I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots

by Susan Straight

  She pointed the car back down the on ramp. She knew where she wanted to go, but it would have to wait until daylight, after the game tomorrow. She tried to remember the street, the one she had seen with a row of palms on each side, long sprays of misty yellow hanging from each tree, dangling almost as low as the gray moss from oaks.

  The weather was wrong for football. She paced out to Carolanne’s balcony, where the sun was white-hot on the stucco, then went back inside the living room, where Carolanne sat on the couch looking at a catalog, and Freeman tried to push his stroller across the carpet. Marietta sat on the other end of the couch and listened to the pregame show. This room seemed too light, not the darkened cave that Baby Poppa liked when he watched football.

  When they’d played college games on television, she had loved to watch close to the screen, to see the movement and faces. She didn’t like to talk, to hear anything but the grunts and yardage, so sometimes she went inside to sit with Tiny Momma. Then she could stare at the vulnerable, smooth necks of the wide receivers, the skin that showed between helmet and name. On Nate and Calvin nothing showed—their necks were so thick and close to their huge shoulders now, the stabilizing collars sealing all skin off.

  She thought she’d go next door and watch the game alone now, but Freeman came and pulled on her hand to make her come and see that the stroller was caught on a corner in the hallway.

  “Gotta be some rule that says if you’re a sportscaster you have to wear a nasty polyester suit coat,” Carolanne said, looking at the announcers. “Could we start the game now, huh, guys?”

  Nate and Calvin were on the sidelines, their hands, forearms, knuckles covered with white tape. Only their eyes—the TV cameras loved to show Nate’s face. She could see just his eyes above the face mask. “Look at that fearsome gaze,” an announcer said. “Are we gonna see Nate Cook in action today?”

  His mouthpiece made his lips carve hard, and when he leaned forward, his face was a mask of concentration. Marietta saw Nate, saw the Africa woman, saw her father’s face. Her face. Chemicals in he blood, under he bone.

  Calvin wasn’t starting; she knew that the offensive tackle, Matt Frazier, was coming off one of his best seasons. But she might see him anyway, she thought, because the exhibition season was really just testing for the rookies, seeing what they could do before the regular season and the scores that mattered. The Bengals kicked off, and Carolanne said, “Here we go. Smash and grab that money, guys.”

  Freeman hummed and sang, pushed the stroller against Marietta’s knees after she moved the coffee table closer to Carolanne, who looked up from the catalog during plays and ignored the talk and the statistics flashing on the screen. “The Rams’ cheerleaders are dogs,” she said.

  Marietta watched the first series carefully. The Rams’ quarterback was blond and flat-nosed, his stomach and legs squarer than those of the round-bellied offensive linemen. He planted back like they all did and threw, but the ball dropped a foot in front of the praying fingertips of Leroy Sims, the wide receiver. Marietta had been reading every football article in the Los Angeles Times for weeks; she had memorized all the players’ names and numbers.

  They punted, and she saw Nate run onto the field. “Nate Cook, first-round draft choice of the Rams, is starting at that outside linebacker slot left open by the retirement of Corcoran,” the announcer said. “This guy’s got competition for the job, but he’s supposed to be a wild man on the pass rush, so we’ll see what he does against that Bengal offensive line.”

  “There Daddy,” Carolanne said to Freeman. “All muscle and no brain by now. Shit.”

  “Freeman,” Marietta said, “there he go.” Nate’s uniform was sapphire blue and carp gold. He dug his knuckles into the grass and froze. The Bengal quarterback’s mouth moved and then they all sprang forward; Nate crashed off the chest of the offensive tackle and slid around, but the running back was already down under two others.

  “Thrills and chills,” Carolanne said. “Only five thousand fifty-five tackles to go. Lucky he doesn’t have to think too hard, since he’s fucked up his head.”

  “Carolanne.” It was the first time Marietta had ever called her name. “They got plays to remember. Plenty for think about.”

  Carolanne raised her eyebrows. “Nate just goes by instinct. Smell it and try to kill it.”

  “You know that ain’t the whole thing,” Marietta said, watching him line up again.

