Without Prejudice Read online

  But Trudy wasn’t as nice to Duval. ‘Why’s she always mad at you?’ Bobby asked him one day.

  ‘She mad at the world,’ said Duval, with unexpected sageness. ‘She black as coal and ugly with it. There ain’t no man in her life.’

  ‘There ain’t no man in Vanetta’s either.’

  Duval looked at him a little scornfully. ‘Vanetta been married twice. Vanetta can have a man quicker than you can whistle. Look at her – she got big titties, and a pretty face. That’s all it takes, man.’

  When it came to the facts of life, Duval for all his gawkiness knew more than he did. Bobby’s own knowledge was theoretical and skewed; his father had taken him aside and told him a long story about trout, and eggs, and sperm, which meant for a long time he imagined sexual intercourse to be two adults swimming oddly together. Sex was something that lay across a big divide for Bobby, the way Michigan was on the other side of the lake or England across the ocean. For Duval it seemed closer to home.

  ‘You ever seen your sister nekked?’ Duval asked one day.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know. Naked.’ He exaggerated the long ‘a’, mimicking the way Bobby would have said it.

  Bobby was confounded by the question. No, he guessed he hadn’t – at least, not for several years. Lily was punctilious that way. She dressed with her door firmly closed, made it clear that the bathroom was a strictly no-go zone while she was in the bath – everyone else took showers. But his sister’s anatomy was not a topic he wanted to discuss.

  Duval took no notice. ‘Bet she got nice titties.’

  ‘Come on,’ Bobby said, disturbed rather than annoyed. He wished Duval would shut up, though he couldn’t have said why. It wasn’t as if he felt obliged to protect his sister’s honour.

  Yet Duval seemed fascinated with Lily, to Bobby’s bafflement – it was as if Lily’s indifference was a challenge to Duval. Bobby couldn’t see any other way to explain his friend’s interest in someone who wasn’t remotely interested in him.

  Then one afternoon Lily came into the back bedroom, where he and Duval were setting up the blanket for a game of soldiers. ‘Have you been going through my drawers?’ she demanded of Bobby.

  ‘No,’ said Bobby, bewildered. Why would he bother doing that?

  ‘Are you sure?’ she said insistently, in what Mike called her Little Madam voice.

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Well, somebody has, because my . . . my clothes are all messed up.’

  When she left, trouncing along the hallway to her room, he looked at Duval and shrugged, as if to say his sister was nuts. But Duval was smiling, as if he had some information he was keeping to himself.

  ‘What is it?’ Bobby asked. Duval didn’t usually act like this; Duval was normally an open book. ‘Go on, tell me.’

  But he wouldn’t, and it was only the next morning when Bobby opened his drawer to take out new underwear that he saw what Duval had done. Underneath the pile of socks on the right side something white protruded; when Bobby tugged at it and pulled it out he found himself holding three pairs of his sister’s panties. Duval must have taken them out of her drawer. But why? It wasn’t funny, it just seemed weird. That afternoon when Lily was still at school Bobby returned them, taking pains to leave the other contents of the drawer undisturbed.

  Lily must have not complained to his father or Merrill, because there was no comeback. But a week later she came back to his room again, fuming. ‘Did you put this in my bed?’ And she threw a magazine at him.

  He looked at it with amazement. It was an old copy of Playboy, dog-eared and beat-up. He’d never seen a copy up close – when he peeked furtively at the men’s magazines in Sarnat’s, Mr Odess would always cough loudly until Bobby stopped looking.

  This time Lily must have talked, for that evening his father came back to his bedroom after supper, while he lay on his bed watching television. ‘What is this about Playboy magazine?’ his father asked, switching off the set.

  He shrugged, avoiding his father’s eye. It was a crucial moment; for years he would have told his father what had happened immediately, without hesitation and truthfully. But life had changed since the arrival of Merrill. He knew he still had his father’s love, but he no longer felt he had his attention. There was no one else to explain the situation to: Lily would hang Duval out to dry without a second’s thought; Mike would have listened, even been sympathetic, but there was nothing he could do to help. And Vanetta, usually the one emotional certainty, was the person he most wanted to protect from the truth.

