Willett Thomas's Blog: Views Atop a Marble Stair - Posts Tagged "the-wire"

Un-Wired - A Novel & True Story
Chapter One

The phone rang at 8:45 p.m. I’ve never liked answering the phone after 8pm. Other than bill collectors who flagrantly ignore laws stating that no calls are to be made to deadbeats before 8am or after 8pm, who else could it be other than someone phoning with bad news?

“Estella, did you hear me?” The voice on the other end of the phone didn’t belong to a bill collector, nor was it weepy or overly somber—but it did sound pissed.

“I’m here. Hold on, just a second.”

“Estella?” Taiwo repeated, his West African drawl more affected, each syllable stretched well beyond breaking point. “Did you hear me? I said you’re in F O R E C L O S U R E.” This he repeated again, slowly as if English was my second, or perhaps even third language, and not my only language.

“Do you understand me?”

“Hold on, Taiwo, another moment, please,” I coughed, retching back into the receiver, continuing my sputtering knowing even as oven cleaner fumes overwhelmed me, making me both queasy and dizzy, surely this couldn’t be true. The chief reason being: I was selling my house in the morning. So, Taiwo had to be mistaken and, hopefully, God willing, someone had died instead.

“And, on who’s authority do you have it I’m in foreclosure, Taiwo?”

“The friggin bank, Estella, that’s who.” The bank and my settlement attorney, Ida B. Rubinstein, who according to Taiwo cursed him in heavy Bensonhurst–her don’t even go there with me Brooklynese, saying in part that our “shenanigans” were rivaled only by the man who shot his ex-wife in the wrist as she sat signing her copies of the HUD-1.

“Okay, say I am in foreclosure, what now?” I asked. I mean, really, I had only missed two mortgage payments.

“What, now? Well, I wait for word from Ida. You wait for word from me.”

It was already close to 9 P.M. “Yeah, but it’s late, too late for anyone to do anything, so I’m screwed, right?”

“Ida promised to let me know as soon as she got word – positive or not. Just sit tight, and if the phone rings, for goodness sake, Estella, do answer. It will probably be me.”

One hour later, the phone rings, a sharp, piercing trill bringing me back from where I had floated: Whether to begin using the more expensive 50 ft of filament tape or the way cheaper 100 ft of masking tape to close the moving boxes?

“Hey, Glory,” I answered, weary of all the packing that still lay ahead.

“How’d you know it was me? What, you finally broke down and got The Caller ID?”

I pushed aside boxes to make space at the dining room table. “No, I programmed the phone’s ringer so it plays, God Save the Queen, when it’s you.

“Oh, well, that’s sweet…I suppose. So, did you ‘friend’ me?”

“Tell me you didn’t call me about this, mother.”

“Whatever. Still, good daughters ‘friend’ their mothers — I’ve got 965 friends as of this morning.”

“Good,” I said. Whatever my issues were with my mother, others continue to love her to pieces.”

“This can’t be the reason you called? Tell me it’s not, mother.”

“No, you’re right, daughter. I called to cast blessings on your settlement tomorrow.”

I didn’t want to go into this newest hiccup. I just couldn’t go down that road with Glory, not this day, not with ‘she who is so supremely herself.’

So I changed the subject.

“How did church service go tonight? Good turn out?” When most seniors are getting up for that second nightly trip to the bathroom, my mother can be found taking sips of herbal tea from her Jesus Saves travel mug and reciting scriptures at sunrise sermon to the dispossessed and those (she says) merely demonically inclined. In this instance: Those fifteen bleary-eyed congregants content to sit under her aluminum carport, drenched in Florida early morning humidity.

“Of course, it was a good turnout. If only two gather to praise my name,” she answered.

“Your name?” I laughed, emitting a sound more like a pig’s snort than the soft, yet mocking chortle I had intended.

“Little girl, don’t let the Devil make you write a check your butt can’t cash. Thinking overmuch of yourself is what got you in this situation.” With this a silence takes over our conversation, like an old wool sweater that’s both warm and familiar, but still irritating to the extreme.

“Well, whatever’s goin on, and I know it’s something, I hope you’re praying for clarity on the matter.”

