A Day Late and a Dollar Short (17 page)

They all huddled in the living room, waiting. That room must be at least three or four colors: one wall is lime green, another look like a very ripe tangerine, and I guess she got tired and just made the last two black. The ceiling ain't no shade of blue I ever seen in my life. It'a hold your interest, that's for sure. Miss Q and Hakeem is sitting on the floor with their heads sideways on the cocktail table. The baby-Sunshine-is underneath it on that dirty rug, sucking her thumb. They watching TV. But that's all they do is watch TV.

"Who would get the house?" she's asking me, while she take another sip off her beer, which she also niusta got 011 credit, 'cause wasn't none in the icebox when I left. When I put the ketchup and hamburger meat inside it there was three more loose bottles making a circle around a empty Kool- Aid jug. 1 guess these is her dinner. But I don't say nothing.

Hot grease is popping everywhere, even on the front of her light-blue top, but it don't seem like Brenda's fazed by it. In a saucepan right next to the hot links is some cream-styled corn, bubbling. "That house ain't worth nothing," I say. "You should turn the fire down on that corn before it stick, baby."

"It's a house. Better than this," she says, turning the dial on the stove from five to two. "This" is the projects, but if Brenda was to go back forty or fifty years to the backwoods of Texas and see what and where me and my eleven sisters and brothers was brought up, she wouldn't be complaining. She got running water. A bathroom with a toilet that flush. A phone that work since I been here. And two whole bedrooms for three little kids. That's all we had, too. She ain't got to worry about no rats. Nothing but a few straggly roaches every now and then. So. "This" ain't so bad, is what I'm thinking as I look around. It all depends on your frame of reference.

We had to take turns working on the farm, so some of us went to school and some of us didn't. After two of my other brothers got killed fooling around with a forklift, Daddy sent me up to Chicago to live with his brother. I was only in the tenth grade. He wanted me to graduate. I liked school. Wanted to finish. Did, too. When I left Texas, I already knew how most things worked. I'd watched my daddy operate machinery and run the farm. I knew how to cook. Knew how to put two and two together. Even figured out how to make a living without a good education. Sometimes it was hard. Sometimes it was easy. I still thank college woulda been the best way to go. If I had my druthers. But. It's almost April. It's 1994. I'm on the other side of middle age. Supposed to be retired. And here I am. Starting over.

"The IRS got a lien against the house," I say. "So you could say I don't even own it."

"What's a hen?" Brenda asks, setting some paper plates on the table with clean plastic spoons she gets out the silverware drawer. She got two or three real forks and case knives in there too, which me and her usually eat with. I been meaning to stop in Target and buy two sets. They ain't but $19.99 each, and the handles come in different colors.

"A lien is when the IRS get mad 'cause you didn't pay your taxes and they let everybody in the world know it. You can't get no credit nowhere, and you can't sell the house till you pay them first. If you don't pay nothing for a long time, they charge you so much interest and then penalties on top of the interest, that it add up to ten times more than you owed in the first place. If you can't keep up the payments, they do not feel sorry for you at all. They can and will take everything you own to get their money, even if it mean taking your house, your car, your wedding ring, anything you got that's worth something. This is what happened to Redd Foxx."

"Who?"

"Never mind."

"But what you supposed to do if they take your house and car and stuff?"

"What you mean, 'what you supposed to do'?"

"Well, it wouldn't make no sense to me to pay for something you ain't even got no more."

"It don't work like that, Brenda. It means I couldn't never buy another house until I paid the government they money."

"Then you better go on and pay them folks. Cecil, would you make some Kool-Aid for the kids right quick?"

"Sure, where's the pitcher?" But then I remembered.

"Where it always is. In the refrigerator. Why didn't you pay your taxes, Cecil?"

"That's a dumb question, Brenda."

"What's so dumb about it?" she asks, getting a real fork out the drawer and jabbing it deep into them crunchy hot links two at a time. Grease is dripping all over the stove, and dark-brown drops fall right on top of that yellow corn. I can't eat this mess.

"What's usually the reason why people don't pay their bills on time, Brenda?"

" 'Cause they ain't got the money, I guess." "All right, then."

