Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart

by Joyce Carol Oates

  It's a Johnny Mathis tune. or is it Frank Sinatra?

  Jinx folds his fingers up behind his back and stands staring at the headless gutted bass in the skillet aswim in butter and chopped onions.

  Hears his cracked voice say, This body they found? Last week? In the river? and Minnie says ohhandedly, not missing a beat in her singing, Going to say who did it, huh, mister Man About Town? cutting her eyes at him as if they're sharing a joke. Jinx stares and blinks. He knows his eyes are bloodshot and there's the reflection of a dead man's face in them. blurred as it sinks into water. Minnie says briskly, Make yourself useful, boy, don't just stand there in my way set the table, so Jinx sets the table, watches his quick deft hands set the table; then Minnie says, See where your sister's at, so Jinx locates Ceci playing with friends out on the porch; then Minnie says, Pour yourself and her two glasses of milk, so Jinx pours himself and Ceci two glasses of milk; then Minnie says, About time to call your father, and Jinx's head is ringing, his fingers and toes have gone icy cold as if every eye in a vast, vast gymnasium is upon him, so he says, quick, Got some thing on my mind, Momma, and Minnie shoots back as quick, Some girl?

  Girl trouble? That it? You tell me you been messing around with cheap little pigs and sluts like your brother and I'll warm your precious ass! suddenly incensed, indignant, as if this is indeed what Jinx has told her, not waiting for his re ply. Any of them girls would die to catch a boy like you, good clean decent minded boy like Verlyn Fairchild, a star athlete, damn good student, going to college and all, going to be a teacher or a doctor or a lawyer, and living in this house, not some shameful falling down tarpaper shanty out by the dump!

  Jinx tries not to become confused. He says, Momma, listen.

  this thing that happened last week, this body they found Minnie, seeing the look in her son's face, slams a pot of boiled potatoes down on a counter and snorts, disgusted. Taking it all so serious! So grave!

  Everybody talking about it, even doctor O'Shaugh nessy's patients, like it wasn't some worthless peckerhead hillbilly.

  Garlock, for the Lord's sweet sake! And if it'd been a Negro boy, huh?

  What then? Don' tell me, what then.

  So suddenly is Minnie furious, her pug face tightened like a fist, Jinx stands silenced, a little dazed. His head is ringing worse than ever.

  But he says, Momma, before Pa and Ceci come in, can I talk to you? I guess I made a mistake and I I don't know what to Minnie is fuming.

  Garlock! Everybody knows what Garlock means in this town! Just trash!

  Dirt! Lowest of the low! It's enough to make you sick to your stomach, all the fuss in the newspaper, the police asking questions!

  Hadn't better ask me any questions, I'd tell em some answers! Those hillbilly trash beatin' and killin' their own wives and children.

  worst kind of white folks exceptin' actual Nazis. And if it'd been a Negro boy instead, nobody'd give a good goddamn!

  And Jinx, seeing the glisten in his mother's eyes, feeling the fear that's radiating from her, gives up.

  Thinking, afterward, What was I going to ask her, anyway?

  Whether I should turn myself in to the police. or not? Set myself up for the electric chair. or not?

  These days, Jinx Fairchild is forced to re call how proud he'd been of his new name: not Verlyn any longer but Jinx. The name was given him by one of his mother's brothers when he was four years old: Here's the boy gon' cause you trouble, Minnie! He a re al devil a jinx. The joke of it being, partly, that the child was quiet, sober, watchful, the shyest of the pack of children at the family gathering in Pittsburgh; showing no sign of growing tall as a weed as he would some years later, but skinny, and quick clumsy, as if his lightning re flexes took him a split second or so ahead of where he wanted to be.

  Every meal, he was the one to spill something at the table; he was the only child to track dirt on a carpet; if the gang of children was fooling around, and his aunt's new lamp, won at Bingo, crashed over, it was Verlyn who was probably responsible while being at the same time clearly innocent,thears of regret pain, and humiliation brimming in his eyes.

  Ain't he something'! That boy. Little devil! Little Jinx.

