by Gayl Jones
I nodded.
“Come on over here, honey. Don’t stand up there looking like that.”
I went over to the bed, and sat down beside him. We made love and then slept. He was asleep before I was.
The big band from Chicago was probably the best group they’d had out there, but then I’d never really gone much, so I couldn’t be a judge. Most of the time when they had something out there I was working myself. And then again my joy might have been just being with Mutt, acting the good way he was, and that got into the band’s music. I couldn’t jitterbug well and so Mutt and me mostly slow-danced. Mutt called it “two-stepping.”
“You can’t jitterbug?” Mutt asked.
“No, I never really got a chance to learn it.”
“Well, you move good and easy this way though.”
I didn’t like what he was doing now. He was getting up really close to me, more like you see people doing in back alleys than on the dance floor, even though there were other people dancing pretty close. But what he was doing made me think of what people did in the bedroom. He kept making me feel him hard against me, and trying to fit himself in my crotch, and I kept moving a little to the side.
“Be still, woman.”
“Mutt, please.”
He was holding my shoulders tight, so that even if I hadn’t been too embarrassed to move away from him, I couldn’t have. Each time he would try to fit himself between my legs, I would move a little to the side. I know we must have looked bad to some people and funny to others.
“Mutt, we ain’t in bed.”
“You act the same way when we are.”
He talked a little louder than I did.
“Mutt, I’m so embarrassed I don’t know what to do.”
When the song ended I was so embarrassed I wouldn’t even look at people. We went over and sat down. I kept looking down at my beer glass. He was drinking rum cola.
“Mutt, I just don’t understand you,” I said, looking up at him.
“You mumbling, Ursa.”
“I said I don’t understand,” I said a little louder, almost speaking through my teeth.
“You don’t try,” he said, and took a drink.
When the next slow song came on he wanted to dance again, but I wouldn’t. He got up anyway and held out his hand to me, but I wouldn’t take it. He kept looking at me real hard, like he was saying, “Take it, bitch. You better take my hand.” He wasn’t saying it, but it was all in his eyes. And after that was in his eyes, “Don’t embarrass me, woman,” was in his eyes, and then the hard hateful look was there again. I’d taken his hand when the “Don’t embarrass me this way, woman” look had come into his eyes, and we were up on the dance floor when the hard hateful look was back again.
“Don’t do that to me no more, Urs,” he said.
I shook my head, and let him hold my shoulder hard, and try to grind himself into me. I swore, though, that if he asked me to dance again, I’d run in the bathroom before I’d get up on the floor with him. When the song ended, I could feel his hand move down to my behind. I saw some man look at me and smile. I didn’t look at him again.
“How you doing, buddy?” somebody asked Mutt.
“I’m doing, man. How you doing?”
“I’m doing, too,” the man answered.
I sat down, not looking at people. Then it was the part of the show where they asked somebody from the audience who could sing to come up to the stage. I’d forgotten about that part of the show. I’d never gone up the few times I was there, but I’d still forgotten. Tonight they asked if there was a female vocalist in the house.
“Go on up, Urs, don’t be shy,” Mutt said, pushing me a little on the shoulder.
I saw some people looking my way.
“No, Mutt,” I said quiet, trying to give him the “Don’t embarrass me this way, man” look, but it didn’t come off.
“Go on up, Urs, you can sing.”
I got up from the table and went in the ladies’ room. I saw people’s eyes following me like they thought I was going up to the stage at first, and when they discovered I wasn’t they just kept watching me. When I came out of the ladies’ room, that part of the show was over, and Mutt was standing outside with his arms folded, looking evil.
“Take you a age to pee?” he asked.
“No.”
“Get your coat, we going home.”
I got my coat, and we left. When we got home he slammed the door.
“You ain’t got no right to be mad at me,” I said.
He had that hard hateful look again.
“If you ever see me hold my hand out to you in a public place you better take it,” he said. “I don’t care what you do here, but if we ever in a public place, you better take my hand.”
