When he came back to bed Nadine was standing in the doorway of the motel room, as if ready to leave. “Jules, please let me get a doctor. Please.”
He lay down, feeling very weak. He did not quite hear her.
“How did it happen?” she said. “Is it caused by germs or something? Is it in the air?”
He made no sense of her words but was grateful for them; they filled up the space between himself and Nadine. Time passed. He wanted to sleep.
Nadine sat on the edge of the bed, holding his hands, kneading his hands. She worked the fingers, staring sadly into his face. “Oh, I love you, Jules, please get better. I’m afraid. I can’t stand it with you sick.”
“I’ll be better tomorrow.”
But the night was miserable. He kept lurching up to go to the bathroom, amazed and terrified at the way his body had gone out of control, doubled over with pain, shuddering. He had never been so cold. “But it isn’t cold, it’s hot in here. It’s terribly hot,” Nadine said, but still he was cold, trembling with cold. He wondered if he might die. That was an imaginable ending. Toward morning Nadine fell asleep in the chair beside the bed. Jules was grateful for this—he wanted to be alone with his misery. He was ashamed of it.
In the morning she went out to get some things for him. Now he peeled off his filthy clothes and let them fall on the floor. He lay in bed in his underwear. This too was shameful, and he felt a wild irrational fear of Nadine hating him, hating his body. He drew the bedcovers up around his face. He hated himself. Jules dying. His obsession with Nadine he recalled vaguely, in patches, but he could not recall what love itself was. His body shuddered repeatedly. The revulsion of his body for itself paralyzed his spine.
Nadine returned. She gave him pills to take, she chatted with him. He began to shiver again, his teeth chattered. Nadine cried out in desperation, “What’s happening to you! What’s wrong!” She pressed her face against the top of his head. “Don’t die, don’t leave me!” she said.
“I won’t die.” Jules tried to laugh. Then something happened…he must have become delirious. He was very hot, then his teeth were chattering again.
Nadine, approaching him out of a mist, bent over him and stared. “Jules, your teeth are bleeding. Your gums. Why is there blood around your gums?”
He wondered if these words were real or part of a dream. He wiped his gums and, yes, there was blood on his hand, but his hand too seemed unreal. In his veins tiny bits of grit were expanding. His heat rose. Never had his lust for Nadine fired his blood the way the flu fired it, stoking it higher, higher, until his brain seemed to float weightlessly loose of his foul body, aching to be free of his body, which had become a pit…a pit in a dungeon, corrupt with evil smells, slime…a sudden hot flow about his thighs was like a miracle, an outlet of pain. The foulness of his body was now outside him, a miracle. He lay in this stench and wondered if that was a sign of hope.
He lost consciousness, he dreamed. His dreams were disturbed by light. He woke and found the bed wet, excrement in the bed, and in terror he tried to get up. He was too weak. His body was weak but still not emptied out. A new storm of pain was working itself up in him. He groaned aloud, paralyzed by a coil of hot pain, and he thought of that Negro man with a pan of boiling water dumped over his head, with sugar to make it stick and burn. How much pain could a man feel before he stopped being a man?
When he came to himself, at some unknown hour, his mind clear of fever and his body strangely weak, he was alone. He felt this, then he saw it. No Nadine. He called her; no answer. After a while he dragged himself from his filthy bed and looked out the door. No Nadine. No car. She had left him in southeastern Texas and that seemed to him the end of the story of Jules and Nadine.
7
A person, a girl, imagines the mirror will show no reflection to her. So she does not dare look. Her body has the hopeless feeling of having become weight, a bulk; it has been loved too much, used and used up. It is weak from months of sleep. It has no reflection, no face. A headless body.
The ceiling is arranged in a certain way. It does not move up or down. Wallpaper pasted over wallpaper, thickness upon thickness. Curls form. Patches are about to fall. If the girl allows herself to think about the wallpaper she will get sick. It is enough to be a heavy weight, sweating in bed.
