Eva's Man

me. I would talk to her. My parents would come to see me, but everything was strained, and near the end they didn’t come to see me so much as in the beginning, because we would just sit there most of the time and not say nothing. They told me that Alfonso and Jean were still going at it, and that Otis couldn’t be talked into making his own life, because he still felt that they were his “mission”. Daddy said Otis was just as crazy as them and that the three of them belonged together. Mama said she was glad they were out of Kansas City anyway so they wouldn’t drive Miss Calley mad. And then when they got ready to leave, Mama kissed me and Daddy just looked at me hard.

The first time I saw James Hunn was after the cops arrested me—the first time, I mean, for what I did to Moses Tripp. I was sitting in the Detective Bureau Office. When they found out how old I was they sent me down to Juvenile, but at first they had me sitting down there. When he came in his hair wasn’t combed, he was dirty and had a white patch over his left eye. He sat down beside me and said, “How do.”

I didn’t say anything. The secretary asked if she could help him. He got up and went to the desk.

“Yeah, they sent me down here to give my statement. I was in a automobile accident.”

“What’s your name?”

“Hunn. James Hunn. They call me Hawk.”

She told him to have a seat. He sat back down next to me. “This girl’s over here scared of me,” he said.

The secretary said nothing.

“I seen her jump when I come in. You didn’t jump, but she did.”

“I’m used to seeing people all patched up and things,” she said. “The reason I can’t take your statement now is they got the door closed.” She pointed to the door of the back room. She told him that whenever that door was closed she didn’t bother them. She told him that when she first started working there, once the door was closed and she just opened it and started on in there without knocking or nothing, and there was a man in there with his pants down. “Yeah, I’m used to seeing things worse than that patch over your eye. I mean, people bleeding and things.”

The two detectives who had brought me in came out of the back room, and the secretary took Mr. Hunn in there to take his statement. One of the detectives sat at the desk, watching me, and the other one leaned against the filing cabinets. They looked like they were waiting for something.

When James Hunn came out of the back room, he looked at the detectives, and then he looked at me.

“What you do?” he asked when he got near me. I said nothing.

“I don’t blame you for being scared of me. I know I look like the devil.”

“You better be careful who you messing with, Hawk,” one of the detectives said, laughing.

“What she do?”

“Stabbed a man who was messing with her.”

James Hunn looked at me again. “Well, she’s still scared of me, though.”

“Yeah, Hawk, we know you tough,” the detective said, laughing.

The other detective just stood by looking disgusted.

I didn’t look at Hawk—after we were married I always called him James. I could feel him looking at me.

“Hawk, we know you tough,” the detective repeated.

“You hurt somebody or somebody hurt you?” Hawk asked. “I just told you she stabbed a man.”

“I know what you told me,” Hawk said. “I want to hear what she tell me.” He was still looking at me. “You scared of me, ain’t you, honey?”

The detective who was looking disgusted said, “Shit.”

“Hawk, you through, ain’t you?” the other detective asked. “Yeah, I’m going. Y’all take it easy.” He looked at me. “You

take it easy, you hear?”

I nodded but said nothing.

“Yeah, you get over being scared of James Hunn,” he said. He went out. The detective who was looking disgusted said,

“Shit.”

A woman came in with a little girl. The little girl was tall for her age and she stood beside the woman calmly. The little girl looked at me questioningly. The woman was angry and nervous and she told the detective that they had her other children down at the Davis Home and that she wanted her other children. The detective told her that she had to go down to Juvenile, straight down the hall.

When they found out I was only seventeen, they sent me down to Juvenile, and then out to the girls” reformatory.

“What’s St. Vitus dance?”

The girl had short brownish-red hair, and her complexion was kind of brownish-red too.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“The girl next door told me she had St. Vitus dance. I asked her what in the hell was that. She don’t even know. They give you a pregnancy test?”

I nodded.

“You wasn’t, though, was you? Naw. Everybody that come in here, they give them a pregnancy test. You don’t have to tell me what you did because I know already. You was easy on him, though. If that old tetter-head nigger had come after me, he wouldn’t have no ass or no dick left.”

“I didn’t say he came after me.”

“Well, I can tell by looking at you, sweetheart, you didn’t go after him.”

I said nothing. She started laughing. She told me her name was Joanne Riley. “You be all right,” she said.

We became friends. We were friends until two girls got in a fight over her, and the superintendent moved her to another section.

When James Hunn first came to see me, he had his hair combed, and was cleaned up and the patch was off his eye. He looked handsome. He said he thought he was going to lose it. But there wasn’t nothing but a little scar on it.

“You still scared of me, ain’t you?” I said I wasn’t scared.

“Yes you are.”

We said nothing.

“You