A Dead Man Speaks

by Lisa Jones Johnson

  She looked at us and then stammered out quickly. “Uh…I’m sorry to bother you, Miss Davenport, but I uh…came for my grade on the paper.”

  Miss Davenport quickly pulled herself together. That woman never missed a beat. I liked that. She’d never get caught with her pants down. I, on the other hand, wanted to smack Verna Smith. Seemed as if she was always nosing around in somebody else’s business. And this time she’d just snatched the play right out from under me.

  Miss Davenport seemed totally unperturbed—one of the SAT words. She just uncrossed her legs, pulled out a big leather binder from under the desk, opened it, and pointed to a page. “It’s right here.”

  Verna Smith, clearly embarrassed, quickly looked at her grade and then with an accusatory stare, turned to me. “You goin’ home now, Clive?”

  “No, I got some more work to do.”

  She kind of sniffed, grabbing her coat. “I bet you do.”She slammed the door behind her.

  Miss Davenport shook her head, and then laughed again. “Poor child. She really has a thing for you, and you’re not even thinking about her, are you ?”

  What could I say, she read me alright. “No, she’s okay. She’s just a kid.”

  “And what are you?”

  I closed my book and looked right at her without blinking. “I’m no kid. Believe me.” And this time she didn’t laugh. She just kept right on looking at me. And I knew I’d finally gotten to her.

  After a minute she turned away, clearing her throat. “Well I think you’re ready for the SAT’s on Saturday.”

  * * *

  The SATs came and went. I knew I smoked ’em. The funny thing was when I actually got there and sat down with my number two pencils, I wasn’t nervous anymore. I just went for it. I guess studying my ass off must’ve paid off after all. Even if I didn’t remember any of those damn words after the test.

  The only bad thing about the SATs being over was that I didn’t get to see Miss Davenport anymore. I’d run into her from time to time, but she was always in a rush, so we didn’t ever get a chance to pick up where we’d left off.

  I was kinda sorry, ’cause if I’d had just a little more time with her, I would’ve gotten her right where I wanted. But hey, them’s the breaks sometimes. I really didn’t have time to think about it too much as the months went by, ’cause I was busy thinking about my future away from Hendersonville. I’d gotten all of my college applications out a while ago, and I expected to start hearing back soon. The rest of the time I was working the night shift at the factory in town, so by the time I got home, I was dead tired. But anything beat having to see Ma. This way I left before she did in the morning, and by the time I got home, she was already asleep. So these days it was almost as if we weren’t even living in the same house, and that’s just the way I liked it.

  I was also starting to worry about getting drafted. I wasn’t eighteen ’till October, but already some of the other guys had gotten their notices. I knew I had to get in some college somewhere, ’cause I’d be damned if I was going to leave one living hell for another. I was definitely not going to Nam. All the guys who left from here came back in a pine box. And I had big plans for my life that didn’t include fighting some war millions of miles away that I could care less about.

  I was sitting on the ledge by the school, thinking about my future and everything else when Verna walked up.

  “Hi!” She smiled cheerily. She was truly the last person I wanted to see. But she didn’t seem to notice that I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic.

  “So are you excited about Saturday?”

  “Saturday?” I honestly didn’t have a clue what the hell she was talking about.

  She looked hurt. I guess I was supposed to know. “The prom! You said you’d take me.”

  “Oh right…I forgot. I guess it is April already.”

  “How could you forget? That’s all anybody’s talking about!”

  I started to say that I had more important things on my mind than the prom, but I figured what’s the use, she’d never get it.

  “So what about it? You haven’t changed your mind, have you?” She looked as if she’d burst into tears if I said that I had. The last thing I needed at this point was a big scene.

  “No, I haven’t…”

  Her face lit up again. “So what time are you picking me up?”

  “What time does it start?”

  “Eight.”

  “Okay, then I’ll pick you up at eight.” I really didn’t care, eight, nine, whatever. At this point it was just one of the last chores that I had to get through before I could get out of Hendersonville for good.

