The Street (38 page)

‘'Bout eleven,' she repeated.

‘Okay, dearie.'

When she opened the door of the apartment and walked into the living room, she saw that Jones was standing by the desk. He was tearing some letters into tiny pieces. The small bits of paper were falling into the wastebasket, swiftly and quietly like snow.

He didn't hear her come in, and when he became aware of her he turned on her with such suddenness, with such a snarling ‘What you doin' in here?' that she backed toward the door, one hand reaching up toward her chest in an instinctive gesture aimed to quiet the fear-sudden hurrying of her heart.

‘What you doin' here?' he repeated. ‘What you doin' spyin' on me?'

The fact that she moved away from him seemed to enrage him, and he started toward her. His eyes were inflamed, red. His face was contorted with hate. She thrust her hand in her coat pocket, groping for
the small box of powder, reached in further, more frantically. It wasn't there. She explored the other pocket. It, too, was empty.

As he approached her, she shrank away from him, half-closing her eyes so that she shut out his face and saw only his overalls—the faded blue material splashed with thick blobs of tan-colored paint and brown varnish; the shiny buckles on the straps and the rust marks under the buckles.

He would probably kill her, she thought, and she waited for the feel of his heavy hands around her neck, for the violence of his foot, for he would kick her after he knocked her down. She knew how it would go, for her other husbands had taught her: first, the grip around the neck that pressed the windpipe out of position, so that screams were choked off and no sound could emerge from her throat; and then a whole series of blows, and after that, after falling to the ground under the weight of the blows, the most painful part would come—the heavy work shoes landing with force, sinking deep into the soft, fleshy parts of her body, her stomach, her behind.

As she waited, she wondered where she had put the powder. She'd had it only yesterday in her coat pocket and last night she'd put it in the pocket of her house dress. That's where it was now, in the pocket of the dress hanging in the closet—the dress with the purple flowers on it that she'd bought in that nice little store on the corner where the lady was so pleasant, only the dress had run when she washed it and the purple flowers had spread their color all over the white background, muddying the green of the small leaves that were attached to the flowers.

He had lifted his hand. So it would be the face first and the neck afterward. She closed her eyes, so that she wouldn't see his great, heavy hand coming at her face, and thus she shut out the overalls and the paint on them and the rusting buckles that fastened the straps.

Nothing but trouble, always trouble, when there was a woman as good-looking as that young Mis' Johnson in a house. She wondered if white women, good-looking ones, brought as much of trouble with them, and then she thought of the Prophet David with warmth and affection. He had done the best he could for her. This that was going to happen wouldn't have come about if she had followed his instructions. It was a pity she had been so careless and left the protection powder in the pocket of that other dress.

And then the big, golden cross came to her mind. Nights alone in the bedroom she had sometimes sat up and turned on the light and looked up at it hanging over her head and been comforted by it. And it wasn't just because of the protection it offered either. There was something very friendly about it and just looking at it never failed to remind her of the Prophet and the quiet way he had listened to her talk.

She took her hand out of her pocket and without opening her eyes, and only half-realizing what she was doing, she made the sign of the cross over her body—a long gesture downward and then a wide, sweeping crosswise movement.

Jones' breath came out with a sharp, hissing sound.

She was so startled that she opened her eyes, for it was the same sound that she had heard snakes make,
and it sent an old and horrid fear through her. For a moment she thought she was back in Georgia in a swampy, sedgy place, standing mesmerized with fear because she had nearly stepped on a snake that was coiled in front of her and she half-expected to see its threadlike tongue licking in and out.

‘You god damn conjurin' whore!' Jones said.

His voice was thick with violence and with something else—almost like a sob had risen in his throat and got mixed up with the words. She stared at him, bewildered, reassuring herself that it was he who had made the hissing sound, that she was not back in the country, but instead was facing Jones in this small, dark room.