“You didn’t have no right to act like you was in the bedroom.”
“I wasn’t dancing no different from the way other peoples was dancing.”
“I didn’t see no other people dancing like that. Close, but not like that.”
“It look different than it feel, baby.”
“You didn’t have no right to put your hand on me, though, not where people could see.”
“I didn’t even touch nothing but your shoulders. Shit.”
“Yes, you did. When that song was over you had your hand on my behind, right where people could see.”
“Well, it’s my ass, ain’t it? When I screwed you last night and asked you whose ass it was, you said it was mine. Ain’t no other man had it, or have they?”
“Mutt, that was different. You know it.” I felt like I was going to cry, but I wouldn’t, not in front of him.
“What made it different?”
“Cause people saw it. Cause we wasn’t in here, that’s why.”
“Shit, you my wife, ain’t you? We married, ain’t we?”
I said nothing. He kept looking at me, almost like he was half grinning, half making fun of me. I turned away a little. I thought I was going to cry, but I didn’t. I turned back. “You wont to show everybody when we out in public that you got your … piece—but when we here you act like you ain’t got shit. I ain’t no more than a piece a shit. Well, you got your piece a shit. I can play your game too, buddy. Tomorrow night you can just come on down to the place and sell your piece a shit, cause I don’t give a damn.”
I turned and went out the door. I went down to the hotel lobby and waited till I was in the toilet, and then I cried.
When I came back he was in bed. He didn’t turn toward me, and I didn’t tell him good night. He waited until I’d turned the light off before he hit back at me. “I was just pretend fucking, baby, like you used to do. Wasn’t doing nothing but play fucking.”
When he came to the place the next night, it wasn’t to sell his piece a shit, it was to try to take it off the stage, and then when his piece a shit wouldn’t get off the stage and Tadpole and some other men put him out, it was to knock that piece a shit down some stairs. I should have known something was wrong when he came home from work that night. He’d brought a bottle of bourbon with him. I was on my way out. It was a Saturday night in April.
“When you get there, Urs, just go over to one a they tables for me, and kinda lean down, you know how you can kinda lean down so you show a little bit of them titties, and then just ask one of em what he wont. If you don’t know what he’s gonna say, I do. ‘Piece a ass, please.’ ‘Piece a whose ass?’ ‘Yours, good-lookin woman.’ ”
“Mutt, it ain’t like that.”
“Tell me if they ain’t asked?”
He was all up in my face now, squeezing that bottle in that brown paper sack. I told him I’d be damned if I’d tell him a damn thing.
Mutt came in with his hands in his pockets, drunk this time. The other nights he had been a sober Dick Tracy, but tonight he looked like he couldn’t hardly stand. When he started walking toward me I didn’t think he would keep coming, but he did. He was within a few feet of me when I stopped singing, the look in his eyes somewhere b
etween the mean and hateful and “Don’t embarrass me this way” look. He didn’t have his hand out, though. He had them both in his pockets.
“Come on, you going home,” he said.
I didn’t move.
“I said you going home.”
I still didn’t move. The place had got real quiet.
“What’s wrong with that man?” somebody asked.
“He’s crazy,” somebody else answered.
“Already crazy, he don’t need to be drunk, too,” another said.
Mutt turned quickly and looked in the direction where the voices came from, and then turned back to me.
“Woman, you heard me.”
I said nothing.
“You my woman, ain’t you?”
I kept looking at him. I couldn’t make out his look, and I was too embarrassed right now to look anywhere else. He still didn’t hold his hand out, though. He seemed like he’d planted them more firmly in his pockets.
“You ain’t they woman, is you?”
I stood looking at him. He almost had the “Don’t embarrass me this way” look, but the mean and hateful one kept getting in the way. The hard look won.
“Bitch, you coming home,” he said and grabbed for me. He almost stumbled and some men grabbed him. While they was taking him out he was saying, “You ain’t they woman, is you? Is you they woman, or mines?” The men got him out the door. Tadpole came over to me and asked if I was okay, if I wanted to stop, but I said naw, I was all right. I finished out the show. Mutt kept peeking in, the mean and hateful look on his face, his collar pulled up. And then it was when I was on my way home, he knocked his piece a shit down those stairs.
