Original Sins (46 page)

“Why?” demanded Tadpole.

Leon turned off the engine, and they sat there for a while. Eventually a white girl in short-shorts and cowboy boots and a ten-gallon hat swayed up. She bent over, her order pad poised, looked into the car, then straightened up and walked away.

“See what I done told you,” Donny mumbled.

“Well, we'll just set here a spell, see does she change her mind.”

“Aw, come on, Leon. Never mind. Let's go over to Hog Heaven.”

Leon and Tadpole sat back, grinned, and lit cigarettes.

Suddenly the car was surrounded by half a dozen white men in T-shirts and khakis. One twanged the radio antenna. Another tried to unscrew the hood emblem.

Donny sat very still. Tadpole and Leon squashed out their cigarettes, their eyes nervous. Donny was sure his showed pure terror.

“Something we can do for you fellers?” one said into the window to Leon. He repeatedly flicked open, then closed, a switchblade.

“We waiting to order,” Leon said evenly.

“This place, they don't serve niggers.”

“I see,” said Leon.

“Yall some more of them there civilian rights people?”

“Huh-un,” Leon said. “We live over at Pine Woods.”

“Sure you do. That's how come you to have New York license tags.” They laughed. A white hand grabbed every door handle.

“I live up there, but I grew up down here. I'm home visit-in.” Leon inched his fingers toward the key in the ignition.

“Where'd you get this car from, nigger?”

“Bet he stole it,” one man announced.

“I bought it.”

Donny looked out his window and discovered the man about to open his door was Jed Tatro. Their eyes met and locked. Finally Jed said, “Lay off them, boys. They really are from Pine Woods. I recognize this boy in the back here.”

“How come you to stop here if you're from Pine Woods? You know bettern that.”

Leon looked at him.

“I asked you a question, boy.”

“I forgot,” Leon mumbled.

“Well, don't forget again, or you might get yourself hurt. They sometimes put fancy ideas into niggers' heads up at New York City.”

They drove off in silence.

“Bastards!” Leon finally murmured. “Motherfucking white devils!”

Donny felt rage building. His hands twitched with wanting to be around one of those muscled sunburned necks. He wanted to watch some white face turn pink, then red, then purple. Wanted to see those cold blue eyes bulging.

“Yall better
get
the hell out of this place,” Leon counseled. “While you can still get it up at all.”

Tadpole snarled, “Yeah, man, I see how it is. I get to fight their motherfucking war, but I don't even get to eat their goddam barbecues.”

The next morning Mr. Stump preached on the verse “Be not hasty in thy spirit: For anger rests in the bosom of fools.” Donny thought about it as he took up the offering and was alarmed at his rage last night. They beat up Jesus and shoved a crown of thorns on his head. He didn't fight back. But now two thousand years later, everybody knew about Jesus Christ, and who knew anything about those Roman soldiers?

He was scared of how much he wanted his hands around some white throat. It was being with Tadpole and Leon. They'd always been a bad influence on him. His grandmaw was right. He didn't want no trouble. He didn't want to harm nobody. Besides, he had to take it easy like the nurse at the mill warned or his blood pressure would shoot sky high again.

Walking home, he decided to do anything he could to make things peaceful. He put his arm around Rochelle. “I'm sorry I been messing up lately, mama. I guarantee you I gon do better from now on. That's a promise.”

For the next several weeks he stayed away from Dupree's. The men called to him as he walked home from work, “Hey, Donny, where you been at, man? You coming over after you change?”

“Gotta spend some time with the family, man. Know what I mean?”

Hands waved him away, dismissing him once again as Mr. Junior Church Usher, Donny Good Boy Tatro. But so what? This was how he wanted to live his life—fulfilling his responsibilities to the people he loved, staying clear of people he didn't love or who didn't love him. Taking it easy. Rochelle had stopped nagging him and was at home more often. Some afternoons they'd meet in the kitchen before picking up the kids, split a beer, and talk over that day. A time or two they ended up on the floor or the couch or the bed. It was beginning to seem almost like old times again, and he was glad.

He started doing some light yard work on Saturdays, and some afternoons after work. That, plus his salary, plus Rochelle's wages, kept them abreast of the bills from Harmony Home, plus rent and groceries. They even got them another TV. But Isaac's toes turned in too far, and the doctor recommended casts, then a brace during the night. Rochelle's teeth started going bad from the pregnancy. They still hadn't paid the midwife for Isaac and here another was coming. But Donny was determined to make it through and out the other side. His mother sent money from New York, and Ruby cashed in her burial insurance.

