Esi Edugyan - Half-Blood Blues

I waved them down. ‘You both goin wrong. Old Jones’ folk ain’t so fancy as all that. It like to be Christopher. Or Curtis.’

‘What about Carolina?’ Delilah said. ‘Or Christina?’

Chip looked up at her blankly. ‘They girls ’ names.’

She smiled, give him a wink.

‘Alright, alright,’ said Chip. ‘We wrappin this one up, sendin it out. You bucks ain’t even close. Especially you, girl.’

‘Chloe?’ she called down.

Chip snorted, shook his head. ‘ Chloe ,’ he muttered. ‘Chloe ain’t even on the right damn side of the bonfire .’

She give the kid a crooked smile and I laughed then, sort of leaned over, nudged her gently with my shoulder. Like to flirt.

She glanced over at me, her face closing right up. Not with anger or hate or caution or none of the usual reasons a jane shut down shop in you presence. No, it was something drier, something rougher. There just wasn’t no interest. Like she was wishing I get up to go, so the damn kid could come clambering up, take my place.

I smiled, looking painfully away. I was biting the inner wall of my cheek so hard I could taste the blood.

Next day I was shuffling through the club looking for Ernst when Chip and Paul call me over to the bar. They was sitting on the high stools, arms folded in front of them, playing a hand of dead man, working their way through a bottle of the czech.

Chip give me a drunken smile. ‘ There you is, brother. Sit on down here a minute.’

‘I busy, Chip.’

‘We got to talk.’

‘Six of hearts,’ said Paul, frowning. ‘Or is that a nine?’ He turned the tattered card this way and that, staring stupidly at it. ‘I’m going to call that a nine.’

‘We into spades now,’ said Chip. ‘What you doin , buck?’

Paul poured a second finger into Chip’s glass. ‘You’ve got to catch up to me, or it’s not going to be much of a game.’ He’d folded his cuffs back over his fair forearms, the stains on his collar and cuffs a dull yellow.

We was all of us starting to turn sour, ripe, without no clothes to change into. Chip been scrubbing his out in the big sink each night, but there wasn’t no getting the old blood out. I could see a rip in Paul’s stitching at his shoulder. We was all shaving on the same dull razor. Our mugs full of cuts. On top of it all, the club was numbingly cold. It was the height of summer, and we was trapped frozen and afraid inside.

Paul lay down his hand. ‘Go on. But be gentle.’

Chip smiled. ‘Ten seconds of sack time, two hours of apology.’

‘Why don’t we walk Sid in? He’s good at showing his hand.’

‘You funny,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I pass.’

‘You been passin since the day you was born, friend,’ said Chip, licking his front teeth gingerly. His swollen jowls was starting to come down some. Still looked stuffed full of cotton though. ‘Aw, I kiddin. Come on now, I just kiddin.’

‘He’s just kidding, Sid.’ Paul was already pouring me a glass, sliding it over my way. ‘Sit down, sit.’

Chip chuckled. ‘You know what you is, buck? You a blue-ribbon fool. Starin after the kid like you goin murder him in his sleep.’

‘What you sayin?’

‘Like you goin murder him over that bearcat. Over that strip of lead.’

Paul smiled. ‘It’s okay, Sid. Don’t be embarrassed.’

‘He damn well should be embarrassed. Goin on like that.’ But Chip’s face, it turned all anxious then, and I was thrown a little, seeing his concern. ‘It just, we see what goin on here, Sid. You settin youself up for the icy mitt. Rejection, brother.’

‘It’s not how you do it,’ Paul agreed, running a finger along his moustache, shuffling through his cards. ‘What are we starting with, spades?’

‘Hearts.’

Paul frowned.

‘You want to get to her?’ said Chip. ‘Really get to her? You got to run the kid off first. But not like no schoolboy, not like no sucker. Like a man .’

‘Be a man, Sid,’ Paul murmured, distracted. ‘You’re sure you don’t want to start with spades?’

‘Hearts.’

I wrinkled my brow. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘Well, you goin sit or what?’ said Chip.

I sat.

‘We serious, Sid. You can’t stand round gawkin like a boy who missed the jitney. You can’t let her see you doin it. You got to be subtle, like. Just anythin he do, you got to sort of overshadow it. Make her forget his old game before he even finished. But you got to make it look like you ain’t tryin, or you sunk , brother. You got to do it regal .’

I felt that old blackness rising in me. Cause it seem damn sinister, the kid and Delilah. And yet I suspected it too. I blown air through my lips. ‘You ain’t seriously suggestin I fight a nineteen-year-old kid for a twenty-nine-year-old woman? For real?’

Chip shrugged. ‘Paul done broke up two marriages before he was sixteen.’

‘They were very youthful women,’ said Paul with a wide smile. But his eyes wasn’t focusing quite right. He reached for his glass.

‘See, there you go,’ said Chip. ‘And Delilah ain’t youthful.’

I shook my damn head, give them both a dark look. Then I downed the czech, shuddered, and turned to go. ‘You both off you nut. Ain’t no way Delilah interested in the kid. No way. She feel anythin for him, it be like a sister.’

‘I seen some low-down dirty things in my time, brother,’ said Chip, whistling. ‘This is just the icing.’

‘Watch you mouth. Just watch how you talk bout her.’

‘Hold up, hold up,’ said Paul with a easy smile. ‘Hold up there, Sid.’

Chip started laughing. ‘Don’t go all Joe Bavaria on us, brother. You ain’t a prude. Come on. So she ain’t no caviar. Each man got the spice he likes. So you like old ordinary pepper.’

‘Nothing wrong with pepper,’ Paul agreed.

‘It’s black,’ said Chip.

‘And peppery.’

‘That it is, buck. That it is.’

I give them both a closer look, leaned in, seen the red veins glowing in Chip’s watery eyes. ‘Jesus. How much you two had to drink?’

‘Aw, we ain’t hardly had nothin,’ Chip said, like he wounded by the question.

‘Hardly touched the bottle,’ said Paul.

‘ That one, at least.’

Paul laughed a weird long laugh. He lowered his cards, his shoulders shaking. Chip glance quickly over at his hand.

I scooped the bottle away. ‘Jesus. Ernst wants us to run through a set for Delilah sometime in the next year. You reckon you sober up anytime soon?’

Chip leaned forward. ‘How we goin through a set without Fritz?’

‘Can’t play without Fritz,’ said Paul, nodding. He kept on nodding.

I glanced across. Paul had a second bottle of the czech down by his knee, and he was refilling his and Chip’s glasses on the sly. I just shook my head. ‘Hell. Day I listen to advice from jacks in the sauce, that be the day I hang up my old spurs.’

‘He’s going to hang up his spurs,’ Paul smiled.

‘No more ridin for Sid,’ said Chip. ‘You pourin us another finger? Pour one for Sid too.’

‘I ain’t touchin it,’ I said.

Chip give me a tragic look. ‘Brother, you got old Berlin’s finest genius when it come to the janes sittin right here, and you ain’t goin ask him nothin ?’

I glanced across at Paul, his head lolling on his shoulders. And then I thought, hell, ain’t like there anything to lose. ‘Alright,’ I said. ‘For real. How you do it, Paul? How you get them to fall for you?’

‘You got to clear that glass first, buck,’ said Chip.

I frowned. Then I punched it back, set the glass on the bar with a bang.

Chip whooped. ‘ There he is. The old Baltimore Special hisself. All aboard if you gettin aboard.’ He slapped me on the back.