"HARRY & IVORY" – Chapter 10

"Harry & Ivory"

A love story you have not heard before.

   Chapter Ten

    "Down to Earth"

    Sunday indicated which of her suitcases was to go into the T-bird and which was to be carried up the stairs. "Only one night, Harry," she repeated.
    "Yeah, yeah...." He watched her glomming around the white Thunderbird Danny had provided. She looked so contented. Harry was glad for her, but he wondered about the black mafia in Tallahassee since she had gotten a new title so easily.
    "I need a screwdriver," Sunday said.
    "We can put the tag on in the morning, baby. I'm beat."
    "Tonight."
    Harry sighed. He toted up his own suitcase and the garment bag first – the garment bag with the shirts Annie had ironed for him the night before. He looked down from the balcony. Sunday was not in sight, and he needed her to toss up his keys. He hung the bag from a planter and half-way down spotted Sunday – across the street. She was bending over the gate padlock at the driveway there and trying out his keys in the lock. Harry wondered if she was crazier than he figured and hesitated before going over there. The street lights had just begun coming on when they arrived and Harry was disgusted with the sodium-vapor lamps, with their ugly, deathly orange glow – how it was now mutating the brilliant blue of Sunday's taffeta dress into a baby-shit tan. He headed across his front yard and quietly crossed the street, trying to figure out just what she could be doing. He caught her elbow from behind.
    "What are you..."
    She whirled around and swung with her free arm, slapping Harry's arm away. "Git away from me!"
    It wasn't Sunday.
    The girl spit, sending a gob winging past Harry's ear so close he could feel the fine spray around it dusting his face.
    "Git! No-good-honky-motherfucker!"
    Harry backed away, dumbfounded – crushed by the intensity of the counter-attack. The hatred in her eyes. Her readiness to fight to survive.
    And from the front she didn't look anything like Sunday. "I thought you were..."
    "Git!" A straight-edge razor appeared in her hand, flicked open and ready to cut him. The girl stood her ground with a wide stance, eyes locked into his.
    "I was just..."
    "Move it!" She feinted a lunge and Harry backed up farther. "I thought you were my girlfriend, Sunday." He kept on stepping backwards, watching her eyes. "That's her name. Sunday. She's older than you, but from the back, well...." Harry turned his head just briefly enough to make sure he wasn't about to trip on anything. "That was beautiful, what you just did." He nodded his head. "Beautiful defense! And you're beautiful."
    "I know. Keep moving!"
    Harry turned away sadly and saw Sunday getting out of the T-bird. "See? That's her. I didn't know she was in the car."
    "I don't want to hear the story!"
    "Okay! Okay!" Harry returned to his yard where Sunday was waiting for him, hands on her hips.
    "Having a little argument with one of your honeys?"
    "Sunday, I didn't know where you were. I went over there thinking it was you."
    "We all look the same, I know. And we're all stupid enough to believe anything, right Harry?"
    "Wrong, Sunday. I never saw her before."
    "Harry – that little black bitch doesn't look anything like me! And she can't be older than fifteen!"
    Harry turned around but the girl had made it through the gate and was heading for her duplex.
    "Harry! Look at me!"
    Harry sighed.
    "She give better head than me?"
    "Baby, I've never seen her before!"
    "Oh, Harry, I can see The Lord has His work cut out for Him if I am to save you!"
    "After I fuck you!"
    "Oh, you are not fucking this fine lady!" Sunday stomped up to the pickup and began hauling her things over to the Thunderbird.
    "Where did you put the tag?" Harry said. "The license plate. I'll put it on for you and then you can drive your darky ass home!"
    "I can do it myself!"
    Harry pulled his keys out of the truck and headed up the stairs. Once inside, he began turning on lights.
    Fifteen....
    He sucked in a deep breath and slowed down, and switched on the lights in the bathroom. The fixtures and the tiles gleamed – everything so clean, and neat. Blue towels on the rack, neatly folded – his. Next to them, a stack of fluffy, pink towels for.... With a toe, he straightened out the bath-mat.
    Fifteen.... Harry angrily shook his head, trying to cast off his curse.
    He pictured Ivory. Standing tall and serene under the skylight after her morning shower, beads of water glistening on her glossy-black skin. He watched himself toweling her off, standing behind her, her arms outstretched while he worked the towel under them, and under her firm little breasts....
    Another deep breath. Holding it. Letting it out slowly with a hiss. Harry moved on to the bedroom and switched on the overhead chandelier, and the lamps on either side of the big, brass bed. He had to smile when he realized the bed-spread was the same "Heavenly blue" of Sunday's taffeta dress. Harry believed in omens.
    "Harry, you are the only man I know with a bathroom with three doors." Sunday was coming through the bathroom from the kitchen side. She stopped and opened the middle door to the living-room.
    "Is that a Molotov cocktail in your hand?"
    "No, Harry." Sunday smiled and held up the bottle. "It's my lotion." She set it down on the shelf beside the tub. "Our skin gets chalky – ashy looking – after a shower. I rub this lotion all over me before I'm completely dry."
    "Oh ho! You're staying?" He moved up to her and gave her shoulders a playful shake.
    "Don't gloat! And it's only for tonight. If you put my new tag on my new Thunderbird, and carry up the bag I left down there." Sunday gave him a shove. "Now go!"
    "Leave all the doors open if you're getting a bath – so I can watch when I get back." He switched on the electric wall heater. "Just turn this off if the bathroom get's too warm. And this switch over here is for the tanning lamps in the ceiling. But you probably won't need those!"
    "I'm taking a shower, not some kind of harem bath. And you can be sure the curtain will be closed!"
    "Make sure it's on the inside of the tub so the water..."
    "We're not all stupid, Harry."
    "We? Oh, that's right, you all look the same!" Harry laughed, and grabbed a screwdriver from a kitchen drawer. Leaving the outside door ajar, he hopped down the stairs two at a time. In the darkness at the bottom was Sunday's suitcase but he didn't see it in time and in a flash of pure awareness he felt himself flinging headlong and impacting the ground. Pain burned in his knees and the palms of his hands as he slowly picked himself up from the gravel walkway. "Shit!" He moved around to the side of the building, where there was a light under the steps, and inspected his hands. Tiny droplets of blood were oozing from some of the scratches. He remembered the screwdriver and looked around. Spotting it at the far edge under the staircase, he got down on his hands and knees and reached. He was hurting, and his neck felt strained, but he was glad the fall had not ripped through the knees of his favorite pair of faded red-tag Levi's.
