Part 17 (1/2)
”Again,” she whispered for the third time.
”You got to gimme a couple'a minutes, girl,” I said. ”Just a couple.”
Charlotta smiled at me. She held both physical love and victory in her mien. It was a battle I didn't mind losing.
I got up and lit two cigarettes, placing one of them between her lips. Then I lay down, putting my head on her thigh. We smoked for a while in the afterglow of our pa.s.sion.
”You used to come up here when Kit had this room, huh?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could.
”What you mean by that?” She flexed the hard muscle of her leg.
”Nuthin' really,” I said. ”I mean, it's just that when I opened that door and looked at you, I thought that whoever it was you were comin' to see was a lucky man.”
”Oh.” Charlotta's leg relaxed. ”You don't have to be jealous, Paris.”
”Wha, what did you call me?”
”That's what your driver's license says your name is.”
I had only gone to the toilet once since we'd been together. I couldn't have been out of the room for more than a few minutes.
”Yeah, well, you know, honey. Sometimes a man needs to be a little on the sly. I know I told Miss Moore I was marrying somebody, but really I'm tryin' to get away from some guys wanna do me harm.”
”I knew it,” Charlotta said.
”How you gonna know all that?” I asked just to put her a little on the defensive.
”I didn't know about no men or nuthin', but I could tell by the way you loved me that you wasn't engaged.”
”How?”
”A man gettin' married don't have it stored up like you do, baby. I done had men just got outta jail less hungry than you.”
”Where you think Kit went?” I asked. She probably thought that I was changing the topic because of being embarra.s.sed by the way she had mastered me s.e.xually.
”I don't know,” she said. ”He told me that he might be gone one night. He promised to take me to the show by Friday, but he never came back. You like the movies, Paris?”
”Don't call me that.”
”Oh, yeah. I'm sorry, Thad.” She kissed me.
”What did he do for a living?”
”Who?”
”The man who lived here.”
”Why you wanna know?”
”It's just this feelin' I got ever since comin' up in here,” I said, and then I s.h.i.+vered.
”What kinda feelin'?”
”Somethin' bad,” I said. ”I get like that sometimes. Once, when my uncle Victor was up in Jackson, Mississippi, I woke up in a sweat callin' out his name, and then a week later we found out that he had been killed that very night in a juke joint around there.”
I figured that either Charlotta would think I was crazy or her superst.i.tious side would come out-either way she'd stop being suspicious about my questions.
”You know I got a bad feelin' about Kit too,” she said. ”Before he left he told me that he was about to make a whole lotta money. So much that we could go to the show seven nights a week. He said that he was gonna buy a proper farm and hire people to do all the work for him.”
”He was gonna make money on a farm?” I asked.
”No, stupid. He was gonna buy the farm with all the money he made.”
”What money?”
”I don't know,” she said. ”But you better be sure that no poor n.i.g.g.ah livin' in a roomin' house gonna make money like that the honest way.”
”Were you scared to be with him?” I asked. ”I mean, knowin' he was maybe stealin'.”
”I didn't know nuthin',” she said in a rehea.r.s.ed sort of way. ”Nuthin' for sure. And anyway, he didn't have the money yet. He only said that he was about to get it.”
d.a.m.n, I said to myself. Then to Charlotta: ”You let white people get in your business and you know it's a fifty-fifty chance that you ever make it back home again.” I said to myself. Then to Charlotta: ”You let white people get in your business and you know it's a fifty-fifty chance that you ever make it back home again.”
”What you mean about white people?”
”I never heard'a this Kit friend'a yours,” I said. ”And maybe if he says a lotta money he really just means the twenty-fi'e cent it cost to get into a movie house. But if he was talkin' about real money, then you know it's got to be a white man somewhere in it. White peoples got all the money and they hang it in front'a our eyes just like I used to hold a sugar beet out ahead of my mama's mule.”
”Maybe you do have some premonition in you, Thad,” Charlotta said.
I was glad that she used my made-up name, but at the same time I realized that she was bound to let my secret out before the week was over.
”You know,” she continued, ”Kit said that him and this friend'a his knew some white man that was gonna give 'em the money.”
”I knew it,” I said. ”That's the way it always is. White man come an' tell a whole lotta lies, and then the next thing you know your house is up for sale and you lookin' for a hole to hide in.”
”If you lucky,” Charlotta agreed.
”Did you call his friend?” I asked.
”Say what?”
”Did you call Kit's friend? The one who was in business with him with the white man.”
”Why I wanna go an' do that?”
”I don't know,” I said, making a big gesture with my hands. ”I mean, I thought you was all worried that he might be in the hospital or dead. Maybe if you found out somethin' from this friend'a his then maybe Miss Moore wouldn't be so fast to give away his room.”