Leaving Cecil Street Read online

  JOE TOOK IN a chestful of air once he was back up on the porch. His sobs had ratcheted down to irregular breaths and the cooled-off night air felt good in his lungs. He unclutched his horn case and held it loosely by the handle and stood there and looked out into the street, took in the remnants of the block party while he finished composing himself. Though the scene out here wasn’t helping. The balloons bouncing and dying near the ground, the crepe paper sagging from the porch banisters, the quiet stillness to the air that felt like dreams put on hold threatened to further dampen his mood. He never liked the feel of a place when a party had just ended, could sense that in the leaving, the party had taken away more pleasure than it had brought. And this block party had brought some pleasure as more than three hundred fun seekers crammed the block from end to end. The hot dogs had been free, like the Kool-Aid and the hula hoops and the miniature-size bottles of blowing bubbles. The live band was intense and garnered shouts of “Solid” from the Afro-wearing under-twenty crowd. The old heads though floated from house to house sipping a little cheer at each stop, measuring their worth as they compared themselves with who’d gotten a new French Provincial living-room suite or RCA Victor floor-model color TV. Joe and Louise had amassed both lately, plus the new roll-down awnings out front. Joe downplayed the new purchases to the healthy crowd that had formed in his house to ooh and ah. Resisted measuring his worth by what he had or lacked. Though he did allow himself to beam over his impressive collection of jazz LPs. Did measure his worth that way. Thought that as long as he had some good music on hand he was successful enough.

  He walked across the porch headed in. He saw movement on the porch next door and assumed that it was his severely saved next-door neighbor on her way in from an all-night revival. He cleared his throat. “Alberta,” he said, glad that his wife wasn’t within earshot because he’d have to listen to shit from Louise for speaking to Alberta, since most of Cecil Street ostracized her. The people around here believed that Alberta was in league with the devil after she’d fallen in with a lean-to of a shanty church that operated more like a cult. Though Joe did not.

  “Oh, hi, Mr. Joe,” came the thin reply, and Joe realized that this was Neet out here, Alberta’s seventeen-year-old daughter, his daughter Shay’s best friend since they were toddlers together on the porch.

  “Neet?” he said. “You okay, sweetheart?” He walked to the banister that separated the houses, about to ask Neet what she was doing out here since he knew that Shay had been in the house for hours and Shay and Neet were generally inseparable. Joe didn’t ask it though. Figured he’d let her save her explaining for her mother; better be a hell of an explanation, he thought. Alberta was known for her hardhanded discipline because she expected Neet to be as devout as she herself was. Joe felt for Neet, all of Cecil Street did; as much as the people around here despised Alberta, they loved her daughter, Neet.

  “You want me to go rouse Shay?” Joe offered, thinking that Neet could probably use a girlfriend right about now. Only one thing he knew of that would have a young girl out in the streets until two in the morning. Some knucklehead swooning her with bullshit.

  “I’m fine, Mr. Joe, really, just looking for my key,” Neet whispered.

  Neet’s eyes were pleading with Joe to be quiet and he realized that she was trying to sneak in. He hoped with everything in him that she would be successful as he nodded and gave her a soft wave good night, then pushed open the door into his vestibule.

  LOUISE WAS IN her pink satiny pajamas and turning down the covers on their new queen-size bed as Joe tiptoed into the bedroom. She’d just taken two Anacin and soaked the inside of her mouth with warm, salted water. She was in the advanced stages of gum disease and had already lost two back molars and now all of her teeth were shifting in her pulpy gums, rearranging what had once been a mesmerizing smile. Though she was a licensed practical nurse, she had a horrible phobia about sitting in a dentist’s chair. At night when her mouth throbbed, she would resolve that the next day she was making an appointment. But the pain would dull to mild during the day and so she’d put it off until tomorrow. Had been putting it off for months and now she told herself that first thing Monday morning without fail she was taking care of her mouth. She punched the pillow to fluff it when she heard Joe’s footsteps creak into the bedroom. Her mood had been strange of late too. Jumping from irritated to anxious to sad. Now she was just angry, so she didn’t turn around to look at Joe. Didn’t want to look at him because she couldn’t get the picture of him from her mind when she’d caught him smiling up at Johnetta’s grown country niece earlier. She hated the way Johnetta was always providing a temporary home for her people from down south when they were in between good and bad luck and needed a clean bed and a toilet that flushed. Always young women, but not too young, always over twenty-one with titties and asses that stuck way out, ungirdled. Louise thought that Johnetta went out of her way tonight to parade this latest corn-fed niece through her house though the party was supposed to be in the street. “Come here,” Johnetta had called as she’d walked in through Louise’s unlocked screen door. “Joe, Louise, y’all come on now and meet my oldest sister’s oldest chile, Valadean, up here with me for the summer. Ain’t she pretty, look like a colored Elly Mae Clampett, tell the truth.”

