Commune of Women (20 page)

“And you don’t have...?” Betty asks, tentatively.

“No, I’ve been tested. I got lucky. I’m fine.”

“But won’t it be awkward to see him?” Betty persists.

“Probably. But I guess he’s too weak to make it too awful. The first thing I’m going to do is paint his bedroom. Kyle says it’s all white...so stark you’d think he was already in the morgue.

“So I think I’ll paint it rose, in honor of his mother.”

Well, that’s Ondine for you; everything in her life viewed in terms of color – even her bruises.

In her mind, it all turns into paint on canvas or sculpted forms. Even death becomes a
Pietà
. Maybe there’s only one thing a person like Ondine
can
do – just do the obvious and turn life into art. Maybe that’s all that’s asked of her in this life.

Well, Pearl cain’t ratly make heads or tails a the Onion. From what she cain tell, she’s god-awful sorry fer hersef cuz she’s so darn rich.

An as fer yer man beatin on you – that’s a story old as stones an don’t hardly bear mentionin.

Now, Pearl cain relate ta losin yer kid. She’s lost a passel of em. Ain’t nothin, never, gonna make that rat.

Now everone’s had a break an used the john, an that Heady gal, she’s turnin her eyes on Pearl, who espects she’s got ta do it, if only ta keep all them women from gabblin lak a gaggle a geese.

Well, Pearl laked her corner. Even on the coldest days it gots shelter from the wind an the afternoon sun keeps it warm, rat up til it goes down in the ocean. It’s betwixt a surf shop an a greasy spoon called
Pop’s
. Jes the way they built the places, both with angled front winders, makes a little
V
Pearl jes fits in, her an her pack an cart.

She spreads out her cardboard – the best is a water heater box, good an thick – an gets out her pillers an lap robe. Digs out her pipe an lats up. Sets out her can.

Don’t take long. Some bleached blond young feller from the surf shop, or some old fart comin belchin outta Pop’s’ll drop some change in, an the day’s off ta a good start.

Long’s she gots enough ta buy her some tobaccy, she’s fine. Pop makes sure she’s fed. He’ll fry up a burger after the noon rush. She uses his john. She don’t need much. Never did eat much.

Yer the skinniest child in the Choctaw Nation,
her Granny use ter say, sizin her up.
Must be that nigger blood a yer pappy’s – you got bones half the size a anybody fer ten miles in any direction.

She warn’t being mean. It was jes her way ta say a thin as it come ta her. She was kinda short on eti-cut, but you always knew whar you stood with Granny.

One thin you can say fer California, the weather’s fine. Back in Oklahoma this time a year, a gal woulda froze ta death, settin out lak Pearl does. The Roads Department’d have ta haul her off lak one solid block a human ice. But out here, thar’s but a few days she cain’t set out in the fresh air an smoke her pipe an watch the world go by.

When it gets blustery – an it do, sometimes, bout three, four times a year – she goes ta the homeless lounge an cools her heels. But she don’t lak it cuz they won’t let her smoke. An them white bread an cheese samitches they hands out at lunchtime is a scandal. Pop wouldn’t a let such a puny thin cross
his
counter, she’ll tell you that!

She sure does miss Pop, since he up an died!

People worry bout her at the shelter, too. They fuss over her an that jes irritates the hell outta her. Theys afraid – afraid a this an afraid a that. Asceerd she’ll be attacked. Asceerd she’ll catch pneumonia. Asceerd she’ll be raped.

Hell! If life is so damned sceery, how come she’s lived to be a hunert an twelve?

She’s exaggeratin, a course. She ratly forgot how old she is – lost count a few years back at 91.

Not that she don’t get a little stiff, settin on the ceement, all day. But she gots her cushions. It’s the gettin up an down that’s the hard part. The transitions, you mat say. Once she’s up, once she’s down, she’s fine. It’s the limbo in between whar she’s dubious.

Speaking a Limbo, she’s been settin here thinkin bout her husband, Abel Johns. Now that man was a scandal, an if he’s dead he ain’t in no Limbo, if you catch her drift.

If thar’s a afterlife, that man jes passed rat through Limbo in a dead drop straight ta Hell.

In fact, ta kill him, God prawly had ta shove him inta a big ol cosmic mineshaft, plungin rat down ta the Fiery Furnace.

