The next morning, when I-nelik came to pick him up, he was cured.
“Nice to meet you,” the rastaman said as he gave him his hand. “My name is Shiloh.”
They hugged each other and blessed this victory with the shedding of tears.
“I want to mark this stage in my life somehow,” he said to the dread as he sipped some water and lime juice from a bottle.
“Never cut your hair again,” I-nelik said. “And live as if your body is a temple. Fly your dreads, my son. Flash it in the face of Babylon. You are now the lion king.”
Fire was thinking about all these things as he pulled up to the Lighthouse. As the headlights swiveled around the final bend he saw a figure huddled in the doorway. Then he saw the car. The white Corolla. It was Blanche.
“What are you doing here?” he asked as he stepped out into the downpour.
“I heard about your troubles and thought that you might need me. It’s late to go back to Kingston. Can I spend the night?”
“Blanche …”
“I can understand if you say no,” she said, shivering. Her cream cotton dress was drenched. Her makeup was running down her face. “I just wanted to know that you were okay.”
Inside, surrounded by his books, he felt new confidence in her presence. They were not the same people who’d splashed in each other’s wetness on a rainy night ten years ago in a country ninety miles away. Those two people, the teacher and the student, had died, sprouting, as a dead log shoots up orchids, new lives with new beginnings … new purposes and meanings.
“I’ll get you a towel and some clothes,” he said as she followed him up the wooden steps, splashing in the puddles he left behind.
On the landing she slipped and held him, her hand brushing his back from shoulder to waist. As he helped her to her feet she saw a newness in his eyes. Like coal, they used to smolder when he looked at her. Now they glinted, hard and self-assured like diamonds. She reflected on her new expectations. From the letters they’d written to each other while he was in away in London it was clear they would never be partners. He did not want her; this she accepted. But she wanted him to fuck her every now and then. She deserved that, she thought, for all that she had done for him. And hearing about his troubles, and guessing that he might be weak, she’d rented a nearby villa and pretended to have driven from Kingston in the rain, knowing he wouldn’t turn her away, but prepared nonetheless. Just in case.
To create distance, he took a towel and some clothes and went downstairs to change, telling her as he left that she could wear whatever she wanted. When he returned, in gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt, she was standing by the scullery table, making coffee in an off-white slip and a black brassiere, her hair coiled up in a light blue towel.
“Want some?” she asked, looking over the top of her reading glasses. She’d placed some books on the nightstand. Her skin, he saw, was damp in places.
He nodded.
“Sit down. I’ll bring it to you.”
And as he watched her assemble the coffee press, slipping the carafe into the aluminum frame, screwing the long, hard plunger stem into the round mesh filter, he began to regret his decision to spend a rainy night alone in the company of this great seductress, who had stacked the record changer with bossa nova, to which she was swaying almost imperceptibly now, forcing him to look, pulling him in to wait in anticipation for each shimmer of her fleshy hips, each insidious dip of her waist, which was narrow, but had grown a lip of fat, in which it seemed she stored the oil that kept it supple.
“Oh it smells so good,” she said as she filled two mugs. Pouring from a punctured can, she sweetened them with condensed milk, stopping the flow with her fingertip, which she dipped into her mouth, seducing him from inside himself, pulling from his brain into his belly recollections of her tongue—its hunger, its heat, its artful pliancy.
She brought his coffee and paused in front of him, sipping hers, so he could see for himself that the heftiness between her legs was not a chicken breast, but something just as smooth—for it was shaven—and just as good to eat.
She sat on the swivel chair across from him and crossed her legs, the lower one pinching the underside of the one that lay on top of it.
“Mind if I smoke while we talk?”
He was afraid his voice would betray his weakness so he nodded. She lit a Rothmans.
“You know you shouldn’t be doing that,” he said.
“What am I doing that’s so dangerous?” she asked, shifting her weight and recrossing her legs the other way, luxuriating in her own wetness.
