“Yuk,” Susan said, chucking her chin at Teddy’s Two Virgins shirt. “I mean, look at her. Buy a bra, lady.”
“She’s not supposed to be a Playboy bunny.”
“Then she should wear some clothes.”
“You’re so bourgeois, Susan.”
“Hey,” Joel said, the admonition in his voice both gentle and absolute.
There was a long silence. Splashes and shouts echoed around them. The pop of a wave caught in a nearby filter. A rogue breeze carried a Coppertone reek.
“Anyway,” Teddy said finally.
His word for sorry.
“So what weird shit are you reading now, man?” Joel asked, reaching for the book.
Teddy covered it with his hands before Joel could pluck it from his lap and reveal the tumescent ridge straining his jeans.
“What?” Joel asked, shooting his friend a quizzical look.
Teddy repositioned his legs, then handed Joel the book.
“Psychic … man, what is this shit?”
“It’s pretty amazing,” Teddy said. “It’s about these Russian guys who can bend spoons telekinetically and read other people’s minds.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s all here, man. I shit you not.”
“I don’t believe in any of that,” Susan pronounced, leaning back into her deck chair and closing her eyes against the afternoon sun.
“I can read minds,” Teddy said after a moment.
“No way.”
“I can.”
“What am I thinking, then?” Susan challenged, opening one eye and leveling it at him.
Teddy had a funny idea. He leaned forward and placed a fingertip on her brow. It felt strange. He’d never touched Susan before. Her skin was hot from the sun and cool from the water.
“Uh, let’s see,” Teddy said. “You’re thinking about … wait a minute, this is amazing. A first.”
“What?” she asked dubiously.
“You’re thinking about … absolutely nothing. Your mind is a complete blank.”
She slapped his hand away. Not gently.
“Hah fucking hah.”
Teddy rubbed at his hand for a moment. She’d hit him really hard. It stung. He felt the anger percolating beneath his chest’s deep concavity. For a few seconds he was tempted to slap her hand in return. But Joel was there. He could never do anything to Susan when Joel was there.
“So what were you thinking?” Joel, ever the peacemaker, asked.
Susan’s eyes closed again.
“I was wishing you and I could go away somewhere,” she said. “Ditch my fucking mom.”
“I don’t know,” Teddy said. “It’s pretty rough out there.”
“Yeah, but I’d be with Joel,” she said sweetly. “He’d look after me.”
Teddy snickered.
“People saw you two out in the real world there might be some serious lynching action.”
Susan formed a sour face. But real anger arrived in Joel’s expression.
“Don’t say that, man,” he said.
“What?”
“Don’t talk about people getting lynched and shit.”
“I was just—”
“I don’t care what you were just. You shouldn’t be talking about people getting lynched. My dad knew about a guy getting lynched.”
“What, can’t I make a joke? What is this, Russia?”
“No,” Joel said. “It’s America. Get it?”
Teddy held up his hands in surrender. Joel could be so sensitive about matters Afro-American. As if anybody cared. There was a long, tense silence. More pool noise washed over them—yelping kids and the scrape of a deck chair. Not knowing what else to do, Teddy checked the diver’s watch his folks had given him last Christmas.
“Well, I better get going,” he said. “You guys want a ride?”
“Yeah, all right,” Joel said, resentment still in his voice.
Susan shrugged. She didn’t answer. She never answered. She just came along.
Teddy fired up a half-consumed joint with the Firebird’s lighter. He offered it over his shoulder but there were no takers. Worried by the silence, he angled the rearview mirror to get a better look at Joel and Susan, huddled together in a corner of the backseat. Their wet bathing suits had soaked through their clothes. Both stared out the window. Occasionally, Joel would whisper something to Susan, and she would snuggle in closer. Knowing conversation was an impossibility, Teddy punched on the tape player. “Scumbag” was just giving way to “Au.” But Joel told him to turn it off before Yoko could get one good ululation out.
Teddy was beginning to regret that lynching crack.
