You should take heartbreak of whatever kind seriously with the courage to let it blaze and burn like the pulsing star it is unable or unwilling to be soothed into pathetic self-blame because its explosive brilliance rings justifiably loud like the din of a tympani.
Bride put the papers down and covered her eyes.
“Go see him,” said Queen, her voice low. “He’s down the road, the last house beside the stream. Come on, get up, wash your face and go.”
“I’m not sure I should, now.” Bride shook her head. She had counted on her looks for so long—how well beauty worked. She had not known its shallowness or her own cowardice—the vital lesson Sweetness taught and nailed to her spine to curve it.
“What’s the matter with you?” Queen sounded annoyed. “You come all this way and just turn around and leave?” Then she started singing, imitating the voice of a baby:
Don’t know why
There’s no sun up in the sky…
Can’t go on.
Everything I had is gone,
Stormy weather…
“Damn!” Bride slapped the table. “You’re absolutely right! Totally right! This is about me, not him. Me!”
—
“You? Get out!” Booker rose from his narrow bed and pointed at Bride, who was standing in the door of his trailer.
“Fuck you! I’m not leaving here until you—”
“I said get out! Now!” Booker’s eyes were both dead and alive with hatred. His uncast arm pointed toward the door. Bride ran nine quick steps forward and slapped Booker’s face as hard as she could. He hit her back with just enough force to knock her down. Scrambling up, she grabbed a Michelob bottle from a counter and broke it over his head. Booker fell back on his bed, motionless. Tightening her fist on the neck of the broken bottle, Bride stared at the blood seeping into his left ear. A few seconds later he regained consciousness, leaned on his elbow and, with squinty, unfocused eyes, turned to look at her.
“You walked out on me,” she screamed. “Without a word! Nothing! Now I want that word. Whatever it is I want to hear it. Now!”
Booker, wiping blood from the left side of his face with his right hand, snarled, “I don’t have to tell you shit.”
“Oh, yes you do.” She raised the broken bottle.
“You get out of my house before something bad happens.”
“Shut up and answer me!”
“Jesus, woman.”
“Why? I have to know, Booker.”
“First tell me why you bought presents for a child molester—in prison for it, for Christ’s sake. Tell me why you sucked up to a monster.”
“I lied! I lied! I lied! She was innocent. I helped convict her but she didn’t do any of that. I wanted to make amends but she beat the crap out of me and I deserved it.”
The room temperature had not risen, but Bride was sweating, her forehead, upper lip, even her armpits were soaking.
“You lied? What the hell for?”
“So my mother would hold my hand!”
“What?”
“And look at me with proud eyes, for once.”
“So, did she?”
“Yes. She even liked me.”
“So you mean to tell me—”
“Shut up and talk! Why did you walk out on me?”
“Oh, God.” Booker wiped more blood from the side of his face. “Look. Well, see. My brother, he was murdered by a freak, a predator like the one I thought you were forgiving and—”
“I don’t care! I didn’t do it! It wasn’t me who killed your brother.”
“All right! All right! I get that, but—”
“But nothing! I was trying to make up to someone I ruined. You just ran around blaming everybody. You bastard. Here, wipe your bloody hand.” Bride threw a dish towel toward him and put down what was left of the bottle. After wiping her palms on her jeans and brushing hair from her damp forehead, she looked steadily at Booker. “You don’t have to love me but you damn well have to respect me.” She sat down in a chair by the table and crossed her legs.
In a long silence cut only by the sound of their breathing, they stared not at each other but away—at the floor, their hands, through the window. Minutes passed.
At last Booker felt he had something definitive and vital to say, to explain, but when he opened his mouth his tongue froze—the words were not there. No matter. Bride was asleep in the chair, her chin pointing toward her chest, her long legs splayed.
—
Queen didn’t knock; she simply opened the door to Booker’s trailer and stepped in. When she saw Bride sprawled asleep in a chair and the bruise over Booker’s eye she said, “Good Lord. What happened?”
“Dustup,” said Booker.
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah. Knocked herself out and fell asleep.”
“Some ‘dustup.’ She came all this way to beat you up? For what? Love or misery?”
