Saving Room for Dessert (4 page)

“Oh-oh, what’s this I see? Are those grow lights I see? In your kitchen? You got grow lights in your kitchen?!”

“Uh, no.”

“Oh now what you goin’ say, you growin’ tomatoes in there, is that what you goin’ say?”

“Uh, no. Huh? Tomatoes? Fuck you talkin’ ’bout?”

“Oh man, step back inside, turn around, put your hands behind your back—let go that pepperoni.” Rayford snatched it out of
Grunge-Ball’s hand and tossed it into the room onto a couch with a broken right leg.

“Hey, man, that’s Armour brand, man, you don’t throw that around, that’s primo”

“Well listen to you, my man the pepperoni connoisseur, huh? Do what I tell you, pep con, and the only problem you’re gonna
have is with a judge, you hear me? Turn around, I said, put your hands behind your back.”

“Oh man, you just can’t come in here,” Grunge-Ball said, but he got into a laughing jag from the pot and then, still laughing,
tried to push his way past Rayford into the hall. Rayford spun him around, grabbed his left wrist and twisted it back and
down, got that wrist cuffed, stepped on Grunge-Ball’s left toes while pushing his right shoulder down and pulling his left
wrist up, and before Grunge-Ball knew it he was on his knees, saying, “Man, somethin’ bit me on the toes. Fuck was that? You
got a dog?”

“You don’t stop squirmin’, it’s goin’ bite you again.”

“That ain’t right, man, siccin’ a dog on people. Where the fuck’d it go, man, you got a magical dog or somethin’? Where’s
it at?”

“Magical dog? You’re trippin’ out. You need to stop smokin’ your own product, my man, you’re growin’ some mutant weed.”

And so, on his first day of duty with the Rocksburg PD, Patrolman William Rayford made his first drug collar, arresting John
Harrold Walinski in apartment 3C at 335 Detmar Street, Rocksburg, and charging him with violations of Act 64, the Controlled
Substance, Drug, Device, and Cosmetic Act, Section 13, paragraphs 1, 12, 30, 31, 32, and 33, possession, possession with intent
to deliver, and use of paraphernalia for the purpose of planting, propagating, cultivating, growing, harvesting, etc., etc.,
a controlled substance, namely marijuana in excess of thirty grams. This arrest led to the confiscation of fifty marijuana
plants at various stages of cultivation, most about six inches tall under the grow lights in the kitchen but five of them
nearly four feet high in a closet. Also confiscated were three cookie sheets full of marijuana leaves and buds drying in the
oven, several boxes of Baggies, a carton of Top cigarette papers, and two scales.

The arrest, detention, prosecution, conviction, and subsequent incarceration of John Walinski also led to the daily gratitude
of Mrs. Romanitsky in 2A, who ever since had greeted Rayford as soon as she heard his door open if she sensed he was beginning
a watch, at seven, three, or eleven o’clock. If he opened his door at any other time, she did not appear, but at the beginning
of each of his watches, she never failed to appear and bless him with her prayers.

For a long time Rayford thought she was just some lonely old honky woman, half nuts from living alone for so long, but the
more it became clear his wife and son were not moving to Rocksburg to be with him, the more easy it became for him to slip
into relying on Mrs. Romanitsky’s prayers. Nobody else was praying for him that he knew of, and even though in his private
heart he thought religion was just the way rich folks kept poor folks satisfied with their poverty, he knew in his bones he
wasn’t big enough to turn down anybody’s prayers. He’d take all the prayers he could get, even though he believed that as
long as all you were worrying about was your immortal soul, you were no threat to stake out a corner of what might be yours
in the here and now. And if Balzic was right about how rich folks had played with the emotions of early union organizers in
the mills and mines by hiring blacks as scabs—and Rayford had no doubt of that—then religion was just the hammer on that nail
in the coffin of poor folks, white, black, brown, red, or yellow.

Still, after nearly six years in this apartment building—and he’d never signed a lease for longer than a year at a time—Rayford
had had no choice but to reassess who was half crazy from loneliness, Mrs. Romanitsky or him.

Social life for blacks in Rocksburg was nonexistent. He’d heard that at one time there had been a black American Legion post,
but that had closed long before he’d arrived. There were two black churches, Bethel AME and Rocksburg Baptist, but Rayford
had no interest in church or church socials. It was true that if his mood was right, a good gospel group could get him off
his behind and onto his feet, the operative word being “good,” but if you didn’t go to church, the only place you could find
good gospel was on the radio or the TV, and given the state of radio and TV ownership in Pittsburgh, the chances of that were
slim.

