Page 17 - WTP Vol. XI #2

dead-away swoon.
Lordy Lord, I think. Lordy Lord Lord. Oh Lord, why do I try to do for folks who are better off in Your hands? Right away I phone Willie. She doesn’t an- swer. Of course she doesn’t when she’s been working late nights at her beauty salon. Before I even tell my legs anything, they’re carrying me out the door to Willie’s. I wave to Mrs. Sanchez who looks over at me so strange like, curious, but then she’s pulled away by Sonia who for once is doing me a favor.
“Get up! Get up! Willie, I know you’re in there. I can see your car.” I keep my voice low despite my urgent message. Willie Willie Willie, I think. Open up be- fore I invoke the power of the Lord to kick this door through.
“Sug, what is it, Sug?” Willie wears her sleep mask on top of her head. Also she’s wearing some skimpy thing with a skimpy robe over it. It’s from that col- lection she sells in the beauty salon, I can tell it is, hardly anything to it.
“I need to come in.”
“Might as well, Sug. For one thing, I don’t want you lettin’ my AC go right out this door.”
She sounds so calm I can’t stand it. I tell her every- thing twice because she makes me repeat just about everything I’m saying. I tell her all the de- tails, even the part about Mrs. Sanchez seeing me and me waving back casual as can be even though I’m about to scream.
“Should I call the county ambulance?” I say. Willie’s already lit up smoking, sitting on her couch. Should
I call? That’s what Lloyd did the time Mrs. Sanchez drank the Clorox under her kitchen sink. That’s what I did the night Willie tried to cut it off to be a lady. Oh Lordy Lord.
“He’s in my home right now,” I say. Willie stays smok- ing with her long legs crossed. I say, “He’s laying there like I told you.”
“Let me put on some clothes first, Sug.”
I wait for her. She won’t go anywhere without her makeup. This could take forever now that I think about it. Just as I’m about to break away and go back to my trailer alone, Willie emerges from her bedroom wearing a short white jumpsuit, broad rimmed hat, her sunglasses, and classy shoes a mile high.
“OK, Sug. I’m ready,” she says. “Now we can go.”
“It’s so hot outside today that’s why I let him in,” I say on the way back. “Sure, he could walk half a mile to the Circle K, but first he asks for a drink of water and so politely I say, ‘Oh well, go ahead and use the phone but be quick. I’m expecting a call.’”
“A call? Who from?” Willie says. She’s still smoking even in the hot terrible heat. And she refuses to hurry in heels. Which is probably best. Probably the tenants are already looking out their kitchen windows at us as we make our way past the playground and back to my place. Everybody knows everybody. That’s how it goes in my position as manager.
“There he is,” I say. I shut the door behind us. He’s curled a little so he’s more on his side now but still knocked right out. A compact man, about Lloyd’s build and height, no more. He breathes in raspy shakes.
“You check his wallet for ID?” Willie asks me. She’s already pulled it out of his pants pocket. Her ashes dangle close above him. “E. M. Hunter. Alaska license. Expires the end of this month. Well.” She finishes her cigarette with a flourish.
“Well what?”
“Twenty bucks.” She holds the bill up. “No credit cards. Nothing much else.”
“What’s wrong, you suppose?”
“He’s not drunk. That much I can tell you.”
We rise up on our feet and look at him there on my floor, a compact-built man with a full head of hair, salt and pepper mixed together. Willie shakes up one more cigarette from her pack and steps outside with me.
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