by Gayl Jones
So I went upstairs and opened the door and there they was screwing each other, my husband and my business manager, Harlan Jane Eagleton. I don’t know if I can say screw on TV. Can I say screw on TV?
Yeah, sure. I don’t think you can say Jane on TV, though. I’m just kidding ya. Four-letter word, you know, Jane. But you say he’s your ex-husband he ain’t your now husband, says the talk show host.
Yes, he’s my ex-husband. He always felt like my ex-husband until I caught him with her, I mean I’ve known about him with his other little infatuations, but then I caught him with her and suddenly he felt like my now husband. You know, I always thought of him as my ex-husband, ’cause he is my ex-husband, you know, but when I caught him with her, I felt like he’s my now husband.
Girl, you know you a fool, don’t you? says the talk show host. The women that write to me, millions of women from all over the world that watch this show, always tell me the same thing, that my talk show helps them to realize that they ain’t the only fool. They might be the fool that they know themselves to be, but at least they realize they ain’t the only fool. Girl, you know you a fool, don’t you, Hermione?
My name ain’t Hermione, it’s Jane, I mean Joan.
I thought you told me your name Hermione?
Naw, it’s Joan.
It says here that your middle name is Hermione.
Naw, it’s Joan. And what about the other girl? she ask. I ain’t the only fool.
That’s what I said, but girl, you ain’t got to worry about the other girl being no fool, you just got to worry about you yourself being a fool. The other girl might be a fool too, even the very archetype of a fool, maybe even a fool’s fool, maybe even a photogenic fool that I’ll have my production assistant invite to be on the show, maybe Business Managers Who—Can I Say That on TV?—Their Client’s Ex-Husbands but it’s your own foolery that you got to recognize and ameliorate. If there’s one purpose to my talk show, though personally I believe my talk show is a multidimensional talk show and not just one-dimensional-pop psychology-tabloid journalism like some of them other talk shows, but if there’s one definable purpose to my talk show, it’s for you fools to recognize you’s fools and to stop being fools. Especially the female fool. Especially y’all Hermiones. And I’m talking about the female fools of every race and creed, Hermiones of every race and creed, not just the colored female fools, not just the colored Hermiones. Geraldo or Montel gotta deal with male fools. All the Hermans, Geraldo or Montel gotta deal with them fools.
How come you call them Hermans and us ain’t Hiswoman’s? ask Joan.
’Cause Hiswoman ain’t nobody’s true name, and Hermione is.
Anyway I come to Saratoga to bet on some horses. I went upstairs, packed my bags, and went to Saratoga. Then when I was staying in one of them little hotels in Saratoga, one of them little hotels with a Dutch name, I telephoned Joan from my hotel room.
Joan?
Yeah, what? What’s it?
This is Harlan.
I know who you are. What is it?
About New York?
Yeah, so what? What about New York?
Do you still want me there?
I reminded her that she supposed to go into the recording studio in a month, then on tour. We’re supposed to go on tour.
So, what’s changed? she ask, and hang up.
As for now, mostly, we get along, except sometimes I’ll catch that look of sleeping lightning, or maybe that lightning ain’t sleeping. Maybe it just playing possum. Are you sure you want me to hang around? I’ll say. You’re the best, she’ll say and grin, you know, the joker’s grin that don’t reveal nothing, or maybe just the entertainer’s grin, the one that masks it all. Anyway, she keeps me on as her manager, and I ain’t been to that farm of hers, and I ain’t seen that James of hers. Tell me he’s her ex-husband, and then acting like he’s her now husband.
Like once after one of her gigs, I reach onto her dressing table and take out one of her cigarettes. I lit a match and then the cigarette. She don’t smoke, but keeps them cigarettes in the dressing room for different folks. Joan’s putting on mascara and peering at me out of raccoon’s eyes.
Girl, you’re a bold bitch, she say.
I say nothing. I ain’t sure if she say bold or not, but I don’t want her to repeat it. I don’t know a woman like to be called a bitch, less they call theyself one. I’ve heard women brag on theyself as a bitch. Like when Joan were calling herself Joan “the Bitch” Savage. But me I ain’t think that the right idea even for her to have of herself. Enough men to call women bitches than them start calling theyselves bitch. ’Cept Joan say the difference between the men and the women is that the women know how to call each other bitch without exactly say the word bitch. Like she could say, Girl, you bold, and still be calling me a bitch.
