I was ashamed to get undressed in front of her, but I did. I could see this was no time for talking back. Then I slipped into my dress quick as I could while she looked the nightgown all over, the same as she had with the sheet. They were nice new things all right, but I couldn’t see any call to make such a fuss over them. She turned the nightgown inside out so she could see every bit of it, and then pulled the sheet off the bed and did the same thing, and then she threw everything on the floor and ran out of the room.
Before I could say anything or go after her she was back again. Then I really got scared. She had the big kitchen knife in her hand, and she came up to me and poked it at me so that I had to duck away.
“You liar,” she said. “You dirt. You filth.”
I said, “Ma, don’t talk like that,” but she jabbed the knife at me again, and all I could do was flatten back against the wall so as not to get stuck with it.
“I knew,” she said. “I always knew. Your man knew, too, didn’t he? That’s why he married you, because that’s the kind he likes,” and she pulled me away from the wall by the arm and shoved me toward the door. “Now get out of here. Get out of here and don’t you ever come back or I’ll kill you. You hear that? You show that face around here again, I’ll cut the lying tongue out of it and kill you!”
I got out of there as fast as I could. I ran through the house and down the porch steps, and Lettie was behind me all the way as far as the porch. She stood there holding that knife and looking down at me, and I didn’t know what to make of her. I said, “You can be just as crazy as you want, Ma, but you better give me my clothes. You think I can go away without any clothes?” and she said, “Wait there,” and went into the house. When she came back she had the big box with the coat in it and my old sneakers and the nightgown. She threw the box down the steps and threw the sneakers and nightgown on top of it. “There’s your clothes,” she said. “That’s all the clothes you got. When you get up north you can walk the streets and make money for a lot more,” and then she spit on the steps in front of me so I could see there was no use trying to do anything with her.
That was the second worst day in my life. The worst was the day Jimmy died, but that one with Lettie was pretty near as bad. I tried not to think about it going north on the barge with Avery, but it was hard not to. There wasn’t much to do on the barge anyhow, except think about things. Daytimes it was just a little cooking and cleaning, and nighttimes it was like the first night I had been with Avery—a lot of praying and then lying in bed not touching each other.
There was some talk between Avery and me, but that was hard going, too. I had to watch everything I said, and sometimes I forgot. Then he would slap me or call me hard names, and afterward I would have to kneel down along with him and pray until my knees were rubbed raw. He was mighty free and easy with the names he called me, too, and they sounded awful, even if they were mostly from the Bible.
So we went up past the Carolinas into real rough water and then to where it got cold so I took to wearing the mink coat sometimes. Wearing that coat did me good. It was the only thing I had left that made me feel close to Jimmy, because I knew that when Lettie opened the suitcase back home she would burn up my scrapbook and magazines as quick as she could. That scrapbook had taken a lot of work, too. Sometimes when I was lying there with Avery in the dark I would think about it and that would start me to thinking about other things I didn’t want to. Like being down at the cove and cutting out pictures while Sebastiano was reading out loud. Or the way the sky looked at night when you were all alone on the mirador. Or the way it felt when the outboard started banging the waves out in the open water. Or the way Lettie acted up for no reason. Then I would cry, but not so Avery could hear. Just very quiet with tears dripping down and making a mess on the pillow.
So the coat did me a lot of good. When I was alone in the cabin I would put it on, and I could feel Jimmy standing there looking at me the way he looked at the girl in the magazine picture. And no matter how much Egan hated that coat, that was the way he looked at me the first time he saw me.
TEN
The best thing in New York was the movies, and I got to be real friendly with Ethel Waterhouse because of them. There were so many movie theaters around her place that you could go every night and see a different picture, and weekday nights when Egan went on the job that’s what I did. At first I went alone, but when Egan found out about it he gave me extra money so that Ethel could go with me. It was a lot better with her along. When I went alone I tried to sit next to some old lady so nobody would bother me, but they did anyhow. But Ethel knew how to handle things. We would be sitting there and watching the picture, and the next thing I knew some fellow on the other side would be whispering in my ear or putting his hand on my knee, and Ethel would get mean. She would lean over and show him her cigarette in that long holder and say, “You don’t stop bothering my daughter, mister, I’ll shove this thing right up you. I’ll burn the belly button out of you from the inside, you don’t get away from here,” and they always would.
