Free The Vulture by Gil Scott Heron Page B

That's what I thought. My life is all messed up as a result of this. I will have to raise a child without a father. I have moved away from home. I could never live with my family after this. Please do as you see fit, but remember that I warned you of it all for your own good.
    Debbie Clark
    Crystal continued to lie on the sofa, sniffing. Some sort of wall had sprung up between us. I could only shake my head silently. My mind would not permit my body to do the things I needed to do. I was helpless and hopeless. I balled up the letter and tossed it to the floor. I took the envelope and put it in my pocket, and without so much as a good-bye, I went through the door and down to the street below. I cast one single glance back to her window as I started uptown on foot. The lights were out in the apartment. It was all over.
    I was back on the block in twenty minutes with my head still spinning and the atmosphere of the world pressing down on me like a bleak moment in one of Edgar Allan Poe's nightmare classics.
    I stopped at Delores’ house on 13th Street and Eighth Avenue. Delores was Crystal's cousin, but she was also Debbie's best friend. There was another mystery involved with everythingnow. Delores met me at the door and ushered me through to the living room with a smile that I quickly erased.
    ‘Where's Debbie?’ I asked point blank.
    ‘How should I know? At home, I guess.’
    ‘Look, Delores,’ I was speaking with my teeth clenched and my voice barely above a whisper. ‘I'm gonna find her if it takes me the rest of my life. You had damn well better tell me if you know anything ‘cause if I should ever find out you knew an’ sent me huntin’ turkey, I'll beat you until yo’ own mama wouldn't recognize you. An’ yo’ boyfrien’ ain't bad enough to stop me.’
    ‘She's in Baltimore,’ Delores said.
    I knew that to be true. I had taken the letter envelope and seen: ‘Baltimore, Maryland July 8, 1969.’ I needed an address in Baltimore.
    ‘Where?’ I asked.
    ‘I don't know.’
    ‘Look here,’ I said. ‘Yo’ bes’ frien’ gits knocked up, an’ I ask you where she's at, an’ you say you don’ know. Girl, you mus’ think I'm crazy!’
    ‘She has friends,’ Delores said. Her eyes were pleading with me not to ask her any more questions, but I didn't care.
    ‘And that's where she's havin’ the kid?’
    ‘She's gonna have an abortion.’
    I was completely out of everything. I needed a drink, but I didn't trust Delores out of my sight. I could hear her parents running off at the mouth about some TV show they must have been watching in the next room. I could barely see the girl through the sunglasses. I took them off.
    ‘That cost money,’ I breathed.
    ‘She had almost five hundred dollars when she left.’
    I whistled out loud. ‘Is that enough?’
    ‘I don't know,’ was the reply.
    ‘Who's she stayin’ with?’ I asked.
    ‘She's stayin’ with Faye Garrison.’ The conversation wasbecoming thick and weighted. Delores kept throwing suspicious stares back over her shoulder toward the door that separated us from her parents.
    ‘Where do . . .’ I began.
    ‘Spade, stop!’ For the first time Delores raised her voice, and I looked to the door. ‘I don't know everything! I've already told you more than I should have. That wasn't really any of my business! I don't know how you're mixed up in any of this, but anything you're involved in is always bad and ugly. I told Crystal to leave you alone! You know how tight Crys and I are . . . Now you come in here askin’ me about Debbie when I've just seen Debbie leave here four days ago with more money than I've ever seen in my life. You're a rotten bastard, Spade. I wish you were dead!’ She ran from the room and slammed the door behind her. Her father looked out into the living room and saw me.
    ‘You know how women are,’ I grinned.
    He didn't say anything at all. He simply sat looking through the wedge he had made until I closed the door behind me.