God Help the Child: A novel (4 page)

That does it. The hand-holding couple, their silent music. I can't stop it now—I'm back in the packed stadium. The screaming audience is no match for the wild, sexy
music. Crowds dance in the aisles; people stand on their bench seats and clap to the drums. My arms are in the air waving to the music. My hips and head sway on their own. Before I see his face, his arms are around my waist, my back to his chest, his chin in my hair. Then his hands are on my stomach and I am dropping mine to hold on to his while we dance back to front. When the music stops I turn around to look at him. He smiles. I am moist and shivering.

Before I leave the park, I finger the bristles of the shaving brush. They are soft and warm.

O
h, yeah, I feel bad sometimes about how I treated Lula Ann when she was little. But you have to understand: I had to protect her. She didn't know the world. There was no point in being tough or sassy even when you were right. Not in a world where you could be sent to a juvenile lockup for talking back or fighting in school, a world where you'd be the last one hired and the first one fired. She couldn't know any of that or how her black skin would scare white people or make them laugh and trick her. I once saw a girl nowhere near as dark as Lula Ann and who couldn't be more than ten years old tripped by one of a group of white boys and when she fell and tried to scramble up another one put his foot on her behind and knocked her flat again. Those boys held their stomachs and bent over with laughter. Long after she got away, they were still giggling, so proud of themselves. If I hadn't been watching through the bus window I would have helped her, pulled her away from that white trash. See if I hadn't trained Lula Ann properly she wouldn't have known to always cross the street and avoid white boys. But the lessons I taught her paid off because in the end she made
me proud as a peacock. It was in that case with that gang of pervert teachers—three of them, a man and two women—that she knocked it out of the park. Young as she was, she behaved like a grown-up on the witness stand—so calm and sure of herself. Fixing her wild hair was always a trial, but I braided it down tight for the court appearance and bought her a blue and white sailor dress. I was nervous thinking she would stumble getting up to the stand, or stutter, or forget what the psychologists said and put me to shame. But no, thank God, she put the noose, so to speak, around at least one of those sinful teachers' neck. The things they were accused of would make you puke. How they got little kids to do nasty things. It was in the newspapers and on television. For weeks, crowds of people with and without children in the school yelled outside the courthouse. Some had home-made signs saying,
KILL THE FREAKS
and
NO MERCY FOR DEVILS
.

I sat through most of the days of the trial, not all, just the days when Lula Ann was scheduled to appear, because many witnesses were postponed or never showed. They got sick or changed their minds. She looked scared but she stayed quiet, not like the other child witnesses fidgeting and whining. Some were even crying. After Lula Ann's performance in that court and on the stand I was so proud of her, we walked the streets hand in hand. It's not often you see a little black girl take down some evil whites. I wanted her
to know how pleased I was so I had her ears pierced and bought her a pair of earrings—tiny gold hoops. Even the landlord smiled when he saw us. No pictures were in the newspapers because of privacy laws for children, but the word got out. The drugstore owner, who always turned his mouth down when he saw us together, handed Lula Ann a Clark bar after he heard about her courage.

I wasn't a bad mother, you have to know that, but I may have done some hurtful things to my only child because I had to protect her. Had to. All because of skin privileges. At first I couldn't see past all that black to know who she was and just plain love her. But I do. I really do. I think she understands now. I think so.

Last two times I saw her she was, well, striking. Kind of bold and confident. Each time she came I forgot just how black she really was because she was using it to her advantage in beautiful white clothes.

Taught me a lesson I should have known all along. What you do to children matters. And they might never forget. She's got a big-time job in California but she don't call or visit anymore. She sends me money and stuff every now and then, but I ain't seen her in I don't know how long.

B
rooklyn picks the restaurant. Pirate, it's called, a semi-chic, once-hot, now barely-hanging-on place for tourists and the decidedly uncool. The evening is too chilly for the sleeveless white shift I'm wearing, but I want to impress Brooklyn with my progress, my barely visible scars. She is dragging me out of what she says is classic post-rape depression. Her cure is this overdesigned watering hole where male waiters in red suspenders emphasizing their bare chests will do the trick. She is a good friend. No pressure, she says. Just a quiet dinner in a mostly empty restaurant with cute but harmless beef on display. I know why she likes this place; she loves showing off around men. Long ago, before I met her, she twisted her blond hair into dreadlocks and, pretty as she is, the locks add an allure she wouldn't otherwise have. At least the black guys she dates think so.

