Pacific Avenue (22 page)

“Jamie isn’t illegitimate. No baby is illegitimate.”

“That may be the way your people look at it, but I’m
afraid I don’t agree.”

Richard stood up, knocking his chair over with a crash.
His nostrils were flaring in and out like a horse’s, but he kept his voice low.
“Dr. Woodbridge, Kathy and I have been together for nearly two years now. And
you and your wife have been very liberal, very
tolerant.
Well, how do you think it feels to be
tolerated
for two years? Do you have any idea how I
feel when you smile at me in your fakey, liberal way? It sticks out all over
that you think you’re such a great person to be smiling at a
black
man.

“But as soon as I’m not giving you what you want, the
first thing out of your mouth is racism. I don’t see any reason to see what the
second
thing is going to be. I might
have to do an Uncle Tom act in your house, but this house happens to be mine.
Please shut
my
door behind you as
you
leave.
”

All Dad’s excitement had evaporated. Looking gray-faced
and old, he stood up carefully and set his chair straight. He hesitated as if
he were trying to remember something, then turned and walked toward the door
without a word. Jamie whined and reached after him.

He paused a moment, but then he left without looking
back. I heard the back door of Francine’s house close with a little bang. A few
minutes later, his car backed out of the driveway and was gone.

A few minutes later, Francine pounded at the door and
charged in without waiting for an answer. She was in a full-scale Cajun fury,
mad enough to spit nails.

“You kids got no manners,” she said. “There wasn’t no
call to send Dr. Woodbridge off like that.”

I tried to defend Richard. “He said maybe Richard’s people
thought it was okay to have a baby and not be married.”

Francine glared at me, unconvinced. “Seems that’s what
Richard
thinks.”

“Maybe, but Dad didn’t have any reason to make a racist
remark like that.” I couldn’t understand why Francine was standing up for him.
She was black too, more or less.

She folded her arms and looked us up and down. “You
kids think you got racism? You got
nothin’
compared to how it was. Maybe your dad said something he shouldn’t. Maybe he
did. You ever put your foot in your mouth?

“Your generation’s spoiled as hell. You never had it
like it was. Me, when I was married, I couldn’t even go to a restaurant with my
husband. I could pass, and he couldn’t. My kids weren’t allowed to go to the
school down the block.”

“Francine,” Richard broke in, “you chose to live a Jim
Crow life. I’m choosing not to. I don’t see any reason to discuss it.”

“I didn’t do any such thing, Richard. My husband and I
were at some of those lunch counters in the sixties. We sat at the front of
some buses. But we did what we could, and then we lived in the real world and
got along as best we could, too. You think I sent you to my cousin for your
pictures because he needed the
business
?
I knew that place in Algiers was there, and I also knew they’d throw you out.
Why’re you such a fool?”

“I didn’t spend my life being an Uncle Tom,” Richard
said. “I grew up in Europe.”

“That where you learned all the empty talk? You give me
the red ass, Richard. You run your mouth about ‘Uncle Tom’ this and ‘Jim Crow’
that, but what did you ever do to fight segregation? Nothin’. And you run your
mouth about the war, but what did you do to stop
that
? Same nothin’. Easier to be a free rider than a
freedom rider. Easier to be a baby killer than to buck the system, wasn’t it,
Richard?”

“Goddamn it, Francine!”

Francine turned to me. “What you think, your dad’s such
a racist he
wants
you to marry a black
man? That’s some racist, Kathy. Why don’t you have more sense?”

“It wasn’t me. It was Richard that got mad.”

“And you sat there, didn’t say nothin’, you sat and
watched, huh, Kathy? The way you do. Just let it happen. Your dad thought
Richard was about to hit him. Why didn’t you stop him, girl?”

“How could I?”

Francine folded her arms and slumped against the door.
She looked tired and disgusted. “Honey, you better figure out how to speak your
piece, ’cause no one else can speak it for you.”

Richard took a jagged breath. “Francine, none of this
is your business. Leave us alone, would you?”

“When my friends make fools of themselves, it
is
my business. You don’t like what I say,
baissez
mon cul.
”

Richard stepped back and looked Francine up and down
with a snide grin. “Mark off a spot, Francine. There’s quite a bit of territory
there.”

Francine gave him a hateful look and slammed out.

“What did that mean, Richard?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about it.” Richard bolted into the bathroom.
Through the thin old door, I could hear him vomiting again and again.

When we went to rehearsal the next morning, Martin was
awkward and fidgety, picking up puppets and putting them down again. Thu sat on
the couch picking at the upholstery. She wouldn’t look at us.

Finally, Martin blurted, “I wish you hadn’t been so
nasty to Francine yesterday.”

“She was nasty to us,” I said.

“Just the same, I wish you hadn’t.”

Richard turned on him. “Martin, everyone’s telling us
what to do, and we’re getting tired of it. All we want is to be left alone.”

After that, they
did
leave us alone. They said nothing to us but what was necessary for
work. Eddie stopped knocking at the door with vegetables for us, and Francine
was never pruning the roses or weeding when we walked across the yard.

I took Jamie to New Orleans one afternoon and found
Eddie at his stand in the French Market. He pulled the old wooden stool over
for me to sit on and took Jamie on his shoulder. It was almost like old times
until I ruined it.

“You never come see us anymore,” I said.

“It’s tough, doll,” he answered. “Richard’s on some
kind of tear, and nobody knows what’s eating him. We still love you, but no one
wants to deal with Richard till he simmers down. What the hell’s going on,
anyway? You two not getting along or something?”

“He had a fight with my dad. And with Francine.”

