The black prince.
The beautiful black prince.
With a slash of his silver sword, Branch’s bonds fell dead. Then the prince would step forward and they would stare at each other. Then the prince was gone.
Awake, Branch shivered in the night.
Waiting ...
“Sal-lee.”
“What?”
“Come out and play.” Her name was Sally Baker and she was five when he was six and she lived across the street.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I hate you, that’s why.”
“I promise I won’t pull your pigtails.”
“That’s what you always promise. Bully. Branch is a bul-ly. Nyah-nyah-uh-nyah-nyah.”
Later, Branch in pursuit.
“Sal-lee.”
“What?”
“I’ll let you play with my train if you’ll come out and play.”
“Your fingers are crossed.”
Branch held his hands up high. She stood in the window of her room on the second floor watching him.
“Your legs are crossed.”
Branch uncrossed his legs.
“I won’t play with you. Bully.”
Later.
“Sal-lee.”
“No.”
“I’ll let you play with my train and I’ll give you a lollipop if you’ll play with me.” He held up the lollipop.
“What flavor is it?”
“Grape.”
“No.”
Still later.
“Sal-lee.”
“No. You’ll just pull my pigtails.”
“But I’ll give you three lollipops and nineteen red rubber bands if you’ll play with me.”
“Nineteen?”
Branch opened his hand. “I’ve got ’em right here. All red. Every last one.”
“You promise you won’t pull my pigtails?”
“Scout’s honor.”
“And you’ve got nineteen rubber bands and they’re all red?”
“Yes. Yes.”
She stuck her finger in her mouth.
“You coming?”
“Just for a little while.” She disappeared from the window.
As soon as she was outside he gave her the lollipops and the red rubber bands. While she was counting them out loud—“ten, ’leven, twelve”—he stepped behind her and grabbed her pigtails. Then he started to pull. He yanked and pulled until she cried. Then he stopped. She whirled around and began to hit him. She slapped him in the face and kicked him in the shins, and the more she did it the more he wanted to smile.
When Branch was seven Howard took to drinking much too much and gambling on Saturday nights. Once, as Branch lay in bed quivering from the closeness of his escape—he had been bound with snakes and as the black prince struck them they doubled in size and number until they almost overwhelmed him and he had to kill them all with his bare hands—he heard his mother and father talking in her bedroom. It was a hot summer night and the windows were open, so he heard every word, starting with his mother’s voice saying, “I couldn’t care less about what you did Saturday.”
“You’re lying.”
“Like hell. Just so long as you don’t enjoy yourself, I don’t care what you do. And you don’t enjoy yourself, do you, baby? You haven’t enjoyed anything much since Dolly.”
Then his father’s voice, suddenly soft. “I didn’t put her on the train. I just walked around all by myself. That was eight years ago. Can’t you forget that?”
“Can Hell freeze?” his mother wanted to know.
Howard took to washing his car.
Every day after work and every Saturday afternoon he spent in the driveway, hosing down his red LaSalle, then sponging it off, cleaning the whitewall tires, shining the chrome. It got to be a joke on Waverly Lane and he knew it, but he went right on, day in, day out, washing his car. “Get it good and clean, Howard,” the neighbors would call out when they drove past. “Shine it up good.” And he would smile, nodding to them, waving. If the Japanese hadn’t bombed Pearl Harbor, he probably would have gone on washing it forever.
“I was thinking of enlisting.” Howard stood in the doorway of Rose’s bedroom. It was night on that cold December Sunday. The room was dark.
Her voice from her bed. “Think all you want to. Just don’t do it.”
“I’m serious, Rosie.”
“You’re a laugh.”
“Tomorrow morning. I think I’m going to do it.”
“They don’t takes lushes in the Army.”
“I can stop drinking.”
“Funnier and funnier,” Rose said.
The next day he enlisted.
“Fool!” Rose commented when he told her.
“Probably.”
“You’ll regret it. Leaving us here like this.”
“You can take care of yourself, Rosie. We both know that from long experience.”
“You left me once before when I told you not to. That was just for two hours. This could be for years.”
“Or a lot longer,” Howard said.
Early one snowy morning he left. Rose kissed him goodbye at the front door. Branch sat on the stairs, watching. Howard looked at his son. “Say goodbye to your Daddy, Branch? Will you do that?”
For a moment Branch sat still.
Then he was flying, down the steps, whirling around the banister, running, running to his father, arms out wide. Branch leaped into his father’s arms and clung to him.
Howard blinked at the quick tears that suddenly covered his eyes.
Monday of the following week, Rose went back to work. The real-estate office was larger now. Several years before Howard had taken over the hardware store and broken the wall between them so that now there were five women working at desks and a young Italian girl sitting as receptionist. Rose took Howard’s old office and soon was busy from early morning until night. Lunchtime she always drove back to Waverly Lane, eating with Branch in the quiet dining room, smiling at him, touching him, asking him about his day. “How was your day, Branch?”
Branch’s days were going badly. He never told her that, of course, but he began to dread school. He was dreaming a good deal, and time after time he would stare embarrassed as his teacher caught him unprepared. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening.” He was chubby now and bad at sports and other boys were always picking on him. There was something that made them pick on him regardless of how he acted. “Fat ass.” That was what they called him. “Fat ass.”
