“TYRONE, YOU HEAR DAT?”
He grumbled and turned his back to her.
“Tyrone,” she hissed again. “Get up, somebody outside de house.”
“Alright…alright,” he mumbled as he scratched his chest sleepily and crawled from beneath the bedsheet.
He blinked slowly as his eyes scanned the darkness, trying to adjust to the lack of light as he listened for sounds outside the house. The floorboards creaked beneath his feet as he eased his way to the front door. He held still for a moment and listened again. Crickets raged. Cats meowed as they sifted through the garbage can. He shook his head. Delores was paranoid.
He turned on his heel to head back to bed when he heard a rumbling knock on the side of the house that raised every hair on his body.
“Tyrone, I can hear you walking in there,” came a deep voice from the other side of the door.
Tyrone’s eyes opened wide. He ran back to the bedroom to rouse Delores, but there was no need. She was sat up like a T-square, her back completely perpendicular to the mattress.
“Tyrone…,” she wailed in a whisper. “Dat is Ronald outside.”
“Oh shite, man, Delores. How he know you hey? You ain’t tell he you went by you mudda?”
“Yes, but….”
The knock sounded again. “I can hear both of you in there.” The deep voice boomed like a megaphone, penetrating the walls of the small wooden house.
Tyrone pulled on a pair of shorts, took his gun out of the drawer and headed to the door. He turned on the verandah light, cracked open the aluminum louvres and peered out. Two dark penetrating eyes stared back at him.
“Ahhhh!” Tyrone screamed, his voice two octaves higher than usual. The louvres slammed shut. He clutched the gun to his chest to steady his pounding heart. “Cheese on, big man, you jump me.” He swallowed and wiped his brow. “I cuh help you?”
“I believe you can help me very well. I came to collect Delores.”
Tyrone cocked his head to a side and pretended to think. “Delores? I ain’t sure who yuh mean. Wha’ she look like?”
“Like the woman who just woke you to tell you her husband is outside.”
Tyrone knew it was the time of reckoning. Being the brave man he also knew he could be, he tapped the gun to his temple and exhaled before opening the louvres again. He glanced out to see a tall, slim man sitting in a folding chair on his verandah. Tyrone racked his brain; he hadn’t left a chair outside.
“Oh Christ, he bring dat with he,” Tyrone thought, shaking his head. Clearly, Ronald meant business.
“Look, big man, I ain’t want no trouble. I ain’t know nuttin bout she being married nor nuttin. She is just a little catty I having some fun with.”
“Under ordinary circumstances, it would behoove me to inform you that my wife is no ‘catty,’ but given this unusual scenario, immediate reclassification may be necessary.”
Tyrone scratched his head with the gun and wrinkled his brow. “Look, I don’t like you threatening me. Reclassification ain’t necessary. Plus, it sound painful.”
The man in the chair simply looked at Tyrone and said, “Tell Delores I wish to have discourse with her.”
“Big man, I ain’t bout that kinda thing on my front step. She could come by de window and talk to you, but she ain’t coming outside for no such action.”
The man’s eyes grew steely. “Now.”
Tyrone scrambled back to the bedroom. Delores was fully clothed, her church dress buttoned all the way up to her neck. “You husband is a teacher or something?”
“Wha’? Why you ask me so?”
“Look, just go and talk to the man.”
Delores hurried past him, and Tyrone put his gun back in the bedroom. Panic rose inside him; he paced for a few seconds, wondering how to get himself out of this conundrum. He heard Delores shouting in the background and Ronald’s quiet bass voice countering everything she said. Finally, he knew what to do. He picked up his cellphone, crawled to the bathroom and closed the door quietly. The line rang three times.
“Yeah,” said Gully sleepily.
“Gully, it is bare trouble down here tonight. Dis catty husband outside my house all now.”
“Tyrone, you serious? Um is four o’clock in the morning.”
“I know, fam. De man sitting down pon my step real calm. He either mad or got a big-ass gun, and some men hiding in the bush to back he up.”
“Cha, den. So wha’ you gine do?”
“Come down hey and back me up. I want you ease round behind he and take he out.”
“Dat easy, fam. I going bathe, cream my skin and get ready now. Wha’ time you gine pick me up?”
“Pick you up?” whispered Tyrone furiously. “I tell you de man got me surrounded, and you want me tell he ‘excuse’ to jump in my car to come fuh you?”
“Big man, you know I don’t like walking through the dew cause ah my asthma.”
“You asthma? You serious?”
“All now talking bout this got me stress out. Getting dew on my head gine only make it worse, so you gotta come fuh me.”
“Stupse.” Tyrone pressed out the call. It was obvious he was in this on his own.
He belly-crawled through the house, peering through each window to see how many men lined the perimeter. They were well camouflaged, because he couldn’t see a single person outside. Or Ronald was mad, as he had initially suspected.
Tyrone went back to the living room. Delores was hysterical over what she called her husband’s “unwillingness” to trust her, blaming it completely for the breakdown of their marriage. Her husband was calmly explaining to her from the verandah that he didn’t care for this state of affairs; clearly she and her lover were serious enough to risk her sleeping away from home. Ronald said he would be the bigger man and walk away from the situation. Tyrone was shocked, because if he was honest with himself, he didn’t want a serious relationship with this woman. He felt faint when he heard her husband say that he would bring her things over in the morning so she could live with Tyrone.
Tyrone’s head started to ache. This was too much.
By now, roosters had started to crow, and the rumble of the garbage truck broke the quiet of the night air. The gears crunched and the brakes squealed as the truck came to a halt just up the road. The hydraulic pump huffed and puffed, and one of the men shouted, “Hold!” as they hopped off the back of the truck.
Delores shouted, “I ain’t leaving Tyrone! Furthermore, I want custody of all the children. I bringing them here with me.”
Tyrone could hear heavy garbage cans rolling as the men emptied them. He knew it was now or never. The last thing he heard before he jumped over the paling was Delores saying that, as soon as the divorce was final, she and Tyrone would marry. Mercifully, the garbage truck stopped right in front of the house. Tyrone jumped on. Ronald looked up and saw Tyrone making his getaway. For the first time that night, a smirk touched his lips. “Delores, your Galahad seems to be deserting you in your hour of need.”
Her startled eyes opened wide between the louvres. “Tyrone, come back!” she shouted.
The driver pulled off, and the truck rolled away through the dusk. The garbage collector was startled by the sight of this runaway man dressed in nothing but his boxer shorts holding onto the garbage-stained handrails next to him. He looked at Tyrone and laughed as rubbish jounced off and splattered Tyrone’s bare chest as the truck lolled and bumped its way down the road.
“What going on back there?”
Tyrone shook his head bitterly. “You want de truth or a fancy story?”
The collector laughed again. “The truth, cause the lie might not be as sweet.”
Tyrone swatted the flies that buzzed around him as he tried to keep his balance. “De truth is that I need new friends and a new woman.”
The collector’s eyes widened beneath his bushy eyebrows. “Is yuh friend that got yuh woman?”
Tyrone rolled his eyes. “Honestly, that would be less trouble, cause I would still be sleeping.”
