The Salt Eaters

by Toni Cade Bambara

  That was what Porter had been beating his gums about those last days, being invisible. He’d thought at first Porter had lost his marbles. But seems he didn’t mean invisible invisible like the old Claude Rains movie. Something stranger it turned out. Porter had been out early walking around the salina, as he called the marshes. And whom should he run into but the town character, The Hermit they called him. And for three solid days, when it wasn’t Yucca Flats ’55 and dying, it was The Hermit’s views on this and The Hermit’s views on that, and being invisible. For a hermit the guy was sure gabby, the way Porter kept going on and on about all he’d said.

  “Invisible is being not visible, Fred, not looking like the something or someone a cop is after or a trickster is expecting.”

  “Looking different from what’s expected.”

  “That and more, Fred. Like when you’re looking for a four-hole, thick blue button to sew on your jacket, the tape measure and needle pads and all that other stuff you just don’t see. You barely notice the two-hole brown buttons.”

  What did Fred know about a sewing basket. But he’d sat there in the Pit Stop chewing on the spongy bread while Porter had gone on about being invisible.

  “They call the Black man The Invisible Man. And that becomes a double joke and then a double cross then a triple funny all around. Our natures are unknowable, unseeable to them. They haven’t got the eyes for us. Course, when we look at us with their eyes, we disappear, ya know?” He ordered another cup of tea and made the waitress pull out everything in the back hunting for some honey she’d been silly enough to say she’d once seen back there when he asked. Since when did Porter drink tea and honey? Even had his own sack of loose tea. Fred had thought it was marijuana for a moment. And thought again old Porter had really lost his marbles pulling it out that way.

  “So it’s not just looking different, Fred, but being different. Your true nature invisible because you’re in some incongruous getup or in some incongruous place or the looker’s got incongruous eyes. Ya know? He’s one shrewd cookie, The Hermit. His name’s Cleotus. Fine old dude. I’m going to study with him soon’s I get on the night shift again.”

  And that had hurt Fred, hearing Porter wanted to go on nights. They’d raised sand about being put on nights all the time, cause they were colored was the reason. And almost as hurting, not being able to crack on The Hermit anymore. He’d changed status overnight from nut to wise man. But the hurtingest part was the voice, something in Porter’s voice like Wanda’s when she found “the way,” joined up with them Muslim people, talked off the wall in a voice that shut him out. All the time she was saying he should come with her to temple, should come hear this or that speaker, but something in her voice was locking him out.

  “How long you think it’ll take?” Not sure what he was asking Porter but trying to stay in.

  “Like he tells me, ‘Ain’t no graduates from the university I study at.’ ”

  “How long?” Maybe he could wait it out. Maybe it was a sometime thing. He had hoped for that before and lost. “How long does it take to learn to be invisible?”

  “Don’t know.”

  And those were the last words he’d heard out of Porter. And he still didn’t know whether it meant nobody knows, or the wise man wouldn’t say, or he, Fred, could never know, or that Porter didn’t need to know cause the question was totally beside the point, ignorant.

  “You ever been over there? Big place, lotsa doins at the Academy.”

  Fred shook his head no then yeah then bobbed his head any ole way as the old-timer nattered on and on. Well, maybe he’d go see The Hermit. Maybe the man had some answers. Fred was pretty sure he had some questions. But at the moment what he had were needs: to shower, shave, get into some fresh clothes, do the last run, get those doctors out of his hair, maybe go out on the town, catch the show at the Regal. He was smelling something bad and wasn’t sure whether it was the old man or himself. He inhaled carefully. There was throbbing in his stomach, trembling in his throat, and he didn’t have a fresh hanky. He nodded to the old man and headed back toward the Infirmary.

  seven

  Obie tried bouncing from the waist, then chinning on the bar in the doorway of the massage room. He felt a catch in his side. Tight muscles and joints, he instructed himself, contain suppressed feelings, memories, energies. He tried thinking that through, tried recalling recent entries in his journal. He was blank. He’d been using a confounding code, worried that Velma might snoop. That would never have occurred to him before.

