Shella (22 page)

The booth was in the back. They’re always in the back. A fat guy in a red T-shirt watched us. The way the guy talking to me looked at the fat guy, I could see they were together.

The armed robbery guy did the talking. Nigger this, spic that. “They’re really monkeys, you know what I’m saying? You leave them alone, they’d kill each other. Animals. All they want to do is fight and fuck.”

I looked at him. He thought I was saying something—his face got a little red. “Hey! Don’t get me wrong, pal. I like a good piece of ass better than the next guy. Fucking queers, they’re just as bad as niggers, in my book. My point, see, my point is that animals, they need
control.
Like dogs. Dogs are good, they learn to obey, right? Now, niggers, they ain’t the real problem. Some people think they’re the big problem, they don’t know what’s going on. You know what the big problem is?”

“What?”

“The Jews, man. The Jews, they’re the ones trying to bring the race down. They ain’t really white either. I mean, where’s Israel? In Africa, am I right? The Jews ain’t nothing but Arabs themselves. But you got to give this to the Jews, they’re smart. It’s in their blood, the way they’re bred. A Jew bitch has a retarded kid, you know what they do?” He made a slitting move across his throat.

I looked at him. Every time I did that, he talked more.

“I’m telling you the truth. See, the difference between the Jews and these other beasts, the Jews got a
plan.
Hitler, now he knew what was going on. There’s a man who knew the truth. He had the right fucking idea, you know? The ovens.”

“The …?”

“Yeah! Exterminate them. That’s what has to be done. But the white man in this country, he’s lost his balls. This ain’t a white man’s country anymore—it belongs to the niggers and the Jews.”

He talked like that for a long time, until I told him I had to get up in the morning to go to work. “See you tomorrow night?” he said. I told him sure.

When I walked out the door, I could feel somebody behind me. All the way to the house where I had a room.

I went to the car wash the next morning. Just before the lunch break, a car came through. An old Ford station wagon. The guy driving it was the guy from last night, the fat guy. Only he didn’t have a red T-shirt.

I didn’t show I knew who he was. He didn’t leave a tip when we finished wiping down his car.

I went back to the bar that night. This time, I had something to eat. A hamburger and fries. In a booth.

The armed robbery guy came in around nine o’clock. He saw me and came over. Stuck out his hand.

“Hey, partner! Good to see you.”

I didn’t know what to say so I tried to smile, but I could see that was making him nervous so I said, “Sit down. I’ll buy you a beer.”

I must of done it right, because he sat down, smiling at me.

While we were waiting for the waitress, he said, “My
name is Mack. Mack Wayne.” He stuck out his hand. I took it, squeezed a little softer than he did. He liked that.

“I’m John Smith,” I told him.

“Hey, that’s funny. I mean, if we took your name and mine, we’d get John Wayne.”

I looked at him.

“John Wayne, get it? Like … The Duke, right?”

Something moved in me, but I couldn’t feel it in my face. “Yeah,” I said. “Good.”

He drank his beer, talked some more about niggers, queers, and Jews. He said the Jews owned all the newspapers and all the television stations, so the white man never got to hear the truth. Then he said he had to make a phone call.

When he came back, he talked some more about the same stuff. A woman came by our table. A chubby woman with dark hair. She was about thirty-five, in a tight black skirt and high heels, wearing a white sweater with a low neck so you could see the top of her breasts where the bra pushed them together.

“Hey, Ginger!” he said. “Come over here and meet a friend of mine.”

He introduced us. Just said my name was John, and we were pals. She sat down, next to me in the booth. Mack ordered some more drinks. Ginger pressed her thigh against me. She had long nails, red. She talked about niggers too—how they all wanted to rape white women and they should be castrated. She had heavy perfume and she stuck her chest out a lot.

After a while, she got up. “I have to go to the little girls’ room,” she said. She ground her hips hard walking away—she didn’t know how to do it the way a dancer does.

Mack leaned over to me. “Hey, pal, I know all the signs. Ginger goes for you. You play your cards right, you could have yourself a nice date tonight.”

“Yeah?”

“I guarantee it. I know these girls. I’m gonna take off now, leave you two alone.”

I said okay, like it was a good idea.

When she came back, she didn’t ask where Mack had gone. She sat across from me. I bought her a couple more beers. She asked a lot of questions, but she wasn’t listening much. She was like him—if I looked at her, she got nervous, but if I was quiet, she went ahead and talked.

It was almost eleven when she said she had to be going. “I got to get up early in the morning—I work in a beauty parlor, over on Lawrence.”

“I work near there too,” I told her.

“You live around here?”

“Just over on Wilson.”

“Is it nice?”

“Yeah. I mean, I guess so. It’s clean.”

“Is it like an apartment or …?”

“Just a room.”

“Oh. Well, you know, I was thinking about moving from where I am, finding someplace closer to work. Do you know if they have rooms available?”

“I think so.”

“Maybe I could take a look at yours sometime, see how it looks.”

“Sure. Anytime you want.”

She walked back with me. We went upstairs. She looked all around the room, looked out the window into the alley. I stepped behind her, held her breasts from the underside. She wiggled her butt back against me. She tried to turn around, but I held her there. She didn’t fight or anything.

I undressed her, holding her like that. Her breasts were floppy out of the bra. Her thighs were like orange peel when the panty hose rolled down.

I fucked her on her back, her face in my shoulder. When we were done, she lit a cigarette. I laid down next to her and she talked some, asked some questions.

“You don’t say much, do you, honey?”

I thought I was making her nervous, so I turned her over on her stomach and fucked her again. It took me longer the second time. She made a little grunting noise just before I finished. Then we fell asleep.

She got up a couple of hours later, moving quiet. I was lying with my head turned to the wall, my face on my arm. I can see good in the dark. She looked through the chest of drawers, at my clothes. Then she went in the closet where I keep the duffel bag. She found the gun. I could see her hold it, looking back at where I was sleeping.

She put the gun back.

Then she got dressed and went out.

The room felt thick in the morning. I opened the window. They still hadn’t got that car fixed in the alley.

On my lunch break, the Indian boss walked by. He asked me for a light for his little cigar. When he bent close, he said, “She’s with them.”

I wanted to tell him I knew that. I’m not stupid because I don’t talk. Not stupid like they think. But I didn’t say anything.

A couple of nights later, Mack asked me, “You really killed a nigger?”

“Why?”

“No offense, pal. Just, would you mind if we checked you out? I mean, there’s a reason, okay? There’s people I want you to meet. Important people. Big people. We’ve got something going, something I know you’d like. But the people in charge, they have to be careful, you understand?”

“I guess.”

“Look, what’s done is done, right? I mean, you didn’t escape or anything …?”

“I got paroled. But …”

“Hey, no problem. I know what you’re going to say. I’m not a cop. Cops, they’re no better than anyone else. Nigger-lovers too, most of them. Even the righteous ones, you got to remember who they work for.…”

“The Jews?”

“Yeah! You’re getting with the program, John. All right. Listen, all I need is some … details. Like where you did time. And when … Okay?”

So I told him.