“Yes, it was,” the old man said. “But it was ghostwritten, like all of his published work.”
“What? Are you kidding me?”
“I am not, Brother David, and so you must try again. But that trial is for another day, because it’s time for a walk. Sugarfoot, are you and your beau coming?”
We took our pilgrimage to the pecan tree and Uncle Root told Abdul his story. On our walk back, David invited Abdul to the American Legion for a small get-together. That evening, Abdul told me I couldn’t join them at the Legion. This was a boys’ night out, so I had to stay back at the house. My granny had put him in my great-grandmother’s old room, and I’d propped the bedroom door open with a stick. The floor wasn’t level, and every time the door slammed shut, Miss Rose would open it, declaring, respect her house.
Abdul silently rubbed his goatee with a hairbrush, then sniffed under his arms. When he walked outside, I followed.
“But I’m wearing a cute outfit.”
“And you look real pretty, Ailey. Go on back inside now.”
“Come on. Please.”
A supplicant’s note slipped into my voice, but I wouldn’t have been ashamed if David hadn’t been sitting on the porch steps, watching me. He kissed his teeth and rose from the steps. When he started the Eldorado, the strains of the Isley Brothers announced he’d expanded his repertoire. I walked down the front stairs, still pleading with Abdul, but he slid into the passenger seat, closed the door and rolled up the window while I was still talking.
My voice rose into a shriek as I ordered David not to drive away. He moved both of his hands from the steering wheel and put them close to the ceiling of the Eldorado. Showed his teeth in that trademark “everything is everything” smile.
I leaned close to the glass of the passenger window, shouting. Banging on the window.
“Abdul, you better open this goddamned car door, or it’s gone be some trouble! My heart don’t pump no Kool-Aid!”
The screen whined open and my granny emerged, with my mother following behind. Neither were attired for bed. Over their jeans, they wore the reunion T-shirt that declared, WE ARE FAMILY! When my granny asked, why was I screaming? and I explained, Mama folded her arms. I knew she was thinking of her dream.
Miss Rose called to the car and David climbed from the Eldorado.
“Ma’am?”
“Baybay, what you and this Abdul boy done did to my grandchild?”
“Nothing, Miss Rose. It’s just a misunderstanding. I’m gone fix this. I promise.”
“You know you got to be careful with Ailey! You know she high-strung!”
“Yes, ma’am, I know, Miss Rose.”
“Now, y’all take this girl with you to the Legion, and you better be nice. Don’t you let me hear different. Don’t make me call your granddaddy. You know J.W. don’t play.”
“Yes, ma’am, we gone be nice. You don’t have to worry.”
At the Legion, Boukie was waiting, and the four of us squeezed into a leatherette booth. My boyfriend sat with me, but his back was turned. He’d said nothing on the journey into town.
David put his hands on his slim hips. “Here she go: ‘Open this car door or I’ma kill all y’all!’ Partner, I was real, real scared.”
When he threw back his head and laughed, Boukie joined in, saying he’d been knowing me for twenty years, and I came from a family of crazy, low-down women. “This girl got my ass whipped for nothing, back in the fourth grade. Her mama, she crazy on GP. Her grandma? Miss Rose the one who whipped me, plus, she threatened to cut my dick off in the summer of 1989. Her great-grandma, Dear Pearl? She was crazy before she passed on to Glory, God rest her soul—”
“Boukie, are you gone talk about my whole family right in front of me?” I’d drunk two coolers, my anger melting away as the artificial fruit flavors hit my blood. “And you weren’t in fourth grade when I got you whipped. It was the summer before third grade, though probably kindergarten for you, considering how many times you’ve been left back.”
Boukie lit a cigarette, waving at the smoke. “You see what I’m saying? Ain’t no way I’d sleep next to this girl. You might wake up wearing a pot of hot grits.”
I slid from the booth. A quarter in the jukebox and an Earth, Wind & Fire slow jam. Back at the table, I told Abdul I wanted to dance. He jerked his hand from mine, so I turned to David, pulling him to his feet.
Abdul put his beer down. “Oh, so you just gone disrespect me, girl? You’re not even going to ask my permission?”