Kaleidoscope Century

by Barnes, John

  I want to know the truth.

  I sit and type as the sun sets on the other side of the building. Now that the waves aren’t so big I leave the curtains open.

  The water never gets blue here on Mars — except right at sunrise and sunset when the sky is sometimes briefly deep blue and the water reflects it. I keep looking up at the window, away from the werp screen, because I don’t want to miss the moment when that happens.

  2.

  I was born in 1968. Till past 2000, you could say practically everything about me by saying that my mother was a black lawyer’s daughter and my father was a white ex-con with a political history. Grandpa got Daddy out of jail for the ACLU, and lived to regret it (I heard him say that himself). Mama was an activist, passionate in her battle to overcome everything about the past, in her early twenties in 1966 when they married. She was ten years younger than Daddy, and Daddy was the big, strong, handsome, innocent man that had written two books in prison.

  Except he wasn’t innocent. He liked to rub Mama’s nose in that. He had brains, looks, and a lot of charm when he wanted to, but he was guilty as all hell of the rapes he’d been convicted of. He hadn’t been convicted by a proper procedure, was all. It was only that if he’d been innocent, he’d’ve gone to jail anyway. Hence the “matter of principle” — which is a “technicality” you agree with, as Grandpa used to say — that was known to lawyers as Quart v. Tennessee.

  He was huge — a tall man, with a deep chest and arms like iron. Gray-blond hair in tight curls. Fine-boned face always red from the sun, from drinking, and probably from whatever he was doing to his lungs with all the Camels he smoked, lighting each one off the previous, so there was always one clenched between his bared, yellow teeth. From the time I was able to remember how, he had a permanent squint, as if he always looked into the sun.

  I remember his voice was soft, even, and polite around Mama’s parents, and that whenever he got onto a tear working on a book, he’d barricade himself into his little office and just type away for hours. He never finished one after getting out of the pen, though. He claimed that without being locked up he didn’t have the incentive to revise.

  My mother was light-skinned, anyway, and as a result I was one of those people of no definite race that you see everywhere now. Call me ahead of my time. When Daddy would get drunk and mean, he’d sometimes call me “that little half-nigger” in front of Mama, just to hurt her, which was why he did most things as far as I could tell. I don’t think I invented my memories of him hitting me, or her; I don’t think there’s much exaggeration in my believing he raped her twice a week during all the years they were married. Maybe it was different back before I could remember.

  Mama stayed. If there were a God, he might know why. Maybe the shame of the mistake she’d made, a bright, talented, beautiful woman giving herself to a big, vicious ape with a smooth line of talk? It couldn’t have been fear it would come out. It was out. I saw Grandma Couandeau bandaging Mama up when I was seven, and I already knew that was nothing you wanted to ask about.

  I was never close to Daddy’s size. I had Grandpa Couandeau’s build, slight and small. I hated Daddy as much as I would ever hate anyone, and I fell asleep dreaming of beating him up and throwing him out of the house. It never happened.

  I was a third-generation Red Diaper baby. Andre Couandeau, my grandfather’s father, had joined the Party in the 1920s, and, at least according to family legend, died under a cop’s nightstick during the sit-down strike at Firestone ten years later. Mama, in her stroller, had attended Paul Robeson’s last concert in America, claimed she remembered the backs of the longshoremen and truckers as they stood down the Legionaires “for free speech.” She always told me, “You get free speech when you get the power to stand up for yourselves. Till then all you have is tolerated speech, Josh, no matter what they tell you in school.”

  We argued a lot about what I got taught in school, because I saw no sense in arguing with teachers. I was perfectly willing to agree with Mama that it was all bourgeois lies, but I didn’t see any reason why I should have to correct it. Not when I could quietly drift along in the back of the room, ignored by everyone, and keep my concentration on basic issues like saving up for a car out of my job at McDonald’s. It was okay with me that we went to CP stuff all the time, and the demonstrations were kind of fun, but it was like being born a Witness or a Mormon — you weren’t exactly like the people around you, but you weren’t not like them, either. You just had a slightly different set of adult friends and links to different families than other kids did.

