by Caryl Rivers
Jay rolled the spare to the front of the car and squatted down to pry the hubcap off the old tire. The man returned with the jack, slipping the edge of it under the Chevy’s bumper.
“That’s a good jack,” Jay said. “The one I got, you have to be an engineer to figure it out.”
“Cars are a pain in the ass,” the young man said. “They make the damn things to fall apart.”
“This one’s falling apart on me now. I run it a lot.”
“I got one of those compacts the first year they came out. A fucking lemon. It was always in the shop.”
Jay put the spare on; the young man pumped the jack again and the car descended. Jay looked at the man’s thick, well-muscled arms with a twinge of envy. He had sent away for a Charles Atlas kit to try to get arms like that through Dynamic Tension, but he got bored after a week. His arms were sinewy but too thin, he thought, and he was still self-conscious about them.
The man pulled the jack away and said, “You live in Belvedere?”
“Yeah. My name’s Jay Broderick. I work for the Blade.”
He stuck his hand out, and the man took it, a firm handshake.
“Oh sure, I’ve seen your pictures. I’m Harry Springer. You know my wife, Mary.”
Jay’s mouth gaped open. He closed it, quickly, glad for the darkness.
“Oh sure. We work together a lot.” The simple sentence seemed charged with innuendo. Harry didn’t appear to notice. Jay struggled for a neutral sentence. “Hey, I really appreciate your help. I’ve got some pictures I have to get in tonight.”
“Glad to help you. Mary’s always got deadlines to meet, so I know it’s tough. Nice to meet you, Jay.”
“Thanks again.”
Harry put his jack in the truck and drove off. Jay stood staring after him.
Harry Springer. Jesus H. Fucking Christ, Harry Springer.
He pulled the Chevy back on the road. Harry Springer was no longer a name without a face. He was a nice guy. That was depressing. There were so many guys whose guts he hated the minute he saw them. Why couldn’t Harry have been one of those, a loudmouth or a prissy-assed jerk? He was a good-looking guy. Well built. Women liked guys with muscles like that; well hung too, probably.
He had a sudden mental picture of Mary in bed with him, those large hands touching her in the places he had touched. Jay was suddenly and irrationally furious with her. Oddly enough, it was Father Hannigan’s voice he heard inside his head. “If you went to the Hecht Company, and you saw a nice, clean blouse in a plastic package and a dirty, wrinkled blouse, which one would you buy? You know, of course. That’s why you should marry a good Catholic girl, a virgin. No man wants damaged goods.”
Damaged goods? Where the fuck had that come from? In what corner of his subconscious was that kicking around? Did he want a virgin? The Lady in Black, was she one? No blood on the sheets or cries of pain — that was no fun — but she was virginal. He had invented her, so of course she surrendered only to him.
The women he had wanted, as opposed to the ones he had screwed, were they virgins too? Yes, they were. It was the ail-American dream, the girl who spread her legs only for you. Why should he be immune to it? He had the sense of being cheated. Damn. Other men got the dream girls, hymens intact, why couldn’t he?
I don’t want to love her.
Why should he have to take seconds? She wasn’t beautiful, really, and he had never had a virgin. Even Marilyn, for all her resistance, had admitted one night that the boy next door got there first. It was one of the reasons he couldn’t love her. Why did somebody always get there first?
And then he thought of Mary kneeling on the bed beside him, touching him as no one had ever touched him before, and his whole body flamed with the need for her touch. He felt a flush of shame for what he had been thinking. It was so complicated, this business of loving someone. He suddenly hated Father Hannigan and the whole fucking universal, apostolic, holy Roman Catholic Church for making it harder.
Damaged goods? Father Hannigan, you stupid prick, don’t you know we’re all damaged goods! That’s what life does to you if you don’t stay in a fucking church and pray all day.
He thought about Mary and her sad, failed marriage, and about Harry, who thought a woman who enjoyed sex was a whore, about himself with his night terrors and his dreams about his father, a picnic for a shrink if ever there was one.
Damaged goods, that said it all right.
Damaged goods.
Journal: Donald A. Johnson
I am supposed to be doing another chapter on my book, but all I can see in my mind’s eye is that tiny casket, so small it seems impossible it could hold even the smallest human. How can they want to kill our children? Where does such hatred come from? What sense of triumph can they get from that small coffin? There is a depth of human rage and cruelty that I cannot comprehend. I have seen its face, but I still can’t put myself in the shoes of those who wear it. I simply can’t imagine myself wanting to kill anyone’s child — not the head of the KKK, or the white citizens’ councils, or Hitler’s — if he had one. Rafe tells me I have to learn how to hate, but how can you hate what you can’t even understand? I could kill those men in cold blood, easily. That’s revenge. But their children? What is it in those men’s lives that could be satisfied by killing? It’s not as if someone were invading their land or taking their homes or their wives. Is their grip on — what? identity, self-esteem? — so precarious that this is the only way they can feel like men?