Someone sits and talks to her: her mother. Chatter, chatter…all the words are shrieks…like little vicious birds. Birds sometimes chatter outside the window but they are invisible. She can’t turn her head that far. She doesn’t trust windows—looking through the glass frightens her. Someone else sits and talks. A man. He reads newspapers. The rustle of newspapers, their particular smell, the fluttering, panicky sense of things happening outside the room. Better not to listen. She does not listen.
The television set is on in the other room. Muffled sounds, swellings of laughter. Laughter?
Her mother is unfolding an orange piece of paper. “I can’t figure out this goddam eggbeater,” she says.
Her mouth waters. She is hungry, hungry. A terrible hunger rises in her. Food is something to fill up her entire body and keep it heavy and peaceful. Sleep follows. The television set recedes. The baby’s crying recedes. Her uncle, Brock, sitting in the easy chair, reads the comics out loud and his voice recedes.
A cookie, a gingersnap, out of the box. It falls onto the floor. She waits, thinking of it on the floor, out of sight. Her mouth waters. Finally she leans over, grunting, to pick it up. She picks it up. She eats it quickly. The flat, bland taste of stale gingersnap awakens her. Her mouth waters for more.
She does not think but occasionally words form in her, against her will. What is the other Maureen doing now?
Drawing her hair up in thick, snakish strands above her head, eyes closed, fingers very graceful…
Oh you little bitch…you running around with that nigger is all I need…get out of here…I’ll call the police to kick your ass…this ain’t no nigger whorehouse for you to hide out…get back on the street…go to hell…dirty little jail-bird, you horse-face!
Loretta is screaming. Betty runs past her and into Maureen’s room, in blue jeans. Hey, Reeny! Get this old bitch off my back! Snap out of it! There’s nothing wrong with you and you know it!
Loretta tries to pull Betty away. She’s sick—
Well you made her sick then with your crap!
Loretta slaps Betty. Betty brings her arm around and knocks Loretta backward. Loretta screams. Betty shouts something and runs out of the room. More screaming. Loretta leaves. Loretta is shouting Running with a nigger…I don’t care if it’s male or female…you can go straight to hell!
Brock reads the comic strips: Rex Morgan, Gasoline Alley, Brenda Starr. He shows the comic page to Maureen but she does not look at it. She does not look away.
Brock says, “Your mother went to the A & P. There’s a surprise in the mail. You want to hear it?”
Maureen is silent, lying cold and heavy beneath the covers, not waiting. Sometimes she looks at Brock, sometimes not. This is her uncle. She is not certain what an uncle is. His face, his groping voice, the frequent jiggling of the bed as he passes by remind her of something, someone. She does not pursue the memory. Stubborn, heavy with sleep, she lies disguised in a body not her own and waits without waiting for anything.
Brock opens a letter:
Dec. 14, 1956
Dear Ma and Maureen,
Well look, here I am in Houston, Texas! I will write more when I have time. Don’t worry about me because I am doing OK. The second day looking for a job I got a job with a co. that does business in real estate on the Gulf. Enclosed a brochure explaining their work, pictures, etc. I will be a salesman going out to visit clients as soon as I finish my training. I got to buy a suit. How is everyone? I hope well. I think of you all often. I am pretty well now that the winter is beginning. The heat kept me low. It really got next to me. In Texas the winter doesn’t begin until
Dec., I mean where I am in Texas. The state is very big. You should see it on a map sometimes. The bugs are just about gone now, dead or hiding. I go out without a coat even though its Dec. but I can take it, unlike the hot weather. All is well with me. I think of you. Take Maureen to a good doctor, take care of her. I will send money when I can. Im sorry not to write for so long.
Love,
Jules
Her mother is taking the letter from Brock, very surprised. What, from Jules! A letter from Jules! she cries.
She unfolds a booklet. Hey, this looks like something, she says in awe. Brock, with his hairy face and his slightly apologetic, clumsy body, looks at it with her. Golden Triangle Retirement Paradise. Acres Still Available on the Gulf. Loretta reads the booklet to Maureen, who lies without looking at her, without listening. Still, she hears some of it. She blocks off her mind from what is behind the words: Gulf of Mexico? Texas? Her brother Jules? She does not want to think about these things. She does not want to be hurt.
