Genevieve

by Eric Jerome Dickey

  SIXTEEN

  “WOMAN, LAST TIME TELLING YOU,” JIMMY LEE SNAPS. “YOU BETTER respect me.”

  Velma shrieks, “What is your damn problem, Jimmy Lee?”

  “Bad enough you keep disrespecting me in front of my kids, Velma, but I ain’t gonna have you stand over my momma’s grave telling lies and down-talking to me any kinna way.”

  The Reverend steps in, tries to calm the masses to no avail. Old people stare, shaking their heads, letting fools be fools. Bubba Smith keeps to himself, as people do when domestic issues rise. I head out not knowing what to do, knowing that I am only an observer.

  Velma holds her mouth. “You hit me in front of everybody… how could you?”

  “Watch your mouth. Done had enough of you back-talking me in front of my kids.”

  Genevieve heads toward them, then stops. She is out of place, no longer of this world. I stand by her, my fingers on her shoulder. S raises her hand to mine, her grip tight and strong.

  I ask, “Should I help… something?”

  “No. Leave them alone.”

  Jimmy Lee and Velma stand on the other side of the fence, yelling at each other. Velma is holding her mouth. Six children cry like a choir of pain.

  So many people are yelling their names, but there is too much I crying from the distraught symphony of traumatized children for anyone to hear anything but ear-piercing pandemonium.

  Velma pulls off a three-inch heel and hurls it at Jimmy Lee. ft misses. Then she takes off her other shoe and slings it hard. Misses again. Hits a tombstone. Jimmy Lee adjusts his polka-dot tie and stands his ground like he wishes one of those shoes had dirtied his yellow suit.

  Reverend tries to intervene, Bible raised. It does not help. He does not get too close. He is a pacifist. Grandpa Fred tries to talk, but his cough is never-ending. Everyone backs away, like firefighters in the hills of California allowing a raging brushfire to burn out in its own time.

  Velma stands barefoot on soggy ground, hand holding her injury, yelling at the top of her lungs, “Look at this blood on my brand-new blouse. Can’t take this back to Wal-Mart with blood on it. Now I’m gonna have to keep it.”

  “How many times I tell you to shut your trap with that fabrication?”

  “Jimmy Lee, how am I’s‘pose to sang at Willie Esther funeral with my mouth looking like this? You hit me too hard that time. You coulda kilt me, hitting me like that. Tired of this mess.”

  “You know what you said. Told you about going on and on wid that lie.”

  “And I’mma tell er’body you’re beating on me over some stupid stuff.”

  “Last time warning you to close your trap before you make me shut—”

  “You reap what you sow, Jimmy Lee. Let’s see how well you act when it’s your turn to reap.”

  He says, “I’m not gonna let a damn stripper from Miss’sippi talk to me any kinda way.”

  “For your information, dumb-butt, I used to be an exotic dance?; not a stripper.”

  “And your flabby titties all out in front of everybody.”

  “My titties ain’t as flabby as your butt. You met me at my job. And all these kids you got and you calling me out? You got mo‘ baby mommas than Bobby Brown. You done gave me the claps three times in the last three years and you calling me out? Why are you tripping?”

  “Dumb-ass stripper from Miss’ippi try’n to act like she smarter than me.”

  “You’re the dumb-ass. The Matrix was invented by a black woman.”

  Jimmy Lee stands and grits his teeth. “Stop. Spreading. Lies.”

  The source of their argument. The Matrix. A movie. Everyone gasps in confusion.

  He snaps, “Say that again and I’ll knock your damn teeth out.”

  “What you gonna do this time? You already beat me up at a gas station. Dragged me out of the car like I was… like I was nothing. And you did that in front of my kids.”

  “Ain’t no pussy better than my dick. Last time telling you that. I told you to either shut up talking crazy or get the hell out my Cadillac and you chose to get your butt whipped.”

  She snaps, “The Matrix was invented by a black woman and Hollywood stole it.”

  Jimmy Lee lights a cigarette, talking to himself, then turns and limps toward the church.

  Velma barks, “It was, it was, it was, it was. A black woman is the true Oracle.”

  Jimmie Lee marches on. It feels like the drama is over.

  Then Velma yells, “Your Papa-Smurf-looking butt better get back here.”

  Jimmy Lee turns around and tries to run after Velma. She runs between tombstones. He hobbles after her, chases her around grave after grave. He can’t catch her, not with that bad leg.

  The screaming escalates.

  He yells, “I’m tired of you doing thangs to irritate me. Putting my medicine and thangs on a high shelf so I can’t reach ‘em. You think it’s funny when I have to get a chair to get thangs.”

  “I’m tired of your short butt jumping up in my face and hitting me. I need to be with a tall man anyway. A man who can reach thangs both standing up and laying down.”

  “Keep insulting me.”

  “Shorty. Tiny Tim. Troll.”

  Jimmy Lee looks toward us, makes eye contact with Genevieve, his big sister.

  Velma keeps on insulting him, yelling, “What you gonna do about it, Mini-Me?”

