Let the Great World Spin

by Colum McCann

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  ping down the street after me. I had my swimsuit on. We musta looked a pair, Corrie and me, cherry juice all over his face.

  Don’t let no one tell you that it’s all shit and grime and honkypox on the stroll. It’s that, all right, sometimes, sure, but it’s funny sometimes too. Sometimes you just hang a cherry out in front of a man. Sometimes you got to do it, sometimes, for putting a smile on your face.

  When Corrie laughed he had a face that creased up deep.

  —

  “Say fuhgeddboudit, Corrie.”

  “Fergetaboutit.”

  “No no no, say fuhgeddboudit.”

  “Fergedboutit.”

  “Oh, man, fuhgeddboudit!”

  “Okay, Tillie,” he said, “I’ll fuh- get- bout- it.”

  —

  The only whitey I ever woulda slept with—genuine—was Corrigan. No bullshit. He used to tell me I was too good for him. He said I’d chuckle at his best and whistle for more. Said I was way too pretty for a guy like him.

  Corrigan was a stone- cold stud. I woulda married him. I woulda had him talk to me in his accent all the time. I woulda taken him upstate and cooked him a big meal with corn beef and cabbage and made him feel like he was the only whitey on earth. I woulda kissed his ear if he gave me a chance. I woulda spilled my love right down into him. Him and the Sherry- Netherlands guy. They were fine.

  We filled his trash can seven, eight, nine times a day. That was nasty.

  Even Angie thought it was nasty and she was the nastiest of all of us—she left her tampons in there. I mean, nasty. I can’t believe Corrie used to see that stuff and he never once gave us shit about it, just dumped it out and went on his way. A priest! A monk! The tinkling shop!

  And those sandals! Man! We’d hear the slap of him coming.

  —

  He said to me once that most of the time people use the word love as just another way to show off they’re hungry. The way he said it went something like: Glorify their appetites.

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  He said it just like that, but in his delicious accent. I could’ve eaten everything Corrie said, I coulda just gobbled it all down. He said, “Here’s a coffee, Tillie,” and I thought it was the nicest thing I ever heard. I went weak at the knees. He he was like a Motown whitey.

  —

  Jazzlyn used to say she loved him like chocolate.

  —

  It’s been a long time since that Lara girl came to visit, maybe ten or thirteen days. She said she’d bring the babies. She promised. You get used to people, but. They always promise. Even Corrie made promises. The drawbridge shit and all.

  —

  A funny- ass thing happened with Corrie once. I’ll never forget. It’s the only time he ever brought us a trick to look after. Along he comes, real late one night, opens the back of the van and lifts out an old guy in a wheelchair. Corrie’s all cagey and all. I mean, he’s a priest or whatever and he’s bringing us a trick! He’s looking over his shoulder. He’s worried. Feeling guilty, maybe. I said: “Hey, Daddy- o,” and his face goes white, so I stayed quiet and didn’t say nothing. Corrie’s coughing into his fist and all. Turns out it’s the old guy’s birthday and he’s been pleading and pleading and pleading with Corrie to take him out. Says he hasn’t been with a woman since the Great Depression, which is like eight hundred million years ago. And the old guy’s real abusive, calling Corrie all sorts of names ’n’ all. But it just rolls off o’ Corrie. He shrugs his shoulders and pulls the hand brake on the chair and leaves Methuselah there on the sidewalk.

  “It’s not my call, but Albee here wants servicing.”

  “I told ya not to tell ’em my name,” shouts the old guy.

  “Shut up,” says Corrie, and he walks away.

  Then he turns around once more and looks at Angie and says: “Just don’t rob him, please.”

  “Me, dice him?” says Angie, with her eyes all starry and shit.

  Corrie raises his eyes to heaven and shakes his head.

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  “Promise me,” he says, and then he slams the door of his brown van and sits inside, waiting.

  Corrie turns on the radio real loud.

