Promise - Short Stories From Promise Goodday, Page 2

"Where you going, goose?"

  Promise stopped. She had run through the gates of Paradise Gardens and was walking briskly down Lyon's Avenue with her head outstretched. Her Uncle Bobo and his friends loitered on the porch of a shotgun shack. The porch sagged like the inside of a boat. Two columns that held up the porch's roof leaned together. Her uncle rested on his elbows between the posts stroking his chin with one hand as he eyed Promise. He held a Styrofoam cup in his other hand. His pals in frumpy clothes gathered around him grinning at her. One fellow wore a bus driver's dark blue uniform. His silver badge gleamed like a razor blade. A bright-green bottle sat on the banister shining under the sun's rays like a jade offering. The men had taken a sip from the bottle. Their eyes were heavy and lustful. Promise put her foot on the bottom step. The air was scented with rain, sweat, and the ripe fruity aroma that drifted out of the bottle. She looked at the grinning men and felt big inside. Their attention was on her. It made her act "womanish" as Big Mama called it. At the same time she turned her nose up at their clothes. These were "old men" at least thirty and they dressed foolish. Not one was as "Fly" as Sugar Face in his glittering jacket and gold chains. He wouldn't be caught dead in a yellow "grandpa" suit or a T-shirt with a big black X on the front. And he wouldn't be caught near a shack drinking wine.

  She dismissed them, but still they were men and brought out the sass in her. She put her hands on her hips and looked her uncle straight in his reddish eyes.

  "Don't call me no goose."

  "You was stepping mighty fast there, Pee. Big Mama ain't riding her broom behind you is she?"

  "You don't see her do you?"

  "I ain't got to see her. I can tell she around by the way you flying down the street like a goose." Her Uncle stuck his neck out and flapped his arms. The men laughed and slapped their legs. Promise looked at her Uncle's big belly shaking like a pillow. His thick ginger colored neck pushed aside the top button of his shirt and the collar opened like tiny wings around his face. When he laughed, his jaws puffed. "Pumpkin head," Promise thought. Her older brother Bobo had been nicknamed after this uncle and had the same large head. She was glad she wasn't a boy or named Bobo or else she might have a huge head too she thought.

  Promise looked over at her uncle's scooped-up-in-the-back red car parked in front of the house. A rear tire was missing a hubcap. She skipped to the car and peeked through the dark windows. She was accustomed to seeing boxes covered in sheets in the back seat as if they were playing hide and seek. This time a commode leaned over in the back seat.

  "Why you have a nasty commode in your car, Bobo?" Promise asked scrunching up her nose.

  "That's grown folk's business," her uncle answered. The men snickered. "Besides, that commode is clean."

  She caught the reflection of her hair in the tinted window. She smoothed down her bangs and poked out her lips as if she wore lipstick. "Where Mr. Fritz's car? He done fired you for being drunk?" She asked looking at Bobo and the men through the glass.

  The men glanced at Bobo and laughed. "Bobo, I didn't know you was married," one of them said.

  "Watch out, Pee, I'll take my belt off."

  "You do and your pants going to fall down. Where my Sugar Face CD and poster?"

  "It's coming, Pee just like an ass whipping from Big Mama."

  "Big Mama says she going to whip you if you come to the funeral smelling like wine."

  "I'm a grown man little, lady. Big Mama ain't beat my ass in thirty years."

  "Well she says she going to if you come drunk." Promise wrinkled her nose at the commode turned and bounced herself on the porch's bottom step.

  "Where you supposed to be going anyway?" Bobo asked her.

  "Down to Kwong's to buy some roses."

  "Roses for what?"

  "Mama's going to put them in the casket with Jonathan."

  "Marsha and her ideas."

  "It was Jonathan's idea."

  Her uncle looked at her for a moment. He shrugged and poured himself a drink. When he sat the bottle down, another hand reached for it.

  "Bobo, I sure am sorry about your Brother."

  "Thanks, man. Yeah he was a good kid. Just got caught up in the wrong lifestyle." Bobo looked as if he was going to spit.

  "How he catch the AIDS?" Promise blurted out. Bobo cut his eyes at her and the men. Promise ducked her head. His eyes red and narrow told her she had asked the wrong question. His friends looked down at their feet and up at the sun as if they were trying to figure out what it was. A woman in tight pants passed and the men craned their necks at her as if she were something they had never seen before. Far off down the street there was a wailing of sirens. The men refilled their cups and looked at each other to see who had something to say.

