Colum McCann - Let the Great World Spin

— Justice, said Jazzlyn’s mother.

The preacher nodded, then looked up toward the high trees. Jazzlyn had been a child who grew up in Cleveland and New York City, he said, and she had seen those distant hills of goodness and she knew that one day she was going to get there. It was always going to be a difficult journey. She had seen too much evil on the way, he said. She had some friends and confidants, like John A. Corrigan, who had perished with her, but mostly the world had tried her and sentenced her and taken advantage of her kindness. But life must pass through difficulty in order to achieve any modicum of beauty, he said, and now she was on her way to a place where there were no governments to chain her or enslave her, no miscreants to demand the wrong thing, and none of her own people who were going to turn her flesh to profit. He stood tall then and said: Let it be said that she was not ashamed.

A wave of nods went around the crowd.

— Shame on those who wanted to shame her.

— Yes, came the reply.

— Let this be a lesson to us all, said the preacher. You will be walking someday in the dark and the truth will come shining through, and behind you will be a life that you never want to see again.

— Yes.

— That bad life. That vile life. In front of you will stretch goodness. You will follow the path and it will be good. Not easy, but good. Full of terror and difficulty maybe, but the windows will open to the sky and your heart will be purified and you will take wing.

I had a sudden, terrible vision of Jazzlyn flying through the windshield. I felt dizzy. The preacher’s lips moved, but for a moment I couldn’t hear. He was looking at a single place in the crowd, his vision fixed on the man in the purple hat behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. The man was biting his upper lip in anger and his body seemed to curl into itself, coiling and getting ready to strike. The hat shadowed him but he looked to have a glass eye.

— The snakes will perish with the snakes, said the preacher.

— Yessir, came a woman’s voice.

— They’ll be gone.

— Yes they will.

— Be they out of here.

The man in the purple hat didn’t move. Nobody moved.

— Go on! shouted Jazzlyn’s mother, contorting herself. She looked like she was strapped down but she was wriggling and squirming out of it. One of the men in suits touched her arm. Her shoulders were going from side to side and her voice was raw with rage.

— Get the fuck out of here!

I wondered for a horrific moment if she was shouting at me, but she was staring beyond me, at the man in the feathered hat. The chorus of shouts rose higher. The preacher held his hands out and asked for calm. It was only then I realized that Jazzlyn’s mother had kept her arms behind her back the whole time, shackled with handcuffs. The two black men in suits beside her were city cops.

— Get the fuck out, Birdhouse, she said.

The man in the hat waited a moment, stretched upward, gave a smile that showed all his teeth. He touched the brim, tilted it, turned, and walked away. A small cheer went up from the mourners. They watched the pimp disappear down the road. He raised his hat one time, without turning around, waved it in the air, like a man who was not really saying good-bye.

— The snakes are gone, said the preacher. Let them stay gone.

Ciaran steadied my arm. I was feeling cold and dirty: it was like putting on a fourth-hand blouse. I had no right to be there. I was treading on their territory. But something in the service was pure and true: Behind you will be a life that you never want to see again.

The wailing had stopped and Jazzlyn’s mother said: Take these goddamn things off me.

Both cops stared straight ahead.

— I said take these goddamn things off me!

Finally, one of them stepped behind her and unlocked the handcuffs.

— Thank Jesus.

She shook her hands out and walked around the open grave, over toward Ciaran. Her scarf fell slightly and revealed the depth of her cleavage. Ciaran flushed red and embarrassed.

— I got a little story to tell, she said.

She cleared her throat and a swell went around the crowd.

— My Jazzlyn, she was ten. And she see’d a picture of a castle in a magazine somewheres. She went, clipped it out, and taped it on the wall above her bed. Like I say, nothing much to it, I never really thought that much about it. But when she met Corrigan …

She pointed over toward Ciaran, who looked to the ground.

— … and one day he was bringing around some coffee and she told him all about it, the castle — maybe she was bored, just wanted something to say, I don’t know. But you know Corrigan — that cat would listen to just about anything. He had an ear. And, of course, Corrie got a kick out of that. He said he knew castles just like that where he growed up. And he said he’d bring her to a castle just like it one day. Promised her solid. Every day he’d come out and bring her coffee and he’d say to my little girl that he was getting that castle ready, just you wait. One day he’d tell her that he was getting the moat right. The next he said he was working on the chains that go to the gate bridge. Then he said he was working on the turrets. Then he’d say he was getting the banquet all squared away. They were gonna have mead — that’s like wine — and lots of good food and there was gonna be harps playing and lots of dancing.

— Yes, said a woman in spangled makeup.

— Every day he had a new thing to say about that castle. That was their own little game, and Jazzlyn loved playing it, word.

She grabbed hold of Ciaran’s arm.

— That’s all, she said. That’s all I have to say. That’s it. That’s fucking it, ’scuse me for saying it.

A chorus of amens went around the gathered crowd and then she turned to some of the other women and made a comment of some sorts, something strange and clipped about going to the bathroom in the castle. A ripple of laughter went around a portion of the crowd and an odd thing occurred — she began quoting some poet whose name I didn’t catch, a line about open doors and a single beam of sunlight that struck right to the center of the floor. Her Bronx accent threw the poem around until it seemed to fall at her feet. She looked down sadly at it, its failure, but then she said that Corrigan was full of open doors, and he and Jazzlyn would have a heck of a time of it wherever they happened to be; every single door would be open, especially the one to that castle.

She leaned then against Ciaran’s shoulder and started to weep: I’ve been a bad mother, she said, I’ve been a terrible goddamn mother.

— No, no, you’re fine.

— There weren’t ever no goddamn castle.

— There’s a castle for sure, he said.

— I’m not an idiot, she said. You don’t have to treat me like a child.

— It’s okay.

— I let her shoot up.

— You don’t have to be so hard on yourself…

— She shot up in my arms.

She turned her face to the sky and then grasped the nearest lapel.

— Where’re my babies?

— She’s in heaven now, don’t you worry.

— My babies, she said. My baby’s babies.

— They’re just fine, Till, said a woman near the grave.

— They’re being looked after.

— They’ll come see you, T.

— You promise me? Who’s got them? Where are they?

— I swear it, Till. They’re okay.

— Promise me.

— God’s honest, said a woman.

— You better fucking promise, Angie.

— I promise. All right already, T. I promise.

She leaned against Ciaran and then turned her face, looked him in the eye, and said: You remember what we done? You ’member me?

Ciaran looked like he was handling a stick of dynamite. He wasn’t sure whether to hold it and smother it, or throw it as far away from himself as he could. He flicked a quick look at me, then the preacher, but then he turned to her and put his arms around her and held her very tight. He said: I miss Corrie too. The other women came around and they took their turns with him. They were hugging him, it seemed, as if he were the embodiment of his brother. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows, but there was something good and proper about it — one after the other they came.