Once in a while she dropped the hip, thrillingly successful corporate woman façade of complete control and confessed some flaw or painful memory of childhood. And he, knowing all about how childhood cuts festered and never scabbed over, comforted her while hiding the rage he felt at the idea of anyone hurting her.
Bride’s complicated relationship with her mother and repellent father meant that, like him, she was free of family ties. It was just the two of them, and with the exception of her obnoxious pseudo-friend Brooklyn there were fewer and fewer interruptions from her colleagues. He still played with Chase and Michael on weekends, some afternoons, but there were glorious mornings of sun at the shore, cool evenings holding hands in the park in anticipation of the sexual choreography they would perform in every nook of her apartment. Sober as priests, creative as devils, they invented sex. So they believed.
When Bride was at her office, Booker relished the solitude for trumpet practice, scribbling notes to mail to his favorite aunt, Queen, and since there were no books in Bride’s apartment—just fashion and gossip magazines—he visited the library often to read or reread books he had ignored or misunderstood while at university. The Name of the Rose, for one, and Remembering Slavery, a collection that so moved him he composed some mediocre, sentimental music to commemorate the narratives. He read Twain, enjoying the cruelty of his humor. He read Walter Benjamin, impressed by the beauty of the translation, he read Frederick Douglass’s autobiography again, relishing for the first time the eloquence that both hid and displayed his hatred. He read Herman Melville, and let Pip break his heart, reminding him of Adam alone, abandoned, swallowed by waves of casual evil.
Six months into the bliss of edible sex, free-style music, challenging books and the company of an easy undemanding Bride, the fairy-tale castle collapsed into the mud and sand on which its vanity was built. And Booker ran away.
PART IV
Brooklyn
Nothing. A call to our CO asking for more extended leave. Rehab. Emotional rehab—whatever. But nothing about where she’s headed or why until today. A note scribbled on a piece of yellow lined tablet paper. Christ. I didn’t have to read it to know what it said. “Sorry I ran away. I had to. Except for you everything was falling apart blah, blah, blah…”
Beautiful dumb bitch. Nothing about where she’s going or how long she’d be gone. One thing I know for sure she’s tracking that guy. I can read her mind like a headline crawling across the bottom of a TV screen. It’s a gift I’ve had since I was a little kid. Like when the landlady stole the money lying on our dining room table and said we were behind in the rent. Or when my uncle started thinking of putting his fingers between my legs again, even before he knew himself what he was planning to do. I hid or ran or screamed with a fake stomachache so my mother would wake from her drunken nap to tend to me. Believe it. I’ve always sensed what people want and how to please them. Or not. Only once did I misread—with Bride’s loverman.
I ran away, too, Bride, but I was fourteen and there was nobody but me to take care of me so I invented myself, toughened myself. I thought you did too except when it came to boyfriends. I knew right away that the last one—a conman if ever I saw one—would turn you into the scared little girl you used to be. One fight with a crazy felon and you surrendered, stupid enough to quit the best job in the world.
I started out sweeping a hairdresser’s shop then waitressing until I got the drugstore job. Long before Sylvia, Inc., I fought like the devil for each job I ever got and let nothing, nothing stop me.
But for you it’s “Wah, wah, I had to run…” Where to? In some place where there is no real stationery or even a postcard?
Bride, please.
A city girl is quickly weary of the cardboard boredom of tiny rural towns. Whatever the weather, iron-bright sunshine or piercing rain, the impression of worn boxes hiding shiftless residents seems to sap the most attentive gaze. It’s one thing for onetime hippies to live their anticapitalist ideals near the edge of a seldom-traveled country road. Evelyn and Steve had lived exciting lives of risk and purpose in their adventurous pasts. But what about regular plain folks who were born in these places and never left? Bride wasn’t feeling superior to the line of tiny, melancholy houses and mobile homes on each side of the road, just puzzled. What would make Booker choose this place? And who the hell is Q. Olive?
She had driven one hundred and seventy miles on and off dirt roads some of which must have been created originally by moccasin-shod feet and wolf packs. Truckers could navigate them but a Jaguar repaired with another model’s door had serious trouble. Bride drove carefully, peering ahead for obstacles, alive or not. By the time she saw the sign nailed to the trunk of a pine tree, her exhaustion quieted a growing alarm. Although there were no more physical disappearances, she was disturbed by the fact that she’d had no menstrual period for at least two, maybe three, months. Flat-chested and without underarm or pubic hair, pierced ears and stable weight, she tried and failed to forget what she believed was her crazed transformation back into a scared little black girl.
Whiskey, it turned out, was half a dozen or so houses on both sides of a gravel road that led to a stretch of trailers and mobile homes. Parallel to the road beyond a stretch of sorrowful-looking trees ran a deep but narrow stream. The houses had no addresses but some mobile homes had names painted on sturdy mailboxes. Under eyes suspicious of strange cars and stranger visitors, Bride cruised slowly until she saw QUEEN OLIVE printed on a mailbox in front of a pale-yellow mobile home. She parked, got out and was walking toward the door when she smelled gasoline and fire that seemed to be coming from behind the home. When she crept toward the backyard she saw a heavyset red-headed woman sprinkling gasoline on a metal bedspring, carefully noting where flames needed to be fed.
