Truman and Lynne: They had a borrowed motorcycle. And on dusky evenings would go zooming down the back roads, the dust powdery and damp on their faces. She wore a helmet, her long hair caught up in back, wisps of it straying across her eyes, slinging itself across her mouth. She held him around the waist and felt his ribs strain against the wind. Through the puffy jacket his body felt fat and thin at the same time. Riding the motorcycle was dangerous because of the whiteness of her face, but at dusk they passed in a blur. At night they were more clear.
To Lynne, the black people of the South were Art. This she begged forgiveness for and tried to hide, but it was no use. To her eyes, used to Northern suburbs where every house looked sterile and identical even before it was completely built, where even the flowers were uniform and their nicknames were already in dictionaries, the shrubs incapable of strong odor or surprise of shape, and the people usually stamped with the seals of their professions; to her, nestled in a big chair made of white oak strips, under a quilt called The Turkey Walk, from Attapulsa, Georgia, in a little wooden Mississippi sharecropper bungalow that had never known paint, the South--and the black people living there--was Art. The songs, the dances, the food, the speech. Oh! She was such a romantic, so in love with the air she breathed, the honeysuckle that grew just beyond the door.
"I will pay for this," she often warned herself. "It is probably a sin to think of a people as Art." And yet, she would stand perfectly still and the sight of a fat black woman singing to herself in a tattered yellow dress, her voice rich and full of yearning, was always--God forgive her, black folks forgive her--the same weepy miracle that Art always was for her.
Truman had had enough of the Movement and the South. But not Lynne. Mississippi--after the disappearance of the three Civil Rights workers in 1964--began to beckon her. For two years she thought of nothing else: If Mississippi is the worst place in America for black people, it stood to reason, she thought, that the Art that was their lives would flourish best there. Truman, who had given up his earlier ambition to live permanently in France, wryly considered Mississippi a just alternative. And so a little over two years after the bodies--battered beyond recognition, except for the colors: two white, one black--of Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner were found hidden in a backwoods Neshoba County, Mississippi, dam, Lynne and Truman arrived.
Of Bitches and Wives
HIS FEELINGS FOR LYNNE had been undergoing subtle changes for some time. Yet it was not until the shooting of Tommy Odds in Mississippi that he noticed these changes. The shooting of Tommy Odds happened one evening just as he Truman, Tommy Odds and Trilling (a worker from Oklahoma since fled and never seen again) were coming out of the door of the Liberal Trinity Baptist Church. There had been the usual meeting with songs, prayers and strategy for the next day's picketing of downtown stores. They had assumed, also, that guards had been posted; not verifying was their mistake. As they stepped from the church and into the light from an overhanging bulb on the porch, a burst of machine-gun fire came from some bushes across the street. He and Trilling jumped off the sides of the steps. Tommy Odds, in the middle, was shot through the elbow.
When he went to visit Tommy Odds in the hospital he thought, as the elevator carried him to the fourth floor, of how funny it would be when the two of them talked about the frantic jump he and Trilling made. "You know one thing," he was going to say, laughing, to Tommy Odds, "you're just one slow nigger." Then they would wipe the tears of laughter from their eyes and open the bottle of Ripple he had brought. But it had not gone that way at all. First of all, Tommy Odds was not resting up after a flesh wound, as earlier reports had said; he had lost the lower half of his arm. He was propped up in bed now with a clear fluid dripping from a bottle into his other arm. But his horrible gray coloring, his cracked bloodless lips, his gazed eyes, were nothing compared to the utter lack of humor apparent in his face. Impossible to joke, to laugh, without tearing his insides to shreds.
Yet Truman had tried. "Hey, man!" he said, striding across the room with his bottle of Ripple under his arm. "Look what I brought you!" But Tommy Odds did not move his head or his eyes to follow him across the room. He lay looking at a spot slightly above the television, which was high in one corner of the room.