  “The Obo!” The masseur was grabbing his face in his hands and Obie embraced him, patting his back with both hands. It never failed to trip him out, this effusive Korean from Arkansas. He owned every album his homeboy, Pharaoh Saunders, ever cut.

  “When are you going to come to my class?” He was helping Obie onto the table, wasting no time, arranging the sheet. “I want to teach you about release points. You already know about pressure points and that’s tough enough for combat. But for health—stress points, release points. Your back’s one big rock quarry, Obo.”

  “Your hands are like hammers.”

  “Hey, I’m a gentle man.” He had taken his hands away in mock offense, but wasting no gestures, rolled the kimono sleeves onto his shoulders. “Like the song says, ‘Massage is my meditation and my dance.’ ”

  “You just make that up?”

  For an answer, Obie was flattened out on the table. He felt drowsy. Chin greasy from Ahiro’s hands, his head was slipping off the table, eyes level finally with the band of pane between the window shade and the window ledge. Through the hedges, he could make out the Regal across the street, and past the parking lot, the tabby wall where the brothers sat shooting the breeze.

  “I’m not trying to slide your wedding band off, just trying to get out the knots. Relax, breathe deep.”

  But she couldn’t relax. Not Velma. Walking jags, talking jags, grabbing his arm suddenly and swirling her eyes around the room, or collapsing in the big chair, her head bent over. He’d grown afraid for her. She talked on the surface, holding him off, shutting herself off from herself too, it seemed. And at night, holding her, he felt as though he were holding on to the earth in a quake, the ground opening up, the trees toppling, the mountains crumbling, burying him. Then he’d grown afraid of her.

  “Pressure points of the human body … pressure points of the system … the U.S.… pressure. Yeh.” He heard himself drowsy, distracted. His conversations of late seemed no less than Velma’s diversions. “Points of the body … apply pressure to the system … parallel … interesting.”

  “Your enthusiasm, Obo, whelms me over. Don’t talk. Relax, listen. You remember them Euro-Americans over at the Hurdy Farm, just two hours out of the city, that new-age community, they call it? Heavy. They say Claybourne’s a major energy center, one of the chakras of this country. How you like them apples? Talk about some parallels? They’re trying to recruit Third World people. Check’m out sometime. But for now, relax. Just give me your leg, Obo. Your calf feels like a brick.”

  She was like a brick, a stone, a boulder that would not be moved. He didn’t know how to lift her; he didn’t know how to satisfy her anymore. “Give me your tongue.” And she might flick it dry, totally preoccupied, over his bottom lip, and he would suck at the tip while the blood engorged his joint. He would rub against her, trying to get her attention, and she would mumble something. But only that he get up, turn the lights on, and take the robe flung over the closet door down and shake it out. Night after night being sent to the closet or the chair to assure her there was nothing there and no one there that should not be there. And coming back toward the bed looking at her twisting in the covers or climbing on the pillows, he would stare at her opening glistening and wet, inviting, misleading. He would gather her up again, but inside she was dry and her muscles clenched before he could enter deep, clench and shut him out. “Let go, Velma,” groaning into her neck. “Don’t let go, Obie,” trembling in his arms.

&
nbsp; “The whole town’s waiting to see the parade, Obo. The smart money says you militants are planning to shoot up the town.”

  “Haven’t heard that word in a while—militant.”

  “Was that a side step?”

  Ahiro’s hands waited for about eight beats, then bore down on Obie’s shoulders, flattening him out again. An old blue Packard in the back lot of the Regal had moved and now he could see the double windows of Doc Serge’s office. Maybe Doc could help. Velma had never much cared for the man, but he’d explore that. There was the woman with the gift on staff there too. Maybe. And maybe he could spring Roland and bring him home.

  “I hope you don’t have any more appointments today.” Ahiro was helping him turn over, patting his back as though apologizing for having not solved the rock quarry problem. “You need some steam, the whirlpool. And if you want, I can get you back on the table around four-thirty. Your chest is like a granite slab.” His voice was sorrowful. “Obo, you know what you really need?”

  Something in the way his voice dropped and trailed off made Obie hold his breath then lift his head, one eye open. Was Ahiro about to offer him a joint or was he about to hit on him? Obie squinted.

