Free Disappearing Acts by Terry McMillan Page A

grab holda your shit.” I used to slap him upside the head when he bragged about it. I had just barely had a wet dream. But all that old pussy cost him. Last count, Jimmy had at least five or six kids in all five boroughs. He always have been dumb. That’s one thing we didn’t have in common. I didn’t drop outta school ’cause I was dumb; I just didn’t feel like being bothered. Shit, when I was seventeen, I started reading the dictionary so I wouldn’t sound stupid when I got older, but I only got up to the
K
’s. There’s a lot of fuckin’ words in the dictionary. Now Jimmy’s doing what everybody expected him to do: nothing. Yeah, he sell drugs, but it don’t amount to shit. One thing I
can
say for him—he ain’t like some of these scumbags out here. He don’t sell to kids or young girls. Only to the fools that’s been on the shit for years. And since heroin is outta style now, Jimmy’s into coke. I hear they smoking that shit now, and from what Jimmy tell me, he don’t indulge, which is obvious, ’cause the motherfucker still fat.
    He leaned forward and put his little fat hands under that double chin. “Buy me a drink, Frankie.”
    I just looked at him. “If you got a real job, motherfucker, you wouldn’t be in this position.”
    “Don’t start, Frankie. Not today, man. I’m tired, got people waiting for me, and my shit is dragging. I’ma strangle Sheila when I find her.”
    I whipped out a twenty and handed it to him. “What you drinking?”
    “Chivas. Thanks, brotherman.”
    I ordered the drink, they sat it on the bar, and Jimmy gulped it down. “You see the playoffs, man? What you think about that shit?”
    “You know damn well I don’t miss the playoffs, Jimmy. You still asking stupid questions, huh? The Lakers kicked Philadelphia’s ass.”
    “Yeah, the Knicks could use a few Kareems.”
    “The Knicks need more than that. If Huey would get rid of that faggot-ass center, maybe they’d be able to do something besides lose. He dooflus, and scared to jump. You ain’t never seen
him
doing no sneaker commercial—that should tell Gulf and Western something. They should trade him in for a 1982 model. Let some of these young dudes in the game whose dicks can stay hard all night.”
    “Yeah. L.A. took the money and ran, didn’t they?”
    I didn’t answer Jimmy, ’cause I could tell he was just talking to make conversation. The playoffs was history anyway, and I wasn’t in no basketball mood. That woman was on my mind, and I swear, when I looked behind the bar, she was sitting on top of a bottle of White Label. Damn. I really didn’t need this shit. Not right now. I got too many other things to do. Some pussy would sure be nice. I can’t lie about that.
    “Catch you later, man,” Jimmy said, sliding off the stool. I nodded.
    By the time I finished my third shot, I decided to go ahead and take Pam some money. Wasn’t nothin’ jumping off in here. I stopped by the bank, withdrew my last forty dollars, and put twenty more with it. Shit, something was better than nothing. I walked all the way through the park to the projects, where her and the kids lived. I hated the projects, and the thought that she was raising my kids here always made me mad. Trash every-goddamn-where, and nobody cared. Young kids sitting around, looking like they high on everything. I used to do the same stupid shit, and look where it got me.
    I pushed the steel door open and counted three bullet holes in the bulletproof glass. The hallway smelled like piss. I held my breath and got in the elevator that worked. A balled-up stinking Pamper was in one corner, a empty bottle of Thunderbird right next to it, and a old TV set was sitting in another puddle of piss. Did I really live here six years ago? It wasn’t this bad then, but it seem like the place just goes downhill year after year, and don’t nobody give a shit. Pam can do better; she just too damn cheap. A hundred and ninety-eight dollars a month for this? At