  After that, other people from the block had drifted in, and Joe pulled out his scotch while Louise, trying to be polite, went about setting out olives and cheeses. The lights got lowered, and before she knew it, or could stop it, dancing space had opened up on her just-done living-room floors. That’s when she saw Joe in a dark corner by the closet door laughing with Valadean. Joe had a nice laugh, throaty and sexy, as if he was about to go into a moan of baby, you look good. The first time Louise felt the earth move under her feet was when she’d watched Joe laugh. Had already decided before she heard him laugh that first time that he was fine in an unconventional way with his thick sideburns that merged perfectly with his ever-clipped goatee, brown skin, dark lips, nicely shaped forehead that jutted out but not too much, just enough to give him a strong look with eyes set back, thick eyebrows that moved up and down when he laughed, as if he was saying let’s get it on. Louise figured he’d given Valadean that let’s-get-it-on look as they laughed together in the darkened corner and Valadean showed Joe her perfect teeth.

  “Thought you’d be sleep by now,” Joe said as he stretched and started coming out of his clothes.

  “Well, you thought wrong, I’m not asleep,” Louise said, punching the pillow again.

  Joe left the bedroom and went into the bathroom to wash off. He’d put his horn in the back of the living-room closet, glad now that he hadn’t brought it up here with the irritating mood Louise was wearing. He let the water run hot against his skin now. At least the hot water was soothing. So soothing that he felt a jazzy beat coming together in his head by the time he got back in the bedroom.

  Louise was still awake, she was propped against the pillow and her hair was out and fanning back all dark and thick against the pillow. He was surprised that he was aroused by the sight of her now. Hadn’t been aroused by the sight of her lately. Felt bad that he hadn’t, though he thought it had something to do with the deteriorating condition of her mouth. But right now she looked to him like she had the night they’d first met. She’d been a practical nurse in training at Philadelphia General back then. Joe had rushed Fred, the drummer of his band, to PGH that night for emergency treatment. Fred had been caught with his pants down. He’d been up in a bedroom of Pat’s Place. Was in the process of unwinding in that brothel-bedroom when his wife crept in and stabbed him in his ass. Fred didn’t even know he’d been stabbed until the woman under him started screaming, still didn’t know then, figured he was that good. Pat, the owner of the speakeasy, found Joe, who was being swept away by C right then and not about to tolerate interruption. She told Joe he had to get Fred out of there now or she’d ban them from coming back ever again. Pat’s Place didn’t allow violence, and as it was, she was going
to have to charge them for the cost of cleaning up the blood. Joe peeled himself away from C, kissed her softly, and almost told her he loved her. But that night he saw Louise for the first time and knew he was in love.

  Louise was being trained in how to gather patient information at PGH. Joe hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Louise as he gave her the account of what had happened to Fred’s behind. Her hair was thick and unrestrained behind the nurse’s cap; her skin was light and her eyes were black-black, almost severe; but she had the prettiest mouth, a thick and liquid mouth. She gave off such an aura of soft wildness that Joe could hardly contain himself, had to keep jokes going with her about Fred’s predicament or he would otherwise have sat up there and gotten serious and sloppy. Said at one point that he was changing Fred’s name, from now on he’d be known as Cheeks. Louise had been efficient and professional throughout, but when Joe said that, she’d allowed a smile to turn her mouth. She’d looked directly at Joe when she smiled and he was putty then. Asked Louise if he got himself stabbed tomorrow night would she be there to take care of him. Tried to laugh when he said it, but by then what he was feeling had already crossed over to serious.

