American Histories

by John Edgar Wideman

  * * *

  Yes, Mom. One could say I drink a lot, Mom, and drink perhaps part of the problem, but not why I’m up here. Do I drink too much—yes/no—lots of wine—it’s usually wine—often good French wine and even so, yes, too much disturbs my customary way of coolly processing things and making sense of what I observe. Drink a bad habit, I admit. Like hiring a blind person to point out what my eyes miss. But I’m grateful to the potbellied wine god. Drink simpatico, an old, old cut-buddy. I gape at his antics, the damage he causes, stunned by the ordinary when it shows itself through his eyes. The ordinary. Only that, Mom. Nothing evil, nothing extreme, nothing more or less than the ordinary showing itself as gift, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Then naked. The ordinary exposed when I’m drinking. You must know what I mean. I’m the hunter who wants to shoot it. Wants to be eaten.

  * * *

  French my dead mother’s mother tongue and occasionally I think in French. Mother tongue swabs my gums, wraps around my English, swallows it. Gears of the time machine whir in sync with French—ooh-la-la. I nearly swoon. Mother’s tongue, French words in my mouth. Thinking in French. French the only language in the universe.

  * * *

  If another person appeared next to me sitting on the steel rail where I sit and the person asked—What do you mean by “mother tongue”—what do you mean, “think in French”—I would have to answer: “I don’t know.” Carefully speak the words aloud in English, those exact words repeated twice to keep track of language, of where I am, to keep track of myself.

  Truth is, “I don’t know.” I falter, no more truth follows. Too late. Time machine whirs on, leaves nothing behind, nothing ahead, no words I’m able to say to steady myself after I scramble to make room for another on the rail. Desperate to explain before we tumble off the edge. Desperate to translate a language one and only one person in the universe speaks, has ever spoken. I struggle to open a parenthesis and hold it open, keep a space uncluttered, serene, safe. Me inside it able to gather my thoughts, my words before they disintegrate, before the machine whirs on, before its spinning gears crush, consume, before the temple walls collapse, rubble around my feet, rats darting through the ruins from corpse to bloated corpse for the sweetest bits, blood squishing between my toes. Words silenced, rushing away, tongue dead meat in my mouth.

  * * *

  What words will I be saying to myself the instant I slip or pitch backward into the abyss. Will French words or Chinese or Yoruba make a difference. Will I return from the East River with a new language in my head, start up the universe again with new words, or do I leave it all behind, everything behind forever, the way thoughts leave me behind. Thoughts which smash like eggs on the unforgiving labyrinth’s walls. Can I scrape off dripping goo. Twist it into a string to lead me out of whitespace.

  * * *

  East River behind me, below me, is not whitespace. River showing off today. Chilly ripples scintillate under cold, intermittent sunshine. If someone snapped pictures of me, like the ones Reisner snapped of a young colored man, several photos would show water darkly framing my pale flesh, in others my skin darker than water. Water colors differently depending on point of view, light, wind, cosmic dissonance. Water shows all colors, no color, any color from impenetrable oily sludge to purest glimmer. Water a medium like whitespace yet drastically unlike whitespace. From water springs mother, father, posterity, progress, all vitality, even so-called insensible matter. Whitespace empty. Above, below, before, after, always. Whitespace thin, thin ice. Blank pages words skate across before they vanish. Whitespace disguises itself as spray, as froth, as bubbles, as a big, white splash when I let go and land in the East River. My ass-backwards swan dive, swan song greeted by white applause, a bouquet of white flames while deep down below, whitespace swallows, burps, closes blacker than night.