  He pulls his lips in, looks down across his yellow suit to his pointed-toe shoes.

  He throws his cigarette at Velma, then hobbles across the graves toward the church.

  Velma calls after him, “And like I said, a black woman created The Matrix. A black woman created The Matrix. I’ll say that from sundown to sunup. A black woman created The Matrix.”

  Jimmy Lee keeps his disconcerted pace, lighting another cigarette as he hobbles away.

  Velma yells, “You better come get some of these damn kids.”

  He raises his middle finger.

  “I did that and see where it got me. With two of your damn chirren.Butthole.YoubetterturnyourHop-Along-Cassidy-looking ass around and come get these damn chirren. These ain’t even my chirren. I’m tired of you leaving all these bad-ass chirren with me all the damn time.”

  His one-legged pogo hop-walk makes him look more cartoon than real.

  “Jimmy Lee, I ain’t playing with you. Come get these damn kids of yours. Jimmy Lee.”

  Velma leans against a tombstone, breaking down, that marker the only thing to keep her from crashing to the earth. The tears fall and the screams to come get the kids rise. Blood runs from her nose through her moustache, courses across her chin to her razor bumps.

  Grandpa Fred’s wheelchair loses control, starts rolling backward as he continues his coughing fit. Bubba Smith runs and catches what’s left of his old man before he tilts over.

  In the meantime, six children continue screaming.

  Velma spits out her bloody chewing gum and yells, “Little Jimmy Lee be quiet. Shaquanda let momma leg go. Let momma go. Bonquita, you better stop wiping your nose on your clothes before you get buggars all over your good dress and… one of y’all go get Lexus and y’all take Mercedes and Sean John—do something. Will y’all please stop hollering, dammit?”

  Family members and the Reverend approach her, slow steps toward a wild horse.

  The blood that flows from her nose into her moustache makes my flesh crawl.

  Then Velma smiles, tells people she is okay, that it was nothing, says, “Sorry about holding y’all up. I’ll be ready in a minute, Reverend. Little Jimmy Lee, stop crying and get my shoes for me. Take ‘em inside and wipe ’em off real good. Shaquanda get momma pocketbook.”

  The traumatized children cry louder.

  Velma coughs, loses it for a moment, adjusts her sagging breasts, then chokes on her blood and saliva. Mud has spattered up and down her clothing, left her speckled in filth.

  She recovers, becomes defiantly still and tight-jawed, her expression vacant and cold.

  She looks strange,
like a photo scanned on cheap equipment, not quite right.

  She nods as if she’s come to a cold-hearted conclusion.

  She walks away, her smile now sardonic, confirming the answer in her head.

  Her hips have no sway, her arms no swing as she lumbers toward the trailer, six children following her, six children crying, six children with runny noses. Velma lowers her head and holds her swollen lip, manufactures a trembling laugh, one that reeks of contempt and embarrassment.

  Ancient people. Young people. All are standing. All are mumbling and watching.

  This drama is not new; it’s in their eyes, in their non-action. For the Savages, for the Smiths, this is nothing new. My mind shifts, as it does at moments I wish it would leave things be. Shifts and Mendel’s famous principles of hereditary transmission take over my thoughts.

  Genevieve is next to me now, teeth clenched, my wife holding my hand.

  Family and friends rush Velma toward Willie Esther’s trailer home to get her cleaned up. She spits and reassures everyone, “AB black woman did invent The Matrix. I’m not lying.”

  Genevieve looks at me, sorrow and embarrassment in her eyes She lowers her head as if she didn’t want me to see all these defective people—people with kickstands—in her past.

  She wants to get away. She wants to light up a shrub and find that blissful feeling.

  She says, “This is why. I should have. come alone. Or not. Have I come. At all.”

  I suck my bottom lip and nod, admitting that in some ways Genevieve is right.

  She says, “What you’re looking at, that’s my parents when we were growing up. Those snotty-nosed kids screaming their lungs out, that was us. Watching them fight like cats and dogs. Velma and my brother, tonight they’ll be in the same bed. In the morning she’ll wake up and cook breakfast, busted lip and all.”

  I don’t say that that reminds me of my grandparents, just say, “That’s scary.”

  “What could there be more terrifying than a husband and wife who hate each other?”

  Genevieve looks at me after she says that, her thoughts deep, expression unreadable.

  I give her direct eye contact, search for a hidden message behind her tense eyes.

  I say, “Maybe, for them, enemies sleeping in the same bed, nothing is more exciting.”

  She looks away, defeat swimming in her eyes. Genevieve probably believes, in her heart, no matter how much she plans, flowcharts, and swims upstream, she still might end up like this. Like a snail being embarrassed of that slime trail its ancestors leave in their path, so it suddenly decides it’s going to jump species, become a clam, or a swan, and deny its past.

  She asks, “Knowing these will be their relatives, sure you would want to have children?”

  I squeeze her hand tight. “Not now, Genevieve.”

