Second Skin (10 page)

“I can’t promise, Skipper. I can’t make promises any more.”

Then the fire shot high again and the black beauty was herding them all into the parlor—Jomo, Bub, Grandma who looked like a little corncob tied up with rags—and they were all blowing on their fingers, kicking the snow off their boots, sniffling. Red ears. Mean eyes. Smears of Miranda’s lipstick on each of the faces.

“Have a drink, Jomo?” she said, and hugged his narrow black iron shoulders with her long white arm, ran her other hand through Bub’s wet hair. “Just one for the road?”

“Can’t. Red’s out in the car. Waiting.”

The long-billed baseball cap, the steady eyes, the flat black sideburns sculpted frontier-style with a straight razor, pug nose and skin the color of axle grease and little black snap-on bow tie and lips drawn as if he were going to whistle through his teeth —this was Jomo and Jomo was looking at Cassandra, staring at her, with one oblivious snuff of his pug nose expressed all the contempt and desire of his ruthless race. It was the green taffeta bow, of course, and before he could finish his contemplation of that green party favor, green riddle as big as a balloon, I stepped in front of him, and hoping, as I always hoped, that one day he would forget and give me his cold hook of steel, I thrust out my hand.

“Evening, Jomo,” I said. “How’s the cod? Running?”

He waited. No artificial hand. No real hand. Only the soft light of fury sliding off his face, only one more baffling question
to ask his old man about and to hold against me. So he turned to Miranda, jerked his head toward the door.

“Anyways, Red’s got a pint in his pocket. Let’s go.”

But the little old woman, mother of the Captain and grandmother of his noxious sons, was pushing on Bub’s sleeve and pointing in my direction and trying to talk.

“She wants to say something,” Bub said. “Tell Bub,” he said, and stuck his ear down to the little happy bobbing clot of the old woman’s face. Crushed once with a clam digger. Dug out of a hole at low tide. Little old woman with love and a sense of humor.

“All right,” I said, “what is it? And how is Mrs. Poor tonight?” I smiled and glanced at Cassandra—shining and silent cameo by the hearth—and smiled again, squared my shoulders, leaned my head slightly to one side for Mrs. Poor who was clinging to Bub’s arm and pumping with excitement in all the little black muscular valves of her mouth and eyes. Every Saturday Red went down to feed her doughnuts, and on Sundays after grace he would sometimes tell us about her health and happiness. “Well,” I said, knowing that she was shrewd, not to be trusted, that the little rag-bound head was stuffed with Jomo’s jokes and snatches of the prayer book which she knew by heart, “well, tell us what Grandma wants to say tonight.”

Bub looked at me, wiped his nose. “She says all the girls are sweet on you. You’re apple pie for the girls, she says. All the girls go after a rosy man like you. Real apple pie, she says.” And Bub was scowling and the old woman was nodding up and down, grinning, pointing, and Miranda was kneeling and fixing Cassandra’s bow.

“What a nice thing to say,” said Cassandra. “Don’t you think so, Skipper?”

Jomo leaned over and smacked his thigh. “God damn,” he said, “that’s good.”

And going down the hall toward the open door where I could see the snow driving and sifting—Miranda first, then Cassandra and Jomo and Bub and last, as usual, myself—I noticed Bub’s quick ferret gesture, quick fingers nudging his brother’s arm,
and clearly heard his young boy’s voice cupped under a sly hand, in the darkness saw his boy’s feet dance a few lewd steps to the fun of his question:

“What’s that thing she’s wearing on her ass?”

And Jomo, in a dead-pan voice and puppet jerk of the silhouetted head: “Never you mind, Bub. And watch your language. You got a mouth full of rot.”

“Maybe. But I’d like to kill it with a stick.”

Old joke. Snickering shadow of island boy. Jackknife shadow of older brother. But then the snow, the darkness, the packed and crunching veranda, the dying oak and the picket fence heaped high with snow, and beyond the fence, low and throbbing like a diesel truck, the waiting car. It was a hot rod. Cut down. Black. Thirteen coats of black paint and wax. Thick aluminum tubes coiling out of the engine. And in the front an aerial—perfect even to the whip of steel, I thought—and tied to the tip of the aerial a little fat fuzzy squirrel tail, little flag freshly killed and plump, soft, twisting and revolving slowly in the snow, dark fur long and wet and glistening under the crystals of falling snow. The lights from the house were shining on the windshield —narrow flat rectangle of blind glass already half-buried like the silver hub caps in the heavy snow—and I glanced back toward the house and waved and, blinking away the snow, licking it, thinking of another departure,
“Au revoir
, Grandma,” I called softly, “take good care of Pixie.” Then I stumbled to the car with wet cheeks and with a smile on my wet lips.

