The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley Page A

we do this?”
    “I’ll come over with a camera and photograph everything. You’ll get a copy of each image. I’ll give you a receipt for the items and have them moved to a room above my shop in Bridgehampton. Then I begin to invite buyers. As I sell off items, I pass on the proceeds to you—minus expenses and twenty percent.”
    “Twenty? I thought you got ten.”
    “Richard wants me to retain his fee also. I said I would, but if you have a problem with that —”
    “No, no, no. That’s okay. So how soon before I see some money?”
    “Well let me see. I’m going on a buying trip starting tomorrow that will last for ten days. One day for the photographing and delivery. Then I have to e-mail, call, or write to the right clients. The museums may take months to get back to me —”
    “Months?”
    “— but many of the dealers are around here and so I’ll probably start getting something in a month to six weeks.”
    I wondered how soon the bank would move in to try to foreclose on the bad debt. I was already more than a month late in my payments. I needed at least twelve hundred dollars to get the debtors off my back. For a moment I wondered if I could get an advance from Narciss. It was worth a try, but I couldn’t get the words out. I didn’t want her to see me begging.
    “It’s a little late for dinner,” I said. “I’m tired from all of this work. Can we make it the day you come for photographs?”
    The momentary shadow of sadness across her face made me glad that I hadn’t asked for the advance.
    “Oh sure,” she said. “I understand. This kind of work is exhausting not only physically but also in your heart.” She reached out and curled her long finger around my forearm. It was meant to be supportive and it was successful.
    “Mr. Blakey?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Keep the masks with you for a while. For at least a year.”
    “Don’t you want to study them? To figure out how old they are and where they’re from?”
    “It’s more important that you keep something that has your roots in it. You should sleep next to them and feel their presence. No amount of study will take the place of your family’s heart.”
    She leaned forward. I could feel the breath from her nostrils on my arm. The way she looked at me held a question, a request. I knew it was her desire for me to keep the masks, but that wish called up another whole feeling in me.
    She moved back and whispered, “You’re a sweet man.”
    I wanted to kiss her but she moved too quickly, putting on her jacket and hefting her shoulder bag. When I approached she stuck out a hand at me. All I could do was shake and say good-bye.
     
     
     

• 9 •
     
     
    T he next few days went by quickly. I spent them scrubbing and cleaning the basement. I also straightened up the house as well as I could. The walls and floors of the basement needed paint, but all I had was forty dollars, so elbow grease was the only oil-based liquid I used.
    My uncle Brent used to say that I was lazy and worthless. He said it whenever my mother was out.
    “I’m surprised that a boy like you don’t starve ’cause he too lazy to lift the fork to his lips,” he said often. And then he’d laugh in a wheezing manner and I’d wish that he’d fall down the steps and die.
    I hated everything about Brent. The fact that he talked in a southern Negro dialect made me hate his kind of blackness. I didn’t want to be associated with
street.
You had to prove yourself to me if you didn’t speak like an educated person, a white person. When Ricky came back from Brooklyn, I didn’t like him because I heard the whispering, muttering southern talk of Brent in his words. Even then, in that room, fourteen years after Brent had died, I was still angry at him.
    “You stupid fuck,” I said to a memory. “Dumb shit motherfucker. I’ll kill you.”
    Sometimes I’d spend the whole day walking around the house cursing Brent and all the mean things he said. At odd moments his name