Mind of My Mind (4 page)

you at least—at least—come and get me? For God's sake, girl . . .

Rina: What did you hit him for? Will you tell us that?

They hadn't given me a chance to tell them anything.

Rina: He was just a harmless old guy. Hell, he wouldn't have hurt—

Emma: Doro is on his way here now, Mary, and you'd better have a good reason for

what you did.

And, finally, I got a word in. "It was either hit him or screw him."

"Oh, Lord," muttered Rina. "Can't you talk decent even when Emma is here?"

"I talk as decent as you taught me, Momma! Besides, what do you want me to say?

'Make love to him?' I wouldn't have loved it. And if he had managed to do it, I would

have made sure I killed him."

"You did enough," said Emma. She was calming down.

"What did you do with him, anyway?" I asked.

"Put him in the hospital." She shrugged. "Fractured skull."

"They didn't say anything at the hospital?"

"The way he smelled? I just shriveled myself up a little more and told them my

grandson drank too much and fell on his head."

I laughed. She used that little-old-lady act to get sympathy from strangers, or at least

to throw them off guard. Most of the time when Doro wasn't around, she was old and

frail-looking. It was nothing but an act, though. I saw a guy try to snatch her purse once

while she was hobbling down the street. She broke his arm.

"Was that guy really your grandson?" I asked.

"I'm afraid so."

I glanced at Rina with disgust. "You can't find anybody but relatives to screw? God!"

"It's none of your business."

"I wouldn't pretend to be so disgusted with the idea of incest if I were you, Mary."

Emma sort of bared her teeth at me. It wasn't a smile. She and I didn't get along most of

the time. She thought she knew everything. And she thought Doro was her private

property. I got up and went to my room.

Doro arrived the next day.

I remember once when I was about six years old I was sitting on his lap frowning up

into his latest face. "Shouldn't I call you 'Daddy'?" I asked. Until then, I had called him

Doro, like everybody else did.

"I wouldn't if I were you," he said. And he smiled. "Later, you won't like it."

I didn't understand, and I was a stubborn kid anyway. I called him "Daddy." He didn't

seem to mind. But, of course, later, I didn't like it. It still bothered me a little, and Doro

and Emma both knew it. I had the feeling they laughed about it together.

Doro was a black man this time. That was a relief, because, the last couple of visits,

he'd been white. He just walked into my bedroom early in the morning and sat down on

my bed. That woke me up. All I saw was this big stranger sitting on the side of my bed.

"Say something," I said quickly.

"It's me," he said.

I let go of the steak knife I slept with and sat up. "Can I kiss you, or are you going to

jump me, too?"

He pulled back my blankets and ran his hand down the side of the bed next to the

wall. Of course he found the steak knife. I kept it sheathed in the tight little handle you're

supposed to use to pick up the mattress. He threw it out the door. "Leave the knives and

frying pans in the kitchen, where they belong," he said.

"That guy was going to rape me, Doro."

"You're going to kill somebody."

"Not unless I have to. If people leave me alone, I'll leave them alone."

He picked up a pair of jeans from the floor, where I had left them, and threw them in

my face. "Get dressed," he said. "I want to show you something. I want to make a point in

a way that even you might understand."

He got up and went out of the room.

I threw the jeans back on the floor and went to the closet for some clean ones. My

head was aching already.

He drove me to the city jail. He parked outside the wall and just sat there.

"What now?" I asked.

"You tell me."

"Doro, why did you bring me here?"

"As I said, to make a point."

"What point? That if I'm not a good little girl, this is where I'll wind up? God! Let's

get away from here." Something was wrong with me. Or something was about to be

wrong. Really wrong. I was picking up shadows of crazy emotions.

"Why should we go?" he asked.

