Authors: H. M. Mann
She stiffens so fast that I think she’s having a seizure. “What the—”
I see some of the passengers looking our way, so I roll the sleeve back down. “And it all started with some cigarettes, a little weed, and a little wine.”
She looks away. “I’d never do that shit.”
“
You already like piercing your skin,” I say. “I’ll bet you have a few tattoos, too.”
Her hands shake as she tries to light her cigarette. She blows a fit of smoke. “Only the one in my eyebrow’s pierced. The one in my nose is just a magnet, and so what if I got a tattoo? It don’t mean I’m gonna be a junkie like you.”
“
I hope not,” I say. “Just be careful what you buy, especially weed. You never really know what you’re getting.”
“
I know what I’m getting, yo.”
“
You can’t ever know
exactly
what you’re getting, especially if you’re getting it in strange little towns from people you don’t know.”
She sucks harder on her cigarette.
I have her scared, but she isn’t scared enough. “I used to sling weed along with a little bit of everything else, all from the same supplier. Stuff gets mixed up sometimes, dust flies everywhere, you understand? You might have already smoked a little cocaine, a little crack, a little PCP, and even a little heroin. It’s how we get you without meaning to.”
She flicks her cigarette into the wind. “I gotta go.”
“
Be careful, Penny.”
“
Yeah, whatever.”
“
I mean it.”
She rolls her eyes and walks away, and hopefully I’ve ruined her evening so she won’t ruin her life.
I used to be a lot like Penny. Couldn’t no one tell me nothing I didn’t think I already knew, when I didn’t really know a single thing. I looked up to a bunch of junkies on Centre Avenue for guidance and wisdom when I should have stayed in school, listened more to Auntie June, and stayed straight, even gone to church more often. I got nothing against the street life, just that it ain’t The Life for probably ninety-nine percent of the folks on the street. Just like me, they want something better, but the street, as hard as it is, is easier to understand. Funny, but I could always count on the street, even though most of what the street gave me was pain and suffering.
I have to be exhausted. I ain’t no philosopher. Just something about this peaceful ride and all those stars that seem to call it up out of me.
I go to my cabin, peel off my clothes, hit that bunk, and I am gone into a drowsy, dreamless sleep.
But for only about seven hours.
I wake up to bright light and a shaking bunk. “What’s happening?”
Rufus’s sweaty, smiling face is inches from mine, and I catch the strongest whiff of country boy stank. “Manny Mann, right?”
“
Yeah.”
“
I’m Rufus Cobb, your roommate. How you doin’?”
It’s still dark in here. Oh, that’s just Rufus. “What time is it?”
“
Time for you to get up, city boy.” He unzips his coveralls, and I get a full view of those angry pit bull arms of his. One of them even has a brand of a circle with an X in the middle. “Rose is already in the galley crackin’ eggs and crackin’ heads. You don’t
ever
want to keep Rose waitin’, so get you a shower and get crackin’.”
I slide out of bed. “What’s that on your arm?”
He flexes it for me, and the X explodes into view. “My older brother Kenny burnt it in when I was little.” Rufus was
never
little. “Kinda grew as I did.”
“
What’s it for?”
“
All my brothers got one just like it.” He drops to his bed, and I swear the entire boat tilts some. Bet the people upstairs just fell out of bed. He digs into a bag of chicken. Rose must take care of us all. “Hurt like crazy, let me tell you. Same brand we got on our hogs. We got us a hog farm down in Mississippi.”
Why doesn’t this surprise me? “But you’re here on this boat.”
“
Sure am.” He sucks the skin off a drumstick. “But I got five big brothers and my mama and daddy runnin’ things down there. They don’t need me till we gotta slaughter ‘em in August, so I work here till then.” I can’t imagine brothers bigger than Rufus. “You best be gettin’ in the shower, boy. Time’s a-wastin’.”
I stand and stretch. “It still dark out?”
“
Yeah.” His eyes narrow. “Man, what you got on your arms? And your leg? You get bit?”
I don’t feel like explaining, but I’m sure they don’t have folks like me down on the farm in Mississippi. “Needle marks and scars.”
He blinks.
“
From shooting heroin.”
His eyes pop. “You do that mess?”
“
Not anymore. I’m clean.” Six days clean. Tomorrow will be a week.
He stands and looks over the scars on my arm with chubby, greasy hands. “Look like you tried to hide ‘em with that snake there.”
“
Yeah.” I can’t remember the guy’s name at County who tried to connect all the dots for me. It took him a couple days to make it.
“
When we get to Cincy, I know of a tattoo place that’ll make ‘em all disappear.” He pulls up his shirt and turns so I can see his back. An eagle or a vulture or something is tattooed over some angry-looking scars. “Got run over by a mad hog when I was little, chewed on me pretty good.” He pulls his shirt off completely and gets into his bed. “They’ll fix you up.”
“
Maybe.” I don’t know if I should be messing with any kind of needles just yet.
I take a lukewarm shower, and the water ruins the dressing on my leg. I rip off the dressing and hope the postage stamp heals on its own. By the time I’m dressed, Rufus is sound asleep and snoring, well, like a hog. And I can’t stop yawning. I haven’t gotten up mighty this morning. And once out in the corridor, I realize I’m alone. I expected to see at least a few passengers rolling on out at the same time as me.
Unless I’m late.
I hustle down to the galley and run straight into Rose and an apron. “You’ve got egg duty, Emmanuel.”
I tie on the apron. “Yes ma’am.”
“
And you’re late.”
“
Sorry. Ma’am.”
“
Don’t let it happen again.”
“
I won’t, ma’am.”
