Red Light Wives (18 page)

“Uh-huh.”

“I'm Arthur.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, do you want to tell me your name?”

“Helen.”

“I like that. And what do you look like?”

“Uh, not too bad. I know how to fix myself up real good.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Hmmm. You sound younger.”

“I got a California ID to prove I'm nineteen.”

“But you have…
dated
.” He said the word
dated
in a whisper.

“Didn't I tell you yeah!” I snapped at him because he was trying my patience, the same way Miss Rocky's kids did when they got cranky.

He laughed. “You sound like a real spitfire.”

“I am,” I told him, clueless because I didn't know what a spitfire was. Him being a man and laughing when he called me that word, it had to be something good. “My dates tell me all the time that I am a real spitfire…”

My neck was beginning to hurt from me sitting with my head cocked to the side. I turned my ear toward the door so that Miss Rocky's kids wouldn't come in and catch me. It would be just like that little grown-ass Juliet, Miss Rocky's oldest kid. It seemed like no matter what Miss Rocky did for that child, it was never enough. That girl went out of her way to upset her mama.

“So, Helen. Are you available tonight?”

“Uh-uh.”

“I guess you already have another date lined up for tonight, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“What about tomorrow night?”

“What about it?”

“Could we get together tomorrow? We can meet somewhere in public. If we hit it off, we can go from there.”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Can't I just call you back when I want to go on a date with you?”

“I suppose so.” He said that real slow. “You sound like a really nice girl. But for tonight, I guess I could call another number. I might get lucky after all.”

“Well, you might and you might not.”

The man gave me a telephone number and told me the best time to call him. I wrote the number on the back of a Juicy Fruit chewing gum wrapper and slid it down inside my brassiere. Then I hung up.

I was out of breath and so warm, I had to sit there and fan my face for a while before I felt like myself again. I couldn't understand how a married woman could survive being around the same man all the time. Just talking to a man over the telephone for a few minutes had just about wore me out. It had been a really long time since I'd been with a boyfriend. I couldn't remember all I was supposed to do and say.

I deserved a few of Miss Rocky's beers after all I'd just been through. My face was itching and my throat was dry. And I found out I was wet between my legs when on my way to the kitchen to get them beers. I went to the bathroom to pee.

Looking in the mirror over the bathroom sink, I saw what everybody else saw when they looked at me: a pretty girl any man would want to date. When I wore my long, shiny black hair down, people told me that I looked like a younger Janet Jackson. And that was another pretty woman Miss Rocky liked to talk about like a dog. Just yesterday when I was watching Janet's new video on BET, Miss Rocky waltzed by the television and said, “Janet Jackson is nothing but a glorified cheerleader!”

I never argued with Miss Rocky. She was the last person I wanted mad at me. Where else could I kick back so deep and not have anybody bother me? Where else could I drink beers, snoop, and maybe even meet my future husband over the telephone?

Miss Rocky was my girl. I didn't care how bad she talked about her other friends, or Janet Jackson. I didn't even care about how she tried to hide things from me.

People like me are a lot smarter than some people think. I got away with doing some things because people thought I didn't know what I was doing. And, maybe I didn't know what I was doing. But I did it anyway because it felt good.

See, just by looking at me, or by talking to me over the telephone, a lot of people didn't even know I was retarded.

I
could fill a book with all the stupid shit I did in California. For instance, I didn't believe in ghosts, voodoo, and other things that went “bump in the night.” But I still had the nerve to spend money on a psychic. Why? Because I couldn't think of any other way for me to get the insight or guidance I felt I needed to get my life in order. Maybe my only hope was a psychic. What else did I have to work with?

There was one thing I could not ignore. Every time I thought about all of the ghoulish things that I didn't believe in, I had to think about the times that the ghost of my dead playmate had visited me and pulled my hair.

No matter what I did or didn't believe in, the psychic I'd been going to had not done me too much good so far. She'd given me some lucky numbers once, and I'd won a couple hundred dollars playing the lottery, but that could have been a coincidence. However, I figured I had nothing else to lose but something to gain, if I was lucky.

I'd made several trips to the Mission District to see Conchita Diaz, a card reader in her seventies from Cuba. Lula had once visited this particular psychic, a bug-eyed, mole-faced old crone, with a cat named Paco, who Ester had hooked her up with. And even though Lula and Ester had admitted that they didn't have a whole lot of confidence in this woman, that still didn't stop me from making an appointment.

On one of my visits to Conchita, I had to dodge bullets from a drive-by shooting in progress. Another time I had to step over a drunk man covered in piss, lying on the cracked sidewalk in front of Conchita's tagged building. I'd even been chased by a pit bull.

Common sense should have told me that Conchita's psychic powers weren't that potent if she hadn't foreseen all of the mess I had to dodge to get to and from her apartment each time. She lived on Valencia, a street littered with sleazy bars and restaurants that should have been closed down a long time ago.

