"all stories are true":
"a voice foretold"

John Wideman's short story is inspired by my story in American Pictures, James and Barbara's love which can be read here.

John Edgar Wideman is a black author who taught in Univ. of Massachusetts from 1986, when I often had lectures there and when they were seen by James Baldwin and my friend Michael Thelwell.

I don't know if John Wideman saw my slide show, since he imagines that I smell which in my busy traveling my students sometimes complained about to my black agent :-)

But certainly he read my book, which apparently both fascinates him and annoys him.

His annoyance and the title could come from the fact that his own son was named Jacob and right at that time got a life sentence for a murder just as his most well-known book "Brothers and keepers" is about his own brother serving a life sentence for murder.

*The title and other italicized lines in the text are from a section called (Prayer) in The Gospel at Colonus, a black musical play adapted by Lee Bruer and Bob Telson from various translations of Sophocles.

"a voice foretold"

 

I follow the photographer up the stairs. He is a white boy from another country, with a braided beard down to his navel. I try not to hate him as we climb, one flight and then another and another, stopping on each landing to catch a breath where the narrow stairwell opens two directions to flats on either side.

He smells as if he sleeps in his clothes, so I keep my distance batting up narrow steps behind him, wondering if someone loves him and how long it takes to get past the stink, if stink still stinks after you live with it and you're part of what's high and rotten in his clownish drawers. He clanks. Like he's wearing armor under his baggy shirt and baggy pants. The strap of his camera is beaded many bright colors - cherry red, blue, yellow, black, green. A Native American design I think, the heads of snakes or fish or birds repeated. And we are single file, Indian style. Barely room for that up these steps. One, two, three landings, where we pause and listen, count to ourselves so we don't make a mistake.

A deep sigh on each floor, a heartbeat's where scarred, unnumbered doors are sealed tight. October, but summer heat's still bottled up inside the building. Old heat. Ripe heat. I remember the stifling basements of my childhood, carrying my brothers' and sisters' dirty diapers down into the cellar to soak them in tin tubs, wet wash hanging, the funky skins of dead animals I had to duck and drag my face through. Ammonia smell so strong my eyes watered.

Sweat dripping as soon as I begin wringing the diapers. I hope I'll be surprised on one of these floors by the odors of good food cooking. Somebody's dinner simmering to drown out the stink. His. Mine. All the bodies that have penetrated the front door and pounded up these steps, scuffing off layers of skin that decompose and hover in the hot air.

The photographer's my guide because he's the one who first thought of coming here, questioned the little boys on the front stoop who shook their heads, each head crowned with a different hippy-dip cap, no, they didn't know what shooting he was talking about here in this building, but pointed across the street where two dudes was wasted last week.

No. No. Here. On floor number five. In this building, where it turns out one of the boys lives, but they don't know. They forget the photographer instantly, busy again with each others' eyes, gestures.

One smiles, giggles. His hand flies up to cover his mouth. Then they are perfect see no, hear no, speak no evil monkeys, frozen on the steps till the weather of this strange white man passes. Among the things they don't see is me, invisible, trailing behind him.

He is killed here. They shoot Lester on floor five. You live here and know nothing?

Huh uh. They don't know nothing, mister, and dropped their eyes as if they're ashamed of him for asking again.

The photographer's a tall ship listing, swaying, sea-smacked, driven by crazy winds. He's my leader. A rock I want to squeeze till blood runs out. He knew about this place, about the murder here. Now, because of him, I know. Proof in his pictures. The picture book/diary I began to leaf through, then couldn't let go, needed to squeeze till the blood ran out.

He asks the boys if they want their picture taken. Without answering they draw together in a pose. For the mirror of the camera they make themselves sullen old men, dare it to come one inch closer. Before I can warn them, he's snapped, click, click, click. He thanks them, waves good-bye and bounds past them into the dark vestibule.

Should I believe what he says? That he hitchhikes north and south, east and west, crisscrossing the country without a penny in his pocket, somehow managing to eat, find places to sleep, buy film for his camera. By any and all means possible. Dependent on the goodness, the evil in his fellowmen. Vagabonding, the photographer calls it. Like ancient, raggedy Oedipus with his swollen feet wandering the land, seeking sanctuary. How long has he been on the road? His funk says years. A lifetime ripening.

When a car stops for me I get in. No matter who is driver. How many in car. If they stop, I get in. Rich, poor, young, old, man, woman, black, white. All stop. With all I ride. Sometime they offer smoke, drink, food, maybe place to stay few days. I take. Sometime they ask me to do things. Some things not so nice, but I do what they ask. You know, man. Saves trouble, man. You know. Not always so nice. Maybe not what I want, but I survive. I am still here. I learn much about your country this way.

