The Medallion
It had been under Jacob's bed for twenty-one years; he had forgotten it was there. Inside a cedar trunk with one loosened rusting hinge were: brittle papers with curled edges, five buttons (three black, one brown, one white), his mothers' bible, three yellowed photos, loose coins, several tarnished keys and on the very bottom-the medallion.
Jacob Monroe Hayes heard his wife Ophelia coming towards him, each foot planting itself firmly on the stair as if making a statement of ownership. The noise was unbearable.
He had been lying in bed most of the day, head underneath her pillow facing the wall. Snaking through the darkness he had meticulously fashioned was a single ray of sunlight. Fine, minute particles of dust united then separated in the shaft. A fresh coat of paint was needed on the bedroom walls and had been needed for more than a year - but he was too tired. A soft yellow would be nice, he thought, though he knew Ophelia would not agree. She gravitated toward boldness, found opulence endearing, and emanated an aroma of indulgence wherever she went. Before she began tearing into him like a starved coyote he chose to focus on a jagged crack which raced from one corner of the room to the other-- a winding road of deterioration.
"I knew you was gonna still be in the bed."
She spoke to him as one would a child who had wet himself after much instruction not to. Ophelia fashioned a weary sigh.
"I just laid down cause we haven't had any customers in a while. I was about to get up and…," he didn't finish what he was going to say, she had turned her thick body toward the closet; Ophelia was fishing inside for an outfit to wear that night. Her hand went to her hair and her fingers got lost there; she began scratching her scalp, the sound of fallen leaves rushing down the middle of the street. Jacob smelled something from her; he caught whiffs of disinterest.
"It doesn’t matter Jacob. I'm about to go over to momma's anyway." Everything about her was apathetic yet somehow she summoned enough energy to turn and face him. One of her eyebrows rose, the right one, she was daring him to comment.
Both Jacob and the small figure nesting inside the medallion underneath his bed shuddered at the thought of Ophelia's mother. Jacob began, "Never could understand why your momma don't like me." But that wasn’t entirely true; he had a fairly good idea why. Both Ophelia and her mother Shirley were hugely disappointed Jacob wasn't the meal ticket they'd each longed for. It was true that Shirley didn’t like Jacob. Shirley was only fourteen years older than Ophelia and when together they acted like disturbed sisters-- loud, frantic people with no concept of personal boundaries. They were intrusive. The kind of women who preferred chipped, whore-red nail polish on some of their toe nails and each of their fingernails; the type who wore pink rollers in their hair in the day time and walked on the back of their slippers in public. Women of the sort who seemed to be arguing with one another even if they were in complete agreement.
Initially, he thought these traits sexy in Ophelia; he found her to be free-spirited, a black cat that needed a good home, now she merely fatigued him.
"She has never said that," Ophelia hissed.
"She never had to."
Ophelia remembered late night discussions with Shirley after Jacob began materializing at their front door. At first they didn't know which one of them he was interested in, but Shirley watched Jacob’s lackluster eyes follow Ophelia's roundness throughout their two room house. Some part of her was fiercely disappointed because Shirley was a competitive woman and this trait did not falter because her daughter was the other. And after the third visit Shirley began making demands.
"Girl, this here's our chance! I don't know what you’re waiting on. We’ve got a juicy fish here and you’d better reel him in." Her voice had been hungry, and their situation had been grave. Shirley could never hold down a job for more than two months, less than that in the winter because she was temperature sensitive and could not wait for the bus if the wind blew and the temperature plummeted. She didn't encourage Ophelia to hold down a job either, it evoked a feeling of inferiority in Shirley if Ophelia worked and she didn’t. Shirley would not have that sensation while living in her own house.
"I don't love Jacob Hayes!” Ophelia had yelled back at her the first night they’d openly discussed things. “Besides, I think something’s wrong with him anyway."
"Ain't nothing wrong that money won't fix,” Shirley had said, walking gingerly through their living room past full ashtrays and overturned empty beer bottles. Dark circles polluted the wood floor were various and sundry beverages had turned over time and time again.
“First you just get what you need to out of him, then after a time you start acting out and he'll put you right outta’ that house,” she commented while raising her arm to decide once and for all if the whiff of sourness she kept smelling was emanating from her. Deciding that it was she chose to ignore it for a time. “Then you come on home, he is not the type of man that’s gonna’ have his wife acting like that…don’t be stupid” she said pointing with her index finger toward Ophelia’s face, “by then, we'll have cleaned him out." And on and on the conversation went until the day Ophelia found herself in front of the justice of the peace saying "I do," when she did not. She never loved Jacob, but now that feeling had dislike piggy-backed right along with it.
Ophelia and Jacob stared at each other. Jacob because he wanted her to deny what he’d said about her mother, Ophelia because there was nothing more to say.
"What you got them clothes for?"
He sat up in bed so that he could see her better. "You ain't spending the night over there again are you?" Jacob knew the answer.
Even though the argument would send them further away from each other he chose to start it and like clock-work, his breath became shallow and his head grew foggy with the anticipation of the new hurt she would undoubtedly bring to him. The uncertainty made him feel closer to her. She couldn't have this argument with anyone else; it made a bond between them that was theirs alone.
"Don't start with me now Jacob," she touched a spot over her right eye immediately above the small black hairs of her brow, "I’ve got a headache and I don't feel like it," she said this while bending over searching for something out of her underwear drawer. Shirley had been right about that one. It was a tried and true remedy for just about anything Jacob confronted her with which her tenth grade education couldn't wiggle her out of.
"Last couple of months you’ve gotten into the habit of spending the night over there. I don't understand—you’re my wife." She held up her hand to stop him, waving it as if flagging down a phantom motorist.
"You know I don't like walkin' these streets at night. Plus," she added when she saw that Jacob was about to interrupt her, "you know momma gets lonely… half the time I just fall asleep on the couch."
And the other half you pass out.
The collection of words weren't in his head and then they were, like a present dropped off at a doorstep, an afterthought. "You must have sense enough to know," she continued, "that I'm not gonna' stay at this store just sitting around all day looking at you".
He could easily sit around all day looking at her.
Big beautiful women were Jacob’s weakness. Even though he was slight-- average height, average weight, he loved women taller then he was with big fat breasts and round wide butts. Ophelia fit the bill wonderfully.
