Ruby (10 page)

That she looked like Dorothy Dandridge was the compliment
most often paid her. Makeup like Sophia Loren, heels adding two and a half to her five eight so that she looked down when she was introduced to the poet Gregory Corso and the painter Robert Motherwell. Quite far when she spoke briefly to James Baldwin—about Texas and little Liberty and the victory of Brown over Topeka’s Board of Education. He told her she was beautiful in that pure way that only gay men can, and peeled generously away only when the hostess, Mrs. Gladdington, called for him.

And for a moment after, she had become a magnet, as if mere proximity had gifted her with the power of attraction, and a circle had orbited her, until they realized she was not an author, a famous man’s girlfriend or a singer—only a pretty Negro girl who worked for the hostess, and all had drifted away. Still from across the room, she caught a supportive, conspiratorial wink from James Baldwin and felt, for a moment, seen and known by sparkling brilliance.

In a second she was back in Liberty. Ruby looked down at the browning mattress and could feel his crinkled grin fading. Her dresser mirror in Manhattan, her bras, panties, stockings, cigarettes, the bottle of Chanel 19, her English-French dictionary, for the trip she was to have taken with Mrs. Gladdington. Gone.

But for all that Ruby had lost, there were many things she had found.

A rising growl that rumbled out of her belly. Drool that wetted her lips and slid down the angle of her jaw. A jerking, rhythmic contortion of her face. Because these often happened without her permission and in view of the town, Ruby found what it was to no longer be seen as human.

She discovered that she could hammer her pride so wafer thin that she could accept alms like a beggar.

Then, one late afternoon, Ruby found a new pitted terror, as she sat on her bed watching dust swim in the light. She heard the slow creak of the screen door, a flutter of sparrows outside. She listened as a cup of water on the kitchen table turned over, and a thin cascading splash, like a man urinating, poured onto the floor. Ruby waited—it would not be the first time someone had come unannounced. But instead of a man, she saw a weighted, umber thickness slide into the room.

It shifted, moving along the floorboards. It darkened the corners, adding mass to the shadows. Ruby whispered, softly to herself, that there was nothing there, just the coming evening. Still her skin tingled hot, her mouth dry as it crossed the space between them and pressed against her, flattening her dress against her chest, her legs.

Ruby did not know why she sat on the bed, then lay down, but the old curtains ruffled towards the window frame, not away. Then something fell upon her chest. The scent of a dead candle filled her, making it hard to breathe. When the mattress sank deeper, Ruby thought to scream, but whatever lay upon her whispered the creaks and groans of the house into her ear, it smoothed and relaxed her until she felt a soft pressure upon her groin. To her fogged surprise, her body responded, a swelling excitement that ebbed through her thin frame. Ruby felt compelled to turn onto her stomach and push her pelvis into a mattress spring just under the padding. The bed seemed to roll under her, its legs grating, rubbing on the floor. Ruby knew this was a Dyboù—what Ma Tante had spoken of so long ago. A heat pulsed around her, then entered her. The house seemed to shake.

She spoke, but it was not Ruby speaking. In a low graveled voice she grunted,
“Bitch,”
hot air escaping her lips,
“Whore.”

She ground harder, faster, with mechanical precision until, in the building heat, an explosion roared through her. Her scream filled the room, the house suddenly still. Her sex spilled, chest empty, Ruby had fallen into sleep.

The Dyboù had come the next night, shifting the pillars of her grandfather’s home, entering her pores, her follicles, until it moved like oil under her skin. Soaking, filling every second of her heartbeat, each rise of her breath, night after night until she felt that she became what he called her. Slapping at her own buttocks, grabbing handfuls of her hair and smashing her face into the bed. In this way, Ruby found the Dyboù. In this way, Ruby learned to rape her body each night.

