Armadillos Read online

  She pulled her cell from her pocket and held it out.

  ‘He gave me a new one.’

  I took it without question, although I was nervous of upsetting Ade any more than I already had.

  ‘Now you can get hold of me whenever you like, see?’ she grinned.

  She took me to a place called Cindi’s and I took forever to choose between pancakes and waffles, mousse cake or cheesecake. I took so long because Cindi had eight fans whirring away in the ceiling, and the coolness rushed down on top of me. The wetness on my back tickled as it dried up. Eventually I chose coconut meringue pie. Freak made so many funny faces while I ate it, I almost choked myself to death.

  18

  Marjorie said she was past sleeping in cars. We weren’t going anywhere till there was enough money to pay for a few nights in a motel. I didn’t care about the motel and told her so. Said I’d sleep in the car if it meant we could leave sooner. I guess I was kinda forceful, because she advised me to pipe down.

  ‘I’m sorry, Marj. I’m just excited is all. I’ve never seen the ocean before.’

  I might as well have told her I’d never seen the sun set, or water come out of a faucet.

  ‘Never seen the frikkin ocean. How can you never have seen the frikkin ocean?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just aint. Is that weird?’

  ‘I aint judging. But yeah, it’s weird. Didn’t your folks never go nowhere?’

  Yeah, we did, I thought. A memory of me and Jojo covering the inside of Jack King with pages torn from travel magazines surfaced. She ripped them out and chose their position. My job was to secure them with sticky tape. The boat was still pretty solid then, except for a small hole in the bottom that we made wide enough to stand a broom handle in. We tied a sheet to it and sailed for miles, mermaids and sea creatures diving along beside us.

  They know the way to Momma’s island, Aggie.

  ‘Listen, child, I’m in as much a hurry as you are. You think I want to stay in this place all my days? Well, do you? Living with strangers, locking my cupboards, stuffing ear plugs in every night just to drown out some old hippy’s guitar?’

  I’d no answer. I always figured everybody in the house felt as fortunate to be there as I did. Maybe it depended on what your alternatives were. If it came to a choice between street-living, Pop-living, or crazy-assed, paranoid, recycled house-living, there was no contest.

  ‘I got my eyes on an apartment in Greenhall,’ Marjorie continued. ‘Guy says I need to get a month’s rent down to make sure he don’t give it away.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I’d never heard of anyone moving up like that. She might as well have told me she was moving to the White House.

  ‘An actual apartment?’

  ‘The real deal, Aggie. All I need to do is offload enough of my little friends and we’ll have enough money for the trip. We make the trip, I sell all my stock. I sell all my stock, I’ll have enough for the deposit on Greenhall. I get to Greenhall, then I’m out of this place and the future’s brighter than bright. You see how that works out, baby doll?’

  Easier said than done. We were kind of like business partners now. I’d stay in the car to watch the stuff while she went into shops trying to sell. She wasn’t as successful as Freak had made out. Store after store she carried a box in, only to carry it straight back out minutes later. I felt pretty sorry for her. When we pulled up at the next place, she just stared out the window trying to find the energy to go in.

  ‘Want me to go?’ I said it without thinking.

  She blinked in surprise. ‘Really?’ she said, her voice like a little girl’s for the first time. Well, a little girl who smoked forty a day. And without waiting for me to answer, she jumped out the car and opened the trunk. I went round back to join her and she shoved a box in my hands.

  ‘The crosses are seven bucks a piece. They usually retail around fifteen dollars but tell them they can charge whatever. The smaller pieces, the hats, the boots, are all five bucks. The armadillos are ten. I know it seems a lot but point out the work in them, okay? Make sure they know everything’s handmade by a local artist. They love that shit. They can have this entire mixed box to trial for two hundred dollars.’

  I raised my eyebrows at that. I may be rookie but I knew no one would take a two hundred dollar gamble on shit made out of old tires. She caught my look. ‘Always worth asking,’ she said.

  They didn’t take the two hundred dollar box, but I did walk out lighter and with cash in my pocket. Marjorie was pleased with me. It was the same in the next place, and the place after that. She looked at me like I was a puzzle needing figured out. ‘Must be something about you I don’t have,’ she said. ‘What do you say to them?’

