Joyce Carol Oates - Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart

by Because It Is Bitter

  And does she think of it, of Death; of the pool of blood darkening under her enemy's head or of his body hauled battered and eyeless from the river?

  No. She occupies her mind with other things.

  Yes. There is, after all, nothing else to think of.

  So quiet these days, Persia comments, brushing a strand of hair out of her daughter's eye in passing, as if it is her privilege to touch, to caress, to prod, at whim. Where are those friends of yours? Nancy?

  Jeannette? I kind of liked them. and that boy who was calling you, what's happened to him?

  Graice says with a coolness that makes her mother laugh, I've outgrown them.

  The days are not difficult; it's the nights, and Graice's memory of Jinx Fairchild scrambling across Little Red Garlock's legs, picking up a rock, bringing it down on the other's head again, again, again cursing, sobbing, screaming out words that weren't words, only sounds.

  Then Little Red Garlock stopped struggling, stopped his noise then he was dead, so quick.

  His legs twitching and that's all. And then that stopped too.

  So quick.

  And Jinx got to his feet, and Graice came closer, and they'd stood over the body staring. thinking, Was it a trick of his, lying there like a slaughtered hog? in the weeds, in the sandy gravel? hoping they'd bend over him, touch him? then he'd have an advantage?

  Surely Jinx Fairchild knew this was Death, the seeping blood, the wide open sightless eyes, but he was whispering for Little Red to get up, damn you, get up, peckerhead motherfucker get up, clearly knowing he'd smashed in the boy's skull as with the edge of a shovel you'd smash ice that's in your way, but still he was dazed, pleading, wiping blood from his own dripping face, whispering, Hey man get up.

  Then finally he turned to Graice Courtney, saying almost calmly except his teeth were chattering, You. get on home. Nothing here for you.

  She had not wanted to leave him; she'd stood there dumb, leaden limbed, not knowing what to do until he began speaking more harshly, until his face shifted to show a look of his she hadn't believed she would see in that face and she began to back off in animal fright, knowing he was wild enough and despairing enough to kill her too but he'd be content with driving her off the way you d drive off a dog, if she obeyed.

  So she turned, she ran.

  Running until her heart burst.

  Once it was a matter of days since Little Red Garlock died in the vacant lot at the foot of Pitt Street, then it became weeks.

  now months. The numbness that settled upon Graice Courtney hasn't lifted entirely; it's as if she moves, still, in a suspension of being, a giant's withheld breath.

  And what of Jinx Fairchild?

  She has had no communication with him, has no idea what he is thinking, feeling, whether he blames her, whether he hates her bitterly as she gauges she should be hated. I'm the one. I'm to blame.

  Not you. Glancing down at the whiteness of her skin she feels a sensation of vertigo, a physical sickness, as if this whiteness were the outward symptom of her spirit's etiolation, a profound and unspeakable not thereness. For she'd failed him, re ally, in not run rung for help and protecting him from his own instinct for self survival. If he'd wanted to kill his enemy it had been simply to stop his enemy from killing him. In this, Graice Courtney knows herself to blame.

  At first, she'd thought she might tell her mother, confess it all to her mother, and Persia would know what to do keep it a secret, probably though Persia is emotional and unpredictable; she might have wanted Graice to tell her story to the police, to go to them directly before they came to her. But days passed, and Graice couldn't speak, and Graice wouldn't speak, dazed and sick with dread. The infantile notion consoled her that if police did come to the Holland Street apartment to arrest her, Persia would keep them from her.

  In certain school districts in Hammond it isn't uncommon for uniformed police officers, as frequently female as male, to appear in classrooms with papers issued by juvenile court judges and to take away a boy or a girl; not long before, in March, in Graice Courtney's ninth grade home room, a Negro girl named Chloe was led away terrified and sobbing, the consequence of her foster mother having accused her foster father of having sexually abused the girl thus Graice imagined herself led away before the eyes of her staring class mates. Excitement and apprehension churn the air in the wake of such drama, each child sitting rigid in his seat thinking, Not me, not me, please never me.

  Rarely does the distinction seem to be made in juvenile court between victim and criminal, nor does the victim feel any less guilty than the criminal : perhaps more guilty, having provoked the criminal to crime.

  Graice thought, More than Jinx Fairchild, I'm guilty.

  And the whiteness of her skin has something to do with it.

  but what?

  For months following the discovery of Little Red Garlock's body in the Cassadaga River it is generally believed that the case is continuing to be investigated by Hammond police detectives, but no arrests are made except the mistaken arrests of the two Hell's Angels motorcyclists from Buffalo. and there appear to be no suspects.

  The lie Graice Courtney invented in desperation and terror to save Jinx Fairchild and herself seems miraculously to have passed from her, will never be traced back to her, out of a young police officer's kindness or negligence; with the passing of time it's almost as if lie becomes truth, worn smooth and plausible by the handling, as of a coin, by so many. Thus Graice Courtney, who fears with a part of her mind that she is still in danger of being arrested, comes to appreciate the extraordinary power of duplicity: duplicity given a seemingly artless utterance at just the right time and the right place.

