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

by Because It Is Bitter

  He doesn't ask, though. That's not Iceman cool.

  Like say some white boys on some opposing team, Lebanon, for instance, or Wrightsville, big hulking farmboy fuckers they're frustrated seeing Hammond score so they start in taunting nigger during the game, say it's an away game and the crowd is restless and hostile, if Jinx Fairchild hears hey, nigger, hey, shine, hey, coon he doesn't give a sign, or even if he's getting fouled accidentally on purpose, elbowed in the gut or neck, stiff armed when he jumps to shoot blocked by some hefty bastard so hard he's knocked to the floor tries not to show his hurt or pain or worry or fear he's been injured. or if he's angry enough to tear out somebody's throat with his teeth. He'll tell the referee his side of it but won't ever raise his voice to argue, that's mister Breuer's job; slow and collected cool he gets to his feet long legged as a colt, holding his head steady in dignity, shifting his shoulders to loosen the muscles, and takes the ball from the referee and goes to the foul line to take his free shot. and maybe at this time, at this moment, like sunshine pricking its way through a worn out shade, he'll have a thought of Little Red Garlock, whose head he bashed in, Little Red Garlock grinning at him, showing his crazy teeth, and the hair lifting in snaky tufts in the moonlit water, and the eyes, the wide open dead eyes. but if Jinx Fairchild breathes in deep and easy, once, twice, three times, his fingers gripping the ball at mid chest, his eyes unblinking on the basket, if Jinx Fairchild steps into his own secret space where no one can follow or even perceive him there, seeing merely the outermost husk of his bodily form, under standing he's safe on the court, under the principle of the brightly clocked time, if he directs the ball in his fingers to rise and arc and fall into the basket in a trajectory determined by his eyes.

  he can't fail.

  And applause or groans and jeers, he won't hear.

  That's Iceman cool.

  On the court, Jinx Fairchild is safe.

  I believe we are born with Sin on our head and must labor to cleans ourselves all the days of our life. It is not a matter of Gods punishment but of Conscience, if there is no God nor Jesus Christ there is still Human Conscience.

  Jinx Fairchild spends days on the assignment, a five hundred word composition for his senior English class on the topic I Believe, writing it out in large looping letters in blue ink, writing and rewriting in a ferocity of concentration nearly as singleminded as his concentration on basketball. The effort is exhausting. He has never thought of words on paper as expressions of the soul, the voice on paper a silent rendering of his own voice.

  When he gets the composition back he sees to his shame that his teacher missis Dunphy has marked it in re d: numerous grammatical errors, several run on sentences, a fatal lack of clarity.

  The grade is D , one of the lowest grades Jinx Fairchild has received in English, in years.

  Ordinarily I would give a paper like this an F, missis Dunphy says, peering up at Jinx over her half moon glasses with a steely little smile of reproach You know the rule, Jinx, don't you? No run on sentences.

  Jinx mumbles, Yes, ma am.

  'Didn't I write it out on the blackboard? NO RUN ON SENTENCES

  Yes, ma'am.

  'And is the argument wholly your own? missis Dunphy asks doubtfully.

  It doesn't sound. like something you'd be thinking.

  Jinx Fairchild stands silent as if confused. Is the white woman accusing him of cheating?

  As if reading his thoughts missis Dunphy adds quickly, The tone of the composition doesn't sound like you, Jinx. It sounds like somebody else, a stranger. It isn't you. And the thinking is muddled and incoherent. She gives a breathy little laugh, uneasy, annoyed: this tall hooded eyed Negro boy standing there so unnaturally still.

  He's about to turn away so missis Dunphy says, relenting If you re write it, making corrections, I might raise the grade. I might make an exception, this time.

  Jinx mumbles, Yes, ma am.

  Will you, then?

  Ma'am?

  Rewrite it, make corrections? Hand it back in again, by Monday?

