Erasure (18 page)

“I hate you,” she scream.

“And I hate you too,” I says. “What that got to do wif anythin?”

I run on out the house and into the street and I be laughin. I run through a coupla backyards in case the uncle got a gun or some shit and I come out on the next street.

I be on my way to the pool hall where I’m gone tell Tito and Yellow about the young pussy and that fat uncle muthafucka. They gone laugh, I just know it. I round the corner near the school when it just gettin to be dusk and I see a coupla headlights comin down the street real slow. I think, who the fuck is this? And then I see it’s a Jeep and a buncha niggers jump out and start runnin at me. I run, man. These is some fast niggers too. I try to climb the fence at the basketball courts. One of them catches my leg and I kick him off and then I get over. I run into the shadows and slip through a hole in the wall and down an alley. Then I kick into this abandon buildin and hide, be real quiet. I don’t hear ‘em. Then I realize somebody in there wif me.

“Who dat?” I say.

“Who dat?” he ax. Then he start laughin. He strike a match and light a candle. It’s that Willy wino muthafucka.

“Put that candle out, nigger,” I say.

“Shit, they gone, boy,” he say. “What they want you fo’?”

“Some rich boy. I kick his ass and now he comin back wif his posse. Muthafucka. I bet not catch his ass alone.”

“You bad, huh?”

I look at his red eyes behind that candle. “Yeah, I’m bad.”

“I used to be bad my ownself,” he say.

“You sho ain’t bad now,” I say. “No, man, you worst.” I laughs at my joke.

“You a funny nigger too, huh?” he say. “How yo mama?”

“Don’t be bringin up my mama,” I tell him.

“She still got that mole just under her tittie?” he say.

I get up and I’m bout to kick his ass.

“Sit down, boy,” he say with this hard voice that don’t sound like it could come out his head.

I sit back down.

“Listen, boy, I’m gone tell you somethin. I done fucked up my life.”

“No shit,” I says.

“Shut up and listen,” he say. “I don’t want you fuckin up the way I did.”

“Who the fuck you be to me,” I say. “I don’t know you from shit.”

“That don’t matter none,” he say. “I don’t want you messin up and hurtin your mama. She been through enuff.”

“What the fuck you talkin bout?” I ax. “I’m gettin the fuck outta here.” I move to the door.

“Yo mama is a good woman,” he say.

“Yeah and you a wino,” I say. “So, what your point?”

“Don’t fuck up,” he say.

“Yeah, well, you too,” I say. “And Merry Christmas and Happy Easter.”

At the pool hall Tito in the back gettin his dick suck by that fat ho who come around sometime. That what Yellow tells me. I halfway wants to go back there and watch, but I don’t. The ho might get after me and I don’t want none of that shit. Tito let anything suck his dick. Yellow be lookin at me.

“What you lookin at?” I say.

“Why you sweatin?” he ax.

I thinks about tellin him about that Jeep muthafucka, but I don’t like the way runnin sound in my head. “I took a coupla shots over at the hoops,” I say.

“You was shootin baskets,” he laugh.

“What so funny?” I ax.

“You out there shootin baskets,” he say. “What really happen?”

“That’s what happen,” I say. “Now, shut the fuck up.”

Tito in back and he hear us. “What’s goin on?” he say.

“Nothin,” I say. “Nigger just gettin on my nerves.”

“Yeah, well I ain’t the only one be gettin on nerves,” Yellow say.

“Watch where you steppin, funky ass muthafucka,” I say and I gives him a hard look.

“Fuck you,” he say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” he say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” he say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” he say.

“Why don’t you two niggers just go outside and fuck each other,” Tito say.

That fat ho come from out the back and walk past. She wave her fingers at Tito.

I shakes my head. “How can you let that ugly bitch put her mouth on yo thang?” I ax.

“She better lookin than yo babies’ mama,” he say. “At least she know what she doin.”

“Don’t be talkin bout my babies’ mamas,” I say.

“Like you give a shit, nigger,” he say. He pull out a cigarette and strike a match.

Fatman yell over to him. “No smokin!”

“It too cold to be outside, Fatman. Let a nigger have his fix.”

Fatman must be tired cause he don’t say nothing else.

Yellow chalk up a stick and smile at me. “So, what happen with that jailbait,” he ax.

“I knocked it out big time,” I say.

“What could that little girl do for a man?” Tito say.

I just look at him.

“Fuckin children and havin babies don’t make you no man,” he say.

