Love (15 page)

Well, that’s what he told his friends and maybe himself. But not me. He never told that to me because I had worked for him since I was fourteen and knew the truth. He liked her. Besides, like a lot of folk did when war plants desegregated, his sporting woman left town. That was the truth, but not all of it. I remember him telling me a tale about some child who fell down in horse manure running after a posse and how the white folks laughed. So cruel, the crowd enjoying themselves at murder. He repeated it every time he needed an example of heartless whites, so I supposed the point was he laughed too and apologized for it by marrying Heed. Just like he avoided Christine because she had his father’s gray eyes, he picked Heed to make old Dark groan. I’ve come to believe every family has a Dark and needs one. All over the world, traitors help progress. It’s like being exposed to tuberculosis. After it fills the cemetery, it strengthens whoever survives; helps them know the difference between a strong mind and a healthy one; between the righteous and the right—which is, after all, progress. The problem for those left alive is what to do about revenge—how to escape the sweetness of its rot. So you can see why families make the best enemies. They have time and convenience to honey-butter the wickedness they prefer. Shortsighted, though. What good does it do to keep a favorite hate going when the very person you’ve poisoned your life with is the one (maybe the only one) able or willing to carry you to the bathroom when you can’t get there on your own? I sat at the foot of May’s bed or on top of her dresser sometimes and watched Heed soap her bottom, mash badly cooked food to just the right consistency. She cut May’s toenails and wiped white flakes from her eyelids. The girl May lived to mistreat was the one she depended on to hold her head over the slop jar. Nagging her every second, but doing it: airing, cleaning, spooning, rubbing, turning her over to the cooler side of the bed on nights hot enough to make you cry. And there’s not much sense in wasting time and life trying to put a woman in the asylum just to end up chipping ice for her to suck on. Where’s the gain in setting fire to the nest you live in if you have to live in the ashes for fifty years? I saw what Mr. Cosey did to Heed at the birthday dinner. My heart reached out to her and I let him know it. While he fumbled for something in his pocket and May and Christine were waiting in the car, I tapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t you never lay a hand on her again no matter what. Do, and I’m long gone.” He looked at me with Billy Boy’s eyes and said, “I made a mistake, L. A big mistake.” “Tell
her,
” I said. All I got was a sigh for an answer, and if I hadn’t been so agitated I would have known right then who he was sighing over.

I never did learn what really happened at the dance, but my mother didn’t knit me. Soon as they left I knew Heed was up to something. She telephoned one of the hotel waiters; told him to come get her. About an hour or so after she left I heard a truck drive up and a door slam. Then high heels running across the hall. Not five minutes passed when I smelled smoke. I had the sense to climb up there with a pail of water and had to run back and forth from the bathroom sink to fill it, but water’s no use with mattress fire. You think it’s out, but deep in there it’s waiting, biding its time till you turn your back. Then it eats the whole place up. I hauled the biggest sack of sugar I could find up there. When May and Christine got back the bed was quiet, like syrup.

Heed never admitted or denied the fire and I used to wonder why, if she was mad at him, she took it out on Christine instead. I don’t wonder anymore. And I don’t wonder why his mood stayed pleasant when he heard what Heed had done. May, naturally, was unforgiving and, twenty-eight years later, still loved the sight of her enemy forced to feed her. More satisfying than if her daughter had been her nurse—which she was eventually.

Heed snarled, as you would expect, at Christine’s break-in, but she was happy to shift May onto her. And just in case Christine looked at the job, changed her mind, and left, Heed took to her bed and let her hands fold. At first I thought May would be relieved by her daughter’s return, even though Christine was a big disappointment to her. Their quarrels were name-calling contests separated by years of nothing. So I was surprised at May’s reaction. She was afraid. Not sure if her daughter could be trusted with a pillow. But Christine jumped right in with beautiful cooking and plants to fill the room, both of which, if truth be told, hurried the sick woman along. Christine played prodigal girl for a year or so, then, on one of the prettiest dawns, May died. Smiling.

I don’t know what the smile was about. Nothing she aimed for had gone her way—except for the hatchet she threw between Heed and Christine when they were little girls. That stuck. Cleaved the ground they stood on. So when Christine leaned in to wipe crumbs from her mother’s chin, May saw a familiar look in her daughter’s eyes. Like before, they whispered about Heed, refreshed themselves with old stories of how she tried to trick them into believing she could write; the chop that fell to the floor because she couldn’t manage the knife; how her coddling of Mr. Cosey failed to limit him to her sheets; the hat she chose for his funeral. Mother and daughter became friends at last. Decades of bitterness, sealed in quarrels over Malcolm X, Reverend King, Selma, Newark, Chicago, Detroit, and Watts were gone. Dead the question of what was best for the race, because Heed answered it for them. She was the throwback they both had fought. Neither won, but they agreed on the target, so I guess that’s why May smiled into that lovely dawn.

