Aaron grinned quickly at Jenson’s guttural laughter, which carried over the cup into the compound, which stopped when Jenson took a tasting swallow, smacked his lips, and gulped down the drink, but which started again when he handed the cup back to his father, who filled it again and laughed without sound and kept laughing, without sound, as the paper cup passed back and forth between them several times, but only Jenson could be heard.
Aaron grinned, also, when he caught himself hunched over on the bench, peering through the wire links of the fence like a monkey watching the spectators at a zoo, but he was so embarrassed—for Jenson was his buddy and there could be no critical staring—that he avoided Dominic’s eyes, and sat back, and started watching the other visitors again, and quit grinning altogether.
But the sun got hot, the waiting tiresome, and as the arriving visitors thinned to a trickle they began to look more and more alike; and his eyes began to drift back toward the Buzzer, toward his homely mother, his skinny father in his old-fashioned black suit, his flashy, zoot-suited brother; and he began to believe that the Buzzer had chosen that spot in front of the compound just to show off a visit and irritate him.
Yet, when Dominic announced that he was going inside and read the Sunday papers and waited for a reply, Aaron didn’t answer and didn’t move. For the thought of Barneyway lying inside on his bed, where there weren’t even any visitors to offer a distraction from him, was more unwelcome than the presence of the Buzzer, who could also be hated. And Dominic gave a tired sigh and continued to sit, sleepy-eyed, upon the bench. And Aaron, screened by the fence and warmed by the sun, felt a drowsy melancholy settle, gradually, over him, too.
The squawk of the loud-speaker became distant and lonely, and the figures on the lawn took on the appearance of cutouts. He found that if he allowed his imagination to drift into fantasies in which the arriving visitors were coming to see him, the happiness of the greeting helped him to forget the presence of the Buzzer before him. But he discovered that this only worked if he concentrated upon his own feelings and thought of how happy he, himself, acted. For when he tried to imagine how his visitors would act, he only saw strangers through a wire fence and, immediately after, the Buzzer and his family, too, and, then, he had to wait for new visitors to pass by before he could make the attempt again.
A plump girl, in the crisp folds of a blue summer dress, who was drifting slowly into his fence-obstructed view, gave him a chance to pretend he was getting a visit from a girl. Then he pretended it was Judith and tried to picture himself embracing her, without really looking at her so as not to ruin his daydream. But her blond hair and straight legs looked familiar, and he sat up and, cupping his right eye with a fence link, tried to make out the girl’s features and quiet the hope that fluttered in him.
But she walked with her head down, leaning slightly forward, one arm cradling a purse below her breast, the other drooping into the wide skirt as if the long walk from the main gate had tired her; and it wasn’t until she looked up at the office and he saw the fine tip of her nose, as sharp as a pointing finger, and the delicate chin, nearly lost in plump flesh, that he called to her.
“Judith! Over here!”
Her features flattened as she turned from profile to full face, searching for him, and gave him such an immensely different impression of her that he had an unhappy intuition of disappointment, which became stronger as she walked toward him, with her head tilted, still unsure, although she grabbed impulsively at his fingers and hooked them in hers when she reached the fence.
“Go to the office,” he said. “I can’t leave the compound until they call my name.”
She withdrew her fingers in a slow protest at his solemn greeting, but there was no question in the calm acceptance of her blue eyes, and she turned and walked away, without answering, but with a determined step and speed so out of character with her small size it pained him.
“She’s pretty. She looks like a sweet chick, too,” Dominic said.
Aaron nodded, but the compliment only heightened his sense of a contradiction in her features, and he kept her in sight, trying to detect something attractive about her figure, until she disappeared behind the screen door.
“Thanks,” he replied after the door had closed, but kept it framed by a fence link, unwilling to consider anything but the unexpected and strangely saddening visit, waiting for her to reappear again.
“That’s the kind of a girl to have. Most of these guys have broads that look like lays. I can see you don’t go for flashy chicks.”
