Stranahan’s store if I say pretty please and promise you something very nice. (Oh Lord!)
What she almost always wanted was a package of Chesterfield ready-rolls and two or three bottles of Coca-Cola and whenyou came back you knew she was always going to say, Now there’s my sweetheart, and you also knew that she was always going to say, Keep the change, sporty. Then she was going to give you a hug and a kiss, and you would be that close, and she would be wearing cologne that always made her smell as good as she looked, even when she was smoking a cigarette. Some lagniappe!
But the more Little Buddy Marshall went on talking and I went on remembering, the more I wanted to change the subject because I didn’t want to say anything about being on the spot, since you couldn’t bring up anything about school with him anymore. You couldn’t, but he could, and he did, because he already knew and he was rubbing it in without ever mentioning it.
As if I didn’t know, and I also knew that he honestly felt that he, not I, was the one with the experience and nerve you needed to make a move on Creola Calloway because he, not I, was the one who had skipped city and made it back from beyond far horizons (although not yet all seven of the seas) and on his own. But I just let that go. I just said, Old Lebo, I said, Hey man, goddamn. I said, Yeah man.
To which he said, Hey man, let me tell you something for a fact. Man, I ain’t never stopped having them goddamn dreams about me and old Creola. Man when I think about all the times I been thinking about that frizzly-headed quail when I was climbing up on some tough-ass northern whore, man you know I got to find out if I can handle that heifer. Man I got to see if I can make somebody that pretty whisper my name in my ear.
When I saw him again, it was about three weeks later and when he saw me he started sporty limping and whistling “Up a Lazy River,” and as we slapped palms he winked and then he said, Hey man guess what? and stood straddling his left hand and snapping fingers with his right saying, Hey shit, I reckon hey shit I fucking fucking reckon.
IX
S o well now, hello there, Mister College Boy, the one I had given the nod said as we came on into the upstairs room she was using that night. She was the same shade of cinnamon-bark brown as Deljean McCray, but her hair was slightly straighter and glossier and I guessed that she was about three or four years older than Deljean McCray, but her legs were not as long because she was not quite as tall as I was.
I said, Hello Miss Pretty Lady, and she smiled and said, So where you hail from handsome, and when I said, Mobile, she said, You don’t tell me, and looked me up and down again, stretching her eyes as if in pleasant surprise and then she primped her mouth and said, Well go on then, Mister City Boy, you can’t help it. And watched me blush.
Then she said, You know what I heard. They tell me you young sports from down around the Gulf Coast and all them cypress bayous and all that mattress moss and stuff supposed to be real hot-natured from all that salt air and fresh seafood and freshfruit and all them Creole spices and mixtures and fixtures and gumbo and all them raw oysters. And I said, I don’t know about all that.
I said, I don’t know anything about what other people think about us yet because this is really my first time away from down there, and she said, Well that’s what they been telling me for don’t know how long, probably ever since I found out what it’s made for. And that’s when I said what I said. Because I had been warned that if you came across as a smart aleck you were going to find yourself pussy-whipped and back out on the sidewalk in one short verse and about one-half chorus if not a verse and a couple of bars.
I said, Is that supposed to be good or bad, and she said, That’s what I want to know, so come on let’s find out. If I like it that means it must be good and if I don’t, it’s bad.
What she almost always wanted was a package of Chesterfield ready-rolls and two or three bottles of Coca-Cola and whenyou came back you knew she was always going to say, Now there’s my sweetheart, and you also knew that she was always going to say, Keep the change, sporty. Then she was going to give you a hug and a kiss, and you would be that close, and she would be wearing cologne that always made her smell as good as she looked, even when she was smoking a cigarette. Some lagniappe!
But the more Little Buddy Marshall went on talking and I went on remembering, the more I wanted to change the subject because I didn’t want to say anything about being on the spot, since you couldn’t bring up anything about school with him anymore. You couldn’t, but he could, and he did, because he already knew and he was rubbing it in without ever mentioning it.
As if I didn’t know, and I also knew that he honestly felt that he, not I, was the one with the experience and nerve you needed to make a move on Creola Calloway because he, not I, was the one who had skipped city and made it back from beyond far horizons (although not yet all seven of the seas) and on his own. But I just let that go. I just said, Old Lebo, I said, Hey man, goddamn. I said, Yeah man.
To which he said, Hey man, let me tell you something for a fact. Man, I ain’t never stopped having them goddamn dreams about me and old Creola. Man when I think about all the times I been thinking about that frizzly-headed quail when I was climbing up on some tough-ass northern whore, man you know I got to find out if I can handle that heifer. Man I got to see if I can make somebody that pretty whisper my name in my ear.
When I saw him again, it was about three weeks later and when he saw me he started sporty limping and whistling “Up a Lazy River,” and as we slapped palms he winked and then he said, Hey man guess what? and stood straddling his left hand and snapping fingers with his right saying, Hey shit, I reckon hey shit I fucking fucking reckon.
IX
S o well now, hello there, Mister College Boy, the one I had given the nod said as we came on into the upstairs room she was using that night. She was the same shade of cinnamon-bark brown as Deljean McCray, but her hair was slightly straighter and glossier and I guessed that she was about three or four years older than Deljean McCray, but her legs were not as long because she was not quite as tall as I was.
I said, Hello Miss Pretty Lady, and she smiled and said, So where you hail from handsome, and when I said, Mobile, she said, You don’t tell me, and looked me up and down again, stretching her eyes as if in pleasant surprise and then she primped her mouth and said, Well go on then, Mister City Boy, you can’t help it. And watched me blush.
Then she said, You know what I heard. They tell me you young sports from down around the Gulf Coast and all them cypress bayous and all that mattress moss and stuff supposed to be real hot-natured from all that salt air and fresh seafood and freshfruit and all them Creole spices and mixtures and fixtures and gumbo and all them raw oysters. And I said, I don’t know about all that.
I said, I don’t know anything about what other people think about us yet because this is really my first time away from down there, and she said, Well that’s what they been telling me for don’t know how long, probably ever since I found out what it’s made for. And that’s when I said what I said. Because I had been warned that if you came across as a smart aleck you were going to find yourself pussy-whipped and back out on the sidewalk in one short verse and about one-half chorus if not a verse and a couple of bars.
I said, Is that supposed to be good or bad, and she said, That’s what I want to know, so come on let’s find out. If I like it that means it must be good and if I don’t, it’s bad.
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