The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (14 page)

Arriving home that evening William found Sylvia on the loveseat, despondent. Her mascara had dripped black teardrops down her usually clear, cocoa complexion. Her hair was matted and collecting cotton by the minute. Her left breast dangled from the right side of her camisole. And for the first time since they were married, William could see Sill’s mother. She had aged in that short amount of time or maybe he had just never taken the time to see her in this light. Always upbeat, moving, whistling or humming the latest tune by Sade, William knew something was now amiss. He had become accustomed to coming home to the pungent aroma of some new gourmet dish she was fixing or Sill, red pen in hand correcting papers with her favorite jazz or gospel radio station on, depending on her mood that day.

“Sill, are you okay?” William asked excitedly, his concern obvious.

Sylvia glanced in his direction but did not really acknowledge his presence. For the first time in their marriage, she did not try to mask the contempt she harbored for her husband. How often did she have to tell him that you didn’t wear white pants in the middle of the winter?

“What’s wrong, baby?” William was genuinely concerned and on the verge of panic now and Sill, not to make matters worse said matter-of-factly, “I fell down the stairs William. I think my ankle’s broken.”

“And you’ve been here like this all day? Why didn’t you call someone?”

“William, if you knew the pain I’m in, you wouldn’t ask such asinine question”, Sill replied

Twenty minutes later, they arrived at Dr. Anderson’s office. The good doctor took her right away. He was quite methodical in his examination and afterwards, much to Sill’s relief, he determined that the ankle was not broken but severely sprained. Putting a soft cast on the ankle he informed her she could return to work when the pain subsided and gave her some extra strength Advil for the pain.

There was little in the way of conversation on the way home and William, now accustomed to her prolonged silences gave her her space. In obvious pain Sill remained bedridden that evening and the next day.

Two days later, William awoke to the smell of coffee and bacon. Her mood more upbeat than he’d seen it in sometime, Sill was heading out the back door when William entered the kitchen. She looked ravishing in her bright red dress and ruby red lipstick. This was the Sill that drove him crazy and made him proud in a crowd. Except for the blue cast that went from just below her knee to her foot, she seemed to have no recollection of the day before. William felt a sudden rise in his pajamas and reached for Sill who paid little attention.

“Grits and eggs are on the stove, bacon’s in the oven,” she said. “Gotta run, Sugar. Don’t wanna be late.” She gave him a peck on the cheek and was gone.

William poured himself a cup of Folgers threw a couple of slices of bacon on his plate, scooped up the grits before they got hard, placed a pat of butter on them and tossed his eggs on top. He had grown accustomed to Sill’s fine breakfasts but tasted nothing this morning.

It was obvious that things had changed since he’d first met her six years ago. Sure, she cooked, cleaned, was the model homemaker, endeared herself to his clients in their home, at dinner parties and at formal functions but there had been little between them sexually for the past two years.

William wiped the grits from the corner of his mouth, swallowed the last sip of coffee and leaned back in the chair. He thought of their first year together and wondered what had changed. They’d spend every moment together that first year, hardly seeing or noticing the rest of the world. It had been work, Commuter’s Cafe afterwards for a few drinks and then upstairs to the mezzanine for a few more rounds while Sill danced the night away. He didn’t dance and had a hard time watching her dance the night away with the various faces but somehow rationalized it by knowing that at the end of the evening she would be leaving with him.

He’d begun to drink more and more since he met Sill in a vain attempt to mask his inferiority, his insecurity. Sure he’d graduated Morehouse
Magna Cum Laude
and president of his senior class but he never really felt a part of the campus social life.

Put him in ol’ Doc Mayberry’s English literature class and he could recite passage after passage from
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
verbatim, but ask him about the importance of Malcolm and Martin and he hadn’t a clue. Ask him about Langston or Zora or Nikki or Maya and...When the brothers got together on the yard to kick it about the Knicks chances this year he was truly at a loss.

He always considered himself an outsider and didn’t date often. In fact, he’d only had one date while at the “House”, as Morehouse was called, and that had been with a white girl who, after offering her assistance in preparing for a Statistics Exam, offered herself as well.