But this is not a story about him. His Ingmar Bergman accent, the black lilt, slur, lisp, and dance he mimics in his speech, his walk. That I mimic now. His American Pictures brought me here. I'm behind him. In his debt. I try not to hate that either. He swaggers the way he may think Buddy Bolden or Big Bill Broonzy swaggered, but he is a pirate ship with the blues, patched canvas, filthy rigging, rotten wood, a shabby thief lurking, tilting, as if this stairwell is a secret cove from which he can pounce on his prey.

Mounting the stairs, I come to a busted window that allows me a view down to the air shaft's pit where garbage is heaped. On top of the refuse a snow of newspapers bleached white as bone. Is the debris thick enough to cushion a fall from this height? From heaven?

I, too, am seeking sanctuary, a resting place, my father's house. Pity a man's poor carcass and his ghost/For Oedipus is not the strength he was. This building, these stairs are in East Harlem, where the streets are gold. No one wants to stay indoors in the summer. But even in the sweet heat, if you listen, you can hear winter swirling beneath the sidewalks. A woman imprisoned under asphalt wailing, scratching, refusing to die until she climbs out and faces those who've consumed her children's flesh. Her eyes say she'll survive as long as it takes, and when she emerges into the light of day, she'll ask no questions, take no prisoners.

At last we reach the apartment the photographer brought me here to see. Corinne and Lester's place, gaping open and empty now. I notice bullet holes right away. Like gigantic nails have been ripped from the plaster. No bloodstains. No other visible signs of violence. Just the palpable emptiness of a lived-in space that has been recently, suddenly vacated. Not quite as empty as it seemed at first glance. I imagine other tenants sorting through Corinne and Lester's possessions, tossing what's useless out the apartment's one window. Hear the couple's things splashing in the air shaft's maw. A few items probably salvaged, clothes mainly, perhaps Corinne's saved for her by a friend, perhaps a pocked, cherrywood bureau that once belonged to the people Lester's mother worked for, dragged across the hall, jimmied down two flights of steps, maybe rabbit ears torn from atop a shattered TV before it's heaved where everything else is going. The apartment stripped nearly to the bone, except as I lean closer, adjust my reading glasses on the wings of my nose, pick through the 5 x 7 photo hungrily, with the rummage-sale connoisseurship, diligence, and studied nonchalance of the mob of neighbors looting Corinne and Lester's bullet-riddled love nest, I notice a clothes rack, one wheel and leg missing, collapsed in the corner of a closet, hangers adangle where they've slipped to an end of the pole, one of those ubiquitous kitchen chairs of bent aluminum tubing, its vinyl seat and backrest gashed, leaking grayish stuffing. On the linoleum, scattered sheets of per, miscellaneous boxes, papers too tiny to read no matter how close I get.

A thick board that must have been wedged under the knob of the front door for safety lies splintered where it landed when the cops brammed down the door. I know that's the purpose of the board because my father uses one just like it and half a dozen other contraptions to seal himself in every night. One busted screen, a radiator, a slashed blind drooling off its shaft somebody stood in a corner by the window then forgot to toss. Oh abundance. Oh sad toys. When their stuff was raining from the window the sound must have been like fire crackling in the pit.

The photographer said they were lovers. Lester and Corinne lived here two years, working together in a kosher restaurant, partying together in the Bandbox Bar and Grill. Everybody called them the Two Musketeers. If you saw one on the street you were sure to see the other. They say Corinne's grief drove her insane. Cops might as well have shot them both the night they broke open this door still crooked in its frame. A mistake. Wrong address. Shooting first. Too late for questions later. Years since the shooting and the photographer continues to make inquiries about Corinne, in the kosher restaurant, the street, questioning, when his travels bring him back to the scene of the crime, the grandmother he discovered after he learned the story and took his pictures and couldn't shake the fate of the "ghetto lovers," as he dubbed them, from his mind.

I share his hurt, his compassion, curiosity, the weight of memory he wears around his neck on a strap. Angry I needed him to find this place, this broken promise, angry to be trapped five stories up, at the threshold of the apartment where Lester and Corinne lived.

The lighting of the picture is dismal, severe and vacant as the colorless paint of interior walls and ceiling.

We remain outside, staring in. Him first, then I stand where he stood, in painted footprints, peering over his shoulder, through his skull. His shaggy mane erratically braided like the Rasta beard he wears to his waist. Neighbors sprout like a knot on a wound as soon as cops, wagon, ambulance depart. They mill about, surly, pissed-off, injured, snubbed. Is this always how love ends? They had observed only one rubber-shrouded stretcher loaded into the meat wagon. Corinne half-dressed, half-led, half-carried down. In shock, her naked legs buckling, her eyes unfocused so she stumbled rather than walked, faltering on each landing, fighting the cops who pinned her arms into theirs. Not crazy, not screaming. Her eyes dry and wild. A little scuffle, predictable after a while, on each landing, as she fought to pull away and they fought to hold her. It's as if she's forgotten something crucial, left it behind in the apartment and was remembering on each landing she must return up the stairs to get it. But the commotion lessens with each repetition. The caravan-a cop on each arm, camouflaged SWAT cops behind, uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives in the lead, nobody had ever seen so many official people all at once, no progress so elaborate as that 3:30 A.M. parade carting poor Corinne away - doesn't hesitate, doesn't change pace or direction. Down, down. Corinne sewed up tight in their midst, in their business that left absolutely no room for hers.

