The Healing

by Gayl Jones

  Then I saw this handsomest young man and took a liking to him, she said, as she put the superior beauty products on the shelves. Do you want to know how far I followed him? She chuckled. I followed him until I turned into a human being. Is that far enough for you?

  Mother, rinsing brushes in the sink, said nothing, like she always did when Grandmama told her turtle stories. As soon as Grandmother turned her story into fantasy, Mother always brought it back to reality again.

  She was a Turtle Woman in a carnival, explained my mother. She played the Turtle Woman. You know how them carnivals got them the Bearded Lady. Well, they’s got Turtle Women and Crocodile Women and every type of freakish womanhood. They had her in one of them carnival tents and people paid their money to come and see the Turtle Woman. In those days, I think it only cost them a nickel or a dime to see the Turtle Woman or them other freakish women. Mighta just cost them a penny to see those freakish women, but that was considered good money in those days. They put a nacre shell on her back. A fake shell to pretend like she was part turtle and part woman. I don’t even know if they paid her good money to be their Turtle Woman, but I guess they paid her better money than they were paying domestics in those days, but not as good money as they paid them factory workers, you know. You go up North and get you a job in one of them factories, that’s good money, or even around here working in them tobacco factories after the war, that’s better money, you know, than being a domestic. Or you could be a schoolteacher, but a schoolteacher ain’t no kinda independence, and in those days, you know, all the schools were segregated, but that still ain’t no kinda independence, and even the colored schools had to be obliged to the white superintendents, you know. The colored schools could have their own principals, but only the white men could be the superintendents, and not even white women in them days, just the white men. I don’t even think they have white women superintendents these days. They can be principals in the schools, but not superintendents. Daddy saw her and fell in love. He knew the shell wasn’t real, and that’s the truth, but he kept coming to that carnival till she up and left the carnival and followed him. She said that he were the first man enamored of her among all the men that would pay their good money to see the Turtle Woman, and that them other men just thought of her as freakish, as one of them freakish women, whether or not they believed in the reality of that turtle’s shell. Now that’s the truth. That the truth. You can tell all the turtle stories you want to tell, but that’s the truth. She say Daddy say that a fake turtle shell don’t make her a fake woman, and that he more interested in the woman than the fact that she played a fake Turtle Woman in that carnival. She say that he could see the genuine woman behind that fake turtle shell. She say he say that she a more genuine woman than any woman he know, a category which he say ain’t just limited to colored women, which some mens do. You know, how some mens do. They’ll compare you to other colored women, but not to Womanhood Itself, and prefers every other man’s woman to they own. You know, like that television show we were watching, and they were asking them men about they women, and all the other men complimented they women on their beauty, but when they asked the colored men didn’t none of them say nothing about beauty, they complimented they women on everything but beauty, exceptin’ those that had them the other men’s woman, or them of us that most resembles the other men’s woman. Ain’t that right? Well, I noticed what them colored men said. She got them hunched shoulders, though, from wearing that fake turtle shell. That the truth.

  I was five and sitting on the counter. When Grandmother finished putting them new beauty products on the shelves, she braided my hair. In the long mirror, I could see her. I could see her hunched shoulders that looked as if they had really gotten hunched like that from wearing a fake turtle shell. I couldn’t imagine her, though, as fitting the description of “freakish women,” like the Bearded Lady, although others might’ve seen those hunched shoulders as a sign of freakishness. She smiled like she knew that her tale was the true one, or that a tale could be true and not be a true tale—that perhaps her Turtle Woman stories were truer than any carnival tale. I didn’t say whose tale I believed, though. I only squirmed as she twisted my hair into braids.

