Carry Me Home (64 page)

“The slum?”

“Ah, you haven’t been out there to see what I’ve done, have you?”

“No. Just that one time.”

“Go out and look at it. The construction’s almost finished. We’ve got eight nice units in there, Son. Tore down all that crap out back and carted it away. Some of those people were absolute pigs. I don’t know how anybody could have lived in that filth.”

“You had a problem with the building inspector....”

“Naw. I took care of him. It’s tenants. Peter won’t service it....”

Peter cringed. “Way out there?!”

“See,” Lloyd said. “I just don’t have the time. But you, Son, you could live out there.”

Ty’s stomach knotted. He raised a fist to his mouth, stifled a belch, retasted the hot prawns curry he’d had for lunch.

“Now”—Dunmore patted his car again—“hear me out. You buy me out. Move out there. Ty, the amount you spend on rental cars and coming up all the time, you’d be better off living out there.”

Ty slowly shook his head. He resented Dunmore telling him he’d be better off living in the damn woods.

“Truly, Ty. I’m just getting too old to do it. I’ve sunk nearly thirty-six grand into that rebuild. I’m not looking for a profit. And like with Peter, I’ll carry a note, ah, unless you have the OPM to cover it. You can do a wraparound. Shouldn’t cost you an out-of-pocket penny. Add to your portfolio, too. For real. Not just on paper.”

“Hmm.” Ty did not say more but purposely let Lloyd babble on.

“My wife bought a new car. You’ve seen it, right?”

“The Jag,” Peter remarked.

“Yes.” Dunmore glanced at Peter, back to Ty. “You might be interested in her old one. Basically she only drove it to the country club and back. I’d make you a good deal on it, too. Include it in the wraparound. We can make this thing work.”

“I’ll think about it, Lloyd.” Ty looked across Bridgeway, stared into the sun at the shadowed street scene.

“Good,” Lloyd said. Now he moved quickly into the car. As he started the engine, he said, “I’m late. Call me tomorrow.”

“Hey,” Wilcox said watching Lloyd’s car pull away, “have you talked to Bobby Wapinski lately?”

“No. He doing okay?”

“Sure. Fantastic! You know he’s got that new cottage.”

“Yes. I heard.”

“And, ah, maybe he told you about the house on Tin Pan Alley.”

“Which one?”

“Up by the golf course. You know, in Golden Vista Estates.”

“We haven’t talked. Maybe he tried to leave me a message....”

“Yeah. Probably. He’s thinking of putting in a low-ball offer. But you know, he’s stretched right now.”

“Golden Vista’s pretty expensive.”

“Sure. But this seller’s desperate. Transferred ... to Houston, I think. Or Dallas. The place’s been vacant for months. Except for the dining room set. It’d be a great rental for families transferred in, you know, for maybe just a year. People who don’t want to buy but want to live in a nice house.”

In April Ty drove by Bobby Wapinski’s cottage on Old Russia Road, drove Madeleine Dunmore’s old Audi 100-LS up the North Peak slope not once but three times. Each time he was happier, more reassured, delighted to find Bobby apparently not home, thrilled that 101 Old Russia Road was a shack when compared to his own new Tin Pan Alley residence which backed up to San Martin Golf and Country Club’s fourteenth tee. Happy that he had made it, that he now owned six properties, “owned” fourteen more under various aliases, and held notes totaling $67,000. In only a year and a half he—little Tyrone Blackwell-Dorsey-Wallace-Green, the jigaboo from Coal Hill, the disenfranchised spade veteran of Hamburger Hill, the coon rejected by his mentor—had eclipsed his own symbol of exactness, of making it, of the American pie. He had surpassed The Captain.

“Do all black men have huge penises?” the woman whispered into his ear. They had been making love for an hour. He was spent. She was on top of him, holding him, tickling him, attempting to reexcite him. She nuzzled her chin into the crook of his neck making him squirm. Her skin was pale, white-white, not ashen, not sickly—ice milk. Her hair was black, blacker than his. The contrast of the chalk white of her arm against his rich deep brown chest aroused her, yet making him convulse or fidget under her was what she found truly sensual.

It was hot, a mid-July afternoon. Occasionally a burst of laughter from the fourteenth tee penetrated the sheer curtains of his room.

“Only one.” He chuckled.

“Only one?” Olivia teased him.

“One each,” Ty said.

“One each what?” She shifted, straddled him. “Say it,” she ordered.

“Say what?” he countered.

“Penis,” Olivia said.

