Minding Ben (24 page)

Pastor Rome didn't come down, but his deacons made their way around the hungry group, rubbing oil on their foreheads and giving them little shoves backward. Then, Pastor Rome blessed them all from on high and told them that this was the first day of the rest of their lives as the resurrected. He cued the choir, and they broke into “He Is Risen, Praise the Lord.”

Dodo stayed for the second service but told Sylvia she would pass later for Easter dinner. After a quick smoke, and flush with the goodness of the Lord, she remembered to thank me for getting Sylvia and them to come, and introduced us to Sybil, her church-lady friend. Sybil was mainly interested in meeting Bo.

Walking home, Derek, taken by one of his fits, did a little chicken dance. Sylvia laughed. “Son, you mocking Tanty Dodo?”

Derek danced again, a dead mimic of Dodo's frontward march. “Sylvia, you see you encouraging the boy to do stupidness,” Bo declared, but he was laughing too. “Let me show you how to do it, Derek,” he said, and he took off, running circles around us in Dodo's fisted trot.

Sylvia and I were cracking up, and Micky said, “Wooooo,” like Pastor Rome.

Getting into the fun, Sylvia and I pranced around on the pavement. From the stoop next door, Miss Florence, smoking a cigarette and wearing more clothes than I had ever seen her in, looked across at us and shook her head. We did look like a Labor Day band of fools coming down Eastern Parkway. But as we turned in to the building's entrance, Bo cut his capering short. There was Jacob's man, and two younger men with him. They were smoking and laughing, chatting in Russian. All three carried buckets, and all three had flesh colored somewhere between ashy gray and jaundiced yellow.

Bo stopped short. “What the fuck?”

Sylvia sensed something. “Bo, the children here. Don't start nothing, please. I begging you.”

He didn't even glance at Sylvia. “Carry them children upstairs now.”

Sylvia, in a tone I had never heard, said, “Bo, today is Easter. Wait till you see Jacob tomorrow. He coming tomorrow. Them man didn't do nothing, Bo. Is work them want work too.”

Bo ignored her and planted himself dead in the way of the oldest man, the one who drove for Jacob. The van was parked in front of the building, but we hadn't noticed it because we were so busy mocking Dodo's performance.

“What you doing here?” Bo asked the wrinkled Russian. The younger workers stopped. Somehow crooked from shoes to cloth caps, they looked like a Baltic Mutt and Jeff.

“My friend—”

Bo cut him off. “Me and you is not no fucking friend.”

The man put up his hand, but said again, “My friend, we are here to do job. Boss man he tell and we do. That is all, my friend.”

Bo took two steps closer to the old Russian, and the younger two set down their buckets. “Which boss man send you here? Jacob?”

The Russian shrugged, and Bo shouted, only an inch or so away from the man's face. “Which fucking boss man send you here?”

Miss Florence cackled and blew some smoke out the corner of her mouth. “A monkey and Jew. I ain't seen this much action since I was in the game,” she said.

Sylvia ignored her and said, “Bo—”

He spun around and shouted, “I tell you to take them fucking children and gone upstairs. You didn't fucking hear me?”

Miss Florence said, “Big, baaad nigger man.”

Minding Bo, Sylvia hustled her children inside. We stood behind the glass doors burglarproofed with iron bars and peeked out. Bo was up in the old man's face, and the younger two men had come to stand on either side of him.

Derek punched air. “My uncle Bo could kick their ass.”

The slap Sylvia dropped on his cheek echoed in the empty hall. Tears came to Derek's eyes. “You”—Sylvia pointed to trembling Micky—“take your two brother and go upstairs now.”

Micky walked away, carrying Dame. “Mammy,” she said as she turned by the steps, “look blood here.” Sylvia, gripping the bars on the door, didn't hear her.

“Jesus Christ,” Sylvia whispered, “I hope Bo don't go and start nothing with them man and them, you know. Police in my house on Easter Sunday.”

“Nothing going to happen, Sylvia,” I told her, but I wasn't sure. Bo was jabbing his finger in the old man's chest. The old man's callused hands were up, and Mutt and Jeff were getting agitated.

“Grace, I going out there.”

“No, Sylvia, wait and see.”

“Wait and see what? Murder happen right here in front my building? Grace”—she turned to me, a sheen of sweat glazing her forehead—“you don't know Bo, you know.” She opened the front door, but Bo was done with the men. The three were nodding as they picked up their buckets and backed away from him. He stood like a big thundercloud over them, threatening as they made their way into the van. The old man got in on the driver's side, started the engine, and began to drive off slowly. Bo turned to walk into the building, so he didn't see Mutt in the middle lean forward and give him a jerky double middle finger and a ball of hawked-up phlegm that sailed clear over Jeff and landed on the sidewalk.

