Once they done set up the bed and TT standing on the top bunk and putting his hands into a stirrup shape for the first person to step up and out the window, he got cold feet and went, I got to get high before we go through with thisyer plan. He climb down and groped his way back to his bed and found a lighter, then he come back to take a hit under the window. By then everybody hanging out on the top bunk of the escape bed.
In the light of the lighter you could see all the anxious black sweaty faces ringing TT, urging his damn ass to hurry up and get high so they ain’t get caught before they could leave on out the room and get the hell outta Delicious. Michelle and Darlene stopped cold, ’cause they also felt that taking a hit gon raise everybody level of nerve.
TT said, Scotty always make me fearless.
Eddie reach out for the pipe too, as they passing it round, but Darlene thumped him hard on the arm and said, No! Are you crazy? Not for children.
In the relaxing moment of sucking sounds and the milk-on-cereal noise that be effervescing off my wonderful burning rocks, it seem for a second like the whole damn thing wasn’t even gonna happen, that it gonna turn into three Negroes smoking in the dark on top a bunk bed while a child sit there watching. And that mighta been fine by Darlene, who getting—not physically tired exactly, but exhausted.
I gave TT something he called smoky courage, and in a couple minutes he had took the pipe back, tried to cool it off with his breath, and shoved it down in his pants. He balanced hisself on the edge of the bed and got in the stirrup position. Michelle used the lighter to make sure everybody knew where each other was and how to get to the wall, flicking it every couple minutes like a bad movie projector so they would get the idea, but she wouldn’t distract nobody who wasn’t already in on the breakout.
Since Eddie the smallest, TT waved for him to climb up onto the cot and put his foot into the hand-stirrup first. But when it’s two people up there, the frame start shaking and coming away from the wall and Eddie fell and yelled with his mouth closed. His mama went over and made sure he ain’t hurt bad and told him, Be brave, but them li’l doubts ’bout the whole mission come back. If Eddie gets severely injured, she thought, this escape thing isn’t worth it. The bed had also made a loud jangly sound and the four of em had to stop doing any activity for a minute while the light sleepers in the rest the room be waking up and stirring and tryna figure out where the noise had came from and if it meant the roof finally ’bout to cave in.
TT yelled a apology, said he moving his and Hannibal bed and it had fell. That shit actually worked.
Everybody laid back down, which took a real long time ’cause they waited for this big brother name Kamal to start snoring again, since they know he ain’t sleep ’less they heard some shit that sound like a garbage truck. This time Eddie refused to go first, so Darlene climbed up on TT hands, more bold this time, ’cause Michelle and Eddie had grabbed the frame of the cot and was holding it ’gainst the wall. Darlene couldn’t get her hands to reach this one spot just underneath the window ’less she climbed onto TT shoulders.
The window be one them frosted safety-glass windows with wire running through it in a diamond pattern, had a metal latch underneath with a ring that you had to pull to open it. Some the same type windows was up near the ceiling, but Delicious had cinder-blocked em or nailed a board over em. Maybe the board had fell off this one, or somebody done pried it off already. It done clouded over like a eye with a dirty cataract. Hadn’t nobody cleaned up there in a long time, and when Darlene up there feeling around the sill, she stuck her fingers in a whole lotta gunk she figured was greasy dust and dead bugs and spiderwebs and chicken feathers and all kinda animal droppings that’s sticking to the ledge and to the glass.
With all the nastiness, it seem less like a window to the outside than a caked-up oven door, like if they’da opened it and gone through they just be crawling into another cage to get they ass burnt to a crisp. If Darlene hadna spent the last half a year washing her face in a toilet bowl after the sink done broke, and going without showers for days on end till she could get to the front of the line before work started at least one morning, and if she hadna just had a few very long sweet drags on a pipe, she mighta turnt her head away from that window and spit up her dinner on the nape of TT neck.
Still and all, she ain’t feel too hot probing around up there in the pitch-dark. She could only imagine the disgustingness she touching.
The ring to open the window ain’t budge and Darlene got sick off thinking ’bout what might be on her hands, so they decided that TT need to give it a try. For that to happen, Darlene and Michelle leant the bed up against the wall and was holding it there while he climbed up ’cause he not that tall. By that time, seeing how long it had already took, everybody getting paranoid, so they put Eddie on lookout even though he keep saying he couldn’t see nothing.
TT tugged real hard and almost fell off balance, and they found out the window be screwed shut, but they made a screwdriver out a piece of scrap metal and he got the window open. Darlene looking at the size of the window opening and the size of TT and she ain’t seen how TT gon squeeze through without his fat butt getting stuck and then nobody else would get through. But soon’s he put his head through the window and start tryna hoist hisself out, a bright white light gone on outside and he said he seen a dog down there barking. More like he tryna bark, though, ’cause this dog had laryngitis so bad that his barking sound like when you squeeze a broken toy, a whole lot of air with a li’l squeak on top. TT got down and Darlene got up and had herself a look.
She shook her head, thinking, These people couldn’t even get us a guard dog that works right.