I sucked in air between gritted teeth. Glory knew I hated for her to call me ‘little girl’. I was thirty-eight, hardly a girl by anyone’s loose definition.

“Really, of all things to pray for, why clarity, mother?” I said, ignoring the fast clicking heard on Glory’s side of the line, a preemptive measure by her, the result of having been sued several times by the families of congregants.

“Clarity? Why? Isn’t it obvious, Estella? How many people leave a perfectly good job doing PR for books you said practically sold themselves to “find herself”? Ten years thrown out the window to do what? Cash out your retirement, literally throw good money down a rickety house’s rusty drain? Buckets of money–all for what, Estella? Start a yogi babysitting service that failed because you don’t know the first darn thing about kids or yogi, with those parents, those that let you watch ‘em, coming back to find their kids all red in the face, eyes practically swollen shut from crying the whole time you had ‘em twisted and bent back–”

“Mother, really, I’m in no condition—mood, to hear your list of all the ways I’ve fail at life. You’d think–”

“Oh, no, let me finish because you asked, so I’m going to tell you.”

“Go on, because I know you will anyway,” I said, “no matter what I have to say.”

“Right. What about that plan you had to sell used books online? That failed because people don’t read nothing. But even if they did, ever heard of Amazon, Estella? And, what about those gluten-free cookies and brownies and such, tasting like whoever was doing the baking — and I say this because it’s the God’s truth — tasted like you’d never turned on an oven in life, which you hadn’t up until then.”

Even with the receiver resting on my shoulder, and me doing my little ‘I’m-twirling-while-ignoring-you-mother-dance,’ I could just barely make out the voice of one of her most senior Christian geezer flunkies in the background, “Pastor Glory, you want lemon in your ginger tea?”

“No! Can’t you see I’m talkin’ to my child!” Then softer, “No, thank you, precious. I take mine straight,” before starting up again.

“Estella, you’d been better off spending all that money on one of those dating services, least by now you’d got yourself a husband for your trouble. Least then, maybe, you could have avoided all that other mess you got into. In some ways you really are your daddy’s child—God rest his malefactoring soul.”

After this there was no long silence. No, me telling her in no uncertain terms that no babies had been injured doing my “yoga for toddlers,” regimen, seeing how toddlers by definition are bendy. No, rant ending with me screaming, “You leave him out of this!” No anything. Just the click.

Tired and defeated with so much work to do before the settlement, I decided to close my eyes for ten minutes, maybe fifteen, but no more. Then refreshed I’d deal with the packing tape question, and all else yet to be dealt with.

“Estella, are you in there!” I recognized Taiwo’s voice right off, and could only wonder what Ida had to say, that he hadn’t simply called and needed to show up at my door at such a late hour. And if not for the sun casting the room in a gauzy, knocking-on-heaven’s-door supernatural light, and clock reading in orange neon 8:37AM, I would have never guessed I slept even fifteen minutes. I stumbled to the door and as by reflex, touched my face to check for dry drool.

“Your neighbor said this was in with her mail,” Taiwo said, wincing at the sight of me.

“Thanks.” I murmured, taking the envelope. The flap had been slit open. I envisioned Cecilia, her aquamarine nails emboldened with breezy palm trees, removing and reading the contents. I quickly scanned several sheets of paper. I was being foreclosed on. I brushed past Taiwo to stick my head out the door and wave at Cecilia still on her porch, her neck set to permanent crane.

“Thanks, Cecilia,” I yelled as I closed the screen door, allowing it to slam behind me.

“I’ve been trying you since six. Why didn’t you answer the phone?” Taiwo asked. I looked around, and saw the phone on the floor, off its cradle.

“Settlement’s on,” Taiwo said, sighing, offering me the limited edition version of his brilliant smile.

“Give me a minute to pull myself together.” I told him, wanting desperately to get in gear, but still strangely unnerved by whatever was coming next. And though barely whispered, I could have sworn I heard him say, “God, only a minute?”

