Emma Who Saved My Life (55 page)

“But she couldn't give him the sweetness,” said Phelia, shaking her head.

“A man will go elsewhere for a little sweetness.”

“Yeah,” said Moze.

“He will,” Mrs. Jackson continued. “Now you know, I see a lot in here—”

Phelia: “Yes you surely do.”

“—and I seen some things. And I know who Bernard was with, 'cause I saw 'em both in here. Right in that booth.”

Phelia shook her head. “
No
? Bernard brought that girl right in here, in front of you?”

“Uh-huh. And you know why? 'Cause I don't think nothin' was goin' on. They weren't doin' stuff. No ma'am. I was watchin' 'em—there was no hand-holdin' or touchin' or nothin'; they's just talkin'. Just talkin'.”

“Talkin',” repeated Phelia, after a sip of coffee.

“He weren't steppin' out on Mavis for the lovin'. I'm sure of that. He wanted someone to listen to him. You know Mavis. You can't tell her nothin' and she gets all this nonsense goin', never lets poor Bernard be.”

Moze nodded: “Man ain't after booty night 'n day. He wants some unnerstandin'.”

“Mavis thought,” whispered Mrs. Jackson, risking an indelicacy, “that he was goin' out on her for a little piece of leg, but she didn't get it right.”

“Gotta have unnerstandin',” said Moze.

“It had nothin' to do with sex,” said Mrs. Jackson, raising that eyebrow again.

“I wouldn'ta let Bernard get out my front door, ehhmm ehhmm,” said Phelia, with a slight cackle.

“A man will go elsewhere for a little sweetness,” said Mrs. Jackson, pouring some more coffee all around.

And on and on the story would go repeating itself, with new touches here and there, Mavis who couldn't keep her man. And I'd listen to this advice from people who had seen a lot of life uptown. And of course, I think Mrs. Jackson put her finger on something: a man will do a lot for a little sweetness. I never thought of myself as “a man” you could generalize about with all the other men when people talk about “men this” and “men that,” but I wouldn't have minded a little sweetness a little more often in my life.

Mr. Jackson would come out of the kitchen after loading the washer and listen to his wife go on about “sweetness,” and then he'd sneak up behind her and hug her and get her laughing, asking for a little sugar, or he was going to have to go elsewhere for his sweetness, and Phelia would laugh, and then he'd come after her (she was about sixty, churchgoing, unmarried all her life) and he made her blush looking for a little sweetness, while she waved him off, “Now you go on—I swear Tom Jackson, Lord help you,” etc.

And so it went, the talk and the coffee and the handful of customers until the dawn. It was 6 a.m. and soon the New Yorkers who hadn't been awake all night, up for less than a half hour, stumbled in, untalkative and curt and dreading work, and we'd give them their coffee and keep ourselves going until the morning crew came in to relieve us. And soon I was saying goodbye and dragging home in needlessly bright sunlight, noticing the relatively fresh air of Manhattan before the cars invaded, and I took the empty subway home—yes, that part was nice, everyone was coming in to work and you were going home with maybe a few other night-shifters for company, you could recognize each other.

And Emma would be up and jittery (“I can't sleep worth dog-do these days,” she'd snap) or she'd be impossible to rouse, and I'd have to shake her awake, point out to her her alarm had been sounding for half an hour already. Everything depended on whether she'd been able to resist taking pills or not. She
was
trying to quit, so I wasn't harsh … but in the morning light, sitting at our dinner table, listening to the city rouse and begin to vibrate, I often felt myself not caring about anything except the sleep I had been fighting off all night long (perversely, you never wanted to sleep when you
did
get home). I don't know if it was the mind-wearying job or the way I truly felt but I could have let it ALL go, let all the important things fall away; pure indifference. My world had become very small—the newspaper crossword, counting the loose change of the day's tips. The Theater seemed wonderfully far away, and it could stay there for all I cared. There was a small longing for something better, something passionate and soul-baring, but this was longing for the moon, and like my other dreams it fell quietly to rest, abandoned with my other cares as I would finally give way to sleep at 8:30 a.m.

