Читать книгу The Last Poets - Christine Otten - Страница 21

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AKRON, OHIO, 1960

Dora

‘Yo, Jerome, where you going?’

Reggie Watson shouted and waved to him from across Wooster Ave. ‘M-m-mammio baked a pie,’ he said. ‘She says for you come over.’

Jerome shook his head. ‘No time, man. Tell her to save me a piece.’

Reggie sauntered across the wide avenue. Hands in his pockets. Head drooping. Reggie always went straight home after school, but now Jerome saw that he was hanging back.

‘You in a hurry or something?’ Reggie asked when he got closer.

‘No, why?’

‘I-I-I-I dunno.’

‘Daddio will get real mad if you don’t get yourself home.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Reggie mumbled, irritated. He didn’t like being fobbed off.

Reggie and he had been pals since the start of first grade. They always walked home together after school. One day Reggie was crossing the street when a shiny blue Cadillac hit him. Jerome saw how Reggie’s small body was catapulted about six feet in the air, how his face hit the curb. He lay motionless and limp on the sidewalk. A trickle of blood zigzagged over the gray concrete slabs. Jerome went over to him, but as he approached Reggie leapt up and tore off without a word. The car drove on. Jerome stood stock-still on the sidewalk. He couldn’t move. He’d thought Reggie was dead. How could he manage to run off so fast?

The next day at school Reggie had a Band-Aid on his left cheek.

Jerome tried to ignore him, but at recess the boy came up to him.

‘Th-thanks,’ he said.

It was the first time Jerome heard another child stutter. He laughed. ‘You made out of elastic, or what?’ he asked.

Only much later did Jerome learn that Reggie had been terrified that his mother would give him a hiding for coming home late. Fear of his mother’s open hand had given his wounded body wings. He wasn’t allowed to hang around on the street. He lived with his mother, his brother and sister, and his grandparents on Bailey Court, a few blocks from Jerome.

That was how they became friends. Jerome liked going over to Reggie’s. Everything about Reggie’s home life was the opposite of Jerome’s. There was always enough to eat, nobody fought, and Daddio Bellamy helped Reggie with his homework when his mother was at work. Mammio Bellamy told Jerome he was always welcome and could stay as long as he liked. She knew his family.

But recently Jerome’s stuttering friend was starting to get on his nerves. Reggie stuck to him like white on rice. He was becoming Jerome’s shadow. Jerome had the feeling his friend wanted something from him, but he didn’t know what. A while back Reggie had suddenly started in about his father. The whole neighborhood knew George Watson was a drunkard. Why should Jerome care? As though he was supposed to be interested that the bastard left his kid in the lurch yet again. Reggie should just quit his bellyaching.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Jerome said.

‘Can I go with you?’

‘You don’t want to.’

‘Wha-what d’you mean, I don’t want to?’

Jerome chortled condescendingly. ‘Go on now.’ He looked into Reggie’s crestfallen face. He hated it when Reggie gave him that look. Should he take him along after all? He could have him stand lookout. But Reggie was such a greenhorn. He’d get the fright of his life. And his mother would give him a real walloping when she found out he’d been hanging around in the city.

‘I gotta work, man.’

‘You like it?’

‘Like what?’

‘Wh-what you do.’

Jerome laughed. ‘You can come with me another time, okay? See you tomorrow.’ And with huge strides, Jerome bolted off.

At home he went to the shed to fetch his shoeshine box, with its brushes, cloths, and polish. He didn’t feel like going inside. Through the window he could see the outline of his mother’s small frame. She was standing in the middle of the room. He heard the little ones calling and laughing and hollering. He was just about to leave when he heard the high-pitched squeak of the front door. Sandra ambled outside and sat down on the stoop. Her face folded into a frown, she followed his every move.

‘Is Daddy inside?’ Jerome asked.

She shook her head.

‘Tell Mama I’ll be back later, will you?’

She nodded.

Jerome was anxious to get moving. He had promised Dora he would be on time. Sandra kept staring at him with her big, questioning eyes.

‘Cat got your tongue?’

‘Nah,’ Sandra said.

‘I’ve got to go. You keep an eye on Mama?’

‘You’re supposed to stay here,’ Sandra said.

‘Oh yeah? And who’s gonna put food on the table?’

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘Okay then.’ Jerome planted a kiss on her forehead and hurried off. He went to the end of the street, over the bridge. He heard the water plash against the rocks. The sun was fierce on his neck. His hands in his pockets, he hiked up his trousers and took a deep breath of the hot, dusty, late-summer air. He thought of Dora, saw her long red braids, her pale face full of orange freckles. He had seen her for the first time a few weeks ago, one Saturday afternoon in a bar on Exchange Street where he always went to polish shoes. It was a narrow, smoky joint frequented by real lowlifes. He had never seen any children there except the other shoeshine boys who tried to steal his customers. Dora was sitting on a banquette against the wall. She was small and skinny. She stared blankly into space, aimlessly fiddling with the seam of her faded yellow dress.