We talk office gossip through the appetizer but the giggling stops when the mahimahi arrives. It's the usual over-the-top recipe, swimming in coconut milk, smothered with ginger, sesame seeds, garlic and teeny flakes of green onion. Annoyed by the chef's efforts to make a bland fish thrilling,
I scrape everything from the fillet and blurt out, “I want a vacation, to go somewhere. On a cruise ship.”

Brooklyn grins. “Oooh. Where? Finally, some good news.”

“But no kids,” I say.

“That's easy. Fiji, maybe?”

“And no parties. I want to be with settled people with paunches. And play shuffleboard on a deck. Bingo too.”

“Bride, you're scaring me.” She dabs the napkin to a corner of her mouth and widens her eyes.

I put down my fork. “No, really. Just quiet. Nothing louder than waves lapping or ice melting in crystal glasses.”

Brooklyn puts her elbow on the table and covers my hand with hers. “Aw, girl, you're still in shock. I'm not going to let you make any plans until this rape stuff wears off. You won't know what you want until then. Trust me, all right?”

I'm so tired of this. Next she'll be insisting I see a rape therapist or attend victim fests. I'm really sick of it because I need to be able to have an honest conversation with my closest friend. I bite the tip of an asparagus stalk then slowly cross my knife and fork.

“Look, I lied to you.” I push my plate away so hard it knocks over what's left of my apple martini. I mop it up with my napkin carefully, trying to steady myself and make what I'm about to say sound normal. “I lied, girlfriend. I
lied to you. Nobody tried to rape me and that was a woman beat the shit out of me. Somebody I was trying to help, for Christ's sake. I tried to help her and she would have killed me if she could.”

Brooklyn stares open-mouthed then squints. “A woman? What woman? Who?”

“You don't know her.”

“You don't either, obviously.”

“I did once.”

“Bride, don't give me scraps. Let me have the full plate, please.” She pulls her locks behind her ears and fixes me with an intense glare.

It took maybe three minutes to tell it. How when I was a little girl in the second grade, a teacher in the kindergarten building next to the main building played dirty with her students.

“I can't hear this,” says Brooklyn. She closes her eyes like a nun faced with porn.

“You asked for the full plate,” I say.

“Okay, okay.”

“Well, she was caught, tried, and sent away.”

“Got it. So what's the problem?”

“I testified against her.”

“Even better. So?”

“I pointed. I sat in the witness chair and pointed her out. Said I saw her do it.”

“And?”

“They put her in prison. Gave her a twenty-five-year sentence.”

“Good. End of story, no?”

“Well, no, not really.” I am fidgeting, adjusting my neckline as well as my face. “I thought about her on and off, you know?”

“Uh, uh. Tell me.”

“Well, she was just twenty.”

“So were the Manson girls.”

“In a few years she'll be forty and I thought she probably has no friends.”

“Poor thing. No kiddies to rape in the joint. What a drag.”

“You're not hearing me.”

“Damn straight I'm not listening to you.” Brooklyn slaps the table. “You nuts? Who is this female alligator, besides being pond scum, I mean. Is she related to you? What?”

“No.”

“Well?”

“I just thought she would be sad, lonely after all these years.”

“She's breathing. That not good enough for her?”

This is going nowhere. How can I expect her to understand? I signal the waiter. “Again,” I say and nod toward my empty glass.

The waiter lifts his eyebrows and looks at Brooklyn. “None for me, cookie. I need cold sobriety.”

He gives her a killer smile full of bright and bonded teeth.

“Look, Brooklyn, I don't know why I went. What I do know is I kept thinking about her. All these years in Decagon.”

“You write to her? Visit?”

“No. I've seen her only twice. Once at the trial and then when this happened.” I point to my face.

“You dumb bitch!” She seems really disgusted with me. “You put her behind bars! Of course she wants to mess you up.”

“She wasn't like that before. She was gentle, funny, even, and kind.”

