Toni Morrison: God Help the Child

I was pretty once, she thought, real pretty, and I believed it was enough. Well, actually it was until it wasn’t, until I had to be a real person, meaning a thinking one. Smart enough to know heavyweight was a condition not a disease; smart enough now to read the minds of selfish people right away. But the smarts came too late for her children.

Each of her “husbands” snatched a child or two from her, claimed them or absconded with them. Some spirited them away to their home countries; another had his mistress capture two; all but one of her husbands — the sweet Johnny Loveday — had good reasons to pretend love: American citizenship, U.S. passport, financial help, nursing care or a temporary home. She had no opportunity to raise a single child beyond the age of twelve. It took some time to figure out the motives for faking love — hers and theirs. Survival, she supposed, literal and emotional. Queen had been through it all, and now she lived alone in the wilderness, knitting and tatting away, grateful that, at last, Sweet Jesus had given her a forgetfulness blanket along with a little pillow of wisdom to comfort her in old age.

—

Restless and deeply displeased with the turn of events, especially Queen’s open disgust with him, Booker went outside and sat on his doorstep. Soon it would be twilight and this haphazard village minus streetlights would disappear in darkness. Music from a few radios would be as distant as the lights flickering from TV sets: old Zeniths and Pioneers. He watched a couple of local trucks rumble by and a few motorcyclists that followed soon after. The truckers wore caps; the motorcyclists wore scarves tied around their foreheads. Booker liked the mild anarchy of the place, its indifference to its residents modified by the presence of his aunt, the single person he trusted. He’d found some on-and-off work with loggers, which was enough until he fell out of a rig and wrecked his shoulder. At every turn, cutting into his aimless thoughts was the picture of the spellbinding black woman lying in his bed, exhausted after screaming and trying her best to kill him or at minimum beat him up. He really didn’t know what made her drive all this way except vengeance or outrage — or was it love?

Queen’s right, he thought. Except for Adam I don’t know anything about love. Adam had no faults, was innocent, pure, easy to love. Had he lived, grown up to have flaws, human failings like deception, foolishness and ignorance, would he be so easy to adore or be even worthy of adoration? What kind of love is it that requires an angel and only an angel for its commitment?

Following that line of thought, Booker continued to chastise himself.

Bride probably knows more about love than I do. At least she’s willing to figure it out, do something, risk something and take its measure. I risk nothing. I sit on a throne and identify signs of imperfection in others. I’ve been charmed by my own intelligence and the moral positions I’ve taken, along with the insolence that accompanies them. But where is the brilliant research, the enlightening books, the masterpieces I used to dream of producing? Nowhere. Instead I write notes about the shortcomings of others. Easy. So easy. What about my own? I liked how she looked, fucked, and made no demands. The first major disagreement we had, and I was gone. My only judge being Adam who, as Queen said, is probably weary of being my burden and my cross.

He tiptoed back into his trailer and, listening to Bride’s light snoring, retrieved a notebook to once again put on paper words he could not speak.

I don’t miss you anymore adam rather i miss the emotion that your dying produced a feeling so strong it defined me while it erased you leaving only your absence for me to live in like the silence of the japanese gong that is more thrilling than whatever sound may follow .

I apologize for enslaving you in order to chain myself to the illusion of control and the cheap seduction of power. No slaveowner could have done it better .

Booker put away his notebook. Dusk enveloped him and he let the warm air calm him while he looked forward to the dawn.

—

Bride woke in sunshine from a dreamless sleep — deeper than drunkenness, deeper than any she had known. Now having slept so many hours she felt more than rested and free of tension; she felt strong. She didn’t get up right away; instead she remained in Booker’s bed, eyes closed, enjoying a fresh vitality and blazing clarity. Having confessed Lula Ann’s sins she felt newly born. No longer forced to relive, no, outlive the disdain of her mother and the abandonment of her father. Pulling herself away from reverie she sat up and saw Booker drinking coffee at the pull-down table. He looked pensive rather than hostile. So she joined him, picked a strip of bacon from his plate and ate it. Then she bit into his toast.

“Want more?” Booker asked.

“No. No thanks.”

“Coffee? Juice?”

“Well, coffee, maybe.”

“Sure.”

Bride rubbed her eyelids trying to replay the moments before she fell asleep. The swelling over Booker’s left temple helped. “You got me over to your bed with one working arm?”

“I had help,” said Booker.

“Who from?”

“Queen.”

“God. She must think I’m crazy.”

“Doubt it.” Booker placed a cup of coffee in front of her. “She’s an original. Doesn’t recognize crazy.”

Bride blew away the coffee’s steam. “She showed me the things you mailed her. Pages of your writing. Why did you send them to her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I liked them too much to trash but not enough to carry around. I suppose I wanted them to be in a safe place. Queen keeps everything.”

“When I read them I knew they were all about me — right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Booker rolled his eyes and heaved a theatrical sigh. “Everything is about you except the whole world and the universe it floats in.”

“Would you stop making fun of me? You know what I mean. You wrote them when we were together, right?”

“They’re just thoughts, Bride. Thoughts about what I was feeling or feared or, most often, what I truly believed — at the time.”

“You still believe heartbreak should burn like a star?”

“I do. But stars can explode, disappear. Besides, what we see when we look at them may no longer be there. Some could have died thousands of years ago and we’re just now getting their light. Old information looking like news. Speaking of information, how did you find out where I was?”

“A letter came for you. An overdue bill, I mean, from a music repair shop. The Pawn Palace. So I went there.”

“Why?”

“To pay them, idiot. They told me where you might be. This dump of a place, and they had a forwarding address to a Q. Olive.”

“You paid my bill then drove all this way to slap my face?”

“Maybe. I didn’t plan it, but I have to say it did feel good. Anyway I brought you your horn. Is there more coffee?”

“You got it? My trumpet?”

“Of course. It’s fixed too.”

“Where is it? At Queen’s?”

“In the trunk of my car.”

Booker’s smile traveled from his lips to his eyes. The joy in his face was infantile. “I love you! Love you!” he shouted and ran out the door down the road toward the Jaguar.

—

It began slowly, gently, as it often does: shy, unsure of how to proceed, fingering its way, slithering tentatively at first because who knows how it might turn out, then gaining confidence in the ecstasy of air, of sunlight, for there was neither in the weeds where it had curled.

It had been lurking in the yard where Queen Olive had burned bedsprings to destroy the annual nest of bedbugs. Now it traveled quickly, flashing now and then a thin red lick of flame, then dying down for seconds before springing up again stronger, thicker, now that the way and the goal were clear: a tasty length of pine rotting at the trailer’s pair of back steps. Then the door, more pine, sweet, soft. Finally there was the joy of sucking delicious embroidered fabric of lace, of silk, of velvet.