“A very good night, Señorita!” cried the patriarch of the house, and Fonny and I were in the streets again, walking.
“Come and see my pad,” said Fonny. “It ain’t far.”
It was getting to be between ten and eleven.
“Okay,” I said.
I didn’t know the Village, then—I do, now; then, everything was surprising. Where we were walking was much darker and quieter than on Sixth Avenue. We were near the river, and we were the only people in the street. I would have been afraid to walk this street alone.
I had the feeling that I maybe should call home, and I started to say this to Fonny, but I didn’t.
His pad was in a basement on Bank Street. We stopped beside a low, black metal railing, with spikes. Fonny opened a gate, very quietly. We walked down four steps, we turned left, facing a door. There were two windows to the right of us. Fonny put his key in the lock, and the door swung inside. There was a weak yellow light above us. Fonny pushed me in before him and closed the door behind us and led me a few paces down a dark, narrow hall. He opened another door, and switched on the light.
It was a small, low room, those were the windows facing the gate. It had a fireplace. Just off the room was a tiny kitchenette and a bathroom. There was a shower; there wasn’t any bathtub. In the room, there was a wooden stool and a couple of hassocks and a large wooden table and a small one. On the small table, there were a couple of empty beer cans and on the large table, tools. The room smelled of wood and there was raw wood all over the room. In the far corner, there was a mattress on the floor, covered with a Mexican shawl. There were Fonny’s pencil sketches pinned on the wall, and a photograph of Frank.
We were to spend a long time in this room: our lives.
When the doorbell rang, it was Ernestine who went to the door, and Mrs. Hunt who entered first. She was dressed in something which looked very stylish until you looked at it. It was brown, it was shiny, it made one think of satin; and it had somehow white lace fringes at the knees, I think, and the elbows, and—I think—at the waist; and she was wearing a kind of scoop hat, an upside down coal scuttle, which hardened her hard brow.
She was wearing heels, she was gaining weight. She was fighting it, not successfully. She was frightened: in spite of the power of the Holy Ghost. She entered smiling, not quite knowing at what, or at whom, being juggled, so to speak, between the scrutiny of the Holy Ghost and her unsteady recollection of her mirror. And something in the way that she walked in and held out her hand, something in that smile of hers, which begged for mercy at the same time that it could not give it, made her quite wonderful for me. She was a woman I had never seen before. Fonny had been in her belly. She had carried him.
Behind her were the sisters, who were quite another matter. Ernestine, very hearty and upbeat at the door (“Only way to get to see you people is to call an emergency summit meeting! Now, don’t you know that ain’t right? Come on in this house!”) had shuttled Mrs. Hunt past her, into Sharon’s orbit: and Sharon, full of grace, delivered her, not quite, to Joseph, who had his arm around me. Something in the way my father held me and something in his smile frightened Mrs. Hunt. But I began to see that she had always been frightened.
Though the sisters were Fonny’s sisters, I had never thought of them as his sisters. Well. That’s not true. If they had not been Fonny’s sisters, I would never have noticed them at all. Because they were his sisters, and I knew that they didn’t really like Fonny, I hated them. They didn’t hate me. They didn’t hate anybody, and that was what was wrong with them. They smiled at an invisible host of stricken lovers as they entered our living room, and Adrienne, the oldest, who was twenty-seven, and Sheila, who was twenty-four, went out of their way to be very sweet with raggedy-assed me, just like the missionaries had told them. All they really saw was that big black hand of my father’s which held them at the waist—of course, my Daddy was really holding me at the waist, but it was somehow like it was them. They did not know whether they disapproved of its color, its position, or its shape: but they certainly disapproved of its power of touch. Adrienne was too old for what she was wearing, and Sheila was too young. Behind them, here came Frank, and my father loosened his hold on me a little. We clattered and chattered into the living room.
Mr. Hunt looked very tired, but he still had that smile. He sat down on the sofa, near Adrienne, and he said, “So you saw my big-headed boy today, did you?”
“Yes. He’s fine. He sends his love.”
“They ain’t giving him too hard a time?—I just ask you like that because, you know, he might say things to you he wouldn’t say to me.”
