"HARRY & IVORY" – Chapter 5

"Harry & Ivory"

A love story you have not heard before.

   Chapter Five

    "Commerce"

    When they neared the Suwannee River bridge on their way back to Miami, Harry chanced a light-hearted invitation. "Let's take a little romantic break. Get close – watch the river go by – like last time."
    "Oh, no," Sunday said. "I can't give in to that."
    "You didn't give in last time."
    Sunday smiled. "Okay."
    A few minutes later they were back at Harry's favorite spot, and he quickly had the blanket spread out and a beer open. Sunday was pouring coffee from his thermos.
    "No fishermen," Harry said. "No brain-dead teenagers. We've got the place all to ourselves again."
    "Hmmmm...." Sunday looked around and slid closer to him. She snapped a finger against the beer bottle as he put his other arm around her. "Now when you find Jesus as your Lord and Master, you won't even want to drink that mess."
    "God's not against alcohol as such." His hand found the arm-hole of her white blouse and slid inside. "Heavy," he whispered, lifting a breast and letting it plop back into the palm of his hand. "Full of milk. White milk."
    Sunday stiffened at the word white. "If our milk is white like yours it just goes to show we're all the same as your people."
    "My people! Oh, ho! Anyway, the milk being white only proves that we're all the same as animals. Gotchya!" Sunday's bra was a front-loader and Harry finally managed to disconnect the clasp. "Oh, baby, you have such beautiful tits. Oh, baby...."
    Sunday placed a hand over his and held it. "Harry, you are such a horny man! You've been with your wife all weekend! Now this is as far as you get, so you can give up whatever ideas you had."
    "I didn't sleep with her." Harry was not lying. He and Annie had argued almost the whole time he was home. In addition, Harry had spent most of Saturday night lying awake and playing little movies in his mind about Ivory: what she looked like, what it would be like to make love with her, what kind of scene they could create in Miami.... But all of this was history now.
    "Would you be lying to me, Harry?"
    "Sunday, if I wasn't honest I wouldn't have told you I was married."
    "Oh. Okay...."
    "I have a question. Can I talk with you about anything and get an honest answer?"
    "Jesus listens to everything I say."
    With her hand still over his, Harry's fingers were busying themselves with toughening up the nipple of the warm breast he was cupping. Sunday leaned in closer and Harry gloried in the strange feel of her tightly-drawn hair against his ear. He tried to move her down to a reclining position but she resisted.
    "Harry – the only way you're going to get you some of this lady is by rape, 'cause this lady belongs to The Lord!"
    "Are you trying to tell me you're a virgin?"
    "No.... I used to be much different. But that was before The Lord Jesus found me and saved me. I used to wear short-shorts and loose little tank tops and get men to buy me things, and then...."
    "And then, what?"
    Sunday shook her head.
    "Do you have any kids?"
    Sunday shook her head again.
    Harry suddenly forced her back and pinned her down with his body. He made sure that she could feel his erection.
    "No, Harry."
    It did not seem to him that she was putting up much of a struggle. But no means no, right? Anything more is sexual harassment, right? Isn't that what they always say?
    "Please, Harry, don't."
    Harry stopped his probing and slid down a little, and laid his head between her breasts. A wonderful feeling came over him as he circled her body with his arms. Kind of thick-waisted, though.... Her heart beat rapidly in his ear.
    "I have to have you, Sunday. I knew it when I first saw you. First saw you!"
    "Me, too. I could feel it. Maybe – maybe Jesus has a plan for us." Now Sunday's arms were around him, also. "Jesus loves you, Harry. You just don't know it yet."
    With his head buried in her bosom, her words seemed true. She began to hum a little tune into his ear and Harry allowed himself to rest in her loving embrace. He laid there in the comfort of her warm body and the eerie power of her sweet voice for the longest time. And when they finally separated, Harry's erection was gone. Sunday looked at him accusingly and smiled when she had to wipe Harry's slobber away before she re-clasped her bra, and Harry, getting to his feet, accidentally knocked his beer bottle over and was surprised to see that it was still full.
    But later that night, lying awake alone in his bedroom in Miami, Harry could still hear her voice, could still feel his cheek against her breasts, could still feel his erection pressing against her legs as her arms gently closed around his back.
    I should've raped her.
    She said that was how I could have her. She didn't sound angry or scared about it.
    I gave up too soon....
    Why did I give up?
    She sure has a big ass....
    Don't like those two thick hairs next to her nipples, either.... Should've plucked them out.
    And all that Jesus talk....
    Harry got up and went to the bathroom, and on the way back decided against another Corona. He also decided to get up on the roof at the next opportunity and clean up the skylight in the bathroom – chicks liked stuff like skylights and big, tiled lavatories.
    After shoving a pillow between his legs, and with another pillow in his arms to hug (chicks liked a lot of pillows, too, and Harry had plenty extra), he finally fell asleep as he tried to picture what Ivory would look like.