Now she is being urged up, out of bed. “Now come on, honey, that’s right,” says her mother. She has forgotten how to put her arms through sleeves. They have to show her how—her mother and another woman. A woman with short dyed red hair, a friend. She and Loretta are the same height. “Honey,” says Loretta, “you’re doing just fine. Isn’t she doing fine? Don’t be afraid. Watch out for my African violets there…”
Brock is sitting in the kitchen. He smiles and the smile turns into Furlong’s smile. Maureen draws back.
“What’s wrong?” cries Loretta.
Maureen pulls back from them, desperate to get back to her room, to bed. She must get back to bed. The red-headed woman lets go of her, Loretta hangs on for another second, tugging, and then lets go in exasperation. “Oh, hell! Shit!” she cries. “I’m fed up with this life and this kind of never-ending crap. I don’t care if she is sick or not, what about me? What about my life?”
Maureen can hear her, from bed, her mother weeping out in the other room.
“What about my life?” Loretta says. “When is it going to begin?”
Brock reads another letter:
Feb. 1, 1957
Dear Ma and Maureen,
As you can see from the postmark I am no longer in Houston but am now in Dallas. The real estate business did not agree with me! I did not get put in jail or anything, not even overnight, so dont worry about me. Anyway I take care of myself. These crazy people! Enclosed is twenty dollars. Take Maureen to some good doctor not just the clinic. I hope she is better. Write me at General Delivery, Dallas, Texas. I think of you all and miss you, I love you all. I have come to the conclusion that people are all lonely, each one of us, now being alone doesnt bother me so much. I can take it being alone better when I think things out. Right now I am working substitute for a guy who is sick, its building work on a house and good work as long as it doesnt rain. The rain can get pretty cold. There are two guys I am kind of friends with here, my age. I dont hang around with them much though. Everybody is pretty friendly but I dont get too close. The Golden Triangle Retirement thing went under. I dont know where the president took off to. I went to meet some client, a old guy all crippled up, with a real mean face, and it looked fishy around the house and I saw some cops down the street so I took off. I got to Dallas by hitchhiking. My health is much better now. I feel good most days. Dont worry about me and take care of yourselves. I think of you often which people do when they are away and by themselves.
Love,
Jules
A memory: driving along the expressway. Great gouges out of the earth, mud, lines of cars, orange signs saying “DETOUR.” She is sitting in a car beside a man, not her father, not Furlong, not Brock. He is a stranger. He is saying, Well Tuesday’s out…what about Wednesday? His hand covers her hand. His hand moves onto her thigh. Her flesh moves toward him, like grains of sand easing downward, without haste. It gravitates that way. Now they are somewhere else, a darkened room. He is above her. With his legs he spreads her legs…anything can happen, any sharp swift surprise…she feels the muscles of her face freeze with waiting…he enters her and everything in her body freezes, fixed by him, by what he is doing, all the quivering cells of her body are urged to that frozen center, to him, helpless.
In the other room the television set is on. She lies alone, not sleeping and not awake. In her memory is the constant smell of semen and the feel of it, easing out of her body…warm from her body. There is so much of it, a flow like the flow of blood, endless. She is paralyzed by it. She imagines it now, between her thighs. The ceiling is threatening…but if clumps of wallpaper fall off and onto her face she will not be able to move or scream. She closes her eyes.
The other Maureen is out on the street, swinging her purse. Slits for eyes, a pretty mouth, everything soft. As if in a dance she pauses to fix the white scarf about her head, and a man, passing by, a stranger, pauses to help her fix it: he knots the ends beneath her chin. She lowers her eyes. With his hands he grips her face, her throat. He stares into her face. He leans down to kiss her. He kisses her mouth and his hands grip her shoulders, fixing her. He kisses her mouth slowly out of shape.
Betty, in the doorway, fresh from the cold air outside, her short shapeless hair damp, says, loud and laughing, There’s nothing wrong with you and you know it! You ain’t the first one in the world some bastard beat up!
And Loretta screams at her, Get out! Get out!
