Disappearing Acts (39 page)

“No.”

“Let me see your face over here in the light.” I walked over, and he held my face gently in his big hands. “Damn, I’m sorry.” I turned to look in the mirror, and the whole side of my face was red. He put his arms around me and held me for the longest.

“Do you think it’s possible we can enjoy what’s left of the weekend?” I asked.

“I’m gon’ give it my best shot,” he said.

*   *   *

In the morning, Franklin was up at six, waking me.

“Come on. Let’s go look at the horses and have breakfast at the track. I read about this boat ride up in Lake George. We can do that and be back in time for the concert. I called another hotel, not motel, in town that’ll have a vacancy later, so we can stay there tonight. I wanna make this up to you, baby.”

“How much is it?”

“Let me worry about that.”

“But what about this room? We’ve already paid for it.”

“So what? It’s only money.”

I looked at him hard. The baby started kicking. My heart was giving in, and my shoulders began to fall. “Just give me a few minutes to shower, and I’ll be ready.”

Franklin kept his word. The whole day felt like a dream, and as we sat on the deck of the
Ticonderoga
, I kept looking over at him to make sure he was the same person who had hit me last night. He wasn’t. He was the same tall black handsome man I had fallen in love with. We sat out there in silence, watching fifteen miles of
waves and trees. When small boats passed us, the people in them waved, and we waved back.

Franklin didn’t so much as drink a beer.

We sat in our reserved seats at the concert that night. The baby danced, and Franklin held my hand. When Chaka Khan finally slowed down and sang “Stop on By,” my head was on Franklin’s shoulder. We walked back to the hotel, which was beautiful, and I saw that it cost him ninety dollars for the night, but I didn’t say a word about it. I even felt like making love, but Franklin told me to just go to sleep and rest. By the time we were on the bus home the next day, the entire weekend felt like it didn’t really happen. Nothing fit together, except Franklin’s head on my shoulder and his hands on my thumping belly.

The foreman called me into the shanty.

I was glad, ’cause it’s cold as a motherfucker out here now, even though it’s only the end of October. Shit, feel like it’s getting ready to snow. All I’m hoping is that he gon’ tell me, when we start the next job in a few weeks, that it’s gon’ be inside.

“Frankie, would you like some coffee?”

“Yeah,” I said. The tone of his voice was off, and something told me in a split second that it wasn’t gon’ be no next job. I been through this routine enough to know.

“Naw, I changed my mind. I don’t want no coffee.”

“Well, you know I don’t make the decisions around here…”

“Mel, get to the point, would you? Am I going to the next site or not?”

“Afraid not, Frankie.”

“What happened? Too many blacks on the job?”

“Nothing like that. The contractor’s cutting back. He’s got too many men on the next crew.”

“Yeah, right. So when do we, or should I say I, end here?”

“Two weeks.”

“And the fact that I’ve been busting my nuts, working overtime damn near every other night, ain’t missed
a day, ain’t been late, and knowing I coulda probably had your job, ain’t got nothin’ to do with this, do it?”

“Frankie, you’re one of our best workers, but this isn’t my decision.”

I got up and went back outside. I put my work gloves back on and found my lunchbox.

“Where you going, Frankie?” I heard him yelling.

“Home. And fuck you too.”

I went down to my union hall and told ’em what happened. They told me I hadn’t been fired or laid off, that what I had just done was quit. “What else you got?” I asked.

“Nothin’ right now. Stay in touch.”

The union hall is just as racist as the rest of ’em. They all work together, really, and I don’t even know why I bothered going down there in the first place. But it don’t matter, ’cause I need a break anyway.

So I went home.

It was cold as a motherfucker in here too, but since this is New York, the landlord controls the heat. I was ready to fuck with somebody, so why not Sol? I went downstairs and knocked on his door.

“Come on in,” he said.

When I walked in, I swear to God, the smell was enough to knock you down. Between them nasty-ass cigars he smoke, all this old shit he calls antiques, three handicapped cats, and two mutts he calls dogs—and he probably ain’t bathed since I don’t know when—I just said, “Naw, I’ll stand right here.” I was in the doorway, with the door still open. “How about some heat?”