“Before? Before what? You said you saw her twice—at the trial and when she clocked you. But what about seeing her diddling kids? You said—”

The waiter leans in with my drink.

“Okay.” I'm irritable and it shows. “Three times.”

Brooklyn tongues the corner of her mouth. “Say, Bride, did she molest you too? You can tell me.”

Jesus. What does she think? That I'm a secret lesbian? In a company practically run by bi's, straights, trannies, gays and anybody who took their looks seriously. What's the point of closets these days?

“Oh, girl, don't be stupid.” I shoot her the look Sweetness
always put on when I spilled the Kool-Aid or tripped on the rug.

“Okay, okay.” She waves her hand. “Waiter, honey, I've changed my mind. Belvedere. Rocks. Double it.”

The waiter winks. “You got it,” he says, hitting “got” with a slur that must have earned him a promising phone number in South Dakota.

“Look at me, girlfriend. Think about it. What made you feel so sorry for her? I mean, really.”

“I don't know.” I shake my head. “I guess I wanted to feel good about myself. Not so disposable. Sofia Huxley—that's her name—was all I could think of, someone who would appreciate some…something friendly without strings.”

“Now I get it.” She looks relieved and smiles at me.

“Do you? Really?”

“Absolutely. The dude splits, you feel like cow flop, you try to get your mojo back, but it's a bust, right?”

“Right. Sorta. I guess.”

“So we fix it.”

“How?” If anybody knows what to do, it's Brooklyn. Hitting the floor, she always says, requires a choice—lie there or bounce. “How do we fix it?”

“Well, not with no bingo.” She's excited.

“What then?”

“Blingo!” she shouts.

“You called?” asks the waiter.

Two weeks later, just as she promised, Brooklyn organizes a celebration—a prelaunch party where I am the main attraction, the one who invented YOU, GIRL and helped create all the excitement about the brand. The location is a fancy hotel, I think. No, a smarty-pants museum. A crowd is waiting and so is a limousine. My hair, and dress are perfect: diamondlike jewels spangle the white lace of my gown, which is tight-fitting above the mermaidlike flounce at my ankles. It's transparent in interesting places but veiled in others—nipples and the naked triangle way below my navel.

All that's left is to choose earrings. I've lost my pearl dots, so I choose one-carat diamonds. Modest, nothing flashy, nothing to detract from what Jeri calls my black-coffee-and-whipped-cream palette. A panther in snow.

Christ. Now what? My earrings. They won't go in. The platinum stem keeps slipping away from my earlobe. I examine the earrings—nothing wrong. I peer at my lobes closely and discover the tiny holes are gone. Ridiculous. I've had pierced ears since I was eight years old. Sweetness gave me little circles of fake gold as a present after I testified against the Monster. Since then I've never worn clip-ons. Never. Pearl dots, usually, ignoring my “total person” designer, and sometimes, like now, diamonds. Wait. This
is impossible. After all these years, I've got virgin earlobes, untouched by a needle, smooth as a baby's thumb? Maybe it's from the plastic surgery or side effects of the antibiotics? But that was weeks ago. I am trembling. I need the shaving brush. The phone is ringing. I get the brush out and stroke it lightly at my cleavage. It makes me dizzy. The phone keeps ringing. Okay, no jewelry, no earrings. I pick up the phone.

“Miss Bride, your driver is here.”

If I pretend sleep maybe he will just get the hell out. Whoever he is I can't face him to chat or fake after-sex cuddle, especially since I don't remember any of it. He kisses my shoulder lightly, then fingers my hair. I murmur as though dreaming. I smile but keep my eyes closed. He moves the bedclothes and goes into the bathroom. I sneak a touch to my earlobes. Smooth. Still smooth. I am complimented constantly at the party—how beautiful, how pretty, so hot, so lovely, everyone says, but no one questions the absence of earrings. I find that strange, because all through the speeches, the award presentation, the dinner, the dancing, my baby thumb earlobes are so much on my mind I can't concentrate. So I deliver an incoherent thank-you speech, laugh too long at filthy jokes, stumble through conversations with coworkers, drink three, four times more than
what I can gracefully hold. Do a single line, after which I flirt like a high school brat campaigning for prom queen, which is how I let whoever he is in my bed. I taste my tongue hoping the film is mine alone. God. Thank you. No handcuffs dangle from the bedposts.

