"You're
crazy," Josh tells me. He is buttoning his shirt up. He and his old
friend Tony are going out tonight. They have many things to talk about
-- me, for instance -- and my presence is not requested. I have been
given the night to myself. The director of my movie is going to come
later and take me out clubbing.
I watch his face. I know that is quite impossible for him to be as untroubled
as he seems. His self-control is mainly for my benefit -- my benefit
and Michael's. Whenever I become upset, Josh becomes very cheerful and
composed. I think he began to learn how to do this a year ago, when
I returned from my only visit back to Mississippi. Now, perhaps, it
has become something he could not control if he wanted to. This morning
at breakfast, when I yelled at Michael, he averted Michael's tears and
my own guilt by saying "My God, your father is cranky this morning,
isn't he?"
"Crazy," Josh repeats. "Nothing ever turns out as badly as you think
it will." His eyes seek mine in the mirror - blue eyes, pale skin, dark
hair. I wonder what he's really thinking. He's right, though. In twelve
hours time, we will be on a plane, and there is simply no point in carrying
around my apprehension. I sit down on the bed, watching him fix his
shirt collar. I realize I'm going to miss this bedroom.
"I know everything will probably work out," I say. "I've just been in
a bad mood all day long. I wonder how Michael will like it, if he'll
make friends -- that's all."
"Michael will like any place where you are, where we are. Don't worry
about Michael."He turns from the mirror and comes over to sit with me.
"Don't worry. Whatever's coming, we'll deal. We have each other. We
have Michael. We know what we want. We're luckier than most."
I kiss him. "I'm luckier than most."
"I'm very lucky too."
For a moment, we are silent, alone in our room. I can feel the rise
and fall of Josh's breathing against me, and I think how, if I had never
left Mississippi, I would never have met him and would never have established
this life of my own. Perhaps if I had stayed there, I would have found
somebody else, had some other son. But that other man, that other son,
are in the limbo of vanished possibilities. I also might have become
something else, instead of an actor-singer. Perhaps a lawyer, like my
brother-in-law, or a teacher, like my mother. But no, I am what I have
become, and this man beside me is my husband, and I love him. All the
sons I might have had don't matter, since I have a son, and his name
is Michael, we named him, and I love him.
I think of all the things I destroyed in Mississippi, all of the things
that I have lost there, all the threats it holds for me and mine.
I look at Josh. "Do you love me?"
"Of course not," he teases. "I've been plotting to divorce you when
you become famous and rob you blind of half your money."
"Thanks for the warning."
"Anytime." He kisses me and stands up. "What time is Joey coming for
you?"
"Around seven-thirty. He says he reserved a table for us in some hip
restaurant, but he won't tell me where. Then I guess we'll go out and
get drunk."
"I hope you do. You've been about as cheerful as a cemetery these last
few days. Plus your hangover will keep you from bugging me in the morning."
"What about your hangover? I know the way you two drink."
"Well, we'll be paying for our own drinks, so I don't think we'll have
that problem," Josh says. "but you're going to be catered to, like an
international movie star!"
"Sure you don't wanna come out with Joey and me?"
"We're sure," Josh says. He scoffs at me. "International movie star."
He turned serious for a moment. "Your mom would have been proud of you."
We look at each other and the air is charged with secrets even Josh
will never know.
"I'll take Michael down to Mrs. Dumont's." Michael is going to spend
the night there with her children.
Mrs. Dumont rubs Michael's head when we arrive at the apartment below
ours."I'm very sad to see him go, but I don't suppose he's sad to leave.
Children always want something new."
"Oh, I'm sad to go," Michael said. "But Dad has to go, and he wants
me to come with him." So serious.
Mrs. Dumont and I smile at each other over his head. "Do you think you'll
like Mississippi?" she asks him.
"I don't know," Michael says. "I guess if we don't like it, we'll come
back."
"So simple," Mrs. Dumont says. She looks at me. "That's the best way
to look at life."
I bend down and kiss Michael on the head. "Be good. I'll come by to
pick you up after breakfast. Or if you wake up early, you come pick
me up and we'll go hang out."
"Where will we hang out?"
"We'll go to Central Park. Take you to breakfast somewhere. Wanna do
that?"
"Yeah." When he's happy, he seems to glow.
"Okay then." I nod to Mrs. Dumont. "Bye. Bye, Michael."
"Bye, Dad."
Upstairs, Josh is ready to go, and Tony has arrived. They're in the
foyer, waiting for the elevator to arrive.