Heed closed her fingers. Christine decorated hers. No matter. They battled on as though they were champions instead of sacrifices. A crying shame.

7

GUARDIAN

“I don’t know what to say to the boy.”

“Well, think of something. Fast. Or I will.”

“What? What can you tell him?”

“The purpose of a zipper. The responsibility of a father. The mortality rate of AIDS.”

“AIDS?”

“Who knows where she’s been or with who? Who is she, anyway? Got no people, nobody ever heard of her. Dresses like a street woman. Acts like a, a . . .”

“She wouldn’t be working for them if she wasn’t all right. Had references or some such.”

“You senile or just pretending?”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Christine has a reputation make Jezebel cringe, and Heed’s a Johnson, remember.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means morals of any kind whatsoever are not known in that family. What would Heed, who got married at the ripe old age of eleven, know about morals, restraint . . .”

“She never ran around on Cosey and you know she never condoned Christine’s past. You can’t blame her for what her daddy did.”

“No, but I can take note of what her daddy is. Did she or didn’t she try to burn her own house down?”

“I never did believe that.”

“Well, the seed don’t fall far from the pod. If they take in that kind of girl to work for them, what else might be going on over there? How can you trust either one of them? Just because Heed lets Romen clean her yard doesn’t mean she’s changed.”

“Changed from what?”

“From a deceitful bitch who has to control people.”

“I thought this was about Romen’s behavior.”

“It is. Behavior influenced by an ex-hooker and a witch. Listen, Sandler, I am not about to be a great-grandmother or an unpaid nurse or a deep pocketbook for some trashy teen mama just because you don’t know what to say to a fourteen-year-old boy. Besides, we’re responsible for Romen. Our own daughter expects us to be. Counts on us to be.”

Sandler grunted and let his wife’s argument, point by point, roll on. He did know what to say to Romen, but he knew it wouldn’t matter. Forbidding it would just make the whole thing hotter, more enticing. He wouldn’t be telling him to choose one girl over another, but to give up the only one he had complete physical access to. Like telling a duck not to waddle. He would have to think up something else. Condoms at the least, but Vida expected more—an end to the relationship. Add to that improbability the fact that he thought Romen was handling things pretty well, considering. He wasn’t doping, ganged up, courting arrest, and his house manners had definitely improved. But Vida was right. The neighborhood had changed and so had the times. They didn’t know the girl, had no recent knowledge of what the Cosey women might be up to. Just gossip, speculation, and grudges from local people who didn’t know any more than they did. Once upon a time, everybody knew everything. Once upon a time, a man could speak to another about his son or daughter; or a group of women would swoop down on a fast girl. Except the Johnsons. Nobody swooped down on them. They were not typical, even in Up Beach, where people lived on top of one another and every cough, every sidelong look, was monitored.

Oh, Christ, he thought, that was fifty years ago. What was the point in remembering the good old days as though the past was pure? He knew for a fact it was simply stifled. Vida, in her tale of wickedness, had not said a word about Bill Cosey. She acted as though Heed had chased and seduced a fifty-two-year-old man, older than her father. That she had chosen to marry him rather than having been told to. Vida, like most people, probably resented the child because she stayed married to him, liked it, and took over his business. In their minds she was born a liar, a gold digger unable to wait for her twelfth birthday for pay dirt. They forgave Cosey. Everything. Even to the point of blaming a child for a grown man’s interest in her. What was she supposed to do? Run away? Where? Was there someplace Cosey or Wilbur Johnson couldn’t reach?

He had seen Heed more recently than anyone the day he knocked on the door and asked her if she could take Romen on as after-school help. She was civil. Neat as a pin, as always. Offered him iced coffee, probably to let him see Christine’s status in the house. Sandler had always found her less of a pain than others had. Because of his friendship with her husband, he guessed. Her edges were smoothed by his recollection of Bill Cosey telling him that he had not touched her until her period came; waited a year and only then took her on a honeymoon for the initiation. Still, she was not easy to be around. He couldn’t say whether she was good-looking or not because “false,” “touchy,” were the words that came to his mind about her. False the way anybody would be who had jumped from a log to a castle overnight. Touchy the way anybody would be who had envy plus May on her back. But what Sandler saw was nothing like what Bill Cosey must have seen. For him it was as though twenty-five years hadn’t happened. The Heed that Cosey reminisced about in his cups on the boat—as though she were dead—was not a frowning woman always on the lookout for a slight, a chance to find fault, but a long-legged angel with candle eyes and a smile he couldn’t help but join.

