South Central Noir

Ben Washington, the Negro caretaker, mopped the floors at night when all the students were supposed to be asleep. It worried him, sometimes, as the wet strands of the mop, like a dead woman’s hair, swished over the linoleum floor. These high school girls had no respect. This was supposed to be a religious high school. But not one of these girls had the respect they should have had for it.

The nuns had their hands full with these girls.

Sister Conception seemed to be the mildest about it. She was a stern-faced woman, as they all seemed to be, with starched white wimples cradling their faces, and their severe black veils and black habits that made them look more like shadows than women. Were they women anymore? If you gave up God’s gift of procreation, could you be considered a woman? A woman who gave it all up to live cloistered in this place?

Ben shook his head. There was one nun who scared him the most. He wasn’t Catholic, so it didn’t matter to him how he felt about her, even though his own fiery minister would tell him to love his neighbor. It was hard to love your white neighbor, to turn the other cheek, when they called you “boy” when you were a man.

Sister Sixtus didn’t treat him bad because he was colored. She treated him bad because... well, she treated everyone bad. He supposed she thought it would help their soul. “Crazy white woman,” he muttered, sweeping the mop from side to side in ever-growing arcs. He once saw her twist the arm of one of the students so bad the girl had to go to the doctor. They thought she’d broken it, but it was only a sprain.

He was glad he wasn’t married with children. How would he handle it if some white woman teacher sprained his own child’s arm?

He mopped more vigorously, until the floor shined in the dark.

5

Sister Sixtus had a face like a middle-aged man, even though she was supposed to be this side of thirty. That’s what all the girls said. And when she was angry, she never changed expression. She only got red in the face.

I tried to look contrite, with my eyes lowered. But the truth of it was, if I looked at her, I’d crack up. And then she would be even madder.

She caught me smoking and was yelling at me about it. “You need to pray about this, young lady! At your flouting the rules at every turn!”

“The nuns smoke.”

“What’s that you said to me?”

I raised my face then. I didn’t feel like laughing anymore. “I said, the nuns smoke.”

A sting and then my head rang. She’d slapped me... oh good and hard. I was like a doll with a spring for a neck because my head just knocked back.

I stared at her. My hand went to my cheek and it was hot. “You bitch.” It came out of my mouth before I could stop it. The hand came again and slapped me a second time.

“You will pray ten Hail Marys for that outrage, young lady.”

“I’m not Catholic!” I shouted back at her. “I’m not gonna say your witchy spells!”

Another slap.

“Sister Sixtus!”

My face burned. I turned toward the doorway where Sister Conception and two other nuns stood in horror. Like they never slapped anyone.

Sister Sixtus brought herself up, adjusted her habit and the rosary hanging from her belt, and walked away from me.

The nuns in the doorway parted for her, but all they did was stare at me. I sneered at them for just standing there, for doing nothing, for not even stopping her, for not defending me.

I stomped out of the room, pushing them aside because they weren’t moving for me like they’d done for Sister Sixtus.

6

Tonight’s expedition meant spying on Mr. Washington. He didn’t live on the premises, but he often stayed late. There were always spicy rumors about him, and we wanted to be front and center to see it.

I was not an instigator, but I liked to participate. We mostly got along with each other, though we also found pleasure at being cruel to one another. I seldom understood their cruelty, vaguely owing it to their indifference to the images of saints being tortured with arrows, being cooked on hot grills like a barbecue, or getting chopped up... all with those vacant expressions on their faces. The sisters liked to have those images around as teaching tools. As if this was the sort of thing the students could expect in the modern world. I often wondered if the nuns thought this was a real possibility. Or were they trying to be subtle? No, not possible from those stern faces that seldom cracked smiles. I was sure they fully expected that I would turn on a spit if I got out of line, dating the wrong boy or doing a little petting. I wasn’t sure if I believed in Hell, just the Hell of sitting in class and listening to the nuns babble on. That was surely Hell on earth. Say ten Hail Marys and get it over with.

We waited ten minutes as usual after lights out before we slipped on our regulation flannel bathrobes and set out.