Читать книгу The Bernice L. McFadden Collection - Bernice L. McFadden - Страница 41

Chapter Thirty-One

They were thirty years into their marriage when Fish’s sight began to fail.

Diabetes.

It was bound to happen. You can’t escape a disease like that if you drink Coca-Cola with your breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Tass had to inject the insulin into his veins, because he couldn’t bear to stick himself.

They now had grown children and grandchildren who owned cars and lived close by, but they had their own jobs and families, and not much time to chauffer Fish and Tass around. And so after an entire lifetime of being a passenger, Tass decided she would learn how to drive.

Sonny was recruited to teach her. Fish supervised from the backseat.

Sonny pointed to the pedals. “Okay, Mama. That one is the gas and that one is the brake.” He handed her the ignition key. “Push it in, press down on the brake, and turn the key.”

Tass did as she was told and the car roared to life. The younger children watched silently from the porch.

“Now,” Sonny said, “shift the gear into dri—”

“See, already you telling her wrong!” Fish barked. Sonny turned around to meet his father’s angry eyes.

“How am I telling her wrong, Fish?”

“Did you tell her what the gearshift was?”

Tass was gripping the wheel so tightly her fingers went numb. Her eyes were glued to the wide, open street before her, and when she spoke, the words came from the corner of her mouth: “I know where the gearshift is. I put it in drive, right?”

“Yeah, Mama.”

Tass grabbed hold of the gearshift. “How do I know when it’s in drive?”

Sonny leaned over and tapped the arched glass embedded in the dashboard.

“D is for drive,” Fish grumbled.

Tass ignored him. “Do I keep my foot on the brake?”

“Yep!”

She pulled the gear down and watched as the dial clicked to D.

“Okay, now ease your foot off the brake and step on the gas—”

“Gently!” Fish yelled.

The car jerked, Tass shrieked and slammed both feet down on the brake.

Sonny sighed. “Okay, Mama, let’s try it once more. This time, keep your foot on the gas.”

“Okay.”

Tass eased her foot off the brake again and placed it on the gas pedal. She gave it a little pressure and the car began to roll forward. A cheer went up from the children.

The car inched along at a turtle’s pace until it reached the corner. Tass stepped down on the brake and looked at Sonny.

“Which way should I go?”

“Whichever way you want.”

Fish let off a long, loud yawn. “Left.”

Sonny placed his hand over Tass’s and together they steered the car left.

“It turned, it turned!” Tass squealed with joy.

“Imagine that,” Fish muttered.

A year after Tass learned to drive, Fish suffered a stroke, rendering his left arm and leg useless, and slurring his speech.

At the hospital, Tass and the children cornered Fish’s doctor and pelted him with dozens of questions, including the one that was the most difficult to ask: “He still got his mind?”

“Yes.” The doctor’s response was emphatic. “Luckily, he only suffered some physical fallout, but his mind is still as sharp as it was before the stroke.”

Understandably, Fish was frustrated and angry at how his body had turned on him. No soft or comforting words from his wife could expunge the indignation he experienced every time she had to assist him with the handling of his own penis or bend him over the toilet to clean his behind.

The constant humiliation ravaged his ego and Fish began to turn mean.

At first Tass ignored the way he watched her, pointedly and premeditatively. She began to feel like an unwitting target caught in the crosshairs of a sniper’s gun.

Fish would go days without speaking to her. For a while he wouldn’t eat anything she prepared. The daughters had to bring him casseroles of food and spoon-feed him.

Once, while Tass was outside sweeping dead leaves from the sidewalk, Fish hobbled to the door and locked it. Through the window she could see him sitting in the kitchen, stone-faced and staring. It was nearly dark when one of the children happened to drive by and saw Tass waiting there on the porch. After that incident, Tass had an extra key made which she hid beneath a smiling gnome in the front garden.

The worst act of insolence took place on a crisp, April morning. Fish was sitting at the kitchen table, wrapped in his thick green house robe. The radiators were clanging and whistling as Tass stood at the stove preparing his breakfast.

Fish had been hearing things. Whispers, giggles, feet scrambling up and down the staircase, doors opening and closing, the squeal of bedsprings. He assumed that Tass was slipping men into the house after she put him to bed.

Of course, that was absolutely untrue as Tass was completely devoted to Fish.

Let me explain why he was hearing these things. I know you are familiar with the adage: Once a man, twice a child. The words hold more truth than many of you will believe. Remember when I told you that little children are able to see the spirits around them? Well, when a soul begins to slip from the binds of the physical world, the consciousness reverts to its natural state and once again it becomes open and receptive to the spirits that live amongst the host body. For some, the transition has been problematic, which has led to sane people being medicated or institutionalized.

This particular morning, Fish slammed his fist against the table and barked, “You better not be bringing no niggers in my house!”

“Uh-huh,” Tass sounded, and kept right on whipping the eggs and turning the bacon.

“What type of woman is you? Imagine, at your age picking up a Jody, and after all I done for you!”

She had grown used to the accusations. It was becoming as customary as her morning cup of coffee.

“You hear me talking to you, Tass?” Again, he brought his fist down hard onto the table.

“Uh-huh,” Tass said absently.

Fish was suddenly seized with a pure and toxic rage that propelled his frail body from his chair, into the air, and onto Tass’s back. They went down like anchors, tossed into the sea.

On the floor they battled like hellions, until Tass was finally able to free herself and jump to her feet. Backing away from him, she reached for the knife lying in the sink.

“Nigger, don’t you ever put your hands on her again. Don’t you know I will kill you?”

Not her words, but his. Not her voice, his voice.

In that moment, Emmett discovered that his love for Tass far exceeded the power to manipulate butterflies, flowers, and birds.

The color drained from Fish’s face and the knife slipped from Tass’s hand and clattered back into the sink. Husband and wife stared at one another in astonishment, before cautiously casting their gazes around the room.

As far as they could tell, they were alone.

Tass thought it was an oddity, like a person born with one blue eye and one brown eye, or poor black people hitting the lottery two drawings in a row. There was no other way to explain it.

After the moment had passed, Tass reached down to help Fish to his feet, but he was spooked and scrambled across the yellow and brown linoleum with the agility and speed of a lizard.

“Don’t touch me,” he slurred through his crooked lips.

“Don’t be silly,” Tass said as she reached for him again.

Fish batted her hands away. “Get off me, you possessed bitch!”

Tass reeled back in surprise. Even during their most horrendous disagreements, Fish had never called her out of her name.