“She’s not my girl,” Aaron said and, resenting the insinuation, he risked a glance over his shoulder at Dominic, but quickly framed the door in the link again, then, ashamed of his ingratitude, added, “But I like her a lot.”
“You’d better make her your girl then,” Dominic said in a voice so compelling that Aaron turned, truly astonished, and Dominic stepped to the fence and continued in a clipped tone:
“She only wears enough lipstick to pink her mouth. Don’t wear no tight sex clothes either. That’s a lot, man. She sure don’t look like no bitch to me. Hold onto that girl, man. I wish I had one like her.”
The static of the speaker gave Aaron an excuse not to answer, for no words could repay such a high compliment from Dominic; and his own feelings about the compliment were too mixed and confused to permit an honest reply, even thanks, so he tapped Dominic’s stomach and started toward the gate before his name was announced, flattered, but also resentful over being told what to do.
Still, the compliment gave him a buoyant step, and he glanced through the gate with unconcealed conceit at the Buzzer, who, unhappily, didn’t notice him, then increased his speed and walked with a still lighter step the closer he got to the office, where she waited for him, and where her appearance seemed all out of proportion to the neighborhood girl he had known and to the girl he had just seen in such a critical light.
He recognized the pale freckles scattered over her nose, but her hair curled into a page-boy on her shoulders, which disconcerted him, for it made her seem older and prettier; and he wondered if her beauty was caused by jail or Dominic’s compliment or both, then discounted it to prevent more disappointment.
He did return her smile and he did take her hand when she held it out, but he didn’t hold it too tightly for fear its warmth would have an effect on him, and he was tempted to touch the freckles and put his finger on a flaw he was certain of and, therefore, couldn’t possibly hurt him.
Her voice had a tremor in it, too, which he tried to blame on his own nervousness and, thereby, deny the emotion it caused in him; and he became angry at Dominic for influencing him when they began to stroll along the road and he noticed that her breasts were larger, for he was sure two months could not make such a difference.
But a single glance at the small double chin, which propped up the fragile point of her real chin, was so vivid and so familiar, such proof that he wasn’t imagining or exaggerating the appearance of her features, or their beauty, he became self-conscious about how he must look to others.
He saw himself, unhappily, as a thin black-haired boy in reform school dungarees, shorter than this pretty girl by an inch or two, yet her boyfriend to anyone who might notice, and, embarrassed, he saw that she was embarrassed, too, and he feared for the same reason. For they walked along the road like sweethearts when they were only good friends, and he almost let go of her hand but discovered a private space on the lawn and led her quickly to it.
The wide skirt of her dress belled over her tucked legs. She waited for him to speak as if she could sense the strain he was under. He plucked at the strands of grass that formed the shadowed outline of his crossed legs, getting a secret if slight satisfaction from his polished brogans and his clean gray socks, but so thoroughly confused he couldn’t think of anything to say. For Dominic’s compliment had undermined his critical view of her and made him vulnerable to her. And she would sit on the lawn before him for only a short time, and the small imprint she
would leave on the grass would ripple quickly out of existence, and he hated the Buzzer with all the suffering that was in him for an intense moment.
He snapped the moment with a strand of grass. He bit on the strand. He ground it between his teeth. He sucked the bitter juice and tasted it as he asked:
“How’s your mother? She let you come, huh?”
The color which glowed in Judith’s cheeks pleased him as much as it hurt him, for it confirmed his expectations and guaranteed that they would not become too inflated.
“No?”
“I didn’t tell her,” she said. “You know how she is, Aaron.”
“Do I!” he said, smirking, swallowing the grass juice, unable to forget the haughty greetings given the Spanish boy in the black drapes who dared to visit her daughter, by the handsome woman with the sharp features and the severe gray bun at the back of her head, and he added, trying to make a joke out of it:
“My name’s a bad word at your house, huh?”
“Oh, it’s not that bad, Aaron,” Judith said, laying plump fingers on his hand.
