Natashia Deon - Grace

Sweet-smelling barbecue is wafting through the door now, full flavored and hickory smoked — chicken, beef, but no pork. Not because Cynthia won’t eat pork ribs but because she’s fond of the pig she call Doc.

She starts some kind of jump-back dance in the center of the room, hopping backward all the way across the floor and behind the bar. I meet her there with a glass of cold water. She grabs Sam and grinds her hips on him, laughing. She say, “Can you believe I graduated to ‘woman’!”

Some old man behind her say, “You been all woman to me.”

“Why don’t you mind yer business,” Cynthia say.

“You look beautiful,” I tell her. “Better late than never.”

“That’s right,” she say. “I’m officially responsible for my own actions. Six hundred and thirteen new laws not to break. I should teach a class.”

A banjo player, his white face painted black with grease, takes a seat with the band. When Cynthia sees him, she grabs my hand and rushes us into two chairs already in the middle of the room. She starts hooting and clapping before our butts hit the seat. She smiles with all her teeth, tells everybody, “Ssssh. . Shut up!” then whispers to me, “This is for you. It’s popular in New York.”

Black-faced Banjo Man puts the pearly round part of his banjo on his thigh and bends one arm around it like he’s holding a woman, pulling her close. He slides his other hand up its neck, along the four strings, and plucks one with his middle finger for sound. With the thumb of his other hand, he searches for the first note of his tune and his flat heel taps the floor. He shifts in his seat and closes his eyes. His song comes. It rises from deep in his gut like he mean every note.

Applause explodes when he finish. Cynthia is jumping up and down and clapping and whistling. “From New York!” she say, then shakes me, “How you like your surprise?”

“Mine?”

“Your gift. . the Black-face man?”

“Does his face have to be painted that way? Do I look like that?”

“Go wash your face,” she tell Banjo Man. “And come back and do it again.”

THE PARTY ENDED an hour ago and the big white man that was at the door is paid and gone. It’s calm and quiet here now except for the clacking of the band packing up. The orange-brown haze of dusk is pouring through Cynthia’s uncovered windows while I stand in the way of one placing a golden platter, silver spoons, knives, and forks inside a cherrywood box, under a velvet cloth. I didn’t ask where she got all these nice things.

It’s just me and Sam left to clean up now. We don’t talk much but we friendly. He gave me his last two days of tips, told me it was for the baby. Albert’s only been up twice today from the room he building downstairs. Told me to stay off my feet and I told him I’d sit as soon as I finished serving the drinks in my hand. That was two hours ago. Now I’m just wiping down the tables. I saved him a plate, though. Barbecue sauce is coming off the side.

“Good job, boys,” Sam say to the band as they leave. The bandleader tips his hat.

When the front door shuts, the side door near the gambling parlor opens. Sam shouts toward it, “Party’s over. We closed.” Then he say to me, “Drunks never know when it’s time to say good night.”

But footsteps from that side door keep coming up the hall. Sam say again, “We closed!”

“Evenin, Sam. . Mimi.”

My breath leaves me.

I grab this table, the only thing keeping me up. I’d know that voice and that word— Mimi— even in deafness.

“How do, Jeremy?” Sam say. “Long time.”

I don’t turn around. Cain’t turn around.

“Let me get you something,” Sam say.

“Water,” Jeremy say.

Jeremy’s hand squeezes my shoulder, squeezing the life out of me. My tears fall sudden — his touch the only push they needed.

Sam sets Jeremy’s glass of water on the bar top. Jeremy don’t take it. He grabs my hand, instead.

He say, “I don’t blame you for not wanting to see me.”

I cain’t move.

He backs away and takes a seat at the bar. His reflection in the window across the room is like blurred vision in front of me. My tears giving me layers of lenses. He hunches over his water glass and slides it to his right side and rubs his thumb on the side of the cup, say, “I was hoping you’d find a way to forgive me. Maybe another gamble of mine that won’t pay off. . unless you think it do.”

But I don’t think nothin.

“I’m sorry, Mimi. I want to do better this time.”

I can see myself in the window’s reflection. See him. Feel this loss inside me swimming up to my throat and to all my surfaces.

In his reflection, his left sleeve is rolled up in a puff of cloth around his elbow. But below his elbow I cain’t see nothing. No flesh. No fingers. Some kind of trick of these tears.

I swing around to him, confused. But it’s true. His arm is gone, half-missing, a stub of what used to touch me, feed me. He stares at my big belly.

I say, “What happened to your arm?”

“You pregnant?” he say.

He rubs his good hand over his head of hair and smiles, “Mimi? We having a baby?”

Albert’s voice comes too soon. “You save me a plate!” Albert say. I can hear the smile in his voice before I see it on ’em when he gets in the room. But it goes when Albert and Jeremy meet eyes.

Sam say, “Tell Cynthia I’ll see her in the morning,” and picks up his satchel from under the counter.

Jeremy say, calm, “But I didn’t pay you, Sam.”

“Water’s on the house,” Sam say.

“No,” Jeremy say. “I said I’d pay you for it. For the good service. I’m a cripple, not a liar.” He tosses a coin on the bar.

Albert say to Sam, “I’ll let Cynthia know you’re gone for the day,” and he turns back up the hall.

Jeremy bursts out laughing.

Laughs longer than he should, slamming the countertop with his fist for funny.

He smiles at me, then at Albert’s back. “Where you going, Papa Bear?” But Albert keeps up the hall.

“Funny thing,” Jeremy say, smiling. “After that rockslide. . when the doctors told me I had to lose the arm. All I could think about was the last thing I touched. Can you believe that shit? See, there I was dying, Mimi, and I thought of you.” He bursts out laughing again, reaches over the counter and grabs a bottle of whiskey, pours it in his glass, sips it, and throws his legs up on the seat next to him. He say to me, “So when did you say you were due?”

“We’re due next month.”

“We? Who, we ?”

“Me and you.”

He starts counting his fingers out loud, “One, two. . wait, I left, when? Almost nine months ago. . Whew wee, Mimi. This baby’s overdue.”

“Baby’s supposed to be born after nine full months, not when the ninth month start.”

“You don’t look but half that.”

He makes his voice soft and girly, “‘I’m a virgin. Be gentle. Don’t hurt me. It’s only you. I love you. I want to marry you.’ Bullshit, Mimi.”

“There weren’t nobody else,” I say.

“Yeah. . So who’s the lucky guy?”

“You, fool,” Cynthia say, walking in, her wedding dress swaying above her sandals. “And by the looks of that arm, you sure as hell ain’t lucky.”

“You been lying on me, Mimi?” he say. “Been telling people that I’m the father?” He laughs again, picks up the whiskey bottle, and sips from it directly.

“Oh, hell naw,” Cynthia say. “I know you ain’t drinking straight out my whiskey.” She rips the bottle from his hand and he throws a gold coin at her.

“Oh. All right,” she say. “It’s yours. You was fixin to earn yourself another bloody nub, though.” She pours him a little more in his cup and caps the rest. “But I’ll keep this bottle.”