As he walked up the way, Miss Florence said, “Monkey, you need to come ring my bell in the nighttime.”

Bo looked over at her and said without any real malice, “Miss Florence, why you don't take your old ass inside?”

We heard her cackling, and Sylvia kept the door opened for Bo. He walked inside but didn't say anything. The elevator was still broken, and Sylvia finally said, “Well, they didn't come to fix that.”

At the base of the steps, she stopped. “Look, it have blood here, you know. Like somebody in the building get stab.”

Bo smeared the red drops with the tip of his boot. “Is not blood, that is paint.”

He sniffed the air, and we did too, inhaling the solventy ether that I associated with Christmas and home.

“Like they start to give people they paint jobs from today?” Sylvia's voice rose. “My walls done scrape already. Mines supposed to be the first apartment to get paint, you know.”

Bo was furious again. “That mother-ass sonofabitch. He just tell me they didn't come to paint nobody place, and like a damn ass I believe him.”

But the Russians hadn't lied to Bo. Two of the apartments on the second floor had daubs of fresh paint on their front doors. On the third floor, two more doors were marked, and three on the fourth. On Sylvia's floor, the fifth, hers was the only door marked with red paint. We stood on the threshold and stared at the still-wet smear sploshed above the peephole. Micky had left the door wide open, and the paint had trailed down its length and collected into a little puddle, bright crimson against the faded hue of Sylvia's trampled carpet. The children all stood on the other side. Micky, like a miniature mother, held Dame in one arm and had draped the other over Derek, still whimpering from his slap. Bo slowly cut his finger through the red streaks.

Sylvia breathed hard from walking up the steps. “Remember I did tell you was plenty people in the building getting paint jobs. Well, I see what they doing. Is mark they come to mark so when the real man and them come to do the job, they know which apartment is which. And, Bo, you see how you bawl up the man and them for nothing.”

Bo wasn't as understanding. “You don't know Jacob like I know Jacob,” he said. “That man care about one thing, he money, and that is all.”

Bo was not ready to be consoled, and, still being mindful of him, Sylvia said, “Not to worry, boy. Tell me what you feel like eating and I will cook it for you.”

But Bo shook his head and walked away from us, back toward the steps. “Is not me who need to worry. The only thing I feel like eating right now is a bottle of rum and some all fours.”

T
here was no Easter Monday holiday in New York. No early morning sports down in the junction by Deo's rum shop, with races for every age group, including pregnant women by belly size. No big lime on the beach for the whole village and Penal people if they behaved.

In New York, Easter Monday was just another day to get up and go. I had the day off, but Sylvia left for her agency at the same time Derek and Micky left for school. Dame was still asleep when Sylvia showed me the medicine he was to take as part of his treatment.

Jacob rang the doorbell at eleven. “Hello, Cousin Grace. Here again, I see.”

There really wasn't any point in giving him an excuse.

“Did you have a good Pesach?” he asked, looking around as he made his way to the living room. Sylvia had pushed everything she could to the middle of the room so that the workmen could get to the walls. She had spread cut garbage bags over her furniture for protection.

“I worked for Pesach.”

“A shame. Anyway, where is your cousin Bo?”

Bo was still asleep in his spot on the bedroom floor. “Watch the baby, and let me get him,” I replied. When we came out, Jacob was stooped in front of Dame, his black coat fanned out behind him like a drab peacock's tail. In his hand he held the little bottle of medicine I had left on the coffee table.

Bo yawned. “You visiting your sins?”

Jacob rose. “We need to talk in private.”

Bo rubbed the back of his neck and, yawning again, tilted his head toward the kitchen. I heard them as if they were still in the room.

“What did you say to my man Mikhail yesterday?”

“What he tell you I tell him?”

“Bo, you cannot fuck around with my workers when I send them to do a job. If you have some quarrel to make, then you come and see me like a man, not take it out on a poor immigrant.”

Bo laughed. “I is a poor immigrant too, Jacob. Is only you who not poor.”

“The point is that you can't terrorize my men.”

“Your men,” Bo mocked, “listen to you talking to me without shame. Jacob, is me and Nello and Keatix who used to be your men. Where the work you promise me? Have some shame at least, man.”

“I have work for you, but it won't start for a few weeks yet.”

“What kind of work we talking about and how much money? Pass me a cigarette.” I heard a match strike.

“Gutting work.” Another match. “I'm about to close on a building, and it will have to be gutted, but carefully, not a hack job. Three floors and a basement. Private house. Near here, actually.”

“When this work starting?”

“Well, I haven't closed on it yet, but it's soon. I'll let you know by the end of the week.” Jacob thought for a moment and then asked, “How much you think you will charge?”

