The Switch

Chapter 23

LOUIS WAS WAITING ON THE SIDEWALK in front of the apartment building, looking toward Woodward Avenue and the 6-o'clock traffic. The sun was still hot. He'd been sleepy most of the day, had smoked a couple of joints with Ordell and the big girl; now he felt like moving, doing something. He was excited and tried to stand still.

When he saw Mickey's Grand Prix turn the corner he stood at the curb and raised his hand as the car rolled by--she saw him--noticing the scraped sheetmetal and the fastener holes where the side molding belonged. He walked down and waited as she backed into a parking place, then, as she turned the engine off, opened the door for her.

"I don't believe it," Louis said.

"Who does?" Mickey said.

He stepped back to look at her, making a little show of it. "I thought you were so anxious to change your clothes."

"I did. White pants look alike, but this is striped."

"I remember," Louis said. "The one you had on was like a work shirt, light blue. And no bra?"

"I've got a bra on. I have more than one bra," Mickey said. "But I'll tell you something-- You hear that?"

"What?"

"That, 'I'll tell you something.' I sound like you."

"I say that?" Louis' face was composed; he seemed very happy, relaxed. But he was looking toward Woodward and holding back a little as they approached the apartment building.

"The something I want to tell you--I really didn't come to pick up the bra."

"You didn't?"

"I felt like talking. I feel like talking, and I don't have anybody to talk to who really understands me, I don't think."

"You got to e-nun-ci-ate your words," Louis said.

"They don't see things the same way I do or something. I don't know what it is, but I feel like talking and having a drink, one of those things you made. Is that all right, to invite myself?"

"Sure it is, but there's one problem."

"I talked to my husband--well, it was a couple of hours ago, and I got antsy, I couldn't sit around or watch television, I had to talk to somebody ... What problem? I know--Ordell's back."

"Ordell and somebody else."

"No, really? They're together?" Mickey stopped and Louis turned to stay with her.

"The way things've been going," Louis said, "how can you be surprised at anything?"

"But why would they be together? Didn't she come with my husband?"

"She said your old man went home, wants to start over with you."

"He told her that?" Puzzled. "He wants a divorce. He hasn't changed his mind."

"I don't know, it's what she says. Listen, this broad could tell you anything. Opens these big blue eyes--"

"How old is she?"

"I don't know. Twenty-one."

"She have, you know, big boobs?"

"Nice size."

"My husband, he even wants to marry her. I asked him and he said yes. He said, 'I hope to.' The asshole. I forgot to call him that."

"You don't want him to marry her?"

"No, I don't care. He's an asshole whatever he does. God, you can't imagine how good I feel, relieved. It's like I've been tied to him with a heavy rope and finally I got loose."

"I was thinking," Louis said, "you want to talk, we can go to a bar somewhere, have a drink."

She thought about it and bit at her thumbnail looking toward Woodward Avenue and hearing the traffic, feeling the heat and the air close, unmoving. She was not used to the feeling, being in a city in the summertime. She was aware of experiencing something different and caught glimpses in her mind of tenement fire-escapes and men in their undershirts and whores in satin dresses on Gene Kelly's 10th Avenue, a way whores would never look, but the glimpses were real in her mind, stimulating. She felt there was a great deal she'd been missing and had to see.

"I'd like to meet her," Mickey said.

Melanie was reaching from the La-Z-Boy to the coffee table for a can of Coke. Head down, hair hanging, she held the pose to look over as the door opened.

Ordell was sitting across from her, hands folded in his lap, smiling a little, being pleasant.

He said, "Hey, Mickey. How you doing? Louis told me, I said hey, I don't believe it."

Mickey came in, Louis close behind, her glance picking out her bra among the rubble, the same congestion that had covered the table two days ago, before looking at Ordell, at his white teeth in the closely trimmed beard. He reminded her of a desert Arab, not as dark as she thought he'd be in clear light.

"Ordell, right?"

"Yeah," very slow and easy, "sit down. Louis, get the lady something."

She didn't want him to leave her yet. She hadn't looked at the girl, but glanced over now, sinking into the easy chair next to Ordell's, across from the girl.

"Mickey, say hello to Melanie," Ordell said.

"Jesus Christ," Melanie said, pushing up on her elbows a little and tossing her hair from her face. "Honest to God?"

Mickey said, "I've heard a lot about you." Dumb, but it was an opening. She had to forget about being graded or topped by the girlfriend. The hell with her. She was a big, awkward-looking girl with a lot of unnecessary hair. Size 10 now, but in ten years her boobs would be hanging like melons and she'd be into a fourteen easily. Big girl with broad hips--she could see Frank with Melanie, Frank standing erect, trying to appear taller. The girl's tan legs looked as though they joined her body at her navel, a deep round one; a blond belly dancer.

Melanie was saying she'd heard a lot about Mickey too. (See? Was that so zingy?) Those guys were too much, Melanie said, out of fucking sight.