She was exhausted and drained when she found it—heard the sound of a child crying, faint, like wind through the tall pines. It was not the cry of a living child, Ruby knew that much. She had seen and heard the ghosts of children before. She followed the sound, and found a cloud of a girl weeping in Marion Lake. She was clear as glass, cinnamon brown, and no more than seven. She rippled the water with each sob. When she saw Ruby looking at her, relief loosened her shoulders.

She flowed towards Ruby until she was inches away. They locked eyes and Ruby felt, knew that the girl had not merely drowned in that lake—someone had held her under. Ruby put her arms around her, but because she could not hold air, the child walked inside of her body, curled there and settled into her womb. Ruby held her belly and rocked. She hummed and said softly that everything would be all right now, and the girl let out a little burp and fell asleep.

Ruby knew something about ghost children. Along with the hundreds of ghosts, they too had passed through her body. Seven
had even taken up residence, but had been scared and wily enough to hide inside of her marrow. This new child was not so lucky.

That night, when the Dyboù slid into Ruby’s bedroom, it stopped at the door. It seemed to grow larger. The air became electric. Spider cracks spread across the panes. Instead of reaching for Ruby, the Dyboù lifted above her, the whole of the ceiling in shadow, then it dropped down upon the new spirit sleeping within her.

In seconds the girl was gone, inside the creature, screaming, terror flashing in her clear eyes, small arms reaching for Ruby, as the Dyboù slithered across the floor. It paused and turned as if it suddenly sensed the other spirits Ruby had hidden deep inside her years ago. Ruby shouted out and quickly it turned away and was out the door. Ruby followed, ran outside into the black. The trees were hollow, the shadows between them empty. She did not know what to scream. She did not even have a name. So she shrieked, howled into the woods—wailing like a distant train.

Then, from the big thicket, the spirit of another child appeared, a boy, about twelve, with a noose about his neck. Then another, a little tan girl, hands bound. Then another. And another. One with blood soaked through her clothes. One child, naked, eyes red. More came, walking slowly across the earth towards her, with stories of their deaths hanging just above their heads. Ruby remembered a word she had heard Maggie’s mother say once—“tarrens,” the spirits of murdered children. Tarrens. All of the children who had been killed in those woods. They were speeding towards her. Their faces washed in horror. They were running from the creature between the pines. At first she was scared. Then she heard them, a hundred little whispers, each voice a thread, weaving such a sorrowful blanket.

So she waited on the porch. Then, one by one they slipped into her body for protection. One by one she let them in.

Ruby walked into the house and sat with her back against the wall in the kitchen, her eyes on the front door, her empty stomach grinding, heart banging beneath her ribs. She felt the Dyboù in the ink of the pines. Watching, shifting the branches. Ruby waited. She waited with nothing but her hands and her fear to save them—but if he came, she would try. Sweat dripped down her neck and collected in the hollow at the base of her throat. It streamed down her sternum. As morning broke, Ruby knew, like a nail rusted in her sternum, that sooner or later, he would come again and try to take them.

Mixed in the cacophony of all she had lost, and all she had found, Ruby stumbled into a merciful sleep.

That night the old crow perched just above her on the rooftop. She would stay and watch over her until dawn.

E
phram walked quickly into the heart of town. Four-forty. Time slipping. He saw the congregation of men at P & K, laughing, frowning, faces ripe with sweat. They loomed ahead on the porch. He’d hoped to miss their evening game but the day had grown old on him.

Verde May Rankin, Chauncy’s younger sister, was picking out dried goods and discussing the latest
Ebony
with Miss P. Ephram faded into the spice shelf and waited, his hand keeping a soft, anxious beat. Verde May, the unfortunate recipient of the Rankin males’ bulk and height, leaned into Miss P and paused just above Billy Dee Williams and the “Pretty Black Men” article he was featured in.

“If he was a grapefruit, I would squeeze him dry.”

Miss P chuckled. “Girl, you greedy, I be set with one little drop.”

Both women shared a laugh.

