by Gayl Jones
Stay for dinner, Joan say.
I would, Joan Darling, but I got to go over some lab reports.
Joan say you some kinda scientist.
Yes, I am.
Yes, he is some kinda scientist, say Joan. The language of innuendo.
Yes, I am, he repeat. But he don’t tell me what kinda scientist, like a scientist a scientist. He take a package of Camels from his breast pocket, examine it like it a lab report, then put it back.
What are you working on now? Joan ask.
That new book I told you about: Symmetry, Matrices, and Molecular Orbital Theory, he say, and that Joan looking at him like she know exactly what symmetry, matrices, and molecular orbital theory mean. He start to say something else about that book he working on, but he don’t.
Have dinner with us tomorrow then? I ask.
Okay.
Joan purse her lips together and frown. Looking like I ain’t supposed to say nothing to him, her ex-husband, and it her introduced us, and even telling me how sweet he is, and even telling me he more sweet than even he think he is his ownself. Anyway, he nod to me, walk by her, behind the couch, pause for a moment, glance at me, then hug her head and whisper, Be happy, and left. Joan ran her hands through her thick hair, and pouted. Then she picked up one of James’ half-used cigarettes, lit it with one of them antique cameo-type lighter, one of them real expensive-looking lighter, and puffed.
So what’s the story? I asked.
What do you mean? she asked, then she combed her hair back with her hands. She took a long draw, then put out the cigarette.
You’re on friendly terms. Maybe even loving terms, I said. Do you think you’ll work something out? How long have you been divorced? I mean, are you legally divorced? Do you think you’ll get married again? I mean, you’re divorced, but you don’t really give me the impression of being divorced, and he still calls you Darling, I know people who get divorced and get married again, and I ain’t even heard them call each other Darling. And I ain’t never been called nobody’s darling myself.
That’s when she laughed and told me that he’d stay her ex. He’ll stay my ex, darling, if that’s what you mean. Anyway, he’s got his little infatuations now. Younger, sweeter women.
But like I said they didn’t behave with each other exactly like any ex-spouses that I knew about. So what’s going on? I kept asking, and suggesting that maybe they’d get married again. I just kept suggesting that maybe they’d get married again. And Joan kept looking at me as if I was overstepping my bounds, asking and suggesting that maybe they’d get married again, but then she started telling me again that he had other women, other sweet young women. That’s why I always find that Prince Charles so curious, you know, ’cause all them other men’s other women is other sweet young women. I remember me and Joan seeing that Prince Charles on that television and Joan she say something about respecting his choice in women, and I ain’t know what she mean by that, ’cause it ain’t the opinion of them media people. I ain’t ask her what she mean by that, and that Joan it seem like she’s always liking the people that ain’t the media darlings better than the people that is the media darlings, when most people likes the people that is the media darlings, or the people that is at least photogenic and charismatic. And then she have me sitting there watching that Prince Charles talking about architecture. And then she say that thing about respecting his choice in women. And then she say something about American culture being a immature culture, which didn’t seem to have nothing to do with that Prince Charles. And what America being a immature culture have to do with Prince Charles? Then she say again about respecting his choice in women. And what that got to do with architecture? But maybe it just ’cause he the exception that prove the rule.
Why you so preoccupied with us? she asking, and I forgot about asking her about that divorce ’cause I’m thinking about immature American culture and Prince Charles. Girl, I ain’t even as preoccupied with us as you are. Why we divorced or getting married again or staying divorced or ain’t staying divorced or wanna be lovers again and people you know that’s got divorced and got married again? You don’t even know us. You don’t know us. Well, you know me, or think you know me, or know me about as well as I know myself, or know me about as well as I think I know myself, but you don’t know us. I know us, but sometimes I don’t know him. Or I know him about as well as I know me. Girl, I ain’t even as preoccupied with us as you are. Anyway, he’s got his other women, his other little infatuations, his young sweet things. All that talk about a lab report. It might be a lab report, or his book on symmetry, matrices, and molecular orbital theory, or one of his little infatuations, one of his young sweet things, she said, picking up one of his cigarette butts and looking at it, as if she thought he was as addicted to his other women, his little infatuations, his young sweet things, as he was to his cigarettes.
I didn’t keep asking questions, though. I studied the patterns in my armchair. And then she told me how they have joint ownership of the farm, how she bought it when she got her first money from her first real gig. Then it seem like after she had her first real gig, they got divorced and all.
