Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart Read online

  That's the one clear thing. If he was alive and it was that night again. the same thing would happen. I know there's a way of seeing him, of the person he was, or the thing, the. the circumstances, there's a way of understanding so you couldn't hate him or want him dead, you'd be a part of him like God is a part of him seeing things from his perspective, but I don't care, I don't care. I don't want that perspective or that sympathy, I don't want him in the world.

  Jinx Fairchild doesn't speak for some time then, tight jawed, he says, I don't know what in hell you're talking about, girl. You better shut your foolish mouth.

  She touches him, his arm. it's all he can do not to flick it away like an animal flicking off a fly.

  They're on North Main Street approaching the bridge. It's one of the steepest hills in Hammond, Jinx is braking in quick pumping motions; he's a skillful driver set on maintaining control.

  Graice says, You know what I'm talking about. We know each other.

  That basketball game. you did it deliberately. ruined everything for yourself. And why?

  You crazy? Shut up.

  Nobody knows, but I know. You never fooled me. And it was a mistake, we didn't do anything wrong. We don't deserve to be punished.

  How'd I ruin everything for myself? I'm happy, Jinx says.

  Doing what I want to do; I'm happy, got me a baby boy, two little boys cause Sissy has a four year old I'm a daddy to, he calls me Daddy and that's who I am How'd I ruin my life? You don't know shit.

  You even talk different, now, Graice says. It isn't you, it's like somebody up from Georgia. You look different.

  Some damn dumb ignorant nigger, huh?

  Well, you don't fool me.

  What you know about niggers, you? Smart mouth white cunt don't know shit about shit.

  Jinx pushes her from him, with his elbow. Not hard. just hard enough.

  Approaching the ramp to the bridge Jinx is driving just a little too fast; the rear wheels begin to list to the right. Jinx pumps the brakes coaxingly. and the wheels hold.

  Winters in Hammond, there's rock salt, sand, cinders spread everywhere on the pavement; now, on the bridge, a rapid near inaudible pattern ofping. ping! ping. starts as minute pieces of grit are thrown up against the insides of the Chrysler's fenders.

  The car holds, though. They don't swerve into the railing.

  Graice wipes her eyes and looks up, out. sees they're speeding over the Cassadaga River. Where are they going? At shore the river is locked in ice, great broken wedges of ice; in the middle the ship channel is open. dark turbulent fast flowing water in a snaky stream.

  On both shores, the lights of human habitation are small and inconsequential.

  Graice whispers, teasing You don't fool me.

  Her eyes are drawn to Jinx's scabby scarred fingers on the steering wheel, his hands gripping the wheel as if he's fearful of losing control. And if they skid and plunge into the water? Is it deserved?

  Is it their punishment? Graice says, It's true, I don't know shit about shit. I don't know the first thing about anything. She rests a hand over one of Jinx's hands, closes her fingers about his. He doesn't push her away but there's no warmth in him, no acquiescence.

  His face is shut up tight as a fist; his thick, sullen lips, beautiful to her, are shut tight.

  Headlights of oncoming cars flash onto them, blind them, and are gone.

  Graice says, I don't want anything from you but the fact of you. I don't even love you, re ally. It isn't that. I know you're married, and. it isn't that re ally, it's just that there's no one but you, for me. And there isn't you. I know that. Please don't misunderstand me, I know that.

  Jinx shakes his head like a dog shaking off water but he doesn't shake her off.

  Coming off the bridge, he turns onto a narrow semirural road that leads. who knows where it leads? Beyond the several buildings of Diamond Chemicals. past open marshy land scattered farms. a scrap metal yard. more land, more hills leading away from Hammond.

  In the accumulated snowfall of months there's a vast whiteness on all sides.

  Jinx m so afraid.

  Afraid of what?

  Of things.

  You mean. what happened by the river?

  No. Not the past. What's coming.

  My momma's got a saying: the future's gonna take care of itself, just like the past.

  Her breasts, naked, in his hands, the little nipples hard as peas.

  Breasts that fit completely in his curved, cupped hands astonishingly soft, so white. the skin seems too pale and thin to protect her.

  And her bones, her skeleton, so delicate: so breakable.

  And her throat, which he can close his fingers around so easily feel the powerful artery beating, beating. It, trust of him! In infinite trust of him.

  And her strength, melting into him as warmth melts into water, drawn violently away.

  Why, Jinx Fairchild once asked his high school physics teacher, do molecules in water so rapidly drain off heat from molecules in warmer substances in contact with water? And his teacher said, Why? Just is.

  All Jinx does is hold Graice, however; that's all she seems to want of him, now, tonight, all she dares want; it's clear she has never made love with anyone and Jinx isn't about to initiate her: Uh uh, honey, not that. you got plenty of time for that. She's like a child stricken with a fear or a grief she can't name, nor does Jinx in his shrewd maleness want to hear its name; he's in dread of that intimacy between them. Isn't it enough just to hold the girl, comfort her. to stroke her breasts. kiss her. The way, almost, he'd kissed girls back in grade school. Just to touch. Just to get close to. You're gonna be all right, y'know? Gonna be all right.