  Womens, keep dear! the adults hovering over him, laughing, stooping to hug, to kiss, Minnie herself in high spirits, too riled up by her loud laughing brothers to scold, or object, though she disliked the name intensely and would never use it. A nigger name, Minnie sniffs.

  Some deadbeat boxer or racehorse. Just plain common.

  Minnie re fuses to call Sugar Baby Sugar Baby either his rightful name is Woodrow Fairchild, Jr. though the name Sugar Baby seems to have been with him always, from the crib on up.

  With the nightmare concentration of a man reading of his own fate, but reading of it in code, Jinx Fairchild studies re ports of the Garlock case in the Chronicle, listens to every news broadcast from WHMM he can without arousing suspicion, but never, never, does he make any inquiries about the murder, nor does he, if he can discreetly avoid it, participate in conversations at school or else where in which the mystery killing is the subject.

  He knows that police are combing the area for witnesses.

  Is he a witness?

  Is Graice Courtney?

  When he thinks of Graice Courtney his mind blanks out. like staring into the sun.

  The first time the police come into Chaney's Variety to ask questions it's a Friday morning, and Jinx Fairchild isn't there; the second time it's Saturday afternoon and Jinx is there, but so is Chaney. a wheezy voiced black man whom the police officers appear to know and to like.

  They speak with Jinx perhaps three minutes, asking does he know anything about the murder, did he know the murdered boy, has he heard any street talk, that sort of thing, and there's Jinx Fairchild, this good looking soft spoken Negro boy with the lanky colt legged grace of a natural athlete and an air of racial deference that doesn't seem feigned but bred deep in the bone, answering politely No, sir, and No, sir, I guess not, and Afraid not. Smooth as honey, Jinx Fairchild is swallowed down by the white police, who only think to ask on their way out who was in the store the night of the killing, and when Jinx says he was they say, But you didn't see or hear of anything, huh? and Jinx says again, No, sir, guess not.

  He's folded and twined his fingers together inside his belt, to keep them from trembling. If there is danger of their trembling.

  The street talk Jinx does hear, in and out of Chaney's and at the high school, is that a gang of Hell's Angels did the killing. White men.

  As Chaney says, his face screwed up in disgust, Them leather jacket assholes on their motorcycles. Jinx blinks and stares and smiles vague as a simpleton. Hell's Angels? White men? Like whirlpools of air bringing up dust, countless whirlpools that com bine to a single spiral, rumors of Hell's Angels, motorcyclists, white men combine to a virtual certainty as day follows day.

  Then, on April 16, the news is of two arrests: two Hell's Angels in their mid twenties, from Buffalo. For a full day and more, it's believed in Hammond that the murderers of the Garlock boy have been found and the case is over.

  Jinx's first thought is elation. Not me! Not me! Somebody else!

  His second thought is pure shame. But I'm the one!

  He doesn't go to church the way his father does, but he maybe believes in God. maybe. He believes, if there's a God, God will send a sign.

  'Cause you know you're the one.

  'Cause can't anyone else take your place.

  Jinx's father is a religious manhe'd be a preacher if he could speak above a hoarse cracked whisper but Jinx Fairchild isn't religious out of an old childhood dread of sinking right into Jesus Christ the way his father did, his father and too many others, howling and screaming and weeping on the gospel hours, the sound of it like snakes in a frenzy. Jesus Christ the Redeemer. God the Holy kather In a panic Jinx thinks, Not me! Please God somebody else!

  He's in terror of a sign that will be unmistakable, but he can't stop himself one day from drifting up Go
wanda Street to the block where the Garlocks live, across the street from Loblaw's, where Minnie shops and where, back in high school, Sugar Baby had a job baggingpissy little job he walked off of, just like that, snapped his fingers and told whoever it was who was hassling him to go fuck.

  There's the Garlock house. Ramshackle and rotten looking, like any nigger house except for the size. But niggers wouldn't be allowed to rent in this block.

  This here a white folks' block. Lily white.

  Any niggers try to rent here, they get their heads broke.