At first I thought we’d work things out, you know. I guess I thought it. I don’t even know why we got divorced. Well, I know why we got divorced. I guess I know why we got divorced. It wasn’t catching him with some other woman, even a younger woman, or shit like that, or him catching me with some other man. Certainly no younger man. What’s there of interest? You know, like that Pepsi commercial. No stupidity like that. One man’s enough for me. Somebody once said I’m like the woman in that poem—I forgot what poem—where the poet asks, What does a woman want? Why, her own sweet way. Course a poet would say, Her own sweet way. Maybe the bitch who wants her own way ain’t sweet.
Shakespeare? I ask, I mean, the poet.
Naw, not Shakespeare. He knows what a man wants, and what a man thinks a woman wants, even the best of women. He’s good at portraying bitches, but even they’re a man’s idea of a bitch. You know, even Shakespeare’s sweet bitches are still a man’s idea of a sweet bitch. Chaucer’s the only old bard who seemed to know what a woman really wants, at least the Wife of Bath—and she ain’t really a bitch, she’s just who she is—but I don’t think that’s Chaucer either. Then she start saying something that sound like it right out of that Chaucer, you know what that woman say about all them husband she have, but saying it like it right out of that Chaucer, and then she say, A woman wants to be her ownself, just like a man wants to be his ownself. Anyway, I guess you can’t have a marriage where both people want their own sweet way, want to be too much of their ownselves, and won’t negotiate. We’re friends, still. We’re both friends. Anyway, he looks after the place when I ain’t here. He stays here when he wants, keeps a lot of his research papers and projects here, has what women he wants, his little infatuations, his little sweet bitches, I suppose, or bitches in training, and then I come here after my tours and recuperate. Do you remember Carnal Knowledge? I was just thinking of those women in Carnal Knowledge, and the way those men would talk about those women? You know, I was wondering if men really talk about women like that, you know. Jack Nicholson and that other guy? Garfunkel? You know of Simon and Garfunkel, I think he played that other guy. He had a few roles in movies then. I guess people thought he was more interesting than Simon in those days, I mean for roles in movies. I was a bitch in training myself I guess when I first saw that movie. I remember thinking that’s sorta like the stereotyped idea that women have of men, that they talk about us like that, like we’re things, you know, when they’re talking to each other about us, but then there was this movie, and there were these men talking about women like that. White men, but men are men. I couldn’t imagine Jamey talking to some man like that about me. Of course I hadn’t met Jamey then. I don’t think I’d met Jamey then. But the Jamey I imagined. So it’s like that, you know. I don’t bring any of my own infatuations here. In fact, I haven’t had any infatuations since we divor
ced. You’d think I’d taken a vow of celibacy or some shit.
She nuzzled back against the pillow. Yes, I suppose he even brings other women here. I haven’t asked him whether he’s had other women up here. I just suppose. He hasn’t said as much, but I know he does. He ain’t celibate. Even if he ain’t in love, he’s got to have some infatuation. He’s a passionate man. I suppose he doesn’t seem so, but he is. And men’s ideal is always the harem, ain’t it. That’s the ideal of every man I know, even the monogamous ones. Who do you think invented the harem? Woman’s ideal is always the one great love. Most women.
Some men’s ideal is the one great love.
Maybe. But he still wants his concubines. I always let him know when I’m coming up here, anyway.
That must bother you, I said.
No, we’re divorced. Why shouldn’t he have other women? Maybe I’d mind if it was more than a fling, more than a little infatuation. But we’re divorced. ’Why shouldn’t he have other women? Why shouldn’t he have younger women even? I don’t own him, but sometimes I think he still thinks he owns me, though. Did you hear him call me Darling? Yes? He still calls me Darling. He still thinks he owns me.
He doesn’t act like he thinks he owns you.
What?
I was going to say he acts like he thinks you still own him. But he doesn’t act like that either.
Yes he does. I mean, like he still owns me. He’s not the sorta man you can own. I mean, himself. She massaged the tip of her nose, then swung her legs down. How about a drink? Bourbon? Scotch?
Scotch, with some soda.
She was up and at the oak bar. It was rough-hewn like the table, but well stocked, Rocks? She glanced over her shoulder.
Yeah.
He’s handsome, I said.
