After Phil left, her husband disappeared into the wilderness of the Southside. He’d be gone for days at a time. The parties ceased, and the people who had once come in and out passed the house without so much as a glance. Once in a while Joan would spot them when she peered out the window, and they would just shuffle by.
But mostly, Joan sat for hours in her favorite spot on their old living room couch where she once breastfed Phil. It felt sometimes like he was resting in the crook of her arm. Other times, her breasts would drip milk and she’d sit with a throbbing ache in her chest. Her husband went away and returned, a different person each time, as if trying on new identities: laughing, angry, sedate, violent, arms swinging, stoic. Sometimes he brought the rocks home with him. Sometimes Joan would have to go out looking for rocks of her own.
Joan returned to work and seemed normal until one day she no longer glowed lavender.
Bit by bit, her husband stripped the house of everything from the copper wires to the front door. There’s a market for anything if you look hard enough.
At work, Joan heard the librarians whisper. Not like their normal whispers, these whispers were sharp hisses. The whispers were ice picks at Joan’s eardrums. Why didn’t they just pull her aside, grab her, shake her, say what they had to say? Instead they whispered until whispering would no longer do.
Why don’t you take some time? said the gray-haired librarian who managed the branch. Phil just — I don’t think you’re ready.
Joan’s wig sat crooked on her head and her eyes burned with a fiery haze. She didn’t smell like lavender; she smelled like a rough Southside night. She wanted to say that she was Joan Santi Claus and the kids needed books from Santi Claus to live, but it seemed like a silly thing to say. Who needs books to live? Even those kids didn’t really believe Joan Santi Claus was the real thing. Joan Santi felt like a mythical being. Like she always had been just that, unreal.
Joan wanted to speak her thoughts or at least acknowledge them in some way, but she found she couldn’t. She spoke in a knotted bullfrog croak and could only mutter her son’s name.
VIII
Casey had thought all night and most of the next day about the previous afternoon at Marcy’s. The hat. Kwayku’s grin. Marcy’s flirtation with him. Kwayku’s back as he walked up the street to Marcy’s house. It all provided motivation for him as he gripped the orange sphere and breezed past Kwayku’s bony form.
Watch, Casey, I’m gonna fuck your bitch, Kwayku said as Casey eased a layup into the waiting hoop.
That’s game, Casey said through short breaths.
Wow, you won one. It don’t matter. I’m still gonna fuck Marcy. I’m gonna flip her white ass over, and next time you fucking her, you gonna see pink fingerprints on that ass. That’s me. Remember that.
Casey ignored him, tossing the basketball against the backboard. It clanged over and over as the ball struck the orange square in the center.
Have you even fucked her yet? Been with her how long and you ain’t even hit that? You must be gay, man. You the only one that ain’t hit it. He a virgin, that’s why he be throwing rocks at people.
Man, that don’t even make no sense, Casey said.
It’s from the Bible, Kwayku replied. He who is without sin can cast the first stone.
Kwayku’s friends erupted in laughter, and even Casey chuckled. Kwayku stood waiting for the laughter to die down before he continued: Dog, I fucked your bitch.
Check the scoreboard, Casey said. I was raining jumpers all over your ass.
What you expect? I’m still tired from raining all over Marcy’s ass. He paused. Rich hit it too.
He stopped talking for a moment to make sure his audience paid rapt attention. They were silent, eyes widened, waiting for the next word.
Yeah, Richard fucked her too. Ain’t you, Rich?
Richard nodded.
She let us run a train, Kwayku said. He stopped speaking for a moment, pausing for effect, letting the silence hang heavy. Dog, I was hitting that shit doggie-style. I was watching that shit bounce and shake. She ain’t a girl, she’s a receptacle. All I could see was these two round globes. He paused again. With ripples all on them. I love that shit, man. Sexy ass ripples.
Casey frowned. The thick flesh back there did have ripples. He had seen the ripples a few times — kissed them even — before something invariably stopped the proceedings. He remembered pulling down her panties for the first time and marveling that the meat of her ass wasn’t smooth like the asses in the magazines but was choppy and dimpled. The truth of her flesh was pleasantly disquieting and arousing. And this knowledge, he felt, let him into a secret club.
Game’s over, Wayne said. Y’all lost. Could y’all stop the trash talk? You do this every damn game.
It ain’t trash talk, it’s reality, Kwayku said. Me and Rich was rocking that shit like ungh-ungh.
Kwayku did a little dance, closing his eyes and twisting his face into a tortured expression; he clenched his fists and thrust his hips back and forth. As he danced, like clockwork, Lady MacBeard strolled by, crying her son’s name loudly, wistfully.
Your mother’s here, Kwayku said.
For a long moment Casey closed his eyes in frustration.
She don’t never learn her lesson, he said. He cupped his hands around his mouth. Hey, Lady MacBeard, go somewhere. Don’t nobody want you here.
She continued walking as if she didn’t hear him. Swaying, swaying, though stepping methodically; the stroll for her became a mission.
Missus-Casey’s-mama, you’re looking mighty dirty today, Kwayku said.
Casey frowned. Even on his mother’s worst days, this woman looked nothing like her. He dug a rock from the loose dirt and lobbed it, striking the woman in the head just as he had so many days before, and then he picked up another and another. The woman covered her head with her hands as stones rained down upon her.
Casey had rocks in both hands when Kwyaku started pelting stones in her direction. Go on, get! Kwayku said, lobbing a handful at the woman. All flew far past her. Get on back to your sideshow!
Wayne threw one, and so did Richard. A barrage of rocks flew in her direction, plapping against her body and the soft earth.
She simply stood there, holding up her arms as if calling on divine intervention. Blood streamed down her face. Wayne dropped his rocks and took off, jerking Richard’s arm. Richard followed, speeding down the hill and away from the playground. Casey reached for another rock.
Stop! Kwayku yelled. Stop!
Casey cupped his hand around a large one with curved lumps. He cocked his arm back. Kwayku reached for his friend, throwing his entire body into Casey’s path and tackling him to the ground. It didn’t matter, though. Casey had already released the rock into the air. The stone landed in between Joan’s open hands, striking the top of her forehead.
The woman collapsed. She lay on the ground unmoving, a wet spot expanding outward from her crotch.
Casey looked into Kwayku’s face, hoping to see something other than what he saw: a stare of revulsion and pain. It looked like a fright mask, forever molded into an expression of rubbery distress. And Casey couldn’t help it, or even explain it, but it brought him laughter. He laughed like hell until burning water spilled from his eyes onto his cheeks.
Boxing Day
Daddy’s pissed. I can tell ’cause I can hear his gloved fists slapping the punching bag downstairs. It’s a flat plapping noise. The louder the sound, the more pissed he’s become. He says every day he punches the bag is boxing day, but today is actually Boxing Day.
I would stay out of the basement, away from my punch-drunk father and every delusion he’s used to sew himself together, but my mother’s sent me to descend into his Hades to deliver a message.