  “What?”

  “A good cry, man. Good for the eyes, the sinuses, the heart. The body needs to throw off its excess salt for balance. Too little salt and wounds can’t heal. Remember Napoleon’s army? Those frogs were dropping dead from scratches because their bodies were deprived of salt. But too much—”

  Obie opened his eyes in time to see Ahiro’s hands finishing the statement, one hand flowing along a current of air, stopped by the other clenched, fisted and gnarled. And then his hands were on him again and Obie closed his eyes. Ahiro was making flat circles in Obie’s stomach with the heels of his hands, pressing then releasing. Obie felt his stomach flutter the way it had the day he’d followed Velma and lost her in the supermarket. He hadn’t known what he’d expected—a rendezvous, a visit to a fortuneteller, streaking through the streets. She’d simply gone shopping for groceries. He’d been almost disappointed. He’d hoped the new prayer partner, swami, shrink or whoever the Blood called Jamahl was, would turn out to be “it.” He would have liked something concrete to fix on.

  “You’re not listening. A good cry, man. Nobody here but you and me. Your masseur is like your doctor, priest. You know what I mean?”

  “Hey.” Obie gave him a brotherly punch on the arm. “I hear you.”

  “Well, okay then. Too much stiff upper lip is not good for the soul. You British?”

  “Naw, man.”

  “Too much face it not so good either. Next thing you know, you’re forced to fall on your sword. You from Japan?”

  “I heard you, Ahiro.”

  “Well then, are you from Macho, whatever country that is?”

  “Do your meditation and your dance, Ahiro. I’m too tired to laugh.”

  “Never be too tired to laugh, Obo.” He was working on the balls of his feet and Obie was sliding up the table, his head dropping off. Looking out the window from that angle, he could see the dome of the Regal Theatre, tarnished and spattered, but shining. He could see the underside of the Infirmary’s sun deck, the weathered planks, a nest in the crook of one of the braces.

  “Or too grown to cry, Obo.”

  Obie lifted his head. “Hey, Ahiro.”

  “What?”

  “You Black?”

  “I look Black?”

  “You sound just like my mama.”

  For a split second there when Ahiro came around the table with his arms outstretched Obie thought he was going to follow through on the mother act and gather him up in his arms. But he leaned over him, his sleeves falling in Obie’s face, and opened the window.

  “Breathe deep, really deep, and I’ll have you weeping in no time. Breathe deep. Too bad the air’s so bad in this town. But at least there’s the music.”

  The raga reggae bumpidity bing zing was pouring out all over Fred Holt from the open windows up over the Regal where elderly women freed up from girdles and strict church upbringing bumped, glided and rolled to the variation of cheft telli that the four musicians on drum, oud, finger cymbals, chekere and the pan fashioned.

  “Stomach flutters, ladies. Pant, pant, pant.” The dance teacher explained straight-faced—heel glide, pose, softened knee, stomach flutter, then dancing across the floor in veiled gathered pants and a coin bra—that orgasm exorcised demons and that these warm-up exercises were designed to strengthen the “central enthusiastic” muscles. The women tittered, hooted, blushed, or said “right on” with teeth gripping the lower lip in, depending on their hearing and their rearing and her delivery. Many much preferred the serious talks before the going across the floor part of the session, the part about temple dancing and sacred thighs and women worship and such like. They could deal with that. It was like the daydreaming of girlhood, the dreaming that drew them to the romance paperbacks, the soaps. But Miss Geula Khufu, formerly Tina Mason the seamstress’ daughter, saw to it that they dealt with it all: temples, cabarets, bedrooms.

  “Don’t cheat the body, don’t cheat the spirit, ladies. Do the whole movement,” she was saying, singling out the three Black women and whispering, “Remember?” and then weaving her way through the group to say to the Lebanese and Greek women, “Remember?” and then confronting the one proffesional dancer in the group, a Pakistani—“Remember?” Her veil sliding off the shoulders of the other women as if to say she was not ignoring them; their roots in the sacred, their roots in the pelvic movements were different that’s all. She touched a hip here, a knee there, correcting, coaxing, not that she expected much from most of them, they were not ancient women after all. And the one little Chinese woman who was, welllll there’d been no strong African presence in China, just a visit long ago in a golden boat with giraffes and gold and spices, a quick hello. When she was sure that no one was chafing for being ignored, she returned to the Black women, the other ancient women, arched her brows sharply, triple-timed with the brass zils, her hands, fingers snaking over her head, and mouthed the word again. “Remember?” It was all right with everyone else. The woman was a mental case. But the classes were fun and Geula was a welcomed madness.