“What, you think it’s cold? This is gorgeous weather. It’s fall, Franklin.”

“Look, Sol, as much rent as we paying you, it’s cold as hell up there, and I’m asking you to turn up the heat. It’s forty-something degrees outside. Fuck fall.”

“Take it easy, Franklin.”

“You gon’ turn on the heat?”

“There’s a way to ask people to do things,” he said, and reached for his cane.

I turned to go back upstairs and saw one of them damn cats. This one had white pus and shit all around its eyes and only three legs. I wanted to kick it, but I stepped over it.

When I got upstairs I poured some water in the Mr. Coffee, but before it started brewing, I knew coffee wasn’t what I needed, so I turned it off. I got the bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the cabinet and poured a tall one. I guess I’ma just have to go down to the union hall every single day till they put me on somewhere. And I’ll go down to the organizations too. What the fuck. This is the wrong time to be getting axed. I got a baby coming in less than two months. I got Christmas and two kids who gon’ expect me to be Santa Claus. I got a divorce I gotta pay for. And I gotta tell Zora this shit.

*   *   *

I felt somebody shaking me.

“What, what, what?” I asked. Shit, I didn’t know where I was, until I looked up.

“Franklin, what’s wrong? What are you doing home so early?” I wanted to answer and sit up at the same time, but a jackhammer was beating away in my head, and I couldn’t do or say nothing. The inside of my mouth felt like it was full of cotton.

“Franklin?”

She had backed away now and walked clear to the other side of the living room. Good. Now I don’t have to look at her. Her belly came to a big point, and that was Zora, all right, with my baby inside her. “I’m sick.”

“You’re drunk,” she said.

“That too.”

“What’s the reason this time?”

“I got laid off.”

“But the union can help you, right?”

“I been down to the union.”

“And?”

“Ain’t nothin’ happening.”

“I thought that was
one
of the reasons for joining.”

“I ain’t never said getting in the union guaranteed me no job.”

“I know that, but you said it’d be easier.”

“All I said was it guaranteed they gotta pay you union wages, and you get benefits.”

“But don’t they look out for you?”

“Yeah, if you ain’t black.”

“Don’t start that again, Franklin. You use that as an excuse for everything.”

“Don’t tell me what I do. I ain’t in the mood for it right now. What’s for dinner?”

“You’ve already had yours, I see.”

She held up the empty bottle. I know damn well I didn’t drink all that. But I guess I did. “Look, I’m feeling like shit, baby. I just lost my job, and I ain’t had nothin’ to eat all day. Could you just cook me something until I get my head together, and then I can think straight.”

She didn’t say nothin’, but went upstairs to the bedroom, came down in my Saratoga T-shirt, and walked over and opened the refrigerator. She took out a plastic container of liver and threw it down on top of the cutting board. Then she snatched a box of rice from the cabinet, filled a pot with some water, and this went on till everything was finished.

I managed to sit up. “Thank you, baby,” I said, and walked over to give her a little kiss on the cheek, but she turned away.

“It’s ready,” she said, and sat down on the couch and turned on the TV.

So she’s pissed. So I’m disappointed. So everything is everything.

I had just cleaned my plate, when the phone rang. I waited for her to answer it, but she didn’t. It rung about six times, when, finally, I said, “Ain’t you gon’ answer it? You know it’s for you.”

“You live here too. You answer it.”

So I picked it up. “Yeah,” I said. It was that faggot she used to hang out with, Eli. The one she had me thinking was her man when I first met her.

“It’s your old boyfriend,” I said. Her eyes lit up, and she took the phone from me. I went to the upstairs bathroom and ran a hot tub of water. What I needed to do was sweat. By the time I got out, it was damn near nine o’clock, and I still felt like shit, and I looked around downstairs and didn’t see her. She was probably in the bed, so I went back upstairs—one step at a time, which was a sign that I was still fucked up. The liver and rice helped, but can’t nothin’ get alcohol out your system but time.

Sure enough, she was under the covers.

“What’d the faggot have to say? He need some pussy?”

“Spare me, would you, Franklin?”

“What did he want?”

“Why?”

“He ain’t been calling you. Why now?”

“Reginald’s sick.”

