Just Above My Head Page 11

  I knew what I wanted for Paul. I had seen it in a window. I hoped I could find again. It was a heavy gray scarf, because Paul sweated at the piano, and didn’t always remember to cover up well when he walked out into the street. I was going to buy a bracelet for Florence, a heavy silver bracelet, utterly plain, a closed circle.

  Amy and Joel: since that afternoon in our house, I never thought of her ass or her breasts or her legs anymore. I thought of the moment she had slapped her little boy, and the way I had held him on the stairs while he cried, and Arthur’s gentle and worried face behind him, and the ice cream parlor, later, and his terrifying sister. These two did not yet exist, you must remember, either for Arthur or for me, as Jimmy or as Julia. They were the strange children of Brother and Sister Miller. Besides, we could tell, though neither of our parents explicitly stated, or burdened us with it, that Paul could not stand Joel, Florence despised Amy. You could almost see her fingers itching to get to Julia’s backside, and make her cry for salvation all over again. Called? I once heard her say to Paul, while they were sitting in the kitchen, stringing beans, You let me call her one time. She will know that’s she’s been called! And she snapped a string bean, as though it were Amy’s or Julia’s neck.

  But real pain and confusion lay beneath this anger—which anger, in itself, was both true and false. Amy was, after all, the daughter of a woman who had been like a mother to Florence. One day, this woman would come down front and ask Florence about her daughter. Then Florence would no longer be able to hide behind the vague cheerfulness of her letters. She would be forced to drag the mother into a confrontation with the truth. At the same time, she felt that Amy’s mother knew the truth, and was counting on Florence either to change that truth, or to protect her from it. This meant that Florence would also be dragged into a confrontation: with the truth concerning the woman who had been like a mother to Florence, but who had, somehow, failed to be a mother to Amy. Who could read such a record? Florence watched her sons, wondering if she had failed already, and watched Paul, sometimes, wondering if they were accomplices in a crime not yet discovered. It was perfectly possible that either one of us might get hung up on, and spend our lives with, someone as pretty and as flaccid as Joel, and—after all—as moving. Julia could not have been foreseen; both women would have been quick to agree about that. But from this, to face a further truth—that, without Julia’s notoriety, and her earning power, Brother Joel Miller would long ago have split the scene—was a far colder and more intimidating matter. Joel did not love his wife so much as he loved his daughter because she put bread on the table. It was not an awful lot of bread, but a little can mean a lot, can make the difference: that was why I stole. Florence found herself part of a conspiracy to preserve Joel’s ease, his boyhood, a conspiracy headed by a little girl—his daughter: and she found no way out of this closed circle. At another time, in another place, she might have been able to have had the child slaughtered as being possessed of a demon: but not at this time, and not in this place, for Julia spoke in the tongue of fire which was the testimony of the Holy Ghost.

  I walked the avenue, in the freezing cold, which somehow did not get to me, looking in the windows. I didn’t realize, then, how little choice we are offered by the people responsible for all this bullshit. I knew only that there was very little in those wide open windows that I wanted to take home to anybody. I was downtown, naturally, where the bullshit’s cheaper, but bullshit travels well. And everybody seemed avid for it, rushing past me, rushing toward me, bumping me from side to side, like water, but without the friendliness water has when you know you’re far from drowning. I sort of rode the water. I saw Paul’s scarf, and walked into the store.

