Toni Morrison: God Help the Child

I shouldn’t be thinking this. But her position at Sylvia, Inc., might be up for grabs. How can she persuade women to improve their looks with products that can’t improve her own? There isn’t enough YOU, GIRL foundation in the world to hide eye scars, a broken nose and facial skin scraped down to pink hypodermis. Assuming much of the damage fades, she will still need plastic surgery, which means weeks and weeks of idleness, hiding behind glasses and floppy hats. I might be asked to take over. Temporarily, of course.

“I can’t eat. I can’t talk. I can’t think.”

Her voice is whiny and she is trembling.

I put my arm around her and whisper, “Hey, girlfriend, no pity party. Let’s get out of this dump. They don’t even have private rooms and that nurse had lettuce in her teeth and I doubt she’s washed her hands since graduating from that online nursing course she took.”

Bride stops shaking, adjusts the sling holding her right arm and asks me, “You don’t think that doctor did a good job?”

“Who knows?” I say. “In this trailer park clinic? I’m driving you to a real hospital — with a toilet and sink in the room.”

“Don’t they have to release me?” She sounds like a ten-year-old.

“Please. We’re leaving. Now. Look what I bought while you were being patched up. Sweats and flip-flops. No decent hospital in these parts but a very respectable Wal-Mart. Come on. Up. Lean on me. Where did Florence Nightingale put your things? We’ll get some ice pops or slurries on the way. Or a milk shake. That’s probably better medicine-wise — or some tomato juice, chicken broth, maybe.”

I’m rambling, fussing with pills and clothes while she clutches that ugly flowered hospital gown. “Oh, Bride,” I say, but my voice cracks. “Don’t look like that — it’s going to be all right.”

I have to drive slowly; every bump or sudden lane switch makes her wince or grunt. I try to get her mind off her pain.

“I didn’t know you were twenty-three. I thought you were my age, twenty-one. I saw it on your driver’s license. You know, when I was looking for your insurance card.”

She doesn’t answer, so I keep on trying to get a smile out of her. “But your good eye looks twenty.”

It doesn’t work. What the hell. I might as well be talking to myself. I decide to just get her home and settled. I’ll take care of everything at work. Bride will be on sick leave for a long time, and somebody has to take on her responsibilities. And who knows how that might turn out?

She really was a freak. Sofia Huxley. The quick change from obedient ex-con to raging alligator. From slack-lipped to fangs. From slouch to hammer. I never saw the signal — no eye squint or grip of neck cords, no shoulder flex or raised lip showing teeth. Nothing announced her attack on me. I’ll never forget it, and even if I tried to, the scars, let alone the shame, wouldn’t let me.

Memory is the worst thing about healing. I lie around all day with nothing urgent to do. Brooklyn has taken care of explanations to the office staff: attempted rape, foiled, blah, blah. She is a true friend and doesn’t annoy me like those fake ones who come here just to gaze and pity me. I can’t watch television; it’s so boring — mostly blood, lipstick, and the haunches of anchorgirls. What passes for news is either gossip or a lecture of lies. How can I take crime shows seriously where the female detectives track killers in Louboutin heels? As for reading, print makes me dizzy, and for some reason I don’t like listening to music anymore. Vocals, both the beautiful and the mediocre, depress me, and instrumentals are worse. Plus something bad has been done to my tongue because my taste buds have disappeared. Everything tastes like lemons — except lemons, which taste like salt. Wine is a waste since Vicodin gives me a thicker, more comfortable fog.

The bitch didn’t even hear me out. I wasn’t the only witness, the only one who turned Sofia Huxley into 0071140. There was lots of other testimony about her molestations. At least four other kids were witnesses. I didn’t hear what they said but they were shaking and crying when they left the courtroom. The social worker and psychologist who coached us put their arms around them, whispering, “You’ll be fine. You did great.” Neither one hugged me but they smiled at me. Apparently Sofia Huxley has no family. Well she has a husband who is in another prison and still unparoled after seven tries. No one was there to meet her. Nobody. So why didn’t she just accept help instead of whatever check-out-counter or cleaning-woman job she might be given? Rich parolees don’t end up cleaning toilets at Wendy’s.

I was only eight years old, still little Lula Ann, when I lifted my arm and pointed my finger at her.

“Is the woman you saw here in this room?” The lawyer lady smells of tobacco.

I nod.

“You have to speak, Lula. Say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ ”

“Yes.”

“Can you show us where she is seated?”

I am afraid of knocking over the paper cup of water the lady lawyer gave me.

“Relax,” says the prosecutor lady. “Take your time.”

And I did take my time. My hand was in a fist until my arm was straight. Then I unfolded my forefinger. Pow! Like a cap pistol. Mrs. Huxley stared at me then opened her mouth as though about to say something. She looked shocked, unbelieving. But my finger still pointed, pointed so long the lady prosecutor had to touch my hand and say, “Thank you, Lula,” to get me to put my arm down. I glanced at Sweetness; she was smiling like I’ve never seen her smile before — with mouth and eyes. And that wasn’t all. Outside the courtroom all the mothers smiled at me, and two actually touched and hugged me. Fathers gave me thumbs-up. Best of all was Sweetness. As we walked down the courthouse steps she held my hand, my hand. She never did that before and it surprised me as much as it pleased me because I always knew she didn’t like touching me. I could tell. Distaste was all over her face when I was little and she had to bathe me. Rinse me, actually, after a halfhearted rub with a soapy washcloth. I used to pray she would slap my face or spank me just to feel her touch. I made little mistakes deliberately, but she had ways to punish me without touching the skin she hated — bed without supper, lock me in my room — but her screaming at me was the worst. When fear rules, obedience is the only survival choice. And I was good at it. I behaved and behaved and behaved. Frightened as I was to appear in court, I did what the teacher-psychologists expected of me. Brilliantly, I know, because after the trial Sweetness was kind of motherlike.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just mad more at myself than at Mrs. Huxley. I reverted to the Lula Ann who never fought back. Ever. I just lay there while she beat the shit out of me. I could have died on the floor of that motel room if her face hadn’t gone apple-red with fatigue. I didn’t make a sound, didn’t even raise a hand to protect myself when she slapped my face then punched me in the ribs before smashing my jaw with her fist then butting my head with hers. She was panting when she dragged and threw me out the door. I can still feel her hard fingers clenching the hair at the back of my neck, her foot on my behind and I can still hear the crack of my bones hitting concrete. Elbow, jaw. I feel my arms sliding and grabbing for balance. Then my tongue searching through blood to locate my teeth. When the door slammed then opened again so she could throw out my shoe, like a whipped puppy I just crawled away afraid to even whimper.

Maybe he is right. I am not the woman. When he left I shook it off and pretended it didn’t matter.

Foam spurting from an aerosol can made him chuckle, so he lathered with shaving soap and a brush, a handsome thing of boar’s hair swelling from an ivory handle. I think it’s in the trash along with his toothbrush, strop and straight razor. The things he left are too alive. It’s time to throw all of it out. He left everything: toiletries, clothes and a cloth bag containing two books, one in a foreign language, the other a book of poems. I dump it all, then pick through the trash and take out his shaving brush and bone-handled razor. I put them both in the medicine cabinet and when I close the door I stare at my face in the mirror.