by Packer, Vin
• • •
At eleven-thirty, down in the two-story yellow frame house on East Church Street, Cindy walks into the large upstairs bedroom, mumbling as she views the debris; the neck of the phone dangling from its hook, an overturned wine bottle, clothes strewn along the floor, a photograph of Mister Dix dropped beside the mauve stuffed chair Miz Pirkle slumps in asleep. Cindy mumbles, “Lord, Lord, this place looks like a hooraw’s nest. Miz Pirkle sure raised herself some hell t’night and put a chunk under it at that. She sure carry on wid dat giggle soup, she do; she walk out in high cotton all right.”
The colored girl stares down at her mistress; then touches her shoulders. “Miz Pirkle, ma’am?” … “Miz Pirkle, ma’am?”
“Done passed out.” Cindy frowns. “Lord, Lord!” She calls again, “Miz Pirkle, ma’am. Hey, dere — ”
• • •
“It must be late, Storey,” she says, sitting beside him on the shell-shaped violet-splotched couch in the living room.
“Only eleven-thirty, Vivs.” With his finger he traces a pattern in the cotton covering of the couch, and continues tracing as he talks, making a series of spirals. “No. Don’t you see?” he continues. “I’m not saying Thad’s perfect — nothing like that at all — but just that he’s good, Vivs. He’s like Kate. There’s a basic goodness about him; he’s strong, do you know what I mean? He knows what he stands for. Principles! Some of us just — well, just don’t know how to keep ahold of ourselves. Some of us get sloppy — ” Storey Bailey stops himself as his finger uncontrollably comes in contact with the flesh of her arm; he withdraws it suddenly and heaves his breath out, sighing, “Hell! Hell, I don’t know. I had a lot to drink!”
She sets the coffee cup down on the round antique end table beside the couch; looking over at the opposite wall; at the black wood-framed Currier and Ives print above the shelf of cactus and ivy plants. “Do you remember that night at Mike’s, Storey?” she asks him abruptly.
“Remember it?” he answers, feigning nonchalance, showing some considerable embarrassment; shrugging, “Sure, I suppose. It was a long time ago though.”
“I always wondered why you changed; changed the minute you stepped out of the car and went inside. I always wondered why you had to talk nasty, Storey. I never figured it out … I suppose it was because of Thad.”
“In a way. You were his girl … Still, you started it — started all that nasty talk and I couldn’t stand you telling me I was rotten. It made me sore because I thought then that you were as much to blame as I was … It was you who changed so quickly.” He shakes his head. “Aw, we were only just kids, Vivs. What the — ”
She stares down at her nails, polished bright red, long and tapered; studying them. “When I went into Mike’s and heard your conversation, I wanted to die.”
“My conversation?”
“I heard what you said. I didn’t know why you wanted to talk that way about me. It wasn’t like you. I was shocked.”
“You must be crazy, Vivs. I didn’t say anything at all to Mike! What’d I say?”
“No — no, let’s not go into it. It was too long ago. There’s no sense going over it.”
“But you’re mistaken.”
“All right, Storey. Let’s not talk about that. We were both such kids. You with your crush on Thad, and me with mine on you … We were kids, that’s all.”
“Yours on me?” He looks at her. “Huh? Gawd, I didn’t know anything about yours on me.”
She stands up, her hands in the pockets of the blue cotton dress, stands staring out the window at the light up at the barbecue pit off in the distance. “Poor Hus worked late tonight.” She sighs. “No, Storey, I don’t know. I don’t know that you and I wouldn’t have worked out better than — ”
“Don’t say something like that, Vivs.”
“All right, don’t worry. I’m not going to.”
She reaches to the end table for a cigarette, and Storey rises from the couch, goes over beside her and lights a match, touching it to the cigarette. “I swear I never knew about any crush you ever had on me, Vivs … Why, Thad was such a — ”
“That’s why you never knew. You were too busy worshipping Thad. Oh well, what’s the sense in going on about it … it’s pointless.” Sucking on the cigarette for a moment, she is silent. Then she adds, “That night in the car with you … I never felt that way … I don’t know.”
