Original Sins

by Lisa Alther

  He passed a Baptist church. Arthur and his mother said they didn’t want nothing to do with no church, that it’d been used to keep colored people—“black” people, they said—down for 300 years. But they weren’t him, man, and he thought maybe he’d just go in, sing a few hymns, maybe not feel so bad.

  A nice-looking man standing out front in a dark suit handed him a handbill that invited all “black Christians” to some temple that afternoon to hear about a “program for the Black Man which does not require you to love those who do not love you.” Well, this got him curious to find out who this was. He went into the church and sang “I’ll Fly Away” and felt better thinking about his grandmaw and everybody probably singing the same thing right then in Mount Zion back home, fanning themselves with their programs.

  From there he went to this temple, which was actually just an old empty store. In the vestibule these two huge cats in suits with little red buttons on their lapels frisked him, turned his pockets inside out. He wondered if he had the right place. Seemed more like jail than church. One ushered him into the packed room, which was ringed with more big men in dark suits.

  A little old man with grey hair and glasses walked in, and the congregation whispered and shifted in their seats. He said something foreign-sounding, and they said something foreign back. Then he started in to preaching. Sometimes somebody yelled, “That’s right!” But there wasn’t any clapping or foot-stomping or singing or testifying. Every now and then dudes in dark suits marched up front and traded places with the ones already there. And these big brown grocery bags kept passing up and down the rows, getting fuller and fuller of money.

  The preacher was scribbling on this blackboard and kept pointing to the mess he’d made like it was a sentence or something. But Donny couldn’t read his writing. Maybe he was some kind of foreigner or something who didn’t know how to write in English. The actual truth was, Donny couldn’t figure out what was coming down here at this store they called a temple.

  “Black princes were wearing silk robes and plotting the stars in Asia and Africa while white men, huddled in caves in Europe in animal skins, were ripping apart raw meat with their bare hands. You people know none of this because the white man has censored what you’ve been taught. You need to relearn history.”

  History was history, and the less Donny had to do with that shit, the better he liked it. The only C he ever got in high school was in World History.

  “The slavemaster controls the economy and sees to it that the Black Man has difficulty finding a job. And when he finds one, it usually pays less than his wife can earn. The wife is lured into despising her husband and admiring the slavemaster, who sends her back home to her humiliated husband with blue-eyed babies.”

  Naw. Naw, he couldn’t see it. Blaming your problems on someone else. If you worked hard and lived right, you’d get your reward. At least, he aimed to. He walked out while the women on one side and the men on the other embraced each other, exchanging greetings. Slavemaster. These people up here was crazy.

  One evening in the Chicken Coop, he ran into Leon, sitting reading a newspaper over a plate of bones picked clean. Donny wouldn’t of thought Leon could read, but up here in New York City surprises never ceased.

  Leon stood up and tried to Patty Cake Donny. “Hey, farmer. What’s happening, baby?”

  Donny ordered him some chicken. Leon pointed to a picture on the front of the paper. “Man, that is one bad black beautiful nigger.”

  The cat was behind some bars. There was a chain around his waist, attached to handcuffs. He was glaring into the camera with one clenched fist raised as high as the chain would allow.

  Leon sighed. “That dude is ten motherfuckers.”

  Donny chewed his chicken. “I don’t see what’s so beautiful about being in prison.”

  “That cat had the courage to put himself on the line, man.”

  “My daddy died in prison.”

  “All our fathers and brothers are dying in prisons all over this country.”

  “No other kin of mine, just my daddy.”

  Leon looked at him, irritated.

  “Yall up here all the time talking slavery. Ain’t provoking people into tossing you into jail just like selling yourself down the river?”

  “You ain’t got to provoke nobody, farmer. You got you a dark skin, they as soon toss you in jail as look at you. Rather would.”

  “If you live right and treats people good, they going to treat you good.”