“Why?” Ty asked.

“Why can’t men say
penis
to a woman? I like your penis. I’m glad it’s huge.”

“Well ...” Ty chuckled. He really couldn’t say the word. Not to Olivia. “It likes you too,” Ty said.

“What does?” She tickled his ribs. He squirmed. She tickled harder. “What does? Say it.” She collapsed on him, pinned him.

“My johnson does,” Ty blurted.

“What’s a johnson?” She kissed his earlobe, blew gently into his ear.

“My wang. My dick.” She was tickling him all over, poking her chin into his clavicle, gently digging her knee into his thigh just above his knee. He wriggled, gasped, “My meat. My ding-a-ling.”

Afterward she backed into him, cuddled, snoozed in his arms. He held her, hot afternoon or not, kissed the back of her head. Better than the Captain, huh? he thought, but he did not say it. She’d told him that they’d had “several afternoon dates. You know, private. A girl can get a reputation in an office.” Ty hadn’t pressed. It was enough to know that she wanted him more than she wanted Wapinski, that she was with him now, that she thought his penis was huge even if he thought it was probably only average. He kissed her again, little pecks on the nape of the neck. Then he rolled, grabbed his Kools from the bedside table. She’d come onto him for reasons he didn’t know. He hadn’t pondered it, had thought instead, later, and laughed thinking it, and she had made him say it out loud—”Now this is true affirmative action.” She had not laughed with him, had not smiled, but she had kissed him passionately and he’d whispered to her, “I think I’m falling in love with you.” He did not tell her about his herpes infection. It was dormant; had not flared in five months.

At four they rose. A steady breeze came from the golf course, billowed the curtains. Olivia closed the glass slider, stood nonchalant, naked, facing Ty, teasing him with her matter-of-fact posture.

“Why’d you close it?” Ty asked.

She did not look at him but coyly gazed to the side. “I’m run down.”

“Hmm?”

“Let’s do a couple more lines. Then I’ve got to go.”

“I never expected him to move in.”

“When the hell did he decide ... What the hell’s he thinking?”

Their voices were harsh, hushed. Peter Wilcox, Lloyd Dunmore, Dirk Everest, and Howard Trimball, president of San Martin Savings and Loan, were in the country club locker room. They had played eighteen holes, had had a quick sandwich and beer, then had come down to shower and change. The room was clean, fluorescent-light bright, royal blue carpeted, mirrored between the banks of lockers.

“Damn. I never thought ...” Peter Wilcox stepped one foot onto the bench, untied the lace on his golf shoe. “When I told him about it, I thought he’d rent it like he’s done with all the others. Have you been there?”

“God damn, no.” Dunmore sat on the bench.

“He’s a slob. There’s not a stick of furniture in that house. Except the dining room set that came with it.”

“Well, where’s he sleep?” Howard Trimball placed a foot on the bench.

“I suppose he’s got something in the bedroom,” Peter said.

“Who gives a damn where he sleeps.” Dirk stammered, “Th-this is bad.”

“Yes, it is bad,” Dunmore said.

“There’s no blacks in SMGCC,” Trimball said.

“I don’t want this setting a precedent,” Dunmore said. “And I don’t want this becoming a court case.”

“You know, Lloyd”—Everest tapped a fist onto his locker—“you and Peter did this. And you, Howard. Why in hell did you give him the god damn loan?”

“Shit! He’s got half a dozen loans with me. This way I can show we make loans to Negroes.”

“I thought he was going to move into that eight-plex out in the canyon.” Lloyd grabbed his chin, pushed his fingers up against the grain of his beard, removed his shirt.

“So did I,” Peter said.

“Well, he hasn’t.” Dirk straightened, banged his locker with his fist, removed his pants. “Figure some way to call his loan.”

Howard Trimball pursed his lips. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Come on, Dirk. You know as well as I do.”

“Well, what the hell are we going to do if he wants to join?!”

“I really never thought—” Peter began.

“I don’t care what you never thought.” Dirk cut him off.

“He hasn’t submitted an application—” Howard began.

Again Dirk cut in. “But if he does ... He owns property abutting the course. It’s supposed to be automatic.”

Now Lloyd Dunmore stood, broke up the group. “I’ll buy him out,” he said. He opened his locker. “He’s money hungry. Where’s he coming up with all this money for notes, anyway? Unsecured! Damn, what a salesman! But”—Lloyd turned to the other three—“he doesn’t have a pot to pee in. Let him buy what he wants. He’ll need capital to keep it. And, damn it Howard, he bailed your butt out. I’m just a shareholder.”