  I was ready to go, but she just kept talking. “Did you get your dashiki?”

  “What do I need a dashiki for?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Cliiiiiive…you know all the black students have decided to wear African dress to the prom instead of tuxes and formals. You know, for solidarity and everything.”

  About the only thing I was feeling solidarity for at this point was getting out of Hendersonville.

  “I know you must’ve heard that Shushumba got this catalogue from New York of all these African clothes, and…”

  “Wait! Time out. Who the hell is Shushumba?”

  “Clive, sometimes I wonder if you’re even at school.”

  I didn’t say that I was working actively on getting out as quickly as possible, but she didn’t care about that. I was convinced that Verna just loved to hear herself talk.

  “Shushumba is Kathy Joe Leonard. You know she changed her name last year. Anyway, she has this friend in New York who has a mail order business with Africa for African clothes, so she got the catalogue so that everybody could order their prom clothes.”

  “Well I didn’t know about it, so I’m just wearing jeans.”

  Verna looked disappointed. But I guess she thought about it. Me in jeans was better than going by herself. “Okay, well if that’s the way you feel, but anyway, you’re still gonna pick me up at eight?”

  “Right, sure, I’ll be there.”

  She had an expectant look on her face, so I bent down and gave her a peck on the mouth. Totally uninteresting, but maybe that would get her hyped enough to give it up on Saturday. That way, at least the evening wouldn’t be a total waste.

  * * *

  I sat in the mirror admiring myself from all sides. I wasn’t the least bit into this prom, but I must admit I did look damn good. I patted my ’fro, which had to be perfectly round, squirted a little more Afro Sheen on the top and adjusted my flyaway collar. Yeah, I was fine.

  Just had to grab the car keys. Ma never let me use her car, but she was out, probably gossiping with her bitchy friends. Besides, what was she gonna say? The days that she could tell me what to do were long gone now. I towered over her, and most of the time she just stayed out of my way. Which was better for both of us.

  I went into her room, looking around. After she got the money that Daddy had been saving, she sold the other house and bought a bigger one, with two bedrooms, one for me and one for her. I never went in her room, and she never went in mine. Two separate worlds. So I wasn’t quite sure where to look for the keys. Usually she left them on the kitchen table, but she must’ve known I wanted to use the car, so she hid them.

  I walked over to her drawer, rummaging through her underwear and blouses. Nothing. I tried the bottom drawer where she kept her papers and checkbooks. Still nothing. The only other place was the beat up trunk in the corner. I lifted the top, fishing my hands through the assortment of worthless odds and ends she kept in there. The keys. Got ’em. I smiled. She thought she was slick, but not too slick for me. I was about to close the trunk when something caught my eye. It was a letter in my handwriting.

  I picked it up, and then my face went cold. It was one of my college applications, stamped and ready to go. Except that I’d put it in the mailbox to be mailed months ago! My heart was racing now, I fished some more and grabbed a pile of mail. All mine, the ten college appl
ications that I thought I’d mailed, all here. Ma must’ve taken ’em outta of our mail box after I put ’em in there. Then I realized that not one, not even one of the applications that I’d slaved over had gotten mailed. She’d fuckin’ sabotaged me! My head spun as the reality of what she’d done starting to sink in. I wasn’t going anywhere, not to college, nowhere, thanks to Ma!

  A tidal wave of rage rose in me. I started turning her shit over. Knocking over the lamp, ripping the covers. Why didn’t I take ’em to the post office myself? It just kept ringing in my head. Why did I leave anything to chance?

  I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was suffocating. I ran out of the house and jumped into the car. I drove, pumping the gas to the floor. Hell, I didn’t care if I died at this point. I might as well be dead. My life in Hendersonville was about as close to a living hell as I could stand. I realized I’d probably be sent to Nam, too. Without an S-2 deferment, I was up shit’s creek. And I don’t know how, but I ended up in front of Miss Davenport’s house. I’d never been there before, but in a town as small as Hendersonville, everybody knew where everybody else lived. I banged on the door. I had to talk to somebody, and she was the only person who’d understand.

