Free The Vulture by Gil Scott Heron Page A

elevator I lit a cigarette and wiped my sunglasses clean.
    Progress was slow in the elevator. Riis projects had been around a long time, and the elevator was a part of the history it represented. I thought about what it would be like inside with Crystal. I'd try a ‘Hey, baby,’ and see how that got over.
    As I knocked at the door, a flash of fear shot through me. In spite of the exterior thing that I was trying to get together, I was nervous. I could feel cold drops of sweat forming in my armpits and trickling down my side. I shivered involuntarily.
    Crystal opened the door, and I stepped in, false smile in place. I stooped to peck her on the cheek, but she moved out of range. It was only ten before nine, but the house was silent and empty, like a tomb.
    Crystal had been crying. The attempt she had made to straighten herself out had not been worth the effort. Her eyes were puffed and red, and the little lipstick that she used was uneven. I had been shocked to see her looking like that. I forgot the part I was supposed to be playing. She handed me a letter as we walked through the hall to the living room. I reopened it where the seal had been originally broken and read it.
    I pretended to keep reading even after I had finished. My mind was gone. I couldn't even stop and focus on the written words in order to salvage the deeper meaning. Surely this was not what the author had been trying to say. It was some sort of code, some kind of trick. This was a lie!
    ‘You believe this?’ I asked Crystal.
    ‘Why would she lie?’
    ‘Do you believe it? That's what I'm asking you,’ I yelled.
    ‘Yes, I do. I believe every word of it.’ Crystal's eyes clouded, and she started sobbing again. She stretched out on the sofa and turned her back on me. I wanted to lean over and hold her and comfort her, but my feet were embedded in rock. I couldn't pull them free of their position.
    I looked around the dimly lit room. The only light was the one directly behind me that I had used to read the letter. I wanted Crystal's mother and little brother there. The only jury I had before me were the silent furniture sentinels, who could only observe. I needed people.
    I saw Mrs Amos sitting in the corner easy chair where she usually sat during my visits, making small talk and waiting for Crystal to come out and entertain her guest.
    ‘Mrs Amos,’ I was saying. ‘You know me. This is Eddie. Remember Christmas when we all went shopping together and I bought you the house shoes and the sweater? Don't you remember me?’ Mrs Amos sat unmoving in the corner. Unmoving and unblinking and unbreathing. ‘Why in the hell don't you say something, Mrs Amos? God, what's wrong with you?’
    Crystal's little brother, Mack, was sitting at his mother's feet playing with a section of an electric train.
    ‘Hey! Mack! This is Eddie. I'm like a big brother to you, Mack. I took you to the movies and the zoo, and I gave you that train. I'm yo’ boy! Mack? Well, at least look up at me and act like you know me. Doesn't anybody here know me?’
    I glanced down at the letter again and looked to the crying girl on the couch. I realized with a start that there was no one else in the room.
Dear Crystal,
    How are you? Perhaps you are wondering already about this letter. Perhaps I should not be telling you this. Most likely the letter will make you absolutely no difference. Iam writing because you need to know that the man you are probably sleeping with, Eddie Shannon, is going to be the father of my child. When I told him this, he laughed and said ‘So what?’ In a few times that I saw you, you struck me as a very nice girl who would probably fall for a guy like Eddie, just as I did. You raised questions in my mind very often, but Eddie assured me that you and he were just good friends. It was only recently that I learned that he was using both of us for play toys. I am telling you all of this because you probably think that Eddie will marry you if something goes wrong.