Sister Carrie and Sugar Man aren’t as far apart as they sound. If you don’t listen below the surface, they’re both one-note players. Flat and predictable. But nobody comes in here with a simple story. Every one-liner’s got a life underneath it. Every point’s got a counterpoint. Here, I’ll show you; let’s just take ’em one key down:
—You gotta help me, Lord Jesus. Remove this burning from me. Remove these evil thoughts. Wipe out Satan. Wipe him out. I ache and touch, Lord Jesus. I ache and squeeze. I ache and dig into the heat. I bring up my fingers, wet, and give glory to Your name.
—Five-still-alive. And they blame me. The fucking depression. One fucking relief check. And they blame me. They were gonna sell it anyway. One fucking relief check and five of my sisters sitting on gold. They were gonna sell it anyway. I just knew the highest rollers. And they blame me.
And when you take these down to even a lower key you’ll hear about:
her Angel, Lord Jesus, who can’t be trusted. All of the care given the child, all of the teaching, and the betrayal is still coming. The girl wants to sin. She can see it in the breasts that keep pushing up over her brassieres. She buys them tighter and tighter, but the flesh keeps spilling out in defiance. The nipples so large and hard, they show through her dress. Inviting trouble. Wanting trouble. Cover yourself. People are staring. Wash yourself down there. Again. Again. She can’t let her smell like a bitch in heat. Like the bitch she wants to be.
And Sugar Man working hard to protect his women. All women really need protecting. It’s a rough world out there. He knows; he moves in it. Most men aren’t worth shit and will take advantage if they get half a chance. Just get in there, grab the jelly roll, and run. Women aren’t made up to handle the streets and think that way. Women need pretty things around them. A nice place. Nice clothes. The right man to take care of ’em. They’re soft and need you to hold ’em. They need your shoulders to lean on when they have to cry. And when they get confused, they need you to be strong enough to guide ’em. To even give ’em a light spanking. Sure, a little like children—but a whole lot like angels.
—Lord Jesus.
—Five-alive.
That’s just two of them, and they’re only minor voices. But I think you’ve got the drift. Anything really worth hearing in this greasy spoon happens under the surface. You need to know that if you plan to stick around here and listen while we play it all out.
THE JAM
MOOD: INDIGO
What can you say about Sadie? Haven’t see her any this summer, but she was a regular here for a while. Would take the single table at the far wall opposite my jukebox and away from the windows. She looked sixty one month and about seventy the next. They age fast in her life. And everybody in here would have an opinion about that life. I don’t think they should get in on this one, though, and I can hear ’em already: There he goes, wanting to hog up the whole thing and we’ve just gotten started. But it’s not about my liking the sound of my own voice this time; it really isn’t. It’s just that … Damn, how can I even say it? She was a … lady. Yeah, through it all, with it all—a lady. And Nadine would back me up on this one; only customer she ever served twice in a row.
—A little tea, please.
It was more than Deenie liking to hear the way she asked; it was her bringing the mug and Sadie’s fine-boned right hand wrapping itself around the handle with the left one taking the napkin and spoon from her. And somehow, by the time Sadie had made the distance from Deenie’s tray to the table, the thick mug had lost its cracks and stains, hitting the tabletop with the ring of china, while the bent tin spoon and paper napkin became monogrammed silver and linen. Kind of an amazing thing to watch.
—A little tea, please.
Especially since those hands were shaking so badly she always ended up setting the mug in a pool of spilled hot water. On a good day she could lift it up again to put the napkin under it to help blot up what was wasted. On a bad day she couldn’t.
You see, Sadie was a wino. And Sadie was a twenty-five-cent whore. And one night Iceman Jones took her out back to dance under the stars. Yeah, I see I’m gonna have to bring this one on in by myself. It calls for telling straight out, the way it was. Pure, simple, and clean.
Unlike other cities, the South Side of Chicago has always been the South Side of Chicago. Colored settled there, stayed there, and made it their own. It was old and run-down when they found it, and it grew older while they were there. But they gave it whatever they had. Some years that amounted to more than other years: wartime, when jobs went begging and they weren’t too particular about who was hired; the union times, when it was a choice between bringing Negroes in or fighting them as scabs. Those wooden shacks got painted then. And coins were put away in Mason jars for a child’s schooling. The smartest child’s, cause there was no way to put away enough dimes for all of them. But the point was for at least that one child to get a chance. And colored folks lived that way: hanging on during the times with no chance for the times when there’d be a chance.