  Truth was I didn’t say anything much, just what she told me to say. I thought maybe it was Marjorie’s general demeanor that made the difference. I hadn’t seen it but I could imagine her pitch coming off like she was bullying people into parting with their cash. It was easy to misread her. ‘I don’t know, Marj,’ I said. ‘Do you smile? I mean, are you friendly with them?’

  ‘Of course I’m fucking friendly,’ she said.

  I decided to change the subject.

  ‘So when will we be ready to go?’ I asked. ‘You got cash now, right?’

  ‘I got some but it aint enough. And I need to get my belongings into storage first.’

  ‘Storage, why? Did Ade say that? How long you figuring on us being gone?’

  ‘Quit questioning me, Aggie.’ She shook her head from side to side. ‘It’s just… other shit going down. With the house and all.’

  This made me pay attention. ‘What shit?’

  ‘Man, I aint supposed to tell no one,’ she wailed, as though I’d caught her out unfairly.

  ‘You’re putting all your stuff into storage? And you want me to come with you and just leave all of mine behind?’

  We both knew I didn’t have anything worth a pig’s shit to leave behind but that wasn’t the point. I thought about Freak’s stash of cash. Did she know something was going down? Had Ade told her? I didn’t appreciate being kept in the dark.

  ‘What the fuck’s happening, Marjorie?’

  ‘Jesus, you may as well know. Bank wants the house back. Serious this time. Hot-shit lawyers.’

  Ade had found some obscure law that let him take ownership for thirty bucks, so it was no surprise to learn he had a fight on his hands. Even still, the idea of being back on the road, alone again, filled me with a fear I only got in my dreams of Jojo.

  ‘But they’ve had lawyers before,’ I said, feebly.

  Marjorie shrugged. ‘Yeah. Sure. Ade’s all over it. It’ll be fine.’

  We turned the corner into our street.

  ‘But I’m putting my stuff in storage anyway,’ she said.

  I went straight upstairs and banged Ade’s door. Freak opened it and I pushed past. The room was as I remembered it. At least he hadn’t started packing yet.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘What the fuck, Aggie?’ Freak stood with her arms spread wide. Her hair hanging loose made her look like some sort of punk-angel.

  ‘Did you know?’ I asked.

  ‘I aint a mind reader, Aggie. Know what?’

  ‘About the house?’

  Freak looked at the ceiling in frustration, like she was dealing with a child. ‘What about the house, Aggie?’

  ‘Quit playing games with me, Freak. Marjorie already told me.’

  ‘What the fuck does Marjorie know about anything?’

  ‘Someone say my name?’

  Freak spun round to see Marjorie leaning against the doorframe.

  ‘This is bullshit.’

  ‘Aint no bullshit. Just the truth as I see it.’ Marjorie shrugged. ‘Ade aint gonna win this one, Freak.’

  ‘The hell he aint,’ Freak replied. ‘He’s meeting someone right now. He’s gonna fix it.’

  Marjorie came further into the room. It was starting to feel a little crowded with the three of us in t
here. She lifted the sheets to take a look at all the papers on Ade’s desk, and the charts on the wall, and shook her head. Seemed maybe a little bit sad. ‘He still into all this stuff, huh?’

  ‘Get your hands off that!’ Freak grabbed a folder out of Marjorie’s hand and the paper inside spilled out all over the floor. I bent to pick it up. Rows and rows of names and addresses, all handwritten. Must have taken somebody hours. Days, even.

  ‘What is this stuff?’ I asked.

  ‘Evidence,’ said Freak, gathering the paper back into the folder. While she was doing that, Marjorie pulled back the sheet on the wall and it came down. I recognized the images straight away. It was the road JFK got killed on. The whole world had seen these pictures.

  Freak finished picking the papers up from the floor and saw us looking. ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘You have to get out of here.’ And she tried to cover the wall with the sheet which had fallen beside the baseboard.