“Jacob, you think because I black I stupid? How the ass I could give a estimate for a job I ain't see yet? Is long long time I in this business, you know.”

“Approximately?” Jacob persisted.

But Bo was firm. “When I see the house we talking about, then we could start to talk about price.”

“Okay. Okay.”

“So what about the work you doing in this building? You know I is a boss scraper and painter. What happen to this?”

“It is too late for this. Mikhail and his boys already have this job. They don't work well with—”

Bo cut in. “With what? What it is they don't well with? Nigger people? But what the ass is this I hearing in truth? Them say that, or you saying that, Jacob?”

He didn't say which, only “Trust me, this gutting job is good for you. You will even be able to give those two bums you work with a couple days. Just make sure your Nello doesn't steal anything this time, okay? None of the fixtures or anything. You should see this building”—I heard the sound of a kiss—“beautiful, all original details, everything like when it was built. This is why I trust only you to do this job, but your two guys I'm not so sure about.”

“You leave me to worry about Nello and Keatix,” Bo said. “When you going to know for sure?”

“I should be able to tell you something by the end of this week, but it could take until the end of the month. No more fucking with my men, okay?”

I heard Sylvia's old chairs skid along the kitchen linoleum, then I heard the slapping of palms, then the front door open and close.

AS A PRIZE FOR
not missing a single prenatal appointment when she was pregnant with Dame, Sylvia had been given a stroller. It was still in rolling condition, so I strapped Dame in to go for some fresh air. Bo lay on the couch, a plastic container of ice water within reach.

“So, this is the life of the resurrected?” I said to him.

He laughed. “I waiting until I go by Miss Sybil for lessons. Where you going?”

“Park. Dame need some fresh air.”

“Grace, wait. Before you go”—he sat up and held his head—“you have twenty dollars you could lend me?”

I had twenty dollars, but the question was whether or not I wanted to lend it to him. “If I lend you twenty dollars, Bo, when I getting it back?”

“You didn't hear me and Jacob talking in the kitchen just now?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I think is serious thing he talking about, so I not going to lie and tell you next week. I will pay you when I get the little work from Jacob.”

Bo seemed earnest, and I calculated that, if I never saw my twenty dollars again, it would be okay. I could afford to lose it. But I didn't want to dig through my wallet in front of him, so I went in the bedroom.

“Thanks, girl,” Bo said when I came back, and he slipped the bill into the waist of his drawers. “And what about the other thing? You think about the other thing?”

Of course I had.

“You playing the ass with a big man.”

“Okay”—I pushed Dame down the hall—“when I come back.”

I took Dame for a long walk along the parkway, all the way up to the playground by the museum, trying not to think about what it was I was doing in New York, about my own second life. A horn honked, and Dame and I both turned around. It was Brent, and he was sitting in a green pickup truck with a white leaf outlined on the door, grinning and waving.

“You going up there?”

“Hey, yes.”

“All right, let me find a park for this. Me soon come.”

I couldn't believe my luck running into him. We kissed out in the open, and I realized that this was actually the first time I had been with him while the sun was shining.

“Hold on,” I said. “Let me get Dame out.”

“All the time me thought was a likkle white child you mind. And how you in Brooklyn?”

“I'm off today. This is Dame, the woman I live with son.”

“And what wrong with him so?” Dame was unsure on his feet, waddling slowly along on the padded ground, clearly not the same as the other children.

I shrugged. “That's what they're trying to figure out.”

Brent cocked his head, “Mongoloid that.”

“What?” I said, even though I had heard him.

“Mongoloid. You no know what that is?”

I did, and I didn't think it was a very nice thing for him to say. “Come, let's take him over to the swings.”

Brent checked his watch. “Okay, me have ten minutes.”

I pushed Dame gently back and forth. Brent said, “Wait.” He stopped the swing, undid the zipper from up under Dame's neck, and took off his little hat. “It not too too cold out here.”

I looked around, not wanting to think about where Brent's parenting skills came from. Most of the black women here had black children. The few white women seemed to be minding their own babies. I wondered if the three of us looked like a family. When Brent started pushing Dame harder than I had dared, I thought for sure that we did. At McDonald's Kathy had said that it would be nice to have a family; I wasn't too sure about that.

Trouble must have crossed my face, because Brent said, “What wrong?”

“Nothing. What are you doing driving around here in the middle of the day?”

“Looking for you, darkie.”

I laughed at that. “Seriously, Brent.”

“Nah, for real. Me had a feeling that me would see you, and look at that. Me make you appear.”

He wasn't going to tell me anything more. “I didn't know you had that kind of power,” I told him.

