Dirty Work (12 page)

“Hell, look at you. I’d bet a million dollars you don’t feel sorry for yourself. And I’d bet another million that one time you used to. Am I right?

“Get you another drink, bro.

“I don’t reckon she got in any trouble about the store being closed. She went back and made some coffee and then Earl came in about seven and let her off. He didn’t know it had been closed.

“We talked for a while. And then out of the blue she just asked me to kiss her. No shit. I told her I hadn’t kissed anybody in a long time. She said that didn’t matter, and what I looked like didn’t matter, and that she’d show me what she meant sometime.

“She was so … innocent, seemed like. I laid down beside her on the bed. And I was afraid she was too young. She touched my face, all these messed-up places. She wasn’t scared. It was like she understood. She kissed me.
And I’ll be damned if Max and Mama didn’t drive up right that minute and come in the house.

“I was nervous as hell anyway. I didn’t know what was going to happen and I didn’t want them to hear us. Hell, I can have a movie playing sometimes and hear one of them come down the hall. They don’t think I can hear them since a movie’s on, see. But I can. And they’ll stop right beside the door and listen. Wondering what I’m doing. I just didn’t want to have her in the house while they were there. I didn’t want them to hear us talking or anything. I mean we weren’t doing anything. But I didn’t have anyplace else to take her. I mean we were doing a
little
stuff, but not, you know. Well, I guess we were kind of headed in that direction. And shit, man, I didn’t even know for sure how old she was. I felt kind of like a pervert. It wasn’t dirty or anything. It’s hard to explain. I wish I could say what I mean. She moved something in me. I don’t give the time to most people. Most people just look at me and see one thing. I mean I know I’ve gotten hardened and all, but it’s like it’s a defense mechanism. When you go somewhere … where do you go? Africa? Africa. Well. You’ve had to do that to keep from going crazy, right? Hell, I know where you’re coming from. You can’t lay here and look at these four walls. I bet they keep that television on all day long, don’t they? God, I hate television. PBS is all I watch, man. No shit.

“But what I was telling you. I see people, man, and I know they see me. But they don’t see
in
me. They see this fucked-up face, and that’s it. I mean I don’t stay in
the house twenty-four hours a day. And I don’t shun my family completely. I spend some time with them. But if I get ready to be by myself, that’s what I do. And if I get ready to go somewhere, I go. I guess I just like being out at night because I don’t have to deal with many people. The ones I deal with see me over and over. They’re used to me. Like Earl. They don’t think anything about me. And that was what was so hard to understand about her. Anyway. I didn’t want us to stay there after they came in. So I said Hell, let’s take the beer and go riding around somewhere. I told her I’d put some gas in her car. I didn’t want to have to explain everything about me and my mother and my brother there. Or my daddy. I just wanted to be off with her. Nobody else. Just us two. So she said fine. I told her I had a quilt. We just got my cooler and put the beer in it and got the quilt and eased out the window.

“Damn, man, watch it, here comes a nurse. Let me hop my ass back in bed a minute.”

I
didn’t make no noise. I wanted him to talk to her. Wanted to hear what was said. She knowed I was awake. She could tell.

It was late. Don’t know what time. You can tell by the traffic. Slows down late at night. Hear them sirens way off, fire trucks, police cars. Ambulances. People in trouble all over the city. Other people trying to help them. Everything outside is yellow at night, just a yellow glow. Them lights they turn on, I guess. Helicopter got to see how to land. Heard one of them come in, just chopping that air. Brought back some bad memories.

May be some in here that sleep, but this place don’t never. Always somebody hurt. Always somebody need taking care of. But it was mostly quiet. You could hear that, too. And them talking.

H
ell, it was her. I could hear her nylons swishing before I could even see her. Thighs rubbing together. Small sounds of erotica for somebody who does without.

I guess Braiden had crashed. Bored him to sleep, I guess. I spoke to him but he didn’t answer. I said something else to him and she told me not to make so much noise.

She said, “You ain’t drunk, are you?”

I said naw. Had a few beers was all. Little smoke.