But like in any city, there are those who fall through the cracks of the upswings and downswings. The ones who kind of give up trying for themselves and their children. Sadie’s daddy was like that, before he became Sadie’s daddy. And he told Sadie’s mama, before she became Sadie’s mama, that the living was good and the living was easy, as long as it stayed them two. That sat just fine with Sadie’s mama; she’d been hoping to meet a man like him. And that’s basically what the both of them were: easy-living folks. Party folks. Would stay one place until the landlord had the sheriff put them out, and then go on to the next place. They’d make ends meet, one way or the other. If his luck was running bad in the crap games, he’d work a piece of job every now and then—as a bootblack or shoveling out stables—to sandwich between whatever they could borrow from the latest set of friends. And she’d pick up a few cents from the dance halls and stretch out what he brought in by hustling the greengrocer or the butcher. Even if she’d been the type of woman to consider it, any sort of hard work was out of the question—housekeeping or laundry—because her body was weak from all those abortions. If she caught it in time, she and a friend would do it themselves. A couple of folded towels and a little peroxide on a coat hanger. But if she was too far along, there were some pretty bad fights between them two because he had to come up with the money for a professional. A couple of folded towels and a little peroxide on some forceps.
Sadie heard it so much from her mama that she thought it was her name when she was little: The One The Coat Hanger Missed. Not that the woman ever spoke to her, or hardly ever looked at her, unless she was drinking—and then only to curse her for the daddy’s face she wore. But she’d hear it when one of the men her mother brought home for the night would ask about the sleepy child. She’d hear it when yet another streetwalker would pat her cheek as they moved around that circuit from boardinghouse to boardinghouse, when she spilled her milk, when she forgot to tiptoe in the morning, and when she stroked the hair of the drunken woman sprawled over the dirty dishes on the table; she’d hear it after she was slapped and shoved away: The One The Coat Hanger Missed. It took her until she was about four years old to ask, Mama, do I have a name? And she learned it was Sadie, because that’s what the woman kept screaming each time she brought the leather strap down on her back, shoulders, head—Yes, Sadie. Sadie. The landlady heard all the racket and had to come up to pull her off the child. But Sadie had been taught her name and something a lot more important: the only way out of this was to love.
The mama had just about lost most of her mind when that beating happened. Four years’ worth of drinking pure absinthe when enough corpses hadn’t yet piled up on skid row for the government to outlaw the stuff; she was finishing a quart bottle every other day and it was rotting her brain. And with those two-dollar hustles on winter streets that can get as cold as only Chicago knows how, she had just about ruined her looks. No point in talking about the things that could still have been deep insi
de. Faith had walked out with the daddy on an errand for a pint of milk when she was seven months pregnant. Hope had followed a few weeks later when he never came back. Charity had amounted to what she considered her goodness in not cutting the squalling throat of his newborn bastard. And that about summed it up, except for the little bit of breath in her body.
Since Sadie was so young, she didn’t know she was loving this empty woman in order to survive. Her four-year-old, five-year-old, six-year-old world was really very simple: her mama did these things because she was her mama. Her seven-year-old, eight-year-old, nine-year-old world was when it started to get confusing, because then she could compare her bruises to the unmarked face of the blacksmith’s daughter, her mother’s high-pitched threats to the voice of Mrs. Johnson when she called her own boy in from play. There was a difference. And listening to the other children—who complained about being punished when they weren’t good—she knew the difference had to be her fault. So she became very good.
Now her mama could drag in from the streets and drink herself into a stupor across a clean table; the dishes were all washed and put away. And she always found the sheets on her bed freshly changed if she dragged in a man or not. The child discovered ways to make absolutely no noise. Sadie became so good at being quiet in the morning, the woman would have to clear her bleary eyes and open the shutters to find her: under the shelves of the cupboard, a soda cracker softening in her mouth before she dared chew it; in the middle of her pallet, legs clenched tightly together to hold back her full bladder since a creaky floorboard separated her from the chamber pot.
