Blackbird Page 6

  “She’s the pastor’s daughter, Johnnie Ray.” Mrs. Johnson spoke halfway into her coffee mug. “It’s a reflection on him.” I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet, but our family and the Bakers – Cherie’s folks – are about the only black families who go to the basically white Baptist church. Most of the others go to the black church across town, but we’d just as soon go to church in the same neighborhood we live in.

  “How can he be expected to lead the church if he can’t even control his own daughter?” Mom said.

  And I so wanted to say something really snotty, like “You’d think he was having Todd Waterson’s baby” – but I didn’t. I just said “I see,” even though I didn’t, exactly. And then, just as a semi-graceful segue, I said, “So what’s for dinner?” Even though I knew.

  “Sausage ’n’ rice,” Mom said, her face brightening once we’d moved to a nice safe subject like food. “It’ll be ready at six.” Which is when we’ve had dinner every night for as long as I can remember.

  “Well, then, I guess I’ll go to my room. Nice to see you, Mrs.

  Johnson.” Mrs. Johnson said, “Nice to see you, Johnnie Ray,” and I started toward my room.

  I stopped at the living-room phone and looked up the Watersons’ number in the church directory. I called and let it ring several times before hanging up. I don’t even know what I would have said.

  Gee, kid, sorry your chick’s knocked up?

  The news about Todd and Leslie, and especially Mom and Mrs. Johnson’s attitude, took a lot of the shine off my good mood about the auditions. I thought about the fact that if they, two of the less rabid adults in town, felt that way, there were probably people in the congregation who’d want to see Todd drawn and quartered as an example to all other horny teenagers, and pretty soon I was quite depressed.

  I’m like that sometimes. Hearing about somebody else’s troubles – Todd’s or Efrem’s or the starving children in Africa – I’ll just get so depressed. Not all the time, of course, and not every bit of bad news I ever hear – heaven knows, a person could stay depressed. Just every now and then, I’ll hear something – about some baby with leukemia, or the number of times over we could kill every living soul on earth with our nuclear weapons or something – and I’ll begin to feel like life just makes no sense at all. Just none at all.

  And I’ll want to cry like a baby, or break things. Usually, though, I’ll just go to my room and listen to my stereo, a big old Magnavox mahogany cabinet model that Dad let me keep in my room after he finally broke down and bought a set of components for the living room.

  So I went to my room, threw my books on the bed, and put Court and Spark on the turntable. I sat on the floor with my back up against the cabinet and let Joni’s voice pour over me like cool honey. I figure, if you’re going to be depressed anyway, you might as well listen to Joni Mitchell.

  Chapter Five

  I was almost late to school the next day. Despite the fact that I woke up a full hour early, being so anxious about getting to school to check the bulletin board outside the Drama building. The reason why I was almost late was because I was locked in the bathroom jerking off. As I mentioned before, I get an awful lot of hard-ons, and a pretty good percentage of them seem to end up in my right hand. In other words, I jerk off quite a lot. Which bothers me sometimes, like maybe I do it too much. Johnnie Ray Rousseau, boy nympho – film at eleven. But, how much is too much? Twice a day? Five times? Ten? I’m sure Pastor Crandall would say that it’s too much if you do it at all. And some days, I actually lose count. I’ll do it in the morning before school in the bathroom, and at night against the sheets, maybe one or two quick ones in the head at school between classes. Sometimes, if I’m left alone in the house on a weekend or in the evening, I’ll do it over and over, just to see how many times I can. One Saturday, I did it twenty-two times. I finally stopped for fear I might come blood or something.

  Anyway, this morning I’d awakened from a delicious dream about me and Coach Newcomb – I always have my best dreams in the morning right before I wake up – and I continued the fantasy after my shower, sitting on the toilet seat. Coach is in just his jockstrap and I’m totally naked, and I’m standing right on his big bare feet and running my hands all over his body, and we’re kissing. And I’m really into this, stroking and stroking and licking and kissing at the air, when Mom knocks bum-bum-bum-BUM on the bathroom door.

