Blueschild Baby

by George Cain

  Court is in session. Poor John versus the people, charged with the crime of treason during war. A crime punishable by death. A court of his acknowledged peers shall try him. Not strangers from another country, who know nothing of him and would judge his life by a single desperate act. We are his brothers. Not that blind bitch downtown holding scales.

  Guilty, guilty, L.A.M.F. is the verdict of the people. Punishment to be decided upon and administered by the offended. Today, tomorrow, for a while, John will feel the scorn of people. But one day soon, they shall welcome him as a prodigal and call him brother again. We have so much love and mercy, a necessity to maintain our humanity.

  It is time for the convict to appear and accept punishment. John comes down. There is no hissing or spitting, only the condemning silence as he walks among us, beseeching forgiveness, a plea in his eyes. But there is none, anywhere. We cannot forgive, not just yet, for his shame is our shame and his weakness our own. The only place we see our oppression or what we have become is in the faces and actions of our brothers.

  Daybreak is coming, pink over the buildings and the rooster downstreet calls the sun. Am hungry and have a million things to do today.

  “Say Knick, I got to make it, getting late.”

  “Okay Cain. Be good brother.”

  Leaving I bump into John on the stoop.

  “Dig Cain. Don’t know what happened to me. Was just so sick. I’m sorry man.”

  I peel a bag out and lay it on him.

  WALK DOWN BROADWAY heading for my room. Stop to eat in a restaurant. Place full with night people, players, and tricks tired after a busy night. I eat quickly, untasting, palate long dead to sweet and sour. Dawdle over coffee watching the people around me. Morning light is harsh and unmerciful, it shows the wrinkles and tired lines around the eyes of beautiful people so carefully covered last night. The shiny cars out front are dull with dew and exhaustion. Don’t want sleep, but it steals on me, all the running is taking its toll. Pay for the meal and go to my room.

  Returned to the unfamiliar place, a hole no bigger than my prison cell, a bed, window and bureau. It’s a den, like an animal’s, a place to hole up and lick my wounds.

  Oppressive heat and wet sheets wake me. Come from sleep, slowly, hesitant at point of waking. With closed lids listen for familiar sounds to tell me nothing has changed in absence. A habit retained from childhood when I dreamt nightmares. Always that things were changing themselves during sleep, or that I in some magical manner had been transported to a foreign place. Afraid of waking surrounded by hostile inanimate objects. Shut eyes tight till trembling, bursting open of themselves, shake my head to clear sleep. Succeed only in becoming dizzy and stumble into my clothes and out to the hall bathroom. It’s in use and I knock to hurry the person inside. A woman answers, “Be out in a minute.”

  What time is it? No matter. Want a fix but the works are stashed below the sink. Feel a need coming on. Know I’m not hooked again, not really, it’s all in my head, been there for two years. All in my head. Schemed and dreamed that first shot of dope for a long time. Couldn’t get back from prison quick enough to do again what it was that got me sent away. Saw the skyline from Jersey going down into the Lincoln Tunnel and I got sick. Hadn’t shot or seen dope in all that time, but I was sick, nose running, cramps, bowels tightening, nausea. The sight of Babylon brought it down on me. People thought I was crazy when I jumped down and kissed the pavement. Caught the first thing smoking to the projects. Got a fix before I saw my mother.

  It’s quiet. Water has stopped running and still she doesn’t come out. There is a crack high on the door. Tiptoeing I look in. She stands in the mirror smiling fondly at herself, turning her head from side to side, nodding approval or disfavor at her profile. She holds a breast in the light, then the other and strokes them gently. She pats her hair and smiles vacantly at her image. Angry at her bullshitting and tying up the bathroom while the horror of detoxification is killing me. I bang loudly, impatient.

  “Coming, coming.”

  Her voice is confused and hurried, she’s just recalled herself from somewhere. Passing me she smiles the same smile she smiled at herself and disappears down the dark hall. Fix, wash and go back to the room, sit in the window planning the day. The unfamiliar room, its starkness and lack of personal articles is uncomfortable, like the nightmare. Grabbing my jacket I run into the streets.

