Free Fogtown by Peter Plate Page A

himself, fixing his hair, tamping it, pushing it into place, he glared at Mama. “What do you want to know that for? It ain’t your business.”
    Mama Celeste took a second, longer look at him. He was a lot older than she’d originally guessed, maybe fifty. Her voice was steady when she said, “You never know. It might be.”
    “That’s a load of foolishness if I’ve ever heard any,” he said. “And excuse my French? But there are too many loudmouthed mother-fuckers out here anyway and I ain’t one of them.” Richard bowed his head knowingly and pawed the sidewalk with his foot. Cars chugged up the street. A man and a woman with a shopping cart walked by. He said, “But that don’t explain why you’re speaking with me.”
    “Maybe you need a friend.”
    Friends: everybody had a few of them. Richard had dead friends. He had ex-friends and friends in prison that were serving life without parole. He sneezed and said, “I got a million friends. I got them coming out of my ass. More than I need.”
    “You don’t look like you have any friends.”
    He smiled in anger, exposing three missing front teeth. “Oh, yeah? What else don’t I have?”
    “Money.”
    Richard whisked a hand over his damaged suit. “No kidding. I never have enough damn cabbage.”
    “Do you need some cash? I’ll give it to you.”
    Mama Celeste was shorter than a tree stump. Richard couldn’t pin down her nationality. Her accent was eastern European, high-pitched and nasal. But she looked black. She had the dark skin, the almond-shaped eyes, and the voluptuous lips of the motherland. She wanted to give him money? Richard Rood’s jaw dropped an inch. She had to be raving. What a comedian. She ought to be on television. Stuffing the comb in his back pocket, he said, “Did I hear you right, sister? You want to give me money? I must be dreaming.”
    “You ain’t.”
    “I ain’t dreaming?”
    “No.”
    “Then what is it that I’m doing?”
    “Nothing. I just want to give you money.”
    “Then I must be going insane.”
    “You ain’t doing that either.”
    “You the welfare office?”
    “No.”
    “You the police?”
    “No.”
    “You from the lottery?”
    “No.”
    “You from another planet, you know, Pluto or something?”
    “Nope.”
    “Then who the fuck are you?”
    Richard was irate. The witch was setting him up to run a game on him. Toying with him. She was trying to outwit him and pull the wool over his eyes. If that’s what she had planned, she had another thing coming. He said, “What’s your scam?”
    “My scam?”
    “Yeah, the shit you’re pulling here with me. You think I’m a mark or something? You trying to rob me?”
    “No.”
    He ridiculed Mama Celeste. “You wearing a one-million-year-oldarmy coat and you got on the funkiest damn shoes this side of the Mississippi River—Hunchback of Notre Dame wear that shit—and you want to give me money? You belong in the poor house. You styling like a homeless shelter. You don’t have any money, no how.”
    A warm welcome, Mama Celeste didn’t expect. A celebration of her presence wasn’t necessary. But the denigration of her wardrobe was humiliating. There was no need to get personal. “You don’t like my coat?” she shrugged. “Good for you. But let me tell you something. A coat is just a coat. It means nothing. And yes, I have money.”
    Richard mocked her. “You do not.”
    “Do too.”
    “You tripping.” Richard couldn’t take it any more—people were always talking big about their money. He called her bluff. “Prove it, girlfriend. Let’s see it.” That would show her who she was fucking with. She wanted to put some trick bag over on Richard Rood? No dice. She had to back up her play and show him what was what. There would be no half-stepping. No hoaxing. He waited and said, “Well? I ain’t got all day.”
    Mama Celeste opened the shoebox and filched ten brand new one-hundred-dollar bills. She held the money in her palsying hands; the