  And spose I wasn’t really a real Turtle Woman? she asked. Spose I wasn’t? Spose I’m just a rogue in disguise. They had some real ones, though. Had a fake Bearded Lady but they had them a real Unicorn Woman, I know that for the truth, a woman with a real horn just like a unicorn, I mean a real horn just like a unicorn’s and not a fake one, though some people swore it was a goat’s horn that they just glued on, and a colored woman too, I mean a real colored woman, and that’s the truth. A lot of people when they would see that sign advertising the Unicorn Woman, they’d think she a white woman, you know, ’cause all the unicorns in the storybooks is white, ’cause that’s supposed to be a sign of purity, you know, and even the colored people that come to see the Unicorn Woman, they’s as surprised as the white people that she ain’t a white Unicorn Woman, ’cause even colored people thinks that white’s a sign of purity, and she is a genuine Unicorn Woman, but a colored one. ’Cause ain’t none of them seen no colored unicorn in none of them mythology books or storybooks neither, so colored people usselves thinks they’s only white unicorns. Of course I heard someone say that even if she a real Unicorn Woman, she still a fake one, just by virtue of being colored. But I know that horn real and I know she a real Unicorn woman. And her horn as real as this braid. She lifted a braid in the air and waved it. She pulled it out like a horn, she did a little dance, and shook the braid again. At least I think that horn was real. I can’t testify to the reality of that horn, but I believe it to be real. I mean, I know that horn to be real although I can’t testify to the reality of it being a real horn. I mean, there wasn’t nothing that Unicorn Woman said or did to make me disbelieve the reality of that horn.

  Hush, said Mother, running water in the sink. She’ll grow up and won’t be able to tell truth from truth. You can’t know the reality of that unicorn horn and not know it’s reality at the same time. That ain’t logical in nobody’s book of logic. It ain’t inductive reasoning and it ain’t deductive reasoning. I don’t know what kinda fallacy that is, but it sounds like the fallacy of contrary propositions. It ain’t classical logic.

  I don’t know whether it a contrary fallacy or a logical proposition, say Grandmother Jaboti. It might not be classical logic, but it’s Jaboti’s logic. Ain’t it, Possum?

  Well, she’ll grow up and won’t be able to tell truth from truth. And look like she don’t know how to tell truth from truth even now.

  I don’t say nothing, ’cause I don’t know nothing about that logic. I know she ain’t meant truth from truth, though, but she didn’t correct herself and Grandmother didn’t correct her either. And maybe she did mean truth from truth? And suppose she mean truth from truth? Then how that any different from Jaboti’s logic. But truth from truth can’t be the fallacy of contrary propositions, can it? Ain’t truth and truth the same thing? What the opposite of the fallacy of contrary propositions? The fallacy of equivalent propositions?

  Tell me some more about the Unicorn Woman, I said, ’cause I ain’t know nothing about that logic. Did she follow a man anywhere to turn her human? And how come a woman got to follow a man to turn human? I start to ask, How come a woman can’t follow her ownself to turn human? I ain’t know nothing about that logic, but I know enough to know that that don’t sound logical, and that maybe they’s got a fallacy of impossibilities. Later, when I’d be reading through one of them books of Joan’s, it would say something about logical truth, and seem to distinguish logical truth from true truth, that is that something could be logically true, that is, fulfill all the requirements of classical logic, you know, them different syllogisms and still not be truly true. I ain’t sure that’s what that book on logic mean, though.

