Dont say my mommas room is like sick people I said to her.
Well you didnt show me no dress and youre lying she said there isnt no dress. I felt all warm inside so I pulled her hair. Ill show you I said youre going to see my mommas dress and youll better not call me a liar.
I made her stand still and I got the key off the hook. I kneeled down. I opened the box with the key.
Mary Jane said pew that smells like garbage.
I put my nails in her and she pulled away and got mad. Dont you pinch me she said and she was all red. Im telling my mother on you she said. And anyways its not a white dress its dirty and ugly she said.
Its not dirty I said. I said it so loud I wonder why granma didnt hear. I pulled out the dress from the box. I held it up to show her how its white. It fell open like the rain whispering and the bottom touched on the rug.
It is too white I said all white and clean and silky.
No she said she was so mad and red it has a hole in it. I got more madder. If my momma was here shed show you I said. You got no momma she said all ugly. I hate her.
I have. I said it way loud. I pointed my finger to mommas picture. Well who can see in this stupid dark room she said. I pushed her hard and she hit against the bureau. See then I said mean look at the picture. Thats my momma and shes the most beautiful lady in the world.
Shes ugly she has funny hands Mary Jane said. She hasnt I said shes the most beautiful lady in the world!
Not not she said she has buck teeth.
I dont remember then. I think the dress moved in my arms. Mary Jane screamed. I dont remember what. It got dark and the curtains were closed I think. I couldnt see anyway. I couldnt hear nothing except buck teeth funny hands buck teeth funny hands even when no one was saying it.
There was something else because I think I heard some one call dont let her say that! I couldnt hold to the dress. And I had it on me I cant remember. Because I was grown up strong. But I was a little girl still I think. I mean outside.
I think I was terrible bad then.
Granma took me away from there I guess. I dont know. She was screaming god help us its happened its happened. Over and over. I dont know why. She pulled me all the way here to my room and locked me in. She wont let me out. Well Im not so scared. Who cares if she locks me in a million billion years? She doesnt have to even give me supper. Im not hungry anyway.
Im full.
HAIRCUT
Angelo was down the block having lunch at Temple’s Cafeteria and Joe was alone, sitting in one of the barber chairs reading the morning paper.
It was hot in the shop. The air seemed heavy with the smell of lotions and tonics and shaving soap. There were dark swirls of hair lying on the tiles. In the stillness, a big fly buzzed around in lazy circles. HEAT WAVE CONTINUES, Joe read.
He was rubbing at his neck with a handkerchief when the screen door creaked open and shut with a thud. Joe looked across the shop at the man who was moving toward him.
“Yes, sir,” Joe said automatically, folding the newspaper and sliding off the black leather of the chair.
As he put the newspaper on one of the wireback chairs along the wall, the man shuffled over to the chair and sat down on it, his hands in the coat pockets of his wrinkled brown gabardine suit. He slumped down in the chair, waiting, as Joe turned around.
“Yes, sir,” Joe said again, looking at the man’s sallow, dry-skinned face. He took a towel from the glass-floored cabinet. “Like to take your coat off, sir?” he asked, “Pretty hot today.”
The man said nothing. Joe’s smile faltered for a moment, then returned.
“Yes, sir,” he said, tucking the towel under the collar of the man’s faded shirt, feeling how dry and cool his skin was. He put the striped cloth over the man’s coat and pinned it in place.
“Looks like we’re havin’ another scorcher,” he said.
The man was silent. Joe cleared his throat.
“Shave?” he asked.
The man shook his head once.
“Haircut,” Joe said and the man nodded slowly.
Joe picked up the electric shaver and flicked it on. The high-pitched buzzing filled the air.
“Uh . . . could you sit up a little, sir?” Joe asked.
Without a sound or change of expression, the man pressed his elbows down on the arms of the chair and raised himself a little.
Joe ran the shaver up the man’s neck, noticing now white the skin was where the hair had been. The man hadn’t been to a barber in a long time; for a haircut anyway.
