“What happened to your face?” I asked. She had stopped near the park and sat on the end of one of the benches. I sat down next to her. She didn’t answer me, and I just lay back against the bench and gave her all the time she needed. Finally she spoke.

“Paul slapped me,” she said.

“Paul?”

“Yeah. First Tyrone called me a name, and then Paul slapped me,” she said. “I got some more time, why don’t you cut me or something?”

“You know I ain’t that way.”

“I thought Paul wasn’t that way either,” Mary-Ann said. She had calmed down a little, and now she was beginning to cry. The physical part of the hurting was over, and now the other part was taking over.

“What happened?”

“I was in the club talking to Jackie and Ebony, Tyrone’s little daughter,” Mary-Ann said. “Me and Jackie was just playing with her, saying things like when she was going to get married, that kind of thing. Tyrone’s door is open, and he’s calling somebody on the phone. Then he gets into an argument over the phone, which is no big thing for him. First he’s asking whoever it was he was talking to about having lunch. They must have said no because he was like really coming on like he wanted to see them or something. So I figured it must be some white chick because that’s what he digs most.

“Anyway, then he gets mad because the chick says she don’t want to have lunch with him, I guess. He starts hollering over the phone, and then he slams it down. Me and Jackie don’t pay him no mind. Even little Ebony don’t pay him no mind. Then he sees me, and he tells me to go get my brother.”

“What he want Paul for?”

“That’s what I wanted to know,” Mary-Ann said. “So I asked him, and that’s when he sounded on me. Then I went home and told Paul what had happened, and he gets up to rush out to see what Tyrone wants. He don’t say nothing about Tyrone sounding on me. I catch him by the arm as he’s busting out the door, and he turns and slaps me! Now can you beat that?”

“Not really,” I said.

“Well, if you could, I got another one for you,” Mary-Ann went on. “I laid down for a while, then I went down and sat on the steps, feeling like change for about two cents when Nita comes up—”

“That Spanish chick?”

“Yeah, she come up and tells me that everybody is talking about how Paul done beat up some chick crosstown.”

“Said what?”

“That’s right.” Mary-Ann’s eyes were full of tears. “I’m going into Tyrone’s drawer and get that envelope with Paul’s name on it. That’s got to have something to do with this mess.”

I figured her to be right, but I didn’t think she should take Tyrone too lightly. I asked her when she was going to do it, and she got up and said she was going to do it right then.