Edward Jones - Lost in the City

“You look so tired, baby,” she said. “Why don’t you lay down and let me give you one of my special back rubs?”

“I don’t want nobody’s gotdamn back rub!”

“Well, you sure look like you could use one.” When he moved his head, she could see that it was making a greasy spot on the white headboard. She considered what it would take to remove the spot. The day before, he had accidentally dropped a lighted cigarette on the carpet in the hall and she had cursed him for being careless.

“You know what I saw last week?” he said. He took a swig from his own beer on the nightstand.

“No, baby, what did you see last week?”

He did not like the way she said that, and at first he thought he would just shut her out and turn over and go to sleep. But soon he said, “I saw the most money I ever seen in my whole life.” He suppressed a belch. He squinted, gazed at the bedspread as if the memory of the money were now a scene unfolding in the spread’s pattern of palm trees and sand and birds in flight. “And it was in a room with a few kids that couldn’t a been no more than thirteen, fourteen years old. They was playin this big radio that was sittin in the windowsill and they all knew the songs that was playin on the radio, and every time a song came on they would sing along, like they was at camp or somethin. They were at this big round table, countin that money and laughin and havin all the fun in the world like they were just countin so many leaves and it wouldn’t be anything if it all blew away.” He yawned. “So much money that it musta been some kinda sin just to have it at one time in a place that wasn’t a bank. Some house in Northeast, maybe it was Southwest. One place is gettin to be like another now. ‘Drive me here, Rickey.’ ‘Drive me there, Rickey.’”

Joyce took a sip of beer and lit another cigarette.

“I thought you was gonna quit them things,” Rickey said. She could tell one of his drunk spells was coming on.

“You member: I told you the first of the month. Don’t you remember? I promise.” She could tell he didn’t believe her.

Rickey said: “All the men there ever was in my family, that’ll ever be in my family, each one could work day and night for a thousand years, and all the money they would make would never come close to what I saw in that room. I can still hear some a those songs that was on the radio, and I can tell you some a the words.” He sang one of the songs.

“You ready for that back rub now, sugar?”

He yawned again, then inspected his fingernails and slid farther down in the bed. “I forgot to tell you that day fore yesterday I finally got a look at this Smokey Peebles. Himself. The William ‘Smokey’ Peebles everybody talks about. After all this time, I guess Sandy trust me enough.” Despite Joyce’s pleadings, he refused to wear the silk pajamas she bought for him. The cotton and synthetic ones, he told her, didn’t let him slide off the bed as the silk ones did. “Gimme a sip.” He reached for Joyce’s beer.

“You got your own.” She lit another cigarette. “Rickey, why you gotta always bring that stuff home? Those people don’t interest me in the least. I thought we was gonna have a nice evenin, just me and you, baby.” She was afraid he might start pouting, as he now did more and more when he was drunk, and to head him off, she pushed the tray out of the way and crawled up the bed and put her arms around him. “All right,” she said. “I’m sorry. So this was the one himself, huh?”

He was silent for a long time and she reached into his underwear and stroked him.

“Not right now,” he said, taking her hand out. “Besides it don’t seem to be doin the job anyway.”

“You gotta be patient,” Joyce said. “Thas the thing bout makin babies. It helps if thas the last thing on your mind. Makin em. Then they come one two just like that.”

Rickey said, “Sandy had me drive him to this place off Florida Avenue, to some kinda old-fashioned drug store. But they didn’t have a pharmacy or nothin like that. It was mostly just a soda fountain and some booths. A few tables and chairs, just like in those old black-and-white movies.” She put her hand inside the shirt of his pajamas and stroked his chest; sometimes there was nothing to do but ride the whole thing out.

“I could tell that Sandy’d been there before, just from the way he gave me directions,” Rickey said. “When they let us in, Sandy goes to the counter and sits down beside this little boy, who was drinkin a milkshake all slurpy-loud and everything. I stood near the big front window, just like he told me to. There was two men I’d seen someplace else before standin near the front door, and there was a large man in one of the booths sittin across from this very pretty woman who was drinkin a big milkshake just like the little boy. This big fella had on the best-lookin suit I’d ever seen, the kinda suit I want you to bury me in when I pop off. Sandy was steady-talkin to this little boy and I just kept lookin at Smokey, at that big back a his. It made me nervous at first to be near somebody they say had killed three men. The woman he was talkin to had on a lot of makeup and she was more interested in the milkshake than whatever it was Smokey was sayin to her.”

Joyce continued to stroke his chest and threw her leg over his thighs. “Shoulda went up and introduced yourself,” she said. “‘I heard so much about you, Mr. Peebles. Can I call you Smokey?’”

Rickey smiled. He said, “There was an old white man in a nice clean apron behind the fountain and he had one a those old-timey soda jerk hats on. He held up one a those metal glasses they useta make milkshakes in and he shook it at me, wantin to know if I wanted one. I shook my head. There wasn’t nobody else in the place but these people, and no aisles with soap and toothpaste and aspirin and whatnot, and I gradually got the feelin that this white man’s one job in life was to make milkshakes and banana splits and everything for whoever big Smokey told him to.”

The grandfather clock in the hall downstairs struck ten, and Joyce lifted her head momentarily from Rickey’s chest to listen for Clovis getting up and going to the bathroom.

“At the last, this little boy Sandy had been talkin to turned in his seat and hopped away from the stool. He twisted his body around without movin his feet to see how far he’d hopped away from the seat. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He came toward the door and everybody jumped up, includin Sandy. One a those guys opened the door. The boy stuck out his hand to me, and I could see that he wasn’t a boy atall. ‘You Rickey, huh?’ he said. ‘I’m Smokey. Smokey Peebles. You keep watchin out for my boy there. There’s some bad shit in the world, y’know, and I don’t want my boy hurt.’ He pointed over his shoulder to Sandy. ‘He my righthand man.’ I just shook his hand, cause I didn’t know what to say. ‘How you like my tennis shoes,’ he said. ‘They Chuck Taylors. Converse. Thas all I wear is Chuck Taylors.’ He just went on like me and him was old walk partners and like the only important thing in the world to him was what kinda tennis shoes he wore. The fella who’d opened the door closed it, seein that Smokey wasn’t headin out. I could see some children gatherin at the door. ‘When I was a little boy,’ Smokey was sayin, ‘Chuck Taylor was the thing. Every boy had to have Chuck Taylors. They were like ten dollars or somethin back then, but that was a whole lotta money. My mama — I’ll never forget this — my mama got me these cheap-ass three-dollar tennis shoes from Becker’s on 7th Street. You know how mamas can be. If you saw those tennis shoes like from a mile away you’d think they were Chuck Taylors, but up close, even a blind man could tell you they was just imitation. And people, my own friends now, got on my shit about it too, stomped all over my feelins. Every time I wore them they’d like come up to me, bend down, and point real close at these imitation Chuck Taylors.’”