  “Johnnie Ray, you’re gonna miss the bus if you don’t hurry up.”

  “I’m hurrying, Mother.”

  “Well, you’d better just keep on hurrying. Honestly, Johnnie Ray, I just don’t know what you could be doing all that time in the bathroom. I swear, you take longer to get ready than I do.” And her voice faded down the hall with the sound of her quick, pink-slippered footsteps. Sometimes I wonder if Mom really doesn’t know what I do in the bathroom, or if she just pretends not to know.

  Anyway, so I hurried it up. And Coach and I are really kissing now, and he’s rubbing me up and down with his big hands, and just as I was getting really, really close, I hear Mom again, yelling from the kitchen.

  “Johnnie Ray Rousseau, I want your black butt out of that bathroom, now! The bus is comin’!”

  By which time the bus wasn’t the only thing that was coming. I shot so hard it hit the opposite wall. I gathered myself together as fast as I could, wiped the sticky mess up off the wall, yanked up my Levi’s, tucked in my t-shirt, patted my hair, and emerged from the bathroom with what I hoped was an air of collected cool.

  Mom was waiting at the door with my sweatshirt, my backpack, and my lunch.

  “Baby,” she said, just dripping sarcasm, “I’m so glad you’re all right. I thought maybe you’d gone and flushed yourself down the commode.” Mom says I’m too sarcastic, which may be true, but let me tell you, I come by it honest.

  “Très drôle, Mother; you really must go on the stage.”

  “I’ll leave the play-actin’ to you, Mister Smart-Ass. Let’s see you play the part of watching the bus pulling down the street.”

  I looked out the kitchen window and saw the back of the bus chugging slowly away. And I said, “Aw, shit.” Which was a serious slip. One thing Mom does not abide is any swearing.

  “Johnnie Ray Rousseau, I will not have that kind of language used in my house, and you know it. I don’t know what some people’s mothers may put up with, and I don’t care. As long as you’re living under my roof –”

  “Mom I’m sorry I gotta go I’m sorry it won’t happen again bye Mom.” I kissed her on the cheek and bounded out the door like Arthur Lake in the Blondie movies. I lit out after the bus, the world-champion track star going for the gold, my book bag tucked under my arm and my lunch clutched in the other hand, my sneakers making a chip-chip-chip sound against the street as I ran.

  I was pretty sure I could catch the bus at the next stop; I had to catch it or I’d be late. As I gained on the big, slow vehicle, I could see faces pressed against the back window of the bus, grinning and waving and cheering me on.

  As I reached the exhaust-billowing tail end of the bus, I realized it was waiting for me. Bill the bus driver opened the doors and I climbed aboard, sweaty and huffing breaths. The kids on the bus applauded as Bill punched my bus card. Bill is one of the biggest, ugliest men I have ever seen – he had his four front upper teeth knocked out in some fight or other and never bothered to do anything about it – and he’s also, I think, just slightly retarded. But also one of the most likeable people in town. All the kids really dig the guy.

  “Wayda go, champ!” Bill grinned his snaggle-toothed grin.

  “Thank you all.” I smiled and bowed, still out of breath but every inch a star. “You’re much too kind. Ah, my public,” I said, flopping into an empty seat near the back. “How they love me.”

  Just as I sat down, I heard someone call my name from behind me. I turned to see Carolann, or rather Crystal – at least I thought it was Crystal – sitting alone in the long seat at the very back o
f the bus.

  She motioned me over.

  “Hi,” I said, and sat down next to her, and then I whispered, “Crystal?” She smiled and nodded.

  “It’s so nice to be called by my own name,” she said. “Gonna go check the bulletin board?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nervous?”

  “Little bit.” In fact, as soon as I sat down and began to catch my breath, I could feel that little tremor coming on, right on schedule. I was all but dead sure I was cast, but it didn’t matter.

  Crystal looked around the bus like a movie spy checking to see if the coast was clear. Then she leaned in close and whispered, “I’ve got something to tell you.”