  “Oh Jesus Christ, farmer, you just pathetic, is all.” Leon stood up, shrugged on his black leather jacket, and walked out.

  Donny ate his chicken wing, but felt like crying. To be up tight with Leon, seemed like he’d have to buy him a costume and learn a new bunch of words and talk a lot of junk. He wished there was somebody around could like him just the way he was.

  He decided he’d go to bed early, maybe jerk off. But when he walked in the door, his mother shoved the want ads from the newspaper in his face.

  “But I got me a job, Mama.”

  “It’s a dead-end job, Donny. You got to get moving, child, if you gon make something of yourself up here.”

  “Mama,” he said menacingly, “I’m waiting to hear on that Ford job.”

  She sat down, looking upset. “Honey, maybe you ought to start looking around for a place of your own, think about bringing up Rochelle and the children?”

  First she runs off and leaves me, he thought. Now she runs me out. How bout that for a mother? It was that motherfucking Arthur.

  The phone rang. It was Rochelle. She said her and the kids missed him, all like that. “When you gon send me some more money, sugar?”

  “I’m sending you all I can, Rochelle.”

  “Honey, we supporting four children. Got us loans to pay off. I just ain’t making it on my maiding money, Donny. Thought with you up there things might ease up some.”

  “Doing the best I can,” he mumbled. “Still waiting on that Ford job.”

  “You reckon you’ll get it?”

  “Let you know. Who you seen lately?”

  “Well, saw Charlene at the laundromat today. She’s having her another baby. Uh, Tadpole’s home on leave.”

  Donny’s stomach clenched. “He all right?”

  “He just fine.” A long pause.

  “Well, it’s nice hearing your voice.”

  “Yeah, you too, honey.”

  As Donny stood at Deirdre’s door handing her the Mercedes keys, she studied the scar down his cheek with concern. “Were you in a knife fight, Donny?”

  Donny realized he didn’t have to tell her he had a wife who’d cut him with a can opener. He could tell her anything and she’d never know the difference. Besides, seemed like she wanted him to have been in a knife fight

  “Tangled with some thugs on the block. Bunch of mean motherfuckers.”

  As she winced, he glanced past her into the carpeted living room. She handed him a twenty-dollar bill, which he looked at with surprise. “Use it for something special for yourself,” she said in a husky voice.

  As he walked back to the garage, he whistled. Deirdre didn’t give a damn what his take-home was. Looked like she just liked him for himself. For a moment, he tried to imagine what it would be like to take her on her thick wall-to-wall carpet, hard fast jabs with her heaving like a bucking horse and clawing at his back with her long red nails. Then he felt bad. The woman was just being friendly, and here he was having evil ideas.

  The next night, Chubby left off the Mercedes, flipping him a half dollar. Donny watched it arch in the air and fall on the concrete with a clunk. He let it lie there while Chubby glanced at him, surprised. He didn’t need no half dollar from Chubby when Chubby’s wife was slipping him twenty.

  As Chubby walked up the driveway, Donny wondered if his rod stuck out far enough under that big belly to get it into Deirdre. She sure didn’t seem like no hunk of ice. Then he was seized with remorse. It was sinful to think like that about her. More importa
nt, he was wronging Rochelle. Whether or not she was running around on him with Tadpole. But there couldn’t be nothing wrong with being Deirdre’s friend, stopping by to see her when he felt lonely, like she’d started urging him to do. He liked the idea of her as his friend, like Emily was when he was a kid.

  The Ford plant called to say they weren’t hiring at the moment. His mother got all hysterical and started telling him to do this, do that and the other.

  “Just shut up, woman!”

  Both were surprised when she did.

  “All the time bossing me around. This is my life and I’ll live it like I want.”

  “Not in my place that Arthur and I pay the rent on, you won’t.”

  “You know what you can do with your place.”

  Her eyes opened wide. Was this her baby boy?

  “I’m moving out quick as I can. Like living in a motherfucking prison.”