“What yo’ problem,” I ax. “Why you comin down on me?”

“Let’s play pool,” he say.

Now, I’m really upset. We shoot a game without sayin nothin. Tito be smokin his fourth cigarette and be puttin ‘em out on the floor. Fatman come over and look at Tito.

“See, that another reason I don’t want you niggers smokin in here. Look at this shit.”

“Shut up, Fatman,” Tito say. “You gots to sweeps the fucka anyway.”

“Yeah,” Yellow says.

Fatman grumbles and walk on back to his stool behind the counter.

“You guys ever look at the Willy the Wonker muthafucka?” I ax.

Tito sink the five and look at me. “You mean the wino over near the courts?” he ax.

“Yeah,” I say.

“I seen him,” Tito say. “Why? What he to you?”

“He ain’t nuffin to me.”

“Why you be askin bout him then?” Yellow ax.

“You shut the fuck up,” I say.

“Suck my dick,” he say.

“Whip it out, muthafucka,” I say.

“I would but I don’t wanna make you cry,” he say.

“Listen to you two niggers,” Tito say. “Sound like you be twelf years old. Talkin shit like that.”

“Fuck both you,” I say and I walk out.

Next mornin I gets up and I wash my pits cause they real funky from workin and gettin on that gash. I puts on some clean drawers too, then I sit on the bed and look at the Mickey Mouse clock I got during the riots. Niggers was laughin at me left and right, pointin at the clock. They had TV’s and stereos, but, shit, I liked the fuckin clock. Made me think of Dissyland. I was there once and all I can remember is that Main Street and me thinkin “this is what it s’posed to be like.” Fuck ‘em for laughin at my clock. The shit work. Time just keep movin, them hands keep sweepin and that make me think about work. I work there two weeks and I’m gone have enough for my gun. And then, watch out. Van Go gone be gone and went.

I go out to the table and Baby Girl already be sitting there workin on a bowl of Life cereal. “You like that shit, don’t you, Baby Girl,” I say.

Mama turn around at the stove and say, “Don’t be swearin’ in fron’ o her like that, boy.”

I don’t pay her no ‘tention. I sit down and eat the eggs she slide in front of me. “Ain’t you got no meat?” I say.

“No, that’s it,” she say.

I think about gettin up and walkin out. No meat? What kind of shit? But I be hongry, so I eat.

“How you like yo job?” Mama ax.

“It a job.”

“Lois say they house is like a mansion,” Mama say.

“It is a mansion, Mama,” I say. “That nigger is loaded.”

“Don’t be callin Mr. Dalton that,” she say.

“You call me that,” I say. “’Cause he gots bucks he ain’t no nigger? ‘Cause I ain’t got nuffin, I am?”

“Shut up, nigger,” she say.

She look at me and I look at her and we bust out laughin. It feel good to laugh with Mama again. We laugh for a few minutes and then I tells her I gots to get to work.

“Okay, nigger,” she say.

We laugh again.

I get on the bus and start my trip over to the hills. I’m still laughin in my head about what Mama say. She give me three dollars ‘fore I left. So, I be sittin on the bus and this white girl get on and sit cross from me. She look like she goin to work.

“Goin to work?” I ax.

She nod and look away.

“Where you work at?” I ax.

“I work at a store,” she say, still not lookin at me.

“What sto?”

She don’t say nuffin.

“What sto?”

Nuffin.

I leans forward and put my elbows on my knees. “You ‘fraid I’m gone walk into the place you work at and say hello?”

She shake her head.

“I come in there and say hello and yo’ boss take you aside and say, ‘Who that nigger?’ That what you ‘fraid of?”

She get up and walk on to the back of the bus. An old black woman who been listenin be starin at me.

“What you lookin at?” I ax.

She look away.

I walks another six blocks after I get off the bus. I guess rich folk don’t like buses comin too close to they houses. Maybe it the fumes they don’t like. Maybe it’s guys like me. Shit, I don’t know. I just walks up the hill past the big driveways and I sees the gardeners starin at me. Most of ‘em is oriental and they givin me the evil eye and I thinks about the gun I’m gone buy and how I’m gone rob that K’rean mutha.

I walk up the driveway and Dalton honk his horn at me as he drive out. I wave and I feel stupid doin it. I put my hands in my pockets. When I gets to the door, Lois is standin there and she be lookin at her watch.

“Well, you ain’t too late,” she say.

