Victor Lavalle - Slapboxing with Jesus

I smiled that way I do, big eyes and funny skin. — But I get pretty when the lights go out, I said, regretted it because we both knew I was lying.

She laughed then sipped from the tall foam cup of sugarcane lemonade and had to pucker her juicy lips to let the sweetness pass her jawline. She was not perfect-pretty, but she looked much better than me; the bags barely under her eyes were good.

Her girls were waiting together in a bunch like green bananas, each one firm if you squeezed and great to eat warm. They were all tight shorts and closed faces waiting for the right brother to get them open. One said toward us, but spoke at her, — Let’s go, Deidre.

Deidre turned back to me. — Since I was the one who stepped to you, why don’t I just give you my number.

I was glad and said so. — I’m never good at asking for the digits.

— I don’t need to know that, she said.

They had closed down Riverside Drive for the Jazzmobile. Doing that to a Manhattan street always seemed like such an impossible task, like asking your lungs to stop for a few minutes, every part of this island so essential. The guy on the drums was rolling into a little solo; music was the second-best reason to come to Grant’s Tomb this time of year.

Deidre wrote the numbers with flair; her name on the paper had the mark of someone who’d been into tagging up when she was younger — it was in the e’s and d’s. When she put the paper to me she said, — This is my number, not no pager. I was glad, I knew what it meant when a girl passed you her beeper number: you were assed out. I tried to say something smooth, but nothing was coming. When Deidre ran up on her girls, two of them looked back at me like I had done something wrong. I stared and smiled. In under a minute they’d be putting me down and laughing, but I was more than cool with that. I figured them all to be college women — Hunter, City.

At the Tomb, the Old Audience was stacked up. I found some concrete and sat my ass between two old men speaking on seeing Charles Mingus at the Blue Note, Bird before he’d thrown it all away. They were lying of course, but I enjoyed listening to them more than the sounds of people trading numbers and quick feels.

On the phone we were cool; talking for an hour, breezing by the simple early stuff. Deidre surprised me when she cut through all the bullshit to ask, — So are you just out for ass or what?

I laughed. Not that you-caught-me-type stuff, more like, damn straight. She said, — So at least we understand each other, right?

I was nodding for ten seconds before I remembered we were on the phone. — Yeah.

— You know my girls said you wouldn’t call.

I corrected her. — Your girls said I was one ugly motherfucker, and that you should hope I don’t call.

She laughed. — So I guess you know women pretty well, huh?

Sucking my teeth, I said, — I don’t understand a thing, but I make great guesses.

— So when are you taking me to lunch?

I asked, — Me? Take you?

You could hear her back straighten. — You do have a job, don’t you?

— Of course, of course. Do you? Wait, let me guess.

She listened.

— Clothes. You sell clothes.

She was applauding, it sounded distant through the phone. — How did you know?

— I saw you and your girls together, remember? That many pretty women and you either all met working at a clothing store or you’re a crew of strippers.

— Strippers?

I said, — I mean that as a compliment.

— Well, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a while.

I shrugged. — Wait till we spend more time together.

We met on a Saturday and she was looking just as great as she wanted to, which was pretty damn good. Her walking next to me as we talked and made for the train was causing people to stare and think, What the fuck is going on with these two? We got out at West Fourth, making maneuvers here and there. She asked me, — What’s your job? But I was quiet because the setting sun was sending out rays like an encore performance — with a flourish and an eye toward the audience.

— Well?

— Oh me? Computers.

She sighed. — What does that mean?

— I, you know, punch in information and all that. Data entry. Log in a lot of facts for a communications company.

She said, — You were wrong the other day. Selling clothes is one job, I go to school at Hunter too.

— That’s not work, I said. That’s why I didn’t mention it.

— You should see my classes and tell me that.

Then we were walking down the block. She stopped at those caravans of tables selling many stolen things: books, music, clothes. I half expected to find one table with twenty blends of weed laid out, but of course they were all selling that in little doses. After two blocks she was walking closer to me, getting angry. I asked, — What’s wrong?

— This is why I hate getting dressed up, she said.

— Did you think men were going to be able to ignore you? You know these guys would be in your grill if you were dressed like a fucking bum.

She nodded.

— What do you mean?

— You said it didn’t you?

I laughed. — How about a little modesty though? You know? Just a No they wouldn’t or something like that, damn.

Her smile wasn’t too wide, didn’t show too many teeth, that thing should have been worth a lot of money. — But you were right, she said.

— See, that’s why I talk to only one beautiful woman at a time. More than that I think I’d die. Man wasn’t meant to breathe the thin air at the top of your ego.

— Yeah, she said, like you don’t have one.

— But I have the decency to have no apparent reason for it.

She shook her head. — But you’re a guy, that’s the way it works.

We stopped at the Benetton shop, brightly lit even during the day. Most Manhattan stores had taken on the character of Manhattan the way little brothers worship the older — in imitation. They were not exactly pretty, most stores, but they were so charming, each in a way. This is not a libel, every date I’d ever had was based on the same principle.

— So, she said as we moved again. What do you do well?

— I can do plenty. I smiled. I suppose there was a leer mixed in.

She rolled her eyes. — You’re not going to start talking about sex are you? I was actually enjoying being with you.

— Sex? Me? No, I was going to say I keep my apartment really clean.

She waved off my lies. We passed the skateboard kids in front of and inside McDonald’s doing their thing — ten of them nursing one bag of fries. The funny guard in his deflated uniform stood three feet away, counting down each fry so he’d know when they were gone and start shouting, — Buysomethingorgetout! Buysomethingorgetout!

— Wouldn’t it be great if this was how it would always be?

She looked at me. Behind her the NYU buildings were sprawled out all over concrete.

— What are you talking about? she asked me.

— I don’t know. I waved my hand. All of this.

At her apartment that night she was cooking so rough that she cursed at the frying pan and sweat ran across the back of her neck. From the living room I could watch her perspire, that’s how small the place was. Mine was worse; in the paper they listed the kind of apartment I rented under “charming.”

Her walls were covered with white paint, almost an old egg shell’s tired gray, and little else; I was glad because I was tired of people’s entire interesting lives spread out like a peep show. She took a while to calm down; when she looked at me the smell of her food came like a good comforter — got me warm and sleepy. I walked toward her; outside, a train was making noise; down on the street someone was playing music, the radio balanced on a car hood. I started dancing.