Daddy Was a Number Runner (25 page)

Junior shrugged and started singing a street song: “Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies 'cause a man got hit with a bowl of shit and that's the reason why.”

“Come on, man,” Sonny said. “Alfred's waiting for us.”

Junior cuffed me on the chin and walked off with Sonny.

“Ain't that good? James Junior's got a job,” I said. “Mother will be so—”

“Shut up,” Sterling cut me off. “And don't even mention to Mother that we saw him.”

“But why, Sterling? How come I gotta—”

“Because I said so, that's why. Come on, let's go home.”

He spoiled everything, Sterling did. The crowd was still making a joyful racket as we walked home silently, but now we were separated from the magic we had been a part of just a few moments ago.

I
T
was storming, one of those reddish days that looks like the earth's on fire. It got darker and darker, all in the middle of the day, like the sun had gone off somewhere and died. The rain came down with a roar. The thunder boomed, the lightning cracked across the sky, and as I pressed my nose against the living-room window looking out at the storm, I shivered just a little, for who could tell that this wasn't doomsday. Gabriel, Gabriel, blow on your horn and all ye dead rise up to be judged.

But instead, the storm disappeared like it had never been, and the old sun sailed back into the sky. The puddles dripped into the sewers and the pavement dried in minutes with only a round damp spot here and there to remind us it had rained.

The streets which had emptied with the sudden storm filled up again as quickly, and all was as before except that Harlem's face was a little cleaner. But all wasn't exactly the same, I found out later, because it was during that storm that China Doll did it. It wasn't until after dinner that the
news hit Harlem with the same speed almost as that lightning bolt had tore across the sky.

I had gone over to the Caldwells' house and was sitting on the floor with Maude playing jacks when Rebecca came upstairs and rushed into the room. Elizabeth's two little boys were giving me and Maude a fit, grabbing the ball and jacks, messing up our game, and Mrs. Caldwell was ironing in a corner of the room.

“They done arrested China Doll,” Rebecca said, all out of breath like she had run up the whole flight of stairs.

“Lord, what now?” Mrs. Caldwell said, putting down her iron.

“She stabbed Alfred,” Rebecca said.

“She stabbed who?” I whispered, scared I had heard her right and wondering where Sukie was.

“Alfred, her pimp,” Rebecca said. “China Doll got him with a butcher knife. Right in the heart. He's dead.”

THIRTEEN
      

I RAN over the roof to Sukie's house and banged on her door. She answered it, her face swollen, her eyes red.

“You heard?” she asked.

I nodded as I walked past her into the dining room.

“He was always beatin' on her,” Sukie said, “the bastard. She should have killed him long ago.”

“Well, she finally done it,” I mumbled, not knowing what else to say. But it was hard to believe that China Doll had stabbed him and was in jail. Sukie didn't offer to tell me anything more and I didn't want to seem nosy and ask her so we just sat there silently waiting for her mother to come home. When we heard her footsteps, Sukie went to the door and opened it.

“They told me downstairs,” Mrs. Maceo said. “Soon's I get my breath I'll go on down to the jail. You eat yet?”

Sukie shook her head. “I ain't hungry.”

Mrs. Maceo fell down into a chair, her moriney face pulled into a tighter frown than usual.

“Hello, Mrs. Maceo.”

“Francie. That you?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I'm sorry, Francie, I didn't see you. There you are, sitting right before me bigger than life and I didn't see you.”

Then to my horror she started to cry, her face crumpling up like tissue paper, as if not seeing me had set her off. Sukie ran to her mother and fell on her breast but Mrs. Maceo pushed her away.

“I want you to remember this day,” she said, her voice harsh. “It wasn't enough for your sister to be a no-good whore. No. She had to go and kill that pimp, too. Kill him. But she never would listen to me. Never heard a word I said. Now you see what a bad end she done come to. And you, miss, you're trying to step right into her shoes, I can see that already. You're hardheaded just like your sister. Hardheaded and sassy. Won't go to school, won't learn nothing. You're a trial to me, Sukie, a trial.”

Sukie backed away from her mother. She slid into the wall, pushing herself into a corner like she was trying to climb to the other side.

“You gonna put me in my grave too before my time?” her mother asked. “You gonna be a no-good whore like your sister?”

“No,” Sukie whispered, shaking her head violently. “No. No!”

Mrs. Maceo sighed. “I ain't got nothin' but my children and sometimes they's more than I can bear.” She turned her eyes, dry now, on me. “Francie, run home and ask your mother if she'll go to the jail with me in about a half hour.”

As I went out the door I tried to avoid looking at Sukie huddled in the corner, chewing on her bottom lip to keep from crying. I crossed over the roof and ran down the stairs to our apartment. I pushed against the door but it wouldn't open.

“Mother,” I screamed in sudden panic. “Mother. Mother.” I didn't even know if she was home from work yet, but in a moment she opened the door.

“What is it, Francie? What's the matter?”