  ‘It was just a joke.’

  ‘Your joke, or Duval’s?’

  ‘Just me. Duval had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Where did you get the magazine?’

  ‘I found it at school. In the playground.’

  His father eyed him suspiciously, but Bobby looked him directly in the eye – his father always claimed liars didn’t do that. ‘Well,’ said his father at last, ‘it wasn’t a very funny joke. I want you to apologise to your sister, and not do it again.’ His voice softened. ‘Girls get a certain age, Bobby, and well, you know, lots is going on with them, and they get very private about things.’ He was sounding resoundingly inarticulate, which meant his father really didn’t know what to say. And at least he hadn’t blamed Duval.

  He felt almost sorry for his father, he had been so easy to fool – or that is what Bobby thought at first, though he was perturbed to hear Merrill talking about it with his father in the living room. Merrill sounded ‘concerned’ – almost her favourite word, which Bobby was learning meant she was on the warpath. He heard his father say, ‘I’ll speak to Vanetta.’

  The next week Duval only came on one afternoon to the apartment. When he asked Vanetta where Duval was, she didn’t give him an answer – ‘He’s busy today,’ she said on both days he asked. When he did come, Vanetta shooed them both outside right away, and when they came in later he heard her tell Duval to stay in the back bedroom with Bobby. ‘Don’t you be goin’ where you don’t belong,’ she said fiercely.

  So his father must have said something to Vanetta, which meant he had seen through Bobby’s lie. Bobby felt mortified on his friend’s behalf – what was such a big deal about a pair of panties and a magazine? He wanted to talk to his father about it, but didn’t want to be confronted by his earlier lie. While he tried to get up the courage to approach Johnny, events overtook his plans.

  ‘Baby,’ said Vanetta the following Monday as, Duval-less, she met him across from Steinways. ‘I got some bad news.’

  He felt panicked. ‘You’re not leaving, are you?’ he asked. Maybe Merrill had persuaded his father to let Vanetta go.

  ‘No, Bobby, I ain’t goin’ nowhere. Don’t you worry about that. But Duval’s not coming to see us any more.’

  ‘Because of Lily?’ He started to feel outrage.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with Lily. It’s Aurelia; she’s moved to St Louis, and Duval’s gone with her.’ She shook her head unhappily.

  ‘He didn’t even say goodbye,’ Bobby said as the news sunk in. Then he burst into tears.

  When Vanetta hugged him Bobby realised she was crying too. ‘He said to tell you goodbye, baby. He says y’all to look after the Secret Garden while he’s away.’ She stood back, wiping her own eyes. ‘He’ll be back to visit. He got to come see his grandmother, now don’t he? You’ll see him, don’t worry.’

  Later that day, just before supper, Vanetta told his father the news.

  He said, ‘I hope she can kick this thing, V,’ and Bobby knew they were talking about Aurelia.

  ‘I just don’t know,’ said Vanetta, and she did not sound optimistic. ‘I’m worried about Duval, but I didn’t think I could try and take a boy from his mother.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said his father. Why not? wondered Bobby. Aurelia didn’t seem like much of a mother.

  For the first six weeks Bobby was bereft at the departure of his friend. He knew Vanetta felt the same, but by mutual pact they d
idn’t talk about Duval. Life intervened with other things to worry about: Vanetta’s brother Alvin got real sick, and she was anxious, and on edge – Bobby had never seen her so snappy before. When summer arrived they went to Michigan for a month, where Duval was never part of his life anyhow, and when the school year started Bobby found himself going down the block to see Eric again, and discovering he liked basketball almost as much as baseball.

  As Vanetta had promised, Duval came back to visit, and in the following year Bobby saw him three times. But these visits were awkward, as if they each sensed a split between them greater than mere geography. On Duval’s first visit, they played a desultory game of whiffle ball, seizing the excuse of a drizzle that would never have stopped them before to go inside. The next time they didn’t even pretend to play ball, but watched TV together instead. On the last visit they stayed in the kitchen, talking more to Vanetta than to each other.

