Blueschild Baby

by George Cain

  This shall be the last time sleep will come easy for a while, have to get to bed. Undress quickly and put the light out. She lies beside me and I begin a discourse on my inability to have sex while kicking, how my nervous system in disintegration will not respond or react properly—afraid of the passion locked in her dark body. She feels me and I tremble.

  “What you shaking for, chills?”

  She drapes herself around me, warming my soul. Ache with desire and squeeze her, trying to liberate myself. Feel the flesh hindering us till we find a rhythm. Her body and hot mouth, there’s nothing else. Her fingers move over face and body eliciting sensations delightful from a dead man. Feel it filling me to the exclusion of all else warm and alive, passion, need, resurrecting me. Tear at each other sinking into love, talking crazy sounds, love’s language. Till we’ve escaped and travel the vastness together again. The flesh is only the means to an end not the end itself. Another device to get outside yourself and be One. Squeeze her wanting to merge our bodies and suddenly the elusive soul is free.

  V

  GEORGIE IS A FAGGOT, teacher’s pet!”

  “Fight, fight!”

  “Hit him one good!”

  “Here comes Reverend McKenzie, break it up!”

  “Here, here, break this up. Now what’s this all about?”

  “He started it Sir.”

  “That true George?”

  “He called me names.”

  “Now that’s silly, names can’t hurt you and you young man shouldn’t go around calling people names. Now shake hands and let’s not have any more of this. Want to talk with you George, walk with me. Hear we’re going to lose you, you’re going to move soon. How do you feel about it?”

  “Don’t wanna move, was born here, all my friends and everything are here.”

  “You’re young George, but when you’re older, you’ll understand what I’m going to tell you. You’re different from the other boys, Willy, Joe and the rest. God gave you more than them and it’s up to you and your parents to take advantage of His gift. They’re doing the right thing by moving out of this place. They realize that you were meant for better things that you could never receive here. They’re doing this for you. It’s a great sacrifice but someday you’ll repay them. Tell your Nana, was by the hospital to see your mother. Bye George.”

  “THAT YOU GEORGE?”

  “Yes Nana.”

  “Give me a kiss and go wash. Dinner’s almost ready and your father be home in a minute. Lord what happened to you?”

  “I had a fight.”

  “Here, let me clean your face, you’ve got an ugly scratch on your head. Hold still now, this is going to hurt a little. There, didn’t bat an eye, aren’t we strong. Flo? That you? Come here take a look at George, he had a fight in school.”

  “Oh Mother, there’s nothing wrong with him, it’s only a scratch, he’s too big to get hurt. Did you win? Who was it? Willy Smith, hope you gave it to him good.”

  “Now Flo, stop talking like that. Don’t want no grandson of mine out there fighting in the streets like riffraff.”

  “Oh Mother he’s only a child and his father did it often enough.”

  “Nana, why do we have to move and leave you and Auntie Flo. What’ll I do?”

  “Come on now, you’re a big boy. It’s not that bad. Of course we’ll miss you, but we’ll see each other and you’ll spend weekends here. Don’t you worry.”

  “George, your mother had a baby boy. You’re a big brother now. What happened to you? Really now, fighting in school, you should know better, how many times have I told you. Did you win? Watch, you lead with your left. Jab, jab, hook, that’s it. Try it again.”

  Long into the night we talked of father and son things.

  “You’re getting big now, you’re number two man in the house. You got a baby brother to take care of. I may not always be here and it’ll be up to you to take care of Mom.

  “We’re moving to get you away from here son, this is a slum.

  “You’re born with two strikes against you son and the third pitch is coming right down the middle and you’ve got to be ready for it. Ride it out of sight. By moving we’re helping to get you ready, prepare you for what’s out there. I’m telling you these things not to scare you, but to make it easier for you when you’re older. See, I had no one to tell me and it comes like a shock. One more thing before you go to bed, be better than best at anything you do.”

  Sleep a happy sleep child.

