by Harlan Ruud
s e e d
H A R L A N R U U D
For Delphine, the second most beautiful
of seven sisters;and for Lorna, the first.
I want to help you. I want to comfort you,
but I know I disgust you. I'm repulsive to you.
And I know it because you disgust me.
When slaves love one another, it's not love.
- from The Maids by Jean Genet
‘You can stop now.’
I open my eyes.
‘What?’
‘You can stop shaking your head,’ she says, ‘and pass me my purse.’
I lean forward, picking her small, red-sequined purse off the floor, and pass it to her. She takes it, opens it, and begins rummaging through the jumbled contents. Unable to find what she is looking for, she turns the purse upside down and spills its contents onto the bed.
‘Here we go,’ she says. ‘Watch this.’
She picks up a safety-pin, bends, then straightens it, and looks at me.
‘Open your eyes,’ she demands.
‘They are open,’ I reply.
‘Oh, God,’ she says, groaning. ‘You’re pathetic. Really, you are.’
I shrug.
She looks at me and frowns.
‘Anyway,’ she says, rolling her eyes, ‘just stay with me, okay?’
Again, I shrug.
‘Okay?’
‘Okay,’ I reply.
I watch as she raises the safety-pin and, opening her mouth as if to show me what is inside, pushes its tip through her cheek. Raising her left hand, she puts her index finger inside her mouth and, with her thumb, snaps the safety-pin shut.
‘See,’ she says, the pin’s rounded tip hanging over her bottom lip. ‘No blood. No pain.’
I say nothing, watching her; I am beginning to get an erection.
She unsnaps the safety-pin, then pulls it, as if a sliver, out of her cheek. Gently tapping the smooth, unblemished skin with her middle finger, she tosses the pin onto the bed and smiles at me.
‘You should see how people react,’ she says, ‘when I do it in a bar.’
I lower my hand, squeezing my erection through my trousers.
‘This turns you on?’ she asks, raising her eyebrows.
‘You turn me on,’ I reply.
‘I’m sure I do,’ she says, beginning to pick up her belongings from the bed and return them to her purse. Once done, she retrieves a small, silver tube, unscrews its lid, and applies a thick layer of dark red lipstick. Finished, she drops the tube into her purse, then sets it next to the bed.
‘Does this turn you on?’ she asks, giggling.
‘Its possibilities do,’ I reply, unbuttoning my trousers.
Unsteady, I step back, resting against the wall, and slowly undo the remaining buttons.
‘Did your father have a big dick?’ she asks.
‘No,’ I reply. ‘But my son does.’
‘Your son?’
‘Yeah,’ I reply. ‘My son. Ulysses.’
She looks at me and smiles, then leans forward and slowly crawls on her hands and knees to the end of the bed.
‘Tell me all about him,’ she whispers.
I turn and walk slowly to the end of the hallway. If I think of anything it is of the need to think nothing, aware of only that which is before me: the dark red walls, the wooden floor, my movement past, upon.
My grandfather’s bedroom door is open; passing, I glance inside the small, windowless room, but I do not stop.
At the end of the hallway, I stand before my father's bedroom and slowly open the door. He is on the bed beneath the window, his naked body stretched out in the dim, early-evening light. The room is warm and small, shadow overlapping shadow, with a bed, dresser, and desk. I step through the narrow doorway and walk to the bed.
His hands are at his side, legs together, his face tilted up and to the left, as if, upon death, he had been looking out the window. His eyes are closed, as is his mouth, and on his left cheek, just below the eye, is a single drop of blood. I look up at the ceiling, then down; across his feet is a dark red blanket.
His body is nearly hairless. He is a big man, tall and broad, muscular, with huge, worn hands and feet. Like me, he is uncircumcised. His cock is big, coiled like a snake between his thighs, but his balls are small, like a young boy's or a bodybuilder's, and briefly I am embarrassed. I raise my head and look out the window into the clear, dark sky.
