“Hey, Hearts,” Fearless said, holding out hands of greeting and restraint.
“Out of my way, Fearless,” she commanded. “I got places to be.”
“Who’s drivin’ you?” he asked, both friendly and stern.
“Toby Battrell,” she said, waving a white-gloved hand at the street.
Standing there next to a 1940s wood-paneled station wagon was a teenage boy. His shirttails were hanging out and his plump body seemed to be made from fudge.
“That’s a child right there, Hearts,” Fearless said. “What’s 162
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his mama gonna say when you put him out there in front’a Mad Anthony or some other crazy fool like that?”
“Toby will stay in the car.”
“In the middle’a the night in places where Ulysses might be? Hearts,” Fearless entreated. “You cain’t be draggin’ no child around where trouble grow. You know that, baby.”
“Who said that I’m goin’ out lookin’ for trouble?” Three Hearts said to the ground at her feet.
“Toby,” Fearless called.
“Yessir?”
My friend flipped a coin across the void. The boy made a valiant effort, but he missed and had to run after the silver disk as it rolled down the asphalt.
“That’s a dollar,” Fearless said when the awkward ballet was through. “Go on home now. Me an’ Paris will drive Mrs.
Grant.”
When the boy flashed a grin I decided I liked him. He jumped into his station wagon and rolled away to safety.
“Now, where you wanna go, Hearts?” Fearless asked my auntie.
I didn’t speak because I would always be a child in the eyes of my family. Even with my mustache they treated me according to my size and temperament. That’s why Three Hearts could use Toby on a risky venture and not realize how wrong she was.
But Fearless was born an adult. People always listened to him; even white folks cocked an ear when they were in trouble and Fearless offered to help.
“There’s a house down around Compton,” she said. “I wanna go there.”
“What’s there?” I asked. I just couldn’t keep quiet.
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“Ain’t none’a your business.”
“Hearts,” Fearless said. “We your people here. Why you wanna stonewall us?”
Three Hearts looked up into my friend’s eyes with something like evil festering in hers. I did not know another man or woman who knew Three Hearts that wouldn’t back down from that stare.
Fearless grinned.
“I ain’t scared’a you, Hearts,” he said. “You know I’m tryin’
to help ya. You know you need us wit’ you to help your son. So don’t be pullin’ no evil-eye stuff on me.”
Nadine had come to the screen door. She was looking at the encounter with something like fear in her face.
Three Hearts began to tremble. Her fists were knotted in rage. I swear I felt lightning gather in the sky. It took all of my courage not to step away from Fearless.
“It’s that girl,” Three Hearts hissed. “I found out from a woman. I’m goin’ down there to get her spell off my son.”
F r o m t h e b a c k s e a t of my car on the way to Compton, she told us the tale.
“I know you been lookin’, Paris,” she said. “An’ I appreciate it, baby. But I couldn’t just sit there in Nadine’s house an’
watch the flowers grow. I had to get out an’ do sumpin’. And so Nadine told me about Toby. He done got put outta school fo’ stealin’ from the canteen, an’ his mama want him to work.
So I hired him for fifty cent a hour t’drive me. I buy his lunch an’ pay the gas, an’ he took me to every church around here.
“I must’a gone to twenty churches when I finally fount a woman who knew a woman that this Angel girl done messed 164
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wit’. I knew it was gonna be sumpin’ like that. Her Christian name is Allmont. She was in this one church, Triumph of the Lord Holy Baptist, when she lured Tyree Mullins inta sin. His wife, Cleo, couldn’t do nuthin’ about it. It was like he had a fever. He kept tellin’ Cleo that it wasn’t nuthin’ romantic or sex but that he was just tryin’ t’help the girl. He owns some property ovah in Compton an’ he put her up there. She don’t pay no rent, don’t buy her own food or her clothes. If she get sick he there wit’ her before his own chirren. That’s the woman that have beguiled my poor son.”
I didn’t know how much truth or rumor or fabrication by Three Hearts herself had gone into that story, but I did