  Now she’s already human as far as I know, say Grandmother Jaboti. Just having a horn don’t mean you ain’t human. The unicorn is m
ore mythical, though, than the turtle, which is more a ordinary type and common animal, so she were more attractive to the people, especially the mens, white and colored, and especially them idealistic and romantic-type men that likes to idealize and romanticize women, you know, like Mrs. Smoot, you know, the pharmacist’s wife was saying about her husband, or that’s just her conceit about herself or her conceit about him, than the Turtle Woman or them other confabulatory women that they had at that carnival, you know, ’cause the turtle is ordinary and a common animal, and people even makes soup out of turtle. I don’t believe anyone would make soup out of a unicorn, even if it weren’t a mythical beast. They might try to corrupt its purity, like in that movie we seen, you know, but ain’t even a fool would try to make soup out of a unicorn. I wouldn’t eat turtle soup myself, though. Or turtle pies neither. Although people who considers theyselves good people eats turtle soup and turtle pies too. But you don’t make soup or pies outa unicorns. The Unicorn Woman. . . . more men would go to that Unicorn Woman’s tent than to the Bearded Lady or the Turtle Woman, and there’s even them that considered her the ideal of womanhood, like I said. And she told me that she received a note from one of them romantic gentlemen that came to see her and that kept following her from carnival to carnival and the note say that he think she the ideal of womanhood, and there ain’t many colored women that they considered the ideal of womanhood in them days, just like Cornelia said. Except the woman name Horne, that Lena Horne. They would consider her a beautiful woman by anybody’s standards, I mean anybody that’s got standards of what’s beauty, and don’t mean us all gots to look like other men’s woman. Now ain’t none of the mens told me that I’m the ideal of womanhood, though, or even that I’m especially beautiful. Being a beautician don’t means you’s got to be beautiful yourself, it just means you knows how to beautify. Now, the mens, though, they’s told me I’m a genuine woman, that is since I’ve been transformed into a genuine human woman and ain’t a turtle, genuine or ain’t, but it takes a true mythical woman to be the ideal of true womanhood, colored or ain’t. Why, even the proprietor of that first carnival she was at become obsessed with her, until he found him a woman that he thought the more ideal of womanhood than herself. Then he sold the Unicorn Woman to another carnival, ’cause he didn’t want them competing ideals of womanhood. Least I think that’s why he sold her to another carnival. The Unicorn Woman, I mean. . . . He didn’t sell me to no other carnival, on account of I ain’t no everyman’s ideal of womanhood, except my man’s, but the Unicorn Woman. . . .

  Unicorn Woman my hairbrush, said Mother. Unicorn Woman my straightening comb. Ideal of womanhood? Woman’s gotta be her own ideal of womanhood. Can’t depend on a man for it.

  Grandmother did the little dance, and shook my braid in the air, and told me again the tale of the Unicorn Woman. There’s plenty of mens crazy about her, like I said, crazy in love or in infatuation and even follow her from carnival to carnival, her being a mythical-type ideal woman, but she ain’t follow none of them. And she is still a carnival woman, except she ain’t with the same carnival, she’s got her own troupe of confabulatory-type people. She’s a free woman now, free and independent, and can’t nobody sell her, or rather sell her contract, when they decide that another confabulatory woman is their new ideal of womanhood. Now she got her own carnival troupe. I know a few fools myself that usedta follow her from one carnival to another, even since the war years, and is still following her from carnival to carnival, though now it’s her own carnival, ’cause some mens is like that, but she didn’t follow none of them men. If it’s possible for a woman to follow her ownself, it’s her. Free and independent. And’s still gots mens crazy about her. Course to be crazy about a woman don’t mean you’s in love. It can just mean you’s in infatuation, like I said, I think she were in love herself with a man they advertised as the tallest man in the world. But they’s always advertising men as the tallest man in the world, and there’s always another tallest man. But a Bearded Lady’s a Bearded Lady anywhere. And to my knowledge there’s only one authentic Unicorn Woman. And got her own carnival now. If I could transform myself back into a turtle, I could join it. But once you’s a human being, you hunger for being human. Them that don’t hunger for being superior to humanity.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  The groom held the reins of the mare, a blackish-brown beauty, graceful, delicate. A horse like that could only be a Thoroughbred. I wondered what sort of horse I’d be. I mean if people were classified like horses. Well, I guess some people do classify people like horses. When they talk about such things as breeding. Only certain kinds of people are said to have breeding. Usually rich. Usually not nonwhite. Still I often found it curious that in horses Thoroughbreds were mostly nonwhite. You didn’t see white Thoroughbreds. In the movies, sometimes the good people rode the white horses, or the wannabe good people rode them. But in the real world, the world outside horse racing, the people with breeding were mostly not nonwhite. Except in Africa itself. But somebody said that the names they have for African people in the New World are actually names of different breeds of horses or donkeys. Mulatto, for example. Some type of mule. Or like that woman I heard lecture, Joan videotaped her and made me listen to her lecture. The University of Creation Spirituality. Her name? I just remember Joan said from the University of Creation Spirituality, And she said the word ass. Said she preferred the word ass to the word donkey, because ass was a good American word, a good Anglo-Saxon word. Did she say Anglo-Saxon or just American? And fool. Her other favorite word. And Joan said those were her own two favorite words. Except that woman said, or seemed to say, that the only acceptable fool was a fool for the Lord. I don’t know if Joan considers any fool an acceptable fool. Something about native religions. Part Native American, but a Catholic nun. Mary Jose? Joan had to explain to me some of her vocabulary. “Your vocabulary’s gotten better since you met me, you know,” she says. Except ass and fool. I don’t think there’s anyone who knows the English language who don’t know the meaning of ass and fool. Anyway, Josef and I stood behind the black fence scrutinizing her.