"Lynne says hurry up and get your ass out of here," he continued. "When you get out of here we gon' party for days."
"Don't mention that bitch to me, man," Tommy Odds said.
"What you say?"
"I said"--Tommy Odds turned his head and looked at him, moving his lips carefully so there would be no mistake--"don't mention that bitch to me. Don't mention that white bitch."
"Wait a minute, man," Truman stammered in surprise, "Lynne had nothing to do with this." And yet, while he was saying this, his tongue was slowed down by thoughts that began twisting like snakes through his brain. How could he say Lynne had nothing to do with the shooting of Tommy Odds, when there were so many levels at which she could be blamed?
"All white people are motherfuckers," said Tommy Odds, as listlessly but clearly as before. "I want to see them destroyed. I could watch their babies being torn limb from limb and I wouldn't lift a finger. The Bible says to dash out the brains of your enemy's children on the rocks. I understand that shit, now."
At this level, Truman thought, sinking into a chair beside his friend, is Lynne guilty? That she is white is true. That she is therefore a killer, evil, a motherfucker--how true? Not true at all! And yet--
"Man, all I do is think about what these crackers did with my motherfucking arm," said Tommy Odds.
"You want me to find out?"
"No, I guess not."
By being white Lynne was guilty of whiteness. He could not reduce the logic any further, in that direction. Then the question was, is it possible to be guilty of a color? Of course black people for years were "guilty" of being black. Slavery was punishment for their "crime." But even if he abandoned this search for Lynne's guilt, because it ended, logically enough, in racism, he was forced to search through other levels for it. For bad or worse, and regardless of what this said about himself as a person, he could not--after his friend's words--keep from thinking Lynne was, in fact, guilty. The thing was to find out how.
"I'm sorry, man," said Tommy Odds. "I shouldn't have come down on your old lady that way."
"It's okay, man, no sweat," Truman mumbled, while his thoughts continued to swirl up, hot and desperate. It was as if Tommy Odds had spoken the words that fit thoughts he had been too cowardly to entertain. On what other level might Lynne, his wife, be guilty?
"It's just that, you know, white folks are a bitch. If I didn't hate them on principle before, I hate them now for personal and concrete reasons. I've been thinking and thinking, lying here. And what I've thought is: Don't nobody offer me marching and preaching as a substitute for going after those jokers' balls."
Was it because she was a white woman that Lynne was guilty? Ah, yes. That was it. Of course. And Truman remembered one night when he and Tommy Odds and Trilling and Lynne had gone to the Moonflower cafe for a sandwich. They shouldn't have done it, of course. They had been warned against it. They knew better. But there are times in a person's life when to risk everything is the only affirmation of life. That night was such a time. What had they been celebrating? Oh, yes. Tommy Odds's niggers-on-the-corner:
For months Tommy Odds had hung out every Saturday evening at the pool hall on Carver Street, talking and shooting pool. He had been playing with the niggers-on-the-corner for almost a month before he ever opened his mouth about the liberating effects of voting. At first he had been hooted down with shouts of "Man, I don't wanna hear that shit!" and "Man, let's keep this a clean game!" But the good thing about Tommy Odds was his patience. At first he just shut up and worked out with his cue. But in a few days, he'd bring it up again. By the end of the first month his niggers-on-the-corner liked him too much not to listen to him. At the end of three months they'd formed a brigade called "The Niggers-on-the-Corner-Voter-Machine." It was
through them that all the derelicts, old grandmamas and grandpas and tough young hustlers and studs, the prostitutes and even the boozy old guy who ran the pool hall registered to vote in the next election. And on this particular Saturday night they decided to celebrate at the Moonflower, a greasy hole-in-the-wall that still had "Whites Only" on its door.