I rushed past her. “The door wouldn't open. I pushed and pushed.” I swallowed and the lump in my throat went away and with it the urge to scream. “Alfred's dead,” I said as I followed Mother into the kitchen. “China Doll done killed him.”

“I know. Mrs. Caldwell told me through the window soon's I came home. That's why you was screamin'? I thought somebody was chasin' you or somethin'.”

“I . . . I just got scared. The door wouldn't open.”

“You know it sticks sometime. What scared you?”

I shook my head. “I don't know. Nothin'.”

We looked at each other and for a moment I thought she was gonna hug me. We swayed toward each other but neither of us swayed hard enough. Finally, I said: “Mrs. Maceo wants you to go to the jail with her. In a half hour.”

“All right,” Mother said. She passed a hand over her eyes for a moment, and I thought, she's tired, she's always tired, but I never heard her say so.

After she left I sat on the fire escape leaning against the brick wall and shivering, although it was a warm Indian summer night. I pulled my legs up to my chest and thought about poor China Doll cooped up in jail. Why
had
she killed Alfred? He had whipped her before and she hadn't killed him. Had he beaten her up again? I remembered her black eye and those scratches on her face that time. Then a dark thought came to me, so horrible it made me want to throw up. I ground my fists in my eyes and banged my head against the wall, trying to knock some sense in me. But I couldn't shut that thought out. I couldn't still the sound of
China's voice telling Alfred to keep his evil eye off her sister.

I remembered that spark of light I had seen while peeking through Sukie's window. Vincent didn't have no diamond ring to catch the light of the moon. I banged my head up against the wall again. No. No. It couldn't be. I
was
getting addlebrained just like Mother always said I would.

Again I saw that flash of light in the darkness and heard the man's low voice. Vincent's voice was high, wasn't it? It was Alfred who always spoke in a low rumble. And Sukie would have told me about it right away, showing off, if she had been with Vincent. That's why she kept it a secret, because it wasn't Vincent. It was …

A stranger. A stranger with a deep voice like Alfred's and a diamond ring. My heart stopped it's frantic pounding and I shuddered with relief. That was it.

I felt dizzy and came inside from the fire escape and went to bed, not even bothering to pull the couch away from the wall. I lay there, absentmindedly smashing bedbugs. Yes, that was it all right. A strange man had been with Sukie, and in the morning I would ask her who he was.

“Who was he, Sukie?”

“Alfred,” she said. “Duke, Sonny, Slim Jim, Pee Wee, Max the Baker, Vincent. Your daddy.”

She laughed and her teeth turned into a sparkling diamond ring which kept turning off and on like a neon light, off and on to the sound of her crazy laughter.

I woke up, frightened, and didn't go back to sleep until long after Mother came home.

Who was it, Sukie? Who was it? Every time I saw her I silently asked that question. But I knew she was never going to tell me. She had gone away somewhere inside herself, and she'd never tell me anything anymore.

They was still holding China Doll. Alfred
had
hit her again and everybody said he was too lowdown even for a pimp and how low down can you get?

About a week later I was walking down 118th Street just wandering around, when I saw Daddy. He fell in step with me and we walked on down to Fifth Avenue.

“How you been, Francie?”

“Just fine, thank you.”

“Do you want to go to the show? I got a quarter I think I can spare.”

“No, thank you.”

“Your mother all right?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Tell her I'm gonna try and bring her the rent money tomorrow. I got a hunch seven twenty-two's gonna play today and I got a dollar on it.”

I didn't answer him. When we got to the corner I waited to see which way he was turning and I started in the other direction.

“Francie.”

I sighed loudly. “Yes?” but didn't turn around.

“You sure you don't wanna go to the show?”

“I'm sure, thank you,” and I walked away.

Ever since that time I had followed him down the stairs I wouldn't take any money from him but he acted like nothing was wrong and kept trying to give me a quarter and once even a whole dollar, but I refused it politely, and I never went looking for him anymore either.

He wasn't the only one acting like nothing had happened. Only last week when Sterling made some sassy remark about Daddy not living there no more and good riddance, Mother grabbed him. She spun him around so fast and slapped his face so hard he was stunned. “Your father is
still the head of this house,” she told him, holding on to his shoulder and looking him straight in the eye, “and as long as you live you will respect your father.”

I walked on down the street for half a block, then turned around and watched Daddy trudging down the avenue. Somehow, he didn't seem as big as he used to, and it wasn't until later I realized that he hadn't hollered at me for being in 118th Street and run me out.

S
ATURDAY
I was looking out the front-room window when the strangest feeling hit me. It was too cold to sit on the fire escape so I was leaning on the windowsill looking at the boys across the street in front of the drugstore. They was acting the fool as usual, their knickers hanging loose, their caps on backward, whistling at the girls and falling out at their own jokes. As I watched them they didn't seem so bad all of a sudden, just full of fun, and I didn't want them to fall off the roof or cut each other or be hauled off to jail but just to stay there, safe and sound forever, laughing in front of the drugstore. I forgave them for making me hate to walk past them while they shouted: