Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart

by Joyce Carol Oates

  The military regalia of gleaming leather straps, holsters, boots, billy clubs, drawn pistols. Mock serious white faces, jeering eyes, those loud voices like barking laughter and who dares to resist? Not Virgil Starling, who re moves his suede coat and allows the troopers to turn the pockets inside out, tear the bright silk lining are they looking for dope? is that the pretext?. who tugs off his high heeled calfskin boots and stands in his stocking feet in the snow while the troopers examine, or pretend to examine, the boots. who unlocks the glove compartment, unlocks the trunk, pries off with a tire iron all four of his fancy chrome hubcaps under the white cops' supervision.

  Nosir. Yessir. By this time Persia Court they too is standing on the shoulder of the Thruway, hunched and shivering in her steely colored coat made of brushed fake fur that looks so glamorous, surely the cops believe it is fur, and they're noting too Persia's spike heeled pointed toed shoes, so impractical in this upstate New York weather but so attractive, and her shoulder length glossy hair that's re d gold, hair in limp lazy strands but still striking to the eye, to any man's eye, and though her face is slightly puffy as if she's been awake for too long, yet not sufficiently awake, she is a good looking womangood looking white womanfucking a nigger.

  Persia has been asking them what law Virgil broke, why are they doing this to him, she's going to re port them, she says, she knows politicians in Hammond and she's going to re port them for this outrage, she says, and one of the cops says to the other, You smell something? You smelling it? and the other says, grinning, Yeah, re al ripe, and the first one says, Ain't ripe, it's rotten, but grinning at Persia too, running his eyes up and down her as if it's a joke, why doesn't she laugh, and Virgil Starling too exhausted and sick faced.

  why's he taking it all so grim?

  As if only now thinking of it, one of the cops makes a suggestion to the other, a suggestion about what the white cunt could do, she's so hot to get her nigger boyfriend off, and the other cop replies it sounds like a damned good idea, and they laugh companionably together, the two of them, crude but affable, or there's the impression they're affable. except for the drawn pistols, the barrels pointed in Virgil Starling's direction.

  There's silence except for the noise of a big diesel truck passing on the Thruway, spewing slush across two lanes of pavement.

  But traffic at this hour is sparse; there are few headlights in sight.

  Persia Courtney shivering in her wet high heeled shoes is trying to think where they are, how many miles from Hammond, from home. The giddy swirling of snowflakes like frenzied insects confuses her.

  Neither Persia Courtney nor Virgil Starling seems to have heard the cop's bantering suggestion so there's silence, and then the cop says it again, and the other cop murmurs something in re ply or affirmation, and suddenly Persia is crying, Persia is whispering, Let us alone, we didn't do anything, we didn't break any law, and her appeal is so raw and childlike, so frightened, the cops take pity on her and within a few minutes the ordeal is over, Virgil Starling is issued a ticket for speeding and sent on his way, driving on to Hammond in absolute silence, sweaty inside his torn stylish clothes and his face that's the warm ripe shade of bananas at the point of disintegration is covered in a film of glittery sweat too.

  and in this silence that has the air of the end of things, of a finality profound yet wordless as death, Persia Courtney slides her arm around Virgil Starling's neck and leans close against him, like before, as if nothing between them has changed and she's trying not to cry, trying to choke back the ugly sounds that threaten to push from her like spurts of vomitingfor the remainder of the drive back to Hammond and to the house onJewett Street where her daughter has left a light burning for her in the stairway vestibule and in the kitchen into which she staggers, alone, exhausted, hair disheveled, savage little ladder runs in her stockings, mascara like her very life's blood streaking her face.

  She staggers into Graice's room, wakes Graice from a deep sleep, sits on the edge of the bed, weeps in Graice's arms, frightening the girl with her own fear and rage and rambling drunken sounding despair Saying, So awful. seeing a man crawl. seeing a man crawl and he can't not know you've seen. and the two of you aren't ever going to not know. what it is you've seen.