  There can be a great many advantages to being black; for example, in those years anyway, when you walked into such a store downtown, everybody dropped whatever they were doing and hustled over to serve you at once. If you had any sense, you didn’t give them a lecture on how you knew they’d come rushing over to you because they knew you were a penniless thief. No, you smiled, and you smiled at the house dick, idly buffing his fingernails next to the panic button, and let them try to guess where you carried your wallet, if you had one. You took your time, looking intelligent and mightily bored, and, with the humility of the aristocrat, indicated that you’d like to see—? With what was not quite a smile, you watched the salesperson nearly strangle on his or her tongue, which had been, most unwisely, about to warn you of the price. With the grace bequeathed you by your ancestors, you pretend not to have noticed how narrowly the salesperson has averted disaster: it is as though you understand how panic can make a person fart, and you indicate that you know the smell won’t linger. Well, says he, or she, smiling, as taut as a wire, wishing to God the smell of that fart would go away, we have—and produces, blindly, a cascade of scarves. You know exactly what you want, but you finger the scarves carefully, doing your best to conceal what is either contempt or despair: you know that this person, who is now anxiously giving you the pedigree of the merchandise, merely works here—you indicate, with a resigned shrug of the shoulder, that you, too, know how hard life can be. And, unable to bear the other’s misery a moment longer, you finally say, like a good fellow, I’ll take this one. Relief floods the face, like sun breaking through the clouds—followed, however, by a swift look at the man who has ceased buffing his nails and who is now intently studying a rack of neckties. He, or she, wraps it. That’ll be—? you say, touching your heart. Right over here! says he or she, and carries you to the cashier—who does not look at you, looks merely at the sales slip. (The rack of neckties has lost the man’s interest, now he is looking at hats.) The salesperson lingers, slightly out of orbit; elaborately, you find your wallet, and count out the money. You get your receipt, and your gift-wrapped package. Merry Christmas! cries the salesperson, and A merry Christmas to you! you say, and you both stagger, in different directions, out of the arena.

  I, to a side street off Herald Square, where I bought Florence’s bracelet, and the tie clasp for Joel—a tie clasp in the shape of a horse’s head—Joel played the numbers. I found a vial of perfume for Amy; and finally decided on a larger, more expensive vial of French perfume for Martha. (It’s strange—perhaps—how buying a gift can reveal to you what you really feel about the person for whom you’re buying the gift. The revelation can make you warm: it can also chill you, and I was a little chilled by the gift I bought for Martha. She didn’t really mean anything to me—that meant I didn’t really know her—and, since I slept with her about five or six times a week, that was chilling.)

  And, now, I had the children: Arthur, Julia, Jimmy, Peanut, Crunch, and Red. Arthur was fifteen, Julia was thirteen, Jimmy was eleven. Peanut, Crunch, and Red were all a little older, between sixteen and eighteen.

  I was not yet burdened down. Paul’s scarf and Martha’s perfume were in a shopping bag I held in one gloved hand; Amy’s perfume and Joel’s tie clasp and Florence’s bracelet were in my pockets (along with the sales slips). Christmas trees, trussed and unsold, covered the curbs and the gutters. The men who were trying to sell them, shapeless in hoods, hats, gloves, boots, and army-surplus jackets, pranced up and down, beating their hands together. A great, dressed Christmas tree blazed and towered in Herald Square. Smaller trees flickered all around me: Arthur and I, and Paul and Florence, would begin dressing our tree tonight, when I got home. I wondered what Arthur was doing now. I wondered what I would buy him. I wondered—he shape of things to come, my God—if I could buy him anything he needed.

  I walked to the Village on that freezing night, on which I felt, just the same, so warm. It wasn’t late yet, not quite ten, and all the stores stayed open late tonight, honoring the birthday of the Prince of Peace. And, I suppose, if I really want to get down about it, that they really were—out of the same, blind, self-seeking wonder that forced them to crucify Him. Well. I don’t really want to get that down about it: them is always us, they are always we. With that, and a subway token, you can ride f
rom here to glory. A long ride, pilgrim, stopping at doom, despair, confusion, and loss, with a change of trains at Gaza: at the mill, with slaves.

  I had a little time, and I thought I deserved a drink, and so I dropped in at a bar I knew: at the mill, with slaves: and squeezed myself onto an empty barstool at the very end of the bar. Then, for the first time, I realized that my body, in fact, was cold, and I was tired, I had been walking a very long time; in fact, I had walked through the city. The bartender was a German refugee named Ludwig, and he served me a double Scotch on the rocks—On the house! he cried, and Merry Christmas! and, beaming like Santa Claus, moved away, becoming part of the heaving flesh and smoke.