“Well, it sure looks like the heat ain’t plannin’ to leave,” Joe said.
“Keeps growing,” the man said.
“You said it,” Joe answered, “Gets hotter and hotter. Like I told the missus the other night . . .”
As he talked, he kept shaving off the hair on the back of the man’s neck. The lank hair fluttered darkly down onto the man’s shoulders.
Joe put a different head on the electric shaver and started cutting again.
“You want it short?” he asked.
The man nodded slowly and Joe had to draw away the shaver to keep from cutting him.
“It keeps growing,” the man said.
Joe chuckled self-consciously. “Ain’t it the way?” he said. Then his face grew studious. “Course hair always grows a lot faster in the summertime. It’s the heat. Makes the glands work faster or somethin’. Cut it short, I always say.”
“Yes,” the man said, “short.” His voice was flat and without tone.
Joe put down the shaver and pulled the creased handkerchief from his back trouser pocket. He mopped at his brow.
“Hot,” he said and blew out a heavy breath.
The man said nothing and Joe put away his handkerchief. He picked up the scissors and comb and turned back to the chair. He clicked the scissor blades a few times and started trimming. He grimaced a little as he smelled the man’s breath. Bad teeth, he thought.
“And my nails,” the man said.
“Beg pardon?” Joe asked.
“They keep growing,” the man said.
Joe hesitated a moment, glancing up at the mirror on the opposite wall. The man was staring into his lap.
Joe swallowed and started cutting again. He ran the thin comb through the man’s hair and snipped off bunches of it. The dark, dry hair fell down on the striped cloth. Some of it fluttered down to the floor.
“Out?” the man said.
“What’s that?” Joe asked.
“My nails,” the man answered.
“Oh. No. We ain’t got no manicurist,” Joe said. He laughed apologetically. “We ain’t that high-class.”
The man’s face didn’t change at all and Joe’s smile faded.
“You want a manicure, though,” he said, “There’s a big barber shop up on Atlantic Avena in the bank. They got a manicurist there.”
“They keep growing,” the man said.
“Yeah,” Joe said distractedly, “Uh . . . you want any off the top?”
“I can’t stop it,” the man said.
“Huh?” Joe looked across the way again at the reflection of the man’s unchanging face. He saw how still the man’s eyes were, how sunken.
He went back to his cutting and decided not to talk anymore.
As he cut, the smell kept getting worse. It wasn’t the man’s breath, Joe decided, it was his body. The man probably hadn’t taken a bath in weeks. Joe breathed through gritted teeth. If there’s anything I can’t stand, he thought.
In a little while, he finished cutting with the scissors and comb. Laying them down on the counter, he took off the striped cloth and shook the dark hair onto the floor.
He rearranged the towel and pinned the striped cloth on again. Then he flicked on the black dispenser and let about an inch and a half of white lather pus
h out onto the palm of his left hand.
He rubbed it into the men’s temples and around the ears, his fingers twitching at the cool dryness of the man’s flesh. He’s sick, he thought worriedly, hope to hell it isn’t contagious. Some people just ain’t got no consideration at all.
Joe stropped the straight razor, humming nervously to himself while the man sat motionless in the chair.
“Hurry,” the man said.
“Yes, sir,” Joe said, “right away.” He stropped the razor blade once more, then let go of the black strap. It swung down and bumped once against the back of the chair.
Joe drew the skin taut and shaved around the man’s right ear.
“I should have stayed,” the man said.
“Sir?”
The man said nothing. Joe swallowed uneasily and went on shaving, breathing through his mouth in order to avoid the smell which kept getting worse.
“Hurry,” the man said.
“Goin’ as fast as I can,” Joe said, a little irritably.
“I should have stayed.”
Joe shivered for some reason. “Be finished in a second,” he said. The man kept staring at his lap, his body motionless on the chair, his hands still in his coat pockets.
“Why?” the man said.
“What?” Joe asked.
“Does it keep growing?”
