Ms. Etta's Fast House Read online

  “No, please don’t put that on me, Dr. Knight. I can’t marry that girl, I’m-I’m already hitched, sir,” he lied.

  Hiram frowned while picking up the telephone. “We’ll let’s just see about that. Operator, get me Washington D.C., the home of Mr. and Mrs. Walter D. Phipps. Yes, ma’am, I’ll hold.” He sat his bony behind down on the corner of his desk, glaring at M.K.

  “Please don’t call my folks with this, Dr. Knight, I’m begging you. Please.”

  “Don’t you try to make me out a pigeon, boy. Come clean and take it like the man who’s been up that nurse’s skirt on the regular.”

  Dr. Knight waited to be connected. M.K. paced worriedly. “O.K., O.K., I’m not married, but I don’t want to be either. Can’t we do anything about this before it goes too far?”

  “Sorry, ma’am, wrong number,” the wise old surgeon said into the phone receiver before placing it back on the cradle. “First off, you lied to me and I can’t stand a liar. Second, the girl says she’s carrying your child, so it’s already gone too far. What the hell did you think was gonna happen after sliding that rusty thang of yours between her legs every chance you got? The only people who act in such a reckless way are no less than fools ... or parents. You have effectively worked your way into both categories.”

  “Yes, sir,” was all that M.K. could say on the matter. Dr. Knight ordered him to propose to the young lady after shopping for a wedding ring. He was given a two-hour break to facilitate his responsibilities, quick, fast, and in a hurry. Once sharing the dreadful news with Delbert, neither of them felt like shooting the bull over poker. M.K. asked that Delbert not mention a word about his plight until he’d had the chance to follow Knight’s strict directions. He had changed out of his uniform into street clothes and disappeared before Delbert blinked twice. Feeling terrible about the young couple’s dilemma, he called up Sue Jacobs at her parent’s house and asked if she was available for a late movie. Unfortunately for him and M.K., she agreed to meet him downtown.

  With both hands stuffed in his pockets, an old acquaintance of M.K.’s followed closely behind him while he pounded the pavement in search of solitude. He was convinced he had shaken it once and for all after his enlistment in the Army medical corps ended but there it was again circling him like a bothersome fly. The urge was so great that it caused M.K.’s head to spin. Although a few stiff drinks wouldn’t make it stop, he had to slow the merry-go-round which had become his life. Ms. Etta’s was open, so he slinked inside to get a handle on his misery.

  21

  DIRTY DANCING

  For a weeknight, the joint was hopping, but then again end-of-the month paychecks were rolling in by the dozens. Etta enjoyed Baltimore cutting up like he did in the old days, when money came easy and Henry was alongside him to help spend it. Despite only recently meeting Pudge and Dank, she could tell they enjoyed being around Baltimore as much as she did. He knew how to be downright engaging when he wanted to. The fact that M. K. dropped in to party with him made it that much easier to watch.

  “Penny, look at them,” Etta said, wiping down shot glasses behind the bar. “They put me in the mind of a pack of boy children showing off while mama’s away.”

  “Sho’ do, Ms. Etta. I can’t remember Mr. Baltimore laughing and carrying on since before all of the colored police business kicked up. It’s a grand sight to see him like that.” Penny had learned a lot about life and how grownups sometimes experienced highs and lows from seeing them down on their luck and searching for answers in the bottom of whiskey bottles. Seeing Baltimore and his buddys pal around seemingly without a care in the world reaffirmed that adult life wasn’t all bad, all the time, either. It occurred to her the best parts of it were spent with good friends over a hearty laugh. That was really living.

  The ladies relished what appeared to be an impenetrable bond until Blinky the shoeshine boy hustled in through the front door. “Mi-Ms. Etta, I-I-I needs to-to-talk-to-Mistah-Ba-Baltimore. It’s private,” he said, with pleading eyes.

  Etta folded her arms and squinted her peepers at him in a suspicious manner. “Blinky, didn’t I tell you to stay away from here until the weekend? You have school work and I don’t want to get into it with your pa again.”