“Well he’s asleep,” she said. “Don’t mess with him.”

I asked her if she wanted a beer.

“How’s your head feeling?” she said.

I told her I thought it was all right for the moment, but I didn’t know how long it would last. I told her I thought I might swoon just any time.

“I’ll revive you.”

She sort of had her hand laying there on my leg. What the hell, I wasn’t feeling any pain. Not a whole lot. I mean I was feeling
some
pain, but damn, we all feeling
some
pain.

I asked her what her doctors wanted to do about my head.

“They don’t know,” she said. “They ain’t decided nothing. They may not do nothing to you. Just let you go on back home.”

All this time she was tucking in my sheet and shit. I laid there and thought about it. That was all I wanted, to go home.

“If you’d take your medicine like you supposed to and cut down on your drinking you’d be all right,” she said.

I told her I knew all that shit. Then she dropped her bomb on me.

“Your mama called,” she said. She wasn’t looking at me when she said it, but she took a deep breath. “You were out two days after they brought you here. Your family’s been here. Your brother and your mama. Me and Max set out in the hall drinking coffee and talking about you. He said you been having these spells for a long time. Said back when they wanted to operate on you, you wouldn’t let em. Is that right?”

I asked her how come she didn’t tell me that my family had already been to see about me when she first talked to me.

“You wasn’t in no shape to tell then. Besides. They was already gone when you woke up the first time.”

I got my beer out from under the covers and finished it. Right away she got me another one. Right after telling me how bad they were for me. But it was cold, and I wanted it, so I didn’t say anything. Neither of us did for a little while. I lit another cigarette, and kept my voice calm, and asked her if she knew anything about somebody named Beth. That was when she sat down on the bed.

She turned her head away. Said she didn’t know anything. Didn’t know what had happened. All she knew was a helicopter came down and she unloaded it. That I’d had a bad seizure and they were trying to help me if I’d let them.

She had her legs up on the bed next to me. Fine, heavy, thick. Real legs.

“All I know’s what they told me when you come in,” she said.

I told her I wasn’t trying to sound nasty or anything. But I’d just found out I’d been out for two days and nobody was telling me anything. I said
Christ!

“She’s gonna call back in the morning,” she said.

That made me feel a little better. I looked over there at old Braiden. I couldn’t tell if he was asleep or just making like a marsupial. She got up and started fluffing my pillow. Rubbed one of her big old titties right across my nose
one time. Inadvertently, of course. I told her how good she smelled.

“What y’all been talking about?” she said.

“Just different stuff.”

“Different stuff like what?”

“We’ve been talking about the movies,” I said. “You going to wake him up? I don’t believe he’s asleep. You’re not asleep, are you, Braiden?”

If he was asleep, he wasn’t snoring.

“You got a boyfriend?”

“Not a steady one. Ain’t got time for it.”

“I bet he wishes you’d make time for it. What do you do that keeps you so busy?”

“Take care of him.”

“All the time?”

“Just about. I come see him on weekends when I’m off. See if he needs anything.”

She sat back down on the bed. It was quiet in there. I laid there sipping my beer. I knew there was plenty more.

“How much longer till daylight?” I said.

She got up and looked out the window, then looked down at me.

“Long time yet,” she said. “Sometimes the nights are long in here. You know what I mean?”

“I thought nights were the same everywhere.”

“Not quite,” she said. She patted my leg one time and said she’d see me later. I just nodded. I was listening to her nylons again, the little swishes fading away with the white glow of her dress.

I
didn’t say nothing. Just kept laying there with my eyes closed. Didn’t know how to begin again. Didn’t want him to ask for another shot. I wanted him to stay awake and talk to me. Wanted him to get some more of that beer in him. Knowed it wasn’t no problem. Just had to let him do a little thinking. Just thought I’d give him a little more time alone. See what we could come up with.

A answer, if there was one.

I
t was so easy to just lay there and drink beer. It was dark, and everybody was asleep, and nobody was going to catch me and take it away from me. Besides, I needed it. It was helping. But I was worried like hell.

The only thing I could figure out was that Beth got scared again when it happened. She probably had to go for help. Or maybe she just went on home after they got me. It had to be something like that. It was no major problem. Mama would call, and I’d tell her I was all right, and then they could come get me and I could go home. I was ready for some home.

I could explain everything to Max and Mama later. I
knew they were worried about me. Something like this happens, you can’t help but worry. They’d already tried to talk me into having that operation. For years. And so much that I got tired of hearing it. I had a bad argument about it with Max one day. Here’s one example of the asshole I can be. I told him I’d slap the shit out of him if he didn’t shut up about it.

I’m a real nice guy.

Hell, all he was trying to do was help me. I passed out one day in the yard a while back and they like to never got me inside, they said. We were just out there looking at the garden. I’d told Mama I’d get out there that evening and hoe her peas and stuff. Then bam. Woke up at five o’clock the next morning, both of them on stools right next to the couch. Worried as hell. I just went on to my room. Didn’t say shit. Hello goodbye kiss my ass or nothing. But
damn.

They don’t know how I feel. People can’t tell you they know how you feel. Wear a face like this around for a while. See people cringe when they look at you. Then tell me you know how I feel. Start watching
Easy Rider
and wake up with snow on the screen. Then tell me you know how I feel. Max and them can’t tell me what I need to do. Because I don’t know what I need to do myself.

I don’t guess I have to be such an asshole about it, though.

The way I look at it, I only have a few hours left. Mama will call back in the morning. I can talk to her and find out about Beth and tell her to send Max after me. I can stand it that long, surely.

I looked over at Braiden. Jesus, his arms. His legs. And twenty-two years on a bed. The shit just comes down and sometimes it lands on you. Or the guy next to you. If you’re lucky, the guy next to you.

I got me another beer. I wasn’t a bit sleepy. I knew I could make it till daylight. Till time to leave, if that’s what they were going to let me do.

Then I thought: I can leave. He can’t.

I was even promising myself that I’d come back and see him, knowing all the time it was a damn lie. I couldn’t wait to get out of here. And I damn sure wasn’t coming back unless it was flat on my back.

I didn’t have any answers ready when he started talking to me again.

“W
ell. I see you still awake. Diva been in here? Aw. She done gone, huh?

“Naw, I don’t think I want one right now. I might take one later. But you help yourself to all you want. Shit, man, I’m drawing a check, too. Got all kinds of money in the bank. I even got some CDs. It just goes in there and makes more money. Man. What I could do now if I could get up and around.

“Man, you think about it. I’m drawing pretty good money now. Don’t even see it. It just goes into a draft. That old interest just piles up and piles up. Diva fixed it all up for me. She take care of all my stuff for me,
my banking and all. It don’t cost me nothing to stay in here. Government pays for that. Twenty-two years, man, it adds up. They ain’t nothing I can do with it anyway. It ain’t doing me no good. Ain’t never going to spend none of it. Ain’t got nothing to buy.

“Man, you take just a thousand dollars. Just say for a year. And just say seven percent interest. First year you got a thousand and seventy dollars. And you keep piling it up. And man in twenty-two years it done built up. That ain’t no small loaf of bread. I get a statement every so often. It’s a miracle what that money does when you let it stay in there. I had a guy come see me one day wanted me to invest in some stocks and bonds. I told him, Shit, I ain’t fucking with no stocks and bonds. What I want to be risking my money for when it’s insured where it is and making all that other money?

“This hadn’t happened to me, I probably wouldn’t have nothing. Houseful of kids. Working in some factory somewhere. House payments.

“I would have like to tried it, though. Just to see how it was. Yeah. Wife and kids. A whole family. Leg down every night if you want to. Supper on the table when you come in from work. Watch them younguns grow up.”

“H
ell, man. Diva said Mama called up here to talk to me. And they’ve
been
here. Her and Max. I can’t figure out what’s going on.

“I reckon it was while they had me knocked out. I wish to hell somebody would tell me something. I hope they let me out of here in the morning.

“I’ve got to cut down on my drinking. After tonight I will. I haven’t been taking my medicine. I know I drank too much that night.