  * * *

  But no. Not yet. I’m in no hurry this morning. Not afraid either. Fear not the reason I’m up here, ready to jump. I may be clutching white-knuckled onto the very edge of a very high bridge, but I don’t fear death, don’t feel close to death. I’ve felt more fear of death, much closer to death on numerous occasions. Closest one summer evening under streetlights in the park in the ghetto where I used to hoop. Raggedy outdoor court, a run available every evening except on summer weekends when the high-flyers owned it. A daily pickup game for older gypsies like me wandering in from various sections of the city, for youngblood wannabes from the neighborhood, local has-beens and never-wases, a run perfect for my mediocre, diminishing skills, high-octane fantasies, an aging body that enjoyed pretending to be in superb condition, at least for the first five or six humps up and down the Cyclone-fenced court, getting off with the other players as if it’s the NBA finals, our chance at last to show we’re contenders. Ferocious play war, harmless fun unless you get too enthusiastic, one too many flashbacks to glory days which never existed and put a move on somebody that puts you out of action a couple weeks, couple months, for good if you aren’t careful. Anyway, one evening a hopped-up gangster and his crew cruise up to the court in a black, glistening Lincoln SUV. Bogart winners and our five well on the way to delivering the righteous ass-kicking the chumps deserved for stealing a game from decent folks waiting in line for a turn. Mr. Bigtime, bigmouth, big butt dribbles the ball off his foot, out of bounds. Calls foul. Then boots the pill to the fence. Waddle-waddling after it, he catches up and plants a foot atop it. Tired of this punk-ass, jive-ass run, he announces. Motherfucker over, motherfuckers. Then he unzips the kangaroo pouch of a blimpy sweat top he probably never sheds no matter how hot on the court because it hides a tub of jelly-belly ba-dup, ba-dupping beneath it, and from the satiny pullover extracts a very large pistol. Steps back, nudges the ball forward with his toe and—Pow—kills the poor thing as it tries to roll away. Pow—Pow—Pow—starts to shooting up the court. Everybody running, ducking to get out the goddamned fool’s way. Gwan home, niggers. Ain’t no more gotdamn game today. Pow. King of the court, ruler of the hood, master of the universe. Pow. Busy as he is during his rampage brother finds time to wave his rod in my direction. What you looking at, you yellow-ass albino motherfucker. Gun steady an instant, pointed directly between my eyes long enough I’m certain he’s going to blow me away and I just about wet myself. If truth be told, with that cannon in my mug, maybe I did leak a little. In the poor light of the playground who could tell. Who cares is what I was thinking if I was thinking anything at that moment besides dead. Who knows. Who cares. Certainly not me, not posterity, not the worker ants wearing rubber aprons and rubber gloves who dump my body on a slab at the morgue, drag off my sneakers, snip off my hoop shorts and undershorts with huge shears before they hose me down. Sweat or piss or shit or blood in my drawers. Who knows. Who cares.

  * * *

  A near-death experience I survived to write a story about, a story my mother read and wrote a note about in one of the pamphlets from church she saved in neat stacks on top and under the night table beside her bed, pamphlets containing Bible verses and commentary to put herself to sleep.

  I saw the note only after Mom died. A message evidently intended for my benefit she never got around to showing me. She had underlined words from Habakkuk that the pamphlet deemed appropriate for the first Sunday after Pentecost—“destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails—their own might is their god”—and in the pamphlet’s margin she had printed a response to my story.

  Of course I had proudly presented a copy of the anthology containing my story to my mother, one of two complimentary copies, by the way, all I ever received from the publisher as payment. Mom thanked me profusely, close to tears, I believe I recall, the day I placed the book in her hands, but afterwards she never once mentioned my story. I found her note by chance years later when I was sorting through boxes full of her stuff, most of it long overdue to be tossed. Pamphlet in my hand and suddenly Mom appears. Immediately after reading her note, I rushed off to re
ad all of Habakkuk in the beat-up, rubber-band-bound Bible she had passed on to me, the Bible once belonging to my father’s family, only thing of his she kept when he walked out of our lives, she said and said he probably forgot it, left it behind in his rush to leave. I searched old journals of mine for entries recorded around the date of the pamphlet, date of my story’s publication. After this flurry of activity, I just about wept. My mother a busy scribbler herself, surprise, surprise, I had discovered, but a no-show as far as ever talking about her writing or mine. Then a message after she’s gone, ghost message Mom doesn’t show me till she’s a ghost, too: This reminds me of your story about playing ball.

  * * *

  Why hadn’t she spoken to me. Did she understand, after all, my great fear and loneliness. How close I’ve always felt to death. Death up in my face on the playground in the park. Nobody, nothing, no time between me and the end. Probably as near to death that moment as any living person gets. Closest I’ve ever felt to dying, that’s for damn sure. Still is. So absolutely close and not even close at all, it turns out, cause here I sit.