  Pass.

  Hey boy, hey jig. right here.

  Mothafucker. what you gonna do with that ball?

  Stars are winking in the night sky like the lights of distant cities but Jinx Fairchild, shooting baskets in Cassadaga Park, alone, nine o'clock to midnight, never glances up. His concentration is so fierce, he wouldn't know a sky is there.

  Hey asshole. here.

  Ain't going nowhere, mothafucker.

  It isn't another high school boy who is guarding Jinx tonight, no player for Hammond or for any team he knows: an adult man, six foot five inch bastard on top of him every minute, blocking and stiff arming and breathing into his face, keeping him from every clear shot so Jinx is forced to play it cool and oblique, Iceman style, feinting and driving the ball at quick unexpected angles.

  .

  dribbling the ball in tricky different rhythms. stopping short, turning on his heel, going for a jump shot. checking the impulse to do the obvious.

  Nigger, where you think you're going'.

  Sometimes Jinx's guard is white and the weight of the crowd is on his side like gravity, but a white guard is easy to slip; it's the black guard that knows Jinx Fairchild's game. almost. If he knew it every inch of the way Jinx would be crippled, paralyzed, he'd be dead, but fortunately no guard knows his game that intimately; thus it doesn't matter if the fucker is bigger and stronger and crueler than Jinx, using his elbow and the referee doesn't see , stepping on Jinx's foot and the referee doesn't see , taunting and jeering and panting his hot meaty breath in Jinx's face. if Jinx pushes himself to the limit of his ingenuity and endurance and desperation Jinx can outmaneuver the man, break suddenly free, run to the basket, leap and toss and score.

  Shit, ain't nobody gonna stop him.

  Ain't nobody!

  These solitary practice games in Cassadaga Park exhaust Jinx Fairchild as no other games do. These imagined guards.

  But on the court, he's safe.

  He's safe, on the court. Most of the time.

  Feeling the grain of the ball against his fingertips. The perfect weight of the basketball. Snapping the ball outward from his chest, hard; seeing the ball sink through the basket because Jinx Iceman Fairrhild's eyes have willed it there. Sometimes it rolls drunkenly on the rim, as if to tease the opposing team and their supporters; sometimes it drops straight through the basket with only the faintest brushing of the net.

  Oh, man. Man, you the best.

  Shit, man. nobody gonna touch you.

  Iceman, they start to call him, his senior year. Cause he's so cool and controlled and deadpan no matter what he's thinking or feeling or the voices inside his head. Hey, Jinx. Iceman. Baby, you beautiful.

  The college scouts from Syracuse, Cornell, Seton Hall, Villanova, Penn State, Ohio State: Iceman's name and photograph in the local papers from the start of basketball season to the close.

  Ain't nobody gonna touch that boy. Yah, he the man.

  Dribbling the ball right handed, then switching to left. Trying a lefty hook shot, getting it on the re bound if it misses.

  Nobody can come near Iceman when he's got the beat. In motion, he's safe.

  Except: sometimes at the foul line, breathing in slow and deep, steadying himself for a free shot, there's too much space for him to think in and he might miss. And everybody watching. And the hush and expectancy of the crowd, twenty rows of bleachers rising against the walls. White faces, black faces, so many eyes.

  And the white girl's among them. staring at him.

  At such moments Iceman breaks out into a sweat. In his armpits and in the small of his back.

  So many willing Jinx Fairchild to sink the shot as the ball snaps spinning from him to arc through the air. and so many willing Jinx Fairchild to miss. Hey, nigg
er boy. Hey, coon. 1 The Negroes roll their eyes white shrieking Ohhhhhhh, Iceman! He's known in Hammond for his professional style, his deadpan cool. Eye always on the ball and on the other players. Concentration only for the game. Not acknowledging the crowd or the applause wild as torrents of rain drumming against the roof and the walls and the barred windows of the brightly lit gym. Even the cheerleaders' parrot cries are not for Jinx Fairchild's ears: J I!

