Let the Great World Spin

by Colum McCann

  I had to go home to Jazzlyn with my arms in plaster. I was in conva-lescence for I don’t know how long.

  L.A. Rex had a diamond star in his tooth, that’s no lie. He looked a bit like that Cosby guy on TV, except Cosby has some funky- ass sideburns.

  L.A. even paid my hospital bills. He didn’t put me out on the stroll. I thought, What the fuck is up with that? Sometimes the world is a place you just can’t understand.

  So I got clean. I got myself housing. I gave up the game. Those were good years. All it took to make me happy was finding a nickel in the bottom of my handbag. Things were going so good. It felt like I was standing at a window. I put Jazzlyn in school. I got a job putting stickers on McCa_9781400063734_4p_03_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:34 PM Page 217

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  supermarket cans. I came home, went to work, came home again. I stayed away from the stroll. Nothing was going to put me back there.

  And then one day, out of the blue, I don’t even remember why, I walked down to the Deegan, stuck out my thumb, and looked for a trick. I got a thump in the back of my head from a daddy called Birdhouse—he was wearing a surefire fuck- off hat that he never once took off ’cause he didn’t like anyone to see his glass eye. He said, “Hey, babe, what’s shakin’?”

  —

  Jazzlyn needed school books. I’m almost sure that’s what it was.

  —

  I wasn’t a parasol girl down on Forty- ninth and Lex. The parasol was a thing I started in the Bronx. To hide my face, really. That’s a secret I won’t tell nobody. I’ve always had a good body. Even for all those years I stuffed junk into it, it was good and curvy and extra delicious. I never had a disease I couldn’t get rid of. It was when I got to the Bronx that I took up the parasol. They couldn’t see my face but they could see my booty. I could shake it. I had enough electricity in my booty to jump- start the whole of New York City.

  In the Bronx I got in the car quick and then they couldn’t say no. Try kicking a girl out of your car unpaid: you might as well suck raindrops from a puddle.

  It’s always been the older girls that work the Bronx. All except Jazzlyn.

  I kept Jazz around for company. She only went downtown now and then.

  She was the most popular girl on the stroll. Everyone else was charging twenty, but Jazzlyn could go all the way to forty, even fifty. She got the young guys. And the older guys with the real bread, the fat ones who want to feel handsome. They came on all starry- eyed with her. She had straight hair and good lips and legs that went up to her neck. Some of the guys they called her Raf, ’cause that’s what she looked like. If there’d’ve been trees under the Deegan she’d’ve been up there giraffing with her tongue.

  That was one of the nicknames on her rap sheet. Raf. She was with this British guy once and he was making all these dive- bomber sounds.

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  Flanders one- oh- one, Flanders one- oh- one! Coming down!” When he was finished he said, “See, I rescued you.” And Jazzlyn’s like: “You rescued me, is that right?” ’Cause men like to think they can rescue you.

  Like you got a disease and they got the special cure just waiting for you.

  Come in here, honey, don’t ya want someone to understand you? Me, I understand you. I’m the only guy knows a chick like you. I got a dick as long as a Third Avenue menu but I got a heart bigger’n the Bronx. They fuck you like they’re doing you a big favor. Every man wants a whore to rescue, that’s the knockdown truth. It’s a disease in itself, you ask me. Then, when they’ve shot their wad they just zip up and go and forget about you.

  That’s something fucked up in the head.

  Some of these assholes think you got a heart of gold. No one’s got a heart of gold. I don’t got no heart of gold, no way. Not even Corrie. Even Corrie went for that Spanish broad with the dumb little tattoo on her ankle.

  —

  When Jazzlyn was fourteen she came home with her first red mark on the inside of her arm. I as good as slapped the black off her, but she came back with the mark between her toes. She didn’t even smoke a cigarette and there she was, on the horse. She was running with the Immortals then. They had a beef with the Ghetto Brothers.

  I tried keeping her straight by keeping her on the streets. That’s what I was thinking.

