The Innocents (4 page)

I
’m taking his ass out for what he done,” Nito said.

“What he done?” Ordeen said.

“Man called the cops,” Nito said. “Shit. You know I’m right.”

“Hell no, I don’t know you right. All I know is, I spent the goddamn night in jail and don’t want to go back.”

“We gotta get straight on this shit,” Nito said. “Blackjack is our world. We the North Side Boys. We own this place.”

“’Cause no one else want it,” Ordeen said.

“Got damn.”

“Come on, man. Sammi’s our friend. He wouldn’t call the cops. He fuck us, he fuck himself. You know how much money he making ’cause of us? We do business and he do business. Why else folks come to Blackjack ’cept to die?”

Nito Reece sat behind the wheel of a ’72 Chevy Nova, electric blue,
with chrome rims and an airbrushed license tag reading
HERE KITTY KITTY
. Ordeen Davis leaned back in the passenger seat, bare feet up on the dash, with the stereo pumping out Rick Ross. Down on Elvis Presley Boulevard.
Got the dogfood, the soft, nigga, and the hard / You can tell them crackers they can go and get the dogs.
They passed a big fat blunt between them. Ordeen had rolled it just right.

“Well, someone knew we had that gun, pills, weed, and shit,” Nito said. “Police got us not ten minutes after leaving the Gas & Go. What the hell’s that about? Come on. Use your fucking head, Ordeen.”

“You say he snitchin’?”

“Now you thinking, boy,” Nito said. “Got damn. I think football done scrambled your brains.”

“OK. OK.”

“OK?” Nito said. “OK? OK what?”

They sat parked at a crazy angle about twenty yards from the front of the Gas & Go. Windows all smoked-up, whole body of that Chevy shaking like hell. “We doin’ it?” Ordeen said. “Then let’s do this shit.”

“Gotta leave the motor running. Don’t want to wake up Little Ray. You seen him in the game last night? Ooh, shit. That boy need his rest. He goin’ D-1.”

“Boy can hit, but that motherfucker better grow a foot.”

“Fuck you, man.”

“Look at your brother,” Ordeen said. “Big ears. Big feet. Small body. Look like a damn gremlin.”

Ordeen crawled out of the Nova, radio still cranked up high, as Nito followed, cupping his hand to the hot wind to light a cigarette. The fluorescent lights over the pump shone on Nito’s lean body and hard swagger. He had short hair, light gray eyes, and a mouthful of gold teeth. Both of them wore dark jeans, loose at the waist, big ole Chicago
White Sox jerseys, and thick gold chains that weren’t real gold. Ordeen wore his hair in long braids with a gray ball cap worn sideways.

The Gas & Go windows were filled with ads for cold beer, cigarettes, fried chicken, and pizza. When he pushed open the door, a little bell rang and Sammi looked up from the counter, where he’d been messing with his phone. The damn place smelled like old grease and cigarette smoke. “Surprise, motherfucker,” Nito said. “Can’t keep them North Side Boys down.”

Sammi was a little older than them, his daddy owning the store, and two more over in Pontotoc. He was Iraqi, Pakistani, Muslim, or some shit, but tried like hell to fit in with the niggas in Tibbehah. He’d shaved his black beard in razor-thin strips along his jaw and over his lips. He wore a ball cap just like Ordeen’s and a blue T-shirt about four sizes too big that said
GRIT AND GRIND
. His black hair was long and curly, shining with some Mideast oils or Jheri Curl.

Nito walked up to the cash register and leaned his forearms against the counter. Sammi looked back down at the phone, like he was trying to figure out something, and paid them no damn mind.

“You talkin’ to the cops again,” Nito said. “Ain’t you? Tellin’ them to come on back to Blackjack and take ole Ordeen and Nito’s black asses to jail.”

Sammi lifted his big brown eyes from the phone and just stared directly at Nito like he was bored as hell.
Oh, hell no.

“You messin’ with us,” Nito said. “You seen us in here with that gun we sportin’. You knew we were rolling last night. Don’t know who else could have done it.”

“You want something?” Sammi said. “Fried chicken’s old. I’ll give it to you for half price.”

“Don’t want no old-ass chicken,” Nito said. “I want you to be
straight. You call the police and tell her we got a pistol, rolling up into Jericho, smoking a blunt.”

Sammi put down the phone and shook his head. “You’re crazy, Nito.”