  N!

  X JINX.

  JINX.

  JINX.

  And the voices bounding and re bounding in the gym as if amplified by the powerful lights, the gleaming hardwood floor, the fact of no shadows and no cracks to seep into.

  There are nine white cheerleaders on the varsity squad, all so pretty, and one high yalla. first time in school history that a nonwhite girl has been so honored. Of course she's the cutest thing you ever saw: dentist's daughter, nice clothes, snubbed nose, and smooth glossy brown black hair bobbing in a ponytail just like the white girls'.

  Iceman isn't interested in what occurs beyond the margins of the court; he's the kind of player, so rare, who can play an entire quarter without glancing at either the scoreboard or the clock.

  It's the game that has him in its grip, tight as a python. or maybe he has the game in his grip. His hands and feet are so fast people say they blur, when you watch. There's that liquidy motion to his body as if it comes to re st only in the spectators eye but, there, it's deceptive, never comes to any re st at all: you're watching the action, the ball being dribbled; then Jinx Fairchild has stolen the ball and is off running down the other side of the court. the home crowd's on its feet. how did he do it? What happened? The split second steal is Jinx Fairchild's specialty, executed with such apparently effortless grace the college scouts' eyes mist over. They don't know that, not consciously but by hours of absorption, Jinx Fairchild has committed to memory the uneven hardwood floor of the basketball court at Hammond Central, sensing where the ball will go dead to the bounce. where, in the heat and frenzy of the game, he'll instinctively channel any opponent dribbling the ball.

  Iceman steals the beat of their faltering dribble for a second or half second before his long fingers reach out, snaky quick, to steal the ball.

  Then it's a pounding drive to the other basket, the home crowd on its feet, cheering, screaming no matter that Hammond is ahead by twenty points, or thirty four, or as much as sixtyjinx Fairchild's head is up and his eye resolutely off the ball that's magic to his fingertips; he comes at the basket from the side with a leaping shot as if his muscled legs can bear it no longer and must uncoil, spring out, upyou'd swear, watching him, he leaps three feet into the airand the opposing team plods in his wake, the hapless rawboned boy who is Jinx Fairchild's guard shows his shame and bafflement and rage in his face, he's a white boy, good looking and sandy haired, beefy in the torso, sweat gleaming on his body like grease. Fucker. Could kill that fucker. Stinking nleger, dirty filthy stinking nigger tricks.

  The clapping and cheering like Niagara Falls, you could drown in.

  Drown in and be washed away.

  And her eyes. the white girl's level narrowed eyes. the eyes he knows are icy gray green because he has looked into them and shivered.

  Except, on the court, during clocked time, Jinx Fairchild is safe.

  His white teammates aren t jealous of Jinx Fairchild this season.

  No point to it. Only makes them look bad. Nor Willis Broadman, who's black. Nor Lonnie Jackson, Black Lightning when he's playing his best.

  The coach, Hank Breuer, no longer addresses Jinx in his nasal reproachful manner, misreading Jinx Fairchild for his insolent older brother Sugar Baby, who'd let the team down at the state quarterfinals two years before. No longer feels obliged to say for the others' benefit, I'm talking to you too, Jinx, or You listening, Jinx, or you know all this already? his ruddy bald looking face growing ruddier still. Now Hank Breuer is likely to sling an arm around Jinx when he comes off the floor, his other arm around another player: Beautiful play! A One! Happiness like first youth bubbling in him, Breuer's the coach of a winning streak team, his name prominent too in the papers, the other coaches frank with envy and the college scouts profuse with praise. He's a Seton Hall graduate himself; he has already directed more than one promising athlete to the school, why not Jinx Fairchild?