I close my eyes, whispering:
'You can think of a whole lot of good stuff to tell a nigger when you're –'
I open my eyes and reach for the edge of the dull gray bed sheet on which he lay. I pull it up and over him, then walk around to the opposite side of the bed and do the same. I wrap him with the thin sheet, as if in a cocoon, then knot its ends. I do this as if I have done it before.
I move quickly and lift him up, over my shoulder, holding his legs with both of my arms. Staring down at the wooden floor, I step forward, and say:
'One.'
Though not as heavy as I had imagined, his limbs are stiff, awkward, and I stumble with the body out of the room, down the narrow stairway, through the kitchen, and out of the house.
'Thirty-one, thirty-two,' I whisper, 'thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five.'
I move slowly across the yard and through the trees, staring at the ground as I walk.
'Fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four.'
The path through the trees is narrow and sloping, winding; I move with caution.
'Eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one, ninety two.'
Reaching the empty grave, I take a final step.
'One hundred and seventeen.'
Kneeling, I lean forward, then lay the body by the side of the grave. I stand. Breathing deeply, slowly, I rest my hands on my hips and look around.
From deep in the shadows that rise up around the small clearing, I hear the quick, lone hoot of an owl. Above me, the sky is clear and dark, darkening. I am tempted briefly to return to the house for a lantern. I do not.
I kneel again, take the end of the sheet, and slowly, carefully, lower my father into his grave. Satisfied with the body's position, I stand, grab the shovel, and begin to fill the shallow grave with dirt. I move quickly, thoughtlessly.
I work non-stop until I am done. I am done sooner that I had expected. An hour, two hours, three? Twenty minutes? I do not know.
I drop the shovel at my side and look into the darkness. I am sweating, trembling. Across my back, from shoulder to shoulder, is a sharp pain. My left hand, between the thumb and forefinger, is raw, bleeding.
Like a door opening, then abruptly closing, a thought begins to form and, just as quickly, fade. Staring into the trees, I whisper:
'She belonged to you. Watch.'
Turning, I step away from the grave and walk through the trees to the river. I take off my boots and undress. I fold my clothes and place them neatly in a pile next to my boots.
Naked, I step slowly into the cool, black, slow-flowing water and swim to its center. A breeze flutters across the surface, causing me to shiver, as I look up into the night, close my eyes, and let myself sink.
The first bullet misses her. As she scrambles to her feet, the second hits her in the jaw and she is thrown by its force to the ground. I close my eyes. My father grabs me by the neck and says, calmly:
'She belonged to you. Watch.'
I move through the house, looking, touching. I have lived much of my life in this house, but now it is different; it is foreign. I open boxes and cupboards and closets. I look through albums and letters and trunks of old clothes. If I am looking for something, anything, I do not find it.
Soon, I am bored.
It is a big house, bigger than I remember, old and cluttered, with narrow hallways, stairways, and woo
den floors. Surrounded by trees, the many windows offer little light or fresh air, and the rooms are dark, musty. It is what it is, I think: an old, two-story farmhouse in which the owner has recently died.
I stand in the bedroom of my youth, looking at the books that line the shelves; there are hundreds of them. Fiction, non-fiction, hard-backed, soft-backed, art books, reference books, schoolbooks.
‘Meaningless,’ my father once said. ‘Every last one of them.’
At the time, as a young man, I had been hurt by his disregard, angered by it, but much later I came to wonder if perhaps he was correct.
Did it, all of it, mean nothing?
I told him, long before he died, that I would one day write about him. I meant it as a threat, of course, as a promise that I would show the world what kind of man, what kind of father, he was.
‘Do you think anybody will care?’ he had asked, smiling. ‘And even if they do,’ he added, ‘what will it matter? What will it change?’
It was a question, as with all his questions, that I was not expected to answer. We would still, always, if I ever wrote of him, be father and son. Perhaps I would feel better and he worse, or I worse and he better, but, alas, as he often said, the world would keep spinning as it always had and always would.