"But you had them barbecue places."

"Had, is right."

"QUANTIANA! Y'all come on in here and eat! Well, what happened to 'em?"

"You been listening to me, gal?"

"Yeah," she says, "but you ain't told me nothing, really."

Here come the kids. One by one. Like little soldiers. Miss Q is beautiful. Her hair is wild and curly. Her skin is the color of a brand-new copper penny. I thank her and Hakeem's daddy is, or I should say was, Mexican. I can't be sure. They mixed with something. Hakeem is a handsome little dude. Already got the face of a grown man. You can see what he gon' look like twenty years from now. Small for his age, seem like to me. He three, but ain't much bigger than Sunshine, and she won't be two till Labor Day. Now, this child is 100 percent black. Ain't no guessing game necessary here. Her daddy like to throw dice, but his luck was always low when he come up against me. I won that gold cap in his mouth once, but I couldn't take the man's tooth. And if memory serves me correctly, he still owes me the value of one gold crown.

Brenda leans against the sink while the kids sit down at the table. Ain't but three chairs, so even if we all wanted to eat at the same time, we couldn't.

"Mama, Hakeem is in my chair."

"I ain't in your chair."

"You is!"

"I ain't!"

Miss Q, who is standing behind Hakeem, puts both hands on his chair and flips it backwards so fast that, before anybody can say a word, that boy is on the floor screaming out the top of his lungs. Then Sunshine start crying, and Miss Q just gets in that chair and start eating like ain't nothing going on. I wanna say something, but it ain't my place. These kids like me. And if I start chastising 'em like they mine, feelings have a tendency to change.

Brenda takes another sip of her beer before she even open her mouth. "You want me to go get my belt?"

I don't know which one she talking to, and I don't thank she do either, but all three of 'em shake they head no.

"Get up off that floor, Hakeem. You know Quantiana sit in the same chair every day, so why you have to aggravate her like this?"

He is not crying like I thought he was. He was just making a lot of noise. Being dramatic, as Viola would say.

But he already in the other chair, slurping up that corn. Miss Q rolls her eyes at him, like she done won another round, and the baby is sucking on a hot link. Brenda should know that that girl too litde to be eating this kind of spicy food, but she don't seem to be having no problems.

"Y'all gon' be okay, then?" she asks them.

They all nod yes. "Then me and Cecil gon' go on and sit in the living room, 'cause we got some important thangs to talk about. Don't come in there till I tell you it's all right, understand?"

Miss Q and Hakeem nod yes, and then the baby imitates them. Me and Brenda walk in the living room and sit down on the couch. It's a sad couch. I couldn't tell you what color it is. These kids destroy everything. All I know is there's a dip in the middle cushion, so, to keep from sliding into each other, we have to sit at opposite ends. I gave her five hundred dollars last week and I thought she said she was gon' buy one since they was having a big inventory sale at Levitz. But I don't see no new couch.

Brenda got her beer in her hand, which, after she take a long squig, she set on the cocktail table. It's sticky from something. I don't even wanna know what. And the rug under it is tore in one place, so, to keep it together, I lift the leg of the table and push this end of the rug against the other. You can't hardly tell it's split, but I know it.

Brenda picks up the remote control and press it until she get BET. It's some music videos on. She lean back on the couch and her bra strap done fell down on her left shoulder, but I don't thank she realize it, 'cause she don't do nothin' about it. I thank Brenda got a buzz going. She cocks her head to one side and look at me and smile. I smile back. If she could just stay in that pose, she could almost pass for pretty right now. But of course she move back to her position and then look down at the floor.

"You like me, don't you, Cecil?"

That is a dumb question to ask a man who living with you, who give you all his money, and is helping to take care of somebody else's kids, but I just say, "Of course I do." "How much?" she asks. "What you mean by how much?"

She must feel her bra strap, 'cause now she makes a hook outta her index finger and pull it back up on her shoulder. I just noticed that she changed her nail polish. It's a bubble-gum pink with green palm trees on each finger. She got some kinda imagination. "Okay. You know how they measure earthquakes, right?"

