"HARRY & IVORY" – Chapter 18

"Harry & Ivory"

A love story you have not heard before.

   Chapter Eighteen

    "Self Defense"

    The next day Harry took Ivory along to the boat-yard, where he picked up the rest of his tools. Then he wrote a check for Annie: one-thousand dollars and fifty cents, (the fifty cents a private joke). And when Ivory wasn't watching he wrote I love you! on the bottom. Things like this were impossible to explain to females, Harry was convinced. Including different kinds of love, or even if it were the same kind you could have more than one love running at the same time. The bitches say: Typical, male bullshit!
    Better if you lie about it. Cheat.
    The post office was right around the corner and Harry bought a roll of stamps. A good feeling, a whole roll.... Ivory knew he was mailing a check home and was afraid he was doing it because they would be away for a long time. "I need to be goin' home tomorrow," she said.
    "Hell, we'll be back there before this mail gets there."
    Ivory was licking shut the envelope she had addressed to her own family. (Harry still had not tasted that tongue). "Then I don' need to mail my letter."
    "Yes you do – just in case. The best laid plans.... You didn't write very much."
    "I jus' tol' 'em not to worry an' I tol' 'em I be in Miami an' that I be home soon. An' that we be goin' steady an' you give me your necklace. You didn' write nothin'! You jus' stuck a check in there."
    "They'll be happy enough to get the money."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm. I unnerstan' you love your family, an' you love your wife."
    "You do?"
    "Oh, yes.... An' I know you love me."
    "Jeez, Ivory! Well, I do!"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm. I know you can love your wife different, or if you love her the same.... Maybe I fall in love one day."
    "Well, when you do fall in love, I sure hope it's me."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    They stopped at a Lum's in Coconut Grove for steak-burgers and fries and beer in frosted glasses. At an outside table – it was such a pretty day.
    "Now comes the hard part." Harry was digging for the phone number Timmy had given him. The truck terminal. "Now I have to beg Timmy," he mumbled. He wished he had called from home, hell, he could call tomorrow. Fuck it!
    "I seen pictures of places like this, people eatin' outside under umbrellas, jus' watchin' the cars go by an' lookin' at all the other people."
    "Yeah.... We can go to the Banana Boat tonight if you want to. You'll love it. They have this deck right on the waterway and you can get ripped while you watch boats go by instead of cars. And they have a band, and we can dance, and you can wear that new Patrick Kelly dress and your new heels."
    "They don' care 'bout us, you know – 'bout me bein' black?"
    "Sheeeit no! You'll be a star! They'll love you!"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    "Ivory...." Harry lowered his voice. "Do you smoke reefer?"
    "Nooo.... Well, sometime. My Daddy he say onetime maybe it help my problem but it make me scared. An' after I smoke it I go to my special place an' I hide, an' I ain' gonna do it here in the city, no, not me, wif' no place to hide after. No!"
    "Hey, that's okay. I was just curious. I asked you because I haven't had any since the day I picked you up. I've been smoking that shit for years and I just realized I hardly ever think about it – with you around. So much for marijuana being addictive! Ha!"
    "It's not," the old lady at the next table said. Harry turned in his seat and checked out the ancient, retired couple. They both smiled.
    "You guys must have ears like owls," Harry said.
    The man laughed. "Japanese hearing aids!" He pointed to both ears. "The best! Stereo!"
    The lady said: "When we're at a concert, the music runs right down your spine!"
    "Makes your toes itch!" the old man said. He readjusted his beret and winked.
    Harry laughed. "Only in Miami! How long you guys been married?"
    "Married? Sheeit!" the lady said.
    "Fifty-three years. Got the receipt under my hat."
    "If you don't subtract the years we were divorced. We were divorced ten years. I moved to Miami Beach and he stayed in Jacksonville with his little under-age couch-potato. He'd come home tired from work every day and she'd be all primped up and ready to rock and roll.... He missed my cooking, too."
    Harry laughed, but Ivory looked sad.