What would you have done if he was still mine? she ask, putting the mascara down. Then her hands fly into the pockets of her robe like they’s nests. What’d you have done then?
I woulda sure stayed clear of him, I answer. I don’t fool with other people’s husband. Them that I know is married. I’ve fooled with husbands that I didn’t know was husbands. I ain’t a husband diviner like some women are. Course the age I am now ain’t too many that’s free. And them that say they’s free ain’t free. But you’re the one told me he was your ex-husband and that. . . .
One of her hands fly out its nest pocket and fly backwards. She scratch her cheek and then put on her little orange cap. To tell the truth when she wear that little orange cap, she kinda remind me of one of them organ grinder’s monkey. She a attractive woman, but in that little orange cap, she still remind me of a organ grinder’s monkey. Especially when she got her hair straightened. When she wearing it natural, she don’t remind me of no organ grinder’s monkey. That little orange cap, you know, it’s one of them deerhunter’s cap, though, but she always wears it turned backward. It for her antihunting song. She wears the bib backwards, so you don’t see the bib—I mean bill—and from the front it round and remind me of one of the organ grinder’s monkey and his little round cap. But she’s watching me. Like she the hunter. And I’m the deer.
CHAPTER
SIX
There’s one of your people looking out for us, I say as we ride along the fence. A man on a roan stallion hang back, away from us. It ain’t Nicholas, but one of the other guards. I don’t know how many security people he got besides Nicholas. I know Nicholas his chief security person, but he got men he claims is former policemen and former soldiers and former members of different countries’ CIA, or different countries’ equivalent of the CIA. I know one of them security people is Vietnamese, said he usedta fight in the tunnels of Cu Chi, or maybe that his own way of bragging about hisself, but I don’t know the nationality of them others. And I don’t know if he’s truly employed former members of different countries’ CIA or not, or if he just saying all that to be bragging. And one of them men look kinda like a Gypsy that Joan and I seen when she was singing in a nightclub over there in Paris. I think he a Gypsy but Joan say he a Turk. Or maybe he a Turkish Gypsy, We pause under a oak tree. The guard, a muscular, dark-haired man with disheveled eyebrows, pause under another oak. Some of his other guards are sitting on the veranda eating lunch. Brown bag lunches, lunchboxes, thermoses, like ordinary workingmen. They’s all rugged-looking men, some with that ragged intelligence that you might associate with different countries’ CIA, others look just like ordinary men, but maybe they know all that kung fu and karate, that martial arts, and don’t need to but look like ordinary men.
Are you a spy? Josef ask.
I pull back on the reins of my horse. Horse want to lead herself.
Spy? What do you mean spy? Maybe he ask that ’cause he notice me spying on his security men. You know, maybe he just jealous seeing me spying at his security men and especially that Turkish-looking Gypsy or that Gypsy-looking Turk, and thinking maybe I’m more interested in his security men than in him, so he just ask me whether I�
��m a spy, I think he’s joking, you know. Naw, I ain’t no spy, I says. Then I realize he ain’t joking about me being no spy, and it ain’t even jealousy at me spying at his security men, and to tell the truth that Turkish-looking Gypsy or Gypsy-looking Turk also kinda look like that Steven Seagal, ain’t it Steven Seagal the one supposed to study them martial arts in Japan? that spiritual kung fu—but who am I a spy for?—and I’m about to call him some paranoid fool. If he’s got men that’s truly former members of some countries’ CIA maybe they’s the true spy. Maybe one of them’s spying on him for his government or us government or the Thoroughbred Breeders Association or maybe that arbitrage if he the sorta man to be spied on. But if he just a paranoid fool, then a lot of people is paranoid fools, ’cause them pop psychologists and even them ordinary psychologists say a lot of modern people is paranoid.
I steady them reins again. Horse still want to lead herself. I try to make that sound the jockeys make, but just sound like I’m clucking.
