by Larry Brown
Must’ve dozed off. Come to and the window was open behind me. Didn’t hear her. Just felt her. Standing behind me. Walter was lighting a cigarette. I looked up backward and she kind of leant over and she was looking at me upside down and I was looking at her upside down. I said What the hell y’all doing? She said It’s about time you woke up. We done had us a nice talk. And then she gimme a drag off that joint they’d been smoking. Had done about smoked the whole thing. Wasn’t nothing but a roach left. Pissed me off. And what had they been talking about while I was asleep?
My name Diva.
Ever known what was happening around you while you were asleep? Think back. To a time you dreamed you were about to be awakened by somebody and then you were. It was like that. Kind of.
There was the humming first. A melody that crept into my hearing gradually. I knew it. I’d heard it before, lots of times, but I couldn’t recognize it at first.
I felt her hands on me. They were warm and they felt like hands that could heal. She was humming the song. The one who had her hands on me.
I opened my eyes and looked at her. I guess I’d had a nightmare. I was hot. I’d kicked some of the sheets off.
“Hey hon,” she said. A fine-looking sister. Built. Medium fro.
“Hey,” I said.
I was about to die to piss. I got up and did that, laid back down.
She put a hand on my forehead and felt of me. The hand was soft. It felt good.
“You all sweaty,” she said. “Let me get me some cool water and I’ll bave your face. Your face had a hard time, hon.”
She stepped around to a sink somewhere behind me and I heard her running the water. I couldn’t remember what I’d been dreaming, but it must have been a memory from when I was little and working in the field. I knew the song then. She came back with the washcloth and started cooling my face off, humming the song again. The pickers used to sing it. I’d never learned the words but I remembered the melody. Sometimes they sang it all day, and I used to listen to it all day. It was an old song, it had to be ancient, they must have brought it over on the ships. Maybe they sang it to keep themselves going. Maybe they sang it when they were chained flat on their backs in the hold. Crossing the ocean, leaving Africa, coming to a new world.
“Where’d you learn that song?” I said.
“Known that all my life,” she said. “So you one of them Missippi boys, huh?”
“Nothing but.”
Braiden was asleep. He was snoring. It sort of reminded me of a D9 Cat idling.
She finished what she was doing with me and pulled up a chair and sat down beside my bed.
“You had you a good nap,” she said.
“Yeah. I asked for it.”
She looked around some and then she pulled something out of her pocket and snapped a lighter and I saw while she had her face bent down to it that it was a joint. Then I smelled it. I looked around. I mean, hell, right in the middle of a fucking hospital. But all the lights were off. Nobody was stirring. She didn’t seem to be worried about it anyway. When I looked at her again she wasn’t even smoking it. She was just holding it out to me.
It wasn’t very good. Some of that old cowshit homegrown. I guess it was the best they could do. I smoked it anyway. I sneaked looks at her tits once in a while. They were pretty awesome.
“You don’t behave yourself you ain’t never getting out of here,” she said.
“What they gonna do?” I said. “Give me a prefrontal lobotomy?”
“They might.”
I laughed a little.
She just said it again. “They might. You don’t know what you messing with when you start messing with these doctors. They got documents they can sign. They got things they can do to you. You don’t know. I’m a nurse. I work here. You better calm down.”
I could just barely see her eyes. She was mostly just dark except for her white uniform. Her white cap was sort of riding in the air. The dope made her seem almost invisible.
“What’s the matter with him?” I said.
“Who?”
“Him.”
“Oh. Crazy. Maybe not crazy. Lay here long as he has, you might be crazy, too.”
“Has he really been here that long?”
“He the oldest one here in this ward. He been here longer than anybody. They was an old fella from Korea but he died a while back. Braiden the oldest one here now.” She paused for a second. “Wouldn’t you be sick of it, too?”
I smoked some more of the joint. It wasn’t bad once you got past that cowshit taste. I was starting to get a buzz. “I guess,” I said.
“What did you and him have a falling out over?” she said.
I didn’t want to tell her. I liked her right away. She wanted to be kind, but she had a hard side, too. I could tell. I knew she had to be that way. I knew this place would make you that way. But what nurse would bring in beer to the patients? Grass?