Joe looked blank. He glanced at the man’s reflection again, feeling something tighten in his stomach. He tried to grin.
“That’s life,” he said, weakly, and finished up with the shaving as quickly as he could. He wiped off the lather with a clean towel, noticing how starkly white the man’s skin was where the hair had been shaved away.
He started automatically for the water bottle to clean off the man’s neck and around the ears. Then he stopped himself and turned back. He sprinkled powder on the brush and spread it around the man’s neck. The sweetish smell of the clouding powder mixed with the other heavier smell.
“Comb it wet or dry?” Joe asked.
The man didn’t answer. Nervously, trying not to breathe anymore than necessary, Joe ran the comb through the man’s hair without touching it with his fingers. He parted it on the left side and combed and brushed it back.
Now, for the first time, the man’s lifeless eyes raised and he looked into the mirror at himself.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “That’s better.”
With a lethargic movement, he stood up and Joe had to move around the chair to get the towel and the striped cloth off.
“Yes, sir,” he said, automatically.
The man started shuffling for the door, his hands still in the side pockets of his coat.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Joe said, a surprised look on his face.
The man turned slowly and Joe swallowed as the dark-circled eyes looked at him.
“That’s a buck-fifty,” he said, nervously.
The man stared at him with glazed, unblinking eyes.
“What?” he said.
“A buck-fifty,” Joe said again. “For the cut.”
A moment more, the man looked at Joe. Then, slowly, as if he weren’t sure he was looking in the right place, the man looked down at his coat pockets.
Slowly, jerkingly, he drew out his hands.
Joe felt himself go rigid. He caught his breath and moved back a step, eyes staring at the man’s white hands, at the nails which grew almost an inch past the finger tips.
“But I have no money,” the man said as he slowly opened his hands.
Joe didn’t even hear the gasp that filled his throat.
He stood there, staring open-mouthed at the black dirt sifting through the man’s white fingers.
He stood there, paralyzed, until the man had turned and, with a heavy shuffle, walked to the screen door and left the shop.
Then, he walked numbly to the doorway and out onto the sun-drenched sidewalk.
He stood there for a long time, blank-faced, watching the man hobble slowly across the street and walk up toward Atlantic Avenue and the bank.
NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET
“Seat belt, please,” said the stewardess cheerfully as she passed him.
Almost as she spoke, the sign above the archway which led to the forward compartment lit up—FASTEN SEAT BELT—with, below, its attendant caution—NO SMOKING. Drawing in a deep lungful, Wilson exhaled it in bursts, then pressed the cigarette into the armrest tray with irritable stabbing motions.
Outside, one of the engines coughed monstrously, spewing out a cloud of fume which fragmented into the night air. The fuselage began to shudder and Wilson, glancing through the window, saw the exhaust of flame jetting whitely from the engine’s nacelle. The second engine coughed, then roared, its propeller instantly a blur of revolution. With a tense submissiveness, Wilson fastened the belt across his lap.
Now all the engines were running and Wilson’s head throbbed in unison with the fuselage. He sat rigidly, staring at the seat ahead as the DC-7 taxied across the apron, heating the night with the thundering blast of its exhausts.
At the edge of the runway, it halted. Wilson looked out through the window at the leviathan glitter of the terminal. By late morning, he thought, showered and cleanly dressed, he would be sitting in the office of one more contact discussing one more specious deal the net result of which would not add one jot of meaning to the history of mankind. It was all so damned—
Wilson gasped as the engines began their warm-up race preparatory to takeoff. The sound, already loud, became deafening—waves of sound that crashed against Wilson’s ears like club blows. He opened his mouth as if to let it drain. His eyes took on the glaze of a suffering man, his hands drew in like tensing claws.
He started, legs retracting, as he felt a touch on his arm. Jerking aside his head, he saw the stewardess who had met him at the door. She was smiling down at him.
“Are you all right?” he barely made out her words.