“Lovers’ secrets,” said Adrienne, and crossed her legs, and smiled.
I didn’t see any reason at all to deal with Adrienne, at least not yet; neither did Mr. Hunt, who kept watching me.
I said, “Well. He hates it, you can see that. And he should. But he’s very strong. And he’s doing a lot of reading and studying.” I looked at Adrienne. “He’ll be all right. But we have to get him out of there.”
Frank was about to say something when Sheila said, sharply, “If he’d done his reading and studying when he should have, he wouldn’t be in there.”
I started to say something, but Joseph said, quickly, “You bring that six-pack, man? Or, I got some gin and we got whiskey and we got some brandy.” He grinned. “Ain’t got no Thunderbird, though.” He turned to Mrs. Hunt. “I’m sure you ladies won’t mind—?”
Mrs. Hunt smiled. “Mind? Frank does not care if we mind. He will go right on and do what pleases him. He ain’t never thought about nobody else.”
“Mrs. Hunt,” said Sharon, “what can I get you, sugar? I can offer you some tea, or coffee—and we got ice cream—and Coca-Cola.”
“—and Seven-Up,” said Ernestine. “I can make you a kind of ice-cream soda. Come on, Sheila, you want to help me? Sit down, Mama. We’ll get it together.”
She dragged Sheila into the kitchen.
Mama sat down next to Mrs. Hunt.
“Lord,” she said, “the time sure flies. We ain’t hardly seen each other since this trouble started.”
“Don’t say a word. I have been running myself sick, all up and down the Bronx, trying to get the very best legal advice I can find—from some of the people I used to work for, you know—one of them is a city councilman and he knows just everybody and he can pull some strings—people just got to listen to him, you know. But it’s been taking up all of my time and the doctor says I must be careful, he says I’m putting an awful strain on my heart. He says, Mrs. Hunt, you got to remember, don’t care how much that boy wants his freedom, he wants his mother, too. But, look like, it don’t matter to me. I ain’t worried about me. The Lord holds me up. I just pray and pray and pray that the Lord will bring my boy to the light. That’s all I pray for, every day and every night. And then, sometimes I think that maybe this is the Lord’s way of making my boy think on his sins and surrender his soul to Jesus—”
“You might be right,” said Sharon. “The Lord sure works in mysterious ways.”
“Oh, yes!” said Mrs. Hunt. “Now, He may try you. But He ain’t never left none of His children alone.”
“What you think,” Sharon asked, “of the lawyer, Mr. Hayward, that Ernestine found?”
“I haven’t seen him yet. I just have not had time to get downtown. But I know Frank saw him——”
“What do you think, Frank?” Sharon asked.
Frank shrugged. “It’s a white boy who’s been to a law school and he got them degrees. Well, you know. I ain’t got to tell you what that means: it don’t mean shit.”
“Frank, you’re talking to a woman,” said Mrs. Hunt.
“I’m hip, and it’s a mighty welcome change—like I was saying, it don’t mean shit and I ain’t sure we’re going to stay with him. On the other hand, as white boys go, he’s not so bad. He’s not as full of shit now, because he’s hungry, as he may be later, when he’s full. Man,” he said to Joseph, “you k
now I don’t want my boy’s life in the hands of these white, ball-less motherfuckers. I swear to Christ, I’d rather be boiled alive. That’s my only son, man, my only son. But we all in the hands of white men and I know some very hincty black cats I wouldn’t trust, neither.”
“But I keep trying to tell you, I keep trying to tell you,” cried Mrs. Hunt, “that it’s that negative attitude which is so dangerous! You’re so full of hate! If you give people hatred, they will give it back to you! Every time I hear you talk this way, my heart breaks and I tremble for my son, sitting in a dungeon which only the love of God can bring him out of—Frank, if you love your son, give up this hatred, give it up. It will fall on your son’s head, it will kill him.”
“Frank’s not talking hatred, Mrs. Hunt,” Sharon said. “He’s just telling the truth about life in this country, and it’s only natural for him to be upset.”
“I trust in God,” said Mrs. Hunt. “I know He cares for me.”