One day as he was sweeping around the loading platform, Al Grimes came up and gave him two old pipes.

“Why, I surely do thank you, Mr. Al.” He grinned and took them, even though he didn't smoke.

“I think you'll enjoy them, Donny. They draw real good.” “Yes sir, I reckon I will.”

After work Donny caught the bus to Tsali Street. He understood he was exhausted when he heard a white man opposite him growl, “What you looking at, boy?” He'd been staring straight through the man. “Nothing, sir,” he mumbled, lowering his eyes. “You calling me nothing?”

“No sir,” Donny said, closing his eyes, silently begging the man not to give him a hard time.

“Watch out who you stare at, boy, or you'll wish you had.”

“Yes sir,” Donny sighed, burying his face in his hands. “Did you listen at what I said, boy?” “Yes sir.”

“Cause it's for your own good.” The man had decided to lecture him rather than torment him. Hard to say which was worse. “Now, some men, they'd as soon kill you as have you staring at them all insolent like you was doing.”

“I'm sorry, sir. I didn't know I was. I'm just so tired.”

“Tired? Who ain't tired, young feller?”

“Yes sir. I reckon so.”

“You reckon so. Well, I
know
so.” The bullying tone returned. “If the good Lord meant us to rest, He wouldn't of given us two hands to do His works with, I always say.”

“Yes sir.”

“The onliest ones who ain't tired is resting in their graves. Or setting on their cans up on Tsali Street.”

Donny smiled faintly and nodded. “Yes sir, ain't it the truth?”

“How would you know, boy? I don't reckon you hang around much with Tsali Street folks.” “I works in their yards. That's where I'm headed now.” The bus had reached his stop, and he stood up. “Take my advice, son, and keep your eyes to yourself after this.”

“I surely will.” Donny grinned, wanting to claw the ugly pink cheeks and watch blood well up. He reminded himself to relax or the high blood pressure would come back.

He trimmed hemlock hedges, each opening and closing of the shears feeling like his last movement on this earth. As he mowed the lawn, he reflected on how he knew every square inch of this yard, every hollow in the hedges, every boulder and leaf pit, from playing Kick-the-Can with The Five on summer evenings.

The Princes were out, but a jar of bacon grease and his check sat on the back step. He walked down Tsali to the bus stop on the highway. He'd just missed one bus, and another wasn't due for twenty minutes. Going into Anderson's Drugstore where The Five used to buy grape snowcones, he leaned on the soda fountain counter and wiped his sweaty upper lip and forehead with his shirt-sleeve. The counter was almost full, and a woman in a white dress was busy filling orders. Her hips strained against the tight white cloth of her uniform.

“What can I get you, honey?” she asked as she rushed past.

“Just a glass of water, please ma'am.”

She filled a glass and shoved it down the counter. He said, Thank you, ma'am.” And downed it in one long gulp. As he walked toward the door, he could see her reflected in the plate glass window. Looking up, she studied him. She looked toward the druggist behind the prescription counter, looked back at Donny, gazed at the empty glass in her hand, gave a couple of people at the counter a perplexed look, shrugged, and tossed the glass into the garbage can, where it splintered.

He heard Rochelle in the kitchen opening a bottle of beer. Almost whimpering, he took her in his arms and buried his face in her neck, unable to speak.

“Whew, nigger, you stink!” she exclaimed with a laugh, pushing him away. He felt his arm draw back. His fist smashed into her laughing mouth. She screamed. Time after time his fists sank into her flesh. He caught glimpses of her terrified face—her pale face. The face of the mother who left him, the face of the woman at the Majestic Theatre, the face of the woman at the soda fountain, the face of Mrs. Prince handing him bacon grease. Stinking cunts, all of them. He was a nigger, but at least he wasn't no stinking cunt. Blood dribbled down Rochelle's chin. His fist smashed into her pale cheekbone.

She grabbed the beer opener and raked it down his face. He clutched at his left eye, as it filled with blood, and stumbled out of the apartment.

Chapter Four
Jed

Jed picked up his black lunch pail. “Be good now,” he counseled Sally, pecking her cheek.

She bounced Joey on her hip. “When do I ever get a chance to be anything else?”

