Gift of the Golden Mountain (17 page)

     "No I don't," May said as innocently as she could.

     "Terrific," Eli told her, clapping Hayes on the back as he rose to go. "Lincoln Recreation Center, corner of Eleventh and Harrison, around eleven. Our friend here will give you one of his All-American exhibitions, and after that we'll take you out for lunch. How about that?"

     "Fine," May said, smiling up at him.

     "You hear that Hayes? The lady says fine."

     "Tell me about him," May said when Eli had left.

     "Where do I start?" he answered. "I guess in Mississippi. I had gone south to help with voter registration one summer vacation, and so had he. Eli was already something of a celebrity—he had made All-American in his junior year in college. Even little kids in backwater towns knew who he was. The thing is, he comes from a middle-class family in some small Minnesota city—his Dad is a CPA and his Mom is a nurse. Eli was a good student and a great athlete, so he hadn't really had all that much experience with racism. He wasn't any more ready for Mississippi than I was.

     "We slept on the ground together, read each other's books, got eaten by chiggers, knocked on doors, got spit on together. All the fabulous fun things you did down south. Then at the end of the summer, I left but he stayed on, working for SNCC." He laughed. "I remember his coach came all the way down to this little four-corner town way back in the country, the kind of place the bus goes through every other day—to try to talk sense into Eli, all about the importance of being an 'educated man' and how he could help his 'people' by being a 'role model.' I remember the guy said to Eli, 'Kid, do you know what you're giving up?' and Eli said, 'Yeah, and it has nothing to do with being a kid.' When the coach finally figured out that Eli wasn't buying it, he spit on the ground and called him an ungrateful Negro son of a bitch. I happened to be there at the time, and of course I had to open my mouth and say how obvious it was that the coach was an educated man himself because he said Negro instead of 'nigger' like the other rednecks, and the guy hauled off and slugged me. I landed on my ass with a look on my face that sent Eli into convulsions, he laughed so hard. Anyway, we kept in touch. He always meant to get his degree, so this year I convinced him to come and finish at Berkeley. That was a few months back, but he hasn't quite gotten around to enrolling yet."

     "Why not?"

     Hayes looked uneasy. "He's listening to Stokely, I think. And the Black Panthers."

     "Black power?" she said, and he nodded. "Who will be playing tomorrow?"

     He laughed. "Mostly guys who were good high school players a few years back, but not good enough to get college scholarships— or a few got them and flunked out. Some are unemployed, they just hang out, so the Saturday morning games are a big thing for them. You might even see a little action on the side . . . some of the local bookies turn out."

     "Are you the only white?"

     "Afraid so. Eli is the big star. They tolerate me because of him."

     "That doesn't sound like much fun, for you I mean."

     "It's okay," he said, and because she didn't know what he meant she asked if it would be better if she didn't show up.

     "No," he said slowly, "it's okay to come. But it's up to you, if you don't feel easy . . ."

     "I feel easy," she answered.

     He pulled into the drive behind the Winged Victory. "Sam's here," she offered, "would you like to come in?"

     "Big game tomorrow," he told her, "coach says I have to turn in early."

     She got out, then leaned down to speak through the window: "You've got all sorts of excuses for being home before midnight. First the Dobermans, now your basketball curfew . . . I'm beginning to wonder if you turn into a werewolf or something at midnight."

     "Some one of these nights you'll have to find out," he told her in a Dracula voice.

It had rained during the night, but when May got up the next morning the sun was shining, and the air seemed almost iridescent. She pulled on jeans and a loose Italian knit sweater, then she asked herself why she had taken Eli's dare. (By then she was certain it had been that: a dare, not so much testing her as teasing Hayes.)

     She was ready to leave and Karin was still in bed so she left her a note: "Borrowed your car. Keys to Jaguar on my dresser."

     On the way out she ran into Sam.

     "Where you heading?" he asked.

     "To the lab," she lied.

     He watched as she climbed into the Volkswagen. "What's wrong with the Jag?" he asked.

     "I'm leaving it for K," she answered evasively, irritated that she did not want to explain where she was going or why she didn't want to drive the Jaguar.

     When she pulled up at the playground a few minutes after eleven, a small crowd was gathered—a cluster of boys and middleaged men. A knot of girls, about high school age, May guessed, were noisily calling out to the players.

     Eli saw her and waved as he called out to Hayes, who turned to wave as he loped down the court.

     "He you boyfriend?" one of the girls asked.

     Before May could answer another chortled, "Who you think? He the only white man here."

     "Maybe she come to see Eli," the other snapped back.

     "I've come to watch both of them play," May answered.

     "Eli, he play basketball," the first girl offered, "the rest, they just flop around the court, chasing after him." The other girl said in agreement, "No shit."

     Hayes, May could see, was better than he made out to be, was probably as good, she thought, as most of the men on the court. What was obvious was that none of them could hold a candle to Eli. While the others pounded down the court, breathing hard, Eli seemed to dance with the ball, dribbling and smiling, moving with a grace that suggested he was making no effort at all.

     "Hayes—here!" Eli called from the free throw line. Hayes fed him the ball and watched as Eli turned, executed a perfect four-step which delivered him under the basket where he jumped, pirouetted in the air, and dropped the ball perfectly through the basket.

     "The Skywalker," somebody shouted in awe. They crowded around Eli then, jostling him and joking, patting and touching, so you knew they were grateful to him for being there, for reminding them of their own glory days, too short and too long ago.

