The Two-Bear Mambo (12 page)

Leonard was right. The cafe was warm. It was also crowded. The brothers who I had warned about the ants were there, and their mother, of course. There were also a lot of burly types, and old men. The blue-haired woman I had seen at Tim's filling station was also there. She was sitting with an elderly man who, from the look on his face, appeared to be dealing with some sort of digestion problem.

I could see a gray-haired black cook through the order window at the back. He had on a white cook's hat, a stained white shirt, and lots of sweat. He hadn't been working Christmas Day when I was here. He didn't wave as we came in. Neither did anyone else. The mother of the sweet boys who I had spoken with on Christmas smiled at me, the sort you give someone you know probably has a short time to live. Or maybe she just loved me and my little friend.

The cook looked at Leonard, shook his head, went to furiously scraping at something out of our sight.

We went over to a couple of stools at the end of the counter, sat down in front of a rack holding salt and pepper shakers, a bottle of ketchup and a bottle of Tabasco sauce.

There was a plump middle-aged man sitting next to Leonard. He was smoking a cigar. He blew out smoke, rolled up the newspaper he was reading, put it under his arm, picked up his coffee cup, found a seat beside another man in a booth at the back.

"Did I fart?" Leonard said.

The smiling woman came over. She looked nervous. "Would you gentlemen like something to go?"

This, of course, was the better idea, and I'll be honest, I was scared, all those fuckers looking at us, licking their chops, but I'd seen too many cowboy movies, and a cowboy doesn't run.

Of course, a movie cowboy usually has a standin.

"No," I said. "We'd like something to stay. I want flapjacks and eggs and biscuits and coffee. My buddy here will have the same."

"I will?" Leonard asked.

"You will," I said.

Leonard tipped his hat at the lady. "I will," he said.

The woman looked at us sadly and went away.

The brothers came over and stood by me, one on either side. The one with the bad mustache smiled, said, "There ain't no Christmas ants, are there?"

"No, son, guess there aren't," I said.

"You lied to us?"

"Yes, I did."

"That was a good one," Bad Mustache said. He grinned at me, then he and his brother moved to the rear of the cafe and took a booth together.

The door opened, let in the cold wind. We turned toward a voice saying: "You boys passing through?"

The voice belonged to a man in a gray waterproof topcoat and an expensive gray cowboy hat over which was attached a clear plastic rain cover. He eased off the topcoat, shook the rain from it onto the floor, hung it on a peg by the door, put his hat on another peg.

He looked to be in his sixties. He was the only man in the place wearing a suit. It was a nice, dark gray suit, expensive in a J.C. Penney's best sort of way. He had gray hair, perfectly combed, not mussed by his hat. It was held in place with enough hair spray to make an evangelist proud. He wore a bright red tie. It was tacked with a gold horseshoe to a crisp white shirt. He had on gray lizard-skin cowboy boots. He had a muscular build, with a slight paunch. His skin was very pale. He looked very proud of himself.

On one side of Gray Suit was a rather sizable gentleman who looked as if he could snap a baseball bat over his knee. I affectionately thought of him as Bear.

On the other side of Gray Suit was an even larger gentleman with enormous shoulders, a big belly, and a very wide ass. He looked as if he'd enjoy jerking a knot in a gorilla's dick on his worst day. I affectionately dubbed him Elephant.

"What'd you say?" Leonard asked Gray Suit.

Gray Suit grinned. He had a very precious deep dimple in his right cheek. I think he liked that dimple. I think he thought it got him lots of pussy. I wished I had a dimple. I wished I had all my hair. I wished the gray in my hair looked as cool as the gray in his hair. I wished I'd stayed home. I wouldn't have minded some pussy either.

Gray Suit kept right on smiling. "I said, are you two passing through?"

Before we could answer, he went over to a booth, and the men sitting there got up casually, with their plates and coffee, and found another seat. Gray Suit slid in against the wall. Bear sat in the seat beside him. Elephant took a seat across the table from Bear. The rain outside came down hard and consistent. Good sleeping weather.

Leonard said, "Naw, we ain't passing through. Actually, we was sorta thinking of moving here."

"And for what reason?" Gray Suit said.

"We were thinking of opening up a little Afro-American Cultural Center. That's a black thing, see. Hap here would be working for me."

"I does right," I said, "sometimes, Mr. Leonard, he lets me takes off a little early on Friday afternoon and he give me a fifty-cent tip."

Gray Suit smiled, said to the lady behind the counter, "Maude. I'd like some coffee. The boys here would like some too. Keep it coming."

Maude gave Gray Suit a look that could have raised tumors. Gray Suit acted as if he hadn't noticed. He turned his attention back to Leonard, said: "You know, when I was a little boy, right here in Grovetown, we used to have traveling minstrel shows." He paused and looked at Leonard. "You know what those are, boy?"

"I ain't wearing no knee pants," Leonard said. "Don't call me boy. Don't call my friend here boy neither."

"All right," Gray Suit said. "Man. Isn't that what you people prefer? Man?"

"Man's nice," Leonard said. "Man sound good to you, Hap?"

"I like it," I said. "Even if I'm not a 'you people.' "

"When I was a little boy," Gray Suit started, then paused to poke a cigarette into his mouth. Bear whisked out a little box of kitchen matches, struck one on the bottom of his shoe, offered it to Gray Suit. Gray Suit held Bear's hand, touched the match to his cigarette, puffed. Bear dropped the match on the floor.

