He shook his head.
“Why the hell you take my money? Why the hell you take it?” It came out of me suddenly. I didn’t want to confront him until I was out of the woods with Sanchez. I didn’t want to get mad for the wrong reasons. But the words leapt out of my mouth like vomit from an unexpected stomach virus that just had to have its way.
“I was savin’ it, Daddy.”
“Savin’? What the hell for? Don’t I give you everything you need?”
Jesus raised his head. “In case we didn’t have no money and you were broke.”
The damage in Juice’s face stood out like an extra nose. The half-remembered nightmares of his infancy as a slave; the insecurity of living with me. All the times I’d come home bruised or bleeding came back to me; them and my deep blue moods he could never understand.
Jesus loved me but he didn’t trust that I could handle the hard world. He was my backup and I didn’t even know it.
He was more of a man than I was.
“Go on,” I said. “Do your homework.”
CHAPTER 22
THE KIDS LOVED IT when I cooked Mexican food. We ate and joked and told stories. Pharaoh even yipped happily from under Feather’s chair.
After dinner I put on a dark blue shirt and a loose brown leisure suit.
“Juice.”
“Yes, Dad?”
“I got to go out for a while. You take care around here until I get back, okay?”
He grinned and nodded, understanding that I trusted him again.
We understood each other. The money in the box upstairs was his domain.
“I might be late but you and Feather get to bed on time.”
Jesus nodded.
Feather said, “Okay.”
I had three stops planned for that night: Whitehead’s, Jackson Blue’s, and the Black Chantilly. The last one promised to be the most fruitful.
Whitehead’s was a black tile building that sat on a high foundation. There were fourteen steps between the slender double doors and the street, but I could still hear the music and noise from outside.
Inside there was a lot of drinking and eating and loud talk from every table. It was like a big party. People were calling across the room between the tables. One waitress got so engrossed with what a portly man was saying to his friends that she sat down and put her elbows on the table.
“Reba,” a man from another table said to the waitress.
“What you wan’?” she answered, clearly bothered about being distracted.
“Where our meat loaf?”
The man’s date, who had brown skin and chalky chiffon-pink lips, looked as if she were going to abandon her man if he didn’t produce some food soon.
“You know where the kitchen is, Hestor. Go an’ get it yourself,” Reba said to her complaining customer.
Pink lips parted indignantly but the young man scooted up behind the counter and grabbed two large platters loaded down with meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and turnip greens.
“Mister?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Yeah?”
The woman standing behind me resembled a bowling ball. She was round and hard and black—not blue-black or brown-black, but black-black. There was no sheen to her eyes and her head was pulled back, making it seem as if she didn’t have a neck.
Her looks would have spelled danger except for her tinkly high voice and sweet smile.
“We ain’t got no free tables, mister,” she sang. “But you could sit at the counter.”
“This a nice place,” I said easily. “You work here?”
Her smile grew large.
“I’m the owner,” she said.
“Really? What’s your name?”
“Arletta.”
“Hi, Arletta,” I said. “Idabell Turner told me that this was a nice place. She asked me to come on down here and shout at William.”
Distaste flicked across Arletta’s lips but the smile returned quickly. “She’s a nice girl but she got to realize that William is workin’ an’ what she want ain’t always the most important thing in the world.”