     Hayes grabbed a towel, mopped his face and joined her. "The last female who came out to watch me play on a cold Saturday morning was in high school. Her name was Bunny Felderman, but that was before she had her nose fixed."

     "Minor confession time?" May said, lowering her voice. "The ladies here," she said, nodding at the high school girls, "say you
play okay for a white boy, but they also say that Eli's the whole show. I have to admit," she added, "I think I've never seen anyone move so . . . elegantly."

     Hayes looked at her for a long moment. "You're right," he finally said. Then: "I need a shower. If you'll give me a lift back to my place, I'll let Eli take my car to drop some guys off. He'll meet us there."

     Hayes lived in a duplex on Benvenue on the south side of campus, a wide street with old trees and lawns and shingled houses built fifty or more years before, except for an occasional newer building made to blend in with the old. His was one of these, brown-shingled with its own deck and set back in the privacy of sycamore trees.

     While Hayes showered, May studied the living room. It was furnished in what Karin would call "student semi-classic"— bookshelves put together by stacking cement blocks and two-by-fours, a desk fashioned of a door balanced on two-drawer filing cabinets, several canvas chairs, a sofa that was vaguely Danish, and a wicker chest that doubled as a coffee table. A calendar hung on the wall over the desk; it was, May noticed, filled with notations.

     The room itself was neat enough; his desk, which on first glance had appeared to be cluttered, was actually organized. May stood back, trying to decide why the room seemed so impersonal. Finally she knew: there were no pictures on the wall, no mementoes, little that was private.

     She heard the short, shuddering noise of the water being turned off. She glanced at the books in his shelf. Most were law books, but one corner had a small cache of volumes:
Pride and Prejudice, Huckleberry Finn, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
, and
Tristram Shandy.
She opened this last; on the frontispiece was written: To Hayes from Mother, Christmas 1952. Quickly, so he wouldn't find her looking at it, she put the book back. In her haste, she almost toppled a coffee mug. It was of plain white glass, the
cheap kind you can buy at the dime store, and on it—printed in ragged letters in red fingernail polish was: For Hayes. Selma, 1965. Love, Doolie.

     "Who is Doolie?" she asked, without turning around.

     "The most beautiful female in Alabama," he answered, coming into the room in a wash of warm, moist air from the shower.

     "How old?" she asked.

     "Ten then, fourteen now."

     His hair was damp, his shirt, fresh from the laundry, was sharply creased and, she noticed as he moved to stand behind her, he smelled of soap.

     "Sounds like love," May offered lightly.

     He was, for once, serious: "She was the sweetest child you can imagine. Her hair braided and tied with pink ribbons. White patent leather shoes and pink socks to match the ribbons."

     She turned to face him. He put his hands over hers on the cup; at his touch, May felt her breath catch.

     "You must be hungry," he said quietly.

     "Not very," she answered.

     The words did not matter, she was not listening to the words but to the warm throbbing of her body, the rush of heat that began between her legs and moved, shimmering, into her stomach. Their faces were close, their voices hushed.

     "What did you think of my form this morning?" he asked.

     "I liked your form," she told him.

     She ran her fingers over the tips of his starched collar; he pulled her to him, his hands moved up her back while he whispered into her ear, "Do you know anything at all about basketball?"

     "Nothing," she confessed in the moment before his lips pressed on hers, lightly at first, then hard; before she felt the heat race through her body. They held together, swayed. His hands caressed her back, moved up her sides to her breasts.

     She pulled him to her. His mouth was on her neck; she put her head back and opened her eyes and saw the white cup with the
bright red printing and tears stung her eyes. She reached for his mouth again, breathless.

     The doorbell rang, sharp and shrill.

     He held her close for an instant, then with his hands strong under her arms held her away to look at her. She wanted to cry but she tried to smile, and he bent to kiss her forehead.

     "One second, Eli," he called out, and lowering his voice said, "I'm sorry."

     May shook her head in protest and wrapped her arms hard around his neck. "Don't be sorry," she whispered. "I don't want you to be sorry."

THE NOISE SCRATCHED at the corners of her sleep; May heard it, tried to ignore it, could not. She lifted her head enough to see from the glowing hands of her bedside clock that it was not yet six. The noise billowed, low and humming and then swelling. It was a daytime sound but it was not yet day, not yet light. She rolled out of bed and stumbled to the door, shivering in T-shirt and underpants. As she moved down the hall, her bare feet guided by the carpet, she could see a light in the living room. The sound grew louder, reached a crescendo.

     "Sam," she shouted over the din, "turn that damned thing off." When he did not hear, she grabbed the cord to the vacuum cleaner and yanked, pulling the plug.

     "What is this all about?" she managed to ask, dangling the end of the cord in the air like a dead snake.

     "I'm cleaning house," he said.

     "I can see that," she snapped, "but why now? Why at this ungodly hour on Sunday morning when people are trying to sleep?" She slumped against the door frame, too tired, almost, to be angry.

     When he said nothing, she went on: "Let me see if I can make you understand. I was up until three working on a paper. That's right, Saturday night and you were out carousing or doing God only knows what, and I was working on a paper. I had planned to sleep until nine a.m. Six hours of sleep, then up again to finish my paper. It seemed a reasonable plan, at least until you decided to sabotage it." She tried to stifle a yawn and couldn't.

     "You're cold," he said, "better put on a robe."

     "I don't want to put on a robe," she answered, "I want to go back to bed."

     "Put on a robe. I've already made the coffee."

     She groaned. "I don't want coffee, Sam. I want to sleep."

     "I need to talk to you," he persisted.