  “Yeah-yeah I know,” he said rapidly. “Bu-but this-here diff ’rent. I-I-I gots a me-message for him.” Blinky held a folded note up for Etta to see, thinking that just might change her stance on his making a few pennies. Wisely, the boy conveniently forget to mention that a white lady parked at the corner store paid him a whole dollar to hand deliver the note.

  “Go ’head on, then,” Etta conceded. “I guess it must be important, but soon after you get on home and ’tend to your lessons.”

  Gushing with unbridled excitement, the boy smiled thank you and then scampered off to deliver the message. Once he found Baltimore, Blinky yanked on his suit coat sleeve. “Th-this lady t-told-me to carry this over to-to you.” Baltimore leaned back in his chair to listen as the boy whispered something he didn’t think should have been overheard by the others. Baltimore flashed an impish grin, handed Blinky a silver dollar and sent him away. That was the fastest two bucks he ever made and still had time to get home and finish his school work.

  Baltimore looked over the note before tucking it away inside his breast pocket. Meet me at your place. I want to see you immediately. Please hurry. D. Sinclair. After finishing his bottle of cream soda, Baltimore apologized for having to dash out. “Fellas, I’m going to call it an early night. Got a little something needs my attention,” he told them, insinuating that little something was a woman.

  “She must be in a powerful need at that,” Dank jested, “to be ordering out for it?”

  “Yeah, don’t forget to send up a note if you find yourself getting outdone,” Pudge offered, from the other side of a stiff jigger of gin. “Heck, send up a patch of smoke signals if you can’t find no paper.” All of the men laughed out loud. M.K. was having such a great time, he’d forgotten about his woman troubles, hunting for engagement rings and being due back to the hospital for the remainder of his shift. After another couple of drinks, he’d forget himself altogether.

  Baltimore had excused himself and said goodbye to Penny and Etta before hitting the door to answer a peculiar note sent by another man’s persistent two-timing wife. Dank and Pudge carried on about the beautiful women they missed attending to back in Kansas City while M.K. pretended his old habit hadn’t begun to itch. When he saw Gussy coming in from the back alley, he got up from the table with more than half a mind to scratch it. “Hey, Gus’, I need to bend your ear a minute,” he said, darting his eyes at the same door the hefty bartender had just walked through. “Let’s talk out there.” Right away, Gussy recognized the glint in M.K.’s eyes.

  “A lil’ chat’s gonna cost you.”

  “I got enough to whisper at you,” M.K. answered, slipping two dollars in the man’s thick paws.

  “Hey, fool, not in here. Come on out yonder and see what the speaker’s got to say.”

  M.K. followed him into the rear of the busy nightspot. Gussy stepped outside and raised a tin trashcan lip to get at an ordinary brown paper sack. Inside of it was a hypodermic needle, a bent spoon and other drug paraphernalia. He looked at M.K. and shrugged. “You one of them doctors, ain’t you? Never figured you for a hype-head,” the bartender said crassly. The offhanded comment didn’t go unnoticed. M.K.’s hands trembled as Gussy prepared a measure of smack to cook on the spoon.

  “Uh-huh, it takes one to know one,” M.K. responded in the same rude tone he’d been insulted with. “It’s been a while since me and this bitch danced but I’m feeling kinda lonesome.”

  “Oh, she’s wicked,” Gussy replied, behind a devious grin. “After y’all get reacquainted, take your time coming back in. Ms. Etta finds out about this, she’ll have my ass in a sling.”

  M.K. made a fist and tied the rubber hose, constricting his favorite vein. His eyes rolled back in his head when the heroin raced through it. �
�Ahhh, there she is. Oomph. Whewww. Baby, I’m back.” M.K. leaned against the wall, fading into another world where drug fiends traveled to the other side, the dangerously dark side.

  Gussy sneered at him, languishing there both helpless and hapless. “Look at what you done got yourself into. That’s a mean ... mean bitch. Ride her good now. Don’t let her buck you.” There was no room to pity M.K. because she had Gussy strung along too.

  Penny teased the bartender when he returned after a long stint away from his post. “Gussy, Ms. Etta had me come look for you. She say, if your breaks get any longer we’s got to find us another somebody to bother when things is slow.”

  “Good, the missing link done found his way back,” Etta heckled him from her office door. “Gus, mind the bar so Penny can run upstairs for some extra ashtrays and matchbooks.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered assuredly. “I ain’t going nowhere.”