  He was feeling warm and loose now as he flashed back on that scene. Louise had recently redone the bedroom in a dusty-rose shade though she used a lot of brown too, she told him, so that he would not feel as though it was too frilly. He really did appreciate that she considered him even down to the small details. He tucked his shirt into his boxers and tiptoed to her side of the bed and sat near the foot and squeezed her toes through the covers. “So, you want to tell me why you still up?” he said.

  “I’m up ’cause I’m up,” she said, her voice jarring after the low, smooth tone of his. “What’s the sense in falling asleep only to be wakened when you decided to finally come to bed.”

  He knew he was on the losing side when she got like this. Knew the best thing to do was to climb onto his side of the bed and say good night, turn away from her, and go to sleep. But his manhood was fully involved now, its heaviness egging him on to try and scatter her mood. “Sounds to me like you wanted to be awake.” He was whispering. “Shit. I could have come up here an hour ago if I’d known you were waiting on me. Were you waiting on me, pretty lady?” He straddled himself over her and leaned down to kiss her.

  She wanted him to kiss her, could feel a puddle of desire building deep inside, rising and spreading. But her gums were sore. And worse, she couldn’t get the picture of him out of her head from earlier, how happy he’d looked smiling in that dark corner.

  “Why? Wasn’t Johnetta’s greasy-looking country niece waiting on you?”

  He thudded onto his back on his side of the bed. “Jesus Christ, Louise,” he said, and it came out like a whine, “what in the hell is your problem?”

  “My problem? My problem?” She threw the covers over and stomped out of the bed and stood over him, pointing. “You all squirreled up in a dark corner with her fat ass, standing all up on her grinning like a monkey and you ask me what’s my problem?”

  “Awl damn, Louise. I don’t believe this shit.” He swung his legs to the floor and just sat on the side of the bed shaking his head. “You know something,” he said, talking to the floor. “You accusing me when I’m totally innocent, you gonna be the one responsible when I’m guilty.”

  “No you don’t. Don’t try to lay that trip on me.” She was back in front of him again, hitting his shoulder so he’d have to look up.

  “Come on, Louise, where we going with this? Huh? What reason have I ever given you to be so suspicious, huh? You ever once caught me wrong, huh? I don’t mean some innocent smiling at someone. But have you ever really caught me wrong?”

  “’Cause you haven’t been caught doesn’t mean you haven’t been wrong.” Her tone softened some because she was reacting to the pleading in his eyes. She climbed back onto her side of the bed and Joe barely breathed, afraid to disturb whatever had just happened that had calmed her down.

  “Furthermore, I’m getting work done on my mouth,” she said once she had settled under the covers and her body was curved away from him.

  “Say what?”

  “My teeth, my teeth, I’m getting my damned teeth fixed so you gonna have to get up off of some money ’cause it’s not gonna be cheap. And I may have to take some time from work while my gums heal, so it’s gonna leave a hole in our income.”

  “I’ll come up with the money, Louise,” he said, so relieved in fact to hear her say it as he flicked the light switch over his head and the room went dark. “You do what you gotta do. You want to get your teeth fixed, get your teeth fixed. We’ll get by.”

  He was about to reach for her, not as a prelude to anything, just maybe as a pat-on-the-arm good night, a no-hard-feelings type of touch. Didn’t want to admit how often their nights ended like this lately. He sighed and rolled away from her. Tried not to think about his horn, embarrassed by the way he’d just cried in the cellar, as if the cellar had a mouth and would tell. Tried to will himself to sleep so he wouldn’t think about it.

  But right then the bedroom door burst open and their daughter, Shay, ran in crying and jumping up and down. “She’s beating her, she’s beating her,” Shay screamed. “It sounds like they’re coming through the wall in my bedroom. We have to go over there. Mommy, Daddy. Please. We have to go make her stop.”

  Both Joe and Louise jumped out of the bed practically hysterical themselves until they could figure out what Shay was talking about. Realized that she was talking about Neet. Alberta must be over there beating up on Neet.

