When Henry went to Red Cavern, Jeremiah told him not to worry, he would hold the fort. They called each other sir, shook hands while gripping each other’s arms, and patted each other brusquely on the back. It was as close to a hug as they could get.
Although a long line of men stood above Jeremiah in the running of plant, he didn’t trust them. For those two weeks, he appointed himself plant watchdog and special guardian to Louise. This was a difficult task because of the unspoken, unwritten rule that blacks had to stay at the back of the plant. He made excuses to tour the factory in a forklift, careful to stay on the circumference, and once he even cleaned the railroad, so he could keep an eye on Dopey, who was likely to fall into the slitter and ruin Southern Board’s safety record. Whenever possible, he requested an extra hand on the bailer, certain that Raymond Patch would send me.
Once, I had asked Henry why the blacks worked at the back of the plant. He was driving us home from church, nosing the Buick LeSabre around a hairpin curve on Mount Zion. He slowed down to see if there were any new dents on the guardrail. Florida commented that the county needed to get out here and cut back the kudzu.
“Look at that,” Henry said, slowing down in front of a broken mailbox. Those rednecks knocked that sucker right over last night. Now why on earth anybody would get a kick out of driving by with a stick and hitting mailboxes is beyond me.”
“Henry,” said Florida. “She asked you a question.”
“I’m listening. Look! There’s another one. The good ole boys had a real time up here last night.”
“They make a dollar less an hour,” I said. “All the machines at the back of the plant pay a dollar less an hour.”
“That’s just circumstance, honey. There’s no discrimination in it. Each machine requires a different level of skill, and the work pays accordingly.”
“Your father is prejudiced,” Florida explained.
A hundred yards from our driveway, he scowled and pulled the car over to the side of the road.
“Dad, please don’t.”
“You can’t stop him,” said Florida. She pulled the KEEP AMERICA CLEAN sack from under her seat and handed it to him. “Get out and help him,” she said, so I tripped along in the weeds in my high heels, holding the sack open while he filled it with empty beer cans.
“Can you imagine the mentality of a person who just drives along and throws a beer can out the window?” he asked when we were back in the car.
“Joy riding,” Florida said grimly.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON at Smartt’s Gas Station, T. C. bought a six-pack of Miller for himself, a six-pack of Heineken for me, and a bag of popcorn. “Maybe I’ll take you to the movies sometime,” he said.
I could hear Drew saying “Oh thrill me,” but I was thrilled.
T. C. wore black sunglasses and looked slightly dangerous, wheeling the Monte Carlo along back roads. I popped a Kenny Rogers tape into his stereo, unleashed my ponytail, and drank with abandon. Each time I finished a beer, I hung out the window and sailed a bottle through the air.
LATELY AT WORK, Dopey had been singing “Good Hearted Woman.” As I threw boxes into the screaming mouth of the bailer, I sang with him.
In my mind, I lived out the seductive tragedy of my life with T. C. Curtis. It had all the appeal of suicide, but it was better because I would be alive to see the looks of shock and regret. I did not mourn the deaths of Daddy-Go and Grandmother Deleuth, not the way I mourned Roderick’s death, but they altered my world. If my mind were a house, their deaths were like the removal of two large pieces of furniture. I continually stumbled into these blank spaces. It was unsettling. Where were they? At night, I wandered from room to room in Owl Aerie, feeling the silent space all around me.
Every evening, promptly at 5:00 p.m., Henry and Florida called. They passed the phone back and forth to each other, asking me the same questions: Did I have enough to eat? Did I remember to lock the doors and turn on the alarm? Was I lonely? I wasn’t smoking in bed, was I? Was I getting to work on time? It was difficult to be late to work since Florida gave me a quick wake-up call at 6:00 a.m. on weekdays, but I managed a few times. On those days, Raymond Patch would step out of his office, wheezing, and watch me punch my time card. From the look on his face, it was clear that a woman could not do a man’s job.