“I just didn’t like the way the conversation was heading,” I said. “He got to talking about some shit I didn’t want to talk about. So I asked for a shot so I could sleep.”
“Like what shit?”
She was sitting there in the chair with her legs crossed, watching me. I had the feeling that she knew something about me that I didn’t know, and I couldn’t figure out what it could be.
“Why are you fucking with my head?” I said.
“Ain’t messing with your head. You think better when you smoke that stuff?”
“Sometimes.”
“How long you been on phenobarbital?”
“I don’t know. A while.”
“How come them to take you off Dilantin?”
“Who you been talking to?”
“Doctors here and there. I read your chart. How come they took you off Dilantin?”
I looked away. “It wasn’t controlling my seizures,” I said.
“How much you drink?”
“None of your fucking business.”
So she knew about the drinking. She probably knew everything. But I didn’t. I looked at her again.
“You know what happened to me?”
“Yeah.”
“You see this face I’m carrying around?”
“Yeah. So what?”
“So if I feel like drinking I don’t want anybody to tell me I can’t.”
She hushed for about two beats. But I knew she was coming right back with something. She leaned a little closer first.
“That don’t give you the right to kill yourself,” she said.
“Why don’t you tell him that, too? That’s what he was talking about a while ago.”
“He talks about a lot of stuff. He tell you about his trips?”
“What trips?”
“I mean the trips he takes in his mind. That’s how he deals with it.”
“Well,” I said. “We all got to deal with it. I drink. And I ain’t dead yet.”
“You may be if you keep on. That grass ain’t hurting you as bad as beer and whiskey is.”
“I know all about that shit. What the hell you expect me to do? I can’t get a fucking job. I can’t drive a car. What the hell did they bring me here for anyway?”
She looked away.
“You had a bad seizure,” she said.
“Well no screaming shit. I figured that.”
I didn’t know why I was being so hard on her. But goddamn it, I’ve talked to all those doctors. I know what the problem is. They want to cut on me, but they don’t want to cut on me. Because that’s where your talking is. One little slip with that knife … (after they’ve got the whole top of your head lifted off) and you don’t talk no more. Hell. I don’t talk to many people now.
“Look,” I said. “I’ve been living with this for a long time. I take my medicine most of the time. I mean, I don’t like it. It makes me feel strange. I mean that just makes it worse. All it does is just make me feel sorry for myself and want a drink. And then usually I take one. Jesus. Why don’t you just go off and leave me
alone?”
I had a buzz but it wasn’t doing me any good. Not with her digging at me. I guess she saw it. She sighed. She got out of the chair and bent over me, straightening the sheet, tucking it in around my toes.
She stopped and put a hand on each side of me and leaned over so that her face was close to mine. I could see her up close then, her dark lashes, the whites of her eyes. She was a wet dream come true.
She lowered her face to me and kissed me, softly, once, on the mouth.
“Try to be patient with him,” she said, and she took the burning joint out of my fingers. She went to stand behind his bed, and when she did, he woke up.
I looked at her, and I looked at him. I felt bad about calling him a son of a bitch. I thought about twenty-two years.
Baby that’s a long, long long, long long long long time.
“You decided you’d wake up, huh? Ah hell we’re just talking.
“Hey, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go off like that. I’ve just got a lot of shit on my mind. Waking up in here and all. I thought somebody would have come to see about me by now. Or called. I just been drinking too much. That’s all it is. I know better.
“You leaving? Oh. Okay.
“Man. How does she keep from getting caught? Hell, this dope. That beer. She takes good care of you, doesn’t she? She said you were the oldest. I guess that’s why.
“Yeah, I’ll drink one. You sure you got plenty?
“Damn. I guess I’m just a rude sumbitch, ain’t I? I haven’t even asked you if you wanted me to hold one for you. Hell, I’m sorry. Naw it ain’t all right. You’re furnishing all the beer and I’m drinking it all up. Well shit. I’m new at this. What does she do? Sit on your bed? I mean I guess she does this for you, too, doesn’t she? Well. I figured she did.
