Cry Me A River (10 page)

“Just what I said,” he retorted.

“Well, that ain’t good enough,” she said. “I need a answer.”

“Can’t tell you no more than that,” he said.

“Then, let me tell you something, mister,” she said. “You can stay here a little while, but you can’t live here.”

He looked up a second time, and she was still staring at him. Only now her large brown eyes were narrowed,
her brow was furrowed, and her teeth were clenched. Perturbed, he started to respond, but reconsidered, opting instead to bow his head and avert his eyes.

“You hear me?” she asked.

“I hear you,” he said.

There was silence.

“You seen Pauline?” she asked.

He raised his head and looked directly into her eyes. “Why?” he asked.

There was quiet again, and he watched her watching him. She stared for what seemed an eternity before she spoke again.

“You still doing drugs?” she asked, ignoring his question and countering with her own. He chuckled softly, then slowly shook his head in disgust.

“Been clean going on ten years.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said.

“Believe what you want to,” he said. “That’s your business.”

“You quit?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, now, let me see,” she said, bringing her hand underneath her chin. “How many times does this make? There was the time Papa had you locked up. Then there was the time Pauline left you. Then there was the time Mama dragged you out that crackhouse. Then there was the time—”

“René, I don’t have time for this,” he interrupted her.

“You better make time,” she said.

He looked at her, then looked away.

“That was then,” he said. “This is now.”

“Oh, this time is different?”

“That’s right,” he said.

She looked at him with hard, cold eyes, and he knew
at that moment the depth of the contempt she felt for him. He opened his mouth to say something else, then thought better of it.

“How’d you get clean?” she asked, but he could tell by her tone that she was not asking out of genuine interest. She was asking to prove a point.

“Dried out in prison,” he told her.

“Didn’t know they had a drug treatment facility in the penitentiary,” she said.

“No facility,” he said. “Just methadone.”

She looked at him again with mocking eyes. Her tongue was still, and her lips were silent, while her eyes screamed liar.

“You had counseling?” she asked.

He shook his head, then looked away.

“You ain’t had no counseling, but you cured.”

He continued to look away. She had made up her mind, and there was no need to say more. She did not believe him, and she would not believe him, no matter what he said. No matter what he did.

“How can that be?” She continued to push.

“People change, René.”

“I’m not talking ‘bout people,” she said. “I’m talking ‘bout you.”

“Why you so interested in me all of a sudden?” he asked, reluctantly loosening the reins on his emotions and giving in to the rage he felt festering deep inside of himself. “When I was down, did you ever do anything for me?”

He paused, and his fiery eyes challenged her, while his naked, unbridled emotions triggered something in the remote part of his brain. He resumed; only now, as he spoke, he was not hearing himself. Instead, he was remembering his incarceration. He was reliving the loneliness, the dread, the fear, the horror.

“Did you ever come see me? Did you ever write? Did you ever send me anything? Did you?”

He paused, and she stared at him with large, combative eyes.

“You got some nerve!” she said. “Asking me something stupid like that. Did I make you break the law?”

He looked at her but did not respond.

“Did I cause you to get locked up?”

She paused again, and again, he did not respond.

“No, I didn’t,” she answered for him. “You did that all by yourself. Now, if you were any kind of man, you would’ve took responsibility for your actions and did your time all by yourself, instead of making Mama, and Papa, and everybody else suffer for something you did. Naw, I didn’t come, and I didn’t write, ‘cause I didn’t feel sorry for you then, and I don’t feel sorry for you now. I pity you.”

“I don’t want your pity,” he said. “I just want you to leave me alone.”

“And I just want you to get out,” she said.

“This ain’t your house,” he said forcefully. “I got just as much right to be here as you do.”

Suddenly, they heard the sound of their mother’s concerned voice floating from beyond the thin living room wall.

“Everything all right in there?”

The sound of her voice forced a temporary halt, and in unison both of them sang out in perfect harmony.

“Yes, ma’am.”

