BODY SCISSORS
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PART
ONE:
Sweet Virginia
TUESDAY
January 15, 1991
10:45
P.M.—Lamar Boulevard, Southbound
Rubin
watched Jennifer as she breathed in and out through her
mouth, puffing clouds on the car window, stripes of light
wiping over them from the bright signs of stores and restaurants,
past gas stations and convenience stores, past the gloomy
horror of the State Hospital.
"Are
you warm enough back there?"
"Yes,
Mom," he said.
Jenny
said, "Yes."
Their
mother kept a woolen blanket in the back seat for these
times, chilly nights on the way home from movies or restaurants
or city council meetings, when the heat didn't reach the
back seat. Rubin and Jennifer sat buckled up in back with
the blanket pulled up over their legs as Mom drove and
listened to the radio.
"...was
inaugurated today under the cloud of impending war, the
second female governor in Texas history and the first
since 'Ma' Ferguson left office in 1935. Meanwhile, the
president's deadline passed for Saddam Hussein's withdrawal
from Kuwait. A White House official was quoted as saying,
'Only a miracle can prevent war now.' In Austin, local
churches rallied for peace..."
Their
mother whispered to the radio. "Talk about the meeting.
Talk about the meeting."
And
Jennifer turned to look at Mom, baby round cheeks, lips
pursed in a curious expression, as if to ask, What's that?
What's next?
But how can you explain that to a little girl! Rubin was
old enough to know that something was next, and it was
always bad.
"Mom!"
he asked. "Is there gonna be a war?"
"Yes,
baby."
"Will
you be drafted?" "No."
He
turned the idea around. "Will I?"
She
looked at him in the rearview mirror and smiled. He had
said something cute, but he didn't know what it was. He
smiled back.
She'd
brought them to Threadgill's again for a late dinner.
Rubin could see the hostess's face pull tight like they
always did when his mother asked for a table for three.
In the silence that followed, his mother kept her own
polite smile: she was the customer, she was a slim, pretty
lady; and, if it came to that, she was a lawyer. Mom explained
all this to them a hundred times, how white people were
secretly afraid of them. But they never looked afraid
to him, only angry. And while she was slim and pretty
and a lawyer, he was short and fat and a fourth grader
and he wanted to disappear. They were always the only
black people, and she was always making a stand. Easy
for her.
Mom
had turned from the hostess and smiled at Rubin and Jenny
like she'd won, then followed the hostess's clipped steps
with her own graceful ones, past the tables and the posters
and the lit-up jukebox toward the back dining room.
"No,
I think we'd like to sit in front," his mother said.
Mom's voice wasn't very big, but the hostess heard it,
and held her breath.
"Those
tables are reserved."
"All
of them?" In the hostess's silence, his mother winked
at Rubin and marched them all toward the front of the
restaurant, past the jukebox, between the tables, flashing
smiles at the white families. Rubin glanced back at the
entrance and caught the eye of a scuzzed-out woman in
a ratty coat. The woman glared at him and scratched. Even
though she had a dirty neck, a hostess was leading her
to the fancy chrome counter with a smile.
Rubin
took Jenny's hand and followed mom to the very front table,
in front of a bay window surrounded by old concert posters
and pictures of some slutty hippie lady from the sixties.
Green neon lights buzzed over the table. He helped Jenny
into her chair. "That's my good little man,"
Mom said as she settled in. The hostess slapped three
menus on the table and huffed away. A flash of wrinkled
nose from Mom like they were in on some joke together.
But he wasn't in on it.
Half
the time, she seemed to miss it, the angry stares and
the whispers. The other times she rolled in it, like,
"Look how smart I am, look what I got away with!"
She left the neighborhood every morning to go to work.
He was stuck there, surrounded by the same white kids
from the block who hated him, and he walked Jenny to school.
How was he supposed to protect her from a bunch of big
white kids? Sometimes six white boys would surround the
two of them. He couldn't fight them. He couldn't run,
not with Jenny there, and they'd catch him anyway. His
skin burned as he stood through his punishment. Today
his books were knocked down. Yesterday they punched him.
Sometimes they'd just stand there and call him names,
in front of Jenny, to remind him they were in charge,
they could do anything they wanted.
There
were days he'd drop Jenny off with her class and almost
choke as she looked back at him, helpless, her face reading,
"How can you leave me here?"
Mom
was always planting time bombs and walking away, making
the neighbors mad and sending him off to school, yelling
at his teachers and leaving him alone with them. She didn't
understand anything.
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