She had E’s when he thought breasts got no larger than D’s. Jacob could watch her bounce around the store and up and down the stairs to their apartment all day. Although she'd gotten into the habit of ignoring him, her body continued bringing him unprecedented joy. Big soft thighs that rubbed together when she walked, the swishing sound music to his ears, flesh that lunged out of the top of most of her clothing, the vertical line between her breasts cupped a battalion of small beads of perspiration that summoned him.
He sat up then, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
"I don't understand this 'Phelia. You’re my wife, we are married. This is something we need to talk about."
"We'll talk about it later," she said, but she would be gone later.
In the store downstairs, the bell over the door clanged harshly two times.
"Go on and get it," Ophelia said as a breeze carried the smell of chemicals from the cleaners across the street through the open window, leaving an undercurrent of tension between them. Jacob sometimes felt guilty about it, "Aw, don't worry 'Phelia, a couple of months, six at the most before, we leave here and get us a house," Jacob had promised. It had been three years. He had intended to rent this apartment to a deserving couple with a small, dark baby with fat legs and a round mouth. But that didn’t happen.
Even though he was sitting upright Jacob found he had no energy to stand. Ophelia moved around him with purpose. She was like a bee collecting items first from here and then from there and then she stopped. Her favorite dark blue dress with the white flowers was hanging lifelessly over her right arm.
Ophelia had a perfectly shaped face; open, with strong bones and exotic looking features. There was a well-chiseled broad nose, pouty big lips and passionate eyes. Jacob had seen a book once in the big library downtown; an over-sized, colorful, travel book and inside was the photo of a head. The sculpture was of Nefertiti, the ancient Egyptian queen. When Ophelia turned to the side, when he glimpsed her profile, she looked like that. He wanted to tell her that but something inside stopped him. Something about the way she made him feel about who he was made him keep that information close. Jacob had read that day in the downtown library that Nefertiti and her husband were known for changing Egypt's religion from a polytheistic one to a monotheistic one. If a couple working together could change an entire nation’s belief from many gods to one then surely with Ophelia by his side they could become successful business owners. Possibly open a few stores in town create something special - together, the two of them. He’d thought that once.
“You can’t believe ya’ got me hunh?” Ophelia startled him away from the thoughts of that day in the library. “Well, that makes the two of us. Go on downstairs and get the door.” She laughed and laughed, the sound of a tray of ice cubes falling, exploding on the floor, as if the two of them in that bedroom together, husband and wife, was the funniest thing she could ever imagine.
"I heard about all of them wild parties over your momma’s ''Phelia", he said in a quiet voice.
There had been whisperings of men staying over to all hours, of beer bottles in the backyard, and fights in the frontyard-- fights over who really was dating whom. Some of the men with flashing teeth and questionable pasts would say, "Man what you doin' over here again? I told you Ophelia's with me. You better be over here to see her momma I know that." Or "'Phelia, you going by the store soon? We need stuff---I don't know what all, go on and ask Shirley what else we need."
Jacob came back to himself, she was watching him.
"What's wrong with you? I wish I had known before we got together that you were crazy." She shook her head, as if sorry for the plight she'd found herself in. He couldn't remember when she'd become so mean to him. He imagined it began when she started dating Mr. Franklin.
Marshall Otis Franklin wasn’t refused anything often. He had several women, friends he visited but Ophelia was his favorite. Most of his friends were someone else's woman or used to be someone else's woman which meant they were older, but Ophelia was still young enough, only 26. Marshall felt that his ways were not his fault. "I like variety," he would say to anyone who took the time to listen. He told this to the envious men around town, those he knew were not his friends, "I like a woman with experience,” he’d begin, stretching his back and loosening the muscles and tendons from lack of work, “but sometimes there's nothing better than licking the dew off that young shiny rose from time to time." He'd then smile in a knowing fashion, causing some listeners to smile civilly and others to pale. They would suddenly appear frayed around the edges. The paled ones would need to hurry home to observe their wives closely to check for signs that Mr. Franklin had been near.
Marshall was dating all the women in town who'd let him, and most did. He was a good-looking man with the gift of making a woman feel that she was good looking too--no matter what her mirror reported. His eyes were promises, assurances of incessant love, endless pools of warmth that left women forgetting to come up for air. The possibility of a love that made them risk everything they'd ever known: family, reputation, respect; attributes previously invaluable until meeting Marshall Franklin.
His demeanor caused women to look down at themselves making certain their clothes were covering the essential areas. Hands would quickly and repeatedly fondle bra straps, tucking the thick white material beneath their dresses at the shoulders. He made them feel naked.
"While you're down there, grab me some stockings Jacob," Ophelia said, an afterthought, the words thrown over her shoulder like salt after a shaker had been upturned on the dinner table. He sank lower into the mattress.
He began hesitantly, "That's part of the inventory Ophelia--if you wear 'em I can't sell 'em," his eyes didn't meet hers. He wasn't sure how he'd gotten into the position of apologizing for her wastage. More than once Jacob caught her replacing a pair of hose after wearing them for the night, complaining they had been the wrong size. Or removing one tablet of Alka-Seltzer out of the small, frosted glass bottle because she only needed one not two tablets as the directions recommended, returning the lone tablet back to the top shelf. He absolutely forbade her to work the cash register after realizing she wasn’t charging friends and family at all.
So Jacob wasn’t able to make any of the anticipated improvements to spruce up the store after old Mr. Thomas died and his wife sold him the place. The same shattered area was in the lower right hand corner of the front window, no new paint inside or out, no new tile for the floor where there had been water damage from when old Mr. Thomas had forgotten year and year to place a bucket when the water heater leaked and certainly no new roof. He’d learned to live with the metallic patter of rain water dripping into the rusted pails in the backroom. Nefertiti and her husband had changed Egypt's religion from a polytheistic one to a monotheistic one. They couldn’t run one small store together on the North side of St. Louis.
"Just get me the stockings, damn! We got to fight about every little thing?" She stomped past him going into their small bathroom. He smelled lilac in the air where she'd been moments earlier.
She's gone.
If she'd ever had respect for him it no longer lived inside of her and would never return.
"Anybody up there?"
A voice floated across the store and through the maroon and mildewing curtains that separated the store from the stairs leading to their upstairs apartment.
"I'll be right there."
