“I won’t forget the mustard this time,” he said. I nodded. He went out. The door closed hard.
I went into the janitor’s closet and got the rat poison. I tore a piece of sack and made an envelope and shook some powder in and put it in the pocket of my skirt, then I went back and sat on the bed. Then I sat on the floor, with my back against the bed, my knees drawn up. I felt tense. My thighs felt like they do after a good lay, or going to the doctor and having him jam that cotton stick up your pussy. I held my arms tight around my knees, then I pushed them up between my thighs. I punched my belly, swollen with too much eating in, and being constipated. I’d get nervous with him there, and nothing would come out.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Traveling.”
He asked me what I was doing. “Traveling.”
Alfonso asked me if I smoked. I said no. He said I didn’t know what kind of smoke he meant. He said they put it in that kind of package to protect themselves. He passed me a Chesterfield King.
The man without a thumb nodded and smiled at us from the other side of the room.
Alfonso had a bottle of Bali Hai in a brown paper bag. He said it was cheaper down at the liquor store. He kept it under the table.
“Bearcat Brown’s got a steel plate in his head,” I heard somebody say.
I told Alfonso how Medina got kicked by a horse, and the doctor put a steel plate in her head and a dime in her jaw. He said only that she was his grandmother too. He poured some wine in my glass.
“You just keep coming, don’t you?”
Finally he took the wine out of the bag and put it up on the table.
“Yeah, that’s why can’t nobody down him. He’s got that steel plate in his head. They call him the cat. Sometimes they call him the bear.”
He put his hand in my blouse.
“I didn’t know your breasts were so big.” He bent his head down.
“Naw.”
“A man talks to himself when he’s lonely,” James said. “I go out to restaurants sometimes, but I sit way over in the corner by myself. People see me and think I’m crazy because I just be sitting over there laughing and talking to myself. Or either somebody ask, ‘What’s that nigger talking about?’ and somebody answer, ‘Probably talking some shit.’ A man’s lonely and he laughs and talks to himself. He ain’t crazy, he’s lonely.”
4
What would Tyrone have done if I’d gone with him under the stairs? I dream. There’s no hoot. He pulls me hard. He takes his stick out. There’s a bubble at the end of it.
“It’s to measure you,” he says. “It will let me know when you’re level.”
He slides his back down the wall, and pulls my dress up. He keeps telling me it won’t hurt. “Eva, it won’t hurt.” Pulls my pants down. He tells me it’s no different from a popsicle.
“Ain’t no man I wont but you. Ain’t no penis I wont but yours,” Mama says. Where is she?
I’m on the floor. Tyrone and me. He says I make him feel like kindling.
“Sleep with me, Eva.”
“No.”
“You know you don’t wont it like this.”
“No.”
“You know you don’t wont it like this.”
“No.”
“When you going to let me make love to you again?”
“Never.”
“When you going to love me, Eva?”
I don’t answer.
“When you going to let me feel you?” I don’t answer.
“When you going to feel me again?” no answer.
“How long has it been, honey?”
“It’s been a long long time.”
Mr. Logan is an old owl perched on the stairs. Mama says, “Ain’t no man I wont but you.” Daddy says, “Why’d you take him on then?”
Tyrone puts my hand on his thing. Then he jams himself up inside me.
I got back on the bed, my knees parted. He came in. “Eva, what are you doing?”
“Nothing, I was waiting for you.”
“I think I forgot the mustard.” He peeked in the sack. “No, I didn’t forget it.”
“What about the bourbon?”
“I thought you said brandy.”
“Yes, I did. I’m sorry.”
“Is this kind all right?”
“Yes.”
He sat the things down on the table. Cabbage and sausage. What I had the first night. A big loaf of bread and some cheese. Beer for himself.
“Aren’t you going to have any brandy?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’ll have a little brandy. I’ll wash it down with this.”
“I’ll rinse out the glasses,” I said, getting up. “Do you want the brandy before or after dinner?”
“I’ll have mine after dinner.”
“I’ll wait too.”
We sat down at the table, opposite each other. I kept my eyes on my plate. I spread the mustard on my sausage.
“Do you want any?”
“Naw, I told you what it looks like. Baby’s doodoo.”
“The horseradish kind looks more like that,” I said. “I thought it would bother you.”
“No, it didn’t bother me.”
I tried to think of what he was talking about. I watched his mouth, but not his eyes.
“I think they burnt the cabbage,” he said. “It still tastes good.”
“Yeah, it does.”
I felt it good against my tongue and in the hollows of my mouth. I thought of him rubbing my back and thighs.
“You eat food as if you’re making love to it,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I like it. I like to watch.”
I found it hard to go on eating, hard to find my mouth. I looked up, but he wasn’t watching any longer. I went on eating, my shoulders bent.
“What are you thinking? You’re not talking.”
“Nothing.”
“Why aren’t you speaking?”
“I don’t have anything to say right now.”
“Did what I say bother you? You said it didn’t bother you.”
“No, it didn’t bother me.”
“I don’t mean about the mustard.”
“No, it didn’t bother me.”
He looked at me hard. He got up and came over and walked behind me