  The man in the yellow suit cleared his throat. "Speaking of Mr. Fritz, Bobo, didn't the Leaky Eye get his wife?"

  "Naw she slipped out of that nigger's greasy hands. You know she ain't no bigger than a match stick and she just slipped out of his hands." Bobo answered and took a drink.

  "She was lucky to slip out of his hands. He killed that one woman just down the street. I wonder why he kill some and let some live?"

  "He'd kill 'em all if he had time."

  "The nigger close to be found out. That's why he killin' the women now. He's desperate."

  "You reckon he's a nigger, Bobo?"

  "Fool, the news says he is. Besides, can't nothing white sneak up in here and kill a black woman. Somebody would have seen him."

  "The news can lie. A white man can put on black face paint and look just like a nigger. I seen a movie about that. I don't think the Leaky Eye is no nigger. I think he's a white man in blackface who got a thing for black women."

  "Ain't nobody seen nothing white on the Leaky Eye."

  "Well I wouldn't reckon they be looking at him with eyes wide open. He ain't going to let no woman look at him with eyes wide open. All the women say he got gray eyes. Ain't many of us got gray eyes."

  "Your Aunt, Susan got gray eyes, ain't she, Promise?" Bobo asked and nodded toward Promise. "Since you want to be all up in grown folks conversation."

  Promise thought of her Aunt's piercing gray eyes--how they drilled into her and made her keep her eyes to the floor, and her skin the color of school desks. She looked off rather than answer her Uncle.

  "Your Sister looks like a white woman, Bobo," the man in the yellow suit said. "Everybody say his face look like dirty dish water from them streaking eyes of his."

  "A nigger on my job, got gray eyes that run," Two Jack the Bus driver chimed in. "Guess what they call that nigger?'

  "What?"

  "Good coon."

  "Now why the call him that?"

  "'Cause you know how a coon look like he wearing a black mask? Well this nigger look like he wearing a white mask sometimes. Some kind of chemical got throwed in his face when he was a boy. He wear shades all the time. Even when drive the bus at night."

  "Maybe he the Leaky Eye."

  "Hell no, that nigger scared of women. His wife got a ring in his nose as big as that hub cap laying there." He nodded toward a hubcap lying in the gutter. "He come to work with knots upside his head and his face scratched up like a chicken got to him. I know he ain't no rapist."

  "The New Brotherhood is on patrol looking for him."

  "Them niggers ain't shit," Bobo spat.

  "Aw I wouldn't say that," Neck said directly to Bobo

  "Why not? Because you a member?"

  "The New Brotherhood comes direct from the Black Panthers."

  "What good did they do? What happened to that revolution? Cops and the FBI ended that shit."

  "Well I take exception to that, Bobo. I think the Panthers did a lot of good. Made us proud to be black men for one."

  "Where that nigger at that's on your shirt?" Bobo pointed to the picture of Malcolm X on Neck's shirt. Malcolm frowned between the large Black X crisscrossing Neck's white T-shirt.

  "Well..."

  "Well my ass. Anytime we try
to rise up, the man puts his foot on our necks. As long as we kill or rape each other, he don't give a shit. That's why these gangs everywhere and that Leaky Eye bastard is roaming all over. When he touch a white woman, the cops gonna find him quicker than stink finds shit. Mark my words. New Brotherhood my ass."

  "Why he like to raise up women's dresses, Bobo?" Promised blurted.

  The men looked at her briefly with their mouths open. They stirred uncomfortably and sought out the sky once again.

  "Promise you ask one more question--you hear me little girl?". You worse than a cop. Just stick close to home so he don't try to raise your dress up."

  "You watch, that Leaky Eye is going to look like a white man from the old-timey minstrel shows," the man in yellow said. He didn't bother to pour his drink. He took a hit straight from the bottle. The others followed suit. "You gonna see. He gonna look like a greasy devil. He greasy. That's why Fritz's wife slipped out from under him. I wish she could have seen his belly or his ass. We'd know the truth then."

  "I wonder what a fine black woman like that see in Fritz?" Two Jack the bus driver asked. "He's bald and pink as a baby."