  Genevieve runs her hand through her hair, her expression that of irritation at full throttle.

  Grandpa Fred’s rugged cough has lasted from the alpha to the omega of the domestic brawl, that cough so persistent that he hasn’t been able to utter a word since the fiasco erupted.

  I look at him and can almost see the tumors riddling his lungs and brain. I can see a skeleton with a scythe standing behind him, his crooked finger extended for that contact, his finger teasing the edges of Grandpa Fred’s face, deciding to let him suffer before he gives him that gentle touch. Then the old man’s face morphs into fear. Grandpa Fred sees him too.

  Then her scent invades my senses. Kenya, my sweet weakness, stands near me.

  I move closer to my wife the way the unrighteous need to move closer to Jesus.

  In the background I hear a motorcycle approaching. The hum of a Fat Boy. Harley-Davidson. I recognize the sound of its engine as it punctuates the screams of children.

  I pull away from the sound of freedom, my five senses wafting back to this scene.

  Kenya stands on the other side of Genevieve, arms folded, head shaking.

  Standing next to Kenya’s height, my petite wife seems smaller. As if she was dwindling.

  Kenya speaks to no one and everyone all at once: “I was born in a manger surrounded by liquid crackheads and chain-smoking alcoholics who had been displaced from their motherland; physically and mentally abused to the point that we devour ourselves with self-hatred; prayers go up and come back unanswered because He is not accepting our I-pages.”

  When Kenya finishes her poetic tirade, I look at her. She looks away, arms folded, gray eyes turning red, lips tight. If not for these screams there might have been our moans.

  Now, like the rest of the world, I have angered her.

  Genevieve says, “Kenya, we should talk.”

  I try to swallow my own fear; my heart breaks into a dangerous, unbridled gallop.

  Kenya shifts. “Sure, Sister. You’re the oldest. Whatever you say goes.”

  Genevieve takes a sharp breath. “Call me by my name, please.”

  “LaKeisha Shauna Smith.”

  “That is not my name, Kenya.”

  Kenya chuckles. “You’re insane.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not my words. Everybody here thinks you’re flying over the cuckoo’s nest.”

  “Is that right?”

  “That name you have, that way you say it, like you’re French, it’s so pretentious, and that’s what makes it so insane. I refuse to say it because it’s stupid. Like in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s, where Audrey Hepburn’s character Holly Golightly invents this glamorous New York persona that lives like a well-heeled socialite, but she comes from the same kind of countrified background. That’s you, Genevieve. You’re no Audrey Hepburn, but you are a friggin‘ Holly Golightly. You might come back all dressed up like Oprah, wearing expensive jewels, but all these snaggletooth folks who suck down white lightning and shoot at the moon, this is you.”

  The world stops rotating. And I do not own the power to make it spin again.

  Genevieve folds her anger, tucks it inside her jaw, lets her rage move through the lines in her forehead, course through the veins in her neck before she pauses, struggles to keep her tone civil and tuned to kindness, and in a difficult voice she asks, “Why do you hate me so much?”

  “I’m not the one who hates. I’m not the one who ran away and left everybody.”

  Genevieve takes a breath. “Tomorrow, after Willie Esther’s funeral, let’s talk.”

  “Sure. We’ll talk about the heartache I’ve gone through, watching my father shit all over himself and die a slow death, listening to him ramble like he had dementia, about my whole life, about how I’m a slacker and I don’t live up to your expectations, we can talk about all that.”

  Kenya storms away from Genevieve, anger in her trembling lips, tears in her eyes.

  Genevieve calls Kenya. She does not answer, just heads toward the trailer, her wild hair dancing with her insolent stroll. Genevieve becomes rigid. She will not go toward that trailer. Kenya stops at the steps, but does not go inside. They call her, older members in her family, they need her help. She puts on a respectful smile and hurries, becomes the uxorial woman, maybe the kind and subservient child, tries to assist the Reverend in getting people organized.

  Genevieve stares. She mumbles, “Holly Golightly. Flying over the cuckoo’s nest.”

  I say, “I love your name, Genevieve. Love the rich way it sounds.”

  “Thanks. I really needed to hear that right now.”

  “You’re beautiful, poignant, and poetic. You’re a rare and wonderful language.”

  “A rare and wonderful language no one understands.”

  “I do.”

  “Do you? Honestly, do you even understand me?”

  “I love everything about you. I love the way you move. I love your arms. You have grace. I love the way you look at me. I love your toes. I love the shoes you wear.”

  “Do you love me? Now that you’ve seen this, do you still see me with the same eyes?”

  “You’re still my Genevieve.” Again I sque
eze her hand. “That’s all that matters.”

  I allow her name to roll off my tongue, its correct pronunciation drenched in warm butter.

  She smiles a moment, then that glimpse of joy vanishes. “Have I been a good wife?”

  “You’re a wonderful woman.”

  “But have I been a good wife? Have I lived up to your expectations or am I a disappointment? Things you said last night… your tone… I’ve been troubled all day.”