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by Bosley Gravel
Mainstream, 8 pages.
Originally Published in The Deepening, 2006
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The Apple Lady was in a good mood tonight. She sat on the edge of the curb outside apartment number fifteen and smoked a long white cigarette. Wess smiled at her, sat down, and took off his left sneaker. He shook a pebble from his shoe.
“Is there a scoop tonight?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said, and pulled the shoe over his heel. He began to tie the laces, but the fiber was rotten and it broke in his hand.
“How’s Ernie? Getting along with his wife?”
“I reckon,” Wess said, and rigged the lace on his shoe. He tossed the broken length to the cement and pulled a pack of generic cigarettes from his shirt pocket, produced a crumpled butt and lit it off the Apple Lady’s borrowed smoke.
They sat in silence for a moment. Jed, drinking from a bottle of blue mouthwash, wandered by, his cat, Mr. Brown, at his heels. Jed wished both them a good evening, and shambled on. His white hair stood straight up, reminding the Apple Lady of Albert Einstein, and Wess of his drunken uncle.
“Well,” she said, “Is there news, or is there news?”
“Ernie beat up Carol, she left him, and Sarah is in his apartment right now.”
“Well goodness,” the Apple Lady said and brushed an ash from her plump thigh, “What’s your mama say about that?”
“She doesn’t say anything about things she don’t know.”
“I see,” she said and tossed her cigarette butt away.
Jed was tapping on the door of apartment twenty-three.
“Honey,” he said, “Honey, let me in.”
Wess and the Apple Lady watched Jed as he stumbled a little and half-heartedly knocked on the door. After a moment the door swung open, a thin lady, her raven colored hair in a sloppy bun, looked Jed straight in the eyes.
“Honey lets him sleep in there when his mom won’t let him in,” Wess said.
“He still lives with his mother? He’s gotta be fifty.”
“Yeah,” Wess said.
Jed grumbled something to Honey.
“Be gone with your bad self! Peddle your foolish stories elsewhere, old man!”
Jed bugged his old eyes and spat to his left, Honey slammed the door.
“Bitch,” he said to his cat, “Snotty little bitch.”
The Apple Lady lit another cigarette. Wess followed suit.
“Is your mama getting along good with her boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” Wess said, “She must be, she’s gone all the time.”
The Apple Lady belched, “Humph,” she said directly afterward.
Jed was wandering again, this time he knocked on apartment twenty-seven, and without waiting for a reply curled up in the door frame. The cat snuggled into the crook of his body and keeping its eyes opened lay its head down.
“You want to know something,” the Apple Lady said. “I’m twenty-six years old, I have a good husband. I’m going to school, and some day I’m going to get out of here. The ghetto is no place for kids. That’s what I’m waiting for, to get out of here, so I can have me a little baby. How old are you, anyway? Fourteen? Fifteen?”
“Twelve,” he said.
“Twelve?” she said and laughed. “Your only twelve and you’ve already got the eyes.”
“The eyes?”
“You’ve got them, don’t worry. I got them, too.”
The door to apartment number nineteen opened. A tall man with a shaved head came out and quickly passed by them. He ignored the Apple Lady, but spoke to Wess, “What’s shaken little brother?”
Wess nodded in reply.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“Mike, Ellen’s boyfriend.”
“Oh,” she said. “Is he good to her?”
“More or less. He drinks a lot of beer.”
They were silent again.
“You going to go to college?” she asked.
Wess smiled showing a chipped tooth.
“Funny,” he said.
“Not really.”
“Don’t preach,” he said. “Don’t you dare preach.”
“Sorry,” she said.
Wess lit another cigarette, off the butt of the previous one.
“I just bought some apples,” the Apple Lady said.
She stood up and opened the door to her place. A minute later she came back with two red apples. She gave them both to Wess.
“Thanks, “ he said and stubbed out his smoke. He polished the smallest of the two.
“The eyes, Wesley, you’ve got the eyes. You see everything. It’s a talent,” she said. “It’s a blessing from God. The eyes will keep you from ever getting bored.”
He bit in to the apple, devouring a quarter of it in a single bite.
“Bored? From God? Funny,” he said, rolling his eyes a little.
“No,” she said. “It’s not funny. You’ve got to use it. Do you understand?”
“No,” Wess said without apology. “I don’t k -- [End of Preview.]