“So what?”

“You can really be callous, you know that?”

“So what’s wrong with him? He got that faggot disease that’s out now, AIDS?”

“No, he does not. He’s got something called shingles.”

“What the fuck is that? A new faggot disease that just came out?”

“It’s some kind of nervous disorder where your whole body gets covered with bumps.
Anybody
can get it.”

“So what’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is it can take up to three months for him to recover, and Eli wanted me to know in case I was ready to start my sessions back before he was okay again.”

“How’d he get the shit in the first place?”

“I just said it has something to do with nerves. It’s related to herpes.”

“Figures. Them faggots fuck anything that’ll bend over. God is punishing all of ’em. A dick was meant to be stuck in some pussy, not another man’s ass.”

“Franklin, you’re the one who’s being punished, for having such a fucked-up attitude. The only person you feel sorry for is Franklin, isn’t it?”

“Oh, so now you gon’ turn the shit around and put it on me, huh?”

She lifted the covers and threw ’em back, then started to get up.

“Where you going?”

“To sleep downstairs on the couch. I can’t stand this.”

“I don’t want you to sleep on the couch. I need you here with me.”

“You need, you need. That’s all you think about is what Franklin needs. Well, masturbate.”

“I’m tired of masturbating. It’s a shame when a man got a woman and gotta stroke his own dick just to get off. But I didn’t say nothin’ about fuckin’, did I? All I said was I need you.”

“That usually means fucking.”

“If you sleep on the couch, I’m coming down there too.”

“Franklin, could you give me a break for once?”

“I’m hurting, baby, can’t you see that?”

“What I see is that you’ve been drinking all day and you’re laid off again and starting to feel sorry for yourself, and I can’t stand it. Not tonight.”

“Then take your fat ass on downstairs. Go. Now! Get the fuck outta here. I don’t need you anyway.”

She walked on out, and I heard her grab some blankets from the linen closet. I wanted to push her down the stairs, but instead I laid on the bed and turned on the TV. I picked up Tarzan, but he probably died sometime this afternoon. I couldn’t think hard enough to make him hard, so I fell asleep.

Static woke me up.

It was daylight. My head felt better but not good. I got up and went downstairs. I didn’t smell no coffee, nothing. The couch was empty, and wasn’t no blankets on it. Zora was already gone. I looked at the clock, and it was after nine. Damn. I took a quick shower and left for the union hall.

I got a different story: Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

So I went down to A Dream, but it was closed. Closed? What the fuck is going on? I knew I was fucking up a whole day, but damn, something was up, and I wanted to find out. I went back down to the site and found Mel.

“What d’ya want, Frankie?” he asked.

“Look, I know I was rude and shit, but I wanna know what happened. What’s the real lowdown on why I ain’t going to the next job?”

“Like I told you. There’s been a lot of shit going down, and it involves jail.”

“Jail?”

“Indictments.”

“The organization got anything to do with this?”

“Don’t you read the paper, Frankie?”

“Yeah, but not in the last few days. Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“Turns out the feds have found out that quite a few of your so-called affirmative action organizations been taking payoffs to keep your kind off the sites.”

“Get the fuck outta here, man. Kendricks?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“I been down there, but it’s closed.”

“Then that should tell you something. Look, I got work to do. You get on anyplace?”

“No. Not yet.”

“It’s gonna be hard, I’m telling you that right now.”

“So you hiring?”

“No, but what I do have is a hundred bucks.”

“For what?”

“So you can stay home.”

“Where is it?”

He reached in his pocket and handed me a hundred-dollar bill. I just looked at him, then at the money, turned, and walked away.

I’m going crazy.

Here it is the middle of November, and Franklin’s still not working. I’m trying to be patient, and understanding, and all that, but it’s getting too hard. All I do is go to school, come home, cook, watch “Wheel of Fortune,” and then play Scrabble with Franklin to make the night go by. I take a shower and stare at myself in the mirror for a good ten minutes and get into bed and pray he doesn’t want to do it. He’s down to once a week now, and he’s still got that ten-minute problem. I’m sure it’s me that’s causing it, but I’m sorry. I’m pregnant, and there’s nothing I can do about it now.