Red Light Wives (25 page)

I was glad that I had run into my old friend, and I was glad that now when I felt bad, I had somewhere else to go.

Manny didn't need to know my business, but I knew if I told him, it would not have surprised him. Some of the girls I used to kick it with back in the day was the same ones I seen selling themselves on the Mission District streets. Like I said before, some of these people got as far as they was going to go. There was no life for them beyond the streets.

I felt like a new woman when I left Manny's apartment. Just before I'd run into Manny, my feet had felt as heavy as bricks as I'd dragged myself down the street. Now I was prancing like a colt.

I
returned to San Francisco from Oakland in less than an hour. But I drove right past my house on Steiner.

I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw a woman I didn't want to know anymore: the woman I had been trying to hide from for almost thirty years. Because of my unexpected encounter with Clyde and our daughter, fear had attacked me like a cancer, and it was spreading fast.

I couldn't remember driving back down Oakland's International Boulevard after leaving Clyde. I couldn't even remember getting back onto the Bay Bridge. One minute I was talking to Clyde and the next thing I knew I was back across the bay, meandering down one street after another. I remembered the sounds of the road rage I'd caused, though. Horns had blared at me, gruff voices had cursed me, and some irate motorist had hurled a beer can, clanking it against the side of my passenger door.

How long I drove around, I couldn't say. My body was in one place, my mind was in another. But even my confused state of mind didn't prevent me from finding my way to a bar, with a name I couldn't remember, off the freeway.

I had hit something—a dog, a cat? If I'd hit a human I'd find out soon enough. I vaguely remembered something thumping against the front of my car as I wandered off the Bay Bridge at the first exit, my Lexus creeping along like a snail. I glimpsed blood on the left side of my front fender when I parked my car in the lot at the tacky bar next to a dusty truck with the “T” missing from Toyota. I staggered into the bar, ignoring the unholy stench of burned grease and the gum on the floor that stuck to the bottom of my shoe. Like a falling tree, I fell sideways onto the hard plastic seat in the first empty booth I found.

Big, hairy, beefy-faced, foul-smelling truck drivers and bikers sat and stood on either side of me. During my delirium I must have ordered a drink because I blinked and a double shot of rum appeared on the table in front of me. I snatched it and drank with the eagerness and desperation of a junkie getting an overdue fix. With my sudden potent buzz, I placed my head on the table like it was a guillotine.

I had not been confronted by any drug addicts, muggers, or car-jackers in Oakland, but I was lucky I made it back to San Francisco alive. After seeing Clyde Brooks and the daughter that he and I had produced, my life was about to flash before me anyway. The same way I heard it did when a person was dying.

 

Clyde had entered my life at a very early age. It was the summer of 1968 when we were both eight years old.

According to Mom, '68 was the year that “evil spirits” courted every young person in America, especially the San Francisco Bay Area, which included such hotbeds as Oakland and Berkeley. Mom blamed some of America's uproar on Vietnam, the Democrats, Jimi Hendrix, all males with long hair, all females who associated with males with long hair, and drugs. Even though we lived in a huge stucco house on a palm tree-lined street in Oakland Hills, the turmoil of the sixties was as much a part of our home as it was the streets of Berkeley.

Trying to prove that our family was liberal, my parents didn't protest when Clyde's grandmother, Effie Brooks, our maid for the past twenty years, brought Clyde to work with her the morning that altered my future. So far, other than our Black maid and our Panamanian handyman, my association with people of color had been very limited.

My curiosity overwhelmed me. I tried to find out as much as I could about the mysterious dark people making such a fuss over everything. Unlike the other kids my age on my street, who still enjoyed Bugs Bunny and Fred Flintstone cartoons, I preferred news programs that featured stories about the protestors in the southern states, updates on Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination, and the angry newsmakers right in my backyard: the Black Panthers.

Clyde Brooks had been my first best friend. Well, at least my first Black friend. And my first “boy” friend. In my fantasies, he was a Black Panther waiting to happen. The first time I saw him, he was standing on our front porch with his grandmother. There was a scowl on his face so extreme, he looked like he was ready to blow up the world. I was vividly impressed.