    The shiny license plate was sitting on the truck of the car, and Harry had to get back down on his knees to loosen the screws on the bumper and put it on.
    "Well," he said to himself, cheering up with the image of Sunday in his bathtub, "the screwdriver could've gone through my heart."
    "What?"
    Harry's hands tightened around the screwdriver. He turned slowly and looked up. It was the girl from across the street.
    "Should I tell you to git?"
    "I was looking through the window an' I saw you fall. An' then it looked like you fell again. So I went to the door an' when I looked out I saw you on the ground here behin' your car an' I thought, well.... An' then Mama told me to get back inside an' shut the door an' that did it."
    "Huh!" Harry got to his feet with some difficulty. I was just putting Sunday's new license plate on. This is her car."
    "You okay?"
    "Yeah. Well – that was nice of you to come over." She was still wearing her party dress and Harry wanted to take his eyes away from her face, just for a second to check out the rest of her, but he didn't. He hadn't noticed how light she was before, either, and her freckles.
    "Well, good, okay.... I better be goin' then."
    "Wait. Wait!"
    "No, I better go now." The girl glanced back to her side of the street. A large woman in a bathrobe had pulled the curtains back on a front window and was watching them.
    "How long you been living there?"
    "Oh, we moved in right before Christmas. Before you left. I saw you packing up your truck."
    "Well, my name is Harry. What's yours?"
    "Jeanie."
    "Jeanie? I knew a Jeannette once. But she didn't have those pretty freckles."
    "Pretty? I hate them!"
    "Hey! There's guys who'd kill for a face like yours."
    "Not in my school! I have a step-sister named Jeannette."
    "Yeah?" Harry's heart speeded up. "Is she real tall? Long, conked hair?"
    "Oh, no." Jeanie lowered her voice and glanced back across the street again. "Jeannette's real short, and fat. I have to go now."
    "Wait. How old are you?"
    "Fourteen."
    "Oh.... Too bad. Well, you sure sling a mean razor for fourteen!"
    Jeanie smiled. "Bye, Harry."
    Harry called after her. "Oh, Jeanie, if you were just a little older!"
    Jeanie stopped, half-way across the street. She turned and gave Harry a little wave – then ran to her gate. Without looking back she clanged the gate shut behind her and snapped the padlock. Harry watched her trot up to the door of her duplex and catch a swat from her mother as she dashed through.
    Harry's heart was hammering.
    Fourteen....
    Jeanie.... With a step-sister named Jeannette.
    What are the chances of that?!
    What are you doing to me, Lord?
    Harry looked up at the heavens but in the neighborhood the sky was a dead-zone as pallid as a blank TV screen.
    Don't get me wrong, though, Lord. Don't ever stop!
    As he finished tightening the screws on the T-bird, the pain in his knees became worse, and he had to use his hands on the trunk lid to haul himself upright. Picking up the suitcase, he moved up the stairs one step at a time.
    Sunday opened the door for him. She was still dressed.
    "No shower?"
    "I was waiting on my bag. And watching the action down there."
    "Action?"
    "That young'un you say you don't know."
    "Her mother sent her over to see if I was okay. They saw me fall." Harry showed Sunday his palms. "I tripped on your suitcase at the bottom of the stairs. My knees are swelling up, too."
    "Oh, Harry, I didn't see you fall! You take your jeans down, I want to look at those knees! And I want you to take your shower first. Go on now, git!"
    When Harry finally slid into bed, clean and with a fresh jolt of marijuana tripping all the right nerves in his system, he couldn't believe how good it felt. And he was glad that he always changed sheets and pillow cases before leaving on a trip. Lying on his back, he savored the delicious feeling of the blood circulating through his weary arms and legs.
    "Harry, I need you." Sunday was calling from the bathroom.
    He sighed and got up. She was standing beside the tub in a blue, terry-cloth robe. A plastic shower cap (one of the ugliest items God ever invented, Harry thought) covered her hair.
    "I need you to adjust the water."
    "You don't know how to turn on the water?"
    "Well, yes, Harry, but I need it to be just right before I step in."
    "Okaaaay...." Harry leaned toward the valves and ran a hand all the way up Sunday's leg instead.
    She slapped at him. "Can't you wait?"
    "Not hardly." Harry turned the water on and adjusted the valves until the shower was a little warmer than he would have preferred for himself. "Okay?"
    Sunday plunged a hand into the stream. "Okay, Now go, Harry. Go!"
    Harry climbed back into his wonderful bed and closed his eyes. The room was a little on the cool side, but Harry was too lazy to get back out to turn up the thermostat. Besides, when Sunday got into bed with him it would be warm enough.
    One blue-eyed baby coming up!
    That means unprotected sex, boy!
    "Yeah, well...."
    You going to risk Annie's health, too?
    "I have angels watching my channel."
    Maybe so, but who's watching hers?
    Harry crossed himself the way he had seen Catholics do in movies. The way he had seen the Cubans do. His fingers smelled like tuna.
    Harry sniffed again.
    Jeannette and Tracy smelled good, and they were hookers!
    Oh, Tracy....
    Oh, Jeannette.... Where are you now? I hope you're OK, beautiful.
    He heard the water turn off. He switched off the lamp on her side and adjusted his body in the bed – and waited. He heard Sunday test the locks on the front door. Remembering the gun he kept under the covers, he felt for it and stuck it between the mattress and the box-spring on his side. Eyes half closed, he heard and felt the lights switching off, one-by-one, all over the flat. There was a rustling next to him as Sunday got down to her knees in the semi-darkness.
    "Sweet Jesus," she whispered. "Sweet Jesus, please bring this man joyfully into Your saving grace. And thank you, dear Father, for.... Thank you, dear Father. All praise. Amen."
    Harry felt Sunday slide under the covers on the far side. Her smooth arms slid around him and her warm legs pressed up against his. Her bush felt like Brillo. She pressed a soft kiss into his ear. "Are you asleep, Baby?"
    "Mmmmmmm. You feel good, Sunday."
    She kissed his neck, and tongued the soft parts of it, and began to work her way down. "You're in Heaven still, Harry," she whispered. "And you still don't know it.

