Original Sins

by Lisa Alther

  “Nothing,” she gasped. “I have to be in early.” She twisted away and ran into the house.

  “Those pills didn’t work,” she told the doctor over the phone.

  There was a long silence. “Well, I’m sorry, young lady.”

  “Can’t you give me something else?”

  No reply.

  “I mean, my period’s late is all, doctor. It’s been late before. I’m out of whack. Maybe something’s wrong with my ovaries.” She’d been reading in the library about the diseases and deficiencies that could interrupt menstruation. She’d stood in front of mirrors inspecting her coloring for signs of anemia.

  “I’m sorry, young lady. I’ve done all I can.”

  “But what should I do?”

  “I don’t know, young lady. I’m sorry. Good luck.” He hung up.

  She stared at the phone. After a while she walked into the bathroom and threw up. Then she picked up her calendar and counted off her periods. It was just humanly impossible for her to be pregnant.

  “Come on!” whispered Leon, pushing aside hemlock branches and dashing across the open space between the wall and the band bleachers. The boys from Cherokee Shoals who hung out there during the game and the highway patrolmen who broke up their fights were all up by the fence watching the fire batons.

  Donny got halfway to the bleachers before he froze. This wasn’t right. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods,” the Bible said. Leon kept calling him Mr. Junior Church Usher and saying that white people had been stealing from niggers for three hundred years. So you was just getting some of your own back.

  Rochelle’s mother had gone into the hospital with a ruptured tubal pregnancy last month. She was in bed at home now, and it didn’t look like that she was getting her strength back. The county was paying the hospital. Neighbors brought over groceries. Rochelle’s mother’s employer brought down boxes of old clothes and canned goods. Donny had given Rochelle his car money from this summer. Even so, she’d had to quit her library job to work at maiding every afternoon and on Saturdays. The neighbors took turns minding the kids. Mr. Dupree was giving them credit. But things couldn’t go on like this. Rochelle was up at six every morning to get the kids dressed and fed and off to school and to babysitters, then off to school herself, maiding in the afternoon, home to fix supper and clean up the house and tend her mother and wash the kids and put them to bed and wash and iron their clothes; then she sat down to her homework. Every time she and Donny went out, she fell asleep on him. Her clothes were often unironed. She hadn’t smiled in weeks.

  “What about their daddies?” Donny asked one night.

  “Law honey, you know what men is like. They long gone,” replied Rochelle’s mother with a bitter laugh, as he and Rochelle sat by her bed. She was wrapped in an old quilt and looked haggard.

  “How bout farming the kids out? Your sister could take a couple. Grandmaw might take one or two.”

  “If they’s one thing I’d hate to see happen, it’s to break us up. Cause we all each other’s got.”

  “Yeah, but then you and Rochelle could both have you a good rest. And once you was back to work again, they could come on back home.”

  Damn, he had to help them. He ran under the bleachers. Leon was reaching up and slipping his hand into musical instrument cases to remove pocketbooks.

  Through the planks Donny saw a patrolman gazing out toward the bonfire. Wide-brimmed hat, gun on his hip, legs planted, hands behind his back. The fire batons twirled twenty feet into the night sky. The crowd whistled and cheered and hollered.

  The floodlights would come on. The cop would whirl around, spot him, grab him, drag him out to the bonfire. The crowd would screech, and the band would play as they barbecued him …

  On the national news that evening was a shot of a cross burning in the front yard of the school superintendent in Donley, Tennessee. A stone had been thrown through his window with a note wrapped around it that read “Stone this time—dynamite next.” White folks didn’t mess around. This white kid was interviewed saying, “I jes can’t set next to em. They dirty, and they stink. Hit like to make me sick. They just animals, is all. Yall want em in our schools, you set next to em!”

  “Grandmaw, you know I never realized before how much they hate us,” he’d said.

  “Hush, honey. They mostly just plain working people like your mama and me. They be a few nuts in ever town. And sometimes they be colored.”

  Donny opened a case lid and felt around inside. Leon was racing for the hemlocks, pocketbooks hanging all over him.

