The Flowers (16 page)

“I never remember any dreams,” said Mike.

“I do,” Joe said.

“Oh yeah,” said Mike. “Those wet ones.”

“That's not what I meant, pero, you know, now that you mention it.”

“You should see his magazine collection,” said Mike.

Joe slugged Mike.

“Sonny won't think it's bad,” said Mike. “Do you, Sonny?”

“Nah.” I told them how I'd taken those magazines from the mail slot. I don't know why. It just came out. They wailed big
ay
s and
quela
s because they thought it was dangerous.

“It's not shit,” I said. “It's not.”

“I couldn't fucking do it!” said Mike.

“If you bring yours sometime, we'll show you ours,” said Joe.

Mike gave him a look.

“Sonny won't think it's bad,” Joe said. “Huh, Sonny?”

Mike gave him a look again.

Joe shook him off. “We got this collection.”

I didn't say nothing. I was listening.

“There's this one,” said Joe, “where this ruca with the biggest titties you've ever seen is like bent over, like ninety degrees, and they touch la fucking tierra!”

Mike wasn't happy about Joe talking about this. He was rolling his eyes while he was cleaning his glasses.

“These magazines are the really serious everything-goes kind, not like the ones you're ripping off,” Joe said. “Like they show the chicks' pelitos down there, and they show their legs open a la madre, really wide too.”

“Can we talk about something else?” said Mike. “My brother talks about anything. You know, some things you don't have to tell everybody.”

“I'm not saying anything so much,” said Joe. “My brother makes it seem like he don't like to look, and he looks, I know.”

Mike shoved Joe. “Shut up, will you? Will you shut the fuck up?”

Pink was under the hood of a Bel Air outside The Flowers when I was walking by. It was a good-looking one, even jacked up in the back a little. He had tools out and grease on his white white arm with the sleeves of a dark satiny dress shirt rolled up. His hair, which was both bristly and long at the same time, had a streak of white in it, which made the yellow rest of it look even more fake.

“This one's yours, you want it, little brother,” he told me.

“I wish.”

“You gotta move yourself up, my man. You got to, you wanna get anything or get anywhere.” He pulled himself out from under the hood. His smiling teeth were whiter than you could imagine, and they were big as show-off jewelry—which made you realize he was not really a small dude. Because his skin was so colorless—the pink scar was it—his size wasn't what you usually thought about.

“You have a buyer yet?” I asked.

“Maybe. It's why I do this. All it needs here is a tune job. But see I sell my automobiles to black folk, as you know, and this kind here is not their brand. That's why I'm thinking of you. You gotta own this automobile, you got to. You a good young man
and I'm cutting you a deal. You tell your mama to get her new daddy to buy it for you. I say the fine lady could sugar him up to anything she wanted sugared, including buying you these wheels.”

“I'm not really old enough. I don't even got a license.”

“Shit, you told me, didn't you, and I didn't remember. But no matter, no matter, I wasn't no sixteen when I started to drive. Where I came up, it don't much matter.”

“Where are you from?”

“Why you asking?”

He turned and answered so quick, the blow of it hit my face. “Nothing, just curious,” I told him, “just wondering.”

“You're not asking 'cause of Longpre, are you?” He was talking like I was pushing and he was about to hit a wall except I saw a lot of open street behind his back. “Is Longpre asking questions about me?” That got him a little too agitated, and he backed off and stepped forward. He even shut his eyes when he shook his head to disapprove of himself. “Listen to me. We're buddies, ain't that so?”

I nodded.

“And in my experience, and by numbers, you aren't cozy with your stepdaddy. Am I right?”

I wasn't sure how honest to be or why I should be. “It was my mom that married the dude,” I said.

“There you go and there you have it, it's what I'm saying, that's how I understand it.” He got his breath close to me and would've put his hand on my shoulder if it wasn't greasy. “Young brother, what we say to each other, it's between us. You see what I'm saying?”

I was looking at his scar, which could seem raw and wet.

“Right?” he said.

“Okay,” I said.

“All right, all right, that's good, that's real good, real good.”

* * *

I saw my mom, but I didn't think she either heard the door or saw me because I was shooting through fast. She was dressed to go out again, only it was a dress I'd seen before. It didn't even seem very new. She had too much perfume on, in my opinion, because once I was inside, I thought I remembered smelling it from outside. I wanted to tell her even as I was also wanting to pass by without saying nothing. It wasn't like her, at least I didn't remember her having so much smell ever before.

I was already in the bedroom I slept in on the bed I slept on. I'd heard her when she said she wanted to talk to me but I closed the door like I didn't. I did not want to talk.

She opened the door. “Don't you hear me?”

“I guess not.”

“What's the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Mad about what?”

“There's nothing,” she said, “so let's drop it.”

“I didn't bring anything up.”

“I have to go out,” she said, “but I won't be very long.”

“Okay,” I said. “See you.”

“I'll be back before Cloyd comes in.”

I didn't care.

“If he comes in though. …”

“I won't say nothing.”

“I was going to say. …”

“What I'll just say is you weren't here when I got in.”

“Okay, that's good, thank you.”

She was still standing there. “So?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said. “Este es algo que no te vas a gustar, que you won't like.”

“What? What is?”

“What I have to talk about.”

Nothing was being said. “I thought you were in a hurry,” I said.

“Okay, es que … it's that Gina, the woman who lives next door, who lives with Ben—”

“The ones who live in Number Two. I know their names.”

“Yes. Well, she came over. She said you've been stealing some magazines that belong to them.”

“Whadaya mean that she said that? Did she say she saw me take magazines?”

“I don't know if she said she saw you. I think she says she thinks it's you.”

“I didn't do it,” I said.

“That's what I told her. I told her you wouldn't do that.”

