Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin

Author:Armistead Maupin [Maupin, Armistead]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

a sister’s got a plate of ribs in front of her, there ain’t no way

you’re gonna hold her attention.”

Ben and I laughed raucously.

“I’m serious, ” said Patreese, clearly tickled by our response

and warming to his material. “I’m up there workin’ my ass

off . . . just flangin’ my stuff around. And they’re sittin’ down

there in their nasty-ass press-on nails, pickin’ meat outta

their teeth.”

Ben hooted again. “Tough crowd, eh?”

“Oh, the sisters say they like the mens . . . ” Patreese

drew out the last word with a histrionic hiss, so we’d know

it wasn’t his own particular vernacular. “But they don’t like

the mens near as much as the mens like the mens.” He was

tying his bootlaces, so he finished with a punctuating yank.

“They don’t tip as good, either.”

He came to the bed fully dressed and wriggled between

us until we became his naked bookends. There was something strangely intimate and sweet about holding him in his clothes. He lay there for a while, sighing a little, then kissed

us on our foreheads and got up again, heading out. “Be well,

my brothers,” he said at the door.

“You too,” we said in unison.

“Y’all make a nice couple.”

“Thanks.”

Michael Tolliver Lives 139

“I’ll see you on Thursday,” he said. “When we sign that

thing for your mama.”

It took me a while, but I gaped at him until I got it.

“You’re the other witness?”

Patreese nodded. “You be nice to her, you hear?”

He opened the door and left, closing it behind him.

Ben turned to me and dropped his jaw dramatically.

“Jesus. What are the chances of this?”

I told him he’d said that before.

“Yeah, well . . .”

“Do you think she put him up to it?”

“Who? Your mother? ”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“For God’s sake, Michael. We were the ones who picked

him up!”

Were we? I wondered.

Ben rolled over and nuzzled my neck. “You ascribe way

too much power to her.”

Do I? I thought, staring up at the f loral-patterned ceiling.

14

Her Raggedy

Soul

The next morning Ben and I wolfed down a huge

breakfast at the Denny’s across the street. A

touch of gluttony seemed a fitting follow-up to

our late-night pig-out with Patreese. Besides, I

rather liked the idea of ordering the Biscuit and Gravy plate

in what remained of my beloved Southern homeland. Until

I actually ordered it, that is.

“Will that be the Senior Biscuit and Gravy?”

Our waitress, a hefty young gum-chewing black woman,

could easily have been one of Patreese’s bachelorettes.

“No,” I told her with a measured smile. “I don’t think

I qualify quite yet.”

“How old are you?”

I hadn’t been asked this in a place of business since I

was seventeen, when I tried, unsuccessfully, to buy a fifth of

Jack Daniel’s at a liquor store across the highway from Mr.

Grady’s gas station. It was just as unsettling to be carded at

the other end of my life, for a fucking biscuit, no less, but I

answered as civilly as possible.

“I’m fifty-five.”

The waitress nodded triumphantly, scribbling some

142 Armistead Maupin

thing on her pad, like she’d just guessed my weight at the

country fair. “This is your lucky day, peaches.”

Then she sashayed off, leaving me in the dust of her

righteousness.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.