Deacon King Kong(42)
“Well, since we is on the subject of taking back things, where’s my driver’s license with your picture on it using my name?” Hot Sausage asked.
“What you need that for?” Sportcoat said. “You’s in trouble enough. Plus it’s my week to hold it.”
“It ain’t my fault that your past is bad.” Sausage held out his hand. “I’ll take it now, please. You won’t be needing it nohow.”
Sportcoat shrugged and pulled out a weathered wallet, thick with papers, and from it produced the license, frayed around the edges, and handed it over. “Now gimme my umpire stuff so I can start up the game again. I’mma get these kids ’round here on the right track again.”
“Is your cheese done slid off your cracker, Sport? These kids don’t want no baseball. Them days ended the minute Deems walked off the team.”
“He didn’t walk off,” Sportcoat said. “I throwed him off for smoking them funny reefer cigarettes.”
“Sport, you is more outta date than a Philadelphia nightclub. I know bartenders from Hong Kong smarter’n you. These children want tennis shoes now. And dungaree jackets. And dope. They whupping ass and robbing old folks to get it. Half of your baseball team works for Deems now.”
“Soup don’t work for him,” Sportcoat said proudly.
“That’s ’cause Soup was a guest of the state,” Joaquin said from his window. “Give him time. You need to go, bro, just till things cool off. You can go stay with my cousin Elena in the Bronx if you want. She’s never home. She got a good job working for the railroad.”
Miss Izi snorted. “She’s been boarded more times than the railroad too. Don’t stay there, Sport. You’ll get fleas. Or worse.”
Joaquin’s face reddened. “Tienes una mente de una pista. Una sucia sucia!”
“So does your mother!” Miss Izi said.
“All right already!” Sister Gee said, glancing around. The line of people waiting to play their numbers had quit, and most had taken seats on the stoop near Sausage to watch this theater, which was better than any numbers game. Sister Gee said, “Let’s think this through,” and as she spoke, the sound of the front door opening behind them was heard and she looked up over their shoulders, gaping in surprise. The rest followed her shocked gaze, glancing over their shoulders to a sight that brought them to their feet.
Standing behind them, Soup Lopez, a resplendent, smiling giant, in a crisp gray suit, white shirt, and splendid black bow tie—all six foot ten of him—stood on the top step, filling the open doorway of Building 17.
“Soup!”
“Soup Lopez! Back from the dead!”
“?Sopa! ?Comprame una bebida! ?De dónde sacaste ese traje?”
“Home at last!” Soup roared.
Cries of greeting and handshakes all around as the crowd surrounded the big man, who towered over them. Joaquin, from his window, poured several quick whiskey shots into plastic cups, then abandoned the window altogether, emerging from the building with his guitar, followed by the bongo player of Los So?adores, who hurriedly rushed out the building entranceway shouting in Spanish, “Nephew!” and hugged Soup, who lifted the small man like he was a pillow. Los So?adores quickly plugged in and the horrible music began again, with even more gusto than before.
For the next hour and a half, Sportcoat’s crisis was forgotten. It was still early, and Soup greeted all his old friends by amusing everyone with magic tricks. He picked up two women in one hand. He showed everybody one-handed push-ups he’d learned in prison. He showed off his shoes, size 18S, special made by the state of New York, and impressed his old coach, Sportcoat, by taking off one shoe and using it to swat a handball three hundred yards. “You always said I had good basics,” he said proudly.
The joy encouraged a frolic, and several who were embarrassed to approach Sportcoat now came forward to shake his hand, pat him on the back, thank him for shooting Deems, and offer him drinks. One old grandmother gave him the two dollars she normally used to play the numbers, stuffing the money in his coat pocket. A young mother stepped forward and said, “You showed me how to can peaches,” and kissed him. A thick-bodied Transit Authority worker named Calvin who manned the tollbooth at the local G train subway stop ambled up, shook Sportcoat’s hand, and slipped five dollars into Sportcoat’s pocket, saying, “My man.”
The floodgates were open, and the crowd of onlookers who had fled when they first spotted him wandered back to marvel that he was still alive, gawk at him, and shake his hand.
“G’wan old-timer!”
“Sportcoat, you showed ’em!”
“Sport . . . eres audaz. Estás caliente, bebé. Patearles el culo!”
“Sportcoat, come bless my son!” a young pregnant mother shouted, her hands on her rounded stomach.
Sportcoat endured it all with a blend of awe, bashfulness, and pride, shaking hands and enjoying free drinks that were poured for him from Joaquin’s window, paid for by his neighbors, the window now manned by Miss Izi, who apparently knew enough about her ex-husband to know he didn’t give a hoot who poured the hooch so long as the fifty cents per shot was collected. Unbeknownst to him, she kept a quarter from each pour for herself. Handling charges.
The rush at Sportcoat was merry until Dominic Lefleur, the Haitian Sensation and Sportcoat’s neighbor in Building 9, appeared with his friend Mingo, a horrid-looking old man with a pitted, pimply face. In his hand was a horrible-looking homemade doll, which consisted of three tiny couch pillows stuck together with a head that looked and felt suspiciously like four size-D batteries taped together covered by cloth. Dominic slapped Sportcoat on the back, held the doll out to him, and said, “You are now protected.”