Maude said, "Pick that up."

No one picked up the match. No one seemed to notice she'd spoken.

"What I remember fondly," Gray Suit continued, "was white folks doing colored minstrel shows. They wore blackface. Shoe polish. Big white lips. They did some jokes. And they were real funny. You know," he pointed the cigarette at Leonard, "you remind me of them minstrel folks, but you're not in blackface. Least I don't think so. And you know what? I think you're real funny. That makes me nostalgic. I like that. I like having you here. I didn't realize how much I'd missed being around funny niggers. And what I got here is not just some white man in blackface playing nigger, I got the real thing. I got me a genuine, born-of-black-hole nigger."

"Don't talk like that," Maude said, coming out from behind the counter with a pot of coffee. She put the pot on their table. "You're in my place, don't talk like that."

"It's all right, Maude," Gray Suit said. "It's just men talkin'. Ain't that right, nigger?"

Leonard didn't answer. He just tipped back his straw hat, sat there, patient.

Gray Suit turned his coffee cup upright and poured coffee. Maude rubbed her hands together, clasped her fingers, pulled, let go and went back behind the counter. I could hear her breathing behind us. Nervous, short breaths; kind I'd have been breathing had I not been holding my breath.

"I tell you, buck," Gray Suit said, "you look to me like someone who was bred of good stock. You know, that's why there's so many of your people can play basketball and football well. We white folks bred you. Got the biggest dumbest nigger bucks we could find, put them with some big ole black mammy could take about a ten-inch dick big around as a man's wrist, and that ole buck, well, he was the kind would mount a cow if our grandaddies told him to—and most likely if they didn't—and he'd bang that black bitch till she couldn't take no more. Then maybe our granddaddies would have a pony or a jackass do her, just to get a little spice in the stock. And through all that planning, down through generations of nigger kennelin', we ended up with solid, strong-lookin' niggers like yourself. And just as an added note, I got to tell you, I've always been partial to a nagger in a straw hat."

Most everyone in the place laughed. Even the blue-haired lady laughed. When the laughter died—

"Mama said don't talk that way in here!"

I turned and looked. It was Bad Mustache. His bubba was beside him. They were out of their booth, standing. The other brother said, "That's enough! Mama said that's enough."

"Billy, you and Caliber just relax," Bear said. "No one wants you hurt. Y'all sit down and have some coffee."

Billy and Caliber didn't move.

Leonard said, "Well, that certainly explains some things about us black folk, don't it?"

"Oh yeah," said Gray Suit, and he laughed a little, and the others laughed.

When the laughter slowed, Leonard said, "You know, every one of us, when you think about it, just missed about this much," Leonard held up his hand and made a C with his thumb and forefinger, "being a turd. Every one of us. I mean, there's only about this much space between one hole and the other. And we all missed the shithole by this much." Leonard lowered his hand, looked at Gray Suit and smiled, "Except you, mister. You made it. Your mama shit a turd, put a suit on it, and named it you."

Gray Suit turned red as a sun-ripe tomato. Bear started out of the booth then, but before he could shoot the distance, a blast of cold air blew through the cafe, and Officer Reynolds came in with it. He was sucking another Tootsie Roll Pop.

Everything stopped. Reynolds looked around. He eyed Bear, halfway out of the booth. Bear slid back into his place. Gray Suit raised up so Reynolds could see him, said, "Willie, it's me."

Reynolds pulled the Tootsie Roll Pop from his mouth, held it, said, "Yes sir." He turned to the woman behind the counter, said, "Maude, you got that breakfast?" He looked right at us. "To go?"

Maude glanced around, as if on the lookout for a miracle, sighed, went to the kitchen, came back with a greasy brown sack. She gave it to Reynolds.

Reynolds said, "Certainly glad I didn't see no unpleasantness here. Wouldn't want that. Chief wouldn't want that. I seen something like that, didn't do anything about it, he'd fire me. I don't like the idea of being fired. I like my little check. But, say I leave, how the hell am I gonna stop something gets going?" He looked at Leonard. "Any idea how I could do that?"

"There was," Leonard said, "you'd find a way around it."

Officer Reynolds smiled, put his Tootsie Roll Pop back in his mouth, went out with another blast of cold December air.

Bear stood up, arms crossed on his chest. Elephant stood up, opened and closed his hands—very large hands, and leathery. Probably got that way from strangling children. He was maybe six-six, and his shoulders were even wider than I first thought. So was his ass; even front on, you could tell that hunk of meat was enormous.

"You boys don't get in no fights now," Maude said. "This here is my cafe, and I don't want no fights. They were just leaving." She leaned over the counter, touched me on the shoulder. "You were just leaving, right?"

I was agreeable to this, but before I could say anything, Gray Suit said, "That's right, they were just leaving, but not under their own power."

"This ain't no cowboy movie saloon," said Maude. "This is my place."

"Mama said that's enough." It was Caliber. He and Billy were easing slowly to the front of the cafe. No one was paying them much attention, however. They were watching to see if Leonard and I were going to shit our pants. I don't know about Leonard, but I felt a rumble in my tummy.

I began to grope for a graceful way out. Even a not so graceful one, but Leonard, as is often the case, closed the door.

"Before we get on with the butt-whippin'," he said, sliding slowly off his stool, turning his body slightly to the side. "I got one question for the big guy." Leonard gestured to Elephant. "Man, tell me true. Is that your ass following you around, or are you pullin' a trailer?"