“Good. Thanks.”

“She says it couldn't be anyone else.”

“I don't know why it could only be me.”

“Well, what she says is that before we moved in, they never didn't get the magazines. And now—”

“Well, I didn't do it.”

“Bueno. I just wanted you to know what she said.”

It made me mad. I didn't like to be accused of shit. I decided to go out, get out of this bedroom I slept in.

“Where you going?” she asked me on my way.

“Out there,” I said.

“I won't be long tonight, okay m'ijo?”

She wasn't saying what she really wanted to say, which was about what to tell him.

Though there wasn't much blue sky, Mr. Josep was sunning himself on the deck outside his apartment and waved me over. As I went, he pushed his door open and dragged out another wooden chair. I went ahead and sat there next to him, but he wasn't talking
so it felt kind of awful, so much I swore I'd never be nice like this ever again. I was watching for my mom to move out and get in her car, but she didn't. It was smoggy, so all you could see were electric poles that were close, a few pigeons on them. I could hear the TV on in Nica's apartment, a Mexican talk show, but there was so much noise coming from everywhere, my ears hurt like all of it came from being near his chair.

“How is school?”

I wanted to fucking moan! “Fine.” I should've gotten up right then and ran. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to steal something. I wanted to go to his office and get that money.

“School is best thing you do,” he said.

I got up. “I better go do my work,” I said.

“Wait. Sit one minute right here,” he said.

I didn't, but I didn't walk away.

“You like her, don't you?”

I didn't really want to talk, I really didn't. I nodded.

He winked at me. It was stupid, an old man's dumb wink.

“Good when you are your age,” he said.

I didn't know or care what he meant, and I wished I weren't there.

“She is the bad woman,” he said, winking.

It took me some seconds to realize he was talking about Cindy and I was talking about Nica.

“I say bad,” he said, “and I mean good. Good for you for being a man.” He was smiling.

I remembered that he saw her that day. I slowed my brain, came back.

“Only you have to be careful,” he said. “You know, because of husband.” He wasn't even looking at me. “Two or three days ago, it is me,” he said.

I thought I heard him say two or three days ago, but that didn't make sense.

“He is bad,” he said. “I mean bad, bad for you. You understand?”

Cindy's TV was on, a game show that hurt the ears. The apartment was hating the noise too—drying pizza slices were curling up as they tried to escape the box, fast food bags were torn raw and cups flattened out, aluminum cans of beer and soda even wrinkled away and, the biggest losers, cigarettes were crushed in and on them. The apartment stank but not of a smell, not just of drugs and wine and beer but of something fucking up.

“Where have you been?” she asked. She turned away from the door and flopped onto her couch, swinging her bare feet onto the cushions. “I didn't know if you were ever going to visit me again.”

“What?” I said, teasing.

“I didn't know. …”

“What?”

She turned the TV down.

“I haven't been seeing you around,” I said, the only thing I could think of saying. There were clothes hanging on chairs and at the edges of the floor. “Like down in the laundry room.”

“So did you forget where my door is,” she said, “or how to knock on it?”

I didn't say anything back and the game show got quiet for a longer time than usual.

“What's been going on with you?” I asked her.

“I'm lonely here, and I'm bored.”

I nodded.

She wanted me to say something else.

“What're you watching?” I asked.

“Whatever's on.”

I was still standing, looking to not sit. Now I didn't feel like staying either. Whatever brought me up here. I'd forgotten
this fast. I think I'd been mad and now I wasn't and I wanted to get out.

She lit up one of her mota cigarettes. She smoked some, then she passed it to me. At first I didn't think I would. Then we passed it back and forth a few times.

Suddenly she wasn't watching the show, she was watching me. “Come here.”

Not thinking enough, I did.

“Do it to me this time,” she whispered.

I wasn't sure what I heard because I'd never heard what I thought I just heard.

She put my hand under her T-shirt. Then she put her hand on me. She led me to the bedroom. She took off her top and her cut-off sweats—no underwear. She fell on her back but then just as quickly sat up. I hadn't done anything yet but stand there. She dropped my pants and put her mouth on me. She pulled me onto her. She rolled us and got on top of me. Time passed. Still light out, a faded white coming through the curtain, it blackened in my brain, then the colors and shapes were crossing the back side of my eyes while I watched her and her body with the front of them. She whispered what to do, how hard, how soft. She moved my hands, made them like her hands touching herself, had them touch her where I wouldn't have gone otherwise. When she said she wanted me, she made me want so much I ached like I lost something permanent in me down there, the pleasure hurting so much I couldn't imagine it working ever again. Then, we did it all again, its world so far from where we really were, the light so far away from wherever that was.

Until I remembered where I was. I remembered because the two eyes opened and there was a photo between the piles of envelopes and cream jars and shoe boxes and brushes and everything on and falling off a bedroom dresser. Of her and Tino, the drug dealer. I couldn't look straight at him, into his
photographed eyes, so I made mine go to his white teeth smiling and then my brain saw a rack of guns like Cloyd's and then I imagined I heard one but I couldn't hear it go off. Which is how it is, I heard.

“I better get outta here,” I said, getting up fast. “You're gonna get me killed.” I was a lot more scared than when I, like, took something.

“He's at work.” She didn't care what I said, or she wasn't worried, or she really didn't care.

“We don't even know what time it is.”

“It's all right, he's at work.”

“But what if he comes home?” I might have sounded mad. I was almost dressed.

“He's at work,” she said again, but now she was getting up. “So you're gonna leave right now? You're gonna leave me here? Please don't leave me here.”

“What're you saying I should do?”

“Stay. We can watch TV.”

“Watch TV?”

“I don't wanna be alone,” she said in a girly voice. “Please?”