“Smoking,” he said. “After all you’ve been through.”
Uncrossing her legs, allowing her thighs to fall apart, she leaned in his direction, elbows on her knees, the cigarette limp in her rose-colored lips—a pistil between two petals.
“I’m not afraid of death,” she said, lingering over each word as if it massaged her tongue. “I have beaten death. Death should be afraid of me.” She reached behind her and unsnapped her bra, slipping the strap over her sun-baked shoulders, down over her arms and over her wrists and fingers. Cupping her breasts she said, “These are my medals. I wear them with pride.” She ran her hand down her stomach. “Here, I carried my children. Four of them. And in here”—she slid her hand into the waist of the undergarment—“is where I pushed them out, gave them life … breed them, as they say down here. Death, my boy, doesn’t scare me.”
“What does?” he asked. As he felt her power encircle him, his cock, like a general to a diplomat, was offering hawkish advice.
She was coming toward him now, unwrapping the towel and allowing her hair to fall in wanton ringlets.
“This doesn’t make any sense—y’know that,” he said as she sank to her knees and slid his pants down his thighs, which trembled from the force of the hot blood rushing through them on their way to his groin. Her palm was warm against his cock, her tongue was wet against his tender balls, which she lapped, masturbating him slowly, urging his veins to show themselves beneath the skin.
“You don’t love me and I don’t love you,” she said as she bundled her slip around her waist so he could see her parted ass. “Sex is all we have. Let’s enjoy it to the fullest. We tried for more before and hurt ourselves. This is simpler now.” She began to lash him with her tongue again.
“You’re right,” he said, removing his shirt, thrusting deep inside her mouth. “I don’t love you. All that you can do for me is fuck me.”
She pushed him into the sheets and peeled his pants away, and stood over him, admiring his body—the wide chest, the narrow waist, the furrows which defined the muscles, forming rivers of sweat—and his cock, brown and rippled.
As she leaned over him to kiss him, she said, “If you tell me you love me I’ll believe you till it’s over. Make it sweet. Lie to me.”
“If you lie to me too,” he said, as he took her in his arms.
And they began to kiss, excited by the enigma of history, of how soon the old becomes deliciously exotic.
Fragile, desperate, clinging to the last of his self-control, Blanche’s body coming toward him in waves of flesh, Fire thought, Can this humping, this fucking, this struggle toward release, ever bring the kind of peace I need … the peace that I can’t bring myself whenever I’m alone?
As she rolled onto her back so he could dig until the source of life revealed itself, he heard himself say, “No.” And he ran downstairs through the door out into the rain and sacrificed his seed to earth, howling, then smiling as he collapsed in the mud because he had come close to losing but had won.
“You cannot stay,” he told her when he returned to the bedroom. “You must go.”
“You are a fool,” she said as she dressed herself.
“No, Blanche,” he replied. “I just don’t love you.”
chapter fourteen
The next day, when the telephone stirred Sylvia from her sleep, the apartment still smelled of smoke. It was two in the afternoon. Shit, how the
heck did she sleep so late? She’d gone to bed as soon as she’d doused the fire, which was around one. It was the weed, she realized. Weed always knocked her out. That was one of the reasons she didn’t like to smoke.
“Hello.”
It was Jane. Sylvia sat on the edge of the bed with her elbow on her knee, her forehead in the palm of her hand.
“Oh, hi,” she said. “How are you?”
“Well, not so good.”
“I sense some less-than-good news.”
“Where’ve you been? I’ve been calling you all morning. I’ve left lotsa messages on your machine.”
“I’ve been out.”
“Well,” Jane began, “there’s a slight problem.”
“Just go on with it. I can deal with anything right now.” She didn’t really believe this.
“I spoke to Adrian Heath this morning, just firming everything up. And as soon as I mentioned your name he said he was no longer available.”
“What?”
“Yeah … it was quite weird, actually. I’m not saying it has anything to do with you. He never said that. He just said something about scheduling problems and apologized. He was very apologetic. Very sweet. Said he’d been meaning to call us.”