  When I was little, Mama’s cell used to meet at the house, but that stopped pretty soon because Daddy was not what you could call “reliable.” I get the impression he was never invited to join the Party. Anything that excluded him rankled him, but he mostly confined himself to claiming he was going to turn Mama in (even though the Party had been legal for years) “for the reward.” Then he’d laugh and say he was just kidding.

  Now and then they’d ask him to talk to a meeting about his time in prison. He’d tell the same stories, all from his first book, over and over.

  He was also jealous, I think, of Mister Harris. I think of rum that way, even now, Mister Harris. In Mama’s and Grandpa’s eyes, this was the most important person they knew. Mr. Harris “traveled,” which meant he drew a stipend from the Party and went from cell to cell on regular visits. Kind of a circuit preacher, kind of a beat cop.

  Mama and Grandpa were both on the state Central Committee. Grandpa was known on sight to Gus Hall. Mama had shared a hotel room once, at a conference, with Angela Davis, but somehow Mr. Harris was more important. It took me a long time to figure out why.

  I left home forever on my sixteenth birthday. Two of the earliest documents I’ve got — both audio recordings of me reciting as much as I could about my own past — agree that it was my sixteenth birthday.

  I passed the driver’s license exam at 3:50 P.M. that day — the earliest moment after school it could be managed. My score was perfect, which was no surprise since driver’s ed and auto shop had been my only “A” subjects. That meant I had to run to make McDonald’s in time for my job, with so little time that I couldn’t even pass by the house, just a few blocks out of my way, where a beautiful little silver RX-7 — merely 120,000 miles and only six years old — was parked, for which the owner wanted just $1600.

  The guy was holding it for me — $2200 in my account, $1600 for the car, $45 to register it, $12 plate fee, first insurance payment $130 — two days and that car was mine.

  Like most kids I knew, I was working five hours a night, piling up cash so I could have things. Might as well. They didn’t teach shit in school. If you took General Math and General Science you didn’t need to learn anything after eighth grade to pass, and no one needed to stay up all night studying to “express feelings” in English class or “give opinions” in American History. Half the class never read the books and got B’s, anyway.

  I wasn’t expecting anything real big for my birthday — there never had been before. Turning sixteen was about the best present I could have had, anyway.

  I trotted home all the same. Mama had told me there’d be a cake and a gift or two. I did take the time on the way home to swing by and make sure the RX-7 was still there.

  Mama had made a cake, chocolate since that was my favorite — something from a mix, she was a lousy cook but could follow directions. There was a new shirt, wrapped, and I put that on.

  Daddy had been drinking I guess. He usually had. I have no idea what started it. Like always, it happened too fast.

  I was still in the chair, but leaned back on the back legs, my not-quite-finished cake spilled into my lap. His hand was on my shirt and he hit me again, several times, hard, beating my face so that it went numb and soft, as he explained to me that I didn’t fucking need a fucking car and it was about fucking time for me to start fucking supporting the family. “Fuckin’ kid thinks he’s too fucking good to be one of the fam
ily,” he said, and threw me backwards. The chair flipped out from under me and my tailbone hit a rung.

  My head banged on the wall but I wasn’t dazed or stupid enough to put my hands up. Once he started one of these, trying to protect yourself just made it worse.

  He grabbed me again, dragging me to my feet, tearing my shirt — a new one, a gift I had just put on (why is it I remember every button of a plain blue shirt so clearly?). His thumbs digging into my armpits, he shook me back and forth and said, “We’re going to fuckin’ start chargin’ you rent, boy. It’s a good thing you saved up for it”

  He cuffed me once more across the back of the head, slapped my face once more and said, with the exaggerated sarcasm of a mean drunk, “Oh, he’s not happy. Oh, he’s mad. Well, he needs to say ‘Thank you, Daddy!’ for putting a fuckin’ roof over his head, that’s what he needs. He’s got no fuckin’ business being mad, does he. Say ‘Thank you, Daddy!’ “

  I don’t know if I was too dazed or too mad. I didn’t speak.

