Disappearing Acts (22 page)

“Senegal,” she said.

Why I felt relieved, I don’t know.

“What were you using?” I asked her.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Oh.”

The doctor came back into the room, and without even realizing it, I heard myself ask him, “What was it?”

He just looked at me. “I’m not at liberty to say. Don’t you worry yourself about that now,” he said, and walked over to another woman, who was now on the recovery table. She was lying on her stomach. Her hair was thick, black, and matted. She looked around the room until she spotted the three of us.

“Where am I?” she asked.

None of us said a word.

“This is so silly,” she said. Then she turned her head sideways and closed her eyes.

Portia was reading
Cosmopolitan
when I came out. She threw it on an empty chair and rushed over to me.

“So you feeling okay?”

“Yeah. Just a little tired is all.”

“I told you it was nothin’ to it, didn’t I?”

*   *   *

After convincing Portia that I’d be fine, I took a cab home. Franklin wasn’t there yet—thank God—so I lay down. When I heard the door slam, I sprang up in bed. He came into the bedroom and stood in the doorway.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“I’ve got a yeast infection, that’s all.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d you get it?”

“Women just get ’em every now and then. It’s a buildup of bacteria, and I have to use these suppositories to get rid of the infection.”

“But I need some pussy, baby.”

“You’ll just have to wait, Franklin.”

“You mean you can’t make love?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I could give this to you, and you’d be itching and everything, and then you’d have to take antibiotics. You wouldn’t want to go through that, would you?”

“I can use a rubber.”

“No, you can’t. I’m not supposed to have anything inside me until the infection’s gone.”

“Well, just how long will that be?”

“Two weeks.”

“Women,” he said. “I’m glad I ain’t one. Y’all get more shit wrong with your bodies than any other species on earth.”

“Yeah, but what would you do without us?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said: what would you do without us?”

“Action speaks louder than words,” he said, and walked back out the front door.

What did I say?

*   *   *

Three days went by, and I still hadn’t seen or heard from him. I didn’t know who to call or where he might be. But more than anything, I couldn’t understand what I’d said or done to cause him to leave. I was going crazy. I mean, really crazy. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and I even stayed home from school for two days. I couldn’t face those kids. I wanted to call my Daddy, but what could I say to him? Claudette, Marie, and Portia had already given me so many pep talks to help me get over the guilt that I didn’t
have the nerve to call them and tell ’em about this. So I kept it all tucked neatly inside me. I stared at the walls, at my plants, then back at the walls again. Maybe this was for the best, him leaving. It would mean I could get my life back to normal. But what was normal now? The phone rang and scared the shit out of me. I ran over and answered it on the first ring.

“Baby, I’m sorry. I just want you to know that,” he said. He was breathing awfully hard. “But why couldn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” I asked.

“Come on, baby, I ain’t that stupid. I know when your period is due. Who rubs your stomach and back every month when you get it, huh? But you didn’t get it this month, and all of a sudden you got a yeast infection? Why couldn’t you just tell me?”

“I was too scared.”

“Scared of what, baby? Scared of what?”

“That you might want me to keep it.”

“Oh, so you wouldn’t want my baby?”

“Of course I would, Franklin, but look at us. Are we in any position to think about having a baby?”

“That ain’t the point. We supposed to talk about this kinda shit, ain’t we?”

“Yeah.”

There was a long silence, but it sounded like somebody was speaking over a loudspeaker in the background. “Franklin, where are you?”

“I’m at Brooklyn Hospital. I had a accident on the job today and cut my chin open. I’m getting stitches, if these motherfuckers would hurry up. I could bleed to death standing here waiting for them. If I was white, I’d be fixed up and home by now. I love you, baby.”

“Are you okay? I love you too, and I swear I didn’t do this to hurt you. I didn’t really want to do it, but it didn’t feel like I had a choice. I’m sorry, Franklin. Don’t move. Please. Stay right there. I’m on my way.”

