“What kind of threats he make?” T.C. asked.
“That if he sees me with another man, he’s going to kill me, that kind of stuff.” She was whispering in his ear. His dick was getting hard again.
“I wouldn’t let that happen. I’m tired today, from everything, but if he came over here again like that, I would take care of him, you know I would,” T.C. said.
“I know you would, T.C., that’s what I love about you.”
She was straddling him again now. He let her. What the hell. Mama Muumuu was in the next room with The Bold and the Beautiful. He could hear the theme song as he slid inside her daughter. It wasn’t anything like what he’d imagined all those months, not with the terror of the past fifteen minutes hanging over him. No, it was more a physical release than an emotional satisfaction, but he would take it.
He didn’t last long, and he rolled over as soon as he was done. The mother’s show was coming off, he could hear the song again. Bon Bon was laid out beside him, snoring; maybe he was better than he gave himself credit for. He dialed up his boy Tiger.
“Already, my nigga?”
“Yeah, and hurry up too. I gotta story for you.”
When the horn sounded twenty minutes later, T.C. opened the front door, glanced in both directions, and ran out like suicides at basketball practice. He jumped in the car, and Tiger sped off.
T.C.’s mama hadn’t made a welcome-home dinner nor was she in such a welcome-home mood. The block looked good though. It had been only four months, but Miss Patricia had finally finished her house, gotten rid of that FEMA trailer that hugged the brown grass beneath it. New Orleans East wasn’t Uptown, but it was coming back together. Most of the brick houses of his childhood had been gutted and restored. Yeah, some off in the distance still had windows boarded up, roofs torn down. T.C. had to squint to see them though.
His mama gave him a hug—one long tight squeeze—reached up to the side of his head, and cupped his ear in her hand the way she used to.
She was on beer number two, and she sat back down to tend to it. Unfolded laundry covered the rest of the couch and potato chip crumbs ground into the carpet at her feet. T.C. sat on the edge of a table crowded with stacks of coupons and unopened bills. He hadn’t been into the kitchen behind him yet, but he could smell the dirty dishes no doubt lining the sink. Alicia used to tell him that he had OCD, he was so anal about organizing drawers and making up beds, but for most of his life, his room at the end of the hallway had been the only one he could keep clean.
“I thought you had another two weeks,” his mama said.
“Overpopulation,” he said. “They wanted to make room for the real criminals, Ma.” He laughed, a short grunt. She didn’t join him.
“Hmph. I woulda picked you up.” Her taped stories were on pause, but she was still staring at the screen stuffing cheese puffs in her mouth, the orange powder shining on the tips of her fingers.
“It’s all right, Ma, Tiger got me,” he said.
She opened her mouth to respond to that but shut it before any words came out. T.C. knew she still blamed Tiger for his selling drugs in the first place.
“You know I would have,” she repeated, turning to look in his eyes for the first time. “It’s not like I’m still teaching.” She had taught art education at Schaumburg Elementary for fifteen years, but after the storm the state took over the school districts, fired 4,500 teachers; his mama just happened to be one of them.
He decided to change the subject. “I saw Miss Patricia finally got out the FEMA trailer,” he said. “It looks good.”
“Umhmm. And she finally got that extra room in the back she wanted. Pool table and everything.”
“I didn’t know she played pool.”
“She don’t.”
T.C. and his mama had spent three years in a trailer themselves. Most of the block had. Most people didn’t have the money to rebuild outright. The Road Home program was supposed to pay the costs, but the government used the prestorm value of the house to calculate aid. For T.C. and his neighbors, out there in the East where there was no central plaza, no fancy restaurants and no whites, that money came out to much less than it would cost to repair.
“And Tiger told me they plan on building a hospital out here,” he went on.
“Why? You plan on getting sick? Anyway, your aunt Sybil called,” she said before he could answer.
T.C. rolled his eyes. His aunt had been his favorite at one time, but she turned her back on him after the conviction.
“What for, to dog me out about going in in the first place?”
“She means well, and she’s your aunt,” his mama said, but it came out flat. His mama didn’t like her older sister either.
“Well, I’m out now,” T.C. said.
“Just call her back. I won’t have her thinking I didn’t pass the message along.” She paused. “You might as well know your MawMaw is still on dialysis,” she went on.
T.C. nodded. “I figured.”
“Doctors said two more years of it, then—” she cut her hand across her neck. “You betta go visit her now while you can.”
“I was gonna go.”
She sucked her teeth as if to say, Don’t get smart with me, boy. You ain’t too big for me to backhand slap you. But she didn’t say that, only “You never know. You went to Tiger before you came home, so I had to say.” Then she downed the rest of her beer. “Aunt Ruby buried her third husband while you was locked up,” she went on after she let out a long, burly belch.
“I know, Mama, you told me.”
She ignored that part. “Been a mess about it too. I think she loved this one the most. Woulda been nice if you could have been at the funeral. Everybody was there, Mookie, Alonzo, Cynt—”
She was still naming names as he walked to the back of the house.
“Sloppy Joes in the fridge,” she shouted, her voice like gravel though she’d never smoked. His stomach heaved.