back after he was dead like some kind of ghost. And not a happy one.
One Saturday afternoon, hot as the blazes, I was up on the roof with my shirt off, cooking up a skin cancer, considering breaking my ban on ice-cold beer, and Florida Grange showed up. She was driving a little gray Toyota, and when she got out of the car I saw she was outfitted in a simple sky-blue dress that showed lots of leg and happily threatened to show a little more.
She stood in the drive and put a hand over her eyes like an Indian scout and called up to me. “Leonard here?”
“He’s in town. Went to get some supplies.”
“Oh. Well, I came to visit my mama, thought I’d drop by and see how things are coming along. And I got another paper for Leonard to sign. I missed it at the office.”
“One minute.”
I got my shirt off a sawed oak limb and pulled it on. It was a cotton jean shirt with the sleeves bobbed short and it felt good and soft against my warm, sweaty skin. I sucked in my gut while I buttoned it, just in case Florida was watching. I climbed down by method of the oak.
I dropped out of the tree, wiped my hands on my pants, smiled, and went over to see her. I stuck out a hand and we shook. She had the same soft hand and the same rattling bracelets. Her hair was dark and wild, like a storm cloud. The wind picked up the smell of her perfume and gave it to me. I needed that like a punch in the teeth.
I caught my reflection in her car windshield. I looked like shit, but my teeth were clean. I’d brushed with my own toothbrush not long ago, and I’d even used mouthwash. Progress was being made.
“Would you like something to drink, Miss Grange?”
“Florida?”
“Yeah. That’s right. Florida.”
“Yes. I would like something to drink.”
“I’ll get it. It’d be best to sit out here on the porch. We don’t have air-conditioning.”
“That’ll be fine.”
“We’ve got Coke. Diet Coke. Ice tea. Beer. We’ve got some nonalcoholic beer too. Sharp’s. It’s pretty good.”
“I’ll have ice tea. No sugar.”
I went in the house and poured her tea and got myself a Sharp’s. I had discovered I actually preferred the nonalcoholic beer to the real thing. It was the taste I liked, not the results.
I carried the tea and Sharp’s onto the porch. Florida was seated in the glider Leonard and I had installed. I had fastened the bolts to the porch roof. I hoped I had done a good job. I’d have hated for Florida Grange to bust her shapely ass.
I gave her the tea and sat down on the other side of the glider and mentally groped for small talk. I almost said something about the weather but restrained myself. I tried not to look at her legs, which were bare and smooth looking. I wondered if they were as soft as her hand.
“You living here?” she asked.
“For now. I’m helping Leonard get the place in shape to sell.”
“I see.”
We sat in silence and sipped our drinks. An old black Chevy chugged along the street and an elderly black face looked out of it at us, looked away, and looked back. The driver was trying to determine if any miscegenation was going on.
It wasn’t, though I was hopeful, in a fantasy sort of way. Actually, seemed to me, from here on out, I’d have to be content to look at Florida Grange’s legs and sneak a look at her panties when she got in or out of her car, way I used to do with girls when I was in high school.
Thought of that made me feel sort of ill. Guys, they’re some piece of work. Next thing I knew I’d be putting quarters in filling station restroom rubber machines, trying to get those special gift items you bought when you really didn’t need a rubber. The Instant Pussy, a French Tickler that looked like a plastic squid, and the little book of sex jokes.
Here was an intelligent professional woman, and all I could think about was how much I’d like to dork her. I had to think about something else. Thing to do was to talk to her the way you’d talk to any interesting professional in the law business, male or female.
“You get many whiplash cases?”
“What?”
“You know-”
“Oh. Now and then. I mean, a couple. I mainly do wills, stuff like that.”
That was good, Hap. Real good. Why don’t you just call her an ambulance chaser?
“Nice day, huh?”
“Yeah. Well…”
“I mean, it’s hot, but it’s OK. It’s not as humid as usual. I mean, it’s usually more humid.”
Florida Grange looked at her watch. “When do you think Leonard will be back?”
“Soon. Hell, Florida. I’m acting like a fool. I get around a beautiful woman lately, I act like a jackass. I don’t mean to.”
“That’s all right.”
“No. No, it isn’t. If you prefer, I’ll just be real quiet and sit here… You interested in Leonard?”
She smiled at me. “Leonard’s gay.”
“You knew that? I was hoping to break the news to you, and you’d be so disappointed, I’d have to do in a pinch. I’m not gay, by the way.”
“Gee. I’d never have guessed. Most everyone around here knows Leonard’s gay. He spent time here in the summers. My mother knew his uncle and knew Leonard all the while he was growing up. She told me about him.”
“Ah.”
“Listen, Mr. Collins… Hap. I owe you an apology.”
“You owe me one? Way I’ve been ogling you? You got to forgive me, Florida. I been out in the country too long. No female companionship. I’m almost completely fueled by adolescent hormones.”
“The other day, when you asked me out, I told you no-”
“Hey, no problem, that’s your right-”
“Will you shut up a minute?”
“Sure.”
“I got a confession. I didn’t go out with you because you’re white. That’s it.”
“You don’t like white guys?”
“It’s not that. It’s that I’m as much a product of racism as anyone else. I don’t really think about it much, don’t think I’m doing it. But, you see, I feel all that stuff about the white man’s world. How, as a black woman, I have to battle uphill for everything I get. How it always seems when I get to a point where I’m ready to advance, there’s some kind of white hurdle.”
“I guess there is.”
“Sometimes there is. Sometimes there isn’t, but I’ve got a chip on my shoulder just the same, so when a white man asks me out, I get to thinking he’s thinking, ‘This black bitch will be glad to go out with me. I’m white. And because I’m white, I can get me some of her nigger ass,’ then Massuh can go on about his business and hook up with someone white, someone respectable.”
“Well, to be honest, I was thinking about the ‘get me some ass’ part.”
“I know. I can tell. You sort of ooze musk. But it’s the other part. The racist part. I didn’t really think you were thinking that. Not then, not now. But conditioning dies hard. I’ve thought about it a lot since then, and I’ve regretted it, me thinking that, and you see, I knew you were here, ’cause my mother said she’s seen you here, and she knew you from the funeral, and well, I wanted you to know, I’m sorry I was racist. Damn, I’m sort of running things together.”
“That’s all right. I get your drift. It’s very honest of you. It makes me feel like shit, but it’s honest.”
“Yes, it is. And I still don’t want to go out with you.”
“I see.”
