Gumbo

by E. Lynn Harris

  During his first stay at home, he complained to Graciela how the stillness of land, the permanence of the ground underneath his feet made him feel as if his joints were welded together.

  —Devil's still dancin' in my head, he said when Graciela's chamomile tea failed to stop the hammer tearing apart his temples. In their bed, Silvio flopped over, long after Graciela had fallen asleep, then his ragged breaths would wake her before dawn. And twice a day Graciela had to send for Fausto to refill the water jug that would cure Silvio's insatiable thirst.

  Despite Silvio's uncharacteristic neediness, Graciela was glad to have him back home. She was impressed by the skill with which he prepared barbecued fish, and conch soup, and vinegary ceviches. Unlike hers, his hands stayed uncut when digging out the meat from a crab, which he fed to her in slimy bits. —Try it, you squid, he said, when she refused the seaweed and onions entangled in his fork. A strange man of the sea he had become to the land-anchored Graciela, and it made her proud. No, Silvio was not like all the other dull men in town, with his narrow back, his yellowed naps, his sea speech. But their three weeks of reacquaintance were over—just when Graciela had begun to get used to the extra salt in their food, just as she was feeling proud of herself for not harrowing him about the turquoise palmwood house.

  So Silvio came and went with the tides. Twice a month, his weekend stays heated the kitchen with frying fish and boiling plantains. Folks arrived to hear tales of ghost ships abandoned at sea. Silvio told of real and invented ports where the crew stopped to sell their catch. He described his searches for pirate loot at the bottom of the ocean. And when Graciela was out of earshot, he confirmed that white women had the fragrance of the sea and its treasures. When the fish was sold, given away, and eaten; when the travel stories were told, and had worn thin; when people no longer exclaimed “¡Llegó Silvio!”; and when he was ready for brine again, Silvio would tie up his bags.

  —Take me, Silvio.

  He would put his finger to Graciela's lips, but later she followed him to the docks with her own bags. Each time, sea mates teased Silvio for his inability to wrest himself from his hound.

  One afternoon in early February, Silvio departed for the sixth time, according to Graciela's tally. On this occasion, he hopped on the boat and turned to face the horizon even as Graciela waved. Long after the boatful of those leather-faced men sailed around the turn of shore, Graciela lingered by the water sucking salt from her lips.

  —¡Thief!

  She spat her bitterness into the water, whose currents drew Silvio away and lapped at the seawall; whose depths contained jewelry unhooked from the wrists of the wealthy, whole bodies of metal sea animals with fractured waists, and hundreds of ball-and-chained bones trapped in white coral.

  Nausea came to Graciela. That February the goat had not been slaughtered; her rags remained bloodless for the first time since she was ten. No more waiting.

  Graciela collected some belongings, and tied them up in the hammock. She wanted to leave the capital, perhaps head north to Santiago, the Heart of the Country. The new life inside her pulled her daydreams down from the clouds. Up north in the pulse of the country, they could build a bright turquoise palmwood house with a zinc roof for their new family. She would wait for Silvio's return, and then convince him, and if he did not join her, she would leave without him, and take up washing or cleaning until the child was born. Then she would make her palmwood house, and call on Silvio to show him that she was not a woman to be kept sitting and waiting idly for her life to happen . . .

  Graciela's dreaming also set in motion Fausto's plan. He invited a friend over to help him till the small plot of beans he had been helping Graciela tend. As the boys rolled up tobacco joints, Graciela could hear Fausto's put-on baritone through the bread-fruit trees.

  —Once Sis leaves, I'll bring that little number down from Villa Consuelo to live here with me, you'll see.

  But the moon went through its faces and still no Silvio. Common talk brought greetings from him, which Graciela knew were fabricated by pitying friends.

  It was already August—half a year since anyone had last seen Silvio. In six months, the speculations surrounding his extended absence bubbled up like a foul gas. Out of consideration, someone suggested to Graciela that his boat had floated far out to the Mona Canal. There was talk of sharks and trouble with Marines. A lynching. Celeste, as always, offered the possibility of a distant woman, one who perhaps did not squabble as much.

  The real story people feared.

  —Those butchers left the fishermen hanging in a bunch like a hand of bananas, said Desiderio to whoever would listen at Yunco's.

  The local bar was packed with Prohibition-free Marines, and Yunco, always out to profit from fortune and misfortune alike, covertly turned his home into the “locals' local” bar after curfew. Desiderio, a regular “yunquero,” had heard the lynching story from his cousin, who had heard it from Flavia the johnnycake woman, who lived with El Gordo, who worked in the sugar mill of the Turks. And El Gordo, who was eating out of Celeste's kitchen unbeknownst to Flavia and Celeste's husband, heard the tale from the Turks themselves.

  And the Turks, who seemed neutral enough in matters between Dominicans and yanquis, ran an information exchange out of their sugar mill. They bribed Dominicans for details on the gavillero rebels and any other anti-yanqui activities, then sold it to the yanquis. But to assuage their guilt in aiding the yanquis, they also bought information from yanqui-friendly Dominican spies to distribute freely among the people. It was in this web of information that Silvio's fate became enmeshed:

  That one of the fishermen in Silvio's fleet deserted them because of a dispute over money. That he went to the Turks. That the Turks then gave the yanquis detailed information on a fleet of so-called fishermen who made trips to the Caribbean. That these fishermen would swing around the nose of the island to the east instead, where they unloaded weapons for the gavilleros hiding out in the hills.

  —This is what I heard myself.

  El Gordo pounded his chest in competition with Desiderio.

  —And those yanquis then chopped them down from the tree. They say that in El Ceibo pigs were shitting buttons and bits of nails, Desiderio said, proud of his contribution to the grains of information.

  —Now no one eats pork in El Ceibo, he added with a wink.

  —Things are really bad in the east. Bad like purple gas. El Gordo sighed and took a swig of rum.

  By September, Graciela had stopped rocking in her hammock. Her seven-month belly popped one of the cords, prompting her to fold up the hammock and tightly wrap up most of her belongings in it; she prayed she would not have to later unwrap it to wear her black skirt and mourning veil. If Silvio did not return before her labor, Graciela was determined to push out her child, pack up the rest of her things, and head north, wailing baby strapped to her back and all. ¿So what if it was a foolish thought not to wait out the forty postpartum days? Tired she was of waiting for her life to truly begin. A departure would be progress, she was sure. Living in this cluster of ramshackle shacks had not been part of her vision of life with Silvio, and now there were more than two futures to think about. Asking the clouds for mercy and ignoring the vivid memory of a straw hat being lapped up by sea foam, Graciela waited one more month for her own signs of Silvio.

  It was an easy pregnancy, with Graciela sending Fausto all over town on errands. Water bread and not lard bread, she insisted, and Fausto had better make sure to sift any maggots from the sugar if he purchased it from Joselito. When Fausto was out of the house, Graciela would curl up in bed to work on a rag doll for the future baby. Then she cried herself to sleep when its uneven button eyes gawked back at her, one red and tiny, the other black and large.

  Everyone who used to laugh at Graciela's ship-and-lace dreams knew that her baby must have been crying in the womb. They also knew that Silvio's body had been found so riddled by bullets, there was more kindness in saying sharks had devoured him.

  The
day her daughter was born, Graciela had rocked under anvils of cumulonimbus ships. Gray clouds tumbled after each other, herded by winds to where they could relieve their weight. Must be difficult labor, rain, she thought, rubbing her belly. Crows squawked over the waving trees, dipping over her as if flaunting their gift of flight. A blanket of smoke, of burnt ashes in the ominous sky—the death of her Silvio, she speculated. Thunder changed her mind. No, no, their fruit is life, a good sign. In the silver underbelly of one of the ships, Graciela was certain she saw Silvio. Alive. He was sure to return to her that night, she understood.

  The air had cooled, causing land crabs to scurry out of their holes. Cashew leaves turned their waxy sides up and field mice ran up the trunks of trees. Fausto stabbed a spot in the yard with an ax, while Graciela shooed the chickens inside the house and closed all doors. The rest of the day she spent adorning her home and combing her hair tangled from the coming rains. Fausto's whistling and the sharp jabs in Graciela's womb kept her awake before Silvio's arrival.