“I don’t know,” Frank said, “how God expects a man to act when his son is in trouble. Your God crucified His son and was probably glad to get rid of him, but I ain’t like that. I ain’t hardly going out in the street and kiss the first white cop I see. But I’ll be a very loving motherfucker the day my son walks out of that hellhole, free. I’ll be a loving motherfucker when I hold my son’s head between my hands again, and look into his eyes. Oh! I’ll be full of love, that day!” He rose from the sofa, and walked over to his wife. “And if it don’t go down like that, you can bet I’m going to blow some heads off. And if you say a word to me about that Jesus you been making it with all these years, I’ll blow your head off first. You was making it with that white Jew bastard when you should have been with your son.”
Mrs. Hunt put her head in her hands, and Frank slowly crossed the room again, and sat down.
Adrienne looked at him and she started to speak, but she didn’t. I was sitting on the hassock, near my father. Adrienne said, “Mr. Rivers, exactly what is the purpose of this meeting? You haven’t called us all the way over here just to watch my father insult my mother?”
“Why not?” I said. “It’s Saturday night. You can’t tell what people won’t do, if they get bored enough. Maybe we just invited you over to liven things up.”
“I can believe,” she said, “that you’re that malicious. But I can’t believe you’re that stupid.”
“I haven’t seen you twice since your brother went to jail,” I said, “and I ain’t never seen you down at the Tombs. Fonny told me he saw you once, and you was in a hurry then. And you ain’t said a word about it on your job, I bet—have you? And you ain’t said a word about it to none of them white-collars ex-antipoverty-program pimps and hustlers and faggots you run with, have you? And you sitting on that sofa right now, thinking you finer than Elizabeth Taylor, and all upset because you got some halfhonky chump waiting for you somewhere and you done had to take time out to find out something about your brother.” Mrs. Hunt was staring at me with terrible eyes. A cold bitter smile played on Frank’s lips: he looked down. Adrienne looked at me from a great distance, adding one more tremendous black mark against her brother’s name, and, finally, as I had known all along she wished to do, lit a cigarette. She blew the smoke carefully and delicately into the air, and seemed to be resolving, in silence, that she would never again, for any reason, allow herself to be trapped among people so unspeakably inferior to herself.
Sheila and Ernestine reentered, Sheila looking rather frightened, Ernestine looking grimly pleased. She served Mrs. Hunt her ice cream, set down a Coke near Adrienne, gave Joseph a beer, gave Frank a Seven-Up, with gin, gave Sheila a Coke, gave Sharon a Seven-Up, with gin, gave me a brandy, and took a highball for herself. “Happy landings,” she said cheerfully, and she sat down and everybody else sat down.
There was, then, this funny silence: and everyone was staring at me. I felt Mrs. Hunt’s eyes, more malevolent, more frightened, than ever. She was leaning forward, one hand tight on the spoon buried in her ice cream. Sheila looked terrified. Adrienne’s lips curled in a contemptuous smile, and she leaned forward to speak, but her father’s hand, hostile, menacing, rose to check her. She leaned back. Frank leaned forward.
My news was, after all, for him. And, looking at him, I said, “I called this summit meeting. I had Daddy ask you all to come over so I could tell you what I had to tell Fonny this afternoon. Fonny’s going to be a father. We’re going to have a baby.”
Frank’s eyes left mine, to search my father’s. Both men then went away from us, sitting perfectly still, on the chair, on the sofa: they went away together, and they made a strange journey. Frank’s face, on this journey, was awful, in the Biblical sense. He was picking up stones and putting them down, his sight forced itself to stretch itself, beyond horizons he had never dreamed of. When he returned, still in company with my father, his face was very peaceful. “You and me going to go out and get drunk,” he told Joseph. Then he grinned, looking, almost, just like Fonny, and he said, “I’m glad, Tish. I’m mighty glad.”
“And who,” asked Mrs. Hunt, “is going to be responsible for this baby?”
“The father and the mother,” I said.
Mrs. Hunt stared at me.
“You can bet,” Frank said, “that it won’t be the Holy Ghost.”