  III

  IT IS EARLY SUNDAY and few people are about, pass Nellie, tired after a night on her back, we wave and go on bout our business. The winos hold down the corner, passing a bottle among themselves. I’m lost. For one wild moment don’t recognize anything. The streets and buildings become strange things and I wonder where am I. Want to talk with someone, anyone, just to hear the sound of voice. Someone who is neither black nor white, whom I know so well and knows me so well we can never offend each other. Just to talk and say things that people say to one another. It’s been so long, want to stop someone on the street, but only whores and faggots have license to audience whomever they want. Decide to see my mother and catch a bus at the depot. It’s crowded with families going to Sunday dinner with grandparents. So long since I’ve been around whites, their voices and gestures are strange. Few blacks are riding my way and those that are find my appearance as strange as the whites, stealing covert glances at me, while the children stare openly. Can sense hostility everywhere. Boarding the bus, get a seat by the window and watch the others getting on wondering if anyone will sit next to me. Nobody dares. Across the aisle a white couple sit, she in a miniskirt up to the crack in her ass. She flashes for me, then looks to see if I’ve seen. He smiles, but I see the danger in his eyes and look out the window ignoring them.

  The bus pulls out over the George Washington Bridge, the city in the hazy distance like some Gothic cathedral soars to hold up the sky its roof. We pass tollbooths and enter Jersey and immediately I feel vibrations. The whites look at me now openly hostile, while the few blacks pretend occupation. What’s wrong? Passing into Jersey has released something in these people. Am afraid and wish I had a gun. This is one reason I don’t visit my people like I should, they live too far away from the warmth and protection of the community. Always vulnerable, naked and defenseless out there, away from your people. We pass through Englewood and I’m the only black left on the bus.

  The passengers up front hold a loud, gleeful conversation with the driver.

  “That was some nigger shoot wasn’t it?”

  “Crazy niggers think they can do anything. But I bet they think twice next time.”

  “How many of them coons they kill in Newark?”

  “Thirty something. God damn, for my money they coulda got every last one, save us a lot of trouble.”

  “I’m going out to the armory now to meet my boy. He been out there six days shooting niggers. Called me and his ma the other night. Said wasn’t nothing to it, like shooting at Coney Island cept it was niggers.”

  Someone spots me and they stop for a moment.

  “I don’t care if he can hear, what’s he gonna do?”

  Sweat breaks on my brow and anger strangles me. Lord I wish I had a gun, want to lay hands on some white throat and feel its life struggle in my fingers. My stop comes. Walk to the front feeling the hate and fear around me. Stepping off, I’m greeted by a frightening sight, on one side of the street are thousands of whites. Women and children waving American flags and cheering wildly. A uniformed brass band plays “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” On the other side rolls column after column of military vehicles, tanks, personnel carriers, armored cars, mounted machine guns, jeeps and trucks flying rebel flags full of armed soldiers. My home is at the bottom of the hill and I’ve got to run a gauntlet through the middle of these crazy whites.

  Stunned and frightened stand wondering what to do. Get back on the bus, but it’s too late. The driver seeing my face laughs and guns the motor pulling off, calling the crowd’s attention to me. Wish I had my shades to keep them from my eyes and tho
ughts. I appeal to my reason, walk with bowed head to make sure there is no chance to mistake my glance at one of their women, know how they are about that. My walk is too black, too aggressive, tame it, calm it down, become meek. Feel the pressure building in my brain till I’m dizzy and suffocating under it. They been in Newark six days doing what they’ve always wanted to do shooting blacks and they all got guns. The highlight of their young white lives, they’ll tell it to their children like they were told about the World War. Covered in glory and righteousness. Fuck it. Throw my head up, get loose and stride boldly down the center feeling the hate on all sides.