* * *

    Harry awoke with a start. He peered at the clock. 2:00 AM....
    The dream!
    Moonlight from the bathroom skylight streamed into the bedroom from the open door, and orange haze from the sodium-vapor street lamps filtered through the gauze curtains of the open windows. Harry propped himself up and looked around at his beautiful place.
    His heart was still beating rapidly from the events in the dream. He had been home with Annie and the kids. They were in the future and they had to rip people off from time-to-time to survive. There was no law. They were raiding an abandoned city and Annie was along at first. Then they were back near the farm. Their neighbor, old Johnny Small, was throwing dead Cubans into the back of his pickup, his hat on sideways, a cigar in his mouth. "They make good fertilizer," he said to Harry.
    Harry marveled at the clarity, the total recall. The last time he'd had a dream so vivid he was just a boy. He thought about Perry and another part of the dream came back. They were all at home and a convoy from the city was moving in on them. Invaders, rolling down their dirt road. Trucks and home-made tanks, all painted gray. Perry was on a small hill, picking off the drivers with Harry's bolt-action 30-06. Harry and Johnny Small had caught one of the vehicles separated from the others, and the two of them were forcing the occupants out at gunpoint. The truck was full of fat, old colored women and Johnny Small shot one of them because she tripped and fell as she was trying to get down from the back. She was dressed like Aunt Jemima, and while she lay wounded in the dirt, kicking and twitching in her own blood, Perry came running up and pumped a shot into her head. To finish her.
    Perry!
    Harry scrunched his eyes shut and pressed his hands tight against his temples. The details of the dream began to slip away, wispy snatches of it at a time. A cool breeze came up for a moment, the gauze draperies floating inward with the freshness of it. Harry got up, and when he was finished in the bathroom he padded about the upper flat, admiring the ambiance and all of his things, stopping to look into mirrors, looking back at himself, happy with what he saw. But something was missing....
    He checked to make sure that his .32 automatic pistol was where it belonged under a pillow on the sofa, then went to the kitchen and made sure the little .22 automatic was still hidden behind the toaster. (He knew that the 9MM Walther was under the covers back at the bed). Then he opened the front door wide. It was the door to the balcony and the outside staircase and the street out front. The flat was in an older part of Miami, between Allapattah and the airport. What Harry loved about it, besides the proximity to his job, was the old-timey buildings. So many different ethnic groups had claimed portions of this area now that in Harry's neighborhood there was no majority of one or the another. The mix made the neighborhood uniquely safe. American blacks, Cubans, Santeria Cuban blacks, Chinese, Dominicans, Nicaraguans, Salvadoreans, Vietnamese, Trinidadean Indians, Indian Indians, a few Haitians who weren't able to crowd into Little Haiti farther east.... The Santerias used the only vacant lot on the block for ritual sacrifices, at night, their drums booming. An ancient, white-cracker lady who lived in a large, pretty, ginger-bread house built of Dade County pine back in the old days when only whites lived here, adjacent to the grown-over vacant lot, once told Harry that she was born in that house and would never move, "...voodoo doin's or not!"
    Back in bed, Harry stretched, and turned on his side where he could see through the open front door through the bedroom door. On the second story flat, bugs were not a problem – screens not necessary – a Magic City benefit. The butt of the 9MM P-38 rested against his hip under the covers. Harry was indulging in one of his favorite fantasies. The neighborhood was full of young ladies – all different races and mixes of races. One night (he just knew it) one of these foxes, who would have been keeping an eye on him, would appear at his open doorway. She would be needing something. Finding him asleep in his big, brass bed in his wonderful, paneled, carpeted bedroom, she would slip off her heels and tip-toe up to him, and gently wake him. She was Rapunzel, and Tinkerbell, and Tiger Lily, and Cleopatra, and the Queen of Sheba. And Hagar.
    But all Harry could see was Ivory. Tall, regal, quiet, gentle, elegant, loving, sweet – with a revolver in her purse. (An ordinary .38 police special came to mind). He had been dreaming of her all his life.
    One time an attractive, young woman did walk in on Harry through that open front door. It happened during a rare time when Harry had decided to go home for lunch. He did not hear her footsteps on the staircase and she caught him by surprise, coming up behind him while he was frying up bacon chips to stir into his scrambled eggs. When he turned around, his heart pounding up, she said, with a Spanish accent: "Heart-attack food. I'm sorry. I thought you were this Spanish guy I know."
    Harry was speechless for a second. She immediately headed back out and Harry followed her as far as the balcony. He tried to talk her into staying, just for a minute – give him her name.
    "I'm an okay person!" was his last shot as she clicked out of the courtyard to the street. She had turned, then, and looked up at him at the top of the stairs.
    "I know!" she said with that accent, her dark eyes sparkling. "Really! I know! Don't worry about it!"