    "Yeah, I was starting to feel inadequate." The man winked at Harry again. "So one day I bought my girlfriend a Porsche – you know what she said? She wanted a van. Not one of these new, twerpy mini-vans but a big one. So I took the Porsche back and bought her the van. I thought I was saving twenty-five thousand bucks. The next day I came home and my place was cleaned out!"
    "So he sends me the twenty-five thousand and a dozen roses."
    "You accepted, I see," Harry said.
    The husband said: "She was tired of her boyfriend. He was old as the hills and always falling asleep on the commode."
    "Marriage is wonderful if you can make it past the middle part."
    "Well...." Harry said.
    "Come on, son," the old lady said. "You know your wife would kill for you if you'd let her!"
    "We don't know that, Harriet. This here was a happy couple before we put our two cents in."
    Harry looked at Ivory, who was staring into space.
    "Don't mind us, Ivory," Harriet said. "You two looked so beautiful – that's why we picked this table. Look around, all these dreary citizens, they all look the same."
    Ivory showed no sign of having heard. Harry shrugged his shoulders and turned back around toward her. She was sitting perfectly straight, as usual, but there was nothing going on in her eyes.
    A breeze came up when they left Lum's, blowing napkins off the tables and stirring up dust and dirt from the street. "Cold front coming in, Ivory. It's supposed to be cold tonight – might even rain. I hope it does. This is the dry season and we need rain."
    Another gust blew up and Ivory bent over to hold the hem of her dress over the scar on her knee. Love Jones was parked across the street.
    "Ivory, you could have a scar a mile long and you'd still be a fucking princess."
    "Maybe we don' need to be goin' to that Banana Boat tonight."
    "Yeah, well, if it's going to storm tonight...."
    "An' my new dancin' dress – it be too short."
    "You don't like it? It was made for you! Damn! If you could only see yourself – how you look!"
    "I know what I look like!"
    Harry reached for her hand to cross the street but she snatched it away. "An' if I be white, my scar would blend in an' I could make it disappear wif' make-up. That's what white ladies do!"
    "Ivory, everybody has flaws, if that's what you want to call it. I've poked my nose all over you, and you look like you came straight out of the box after you were shipped from Heaven."
    Ivory smiled, but just for a second.
    "Now give me your hand." Ivory placed her hand in his and they waited for traffic. "I know a tattoo parlor down in The Keys. One day we'll go there if you want, and we'll have that scar colored out. Okay?"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    "And then you'll be perfect."
    "Okay...."
    "So you do know how good you look."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm. 'Cept for my scar."
    "Ha!"
    "'Cept I rather be white."
    "Shit, Ivory, that's dumb!"
    "Well, that's just dumb me."
    "Well, one night of dancing, with all these dudes wanting to cut in, and you'll have a whole different attitude." Harry thought about the Banana Boat. Maybe it wasn't a good idea. Harry was sure she would get plenty of attention – too much attention.
    "I don' know how to dance."
    "Huh?"
    "I ain' never been dancin'. An' in school I went one time an' it was all white boys an' none of 'em dance wif' me. 'Cept for my brother, an' he was afraid to ast the girls. An' he took me an' we lef' early. An' when we was walkin' out the band started to play real loud an' everybody was clappin'. And laughin'. Anyhow, I don' know how. It ain' in my blood."
    A black girl who doesn't dance? "What about Soul Train? You ever watch that on TV? I used to learn by watching that."
    "Oh, yes, I use' to watch it. But I didn' get up an' do it, no, we only got this one big room in our house but Connie she get up an' do it right in front of the TV an' she be cuttin' it up an' gettin' down an' Daddy, he clap an' whistle. I think Connie be Daddy's favorite."
    "Ivory, how can somebody as intelligent and sweet as you be so full of shit?"
    "Maybe I ate too many shrooms."
    "Yeah, well, maybe...." Harry gave Ivory's hand a squeeze, and they started to cross the street. "How old were you when you started?"