  The cheering and band stop, traffic comes to a halt and they all watch me. There are only my footfalls and the beating of my body. I’m primed, ready like some machine over which I have no control. Waiting. Waiting for the word or gesture that will activate the mechanism and send me to death. One will say something and I will try to kill him on the spot. They’ve all got guns and I know they will kill me, but I walk, looking them and their women straight in the eye like I don’t give a damn for none of them. All the while ready to die. Come to a bend in the road and out of sight without incident. Hear the band and noise begin again. Sweat pours off me and I lean on a mailbox puking, two men on motorcycles ride by and shout, “Hey nigger,” as they speed by. My mind races to recover itself and deactivate the machine. Returning to myself, know how a black man feels all the time. That pressure he exists under all the time till it becomes second nature, a part of him. Walking around wary of the word or gesture that will set in motion an act that will end his life and over which he has no control. Walking around ready to explode. This is what charges the air of Harlem and lets you know you’re there, not the stink or sound, but the tension that lies overall like a cloud ready to burst.

  Coming to our court, I check the house for any signs of unusual activity. My father sits on his throne, a lounger in the yard, surveying his domain. The big shepherd dog at his feet. He is the ruling monarch of this, his fence-defined kingdom. He waves and calls me over, I pull up a chair beside him.

  “Hello George. How’ve you been doing?”

  “Fine Pop. Doing fine.”

  “Working yet?”

  “Not yet. Laying around getting used to the streets again.”

  “Good idea. But don’t do it too long. You know how you get when you’re doing nothing.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your parole officer called the other day. Said he wanted to see you. There’s a letter on top of the bureau for you.”

  “What’s going on at the armory?”

  “They mobilized the National Guard to go to Newark from there. Heard on the radio they were withdrawing the troops today. Didn’t have any trouble did you?”

  “No. Where’s everybody at?”

  “Your mother is inside. Keith took the twins to the city for a haircut and Sabrina. They should be back soon. Talk about haircuts, you could use one and a shave. Can’t get a job looking like that.”

  “What’d the P.O. say?”

  “Nothing much. Wanted to know if you were working and still living here. Told him I didn’t know.”

  Sit feeling the sun cook the poison from me. Hear my mother busy in the house. Muffled and faint, the crowd and march band in the distance.

  My father is old, hair turning white, gestures and manner becoming those of an old man. No longer vital and unlined. To others it is the natural process of age, but I haven’t really looked at him in years and it is sudden and shocking, seeming overnight, a stranger sits beside me pretending to be my father. Calling through a window my mother saves us further embarrassment. She greets me with fierce hugs and squeezes, unlike her gentle self, trouble and stress show around her eyes.

  “What’s wrong Mom? Twins acting up again?”

  “It’s everything George. This riot, killing and whatnot, the whole world’s gone crazy. Keith’s become a Muslim and changed his name, running around talking bout killing and the twins they just stay in trouble, every time I hear a siren go by, I get sick.”

  “Nobody bothers you?”

  “It’s just the way they look, your father and I haven’t been to work all this week. It’s a good thing I shopped last week cause I can’t see myself going anywhere through all them people. Getting old, can’t take this excitement anymore.”

  They’re trapped out here, at the mercy of the white mob surrounding them and showing the strain of a prolonged siege. Battle fatigue is setting in. When it comes, they will never reach the safety of the city. They’ll be lynched by the white mob.

  “Those twins will be the death of me. Wish you’d talk to them, they won’t listen to anyone else and your father’s not here during the week.”

  Had not understood the twins when I first saw them, but now it makes sense. The snarling, aggressive, hard walking niggers they had become at age fifteen. Unlike Keith and I who grew into an urban cool. Slick, interested, looking ahead to making it right. But their fight is more real than ours, and they are so busy protecting themselves, surviving, there can be no time for anything else. This is the front where the war is hot unlike the cold of the city and it makes you different.