William, not too far from his home in Beaufort, South Carolina was smart enough to know proper protocol even if O.J. didn’t. He still faced ridicule, on a daily basis, from what he termed the short-term frat brothers. These were the brothers he never met but felt he knew so well. Their first semester on campus was usually spent checkin’ out the females, a forty ounce of beer in one hand a blunt in the other. Bob Marley or Sizzla blasting from the boom box until campus police showed up to disperse the gathering after many an accusation and much name calling. Academic probation usually followed along with a now much concerted, occasional visit to class. By the time summer school rolled around, they were history, sporting Morehouse caps and t-shirts in Philly, D.C. and other urban areas better known as home.

William couldn’t understand these brothers and spent many a night discussing the situation with his roommate, Abdul, a pre-med student from Nigeria. “I just can’t understand it. Given every opportunity to make something of themselves and they’re still out here playing the fools. Then when shit doesn’t happen and they flunk out they’re the first ones to blame the White man.”

His roommate usually concurred by stating, “In my country...”

One thing William did admire was the way the brothers dressed but he simply couldn’t understand how they could afford the $150 Nikes and platinum chains on financial aid.

There was one brother in William’s English Literature class known only as ‘Black’, who seemed to enjoy the class almost as much as William did but unlike William, Black was equally at home with the brothers on the yard in spite of his academic achievements. Black had the rather unique ability to balance a high G.P.A. as well as a stellar rep for bein’ a down brotha on the yard and William admired him not only for this but for understandin’ black folks and the way they thought. Black tried to explain the dilemma to William one day, after class as they walked across campus together. William was astounded by the number of people who spoke and seemed to know Black.

“What’s up, Black?” “Ain’t nothin’ my brother, how you?”

Classes were changing and William could barely get a word in for the countless salutations. Made him feel good just being with the brother. For the first time in four years, other blacks nodded and spoke to him as well. He felt recognized and he liked the feeling.

On the way, they decided to grab a cup of coffee and finish their conversation. This ain’t Beaufort, my brother. This here’s
Hotlanta
so baby, when you come, you got to come correct. Know that ahm sayin’?”

It was obvious William didn’t understand and was having a hard time trying to grasp what Black had to say. Black, realizing this broke it down in the following manner: “For four hundreds years, Black people ain’t been given nothing but hard times and bubble gum. Then Mr. Charlie says he’s fresh outta bubble gum. So what’s left? Whatcha leavin’ me? Nothin’! Nothing but hard times. We tried to do that Jesse Jackson thang. You know, keep hope alive, refusing to give up, refusing to quit, and we didn’t. We didn’t give up. We didn’t crawl up in no hole and just go away neither. We jumped when we had to jump, shuffled when we had to shuffle, danced when we had to dance and did it better than anyone else considerin’. Then when Malcolm and Martin and Thurgood came along they gave us the opportunity. They opened the door, kinda like Berry Gordy and Motown. And along with that came some hope. And that’s all we needed. We just exploded onto the whole national scene. Know what ah’m sayin’, dog? This was our time to shine.”

William was still at a loss.

“Whatcha savin’ Black? I mean what’s the point? Black went on not the least bit discouraged by Williams’ inability to grasp his meaning.

“It’s kinda like ol’ Doc Mayberry was sayin’ when he was talkin’ about Virgil and the Trojan Horse. You step out here in some soiled overalls, do you think anybody’s gonna give you the time of day? You can be a financial wizard, my brother. I’m sayin’. You go down to Wall Street
without
a suit or tie, you’re gonna come home the same way, unemployed. You’ve got a problem with the brothas wearing expensive gear and not havin’ two pennies to rub together and that’s because you’re not understandin’ the brotha’s. Let me break it down for you. Black people know that the man ain’t interested in what he’s got inside, how bright he is or what he’s capable of. They ain’t really interested in that at all.