“Oh.” Sylvia lay on her side and curled into herself.
“But don’t worry,” Jane said. “You’ll get a kill fee. And I want to do some more work with you down the line. But I have to go now. Call me in a coupla weeks. Let’s go lunching.”
“Okay.”
She flopped over on her back, feeling simultaneously heavy and light—heavy in the head but light in the body. She would have never thought this would feel this way. He probably hated her. That’s what. It was a shame that things should be this way, she thought, as she began to experience a kind of reverse crying—tears being pulled from their ducts back into her head, drenching her thoughts, shorting out her ability to think, causing her senses to shut down; and she began to feel that she was running on emergency power. Soon she could barely think. She could just take things in. She couldn’t react.
Jane had said she’d left many messages. Sylvia felt for the play button and stared at the ceiling, absorbing the messages as if through her skin, rather than hearing them.
“Hi, Sylvia, this is Jane … there may be some bad news about Mr. Heath. Call me ASAP.”
“Sylvia, Jane here. Need to talk to you.”
“Hi, this is Jane. It’s official. The piece on A. J. Heath got canned. Sorry about this. Call me as soon as you can.”
“Shaquita … I’m not even sure if this is your number … cause I lost the piece o’ paper that I wrote it on … Anyway, this is Shamar that you met at the Sound Factory … gimme a call, okay? Peace out.”
“Sylvia, you fucking little bitch, this is Lewis. I’ve been talking to Margaret … remember her? The little whore? I’ve been talking to her and I told her your opinion of her, and you know what? She had a coupla things to say about you. But not just you, though … you and Fire, or maybe I should say ‘A. J. Heath.’ You played yourself, Sylvia. I shoulda slapped the black offa you when I had the chance. Lemme tell you, Virgil will be very happy to know how you lied to him. Bitch, you’re history. Fuck you! Was it fucking worth it, Sylvia? Was all that fucking worth it? If I were you I would just move outta New York, cause you’re fucked here. As long as I live here you’re fucked. After all I’ve done for you … Do you know how many people you wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for me … how many circles you wouldn’t have cracked … how many contacts you wouldn’t have made? And this is how you turn around and fuck me! Fuck you, Sylvia! Fuck you!”
“Mi hija, how are you doing? This is Diego. Are you there? Pick up the phone. Are you taking a shit or something? Okay, wipe quickly and come to the phone … I’m not gonna hang up … I’m gonna wait … Okay, I guess you’re not there. Somehow I know that as soon as I hang up the phone you’re gonna get to it … Okay, call me. Love you, baby.”
“Hello, Sylvia, this is Virgil. Please come to the reception desk to retrieve your personal items. They will be in a box with your name on it. And don’t worry about returning your keys. The locks are being changed …”
She didn’t hear the rest of it as she drifted off to sleep.
She was disoriented when she opened her eyes a few hours later. She felt weightless and numb, and ordinary objects seemed unfamiliar, as if she had been reincarnated into a world that shared only some features with the one she knew.
Fuck, she thought, I’ve been fired. She lay looking at the ceiling and thought about this, and asked herself what she was going to do, but withdrew the question when she realized that it would only lead to others, and she didn’t have the energy to focus. So she directed her strength to simpler considerations, namely looking on the bright side. Maybe losing her job was a good thing. If it hadn’t happened, when would she have gotten outta that frigging place? Jobs were hard to get … but she was qualified … more qualified than many people. She chuckled when she thought about her breakup with Lewis—laughter would’ve required more confidence. What a waste of time. What a relief it was done. It had ended badly, but it was over. That was more important. It’d lasted too long, and it shouldn’t have begun in the first place. He was a pathetic, petty man. And a coward, that was all, and she knew he was feeling worse than she was. For how could anyone have done what he did, smack her around and spitefully get her fired, without feeling bad about himself? How? And that Margaret … that trifling little bitch, what did she have to gain?