    "Ohhh.... I think I was ten. Ten."
    "Ten!" Harry pictured Ivory ten years old. Cute cute cute! He unlocked her side of the pickup and this time she waited for him to open the door for her. Maybe it wasn't a practice he needed to foster. He watched her glide up into her seat. "Sometimes when I say something I know other people think is dumb, I say, like, 'I did too much acid when I was young!' And then they look at me for sure like I'm crazy. But that shit did me a lot of good. Before that I used to be real violent and get drunk every day and pick fights and stuff – so fuck what people think about LSD. I forgive them for they know not what they do."
    Ivory smiled, showing her teeth, Harry standing beside her at the curb. He leaned in and kissed her and she gave him a little peck back. An antique pickup truck with a FOR SALE sign on it whizzed past and honked. The pickup was almost the exact powder-blue color as Love Jones. Harry watched it go down the street and turn. "Robin-egg blue!"
    "Heavenly blue," Ivory said.
    Sunday said....
    "Right on!" Harry ran around to his side. He had to unlock his door because Ivory never thought to pull the button up for him. He cranked the engine and slammed her into gear. "I think it's an F-1. Did it have three Dagmars in the grille? I think it's a '51! I always wanted a '51 Ford pickup!" They hauled ass down the street and burned around the corner Harry thought the other truck had turned on. Five blocks down that street and there it was. Pulled off into an empty store lot behind a City of Miami motorcycle cop. A shiny, fat, black cop with a gray mustache. Harry pulled into the lot and ran up to the officer who was still dismounting, slow and easy, all the time in the world.
    "You saw the FOR SALE sign, too?"
    The cop turned. "No, and I didn't see a tag, either, or a stop before turning on red, or a brake light go on when I pulled him over."
    By now the driver, a young, bearded white boy in tattered jeans and work boots, was trotting up with his driver license in hand.
    "He can't be a bad dude," Harry said to the cop. "He passed by us when we were getting into our truck back there and he smiled and waved instead of burning rubber past us and shooting us a bird like most white, young, prejudiced assholes would!"
    The cop looked over the boy's license and handed it back. He looked over at Love Jones – and at Ivory. Then he ambled around to the front of the boy's pickup. "A fifty-one," he said. "We used to call these things here, uh..."
    "Dagmars," Harry said.
    "Yeah! Dagmars!"
    "Dagmars?" the boy said.
    "That was before your time." The cop pulled his helmet off and scratched his wooly-gray head.
    "TV star back then," Harry said. "From Denmark or someplace. Big tits."
    "Big jugs," the cop said. "Cans." The officer pulled his helmet back on and ambled back over to his bike and mumbled some stuff into the radio-mike. He mounted and cranked up, then thought better of it and dismounted again. He walked over to Love Jones – Ivory's side.
    "You okay, sister?"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    "You sure now." Hand on his pistol – eyes on Harry. "If not, this is the time to say something."
    "I be okay." Ivory kept on looking straight ahead.
    The cop gave Harry a hard look.
    "Her Daddy knows she's with me," Harry said. "She doesn't talk much but she's the most beautiful person."
    The cop went back to his bike and took off without looking back.
    "I owe you," the boy said.
    "No shit. How much for your truck? Anything wrong with it?"
    "It's perfect. My daddy did the restoration himself. Took two years." The boy followed Harry around as he looked it over. Sand blew in Harry's eyes when he got down on his knees and looked underneath. Harry got to his feet and looked under the hood. The flat-head V-8 looked clean. Original.
    "How much?"
    "Four thousand. It's perfect."
    "Except the brake lights don't work. Too much. No tag, so there's probably no title. What else is wrong?"
    "That's not too much. They're not making any more of these."
    "For good reason."
    "Three thousand. Daddy told me not to take a penny less."
    "Tell me the story about the title."
    "Well, I've got a Power-of-Attorney signed and notarized by the county judge in Liberty County.... And those miles on the speedo are real!"
