Why the Tree Loves the Axe

As I passed, the shirtless one began to sing in a high, clear voice:

Jole blon

From Louisiana

On the bayou

In the moonlight

I didn’t look back, although I wanted to; I knew that if I did, I would see him standing there, with his arms open wide and a look of devotion on his face. I turned the corner like she-to-whom-all-praise-is-insufficient: I could feel my steps swaying, I could hear him following me. When I was about halfway down the block he started singing again.

Don’t leave me

Don’t deceive me

Stay beside me

Make me happy

What a pretty melody. What a sentiment to sing on a sunny afternoon, in this sad part of town. At last I glanced back and saw him ambling up the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets and his elbows out at his side, so that his entire being was fanned out behind him like the harlequin tail of a peacock. His voice was beautiful, and his pride was a sight, but at the last moment I thought of the word pussy, and I turned away.

Oh, come on, he said. Don’t be like that.

But I just kept on walking.

The way from the bus stop to Eden View the following night. The weather was so hot and humid that it was impossible to tell if the sky was overcast or clear; the air was thick, the light was slow, in the privacy beneath my clothes I was perspiring. I walked down the middle of the empty street, watching the voodoo music that hung down from the canopy of trees overhead. When I reached the parking lot, I found it empty, the windows of the place were dark, no birds did sing.

In the door, then, and walking down the main hall. A few of the residents were out of their rooms, slumped over in their wheelchairs and staring down at their bare, bedsore legs, like images from old paintings of the sufferings of man. The walls were hung with grandchildren’s drawings, their bright lettering laughing in the half darkness; the air smelled of weak medicine and cleaning solution, the slight sound of voices drifted out of the lounge. Someone was trying to convince someone else, softly, so softly, that there was no way to tell the words.

Judith and Bart were playing cards in the game room, or rather, they sat with a deck of cards between them and talked in low voices, thin lips to great ears. He bet her that she was an alien from outer space, and she went through the deck and named the cards, numbers and suits, to try to dissuade him; but her words came out in unearthly syllables. See, Bart said. You’re a Martian, just like I said, maybe from Neptune, maybe, I don’t know. They should have been put to bed an hour earlier, and I went in to gather them up. Together they rose and followed me down the hall toward their rooms—Judith’s was first, and she went in without a word. Bart said, Humph, yes. Are there mountains beneath the sea? I nodded, and he made his way across the floor to his bed, moving his mouth softly.

Down the bare halls I saw darkness coming out of the rooms, a coffin-shaped stretch of shadow that reached through the door of each one. Good night, good night. Old folks in bed. Good night. There were dusky moons on the hallway ceiling and a grey penumbra down at the end, a mirage that had settled in before the door of the dining room. Good night. There was no more sound.

Billy came fully dressed out of his door, shut it softly behind him, and started down the hall into the unlit lounge. When he saw me he stopped and shouted, Hey! You there! Girl!

Billy, I whispered. Shhh. He scowled and retreated back into his room, where I found him standing stiffly beside his impeccably made bed. On his night table I saw a gold watch and an uncapped silver pen. Caroline-the-Candle! he announced. Do please sit down—he gestured to his windowsill—and we can get started. He had become very polite, but I couldn’t decide whether it was because he felt polite or because he was mocking me. I went automatically to turn down his sheets. Don’t, he said, and instead of lying down, he began pacing the distance from the head of the bed to the foot and back again. I took the chair by his desk. He stopped and smiled, in his unsmiling way. Out the window I could see the lights of Texas, spread like steady, pale orange stars along the floor of the valley.

So tell me, how are you? he asked.

All right, I replied.

What did you do today?

Not much.

No, goddamnit, he said, instantly glaring at me. So he had been mocking me, or else he had changed his mind. What exactly did you do today?

I ran a few errands, mostly, I said. Then I went home and read for a little while, and then I took a shower and got dressed. Talked to Bonnie on the phone.

Where did you go, on your errands? What did you read? Who is Bonnie?

I didn’t want to play, but I didn’t feel like fighting, so I played along: To the bank to deposit a check, I said. To the drug-store to get some soap and shampoo, to the hardware store to get lightbulbs. I read a magazine. Bonnie is my friend.