  After that he had only indirect news of his old friend, though once it proved memorable. One day he came home – unaccompanied, since his father said he no longer needed a chaperone – and found Vanetta very excited. She told him there had been a fire in an apartment next to Duval’s church in St Louis. Duval had saved a woman’s baby, braving flames and getting badly burned. She proudly showed Bobby a clipping from the St Louis paper, which had a picture of Duval receiving an award from the Chief of the St Louis Fire Department. Bobby noticed how tall Duval looked, a good head higher than the white fire chief, but the face was the same: the shy smile and the slightly protruding teeth, the ugly glasses and the dark eyes. He was a real hero, thought Bobby.

  Lily made appreciative noises when Vanetta showed her the picture, but with Bobby she was contemptuous. ‘I don’t care what he’s done. He’s still a creep in my book.’

  Sometimes Bobby still played in the back yard, but now it was by himself, in the shallow alleyway by the fire escape. He was throwing a tennis ball against the wall one day when he became aware that he had company.

  This time there were just two of them, the runt and Mule. The runt went to the end of the alleyway leading to the apartment, while Mule blocked the way out through the gate.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Bobby, trying to sound nonchalant, but he knew his voice was shaky. He threw the tennis ball high against the wall. As he moved forward to catch it two arms reached out and grabbed the ball. Mule laughed, holding the ball high above his head.

  ‘Give it back,’ said Bobby. The big boy held one arm out, holding the ball, but when Bobby reached for it Mule flipped it underhand to the runt, who had reappeared. He let the ball fall to the pavement, where it dribbled slowly onto the grass. Then he turned menacingly towards Bobby.

  ‘What do you want?’ repeated Bobby. ‘If Mr Edevek catches you back here you’ll be in big trouble, man.’

  ‘“When Mr Edgevick catches you . . .”’ The runt was imitating him, in a higher-pitched white man’s voice, prissily enunciating each word. ‘Fuck Mr Edgevick.’ His voice lowered an octave as he spat out the words.

  Mule suddenly grabbed Bobby by the shirt. ‘You not so brave now, are you, white boy? You ain’t got no bat today.’ He held up his other hand, its fat fist clenched. ‘Look what you done to me.’

  Bobby stared at the fist, which looked like one of the ham hocks sold at the A&P. The fingers were mottled and one was bent so the knuckle stuck out. That must have been where he hit the bat, thought Bobby.

  The runt came closer now, and Bobby watched his eyes carefully. ‘You thought you scared us away, boy,’ said the runt. Before Bobby could answer he stepped forward and punched him in the stomach.

  Whoof. The air was knocked out of him, and he felt suddenly sick to his stomach; he would have fallen to his knees but Mule was grabbing him tightly by his collar. Tears came to his eyes; he wanted to yell but he was too busy trying to catch his breath. He thought for a moment the runt was going to hit him again, but the runt stepped back. ‘Come on, Mule,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  Bobby’s relief was short-lived. Suddenly Mule shook him hard by the collar of his shirt, and before he could wriggle out of his grasp, hit him with a clenched fist on the chin. Bobby felt a lower tooth crack as it hit his upper teeth. He fell back, and his head hit the iron railing of the fire escape so hard that its steps shuddered. He collapsed, falling onto a concrete plinth by the fire escape, cutting his leg on its sharp edge. He felt sick, as if trapped on a roller-coaster that wouldn’t stop. The plinth felt cool against his hand and he moved his head onto its surface as the dizziness increased and the world outside started to go quiet and dark.

  Just before he lost consciousness he heard a man’s voice, and knew dimly it was Eddie Edevek, announcing – was someone else there? – ‘Those goddamn niggers.’

  He spent two nights in Billings with a suspected fractured skull he didn’t have, and a hairline fracture in his jaw which he did.