  We get down to work. It turns out Methuselah’s got enough scratch to keep us all going awhile. He musta been saving for years. We decide to give him a party. So we lift him into the back of a fruit- and- vegetable truck and make sure his brake is on, and we take our clothes off and get to dancing. Shaking it in his face. Rubbing him up and down. Jazzlyn’s jumping up and down on the fruit crates. And we’re all naked, playing the Hike! game with bits of lettuce and tomatoes. It’s hilarious.

  The funny thing is, the old guy, he’s about nineteen hundred years old at least, just closes his eyes and sits back against his wheelchair, like he’s breathing us all in, a little smile on his face. We offer him whatever he wants, but he just keeps his eyes closed, like he’s remembering something, and he’s got that grin on his mug the whole time, he’s in heaven.

  Eyes closed and nostrils flaring. He’s like one of those guys who likes just to smell everything. He says to us something about being hungry and how he met his wife when he was hungry and then they crossed some border together into Austria and then she died.

  He had a voice like Uri Geller. Most of the time when tricks say anything, we just say, “ Ah- ha ,” like we understand them perfectly. He had tears rolling down his face, half of them were tears of joy, and half of them were something else, I don’t know what. Angie shoved her titties in his face and shouted: “Bend this spoon, motherfucker.”

  Some girls like old guys because they don’t want a lot. Angie don’t mind them. But, me, I hate old guys, especially when they got their shirts off. They got these little droopy tits like icing off the side of a cake. But, hey, he was paying us and we kept telling him how good he looked. He was getting all red in the face.

  Angie was shouting, “Don’t give him a heart attack, girls—I hate the emergency ward!”

  He let the brake on his wheelchair go and when we were done he paid us all twice as much as we asked. We lifted him out the truck and this old guy started looking for Corrie: “Where’s that pussy asshole?”

  Angie said: “Who you calling a pussy, you pussy- ass, shrivel- dick?”

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  he sat waiting, and said thank you to us all, and just pushed that old guy back to his van. Funny thing is, there was a piece of lettuce stuck to the old guy’s wheelchair, inside the wheel. Corrie pushed him to the truck and the piece of lettuce went round and round and round.

  Corrie was like: “Remind me never to eat salad, ever ever ever again.”

  That cracked us up. That was one of the best nights we ever had under the Deegan. I suppose Corrie was helping us out. That old guy was made of cash. He smelled a bit bad, but he was worth it.

  —

  Every time I get a piece of lettuce in the prison chow now, I just have to laugh.

  —

  The boss matron likes me. She had me in her office. She said: “Open your jumpsuit, Henderson.” I opened it up and let my tits hang out. She just sat in her chair and didn’t move, just closed her eyes and started breathing heavy. Then after a minute she said: “Dismissed.”

  —

  The femmes have a different shower time than the butches. That don’t make no difference. There’s all sorts of crazy shit goes on in the showers.

  I thought I’d seen it all, but sometimes it looks like a massage salon.

  Someone brought in butter once from the kitchen. They had it al
ready melted down. The matrons with their nightsticks love getting off on it.

  It’s illegal but sometimes they bring the guards in from the male prison.

  I think I’d jerk them off just for a pack of cigarettes. You can hear the oohs and ahhs when they come around. But they don’t fuck or rape us.

  They stop at that. They just stare and get off on it, like the boss matron.

  I had a British trick once, and he called it getting me jollies. “Hey, luv, any chance of gettin’ me jollies?” I like that. I’m gonna get my jollies. I’m gonna hang myself from the pipes in the shower room and then I’ll get my jollies.

  Watch me dance from the jolly pipe.

  —

  Once I wrote Corrie a letter and left it in his bathroom. I said: I really dig you, John Andrew. That was the only time I ever called him by his real McCa_9781400063734_4p_03_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:34 PM Page 229

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  name. He told it to me and said it was a secret. He said he didn’t like the name—he was named after his father, who was an Irish asshole. “Read the note, Corrie,” I said. He opened it up. He blushed. It was the cutest thing, him blushing. I wanted to pinch his cheeks.