I'd entered Conchita's jungle three times in the last six months. I kept going because she needed the money, and I liked her. And, she made me laugh. That was something I hadn't done much of since moving to California. “The spirits told me you was comin' today and that you'd be bringin' me a bottle of Wild Turkey and a burrito,” Conchita told me on my last visit. Before she even brought out her cards, she suggested I trot across the street to a liquor store to pick her up the bottle and some lunch, just to get her in the mood. I ended up getting drunker than she did that day, so I forgot half of everything she told me. It wouldn't have made any difference if I had remembered everything anyway. Her predictions were either not very accurate or a long way down the road.

So far, none of Conchita's predictions had come true: I had not moved into a big beautiful house with a man who “smooched” my feet, my mama had not gotten any better, and I had not stopped sleeping with strange men for money. The one prediction that stood out in my mind, the same one that Conchita and a faceless woman on a psychic hot line had revealed to me was that I would return to my husband. It was probably the most far-fetched of all the predictions. I had not spoken to my husband, Sammy, since Mama and I took off. However, I had written him a few letters during my first few weeks in California. When that got to be too painful I stopped. But if I did return to Sammy, then all of the other predictions that Conchita had made would become true by default. Because when I was with him, he didn't exactly smooch my feet, but he did worship the ground I walked on. In my book that was close enough.

Sammy was going to inherit and move into a big house in Detroit that his grandmother had promised to leave to him when she passed on. So if Sammy eventually took me back, I'd be living with him in a big beautiful house.

The thing that I wanted the most was for Mama to “get better” so that I could make plans for my future. No matter how much Mama coughed and moaned when she was around me, I knew that she was not as physically sick as she claimed to be. She would often be on her couch moaning when I went to visit her. But she would leap up like a frog as soon as one of her friends invited her to go play bingo or something—while I was still present. Her most serious ailments were all in her mind. The worst being her belief in Miss Pearl's curse.

I'd asked Conchita on my second visit, “What can you tell me about the curse on my mama?” Conchita had lit a candle for me during my first visit. It was supposed to strengthen her ability to conjure up an effective way for me to make Mama get over her fear of Miss Pearl's curse. Conchita gave me a clueless look, so I asked again. “Remember that curse I told you my mama was so scared of? You lit a candle about it. What can you tell me about that now?”

Conchita's big bosom heaved, and she blinked real hard. “Nothin',” she told me, munching on a burrito. “A evil spirit blew out your candle.”

I paid Conchita extra to light a stronger candle, but she still couldn't tell me anything about Mama and the so-called curse that had practically ruined my life. She explained, with tears streaming down her face, that the power and interference of the opposing spirits were too strong for an unsophisticated peasant like her.

I didn't want to think about the fact that Mama was taking advantage of me. I loved my mother more than I loved life itself, and I was willing to do just about anything to keep her happy. She'd lost her husband and all but one of her children. She was in a very desperate position. But then, so was I.

 

I was not proud of the fact that I'd allowed Mama to make me choose between her and my husband. However, one of the few things that kept me going was the fact that Sammy and I were still very young compared to Mama. We had more of a chance for a long, happy life than she did.

It was hard paying rent on two apartments. Especially Mama's. Her rent was almost twice as much as mine, and her expenses cost a lot more to cover. I couldn't really make any plans about my future because my life was more like a merry-go-round that I couldn't get off.

I hated visiting Mama at the senior citizen's apartment complex where she lived. Being around a lot of sick, fussy old people made me sick myself. Sometimes before I could even make it up to Mama's apartment on the third floor, several people stopped me along the way to update me on their health and to complain about every other thing of which they could think. But Mama could outwhine all of her sad friends. She was convinced that she was dying from some unidentified ailment. I just went along with her, telling her that she was going to “get better.”

Even as depressing as it was, I still went to visit Mama at least once a week—unless I was out of town on a date or humping local tricks back to back, like I did when Ester, Lula, and Rockelle weren't available. Sometimes I couldn't decide who was profiting off me the most: Mama or Clyde.

I didn't like the level of my position in Clyde's life. Even though Rockelle complained all the time to me that she felt like the lowest one on the totem pole, I didn't agree. And I didn't feel any sympathy for her. I knew that Clyde would always put Ester above me, but I'd known him before Lula and she already outranked me. Clyde wasn't one to give out explanations or answer too many questions. And all he would say about the way he sometimes isolated me from the other girls—like when he made Lula move from my apartment to Ester's—was something like: “I think it'll be better for everybody.”

Being the gullible fool that Clyde was, in my opinion, he was too stupid to realize that women like us did kick back together and share information. By “trusting” the wrong women, Clyde was cooking his own goose. He had Lula handle our finances when he wasn't able to, and I knew for a fact that she was robbing him blind. She doled out money to Ester and Rockelle every time they asked her to. And even me, when I needed extra money because of Mama, so I didn't really care about her being in so good with Clyde. I was glad that she was playing him because if it had been me, I would have done the same thing.

Sometimes when an out-of-town regular couldn't get to San Francisco, Clyde sent us to him. The trick had to pay all of our travel expenses in addition to the usual fee. That's how desperate some of them were.