  Chapter 2

  NEET HAD SLIPPED in and made it upstairs un-detected by her mother the same way she’d slipped out earlier, through the back staircase that stopped at her bedroom door. She freed herself from the tight, worldly clothes and dressed for bed and stole under the covers still tingling after her time with Little Freddie. She was lucky tonight. Her mother, Alberta, hadn’t been waiting for her the way she sometimes did. When Neet had crept out, her mother was in the middle of her prayers. Neet knew that Alberta prayed as if she was in a trance, sometimes for an hour at a time. So her initial plan had been to sample the air on the block tonight, the breezy, sugary feel of the block party with Shay at her side, and then creep back in while her mother was still on her knees. But she’d overstayed outside tonight, so she hoped that her mother had fallen into unconsciousness the way she sometimes did after she prayed, or else that she was sitting out on the back steps staring into the night air as if it could do what her prayers could not, make her happy. Neet was content that her mother was either asleep or out back tonight and she considered herself lucky that she’d been able to sneak back in even though Mr. Joe’s loud talking on the porch had almost ruined it for her.

  She was lying in bed in a half-dream state twirling a LifeSaver around her tongue as she thought about Little Freddie. He sang bass with the Corner Boys, and though Little Freddie probably wasn’t headed to a four-year college like Neet was, she’d allowed him to cover her with his tall dark self. Had been allowing him to move all over her, all inside of her, since the spring. Though she and Shay had shared everything since they were babies together on the porch, she hadn’t yet brought herself to reveal to Shay what she’d been doing with Little Freddie. It was too tangled up to talk about yet, too complicated and dark.

  She tried not to think of the look of confused devastation that had come upon Shay’s face when Little Freddie had kissed Neet and then pulled her toward the bedroom that Peedy, who lived in the corner house, rented out when his parents weren’t home. She loved Shay so much but she hadn’t expected to see Little Freddie at that moment; hadn’t expected to have to choose between being with Little Freddie and appalling Shay with the sight of them going into a bedroom. But she couldn’t see Little Freddie and resist him, especially not after what he’d done with her name.

  Neet had given up the name Bonita when she was eight, after she’d allowed herself to be taken in by the concerned watery
eyes of Mr. G. Mr. G was always hanging close to her mother at church and Alberta never dissuaded his company so Neet trusted him. Trusted his eyes when he’d soft-talked her away from church on a Friday night while the whole congregation was in the midst of a fire-filled revival and they were either frenetic or uncontrollable or in a stupor. He’d promised Neet a candy bar from the store around the corner. She’d ended up in his efficiency apartment instead, where he’d sat her on his lap, tickled her and bounced her on his lap, moved his filth against her until she started crying that he was hurting her. Though the more she cried the harder he moved, splitting her, the whole time calling her by her full name, Bonita, Bonita, a hundred times he must have said her name, perverted her name through the weak line of his mouth. After that, whenever anybody called her Bonita, she’d correct them as politely as she could, ask them to please call her Neet instead. She couldn’t stand the way she felt inside when she was called Bonita. She felt dirty and chaffed inside, ruined.

  But Little Freddie had erased all of that when he’d called her by her full name. Instead of that chaffed, dirty feeling, she’d felt soft and wavy inside, felt innocent again. Believed now that though on the surface she appeared to be transgressing when she lay with Little Freddie, she was actually being cleansed. Believed that time spent with Little Freddie in that dilapidated room where the wallpaper flaked and the mattress was spring exposed had been ordained by God. Felt forgiven now for allowing herself to be soft-talked away from church those nights by Mr. G. Felt so unbound because Little Freddie had given her back her name.

  So right now she was laughing in bed, a giddiness about her as the LifeSaver dissolved on her tongue and she thought about the feel of Little Freddie’s fingers against her skin, such a righteous feel. She’d been giddy a lot lately, laughing out loud at nothing in particular. Though she’d been depressed of late too, high and low she’d been the past few weeks. She couldn’t explain it, but right now she was grooving on the high, laughing in her bed as if she was being tickled under her chin.