by Alice Walker
Love? asked Rick.
People didn’t talk about love so much. I guess I would call what she gave me a real strong hit of being thereness.
Presence? asked Kate.
Yeah. As long as she was around there was no such thing as being alone.
We lived in the whitest possible town while I was growing up, said Rick. With an English name to fit ours. In fact, it was a little bit of England, even eighteenth-century England, right on the coast of North America. Black people were not even welcome there to work.
Well, Kate said teasingly, you did your part. You dyed your hair red.
It just seemed to go with the landscape, said Rick. And with my mother’s carefully chosen and maintained ash-blond locks. It wasn’t supposed to be red, of course, but like so many things I got it wrong.
How did you find out? asked Lalika.
A predictable story, he said: Having gone to lily-white schools practically from birth, in which Jews, black people, and Italians were not present, at least not as themselves, I lucked out and went off to a college that had everybody. My roommate was a black guy. When I brought him home for a weekend I realized my parents were far too nice to him. So nice he would have had to be crazy ever to go back.
What niceness was this? asked Kate.
The totally phony kind, said Rick. The kind that said you’re such a different expression of life we will suffocate you with our overreaching acceptance.
I didn’t understand it. But then I started to date a woman of color. And they freaked. They started to tell me stuff about black people I’d never heard before. They seemed to know an awful lot about the drugs they used. And the crimes they committed while on them. They warned me not to go into their neighborhoods. This was shocking. I had no idea either of them knew anything about black neighborhoods.
And then I met one of my uncles who had not changed his name. I moved in with him, after running off from home. Under prodding and after teasing me about my hair, which was where I’ve always carried on any rebellion I felt, he said enough to start me to think. He introduced me to another uncle, and to cousins I didn’t know I had. Selling drugs to oppressed people was our family business, for generations. My family had sold the stuff for years, before they owned the hotels and restaurants, office buildings and elected officials, that I was familiar with. I started to understand why my hair would always be dark at the roots. Just as the Kennedys would always have those Joseph Kennedy teeth. I started to understand why to myself and often to other people I have felt invisible.
After the Last Circle
After the last circle, Missy proclaimed a breakthrough. During the first sessions, Armando and Cosmi had spent considerable time with her. Patiently encouraging her to get out of the way of herself. It was clear to Kate, sitting across the room from Missy, that she had every intention of being healed, but lacked the courage to let it happen. Her body grew as tight as a ripe tomato, and every orifice seemed closed: eyes, mouth, ears. She crossed her legs and became rigid. Nothing is coming into me, she seemed to say, and nothing is going out.
The more Armando sang—songs so lovely they made Kate weep—and the more Cosmi played his reed flute, the more Missy dug in her heels. Once in a while tears would leak from beneath her lashes and that would be enough encouragement for Armando and Cosmi to hover over her minutes longer.
Armando had told them all many times: It is hard to believe, but there is something inside of you, no matter how sick and fed up with your sickness you are, that does not want you to heal. It will actually fight you. Sometimes I think of it as a small boy, he said, and laughed. He is there having a good time at your expense and if you get well he worries there will be nothing left to do. No games to play with your sick body, no games to play with your mind. And this little boy will have to be negotiated. It was one of Armando’s favorite words. He will have to be negotiated, just like you would talk to a lawyer. If I am well, you must tell him, there will actually be lots more for you to do. More games for you to play, because we will be much stronger. If we are much stronger, we can go more places. We can have more fun. He is an odd little boy, this part of yourself that wants to control you while you are sick. And sometimes we are all charmed by him. That is why sometimes people who are not very sick will suddenly die. They have listened to his voice too long. It is very seductive.
One afternoon, as Armando was singing over her and Cosmi was fanning her with his fan, Missy seemed to die. Her rigid body became flaccid. Her head lolled to one side. Kate moved immediately to sit beside her, and when Missy woke up, Kate was looking down at her. Missy said: Oh, something’s gone.
Whew, said Kate. We thought you were.
Missy sat up, looked around at the circle, and seemed to realize where she was.
I’ve been away, she said.
Welcome back, said Kate.
You have to understand that my grandfather, who incested me, was very small, she told them the next day. He was tiny for a man. And I think that had something to do with it. He was also a clown. That’s what he did professionally. He was the clown, especially at children’s parties. He was also the clown very often at home. My mom and I lived with him, because my father went off to the army and never came back. If he died there she never told me. She used to tell me God was my father and that that made me and Jesus siblings. I loved Jesus! Even today I think Jesus is really the coolest. And talk about hair. I thought it was just Cool City that his locks were always long. The only other person I knew who dared wear strange hair was my grandfather, so he was always right up there with Jesus Christ in my mind.
My grandfather, Timmy Wimmins, took care of us, and, while she worked, he took care of his little Squiggly Wiggly. Me. My mother didn’t find out what was going on until I was ten, when I was trying to stop playing with Timmy Wimmins and she wondered what had gotten into me.
Well, she said, frowning, when she found out what had literally gotten into me, she was not amused.
