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

  rest of the time he's off in his head though he'll laugh some with Minnie watching her favorite TV program Beverly Hillbillies but mainly it's church the old fool lives for.. Minnie wishes she was that simple. yes, black folks are just too craven and eager to believe anything promising, lay themselves down for white folks to walk over or hose down or beat with billy clubs or sic police dogs on, which is why Minnie distrusts Reverend King though granting the man is a saint and she acknowledges he is accomplishing something for the colored people if not maybe for Minnie Fairchild.

  What's wrong with imitating Jesus Christ, turning the other cheek and all that, is that Jesus Christ knew he was the Son of God, or was supposed to be, but nobody else is.. that's a disadvantage! And please Jinx you got to drop by the house for sure this week to fix the back steps where they're rotted almost through and insulation strips have got to be put in around the window frames and you know your father can't hustle his black ass to do anything useful. and I'm lonely Jinx I miss my children Jinx all grown up and moved out or worse like Sugar Baby but I won't get onto that subject it's just that I'm lonely and thinking if only you hadn't gone for that one basketthat one basket that one minute: that once! you wouldn't had that accident and you'd gone to college and by now you'd be a teacher or a sports coach right here in Hammond or, Jesus, maybe a doctor or a lawyer or stockbroker or something fancy and not married to that woman who took advantage of your ignorance when you weren't but a boy don't interrupt. I'm telling you what's what and your daddy and me wouldn't be living here in this house that's needing paint and re pairs surrounded by neighbors getting trashier and more shiftless every year. Oh honey why did that happen to your brother like it did? Why did you that's my smartest child do to yourself how you did? Can't nothing be changed once it starts its course going wrong?

  Jinx notes how, since high school, Minnie Fairchild never calls him anything but Jinx. no more Verlyn. Must be Momma figures everybody else calls him that, so why keep up the pretense? Or maybe she'd been calling him that, in secret, all along?

  Like hundreds of other workers in Hammond, Jinx Fairchild has filed his application at National Lead of Hammond across the river.

  There's a new plant opening up December 1, 1963, it's said that wages will be higher than wages at any other factory in the region National Lead has a government contract so that means money big money for Hammond some kind of metal or chemical or gas operation processing fuel for government re actors is what the work is but nobody in Hammond, let alone Lowertown, has the slightest idea what that is and no questions asked.

  In the Hammond Chronicle it's stated that the company is reorganizing its operations under the National Security Act but what that is nobody knows either.

  Least not Jinx Fairchild, an unskilled factory worker in his early twenties, just fourteen months on the assembly line at McKenzie Radiator 'A Division of General Motors as the big sign boasts and a dues paying member of the United Auto Workers of America, local 483.

  one of fewer than twenty black men in the four hundred man local and lucky, damned lucky, to be in. No matter the din of the machine shop, and the smells, and the summer heat all through September, and the banging clattering hammering in Jinx Fairchild's head repetitive and crazy as his own thoughts could he hear what those thoughts are.

  Yah, you better believe you're lucky, man, some white foreman smiling on you cause you used to play basketball at the high school, hard not to know how lucky you are every morning at 8 A. M.

  marching into the machine shop with all the white faces, especially those pasty pale hillbilly faces with eyes like ice picks going right through you.

  A dozen times Sissy says, You heard anything about that new job, Jinx?

  That place across the river? And a dozen times Jinx says, Not yet, though the truth is: word's out early on before the new processing plant at National Lead even posts its openings that management isn't hiring blacks except for janitorial work.

  But he doesn' tell Sissy, it's one of those cautious peaceful pockets of time when he's hoping to please her by showing how future minded he is, holding out to her the vague prospect of making a little more money that, multiplied, might constitute the down payment on a car, or a new TV or clothes for the kids or Sissy herself. At least it's a subject for the two of them to talk about instead of their old worn out subjects or outright fighting; then they fall into bed thrashing and loving, and Sissy's the kind of hot skinned woman can be real nice when she wants to be, re al nice, so it's something, Jinx tells himself, not just nothing.