  As the police investigation subsides, as, day following day and week following week, there are no new developments, the name Garlock disappears from the pages of the Chronicle,' never is it heard any longer over the local radio station WHMM; when people discuss the case, speaking of the murder, the body in the river, the kid killed by motorcyclists, it becomes increasingly rare that they recall the kid's name. It is the mystery alone that engages their interest, the publicity given to a single unexplained event out of a galaxy of unexplained events, lacking distinction. Little Red is beginning to be forgotten.

  Death makes of us abstractions.

  Remorse cannot be extracted from us.

  These somber and illuminating truths Graice Courtney will re call through her life.

  Her guilt? She turns it slowly in her fingers, in awe, in fascination, in pride; it's like one of those stones of uncommon beauty found now and then along the shore of Lake Ontario. Persia and Graice have a glass jar filled to the very brim with such jewel stones : souvenirs of family excursions to the lake now long forgotten, kept atop a windowsill in the kitchen. She believes that, should the police ever hunt down Jinx Fairchild and arrest him, he'll be obliged to speak her name; yet it does not seem possible to her, still less probable, that the police will ever discover any link between Jinx Fairchild and the dead boy. apart from Graice Courtney, who is the link.

  Suddenly happy, Graice thinks, We'll never be caught, then.

  Graice Courtney and Jinx Fairchild.

  It's late August, and one evening, after the movies, Graice finds herself in Chaney's Variety, where she hasn't been since the night of Little Red Garlock's death; she's in the protective company of friends: girls, boys, white like herself, all of them older than Graice, noisy and seemingly self assured amid the Negroes in the cramped little store.

  Graice sees Jinx Fairchild at the rear of the store and her excitement is almost unbearable. A raw boned black boy with a baseball cap jauntily re versed on his head, stooping behind a counter Graice pushes away from her friends, approaching him blindly, waiting, heart pounding, for him to see her then she realizes that the boy isn't Jinx Fairchild at all; he's approximately Jinx's age and height, skin just slightly darker than Jinx's, but his features heavier and coarser. How is it possible Graice has mistaken, even for a moment, this boy for the
other? Jinx Fairchild's features are more familiar to her than her own.

  The black boy is staring at her. Graice says apologetically, I thought you were Jinx Fairchild. for a moment.

  The black boy lifts his lip in a sort of sneering but appreciative smile. Huh! Sure makin' me wish I was. 1, F001.

  A killer, and a bad man, anddeserving every harm. and a nigger fool beside.

  This is what happens: Sunday before Labor Day, early in Cassadaga Park before church lets out and the playing areas are aswarm with children, Jinx Fairchild is methodically shooting baskets by himself the familiar old basket just a netless rim loose against the battered backboard, the concrete rough underfoot when a Villanova College student comes by, a forward on the Villanova basketball team, and the two play a fierce one on one game for hours. It's the most arduous game of basketball Jinx Fairchild has ever played; he's never felt so clumsy, so outclassed.

  The college student is white, taller than Jinx, lean and tight muscled and remarkably fast on his feet, the fastest white boy Jinx has ever seen in person. Introduces himself simply as Neil.

  Midway in the game there's a shift of a sort; it's as if Jinx

  Fairchild is learning from his opponent the way a leech sucks blood.

  By degrees the black boy takes on the white boy's style, his technique and his tricks, a certain twisting of the shoulders, a feinting of the head, dribbling in weird varying rhythms, and this style Jinx adapts to his own until at last, nearing noon and the September sun hot and spellbinding overhead, Jinx Fairchild begins to score.

  When the game's over, Neil shakes Jinx's hand, grins, and shrugs as if mildly embarrassed. You're good, fella looking at Jinx almost quizzically you're the re al thing. Neil gives Jinx a pencil and a scrap of paper to write down his telephone number; Neil would like to call Jinx next time he comes home so maybe they can get together, but in the nervous excitement of the moment Jinx's mind seems to go blank: asshole can't re member his own telephone number.

  But Jinx is too embarrassed to let on; he just scribbles down some numbers, hands the paper back to his new friend, this fair skinned sandy haired smiling white boy telling him he's the re al thing, Jinx Fairchild's new friend from whom of course he never hears again.

  Jinx Fairchild has taken a human life, but no one knows.

  Except the white girl: Graice Courtney.

  He thinks of her, and of that fact, a good deal.

  All summer Jinx considers confessing his crime. but can't comprehend its nature. Can't re hearse the words. I'm the one, he must begin, I'm the one who. Yet a part of him, childlike, spiteful, is arguing that Little Red Garlock deserved to die and you had the right to kill him.

  To whom should Jinx confess: the police? the precinct station up on East Avenue? He sees himself climbing the steps, going inside, panicked white rimmed eyes darting from face to face and what next?

  What does he say, to whom does he speak, what next?

  He's thinking, he hates white people.

  White men, especially. Just hates them, as if the color of their skin is their fault cause it's their choice while the color of his skin isn't.