Mrs. Hunt stared at Frank, then rose, and started walking toward me; walking very slowly, and seeming to hold her breath. I stood up, and moved to the center of the room, holding mine.
“I guess you call your lustful action love,” she said. “I don’t. I always knew that you would be the destruction of my son. You have a demon in you—I always knew it. My God caused me to know it many a year ago. The Holy Ghost will cause that child to shrivel in your womb. But my son will be forgiven. My prayers will save him.”
She was ridiculous and majestic; she was testifying. But Frank laughed and walked over to her, and, with the back of his hand, knocked her down. Yes. She was on the floor, her hat way on the back of her head and her dress up above her knees and Frank stood over her. She did not make a sound, nor did he.
“Her heart!” murmured Sharon; and Frank laughed again.
He said, “I think you’ll find it’s still pumping. But I wouldn’t call it a heart.” He turned to my father. “Joe, let the women take care of her, and come with me.” And, as my father hesitated, “Please. Please, Joe. Come on.”
“Go on with him,” Sharon said. “Go on.”
Sheila knelt beside her mother. Adrienne stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray, and stood up. Ernestine came out of the bathroom with rubbing alcohol and knelt beside Sheila. She poured the alcohol onto the cotton and rubbed Mrs. Hunt’s temples and forehead, carefully taking the hat completely off and handing it to Sheila.
“Go on, Joe,” said Sharon. “We don’t need you here.”
The two men walked out, the door closed behind them, and now there were these six women who had to deal with each other, if only for a moment. Mrs. Hunt slowly stood up and moved to her chair and sat down. And before she could say anything, I said, “That was a terrible thing you said to me. It was the most terrible thing I’ve heard in all my life.”
“My father didn’t have to slap her,” said Adrienne. “She does have a weak heart.”
“She got a weak head,” said Sharon. She said to Mrs. Hunt, “The Holy Ghost done softened your brain, child. Did you forget it was Frank’s grandchild you was cursing? And of course it’s my grandchild, too. I know some men and some women would have cut that weak heart out of your body and gladly gone to hell to pay for it. You want some tea, or something? You really ought to have some brandy, but I reckon you too holy for that.”
“I don’t think you have the right to sneer at my mother’s faith,” said Sheila.
“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit,” Ernestine said. “You so shamed you got a Holy Roller for a mother, you don’t know what to do. You don’t sneer. You just say it shows she’s got ‘soul,’ so other people won’t think it’s ca
tching—and also so they’ll see what a bright, bright girl you are. You make me sick.”
“You make me sick,” said Adrienne. “Maybe my mother didn’t say it exactly like she should have said it—after all, she’s very upset! And she does have soul! And what do you funky niggers think you’ve got? She only asked one question, really—” She put up one hand to keep Ernestine from interrupting her—“She said, Who’s going to raise this baby? And who is? Tish ain’t got no education and God knows she ain’t got nothing else and Fonny ain’t never been worth a damn. You know that yourself. Now. Who is going to take care of this baby?”
“I am,” I said, “you dried up yellow cunt, and you keep on talking, I’m going to take mighty good care of you.”
She put her hands on her hips, the fool, and Ernestine moved between us, and said, very sweetly, “Adrienne? Baby? May I tell you something, lumps? Sweetie? Sweetiepie?” She put one hand very lightly against Adrienne’s cheek. Adrienne quivered but did not move. Ernestine let her hand rest and play for a moment. “Oh, sugar. From the very first day I laid eyes on your fine person, I got hung up on your Adam’s apple. I been dreaming about it. You know what I mean—? When you get hung up on something? You ain’t never really been hung up on anything or anybody, have you? You ain’t never watched your Adam’s apple move, have you? I have. I’m watching it right now. Oh. It’s delicious. I just can’t tell, sweetie, if I want to tear it out with my fingers or my teeth—ooh!—or carve it out, the way you carve a stone from a peach. It is a thing of beauty. Can you dig where I’m coming from, sugar?—But if you touch my sister, I’m going to have to make up my mind pretty quick. So”—she moved away from Adrienne—“touch her. Go on, please. Take these chains from my heart and set me free.”
If Beale Street Could Talk Page 6
