Jack

Jack was black with love. The doll was made of hard rubber and had been kissed, fed cookies and juice, had his face washed a hundred times, been slept with, been lost and found, sat on, peed on and carried everywhere, until body heat had darkened the rubber nearly black.

Althea’s mother said, “I can dress her just as nice as you please and she insists on carrying that old doll. It looks filthy. I don’t know how she can stand it.”

“He’s not,” Althea said.

“I know the doll looks dirty,” her grandmother said, “but I’ve scrubbed until the color is off. “I think it rubs off on her clothes,” Althea’s mother said. She lifted the new baby up on her shoulder and looked down at Althea. “How can you love something so sticky and dirty?”

Althea hugged the doll closer. Jack was warm and smelled the way she wanted him to: of naps and nighttime and places they’d been. The barn where he kept the cows away. One giant cow had gotten loose from her stall, started the wrong way from the barn yard and toward Althea. She held up Jack who screamed, “Stop!” The old cow stomped and snorted and tossed her tail. Then she stopped. She looked at Althea with fire behind her black eyes. Wet strings dripped from her thick pink lips. She chewed with big teeth. She was big as a house, coming at Althea. Jack stopped her.

“Sweetheart.” Her grandmother bent down. She smelled green like spearmint. “Let’s leave Jack home today.”

“No,” Althea said. She wrapped both arms around Jack.

Her grandmother Vina laughed. “Jack might be the lucky one. If you leave him here, he won’t have to listen to those godawful-boring sermons.”

“Vina,” her mother sucked in her breath. “What if he heard you say that?”

“It’s true,” her grandmother said. She pulled the foil from a mint and gave it to Althea. “I’m not saying anything ninety-nine percent of that congregation hasn’t already said.”

Her mother gathered her purse and diaperbag, stared toward the door where grandmother and Althea waited.

“Honey, let Jack stay home just today. It’s only an hour. Tell him we’ll be right back.”

Her grandmother reached for him but Althea twisted away. “You can put him on my pillow and he can nap until we get back. He’ll be safe.”

“No.” Althea started to cry.

“She’ll mess up her dress,” her mother said. “Let her take the doll. Lord knows what everybody thinks. Her carrying that awful, dirty old doll.”

Jack was a soldier. He wore a blue uniform. Althea’s father had sent him from France. Althea didn’t know France except it was a pink square on her grandfather’s map. She loved the word, France. She said it sometimes. And she had a doll called Frances with blue eyes and a stiff yellow skirt that matched her hair. Frances was prissy and couldn’t play like Jack.

Jack came in the mail. In a crushed, torn box.

“Thank goodness Ken had the sense not to mail anything breakable,” grandmother said. “It’s not one of those fancy dolls or there wouldn’t be anything left. It would have been smashed to pieces.”

Jack was all in one piece and nothing moved. His arms were carved tight to his sides. His shoes and belt and buttons were shiny black like his eyes and the little wedge of hair that shone under his blue cap. Althea traced every fold of him in the dark, even his fingers in their gloves and the three flat bumps that were buttons.

Jack stood on the seat beside her in church, looked at the hymn book, but couldn’t read. He stood the same way on the edge of Althea’s sandbox and kept the chickens out. He watched while she made pies in jar lids her grandmother gave her. No fat, fluffy chickens hopped in the sandbox to scratch and peck for worms. Once they had pecked Althea’s toes when she left Jack in the house. And it hurt. Jack would have chased those chickens out before they pecked, if he had been there.

Sometimes when Althea woke in the dark, her mother fussing with the baby and trying to be quiet, Jack was there to help her get back to sleep.

As they were leaving church, Mrs. Willingham leaned down to talk to Althea. “That’s a pretty dress,” she said. “I’ve always loved little girls with braids. My girls used to wear braids.”

“Where are they now?” Althea asked. She thought it might be fun to have little girls to play with. So far only Jack and her grandfather had tasted tea from her new tea set. Her mother was busy and her grandmother said she didn’t like tea. Not even a little.

“Who? My little girls?” Mrs. Willingham straightened. “All grown up,” she said and raised both hands in the air. “That’s what happens before you know it. One minute they’re hugging dolls, the next minute they’re gone.”

“The dolls?” Althea asked. “Where do the dolls go?”

“The little girls,” Mrs. Willingham said. “I’ve had enough of them to know and there’s no going back.”

Gone where? Althea wanted to know. Gone to France where her daddy was stationed in the Army. The word stationed made Althea think of trains. Her daddy was where trains were and that’s how he had sent Jack. Gone. Daddy was gone. Althea liked the word. She would like to be gone from big cows and mean chickens and little brothers who pulled their faces into a knot and yelled and yelled so loud Althea had to put both hands over her ears.

“We’ve tried and tried to get her to leave that horrible old doll at home,” her mother said. “We can’t do a thing with it.”

“Disgraceful,” Mrs. Willingham said. “But that’s the way they are. Always the ones they think the most of, are the worst. Same thing when they get older. You can’t tell them a thing.”

They came home from church and after lunch Althea had to take a nap because grandfather took a nap and he wanted Q.U.I.E.T. He said the word loud and spelled it even louder. His voice was tired from talking so long.

“Nobody told him he had to bring in every verse in the Bible,” her grandmother snickered after he went to his room. She sewed buttons on his shirts. “That man pops more buttons than anybody I know and if he knew I was sewing them on Sunday, he’d pop a few more.” She laughed again, a little hissing sound through her nose. “I guess he thinks I’m supposed to fold my hands and rock just because it’s Sunday. Well,” she said, “I got news for him. The work doesn’t stop just because it’s Sunday. How does he think a meal gets on the table and the kitchen cleared up?”