* * *

    On the job one warm, November day – warm even for Miami – one of the Cubans knelt on the cockpit sole of the boat Harry was working on (he was threading a wiring harness up under the starboard gunwale) and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "You remember the moonshine?"
    Harry smiled and nodded. "Yup! Last jug. My tithe."
    "Tithe?"
    "Freebie."
    The man grinned, stood up, and whistled one of those attention-getting shrieks that only a Cuban can do. The roach-coach happened to be pulling into the boat-yard just then – the big, fancy one on the Mercedes chassis – popular because the vendor always had North American food on one side and Cuban stuff on the other, with a working espresso machine at the back. But as it was stopping, Danny (Harry's favorite Cuban so far and apparently a boss), was waving and shouting at the others. They would be driving to the cantina on Twenty-Seventh Avenue for lunch today. In Harry's pickup. The beer and food on Danny, the whiskey on Harry. Cubans, Harry thought. Noisy, to-the-point, swift decision makers.
    When it was time, and after another burst of dialogue, Danny and Harry got in the cab, and the back of the pickup filled up with a gang of wiry, intense Cubans. At the corner of the cantina at River Drive, "Love Jones" came roaring and sliding into the gravel parking lot. Everybody jumping out – more racket – wild gestures and fists holding fat rolls of bills – then peace. Harry's whiskey bottle passed around with grins and nods of appreciation. Several of the men went into the cantina.
    "One-hundred-and-twenty proof!" Harry said proudly, feeling good and fucked up already. And he was somewhat amazed that the pure, clear whiskey was such a hit. Must be the illegality of it – the unavailability. No, Harry preferred it to Jack Daniel's himself so why not them? He often sold it in Miami for two or three times what he paid in the panhandle, but mostly he brought it along as gifts for his reefer customers. Not that these Cuban guys were customers....
    Danny emerged from the cantina with a case of Heineken and another Cuban carrying a covered basket. One of the men pushed a hot empanada into Harry's hand – a meat pie.
    They were all sitting now, eating and drinking, outside, sitting on Love Jones' tail-gate and on the empty, up-side-down, five-gallon insecticide cans the establishment provided for seats. One of the men asked a question in Spanish and pointed at Harry.
    "He say: can he fuck his girlfren' after – you know – after he drink the whiskey."
    Harry touched a finger to his lower eyelid and pulled it down. They all laughed. In twenty minutes they were all drunk.
    "I got to get back to work!" Harry said suddenly, but without getting up. Danny shrugged his shoulders and translated. More laughing. One of the men walked over to Harry and kissed him on top of the head, and sat back down. The jug, nearly empty now, passed around for the last time. Another noisy but brief discussion, then total silence. Harry had not understood a word.
    Danny pulled the can he was sitting on closer to Harry's and draped an arm around his shoulder. "You know, Harry," he said, with a drunken seriousness. "We all old peoples. Older – than you. You, what, thirty-five? Forty?"
    "Thirty-eight." Harry thought about it. It was true. There were no young guys in the crew.
    "Forty-eight," Danny said, pointing to his heart. "He pointed to Rosa. "Thirty-five. Rosa is – the baby!"
    Harry nodded.
    "Harry. I never go to jail. Not one time."
    "Me, neither."
    "I die first!"
    The other Cubans nodded in agreement.
    "Look at Carlos," Danny said. "Carlos! Stand up!"
    Carlos stood. He was a thin man, and always walked with a limp. Harry liked him, too, even though Carlos had never spoken a word of English to him. The man was about fifty, Harry figured, and had black hair on one side and silver on the other, the colors split right down the middle, dividing his moustache as if lightening had struck him.
    "Show my brother here!" Danny said.