Emma was on the phone one night and she needed to find an address in her address book which was in her desk and she asked if I could get it for her. So I ran to her room, tried all the drawers (one was locked, which I thought was odd), got her address book and started wondering about the locked drawer. Pills, I thought. That's where she hides the pills. Very calmly, after she got off the phone, I told her I knew she was sneaking pills—any fool could tell—and I figured they were in that locked drawer.

“They are not. You don't trust me at all, I see.”

All right—open the drawer and I'll be proven wrong and I'll apologize and I'll buy a whole pizza.

“I don't have to open that drawer. I'm not on trial.”

Of course, you have your right to privacy and I'm out of line, and I'll not mention it again, I'm sorry. But if those are pills, I added, then you'll be in for it and I'm moving out.

“They're not pills, Gil, I promise.” She looked sincere. “There is something you probably wouldn't like in the drawer, but they're not barbiturates. Really.”

Silence for the next ten minutes. Am I going to ask her what's in the drawer? Nah, I know this girl: She'll tell me if I don't show any interest.

“I know what you're doing,” she said from the kitchen. “You think if you show no interest I'll tell you what's in that drawer. I
would
tell you but it's something you're going to disapprove of. So I'm not going to tell you.”

Pills, I said. I bet it's a mountain of pills.

“Let's not talk about it.”

What on earth would
I
disapprove of,
I
who encouraged her to go solo in the phone-sex business? Ah, it's probably something ridiculous, I said, so let's forget it—

“It's not nothing. You'd hate it. We'd have a fight.”

All right, c'mon, tell me. Tell me right now.

“No.”

If I promise not to disapprove?

“You'll disapprove anyway.”

She seemed sincere about not wanting to show me … and yet she
sort of
wanted to show me, I could tell.

“All right, I'll show you so you'll shut up about me taking drugs. It's not narcotics, I swear—narcotics of any kind.”

So we went into her room and she got out her key and undid the drawer and then stood back for me to open it up. At this point I figured it wasn't barbiturates and I was going to have to buy her a pizza. Maybe … my goodness, birth-control pills, maybe? She was sexually active again? My heart froze! Why didn't she tell me if she was—god—SEEING someone, someone male, someone who wasn't me. Oh the day had come, hadn't it? All right, be a MAN, Gil, open the drawer … which I did. Inside it was a gun.

“It's a gun,” she said.

I know it's a gun. You're right: I disapprove—but I'm being calm about it, okay? Why do you have a gun? How did you get a gun? Good Lord, Uncle Harry. I thought you were joking about Jasmine's Uncle Harry, NRA member, gun-nut Veteran's Association conservative red-blooded American to the right of Hitler. Emma NO, please no. Did you know it's a felony for a private citizen to own a gun in New York City? Did you know that could kill someone?

“Gil,” she said, doing a Ronald Reagan impression, “I think we both know that, well, guns don't kill people … people kill people.”

You think this is funny, Emma. You bought this for amusement, to camp around with. Is it loaded?

“Ammo's in the box there. Hey! Wanna load it up, pick off people from the window? Clean the streets? Dirty Emma?”

I slammed the desk drawer shut: no.

“After Lennon got shot, I got to thinking: My life is in daily danger in this city. Then my stuff got ripped off while we were having a party a room away. It's a jungle. And every looney out there wants to rape me, beat me, steal my few precious things, and I want a gun. What's so controversial? Lots of single women in this city have guns for their protection. Do you blame them?”

Not really, but why do you think you ought to have one?

“Because I want one. It's a symbol. I feel better knowing I can blow my potential rapist away, that I can clean the streets. I'm not gonna clean the streets, Gil, get that worried look off your face.”

Wouldn't a can of mace be better?

“It's a statement I'm making, Gil. I don't want to burn a rapist's eyes and run away, leaving him to go free. I want to kill him. Blow him away. Obliterate him. Waste him.”

Would you stop talking about blowing people away? You'll probably blow me away one night when I come back late.

“I've had this for some time and haven't blown you away yet.”