We left my grandfather’s house. But we couldn’t leave off feeling love for him. Except for what he’d done to me, he was the greatest guy.
Missy looked down into the river. It was swollen from a thunderstorm the night before. The glints of light across it matched the highlights in her brown hair.
I missed him terribly, she said. And so did my mom. We were so used to him. To his jokes, to his pranks, to his dependability. I was used to him physically too, she added thoughtfully. I didn’t want him messing around my private parts anymore, she said primly, but I sure missed snuggling and cuddling and lying on the sofa on a rainy afternoon watching cartoons. And eating popcorn with walnuts and raisins!
My mom missed having him cook for us. Missed having him waiting at the door with a glass of wine in his hand for her. Missed never having to take the car to the repair shop or to get it washed.
She paused. In a way, my grandfather was our father and our husband.
The five of them were sitting together watching the river.
And did he incest her? asked Hugh.
I don’t think so, said Missy. But we never talked about it. He might have, when she was small.
I outgrew him, actually. At ten I was taller than he was.
They were silent for a while.
He used to tickle me. Make me laugh. He was so funny. He’d be wearing his clown clothes and his clown nose. And then the playing would run off into sex; but it was still like playing. He’d started playing with me so early I never knew there was a cutoff point. I was actually waiting for the tingle.
Kate laughed. The tingle?
Yes, said Missy. And if I tingled really well and enjoyed it a lot, he was so pleased.
Like after going to the bathroom by yourself when you’re little, said Lalika.
Exactly, said Missy. I think he thought good sex could be trained, like potty training. But when I understood what we’d done was wrong I was afraid to let myself tingle anymore. I couldn’t with boyfriends, I couldn’t with the man I married. It ju
st felt like the wrong thing to do.
How did I learn it was wrong? I’m not sure I remember. It just started to feel wrong. And I noticed none of my friends ever talked about any tingling.
I couldn’t express to anyone, especially not my mother, how much I had enjoyed playing. Even in therapy I had the feeling of being perverse.
What happened to your grandfather? asked Rick.
He died, said Missy. He couldn’t be a clown anymore because his heart wasn’t in it. He missed us. I used to wake up at night crying thinking how much he must be missing us. We were his reason for living.
And yet, said Hugh, he took advantage of you. You were a child.
I was an infant when it started. Missy bowed her head.
I had such a hard time figuring it out. I took to marijuana like a duck to water. Always high. Then I switched to every other pill or potion you can name. Cocaine made me think I was smart enough to cope, but it was so expensive and my nose started to collapse.
Wow, said Kate.
But, said Missy, Grandmother told me to come and sit by the river. I sat here for most of the morning and part of the afternoon, looking at the water. What I see is that it has everything in it and it just keeps flowing. And look what else happened, she said, looking at them, you all have drifted down to the river to be with me. I promised myself, sitting here, that the first person who disturbed my solitude I would open to. That opening beyond where I was afraid to go would be the medicine for my cure.
Are we the first people you’ve told?
The scary parts? Yes.
Lalika took one of Missy’s hands. Kate took the other. Hugh and Rick placed their hands on her knees. Ah, said Armando, coming up behind them. Are we praying?
Yes, they said simply, inviting him and Cosmi, who walked behind him, to join them.
After ten minutes Missy opened her eyes wide, looked around at all of them, and asked: Did anybody else see dragons?
Gosh, I’m glad you asked, said Rick. When I finally let go I saw a dragon like the one in Way of the Shaman. I was reading it on the way down here; I think that might have had something to do with it.
I don’t think so, said Hugh. I haven’t read it yet, although I intend to as soon as I get home. I saw humongous dragons. Breathing fire.
Well, said Rick, mine breathed fire for a while and then water for a while, and then people. Streams of people just poured out of its mouth. He was thoughtful for a moment. We were being vomited up, our species, out of the depths of our own unconscious, is what it felt like.
Gee, said Missy.
Yeah, said Rick. And at that point, seeing all of humanity aimed at my head, I gratefully died.
It felt like I died, said Hugh. And I was afraid, right up until it happened. I had this feeling of foolishness too. Like, whatever possessed me to leave my cozy home in the good ole US of A to come to this godforsaken wilderness and drink this foul-tasting stuff handed to me by Indians who really should be giving me hemlock, if they knew what my people had done to them? But then when I actually started dying, I saw it wasn’t so bad. He lay back from the circle, his hands under his head, and looked at the sky. Being dead is profoundly peaceful, he said.
Well, said Missy, everybody told me I’d see dragons. But I just saw really big snakes. A couple of them, she added. Wrapped around each other.
But aren’t dragons snakes that get out of hand? asked Rick.
The creature I entered was so huge, said Kate, I couldn’t even tell it was a snake. Or a dragon. It looked like the side of a building. Except it was jeweled. Or beaded. I wonder if ancient people learned beadwork from their experience with this being’s skin. It was of breathtaking beauty. Anyhow, I lifted a flap, almost like opening a window, a beaded or jeweled window, and slid in.
And were you afraid? asked Missy.