“Is that okay? Hell I’m not queer or anything. I’m not gonna mess with your genitals. Where can I put this cap? I think there’s a pocket on this thing. Yeah. All right. You want a cigarette? Let me lean over here and get my lighter.
“Boy, that beer’s cold, ain’t it? I don’t mean boy like boy. Sure. I know you do. I just feel like an asshole for acting like I did. I hope I’ll get out of here tomorrow maybe. I don’t think they really want to operate on me. It’s too risky. God, I hate hospitals. I’ve spent so much time in them already.
“Here. How much? Hold it. Okay. You got a little on your chin there. Try to be a little neater. I’m just fucking with you. You don’t care, do you? You were a pretty big man before this happened, weren’t you? You’ve got a big chest. You ever lift any weights? You look like it. You must eat a lot. Just tell me when you want a drag off this cigarette. I’ll get me one in a minute. I’ll put some more beer in that cooler after while. We don’t want to run out of cold ones.
“What about artificial limbs? Tried them, huh? Hell, what about a wheelchair you could operate? You’ve already tried all that shit, huh?
“Man does anybody ever take you outside? Let you look around? Aw man it’s nice outside. The woods are full of green leaves. They were the other night.
“Aw shit, you don’t want to hear all that. I don’t even know what happened anyway. I guess I had a bad seizure or something and she had to call an ambulance. I guess that’s how I wound up here.
“Did you catch a buzz? I did too. I’m talking my ass off I know. Usually I don’t have anybody to talk to, though. Hell, I don’t want to go in there and talk to Mama while I’m drunk. I write her letters sometimes, though. That’s crazy as hell, ain’t it? I’ll write her a letter every once in a while and slide it under her door. And hell, she’ll answer it like that. I don’t know what I’m gonna do with her. Can’t stick her in a rest home, she’s not even sick. I wouldn’t stick my mama in a rest home anyway. Oh. Your mama was in a rest home? Well hell. You couldn’t take care of her, though. Your mama’s been dead a month? I’m sorry to hear that she passed away, man. Did you get to go? Well. That’s good that your sister takes care of you like that. You got any brothers? Five? Man. Y’all had a big family.
“I went to a funeral in a black church one time. I never will forget it. This old man lived on our place one time. His name was Hugh Jean. Shit, he used to cut my hair. Damn I ain’t thought about Hugh Jean in a while. A mule kicked him in the head and killed him. Hell, I bet I wasn’t but about twelve or thirteen. Daddy still had a couple of mules then. Hugh Jean raised him a garden with them every year. We had one that was an old mule. I mean that son of a bitch was old. Had white hair on his face. He was blind in one eye. Called him Joe. Daddy killed him after he kicked Hugh Jean in the head.
“Holler when you get ready for another beer. Yeah, hell. Old Hugh Jean used to tell me, Now son, you listen to me. You can plow behind one of these old mules for twenty years and he’ll never try nothing. But the first time you bend over behind him and he knows it, hell kick your head off. And damned if that wasn’t what happened. This was after Daddy got out the first time. Hell, we never did know what happened exactly. It was one Saturday Hugh Jean was supposed to come up to the house and help Daddy plant some corn and he never did show up. He’d told Daddy he was going to break his garden up with old Joe and he’d be on up to the house quick as he got through. Well, hell, he never did show up. Daddy kept waiting on him. We had the planters on and the fertilizer loaded up. Finally he said, Well damn, surely to God he ain’t drunk on a Saturday morning. So he went down there to see about him.
“Hugh Jean had a wife one time. I think her name was Sally. I don’t even remember her. Hugh Jean killed her one Saturday night, Daddy said. With a razor. He went to the pen a long time before Daddy did. Got out after he did. Same crime I guess of a different color. Man how come y’all like knives so much?
“But he didn’t have anybody else by then. Daddy and Mama let him move on the place to help. Daddy’d been knowing him a long time. He was pretty old then. He just lived by himself. He’d get drunk on the weekends and cry for Sally. No telling how long she’d been dead then. Say Lord send her back. Hugh Jean’ll take care of her this time Lord if you’ll just send her back. Mama couldn’t stand it. She didn’t want us around him when he was drinking. Boy you can remember a lot of stuff when you get to thinking about it. You sure can. Man I remember so much from back then.
