Leaving: A Novel by Richard Dry Read Free Book Online Page A

cream and his hands slapping together, then another tapping on the sink.
    She closed her eyes and let the water run over the top of her head and over her mouth. She pressed her elbows into the sour spot in her stomach and burped softly. Any transmission of fear might provoke him. She knew this. To show anger was fine, an act of embarrassment reflecting only on herself, but fear was an invitation. She heard the razor scrape against his face, swish in the water, and then scrape again.
    She stood on her tiptoes and peered out the rectangular window. She could see only the side of the house next door and a cat in the garbage below.
    “Mmmm-hmmm! You sure turned into a full-grown woman.” She spun around and saw him looking in at her from the back of the curtain, licking his tongue over his gold-capped tooth. “You out all night shakin that all over town, lettin those little boys stick they thangs up into you?” His eyes traveled up her body, stopping at the small stream of water running off her pubic hair..
    She stared at the razor clenched in his hand. “Mama.” The word stuck in her throat.
    “She ain’t never gonna believe you.”
    “Mama!” she yelled.
    “Shut your mouth.” He stuck the razor out at her, its straightedge covered with small hairs. She raised the shell of orange soap to throw at him and he laughed.
    “Look at that.” He pointed his chin at her hard nipples. “You can’t hide how you really feel.”
    She covered herself with her elbows.
    He let go of the curtain, perhaps to come in from the other side and grab her, perhaps to take off his clothes. She heard the toilet seat lift, then the spatter of urine. She backed against the window and waited, the sour smell flooding her nose and sickening her. She breathed out for as long as she could. It wasn’t the smell of urine that most disgusted her, but that it was his urine, like his hand reaching out and touching her, getting inside her. When she couldn’t breathe out any longer, she faced the open window and sucked in the cold air.
    He flushed the toilet, and for a moment she couldn’t hear anything else. She couldn’t tell what he was doing. The shower got cold, but she didn’t complain. Then she heard the cabinet close and the bathroom door open again. The hiss of the toilet died away slowly. The pipes rumbled. She stood in the back of the tub, listening, frozen in the silence. Finally she peeked around the corner of the curtain, crouching down low, where he wouldn’t expect to see her. The bathroom was empty, his razor and shaving cream gone from the sink, but he had left the door wide open.

CHAPTER 3C
    AUGUST 1993   •   LOVE 14, RUBY 55
    “YOU CAN STAY in Love E’s ole room.” Ruby led Love up the same shiny wooden stairs she and her brother had first mounted more than thirty-four years ago. “You wasn’t never loud in here when you was a chile, but that time’s all over now. This here’s the biggest room. That’s his drawing pad and charcoals on the table. Jus done touch nothin what ain’t yours. My brother was fond of his pictures.”
    Ruby went to a sketch on the wall beside the closet. “This here is John and Bobby Seale. Huey shot jus ’round the corner on Seventh. And that there John Coltrane. Your great-grandpa Corbet fond a Charlie Parker, but Love E always say he ole school.” Ruby laughed and looked down at the long wooden floorboards a moment.
    Love tossed the garbage bag full of his belongings from Los Aspirantes onto the bed.
    “I’ll let you alone to get yourself the feeling for a bit.” Ruby closed the door behind her.
    Love looked around his new room, the single bed in the middle of the floor, the rolltop desk. Then he went to the window and looked onto Cranston Avenue. Many of the wooden Victorians were still standing, but the colorful paint had curled off, and every third house was boarded up. The houses that were still inhabitable looked as Ruby’s did—tall fences around the yards, black bars on