Standing at the Scratch Line (21 page)

The little man spun to face his attacker, ready to pull his machine gun from hiding, and saw that it was a woman. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded with an angry scowl.

“Looking for the women’s lounge,” Doris answered, slurring her words and holding her stomach. “I’m feeling sick.” She swayed dangerously off balance before she regained control of her equilibrium. She looked down and saw that she had dropped a piece of jewelry. “Oh, my mother’s pin.”

The little man picked up his hat and turned his back on her disdainfully. “Damned drunks!”

Doris bent over to pick up her pin but she was so unstable that she had to make several attempts. Finally, she stooped to grasp it but, as she did so, her buttocks were pressing deep into the curtains. On impulse, King pinched the woman’s behind very hard. The woman leaped straight up in the air and shrieked. Given her condition, it was an athletic move that one wouldn’t have thought her capable of making. What was even more miraculous was that she only staggered a little bit when she landed. She was still swaying unevenly when she turned on the little man and pointed a finger at him. “Ya’ little wart! Ya’ low-down bum, trying to strong-arm a feel from me, a married woman! Who do you think you’re messin’ with? I’ll break your jaw, you little pig!”

The little man turned to face the woman again. “Shut yer yap, woman! I din’t do nothin’! But I’m gettin’ real tired of your drunken squawkin’!”

“You tired, are you? You ain’t seen tired!” Doris declared, shifting her weight noticeably—she was too unstable to stand still. She continued, raising her voice. “I’m the one that’s tired. I got a two-timin’ husband who’s got the gall to have his girlfriend sit at my table! My feet are killin’ me and I got one ragin’ headache! So, give me any more lip and I’ll knock your scrawny little ass into next week!”

“Ahhhh, ya’ couldn’t knock the ash off the end of my cigarette!” The little man dismissed her with a wave of his hand and straightened the brim of his hat with a swaggering gesture. It was like waving a red flag at a bull.

Doris was a woman of robust stature with massive breasts and powerful shoulders. She charged the little man like a tank, running right at him. Unfortunately, her alcohol consumption affected her aim. She missed the little man, who dodged her easily, and ran directly into Lefty, who was blindsided because he was studying the crowd for King. Their heads cracked together. The impact knocked Lefty off his feet and sent him skidding across the floor on his back. Doris staggered around holding her forehead with both hands, but surprisingly she maintained her balance. She wailed as she struggled to stay erect, “Oh, God, my head! My head!”

King watched as Lefty struggled to his feet and saw the look of rabid anger on his face. Lefty started toward Doris with his fists balled up, but his companion intercepted him.

The little man grabbed Lefty’s arm. “Forget her. We got business to tend to.”

Lefty shrugged off the little man’s hand and said, “It’ll keep for a minute. Mostly, I just want to knock this old bitch out!”

The little man backed out of the way and stood against the curtain. “Have it your way.”

Doris saw Lefty coming toward her. She saw the look in his eyes and suddenly he personified all the cruel, senseless men who had populated her life. She was unafraid; in fact, she was ready to do battle. She tottered forward to meet him.

The little man was standing with his back to the curtains. It was too inviting a target; King could not resist. King hit him on his head with the butt of his pistol and the little man fell like a sack of potatoes.

The collapse of his companion brought Lefty back to the purpose of his mission. He stared around wildly, seeking the cause of the little man’s fall. He turned into the flailing arms of the oncoming Doris, who promptly whacked him across the face with a loud slap. In trying to avoid the rest of Doris’s attack, Lefty fell backward over the little man’s fallen body. He rose to his feet, cursing. “Goddamn it! You old bat, you asked for it now!” Lefty started for Doris, but he was once more intercepted, this time by the waiter who was now carrying a heavily stacked tray of used glasses. He cautioned, “Now, suh, I knows you ain’t thinkin’ ’bout hittin’ no lady, is you?”

Lefty shoved the waiter out of his way roughly, knocking the tray full of glasses from his hands. The glasses crashed to the floor, leaving the waiter holding an empty tray, which he promptly used as a weapon, banging Lefty solidly on the back of his head. Lefty turned angrily to face the waiter. Doris, who had been staring about drunkenly looking for her enemies, now collapsed with a loud belch into the curtains, falling into the recessed doorway of the storeroom. The curtains, unable to bear her weight, were pulled from their moorings, exposing King.

Lefty turned, saw King standing not five feet away with a pistol in his hand, and was momentarily immobilized. Sheila’s loud, brash voice cut through the tableau. She had returned with reinforcements. “There’s one of the bastards that attacked poor Doris!” she screamed, pointing at Lefty. Lefty saw the forces arrayed against him and turned and ran out the door leading to the patio. He was followed by five or six angry white men.

King holstered his weapon unobtrusively and stepped over the little man’s body. He was standing on the periphery when Butterball Brown appeared with a large meat cleaver and demanded, “What’s going on here?” King walked over to him, briefly explained the situation, and advised him about the machine gun and the small man still lying under the curtains. Butterball agreed to take the little man and put him, tied and gagged, in the storeroom in the back.