“Here, let me get you another beer. This is nice, just us talking. Well. He was dead when Daddy found him. I walked close enough to see a little and then he made me go back. I kept watching, though. He was down on his knees by the front of the plow like he was working on it, Hugh Jean was. Old Joe was still standing in the traces. They’d broke up about half the garden. He didn’t raise much. Some tomatoes and a few peas. A little okry. Enough stuff to get him through the winter. Hell, we raised hogs back then. Daddy and Hugh Jean did. I don’t know, man. It was like they took care of each other. Daddy would go down there on the weekends sometimes and drink with him. He made a little whiskey down there. Mama didn’t like that either. She thought it was going to get Daddy back in trouble again. But they never did get caught making it. Hell I make a little once in a while myself. I run me off a little batch once or twice a year, make enough to last me a while. I used to sit up in the woods with Hugh Jean and watch it come out a drop at a time. He taught me how to make it. Daddy knew he was doing it. I’ve thought about that a lot. He had a certain kind of relationship with Hugh Jean, and after he died it seemed like things were never the same. I don’t know why. He never would let any black people live on the place after that.
“What he did was beat that fucking mule to death. Yep. Saw my daddy do that. God. He pulled Hugh Jean out of the way and took his shirt off and covered his face up. And I heard him talking to that mule. Said You son of a bitch I’m fixing to beat your fucking brains out. Oh he hurt that son of a bitch before he died. Took a sledgehammer handle to him. I saw some bad shit over there but my daddy beating that mule to death was one of the worst things I ever saw. It took him about thirty minutes. Mama got Max and ran in the house and locked the door. I stood there
and watched it. He made sure the sumbitch suffered before he died. And he damn sure suffered. Tied his head to a post and then he went to work on him. He had blood all over him when he come back.
“This is some morbid shit, ain’t it? Well hell. The mule killed his friend, so he killed the mule. But slowly, so the mule would know why it was happening. Not that you would have ever got him to admit that Hugh Jean was his friend. Hell no. The best he ever said was that Hugh Jean was a good hand.
“But I remember that funeral. Me and Daddy were the only white people in there. It was so strange. They didn’t bury him for a week. They had to wait and let all his kin-folks from up North get down. They wouldn’t bury him until everybody was there. What am I telling you for, hell, you know.
“Yeah, hold on, let me get my lighter. Here. You ready for a drink? All right.
“Naw but you know, Daddy wanted me to go. He said I might not get to see anything like that again ever. I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“It was way up in the woods. This little dirt road, muddy, shit it’d been raining and cars were stuck everywhere. Hell, they had to get out and push the hearse out of a mud hole. And got up there and the church wasn’t nothing but a little old shack, looked like. It was packed full of people. Every pew was jammed. They had to start putting chairs out in the middle aisle.
“Well, we got in there and sat down. Everybody was looking at us. I was afraid they’s gonna kill us.
“A bunch of old women came in from the back, had choir robes on. Some of em looked like they were about eighty years old. I ain’t shitting you, the most dried-up ones there, that was the ones in the choir. The ones who looked like they didn’t have nothing left. Remind me to tell you the one about the piccolo player after while. But anyway they started singing. They didn’t even have any music yet. The piano player hadn’t even sat down yet. And hell, they didn’t need it. They didn’t even have any songbooks. They were just sitting there with their hands in their laps. But it made the hair want to get up on my head. I never heard nothing like it. They sang like angels. I mean, I’ve thought before, if you could hear angels sing, that’s what it would sound like. They fit together like, well, it was like if one of them was gone it would have been something different. I mean you could hear every one of them. And nobody said anything, man, they just let them sing. I think they sang three songs, and I’d never heard a one of them before, but, man, God, I wish I had a tape of that now. I’d love to be able to hear that now, just one more time. Does that sound crazy? I mean I don’t know how religious you are. But it was like God was up there in the rafters.