  ‘Take it easy, honey,’ said Marjorie. ‘Me and Ade go back a long way, remember? I’ve seen all this stuff before. It’s old news.’ She took a little turn around, taking it all in, yawning to show how little it meant to her.

  ‘Yeah, well that was then and this is now. Things have changed,’ Freak said. ‘Y’all need to get out of here before Ade gets back.’

  ‘I aint going anywhere,’ I said. ‘I want to know if I’ve got homelessness coming at me.’

  ‘Course you aint,’ Freak replied. ‘Ade’s got a plan. He’s gonna work it all out.’

  ‘Sure he is,’ Marjorie said. ‘Just as soon as he’s finished solving the mysterious case of who shot John F. Kennedy.’

  ‘What?’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had Ade down as a thinking type of guy, but I always figured he was working on something to do with the environment, otherwise why did we recycle every piece of shit that came into the house?

  ‘Who shot what?’ I said, as though it could all be reframed to make sense, if only I was stupid enough.

  Freak looked set to murder Marjorie. ‘Aint none of your business, Aggie.’

  ‘You mean, you didn’t know?’ Marjorie was enjoying herself. ‘You didn’t know that Ade’s set to blow apart the establishment when he publishes his findings on JFK? It’s gonna be big news, girl.’ I could see that Marjorie couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘Shut up, Marjorie. You don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s uncovered something new. Something big.’

  ‘I doubt that, sweetie,’ Marjorie ran one ring-clad finger down the spine of a thick, black book.

  ‘He has,’ Freak continued. ‘He’s almost finished the book and when he does there’ll be enough money to buy this house. Hell, there’ll be enough money to buy this whole street.’

  My heart sank. He was one of those. We were fucked.

  Seemed only me and Marj weren’t convinced of Ade’s ability to beat off the bank. Monty told us he’d seen a similar situation in the newspaper and that guy wound up alright due to some loophole in the law. No good talking to Freak about it, because she was Ade’s right-hand man. Wouldn’t hear a bad word against him. Tawanna kept on with her refurbishment program, tidying one room at a time and leaving color charts wherever she went, all the time ignoring the bigger jobs, like exposed rafters and floorboards that needed nailed down and walls with holes in them. Lloyd stayed out all day with Ricardo, working when he could – he was stressed about the baby coming. Virginia was doing some detox shit and wasn’t allowed to speak, but I did notice her meditation time increase, which made me think she wasn’t as calm as she made out.

  I sat in Marj’s room, quietly skimming her books, while her fingers flew and cut and glued and stitched. Dozens of little rubber trinkets began to stack up, waiting for me to wrap them and carry them to the sea.

  19

  I was on the shore and Jojo was swimming far out. I called for her to be careful. She shouted at me but the waves crashing around my feet drowned her out. Be louder, I urged. She had something to say. Be louder.

  Something tugged on me and I became aware of Freak’s voice on the outside, distracting me from what was happening.

  Be louder, Jojo.

  ‘Aggie. Aggie. Wake up.’

  I tried to keep a grip of it but it was no use. I was back in my own room on a hard floor. The night felt too real and Freak too close. I scooted backwards, which was hard to do without putting weight on my damaged wrist. Freak flicked a flashlight under her face.

  ‘It’s me, you dumbfuck. Don’t act so scared.’

  ‘I know it’s you. Dumbfuck yourself, stupid bitch. I aint scared. I was sleeping. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Aint nothing wrong, stupid Aggie. Why’s there always gotta be something wrong?’

  We’d been getting more and more snarky with each other lately. Every time we saw each other we just picked up our arguing where we’d left off.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Aggie, listen. I need your help. Will you? Will you help me?’

  ‘What’s wrong? What is it?’

  ‘I told you, Aggie. Quit saying something’s wrong when there aint nothing wrong. Alright?’ She shone the light straight in my face and I squirmed to get away from it.

  ‘Dammit, Freak. What do you want?’

  ‘Ade’s asked me out.’ Her grin could have electrified a fence.

  ‘You woke me up to tell me that? You’ve been screwing him for months.’

  ‘Shut up, Aggie, don’t spoil it. He’s taking me out. Like on a date. To an actual restaurant or some shit like that.’

