But Jinx Fairchild isn't certain there is any God. He talks to God a whole lot, but God sure doesn't talk back.
Whole lot of silence, Jinx Fairchild thinks.
Like shouting in a tunnel, and all you hear, fool, is your own voice echoing back.
The strangest thing is, Jinx doesn't re ally re member all that happened that night. Remembers the start of it in Chaney's and the end of it burning his sweatshirt in the woods and sobbing and talking to himself but the middle part is blurred, hazy. As if he'd only been told it, secondhand. As if the killing of the white boy, Garlock, with that white girl a witness, isn't anything more than a story Jinx Fairchild has heard, in fragments.
One of those neighborhood stories told and re told so many times, when they re turn to their source they're unrecognizable.
lumpy and disfigured and covered in dirt like a snowball you keep rolling in the yard till it's the size of a bushel basket and too heavy to budge. Not a snowball any longer, and not re cognizable.
In any case, Jinx Fairchild doesn't go to the police. And the police don't come to him.
He's drawn, though, to the foot of Pitt Street.
Just to look. To contemplate.
That trashy vacant corner lot: tall weeds, pieces of concrete, rocks, debris, faded newspaper. Where Little Red Garlock is said to have died, head broken. The way you'd break a pumpkin. And whoever killed him was strong enough to drag the body down to the river. out across the wharf. strong enough to dump the body into the water.
Where it might have sunk, but didn't. Or floated downstream to empty into Lake Ontario. But didn't.
Jinx Fairchild stands on the sidewalk staring. An observer would wonder what it is the worried faced black boy is staring at.
He tastes cold, and that blackish bile at the back of his mouth.
How am I going to live my life out like this? Is this what God wants of me? Or is it just what happened, and no sense to it?
Jinx shuts his hands up into fists, trembling fists, hides them behind his back. Once there's blood on your hands blood cries out for blood.
maybe.
How am I going to live out my l'je?
One day, Jinx Fairchild can scarcely believe his eyes, there at the foot of Pitt Street the little white girl Graice Courtney is standing just across the street, shy, hesitant, watching him. Whether she came along first and waited, or he'd been first and she has just now come along, he doesn't know. For a long moment the two of them simply stare at each other. Only Graice Courtney makes a move, finally a frightened smile, a lifting of her hand in greeting.
Jinx Fairchild just stares. Stands frozen.
Then Graice Courtney hurries across the street to him; he sees yes it is her and no mistake. exactly as he remembers her except today, in the quiet of the afternoon, only gulls squawking and the sounds of traffic in the distance, Graice Courtney isn't distraught and she isn't fearful and her eyes seem to blaze up in certainty.
She comes right up to Jinx Fairchild, seizes his hand, raises it to her lips. kisses it.
Whispers, You were never to blame. I'm the one.
Fhree thirty Sunday morning, and Virgil Starling and Persia Courtney are re turning to Hammond from a party in Rochester when a state highway patrol car speeds past them on the left, splashing Virgil's midnight blue Mercury coupe with snow and slush, then purposefully slows so that Virgil, continuing at his own speed, just below the speed limit, is forced to pull up alongside the patrol car. and endure a powerful beacon shone rudely into his face.
Into his face, and into Persia Courtney's.
The highway patrolmen flag Virgil down. He obeys immediately, braking his car on the shoulder of the Thruway.
Whispering to himself low panicked pleading words that sound like, Oh, Christ, oh, Christ, oh, my man, and Persia, squeezed in sleepily beside him, her head on his shoulder, sits up confused and frightened saying, What? What is it? Police? You haven't done any thing wrong, and she's running her hands quickly through her tangled hair as if she's been surprised in sleep, in bed, and Virgil says, No matter what I done or didn't do, it's who I am. He shuts off the ignition as two state troopers approach their car, pistols drawn.
He says, despairing, And there's you.
Both Virgil Starling and Persia Courtney have been drinking.