And then there was Fire. Sweet man, she thought, do you know how close I almost came to you? If only you knew, my loved one. If only you knew.
The phone rang again. It was Diego. She’d left him a message about Lewis.
“How you feel?” he asked.
“Weird, I guess.” She couldn’t find a better way to express her emotions. She was happy yet anxious. “I don’t know where I belong, Diego. I feel like I’m a round hole and life is a square peg—”
“I know what you need,” he said, trying to make her laugh. “A round peg. See, Lou-Lou was fucking you with a square peg, that’s why you didn’t like him.”
“I set myself up for that one,” she replied. “But seriously, Diego, I just feel adrift, man. I don’t have a job … I don’t have a relationship. I’m accustomed to stability. I feel unstable, like my whole life is going to be in vertigo from now on.”
“What do you mean, you lost your job?”
She told him about Virgil’s call, surprised herself at how matter-of-fact she was managing to sound, as though it had all happened to someone else.
He arrived in about an hour with breakfast and a thousand suggestions for her next move. By this time she’d taken a bath and changed into a black turtleneck and leggings. She’d eased out of her funk a bit. It was the bath. As she pampered herself with scented soap, she realized that she hadn’t had time for herself in a while, certainly not in midweek. Her schedule was so packed. Her entire life was rushed. All she took were showers. After her bath, she searched for some cocoa balls she’d bought in Tobago some time ago but had never found the time to use. She grated one into a pot of boiling water, added a half stick of cinnamon, and let it simmer. There’d be no microwaved Nestlé today.
“What the fuck are you doing looking so happy?” Diego said as he kissed her hello. “You’re supposed to be in a bathtub full of bloody water by now.”
“Do you know why I’m not depressed anymore?” she asked, as she buttered some muffins at the coffee table. “I have time. It felt so strange this morning to have time. It’s something I haven’t had in a while. It feels so good.”
“So what’re you gonna do with it?”
“I don’t care. I really don’t care what I do. As a matter of fact I don’t want to do anything except finish my new novel.”
“There’s a new one?”
“Yeah. A love story.”
“What happened to the old one?”
“I trashed i
t, man. You were right. It was shit.”
“I wouldn’t say all that. It was a fart. Fart. Yeah, that’s what it was.”
“You’re so fucking crazy.”
“Now that you’ve got all this time, why don’t you work with me? Come work on some screenplays.”
“I don’t know. I’m really into this novel—”
Then she remembered. “Oh, shit, I have to get my stuff from Umbra. Lemme call the front desk to see if it’s packed.”
Her confidence stalled as she picked up the phone. She was embarrassed about the firing. Not losing her job so much as the reason behind it. She’d betrayed a whole lot of trust. Everyone at the office had been so nice to her when they’d believed her lie. Now they all had something over her. She was a liar.
“Hi. This is Sylvia. Are my things packed and ready?” She sounded assured enough, she thought.
“Yes, as a matter of fact.” The reply was normal. As if nothing had happened.
“How many boxes are there?”
“Could you hold a minute?” There was silence for a bit. “Six.”
This surprised her. “Are you sure that’s all mine?”
“I wouldn’t lie, now would I?”
Then came the laughter of other people on the line.
Sylvia thought she recognized some of the voices; but she didn’t know what to say. She wouldn’t sound tongue-tied though, and give them satisfaction. Fuck them. She’d call Boogie Boo at home and apologize personally.
“Thank you,” Sylvia said. “Thank you very much. I’ll come by this afternoon.”
Diego went with her in a rented van. She should let him get the boxes, he pleaded all the way, and she should wait outside. She protested vehemently, but he eventually won her over. He could carry more stuff, he said. And someone had to be with the van or else it would be towed.
The receptionist looked him up and down from behind the U-shaped desk, told him to wait, then whispered into the intercom. He paced the floor. There were two people in interview suits sitting on the couch.
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