Read Online Virgin Soul by Judy Juanita - Free Book Online Page B

midterms come up, them college kids be asking him all kinda questions about Shakespeare. They make your old man late on his run. I seen ’em, man, they be writing what he’s saying.”
    Uncle Al shook his head and turned to put Renee down.
    â€œAnd that’s your old man.” Uncle Al kept shaking his head and smiling as he shook Allwood’s hand. Allwood looked at ease for the first time all night.
    Renee, clinging to her father, kept looking at Allwood as Uncle Al started walking away, his back to us. “Who him name?” Renee said shyly to me, pointing to Allwood. I repeated his name clearly, over- enunciating.
    â€œWho him name, who him name?” Uncle Al hushed her but it became a litany.
    When we got ready to leave, we passed Renee and Uncle Al. As soon as she spotted Allwood, Renee started to say something. Then she put her thumb in her mouth and started sucking furiously.
    Who-him-name was right.
    I finished my first year with thirty-three units, a GPA of 3.2, and a boyfriend.
    We were finished connecting. We were connected.

Sophomore
    â€¢ • • • • • • • • • • • •

9
    A llwood and I had to be the only two beings on earth crossing the Bay Bridge in a silver Beetle rehearsing phrases in Arabic in March of 1965. The radio was blaring that two Marine battalions had arrived the day before on China Beach at Danang.
    â€œMalcolm’s assassinated February twenty-fifth, and LBJ approves troops to go to ’nam on February twenty-sixth. No coincidence,” Allwood said.
    As we came out of the Treasure Island tunnel onto the San Francisco side of the bridge, I could tell Allwood was pushing his buttocks down into the seat by the way he was gripping the handle on the dashboard. I pushed the four one-dollar bills that the toll collector had given me into my jeans pocket. We were headed for the Black House in the Fillmore.
    â€œAllwood, do you think pushing your ass into the seat is going to stop the bridge from swaying?”
    â€œYou’re driving too fast, Geniece,” he said, craning his neck to check my speed. He was right. “As-salaam-alaikum.” Allwood said it for the umpteenth time, enunciating every syllable.
    â€œWa-alaikum-as-salaam,” I said, trying unsuccessfully not to say, “Wall, the lake um’s a salami, brother sister baloney, and most high potentate.”
    Allwood shook his head.
    â€œI’m sorry, I’m sorry. I take it back.” I made grabbing motions into the tight space of air around us. “I put it all back in my mouth.”
    The San Francisco skyline, the offices full of yellow light and reflected dusk, glittered. Allwood sighed. I drove to Fell Street and went up the hill, practicing and being corrected until we reached Divisadero Street, where I broke.
    â€œThey will not allow me in if I don’t say this exactly right? Kick me into the street if I say it wrong? Who is the boss of Salaam and Sa-laikam, anyway? Tell me. It sounds like Abbott and Costello meeting up as sheiks on the street.”
    â€œBelieve it or not,” Allwood said, “you’re going to like it.” We finally parked at Hayes and Broderick.
    â€œI don’t see a black house,” I said.
    â€œIt’s not painted black,” Allwood said, steering me. Behind the wheel of the VW, the gearshift in my palm, I was in charge, since Allwood couldn’t drive a stick. But outside that cooped-up space, I waited for his arm to tell me which was the right house. It was a two-story Victorian with a low-angled roof jammed between two other old houses. It looked no different from the others except it was a light green between celery and vomit, which I felt like I might do.
    *   *   *
    G od, San Francisco was such a thief. A lady of the night, a sorceress with her hands out. Every time, all my years as a child, that we crossed the bridge, we had to pay to get