Part 56 (1/2)
”Yeah.” The young man put his hands in his pockets, frowned into the ground, and kicked the edge of Ben's can. ”The funeral's today, ya know.”
”Yeah.”
”You going?” He looked up into Ben's face.
”Naw, I ain't got no clothes for them things. Can't abide 'em no way-too sad-it being a baby and all.”
”Yeah. I was going myself, people expect it, ya know?”
”Yeah.”
”But, man, the way Ciel's friends look at me and all-like I was filth or something. Hey, I even tried to go see Ciel in the hospital, heard she was freaked out and all.”
”Yeah, she took it real bad.”
”Yeah, well, d.a.m.n, I took it bad. It was my kid, too, you know. But Mattie, that fat, black b.i.t.c.h, just standin' in the hospital hall sayin' to me-to me, now, 'Whatcha want?' Like I was a f.u.c.kin' germ or something. Man, I just turned and left. You gotta be treated with respect, ya know?”
”Yeah.”
”I mean, I should be there today with my woman in the limo and all, sittin' up there, doin' it right. But how you gonna be a man with them ball-busters tellin' everybody it was my fault and I should be the one dead? d.a.m.n!”
”Yeah, a man's gotta be a man.” Ben felt the need to wet his reply with another sip. ”Have some?”
”Naw, I'm gonna be heading on-Ciel don't need me today. I bet that frig, Mattie, rides in the head limo, wearing the pants. s.h.i.+t-let 'em.” He looked up again. ”Ya know?”
”Yup.”
”Take it easy, Ben.” He turned to go.
”You too, Eugene.”
”Hey, you going?”
”Now.”
”Me neither. Later.”
”Later, Eugene.”
Funny, Ben thought, Eugene ain't stopped to chat like that for a long time-near on a year, yup, a good year. He took another swallow to help him bring back the year-old conversation, but it didn't work; the second and third one didn't, either. But he did remember that it had been an early spring morning like this one, and Eugene had been wearing those same tight jeans. He had hest.i.tated outside of 316 then, too. But that time he went in . . .
Lucielia had just run water into the tea kettle and was putting it on the burner when she heard the cylinder turn. He didn't have to knock on the door; his key still fit the lock. Her thin knuckles gripped the handle of the kettle, but she didn't turn around. She knew. The last eleven months of her life hung compressed in the air between the click of the lock and his ”Yo, baby.”
The vibrations from those words rode like parasites on the air waves and came rus.h.i.+ng into her kitchen, smas.h.i.+ng the compression into indistinguishable days and hours that swirled dizzily before her. It was all there: the frustration of being left alone, sick, with a month-old baby; her humiliation reflected in the caseworker's blue eyes for the unanswerable ”You can find him to have it, but can't find him to take care of it” smile; the raw urges that crept, uninvited, between her thighs on countless nights; the eternal whys all meshed with the explainable hate and unexplainable love. They kept circling in such a confusing pattern before her that she couldn't seem to grab even one to answer him with. So there was nothing in Lucielia's face when she turned it toward Eugene, standing in her kitchen door holding a ridiculously pink Easter bunny, nothing but sheer relief . . .
”So he's back.” Mattie sat at Lucielia's kitchen table, playing with Serena. It was rare that Mattie ever spoke more than two sentences to anybody about anything. She didn't have to. She chose her words with the grinding precision of a diamond cutter's drill.
”You think I'm a fool, don't you?”
”I ain't said that.”
”You didn't have to,” Ciel snapped.
”Why you mad at me, Ciel? It's your life, honey.”
”Oh, Mattie, you don't understand. He's really straightened up this time. He's got a new job on the docks that pays real good, and he was just so depressed before with the new baby and no work. You'll see. He's even gone out now to buy paint and stuff to fix up the apartment. And, and Serena needs a daddy.”
”You ain't gotta convince me, Ciel.”
No, she wasn't talking to Mattie, she was talking to herself. She was convincing herself it was the new job and the paint and Serena that let him back into her life. Yet, the real truth went beyond her scope of understanding. When she laid her head in the hollow of his neck there was a deep musky scent to his body that brought back the ghosts of the Tennessee soil of her childhood. It reached up and lined the inside of her nostrils so that she inhaled his presence almost every minute of her life. The feel of his sooty flesh penetrated the skin of her fingers and coursed through her blood and became one, somewhere, wherever it was, with her actual being. But how do you tell yourself, let alone this practical old woman who loves you, that he was back because of that. So you don't.