  The game was conservative, as the first ones usually were. Nate made two tackles by halftime, and he walked away quickly after each one, no punching the air. She saw Calvin on the sidelines once, but then the third quarter was almost through, and the score was only 3-0. The Bengals hit their field goal, and the Ram kicker was short from forty-nine yards out.

  On the first play of the fourth quarter, the Bengal quarterback dropped back, looking, and Nate shot through the line to wrap his arms around the quarterback like Marietta with a huge towel around a wet Freeman after the bath. His arms hid the quarterback’s helmet, and the ball squeezed downfield. The other outside linebacker, Sharpe, scooped up the ball and lumbered for the goal line, but two Bengals caught him at the twelve-yard line. Nate was slapping and slapped so hard that the announcers laughed. “Whoa, after a celebration like that, I don’t think Jones, the safety, is gonna be able to play! Did you see Cook hit him? That’s how he hits when he’s happy.”

  When the camera lingered on the faces lined up at the Rams’ bench, she waited. Winks. If Nate and Calvin saw the camera on them, no waves or mouthing, just their joke for her—winks. The white, pink, gold, and light-brown faces of the players wore streaks of black paint under the eyes. Nate used to boast, “You better put that black all over you whole face, man, so you can be bad as me. I’m natural, built-in black—but you could be a imitation.”

  The Rams never scored; the fullback, Lonnie Brigham, went head into the wall of Bengals twice, and when Coach Roberts gave the signal to go for it on fourth and three, the pass to the tight end was deflected.

  But it was preseason. Nate had announced himself. Calvin had stood on the sidelines, but she knew they would try him before the regular season began.

  While the announcers talked and Freeman lay in her lap, Carolanne wrote in orders on the catalog form. Marietta said, “What you think? Nate do fine.”

  “Yeah,” Carolanne said. “That ain’t gon make him feel better.”

  “The first game.”

  “Nate’s so freaked over making a big rep for himself he’s not gon be better after one game. You know him better than I do.”

  Marietta thought about high school, when he and Calvin had been so much bigger than the other boys. And college—no, she hadn’t seen them during those seasons, just read the articles they mailed and watched them on the screen now and then. She said, “I don’t know why Nate think he have for take steroid. He use to believe he great, just cause he love football so much.”

  Carolanne snorted. “Welcome to life in L.A.—you gotta be better than that.”

  “Steroid make he not want no touching—from you?” Marietta asked.

  Carolanne shrugged. Marietta had gotten out the magazine articles about steroid use among track stars, weight lifters, football players. Their oiled, stretched skin—their eyes and hard smiles. The articles detailed the acne, breast growth, rage, and paranoia until she put them on the carpet and buried her face in her hands. No Baby Poppa across from her to ask for help, no pictures of Mean Joe Greene to study, nothing to plan. Nate was grown.

  “What you gon do about he?” she asked Carolanne softly. “You think he still take em?”

  Carolanne shrugged again. “What I’ma do? Ground him? Take away his privileges? Call his mama?” She picked up the phone and pushed the buttons, her nails clicking the plastic. “Hello; can I speak to Bonnie? Hi. It’s Carolanne Cook. Yeah, I saw the game. Mr. Sharpe was very sharp. I know. Yeah. Well, I remember you asked if I wanted to go to lunch with some of the other wives, and I talked to Tina Brigham. Th
ey just moved here from Michigan, that’s where he’s from…”

  Marietta knew the phone would ring next door. She went and laid Freeman in his crib, but he stirred and cried at the sight of the bars, the way he had ever since Nate and Carolanne fought. He wouldn’t stay in the crib at all. She took him next door just as the phone burbled, and she said, “Hello?” in case it wasn’t them.

  “I love it when they give me play action, Mama!” Nate laughed loudly. “What you think?”

  “I think you need fe talk you wife,” she said. “Put Calvin on the phone.”

  “Mama, come on,” he said.

  “Nate, I ain’t talk with you till you go long and put thing right,” she said. She wouldn’t tell him how he looked slanting. She wouldn’t ask him how the arms of the offensive tackle had looked. She heard him put the phone down.