Afterward we would go back home and sit in her front room and watch the Late Show movies on television and then have coffee and cake. Avery paid for the other meals I ate with her, but the coffee and cake were free because I paid for the movies. Then Egan would come in from the shipyard and I would go upstairs to his room and talk to him until I got sleepy.
That part of it was easy in the beginning. I would get sleepy and say good night and go to my room, and that’s all there was to it. But then it got sort of complicated. One night he stopped me at the door and said, “Is that all I get—good night, good night, and parting is such sweet sorrow?” because that’s what it said in Romeo and Juliet.
It didn’t surprise me that it happened. I had been wondering when it would, and I was ready for it. I said, “I’m awful sorry, Egan, but that’s all you get.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m married, that’s why,” I told him, and I put my hand right under his nose. “You see that ring? I’m married, and married people don’t fool around.”
“Oh, married,” he said, and he didn’t seem mad about it, just interested. “Married to who?” He pointed at my movie magazines on the floor and at all my make-up stuff on his dresser and he pulled open the door of the closet where the extra things he bought me were hanging, and my good shoes in a rack he had nailed on the door. “Why, if somebody were to walk in here and say, ‘Barbara-Jean, what a generous, big-hearted, ever-lovin’ husband you do have, to be sure,’ you couldn’t blame him, could you?”
I said, “I didn’t ask for any of this. You wanted to give it to me.”
“And now I want to give you something else. One kiss to make sure you have sweet dreams.”
“I’ll sure enough have sweet dreams without it, Egan. Now you just quit fooling around once and for all.”
“Who the hell’s fooling?” he said, and before I could stop him he had both arms around me and I was pressed tight up against him. Only it wasn’t like Yeager or any of the kids at school. It was so different that I was surprised. And I knew right off from the way I felt that it was a real sinful feeling.
I got my hands in between us and pushed them as hard as I could against his chest, so that when he did kiss me it was nothing. Then he let go of me but still held my arms. He said very serious, “Did you like it?”
“No.”
“A little?”
“No.”
“You’re a liar,” he said, and I said, “I am not, and you better quit it, Egan, or we’ll both be in trouble,” and I left him there like that.
But I did like it a little. It got to be a regular thing when we said good night that I’d let him kiss me that way. He’d get hold of me as tight as he could, but I’d keep my hands pushing against him so it wasn’t really wrong. He didn’t want that, but I didn’t think there was anything he could do about it until one night he did. Just when I was pushing hardest he suddenly let me go, and I could feel myself fa
lling. I tried to grab hold of something, but I couldn’t, and then I landed flat on my back, hitting the wall with my head so that I saw stars. When I looked up, there was Egan on the floor next to me not looking sorry one bit. He put his hand behind my head and started to rub it and said, “Where does it hurt?”
I said, “It hurts there and I bit my tongue and you’re a crazy bastard, Egan, so let me be.”
He said, “Poor little girl bit her tongue. All right, stick it out and I’ll kiss it and make it better.”
I said, “You’re dirty and shameful. You’re a dirty pig.”
I meant it, but I wasn’t really mad at him and I guess he knew that. He said, “Maybe, but I’m the doctor. Now let’s see how much help I can give you.”
My hair was all down in the back. He got hold of it and pulled so that my face was turned up to him, and I stuck out the tip of my tongue and he kissed it. That was when things got real complicated. I knew I shouldn’t be doing it, but everything inside of me all the way down my back started buzzing and thumping away, and I was so excited I didn’t care. We kissed like that so that the more you had the more you wanted, and I got my arms around his neck and pulled him down until he was almost on top of me. Then I felt his hand moving up under my sweater, but not like Yeager’s hand ever felt. Only the way I thought it would be when Jimmy did it.