Clyde was standing in front of his grandmother, with his thin arms folded across his narrow chest. His smooth dark skin and neat, well-oiled Afro glistened in the early morning sunlight. I peeked from behind my mother when she opened the door.

“Mornin', Miss Carmody. Uh, this my grandson, Clyde, what I brought back from Mississippi on the train last night.” Effie paused and sniffed, her gnarled hand rubbing Clyde's shoulder. “My cousin Bobby Lee, he changed his mind about takin' the boy in. I couldn't leave this boy back there in Mississippi by hisself.” Effie paused again and looked from Mom's face to mine, then back to Mom's, her hand still rubbing Clyde's shoulder. Effie grunted and let out a deep breath that had become familiar. That was the way she expressed her impatience. Like a lot of the Black and Hispanic women who worked as domestics in our neighborhood, Effie had a lot of power. She practically ran our house, making up rules for us to follow. And as long as Effie's demands were not too outrageous, we usually did as we were told. Effie took off work when she wanted to, with pay. She had even talked Daddy into paying for her medical coverage. When it came time for our carpets to be cleaned, Effie had Mom call in a carpet cleaning service. And, as if it were a running joke, which in our case it wasn't, Effie didn't do windows. Before Mom could respond to Effie's comments about her grandson, I already knew Mom's response. But, Effie asked anyway. “Can Clyde play with Miss Meg while I do my business? This is the only child of my only child, may she rest in peace,” Effie rattled on. She had just returned from burying her daughter, a woman she herself described as, “A wart on Satan's butt.”

“Where's the boy's daddy?” Mom asked, her voice sounding more like a kitten's meow. My mother and Effie had little in common, but each had recently buried a child. Effie's daughter, Bonnie Jean, had been killed in a barroom brawl in Pearl, Mississippi. My older, and only brother, Paul, had lost his life in Vietnam three months ago.

Effie shrugged. “That's somethin' I ain't never knowed. He took off before this boy was even born. Come to think of it, I never even knowed who that scallywag was in the first place. Bonnie Jean had a army of 'em paradin' in and out of her house. That gal of mine, fast as she was, ain't slowed down long enough to tell me who planted this boy in her. With all her drinkin' and God knows what else, it's a wonder the boy turned out as good as he did. He got teef that would snap a nail in two.” Clyde grinned for the first time, revealing the whitest, strongest-looking teeth I'd ever seen. “And look at his hand. Look like a shovel, don't it?” With a broad smile, Effie lifted Clyde's right hand and handed it to Mom who blinked, turned the small ashy hand over, inspecting it like she would a piece of fruit at the farmer's market.

I covered my mouth to keep from laughing. The way Effie was talking, she made Clyde sound like something you'd find in a cabbage patch.

A slight noise in the background made Mom and me turn around. Dad was standing in the doorway leading to the kitchen. My brother had been Dad's favorite and he was still overwhelmed with grief. He spent most of his time in his study or roaming through the house like a ghost. Dad blinked at the commotion at the front door, and then fixed his eyes on the floor. Without a word, he returned to the private gloom of his study.

Clyde's eyes were like none I'd ever seen before. His gaze was cold, flat, and hard. It was the first time I had ever seen a tiny image of myself reflected in another person's eyes. But when he blinked, my reflection disappeared, even though I was still standing in the same spot.

“Has he had all of his shots?” Mom asked. This time it was Clyde who covered his mouth with his hand to keep from laughing.

“Oh, y'all ain't got to worry about catchin' nothin' from this boy. He clean as a whistle. That's the one thing his mama done right. She kept the boy clean. Shame she didn't get him circumcised.” Effie lowered her voice and leaned closer to Mom. “A midwife delivered the boy at home,” Effie whispered. I didn't know what
circumcised
meant at the time, so I didn't react with an embarrassed giggle the way Clyde did.

“Granny, hush!” Clyde ordered, jabbing his grandmother's side with his elbow.

