Blueschild Baby

by George Cain

  “Got yourself together?”

  “I’m okay.”

  Try to quiet Bu, but she keeps it up. Chris says she’s going and lets herself out before I can get it together to stop her. Sit on the couch shaking uncontrollably. What’s wrong with me, what have I done? A horrible nightmare that I’ve just awakened and escaped from. But the come stains, messed up couch and Bu’s hollering deny this. Picture all kinds of madness, lynch mobs in southern towns with dirt streets, screaming crackers, picking and poking me, throwing a rope around my neck.

  “Oh Lord save me, forgive me. Good God what have I done!” Start crying and praying, crying all the prayers I’ve ever known. “Our Father Who are in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Oh Lord help me!”

  A thousand screaming crackers touch me, tear me limb from limb, feel the fire burning me and scream with pain. Jump from the couch and run to the toilet emptying myself.

  “Get yourself together nigger.”

  Set to thinking, this ain’t Mississippi, it’s New York. How can I beat the case? What can happen? Run around the kitchen looking for the liquor. Take a shot then empty the bottle. Throw five bags in the cooker and don’t feel anything. Fuck it, they don’t have a case, I’ll just deny it, her word against mine, there were no witnesses, Bu don’t know what happened. I’ll go down on the stoop with her and wait for them. Another thought replaces that. Flee. Straight away and fast.

  “Run nigger, run.” Scramble around getting my money and run down into the streets. A police car speeds up sirens going and I duck into the hall knowing it’s for me. Stand there heart beating like a drum and Bu’s screams echoing in my ears. A cab lets Nichole out and I rush past her surprised face and jump in.

  “Harlem, uptown anywhere!”

  COMING DOWN AND OUT of stuff walk down Seventh looking to cop and run into J.B. He walks me to the snake pit. Pass Broadway, he smiles and nods as if nothing ever happened and comes over to us. Leery, I move the safety off the gun in my pocket.

  “You hear Sun’s out?”

  “No. What happened?”

  “They didn’t find anything on him. Flower had it so they cut him loose. He’s looking for you to help bail her out.”

  “Where’s he at? Still downtown?”

  “Her bail’s one hundred cash, under alias Willa Mae Jones.”

  J.B. and I head back to the hotel.

  “J.B., tell you Broadway tried to take us off the other day?”

  “Say wha?”

  “Yeah, him, Boy and Sugar. Niggers weren’t playing either, ran me damn near downtown.”

  “Lolly was looking for you. Say you beat him for a sting he made.”

  “Yeah, he left a trunk down at the pad.”

  “What was in it?”

  “Money.”

  “Man why don’t you stop it?” he said in disbelief.

  Get off and tell him what happened, Chris, the parole. Have to tell someone.

  “Wow. You done really tore your ass, but ain’t nothing going to happen. Broad probably won’t say nothing and you can tell the P.O. something.”

  He’s probably right. Push it from mind and stop worrying about it.

  “Say Cain, I tell you your man C.J. died?”

  “No. You jiving, not C.J. Just saw him couple days ago.”

  “Yeah, dead of an overdose. Found him on the roof in the projects.”

  Don’t believe it. Just saw him alive. C.J. is dead. All my friends are dead or dying. The sacrificed generation, dropping like flies. The mortality rate is unbelievable, we’re beating our fathers to the grave. None die of age, infirmity or make twenty-five. I’m one of the few survivors, alive at least. How can I believe I’ll die tomorrow, when I’m young and alive now? C.J. was my best friend.

  “Wonder if my mother knows, he was like a brother when we were kids. Always at each other’s house. C.J. dead! What can we do J.B., they’re killing all of us. We’ve got to stop it, warn the others.”

  “I know man. What’s to do? You know it all Cain but it don’t stop you. How you gonna stop it? You can’t. You been around the way, all the kids are using stuff, young girls even, got it so there’s one in every household using stuff. It’s part of the Man’s scheme, a way to keep a large part of the people helpless, an excuse for jailing and abusing them. Keep them so occupied they have no time to think and become a threat. It’s the perfect weapon and they’re not going to get rid of it.”