You can take her, Mickey thought. Why not? She smiled and said, "Well, I was in the neighborhood, I thought why not stop in and see the gang." She looked at Ordell, acting a little dumb. "Is that what you call yourselves, the gang?"

"No, we jes folks here," Ordell said, "don't put on no airs," giving her a little poor nigger, then raised his hands lazily and slapped his palms together, once. "Tell me how yo' hubby is."

"He's jes fine," Mickey said. "If he doesn't get gonorrhea or go to jail, as they say." She wanted to look at Melanie, but couldn't, not yet. She saw Ordell's eyes open a little wider, his grin holding easily.

And heard Melanie say, "Hey, come on, what's going on? What're you guys doing?"

Louis came in and handed Mickey a tall collins topped with foam and a cherry.

"Louis," Melanie said, "who's your friend? Come on."

Louis brought a chair over from the telephone table in the alcove and sat down next to Mickey. "I thought you were introduced. Melanie, Mickey. Mickey, Melanie."

"Bullshit," Melanie said. "I know what you guys are doing, you're too fucking much, passing this broad off as the wife. You have these routines, you put more into fooling around than you do in ... whatever you fuckoffs are supposed to do, I haven't a clue to that yet."

Louis sipped his drink, sitting stoop-shouldered in the straight chair, his legs crossed at the knees. "Mickey says her old man's divorcing her." Louis let that hang in the air.

After a moment Ordell said, "You don't tell me."

Mickey said, "I don't want to stand in his way. He has his life, if you want to call it that, and I have mine."

"Say he's divorcing you," Ordell said.

Melanie threw her hair aside. "And then she goes, 'Yes he is.' And then you go, 'Oh, really? For true?' Putting me on, but I like it, it's a kick. So go right ahead."

"I say," Mickey said, "or I go, If you don't believe I'm real, do you want me to describe the apartment in Freeport?"

"Ordell's been there," Melanie said. "He could've told you all about it."

"Then I say, Do you want me to describe Frank's liver spot? It's shaped like South America and located two inches west of the base of his spine. I assume you've been there," Mickey said.

"Wow," Melanie said, smiling now. "I thought it looked more like Africa."

"It's probably getting bigger," Mickey said. "I haven't seen it in awhile. Does he still march in with a towel over his arm?"

"I'm trying to get him to be more spontaneous," Melanie said, "but he's very ritualistic, you know? Goes by the book. I tell him hey, it's all right, but you've been reading the wrong book, man." She squirmed her fanny in the La-Z-Boy. "I got to take a leak."

"Sit still," Ordell said, looking at Melanie. "Man's gonna divorce this lady. It seems he's not going back and start over, is he?"

"So I was wrong," Melanie said. "Call Cedric and get the boat, what do you want me to do? I can't help it if he tells me one thing, he tells her something else. Or she's pissed off, she's doing it."

Ordell looked at Mickey. "You mad at anybody?"

"Not really," Mickey said.

"You not mad at us?"

"No, I think it's kinda interesting." "Interesting?" Melanie said. "It's fucking wild. Get Frank here we'll have everybody."

Louis said, "It's different, isn't it?" He looked at Mickey. "Sitting around with friends sure beats doing time."

"You mind terribly?" Melanie said, pushing up out of the chair. "I got to take a leak now or never."

Mickey watched her stand up and pull her tight cut-offs out of her fanny. She was unstable, probably stoned, and weaved the first few steps crossing the room to the hall that led to the bathroom.

Mickey said, "Well, there she goes, the next Mrs. Frank Dawson. Looks like a million bucks, doesn't she?"

Ordell said, "He tell you that? He's gonna marry her?"

"And live with her till he does," Mickey said. "My," Ordell said. "My my my my."

"How much you think he likes her?" Louis said. "A whole bunch," Mickey said. "Call him up and ask him. He's cleaning out his closet."

Ordell looked at Louis as Mickey leaned close to the coffee table to get her bra, picked it up, hesitated, and pulled the cardboard box toward her. She said, "All the other day I kept looking at this. What's in it?"

Louis looked at Ordell.

Melanie came back into the room zipping up, then swinging her hair aside. She stopped, walked over to the hi-fi changer and rows of records and tapes on the wall shelf. She said, "You know who knocks me out? Esther Phillips ... but I'll settle for Roberta Flack," and was moving her hips to You've Lost That Loving Feeling when she turned around and stopped and howled and shook her head and said, "Fucking wild--hey, I want to play too!"

There were three Richard Nixons sitting by the coffee table. One Richard Nixon was holding the telephone in his lap. The second Richard Nixon was holding a Little Orphan Annie mask, placing tape over the round eyeholes. The third Richard Nixon held a notepad and pencil and was writing directions to her grandmother's house that was off by itself on the shores of Lake Huron and had an upstairs bedroom that was just like the one Richard's mother used to live in.

It was hot in the mask. Mickey wished the big girl would hurry up and realize what was happening to her so she could take her bra and leave ... go home and watch Frank get his phone call.