"Yeah, on a Richter scale," I say, even though I thank she about to lose me, but, then again, I don't usually have no trouble following Brenda's line of thanking, so why should I thank she about to get all philosophical on me now?

"Okay. So how high was that last one in L. A.?" "I don't know. But it was a big one."

"Of course it was, Cecil! It had to be at least a eight-something to kill folks and do the kinda damage it did, am I right?" "You right."

"Okay, so let's say a nine is like the very highest earthquake, and say like a three ain't nothin' but a little tremor. Where do your feelings for me fall on the Richter scale, Cecil?"

That's all she getting at? "It's a easy eight, Brenda." "Don't lie to me, Cecil."

"I ain't lying, girl. You the best thang that's done happened to me in a long time. I ache for you. My feet don't hardly touch the ground when I walk, and when I do I can't even hardly feel my bunions no more. What about your feelings?"

She take a sip of her beer, then decide to go on and finish it. She set the botde down and stands up. She do some kind of sexy stretch so her breasts rise up and then fall. Then she cup her hands over both of 'em and squeeze. "You could be on your way to being a eight, too." "What is that supposed to mean: 'on my way'?"

"Well, we got some decisions we gotta make."

"Like what?"

"Well, tell me something. Since your wife didn't die, was you planning on getting a divorce any time soon?"

"Of course I am. We over here living in sin. It ain't right. I know that. Your kids is little now, but not for long."

"How soon?"

"Well, I gotta let the woman get back on her feet, and I just told you, we got some financial problems we have to straighten out first. It ain't as easy as one two three, Brenda. Why you wanna know all this today, when we done talked about it before?"

" 'Cause things is different."

"What's different?"

"Something done happened and I can't do nothin' about it."

"Something like what?"

Next thang I know, she look toward the kitchen to see if the kids is looking, and they ain't, so she lift up her light-blue top and pull both her breasts out from under her bra. "Do they look bigger?"

"I can't say. I ain't never really looked at 'em with no ruler in mind."

She puts 'em back and pull her top back down. "Well, they gon' be bigger than this in a few months."

"You don't need no surgery, Brenda, if that's what this is about."

She shakes her head back and forth. "How old is your youngest child, Cecil?"

"Thirty-five."

"And the oldest?"

"I thank she thirty-eight. Why?"

"Well, you might wanna let 'em know that they gon' have a brand-new little sister or brother sometime in September."

"You playing with me, ain't you now, Brenda?"

"Why would I joke about something like this?"

"You sitting here telling ine that right this minute you got a baby growing in your belly that's got my blood?"

"That's exacdy what I'm telling you," she says, and walks toward me. My heart is skipping every other beat. 1 feel hot. I feel young. I feel blessed. Like I'm being given another chance. A baby. A real live baby. Hot damn, Cecil. Didn't even know the old fella still had the power.

"So," Brenda whispers in my ear and then licks my earlobe. She know this drive me crazy and I can't hardly tolerate myself. "Do you wanna be the father of my baby?"

"I certainly do," I say. "I certainly do."

"Then we gon' have to make some changes."

"I know we do."

"We need to move."

"I know."

"Someplace decent."

"I know."

"Where the kids can go to good schools."

"Yeah."

"Closer to white folks, is what I'm getting at."

"We ain't gotta move with no white folks for that. They can go to private school."

"Private school?"

"They got some good Christian schools around here. It wouldn't hurt these kids none to get closer to God and get a good education at the same time, since don't nobody seem to go to church around here."

"We can start doing that, too, you'll see."

"I thank that's a very good idea, Brenda."

"Okay, but I ain't finished."

"I'm all ears, baby. You got my undivided attention. Do my ear again, though, please?"

"I can't be doing too much more cleaning in my condition."

"Don't even worry about that, Brenda."

She makes one long stroke with her tongue on the side of my neck up to my ear, and then she blows inside it. Hot-diggety dog.

"And my car need more than a transmission."

"We can trade that sucker in."

Now she do her nibbling thang on my earlobe. I like this one, too. I do.

"I need to get this Curl outta my hair and get some braids, so I won't have to be worrying about lifting my arms up over my head when I get too big to fix it."