  “Miss Davenport, it’s me, Clive. Open up, please!”

  For some reason I didn’t feel like a man anymore. I was ten years old again, and Daddy had just died. I could hear the latch turning, and Miss Davenport stood in front of me with a puzzled, half-amused look on her face.

  But when she saw me she realized that this wasn’t another game. “Clive, what’s wrong?”

  In a daze, I stumbled in the room, still clutching my college applications like still born children. I dropped into a chair. My eyes glazed over. I could barely speak. I was still in so much shock. “She…she fucked me…”

  “Clive, what are you talking about?”

  “This!” I tossed the college applications bitterly on the floor.

  She picked them up, turning them over carefully, then looked at me, puzzled. “Well, these are your college applications. I thought you’d sent them in ages ago.”

  And then I was yelling. Not really at Miss Davenport, or at anybody in particular, more at myself for being so stupid. “I did or I thought I did. I put them in the box for the mailman to pick up, but Ma took ’em out before he could get to them. I found the shit in her room!”

  Miss Davenport dropped into the chair. “Why…why would she do that???”

  “Cause she fuckin’ hates me!” I buried my head in my hands. I wasn’t crying. I couldn’t cry. After Daddy died, I never cried anymore. But my head was hurting so much, I just couldn’t keep it up.

  Miss Davenport walked over to me and softly stroked my head. “It’s okay, Clive. I understand. I do. I really do.”

  “How the fuck could you understand? How could anybody understand my life? She hates me. You don’t know what it’s like!” The hurt was so heavy, I could barely breathe.

  She stood there for a minute, then gently pulled me down on the couch next to her. She took my hand and stroked my cheek, turning my face toward her saying firmly, “Trust me. I know what it’s like.” Her eyes stared through to my soul, massaging me from the inside with kindness and gentleness, everything she was and Ma wasn’t.

  She started talking softly, never taking her eyes away from me. I was being drawn into her, becoming a part of her, seeing who she really was for the first time.

  “I never knew my real mother. I was adopted.” She paused as if it was still hard getting it out after all that time. “When I was seventeen, I decided I was going to find her. I’d fantasized about my mother as long as I could remember. It didn’t matter to me who she was, if she was rich or poor or beautiful or just ordinary. I was convinced that she had always wanted me the way I had wanted her, and that she had looked for me, and had always regretted giving me up. I had rehearsed our reunion in my head so many times that when the actual day came, when I finally found her, I was so excited I could barely knock on the door.”

  * * *

  “Yeah, can I help you?” the skinny white man who opened the door asked. Fortyish and not very pleasant. For a minute I thought of turning away, running back to the bus, leaving my one chance to find out who I really was. But I stopped myself. I wasn’t going to run. I was determined to make peace with that voice inside of me. That voice that never stopped asking who, who am I really? So I managed to say more bravely than I felt, “I’m um…looking for Cynthia McNeil.”

  “Yeah.” He sneered and looked me up and down, as if I were some object. He leaned against the doorway, blocking the entrance and he spit out, “Well I’m Jim McNeil, and who are you?”

  “I’m…” I swallowed, not sure how he was going to take this, “I’m her daughter.”

  “Her what?!” He got up in my face, then laughed, but I could tell he didn’t really find anything funny. He shouted, “Shit, you’re black! Cynthia, get out here! There’s some black kid saying you’re her mother!” He let the creaking screen door slam as he stalked back in the house.

  A middle-aged white woman walked up to the door. Her face was starting to show lines, and her brown hair hung long and straight down her back. Other than the pale skin and grey eyes, it was the same face, the same mouth, as me. She couldn’t deny it.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” She looked at me as if I was some cancer from her past that she had cut out, excised with shame and bitterness, but only to reappear, full blown in front of her.