Ida B. Rubinstein, the woman standing just inside conference room three, was nothing like the Ida B. Rubinstein I had imagined after so many phone conversations. Sure, there was the heavy Brooklyn accent, but she was neither fat nor short, and was not remotely a combination of the two: Squat. She did not have high, architecturally unsound hair streaked with alternating wide bans of salt and pepper grey; her fingers were not stubs, nor were they adorned with what Glory’s fellow flea market enthusiasts called cocktail rings. No, this Ida B. Rubinstein, with her Michelle Obama arms, wavy chestnut mane, and a tan which looked neither sprayed on nor gave her skin a leathery appearance, was not to be stereotyped. This Ida B. Rubinstein was a stone cold, sixty-one year-old fox.

“What you put me through,” she remarked at seeing Taiwo. “On the phone practically all night, the whole time saying, ‘But, we got your money. So, what’s the problem?’ Oh, whatever, com’on in, doll. It’s a new day, go on, find your seat.” Then she looked at me, giving me a quick once over to finally extend her hand and say, “Glad to meet you Ms. Tinsdale, thank you for choosing Ida P. Rubinstein to handle both your settlements today.”

I nodded, still overwhelmed by the moment as I walked the couple steps to the chair Taiwo held out for me. I felt the reassuring pressure of his hand on my shoulder and then, its quick removal, as I sat down and quietly grabbed several pens embossed with Ida P. Rubinstein’s name and her motto: It’s always smooth sailing with Ida – shore to shore.”

Minutes later the buyer arrived. I continued studying my papers, not looking up at him. This youngish, white guy. The sort you see on judge shows, the plaintiff, calm and cool. And then there was me, the defendant, jittery, needing a hit of something–in my case–coffee. Sitting across the table from Mr. America, in truth my savior, I felt as though I somehow had been hoodwinked. Sure, I now had enough money from the sale of my D.C. house to pay off the mortgage and buy the new house mortgage free. Even so, he was getting the bargain of a lifetime, and for some reason this gnawed at me.

“Alright then, if we’re all square, then we can get ready for part two of Miss Tinsdale’s proceedings. Taiwo, I believe the new property’s sellers just arrived,” Ida said, looking over at me and my now Rorschach inky hands as Tookie, her assistant, placed a second packet of papers in front of me. This one labeled: Baltimore.

“Estella?” Taiwo said, reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief.

“No, need, Taiwo.” Ida said, gesturing toward her assistant. “Grab some Handi Wipes—and Windex,” she told the girl. Tookie nodded, heading clickety clack for the door. Smiling down on me, with eyes that looked as if she had bat wings glued to her lids, Ida P. Rubinstein gently removed a pen from my clinched fist, saying in a tone at once reproachful and sympathetic, “Looks like you’ve got quite a mess on your hands, sweetheart.”

to be continued…

It took three hours and would necessitate a new paint job, but all my furniture got through the row house’s narrow front door, with most by sheer force making it upstairs to the second and third floors. Benny ended up staying throughout, even at threat of car napping, though he spent most the time stationed at the front bay window, cellphone ever ready, 911 on speed dial.

“What now?” Benny asked as we sat on the new hardwood floors, covered with a blanket snagged with bits of leaf and twig remnants, one Benny kept in Sienna’s trunk for impromptu “collaborations.” Our collaboration this evening consisted of delivered Moo Shu Pork (partial delivery when you take into account we, and by “we” I mean I, had to go and meet the driver curbside for what felt like the strangest of hostage exchanges) and the bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champaign, a gift from Taiwo for our successful settlements.

“Well, believe it or not,” I began, taking a gulp from my coffee mug, the only thing I could find to pour wine into, “I’m opening a bed and breakfast, the theme: famous black writers.” I held my hand up, “Now, before you say anything, Benny, I’ve already got one reservation–a nice couple from Minnesota.”

“Damn, this is good, better than that Arbor Mist you’re always swigging,” he said, totally ignoring my life plan, his only thought to refilling his own Campbell’s soup mug. “So, what’s up with you and Taiwo?”

“What?—Oh, God, Benny. He’s married. Besides, he’s a friend.”

“So were Ross and Rachel, what of it? Oh well…does he at least have a brother?”

“Matter of fact, a twin.”

“Really?”

“Don’t go getting your batons all tossed about,” I said, forgetting for the moment that I wanted to talk about my imminent future, not the past, not men. “Taiwo says he’s a bad boy.”

“The Negroid sheep of the family.”

“Let’s just say, not as conventional as Taiwo.”

