Toni Morrison - Tar Baby

All around her it was like that: a fast crack on the head if you let the hunger show so she decided then and there at the age of twelve in Baltimore never to be broken in the hands of any man. Whatever it took—knife blades or screaming teeth—Never. And yes, she would tap dance, and yes, she would skate, but she would do it with a frown, pugnacious lips and scary eyes, because Never. And anybody who wanted nice from this little colored girl would have to get it with pliers and chloroform, because Never. When her mother died and she went to Philadelphia and then away to school, she was so quick to learn, but no touchee, teacher, and no, I do not smile, because Never. It smoothed out a little as she grew older. The pugnacious lips became a seductive pout—eyes more heated than scary. But beneath the easy manners was a claw always ready to rein in the dogs, because Never.

“Tell him,” he said. “Tell him anything but don’t tell him I smelled you because then he would understand that there was something in you to smell and that I smelled it and if Valerian understands that then he will understand everything and even if he makes me go away he will still know that there is something in you to be smelled which I have discovered and smelled myself. And no sealskin coat or million-dollar earrings can disguise it.”

You son of a bitch I need this like a wart. I came here to get some rest and have some peace and find out if I really wanted to kick my legs up on a runway and let buyers with Binaca breath lick my ears or if I wanted to roam around Europe instead, following soccer games for the rest of my life and looking for another Bezzi or if I should buy an Alfa and drive through Rome making the scene where producers and agents can see me and say Cara mia is it really you I have just the part!

I came here to do some serious thinking and the fact is that I can come here. I belong here. You, motherfucker, do not and you, motherfucker, are leaving now as soon as I tell Valerian what you did to me and the harbor police will be here and return you to the sharks where you belong. Damn Valerian, what does he think he’s doing? Playing white people’s games? Or what the hell is the matter with him? He sits there and complains about Margaret, practically breaks down thinking about his son and talks about how he loves them both and has sacrificed everything for their happiness and then watches her go crazy, she’s so scared. And instead of protecting her or at least getting upset he invites the very thing that scared the shit out of her to dinner and lets him sleep down the hall from us all. Doesn’t he know the difference between one Black and another or does he think we’re all…Some mess this is.

Jadine cupped her elbows in her palms and rocked back and forth on the stone trying hard to pull herself together before she went back to talk to Valerian, to tell him he and his joke had gone too far and might backfire. She sat for a long time, longer than necessary since she had already made up her mind. She started to stand several times, but each time something held her to the rock. Something very like embarrassment. Embarrassment at the possibility of overreacting, as she told her aunt and uncle they were doing. More awful than the fear of danger was the fear of looking foolish—of being excited when others were laid back—of being somehow manipulated, surprised or shook. Sensitive people went into therapy and stayed there when they felt out of control. Was this really a funny story she could tell later or was there real danger? But there was more. She felt a curious embarrassment in the picture of herself telling on a black man to a white man and then watching those red-necked gendarmes zoom him away in a boat. But he was going to rape her; maybe Margaret too, or worse. She couldn’t wait for Valerian to get bored or sober or come to his senses and she couldn’t risk hanging loose in this place where there was no one really to call on, where they were virtually alone. It would have to be done now, in the light of day. There was no betrayal in that. That nigger knew better and if he didn’t he was crazy and needed to be hauled away.

Besides that fear and the fear of fear, there was another authentic loathing that she felt for the man. With him she was in strange waters. She had not seen a Black like him in ten years. Not since Morgan Street. After that in the college she attended the black men were either creeps or so rare and desirable they had every girl in a 150-mile radius at their feet. She was barely noticeable in (and never selected from) that stampede. Later when she traveled her society included Blacks and whites in profusion, but the black people she knew wanted what she wanted—either steadily and carefully like Sydney and Ondine or uproariously and flashily like theater or media types. But whatever their scam, “making it” was on their minds and they played the game with house cards, each deck issued and dealt by the house. With white people the rules were even simpler. She needed only to be stunning, and to convince them she was not as smart as they were. Say the obvious, ask stupid questions, laugh with abandon, look interested, and light up at any display of their humanity if they showed it. Most of it required only charm—occasionally panache. None of it called for this…this…

“Oh, horseshit!” she said aloud. It couldn’t be worth all this rumination, she thought, and stood up. The avocado tree standing by the side of the road heard her and, having really seen a horse’s shit, thought she had probably misused the word. Jadine dusted off the back of her skirt and turned toward the house. The avocado tree watched her go then folded its leaves tightly over its fruit. When Jade got near the greenhouse she thought she saw two figures behind the translucent panes. One was gesticulating wildly. Her heart pounding, she raced to the open door and peeped in. There they were. Valerian and the man, both laughing to beat the band.

5

“LAUGHING?” Margaret could not believe her ears.

“I’m telling you! They were in there laughing! I was looking right at them when you called out the window.”

“Good God. What’s gotten into him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you scared?”

“Not really. Well, sort of.”

“You don’t know him, do you?”

“ Know him? How would I know him?”

“I don’t know. This is making me crazy. Maybe we should do something.”

“What? We’re the only women. And Ondine. Should I go to the Broughtons’ and…” Jadine stopped and sat down on Margaret’s bed. She shook her head. “This is too much.”

“What did he say?” asked Margaret. “When you all had dinner? Did he say what he was doing here?”

“Oh, he said he was hiding. That he’d been looking for food after he jumped ship a few days ago. That he was trying to get something out of the kitchen and heard footsteps and ran up the stairs to hide. Apparently he didn’t know what room he went into, he was just waiting for a chance to get back out.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I believe some of it. I mean I don’t believe he came here to rape you.” (Me, maybe, she thought, but not you.)

“How did he get here?”

“He says he swam.”

“That’s impossible.”

“It’s what he said.”

“Well, then he can swim back. Now. Today. I’m not going to sleep with him in this house. If I had known that I would have had a heart attack. All night I waited for that bastard Valerian to come up here and tell me what the hell was going on. He never showed.”

“And Sydney was patrolling the halls with a gun. I thought he would have killed him by now.”

“What does he think?”

“He’s angry. Ondine’s scared, I think.”