Jacob's voice returned back down the stairs through the maroon and mildewing curtains and into the store. He recognized the voice, it was Hazel's. Jacob felt energy again and actually smiled.
So did the figure inside the medallion.
Hazel was a neighborhood girl, young and absent-mindedly sensual.
A girl, not a woman. Another uninvited thought was offered and Jacob realized that it was the same voice as before, dark in timbre, a tone like a piece of coal, shiny and ebony with an indistinguishable accent. Jacob's existence consisted of women. Tall skinny women, low fat women, women glided past his store window, some with an awkward momentum, others with broken steps. Women so light in complexion they looked white. Others so dark they appeared blue when the sun hit them just so, these women reminded him of the moon. Back and forth they went from the same places everyday with short straight hair and long curly hair, and long straight hair and short curly hair. Men came and left, but the small weathered homes kept the women inside of them.
"I'm nineteen," Hazel had answered when Jacob asked her age months earlier. He was 33. She began frequenting the store and seemed overly nice to him. Overly nice to Jacob was someone talking about something other than the weather. This also included people who made eye contact and listened to him when he was speaking. She did all of these things. Hazel did this for others too, but Jacob appreciated that she hadn't left him out of her community wanderings. She was a wheel that journeyed from one area of the neighborhood to the next. She always looked at Jacob as if she thought he should be someone else.
"My momma is always getting on me about my clothes," Hazel said to Jacob the first morning they met. She made no attempt to explain further. No further explanation was necessary. Hazel wore skimpy summer dresses that instantly became a part of her natural form, her natural form being some sort of a raging river. Her dresses were cut low in front; straps straining, fraying in front of his eyes, her breasts barely staying in their assigned homes, all but spilling on top of the counter, onto the Wrigley’s gum, the books of matches and the daily paper, the Globe-Democrat. There were times after Hazel would visit that Jacob would excuse himself though no one else was there, and go into the bathroom for a long time, a Closed sign dangling vigilantly on the front door knob.
"Hazel, where is your slip?" her mother would demand to know before boarding the streetcar for work.
"I can’t stand them. They’re too hot," was Hazel's answer.
“You’re too old for that now. Go on in the house and put on your slip.” If her mother insisted, Hazel would flounce up the stairs and into her bedroom, put on her slip and then take it off again, when she felt sure her mother had made it to work.
“Those are too many clothes.”
“What’s a body to do when you’re suffering like that?”
"Sometimes mother’s need to realize when a girl has grown up and needs to make up her own mind about such things,” would be what the men who hung out on the corner would say to each other when they knew Hazel's mother was no longer in ear shot.
Some said Hazel was slow. Most women tended to think she was conniving since her dim-witted nature seemed to kick in precisely when a man was on the premises. Suddenly normal tasks, sometimes thoughts themselves seemed too trying for Hazel. The only thing that sufficed was a giggle, accompanied by an index finger planted seductively between her full lips. The tightness of her skin, the curve where her back met her butt and the glow in her eyes, forgave all for the men who stood near her bragging about nothing in particular.
“There’s nothing wrong with that child. She’s not slow she’s lazy.” And, “She thinks one of these no good men around here is going to take care of her cause she young and cute now. Not one of them’s got a pot to piss in.” And, “Ain’t new girls being born everyday? That means she’s going to be replaced too. She’s in for a world of hurt,” was what the neighborhood women said about her, when they were supposed to be hanging their clothes on the line to dry.
Jacob Hayes didn’t care about any of that, he was glad that Hazel was downstairs. He then heard water running and Ophelia begin to hum softly.
She's getting ready for her date.
Jacob cocked his head over to the right some, he definitely heard the lilt now, an accent.
"'Phelia, maybe you could stay home with me tonight, we could go to the movies or something. I don’t feel too well." She stopped humming and the water began flowing louder from the tap.
"You don’t feel too well, but you want to go to a movie? Will you please go on downstairs and wait on whoever it is Jacob?"
Kill her.
The cramped figure inside the medallion lying nestled in the dark, trying valiantly not to touch the bible, sighed adjusting its miniature right knee.
A fiery rampaging fear tapped Jacob on his shoulder; he was afraid down to the calcium resting snugly inside his bones. Jacob had heard voices inside his head for as long as he could remember and had ignored them for just as long. Finally, they seemed to meld into one apathetic yet easily ignored speaker, but it was not the one that was there now. Somehow he knew this one had summarily disposed of that one.
When he was small and afraid, his mother would say to him, "Don't pay attention to nothing but what I say to you," but he had seen her worry too. “Your daddy said he heard stuff sometimes. Like a radio going, but you just got to learn to live with what you been given. The Lord’ll look out for you Jacob. Just believe in him and nothing else.” Although she would never admit it to anyone no matter the punishment, at times, Jacob made her uncomfortable.
Early one morning when Jacob was twelve years old, he was making his way into the kitchen for breakfast: eggs, rice and toast, and stopped short. There was a man’s voice accompanying his mother’s, quickly he realized it was his mother and her brother talking over the kitchen table. His uncle had just come through town unexpectedly for coffee and a place to rest. He had a wild spirit that Jacob envied, something that could not be harnessed with promises of a good job and steady love.
"You know—naw, you probably don't even remember," his uncle had said to his sister as he began pouring a little of the Pet Milk out of the can into his coffee and then into hers. The mixture began swirling like small tornadoes, the brew becoming creamier, calmer shades, he tapped the spoon twice on the side of his cup and continued, "Don’t make too much of it. Daddy would hear folks talking inside his head all the time."
"Well I told Jacob to thank God for Jesus and to go on about his business."
"Oh, I almost forgot," Uncle Duke said, reaching down into the bag beside his right foot.
"Don't tell me you brought that boy something else? Where'd you go this time?" Jacob's mother smiled, puffing her self out proudly because of the fuss her brother made over her youngest.
"Got this here charm. Man who sold it to me called it a medallion." Duke held it by the chain. It was a little larger than the size of a half-dollar and it swung slowly from side to side. The back of the medallion was to her. It had a slow hypnotic momentum. She sat down.
"Let me see the front of it," she said reaching for the chain in his hand.
"Put out your hand Mattie."
Mattie turned her hand over from the brown side to the pink side, palm up. Duke placed the piece in the center of her hand. The chain circled, gathering around itself like a snake preparing to rest.