And when very good didn’t work, she tried very very good. There wasn’t a speck of dirt in any of the rooms they boarded in, and they moved often. Sadie scraped the soles of her boots with sandpaper before she’d let herself into their room. The floor she kept bleached would have left telltale prints if she didn’t. In the summer she could make it by on bare feet, but she found the winters were just too cold even with her woolen stockings on. Her head got stuffed up with snot, and when her head got stuffed up, she could hear her breath rattling through her chest and nose—much too loud for the mornings. A ten-year-old, eleven-year-old, twelve-year-old world of pressing threadbare petticoats until the creases reflected light; of darning cheap stockings with stitches finer than the ones put there by machine; of not polishing shoe tops, glossing them. A ten-year-old, eleven-year-old, twelve-year-old world of slicing tough brisket and the knife not clinking on the plate, of spooning corn gruel into her mouth without a trace of milk on her lips. A world of May I, Please, and Thank You; speaking quietly, walking softly. A perfect little lady. Very very good was to say, I love you, Mama. And very very good was to be deserving of the love she believed was waiting in return. Waiting, you see, until Sadie, somehow, managed to be good enough.
She couldn’t reach for any more than very very good with what she found around her to work with. But she could dream of reaching further. And her thirteen-year-old world was full of those kinds of dreams. There was to be a trim white bungalow with a green picket fence, and she would keep the front yard swept clean of leaves and pick all the withered blooms from their fence full of roses. She would go to the academy, learn French and elocution in a starched white collar and black ribbon tie, become so expert with the typewriting machine she’d be the first colored woman hired as a typewriter in the biggest insurance company on State Street. Mama would come down to meet her for lunch. And she could say, Mama, I’m doing so good here, they’re going to give me a raise. And Mama would bring one of the tiny red rosebuds from their yard to pin it on her collar, saying, I knew you could do it; I’m so proud of you, Sadie. You’re a good girl, Sadie. The setting might change to a suite of rooms with a view of Lake Shore Drive or a town house on Michigan, or even just a newer boardinghouse where the wallpaper wasn’t slick from grease and the sink full of cockroaches. And they might be meeting for dinner instead of lunch. The secretarial academy might be Oberlin or Fisk. And she’d gone on to become a teacher or nurse. But the dreams always ended the same way: Mama, I’m doing so good here. Yes, I’m so proud of you. You’re a good girl, Sadie.
Dreams of love. Dreams that spoke louder than the whispering of the neighbors when her mother took her into the streets: I’ve been selling my tail all this time to feed you till I’m sick and near death. Now you better kick in too. She could have gotten a higher price for her if some of the men with those particular tastes had believed she was that young. But Sadie being a busty girl and carrying herself so stately and quiet, they put her age at twenty or so. And with the mama saying it was her daughter and herself looking so beaten up and haggard, they figured Sadie was lying when she told them she’d just turned thirteen. Yeah, I like it when you scream, the very first one whispered and kissed her neck, his hands holding each side of her rigid head. I like it when you scream. Then, pulling on his pants, he discovered that the wetness covering his groin and stomach wasn’t sweat. His dark hands fell limp between his knees and tears stood in his eyes as he stared at the naked girl curled up in pain on the cot. He sat there a long time, now able to make out the shapes of the tintypes nailed on the wall, the rag doll propped up in the corner. His head kept moving between Sadie and the sheet tacked up between the two cots in the room, trying to fight the bile rising in his throat. Finished yet? he heard from beyond the sheet. He left a bloody thumbprint as he yanked it down and grabbed her mother, shaking her until her teeth rattled:
—What kind of woman are you?
Same words from another man, six months later, but this time one with watery blue eyes. In a back room no bigger than theirs, but a whole lot filthier, smelling of dogs and cats. And this time she had an answer because she was a whole lot drunker: The kind with double the money to pay you. A couple of folded towels and a little peroxide on a pair of forceps. Then Sadie’s nose full of ether and with a scalpel he went back into the girl to earn the extra fee. I did it for you, she told Sadie later. Your life woulda been pure hell ever having to take care of a child.