“Fine, Mamma. My days are fine.”
Once Rose returned to the office, business improved. Several factories opened on the outskirts of town, and even though the new members of the community were not of the highest type, still, they needed houses. And Rose sold them. Between early in 1942 and Christmas of that year, three thousand people came to live in West Ridge. Rose drove herself viciously, working until late at night now, and the office on Central Street hummed. Rose made more money that year than Howard had ever been able to do and 1943 was even better. She wrote him notes, keeping him abreast of business affairs, but he never answered them. From time to time he wrote to Branch, but never to Rose.
In the summer of 1943 she was informed, via wire, that he had been killed. She opened the wire slowly, sensing the contents, and she read it through once before tearing it to pieces and throwing it into the fireplace. Bending down, she lighted a match and watched it burn. “I’m not sorry, Howard,” Rose said, staring at the little yellow flame. “I can’t say that I’m sorry.”
She told Branch that night. He was lying in bed and she came in and sat beside him, taking his hand. “Your father won’t be coming back, Branch.”
He looked at her. “You mean he’s dead.”
“Yes.”
Branch said nothing for a while. Then he closed his eyes. “How did he die, Mama?”
“I don’t know, Branch.”
“Tell me, Mama. How did he die?”
Rose kissed him. “Go to s
leep, baby.”
Later, when he was sure no one could hear, Branch pushed his face into his pillow and wept the night away.
Howard died superbly.
On a steaming island, the name of which Rose could never quite pronounce, he made a wild lonely trip across a steep ravine. Alone, he stormed screaming down one side and up the other, running, grenade in hand, toward a machine-gun nest that lay camouflaged on the far ridge. An opening burst of fire tore his chest open, but he crawled forward, still screaming with what was left of his voice. When he reached the nest he pulled the pin on the grenade and threw himself onto the gun.
He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
And the citizens of West Ridge honored his family with a parade. Rose tried to squelch the idea but there was nothing she could do. But endure.
The reviewing stand was set up on Central Street, in front of the office. Rose, resplendent in green, stood, Branch beside her, while the parade marched by. It was hot and sunny and there were five brass bands providing music. The American Legion marched by and the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts and the mayor gave a speech and the Lieutenant Governor of the state of Ohio gave a speech. The parade dragged on and on, flags and tubas, words and drums. The Lieutenant Governor pinned the Distinguished Service Cross on Rose’s green suit and in the crowd Branch could see the boys from school smiling up at him and waving. No Fat Ass today. Then Rose was standing in front of the microphone, clearing her throat.
“No one knows what I’m feeling at this moment,” she began. Across the street two women began to weep. “But my husband—” and here she paused—“my late husband would want me to tell you that he loved this town. And I’m sure you have made him permanently proud. Thank you.” There was a burst of applause and cheering and then the band started again, blaring away. Rose waved. The crowd waved back. Then, suddenly, two little boys with bugles were standing in front of the reviewing stand. Everything grew quiet as they began, badly, to play taps. Day is done ... gone the sun ...
Goddammit, it’s touching, Rose thought.
The parade ended.
As soon as they got home, Rose went to her room and changed into something more comfortable. When she came downstairs, Branch was standing in the back yard, tossing a ball up into the air and catching it.
“What are you doing?” Rose called from the porch.
“Nothing.”
“Well, stop it.”
Branch tossed the ball up into the air again.
“Where did you get that?”
“It was Daddy’s.”
“You just find it?”
“No.”
“Speak up, Branch.”
“I’ve had it. In my room. In my desk.”
“And you never told me?”
“I guess I didn’t.”
“Well, come in, baby. You’ve been in the sun enough for one day.”
Tossing the ball, Branch came in.
“Would you like some lemonade, Branch?”
“No.”
“You hungry?”
“No.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Play catch.”
“I already told you you can’t do that. Give me the ball.”
“No.”
“Branch, give me the ball.”
“No.”
Rose held out her hand.
Branch shook his head.
“You know what we do with naughty boys?”
“I won’t give it to you. It’s mine.”
“Then go to your room, Branch.”
“I won’t give it to you. You’ll throw it away and I won’t—”
“Go to your room!”
Clutching the ball in both hands, Branch went to his room. Lying down on his bed, he stared at the ball, rolling it around on the blanket. Then he sat up. It was hot in the room, so he took off his shirt and pants and lay on the bed clad only in his shorts. He tossed the ball and caught it a few times, then stood and went to the door, opening it, walking down the hall to his mother’s room. Branch walked in and looked around a while and was about to leave when he saw her clothes and undergarments on her bed, so he got a hanger and took her green suit and hung it neatly in her closet. He went back to her bed and picked up her brassiere and was glancing around for a place to put it when he saw himself in the mirror. Walking close to the glass, he held up the garment. Then, out of curiosity, he tried to put it on. The brassiere was too big for him and he reached around to his back, trying to get it to fasten. He couldn’t do it. He reversed the brassiere then so that the hooks met on his chest. He gazed at himself for a long time. He looked stupid, standing there in his shorts with the brassiere on. But he continued to stare. He was breathing faster than he should have been and his body was wet with perspiration.
