by Pearl Cleage
“Me?”
“Oh, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Gerry said, clutching her white straw bag against her stomach like a shield.
“I have no idea,” I said, amazed at so much venom directed my way.
“Mrs. Anderson,” the sheriff said, looking at least as confused as I felt. “What are you talking about?”
Gerry took a deep breath and drew herself up as tall as she could without standing. “They should not have done what they did. Tyrone knows better.” She glared at him. “And the Good Reverend and I have agreed to play a more active role with young Frank so he, too, can be guided along a righteous path. But young boys have forever been at the mercy of women like her!”
“Oh, hell no!” I stood without knowing I was going to or where I was going once I did. I knew one thing, though. I had no interest in whatever this crazy woman was talking about, and if I never saw either of the the boys again, it would be too soon.
“You see,” Gerry crowed, triumphant. “She can’t stand to hear the truth spoken aloud. She knows what really happened that night.”
“What really happened,” I said, “was that your grandson and his friends drove up in my yard in your car and lost their minds!”
Joyce stood up and put her arm around my waist. She was so mad I could feel her shaking.
“She invited them!” Gerry spit out the words in our direction.
“Invited them?” the sheriff said. This time the question mark was for real.
“She told them it was a young people’s meeting.”
Gerry was looking at me intently like she thought I was going to break down and confess to the bullshit like they always do at the end of Perry Mason. I was trying to remember if I’d ever stood any closer to a person who was obviously a raving lunatic.
“She told them there would be punch and cookies . . .”
“They were already beer-drunk,” I said. “I don’t think they had any interest in punch and cookies.”
“And neither did she.” Gerry switched her focus to the sheriff.
I could hardly hear Joyce ask the question. “Just what do you think my sister was interested in, Gerry?”
Gerry pursed her lips. “Ask her if you aren’t afraid to hear the truth.”
Joyce walked over until she was standing right in front of Gerry. “The truth? The truth is that these two young brothers came to my house drunk. They had sex with the mother of Frank’s child inside and outside of your Cadillac, and when Frank got tired of watching, he threw a bottle through my front window because he couldn’t think of anything better to do.”
Gerry sputtered and tried to get to her feet, but Joyce was standing so close up on her and the couch was so low that she couldn’t get her balance. Joyce didn’t move.
“If they told you anything else, anything else at all, they’re liars and you and the Good Reverend are fools.”
Gerry leaped to her feet.
“Hold on now.” The sheriff finally found his voice. “Just hold on! Everybody just relax!”
All I could hear was my own heart beating. I wondered whose idea it was to put this spin on things. I have to admit, I’ve been accused of a lot of things in my life, most of which I was probably guilty of doing, but this was a first. Coming on to kids has never been my style.
“Everybody sit down,” Sheriff Gates said, and when nobody moved, he said it again, loud enough to break the spell created by Gerry’s inane accusation. We all sat back down without taking our eyes off each other. The sheriff looked at Gerry. You could tell this was the kind of morning he hated, when he actually had to confront a problem and decide what to do about it.
“Mrs. Anderson, this is the first I have heard of anybody inviting the boys over that night, and it is a pretty serious accusation.”
“Ask her!” Gerry pointed at me again. Joyce leaned forward to respond, but Sheriff Gates held up his hand for silence.
“I’m asking you,” he said. “What do you mean she invited them?”
“My grandson was in town having a soda with his friends while I did some errands and I ran into her in the drugstore.”
She said it like my name was too nasty a word to pass her lips.
“We had a difference of opinion on my responsibility for my grandson’s safety and welfare, and when she left the store, she saw a chance to defy me even further.”
“Defy you?” I wonder if that was before or after Frank decided I had death pussy.
“Please! We’ll get your side of the story in a minute.” Sheriff Gates held up that silence hand again, but now it just pissed me off.
“My side of the story? There is no story!” I said. “I watched them break the window. I was there! The baby was there! What story?”
Sheriff Gates looked pained. “I have to hear all parties,” he said. “Please?”
I sat back beside Joyce. We looked at each other. If that harassment outside the drugstore could be described as an invitation for punch and cookies, who knew what might happen next? We didn’t have to wait long to find out.
“Then what?” Sheriff Gates said to Gerry, who was waiting to finish her fairy tale.
“The young people had been to the movies and they decided to stop by and see if any of their other friends had decided to attend, but when they got there—” Gerry cleared her throat “—there weren’t any other children there—”
“Except a sleeping infant, of course,” I said.
She ignored me. “So Tyrone did a foolish thing. They should have gone home right then, but they didn’t do that, did you, Tyrone?”
Tyrone shook his head without removing his eyes from a spot on the floor in front of him. Gerry patted his hand encouragingly and he jerked away from her as if her touch burned him.
“Tyrone wanted to thank her for the invitation and apologize for arriving so late, so he knocked on the door and she came out in her . . . her . . .”
This was giving me a headache. I wondered what kind of Frederick’s of Hollywood getup she was going to say I greeted them in. Probably a leather bustier and some crotchless panties.
“In her nightgown!” Gerry closed her eyes at the thought.
