Magic Street Read Free

anymore, just a habit, because it was so fun to watch the white professors look at him without a clue how they were supposed to answer when a black man said something like that. He could see their brains turning the alternatives over and over: Is he joking? Or does he mean it? Is he a Republican? Or does he think I'm a Republican? Is he making fun of me? Or himself? Or liberals? Or affirmative action? What can I say that won't make me look like either a racist or a politically correct brown-noser?
    But Bag Man just grinned and shook his head. "Here I tell you about your mama's mama and how she love you, and all you answer me with is a joke. But that's okay all the same. I don't take back no blessing once I give it."
    "Thank you for your blessing, sir," said Byron. "And for my grandma's blessing, too."
    "Well, ain't you the polite one. Now you just go on home and have dinner with that sweet pregnant wife of yours. I'll be all right here."
    So Nadine was pregnant—and hadn't even told him! Wasn't that just like her, to keep a secret like that.
    Byron watched Bag Man walk right up to the chain-link fence and open the gate and go on through into the meadow. Then he knew he shouldn't watch anymore. So he closed the passenger door and walked back to the driver's side and got in.
    Not two minutes later he was pulling through the electric gate into his driveway and waiting for the garage door to open. Nadine's car was there, and it made Byron happy just to see it.
    And then, suddenly, it wore off all at once, and the anger that had seemed so far away just moments ago now erupted. He beat on the steering wheel with his open palms until his hands hurt.
    "What did you do to me? What did you do to me?" He said it over and over again as he thought of that man just getting in his car as if he had a right, and the way he made Byron do things and say things. Making him buy See's chocolates for him! Saying Nadine was pregnant and he believed it!
    Was Bag Man a hypnotist? In the moment when Byron looked away from that motorcycle mama, was that when Bag Man caught his eye and hypnotized him without him even knowing it?
    If I see him again I'll run him over even if they put me in jail for it. Nobody ought to have power like that over another living soul.
    Word, his ten-year-old son—named for Wordsworth—came through the door from the house and rushed to Byron's car window. The boy didn't look excited, he looked worried.
    Byron turned off the engine and opened the door.
    "All right, I'm on it." Byron headed toward the house. Then he stopped and looked back at Word. "Son, would you get dinner out of the back seat?"
    "Sure," said Word. "I'm on it." And without a word of argument, the boy headed right back to get the sacks from I Cugini. That's when Byron realized that whatever was going on with Nadine, Word thought it was serious.
    She was in the bedroom and when he knocked on the door, she said, "Go away."
    "It's me," said Byron.
    "Come in," she said.
    He came through the door.
    She was lying on her back on the bed, naked, breathing rapidly. Or was she crying? Both. Short sobs.
    She wasn't just pregnant. She was as big as she had ever been with any of the children.
    "By, what's happening to me?" she said. She sounded frantic, but kept her voice low. "I just started bloating up. An hour ago. I got home from work and I had to get out of my clothes, they were strangling the baby. That's what I kept thinking. Only I'm not pregnant, By."
    He sat on the edge of the bed and felt her stomach. The skin was stretched as tight as it ever was at the peak of pregnancy, completely erasing her navel. "You sure feel pregnant," said Byron.
    And then, without thinking, he blurted: "That son-of-a-bitch."
    "Who?" she said. "What are you talking about?"
    "He said you were pregnant. He called you my pregnant wife."
    "Who? Who who who who?"
    "I don't know who. A homeless man. I gave him a ride home. I gave him a ride here."
    "You let a homeless man into our