The food was so bad they had not been able to eat it. But they left in high spirits, Lynne giggling about the waitress's hair that was like a helmet made of blonde foil. But as they walked down the street a car slowly followed them until, turning down Carver Street, they were met by some of Tommy Odds's NOTC, who walked them to safety in front of the pool hall. After that night he and Lynne were careful not to be seen together. But since Lynne was the only white woman in town regularly seen only with black people, she was easily identified. He had not thought they would be, too.
So for that night, perhaps Lynne was guilty. But why had she been with them? Had she invited herself? No. Tommy Odds had invited them both to his little party. Even so, it was Lynne's presence that had caused the car to follow them. So she was guilty. Guilty of whiteness, as well as stupidity for having agreed to come.
Yet, Lynne loved Tommy Odds, she admired his NOTC. It was Lynne who designed and sewed together those silly badges that they wore, that gave them so much pride.
"What do NOTC mean?" asked the old grandmamas who were escorted like queens down the street to the courthouse.
"Oh, it mean 'Not Only True, but Colored,'" the hustlers replied smoothly. Or, "Not on Time, but Current," said the prostitutes to the old grandpas, letting the old men dig on their cleavage. Or, "Notice of Trinity, with Christ," the pool sharks said to the religious fanatics, who frowned, otherwise, on pool sharks.
So Lynne was guilty on at least two counts; of being with them, and of being, period. At least that was how Tommy Odds saw it. And who was he to argue, guilty as he was of loving the white bitch who caused his friend to lose his arm?
Thinking this, he shot up from his chair by the bed as if from an electric shock. The bottle of Ripple slipped from his fingers and crashed to the floor.
"Just don't tell me you done wasted the wine," said Tommy Odds, groaning. "I was just working myself up for a taste."
"I'll bring another bottle," Truman said, getting towels from the bathroom and mopping up. He cut his finger on a piece of glass and realized he was trembling. When he'd put the wastebasket outside the door for the janitor he looked back at Tommy Odds. Some small resemblance of his friend remained on the bed. But he could feel the distance that already separated them. When he went out that door they would both be different. He could read the message that Tommy Odds would not, as his former friend, put into words. "Get rid of your bitch, man." That was all.
Getting rid of a bitch is simple, for bitches are dispensable. But getting rid of a wife?
He had read in a magazine just the day before that Lamumba Katurim had gotten rid of his. She was his wife, true, but apparently she was even in that disguise perceived as evil, a castoff. And people admired Lamumba for his perception. It proved his love of his own people, they said. But he was not sure. Perhaps it proved only that Lamumba was fickle. That he'd married his bitch in the first place for shallow reasons. Perhaps he was considering marrying a black woman (as the article said he was) for reasons just as shallow. For how could he state so assuredly that he would marry a black woman next when he did not appear to have any specific black woman in mind?
If his own sister told him of her upcoming marriage to Lamumba he would have to know some answers before the nuptial celebration. Like, how many times would Lamumba require her to appear on television with him, or how many times would he parade her before his friends as proof of his blackness.
He thought of Randolph Kay, the Movie Star, who also shucked his white bitch wife, to black applause. But now Randolph Kay and his shiny new black wife had moved into the white world completely, to the extent of endorsing the American bombing of civilian targets in Vietnam. Randolph Kay, in fact, now sang love songs to the President! But perhaps it was perverse of him to be so suspicious. Perhaps, after all, he was just trying to cover up his own inability to act as decisively and to the public order as these men had done. No doubt these were great men, who perceived, as he could not, that to love the wrong person is an error. If only he could believe it possible to love the wrong person he would be home free. As it was, how difficult hating his wife was going to be. He would not even try.
But of course he had.
There was a man he despised, whose name was Tom Johnson. Tom had lived with a white woman for years, only most people didn't know about it. He shuttled her back and forth from his house to a friend's house down the street. Whenever he had important guests, Margaret was nowhere to be found. She was waiting at their friend's house. She was a fleshy blonde, with big tits and a hearty laugh. Once he asked Tom-- who was thinking of running for political office--why he didn't marry her. Tom laughed and said, "Boy, you don't understand anything yet. Margaret is a sweet ol' thing. We been living together in harmony for five years. But she's white. Or hadn't you noticed?" Tom had reached out a chubby hand to bring Truman's head close to his own and his small eyes danced. "It's just a matter of pussy. That's all. Just a matter of my personal taste in pussy." And then he had pulled Truman's head even closer and said with conspiratorial glee, "It's good stuff. Want some?"