Lord! That man was a tribulation. She don’t know why he’s on her mind so much these days. Maybe it’s cuz Alma Mae, down at the shelter, was come an brung home by her kin. They jes up an arrived one day an took her away. Built a room over the gee-rage fer her, with its own bathroom an everthin.

Got Pearl thinkin about Abel Johns an all the lil Johns they done made together. Ever one of em in they grave. Poor thins. Never stood a chance with that heathen fer a father. What drink didn’t plug inta they little bodies in ways a weakness, meanness done took what was left.

Pearl declares, she don’t know why a soul would even
come
ta this earth, knowin
that
was in store fer it. God must blindfold us before He kicks us outta Heaven. Ain’t no way, otherwise, no soul in its rat mind’d come an take up residence in any body related ta the Johns family. She was wishin, after Alma Mae done rode off with her kids – and them no young’uns theirseves by the look a thins – that she still had
one
child ta come an take
her
away. Put her in some nice new room smellin a fresh paint, with a flush toilet close by. Maybe a TV.

It was a moment a bitterness, she gots ta confess. She’s ashamed ta turn her face up ta the Lord fer such ingratitude. An here she gots her health, too, an poor ol Alma Mae so stove in with arthritis she cain’t hardly walk.

Pearl thinks bout her Granny, round this same age. Tough as boot leather. Couldn’t a kilt her with a shovel. Woes jes done shed off a her lak water off a goose’s rump.

When the Lord invented her Granny, He musta said,
Ye’ll get no quarter from me, Woman. I’ll give you nothin but misery an you give Me nothin but praise an we’ll get along jes fine.
The kinda contract some Stillwater lawyer’d make.

And Granny jes answered back, proud an proper as beets
, You bet, Lord. If that’s the way You want it, that’s the way You’ll get it.
An she never deviated from their contractual arrangement in all the years she lived – except one time, which Pearl remembers cuz a it being the exception that proved the rule.

That one slip-up a Granny’s was when she got religion. But it warn’t the Christian one. It was Choctaw; a Choctaw revival.

It started with the men. Pearl heerd it happen one nat when a bunch of em was out round a bonfire, drinkin applejack an howlin at the moon. Some old geezer started warblin one a them old songs. Somebody found a 5-gallon can an started a beat. Some others – prawly stumblin over theirseves, lak she’d seen em so many times – started dancin.

They raised a ruckus all nat – a reg’lar war party.

“I’ll never fergit it,” Pearl says, taking in her audience in one squint-eyed glance. “Wakin up in mah bed, asceerd, an Granny comin in an sayin,
Hush, Child. Ain’t nothing ta be asceerd of.

“
What is it?
I axed, all fearful.
Wuves?
I’d never seen a wuff, but ever child knows that wuves cain be the cause a what frights em.

“
No,
Granny says,
somethin far more dangerous then wuves. It’s a bunch a Choctaw men raisin Hell. No danger ta us, though. Jes ta theirseves. You go ta sleep now.
”

But a course she couldn’t go ta sleep. She laid thar inta the dawn listenin ta them wild yelps, the wailin an the chantin an the big bass beat a the drum. An she confesses, she warn’t scairt by mornin. Her whole sef was
alive
lak fresh, fallin water – all frothy inside. Somethin in her jes perked rat up.

She reckons it was the same fer Granny cuz soon after that, her an some a her friends started ta join the men’s circle that was a regular thin now, ever night.

They took Pearl out thar cuz they warn’t nothin else ta do with kids.

It was pure magic – that bonfire shakin flamey lat across they faces, an makin the bunch grass look lak it got up with its own shadow an danced, too.

The best was the beat a them drums, cuz now they’d found more thins ta beat on – old kettles, a 55-gallon oil drum. A couple a them old farts had they grandpappy’s
real
drums, skin ones, an Pearl could always hear the voice a them drums risin above all the others lak a clear voice singin, certain an true.

An the men was chantin
AY-AH-YA-YA AY-AH-YAYA
, an givin little yips lak a whole den a cay-otes. An the women was movin out in the shadders at the edge a the lat, shoulder ta shoulder in a ring, sidestepping, they feet raisin little dust storms as they stomped.

You’d think them kids woulda been runnin round lak crazy people, screamin an chantin an wagglin they arms. But no. They was quiet as mice. They set back thar in the shadders under the black prairie sky in a little cluster an stared with eyes as big as the moon.

