Laura Furman - The O Henry Prize Stories 2005

“We can do it,” Elaine said, looking over Catrina's shoulder to the dark lump that was Horace mumbling in his sleep. “What about him?”

Catrina turned her head. “He old. They ain’t gonna do anything to him. I’m just worried bout makin it with that baby.”

“Well, I sure as hell ain’t gonna go without my child.”

“I ain’t said we was,” Catrina hissed. “Down two floors just ain’t gonna be easy, is all.”

“We can do it,” Elaine said.

“We can do it,” Catrina said. She tiptoed to the chair at the foot of the bed and went through Horace's pants pockets. “Maybe fifty dollars here,” she whispered after returning. “I already got about three hundred.”

“You been stealin from him?” Elaine said. The lump in the bed turned over and moaned, then settled back to snoring.

“God helps them that helps themselves, Elaine. Les go.” Catrina had her clothes in her hands and went on by Elaine, who watched as the lump in the bed turned again, snoring all the while. Bye, Horace. Bye. I be seein you.

The policeman in the unmarked car parked across Thirteenth Street watched as Elaine stood on the edge of the balcony and jumped. She passed for a second in front of the feeble light over the entrance and landed on the sloping entrance of the underground parking garage. The policeman was five years from retirement and he did not move, because he could see quite well from where he sat. His partner, only three years on the job, was asleep in the passenger seat. The veteran thought the woman jumping might have hurt herself, because he did not see her rise from the ground for several minutes. I wouldn’t do it, the man thought, not for all a rich man's money. The woman did rise, but before she did he saw another woman lean over the balcony dangling a bundle. Drugs? he thought. Nah.

Clothes? Yeah, clothes more like it. The bundle was on a long rope or string-it was too far for the man to make out. The woman on the balcony leaned over very far and the woman on the ground reached up as far as she could, but still the bundle was a good two feet from her hands.

Just let them clothes drop, the policeman thought. Then Catrina released the bundle and Elaine caught it. Good catch. I wonder what she looks like in the light. Catrina jumped, and the policeman watched her pass momentarily in front of the light, and then he looked over at his partner. He himself didn’t mind filling out the forms so much, but his partner did, so he let him sleep on. I’ll be on a lake fishin my behind off and you’ll still be doin this. When he looked back, the first woman was coming up the slope of the entrance with the bundle in her arms and the second one was limping after her. I wonder what that one looks like in a good light. Once on the sidewalk, both women looked left, then right, and headed down Thirteenth Street. The policeman yawned and watched through his sideview mirror as the women crossed M Street. He yawned again. Even at three o’clock in the morning people still jaywalked.

The man who was a cousin of Darnell's was on his way back from the bathroom when the police broke through the door. He frightened easily, and though he had just emptied his bladder, he peed again as the door came open and the light of the hallway and the loud men came spilling in on him and his sleeping companions.

Horace began asking about Catrina and Elaine and the baby as soon as they put him in a cell. It took him that long to clear his head and understand what was happening to him. He pressed his face against the bars, trying to get his bearings and ignoring everything behind him in the cell. He stuck his mouth as far out of the bars as he could and shouted for someone to tell him whether they knew if the young women and the baby were all right. “They just women, y’all,” he kept saying for some five minutes. “They wouldn’t hurt a flea. Officers, please. Please, Officers. What's done happened to them? And that baby. That baby is so innocent.” It was a little after six in the morning, and men up and down the line started hollering for him to shut up or they would stick the biggest dick he ever saw in his mouth. Stunned, he did quiet down, because, while he was used to street language coming from the young men who came and went in his apartment, no bad words had ever been directed at him. They talked trash with the filthiest language he had ever heard but they always invited him to join in and “talk about how it really is,” talk about his knowing the Secretary of Defense and the Mayor. Usually, after the second blunt, he was floating along with them. Now someone had threatened to do to him what he and the young men said they would do to any woman that crossed them.

Then he turned from the bars and considered the three men he was sharing the two-man cell with. The city-jail people liked to make as little work for themselves as possible, and filling cells beyond their capacity meant having to deal with fewer locks. One man was cocooned in blankets on the floor beside the tiered metal beds. The man sleeping on the top bunk had a leg over the side, and because he was a tall man the leg came down to within six inches of the face of the man lying on the bottom bunk. That man was awake and on his back and picking his nose and staring at Horace. His other hand was under his blanket, in the crotch of his pants. What the man got out of his nose he would flick up at the bottom of the bunk above him. Watching him, Horace remembered that a very long time ago, even before the Chesapeake Street house, Loneese would iron his handkerchiefs and fold them into four perfect squares.

“Daddy,” the man said, “you got my smokes?”

“What?” Horace said. He recalled doing it to Catrina about two or three in the morning and then rolling over and going to sleep. He also remembered slapping flies away in his dreams, flies that were as big as the hands of policemen.

The man seemed to have an infinite supply of boogers, and the more he picked the more Horaces stomach churned. He used to think it was such a shame to unfold the handkerchiefs, so wondrous were the squares. The man sighed at Horace's question and put something from his nose on the big toe of the sleeping man above him. “I said do you got my smokes?”

“I don’t have my cigarettes with me,” Horace said. He tried the best white man's English he knew, having been told by a friend who was serving with him in the army in Germany that it impressed not only white people but black people who weren’t going anywhere in life. “I left my cigarettes at home.” His legs were aching and he wanted to sit on the floor, but the only available space was in the general area of where he was standing and something adhered to his shoes every time he lifted his feet. “I wish I did have my cigarettes to give you.”

“I didn’t ask you bout your cigarettes. I don’t wanna smoke them. I ask you bout my cigarettes. I wanna know if you brought my cigarettes.”

Someone four cells down screamed and called out in his sleep: “Irene, why did you do this to me? Irene, ain’t love worth a damn anymore?” Someone else told him to shut up or he would get a king-sized dick in his mouth.

“I told you I do not have any cigarettes,” Horace said.

“You know, you ain’t worth shit,” the man said. “You take the cake and mess it all up. You really do. Now, you know you was comin to jail, so why didn’t you bring my goddam smokes? What kinda fuckin consideration is that?”

Horace decided to say nothing. He raised first one leg and then the other and shook them, hoping that would relieve the aches. Slowly, he turned around to face the bars. No one had told him what was going to happen to him. He knew a lawyer, but he did not know if he was still practicing. He had friends, but he did not want any of them to see him in jail. He hoped the man would go to sleep.