  —

  Big Bill Broonzy’s got a song I like, but I don’t like to listen to it: I’m down so low, baby, I declare I’m lookin’ up at down.

  —

  By the time she was fifteen I was watching her shoot up. I’d sit down on the pavement and think, That’s my girl. And then I’d say, Hold on a goddamn motherfucking second, is that my girl? Is that really my girl?

  And then I’d think, Yeah that’s my girl, that’s my flesh ’n’ blood, that’s her, all right.

  I made that.

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  —

  There were times I’d strap the elastic around her arm to get the vein to pop. I was keeping her safe. That’s all I was trying to do.

  —

  This is the house that Horse built. This is the house that Horse built.

  —

  Jazz came home one Friday and said: “Hey, Till, how’d you like to be a grandma?” I said, “Yeah, Grandma T., that’s me.” She started blubbering.

  And then she was crying on my shoulder—it woulda been nice if it weren’t for real.

  I went down to Foodland but all they had was a cheap- ass Enten-mann’s.

  She was eating it and I looked at her and thought, That’s my baby and she’s having a baby. I didn’t even take a slice until Jazz went to bed and then I wolfed that motherfucker down, got crumbs all over the floor.

  —

  Second time I came a grandmother, Angie organized a party for me. She talked Corrie into borrowing a wheelchair and she wheeled me along under the Deegan. We were high on coke then, laughing our asses off.

  —

  Oh, but what I shoulda done—I shoulda swallowed a pair of handcuffs when Jazzlyn was in my belly. That’s what I shoulda done. Gave her a heads- up about what was coming her way. Say, Here you is, already arrested, you’re your mother and her mother before her, a long line of mothers stretching way back to Eve, french and nigger and dutch and whatever else came before me.

  Oh, God, I shoulda swallowed handcuffs. I shoulda swallowed them whole.

  —

  I spent the last seven years fucking in the inside of refrigerator cars. I spent the last seven years fucking in the inside of refrigerator cars.

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  Yeah. I spent the last seven years fucking in the inside of refrigerator cars.

  —

  Tillie Fuck- Up H enderson.

  —

  I get a call that I got a visitor. I’m, like, primed. I’m fixing my hair and putting on lipstick and making myself smell fine, jailhouse perfume and all. I’m flossing my teeth and plucking my eyebrows and even making sure my prison duds look good. I thought, There’s only two people in the world ever going to come see me. I was bouncing down the prison steps.

  It was like coming down a fire escape. I could smell the sky. Watch out, babies, here comes your Momma’s Momma.

  I got to the Gatehouse. That’s what they call the visiting room. I’m looking all ’round for them. There are lots of chairs and plastic windows and a big cloud of cigarette smoke. It’s like moving through a delicious fog. I’m standing up on my toes and looking all around and everyone’s settling down and meeting their honeys. There are big oohs and ahhs and laughing and shouting going on, all over the place, and kids screaming
, and I keep standing up on my tiptoes to see my babies. Soon enough there’s only one spot left at the chairs. Some white bitch is sitting opposite the glass. I’m thinking I half know her, but I don’t know from where, maybe she’s a parole officer, or a social worker or something. She’s got blond hair and green eyes and pearly- white skin. And then she says: “Oh, hi, Tillie.”

  I’m thinking, Don’t Hi, Tillie me, who the fuck’re you? These whiteys, they come on all familiar. Like they understand you. Like they’re your best friends.

  But I just say, “Hi,” and slide onto the chair. I feel like I got the air knocked out of me. She gives me her name and I shrug ’cause it don’t mean nothing to me. “You got any cigarettes?” I say, and she says no, she quit. And I’m thinking, She’s even less good to me than she was five minutes ago, and five minutes ago she was useless.

  And I say, “Are you the one who got my babies?”

  She says, “No, someone else is looking after the babies.”

