ANY DAY NOW
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"I just want to get laid, man." But he stared at Rufus, feeling
terrible things stir inside
him.
"Yeah?" And Rufus looked at him curiously, as though
he were thinking,
So that's the way white boys make it.
"Is
that all?"
"Well"- he looked down-"I want the chick to love me.
I want to make her love me. I want to be loved."
There was silence. Then Rufus asked, "Has it ever hap–
pened?"
"No," said Vivaldo, thinking of Catholic girls and whores,
"I guess not."
"How do you
make
it happen?" Rufus whispered. "What
do you
do?"
He looked over at Vivaldo. He half smiled. "What
do
you
do?"
"What do you mean, what do I do?" He tried to smile; but
he knew what Rufus meant.
"You just do it like you was told?" He tugged at Vivaldo's
sleeve; his voice dropped. "That white chick-
J
ane--of yours
-she ever give you a b*** j**?"
Oh, Rufus,
he wanted to cry,
stop this crap!
and he felt
tears well up behind
his
eyes. "I haven't had a chick that great,"
he said, briefly, thinking again of the dreadful Catholic girls
with whom he had grown up, of his sister and his mother and
father. He tried to force his mind back through the beds he had
been in- his mind grew as black as a wall. "Except," he said,
suddenly, "with whores," and felt, in the silence that then fell,
that murder was sitting on the bed beside them. He stared at
Rufus.
Rufus laughed. He lay back on the bed and laughed until
tears began running from the corners of
his
eyes. It was the
worst laugh Vivaldo had ever heard and he wanted to shake
Rufus or slap him, anything to make him stop. But he did
nothing; he lit a cigarette; the palms of his hands were wet.
Rufus choked, sputtered, and sat up. He turned his agonized