    Carlos lifted an arm. It was scarred from the elbow to the wrist. Danny got up and took the thin, tough arm of Carlos in his hands. Harry watched studiously through the alcohol haze.
    "One bullet go in here," Danny said, "and come out here."
    Harry stood and looked closer. The bullet had travelled the whole length inside Carlos' forearm and busted out at the elbow.
    "Pull out the shirt," Danny said.
    Carlos pulled off his sweaty T-shirt and jerked it over his head.
    "One bullet in here," Danny said, "and out here." Danny was pointing to the man's stomach. "An' – one bullet go in here an' stay. One bullet in here, and come out here. One bullet..."
    Carlos was loosening his belt. The trousers dropped down to his naked balls. Several cars whooshed by the parking lot, and Harry turned around to confirm that this whole scene was indeed taking place in reality, in "The Magic City", (which is how Miami bills itself).
    "...in here and come out here. One bullet..."
    Harry put his Heineken down and stepped up to Carlos and hugged him. Carlos grinned, and kissed Harry on the neck. The other men were all grinning and nodding and murmuring in Spanish. Carlos pulled his pants back up and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the balled-up T-shirt. They all sat back down.
    "Six bullets," Danny said. "When the police man, he put six more bullets in his gun, Carlos get his gun out..." (Danny, patting his back pocket) "...and Carlos go, BOOM! No more police!" Danny pried the cap off of another Heineken, poured some off onto the ground (presumably for the gods), and slobbed down half of it with several, long gulps. "My sister, she say – Danny? You drink too much! I say – Sister? I drink a little bit. I sleep a little bit. I fuck a little bit. And one day I die. Maybe before you. Maybe after."
    Everyone nodded, and tilted back a swallow.
    "Harry – his family – they no go to the church," Danny said, out of the blue. He repeated what he had just said, in Spanish. Harry remembered telling him that one day, and then had forgotten about it.
    "Not good. Harry! My mother, she go in the church. My ex-wife. My children – they go. And his wife. (Danny pointing to the other men). And his, and his, and his. And the mothers, when they are alive. The women, they pray for us. Very importan'!"
    More laughing. More green bottles being pried open, the first part of the drink poured on the ground. It was a precious time. A special day. Pure, honest, and clean. It was Harry's debut.
    "When we go to Bahama, you know, on a run, we no go in the church – no – we do this." Danny got down on his knees on the gravel. "We pray, like this, in the front the virgin. Carlos, he have the virgin in the front his house. Glass box – shrine, very nice. You know? We pray: Mother Mary, please, no trouble. No Marine Patrol. No Coast Guard. No police. Please! No trouble with the boat!" Danny got back to his feet and brushed off the sharp, dusty depressions in the knees of his khakis. The others were all nodding and looking very solemn.
    "Harry. Can you do that?"
    All eyes were on him.
    "Now?"
    Sudden laughter and tilting of shiny, beer-soaked chins.
    "No, Harry, not now."
    silence....
    Finally, Danny said: "You got driver license?"
    "It's in the truck." Harry tried to get up but the Cuban motioned him down.
    "It's okay – I see later. I want you – drive some shit up north for us. Maybe – Thanksgiving. You know, all peoples go for Thanksgiving. Interstates full! I pay you good money, my brother. Big bucks! Your truck is okay? No trouble? No break down?"
    "My truck is beautiful," Harry said. "No problem!" He sucked in a deep breath, and wished he hadn't drunk so much, and wondered how much money was in this for him or if they would forget about it when they sobered up.
    "We talk tomorrow," Danny said. "No fucking drinking!"
    Everyone stood up, and shook hands all around, and they all gave Harry a hug.
    "You drive the shit to Atlanta – you drive the money back to me. No money...." Danny drew a finger slowly across his throat.
    He did not say what kind of shit he was talking about, and Harry didn't care.