  Graice Courtney isn't altogether re al to Jinx: she's a kind of doll, doll sister, little white doll sister, not a woman.

  It's the fragility of the bones, the lethal looking thinness of that etiolated skin. how can it protect her, or anyone, made quately?

  If Jinx made love to her. fucked her, as with Sissy. the intimacy would be too great, repugnant to him.

  It's Sissy he loves, Jesus he's crazy about that woman, her body a true woman's body in which, groveling, shouting, half sobbing, he can bury himself deep, deep. his consciousness, so frequently terrible to him, snuffed out like a candle flame. Jinx loves his young wife for her boldness, her brazenness, her appetite for all things her quick bad temper. her capriciousness and unfairness and sudden radiant grin and her crazy wild ways that can't be thwarted: tugging and tearing at his clothes, unzipping his pants and seizing his cock in her fingers when she wishes, a woman making her claim.

  And riding atop him, riding the root of him, a black woman sucking him deep deep into her, always that promise of sweetness and pleasure and oblivion more precious to Jinx than his own life now he's an adult man. now he's a father and no longer just a son.

  In Sissy, all that's not Sissy is obliterated.

  In that white man's city two or three miles away across the Cassadaga River, a hive tonight of tiny chill winking lights. no look of movement to it, though, or life.

  But he's with the little white girl Graice, his doll sister, this strange sweet breathed weeping girl, beautiful, her eyes brimming with tears and her fair bristly curly hair that's nearly the texture ofhis sister Ceci's hair, not kinky exactly but neither is it the kind of hair you associate with white people, the hair that's smooth, straight, glossy. and he's laughing at the ease with which he can give comfort, like spilling coins from his pocket. his long arms wrapped around her, and her arms slung tight around his waist, tight, tight so it almost hurts. He's laughing; it seems funny to him.

  Girl, you about squeezing the life out of me. Girl, I better get you homefast!

  In this high flying mood he doesn't ponder how she's free to be here with him, this time of night, what her home is like, her parents if she has parents; he senses her aloneness that's keener and more painful than his own. mixed up too with her sad white skin. The legendary aloneness and coldheartedness of white folk
s as Jinx's mother has so frequently said these past two years, Jesus God, how do white folks get so mean.

  How relieved Jinx is, how euphoric now, princely feeling, to know this girl wants nothing of him beyond his power to give.

  It's a little less than an hour that Jinx Fairchild and Graice Courtney huddle together in the battered Chrysler parked above the Cas sadaga River, a short distance north and east of Hammond. car motor running, heater blasting heat, the silent snowy countryside surrounding them on three sides and the river deep below them invisible from their perspective. Yes, it's a situation in which lovers have sometimes drifted off asleep together and died together, heavy headed from carbon monoxide poisoning, but that isn't going to happen here, not tonight.

  Jinx Fairchild makes certain of that.

  cot at the time, but later, after Persia is hospitalized, Graice Courtney will record in her journal: How swiftly, once it begins And how irrevocably. In one powerful direction.

  In a patch of sunshine on the faded linoleum floor the supple young midnight black cat Houdini lies watching Graice Courtney overseeing Persia's breakfast. a meal served at an odd hour, late afternoon of this windy April day. Scrambled eggs, lavishly buttered whole wheat toast, orange juice, weak Lipton's tea. Persia raises a forkful of egg to her mouth, lowers it to her plate; raises it as if it were something precious, or mysteriously heavy. then lowers it again to her plate.

  Graice is teasing cajoling, begging, threatening, pleading. Try.

  Try. Just try. How do you know you can't keep it down if you don't try?

  It's one of those howling days of late winter, winds blowing debris on the street, last year's leaves. A sky so blue it hurts.

  Houdini, the stray torn who followed Graice home one night a few weeks ago, skeletal thin at the time, one ear shredded and scabbed with coagulated blood, covered in fleas and mites, is now so at ease in Persia's kitchen he rolls on the floor, on his back, kicking in mock fright, his green tawny eyes opened wide. so much life in the beautiful creature, it's as if currents of electricity pulse through him.

  He's hungry too. Always alert in the presence of food.

  Never never never never wi Il there be enough food, and the guarantee of food, for Houdini the midnight black cat, whose anxiety is a loud crackling sort of purr that begins as soon as Graice moves to pet him.

  Sometimes as soon as Graice appears in a doorway and their eyes lock.

  At the kitchen table in apartment 16 D on the fourth floor of the Buena Vista Arms, this wind rocked April day, Graice sits facing Persia but with her head averted to spare Persia the indignity of being watched.

  To spare Persia too the indignity of being seen, in the state she's in, close up.

