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Another Dumaine Day 8.13.98
I thought yesterday was Sunday but this, the day after, is really Sunday.
I am up sometimes as early as six or six-thirty on a Sunday but four-thirty is an all time record. And that because of all the pounding of door and ringing of bell.
"Yes?"
"You better move it if you don't want to lose it again." I can't even see who it is what with the wetness reflecting light every whicha way.
"Huh," and then, Oh, shit, not again. The street is a body of water. "OK, thank you, brah."
I take the car out to Broad, with the big boys, resting high on their neutral ground, but this little car ain't hopping that curb, so I U-turn on Broad and come back up Dumaine the wrong way and park in the parking lot/basketball court behind Maurices hair cutting establishment. Where I parked only took about a foot of water on Friday. Compared to almost three feet which collects at each curb.
At seven-thirty a slow moving vintage white Cadillac, with tinted windows, is followed by an impatient Asian boy in a gray Altima. When the impatient Asian boy honks his horn, the Cadillac slows down so I can count the spokes in his
gold rims, and then makes the wide right onto Broad.
At eight-thirty the water has receded, and I'm thinking about getting the car out of that lot before Maurice come and block me in with his new Shiny Black Lincoln Navigator.
At nine-thirty I have two scrambled eggs, two pieces of buttered toast, and a pint of Bluebell strawberry ice cream.
At ten-thirty Fermin has taken me literally and has shown up with a portable wet/dry vac and is sucking the water from Lolita's carpet. I give him five dollars because that's what I said I would do if he could find a wet/dry, and so he and Hunter will be in candy for the next two hours. The sun comes out and I open all the windows and the hatchback.
Jacque helps me rearrange the pile of garbage in front of Yolanda's.
"You could just throw the small pieces back in her house, Jacque. Better than having that stuff scattered all over the sidewalk. Someone might yell at you but you could always point your finger and scream--'Mr. Jim he told me, he
told me, it wasn't me, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but Mr. Jim told me...'"
"Nah, I wouldn't do that," Jacque says, while flinging a piece of scrap particle board into the center hall of Yolanda's house. A piece of plaster crown molding drops from the fourteen foot ceiling and lands in a puddle of rain water formed by a dip in the wood floor.
At eleven-thirty it starts raining again so I close up the car, and before I know how it happens, there are six children clustered on the porch with me. Erica makes a seat out of my squatting knees, and I hug her because I think she may need it but then I realize it was me that needed it. Ralston refused to go with the ambulance last night so he is holed up at Mama D's. Word is, he needs to be in a hospital. Ten minutes later all the children are gone.
After the tuna casserole, (one of my specialties) there is little left for me to do on this Sunday, so I watch football, read, and sleep.