Airships

by Barry Hannah

  Constant Pain in Tuscaloosa

  I went by this Chrysler on my Honda the other day. It was a sort of cold green car, in front of the bank. This nigger was eating a banana, hanging his leg out the front seat on the curb. He didn’t have socks. He was truly eating that banana. Eating it was giving him such pleasure, I rounded the block and came by again to see him finish it off. By that time he was throwing the peel in the gutter.

  I shut off the bike.

  “Hey, man! You can’t foul up the streets like that!” I said.

  He looked at me awhile and then got out and picked up the peel.

  “Who’s that car belong to?” I said.

  I’m a very slight guy and about that time something embarrassing happened. The motorbike fell over on me and I couldn’t squirm out from under it before the muffler pipe had burned the dook out of my leg through my jeans. I pulled my leg out of the bike and jumped around on the walk. One of my old girl friends walked by and I was humiliated.

  “My sister,” said the nigger.

  “You just sitting out here eating a banana waiting for her?”

  “Correct.”

  “Oh ho. You been educated.”

  “Junior college.”

  I was still hopping around somewhat.

  “It hurt, don’t it?” he said.

  “Somewhat.” My leg was about to go over the border into some kind of new state of pain.

  He had him another banana by then.

  “You wearing a nowhere helmet, baby,” he said.

  “What’s wrong with my goddamn helmet?”

  “Look like some other person ought to be in it. That’s some kind of airplane orange, ain’t it?”

  “Lets ’em see you at night, brother.”

  “What you come here criticizing my bananas for?”

  “There was a way you were doing it, eating. Your eyes were big and your jaw humped out. You were really having fun. It’s not the same with the one you have now. You’re doing it more casual-like now, little bitty bites, more civilized.”

  “I never came in your house watch you eat,” he said. “Tomorrow I’m coming over your house watch you eat. I’m gone drive my sister’s Chrysler into your house and hang out the window watch you eat. Where you live?”

  “Wait. No offense. I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said.

  “Where you live?”

  “I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “This Chrysler is my home. It’s me and my sister’s home. Where you live?”

  “Three oh four Earnest Lane.”

  If I hadn’t been in such pain, I’d never have told him.

  “This car’s the only home we got,” he said. “We be by your place tomorrow.”

  His sister came out of the bank. She had on stilt shoes and this African jewelry all over her. She got in the Chrysler. I heard her talking to him.

  “They turned us down for the loan,” she said.

  He never even looked my way when they backed out and drove off. I was trembly. My stomach was upset, and my leg had never quit hurting. Another thing. I’d been driving my bike around town thinking things over about reality and eternity and went by the Baptist church several times reading the marquee. It said: Pay Now, Fly Later. I’d decided I was going to quit fucking around and be a Christian.

  So right in front of the church there’s Dr. Campbell, the minister of that church, a big guy with not much hair left and old acne marks and a look in his eye like he’d never thought about nooky one way or the other and had had his children by a holy accident. We all have our flaws. I walked over to him.

  “Say, Doctor Campbell, I’m surrendering my heart to Jesus.”

  He laid scrutiny on me. The few hairs he had left were oily and carefully set in a dramatic way.

  “Tell you what, my son.” He laid hand on my shoulder. He whispered. “I’m not the person to talk to. I hate your guts, after what you did to that poor disk jockey.”

  “He was a queer and it was an even fight,” I said. “He had a baseball bat and I had a TV antenna. On the roof there wasn’t anything else.”

  “He’s still lying out in Druid Hospital.”

  “I know where he is. I take beer to him under my coat. What about Jesus? I was surrendering my heart.”

  “I’ve got to this position, Ellsworth. I don’t think Jesus wants you. He’s too dead to want. He was a hell of a sweet genius guy, but he’s dead. The only thing left is humanism. Are you humanistic?”

  “Right on.”

  “Precious are the hours we touch one another,” the son of a bitch said.

  The Honda had hurt me so bad I was sort of timid about getting on it again, but it took me home. I sat in my house and listened to the two records I own on my Sears stereo. Three years ago my wife left this place. All the pictures she hung and the decorations she did are still around. Sometimes late at night on the phone she says she might come back. She says her condition is one of constant pain. She’s been in constant pain in St. Louis, Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Mobile. A guy in Fayetteville called me one night at one o’clock. He said, “Who’s this, is this the authentic Ellsworth?” Lots of people were in the room he was in and I could hear they thought my name was funny. “You know what I just did with your wife, Ellsworth?” said the guy. “What I did was get in an Ellsworth costume and have sex with her—har har har,” said the guy.