  I lit a cigarette, feeling distant and lost. I suddenly saw what I would buy for Arthur: a silver ring for his little finger. I had seen it when I bought Florence’s bracelet, but then, I hadn’t been sure. Now, I was, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get it tonight. Okay, one down. Julia. Julia was thirteen: and what did you buy for an adolescent high priestess? I thought at once, a viper, but then I thought, don’t be like that, and laughed to myself, and sipped my drink. I had hardly seen Julia since that afternoon at the house, and I hadn’t liked her since that day. I hadn’t seen Jimmy at all, naturally, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that they’d shipped him off someplace—maybe to his grandmother, for I knew that Florence was worried about that.

  Well. Julia. The child didn’t wear ornaments, so I couldn’t buy her earrings, or any kind of jewelry. I thought of buying her a purse, but I knew I didn’t dare do that—her father would have hit me with it. Then, I thought of those tiny little wristwatches girls love, and I knew where I could get one. There couldn’t be any harm in that, and if there was, well, fuck it—I was only trying to be nice. I couldn’t think of anything for Peanut, Crunch, and Red, but, in any case, all of the rest of my shopping would have to wait until tomorrow. So I was off now, I was free: I’d done my bit for today.

  I tried to think I was, but I knew I wasn’t. I still had a lot of cash on me, and all these presents, so I couldn’t get drunk, I couldn’t get laid. I had made out a few times with white chicks, in this bar, but maybe I was growing old fast: I was fascinated, but left untouched; drowned in deep water, but came up thirsty. It must be admitted that I knew absolutely nothing, and was dragged around by the insatiable curiosity of my prick; which was an object of the most compelling curiosity for the little white girls, as well as for their boyfriends, who literally did not know what to make of it. It was more a matter of its color than its size, or perhaps, its color was its size. I had lived with it all my life, and knew that it was, roughly, the same color as my ass and my face; and it seemed to be, as I usually was, big enough for whatever it had to do. But they always looked at it as though Napoleon had just dragged it up from Egypt, especially for them, and, though they could make it as hard as stone, they also turned it that cold.

  So I finished my drink and got into the wind and took the subway home.

  We spent Christmas Eve in the kitchen, eating corn muffins and drinking tea, and placing our presents under the tree in the living room where we drank ginger ale and beer—just Paul and Florence and Arthur and me, very quiet. I had two presents for Arthur, the silver ring for his pinkie, and a black-and-gray striped necktie, for I had got the same necktie for all the boys in the quartet. I had Julia’s tiny wristwatch, as hot as hell, and I got a charge out of knowing she’d be wearing stolen goods. Jimmy had been a problem, for I gathered that he manifested a ferocious independence and didn’t want to be associated with any of these people, and so I bought him a scarlet turtleneck sweater. I thought he might dig that, there weren’t too many like it around then. I didn’t know his size, so I bought it large, gambling that he’d grow into it before he wore it out—a gamble I lost.

  It was a nice, a quiet Christmas Eve. Paul played, and we all sang a couple of the old ones. I watched Arthur’s face, beginning to see something of what Paul saw, but seeing, beyond that, how they resembled each other, how they were father and son. I don’t now why that comforted me so, but it did. We went to bed early because Florence was tense about Christmas Day, which we were to spend with the Millers, and Arthur was nervous about singing.

  Her eyes had changed: that was the first thing I noticed about Julia that Christmas morning. And she was taller—she was going to be tall. Her father no longer carried that intricate, collapsible platform, and now, Julia strode to the pulpit instead of seeming to be lifted up into it. She was so thin that she seemed, nearly, to be as transparent as a lamp: you could almost see the flame moving as the wind moved, and it made you watch your breath. She was in her gospel heyday, at the summit of her world—but the focus of her eyes had altered, something had happened behind her eyes.

  Amy was dressed for Christmas—I almost said, like a Christmas tree—but she was vivid, certainly, in many colors, of which I remember, principally, a kind of silver-blue which looked as though it could electrocute you. She wore high heels, and her long, slender legs were still something to behold, but her skirt was long and full and her blouse beyond reproach. Joel was still the zoot-suited stud of studs, fatigue beginning, perhaps, to undermine the jaw-line, an embittered bewilderment coming and going in his eyes, but the suit was navy blue, and so was the knitted tie; the shirt was white, the cufflinks gleamed like gold. A pretty penny! was the thought that came to me, like a messenger with bad news, and I quickly turned my back on this messenger—who had, however, as I was to discover, been instructed to wait for a reply.