  Released, his injuries healed well enough, but his life had changed. He was scared now, in a way previously inconceivable. He didn’t want to play in the back yard any more, which Vanetta noticed, but didn’t press him on. And for the very first time, he was conscious of the colour of people on the streets; when a gang of boys was white he was unworried; when they were black he tensed and moved away. He went straight to school and came straight home. He even stopped playing with Eric, for he didn’t like walking in the neighbourhood unless he was with Mike, who seemed both oblivious and fearless, or with his father.

  Perhaps it was fear, or the departure of Duval, but his relationship with Vanetta was changing, too. He loved her as much as ever, but there was a distance he had never felt before. Some of that may have happened anyway – he was a white middle-class boy, after all, who went to a smart-ass superior private school. There he learned all sorts of abstract things which a woman who had grown up on what was effectively a plantation wouldn’t know, a woman who – though naturally very bright indeed – had left school at the age of twelve and could write down phone messages only with difficulty. But it was more complicated than that; the true gulf had nothing to do with formal education. Bobby had secrets – he hadn’t been brave; the Secret Garden didn’t exist; and after the runt and Mule, he feared the male members of her race – he could not confide in her.

  There was no one else to turn to. Mike these days was nice to him, but abstracted – the age gap between them seemed especially great. Even when they wrestled now, Mike didn’t lose his temper, though admittedly Bobby no longer tried to bite. Lily was out of the question; she hadn’t ever understood his friendship with Duval, so she certainly wouldn’t understand his new feelings of fear.

  His father had been distant for some time, moreover, a detachment magnified when he announced, three days after Lily and Mike had their acceptance letters from college (Mike was going to the University of Minnesota, Lily to Stanford), that he was getting married again. The twins beamed and made congratulatory noises, to Bobby’s surprise – he knew Mike loathed the woman. Then he recognised this as a sign of their own detachment: the marriage would hardly affect them, now that they were leaving home. For the first time Bobby could see that his mother’s death six years before had taken the usual sibling bonds – sometimes tense, sometimes tender – and placed them into cold storage. It was not that they didn’t know each other – they did – but that the death had forced them to make individual accommodations, and independent lives.

  Not only was his father getting married, but he announced that after the wedding he and Bobby would move to the Cloisters – a swanky apartment building two blocks away. They moved three months later, after a marriage ceremony in the university’s Bond Chapel and a stilted reception at the faculty club. After the move, Bobby found that his memories of the old Blackstone apartment faded rapidly, perhaps because the causes of his happier recollections – his mother, his time with Duval – were no longer part of his life. Vanetta remained, but she was preoccupied by Alvin’s cancer, and she did not get on with Merrill, who kept
pressing, if not quite ordering, Vanetta to wear a maid’s uniform. Merrill also liked to set a week’s worth of menus in advance, full of French foods Vanetta didn’t like to cook. They didn’t have ribs any more, or fried chicken – instead it was ‘Coke o’ ven’, as Vanetta called it when she inspected the week’s roster of expected meals, wrinkling her nose.

  The new, stiff life with Merrill in the fancier apartment wasn’t much fun, and his father’s simple joy in his new marriage was almost too much to bear. It reached absurdist heights when Bobby overheard Merrill declare over coffee at one of her dinner parties, ‘They’re like my own children to me. And I believe they think of me as mother.’

  Who are you kidding? Bobby thought with anger that turned to incomprehension when his father added, ‘That’s right.’

  Bobby found himself calling his brother Mike as often as he could at his college dorm, until a mammoth phone bill was waved under his nose by his irate father. After that he found he stayed in his room, reading. At least there he could count on being left alone, save for the odd enquiry from his father (‘You okay, son?’) which he found easy enough to deflect. He wasn’t happy at school as he became a teenager, since he was now essentially anti-social, and frightened by drugs – half his schoolmates talked about marijuana in hushed thrilled tones, and the other half seemed to be smoking it. He didn’t know why it scared him, but it did, and he felt himself isolated from his peers and unable to meet anyone else – there were no introductions forthcoming from Merrill.