  Goddamn, Jinx, what in hell you doing making that nasty old noise, you waking me up every goddamn night grinding your teethSissy's nudging him not fully awake herself and Jinx is confused half asleep and half awake, convinced there's a kind of machine right inside his head revved up and working grinding grinding grinding so he's covered in sweat and his skin stretched tight on his long skinny bones and the big molars in his jaw are aching and hot.

  Keeping the U. S. Army in mind, that's Jinx Fairchild's trump card.

  There's no quarrel between the two men but when Jinx Fairchild pushes into the lavatory and sees Mort Garlock at one of the sinks, and Mort Garlock's startled eyes lock with Jinx Fairchild's in the mirror, both men freeze. for a just perceptible beat. Garlock is a pasty pale white man in his mid thirties with a narrow ferret face, damp lashless eyes; he's been on the assembly line at McKenzie Radiator for years and has seniority over the oldest of the black workers; he's one of a loose group of friends at the center of which is Bill Hudkins lately Bull to his buddies in honor of his re seen blance, physical and otherwise, to Bull Connor, the much publicized police commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama: both of them re al white men's white men then Mort Garlock yanks a paper towel out of the dispenser and dries his hands roughly and tosses the wadded towel in the direction of the trash can, not minding that it falls short, falls to the already littered floor; he's on the move, eyes averted, eager to get out of these close confines.

  Though there's no quarrel between the two men.

  Looming up tall and very dark skinned in the fluorescent lit space Jinx Fairchild uses the lavatory, smiling to himself thinking how, in the merest flicker of an instant, he'd seen fear in the white man's eyes.

  Mort Garlock. A relative of Little Red.

  Could even be a brother, Jinx wouldn't know.

  All the re st of that day, Jinx Fairchild feels good. Humming and singing Big Bill Broonzy under his breathGot me a new suit of clothes, got me a big new car, got me a sweet li'l gal thinks the world of me mmmmmmmmmmmm! but inside the humming and singing and the deafening crash of the assembly line he's thinking, Might be I killed one of you once and might be I can do it again any time.

  He doesn't mean it, though.

  Naw: Jinx Fairchild is a polite mannered young man, still boyish in manner, tall and long limbed as if his bones grew too weedy fast for the re st of him, his eyes are sometimes hooded and glazed over from so many hours in the factory and his deep rich brown black skin isn't as healthy appearing as it once was, and his big strong teeth are turning yellowish like old ivory but so slow and gradual you almost don't notice. almost don't notice. Sissy runs her re d polished nails teasing through his woolly hair murmuring Here's the one, here's ma man in the cadence of a popular song and say they're dressed in their best clothes, Sissy in her electric bright turquoise taffeta dress, spike heeled shoes with the skinny straps, wide soft crimson lips made up for her cousin Mimi's wedding, and Jinx is in his good suit too, his only suit, fawn colored, skinny lapels, tight fitting in the shoulders but still looking good, so he's smiling and frowning at his face in the mirror thinking things aren't so bad, there's Sissy crazy for him, he's got his sons Frankie and Dwight, and Sissy's little boy Vaughan looking up to him; why should it matter that, when he leaves the neighborhood, he isn't Jinx Fairchild in anyone's eyes but a black man, a man defined by his skin and by his facial features and by his voice and by that look in his eyes, how to be something other than
what another sees and, seeing, defines, defines without knowing or caring in actual resistance to knowing or caring; why should it matter that, at work, at this work which if he's lucky he'll be doing for the re st of his life, the white men surrounding him re sent him for his very presence on the floor with them as if he's not only presenting himself as an equal of theirs but is in fact an equal of theirs; why should it matter that that bastard Bull Hudkins and his friends cut their eyes at him, jive talk with one another in his and other blacks' earshot; why should it matter that, if they had the power, they would extinguish him with a snap of their fingers, make extinct the entire race of which in his innocence and impotence he's the exemplar in their eyes; why should it matter? Jinx Fairchild is just biding his time in Hammond, New York.