  He'll note, Hank Breuer will, and speak of it afterward to his friends, how the white kid is drenched with sweat and panting like a dog and the Negro kid is practically dry or at the most cool damp like the underside of a leaf.

  Sugar Baby Fairchild was bad business on the team, strutting his stuff in high topped black sneakers, yeah, you'd have to say he was uppity, damn uppity nigger, cutting classes and failing his academic subjects just to see, maybe, what Breuer would do, what

  Breuer could do; but Jinx takes his subjects almost as seriously as he takes basketballthough nothing so compels him as basketball, of course, that fire blazing bright, and brighter still, into which the boy stares mesmerized; if he isn't playing or practicing he's thinking about it, the court, the hardwood gleaming floor he has memorized, the bounce of the ball, the ball at his fingertips, the ball at chest level, the ball lifted in one graceful hand and thrown though it looks like tossed, airilyinto the basket: in his twenty three years of coaching at Hammond, Hank Breuer has never witnessed anything quite like it.

  He seems to re member, though, that Jinx Fairchild wasn't always quite so serious about basketball; this new seriousness began suddenly, over a year ago. Suddenly the kid is practicing by himself after school and even after his summer job: eight hours at Cassadaga Gravel, then home to eat, then out to a playground or to the park to practice more hours, the sign of a sure professional, and if Hank Breuer senses from time to time that there is anything excessive or troubling about the boy's dedication to the sport he isn't going to inquire, isn't that kind of coach, and especially not to the black boys on his teams What he likes about Jinx Fairchild is Jinx is the kind of natural athlete so good at what he does there's no need for boasting and strutting and hogging the ball; it's a sweet thing Jinx Fairchild will do, shrugging off his teammates occasional blunders, the way sometimes they'll let him down during a game, clumsy passes, stupid fouls, Jinx will say it's an off night for the team, shrugging, saying, Yah, we all got a lot to learn, we ain't the Harlem Globetrotters. Hank Breuer likes it too that Jinx Fairchild can subordinate himself to the team and to the needs of the team: gifted with eyes in the back of his head and always quick to pass the ball to the open man, no matter if the open man isn't going to handle it the way Jinx Fairchild might but he's generous that way, the other boys respect him for itso there goes one of the eager white boys leaping for the basketespecially if Hammond is far enough ahead, the game is winding down.

  On the court, Jinx Fairchild is safe.

  He's safe, on the court. Running with the team. The green and white Hammond uniform. The time clock ticking high overhead and every minute on display.

  All things about Jinx Fairchild that are in the public eye he takes pride in. His white sneakers he keeps clean and dazzling white.

  white socks, a double pair, that never droop down his calves like most of the other boys'. shirt straps never twisted or slipping off a shoulder. hair trimmed short but those sideburns growing two inches below his ears for a sharp arrowlike look. And the set of his shoulders, and his backbone, and the way he holds his head up high; even dribbling the ball he doesn't look down at the floor or at the ball the ball is his if it's at his fingertips there's a feeling of pride in it, and control, Iceman style, Iceman cool.

  It's no surprise that the college scouts and recruitment officers are drawn to Jinx Fairchild like a magnet cause surely this Negro boy is going to be a credit to his race like Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Henry Aaron, Sugar Ray Robinson, someday? Eighteen years old and six feet three inches and still growing, one hundred eighty pounds lean, muscled, loose limbed, a star who's willing to be a team player, precious as gold. And soft spoken a
nd gentle off the court, or seeming so.

  If Jinx Fairchild takes note that there are never more than two or three Negroes on any Hammond sports team, football, basket ball, volleyball, nor, during basketball games, more than four Negroes on the court at a single time, he says nothing to his white teammates or to his coach but wonders is it a written down rule the Man abides by here in upstate New York or maybe everywhere?

  Except in the South, where naturally there wouldn't be a single nigger on any team cause there wouldn't be a single nigger at most of the schools? A written down rule or just some belief or custom or superstition or instinct the Man abides by without fail?