Mize well have shot her, too. Poor child. For all she was worth afterwards.

That black, bowlegged man was her life. When they murdered Lester, they murdered Corinne. Could have pitched her out the window for all she cared. She was dead the second them bullets stole her man. Shame to see a nice young woman like Corinne let herself go like she did. So fast, so fast. Seemed like wasn't but a couple weeks and she's walking the streets like one them pitiful bag people.

What makes it so bad they ain't never done nothing to nobody. Happy living together up in that apartment. Make you feel good when you see them on the street. One day in the prime of life. Next day those dogs come and both them children gone. People in there like roaches cleaning out the place.

I watch Corinne's screaming fill the room. Wave after wave of bullets smack her man back down on the bed. She crouches over him, shielding him. Both hands dig under his belly, trying to turn him, rouse him. She screams one last time. It rises, circles, climbs higher, takes him, takes her spirit with it, leaves her body stretched on a rack of silent mourning. Silence heavy as heat. Strong as stink. Rioting in its invisibleness. A burst of gunfire and her man's gone. Only a bloody mess left on the bed. By the time the cops snatch her off him, her screaming's over. Her grief something quiet, private she will pick up and finger the way her neighbors inspect the things that used to belong to her and Lester.

The photographer disappears inside his camera. To take its picture. A picture of its picture taking. I am alone now, facing a vacant room. I list its contents. Itemize what's missing. How had they furnished this space? A lamp. Where? Bed. Where? A table. Where? TV. Where? In two years they must have accumulated lots of stuff. New and used. Emblems of their fabled love.

After climbing many flights, pausing on many landings, I'm tired. The air feels weighted and thin. Both. Yes. Both. The steps are hard, steep, my heart heaves, pain binds my chest, sticks in my throat. I'm afraid now, with the white boy gone, everybody gone, afraid of what I'll find if I step alone into these tiny, stale, heat-choked, ransacked, death-haunted rooms. I will find my father there. And his father before him. Both alone at the end. At the top of many lonely stairs. Was this the resting place they'd suffered to find. Sanctuary at last. Portents, he said, would make me sure of this.

Have you ever heard your grandfather talk about elevators? How you ride alone in a piss-smelling box and when the door glides open you never know what will be there to greet you. Who will leap in for a joyride. What knife or gun or cruelty waits to spring on you when the door rattles open and he enters or they enter and take over the space, wild boy kings of the elevators, junkie emperors of the old folk in the senior citizens' high-rise, old folks who must ride up and down now that gimpy limbs and frail hearts are failing them, who must push buttons and pray their worst dreams will not jump into the car when the door slides back, will not be waiting in ambush when you step out and the door seals itself behind you, delivering you to your fate. Who wants to hold their breath as the elevator passes each floor, who can resist a gasp or cringe every time the car stops at night and the door sighs open. Who wants to ride with that lung-pinching terror or the terror of exposed blind-cornered outdoor walkways many stories up with only a waist-high guardrail the drugged, crazy ones will pitch you over. My father's father spent his last days in rooms like these and his son, my father, lives solitary, two floors above a shoemaker, in rooms like the ones in this photo I scan, scoured of love.

A voice foretold/Where I shall die. Think of our great cities. Towers of silk and gold and sounding brass as they rise and shimmer in the best light at the best hour of the day for photographing giant splendor and endless allure. These cities, these treasures heaped so high we must erect transparent elevator tubes, spiraling staircases to wind our way to the top, for the best view, pearly bubbles of car, gleaming, free-floating slabs of stair and banister curling, rising. We mount intricately and with awe. Up and up till we are thin as the thin air we must breathe at the mountainous heights we've achieved. Below us the fruited plain. The amber waves. Beams of light so powerful they are visible in daytime, cross and crisscross, fingers searching the sky, tracking it for signs of life, or perhaps lost themselves, programmed to describe lazy, random arcs horizon to horizon over and over again.

Think of the Lone Ranger. The clattering hooves of his mighty white stallion descending nude, hysterical, down, down the many floors, negotiating this narrow, nasty-smelling stairwell at an impossible, bone-busting gallop. And the masked man slumped half on a landing, half on the stairs, bleeding profusely from multiple wounds, every silver bullet spent, six-shooter cool in its holster, ten-gallon Stetson still stuck on his head, boots spit-shined, eyes shut behind the slits in the black cloth that camouflages his identity.

Think of endless traffic up and down the stairs, night and day, up and down, wearing out the stairs, the building, the city, the land.

Think of up and down and paths crossing and crossing roads and crossroads and traffic and what goes up must come down and heaven's gate and what goes 'round comes 'round.

Think of what is unseen till strangers come to take it away.

  Copyright © 2002  Jacob Holdt