The moves make the man, p.20
The Moves Make the Man, page 20
What does that uniform mean?
It means, little man, that I am what is called an ORDERLY. Any black man you see in this hospital is called the same thing, you dig? That is their name for nigger around here. And when you think of it, the name is not such a terrible one in a place where everyone else is either sick or playing bwana. Not bad, eh? Niggers be the secret police in charge of order! He laughed some more, very soft.
Why aren’t there any black patients? I said, looking through the window and seeing that the guy in the corner had still not remembered his important message for me.
I told you before, said the black dude. Better sense than to go all the way nuts. Dig, we are half crazy as it is, ALL the time. That’s HEALTHY. He laughed and winked, like to show he was proud of being half there himself, and said, The idea of taking it to extremes so you can treat it like malaria, that’s the white man’s.
I started to say something but I felt Bix move behind me and I spun around. I had forgotten about him for a minute and now he was walking off down the hall behind his stepfather who must have come back. I took a couple of steps, and then turned back to say good-bye to the black orderly. He was gone, vanished, almost like he had not even been there.
I hurried and caught up with Bix and his stepfather at this large doorway leading into a well-lit room. They were waiting on the edge, Bix’s stepfather with his back to the room blocking the view in. As I came up he said, Braxton, do you want me to tell her you are coming?
Bix shook his head.
All right, said the stepfather. Then he looked over at me.
I helped him out. Hey Bix, I said, if it’s okay with you I will just wait here for you. Okay?
He barely nodded.
His stepfather looked at me gratefully. Then he stooped down and said to Bix, Are you ready? Bix nodded again, barely. All right, said the man, straightening up. I’ll just go in first, and you come in just a minute.
Then he turned and walked into the room. We stepped up and stood on the edge of the dark and looked in.
It was one of those long rooms with beds on both walls and a big aisle down the middle passing by the foot of every bed. There were people on or near every bed, all dressed in white smocks. I did not look at them to see how their craziness was going, being curious instead to see Bix’s momma. Most of the people were so old I cruised right by them when checking to find her. I only had my sight of her at the baseball game, in her black dress and her hair full of wind bouncing up and down, and I almost did not recognize her when I passed my eye by her. In fact, if it had not been for the stepfather coming up beside her bed and bending over and saying something to her, I would have kept looking. She was that different.
You would have sworn this person never could have been the one at the game and done the things she was doing, jumping around and clapping and digging her boy while he played baseball. This life was so different, and she looked like she belonged here, and had never lived anywhere else.
She was lying back on her bed and looking over our way, smiling very slightly and not especially alert. Bix was watching too, and stepped into the room. Her eyes lit on him, like everybody else’s in the room, and all of them looked the same as hers and her face did not change one iota when she saw him. This gave me the quick creeps. Maybe I am wrong though, I thought—maybe I just can’t recognize her expressions.
Her hair was flat and waxy, no shine. Her face was skinny now but even so there was enough flesh to sag on the bones in it, though the color was gone from what flesh there was left. The skin around her eyes was tight, and slightly darker in color, like she had not slept for years. The eyes looked out at you and you saw they were deep, but there was nothing behind them, only just an empty room far away waiting to be filled up with whatever fell in front of the gaze. That is how it struck me, at least. To Bix I think it looked much different. After all, it was his momma. But I would never have said that person on the bed was anybody’s momma, and for sure not that she was watching her boy walk into the room.
Everybody watched him take a few slow steps. They all stopped whatever they were doing and stared, completely quiet, looking slightly curious but like they expected no answers. Bix took a few more steps and then stopped. He was almost at the foot of her bed now. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a handful of clover flowers tied together with a piece of green ribbon. They were pretty beat up, but he looked down and tried to spruce them a little bit. Then he looked back up and locked eyes with his mother and just stared at her, not moving.
