Red Hats by Damon Wayans Read Free Book Online

disappointment. He had left the day after the funeral.
    “I had to go,” Todd’s tinny voice had echoed from his cell phone in Germany.
    “You just barely said hello, son, and then the quickest of good-byes.”
    “I didn’t have the time. This trip wasn’t exactly planned. Everything was so sudden. We were running late for the plane. It’s hard traveling with kids. We couldn’t wake them because they were jet-lagged from the trip over. Plus, my job expected me back for an important project I’m heading up.”
    Todd had presented every legitimate excuse in thebook, but Alma blamed the white girl. She had his head all messed up. He was under her control. Alma believed the
wet dog
was against her because she had asked her not to leave her stringy blond hair all over the bathroom sink. Alma was also pissed that Wet Dog had used her good hairbrush and ended up giving it to Helga as a gift. Their leaving like that was her way of showing Alma who the real boss was, snatching her son off to another world when he needed to be with his mother.
    Alma noticed that Rae Ann kept her drapes closed since Harold had died.
No one else wants to see those ten-inch titties.
    The radio was her only friend. It amazed her how vivid the brain was, how a song could pull up not only images but smells and emotions, too.
    She caught herself many times having one-sided conversations with Harold. It was funny how long she would be talking, not even expecting a reaction, because that was the relationship they had. She talked, he didn’t.
    Alma decided the best thing to do was to put all of his belongings into boxes and either store them or give it all to charity. It was easy to find his things, since Alma relegated all of his worldly possessions to three areas: a dresser drawer in the bedroom, one small section of her closet, and the front hallway closet, where he kept his suits, hats, and jackets. Harold had never complained about the arrangement.
    “If it makes you happy, it makes me happy. I don’t needanything else to wear. I’ll just clothe myself in your love,” he had told her after she expressed how bad she felt that he didn’t have more space.
    Alma put his favorite burgundy fedora on her head, smoothing out the brim and pulling it down to cover her right eye the way Harold used to wear it. This was the hat he had worn the first and only time they went to the opera. It was the middle of winter, and a customer at Harold’s second job as night watchman at a construction site had given him two tickets to
Madame Butterfly.
They hadn’t been on a date in a while thanks to the call of parenthood, so they’d jumped at the chance to get out of the house. It was freezing cold as they walked from the train station toward the Majestic Theatre on Broadway.
    “We’re never going to make it in time if you don’t walk a little faster, Alma.”
    “These shoes are hurting my feet, Harold. Why don’t you carry me?” she’d joked.
    Harold hated being late. Alma didn’t mind making an entrance.
    “We’re already ten minutes late. Mr. Raven said we had to be on time for this thing,” Harold had reminded her.
    When they’d finally arrived at the Majestic, the doors were closed, and the usher told them they would have to wait until the intermission to be seated. That would be in an hour.
    “One hour!” Alma had exclaimed. “What are we supposed to do for an hour?”
    “You are welcome to go to the bar area,” the usher had offered.
    They’d gone to a bar but not the one at the theater. Alma had needed to sit.
    Now, she placed a couple of pairs of Harold’s shoes in a box and noticed for the first time that the heels on both right shoes were worn down more than the left ones. In fact, all of his shoes were worn like that. It must have been from the scoliosis, which tilted his spine slightly to the right as he grew older. Harold had been able to mask the defect by shifting it into a cool gait in his walk.
    His shirts, sweaters, ties,