  In the October night, Graciela woke to rain dripping into the pot at the foot of her bed. Fausto was curled in a cot, sleeping soundly, despite heavy ozone in the air. Graciela waited for the sea breeze to enter through the creaking door. The tiny voice had echoed again, languishing at the bottom of her spine, then crawling to her forearms, where cold had already tightened the tiniest of hairs.

  —¡Silvio! ¿That you?

  For the first time she was afraid of what jumped inside her. She wanted Silvio to arrive before the child; for the pain of childbirth to be only in her womb and not in her heart.

  —¡Fausto!

  He snored louder than the thunder outside.

  —¡Fausto! ¡Go get Ñá Nurca!

  He snored louder than the thunder outside.

  —¡Fausto!

  Cold and whirring in her womb ate at her. The night howled when Graciela pried open the door. Rain cloaked her.

  —¡Silvio!

  Spongy ground sucked at her feet. The sky growled as she broke into a jog. A flash of blue lightning found the ax in the yard, and the nerves of the heavens seemed to converge at its handle. Graciela stopped; her feet were buried in unusually warm mud. The rain was saltier than her own tears. She whiffed a sharp sulfuric odor, then the undeniable smell of excrement. Graciela crossed a flooded ditch, wading to her shins in sewage.

  The small cement house was a refuge at the end of the road.

  —¡Ñá Nurca! She beat on the door until the elderly midwife opened and, without a word, led Graciela into the house by lantern light.

  —Like the Devil himself you smell, Ñá Nurca said.

  —And I'm about to have Juan the Baptist himself, Graciela yelled with the jolt in her womb. Used to the hysteria of life-givers, Ñá Nurca cupped Graciela's face and complained that Graciela should have sent word with Fausto to the yawning servant girl.

  —Go boil water and prepare the birth bed, for the love of God, Ñá Nurca snapped at the girl.

  Graciela's moans were muffled by the crackling of the skies. Ñá Nurca's teas and tinctures opened her womb, sending Graciela to the tenuous membrane between life and death. In the velvet behind her lids, she saw Silvio's muted face, then that of a child's.

  —Come back, woman, come back, Ñá Nurca said to Graciela.

  The servant girl, accustomed to the trials of childbirth, gathered the soiled cloths as fast as she could. Ñá Nurca's gnarled hands massaged Graciela's body relentlessly in an attempt to coax out new life with her own.

  By morning, as the storm subsided, the bleating of Graciela's labor had alerted the neighbors. The elaborate word-of-mouth network eventually drew Mai away from her duties. With soup and clean linens she appeared at Ñá Nurca's—not before boxing Fausto's ears for having slept through the night.

  That afternoon, Graciela's baby was born, healthy, kicking furiously out of the muting pillows of her mother's warmth. Ñá Nurca wrapped the afterbirth in a cloth for burying and saved the umbilical cord for Graciela's safekeeping. She joked about the child's big fists as she wiped her with warm water.

  —Mercedes, Ñá Nurca, call the chichí Mercedes, Graciela mumbled.

  —¿This little hurricane with the name of mercy? Ñá Nurca said, noting again the unusually large fists and discovering a mole on her toe.

  Ñá Nurca swaddled Mercedes in a fresh blanket before putting her to Graciela's breast. The child latched on tightly to her mother, not letting go even after Graciela's breasts were drained of their milk.

  Miss Prissy and the Penitentiary

  BY YOLANDA JOE

  MISS PRISSY,

  PRISCILLA EDGEWATER

  It's mine!” I yelled at my best friend Penelope.

  “Get for-real,” she yelled back. “It's mine!”

  How'd we get in this mess? Here we are in the hair salon, all by ourselves, straddling chairs, fighting over this big beautiful gold box with lilac and pink bows nestled on top. And I guess we got into this mess because this isn't just any present, but a present from SANDER.