Wilson pressed his lips together and agitated his hand at her as if pushing her away. Her smile flared into excess brightness, then fell as she turned and moved away.
The plane began to move. At first lethargically, like some behemoth struggling to overthrow the pull of its own weight. Then with more speed, forcing off the drag of friction. Wilson, turning to the window, saw the dark runway rushing by faster and faster. On the wing edge, there was a mechanical whining as the flaps descended. Then, imperceptibly, the giant wheels lost contact with the ground, the earth began to fall away. Trees flashed underneath, buildings, the darting quicksilver of car lights. The DC-7 banked slowly to the right, pulling itself upward toward the frosty glitter of the stars.
Finally, it leveled off and the engines seemed to stop until Wilson’s adjusting ear caught the murmur of their cruising speed. A moment of relief slackened his muscles, imparting a sense of wellbeing. Then it was gone. Wilson sat immobile, staring at the NO SMOKING sign until it winked out, then, quickly, lit a cigarette. Reaching into the seat-back pocket in front of him, he slid free his newspaper.
As usual, the world was in a state similar to his. Friction in diplomatic circles, earthquakes and gunfire, murder, rape, tornadoes and collisions, business conflicts, gangsterism. God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world, thought Arthur Jeffrey Wilson.
Fifteen minutes later, he tossed the paper aside. His stomach felt awful. He glanced up at the signs beside the two lavatories. Both, illuminated, read OCCUPIED. He pressed out his third cigarette since takeoff and, turning off the overhead light, stared out through the window.
Along the cabin’s length, people were already flicking out their lights and reclining their chairs for sleep. Wilson glanced at his watch. Eleven-twenty. He blew out tired breath. As he’d anticipated, the pills he’d taken before boarding hadn’t done a bit of good.
He stood abruptly as the woman came out of the la
vatory and, snatching up his bag, he started down the aisle.
His system, as expected, gave no cooperation. Wilson stood with a tired moan and adjusted his clothing. Having washed his hands and face, he removed the toilet kit from the bag and squeezed a filament of paste across his toothbrush.
As he brushed, one hand braced for support against the cold bulkhead, he looked out through the port. Feet away was the pale blue of the inboard propeller. Wilson visualized what would happen if it were to tear loose and, like a tri-bladed cleaver, come slicing in at him.
There was a sudden depression in his stomach. Wilson swallowed instinctively and got some paste-stained saliva down his throat. Gagging, he turned and spat into the sink, then, hastily, washed out his mouth and took a drink. Dear God, if only he could have gone by train; had his own compartment, taken a casual stroll to the club car, settled down in an easy chair with a drink and a magazine. But there was no such time or fortune in this world.
He was about to put the toilet kit away when his gaze caught on the oilskin envelope in the bag. He hesitated, then, setting the small briefcase on the sink, drew out the envelope and undid it on his lap.
He sat staring at the oil-glossed symmetry of the pistol. He’d carried it around with him for almost a year now. Originally, when he’d thought about it, it was in terms of money carried, protection from holdup, safety from teenage gangs in the cities he had to attend. Yet, far beneath, he’d always known there was no valid reason except one. A reason he thought more of every day. How simple it would be—here, now—
Wilson shut his eyes and swallowed quickly. He could still taste the toothpaste in his mouth, a faint nettling of peppermint on the buds. He sat heavily in the throbbing chill of the lavatory, the oily gun resting in his hands. Until, quite suddenly, he began to shiver without control. God, let me go! His mind cried out abruptly.
“Let me go, let me go.” He barely recognized the whimpering in his ears.
Abruptly, Wilson sat erect. Lips pressed together, he rewrapped the pistol and thrust it into his bag, putting the briefcase on top of it, zipping the bag shut. Standing, he opened the door and stepped outside, hurrying to his seat and sitting down, sliding the overnight bag precisely into place. He indented the armrest button and pushed himself back. He was a business man and there was business to be conducted on the morrow. It was as simple as that. The body needed sleep, he would give it sleep.