“Well, I guess it's all right. For now, at least,” Mom said, her voice weak and hollow.

“It'll just be until I can work somethin' out with Sister Price next door to my house. As soon as she heal from her hip surgery, she'll be keepin' a eye on the boy. But that won't be for a spell. In the meantime, him and Miss Meg can keep each other occupied,” Effie declared.

Occupied
was a mild word for my relationship with Clyde. The first time I got him alone, I felt his hair and his skin.

“What's wrong with you, girl?” he asked, slapping my hand away. “You don't know me. Don't be puttin' your hands on my hair.” Clyde moved a few steps away and patted his Afro, looking at me with contempt. “It took me all mornin' to get my 'fro lookin' this good. Shoot.”

We were alone in the bedroom I'd once shared with my older sister, Fiona. Fiona was “living” somewhere in the southern part of the state. According to Mom, Fiona shared a “snake pit,” and her drugs, with a bunch of other barefoot hippies. We hadn't seen or heard from her in weeks. She had come home for our Memorial Day barbecue with a long-haired, scruffy, wild-eyed man she'd introduced as Charlie. The world would later know that murderous creep as Charles Manson.

“I just wanted to see what your hair felt like. I like it,” I replied with admiration and pleasure.

“You can tell that just by lookin'. Yall White folks ain't got enough to do, you gotta always be messin' with Black folks. Well, don't nobody mess with me!” Clyde exclaimed.

“I am just tryin' to be friends.” I pouted, adding a sniff.

“Well, I don't need no White girl for no friend,” Clyde insisted, clicking on the portable television set on the dresser facing my bed. “Yall got any pop?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh. But I—”

“Go get me one,” Clyde ordered. He had the same authority in his voice as his grandmother. I sprinted from my room and returned within minutes with a can of Pepsi and a glass of ice on a tray. I handed it to Clyde with a grin. “Go shut that door,” he told me.

I did that, too.

By the end of summer, Clyde had me and most of my friends at his beck and call. We eagerly lent him everything from money to expensive clothes. We marched behind him like he was leading us to the Promised Land. He was usually the only Black boy in the parks where I played with my friends, but that didn't seem to bother him. He was in control, and that intrigued me.

I was sorry when September rolled around that year. Clyde would have no excuse to be in our neighborhood. Living in the guts of East Oakland, Effie enrolled Clyde in one of the roughest elementary schools in Oakland. The year before, a twelve-year-old boy raped a teacher and beat her up so badly she was in a coma for a month. And girls as young as eleven were dropping out of school to have babies.

As the years crawled by, Effie's health declined and she had to reduce her hours at our house. I only got to see her two days a week. I missed her companionship and guidance, but the part of her that I missed the most was Clyde. It was almost eight years from the summer we became friends before I saw Clyde again.

To help out at home, and hopefully keep him out of trouble, Effie made Clyde work after school and between his visits to the juvenile detention center. He had become the kind of boy my mother had warned me about.

That was reason enough for me to keep a safe distance between myself and Clyde Brooks. But I didn't realize that until it was too late.

I
knew Clyde well enough to know that something was bothering him big time. He hadn't been to the apartment in a week for a quick romp in the bed with either me, Ester, or both of us at the same time. And that was something he rarely failed to do at least twice a week. Especially since we had him thinking he was so good in bed, which still was not the case. But it made our lives easier for him to think he was.

Clyde not coming by to flop around in bed with us was one thing, but him not coming around to collect his trick money was another. When he was out of town, it was my responsibility to collect from the girls. And even then, he would call several times a day to make sure I was on my job.

Rockelle claimed that she had spoken to Clyde a day earlier, so we knew he wasn't out of town, in jail, in the hospital, or dead. “He was acting and sounding strange. Even for him,” Rockelle reported, sounding more than a little concerned.

It was a sad subject to bring up, but my guess was that Clyde was having more trouble with his daughter. He never complained about how hard it was to take care of her. But he was always dropping hints about how much he depended on the extra money he got from us, and how he wouldn't know what to do with Keisha if he didn't have us “helping him out.” Since I had lost my only child, and it didn't look like I would have another one anytime soon, parenthood was a depressing subject for me.

