A Day Late and a Dollar Short (5 page)

Chapter 2

Cold Keys

Viloa makes me sick.

Sometimes I honestly thank she make herself have these attacks. She'll do anything to get some attention, but this woman is aging me by the minute. Under all these layers of black dye, my head is full of gray hair, and I won't be fifty-seven till come September. My daddy didn't go all the way gray till he was almost seventy, and he spent his whole life in the fields. I ain't had it half that bad, and look at me: a middle-age old man.

I can't believe it's still raining so hard. I'm getting soaked. Doggone it! Who can remember where they parked in such a big parking lot? If my Lincoln wasn't red it'd be a whole lot easier, but there's thousands of red cars in Vegas, and most of 'em seem to be at this hospital today. I know I must look like a fool walking around in circles out here, if anybody's watching. I thank that's her window, right up there. Wait. There it is! Four rows over and two back. But my keys ain't in my back pocket. Not in the side ones either. Wait a minute. Retrace your steps, Cecil. Damnit! They at the foot of Viola's bed.

I shoulda stayed a little longer. I know I shoulda. But Viola acted like she wasn't all that glad to see me. Seemed like she wanted me to hurry up and leave. At least that's my thanking on it. She said no to everythang I asked her. I was trying to be nice. Yesterday, I called the house just to check on her, 'cause, even though I don't live at home no more, I still like to see how she doing, see how she holding up over there all by herself and everythang. But I didn't get no answer. So I stopped by on my way to work. Her car was right there under the carport. Viola don't walk nowhere. And ain't but s o m any places she could be. I knocked at least ten times and didn't get no answer. I knew Loretta was at her volunteer job, so she couldn't be over there. When I tried my key it didn't work. I guess she finally changed the locks on me. I went on to work, but I had a feeling that something was wrong. Soon as I punched in, I called the hospital. My heart was burning the whole time I dialed that number, which I knew by heart, and since don't nobody know how to find me, if something hada happened to Viola ain't no way I woulda known. The whole time they had me on hold I was praying that, if she was there, this was just another mild attack, that she was breathing any kinda way she could, even if she was hooked up to something. And, sure enough, as soon as I heard that nurse say, "She's in ICU," even though I'm new and still hourly and the casino don't pay me when I ain't there, I punched out.

I thank I see her peeking out the window but I can't be sure. I don't thank she can get up, but that look like her hand pulling the curtain back. I could be wrong. I don't know what else to say to Viola right now. I don't feel none too good inside. It ain't been right between us for a long time. Barbecue is what started our problems. I guess it would be fair to say that the crap tables ain't helped us out none neither.

Way back when, a whole bunch of my people had hightailed it from Texarkana up to Chicago looking for decent work during the Depression and the rest of 'em boxcarred it over to Los Angeles. Daddy sent me up to the Windy City to live with his brother when I was sixteen, so I could finish school. He said one farmer in the family was plenty. Try to find a job where I don't get dirty. If possible, try to find one where I get to wear a uniform. Protect something. Anythang.

Which is how I met Viola. I was a crossing guard for the elementary school right down the street from where we lived. She was fine and fourteen. Sassy. I fell in love. She was my chocolate rose. Next thang I know, we married and got four kids and we'd had about enough of them icy winds, that crunchy snow, them mean winter rats, and them blood-sucking mosquitoes every thick, sticky summer. I guess that was back in '73.

It was her bright idea to leave Chicago and move to Los Angeles. I just went along with the program. I didn't particularly care for L. A., even though 1 got on with the school district driving a bus. But since neither one of us wanted to be movie stars and Viola wasn't too crazy about most of my people 'cause she said they was too country, too loud, uncouth, and just plain nasty (she had a point), and being around 'em was embarrassing as hell, so, when Daddy died in '78 and left me a little something from the farm, we couldn't thank of enough good reasons to stay in California. The kids was grown and gone and I heard we still had a handful of decent kinfolk left in Vegas, so we took a chance on the desert and bought us a litde tract house here. All five of them relatives was dead before we opened the first Shack, 'cause that's the same year Viola made me take her bowling, that much I do remember.

Everybody, including me, always thought Vegas was all bright blinking lights and casinos. Strip joints and the Strip. But real people live here. In regular neighborhoods. And it wasn't all that pretty. It was dry and flat and bare and mostly brown. Now, with all the building going on, it's new housing developments everywhere you turn. It's still dry and flat and bare, but some people got grass and shrubs and flowers, and quite a few trees done managed to grow. But not in our yard.