He has finished showering and calls my name while putting his tuxedo back on. I don't answer; I don't look; I just pull the pillow over my head. That amuses him and I hear him chuckle. I listen to kitchen noises as he makes coffee. No, not coffee; I would smell it. He is pouring something—orange juice, V8, flat Champagne? That's all that's in the refrigerator. Silence, then footsteps. Please, please just leave. I hear a tick on the nightstand followed by the sound of my front door opening then closing. When I peep from under the pillow I see a folded square of paper next to the clock. Telephone number.
FABULOUS
. Then his name. I slump with relief. He is not an employee.

I rush to the bathroom and look in the wastebasket. Thank you, Jesus. A used condom. Traces of steam are on the shower glass near the medicine cabinet whose mirror is clear, sparkling, showing me what I saw last night—earlobes as chaste as the day I was born. So this is what insanity is. Not goofy behavior, but watching a sudden change in the world you used to know. I need the shaving brush, the soap. There is not a single hair in my armpit, but I lather it anyway. Now the other one. The lathering up, the shaving, calms me and I am so grateful I begin to
think of other places that might need this little delight. My pudenda, perhaps. It's already hairless. Will it be too tricky using the straight razor down there? Tricky. Yes.

Calmed, I go back to bed and slide under the sheet. Minutes later my head explodes with throbbing pain. I get up and find two Vicodins to swallow. Waiting for the pills to work there is nothing to do but let my thoughts trail, track and bite one another.

What is happening to me?

My life is falling down. I'm sleeping with men whose names I don't know and not remembering any of it. What's going on? I'm young; I'm successful and pretty. Really pretty, so there! Sweetness. So why am I so miserable? Because he left me? I have what I've worked for and am good at it. I'm proud of myself, I really am, but it's the Vicodin and the hangover that make me keep remembering some not-so-proud junk in the past. I've gotten over all that and moved on. Even Booker thought so, didn't he? I spilled my guts to him, told him everything: every fear, every hurt, every accomplishment, however small. While talking to him certain things I had buried came up fresh as though I was seeing them for the first time—how Sweetness's bedroom always seemed unlit. I open the window next to her dresser. Her grown-up-woman stuff crowds her vanity: tweezers, cotton balls, that round box of Lucky Lady face powder, the blue bottle of Midnight in Paris cologne, hairpins in a tiny saucer, tissue, eyebrow pencils,
Maybelline mascara, Tabu lipstick. It's deep red and I try some on. No wonder I'm in the cosmetics business. It must have been describing all that stuff on Sweetness's dresser that made me tell him about that other thing. All about it. Me hearing a cat's meow through the open window, how pained it sounded, frightened, even. I looked. Down below in the walled area that led to the building's basement I saw not a cat but a man. He was leaning over the short, fat legs of a child between his hairy white thighs. The boy's little hands were fists, opening and closing. His crying was soft, squeaky and loaded with pain. The man's trousers were down around his ankles. I leaned over the windowsill and stared. The man had the same red hair as Mr. Leigh, the landlord, but I knew it couldn't be him because he was stern but not dirty. He demanded the rent be paid in cash before noon on the first day of the month and charged a late fee if you knocked on his door five minutes late. Sweetness was so scared of him she made sure I delivered the money first thing in the morning. I know now what I didn't know then—that standing up to Mr. Leigh meant having to look for another apartment. And that it would be hard finding a location in another safe, meaning mixed, neighborhood. So when I told Sweetness what I'd seen, she was furious. Not about a little crying boy, but about spreading the story. She wasn't interested in tiny fists or big hairy thighs; she was interested in keeping our apartment. She said, “Don't you say a word about it. Not to anybody, you hear me, Lula?
Forget it. Not a single word.” So I was afraid to tell her the rest—that although I didn't make a sound, I just hung over the windowsill and stared, something made the man look up. And it was Mr. Leigh. He was zipping his pants while the boy lay whimpering between his boots. The look on his face scared me but I couldn't move. That's when I heard him shout, “Hey, little nigger cunt! Close that window and get the fuck outta there!”