  “I’ve been looking for you for two years. It was really hard, they didn’t want to give me the records, but I kept at it until finally someone did and I…” The words were tumbling out faster and faster as the reality of the mistake I’d made in contacting her hit me, but it was too late to go back now. “I’m your daughter, and I thought…I guess I thought that, well, that you’d want to know me, the way I wanted to know you!” This dull feeling in my head was traveling down my body, numbing me all over. This wasn’t what I’d planned, the reunion, the life-long bond of love, all withering away in front of me.

  She got up real close to me, her grey eyes cutting through me, trembling with anger. “Look. I gave you away, because I didn’t want you. Can you understand that? I did not want you! I didn’t want you then. And I damn sure don’t want you now. So do me a favor and stay the hell out of my life!”

  The door slammed so hard in my face that my ears were ringing. For a minute, I just stood there. Looking at the peeling paint on the door. Then, I realized that what I had wanted and dreamed of ever since I found out the truth about who I was, was gone. I sat down on the sidewalk and cried. Until I couldn’t cry anymore. Until I had emptied out every good feeling I’d ever had, and nothing but the pain was left. Somehow, I managed to stumble back to the bus station and go home. I never saw her again. But the hurt never leaves me. It’s always there.”

  * * *

  Miss Davenport stopped as abruptly as she’d begun, her words suspended in the air. I could hear the crickets outside. She wasn’t even looking at me anymore. I didn’t know what to say except, “So I guess you do understand.”

  She looked up, and for the first time I saw another woman behind the confidence. The mask she wore had fallen off. She brushed her hand against my face. “Yes, I do. I really do.” She kissed my forehead softly at first, then again. And through the pain, I felt her warmth reaching over my parched body. I felt love radiating out from her, something I’d never had before. A feeling that totally and completely engulfed me.

  “I know your pain,” she whispered. “We share the same pain…”

  She started unbuttoning my shirt, kissing my chest. I turned her over, pressing my body against hers. A wave rolled over me, again and again. The duality of the pleasure of being with her and the pain of my future, all mingling together, pain and pleasure throbbing together.

  I was spinning around and around: her lips and mine, her face and mine, her eyes and mine, with the light from her window, wrapping around us. I couldn’t sto
p the feelings, the new sensations. I wanted to cry and laugh all at once.

  And then I felt “It.” ’cause there’s no words for “It.” More than love. I looked in her eyes, and I knew that she felt “It,” too. And I knew what “It” was… Fear. The fear of losing yourself, of surrendering your soul to a love that just was. And I knew that “It” would always be there between us. This love and fear. She was shaking and trembling all over, and she held me with a strength that blocked out everything. I closed my eyes and cradled her head against my chest. She buried her lips in my skin, until I didn’t know her flesh from mine and the love took over again, shoving the fear away.

  As I ran my hands over her bare legs and arms, little charges of electricity fed me with jolts of energy that kept getting stronger and stronger. I released a shower of light into her, pumping in harder and harder all the feelings, wanting and longing that I’d had. I was somewhere else. There was no bottom, no sounds, nothing. And just when I thought I couldn’t go any higher, something crashed against me, like a fist slamming against wood. And then, I realized we weren’t alone.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  A loud voice boomed out from outside her window. At first I thought it was a dream. My eyes didn’t want to open. I was shaking all over.

  Knock, knock, knock, knock…

  “Miss Davenport, we know you’re in there. Open up the door.”

  Miss Davenport, or Laurel, she’d never be Miss Davenport again for me, sat up dazedly. “Who in the world?”

  From outside the door we heard, “Miss Davenport, we suggest you open the door. It’s the sheriff.”

  “Shit.” I shook myself alert. Quickly, I grabbed my pants and pulled them on. She threw a shirt over her head and slipped into a skirt, trying to smooth her tangled hair, walking quickly to the door.

  I stayed in the other room, scooping up the rest of my things and jamming them under her bed. My heart was still beating as if it wanted to jump outta my chest, and my knees buckled weakly. Laurel opened the door slightly. I could see Sheriff Miller, and, of all people, Verna Smith in her African dress and her pa. Verna’s eyes were puffy and red, and her pa looked ready to kill somebody, presumably me.