Soul Circus(29)

For the first time since she’d left high school, in the tenth grade, she had some money in her dresser drawer. She’d sold off half of the chronic in one-hundred-dollar bags, just to friends and to people she’d met in the apartments around hers and to people they knew. And now she was flush. She didn’t have a job or nothin’ like that, but she intended to start looking for one soon. The important thing was, no one had found her or come looking for her, far as she knew, up till now. Mark had mentioned that some white dude had been by that day, and he was all embarrassed and stuff for telling the white dude where they lived, but she told Mark not to worry over it too much. The white dude was probably some bill collector, like from the furniture company or somethin’ like that.

It touched her, the way Mark was always trying to please her and protect her. The flip side of that was, the only thing she worried about in her own life was Mark. She did love her boy and she wanted him safe. But he seemed to be adjusting to this new neighborhood. He looked happy most of the time and he made friends easy. She’d never lived in Northeast, but this was east-of-the-river Northeast, not too different from the Southeast side where she’d come up, and it seemed cool.

Mark was smiling when she’d kissed him good-bye. She’d just seen him off a few minutes ago. Her brother, William, had picked him up, was gonna take him over to his place to watch the playoffs, the Lakers against the Sixers, and spend the night. William was going to keep Mark for a couple of days, the way he always did.

Olivia missed him when he was gone, even for a night, but it was good for Mark to be around a man, and William was a strong role model and as straight as they came. He’d always disapproved of her lifestyle, telling her constantly to get herself together, but mostly she’d let it roll off her like everything else, ’specially since she knew deep down that her brother was right. And these nights that William took Mark, it allowed her to kick back, burn some smoke without having to hide it, listen to music by herself, and laugh at whatever was playin’ on the TV.

Maybe she could fix this place up some, get an extension on the lease, settle here. Put curtains up or somethin’, ’cause the way they had this place painted, it was dark and kinda gray. Get an exterminator out here for the roaches that showed up all over the kitchen when you turned the lights on back there. Some new sheets for Mark’s bed. She had the money. It was hid good, too, right in between her mattress and box spring. Along with the rest of the herb.

The buzzer rang from over by the phone. It was that buzzer from downstairs, said that someone was wantin’ to get in. She wasn’t expecting anyone, so she stayed where she was. Probably someone was down there hittin’ all the buzzers, just lookin’ to get inside.

She shook a Newport out of her pack and lit it. The menthol, it tasted good after you smoked some get-high. Olivia smiled, looking at the face Martin was making on the TV show. The music sounded good, too, coming from the stereo. She looked at the joint resting in the ashtray and considered picking it back up. But she was already trippin’ behind this shit, so she let it lay there where it was.





chapter 11


SUE Tracy had met Quinn over at his apartment on Sligo Avenue, in a boxy brick structure near a small convenience market in Silver Spring. When they spent the night together they did it at his place. More often these days, Sue, who had a one-bedroom off Rockville Pike, seemed to prefer to stay on his side of town.

Silver Spring had beer gardens and restaurants within walking distance of Quinn’s, and live music if you wanted it, and you could leave the house and go to any of those places wearing whatever you had on without thinking twice. The city was starting to take on the concrete sterility of white-bread Bethesda, and it was getting the same upscale chains, and the fake Mexican cantinas, and the grocery store where people could be “seen” eating overpriced sushi in the window booths and overpaying for vegetables in the checkout lines. But Silver Spring hadn’t lost its personality or its mix of working immigrants and blue-collar eccentrics yet. You could still rest your can of Bud on the engine block of your car while you fiddled around under the hood on a sunny day and not get a reproachful look. You could say that you liked women, not just as people but also in bed, and not feel as if you were wearing a swastika band around your arm. If that ever changed, Quinn swore he’d be gone.

Earlier in the evening they’d had dinner at Sue’s favorite place, Vicino, on Quinn’s street. Then they caught a set of Bill Kirchin’s band up at the Blue Iguana on Georgia Avenue. Quinn had suggested it, as the drummer, a guy named Jack who lived in the neighborhood, cooked. They bought a six on the way back to Quinn’s place. They could have walked everywhere, but they took Quinn’s ’69 Chevelle, a 396 with Cregars and Flowmaster pipes. Sue was used to driving her work vehicle, a gray Econoline van, so it was a treat for her to get behind the wheel of something that had some muscle. She especially liked to move the Hurst shifter through its gears.