He was done working. Out of the corner of his eye he kept looking over at the girl, wondering who her parents were, what she was doing in the bar. He never knew white people allowed their children to hang around in bars like this. When he approached her table she spoke to him.

‘What’s your name?’ Her voice was clear and high.

‘Jerome,’ he answered.

‘Mine’s Dora. I’m ten. How old are you?’

‘Eleven.’ He was surprised by his own honesty. He looked at the girl. She was so pale that you could almost see through her.

‘Let’s go outside,’ Dora said.

‘What about your parents?’

She nodded toward a woman who lay with her head on the bar. Asleep, apparently, because her arms hung loosely alongside her body.

‘Don’t you have a father?’

She pursed her lips and stared at him.

‘Okay with me,’ Jerome mumbled. He shrugged.

‘That’s my father.’ She pointed to a big, balding man with a red face. He was leaning against the worn wood-paneled wall, a glass of bourbon in his hand, smoking a cigarette. He didn’t even notice his daughter pointing at him.

‘Well, come on then.’ She hopped off her seat and led him outside. It was almost like she was weightless. Her braids bounced upward with every step she took.

‘I know a place,’ she whispered in his ear.

Outside they blinked against the bright sunlight and crossed a barren field behind the bar. Dora was always a few steps ahead. She started skipping, then broke into a run. Jerome followed, dragging his heavy shoeshine kit. He forgot everything else, kept his eyes fixed on the strange translucent girl darting out ahead of him.

And then she stopped. ‘Here it is.’ She pointed to a hollow in the ground, surrounded by bushes; further up there was a patch of trees. ‘Nice and shady,’ she said. She nestled in the hollow. ‘Come on.’

Jerome set his kit on the dusty ground and sat down next to her. The girl appeared to know exactly what she was doing.

‘I always come here when I want to be alone,’ she said.

‘Uh-huh,’ Jerome said, nodding timidly.

‘Nobody except me knows about this place.’ She pulled her dress over her head. ‘Now you have to take something off.’

‘How come?’ He tried to avert his eyes from her naked torso, but he couldn’t. The white of her skin made him think of ice cream. Her nipples were like two tiny red pinheads. She had goose bumps despite the heat.

‘You’ll see.’ Dora laughed, exposing her beige teeth. She had small, pointy teeth and thin pink lips.

Jerome took off his shirt. ‘So what all do you do here?’ he asked.

‘Just sit. Think.’

‘Think?’

‘Don’t you ever do that? I think all the time. And if I want it to slow down in my head, I come here.’ She threw back her head and looked up. Jerome followed her gaze. He saw the thick leafy crown of the trees, the branches and leaves waving gently in the wind. Through the canopy he could see snatches of deep blue and purple sky.

Dora leaned over and kissed Jerome on the lips. Then she held back and stared at him. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she snapped. ‘Where do you live?’

‘In the bottom.’

‘The what?’

‘The Elizabeth Park Projects.’

‘That’s only for niggers, isn’t it?’

Jerome didn’t answer.

‘My father hates niggers.’ She leaned over again. She pried his lips apart and proceeded to kiss him, pressing her tongue into his mouth and swirling it around in circles.

Jerome felt her hands glide down his chest. He started getting all hot inside.

‘You have to take off your pants,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘Why not?’

Jerome hesitated. He knew what sex was. What all hadn’t he seen down on Howard Street. He knew that white men were crazy about black pussies. But what did Dora want? She was so young. She reminded him of the elf from the fairy tales his mother read to him when he was little. An elf in a tree. You could blow her away with just a puff.

‘Come on,’ she said.

‘You gonna keep your panties on?’

‘You want me to?’

He shrugged. She started tugging at his belt. He pushed her away and undid his pants.

‘Why do you clean those guys’ shoes in the bar? They’re jerks.’

‘Why do you think?’

‘Do they pay a lot?’

He shrugged.

‘Don’t you go to school?’

‘Sure I do.’ His pants were down around his ankles. He cupped his hands in front of his penis. Dora looked straight into his eyes. Her irises were light green.

‘Here, let me.’ She pushed his hands aside. She kneeled down in the hollow and took his dick in her hands, caressed it. ‘It’s so dark.’

‘What?’

‘Your thing.’

‘Well, what’d you expect?’ He tried to resist the warm, tingling feeling in his belly. His dick began to stiffen. His balls tightened.

