Joe Lansdale - Mucho Mojo

“Hap, you bastard. Don’t start fucking with me, or you can forget the job.”

“My heart just missed a beat.”

“Listen here, let’s quit while you’re ahead. You come on in and I’ll get you working. Tell the nigger to come on in when he’s ready.”

“Shall I tell Leonard you called him a nigger?”

“Slipped on that. Force of habit.”

“Bad habit.”

“You won’t tell him I said it, all right? You know how he is.”

“How is he?”

“You know. Like that time in the field, when him and that other nig – colored fella with the knife got into it.”

“That guy ever get out of the hospital?”

“Think he’s in some kind of home now. I’m surprised Leonard didn’t do some time for that. You won’t tell him about the ‘nigger’ business, will you?”

“I did tell him, there’s one good thing about it.”

“Yeah?”

“You already got the roses for your funeral.”

He rang off and I had the fifty-cent raise for me and Leonard both, just like I thought Leonard might actually go back to it.

Frankly, I had a hard time seeing me going back to it, but a look at the contents of my refrigerator and a peek at the dough in the cookie jar made me realize I had to.

My mood moved from blue to black, and I was concentrating on the failures of my life, finding there were quite a few, wondering what would happen ten years from now when I was in my midfifties.

What did I do then?

Rose-field work still?

What else did I know?

What was I qualified for?

I wasn’t able to tally up a lot of options, though I spent considerable time with the effort.

I was considering a career in maybe aluminum siding or, the devil help me, insurance, when the phone rang.

It was Leonard.

“Goddamn, man,” I said. “I been wondering about you. I called your place and no answer. I was beginning to think you’d had an accident. Refrigerator was lying on top of you or something.”

“I didn’t go back home,” Leonard said. “Not to stay anyway. I packed some of my stuff and came back here to Uncle Chester’s.”

“You calling from there?”

“His phone got pulled from lack of payment. Months ago. I’m calling from a pay phone. You want to know what I’m wearing?”

“Not unless you think it’ll really get me excited.”

“I’m afraid clothes have to have women in them for you to get excited.”

“Maybe you could talk in a high voice.”

“Cut through the shit, Hap. I’m gonna live at Uncle Chester’s awhile. I been going through his stuff. I feel like I want to do that, get in touch with who he was. And more importantly, find out what this fucking key goes to.”

“His main coupon collection.”

“Could be. I’ve looked everywhere. I got other reasons too. I want to fix the house up some. Maybe sell it for more than I can get now.”

“Sounds smart, Leonard. Things are swinging here too. I got my old job in the rose fields back.”

“Lose it again.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Hey, you toted me some, move over here a bit, least till I do what I got to do, and I’ll keep you fed and in toilet paper.”

“I don’t know. That’s more charity than I like. I don’t even have a bum leg.”

“Me neither. Hardly. I’ve been moving around some without the cane. Mostly without it. I don’t plan to pick it up again, I can do without it. Look, Hap. It ain’t charity. You can help me fix the place up.”

“What I can’t fix, which is nothing, I shit on. You know that.”

“You can tote a hammer, hand me nails. And there’s something else. These fucks next door. I got no problems with them yet, but I feel one brewing, way they watch me. They’re biding their time. I’d like to have you at my back, and there’s always the chance they’ll get you first, instead of me. I like the idea of a buffer.”

“Well, I can see that.”

“Good. Can I count on you?”

I considered working for Lacy again. I thought of the rose fields, the heat, the sticks, the dynamic pay.

“What the hell do you think?” I said.

The real repairs and cleaning began in earnest.

I went to live with him in Uncle Chester’s house the next day, and he got the bed from then on and I got the couch. During the days we did repairs, or rather Leonard did. I walked around with a hammer and nails and fetched things, hummed and sang to myself. I do some pretty good spirituals. Leonard said that’s the way it ought be, a black man with a honkie servant could sing a little gospel.

We spent a lot of time on the roof, taking off the old tin and putting down some real roofing. I trimmed the big oak that was scratching the roof all by my ownself, managed to saw off the offending limbs without sawing through a finger or busting my ass on the ground.

It was hot as hell up there and the glare was bad enough you had to wear sunglasses while you worked. I began to tan and lose weight, and I liked the feeling so much I gave up beer and excessive numbers of tacos.

When I wasn’t holding down roofing for Leonard to hammer, wasn’t fetching something, I’d look off at the crack house and wonder who was inside. People came and went there pretty brisk come late afternoon, and right on through until morning. Come full day, things got quiet. Selling crack wore you out, you had to get some rest before the next tide came in.

Whole thing depressed me, seeing kids and adults, and even babies on the hips of female druggies a couple years into having their period, lining up over there like it was a cafeteria.

I saw a couple of cop cars during that time, and there was even a bust and some folks were hauled in. In fact, it was Leonard made the call, but the next day, same guys that left the house were back. One of them was Mohawk, the other was Parade Float. Great strides in my understanding of our judicial system were made without leaving the house and yard.

Way it worked was simple. I’d had it all wrong. You broke the law you didn’t have to really suffer. See, a guy sold drugs to kids or anyone else, they could come get you, they could lock you up, but come morning, you knew somebody, had some money, a good lawyer, a relationship with the bail bondsman, you could go home, get a free ride back to your house. Have some rest, a Dr. Pepper and a couple of Twinkies to lift your spirit, and you were in business again, if come nightfall you had the supplies.

It was depressing, and the folks next door must have known we felt that way, ’cause they liked to hang out on their front porch come dark and stare at us. We could see them over there beneath their little yellow porch light, congregating like the bugs that swarmed the bulb above them.

And their light and our porch light, when we used it, was about all the light there was for Comanche Street, because the street lights had long been shot out and no one had come to replace them. If they had, the crack house people would have shot them out again. The only beacon they wanted on the street was their beacon, one that called people to their place to buy something to make them spin and float, help them coast through another few hours.

There were a couple houses across from us, but they kept their porch lights off, and what lights they burned were filmy behind curtains, looked like lights seen from a distance and underwater. Decent folks on Comanche Street didn’t come out of their houses at night, lest they encounter the dealers or the druggies themselves, the latter looking for a quick few dollars to purchase a hunk of rock.

For that matter, during the day you didn’t see folks much. The working people came and went, but didn’t linger. The kid we had seen on Leonard’s front porch that day, we began to see more often. He wore a beeper on his hip. Acquired a cool walk. Had some nice clothes. He looked as if his soul was melting.