Just Above My Head Read online

  Then terror overtook him, like a cloud, like thunder, like the water coming over one’s head, and he held his breath, paralyzed, staring at the girl—staring, in a way, into his mirror.

  Julia turned to her father and said, “If Arthur wants to try to sing with me, we can do that.” She grinned and turned to Arthur. “If your daddy will let us use his piano.” She said to Crunch, and to Arthur, and to her father, “I’m not going to preach no more.”

  A silence fell in the room, a silence as black as her father’s eyes.

  “Why?” Crunch asked. He had leaned forward, his hands stretched, unconsciously, toward Julia.

  “Because,” she said, “I’m ignorant. I don’t know how to save nobody’s soul. I don’t know how to save my soul!”

  “But that’s what the preacher says,” Crunch said.

  “The preacher may know it,” Julia said, “but he don’t say it. Not in the pulpit, he don’t—he can’t! How can you say that to all them souls looking to you for salvation?”

  “She’ll be all right,” Joel said. “She’s mighty upset now—she’ll be all right.”

  Julia touched her green bandanna. In the barely controlled trembling of that child’s hand, Arthur saw, unwillingly, the terrified intransigence which is the key to beauty. It made her a stranger. It made him want to be her friend. Her anguish made her real. It uncovered her youth. It revealed her age.

  She dropped her hand, and grinned at Crunch, and Arthur. “Daddy’s right. He’s always right—about his daughter. And I love my daddy—I always will. But I’m right, too—about his daughter.” Then she looked at her father, she stood up. “These gentlemen going to walk me around the block and buy me a ice cream cone. Don’t you tarry too late.” She kissed his damp forehead.

  Crunch and Arthur stood when Julia stood, and Crunch threw Arthur a worried look—his Sunday might be messed up, after all.

  “We won’t keep her long,” Arthur said quickly. “Me and Crunch got business downtown—but we’ll be back to see you real soon!”

  “Certainly before I leave here,” Crunch said.

  Julia had walked the hallway, to the door, and Crunch and Arthur followed her. Joel rose, and walked behind them. “I’ll wait here then,” he said to Julia, “till you come back.”

  “All right, Daddy,” Julia said. “Suit yourself.” She opened the door. Crunch and Julia started down the steps. Arthur, turning to close the door behind them, saw Brother Miller, his shirt-sleeves still rolled, his glass of wine in his hand.

  Arthur said, “Good night, Brother Miller,” but Joel did not answer.

  Arthur closed the door, and started down the steps. Crunch and Julia were standing on the sidewalk, looking up at him, and—Arthur told me later—this was a very strange moment in his life, less than a split second perhaps, but never to be forgotten, a moment occurring outside of time.

  He was abruptly aware that he was standing on a height, and, he told me, “They were looking up at me like I had seen something. I hadn’t yet started down the steps. She was as skinny as she could be, looking up at me, and Crunch was looking up at me, too. Crunch was lean, but he wasn’t skinny—you know, brother, I had held him in my arms, and I knew. And—how I loved him! Maybe that’s what happened as I started down those steps. His eyes, and her eyes. Oh. I knew about me and Crunch—I thought I knew. I didn’t know. I know I didn’t know why they looked at me that way, when I come stumbling down those steps. They looked at me like I was some kind of messenger—of salvation.”

  His voice, in my memory, drops, then rises—and I, too, can see the children, Crunch and Julia, standing on the sidewalk, looking up at the child—in the busy, funky, end-of-summer streets.

  And I am sure that he did resemble “some kind of messenger—of salvation.” He was certainly that for Crunch. Julia’s eyes followed Crunch’s eyes, simply, and her need was so great that she saw what Crunch saw—without knowing that she saw it, and with nothing whatever having yet occurred between herself and Crunch. Her eyes followed Crunch’s eyes because, otherwise, her eyes were fixed on madness, on despair, on death. She wanted to live. She did not know how she could, or if she could. It seemed to her that she had promised her mother to take care of her brother: that was the only reason that she had to live. But it was not enough. She did not see how to get beyond her father to her brother—she needed a human hand to help her lift herself over the chasm. And Crunch was there, with his hand outstretched, although he did not know it. And there was Arthur, too, with his hand outstretched, although he did not know it, because of his love for Crunch.