  A rundown, shabby neighborhood. Row houses, and a brown stone tenement , and some little shops, and the Loblaw's set back in a lot that needs re paving, and the Garlock house with windows open and curtains or strips of plastic trailing out, trash on the front porch, children's toys on the sidewalk. Jinx stands across the street as if transfixed, arms crossed on his chest and hands gripped tight under his armpits, staring, fearful of seeing here in the unsparing overhead sunshine what he suddenly realizes he has been seeing in dreams: Little Red Garlock living as big and brash as he'd ever been, pushing through that ratty screen door, pedaling past on a bicycle too small for his ham sized legs and haunches. He'd catch sight of Jinx Fairchild over here and smile that slow lewd delighted smile of his. Hey, nigger. Black nigger cock.

  Jinx's eyes go heavy, hooded, almost sleepy. But he can't move his legs to carry him away.

  There's a small child playing by himself in the gutter in front of the Garlock house, a little boy maybe three years old, fair haired but pudgy, the Garlock look in his face; Jinx can make out that look, even from across the street. He's playing with a re d rubber ball and suddenly the ball bounces and rolls out into the street and Jinx runs out, swoops down to retrieve it; a single smooth motion and he's tossing it back to the little boy, who's gaping at him dull witted, astonished, then breaks out into a smile. Big beautiful smile.

  Jinx trots on away not looking back. Knows that hillbillies hate Negroes so their children must hate them too.

  On his long shaky legs Jinx Fairchild is three blocks away before it occurs to him, yes, he's had his sign.

  God trying to tell you something but ain't going to tell you what.

  These days, his eyes bloodshot and his lips chewed at, Jinx is fearful of his father. He has the idea that Woodrow Fairchild Senior is possessed of the ability to see right into Jinx's soul.

  through his eyes and into his soul. And Pa would tell him to confess his crime: Go to the police and confess; get down on your knees, boy, and pray Jesus Christ to save you; cast all sin out of your heart and be whole again.

  Pa, I can't.

  Pa, don't make me.

  Can't sleep and can't eat and can't concentrate in school so he skips classes but not to run with his pals; these days, Jinx Fairchild is avoiding his pals too. Even Sugar Baby, who might take one cool appraising look at him and know. Hey, man, what the hell? You mixed up in that Garlock shit?

  The fear is like a clot of phlegm he can't swallow but can't cough up either.

  Mostly, Jinx fears his father. Knows Minnie isn't going to ask him one more question about is he sick feeling or what's on his mind; no danger from her.

  Woodrow Fairchild Senior spends his re tired days fishing for bass and catfish in the river with his friends; in summer, tending his garden, a familiar sight on East Avenue with its wall of sunflowers at the rear and its big blazing clumps of marigolds and zinnias and black eyed susans amid the vegetables; and drifting around town to take in the sights and hire himself out for odd jobs, though at sixty four, a crippled sort of dwarf hunch to his back and his head askew on his shoulders with a look of perpetual surprise, there aren't many handyman tasks he can do. His days of loading and unloading white men's trucks, shoveling coal into white men's furnaces, are about over. He has a small monthly disability pension from the U. S.

  Government since he was injured in an army training camp, years ago, but this pension, Minnie says scornfully, is as close to nothing as you can get without its being nothing: half of it goes for the sickly sweet Mogen David wine mister Fairchild drinks in secret or seemingly in secret; everyone knows and half to the Second Coming African Church of Christ the Redeemer where he's a church deacon.

  Minnie Fairchild scorns her oldish absent headed husband for most of his ways, but his churchgoing ways infuriate her. What's that mean, church deacon'? Minnie has asked, and Woodrow has said, in his hoarse, whispery voice, his voice that's like the wind in dried corn husks, Means I help out, and Minnie says, Help out'? Help out' how? and Woodrow says, mumbling, Jes' help out, Rev'nd Goomer depend on me, and Minnie says, Yes, but how? You tell me how? Where's the money go you give to him?