“I told you in my letter that she went on one of her binges when she found out about my hiding the candy in the drain pipe at the detention home. She kept saying I was lucky the police hadn’t picked me up and put me there, too. Then she said the whole neighborhood was talking about me and you, and that I’d not only ruin my reputation but drag her down, too, and if I didn’t behave, she’d put me in the detention home herself. She got so carried away she had a drink and then started drinking and got so drunk I had to stay home from school for two days to take care of her. And now she’s so ashamed of that she hasn’t said anything at all about you. So it’s not bad, but I can’t bring it up now. I’ll have to wait for the right chance.”
“I don’t blame her though,” he said, awkwardly, but honestly, for his own family had stopped him from writing to a buddy who had been committed to Youth Authority, and he added and meant it: “I wouldn’t want my daughter seeing some guy in a reform school.”
“I blame her. But she’ll come around as soon as she sees I really mean it and I can convince her that it was silly to send you away just because you got in a fight.”
“Get her permission before you come again, huh?” he said, passing over the present but unspoken fact that his very first arrest had been for fighting over her, Judith. But his reasons included more than respect for a mother. He wanted to enjoy a visit that was really his. Whispered shouts through the yard cage at the DT were no fun, and the fear of withdrawal that plagued this visit kept him from believing in it and aggravated instead of soothed his deep resentment toward the Buzzer.
“Okay,” she said, her bust rising with relief and reaching, he believed, a remarkable size. “I promise. But what about you? Be real good, Aaron, so they’ll let you come home quick.”
“I’m trying to. I want to. But there’s guys here that bother you,” he said and stared down the sloping hill, searching for his enemy, and saw Mrs. Wiley waving her Bible over her head, and could distinguish her hoarse voice from the crowd’s chatter, but couldn’t see the Buzzer.
“Ignore them. You’re smart enough. You’ve never let anybody lead you around, Aaron, or shove you around either.”
“Nobody’s shoving me around,” he said, and found himself looking for the Buzzer again, and added, defensively: “Barneyway’s here, too, you know.”
“How’s he? He’s not hurt, is he?” she asked, her features puckering with concern, seeming to gather into the point of her nose, and he lied quickly:
“No!”
But he lied because of her worry and because the subject of the Buzzer could ruin his visit, and he purposely turned his back to the redwood bench.
“No, he’s okay,” he said, but her face grew piquant with disbelief, and he could see a question taking shape upon it, and he tore a handful of grass from the lawn and flicked the fluttering strands at her, whining: “Okayyyyy, little mother. Okayyyy. Okayyyyy.”
She fell back, startled by his change of mood, then wiped the strands from her face and threw them at him. But they fell in his lap and she ripped some from the lawn and rubbed them in his face.
He ducked his head but let her do it, then grabbed her wrists, forced her hands back, and struggled with her to control them. He struggled with her until the seesawing tension of their arms brought his eyes into direct focus with the plain blue of hers, then held her wrists taut but motionless for one utterly simple moment, a moment in which he was conscious of her direct gaze, of the blond glint of her lashes and nothing more, then held onto her wrists to perpetuate that moment, held onto them as the moment began to dissipate with a commotion from behind him, held onto them as the moment gave way to dread, until the blue of her eyes quickened with curiosity and wavered toward the commotion, then dropped her wrists as the moment vanished, and turned around, guessing that the Buzzer was somehow involved, tasting the bitter grass, hating Mrs. Wiley with all his disappointment as soon as he saw her pacing the lawn with nimble steps, flapping her sleeves like a gigantic crow, dragging the Buzzer, who was trying to stop her by hanging onto the tail of her coat, and shouting in a croaking voice:
“Amen, amen, amen. Listen to thuh Word o’ thee Lord. A-a-a-a-a-men! Amen, amen, amen!”
The sight sparked like flint in his brain and the angry twist of his trunk tightened with excitement, and he jumped to his feet, and, trying to see better, took one step, then another and another, until he was several feet away from Judith before he remembered her and called to her, but he couldn’t wait for her, and he began to drift toward the joyous spectacle of a humiliated Buzzer, with his excitement growing into malicious proportions within him.
“Don’t, Mama, don’t,” the Buzzer pleaded.