  Donny was choked for a moment with anger, at all the men who’d been through Rochelle’s mother’s bed, having a good time and then running off without a second thought. Was that what being a man meant? But was this? No, there was plenty of men around Pine Woods who went to work every morning at whatever jobs they could find. They came home in the evenings and played with their children and made love to their wives. They paid their bills and went to church on Sunday. Mr. Junior Church Usher. All right, that’s what he was then. He flew toward the hemlocks empty-handed.

  In between trilling her flute to “The Sabre Dance” and marching in place to the drums, Emily sneaked glances at the queen and her court around the campfire. It was a big relief not to feel resentment any longer at being in Sally’s backup band.

  Earl had come over from State several times to take her to movies. Her classmates saw them, and word got around that Emily Prince was dating a college man, a frat man, a KT yet! He began holding her hand in the theater. And one night when he left her at her door, he kissed her tentatively. Missing was the revulsion she felt when Raymond kissed her. In fact, she felt mild enthusiasm.

  They were lavaliered the weekend before the KT Fall Formal. As they watched Gone With the Wind at the Wilderness Trail Drive-in, Earl fastened a chain around her neck on which dangled a tiny gold-plated sabre. They kissed as Atlanta was consumed in a holocaust.

  Emily wore her long white gown from the Plantation Ball to the Fall Formal. Earl wore a Confederate uniform and sabre. They strolled up the sidewalk between rows of boxwood to the white-columned KT house. To one side of the porch steps was a boulder painted green. Inside, the double living room was packed with brothers in grey uniforms and gold braid, and their dates. Several girls in long dresses struck decorous poses on the spiral staircase. Fires burned in fireplaces at either end of the room.

  Partway through the evening Emily found herself surrounded by brothers. They sang the KT anthem, about Honor and Virtue and Fidelity. The president presented her with long-stemmed white roses, in honor of her lavalierhood.

  Emily spent the night in a dorm. She and Earl walked up to the KT house the next morning, past a purple boulder.

  “Wasn’t that rock green last night?”

  “Uh, gee, I didn’t notice.”

  Emily stared at the boulder.

  One day at school Mo sauntered up to her. She and Mo had been grade school chums. Mo had gone on to become head cheerleader and president of Ingenue. And Emily, fink and brain.

  “Hey, Em. How’s it going?”

  “Fine, thank you,” said Emily with suspicion.

  Mo reached out and touched the tiny sabre at her throat. “KT, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not bad. He’s nice-looking, too. I saw you and him at the Majestic last weekend. You’re the talk of the school.”

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding.”

  The next week the Ingenues, in their cream blazers with royal purple crests on the pockets, arrived at Emily’s front door.

  “Oh, hi,” said Emily. “I think Sally’s in her room. I’ll get her.”

  “But it’s you we want!” exclaimed Mo. “Me?”

  “We’ve brought you your bid!”

  Emily knew you were supposed to act like the honoree on “This Is Your Life,” and squeal and cry. She’d seen Sally do this. The most she could manage was a wary smile.

  The initiation was h
eld at Mo’s, a small ranch house in the mill village. Her parents had moved out for the night. The Ingenues, clad in shortie pajamas, their spit curls pinned with crossed silver hair clips, sat in a big circle on the living room rug conducting a Lemon Squeeze. Each member was featured in turn, with the other members going around the circle saying one nice thing and one criticism of her. The initiates sat on the sofa and chairs taking notes on correct Ingenue conduct. Emily was trying to French inhale her Marlboro, as she had observed several old members doing. You let the smoke drift out of your mouth and inhaled it in a steady stream through your nostrils. Emily’s head was obscured by clouds of swirling smoke.

  “That’s really true, Dawn. You smile so much that nobody can tell when you mean it.”

  “Insincere, that’s what it seems like, Dawn.”

  “But it’s not,” Dawn insisted, picking her lacquered big toenail. “I just smile when I’m happy. I can’t help it if I’m usually happy. I mean, I’m not smiling now, am I?” She burst into tears and buried her face in her hands.

  The group sat in disapproving silence. Finally the vice president said, “Dawn honey, we’re just trying to help you be the best Ingenue possible. And besides, you know the person being discussed isn’t supposed to say nothing.” Dawn wailed and buried her face more deeply.

