Jack (Gilead #4)(54)

And then he was out on the stoop, adjusting his hat. The door opened again wide enough for Lorraine to nudge the kitten out after him with the toe of her slipper. He leaned against a fence a few houses down and lit a cigarette. Della came out onto her stoop with a coat over her robe and in street shoes. She saw him, he smiled and lifted his hat, turned his back and walked away. He thought he might hear her following him, but she really did just let him walk away.





* * *





Sunday night. Everything was dark, everything was closed. He was walking just to be walking. Did he want to show up for work tomorrow to help a few ladies improve their mambo? No. Would he? Yes. What a ridiculous life. But having a little money was good, and he got along with those ladies better than he usually did with people. Of course, sometimes they brought him a wedge of cake or half a batch of fudge. That was part of the economics of the universe. There were big freckled mirrors on the walls of the studio. Sometimes he could not avoid catching a glimpse of himself, seeing that strange excess of grace that looked like parody, and that now and then drew a cold glance from the manager of the place. Ah well. He might get an hour or two of sleep, pull himself together, and show up for work. The ladies would be glad to see him. They were flattered by his courtesy, somehow delighted when he made a joke of it—“You’re looking unusually lovely today”—and her name, if he remembered it.

When payday came, he would spend the money drinking himself to death, more or less, and wake as wretched in mind and body as he already was in spirit. He would let himself think of Della, and rage and grieve from his very depths, and let himself feel his regret and embarrassment and his dreadful loneliness. After that, who knows. That one motive he had for going on was beginning to seem a little inadequate.

He lay on his bed without sleeping until almost dawn. Then he decided to rouse himself, to do some other kind of nothing until the sun was up. He put his feet on the floor and switched on the light, and then he saw a letter, which someone had apparently slid under the door. The envelope had the mark of a shoe print on it, no doubt his. So it had been there all night, maybe most of the previous day. The desk clerk let mail accumulate in a drawer until he had a better reason to come upstairs. Teddy seemed to accept the other rooming house as his address. His boss knew where he lived. Della knew. So he was probably being fired. He left it lying there. Reproof has its sting, no matter who has taken it upon himself to administer it. His boss had bow legs and no sense of rhythm. No one brought him cake. And he was the one who got to do the firing. The very smallness of it all loomed over Jack gigantically.

But, just in case, he did finally pick up the letter, and he saw the lucid script and the return address. This set off a storm of emotions he waited out flat on his back with his pillow over his face. When he sat up again and opened it, he saw the words Dear Friend. Sweet Jesus, when she saw him last night, she must have thought he had read her letter. “Dear friend,” she had said. “While I think on thee.” She had not said that. Still, how painful could any letter be that began with those two words? On Monday I leave for Memphis. Oh. That was painful.

My family is concerned that I might be losing my way. They think I may have forgotten who I am, and the hope they have placed in me. I regret all the worry I have caused them, of course. And truly, sometimes I do wonder who I am. I believe this is a question I must try to answer for myself. Not long ago I thought I had answered it, and so did they. I truly hope they will help me to feel that way again. I have such respect for them, and I hate the thought that they might lose respect for me. There is really nothing I fear more.

You have been a gracious companion through this long night, and I will always be grateful.

Della



* * *



He was swooping his way through “The Tennessee Waltz,” a little inattentive to the very small woman who was try ing to keep up with him and growing winded from the effort, when he realized that he could talk things over with Reverend Hutchins. He had an idea that he thought might be worth acting on. He would go to Memphis, find Della’s father’s church, sit through a sermon, and on his way out the door, as they shook hands, he would say, “Reverend Miles, I want to assure you that my relationship with your daughter was entirely honorable.” If he saw Della, he would do no more than nod to her. And he would nod to her brothers, unembarrassed by the fact that he had once appeared disreputable to them. It would be the humble act of a proud man, as it would have to be in order to be believed. The point of it all must be to seem capable of offering such an assurance for Della’s sake, to defend her honor, as they say. The fact that what he would say was absolutely true was almost a problem. Being believed when disbelief is only reinforced by the effort to persuade, by the fear of failing to persuade, this is a problem he had encountered thousands of times. He could not calibrate his sincerity when he hoped to make an impression with it. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, they said or thought, when he was still young enough to have made the experiment and to have been relieved by the result.

He knew his awareness that a thousand things could go wrong made it certain that they would. There was no recovering that moment of purpose and optimism. But Reverend Hutchins might help him see things in a better light. This still seemed possible. So, once he was done with work, once he had led the last winded lady back to the bench where she had left her handbag, he was down the stairs and out the door and down the street on his way to Mount Zion Baptist Church.