“Plenty you don't know about me, girl,” he replied. And I thought,
That's for sure.

Two men wheeled up to the next swing, and one lifted a little Chinese girl wearing a princess dress and a glittering crown out of their stroller. They pushed her together in the swing, one in front and the other in back, and her shiny, black hair lifted and swirled in the light spring wind.

“You see that?” Brent let his gaze linger for a few seconds and said in deep patois, “Man like that haffi bun.”

And for a second time I said, “What?” to something I perfectly understood.

“Buller-man, nah,” he elucidated. “I and I don't stand for that, at all, at all, scene.”

The men either did not understand what Brent was saying or chose to ignore him, laughing along with the little girl they called Chloe. “You really think so?”

“But 'ow you mean? Jah-Jah nah make man for man. A pure 'bomination that.”

I wondered who would think that two men out pushing a princess in a swing should be put to death by fire.

“Anyhow, time for me to go, yeah.” Brent gave Dame a final push and put his arm around my shoulders. “See you come Saturday night?” He kissed me again and left, smelling so good I kind of understood how Kathy put up with Donovan's bullshit.

I continued to push Dame, gently again. “You like this, Dame?” I asked him. “You like swinging?” He couldn't say yes, but he kicked his legs and wiggled his arms.

“Is this fun?” He kicked some more, and one of the men next to us said, “Isn't it amazing how fast they grow?”

Dame was having such a good time, being in the open air and flying in the swing. I remembered from primary school:
How do you like to go up in a swing, Up in the air so blue
, and spinning through the air on the tire swing my father had hung us from the guava tree behind our house. That was the closest I had come to flying before my trip to New York. The closest I had come to feeling free.

DANNY HAD DESK DUTY
that night, and he stepped off the platform when I walked in.

“Hey, Gracie Mansion. Didn't see you last night. Thought you were”—he drew his finger across his chicken neck—“gone for good.”

“You would think something like that,” I retorted. Up close Danny was especially vile. The top hat kept slipping down his forehead, causing him to tip his wedge-of-cheese head back, exposing a bramble of unclipped nose hairs.

“So what,” he wanted to know, “you had an extra day off or something?”

“Yes, Danny, I had today off.”

“With pay?”

“Manicou,”
I said under my breath. “Why are you asking me my business?”

“Huh.” He sucked spit through his crooked teeth. “I never get a day off with pay, and I'm an American.”

“Good night, Danny,” I said and made my way around him. Two young girls, both lamppost lean with long, straight hair, walked into the building laughing and bumping into each other. Danny lifted his hat with exaggerated courtesy as they walked by. They ignored him and got on the elevator with me.

“Oh, my God,” one said and fell against the wall of the elevator. “I can't believe we did that. Oh, my God. We're super seniors now.”

The other one laughed even harder.

“Okay, come on,” said the first one, “pull it together. My dad's at home.”

But neither could pull anything, and the second one crashed against the elevator wall, making them both laugh even louder.

“Seriously,” the second one said, anything but serious, “your doorman is such a dog. He's as ugly as butt.”

“As ugly as butt,” the first one repeated, holding her middle and whipping her hair about. “Oh, my God, he is so nasty. Did you check out his teeth? Dude, use your dental and get some braces. And that stupid-ass hat he has to wear.”

They got off on the eighteenth floor, laughing just as hard as when they came on.

It was Miriam who opened the door. “Hey, Grace,” she said, turning to check the time.

“Evening, Miriam.”

She rubbed her belly. “I'll come in in a few minutes.”

More than cleaning toilets or mopping floors or dusting figurines I hated taking photos of Miriam's growing belly. And more than all of that I hated that I hadn't told her. While I waited for Miriam, I unpacked the few lighter pieces of clothing I had brought back to the city, including my brand-new halter top. It wouldn't be halter weather for a while yet, but you never knew. Plus, I didn't want to leave something so expensive at Sylvia's. Miss Micky might get ideas.

Ten minutes later, after I had shot pictures of the washing machine and the wall, Sol came and stood behind Miriam. She dressed facing him, her naked bottom toward me, but then, instead of getting out of my space, she came and sat on the bed. Sol edged closer to my room, and I wondered what was going on.

“So, Grace, how long have you been here now?” she asked.

“Just about a month.” It would be exactly a month come Wednesday.

Miriam nodded, and Sol watched me. “Sol brought these home today.”

She slid the folder toward me. The low lamplight deepened the pockmarks on her face. Sol cast an ogre's shadow on my wall. “What is this?” I asked.

“Open it,” Miriam said.

I had no idea.

Immigration forms. I grinned and thumbed through the pages, some of which were already filled out in Miriam's loopy, schoolteacher handwriting.

“Are these my sponsorship papers?”