“It's a good thing. I'd beat hell out of anyone who touched you.” This was true, too. The mere idea of Sally lying in some other man's arms and revealing that Jed had hemorrhoids and sometimes missed the bowl when he pissed could make him frantic.

Sally laughed. “You make me feel like Rapunzel or something.”

“That's just how I think of you, darlin. The princess at the top of my tower. Am I right?”

“Yes, hon, you sure are.”

They kissed while Joey grunted, trying to push Jed away.

As he got in his Chevy left over from high school, Jed surveyed his home. He'd paid off twenty-five percent already; in sixteen more years it would be all theirs. He glanced at his calendar watch. In 1981, to be exact. He'd been over every square inch, inside and out, with his own hands—scraping and painting, puttying and pasting up the wallpapers Sally had picked out. He was building a third bedroom on the back for Joey. He was making payments on a TV console, and a new Dodge wagon for Sally and the kids. He'd mowed, pruned, weeded, trimmed, and planted throughout the small yard, built a sandbox, set up a swing set. He'd married the prettiest girl in town, had two cute babies—his son first, then a daughter. He'd be a foreman over at the mill before long. Maybe in a few more years a supervisor. Who knew after that? Maybe production manager, or even operations manager. Anything was possible. After all, his father started out a broke, uneducated hillbilly, and here he was today recently promoted to supervisor. Yes, all right, he'd messed up in high school, with him and Sally cheating the starter and all. But he'd been doing real good ever since. Besides, most everybody believed the story about them being secretly married. Or pretended to.

His plans for the future included joining the Elks, and buying him a motorboat. And maybe a new car—a T-Bird.

Recently Hank said to him, “Yeah, and when Sally's old man dies, I bet you gonna come into a bundle, buddy.”

This had never occurred to Jed. He'd been aware that her daddy ran the mill and her family had them a fancy house. But he hadn't figured it had much to do with him, apart from making him feel like a big shot to be Sally's steady. But maybe Hank was right. Maybe Sally would be rich someday—and him too as her husband. They could buy a new house in a development, take trips to Disneyland with the kids, eat out, everything. He grinned.

Jed drove slowly through the streets where he'd spent his whole life, past the house where he'd grown up. He could recite the life histories of most people here. He liked knowing each day exactly who he'd see and what he'd be doing. Hardly ever did he have to face anything he hadn't planned on.

He smiled thinking about making love that morning right after the alarm went off. He'd woke up with a big hard-on, had just rolled over and put it to her. He liked it best in the morning, when he was rested. And since he had to go to work, it had to be over with fast. At night and on the weekends you had to go into all that do-you-really-really-love-me junk that sometimes made jerking off seem preferable. He didn't understand why Sally couldn't just take it for granted that he really really loved her. Why did they have to go over it time after time? It was like the Lord's Prayer at church—after a while it stopped meaning anything. The secret agent in the paperback he was reading said, “I've never told any woman I love her. I don't know if I'll even be alive tomorrow, and it's not fair to let you think you can count on me. But if only my life were like other men's, believe me, Rachel, I would want to spend it with you.” Coach Clancy used to say, “A woman gets hooked on love like a junkie on dope. But don't let them pass their habit on to you, men.”

He pulled into the parking space next to Raymond's battered army surplus Jeep. It was weird having Raymond back. He'd driven out last week to the crumbling house Raymond had rented on an abandoned farm in the hills on the way to Kentucky. He was rebuilding the house and sheds, had planted a garden, bought a cow. Lived all by himself. What he did for pussy out there in the boonies was a mystery. But that never had been one of old Raymond's major interests. Couldn't have been with a girl like Emily. She was about as sexy as a telephone pole. Raymond had cut his hair off, shaved his mustache, went around in coveralls like everyone else. When he was up in New York City, he used to be some kind of beatnik or something. But now he tried to chat and joke with the folks at the mill. He'd gotten rid of his Yankee accent. Sometimes he sounded more country than real country people. It was almost embarrassing. That boy should of been an actor or something. The whole town had been pretty shocked when his Newland High graduation picture had been all over the newspapers and on the TV right after he got beat up. You knew they was shocked because nobody mentioned it. They pretended like it hadn't happened, like a Newland boy hadn't
really
been working for a bunch of Yankee Communists. Jed felt like Raymond probably got what he deserved. Looked like Raymond felt that way himself now, and was turning over a new leaf.