"Good God," Mattie said dropping it and crossing herself though she couldn't remember ever doing that before. She’d only seen the act performed in movies but it felt right. Usually, she would place her hands together upright as if in prayer when life worried her or she felt evil stood too near.
"Ain't it something!” Duke said, scooting his chair closer to the table. “Look at the detail. Don't it look like it's a little man inside of it? This is going to be worth a lot of money one day. Whoever made this is probably famous already."
Mattie returned the piece to her brother, pushing it closer to his side of the table, then she got up and began washing her hands. Deliberately, slowly, like a surgeon.
"Where'd you get it?" she asked because she knew he wanted to tell her, not because she wanted to know. Mattie already planned on putting it somewhere deep and far away, to be fished out only whenever her brother darted into town and asked about it.
"I was in West Africa for awhile," Duke said, straightening his long legs so that they were unfolded, out and in the center of her kitchen. She heard his back pop and turned once again to look at him. She inspected him closer and saw a solitary grey hair shooting out of his chin. Mattie reminded herself to approach him one more time about moving to St. Louis. There were plenty of single women to keep company with and she was sure she could get him a job at the hospital where she worked.
"…from some haunted tribesman."
“Start again. Couldn’t hear you, this water was running,” Mattie said turning the faucet off harder than was necessary.
“Said, I ran across this merchant who said he got if from some haunted tribesman.”
Jacob listened outside the kitchen door as his uncle recounted the tale of an infamous tribesman who'd been caste out from his village. The haunted tribesman told the tale of having been a respected man and that people came to ask his advice on matters they didn't understand. Advising others was his life. One day, the tribesman went walking along a trail, “I’d walked it many times, the tribesman had said.
He found the medallion. It and the chain were lying on the ground, he put it on – and immediately it began helping him. The medallion gave him luck, made him think clearer. The tribesman became even more loved and respected, worshipped like a God - powerful. He began to harbor the conviction that he was power itself, believing that power truly had no beginning or end without his involvement.
Alienation from former associates was next. Initially these developments caused him worry though it was clear to everyone that he was the one choosing to isolate himself. Over the following weeks, he began the slow process of discrediting those he did not like, as well as those who did not share his vision. Women he wanted he took for his own, other people’s possessions he took for himself. No one dared stop him; they could see his influence as well.
After a time, the tribesman's eldest son questioned a decision he'd made, not in front of others--which would've been a cardinal sin, but in private as custom demanded. His son began hearing grumblings from other men, younger men, daring men - and not all that was said was unfounded.
“I killed my son” the tribesman said, “stabbed him in the heart for doubting me”. His wives stood around him in disbelief unsure of how to respond to what he’d done - so they chose hysteria. Suddenly everyone was afraid of him. The once serene village was now keenly alert of the madman in their midst. The tribesman tried throwing the medallion away, but it would not stop talking to him, cautioning him about making a grave mistake. He was afraid to get rid of it and afraid to keep it. “It ruled me,” said the tribesman.
The medallion told him that men were coming to kill him. Plotting to take his life from him because they feared his wisdom, feared his might, and feared what he would do next. Because of the position he held, he knew everything about everyone and that was the most frightening thing of all, so he ran. That was when the merchant found him, wandering the desert talking to himself, re-enacting the motion of thrusting the knife into the heart of his eldest son. Feeling the sudden warmth of blood flowing between his clenched fingers.
The tribesman told the merchant, “I'm to give it to you now”, and he placed it in the center of the merchant's palm.
"Now, I don't believe none of that," Jacob's uncle Duke said noticing how still his sister Mattie’s back had become as she continued facing the sink and not him. "I think it's good luck, and who knows, like I said before, it might be worth some money for the boy one day. Stranger things have happened."
He chose not to tell his sister how the merchant finished his tale, "the villagers found the tribesman dead the next day," the merchant had reported chewing on the end of an unlit cigar, "found him in the desert laying on his back, staring directly into the sun. They left him there--a cautionary tale". Apparently the tribesman's story was told to squalling, baleful children. Even though blinded and scared, he would find the children who’d misbehaved, wanting the bad children with him for companionship.
"You all upstairs? Should I come back?" Jacob could hear Hazel's high heels walking back and forth, back and forth, as if taking inventory of each item in the store. She stopped. He imagined by the pickle jar near the counter. He would offer her a pickle every time she came to the store.
The huge wooden pickle container sat in front and to the side of the counter where Jacob spent most of his days. Hazel always accepted his offer, bending over, taking her time so she could choose just the right one. She would giggle, fishing her right hand into the cold pickle juice, waiting until she captured the one she’d hoped for.
"Got it," Hazel would say displaying small white-pointed teeth, pleased at nothing in particular at all. She'd place the dripping pickle between her lips, holding it near the center between her front teeth while Jacob scurried under the counter to find a rag to wipe the glistening juice off her hand. His thoughts were obscene as she ate the pickle, but it was just his thoughts.
Remembering Hazel’s hand submerged in the cold, green juice reminded him of something, being able to see only her wrist, and after a few seconds it came to him. Jacob watched her once with one of the neighborhood boys. He had been taking the trash out the back door of the store to empty. Hazel and a boy were on the other side of the stacked cans that leaned against the wall of the store. The boy had his hand under her dress between her parted legs, only his wrist visible. The boy’s head was turned away from Jacob, toward the street. Her head was turned the opposite direction and she saw Jacob as he came out of the door.
There was no flurry to get her clothes back in order, no apologies, no shame—she simply stared at him, surrendering all of her weight against the brick wall of his store. The screen door which had been caught by his hip came free slamming behind him, startling her partner who turned around just as Jacob was sitting the trashcan down.
“Come on man, can’t you get out of here?” the boy asked.
“Of course…I’m sorry. But you kids shouldn’t be out here any way.”
Jacob was flustered. He hadn’t taken his eyes away from Hazel’s. He felt for the door and somehow made his way back through it. She waved good-bye to him with just her fingertips; the young man continued what he was doing.
The water turned off in the bathroom. Jacob could hear Ophelia’s hair spray blasting out of the can. Her black hair would be shiny and reflective as she left out the front door to meet Mr. Franklin.
"'Phelia?" She would be angry that he was still upstairs while there was a paying customer down below.