“You was cussing everybody out,” Tadpole said. “They said they didn’t know what you was.”
He was standing up over me in the hospital, the first person I didn’t think was Mutt.
I don’t remember what I said in the hospital, but Tadpole told me later that I kept saying something about a man treat a woman like a piece a shit.
“You got your piece a shit now, ain’t you? You got your piece a shit now.”
IV
It was June 1969. I was forty-seven, still working at the Spider. I walked by one of the tables on my way to the stage.
“I wont you to put me in the alley tonight, sister,” one of the men said. He was drunk.
“Will do.”
“Next best thang to the blues is a good screw.”
I sat down at the piano.
“Show business is funny, ain’t it?”
I started singing a song, hoping that would make him quiet. It did. I put him where he wanted to get. I sang a low down blues. It surprised me he stayed quiet throughout the whole show, otherwise Logan would have throwed him out. When I finished, though, he came up to me. “Can I bring you over to my table? Come on over to my table and have a drink with me.” I went over with him. I’d handled drunks before, and he didn’t seem like a dangerous drunk. I sat down and he asked me what I drank. I said beer. He ordered me a beer.
“Show business is funny, ain’t it?” he repeated.
I said, “Yeah, it’s funny.”
“I’m sanging over at the Drake Hotel,” he said. “I’m fifty-eight years old and just got my first job sanging over at the Drake Hotel, and I been sanging all my life. Show business is sho funny, ain’t it?”
I nodded and drank.
“Before then I had to go around with a paper sack. They let you sang in their places, but I have to go around with a paper sack. Some people don’t understand that. They say you looking for a handout. But I ain’t looking for a handout. I been sanging all my life, and just got my first job yesterday sanging over at the Drake Hotel.”
I said nothing.
“You come over there and see me, won’t you?”
I nodded, but I knew I wouldn’t.
“You won’t forget where it’s at, will you?”
“I know where it’s at.”
“Yeah, I been sanging all my life. You know how long Thelonius Monk was playing in that place all that long time before they discovered him. You know, I don’t like to use that word ‘discovered,’ cause it’s already there, ain’t it?”
I nodded.
“Yes, indeedy, it’s already there, but don’t seem like they can see it. I don’t know how many years daddy Monk was playing funk before they seen him. I call him daddy Monk because I wrote a song about it. I like to write my own songs, you know. I sing some of the others too, but I like to write my own. And I’m fifty-eight years old. You know, I don’t like that word ‘discovery.’ Ray Charles is a genius, you know that? But let me tell you something and I don’t have to spell it out for you cause you know what I’m talking about. Sinatra was the first one to call Ray Charles a genius, he spoke of ‘the genius of Ray Charles.’ And after that everybody called him a genius. They didn’t call him a genius before that though. He was a genius but they didn’t call him that. You know what I’m trying to tell you? If a white man hadn’t told them, they wouldn’t’ve seen it. If I come and told them they wouldn’t’ve seen it. Do you know what I’m talking about? I could’ve told ’em. You could’ve told ’em. Like, you know, they say Columbo discovered America, he didn’t discover America. You hear that song where Aretha say she discovered Ray Charles. Now tha’s awright.” He laughed.
I laughed too.
“I could tell them about you, but they wouldn’t listen. And you could come over there and tell them about me, but they wouldn’t listen.” He stopped, then he said, “You know you made me feel good sanging. You made me feel real good sanging.”
He didn’t give me time to say thank you. He went on: “You know the onliest other time I felt good was when I was in the Apollo Theater. That was a long time ago cause I ain’t been back to New York in a long time. But the Lady was singing. Billie Holiday. She sang for two solid hours. And then when she finished, there was a full minute of silence, just silence. And then there was applauding and crying. She came out and was nervous for a full thirty-two seconds. And then she sang. And you see what they done to her, don’t you?”
