Flying Home (12 page)

We moved by inches now, hearing the dog barking in the dark. Then we were going past and he was throwing his heavy body against the fence, straining at his chain. We hesitated, Buster’s hand on my arm. I undid my heavy canteen belt and held it, suddenly light in my fingers. In my right I gripped the hatchet which I’d brought along.

“We’d better go back and take the other path,” I whispered.

“Just stand still, man,” Buster said.

The dog hit the fence again, barking hoarsely; and in the interval following the echoing crash I could hear the distant music of the band.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go round.”

“Hell, no! We’re going straight! I ain’t letting no damn dog scare me, Aunt Mackie or no Aunt Mackie. Come on!”

Trembling, I moved with him toward the roaring dog, then felt him stop again, and I could hear him removing his pack and taking out something wrapped in paper.

“Here,” he said. “You take my stuff and come on.”

I took his gear and went behind him, hearing his voice suddenly hot with fear and anger saying, “Here, you ’gatormouthed
egg-sucker, see how you like this sage hen,” just as I tripped over the straps of his pack and went down. Then I was crawling frantically, trying to untangle myself and hearing the dog growling as he crunched something in his jaws. “Eat it, you buzzard,” Buster was saying, “see if you tough as he is,” as I tried to stand, stumbling and sending an old cooking range crashing in the dark. Part of the fence was gone and in my panic I had crawled into the yard. Now I could hear the dog bark threateningly and leap the length of his chain toward me, then back to the sage hen; toward me, a swift leaping form snatched backward by the heavy chain, turning to mouth savagely on the mangled bird. Moving away, I floundered over the stove and pieces of crating, against giant sunflower stalks, trying to get back to Buster, when I saw the lighted window and realized that I had crawled to the very shack itself. That’s when I pressed against the weathered-satin side of the shack and came erect. And there, framed by the window in the lamp-lit room, I saw the woman.

A brown naked woman, whose black hair hung beneath her shoulders. I could see the long graceful curve of her back as she moved in some sort of slow dance, bending forward and back, her arms and body moving as though gathering in something which I couldn’t see but which she drew to her with pleasure; a young, girlish body with slender, well-rounded hips.
But who?
flashed through my mind as I heard Buster’s
Hey, man; where’d you go? You done run out on me?
from back in the dark. And I willed to move, to hurry away—but in that instant she chose to pick up a glass from a wobbly old round white table and to drink, turning slowly as she stood with backward-tilted head, slowly turning
in the lamplight and drinking slowly as she turned, slowly; until I could see the full-faced glowing of her feminine form.

And I was frozen there, watching the uneven movement of her breasts beneath the glistening course of the liquid, spilling down her body in twin streams drawn by the easy tiding of her breathing. Then the glass came down and my knees flowed beneath me like water. The air seemed to explode soundlessly. I shook my head but she, the image, would not go away and I wanted suddenly to laugh wildly and to scream. For above the smooth shoulders of the girlish form I saw the wrinkled face of old Aunt Mackie.

Now, I had never seen a naked woman before, only very little girls or once or twice a skinny one my own age, who looked like a boy with the boy part missing. And even though I’d seen a few calendar drawings they were not alive like this, nor images of someone you’d thought familiar through having seen them passing through the streets of the town; nor like this inconsistent, with wrinkled face mismatched with glowing form. So that mixed with my fear of punishment for peeping there was added the terror of her mystery. And yet I could not move away. I was fascinated, hearing the growling dog and feeling a warm pain grow beneath my bandage—along with the newly risen terror that this deceptive old woman could cause me to feel this way, that she could be so young beneath her old baggy clothes.

She was dancing again now, still unaware of my eyes, the lamplight playing on her body as she swayed and enfolded the air or invisible ghosts or whatever it was within her arms. Each time she moved, her hair, which was black as
night now that it was no longer hidden beneath a greasy headrag, swung heavily about her shoulders. And as she moved to the side I could see the gentle tossing of her breasts beneath her upraised arms.
It just can’t be
, I thought,
it just can’t
, and moved closer, determined to see and to know. But I had forgotten the hatchet in my hand until it struck the side of the house and I saw her turn quickly toward the window, her face evil as she swayed. I was rigid as stone, hearing the growling dog mangling the bird and knowing that I should run even as she moved toward the window, her shadow flying before her, her hair now wild as snakes writhing on a dead tree during a springtime flood. Then I could hear Buster’s hoarse-voiced
Hey, man! Where in hell are you?
even as she pointed at me and screamed, sending me moving backward, and I was aware of the sickle-shaped moon flying like a lightning flash as I fell, still gripping my hatchet, and struck my head in the dark.