In the back of the plant, Jeremiah loomed like the shadow of Henry, bigger, darker, silent. Then, one day, he called me outside. We stood on a ramp, blinking in the strong sunlight. I had to shield my eyes to look up at him when he spoke.
“You ever seen a cat catch a rat?” he asked. On most men, the suit wears the man, but Jeremiah definitely wore his suit. Although he was a big man, he moved with the grace of a dancer; even his voice was a movement that seemed to throw off the cheap, pressed cloth. There in the sun on the hot metal ramp, he was present. He was himself, open and unafraid. He looked me in the eye. I looked at his polished black shoes.
“Never seen a cat catch a rat!” he cried. “Where you been?”
“Working,” I said.
“Uh-huh.” He broke a stem from a tall weed growing on the wall and chewed the tip. “Well, it goes like this: The ole cat smells him a rat and gets up real close, sniffing around. Then he starts playing with that ole rat. Course, he don’t eat it right off. Naw, he jus’ plays with it, chasing it into this corner, that corner yonder. He runs that ole rat back and forth, teasing it, see, until the varmit don’t know backwards from forwards. Then you know what happens?”
I shook my head. How could he be this way, so plainly himself and unafraid? Like a king, a real one. It seemed almost rude. I glanced through the darkened doorway, into the humming green fog of the plant.
“Then he eats it,” said Jeremiah.
“The cat eats the rat.”
“Yes, indeed!”
Still squinting in the sunlight, I looked up at his gray temples. He had six children, and one who had died. He had a curtain over no window. I couldn’t do that. I’d have to push the cloth back every day and touch the wall. I felt like an ole rat, scrambling for a way to outsmart him.
“What if I’m the cat?” I said. He chewed on his weed, considering this. Finally, he said, “Well, wouldn’t that be something,” and walked away.
NO ONE BELIEVED that I would actually bring T. C. to the house. The first time I invited him, he said, “Wear your bikini,” and stood me up.
I cried. At work the next day, he told me he was sorry, his aunt had to use the car. He lost my number.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he said at the water fountain, standing so close that the toes of our boots touched.
“How about tonight?” I said.
That evening, as the red sun fell behind the pines, I hid behind a Chinese vase in the living-room window, watching the Monte Carlo curve around Owl Aerie’s long driveway. The shiny black car looked evil parked beneath Roderick’s old basketball goal. Slowly, the door opened. T. C. stepped out, swigging a fifth of tequila. For a few moments, he stood spraddle-legged beside his car holding the bottle in one hand, a flower in the other.
I was worried that he wouldn’t be able to find the front door. Henry insisted that my dates come to the front door. Owl Aerie had seven doors to the outside, so Florida had helpfully made signs out of driftwood: front door, with appropriate arrows. The one boy who had sallied up Mount Zion and followed this maze had never returned. He was a skinny kid with blue skin and red hair, famous for wearing a bucket around his neck so he wouldn’t throw up on people at parties. When he finally landed at the front door, Florida said, “You look just like my son,” and began to cry.
I let T. C. ring the doorbell twice. As soon as I opened it, he swooped down and stuck his tongue in my mouth. He reeked of tequila and aftershave, but the biggest disappointment was his outfit. Instead of the faded Levis and white T-shirt he wore to the plant, with a pack of Marlboro Reds rolled up in one sleeve, he had dressed up in a pair of jeans with an elastic waistband, and a two-tone terry-cloth shirt. I smiled a
nd took the rose he offered, which was wrapped in green tissue with a pink ribbon.
“I was going to get you a dozen,” he explained, “but I thought one would be more romantic.” He bent down to kiss me again, but I slipped through his arms.
“Would you like some champagne?” I offered. The Pepperses were not in the habit of drinking champagne, but I felt obligated to keep up appearances for my coworkers at Southern Board. I would have worn a tiara if I could have gotten my hands on one. The best I could do was a pair of diamond drop earrings, with a matching choker and bracelet, that I’d picked up Kmart that afternoon. Since it was my house, I was barefoot.
