by Cynthia Bond
By evening Otha’s reason was slowly returning. She was terrified for her children. At the end of a week she began to smell again. She didn’t realize that sense had been lost until she was assaulted by the stench of urine, waste and collective human sweat. She was moved into a great room with ten women and men strapped to beds. A very angry man said that her ribs were broken and she was wrapped up and left there where she developed sores on her ankles and skin burns on her vagina and buttocks from urine soaking and laying so close to her skin for so many days. After a month she was moved to a cell where human decency had long been forgotten. Twelve women shared a filthy room with a tin bucket for relieving themselves. Some women were strapped to their beds. Some screamed all day and wept. One woman played with her private parts until nurses slapped her hands with a ruler. When they were out of sight she would begin again. In spite of this Otha held fast to what was left of her sanity. She did it for one reason. Her son, Ephram. Besides the yawning pain of missing him she was terrified for him as well. She called out at night to speak about her children until two men came in and tied her to her bed with a leather strap over her mouth. Two days later a man came in to talk with her. They took the strap from her mouth then. She had not had water or food for two days. This man did not seem angry. He was a young White man, so young in fact that his face didn’t look as if it would take a beard. He called Otha “Mrs. Jennings” and asked her how she was feeling, so of course she felt tears pushing against her eyes, she told him that she was very concerned about her son and daughter. She did not dare mention pit fires and young naked girls, not in the heart of this beast of a place, but she did tell the man that her husband beat the children in such a way that she was frightened for their very lives. The young man nodded and looked at a piece of paper in front of him. He said that he thought it would be best if she stayed with them for a while longer.
When she insisted that it would not be all right, that she was feeling much better and that the incident that had taken place was a thing of the past, that she was perfectly normal, he simply looked down at her hands and shook his head with a short little nod. Otha followed his gaze and saw that her hands were lacing. It was then that she realized they had been lacing since she arrived and had not stopped, not for one single moment. The young, young man said, “There, there,” when she kept crying. He signaled for help as her cries intensified and left as they were strapping her in, telling her that he would be back to see her in a month. He lied.
Three months later when he returned Otha was barely human. She sat in a corner and laced the air around her. Every day or so someone would come by and tell her to stop. She thought to herself that she would have stopped by now if it was such a simple matter, but because they didn’t realize this she often let a smile break onto her dull face. This always seemed to anger them and they would tell her to stop again and again, then drag her to a room somewhere to try some new horror on her body. They shoved her in ice water for so long that she contracted a fever when she got out that turned into pneumonia, which would have killed her if the janitor hadn’t gotten one of the orderlies to take her to the hospital room. Another month in a bed while some flurry of strength kept her breathing until she was returned to the shared room. Next they wheeled her into a small tiled cell and shoved sour rubber into her mouth and exploded rockets in her brain. She forgot to use the facilities for two days, after which they sent her back to the ice water, for a shorter vigil this time.
When the young man reappeared he told her his name was Dr. Glass. He was wearing spectacles this time, which Otha suspected were more to make him look older than for any true ophthalmologic need. He did not apologize for his two month delay except to say that they had been very busy in this section of the hospital. Otha took every ounce of strength from not only her body, but from any God in the stars to keep her hands still. She managed it for five whole minutes. When they began again he glanced at them as if he had not been aware of their stillness. She talked about her children again. He nodded and said that they were going to try a new approach, that he would see her in a few days.
Days. The next day Otha’s blood was taken and she was moved to a small room with only one other woman. She was given better food and the light was dimmed when it was time to sleep. She was given a larger room to walk around in at midday to keep her blood flowing. Then she was injected with something at the end of the second day that sent her into convulsions on the floor. The next day Dr. Glass arrived, looked at her chart and made some notations. That evening they gave her the injection again and she spasmed, but to a lesser degree than the day before. Dr. Glass saw her every other day and brought other men in to see her as well. Sometime during the third week her face and hands had swollen and puffed out. Her joints began to ache and the veins in her right and left arms collapsed, so they gave her the injection in her left thigh. Shortly after he left, swirls of rainbow light spun before Otha’s eyes. The walls seemed to breathe, then sweat black ink, which became oiled branches that crowded all of the air.