“I ain’t got no watch,” I say.

“That ain’t my problem,” she say. “You make yo’self some money, maybe you kin buy you a watch.”

“I ain’t got no need fo’ no watch,” I say. “Time is the white man’s. Time ain’t mine.”

“Nigger, you crazy,” she say.

I laugh, cause I ‘member Mama callin me a nigger at the house that mornin. I laugh and Lois laugh too, but she don’t know why I be laughin.

“Come on in and gets to work,” she say. “First thing you gots to do is wash the cars.” She lead the way into the room off the kitchen. “All the keys be in this here cabinet. They is four cars in the big garage. You takes ‘em out one at a time and washes ‘em.”

“How I s’posed to get ‘em out?” I ax.

“I told you, simple, the keys in this here cabinet,” she say.

“You mean, I drives the cars out?” I say.

“I swear, you
is
as stupid as you look,” she say.

I think about gettin mad cause she call me stupid, but I’m too excited about drivin them cars, even if it is just out the garage. I takes all the keys and go outside. The doors be open and there’s them cars. I wonder why they needs to be washed. They already be so shiny that they ‘bout to blind my ass. They’s this one little red car, real low down to the ground, one of them F’raris. I gets in behind the wheel and it be like a glove and I wish Tito and Yellow could see my ass now, looking all fine up in there with the leather. I turn the muthafuckin key and the sound damn near make me shit my pants. Varoooom! That engine sound like the army coming through, but smooth as sick shit. I thinks that one day I gots to have me one of them. ‘Cept I wants a black one. Black on black with a red stripe run straight down through the middle of the muthafucker. I put it in gear and roll it out into the yard and my heart be beatin like nobody’s goddamn bizness. Kabamada kabamada kabamada, my heart be poundin. I turn off the engine and get out. I close the door and step away and look at it, tryin to wonder what I look like when I was sittin behind that wheel.

“Nigger, you better get to washin that car and stop yo dreamin,” Lois call at me from the glass door.

I gets the hose and the bucket from the shed and I’m rinsin this muthafucker off when this fine ass bitch come out the house with this bikini on and I think I’m gone die for damn sho. The bitch put her towel on one of the lounge chairs and then she dive into the water. It don’t even look like she make a splash. I’m watchin her, but I can’t see for shit from where I am wif the car. I walk over to the hedge so I can look over at her. She sees me lookin at her and I turn away. I be a long way from the car and I feel kinda stupid. I think shit I better git back on over there and wash that damn car. I go back and I start sloppin suds on the muthafucka and I hear somebody callin to me. I turns around and there that bitch in the bikini, standin at the hedge.

“Yeah you,” she say. “Come over here.”

I walk over to her and I’m feelin kinda scared and then I feels kinda mad cause I hates feelin scared.

“What’s your name?” she ax. Her eyes is bright.

“My name be Van Go,” I says. “Van Go Jenkins. But my friends, they calls me Go.”

“Go,” she says. “I like that.”

“I’m Penelope,” she say. “Penelope Dalton. When did Daddy hire you?”

“Other day,” I say. And I find I cain’t look right at her.

“Well, I hope he’s paying you okay,” she say. “Daddy can be pretty tight.”

“He payin okay,” I say.

“How old are you?” she ax.

“Why you wanna know that?” I say.

“Just a question,” she say.

“Twenty,” I tells her.

“I’m twenty-two,” she say. “I just finished school. Stanford. What about you? You go to school?”

“No.”

“Did you finish high school?” she ax.

“Listen, I gotta get back to washin that car,” I says. I feels sick.

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” she say. “Maybe we can talk again soon.”

“Sure,” I says.

“Hey, can you drive?” she ax.

“Sho, I can drive,” I say.

“Good,” she say. “I’ll be right back.”

So, I be finishin up wif the car and wonderin what this bitch got in mind fo’ me. I’m gettin all nervous, waitin and wonderin. I gets the car all rinsed off and sits down on the bumper.

Lois yell out at me from the house. “What you doin’? Ain’t nobody payin you to sit round.”

“Mr. Dalton’s daughter told me to wait here,” I say.

Lois come out the house. “Why she tell you that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Boy, you bet be careful now,” she say.

“What you talkin bout, ol’ lady,” I say to her. “I ain’t studyin you.” “You bet be studyin sumpin,” she say.

Penelope Dalton come back out the house then. She wearin this tight, short dress what look mo’ like a slip than anythin else.