Colum McCann - Let the Great World Spin

I liked the East Side, even if the cops were hard-asses.

They didn’t get many colored girls on Forty-ninth and Lex. The girls were whiteys with good teeth. Nice clothes. Hair done fancy. They never wore no big rings because big rings get in the way. But they had beautiful manicures and their toenails sparkling. They looked at me and shouted: “What the fuck you doing here?” And I said, “I’m just doin’ here, girls, that’s all.” After a while, we didn’t fight no more. No more nails scraping flesh. No more trying to break each other’s fingers.

I was the first nigger absolute regular on that stroll. They called me Rosa Parks. They used to say I was a chewing-gum spot. Black. And on the pavement.

That’s how it is in the life, word. You joke a lot.

I said to myself, I said, I’m gonna make enough money to go home to Jazzlyn and buy her a big house with a fireplace and a deck out the back with lots of nice furniture. That’s what I wanted.

I’m such a fuck-up. No one’s a bigger fuck-up than me. No one’s gonna know that, though. That’s my secret. I walk through the world like I own it. Watch this spot. Watch it curve.

I got a cell mate here, she keeps a mouse in a shoe box. The mouse is the best friend she has. She talks to it and pets it. She even kisses it. Once she got bit on the lip. I laughed my ass off.

She’s in for eight months on a stabbing. She won’t talk to me. She’ll be upstate soon. She says I ain’t got no brains. Me, I’m not going upstate, no way, I made my deal with the devil — he was a little bald man with a black cape on.

When I was seventeen I had a body that Adam woulda dropped Eve for. Hot-potato time. It was prime, no lie. Nothing in the wrong place. I had legs a hundred miles long and a booty to die for. Adam woulda said to Eve, Eve, I’m leaving you, honey , and Jesus himself woulda been in the background saying, Adam, you’re one lucky motherfucker.

There was a pizza place on Lexington. A picture on the wall of all these guys in tight shorts and good skin and a ball at their feet — they were fine. But the guys inside were fat and hairy and always making jokes about pepperonis. You had to dab their pizza with a napkin just to get the oil off. The syndicates used to come around too. You didn’t want to mess with the syndicates. They had a crease in the trousers of their suits, and they smelled of brilliantine. They might bring you for a nice Guinea meal and then you end up taking a dirt nap.

TuKwik was flash. He had me on his arm like a piece of jewelry. He had five wives, but I was Wife Número Uno, top of the Christmas tree, freshest meat on the stack. You do what you can for your daddy, you light up fireworks for him, you love him to sunset, and then you go strolling. I made the most money of all, and he treated me nice. He had me ride in the front seat while the other wives watched from the street, steaming.

The only thing is, if he loves you more, he beats you more too. That’s just the way it is.

One of the doctors in the emergency ward had a crush on me. He stitched together my eye after TuKwik beat me with a silver coffeepot. Then the doctor leaned down and kissed it. It tickled right on the part where the thread was coming through.

On a slow day, in the rain, we’d fight a lot, me and the other wives. I ran down the street carrying Susie’s wig with a bit of flesh still lodged inside it. But most of the time we were a big family, word. No one believes it, but it’s true.

On Lexington, they got hotels with wallpaper and room service and real gold paint on the rim of plates. They got rooms where they put chocolates on the pillows. They got businessmen come in for a day. Whiteys. In tighteys. They lift up their shirts, you can smell the husband panic off them, like their wife is gonna come out of the TV set.

The chambermaids put mints on pillows. I had a handbag full of green wrappers. I left the room with green wrappers and men already sweating out their marriage license.

I was strictly a lie-down girl, a flatbacker. Plain screwing was all I knew, but I made them feel like no one else. Oh, baby, let me feel you. You make me so hot. Don’t take that bone to another dog.

I had a hundred little stupid sayings. It was like I was singing an old song. They lapped it up.

“Are you okay there, SweetCakes?” “Goddamn, but you make me feel fine!” (One minute thirty, ace, that’s a record.)

“Gimme some sugar, sugar.” “Aww, man, you’re too kissable to kiss.” (I’d rather lick the pipe in the sink.)

“Hey, girl, don’t I do it good?” “Oh, you do it good, oh, yeah, you do, so good it’s good, yeah, good.” (Pity ’bout your little pork sword, though.)

On the way out of the Waldorf-Astoria I tipped the hotel detectives, the bellman, and the elevator boy. They knew all the girls on the stroll. The elevator boy had a thing for me. One night I blew him in the walk-in fridge. On the way out he stole a steak. Slipped it in under his shirt. Walked out, saying he always liked it medium-rare.

He was a cutie. Winked at me, even if the elevator was full.

I was a bug on keeping clean. I liked to shower before every time. When I got the trick to shower, I’d soap him all over and watch the dough rise. You’d say to him, “Honey, I want some’a that bread.” Then I brought him to the oven, where he just about popped.

You try to get him finished after fifteen minutes, most. But you try to keep him going at least two minutes or so. Guys don’t like it if they pop early. They don’t get value. They feel dirty and cheap. I never had a guy who didn’t come, never once. Well, not never, but if he wasn’t coming I’d scratch his back and speak real nice to him, never dirty, and sometimes he’d cry and say, “I just wanna talk to you honey, that’s all I wanna do, I just wanna talk.” But then sometimes he’d turn over and get all vicious and scream, “Fuck you, I knew I could never get it on with you, you black bitch.”

And I’d keep all pouty like he broke my heart, then I’d lean real close and whisper to him that my daddy was in the Panthers with lots of nigger dogs, and he wouldn’t like to hear that sort of talk, dig? And then they’d pull up their trousers quick and get outta there lick lick lickety-split.

TuKwik got himself into fights. He carried a knuckle-duster in his sock. He had to be knocked down before he could get it. But he was smart. He oiled the cops and he oiled the syndicate and he kept all the rest for himself.

The smart daddy looks for the girl who walks alone. I walked alone for two weeks. Ohio. O-hi-o.

I became a modern woman. I took the Pill. I didn’t want no new Jazzlyn. I sent her postcards from the office on Forty-third. The guy behind the counter didn’t recognize me at first. Everyone was hollering at me for skipping the line, but I just went right on up to him, swinging my ass. He blushed and slipped me some free stamps.

I always recognize my tricks.

I found a new daddy who was a famous player. His name was Jigsaw. He had a flash suit. He called it his vine. He kept a handkerchief in his pocket. His secret was that inside the handkerchief he had taped a row of razor blades. He could take it out and make a puzzle of your face. He had a little crimp in his walk. Everything perfect’s got a flaw. The cops hated him. They arrested me more when they knew Jigsaw was mine.

They hated the idea of a nigger making money, especially if it’s off a whitey, and it was nearly all whiteys on Forty-ninth Street. That was Chalktown.

Jigsaw had more scratch than God. He bought me a foxtail chain and a string of jade beads. He paid up, cash bonds. He even had a one-up on a Cadillac. He had a Rolls-Royce. Silver. That’s no lie. It was old but it rolled. It had a wooden steering wheel. Sometimes we rode up and down Park Avenue. That’s when being in the life was good. We rolled down the windows outside the Colony Club. We said, “Hi, ladies, anyone want a date?” They were terrified. We drove off, hollering, “Come on, let’s go get ourselves some cucumber sandwiches.”