  He'll go to the police, even if they're the white police.

  white fuckers. Tell them the truth of all that happened, even if he doesn't re ally re member. And if he is tried as a murderer, and if he is sentenced to die in the electric chair must be, it's only what God commands.

  But Jinx Fairchild isn't certain there is any God. He talks to God a whole lot, but God sure doesn't talk back.

  Whole lot of silence, Jinx Fairchild thinks.

  Like shouting in a tunnel, and all you hear, fool, is your own voice echoing back.

  The strangest thing is, Jinx doesn't re ally re member all that happened that night. Remembers the start of it in Chaney's and the end of it burning his sweatshirt in the woods and sobbing and talking to himself but the middle part is blurred, hazy. As if he'd only been told it, secondhand. As if the killing of the white boy, Garlock, with that white girl a witness, isn't anything more than a story Jinx Fairchild has heard, in fragments.

  One of those neighborhood stories told and re told so many times, when they re turn to their source they're unrecognizable.

  lumpy and disfigured and covered in dirt like a snowball you keep rolling in the yard till it's the size of a bushel basket and too heavy to budge. Not a snowball any longer, and not re cognizable.

  In any case, Jinx Fairchild doesn't go to the police. And the police don't come to him.

  He's drawn, though, to the foot of Pitt Street.

  Just to look. To contemplate.

  That trashy vacant corner lot: tall weeds, pieces of concrete, rocks, debris, faded newspaper. Where Little Red Garlock is said to have died, head broken. The way you'd break a pumpkin. And whoever killed him was strong enough to drag the body down to the river. out across the wharf. strong enough to dump the body into the water.

  Where it might have sunk, but didn't. Or floated downstream to empty into Lake Ontario. But didn't.

  Jinx Fairchild stands on the sidewalk staring. An observer would wonder what it is the worried faced black boy is staring at.

  He tastes cold, and that blackish bile at the back of his mouth.

  How am I going to live my life out like this? Is this what God wants of me? Or is it just what happened, and no sense to it?

  Jinx shuts his hands up into fists, trembling fists, hides them behind his back. Once there's blood on your hands blood cries out for blood.

  maybe.

  How am I going to live out my l'je?

  One day, Jinx Fairchild can scarcely believe his eyes, there at the foot of Pitt Street the little white girl Graice Courtney is standing just across the street, shy, hesitant, watching him. Whether she came along first and waited, or he'd been first and she has just now come along, he doesn't know. For a long moment the two of them simply stare at each other. Only Graice Courtney makes a move, finally a frightened smile, a lifting of her hand in greeting.

  Jinx Fairchild just stares. Stands frozen.

  Then Graice Courtney hurries across the street to him; he sees yes it is her and no mistake. exactly as he remembers her except today, in the quiet of the afternoon, only gulls squawking and the sounds of traffic in the distance, Graice Courtney isn't distraught and she isn't fearful and her eyes seem to blaze up in certainty.

  She comes right up to Jinx Fairchild, seizes his hand, raises it to her lips. kisses it.

  Whispers, You were never to blame. I'm the one.

  Fhree thirty Sunday morning, and Virgil Starling and Persia Courtney are re turning to Hammond from a party in Rochester when a state highway patrol car speeds past them on the left, splashing Virgil's midnight blue Mercury coupe with snow and slush, then purposefully slows so that Virgil, continuing at his own speed, just below the speed limit, is forced to pull up alongside the patrol car. and endure a powerful beacon shone rudely into his face.

  Into his face, and into Persia Courtney's.

  The highway patrolmen flag Virgil down. He obeys immediately, braking his car on the shoulder of the Thruway.

  Whispering to himself low panicked pleading words that sound like, Oh, Christ, oh, Christ, oh, my man, and Persia, squeezed in sleepily beside him, her head on his shoulder, sits up confused and frightened saying, What? What is it? Police? You haven't done any thing wrong, and she's running her hands quickly through her tangled hair as if she's been surprised in sleep, in bed, and Virgil says, No matter what I done or didn't do, it's who I am. He shuts off the ignition as two state troopers approach their car, pistols drawn.

  He says, despairing, And there's you.

  Both Virgil Starling and Persia Courtney have been drinking.

  For hours. But they aren't seriously drunk. Virgil's driving has been cautious, he's kept to one lane and more or less one speed, showing no signs of being impaired; he's a damned good driver could handle this smooth running car in his sleep so why have the police flagged him down?

 
; Two bigbodied white men, pistols drawn.

  A sight you don't readily forget.

  Nor is Persia Courtney likely to forget how Virgil Starling scrambles out of his car when he's ordered to, how meekly he turns over his license to the troopers, hunched in his fawn colored suede coat with the fox fur collar, his slick oiled hair going white with damp snowflakes, ashy faced, eyelids rapidly blinking as if with a nervous tremor: shaking his head no, nosir nodding his head yes, yessir, in re ply to the troopers' loud staccato questions.

  Why was he driving so fast? Is he drunk? Is this his car? Where's the registration Is he carrying a weapon? Is there a weapon in the car? Where was he coming from, and where is he going? Why in such a hurry? Is that car his? Where's his gun? Does he have a police re cord? Who's his girlfriend?