Caroline-the-Candle! he said again. And … Bonnie-the-Bottle. How did you meet her?

In the hospital, I said. And before he could ask: I was in the hospital because I had a car crash. That’s how I wound up here, with you.

Who knows you’re here? he asked.

In Sugartown? In Eden View? I don’t know. No one.

No family?

No.

Children?

No.

No boyfriend?

No.

Caroline has no one but her friend Bonnie. I’d like to meet this Bonnie.

Maybe someday, I said.

Well, all right. Do you want to know what I did today?

Sure.

While you were reading magazines and doing nothing, I was out, he said. I have been roaming all over the country. I have been practicing my arts. I have had a very busy day indeed. First I went to Kentucky and I collapsed a coal mine; and don’t you know, they’re still trying to dig the poor men out. Then I spread my wings and flew up to Detroit, where I started a small fire, I did. And when I was sure it was burning to beat the band, I went down to San Francisco and knocked over a building or two; and then I went on my way to Kansas City, and when I got there I stopped in a church and set a priest to suffering for sex, so that he … well, you’ll be able to read all about it in a couple of weeks.

He stopped to consider the damage he’d done. It was a lot of work, he said. I’m tired out. So you may ask, Why do I do it? Well, I’ll tell you. I like the colors. I like the sound it makes. I like the smell. I like what it makes me think. I’m the Adversary, he said, adjusting his tie and smoothing down the front of his shirt with his hands. I’m an appalling old man. He stopped and made a stage gesture of defiance. No, they cannot touch me for coining; I am the king himself. He fixed me with a delighted look…

I was just sitting there listening to the old man go on about his aged dreams of revenge and mayhem; of course I didn’t believe for a second that he had done all he claimed, I didn’t believe in him. But he didn’t care and he wasn’t done. As for you, he went on, and before I could prepare myself, he was talking about me. I see you coming around, he said. I can smell you under your clothes, I can hear your heart bumping against your chest. Forty years ago I would have fucked you. I know what you want…

There was mist sneaking against the window. I didn’t believe him, but my skin began to freeze, my mouth was full, and I could feel my tongue search for a place to rest. I thought, forty years ago I would have let you. Billy went on: You want more of everything. More love. More fun. He was daring me to resist him, dangling feathers of fire before my face, I could feel their flames. Fame! Sex! Beauty! Billy said. I flinched and blinked. Confess, he demanded. You’re greedy. For a long moment I couldn’t remember how to start a sentence, I couldn’t answer, and he smiled. That’s good enough, he said. A glutton. Good. I can help you rise up. Now what can you do for me?

I was about to answer him when an alarm began to sound softly in the hallway, a high beeping noise that was meant to alert the staff without waking the residents. I got dumbly to my feet and for a moment we stood there, Billy and I, far away on our cold half-lit planet. But the summons went on, and at last I broke from his gaze.

Stay, he said, his voice at once commanding, tempting, and plaintive. We’re just getting started. Don’t go.

I have to go.

Don’t go, he said again, and the tone of supplication was much clearer. She’s dead.

I stared into his face to see what he wanted. He wanted to live forever, and failing that, he wanted me to obey him. I wanted to study him, but I had to go see what the alarm was about.

It was Judith, her heart had suddenly stopped. When I reached her room I found two nurses and Dr. Selzer, who looked up at me briefly and blindly and then went back to massaging her chest. Her flesh was as colorless, soft, and smooth as dough, and it put up no resistance to his pushing; his hands had no spark, there was no life, and his breath came more and more violently. His face began to redden, and after a few minutes had passed he stopped, abruptly started again, and stopped, dropping his hands to his sides and gasping for air. He wouldn’t look at anyone, and when he spoke it was to an audience of numinous peers. All right, he said softly, and he pushed his glasses up on his nose, backed away from the bed, and walked out of the room, leaving the nurses and myself to rearrange the woman’s nightgown and raise the rumpled sheets over her face.