  'Depend on you'on you. you tell me how. Surely there's a place for that old timey shoutin' and howlin' and stampin' around kind of religion, Minnie says, her nostrils flaring in derision, like there's a place for lots of things from down South, conjure ladies and voodoo mumbo jumbo, but this place ain't it. Minnie's scorn for Woodrow rose to a fury some years ago when he'd been fired from his janitor job at Precious Blood Elementary School: a little girl said she had dreams of him, his black face and the way he carried himself, sort of scuttling like a crab, things he said, threatened and it wasn't clear whether these dreams might not be somehow re al, based upon actual events, the Negro janitor at Precious Blood whispering nasty words to this little white girl, re aching up into her panties and the girl's parents were naturally upset, and the Catholic sister who was principal of Precious Blood was naturally upset, and poor Woodrow Fairchild with his broken voice and skewed head and paralyzing shyness in the company of whites made no effort to defend himself. just gave up, came back home. Ever after he's been are tired.

  That Woodrow Fair:hildhe a sly one.

  Pokin' in some little white girl's drawers and got away with it, almost.

  He did? That dried up hunched old thing?

  Wasn't always dried upnoner them are.

  Still, he lucky to be walkin' around. Head on his shoulders even If it ain't right.

  It was in 1920, as a young man of twenty eight from South Carolina, that Woodrow Fairchild enlisted in the U. S. Army, and in training camp in northern Texas he suffered the accident that partly disabled him for life. details of which he never remembered afterward. The accident took place not on the training field but just outside the barracks to which he'd been assigned, a fall from some steps, a confusion of bodies, and next thing he knew he woke in the army hospital with injuries to the upper back and shoulders and neck, his larynx crushed as if someone had set his booted foot upon it and stepped down hard.

  and harder still. But in the hospital, Woodrow Fairchild didn't re member a thing, never did remember, speaks even now of the accident as if it had fallen from the sky upon him, wholly unpremeditated, as inaccessible to interpretation as any act of God falling from the sky or ripping up out of the bowels of the earth, praise the Lord. Minnie Fairchild says to her boys, Verlyn and Woodrow, Junior, You see what happens, you join up with the U. S. Army? Some poor ignorant good intentioned Negro boy, in there with all them crackers? As if Verlyn and Woodrow needed to be told.

  Now Jinx has grown so tall, his father looks short to him not wizened, because Woodrow Fairchild does have muscles, and a large head, gray grizzled hair like wires but wrongly short, like it's showing disrespect to him for his sons to stand in his presence.

  So

  Jinx avoids his presence. Or slouches, or sits. Or squats.

  Looking up at him as he's looking up at him now, this warm drizzly day at the end of April, Jinx has trotted down to where Pa is sitting on a stump at the bottom of the garden thinking Now 1 will tell him thinking I won't need to tell him. he will see it in my face and he sees his father is playing checkers with himself, checkerboard on his knees, re d pieces to the left, black to the right; it looks as if, with three kings, red is winning. a peace to the wettish air like the hush of fresh bread cooling.

  Woodrow Sr. has a dark much creased skin
like the leather of an old valise, a flattened veiny nose, kindly eyes, badly decayed yellow teeth. so much older than his wife that people always think he must be his children's grandfather; and Jinx tends to think of him as grandfatherly, affectionate as Minnie isn't always affectionate any longer, but not so shrewdly watchful as Minnie, not so judging. Jinx knows enough not to interrupt his father's checker game, squats beside him watching its progress. Left hand against right hand, what does it mean? To what purpose, such a game? Jinx waits patiently, growing more and more frightened yet at the same time becoming more and more calm; he's thinking he has surrendered himself to his father like the sinners in the old gospel hymn He's Got the Whole World in His Hands : Now I am here, I am here.

  When the game is over Jinx's father asks him how's he been, voice hoarse and worse cracked than Jinx has heard it in some time, and Jinx says, after hesitating a moment, Not so good, and his father murmurs something vague and consoling and mildly inquisitive, laying a hand on Jinx's head as if conferring a blessing. It's a big warm hand, finger span from temple to temple. Jinx peers up at him like a small child hot with guilt. Don t you see it in my face? Don't you know?