“Shame! Shame!” she said and slapped his hand down, ruffled her Bible’s pages, and darted about on her stem-thin legs.
“Shame! Shame! That what wrong with all these peoples here. They ’shamed o’ thee Lord’s Word. Listen to thuh teechin’ o’ men instead o’ Jesus. We all in trouble here, muthas an’ fathas an’ sons, ’cause we payin’ heed to mens instead o’ Jesus. What wrong with us is we doin’ what the man say not Jesus. What wrong with us is men. Men, men, men, me—ennnnnnnnnn!”
“Mama! Mama!” the Buzzer cried, and reaching out to her with one arm and reaching back to his father for help with the other, he looked as if he were being ripped apart between them.
But Mr. Wiley only opened his hands and showed his palms, and the Buzzer’s brother started edging away, his bright suit clashing with a clump of bushes behind him; and Aaron grabbed Judith’s hand to hurry her, afraid the growing circle of visitors around the Buzzer would become too thick for a good view, for the flap of Mrs. Wiley’s sleeves and her raucous voice carried over the lawn, over the heads of all the now standing visitors and those who drifted in slow but increasing numbers toward her.
“Men! Men! Men put you boy here, mutha!” Mrs. Wiley said and stabbed her fingers at Mrs. Jenson, who curtained her lowered face with her straight hair.
“Men put both ah boys here, mutha. Both!” Mrs. Wiley said and thumbed the pages of her Bible, opened it, scanned its pages, but clapped it closed and, arms spread like great wings, began turning in a slow circle.
“Until mans who run thuh world take thuh Word o’ thee gentle Jesus to heart an’ beat their swor-ords into plowshares, an’ stop this fightin’ an’ killin’ an’ sinnin’ an’ beatin’ on each utha, thuh jails be full o’ ah boys. Listen peoples, white folks, too. Listin! Listin! to thuh Word o’ thee gentle Jesus. Amen, amen, amen, amen. Listen to what I say-yinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!”
The circle of people around her flapping preaching figure became so dense and Judith was such a hindrance to Aaron, who didn’t want to miss anything, he quit trying to make his way through it, and stood on tiptoe to see better, aided by the downward slant of the hill. He hoped Mrs. Wiley would put on a spectacle so wild that the Buzzer would be humiliated forever, and he tried to de
ny the pity he felt when he saw the anguished edge of the Buzzer’s teeth and the late but consoling touch of Mr. Wiley.
But the Buzzer spun savagely around, ready to attack his father; and Aaron rejoiced when Mr. Wiley stepped quickly back, limp-wristed, taking the crowd’s attention with him, and Mrs. Wiley turned and shouted:
“See? See, muthas? See what ah mean? See my boy ready to strike his fatha? An’ his fatha ready to strike him? See? Man agin’ man. Fatha agin’ son. Hate in thuh fam-ly. Evvurry-bawdy full o’ sin. Sin, sin, sin, sin ev-vurry-where. Owwa time sinful as So-dummmmm, ’cause no-bawdy heedin’ thuh Word o’ thee Lord Jeeeeeeeesus!
“Jeeeeeeeeeesus!” she repeated with squinting eyes, purple gums, and a row of big yellow teeth, and a chuckle rumbled over the crowd, and Aaron squeezed Judith’s hand and she pinched him with glee, and Mr. Jenson stood and taunted:
“Tell us all about it, muthaaaaa!” and his big face swelled with silent laughter.
“Ah will! Ah will! White man!” Mrs. Wiley said, slapping her Bible. “White folk drunk an’ foolish, laugh at uh wooman full o’ thee Jesus, laugh at gentle Jesus an’ wooman, thuh only peoples who partake o’ Him.”
“You big, gentle woooooman, give us thuh Word,” Mr. Jenson said and laughed until his belly shook but made no sound, although the crowd’s laughter was loud; and Aaron laughed the loudest, both from amusement and to hide from himself his own special motives and the truth he heard in her sermon.
Tattoo the Wicked Cross Page 13