Uneasy with other men’s sexual confidences (he certainly wasn’t providing any of his own), Sandler always made it his business to change the subject. But he remembered Cosey’s dream-bitten expression as he rambled on about his first sight of Heed: hips narrow, chest smooth as a plank, skin soft and damp, like a lip. Invisible navel above scant, newborn hair. Cosey never explained the attraction any other way, except to say he wanted to raise her and couldn’t wait to watch her grow. That the steady, up-close observation most men don’t know the pleasure of kept him not just true but lively. Listening to Cosey’s rapturous description of his wife, Sandler was not as repelled as he’d expected to be, since the picture that emerged from the telling called to his mind not a child but a fashion model. Although by then Cosey was fully involved with grown women, the memory of having a child bride still stirred him. Vida had nothing to say about that, and Sandler didn’t want the misery of bringing it up, of tilting his wife’s idol with a blow of insight.

Oh, well. This is what I’m for, he thought. The day Romen came to stay he knew he had to protect him. From bad cops, street slaughter, dope death, prison shivs, and friendly fire in white folks’ wars. He never would have believed a female would be a serious threat and his first real danger.

So he and Vida planned a way for him to be alone with his grandson. To his surprise the boy was as eager as he was. Did he want to talk too?

Vida stood at the window wiping her palms together—a gesture of accomplishment. Seeing her husband and grandson drive off together on an errand soothed her. Romen’s generation made her nervous. Nothing learned from her own childhood or from raising Dolly worked with them, and everywhere parents were flummoxed. These days the first thought at Christmas was the children; in her own generation it was the last. Now children wept if their birthdays weren’t banquets; then the day was barely acknowledged. The hardship stories told by her parents that mesmerized and steeled her made Romen cover his mouth to disguise a yawn. The gap was certainly normal now, but it wasn’t eternal. That kid who threw a bucket of offal on Bill Cosey was not alone. Many had cheered.

Laughter and applause had interrupted the singing that furnace-hot afternoon. Cosey had been repairing a fishing rod in back of the hotel. Casting, rewinding, casting again, and then walking around to the front to see what the commotion was; to listen, perhaps, to the singing, or read the signs held aloft, some pleading, some demanding. As he approached, rod in hand, it looked to somebody like an excuse to raise the level from persuasion to argument to a drama carefully prepared for. A kid leapt forward with a pail and tossed its contents on Bill Cosey. The cheering subsided as Cosey remained where he was, animal waste spattering his shoes and trousers. He didn’t move, not even to examine the soiling. Instead he looked at each one as though photographing them. Then he leaned the fishing rod against the porch railing and walked toward them. Slowly.

“Hey, Bella. Afternoon, Miss Barnes. Good to see you, George; got that truck running yet?”

He spoke to young and older. “How you doin’, Pete? Your girl still in college? You looking good, Francie. Hi there, Shoofly . . .”

Courteous replies met his greetings and countered the violent smell of dung clotted on his cuffs and paving his way. Finally he raised his hand in a general farewell and left them as though he’d been inaugurated or baptized. The crowd lingered, but in disarray. Such was the rift between generations in
1968
, but Cosey had managed to span it, to detox it; to say “I am neither stranger nor enemy.” Talk, then, respectful but serious, was the bridge. Otherwise hog shit filled the gap. He never did what they were asking—give over some land—but he did try. Vida didn’t know if it was May or Heed who prevented it, but she was thankful somebody had. Housing was more important than pottery classes. What would they be now? Homeless tai chi experts, miseducated vagabonds raising their children in condemned buildings and flatbed trucks. The choice, she thought, was not whether to surrender to power or dislodge it. It was to do your duty to your family, and at the moment, that meant serious talk to a grandson. Vida believed Romen had a natural tendency to care for people, but he seemed, nowadays, not to know what to do with it.

Fifteen aluminum-foiled platters were stacked on newspaper in the backseat, a name taped to each one. The list of shut-ins Vida had clipped to the visor included addresses, as though he might forget that Alice Brent was rooming now; that Mr. Royce had moved in with his daughter, who worked nights. Or that Miss Coleman, still on crutches, was staying with her blind brother on Governor Street. The shut-ins had three choices: fish, chicken, or barbecue, and the conflagration of aromas changed his car from a machine to a kitchen where talk could be easy.