Still, early on, within a month after moving to Rocksburg, Rayford heard about a black club in Knox, Freeman’s Club and Barbecue,
fronted by two blacks for a mafioso with the unlikely street name of Fat Buddha. It wasn’t much. Just a bar, a grill and barbecue
pit, a tiny dance floor, a jukebox, a couple dozen tables, and every Saturday night, an open mike for any local musicians
who wanted to jam, mostly the blues and rock ’n’ roll but occasionally jazz. Free-man’s was where Rayford had met the women
he was unfaithful to, every one he managed to bed doing nothing for him as much as magnifying his memories of Charmane and
intensifying his hunger for her.

Somehow, to his irritation and annoyance, every woman he’d met in Freeman’s who’d looked clean enough to take out into day-light
had managed to find his phone numbers, home and cell, even though he’d never taken any of them back to his apartment and had
given each one a different misspelling of his last name, Reyford, Raiferd, Reyfird, Rayfer. He thought that should have been
enough to protect himself from their prying minds, but the fact that he had a spotless red ’97 Toyota Celica, decent clothes,
and a steady income seemed to put a serious jump in their curiosity about him.

He also never discussed his job with any of them. That was his first rule; he never told anybody he met socially outside of
Rocksburg that he was a cop. Too many brothers had been through the system with God only knew what resentments for him to
open himself up to any of those possibilities. And the last thing he wanted was any sister to have that information to trade
to any resentful brother.

So he was perplexed that not only one but all four of the ones he’d been seeing off and on had found out his unlisted phone
numbers and called him constantly. He had a machine and caller ID and never took any calls without screening, but every day
that he came home from work or shopping or eating he would find at least one message from one of the sisters and sometimes
one from each of them, and sometimes many more than that.

On his way to City Hall, he was trying once again to recall if he’d slipped and told one of the bartenders in Freeman’s his
numbers after too much Wild Turkey one Friday night. He couldn’t fully convince himself not to worry about it, even though
what was done was done and even though he knew it wasn’t like him to slip about things like his numbers. More and more lately
he’d been thinking that one of the sisters had a relative or an old boyfriend who was a cop and had run his plate through
DMV, then got his insurance carrier off the title, and got his phone numbers from his insurance agent while making up some
jive about an accident mix-up. Had to be. Or more likely it was some dude who wanted to be the new boyfriend.

So either it was time to change his numbers and stop going to Freeman’s for his social life, or else start motoring to Pittsburgh
to find a new one. Or maybe he’d just go on a woman fast, no women for thirty days, no pussy and no booze, just eat veggie
stir-fries and drink green tea and do yoga and lift and run. Yeah, right. The running and lifting and yoga and stir-fries
and no booze he could handle, but thirty days without a woman? Hey, why not, he asked himself as he pulled into the parking
lot on the south side of City Hall. Didn’t have a woman the whole time I was in air force basic. Didn’t die or go blind. Just
did what I had to do. Why can’t I do that now?

Stop bullshittin’ yourself, William, he thought. You know what you want. You know what you’ve wanted for five years. You want
to make another baby with Charmane, that’s what you want, you ain’t bullshittin’ nobody, man. You want to fill that black
hole in your black heart where William Junior used to be. Before that got-damn woman let that boy crawl up on the back of
that couch and get up on that got-damn windowsill. That’s what you want, William. And none of those women from Freeman’s is
good enough to do that with, none of ’em got the looks or the body or the laugh. That boy looked like Charmane from the day
he was born, same velvet chocolatey skin, same healthy body, same perfect fingers and toes, same brown eyes, same laugh comin’
up outta their bellies … great God almighty how they could laugh. And you’re never goin’ hear it again, William. Not in this
life. So separate yourself from it. Get it out of your mind, get it out of your heart. Go to work. Do your job. Every second
a new one. Every breath a new one. Just do them one at a time.…

Rayford parked his Celica in one of the slots against the chain-link fence that separated City Hall’s lot from the one used
by the businesses in the South Main Commerce Building. He collected his gear bag and briefcase, locked his car, and checked
his watch once more as he headed for the door into the station. It was 2:58. At 2:59 he was hustling into the duty room just
as Chief Nowicki was coming out of his office, clipboard in hand, to begin the watch briefing. Rayford nodded and exchanged
greetings with Patrolman Robert “Booboo” Canoza and Patrolman James Reseta, the two other patrolmen who’d be in the mobile
units this three-to-eleven watch.