"My head . . . !" I could feel myself losing control. "Doro, please . . ." I screamed. I

tried to hang on. Tried to just shut down, the way I had the day before. Freeze. But I was

caught in a nightmare. The kind of nightmare where the walls are coming together on you

and you can't get out. The kind where you're locked in some dark, narrow place and you

can't get out. The kind where you're at a zoo locked up like the animals, and you can't get

out!

I had never been afraid of the dark. Not even when I was little. And I'd never been

afraid of small, closed places. And the only place I had ever seen a room where the walls

formed a vise was in a bad movie. But I screamed my head off outside that jail. I started

flailing around, and Doro grabbed me to keep me from jumping out of the car. I almost

made him have an accident, as he was trying to drive away.

Finally, when we were a good, long way from the jail, I calmed down. I sat bent over

in the seat, holding my head.

"How long do you suppose you could stay even as sane as you are in the midst of a

concentration of emotions like that?" he asked.

I didn't say anything.

"Most of the prisoners there aren't half as bothered by their thoughts and fears as you

were," he said. "They don't like where they are, but they can live with it. You can't.

Wouldn't you rather even be raped than wind up in a place like this even for a short

time?"

"You got any aspirin?" I asked. My head was throbbing so that I could hardly hear

him. And for some stupid reason, I had left my new bottle of aspirin at home on my night

table.

"In the glove compartment," he said. "No water, though."

I fumbled open the glove compartment, found the aspirin, and swallowed four. He

was stopped for a red light, watching me.

"You're going to get sick, doing that."

"Thanks to you, I'm already sick."

"You don't listen, girl. I talk to you and you don't listen. For your own good, I have to

show you."

"From now on, I'll listen. Just tell me." I sat back and waited for the aspirin to work.

Then I realized that he wasn't taking me home.

"Where are we going? You don't have another treat for me, do you?"

"Yes. But not the way you mean."

"What is it? Where are we going?"

"Here."

We were on South Ocean Avenue, in the good part of Forsyth's downtown shopping

district. He was driving into the parking lot of Orman's, one of the best stores in town.

He parked, turned off the motor, and sat back. "I want you to step out of character for

a while," he said. "Stop working so hard at your role as Rina's bitchy daughter."

I looked at him sidelong. "I usually do when you're around."

"Not enough, maybe. You think we can go into that store and buy—not steal—

something other than blue jeans?"

"Like what?"

"Come on." He got out of the car. "Let's go see what you look good in."

I knew what I looked good in. Or at least acceptable in. But why bother when the

only guy I was interested in was Doro and nothing I did seemed to reach him? He either

had time for me or he didn't.

And if he didn't, I could have walked around naked and he wouldn't have noticed.

But because he wanted it, I chose some dresses, some really nice pants, a few other

things. I didn't steal anything. My headache sort of faded back to normal and my witchy

reflection in the dressing-room mirror relaxed back to just strange-looking. Doro had said

once that, except for my eyes and coloring, I look a lot like Emma—like the young

version of Emma, I mean. My eyes—traffic-light green, Rina called them—and my skin,

a kind of light coffee, were gifts from the white man's body that Doro was wearing when

he got Rina pregnant. Some poor guy from a religious colony Doro controlled in

Pennsylvania. Doro had people all over.

When he decided that I had bought enough, he paid for it with a check for more

money than I had ever seen in my life. He had some kind of by-mail arrangement with

the banks. A lot of banks. He ordered everything delivered to the hotel where he was

staying. I waited until we were out of the store to ask him why he'd done that.

"I want you to stay with me for a few days," he told me.

I was surprised, but I just looked at him. "Okay."

"You have something to get used to. And for your own sake, I want you to take your

time. Do all your yelling and screaming now, while it can't hurt you."

"Oh, Lord. What are you going to give me to yell and scream about?"

"You're getting married."

I looked at him. He'd said those words or others like them to Rina once. To Emma

heaven knew how many times. Evidently, my time had come. "You mean to you, don't

you?"

"No."

I wasn't afraid until he said that. "Who, then!"