Bloodbrothers (19 page)

"My mama say Rev Ike fo' fools!" Derek sneered.

"Yo
mama
a fool," Tyrone countered.

Derek reared back to punch Tyrone. Tyrone wheeled backward fast. Stony held the rear of Derek's wheelchair to keep him from chasing Tyrone all over the room. "You know I got a brother that's eight."

"He a Indian too?" Tyrone asked.

"Nah, he's black." Stony smiled.

"You liah." Derek squinted skeptically.

"It can be! It can be! Ah knows this white boy in mah class las' year, Robert Parker? He black an' he got a white sister!" Tyrone wheeled himself in front of Derek. "Right?" he asked Stony.

Stony shrugged, stuck on his joke.

"Is yo' brother in the hospital?"

"Nah, he's home."

"What's his name?"

"Albert."

"Fat Albert!" Derek and Tyrone exclaimed together.

Stony snorted. "Yeah, Fat Albert."

"Hey, De Coco, you got a car?" Tyrone asked.

"Yeah."

"I can drive," said Derek. "My granma got a tractor an' she gonna show me how to drive it."

"What kinda car you got, a LD?"

"A what?"

"A LD! A Catalac."

"LD, LD." Stony frowned. "Oh, an Eldorado! No way, try a Mustang."

Tyrone and Derek smirked. "Tha's weak! Tha's a honky-mobile!"

Stony shrugged.

"Man, ah wouldn't be caught dead in nothin' but a LD," Tyrone said.

"That's too bad, I was gonna offer you guys a ride when you got better."

"Where you gonna take us?"

"What's the difference? All's I got is a honky-mobile."

Derek punched Tyrone. "Stupid!"

"You ever drive down to South Carolina?"

"I drove all the way to Florida once."

"That's near California, right?"

A nurse came in, hands in the pockets of her white dress. She wore a white crown cap and rimless glasses. "O.K., boys, time to go back." She grabbed the rear handles on Derek's wheelchair. They groaned in protest. "Could you take Tyrone?" she asked Stony. Stony jumped up. "They just go down the hall."

Stony wheeled Tyrone down the corridor into a long room lined with beds. Stony stopped in front of Tyrone's bed and locked the wheelchair. He slipped his hands under Tyrone's armpits and lifted him up onto the sheets. The nurse did the same with Derek at the next bed.

"Hey, De Coco! You comin' back tomorrow?"

"Sure!"

"You gonna tell us more stories?"

"Hell yeah! See you guys tomorrow!"

"Mrs. Pitt wants to see you," the nurse said as they walked down the corridor.

***

"So how'd it go today?" Mrs. Pitt leaned back and her chair squeaked and snittered with every move.

"Whew!" Stony shook his head. "Heavy, very heavy. I just hung around with two kids in the day room, Derek and Tyrone?"

Mrs. Pitt nodded.

"God! Derek showed me his legs. I couldn't believe it."

Mrs. Pitt sighed. "I've known Derek Walcott since he was an infant. He was first brought in here with malnutrition in nineteen sixty-six. Then he was back two years later with severe cuts and bruises. We had a neighbor testify and got his mother put away for six months. We sent him up to live with an aunt in Brooklyn, but after two years his mother sued to get him back, successfully. After this, what you saw, I think we can finally separate them for good. When his legs heal we're moving him into a city home for boys on Staten Island with the possibility of foster parents taking him in the next year or two."

Stony was puzzled. "He told me he's gonna live with his grandmother in South Carolina."

"He doesn't have a grandmother in South Carolina."

Stony sat silent for a moment, glanced again at the pictures of Mrs. Pitt's family secure in their photo cube.

"Somethin' else. His mother's
really
upstairs on eight?"

"In psychiatric?" Mrs. Pitt laughed. "Soon as he got into the hospital Mrs. Walcott took off for California. If we ever find her, we'll put her away all right, but not in a hospital, I can promise you that."

***

When Stony got home from work he made a gigantic bee for the phone. "Doctor Harris?"

"Yeah?"

"Hey, howya doin'? This is Stony De Coco."

"Hey, Stony. How's it goin'?"

"It's wild. I did two days' geriatrics, then they switched me to kids."

"Geriatrics? Sorry about that."

"No sweat. The kids is what's happenin' now."

"Good, good."