They paused and awaited her response, but when none came, they resumed their conversation, only now careful to keep their voices low.

“You ain’t gone lay up here and kill Mama like you killed Daddy,” René said, low, but forcefully.

“What!” Tyrone whispered, shocked by her words,
stunned by their implication and hoping against hope that what she said wasn’t true.

“You heard me,” she said.

“I wasn’t even here when Papa died,” Tyrone defended himself.

“No, but you killed him just the same.”

“Girl, you crazy.”

“Crazy nothing,” she said. “You worried that man to death.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“No, I don’t believe it,” she said. “I know it.”

“You don’t know nothing.”

“I know it, and you know it, too,” she said. “You killed him with your trifling ways, and if we don’t get you out of here, before too long, you gone do the same thing to Mama.”

“I love Mama.”

“Please.”

“I do.”

“You don’t love Mama or nobody else,” René said. “That boy of yours in the fix he in right now because you don’t never think about nobody but yourself.”

“I love my son,” he said. His voice began to shake. His eyes began to water.

“That’s why you left him and Pauline here to fend for theyself.”

“That wasn’t my choice.”

“Whose choice was it?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice filled with sarcasm. “You’ve change all right.”

“I made a mistake, René. That’s all.”

“No,” she said. “You made a choice. And Pauline and that boy paying for it.”

“I love my family,” he said again.

“What kind of example you set for that child?”

He did not answer.

“What kind of reputation you left him?”

He dropped his head, and large, wet tears barreled down his face.

“A boy need his daddy,” she said. “A boy need his daddy to teach him how to be a man.” She looked at him with mean, contemptuous eyes. “Where were you when he needed you? Where?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. A large, hot mass churned in the pit of his stomach. He folded his arms tight across his midsection and slowly rocked back and forth, riveted by the pain, convicted by her words. Again, he tried to speak. His lips began to quiver, his hands began to shake, but still, no words came. He raised his head, and she looked at him with disgust.

“You pathetic,” she said.

He felt the sting of her words, and rising, hot emotions caused him to leap from the bed. Guilt and anger made him unstable. His legs wobbled, and warm, salty tears poured from his eyes and passed over his still quivering lips. He took two steps, then leaned against the foot of the bed for support. He looked at René with red, swollen eyes. Then he raised his arm and pointed an incensed, unsteady finger.

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that,” he said. Anger made his voice crack, and he closed his mouth and swallowed. He could feel his heart pounding, his chest heaving, his frail nerves raging.

“Am I supposed to be scared now?” she asked defiantly. “Touch me and see if I don’t send you straight back to the penitentiary.”

Shame replaced anger, and he lowered his hand, then dropped his gaze and tried to relax his stiff, taut
body. What was wrong with him? He was on probation. He had to do better than this. He had to control his emotions, not let his emotions control him. He looked at her with repentant eyes. His lips parted.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You can say that again,” she mumbled.

“I don’t want to fight you, René,” he said. “I just want to help my son.”

“It’s too late for that now,” she said. “When you could’ve done something for him, you didn’t. Now it’s too late.”

“No,” he said.

“What can you do?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But this thing won’t happen. I won’t let it.”

“It’s gone happen,” she said. “And you gone have to live with it.”

“You act like you want him to die.”

“I’m just telling you how it is.”

“You think he guilty?”

“Who knows?” she said.

“I didn’t ask you what you know,” he said. “I asked you what you think.”

“I think he’s your child,” she said.

“What’s that suppose to mean?” he asked.

“Like father, like son,” she told him.

He heard a noise behind him. He whirled, and straightened. Jimmy was standing in the hallway next to his bedroom door, a bag of groceries in one hand, and his hat in the other. He looked at Tyrone, then at René.

“What’s going on in here?” he asked. “I could hear y’all clear down the hall.”

“Nothing,” René said.

Jimmy looked at her for a few seconds before he spoke again.

“You sure?” he asked.

“I’m sure,” René said, then turned and disappeared into her room.