The first year after we got here, Viola convinced me to take all our savings and put it with Daddy's money and we opened up our first barbecue joint. They grew to three, 'cause we knew how to smoke the meat just right (like they do in Texas), and my barbecue sauce was a family secret. Everybody said I shoulda bottled it up and sold it, but I didn't feel like being bothered. Hell, between loving Viola, driving a school bus for another thirteen years, and running the Shacks, when I took early retirement almost two years ago, I was tired. Tired of living like I was waiting for something else to happen. That's what it was beginning to feel like. Like I was missing something. Like this ain't it. Like my life should add up to more. Every day was starting to feel like it do when I call a professional business and they put you on hold for a long time and you forget who you called but you know you shouldn't hang up, so you just hold the line, listen to that recorded music, and wait. When they come back on the line you pray that you remember why yo u c alled and that they have the answers to all your questions. But they never do. So then you start thanking if you just look a little further ahead you might find them missing pieces. But how far can a man see? And what if you don't know exactly what it is you looking for?

Viola didn't understand why or just how long I'd been feeling bad inside. Years. It was hard to explain and she didn't seem all that interested when I tried. Between the two of us, she thank she the one who got the right to get scared. Ain't nobody else supposed to worry except her. She thank she got all the answers to everybody's problems even when she ain't sure what the problem is. She just said if I didn't start feeling better no time soon then go to the doctor. I ain't never liked going to the doctor. I ain't got no physical problems except this arthritis, but I know what to do about that. How is a doctor supposed to fix head feelings? And what about your heart? What can he do to make it feel good again, to make it feel passion and excitement? Can a doctor give you a prescription to feel all that again? I don't believe he can.

When we started getting robbed and had to close up all but one of the joints, Viola got mad with me. She blamed me for everything that went wrong but didn't give me no credit when thangs went right. That's why I got me a new street address. 'Cause if it weren't for her I'd still be home. It's only so much a man can take after years of being told what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to be a man, or how much man you used to be. What you ain't up to no more. A woman can wear a man down. Viola is and always have been one bossy woman. I accepted that. She didn't use to be so pushy, but she knew how to push my buttons. She'd say "Jump" and I'd ask, "How high, baby?" That's the kind of power she had. Still got, but I finally had to take my finger off the plug and let the air come on out. 'Cause I got tired. Tired of fussing. Tired of explaining. Tired of lying 'cause it was safer than the truth. But mosdy I was tired of apologizing for being Cecil.

I used to didn't thank it was possible to ever stop loving somebody once you started, but I was wrong. Well, maybe I should get this right. I do love Viola, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I just don't like her ass no more. She's mean. A old broad who used to purr but now all she do i s r oar. I wish there was a nice way to tell your wife she's a royal bitch and a major pain in the ass, but I ain't been able to come up with one. Lord knows I woulda told her a long time ago. I never wanted to hurt her feelings, not like she hurt mine.

I don't mind getting wet. It ain't that cold out here. This is March. Our winter ain't no real winter. It must be sixty-five or seventy degrees. As a matter of fact, these raindrops feel good. I could stand out here all day if I just had to, but I don't have to. Do I? I done forgot all about my hair. Lord knows I don't want no activator dripping on my good shirt. I wore it just for Viola.

When she moved out the bedroom last year, that was the last straw for me. Sex was like some kind of reward anyway. I had to earn it, then beg for it. Sometimes I have trouble in that department, but sometimes I don't. And I can't lie, Viola still got some of the best stuff I've ever had, but after living like you been sentenced to solitary confinement for so many years, good pussy ain't enough no more. Plus. I found out it's plenty of good pussy in Vegas, and most of it is cheap. You ain't gotta look her in the face, don't need to know no last names or how-comes and where-you-beens or what-time- you-coming-backs. They don't care if all you good for is five or ten minutes. Just get it, leave your money where they can see it, and ease on down the road.

