What It Was

’cross your ass so you don’t fall in. Ha ha ha. Almost made Jones sorry for Odum. Almost.

Odum forced a smile. “Red.”

“It is me.”

“What brings you here, brother?”

“My money does.” Jones entered the apartment and closed the door behind him.

Odum stood before him, flexing and unflexing his hands. Sweat had appeared on his dark, deeply lined forehead. His eyes told Jones that he was high.

“You want a drink, somethin?”

“I could.”

“Let me treat you to some Regal.”

“Pour it,” said Jones.

Odum went to a rolling cart displaying liquor and setups, and free-poured scotch into a clouded tumbler from a Chivas bottle. The bottle had been filled and refilled over the years with off-brands, its label faded to gray. It now held Scots Lion, the low-shelf brand from the Continental liquor shop on Vermont Avenue.

Odum handed Jones his drink, and Jones hit it. It tasted like scotch. He pointed to the sofa and said, “Sit down.”

Odum had a seat on the sofa and Jones settled into an overstuffed chair. Between them, a coffee table was littered with burned bottle caps, cotton balls pink with blood, a two-dollar necktie, and a large metal ashtray.

Jones reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a pack of Kools that was unopened on top. He shook a smoke from the hole he had torn out of the bottom of the pack, flipped the cigarette, and put the filtered end in his mouth. He picked a book of fire up off the table, read its face, and struck a match, touching flame to tobacco and taking in a deep lungful of menthol. He let the smoke out slow.

“So you been past Ed Murphy’s,” said Jones, his eyes going to the matchbook before he helped himself and slipped it into his pocket.

“I caught that boy Hathaway at the Supper Club. He was playin there last week. Donny’s a Howard man.”

“My woman’s into him. And that female he be singin with, too.”

“They gonna be together at the Carter Barron,” said Odum. “I got tickets for the show.” His face soured as he realized his mistake.

“Where the tickets at?” said Jones.

“They in my leather,” muttered Odum, angry at himself. Something else came to him, and his tone betrayed him as he pointedly added, “The inside pocket.”

Jones dragged on his Kool, double-dragged, leaned forward, and tapped ash into the tray. He stared at Odum and said nothing.

“Red?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Shit, Red, I been lookin to get up with you.”

“You have?”

“You ain’t give me no number, though.”

“I called you and got nary an answer.”

“That’s funny, ’cause I been here.”

“Maybe your phone line’s fucked up. We could check it right now and find out.”

“Nah. You must got the number wrong, somethin.”

“Decatur two, four seven nine five?”

“That’s it.”

“Then I ain’t get nothin wrong. Did I?”

“Okay.”

“Where my money at?” said Jones.

Odum spread his hands. “Wasn’t but eighty dollars, Red.”

“One or eighty, it’s all the same to me. You played and you lost. Trying to be funny with a ten and no royalty. Now you need to make it right.”

What Jones said was true. There was a card game and Odum had stayed in on a ten-high, looking to outlast Jones and the others on a bluff. Jones, who did not fold, had been holding a pair of faces. But a weak hand and eighty dollars was not why Jones had come.

“You can have my watch,” said Odum.

“I don’t want that off-brand shit.”

“I got heroin.”

“How much?”

Odum tapped the toe of his right Jarman on the wood floor. “One dime is all.”

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

“I don’t know. Look, I’m just a tester, man-”

“Where you get your medicine at?”

“Ah, shit, Red.”

“Where?”

Odum lowered his eyes. “Dude named Roland Williams. He got bundles.”

“Roland Williams, went to Cardozo?”

“Nah, not Ro-Ro Williams. I’m talking about Long Nose Roland, came out of Roosevelt. He been going up top. You know, coppin at that spot in Harlem they call Little Baltimore.”

“Where Long Nose stay at?”

“Thirteen hundred block of T,” said Odum.

“Where exactly?”

Odum did not know the address. He described the row house by the color of its shutters and the little porch out front. Jones saw it in his head.

“Okay,” said Jones. He drank from the tumbler, emptied it, and placed it roughly on the coffee table. He dropped his cigarette into the glass and rose from the couch as if sprung.

“We done?” said Odum.

“Put some music on the box,” said Jones. “It’s too quiet in this hole.”

Odum got up. His feet were unsteady beneath him as he crossed the room. He went to the home entertainment center he had purchased, on time, for one hundred and forty-eight dollars at the Sun Radio uptown. He had not paid on it for many months. It was an eighty-watt Webcor system with a record changer and dust cover housed atop an AM/FM stereo receiver and eight-track player. Two air-suspension speakers bookended the unit, seated on a slotted metal stand holding Odum’s vinyl.

Odum chose an album and slipped it out of its dust jacket. He placed the record on the turntable, side two up, and carefully dropped the tone arm on the first song. Psychedelic funk came forward.

Odum did not turn around. As the groove hit him, he began to move with a small, off-the-rhythm dip and plythm di a shake of his hips. He was not much of a dancer. He forced himself to smile.

“Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow,” said Odum.

Jones, now standing behind the couch, said nothing.

“ ‘I wanna know if it’s good to you,’ ” sang Odum, as the chorus kicked in. His mouth had gone dry and he licked his lips. “Wait till you hear Eddie Hazel’s guitar on the way out the jam. Eddie can do it.”

“Turn it up,” said Jones. Odum hiked up the volume. “More,” said Jones. Odum’s trembling hand clockwised the dial. “Now sit your narrow ass back down.” The music was loud in the room. It had been mixed to travel from speaker to speaker, and its freaks-in-the-funhouse effect made Jones cold. Odum sat on the couch, his birdlike hands folded in his lap.

“Red,” said Odum.

“Hush,” said Jones.

“Red, please, man… I’ll get you your eighty.”

“This ain’t about no eighty. It’s about you runnin your gums.”