Romen turned the radio on soon as he slid in, fiddling the buttons until he found what he liked: the music Vida made him wear headphones to hear at home. That way only the throb and Romen’s listening face disturbed her—not the words. Sandler liked the music but agreed with his wife that, unlike the suggestive language of their own generation (“I want some seafood, mama. Chicken and rice are very nice but gimme seafood, mama”), the language of Romen’s music had the subtlety of an oil spill. “Polluting and disfiguring the natural mind,” said Vida. Sandler reached over and turned the knob to “Off.” He expected a whine from Romen, but none came. They rode in silence until he arrived at the first house on the list. Sandler had to pull the hands of three children away from his trousers to get to the front door. Alice Brent insisted on inviting him in, relinquishing the idea only when he told her she was first but he had fourteen deliveries left. Flattered, she let him go. He heard Romen click the radio back off, too late for Sandler not to notice. At least he respects my preference, he thought. Pulling away from the curb, he tried to think of some small talk. Something they could share before the interrogation or the lecture began. He and Vida had no son. Dolly, a sweet-tempered, obedient child, directed whatever rebellion she felt first into an early marriage, then into the armed forces. But it couldn’t be that hard. Sandler’s own father and grandfather had no trouble telling him what to do. Short, biting commands: “Never carry a lazy man’s load,” when he hauled too much at once in order to save himself frequent trips. “If she don’t respect herself she won’t respect you,” or “Don’t hang your pants where you can’t hang your hat,” when he claimed a quick conquest. No long sermons and no talking back. None of that worked with Romen. Sulk was the result of Sandler’s efforts along those lines. Nineties children didn’t want to hear “sayings” or be managed by lessons too dusty to be read, let alone understood. They got better advice from their hammering music. Straight no chaser. Black no sugar. Direct as a bullet.

“She pregnant?”

Romen was startled but not angry or evasive. “No! Why you ask me that?”

Good, thought Sandler. Direct like his own father but minus the threat. “Because you spend an awful lot of time with her. Doing what?”

“Just stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Ride around, you know,” said Romen. “Went out to that old hotel last Saturday. Just looking around.” For a floor, a pallet, anything would do as long as it was in a strange place. His palms were wet with excitement because she insisted he drive. Not just because he didn’t know how but also because she liked to nuzzle and distract him while he struggled to control the wheel, and for the thrill of nearly hitting a tree or skidding into a ditch while fingering each other.

“You got in there?” asked Sandler.

“Yeah. It was open.” The padlocked doors, the windows tight as iron so angered Romen he rammed his fist into a pane, matching the determination of Junior’s hand in his jeans. They had thought the place would be scary: cobwebs and garbage-y corners. Instead, the kitchen, glowing in noon light, welcomed them to its tabletop as well as between its legs. Other rooms were dim but no less promising. Junior counted each as they explored themselves in every one, all the way from the lobby to the top floor.

“I don’t believe anybody’s been in there for years. Must be rat casino,” Sandler said.

“Sorta.” No rats. Birds. Flying and tittering in the rafters. The whole place smelled like wine.

“I take it they didn’t get in your way?”

“No. I mean. We were just looking, fooling around, you know?”

“Who you think you talking to?”

“No, like, I mean—”

“Romen, we men or not?”

Romen looked at his high-tops. Black canvas with a cool white circle.

“Okay, then. Get off it. Straight, now.”

“Okay. Well. She likes, she likes to . . .” Romen rubbed his knees.

“And you don’t?”

“Aw, you know how it is.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I mean, yeah. We made out and, like, explored everywhere. No big deal.” Except for the attic. Getting up there required hoisting himself on a chair to get to the chain to pull down the folded stairs and climb in there. “We need matches,” he told her, “or a flashlight.” “No we don’t,” she whispered. “I like it dark.” A rustle of wings and twitter as they entered. Bats? he wondered, but the wings that flew past, shooting through the hall light filtering into the attic, were yellow and he was about to say “Wow, canaries” when she pulled him to her. It was hide-and-seek then, tearing through spiderweb trellises. Losing, then finding each other in a pitch-black room; stumbling, bumping heads, tripping, falling, grabbing a foot, a neck, then the whole person, they dared darkness with loud laughter and moans of pleasure and pain. Birds screeched. Cartons toppled and crashed. Floorboards creaked, then split beneath them, raking their nakedness and sharpening their play, lending it a high seriousness he could never have imagined.