And Emma, it's a
tremendous
gun—it looks like it could go off by itself.

“I wanted a phallic gun, okay? A penis.”

Since when do
you
want a penis?

“Don't make fun of the gunlady, Gil. I'm armed now, so watch it.” She pulled open the drawer and took out the gun, stroking it lovingly, smiling, enjoying the outrage.

What kind is it?

“It's a 9-millimeter—Uncle Harry means business. That's where Hinckley fouled up. He shot Reagan with a .22 caliber, which wouldn't kill your grandmother—a pea-shooter. If you're going to kill a president you're gonna need a man-sized caliber—if Hinckley had been packing, say, a snub-nosed .38, with hollow-point ‘cop-killer' bullets, we'd be calling George Bush Mr. President today, Nancy Reagan would be working
Hollywood Squares.
You know, the hollow-point bullet saved the .38-caliber from extinction—the .33's only partially effective, and of course the .45s tear your arm off on the recoil—”

What is this? EMMA THE GUN-NUT?

“It's important to know your firearms, Gil—this is America. Did you know that I could have bought an Uzi 9-millimeter submachine gun, fully automatic, and that's
not
illegal yet in New York because no one has made a law against it. Two thugs in Brooklyn knocked over this bank with Uzis and they couldn't charge them for weapons possession—they didn't have a chance getting it out of grand jury. I was thinking of going for the heavy metal, Gil, the Uzi submachine gun—you know, for a joke—but if I concealed it, that would be an offense. So you'd have to walk around with it on your belt or in your hand, out in the open, so you wouldn't be breaking the law.” She smiled nicely.

You're a real comedian tonight, Em.

“Just talking legal practicalities. In this city if someone came in here and murdered you, tortured you to death, and then came in to get me, and I shot him, the Manhattan DA would probably charge
me
for firearms possession. Now how about that pizza? My usual: pineapple and anchovies.” (She only got pineapple and anchovy pizzas so she wouldn't have to share it as no one else would touch it.)

I demanded: Put that thing away before you kill someone with it. This isn't frontier America.

“Oh isn't it?”

Now how are you going to feel when you kill some fifteen-year-old creep, from the slums, who harasses you in the street?

“If he tries to rape me, I think it'll be upsetting for a week or so, but being raped will be upsetting for a little longer, maybe my whole life—”

Stop waving that thing around.

“You are really cramping my style these days, Freeman. If I can't have my Valium, then I get to have my gun. I have to maintain a secure environment somehow. Why are you always undermining me?”

Well in point of fact Emma, you
are
having it both ways, since you are
definitely
still popping pills—

“Go and look in the medicine cabinet yourself—there's not a thing to pop in there—”

Your pills, Emma, are in your purse.

“You LOOKED in my purse?”

You always take your purse in the bathroom, which tipped me off; I did not look in your purse.

“I am cutting back, and furthermore, I have a legitimate prescription.”

You are becoming a drug addict and you can be a drug addict on doctor's orders, Emma—that's the preferred way these days. It's gonna end up like Elvis Presley.

“Oh
that
little tactic is below the belt,” she said, pointing the gun at me as she might point a finger.

WOULD YOU PUT THAT GUN AWAY?

We hadn't seen the last of the gun, I promise you. A drunk in the hallway one night fiddled with our door and Emma slipped in her ammo cartridge and aimed it at the door while I tried to disarm her. As I did I noticed she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. That tore it.

We fought weekly until I said in so many words:

All right. I'm throwing in the towel. I'm walking away. That's it, I've had it. Really, no kidding—I know, I know, you've heard me say this kind of thing before, but now we're talking gunplay, neuroses on top of psychoses, self-destruction—

“You're pissed off at your own life,” Emma yelled during Our Final Fight (which came in September, when I moved out). “You're frustrated with your career, with your life—and you're getting mad at me. I'm the same old Emma I've always been—you're the one who's changing!”

That was one of the printable things she said. I packed a lighter bag this time and realized, as I stormed out, it was midnight and Janet was away. I showed up on Lisa and Jim's doorstep.