    "Forty-eight thousand miles for a truck over forty years old? Give me a break! You mean, one-hundred-and-forty-eight thousand, or how about two-hundred-and-forty-eight?"
    "No! This used to belong to my grand-daddy and he kept it in the barn all these years because he was sick, and it took him twenty-five years to die!"
    "Then why did it have to be restored?"
    "The mice ate the seats and chewed up the wiring – stuff like that. But there's no rust! You saw."
    "No title though."
    "We can get you one!"
    "You seem awful eager about it."
    "I'm broke."
    "Two-thousand cash."
    "Twenty-five hundred."
    "Two-thousand. Right now. And you drive it back to my place. You can follow me." Harry counted up in his head how much money he would have left.
    "Deal!" the boy said.
    That would leave enough money to get home with, plus a little for some speed items he could buy in Miami for the flat-head. Harry had always wanted to dress up a flat-head Ford V-8. He could see the shiny aluminum Edelbrock heads on her now! And Annie was sure to kick back half the thousand he'd just sent. Which he was told he would need to take along on the road when he started truck driving. Expenses on the road. Food, laundry, motels.... Harry pictured laying over at his place in the country, starting out again the next morning in his big rig, the diesel growling, the kids running alongside, Annie blowing him a kiss and reminding him to send money. He pictured the family without him again, and wondering when he would catch a load that would bring him headed near home so he could take a few days off. He saw the chickens, and the dogs, and hunting with Pounder at dawn. Pounder sloshing and prancing through the cold swamp as the first rays of the sun filtered through the cypress. He remembered the last time he was home Perry wanted to go rabbit hunting with him but there wasn't time....
    "And the color's the same as your truck here! Mister? That's a good omen!"
    Harry reappeared in the present. The boy looked so innocent and willing to please. "It's a good omen," Harry said. "You're right. Okay, deal!"

* * *

    With the antique pickup safe in the yard, Harry dropped the boy off where he wanted to go, (the Tropicaire Flea Market on Bird Road), and came home to find Ivory in the shower. He cracked one of the bathroom doors to holler: "I'm home!" Then he got out the rest of his money and went to Ivory's purse to count what she was holding. It was not a happy feeling, knowing he would have to start economizing. No way to impress a lady!
    Ivory's purse was heavy. Harry knew he should be waiting until he could ask her for the money. But he went ahead and carefully slid out the nickel-plated revolver. It was an old H&R five-shot .38, but in good condition. And it was loaded. Harry turned it around in his hands.
    She lied!
    She said she left her gun at home!
    And there was no money. That shocked him for a second until he remembered that they had put her money with his after the incident at the stereo shop where the Haitian had enticed her outside. Harry sighed and was just about to slide the gun back into her purse when he looked up to see Ivory's head peeking out of the bathroom, watching him. She slammed the door shut and threw the bolt.
    Shit! Now she'll think I check on her all the time! And dig through her purse.... She'll be pissed about that!
    Rain began to pelt the windows and Harry ran outside to roll up windows. Then it began to dump, and with two vehicles to do Harry was soaked by the time he got back inside. Ivory was sitting in the middle of the living-room sofa in a lacy, pink baby-doll, her eyes downcast. The purse was in her lap and she had her hands over it. She was sitting bolt upright, knees together.
    Harry stripped off his wet shirt. "Your back never touches the chair," he said, trying to sound as if nothing was wrong. "You always sit so straight and look so relaxed at the same time – I don't think there's anybody else in the whole world who can do that."
    Ivory did not move. Harry suddenly felt danger and wondered if he could lunge for the purse before she could get the gun out. He'd have to go all out because he had stopped in his wet clothing just inside the front door.
    "I'm not mad at you for lying about the gun, Ivory – if that's what you're thinking. I never go anywhere without a gun myself, so.... Cops can't be everywhere. You have to be able to defend yourself."
    silence....
    "That massacre that happened in that New Jersey restaurant the other day – that couldn't have happened around here, where so many citizens are carrying.... Ivory? I was looking in your purse for the money we put in there the other day."