She was surprised to see that he had backed away from her. There was half the distance of the room between them. He was over by the desk, and his hands were no longer lifted in a threatening gesture; they were flat against his face. The sight held her motionless, unable to deny or affirm his charge of conjuring.

He walked out of the room without looking at her. She ought to explain why she had come back so unexpectedly, but he had reached the foyer before she could get the words out.

‘My heart was botherin' me,' she said in her whispering voice. He made no reply, and she wasn't certain whether he had heard her. The door slammed with a bang, and then he was going up the stairs—walking slowly as though he was having trouble with his legs.

She cocked her head on one side listening, because the room was filled with whispers, and it was her own
voice saying over and over again, ‘My heart was botherin' me,' ‘My heart was botherin' me.' It had a gasping, faintly surprised quality, and she realized with dismay that she was saying the words aloud over and over again and that her heart was making a sound like thunder inside her chest.

Her legs were shaking so badly that she walked over to the sofa and sat down. This was where he slept when she was in the bedroom alone. It was a long sofa, very long, and yet tall as he was, when he was stretched out on it, his head would be about where she was sitting and his feet would have touched the arm at the other end. She wondered if he had been comfortable or had he twisted and turned unable to sleep because he didn't have room enough. She punched the seat with her fist. It didn't have much give to it.

What would he have done if she had come and lain down beside him on this sofa on one of those nights when she couldn't sleep? Only, of course, her pride wouldn't have permitted it—especially after that experience with the nightgown. She squirmed as she thought of its bright pinkness, its low cut, and of the vivid yellow lace that edged the neck and the armholes.

She had looked at it a long time in the store before she finally bought it. It was the same store where she'd got that nice flowered dress, only this time the lady wasn't there, and the white girl who waited on her got a little impatient with her, but she had a hard time making up her mind because she'd never worn anything like it before and it didn't look decent.

‘But it's so beautiful, honey,' the girl urged. Her
long red fingernails had picked up a bit of the lace edging.

‘I dunno,' Min had said doubtfully.

‘And it's glamorous. See?' The girl held it up in front of herself, catching it in tight at her waist and holding the neck up with her other hand, so that her breasts were suddenly accentuated, seemed to be pushing right out of the bright pink material.

Min looked away, embarrassed. ‘I ain't never wore one of them kind.'

‘Why, honey, you've missed half of life.' The girl moved her shoulders slightly to attract Min's glance. Min's eyes stayed focused on the front of the store and the girl stretched the nightgown out on the counter, started putting it back into its crisp folds, and said impatiently, ‘Well, honey?'

‘I still dunno.' The shiny pink material, the yellow lace, the gathers at the bosom, were startling even spread out flat on the counter.

The girl sought desperately for some way to close the sale. ‘Why—why—' she fumbled, then, ‘Why, any man who sees you in this would get all excited right away.'

Two-ninety-eight it had cost, and she remembered with a pang of regret how that night after she bought it she had put it on. It was a little too long and she had to walk carefully to keep from tripping, but she made several totally unnecessary trips back and forth through the living room, walking as close as possible to the sofa where Jones was sitting. He was so absorbed in some gloomy chain of thought that he didn't pay any attention until she stumbled over the hem and nearly fell.

‘Jesus God!' he said, staring.

But after that first look, he had kept his eyes on the floor, head down, unseeing, apparently indifferent. The only indication that he wasn't wholly unconcerned showed in the way he started cracking his knuckles, pulling his fingers so that the joints made a sharp, angry sound.

No, she could never have brought herself to lie down on this couch with him, and anyway she ought to start packing. Her house dresses and the pink nightgown and the other ordinary nightgowns could go in a paper bundle along with her shoes and slippers and spring coat and what else—oh, yes, the Epsom salts for her feet. The comb and brush and hand mirror could go in the same package. That was about all except for the cross and the table and the canary cage. She wouldn't really need the medicine dropper and that red don't-love medicine the Prophet gave her, but she'd take them, because she might run across some friend with husband trouble who could use them.