I’d come so far, said Kate. Fear seemed beside the point. I guess I doubted I’d have much of an experience. And then, after a very full experience with Grandmother, she drifted away.
Really, said Lalika.
Yes, said Kate, that is why I stopped taking the medicine with you. By my third session with Grandmother the snakes or dragons or whatever they were were so small I could hold them in my hands. They were white and blue, and playful, like cartoon figures.
You have now experienced what humans thousands of years ago, to their great amazement I’m sure, also experienced. Such a long time ago we cannot truly imagine it. It is what humans have been experiencing for thousands of years since. Grandmother Yagé is a medicine of origins and endings, yes, Armando concluded, softly. That is why Grandfather reptile always appears.
A Person Is Visible
A person is visible only when it is possible to perceive what sustains him, said Armando to Rick. His nourishment, so to speak. Your nourishment—the food you ate, the education you received, the trips you took, the houses you bought, and the clothes, even the shoes, you bought—was kept secret. Your parents did not tell you that your shiny teeth were paid for by those that fell from the gums of drug addicts.
They thought to protect you from the suffering of the world by making sure you did not know about it. Yet it was the suffering of the world that was feeding you.
Their teeth fall out? asked Rick.
Yes, said Armando. The drug addict does not always care to eat. Or to brush. Flossing is out of the question.
You are very thin, he continued. But not invisible altogether. He paused, seeming to wait for Rick’s response.
Rick looked down at his hands and then away from them toward the river.
I’m thin because I binge, he said, on all the food I can possibly stuff into my body, and then I purge.
So, said Armando after a moment, you are an old hand at throwing up.
Yes, said Rick. Even before I knew the family secret. I felt instinctively that we had too much of everything: food, clothes, money. And my parents, especially my father, was always urging me to take more. Eat! Drink! Buy! That was the only time he sounded Italian. Even Roman. Even imperial. He laughed. Yes, he continued, chuckling, he looked just like those Roman emperors in the movies, setting off to conquer, to eat up, the earth. Devouring everything seems to be in our genes.
And then when I knew . . . I didn’t know what to feel. I realized I felt nothing. And my life went on as always. Nothing changed, even though I now knew something so shocking about my family, our history, and myself; people still treated me as if I were special. Our driver still tipped his hat when he opened the door of the car for me.
But then, one day, I noticed he wasn’t really looking at me—to see me—when he did it. I saw it was my overcoat and hat, my well-polished boots and tailored suit, he recognized. Who I was myself he had no clue and didn’t care about it either. I could have been a mannequin. A blow-up doll, he said, and laughed.
Seriously, he said to Armando, since coming to America all of us “ethnics” who could pass for white people did so. We dropped as much as we could of whatever heart, soul, or rhythm made us unique. It’s curious now that everywhere you look there are white men, but in my view most of them are invisible. We don’t look at each other, you know. Not anymore. We’re afraid someone will have the poor taste to ask: What is your power source?
And certainly you don’t want ethnic studies taught in school, said Kate, because that is exactly the question that is asked.
When a foreigner from a poor country visits America, said Armando, he feels he is moving among shadows. Shadows with teeth! He laughed. Not even the shadows of nature. We have not known why this is so. Because in movies from America that we have seen the white man’s face has filled the entire screen. His troubles have seemed real enough to make him more like us. We see he has suffered. But when we get here, he is so stiff! Besides, though we have seen so much of white men, they do not appear to see us.
They dare not, said Rick, shrugging. Any dark-skinned or poor person is likely to be from a place we have harmed.
The more powerful the powe
rful appear the more invisible they become, said Armando. This used to work differently than now. In the old days it was said that the powerful merged with the divine and the divine was all that one saw. But now the powerful have merged with the shadow, really with death, and when you encounter them they are really hard to see. Even for a shaman. Sometimes one thinks: There is a woman who sleeps with this invisible person, every night. Of what does she dream?
What is the medicine for this invisibility that white men have? asked Rick. An invisibility they are spreading to others.
Armando looked for a long time in the direction of the river, and yet his gaze seemed to hover just above it, at the edge of the trees.
In my opinion, he said, after a while, the only medicine that cures invisibility among the powerful is tears.
There was a long silence. Eventually Armando continued. Think of your presidents, he said. And how you only learned to see them, truly see them, after they died. Because then much of their true nourishment could at least be hinted at. Think of how they looked on television as they calmly ended the lives of nations and people, small children, rivers, donkeys, and goats.
He paused.
It would have been better for everyone if, instead of calmness, they gave their orders weeping.
Crocodile tears, said Rick, with a snort.
Perhaps, said Armando. Besides, they were not hired by the people who control them to feel. Only to do.
I don’t feel, said Rick. Or, I feel only enough to get by. I married the woman of color I dated in college, and she did the feeling for both of us.
And sleeping beside you, said Armando, of what did she dream?
That I could not possibly be so unfeeling. It was so odd to her she never believed it. She thought something, some horror story, some experience of sadness, would shake me to my core and that in that core would be just what you are speaking of, a bucket of tears. It’s never happened.
Are you so attached to your toys? asked Armando. You are a rich man, no?