  Contemplating his hands: the basketball hands, the murderer hands.

  Long elastic seeming fingers with which he could still get a firm grip on a basketball, he's sure, send it spinning in an arc to drop through the metal rim lightly fluffing out the net, he's sure, outwitting his guard and the other players and running right up to the backboard and leaping and sinking the ball and the crowd delirious with applause, he's sure, only there's a heaviness in him, a coldness in his guts: Man I done all that already, tried all that.

  Hurts to think, though, except for basketball Jinx Fairchild would have been nobody much, those years in school: nobody in his teachers' or his classmates' eyes. Just the family, Minnie primarily: his momma cherishing him because she's his momma not because he's anything special. Why are you behaving like some ordinary shiftless nigger?

  Why are you cutting your own throat and cutting mine? Minnie had raged. Years ago.

  His murderer hands: he's shamefaced in the eyes of God could he be sure there is a God, but in the eyes of man, the white man, men like Bull Hudkins and Mort Garlock and the others, and the Hammond city police, and the criminal justice system of the United States, naw, can't say Jinx Fairchild feels any shame or even much regret. Wishes he hadn't done it, Jesus yes, but doesn't feel regret for the fact that his victim is dead, long dead, and nearly forgotten.

  Like the white girl Graice Courtney said, Garlock was so crazy and so mean, someone would surely have killed him someday.

  Bad luck it had to be Jinx Fairchild.

  * *

  She'd argued with him, Why trade your life for his? when it seemed, maybe, he might weaken and turn himself in.

  And, It was self defense but no one would believe you.

  What to make of Graice Courtney? So fixed upon Jinx Fairchild, and so convinced they were special to each other? Saying I don't want anything from you but the fact of you, which is a statement Jinx understands by instinct but not in any more rational way just as he knows things about Sissy, and Sissy about him, by instinct, that could never be explained.

  Saying too in her fierce fixed way, No one is so close to us as we are to each other.

  In the days back in high school when they'd seen a good deal of each other, Jinx had always thought something would happen between them not that he'd wanted it to happen, but that he'd felt it would come about apart from his volition, as so many things seemed to happen apart from his volition. But when she'd called him that night and asked him please to meet her so they could talk and they'd parked above the river whispering and touching and kissing and finally he'd said, It's late, I better get you home, he'd been proud of himself for the fact that nothing extreme or irrevocable had happened between them after all. He knew she wanted him to make love to her, and Jesus he'd been ready, but he had not done it, just told himself no no no so they were free and clear of each other and could forget each other maybe, if only she'd let him go.

  He'd worried some, that she wouldn't let him go.

  And if she hadn't.. what could he have done?

  How to explain Graice Courtney to Sissy, for instance? Simply to speak the girl's name would be to violate a secret and to begin a confession that could only end with Jinx Fairchild saying he'd killed a boy once, years ago, self defense maybe but, yes, he'd done it.

  This is a strange story, the strangest story of any story I know, and it happened to me.

  Graice Courtney respected his distance and never telephoned him again but in the years since she's been away to college in Syracuse she has sent him several odd little letters: single sheets of paper covered in careful schoolgirl handwriting, envelopes addressed to Verlyn Fairchild in care of missis Fairchild at the old East Avenue address.

  Skimming these letters, embarrassed impatient, apprehensive, Jinx believed he could hear the girl's cool pleading voice: How are you? I would like so much to hear from you. Just tell me anything, for instance where you are while you're reading this? Ifyou look up what will you see? For instance. Of course, Jinx hadn't answered a single letter.

  Sometimes in weak melancholy moods he thinks of her.