“You’re beautiful,” T. C. said, reaching for my breast. Dodging, I suggested he accompany me into the living room for a cocktail, but he followed me right into the kitchen. When I stood on a chair to get the sorbet glasses, the closest thing we had to champagne glasses, he grabbed my butt. He took the glasses out of my hands and smashed me against his chest. “Let’s dance,” he said.
We staggered around the kitchen, stepping all over each other’s feet. Then he whispered in my ear, “I want to eat your pussy.”
I punched him in the gut.
“Sorry.” He held up his hands as if he were being arrested then pushed them in his pockets. “Am I going too fast?” He stumbled, regained his balance. “I had a couple of beers before I came.” He lit a cigarette for himself and one for me. “I’m sorry I molested you. I guess I got carried away.” He looked at my dress. “You are sexy, though.” His hand reached between my legs, and I hit him again.
“Stop it!” I yelled.
“I’m sorry. Excuse me. Are those diamonds fake or real?”
“These are zircons,” I said with dignity.
In the dining room, he glanced over at the life-sized portrait Florida had done of Roderick. In the painting, Roderick looked like his corpse in the casket. Technically, that was his mouth, his nose, his forehead, but his eyes were hollow and dead.
“That’s my brother.” For a moment we looked at each other like actors who have forgotten their lines. T. C. breathed heavily, like an old man. I realized that I had made a mistake. I had invented a man; T. C. was not him.
“Do you know how to grill steaks?”
“Yep.” He examined the bottle of Moët & Chandon I had set in a plastic bucket of ice. He fingered the steak tongs I had laid on a white linen napkin beside the bucket. Then he filled my sorbet dishes with tequila.
LEANING AGAINST THE deck railing, I shook salt onto the web of skin between my thumb and forefinger, licked it, took a sip of tequila, winced, and bit into a lime.
“Let me try that.” T. C. was across the deck before I could turn my head, licking first my hand, then my neck. “What’s the matter?” He was pushing his hand between my legs. Without waiting for an answer, he swept one arm behind by back, underneath my jacket, and unfastened my bra. It had taken my other date four tries to get my bra off, and then he was so embarrassed trying to fold it that we didn’t go any further. T. C. snapped it off like a piece of tape. This bra was called the Mary Jane, white with pink rosebuds. In his hand it looked ridiculous.
“You’re going too fast.” I pushed at his chest, but he pressed himself tighter against me, until his wang poked into my leg. It felt like another hand, a baby’s fist.
In my ear, he whispered, “I’m going to rape you.”
All around us the kudzu and the vines in the trees formed a green fence, a green ceiling. The last little poke of sun in the sky shot through the leaves in a green light—like the light at the plant. It was hard to breathe. A few katydids said, “Katie did,” once or twice, like musicians tuning their guitars. I tried to go limp. I had read in a magazine that a man can’t rape a woman if she relaxes all of her muscles, but I couldn’t relax a single one. He had my jeans unzipped and was trying to stuff his hand inside them when I bit him.
“Shit!” he cried. “What the hell?”
“You can’t rape me,” I said in a high, strained voice, backing away until the smoking grill was between us. I saw Florida’s ashen face the first time she looked at the photo of the burned-out farmhouse in Red Cavern. “My home,” she said, touching the photograph. “My home is gone.” And Henry at the grill, back turned to us. No one else had ever touched the grill. “This place is wired all over with alarms.” I tried to make my words sound official. “All I have to do is push a button, and the police will come.”
T. C. scratched his neck. Then he ambled over to the grill and flipped the steaks. “S-7 security system. The main box is buried by the bird feeder. I installed it myself, two years ago. It’s the kind that ain’t connected to the police station.” He salted the meat. “And y’all’s neighbor is out fishing with my cousin Charlie. I loaned him my pole, as a matter of fact.”
“You’re lying.” I took another step away from him.
“You scared of me?” He put on the cow-shaped grill glove I had given Henry last Christmas and said, “Moo.” Then he made the sound of an alarm, “Whooee, whooee.” He thought this was very funny. I considered darting past him, into the house to call the police, but I had invited him to Owl Aerie. He was my guest. The only thing to do was make him uncomfortable; then maybe he would go away on his own.