His mouth came right against my ear. “Do you love me?” he said.
“No.”
“Yes, you do. Say you do.”
It didn’t mean anything, so I said, “Yes, I do.”
“I love you, too,” he said. “Do you know when I found that out?”
“No.”
“A prima vista,” he whispered, and it surprised me to hear him talk like that, almost like a Cubano, but it didn’t matter too much with the way his hand was making me feel. It was lucky for me then that I happened to swing my leg around. I was just trying to get closer to him, but my foot hit the chair and knocked it over against the wall and about two seconds later I heard McGuire, who lived in the next room, yelling, “For chrissake, Egan!”
We both lay on the floor very quiet then, but McGuire yelled once more, “Don’t you know what time it is, Egan?” and that did it. All of a sudden I didn’t like what was happening. I sat up, and when Egan tried to take hold of me I pushed him away.
He knew I meant it. He helped me get up, then watched me go out without saying a word. But as soon as I was in my room and leaning against the door to catch my breath I heard him start kicking at McGuire’s door hard enough to knock it down.
“Open up, McGuire!” he yelled. “Open up, you son of a bitch, so I can get my hands on you!” and calling him more names, the dirtiest I ever heard.
I knew McGuire would never open the door while Egan was carrying on like that. Nobody in the place ever wanted to run up against Egan when he got himself in a state. And Egan could get away with it because Ethel Waterhouse was kind of moony about him, even if she never would come right out and say so. So all that happened was McGuire stayed quiet as a mouse, and after Egan got tired of banging on the door he went into his own room. You’d think he had too much to drink, the way he acted.
Next day Ethel asked me about it because she had heard the noise and was wondering. There was no use letting her wonder. She was the kind always thought the worst of anybody, and I didn’t want that. I told her what had happened, and I made sure to let her know there was nothing wrong in it, it was just some wrestling around on the floor.
She said, “That man, that man.” Then she said, “Give me a cigarette,” and when I did she took her time stuffing it into that holder and lighting up. “Baby,” she said, “you better be careful. With all that wrestling around on the floor you’re liable to wind up with a bellyful. Then once the barge is fixed, there you are diapering a kid on it while Egan is wrestling some other girl around on the floor. You mind what I tell you, baby. It’s no fun changing diapers all day while your old man keeps looking at the kid cross-eyed wondering if it’s his. Now let’s get to the movies, because it’s Cary Grant and I don’t want to miss this.”
But all through the movies I kept thinking that it was even worse than Ethel knew. If I ever had a baby because of Egan, Avery would never have to wonder about it. The way things were between him and me, he’d sure enough know it wasn’t his. So it was a lucky thing I had kicked over that chair by accident. I got so scared thinking about it that way and thinking how close I came to getting into trouble that I couldn’t even see the picture, and afterwards when Ethel was talking about it I must have sounded real dumb.
It was Avery that scared me. Two or three times a week he’d come to the room about eight o’clock in the morning while I was sleeping, and he’d bang around looking into everything until I woke up. Then he would sit on a chair with his head in his hands the way he had the night we were married. He got to look worse and worse every time I saw him. He was losing weight so that his cheeks were sucked in, and his eyes were bigger and crazier than ever. And his clothes were a mess.
It wasn’t easy to talk to him, the way he sat there not even listening, but I tried. One time he did answer was when I asked about the man he was looking for. “His name is Samuel Fisher,” he said. “From him cometh my salvation. Behold, I am vile and he will save me. He is the second son of God.”
I said, “He is not. That’s an awful thing to say, Avery. You know God only had one son.”
He got up and stood over me. I figured I knew what was coming, and I put my hands to my face so that when he slapped me it wouldn’t hurt too much. But he didn’t. He said, “He is holy, holy, holy. The spirit is in him. He was revealed to me once, and he will be revealed to me again.”
