—Grace
First you make yourself a believer and then if need be you can say it to someone else and mean it. This is the last pack, I say. This one and no more! I can’t subject (when they come home, and they will come home!) my boys, my babies, to this poison. This one last time, I say, and slip on the clothes I wore earlier and my heels and tear out of the apartment. You could walk, but I drive down to Big Charles’s market. He’s stranded behind the counter, dumping a grab bag of chips in his mouth. Let me guess. Let me guess, he says, and crushes bites.
No guessing, I say. But this is the last pack. I’m done.
Then it look like you shoulda made the last pack the last one, he says. I’m all out, Less you puffing nonfiltered.
Oh no, I say. Who’s open and close by that might have my brand?
Hate to break it to you, smokella, he says. But they robbed the truck that delivers this zone. Your best bet’s out by the airport.
That far? I say.
That far, he says.
He hands me a book of matches and says it’s the best he can do, and I whisk out to the car, which cranks easy enough. Where to next? I pull off with mist beading the windshield: a forecast. I leave my radio off. This isn’t a night for music; it’s a night for what I’m out for, with a taste in my mouth, and the rest of me longing for that deep first pull. Bodies roaming. You wonder who’s running from something. Who’s running to something. How few this hour could be up to any good. You’d be surprised what and who you would need, to keep from feeling alone. The Honda hits a pothole and the rear wheel squeaks. This car don’t sound like itself. You hope it isn’t falling to pieces: the car—your life. There’s time to stop now, go home, and rest. The weekend. There’s work tomorrow. Sunday’s an off day. Then, the big day: Monday, which is court for my boys, my babies. God knows it will come sooner than it should, knows there’s a strange old urge to fight before then. I check my tank, it’s quarter full. It hits me to ride until the tank runs out. The mist turns to rain, the rain to something else. I set my wipers to full speed. I stop at a light and watch a man stutter into the crosswalk with a coat tented over his head. He stumbles and finds balance. My light turns green and I lose him from there. Blocks farther, I see the sign for the tavern flicker the red and blue of warnings. I pull over and rush in as though I was headed here all along. The tavern is dim. The jukebox plays R & B. Nothing but men inside, scattered, and I can feel them hawk my path to the machine and it’s stocked with my brand. I lay my bag on the machine and scrounge for dollars and coins. An old man wobbles over. The man’s eyes are wet as anything outside, and he can’t quite find his poise. He asks my name and offers to pay.
It’s Grace, I say. And thank you but no thank you.
Well Grace, he says. May I at least interest you in a drink? Word is they go well with a smoke.
I’m rushing, I say.
This late? he says.
Yes, I say.
Must have a big day ahead. How about just one drink, he says. Don’t crush an old man’s hope. He drags me to the bar and pulls out a seat and tells the bartender to fix a special, and the bartender pours a vodka and cranberry—much more vodka than juice—and tops it with a wrinkled cherry. He presents it as though it’s a gift. Do you mind? I say, and take the wrapper off my pack and shake out a cig. The old man finds a lighter and thumbs a flame and holds—he couldn’t keep his hands still for a hero’s treasure—it quivering between us. The first pull underwhelms. I sip at my drink, once, to be polite, but won’t be taking many more. No way I let the numbers undo me. Not now, and not—if it’s up to me, and it is—ever. The old man lets me smoke in peace. Someone staggers for the exit. Someone feeds the jukebox, picks a song filled with static and a deep voice moaning. Others go on with the rest of their night. The man orders himself another drink and the bartender warns it should be his last.
Don’t I know it should be, he says, and downs it in one swallow. He pushes an ashtray closer to me, and I tap my cig and blow a ring towards the lights. The next sips are against my will.
Where you headed? he says.
Home, I say.
Home’s the big rush? he says.
No it’s not, I say.
He’s prying. I don’t like men who pry. I swear off men who pry, but I am not myself, and this much I know. I confess to him about Big Ken and the boys and court and he listens as if I’m the last living soul among the dead. He pinches a napkin from the counter stack and gives it to me. Now, now, not those, he says. We don’t want those. I dab at my face and say sorry. He says it’s nothing to be sorry over. He orders another drink and swears it’s his last of the night. Where’s the count on what I’m losing, on how much, how fast?
I’m so embarrassed, I say.
Listen, he says. I been everywhere, done everything, seen all the shit you ain’t supposed to, and trust an old man the judge that rules against you got two glass eyes and a heart more dense than stone. And what my fair lady would you say are the chances of that? He rolls his neck, excuses me from my drink, walks me to the door, and kisses my hand good-bye. Till then, he says.
Right outside it’s take-cover weather, stay-home weather, melt-away weather. I hunt for my keys and make a dash for the Honda and, wouldn’t you know, it won’t start first turn. It won’t start second turn either. I tap the gas and try again—and nothing. Not a grumble, stutter, or click. I take out another cigarette and let my seat back and fog the car with smoke. This goes on until the rain bears down, until I pop the latch, climb out, and, with no clue of where to look or what I’d do if I found the trouble, I gape at a strange maze of metal and rubber and plastic and tubes and cords and bolts and screws and blocks and caps. I peek up from under the hood and see headlights flickering in the distance, the shaky light of a car that, by the way it knocks, couldn’t be in much better shape than the Honda. The car stops beside me and a bolt of fright almost breaks me in two. I keep my head ducked under the hood; maybe the driver will move on.