  “Why’re you calling me?” I said. “I loathe her and don’t give a spit for her career. She was something I screwed and nagged me into marriage. I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you, however. My name is Ellsworth and I don’t know what yours is, but I don’t like this laughter about my name. You and me, phone person. Just give me your name and I’ll be in Fayetteville to take care of your number.”

  “Wonderful, wonderful,” said the guy. “We knew you’d be like that.”

  You could hear my wife among the tittering.

  Actually it tore the last shred out of my bosom. I don’t love her, but she was mine, and I don’t want anybody else to, either. She knows that, that’s why she called. She wants me to join her in constant pain.

  I set three places on my table and swept up the house. I was sweeping the front steps when my leg, the one that was burned, went through the top step and I was up to my hip in my porch. I wish my landlord could’ve seen that. Maybe eighty-five per shouldn’t get you a palace on the moon, but goddamn, it ought to get you something. It sprained the hell out of my crotch muscle, plus tore my boot.

  The rest of the day I just lay around and swore. I didn’t even get a beer out of the fridge. After you’ve drunk a hundred fifty thousand Falstaffs, the taste goes on you.

  I made sure the house stayed clean. About midnight I went out and looked over at Mrs. Earnest’s flower tree. All her lights were out. I stole about fifteen blooms off her tree. Then I got this pussy-looking green dish my wife bought and put the flowers on the table. I bought some steaks in the morning. I didn’t have a barbecue, so I got a hub cap and pulled the grill out of the oven to go over it.

  About three in the afternoon, they showed up in the Chrysler. I looked out and they were looking at the house, engine running. The spade had another banana he was chewing on. His sister was driving. I went out on the porch as if to check out the carb on my Honda.

  “Oh, hi!” I called. “Come in the house now you’re here!”

  They came in the front room. His sister shook hands with me. She had blue fingernails, long ones, and that African jewelry all over and some new elevated nigger sandals and her toenails were blue too. When she walked, she rattled like a walking chandelier. The guy had on a plain shirt and just looked like an ordinary nigger. He went straight for the fridge.

  “You got any soda or yogurt around?” he said.

  “Hold on. This ain’t a delicatessen,” I said.

  “It for straight sure ain’t,” his sister said. “You got a hole in your porch. Hey, look at the flowers!” she said. She went over and picked up one of the flowers out of
the water. “I get off on flowers,” she said.

  I was so pleased, I guess I blushed.

  She called her brother Rip or Reap, I couldn’t quite make it out. He never called her name.

  “Man, look at the number of these beers! Are you some kind of beer salesman?”

  “I keep it for friends who drop by,” I said.

  “Ain’t nobody drop by here,” he said. “You got some handsome steaks in there.” He made a motion for me to move aside so his sister could get a view of the fridge. “Look at them steaks,” he said.

  “I get off on big old steaks,” she said.

  “We’re gonna get those on the grill in a couple of hours. Let me put on some music and you people sit down and relax.” I put the two records on. “I got some dope if you . . .”

  “You what? We don’t use no dope! We don’t like no rock-and-roll music, either,” he said.

  “I get off on Ralph Vaughan Williams,” said the sister. “You got any Ralph Vaughan Williams?”

  “Come out here, look at his barbecue,” the dude said to his sister. He was looking out the back door of the kitchen at my unit. “That a space-age model, ain’t it?”

  After a while they said they were going out and sit in the Chrysler for the air-conditioning. I thought it was a ruse to leave for good. When they shut the door, I had to call back this yell that was coming out my throat. It was a yell that if it had come out would’ve been the weirdest sound I ever made.

  I knew I’d hear the motor start. They were out there fifteen minutes. I couldn’t stand it. I went and got a beer in each fist and killed them in four minutes. I pushed the curtain to the side.

  The nigger was working on another banana and talking to his sister. She sat in the driver’s seat looking like she was really grossed away by his eating etiquette. They got out and opened my door again.