Everything in Eden View was still. Either there was peace in the valley, or a fear so deep as to quiet all motion. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I was ashamed of myself, and I worked hard and kept my eyes lowered for the remainder of the night. Already I missed Judith, without even trying; I missed her body, I missed her tuneless and unfathomable voice, and when my shift was over I discovered that I didn’t want to go home after all; I suppose I hoped that if I stayed it would be sign enough to someone that I hated Death, so I sat in the staff lounge and read a copy of the afternoon newspaper that had been left on one of the tables.

On the front page there was a picture of a young dark-skinned man, a graduation photograph from one of the local high schools. He was gazing out at the city, his eyes glazed with defiant tears. Everyone called him Domino, because he was so good at the game; and everyone was looking for him. The police said that he’d been dealing drugs, but they hadn’t found a way to arrest him until he’d shot a pair of his competitors dead. They wanted him for that, so they gathered themselves together and surrounded the building where he lived; then they sneaked up the stairwell and broke through his door. He was waiting in the bedroom, and in the battle that followed he fired four bullets, hit three policemen, and then vanished down a fire escape. Below the article there was a diagram of the apartment, marked with star-shaped explosions where his shots had hit, and an arrow out the window where he’d left, wearing only sweatpants and a pair of sneakers. No one knew how he’d gotten away; the mayor was angry, and the police were embarrassed.

They believed that he was hiding somewhere in Green River, but they had no idea where. They’d sent people to bully his relatives, they’d raided bars and nightclubs, but they hadn’t found him. They were going door to door; there were cruisers on every corner and helicopters constantly cutting in the hot sky; they were taking people right off the streets. There was talk of a curfew. A minister from the Baptist church called a press conference to complain, and the police chief held his own to ask for cooperation from the community.

I sat in the lounge and thought the night was all wrong; and I stretched out on the couch and slept fitfully until dawn the next day, when the administrator found me, woke me, and made me go home.

Bonnie knew a man from her bar, a regular named Adam, whom I’d met very briefly one night when I’d gone by to sit with her. He was getting married and she arranged it so that I was invited. I didn’t know him very well, I didn’t know his bride at all, and I didn’t want to go to a wedding. A wedding! I didn’t want to go. But Bonnie said, Come on, it could be fun. You don’t have to meet anyone, you don’t have to talk to anyone. You just need to wear some nice clothes. When was the last time you put on a nice dress and made up your face? I made a skeptical noise. She squinched her features and said, Do it for me? I don’t want to go alone.

I don’t have anything to wear, I said. I lost all my good clothes in the crash.

I have a dress, if you want, she insisted. I’ll come over. It’ll fit. It’s a beautiful thing. All right?

I could think of a thousand better ways to spend a Saturday afternoon, but I knew she was relying on me to keep her company. O.K., I said.

She was right about the dress: It was an emerald green raw silk shift, a simple sleeveless thing with a scooped neck, but the whole of art was lying in it, cherubs in the shadows and chambermaids looking on. I stood before her mirror and smoothed it down my waist, and glimmers of light flushed down the front. You wear some sling-back sandals, said Bonnie, and you’ll look perfect.—And here. She held out four little pills in her hand; two were small and white, one was white and larger, and one was pale blue. Take these; they’ll make the whole afternoon a lot better. Water. Where do you keep the cups? She went rummaging through the shelves above my kitchen sink.

Where do they come from? I asked.

This guy came in the bar with them, traded me for a few drinks.

Do you know what they do?

I don’t know exactly what they are, but he looked like he was having a good time. She turned her face away and gulped the pills down. I wanted to follow her, so I felt mine in my mouth for a second or two and then tipped my head back and let them fall into the back of my mouth; and just as I felt them pass down my throat, I saw a white flash of light. Oh, God, I thought, that was quick. But when I lowered my head again I saw Bonnie holding her camera in her hands, looking at it quizzically as the motor advanced the film.

By the time I was done with my makeup, I could feel the wedding coming on like a high, an airy burning in the hollow of my stomach, and a high coming on from the pills. The future, which until then had been a single uniform field, began to collapse into a variety of irregular shapes, like the paths through a concrete garden. My hair was sitting strangely on my head, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Bonnie took my chin in her hand and stared into my eyes. I knew exactly what she was thinking. Beautiful, she said. Green is your color.

