Page 26 - WTP Vol. XI #2

Sugar (continued from page 12)
yours. I didn’t mean to pry.” I take it from the counter
and hold it out to him.
He takes the letter from me, folds it up good and tight without opening it, and puts it in his back pocket.
“Appreciate that,” he says. “And now if you don’t mind, I’ll call for a tow. Got my car where I left it, I suppose.”
I nod. He lifts the phone and begins to dial. As I’m turning away, he sinks into another swoon of his. I catch him before his head hits the floor. I sit by his side and touch my finger to the pulse in his neck. He begins to sweat. It’s like his pores fly open and are releasing all that sweat and dust from twenty hours on the road. He gains consciousness long enough to request a drink of water.
“Should I call the county ambulance?”
“I need to rest a while,” he says. “A little while.”
“Problem is I can’t leave you laying here in my living room,” I say. “Not in my position as manager of the court.” It serves as my business office.
It doesn’t make any sense to put out the hideaway in the room where I have my office set up. It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning. I can’t keep him there
all day long. We don’t talk much but the silences feel like words and thoughts being traded back and forth between us. Finally I help him up and move with him down the hall into my bedroom, into my bed I kept with Lloyd.
Later, after he sleeps a long while, we go to find his car pulled off the road just where he told me he’d broken down. It’s an old dark blue Pinto with Alaska plates to be sure. It’s locked and for a good reason. Piled up to the top blocking the windows are open
boxes of vacuum parts, all over the place all kinds of loose brushes and hoses. There’s even a fully assem- bled model in the passenger seat curled up like a hu- man being waiting for the light to change. He unlocks the door and tries to start it up. Nothing. Nothing
at all. It’s hot in there, a terrible heat, the noon sun pitched right in there.
I pull up my truck and watch Hunter hitch the Pinto to it. He’s in a pinch. I drive the truck while he steers the car. I do not know what else to do but tow it to the visitor’s parking space near my trailer. Willie will see it when she gets back from work and then there’s the others who will seize on it with their eyes. For now I go about my usual business duties for the Part- nership. Except for the Pinto filled up with vacuum parts, you would not even know about Hunter being in my trailer. He’s so quiet in his thoughts.
In the evening Willie calls me to find out what’s hap- pening with you-know-who.
“I’ll be right over,” I say so Hunter can’t hear me so clearly. He’s drinking a pop from the fridge and look- ing out the kitchen window.
I tell Willie all about Hunter’s relapse and his miracu- lous recovery. She smiles. When Willie smiles, her upper lip rolls back joyfully and you can see her pink- ish chocolate gums. I never saw such a go-getter as Willie. You never saw anyone work so hard both day and night. She’s got her own beauty salon between here and the city, off the highway there where the lower class population lives. Plus she keeps herself up with the hormones she needs and hair removal for the places where no lady wants it.
Even now sitting on her couch, she’s bent over at the waist with her foot on the coffee table touching up her toenails in between puffs of smoke. Her fingers are long and manicured too, painted pretty like charms.
“How about that, Sug,” she says. “The man owes you plenty I’d say.”
“Shush now, Willie. It’s not what it looks like,” I say. Which so far it is not.
Willie shakes up her bottle of nail polish. It’s glittery, very fashionable as always. “He tell you he’s from Alaska, Sug? That’s what he tell you?”
“I saw the plates for myself,” I said.
“Expired for sure.” She sits in the draw of the
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