For hours. But they aren't seriously drunk. Virgil's driving has been cautious, he's kept to one lane and more or less one speed, showing no signs of being impaired; he's a damned good driver could handle this smooth running car in his sleep so why have the police flagged him down?
Two bigbodied white men, pistols drawn.
A sight you don't readily forget.
Nor is Persia Courtney likely to forget how Virgil Starling scrambles out of his car when he's ordered to, how meekly he turns over his license to the troopers, hunched in his fawn colored suede coat with the fox fur collar, his slick oiled hair going white with damp snowflakes, ashy faced, eyelids rapidly blinking as if with a nervous tremor: shaking his head no, nosir nodding his head yes, yessir, in re ply to the troopers' loud staccato questions.
Why was he driving so fast? Is he drunk? Is this his car? Where's the registration Is he carrying a weapon? Is there a weapon in the car? Where was he coming from, and where is he going? Why in such a hurry? Is that car his? Where's his gun? Does he have a police re cord? Who's his girlfriend?
Shining the light into the passenger's seat, into Persia Court they s pale face.
Then Virgil Starling is forced to lean forward against the hood of his car, legs spread, so the troopers can each frisk him, playing rough now, slapping his head down when he raises it, calling him boy, nieger coon, and Persia Courtney, chilled and sober, shouts out the window at them, He wasn't doing anything wrong, he wasn't speeding, I'm a witness, and one of the troopers shines the light into her face again so that Persia has to shield her eyes, frightened, but angry too, half sobbing, I'm a witness, I'm a witness, he didn't do anything wrong, not a thing.
The military regalia of gleaming leather straps, holsters, boots, billy clubs, drawn pistols. Mock serious white faces, jeering eyes, those loud voices like barking laughter and who dares to resist? Not Virgil Starling, who re moves his suede coat and allows the troopers to turn the pockets inside out, tear the bright silk lining are they looking for dope? is that the pretext?. who tugs off his high heeled calfskin boots and stands in his stocking feet in the snow while the troopers examine, or pretend to examine, the boots. who unlocks the glove compartment, unlocks the trunk, pries off with a tire iron all four of his fancy chrome hubcaps under the white cops' supervision.
Nosir. Yessir. By this time Persia Court they too is standing on the shoulder of the Thruway, hunched and shivering in her steely colored coat made of brushed fake fur that looks so glamorous, surely the cops believe it is fur, and they're noting too Persia's spike heeled pointed toed shoes, so impractical in this upstate New York weather but so attractive, and her shoulder length glossy hair that's re d gold, hair in limp lazy strands but still striking to the eye, to any man's eye, and though her face is slightly puffy as if she's been awake for too long, yet not sufficiently awake, she is a good looking womangood looking white womanfucking a nigger.
Persia has been asking them what law Virgil broke, why are they doing this to him, she's going to re port them, she says, she knows politicians in Hammond and she's going to re port them for this outrage, she says, and one of the cops says to the other, You smell something? You smelling it? and the other says, grinning, Yeah, re al ripe, and the first one says, Ain't ripe, it's rotten, but grinning at Persia too, running his eyes up and down her as if it's a joke, why doesn't she laugh, and Virgil Starling too exhausted and sick faced.
why's he taking it all so grim?
As if only now thinking of it, one of the cops makes a suggestion to the other, a suggestion about what the white cunt could do, she's so hot to get her nigger boyfriend off, and the other cop replies it sounds like a damned good idea, and they laugh companionably together, the two of them, crude but affable, or there's the impression they're affable. except for the drawn pistols, the barrels pointed in Virgil Starling's direction.
There's silence except for the noise of a big diesel truck passing on the Thruway, spewing slush across two lanes of pavement.
But traffic at this hour is sparse; there are few headlights in sight.
Persia Courtney shivering in her wet high heeled shoes is trying to think where they are, how many miles from Hammond, from home. The giddy swirling of snowflakes like frenzied insects confuses her.