I corrected my posture, smiled icily, and said, “Come into the dining room and have a seat.” I set his place at one end of the long table, and mine at the other. All around the china plates I laid rows of silverware, including salt spoons. From the back of a cabinet, I produced two saucers and filled each one with warm water and a sprig of mint.
“These are finger bowls,” I said airily. I searched for an intimidating word. “They were handcrafted by the Ungulates in Indonesia.”
Swigging from his tequila bottle, he watched me with bleary eyes.
“Why do we have to sit so far apart?” he asked finally, moving his plate next to mine. “I want to sit next to you.” As soon as I sat down and picked up my fork he put his hand between my thighs. I decided not to react.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I’m going to eat you,” he said. I handed him the champagne to distract him and made a haughty face while he fumbled with the corkscrew.
“You unscrew it. Think you can do that?”
“You’re a funny woman. You’re—different. Not in a bad way. I guess that’s why everybody calls you Experiment. They call me Tiger. That’s what the T stands for.”
“I thought it was Theodore.”
“No, it’s Tiger.” He growled.
When the cork popped and the champagne bubbled through his nicotine-stained fingers, we laughed. The champagne seemed to cancel out the tequila, and everything else in my head. T. C. began to look attractive with his thick legs spread on the Queen Anne chair, his hair mussed and curly, one big paw around the sorbet dish, lips wet with wine.
“You can’t rape me if I want to make love to you,” I said. “It’s my idea, too. I invited you over.” When I leaned over to kiss him, he touched my nipples through my shirt and said, “Let’s go over to the couch for a minute.”
On the couch, the white curve of my breast surfaced like a fish in his hand. My legs seemed to spread by themselves. Oh, I thought, this is sex. I hadn’t expected it to feel natural. When he kissed me, I didn’t taste spit; I tasted champagne and then nothing; all my senses merged together into a single, heady craving. I put my hand on his knee, daring myself to touch his zipper.
On the count of ten, I was going to touch his zipper, but on three he pulled me beneath him so fast I lost count. “I’m going to eat your pussy,” he said again, and I went cold. That was a rude thing to say. I wanted him to say something personal: You have the most intriguing eyes. But he probably didn’t know that word. I noted that he hadn’t told me I was beautiful since he gave me the rose. What if he didn’t think I was pretty? He hardly looked at my Mary Jane panties before he jerked them down to my ankles.
“You’ll like it,” he argued, when I kicked him in the c
hest. “All the ladies say I eat pussy good. I can make you come. I ain’t lying. It’s the truth. You’ll go wild.” He laughed all to himself.
“Gross.” Yanking my panties up, I slid into the corner of the couch. We were both panting, and I could still feel the wet spot his lips had left on my labia. “You can sit on the couch. Just don’t lick me.”
He sighed and lit a cigarette. “You don’t have to sit all the way over there. I ain’t gonna bite ya. And I ain’t gonna lick.” Then he grinned. “I swear, you’d like it. Women love that. You never had a man go down on you before?”
“I haven’t even had regular sex yet.”
“Shit.” Drawing on his cigarette, he looked out the window. “What am I doing here?” He rubbed his head, and suddenly I was afraid I had lost his interest.
Florida had told me to encourage boys to talk about themselves, explaining that in some mysterious way this would make them find me interesting. I focused my attention on T. C. What would he like to talk about? I didn’t know much about his life, except what I had read on his employee record, which I had pulled while filing papers in Mr. Patch’s office. For some reason, the file contained his testimony in a divorce suit. Reading them, I was fascinated by his spelling: “Shee dont lik my skedule but she liks my kash i tole her i wuz triing.”
“So, what’s it like to be married?” I asked, crossing my legs as I lit a cigarette.
“We’re separated.” He had his hands flat on his thighs and didn’t move them except to pick up his drink. He drank, then added, “It’s hard work.”
The School of Beauty and Charm Page 15