Viola used to be my friend. I could trust her. Tell her anythang. But here lately, you can't be too sure what she gon' do with the information you give her. Mostly she hoist it right back at you like some kind of weapon. She got a big mouth and she makes me feel bad about myself. She used to thank I was everythang: Handsome. Sexy. Smart. Strong. Now all she do is criticize me. Hell, I know I'm country, and I don't mind it. She knew how I was when I married her. People don't change they ways just 'cause they get married. When you been brought up a certain way, you that way. Unless you go to one of them head doctors who can talk you into being somebody else. Viola stayed on me anyway. "When you gon' get rid of that Jheri Curl, Cecil?" Or: "You need to do some situps, your gut is growing by the minute." And if I forgot something, anythang: "Where's your mind going , Cecil? Is Alzheimer's creeping up on you already?" We'd be ready to go somewhere: "You ain't going nowhere with me in that getup." It mighta been a old suit, but she the one who picked it out in the first place. And we always watched what she wanted to see on TV, 'cause she held the remote in our house. But the worse one of all was: "You finished already?"

She don't take nobody's feelings into account except her own. Say the first thang that come out her mouth, which is why she ain't got but a roomful of friends. Loretta ain't no threat, that's why she's so nice to her. Plus she white. I thank Viola is either scared of white people or feel like she gotta prove she just as good as they are. But Loretta don't want nothing. She just downright friendly. Decent. She came with offerings, her palms turned up. Viola loved that. Somebody doing something for her.

If you was to count her sisters, them being the only family she got left, it's a doggone shame, 'cause both of 'em is dizzy as all hell. Priscilla is a fifty- year-old gangster. Been in and out of the penitentiary for the last twenty- some-odd years for petty crimes. I thank she out now. But you never know. Blink and she locked up again. She even had one of those thangs they stick in your ankle and she still messed up. Plus, she a drug addict, which is probably why it's hard for her to stop robbing folks and business establishments and what have you. Everybody in the family call her Bonnie.

Suzie Mae is sixty-five. She always was missing a few links and now it seem like her bulb just keep getting dimmer and dimmer. I thank she got a touch of that Alzheimer's but don't nobody wanna fess up to it, 'cause she always been a few nuts shy of a fruitcake, as Viola herself used to say. I thank it's 'cause she ain't never gave birth. But then Suzie Mae's husband died from some kinda cancer back in '71, and according to Viola, she still sleep with his picture like she waiting for him to come back from a war. Suzie Mae always have been a religious fanatic, going to church four and five nights a week, and giving almost all her Social Security money to the church. But two years ago after her pastor talked her into having what she told Viola was a healing fling, Suzie Mae found out just how big his flock was and that's when she decided to study the Bible at home. After that incident, she wouldn't let nobody in her house. Talked to you through the door. I heard her kitchen pipes froze right before last Christmas and her sink got backe d u p, so she washed dishes in the bathtub. From what Charlotte told Viola, it still ain't fixed. But Suzie Mae said she don't want no help, 'cause she don't need no help.

Speaking of lost. I done lost touch with my own kids. Outta touch is probably what I mean. I don't know 'em too good. Not on a personal level. I do know they good kids. Got good souls. The girls done turned into real _women, which is kinda hard to believe when I thank about it. First of all, they grew like weeds. All three of 'em gotta be between five seven and five nine. Being the only boy, Lewis surprised me and didn't turn out to be no more than six one or two. I don't know how that happened. But my litde girls. One minute you rubbing Vaseline on they ashy faces and watching they long thick braids swing back and forth when they jumping rope, and the next thang you know, they got breasts and wearing pantyhose and heads full of soft black curls and eye shadow on top of they eyes and they lips is some kind of creamy red or pink. Seem like all I did was blink and I was taking the training wheels off my baby girl's bicycle and when I looked at her again she was driving, had caught up with the rest of the kids.

As for Lewis, me and him ain't never seen eye to eye. He stay pretty much out my way and I stay outta his. Ever since he got arrested the first time and wouldn't listen to nothing I had to say-swung his fist in my face like he wanted to hit me-we ain't had too much to say to one another since. He feel like he always been a man, and you can't tell him nothing. In that way, we just alike. But I stopped trying to talk to him son to father a long time ago. I'm hoping, the next time I see him, maybe we can just talk man to man. See if time make a difference. I love all my kids, I do, but, working so doggone hard all them years, I missed 'em growing up. Viola was always there and I thought I was doing my part by paying for the roof over they head and putting food on the table. But a man can work too hard. I see that now. He can miss a lot: years. They just go by. You look down at your hands and they full of fat green veins, knuckles knotty from arthritis, knees bad, white of your eyes is brown, and you wonder where was you when you was supposed to be doing all this living? At work. I missed the prime of my life. That's what I did.