Thank you Ma for your letter but you didn’t say much. How is Maureen doing? Better I hope. Enclosed is five dollars. How are the checks coming along? I hope OK. Dont let them push you around at welfare. You got the same rights as anybody else. Is your brother still in Detroit? How are you all? The weather is getting nice here. I been doing odd jobs. When I get back to Detroit I am going to finish high school. You cant do anything without finishing high school and going to college. I think Ill take a business course. My health is very good. Im not mixed up with anybody here. I keep by myself. I dont talk so much like I did when I was a kid, fooling around. I wised up. Does your brother have a job? Im looking for a regular job but its hell making telephone calls, all those dimes. I follow the want ads. Everything is well here. Soon as I get things lined up Ill write again. Dont worry. I love you.
Love,
Jules
“He’s a funny kid,” Brock says.
“Yeah, he was always kind of funny. But smart,” says Loretta.
“He sounds real smart and it seems like he loves you, he keeps sending money. He’s a real strange kid,” Brock says, embarrassed. “I mean, how he keeps saying that he loves you.”
“He always loved me, it wasn’t like with other kids running off and telling their mothers to go to hell,” Loretta said. “I treated him good.”
“It’s nice the way he keeps in touch too.”
“Yeah, I treated him right, I always gave him lots of love and paid attention to him, not like our mother—she didn’t know the first thing about having kids. Now I look back on it, it’s a wonder I was able to have kids myself!”
Maureen thinks of Jules, but, thinking of him, she is suddenly weak. She wants to cry out, Jules, Jules…
No no no no…
Not Jules but a man bends over her, someone else. Before he can strike her she falls asleep. She is no longer lying on the floor but in bed. She sleeps.
“Hey, can I take a bath here? It’s all shot to hell at my place, the water don’t work.” Voices in the other room, a friend of Loretta’s. Women, women. Friends. They are always talking, chattering. Talking about men and sick stomachs and lettuce that turned rotten as soon as it was brought home, talking about buying a burial plot…“my crazy father-in-law finally died, he went out to the track just the night before and won the daily double….the old bastard always had the luck!…and then the next day at noon he dropped over!…he always had bad luck too, coming right after good luck. That was his way…”
Sometimes they are in the room with Maureen, smoking and chatting. Maureen sleeps. They are “keeping her company.” Loretta says, excited, “If that son-of-a-bitch thinks he’s getting anything out of me he’s crazy. I been through it all too many times.” Her friend says, “Oh, he ain’t such a bad guy. His kid, that ten-year-old, got picked up for ‘stubborn child’ and he feels real bad about it. He’s just been drinking too much. He thinks the world of you, Loretta, he told me so himself.” Loretta says, in her husky voice, “Shit!”
Midge has her short red hair up in pink rollers; her face looks puckered, pulled up. Tobacco and perfume. Maureen, asleep in her body, not watchful, uncautious, lets her eyes move slowly over this woman, without interest. What does it mean to be a woman? How do these people endure it, how do they keep going?—dragging about in the envelope of their bodies, their skin puffy over their bones, living. They keep on. Sleeping. Maureen herself is sleeping. A bulk at rest. In her body nothing moves, in her brain nothing moves, everything is bloated, gluttonous, at rest sleeping.
“Everybody says the niggers plan trouble,” Midge says. “New Year’s Eve I was worried like hell. What if they set fire to all these dumps?”
“Jesus, it was funny back in—what was it—1945?” Loretta laughs. “We all been hearing about the trouble and I went to see it, took one of the kids that could hardly walk—that was Betty. And the cops stopped me by Hudson’s and told me to go back. They yelled at me. Jesus, I could of been killed! I didn’t think it was nothing like it turned out.”
“That was really something.”
“Wasn’t I a dope, going out with a kid? My God, I do the dumbest things!”
“I remember that, that was really something.”
“Everybody went wild. It was crazy.”
“I’m afraid of these places catching fire.”