  Thinking of Sun and thousands of others, see the never ending spiral of addiction stretching years before me. Trapped in a prison of my own making which I walk around and carry wherever I go. More secure than bars and gun towers cause there’s nothing outside. They don’t need walls in Siberia, they’re surrounded by untrackable expanses and freezing cold. Step off into it at your own risk.

  Nandy. . . . Have got to talk, see her, she’s the only way out. For her, I’ll find a way out of this thing. Break the cycle.

  It’s always like this immediately after a fix and high. It’s the last, always the last. Till I feel the hot cold flashes and pain in my back. I’m always full of sincerity and good intentions, but I never kick for good. Am comfortable with my illness, it’s a part of me like another sense.

  “Got to call Nandy. I’m gonna stop, J.B. Square business, I’m going to. Can’t stand it anymore. I’m tired, so tired. Can’t stand it, can’t go on anymore.”

  “You got to show me. How many time you done kicked already, eight, nine, ten?”

  “Got to call Nandy, let’s go.”

  “Catch you later Cain.”

  He’s cynical, cannot see the urgency or desperation. Want Nandy with me. Can’t wait to get sick and feel the pain of recovery. Walk into the hotel and rent a room for the week and call her from the lobby.

  “Nandy? Cain. Listen baby I need you. Now, right now. Something important’s come up. In front of the Theresa.”

  While I wait, take a walk around, am going to kick. This time, no coming back and I want to see the place a last time this way. Know the world will turn when I’m through with this. Will see with different eyes. Just as before I used drugs I saw another way. There were morals, ethics, principles. Things I believed were right or wrong and after junk these things were no longer. But not only my mind, my senses became addled. Saw, heard, touched and behaved differently, was different. Looking up, see my feet have brought me to the snake pit, they knew no other direction. All around the business of the street goes on and I savor the camaraderie of the community of rejection a last time, then head back to the hotel. Am tired, so tired of the hassle, not the junk itself. If there were some way to continue without always suffering, I would. There’s no pleasure, only pain. In the beginning at least I got high, but continued use brings only diminishing return. Use more and get less till the time when no amount will get you high or restore normalcy. You feel the rush and warmth for only a second, then begins the swift fall down, sick or always verging on illness, prey to police and your own kind. Everything’s risky, a gamble. You take a chance stealing, then sell it for a fraction, get uptown and have to hunt down the bag. Even then you’re not done, cause it might be a beat. Coming and going prey for everything and everybody, and the shit ain’t nothing no way.

  Spot Nandy a block away pacing in front of the hotel. Call to her and we hurry to each other. Seeing her fills me with resolution and strength.

  “Oh baby worried to death about you. Got here quick as I could, you sounded so upset. What’s wrong?”

  “Let’s go upstairs.”

  I fall on the bed and she sits beside me. “Last night I asked you to be my woman. Want to take care of you and Tchaka. I need you, but I can’t do this without first telling you about me. Like I told you last night I’ve been in prison the last few years. I’m a junky baby. This is what I was sent away for. I’m on parole now and hooked again, the Man’s talking about sending me back. Me George Cain, I’m a dope fiend, you understand? A low-lifed M.F. Don�
�t think I’m any different or better than the others. Just because I’m not dirty or greasy, cause I been that way. You know Fat Man, Lolly, Duke?”

  She turns up her nose at the mention of these people, for they’re the bottom of the world in her eyes.

  “Well I’m just like them. One of them. I’ve stolen, lied, cheated, do anything for a fix just like them and until you showed didn’t want to do it any other way. Had no reason to change. I want you Nandy, but I’m no good this way. Got to stop. Can’t go to the hospital or one of those programs. Have got to do it myself and I can’t do it without you. Need you with me for three days, need you every minute, can’t be out of sight for any time cause I’m not strong enough without you. With you I can do anything and I’m asking you to save my life, our life together, cause there can’t be anything for us if I’m this way. Nandy I’m asking for help, just stay with me till this is over.”

  Just like that, no questions, nothing. Already can feel her strength flow in me, preparing me for the ordeal ahead.

