Butterflies in Heat Page 8

  The day he skipped out, he'd taken Numie on a long walk through the fields. The chill of late autumn had been in the air. "I'm gonna make it, son," he'd said. "Real big. The next time you see me, I'll be pulling up in some great big white Cadillac."

  After five o'clock dinner, he set out down the road. There had been nothing unusual about that. He never told anybody where he was going or when he was coming back. Once he was gone for eight weeks. But Numie's mama must have known something. Earlier in the day he'd beaten her severely for not having his fresh clothes pressed and laid out. Numie still recalled her standing there on the rotting floor of their front porch long after the old man had disappeared down the road and the sun had set.

  "It's store bought" Tangerine said, back in the room now. She handed him a white melted horror.

  Tentatively, he tasted it. "I've always had cheesecake cold before."

  "I like my cake hot," she said, getting into her piece. "My mama was baking all the time. Did your mama know how to cook?"

  "She made what she called creamy gravy, except it had no cream in it and lots of water, and she could make a very floury biscuit—that's about it. Any meat myoId man got."

  "What was she like?"

  "A dumb hillbilly from the Blue Ridge. After myoId man left us, she went to work in South Carolina in the kitchen of a diner peeling potatoes. When that closed down, she got a job scrubbing shit off other people's toilets."

  "Not much of a life."

  "In the end, the only thing she had was her religion. She was a real fanatic, praying all the time. Even when she worked, she was muttering some prayer of thanks to God. Thanks for what? Those bony arms she used to lift up to God, I'll never forget them. Her sunken eyes, like a dying calf. I saw her grow old before her time; and I swore it wasn't going to happen to me."

  "My mama was the same way," Tangerine said, "'cept she wasn't all that skinny. She was constantly being born again, washed in the Blood of the Lamb. She tried to drip some of that blood all over me, but I was an infidel by the time I was three years old," Tangerine said, pouring him another glass of wine. "I started going out with men—I mean men, not boys—when I was eleven years old."

  "I was fifteen before I was ever picked up," he said. "Just the year before I'd been at boarding school, and I was pretty innocent even then."

  "Care to tell me about it?" she asked. "I just love to hear stories about how guys lose their cherries."

  "With me, it started with my standing outside movie houses, wanting to go in. One day this bald old man offered to pay my way. Naturally, once we got inside, I got the hand on the leg. I was too scared to put him off. Or to turn him down when he wanted to go back to his apartment. Know what he wanted? Me to jerk off in front of him—nothing else. Hell, I did that all the time anyway. It became a Saturday afternoon thing, and I always ended up with five dollars."

  "Didn't it bother you?" she asked.

  "Not with baldy. After all, he wasn't touching me. I think the first time I felt really dirty was when I went to his apartment, and he had two friends there—one a hairy ape, the other a dainty type. They got me drunk. One of them had a camera. I thought it was for a screen test of sorts. When they dumped me near my home later, they gave me a twenty-dollar bill. That was the most money I'd ever seen in my life."

  "Your mama, she just let you roam about? Sounds like mine."

  She found out I'd been skipping school a lot. She was too frail to beat me up, but she got the big bruiser she worked for to do the job. I needed to hide, so I headed for baldy's apartment. He told me to go away, bolted the damn door."

  "True love."

  "I walked for miles that night, trying to hitch a ride," he said. "The cars just whizzed by, their bright lights blinding me. Finally, I bedded down in a clump of bushes. Next morning I hit the road again—this time for New York."

  "No damn food in your belly."

  "Yeah, but not for long. Two college girls picked me up, and they really liked me. Other strangers just talked, saying I was pretty young to be out on my own. Still others wanted me to put out. I didn't turn anybody down. What did I have but my body to trade for meals and a free ride? When I got to New York, I knew for sure how I was going to make my way."

  "When I heard about you and Lola that night, I was really thrown a bit. I mean, is black your trip?"