Neither Persia Courtney nor Virgil Starling seems to have heard the cop's bantering suggestion so there's silence, and then the cop says it again, and the other cop murmurs something in re ply or affirmation, and suddenly Persia is crying, Persia is whispering, Let us alone, we didn't do anything, we didn't break any law, and her appeal is so raw and childlike, so frightened, the cops take pity on her and within a few minutes the ordeal is over, Virgil Starling is issued a ticket for speeding and sent on his way, driving on to Hammond in absolute silence, sweaty inside his torn stylish clothes and his face that's the warm ripe shade of bananas at the point of disintegration is covered in a film of glittery sweat too.
and in this silence that has the air of the end of things, of a finality profound yet wordless as death, Persia Courtney slides her arm around Virgil Starling's neck and leans close against him, like before, as if nothing between them has changed and she's trying not to cry, trying to choke back the ugly sounds that threaten to push from her like spurts of vomitingfor the remainder of the drive back to Hammond and to the house onJewett Street where her daughter has left a light burning for her in the stairway vestibule and in the kitchen into which she staggers, alone, exhausted, hair disheveled, savage little ladder runs in her stockings, mascara like her very life's blood streaking her face.
She staggers into Graice's room, wakes Graice from a deep sleep, sits on the edge of the bed, weeps in Graice's arms, frightening the girl with her own fear and rage and rambling drunken sounding despair Saying, So awful. seeing a man crawl. seeing a man crawl and he can't not know you've seen. and the two of you aren't ever going to not know. what it is you've seen.
Pass.
Hey boy, hey jig. right here.
Mothafucker. what you gonna do with that ball?
Stars are winking in the night sky like the lights of distant cities but Jinx Fairchild, shooting baskets in Cassadaga Park, alone, nine o'clock to midnight, never glances up. His concentration is so fierce, he wouldn't know a sky is there.
Hey asshole. here.
Ain't going nowhere, mothafucker.
It isn't another high school boy who is guarding Jinx tonight, no player for Hammond or for any team he knows: an adult man, six foot five inch bastard on top of him every minute, blocking and stiff arming and breathing into his face, keeping him from every clear shot so Jinx is forced to play it cool and oblique, Iceman style, feinting and driving the ball at quick unexpected angles.
.
dribbling the ball in tricky different rhythms. stopping short, turning on his heel, going for a jump shot. checking the impulse to do the obvious.
Nigger, where you think you're going'.
Sometimes Jinx's guard is white and the weight of the crowd is on his side like gravity, but a white guard is easy to slip; it's the black guard that knows Jinx Fairchild's game. almost. If he knew it every inch of the way Jinx would be crippled, paralyzed, he'd be dead, but fortunately no guard knows his game that intimately; thus it doesn't matter if the fucker is bigger and stronger and crueler than Jinx, using his elbow and the referee doesn't see , stepping on Jinx's foot and the referee doesn't see , taunting and jeering and panting his hot meaty breath in Jinx's face. if Jinx pushes himself to the limit of his ingenuity and endurance and desperation Jinx can outmaneuver the man, break suddenly free, run to the basket, leap and toss and score.
Shit, ain't nobody gonna stop him.
Ain't nobody!
These solitary practice games in Cassadaga Park exhaust Jinx Fairchild as no other games do. These imagined guards.
But on the court, he's safe.
He's safe, on the court. Most of the time.
Feeling the grain of the ball against his fingertips. The perfect weight of the basketball. Snapping the ball outward from his chest, hard; seeing the ball sink through the basket because Jinx Iceman Fairrhild's eyes have willed it there. Sometimes it rolls drunkenly on the rim, as if to tease the opposing team and their supporters; sometimes it drops straight through the basket with only the faintest brushing of the net.
Oh, man. Man, you the best.
Shit, man. nobody gonna touch you.