‘Now you have to close your eyes,’ she whispered.

He did what she said. Something about all this didn’t sit right. But Dora gave him a warm and tingly feeling he had never felt before. It shot through his entire body. It was different from when he played with himself. As though he was sinking into a soft, moist bed. He looked through half-closed eyes. Her small head was bobbing up and down. She licked and sucked on his dick and held his balls firmly in her hand. His thighs began to hurt; all his muscles cramped. The sky and the trees above him started spinning. He closed his eyes again. Dora stopped.

‘Like it?’ His body felt heavy and strange. He couldn’t think straight. He opened his eyes.

‘We’ll do this again, okay?’ Dora asked. She stood up and put on her dress. As if nothing special had happened. ‘I’m here every Saturday afternoon, and sometimes after school too. But don’t bring anybody with you, all right?’

Jerome hiked up his pants. ‘Why not?’

‘I picked you, now didn’t I?’

He nodded.

‘Next week?’

‘Okay.’

‘Deal,’ she said. She clambered out of the hollow and darted back across the bumpy field. Jerome saw how her long red braids floated behind her.

The next two Saturdays they went to Dora’s spot. Her parents were always too drunk to notice that they snuck off together. Dora taught him to French kiss, and the second time she sucked him off he came. She licked up and swallowed the white stuff. He almost threw up as he watched her. How could she do something like that? She said it tasted like mushrooms and that he should try it.

‘Are you crazy?’

She always took off her dress and sometimes her panties too. Her pussy was a thin straight stripe with no hair on it. Like it was glued shut. He didn’t dare touch it. She never asked him to. And he was secretly relieved he didn’t have to do anything.

The last Saturday he saw Dora, at the beginning of September, was overcast. Dora wore a blue knitted vest over her pink dress.

‘You want to go for a walk?’ she asked.

‘Where to?’

‘Doesn’t matter, just for a walk. I’m cold.’

He wanted to put his arm around her but was afraid someone might see them.

They walked across the field and past the hollow. The wind made the leaves rustle. The trees were already starting to turn red and yellow.

‘You wanna go into the woods?’ Dora asked.

‘Fine with me,’ Jerome said. He took her hand. There was no one around.

‘Will you always be my friend?’ Dora asked in a small voice.

Jerome nodded.

‘Really? I have to know for sure.’

‘’Course I will. I’m with you now, aren’t I?’

‘That doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Then what do I have to do?’

Dora stopped and looked at him. Her eyes were pallid and watery. ‘I don’t want to go back.’

‘We just got here.’

‘I mean: I don’t ever want to go back. To my house. It’s a pigsty. My mother never does anything. Can I go home with you?’

Jerome laughed. ‘What about your father?’

‘You have a father too, don’t you?’

It was like getting the wind knocked out of him. Whenever he was with Dora, he forgot all about home. And when he was home and thought of her, he felt himself drift off. He hadn’t told a soul about her. If he ever did, that fine feeling would disappear.

‘Well?’ she said.

‘I don’t know.’ He looked at the ground and dug the toe of his boot into the sand.

‘You want to sit down?’

‘My father’s not all there,’ Jerome whispered.

‘Not all there,’ Dora repeated.

‘He steals my money.’ He thought of his father. Daddy standing out back smoking a cigarette. Thinking he was alone—but Jerome saw him through the kitchen window, and heard him muttering to himself. Unintelligible gray words and sentences he immediately swallowed back. His tall body hunched forward, as though there was a kink in his spine. Daddy made a strange, high-pitched growling noise that he guessed came from the back of his throat. He sniffed back the snot in his nose. He was crying. Jerome had never seen his father cry before.

‘We could run away,’ Dora suggested. Her eyes started to glisten. ‘You earn money, right?’

‘And then what?’

‘And then we’d be together forever, and when we get big we’ll have babies.’

‘What?’ Jerome looked at the small white girl in the blue vest. He saw her skinny body. He could reach all the way around her and still have room left over.

‘Don’t you want to leave too?’

He thought of Chris and Billy and the little ones. Sandra on the stoop in front of the house. ‘You have to stay.’ Dora cuddled up to him. She traced the outline of his lips with her finger. ‘It’s like they’re drawn on,’ she mumbled.

‘What are?’

‘Your lips.’

He felt her warm breath on his face. Her breath smelled slightly putrid. He stroked her hair. It all seemed unreal, as though they weren’t really standing here.

‘I’ll always be your friend, okay?’ he said hastily, hoping she would cheer up soon.

She gave him a shove. Looked at him, laughing. ‘The hiding place, come on,’ she said. ‘Last one there’s a rotten egg!’ And off she ran.

