Jazz Moon by Joe Okonkwo Read Free Book Online Page B

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    Services started. The Reverend Ledger began lecturing his congregation on the Beatitudes. Willful switched his attention to the reverend. Ben felt forsaken. Why won’t he stop looking? became Why did he stop looking?
    After church, Ben stood outside with his ma and pa as they spoke to a neighbor. Mrs. Hutchison led her offspring in a line as they clattered down the church steps, Willful at the back. As he passed Ben, he whispered, “Meet me at Sugarfish Pond. Two o’clock,” his mouth so close, it almost brushed Ben’s face.

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    A ngeline wanted to fuck. She bowled him onto his back and attempted to ram herself down onto him. He clinched his eyes shut and conjured up Willful. Then Baby Back. Then Reggie.
    Nothing.
    He couldn’t do his job as a husband. Couldn’t do his job as a man. Hadn’t done anything in weeks.
    Next day, he rose before dawn, as he always did these days. Summer had evolved into September and mornings were cool. Angeline had covered herself with the blanket. She slept on her side of the bed. Her side of the bed . A new phenomenon. He shut the door softly as he left the bedroom, then sat at his desk and began writing. He’d write for hours until it was time to go to work. Or until Angeline woke. At work his boss lauded him as his “best colored worker.” But he was really an obsessed man who had to keep occupied to prevent perverse desires from crawling up and strangling him.

    You want a love
I cannot give.
No matter how I pray.
    Â 
    And I regret,
Sweet angel dear,
Desire has gone away.

    He was about to start the next stanza, but the bedroom door opened.
    â€œGood morning,” Angeline said, more yawn than words.
    He didn’t look up. “Morning.”
    She contemplated him from the doorway, waiting for something from him. “I’ll get your breakfast.”
    He brushed by her en route to the bathroom. “I don’t want none. Thank you.”
    Half an hour later, he found Angeline at his desk reading the poem he had neglected to remove from the typewriter. He ran and tore the page out so hard, the paper ripped.
    â€œDon’t!” he yelled. “It ain’t none of your business!”
    â€œ ‘ I regret, sweet angel dear, desire has gone away. ’ That ain’t my business? That ain’t my fucking business?”
    She rose and advanced on him. He instinctively backed up.
    â€œI didn’t mean for you to see that,” he said.
    She trapped him at the front door. “Have you . . . Have you been—” She ran away. “No! I don’t want to know. I don’t ever want to know.”
    â€œAngeline—”
    â€œGet out of here, Ben. Go to work. Go. Now!”
    On the subway, streaking toward downtown, he realized he still carried the ripped poem.
    Â 
    He worked an extra shift and dreaded the thought of home. So he got off the subway at 125th Street and kept walking. Even on a weeknight Harlem throbbed. The same verve as Saturday night at the clubs, but filtered into workaday tasks. Ben passed a store on 126th where two old ladies ganged up on a helpless grocer, complaining he was charging “too damn much” for vegetables they considered less than fresh. An ice man walked toward him carrying on one shoulder a wood bucket with a single, bulky slab of ice. He wore overalls over a sweat-soaked union suit snug enough to highlight his stevedore’s build. His hair was gray, but his haggard face hovered between young and old. People scurried into drugstores and delicatessens, then scurried out with items wrapped in brown paper. Old men sat on crates and smoked pipes outside a barber shop while those inside leaned back in the chairs for a cut and a shave and a helping of timeless barber wisdom. A man waiting his turn joked around with the barber, told him to take his time with the customer in the chair. “Don’t slice his ear off, like you did mine last time.” The