NYU Black Renaissance Noire NYU Black Renaissance Noire Vol 17.2: Fall 2017 | Page 10
Two older men in loose jogging outfits
shuffled past, re-summarizing for the
world last night’s professional football
game. “He shoulda called a pass play,”
one said.
“They shoulda fired the sonofabitchin’
coach last year, when they had the
chance, “the other said.
“Dumb money.” They moved on, each
one raising a hand to the heavens to
emphasize a point. One was oblivious
to the back of a trouser cuff caught
in the top of his argyle sock. Loss of
style as a forgiven price of aging? I
wondered.
After a pause the woman coughed,
then spat to one side. She had been
talking quietly to herself, and I caught
only the word “daughter.” Then: “Yes, I
was something else, sugar. I’ll get back
to my body story later. I could sing,
too, I want you to know. Perfect pitch
they call it. Watch.”
“High C,” she said. “Perfect every time.”
I nodded, not knowing a C from a G,
but I would remember the effect on
the witnesses at the lake during that
early afternoon.
“But the years fly by,” she said. She
sniffed and scraped a fingernail near
a mole just above one corner of her
mouth. “The voice stays longer than
the legs and hips. I got offers to do
scary films — stupid shit with hardly
no clothes on. You know, strapped
down and some guy with wild hair
standing over me, slobbering like crazy
and bats flying everywhere. You know,
stuff like that. Everything that you, a
stranger, a dude I don’t know, couldn’t
even imagine.”
And what could I imagine about this
woman stranger in her younger days?
From her talk I should imagine her
fitting into a sequined sheath dress with
slits on each side. My last girlfriend
could do it so easily. I might be forced
to imagine her nude on a polar bear
rug in some crude imitation of a
Playboy centerfold — looking dreamily
into the camera, her mole apparent,
on her side a thigh raised, exposing a
fist of pubic hair, a smile brighter than
headlights two feet away. And yet, seen
up close, she had the skin smoother
looking than most women I had ever
seen. I wanted to touch her arm with
two fingers. If I were a photographer,
how would I show off such skin, the
skin of a poor woman? Yet how come
“poor”? She could be an eccentric with
thousands of worn bills stacked and
bound by rubber bands in shoe boxes
or in Mason jars buried in shallow
graves in land willed to her in north
Georgia. She could be anyone I could
never imagine in a million years. All
I know is this skin and this voice and
this quick tour of her life’s map. But
what might she care to know of me?
After all, she must know there is more
than one story here. I would bide my
time. I pressed on.
“Sounds like you have done a lot,” I
said. “More than even you could have
ever imagined from….where you say
you’re from?”
“Troy, Ohio. Itty bitty town between
Dayton and Union City.”
“I’m from Indiana, close by. Small town.
We got our stories, too.”
She blew out cigarette smoke. “Folks
just don’t know. Stor