  He drove his knuckles into my face. “Say ‘Thank you, Daddy.’”

  I still said nothing. Too numb. Or couldn’t think.

  He started slapping my face, with his open hand, one blow after another. My left cheek took about ten blows. It was bruised almost black for a week afterwards. Then he threw me on my back and said, “Your rent’s due tomorrow, boy. I’ll let you know how much.” He stood for a moment, breathing hard, and then added, “Here’s your cake,” and threw the rest at me. Then he laughed a stupid-sounding half-laugh as if he were about to decide whether or not to tell me it was all a joke, or kill me.

  I stayed still. After a few seconds his office door slammed. He shouted through the door that he could never get any fucking work done, he fucking had to put up with a lazy free-loading half-nigger and a Commie cunt.

  Mama stood by uselessly. Typical. Daddy was crazy, mean, and dangerous. But I hated Mama more. She was useless.

  I cleaned myself up, pulled on a sweatshirt, threw what remained of my new shirt in the trash. It didn’t seem worthwhile to do anything about the mess in the dining room.

  All the clothes I wanted to keep went into two gym bags. I’d never read much and there weren’t any books I cared about, but I threw a bunch of tapes and the Walkman in, figuring it might help if I got lonely. It wasn’t cold out but I put on my leather jacket.

  The passbook for my bank account was in my jeans pocket. Thank god there had never been an ATM card, or he’d already have the cash. I figured the bank opened at 8:30 the next morning and hell if I was going to let the old bastard bully Mama, the co-signer on my account, into getting the money out for him. Probably he’d lost some cash gambling, or wanted to go on a spree with some of his barfly friends, or maybe go hit the whorehouse a couple of times so he could come home and tell Mama about it. Probably he hadn’t been able to get the cash out of her because she didn’t have it. That would have been all he needed to set him off on this “paying rent” business.

  When I got downstairs, I could hear him snoring — he usually passed out in his office, ten minutes after he would go in there, because before he started working he’d have a few off the bottle in his desk.

  Mama was trying to get the cake up off the rug by picking up the crumbs one at a time, too scared to turn on the vacuum and wake him up. I didn’t bother to say goodbye. She’d figure it out.

  But as I opened the back door, I felt her hand in the middle of my back. “You should go to an emergency room,” she said. “I can give you some cash for that. What if you have a concussion?”

  “I don’t,” I said, pulling away from her, but she caught my hand and pushed something between my fingers. I looked down. A hundred dollar bill and a house key.

  “You know what times he’s not in. Come in and take food, clothes, anything you need,” she said. “And you know he sleeps real sound. Help yourself. You’re entitled.”

  I nodded and went out the door. I kept the hundred and the key in my hand, inside my pocket, for blocks, just holding them. I knew I would have to part with the hundred soon.

  Years later I regretted not having kissed Mama goodbye that night. I guess maybe I figured I’d be back.

  The old bastard had locked me out a few times. Never for two nights running, fortunately. But I’d gotten pretty good at knowing how to keep myself out of serious trouble for a night. I knew what places in town would be open at 11 P.M., and would stay open.

  So I headed straight to Gwenny’s, a diner out toward the edge of town. My face was hurting with every step, and I could feel it swelling. A couple teeth felt loose, but more like I just needed to be careful than like I was going to lose them. My nose was bent and bruised, but probably not broken. Years of drinking had sapped the force of those arms, so the muscles were still big, but they were filled out mostly with lard. He was in pretty shitty shape, and the thought crossed my mind, if I wanted to chance getting killed, maybe I could take him.

  Not worth it. So far I didn’t have any damage around the eyes, or probably even any broken bones. It would cost something if I got hurt worse. And what would I want to fight him for anyway? The right to leave?

  My face pulsed with pain as I crossed the river. The bridge was long and not high, and when I was younger I used to stand on it and look down at the trout behind the pillars. The moon was corning up now, over the willows in their tangled masses, clinging to the sandbars downstream, and I paused for a moment. No longer numb, my face ached pretty badly. I could feel tears and snot streaking over my cheeks and lip, but it seemed like too much bother, just now, to wipe any of that off.