  MOVING WAS MADNESS, nothing but ill winds blowing no good. Our arrival greeted by a blizzard, white filling the eye, falling day and night, confining me to the hostile house, trapped for days in the strange place. Always crying. Wondering why we’d left the old home. Didn’t go to school cause we weren’t going to be here long. The houses were only quonset huts, temporary shelters till the returning G.I.’s found homes.

  Only companion a winding muddy river, coming from where I didn’t know but flowing nowhere fast. It moved sluggishly under the bridge where cars went, fragrant with mild-smelling garbage. Sitting on the bank throwing stones, watched them vanish into ripples. Walked on it when frozen feeling the movement beneath my feet, infecting me with its restlessness. They came to play on the other side, hated them for violating my privacy, for doing as I did. I hated them for their camaraderie. Every day they came, animated, noisy, every day they saw me sitting, frozen as the ice, looking from green eyes, looking down from loneliness, longing for their friendship. One day they called me. Couldn’t hear over the distance, but smiled and waved thinking they were greeting me. They waved back but I still couldn’t hear. Smiled and waved again, they pointed at me and laughed and I laughed with joy, wanting to cross the river and join them. Heard the rocks’ dull thudding in the soft mud, could see them still laughing, yelling, young faces distorted. Unfeeling the rocks striking me, no fear, confusion, couldn’t understand. Hit in the forehead, blood blinded my eyes, tumbled down and turned the ground red. There was no pain but I screamed feeling the warm blood, tasting it, could hear them calling, fainter, was running. Covered with blood ran through the streets eluding strangers asking crazy questions. Mom screamed and hugging me washed the blood and hurt away. She couldn’t understand why somebody would want to hurt somebody else. Never went back to the river, fascination was gone.

  How long did I live there? Couldn’t have been long. Another image presents itself. Another place but close in time for it’s gilded in the same gold ever-awakening light, when all things were new impressing themselves indelibly on consciousness. Walking in a huge sprawling complex of brick red buildings. Towering in the ever-present sunlight, threatening in their silence. High-rising façade, curtained windows. What passed in the cells of solitude? The place was different with its abundant and in-turned love, a little like Harlem. Children uprooted from former hovels and placed here without rhyme or reason. We ran the new streets seeking and making friends. First day there I met C.J., he stood around and watched us move in.

  Nandy’s arm bracelets ring as she moves from bed. Watch her wrapped in a blanket wash the sleep from her eyes.

  “Morning lover.”

  “Morning yourself. How you feel?”

  “Love you woman of mine.”

  “Love you man. How do you feel?”

  “Good, oh so good, come here.” We wrestle and play around laughing.

  “You don’t act like a sick man.”

  “Give it time. Let’s go eat while I still can.”

  Wash and go down. Pick up a paper and order breakfast while she phones home and the job. Go through the paper carefully, page by page and there’s no mention of a rape. J.B.’s right. She probably won’t say anything. Wonder what Bu’s told Nichole, does she know or understand what she saw? It’s starting, feel the slight headache, pain in the back and bowels churning. Through the window see a dope transaction going down and without thinking, out of habit, I run outside to cop.

  “Give me three.”

  “Three what? What yo
u talking about? Don’t know you, get away from me.”

  The dealer hurries down the street looking over his shoulder to see if I’m following and I go back inside. Should’ve known he’d nut on me. I don’t even look like a junky.

  “Everything’s okay. Told them I’d be out for a few days and Mom’ll take care of Tchaka. How you feeling?”

  “Starting to really come down.”

  The attempt and near success of scoring aggravates the illness. It’s like that. You can be sick, but not until you cop or have the money to cop do you really come down. My nose and eyes start running, stuff yawns and stomach talking. Fill up on liquids hoping to ease the stomach cramps I know are coming. Back in the room fall on the bed while Nandy watches me and reads the paper.

  WE’D MOVED FROM NANA’S and it was one of my weekend visits. Coming from sleep, so early it was, the red sun warmed me under the quilt. It was Saturday and the house was quiet, Granny, Nana and Auntie Flo sleeping. Throwing off the blankets and feeling the morning air, I was still, enjoying the delicious sensation of waking. It was a grand bed, the one my mother and father had slept in. Had a headboard full of compartments, with a radio and the comic books I’d fallen asleep over the night before. Turned on the radio and waited forever till it warmed up. Read the comics, impatient for the house to wake. Finished reading and tired of music, was hungry and wanted breakfast. Tipped through the house, hesitating outside Granny’s room listening for her snore, then into the bathroom to wash and back to my room.