* * *

    On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, Danny stopped by Harry's flat. They talked outside, sitting on the overstuffed couch Harry would drag out of the garage on sunny days. Danny's white, mint-condition Thunderbird, a '79 like Harry's Lincoln – the last of the big hogs – was parked out in front. Danny noticed that Harry could not keep his eyes off of it.
    "Don' worry, my brother. No reefer inside. The police – he see a Cuban with a fancy car – he say: 'Open the trunk! I want to see!'" Danny grinned, and clamped a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Listen, Harry! I see you with black peoples, you know, in the truck. Your black girlfren'. No good, Harry."
    Harry sighed. And he was surprised. "She's a Jesus freak. I meet her for lunch sometimes, that's all. She won't let me fuck her. Anyway, so what if I did, huh?"
    "She want to get married. Listen! Black peoples no good, Harry, for business. The police – he see. Pull over, motherfucker! I had black girlfren'." Danny gave his fist a wet, noisy kiss. "She make me cry like baby!" Another wet kiss on the fist. "Harry. One day I come home – everything gone. Everything! And all my money! Two week ago I see her – on the street – I honk – I call her name – she beautiful still! She so beautiful – I want to fuck her on the street! You know what she say? She want to borrow money."
    Harry handed him a bottle opener and Danny popped the cap off a Heineken, and poured a little onto the ground. "You take your black girlfren' to Atlanta?"
    "Only as far as Tallahassee."
    "I no like."
    "If we'd get pulled over, she'd run the police off with her mouth, her Bible."
    "Business is business, Harry. You fuck up, your ass is dead."
    Danny got up and Harry followed him out to the Thunderbird. "Beautiful machine, Danny." He wanted to mention his Lincoln but figured it would sound like he had something better.
    "I give it to your girlfren'."
    "What?"
    "When you come back with my money. She fuck for a car. I know! Power window. Tilt wheel. AC! Cruise! Ha! A wife, she fuck for a car! She suck your brains out through your dick for a nice car!" Danny turned and gave Harry a hug. "Brother," he said.
    After Danny left, Harry went up to get a beer and a couple hits of smoke. He sat down on the top step and looked out over the street. He tried to picture Sunday behind the wheel of the T-bird but all he could see was her going down on Danny, her head bobbing up-and-down, her ripe tits heavy in his hands....
    "The Lord will provide," he said involuntarily. A stubborn erection grew in his jeans.
    He was going to get twenty dollars a pound to haul two-hundred pounds of the best, square grouper they had. Three, sixty-five pound plus bales of reefer to some dude in Atlanta they called "Papa". Four-thousand dollars. Two-hundred pounds was a drop in the bucket for Love Jones. Harry would load some old furniture in the back, on top of it – it was all in the garage and ready to load. No cocaine or shit like that, they promised. (Yeah, sure, Harry thought). People would see him on the highway and think he was just another loser redneck trying to move his poor family's meager household goods to the next opportunity. Harry figured that the Cubans would be easily quadrupling their money over whatever they were paying in the Bahamas. He had been listening. They knew he had been listening and that he was learning a few words of Spanish. (A surprise to him!). They did not seem to care, and Harry figured the run was a test for him. Small time stuff for them.
    Friday, when he had simply mentioned that he hadn't cashed his paycheck yet, one of them gave him a hundred dollar bill and told him to keep it.
    Okay! I love them!
    He thought about how Annie and the kids hated Cubans. He had already called home and told Annie he would be two days late for Thanksgiving, but that he had a few days off after that. Annie was happy about his lie that he would be getting double time at the boat-yard for working Thanksgiving.
    Harry wondered if Danny was really going to give away the Thunderbird – so old, so fine. Cars like that were already going up in value to collectors. And it would be a perfect ghetto cruiser. He pictured Sunday, looking at her new car for the first time. She would say: "Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Sweet Jesus!"
    Then she would undoubtedly fuck Danny's brains out

     <end chapter-5>

Humanism with attitude! Rev: 20 March 2005