As much as I adored Clyde's daughter, I avoided being around her. Mainly because it broke my heart to see a man like Clyde having to deal with such a heavy load as taking care of a severely handicapped adult child. But if my son had lived, it wouldn't have mattered to me if he had horns and hoofed feet. I would have moved mountains if I had to, to make his life worth living. Clyde was not perfect, but his devotion to his daughter was almost saintly. But as it turned out, Clyde's odd behavior had nothing to do with his daughter.

“I called up his grandmother and asked her if everything was all right with Keisha,” Rosalee said. “She handed the telephone to Keisha and she told me herself that she was fine. I asked if she knew what was botherin' her daddy and she said she didn't notice anything different about him.”

Then another week went by. Clyde still hadn't called or come by the apartment or communicated with me or any of the other girls. One of the things that Clyde hated was for us to cancel or turn down a date with a regular. That Friday night, Ester and I both turned down dates with regulars. For the first time, Clyde didn't cuss us out like he usually did when we did that. Then the situation got even more mysterious. Not only was Clyde acting odd, but Ester was looking and acting downright crazy, too. I didn't want to say it to her face, or share my thoughts with Rosalee or Rockelle, but I began to think that Ester and Clyde were in some kind of cahoots. Like maybe she and Clyde were planning a major scam that would involve the rest of us, but not benefit us.

Lately, Ester had a glassy-eyed look on her face. She wasn't running her mouth like a motor the way she usually did. And, she wasn't even eating or drinking as much. That little woman gnawed on tortilla chips and guzzled tequila like it was water. When I finally got up enough nerve to talk to Ester about her strange attitude, she surprised me with a bombshell of a response.

I'd entered her bedroom and found her standing in front of the window, hands on her hips, staring out, looking at the sky. Her long dark hair was in a single braid, hanging across her shoulder like a rope.

“So what if I been acting and looking crazy. I can say the same thing about you,” Ester told me as I shuffled across her bedroom floor, careful not to disturb the expensive, thick throw rugs covering most of her shaggy beige carpet. I never could figure out why Ester covered a carpeted floor with throw rugs. Especially when there were no little kids around to make a mess on it by spilling Kool-Aid and other kid-friendly shit. “You got me worried as much as Clyde,” she added. “You ain't been eatin', you been lookin' weird, and you ain't been talkin' much. Wassup with you, girlfriend?”

Ester was right. I had been acting unlike myself, too. I sighed and plopped down on Ester's bed, which reminded me of her floor. Short thick blankets and about half a dozen pillows hid her beautiful blue goose-down comforter.

“There's this man I met. A bus driver, would you believe,” I laughed, looking upside the wall on the opposite side of the room. “I can't believe I'm sittin' here tellin' you this,” I admitted. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ester's head snap around to face me.

“That's why you acting so strange? Because you met a man? Me, too!” she gasped.

I marched over to Ester with my arms dangling. “You, you met somebody, too?” Then my heart almost stopped. “I hope you ain't gettin' all excited over a trick,” I hollered.

Ester didn't waste any time shaking her head. “What you take me for? I ain't desperate like that Carlene. I would never get serious with a trick.” Carlene Thompson, the woman who had steered Rockelle and Rosalee in Clyde's direction, had recently run off to Las Vegas with one of her regular tricks and married him. They had moved to Richland, Ohio, so that Carlene could help take care of her former madam, Scary Mary, who was in her nineties and raising all kinds of hell.

“Then he's a civilian like my bus driver?”

“Somethin' like that. But I didn't just meet him. I been knowin' him since I was a kid. His name is Manuel Vasquez. Manny. I seen him on my birthday when I was hangin' out in the Mission.” Ester paused. A look appeared on her face that I had never seen before. She smiled, but just a little, and her eyes started blinking real fast, like she was trying to hold back some tears.

“Was he your boyfriend? Or just your man?” I wanted to know.