  “Follow me, ladies, and breathe like you mean it,” leading the serpentine procession past the windows front, side and back, kicking them open more widely with a flexed foot. “Shake it like you mean it, shake a wicked ass, ladies. Shake them moneymakers, ladies.” “Ladies” was always delivered with a tincture of iodine. She’d started out with “bitches,” then “witches,” which was just too much, too much. Sometimes to puff them up on rainy days she’d say “goddesses” or “queens.” That always sent the drummer right off. The women had finally sat Miss Geula down and exercised their democratic rights. There were eight votes for “ladies” and six for “goddesses.” Five held out for “sisters” and were lobbying all the time.

  The pan man in dreadlocks and knitted cap aimed his mallets straight for the Academy windows, his contribution to the new community germinating there. He’d been known to use the word “postule” when referring to the way the teachers there were steady realigning cultural and political loyalties, breeding new people. But the ladies, some of them, blanched at the word and drifted away to chew on their carrot sticks and wait for the break to end. Then he started using “seed,” which disturbed some, but excited others he noticed. Nowadays he said “enzyme” and grew to like it. It was scientific sounding, slightly mysterious, was, finally, exactly the term he’d been after to explain the work of the Academy in this moment in time in human history. Pan Man squinted, trying to make out the shapes, movements, faces even of the forms in the window across the street. It was the best place he’d found in all the seven years he’d spent in the States trying to educate people about the meaning of the pan, the wisdom of the pan. He bent low over his oil drum and played like a man possessed.

  The music drifted out over the trees toward the Infirmary, maqaam now
blending with the bebop of Minnie Ransom’s tapes. Minnie’s hand was before her face miming “talk, talk” graceful arcs from the wrist as though she were spinning silk straight from her mouth. The music pressing against the shawl draped round Velma, pressing through it against her skin, and Velma trying to break free of her skin to flow with it, trying to lift, to sing with it. And she did lift and was up under a sloping roof eavesdropping on herself and Jamahl in the orgone box under a pyramid and not believing a word of it, not going for one bullshit line of it, but listening to the instructions that would ease the knots. “Submit. Don’t be so damned stubborn, Velma,” groaning under the needle in her mind. And not resisting it, only him. She was not a fool. A jive nigger in a loincloth and a swami turban was a jive nigger whatever the case. Up in her perch so like the talking room of childhood, peering through the floorboards and eavesdropping on the people below. Up in the air under the roof, later, watching herself and James locked in a struggle that depleted and strangely renewed at the same time. And she leaned down to lift the needle, to yank the arm away, to pull apart the machinery in favor of her own voice. She would sing. Minnie would spin and she would sing and it would be silk. But when she opened her mouth out came fire. And she was a dragon hovering over the room, flicking her golden smoking tail against the attic walls, the outstretched wings scaly and iridescent, the crimson eyes, the open jaws of blue smoke and orange flame, clawing at the planks of the floor, plunging through loose fill and plaster and wood and air and carpet and wood and loose fill and cement and clay and dirt and down down into a drum.

  She had gone to the marshes once. It hadn’t been a decision or even a thought. In retrospect, hugging herself inside the shawl, it hadn’t even been an act. One minute she was arguing with her prayer partner, Jamahl, whose so-called solutions to the so-called problem always lay in somebody else’s culture: Tai Chi, TM, Reichian therapy, yoga. She argued that the truth was in one’s own people and the key was to be centered in the best of one’s own traditions. She could have gone on all night. But then she felt it again, surrounded, flashes of pictures, scatterings of sounds. As though she had the stereo headset on ears and eyes and was thoroughly into the whatever it was. The next minute she was at the marshes.