Betty shouts, No son-of-a-bitch’s ever gonna beat up on me, let me tell you. I ain’t putting up either with all that fuckin’ like you or Reeny and you can go to hell, Ma, you think you’re so goddam smart!
They are talking of Betty, and Maureen finds herself listening. Loretta says to the red-headed woman, “She’s just wild, nobody can keep her down. She’s got a hard heart. It ain’t my fault where she ends up, what did I do wrong?” Her friend says, “Honey, you didn’t do one thing wrong. If they’re going to go bad they’ll go bad. You know that. Look at Jules, ain’t he done good for a boy his age? Went off on his own to see the country and got a job and sends money home.” Loretta says forlornly, “I used to talk to Betty, I really did. Used to tell her to wise up. But she always talked back and kept running around with a real bitch of a crowd, mixed black and white and you know how I feel about that. I might turn her in one of these days myself.”
Maureen closes her eyes and sees Betty, a kid of eleven again, fooling around downtown with a bunch of girls all dressed in old blue jeans, laughing and shrieking. A private language. She, Maureen, cringes behind some people, not wanting to be seen.
The air thickens suddenly. She shuts her eyes. A haze sweeps upon her, a horn sounds close by. Maureen, what the hell are you doing! Someone takes her arm. Good. To be held safe, good. Her arm is held tight, impatiently, and she feels her body emptying out, her head emptying out…A man’s voice is saying something near her ear…the tinkle of coins…traffic, horns…the smell of exhaust smoke.
She is already on the bus, with her mother still gripping her, when she turns and sees her self step out of her body with a sudden convulsive movement, freeing itself, escaping…This self is her. It steps down to the sidewalk again, pushing past other people who want to get on the bus. It glances back up at her. Everything rushes out of Maureen now and joins that other body, that free body, running away…It is like the terrible pressure of water wanting to burst free…how she yearns to join that body, get loose, scream with the pain and terror of getting loose…
Sit here, sit still. For Christ’s sake, says her mother.
She sits. She turns wildly to look through the window, to where her other self stands on the sidewalk. Crowds pass. People, strangers, seem to break around her, not touching her. They pass around her. They become invisible while she herself, that other self, becomes vivid and dazzling, standing on the sidewalk with her head turned back at a painful angle, looking at Maureen on the bus, her face guilty and wild.
Now watch your step!
Stepping heavily down, in a dream. The bus is stopped. Why doesn’t the sidewalk rush up on all sides and crush her? She is so heavy and so dead, this Maureen! Disguised as Maureen! No man would come up to her and play with the ends of her scarf. No man could penetrate this flesh. She weaves on the sidewalk, dizzy from the air and the wind.
Maureen, come on! We’re already late on account of you!
A building, concrete. A certain acrid odor…medicine? She sits. Chairs like kitchen chairs with aluminum tubing and cracked plastic covers for the seats. Across the way a fat child, white bulbous face, very fat. Eyes slightly bulging. Fixed on Maureen. A fat snowsuit, red, soiled, limp, bulging eyes and a bulging mouth, drooling. Maureen sits sleeping in her body, knowing that she is safe. Her mother, beside her, leans over now and then to whisper the way mothers do to daughters. That’s a cute purse, see it? You have to go to the bathroom or anything? Don’t get anybody mad by looking at them too long.
The fat girl hangs onto her mother’s chair, one of the legs. She falls. Whimpering viciously, she falls and will not get up. The chair is jerked out of its place. The child kicks, blubbering, drooling…
Isn’t that a shame, Loretta whispers to Maureen.
A pane of glass at the receptionist’s counter, to protect her. The nurse is looking through some papers. Wendall? Are you sure you’ve been here before? She is very young but her face is already lined from looking through too many papers.
Dr. Morris will see you now.
Who? Where’s Dr. Stein?
He’s no longer in Detroit.
But I was supposed to see him again. Every time we came in I was supposed to ask for him—
Dr. Morris will see you now.
Oh shit!
Brock is reading them both a letter:
March 8, 1957
Dear Ma and Maureen,