  “Two weeks ago Mund went to a party. On his way home he stopped at the ice cream parlor up here where all the kids hang out on the corner. He got in an argument with the help and the man called the police. Next thing I know, here comes a call from the hospital saying to come down. Nobody here but me. Your father’s at work and Keith’s in the city with his car. A police car with sirens screaming and lights going came to pick me up, waking the whole neighborhood up. You should’ve seen your brother. They had him handcuffed and in restraints. He was so angry, he was raving mad. Calling the police, the doctors and nurses, a bunch of dirty white M.F.’s and bastards. I have never heard him curse in life. So much hate in a child of mine with all that Christian background. They had to give him a sedative to calm him, maybe there’s something wrong, a doctor or something may help. Well anyway you should’ve seen him. The police came to get him in the ice cream parlor. He hit one officer and broke his jaw. Can you imagine, a son of mine fighting the police in public. I tell you George, don’t know what this world is coming to. Just be so glad when my time is up. He runs away and falls, you should see his face, it’s nothing but one big black and blue scab, he says they beat him and I believe it, nobody hurts themself just falling like that. . . . Can you imagine the shock all this was at one in the morning. So now he’s got to go to court. But as if that wasn’t enough Win comes along and gets suspended from school for punching some teacher. He says the teacher slapped him, and so he’s got to go to court too. Don’t know what I did to deserve you children. We never had this trouble in the city. Children’ll be the death of me yet, look at me, I’m a nervous wreck. They got me taking pills cause I can’t sleep at night worrying about you children. They say the sins of the parents shall be born in the children, so I guess we’re to blame somehow. You’ll put me in an early grave, then you’ll be sorry. It wasn’t as if you came from a bad home or anything, you children had everything. Your father and I worked like slaves. Don’t understand it. Don’t understand anything anymore. Keith’s the only one doing well and he’s gone to acting crazy lately, talking about whitey this and whitey that. You children ain’t got no complaints, he’s been good to you. The best schools, scholarships, everything. You brought trouble on yourself George. You went out there and deliberately ruined your life, it took a lot of effort to do what you did. You’re no victim like some people, you made things a mess, you had everything. Your father’s district supervisor now, the highest ranking Negro in the service. His office is in Washington and when he’s home on the weekends, looking for a little peace and quiet, what’s he get, bang, bang, one thing after another. If it’s not Win it’s Mund, if it’s not the twins it’s Keith, always something. Keith got a scholarship you know? A full one, books, tuition, room and board, everything. That was really a blessing, but he acts so crazy sometimes. They all act ju
st like you, you should talk some sense to them. Do something worthwhile with that influence for a change instead of filling their heads with all that nonsense. I heard one of your people on television the other day, one of those so-called brothers and he called the President baby. Now that was uncalled for. Baby. What do you want George? What do you want? Why don’t you get a shave and haircut, you got money. Ain’t no reason to go around looking like that. Put on a shirt and tie sometime, won’t kill you and it’ll make me happy. You say your life don’t mean anything to you, well try and make me happy, just once George. I’m not asking much, just clean yourself up, it won’t change who you are or what you think and you won’t be so obvious. Tell you son, don’t know if I’m coming or going. We got to get out of this place. Couldn’t wait to get out of the city, we worked years for this house. It was going to be a good place for the twins to grow up, but they’ve been in nothing but trouble since the day we arrived. The police know them on sight and any time something happens involving Negro children, they come question the twins. One day they pulled them and four other children out of school and took them down to the station for questioning about some robbery. All of them under fifteen years old, down in the police chief’s office. No parents or legal counsel, nothing. You know how it is with most of us out here, both parents out working to pay these outrageous mortgages. We’d never have known if I hadn’t been home sick and Win hadn’t called. Went down there and raised the roof, bringing those children down there on the word of some delinquent white boy whose mother wouldn’t even permit the chief to speak to her on the telephone while we were there. Seems he’d been chased by some children from the neighborhood with a gun. Turns out it was pitch black when the incident took place and he was so busy running, he couldn’t see anything. Well do you know what this pompous fool of a police chief says. He must’ve thought I was crazy, stupid or something. Well I let him know differently and just what did he think he was doing with these children, pulling them out of school and not bothering to call the parents. You know what he said? That he was trying to prevent racial incidents. Could’ve strangled that whitey. Oh Lord there I go talking about whitey, listening to that crazy Keith. He was trying to prevent racial incidents. How? By harassing our children who should be in school? Then he says I’m a hot irresponsible person, precisely the type of person that provokes incidents by reading prejudice into them. Could’ve killed him I tell you. Well I took those kids to their homes, called their parents to let them know what’s happened. You know what they said. Thanks, but we work and don’t have time to go down and protest. Why don’t we just drop it before it hits the paper. One day this place is going to just bust apart and I don’t want to be here. We’re looking to sell the house and move back to the city. It was a mistake moving to Teaneck.”