Уолтер Мосли - John Woman

“No, baby. I kissed his neck the whole time he was changin’ reels. I kissed it all down the sides.”

“And daddy didn’t push you away?”

“He couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because nobody had ever kissed his neck like that and, even though he didn’t know it, that was what he always wanted.”

“How did you know?”

“I know things about men, honey. I know what they want when I see ’em. I knew what Jimmy Grimaldi was after. I knew what your father wanted and I wanted him.”

“Daddy said that after he saved you that you started dating for a long time and then you got engaged.”

“Your father took me home when we left the movie house. We went to his bed and made you that night.”

Cornelius felt like he was floating above his chair. His mother had told him the truth of his beginnings in the world.

“But why did you want to make me and marry daddy, mama?”

“Because no man had ever saved me before,” she said. “No man had ever been so sweet to freeze when I kissed him and so brave to stand up to a bully like Jimmy Grimaldi for a woman he had never met.”

“But then why did you have to leave us, mama?” CC asked. He knew he shouldn’t have. He tried to keep the words down but failed.

Lucia’s warmth drained away in the sunlit front room looking down on Mott. Her smile dried up. Those dark Mediterranean eyes became like twin eclipses, far away and cold.

“I told your father that you would go and see him in the hospital,” she said.

“You said we would both go.”

“I can’t. I have things to do.”

Things to do. These words broke Cornelius’s heart.

Lucia stood up and went into her bedroom. She closed the door and CC knew that she wouldn’t come out again until he was gone from the house.

If only he didn’t have to ask her why she’d left. If only he didn’t need to know every damn thing. That’s what everybody told him — even his father who had read more books than any teacher CC ever had at school.

The boy took his leather satchel from its place behind the sofa. He put the extra T-shirt and notebook in there, then left the apartment being careful not to let the door slam behind him.

“Cornelius,” Herman Jones said. “Where is your mother?”

He was too weak to raise his head from the pillows on his hospital bed.

“She got sick,” Cornelius lied. “Stomachache.”

“That is too bad. Tell her I hope she gets better soon,” the elder Jones said. “Mr. Cranston, this is my son.”

A skeletal, yellowish man, propped up in the bed next to his father’s, smiled and said, “Hello, young man. Your father says that you’re a great student in school.”

Cornelius had the urge to ask, Where else would I be a student if not in school? But he knew that his father wouldn’t like him being a smart aleck so he said, “Thanks,” and bowed his head to keep from looking into the wasted white man’s eyes.

Cornelius went to his father’s side and touched his shoulder. Herman was dark brown in color. He was thin like his son with large intelligent eyes and the mildest manners. Cornelius rarely disobeyed his father, not from fear of punishment but because he didn’t want to hurt him.

Herman Jones wasn’t a strong man but that day his voice was so thin his son feared he was dying.

“Everything is all right,” Herman said, reading his son’s eyes. “The doctors say I will be better than ever in a few weeks. It was an obstruction in the small intestine but they yanked it out.”

Using a word like yank was as close as his father would ever come to cursing. Herman revered the English language.

Language is the pinnacle of human achievement, he would often tell his son. And English is the most perfect tongue in the history of the world. Ten thousand years from now they’ll still be using English the way we use Latin today.

“So when are you coming home?” Cornelius asked.

“They tell me about a week or eight days. How is it going at your mother’s house?”

“Good.”

“Are you making her upset or anything like that?”

“No, dad.”

“Because you know your mother is delicate. She acts like the toughest man on the block but inside she has the heart of a butterfly.”

“I know,” Cornelius said. He thought about his mother closing the bedroom door. He knew that if he told his father about it he’d say that was what he meant, that asking her why she couldn’t live with them was insensitive.

“Did you want me to read to you, dad?” Cornelius asked.

“Yes. If Mr. Cranston does not mind.”

“Not at all,” the parchment-skinned white man said. “Probably help me get to sleep.”

So Cornelius got The Life of Greece by Will Durant from his bag. When he started reading from the first chapter Herman closed his eyes and smiled. Cornelius knew that as long as his father was smiling he was still awake.

Fifteen pages later Mr. Cranston was snoring but Herman beamed.

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“Are you really going to be okay?”

“As okay as any mortal man can claim. The doctors say that I should be able to have regular bowel movements now. Just a little rest is all I need. Tell France that I’ll be back on the job three weeks from today.”

“Okay,” Cornelius said. “I better get back to Mom’s. She’ll be worried if I’m late for dinner.”

“She will if you are,” Herman Jones said, correcting both offending contractions.

Cornelius kissed his father’s forehead and touched his lean black hand. Between the kiss and the touch Herman fell asleep.

Cornelius didn’t go back to Mott Street; his welcome there was over. Instead he went to the Arbuckle theater where France Bickman was collecting money for tickets at the door and running back and forth changing reels on the ancient projectors.

“How’s your father, CC?” France asked.

“He’s gotta be in the hospital for another three weeks, Mr. Bickman.”

“I can’t do the projectionist’s job for that long. I make too many mistakes, people come in without buying tickets. And if Mr. Lorraine finds out... He’d fire Herman if he missed three weeks. You know how much he hates your dad.”

“I know,” Cornelius said.

Lorraine had inherited the theater from his uncle, Ferro Lansman. The new owner tried to sell the building to a developer but the city made the place a New York City landmark and blocked the sale. Herman was one of the main witnesses for the landmark committee. He knew the complete history of the property. It had been a silent movie theater since April of 1911; before that it was a Jewish theater.

Chapman Lorraine wanted revenge. That’s why Herman didn’t tell him about the operation; he knew that the theater owner would let him go.

“I can run the projectors,” Cornelius said.

“But what if Lorraine finds you?” France asked.

“He never comes in. And dad always keeps the door to the projection room locked since he met mom. I’ll just stay inside and it’ll be okay.”

Tall and willowy France Bickman was well past seventy. He had worked at the Arbuckle since his retirement from the records department at the New York City Board of Education. France was on duty the afternoon Lucia Napoli ran in to escape Jimmy Grimaldi. When the street thug rushed in after her France had yelled, “Hey you,” but he didn’t stop, and France didn’t call the police because he thought they might interrupt the screening. At the end of the night France drove Herman and Lucia to Herman’s apartment in Williamsburg, in Brooklyn.

Lucia had gone in with him and stayed. Herman broke up with his girlfriend of seven years, Kendra Brooks. Lucia’s parents boycotted the wedding. Lucia sent them a funeral announcement after the ceremony.