Ordeen shook his head. He took a deep breath and tried to look away, look at all that damn snack food. He could stand the talk. But, man, he sure hated to see the blood.

Nito kind of smiled and shook his head, offering his hand to Sammi. Sammi glanced up to Ordeen, who shrugged and reached out to meet Nito’s hand. The hand shot back and bitch-slapped that Middle Eastern boy right across his face. “Don’t you fuck me.”

“I’m not fucking you.”

“I say you called the sheriff. You tell me why.”

“I didn’t call anyone.”

“Come on, man,” Nito said. He slapped Sammi again, this time harder, and the crack of it filled the Gas & Go. Ordeen pretended to look at some chips, seeing that the BBQ Lay’s now had half the fat of other chips. He reached for some pork cracklins and walked back to the cooler for a six-pack of Keystone.

“If you don’t leave, I will call the cops.”

“Last thing you do.”

“Hit me again.”

Nito slapped Sammi again. Ordeen reached for some hot sauce to go with the cracklins. His momma wasn’t cooking tonight, staying at church until late. Either it was them cracklins or a cheeseburger at the Sonic. Tonight he’d be sleeping on the couch, watching that ESPN, trying not to hear what was going on in the back room with his sister and the men she brought home from Club Disco. Sunday she’d be hungover
as hell and praising Jesus for four hours. Hell of a thing being kids of a preacher.

“Come on, man,” Ordeen said. “Man says he didn’t do it. Y’all keep cool. I don’t want no more trouble.”

Sammi wiped the blood off his lip. His head shook a little bit, black eyes darting around the store, staring out to see if anyone was coming to help. He looked to the glass wall and saw a truck pull up, an old black man, Mr. Bobo, get out, lifting a pint bottle to his mouth and wiping it with the back of his hands. Nito didn’t care one damn bit and pulled that pistol out from his deep jean pocket, pointing it right in Sammi’s face.

“Do it again, nigga.”

“I didn’t do nothing,” Sammi said.

“Shoot you right in the fucking snout.”

Sammi just stared at him with his big black eyes. Didn’t raise his hands up or nothing. He stayed cool as shit and reached down for a little brown cigar burning in a metal tray and lifted it to his lips. “We done, man?”

“You call the cops and I tell the cops about all that Chinese shit you selling in the back room,” Nito Reece said. “Don’t you be telling me that it fell off some damn truck.”

Mr. Bobo saw Nito with Sammi and turned back the way he’d come, headlights clicking on, backing out that old brown truck. Man didn’t get to be that old from being dumb.

“I thought you were my friend,” Sammi said.

“Shit,” Nito said, flipping the gun around butt first. “Who the hell tole you that?” As he swung for Sammi, Ordeen turned his head the other way, blood flecking on the hot glass protecting all that chicken and pizza.

•   •   •

T
hey’re real,” said the old stripper. “You can touch them if you want.”

“That’s OK,” Milly said. She had a book in her lap,
The Christmas Promise
, with an inscribed note from the author:
Dream Big. Share your stories with the world!

“You can tell real titties from the droop,” the woman said. “All these fake titties flying around this place are easy to spot. No jiggle. Hard as damn bricks. I had mine since I was fifteen. You don’t have to take my advice. But don’t ever get implants. You’ll cut your tips in half. Men like to look at ’em but don’t care for the touch.”

Milly wished the woman would be quiet. It had already been a long as hell day, trucking up to Tupelo to meet that famous author and then the author not having time to hear her story. All the woman wanted was Milly’s last thirty dollars, her gas money, for a “Christian Romance Just in Time for Christmas!” How could Milly have been so dumb, bringing those little journals, trying to pass along her true stories.

Milly and the old stripper sat together on a long bench in the locker room at Vienna’s Place. After Milly had signed the paperwork, Miss Fannie showed her to a locker and gave her the combination, saying it was up to her to keep up with her own shit. She said some of these bitches would steal her ass blind. The older woman pulled up a garter high on her leg and snapped it against her thigh.

“This is my first night,” Milly said.

“I could tell,” the woman said. “Make sure you take a shot of Jaeger before you hit the stage. Your legs will be shaking like a newborn fawn. But it gets better each time. By the end of the night, you won’t even care if you’re nekkid. It’s a job and that’s your uniform. Hell, you’re young. These boys are going to love you. Men know that new-car smell.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re fresh, is all,” she said. “Truckers will know it. Play it. Tell ’em you’re nervous. They’ll tip out the damn ass for that.”

