James Hannaham - Delicious Foods

They ain’t let her get in touch with Eddie yet, and even though it’s late, she know she ought to tell him where she gone and that she safe. Since she think the company done cut off the phone, she figure she gonna call a neighbor who could check on him. She ain’t know how Jackie gonna react, but knowing the bitch already gone to bed, Darlene start thinking ’bout if she ought to remind her now or wait until morning. But then she got all up in her motherhood, start groping her way past the sleeping folks squirming on the cots until she found the special wall, and whispered.

Jackie.

She ain’t heard nothing back.

Jackie?

Yeah, honey? You need a hit?

I really need to call my son. Where can I call my son from?

Oh, Darlene, sweetie, I am so sorry. I forgot. It’s too late now, it’s almost morning, I can’t take you out there at this hour.

Darlene start wondering ’bout what she gonna say next and the silence ate up her thoughts until Jackie open her mouth again.

How old your son? He not gon be up this late, is he? Even though Jackie folded that question into a sweet tone, it sound like she daring Darlene to admit that she not a good mother.

No, of course not. She figured he coulda stayed up waiting for her to get back — sometimes he did — but Jackie had this logical tone that bulldozed right the hell over Darlene feeling that she gotta do it right then, and all of a sudden asking for a phone seem ridiculous. Still, she kept on thinking ’bout Eddie Eddie Eddie, so I started to ignore her ass — I had a lot of other friends in the room, I ain’t need her — and of course I knew that was gon make her cranky. Then I said, Darlene, look how much positivity you brought to yourself, chile. Stop worrying about that stupid kid and come party with me.

Jackie said, Good night, but Darlene’s ass stayed right there, didn’t know what gonna happen if she snuck on out to find that phone. She kept listening to Jackie clothing rustle while she tryna find a comfortable position to sleep in. She figured Jackie couldn’t see her loitering, on account a she couldn’t see Jackie neither, with both of em black and invisible in that damn dark room, and she hung out there, leaning ’gainst the wall, digging her nails in that rough concrete.

It’s four miles away, Jackie’s voice said, all breathy and not listening. Six miles, I mean. We’ll go in the morning, she added with a little more feeling.

Darlene felt like Jackie had listened in on her thoughts and decided to give a warning not to make no trouble, and whether that was a coincidence or a dead-on guess, it still gave her a jolt. She stood straight up, peeled herself off that wall, and stumbled back to her bed. Had to figure out how to pass what be left of sleepytime on that stained, lumpy box spring that look like it might poke out her damn eyeball if she turnt over in her sleep, not to mention all them strangers around.

Then she thought about using her pocketbook as a pillow to keep it safe from anybody fingers reaching in there and walking off with her stuff. She thought she left it on the mattress. No? Maybe she put it under the bed? Could she left it in the minibus? She touched the places on the mattress where she might had put the bag, but that method, though popular, don’t never make nothing reappear. She got on her knees to hunt underneath the cot but she couldn’t see nothing in the shadows down there, so she probing that hard cement with her fingers. When she pulled away, her hands was covered in dust and hair; she had little feathers, twigs, mouse pellets, and chicken feed sticking to her palms. A sneeze danced up her nose but she held it in and her face spasmed, like gnaufg! She brushed the crap off her hands onto her thighs and said, Shit shit shit, real quiet a bunch of times, like that be the name of every moment. I went to hang out with TT and we tried not to laugh at her. Rule Number One is keep your hands on your bags.

The stress made her want to reach out to me, even though me and TT chuckling at her pathetic ass. She punched herself in the heart and went, Stupid stupid stupid, through her teeth. The minibus still idling outside and she thinking ’bout a tiny chance that she had left the bag out there on the seat. But first she visited every restless black shape in that long-ass room, forty-six in all.

None of you are asleep! she burst out. You just smoked up Crack Mountain and now you’re pretending to be asleep? I don’t think so. Who has my bag?

Darlene! Jackie yelled, and then her voice rang outside the wall. Calm the fuck down.

One of these — has got my bag, and I am going to find out who.

Go to bed, honey, we’ll deal with this once we’ve had some sleep, okay? What you had in there that you need so bad?

Darlene silently had to admit her possessions wasn’t worth much. I was the most valuable thing in that purse — a half-empty glass vial and a rock in a plastic bag from the trip — and surely somebody gonna oblige with a hit anyhow when she start getting boogie fever. But Miss Darlene had issues with the principle — you know how violated you feel when somebody jack your belongings.

After a while, Jackie voice ringing through the room, like Darlene mind be talking, like Jackie cutting in on our braindancing. Jackie go, You still want that hit? It’s yours if you want a hit.

I smiled at Darlene inside her brain. I knew what she gon do. Not to be egotistical or nothing, but I am irresistible.

A totally unnecessary moment went by and then Darlene said, Okay, and gone in Jackie room. Jackie took a hit first, and that shit surprised Darlene for a second, but the radio static sound of them rocks fizzling got louder when Jackie sucked on the pipe and sent Darlene eyes into a rapture like she a motherfucking saint. The flame from the lighter be giving they face a red-brown glow, and the hot glass tube almost singed her lips and fingers again. Darlene knew I was not in the best mood — somebody mixed my ass with levamisole, I hate that shit — but then again, good shit wouldna let her sleep.

Then Jackie goes, It’s ten, okay, but don’t worry, I’ll just add it to your bill.

Levamisole good for deworming a dog, but it ain’t pacified Darlene one goddamn bit once she got me inside her. When she groped her way out the bedroom area, Darlene kept tryna figure out who robbed her, without the use of her eyes. When that shit ain’t work, she fumbled over to the door they’d come through, a industrial slab kinda thing, and she thought she could maybe quietly raise that latch and go out to investigate. The bar felt cool when she touched it — weird for a place that’s mostly hot, where she and the others had started using the bottom of they shirts to wipe away the sweat that be trickling down they brows and turning everything they looking at salty. The rusty iron bar went up a little bit when she lifted it, but she found a giant padlock holding that bad boy shut, a lock she couldn’t believe she ain’t noticed snapping shut behind the group. Who locked the lock? Hammer? What if a fire broke out?

Darlene stuck her hands in the little cranny where the door come to the frame, tryna cut a deal with the steel bulk and the pulley system that slid the whole motherfucker open. The crag ripped one her nails so bad she had to tear it off.

Ah, she thought, that’s good. Nobody could’ve left this place with my purse. She decide to squat right at the opening of the door till sunrise so that couldn’t nobody pass and in the morning she gonna do a inventory and find the handbag. Her eyeballs tryna drink in all the light they could, but it ain’t much. The whole time her open eyes be feeling like closed eyes, and blinking didn’t hardly change the view none. She keep worrying ’bout what she had got herself into with this place. She closed her eyes for real and say to herself that maybe everything gonna turn okay in the morning. She thinking ’bout the book and visualizing somebody giving back the bag.