There was a forty-year-old Chinese man in San Diego who would walk through a firestorm to get to a woman. But when he couldn't, he had her come to him. He was a jewelry salesman, and he came up to San Francisco a couple of times a month. And he was one of the nastiest things on two legs. Of all the outlandish things for a man to ask a woman to do, this one wanted his butt hole licked! I figured Daniel Wong had a hard time finding a woman in San Diego crazy enough to do that shit. Every time he got a hard-on, he called up Clyde. And when he didn't have business in the Bay Area, he sent for one of us, usually me, to hop on a plane and come to him. Somehow, with plastic covering Mr. Wong's dried, ashy crack, I managed to get him off. And I deserved every dime of the five hundred bucks he paid. Especially the times that sucker farted in my face when he came. Shit!

Every time I had to fly to San Diego to do Mr. Wong, I'd laugh off and on all the way down there and back, wondering what my friends in Georgia would think if they knew how far I'd slid into hell. Especially a snob like Shirley Reese, a law student now, who'd looked down her nose at me all through high school, all the while claiming to be my best friend.

I could imagine how Shirley would stop me on the street, tilt her head back and say, “So, Rosalee, what kind of work do you do out there in earthquake country?” And I'd tell her the truth, leaving no stone unturned. She'd stare at me for a long time, shaking her head. Then she'd probably say something like, “Well, we can't all be lawyers.” That bitch was on my mind more than any other person from my past. Including Miss Pearl and her spells and threats, and my husband. Poor Sammy. As much as I still loved him, I tried to think about him as little as possible.

Well, I had to go down to San Diego yesterday to pay Mr. Wong a visit. It didn't take me long to get him off, so I was in and out of his house within an hour and on my way back to San Francisco. But I got delayed because of a security incident at the San Diego airport. Because of the September 11 mess, every time a man with an accent and a swarthy complexion started acting suspicious, people working the airports got crazy. This time it was a well-dressed man screaming in a foreign language about lost luggage, then making threats in broken English to “blow up all.” The airport was evacuated, and it was three hours later before I could board my plane back to San Francisco.

I had promised Mama that I would come by and take her and one of her friends to lunch. But when I showed up after dinner, she was sitting in her front window, already in her bedclothes, dabbing tears off her face with a napkin.

When I strolled in, bracing myself for her verbal attack, her eyes got wide, and she started blinking real hard.

“Rosie, where you been? I been waitin' on you all day.” Mama sniffled like a scolded two-year-old. Her nose looked like a red ball. “I'm all out of my pills. My plants ain't been watered, my carpets ain't been vacuumed. This place is a wreck,” Mama complained, waving her arm around the room. No matter how often I stopped by to clean up for Mama, it was never enough. Empty plates and cups were on the coffee table, old newspapers and magazines littered the plaid couch and love seat, and something red had spilled on the carpet, leaving a sticky trail all the way across the floor. The huge TV that I had bought for Mama had clothes draped across the top, held in place by one of her orthopedic shoes.

“I'm sorry, Mama,” I said contritely, kicking trash aside. “I, uh, had to work this mornin' and there was a lot of unnecessary confusion that slowed things down,” I lied. Well, it wasn't really a complete lie.

Mama stopped sniffling and gave me a guarded look. That soon shifted to a look of suspicion, and it made me nervous. I was as close to being a real model as Mama was. I never told anybody, but I had attempted to get work as a model a few weeks ago. But according to the agent I'd approached who'd looked me up and down with a critical eye and a frown, I wasn't the type they were looking for. Being tall and thin, and looking like a combination of Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell didn't do me much good unless a trick was looking for that type. “Oh? Modelin' bathin' suits for Macy's again? I hope you remembered to put some lotion all over on your ashy self, girl. I can't have you up there modelin' with your skin lookin' like a gator's.” Mama smiled broadly as she gave my hands a quick inspection. I was pleased to see that Mama had perked up. “See how blessed it is to be so pretty. Us dainty women got to stay on top of nature, ain't we?”

“Yes, ma'am.” When I leaned over Mama to give her a hug, she lifted her head and attempted to kiss me on the lips. She gasped when I turned my head. The last thing I wanted was for mama's lips to touch mine so soon after I'd licked Mr. Wong's butt. “Uh, I have a slight cold, Mama,” I explained, kissing her sweaty forehead.

“It ain't never stopped you before,” she reminded, giving me a hard look. “What's that on your neck?”

“Just a rash. I brushed against some, uh, poison ivy the other day when I was out bein' photographed in Golden Gate Park.” Damn that Mr. Wong! I had meant to button my jacket all the way up to hide the sucker bite he had caused below my chin.

Mama's face froze and she gasped. “It sure don't look like no rash to me. It look like somethin' else,” Mama accused. “You got a boyfriend, ain't you?” Mama could curl her lips into the most extreme frowns I'd even seen. When she did that, her eyes looked like the target dot on a bull's-eye.

“Now, Mama, you know I don't date. That's the one thing I promised Sammy I wouldn't do, until…until me and him decide whether or not we're goin' to stay married.” My voice cracked. “Do you still want to go out to eat? I got Ester's car outside.”