  His mother cocked her head. “First you tell me I deserted you and didn’t give you enough guidance. Now you accuse me of giving too much. Now, which is it, baby boy? Make up your mind.”

  Donny stomped out, slamming the door.

  When he came back for his stuff, Rochelle called, asking when they could buy the ranch house.

  “Ain’t gon be no motherfucking ranch house.”

  A long silence.

  “I decide where we gon live. And when I tell you to come up here, woman, that’s when you come.”

  She hung up right quick.

  Donny ran into Leon at Clyde’s. They got to drinking, and told Leon about starting to get up tight with Deirdre.

  Leon snorted. “Up tight, my ass, farmer. She wants her some black cock, is all.”

  “That ain’t true.”

  “It’s an insult, what it is. To Rochelle and your mama and your grandmaw, and to all the beautiful black sisters.”

  “Fuck it, man. Them bitches never done nothing but nag me to death.”

  Leon shook his bereted head. “I know where you coming from, farmer. But you got to do you a political analysis. Now, how come the sisters has nagged us to death? Whitey done put them up to it….”

  “Fuck it, man. I don’t have to do nothing. You niggers up here is all nuts. Everybody white out to get you just because your skin is dark.”

  “You just wait, man.”

  One night when Chubby was out of town Donny went up to Deirdre’s and drank a cup of coffee with her. She seemed nervous and plucked a couple of times at his shirt sleeve as he told her about wanting on at the Ford plant and all. When he said he had to go, she said, “So soon?”

  As Donny walked through the lobby, the doorman gave him a look. The other day he’d tried to send Donny to the service entrance. He probably thought Donny was putting it to Deirdre and couldn’t stand it. How come people was all the time thinking sex, sex, sex, up here?

  He was walking down the sidewalk to the subway when a cop car pulled up. Two cops jumped out. Donny kept on walking.

  “Hold it, son. It’s you we’re looking for.”

  Donny stopped and turned and stared at them.

  “Me?”

  “Now, don’t act so surprised, boy.”

  “What can I do for you, sir?” he remembered his grandmaw saying good manners was the best life insurance a nigger could own.

  “A woman was just raped two blocks over.”

  “Yes sir?”

  “So what are you doing in this neighborhood?”

  “I work here. In the parking garage at Second Avenue.”

  “Sure you do, buddy.”

  He looked at them for a minute. “I do, sir.”

  “Yeah, that’s why you’re racing along this street at one in the morning. Shift changes sure happen at funny times in parking garages, don’t they, Al?”

  “I got done at eleven. Then I visited with a friend.”

  They laughed. “What’s a black boy doing with friends in this neighborhood?”

  It occurred to Donny that he was in trouble. His eyes shifted all over the place. “Go over to the garage, sir. They’ll tell you I works there.”

  “You telling me how to do my job, boy?”

  “No sir.” Donny wondered which would get him in worse trouble—not having an alibi, or having one that involved a white woman whose husband was out of town. The slow shiver crept up his spine.

  “Let’s see some identification.”

  He felt for his wallet. Wasn’t there. “Guess I left it at the garage.”

  “Come on, son. Hop in the car here. We’re going to the station.”

  “But man, I ain’t done nothing.” Donny was scared. He didn’t want to go down to no jive police station.

  “That’s what you say. We’ll see what the woman you raped has to say.”

  “I don’t know nothing bout no rape.” He looked up and down the deserted street.

  “Are you getting in, or do we have to throw you in?” asked the cop, holding open the door. Donny eyed the guns on their hips and climbed in.

  On the way downtown he tried to decide what he should have done. What would Leon have done? Run? Would they have shot him? Fight? Insist they go to Deirdre’s so she could tell them he’d been with her?

  What did he do now? On TV people got to call Perry Mason. He’d demand to call his mother. She’d get him a lawyer. Christ, how could he pay a lawyer? This was dumb. He hadn’t done nothing to pay no lawyer for.