I said, “Yes.”
“If you listen to those early records and then listen to that last one, you see what they done to her voice. They say she destroyed herself, but she didn’t destroy herself. They destroyed her.”
He was almost across the table at me, then he stopped, and sat back, as if he were exhausted. All the time he was talking, I could see Logan eyeing us, as if he were ready to come over any moment at my signal.
“It’s a sin, ain’t it? It’s a sin and a shame. Naw it ain’t a shame. It’s shameful. That’s what it is, it’s shameful.”
I didn’t really see the difference then, but I nodded. He took another drink. He was drinking T-bird. Then he sat looking at me.
“I bet you got some good pussy.”
I said nothing. I really hadn’t expected that. I just looked back at him.
“Tell me if you ain’t got some good pussy.”
I didn’t tell him anything. I just kept looking at him.
“I don’t mean to get nasty,” he said. “I just think you a good-looking woman.” He leaned toward me. “Tell me if you ain’t got some good pussy.”
I wanted to go, but I just sat there, saying nothing. He sat back again.
“I know you got some good pussy,” he said, as if he were giving a verdict.
A man we called Cat’s-eye Marble because he had a popped eye, passed by the table. I said hi to him. He said, “You looking prosperous, baby, real prosperous.” That was his favorite word. He went on by. I looked back at the man. He was frowning, still looking at me.
“You won’t forget the name of it, will you?” he asked.
I said I wouldn’t forget it.
“You be over to hear me, won’t you?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I ain’t going to be there but for two weeks. They only signed me on for two weeks.”
I said nothing. He was silen
t. He drank some more wine.
“Did I make you mad?” he asked.
I said, Naw, he didn’t make me mad.
“I didn’t mean to get nasty with you. I ain’t got nasty with a woman a day in my life, and I didn’t mean to get nasty with you.” He got up rocking. I started to ask him if he was all right, but didn’t. “You stay sweet, you hear?”
I said I would. I told him to take it easy.
“You won’t forget, will you?” he asked.
I said No I wouldn’t forget. Then I nodded to Logan, who came and helped him outside. I went back to the piano.
“… She liked me to fan her thighs when it was hot and then one day she had me fan her between her legs. Then after that she made me sleep with her, cause, you know, he wouldn’t sleep with her, and then after that something went wrong with her. She had some hot prongs she come after me with, and she told me to raise up my dress and I know where she was going to put them, right between my legs. Cause she knew he was getting his from me too. But then that was when he came in. He grabbed her and knocked the prongs out of her hands and then he started beating her. That woman was black for days to come. After that he just kept her locked up in that bedroom and wouldn’t even let me go near her. I guess she thought of it that way, the prongs I mean, from having me fan her between her legs. Thought of it that way in her mind. She just went crazy, that’s all. Short time after that, she died up there. But there was a lots of thangs like that that was going on where the husband just let his wife do what she did, or he do it hisself if he was ready for some new pussy. But then lots of time too he just wont the one pussy and do like Corregidora did.
“… He fucked her and fucked me. He would’ve fucked you and your mama if y’all been there and he wasn’t old and crooked up like he got. Mama ran off cause he would’ve killed her. I don’t know what she did. She never would tell me what she did. Up till today she still won’t tell me what it was she did. He would’ve killed her, though, if she hadn’t gone. He raised me and then when I got big enough he started fucking me. Seem like he raised me fucking me. Yeah, Mama told me how in the old days he was just buying up women. They’d have to raise up their dress so he could see what they had down there, and he feel all around down there, and then he feel their bellies to see if they had solid bellies. And they had to be pretty. He wasn’t buying up them fancy mulatta womens though. They had to be black and pretty. They had to be the color of his coffee beans. That’s why he said he always liked my mama better than me. But he never said nothing about what it was she did to him. What is it a woman can do to a man that make him hate her so bad he wont to kill her one minute and keep thinking about her and can’t get her out of his mind the next?”