But Black people wearing expensive gear are like the Grecians who built that big ol’ shiny horse to fool the people of Troy. You see we know that if they like what they see they may let us in the gate and then and only then can we begin to let them see what’s on the inside.

It’s the only way to win the war, my brother. This ain’t Russia and you ain’t Pushin. This here’s America and ain’t no such thing as merit before skin color.

Now I know that a lot of these brothers be wearin’ a lot of expensive gear, and ain’t nothing; on the inside but how else they gonna express themselves and put their best foot forward? And if they ain’t got nothin’ on the inside then they’d better at least shine on the outside. They just strugglin’ like you and me brotha. Just tryin to put their best foot forward and present themselves in the best possible light they can. Can’t blame ‘em for that now can you, Will?” William smiled.

But he did. Blamed ‘em for puttin’ somethin’ on instead of putting something in those empty heads of theirs and all they were doing was perpetuating the stereotype and making hard working brothas like him look bad. Not long after that he joined the Young Black Republican Party at Morehouse. There were a total of three other members, including his roommate and he was soon appointed the chapter’s first president.

As William pushed himself back form the kitchen table and looked at the big screen T.V., which took up only a tiny corner of the rather spacious living room he thought of Black for the first time in years and laughed out loud. He needs to see me now he thought to himself.

William graduated Morehouse in the summer of’89 with a degree in Business and Finance and was soon employed by Hill and Morris in the fall as an account executive. He was promoted senior executive quicker than anyone else had in the history of the company and was given one of their largest accounts to add to his portfolio. There was no misconception as to why he was given this particular account and even though the annual commission from the Nigerian account alone put him his salary in the six figure bracket it also put him at odds with Sylvia who looked at him as simply a pawn in the whole scheme of things. To William it seemed like if there had been a turning point in their relationship in their marriage which had seemed oh so promising then taking that one account was the reason. That had to be it. That’s when he first recognized the permanent change in attitude and he couldn’t understand why his success bothered her so. After all, his success was her success as well. He just couldn’t understand it.

Their first couples of years of marriage were picture perfect. Cezanne couldn’t have created anything more lovely. When Sill wasn’t involved in some school related function she spent a good portion of her time decorating the plush, Victorian styled home, while William spent the majority of his time working on streamlining his account presentations and studying market fluctuations. At night they’d sip hot chocolate, though Sill more often than not

preferred a glass of Zinfandel before joining him in front of the fireplace and making small talk until the wee hours of the morning.

Between teaching, their new home, and being a trustee at the First Methodist A.M.E. Zion Church, Sill had her hands full. Problem was, when she finished her attempts at interior decorating and gotten well into the groove of teaching and into the rhythm of marriage, Sill was somewhat at a loss as to what to do next. What bothered her more than anything wasn’t the idea of marriage or the marriage itself. It was the fact that somewhere in the deepest recesses of her heart and her soul she wasn’t sure that she was capable of loving a man at all but and if she was one thing was apparent. William was not the man.

At first the idea of marriage so appealed to her that she figured that in due time she could learn to love him, but well due time had come and gone and she was no more sure about him now than when she said I do. If anything she was finding it increasingly difficult to even talk to him let alone have a relationship. The more she talked to William, the more she felt she’d made a huge mistake. Several times she found herself searching for some common ground, and more often than not, she found herself coming up empty. There was little question that she cared about William. What bothered Sylvia was the way in which she cared.

She often thought of the tiny Labrador puppy daddy brought home from work one day when she was a little girl. The first few months Sylvia and the tiny, black Lab had been all but inseparable. After that, the novelty worn thin; Sill walked and fed the puppy only because she had agreed to do so and, despite her appearance of grief, was actually relieved when she returned from school one cold, winter afternoon to find he’d been in an accident and daddy had to have him put to sleep,

Sylvia Stanton welcomed her return to work. The daily routine at West Lansing gave her a sense of worth, of well-being. And after missing a day it was especially rewarding. The concern from students and colleagues was overwhelming and reassuring to say the least. And although she no longer had third graders she still enjoyed the challenges that came with teaching.