Уолтер Мосли - John Woman

When the brute turned around John recognized Chapman Lorraine, a bully from the elementary school. He hadn’t seen Chapman in many years and the towering giant didn’t seem to recognize him so John came up with a plan.

He said, “Your sister passed up word that she’s at the end of the line and wants you to come get her.”

“My sister?” Chapman said.

“Don’t worry,” Cornelius assured him, “I’ll keep your place in line.”

“Thanks,” Lorraine said, giving John a big smile and even shaking his hand.

As soon as Chapman was gone the line began to move. At first it was a few slow steps. Then they began to pick up speed. A while later they were trotting like soldiers doing double time in a military review.

Before he knew it John was at the front of the line standing before a huge blue door. He glanced behind. Chapman Lorraine was running, screaming something from far back down the line.

“Open please,” John said to the door.

He looked back again; the schoolyard bully was getting closer.

Panicked he turned to the door prepared to pound on it but it was already open. He walked across the threshold and the lofty azure door slammed shut behind him.

Walking down a long corridor on a floor paved with gilded tiles and flanked by bright white walls, John passed many doors, but he knew instinctively that these were not for him.

After some while he came to a bloodred door that glistened as if threatening to revert back into bodily fluid. This was his destination.

“Come in,” a man said though John had not knocked.

On the other side of the bloodred door sat Herman Jones — perched on a bench made from glass.

John was delighted to see his father and immediately took a seat at his side.

“Your fairy godmother tasked me to grant you a wish,” Herman said.

Cornelius thought of the fudge-colored woman, feeling the elation of her existence in his life.

“Are you really my father?”

“Is the answer to that question your wish?”

Dreamer John nodded.

“Yes and no,” Herman said. “I was your father but that was long ago. Since then you have become your own man. Now tell me, why are you here?”

“I was on a line that felt like it went on forever,” John said.

“This is the end of the line,” Herman said sadly.

“John Woman,” Marle Josephson intoned.

John woke up with the paneled ceiling light in his eyes.

“I did what you said,” Marle told John as they marched along.

“And how did it go?”

“Great. I finished the practice test and did okay. Then I read the study book again and saw what I needed. How did you know that would happen?”

“My father taught me.”

“He must’a been a smart guy.”

“Marle?”

“Yeah, John?”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Captain Anton got it in his head that he didn’t like you. I think it was because they made him keep you in solitary. It’s not like that’s any great privilege or anything but he was mad that he couldn’t put you where he wanted.”

A few moments went by. John looked around for Andrew the Navajo but did not see him.

“What does that have to do with where you’re taking me?” John asked.

“Anton been holdin’ up your paperwork but then that lawyer, that Nina Forché chick, said you had the right to see the people applied to visit. Anton’s madder’n a motherfucker but ain’t nuthin’ he could do about it.”

“So who is it that wants to see me?”

“I don’t know. I’m just supposed to bring you to the room and wait. Easy for me.”

When the door came open he saw Senta Ray seated in one of the metal folding chairs. She was wearing a fluffy white sweater and tight, faded blue jeans. Her lipstick was redder than what she wore to her Post Office job and when she rose to meet him she stood taller because of her fancy white high heels.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.” John kissed her on the cheek.

Senta smiled at this chaste greeting and asked, “Are they watching us?”

“I don’t know.”

“You wanna fuck and give ’em somethin’ to see?”

“Maybe not right yet.”

“Okay.” Senta’s mood was light and engaging. This was an act of pure kindness, designed to make him feel better.

They settled across the table from each other. Senta leaned forward taking his hands in hers.

“Lou read it in the Phoenix Herald that you’d been arrested for some murder that happened when you were a kid,” she said. “He told me week before last and I came down the next day but they made me wait until now.”

“I don’t think the warden likes me.” John smiled and squeezed her hands.

“I missed you,” she said. “I really did.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come by for so long. I just got involved in lots of stuff.”

“Don’t I know it,” Senta said looking around the room. “I missed you but just the little bit we had together changed my life so much that I could never be mad.”

“Changed your life how?” John appreciated Senta’s smile and touch but what he needed was something to think about, something outside the confines of his imprisonment.

“The things you said.”

“What things?”

“The last time I saw you you said that history is a tool like a hammer or a saw.”

“I said that?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“I guess we got pretty drunk most nights.”

“Yeah. And you were just talkin’. I mean you probably talked like that all the time at school but what you said was new to me. It stuck. I thought about it for weeks and weeks. It seemed so important but I couldn’t tell how. I was going to ask you but you never came back. And that was better because the question stayed in my mind; I couldn’t let it go.

“Finally I got it down to one word — history. You had told me that there was the history we read about in books and then our own stories — what we lived through ourselves. I didn’t know what that meant exactly but I kept on thinking about it. Thinking and thinking... and finally it hit me. I went to the shelf in the hallway closet and took down the old box of photographs. Must’a been a thousand pictures but there was only three of Nesta.”

“Who?” John asked.

“My baby girl,” Senta said. “Nesta. She was only a week old when I gave her up. I’d just turned fifteen and my parents made me because they were afraid I’d leave my beautiful baby with them.

“When I saw her picture I knew I’d been heartbroken my whole life about Nesta. I remembered what you said: ‘The man swings the hammer but it’s the hammer that makes the man.’ Givin’ Nesta away made the rest of my life what it was.

“I hired me a detective and he found my child working in a plastics factory outside Ojai, California.

“I got a lot of money in the bank. Savin’ makes me feel safe. This one customer of mine who’s a bookkeeper calls me his parsimonious prostitute. I brought Nesta home to me. Her name had been changed to Rachel Dawson but she lets me call her Nesta. We’re gonna build a house, a new home that’ll be everything we lost. That was because of you, John. You gave me something to think about and the way to think about it. It’s kind of like you gave me the bricks to build our house.”

“You would have probably decided to look for your daughter one day anyway,” John argued mildly.

“I never would have until you made me look in that closet. I came here because I wanted you to know if you asked me out on a date that I would definitely go.”

“That’s a wonderful gift.”

“Do you want me to tell you about our house?”

“Sure.”

Senta described the floor plan and the memories that each room would contain. The composition of the building would be what had been missing from their lives.