  "Anything's my trip. Lola isn't my first black. The first person who picked me up in New York was a black—this one quite a lady. Blacks have always been attracted to me because of my hair. For a while, it was exciting-you know, the big taboo. After a few months I had to get out, though. She told me, 'You're not chicken—more Tom Turkey'. She didn't want any 'old' boys around. I was still fifteen. But in New York when you're fifteen it isn't hard to find another bed."

  "You went both routes?"

  "Yeah, so I had more than my share of customers. Man or woman, it didn't matter. In fact, I still don't know which I prefer. I've always gone to bed with people I didn't like. I never had sex with anyone because I wanted to—except one time, and I don't even want to think about that tonight. I didn't want to give anything away if I could get paid for it. Survival, that's where it was at. That's where it's at now."

  "If New York hustling's so great, why did you split?"

  "Those beds have been harder to come by in the last few years—and I'm not fooling myself. I've got to go to work one day, get a real job, but all I know how to do is sell my meat."

  "I don't believe that," she said. She strode regally over to him and gave him her hand.

  He took it and held it. Dazed, he lifted his head. What did she want? Finally deciding it was only an offer of bodily comfort, he squeezed it and let it drop. He sank back on the sofa, as a silence fell over the room. "I almost never talk about myself. But I've been doing a lot of rapping on this island."

  "It's hard to keep a secret in Tortuga."

  He downed the last of the wine.

  Out on the street again, he wondered if he felt self-pity or self-contempt. A vague emptiness was welling inside him. Somehow he'd missed out. But missed out on what? Why was he getting sentimental about himself? Maybe because of the spirit of that glorious old hag who would love anything that came in front of her path.

  He couldn't get his head together. Not one single, clear idea. He was all broken inside, his eyes hazed with booze.

  All around him decaying gingerbread verandas spoke of a long-faded elegance, a Southern aristocracy dimly remembered. Now laundry hung over the railings, and children slept out on uncovered mattresses on rotting boards. Once ladies in antebellum gowns and white stockings waited under white parasols for gentlemen callers on a Sunday afternoon.

  Now, today, these same veranda occupants would have settled for a decent meal.

  Didn't life ever get better?

  Chapter Nine

  The volley of water was cold, but bracing. Numie scrubbed too hard, trying to wash away the memories of a drunken night.

  Stepping out, he blindly reached for a towel.

  Lola was there, holding one from her perch on the toilet stool. She kneeled on the tile and began to dry his legs vigorously.

  "You really dig me, don't you?" he asked. "Now get in the kitchen and fix my breakfast."

  "Get him!" Lola said, tossing the wet towel in his face. "You really think it's a man's world!"

  "Freedom's something you wouldn't know anything about"

  "What? You want to bring back slavery?"

  "No, I just know when a woman wants a man to boss her around. Now, get my breakfast"

  Stepping into his jeans, he went into the living room. There he collapsed on the white satin sofa. The smell of bacon frying wafted across.

  Bacon frying reminded him of Louise of long ago. She would cook his breakfast in the morning. With his mama working in the diner, he saw more of Louise than anybody.

  Where was she today? Probably on welfare in some shack in Carolina. Maybe dead. She wasn't any too young when he knew her, and that was t
wenty years ago.

  But she laughed a lot and didn't give a damn about religion—so she was fun to be with. A gelatinous mass of a woman, black as Lola, she was short, but she always wore high heels, even when cooking breakfast. "Flat shoes are for field niggers," she used to say.

  She'd walk across those wooden floors with a mincing gait, her large hips keeping a rhythm all their own. Those high heels were too small for Louise. Maybe that's why she used to say, "I never stand up when I can plop this big fat ass of mine down."

  Louise spent a lot of time on her back, not always alone. During the day, she'd been Numie's mama. But at night she had no need for him. Too busy mothering men far too big to need a mama.

  Those men would arrive with boxes and candy in heart-shaped Valentine boxes. Louise had the largest collection of those boxes of just about anybody. Sometimes the more considerate men would bring a bar of candy for Numie, too. Often he'd be given a comic book which the men had read themselves.

  Louise would receive them in faded white lace dresses turned yellow with her sweat. She was forever lying there against the flowered wallpaper of her living room which had been stained by leaking rain.