Bride hurried back to her car and waited. Two children came along, attracted, perhaps, by the fancy automobile, but distracted by the woman at the wheel. Both stared at her for what seemed like minutes in unblinking wonder. Bride ignored the dumbstruck children. She knew well what it was to walk into a room and see the exchange of looks between white strangers. The looks were dismissible because, most often, the gasps her blackness provoked were invariably followed by the envy her beauty produced. Although, with Jeri’s help, she had capitalized on her dark skin, stressing it, glamorizing it, she recalled an exchange she once had with Booker. Complaining about her mother, she told him that Sweetness hated her for her black skin.
“It’s just a color,” Booker had said. “A genetic trait—not a flaw, not a curse, not a blessing nor a sin.”
“But,” she countered, “other people think racial—”
Booker cut her off. “Scientifically there’s no such thing as race, Bride, so racism without race is a choice. Taught, of course, by those who need it, but still a choice. Folks who practice it would be nothing without it.”
His words were rational and, at the time, soothing but had little to do with day-to-day experience—like sitting in a car under the stunned gaze of little white children who couldn’t be more fascinated if they were at a museum of dinosaurs. Nevertheless, she flat out refused to be derailed from her mission simply because she was outside the comfort zone of paved streets, tight lawns surrounded by racially diverse people who might not help but would not harm her. Determined to discover what she was made of—cotton or steel—there could be no retreat, no turning back.
Half an hour passed; the children were gone and a nickel-plated sun at the top of the sky warmed the car’s interior. Taking a deep breath, Bride walked to the yellow door and knocked. When the female arsonist appeared she said, “Hello. Excuse me. I’m looking for Booker Starbern. This is the address I have for him.”
“That figures,” said the woman. “I get a lot of his mail—magazines, catalogs, stuff he writes himself.”
“Is he here?” Bride was dazzled by the woman’s earrings, golden discs the size of clamshells.
“Uh-uh.” The woman shook her head while boring into Bride??
?s eyes. “He’s nearby, though.”
“He is? Well how far is nearby?” Relieved that Q. Olive was not a young rival, Bride sighed and asked directions.
“You can walk it, but come on in. Booker ain’t going nowhere. He’s laid up—broke his arm. Come on in. You look like something a raccoon found and refused to eat.”
Bride swallowed. For the past three years she’d only been told how exotic, how gorgeous she was—everywhere, from almost everybody—stunning, dreamy, hot, wow! Now this old woman with woolly red hair and judging eyes had deleted an entire vocabulary of compliments in one stroke. Once again she was the ugly, too-black little girl in her mother’s house.
Queen curled her finger. “Get in here, girl. You need feeding.”
“Look, Miss Olive—”
“Just Queen, honey. And it’s Ol-li-vay. Step on in here. I don’t get much company and I know hungry when I see it.”
Well, that’s true, thought Bride. Her anxiety during the long trip had masked her stomach-yelling hunger. She obeyed Queen and was pleasantly surprised at the room’s orderliness, comfort and charm. She had wondered for a second if she was being seduced into a witch’s den. Obviously Queen sewed, knitted, crocheted and made lace. Curtains, slipcovers, cushions, embroidered napkins were elegantly handmade. A quilt on the headboard of an empty bed, whose springs were apparently cooling outside, was pieced in soft colors and, like everything else, cleverly mismatched. Small antiques such as picture frames and side tables were oddly placed. One whole wall was covered with photographs of children. A pot simmered on the two-burner stove. Queen, unaccustomed to being rebuffed, placed two porcelain bowls on linen mats along with matching napkins and silver soup spoons with filigreed handles.
Bride sat down at a narrow table on a chair with a decorative seat cushion and watched Queen ladle thick soup into their bowls. Pieces of chicken floated among peas, potatoes, corn kernels, tomato, celery, green peppers, spinach and a scattering of pasta shells. Bride couldn’t identify the strong seasonings—curry? Cardamom? Garlic? Cayenne? Black pepper and red? But the result was manna. Queen added a basket of warm flat bread, joined her guest and blessed the food. Neither spoke for long minutes of eating. Finally, Bride looked up from her bowl, wiped her lips, sighed and asked her hostess, “Why were you burning your bedsprings? I saw you back there.”
“Bedbugs,” answered Queen. “Every year I burn them out before the eggs get started.”
“Oh. I never heard of that.” Then, feeling more comfortable with the woman, asked, “What kind of stuff did Booker send you? You said he sent some writings.”
“Uh-huh. He did. Every now and then.”
“What were they about?”
“Beats me. I’ll show you some, if you like. Say, why you looking for Booker? He owe you money? You sure can’t be his woman. You sound like you don’t know him too good.”
“I don’t, but I thought I did.” She didn’t say so, but it suddenly occurred to her that good sex was not knowledge. It was barely information.
