The Healing Read online

  I sit on the edge of the bed, shuffle a pack of Turkish cigarettes, take one out and light up. My back hunched like a cat’s, I swivel to stare at him, one knee up on the bed. I look at them lampshades. Tiffany glass?

  Should I pack up and go? I ask.

  What do you mean?

  Since I ain’t what you thought I am.

  You don’t know what I think you are, he says. Then he say again how he don’t like American music, but he likes American women. He thinks American women are racier than European women. Then he ask me if I knew what he meant by racy. I say yes. I ain’t say that I ain’t never thought of myself as racy. That I ain’t never had the word racy applied to myself. Or maybe I am racy. Maybe I’ve grown into racy without noticing it. Maybe since I’ve been managing Joan I’ve grown into racy without noticing it. I puff my cigarette, watch the rolling smoke, tilt my head back and listen to Joan. Sometimes when I listen to her I don’t know what she is either. Her music don’t explain her altogether, but I feel that it’s good. I wouldn’t manage her if I didn’t think her good. She must be good. She ain’t at the top of the charts, but at least she got the music. And me when I ain’t managing her, all I do is gamble. Racing in Saratoga, blackjack in Vegas. I don’t gamble a lot, ’cause I ain’t got a lot to gamble.

  But when she played Vegas that other time, I didn’t go near the tables, I sat in the hotel room with a former showgirl, an old woman who used to be a showgirl, a dancer in a chorus line. She said, I stopped dancing before they made me stop. I stopped dancing before they made me. When I started feeling like a fool I stopped, before I started to look like one. Her earlobes were stretched from wearing gold and brass earrings, kinda like them African women that wear them heavy earrings. The skin on her hands looked like a newborn baby’s.

  We watched the soaps, then a news story about these townspeople collecting all their rock ’n’ roll albums and destroying them. I thought of that time in Africa, them Sonjo tribesmen. That Sonjo tribesman who used to test people for crimes. They’d form a circle around this one man, all them accused, and then he’d gyrate in the circle, and he’d pick out the one who’d committed the crime because he smelled wrong. Because when one is guilty one has the smell of guilt, the crime solver explained. It sounds silly, but maybe the body would emit odors. Sweat and nerves. Maybe no different from the lie detector principle, except the technology.

  There was one woman, though, who gathered everything that her neighbors might destroy and hid it. She said she didn’t like some of them albums herself, but she wasn’t going to destroy them. Her neighbors in the background taunted her while she hugged a tattered album to her. For all I know, it mighta been a Joan Savage album. She hugged it to her, stared into the camera, and dared the world, “I don’t like this album myself,” she said, “and it ain’t one that I would buy, but I ain’t going to destroy it.”

  Josef, getting dressed, puts on olive green corduroy trousers and a light blue shirt. I’m thinking of how sometimes it takes someone else, a stranger, to point out what you’ve become.

  Should I get up too? I ask.

  If you want me to teach you to ride.

  I get up, pull on my panties and jeans. Put on my bra and sweatshirt. What’s that attached to your phone? I ask, pausing in front of it. One of them answering devices? I peer close. Why does it say Silent Conversation?

  Actually, it’s a telephone scrambler. It scrambles conversations. So the wrong ears won’t hear. I always like to know about the new technology. That’s a rather primitive device, though. They have even smaller scramblers now.

  Paranoid bastard, I’m thinking, but, That’s fantastic, I say. That’s really fantastic. I love stuff like this. Technological stuff. I love the new technology myself. I’ve always liked stuff like that. But what’s really spooking you? I push my sweatshirt down into my waistband and stand waiting for his explanation. What’s really spooking you? What wrong ears?

  He stands with his back to me, facing the window. I’ve seen only his guards, but none of the dangers he’s been talking about. Maybe he’s just a paranoid bastard, some rich lunatic from Germany. Maybe not even from Germany, Maybe he’s from Germany, Kentucky. There’s a Germany, Kentucky, you know. He keeps his back to me.

  I put on the tape player again, softly. This is my scrambler, I say. It don’t scramble conversation, though. Scrambles thoughts.

  What sort of thoughts? he ask, turning. He scratches his jaw.

  What sort of conversations? I ask.

  Outside, the stable boy leads out his stallion and my mare.

  So is this the monster mare? I ask. So what do I do first?