I think you’re a spy, he says. And then he says something about how we met, as if I was deliberately watching to encounter him when he was standing up there watching them walk and exercise the horses. And that maybe some of them people wanting to play dirty tricks on him mighta hired me. They didn’t want him acquiring the best Thoroughbreds in the state. They had a consortium to outbid him locally and then when they seen he was going out-of-state to acquire some Thoroughbred they sent me up there to spy on him. Especially since I’m telling him I’m from Kentucky just like himself, or rather that’s the same state that he’s immigrated to. Don’t that sound like a paranoid fool? If I was a spy I wouldn’t be telling him I’m from Kentucky just like himself. I’d be from Kansas City or someplace like that, or maybe even from New York. And seem like if they consortium could outbid him in the state, they just send they consortium up to the Fasig-Tipton to outbid him. I don’t think that Fasig-Tipton got laws against consortiums of Thoroughbred owners bidding for they horses. Seem like them Fasig-Tipton people just wants to sell they horses to the highest bidder. Course ain’t many splivs bidding on them horses unless they’s sports stars or entertainment personalities. Seem like somebody say though that there’s a wealthy colored woman that’s in the Thoroughbred business who ain’t no sports star or entertainment personality and that she bids on horses at that Fasig-Tipton. Maybe I seen her at the Saratoga racetrack but just thought her a ordinary woman.
Naw, I ain’t a spy. ’Cept a spy in the house of love, I say, remembering one of those song titles. Or it a book title? I think I seen Joan with a book with that title. Seem like on her shelves in the midst of either the Great Books or the popular novels, she got a little paperback book called Spy in the House of Love. Ain’t that Anaïs Nin? Seem like that Anaïs Nin got a book called Spy in the House of Love. Seem like that one of them Anaïs Nin books, I think she mighta even published that book her ownself, ’cause seem like Joan say a lot of them books she collect the authors have to publish they ownself, you know. But it’s also a song title. I am a spy in the house of love. Something about a spy in the house of love. I look at him. I’m about to call him some paranoid fool, again, but he reach over and touch my jaw, his horse trotting sideways. Mine nibble grass.
What are you? he ask. Who are you?
A spy in the house of love.
Who are you?
I’m just Harlan. Harlan Jane Eagleton. I manage a rock star. Joan Savage. Joan “the Bitch” Savage. I think her middle name is Hermione. She ain’t told me that her middle name. Or maybe that her maiden name, but I think that her middle name, I know there’s a Hermione in her favorite book—that’s Steppenwolf Her husband name Savage, so she use that for her stage name. Sorta like Tina Turner, you know, except she ain’t no Tina Turner and her husband ain’t Ike, I mean her husband ain’t in show business, you know. He some kinda scientist. But Joan a rock star. Well, she ain’t exactly a star. And ain’t exactly a bitch. She just likes to call herself a bitch, you know. She likes being a woman, you know, but she doesn’t like women being judged by different standards than men are judged, you know. I think she means even colored women, but you know when she talks womanhood, she just says womanhood, you know. Like we were watching this politician who was talking about this female politician and so he says, And she’s a attractive young woman. And you know, like that was a compliment. And Joan says, Now what’s that gotta do with anything, but like this male politician that’s like his highest compliment for her, you know, not that she’s a good politician but that she’s a attractive young woman, Joan’s a attractive woman herself. And I’m a charmer. You said so yourself. Why don’t you hire yourself a detective and find out who I really am if you’re so paranoid about everybody? They’s even got electronic detectives now, that just works using computers. All them guards and shit. You don’t need all them guards. Well, I guess you gotta have your security people. I guess you ain’t no different from the rich and famous they have on TV. They’re always talking about the different security people they have. Every one of them stars and starlets has got they security people. Even the rich but not so famous got they own security people, and the famous but not so rich that can afford they own security people got ’em. It’s probably better to be rich and not so famous than famous and not so rich, ’cause if you famous and not so rich people think you’s rich when you ain’t, ’cause they don’t know it’s possible to be famous and ain’t be rich, ’cause they think if you’s famous you gotta be rich. I just ain’t never been around nobody that needed themselves so many security people, though. I mean, I manage Joan but she’s nobody. I mean she ain’t nobody, but she ain’t a diva or nothing. She’s neither rich nor famous. I mean, she’s famous amongst the people that know her, but she ain’t famous famous. Course with me managing her career she’s a little more famous than when I met her, and a little richer, but not rich rich. She tells me I’m preoccupied with wealth and fame. That’s her idea of me, you know. You know how someone can have a idea of you and even convince you that that’s the true you. She say she don’t judge good management by how rich and famous I make her, though that don’t make no kinda sense, do it? I mean, how else do you judge good management? Do you think I’d be a good manager if as soon as I started managing her she become less rich and less famous? Not that she’s truly rich or famous. She don’t even have herself a entourage. All the rock stars got entourages, and even the wannabes. I ask her who she know that we can hire for cheap to sorta be her entourage, you know, but she say she don’t want no entourage, or tell me I’m enough entourage.