The ceremony was in a Catholic church in a part of town that I’d never visited before; on the ride over there Bonnie sang Froggy Went A-Courtin’, all the way through. The sun was curled up in a ball in the heavens outside the window; I could see one or two planets, hovering and ducking into the clouds. Saturn, broad daylight. On the street, people were trying very hard not to stare at us. You never checked to see what those things were?

It’ll get better as it settles, said Bonnie. You know, Adam is such a nice man, I’m so happy for him. He used to come in the bar just to sit nice, and drink some, and talk. In the distance I could see hills, they were the earth’s own joke. Do this, she said, taking her hands off the wheel for a moment and holding them in an attitude of prayer. I did that. We hope he stays married forever.

In the church everyone was smiling, especially the preacher, who grinned so widely and constantly that I thought his head was going to come right off and float upward toward the sky beyond the steeple. At the front, just before the pulpit, there were two stands about waist-high: on each of them there was a large, shallow pot, and in each pot there was an arrangement of flowers. Between them stood the groom, tall, handsome, strong. The preacher was at a podium a few feet back, and behind him there was an organist. Several young saints were leaning modestly against the rear wall. They were all waiting for the bride, and the bride was waiting for the music. Her name was Marie.

Bonnie and I slid into a pew near the back and sat down; she smiled at someone she recognized, and then leaned back and sighed nervously. I picked up a hymnal from the seat beside me, but I didn’t open it; I just held it in my hands, caressing the dimpled cover and weaving the thin purple ribbon in and out of my fingers.

Roy and I were married in a dingy beige room at the city courthouse on a Wednesday afternoon, just behind a Cuban woman and her silent fiancé, and just ahead of two city sanitation workers who had their entire families along as witnesses. And did I believe that the flowers of paradise had descended upon us? I wasn’t looking at him when he said, I do. Everything seemed just right to me, and yet not quite right, somehow. What did I know? Afterward I exhaled hugely, and spent a very innocent night with my husband, whose skin under the dusky banner of our wedlock was somehow smoother and more polished, and whose shallow respiring, as he slept, was as steady and ceremonial as a command at sea. It had been two, three, four years since I’d lain down next to him and heard him breathe, but I remembered, and I remembered how much I’d loved the sound.

The organist leaned forward and a few syrupy chords came down over the congregation; we all turned around in our seats to watch with open, expectant faces. The bride appeared at the door, a dark-skinned woman wearing a long lacy white dress and a white veil, arm in arm with her father. When I glanced back toward the altar I saw three or four other men ranged behind the groom, presenting him as one of their own. The preacher was one of them, too, but the bride was different, she was all alone, a precious and powerful little vial of perfume. When she reached the front she stopped; the music stopped and there was a hush in the room. The preacher said a few lines in a loud, hollow voice about the sacredness of the marriage bond; I didn’t think he really meant what the words said, but I knew there was something he meant very deeply by saying them. The bride and groom answered by promising that they would never give up what they had right there. Then she kissed him, and the kiss was long. I thought she was going to vanish, but when they were finished she was still standing by his side. It was a miracle, right there in the church, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed it; everyone was talking about how wonderful it had been, that she had been so suddenly transformed without coming apart.

Afterward there were smiling faces bobbing in the vestibule of the church, holy expressions on the angels above the door, a few flashes of a photographer’s bulb on the front steps, some birds in the trees on the lawn. Bonnie checked her purse for the directions to the hall where the reception was to be held, and couldn’t find them. I know where they are, she said. They’re on my dresser at home. Hang on. She went over to a tall, dark man and spoke to him for a moment, and when she came back she was leading him with her hand around his wrist. This is Charlie, she said. He has the directions, so we’re going to give him a ride. This is my friend Caroline.

