Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Fifty-Boy 28 Like Mendel's Peas

Fifty-Boy

28

Like Mendel's Peas



Blue had a place on the bottom floor at the back of the Royal Fox Hunt Hotel.
Raucous dance hall reggae had the window screens reverberating.
The curtains billowed like a sail.
He offered Janice something to smoke.
She said no thanks and sat back and looked around at the bamboo-rattan motif.

The royal blue muscle shirt stretched over his chest worked for him.
He wore charcoal gray pleated pants,
soft gray calf leather shoes, no socks,
his eyes were pale blue, his face was placid,
she remembered Wanamaker told her blue eyes
were distributed throughtout the family like Mendel's peas,
said he was her Aunt Blossom's boy.

Aunt Blossom who married a man named James Blue.
They had one child before they were killed.
They named him Major.

Wanamaker told Janice she saw Blue occasionally in the street.
They knew each other, but rarely spoke.
They'd grown up together at church picnics and family reunions
down south at their Aunt Edzel's place in the country.

Aside from Aunt Edzel's daugher, Eeebie, who everybody called Junior,
the one who worked as a stewardess for Spirit Airlines, Wanamaker was the only girl in the family with blue eyes.

There was no denying they were related,
but as far as Blue was concerned, they didn't have much to talk about.
And that was okay with Wanamaker Jones.

Janice Hammer was a petite Latina woman.
The sun had streaked her deep black hair with a soft red patina.
The lime green jumper glowed against her warm brown skin.

He stared at her coral lips.
Her arms were bare.
She had long legs.
Her toenails were the color of pink grapefruit.
She seemed a little uneasy at first.
Some folks might have underestimated her.
Not Blue.

He was slow and easy.
She unwound.
He turned the music dow.
They talked about her sister, Vivian Vivant, and laughed.

He wasn't like Le-B-B at all.
He spoke in a quiet voice.
He looked but didn't eye her.

"Miss Jan, I just made ice tea." He put ice in the glasses.

She accepted.

They spent time talking, politics, family, kids, race relations, money.

Then he said, "I hear you were robbed. That must have been scary."

She told him about it. She could see him picturing every detail.

"I would have been out of my mind. Was your baby okay?"

"She was at the daycare the whole time." Jan leaned forward. "I just assumed."

"Police must have been all over you." Blue sat back and sipped his drink.

"FBI was a pain in the ass, all they managed to do was confirm that there was a phone call, but the local cops, Detective Jones... She was great."

"You know that's my cousin."

"Vivian told me."

"What about that orange wire basket, they mention that?"

The light in her black eyes flittered. "They did, Wanamaker did. Why?"

"Hey." Blue's tone was friend to friend. "I don't know."

Janice wanted to trust him. She needed to tell somebody.

"None of my business." His smile put her at ease.

He put his glass on the wicker end table and looked at his watch.

"You sister says your husbands getting to be a nuisance. Needs to disappear, leave you and the baby in peace."

She didn't want to get to that just yet. She tilted her head and looked at him.

Blue said, "You seem pretty cool. You look like you could handle the pressure."

She shrugged her shoulders. "You lose your composure, you get it back."

She left her sandals on the floor and folded her legs up under her body.

She said, "I probably could handle it."


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