The drive from Eton
to Atlanta is for the most part uneventful, but the road rises
and falls to meet you and there’s a softness to the hills; they change from green to blue to orange and then there are trees and pavement and billboards and all the stuff you see most anywhere, somehow bright and natural and terrible all at the same time.
I am driving the old pickup truck, and I have to open my arms wide to grip the big white steering wheel, just like Ma does. I can see her fingerprints at the edges, small and pointed; her grip is stronger than I thought.
I hear its roar and feel its uncomfortable vibration, smell the dusty vinyl and remember riding to school in this thing. Sometimes after school Pa’d take me to deliver a piece of furniture, we’d pick up a cold Coke at a diner, and sit for a while. Times like these he’d say nothing, look in the distance beyond me; I wondered where and who he was. Pretty soon he’d come back to the Bible and that was the end of it; the space between us had to change.
The engine drags on and the wing window that won’t close all the way whistles to me as I drive. I’m already imagining the ill-placement of this woman on that dirty stage, how she’ll be smiling but how the backs of her eyes will probably be crying the way they were the other night, a reflection. I wonder if I can tell her anything she doesn’t already know.
My focus is singular at this point, even if it is not completely clear: I just have to know her. If I can get her name tonight, if I can get her to speak to me without a songbook in her hand, I know we can go from there.
I drive, and I think. I remember my talk with Pastor Stanley.
“When we choose to forgive, we choose to lay aside our right to extract our revenge. In the moment of making that decision, we choose God, we choose peace, and the path of forgiveness is shown to us.”
He stood up and grabbed a stone mug off the table and sipped it, one leg over the other; he smiled at me gently, like he always does. Down the hall, I heard the pans bang and the women talk. “When we take this step and try to forgive someone, we begin to find reasons for our hearts to turn toward mercy instead of malice.”
I held very still and watched his soft pink lips move. I’ve been running and gunning my whole life, the world full of monsters; I have never thought about more than the woman or the buck in front of me. I don’t know if I can see Pa as just a man with a pulse, an old guy with cancer, much less myself.
“The problem with forgiveness, you see, is not being able to forgive ourselves. When we choose not to forgive ourselves, the consequence is a destructive and hateful path. It’s that simple.”
At the Shack, the parking lot is full, but I somehow know she’s folded in the walls of the building, I feel it so clearly, in the nerves of my arms and legs, in the buzz in my head.
What
am
I
doing
here?
I’ve
never
chased
a
woman—and
a
black
one
at
that!
I sit for another long minute before going in.
The club is as it was before, unrestrained and vacant, full of lights and colors and agendas. I find a table in the corner, near the stage, and wait. I order a plain Coke and search the room for her, imagine what I’ll say, what I am really feeling, remember how I’ve picked up every other woman in my life, and wonder if any of it is important. Will she feel the old hate in my bones? Know that even though I’ve never even befriended a black person that I somehow know we have something to offer each other?
When she comes out from behind the stage, I am startled by the tenderness I feel within me; uncomfortable with it, I look away from her just as it seems she might be recognizing me. She introduces herself as Z, and her eyes gloss over, as though she’s somewhere else. I don’t want to, but I wave the waitress down and order a shot of tequila. It feels smooth sliding down the back of my throat, and when I look at her through the cloud of smoke in the room, I feel better, my upper hand assuring me that she can’t hurt me.
The rest of the evening comes easier to me. I drink a lot, feel my old suit hanging on my old bones, watch her and pretend she is a work of art I might want to buy, an investment. I study her colors and the depth of her lines; I work the room.
“Why do you come here?” I ask the light-haired girl with long, full legs and small ears sitting next to me. She leans across the table toward me; I can feel her need to conquer me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Z’s braids sliding across her breasts, the twist of curl at the ends, her arms strong as she carries a tray of drinks to a table.