  Looking out the window I forgot hunger. Tops of buildings were covered in a warm light showing carved cornices of acanthus, papyrus leaves, lions and gargoyles. Pigeons had whitened parts of buildings with waste and cooed softly just waking. Preening themselves, showed iridescent purple green colored breasts. Testing early morning wings they flew short stuttering flights returning to perch. The sky was glorious blue and the bird man was on the roof across the way leading his charges. All I could see of him was the brown stick he urged and shooed his birds from the coop with into the blue. Follow the leader, they made circles in the sky, lost from view and returning again.

  Windows were still closed against the chill night air and curtained from inquisitive eyes. Flaking fire escapes, rusted orange and black were pretty in the morning with green and red flowers set out. Nana had hers in the window and I would turn the soil and water them. A window goes up across the way and Bootsy waves, wanting to know if I’m going to play stickball, then disappears.

  The bottom of the canyon, stoops, streets and stores were still in shadows, no people or cars. Then the junkman’s cry broke the stillness and seemed a sign for the world to wake. Windows were thrown up, dust mops and rags shaken out into the backyards and clotheslines drawn in. Smelled breakfasts cooking, all kinds of good things reviving hunger and heard Nana moving in the kitchen.

  “Raaaaags ol Irn.” The junkman came upstreet slowly singing. Brown horse and green wagon, tired and old, ringing bell and horse’s hooves clip-clopping in the quiet. People set out stacks of newspaper, rags, scrap metal, mattresses and springs by the curb and returned to breakfast. Nana sometimes let me take things down and I’d wait for him to help load and rummage in the garbage. Smell of the horse, riding in the seat with Mr. Charles. Hearing him talk to his horse, Tomorrow, in that funny way, “gee” and “haw.” I’d hold the reins and feel the life at my fingertips as Mr. Charles took a long swallow of his medicine. Clip, clop, squeaking wheels, bell ringing, a cry of rags old iron.

  Turning from the window, I went quietly to the kitchen, Auntie Flo and Granny were still sleeping. Pancakes and sausage smelled good, and Nana in floured apron stood over the fires. Took the spatula and watched them while she went to the icebox. The popping grease burned and I’d duck and laugh trying to turn the cakes. We ate together, she saying grace, always so rapidly, I’d never learned it. Only snatches when she or my father had slowed to catch their breath and ending, “Christ redeem His sake amen.” While we were eating, Auntie Flo came and poured her coffee. She couldn’t eat or talk till she had her coffee and smoked a cigarette. If I bothered her enough she’d give me a cup, all milk and sugar. Finished, I’d help dry the dishes and make the beds before going down, promising to stay in sight.

  Raced down the five flights at breakneck and exited into morning. The iceman was coming up the street. We kids crowded around watching the crusher, catching and sucking on the flying chips. Those common chips of ice tasted so good. Bootsy came down with a stick and ball and we sat on the stoop waiting for the gang.

  The streets begin filling, women wheeling carts and children off to market. Men passing a bottle and talking. Watch them in their bright mismatched colored clothes. Bright colors. Can tell they’re from a tropic place, jungle colors you never saw downtown, reds, yellows, greens, bright bird plumage. Feel it all inside me. The scene’s beauty composed of mismatch, unarranged and ever-changing, without intention, design, dependent precisely upon the accidental blending of unharmonious elements.

  When the gang shows, Ziggy, Jeter, Blue, Ugmo, Tank and the rest, we choose sides. Playing in the middle of the street and halting traffic till a play was over. Drivers escaping the block muttered and cursed us, we laughed and cursed back. This was our street, most of us had been born on it, we and the concrete were so intimate, the streets were an extension of the house. It was the passerby who was trespassing on our property, not the other way around.