You get up and fix you both another cup of coffee, calm the fretting baby on your lap with her pacifier, and you pray silently-very silently-behind veiled eyes that the man will stay.
Ciel was trying to remember exactly when it had started to go wrong again. Her mind sought for the slender threads of a clue that she could trace back to-perhaps-something she had said or done. Her brow was set tightly in concentration as she folded towels and smoothed the wrinkles over and over, as if the answer lay concealed in the stubborn creases of the terry cloth.
The months since Eugene's return began to tick off slowly before her, and she examined each one to pinpoint when the nagging whispers of trouble had begun in her brain. The friction on the towels increased when she came to the month that she had gotten pregnant again, but it couldn't be that. Things were different now. She wasn't sick as she had been with Serena, he was still working-no, it wasn't the baby. It's not the baby, it's not the baby-the rhythm of those words sped up the motion of her hands, and she had almost yanked and folded and pressed them into a reality when, bewildered, she realized that she had run out of towels.
Ciel jumped when the front door slammed shut. She waited tensely for the metallic bang of his keys on the coffeetable and the blast of the stereo. Lately that was how Eugene announced his presence home. Ciel walked into the living room with the motion of a swimmer entering a cold lake.
”Eugene, you're home early, huh?”
”You see anybody else sittin' here?” He spoke without looking at her and rose to turn up the stereo.
He wants to pick a fight, she thought, confused and hurt. He knows Serena's taking her nap, and now I'm supposed to say, Eugene, the baby's asleep, please cut the music down. Then he's going to say, you mean a man can't even relax in his own home without being picked on? I'm not picking on you, but you're going to wake up the baby. Which is always supposed to lead to ”You don't give a d.a.m.n about me. Everybody's more important than me-that kid, your friends, everybody. I'm just chickens.h.i.+t around here, huh?”
All this went through Ciel's head as she watched him leave the stereo and drop defiantly back down on the couch. Without saying a word, she turned and went into the bedroom. She looked down on the peaceful face of her daughter and softly caressed her small cheek. Her heart became full as she realized, this is the only thing I have ever loved without pain. She pulled the sheet gently over the tiny shoulders and firmly closed the door, protecting her from the music. She then went into the kitchen and began was.h.i.+ng the rice for their dinner.
Eugene, seeing that he had been left alone, turned off the stereo and came and stood in the kitchen door.
”I lost my job today,” he shot at her, as if she had been the cause.
The water was turning cloudy in the rice pot, and the force of the stream from the faucet caused sc.u.mmy bubbles in rise to the surface. These broke and sprayed tiny starchy panicles onto the dirty surface. Each bubble that broke seemed to increase the volume of the dogged whispers she had been ignoring for the last few months. She poured the dirty water off the rice to destroy and silence them, then watched with a malicious joy as they disappeared down the drain.
”So now, how in the h.e.l.l I'm gonna make it with no money huh? And another brat comin' here, huh?”
The second change of the water was slightly clearer, but the starch-speckled bubbles were still there, and this time there was no way to pretend deafness to their message. She had stood at that sink countless times before, was.h.i.+ng rice and she knew the water was never going to be totally clear. She couldn't stand there forever-her fingers were getting cold, and the rest of the dinner had to be fixed, and Serena would be waking up soon and wanting attention. Feverishly she poured the water off and tried again.
”I'm f.u.c.kin' sick of never getting ahead. Babies and bills, that's all you good for.”
The bubbles were almost transparent now, but when they broke they left light trails of starch on top of the water that curled around her fingers. She knew it would be useless to try again. Defeated, Ciel placed the wet pot on the burner, and the flames leaped up bright red and orange, turning the water droplets clinging on the outside into steam.
Turning to him, she silently acquiesced. ”All right, Eugene, what do you want me to do?”
He wasn't going to let her off so easily. ”Hey, baby, look, I don't care what you do. I just can't have all these ha.s.sles on me right now, ya know?”
”I'll get a job. I don't mind, but I've got no one to keep Serena, and you don't want Mattie watching her.”
”Mattle-no way. That fat b.i.t.c.h'll turn the kid against me. She hates my a.s.s, and you know it.”
”No, she doesn't, Eugene.” Ciel remembered throwing that at Mattie once. ”You hate him, don't you?” ”Naw, honey,” and she had cupped both hands on Ciel's face. ”Maybe I just loves you too much.”