by Caryl Rivers
“Grab a beer,” she said. “I’m going to take a shower.” He wandered into the kitchen and poured himself a beer. Then he went into the living room and pushed away a pile of clothes on the sofa so he could sit down. Norma was not tidy; it used to bother him. Now, it seemed a badge of casualness that was appealing. Hadn’t he always liked that about Norma?
As he pushed the clothes away, he noticed, on the arm of the sofa, a pair of the crotchless panties, green lace. Norma must have ordered them by the gross. He started at it; was it his imagination, or was it staring back, a malevolent glance? It looked like a small, evil bird with feathers made of lace. He had the sudden sense that there were legions of them, great winged hordes, like the bats that lived in caves he had read about in National Geographic. He had the bizarre thought that if they turned ugly — like the birds in the Hitchcock movie — they would attack him in a huge green, purple and blue storm, gouging out his eyes and leaving his flesh laid in ribbons next to the pedal pushers on the couch.
He took another sip of the beer and listened to the water from the shower and thought about Norma naked, the water rolling gently down her skin. It was a lovely thought, sheer lust, uncomplicated by anything else. He locked onto it. When she came into the room, it was obvious she was naked under the bathrobe and in a pliable mood. In a few minutes he was naked too, and they were rolling around on her bed, kicking items of clothing hither and yon. He noticed that there were no freckles on her shoulders and that her breasts, while full and pretty, seemed wrong, somehow. Making love to Norma, he felt like he was wearing another man’s clothes.
He pushed that idea out of his head, deliberately, and simply filled the world with fucking. He did try to do things she liked, not just bang away, that was the least he could do after not even having called her for so long. His release was sharp, and he rolled away from her and she said, “Stay with me” — the first time she had ever asked him that. He put his arms around her, and she gave a deep sigh of satisfaction, and in a few minutes she was asleep.
He pushed the pillow against the headboard, sat up in bed, looked at her and wondered what he felt. He didn’t feel anything. How nice that was. He tried to imagine what he would feel if anything happened to Norma. If she got eaten by sharks. If she were run over by a truck. He saw her as roadkill, splat, flattened on a highway, the blond hair with the dark roots splayed out in the tar.
A faint melancholy, that was all he would feel. How easy it would all be, married to Norma or someone like her. Comfortable, crotchless-panty sex whenever he wanted it, and he could just concentrate on making sure there was no dust on his negatives. He was in control. God, it felt good.
Of course, it was rather silly imagining Norma dead, because of the two of them, he would undoubtedly go first. Norma had the constitution of an ox. When he expired on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway (the kidneys), she would be quite admiring of the job done on him by Hanlon’s, along with the old ladies. He saw them peering at him in the box (the lowest grade pine with the knotholes in it, he always knew Norma was a cheap bitch) along with their two children who looked exactly like her, with blond hair and dark roots. They did not seem especially sad.
His face is such a lovely shade, Agnes, sort of pinkish yellow. He was blue when they brought him in.
Mr. Hanlon is an artist. The rosary in his hands is a lovely touch. He’ll rot away, but the nice blue rosary will stay like that till Judgment Day.
He had such a nice wife and children.
Of course she played around, you know.
No!
Oh yes. The milkman left more than the cream. The gas man came twice a week to check the meter. And they had oil heat.
The poor man.
Well, he drank so much he probably couldn’t do much in that department anyhow.
Norma would get his worldly goods. His Nikon and his car and the apartment, and — oh, my God — his prints.
The thought of Norma owning his prints gave him a sudden throb of panic. Why hadn’t he had the presence of mind to will them to his mother? She could at least have given them to the branch library. He imagined Norma going through them, the prints that he had so lovingly mounted and that he dusted all the time to keep pristine. She was tossing them in a green garbage bag — the shot of the little boy at the circus that had won the state competition, the abstract blur of the racing cars, the Ansel Adams-like shots of the Grand Canyon he took on his last vacation. She kept the Kennedy stuff and the celebrities. She hung them over the couch so that when she was fucking with her new boyfriend, JFK and Jackie could peer smilingly down on them.
He sighed, flattened out his pillows and pulled the covers up over him. He was more tired than he thought, because in a minute he was asleep, and in his dreams he found himself in a strange landscape, sometimes a bleak and empty city street, sometimes a dark forest where moonlight filtered through the trees in eerie patterns. He was looking for something very important, something he had to have, but he could not remember what it was. On the street he opened doors, and there were people behind him. He pulled one door ajar, and there was the Lady in Black, her zit-free skin gleaming, and that was nice, but it wasn’t what he was looking for. Jacqueline was behind another one in a shimmering white gown, but she wasn’t it either. He had a terrible, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. What was it? If he didn’t find what he was looking for, would he wander forever in this dark, dead landscape?