“Somebody told us, a friend of Howard’s, how there was real blood in the hospital, running on the floor. You believe that? Blood running down the hall, what do you think of that?” Loretta says earnestly.
Dr. Morris will see you now.
We want some blood for a Wassermann.
How long has she been like this?
There is no file on you…Miss Greacon from Wayne State…social work…social worker. She opens a purse, opens a file. She wears stockings…a coat not taken off. She says to Loretta, How long has she been like this, Mrs. Wendall?
Brock opens the window.
“How about some fresh air?” he says.
Loretta slams the door behind her. “That dirty bastard, that fucker, if he thinks he’s gonna push me around! I told him I needed emergency money, that ass-hole, and he makes me wait four hours on the floor—Jesus Christ I could strangle somebody! And a fat nigger woman right next to me slobbering about something, with her kids hanging around and they got that rule about not bringing kids! And he makes me wait—he made me sit there and wait for four hours, and nobody else could help me. They said, ‘Who’s your case worker? You got to wait!’ I’m going back there and set fire to the whole shitty place!”
“You better calm down.”
“Don’t you tell me to calm down!” Loretta screams. “I’m the one that goes out, not you! It’s my money not yours! What the hell do you mean, telling me what to do?”
“You just better—”
“I better do nothing! Better you keep your opinions to yourself, you bastard! All this is your fault so you keep your opinions to yourself!”
“How is it my fault?” Brock says.
“Your fault! Your goddam fault, you! Why the hell did you have to kill him that night? You smart-ass bastard, showing off! Showing off with that goddam gun of yours!”
“Loretta—”
“You caused it! Shut your fat mouth! He was just a kid and you, you had to show off with that gun, you didn’t give a damn who you shot, so you shot him—you killed him—now look at me, look at my life, you caused all this and you show up here for supper, a big goddam joke! I should kick you out on your ass! My life is a joke and I can’t even get a laugh out of it!”
Something falls, a plate. Brock says in a whine, “You got food on my shirt.”
“I’ll put food on your shirt, you bastard! I’ll stuff your ass with it!”
After supper the television set is turned on. Brought into Maureen’s room. Loretta goes out and Brock watches television and talks to Maureen. He says, “Don’t mind your mother when she gets too excited. She has a hard life. She worries about you, honey, that’s why you got to get well. On May first you try to get out of bed, okay?”
He is reading a story to her about dogs. Performing dogs. She does not listen, and she does not turn her mind off. She lies still.
He is reading the newspaper to her.
He is opening a letter, he reads it to her:
April 24, 1957
Dear Ma and Maureen,
In Tulsa where I am I have a job for six weeks, with some other guys. Ill write more when I have time. Here is twenty dollars. The job is very interesting but I dont know what it is exactly, I stay in a dormitory with some other guys and every morning at six we go to a place, like an office, and wait until someone lets us in the next room. A doctor is inside. He checks us, tongue and heart etc. What I have done to me is, he puts some drops in my eyes. It only stings a little. I have to keep out of the sun then come back the next day and he checks me again. I got ple
nty of time for stuff like reading in a library here and listening to some records they got. You should get some records and a record player for Maureen. Music is nice when you are alone. One of the guys is a lot worse off than me, they give it to him in a needle. His arm is all sore and broke out.
Love,
Jules
PS. I think this is connected with the government or the army or something like that. Real crazy people!
Brock is brushing Maureen’s hair. He is serious, a serious-faced man. Maureen holds herself stiff. He says, “I know you can hear me and I don’t mind no games you play. Your ma explained to me what was going on and how he beat you up, and it ain’t none of my business, it all happened before I came. But I want you to know that when I get a job we’ll start sending you to a real doctor. You got to pay for good doctors. He should have to pay for it but he’s took off, they can’t find him at Friend of the Court or nothing, but what the hell. You made a promise—May first you’re gonna get up, okay?”
