Charles Johnson - Faith and the Good Thing

“We can’t afford that,” Faith blurted. “You don’t have the money—”

Maxwell laughed and led her back upstairs, the car keys burning in her hand. “As long as you carry the ball there’s nothing we can’t do together. In a year, maybe two, we’ll have every damn thing we want.”

He went to the refrigerator, mixed them drinks, and returned to the front room to click on the record player. Something old and blue by Billie Holiday came on. Maxwell plopped down beside her on the couch, crossing his legs, feeling good, and nibbling at her ear lobe. Faith sat erect, as stiff as Lavidia in her casket, ice dripping from her drink to the thick carpet on the floor.

“Watch that,” Maxwell said irritably. Then he grew warm again, whispering in her ear, “I knew we were going to make it — things just had to start happening.” His lips curled with deep, trembling laughter. “You’re a great ball-carrier, baby. ”

Faith smiled. Her five was sluggish, her six heavy on her tongue, and she never got to seven at all.

Some folks would say Faith was born without mother-wit, leading a deceitful double life like that. She stopped wearing her wedding band (the skin beneath it had turned pale, and that was some kind of omen), and, ultimately, pawned it along with a handful of her jewelry when Jones’s resources ran thin. He told her he didn’t need much — just a bed, breakfast every now and then, and blank canvases until the time he could turn the creative process on himself. Most of his paintings, means to this end, he gave away, grunting, “Don’t matter much, I got hit out.” She insisted he sell them, that he try to associate himself with a gallery and make a living out of this thing. Each time he refused, and though it angered her, Faith was also glad that he could give his work away, and — especially — could make her feel brand-new. She told him as much on the Indian summer afternoon they ate a late lunch in Lincoln Park.

Also this:

“I’m going to have a baby. ”

Jones started choking, a whooping noise burst from his lips. He pounded his right fist on his chest, gagged, and coughed up a chicken bone. Tears ran from his eyes.

“You sho?”

Faith nodded. Timidly, she handed him a napkin.

“Lord, Lord, Lord! ” Jones whistled through his teeth. He looked at the half-eaten sandwich in his hand, frowned as though it held horse or stringy hippogriff, then flung it over his shoulder. He fell backward, spreading his arms on the grass, and groaned. “If that don’t take the rag right off the bush! Me — a father! Hit don’t make no sense. My works, those’re my kids; that makes more sense.” He reared up, his jaw hanging as though unhinged: “How long you known this?” Jones’s eyes half closed, became slits. “You sure hit ain’t Isaac’s baby?”

“It couldn’t be.” Faith shivered at the image of Maxwell sleeping on the sofa in the living room, afraid to approach her, uncertain what reaction would spring forth from their touch. She scooted close to Jones, but he inched back instinctively. She started to reach for him, but her hand fell midway in futility. She blurted, before thinking, “Don’t close me out, Alpha!” Then tried to pull herself together, tugging at the fingers on her left hand. “I saw a doctor yesterday. I’m almost five months along. ”

Grabbing his napkin, Jones wiped furiously at his lips, so roughly she feared he’d smear them away. “Does Isaac know?” he said.

“I haven’t told him yet. I’m afraid. ”

He grabbed her shoulders, held her upright, and thrust his head close to her. Again, she didn’t know him. Jones spoke slowly, deliberately. Making himself known. “I can’t have no kids. I’m an experiment, y’see? Honey, I’m different — I can’t settle down, or raise kids, or nothin’ like that. I’m. an artist. ” His eyes narrowed. “I’m outside things, not ’cause I want to be, but because nature did somethin’ strange to me — gave me a screwed-up nervous system so I see things different from most people, and have some slim muscular control that lets me paint.” His breathing had become an ordeal, a painful thing to both their ears. “I’ve got to be free — to move around, to work, or loaf, but mainly to experiment with those goddamn paints, and finally with myself. See? I’ve got to see if a good idea can be made real. That means I’m going to suffer, hit means I’m going to be frustrated, and die inside, and wake up in gutters or in hotels with strange women, or—” In his eyes Faith saw him lose the thought. He wasn’t seeing her, but something else, a vision that attracted yet repelled him. “That’s what I am: a hypothesis. That’s right, a theme. And I can’t let nothin’ tie me down until I see how far the damn theme goes. ” Jones squeezed her harder, almost at the point of tears. “You’re going to tell Isaac hit’s his, aren’t you? ”

Watching him, she was amazed: full of wonder. “I don’t want to lie — I don’t want to hurt him, or you, or any body!”

“ Some body’s gonna get hurt,” Jones cried. His face flushed, tightened and released like a fist. “My life’s the idea of what I can be, honey. I can’t give that up!” Suddenly, calculation came into his eyes. Reason. “You’ve got a little money saved. You can get rid of hit—”

“No! I won’t !”

She was on her feet, retreating backward. Jones said, “I’m trying to be reasonable,” and, with that, Faith started running, abandoning her shoes and purse to race across the park. By the time Jones caught her both her feet were grass-stained and wet. Brown and green. And she was crying.

“I can’t let this thing tie me down,” he said. “I’m not being selfish. Hit’s just that my life’s not my own — hit’s for art — the idea of perfection!”

She would not look at him. He shook her — hard.

“I’m sorry. I never meant for you to think I was free, that I could live like other men.” His voice went flat and empty. “We’ll think of somethin’. ”

Faith pushed him away and stood back, bitter, her voice husky and broken. “You don’t want it!”

“Of course I do. I’m glad,” he choked. “Hit’s. the best thing that ever happened to me. ”

He coaxed her back to their original spot and, without speaking, began folding the checkered tablecloth and dropping their paper cups and cellophane wrappers into a metal trash can at the edge of the quiet park. As they walked spiritlessly to her new car, a sliver of bright steel by the curb, Jones said, “We’ve got to look at this thing from every possible angle, take into account what we know can’t give, like my responsibility to this idea. That’ s got to go on, hit’s my life — my purpose! ” Inside the car he sighed. “Hit’s all so tricky. ”

“You’re making it tricky!” Faith cried. “What’s more important to you — painting, or me?”

He didn’t answer.

“I—” She could not find her voice; the silence was a boulder lying across her brain.

“Hit’s not that simple,” Jones pleaded. “You don’t understand.” He kissed her with all the tenderness he could muster when she stopped in front of his building, then hurried out the curb door.

Faith called after him, “What am I going to tell Isaac?”

(That we had a good time? That I met and gave myself to a man who had another mistress, a man as strange as a centaur who thought so little of his life and mine and this child’s that he would forsake us for a daydream. God, no.)

“Don’t tell him anything,” Jones said, returning to the car. He smiled down at her and stroked her hand through the window. “I’ll go to his office before he leaves. We’ll get this whole thing straightened out.” Then he disappeared into his doorway.