“Both, probably.”
“Well, let’s get her out of that chair and on the bed,” said Queen.
“Right.” Booker stood up. With Queen’s help and his one working arm they got her on his narrow, unmade bed. Bride moaned, but did not wake.
Queen sat down at the table. “What you gonna do about her?”
“I don’t know,” answered Booker. “It was perfect for a while, the two of us.”
“What caused the split?”
“Lies. Silence. Just not saying what was true or why.”
“About?”
“About us as kids, things that happened, why we did things, thought things, took actions that were really about what went on when we were just children.”
“Adam for you?”
“Adam for me.”
“And for her?”
“A big lie she told when she was a kid that helped put an innocent woman in prison. A long sentence for child rape the woman never did. I walked out after we quarreled about Bride’s strange affection for the woman. At least it seemed strange at the time. I didn’t want to be anywhere near her after that.”
“What’d she lie for?”
“To get some love—from her mama.”
“Lord! What a mess. And you thought about Adam—again. Always Adam.”
“Yep.”
Queen crossed her wrists and leaned on the table. “How long is he going to run you?”
“I can’t help it, Queen.”
“No? She told her truth. What’s yours?”
Booker didn’t answer. The two of them sat in silence with Bride’s light snoring the only sound until Queen said, “You need a noble reason to fail, don’t you? Or some really deep reason to feel superior.”
“Aw, no, Queen. I’m not like that! Not at all.”
“Well what? You lash Adam to your shoulders so he can work day and night to fill your brain. Don’t you think he’s tired? He must be worn out having to die and get no rest because he has to run somebody else’s life.”
“Adam’s not managing me.”
“No. You managing him. Did you ever feel free of him? Ever?”
“Well.” Booker flashed back to standing in the rain, how his music changed right after he saw Bride stepping into a limousine, how the gloom he had been living in dissipated. He thought about his arms around her waist while they danced and her smile when she turned around. “Well,” he repeated, “for a while it was good, really good being with her.” He couldn’t hide the pleasure in his eyes.
“I guess good isn’t good enough for you, so you called Adam back and made his murder turn your brain into a cadaver and your heart’s blood formaldehyde.”
Booker and Queen stared at each other for a long time until she stood up and, not taking the trouble to hide her disappointment, said, “Fool,” and left him slouched in his chair.
—
Taking her time Queen walked slowly back to her house. Amusement and sadness competed for her attention. She was amused because she hadn’t seen lovers fight in decades—not since she lived in the projects in Clev
eland where young couples acted out their violent emotions as theatrical performances, aware of a visible or invisible audience. She had experienced it all with multiple husbands, all of whom were now blended into no one. Except her first, John Loveday, whom she’d divorced—or had she? Hard to remember since she hadn’t divorced the next one either. Queen smiled at the selective memory old age blessed her with. But sadness cut through the smile. The anger, the violence on display between Bride and Booker, were unmistakable and typical of the young. Yet, after they hauled the sleeping girl to the bed and laid her down, Queen saw Booker smooth the havoc of Bride’s hair away from her forehead. Glancing quickly at his face she was struck by the tenderness in his eyes.
They will blow it, she thought. Each will cling to a sad little story of hurt and sorrow—some long-ago trouble and pain life dumped on their pure and innocent selves. And each one will rewrite that story forever, knowing the plot, guessing the theme, inventing its meaning and dismissing its origin. What waste. She knew from personal experience how hard loving was, how selfish and how easily sundered. Withholding sex or relying on it, ignoring children or devouring them, rerouting true feelings or locking them out. Youth being the excuse for that fortune-cookie love—until it wasn’t, until it became pure adult stupidity.
I was pretty once, she thought, real pretty, and I believed it was enough. Well, actually it was until it wasn’t, until I had to be a real person, meaning a thinking one. Smart enough to know heavyweight was a condition not a disease; smart enough now to read the minds of selfish people right away. But the smarts came too late for her children.