The dream shifted and he was in a dozen other settings, one after the other, taking photographs. For a time it would seem that everything was all right and ordinary, and then he would realize that something was wrong, he had to find something and he didn’t know if he could. Then he was back to the strange forest, and he saw, through dead branches, far up ahead of him, a figure in a pink dress, wearing a raincoat. He started to run towards her, but as he ran she seemed to keep getting farther and farther away. Finally, just as he was about to fall to the ground, exhausted, suddenly she was there, and she turned towards him and smiled. He said, “Oh, thank God,” and he kissed her mouth, and in his chest was a joy so fierce he thought it would tear his ribs apart.
He woke up then, and he turned over in bed, ready to put his arms around her, but she wasn’t there. It was Norma, curled up in the fetal position under the blanket.
He sat up and looked around him, at Norma’s room. What was he doing here? What the hell was he doing here?
He got up and dressed quickly. Norma stirred, turned over and burrowed deeper into the covers. She really was a nice woman.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her sleeping figure. “I’m really sorry.”
He went out to his car. He thought he had been asleep only a few minutes, but the dawn was beginning to streak the sky. He got in the car and drove past Mary’s house. It was dark, and her car was parked outside. She was in there. She was in there, and she was safe.
There wasn’t any free ride, that was it. If you wanted to stay in control, if you chose a woman who could be turned into roadkill and it would hardly make a dent in your day, then you had to spend your life dreaming of something wonderful that you would never have. You would wander in your dreams through empty streets, looking for it. But if you loved someone, you have to live your life on the edge of a terrible cliff.
That was the deal. That was it. Take it or leave it.
He thought of her standing naked in his room that night, the streetlights turning her skin the color of some lovely silver fish, her breasts full and gently sloping. He remembered running after her through his dreamscape, desolate because he thought he could not find her.
That was the deal. Take it or leave it.
He’d take it.
At least for now.
“Niggers suck!” came a male voice, very distinct, from the back of the room. Jay looked into the crowd to see where the voice had come from, but there were dozens of people standing at the rear of the hall, crowded close together, and he couldn’t see who yelled.
“How many are in here, anyhow?” he asked Mary. She was sitting in the front row of the council chambers, and he stood up in front of her. The council members had not yet taken their places on the dais, but the hall was already hot from the press of bodies.
“Must be nearly a thousand,” she said. “There’s hardly room to move.”
“Have you ever seen a crowd like this here before?”
“If they get fifty people, it’s a big deal.”
“Niggers suck!” a different voice cried out. But again, the identity of the caller was lost in the crowd. Jay looked at the front row. James Washington, formally dressed in a suit and tie, was clenching and unclenching his fists. Don Johnson, sitting next to him, reached out and touched his hand. “Don’t let them get to you,” he said. “That’s what they want. Don’t pay any attention.” He grinned. “Makes them shitfaced.”
At that, James smiled, too, and relaxed in his seat. His large, well-muscled body looked out of place in the suit, Jay thought; it confined him.
Jay looked around. There were quite a few dark faces, grouped together in the front, but at least three-quarters of the crowd was white. The room was noisy and the mood unfriendly. Though there had been only a few shouted epithets, the hostility seemed to crackle along the rows of seats. There were more men then women in the crowd.
Jay squatted down beside Mary. “Not a lot of happy campers.”
“I’ve never seen people in this town so upset,” she said. “Not a good sign. This crowd is going to intimidate the council.”
“It’s not exactly Profiles in Courage up there.”
She laughed. “Joe Tarbell makes Chicken Little look like a tower of strength.”
“Here they come now,” Jay said, watching as the seven council members filed in and took their seats. “The Seven Dwarfs.”
“That’s exactly how they’re going to vote.”
They looked at each other and said it in unison: “Snow White.”
The council members, their faces pale and grim, looked out at the crowd. Joe Tarbell banged the gavel and called the meeting to order.
“Fucking niggers!” called a voice from the back.
“Anybody who is out of order will be removed!” Tarbell barked. Two city policemen stood on the side of the hall monitoring the crowd. A chorus of boos emerged from the audience.
“This is a special meeting on the urban renewal plan,” Tarbell said, “and we will move immediately to the printed agenda. The first speaker will be James Washington.”
“Niggers suck!”
Tarbell banged the gavel, and James Washington walked to the podium, to a microphone set up for the speakers. His hands were shaking as he stood before the microphone, Jay thought, but when he began to speak, his voice was strong and clear. Gutsy, Jay thought. A crowd like this could intimidate even the most experienced speaker.
“My name is James Washington, and I live at Thirty-three Grant Avenue and I work for the city. I was born in Belvedere, as my father was. This is my city, and I speak tonight for the Negro community. What we ask is not special treatment but simple justice. We also ask for compliance with federal law. These are the points that the Negro community insists [there had been much debate over that word] be incorporated into the urban renewal plan.”
“Shut up, nigger!”
The epithet was greeted with a mixed wail of sounds: cheers, boos, calls of shh!
“First, the inclusion of seven hundred and fifty units of low to moderate housing, with additional units of elderly housing in the construction plans. Second, the appointment of a relocation officer, from the Negro community, to coordinate relocation efforts during construction and to assure that those people moved out of the area have first call on new housing. Third, application for federal relocation funds to help those families uprooted by urban renewal. And last, the passage of a fair housing act to ensure that no city residents will be discriminated against.”