  “Something else?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is it anything like what you told me yesterday?”

  “No, not really,” she said. “But it’s sort of unusual, too.” She was whispering, which was silly, noisy as it was on that bus.

  “Crystal,” I had to ask, “why me?”

  “Because …” She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “What I told you yesterday was because I wanted to tell you what I’m about to tell you now, and I didn’t want to do it pretending to be Carolann.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” she said, and she reached into her purse (this enormous old macramé monstrosity that she had no doubt made herself – I’ve made better ones myself) and pulled out a deck of cards.

  “Here,” she said, handing me the deck. “Shuffle these.”

  “This is what you had to tell me? That you’re heavily into pinochle?” “You’re really nervous,” she said. “You always joke when you’re nervous, don’t you?” Matter of fact, I do. I shuffled the cards.

  “Okay,” I said. “So I’ve shuffled the cards. So what?”

  “The top card is the jack of diamonds,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Jack of diamonds,” she repeated. “Turn it over.” I did. And it was.

  “Three of spades,” she said. Right again.

  And again. And again. And again.

  I believe she missed two out of the fifty-two.

  “I don’t suppose this is some clever illusion,” I said. I knew it wasn’t.

  “Nope.”

  “You’re psychic.”

  “Uh-huh.” She took the cards from me and began to shuffle them. “Wanna see me do it again? I usually get them all.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’m sure you’d get it this time. You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

  She smiled.

  “Is that it?” I asked her. “Just the card thing?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I know when the phone’s gonna ring before it does; I know when somebody’s gonna come over, even if they haven’t said so. That sort of thing. I’m slightly psychokinetic: I can move things, small things, nothing heavy and not very far. A couple of years ago, though, I had what they used to call poltergeist. Things used to fly around my room – dolls, teddy bears, perfume bottles. I couldn’t control it.”

  “Do you read minds? Like do you know what I’m thinking?”

  “Not really read minds. I mean, not word for word, like a textbook or something. But I can usually sense the general gist – like right now you’re not sure whether or not you believe me.” She was right about that.

  “Do you know if I got a part in the show?”

  She laughed.

  “No. I can’t see the future. I don’t have a crystal ball, either.”

  “Have you done this – had this – all your life?”

  “As far as I can remember.”

  “What about Carolann?”

  “She doesn’t have any psychic powers to speak of, as far as we can tell.”

  “Look, Crystal, it’s not like this isn’t interesting and all, because it is. But I’m still not sure why you’re letting me in on all this.”

  “Well, like I said yesterday, I wanted to tell somebody. Some days

  I feel like I’m gonna burst if I don’t tell somebody. And you know what I mean.”

  I felt a funny little quiver when she said that. Like she knew something.

  “And,” she continued, “I had a feeling you could deal with it.

  Besides, I think you might have it, too.” She finished with a little nod of her head.

  “Who, me?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “it’s just a feeling. Listen: don’t you sometimes feel like you know just what a person’s really feeling, even if they’re saying something else?”

  “Well, sure, but –”

  “And I bet you have really strong hunches, like intuition. Like you have a feeling about something, and later you find out you were right. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “See, I can tell you’re a very sensitive person. And that’s all ESP really is; it’s just heightened sensitivity. And you’re a lot more sensitive than most guys. Than most girls, even. Maybe it has something to do with your being gay.”

  I swear, my heart stopped for a second. I looked around the bus really fast, wondering if anybody had heard her.

  “God bless it! Who told you that?” I couldn’t believe Cherie would have told anybody, and Skipper had sworn he wouldn’t.

  “Nobody told me,” Crystal said, a little satisfied smile on her face. “I just know. I only mentioned it to get your attention. Worked, didn’t it?”

  “All right, so it worked. And what else do you know?”

  “I know you’re strung out over Skipper Harris.” My mouth must have fallen open a mile. Crystal shrugged. “You don’t have to be psychic to figure that one out. Just observant.”

  “Shit.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to blab it all over town or anything.