  Sometimes he fantasizes making love to her. the way she'd wanted him to.

  He knows she's gone from Hammond more or less permanently but from time to time he sees her, or someone who resembles her. A head of springy pale bronze hair and the white skin, a slender nerved up body, a girl walking or standing by herself. And his heart kicks, and he wants it to be Graice Courtney and wants it to not be Graice Courtney.

  This summer I was up at Cassadaga Park one day with Frankie and he got sleepy from messing around in the wading pool and the hot sun so I'm carrying him in the crook ofmy arm and we go in this big dark old building where the girls' and boys' rooms are and there's ice cream and candy and soda pop you can buy and I'm at the counter going to buy Frankie and me both something and there's this girl behind the counter staring at me but my eyes are sort of dim yetfrom stepping in out of the sun so I can't see her clear and think for a minute it's you..

  this long strange minute the two of us are staring at each other until finally the girl smiles and asks what do I want, and I tell her, and she isn't you but there's a special feeling between us, this girl with pale frizzy hair, big wide innocent seeming eyes, halter top, bare shoulders and arms and she's young, may be fifteen, but maturefor her age. the kind of girl it's obvious likes black boys at least as well as white boys or maybe it's men she likes ofany color so I walk out with Frankie hoisted up in the crook of my arm both of us sucking popsicles and feeling pretty goodbut this Jinx Fairchild wouldn't write to Graice Courtney, nor even consider it.

  He never will write, he'll provide a photo instead.

  * * *

  A long, long day.. can t hardly re member how long.

  Now it's supper time, pitch black outside but Minnie Fair child hasn't gotten around to starting any meal, she's sitting in the Formica topped breakfast nook, puffy faced, nursing a beer, ad dressing her son Jinx in a voice heavy with sarcasm. You com paring yourself to who? Bobo Ritchie? That trash? He ain't nothing, and you know it. He don't even belong in the U. S. Army except the fool police never caught up with him and arrested him like they should of.

  Jinx laughs harshly, says, Like they never caught up with me, Momma?

  Minnie stares at him for a blank moment, then brings her Schlitz bottle down hard on the table; there's a crack. like gunfire but the bottle doesn't break. Damn you, boy, I don't like you teasing, she says, suddenly furious. You know it wears me out, you damn kids teasing.

  She rants for some minutes complaining not only of Jinx but of Ceci, Ceci and her fresh mouth, and then it's Bea, Bea over at Sunday dinner with her in laws and never having time for Minnie because why? Could be, that girl's embarrassed of her daddy. And her daddy's a damn good man, a fine man for all his faults, and not well these days, and, Lord, who knows what's going to From out of the bedroom at the rear of the little house comes Woodrow's snoring, a patient, rhythmic drone like the sound of wasps in a giant hive.

  Jinx says, mumbling, Sorry, Momma. Don't mean to vex you.

  Minnie says hotly, You don't vex me, honey, you worry me.

  That's worse. Adding in a low voice, If I thought you were halfway serious I wou
ldn't let you out of this house.

  Jinx laughs, startled. Says with his old squirmy twist of his shoulders, Oh, you know I'm not, Momma. Serious.

  They fall silent, drinking their beers. Jinx Fairchild is thinking he's never, never done anything like this. sitting in his momma's kitchen drinking beer with her. Jesus, never! Never in his life!

  Minnie Fairchild just isn't the type, or wasn't, all those years she'd been his and her other children's stern chiding momma; now she's drinking Schlitz from the bottle, fastidious little sips, but frequent sips. Jinx throws back his head and drinks in quick gulping mouthfuls, then wipes his lips with his fist, suppresses a beery belch.

  It's a windy late autumn night, a smell of snow in the air and dried leaves. Past seven thirty and Jinx should get on home. but he just sits. He's tired. A tight band around his head, a threat of squeezing pain, from the goggles he'd been wearing most of the day.

  And a faint roaring in his right ear.