* * *

    Sunday did not get up after the alarm went off. The windows were still dark and Harry wondered why she had set the clock so early. He eased out of bed and groaned, the pain in his knees reminding him of the fall the night before. He wished he had a cup of hot, black coffee. The floor felt cold as he padded into the kitchen, and he wished he had put on slippers. The tea kettle was empty and he had to fill it first.
    While the water heated on the stove, Harry moved back to the bedroom and looked at Sunday lying there in the dim light, her head partially covered by a pillow. Bending over, Harry picked up a pillow from the floor and carried it back to the kitchen. It was the only pillow he didn't like. It was tacky. It didn't fit the decor. (Well, he'd liked it at first, anyway). It was a small thing, rectangular, and shaped to resemble a Florida license plate. White with a green border and logo, and numbers identical to the ones on Love Jones' tag. The kids had given it to him the Christmas before last. "We had to order the numbers special, Daddy!" Harry lifted the lid on the kitchen garbage can and shoved it in. The tea kettle began to whistle. After turning it off, Harry hunted in the cupboard for two cups.
    "Here's your coffee!" Annie would say every morning up at the farm – bringing it to him in bed.
    The jar of instant was nearly empty and Harry had to get a knife to cut the seal on another. After pouring the hot water, he added just a little cold from the tap to make it perfect. But he set the cups back down again before carrying them into the bedroom so that he could pull the pillow back out of the garbage. He looked at it. Maybe he could keep it in the pickup from now on. Air out the tuna first, though. He needed a pillow that size there – the truck was where it belonged – not in his perfect, Miami flat. And by keeping it in the truck the kids would see that he still had it, cherished it. Harry leaned it up against the front door so he wouldn't forget. He remembered how sad Annie and the kids had looked when he left this time, and bent over to turn the pillow right-side-up. Just a few hours before, after Sunday had gotten him all excited, he had told her to raise up a little so he could shove that pillow under her ass.
    "Here's your coffee!" Harry said in a loud, cheerful voice.
    "Thank you, Sweet Jesus," Sunday whispered. She raised herself up and reached for it. "Thank you, Harry."
    Perry had looked especially sad, and Harry remembered that they had not gone exploring or rabbit hunting one time during the entire visit.
    "I'll be back soon, Perry," he had said. "We'll get the boat all cleaned up – go fishing – take a trip up the Choctawhatchee River. Maybe camp overnight on a sand-spit...."

     <end chapter-10>

Humanism with attitude! Rev: 25 March 2005