I took hold of the handle. Turned, pulled, shook the handle. “Come on, Bub,” I said, leaning down, rapping on the glass, shading my eyes and attempting to peer into the car, “open the door, you’re not funny.” I squinted, brushed at the snow with a cold hand. I saw the two heads of hair and the knife-billed baseball cap between them in the back, saw Bub laughing, poking at Captain Red who sat behind the wheel holding the pint bottle up to his lip. I saw the pint bottle making the rounds.

“All right,” I said, when the door came open at last, “now get out for a moment, Bub. You can sit on my lap.”

“Now wait a minute. Just you wait. I got this seat first. Didn’t I? If there’s any lap-sitting to be done, it’s you who’s going to
do it. Now you want to ride to the dance with us you better just climb into the car and have a seat. Right here.” Pointing. Laughter. Bottle sailing out the window. Captain Red—tall man dressed in his Sunday duds, shaved, fit to kill—blowing the horn three times. Three shrill trumpet blasts through the falling snow.

“But, Bub,” leaning closer, trying to whisper into his ear, “I’m bigger than you are. I’ll be too heavy.”

And the shout: “Never you mind about that. I’ll do the worrying, you just do what I say. And I say you can sit on my lap or you can walk!”

Then there was the meshing of metal, the hard shower of snow, sparks under the snow, and if I hadn’t leapt—puffing, pumping, displaying blind humiliating courage since it’s always the fat man who has to run to catch the train—surely I would have been left behind, left standing there with my hopeless breath freezing on the dark night air. An evening at home. Evening with Grandma. Up and down to the lavatory. Smiles. But I did leap, sucked all possible breath into my lungs and desperate, expecting and even willing to be maimed, for five or ten steps plowed along beside the moving car and then jumped, ducked my head, got a grip on the dashboard and back of the seat, hunched my neck and shoulders—presence of mind to save fingers, feet, loose ends of cloth and flesh from the slamming door—and perched there, balanced there absurdly on Bub’s tough wiry little lap. Steaming upholstery, six steaming people. Smells of gasoline, spilled whiskey, fading perfume, antifreeze. And Bub. With my head knocking against the roof of the car I knew him for what he was: a boy without underwear, holes in his socks, holes in his pockets, rancid navel, hair bunched and furrowed on the scrawny nape of his neck, and the mouth forever breathing off the telltale smell of sleep and half-eaten candy bars. This country boy, this island boy. Filled with fun. With hate. With smelly self-satisfaction.

“Jingle Bells, everybody,” cried Miranda, “sing along with me!” But we were swerving, skidding, sliding through the snow and all at once the lights of the high school were flickering above the tombstones in the cemetery on the hill.

And into the tiny exposed orifice of Cassandra’s ear: “I got
dibs on the first dance,” said Jomo, and I understood the meaning of her downcast eyes and through the snow I heard that the bass drum was out of time with the rest of Jack Spratt’s Merry Hep Cats.

But how long, oh my God, how long did I endure that drummer—pimples, frightened eyes, chewing gum under his chair, some kind of permanent paralysis in his legs—how long endure the cornet—begging for alms—or the little girl with the accordion —black and white monster on her bare knees—or the poor stick of a schoolteacher at the upright piano or the paper cups of pop, the wedges of chocolate cake—chocolate on the lips, cheeks, melting all over the hands—how long endure the concrete walls, steam pipes, varnished and forbidding floor, the red, white and blue bunting hung from the nets, how long endure the mothers or the fat old men waiting around for the belly-bumping contest? How long? How long endure all this as well as the sight of Jomo going after Cassandra with his damnable hook? Long enough to be tempted into love once more, long enough to perspire in that cold gymnasium, to win the belly-bumping contest —treachery of my long night-long enough to have my fill of pop and chocolate cake. Too long, oh God, much too long for a man who merely wanted to dance a few slow numbers and amuse his daughter.