  It's possible, though, that Persia needs help. needs some one to close her fingers around Persia's shaky fingers and help her raise her fork, or her glass, or her cup, to her mouth And the two fingers on Persia's right hand that Rafe Fuller broke a while back not that they were fighting cause they weren't fighting exactly but Rafe just lost his temper, didn't know he was hurting have not properly healed and may never properly heal.

  But Graice knows better than to try to feed her mother.

  There are some indignities a human being cannot tolerate says Persia.

  Tiny beads of sweat like pain pushing out on Persia's forehead.

  Mother, if only you'd try.

  I did. I am. I have.

  You haven't.

  I did eat some, a little I hate eggs.

  The toast, then? The juice?

  I did.

  I've been right here and you did not.

  If for Christ's sake you'd only leave me alone, I could. Persia lowers her fork to her plate a final time, re aches for her pack of Chesterfields, lights up, sucks in a deep grateful breath as if the smoke is fresh reviving air, life.

  Graice furiously waves smoke away.

  She could eat Cf she wants to. Simply doesn't want to.

  As f she could deceive me!

  As soon as the click. of Persia's fork sounds against the plate, Houdini scrambles to his feet as if his name has been called; he's in Graice's lap mewing and purring frantically. kneading his sharp claws into Graice's thighs. He's hungry.

  He's hungry.

  Graice feeds him Persia's re objected eggs straight from the plate, cold eggs, cold toast, anything, Houdini will eat anything purring loudly even as he eats his tail twitching, his lithe little body quivering with excitement. Since Graice brought him home one night in her arms and saved him from starvation in the street his stomach has grown tight and round and hard as a pregnant cat's but that seems scarcely to matter: Houdini is hungry.

  Another day, Persia is dressing to go out, drinking from a bottle of Schlitz's as she moves from her bedroom to the bathroom and back again, half dressed, in her stocking feet, and she's chattering about something Graice can't quite follow, she's laughing softly, she's on the edge of anger, complaining of people spying on her, people staring at her openly in the street, and there's an influence she's been aware of lately. like radio waves. the levision interference. In a lowered voice she says, They're trying to talk through me, I think.

  Trying, you know, to communicate.

  Calmly Graice asks, Who is trying to communicate?

  I don't know! Persia says. Her forehead crinkles in sudden perplexity. She smiles wanly. I don't know their identities and I haven't seen their faces.

  A long moment follows.

  In the apartment overhead there's a jarring thump, a thud, the sound of a child's running feet. The sounds too of a radio or a television, a ceaseless murmur as of water flowing rapidly over stones.

  Graice says, swallowing, I don't understand, Mother. Who is Persia is in the bathroom, the faucet is turned on full blast. She calls out petulantly,. seem angry with me, or with someone. I mean, that's the general tone of the communication. It exhausts me and I re sent it. I mean, what has it to do with me? I'm not to blame.

  Graice would speak, Graice would confront her mother, but she feels a warning tinge of pain behind her eyes: the onset of a migraine headache, if she isn't cautious.

  Lately, increasingly this past year, Graice has been susceptible to these fierce paralyzing headaches. White piercing pain and a hammering inside her skull. better to be cautious.

  And that night she manages to sleep heavily. isn't wakened until five in the morning when she feels something nudging against her thigh and a rhythmic jiggling of the bed: Houdini the midnight black cat, who sleeps on top of Graice's bed whenever she allows him, awake now and grooming himself with quick deft motions of his tongue, his warm furry weight pressed snug and importunate against the curve of her thigh.

  When Graice pets him, he's startled at first; then his purr erupts crackling like small mad flames.

  Is Persia home?

  Clearly not: Graice would have heard her come in.

  Still, Graice calls out, Mother?

  No sound. Only Houdini purring and nudging his sleek bony head against Graice's hand.

  Graice falls back to sleep exhausted and in the morning has forgotten much of the previous evening, the exchange with Persia, the words she'd uttered or meant to utter or had not the courage to utter. If I re member, it's in vague watery patches like any of my dreams.

  May 11, 1960. By chance, Graice Courtney sights her mother on lower Main Street, late afternoon and there's a warm rich sepia cast to the air; yes, it's Persia, unmistakably Persia though the fiction is, these days, she's given up entirely on men; she's working part time as a salesgirl in a hosiery shop there she is, about to enter Lucky's Bar & Grill in the company of a man, a stranger. short, thickset, coarse bulldog look to him: mean.

  Has he got money, though? Is he one of the paying ones?

  Listen to Persia's laughter: high soprano laughter like glass being broken.

  And she's in her glamorous new raincoat, dark maroon shot with iridescent threads, tight belt; she's teetering in high heeled shoes, her hair a gaudy tangle.


  Twenty feet away, Graice Courtney stands staring, simply staring.

  She knows she should turn away, in prudence, in shame, in caution for her own emotional well being, quickly before Persia sees her; but Graice is in an unnatural state, a vindictive small minded state.

  coldly staring at this woman who is her mother who has betrayed her so many times.

  Now Persia has seen her and there's no re treating.

  Graice? Honey? Why are you.