William Gay - Provinces of Night

You are going to pay me that eight hundred and sixty dollars. We’re not even discussing that. What we’re talking about is how. You need to drive by tomorrow early and sign that paper so we can get it notarized and make it official.

I ain’t signin shit, Albright said. And how about gettin your arm off my shoulder.

If you’re not there by quitting time I’m lawing you, Woodall said. I’ll take you before a judge and get a judgment against you. If you’ve got anything I’ll take it. If you ever get anything I’ll get that. You’ll wind up losing your car. If you work I’ll garnishee your check. You’ll pay it one way or you’ll pay it another. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Albright closed his eyes and listened to Woodall’s footsteps fade away. He was in bondage for three years, in debt with nothing to show for it. Here his life had never properly gotten up to speed and now Woodall was holding a mortgage on the next three years of it.

He rose and stretched, elaborately casual. He sauntered off toward the toilet at the back of the poolroom. As he passed the table he dropped his lighter and watched it fall within six inches of the twenty-dollar bill, stooped and gracefully scooped them both up. The bathroom reeked of urine and stale vomit but he paid it no mind, studied the bill minutely in the light of the bare ceiling bulb and rubbed it between thumb and forefinger as if he’d ascertain its authenticity. It had a rich crinkly texture and seemed official enough, coin of the realm, minted in Washington, D.C. He slid it into a pocket and went out.

At the bar he unpocketed it again and smoothed it onto the Formica countertop. I’m buying a round for the house, he said.

The house? the barkeep said. Hellfire, there’s nobody in here but you and Sharp and Big Shaw.

Then I’m buyin a round for us, Albright told him.

SHE DID NOT COME the first night or the second and by then Fleming had given up on her but the third night a step on the porch brought him back from the edge of sleep. He waited for a knock but the door was simply opened without this formality and a warped rectangle of moonlight fell into the room.

Fleming?

Who is it?

Then he could see the dark outline of her body against the paler dark outside. She stood with a hand still holding the doorknob, leaning to peer about the room. Then she stepped out of the moonlight and he could hear soft footsteps approaching the bed. He was sitting on its side feeling about for his shoes when he felt her weight settle onto the opposite side of the bed.

Are you getting up?

Well. I thought I’d get up and talk to you a while.

It’s kind of dark in here. Cool, too. We can just talk here.

It is dark. I’ve got some matches here somewhere and I’ll just light the lamp.

Let the lamp go. This is nice, and my eyes are sort of getting used to the dark.

By now she had crawled into bed and settled herself against him. I thought they’d never go to sleep, she said. I tried to slip off over here for the last couple of nights but they watch me like a hawk. Finally tonight Daddy got drunk and passed out on the couch and I just headed out.

Fleming had thought about this at some length. He had made tentative plans that in their wildest fruition might achieve her presence in a bed beside him but to have this happen as the first card dealt rendered his scenario worthless. He lay silently beside her trying to think of something to say. Don’t talk then, she said. He could feel her warm breath on his cheek and the cool weight of her hand on his bare shoulder. Then she pressed her face to his and kissed his mouth, gently at first and then harder, opening her mouth so that he could feel her tongue and sharp little teeth. Her breath and her flesh felt hot against his. She slid a hand down his side to his hip and then she jerked away.

You’ve got your pants on. What are you doing sleeping in your clothes?

Well. You never know who’ll show up in the middle of the night.

Get them off. Here, I’ll do it. She was unbuttoning his jeans and when he raised his hips to chuck them off he heard the soft sound of a zipper.

Wait, he said.

Wait? For what?

Stand over in the light and take them off.

Why not, she said. What the hell. You’ve seen about everything I’ve got anyway.

In the oblong area of light she posed for a moment like a parodie ballerina then pulled the dress over her head and dropped it to the floor. She slid her panties down holding them momentarily with a toe to step out of them then turned breasts bobbing to close the door. She vanished. He heard the thumbbolt click. It seemed to take her an eternity to cross from the doorway to the bed, in its span folks were born and lived their lives and died, whole generations passed away.

When she slid against him he had decided to remain calm and save all these moments for bleaker times, each instant a snapshot, a flower pressed in the pages of a Bible. But when she grasped his hand and placed it on her sex his mind reeled away and images shuttled like unsequenced frames in a film. He was unaccustomed to such urgency and he thought that perhaps girls from Michigan were different, perhaps this was the way things were done in Detroit. She was pulling him onto her, saying, here baby, I’ll do this, and he felt himself sliding into her and she was whispering against his ear, No, baby, take it easy, slow down, we’ve got all night to do this.

Have you got a girlfriend?

No. I sort of had one last year but she took up with a football player.

Have you ever done this before?

Sure. Lots of times.

You liar.

Have you?

No. Find those matches, I’ve got a cigarette here. Do you want one?

No.

How come?

I just never took it up.

You just never took it up, she said. You talk funny. Sort of like a hillbilly and sort of not. You sound so serious. So solemn. What makes you so solemn, is the world going to end in the next few minutes? You act like you’re always thinking about something. Were you taking notes?

He had found the matches and struck one on the iron headboard of the bed and lit her cigarette.

I never think about anything, she said through the smoke. I just do whatever comes next, whatever the next thing is.

What’s the next thing right now?

Well, I’ve got to get home before he wakes up. Unless you wanted to try this again. I’ve been here almost two weeks and we’ve just got together. Look at all the time we’ve wasted.

When he walked her within sight of Dee Hixson’s house he didn’t even suspect what time it was. She walked close beside him in fading moonlight, holding his hand. He could hear her feet in the gravel, her breathing, hear his own breathing adjusting to hers. When they separated at the rise before Hixson’s cocks were crowing from Hixson’s barnlot. He stood awkwardly for a moment then leaned and kissed her. He didn’t know if he ought to say he loved her and he didn’t know if he did and in the end he followed her lead and said nothing at all.

When he got back to the creek he had no desire to go back to bed so he sat for a time on the bridge, his feet swinging idly over the dark water. After a while a bird off in the woods somewhere began to sing and another took up the call. Before he knew it blue dawn light was fading out and the day began to gather itself out of the darkness. In the east a reef of salmoncolored clouds was rimlit by a bright metallic color he had no name for.

In old books he’d read the heroes were seized in the throes of self-denunciation when they’d finally yielded to temptations of the flesh, when they’d let carnality corrupt the spiritual. He felt that perhaps he ought to feel this way too, but all he felt was alive, as if his senses had been turned so that colors looked brighter, the tiniest sound had been given a bell-like clarity. He felt his fingertips could have read the words of a book as easily as if it had been printed in braille. He had been permitted brief access to a world of softer and warmer senses, and he was already planning how he could go there again.