  She looks like a winner, I said. I leaned across the fence. She gave me a fierce look, as if she were not yet broken in, but I knew she was. I’d seen her maiden race, and I had the autograph of the jockey who rode her.

  She’s top-class, said Josef. People at the Fasig-Tipton wanted me to sell her, but I won’t. Said one of their clients saw her and wanted to buy her. For breeding purposes, though, not to run any races. At least I think they said for breeding purposes; the client who wanted to buy her was kinda ambiguous. She’s a fine specimen. She’s top-class. You don’t sell a top-class horse.

  The groom holding the reins glanced at me and Josef. When Josef didn’t give the horse more praise, he praised her himself. Her maiden race she did six furloughs in one and ten. Now you know this is a good horse. Ain’t nothing ambiguous about a good horse. Top-class like Mr. Fremd say. And you don’t sell a horse like this just for breeding purposes or even ambiguous purposes. They think ’cause she’s a filly she ain’t meant to run races. They just wants her for breeding purposes or other ambiguous purposes. This horse is top-class, like Mr. Fremd say. Be a major challenger in the Derby is what I think. Did brilliant at Aqueduct and Seminole. Impressive in the Santa Anita. Anybody that anybody in the racing business say this a good horse. Ain’t nothing ambiguous about a good horse. A good horse is a good horse. All the sportswriters say that, I mean, all the sportswriters say this a good horse. I ain’t read a sportswriter that ain’t say this a good horse. I read one sportswriter, though, to lie and say we had to put them green goggles on her to keep her from being skittish on the track, but this ain’t a skittish horse. We ain’t never had to put no green goggles on this horse. He was talking about some other horse and lied and said it was this one. I don’t trust none of them media people. There was some media people going around talking to the grooms and the exercise boys, ’cause they wanted to get a view o
f horse racing that ain’t just the muckamuck’s view, the view of the racehorse owners and the trainers and the star jockeys, you know, the muckamuck’s view, so they come to the grooms and the exercise boys to get our opinion of the horse racing industry, to hear the opinion of the ordinary workingman, and I wouldn’t talk to them, ’cause I don’t trust them media people. They ain’t truthful, and especially now like the man say that they accepts hearsay and innuendo and gossip as the truth, they ain’t to be trusted, them media people. I heard one of us poets on television—maybe you seen her on television talking about the arts? The same poet that reads to the people to say that facts about a people ain’t always the same thing as the truth about them, so I guess you can say the same thing about horses. But when they say this a good horse, they’s telling the truth. Ran a big race in the Santa Anita, ain’t she, Mr. Fremd? A super race. And that was a gummy track. That was a muddy track. A good horse on a gummy track is a good horse anywhere. She got her early speed like it were her Independence Day and did near-record time. Ain’t she, Mr. Fremd? That’s when some of them Fasig-Tipton people seen her and wanted to buy her, or one of their clients wanted to buy her. Why, if I weren’t an ordinary workingman and could afford a good horse like this, I’d buy her. And I wouldn’t buy her for ambiguous purposes. But you don’t sell a horse like this just for breeding purposes. This ain’t just a top-class horse, this is a classy horse.