I said nothing.
“I’d be way away from here,” the man with no thumb said.
Alfonso said he was taking me to see Otis and Jean, but they weren’t there. He said why didn’t we play cards till they came. He said he didn’t like to play cards at the table, he liked to play cards on the floor. I had on pants and I sat with my legs folded. He said he couldn’t do that. He said he was too stiff to do that. When he tried to sit like that his knees stuck up, he wasn’t limber enough. I cut the cards. I saw where he was looking and changed the way I was sitting. He dealt.
“I thought you said they were coming,” I said after we’d played awhile.
“They be here,” he said.
He was sitting with his knees stuck up. I didn’t like where I was looking now. He saw where I was looking. He put down his cards and pulled on my arm. “Come on, girl.”
“Come on, what? Naw.”
He had pulled me over where he was and started kissing on the side of my neck. I stood up and he pulled me down again, this time my leg across him. He had hold of my hand. This time when I felt it, it wasn’t inside pants. It felt like a wrist. It was throbbing like a wrist. It felt as big and round as a wrist. I said naw, and broke away from him and for the door. I thought he would grab hold of me before I got there, but he didn’t. I got out. He didn’t come after me.
“You scratched me down there.”
We were sitting at a table in the Froglegs restaurant. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I still got the scar.”
He got up and came back and pushed my beer over to me. “It’s about time you had some meat and juice too,” he said.
I said nothing.
“They ain’t there. Why don’t you come home with me?”
“Naw.”
“Why you out with me again? I thought when I asked you, you’d turn me down flat. I asked you anyway, though. You said Yes. That surprised me, you know that. It honestly did. I thought we had something going, but we ain’t . . . What if I asked you to come home with me? Otis out with some vamp and Jean staying with some girlfriend of hers that’s been having a bad time with some man.”
“Naw.”
“I’ll tell your mama you let me suck your tiddies.”
“Naw you won’t.”
He laughed, and told me to drink my beer.
“You know where I’d like to take you? I’d like to take you out to Chicago and then to Kansas City and then out to California,” he said.
I said nothing.
“You don’t believe me. I would. Don’t you want to go those places?”
“Not with you.”
“You hard on a man.”
“I told you to tell people I’m your cousin. You haven’t been telling yourself, have you?”
“Shit. You went out with me again. You just wont me to take you out somewhere so you can meet somebody.”
“I don’t want to meet nobody.”
“Shit, I ain’t never met no hussy that didn’t want to meet nobody.” He was mad. “That’s all, you just wonted me to flunky for you.”
“Naw I didn’t.”
“Must not be nobody here good enough for you. I ain’t seen you looking.”
“I’m not looking for nobody.”
“Yes you are. You lookin for the meat and gravy, only I ain’t the right meat and gravy.”
“I didn’t say I was looking.”
“Shit. Drink your beer, woman. You want another one?”
“Naw.”
“Naw, you bed not get drunk,” he said. “Tell your mama I had my teeth all in your tiddies.”
I said nothing. I looked at my beer.
“Yeah, you out with me. Won’t do nothing but feel, though.” I said nothing.
“Why don’t you come home with me?” I shook my head and then said, “Naw.”
“There was a woman,” I told Davis, “called the queen bee. I don’t even know what her real name was, but she was a real good-looking woman, too. People used to say she was marked, because she had three men, and each of them died, you know. After the first one died they didn’t think nothing about it, but then after the second one, people started whispering, and then after the third one, they were sure. I guess she was sure too, because she met this man she was really in love with, and then she killed herself.”
“I’d rather hear about you.”
“No. I don’t like to talk about myself.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t.”
“You make a man wonder what’s there.”
“You see me.”
“Naw, there’s more to you than what I see.” He put his hands inside my thighs. “Yeah, there’s more to you than what see.”
“You out with me,” Alfonso said. “But that’s all.”
“The queen bee. I don’t know if she knew that’s what people called her. It must’ve been hard, though. She must’ve been sucked hollow. She must’ve had nothing left.”
“Naw, those men kept bringing it to her. She must’ve sucked them hollow. That’s why they died. Cause they had nothing left.”
“Naw, it was harder on the woman.”
“Shit, I don’t even think it’s a real