  First you get on, he replies.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  I peek over his shoulder to see Joan standing in the doorway. She has a handful of yellow hair sticking up, looking like Don King’s. She’s wearing faded green gaucho trousers and a bright purple tank top and a purple bandanna, worn like the cowgirls wear. Chewing a pear, she watches us with an air of nonchalance and tepid curiosity like you’d watch reruns on an old TV. Make me wonder whether she’s watched him with other women. She’d told me about his other infatuations, but said she didn’t know any of his other women. She ain’t exactly looking at me like she think I’m one of his new infatuations, though. She looking at me like one of us is a fool. Then she chew a little more of that pear. Which one of us is the fool? I whisper, There’s Joan, at the same time that she close the door and he come.

  What? he ask, rising up. Say what?

  Joan was standing in the doorway watching us. Your ex-wife was watching us.

  I don’t know why I call her his ex-wife, ’cause he know that. Unless I’m telling myself she his ex-wife. Reminding myself that she his ex-wife and he her ex-husband. And thinking about that movie about that ex-husband and ex-wife, and him saying something about that being the first time he felt like a ex-husband when he heard about her being with some other man. I didn’t feel like an ex-husband until now, said the man in the movie.

  He look freak, like she ain’t his ex-wife caught him with another woman, turn, look like he doing one of them yoga postures, look just like one of them yogi, you know one of them posture them yogi do, then dig his elbow into my shoulder. Not now. Before, I’m telling you about them old days, when I first started being Joan’s business manager. Joan, the rock star. You know, like them flashback scenes. Lotta readers say they don’t understand them flashback scenes. You got to always explain them flashback scenes. They just understand that chronological order. Seem like to me anybody seen a modern movie, even them old-time modern movies would understand a flashback scene. Or if you listen to jazz, seem like you’d understand them flashback scene. In them modern movies, though, they even got them parallel scenes, and seem like anybody can understand a movie can understand the flashback scene, and not just them modern movies. In them early movies they got them parallel and flashback scenes. Even them comic movies.

  Anyway, he get up, dress hurriedly, and go downstairs. Seem like I hear him say Joan Darling. Just like he her now husband. Or maybe it just my imagination hear him say Joan Darling, like it her true name. I’m still laying in the bed, looking like a fool and rubbing my shoulder, then I get up and get dressed. Unhurriedly. When I go downstairs, Joan in the living room, sitting with her long legs thrown over the arm of the sofa and still looking nonchalant. Still got her hair sticking up looking like Don King’s. Or looking like a character in one of them comic movies. You know that Laurel of the comedy team. And she even scratch the top of her head, looking like that Laurel of the comedy team. Except James play the Hardy to her Laurel. She looking at me, though, like I’m one of the Stooges. I look around for James, but he musta gone outside. Or maybe she told him to leave, I don’t know. Maybe he’d made promises to her to be with other women only when she was on her tours. And ain’t just with any other woman, but her own manager. Still that sounds more like a now husband than a ex-husband. Then she finish her pear and toss it into a
ashtray. Then she scratch the top of her head, looking like that Laurel again. Then she open up one of them paperback novels she likes to read and pretend like she reading it. A Amanda Wordlaw novel. Don’t Let Cowgirls Fool Ya. Not one of them Great Novels. She likes reading them Great Novels, ’specially the Russians, but she also likes them popular novels, and for nonfiction she reads both the popular nonfiction and them obscure, intellectual-type nonfiction. Maybe she signifying. Don’t Let Cowgirls Fool Ya. That novel supposed to be about a colored cowgirl. ’Cept she say that novel ain’t true popular fiction, it just satirizes the popular fiction. She say it uses the techniques of the popular novel to satirize the popular novel, but she also say this Amanda Wordlaw thinks that African-American writers oughta be able to write “the popular novel” and not just the Great African-American Novels. You know, like some book reviewers think that African-American writers are only supposed to write the Great African-American Novel. So this Amanda Wordlaw thinks why shouldn’t they write a whole range of different types of novels, from trash novels and popular fiction to the Great African-American Novel. But this Amanda Wordlaw supposed to even satirize the Great African-American Novel. I think that Amanda Wordlaw a confabulatory woman myself, though, ’cause I ain’t never heard of her. She must be a confabulatory woman or maybe that a pseudonym for one of them other literary womens, but one who want to maintain her anonymity. Maybe she write the Great African-American Woman’s Novel under her true name, but them trash and popular novels under the name of Amanda Wordlaw. When I come in, she look up from that novel, still looking nonchalant. Then she look kinda sullen, then she look curious. That same curious I told you Josef look. But that before I met Josef. ’Cept I don’t really think of that Joan as a rational woman, though. I look at her, then my eyes take a running turn about the living room, looking for James again, then I look at her again. She pretends like she reading that paperback novel again. On her coffee table are some other books: The Dictionary of Clichés, World Treasury of Love Stories, Alchemy: The Medievalist’s Royal Art, The Women Savantes, Modern African-American Sculpture, a biography of Jim Thorpe, and a novel by Ishmael Reed. Now I know that Ishmael Reed ain’t a confabulatory author ’cause I’ve read some of his books myself. She always include them Ishmael Reed novels on her shelves with the Great Novels, though in the bookstores where we buy her paperback books, when she’s got a gig in different part of the world, they ain’t on the shelves with the Great Novels. And them mail-order bookstores where she order some of her books, they don’t list them with the Great Novels, neither, though we seen The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man listed with the Classic American Novels. Joan think they would list Invisible Man, but they list The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. Joan say that’s on account of them Ishmael Reed novels don’t use the techniques of the traditional Western novel, she say that because they use the techniques of they own tradition, but when I ask her what they own tradition, she just look at me like I’m a fool. Hermione? Ain’t that the name of one of them novels. Seem like one of them novels got the name Hermione in it?