  She had read it in a magazine when the boys were still in junior high, how a linebacker studied the hands and arms of the guard opposite him. When the full weight was on the flesh and it bulged with the effort of holding up the man, the linebacker knew he would rush forward and block, for a running play; when the arms were more relaxed, holding back, the guard would be dropping back to protect the quarterback. She had told Nate, and sometimes it worked.

  All those games, in college, they had called and the sounds were loud around their voices, Nate cutting through to say, “Yeah, them arms give up some big secret, Mama!” Calvin would shout, “He wasn’t as bad as Nate, Mama, that dude wasn’t about nothing to hold.”

  “Mama,” Calvin said now. “Nothin for tell you.”

  “Say how it feel to play in you first pro game,” she said. “I’m so proud. Tell me what you think.”

  When the sun went down, there were no clouds to hold the pink or red, or trees to catch the goodbye colors—the huge sky was a flat blank behind the roofs, and then the blue turned dark.

  Inside, Freeman slept on the couch. She didn’t want to try the crib again. Carolanne had gone out somewhere, leaving him in Marietta’s care.

  Marietta sat on the couch and looked through Carolanne’s magazines and catalogs, stopping at the order form to see what she had checked during the game.

  Bionaire 700. “Bring mountaintop freshness indoors. The Bionaire 700 will clean and rejuvenate stale air with a filtering system that removes particulate pollutants as small as .01 microns. And the unique negative ion generator not only precipitates any remaining particles, it generates millions of negative ions to reproduce the effect of stimulating, fresh mountain air. $149.95.”

  She tried to read it again, with the sounds of Freeman’s gargling little snore and the clicking of kitchen things in the background. Negative ions. Precipitate. She thought precipitation was rain—Baby Poppa had loved that word. She looked at the clock. It was only seven-thirty. She dialed Charleston.

  Once a week, she called Tiny Momma, told her what the boys were eating and what Freeman could say and do. She had only said that Carolanne was pretty, small, and had hands as delicate as Tiny Momma’s. But Tiny Momma’s voice was a muffled whisper from the old phone that sat on a crocheted doily in her living room, and it almost hurt more to hear the faraway words than to see Tiny Momma in her imagination.

  Tiny Momma and Miss Alberta never really watched the games, not like they concentrated on the soap operas; the screen flashed and the announcers grew excited, but they sat at the table, hands busy, until someone said, “See him—he gone!” Then they would peer at the TV and try to follow the pointing fingers of Jesse’s son or one of the other boys.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me, Tiny Momma.”

  “Chile, I knew you was gon call. I been waiting on you. How that baby?”

  Marietta started, thinking that she had told Tiny Momma about Carolanne’s hard-to-tell belly, but she realized that Freeman was the baby. “He sleep right here by me. He mama go out for a bit, and she gon take a fit when she come home and he ain’t in the crib.”

  “Gramma meant to spoil babies! I know she hate me if I there.”

  “I wish you was here. Why you don’t come for stay? We get a big house for you fill up with crochet.” Marietta was embarrassed at how lonely her voice was until she remembered that Tiny Momma had seen her sick, sweating, sleeping.

  “Now you know I love to come and see California, but who gon take care Baby Poppa and Alberta?” Marietta could smell the tea, the cooking smells in the close room, the woolly breath of the yarn balls everywhere. No—no cemetery anywhere near here. Tiny Momma had to wash his headstone, bring him flowers, tell him everything. And Miss Alberta waited for her to come back to the table even now.

  Tiny Momma said, “I watch them two—I know Nate do what he like to do cause I hear Jesse and them hoopin and hollerin all up and down the piazza. That’s how I always know—they yellin bout Nate—so I can get over there to the TV in time when they show it again.”

  “They give you three replay this time, huh?” Marietta smiled.

  “Yeah. That white boy get squeeze just like a sausage from Nate. And Calvin just biding his time?”

  “He patient. Nate the one can’t wait.” Marietta stopped.

  “Mmm-hmm.” Tiny Momma paused, too; Marietta heard the hiss of her lips drawing in tea. “Miss Alberta done taken a cold. She restin now.”