Kill her! How much more of this will you take? He almost expected to hear, what kind of man are you? He’d often wondered that himself.
Jacob was becoming overwhelmed and felt himself weakening, it was as if he was melting, becoming another substance completely. He slid forward off the mattress and onto the floor, turning around so his knees were under the bed, elbows resting on top of the mattress, arms making a triangle. He began to pray. He heard the bell once again, Hazel had left. She would return -- no one had any place to go.
Their entire neighborhood was suspended in some type of secretion excreted by dispassionate gods, the kind which did not allow for growth or possibilities. Dreams of the young soared for a short while, maybe took a stroll around the park, but soon returned unfulfilled.
"Give me strength now Lord, be my friend here in my darkest hour of need." Jacob did not know what else to say so he stayed where he was, waiting for either the terrifying voice to return or more ideas to add to his prayer. The bathroom door creaked open and Ophelia almost stumbled over Jacob’s bent frame. She had been taking one last look at herself in the mirror, making certain her cherry red lipstick was indeed on her lips and not anywhere else on her face as she strolled out of the bathroom.
Ophelia stared down at him and from her expression Jacob gleaned: bafflement, (he hoped for pity as well but he didn't see that), despair and finally fury.
"I asked you twenty minutes ago for a pair of stockings Jacob where are they?" Her eyes scanned the room as if the broken lamp on her dresser, or the picture of her father hanging crookedly on the wall next to the closet held the answer. "I'm about sick of this. I'll get them myself. I hope to God you’re down there praying for a new wife!"
Jacob was about to get up off his knees to try and discern what Ophelia meant by that last remark when he heard movement under the bed. Had he not been on the floor he was sure he would not have heard it at all. Even so he hesitated, initially suspecting a mouse which was all he needed; a mouse in the bedroom meant a mouse in the store. He sighed. Later, when it no longer mattered, he would decide the sound had been one of struggle.
Jacob peered into the darkness and saw an object in the shape of a thick wide square, an area blacker than the blackness around it. He wasn’t certain what he was looking at and then remembered his trunk. Jacob heard the scraping sound on the floor before he realized that he was the one bringing it toward him and out into the light.
He sat cross-legged, what he and his sister used to call Indian-style. There were fingerprints left on the surface and the sides of the trunk-- perfectly shaped ovals of his oil captured in the dust. A creaking sound flooded the room as he lifted the top. The image of a lid to a coffin being opened, the kind found in a multitude of scary movies popped into his head and then just as quickly if left. The smell of earth, clove and malevolence was part of his next breath. Jacob hadn’t saved much in his life; he hadn't felt the need to preserve things. No old snapshots (his sister kept things like that) even his letters were official, of a formal nature - records. Jacob picked up his mother's bible and realized that he hadn’t thought about it in years. The bible had gone every place his mother had until she died, and then it was his. She had insisted he take it, not his sister but him, as if for protection. Jacob found a few more old books, a weathered photograph of some woman he didn't know, some buttons and a tarnished necklace. He assumed it was a piece of jewelry belonging to his mother and was about to close the lid when he thought he saw movement.
"That's funny," he said reaching for it.
"I'm about to go if you can stop talking to yourself long enough to hear me. I won't be back tonight -- stayin' at momma's." Ophelia stood in the doorway, prepared for his whimpering which would be punctuated by his sulking. She was armed with a flurry of hateful words and thrashing gestures if necessary.
"I will see you later," he said.
What caused Ophelia to hesitate was the sound of his voice, there was a lilt to his words. Almost musical, as if they originating under a waterfall. It sounded as if he had an accent and as if he were making a solemn promise.
"You mean you ain't got something smart to say?" she asked. Ophelia had no reason for hesitating, Marshall Franklin was already waiting for her and he hated to wait.
"I will see you later," he repeated, quieter this time, almost tersely. She turned and walked out the door but not before she saw Jacob curl his fingers around something, and his face become eerily satisfied.
The medallion was just as old and ugly as the day his Uncle Duke handed it to him. Jacob spun it around on its chain until the charm faced him. It still gave him pause. Even after so many years its detail shocked him. The features were remarkably defined considering how small it was. He could swear he saw dimples in its cheeks and determination in its eyes. Jacob had shown an interest in art as a kid and the library had a few books of the great ones: Renoir, Monet, Michelangelo, but the piece he held of the small man who almost looked trapped inside the metal was more realistic than any work he'd seen by those artists.
It moved.
Jacob laughed, "It did not," he decided, talking aloud to the cracked walls, broken lamp and Ophelia's father's lopsided picture.
It was as if someone had shrunk a real person down. The face was recognizable. He didn't know who it was, but it was so well done it could have been a photograph. The muscles in the legs and arms so strained you could almost see them twitching.
They are twitching, being in that uncomfortable position for so long. Jacob's back hurt just looking at the miniature bent spine. What did you do to deserve this little man? Jacob didn't remember putting it around his neck, but felt its coolness bump against his skin. New sensations assaulted him right away. He felt impulsive, like he’d boarded a roller coaster and was settling himself in only to find out at the last second there were no safety harness. Jacob imagined listening to the slow, painful, arthritic creaking while the car he sat in was ascending, time passed, he felt chilly and then he was in the sky. Emptiness lay on either side of him, just the black track which lay directly ahead of him, that slow climb and then nothing. Very soon he would past the crest and begin the descent, the wind rushing into his face, before falling out of the car and wrecking himself onto the tracks below-- Jacob decided in that instant that first there were a few people that he was going to take with him.
He heard the bell once again and knew Ophelia was gone.
Methodically Jacob began destroying everything Ophelia owned. All of her clothes were cut into long, confetti-like strips. Colored fabric lay at his feet, the picture of the floor of a turn of the century textile factory. He broke and/ or stomped on every piece of jewelry she owned. Her small glass bottles of perfumes and toilette water were tossed out the back window to mingle with the fumes from the cleaners next door. Jacob found Ophelia’s wedding ring sitting in a pool of water on top of the sink. The light captured the gold band and the tiny chip of the stone inside.
"Where's my diamond Jacob?" she'd asked after they finished making love the first time.
"Can't afford one right now, but it'll be soon," he had said catching his breath, reveling in the knowledge that he was able to perform with a woman like Ophelia.
"A great big one Jake?" she'd asked, smiling, patting back into place a rogue curl toward the back of her head.