The woman had long blonde hair, probably extensions, and bright blue eyes. Her white skin had been stained the color of mahogany and her teeth bleached the highest white. She had on lacy white panties, white bra over her double D’s, and long white stockings. A white ribbon wrapped the sagging skin of her throat. Milly looked down at the cover of
The Christmas Promise
—a clean-looking guy in a shirt and tie and suspenders standing before a church. A dove had been photoshopped in behind him, flying high.

“Where you from?” the woman asked.

“Here.”

“Here?” the woman said. “Damn. That’s a new one on me.”

Milly was in her street clothes—T-shirt, jeans, and Keds. She’d brought a sexy little red bra-and-panty set she’d bought at the Victoria’s Secret in Tupelo. Only person to ever see her in it was Joshua and Joshua had been so thrilled about it he’d said she’d wear it on their wedding night. Which didn’t make a lot of sense to her since they’d been doing it all that summer. Like she could go back to being a virgin. Joshua was smooth, slow, and gentle. If he found out where she was working, it would damn near kill him.

“I just need to make a little money.”

“Yeah?” the woman said. “I told that to myself about twenty years ago.”

“Is it hard?”

“Sometimes,” the woman said. “You just have to set personal boundaries. Make rules for yourself and don’t break them. Like, can a man touch your titties? The law says no touching above or below the waist.
But if you got a man you feel OK about, think he’s a good tipper, then it doesn’t matter much to me. Other thing is that men are always trying to kiss you. You can touch my titties all you want, but don’t you kiss me on the mouth. I don’t know where that nasty trucker mouth has been.”

“Anything else?”

“Don’t worry too much about your time on the pole,” she said. “You ain’t up there for no art project. Just shake it and twirl. It’s just a chance for the men to see what you got to offer. Trust me, honey, they’re gonna like you good. You don’t need to sell it. Just show it. You could bounce a half-dollar off that little ass.”

“I used to be a cheerleader,” Milly said, smiling but not really feeling it.

A black girl not much older than Milly walked into the locker room buck-ass naked and smoking a long, thin cigarette. “Y’all can have it,” she said. “Crazy out there tonight. Man tried to stick a beer bottle up my ass. Like I’m into that shit.”

“We got a first-timer here tonight, Damika,” the woman said. “Trying to pass down a little knowledge.”

“You tell her about the sell?”

Milly looked at the black girl and stood up, taking off her T-shirt and jeans, folding them carefully and packing them in the locker with a pack of cigarettes, a pint of Jim Beam, and a small overnight bag filled with makeup. She dropped the romance novel on the floor with a thud.

“It’s all about the sell, baby,” Damika said. “That’s where you make your money. Ain’t about nickels and dimes tossed to you on the stage. You got to get their fat, sweaty, nasty asses into the VIP Room. Or whatever Miss Fannie call it.”

“Champagne Room,” the woman said.

“Yeah, well, what the fuck,” Damika said. “Be cool about it. But
don’t waste time on no deadbeat. You see a man ain’t interested or don’t want to pay, you move right on down the line.”

“And be yourself,” the woman said. “Don’t be superficial. Men are dumb as shit. They can’t tell if you’re into them or not. You act like it and they believe it. Show directness. Confidence. Look ’em in the eye when you grind their lap.”

“And don’t be asking them if they like this?” Damika said. “Or would like that? You’re not asking them. You tell them. Don’t say, ‘Would you like to kick back with me in the Champagne Room?’ Flirt with them, get them all horny, and just say, ‘Let’s go’ or ‘It’s time.’”

“And after their first lap dance, drag your fingernails across the back of their neck, lean into their ear, and whisper you don’t want to stop,” the woman said.

“Oh, hell,” Damika said, giggling. “Oh, hell.”

“I just need money.”

“We all need money,” the woman said. “You think this shit does it for me? Just don’t think you can start it and drop it. Money is too good.”

Milly changed out of her threadbare panties and washed-out bra into the red silk satin. She pulled out a compact and mirror from her bag and started in on her eyes. She’d add some lashes, draw them up big and bold. It made her look older and fierce. She could use all the confidence she could get even if it was painted on.

“Just whatever you do, don’t forget to tip out,” the black girl said. “You cheat the house and that eye in the sky will know.”

“She have cameras?”

The older woman looked at her, fluffing up her hair in a mirror, then looked over her shoulder. “Fannie doesn’t need cameras,” she said. “Sees it all.”