He reaches his hand out and touches her arm lightly. “Vivs — Vivs.” His hand grips her arm now, but she pulls herself away.
“And Thad.” She gives a dry little laugh. “Poor man! I never loved him. Respected him, yes. Oh God, didn’t everyone? He was so good, wasn’t he? He was so damnably respectable, huh, Storey, wasn’t he? But — ”
“Vivs — ”
“No, don’t, Storey.” She moves away from him, from his hand on hers. “I tried to love him. You know I even felt there was something wrong, bad, about not being able to love him, but I couldn’t ever be myself around him. He wanted me to be someone else — I don’t know — Thel, maybe. Dear sweet Virgin Thel, maybe. But I was his wife — ” suddenly, dropping her head, beginning to weep.
“I never should have come up here,” Storey says. “I was a fool. I should have let you alone to get over it by yourself. You don’t mean all this. Vivs. I never should have — ”
“Never should have what?” Vivian Hooper says, the tears starting down her cheeks, her hand reaching up to push them way in an irritated gesture. “Listened to this? Because it’s true and it doesn’t have a pleasant sound? If I can’t tell you, Storey, who can I tell? Joh Greene? Guessie? Maybe I should tell Ada; she’d listen, if I’d give her a drink. No, Storey, the only one I can tell is you. I can tell you that I’m not some pure little Southern belle that does it because it’s part of her marital duties and not because she likes to do it. I like to do it, hear? Yes, and that shocks Thad Hooper, that I like to do it. But you knew it all along, didn’t you, Storey. Knew it before Thad knew it. You — ”
“Vivs, Vivian, Gawd, you must stop this!”
“And it’s awful for Thad,” she continues unheedingly, “because he thinks it’s dirty, thinks I need to be held in check, because if I’m like that with him, I must be like that with any man. I must want to do it with any man just as badly as I want to with him, because he thinks a woman that likes to do it has something wrong with her. Thinks she’s wanton or oversexed or something; thinks she has to dress like she’s putting on armour to protect her from the way she is; thinks — ”
“Vivs, oh, Vivs!” He puts his arm around her now. “My Vivs,” he whispers. She chokes up with sobs and begins crying so hard that Storey Bailey has to hold her tightly at the shoulders, feeling her tremble, some of her trembling communicating itself to him. He says, “Vivs. Oh, Gawd, we can’t let nothing happen. We got to get a hold of ourselves.” He feels her black soft hair touch his cheek. “Oh, Vivs, Gawd!”
“Let me go, Storey. I didn’t want it to happen; it’s the last thing I wanted. Please let me go.”
“Not yet,” he tells her. “Wait now. Wait till we can stop this. My Gawd, I think all the world of Thad. I can’t stand to see you like this. I think all the world of Thad. I always have.”
“And you hate me for saying bad things about your idol.” “No, no.” His lips touched her hair. “No, Vivs, I’ve always — ”
“Don’t do that, Storey.”
“I can’t help it. What do you think I want to do, hearing you talk this way? I can’t help it, Vivs. I think the world and all of Thad, but — ” He turns her to him, lifts her face. For a moment she tries to turn it away; and then with a stifled cry, half whimper, half moan, she puts her mouth over his, as he takes her against him in a sudden, swift, powerful movement of hungering delight….
Watching from the veranda, Kate Bailey, arriving then to see this, stands startled some slow seconds; then turns, walks with deliberate gait back down the steps she has come up, waits wringing her hands, and then straig
htening, calls, forcing calmness, “Storey? Yoo-hoo, Stor-ey! Vivie!” in a high musical tone that grows shrill in the night as she calls again, “Yoo hoo! Party’s breaking up, honey!” and it sounds loud to her under the moon; like some inevitable, unnecessary noise.
• • •
“It’s twenty to twelve, boy,” the man tells Millard Post, as Millard slams the car door after him, “but there’s lights on up there still — and hey, I think that’s one of the Posts heading down this way.”
Millard looks toward the Hooper house at the small, dark figure descending the hill, then waves at the man. “Thanks for the ride.”
“S’all right,” the man says as the car moves on.
Millard picks up his suitcase and walks slowly toward the old woman; trying to see her clearly in the half light.
