Margaret Sexton - A Kind of Freedom

But her mama was shaking her head. “It’s not this kind of house. I won’t have people thinking I’m running that kind of house.” They were both crying now.

“Nobody thinks that, Mama. It was just a silly argument. Everybody has these silly arguments.”

“No, they goddamn don’t.” The mama’s hands were shaking and T.C. thought the burner might fall on the floor and go off.

“And not goddamn here.” She turned to T.C. still shaking her head. “Now I know that nigga is out there waiting for you. You can stay for a few minutes, long enough for him to leave or for you to get your lil’ skinny ass a ride. It’s one o’clock. I’m gon’ go in my room and watch my stories. If you still here when I’m done, I’m gon’ call my husband. He got a permit for this gun, and he know how to use it, and I swear to God if you here when he get back, you gon’ wish that man out there had sliced your dick clean off.”

“Mama,” the girl shouted.

“Don’t you ‘mama’ me.” The woman wobbled toward the door, the hem of her muumuu trailing behind her. “With your fast ass.”

Bon Bon closed the door.

“What the fuck?” T.C. said, not as loud as he wanted to; he was still mindful of Mama Muumuu in the next room.

“I’m so sorry.” Bon Bon was all over him once the door closed, petting him and kissing his face. “I didn’t know he was coming.”

“I guess you didn’t,” T.C. said. “And get offa me with all that.” He shrugged her off of him, and she slid to the side of the bed.

She started crying again. “Don’t do me like that,” she whimpered. “I waited for you.”

“You couldn’t have waited that long, you got the green-eyed monster coming in here like he had some claim to you.”

“No, baby, you don’t get it. I haven’t been with that nigga since back in the G, and even then that was just my lil’ trade, but he’s crazy. He won’t leave me alone. He shows up every few months; I thought it was done ’cause I hadn’t seen him in a while, but here he is. He’s crazy, you gotta believe me, I waited for you.” She edged closer to T.C. as she talked, rubbing his chest. “I waited for you,” she repeated. By the time she was finished, she had wrapped her arms around his stomach.

“He always threatens me, but it ain’t never got that ugly before.” She leaned her head against his chest.

“What kind of threats he make?” T.C. asked.

“That if he sees me with another man, he’s going to kill me, that kind of stuff.” She was whispering in his ear. His dick was getting hard again.

“I wouldn’t let that happen. I’m tired today, from everything, but if he came over here again like that, I would take care of him, you know I would,” T.C. said.

“I know you would, T.C., that’s what I love about you.”

She was straddling him again now. He let her. What the hell. Mama Muumuu was in the next room with The Bold and the Beautiful . He could hear the theme song as he slid inside her daughter. It wasn’t anything like what he’d imagined all those months, not with the terror of the past fifteen minutes hanging over him. No, it was more a physical release than an emotional satisfaction, but he would take it.

He didn’t last long, and he rolled over as soon as he was done. The mother’s show was coming off, he could hear the song again. Bon Bon was laid out beside him, snoring; maybe he was better than he gave himself credit for. He dialed up his boy Tiger.

“Already, my nigga?”

“Yeah, and hurry up too. I gotta story for you.”

When the horn sounded twenty minutes later, T.C. opened the front door, glanced in both directions, and ran out like suicides at basketball practice. He jumped in the car, and Tiger sped off.

T.C.’s mama hadn’t made a welcome-home dinner nor was she in such a welcome-home mood. The block looked good though. It had been only four months, but Miss Patricia had finally finished her house, gotten rid of that FEMA trailer that hugged the brown grass beneath it. New Orleans East wasn’t Uptown, but it was coming back together. Most of the brick houses of his childhood had been gutted and restored. Yeah, some off in the distance still had windows boarded up, roofs torn down. T.C. had to squint to see them though.

His mama gave him a hug — one long tight squeeze — reached up to the side of his head, and cupped his ear in her hand the way she used to.

She was on beer number two, and she sat back down to tend to it. Unfolded laundry covered the rest of the couch and potato chip crumbs ground into the carpet at her feet. T.C. sat on the edge of a table crowded with stacks of coupons and unopened bills. He hadn’t been into the kitchen behind him yet, but he could smell the dirty dishes no doubt lining the sink. Alicia used to tell him that he had OCD, he was so anal about organizing drawers and making up beds, but for most of his life, his room at the end of the hallway had been the only one he could keep clean.

“I thought you had another two weeks,” his mama said.

“Overpopulation,” he said. “They wanted to make room for the real criminals, Ma.” He laughed, a short grunt. She didn’t join him.

“Hmph. I woulda picked you up.” Her taped stories were on pause, but she was still staring at the screen stuffing cheese puffs in her mouth, the orange powder shining on the tips of her fingers.

“It’s all right, Ma, Tiger got me,” he said.

She opened her mouth to respond to that but shut it before any words came out. T.C. knew she still blamed Tiger for his selling drugs in the first place.

“You know I would have,” she repeated, turning to look in his eyes for the first time. “It’s not like I’m still teaching.” She had taught art education at Schaumburg Elementary for fifteen years, but after the storm the state took over the school districts, fired 4,500 teachers; his mama just happened to be one of them.

He decided to change the subject. “I saw Miss Patricia finally got out the FEMA trailer,” he said. “It looks good.”

“Umhmm. And she finally got that extra room in the back she wanted. Pool table and everything.”

“I didn’t know she played pool.”

“She don’t.”

T.C. and his mama had spent three years in a trailer themselves. Most of the block had. Most people didn’t have the money to rebuild outright. The Road Home program was supposed to pay the costs, but the government used the prestorm value of the house to calculate aid. For T.C. and his neighbors, out there in the East where there was no central plaza, no fancy restaurants and no whites, that money came out to much less than it would cost to repair.

“And Tiger told me they plan on building a hospital out here,” he went on.

“Why? You plan on getting sick? Anyway, your aunt Sybil called,” she said before he could answer.

T.C. rolled his eyes. His aunt had been his favorite at one time, but she turned her back on him after the conviction.

“What for, to dog me out about going in in the first place?”

“She means well, and she’s your aunt,” his mama said, but it came out flat. His mama didn’t like her older sister either.

“Well, I’m out now,” T.C. said.

“Just call her back. I won’t have her thinking I didn’t pass the message along.” She paused. “You might as well know your MawMaw is still on dialysis,” she went on.

T.C. nodded. “I figured.”

“Doctors said two more years of it, then—” she cut her hand across her neck. “You betta go visit her now while you can.”

“I was gonna go.”

She sucked her teeth as if to say, Don’t get smart with me, boy. You ain’t too big for me to backhand slap you . But she didn’t say that, only “You never know. You went to Tiger before you came home, so I had to say.” Then she downed the rest of her beer. “Aunt Ruby buried her third husband while you was locked up,” she went on after she let out a long, burly belch.