The Righteous Skies

Sensitive theme; same sex romance

The Righteous Skies

    The image haunted Calvin more than any ghost could. Watching his wife with her face between the white woman’s breasts, kissing them before moving her face further down the woman’s body. That was more than any man—at least this man could take. He had heard other men say that they enjoyed something like this--two women together. But this woman, this white woman who had been the dead doctor’s wife-paralyzed from the neck down- was as close to being a corpse as any living person could be.And Calvin—he was a simple man but not an ignorant one. He had known women who liked one another, loved each other, just like husband and wife. He took the view that whatever people did in private was their own business. But this was his wife, and until that moment she had been the sun of his soul.

    It was Valentine’s Day, and he had been a man on a mission. A man aiming to surprise Carmen with flowers and candy and the news that he had gotten the raise down at the factory where he worked. The sun was shining, and a white man had done what a white man seldom does--allow a hardworking Negro to make more money. Ten cents to be precise. Ten cents more an hour. Four dollars more a week and with some overtime, more than that.  Calvin was a happy man – and a proud one too. So he was going to the dead doctor’s house where Carmen worked as the paralyzed woman's caregiver.

     But Carmen and that woman. Oh, Lord , forgive me, he thought, I wish I was blind. That image. It was just as bad as the sight of watching his own brother drowning in the dirty, snake-filled waters of the river they used to go fishing in. He had been ten, and his brother Curtis had been eight. It was a Sunday morning, and they had sneaked their uncle’s canoe from his garage and went down to the river without anybody knowing. Curtis didn’t want to do it, but big brothers always had the power of persuasion. Neither he nor Curtis could swim. So, when Curtis stood up and fell into the water, all Calvin could do was watch.And he had watched his brother struggle for what seemed like hours. Looking back, he doesn’t know how those two events could make him feel the same way. His brother’s death, and this kind of betrayal his wife committed. After all, one was a tragedy that he had always felt some responsibility for, and the other-- just brazen sin.

     He had heard the rumors. The rumors about Carmen and the dead doctor’s wife. Heard rumors too about Carmen and the doctor. Both, before the murders and afterwards. He never put a whole lot of faith in what people said.  He just believed what his own eyes saw. And this was the second time his eyes had seen enough to last him a dozen lifetimes or a dozen hells.

    After that day, Carmen started acting completely different.She was way more attentive to him than she had ever been. It never occurred to him that Carmen knew that he had seen her. He had forgotten that he had dropped the flowers and the candy he had bought her. And he had never remembered to tell her about the raise.

    And all this attention he was receiving meant nothing to him. In the days that followed, he could no longer perform the way a man supposed to with his wife. Hell, he could hardly look at her. And he could not understand why this was the first time in his life he ever felt sorry for himself or the world.

    That same day after he had seen Carmen with the dead doctor’s wife, he went to the fish market. Not purposely. It was the first place his feet took him so he could have a seat and find some semblance of peace. He had walked in, ignoring everybody, people he had known since childhood. He didn’t even notice when his brother Jerome and Midnight showed up.

    “You look like you just lost your woman and your soul,” Midnight said.

    Jerome stared at him, saying absolutely nothing. He had become quieter since moving in with Calvin, Carmen and kids. And he began coming home about 4 o’clock in the morning after spending the entire day with Midnight.Curtis knew Midnight was up to no good. Been in and out of jail since high school and was probably gonna drag Jerome down with him.  Whatever they were doing, though, Calvin didn’t care. He didn’t have no time to be worrying about no grown ass men--as long as neither one brought no shit around his kids.

    “You gonna tell us what wrong with you?” Midnight asked. What Midnight did not know was that Calvin had not heard him. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He heard him --he just didn’t understand him. It was all gibberish to Calvin. His mind was blank, and whatever it was in the brain that allowed comprehension was gone. After a couple of minutes and absolutely no response from Calvin, Midnight finally gave up. He paid for a couple of fish  sandwiches he bought for himself and Jerome and went back to whatever questionable activity they were doing for the day.

    When Carmen came home that evening, Calvin sat in the chair pretending to be asleep. She watched him for a few seconds and knew by the quietness of his breathing he was not. She decided to let the kids spend the night at her mama’s house just in case, and she would give her house the decent cleaning that it needed.

     Carmen felt a strangeness that she had never felt before. She felt a sense of freedom but freedom from what she wasn’t exactly sure. She was still a Negro woman in a southern state in the 1960s. There were places she couldn’t go to and things she could not do. Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly freedom, but she felt less owned. Yea, that was it. Like the way her ancestors must have felt when they ran away from their masters, were caught, and returned. Yea, they must have felt like this too.

     And while she was doing the housework, there was a sound she heard, a pleasant sound she remembered from years ago but had forgotten. And then she realized it was her. She was humming, and she kind of liked it.

  She knew she was going to have to face Calvin soon. But one thing she knew about her husband was that he didn’t like no trouble. He was a smooth water kind of guy. He got along with people-- everybody, colored and white just alike. And even in his house he never raised his voice. But Carmen was not a foolish woman. She understood instinctively that this sort of thing could change a man. But for the moment she was going to keep on humming, and tomorrow she would pray to God for an unchanged world.