  "Well shit, just look around. All of us collected together couldn't come up with five-thousand dollars if our asses depended on it. If my Mama hadn't had that dollar burial policy, you think me and Marsha could have buried our Brother? Hell no. Fritz's stocks and other crooked shit he's in earn five thousand in a day. I drive that mother fucker around every day to five different banks. You hear me? Five!" Bobo spread his fingers out like a fan.

  "Yeah but money ain't everything," Neck yawned. His Adam's apple bobbed as if he were swallowing an egg. "Five Fritzes couldn't equal the size of my you-know-what and couldn't match the motion of my ocean lapping between some big brown thighs."

  "Aw Neck, women ain't thinking about all of that these days. Cold cash rules the world."

  "I bet they thinks about plenty when that Leaky Eye is going to town on them. Woo! Wee!" He grabbed and held his crotch.

  "Nigger, you sound like you rootin' for the Leaky Eye."

  "He doing what we ought to be doing, except we ought to be doing it to white women. You ever try to get with Fritz's wife?"

  "Hell no, not that scrawny ass thing."

  "I bet she misses her a good black man in the midnight hour."

  "She got plenty of fur coats to remind her of one of our black asses. He don't let me drive her unless he's in the car."

  "I'd drive her. I'd drive her right out of them furs and jewels. Drive her into my kitchen cooking me some beans and rice. Fatten her ass up."

  Bobo and the men said nothing. Promise's moon pie face held them in check. Promise stared at Neck's bobbling throat as she listened to him drawl. The black man with close-cropped hair and glasses pointed his finger at her and frowned. Neck looked at Promise, frowned and then smiled, showing off a mouth of crooked gold teeth. Promise looked off.

  "Well I better get on down the road a piece. Sorry 'bout your brother, Bobo," he said as he slipped off the porch. He glanced at Promise and winked.

  "I don't like him," Promise said as Neck got halfway up the walkway. "He got something stuck in his throat and he nasty."

  "Probably a chicken bone," the man in the yellow suit said. "Y'all ever seen that nigger eat fried Chicken? Don't be nothing left but the box it came in."

  "Yeah, I bet that ain't all he can swallow with a neck like that. I heard him and your Bro?"

  Bobo and the man in the yellow suit looked at Two Jack. Bobo rose off his elbows.

  "Him and my Brother what, nigger?

  "Nothing, Bobo, nothing at all."

  Bobo stared at Two Jack. Two Jack shifted from one foot to the other. He looked at the man in yellow who looked off down the Avenue. He glanced at Promise who stared at him. He looked at this feet.

  "I say let's have a drink to nothing," the man in the yellow suit said as he slapped Bobo and Two Jack on their backs.

  "Don't let your tongue outrun your brains, nigger," Bobo said as he took his eyes off Two Jack. "Yeah let's have a drink to nothing."

  "Whatever the Leaky Eye is, one thing if for sure,' said the man in the yellow suit, "He's slippery as an eel."

  "Slippery for sure. One woman said he got her in a cemetery in the back of a hearse. Another said he had on a Bus driver's uniform." All eyes fell on Two Jack.

  "What the hell y'all looking at me for," Two Jack asked and spit.

  "We just saying what we heard. You said what you heard. We hear shit too."

  "Whoever it is," said the man in the yellow suit, "He's slippery."

  After a few more hits from the bottle, Bobo looked down at Promise sprawled on the bottom step.

  "Say Pee, who dressed you this morning? Got you looking like Raggedy Ann with them no-ear bunny shoes and wedding dress."

  "It ain't no wedding dress."

  "Look like Nettie dressed you."

  "Nettie ain't dressed nobody. Mama is dressing her after she clean the slobber off her face. Besides, I ain't going to no funeral this morning. I'm going to Astroworld."

  "Astroworld? Pee is you crazy?"

  Promise shrugged. She got up and studied a poster that had been stapled to a tree. The poster had the same X and frowning man on Neck's shirt.

  "Besides, Pee, the school buses are gone already. We saw them leave earlier. How you going to get to Astroworld?" Her Uncle asked.

  Promise glanced at Bobo and the men grinning at her. She hunched her shoulders. She remembered Mr. Wick holding up the red stop sign and the buses crawling away from the school. She heard a loud snort and rumble behind her. She looked around just as the yellow and white Metro bus passed. The bus's large tires churned through a puddle of water and splashed her uncle's car. Promise put her hands on her hips and looked at the men in their faces.

  "I'm going to catch a city bus."

  "Promise, you ain't never caught a bus by yourself in your life. But I bet you catching some fish with your toes right now."