When Dr. Glass came back an hour and a half later, his head was a balloon floating above his body. When Otha asked why she was seeing such things, he told her that she was very brave and that she would be better soon. They gave the injections every evening thereafter until one night around three in the morning the Devil came to visit Otha while she worked.
He tapped on the door and then walked straight through it. His image fluttered in and out for a moment, like fighting through static to find a station on a radio. When he took form, he was holding a United States Postal Service bag, with a canvas strap that crossed his heart. Otha still dreamt in lace and eggshell silk, in top stitching and embroidered edges, and so the Devil’s face was a patchwork quilt, with scraps of fabric from years of collecting and saving and sewing. There was a cotton bird print where his left eye should be and a zebra wool over his right. He smiled a thin swatch of teal and black check, and slipped two envelopes between her moving palms. In this new room no one tried to stop Otha’s hands; they flew, long and dark, over her plum face, spinning lace webs over her head.
In spite of his observances Otha worked. She realized in that moment, that in the months she had been there, no one on earth knew what her hands were doing. She hadn’t known either except that she had felt compelled to move them as if she were lacing at Miss Barbara’s. Now as the Devil looked down at her work, she could see it as well. Reams and reams of lace filled the room, dangled out the window and unfurled into the sky. Her fingers had not moved in vain. She had been making lace out of night air and moonbeams, pine scent and starlight. She had made it frantically, feverishly. There was a piece made from morning dew and the tears of her son, another out of mother love. The stretch of sky and the corners of the ceiling above was her tat. She saw it reach out and cover a bit of the sky. It was a thin blanket of intricate cream, softening the rude sun. It was meant to calm the oceans and filter the oil from the skies. It was a net to save the planet, to catch the earth in her downward spiral and hold her safe. There was only a fragment of it finished, but its beauty was breathtaking; delicate, sparkling perfection. It was her offering to life.
Otha had to admit that it felt good to know that at least one other person could see what she had been doing, could see the importance of her work, even if that person was the Devil.
“Ma’am,” the Devil asked, “are you going to sign for this?”
“Yes, of course,” Otha said and set down her work. It was a special delivery. Why hadn’t she seen that before? She reached out and his pen arranged itself between her fingers and she watched her signature spreading beneath her, while he rested in the doorway.
“What’s it say?” he asked. “Don’t see many with postage like that.”
Then Otha felt the envelope flap tearing between her forefinger and thumb. The letter floated above her, the words moving like lice across the page. She saw that it was a list of names, alphabetically placed in a column. Halfway down she saw Otha Jennings written t
here. Then she looked up at the top. It was a death announcement, and the list grew longer and longer until it hit the floor and rolled onto the Devil’s foot. He smiled as it lit like a fuse and leapt into flames. It caught the edge of the moonbeam lace; in seconds it had burned all that she had woven that night, then for the last month; it was racing out the window until Otha grabbed the tail of the fire and, burning her hands, threw it to the ground and crushed it between her toes.
“Doesn’t matter. It still won’t hold,” the Devil said as he crooked his hat to the side. “It won’t hold against the fire in the sky.” She heard the comfortable gait of his step as he sifted through the closed door and left the room.
She began to work again in earnest. Night air and ephemeral light woven into the lace, into her Rapunzel lace rope that would save her and the world. The only difference now was that Otha knew she would lose.
OTHA JENNINGS remained in the Colored ward of Dearing State Mental Hospital for eight years until she was transferred to Kindred Mental Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in July of 1945, where she met her death. She received one visit from her son and daughter during her stay, after which she requested that no family members be allowed into the visiting area, especially her son. Her chart claimed that she was amiable and never a trouble. It said that she was, above all things, very quiet.