  I guess this means you’re going to fire me, I say. I don’t know why I ask that. Make her think that’s all I’m thinking about, whether she fire me or not. I know when I’m negotiating one of her contracts, she tells me I’m crude haggling about the dollar bills. “Maybe I just want to make the record,” she’ll say. “Maybe I don’t care how much they’ll pay me up front. I’ll just have to pay ’em back anyway, The important thing is getting the record made.” And then I tell her about the history of them record companies screwing them Negro entertainers, and not giving them all they royalties and them recording companies making all the money on they recordings, you know, them race recordings before Motown, when they usedta call Negro music Race Music, and she still tell me I’m crude haggling about the dollar bills, and using that history of them record companies screwing them Negro entertainers as a excuse to be crude. Or maybe she thinking I should apologize for letting her catch me with her ex?

  Why should I? she’s saying. It ain’t like we’re still married or nothing, Jamey and I. She look at me, trying to look nonchalant again, or disinterested like that wealthy woman I seen at the racetrack, but it look like lightning sleeping in her eyes. She put the paperback novel on the coffee table on top of The Dictionary of Clichés. I start to say something, but can’t find a way to say it, though I could mention the fact that it her ex-husband she just caught me with, and that ain’t the same as sneaking around with somebody now husband, even if he still do call her Joan Darling like it her true name.

  I . . .

  Darling, I don’t care who you screw, or who he screws either, as long as it ain’t me. James can screw you all he wants, or any other of his little infatuations, or get him a harem of girlies as long as it ain’t me. He knows not to screw me. He knows better than to screw me. Jamey and his little group of serious thinkers. I shouldn’t say that. When we were in grad school I usedta be one of his little group of serious thinkers. Or at least I thought so. He knows better than to screw me, though.

  I know she ain’t just meaning screw screw. I don’t know the tale of they divorce, and I ain’t ask the full tale. And don’t know who precipitated the divorce, and don’t ask. I sit down on the opposite arm of the sofa. She continue with her back to me for a while, then she turn to face me. My eyes take the same running turn about the living room, looking for James again, then I meet her look.

  Of course I’m going to keep you on, darling, she say. You’re my manager. You’re the best. You’re the best manager I’ve had. Trying to manage myself is a bitch, bitch. I like that. Trying to manage myself is a bitch, bitch. Then she narrow her eyes; the lightning in them ain’t sleeping, You just ain’t welcome to come here no more, that’s all. You can manage me, but you ain’t welcome here.

  Then that lightning sleeping again. She ain’t curious or even nonchalant. She stare away from me. No expression I can name. Then she thumbing through that book, Don’t Let Cowgirls Pool Ya. Ain’t she said something about that Amanda Wordlaw? Seem like once when she reading one of them confabulatory novels, she say, She my alter ego, I think she my alter ego. I think she my other self. I don’t know why she say that, though. Seem like you wouldn’t want a author of trashy novels to be your other self. Seem like she would pick one of them Great Novelists to be her other self.

  What about him? I ask.

  She shrug. The lightning still sleeping, but she wave her hands in the air. Then she looking at me like I’m one of her Stooges again. Don’t be stupid, she say. And then she wave her hand in the air again like she brushing away my stupidity. And then she scratch the top of her head like Laurel. I guess she mean to say how can she tell him he ain’t welcome. But that’s what they always talking about on them talk shows. How when them women catch they man with the other woman them women go after the other woman and treat the man like he innocent. Not that he her now husband. But I guess they’s even them like that about they ex-husband. Some women is probably possessive like that about even they ex-husband. Seem like on some of them talk shows, they’s even women possessive about they own ex-husband, that stalks they ex-husbands and they ex-husbands other women, and more possessive about they ex-husband than when he their now husband. And then I’m imagining Joan on one of them talk shows: