His Own Where (8 page)

He look close to her neck. Buddy say, “Oh, oh—you can see for yourself, you got a bad case of the orange.”

Angela turn from the mirror, start to tickling him.

“Hey, woman, I’m a break my neck.”

Buddy try to escape the tickling, bang his elbow on the sink, knock his head against the towel rack. Buddy say “shh . . . ”

Whip off the light. Whisper, “Here, hold on to this.” Give Angela a piece of towel. “Don’t make no noise, just hold on to the towel.”

Buddy pull Angela slowly, quietly out the bathroom to the dining room—what use to be the dining room. Buddy give Angela all the towel. He say, “Here, hold this on your eyes.”

Press the lightswitch, make like a purple light on everything. “Okay. You can look now. Here, come here. You choose a record.”

Buddy lift up the phonograph cabinet door and, smiling, show his Angela the phonograph, the albums pile together, thick. The room not finish yet, but almost.

One corner there the wires hang down from the ceiling, and no light. Toolbox and some tools beneath the music cabinet.

“Let me take your coat.”

Buddy put the coats inside a large wood box built like a trunk against the wall. He lift the lid and fold the coats and pack them out of sight.

 

The music be the only sound. He dancing with her, slow enough to hear her breathe.

She say, “I wish we could just stay here.”

“We can. A little while. Tonight.”

 

They sit down on the mattress in the corner, flat against the floor.

“You think we get in trouble, Buddy?”

“I don’t know. I’m glad you’re here.”

They be quiet holding close together. He kiss her mouth, her arm.

Her fingers teasing on his neck and trace the fire down his back, his back a bone and skin discovery she making, stroke by stroke.

And they undress themselves. Feel him feel her wet and lose the loneliness the words between them.

“What do you call it?” Buddy ask her.

“Well I call it making love.”

“We make some love.”

They make some love and then they fall asleep.

next morning they legs be tangle together.
Angela wake up and look at Buddy lying naked there beside her. She kiss Buddy face, lean on one elbow looking at his head.

Buddy waken. He turn over, rest her warm against his chest. “Angela, I thought you was a virgin. But maybe you should of told me that you was a virgin. I mean I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

Angela say, “For real. It dint hurt no more after that one time I told you.”

Buddy smiling say, “I’m glad you all right.”

Angela laughing. “Well, you all right too, Buddy.”

Suddenly Buddy sit up, exclaim, “You could be pregnant!” Turn around and hug her hard. “Hey, you know that one thing? Could be we have a baby coming soon!”

Angela answer him by saying, “That be fine with me. So long we be both together, taking care of business.”

“Well, of course,” he say excited. “Start with two of us, and go right on ahead, the two of us be taking care of three of us.”

“What time is it?”

“Time we better move on outa here. Sometime soon the sisters
and
the police
and
your par—ents figure things through and we be trapped by them.”

“Well, let’s eat some bananas and some ice cream and then you tell me what we need to take so I can help you pack.”

Buddy tell her while they dress themselves. They take the food, the toolbox, a saw, his portable radio, extra batteries, some soap and towels, can-opener, kaleidoscope, playing cards, picnic jug of water, all the blankets they can find, two pillows, paper, ballpoint pens, drafting supplies for Buddy to fool with, flashlight, candles, and matches.

They quickly load the car and slowly lock the house.

Get to the corner. Make two left turns. Drive down the street where you can still see iron trolley tracks from years ago. Drive from the neighborhood they know. Make a right turn put them on Bushwick Avenue. Look out for cops. Take the road into the cemetery. Leads them to the reservoir brick house.

Just before they reach the house they see a military burial ground. Seem like all them same white crosses turning death to boredom. White crosses. Here and there a dime-store flagstick. Eight inches high, stuck into the earth. Its small
flag leaking slight and lonely color to the lonely formal ground.

Buddy say, “A flag is not a flower growing on you. When I die, I want something to grow on right on top of me, you know?”

Angela be silent. She don’t want to think about the end of nothing. Everything just really starting up.

When he stop the car, Buddy raise the hood, pretend he fooling with the radiation, and Angela act swift. Make several fast trips to unload the car on the side away from the highway eyes, the side of the reservoir house where she will wait for Buddy.

He drive the car two miles farther on, take off the tags, and hike back to where she waiting.

Angela sit among the things sad and scared. She listen to the traffic while she hypnotize herself by studying the sunlight in the water.

Finally Buddy come back like a silhouette approaching her. He kiss her forehead and then swamp her with blankets wrap around her. Leave her looking like a tepee.

Buddy take a hammer and wedge. Break into the house. Look around. Break up the cobwebs. Saw some, drill the openings into the boards that covering the windows. Let in some air and light.

Must be a toolshed people have forgot about. Buddy rake the floor to clear it. Find a spigot,
fill a pail with soap and water. Slosh the floor to weight the dust down. Make things smell better.

When he go out until the floor will dry, he find that Angela have scale the fence and be halfway in the water.