“Well, I heard about
that,
believe me. But Francine’s not the kind to stay mad.
She’s all Cajun—blows up in a split second and it’s all over in a day or so,
tops. Up like a rocket, down like a stick. Looks to me, Richard’s the one
staying mad.”

A truck pulled up to the curb, diesel exhaust and roar.
We sat without talking till the engine cut off.

“Francine called him a baby killer,” I said.

Eddie nodded. “On account of the war? I heard vets
called that before. But he called her an Uncle Tom, didn’t he? I’d say they’re
about even.”

“Maybe so, but he doesn’t see it that way. Dad gave him
a lecture about Jamie and illegitimate babies, told him maybe it was fine with
his people but it wasn’t with us. It was kind of the last straw after the way
he and Mom acted when Jamie was born.”

“That was wrong, doll, what they did then, no question.
But he’s still her grandfather. Richard needs to cool it. I’m not saying it’s
easy, but if he can’t forgive people for not being perfect, he’s gonna be
disappointed every time.”

“He’s been getting madder and madder about my parents
and the race thing ever since Jamie was born,” I said. “And he keeps on being
messed up about the war. He says seeing Thu reminds him all the time. I don’t
know what to do.”

“We don’t know either, tell you the truth. We thought
we’d stay away for a while, give Richard a chance to think it over. Don’t take
it personal, doll, but that’s all we can see to do for now. But if you need
anything, let me know.”

And that was all I could get out of him. He gave me a
bag of fruit, which Richard wouldn’t touch. I would never have dreamed, back
when Richard was reading to me about forgiveness, that he had so much anger in
him. He couldn’t let go, and I was being pulled between him and everyone else.
Eddie had said they still loved me, but I felt deserted.

Even Sharon only called once, and that was to tell me
that Dad was back from his medical consultations at Ochsner Hospital.

“He has heart problems from his rheumatic fever,” she
said. “He’s upset about you and Richard, too. Lousy timing, Sis.” She left it
at that, but I could see she was mad.
She and Sam would fit on the tour bus
with the others. It’s a big bus.

The worst, though, was that Richard didn’t talk to me
or to Jamie either, and he never touched me. He didn’t eat with us anymore,
just took things from the refrigerator when he got hungry, which wasn’t often.
He had nightmares every night, and I was afraid to wake him up, afraid to say
anything. I let him sweat them out. Eventually, he’d go back to sleep.
Eventually, I would too.

Whatever feelings Richard had, he used them all in the
puppet plays. He raged and pleaded, loved and wept, all through the carved
mouths of hollow wooden dolls on the stage. He was brilliant. No one could keep
up with him, even Thu. But he’d stopped acting at home, and I thought it might
be for good.
I’ve always wondered what he feels about Jamie and me. Now I
guess I know.

Jamie was all I had left. While Richard sat in a
corner, pretending to read, I’d take her on my lap and brush her soft hair.
Then I’d tell her stories, quiet so he couldn’t hear. About all the land around
us and about the river, the animals and birds, and far-off places, too—wild
horses in the desert and the windows of Rhyolite standing up narrow and empty.
I told her everything I knew, because as long as I kept talking, she didn’t
cry. When tears ran down my face, Jamie traced them with her fingers and asked
questions in her own language.

I wouldn’t have thought people could live one week like
that, but May went on and June came, and it almost began feeling normal. When
things started to ease a little, I wasn’t sure I cared anymore.
I don’t
think I can stand to be jerked back through one more cycle, one more trip
around the daisy—he loves me, he loves me not.

But one morning I came out of the shower and found
Richard changing Jamie’s diaper. After that, he ate with us sometimes,
sometimes washed the dishes. One night he fixed dinner, like he had in the
rooming house when he was getting over his Valentine’s Day outburst. He still
didn’t talk, not one word.

We slept at the sides of the bed now, with a big space
in the middle—the space where we’d tangled and loved and held each other to
keep the bad things away. Neither one of us would touch the middle of the bed
anymore.

I didn’t know what to do, and there was no one to ask.
I was startled when he finally did say something. It was the first week of
June, getting hot fast. We didn’t have rehearsal, and we were lolling around
reading, trying to pretend the breeze from a fan was enough to keep the place
cool.

“You want to get an ice cream?” Richard asked. It was
like nothing had ever happened—well, not quite, since he still didn’t touch me.
But we put Jamie in the stroller and bought Popsicles at the market. Trying to
lick them faster than they could melt, we meandered to the shade of a park.

There wasn’t anyone else, so I drifted back into
talking to Richard after that, doing things with him. It felt strange to
pretend nothing had happened, but not as strange as living with someone who
wouldn’t even say, “Pass the sugar.” We took Jamie for walks, went to the
Quarter for ice cream on Sundays, and went to the grocery and the Laundromat together.
On June 27, we went to the zoo.

We showed Jamie the farm animals in the petting zoo,
and the ponies, the monkeys on Monkey Island. In a line of small cages, large
animals drooped in the heat.

“Look at the polar bear!” I called to Richard. “Why is
he green?” I asked. “I thought they were white.”

“It’s hot, and that dripping water is the only way he
can cool off. The green is algae, from being wet.”

“He looks miserable,” I said.

“I think he is.” We were hot too, so we crossed the
road to the shady part of the park. We strolled around, and dashed up and down
Monkey Hill, Jamie squealing as we swooped.

“Do you know where Monkey Hill came from?” I asked.

“Indian mound?”

“No, that’s the story, but it’s not true. They built it
because New Orleans is so flat, they wanted to show the children of New Orleans
what a hill is.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Uh-uh. Fact.”

It was almost cool there, in the shade of the live
oaks, with their branches sweeping down to the ground and up again. I felt
better.
Richard might not love me, but maybe we could like each other?