I skimmed the rest of the folder's brittle fillings but I didn't expect to find anything more enlightening than what I'd already gotten. I was unsurprised by what it contained. Yet more accusatory headlines screamed out, complaining about the government funding going away and the place closing down over my scandal. I was strangely proud. It was all about me. There wasn't much extra information on my mother to be found, but at least I could say I knew a little bit more about her case. I'd never quite felt up to speed; ever since Malachi's trial in the courtroom and my own tribulations in elementary school I'd assumed the rest of the world knew something I didn't.
After I replaced the file, I ran down the stairs and out across the street to find my uncle. He was sitting at a small square table at the end of a narrow corridor where I knew he'd be waiting. He lifted his head when I entered, disturbing the bell at the top of the coffeehouse door.
"Did you find what you wanted?"
I nodded and grabbed a rickety, skinny-legged seat across from him. "You've got to take me there. "
His chin swung back and forth. "The goddess will not permit it. "
"Then you only meant to tease me. "
"No. I only disagreed with Lulu that you were old enough. Now you know. Now you've seen. The rest is up to you. I'll be in enough trouble when she finds out I told you this much. I'll be lucky to get laid for the rest of my life. "
He was settled on the matter. It wouldn't do me any good to push. I'd have to find another way. I'd have to ask another question.
"Dave, do you know who my father was?"
"Uh-uh. Lulu thinks he was a white guy, his name might have been Allen, or Andrew, or something like that. I d
on't think anybody really knows. I'm sorry, baby. I've given you all I know. "
With that, my uncle, Promethean traitor, finished his coffee and closed his book.
III
In a week or two, Lulu returned to her old self and life resumed in its rut of normalcy. I don't know if Dave ever told Lulu what he'd told me or how he helped, but we never spoke of it again, except for the odd occasion when I'd ask him to show me, and he'd shoot me down.
I finished high school; I spent a couple of years at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga pursuing some of nothing and some of everything. I spent long enough in college that I had no excuse to leave without a degree, but that's what happened. After a while, I just got tired of going.
For the most part, the university gave me an excuse to fall in with a snobby crowd of disaffected poets who thought I was a psychic diva because of the poetry I wrote—mostly about the three sisters and about my cousin Malachi, who rotted away in a state institution as far as I knew and cared. Oh yes, people still knew of the case. People still talked about me at least as much as they discussed the widow of the man who killed Medgar Evers. She lives near here on one of the mountains and everyone knows it. South of the Ohio River there is no such thing as old news or ancient history. Drive around downtown and look for pickup trucks with rebel flag stickers, if you don't believe me.
Eventually I quit taking even the loosely enforced poetry workshops and sank further still down the academic totem pole by joining a small clique of slam poets. They worked out of a scuzzy bar on the south side of town, assembling their vicious rounds of bad tournament poetry to amuse or bore the meager audiences. Occasionally a local band would play before the spoken word performers took the stage, and then there would be more of a crowd for the poets to scream at.
Once upon a time, I lived for those nights when the joint would be packed and the beers would flow freely. I never did drink beer, not even the good stuff, but I could be conned into a glass or two of wine if the mood was right. It loosened me up for the show; it made me more gloriously slick and tragic.
Don't you know it, everyone loves a lost little girl in a black corset top and leather pants. Everyone wants to save her or fuck her, not understanding that neither is necessary. But so long as she is at least a small measure beautiful, and so long as she is young, they will come to hear her. So long as she can sell the illusion that she is innocence and pain in search of defilement and rescue, she'll have them at her feet—their eyes and teeth parted in mock blessing, their idle lust a lascivious parody of worship.
Never mind her poetry. It doesn't have to be good.
My poetry was good, or at least it was predictably shocking, peppered with obscenities and sexual slang. Oh, all right. It might not have been that good, really, but it served my purposes. I got free booze all night anywhere I chose; and by the time I was old enough to use my real driver's license instead of the phony one, I was plenty beautiful. I had grown into a mini-Lulu, smaller and thinner, with breasts not quite so ponderous but full enough anyway, and the same long-lashed eyes and fat lips on a fair face. In a bigger city I might not have been so special, but the valley is a small pond and the fish are easily impressed.
I was especially interesting to the valley boys because of my peculiar heritage.
Ordinarily I checked "Other" on any form requesting racial information, for what was I to say? I was probably more white than black, but given the roulette wheel of genetics there wasn't any good way to guess. If I straightened my hair I could possibly pass for Caucasian, but most folks recognized on sight that I wasn't of any Nordic strain. In fact, much to my irritation, men had a tendency to think of my appearance as a conversation starter, or more often than not, as a precursor to a lame pickup line.
Almost any given night I could expect to climb off the stage and have some good ol' boy waiting for me, offering me a beverage I wouldn't accept, because even simple politeness is more encouragement than they need.
"That was real good," the evening's Romeo always began. "So what are you, anyway?"
Ah, Dixie. Where even if they don't care anymore, they can't help but notice.
I might choose to play stupid and toy with him, to force him to ask the question the way he meant it. "I'm a student. " "I'm a poet. " 'I'm a girl. " And I'd bat my eyelashes slowly and stupidly.
"No, I mean, like, what race are you?"
What was the point? Once on a day trip to Knoxville I bought a baby-doll T-shirt that said, "Not black, not white, HUMAN. " I wore it mostly on days that I didn't feel like answering questions.
Another mixed-race girl worked the circuit with us, and she got the same crap as often as I did. Terry was some unlikely combination of disparate backgrounds—German and Indian, or African and Eskimo, or Mexican and Arabian, something along those lines. Something that left her not a shade darker than me but a touch more exotic.