“You’ve got it on backwards,” Rose said.
Branch screamed.
Whirling, seeing her standing there, he ducked his head and ran out of the room. He ran down the corridor to his room and slammed the door and ran into the bathroom and slammed that door and stood trembling in the corner with his eyes shut tight. The Black Prince. Where was the Black Prince?
Rose opened the door and stood smiling at him.
“Come here, baby,” she said. “Come to Mama.”
Branch could not move.
She walked to him and took his cold hand. “Follow me,” she whispered, and she led him out of the bathroom. Branch dragged his feet and tried pulling against her, but in a moment they were back in her bedroom again. Rose sat on the bed and held him close. “You must promise never to be afraid of Mama again. I don’t care what you do, I’ll understand. Now answer me.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
Branch could think of nothing to say.
“Everybody else is afraid, baby. Everybody else in this whole world. But not you and me. Now tell me, why did you run away from me like that?”
“I was embarrassed.”
“Why were you embarrassed?”
“Because you caught me.”
“Caught you doing what, baby?”
“You know.”
“Say it to me.”
Branch shook his head.
“Trying on Mommy’s clothes? Is that it?”
“I never did it before. Never. I swear.”
“You don’t have to swear, baby. Mama believes you. And there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Lots of little boys do it. Because they’re curious. Isn’t that how you were?”
“Yes.”
“There’s nothing wrong with curiosity, baby. So there’s nothing wrong with what you did. The only thing wrong in this whole world is running away. You ran away from me, Branch, and you must never do it again. If we just face things, nothing can ever go wrong. If we don’t face things, they fester. You were curious. Fine. Curiosity must be satisfied, baby. That’s the best thing for it. Face it. Come.” She stood. “Let me help you.”
“Help me?”
“Stand still now.”
Branch stood still while she took the brassiere off. He looked out the window. The sun was very bright.
“This is how it works,” Rose said, and she slipped the brassiere over his arms, fastening it in back. “Go look at yourself in the mirror.” Branch obeyed. The garment hung limply down his chest. “Remember, Branch; I’m just showing you there’s nothing wrong with what you did. Here. This is a slip. Step into it.” She held it for him. He did not raise his legs. Finally she took one leg and set it into the slip, then the other leg. Then she pulled the slip up until it held around his waist. She took a green skirt from the closet. “You get into this the same way, baby. You do it. Show Mommy you know how.” Branch put on the skirt. “And here’s a beautiful green blouse, baby. Made of pure silk. See how smooth it feels?” She put his arms through the blouse and buttoned it up the back. “And now for a hat.” She rummaged through her closet before choosing a wide-brimmed white sunhat. She was about to set it on his head when she stopp
ed. “Just one more thing, baby, and we’ll be all set.” He stood frozen while she dabbed rouge on his cheeks and carefully lined his mouth with crimson lipstick. The hat went on. Rose took his hand and they walked up close to the mirror. “We could pass for sisters now, couldn’t we, baby? All right, let’s see you smile. Come on. Let’s see. Look—Mama’s smiling. You do the same. Come on. Come on now. We’ve had a hard day but it’s all over. We’re together, baby, just the two of us, always together. With nothing to be afraid of ever again. So smile. For Mommy. Smile.”
Branch wanted to die but he smiled.
“Oh God,” Rose said happily, hugging him tight. “Ain’t we got fun.”
Part II
VI
ESTHER DIDN’T MUCH WANT the baby.
She was, in the first place, too young, a scant twenty-one, not ready yet—not nearly. And, besides that, there was her figure to consider. Her waist had never been smaller (a scant twenty-one, like her age), her pink-tipped prizes never so full and firm. The thought of her flat stomach swelling from Sid’s sting deprived her of sleep, while the image of her sublime bosom sagging, webbed with blue veins, provided her with nightmares. (Her mother’s breasts had sagged, nipples and navel a level line; Esther remembered little of her mother, but she remembered that, and it chilled her, it chilled her.) And who the hell liked babies anyway? Not her. Not little Esther. How could you like them? Ugly wrinkled brats, crying all the day, all the night, tying you down, jailing you, and for what crime? Carelessness. Simple stupid carelessness. So where was Justice anyway? Out noshing bagels with cream cheese and no one watching the store.
And how could she support a kid after her divorce?
There was no doubt in her mind she would soon be divorced. Her marriage (Ha!) had been one titanic nothing, but after it was over, what then? Back pushing pickles in the deli? Better to die. Sid (the piker) would never come across with anything resembling alimony. Talk? Sure. Hot air? Sure. Money? Don’t hold your breath. She could always marry again (no sweat, not with her looks) but marriage meant another husband around the house and Sid had soured her sufficiently on that score. More than once she fiddled around in her mind with the idea of letting some holvah baron keep her, but that (if you pursued the notion to the end) always seemed unappetizing. Nice Jewish Girls didn’t do it and she was a Nice Jewish Girl. Besides, everybody would whisper. Besides that, where would she be at forty when her looks started going? And (finally) besides that, she had never met a holvah baron.