Free The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara Page A

glass and waved. And his father’s sun tan, like a carnival mask with loose stringing, slipped a bit to the side of his face and Buster thought it might be time to check his prescription. That wasn’t exactly the like. But to hell with like. It always got him in trouble. “Never mind what it’s like,” his father told him and Nadeen told him too. “Deal with what is, Buster, with what is.”
    He tucked in his top lip and scraped his teeth against the growth he was sure was a manly mustache and pondered the next question. How to be in two places at once? He needed to write up the interviews and hand them in next day, then he’d be done with his course work until finals. But how to be there in Dr. Serge’s office and be there in the treatment room too when Mrs. Henry came round? He glanced at Nadeen, so intent yet self-preoccupied. She wasn’t the most observant or lively reporter. She would no doubt shrug and say nothing much happened. “Mrs. Henry just got well that’s all and then everybody left.” He wondered if he really meant to go through with it, marry this girl who was barely his kid sister’s age. He grazed his lips and mustache against her temples and hugged her. “Gotta go,” he whispered. She never looked up his way.
    Old Wife was pulling at Minnie’s sleeve. “You’re losing your audience, Min. Folks walking out.”
    “I’m gonna lose the patient too if you don’t give me some directions. She’s lost a lot of blood and her system’s still full of gas. I just can’t seem to generate the energy to bring her back and restore her.”
    “It’ll be all right, Min. Is all right right now. Then you can go home and see about yo sef.”
    “Mmm,” thinking about home, her slippers, the cushy couch, the throw rugs that would be bright and clean of cat fur and nut shells. The widow lady and her lodger had been at it all morning and she’d be overwhelmed at the door with lemon oil and ammonia. Or if the lodger had been allowed a free hand, the floors would be slick with van van polish and the whole house reeking of Peaceful House Incense #9. They did their best, but all she really wanted was for someone to drive the porch nails down so she could go barefoot. And for someone to move the cord of wood from the yard to the window within reach of the couch. And for someone to fix her kitchen window, propped up since Christmas with a stick of firewood. It didn’t seem too much to ask. It didn’t seem too much to get done for a woman who could get patients up off the surgeon’s table, for a woman who could get patients to throw off their stitches, for a woman who could drive snakes out of folks’ heads. But she wanted someone to do it without her leading them.
    She thought of Dr. Meadows, wandering about in front of the Infirmary, studying the glyphs the old masons had chiseled into its face, reading the memorial plaques and glancing about toward the bus terminal, toward the park, as if not sure which way to ramble. And she saw herself on the porch with her silver tea set, legs crossed, swinging her new beige T-strap suedes, brushing the crease in his gray slacks. The doctor leaning in the rocker telling her all about himself.
    “Free to go anywhere at all in the universe,” Minnie muttered. “So why do I choose to be bothered with this gal?” But knowing that at the first sign of a shift on the stool, or a signal from Old Wife or a word from within, she would tear past the flower beds, race back along the path, sunk up to her hem inhot sand, and tilting would race down the cliffs to Velma Henry’s side to take up the yoke and pull toward life.
    “Love, Min. Love won’t let you let her go. I’m not the leastways worried. Cause it’s got everything to do with good.”
    “Love. Good. God. She don’t want that. Getting so none of them want that. The children are spoiling, Old Wife. Want their loving done with sweet-tooth cupcakes and shiny cars and credit cards and grins from white