  She figured Numie was too young to care what was happening. She didn't even bother to shoo him out of the room. Each evening, the same ritual. After Louise and her main man of the night got drunk, the suitor would take down his pants—rarely take off his shirt—and mount her.

  Numie was allowed to watch, or else he could go into the kitchen for some cold fried chicken Louise kept in the refrigerator. After they were through, Louise and her man would laugh a lot. Often they'd sing.

  One night had been different. Her lover that time had been younger than the rest, his mustache making his broad features sinister. He smelled of shaving lotion. His skin was much lighter than Louise's, almost olive in tone. He hadn't bothered to bring Valentine candy boxes or anything for Numie.

  He also hadn't bothered with the preliminary drinking. He just put a shiny ten-dollar bill right down on the table, pulled off all his clothes, even his shirt, and ordered Numie into the kitchen.

  That afternoon Louise had made some fudge, and Numie decided to sample that. Later he heard Louise screaming, "It hurts ...it's killing me." Grabbing a paring knife, Numie had rushed to the front bedroom. In one quick move, he jabbed the knife into the shoulder blade of Louise's rider.

  Numie recalled nothing after that—nothing except a kick in the face that sent him sprawling across the room.

  When he came to, Louise's watermelons were swinging back and forth over him. "I do believe you've been bit green by the jealous bug." She was laughing and smiling, giving him a loud, slurpy kiss on the mouth. She showed no clue whatsoever she'd been involved in an act of violence only hours before.

  "Where's your friend?" he'd asked, sitting up and rubbing his head.

  "At the hospital. It was just a scratch, but you should have heard that man carry on. Like a pig with his nuts cut off. You really thought he was hurting me?"

  "You were screaming"

  "My sweet little baby," she said, gIVIng him another wet kiss. "You'll soon learn when hurt becomes heaven for a woman. I was just starting to enjoy it when you came barging in with my kitchen knife"

  Suddenly, he was conscious he was entirely naked. Not a stitch on. He fumbled around, reaching for a faded quilt.

  "Don't you go getting modest with me," Louise said. "Always hiding that peter. I ain't never seen it till tonight when I put you to bed."

  Embarrassed and ashamed, he muttered to let go and reached for the quilt again.

  Her hands snaked down his body, ensnaring the curly hairs of his lower abdomen. "You're becoming a real big boy, real big, and I hadn't even noticed. Imagine that!" She talked to his cock as if it were separate from himself, making cooing sounds. "You like Louise's warm hands on him? Look, he's growing bigger! Now just you lay back and spread your skinny legs"

  Numie tried to swallow, but maybe his throat was too dry. It sounded more like a gulp.

  'Tonight old Louise is gonna teach you the best lesson a gal can teach a boy. Now, just you relax. 'Cause I'm a gal who likes to take her time. Lazy Louise, they call me."

  She'd been in total charge that night. He hadn't really enjoyed anything, but had been completely fascinated, completely under her spell.

  After they were through, she wobbled across the floor, giggling and half drunk. She reached for one of her Valentine candy boxes and untied its shiny satin ribbon. "You get first prize tonight, you little mother-fucker," she had said, tying the red ribbon around his cock. Later she slipped the ten-dollar bill under his pillow. 'That's the first time Louise has ever paid for it, but you earned it. It was good having something fresh for a change."

  "Stop thinking about sex," Lola said, emerging from the kitchen with a plate of food. For one brief moment, she thought Numie was thinking of some body other than her own.

  Numie gulped down the scrambled eggs, then sliced the bacon and tasted Lola's freshly brewed coffee. At least, she was a better cook than Louise. "You sure make good coffee"

  "My daddy taught me," she said. 'Taught me a lot of things." Her voice drifted off. It wasn't easy thinking about her old man.

  "Where's he now?" Numie asked matter-of-factly, not caring.

  "Dead," she said blankly. She barged into the bathroom and stared at her face in the mirror. The results didn't please her at all. Not enough sleep last night. It was hard being a sex object.