  Then she just sits there and starts asking me about prison life, and if McCa_9781400063734_4p_03_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:34 PM Page 221

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  I’m eating good, and when am I going to get out? I look at her like she’s ten pounds of shit wrapped in a five- pound bag. She’s all nervous and stuff. And I finally out and say it so slow that she raises her eyebrows in surprise: “Who—the—fuck—are—you?” And she says, “I know Keyring, he’s my friend.” And I’m like, “Who the fuck is Keyring?” And then she spells i t o ut: “ C- i- a- r- a- n.”

  Then the cherry falls and I think, She’s the one came to Jazzlyn’s funeral with Corrigan’s brother. Funny thing is, he’s the one who gave me the keyring.

  “Are you a holy roller?” I ask her.

  “Am I what?”

  “You on a Jesus kick?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Then why you here?”

  “I just wanted to see how you were.”

  “For real?”

  And she says: “For real, Tillie.”

  So I let up on her. I say, “All right, whatever.”

  And she’s leaning forward, saying it’s nice to see me again, the last time she saw me she just felt very badly for me, the way the pigs put me in handcuffs and all, at the graveside. She actually said “pigs,” but I could tell she wasn’t used to it, like she was trying to be tough but she wasn’t.

  But I think, Okay, this is cool, I’ll let it slide, I’ll let fifteen minutes drift, what’s fifteen, twenty minutes?

  She’s pretty. She’s blond. She’s cool. I’m telling her about the girl in C- 40 with the mouse, and what it’s like when you’re a femme not a butch, and how the food tastes terrible, and how I miss my babies, and how there was a fight on TV night over the Chico show and Scatman Crothers and if he’s a cardboard nigger. And she’s nodding her head and going, Uh- huh, hmm, oh, I see, that’s very interesting, Scatman Crothers, he’s cute. Like she’d get it on with him. But she’s hip to me. She’s smiling and laughing. She’s smart too—I can tell she’s smart, a rich girl. She tells me she’s an artist and she’s dating Corrigan’s brother, even though she’s married, he went to Ireland to scatter Corrigan’s ashes and came right back, they fell in love, she’s getting her life together, she used to be an addict, and she still likes to drink. She says she’ll put some money in my prison account and maybe I can get myself some cigarettes.

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  “What else can I get for you?” she says.

  “My babies.”

  “I’ll try,” she says. “I’ll see where they are. I’ll see if I can get them to visit. Anything else, Tillie?”

  “Jazz,” I say.

  “Jazz?” she goes.

  “Bring Jazzlyn back too.”

  And she goes white at the gills.

  “Jazzlyn’s dead,” she said, like I’m some fucking idiot.

  She’s got a look in her eyes like she just been kicked. She’s staring at me and her lip is quivering. And then the goddamn bell goes off. It’s visiting time over and we’re saying good- bye to each other behind the glass, and I turn to her and say, “Why did ya come here?”

  She looks down at the ground and then she smiles up at me, lip still quivering, but she shakes her head, and there are little teardrops in the corner of her eyes.

  She slips a couple of books across the table and I’m like, Wow, Rumi, how the fuck did she know?

  She says she’ll come again, and I beg her again to bring the babies.

  She says she’ll ask around, they’re with social services or something.

  Then she waves bye- bye, scrubbing her eyes dry as she walks away. I’m thinking, What the fuck?

  I was walking up the stairs again, still wondering how she knew about Rumi, and then I remembered. I started laughing to myself, but I was glad I didn’t say anything to her about Ciaran and his little pork sword—

  what’s the point? He was a good guy, Keyring. Anyone who’s a brother of Corrie’s is a brother of mine.

  —

  Nothing’s righteous. Corrigan knew the deal. He never gave me no shit. His brother was a bit of an asshole. That’s just a plain fact. But lots of people are assholes and he paid me well for the one time and I blinded him with Rumi. Corrigan’s brother had some serious scratch in his pockets—he was a bartender or something. I looked down and I remember thinking, There’s my dark tit in Corrigan’s brother’s hand.