Jimmy looked at Tyrone as if he was about to say something, but before he could, Tyrone turned toward the bed and began collecting the papers he had been reading. He didn’t want to talk anymore. He had too much to do and too little time to do it. He could feel Jimmy’s eyes on the back of his neck. He heard the bags ruffle, then the sound of Jimmy’s heavy footsteps die away on the hall and disappear into the kitchen.

Next door, he heard René’s bedroom door open and close, and he knew that she had gone to put the groceries away and to give Jimmy his supper. Tyrone decided to shut his door to blot out the noise, but no sooner had he reached the doorway, than his mother emerged from the living room, carrying her empty plate in one hand and the empty glass in the other.

“Mama, I’ll take that for you,” he offered.

“That’s all right, baby,” she said. “I know you got things to do.”

He stood in the doorway and watched her wobble down the hall on weak, unsteady legs. He felt his heart sink. Yes, she had aged while he was away, and he could not help but wonder how much time he and his troubles had stolen from her.

When she turned into the kitchen, he went back into his bedroom and sat on the bed, but he did not close the door. Instead, he waited until he again heard her shuffled footsteps in the hall. When she was close, he returned to the door and bid her good night, then watched her cross the hall and disappear inside her bedroom. When she was completely out of his sight, he eased the door shut, gathered the paper that he had been reading, and resumed his work.

A space of time passed in which he toiled in silence; then a strange noise made him stop and listen. Next door, Jimmy and René had returned from their sojourn to the kitchen, and he could hear the muddled sound of their voices through the paper-thin walls. They talked a while; then their soft murmuring gave way to silence, and their silence gave way to the faint, rhythmic sound of creaking bedsprings. Embarrassed, he rose to leave; but the bed on which he sat creaked, and he reconsidered, fearing that the sound of his moving about would betray him, causing undue embarrassment to them, and further embarrassment to himself.

He heard his sister begin to pant; then she began to moan, and at that moment he longed to be anyplace other than the place in which he was. He looked down at the papers and tried to ignore what he was hearing, all the time struggling to stave off the unwanted images fighting to creep into his consciousness. He opened his mouth and began to read softly to himself. He heard himself calling words, but what they were meant to convey escaped him.

Through the walls, the sound of the creaking bed became louder; René’s breathing, more rapid. He thought of Pauline. His body flushed warm. The hair on the back of his neck began to tingle. How long had it been since he held her, caressed her, loved her? A dark cloud of silence engulfed him, and he pictured himself lying with her in love, their hot, naked bodies wet with sweat, their fiery loins pulsating with passion.

The thought excited him; then in an instant, a huge wave of hot shame brought him back to reality. In his mind loomed a brooding image of Marcus lying in his cell, longing for a sleep that would not come and listening to the all too familiar sounds of dangling keys and clanging doors, while dreading the impending sound
of the prison whistle blowing morning into existence and telling him that he was one day closer to his imminent death. Tyrone focused his eyes again and began to read, while next door, the passionate moans gave way to silence, which soon gave way to the sound of two people sleeping.

“The answer is here somewhere,” he mumbled softly to himself.

Hours passed; then somewhere around two A.M., it began to rain. All around him was quiet save for the soothing sound of the tiny drops of water pelting the roof of his mother’s house and the soft whisper of the wind rustling the leaves of the large pecan tree just outside his window. It was extremely late. Though he had long since been tired, the anxiety he felt, and his keen awareness of the obvious time constraints, had inoculated him, enabling him to press forward. Now, in the early hours of the morning, his mind rebelled, and his tired, deprived body finally surrendered to sleep.

H
e awoke to the smell of frying bacon and to the muttered sound of people talking in the rear of the small house. He looked at his watch; it was five until nine. He had overslept. He snapped upright and stared about. Scattered around him, on top of the unslept-in bed, were the papers he had been reading the night before. In his sleep, he had unknowingly pushed the box flush against the far wall and had somehow kicked his shoes off his feet. One lay on the floor at the foot of the bed, while the other lay against the base of the dresser in the rear of the room.