"Lissen, I wanna thank you, man. It's like I was walkin' aroun' thinkin' the world was flat, you know? There's no way I'm gonna ever do the construction number now."

"Well, that's great, Stony, but—"

"But what?"

"I hope you're strong enough."

"Strong enough for what?" Please don't piss on my fuckin' parade.

"You know what they say, blood's thicker than water."

"Whadya mean?"

"Well, Stony, this whole thing might start some machinery going in your life that, ah, that you might not be ready to handle."

"Like
what?
"

"Like you might feel you need to leave home."

All of a sudden Stony felt shanghaied. Hustled. "Who's leavin' home?" he shouted.

"I'll tell you, leaving home is the hardest thing in the world."

Stony got the chilling feeling that Harris was enjoying himself. Cat and mouse. "I asked"—Stony tried to control himself—"who's leaving home?"

"You, maybe."

"Whatta you talkin' about?"

"You'll find out soon enough. Hey look, I'm going about this the wrong way. I just want you to know I think it's terrific that things are working out and I have every faith in you following through."

"Lissen, Doctor Harris, maybe this is a bad connection or something, but..."

"Stony, you got a pencil or a pen?"

"Yeah."

"Write down this number ... OL 4–3827. Got that?"

"Yeah."

"O.K. That's my home number. If you ever have any trouble, or if you just want to talk, give me a call."

"What kinda trouble?"

"Maybe none, who knows. How's Albert?"

"He's fine, he's startin' to eat."

"Great. O.K., I got to go. Put that number someplace, O.K.?"

"Yeah, sure." Crazy bastard. Stony slipped the paper with Harris' number under his desk blotter and called Butler.

"Bobby B!"

"Hey, how's the mummies?"

"Fuck that. Dig this! They switched me to kids. It's fuckin' incredible, man, all's I do is tell stories. I
dig
it, man. I was with two spade kids all afternoon. I was like really relatin' to them. I
love
it. I mean it's freaky, they're in wheelchairs an' shit, but it's a whole different scene. Butler, I'm
poppin
'.'" Stony tucked the phone under his chin and lit a cigarette.

"Whatta you wanna do tonight?" Butler asked.

"I'm up for anything."

"Oh, hey listen, I got a job."

"What?"

"I'm gonna work in my uncle's hosiery store."

"What's he payin'?"

"A yard a week. How much you gettin'?"

"One forty less taxes. Where's his store at?"

"Up on two seventeenth. White Plains Road."

"That's schvug country, ain't it?"

"Half schvug, half guinea."

"When you start?"

"Tomorrow. I'm workin' behind the counter. I sell panties, bras and stockings. How much you wanna bet I get laid before August in there?"

"Who you gonna bang, some sixty-year-old black lady comin' in for corrective underwear?"

"No, man, they got some nice chicks around there. I went to junior high in that neighborhood."

"You think your uncle gets any?"

"Nah, see, it's a funny thing up there. Everybody's in a very heavy neighborhood head, what goes around comes around, you know what I mean? But I'll bet he gets a lotta offers."

"Ooh! Bite my Supp-hose!"

"Listen, another thing, my Uncle Frank's like sixty-two an' he wants to sell in a few years. If I dig it, an' I stick with it, I might be into buyin' the place, you know? I got ideas how to do a really nice number in there. Get in some better stock,
expand
and shit. 'Cause he don't know nothin', he's old, been there thirty years. I can really do it up nice."

"Yeah, except by the time
you
take over, that neighborhood'll be black as a coal miner's asshole at midnight."

"That's cool, listen, I'll throw in a line a wigs, hire some foxy soul sisters to run the place and get a heavy-duty alarm system. I'll just come by on Fridays to pick up the cash. Maybe I'll even hire a security guard. Shit, anybody even
thinks
a jumpin' bad he'll get eighty-sixed so fast he ain't gonna even
know
about it until it's in the papers."

Stony heard the apartment door open. "Listen, I gotta go."

"Shit, man, I'll show those cats what bad-ass means, fuck with the bull an' you get the
horns!
"

"Butler, call me later."

"Hello!" Tommy wandered through the house.

"Yo!" Stony shouted back. Tommy came into the bedroom.

"This lady gets raped so she calls the cops. The cops round up suspects and get 'em into a line-up, right? The lady's in the front row. As soon as they throw on the spotlights this big Polish guy in the middle of the line-up jumps out and points at her. 'There she is!"'