Each of her “husbands” snatched a child or two from her, claimed them or absconded with them. Some spirited them away to their home countries; another had his mistress capture two; all but one of her husbands—the sweet Johnny Loveday—had good reasons to pretend love: American citizenship, U.S. passport, financial help, nursing care or a temporary home. She had no opportunity to raise a single child beyond the age of twelve. It took some time to figure out the motives for faking love—hers and theirs. Survival, she supposed, literal and emotional. Queen had been through it all, and now she lived alone in the wilderness, knitting and tatting away, grateful that, at last, Sweet Jesus had given her a forgetfulness blanket along with a little pillow of wisdom to comfort her in old age.
—
Restless and deeply displeased with the turn of events, especially Queen’s open disgust with him, Booker went outside and sat on his doorstep. Soon it would be twilight and this haphazard village minus streetlights would disappear in darkness. Music from a few radios would be as distant as the lights flickering from TV sets: old Zeniths and Pioneers. He watched a couple of local trucks rumble by and a few motorcyclists that followed soon after. The truckers wore caps; the motorcyclists wore scarves tied around their foreheads. Booker liked the mild anarchy of the place, its indifference to its residents modified by the presence of his aunt, the single person he trusted. He’d found some on-and-off work with loggers, which was enough until he fell out of a rig and wrecked his shoulder. At every turn, cutting into his aimless thoughts was the picture of the spellbinding black woman lying in his bed, exhausted after screaming and trying her best to kill him or at minimum beat him up. He really didn’t know what made her drive all this way except vengeance or outrage—or was it love?
Queen’s right, he thought. Except for Adam I don’t know anything about love. Adam had no faults, was innocent, pure, easy to love. Had he lived, grown up to have flaws, human failings like deception, foolishness and ignorance, would he be so easy to adore or be even worthy of adoration? What kind of love is it that requires an angel and only an angel for its commitment?
Following that line of thought, Booker continued to chastise himself.
Bride probably knows more about love than I do. At least she’s willing to figure it out, do something, risk something and take its measure. I risk nothing. I sit on a throne and identify signs of imperfection in others. I’ve been charmed by my own intelligence and the moral positions I’ve taken, along with the insolence that accompanies them. But where is the brilliant research, the enlightening books, the masterpieces I used to dream of producing? Nowhere. Instead I write notes about the shortcomings of others. Easy. So easy. What about my own? I liked how she looked, fucked, and made no demands. The first major disagreement we had, and I was gone. My only judge being Adam who, as Queen said, is probably weary of being my burden and my cross.
He tiptoed back into his trailer and, listening to Bride’s light snoring, retrieved a notebook to once again put on paper words he could not speak.
I don’t miss you anymore adam rather i miss the emotion that your dying produced a feeling so strong it defined me while it erased you leaving only your absence for me to live in like the silence of the japanese gong that is more thrilling than whatever sound may follow.
I apologize for enslaving you in order to chain myself to the illusion of control and the cheap seduction of power. No slaveowner could have done it better.
Booker put away his notebook. Dusk enveloped him and he let the warm air calm him while he looked forward to the dawn.
—
Bride woke in sunshine from a dreamless sleep—deeper than drunkenness, deeper than any she had known. Now having slept so many hours she felt more than rested and free of tension; she felt strong. She didn’t get up right away; instead she remained in Booker’s bed, eyes closed, enjoying a fresh vitality and blazing clarity. Having confessed Lula Ann’s sins she felt newly born. No longer forced to relive, no, outlive the disdain of her mother and the abandonment of her father. Pulling herself away from reverie she sat up and saw Booker drinking coffee at the pull-down table. He looked pensive rather than hostile. So she joined him, picked a strip of bacon from his plate and ate it. Then she bit into his toast.
“Want more?” Booker asked.
“No. No thanks.”
“Coffee? Juice?”
“Well, coffee, maybe.”
“Sure.”
Bride rubbed her eyelids trying to replay the moments before she fell asleep. The swelling over Booker’s left temple helped. “You got me over to your bed with one working arm?”
“I had help,” said Booker.
“Who from?”
“Queen.”
“God. She must think I’m crazy.”
“Doubt it.” Booker placed a cup of coffee in front of her. “She’s an original. Doesn’t recognize crazy.”