“Come on,” I couldn’t resist saying. “If I’m seducing teenagers, wouldn’t I at least wear a black negligee?”
“Go on, Mrs. Anderson,” the sheriff said, sounding skeptical.
“She waved at the children waiting in the car and asked Tyrone to come in so she could give him some cookies to take home, and when he did, she . . .” Gerry closed her eyes again, reached over, and grabbed Tyrone’s hand before he could jerk it away. “She tried to kiss my boy!”
The sheriff looked at me, then at Gerry, then at Tyrone.
“Did she touch you?” the sheriff said to Tyrone.
“Naw.”
“Did anybody touch you?”
“Naw.”
“What did you do then?”
Tyrone shrugged. “I went outside and got in the car. When I told my buddy it wasn’t no party like she promised, he got mad and that’s why he threw the bottle.”
That’s when I started laughing. I didn’t mean to, but it was either laugh or cry, and tears were not an option. I believed Eddie about the lessons being everywhere if you just took time to look for them, but I’ll be damned if I could see one in the middle of this madness. I felt Joyce’s arm tighten around me, squeezing me a little so I’d stop laughing, but I was scared to stop. I figured if I stopped laughing, I was going to go off on Gerry and that fat fool of a sheriff and that grinning little weasel, Tyrone.
I finally got myself together and took a deep breath. Joyce was still holding on to me. She spoke to the sheriff, but she was looking straight at Gerry. “So where does that leave us?”
Sheriff Gates looked at Gerry. He was tired, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew she was lying, but he was obligated to ask the official question.
“Mrs. Anderson, are you prepared to file a formal complaint?”
Ger
ry shook her head slowly. “That is not my intention. I don’t want to put my grandson through a public spectacle. He’s been through enough.”
I started laughing again, but I squashed it pretty quick. I felt like I was headed for hysteria.
“Then what do you want?” The sheriff was getting tired of the game, whatever it was.
“I want them to agree to leave my grandson and the other children of this town alone.”
Bingo! Joyce was right. This was still tied to the Sewing Circus. Nobody’s giving out grants for youth work to somebody’s who’s harboring an attempted child molester.
“Then you have to swear out a complaint against her.”
“Why? I’ve already told you what happened. Isn’t that enough?”
“I’m just the sheriff. Corrupting a minor is a very serious offense, Mrs. Anderson. There will have to be a trial if you press charges.”
“A trial?” Gerry sounded surprised and even a little frightened. What did she expect? That she could say that shit and the sheriff would slap my wrists and send me home to sin no more?
“I don’t want . . . I don’t want Tyrone to have to go through a trial. An experience like that can mark a child for life.”
The sheriff shrugged and sat back. He hadn’t believed her story, although I could tell he was titillated by it, with his tired ass. “Then we got no place to go.”
“Yes we do,” Joyce said. “I want to pursue my complaint for damages and any fine that can be levied for malicious mischief.”
“Like I told you, Mrs. Mitchell, the judge will probably just throw it out.”
“I don’t care.”
“Fine.” The sheriff made a note on his pocket paper. “Anything else?”
Joyce stood up and I stood up right with her. She pointed at Gerry and her hand was steady as a rock. “If I hear one word of this ridiculous story anywhere in this town, or read any part of it in letters to anybody outside this town, I’ll sue you and the Good Reverend for slander. Then we will have a trial for sure.”
We started out, but Joyce turned at the door and looked back at Gerry. She spoke slowly and clearly like she wanted to be sure Gerry didn’t miss anything. “You should be ashamed.”
Gerry struggled up off the couch and followed us out into the hallway.
“Just keep walking,” Joyce said. “I’m through with all this madness.”
“Been through,” I said.
“If there is shame to bear, it is on your shoulders, not mine!” Gerry’s voice called after us, and when we just kept walking, one final insult. “Harlot!”
I added that to my list of firsts for the day. I had never been called a harlot before either.
Joyce backed the car out so fast and wild I thought she was going to hit the side of the building. Neither of us said anything for a while, then Joyce said, “I’m sorry, sweetie. Are you okay?”
I looked at Joyce’s tight, angry face. “It’s all your fault,” I said.
“How do you figure that?” Joyce said.
“What was she supposed to think after she caught you with those jumbo hot dogs? She probably figured this slut thing runs in the family.”
Joyce laughed a little bit then and shook her head. She slowed the car down until she was actually taking the curves on all four wheels.
“I almost didn’t have enough sisterhood to make it through that one,” Joyce said. “And where the hell was the Rev?”
“Probably talking to the Holy Ghost about me,” I said. “Asking for guidance on what to do.”
“Did you see her face when we were leaving?” Joyce said. “She looked crazy!”
“She is crazy,” I said.
“And dangerous,” Joyce said, pulling into our yard.
“Why dangerous?” I said.
“Anybody carrying around that many lies and that much anger is dangerous.”
“This can’t all be about the Sewing Circus,” I said.
“I don’t know what it’s about,” Joyce said. “But whatever it is, I don’t think it’s over.”