I couldn’t find my purse fast enough. But I locked the front door in slow motion and walked down the dark street, putting one foot in front of the other as if I were walking inside someone else’s dream. When I got to the emergency room, I saw Franklin sitting with his head back against the wall. He looked like he hadn’t slept in ages. There was a growth of beard on his face. Blood was all over the front of his shirt, and he held a stained handkerchief up to his chin. I could smell the liquor before I even got close to him.

“Are you okay?” I asked, looking down at him.

“I’m all right. Don’t worry about me. What about you—how you feeling?”

“I’m feeling okay. Let me see it, Franklin.”

“It ain’t nothin’ but a little cut, really.” He didn’t move the handkerchief but sat up straight.

I walked over to the nurses’ station.

“Can you tell me what’s taking the doctors so long, miss? My husband’s bleeding like crazy over there. This
is
supposed to be an emergency room, you know.” I couldn’t believe I had called Franklin my husband, but how else was I to refer to him?

“We were about to call him in now. Did you say you’re his wife?”

“Sort of,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Either you are or you aren’t.”

“I’m not,” I said.

“Then you’ll have to wait out here.”

“Take it easy, baby,” he said. “Everything’s gon’ be okay.” Then he disappeared through a white door. I sat there for what felt like hours, wondering what he was going to say to me when we got home. I dreaded the thought. I wished we could pretend this never happened and just get on with our lives. When he finally came out, I could see even around the bandage that his chin was swollen.

“Franklin, how many stitches did you have to get?”

“Just a few,” he said.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go home.”

“You mean I still got one?” he asked.

I just looked at him. I lifted his long arm up and pulled it around my neck, then I slid my arm around his waist. As we started walking down the street, I could feel his weight falling on my shoulders. I let him lean on me.

Zora was singing this Billie Holiday song when I turned the key and cracked open the door.

I can take a hint.

For five days I busted my nuts, tearing down a old hospital. Then I spent three days hauling rotted wood, bricks, and garbage where a park is supposed to be built. And I’m stinking like hell now, ’cause I just finished digging up a sewer, down in a cold-ass hole with rats—and I come in here and gotta hear her singing some shit like this? What I felt like doing was taking off these nasty clothes, holding ’em up under her nose, and telling her to “heartache” this. Just smell what love can make you do. Yeah, you can sing about disappointment, baby, but I’m the one standing knee-deep in it, and I’m sinking by the day. I wish I could tell you that, but all I got left is my pride.

I tried to pull off my boots, but the insides was packed with cold dirt and wasn’t budging, so I took
off my gloves to get a better grip. My fingertips was stinging like a motherfucker, and I could feel the ice from my mustache melting and dripping on my top lip. And she singing about heartache? Gimme a fuckin’ break.

By the time I got all the shit off, Zora had stopped singing. When she came out to the living room, the first thing I noticed was that her hair was cornrowed. But I didn’t say nothing. I just looked at her. It ain’t that I don’t like cornrows, but damn, she didn’t even tell me she was gon’ do it.

“You like it?” she asked, spinning around so I could see all of ’em.

“I didn’t know you was getting your hair braided.”

“It was supposed to be a surprise, Franklin.”

“Well, I’m surprised.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“Yeah. It’s all right.”

“All right? I spend eighty dollars, sit for seven hours, and all you can say is ‘all right’?”

When I heard her say eighty dollars, it felt like somebody had stuck me in the head with 1,000 volts of electricity. I don’t make but fifty-six dollars a day, and she just spent eighty on some goddamn braids? “Didn’t you go to school today?”

“It’s Veterans Day,” she said.

It didn’t make sense for me to say nothing else. And she had the nerve to get those extensions put in, so her hair looked longer. Women. It musta been at least two hundred braids crisscrossing all over her head, and dangling at the end of every last one of ’em was some kind of bead. It
was
pretty, but I didn’t feel like telling her, so I just went to take my shower. When I came out, she was singing that fuckin’ song again.

“What you so sad about?”

“What makes you think I’m sad?”

“Cause you singing a sad song.”

“It’s not really a sad song, Franklin. It’s just a blue one.”

“What’s for dinner?”

“Leftover lasagna.”