The plan was to drop Susan off first. Teddy had hoped Joel would spend the night at his house, though judging by his current mood he was starting to doubt it. Tonight was the Swope’s annual birthday party, a sprawling drunken bash where all rules were suspended for the duration. For the past three years Teddy and Joel had attended, sneaking drinks under the semi-blind eyes of their parents. Even Ardelia, usually so strict, seemed not to mind the sight of her eldest son knocking back a frosty Miller or three. Joel would sleep over and the following morning both boys would wake up with legitimate hangovers. It was one of the summer’s highlights. This year, however, there had been no talk of Joel hanging out with Teddy. Instead, he’d be taking advantage of the Truaxes unexpected invitation to the party to get some time alone with Susan at her house. No invite had been forthcoming to Teddy. Yet again. Pissing him off, which was probably why he’d made that slip about lynching. He was getting sick of Joel and Susan ditching him. This was not how the summer was supposed to be panning out.
Still, it had been a stupid thing to say. A very large red flag to a very touchy bull. It had been a long time since he and Joel had angry words on the subject of race. Over two years, in fact. The last time had been Christmas Day, 1970. The Wootens had swung by for a late afternoon drink. The boys had fled up to Teddy’s room to assess their presents. Joel had been given a high-powered telescope, Teddy an electric typewriter. He mocked the sweater Joel was wearing, a motley monstrosity knitted by some aunt. Joel responded by leaping on Teddy. Their wrestling had a playful ferocity. It didn’t take long for Joel to get Teddy on his back.
“Now, say ‘I’ve got a tweezer dick,’ “Joel said, echoing the insult Teddy had recently scrawled on the wall of the Wootens’ treehouse.
“Ne-ver,” Teddy gasped.
“Say, ‘I eat dingleberries in a delicious sauce of hot and spicy cum.’
Teddy bucked to get free. But he miscalculated his position and banged his head on the bed’s iron frame. A blinding rage shot through him. Adrenaline pulsed. With a sudden maneuver, he was able to pull an unprecedented reverse on Joel, winding up on top of him. The pain continued to shoot through his skull, dizzying and infuriating him. Joel was laughing now—he didn’t know Teddy was hurt. This made Teddy madder. He put a hand on Joel’s throat. He could feel the muscle and bone and the beginnings of sweat. He pressed hard, harder than play.
“Say ‘I’m a dirty nigger,’ “he said.
Joel stopped laughing.
“Hey, fuck you, man.”
“Say it.”
Joel began to buck and squirm. But Teddy’s hold on him was good, his best ever.
“Say ‘I’m a dirty black watermelon-sucking nigger.’
Realizing there was no escape, Joel instead reached up and grabbed Teddy by the throat. His grip was strong. There was nothing careful in their ferocity now. Teddy responded by tightening his own hold. Their eyes had locked. They were fighting.
And then, as quickly as it had arrived, Teddy’s anger was gone. All of a sudden he didn’t want to be doing this anymore. He wanted to tell Joel it was over. Cry uncle. Whatever. But he couldn’t speak. There was no air for speaking. He pressed down harder, trying to make his friend stop. But Joel only tightened his grip.
It ended unexpectedly, when the strongest hand Teddy had ever felt, a million times stronger
than Joel’s, clamped down on the back of his neck. And then Teddy felt himself rising miraculously upward, straight out of this fight he didn’t want. There was no anger in this hand, no hurt. Just complete authority. Before he could think what was happening he was on his feet. He turned. Joel’s dad stood behind him, his big yellowy eyes clotted with confusion. He looked at Teddy and then at his son.
“Get up,” he said, his usually booming voice hushed.
Joel stood, looking shaky. Teddy began to feel sick to his stomach.
“What the hell are you boys doing?”
Neither spoke. Teddy continued to look at Joel. With a word he could betray him, tell his father what Teddy had called him. He’d be in deep shit then. Nigger was one word you just didn’t say. Not here. Not in Newton. But Joel didn’t betray him. His eyes remained fixed on a point between his dad’s size thirteens.