“So, instead of getting you some, you’re going to play chief cook and bottle washer to white folks—Minnesotans at that?”

“What makes you think they’re white?”

“I assume the initial batch of folks will be Middle Americans. I mean, who else would be willing to pay money to come to Baltimore and gawk?”

“I didn’t inquire as to their race. Besides, there a lot to do here,” I said, ticking off what little I knew there was to do like a junior Baltimore City Office of Tourism guide. “There’s the Harbor—and, of course, there’s…

“Indubitably so,” he said, yawning, waving me off. “Just remember there’s more to being Balamer, than coming here and buying and running a flop house.”

“I know. And, it’s not a flop house, it’s a multi-family rowhouse.”

“Now, I know you don’t know anything about this city. Half of your “rowhouses” are crammed to the rafters with folks with less than two pennies to rub together. You’d know this if you were Baltimore, but you’re not, Stell. You’re not ‘born and bred’. And no matter how long you’re here, you’ll never be old Baltimore. Hell, you’re not even new Balamer –”

“If not new, then what?”

“Sweetie, you’re the worst kind of Baltimore, you’re a never will be, so you might as well not bother putting in the effort.”

I was tired. Tired of Benny, who ever since finding out his great grandfather, a Polish immigrant, worked on the docks in Fells Point, now went around like he was the last authority on everything Baltimore. It was also around this time that he began telling anyone who’d listen how he once attempted to climb Mount Everest. But unfortunately, due to a severe case of cutis anserine (goose bumps), he and Huda, a Sherpa whose glass eye had shattered from the cold, were forced to hang out together at Base Camp Two, eating Ramien and doing Sudoko. So now, everything out of his mouth either began with “summit” this or ended with “Base Camp Two” that, which, along with his Balamer nonsense, left me with an acute case of mountain sickness (nausea).

“Whatever, Benny,” I said as I sat running my fingers along the blanket for the bits of twig that were starting to prick me.

“Don’t hate the teacher for trying to school you.”

“No hate here,” I assured him.”

Benny watched as I poured the last of the wine, half in his mug, half in mine. “So, you just gonna handle your Baltimore business, busy yourself making banana flapjacks? That’s what they call them you know, not pancakes like normal people–those Minnesotans on a quest for that true, ‘Look, pa, just like on The Wire experience.”

“And, what’s so wrong with that?”

“And, I repeat, what about you? When’s Estella gonna get her groove back?”

I didn’t want to talk about grooves. They were overrated. I especially didn’t want to talk about Francisco. I knew that was where Benny was headed. It was his destination of choice ever since we broke up. With our coupling, the two of them became unlikely “boys.” Sometimes I wondered if Benny possibly missed Francisco more than I did. Most times, I didn’t care one way or the other.

“So, when’s the last time you saw Mr. Fine Ass Francisco.”

“I’m doing me, and can’t think of a time I’ve been happier,” I said, shaking the wine bottle one last time. It was empty.

Benny got up and took a quick peek out the window to see if Sienna was still parked in front of the house. She was. Plopping back down onto the blanket, he drained the last couple of drops of wine from his mug then picked up my cup and did the same.

“See, there you go, right back to Francisco. Might as well go there, you know you’re dying to.”

I shook my head. “You’re so wrong. I’m in a totally different space now. A better, more contented space.”

“So what, you’re just going to do the cat lady thing. No man, just hang around this big ass house in a big ass flowered muumuu, flashing the pizza delivery guy?”

I opened my mouth to inform him that daywear for today’s woman were Danskin yoga togs, but before I can there’s a noise.

“–God, Jose! You still here? I thought you left hours ago?”

“Si, I finish up. Sorry, if I scare you,” he said, his shirt no longer tucked into a back pocket, but back on, neatly buttoned and tucked into his jeans splattered with paint.

“That’s fine. Thanks. If I’d known you were working so late, I’d told you to go ahead home.”

“Yeah, Jose,” Benny grinned, “your wife must be really mad at you, staying out so late.”

“No, I’m not married, sir.”

“Girlfriend, then?”

“No, too busy, women need attention. I got to work.”

I smiled at Benny, giving a slight, but noticeable shake of my head for him to stop.