  After all, it’s not as if you don’t have the goods on me, right? Anyway, the point is I think you’ve got it, too.”

  “Got what, too?” I was stalled back at “something to do with your being gay.”

  “ESP, of course.”

  “I don’t know, Crystal. Hunches and stuff are one thing, but it’s not as if I’m forever moving things with my mind or anything.”

  “I’m telling you you’ve got the basic power – maybe not as much as me, but I know you’ve got it. Almost everybody has some, and you’ve got more than the average, I’m sure of it. It’s just a matter of exercising it. Building it up. Like those arms of yours.” She took a playful poke at my biceps.

  “Look,” she said, “why doncha just try the cards, okay?” She gave the deck a quick shuffle. “Don’t go for the suits or anything yet – just black or red.”

  And I thought, what have I got to lose?

  Well, the upshot is that I got better than half of them right, but I know enough about averages to know that didn’t mean diddly.

  “Not statistically significant,” Crystal said, slipping the deck back into its box. “But, after all, we are on a bus full of people, and your mind’s distracted – I could tell that, it’s like a mob scene in there.”

  She tapped the top of my head. By this point, the bus was pulling into school.

  “Are you gonna do independent study third period today?” she asked.

  “I could.”

  “Good. I’ll meet you in the library, then. Much better atmosphere. If Carolann’s there, just ask for me.” She tucked the cards back into her purse, and the thought crossed my mind that it might be a trick deck.

  “You can bring your own deck tomorrow,” Crystal said, a rather smug little smile on her face, which immediately made me feel like a fool just for thinking it.

  We got off the bus, and I waved over my shoulder at Crystal and quick-stepped across campus toward the Drama bungalow, my chest gulping breaths, my head nearly bursting with thoughts and eagerness and anxiety. Mornings tend to be cold here, even in the spring. The morning air was icy (and so was the grass: it crunched softly beneath my sneakers
as I crossed the football field, like walking on Rice Krispies); it made my chest hurt just to breathe. I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt over my head and pulled the drawstrings tight around my face.

  As I approached the bungalow, I could see Skipper standing to one side of it, reading the cast list. He was the only person there. By the time I reached the building, Skipper had turned away from the bulletin board. When he saw me, his face fell halfway to the ground; then he forced his lips to smile, and waved in my direction.

  “Hey, buddy,” he called to me. He jerked his head toward the board. “Just readin’ the body count.”

  And I knew. I hadn’t been cast. I knew it as surely as I knew it was Tuesday morning and my name was Rousseau and it was cold outside. Even before Skipper said, “Hey buddy, I’m really sorry. You should have been cast. You gave the best reading of anybody. Everybody knows that.” Skipper put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Yeah, well” – I did my best what-the-hey shrug – “I guess –” And my voice broke, and my eyes pitched a short fit of blinking. Skipper, obviously at a loss for what to do in the extremely probable event that I started crying, took this as his cue to skidoo.

  “I gotta go, buddy. I’m really sorry. I’ll see you in the choir room, okay?” he said real fast, and hurried away from me, his feet crunching against the icy grass on the football field.

  Finally, I looked up at the cast sheet. I checked the bottom of the list first. Lo and behold, there it was: “Student director – Johnnie Ray Rousseau.” Then I looked at the cast list itself. Jenny was cast.

  And Kathleen. Skipper, of course, and Paul. When I saw the names of the other two guys, I couldn’t believe it. Les Needels and Carter Murphree. Carter Murphree, who’d given one of the worst auditions in the history of the theater. Who couldn’t act his way out of a wet paper bag.

  Suddenly, I felt something go twang inside me. It seemed nearly audible, like the harp string that breaks in The Cherry Orchard. I began to tremble from head to foot, and it wasn’t from the cold.

  It was one of those times when my life seemed most like a movie. Only I was neither the writer nor the director of this scene. I was the actor, and strangely, the audience. I watched with a mixture of surprise and calm as I marched up the wooden steps of the bungalow and threw open the door with such force that it flew to the wall and locked wide open against the doorstop.