  He said, “Thanks,” but it sounded like Tanks, and he said something about how he had to get himself good with God, but he liked me, he said, he really did, but really he had something going with God. He said it like he and God were having a boxing match. I said I’d stand ringside. He touched my wrist and said, “Tillie, you’re a riot.”

  —

  Where are my babies? One thing I know, I used to sugar them up way too much. Eighteen months old and they were already sucking on lollipops.

  That’s a bad grandmother, you ask me. They’re gonna have bad teeth. I’m gonna see them in heaven and they’re gonna be wearing braces.

  —

  First time I ever turned a trick I went and bought myself a supermarket cake. Big white one with frosting. I stuck my finger into it and licked. I could smell the man on my finger.

  When I first sent Jazzlyn out, I bought her a supermarket cake too.

  Foodland special. Just for her, to make her feel better. It was half eaten by the time she came back. She stood there in the middle of the room, tears in her eyes: “You ate my goddamn cake, Tillie.”

  And I was sitting there with icing all over my face, going, “No I didn’t, Jazz, not me, no way.”

  —

  Corrie was always talking that shit about getting her a castle and all. If I had a castle I’d let down the drawbridge and allow everyone to leave. I broke down at the funeral. I shoulda kept my ’posure, but I didn’t. The babies weren’t there. Why weren’t the girls there? I woulda killed to see them. That’s all I wanted to see. Someone said they were being looked after by social services, but someone else said that it’d be all right, they said the babies got a good babysitter.

  That was always the hardest thing. Getting a babysitter so we could hit the stroll. Sometimes it was Jean and sometimes it was Mandy and McCa_9781400063734_4p_03_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:34 PM Page 230

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  sometimes Latisha, but the best of them all woulda been nobody, I know that.

  I shoulda just stayed at home and ate all the supermarket cakes until I couldn’t even get outta the chair.

  —

  I don’t know who God is but if I meet Him anytime soon I’m going to get Him in the corner until He tells me the truth.

  I’m going to slap Him stupid and push Him around until He can’t run away. Until He’s looking up at me and then I’ll get Him to tell me why He done what He done to me and what He done to Corrie and why do all the good ones die and where is Jazzlyn now and why she ended up there and how He allowed me to do what I done to her.

  He’s going to come along on His pretty white cloud with all His pretty little angels flapping their pretty white wings and I’m gonna out and say it formal: Why the fuck did you let me do it, God?

  And He’s gonna drop His eyes and look to the ground and answer me.

  And if He says Jazz ain’t in heaven, if He says she didn’t make it through, He’s gonna get himself an ass- kicking. That’s what He’s gonna get.

  An ass- kicking like none He ever got before.

  —

  I ain’t gonna whine either before or after I do it. Well, I guess there’d be no whining after anyway. If you think of the world without people it’s about the most perfect thing there ever is. It’s all balanced and shit. But then come the people, and they fuck it up. It’s like you got Aretha Franklin in your bedroom and she’s just giving it her all, she’s singing just for you, she’s on fire, this is a special request for Tillie H., and then all of a sudden out pops Barry Manilow from behind the curtains.

  At the end of the world they’re gonna have cockroaches and Barry Manilow records, that’s what Jazzlyn said. She cracked me up too, my Jazz.

  —

  It weren’t my fault. Peaches from C- 49 came at me with a piece of lead pipe. She ended up in the infirmary with fifteen stitches across her back.

  People think I’m easy ’cause I’m cute.

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  just hit her one good whack. It weren’t my fault. I didn’t want to juice her up, that was all. I’m not into that. Simple fact is she needed an ass- kicking.