  “What are you going to do about your job, Tchaka? I’ve got enough money to support us till I’m strong enough to take care of business.”

  “Got some time coming. I’ll call in sick and my mother’ll take care the baby. Don’t worry about it. We’ll have enough to do taking care of you. Better tell me what to expect.”

  “Had a fix this afternoon, won’t be getting sick until morning. I’ll vomit, sweat a lot, cry, nothing really way out.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Just be here, that’s all you can do, just be here and I’ll do it. Eat yet? Might as well enjoy this little time we’ve left, let’s eat out and go somewhere. Come on smile baby, this is a happy time, our life is just beginning.”

  We come out into a hot Harlem afternoon crowded with folk. A speaker holds forth on the corner making a plea for help for the victims of the Newark rebellion. Standing there holding Nandy’s hand and watching the audience, mostly nodding junkies urging him on, feel a distance between me and them already. That bond which joined us is broken and I see them as they really are, no longer the chosen driven to destruction by their awareness and frustration, but only lost victims, too weak to fight. Walk downtown and I pull into ’17th Street.

  “Want to show you the place I was born in.” The same people sit on the stoop and the same stickball game is in the middle of the street. The street so crowded with people and noise. I see it now, it’s dirty, garbage, rats, roaches. All the romance is gone, don’t want to live and die this way. Want more, better, a shot at life.

  “I was born in that building twenty-three years ago.”

  “How do they live that way George? It’s ugly, depressing. It’s bad at home, down South, but it’s different from this, better some way.”

  Walk up and down streets getting my last look at the place, and wherever we go people acknowledge us.

  “Walk tall brother, you got a queen there.”

  “Take care of that sister brer.”

  “Soul sister.”

  “Get on with your bad self.”

  Feel the hump in my back go as I straighten to be worthy of this queen. It’s something new, a respect they have for self and kind that didn’t exist three, four years ago. The fire and rebellions have drawn them closer. Blinking into Lenox, feel night closing. On ’15th Street, she sees the crowds from the snake pit.

  “What’s happening over there? Must be an accident?”

  ’15th and Lenox is the mouth of a sewer where the junkies from the block wash up. A play street kept from traffic by wooden barriers at either end. In summer till late night crowded with people. Kids playing. Dope dealers occupy the halls and stoops surrounded by lookouts, lieutenants and customers. Crap game against the curb holds the sports, two white cops on the corner. If you stand here ten minutes, someone you once knew and wondered what had happened to will come by.

  “No accident, like this all the time, all these people standing round are junkies.”

  A young kid comes strolling by, bout twelve years old in a black beaver hat, bright colored knit, matching silk pants and alligator shoes, counting a wad of money, unafraid as his little partners watch his back. He sings his sale. “I got it, the smoker, my bag killed Frankie Lyman last week.”

  Nandy looks at him disbelieving as he joins the crap game of old men.

  The streets are alive with children and death around the edges where junkies stalk and nod. Black faces everywhere move and press against me, filling me with energy. This place breeds strange men. They go mad and are unable to exist outside its bounds without constant transfusions.

  “Look at that sign.” She points to a restaurant window. In bright red letters: NO DOPE PEDALING ALLOWED. “All these people are addicts? But there are hundreds of them!”

  Whenever we approach they draw away, not wanting to soil her with their touch. Crossing ’16th she stops to read billboards on a burnt out building advertising dances and shows. Another sign catches our eye: MUGGERS, RAPISTS AND THIEVES BEWARE, WE ARE ARMED AND GOING TO KILL YOU. WE THE CITIZENS OF HARLEM ARE TIRED OF YOU PREYING UPON US. BEWARE WE MEAN BUSINESS.

  “Hey Cain.” A stranger slides out the shadows, hugs me and becomes cousin Jimmy.

  “Hey man, how you been? Nandy, this my cousin Jimmy.”

  “When’d you raise, looking good. Still messing around? I’m doing something.”

  “What you got?”

  “Deuces.”

  “Got some place I can get off?”

  “Yeah, we go by the house. Mom be glad to see you.”

  “How she doing?”