Bride touched the napkin to her lips again. “We were living together, then he dumped me. Just like that.” Bride snapped her fingers. “He left me without a word.”
Queen chuckled. “Oh he’s a leaver, all right. Left his own family. All except me.”
“He did? Why?” Bride didn’t like being classified with Booker’s family, but the news surprised her.
“His older brother was murdered when they was kids and he didn’t approve of his folks’ response.”
“Awww,” Bride murmured. “That’s sad.” She made the acceptable sound of sympathy but was shocked to learn she knew nothing about it.
“More than sad. Almost ruined the family.”
“What did they do that made him leave?”
“They moved on. Started to live life like it was life. He wanted them to establish a memorial, a foundation or something in his brother’s name. They weren’t interested. At all. I have to take some responsibility for the breakup. I told him to keep his brother close, mourn him as long as he needed to. I didn’t count on what he took away from what I said. Anyhow, Adam’s death became his own life. I think it’s his only life.” Queen glanced at Bride’s empty bowl. “More?”
“No thanks, but it was delicious. I don’t remember eating anything that good.”
Queen smiled. “It’s my United Nations recipe from the food of all my husbands’ hometowns. Seven, from Delhi to Dakar, from Texas to Australia, and a few in between.” She was laughing, her shoulders rocking. “So many men and all of them the same where it counts.”
“Where does it count?”
“Ownership.”
All those husbands and still all alone, thought Bride. “Don’t you have any kids?” Obviously she did; their photographs were everywhere.
“Lots. Two live with their fathers and their new wives; two in the military—one a marine, one in the air force; another one, my last, a daughter, is in medical school. She’s my dream child. The next to last is filthy rich somewhere in New York City. Most of them send me money so they don’t have to come see me. But I see them.” She waved to the photographs gazing out from exquisite frames. “And I know how and what they think. Booker always stayed in touch with me, though. Here, I’ll show you how and what he thinks.” Queen moved to a cabinet where sewing materials were neatly hanging or stacked. From its floor she lifted an old-fashioned breadbox. After sorting through its contents, she removed a thin sheaf of papers clipped together and handed it to her guest.
What lovely handwriting, thought Bride, suddenly realizing that she’d never seen anything Booker wrote—not even his name. There were seven sheets. One for each month they were together—plus one more. She read the first page slowly, her forefinger tracing the lines, for there was little or no punctuation.
Hey girl what’s inside your curly head besides dark rooms with dark men dancing too close to comfort the mouth hungry for more of what it is sure is there somewhere out there just waiting for a tongue and some breath to stroke teeth that bite the night and swallow whole the world denied you so get rid of those smokey dreams and lie on the beach in my arms while i cover you with white sands from shores you have never seen lapped by waters so crystal and blue they make you shed tears of bliss and let you know that you do belong finally to the planet you were born on and can now join the out-there world in the deep peace of a cello.
Bride read the words twice, understanding little if anything. It was the second page that made her uncomfortable.
Her imagination is impeccable the way it cuts and scrapes the bone never touching the marrow where that dirty feeling is thrumming like a fiddle for fear its strings will break and screech the loss of its tune since for her permanent ignorance is so much better than the quick of life.
Queen, having finished washing the dishes, offered her guest a drink of whiskey. Bride declined.
Reading the third page, she thought she remembered a conversation she’d had with Booker that could have provoked what he wrote, the one in which she described the landlord and details of her childhood.
You accepted like a beast of burden the whip of a stranger’s curse and the mindless menace it holds along with the scar it leaves as a definition you spend your life refuting although that hateful word is only a slim line drawn on a shore and quickly dissolved in a seaworld any moment when an equally mindless wave fondles it like the accidental touch of a finger on a clarinet stop that the musician converts into silence in order to let the true note ring out loud.
Bride read three more pages in quick succession.
Trying to understand racist malignancy only feeds it, makes it balloon-fat and lofty floating high overhead fearful of sinking to earth where a blade of grass could puncture it letting its watery feces soil the enthralled audience the way mold ruins piano keys both black and white, sharp and flat to produce a dirge of its decay.
I refuse to be ashamed of my shame, you know, the one assigned to me which matches the low priority and the d
egraded morality of those who insist upon this most facile of human feelings of inferiority and flaw simply to disguise their own cowardice by pretending it is identical to a banjo’s purity.
Thank you. You showed me rage and frailty and hostile recklessness and worry worry worry dappled with such uncompromising shards of light and love it seemed a kindness in order to be able to leave you and not fold into a grief so deep it would break not the heart but the mind that knows the oboe’s shriek and the way it tears into rags of silence to expose your beauty too dazzling to contain and which turns its melody into the grace of livable space.
Puzzled, Bride raised her eyes from the pages and looked at Queen, who said, “Interesting, is it?”
“Very,” answered Bride. “But strange too. I wonder who he was talking to.”
“Himself,” said Queen. “I bet they’re all about him. Don’t you think so?”
“No,” murmured Bride. “These are about me, our time together.” Then she read the last page.