  “Get cooled off?” I said.

  “We’re out of gas,” said the nigger.

  “It’s cooling down some now. We can get those steaks on in half a sec. The other side of that record isn’t so much of a roar. I turned it down. It’s got some nice soft licks in it.”

  “I’m a vegetarian,” said Rip or Reap.

  “He’s lying through his face, Ellsworth,” said the girl. “This family man in Baltimore, he came out on the parking lot with two buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken on his arms. He”—she pointed at the nigger—“cruised by and robbed them right off the man. He put his face in the bucket and eat that chicken out just like a hog.”

  “Beauty ain’t gone keep you well forever,” said the nigger to her.

  “He had slaw on his nose,” she said.

  The nigger made a move at her.

  “Freeze, buster,” I said.

  “What you got can stop me?” He looked around.

  I ducked in the back room and got that UHF antenna I messed up Oliver Darling with. By that time he was halfnelsoning his sister.

  “Leave off, Rip, Reap!” I shouted.

  He sprung off her and came out with something yellow from his hip. It was a banana. He was a larger-looking nigger now and he raced over and beat the damn light out of me. When I woke up, he was still laying on my burned leg with what was left of the banana, these peel fibers. They stung in a vicious way.

  “Stop it, stop it!” his sister was saying. “You woke him up, for Jesus’s sake!”

  I washed up and after we’d eaten the steaks, with light bread and ketchup, we were all lying around pretty sleepy. The girl drank half a beer. I’d drunk five or six for pain. The girl stood up and went to use the bathroom.

  “Say,” I said to the nigger while she was out. “I’m kind of in love with her. I know that’s not the right thing to say now. It’s just my feeling talking.”

  “You what?” He got wall-eyed like a joke nigger.

  “Got a crush on your sis. Don’t come at me again. You don’t need to get tough on me. Thought we could talk this out. You think I’d have a chance with your sister?”

  “Yeah. Cause you’re white and she’s terrible tired. You weren’t too bad-looking till I blued you all up in the face.”

  She came back and sat down on the floor. Pretty soon she was fast away asleep.

  “I’ll tell you,” he said softly, “you can’t get away from people bothering you anymore. People coming by laughing at even what you eating. Don’t move,” he whispered, and eased out of the room.

  Deaf and Dumb

  She had a certain smile that would have bought her the world had the avenue of regard been wide enough for her. They loved it at the Bargain Barn. But the town was one where beauty walked the walks as a matter of course, and her smile was soon forgotten by clerk and hurried lecher on the oily parking lot. She never had any talent for gay chatter. She could only talk in brief phrases close on the truth. How much is this? Is this washable? This won’t do, it’s ugly.

  It hit ninety-eight degrees and the parking lot of the A & P was the worst, with heat rays thick over the black pavement. There were four Cadillacs out there with the rabble of other cars. She got in the Chevy Nova, no air-conditioning and failing muffler. Her husband was an intellectual in real estate. He was such an intellectual he never sold anything. He had a huge habit of honesty and viewed everything being built or traded as pure overpriced dung. Forty-eight thousand got you a phony shack with no trees and tennis privileges. Don’t buy this turkey, he told the couples who were new in town, let’s look for something good. But he never could come up with anything good. All the good stuff was held down by old people with oaks and magnolias in their yard. He sold a few grimy houses to hip people who didn’t mind niggertown.

  So Minny and her husband and their four children squeezed by on nine thousand a year. They were in hock up to their hips. They owed everybody from Sears to Saks in Atlanta. The letters from Saks were so gentle and decent. She loved Saks. The requests for payment approached the condition of love letters to her, which nobody else since she was in college had written her.

  She remembered the one from Harold, who had taken her virginity.

  “Gosh. Thank you, thank you. If you aren’t heaven, I don’t want to go there. You didn’t have to but you did. I love you so much it hurts my chest bones. Thank you, thank you.” Just as if his voice were speaking it to her now.

  She drove her Nova around town, delaying her arrival at home, though she was suffering from the heat. The children were out in the garage with a hammer, sharing it. They were using the hammer to smash the pictures she’d hung in the garage. It had been her idea to dress up the garage. To her mind, there was no reason the garage need be an ugly slot to park your car. The garage could be beautiful. She was a major in art in college, and though she was no great shakes as an artist, she loved beauty and fitting colors. Minny painted the telephones in the house yellow.

