Gather Together in My Name - Maya Angelou [71]
There was no happiness in the house.
In Oakland, my fantasy settled upon becoming Mrs. Troubadour Martin. He was kind, generous and quiet, and although we made a desultory kind of love a few times, he had never asked for more. The ideal husband.
Troub was definitely strung out on heavy narcotics. Even when I smoked grass, he would take only one or two drags and let me have the rest. I had waited to see when he would try to introduce me to heroin and hadn't been quite sure how I'd respond. Order him out of my house or consider that he made enough money to be able to keep us both high for life? One hit of heroin wouldn't make me an addict. And maybe if I shot it once, he'd know I didn't disapprove and our relationship would be closer. Since he never answered my direct questions about heroin, I schemed to bring about a confrontation.
“Troubadour, I think you'll have to find someone else.”
“Why, Rita?” Even shock didn't scurry across his face.
“I think you're keeping something from me. Or have an old lady. And … and I'm beginning to fall for you.” It wasn't difficult to make myself cry. All I had to do was think about losing my soft perch, or my brother, or my mother, or old L.D. or the long-lost Curly.
“Rita, I've told you, I don't have any woman.”
Tears flowed. “But you never take me with you. I'm not a girl. I want to be your woman. And share everything with you. You don't care about me.”
“Yes, I do, Rita. I like you. You're just fine.”
“But you don't want me, is that it?”
“No. That's not it.” At least he was speaking a little faster.
“Then if you want me, stop hiding what you do. I can take it.”
I dried my tears enough to look at him. His eyes squinched together and his jaws clenched. He looked straight at me. “Can you leave the baby for a while? Come for a ride with me.”
Here it was. I had to leave Guy alone. Nothing ventured …
Troub pointed the car toward San Francisco.
“Where are we going?” I had expected he was taking me to his room, which was in Oakland near my house. He didn't answer. The Bay Bridge amber lights washed out his brown earth color and he was a cold, sallow stranger. I couldn't show panic.
“Oh, to the city, huh? That's nice.” (“Did I ever tell you I have only a little while to live? I have a brain tumor and the doctors give me six months.” I had planned the speech years before to be used if I encountered a rapist or murderer. “They can't operate. Too near the cerebellum.”)
Troubadour stared at the streets and chose one. I was dismayed to see that we were on the waterfront. My God, he was a freak of some kind and this was going to be the last few minutes of my life. I still couldn't scream.
He stopped the car on the wharf.
“Come on, Rita.”
“But where are we going?”
“I'm going to show you something.”
There was an absoluteness about the way he spoke and nodded his head toward the opposite side of the street. A pale sign said “Hotel.” I was glad I hadn't screamed. A hotel. Maybe his house was hot and he was bringing me to a hotel to show me the ropes. I followed him through the fog across four sets of railroad tracks to the hotel.
He walked straight to the desk and told a chalky-white clerk. “Give me the key.”
The clerk didn't hesitate and I still followed, a little shaken. Did he keep a room here to act out some extravagant fantasy?
He turned the key in a lock and I went sheeplike into the room.
My first impression was that I was in a city bus station