  —

  The boss matron was up in my face. She said I was gonna have to go upstate. She said: “We’re shipping you upstate for the last few months of your sentence.” I was like: “What the fuck?” She said: “You heard me, Henderson, no cursing in this office.” I said: “I’ll take it all off for you, boss, every stitch.” She shouted: “How dare you! Don’t insult me! That’s disgusting.” I said: “Please don’t send me upstate. I want to see my babies.” She said nothing and I got nervous and said something not too polite again. She said, “Get the hell out of here.”

  I went around the side of her desk. I was just going to open my jumpsuit to pleasure her, but she hit the panic button. In came the screws. I didn’t mean to do what I done, I didn’t mean to get her in the face, I just lashed out with my foot. I knocked her front tooth out. I guess it don’t matter. I’m going upstate now for sure. I’m on the pony express.

  The boss matron didn’t even beat the shit out of me. She lay there on the floor a moment and I swear she almost smiled, and then she said:

  “I’ve got something real nice for you, Henderson.” They put me in cuffs and they arraigned me, all formal and everything. They put me in the van and booked me and brought me to Queens court.

  I pleaded guilty to assault and they gave me eighteen months more.

  That’s near two years all together with time served. The defense lawyer told me it was a good deal, I coulda gotten three, four, five years, even seven. He said, “Honey, take it.” I hate lawyers. He was the sort who walks around with a stick so far up his ass you could’ve waved a flag under his nose. Said he pleaded with the judge and all. He said to the judge: “It’s just one tragedy after another, Your Honor.”

  I told him the only tragedy is that I don’t see my babies nowhere. How come my babies weren’t in the courtroom? That’s what I wanted to know.

  I shouted it out. “How come they ain’t here?”

  I was hoping somebody would be there, that Lara girl or somebody, but there was nobody at all.

  The judge, he was black this time, he must’ve gone to Harvard or something. I thought he woulda understood, but niggers can be worse on niggers sometimes. I said to him, “Your Honor, can you get me my ba-McCa_9781400063734_4p_03_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:34 PM Page 232

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  bies? I just wanna see them once.” He shrugged and said the babies were in a good place.
He never once looked me in the face. He said: “Describe to me exactly what happened.” And I said: “What happened is that I had a baby and then she had some babies of her own.” And he said, “No, no, no—with the assault.” And I said, “Oh, who the fuck cares a flying fuck about the fucking assault, god fucking damn it fuck me fuck you and fuck your wife.” Then my lawyer shut me up. The judge looked down over his glasses at me and sighed. He said something about Booker T. Washington, but I wasn’t listening too good. Finally, he said there was a specific request from a warden to put me in a penitentiary upstate. He said the word penitentiary like he was lording it over me. I said to him: “And fuck your parrot too, asshole.”

  He snapped his gavel on the bench and that was that.

  —

  I tried to scratch their eyes out. They had to put me in restraint and bring me to the hospital wing. Then on the bus upstate they had to restrain me again. Even worse, they didn’t tell me they was going to move me from New York. I kept shouting out for the babies. Upstate woulda been okay, but Connecticut? I’m no country girl. They had a shrink meet me and then they gave me a yellow jumpsuit. You’d need a shrink for sure if you wanted to wear a yellow jumpsuit.

  I was brought into an office and I told the shrink that I was real happy to be in suburban Connecticut. Real real happy. I said if she gave me a knife I’d show her just how happy. I’d trace it out on my wrist.

  “Lock her up,” she said.

  —

  They give me pills. Orange ones. They watch them go down. Sometimes I can fake it and tuck one of them in the hole in the back of my teeth.

  Someday I’m going to take them all together like one great big delicious orange, and then I’ll reach up to the jolly pipe and say sayonara.

  —

  I don’t even know my cell mate’s name. She’s fat and wears green socks.

  I told her I’m gonna hang myself and all about the jolly pipe and she said,

  “Oh.” Then a few minutes later she said, “When?”

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  —

  I guess that white woman, Lara, worked things out, or someone did, somehow, somewhere. I went down to the waiting room. The babies! The babies! The babies!