  They locked him in a cell. “Sir, do I get to make me a phone call?” They walked away. “Hey, I know I get to make me a phone call!”

  “Man, ain’t no point in you yelling.” A black man sat in the shadows on a cot at the rear of the cell.

  “I get to make a phone call. I know my rights.”

  “Just stay cool. You be all right.”

  Later they came back and moved him to another cell. “May I please use the bathroom?” he called after a while. No one came.

  “Hey, I gon piss all over this motherfucking floor!”

  A large man with a wart on his chin the size of a bullet came and unlocked the door. “You want to use the toilet?”

  “Yes sir, I do. And then I want to make my phone call.”

  Donny started walking down the hall. The man planted a fist in his stomach. Donny doubled over. The man brought his locked fists down on the back of Donny’s neck. He lay on the concrete.

  “I don’t like being ordered around, understand?” said the large shadow looming between Donny and the bulb hanging from the ceiling. The guard dragged Donny back to the cell and locked the door. Donny lay on the floor and found he’d wet his trousers.

  For what must have been a day or two guards came and led Donny to a room with bright lights where men in shirtsleeves asked questions, the same ones time after time.

  “Why’d you do it?”

  “I didn’t do nothing.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Tennessee.”

  “How long you been here?”

  “A few months.”

  “Why’d you rape that woman? Answer me, boy.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “How come you’re not in the army?”

  “I’m married with kids.”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  “I didn’t do nothing.”

  One time a Negro guard took him back to his cell, muttering, “Sick of all you down-home jive-ass niggers flocking up here and getting in trouble and giving the rest of us a bad name.”

  Back in his cell Donny told himself that his mother would find him when he didn’t come home. Then he remembered he had his own place now. Well, Monty would miss him, call his mother. But the day after he got picked up was his day off. What a way to spend a day off.

  Well, but he hadn’t done nothing wrong. He didn’t have to worry.

  Bright lights. No sleep. Pukey food he couldn’t eat. Shivering and sick to his stomach. Why’d you do it, boy? Before long, he couldn’t remember what he had and hadn’t done. Started to seem like they was asking him about Deirdre.
Yes, I did it. I fucked that white woman. Or had he? Perry Mason. Oak trees. Naw sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Yes sir. No sir. Yes sir.

  He was in a line-up just like on “Dragnet,” blinded by bright lights. And the next thing he knew, he was standing on a street, blinking in bright sunshine, with no idea where he was. He wandered up the sidewalk looking for a street sign.

  Donny was working late one night when the phone rang. Dog Fur said in her deep voice, “Hello there, Donny.”

  “Hello.”

  A long pause. “I was wondering if you’d bring my car by after you get off tonight.”

  He said nothing. He guessed he owed her some kind of explanation. But he didn’t want to get close enough to give her one. Besides, Rochelle and the children were arriving in a few days and he was busy renting and fixing up an apartment.

  “Why haven’t you stopped by lately?”

  “Been tied up.”

  “Well, why don’t you stop by after you get off tonight?”

  These white women didn’t have no pride when it came to trying to get their pussies stuffed. “Yeah. See you later, Deirdre.”

  As he walked toward Deirdre’s, he saw a white woman at the far end of the otherwise empty street. As she approached, he could see her giving him quick glances. When he got close enough, he could see terror all over her face. Suddenly she dashed across the street and ran down the opposite sidewalk. Donny felt an urge to chase her, tackle her, hurt her. If she thought she could escape if he really wanted to get her, she was dead wrong. Then he felt irritated. They saw a black face and they panicked. But he also felt pleasure. He had power over that white woman. She was terrified of him—not from anything he’d done to her, but from what she imagined he might do, based on the fact that his face was dark. His mere existence could impel her to switch sides of the street and race for home, not even venture out in the first place. Stupid fuckers, not to recognize Mr. Junior Church Usher.