Leaning against bottles of cayenne and cinnamon, Ephram remembered the day Ruby had arrived back in Liberty. Eleven years ago, in August of 1963, hundreds of thousands of Negroes had marched in Washington, D.C., exactly two days before Ruby showed up at P & K. Ruby had bucked the tide and made her way behind enemy lines. Ephram had seen her standing in the exact
same spot Verde May stood today. She’d worn city shoes with straps and height, carried four sleek pink bags. Thick black lines framed her questioning eyes, a nervous smile on her red lips. Her hair was pressed straighter than some White folks’ and twisted up high on her head. It was the first time Ephram had seen Ruby properly since they drank hot cocoa at Ma Tante’s.

Before that, Ephram had spotted Ruby twice from a distance. At thirteen he’d seen her one Sunday through the church window. He’d wanted to bolt up and call out to her, but Celia had shot him a look that kept him nailed to his pew. He’d had to wait five years to see Ruby again. She’d been with Maggie at sunset. He was nearly a stone’s throw from them on the road. Maggie in men’s coveralls, Ruby pretty in white lace. They were arm and arm. He’d watched Ruby once again tiptoe and press her forehead against Maggie’s chin on the quiet road, just as he had seen her do at Marion Lake so many years ago. They stayed that way for a beat, then two. It was a soft simple thing that felt like a paw resting on his heart. Then they’d turned and walked towards Bell land.

That August of ’63 in P & K, Ephram had seen the girl he’d known right away. Everyone knew her, but were taken aback by the thick of her perfume and the clip of her speech. Ephram heard Miss P say later that Ruby sounded like a radio broadcaster. It seemed to Ephram that in the thirteen years she’d been gone, she’d ironed Liberty right out of her voice.

There’d been a crowd on the porch peeking in, men and women, a row of children hiding behind the pickles and candy. It wasn’t until Ruby asked about Maggie that she softened like cotton candy. It was then the porch seemed to see her as Charlotte Bell’s daughter, Papa Bell’s grandbaby. In that open door, Ephram watched as Miss P went to give the girl a hug. Ruby bristled and
inched back, shaming the older woman into converting her gesture into straightening Tabasco bottles on a nearby shelf.

Then Ruby spoke slowly, as if addressing a group of first graders. She asked if someone could carry her to
her
land. Not Papa Bell’s, not her dead grandmama’s, but hers. It looked as if folks took note of that right away. She said she’d be willing to pay twenty dollars for the courtesy. Before anyone could answer, she purchased Clorox, a mop, a broom and a stack of dishcloths as if someone giving her a ride had already been decided. And although each and every person within earshot looked offended, she was right. Twenty dollars was twenty dollars. Charlie Wilkins volunteered.

Ephram had been getting Celia a Sunday paper when he heard her. Saw her. Saw the circles of sweat under the blue of her sundress as he came close to lay the dime and nickel down on the counter. He was careful not to brush her as he swept silently from the store.

She tried to tip Percy Rankin two dollars for gallantly carrying her bags to Charlie’s car and opening the door for her, without an inkling that she was insulting both the family and the man. Then she drove away, leaving a cloud of disdain behind her like an unpleasant scent.

Ephram had seen all of this and did not know why he’d felt pierced through with a crushing sorrow. He had kept to himself the rest of that day. He forgot to wish Celia a pleasant sleep. He did not brush his teeth or put on fresh pajamas. He lay in his thin bed, fully clothed, staring into the night. He did not fall asleep until dawn.

“W
HAT YOU
need today, Ephram?” Miss P asked him warmly. At sixty-nine, everything on her was round and smooth, her eyes, cheeks and jaw. Her fluffy white hair rounded to a bun in back. Her neck rolled into her full breasts, which gave way to even fuller hips and thighs. She always reminded Ephram of bread fresh out of the oven.

“Didn’t see you there. Me and Verde discussin’ serious business here.” She winked at Ephram.

Verde May had retrieved her copy of
Ebony
and was leaning over Billy Dee, who smiled up at her from the counter. She ignored Ephram completely.

“So what you need?”

“Bit of iodine and cotton, brown thread and a needle, please Miss P.”