He calls, “Hey!”
“Hey, yoself!” she calls back, an old woman coming closer, bent over carrying a brown shopping bag and a black apron over her arm.
“I’m looking for Bryan Post’s family,” Millard says as she comes up to him.
“You don’t have to look far beyond me. I’m Hus.”
“You my grandmother?” Millard stares at the old woman incredulously.
“You Henry’s boy?”
“Yes, ma’am … I thought you were dying.”
“Got no time to do that in,” she says, still studying him.
Millard Post says, “Well — well, I’m here.”
19
For the first time now, the tears are unleashed and running hotly down his cheeks in the darkness. He can feel the night around him, pressing down upon him, screaming in his ears. Behind him strangers who are kin to him make night noises asleep, and Millard Post cries because of them, not for them. He hates them, hates this place, everything in it. Everything about it.
He tastes his own tears with wonder; how long since he’s cried? When his mother died? Naw, not even then; wanted to then, but didn’t; wouldn’t. Damn near cried once when a Diamond cornered him in a lot on 111th and flogged him with a Sam Browne belt; came close that time, but didn’t; summoned up his guts instead and caught the Diamond by his knees, dragged him down and wrestled him, caught a rock on the ground in the skirmish and gave it to the Diamond on the head. How long since he’s cried? Naw, maybe he never did till now. Can’t remember. Jesus!
He is on a pallet, on a friggin pallet like a dog, and the whole place stinks — just stinks — real nigger smell — say there’s no such thing- Shit! Millard’s smelled it before — not as bad as here, but smelled it just the same, back home around the dirty ones of his people — and he used to think; that’s that piss-poor smell a Negro’s got that the school books say he hasn’t got! Real nigger smell with sweat and stale grease and the stench the slight breeze of the night carried in from the outhouse … The friggin outhouse! Millard’s never taken a leak in a goddam shit shack before; out behind the house like
some dog. And here, inside, the stink of nigger poorness. How long since he’s cried, and now why? Not because of that — naw — not the strangeness, not the poorness; the shabby shadows of make-do furniture crowded around him; and sleeping bodies of half-clothed strangers who are his blood — not just for that — for everything here and before here:
For the pillow kicked back at him; the front seat in the plane when he’d had to change airlines; the necktie he’d had to take off for some dog-faced square who called him a nigger; for the way his guts ran watery the whole time, knees shook, heart had a drum in it; for the way, f’Chrissake, he’d even found himself saying some chicken prayers for God or anybody around to help him; and for the baby-weak way he wanted out, and still wants it, wants it worse now, out and back home. He wants to hear his old man giving him hell for some crazy thing he’d said that Cousin Al had taught him — Jesus what a lily Al would think he was to see him blubbering on a piece of stick on the goddam floor — lookit the big man now! and wants to hear Pearl laughing, and to stroll out into the street wearing his Panther jacket and just hear somebody — anybody, f’Chrissake, even a Diamond with a sprung switchblade in his hand — say, “Hi, man, how’s it hanging?” Weeping J.H.C.!
Lying crying, Millard Post thinks that he has no name for this enemy that has attacked him, no single name he can say in his teeth and taste and hate, say and damn in his mind. No one single name, like other times. Other times there was kike, spic, wop, mick — times when he felt this frustrated hate, fear, worry and anger curl through him like a slimy snake coiling its body tightly around his insides — times when he did not cry as now he cries, but when he knew some iota of the emotion enveloping him now — he had a name to say and hate….
In the darkness he tests names. White? Goddam lousy white man? Naw, no — because he cannot hate white people; he cannot suddenly learn to hate them, remembering those back in New York City — Miss Foder, his English teacher — classy-ass he calls her; and he likes her; last term she gave him B, said he should have had C, but he tried; things like that — and Mr. Josetti, the fruit man up at the public market place under the tracks — he always gave Millard something extra — an orange, an apple; once a goddam coconut no one in hell
could get open anyway; but he was okay. Naw, Millard couldn’t hate him; not the white kids at school either — Paul Posner, Cliff Heath, Ginny Holt. He can’t hate white; not white he knows. What does he know about this white — these white: the man on the plane, the ticket man, the agent in Manteo? What white is that?