  They moved on to Sandy, who was accused of flirting with other members’ boyfriends. “But you have very nice teeth, Sandy,” her accuser added.

  Emily watched through her clouds of smoke. “You don’t smile enough, Connie. Everyone thinks you’re a sourpuss. We don’t want Ingenues known as a bunch of sourpusses, do we?”

  By the end, most Ingenues were in tears, mopping at eyes and cheeks with the hems of pajama tops. Sandy was passing around a piece of paper. She had a way of sauntering up to boys at school, and bumping them with her hip, and asking them in her lazy smiling drawl if they’d had their mileage that day. As members read the paper, they either gasped or blushed or tittered. Emily read: “Math problem: A cock is six inches long. At sixty strokes per minute for five minutes per day, how many days does it take to cover a mile?” The answer was upside down: “Depends on whether or not you have a blow-out. Smile if you’ve had your mileage today.”

  Emily quickly exhaled another smoke screen and passed on the paper to tire girl beside her. The old members began discussing boyfriends like a harem its sheiks. The new members were led into a bedroom. Earlier that week each had turned in a set of underwear. They were returned, dyed royal purple, the club color. Holes were cut in the bras for the nipples, and in the panties for the crotches. Everyone was shrieking with embarrassed delight. Emily lit another cigarette and inspected her mutilated underthings. She could put them on and become an Ingenue. Or she could walk out and resume being a fink. She took a big drag. The others had put on spiked heels and were inspecting each other, screaming with laughter.

  Emily squashed out her cigarette, stood up and undressed. She wanted to be an Ingenue. Why, she didn’t know. It had a lot to do with all those years of not being one.

  The girls marched into the living room, where the old members sat ogling and commenting and French inhaling and guzzling Nehis. The models posed and preened, while the old members cheered and applauded and leered like Lions at a smoker. Several whistled through their fingers.

  The initiates pranced and strutted. Emily slouched out blushing, her head hanging. There was a brief silence. Then the room erupted in cheers.

  “Pose for us, Em!” someone shouted. As Emily dutifully turned sideways and backward, she glanced at Mo, who sat cross-legged on the couch, her eyes gravely inspecting Emily’s nipples. Emily felt a rush of—what? Her nipples began to stiffen. She raced toward the bedroom. The old members began stamping on the floor. “We want Emily! We want Emily!” She was pushed toward the living room. She stumbled into the smoky room and stood before the smirking Ingenues, one of them at last.

  In the locker room Coach Clancy was critiquing the first half.

  “Yall run like your shoes is cast in concrete. Why, I believe yall is slower than the Second Coming. Yall bout as much use as tits on a jaybird. Lord God, I ain’t never seed such a sorry bunch of ball players in my whole entire career!”

  Jed sat with his elbows on his knees, his hands and head hanging. He knew scouts from some Southeastern Conference teams were in the stands tonight, and he’d played miserable so far.

  “That fumble on the twenty-five, Tatro, that was the most pathetic feat of ball handling I’ve ever witnessed. Why, you looked like a one-armed paper-hanger with crabs. I do believe a girl could do better! And you, Osborne, you just stood there like a spare prick on a honeymoon. I declare, if yall keep this up second half, we got less chance than a fart in a windstorm. And Miller, the line’s opening up them holes. How come you can’t get yourself into them? You want me to put some hair around them for you?”

  Jed tossed down half a Coke in one swallow.

  “Coach,” Hank asked, “how come you to punt there on their thirty-eight with one to go? We coulda made that easy.”

  “You so full of shit your eyes are brown! Yall ain’t making nothing easy tonight.”

  Jed ran back out on the field through the gauntlet of cheerleaders, feeling confident they’d pull this game out of the bag. They’d been in tighter spots before. Like Coach Clancy always said, when the going got tough, the tough got going. He could count on these guys for anything. Every man had their particular job. You opened up that hole, you faked that handoff. From old Slocombe, through the JayVees, to the varsity starters, to Coach Clancy himself. No doubt as to where you stood, or what you was supposed to be doing. And when you all done it right, the team moved down that field like a Continental Mark IV car. They were a team and they functioned best under fire. Wasn’t no way they weren’t going to stage a comeback this evening. You had to win the homecoming game.