"Yeah, a big one," he'd said unsure even then if it was true. She'd sighed letting him kiss her again, relieved that things were falling together so soon for her.
He smashed the ring beneath the heel of his right foot.
There was an angry, unfed stranger living inside of Jacob and he was letting him out to play. But the stranger wanted blood and suddenly, like everything else in Jacob’s life he couldn’t control him. On the outside he looked like Jacob Hayes—on the outside, but on the inside a stranger who could take no further abuse was in control. He was the pilot. Jacob reassured himself that at least he was the co-pilot, but actually he was the new stewardess on her first day who was unsure where to store her purse.
The bell clanged again, it was Marshall Franklin. He and Ophelia had just missed one another; they would meet at her mother's house. He wanted a pack of cigarettes.
He likes to smoke after sex.
"Yeah, ain't nothin' better than lightin' up after… makes you feel like a man," he'd been heard saying.
Jacob descended the stairs, parted the flimsy marooned, mildewed curtains and entered the store. He felt the little man in the medallion moving against the wall of his chest with each step he took; it was as if the miniature being was suddenly disturbed by his inability to stand.
"Let me have a pack of smokes Jacob--you know what I like," Marshall Franklin said, dismissing him already, only the flash of his black eyes remaining, the color of wet tires. He was taunting him. Marshall Franklin could be archaic in his torment of Jacob who had just turned away from him reaching for a pack of cigarettes. "'Phelia around?"
At first Marshall Franklin avoided Jacob's eyes and then thought better of it, deciding to challenge him instead. Marshall was getting tired of this dance; he planned on leaving town soon. He had no desire to take Ophelia with him. She did not know that nor did he want her to until he was well down the road and settled some place as far away as Illinois. But he intended on being with her until then.
Marshall Franklin had nothing but a galloping disdain for the goblin-like man who stood before him, and since he was leaving shortly, he felt no need to be careful in expressing his true feelings.
"No,” Jacob said, answering his earlier question. “Ophelia is at her mother's. I imagine you'll be meeting her there directly."
Marshall Franklin had his hand on the pack of cigarettes but something made him clutch them too tightly. There was a difference. Men who came in and out of towns and were supported by lonely, dissatisfied women in those same towns developed an internal tuning fork and something just struck his. He'd never witnessed a man's demeanor change so completely. It was as if Jacob was now certain about something he'd pondered over for years.
Marshall Franklin went through an internal rolodex of responses. He could deny planning to meet Ophelia but he chose not to, refusing to feed into this new sensation that caused him to doubt himself.
"Yeah, I may stop by there to say hi to everybody."
"I'll see you there," Jacob said moving to hand Marshall Franklin his change. Two things caused the new rattling inside of Marshall this time. Jacob never set foot over his mother in-law's house, everybody knew that and secondly, Jacob did not look like himself at all, especially behind the eyes.
It was as if an imposter had haphazardly put on a Jacob Hayes suit, but didn't check himself in the mirror before going out. Things were incorrect about him. His voice was deeper, the words sounded more determined, less open for debate. He walked with a foreshadowing purpose and he emanated a smell. He smelled like an open grave. "I said, I'll see you there." Jacob repeated, finally letting the coins fall into Marshall Franklin's open hand. He dropped them from a ridiculous height, causing them to make the high-pitched tinkling sound only coins can make when colliding against one another.
The bell rang over the door and Hazel stood in the entrance. She was perspiring, waiting. "Yeah, I'll look for you then--see you later," Marshall Franklin said. He was going to cancel with Ophelia tonight, he didn't need the trouble, he had plenty of women he could see.
Hazel stood in front of Jacob wearing a hat well into its autumn years, her thick curly brown hair thoughtlessly tucked underneath. She had on a nice black Sunday dress and dusty, brown high-heeled shoes scuffed up the back near the seam. She had a cheap traveling bag in each hand, little more than a couple of brown paper sacks. Leaning against the counter she said, "I was in here earlier, I come to tell you I'm heading for the bus station, my momma put me out again--she won’t let me come back this time. Caught me with Lou and them up the street,” she motioned her head then, East, “guess I’m goin down South to stay with my grandmother"—she scrunched up her face horribly when she said the word grandmother, “at least until I figure out what I want to do.”
She began twirling her index finger around a strand of hair over and over again while looking at Jacob Hayes, as if considering things. Finally she continued, “I wish I knew about a place, because I’d stay. But I’m about to get on the bus now. It's funny, I never needed a lot of things like other girls.” She said this last puzzling bit as if voicing a confession.
Jacob imagined the men on the bus making room on either side of the aisle for her, so that she could sit near them. The lucky one would rub up against her the entire time they were traveling down the highway toward somewhere else. Jacob wanted her so badly he would’ve made a pact with the devil.
And then he did.
“I guess I can tell you this now Jacob since I’m going anyway, I had a crush on you--always in your nice suit, so polite and all.” She talked as if she’d merely forgotten to mention it before, as if verbalizing a diary entry. Jacob was at a loss and then he felt an urging, a pushing from somewhere. He noticed that the muscles in his arms and legs were hurting. He rubbed his back as if he were a pregnant woman in her last month and surmised that he must have slept funny.
When he returned to himself he was releasing Hazel after having kissed her and he didn’t know what else. She laughed at him brightly. He got scared.
“I don’t think you’re crazy Jacob," she said after moving away from the warmth of his mouth. She backed away from him, "I hear them talk; I hear what they say about Ophelia and Mr. Franklin, and stuff, don’t worry about it none, hear? You a nice man,” she patted his arm gently. Hazel’s sympathy for his situation tore something loose in Jacob. A slow girl, with no place to stay other than with a grandmother who didn’t want her, pitied him. Jacob closed the store. He didn’t even watch Hazel’s hips saunter down the street toward her future.
Time had passed, Jacob was not sure how much. He now hovered inside a small area of himself, the medallion was in total control. He was walking the half mile to Ophelia's mother's house.
I can already hear them, the loud talk, the laughter, the smacks on the back and the staticy radio that was never turned off. He could almost see Ophelia and Marshall Franklin in Shirley’s bedroom in the back of the house, separated by only a sheet hanging between them and the kitchen. They would be dancing closely together to the sound of the staticy radio while fish fried. Ophelia liked to dance. They would be moving together in an intimate way that announced they'd been together many times before. Jacob walked faster. And then he saw Ophelia walking toward him. She was in a hurry; her pace meant that she was upset about something.
