Woman on the Edge of Time

“Not Morgan, though. If you stare at him a long time, he starts fidgeting. You can get into staring contests with him, and he gets so he wants to win! But Redding, yeah, he’s too cool. He looks through us to something on the other side he’s aiming at.”

A woman was dumped beside her, a tall lean satin black woman with her hair in a big wild Afro.

“I guess we’re the final winners of their screening,” Connie said to her. “I saw you when they were x-raying us, but we never met. I’m Connie Ramos.”

“Alice Blue Bottom, honey. You Puerto Rican?”

“No, Chicana. I was born in Texas.”

“No lie? You don’t sound like it. Me, I got myself born in Biloxi, Mississippi. You ever been there?”

She shook her head, “I grew up in Chicago from when I was seven.”

“You know what, girl? I put in five years on the South Side of Chicago working as a cocktail waitress in the Kit-Kat Club. Left and come to Harlem with a man I stupid to cross the street with.”

“I came to New York to get away from a man I was scared of.”

“Better reason than mine, sugar, though I never been scared of a man in my whole life. I eat them for breakfast two at a time. Why you scared of him?”

“He … forced me. He took my pay check off of me and said he’d give me a little. He bribed the super to let him in my flat—or he just pulled a knife on him, who knows? When I got home from work—I was working in an office then, I had a good job as a secretary to a real estate man, Chicano—he was in my flat.”

“No man ever lay a finger on me I didn’t ask for, cause I tote a shiv, and I know how to use it. I carve up more men than you count on your both hands, didn’t treat me right. You take shit and you is shit, girl. A man good to me, then I good to him. Everybody know that about Alice Blue Bottom.”

“How come you call yourself Alice Blue Bottom?” Skip asked, smiling from under his long lashes.

“Long skinny white boy, don’t you wish you know that?” She tided back her tower of a neck and laughed, with her breasts freely jiggling against the red dress. She had her own clothing, for sure. Some attendant had made her sew up the front a couple of inches with the wrong color thread, but the dress was still shorter and fit better than anything else around. “Cause I’m so black, I’m blue—maybe. No way you gonna find out.”

“That’s Skip,” Connie said. “Do you know anything about this project they’re using us for?”

“Papermaking. That’s all. That’s all they ever doing. You know time you be sitting in that jiveassed group therapy, those doctors thinking how they going to write it all up. How they going to tell it on the mountain at they next staff session. Bullshit!”

Alice’s name was called and she strolled after the nurse, swinging her broad, high ass across the waiting room. An attendant brought Sybil out of the office, and Connie half rose. Sybil saw her at once and their eyes exchanged messages of hope. Fats placed Sybil in a chair far down the line. As soon as Fats turned his back, Sybil hopped up and quietly slid into the seat Alice had just left.

“Sybil, it’s good to see you! I heard they were shocking you?”

Sybil raised an elegant bony hand to her forehead. “I have dreadful headaches. I have trouble remembering words, the names of objects. Yesterday I could not think what one calls the wood around a door! I nearly wept with rage … . What ward are you on?”

“G-2. Not so bad. Are you still on L-6?”

“No, D-5. I wish we were on the same ward. Do you have grounds privileges?”

“Not yet. I’m trying.”

“Hey, you.” Fats marched over to Sybil. “I put you down at the end. Don’t go sneaking away on me.”

“We know each other,” Connie pleaded. Her voice fawned. “We were just talking. Isn’t it good for us to relate?”

“Don’t sweet-talk me,” Fats said. “You’re all violent or you wouldn’t be here. You do what I say and we’ll get along. Otherwise you’ll be eating dirt.” He marched Sybil down to the chair where he had parked her.

“Are you lovers with each other?” Skip asked her softly.

“No, we’re real good friends. I know her from last time in.” She did not mind his asking, really. Better than thinking it and never asking.

“They almost didn’t include her. I think Dr. Morgan’s scared of big women. But Dr. Redding rode right over him. Said he can handle any of us like day-old kittens. That’s what he said, that dear man.”

“Ummmm.” She smiled. “I bet he’s never seen Sybil when she’s fighting mad. It takes two attendants to hold her down.”

“I’d like to fantasize about that. But all I seem to hurt is myself.”

“Me too. Except for what got me in here … Listen, Skip, if you entirely hated yourself, you’d be dead by now, right? So part of you does love you.”

He giggled wildly. “What a valentine. Part of me loves me. Signed, some love, Skip.” He unfolded to his feet as Fats came for him.

The next day rain still blew in gusts across the grounds and the porch was too wet to sit on. Sleepy with medication, she went into the day room. Sharma was standing in front of the set, frowning.

“What’s wrong?” she asked Sharma as she shuffled past.