  And Arthur looked, too, at that moment in his life, like archaic, distant portraits of young nobles, princes, Greeks, Turks, Ethiopians, some of the faces in Vandyke: with all that carefully piled, wavy hair, that brow, those eyes and nostrils, those firm and greedy lips, the big, wide, humorous mouth. He caught all the light on the street at that moment, coming down the steps, his eyes looking into Crunch’s eyes, his love and his happiness and his sorrow all interwoven and fashioned together and billowing around him like a splendid royal robe. And what he glimpsed, at that moment, in their eyes, as he came down those steps, was a future, greater height, and a longer, slower descent.

  Then he was on the sidewalk, beside them. He had trouble looking at Julia because he had trouble recognizing her: she grinned, and he grinned, too. Julia took Crunch by one arm and took Arthur by the other, and they turned and started down the block.

  “You don’t really have to buy me no ice cream cone,” Julia said. “I just wanted to get out of the house for a minute.”

  “But we ready,” said Crunch, “and willing and—able, I believe,” and he grinned, around Julia’s shoulder, at Arthur.

  “The train,” said Arthur, “is in the station”—feeling very proud.

  They reached the corner, and the avenue facing Jordan’s Cat. Sidney was not there, he was up at Aunt Josephine’s, with Martha.

  Crunch, Julia, and Arthur crossed the street, and started down the avenue.

  “You all got business downtown,” Julia said. “I’ll walk you to the subway.”

  “And, then, what you going to do?” Crunch asked.

  “Why then,” said Julia, “I’ll walk back home.”

  “What you doing with yourself these days?” Crunch asked.

  “I guess you could say I’m taking care of my father.” Julia laughed, then she coughed. “He took my mother’s passing very hard.”

  “That’s only natural,” Arthur said—and then, for some reason, wished that he had not spoken.

  “Yeah,” said Crunch. “But you can’t take care of your father forever.”

  “You take care of your mother,” Arthur said, and then, again, sharply, wished that he had not spoken.

  “We do what we have to do,” Julia said.

  “But what about your life?” Crunch asked.

  He sounded both angry and bewildered, and Arthur longed to reach out, and touch him.

  “This is my life,” said Julia. “Right now.”

  They walked in silence for a while, down the broad, amazing, familiar avenue.

  Julia’s hand trembled slightly on Arthur’s elbow, but it was a firm hand, and she did not stumble. She seemed to know their destination better than he or Crunch knew: it was she who set the pace.

  She turned to Crunch. “So,” she said, “you’re going away from us! Are you glad?”

  “I ain’t no soldier,” Crunch said—and then, after a moment, catching his breath, “No, Julia, I can’t hardly say I’m glad.”

  Julia’s high heels seemed to hit the pavement like thunder, but so did Crunch’s crepe-soled shoes: Arthur felt a roaring behind his eyebrows, in his skull. The click-clack of the narrow high heels and the sh’m’m of the crepe soles made the avenue shake beneath him. All the lights of the avenue wavered, he could scarcely see the people, he held himself upright against Julia’s hand at his elbow.

  “I’d be glad,” said Julia, “to get away from here.”


  “Away,” said Crunch, looking straight ahead, “from everyone you love?”

  “There’s nobody here I love,” said Julia, “since my mama died. If I was old enough, I swear, I’d go and get my brother and bring him back here and try to raise him—I don’t know—I don’t want him down South, all by himself!”

  “But he’s not all by himself,” said Arthur. “He’s with his grandmother.”

  But, as he said this, he remembered that he, after all, had just come back from the South; he remembered Peanut’s relatives, in Charlotte; and he knew that neither did he want to leave anyone he loved down South. He could not have left Crunch down South: he would never have been able to sleep again. Sleep? He would not be walking.