  Back in the living room, she was rubbing her hands over a wooden Cuban cigar box. "Numie," she said impulsively. 'Would you smoke one of these cigars? They're from Havana."

  "A Havana cigar," he said, surprised. "Sur~. I've always heard about them." Taking one from her, he lit it and settled back on the sofa.

  She studied him for a long moment. The smell was so familiar. It brought back recent memories of the Commodore, but in some vague and distant way she conjured up her father sitting there. He sure did smoke different from Numie. "Child," she said, jerking the cigar from him, "you just don't know how to smoke"

  "Oh, yeah?" he said, resentful. "What do you know about cigars? I thought only dykes smoked them."

  "I resent that. For one thing, I just happen to be the daughter of the most famous cigar roller who ever set foot in Tortuga. We used to make our own on this island, I have you know. My daddy came over from Jamaica to work in a factory here."

  "I'm impressed."

  "You should be! Cigar rollers in those days used spit. My daddy's mouth was dry all the time."

  "Don't make me throw up."

  She turned from him, feeling some of the disgust herself. But the disgust was directed at Numie. He'd pay for putting down her daddy. Nobody did that. Not even the Commodore.

  Back in the bathroom, she stared at her face in the mirror. Would her daddy, were he alive today, find her attractive? The little girl look was still there. Wasn't it?

  After all, he'd told her she was the exact spittin' image of her mama. Lola had never seen her mama—she'd died giving birth—but she just knew she must have been a handsome woman.

  She would have to have been, because her daddy never got over her. Lola was sure of that. "You're all she left me," he used to tell Lola, taking her after supper and placing her on his knee. He'd let her sip some of his rum toddy. It was real sweet the way she liked it. To this day, she still didn't drink anything but rum toddies.

  "You liked your old man a lot, huh?" Numie called from the living room.

  "Liked?" Lola asked, rushing back in, hands on her hips. "I was madly in love with him, child." She plopped down beside Numie on the satin sofa. Placing her feet on the coffee table, she smoothed an imaginary wrinkle out of her white nightgown.

  "You mean, like a woman with a man?"

  "Of course," Lola answered, getting up impatiently again. She wanted to talk, to tell someone, but she didn't trust Numie with this secret part of her life.

  In the bathroom once more, she took off her gown
and inspected her red panties. My God, a stain! She'd have to get another pair, a fresh, nice, clean one. She liked to smell fresh and clean at all times, even if it meant changing her panties twenty times a day.

  Out of the top drawer, she selected a pair of red ones.

  That had been her daddy's favorite color. In fact, he was the one who launched her on a lifetime career of wearing red silk panties.

  She still remembered the first night her daddy got her to put on a pair of her mama's panties. He'd brought her things all the way from Jamaica—ouldn't bear to part with them. Daddy kept his former wife's clothing locked in the top drawer of a closet so none of his children could get at them. But one night he got a pair of panties, real silky ones, and asked Lola to try them on. They'd both had too many rum toddies that night. But she'd put on the panties, then accepted his invitation to climb up on his knee, like she always did. "You look like your mama,' he had said, "'cept for the color of your skin.'

  "What's the matter with my skin?" Lola had asked.

  "Nothing,' he told her. "'Cept your mama's skin was nearly white. All her life I never knew her to go out in the sun.'

  Lola resented that. She wanted to be white, too. Another dirty trick from Mother Nature, the old bitch.

  Astride his lap, Lola let her daddy take her for a ride. That time, though, his hands were different from before. "You're becoming quite a little woman,' he said. He'd started to tickle her thighs, even pinching her little bottom. "It's the cutest in the world,' he'd said.

  She'd wanted to ask him if it were cuter than her mama's, but hadn't dared.

  Then he'd turned her around, with her back rubbing up against him. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her. It had been very exciting. She'd thought he was just playing a game. Then with his finger he'd started poking through the silk panties at her rosebud. She'd felt him grow hard. He'd rubbed up against her, but didn't try to enter. He'd kissed her right after—right on the mouth, real hard. "Yes indeedy, you're getting more like your mama every day." With that, she knew she'd pleased him. It was the happiest moment of her life.