Dark End of the Street

He could hold back a little cash with each deposit and by December he’d be free. So that’s what he did. And man, he was so cool about the whole thing. For every five checks, he’d only deposit one in his account down at the First National. It worked so good that he had more than he needed by September. And by Thanksgiving, shit, he had more than he could ever spend. Two hundred and seventy-one thousand dollars and some change. He tried like hell to get Mary to leave with him. But by that time she was fixing to have Clyde’s baby and the whole thing had turned to shit.

So, tonight, he’d packed his alligator briefcase with bundles of hundreds and covered them with paperback Westerns.

As Porter packed, he watched himself in a mirror spotted with rust. He tucked a ticket for a midnight flight to Buffalo into his corduroy jacket and smoothed his goatee.

He felt light and hard in his yellow turtleneck and brown bellbottoms. He had a Smith and Wesson tucked into a wide leather belt at his spine and almost shook with its power. Felt like the first time he’d ever been moved by a woman.

Porter was a goddamned man who was about to take what he deserved. Besides, who was going to miss that cash but fat boy Bobby Lee Cook and those hoodlums he hung around?

It was night. The moon looked like the cut edge of a fingernail and a brittle cold wind made his skin feel like paper.

He slid into his white Toranado with gray interior, cranked up WDIA, and listened to his competitors at Stax, Booker T. & the MGs, play out some soulful take on the Beatles. He could do anything. He could go anywhere and be anybody.

Porter knew he should wait it out at the airport. But he guessed he wanted to shove his deceit in Cook’s face. He circled his car to downtown and on to Germantown, where rich white people played golf and held parties under candy-striped awnings, and where the only blacks held silver trays of chilled pink shrimp.

Porter parked on Bobby Lee Cook’s lawn, nearly tripping over one of those little iron black men holding a lantern, and strutted out of the bright, cold night and into a Christmas party filled with politicians and pimps, musicians and wannabes of every kind. Some were black. Most were white. He even saw a Chinese girl wrestling with another woman in a dark room filled with a pile of mink coats.

People were drinking martinis and whiskey on ice. There were trays of liver wrapped in bacon and fat olives and candies and little sandwiches dyed red and green for Christmas. The light was dim as hell and lamps burned out green and yellow and red bulbs. Almost made you drunk to walk inside and feel the pulse of the music and see the couples rolling on the green shag or hear loud laughing in huddled circles.

Porter just wanted to see Cook, look him in the eye again, and be gone. Cook had made a point of calling him five times that day to make sure he came. At first he thought Cook was onto the scam, but then Porter figured he’d be on his doorstep if he knew.

Porter first saw Cook out of the corner of his eye in one of those silly Nehru jackets with slim black pants and Italian boots. He looked ridiculous. A fat white boy trying to be hip.

Cook ushered him into a closed office by the dining room where the muted sounds of Eddie Floyd singing “Blood Is Thicker than Water” played low on his Fisher Hi-Fi. That upbeat song really gave Porter a headache as Cook walked over to the little bar covered in zebra print.

He made a big deal out of feeling the skin on the bar, pulling out a gin bottle, and examining the damned thing like it was a newborn child. He poured himself another drink over crushed ice.

“Eddie,” he began, “I want you to quit messin’ with Clyde’s wife. You know more ‘an anyone his head ain’t right. I need that boy. If he falls again, we all do. Comprende, podna?”

“Ah, fuck you, Cook. Ain’t none of your concern what goes on in my world.”

Porter caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror behind the bar and he somehow looked smaller than he felt.

“Just stay away from there tonight,” Cook said, feeling for one of his silly cheetah-print chairs like a blind man. He sat down with a sigh and closed his eyes. “Just stay away from there tonight.”

“I’m quitting,” Porter said, walking away. “Find someone else to shovel your shit.”

“Eddie?”

He turned back.

“How long we knowed each other?”

Porter shrugged.

“I consider you a friend.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Do what you need to do. But do it tonight. Stay away from Clyde’s wife.”

Porter gave a short laugh with his exhaling breath.

“You ain’t listenin’,” Cook said again. “Do what you need to do. But keep away from there tonight.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Porter said. “You motherfucker.”

He picked up a fat gold statue of Buddha and threw it into the glasses and whiskey and flickering red cocktail candles. The mirror broke into jagged knives knocking over the candles and liquor bottles. The glass sounded like tiny bells in the wind.