Original Sins

by Lisa Alther

  Her list of complaints mounted: Everything was locked, and she was always losing keys. She’d never climbed so many stairs in her life. Everywhere, you went up, rather than just in. Her calf muscles ached. Some days she craved to kick off her shoes and run outside and bury her toes in topsoil. She was constantly swathed in sweaters and coats, she longed to feel sunlight on her bare arms. All the rushing around. People’s most prized possessions seemed to be their wrist-watches, and being late was practically grounds for a lawsuit. She got icy stares from teachers as she slipped into her seat after a lecture had begun.

  One afternoon as she walked to the hospital where she was training in the emergency room, she passed an asphalt playground surrounded by a tall chain-link fence. Within were some basketball courts occupied by boys about Donny’s size. They leapt, dodged, and feinted with breathtaking grace. She almost convinced herself that one was Donny. She began toying with the idea of having him up here. She could send bus fare. Find an apartment. The thought of his cheerful presence was overwhelming. It wouldn’t be such a bad life. He could go to the local school, play his basketball here. He’d make new friends in no time, sweet as he was.

  As she planned, she walked—past a group of men who were always lounging by the takeout shop on her corner. They took whatever work came along in construction, on loading platforms. They looked burnt-out, as they punched each other, and talked and laughed too loudly. One wore glasses’ frames with the lenses missing. Another wore a T-shirt with “Superstud” printed on it. Each time she passed, one would call out something smart.

  “Say, mama, can I ride that swing on your back porch?” one called today. The group grinned and made noises with their lips. She hurried by, staring at the sidewalk. Maybe Donny was better off where he was.

  In the emergency room she assisted at the treatment of the usual procession of rat bites, knife wounds, drug overdoses, botched abortions. And she dismantled plans to bring Donny to New York City. Besides, he was too young to ride the bus all that way by himself. She couldn’t even see bringing him up for a visit. Who’d keep an eye on him while she was working, as she was most of the time? He was so sweet and trusting. A sitting duck up here. Christmas a year later she went home for a long weekend, but spent the whole time peeping through the curtains onto the street. Ruby said she’d seen Blanton cruising the apartment in his Buick several times since Kathryn had been gone. If he found out she was home, he’d probably fix her good.

  Her savings started accumulating. She received twice the wages for half as many hours as in Pine Woods. It cost more to live, and she sent money home, but even so, for the first time she could afford some clothes, began saving for a used car, ate out now and then.

  She met Arthur, an orderly at the hospital. He was proud and ambitious, very much like Buddy. Unlike Buddy, he would never end up in prison, and he might even end up where he wanted to go, which was to medical school. He took her to restaurants, and to shows at the Apollo. Once they went to a musical on Broadway, and she started thinking again about bringing Donny to New York. He was a bright boy, had always done well at school. Outside Pine Woods there were alternatives to yard work and janitorial jobs. She couldn’t bear the idea of his jaunty strut becoming a shuffle. She watched it happen to the boys who took her to dances at the Masonic Hall and made love to her under the willows by the river. She asked Arthur to go with her to Pine Woods to persuade Donny to return to New York. Arthur laughed and replied, “Oh yeah, they’d just love me down there, baby.”

  As she entered Pine Woods, as she drove past the school and the shopping street, as she watched the old people on their porches and the children in the courtyard, she was swept with nostalgia. She stopped the car and picked up a photo of Arthur from the seat. She studied it under the streetlight—bushy greying hair, sardonic smile, fierce eyes.

  She drove up to the curb in front of her mother’s apartment. Through the dusk she saw a tall thin young man in a grey sweatsuit stand up from the porch rocker and look at her. She jumped out, ran to him, and threw her arms around him. He inclined his cheek so she could peck it, then backed off.

  “All right,” Sally was saying. “Hands below the waist, but outside the clothes. And that’s final.”

  Jed, who was lying on her in the cave, with a hand under each buttock pulling her hips toward his, nodded.

  “Do you promise?” she demanded, pushing him off and sitting up. Her bare breasts glowed in the light from the flashlight.