What happened then was very fast and very magic, the kind of thing you don’t believe you saw and convince yourself was not so right away, but the fact is I saw it and I understood it, very clearly. Right there, on Bix’s face, like a movie run a thousand times faster than the scenes it shot, I saw him go through every one of the strange changes he had made in the past six months. His face showed every single one very clearly for just one second, BAM an expression that I could not miss as the pie in Home Ec, BAM an expression of playing bounceball alone in the dark, BAM whipping his stepfather, BAM BAM BAM, so fast that anybody else would think he was just twisting his face. I knew exactly, though I cannot say why. I recognized those twists and I saw what he was doing with them, or, better to say, what was being done to him: He was taking care of every one of those changes for the last time, and then letting them go, one by one, gone forever. BAM he felt each one twinge for the last time and it flew off him and he was free of it. So, when it was over, he was left standing there at the foot of his mother’s bed completely clean, free, and ready to start something new. He said in the car about his glove, this was always the first day, and here it was. He could now do whatever he had to.
He looked fresh and better than I ever saw him, and he felt it too, for now he beamed at his momma. They had stared at each other the whole time he went through his numbers, but her expression had not changed much, only the smile getting a bit more curious. But he smiled big now, and almost laughed he felt so good. He lifted the flowers, leaned forward on his toes to take his first step at her and you could see the word coming to his mouth and he enjoyed feeling it come, poised there about to run to her and call her Mother. But while he hung for the very last second before this, his last moment of fresh and silent, his mother opened her mouth and spoke first. Very clearly no mistaking it, in a nice calm voice, she said:
Whose little boy are you?
Whose…For a second everything froze in that room. I checked it out like I was the only one left free to look around. Bix was hanging on his toes leaning straight at her, his mouth open, his eyes right in hers. She was looking at him peaceful and expectant, smiling almost politely, and you could see that what Bix must have thought was love so strong it kept her from speaking was really plain curiosity and not very much of that, for on every face in the room, watching him, the same expression hung. The stepfather was watching Bix and he was the only person hip to what was going on, looking very worried and not sure he could do anything, which he couldn’t, any more than me.
Then things broke and went back into motion and things had to start happening now. I had just had time to see what I thought was going to happen—Bix stumbling and trying to stop, his mother confused, everybody getting wise, Bix losing everything, his momma getting just enough to go crazier than ever before, and bad thing after bad thing all because she waited to speak until he was on his way to her. I almost turned away not wanting to see it bust loose. But now I am glad I did not turn away, for I would have missed the greatest single move in history, and I would have missed my last sight of Bix too.
What Bix did was, out of nowhere, pull the fastest and completest fake possible, and pull it on thirty people instead of the usual one. Here is what he did: Just at that last tip of a moment before he fell off his toes on the run to his momma, he snapped his feet and somehow eased his body and when he came down with his weight instead of charging at his momma he angled straight off, with barely a jag, for the bed next to hers down the line, very clean, perfect, strong. His momentum took him right there and he switched his eyes right with his direction, staring with his big smile now right at this old scared woman lying on that next bed, an old thing too old to be anybody’s mother, watching him come out of the corner of her eyes and pulling her covers up under her chin, saying Oh goodness, oh oh oh. No one would have ever believed this was Bix’s momma but his move was so great he pulled it off, coming to a stop with his feet at the side of her bed, but keeping up the lunge of his body and throwing himself onto her, arms flying around her neck and squeezing her into him as he buried his face in her neck and hair and sobbed out so loud we all could hear, MOTHER MOTHER MOTHER.
Oh, the old woman said, straining her neck around to get some air as Bix squeezed her harder and the clover he had in his fist under her chin got into her mouth. Oh oh my, oh.
MOTHER, he said, from his chest, sagging onto her old body with his weight now, because his back was shaking bad and his legs could not stand him up completely as he shook and cried. MOTHER. He shook and squeezed and pulled at the old woman, pressing her and boring his head into her neck. She wrung her neck around and her eyes spun scared like a dog hit by a car.