“We were wrestling,” he said quietly.
“Wrestling? Last time I saw wrestling like that a man like to got killed behind it.”
“It got out of hand, Mr. Wooten,” Teddy added. “I lost my temper.”
Wooten’s eyes traveled between the two boys. He knew he wasn’t getting the whole story but was wise enough to let it rest.
“Well, shake on it, then.”
They performed a soul shake right out of Room 222. Joel’s father frowned—he didn’t approve of the soul shake. But he let it pass. The incident was never mentioned again. For a few weeks after that Joel was frosty toward Teddy, but that soon faded. And yet a boundary had been defined, one it was up to Teddy to guard. He’d been careful since then. Never admonishing his friend for nigger-lipping joints. Refraining from taking sides in the teen center dispute. Keeping quiet when those nitwits raised their gloves in Mexico City. Race became a narrow but deep chasm that could swallow their friendship whole. It was up to Teddy to steer clear of it. That was why this past year, when Joel started making friends with other blacks, not the animals from the projects but decent guys like Alvin Matters and Lavelle Young, Teddy knew better than to hone in on them when they were hanging around the lockers, slapping hands and laughing a bit too loud. There was a part of Joel that it was better just to leave alone. If he wanted to wear that ridiculous dashiki shirt his uncle had brought back from Zaire or listen to Stevie, that was cool. These were just minor things. Sideshows to the main attraction of their friendship. So it was stupid, saying that about Joel getting lynched. Especially now, when the guy was under so much pressure about being with Susan. It was just that the thought of the two of them running off made Teddy lose it for a minute. He couldn’t bear the prospect of being on his own out here.
They reached Susan’s house, one of hundreds of aluminum boxes in the flatlands east of the city center. It was nothing like Mystic Hills, where Teddy and Joel lived. No big trees or rolling hills or sprawling homes on three-acre lots. This was where the GS-12’s and retired soldiers lived. Teddy knew from his father that neighborhoods like this were the backbone of the city. The village centers, the bike paths, the whimsical street names, the open-plan schools and government projects—none of those could exist without these houses, built cheap and sold at a premium. Without them, the other stuff was just utopian window dressing.
He turned in his seat.
“Later, Susan,” he said, making his voice as friendly as he could.
She looked at him quizzically for a moment, as if she wanted to ask him a question that had been on her mind for years. Instead, she simply smiled and slipped out of the car. Joel followed her. On the front porch, beneath the wrought-iron eagle and the American flag twisted as tight as a tampon, they seemed to have a brief argument. At one point Susan gestured back to Teddy’s car and shook her head angrily. But then Joel said something soothing and decisive. She smiled in surrender. He kissed her gently, almost chastely, and strolled back to the Firebird. There was some movement in an upstairs window. Susan’s mother, watching Joel. There was a highball glass in her right hand.
Joel slid back into the front seat.
“You’ve got an audience, dude,” Teddy said, nodding up at Irma, who continued to stare down stonily, her mouth moving now. It reminded Teddy of the scene at the end of The Graduate, when everybody was cussing out Dustin Hoffman. Joel didn’t look. Teddy dropped the car in gear and took off.
“That woman has it in for my ass.”
“You think she’s going to do anything?”
“Nothing she can do,” Joel said. “Not unless Sergeant Slaughter backs her up.”
“Any movement on that front?”
“Nah. Susan says he’s too afraid of pissing off the Earl.”
“So there you go. In like Flynn.”
“As long as I don’t get too blatant about shit.”
Teddy made a corner fast, his brand-new radials squealing.
“Joel, man, I didn’t mean anything back there at the pool.”
“Nah. Forget about it.”
They drove in silence for a while, leaving Fogwood’s prefab spread for the wooded, winding streets of Mystic Hills. Teddy was tempted to tell Joel about the latest chapter of his novel but somehow the silence was hard to break. There had been a lot of silences recently. Too many. They seemed to last longer, often right up to the time they said good-bye for the day. It was never like that before Susan.
