“Well…” Martha gave her head a tiny shake. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“You don’t?” Mama’s smile fell away. “And why not?”
“I really just want to uh, to, you know—to cover our business.”
“Oh, all right,” said Mama Walker. “Of course.”
There was the click-click of a lighter by the door, and I glanced over at the sons: son number 2 refiring the skinny pipe, son number 1 staring into space. A cartoon punch line blared from the television, one animated electric eel zinging another one, and the kids all roared. Lionel laughed along with them, perfectly at ease.
“But you know what, I do want to talk about it, just for a second. You don’t mind, do you?” She stared at Martha. “How about I just guess what happened to him?”
“Well…” Martha wrung her hands together. Her face was agonized. “I guess.”
“I’mma guess white men killed him.” Mama Walker said this without trouble, almost cheerfully. “’Cause of you. That it? Am I close on that?”
Martha didn’t answer, but Mama said, “I thought so,” as if she had. “That’s how they do, you know. You gotta be careful. North or no north, some things you just gotta be careful about. White man don’t play, you know? Right, Just-a-Friend?”
“Right,” I said.
“I’ll give you a little example, okay? All this shit hole here?” She pointed outside, at the trash-strewn street. “This all used to be green. Verdant. That the word, Marv?”
“Yes, Mama,” said one of her sons, in his thick voice.
Martha suddenly stood up. “I am so sorry that we bothered you,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “Hey, Lionel, honey?”
Lionel looked over from the couch, but meanwhile one of the big Walker boys had gotten up, too—not Marv, the other one. “Have a seat, little girl,” he said. “Mama talking.”
Martha sat. Lionel’s head swiveled back around to the screen. Mama gave no sign of having been interrupted. “It was verdant down here, back in the day. That’s what they say. I’m talking ’bout before I was born, understand. Before my mama was and hers was. There was a stream here. Little creek. I got a map, somewhere, somewhere in here, but you can see it, too, you go hunting through the dog shit and the broken glass out there, you can see, like, the traces of it, where it ran once, all those years ago. But see, the white men who were planning out the city, they didn’t like it where it was. The little river. So they just”—she made a quick gesture with her hands, sweeping the air—“ran it under the ground. Built right over it. You understand? You see?”
She waited. She wanted an answer. Martha whispered, “Yes.” I took off my glasses and wiped them on my shirt. Dope smoke wafted over from the love seat.
“They sent that little river underground, and they built their fucking ugly city over it. That’s how they do. Anything they don’t care for, anything that does not please, they use it up or they kill it or bury it, and they never think of it again. You see?”
Martha’s eyes were shut now. “I see.”
“So that’s what they did—open your eyes, sweetheart. Open.” Martha obeyed. “That’s what they did to your boy’s father. Them. White people.”
“I’m sorry.” Martha closed her eyes. She was sorry she’d come here. She was sorry she was white. But there was no undoing either of those things. “I just need some help.”
“Yeah. No shit, baby. Everybody come here need help. Everybody in the world need some kinda help, right? Ain’t that right, Just-a-Friend?”
For once Jim Dirkson and I were all synced up, my alias and I equally perplexed. I smiled carefully for both of us. “That’s right.”
“Question being for you, then, okay, what kind of help you need? I’m looking at you, pretty white girl. Pretty white girl don’t come downtown to get something up her nose.” Martha nodded, trembling a little, her hands fussing at the hair at the nape of her neck. “Pretty white girl don’t come downtown to get something in her arm. Sure as fuck don’t need passing papers. Don’t need pussy. Or…” She raised her eyebrows, and Martha shook her head quickly. “No. So pretty white girl ain’t here to get fucked or get high or get free. So what she need?”
I wished I knew Martha well enough to take her hand; to pat her knee reassuringly under the table. I couldn’t do it—I didn’t really know her at all was the thing. I was a passenger.
“It’s gotta be money that baby needs. Right, boys?” The Walker brothers nodded in unison, right on cue. It was all performance; this was part of the performance, every time. “So the question is—how much money does baby need?”
Martha placed her hands flat on the table, to steady herself. Past her, out the window, I caught a glimpse of movement—the cop car was rolling past again, slow lights flashing.
“Twenty-nine thousand, five hundred.”