Charlie had a smile like a handful of candy, and a low, slightly hoarse voice. He sat in the back and hung his head over the backrest that separated us. I wanted to touch his hair, his straight black hair, just to see what it felt like. I’ve never been down here before, he said. Adam moved down here, to Texas. It’s just like the movies, isn’t it? I came down from New York—he said the city’s name without blushing.—Oh, I think you have to take a right up at the intersection here, so you better get over. Do you want to just take this? He handed up the sheet of paper and as he leaned in I caught the smell of him for a moment, the heat of his clothes, skin, mouth: it went right down the front of my dress like the memory of a man’s hand, and I flushed, shifted slightly, and cracked the window.

Bonnie pursed her lips and turned half around. Can you get down there, or move over, so I can see out the back?

Of course. I’m sorry, he said, and the smell went with him.

What are you doing out there? she asked, and then turned to me and gave me a smile.

I’m just working for the government.

A spy? said Bonnie hopefully.

In the mayor’s office.

At that my throat closed, and I looked at my legs so that I’d have something to see that wasn’t going to show my face back. Bonnie drove innocently through a stop sign. Hm, she said. So what’s the mayor’s office like?

It’s all right, Charlie said. Great, actually, it’s disgusting. I love it, it’s great.

I turned around in my seat to look at him, and he smiled at me, but his eyes were dark. I had no idea why: he was a big man and I wasn’t prepared for him to start getting complicated, too. As for me, I felt doomed: my skin had become a composition of hot and cold layers, which were shifting against each other and making me red. Bonnie said, VFW, right? This must be it.

The room was large and high-ceilinged, and the floor was swept wood scarred with a thousand heel marks. We were late and the place was already full of milling guests. High blood, each right hand holding a glass of ruby wine, a wedding.—Of course, Charlie was saying to Bonnie, and then the bridge collapsed from the weight of all those people. Don’t drink anything, she said to me, and she squeezed my arm to mark the thought. Not with what I gave you. I didn’t want to embarrass myself, so I sat for a while in my green dress.

A little later I saw Bonnie in a circle on the other side of the room, looking up into the faces around her, her small smile a star to wish on. Inside its vaporous halo I could vaguely see Roy, the divorced man, sitting at a desk in a government office down on Park Row, his narrow shoulders bent as he leaned over a stack of papers in front of him. He wasn’t thinking about me.

Are you all right over here? Charlie asked. He was sitting back in the chair next to me, with the side of his knee very gently pressed against mine. If he was flirting with me, I was impressed; if he wasn’t, I wasn’t going to show a thing.

Yes, fine, I said. Then, and very deliberately, I set my face into a casual mask and tested the effect. What made you move to New York? I asked. It seemed to work well, and I was so pleased with myself that I smiled and missed his answer. I pressed on. I knew a man who worked in the mayor’s office, I said. His name was Roy Harrison.

Charlie looked surprised, and at first I was afraid that I’d made some mistake—had I already told him?—and my hand trembled as I reached for a glass of wine. I only met him once or twice, but I heard a lot about him, he said, I don’t know how much of it is true. Anyway, I haven’t seen him in a while; I think they let him go.

Oh, he was one of my cousins, I said, realizing just a moment too late that he hadn’t asked. I caught myself and smiled. What was he fired for?

I don’t know. He studied my face as if he thought he were going to take me with his gaze.

What had he done? I asked. I knew there had to be another way ’round.

He shrugged and looked up. It could have been anything, he said to Bonnie, who was standing in front of us.

Are you going to come sit down? said Bonnie. It’s time to eat. You two sitting over here all by yourselves, anyway, everyone’s talking about it. Come on, it’s time.

Around the room the guests were settling. Bonnie took me by the arm, led me over to a table and sat me down; on the white tablecloth in front of me there was a white card with my name written on it. I wanted very badly to remember what was bothering me, but I kept losing track of it: there was one loud man on my left and one dull woman on my right, and I ate cellophane food and drank two glasses of wine before Bonnie noticed my sipping and kicked me under the table, and then dipped her index finger in a glass of water and waggled it at me. There was a series of toasts, cheering and laughter. Charlie had pulled up a chair just behind me and to my right, and he was reaching over my shoulder to fill a flute with champagne. Together we watched the bride and groom dance the first dance. Have you ever been married? he asked.