“My butt?!”

“You bet your god damned ass. Now you let me know the first minute he’s late with a payment. I’ll tell him Madeleine and I are divorcing and I’m getting the house for her.” Lloyd paused, stood naked, hands on his hips, his knees stiff, his belly bulging. He fixed the men with his stare. “I don’t,” he said emphatically, “want this to go to court.”

“Execrable.” Ty chuckled.

“I don’t know,” Olivia said.

Three months had passed. Their first tryst had ended not with a bang, not with a whimper, but simply without word. He’d been perplexed, bothered. She had given him back his manhood and had vanished. He had not chased her. He had a piece of the pie to get and the exact size of the slice was yet to be determined. And he was having problems with his veins. In August his left arm had swelled so horribly he’d been unable to wear any shirt, suit or jacket he owned and he’d gone nearly stark-raving mad trapped inside that Tin Pan Alley house, feverish, nauseated, self-dosing with black market antibiotics so as to avoid medical reports. He felt caged. Very late at night he escaped, drove to the Safeway on Miwok Road, shopped, returned, paced. He bought a ten-inch black-and-white portable TV, watched as Ramsey Clark visited Hanoi and averred that U.S. POWs were being treated well; as the last U.S. ground combat units in Viet Nam stood down; as the ARVN recaptured Quang Tri City or what was left of it; and as Henry Kissinger, in Paris, announced an agreement in principle accepting a cease-fire-in-place and agreeing to give the communists nearly one-quarter of South Viet Nam’s land area.

During the entire time Ty Dorsey did not see or hear from Olivia Taft. He did not “raise funds,” did not expand his portfolio. Being sick dropped his resistance. The blisters and burning returned and added to his misery, pain, and self-imposed incarceration in that home on the fourteenth tee. Slowly it subsided. He fought the desire, the need for speedballs. He locked his “works” away but needed it, had to have it. He wrapped his “works” in plastic, put it in the freezer so that when he needed it, it would be uncomfortable. He smoked grass, smoked skag-laced Kools, snorted coke. Anything to stay away from the wonderful feel of the needle, the conditioned pleasure now so tightly locked in his mind that the very touch of the kit bag sent waves of joy trembling throughout his body. Slowly he gained control and the infections subsided. He analyzed his spread sheet and saw that his cash on hand had collapsed to $19,000, that other expendable items (drugs) had been depleted, that his net worth had plummeted to under twenty grand. Still he was current with all payments. And with a 6 percent adjustment of property values—he was certain the market had jumped at least six percent—he could increase the assets side, and the bottom line, by $17,600; and $37,600 was still a pretty good bottom line for a twenty-one-year-old black man.

Then Olivia came back. He did not question her but loved her and shared his coke with her and when she told him about a triplex on Fifth Street he agreed to buy it. On this property Ty gained a $70,000 asset, yet via the Mickey Mouse of financing, a total loan liability of $75,111. He put $3,592 cash in his pocket. The monthly principal, interest and tax payment was $688.13. The rental income was projected at $460 per month, but in mid-November 1972 the big first-floor apartment was vacant and the income was only $260.

“Execrable,” Ty repeated. “Utterly detestable.”

“I would never use that word,” Olivia said.

“Well, it’s good to know them.”

“I couldn’t use it. It doesn’t sound right. It’d be like speaking a foreign language.”

“How about
hauteur
?”

“Beats me.”

“Come on.”

“I don’t know.”

“Haughty spirited. You know, snobbish. Disdainful. Kinda the way you act.”

“I’m a snob?!”

“Aw, come on.” He grasped her. Pulled her onto him. Kissed her. They were on the bed, partially dressed.

“I think it’s snobbish using those words,” Olivia said.

“I don’t use em much,” Ty answered. “Just ... I need to know em so if they get used on me ...”

Olivia hushed him by putting a finger to his lips. Then she kissed him, then raised her torso above him by planting her elbows on his chest and said, “What’s really snobbish is what they’re trying to do.”

“Who?”

“The board of directors. You must have heard.”

“You mean Lloyd? Peter? They’re my partners.”

“I heard ... you know, just a rumor ... you know, you’ve caused quite a stir moving in here.... Some of them want to buy you out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just a rumor, I guess.”

“Yeah. Just ... ha! I’m probably their worse nightmare. Ha! Me puttin my black johnson into a white woman.”