  “Hurr’up, Penny, it’s liable to spill over tonight. Folk’s will be huffing and a puffing.”

  Penny pointed her finger at Gussy, insisting he stay put. He threw his hands up like a father playing along to appease his child. “You’ve been up to something,” she said peculiarly. “I don’t know what, yet. But you’ been acting funny lately.”

  “Well, that makes us a fine pair because you look funny all the time,” he teased right back.

  “Forget you, Gussy, I ain’t stud’n you right now, no how,” she jested. “You just wait. After I fetch those boxes, I’m a have at you some more.”

  The burly teddy bear suddenly felt sick to his stomach but didn’t want Penny to notice his discomfort. “Go on now. I’ll be right here hankering to fight with you, too.”

  Penny shook her fist jokingly on the way up the side stairs. She continued smiling when she opened the storeroom door with her master key. Curiosity called her near the window, where she’d watched Baltimore make love to several women. Penny didn’t feel like a snoop, well not exactly. She viewed it as an education in womanhood to learn how lovemaking was supposed to pan out, what sounds to make when doing it and approximately how long it was supposed to last. School was still in because Baltimore acted differently with each of the ladies he treated to that love den of his. He took his time with Dinah and let her stay the night, Penny remembered, but he always seemed to be in a terrible rush when the white woman slipped by for adult entertainment.

  Penny placed her hand over her mouth and giggled when she spied on Baltimore with Dixie Sinclair, who was opening the window and pulling down on the shade to hide her indiscretions. “Huh, you’d better get what you want before he do, white lady,” Penny murmured, “’cause he’ll be sending you back to wherever you come from if he finishes moaning first. That’s a fact.” She leaned closer to the window to see what else there was to spy but someone turned the lights out inside the room, impeding her from seeing anything worth looking in on. Anyway, Penny was on the clock and raring to get back at clowning around with Gussy.

  Back on the bottom floor she sat both small boxes on the bar. Her sparring partner wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but she had a good idea where to find him. It occurred to Penny she’d better poke her head in the office to tell Etta about her mission to locate the absent bartender and subsequently give him a friendly piece of her mind. “Gussy, you somewhere’s about?” Penny yelled out of the back door. She looked in both directions, without seeing a soul. No one answered. Then, there was movement in the trash heap stacked along the wall beside her. Startled, Penny lurched backward. “Ahhh! Who’s there?” she screamed, in response to an unrecognizable gargling sound. Sensing that someone or something was hurt, she wrapped both hands around a broom handle which she’d used to sweep out the passageway many times. Cautiously, she nudged at the heap against the wall. “Gussy, that bet’ not be you playing a mean trick on me, or else I’m a tell Ms. Etta.”

  “Help me,” a strained voice pleaded. “Please help me.” A closer look revealed M.K. huddled over in immense agony.

  “Oh, shoot,” she winced. “Mistah M.K., what’s happened to you? Don’t move. I’ll get Ms. Etta. She’ll know what to do.” Penny flew into the night club and pounded on the office door. “Ms. Etta, open up!” No one answered back so the girl used her key to gain entry. What her eyes found was disturbing. After one glance at Gussy lying face down on the floor with foam bubbling from his mouth, Penny assumed the men’s ailments were somehow connected. “Not you too, Gussy,” she whined.

  “Shut that door, Penny,” Etta ordered solemnly, her eyes trained on the massive lump of flesh. “We done called the ambulance but ain’t no use now and I couldn’t find that M.K. friend of Baltimore’s nowhere to help out. Ain’t never a doctor around when you need one.”

  Softly, Penny explained why that happened to be the case. “That’s what I came to tell you. Mistah M.K. is crumpled up in the alley saying he needs a whole mess of help. Ms. Etta, he looks near about as bad as ...” Penny couldn’t bring herself say the fallen bartender’s name.

  “Come, chile. Show me where to find him,” she said firmly.

  With Penny leading the way, Etta grabbed Dank and Pudge from their table to assist. Sirens in the distance became alarmingly closer as Etta worked at reviving the young physician.

  “Looks to me like he’s been poisoned,” Penny guessed. “It must be eating at him from the inside.”