"We'll stop and say bye to Michael," Josh says. He kisses me goodbye.
"Say hi to Joey for me."
"Right. Have fun. Don't let Tony run off with some hooker."
"I didn't come here to be protected," Tony laughs. "And if I had, this
guy couldn't do it. I just might surprise everyone and go home with
one!" He presses the elevator button, and it goes down.
I walk back into the apartment. It stinks of departure. There are bags
and boxes in the hall waiting to be taken away tomorrow. Bookcases are
empty, and the kitchen looks as if we never cooked a meal there. I have
to get ready before Joey comes, but I pour myself a drink and step out
onto the deck. It is dusk, and the sun is beginning to fade.
I have lived in New York City for six years. This apartment is on the
top floor of a corner building. We look out over the rooftops to Central
Park, which I have walked through so often, in many states of mind.
I know this city as one knows their best friend. I love New York. I
will always love New York, it is the city which saved my life. It saved
my life by allowing me to find out who I am.
***
It was in Central Park one April morning that I knew I had fallen in
love. Josh and I were walking hand in hand. We were silent, having bickered
about something. Now, when I look back, I think we had reached that
state where either an affair must end or become something more than
an affair.
I looked sideways at his face, which was still. His dark-blue eyes were
narrowed against the sun, and his lips were slightly sulky, like a child's.
His face made me want to laugh and run my hand over his short dark hair.
I wanted to pull him to me and say "Don't be mad", and at that moment
something tugged at my heart and made me catch my breath. There were
millions of people all around us, but I was alone with Josh. He was
alone with me. Never in my life, until that moment, had I been alone
with anyone. The world had always been with us, between us, and making
love impossible. During all the years of my life, until that moment,
I'd carried the menacing, hostile world with me everywhere. No matter
what I was doing or saying or feeling, one eye had always been on the
world - the world I'd learned to distrust. For the first time in my
life, I was free of it. My world consisted of me and Josh. It was our
fight. It was entirely between us, it had nothing to do with anyone
else in the world. For the first time in my life I had not been afraid
of the mindless who would beat me up and treat the man who was with
me as though he were the lowest of untouchables. For the first time
in my life, I felt that no force jeopardized my right, my power, to
love somebody.
The sun fell over everything, like a blessing, people were moving all
about us, and I will never forget the feeling of Josh's hand in mine,
trusting, and I turned to him, slowing our pace. He looked at me with
those blue eyes and seemed to wait. I said, "Josh, I have something
very serious to tell you. I love you."
That was two years ago, shortly before my first and only visit home.
That was when my mother had died. I stayed in Mississippi for two months.
When I came back, Josh thought that the change in me was due to my grief.
I was very silent, very thin. But it had not been my mother's death
which accounted for the change. I had known my mother was going to die.
I had not known what Mississippi would be like for me after nearly four
years away.
I remember sitting in the plane, staring out the window, watching the
distance between me and New York increase. I thought of Josh, miles
from me, and I pressed my lips tightly together in order not to cry.
Then, as New York dropped far below me, I started waiting for the first
glimpse of Clinton, and my nervousness began to give way to a certain
excitement. I thought of such things as the old farm, and the ice cream
at the local store. I wondered about my friends, wondered if I had any
left, and if they would be glad to see me.
The people in town did not seem to be so bad, but I was fascinated after
such a long absence from it, at the nature of their friendliness. It
was a friendliness that did not suggest, and was not intended to suggest,
any possibility of friendship. There was an eerie and unnerving irreality
about everything they said and did, as though they were all members
of the same team and were acting on orders from some invincibly cheerful
and tirelessly inventive coach. I was fascinated by it. I found it oddly
moving, but I can't say that I was surprised. It hadn't occurred to
me before that these people, who had never treated me with any respect,
had no respect for each other.
The man at the store in Clinton was not unfriendly. He looked at me.
"You've been away a long time."
"Guess I have," I said.
"What have you been doing out there all that time?" The look on his
face meant to hide more than it revealed, but revealed more than it
hid.
"I'm a singer," I said. I held on to what I hoped was a calm, open smile.
I had not had to deal with these faces for so long that I had forgotten
how to do it. I had forgotten all the tricks on which my life had once
depended. Once I had been an expert at confusing these people, at setting
their teeth on edge, of dancing just outside the reach of the trap they
laid for me. But I was not an expert now. They were the faces of people
who I did not understand, and I could no longer plan my moves based
on their cowardice and their needs. That moment in the park had undone
me forever.