When I started out of it someone was holding me and I lay in light and looked up to see her face above me. Then it all flooded swiftly back and I was aware again of the contrast between smooth body and wrinkled face and experienced a sudden warm yet painful thrill. She held me close. Her breath came to me, sweetly alcoholic as she mumbled something about “Little devil, lips that touch wine shall never touch mine! That’s what I told him, understand me? Never,” she said loudly. “You understand?”

“Yes, ma’m …”

“Never, never, NEVER!”

“No, ma’m,” I said, seeing her study me with narrowed eyes.

“You young but you young’uns understand, devilish as you is. What you doing messing round in my yard?”

“I got lost,” I said. “I was coming from taking some Boy Scout tests and I was trying to get by your dog.”

“So that’s what I heard,” she said. “He bite you?”

“No, ma’m.”

“Corse not, he don’t bite on the new moon. No, I think you come in my yard to spy on me.”

“No, ma’m, I didn’t,” I said. “I just happened to see the light when I was stumbling around trying to find my way.”

“You got a pretty big hatchet there,” she said, looking down at my hand. “What you plan to do with it?”

“It’s a kind of Boy Scout ax,” I said. “I used it to come through the woods …”

She looked at me dubiously. “So,” she said, “you’re a heavy hatchet man and you stopped to peep. Well, what I want to know is, is you a drinking man? Have your lips ever touched wine?”

“Wine? No, ma’m.”

“So you ain’t a drinking man, but do you belong to church?”

“Yes, ma’m.”

“And have you been saved and ain’t no backslider?”

“Yessum.”

“Well,” she said, pursing her lips, “I guess you can kiss me.”

“MA’M?”

“That’s what I said. You passed all the tests and you was peeping in my window …”

She was holding me there on a cot, her arms around me as though I were a three-year-old, smiling like a girl. I could
see her fine white teeth and the long hairs on her chin and it was like a bad dream. “You peeped,” she said, “now you got to do the rest. I said kiss me, or I’ll fix you …”

I saw her face come close and felt her warm breath and closed my eyes, trying to force myself.
It’s just like kissing some sweaty woman at church
, I told myself,
some friend of Miss Janey’s.
But it didn’t help and I could feel her drawing me and I found her lips with mine. It was dry and firm and winey and I could hear her sigh. “Again,” she said, and once more my lips found hers. And suddenly she drew me to her and I could feel her breasts soft against me as once more she sighed.

“That was a nice boy,” she said, her voice kind, and I opened my eyes. “That’s enough now, you’re both too young and too old, but you’re brave. A regular li’l chocolate hero.”

And now she moved and I realized for the first time that my hand had found its way to her breast. I moved it guiltily, my face flaming as she stood.

“You’re a good brave boy,” she said, looking at me from deep in her eyes, “but you forget what happened here tonight.”

I sat up as she stood looking down upon me with a mysterious smile. And I could see her body up close now, in the dim yellow light; see the surprising silkiness of black hair mixed here and there with gray, and suddenly I was crying and hating myself for the compelling need. I looked at my hatchet lying on the floor now and wondered how she’d gotten me into the shack as the tears blurred my eyes.

“What’s the matter, boy?” she said. And I had no words to answer.

“What’s the matter, I say!”

“I’m hurting in my operation,” I said desperately, knowing that my tears were too complicated to put into any words I knew.

“Operation? Where?”

I looked away.

“Where you hurting, boy?” she demanded.

I looked into her eyes and they seemed to flood through me, until reluctantly I pointed toward my pain.

“Open it, so’s I can see,” she said. “You know I’m a healer, don’t you?”

I bowed my head, still hesitating.

“Well open it then. How’m I going to see with all those clothes on you?”

My face burned like fire now and the pain seemed to ease as a dampness grew beneath the bandage. But she would not be denied and I undid myself and saw a red stain on the gauze. I lay there ashamed to raise my eyes.

“Hmmmmmmm,” she said. “A fishing worm with a headache!” And I couldn’t believe my ears. Then she was looking into my eyes and grinning.

“Pruned,” she cackled in her high, old woman’s voice, “pruned. Boy, you have been pruned. I’m a doctor but no tree surgeon—no, lay still a second.”

She paused and I saw her hand come forward, three clawlike fingers taking me gently as she examined the bandage.