Jacob darted behind the tall bushes that all the neighborhood women avoided after dark, eight tall bushes lined in a row to his right, the sudden change in surroundings reminiscent of a story in a Grimm's fairytale. At one time, the bushes had been well taken care of, now they grew wildly treacherous. Ophelia hadn't noticed the tall bushes until a leaf brushed a few strands of her hair back from her ear like a lover's finger would.
At the very moment she’d turned her head like one does when they are about to turn their body as well, the bend of an arm came around her neck, snatching her backward into a world of leaves, moistness, sticks and dark. The aroma of green invaded her completely. Ophelia's mind stopped. Shut itself off. No longer able to distinguish what truth was. She had been on her way home to see what was taking Marshall so long. He would meet her at the store if not her mothers. She'd forgotten to cross the street.
Ophelia felt like she’d been in the center of the bush for a long time. Coming through the back, in degrees she felt the humid night air greet her once again; first her head felt it, then her shoulders and then all of her in a rush--like being born.
She struggled to take a good deep breath. A dull crack came next, and the sounds inside her head dampened. Her head and then the rest of her felt too heavy to hold up. Another arm encircled her, lifting her. In a blur and for a second, she saw a ridiculously small man inside a piece of jewelry beginning to straighten himself and stand upright, rocking back and forth in front of her eyes, an angry man on a metal swing. Turning her head she saw a cat on a neighbor's porch lifting his front paw to sniff and then carefully examine.
Ophelia thought her assailant was going to drag her under her arms so that her feet left two scuff trails behind them, two snakes growing in length as she was taken further away from her world. But Ophelia wasn't on the ground anymore; she was thrown over a shoulder. His arm encircled her, supporting her there. The person held her urgently as if trying to draw her inside of him. All she could think while being whisked away into the darkness was he must be very strong. Her thighs dangled in front of the man and the left one was periodically being touched by a small metal hand. She prayed to go completely mad.
Jacob go between the houses.
"I am, you see that I am." Jacob talked freely to the man who now stood up in the carved medallion, his feet the only things holding him to the metal. He stood inside it like a kid would an old tire hanging from a tree in the backyard.
Jacob cut in between houses, taking her behind homes that where still and foreboding even in the daytime. Ophelia felt bare, sharp, brown sticks from surrounding foliage scratching her shins, heard them breaking in two with small inconsequential snaps all around her. Those cuts would be a lot worse if I hadn’t put on my lotion..
Preposterous thoughts took the place of rational ones because the rational ones left Ophelia wanting. Wanting to have seen the bushes before she’d gotten to them, wanting to have waited for Marshall at her mother's instead of trying to prove a point about being stood up. The thought of Jacob saving her from whatever was about to happen didn't occur to her not one time.
You are taking too long, you will be seen.
Ophelia was now being carried at breakneck speed, the man’s feet seeming to merely skim the ground. His grip was loosening, she moved sharply in his arms. She was getting further and further away from the store. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She wanted to scream but nothing came out but warm wet air. His grip loosened a bit more and she spun almost entirely around and off his shoulder. Both the human man and the miniature metal one shot their right arms out to catch her.
"Oh God," she said not wanting to be touched by either. The man caught her before she was on the ground but not before she saw his face; it was Jacob.
He hit her again.
Jacob knew instinctively where to take her-- the abandoned school.
Forty-five minutes later, the clanging and ringing behind Ophelia's ears were incessant, like a high school cafeteria full of kids on the last day of school. Her lips moved, though if anyone had been close enough to kiss her they would not have heard a word.
"I hurt all over, I just want to lay here-- a little while." It was merely a thought spoken aloud, and her body began relaxing once more having found a nice resting place in the warmth of what could only be her own blood rushing out of her, actually it was no longer rushing, it leaked. Expelling an immense amount of effort, she turned onto her right side, her cheek resting on cool linoleum. This small movement, the same motion a person does in his sleep without thought, fatigued her. She felt small granules of dirt and glass trapped between her cheek and the floor.
How am I going to get up? She considered this for a while. Ophelia knew she had to get to a hospital-- there was no part of her which did not hurt, ache, pound or throb. She refused to look down at herself; needing to pretend a while longer. Pretend that some of the quick flashes of memory starting to come back were a dream and the warmth and wetness on her and underneath her didn’t mean anything that bad. She knew she had to start walking, and then all at once she did. Ophelia felt like an old woman who'd been confined for a month to her sick bed.
Forward she went on shaky, loose, legs timidly dragging one foot next to the other one, more of a slide than a walk. She thought about the mummy movie she and Marshall went to see last month and chuckled, certain that was how she looked, scraping her feet slowly across the floor. Ophelia peered at her shadow on her right, manufactured by a strong light source outside of the window and was saddened to see that her description had been an accurate one. She looked broken. She was broken.
Walking slowly from the dark room of pain Ophelia had inhabited for almost an hour, she made a conscious decision not to look back. She heard sounds, knocking and moving, if he wasn’t through with her there was nothing she could do about it. Ophelia was fairly certain she wouldn’t have enough steam to make it out the door.
If she had turned her head to the left, she would've seen Jacob's body twitching, gyrating. He was having a convulsion, her husband was fighting himself, but he wasn’t going to win.
In shadows and blurred pictures, in between convulsive fits, part of Jacob Hayes remembered what he'd done to Ophelia during the time they'd been together in the abandoned cafeteria of Vashon High school. He'd looked into the face of the woman he was going to hell for. The same face he fell in love with and then married. The face he'd hit over and over again so that Marshall Franklin would have nothing more to love. Jacob Hayes sat on the dirty floor that had been the high school for the white kids that used to live in the community until the black families moved in. Then it became their high school, and now it was no ones.
Shadows circled the room as if waltzing. His eyes followed one image around the room which caught his attention. It resembled a business man. He seemed to have on a suit and was carrying a briefcase. The shadow man was wearing a hat and was in a hurry, apparently having many things to attend to. These were all of the things Jacob had wanted. "I ain't gonna' have none of that now," Jacob said to the dust in the corners and the spider webs living in hidden places throughout.