“I don’t know; I guess the same reason everyone else does, to have fun.” She looks around the room vacantly; her eyes are so blue and so young, and without imagining it, I think about taking her home, remember the nurse from a few weeks ago.
“Why do
you
come here?” she asks as she gets up, now on her feet, moving her hips back and forth to the DJ’s drum. I smile and look at her for a long time before I answer her because she thinks she has me, and in a way she does, the old skin enveloping me, but sliding off, the way a snake gets rid of its scales.
“I’m looking for someone.” I head to the bar to sober up and figure out how to approach Z without sounding too heavy or too light or as though I have an agenda, some making-up to do, or like the man I’ve always been and the hundreds she sees each night.
The girl heads to the dance floor and finds a set of arms to climb into. I order another drink and chew on the ice slowly.
For the last hour of the night, I sit and wait and watch her. I let my mind wander away at times and think of my mother at home or about odd career paths like becoming a race car driver or what squash blossoms taste like and if I could actually change the oil in the old truck.
When the music stops and the white lights come on, giving everyone a tired glow, I know I’ll need to make a move before the bouncer is throwing me out and I have to drive the long road home to Eton without a single connection to her.
I get up from the bar and find her in the corner of the room, wiping a round table, her wood tray tucked under her arm. She breathes audibly as she pushes the towel in circles on the top of the table. Her skin is buttery and her clothes hug her, but I try not to think of her in only these terms.
“Can I help you?” she says, her body defensive, her voice direct and wiry. But her gaze softens, her eyes squint in the light, and she recognizes me.
I don’t know what to say. I sit there looking at her.
“Are you lost?” She’s gone hard again. I search her face for its origin, the pain that has chafed her insides and the fire that has fringed her edges. She turns around and starts wiping the table again.
“I’m Carmine.”
She doesn’t turn around, but I know she’s listening by the curve of her back.
“I’m Z and I’m outta here.” She laughs quietly and walks away from me, shaking her head, and I feel a vein of anger rise up within me. I let it pass and then I follow her.
“Listen, I’d like to have a cup of coffee with you or take a walk or sit with you a while. Can we do that?”
I shove my hands deeper in my pockets and try to find that old confidence, my old command of women, but I feel weak within, my parents’ child, and I can’t do anything but be there, the man with no job and the dying father, the one without a clue.
“Guy, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t go out with men that come in here. Okay?” She removes the dirty glasses from her tray, two at a time, and sets them on the bar, then wipes her hands on the towel hanging from the apron around her waist.
“Thanks but no thanks is what I mean.” She walks to the other end of the bar, where the cash register sits, and takes out the wad of bills from her apron pocket.
I feel confronted and excited all of a sudden, lost in some wilderness that is not my own, searching the sky for the right direction. I remember going hunting in the green hills with a group of good ol’ boys in Dallas we were trying to sell, the ad men strange-looking in camouflage. I remember the hunt of the chase, the beauty of the animals, the fire of the shot, the chase of the sale. I never once fired my gun or managed to pitch anything on the trip; it was enough to get close to the beasts and to feel the power of sharing the earth with these animals, to know the smell of those green hills.
She counts her money and I don’t wait for her to turn around. “See, the thing is, I feel like there are things we’ve just got to share, I just know it. It doesn’t make any sense, it doesn’t, but there’s something here.”
The room is almost empty now, the crowd thinned to the staff and a few drunkards trying to find the door, car keys being exchanged, coats pulled from their hooks. When the door opens, there is a sea of headlights, music blaring, laughter. I want to go home.
I move the barstool beside her and lean in to the bar near her.
“There’s this place around the corner from here. It’s dirty and it’s cheap, but I know it’s open. Let’s share one cup of coffee.”
She keeps counting her money and looking the other way, and I am the only person left in the bar. I put my coat on and take my keys out of my pocket.
“I’ll go there and wait for you. I hope you’ll come.”
When I get back to the old truck, I lean against it for a long time. I watch as the cars pull out of the parking lot and everything circles around me—thoughts, images, a slight melancholy above and below me. I feel joy in my bones and slight suspicion, the world suddenly so new and foreign.