He is saying, sitting in the easy chair dragged into Maureen’s room, “Life is just the craziest thing! I spent a year down in Indiana, in jail, but don’t tell nobody. I didn’t want to upset your mother. How it happened was this: I felt so low inside I wanted to die. I couldn’t shake myself out of it, couldn’t change. So I thought to myself I will get shot down by the police because by myself I would make a mess of it. I went right in some restaurant and held them up and didn’t have no gun either. Well, the girl gave me all the money. She was just a kid. Then when I got the money in hand I had to leave, there wasn’t anything else to do. So that kept me going for about three days; I had a lot to drink, kept me feeling pretty good. Then it wore off and I got bad again and was determined to get finished off. So I went right downtown in some flea-bag town, forget which one, and walked into a drugstore. I made out I was going to buy some whisky, got myself a few bottles, then told the old guy running the place that it was a stick-up, he should give me all his money. A woman in there with a kid started screaming. I told her shut up. So she shut up. The old geezer emptied the cash register and give it all to me, so what was I to do? I sort of waited around, walking slow to the front door, but no cops came, and so I got away. I made a hundred dollars, about, from that drugstore and never once planned on it. So that kept me going good for a week. Near the end somebody rolled me. I woke up real sick and my face beaten up and this time I made up my mind to get killed. I was fed up with life. I was fed up with my face—I always hated it anyway. So I went in a bank and waited in line and got up to the window and said it was a stick-up, and the girl there, she just about fainted and had to hang onto the marble thing, the counter, but she didn’t faint and kept kind of looking at me like she was going to scream, but she didn’t scream either, and finally she gave me some money in envelopes. I cleared six hundred. The alarm bell didn’t work, I read in the paper next morning—she was pushing it with her foot but it didn’t work, the wiring was bad. I had half a mind to go back and scare the hell out of her—here I felt sorry for her, being so scared, and she was pressing that goddam thing with her foot!
“But I left town and stayed feeling pretty good for a few weeks, and then I come crashing down again. I was going to hitchhike somewhere by a lake I heard about, where there was a lot of good times in the summer. I was going to get good and drunk once and for all and drown myself. I felt real optimistic about this. But on the way out a guy stopped to pick me up in his car, I was hitchhiking, and he was real nice to me, offered me cigarettes and something to drink he had on the seat with him, and I drank it, and then he started acting sort of funny and was patting my hand, so I said, ‘You better let me out, mister!’ and he says, ‘You’re not getting out of this car yet!’ and started laughing like he was crazy. Oh, my God, was I scared! I was only twenty-five or so and just a kid, not like now, I like to wet in my pants I was so scared, and this guy kept on driving with one hand and with the other hand was feeling around me, and I was pressed against the door and wondering if I should open it and jump out, right on the highway, with him going about seventy, and he started to sort of twist my skin on my neck, and it hurt like hell, and I pushed him away and he pushed me back, breathing real hard, and I give it to him on the side of the head and the car just about crashed, but he was a fighter, that guy, and he got the car going straight again and slammed me one back on the side of the head and I saw stars, and I went for his neck to strangle him, I was so scared, this crazy goddam bastard wanting to kill me, when I never done anything to him, and just then some police car comes over the hill and we like to run headfirst into them. We ended up in a field upside down and the cop car was in a ditch on its side and they come running over to us yelling, and the guy goes crazy and tells them how he picked me up hitchhiking and then I tried to rob him and was trying to get the car away from him, we were fighting right when the cops arrived, so they took a look at his car, which was pretty good, and his clothes, and he was wearing glasses too so that he looked like a teacher or something, and they looked at me, a bum, and naturally they knew who to believe—and that’s how I ended up in jail. One whole year of my life—and when I came out I forgot about killing myself, it was too much trouble.”