They had agreed to meet on the field behind the bar at four o’clock. Afraid of being late, Jerome had rushed and was out of breath. His arm was sore from carrying the shoeshine kit. On Exchange Street he already heard the hubbub coming from the bar where Dora’s parents always hung out. He darted across the street as inconspicuously as possible and headed straight for the field with the mounds and the holes and the bushes that concealed Dora’s hideaway. She wasn’t there. He waited for a bit and walked into the woods, calling her name. He heard a vague echo of his own voice in the woods, and the chatter of the birds. He went back to the hollow. No Dora. He ambled back to Exchange Street. He paused in front of the entrance to the bar; he was never able to just walk straight in. He took a deep breath, concentrated, tried to put all thoughts out of his head, shielding himself from the dirty looks and nasty comments from the men in the bar. He shifted his kit from one hand to the other and walked inside. Immediately he saw Dora sitting on the banquette against the wall, where he had seen her for the first time. Next to her was her father.

‘Hey, you there, pickaninny. C’mere,’ the red-faced man shouted. Dora looked away. Jerome straightened his back and went over to them.

‘Gimme a shine,’ the man said. ‘And then we’ll see what you’re worth.’

Jerome looked at Dora. Her face looked pale, sallow. She sat with her shoulders hunched up and her eyes glued to the floor, like she was trying to hide inside her own body. He opened his kit and slid under the table. He saw the father’s worn-out shoes. He spat on them, took a cloth and started polishing. He’d show that bastard. They all thought their shoes got extra shiny from spit, but only he really knew why he was spitting. After a little while he saw her father’s hand appear under the table. A fleshy white hand. The hand rested on Dora’s knee, pushed her dress up and started fiddling with her panties. Jerome held his breath. Stopped polishing.

‘Hurry it up, will ya?’

He heard the man laugh. A rough, drunkard’s laugh. Jerome rubbed the cloth lightly over the shoes as he watched Dora’s father’s big hand, now inside her panties, nudge her legs open and move slowly back and forth. He felt himself go queasy. It was as though he’d taken a blow to the head. His vision went dark, he tottered on his knees. No wonder Dora knew so much about sex.

‘That’ll do.’ The man pulled his feet back. His hand stayed in his daughter’s panties.

Jerome climbed out from under the table, struggled to get up. His head was spinning. He looked at Dora. Her damp cheeks glistened in the smoky yellow light of the bar. She wiped away the tears and smiled at him. He did not smile back. He was numb. He just picked up his kit and turned toward the door without asking for money.

‘You’re useless,’ Dora’s father called out after him.

He didn’t respond, just headed outside. He was ashamed. Ashamed of that son of a bitch, of himself for walking off without a word. Of Dora. Of her tiny, pale, child’s body. He pushed the door open and turned back. Dora saw him looking and smiled again. He forced himself to smile back and went outside, onto the street.

The next day, Reggie was waiting for him after school.

‘Want to come over?’

Jerome shrugged.

‘M-m-mammio wants to know why you don’t come over anymore.’

‘Just ’cause.’

‘She says sh-sh-she wants to talk to your mother.’

‘Is she crazy?’

‘Mammio’s not crazy.’

‘I know that,’ he sighed. He kicked a stone. ‘Sure, I’ll come over.’

They crossed Wooster Avenue without another word.

That morning, everything had seemed all right again. He had slept well and dream-free. His bed was nice and warm. He stretched out in it, enjoying the peace. But it only lasted a couple of seconds. Then it was like a black screen slid down in front of his thoughts. All his muscles tensed and he broke into a sweat. He knew he would never see Dora again. Nor would he ever again set foot on Exchange Street. He shut his eyes tight, but he couldn’t get rid of that image of the fleshy white hand crawling up Dora’s skinny thigh. It was as though, losing Dora, he’d lost everything: his work, his money, his pride.

Reggie and he were ambling toward Bailey Court.

‘Can you keep your mouth shut about something?’ Jerome asked.

‘Wh-why?’

‘Well, can you?’

‘’Course.’

‘I knew this girl,’ Jerome began. He already regretted it. It was like he was giving Dora away.

‘And?’

‘Never mind. I was just thinking … I mean … did you think white girls’ skin is cold too? Like an Eskimo’s?’

Reggie gaped at him. At least he didn’t laugh. Reggie always knew when something was important.

‘She was warm. Her blood was warmer than mine.’ Jerome was talking more to himself than to his friend.

‘Was she pretty?’ Reggie asked.

‘It’s not about that. We were friends. She’s gone.’

‘Where to?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ They were in front of Reggie’s house. Mammio spotted them from the kitchen and waved. Jerome waved back.

‘Nobody knows, right?’ Reggie asked as they went in the back door.

Jerome shook his head.

‘Good.’