Well, well, well. If it ain’t Ms. Corporate America. What you doin out this time of night?
It’s him. You can’t believe it. You can.
Michael swings his car around so it’s hood-to-hood with mine and vaults out, taunting the rain. He tells me to get inside my car and ducks under my hood and fusses parts and tells me try the start—dead. He walks back to his car and searches his trunk for cables and tethers us and revs his engine and tells me to try it once more—dead. He walks around and plops in my passenger seat. He smells of rain and smoke and grief.
It takes another cig to keep my eyes dry.
Battery. Starter. Solenoid. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, he says. But this here ain’t movin nowhere tonight.
My life, I say. And mean it.
Not worry, MCA. You know I got you. Where you headed? he says. His eyes shine and spark.
F.E.A.R. Frustration. Ego. Anxiety. Resentment.
F.E.A.R. False. Expectations. Appear. Real.
F.E.A.R. False. Evidence. Appears. Real.
F.E.A.R. F—. Everything. And. Run.
God knows what I should say. But what I do say is, Anywhere, please, but home.
Funny you should say that, he says, cause it just so happens I got a coupla dollars burning a hole in my pocket.
Before we pull off, I mention my work shifts tomorrow and next day, about court on Monday. Cool, cool, he says, and assures me I’ll be back before I know it, that what could go wrong won’t.
Michael’s spot is out, the next one too. The next place tells us to hold on, so we hold until we can’t. Must be drought, he says. He’s not quite dry and sounds discouraged. This till I say I might know someone else. His eyes say he can’t believe it, and what’s true is, I can’t either. We either lose a first life riding or make it so fast that I can’t keep track. The block’s dark as ever and cemetery-dead, and even the boys always out and never up to any good had sense enough to escape this storm. We park as close as we can and jaunt around back, Michael covering our heads with a mildewed shirt from his trunk. The bandanna-wearing boy that answers could be someone’s baby I know, and probably is. I ask for Bear and he lets us inside.
This place is like it was, like the others, like them all.
No one belongs, but everyone buying is welcome.
The boy points to a distant room, and Michael frontiers a step ahead. He swaggers inside and up close to the table where Bear roosts before a tiny TV. What it is, boss, Michael says. We came to spend a few bucks. Bear sizes Michael, sizes me, small, smaller behind him. He declares his nonnegotiable minimum buy. Cool, cool, not a problem, Michael says. Matterfact, let’s kick off with double the fun. Bear masses upright and claws a sack from his crotch. Half his dreads are undone. His white T-shirt isn’t white. His nails glow burnt beige. They make the exchange and Michael asks if we can smoke in one of the rooms. Bear sends us to the basement, and you wonder how far it is from hell. It’s the same filth and dust below. Michael loads a new glass pipe and gives it to me for our first blast. He asks how it tastes, says there’s been bad batches, rocks overcut with acetone making rounds. He tells me that the money he’s spending, big money, comes from a check scheme, that there’s no need for us to pace.
He says there isn’t a more fitting smoke buddy in all the land, says it as though it’s praise, and my God, it feels not far from it.
Michael goes alone to buy the next blast. And the next. And the next. And the next. The man back and forth, so fast. We start where we left off and the question is never if you want to, but instead how long it will take to burn through it all.
There’s a shattered bulb in the overhead fixture, the bulb’s foot still in the socket. crip life for life is scrawled on unfinished drywall.
Michael gets up and pumps the fist that isn’t holding the pipe. See, people get it fucked up, MCA, he says. They say it’s where you been and with who. They say it’s where you’re at and when. But what don’t they say? He bucks his eyes around the room and settles a naked gaze on me. Be happy? he says. Be happy how? Where? When? Happy—don’t fall for it, he says. You can’t trust it, he says. He holds the pipe to where the light should glow. This here between us is happy, he says. All that other shit is fairy tales.
One. Two. A thousand. You lose track of the trips he takes upstairs. I float, fly to a street-level window, see dark between the boards, and I can’t know for sure when I last saw light, if we’ve been at it hours or a day or days.
What time is it? I say. What day?
Noon, midnight, next week. What difference do it make? he says.
The difference is I work, I say. I told you I have to work.
Michael shakes his head and yanks his pockets inside out. We musta been here a few minutes, he says. Ain’t no more encores.
No more? I say. That’s it?
Well, they say all’s well that ends . . . or whatever the fuck.Michael’s eyes are spangled. His lips the color of wet bark.
Work or no work, God knows you hope this lasts forever, knows too you hope it ends right now, and in time it does, though it always does before its time.
No, too soon, I say. It’s too soon.
The. End, he says.
Or next act, I say. My head is fogged, I shove on my shoes. Come, I say. Let’s go.