Here I am in a hairnet with plastic gloves cracking and stirring dozens of eggs in a big pot that Penny, once again, drains little by little with a plastic pitcher and carries to the huge griddle. It isn’t fun at all. This must be some kind of punishment for being late. Crack and stir, crack and stir. That’s all I do while others frost pastries, turn sausage links, flip sausage patties, chop green and red peppers and onions for omelets, scrape scrambled eggs, and turn bacon that sizzles and pops. My stomach is screaming for food. Those brown biscuits and some of that gravy would be enough.
“
Emmanuel!” Rose calls.
“
Yes ma’am?” I remove my plastic gloves, hairnet, and apron.
“
Bus tables!”
Shoot. I thought it was breakfast break. “Yes ma’am.”
I get a gray plastic container I saw the other busboys using the night before.
“
And make haste slowly,” Rose says.
“
Yes ma’am.”
The J. M. White dining room is about as big as the infield of a baseball diamond, and it’s incredibly crowded. I have trouble getting through all the chairs to tables where folks are waiting for me to do the clearing. I’m not even sure what to do except slide everything I see into the container. As soon as I clear one place, a server plunks down a napkin filled with silverware and a glass filled with ice water.
“
Go on,” a tall skinny white server named Tammi tells me.
So I go on, table to table until my container’s full, then back to the kitchen to get another … and another. In, out, in, out, and I’m about to pass out.
“
Is it always this crazy?” I ask a busboy rushing by.
“
It’s raining again.”
“
Oh.” I hadn’t noticed.
As the dining room starts to thin out around ten-thirty, I stumble and nearly drop my container. I need something to eat right now. I walk through the galley doors, slam down my container near the sink, and head for a basket of biscuits. I grab one and rip it open, but before I can dump some jam on it, I hear, “Emmanuel!”
I don’t even see Rose anywhere. “Yes ma’am?”
“
Get an apron and help out with the dishes.” She’s standing right next to me.
I am so out of it. “Could I eat something first? I’m about to fall out.” And I’ve been working at least six hours straight without a break. I know that ain’t right.
“
Got to eat on the run around here, Emmanuel. I thought you knew that.” She takes the jar of jam from me and dumps a glob onto the biscuit. “Eat quick then go knock out those dishes.”
One biscuit isn’t enough, and I find myself wanting the leftover food on the plates as I scrape them and put them in boiling hot dishwater. I need some grease or something!
“
Yo,” I ask the dishwasher to my left, a tall dark-skinned man, “when do we get a break?”
“
We don’t.” He swipes another plate.
“
What?”
“
We only get breaks when Rose says we do.”
“
What about days off?” I ask.
“
Didn’t they tell you nothin’? You work six weeks straight then you get two weeks off.”
Six weeks at twelve hours a day is a whole lot of hours in a row. He has to be kidding. But after a solid hour of scraping and salivating, maybe he’s telling the truth.
“
Emmanuel!”
Break time? “Yes ma’am?”
“
Get over here and help me with these sandwiches.”
I wash and dry my hands. “Yes ma’am.”
“
The rest of y’all take a break,” she says.
So it’s just me and Rose putting chicken salad and egg salad and bologna and cheese and ham and cheese and salami and cheese on bread, and each sandwich I finish gets plastic-wrapped but not before it talks to me, saying stuff like, “You want to eat me, don’t you? I’d taste
so
good.”
“
Ma’am, I am starving.”
“
Good.”
“
You mad at me, ma’am?”
She squints. “Should I be?”
How should I know? “I know I was late. You see, I got to talking to Rufus, and I lost track of time and—”
“
I ain’t mad at you … for that.” She takes a stack of wrapped sandwiches to a counter and comes back with a bowl of some orange stuff. “Pimento spread. The little old ladies love it.”
I start spreading the lumpy cheese with red pieces of pimento onto the bread. “What did you mean when you said ‘for that’?”
“
What did I tell you to do last night when you left here?” she asks.
“
Get some sleep, so I got some sleep.”
She wraps another sandwich, her hands flying. “You coulda got more.”
“
Well, yeah, I guess so, but I always have trouble sleeping in a strange place at first.”
“
Uh-huh.”
“
I’m missing something here.”
“
You slept in your
own
bed last night, right?” she asks.
“
Yeah.”
“
All
night?”
“
Yeah.”
“
That ain’t what Penny’s been spreading around,” she says with a raise of her eyebrows.
I slap the last of the pimento spread on a slice of bread. “Rose, we only talked out by the paddlewheel for maybe ten minutes.”
“
You bein’ straight with me?”
“
Yes ma’am.”
“
She told everybody in here this morning about your scars. How did she know about them if y’all didn’t—”
“
I showed them to her,” I interrupt, “to scare her away, and we were right outside by the paddlewheel the whole time.” I wrap another sandwich. “Can’t have a conversation on this boat without someone putting their nose in my business.”
“
We’re done here,” Rose says. “Take a break.”
I rip off my apron, snatch a chicken salad sandwich, and hit up the fridge for a Coke. Rose is still standing in the same spot. “What would I want with her anyway? She doesn’t have anything to offer me.”
“
I know she got drugs. I haven’t caught her yet during an inspection, but I will. Ain’t many places to hide contraband in the dormitory.”
I peel off the plastic wrap and take a bite. “I’m through with all that.”
“
That may be true, but heroin definitely ain’t through with you, is it?”
I shake my head. “No. But it only talked to me a little bit this morning. I used to, well, you know, before I went to work.”
“
Me, too.” Her face looks so sad. “Just watch out for her, okay? Penny’s a bad penny, always into mischief, been trouble ever since she started here.”
“
You got nothing to worry about. I got a girl back in Pittsburgh who’s gonna have my son, and I ain’t into white girls.”
Rose smiles. “Yeah. She gonna have your baby?”