Colum McCann - Let the Great World Spin

Some of these assholes think you got a heart of gold. No one’s got a heart of gold. I don’t got no heart of gold, no way. Not even Corrie. Even Corrie went for that Spanish broad with the dumb little tattoo on her ankle.

When Jazzlyn was fourteen she came home with her first red mark on the inside of her arm. I as good as slapped the black off her, but she came back with the mark between her toes. She didn’t even smoke a cigarette and there she was, on the horse. She was running with the Immortals then. They had a beef with the Ghetto Brothers.

I tried keeping her straight by keeping her on the streets. That’s what I was thinking.

Big Bill Broonzy’s got a song I like, but I don’t like to listen to it: I’m down so low, baby, I declare I’m lookin’ up at down.

By the time she was fifteen I was watching her shoot up. I’d sit down on the pavement and think, That’s my girl. And then I’d say, Hold on a goddamn motherfucking second, is that my girl? Is that really my girl?

And then I’d think, Yeah that’s my girl, that’s my flesh ‘n’ blood, that’s her, all right.

I made that.

There were times I’d strap the elastic around her arm to get the vein to pop. I was keeping her safe. That’s all I was trying to do.

This is the house that Horse built. This is the house that Horse built.

Jazz came home one Friday and said: “Hey, Till, how’d you like to be a grandma?” I said, “Yeah, Grandma T, that’s me.” She started blubbering. And then she was crying on my shoulder — it woulda been nice if it weren’t for real.

I went down to Foodland but all they had was a cheap-ass Entenmann’s.

She was eating it and I looked at her and thought, That’s my baby and she’s having a baby. I didn’t even take a slice until Jazz went to bed and then I wolfed that motherfucker down, got crumbs all over the floor.

Second time I came a grandmother, Angie organized a party for me. She talked Corrie into borrowing a wheelchair and she wheeled me along under the Deegan. We were high on coke then, laughing our asses off.

Oh, but what I shoulda done — I shoulda swallowed a pair of handcuffs when Jazzlyn was in my belly. That’s what I shoulda done. Gave her a heads-up about what was coming her way. Say, Here you is, already arrested, you’re your mother and her mother before her, a long line of mothers stretching way back to Eve, french and nigger and dutch and whatever else came before me.

Oh, God, I shoulda swallowed handcuffs. I shoulda swallowed them whole.

I spent the last seven years fucking in the inside of refrigerator cars. I spent the last seven years fucking in the inside of refrigerator cars.

Yeah. I spent the last seven years fucking in the inside of refrigerator cars.

Tillie Fuck-Up Henderson.

I get a call that I got a visitor. I’m, like, primed. I’m fixing my hair and putting on lipstick and making myself smell fine, jailhouse perfume and all. I’m flossing my teeth and plucking my eyebrows and even making sure my prison duds look good. I thought, There’s only two people in the world ever going to come see me. I was bouncing down the prison steps. It was like coming down a fire escape. I could smell the sky. Watch out, babies, here comes your Momma’s Momma.

I got to the Gatehouse. That’s what they call the visiting room. I’m looking all ’round for them. There are lots of chairs and plastic windows and a big cloud of cigarette smoke. It’s like moving through a delicious fog. I’m standing up on my toes and looking all around and everyone’s settling down and meeting their honeys. There are big oohs and ahhs and laughing and shouting going on, all over the place, and kids screaming, and I keep standing up on my tiptoes to see my babies. Soon enough there’s only one spot left at the chairs. Some white bitch is sitting opposite the glass. I’m thinking I half know her, but I don’t know from where, maybe she’s a parole officer, or a social worker or something. She’s got blond hair and green eyes and pearly-white skin. And then she says: “Oh, hi, Tillie.”

I’m thinking, Don’t Hi, Tillie me, who the fuck’re you? These whiteys, they come on all familiar. Like they understand you. Like they’re your best friends.

But I just say, “Hi,” and slide onto the chair. I feel like I got the air knocked out of me. She gives me her name and I shrug ’cause it don’t mean nothing to me. “You got any cigarettes?” I say, and she says no, she quit. And I’m thinking, She’s even less good to me than she was five minutes ago, and five minutes ago she was useless. And I say, “Are you the one who got my babies?” She says, “No, someone else is looking after the babies.” Then she just sits there and starts asking me about prison life, and if I’m eating good, and when am I going to get out? I look at her like she’s ten pounds of shit wrapped in a five-pound bag. She’s all nervous and stuff. And I finally out and say it so slow that she raises her eyebrows in surprise: “Who — the — fuck — are — you?” And she says, “I know Keyring, he’s my friend.” And I’m like, “Who the fuck is Keyring?” And then she spells it out: “C-i-a-r-a-n.”

Then the cherry falls and I think, She’s the one came to Jazzlyn’s funeral with Corrigan’s brother. Funny thing is, he’s the one who gave me the keyring.

“Are you a holy roller?” I ask her.

“Am I what?”

“You on a Jesus kick?”

She shakes her head.

“Then why you here?”

“I just wanted to see how you were.”

“For real?”

And she says: “For real, Tillie.”

So I let up on her. I say, “All right, whatever.”

And she’s leaning forward, saying it’s nice to see me again, the last time she saw me she just felt very badly for me, the way the pigs put me in handcuffs and all, at the graveside. She actually said “pigs,” but I could tell she wasn’t used to it, like she was trying to be tough but she wasn’t. But I think, Okay, this is cool, I’ll let it slide, I’ll let fifteen minutes drift, what’s fifteen, twenty minutes?

She’s pretty. She’s blond. She’s cool. I’m telling her about the girl in C-40 with the mouse, and what it’s like when you’re a femme not a butch, and how the food tastes terrible, and how I miss my babies, and how there was a fight on TV night over the Chico show and Scatman Crothers and if he’s a cardboard nigger. And she’s nodding her head and going, Uh-huh, hmm, oh, I see, that’s very interesting, Scatman Crothers, he’s cute. Like she’d get it on with him. But she’s hip to me. She’s smiling and laughing. She’s smart too — I can tell she’s smart, a rich girl. She tells me she’s an artist and she’s dating Corrigan’s brother, even though she’s married, he went to Ireland to scatter Corrigan’s ashes and came right back, they fell in love, she’s getting her life together, she used to be an addict, and she still likes to drink. She says she’ll put some money in my prison account and maybe I can get myself some cigarettes.

“What else can I get for you?” she says.

“My babies.”

“I’ll try,” she says. “I’ll see where they are. I’ll see if I can get them to visit. Anything else, Tillie?”

“Jazz,” I say.

“Jazz?” she goes.

“Bring Jazzlyn back too.”

And she goes white at the gills.

“Jazzlyn’s dead,” she said, like I’m some fucking idiot.

She’s got a look in her eyes like she just been kicked. She’s staring at me and her lip is quivering. And then the goddamn bell goes off. It’s visiting time over and we’re saying good-bye to each other behind the glass, and I turn to her and say, “Why did ya come here?”

She looks down at the ground and then she smiles up at me, lip still quivering, but she shakes her head, and there are little teardrops in the corner of her eyes.