  * * *

  Yo. All youall down below. Don’t waste your breath feeling sorry for me. Your behinds may hit the water before mine.

  * * *

  With my fancy new phone I once googled the number of suicides each day in America. I’m a latecomer to the Internet, cell phones, iPads, all the incredible devices invented to connect people. Remain astounded by what must be for most younger folk commonplace transactions. By speaking a few words into my phone I learned 475 suicides per year, 1.3 daily in New York City. With a few more words or clicks one could learn yearly rates of suicide in most countries of the civilized world. Data more difficult obviously to access from prehistory, the bad old days before a reliable someone started counting everything, keeping score of everything, but even ancient numbers available, I discover, if you ask a phone the correct questions in the proper order. Answers supplied by sophisticated algorithms that estimate within a hairbreadth, no doubt, unknown numbers from the past. Lots of statistics re suicide, but I could not locate the date of the very first suicide nor find a chat room or blog offering lively debate on the who, when, why, where of the original suicide. You’d think someone would care about such a transformative achievement or at least an expert would claim credit for unearthing the first suicide’s name and address, posting it for posterity.

  * * *

  Suicide of course a morbid subject. Who would want to know too much about it. Let’s drop it. I’m much more curious about immortality and rapture, aren’t you. Houston airport my prime candidate for a site where immortality might be practiced. First time I wandered round and round, part of a vast crowd shuffling through the maze of Houston airport’s endless corridors and gates, my unoriginal reaction was: I did not know death had undone so many. But since I’m not morbid, I revised my thinking—perhaps these countless souls, these faces morphing into every face I’ve ever seen or remembered or forgotten, folks I had yet to meet or never would, faces from dreams, very specific avatars of flesh-and-blood faces (John Wayne’s for instance) from books, magazines, TV, films, faces from the Rolodex of my imaginary lives, perhaps all these travelers not the dead. Maybe they are an ever-changing panorama of all people ever born and still to be born roaming through Houston airport. Immortality one colossal, permanent game of musical chairs. If one chair pulled out from under you, keep on trucking. Another empty chair to plop down on soon as that stranger or old buddy moves his or her fat ass. Just be patient, keep shuffling along, we’re all old friends here, the whole gang’s here. No planes arrive, no planes leave anybody’s got to catch. Just keep strolling, smiling. Plenty of refreshments, souvenirs to buy. TV monitors and restrooms handy everywhere. The possibility of romance or peace and quiet or maybe even rapture, who knows what you’ll find. Immortality a single life, a single airport waiting area we all share materializing as ourselves and others, moving round and round, swimming in an ocean, a drop of ourselves, same water, same airport no one leaves no one enters but everybody winds up there. Like you wind up a clock to tell time, to see time. Hear it and pretend time exists because the clock tick-tocks and whirs on—ba-dup, ba-dup.

  * * *

  If a person intent on suicide also seeking rapture, why not choose the Williamsburg Bridge. Like the young man in the website photos who probably believed his fall, his rapture would commence immersed within the colors of Sonny Rollins’s tenor sax. Sonny’s music first and last thing heard as water splashes open and seals itself—ba-dup. Rapture rising, a pinpoint spark of immortal dazzle ascending the heavens, wake spreading behind it, an invisible band of light that expands slowly, surely as milky-white wakes of water taxis passing beneath the bridge expand and shiver to the ends of the universe.

  * * *

  Sometimes it feels like I’ve been sitting up here forever. An old, weary ear worn out by nagging voices nattering inside and outside it. Other times I feel brand new, as if I’ve just arrived or not quite here yet, never will be. Lots to read here, plenty of threats, promises, advice, prophecies in various colors, multiple scripts scrawled, scrolled, stenciled, sprayed on the walkway’s blackboard of pavement—We will be Ephemeral—Mene Mene Tekel—Ends Coming Soon. I’ve read elsewhere that boys in Asia Minor duel with kites of iridescent rainbow colors, a razor fixed to each kite’s string to decide who’s king, decide how long.