Do they need people below them in the social order so they can at least feel superior to someone? I’ve seen the absolute rage on the faces of people who were smashing the sides of our bus, some with their bare hands. Their faces were not even human; it was as if they had been taken over by some primal urge, some law of the pack.
Since that time I’ve thought a lot about hatred. I think that the bus was a symbol that things were going to change, and that scared the shit out of them. None of them have any hope that change could be for the better. Before I went South, it hadn’t really occurred to me that there were white people who couldn’t have the American dream. Oh, maybe a few winos on North Capitol Street, but not regular white people. De Tocqueville says that Americans are more anxious than Europeans, because in Europe the class structure keeps people in their places. People know what to expect. Our freedom means that a lot of people will be losers not because of what their fathers did but because of what they didn’t do. At least Negroes have something to blame if we don’t get very far. If the American myth says that all people have a chance, those white people who don’t make it have no one to blame but themselves. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” How it must enrage them to think that the only people below them, the only people who give them a sense of being anywhere on the ladder at all — us — might somehow get ahead of them. So in some real sense, they have to keep us down to feel that they exist at all.
Dr. King believes that most people are good people, that if you appeal to the best in Americans, you can bring it forth. Is he right? Maybe, but you are going to bring out the worst in some of them, and how do you protect yourself against that? How do you know where that free-floating hatred will strike? It’s like the wind, it’s there, and it’s capricious.
And what do I do? I can’t stir the blood with a clarion call the way James Baldwin can. I can’t explain how white society twists our souls, the way Richard Wright does. Mine is such a small voice. The literary agent said it was humane and wry, but I think that may mean it lacks scope, and intensity. Do I have a right to follow my own small, particular dream when Martin Luther King is leading what may be the greatest battle for human rights in history? Am I exaggerating my talent so I won’t have to go back to the South?
I feel wrenched two ways as it is, being a student in my nice, safe writing class some of the time and trying to keep the Belvedere protest going the rest of the time. One thing I know: the b
astards aren’t going to win this one. Not when there are people like James, who will never give up now. What more has he to lose? He will die, now, rather than quit. They don’t understand how they make us strong. The people who were hesitant before, now they are all together. I can’t think about what might have been if I hadn’t come to Belvedere. If I hadn’t been in the church that night, or if James hadn’t. What happened happened. I’ll make myself crazy thinking anything else. Loretta says that the hatred is just a poison; it’s in the country’s blood, and it is bound to come out somehow or other. She says the alternative is to be silent and to let them do anything to us they want to do, and we can’t do that anymore. She’s right. We will not be silent anymore. The time for silence is long past.
Deep in my heart I do believe
We shall overcome someday.
I have to believe that. For James’s little girl and his wife and for Medgar Evers, shot right in front of his kids, and for all those black men who have been hung up on trees and lynched, for all the deaths that stretch back and back and back through time, to the stench of the hold of the slave ships, I have to believe,
We shall overcome.
Mary leapt from her seat and called out, “Mr. President!” She was no longer afraid to compete for the president’s attention in this raucous forum. John Kennedy saw the flash of her red blouse as she jumped up, and he nodded and pointed his forefinger in her direction. She suspected he enjoyed overlooking some of the important papers and calling on the younger, lesser members of the Washington press corps.
“Mr. President, your administration has done more for civil rights than any other in recent years. Do you think the upcoming March on Washington will help or hinder your efforts?”
He cocked his head slightly to one side as she asked the question, a sign he was listening attentively.
“I think that the way the Washington march is now developed, it will be a peaceful assembly calling for the redress of grievances. We want citizens to come to Washington if they feel they are not having their rights expressed.”
“Some people say they’re concerned about the continuing demonstrations. How do you feel?”
He paused a minute, considering his answer. I — ah — I have warned about demonstrations which could cause bloodshed. Some people, however, who keep talking about demonstrations never talk about the problem of redressing grievances. You can’t just tell people, ‘Don’t protest,’ but on the other hand, ‘We are not going to let you into a store or restaurant.’ It seems to me it is a two-way street.”
Fifteen reporters jumped to their feet. The president smiled — he enjoyed the conferences, they gave him a chance to shine — and called on Tom Wicker of The New York Times. Wicker asked another question about the march, and Mary scribbled as fast as she could. Negro leaders were calling for a massive, peaceful march on the capital to demand the end of Jim Crow and to support Kennedy’s civil rights bill, the most sweeping one ever sent to Congress by an American president. Key southern congressmen were opposed, so the bill faced an uphill battle.
As Jay and Mary walked back to his car, she said, “You could strip naked on Main Street the day of the march, and no one would know. Charlie’s sending just about everybody.”
“Speaking of naked,” he said with a grin.
“Why do I think this is not about work?”
“I’ve got reservations for the Washington Hotel for the weekend. We’re going first-class all the way.”
“Do you know I’ve never stayed in a hotel, my whole life.”
“Not anywhere?”
“No. We sometimes went to a cottage at Ocean City, but a real hotel, never.”
“You’re in for a treat.”
“I hope I know how to behave.”
“You’re a big-shot reporter, you cover the president. If anybody gives you any lip, flash your press pass.”