  Jinx slips the composition in his notebook. His heart is beating hard and steady, keeping him cool, Iceman style. He's thinking that once there's blood on your hands, blood cries out for blood, doesn't it?

  This white bitch on her fat girdled ass, looking up at him with a fond familiar smile, as if she has the right.

  He says, Yes, ma'am, thank you, ma'am, I sure will.

  And he does. And the grade is raised to B+.

  It's early winter. smelling of snow, sun spilling like acid through the Fairchilds' kitchen window.

  The frost on the pane so sparks and glitters, Jinx Fairchild shifts his chair sideways to avoid the strain on his eyes. He pours milk into a bowl of Rice Krispies and begins to eat.

  His mother, Minnie, and his little sister, Ceci, are talking over his head but Jinx Fairchild is in an open eyed dream.

  doesn't hearaword.

  The night before, he'd dreamt of it again. Not for months had he dreamt of it, but the night before he'd dreamt of it with such force he awakened sick and faint with terror seeing the white face floating just beneath the surface of the water: Little Red Garlock's face soft and white as bread dough but the eyes unmistakable, the teeth bared in a grin. And the legs that had dragged so heavy with the weight of deadness came alive suddenly to kick and thrash.

  And Jinx felt fingers closing hard around his ankle; the dead boy had hold of him and was pulling him into the river No! You dead! Can't harm me now!

  Minnie lays a hand on Jinx's head, on the green and white woolen cap Jinx is wearing indoors, and chides him as she's been chiding him for days, an edge of jealousy in her voice. That hat you got to wear it in my face? Every damn minute? Just cause some empty head high yalla knit it for you?

  Ceci giggles. Iceman got all the girls, any girl he wants. All the girlsand some old ladies they hanging on Iceman.

  In his open eyed dream Jinx Fairchild doesn't hear. He eats his cereal without tasting it, slick and numb inside.

  Almost, Jinx can see the dead boy's face floating close. the jeering eyes. He can feel the fingers closing tight around his ankle.

  Lemme go. You dead. Mothafucker you dead.

  These sideburns is what gets me! Minnie exclaims. Tickling and tugging at Jinx's hair, pinching his cheek like he's no more than a toddler, this big boy sitting at the kitchen table with legs so long under it, either his knees are nudging Ceci's or his feet are nudging Ceci's feet, every meal interrupted by jostling, complaining, teasing.

  Most days, Minnie and Ceci vie with each other for Jinx's attention Jinx Fairchild is a true charmer when he makes the effortbut he's in the habit of hurrying through his meals, eager to get out of the house, on his way to basketball, school, work.

  Unlike Sugar Baby at that age, Jinx doesn't party much with his friends.

  Doesn't have time for such trifling matters.

  For which Minnie Fairchild thanks God.

  Yessir. Thanks God.

  She says, still harsh, chiding, You Verlyn, you going to eat supper at home here or where? Out with one of them college scouts?

  Jinx mumbles something.

  What? Don't know?

  Yah, guess I am eating out.

  Hear him! Just hear him! Minnie exclaims. Her eyes, which have a yellowish cast these days, flare up like a cat's. These white folks stumbling over one another, taking Verlyn Fairchild to How and Johnson's, to the Pancake House, Lord it'll be the Hotel Frank linnext.

  Jinx been there already, Ceci says. He told us, Momma.

  Jinx says, Just the coffee shop.

  Huh! Just the coffee shop! Minnie cries. Next thing you know, it's that big room with all the marble. I seen the inside of it, lemme tell you it's something. Like some fancy place in a movie, or in a palace.

  And there's my Verlyn, she says, laughing a little too loudly, with his big white sneakers and his pretty wool knit cap pulled down low on his head.

  Close under Minnie Fairchild's chattering, li
ke rancid milk beneath a creamy film, there is likely to be hurt or terrible worry or fear; neither Jinx nor Ceci wants to push through to discover what it is.