“Then why do you have to keep looking for him?”
“Seek and ye shall find. Long ago he lived on the Bowery near the bridge but everything is changed now. So I seek him from door to door.”
It turned out that’s what he was doing every day until he had to go back in the evenings and be watchman on the barge. He was going from door to door asking everybody about this Samuel Fisher from thirty-five years ago, and nobody knew.
I said, “Avery, sometimes I can’t make you out. How do you expect people to remember anybody from thirty-five years ago? And there’s a million people in New York. You ask them one after another, and you’ll never get done.”
He moved his hand down, but not to slap me. It caught me around the throat and squeezed the breath out of me. I grabbed his wrist with both my hands, but it was like grabbing an iron bar.
“Is that your message?” he said. “Temptress. Whore out of Babylon. Is that what you were sent to tell me?” and all I could think of was that he had taken a fit the way Lettie did when she chased me out of the house, and that I was a goner for sure. Then he suddenly let go and without another word turned and walked out of the room. I guess all he wanted to do was scare me, and he sure did.
I didn’t want Egan to know about it, but he found out anyhow. He was in my room later in the morning, and while we were talking he pointed at my neck and said, “How did that happen?”
I said, “How did what happen?” making believe I didn’t know what he meant, but he was too sharp for that. He pushed my chin up with his finger and said, “You make a habit of collecting fingerprints there?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Was your husband here this morning?”
“Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. I’m most always asleep when he comes here, so how would I know?”
“You knew this time. Why the hell didn’t you do something about it? Why didn’t you yell?”
“What for?”
“For me.”
I saw he was getting all worked up, so I tried to make a joke of it. “Oh, sure,” I said. “You make a fuss and Ethel calls the cops and how much you think that’ll bother Avery?”
“None at all,” he said. “He’ll be dead before they get here.”
And he meant it.
ELEVEN<
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Being in between him and Avery like that was worrisome, but once I knew for sure that Avery would only show up early mornings it wasn’t too hard to take. It meant that the rest of the time I could be with Egan, and after a while it got to be a steady thing with us, going places together or seeing people that he knew. That way I went to Coney Island with him and the horse races and a show on Broadway and a lot of museums with pictures in them and all kinds of places in New York that I already knew from seeing them in the movies down in Key West or reading about them.
As for people, I guess Egan knew more kinds of people than anybody in the world. There was the Indian and some others from the shipyard and they were nice. And there were these teachers from college uptown. They didn’t teach in the summer, so all they had to do was sit home reading books and talking about them. We visited them a couple of times and I figured that the only book they never read was Don Quixote because that was the only one they never talked about. And there was this whole gang in Greenwich Village that Egan was in with except that he was different from them. They all looked kind of sickly, and he didn’t. And other people that we met in the museums or the eating places or wherever we went. So many of them you couldn’t keep count.
The funny thing I found out was that Egan wasn’t the friendly sort himself. It reminded me of what that tug engineer had said about Avery. Egan was like that, too. For all he was so easygoing around people you could see that he was stewing and stewing inside, ready to blow up when you least expected it. It was worst when he drank too much, but it was there all the rest of the time, too, even when he was sitting quiet talking to people. It gave me something to think about, wondering what would happen if he and Avery ever ran head-on into each other.
But it was mostly fun being with him, and the few times it wasn’t didn’t matter too much. One of the times was when he took me to the Indian’s house, and the Indian’s wife was real mean the way Lettie could be if she wanted to. She wouldn’t talk to me at all, but kept telling Egan how glad she was he finally got married and what a pretty wife he had and all so sweet and sarcastic I could have killed her. And Egan liked it. He kept playing along with it and acting as if she really meant it, so there was nothing I could do. Only afterward I told him what I thought and he said I didn’t know how to take a joke, as if any woman with some sense jokes about that kind of thing.
The Winter After This Summer Page 24