Bride blew away the coffee’s steam. “She showed me the things you mailed her. Pages of your writing. Why did you send them to her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I liked them too much to trash but not enough to carry around. I suppose I wanted them to be in a safe place. Queen keeps everything.”
“When I read them I knew they were all about me—right?”
“Oh, yeah.” Booker rolled his eyes and heaved a theatrical sigh. “Everything is about you except the whole world and the universe it floats in.”
“Would you stop making fun of me? You know what I mean. You wrote them when we were together, right?”
“They’re just thoughts, Bride. Thoughts about what I was feeling or feared or, most often, what I truly believed—at the time.”
“You still believe heartbreak should burn like a star?”
“I do. But stars can explode, disappear. Besides, what we see when we look at them may no longer be there. Some could have died thousands of years ago and we’re just now getting their light. Old information looking like news. Speaking of information, how did you find out where I was?”
“A letter came for you. An overdue bill, I mean, from a music repair shop. The Pawn Palace. So I went there.”
“Why?”
“To pay them, idiot. They told me where you might be. This dump of a place, and they had a forwarding address to a Q. Olive.”
“You paid my bill then drove all this way to slap my face?”
“Maybe. I didn’t plan it, but
I have to say it did feel good. Anyway I brought you your horn. Is there more coffee?”
“You got it? My trumpet?”
“Of course. It’s fixed too.”
“Where is it? At Queen’s?”
“In the trunk of my car.”
Booker’s smile traveled from his lips to his eyes. The joy in his face was infantile. “I love you! Love you!” he shouted and ran out the door down the road toward the Jaguar.
—
It began slowly, gently, as it often does: shy, unsure of how to proceed, fingering its way, slithering tentatively at first because who knows how it might turn out, then gaining confidence in the ecstasy of air, of sunlight, for there was neither in the weeds where it had curled.
It had been lurking in the yard where Queen Olive had burned bedsprings to destroy the annual nest of bedbugs. Now it traveled quickly, flashing now and then a thin red lick of flame, then dying down for seconds before springing up again stronger, thicker, now that the way and the goal were clear: a tasty length of pine rotting at the trailer’s pair of back steps. Then the door, more pine, sweet, soft. Finally there was the joy of sucking delicious embroidered fabric of lace, of silk, of velvet.
By the time Bride and Booker got there, a small cluster of people were standing in front of Queen’s house—the jobless, several children and the elderly. Smoke was sneaking from the sills and the door saddle when they broke in. First Booker, then Bride right behind him. They dropped to the floor where smoke was thinnest and crawled to the couch where Queen lay still, seduced into unconsciousness by the smiles of smoke without heat. With his one good arm and Bride’s two, their eyes watering and throats coughing, they managed to pull the unconscious woman to the floor and drag her out to the tiny front lawn.
“Further! Come on, further!” shouted one of the men standing there. “The whole place could blow!”
Booker was too intent on forcing air into Queen’s mouth to hear him. At last in the distance the sirens of fire truck and ambulance excited the children almost as much as the cartoon beauty of a roaring fire. Suddenly, a spark hiding in Queen’s hair burst into flame, devouring the mass of red hair in a blink—just enough time for Bride to pull off her T-shirt and use it to smother the hair fire. When, with stinging, singed palms, she tore away the now sooty, smoking shirt, she grimaced at the sight of a few tufts of hair hard to distinguish from the fast-blistering scalp. All the while, Booker was whispering, “Yeah, yeah. Come on, love, come on, come on, lady.” Queen was breathing—at least coughing and spitting, major signs of life. As the ambulance parked, the crowd became bigger and some of the onlookers seemed transfixed—but not at the moaning patient being trundled into the ambulance. They were focused, wide-eyed, on Bride’s lovely, plump breasts. However pleased the onlookers were, it was zero compared to Bride’s delight. So much so she delayed accepting the blanket the medical technician held toward her—until she saw the look on Booker’s face. But it was hard to suppress her glee, even though she was slightly ashamed at dividing her attention between the sad sight of Queen’s slide into the back of the ambulance and the magical return of her flawless breasts.