  Minnie Fairchild now works as a maid at the Hotel Franklin, heavy duty cleaning of a kind she hasn't done in years.

  All morning, Minnie has been grumbling cause Woodrow Senior slipped away early, before anybody else was awake, to go fishing on the river ice fishing with his friends and there are household tasks he'd promised to do. And this new job of Minnie's not exactly new any longer since she has been working there for five months this new job is a constant source of anxiety, old womanish fretting and apprehension her children have never noticed in her before.

  Jinx thinks, Soon as I get some money, Momma can stay home.

  Jinx thinks, Soon as I get out of here, I can send money home.

  When he isn't playing basketball he's thinking about such things in the effort to block thinking about other things.

  It's been a long time now. Jinx has lost precise count of the months.

  He's safe, he isn't going to be caught.

  Drinking a tall glass of milk. his bones are growing, greedy for milk.

  Minnie and Ceci have stopped the asing Jinx since Jinx isn't in a teasing mood. Minnie complains nonstop like it's a sermon, or singing the blues with no music, a whining melodic midnight blue voice from deep in her throat as she bangs around the kitchen, heavy hipped in her ugly white uniform, its bulk exaggerated by the white nylon sweater she's wearing under it; the wind these days is so damn cold it'll freeze your ass off, waiting for the bus.

  It's no joke, Minnie says, flaring up, as if anybody thought it might be, that damn blizzardy wind coming down from Lake Ontario.

  Waiting at the bus stop huddled with your kind like cattle gone mute and mindless with misery. And the white bus drivers treating you like shit if you stumble climbing in, drop a bus token on the floor.

  The arthritis in Minnie's hands, swelling in the knuckles, and throbbing pain that keeps her awake at night. that's the true terror. Minnie has about used up the painkillers from doctor O'Shaughnessy.

  Ceci says, on the very edge of sass, Why you working so far uptown, anyway? Flora's mother, she got a nice job closer by.

  Cause they pay higher, uptown! Minnie nearly shouts.

  Cause they leave tips sometimes, that nobody's counting in any income tax!

  Minnie Fairchild is angry much of the time now. Angry at doctor O'Shaughnessy for collapsing as he did, being hauled off to a nursing home in Syracuse, his cold hearted children, the very worst sort of white folks, coming forward to make their claim.

  just waiting for him to die.

  It's the heartbreak of Minnie's life; knowing she'll never see doctor O'Shaughnessy again.

  Minnie was the one who found him. A thousand times she's told the story of how she unlocked the rear door with her keyyes, Minnie Fairchild had her own special key to the white doctor's househow she went along the corridor saying, doctor O'Shaugh nessy? You here?

  doctor O'Shaughnessy? It's Minnie and found the poor man collapsed in his bedroom in a tangle of bedclothes. One eye open and one eye shut.

  The eye that was open, Minnie Fairchild would never have known whose it was.

  That sight, and the smell of it, Minnie doesn't like to re call.

  Yes: doctor O'Shaughnessy was true to his word like the gentle man Minnie always knew he was, left my most faithful friend and employee missis Minnie Fairchild a dozen household items, including a lion's head bronze lamp Minnie used to make a joke of heavy ugly thing weighed a ton, all curlicues and carvings it was the devil's work to get cleanand $ 1,200 cash. Which, to Minnie's outrage, the O'Shaughnessy children are contesting.

  Imagine! Contesting! These well to do white folks, two brothers and a sister, so selfish and so nasty!

  But better not get Minnie started on that subject, her breath gets short and raspy, her nerves all the more frazzled. Every joint in her body will start to throb, like electricity.

  These days, there's a yellowish sheen to Minnie Fairchild's face, as if something sickly is trying to push through. Minnie hasn't had time or spirit to get her hair pressed for five weeks, so it's matted and heavy with grease and is she gaining weight, going puffy fat in the hips and rear Don't make the least bit of sense, Minnie says in disgust, all the work I do. All the stairs. But she has had to buy a new girdle and she's out of breath after the least exertion and jumpy and twitchy as if something is buzzing close around her head she can't see to swat.