    "My Daddy, he give me money but he said not to spend it unless I need a bus ticket. I keep it hid up in the lining. Harry tensed as he watched her open the purse and peel back the lining on the side. She held up a folded, one-hundred dollar bill. Her eyes looking past him.
    "Oh, no, I was looking for our money. I forgot we already took it all out the other day. I didn't mean to be poking around in your purse. I'm sorry."
    "Oh, I look in your stuff. An' I seen where you keep your books. I figure we be a couple now, so...."
    Harry was still standing near the open front door with his wet shirt in his hands, his jeans dripping into his black Reeboks. "Books? Oh, the ancient history magazines on the shelf?"
    "The books under the bed wif' the pictures."
    "Oh, yeah, well...." Harry shrugged his shoulders. Harry thought of simply heading for the bathroom but her hand was still over the open purse. "I need to get a hot shower. Any hot water left?"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm. Oh, I like the archaeology books an' I thought maybe I could read in them one time."
    "Like this afternoon? In bed?" She can say "archaeology".... "That would be neat, with this rain."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm. I like to read in bed. An' we can't have the TV on in the daytime, so...." Ivory's eyes met his now, her face serious, and her eyes boring right through to the back of his skull. She got up and picked up the revolver which she had concealed under her right leg, and dropped it into the purse.
    Harry sucked in a deep breath and watched her glide to the bedroom, the pink baby-doll just barely covering her chunky little bottom.
    "I love your chunky-little meatball ass!" Harry called after her. "Hiding the gun under your leg was cool, too!"
    Ivory turned, in the doorway to the bedroom, and smiled.
    Harry promised himself not to force sex on her after his shower. If he just didn't look at her much – that was the trick. If he kept his hands to himself....
    She said she likes the ancient history books – that was probably bullshit, too. Nobody I know likes my books.
    She probably just likes the pictures.... Harry smiled. Most of his magazine collection contained numerous illustrations of archaeological digs. And occasionally friends would page through them – the ones with pictures of the pyramids. Pictures of ancient Greece, Persia, Palestine – forget it!
    She probably likes the ones with the pyramids....
    Rain pelted the skylight. Before turning on the water, Harry looked around the magnificent bathroom, something which he did often.
    Foreigners move in, neighborhoods go bad, real estate goes through the bottom.... Wonderful! How else could a working-class bum like me live in a building like this!
    So opulent! How can Ivory avoid loving it here?
    WELL, SHE'D BE HAPPIER IF YOU COULD WAIT UNTIL SHE'S READY FOR THE SEX PART OF IT. SO IF SHE SAYS SHE LIKES TO READ IN BED, LET HER READ IN BED!
    Yassuh, Boss!
    After his shower, Harry peeked into the bedroom and looked at Ivory propped up against the pillows, a book in her hands. It was the first time he had seen her lean back against anything. In the kitchen he made coffee and dished up two bowls of peanut-butter chocolate ice-cream. The windows were still dark but the rain was down to a gentle drizzle. Harry slipped into his new pajama bottoms and brought the refreshments into the bedroom on a tray. "I rolled us a joint, too," he said. Hoping.
    Ivory put down her Time-Life book on ancient Egypt, (a volume he had never ordered) (fuckers), and sat upright, tucking her legs under her. Harry lit the joint and handed it. She sucked in just the right amount of air and smoke. Handing it back to him like a Sixties princess, Ivory held it out so that he could pick it from her fingers on the side. After they had each toked twice Ivory shook her head, and Harry crushed off the charred end.
    "That taste better than Daddy's an' it smell better, too, like perfume."
    "So much for the War on Drugs!"
    "I mention it one time an my Daddy, he say, 'Fuck the war on drugs!' It the only time I hear him say fuck. But this smell good."