"I used to believe that--" he had begun, but Tom cut him off.
"This is war, man, war! And all's fair that fucks with the sucker's minds!"
Then he had begun to see them together. Not in public, but with small groups of men, in the back rooms of bars. Margaret could play poker and he liked to see her when she won. She jumped up, squealing, in her small-girl voice, her big tits bouncing at the top of her low-cut blouse, and all the men looked at her tolerantly, in amusement, their curiosity about her big body already at rest. After what Tom had told him this did not surprise him: the exhibition of her delight in winning, the men's amused solidarity, their willingness to share her in this position of secrecy. And Margaret? Those squeals of delight--what did she feel? Or was it unmanly, un-black now, even to care, to ask?
When the community center was built, he began painting a mural of the struggle along one wall. The young men who would use the center for dances, Ping-Pong, card games, etc., were building tables and chairs. They were a shy, sweet bunch, country boys and naive as possible, who were literally afraid of white women. Their first meeting with Lynne had been comic. Nobody wanted to be seen talking to her alone, and even as a group they would only talk to her from a distance. She could, just by speaking to them and walking up to them as she spoke, force them back twenty yards. This shamed him now as he thought of Tommy Odds.
Why should they be afraid of her? She was just a woman. Only they could not see her that way. To them she was a route to Death, pure and simple. They felt her power over them in their bones; their mothers had feared her even before they were born. Watching their fear of her, though, he saw a strange thing: They did not even see her as a human being, but as some kind of large, mysterious doll. A thing of movies and television, of billboards and car and soap commercials. They liked her hair, not because it was especially pretty, but because it was long. To them, length was beauty. They loved the tails of horses.
Against this fear, Lynne used her considerable charm. She baked cookies for them, allowed them to drink wine in her house, and played basketball with them at the center. Jumping about in her shorts, tossing her long hair, she laughed and sweated and shouted and cursed. She forced them to like her.
But while this building of trust and mutual liking was coming into being, the Movement itself was changing. Lynne was no longer welcome at any of the meetings. She was excluded from the marches. She was no longer allowed to write articles for the paper. She spent most of her time in the center or at home. The boys, unsure now what their position as young black men should be, remained inexplicably loyal. They came to visit her, b
ringing news she otherwise would not have heard. For Truman too was under pressure of ostracism from the group, and though he remained a member of all Movement discussions it was understood he would say nothing to his wife.
The New York Times
HE HAD GONE TO Meridian three years after he married Lynne, driving across from Mississippi to a small town in Alabama where Meridian, at that time, lived. She had still owned a few possessions then, and was teaching in a Freedom school and keeping rather than burning her poems. He had begged her, or tried to beg her (because she did not seem to understand what begging constituted), to give him another chance. She loved him, he rashly assumed--as she smiled at him--and he did not see why she should deny herself.
"For Lynne's sake alone, I couldn't do it," she had said languidly, rocking slowly in her yellow chair. "What does she have now besides you?"
"Everything," he said sarcastically. "She's still an American white woman."
"Is that so easy?" asked Meridian, stopping her rocking, turning away from him toward the window. The light exposed small petal-shaped flecks of black in her brown eyes. "She was that when she decided she'd rather have you than everything. True? Or not?"
"How can you take her side?"
"Her side? I'm sure she's already taken it. I'm trying to make the acquaintance of my side in all this. What side is mine?" She was not uptight. Nothing trembled. She thought. Rocked. "Don't you think you owe something to Camara?" She looked him square in the eye.