  “Okay, just come out the hospital last week.”

  We come to Manhattan Avenue. Remember the building from childhood, high ceilinged lobby and elevator, now half burned and filthy. Jimmy opens the door, signals silence and tips through the hall.

  “Jimmy that you?” He straightens like a caught thief.

  “Look who I found Mom.”

  Aunt A sits in front the TV staring till recognition comes. “God damn. George Jr. and who is this you’ve got with you?” Kissing me, she steps back.

  “Aunt A, this is Nandy, a friend.”

  “You know girl haven’t seen this nephew of mine in years. Boy what you been doing with yourself. Sit down and tell me something. Want a drink? Don’t drink? Good, bad for you.” She pulls a bottle from under her pillow and pours herself a shot. Jimmy calls from the back room and I leave them talking.

  “What you say you wanted?”

  “Couple of bags.”

  Start to get off, the blood shows and clots. I squeeze the bulb and stuff flies all over the place. Hear Aunt A’s footsteps and snatch the apparatus from my arm and drop it behind the bed. Jimmy pains as he wipes up the precious liquid.

  “What you two doing back here? Come on out front, don’t trust you sitting back here with Jimmy.”

  Sit a few minutes while she carries on bout my childhood.

  “Aunt A, sorry we can’t stay longer but we’ve got to get back.”

  “Okay son, it’s good to see you again. Take care of this girl, she’s better than you deserve and don’t stay away so long, your old aunt ain’t got much longer in this world. But do stay away from your cousin Jimmy cause he ain’t never up to no good. What was he trying to get you to do back there? Okay George, give the family my love.”

  Jimmy joins us downstairs. “Which way you going? Uptown? I got to get back to the bar and take care of business. Whenever you get ready you can find me there. If not, I’m home. Nice meeting you sister. Later George.”

  “Your aunt’s something else. I like her. What were you and Jimmy talking about before, couldn’t understand a word?”

  “Dope, he wanted to know if I was still using stuff.”

  Walk down ’16th and eat dinner in a Spanish restaurant. On the way back to the hotel start coming down. The world goes in stop time, but I decide to go to the Playhouse anyway. Want to hear the music of the dream before I wake. Jazz. Live and loud. On
e of them young monsters blowing. City-bred nigger. Sounds like he heard the tongue spoken by Trane’s terrible voice. He cooks, the place is smoke-filled and garish.

  “Jazz is the city. Only city niggers can feel this thing. I never liked it much, never listened really, hadn’t been here long enough. To my country ear it was mad noise. But I’m a part of the tremendous pressure that generates that sound and I feel it so good now.”

  This woman is mine, hear her as she leads me in the discovery of myself while the breakdown begins. Feel myself outside myself as we follow the music, shattered into a million tiny fragments chasing the sound, all outside ourselves, traveling a vastness together as we try to save my soul. Step lively nigger, stop lagging. The music talks of Babylon, bedlam, 110th on up. Them killing streets where the heat and garbage in summer kill you, where cold eats your ass in winter, when dying is every minute. Oh, the pain, it’s terrible, want to scream, feel the spirit, whole, and come out of myself. Her pressure returns me. I hear the music again, it talks of the sixties, the rebellion, excitement, broken glass and bullets flying. Was in prison during these years and now experience my period of absence. Read newspaper and factual accounts of the events, but they’re distorted to meet and suit the needs of the majority, now I’m hearing and feeling that time as it truly happened. Jazz is history. Listening, can hear and feel the development of the people. Can hear the new-found respect that I didn’t understand in the streets, its origins, all in the music.

  The musician, his purpose and role are understood. They denied us a tongue and we fashioned our own in which we told and recorded the unwritten history of our stay in Babylon. The set ends and I’m getting sicker so we head in.

  Am afraid to sleep with Nandy, make love to her. Been so long since I’ve made love to a woman without my medicine, don’t think I can. And to a sister? Have been with only white women where I enjoyed the advantage of the myths each of us brought to bed. Joanie was had in a narcotic stupor. Have never come to a woman naked and defenseless, just a man. Am shamed knowing I know nothing of black women.