He reads a letter:
May 16, 1957
Dear Ma and Maureen,
Dont be scared, I am all right. I had to be put in this hospital where I am writing from because something was hurting my head. The experiment program is all over. I got paid. But now I need to pay the hospital so I have nothing to send you after all, in fact I owe them fifty dollars already, and in here on Monday night I got an infection and Tuesday morning was very sick. Its a hospital infection, the nurse said, lots of people were getting it. It goes around the hospital. I was real sick and had to be fed in my veins, through the blood, this had nothing to do with my first trouble which got cleared up, I guess. My eyes are better now. Im not supposed to go out in the bright sun for a few months. My head doesnt ache too much now. How are you all? I am anxious to get back up to Detroit as soon as things get settled here. Or maybe I should stay down here a while, I heard of a new job just before I got sick. Is the weather nice up there? In the bed on one side of me is a man with bleeding ulcers, his wife says very sick, and on the other side a man died just the other day. Now there is an old man there tied down. I don’t know what his trouble is. He cant even use the bedpan. Hes pretty old. The only trouble is he asked me to help him sit up the first night, after the lights were out, and I tried to get him up then discovered they had him strapped down or something. That scared me. So I told him I better go back to bed. But I am not discouraged by any of this, in fact when my headache is gone for good and my eyes are better I will be better than new, all checked out by a hospital and all. Anything can happen once I get out. I have lots of hope. In here I been reading some books they pass around and looking through the Bible which as you know I never bothered with much, and dont care much about now, but there are some interesting things in them. My main discovery is that people have always been the same, lonely and worried and hoping for things, and that they have written their thoughts down and when we read them we are the same age as they are, its like time hasnt really gone by. Do you still go to church, if so pray for me, I like to think of you doing that. I dont pray to God but only pray to myself, I mean I think the words to myself, or sometimes I pray to different people I have known—it sounds crazy I guess. I like to think thoughts out clearly. What they mean in the books by the Spirit of the Lord is something I like to think about. I know I have this in me. Being in pain and hurt pretty bad I had a lot of time to think it through and I am certain that there is a Spirit of the Lord in us all, it makes us able to talk to one another and love one another. I trust my luck. I know that things are going to turn out well. There are lots of jobs here and everything in the U.S. is going up. As soon as I get checked out of the hospital I will write you again, dont worry, I love you,
Jules
“I don’t
know what to make of him,” Loretta says, excited and proud. “You ever heard anybody talk like that? When he was a kid it looked like he would end up in jail like the rest of them brats, but now look—”
“You should be proud of him, honey,” Midge says.
Maureen dreams, a little restless with spring. The open window shows sky to her. Her slightly bluish arms lie without movement on the covers of her bed. A foul-smelling bed. A winter of a bed. The stupor about her is thick with pellets, air thickened to grit, raining upon her. She yawns, she sleeps. A door opens in her brain. She says to herself questioningly, Where is Maureen now? But looking out through the door she can’t see anyone. No Maureen. She thinks, Then what about Jules? A sensation of fear opens in her, for Jules. Why isn’t Jules here? Jules with tubes taped to his arms, being fed blood, Jules all the way across the country, down in Texas and Oklahoma…she sleeps and tries to get away from these thoughts. But she finds herself mouthing words to a man on a street corner. She has lost the secretary’s notebook for her homeroom and Sister Mary Paul is angry, she tells him. The man slaps her face to bruise it. Or is it Sister Mary Paul slapping her? If her face is bruised she will never make any money. If her body is kicked and bruised, no money, no money. Grown sluggish and stinking and fat, no money. She says to a stranger on a street corner, it looks like Michigan Avenue, she says in a whining child’s voice, Did you see my notebook? The man is well dressed, good, he must have money, he bends down to her and embraces her so that she can feel the whole length of his body. My notebook, she says, looking over his shoulder and into the sky, did you see it?
She remembers a day on Belle Isle, driving aimlessly around the park with a man, in a man’s car. He is talking, talking. He is very sad. “I’ve known the woman who is my wife for twenty-five years…twenty-five years…a quarter of a century we’ve known each other…we’ve been married almost that long…we have four very wonderful children and…and I love them all…my heart breaks when I think about them…I feel as if I’m being torn into pieces…I love you and think about you all the time…I feel as if I’m being torn into pieces with it…”