the pages of a Bible.
Monica gave a quick hello, a passionate kiss, and told him that she had started getting ready right after he hung up.
“You're on a mission, aren't you?” he asked.
She grinned. “Umm hmm. I'm released. Everything's been signed.” Monica grabbed him by the arm. “Let's go.”
“Whatever you say.” As they traveled from one end of the city to the next, completing errands, their interactions were delicate, cheery. Job pondered the meaning behind Monica's behavioral one-eighty and asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” She flipped the sun visor down and looked in the mirror. Her eyes grew wide. “What? You see something wrong?”
He shook his head. “No.” he reached over to her, touching her thigh. “It's okay to let it out. We lost our home and everything in it.”
“I know that.”
“This morning, I did something I haven't done in a long time. Cried.”
Monica smiled, giving the impression that she was delighted with what she heard. “I had my cries too. Half the night last night. But God spared my life. I'm alive with no burn marks.”
“You credit the way you're acting right now to your faith in God?”
She shook her head. “It's what keeps me going.”
Job gripped the wheel tighter and shrugged.
Unbelievable.
 
 
They decided to eat lunch at Miss Wilhelmina's Café on E. Jefferson, a black-owned establishment where only an individual's personality could be pretentious, because the restaurant was as down to earth as they come. Job wanted to eat there, because he needed to satisfy his craving for soul food. “Can you name a place any closer that fixes oxtails?” he asked Monica after she lodged her protest to the driving distance.
It didn't take her long, though, to settle on Wilhelmina's; other than a drive-through, it was the one place Monica didn't mind being seen in the clothing Fontella had loaned her.
The ills of the day were forgotten when she whiffed Friday's special: meatloaf and side orders of what those familiar with cuisine south of the Mason-Dixon Line would call “fixins.”
“C'mon, darling, have a seat,” the waitress said, pulling out Monica's chair.
Monica looked around, wondering if there was even room to breathe. People were everywhere with many more packing into the place, their attire ranging from worn-out leisure wear to stilettos. Steam from the kitchen rose everywhere, fogging up the black and white wall pics of celebrities that had frequented the place. It didn't take long before the aroma and ambience had her craving the hypertension-building grub that reminded her of what Mama used to make. Mmm.
Job wanted a kiss, but she set passion and good graces aside. After taking a few moments for a personal invocation, she began her meal with a fork of fried okra.
Job commenced with a soapbox of all they had left to do before their day could end. She scrutinized every declaration he made; in particular, the statement on how they would make it through their latest dilemma.
To that, she raised her water glass and replied, “Humph. Can't wait to see this,” which was her expressed disbelief that he would commandeer each task in a timely fashion and yield results.
Job looked like a man about to knowingly walk into a restricted area. “You'll be eating that,” he said, referring to her words.
Monica noticed Job's head dropping. She asked him, “What's the matter?”
“Oh, nothing.”
She could think of a million reasons, but she wanted him to give her specifics. “I can't help if you don't tell me what's on your mind. Whatever it is, it's got you thinking pretty deeply.”
Job let out a heaving sigh and seemed to bear a hole through the table with the base of his glass. “It's going to be a huge expense to stay somewhere while our house is being rebuilt.”
“Maybe not.” She put her fork down. “Matter of fact, I'm sure it won't be. The insurance company will take care of our stay for the first two weeks, and then we can possibly go to temporary housing. We may not have to take that route, though.”
“Why not?”
“We should be able to handle somewhere to our liking. We'll just have to squeeze tight on our budget.”
He grunted. “Anywhere decent is expensive. The Oak Woods on Fifty-first and Bell are completely furnished; I mean everything's in them. All we have to do is stock it with food. But the rental fee is high as all get-out.”
Monica let out a faint laugh. “You're forgetting about where I work.”
“Hmm?”
“Think about it. We can stay at the resort free of charge. I can just book one of the suites long term.”
Job's face turned wicked. “We can't stay there.” He went off into an annoying tangent about his pride and what people would think, and how Monica's coworkers would gossip about them being a charity case.
Monica replayed his account and played it again, keeping her nerves in check. Oh yes, she wanted to reach across the red and white plaid tablecloth and crown him open-handed like a checkers move, but she came to her senses. They were both semi-public figures in a public place, and slapping the taste out of his mouth could be a well-publicized embarrassment to an otherwise gratifying release of irritation. “Joseph Bertram Wright ... Are you hearing yourself?”
“I don't care if it is free. I don't want to put others in the position of guessing what kind of shape we are in.”
Monica ran her nails along her thigh, her patience frazzled thin by his clear insensitivity. “Are you serious? You'd rather pay money—money we can't afford to pay—for a temporary dwelling that couldn't possibly look anything like Nine Iron's suites because of what you think people will say? Nobody pays that much attention to us, Job.”
“You got room to talk. Easy for you, Miss My-Salary-Swallows-My-Husband's.”
Silence. If anyone else had a conversation in the restaurant, Monica didn't realize it. “I've never brought up money to you. Never. God gave me my job and I don't apologize for it. The money I earn is our money. Our money keeps us above water. Now I believe I'm seeing the real Job.”
“You're implying what?” Job's teeth gritted. “Now you're my analyst and I'm the textbook case? You ain't no scientist, and I ain't no experiment.”
“Since we've never been in this role before, where the money-making is reversed, I hadn't had the chance to see how you'd react until now. And you're good ... you've kept it hid from me for over a year. God has His way of showing you things.”
“You don't know what you're talking about.” His eyes narrowed. “How much green you make don't bother me.”
“You're lying!” Monica felt flush. Her outburst was loud enough to make their argument go public. It seemed that everyone within earshot conveyed their thoughts by facial expression. To her amazement, the looks even seemed unique, specific by ethnicity and gender: Black men's frowns commanded:
Handle your woman, man.
Black women smirked, telling Monica they wanted her to
set him straight.
White men's twisted crow's necks cracked a
just like black folk
. White women's wishing eyebrows said
If only I had the guts
.
Monica really didn't care what any of them thought. Job was her husband and she had a right to argue with him if she wanted to.
It was obvious that Job could feel eyes on him, too. He appeared as though he was surrounded in a room full of uncracked, spoiled eggs waiting to burst at the first incongruent move. He leaned in toward Monica and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Everybody's trying to find out about us right now. Look around you.”
“What does that—look—this is crazy. I'm not going back and forth with you on this. This is just—I don't even know what this is.” She started sniffling. “With what has happened, we have no idea the kinds of expenses we'll run into. We need to spend our cash wisely. Getting a suite at my job isn't charity. I work to earn that amenity.” She turned away from Job.
“Don't cry, Monica.”
“Man, please. You don't see any tears.” She hadn't stopped the water from welling in her eyes, but she refused to let the drops fall onto her face.
“Okay,” he muttered in consolation.
It meant nothing to her. She wasn't surprised that he had taken a stab at her career and salary. Those moments would be ones she would never forget. “You claim you're an upright man. Start thinking and trusting like one. You're failing ... not as a man ... necessarily. It's when you come face to face with a predicament. Under your own strength, you fail almost ev'rytime.”

Other books

Hands of Flame by C.E. Murphy
Intrinsical by Lani Woodland
Andre by V. Vaughn
Hot Stories for Cold Nights by Joan Elizabeth Lloyd
Remember Me by Jennifer Foor