They arrived at the Wootens’ massive Federal. Joel’s twin sisters were in the front yard, concocting some elaborate scenario with a dozen dolls and the family’s woebegone cat.
“What you gonna do now?”
“Go see if I can find a present for my dad. So, you comin’ to the party?”
“I think we might just hang at Susan’s.” Joel paused. “You want to come over, it’s cool.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re just going to be listening to music and shit.”
“This all right with Susan?”
Joel shrugged.
“Susan who.”
“I just might do that, then.”
“You can purloin some libations from the banquet.”
“Ever the jester, so I shall.”
Joel smiled. Teddy smiled. Susan who. This was better. This was good.
7
“The panther is on the prowl.”
Truax looked up from his bandaging. His wife stood at the bedroom window, idly licking the sweet scum from the rim of her glass. It was her second whisky sour. He’d have to stop her from having a third. He didn’t want her drunk. Not tonight. Not at Swope’s house.
“What are they doing?”
“Nothing. Talking. Teddy drove them home.” She squinted. “He’s a nice boy, I think.”
“Do you?”
She turned languidly toward him, her robe falling open to reveal a pearl-white slip. A patch of moisture ran across her abdomen from where she’d leaned against the bathroom’s counter to get her face close to the mirror.
“Why?” she asked. “Don’t you?”
“I’m not too happy about that fatigue jacket he wears.”
“You and your uniforms. Who gives a damn.” She looked back at the window. “Though I don’t know how he can stand it, being around those two all the time.”
Truax resumed wrapping the Ace bandage, working his way up from the wrist.
“I think he loves her,” Irma mused.
“Who?”
“John, please. Either pay attention or don’t be stupid. Susan? Teddy? I think he loves her.” She licked the last of the scum from the glass’s rim. “They say that about Nixon, you know. That he loved Pat so much he used to drive her on dates with other boys. Until she finally realized he was the one.”
Truax fastened the first of the three cleats he used.
“That’s sick,” he muttered.
“Really? So now he’s president and she’s first lady. Real sick.”
“Not for long they aren’t.”
Irma’s attention was back out the window.
“Ah, here comes the kiss. That’s right, nigger. Slo
bber all over her.”
“Irma …”
“Would you have done that for me, John?” she asked, her eyes still out the window. “Driven me on dates with other boys, just to be near me?”
The front door slammed. Susan was home.
“I think I’d have just killed the other boys,” Truax said, attempting levity.
Irma walked over to him, rubbing her hand through his hair. Smiling cruelly now. The knife-sharp odor of the Noxzema she’d used to obliterate the first, unsatisfactory application of Max Factor filled his nostrils.
“But you did, John,” she said sweetly. “You killed them all. Twenty-three from my town alone.”
“Before my time, Irma.”
“But if you’d been there in forty-four you would have.”
The thought seemed to thrill her. Sometimes she scared him.
“Yes,” he said after a moment. “I suppose I would.”
Susan was passing by their door.
“Susan?” Irma called out. “Come in here, please.”
She pushed open the door but didn’t cross the threshold. There were wet patches on her clothes. Just like her mother.
“Did you have a nice time at the pool?”
She shrugged.
“It was all right, I guess.”
“Do you want me to make you some dinner?”
Irma’s voice was as cloyingly sweet as the drinks she favored.
“I’ll get something later.”
“So what are you doing tonight?”
Susan performed a put-upon little shrug.
“I think I’ll just watch some TV.”
“With Joel?”
Here we go, Truax thought.
“No,” Susan said, getting mad. “Not with Joel.”
“I don’t want him over here unless we’re home.”
“How many ways do you want me to say no, Mother?”
“Just the one where you mean it, darling.”
They stared at each other for a long, spiteful moment.
“Anything else?” Susan asked sarcastically.
“No, dear,” Irma said. “That’s all.”
Susan retreated to her bedroom. Irma stared after her for a moment before returning to the bathroom and its big mirror. Truax watched as she popped her lips a few times, tilted her head this way and that, then began applying thick mascara to her strawberry-blond eyelashes.
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