She gulped her bourbon. Yeah.
I like your house too. It ain’t like a rock star’s house. You know, how you’d imagine a rock star’s house. . . .
Thank you.
. . . . Except the high-ceilinged rooms. . . .
What about a rock star’s husband? Or ex-husband, I should say.
He seems secure in himself. He seems to know who he is. He doesn’t seem like a harem maker to me. I bet you’re his great love. Anyway, I’m talking to the Schacter people—
Let’s not talk shop. Or love. Or even great love. Why is it when I say it it doesn’t sound like love? Anyway, you settle those questions. That’s what I hired you for. Not the question of love, or great love, I mean my career.
She got up, danced over to the bar, carried the bottle of bourbon back and set it on the table. She gave me a sullen look. Then she reached for another of James’ unfinished cigarettes, lit it and puffed.
Just let me know when the deal is made, okay? Though I do want to hear that new guitarist Jimmy Cuervo, the one you said’s from South Texas. What’s his name?
Jimmy Cuervo.
But no shop talk, let’s agree, and certainly not when Jamey’s here tomorrow. I don’t know my own mind when Jamey’s around.
I don’t believe that. You call him Jamey. That’s nice.
Does he look like a James to you?
What?
A James. Rather than a Jamey?
Yeah, I suppose.
Maybe that’s my way of still calling him Darling. Actually he’s a Jim. He was named after Jim Thorpe, you know the Indian. . . . the famous Native American athlete, the one they called the top athlete of the first half of the century. You know, that movie we saw about Jim Thorpe, in the days when they didn’t get real Indians to play real Indians.
There’s real Indians in that movie.
Extras. Minor roles. Not Jim Thorpe. But in America you don’t know who’s a real native. I don’t know why he was named after him, though. Jamey, I mean. He ain’t got no Native American in him that I know about. And he ain’t never been too fond of sports or athletics. I think his daddy or granddaddy’s just a great fan of Jim Thorpe’s. He looks athletic, he works out, even does yoga, Jamey I mean, but he ain’t fond of sports himself, though. Jim, that’s his name. He don’t like it, though. I think it reminds him of that Nigger Jim in Twain’s book. You know, Nigger Jim. Ain’t you read Twain? Girl, I know you read Twain. That’s high school. Elementary school. You can’t be a American and ain’t read Twain, girl. Talk about un-American. Girl, you ain’t a true American. That oughta be the test for Americanity: Have you read Twain? I’m just kidding, girlfriend. I wonder what that book’d sound like if Nigger Jim had told that tale? I bet Twain couldn’ta imagined Nigger Jim telling that tale, you know, or if he’da imagined it, I don’t think they’da published a book with Nigger Jim telling that tale, even the Nigger Jim of Twain’s imagination. People don’t think of Jim Thorpe when they hear Jim, they think of Nigger Jim. Twain’s Nigger Jim. So he calls himself James, and I call him Jamey. If they wanted to name him after Jim Thorpe, I think he’d’ve preferred Thorpe rather than Jim. Thorpe Savage. That sounds like a soap star. You know that guy on the soaps with all those braids, the fine-looking one, you know that fine-looking young man with all them braids, the one on that soap, naw I ain’t talking about A Martinez you know A Martinez ain’t got no braids and he ain’t on the soaps now anyway, they oughta put him in the movies. . . .
He looks kinda like Nadine’s husband.
Who Nadine? That Kim Basinger movie?
Naw, I mean my friend Nadine. This woman name Nadine from New Mexico. Well, she ain’t originally from New Mexico, but she own her a little cantina-style restaurant in New Mexico. Ain’t I told you about Nadine? Her husband from Mexico, though, I mean the real Mexico, look kinda like him. She think he better looking than even A Martinez, though.
. . . . did you see that made-for-TV movie with him in it, you know that good-looking, that African-American actor with all them braids what’s-his-name, now he could be a Thorpe Savage, but not Jamey.
She poured more bourbon, spilled some on the coffee table, dabbed it with her sleeve.
I promise you’ll be bored, she said.
No.
This ain’t Vegas. Jamey ain’t as flamboyant as the kinda guys I know you like. He’s a passionate man, but he ain’t a flamboyant passionate man.
You don’t know what kinda guys I like, I only go to Vegas sometimes. It’s mostly Saratoga, the races.
She poured more bourbon while I nursed my old glass of Scotch.