‘Nothing will change,’ he liked to say, ‘because nothing can change.’
I look out the window and again to the books.
‘You are not the first son,’ he once said, ‘to write of your father. Nor will you be the last. The fact, even, that you are inspired to write about me – that you are inspired to write, period – is proof of your pedestrian nature. Proof that your desire to write, to create, is as acquiescent to the laws of nature as what you create.’
‘Sprout wings and fly,’ he told me, ‘and then I’ll be impressed. Or better yet,’ he added, ‘be quiet.’
Otherwise, he believed, there was nothing a man could do, say, think, or create that would in any which way disrupt the inevitability of life – and our role within it.
‘We are products,’ he explained, ‘not producers.’
I turn from the books and leave the room. I stand in the narrow, darkened hallway and look to my left. Next to my room is my grandfather’s room, empty, unused for years. At the end of the hallway, closed, is the door to my father’s room.
‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ he liked to say. ‘Show me something I have yet to see.’
I walk to the door, open it, and look inside. It is just as I left it: dark and warm, the mattress bare. On the wall above the bed is a painting of six dogs playing poker.
I walk to the bed, sit down, and look out the window. The sky is clear and bright.
‘If Jesus was unable to enlighten us,’ he once asked, ‘what makes us think you can?’
‘No,’ I had wanted to ask, ‘what makes you think you can?’
I turn, looking down at the dusty, wooden floor. I am the only son of an only son, I think. And I am the father of – I shrug, as if in reply, then walk out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the house.
I stand beneath the shade of the verandah and look through the trees to the barn and, further, to the lush, rolling field that stretches into the distance. I turn, scanning the yard, tracing its periphery to the mouth of the path that leads first to his grave, then to the river.
I am restless.
I step back into the house. I look around the kitchen; it is cluttered, gloomy. I walk to the cupboard above the sink, open it, and retrieve an unopened bottle of bourbon. I turn, resting against the sink, and unscrew its cap; I take one gulp, then another.
‘They’ll never stay home,’ I whisper, ‘and they’re always alone, even with someone they love.’
Again, I take a gulp of the bourbon.
'If Jesus was unable to enlighten us,' he asks, 'what makes you think you can?'
I look at him; he is smiling. In his hand is a copy of my recently published book of poetry. I think for a moment, then reply, simply:
'I don't know.'
He leans forward, resting the book on the table between us.
'You don't know,' he says, 'because you don't want to know.'
He sits back in the chair and folds his arms across his chest.
'Because if the truth is as important to you as –'
He pauses.
'As you poets say it is,' he continues, 'you would never, none of you, write another word.'
I look at him as he looks at me. He is no longer smiling.
'Words are symbols,' he says, 'of what we see and feel. And, like all artists, like all people, you confuse, cheapen, both the symbol and its reality with –'
He holds up the book.
'With your attempt here to manipulate both.'
'Jesus did enlighten us,' I reply. 'So did the poets and artists and all of –'
'Prove it,' he interrupts. 'Look at the world in which we live and prove to me that we are enlightened. That we, humanity, are any kinder or smarter or in any way better because of Jesus. Because of Shakespeare or Tolstoy or Muhammad or even John Coltrane.'
'Go ahead,' he challenges. 'Prove it.'
'We are no longer slaves,' I say.
'Perhaps,' he smiles. 'But someone, somewhere, is. And always will be. And if all these thousands of years of evolution, of art and poetry and philosophy and music, have yet to change even that, nothing ever will.'
'I don't agree with you,' I say.
'Because you're weak,' he replies. 'Because you're weak and you're stupid. Like all men.'
I look at him.
'Like you?' I ask.
'Like me,' he smiles, and we sit there, then, in the shadowed warmth of the kitchen, looking at one another.
Outside, the dog barks.
I open my eyes and peer into the darkness. I am on the living room sofa, shirtless. Between my legs is the bottle of bourbon.