Josef eyes as black as pepper. My horse try to lead herself but I pull back on the reins. I try to steady her. I ain’t no experienced rider, y’all know. Josef reach out and steady her, and make that clicking sound.
Naw, I ain’t no spy, I say. Then I imagine lighting up a cigarette and blowing rings of smoke in the air above him. My horse leads herself. I start to ask Josef more about them dangers he talking about, and why he thinks I might be a spy. And maybe he mean some other German word that mean the same thing as spy, but ain’t exactly mean spy. Maybe there’s a German word that mean the same as spy but ain’t spy. Since I’ve been at his farm, though, I ain’t seen any of them dangers, or heard any of the locals threatening him. Or maybe that was before he got all the security people, and now all the locals have heard the rumors about him having former policemen and former soldiers and former CIA-type people working for him. Or maybe they think he’s some kinda gangster, just camouflaging hisself as a Thoroughbred owner. I’ve seen all these guards but I ain’t seen what they’s guarding him from. Unless it’s hisself. A lot of them paranoid fools the guards they need is to guard them from theyselves, and to guard other people from them, more than to guard them from other people. When I ask him to tell me some more about that Germany, he starts talking about Prague, which I know ain’t Germany. I know that Prague ain’t in Germany. He’s from Berlin, he says, but he say that Prague have always been his favorite European city, Most Germans pref
er Paris, that’s why Paris was one of the few European cities the Germans didn’t destroy during the war, even when they occupied Paris they didn’t destroy Paris, but he prefers Prague. Maybe my imagination as good as a tale he could tell me, though, about that Germany and what made him to be a paranoid. I’m thinking about some scene in Germany where some of them neo-Nazis mistook him for one of them immigrants of color, maybe a African or a North African, and he running from them neo-Nazis, and maybe that when his paranoia began, where he got his first security guards.
He ain’t tell me about when he first got mistook for a immigrant in his own country, and I ain’t ask, but years later when I dream about it we’re riding them horses again and I ask, Tell me about when them neo-Nazis mistook you for one of them immigrants of color. Did they look anything like those guys in the movie The Wanderers? Did you ever see that movie The Wanderers? Joan say the same guy wrote the screenplay for Sea of Love, you know with Al Pacino, wrote that movie that The Wanderers based on, I mean wrote that book that the movie The Wanderers based on, that’s Joan’s hobby reading works of literature, you know, ’cept they seemed kinda innocents compared to the neo-Nazis they talk about on television.
That’s when I hired Nicholas, He was there. He rescued me. It was in Berlin. . . .
You first met Nicholas in Berlin?
In my dream he start talking kinda like me.
Berlin, yes, Berlin. He was roaming about Europe a musician I think a musician, you know, he couldn’t get any “gigs,” as you call them, in America I think a musician I know he plays the French horn so he comes to Europe to Berlin and I, well I suppose I was roaming about my own country, I’m in arbitrage, you know, deciding whether I should leave Berlin, on account of all this Deutschland für Deutschlanders, you know, perhaps go to Africa or Prague, perhaps come to America. . . . Nicholas thought it was a fellow African American he was saving, you know. . . . And I thought he was a fellow African German saving me. . . . There’s something about him that makes him seem more like my culture than his own, though I’ve never thought that I’ve anything like your culture, though people say my way of speaking English has something of your accent, your easy colloquialisms, and something of the German. . . . Then I hired him. It’s not like he’s a hireling, though. I still allow him to be his own man. I mean, he’s still his own man. I mean, he works for me but he’s still his own man.