smell it.
You mind an older woman talking frankly, Rafael? I get the feeling I can be honest with you, that you ain’t someone judges people. Maybe that ain’t an angel’s job—judging. You just bring the messages. It’s all just life on earth, right? I imagine a guy with your looks got some stories hisself. What do those nudes tell you? Probably the same stuff they’d blab about dressed. There’s a difference between nude and naked. Nude’s like art, but naked’s exposing the soul. Hell, who ain’t got things they’d strip their clothes off and stand bare-ass in the middle a downtown rather than tell?
Everyone’s up cheering. But me, I’m sitting like I already know Cool Bunny will bust to the outside, the driver using the whip like that buggy’s hitched to the sparkle horse, like the other horses are in slo-mo, like we’re all in slo-mo and it’s Cool Bunny in a photo, by a nose, and me sitting there shaky like I caught Parkinson’s from Lester, still feeling that whip, each lash with its own fever, and then Frank’s kissing me and pounding Lester’s back, and we’re waiting for the total to flash on the board, and when it does, we ain’t just won forty-four grand. No, what we won was the Four Deuces. When Cool Bunny crossed that line, our lives crossed a line, too. We won things we wanted and things we only thought we wanted, and things we couldn’t imagine, things we couldn’t give back. If we hadn’t of won, that slut, the Widow, never woulda stepped into my life. Oh, I’ll tell you about her. We won every moment that followed—like even this moment, Rafael. Think about it. If we hadn’t won all those years ago, you wouldn’t be in here now. So, the night we won is connected to you, too. We won you and me getting buzzed, sitting at the bar with the afternoon light coming in through the open door, and me setting up two more shooters of Chopin to celebrate our victory. Tak. Salute!
So, without waiting to catch his breath, Frank’s on to beating the system. He don’t wanta pay tax on all that money, and to call attention to all we ain’t reported. Still hoarse from cheering, he says, Lester, my man, you’re on disability, and black, you cash the ticket, and a couple hundred of it’s yours.
Should be more, Frank, should be ten percent, Lester goes, that’s the minimum a waiter gets for godsake.
Like I said, Rafael, who ain’t greedy? I mean, just twenty minutes earlier Lester’s begging for two bucks and a brat.
All right, Frank goes, meet you half fucking way, and before Lester can argue he gives Lester’s left hand a shake cause Lester got the palsy in his right. Then he gives Lester the ticket, and turns to me with a fistful of cash.
We can afford a cab, my sweet Bud, he says, my amazing, beautiful Rosebud, it should be a limo. Go home and put on “Wild Horses” and get your voluptuous ass ready to celebrate. And he kisses me so everyone at Sportsman’s can see. This is how life should feel every moment, he says, and he makes like he’s kissing my ear, and whispers that he gotta keep an eye on Lester, that he don’t trust no left-handed handshake, and that he’s going to give Lester a ride home to the housing project after Lester gets the money for the ticket.
I get home, peel off the lucky white dress, take a long slow shower, and dab on perfume, Red, which Frank stole off the trains and says makes me smell like a Roman whore—that’s a compliment, by the way. I’m like in a trance beyond horny, achy to be touched. Hot as it is I put on the black nylons with what Frank calls the mysterious thigh-high scripture, that he kneels before and makes me raise my skirt so he can read with his lips. I been saving a negligee for a special occasion and I slip it on and check myself out in the full-length mirror, and don’t believe what I see. Showing right through the filmy fabric, my behind’s marked up. It makes me so dizzy I sit down on the bed. I don’t want Frank to see,
You mind an older woman talking frankly, Rafael? I get the feeling I can be honest with you, that you ain’t someone judges people. Maybe that ain’t an angel’s job—judging. You just bring the messages. It’s all just life on earth, right? I imagine a guy with your looks got some stories hisself. What do those nudes tell you? Probably the same stuff they’d blab about dressed. There’s a difference between nude and naked. Nude’s like art, but naked’s exposing the soul. Hell, who ain’t got things they’d strip their clothes off and stand bare-ass in the middle a downtown rather than tell?
Everyone’s up cheering. But me, I’m sitting like I already know Cool Bunny will bust to the outside, the driver using the whip like that buggy’s hitched to the sparkle horse, like the other horses are in slo-mo, like we’re all in slo-mo and it’s Cool Bunny in a photo, by a nose, and me sitting there shaky like I caught Parkinson’s from Lester, still feeling that whip, each lash with its own fever, and then Frank’s kissing me and pounding Lester’s back, and we’re waiting for the total to flash on the board, and when it does, we ain’t just won forty-four grand. No, what we won was the Four Deuces. When Cool Bunny crossed that line, our lives crossed a line, too. We won things we wanted and things we only thought we wanted, and things we couldn’t imagine, things we couldn’t give back. If we hadn’t of won, that slut, the Widow, never woulda stepped into my life. Oh, I’ll tell you about her. We won every moment that followed—like even this moment, Rafael. Think about it. If we hadn’t won all those years ago, you wouldn’t be in here now. So, the night we won is connected to you, too. We won you and me getting buzzed, sitting at the bar with the afternoon light coming in through the open door, and me setting up two more shooters of Chopin to celebrate our victory. Tak. Salute!
So, without waiting to catch his breath, Frank’s on to beating the system. He don’t wanta pay tax on all that money, and to call attention to all we ain’t reported. Still hoarse from cheering, he says, Lester, my man, you’re on disability, and black, you cash the ticket, and a couple hundred of it’s yours.
Should be more, Frank, should be ten percent, Lester goes, that’s the minimum a waiter gets for godsake.
Like I said, Rafael, who ain’t greedy? I mean, just twenty minutes earlier Lester’s begging for two bucks and a brat.
All right, Frank goes, meet you half fucking way, and before Lester can argue he gives Lester’s left hand a shake cause Lester got the palsy in his right. Then he gives Lester the ticket, and turns to me with a fistful of cash.
We can afford a cab, my sweet Bud, he says, my amazing, beautiful Rosebud, it should be a limo. Go home and put on “Wild Horses” and get your voluptuous ass ready to celebrate. And he kisses me so everyone at Sportsman’s can see. This is how life should feel every moment, he says, and he makes like he’s kissing my ear, and whispers that he gotta keep an eye on Lester, that he don’t trust no left-handed handshake, and that he’s going to give Lester a ride home to the housing project after Lester gets the money for the ticket.
I get home, peel off the lucky white dress, take a long slow shower, and dab on perfume, Red, which Frank stole off the trains and says makes me smell like a Roman whore—that’s a compliment, by the way. I’m like in a trance beyond horny, achy to be touched. Hot as it is I put on the black nylons with what Frank calls the mysterious thigh-high scripture, that he kneels before and makes me raise my skirt so he can read with his lips. I been saving a negligee for a special occasion and I slip it on and check myself out in the full-length mirror, and don’t believe what I see. Showing right through the filmy fabric, my behind’s marked up. It makes me so dizzy I sit down on the bed. I don’t want Frank to see,
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