“My man? What you mean by that?” she snapped, a stunned look on her face.

“Is he, uh, like Clyde?”

“Look, Clyde is the only man in this crazy world that I ever sold my little pussy for. I ain't like them other girls out there, you know that. Shit. Manny would never let me do somethin' like that for him.”

“I didn't mean anything. It's just that…”

Ester held up her hands and gave me a sharp look. Her lips were quivering. “I can't change what I already done in the past, just the future.” Ester moved to the bed and plopped down, her palms flat against her knees. “Manny's a good man, a strong man. He would be good for me.”

“What does he do for a livin' then?” I asked, my heart beating a mile a minute.

As much as I liked Ester, she was one of the crudest women I'd ever known. From what I knew about her, in my opinion, Clyde was probably the best she could do as far as getting a man who wasn't just a trick. I felt bad about feeling the way I did, but I couldn't help it. Unlike Rockelle, who still thought her shit didn't stink, I usually kept certain thoughts to myself. I knew I was not going to be sleeping with men for money until I got so worn out they wouldn't want me. But since Ester had been in the business so much longer than me and never really talked about retiring any time soon, I assumed she'd end up staying in it as long as Carlene did.

I liked Ester and hoped that she was stashing away enough tax-free money in a safe-deposit box like the rest of us, so that she could live comfortably in her old age. “Ester, is Manny dealin' drugs?” My breath caught in my throat when I saw the hurt look on Ester's face. “Uh…or does he have some other hustle goin' on?” The more I talked, the more it seemed like I was putting both my feet deeper and deeper into my mouth.

“He cooks in a restaurant. Happy?” she snapped abruptly, giving me one of the dirtiest looks she could come up with.

“Oh, so he's a chef.” I smiled, hoping it would soften her.

“I ain't said nothin' about no chef. Chefs is what they have in them fancy places downtown. Manny cooks greasy burritos, oxtails, tongue sandwiches, you know all that shit we crazy Mexicans eat.” Ester gave me a dry look. “You think all I can get is a thug, don't you? You think I can't get me a
bus driver
like you?”

“Don't be gettin' all crazy on me. What else could I think? Whatever he is, I'm happy for you. There ain't nothin' wrong with bein' a cook,” I said.

Ester shook her head, and an embarrassed look appeared on her face. “That's what he does now, but he used to do all kinds of other shit, he shouldn't have been doin'. Stealin' shit, sellin' that shit out of his car. Dealin' drugs when he couldn't find nothin' to steal. But he's hella straight-up now. I would be very proud to call him my boo. It's just that, bein' with another man, like that, while I'm still with Clyde…well, I don't want to think about tryin' to please them both.” Ester paused and let out a weak laugh. “You know how deep my people get caught up in that passion shit. When we love somebody, they stay loved.” She let out a loud sigh and shrugged. “But…I don't think I can be with Manny as long as I'm workin' for Clyde. It wouldn't be fair to Clyde, or to Manny, or me.”

Ester's words made the insides of my stomach shift. I joined her on the bed and put my arm around her shoulder. Unless we were in bed, at the same time, with the same man, I rarely got this close to Ester or any of the other women I dealt with.

I nodded and gave her a thoughtful look. Ester's comment about developing a relationship with another man while she was still part of Clyde's crew was ringing in my ears. It was sad but true, but at the moment, I needed Clyde more than I needed a bus driver in my bed. I suddenly found myself wishing that I'd never laid eyes on Richard Rice, or that he had at least been an obnoxious asshole. Then I could have cussed him out that day in Tad's Steakhouse and gone about my business. Love had to be the most painful emotion in the world. It was love that had caused me to make a fool of myself with Larry.

“So, what about the man you met?” Ester asked, turning to face me.

“You know, I must be losin' my mind,” I said with a heavy voice. “Now that I think about him, I realize a broke-ass bus driver ain't nobody I'd want to get involved with. Especially a man with a cheesy name like Richard Rice.”

Telling such a bald-faced lie was so painful the inside of my mouth felt like I'd slid a burning match into it.