There was a chorus of voices around Doris’s unconscious body, with Sheila’s being the loudest. People were attempting to remove Doris from the entangled curtains, where she lay with only her feet exposed.

Big Ed came up to King. Leah and Mamie were with him. “We better get out of here before that guy calls for backup,” said Big Ed.

“Are you alright?” Mamie inquired, running her hands affectionately over King’s shoulders. King answered with a nod and then ushered his friends through the kitchen to the back door. On their way to the kitchen they encountered Ira and his wife, who were also intending to use the Biloxi’s back door as an emergency exit.

“We heard the commotion and decided that the back door was the best way out,” Ira said with his arm around his wife’s shoulders.

“I don’t know about that,” King warned. “One of them got chased out into the alley.”

“Let me go first and take a look,” Big Ed offered. “He doesn’t know me.”

“Do you know him? What he looks like?” King asked doubtfully. Big Ed shook his head. “Then I’ll go first.” King pushed open the door and stepped outside. The rain had stopped and all the late diners were gone. The light over the back door cast elongated shadows everywhere that King looked. He dropped into a crouch and slipped behind one of the large garbage cans that was in the shadows against the wall.

Without waiting for King’s all clear, Ira and Big Ed came out of the building and stood out in the middle of the alley. Ira waved in the direction of the Biloxi for the women to come out. There was no movement in the alley other than that of Ira and Big Ed. King got to his feet and walked over to join them. As the women walked out the back door, a man stood up from behind a car that was parked down the alley and began firing his weapon in the direction of the three men.

“Watch out!” shouted Ira as he pushed King aside. The first bullet hit Ira in the shoulder with a sickening thud and spun him around. The second bullet creased King’s ear as he fell to the wet pavement. The third bullet ricocheted off the building over King’s head. King began returning the fire while still on the ground. One of his shots knocked the man backward out of sight.

King crawled over to check on Ira, who was gasping with pain. Ira was holding his left shoulder while blood pulsed between his fingers. When King saw that the wound was not in a vital spot, he patted Ira’s shoulder and took off in a crouching run toward the car that was shielding their attacker. The man had started running toward the end of the alley, hoping to make it to the corner. King stood and fired off a quick shot. The man’s body jerked as he stumbled and fell. He staggered to his feet again and continued running for the corner. He was almost there when King’s next shot knocked him off his feet again.

“Call a doctor, please!” screamed Ira’s wife as she rushed to her husband’s side. Big Ed picked himself off the pavement, went over to Ira, and applied pressure to the wound to limit the loss of blood. Leah ran back inside the Biloxi to call an ambulance. King trotted toward the end of the alley, expecting to find his assailant lying in the street. The man was gone. There was a trail of blood leading toward to the corner. King approached the corner cautiously and when he reached it, he saw a taxi accelerating away from the curb.

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Mamie Walcott picked up the tray of drinks and carried it into her living room. King and Big Ed and a couple of their army buddies were meeting to decide what action to take as a response to the attempted hit earlier that week. The conversation between the men was quiet, but there was an underlying tension that permeated the room. She set the drinks down and let her hand slide caressingly across King’s shoulders, then left the room, for the men had stopped talking as soon as she entered. It made her feel like a stranger in her own apartment.

She lit a cigarette and sat down in the kitchen. She let the smoke out slowly, savoring its taste. King had spent the last week with her and they were beginning to learn about each other. In time it was the blink of an eye, but it felt old and comfortable, like a pair of shoes that had molded to the wearer’s feet. It wasn’t just the sex, although he had awakened in her an animal energy that she had thought was long ago exhausted. She liked the fact that he never forced things, but always allowed her to move at her own speed. She knew by the feel of his hands that he had been with other women. There was a confidence and electricity in his touch that caused her skin to tingle and the memory of the way their bodies moved together made her anxious with anticipation when she knew that she would see him soon. There was a maleness about him that seemed almost prehistoric and it appeared to fit seamlessly with her womanness in a manner that she had never before experienced. He had slipped beneath her armor and touched her in tender places. It didn’t make sense. He was too young to stir her heart.

She could still see King talking earnestly with his companions at the opposite end of the hall that separated the two rooms. The bullets that whizzed over her head on Monday night had reminded her of how fragile life actually was, a slender thread so easily pulled beyond its tensile strength. She had seen many shootings in Harlem, and instead of frightening her, it made her feel safer with King. She smiled to think, she had almost walked away from the opportunity to know him and now she was greedy for the hours they spent together.

King walked down the hallway toward the kitchen. “Did we drink all that brandy I bought?” he asked her with a slight smile.

“No, honey,” she said, standing up and going over to the pantry. “We have two bottles left.” She handed him a fifth of brandy. He had followed her and was standing right next to her as she turned to face him. She felt his warm hand slide slowly down her back to her buttocks and felt him slowly squeeze her buttocks. It didn’t surprise her that she was already wet and that her body fairly tingled with his touch. He set the brandy on the table and lifted her chin and kissed her lips.

“Ain’t no woman got a behind like a colored woman!” he proclaimed softly as he picked up the brandy and headed back into the living room.