The phone rang, and as usual, she answered it. I knew it was for her ’cause don’t nobody call me, and whenever I do answer it, I feel like her damn answering service. It’s always one of her silly girlfriends, and since I ain’t got too much to say to none of ’em, I usually let the phone ring till she get it.

“Hi, girl. No. I’m getting ready to leave in a few minutes. For my voice class. Eight o’clock? Where? Portia, I can only stay for about an hour, really. I’ve gotta get up early. Because my students are rehearsing for their Christmas performance. Why do you think? Okay, okay! Let me go—I can’t stand to be late. I’ll see you later.”

She hung up the phone and put her coat on.

“Franklin, I’ll probably be a little late tonight.”

“Why? Where you going?” I heard every word she just said, but I didn’t want her to think I was listening. That damn Portia ain’t nothing but a dickhound. Why Zora gotta hang out with her is what I wanna know.

“After class, Portia wants me to meet her at some new club. I’ll be back about ten.”

“You know, if your girlfriends had a man of their own, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to drag you out in the streets all the time.”

“Now, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said. You
got
a man, and all of ’em—except for Claudette—don’t. Every time I look around, one of ’em is calling here, trying to get you to go somewhere.”

“So? What’s wrong with that? They’re my friends, Franklin, and I don’t see any of ’em that much anymore.”

“If they had a man, you think they’d be calling so much? It’s ’cause they lonely as hell—and everybody know misery loves company. I betcha they drill you. Wanna know if I’m finally making any money, or how good I’m fucking you, don’t they?”

“Franklin!”

“Don’t give me that Franklin shit. I know women. I’d bet you a hundred dollars right now that Portia probably know how big my dick is. Don’t she?”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Tell me something, baby. Are you as lonely as she is—is that it?”

“Franklin, please. I’m just meeting her for a drink.”

“That’s what you want me to believe.”

“You know something—you’re changing, Franklin. I’m starting to notice that every time I get ready to go somewhere without you, you start pouting. Why make such a big deal out of nothing? Now relax, and I’ll see you later.”

“You’re the one who’s changing. In the beginning, you didn’t hardly wanna leave my damn sight. Now it seem like whenever you get a invitation to do
anything
—and
especially
without me—you jump at the fuckin’ opportunity.”

“Half the time you never want to go when I do ask, and besides, there’s some things I like doing by myself or with my friends. You just don’t like ’em—why don’t you go ahead and say it?”

“It ain’t that I don’t like your girlfriends—I don’t hardly know ’em—but one thing I do know is that when one woman ain’t got no man, and their girlfriend do, they can’t stand it. You just too blind to see what they trying to do.”

“Which is what?”

“Pull you away from me.”

“Your imagination is running too wild,” she said, and gave me a empty kiss, like it was just a habit instead of a feeling. She didn’t even say bye.

And fuck you too, I thought.

How high was I supposed to turn up the oven to heat up this shit? Who knows? I put it on 500. I watched “Wheel of Fortune” and won a trip to Hawaii, some patio furniture, and a new stereo. When I smelled the food burning, I jumped up to get it. By the time I scraped out all the burnt noodles, I had missed the damn bonus round. I wanted to try for that car, even though it was a Oldsmobile.

I needed a drink. But I didn’t want one. I been drinking too damn much the past six months, and I know it. I don’t want alcoholism to sneak up on my ass. I done put on five or ten pounds since the summer, and on top of that, Zora’s cooking is hard to turn down. Two twenty-five is as big as I ever wanna get. Alcohol blows you up. I poured a glass of this weird juice she gets at the health food store, and to my surprise, the shit was good.

Wasn’t nothing on TV worth watching, and since I ain’t read a decent book in a while, I looked over the shelves until I spotted one called
Tragic Magic.
I took it down and opened it, read a few pages, and knew I was gon’ like it. There was a beat to each sentence that I ain’t never read before. And the author, who I knew was a brother—Wesley Brown—can write. I took the book in the bedroom and laid across the bed. Twenty more pages, and I was into it. This dude went to prison instead of going to Vietnam. Now, this was my kinda man. I swear, Zora got some good books around here. I wondered if she had read this one, or was it just collecting dust?