  “I promise,” he panted.

  “You promised the last time, too.”

  “This time I mean it. I swear to God I do.” He ran his hand up her thigh and stroked her slacks where the legs joined.

  She ignored him. “I got so excited tonight thinking about the Plantation Ball. You are gonna go with me, aren’t you, darling?”

  “Is that the thing where you got to rent a tux?”

  “Yes, you look so gorgeous in a dinner jacket, Jed. I drool just thinking about it.”

  “Aw, shit, I don’t wanna wear no tux.” He lay with his hands behind his head, looking with satisfaction at his chest muscles.

  “Please, Jed.”

  “Naw, I ain’t going. I don’t like dances where you got to wear a tux. If I was to go, we’d have to do those waltz lessons and everything.”

  “All right. I’ll just ask somebody else.” She reached for her bra.

  “You do that,” he said with a lazy grin. “And I’ll ask me somebody else down here to do what I like.”

  “You do that,” she said, standing up and pulling on her shirt.

  “In fact I already have.”

  “Have what?” she asked with indifference, combing her hair.

  “Asked me somebody down here to do what I like.”

  “And what is it you like?”

  “You know what I like, baby.”

  “Lifting weights?”

  “Yeah. Lifting weights. That’s what Betty Boobs and me done down here last Saturday after you and me had us our fight.”

  She looked at him. “You’re lying.”

  “I ain’t lying.” He grinned.

  She laughed. Then she screamed, “You brought that … whore down here and … ?”

  He smiled. “Honey, a man’s got to have him some action. If you don’t want it, fine. But don’t expect me to wait around for you, jerking off.”

  “I don’t expect anything from you, Jed Tatro! Ohh, I hate you!” She stamped her feet and shook her fists. Then she started sobbing. Jed grinned and jumped up and held her, while she pounded his chest. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”

  “… Oh, Jed, I love, you,” she wailed, holding her mouth up to receive his. They kissed and she clung to him. He pulled her hips against his, and she could feel his erection throbbing.

  “Jed, can’t you see I’m scared?”

  “They ain’t nothing to be scared of.”

  “Nothing for you. I’m the one who’ll get pregnant.”

  “You won’t get pregnant, Sally. That’s why I’ve got these things.” He held up a box of Trojan Enz.

  She looked at him, outraged. “Why do you have those dreadful things down here? We had a deal, Jed. No activity below the waist. And here you went right ahead and brought those horrible things. I can’t trust you at all—or ever again.”

  “I brought them so you won’t get yourself pregnant some night, you fucking l’il cock tease!”

  “Cock tease? Cock tease? I don’t want anything to do with your stupid cock! I wish you didn’t even have it! It’s caused nothing but trouble ever since I found out you had one!”

  “All right. Fine. You’re not interested in my cock. Well, Betty Boobs is. She’s crazy about it. Can’t get enough. So you go find someone else for your stupid Plantation Ball, some fairy who likes wearing a tux and who won’t try to do all these nasty filthy dirty things to you. And I’ll screw Betty till my balls turn inside out. And we’ll all be happy!”

  “I think you’re repulsive.” She studi
ed her fingernails.

  “And I think you’re an ice maiden,”

  “Who cares what you think anyway?”

  “You used to.” His shoulders sagged.

  Sally rushed to him and lifted the tears from his cheeks with her tongue.

  “Do you really think I’m cold?” she asked, rubbing her thigh against his erection.

  “I think you the hottest ticket I’ve ever seen,” he murmured, nibbling her neck. “You’re scared. But I think you going to get over it. Cause they ain’t nothing to be scared about.”

  Kathryn walked up the Princes’ sidewalk between the rows of boxwood to the front porch. She hesitated. She could go around to the kitchen door, as she always had when she worked here. Or she could knock on the front door. She veered off the sidewalk. She was back in Newland now, and all her old patterns were taking over. But she wasn’t the same woman she’d been when she used to go around back. She returned to the sidewalk, marched up it, and knocked with the huge brass knocker.