  I rubbed my face awake. Looked like this was the type of favor that required a conversation. ‘Wow, that’s great, Freak. So what, you want me to help pick out something to wear?’

  ‘No, that’s not it. It’s tomorrow. He wants to do it tomorrow. It’s the only day he’s got free.’

  ‘But he hardly goes anywhere!’ I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The notion that Ade was some wheeler-dealer guy dashing between appointments was a joke.

  ‘Jesus, Aggie. If I’d known you’d be so awkward about it, I wouldn’t have asked.’

  ‘I aint being awkward, Freak. You aint asked anything yet.’

  ‘Well, Jesus, be patient and I will!’ she snapped. I sat in the dark and waited, obedient. When she was satisfied I wouldn’t interrupt, she continued. ‘I’m expected at Sadie’s tomorrow. Mr Dee wants to see me. I need you to go in my place and spin him a story about why I aint there. Say I’m sick or something.’

  My body was still sore. The Sad Place seemed a long way to go just to make excuses.

  ‘Can’t you call him?’ I asked.

  ‘I tried that already,’ she said, and became all sweetness and light. She tipped her head to the side, clasped her hands, pouted her lips and said, ‘Please? He’s going into town tomorrow anyway and he’s said I can go with him.’

  I realized then that Freak had made this date up in her head. She looked like she’d just realized it too, as the smile ran away from her face.

  ‘Sure thing,’ I said, and the smile returned, like magic. ‘Now can you turn off that light?’ And she backed out and tiptoed down the stairs to Ade’s room. I got up to bolt the door. I’d been leaving it open in the hope she’d decide to spend a night with me.

  It was happening again, just like with me and Jojo. Me and Freak had got closer than two people should get, and now it was as if we repelled each other. The fact that Ade had bashed me for her had turned him into a hero. She spent all her time locked up in his room with him. I didn’t miss the cutting – not one little bit – and I was glad she wasn’t night-wandering anymore, but it still felt like things were going down a bad road and I couldn’t say why.

  I lay back down to sleep but I was alert now. I tried to relax, tried to bring back the feel of the dream I’d been having but it was no good. My mind wandered back to the time after Ash had left. Jojo and Cy were spending more and more time together, and that suited Pop down to the ground. His thick fingers would crawl through my h
air as we watched Jojo follow Cy out to the fields. Ash being gone opened up a space for her and she was real happy to put jeans on and be out of the house a while. Pop grew his beard longer and longer, as though his extra manliness could counteract Jojo’s new independence.

  The floor beneath me felt more hard than usual and I couldn’t settle. I rolled over and over and back again, my good arm getting tangled in the sleeping bag. I pulled it free and let my hand rest on my stomach. I thought about praying. I screwed my eyes up tight but instead of praying I felt the urge. I tried to push it away. Pop’s voice. His grunting. I made a tight fist of my hand. I didn’t want to do it, but something else always took control. A feeling of power, of no power, of having it all and having nothing. Of being everything to someone, making them moan with happiness. The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea. And it became like the blood of a corpse. The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers. And they became blood. And the angel in charge of the waters said. Just are you, O Holy One, for you brought these judgments.

  The scratching, slow and steady, and the rush, and the tears and the thank-yous, and the reality after when not one person in the house looks you in the eye because, after all, you’re just a little whore like your momma.

  I turned over and waited for dawn to break.

  20

  Next day I took the bus downtown to Sadie’s Place. The bell jangled as I pushed the door open and Duke looked up from the end of the bar like normal. The place was dark and dead, like normal, too.

  ‘Hey, hey, little Aggie. What you got for me today?’ He closed his book, a Jackie Collins, rearranged his charm bracelet, and went behind the bar to pour himself a drink. His pinky finger stuck out while he knocked it back in one, and then he sprayed breath freshener in his mouth. He waggled his jaw around, the way a sheep chews the cud. He was wearing suit trousers and a shirt. He’d left the top few buttons undone. I’d never seen him look so normal before. Only his contacts marked him out as different; they were green today, Emerald City green. I stood in the space between the door and the bar and shuffled like a fool.