  Promise looked down. She stood in a puddle of muddy water. Her mouth opened for a moment then quickly shut. She snatched her feet out of the water and sidled over to Bobo's car. She pretended to be interested in the commode in the back.

  "Look at little Miss Nettie who don't know how to stay out of mud puddles," Bobo hissed at her. The back of Promise's neck warmed as anger washed over her. A tear trickled out of the corner of her eye. She wiped her face with her sleeve. She turned from the car and started down the street.

  "Big Mama say you better have your pants pulled up and don't be showing your dirty drawers at the funeral," she said as she trotted off with her nose in front of her. The men on the porch guffawed. A passing car drowned her Uncle's and the men's voices. Down the street, Kwong's Market squatted like a red shoe box.

  Promise's foot bumped a tin can and sent it rolling. She caught up to the can as it rested in a patch of grass. She raised her foot to kick it and a strip of yellow police tape twitching like a cat's tail caught her eye. She looked up and saw a house peeping out from behind a clump of bushes. The house sat far from the street as if it didn't want to be bothered with anything happening on Lyon's Avenue. It leaned to the right like an old woman. The only thing that kept it from toppling was a mass of posters on its left side that looked like swatch of bandages. In the front yard, the weeds lie flat as if a giant hand had combed them over. A large hole pierced the wall next to the front door and two huge planks were nailed crisscross the opening. Police tape fluttered meekly from the hole like streamers from a long over party. Promise made one step forward and stopped. She thought of what she had heard about the Leaky Eye--that he slept curled up in empty houses like a snake, that he hung from the ceiling like a bat, that the liquid from his eyes burned you like acid. She stood against a tree and looked back at her Uncle and the men. She knew they had forgotten her, when she saw them laughing and passing around the green bottle. She turned, picked up a stick, and crept into the yard. The ground softene
d by the morning rain, was littered with paper, tin cans, and rags that looked like wet skins. The metal bones of a hospital gurney leaned on its side against a tree. Promise struck the tree with her stick and the hospital gurney answered her with a loud clang. When no head popped up in the hole to see who had made the noise, Promise let out her breath.

  "Hey, hey," she called out. Leaves shimmied in the wind. She shouted more "heys" before she stepped on the porch and peeped through the hole. In the dim light let in by gaps in the planks, Promise saw a pile of rags in a corner. A rusty box spring with a blue rubber glove tangled in its coils rested on the floor. Footprints covered the dusty floor as if people had been dancing. As she peered at the ceiling to check for bats, Promise heard a scraping noise behind her. She yanked her head out of the hole and looked behind her. Neck stood in the yard watching. The thing in his throat moved if he were swallowing.

  "What you doing up in here, little Mama?" he drawled.

  "Ain't doing nothing."

  "Aw, you doing something all right." He started toward the porch, stepped in some muck, and cursed under his breath. He stomped his foot to loosen the mud. He scraped his foot on the bottom step as he walked up the porch. Promise backed away and stood watching as he poked his head in the hole. He pulled himself through the hole and walked around inside the room. He kicked around the trash and clouds of dust hovered near his feet. Promise watched as he bent down and took the glove from the box spring. He held it up to a sliver of light zigzagging along the wall. He scratched his finger over the rubber and examined his fingernail.

  "Blood." He looked at Promise and threw the glove down on the floor. "You know who was in this house the other day?" Promise shrugged. "The Leaky Eye had him a woman in here. The police wore that glove when they examined her body. Woo! Wee!" He screeched. "I know she had a time with that business. Woo! Wee!"

  He looked back at the hole where Promise had stood moments before. It stood empty. Promise didn't stop running until she stumbled into the legs of some boys dribbling and passing a basketball between them.

  "Watch out, Little Mama," one boy said as he steadied Promise by her shoulders. She looked behind her as Neck stepped out of the yard. He stopped in the middle of the street and looked in her direction before he continued to the other side and disappeared between two row houses. Promise threw away the stick she had been holding and continued down the street. Her shoulder brushed against a smooth surface. She stopped and frowned. It was the garish red mural picturing the smiling Kwong family--a picture she hated. Their large buck teeth made her feel as if she were being chased by monkeys. When she was smaller, Jonathan had to hold her hand or she would run into the street to get away from the mural. She reached her hand upward as if she expected Jonathan to grab it. Then she remembered she was alone.

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