“No!” came a voice from the crowd.
“If these points are accepted by the council,” James said, “Belvedere will have an urban renewal package that is in compliance with federal regulations and will ensure justice for all residents, Negro and white.”
“What about the busing?” a heavyset man yelled.
James looked up from the paper he had been reading. “There’s no busing planned. These units will be for residents of Belvedere.”
“No,” the man yelled. “They’re going to build a project and bus in colored people from D.C. Drug addicts, criminals. That’s what they’re going to do.”
“That’s not true,” James said. “That’s a wild rumor that is not true at all.”
“It’s true!” A cry from another part of the room. It set off a chorus of similar calls.
“Liar.”
“We heard it. It’s true!”
“Tell the truth.”
Joe Tarbell stood up. “I promise you, there are no plans to bus anybody.”
“Shut up, balls-fuck!” screamed a man from the back.
“Remove that man,” Tarbell sputtered, his face reddening.
But the two policemen were not sure who had called out.
“Remove him!” Tarbell croaked, nearly apoplectic.
The two policemen moved to the center aisle and pulled at the shoulders of a man in a blue windbreaker.
“What the hell is this?” the man shouted. “I’m a citizen, you can’t do this to me!”
Jay elbowed his way close to the policeman and shot several pictures as the two officers struggled with the man in the jacket, who was screaming at the top of his lungs. Sweating and struggling, the policemen managed to drag the man out of his seat and propelled him up the aisle and out of the building. The noise had risen to a din.
“We have presented to the council a petition containing twelve hundred signatures,” James said, raising his voice so it could be heard clearly over the noise.
“Fucking nigger!”
“Remove that man!”
The two policemen hustled a teenager in a motorcycle jacket out of the hall.
“The failure to heed the voices of these people, many who have lived in our city for generations, will be met with firm and decisive action,” James continued, his voice clear and strong. “We will not be pushed out of our homes.”
A man in his forties, wearing a red bowling jacket, rose from his seat and said, “Are we going to let this jungle bunny tell us what to do?”
“Hell no!”
“Shut up, you creep!”
“Yee-haw!”
“They’re going to bus convicts in.”
“Remove that man!”
The policemen, hot and sweaty, moved in again, and the middle-aged man started swinging wildly as they grabbed him. Another man tried to grab the arm of the policeman, but he was shaken off. A third man grabbed one of the officers by the shirt and was elbowed roughly in the mouth. Jay, shooting at close range, realized that in another minute the melee might spread throughout the hall. Then Tarbell began to bang his gavel.
“Executive session! Executive session!” The noise in the hall had become deafening.
Don jumped to his feet and yelled at Tarbell, “You can’t go into executive session! You haven’t finished the public agenda!”
But the panic was clear on Tarbell’s face, and he and the other councilors hurried off. The policemen got the man who had screamed out of the hall, and the disappearance of the councilors quieted the crowd to an angry buzz.
Jay went back to the front of the hall, where Mary was talking to Don.
“Do you think they’re going to try to ram the plan through, as it is?”
He nodded. “Tarbell was panicked. He was about to go in his pants. Did you see his face?”
“He was terrified,” Mary said.
“Will they vote in the closet?” Jay asked.
“They can’t vote in executive session, it’s against the law. They ha
ve to take the vote in public,” Mary said.
“But just wait until you see how fast they do it,” Don told Jay.
“What’s next if it passes?” Mary asked.
“We meet tomorrow morning. We’ll go for an injunction, and probably a public protest.”
Jay walked with Mary to the edge of the stage. There was still an angry murmur rolling through the crowd.
“Who needs Birmingham?” Jay said.
Mary shook her head. “I thought I knew these people. I knew there were some people who were full of hate, but I didn’t expect this. Jay, I know a lot of these people. They go to church on Sunday and love their kids and have weekend barbecues. That last man they dragged out has a Boy Scout troop.”
“I always knew the fucking Boy Scouts were fascists.”
“Did you see those faces? They were irrational. Those nice people, and all of a sudden they’re ugly and mean.”
“It surprises you?”
“I used to think my hometown wasn’t like that.”
“On this one, Mary, everybody’s hometown is like that.”
The door of the small room at the rear of the stage opened, and the councilors filed out and quickly went back to their seats. Joe Tarbell, still looking pale, tapped the gavel.
“After a discussion in executive session, the council has decided to call for an immediate vote.”
James stood up. “You haven’t heard the speakers,” he said, but he was drowned out by a wail of boos from the floor. Tarbell ignored him.
“Mr. Sapier.”
“I move that the city’s urban renewal plan be adopted, with no further amendments.”
“Second,” said John Donovan.
“This is illegal!” James called out. Again, a wave of noise made his words inaudible.
“Mr. Donovan.”
“Aye.”
“Mr. Sapier.”
“Aye.”
“Mr. Tweksbury.”
“Aye.”
“Mr. Hendren.”
“No!”
“Mr. Atkinson.”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Roccolini.”
“No.”