Chapter 18
Chauncy Rankin walked bare-chested along the back pathway towards Ruby’s house, his soiled shirt and suit jacket slung over his arm, the rain soaking the weave of his slacks, his good shoes collecting mud. He marched straight towards Bell land. It was only two miles out of the way, but he figured he’d be home in time for the mourning meal and Junie hadn’t really been his favorite great-uncle anyway.
Chauncy walked up to Ruby’s door and knocked. The rain made the sound dull and hollow, so he peeked inside. The place looked like church, clean as a rifle in winter. He figured she hadn’t gone far. Then, sure enough, just to the side, he saw her, hugging against an old chinaberry tree, naked except for a sheet wrapped around her. Chauncy was always amazed at Ruby’s shenanigans. Once he’d come and she had piled a mound of dirt on top of her. She tickled him. He knew she only played at crazy, that it was a put-on thing that let her do the nasty things she liked to do. In all of his visits she’d never once said no.
Chauncy looked at Ruby clinging to the tree, wet sheet sticking to her body. She looked even better than she had that morning, too skinny, but legs as long as the River Nile. Ephram Jennings was no fool. He stood and looked at the girl’s hair, all wet and moving like black oil rolling down her back. It was what folks called talking hair. Everyone had something to say about it. He leaned against the damp of the house and watched her quietly, his hand resting loosely against his crotch.
EPHRAM HAD let the rain wash him clean through. His clothes, down to his drawers, were sopping wet, and he didn’t care. His shoes squished when he walked, his socks smacking against his soles. The Naugahyde bag he had packed hung easily from his left hand. Celia would notice the tracks he had made into her home. There was no way to avoid it. He had been compelled.
Ephram had watched Chauncy huff away, then suddenly he had felt as if the soil beneath him had all but lifted his feet and set them walking, Gubber and the rest calling after. Still he had walked back to Celia’s and swiftly thrown his things into his only piece of luggage, the one he used to accompany Celia to the Holiness convention last April. He had packed like a man in a burning house, grabbing, stuffing only what he would need.
He was out of Celia’s house in less than twenty minutes. The path was wet and in places the color of brick. He collected that good road in the cuff of his slacks, and nearly sprinted to P & K Market. He was glad that Miss P was either a good enough businesswoman or a bad enough neighbor to keep the store open during Junie’s funeral. He would ask her to pack the chocolate ice cream in a plastic bag with ice. That way it would be perfect when he handed it over to Ruby Bell.
RUBY WAS once again the tree. She had slept morning into afternoon and had awakened to soft caws singing through the rain. She’d walked outside and luckily stepped over the streak of wet red powder on her doorstep, not in it, then she’d walked to her chinaberry and the old bird perched on high. She loved how winding and gnarled the roots were, how firmly they held to the soil. Again, Ruby felt her limbs and sternum twist and knot as they pushed deep into earth. A great bank of life rushed through her as she felt herself reaching up, until her branches trembled in the wind and soft rain, the tiny green beads quivering like bells, waiting for birds to pluck them. She felt the crow’s talons holding tightly to one of her branches. The old bird said, Child, I’d watch myself if I was you. Which is how Ruby knew to turn around and face Chauncy Rankin, not two inches from taking off her sheet.
It took her a moment to remember that she was a woman. As a tree she had nothing to fear from Chauncy. The way he looked at her hair made her remember. He reached down and lifted a bit of the damp curls.
Ruby did not want Chauncy. What she wanted was to collect raindrops on her leaves and to nourish her roots. What she wanted was to stand with the wisdom of the chinaberry in her marrow and then walk into the door of her polished home. What she wanted was for the man Ephram to come back to that home and make her coffee, or dish up the ice cream he had promised to bring, or to put a comb through her hair. She wanted to smell the slight musk of him, and watch the purple she had discovered in his eyes. But Ruby was well trained in not following her wants and desires.