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  —

  I never saw Corrigan naked, but I imagine he was swell even if his brother was a Tweety Bird.

  —

  First time we saw Corrigan, we just flat- out knew he was undercover.

  They got Irishes undercover. Most of the cops’re Irish—guys going a little to fat, with bad teeth but still a sense of making the world funny.

  One day Corrigan’s van was filthy and Angie wrote with her finger in the dirt: DON’T YOU WISH YOUR WIFE WAS THIS FILTHY? That had us crying we laughed so hard. Corrie didn’t notice it. Then Angie wrote a smiley face and TURN ME OVER on the other side. He was scooting around the Bronx with that crazy shit written on his van and he never even saw it. He was in a world of his own, Corrie. Angie went up to him at the end of the week and showed him the words. He got all blushy like the Irish guys do and he began stammering.

  “But I don’t understand—I haven’t got a wife,” he said to Angie.

  We never laughed so much since Christ left Cincinnati.

  —

  Every day we were hanging out with him, pleading with him to arrest us.

  And he was going: “Girls, girls, girls, please.” The more we got to hugging on him the more he’d go, “Girls, girls, come on, now, girls.”

  Once, Angie’s daddy broke us up and grabbed Corrie by the scruff of the neck and told him where he should go. He put a knife up under Corrie’s neck. Corrie just stared at him. His eyes were big but it was like he didn’t have no fear. We were like: “Yo, man, just leave.” Angie’s daddy flicked the knife and Corrie walked away with blood coming down his black shirt.

  A couple of days later he was down again, bringing us coffees. He had a little bandage on his neck. We were like: “Yo, Corrie, you should get-the-fuck, you’ll get tossed.” He shrugged, said he’d be all right. Down came Angie’s daddy and Jazzlyn’s daddy and Suchie’s daddy, all at once, like the Three Wise Men. I saw Corrie’s face go white. I never seen him go that white before. He was worse’n chalk.

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  He held his hands up and said: “Hey, man, I’m just giving them coffee.”

  And Angie’s daddy stepped forward. He said: “Yeah well, I’m just
giving you the cream.”

  —

  Corrie got the daylight kicked out of him seven ways to Sunday, I don’t know how many times. That shit hurt. It hurt bad. Even Angie was hanging off her daddy’s back, trying to scratch his eyes out, but we couldn’t stop him. Still Corrie came back, day after day. Got to where the daddies actually respected him for it. Corrie never once called the cops, or the Guards, that’s what he called them, that was his Irish word for the police.

  He said: “I’m not calling the Guards.” Still the daddies knocked the shit out of him every now and then, just to keep him in line.

  We found out later he was a priest. Not really a priest, but one of those guys who lived somewhere because he thought that he should, like he had a duty thing, morals, some sort of shit like that, a monk, with vows and shit, and that chastity stuff.

  —

  They say boys always want to be the first with girls, and girls always want to be the last with boys. But with Corrie all of us wanted to be the first.

  Jazz said, “I had Corrie last night, he was super- delicious, he was glad I was his first.” And then Angie’d go: “Bullshit, I had that motherfucker for lunch, I ate him whole.” And then Suchie’d go: “Shit, y’all, I spread him on my pancakes and sucked him down with coffee.”

  Anyone could hear us laughing, miles away.

  —

  He had a birthday once, I think he was thirty- one, he was just a kid, and I bought him a cake and all of us ate it together out under the Deegan. It was covered in cherries, musta been a million and six cherries on it, and Corrie didn’t even get the joke, we were popping cherries in his mouth left and center and he’s going, Girls, girls please, I’ll have to call the Guards.

  We almost wet ourselves laughing.

  He cut up the cake and gave a piece out to everyone. He took the last piece for himself. I held a cherry over his mouth and got him to try to bite on it. I kept moving it away while he kept trying to snag it. He was step-McCa_9781400063734_4p_03_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:34 PM Page 225