Everybody else thought this was just wonderful, including Bix’s mother behind him. Every one of the patients watched this beautiful reunion with big smiles, and they nodded every time Bix sobbed MOTHER and looked quick at each other like they all were so glad to know things were so right. Bix’s mother was gladder than anyone else, for she was the first one to speak.
Look, she said to her husband beside her, look—he loves his mommy.
Yes, said the man.
Oh my goodness, said the old woman, as Bix jerked at her and wailed into her neck.
But Hazel does not recognize him, said Bix’s momma. She frowned a little. It’s sad, you see.
Yes, said the stepfather.
Oh, said Hazel, hands plucking, neck wringing. Bix sobbed more slowly now, running out of it.
It’s…see? said his mother, frowning, getting unsure. He loves her…But her voice changed a little when she said it and she broke off frowning deeper, with a question in her somewhere all of a sudden. Bix heard the change, and he reacted. He swallowed his crying down, and shook off the shakes, and took a deep breath pulling away from Hazel’s neck. Hazel did not jerk away but just lay there watching from the corner of her eyes, not at all sure it was ending. Bix left his hands on her as he stood up, slowly, straightening himself up all the way, but keeping his back to his mother completely. Hazel plucked and pulled at her covers but said nothing. Bix’s mother was watching, but frowning and puzzling now.
Bix looked down at Hazel. She watched, scared, whispering Oh oh very faint like if he did not hear her he would go away. But he reached his hands out and took her face in them, and he bent straight at the waist and gave her a big long gentle kiss on her face. Then he stood up straight again, dropped his hands back to his side and said, in a clear voice everyone could hear: Good-bye, Mother.
Nobody said a word. He stood for a second. Everybody watched him. Then, very slightly, keeping his back to his mother, never giving her another look at his face, he turned and walked up the lane beside Hazel’s bed and out into the aisle. His head was turned away from the direction he came, and I could barely see the edge of it. He hung for just a second there at the foot of the bed, looking down the aisle the other way to the far end, and then he turned very neatly and started walking there. I looked past him and saw a door just like the one I was standing in. He was going away.
Still nobody spoke. We all watched and listened to his steps, very even and slow. He kept himself straight and walked directly down the middle. As he passed each foot of the bed, each person gaped at him and then watched his back, turning their head slowly as he moved on. He was probably halfway there the first time his mother spoke.
But…he is going, she said, shaking her head like she knew somehow this was not the way it should be. Bix hesitated for a half step when he heard her but he did not turn around. He even picked up the pace a little. It was a race, after all. He had the moves but she was thinking as fast as she could, frowning and rubbing her face and looking very intelligent indeed just then, no craziness but just someone feeling a very delicate mistake deep somewhere and going through everything until it is found. Her husband stood there looking down at her and then up at Bix’s back as he moved further away. The dude could do nothing—he could not help her remember or help her forget, and probably he was not sure which he wanted her to do anyway. He just looked back and forth, wondering like me and like Bix if the kid would make that door before it hit.
There is…She shook her head hard and mumbled like to get dirt out of a shoe. It did not help. She was not there yet. But Bix almost was. He was just passing the last bed.
All of a sudden, just as he pulled even with the last edge and had ten more feet of open floor, something happened. An old crazy person, so wrinkled and flat you could not tell man or woman, jumped out from behind the bed and stood smack in his way, grinning scary and eyes wild, holding out both arms like to grab the boy and hold him there forever. I went tight and cold because I knew he had no time left and now I wanted him to make it, and he would not. This old crazy would snag him and it would all break open and fly loose.
But Bix took care of it, this was nothing compared to the move he was pulling, nothing at all—he snapped a quick head fake at the old thing and the crazy went for it, jumping to the left and reaching with the arms, but by then Bix had stepped past and now he was in the doorway and the old person leaned on its bed and was the only one in the room not staring at Bix’s back, straight and small in the doorway.