  I'm torn between my curiosity about what's inside and my anger at Penelope for trying to claim it. And I'm not giving up. I'm holding on for dear life, glaring across at Pen. She'd had the unmitigated gall to leave her computer analyst job early to come here and pick a fight with me. Her suit jacket and skirt are bunched up around her little body (clothes too tight as usual), and she's staring me down with those big, black, killer eyes, acting like a monster out of one of those sci-fi books she's always reading.

  Why won't she let go?

  I'm four times her size and can whip her little butt if I've a mind to.

  Why won't she let go?

  She's my business partner in this shop and supposedly my best friend, best friend since childhood, when everyone started calling me Miss Prissy and Penelope, Miss Penitentiary. That's when she promised, and now twenty-five years later, Pen is breaking that very promise.

  PENELOPE PARKINS,

  MISS PENITENTIARY

  Lies, lies, all lies! I am not breaking our promise, she is! Priss is. I'm not letting go of this box. What for? It's mine, period dot com. Sure it arrived with no name, addressed only to “The P&P Salon,” but why would Sander send it to her? He loves me. Not her. I wonder if it's something sexy? Expensive? Oh, there she goes pulling at the box again.

  “Priss!” I hissed at her.

  “Pen!” she whipped back.

  I don't want to be vain, but I can see through people like they're cellophane. Priss latches on to men like handcuffs because she's a big mama. Once a deliveryman came into the beauty shop to bring in a new dryer and he saw Priss and joked, “Damn baby, you big and fine, how much you weigh?”

  Priss gave her trademark curtsey and cooed, “Good and plenty, and sweet just like the candy, thank you for asking.” She practically rode the man's back out of the store trying to get his phone number just because he gave her a little flirt-flirt.

  Priss gave that snappy answer because it was a Saturday and the place was packed and she didn't want to get her face cracked. But I know how self-conscious Priss is about being big. So when a man shows her the least bit of attention she turns into a heroine out of one of those romance novels she's always reading. Priss doesn't know fact from fiction. Just look at her, holding onto my present with that press-on set of claws! I grinned my sneakiest of smiles and jerked the box—and two of those press-ons popped off like smart bombs, flying damn near up to the ceiling.

  “You did that on purpose,” Priss said, giving me her standard dainty, indignant look.

  “Damn skippy,” I said right back with attitude. “C'mon Priss, give it up. Sander wants me, not you.”

  Priss growled, “Wake up. You always did throw yourself at men—even in second grade.”

  “Lies, lies, all lies!” I told Miss Prissy. “Tell me when?”

  MISS PRISSY

  It was Good Friday. I had only been enrolled at Garvey Academy for a month, because my family had just moved into a new house.
Mama and Daddy worked double shifts and overtime at their jobs for two years so they, their daughter, and three sons could live in a three bedroom, two bathroom house instead of a two bedroom, one bathroom, leaky faucet, warped floor, broken screen door, loose-latched, third-floor walk-up apartment.

  It was tough for me to leave our old place. Grandma lived upstairs and my second cousin Willa lived downstairs. It was comforting having that much girl family around because my brothers were, well, brothers. Men are men.

  But grown up or not, women are girls. And Grandma and Cousin Willa were fun loving girls. We played jacks and card games like pitty-pat and made stick figures out of Play-Doh. I didn't have a best friend then, they were my best friends even though my mother explained that this wasn't natural; that a child should have friends their own age. Well I was bigger than the other kids on the block, even those who were two to three years older, and it is a tragic situation to be too different as a child. If ever a person wants and needs to mesh in with a crowd, it's as a child. I didn't mesh so I stayed in the house, not wanting to be teased for being too big and too tall.

  At my new school, it was a triple whammy. They teased me for being too big, too tall, and too new. Particularly this one little girl, Penelope, who resembled a nappy-headed kewpie doll.

  Even our teacher, Mrs. Melton, and Penelope did not sit horses because Pen was a pint-sized terror. She wasn't big as a minute, but could wreak havoc twenty-four hours a day. She'd toss the games in the fun room if she lost, gargle with her milk, chew crayon, and spit chips like scud missiles out of that powerful mouth of hers. One kid's face looked like it was peppered with glitter when she got through. And Pen really hated me because I liked Noah and Noah liked me.