Gather Together in My Name - Maya Angelou [55]
CHAPTER 27
“You sure are starting at a good time. The radio said rain today.”
I sat in an uncomfortable chair and watched the two women.
Clara looked up at me and explained, “Tricks walk in the rain.” She laughed. “I'm sure I don't know why. If I was them, I'd rather stay in my own bed.” She laughed again. “By myself.” Chuckle.
Bea's voice interrupted Clara's amusement. “Goddam. Don't say nothing like that, you'll put the bad mouth on the day. I want to be in bed with ten tricks by noon. It's already nine o'clock and I haven't even broke luck yet.”
Carefully applied make-up did not disguise the woman's hard features. When I met her the night before, I had decided she wasn't nearly as nice as Clara, and although I would work with her, we'd never become friends.
“New girl gets to break luck.” Clara laid on a little authority. “You know how it goes.”
The language was new but its meaning was clear, and I wanted above all things not to appear stupid and not to display my immobilizing nervousness. I tried to concentrate on what the women were doing. Their fingers darted making knots in long strings of heavy white twine.
Bea looked up at me, disdain a mist across her face. “You a cherry, ain't you?”
“Yes.” Lying would get me nothing.
“Well, that's a thirty-second business. When you turn the first trick, you'll be a 'ho. A stone 'ho. I mean for life.” She grinned sourer than a rotten lemon, but her make-up and jewelry and air of abandoned sex gave her a glint of glamour.
Clara wedged in a peacemaker's tone, “Well, that won't be so bad will it? I mean you're a whore.”
“Hell, yes. I'm a damn good one. I'm a mud kicker. In the streets I make more money by accident than most bitches make on purpose.” She rolled her head and twisted her body. “And it's more action, too. I mean the lights and tricking all night till the sun comes up.”
I wondered why she left the streets.
“I just got too hot. I was getting busted two, three times a week. So my daddy brought me down to this crib. Let the heat get off. Then I'll be back switching and bitching and getting merry like Christmas.”
They both stood up and shook out strings in their hands. Clara walked to the living-room door and attached two strings to tacks over the lintel. She took matches from her robe pocket and lighted the ends that swung lazily near the floor.
“You burn string in the morning for luck, Rita. When it reaches the first knot the tricks begin to walk.”
Bea had left the room to place string over the other doors.
Clara went back to her uneasy chair.
“Now, Rita, let's have a little talk. You were so tired when L.D. brought you in last night, I thought I'd wait till morning to tell you how I run this place.” I pulled my attention from the little red mouths that were nibbling up the string.
“L.D. said your work name was Sugar. I think that goes with you. You so young and quiet. Now, here's how it goes. In your room you have a tablet, and when you take a trick he pays me; and after, I sign your book. If you didn't have a man of your own, I'd give you your money at the end of the day and you could leave. But what'll happen is, at the end of the week Lou will come and I'll give it to him. He'll straighten out your bills, room rent, board and liquor.” She caught herself. “'Course you don't drink and soft drinks are free. Then you get your day off and get to stay all night with your man.
“All my tricks are Mexican. They're fast but not too clean. Each girl has her own trick pan and towels. You wash them first and after. Then you take fresh water and wash yourself good. Since you're a cherry, I have to tell you Mexicans aren't built very large, but don't open your legs wide. They are tricks, not your old man, so don't try making love to them. That's why they call them tricks.”
Clara's superstition about the burning string had already disenchanted me, and her conversation on deception of customers erased any respect I had for her. The only way I could be in the business was to give due service for the money paid. I decided privately that I would make