  She couldn’t tell Tiny Momma bout the drugs, not even about Carolanne’s baby. She swallowed spit, imagining it was cinnamon tea, and said, “Calvin done tell me Nate eat four dinner before that game. Just so he get energy for face them other player.”

  When she had hung up, she heard Freeman stir and cry. He probably would have gone right back to sleep, but she arranged him on her lap, his hot, straight back under her hand, his lips crushed to her pants. She would have to listen for the growl of Carolanne’s car underneath her, in the garage.

  Precipitate a particle. Turning back to the catalog, she felt more helpless than ever. Tiny Momma couldn’t tell her. Nate hadn’t called Carolanne, and Marietta wondered where she had gone. Maybe to Soul Gardens; maybe to visit one of the wives she had called. Carolanne had only said, “I’m gone on a run, like Nate and Calvin say. I’ll be back in a while.”

  Zone of calm. Carolanne had put an X next to the picture of a small thing that looked like a radio. “Today the volume of civilization seriously interferes with our abilities to relax, read, sleep, and concentrate at optimum levels of efficiency. The new Marsona Sound Conditioner electrically synthesizes a variety of pleasing natural sounds that mask and reduce the annoyance of unwanted noise pollution. You control the volume, rhythm, and wave pattern of ocean surf, summer rain, mountain waterfalls, and the seeming nearness or distance of the source. $139.95.”

  Carolanne had ordered one of each and added up the total in the box. She had written in the numbers next to VISA and signed her name. Marietta kept her palm on Freeman’s behind and read this one again. Ocean surf. Summer rain. She saw her porch, the shutters that kept out wind, the newspaper flapping with air blowing through.

  What was in breath, the breath everyone always said not to let leave an empty house? Don let fire out, Aint Sister growled. Bad luck for lose ember.

  She stared at the beige-slatted blinds, imagined the window Carolanne had looked out when she was pregnant, the wide avenue and people standing in doorways. Noise pollution—you don’t know what she need.

  “When you gon go to the doctor?” Marietta asked.

  Carolanne shrugged. “You read all them magazine,” Marietta went on. “They all talk bout go to a doctor soon as you know you pregnant.”

  “I didn’t have no money to go with Freeman,” Carolanne said. “He was fine. I’m only four months or something. I take vitamins.” She glanced at Marietta. “I didn’t even know you looked at the magazines.”

  “I look at that catalog last night. Them thing expensive.”

  “Oh, the Lifestyle Resource? Yeah, I want to put those things in Freeman’s room. I thought they’d be good, maybe help him sleep in his crib.”<
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  “They gon be back tonight, you know,” Marietta said. “You and Nate need for have a serious talk.” Carolanne only nodded. “You ain’t tell he bout the baby?”

  Carolanne snapped, “He ain’t told me bout his drug habit.” She sighed. “I’m waiting till roster cuts, remember? But I promise I’ll go to the doctor next week. What do you want to fix for dinner? What should we get?”

  Marietta played on the xylophone with Freeman while Carolanne watched Oprah. A parade of people who had lost weight—their before videos were shown and then they strode onto the stage, thinner, with more makeup and their hair closer to their heads, or puffed out bigger than it had been. Constant applause like rain on a tin roof. Light Scent Downy Dryer Sheets—make your clothes smell like you hung them outside. Lysol Fresh Scent—so no one will know that you had fish.

  She looked at Carolanne’s pink-gold cheeks and her hands busy putting toys away, cleaning off the countertop, vacuuming after the show was over. “They’re gonna want a snack,” Carolanne said. “Are you sure you don’t want to make something? They like your cooking a lot better than mine.”

  Marietta shook her head. “You two need for talk, not chew.”

  “I got it, huh?”

  Freeman ate macaroni, and Marietta thought of how tomorrow she would drive to the palm trees she kept seeing in her mind. But she wouldn’t tell the boys or Carolanne what she was thinking about doing until she was sure.

  The music thrummed into the garage below and Carolanne didn’t look nervous. She flicked nail polish onto the very tips of her fingernails, where a faint edge of white had worn.