  See the ball rising black out of the canyon’s shade, soaring above the buildings into light, pink against blue. Following its flight with my eyes, legs pumping madly, see it fall, lost for a moment returning to shadows, bounding off a building, a fire escape, rolling off and again in space, then caught for an out. The sidewalks and stoops are crowded with men who watch and applaud, recalling themselves in some far off time engaged in similar sport. Remember the happy times, but even then there was the tension that could be set off any moment.

  The car didn’t stop in time and knocked Blue down. People came off stoops, out of buildings, bars and stupors. Women screamed, his mother fell and cried over him, his sisters and neighbors wailed hysterical, some prayed and Blue bled. They dragged the driver from the car, beating him bloody. The tension and anger that lay in the air and people exploded. Words I’d never uttered but heard shouted all round me went in my ears and out my mouth. Charged and screaming, “Kill the bastard!” They tried to hang the unconscious body from a lamppost, but no one could find a rope. Police and ambulance rescued him.

  He was white but that had nothing to do with it, or maybe it had all to do with it. Not knowing the law of the land he was traveling. He’d honked and honked arrogantly for us to move out his way and we stalled and stalled. Didn’t he know it was our street? That he was on our time not his? If he’d known, he’d never have hit Blue cause he’d driven different, waited.

  The people hooted and jeered, throwing things from windows. Order was restored with the arrival of more police. They left, sirens screaming, and we began to destroy the car till someone set it afire, making a charred memorial to Blue and misunderstanding.

  NANA CALLED ME FROM PLAY to get ready and go shopping. Held our fare in a dirty hand as she boarded the bus and found seats, then stood watching the change fall in the glass box, ringing as it struck the glass and metal. The driver turned a handle and the change disappeared, reappearing from a chute on the side where he caught it and placed it in the correct slots of his coin-changer. Was amazed by his skill, the entire operation was done blind, without fault while his eyes and other hand drove the big bus.

  Sitting by the window watched the streets pass, changing black to white. The hurrying people in all their mystery. Wondered what went on in every street and where they were going. We passed through my neighborhood, saw the projects, people I knew and wanted to call them, but knew better. When we passed the house, we’d smile, not having to wonder what went on behind the walls or who the people were. Wanted to stand up and announce, like they did in the sightseein
g bus on the class trip, that this was where I lived. See the window with the blue curtains? That’s my room and next to it the living room. There’s my school, wanted to acquaint them with my life so they’d not have to wonder and feel strange like me when passing different places.

  As we neared downtown, the scene became more commercial, fruit stalls, shops. Streets crowded with people. Bags and carts overflowing with goods. Riding the bus and separated from it all by a pane of glass was nothing. But when you got off the pandemonium overwhelmed you and you felt its magnificence. Nana held me while people bumped and jostled us, leading slowly through holes in the crowd, stopping here, there, comparing prices, arguing, bargaining.

  The noise was deafening, so many sounds. Honking traffic, stopping, starting, piercing police whistles controlling its flow. Crackling trashcan fires eating wooden crates, old Christmas trees showering heat and sparks down on you. Vendors beside their shined pyramids of fruit and vegetables, hawking em loud, “Red matoes, tatoes, nannas.” So many colors threatening blindness. People, black, white, yellow. Yellow buses, green cabs.

  “Red matoes, white tatoes, yellow nannas.” European accents distorting these common words gave them a freshness. All color cars and checker cabs, red dime store, hotdog stand, stacks and rows of gay colored fruits, shined and freshly wet. White aprons and bright plaid shirts the vendors’ uniform. Bold colored signs selling bargains.

  Air smelling of fruits and vegetables, burning wood and gasoline fumes. So many good things to eat, hotdog men calling out, “Redhots!” Strange sights to see, a novelty salesman with mechanical toys that strutted boldly under trampling feet. Men in bloodstained aprons pushed open meat wagons hung with carcasses, yelling, “Watch it, watch it! Hot stuff, hot stuff!”

  Young boys and old people selling shopping bags, “Shopping bags, shopping bags, shopping bag Miss, five cent shopping bags.” Selling one they’d knock it open with a bang and flourish. The silent blind man selling pencils in the front dime store with his Seeing Eye dog. A hundred conversations in as many languages, mingling and sounding the same.