Nowicki waited for Rayford to set his gear bag and briefcase on the floor and then said, “Afternoon, gentlemen. Not much happening
today, but we’re still lookin’ for the mope that tried to take off Leone’s Pizza yesterday. Detective Carlucci thinks it’s
the same one that’s been takin’ off pizza joints in the townships. State guys gave us this Identikit mug shot from the three
previous.”

Nowicki handed out copies of the mug shot and said, “Details of physical description, as you can see, are pretty crappy, the
kids were too scared to take more than a glance at anything but his face. But all these kids’re sure about three things, and
that’s the gun and the black ski mask and that he’s on foot. No vehicle. So you see anybody on foot near any pizza joint,
convenience store, gas station, et cetera, with a black watch cap or black knit cap or anything you think could turn into
a ski mask, tell him get on the ground and call for backup, okay?”

Nowicki paused there and studied Patrolman Canoza. “Booboo, you don’t have your vest on, do ya?”

“It chafes me.”

“Aw don’t even start with that chafes-me shit, I don’t wanna hear it, okay? You don’t have that vest on by the time I’m through
talkin’, don’t even reach for the keys, you hear me?”

“It chafes me, I’m tellin’ you.”

“Cornstarch, baby powder, then the Commander shirt, then the vest, that’s the drill—fuck’s the matter with you?”

“It scares me to wear that thing, just reminds me how many crazies there are out there.”

“Oh man, now there’s perfect logic for ya, Boo, I mean it, there’re crazies out there, so what you do in all your smartness?
Huh? You keep your vest in your gear bag. And why? ’Cause it chafes you. Don’t chafe nobody else, just you. I’m tellin’ you,
Boo, you don’t put it on, you’re sittin’ down for ten days, no pay, I swear. I love you like a brother, you know that, but
I’m not jokin’ around with you anymore about this. Put it on. Now. Or go home. Up to you.”

Canoza blew out a sigh from deep in his enormous torso. It sounded like somebody had cut the valve on a truck tire. Rayford
glanced over at him, all six feet five and two hundred and seventy or eighty pounds depending on what he had for breakfast,
and shook his head, but not so Canoza could see. Rayford knew better than to let Canoza see that. During Rayford’s first month
on the job, he’d backed up Canoza at a call to a bar which the owner feared was being taken over by bikers as their favorite
hangout. He’d seen Canoza yank two bikers off bar stools by their belts and carry them outside, one in each hand like they
were gym bags, and slam them headfirst into the side of his mobile unit just because they laughed when he said the bar’s owner
said their presence was costing him business. So it was true they only weighed about one-fifty, one-sixty apiece. Still, one
in each hand wasn’t something Rayford would ever allow himself to forget.

“C’mon, Boo,” Nowicki said, folding his hands over the clipboard and rocking on his heels and toes, “get it outta your bag
and get it on. I can’t understand you. You paid two eighty-three thirty-four for that thing. The feds paid a third, the city
paid a third—why wouldn’t you wear it just to get your money’s worth out of it, huh? I don’t get that. Cheap as you are?”

“I’m not cheap. I’m frugal. Frugal is not cheap.”

“Frugal is not cheap, huh? What’s ’at mean—oh I know what that means. You took it outta your clothing allowance, huh? So it
didn’t cost you anything. How frugal is that? Is that what you did? Say you didn’t, I wanna hear you say you didn’t do that,
c’mon.”

“So what if I did?”

“So it didn’t cost you a penny then, you chinchee mother-fucker—put it on! You take it off ten minutes after you’re out there,
I don’t care, but you get shot there’s gonna be two witnesses said you were wearin’ it when I handed you the keys to an MU.
Nobody leaves till he puts it on, you hear me? James? William?”

Rayford and Reseta both nodded and mumbled their assent. Neither one wanted Canoza to think they were piling on.

“My ass is gonna be covered here,” Nowicki said. “And you better be wearin’ it when you come back in tonight, Boo, understand?
And every day from now on, you hear me? Come in again without it on, you’re sittin’ down for ten days no pay, I’m not gonna
go through this shit with you again, enough’s enough, you got me?”