“Angela! The cars be seeing you that way!”

She laugh at him, and after a while, come back.

“We stay here long enough, we could figure how to swim here safe without nobody seeing us. Like at night. But now you never know.”

“They don’t have no guards around here?”

“I never seen one. Come on inside and dig the house.”

“Hey, so much stuff! So much equipment, this is really outasight. You probably knew you could work it out, didn’t you? Can you use them things some way?”

“First thing I need to do is find some wood. And maybe buy some glass and screens. Then I could show you better.”

They talk to keep the house around them. His voice her voice shape him and her familiar (shapes) inside the unfamiliar house. They talk but standing still talk trying to imagine how they can stay and move and sleep and change where they are standing now, inside.

“We have enough money for about two weeks. If we find a store nearby, we can take turns going so they don’t know that we together.”

“I want everyone to know. Oh, shit, to hell with it. To hell with it. With everyone. I wish we had a rug, right here.”

Buddy recognize that Angela be just as scare as him, and worrying. He think about what to say.

“We can use a blanket, baby. Put a blanket down. Let’s try it.”

“Buddy, open up the door so we can see the reservoir and count the birds and watch for the police.”

Use up a hour spreading things out comfortable. Then notice that the blanket they been walking on be mess up from the shoes. So they make a rule. Like Orientals they will leave they shoes outside the house. They will leave the outside mess outside. They lay another blanket down, a clean blanket, down on the floor for Angela.

After that they go outside to work together. Shovel a latrine. Make up a bathroom in the bushes at the bottom of the hill.

For a bed, Buddy bang two benches together that he find. Angela figuring that things will be all right. They will eat out of cans and use the water from the spigot. So they settle in.

“I hope they don’t be no rats around here. Buddy, why you founding up like that?”

“I worry about my father. How he is. Don’t want him dying by himself alone. Don’t want him dying. I worry about myself, I may be a father
soon myself, depending on you, and I worry what we doing here. How long can we hold out?”

“You think your father, you think he will die, Buddy?”

“I don’t know what I think. You realize how long it’s been since I hear him speak to me, or tell me anything? He don’t even know you. Never even seen you, Angela, you. Sometime I think how I will like to give him to you—give you to him. You two meeting, eating oranges or peaches. Can you picture that?”

“I can taste it happening, sometimes I think maybe your father would adopt me.”

“Listen, Angela, don’t start no sister business here with me.”

“Okay, Mr. Rivers.” They wrestling each other, ticklefighting on the floor.

“If my father was me, he probably take a pencil and scheme some changes for the house.”

“Why don’t you do that?”

“If I do, what will you be doing?”

“Oh, I play the radio. Figure something out I have in mind.”

First thing Buddy draw is trees. He have the tree between the highway and the house. But still, you know, the highway is there, the house is there, and now you have the trees. Nothing cut into nothing else. But things be differently together. From the highway, things seem different. From the house, the road seem different. But no
interference. No elimination. No taking out the highway or the house. The trees be added on, be something more. And the same be better with the trees.

Next he mark in some plants, some vegetables, and some flowers. Then he have the whole roadside of the house be brick completely. Except for near the bottom where he draw a wall-to-wall long narrow window as wide as the house is wide. So when he and Angela lie down they can see outside but not be seen unless somebody crawl up on his stomach.

On the reservoir waterside the house be absolutely glass with blinds for when they need them. And then there be a fireplace. Buddy not sure about how practical really is a fireplace, and so instead he draw a big potbelly stove, then he scratch that out. Then he try a radiator. Then he scratch out the radiator and then he go back to drawing in the fireplace.

Part of the time, Angela watch. Finally, out loud, she say, “No furniture in that house.”

“See, I think a house, a home should mean like the table and chairs. You build them in. Build in the table like the floors, the doors, the window, and the wall. That way, nothing really loose. Everything is tight, and you can trust it.”

“I feel pretty loose, right now. You trust me?”

“I like you better than some table and a chair.”

“But you can’t nail me down.”

“Don’t want nobody nail nobody down. I’m only talking about furniture. People move keep moving all around. That be interesting. But let them things stay quiet. Things stay in they place. The same place all the time.”

“What you have against people if they sit tight and have like the telephone to do the traveling.”

“Well, look, I don’t mind the telephone except it be like television and the whole world is a box-up make-believe to make you think you into what be really happening but all the time you into nothing really but that box. I have this other plan.”

“Hey, this other plan better be something we can eat. Plus something we can drink. I choose you who will go for soda.”

Buddy taking odds and lose on the third show, to Angela. While he go away, Angela comb out her Afro, fool with the radio, and make some notes.

The wine grow ready on the vine.

come back to tuna fish and root beer.
Eat and drink away the hunger and the worry.

“What you think,” Angela ask Buddy, “Suppose everybody hold a radio. And you already dig how many kinds of sound you maybe hear that way. Depending how you feel, where you going to, or where you come from, or what you feel like doing.”