• 14
i washed eddie’s hair this morning. I liked every part of Eddie’s house, but I think the bathroom was the part I liked the best. A lot of people think of the bathroom as a practical place only. They don’t care what it looks like, what the vibe is, because all they intend to do is maintain their basic hygiene requirements and answer calls of nature. Not Eddie. His bathroom was a tropical rain forest. He had painted the walls pale green and installed a couple of skylights for the plants that were everywhere, hanging, sitting in pots, curling around the edges of the basin.
It was a big room. He’d knocked out a couple of walls to expand it, and he had an old-fashioned claw-footed tub big enough to slide down in up to your chin and not slop water over the sides. I loved it. I feel so peaceful and safe there, it didn’t even freak me out when I told him about the stuff Gerry was saying about me.
He couldn’t believe it either, but he agreed with Joyce that she’s probably not through with us yet. His locks are so thick they took a whole bottle of conditioner, but they look wonderful. They smell great, too. I remember I had this fantasy about a lover with serious dreads, but as in any fantasy worthy of the name, the maintenance is overlooked in favor of the sepia-toned, slow-motion sequences where he leans over you, his hair forming a private curtain behind which you explore the full realm of sensual pleasure. But then one of my clients took a lover whose dreads were almost down to his knees, and she said you can’t just be rolling around in bed with that much hair casually. You got to deal with it.
Eddie’s hair wasn’t long enough to be a problem yet, and dealing with it was a constant source of pleasure and innovation. The first time I saw him swimming with that hair loose and spread out around his head like sunbeams, I wished I were a painter so I could get it down on canvas for future reference.
While I was blow-drying, I wondered aloud how long his hair would be if it was relaxed. Eddie said he thought saying you were relaxing hair when you put chemicals or a hot comb in it was weird. Why would the hair be more relaxed once you took it out of its natural life into a whole nother thing?
I asked him if that was some more Buddhist stuff. He just laughed and said that as far as he knew, most serious Buddhists shaved their heads so they didn’t have to spend a whole lot of time worrying about their hair one way or another. Good thing there’re not more black Buddhists. They’d be hell on hairdressers.
• 15
aretha called last night from Interlochen. She learned how to do the breaststroke, finished a sketch called The Face of It, which she promised to bring home to show us at the end of the summer, and made friends with a Native American girl from North Dakota. She’s done so well in her lab classes, they already told her if she keeps on like this, she has a good chance at a scholarship for next year.
We cheered so loud Imani probably thought we had finally gone crazy for real.
Just before we hung up, she said, “Ava?”
“Yes?”
“Guess what.”
“What?” I said, loving all the things I heard in her voice.
“Everybody loves my hair. They want to know who cuts it for me.”
I laughed with her.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No problem.” But I loved hearing it.
In the midst of all that craziness with Gerry, Aretha is the best reminder of why Joyce had started the Sewing Circus in the first place. No matter how much I complain about having to help, I’m real proud of what Joyce is doing—what we’re doing. I think Mitch would like it too.
• 16
i didn’t think, this was a good idea, but I couldn’t talk Joyce out of it and I didn’t want her to go alone, so here we were, walking up to Gerry’s house to see if we could get a straight answer from her about what was going on. The television was on inside, so Joyce knocked on the door. We could hear voices and some rustling around, then just the television again. Joyce knocked harder and then we he
ard footsteps and Tyrone opened the door and stood there in his underwear, scratching his stomach.
“Is your grandmother at home, Tyrone?” Joyce said.
I wanted to grab him in a headlock and force him to take back the bullshit he’d said in the sheriff’s office, but I had promised Joyce I would be a supportive but silent presence, so I didn’t.
He looked at us like we were complete strangers, yawned, and shook his head. “Naw.”
“How about your grandfather?”
He left us standing there, went back inside the house, and knocked on the first closed door.
“Yes, son?” The Good Reverend’s voice sounded muffled, but unctuous as ever.
“Somebody’s here to see you,” Tyrone said, and sat back down on the couch. He was watching cartoons, and the outraged sputterings of Daffy Duck were the only sound in the room.
“I’m at work on next Sunday’s message, son,” the Rev said through the door. “Tell them to come back another time.”
Tyrone ignored that completely. Scratching and watching seemed to be the limit of functions he could perform at the same time. Joyce and I looked at each other. Tyrone in his Skivvies was not something I had ever hoped to see, especially after our recent exchange of stories regarding my inability to restrain myself when confronted with his overwhelming sexual presence. I was ready to go, but Joyce stepped inside and walked up to the closed door.
“Reverend Anderson?” she said, knocking on it hard enough to elicit a frown from Tyrone, who was obviously a serious Looney Tunes fan and did not like his Bugs Bunny viewing disrupted. “This is Joyce Mitchell out here. I need to talk to you.”
There was a long pause, during which Bugs Bunny concocted an elaborate setup to make a fool of Elmer Fudd, then the Rev said, “I’m busy right now,” and I heard the slur for the first time. Joyce heard it too.
“He’s drunk,” Joyce whispered to me, although she didn’t need to. Tyrone was incapable of the kind of attentive inattention it takes to eavesdrop effectively.
Through the door she said: “This can’t wait, Rev.”