She lay upon the wet earth, still as the world around her. He slowly peeled back her sheet and draped it over a branch.
AS CHAUNCY stood, watching the spindle of her sex begin to turn, he felt a prickling along the back of his scalp. He draped his shirt and jacket over a branch, and said low enough for only the nearest blades of grass and stones to hear, “Rub your nasty for me.” She paused. For a moment. Then she pushed the palm of her hand down her body, stopping to slowly cup her breasts. He took a good long moment to admire her, as he grew thick and full. What with the house a clean and proper playground, and now that Ephram had trussed her up like a fat hog for a mayor’s Easter supper, Chauncy would take her in ways he hadn’t imagined when she was lying in ditches and peeing in streets. The burial would last a good two hours, given the hoots and breakdowns the sisters were sure to have. That would give them plenty of time.
The crow flapped above her in the tree, its caw mournful and plaintive.
THE DYBOÙ watched from the trees. The land was a banquet, sweet and salted. He saw his ox standing above the whore. Watched the way he savored, instead of wasting her skills with haste, as any other man might. He smelled the tall man’s gluttony like bacon frying in cast iron, and he stretched across the sunless land until he reached the two.
RUBY THOUGHT of Ephram, the man who had lured her halfway out of madness, the sweet crook of his smile, and knew that he was best not here. None of the killing sweetness and respect ladled upon her, drowning her. She ignored the sob balled up in her throat as she let her hand fall lightly upon the soft black tangle. She knew through wizened experience not to enter, but to gently stroke in preparation. Then her hand, on its own volition, stilled. To her surprise she found that, try as she might, it would not move.
IN SPITE of the rain on his wide shoulders Chauncy felt the warmth of the pit fire. He felt the swell of shadow surrounding him. His arm, the one he must have bitten while having a nightmare, ached. The bandage had begun bleeding through in his fight with the fool Ephram. It did not matter. He felt his might and strength as he watched her hand hovering, tempting. He held on to that—the painful sweet of waiting. Then a misted weight dropped upon him, pushing into him. He remembered in flashes. The Dyboù filling his firm muscles the night before, wearing him like a well-made suit. Chauncy suddenly realized that Ruby had actually stopped. A strength jolted into Chauncy as he swooped down, grabbed Ruby and pulled her up by her hair. He gave her a good slap across the cheek and pushed he
r to her knees. The Dyboù was fully inside of him now.
RUBY FELT blood in her mouth and suddenly saw the clouded emptiness of a ghost filling Chauncy. The scent of smoke. She had felt the Dyboù inside of her before and knew he wanted more than her body, so she began to fight. Hitting, trying to stand.
The Dyboù and Chauncy pushed Ruby down again; a dot of red wetted her lip. They would as soon kill her if they hadn’t wanted her mouth on them—taking them, drinking them. Chauncy swiftly unzipped his pants.
In one gliding rush, Ruby felt the Dyboù falling through her, melding, joining, reaching for the graves of her children. Ruby pushed with all of her might and Chauncy fell back. The Dyboù was clinging to her, threading through her as she jumped onto the porch, then leapt, sailed into the house, away from her children. Chauncy was on her in seconds, hooking his elbow through her and crashing her to the floor. He did not hit her. He held her shoulders down against the clean wood and simply said, his voice like iron, “Quit.”
Her children safe, Ruby did just that. Her back on the kitchen floor, Chauncy straddled her face, pinning her with the weight of his body. He was angry. Ruby knew it would be difficult to breathe in this position, with this much rage, but certainly possible.
Seconds before he pushed into her mouth, Ruby heard her name in the air. It took her a moment—then she knew. It was Ephram.
Chauncy leapt up and zipped his pants. Remarkably unscathed, he wiped his mouth as the Dyboù slipped from his body. Ruby scrambled into the bedroom, blotting the mud from her skin. The Dyboù hovered against the ceiling, then pulled back, seeped out of the front door and drifted back into the piney woods.