Well, I meant, Jamey ain’t like your gambling buddies, he’s into microbes. He’s too sweet for you. But maybe you like ’em sweet. I bet you like yourself some sweet, don’t you? Have you got a sweet tooth? I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth myself.
Yeah, you told me he’s a scientist.
A microbiologist and a chemist, a researcher. Generates ideas for some sorta research company. He partly owns the company, so it’s sorta his own company. Anyway, they generate ideas in biology and chemistry, mostly, for other companies, you know. Then the other companies do the more practical research, but then he has his own research, independent of the company. Both practical and theoretical. To tell the truth, I’m not really up on what his research is now. I used to always know what he was researching. Now he prefers a lot of theoretical stuff, you know, pure ideas. So that’s sorta like the ideal company for him, you know, just generating ideas. A lot of his ideas are somewhere in the stratosphere. Whatever’s the highest sphere. I think the highest sphere’s the stratosphere. I don’t understand a lot of his theories myself. So I was just telling you it ain’t Vegas. Or Saratoga, or whatever. Jamey and I ain’t as flamboyant as your gambling buddies and jockey friends. We’ll bore you.
She puffed the cigarette down to its filter. I was silent.
Here I just rest up and take things easy, and Jamey’s. . . . he’s passionate about his work, his research, but otherwise. . . . Well, this ain’t Vegas.
That’s cool, I said. I like him.
Now you see how I spend my summer vacations. She picked up another unfinished cigarette and puffed.
He didn’t
seem to me like a unpassionate man. I wondered if they still made love, but that wasn’t a question I’d ask.
I know we ain’t supposed to talk about it, but do you mind if I give the Schacter people a call from here? I asked.
Why should I mind? You’re looking out for me, right? Do you think I’m too old to be a rocker? Jamey thinks I’m too old to be a rocker.
You’re too old to be a rapper, maybe, but there’re rockers older than you.
Yeah, we’re the true rockers, ain’t we? Our generation. The best rockers are us.
CHAPTER
TEN
One evening in the dressing room, after one of her shows, I’m rubbing Vitapoint into her orange hair and brushing it. This orange shit is shit, I say. You oughta cool it. Why don’t you just look normal and let the music. . . . let the music. . . . like Aznavour says. . . . He ain’t rock ’n’ roll, but you remember when we were staying in that hotel in Paris and saw Aznavour on the television. . . . I don’t think you oughta try to be Madonna or Rodman. . . .
I was doing this before Rodman or Madonna, changing the color of my hair. The fans that know me expect me to change the color of my hair all the time. I was changing the color of my hair when I was singing in the little clubs in Rhode Island. I told you when I was going to grad school in Rhode Island, that’s when I first started singing professionally. . . . Well, I didn’t want to be a singer, I just wanted to help pay my way through grad school. . . . You didn’t even see colored people with blond hair in those days, I mean colored people my color with blond hair. . . . Anyway, what’s normal? she asks. I mean, even though rock ’n’ roll now is considered a mature music. . . .
What do you mean mature music?
I mean when you got classical rock and modern rock you got yourself a mature music. You know when Billy Joel usedta sing it’s still rock ’n’ roll to me. Well, in those days I couldn’t even imagine a music beyond rock ’n’ roll. But rap ain’t rock. That’s what I admire about the young singers is that they could imagine something beyond rock ’n’ roll. . . . I don’t really like all the rap I hear, and I think a lot of the music could use some maturity, but I admire the fact that they could imagine something beyond rock ’n’ roll, I mean, now that rock ’n’ roll is pretty music, Establishment music. Except my rock ’n’ roll. I think music should be kinda controversial, I mean popular music. . . . I don’t want my music to be the Establishment’s Darling. I don’t wanna be the Establishment’s Darling. But I don’t want it to be just decadence either. Though I think modern music has gotta be a little decadent, otherwise it isn’t really reflecting the decadence of the modern world. You know, except my music kinda satirizes decadence. Like Madonna and the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, or some of the rappers. Sometimes you don’t know whether they’re satirizing decadence or decadence itself. I like the bubblegum rappers myself, you know the sweet rappers. Intellectually I know what Public Enemy and those other rappers, the gangsta women and the gangsta men are doing, but I like listening to the sweet rappers myself, the healing-type musk. . . . I don’t want my music to just be decadence itself.