Funny how she got to believe that not having to pay rent was so important, and it really wasn't. Having room to breathe in meant much more. Lately she couldn't get any air here. All the time she felt like she'd been running, running, running, and hadn't been able to stop long enough to get a nose full of air. It was because of the evilness in Jones. She could feel the weight of it like some monstrous growth crowding against her. He had made the whole apartment grow smaller and darker; living room, bedroom, kitchen—all of them shrinking, their walls tightening about her.

Like just now when he came at her with his hand upraised to strike; he had swallowed the room up until she could see nothing but him—all the detail of the overalls and none of the room, just as though he had become a giant and blotted out everything else.

These past few weeks she had become so acutely aware of his presence that his every movement made her heart jump, whether she was in the bedroom or the kitchen. Every sound he made was magnified. His muttering to himself was like thunder, and his restless walking up and down, up and down, in the living room seemed to go on inside her in a regular rhythm that set her eyes to blinking so that she couldn't stop them. When he beat the dog, it made her sick at her stomach, because as each blow fell the dog cried out sharply and her stomach would suck in against itself.

But when he had been quiet and no sound came from him, she felt impelled to locate him. The absence of sound was deeply disturbing, for there was no telling what awful thing he might be doing.

If she was in the kitchen, she would keep turning her head, listening, while she scrubbed the floor or cleaned the stove, until, unable to endure not knowing where he was or what he was doing, she would finally tiptoe to the living-room door only to find that he was sitting here on this sofa, biting his lips, glaring at her with eyes so bloodshot, so filled with hate, that she would turn and scuttle hastily back to the kitchen. Or if she was in the bedroom she would sit on the edge of the bed, watching the doorway, half-expecting to see him appear there suddenly, and then the silence from the living room would force
her to get up and look at him only to find his hate-filled eyes focused straight at her.

She got up from the sofa, satisfied. She had full made up her mind now and she would never regret going, for there wasn't anything else for her to do. He was more than flesh and blood could bear.

She carefully inspected the kitchen to make certain none of her belongings were there and then entered the bathroom where she took a five-pound package of Epsom salts from under the sink. There was nothing of hers in the living room but the table and the canary's cage.

On her way into the bedroom, she glanced at the top of Jones' desk. He hadn't finished tearing up the letters and she looked at them curiously. He never got any mail that she knew of and these weren't advertising letters, they were regular ones with handwritten addresses.

She picked up two of the envelopes. The names had been partly torn off, and she traced what remained of the writing with her finger, spelling each letter out separately. None of them were for Jones. One envelope was almost intact, and she saw with surprise that it wasn't intended for this house. It belonged in a house across the street near the corner, that house where there were so many children and dogs that they overran the sidewalk and every time she went past it, whether it was morning or night, she had to pick her way along to keep from bumping into them.

But if it belonged across the street, what was it doing on Jones' desk? Perhaps the people were friends of his or maybe they were going to rent an apartment
here and had dropped the letters when they came to pay a deposit or perhaps Jones had stolen them from a mail box.

And at the thought the envelopes slid out of her hands, landing on the floor. She was too frightened to pick them up. And what was it he had said when she came in and found him tearing them into little pieces? What was it—‘What you doin' spyin' on me?'

Jones was doing something crooked. He was up to something that was bad. He had been ready to kill her just now because he thought she had found him out. If there had been any part of her that felt a reluctance about leaving the security that his apartment had offered, it disappeared entirely now, for she knew she would never be safe here again.

She walked carefully around the envelopes, entered the bedroom. There was the packing to be done and she would do it swiftly, so that she could be gone. She knelt on the bed and lifted the cross down, dusting it carefully with her hand. It should be wrapped in something soft to keep it safe. The pink nightgown, of course. It was new and silky and highly suitable. And she would wrap her house dresses and underwear and shoes and the slippers in with it. She would wear her galoshes because it was going to snow.