Underground Airlines(45)

Mama Walker stubbed out her Camel, pulled a new one.

“Misery sticks, I know. But I can’t smoke them Indian things. I feel bad about it and all, but them things taste like cow shit. So how old are you, baby?” The riff on slavery smokes was directed to me; the question was for Martha.

“Thirty-two.”

“Thirty-two. Thirty-two.” She looked at Martha carefully, critically, like a fine piece of jewelry. “Tricky age for us women, ain’t it?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Different for white girls, I guess.”

Martha shrugged uncomfortably. “I guess.”

“Everything different for white girls.”

I wondered again what the hell was going on here. I wondered, too, how I had managed to get myself implanted in it.

“And just so I’m straight on it,” said Mama, tilting her long head toward the back room, toward Lionel on the sofa. “Little man’s yours.”

“He is,” said Martha, looking yearningly toward the boy. “That’s right.”

Mama nodded slowly. She was looking at the kid, judging his complexion, casting as keen an appraising eye over the boy’s color as I had over Jackdaw’s—as I had over every runner I’d ever gone after. Mama Walker, I decided without thinking about it, without wanting to think about it, was moderate pine, red tone, number 211 or 212.

“So you what?” Mama Walker turned her eyes on me. “You Daddy?”

“No, ma’am,” I said quietly, and Martha rushed in: “He’s just a friend.”

“Just a friend,” she said, her voice low and easy, almost a whisper. “Just a friend.” She leaned forward, blew smoke out of the side of her mouth, and patted me on the knee. “Nice to meet you, Just-a-Friend.”

The Walker boys, over by the door, were sharing a one-hitter, silently trading hits.

“So where is Daddy?”

“Well…” Martha gave her head a tiny shake. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“You don’t?” Mama’s smile fell away. “And why not?”

“I really just want to uh, to, you know—to cover our business.”

“Oh, all right,” said Mama Walker. “Of course.”

There was the click-click of a lighter by the door, and I glanced over at the sons: son number 2 refiring the skinny pipe, son number 1 staring into space. A cartoon punch line blared from the television, one animated electric eel zinging another one, and the kids all roared. Lionel laughed along with them, perfectly at ease.

“But you know what, I do want to talk about it, just for a second. You don’t mind, do you?” She stared at Martha. “How about I just guess what happened to him?”

“Well…” Martha wrung her hands together. Her face was agonized. “I guess.”

“I’mma guess white men killed him.” Mama Walker said this without trouble, almost cheerfully. “’Cause of you. That it? Am I close on that?”

Martha didn’t answer, but Mama said, “I thought so,” as if she had. “That’s how they do, you know. You gotta be careful. North or no north, some things you just gotta be careful about. White man don’t play, you know? Right, Just-a-Friend?”

“Right,” I said.

“I’ll give you a little example, okay? All this shit hole here?” She pointed outside, at the trash-strewn street. “This all used to be green. Verdant. That the word, Marv?”

“Yes, Mama,” said one of her sons, in his thick voice.

Martha suddenly stood up. “I am so sorry that we bothered you,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “Hey, Lionel, honey?”

Lionel looked over from the couch, but meanwhile one of the big Walker boys had gotten up, too—not Marv, the other one. “Have a seat, little girl,” he said. “Mama talking.”

Martha sat. Lionel’s head swiveled back around to the screen. Mama gave no sign of having been interrupted. “It was verdant down here, back in the day. That’s what they say. I’m talking ’bout before I was born, understand. Before my mama was and hers was. There was a stream here. Little creek. I got a map, somewhere, somewhere in here, but you can see it, too, you go hunting through the dog shit and the broken glass out there, you can see, like, the traces of it, where it ran once, all those years ago. But see, the white men who were planning out the city, they didn’t like it where it was. The little river. So they just”—she made a quick gesture with her hands, sweeping the air—“ran it under the ground. Built right over it. You understand? You see?”

She waited. She wanted an answer. Martha whispered, “Yes.” I took off my glasses and wiped them on my shirt. Dope smoke wafted over from the love seat.

“They sent that little river underground, and they built their f*cking ugly city over it. That’s how they do. Anything they don’t care for, anything that does not please, they use it up or they kill it or bury it, and they never think of it again. You see?”

Martha’s eyes were shut now. “I see.”

“So that’s what they did—open your eyes, sweetheart. Open.” Martha obeyed. “That’s what they did to your boy’s father. Them. White people.”

“I’m sorry.” Martha closed her eyes. She was sorry she’d come here. She was sorry she was white. But there was no undoing either of those things. “I just need some help.”