  And the arthritis in her hands.

  And the Hotel Franklin. The white staff manager, the white clientele, the way white people cut their eyes at her not her exactly, not Minnie Fairchild exactly, but her brown black skin like all they see, seeing her, is her skin. One white lady claimed somebody stole a ring of hers, and was that somebody the cleaning girl, and was that cleaning girl Minnie Fairchild, and thank God the ring came to light: damn thing packed away in a suitcase in some undies. Minnie Fairchild was mortified, though, then ashamed of herself at her own re lief, the white bitch managing a smile for her and an apology: I'm so very, very sorry.

  So very, very sorry!

  Minnie misses those kindly white lady patients of doctor O'Shaughnessy who'd looked upon Minnie Fairchild with respect and affection, asking after her health and her family, depending on her to make them less nervous in the examination room. At the Hotel Franklin it's all different.

  Minnie is convinced it's gotten worse, a whole lot worse, how white people re gard Negroes, since that trouble back in September, in Little Rock, Arkansas: national troops marching in to help integrate the schools, push back the mobs of angry jeering whites nasty sight to behold. And so much attention paid to it in the newspapers and on TV, and everybody talking about it, the eyes nervous and jumpy on both sides, worse even than back in 1955 when Martin Luther King led that bus boycott down in Montgomery Alabama, and some folks waste rrified there'd be blood in the streets. black blood. That Reverend King, Minnie complained seems to me he's doing more harm than good, preaching 'nonviolence' and passive resistance' and hate will be returned with love'making it hot for the re st of us, is all. I ain't re turning any hate with love cause I ain't got any love to spare, and her Verlyn fired back so quick and emphatic it stunned her, Reverend King makes the most sense of any man I ever heard. So they quarreled, that day, till Minnie lost her temper and slapped her favorite child around the head, and Verlyn stamped out of the house.

  Minnie shouted after him, You don't know a thing, boy!

  Ain't lived long enough to know a goddamn thing!

  When Minnie's angry, her accent goes south, down past Pitts burgh and all the way to northeast Georgia, where her folks came from.

  Ever after that outburst, Minnie has been careful not to bring certain subjects up in Verlyn's presence. Any one thing that chills her heart, it's her own flesh and blood opposing her on something she knows is right, regarding her with contemptuous eyes.

  That too Minnie blames on Martin Luther King, like the New Testament says Jesus warned He would come between parents and children and husbands and wives: I bring not peace but a sword.

  Don't want your goddamn old sword, Minnie fumes.

  These days, though, basketball so much on his mind and his name and picture in the newspaper, Verlyn rarely talks about anything else.

  Basketball, the coach, his teammates College and scholarship applications for next year.

  Thinks Minnie, Thank God.

  Thinks Minnie with satisfaction, He's on his way.

  Now Verlyn has finished his Rice Krispies, drunk down his second glass of milk in thirsty gulping swallows. The green and white knit capit is a beautiful capballed up carelessly under his arm as if to placate Minnie. On his legs, he towers over her Sweet faced boy so handsome the simple sight of him takes Minnie's breath away, sometimes. Lord, she'll forgive her Verlyn anything.

  But these near grown boys, that's the last thing they want Momma staring at them al
l melting eyed with love.

  Now that Woodrow Junior is turning out such a heartbreak, Verlyn is all the more special.

  Verlyn: Jinx. Minnie hates these neighborhood names but lately she's been forced to think of her son that way, the way everyone else thinks of him. Like he doesn't belong just to her any longer.

  G'bye, you, boy! Minnie growls, giving Jinx a kiss as he's out the door, thrusting his arms into the sleeves of his Hammond school jacket, and Jinx ducks his head, mumbling, G'bye, Momma.