  As though this terror had been conveyed through his elbow to Julia’s hand, her hand tightened.

  “He doesn’t know his grandmother,” Julia said.

  Something had been nagging Arthur, and now, he spoke. “What about your father? Don’t tell us, now, that you don’t love your father!”

  The moment the words were out of his mouth, Arthur wished, again, that he had held his peace. Julia said nothing. They kept walking.

  “You see my father,” Julia said finally, “don’t care how much I may love him, ain’t but so much I can do for him. But little Jimmy—that’s something else.”

  Arthur had the impression that she was fighting back tears, and he dared not look at her. She raised her head and said, “Well, here we are, at the subway!” and gestured toward the kiosk as though she had invented it.

  Then they all stopped, in a silence charged and awkward. Too much had been said, too little revealed—or: too much had been revealed from what little had been said. They did not, any longer, know where they were. Well. They were at the subway station, standing in a light which came from below. Julia walked them to the steps.

  “Well, gentlemen,” said Julia. “I’m mighty glad I saw you! When we going to see each other again?”

  “Before I go away from here,” said Crunch. “I promise you.”

  Arthur, but in a very strange way, was mightily relieved that he and Crunch had maneuvered themselves all the way through Sunday, to their Sunday—Crunch’s Sunday had not been messed up, after all: the last Sunday they might ever have. But he felt Julia pulling, pulling, against their departure, against their descent of the stairs. He knew that she had nowhere to go, that she would come with them, wherever they were going. If it had not been so nearly their last day together, if they had had time to spare, he and Crunch might have exchanged a brief, secret signal and invited the child to the movies. But—they had no time; too much had been said, too little revealed; or, what had been revealed, much or little, implied a pursuit, the beginning of a journey, which could not be begun at this moment. Yet something had begun, something had been profoundly altered, and Arthur saw this in Crunch’s troubled, in Julia’s fevered, eyes. “That’s one promise he’ll keep,” Arthur said. “I promise you.”

  “Can you? You two as close as that?”

  “My heart,” said Crunch and Arthur together—each heard the other, looked at each other in wonder, and began to laugh. Julia put her hands on her hips, and laughed with them. “Go on, you two,” she said. “Get on down them steps. The both of you—you know?—you remind me of my brother.” She sobered without becoming somber. She looked happy, and amused, and Arthur was glad that he and Crunch had made the visit. In her freedom, at that moment, at the top of the stairs, he dimly sensed the beginning of a journey which would forever include Julia. They were little children no longer: they were getting on board the train.

  Which they now heard, roaring into the station, beneath them. Arthur and Crunch waved, and Julia waved, Arthur and Crunch ran down the steps.

  Julia watched them a moment, then started home. Home was not the place she wanted to go, or to be: but she had no place else to go. She walked slowly because she dreaded getting there. She walked slowly because she was controlled by the attention of the men and the boys on the avenue. She walked with a slow, long-legged stride, lightly swinging her handbag: she was a powerful incitement, and a mystery. She walked as though she did not see the people that she passed, and she didn’t—she was burning, burning, and this was why the men and the boys were compelled to watch her pass. It was impossible to know if she were a dressed-up child, or a yearning, burning woman. She had breasts—tiny, pin-pointed, narrow; she had a barely discernible and tantalizing behind. The key, the secret, was in that slow walk, those long legs. Julia sensed, in herself, a power, which, however, and even before she had begun to live! might already have begun to destroy her. She was searching, searching—one may say that she was lost and as only those who have been saved can be lost. She was fourteen, and in Ezekiel’s valley, alone: oh, Lord, can these bones live? That was the way she walked, although she did not know it, and that was why she tantalized every eye. Her burning created a burning, that was why she walked so slowly. It was the only human attention she had ever had.

  And now—she walked the long, broad, familiar, amazing avenue, and got home.

  Joel was in his shirt-sleeves, on the sofa.

  “You ain’t gone out yet?”

  “Told you I was going to wait for you, daughter.” Then, “Seems like that’s all I ever do, these days.”