What time is it? I wonder. Midnight?
Through the silhouette of the trees outside the living room window, I see the distant, yellow glow of the light above the barn door.
I sit up, take the bottle from between my legs, and set it next to the sofa. My mouth is dry, sour. From the kitchen, I hear the low, heavy hum of the refrigerator.
I am not a poet, I think. I am a dancer.
I am tempted momentarily to stand, grab my shirt, walk out of the house, get in my truck, and drive to the airport. My flight, I know, does not leave until tomorrow, but I would rather be there, I think, in the airport, then here.
There is the future; here is the past.
I step slowly through the dark, and turn on the overhead light. I look at the mess of boxes before me, then turn, walk into the kitchen, and switch on the light above the stove. I stand, motionless, and look at the clock on the wall. It is just past midnight. I return to the living room, pick up the bottle of bourbon, take a swig, and go upstairs.
In the bathroom, I set the bottle on the top of the toilet tank and undress. Naked, I sit on the toilet, then turn and grab the bourbon. I take a sip and look at the pale, blue-tiled floor. It is clean, and I am surprised.
Once done, I flush the toilet and turn to the mirror above the sink. Again, I set the bottle on the tank and look at my reflection.
I raise my hands to the mirror, gently touching its cool surface with my fingertips.
'Permanus Lucien Dove,' I whisper, staring at my reflection, 'begat Toussaint Marcus Dove. Toussaint Marcus Dove begat –'
I stop.
'Begat –?'
I move my index finger across the mirror, slowly tracing my reflection.
'Shit,' I whisper.
I lower my hand, staring at my reflection.
I am exactly six feet tall and I weigh one hundred and ninety pounds. My father was six feet and one inch tall. He weighed, I imagine, close to two hundred and fifty pounds, all muscle. Like him, I am nearly hairless.
From my cock to my belly button, forming a trail through the pubic hair, is a thick, smooth scar. Deli
cately, I run my thumb along its raised surface, slowly tracing its length.
'The measure of a man,' my father once said, 'is in his scars. Without a scar, he isn't even a man. He is merely male.'
Cupping my balls, I lean forward, raising them, and look at the small, crescent-shaped keloid on my left testicle. I pinch the loose folds of my scrotum between my thumb and forefinger, feeling the hardened tissue, then stand straight.
I lean toward the mirror, thinking: Sometimes I look so dark, then other times so pale. I raise my head, turning to the left, then to the right, and think: But I don't even look like him. Not really. I am dark like him, if lighter, with the features, I am told, of the Cree Indian.
'Like your mother,' he once said.
I step back from the mirror. I stare at my reflection, not moving. I reach for the razor that rests on the sink's edge and quickly, though the blade is dull from use, cut off my left nipple.
I am not as big as him; I am bigger.
Naked, he sits on the edge of the empty bathtub and stares at the pale, blue-tiled floor. His penis is erect, huge, rising up like a fist against his belly. What, I wonder, is he doing?
I shift my position, holding a branch for support, and, through the window, I watch him. Still, he does not move.
His penis both fascinates and frightens me. Other than my own, at seven, I have never seen one before. It is huge, awful, and I cannot look away.
Suddenly, he looks up. Frightened that he will see me, has already seen me, I close my eyes. I wait, silently counting to thirty, then open them; again, he is looking at the floor.
His hands are at his side, shoulders slumped, as if tired, and his legs just inches apart. His erection, I see, is becoming soft, curving forward slowly, steadily, until it rests, finally, between his thighs.
I watch him as he continues to sit, not moving, then I turn and slowly climb down the tree.
It is windy outside and the tree branches tap lightly against the windowpane. I am in the bathtub, staring at the water as it drips slowly from the rusted tap. I raise my head and, turning around, look out the window into the darkness. Through the branches, I see the half-moon, the stars; I look for a moment, then abruptly look away.