But this last year she was to have with her mama turned out to be the best. They were spending much more time together now, sleeping the same hours of the day, and Sadie even saw her smile. She was a smart child and she picked up things quick: the telltale signs for a man who was carrying a disease or a grudge against streetwalkers. The suits that gave away they couldn’t pay what they offered. The shoes that gave away they were working underground for the morals squad. And seeing that her quickness pleased her mama, she worked at it even harder. And this fourteen-year-old world she found herself in gave her new dreams to reach for.
There was to be the same suite of rooms overlooking Lake Shore Drive, because Sadie had picked up a john who was old and very ugly. Maybe even deformed. The type that was the most grateful. But this one was also very rich. And he took her to this party and there were other old men there, just as deformed. One by one she took them, all day and all night, never resting, one by one. Two by two. Three by three. And she left there able to stop at the flower shop for a bunch of orchids, the fishmonger’s for oysters and shrimp, just from the tips alone. And she made her mother the most wonderful lunch: the orchids in a cut-glass vase; the real money piled up in front of her plate, enough for six months’ rent on their flat. Enough for the doctors and the medicine her mother needed to stop the shaking. And she would say, Mama, I did so well there. The things that used to make me gag, I tried real hard and didn’t gag this time. I made them think I liked it. I even took it in the behind, Mama. And I didn’t feel dirty with any of it, really I didn’t. And Mama would take one of the orchids and pin it on her collar and say, I knew you could do it. I’m so proud of you. You’re a good girl, Sadie.
Dreams that drowned out the sound of the wailing and screaming of her mama’s losing battle with invisible monsters that crawled out the absinthe bottle. The hawking coughs. The pus-filled urine hitting the sides of the chamber pot. The smell of licorice and fever pouring out in night sweats. Look at what
I come to, trying to feed you. Just look at what I come to.
They buried her in Potter’s Field, two of her drinking buddies, the old woman on the first floor who made a hobby of funerals, and Sadie. The grave diggers had an easy job of it with the heavy rain. As the cheap pine box was lowered into the pit of dirty water, the county chaplain’s prayer was tinged with his resentment for having to be out there in the cold and damp. He gave it all of three sentences: Lord, we commit this soul to Thee. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. And he flung a handful of wet dirt down into the grave. Turning his collar up against the icy rain, he jerked his head for the others to follow suit. Each of the women hurried forward to throw in her handful of dirt. Sadie just stood there. Her face was unreadable as she watched the rain washing chunks of soil down the sides of the muddy pit. The chaplain nudged her forward. She took just a step and stood there, so very intent on the soil sliding down the sides of the grave. The old woman who made a hobby of funerals took this as a sign that things would finally get juicy and started to cry. That set off the two other women, each now trying to outdo the other. Sadie’s eyes were vacant and dry. The chaplain danced from foot to foot; he’d had more than enough. He grabbed up a handful of dirt, forced it into Sadie’s hand, and shoved her to the edge of the grave. She stumbled and went down on her knees. Lord, we commit this soul to Thee. He raised his voice louder. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
Sadie opened her hand and let the damp soil drop into the grave. Still on her knees, she watched it hit the top of the pine coffin. Yes. It was barely a whisper. She leaned over the pit to get a closer look as she picked up another handful of soil and threw that on top of the box. Yes. Another and another. Glassy-eyed, like a robot, she tried to cover the coffin. Yes. Yes. Never above a whisper. Faster and faster. Yes. Yes. Yes. Mud and water flew into her face and onto her jacket as she scooped up fistfuls and fistfuls of soil to fling down into the grave. She fought them when they tried to stop her. Biting and scratching them with her muddy fingernails, using her boot heels to shove dirt into the grave as they dragged her away. Yes—she was crying now, tears tracking through the mud on her face. She was still crying when she got back to their boardinghouse. But, reaching the front steps, she knew from experience that sinking her teeth into her bottom lip until she tasted blood would stop the sobs. She sat down outside their room to remove her muddy boots, careful not to let them drop too loudly. Every speck of mud was gone before she put them back on and dared to open the door.
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