  Dank pushed M.K.’s sleeves up to his elbows. He discovered a fresh needle mark on one of them and a trail of dried blood as well. “Yeah, it’s poison all right, the evilest kind at that.”

  “Maybe you ought to send the girl back in to tell those meat wagon fellas where to find us,” Pudge suggested.

  “No, no medics,” M.K. grunted painfully. “Find Delbert. . . Dr. Gales or Helen ... Nurse Bernard at the hospital. Oooh ... get them. Please.”

  “I know ’em,” said Etta, “That’s the boyish looking Texas doctor and Willie B.’s wife. She works over at Homer Gee. Penny, mind the bar and if Baltimore comes around, tell him what happened.”

  “Ain’t no need for that,” Penny replied. “There he is right over yonder.”

  Baltimore appeared behind them wearing an opened dress shirt, slacks and a mean unrelenting grimace. He’d put the gun away when stumbling onto a collection of his friends instead of a would-be attacker molesting Penny. “I heard you scream,” he said, staring at her like she was a blood relative. “Who’s that stretched out?” he asked before investigation for himself.

  “That friend of yours,” answered Penny. “Mistah M.K., he’s sick as a dog.”

  Without hesitation, Baltimore rushed to his side. “What’s happened to him?” he asked feverishly, while checking his torso for stab wounds or worse. When discovering what Dank had moments earlier, Baltimore’s heart sank. “Dammit, M.K., you said you’d let loose of that fix on smack. Said you licked it.”

  “It started ... hmmm ... fighting back,” he said, before a swarm of laborious convulsions took hold of him.

  “This is just what I need,” Etta fussed. “Hell, I got two hypes on my hands. Carry him on upstairs and the ambulance can take Gussy back with them, I guess, since he don’t want to go.” Etta was afraid that more trouble would show itself that night. Her intuition didn’t let her down.

  “M.K. can’t show up to the hospital like this,” Baltimore agreed. “They’ll sack him sure as shooting.”

  “We were just about to send for Delbert and Willie B.’s wife Helen. M.K. said to,” she added, before Baltimore began to question her motives. “I can’t have my customers seeing him strung out like this, so you’d better bring him up the back stairs and put him in one of the cozy’n rooms.”

  M.K. hollered out when the men began moving him. Dank had no choice but to shut him up so he popped him in the jaw with a right cross to sedate him during transport. “I didn’t mean nothing by it, Baltimore,” he explained, just to be on the safe side.

  “I know you didn’t, Dank. Carry him up to bed. I’ll head out and wrangle Delbert and Hel
en. Try to keep M.K. calm so he don’t hurt himself.”

  Penny refused to linger behind when Baltimore started toward his car. She said there wasn’t a thing she could do at the Fast House but worry and she was never any good at that. Not taking no for an answer, Penny jumped in the car and suggested he had better get going.

  Baltimore checked with Ollie and the guys playing poker but no one had seen Delbert for hours. Penny had better luck finding Helen. She was seconds from signing out and didn’t want to believe a budding surgeon like Dr. M.K. Phipps had succumbed to dangerous street drugs. Even though Baltimore explained how M.K. had been on the straight and narrow for quite a while, the nurse didn’t feel any better about his choices in life. She was skeptical that anything could be done if it wasn’t already too late. There had been a rash of overdose victims arriving at the hospital that evening and the same was happening at white hospitals across town, Helen informed them, adding that not many of those patients made it.

  There was a twin bed in the upstairs room at Ms. Etta’s where M.K. struggled for dear life, two wooden folding chairs, a small dresser and a wash basin. Helen sent Baltimore down to the kitchen for a loaf of bread and black coffee as soon as she laid eyes on him. “He’ll be needing some food on his stomach. I’ll be needing the coffee to keep me awake and alert.”

  Predicting they were in for a long night, Baltimore stopped into Etta’s office to place a call. He reached the registration desk, managed to get patched up to speak with Ollie, but still no Delbert. After Dank had completely blown his buzz, he and Pudge lit out for the motel, sulking. Once they were off, Baltimore watched the coffee pot percolate in the back of the kitchen area of the club. As if it was choreographed by an elderly band leader, time marched on slowly.