  * * *

  Clearly my kite’s been noticed. Don’t you see them. Bridge crawling with creepy, crawly cops in jumpsuits, a few orange, most the color of roaches. Swarms of them sneaky fast and brutal as always. They clamber over barriers, scuttle across girders, shimmy up cables, skulk behind buttresses, swing on ropes like Spider-Man. A chopper circles—Whomp-Whomp-Whomp-Whomp. One cop hoots through a bullhorn or karaoke mic. Will they shoot me off the bridge like they blasted poor, lovesick King Kong off the Empire State Building. Cop vehicles, barricades, flashing lights clog arteries that serve the bridge and its network of expressways, throughways, serviceways, overpasses, and underpasses, which should be pumping traffic noise and carbon monoxide to keep me company up here.

  * * *

  With a cell phone, if I could manage to dial it without dumping my ass in the frigid East River, I could call 911, leave a number for SWAT teams in the field to reach me up here, an opportunity for opposing parties to conduct a civilized conversation this morning instead of screaming back and forth like fishwives. My throat hoarse already, eyes tearing in the wicked wind. I will threaten to let go and plunge into the water if they encroach one inch further into my territory, my show this morning. On my way elsewhere and nobody’s business if I do, chirps my friend, Ladyday.

  * * *

  Small clusters of ant people, people ants peer up at me now. What do they think they see tottering on the edge of Williamsburg Bridge. They appear to stare intently, concerned, curious, amused, though I’ve read numerous species of ant and certain specialists within numerous ant species nearly blind. Nature not wasting eyes on lives spent entirely in the dark. But nature generous, too, provides ants with antennae as proxies for vision and we get cell phones to cope with the blues.

  * * *

  Shared cell phone blues once with a girlfriend I had high hopes for once who told me about a lover once, her Michelangelo, gorgeous she said, a rod on him hard as God’s wrath is how she put it, a pimp who couldn’t understand why she got so upset when he conducted business by cell phone while lying naked next to naked her, a goddamn parade of women coming and going in my bedroom and Michelangelo chattering away as if I don’t exist, him without a clue he was driving me crazy jealous she said and her with no clue how crazy jealous it was driving me, the lethal combination of my unhealthy curiosity and her innocent willingness to regale me with details of her former intimacies, her chattering away on her end and me listening on mine, connected and unconnected, cell phone blues until listening just about killed me and I had to let her go and lost her like she lost her sweet Michelangelo.
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br />   * * *

  Not expecting a call up here. Nobody on the line to giggle with me as I describe a cartoon in my head of people wearing phones like snails wear shells. Sidewalks mobbed by see-through booths, each occupied by a person chattering away. Booths elbow for position like guys on the playground fight for a rebound or booths waddle-waddle-waddle by like young men of color, pants below their ass cracks waddle like toddlers with loads in their diapers. A few rare ones walk booths with old-school cool—sexy, macho, etc., but booths very difficult to maneuver, shaped a bit too much like upright coffins. Then Emmett Till’s glass casket joins the mix and nothing’s funny. Booths collide. Booths crush bodies contorted inside them. Booths burning. Apoplectic faces of trapped occupants, fists pounding glass walls. Riders dumped, mangled, heads busted, bleeding on the curb.

  * * *

  If I could explain whitespace, perhaps I could convince everyone down there to take a turn up here. Not that it’s comfortable here, no reasonable person would wish to be in my shoes, I’m not even wearing shoes, tossed overboard with socks, sweatshirt, jeans, jacket, beret. Stripped down to skivvies and intermittent sunshine the forecast promised not doing the trick. Each time a cloud slides between me and the sun, wind chills my bare skin, my bones shiver. On the other hand the very last thing any human being should desire is comfort. World’s too dangerous. Pulse of the universe ba-dup, ba-dup beats faster than the speed of light. Nothing stops, nothing stays, a blur of white noise. People, cities, whole civilizations wiped out in an instant, steeped in blood, obliterated. If we could see it, not a pretty picture. Ba-dup. Comfort never signifies less peril, less deceit, it only means your guard’s down, your vigilance faltering.