“What do we do, Jay? We’re not married. Hotels won’t let us stay together.”
“Simple. We register as Mr. and Mrs. They don’t check unless you look really suspicious.”
“I shouldn’t wear the black silk stockings and the green eye shadow?”
“Not till we get to the room.”
That night she left work a few hours early so she could read to Karen and tuck her into bed. She was packing her suitcase when she felt someone watching her. She turned around to see her mother at the door of her bedroom. Her face was pale and tense as she watched Mary put her clothes into the bag.
“I know where you’re going. I’m taking care of Karen so you can be with that man! You’re going off with him, that photographer. Do you think I’m stupid?”
Mary sighed. “I’m a grown-up, Mom.”
“You’re a married woman. Or have you forgotten?”
“I am separated. Legally separated.”
“I didn’t raise you to be that kind of woman.”
“I am not a whore, Mother.”
Her mother blanched. “Oh, Mary, he’s using you, don’t you see? He’s going to bed with you for — for his animal instincts. And when he’s through with you, he’ll throw you away.”
“Oh, Mom, it’s not like that. He’s a wonderful man. He’s sensitive, he’s gentle.”
“Will he want to marry you?”
Mary turned away and resumed packing. “I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“My dear, you are acting like a fool. You think you can behave like a man? Take what you want when you want it?”
“Yes, why not?”
“Because when a man sleeps around, they say, ‘Boys will be boys.’ When a woman does it, she’s a slut. There’s a double standard; don’t think there isn’t.”
“I know there is.”
“You could wreck your marriage. If Harry finds out, you think he’ll take you back?”
“How come all of a sudden he’s taking me back?”
“I know your marriage was far from perfect. But he’s doing so well. When he settles down, he can give you a good life.”
“I don’t want anyone to give me a life. I want to make my own life.”
“It’s terrible to be a woman alone in this world. Take it from me. I know.”
Mary looked at her mother. They had never talked in any detail about her life before. Her mother had carried on with quiet strength and never complained. Now there was a mixture of fear and anger on her face.
“You did good, Mom. I know it wasn’t easy, but you did it. I can too, if I have to.”
Her mother shook her head. “No, you don’t know, how men take advantage. The things they do, and say, that they would never do to a respectable married woman.”
Mary closed the suitcase. “Whatever happens, I think my marriage is over.”
“No! Mary, don’t say that.”
“We were kids, Mom. Stupid kids. I think it’s going to be painful for Harry at first, but in the long run we’d both be better off if we got a divorce.”
“Movie stars get divorced, not people like us. Do you know what a divorced woman is? She’s a piece of meat. She’s some man’s leavings.”
“This isn’t the Victorian era, Mom. This is nineteen sixty-three.”
“You think you’re so smart, and I’m some — old fossil. You’ll find out.”
Mary put the suitcase on the floor. “There’s no point in this discussion, Mom. We disagree.”
She picked up the suitcase and started to move towards the door when she heard her mother’s voice, icy cold. She had never heard that tone in her voice before.
“How dare you dismiss me like that! How dare you! I gave up everything for you, everything, and now you run around rutting with some man like a disgusting animal, leaving your daughter.”
The force of the attack stunned Mary. Her mother stood glaring at her, ashen, and trembling.
“I’m a good mother!” she said. “You know I am!”
Her mother did not reply, but the pretty face twisted, i
n anger or pain, Mary could not tell which.
“I didn’t ask you to give up everything! I never wanted you to give up everything! Why couldn’t you live for yourself, not for me!”
“Because I was a whore. While your father was away, I was with a man. I did what you’re doing, and God punished me, he took away my husband. Because I was a whore, your word, and that’s right.”
Mary stared at her mother, whose whole body was now trembling. She never imagined her mother had such a secret. She shook her head.
“No, that’s not right. God doesn’t punish people for having sex. My father was away for four years, do you think he was faithful the whole time? And if he wasn’t — this is crazy. God didn’t punish you. Or him.”
“I only know actions have consequences. You think you’re doing something you’ll get away with, and you don’t. Nobody ever gets away free.”
“Maybe not. But you know what? I don’t care. I love him, and I’ll take what I can have. It’s better than not ever knowing. Not ever having anything.”
Her mother’s face seemed to crumble as warring emotions played across it; her pretty mother; for the first time, Mary thought, she looked old. How had she lived with that guilt for all those years?
“Mary, I want your life to be better than mine was. I don’t want you to make the mistakes I made.”
“I have to make my own mistakes. I know you love me, I know you want to protect me, Mom. But don’t you see, I have to find my own way. The worst thing is if I don’t try. The worst thing is just to stay where I am, and all my life I’ll wonder, What could I have been? That’s worse than anything God can do to me.”
“I can’t talk you out of this, can I?”
Mary shook her head.
“I pray you find it, whatever it is you want. But I can’t stop being afraid for you. I’m your mother.”
A horn sounded outside. Mary picked up the suitcase again and looked at her mother. “I love you,” she said. Her mother nodded. “I love you too.”