  This patient messenger stayed at my side during all that long Christmas Day.

  It was a bright Christmas, a silver, stinging air, with the sky above and the pavements below nearly the same color: you couldn’t touch the sky, or fall down on it, but the sky looked as hard as the pavement. Arthur was up before me (the reverse of the shape of things to come) and had taken his bath, or maybe two baths, had brushed his teeth, certainly more than once, and shaved, and put on all of my cologne before I had opened my eyes. Arthur really didn’t have anything to shave, but he didn’t like my saying so. I tried to warn him that once he had a beard, he’d have it for the rest of his life and that all he was doing now, by shaving, was stiffening all that peach fuzz into ugly little bumps. He didn’t like that, either, especially since it seemed to be true. His hair was a frozen cataract of black-and-silver waves and he was before the mirror, carefully patting down this mess, when I walked into the bathroom.

  We looked at each other in the mirror, uncertain, as always, at that point in our lives, as to how well we got along.

  I made a violent swipe at his hair, but didn’t touch it; he ducked, scowling, and I laughed.

  “Merry Christmas,” I said, watching that face, which was no longer a child’s face and not yet a man’s face.

  “Merry Christmas yourself,” he said and grinned, showing me for an instant, exactly as though he’d known I wanted to see it, the face of the little boy.

  “You nicked yourself shaving,” I said.

  “It’s nothing,” he said, and yet, gravely concerned, he turned to stare into the mirror again.

  He was nearly naked, that is, he was wearing shorts. Standing there like that, with his back to me, staring so gravely into the mirror, it Was strange to think how I’d carried him on my shoulders, and had known him when he couldn’t walk. His face was always a little sullen when I was around, as though he were warning me to stay out of his business.

  I had, of course, no way of knowing what his face was like when I wasn’t around.

  “I got to make myself pretty, too,” I said.

  “Well, I guess I better let you get to it,” he said, grinning. “Take your time, man.” He started out of the bathroom.

  “I won’t be a minute,” I said.

  “Of course not,” he said kindly. “Ain’t no way in the world you can get that mess together in a minute. It’s all right, man. Well wait.” He patted my shoulder. “Good luck.” And he closed the bathroom door be
hind him.

  I laughed to myself, and almost ran out to grab him, but I was afraid of messing up his hair.

  There is a tug of wonder in it: here’s your father, here’s your mother, there’s your brother, here you are: sitting under the tree, opening your presents. The light falls strangely, or you see it strangely; it is a ceremonial light. There is a hidden terror in it, as you unwrap the gift. The gift will tell you if anybody loves you, if anybody sees you— especially your father, your mother, your brother—and the gift will tell you, if you can read it, what they see.

  My father had bought me a heavy, fleece-lined suede jacket, not quite as dark as chocolate, with deep pockets, and a high collar. It cost so much that I knew he had had to save for it, and had picked it out a while ago. So: he knew about my comings and goings, and he trusted me. I know the tears came to my eyes, but I grinned, and he pulled me into his arms and held me tight for a moment, and I was his little boy again, the firstborn, back where we had started. Then, he pushed me away, and draped the scarf I had given him around his neck. It looked marvelous on him, it really did, it somehow glorified the gray in his hair. Mama had bought me a heavy, black, woolen turtleneck sweater, and Arthur placed around my neck a silver acorn, hanging on a silver chain. I sealed magic in it, he said, to protect you, and he hung on my neck for a moment, like my little brother again. He dug the tie, because it went with the dark gray suit his father had bought him and the monogrammed maroon shirt his mother had bought him, and the silver ring on his little finger. Our mother put the silver bracelet on her wrist, and kissed me. Then, with one hand still in my hand, and kneeling under the tree like a little girl, she opened a box and lifted out a small, heavy comb, crescent-shaped, mother-of-pearl.