Oh, it was strange an unsettlin. Sometimes, she din’t know who she was, or whar, or when. It felt lak she’d fell down a well in time an them Choctaws was a livin river a memory an voice an rhythm that come outta ferever an went off inta ferever.

Some a the little kids’d doze off, all wrapped in blankets, but not Pearl. If somebody axed her, she could hop up off this floor an dance them dances yet, this very day, yellin,
AY-AH-YA-YA AY-AH-YA-YA
, lak she’d been thar yesterday; lak she jes seen it happen.

She reckons in some deep part a her it jes
did
happen – or maybe it
always
is happenin. Maybe them dance circles never rest, but keep on spinnin lak them galaxies they talk about – only somewhar in the deep space inside a
her
; somewhar that all the white man’s bullshit never shat on.

That deep.

She thinks it could be so. She knows thar be springs that rise up outta the earth even in the driest years. Pearl thinks it mat be lak that with her. All parched an wrinkled on the outside, but somewhar deep inside, risin up, still dancin.

“On this second night of the terrorist stand-off at Los Angeles International Airport, in the floodlit night, the assembled army of agencies, with their warriors and experts and their multiple technologies, waits. No one seems quite sure what they are waiting for.”

X watches with heavy eyes as the eleven o’clock news begins. The incident’s Public Information Officer steps up now, speaking various platitudes before the cameras for the benefit of the television audience. These only manage to annoy, not inform, her.

“Terrorism is violence perpetrated by a sub-state entity upon innocent citizens,” he says, in response to a reporter’s question. X considers this, repeating it to herself until the meaning of the words is clear to her. It is, she grudgingly admits, an accurate, if skeletal, definition. But it does not say the things she so deeply knows; the level of disenfranchisement one must reach before terrorism becomes on option.

According to the blonde reporter – with whom X now feels a certain scant sisterly regard, also grudging, as they both endure the grinding hours – various technologies are gradually assembling a picture of the problem. Infrared sensors have detected the locations of living bodies entombed within the luckless building. Listening devices are picking up snatches of conversation, some of it in foreign languages that then need translation. Drones and robotic scouts have been sent into the corridors, only to be foiled by heaped bodies, closed doors or deliberate blockades. One negotiator has been sent in who has failed to return, and that option is thus considered to be officially closed.

“SWAT teams and the FBI Hostage Rescue Team lean into the restraints their orders impose on them like tethered warhorses that, smelling blood, are eager for the fight. In full battle gear, they lie on the floor of makeshift shelters trying to rest, or pace their confines, coffee in hand, muttering to one another about the irritating delays. Among them the feeling is universal that immediate action would prove more fruitful than careful deliberation. The smell of adrenaline-generated sweat hangs about their quarters.”

Despite this poetic description, X can see that the woman’s enthusiasm is feigned. She is tired, just as X is tired. Along with the rest of the world, X asks herself wearily,
What are the Brothers waiting for? What do they want?

The camera pans as the newswoman, in a hoarse voice, speaks her closing words for the night. “The second day of the terrorist stand-off closes with the accumulated glare of red emergency lights, halogens, media spots and helicopter beams throbbing like a fulminating sore on the civic body of The City of the Mother of the Angels.”

After the night’s sleep Heddi just had, it almost seems preferable to have been killed by the terrorists.

There’s just no way to get comfortable, sleeping on the floor. If one side of her relaxes, the other goes numb. If she’s got her head cradled on her arm, her elbow aches. And the bruises are more painful today, not less. It’s impossible.

And when she did sleep, she had terrible dreams – chaotic, violent and bloody. It doesn’t take a Jungian analyst to figure out how badly their psyches are traumatized.

Last night, Heddi could scarcely believe her ears when the Bruegel – Pearl, she’s got to start calling her Pearl; she deserves that much, at least – when Pearl told her story. Under mangled syntax and an accent that must be part Choctaw, part Oklahoman with a tinge of Middle English, and part street slang, there’s a surprising intelligence at work, even a poetic sensibility. Heddi was amazed.

Dr. Copeland always says she’s a snob; that she judges people harshly because she’s projecting her own insecurities onto them. Jung said the object of a projection has a psychological “hook” that makes a perfect place to hang the entire projection. Pearl has so many hooks she’s positively barbed.