  She threw down her handbag—on the sofa, next to him—and waited. She folded her arms over her breasts, as she had sometimes seen her mother fold her arms. She began to pace, as she had sometimes seen her mother pace—looking straight ahead, seeing nothing, exactly like her mother.

  I’m just fourteen, she thought. There’s African girls get married at fourteen. She looked at her father.

  She thought of her brother.

  “I didn’t ask you to wait for me. I don’t want you to wait for me. What you waiting for me for?”

  “You all I got.”

  It was Sunday night. He would go out—she hoped he would go out. She hoped he would go out and pick up some woman and never come back. He would go out. He would come back drunk. He would fall into her bed, smothering her with his breath; his tears would burn her face. She would endure the touch she dreaded, and to which she had become addicted, feeling like something struggling at the bottom of the sea. Her days and nights were drugged. With all her heart, she wanted to flee—she could not move.

  “If I’m all you got,” she said, “you in a mighty sorry condition. I ain’t got nothing.”

  “But you in a position to get something. And you know you are. Are you just going to sit here and let us be overtaken?”

  She had a job scrubbing floors after school, and she gave him almost all the money that she made, which wasn’t much. He had had to pawn his favorite pair of cufflinks. She was sitting still, watching everything crumble, and disappear; and yet, she knew she had to move.

  “No,” she said.

  He had hated pawning his cufflinks, which had been a gift from her, and she had felt very sorry for him. She had nothing against him, nothing, either because she did not expect him to be other than he was, or because she was too beaten. She had to move, and yet, she waited. Though she had nothing against him, sometimes, nevertheless, she waited for revenge. Sometimes she hoped his touch would undo the horror of his touch.

  “What you going to do, then?”

  “Give me time, Daddy.”

  “Time? The world ain’t got that kind of time.”

  She wanted to get to New Orleans, but not as a beggar. She had to arrive with something, with something for Jimmy right away, something to make him trust her.

  But she did not want to leave her father with nothing.

  He had dried her tears and stroked her and wiped away the blood—she had screamed when she saw the blood. She had wanted to run out of the house, but she had been shivering, trembling, screaming, the wound between her legs would not let her move, her legs would not carry her. She had forced herself to stop screaming because, if not, they would come and take her father away: they
had become accomplices.

  “I been patient awhile,” he said. “Don’t make me lose my patience.”

  “What will you do if you lose your patience?” she asked—and immediately wished that she had said nothing, for the air in the room changed, he stood up, and she was terrified.

  “Just don’t you make me lose it, that’s all,” he said. “You won’t like it, I guarantee you.”

  They stared at each other.

  “Why you talking to me like that?”

  “Because I’m tired of the way you mope around this house, looking like the Book of Job, and looking at me like I was some kind of reptile!”

  She sat down in the easy chair, and he came and stood over her, leaning on the arms of the chair.

  “What’s between you and me happens, happens all the time—this ain’t the last time or the first time or the only time. I just ain’t being a hypocrite about it—that’s all. And you didn’t call no cops on your daddy, did you? And you ain’t going to, neither. All little girls wants their daddy—everybody knows that. I didn’t do a damn thing but give you what you wanted. That’s why you still here—I hear the way you call me Daddy!”

  It was true—she became more terrified than ever, and said nothing. She murmured Daddy as he pounded into her, as she felt him shoot his semen into her: she was pleased to give him pleasure. His pleasure was overwhelming and terrifying, she could scarcely bear it, his pleasure left her alone in some dreadful place, and yet, something in her was pleased to give him pleasure. With all her heart, she wanted to flee—she could not move. She could not move and yet, she knew she must. Soon it would be too late, she would begin to die.

  “Am I telling the truth, or not?”

  She stared at him.

  “Don’t look at me like that! Am I telling the truth, or not?”

  “I guess so,” she said, after a moment.

  “You guess so. I know so!”

  He leaned up, and moved away toward the hall, and his face changed again, becoming gentle and wistful.