I wonder if she’ll come or if she’ll stay away, and I realize it doesn’t matter all that much, the curves in the road. You just have to lean with them and do your best to see them coming. Still, I crave her, long for her, feel the euphoria when I think of the possibility. It is the kind of joy that stands alone.
I turn the engine on and travel the two blocks south to the diner on the corner, the Lenox Café, a square building hanging back from the road, bright and angular. I push the accelerator softly and pull into a parking spot, but I stay in the truck, rest my head on the steering wheel, fold my feet below me.
It is close to four in the morning, and I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting there but I can feel the sky changing outside, the dark blue changing to a gray, the sun beginning to stretch its arms.
I hear a car pull up beside me, its lights dimmed, see her shadow inside. I feel adrenaline hit my veins, and I am alert and awake, I can feel the stubble on my face. I pull the keys from the ignition and step out to the sidewalk to meet her, rub my hands together for electricity.
“Hi, I’m Carmine.” I speak loudly, as though I am still at the bar, stretching my words out so that she can read my lips. I shove my hands in my pockets and smile. I can see her eyes searching mine for something, but her mouth remains closed, her body stiff.
The clouds part above us, and I watch as she catches a chill and shivers from her spine.
“I’m Z, short for Zaire. It’s cold out here; let’s go in.” She’s wearing a red sweater that wraps around her body and the same jeans from the bar; she is taller in the light than in the dark.
The lights inside the diner are bright, and I squint as I follow her to a table in the corner with brown vinyl chairs and a red ketchup bottle in the center of the table.
For the first few minutes at the table, we both stare at the crack in the center of the Formica, reading its lines as though it is a palm telling our future, branching out in either direction, determining our fate. I pretend to look at the menu and study the pictures of eggs and salads and burgers and feel her from across the table, shifting in her seat, staring at the glossy menu, the pictures reflecting in the glass of her eyes.
“You know, I’ve never had coffee with a black woman before.” As soon as the last word leaves my mouth, I can’t believe I’ve said it. My hand moves to my face to try to somehow push it back in.
She grabs her bag and gets up to leave. She moves so fast.
“I should have known. This is some kind of game, isn’t it? Some kind of stupid dare or something, isn’t it?” She’s angry and she walks through the maze of the restaurant quickly on her way to the Honda. I get up and follow her.
“Wait, please wait. I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to say. It was, I know it was. Can we give this another try? Trust me enough for one cup of coffee?”
She pauses at the front of the restaurant with her hand on the entrance door and she waits. When she turns around, her eyes are more focused and she looks right through me, the hurt flushing her cheeks, her bag folded under her arm.
“Listen, I’m not an exhibit at a museum and I don’t give lessons on black history, so if that’s what you’re here for…”
I stop her sentence and touch her on the pointy part of her elbow gently. We look at each other for a long time, customers milling around us, the music above soothing, the smell of grease hanging in the air. We both stop and breathe, and when I let go of her arm, she walks back to the table behind me.
After the waitress has taken our coffee order, I look at her and smile and realize that something is different about her; she holds something back.
“Let’s try this again, Z. I’m Carmine. Southern gentleman from Eton with better manners than I’ve shown you so far. I’m glad that you agreed to meet me here. You compel me for reasons I don’t understand.” I don’t recognize my voice, the humility, the neutrality; I’m so used to commanding women, moving them like pegs on a board.
She pulls her sweater wrap around her tighter but doesn’t say anything. She looks at me intently, her eyebrows curved, her lips pursed, but the remnants of some old hurt doesn’t come out.
When the coffee comes, she busies herself with the cream and sugar and doesn’t look up at me.
“I once had this big life in Dallas. I was once rich. I was once powerful. But now I don’t have anything.” I begin in the middle of the story, work my way to the present, try to keep talking so I can keep her close and still.