Stony thought about it for a second, then laughed.

"Hey, an' you hear about this college down south finally gave an athletic scholarship to a nigger? He's a javelin catcher."

"That's old." Stony smirked.

"Ain't as old as those people you workin' with."

"I got switched today ... I'm workin' with kids now."

"Whatta they doin', playin' musical chairs witcher time card?" Tommy picked at his mustache.

"No, man, that's what I wanted to do all along."

"So how's it goin'?"

"I love it, man, I really dig workin' with kids."

"They give you a raise?"

"Nah, I'm workin' there three days, whadya you want?"

"Just remember, Stones, in two weeks you're comin' in with me. You promised."

"Don't remind me."

"Don't
make
me remind you."

***

Frank's Hosiery House was a small, cramped store with an ancient ornate pressed-tin ceiling. One wall was completely covered with white pegboard on which hung cheap two-dollar earrings and three-dollar necklaces. Under the pegboard were cardboard boxes filled with cellophane-wrapped red and blue slippers, two pair for three dollars. Toward the back was a seven-foot-high rotating fan; next to it a black curtain separated a small storeroom from the front. The other wall supported two five-foot-long glass counters filled with more jewelry, evening purses, long pink tubes containing girdles, garters and assorted corrective underwear. At the edge of one of the counters sat an old-fashioned gilt cash register. Next to the register was a box of rayon panties, three for a dollar. Two snapshots were taped to the register—one of Frank smiling behind the counter and one of Frank's daughter, Cissy, holding two of her kids in her lap in front of a Christmas tree. Also taped to the cash register was an index card with the slogans "If you believe in credit, lend me five dollars" and "In God we trust; others pay cash." Two foot-high cards leaned on the other counter. Brown and red key holders, a dollar each, were advertised on one card. The other had dime and quarter slots, a picture of Joe Namath along the top and the legend "Fight Muscular Dystrophy." Three quarters and five dimes were Scotch-taped in the slots. Behind the counter, flush against the entire length of the wall, were six-foot-high shelves stocked with thousands of boxes of stockings and pantyhose.

Butler stood behind the counter reading the
Post.

"This is a stickup."

"Hey! How's it goin'?"

"Awright." Stony walked behind the counter.

"It's like creepin' Jesus in here today, man." Butler exhaled wearily.

"Where's your uncle?" Stony pulled up a chair by the cash register. He felt a strange giddiness about being behind the counter.

A six-foot-tall woman with an expression like she just chugged lemon juice entered the store.

"You wanna take this one?" Butler side-mouthed to Stony. She threw a small wrinkled brown bag on the counter. "Mrs. Di Angelis." Butler smiled.

"I bought these yesterday. I specifically asked for thirty-eight-inch opera length. I put them on last night, they came up to here." She pulled up her dress above her knee. Both Stony and Butler leaned over the counter to look. She had legs like a road map. Butler removed the stockings from the bag and stretched them thigh to heel against a tape measure thumbtacked along the inside of the counter.

"They're thirty-eights, Mrs. Di Angelis." Butler's smile was wearing thin.

"Impossible."

"Here, look for yourself."

She walked behind the counter. "Well, you're stretching them!"

"They stretch on your legs, Mrs. Di Angelis."

"Well, I don't understand it. I've been coming in here for ten years, your uncle always gives me thirty-eight opera length and they always fit."

"Maybe you got taller," Stony offered cheerfully.

Butler struggled to keep a straight face. "Look, if you want I can give you forties or forty-twos."

She sniffed. "Or you can give me the thirty-eights that your uncle's been giving me."

"Look, dear, they all come out of the same box."

"Well, give me forty-twos."

Butler carefully folded the stockings. "Taupetone?"

"Taupetone."

Sucking his teeth Butler ran his thumb up and down the piled boxes behind him.

"All we have in a forty-two opera length is lollipop and peter pan. I got off-black in a forty."

"Off-black," she grimaced. "That's for tramps."

Stony laughed. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"How 'bout a peachpuff in forty-two?"

"Let me see."

Butler pulled out the box, dropped it on the counter, folded back the tissue, slipped his hand inside one stocking to show her the color against flesh.

"I dunno. Yeah, I'll take it." She shrugged.

Butler folded the new pair in its tissue and slid it into the wrinkled brown bag.