  But at night, when the kids were asleep, her husband took pictures of her naked with a Polaroid camera ordered from Sears on the easy-pay plan. One of his rare big cash-on-the-barrelhead buys was a six-foot mirror. He took pictures in the mirror of her with him. He couldn’t believe she was submitting to these things and wanted to capture it for immortality. The pictures showed a middle-aged man in all sorts of postures with a shy zestful woman, the man joined to her and aiming the camera. The pictures he kept high on a shelf and called his “studies.”

  When Minny got home, she scolded the children for destroying her pictures in the garage. This took the last of her energy. She was all done in, hauling the bags, finding the old places for the cans and hauling them to their spots. She went to the room where the air-conditioner worked, shut the doors and lay down.

  She had an hour before everybody would be hungry and Daryl, the husband, would be in. In the bag leaning on her bed was four yards of orange cloth she would sew into a dress. Her youngest child opened the door and crawled into the bed beside her. This was her and their only girl. She was a small pulchritudinous thing, with strange heavy-lidded eyes. While Minny lay there, the child kicked her in th
e course of falling asleep.

  I can’t sleep, said Minny to herself. Why isn’t Charlotte watching them? Why has Charlotte gone home? She’s paid to stay. They’re my responsibility. The teen-agers come by our street so fast in their cars and on motorcycles. They found out there are no police on our street and they use it as a blasting alley. One boy I met with before college liked to speed that way.

  We raced everywhere. He was always early for everything, the basketball games, the prom. We never even held hands. One time when we went swimming together he looked down at my feet and tackled me. He put my big toe in his mouth. I told him to cut it out. He got big in his swimming trunks and was humiliated. He said: Listen, I got to teach you how to swim. It bothers me thinking a person like you might drown just for simple lack of swimming. So he taught me how to swim. He had a nice body and cut out through the water like a motor. No reason to go that fast, as usual, no point in getting there to the floating dock early except just to get there fifteen seconds before the others. He always kept a comb, even in his swimming trunks. Had hairy knees that disgusted me. Said I don’t want anything but would you at least look at what does want to. Pulled down his trunks. First one I really ever saw, miracle, although a little bit ugly. No wonder he was proud. All men ought to be proud. All I and the rest of us have is hair and a crease. What’s so emotional about titties? Mine are fine, but I never understood the excitement. Guy in a convention in New Orleans said he’d cut off his arm to savor my chest. The easiest place to have wit is in the presence of another’s need. Deaf and dumb guy selling ballpoint pens comes up with a card saying I am deaf and mute, raising two children, help me out. I pretended I was deaf and dumb too. He was giving signs like mad and I was giving signs back to him that weren’t real. I was looking in his face. Who let you have children in her? I thought. What’s deaf and dumb intercourse like? Then I became ashamed and bought all his pens with the grocery money. Daryl was drunk and therefore understood everything when I came home. We ate rice with ketchup on it. My hobby is Daryl now that my other interests have had no chance to grow. Maybe I was never an artist, but I could be an interior decorator. Lucky for me Daryl is good-looking. I couldn’t stand phonying-up to one with hair on his knees. They once tried to hire me as an interior decorator at the furniture place on Sixth Street. They offered me a salary of $5700 a year. Daryl got on the phone to the headman. “Who do you think you’re trying to hire, some Goddamned darkie? My wife has an art background and all sort of cleverness. You got to raise the ante or she doesn’t come at all. Let us know if you can get it up over nigger wages. I don’t want to be ashamed of what my girl is bringing home every month.” They didn’t up it and I lost the job. But I loved Daryl and his pride. I guess I have pride. I guess I’m lucky how much I love Daryl, who’s a silly ass by any judgment. Some hot nights I dream about the beaches in Pensacola. But Daryl is my hobby. You can tell how good it is by the temperature of a man’s come. Harold’s was lukewarm. . . . I suppose I shouldn’t think of it, being raised in the church. But with Daryl—once the kids are asleep—there’s nothing like that hot blowing out in you when you are coming yourself. I, good Lord, thank You for that. It keeps a body going through the trash in daylight. Good intercourse is a work of art.