  My hand was still in my pocket, digging that old brass house key into my palm like I was trying to drive it into the bone. It wasn’t much, but she had defied him more, just now, than she ever had before.

  I knew I wouldn’t use the key. Sure, I could get in and out and take stuff, but I didn’t want liquor. After smelling him all these years I figured I’d never touch it. Anything else I took would just make Mama that much poorer.

  The front of my knuckles was brushing something else. I let go of the key, gripped the hard lump I had found, and pulled it out, careful not to lose the key or the hundred.

  In the moonlight it shone like magic. The eagle was worn down, and the ring for clipping it to your belt was gone. I opened the blades and checked; I had kept it sharp.

  When I was eleven, every boy in my class became a Scout. Not me. That’s not something a Red Diaper does. I also couldn’t hang out with the kids who were too cool for it. They were lumpen.

  So Mama threw her fit, and I gave up on it, like I had on a dog, or a BB gun, or youth hockey. Then one afternoon, early in the spring, Daddy gave me a brand-new Boy Scout knife. Told me to keep it in good shape and it would serve me well. It had never been out of my reach since.

  I looked at it. He’d won it at cards or dice. Or maybe he’d been feeling too ill to get a pint, he’d seen it in a pawnshop and been generous in the spontaneous, random way of a nasty drunk. I thought about how a thousand times since I’d heard him tell the story of the knife to his friends, and how they — drunken pigs all — had nodded for the thousandth time and agreed what a great guy Daddy was.

  It was the only proof I’d ever had that that man had given a shit whether I lived or died. Not worth carrying the weight.

  I was crying harder now — maybe my face hurt more — but I could see plenty well enough to hit the river with that Scout knife. It made a low-pitched reverberating plonk, right where I knew there was a deep hole.

  The splash made a ring-ripple that drifted downstream maybe a hundred yards before it faded into other disturbances on the water, and the moon wavered and flickered m fragments and bits all over the silver surface. I shuddered and was glad to be wearing the jacket.

  Not midnight yet, still my birthday.

  I kicked the post a couple times, bounced back and forth. Maybe, once for a second, I thought about flipping over the railing.

  Sure. Give th
e old fuck twenty-two hundred. That’ll show him.

  I wiped my face on my coat sleeve, pulled out a handkerchief, cleaned up as well as I could without a sink or mirror. I looked once more at the pool of black water where I had thrown the knife, just off the nearest pillar and behind the boulder that always stuck out late in the summer. I sort of thought a goodbye at it, and headed on over the bridge, walking fast to warm up.

  Somehow, having done that, I felt lighter on my feet. I cradled the key in my fingers, squeezing it hard until it was warm as my own blood.

  There were three reasons I was headed for Gwenny’s. One, it was open all night, and Gwenny, the owner, generally took the night shift. I’d been in mere some nights when I was locked out, drinking coffee and slowly eating chili, watching the big TV screen in the corner, and she’d been friendly and concerned in a not-pushy way.

  Two, she had furnished rooms for rent, or she had had them last week, anyway, and maybe I could talk her into taking the hundred down and the rest in the morning. I had no idea what rent might be but it would sure be less than Daddy would have taken.

  The most important thing was that her place was close to the bank. Whether or not I got a place to stay for the night, I needed to be there on the dot at eight-thirty.

  Besides Gwenny, her cook Paula, and Verna, the older woman who waited tables, only three other people were in Gwenny’s: a couple who sat with their arms around each other looking like they were trying to stay awake, and a guy who talked endlessly to them. That group was in a booth far over to one side, out of sight of everyone else. The rest of the Formica tables and Naugahyde booths waited, napkins, silverware, and cups laid out, for a crowd that there was no sign of. Probably it would fill up more later that night.

  “Jesus, Josh, how did you do that to yourself?” Gwenny asked.

  “I didn’t. My father did,” I said, trying to sound tough and failing. Anyone could have heard the tears in my throat.

  “Don’t look like nothing’s broke,” Verna said. “But you’re gonna look like hell for a while.”