Besides — Millard wipes his nose with the back of his hand, thinking, Not just white anyway; more. F’Chrissake, lots more. Here — this place, this room, this fugging piece of wood supposed to be a bed, the smell, the big boy, his cousin, with the creepy name — Major. What the hell war was he ever in? What the hell is he Major of?
South. How about South?
South.
Don’t sound like nothing; south … Can’t hate South like he can hate jew, spic, mick, wop; they all got guts in their names. South. Just a fuggin direction.
One thing, Millard thinks; whatever your name is, whatever the hell they call you that’s got me bawling on way past goddam midnight, you won’t kick me. Naw, hell! Didn’t grow up knocking the hell out of all kinds of trouble for nothing, didn’t get tough reading books, didn’t get guts just to sit on my hands with. Not going to lick me cause you got me bawling a half-inch from the floor, whatever your fugging name is! One thing for sure!
And another thing, f’Chrissake, Millard thinks; sniffling the goddam tears back up his nose; this don’t mean I’m scared. Naw, this don’t mean I’m chicken; I’ve got news.
Still — God, the night! And this place that isn’t home! And everything that happened; and nigger, someone called him; nigger, and he didn’t fight.
Whatever your name is; whatever the hell they call you —
20
THE MORNING AIR is muggy in the bedroom; the beginning of this day, hot. Still asleep, Thad Hooper kicks back the sheet, pulls his leg up to his stomach as he turns on his side, and clutches the pillow in his hands, dreaming.
Lying again on the green boyhood bank by that river that day; lying and letting his toes dip in the cool dark eddies over the bank; hot, hot day when he is twelve again in August, tangled curls falling on her face beside him. “Aw, let’s Thad! Let’s go in the water!”
“Huh? We got no suits.”
“I don’t care if you don’t care.”
“We’d catch it, boy. Would we!”
“Who’s going to ever know? We’ll swear on our eyesights not to tell.”
“I just as soon.”
“C’mon! First one in’s going to win a trip to Paris, France!”
Tearing off the shirt, dropping the pants, kicking the shoes and ripping the socks off his feet, diving into the eddies of that river; and coming up with water in his mouth to see the white and gleaming new young body on the bank’s edge. “Is it cold? I’m coming!”
Swimming together, laughing and spitting out water,
racing from the rock out and back, swimming in the cool blue liquid on the hot day, and climb back then to stretch their bodies on the earth, out of breath laughing, kidding, teasing: “You got your birthday suit on, Thad.”
“So have you.”
“Boy, would we catch it!”
“Boy, would we!”
“You look funny naked.”
“Me? Lookit you!”
“You look funnier than me. Boys look awful funny,” she said, giggling, “I like to died laughing.”
“Who you think you’re laughing at?” He poked her back, catching her arm. “I’ll make you say uncle.”
“I’ll never say it.”
“Yes, you will.” He pushes himself over on her; holding her down.
“Say uncle!” “Never! Never! Never!” “I’ll make you!” “Never, never!” “Who looks funny?” “You do.”
“I’ll make you say it!” He holds her while she wiggles under him, wrestling with her on the bank, wrestling and rolling and rolling, laughing with their bodies wet.
“Never make me say it!”
“Oh, yes I will, Thel, I will! I did before!” He’s growing now, growing right there on the boyhood bank into a man, arms and legs growing taller and longer; and then the funny sound that people murmuring together in a crowd make: people behind him, watching him wrestling naked on the river bank, angry now at her, yelling now, “Vivie, stop your wiggling! What are you wiggling for!”
“Make me say uncle like you did that day, Thad.”
“Shut up! Shut up!” He holds his hand on her mouth. People are gasping now behind him on the river bank; he’s turning to them, crying desperately, “Can’t you see I’m only trying to make her hold still? Can’t you see she won’t hold still?” Crying that and thinking why am I naked? How did I get naked here like this? And the bell is ringing, the river boat coming, people standing on the deck watching, seeing them. “Vivie, stop, God, stop! Hear that bell! You want them to see us?”