    "Yeah.... I started out with seeds from seven different countries. When I sold my house in Miami I had these friends – they're in the nursery business, and they were just growing this shit out of curiosity, you know, like a hobby. A lot of nursery people do it, they can't help it, plants are in their blood, anyway, they gave me these seeds from around the world. They made a big deal of it and they were right!" Harry was getting a good buzz already and he tried to remind himself to shut up. If there was one thing about reefer: it made talking easy and listening difficult. "Your Daddy's stuff flowers earlier than mine, though, we were talking about it. And his looks like blackberry bushes from the air, so we already agreed to trade seeds and cross-breed. If he's not mad at me now, which I'm sure he is."
    It took Ivory a moment to take in what Harry had said, and he realized that he was seeing her stoned for the first time.
    "If you bring me back safe an' soun', he be glad."
    "I hope so. I like him. I don't have any male friends there."
    They sat in silence then, sipping coffee and eating ice-cream.
    Ivory said finally: "This be the bes' ice-cream I ever ate."
    "It's the reefer."
    "Oh, I know it make food tas'e good, but...." Ivory handed him her empty bowl.
    "God, are you spoiled!" Harry refused to take it. "You know where the kitchen is. I got this stuff together – you handle the dishes, remember?"
    Ivory's eyes narrowed and she got up. After she put the bowls and spoons on the tray, Harry told her to just rinse them off – they could wash dishes later, after supper. "If you don't like dishes, you can cook and I'll do them."
    "My Daddy, he say I'm too burn out to be in the kitchen."
    "Well, we'll worry about that later."
    When she returned, Harry watched her slide into bed. "My slick little jungle cat."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    Harry forced his eyes away and pulled out the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. It was his favorite magazine subscription. He liked it even better than Newsweek and Hustler.
    Ivory glanced at the book. "I don' go to church."
    "Ha! Good! Well, this doesn't have anything to do with church – it's about what they're finding out about Bible times. The facts, not the bullshit. Your family doesn't go to church? Boy, my parents sure do! My father has a big church. Chicago. A block long! Pipe organ, three choirs, an assistant preacher, two secretaries, all that good stuff. He'd shit if he could see us right now!"
    YOU DON'T KNOW HIM, HARRY!
    Yeah, yeah....
    "Nooo.... When Mama got sick, Daddy, he say it be okay for me to stay home wif' her 'cause I always hated to go anyways, so he take Connie an' I stay home."
    He grows reefer and makes whiskey and goes to church?"
    "Connie, she sing in the choir."
    "Well, I never could understand black people digging the Bible, I mean, slavery's okay in there. All the way through. Among all the other crap. But black people.... I have this fantasy. I'm standing up in the pulpit of Adam Clayton Powell's big-old church in Harlem, and I tell them what's really in there, and they all look it up and start walking out. Fuck this crap, they say! Take this book and shove it! But I know they don't want to hear it, so...."
    "I have me a dream about it."
    "A dream? Like a fantasy?"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm. My Daddy, for my birfday, he give me this white girl for my slave. She have pure-white skin an' red hair an' green eyes, an' in my fantasy she come an' bring me stuff in my bed, an' she get my clothes ready, an' she have this big, soapy sponge she wash me wif' in the bathtub."
    "I have that fantasy, too, but...." Harry laughed. Neat one, Ivory!
    Ivory turned and looked at him, eyes scrunching down narrow.
    Harry slid down in the bed and locked his hands behind his head.
Flowing red hair....
    Heavy, milky-white tits full of milk, hanging over me while she sponges me off....
    To his surprise, Ivory stretched out also and laid her precious, knotty head against his shoulder.
    "Ivory, we live on a wonderful planet."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    "The universe was created so complex, so beautiful! The Bible says God has tantrums. Easy to piss off. Piss Him off and you burn forever. Forever!" Harry slid up a little and cradled Ivory's head in his arms. "The god I believe in sent you to me. He made you. They can stick the church-god up their ass."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    They could hear the wind picking up again outside. Harry already had the windows lowered some but the curtains still blew and the air was sweet. And it was good.

     <end chapter-18>

Humanism with attitude! Rev: 10 April 2005