There was a black woman sitting naked on his bed, with the old lady wearing nothing but underpants beside her. He knew the black woman well. She was the whore who put makeup on her needle tracks (which she called fleabites). She was the whore who always made the John pay first and then said: OK, baby, you just lemme go out and get my medicine and then I'll be more relaxed. — Whenever she could get away with it, she didn't come back. — The old lady was hitting her with the needle and the black woman's face was turned away and the old lady slyly knuckled her vulva but the black woman said: I been in the pen but I ain't never been no lesbian. I don't have no use for girls, 'cause they don't have three legs! Course, I don't need boys, either, when I got dope. (I dunno about that vein there, baby. Maybe you can't stick that vein.) Dope's my sex. Dope comes first, food comes second, and boys come last. Sorry, honey, but your finger just ain't on my list. An' them boys, they should be thankful they're on the list at all. 'Cause if they don't like it I can just go to the store and buy me a rubber husband. Plug it in and turn it on an' I don't need any other kind.
The old lady wasn't listening. She slid her middle finger deep inside the black woman's vagina. Then she eased the plunger down, and the black woman's eyeballs rolled up in gladness.
Sitting on the bed, he glanced at the old lady's sorry arms. He remembered the dark shoeshine place on Sixteenth with the airplane glue smell where he'd come with a broken watch because the proprietor had a round gentle face and his spectacles were alive and his fingers were repairman's fingers, downgrowing piney tendrils studded with sensitivity, so he gave his watch to the proprietor, who took it into another world where a bird flapped on television, purifying all the spools and bins of shoes and boots and purses and jackets, and the proprietor said something to himself in Chinese and took the watch to a pincer-machine, a clamp-machine and then a sewing machine; and smiling quite happily, the proprietor returned from behind the partition on which rubber soles and crescents of a mysterious silver metal waited to come alive, and the proprietor set the watch down on the counter, on which a piece of paper was laid, and the paper said: The Blood of Jesus covers all of my sin.
Sixty-thirty, the proprietor explained. Any time is sixty-thirty. Trusty me.
How much do I owe you?
Three dollar OK?
Sure.
The watch was fixed, and he was happy. Then the proprieter showed his own watch, whose plastic strap he couldn't fix.
The old lady's arm and soul were both like that. She fixed others, for a fee, but how could she repair herself?
Well, sorry I was gone for so long, whispered the whore who'd been raped with a vacuum cleaner. I got another date, and I just couldn't let that twenty dollars pass. I don't give a shit about that, the old lady said. Do you have it or not is all I give a shit about.
I'm sorry, the girl said quickly, pulling out the bag of powder.
It only took the old lady only a quarter of an hour to find a vein. The girl watched big-eyed, licking her lips. Afterward the old lady started happily complaining about the black woman, mainly because she wasn't there. — That raunchy stuff is what bugs me, she said. She wean a skirt that barely covers the crack of her ass, no underpants, and she opens up her legs when the cars go by. I went by in a car with one of my regulars and she started flappin' her titties. It was so
I dunno, the girl said, embarrassed because she was not listening. I gotta go stick myself in a personal place.
But the old lady would not let her go. She made her listen to the story about the last time she'd gone to jail, when she lost her thirty-dollar coat. When you go into jail and anyone in your hotel sees you get picked up, your belongings are gone on the first night. The black woman said: I don't know what happened to your coat. — But when the old lady got out, the black woman was wearing it when she went down the street. The old lady said: Isn't that my coat? The black woman said: Uh-uh. Anyhow, it's too tight for you. It looks better on me. — In the end the old lady had to trade her for it.
Please, I gotta go, the girl said in agony. I'll come right back. I done my duty.
She ran to the sink, bent her head down, and retched.
I'm sorry, honey, said the old lady. I didn't know you needed to fix so bad.
It's okay, the girl said, smiling nervously in case someone might strike her.
He heard somebody moan when he began to turn the key in the lock. When he opened the door, the old lady was there, wearily w searching for a vein.
