Monee

 

Money walks down East Sixth Street like a move star.

She wears more makeup on her face than her body has clothing.

And all the street boys stop and stare.

Even white guys like me.

Most hope to catch her attention, and the glint of light in her dark eyes that almost seems to be part of the glittery eye shadow she wears.

I don’t want her to look at me, but she always does.

And this scares the crap out of me and makes my pregnant girlfriend jealous.

Louise thinks I’m making it with Monee because I can’t make it with her.

I’m scared to think maybe that is what I want and try to keep out of Monee’s way.

But she’s always on the street, marching up or down until someone has cash enough to take her up to her apartment.

She never gets enough of that stuff so she’s always arguing with her man about how much she owes and how he can’t cut her off when she’s sure to find a guy who can deliver bit and pay it all off.

I’ve never seen her down. Others say it’s ugly and recall a time when she tossed scalding water into one man’s face when he wouldn’t pay for what he got.

She loves us and always pauses to pat Louise’s belly before moving on, making us promise to make her our child’s godmother when the time comes.

She says she can’t have kids of her own after all the times she had to use that back alley doctors, and their rusty instruments. She claims she’s lucky to be alive, and says that’s why she parades up this street and not some uptown street where she could make more money off the tourist trade.

She says big bucks take big risks and she doesn’t want to get busted and end up in jail.

Life’s hard enough out here, she tells me, but it’s hell in jail.

Then she moves on, looking and laughing, waiting for a man, black or whatever color, rich enough and brave enough to take her upstairs.

I dream of Monee sometimes, imagining me up stairs with her.

Yet each time I make lover to her in my dreams I only hear her crying in pain.