He stood there for two seconds. I don’t know if he was waiting to see if she would get it and call him back at the last second, or if he was just giving us our chance to say good-bye, but that is just what I did. I stood straight in the dark on my side of my doorway, and I held up my hand and said See you, Bix, in a whisper nobody heard but me. As soon as I had said it, and as soon as his mother shook her head harder than ever and put her hands over her eyes, he slipped off to the side so quick I could not say which way he went. He was gone. It was good-bye to Braxton Rivers the Third.
One minute there was Bix and the next there was not. I suddenly remembered myself, and I felt myself there, standing alone in the dark just outside a door to a room full of crazy people. Watching Bix until he vanished—that is just what I always did, wasn’t it? I stood outside Bix’s door where it was a little crazy inside and I watched. Man, when I thought of it there like that, I hurt. I felt like for the first time in my life I had failed at something. For the first time, there was a thing I could not get just by trying hard and wanting it—I could not get into Bix. I could watch, like everybody else. I could squeeze into every space in his life I saw, and pay every bit of attention, and always be there for him to see if he ever looked around, but he did not. In some ways the dude was not born with eyes, but was like a bat, feeling everything by vibration and reacting to things we could not see, spinning and stopping and sidestepping like there were ghosts in between us people.
I hurt especially bad because I had to stand there and watch Bix pull off his finest number, and I could not be close to him or part of it. For that move he pulled on his mother and the crazies, that was not just another weird spot of jiving. It was the best thing Bix had tried to do since I knew him. It did not work perfectly, it was maybe not completely right if you had time now to think it all out, but at the heart he had tried to save everyone some pain.
It was good he was quick. He did not beat his mother by much. As soon as he was gone she commenced to shake her head harder and harder and make little half words in her throat, holding her hands to her mouth, eyes smart and racing. Then all of a sudden she stopped moving completely. Her face went long, her hands dropped. Her eyes saw it all right there at the foot of her bed and her mouth fell open and strained to say the name. She jerked up in bed and whipped her eyes at the door he had gone through and she got it all, but too late, the name coming last, but she had it now and she cut loose with it in the wildest scream I have ever heard, BIIIXXXXX. She threw out her arms at the door and leaned her face to it and shrieked it, BIIIIIXXXXX BIIIIIIXXXXX. All the patients fell back into their pillows and a few even wailed scared but she was clear now and she even knew she was too late. BIIIIXXXX she screamed like someone was killing her, and she decided to follow him and thrashed her arms and legs out of the covers, BIIIIXXXX BIIIIIXXXX BIIIIXXXX, wild and fast flinging herself out of the tangle of sheets. But her husband decided to stop her and grabbed at her to hold her on the bed. BIIIIXXXXX. She turned completely wild when she felt him grab her, throwing her arms out at the door and then whirling them backwards and out to the sides, swinging her legs hard up and out, twisting and bucking and snarling and whipping every part of herself as far as she could, till you could see he could not hold her and so I ran in to help.
She was screaming so loud I clapped my hands over my ears at first but forced them down so I could grab her, blinking there while her things snapped around me and not knowing what to go for. I made a snatch at her left arm but I did not go rough enough for she jerked it away and I chased it, falling across her just as she cut loose with a BIIIIIXXXX against my ear and I fell back with my hands up to my head. This was a mistake. Her left knee whipped back and caught me in the ribs, knocking my breath out, and I dropped my hands to my stomach, only one second before her left arm whipped back from where I chased it and the elbow smacked me full force right between the eyes. That was all for Jerome.
It knocked me back off the bed flat against the wall and I cracked my head hard backwards. For a second everything fizzed and went silent and white, then I got my sight back in time to see three worried dudes running over in green pajamas though not the black dude, and two of them had big leather belts and the other had a shot needle. My hearing did not come back all the way though, for the last thing I heard was BIIIIIXXXX but fading like I was speeding away quite fast. I felt myself sliding down the wall and thought I would never hit bottom, and on the way down everything just went white on me.
