Marsha Hunt - Joy

But big hearted as Toni was, she took that thing of ‘what’s mines is yours and what’s yours is mines’ to the extreme, meaning that as far as she was concerned, it included men. Not that I was scared she wanted mine, ’cause apart from a couple spinster Sisters at the church wasn’t nobody rushing to get their hands on my husband back in them days. But from the ruckus Tondalayah was making about John Dagwood while she was standing there in my bathroom, I could tell that it wouldn’t of taken no more than a wink of his eye to have her up in his face. And Lord knows I didn’t want no argument with Tammy over Tondalayah fooling with Dagwood ’cause hardly two weeks had passed since Tammy and me’d made up after the mess over Joy’s pictures.

The Tammy-Dagwood courtship started way too fast for me, and Tammy was quick to think that the sun rose out of his behind, ’cause he had some college education and wore a clean shirt and tie every day. But I was itching to tell her that some pimps did too.

Partly what bothered me about Dagwood was that he didn’t have no job and wasn’t out looking for none, though he claimed he was waiting on a position at a insurance company or other. And though I heard Freddie B offer a couple times to take John Dagwood over to the building site where he was working, so Dagwood could pick up some cash for working as casual labor, the guy had the nerve to say flat out that he wasn’t interested.

‘Here is a list of don’t dos,’ little Joy told me she overheard him telling her mother. ‘Don’t porter, don’t garbage collect, don’t work in a hotel, and don’t get your hands dirty.’ And Joy showed me how Tammy doubled up laughing when he said it.

Dagwood … that was what Tammy’d called him for short instead of John. She said it sounded cute ’cause it was like Blondie’s husband in the Sunday funny papers. Dagwood always carried him a dark brown pigskin briefcase, but I told Freddie B that I didn’t believe that nothing was in it but a bottle of VAT 69 whiskey. That’s all he would drink which seemed way too select for a man with no job, but Tammy said that he’d told her that his grand-daddy’d left him a fourplex in Detroit and he collected enough rent off that to pay for the studio apartment he was in over by the Lake District and keep that foreign sports car of his and have extra left over for living off.

I didn’t take Dagwood to be the sort that would steal or ponce or be hanging out on street corners in the middle of the day, but I figured him to be that sort of drifter that’s easy to come, ’specially between some woman’s legs, and easier to go. But I didn’t never say as much to Tammy, ’cause I could see she was crazy about him from the first time I run up on ’em setting together two evenings after Anndora’d got her hand sewed up. I know it was a Tuesday ’cause it was the night for putting garbage out. I’d peeped my head in the Bangs’ front door ’cause it was left ajar like Tammy said she would leave it ’case I wanted to pop in for a chat after the kids was in bed. But I got a big shock when I stepped quiet into her living room from her entrance hall, careful not to wake the kids, and found her with John Dagwood. He was setting with his stocking feet parked on the coffee table and Tammy was there on his lap smooching him with a couple of her sweater buttons undone so her white brassiere was showing. There was a fifth of whiskey, half finished, tucked between them and the arm of the sofa, and seemed like there wasn’t no place safe for me to rest my eyes.

Tammy’s little two bedroom furnished apartment didn’t have nothing in it but second hand furniture that Mr Houseman had picked up at St Vincent de Paul’s, and there wasn’t much of it, thank goodness, ’Cause with the rooms being medium size and Tammy’s brood of three with their toys and whatnot, wouldn’t of been standing room in there had Mr Houseman put more furniture in the lounge in particular. Apart from the naughahyde sofabed, there was just three hardback chairs and two lamp tables that I thought should of matched the coffee table, but Tammy said she didn’t mind they was different. But me and Freddie B’d slapped a couple fresh coats of cream paint on the walls not but a month ’fore Tammy’d rented it and with the overhead light off and the two wine bottle lamps on either side of the sofa that Tammy’d bought switched on, the living room didn’t look bad. And that evening, with the half dozen red roses stuffed in the cutglass vase Tammy’d borrowed from me soon as she got in from work, the place looked homey, even though she’d taken down the framed pictures of Jesus that I had hanging between the two lounge windows that overlooked the side street. Feeling uncomfortable, I was ready to examine every inch of every wall as I stood there and shifted from foot to foot.

‘Come on Baby Palatine. Sit and let me introduce you to Dagwood,’ Tammy said, patting at the free space on her sofa like it was either the time for me to sit or her to be introducing him.

He didn’t even make the effort to stand up when I reached to shake his hand, so right away I knew what kind of hometraining he had. ’cause any man raised right knew to stand up to greet a woman, ’specially as I was obviously older than him, though I reckoned it couldn’t of been more than ten years.

He flashed me a smile and I tried to smile back and said, ‘How d’you do,’ and got my rusty dusty out of there quick as I could, ’cause no sooner than we’d exchanged hellos, Tammy had the nerve to lay a big kiss on his cheek like I wasn’t still there. If he didn’t know no better, she did, and what with them kids right there in that apartment ’sleep, I thought it was a disgrace that they was carrying on so that anybody could walk in on ’em.

‘I’ll latch the door behind me,’ I said, hinting that they should of done as I walked out. But I don’t reckon that they heard me or knew that the door was open or cared, ’cause Tammy was a goner once Dagwood came on the scene.

It was two weeks after that that Tondalayah come visiting and spotted Dagwood down washing his car, and I’ll give her credit that she didn’t never bat her eyes at Dagwood once I’d made her swear she’d keep to herself and respect that he was Tammy property. When Tondalayah died fifteen years later from liver cancer, it nearly broke my heart, and I’ll give Tammy her due, she cried near as much as me and her girls did. Including Anndora. ’cause Toni did a lot more for them girls than Tammy ever knew about over the years, and it was Tondalayah Hayes they had to thank when time came for them to take to the stage and do things right from knowing what to wear to hip shaking.

I hated that she died with no family to mourn her. But we did the best we could, and I kept a black armband on for a whole month after she passed, I loved that woman so. Near as much as I loved Joy, but different. ’cause Toni was like my sister and Joy was like my child which is exactly why I didn’t want nobody as distant as Tammy’s husband Jesse talking to me about Joy and relating either that she was dead or how it come to pass.

But how I want things to be and how they often is, are two different kettles of fish so there I was still holding onto my telephone with Jesse’s husky voice dripping down the line. Richmond to San Francisco.

‘Tammy told me that you’d be calling, but I must admit when the phone rang I thought it was the Sante Fe police department calling me back, because I had just left a message with a fellow I know that moved to that precinct from Chicago.’

‘Why were you calling him?’ I sure do hate it when my curiosity gets the best of me and I start asking questions when I want to be quiet.

‘Because that’s where Joy fell dead from a massive heart attack on that tennis court, and I figured he might help out with dealing with all the paper work so that we can get her body back to New York without a lot of extra cost. Actually, it wasn’t in Santa Fe she died. It was Taos.’