  After the game, as the dejected crowd poured from the bleachers and headed for the parking lot, the driver of Sally’s Cadillac, an embalmer at Creech’s Funeral Home, stopped the car outside the stadium for her to move to the front seat for the drive to the homecoming dance at the gym.

  Sally sat in front waving and smiling at the throngs on the sidewalks. They waved back and called congratulations.

  Sally discovered the driver’s free hand working its way up her skirt. Continuing to smile and wave, she used her free hand to push his away. Their hands waged a grim and silent struggle, as he looked intently at the road and she waved resolutely to her fans.

  “Stop it!”

  “Love me a little, baby,” he said without moving his lips.

  “No!” she growled, smiling at the crowd.

  “You like it. You know you do,” he ventriloquized, stroking her thigh.

  She began feeling the familiar nausea. “Stop the car. I’m going to throw up,” she ordered, bending back one of his fingers.

  “Not a chance.”

  “I mean it!”

  The car turned on to the highway and picked up speed. His hand fought its way to her crotch. She grabbed it with both hers, the adoring crowds falling away behind them.

  “I said stop it!” She threw up all over him. “Jesus Christ!”

  She was too busy heaving to point out that she’d warned him.

  “Oh Christ,” he muttered, inspecting the mess she’d made of his white dinner jacket.

  When she emerged from the Cadillac at the gym, her tiara hung over one eye and her hooped skirt was bent into a figure eight. She stumbled up the sidewalk.

  She sat on the stage in a throne to the right of the queen, surveying her boogalooing classmates. Jed hadn’t arrived yet, probably wouldn’t since he hated losing so much. Between records the gym buzzed. From time to time people glanced up at the stage. She saw Marsha Roller laughing. Last year Marsha had swelled up to weather-balloon size. One week she was absent. She returned restored to her original shape. Her best friend announced she’d had malnutrition, which caused her to swell up. She’d g
one to the hospital to get cured. Dede Black whispered that she bet Marsha had been pregnant. Soon it was all over school that Marsha Roller had had twins and had put them in an orphanage. Marsha Roller was a whore. The boys had flocked around her ever since.

  Sally imagined the room falling silent. Heads would swivel in her direction. Everyone would know: Sally Prince was pregnant. Sally Prince was not a virgin. Just like Betty French and Marsha Roller and Sandy Willis, Sally Prince was a whore.

  She stood up and ran from the stage.

  Outside she took deep gulps of cool air. Her hands shook as she blotted her tears. She walked aimlessly. Then she ran. She ran through the night down unfamiliar sidewalks until her breathing was staccato gasps. She fell to her knees. Clasping her hands, she bowed her head and prayed to God to make the baby growing inside her give up its grip. She had sinned and known she was sinning, and this was punishment. But she begged her Creator to be merciful.

  For the next week she took scalding baths. Her skin became the color of cooked lobster. Alone in the house, she ran time after time up and down the three flights of stairs from the cellar to attic, like a squirrel on an exercise wheel. She jumped off high tables. Then she sat on the toilet and waited for the embryo to come out. By raising her arms she could make thousands of people leap to their feet and yell. By granting or withholding her smile, she could make teachers raise her grades. By giving or denying parts of her anatomy, she had Jed wrapped around her little finger. But this growth in her womb was unimpressed.

  She searched her mind for someone to talk to. Her parents would be so disappointed. She couldn’t face telling them. There would be no scene, no yelling or weeping, only stunned silence as their good opinion of her crumbled. Probably lots of girls at school were going all the way, but no one talked about it. It was like a lottery, and if your number came up, you endured the consequences alone.

  If only she had never heard of Jed Tatro. She promised God that if He would get her out of this, she would never go all the way again ever.

  Failing that, she wanted to be dead. She would kill herself. She straightened out a coat hanger and poked around inside herself, drawing blood. She sat with her legs spread, holding the vacuum cleaner hose to her vagina. Nothing happened.