  A tall young woman with an attractive anxious face opened the door. Could it be Emily? She was standing there, staring. Kathryn realized she’d made the wrong decision. If this lanky teenager was Emily, she was probably claimed by Newland now, and was appalled to find her former maid demanding entrance through the front door.

  But it was too late, so she stuck out her hand. “Hello, Emily.”

  “Kathryn?” Emily took the hand. She’d been sitting in the den, practicing Sousa marches on her flute and trying to decide why the minstrel show wasn’t funny last night. There had been knocking on the front door. Standing there was a handsome Negro woman in an expensive-looking suit, stockings, and high heels. It had taken intense scrutiny of the high cheekbones to understand that this was Kathryn—whom she had never before seen in anything but grey uniform dresses with white collars.

  As they shook hands and smiled awkwardly, Emily found herself reaching with her other arm for an embrace. As she did so, she was seized with anxiety. Kathryn hadn’t called her “Miss Emily.” Was a hug now inappropriate? But her body had its own notions, and it recognized this body that had cuddled it in infancy and comforted it in childhood.

  Kathryn responded with reluctance. She was no longer to be regarded as a mammy. And yet they’d been such lively little creatures. They’d had no notion of what went on in the adult world. Did they now? She and Emily hugged.

  “Come in.” Emily stepped back. She hesitated in the hall. Guests were normally ushered into the living room. Kathryn, however, had never been in the living room except to clean it. She’d always relaxed in the kitchen and the den.

  Resolutely Emily led her toward the living room and waited for her to sit on one of the Empire sofas, while Kathryn waited for Emily to sit. Finally, perching on a sofa, Emily said, “Please sit.”

  They studied each other, smiling. Kathryn was remembering a serious little girl, earnest about everything. Tall for her age, and worried for her age, just as she looked now. She’d shrunk from caresses. Unlike Sally, who had been a dancing sunbeam, always climbing up on your lap for kisses, hugs, and silly songs. It had been hard to believe they were sisters.

  “What’s old Sal up to?”

  “Well, she’s a cheerleader at school and belongs to a lot of clubs and stuff. She spends a lot of time with Jed. Guess they’re going steady.”

  “Jed? Little Jed Tatro?”

  “Yes, but he’s not so little anymore.” Emily laughed. “In fact he’s practically Charles Atlas. He lifts weights every day and plays tackle on the football team.”

  “Well, I declare,” giggled Kathryn. “That child was so puny I never thought he’d survive childhood. Just goes to show you. What about Raymond? He still smarting off?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “That child used to be so clever. Remember how he used to insist that the refrigerator cars on trains were full of corpses?”

  Emily looked blank, then struggled to reclaim the memory. It was an expression Kathryn had often seen on the faces of whites in Newland. They had no way to reconcile the warmth they shared with Negroes as children with the attitudes that set in as the world claimed them. So they simply cut themselves off from their childhoods.

  Emily realized she should offer Kathryn something to eat or drink. Tea? Or was that too fancy, something her mother would serve the Altar Guild? “Would you like something to drink, a Coke or something?”

  “Sure. That would taste good. But I’ll get it.” Each stood, poised to get the other a Coke.

  “Sit down. I’ll get them. It’s my house,” Emily finally said, laughing nervously.

  Kathryn laughed. “That’s right. I almost forgot.” Anxiety showed on both faces.

  As Emily opened Cokes, she tried to figure out what relationship those men in blackened faces last night bore to the woman sitting in her living room.

  Sally burst through the back door.

  “Kathryn’s here,” Emily informed her.

  “Kathryn! You’re kidding? Where?”

  “In the living room.”

  “The living room?”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “What did I say?”

  She shrugged and bounced through the hall and into the living room, where she hurled herself into Kathryn’s arms and wept, while Kathryn laughed.

  As Emily walked in, Sally was saying, “… and he’s just the cutest thing, Kathryn. All these muscles and things. I just wish you could see him!”

  “How’s Donny these days?” Emily asked, hoping to turn off her sister’s mouth.