He'd seen Ophelia making her way to and then out of the door. The stranger inside of him wanted Jacob to finish what was started, and the little man who was almost completely free of the medallion, (only his right foot remained) demanded him to finish.
You are no longer her fool…end this.
He was to go after Marshall Franklin next, but Jacob knew there was already too much he was going to have to pay for. And then madness got the upper hand once again and off he raced after Ophelia.
Ophelia became dizzier with each step she took. She heard sounds behind her; it could only be Jacob coming to end what had been started. She realized in that moment that she possibly deserved this. She'd always known that he was not stable, yet it had given her joy to demean him. The man she was going to hell for.
Ophelia saw Marshall coming toward her through a bank of trees; she heard the voice behind her that was not her husband's though it came out of his mouth.
"You will die Ophelia! You will die tonight."
"Help me," Ophelia begged and the look on Marshall's face told her that something horrible was happening behind her. She saw Marshall's right hand reach into the inside of his coat pocket where a gun rested. She fell then because she could walk no further.
Marshall Franklin shot his gun. The sound reverberated, explosion-like between fragile tree branches. The bullet sliced through the right side of Jacob’s neck. He actually felt no pain for a second. In fact, Jacob Hayes wondered if he'd been shot at all, and then he felt the warmth, a great amount of it, saturating the collar of his shirt and his favorite gray suit.
Jacob leapt forward, grabbing Marshall by the throat.
"No," Marshall said before dropping his gun. Marshall watched it bounce once and tumble away from him. Jacob was taking great pleasure in feeling the rush of air leaving Marshall's mouth and nose.
Use all of your strength; choke the life out of him. The man in the medallion said, his face having shot up into a grin, making his metal cheeks round and fat. To Jacob, Marshall's throat felt as though chicken bones rested deep inside. The second shot came from Ophelia, hitting Jacob in the left side, causing him to hop twice on his right foot, the impact whip lashing him. Jacob released his hold on Marshall Franklin’s neck. Marshall dropped to his knees, clawing at his neck as if snakes had been there instead of a man’s hands. For Jacob Hayes cold reality set in, Ophelia's bullet ripped open his aorta; he was dying...he wanted to explain; and then he was dead.
The small man smiled and then stepped off of the chain and into the cool night.
No one working at Homer G. Phillips Hospital that night was sure why Ophelia wasn't dead. From the janitor who was on his third coffee break and saw the ambulance drivers carrying the gray looking woman past him, to the resident with the morning breath waiting for Ophelia in the Emergency Room.
"She didn't have enough circulating blood in her to keep a puppy alive," the resident said later, “but I pulled her through”. The nurses smiled, nodding as they were paid poorly to do.
"You did doctor, that was something."
"One for the record books alright, I didn't think she was gonna' make it."
Later, the nurses said to themselves that God took over that night.
Days passed. Ophelia slept hours on end before finally waking. The pain so excruciating she couldn't form words; moving her body was out of the question. She felt each of the small, shallow inhalations were the only thing holding all of her organs in place. She was sure that if she were to bear down just once, her insides would be on her outside. Ophelia could hear movement and then smelled Marshall's cologne.
"Come on over here, I don't want to have to move," she said quietly, waiting for him to say what she knew he was going to. The doctor had already been in earlier explaining what had happened to her. The young white man with the trail of blonde curls, had an attentive face and a dingy lab coat. He said: she’d never have children; sex would probably always be painful for her, "there's such extensive internal scarring," had been said more than once and her face was asymmetrical. The right side caved in, deflated.
"I used to fake headaches with Jacob…now I have 'em all the time."
"They say you'll be getting out of here soon--that's good news." Marshall paused then continued, "But I guess when it rains it pours. My little brother is having some kind of personal trouble and I better be going to see about him. But I'll be back," he said, patting the top of her hand causing a faint popping sound—the same sound the nurse made hours earlier to get a vein to put the needle in her arm.
"I heard they already buried Jacob. His sister is supposed to be coming by to get his things," Ophelia trailed off and then said, "Maybe I should’ve known this was coming, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how it was all gonna' end."
Marshall smiled softly and then they were finished.
"You take care of yourself now Marshall. I'll understand if you can't come back this way."
"Now what I say Ophelia? I'll be back." He kissed her on her forehead like he was her uncle and walked out the door. Marshall Franklin was found dead near a set of rail road tracks in Illinois four months later, but before that, he'd never spoken of Jacob Hayes again - though the two of them were reacquainted frequently in his dreams.
Ophelia’s story became a ghost tale in their little community off Belt Street. Whenever there was a lull, or people appeared to move on to other news, someone would bring them back to that night. In that same four months, the bank took Jacob's store back and Ophelia moved home with Shirley. An icy, tragic air replaced the party atmosphere that used to rain down on all who walked through their door.
"Ophelia's alright now. She was messed up for awhile, but she alright", Shirley would announce to those who used to listen to her staticy radio and eat her cornbread and fish hot from the skillet. But they found somewhere else to smack each other's back, laugh loudly and dance closely. When Shirley showed up the good times left, like air escaping from a poorly patched tire, and then she stopped going.
Early one Tuesday morning Jacob Hayes' sister took his few belongings from Ophelia's outstretched hands.
"I gave everything else away," Ophelia said.
"I understand. I'm sorry," said Jacob's older sister. She wrestled with revealing to Ophelia how their father had died. He’d finally put a butcher knife through his left ear one evening to stop the voices from arguing in his head. She wanted to tell Ophelia to reassure her. To make her understand that it was out of her hands, that there was nothing anyone could do.
His sister dropped something. She bent over to pick up a charm.
"I remember this old thing," recalling it as the one her uncle had given Jacob when they were just kids. The medallion Jacob bragged about that entire summer.
"I had never seen him wear it before that night," Ophelia said.
"I'm sorry," his sister said again.
Staring at the twisted charm Jacob's sister gasped. What took her breath away from her was not the miraculous workmanship; but the understanding of why her Uncle Duke had made such a fuss about the piece.
The cramped miniature inside looked exactly like Jacob. Even down to his receding hair line and the scar he had on his chin from when she’d hit him with a stick when they were playing cowboys and Indians.
Quite unexpectedly, she felt the need to give it to the lonely, single guy she worked with, his birthday was fast approaching and she was certain he would simply love it.
The End