"That's right," he said. "I heard about that. Did you do a lot of singing
out there?"
"Some."
"What kind? Concerts?"
"No." I wondered what I looked like, sounded like. Their eyes revealed
nothing. "Worked a few nightclubs."
"I guess they liked you over there."
"Yeah," I said. "They seemed to like me all right."
"Well," he said, laughing. "Let's hope they like you down here."
"Thanks." They laughed - at me, or was it my imagination?
I walked out of the store and passed a heavy man in a uniform. He looked
at me. This was the face I remembered, the face of my nightmares; perhaps
hatred had caused me to know this face better than I would the face
of any lover. He glared at me.
I almost smiled. I was home.
I heard someone call my name.
I looked and saw Stacy running towards me. I dropped my bags and grabbed
her in my arms and tears came to my eyes and rolled down my face. I
did not know whether the tears were for joy at seeing her, or from rage,
or both.
"How are you? How are you? You look wonderful, but oh, you've lost weight.
It's wonderful to see you!"
I wiped my eyes. "It's wonderful to see you too. I bet you thought I
was never coming back."
Stacy laughed. "I wouldn't have blamed you if you hadn't."
***
I am just stepping out of the shower when I hear the bell ring. I grab
a bathrobe and answer the door. It is Joey, of course, and very elegant
he is too, with his wild dark hair and his face shaved. Usually he looks
just any old way, but tonight his bulk is contained in a dark-blue suit,
and he has a pearl stickpin in his blue tie.
"Come on in, get yourself a drink. I'll be ready in a minute."
"Hey, hurry it up, would you?"
But I am already back in the bathroom. Joey puts on music. Billie Holliday.
When I am dressed, I find him sitting in a chair by the window. He is
drinking a whiskey and soda. I pour myself a drink. He watches me.
"Well, how are you? Ready to move?"
"No." I say this with more force than I intended. Joey raised his eyebrows,
looking distant. "I never really intended to go back there. I certainly
never meant to raise my kid there. . "
"Yeah, right," Joey says calmly. "You're a smart man. You knew you'd
go back one day. Besides, don't you think Michael wants to see the land
his father came from?"
"I don't know. Why would he want to go all that way just to be tormented?
Mississippi never gave him anything."
"It gave him his father."
I look at him. "You mean his father escaped."
Joey throws back his head and laughs. If he likes you, he is certain
to laugh at you, and his laughter can be very unnerving. But the look,
the silence which follow this laughter can be unnerving too, and now
in the silence he asks me, "Do you really think you have escaped anything?"
I watch him now, sitting quietly in my living room, and I wonder if
he knows the nightmare that plays at the bottom of my mind was of all
the fates that could await Michael. This is just another way of saying
I relived the disasters which had nearly undone me; but because I was
thinking of Michael, I discovered that I did not want my son to ever
feel towards me as others there do. I did not want him to pity me, or
find some measure of contempt for me.
"What are you thinking about?" Joey asked.
"I was thinking of that summer I spent back home, when my mother died.
I could never get used to that town again, I'd been away too long. I
hated it. It's a terrible town, anyway."
"Why go back?"
"Stacy needs me." I sigh. "Maybe it's better that it's terrible. I don't
know. Maybe then you can have a better life, you know? Because you had
to fight so hard to get away. But then your life has all those battle
scars."
"You'll make it," Joey says. "You believe in love. You don't know all
the things love can't do . . but love will teach you that." He smiles.
***
I spend my night with Joey in jazz clubs, drinking and talking. I get
home at 6 a.m.
Mrs. Dumont is in the hallway, mopping.
"Did Josh get home okay?"
"Yes," she says. "He's upstairs. Michael is still sleeping."
"Can I go in and get him?"
She looks at me in surprise. "Of course."
So I walk into her apartment and into the room where Michael lies sleeping.
I look at him for a long time. Perhaps my thoughts traveled through
to him. He opens his eyes and smiles at me. "Morning, Dad."
"Morning. How are you?"
"I don't know yet," he says.
I laugh. I pick him up and walk out into the hall. Mrs. Dumont looks
up at him.
"You are leaving?" she asks. I nod. "How does it feel?"
"He doesn't know yet," I tell her. I walk to the elevator door and open
it, dropping Michael into the crook of my arm.
"He'll know later," she says. "What a trip."
I get in the elevator. "Yeah," I say. "All the way home."
I press the button and the elevator, with me and my son, goes up to
Josh.