And I was both ashamed and angry and now I stared at her out of a quick resentment and a defiant pride.
I’m a man
, I said within myself.
Just the same I am a man!
But I could only stare at her face briefly as she looked at me with a gleam in her eyes. Then my eyes fell and I forced myself to
look boldly at her now, very brown in the lamplight, with all the complicated apparatus within the globular curvatures of flesh and vessel exposed to my eyes. I was filled then with a deeper sense of the mystery of it too, for now it was as though the nakedness was nothing more than another veil; much like the old baggy dresses she always wore. Then across the curvature of her stomach I saw a long, puckered crescent-shaped scar.

“How old are you, boy?” she said, her eyes suddenly round.

“Eleven,” I said. And it was as though I had fired a shot.

“Eleven! Git out of here,” she screamed, stumbling backward, her eyes wide upon me as she felt for the glass on the table to drink. Then she snatched an old gray robe from a chair, fumbling for the tie cord which wasn’t there. I moved, my eyes upon her as I knelt for my hatchet, and felt the pain come sharp. Then I straightened, trying to arrange my knickers.

“You go now, you little rascal,” she said. “Hurry and git out of here. And if I ever hear of you saying anything about me I’ll fix your daddy and your mammy too. I’ll fix ’em, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’m,” I said, feeling that I had suddenly lost the courage of my manhood, now that my bandage was hidden and her secret body gone behind her old gray robe. But how could she fix my father when I didn’t have one? Or my mother, when she was dead?

I moved, backing out of the door into the dark. Then she slammed the door and I saw the light grow intense in the window and there was her face looking out at me and I could not tell if she frowned or smiled, but in the glow of
the lamp the wrinkles were not there. I stumbled over the packs now and gathered them up, leaving.

This time the dog raised up, huge in the dark, his green eyes glowing as he gave me a low disinterested growl.
Buster really must have fixed you
, I thought.
But where’d he go?
Then I was past the fence into the road.

I wanted to run but was afraid of starting the pain again, and as I moved I kept seeing her as she’d appeared with her back turned toward me, the sweet undrunken movements that she made. It had been like someone dancing by herself and yet like praying without kneeling down. Then she had turned, exposing her familiar face. I moved faster now and suddenly all my senses seemed to sing alive. I heard a night bird’s song; the lucid call of a quail arose. And from off to my right in the river there came the leap of a moon-mad fish and I could see the spray arch up and away. There was wisteria in the air and the scent of moonflowers. And now moving through the dark I recalled the warm, intriguing smell of her body and suddenly, with the shout of the carnival coming to me again, the whole thing became thin and dreamlike. The images flowed in my mind, became shadowy; no part was left to fit another. But still there was my pain and here was I, running through the dark toward the small, loud-playing band. It was real, I knew, and I stopped in the path and looked back, seeing the black outlines of the shack and the thin moon above. Behind the shack the hill arose with the shadowy woods and I knew the lake was still hidden there, reflecting the moon. All was real.

And for a moment I felt much older, as though I had lived swiftly long years into the future and had been as swiftly pushed back again. I tried to remember how it had been
when I kissed her, but on my lips my tongue found only the faintest trace of wine. But for that it was gone, and I thought forever, except the memory of the scraggly hairs on her chin. Then I was again aware of the imperious calling of the horns and moved again toward the carnival. Where was that other scalped Indian; where had Buster gone?

W
e were just drifting; going no place in particular, having long ago given up hopes of finding jobs. We were just knocking around the country. [Just drifting, ten black boys on an L&N freight.] From Birmingham we had swung up to the world’s fair at Chicago, where the bull had met us in the yards and turned us around and knocked a few lumps on our heads as souvenirs. If you’ve ever had a bull stand so close he can’t miss, and hit you across the rump as you crawled across the top of a boxcar and when you tried to get out of the way, because you knew he had a gun as well as a loaded stick, you’ve had him measure a tender spot on your head and let go with his loaded stick like a man cracking black walnuts with a hammer; and if when you started to climb down the side of the car because you didn’t want to
jump from the moving train like he said, you’ve had him step on your fingers with his heavy boots and grind them with his heel like you’d do a cockroach and then if you didn’t let go, he beat you across the knuckles with his loaded stick till you did let go; and when you did, you hit the cinders and found yourself tumbling and sliding on your face away from the train faster than the telephone poles alongside the tracks, then you can understand why we were glad as hell we only had a few lumps on the head. Especially when you remember that the Chicago bulls hate black bums ’bout as much as Texas Slim, who’ll kill a Negro as quick as he’ll crack down on a blackbird sitting on a fence.