“Well, woman, I should be heading out too. You gonna be all right here by yourself tonight?” Benny asked.

“I’ll be fine. Thanks for hanging out.”

“No problem, you know how we do. Call you first thing in the morning?”

“Sounds good.”

Jose looked at us both, a worried expression on his face, “Your friend, he’s not stayin’?”

“No, he has his own home to get back to.”

“But, Miss, you don’t want to stay by yourself. This is a big house. It’s not good for a woman to be alone.”

I was touched by Jose’s concern. “I’ll be fine. You go on, get home. Both of you. ”

“Well, then, Chica, I’ll call tomorrow.” Benny embraced me one last time before heading out the door, lingering for a moment, waiting it appeared for Jose to follow. But the young man stood planted as if waiting for Benny to exit, and so he did, turning as he left to wink and blow a kiss, though I can’t say for sure who the kiss was meant for.

“Thank you so much, Jose.” I said, moving toward the door. “Everything is just the way I wanted. Rudy said you’d take good care of me and I’m so pleased, really.”

“But you haven’t seen everything.”

“God, what’s left?”

“The roof.”

“Ah, yes. I almost forgot.” I hadn’t been up to the roof since the guys finished with their tarring and put up new gutters. Jose and his crew were to lay decking the length of the back of the house, along with cutting in an access panel to the roof from a small walk-in closet on the third level.

Standing on the roof, so high above everything, Balamer didn’t look so tough, so Wild, Wild West as my stepfather Pete had once joked at learning Dyson’s school choir group was scheduled to perform with the Meyerhof Symphony. “That’s Baltimore, “Yur either with us or agin us, and God help you if you’re agin us.” Which made all of us laugh, except Glory, who scrunched her face, dramatically grabbing Dyson by the hand to begin reciting right on cue, “The LORD is my light and my salvation — whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life–of whom shall I be afraid?” And, who I know, would have spritzed Dyson down with her special recipe holy water right then and there, if only she had had some.

Much of what I knew of Baltimore, up to this point, I had gathered from Pete, his Wild, Wild West assertions. None of it good. Even Little Ludie, the shampoo girl at my salon, Hair & More and Then Some More, who I had never said more than “Not so rough, Lud, it’s my head not an African drum,” had had something to say about my impending move.

“Well, Miss Lady,” she said, tugging away, applying what I hoped would be the last in long and burning line of hair relaxers to my hair. “All I can say is be careful, girl, because I’d hate to hear you caught yourself a case of the AIDS. ‘Cause it ain’t pretty. Hate to see you all baldheaded, scalp all spotted up, seein’ how it took us some time to grow what has turned out to be some nice and lovely hair.” At this point, several of the older ladies, nodded, as if rehearsed, bringing about a chorus of heartfelt, “Yes, Lord,”s, “My Lord,”s, and “Baby Girl’s, gotta be careful, Lord”s.

“Amen,” I said, ready to agree to anything, gesturing as I did toward the sink, as the gook to make my hair nice and lovely was starting to burn the devil out of my scalp, and Ludie, headed in direction of the door, appeared committed to taking her smoke break.

“The deck is beautiful, like everything else,” I said, turning to Jose, marveling at the dark walnut stain, its sheen seen even under the roof deck’s low led lighting. Rudy had suggested the stain. The roof deck would be the perfect getaway for my bed and breakfast guests. After dinner they’d “retire” upstairs to the deck, espressos and digestifs sipped slowly while sitting in the Jacuzzi, listening to old, old school Count Basie and the Duke. This was my perfect Baltimore vision. “Beautiful,” I said again, sighing.

As we stood in the doorway, I watched Jose fumble through his worn wallet finally coming across the business card he said his sister Anna had printed on her computer. “Here, Miss,” he said, “You call me if you need anything – that’s the number for me, only me no one else, okay, Miss?”

I took the dog-eared card, assuring him again that I would be fine, but would call if I needed him. I watched from the door until he got into his red pickup truck a little ways up the street from the house. He was sweet, and in some ways reminded me of Francisco, those first days of us getting to know one another. Then, just as quickly, I dismissed this, remembering this was a new day. And, no matter how tempting or beautiful the view, I wasn’t about to go there again.

to be continued…