  “Oh, he’s all right. But I don’t think he approves of me right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I guess he wants me to be the same mama I was when I left. But I’ve changed. In ways he doesn’t care for. I keep trying to point out that he’s changed too.”

  “That’s silly,” Sally announced.

  “Well, I think he’s just never forgiven me for leaving in the first place.”

  “None of us have,” Sally assured her. “That was just terrible, Kathryn. Running off to New York City without even saying goodbye.”

  Kathryn frowned. “Well, I had my reasons.” Emily blushed at the put-down Sally failed to notice.

  “I got to be going,” Kathryn announced. “Donny’s waiting in the car.”

  “You should have brought him in,” Sally said. “Well, he thought you should have a chance to see me alone. And anyway, he said he had some thinking to do.”

  As she walked down the sidewalk, she thought about what different futures were in store for the Prince girls versus her Donny. Their daddy had money. They could go wherever they wanted, do whatever they pleased. She didn’t have Mr. Prince’s money. And even if she had, Donny didn’t have much choice. Because she’d been realizing since she’d been home that New York City wasn’t that much of an improvement on Pine Woods. She and Arthur still took their orders from white people—the doctors and head nurses. The only difference was that white people in Newland were more relaxed and pleasant about issuing their orders. Downtown this morning she’d run into Mrs. Tatro Sr. on the street.

  “Why, Kathryn honey, I just don’t know how I get from one day to the next without you! I could have just killed that horrible man for taking you away from me.” They were so charming, these people. They’d have you cleaning their toilet bowls in minutes, and thanking them for the privilege.

  “That’s real nice of you, Mrs. Tatro. But I been doing just fine up in New York City. It’s worked out real good.”

  Mrs. Tatro looked at her with surprise. She was breaking the rules by not grinning and exclaiming, “Well, Miz Tatro, I misses my white folks something terrible, I surely does.”

  “You’d better come on back home now, hear? Where folks care whether you live or die or not. What you want to stay up at New York City for, without you have to?” This came out as a gentle command rather than a question. Ignore it at your peril. If charm failed, coercion followed. Besides, it was true: A Ne
gro could go to a lot more places in New York City, but nobody cared if you lay dying in the street. Another thing, she’d been watching Donny since her arrival. He had a grave self-confidence from knowing his surroundings, from being known as Ruby’s grandson, from making good grades and having lots of friends and being a basketball star. She wasn’t sure anymore that New York City was a good idea.

  She shook herself. Pine Woods was tightening its grip. She’d better get back to New York right quick.

  She sighed and said to Donny as he started up her car, “Well, they sure have grown up.”

  “Yeah, I saw Emily the other day. I like to not recognized her.”

  “I dee-clare! All my chilluns is growed up on me!” She laughed and scrubbed her knuckles on Donny’s head. He ducked irritably.

  “I been thinking, Mama. I believe I bout decided to go back up at New York City with you, like you say.” He wasn’t really sure this was what he wanted, with his whole life down here. But he wanted to call her bluff. She frowned. “Well, I don’t know, Donny …” “Well, I wouldn’t want to interfere with your life none.”

  “It’s not that. It’s a question of what would be best for you.”

  “Ha! When has it ever been a question of what was best for me?” She gave him a pained look.

  “You feel like running off to New York City, so you just up and run off to New York City.”

  She sighed. “Donny, honey, you know I didn’t have no choice about that”

  “I don’t know no such thing.” He glared at her. “You could have gone, or you could have stayed until you figured out how to take me with you.”

  She looked at him, surprised. “Donny, I had to clear out of this town from one minute to the next. You know that.” “What you talking bout—one minute to the next?” She stared at him. “You don’t know why I left, do you? Mama didn’t tell you like I told her to.” “Tell me what?”

  “Why, that old witch! Donny, honey, I hit a white man over the head with a brick.” He glanced at her. “Who?” “Mr. Blanton over at the brick company.” “How come?”

  “He wanted me to … be his girlfriend.” She smiled at her uncharacteristic delicacy.