“If the power fails,” and I startled at the sound of Red’s deep voice, glanced at the uncertain yellow glow of the caged lights, glanced at the windows filled with wind and snow, “if it fails there’s no telling what all these kids will do. Might have quite a time in the dark. With all these kids.” And the two of them, widow in black, Captain Red in black double-breasted suit, swung out to the middle of the floor, towered above that handful of undernourished high school girls and retarded boys. Two tall black figures locked length to length, two faces convulsed in passion, one as long and white and bony as a white mare’s face, the other crimson, leathery, serrated like the bald head to which it belonged, and the young boys and girls making way for them, scattering in the path of their slow motion smoke, staring up at them in envy, fear, shocked surprise. From the side lines and
licking my fingers, swallowing the cake, I too watched them in shocked surprise, stuffed a crumpled paper napkin into my hip pocket. Because they were both so big, so black, so oblivious. But if this was the father, what of the ruthless son? What of Cassandra? What dance could they possibly be dancing?

I was her guardian, her only defense, and I tossed off my Coke —fifth free Coca-Cola, thoughts of Sonny—crushed the cup, and in my heavy dogtrot ran the whole length of that cold basketball court and in the darkest corner saw a flash of steel, the sheen of bright green taffeta. And paused. Bumped a proud mother. But started out onto the floor anyway. Alone. Breathless. Trying to avoid the dancers.

“Say there,” behind me the woman’s voice, sound of Sunday supper in the Lutheran church, “that fellow’s got a nerve.”

“Don’t he though? And all these young boys in uniform and men like that going around scot free? Lord God. Ain’t it a crime?”

The boys were wearing their white shirts—frayed collars, patches in the sleeves—and their wrinkled ties, the young girls were wearing their jerseys, homemade skirts, glass earrings— hand-me-downs—their cotton socks and saddle shoes. And I was among them and I looked into their frightened eyes, looked through the jerseys, and despite my desperation I was able to keep my wits about me—interesting little blonde, sweet raven head—and was not ashamed to look. Sixteen, seventeen, even nineteen years old and undernourished and undeveloped as well. Daughters of poor fishermen. Daughters of the sea. Anemic. Disposed to scabies. Fed on credit, fed on canned stock or stunted berries picked from a field gone back to brier, prickly thorns, wild sumac. Precious brass safety pins holding up their panties, and then I saw the pins, all at once saw the panties, the square gray-white faded undergarments of poor island girls washed in well water morning and night and, indistinguishable from kitchen washrag or scrap of kitchen towel, hung on a string between two young poplars and flapping, blowing in the hard island wind until once more dry enough and clean enough to return to the plain tender skin, and of course the elastics had been
worn out or busted long ago and now there were only the little bent safety pins for holding up their panties and a few hairpins for the hair and a single lipstick which they passed from girl to girl at country crossroads or in the high school lavatory on the day of the dance. Plain Janes, island sirens, with long skinny white legs—never to know the touch of silk—and eyes big enough and gray enough to weep buckets, though they would never cry, and little buttocks already corrupted, nonetheless, by the rhythm of pop melodies and boys on leave. I steadied myself on a thin warm shoulder. “Don’t be afraid,” I murmured, “it’s only Papa Cue Ball,” and smelled the soap in her straight shining hair and saw that her skirt had once belonged to Mamma—poor skillful pleats—and that her face revealed the several faint nearly identical faces of a little Dionysian incest on a winter’s night.

“You leave Chloris alone,” her partner hissed, and I yanked my hand from her shoulder, blushed at the realization that I had been squeezing her little thin rounded shoulder.

“No harm meant,” I said under my breath. “Just lost my footing. She’s all yours,” and I smiled at the relentless black walnut eyes, wheeled and cut in on Jomo, took Cassandra right out of his arms.

“OK, Jomo,” I said, “I’m cutting in.”

It was the far dark comer of the gym and there was a young marine sitting on top of a pile of wrestlers’ mats, and I noticed his mouthful of bright cigar, his crooked smile in the dark, the glint of the bottle he didn’t even pretend to hide. Three or four younger boys were hanging around the marine and sharing his bottle, waiting for word from Jomo and talking in lewd tones about Cassandra and me. By the way they turned their heads and covered their mouths and jerked their thumbs at us I knew perfectly well that they were talking in lewd tones about us. Country haircuts—except for the shaved marine—and the country ears and country Adam’s apples. Inheritors of the black Atlantic. Boys who talked a lot but never danced. And of course the marine, the pride of the school, the pride of the woman at the piano. Sophomore in uniform. Leather head. Twenty-seven wounds in the rib cage. Telling them how he raped the little
Japanese children. Cocking his knee in the darkness, passing the bottle. Promising to show them all twenty-seven scars in the john.