“I don’t see any difference,” Althea’s mother said. She rocked the baby who was already asleep, but she kept on rocking. Althea knew she did it because she liked to hold him. “There’s nothing sweeter than a clean, dry sleeping baby,” her mother said. Althea wanted to say she was sweet a lot of times and she didn’t scream her head off like that baby did for no reason at all.

Whenever she cried, Althea had a reason. Jack did, too. He liked to dance in front of the fire place. The red and yellow flames made their music as Althea walked him back and forth across the hearth.

In the light, Althea saw his shoes did not shine anymore. His pants were faded white and you had to feel his buttons to know they were there.

“Wouldn’t you like to have a new doll to play with?” her mother asked. “A girl doll? One with shoes and stockings you could take off and put on? One with hair you could comb?”

Althea rubbed the top of Jack’s head, where the blue of his cap had been. Now it was sticky and black. She put her tongue to his head and tasted tar.

“I might even make a girl doll some dresses,” her grandmother said. “I could make a dress for you and one just like it for a girl doll . . . if you had one.”

“I’ve got Frances,” Althea said.

“Frances isn’t a doll you play with,” her mother said, putting the baby in his crib to finish his nap. “Frances is a doll you look at. A doll you keep. You could dress and undress a new doll,” her mother said.

Althea looked at Jack, whose arms and legs did not move. He could not wear clothes or sit at a tea party table. Jack could only stand, and sometimes he didn’t do that. He fell over because Althea chewed on his toes.

“If you’ll let us have Jack,” her mother said, “we’ll go to town with granddaddy and you can pick out a new doll.”

“Any doll I want?” Althea asked.

“Any doll you want,” her mother said.

Her grandmother closed her eyes and nodded. “Any doll you want. But you have to let us have Jack.”

Althea rubbed Jack’s head. She ran her finger down one side and across the flat bottom of his feet, then up the other side. She traced the places where his arms were close to his body. She traced the imprint of his belt and buttons and last she closed her eyes and slowly she felt his face. Jack didn’t say anything. Althea put both arms around him, bugged and rocked him, then she handed him to her mother.

Althea thought her mother would put Jack high on the closet shelf. That’s where she put Frances. That’s where she put things she didn’t want Althea to have. She put things there to keep them safe. Things Althea might break.

Her mother took Jack, walked over to the fireplace and dropped him.

Althea stood. She watched not believing. She watched Jack dance in the yellow and red light. She saw his cheeks get pink as new. His shoes and hair get shiny black. Then he puffed up like a mushroom and began to melt. He dripped and slid. Then he folded flat and back and small over the logs.

Althea screamed and tried to reach for Jack. Her mother grabbed her, held her hard. “You can’t! You’ll get burned.”

Then the baby woke and began to scream.

“See what you did.” Her mother said, “You woke the baby. Now I’ll never get him back to sleep. When he doesn’t finish his nap, he’s so cranky.”

Her grandmother took the fire poker and speared a blob of black goo, what was left of Jack, from the ashes. “Phew,” she said, “that stuff stinks.”

“Jack,” Althea cried and grabbed the skirt of her grandmother’s dress as she hurried to the back yard where she dropped the goo in the grass.

“Don’t touch it,” her grandmother said. “It’s hot.”

Althea hid behind her grandmother, cried into her skirt. Her grandmother put her arm around Althea and let her cry. “It’s all right. You can get a new doll. Tomorrow, as soon as the stores open, we’ll make granddaddy take us to town and you can pick out any doll you want.”

Althea wanted Jack. She wanted the new blue Jack that came in a box in the mail. A soft and shiny Jack.

That night Althea dreamed she dropped Jack down a dark hole and couldn’t reach him. She woke several times reaching for him until finally her mother let Althea get in the big bed. She tried to cuddle Althea, but Althea pulled away, slept as close to the back side of the bed as she could. She went to sleep with her arm against the cool wall.

Althea couldn’t eat anything for breakfast. The baby gulped down his bottle and waved his hand as he drank. Sometimes he smiled at Althea and milk dribbled from the corner of his mouth. He was a nice baby. A good baby, her mother said, not like Althea, who had six month colic and cried day and night.

I’m glad I cried, Althea thought. I’m glad you remember. I hope I kicked and fussed and everyone, even grandfather, had to rock and sing to me to get me to stop. When her mother told people that, Althea felt herself smile and get warm inside.

On the way to the store, Althea felt cold all over. When she shivered, her grandmother wrapped her arm around her and said, “There’s lots of pretty dolls at Roses.”

Althea knew that. She had seen them on a high shelf. Each doll slept in her own box. And all the dolls had dresses the color of flowers, lavender and yellow, pink and red and blue. Even white. Althea didn’t think she wanted a doll in a white dress. They looked too much like bride dolls and you couldn’t play with those. She wanted a doll to take to the sandbox and the barn. A doll to play with. A new Jack.

The lady behind the counter lifted doswn dolls one by one and let Althea look as long as she wanted. Each doll wore a frilly dress that was slick or stiff when Althea touched it. Every doll opened and closed her eyes at Althea. They had hair that felt like real hair and real eye lashes and painted little red flower mouths.

“Make up your mind.” Her mother said. “We don’t have all day.” She jostled the baby higher on her shoulder. His sleeping head rolled into the hollow of her neck.

Her grandmother took a blonde doll from a box and held it toward Althea. “This one is pretty, but it looks a lot like Frances. I could make her play clothes,” she said and moved the dolls arms so that she looked like she reached for Althea.

There was one doll with brown hair and brown eyes. She wore a blue dress. Althea wanted a doll that had brown hair and brown eyes like her own. She wanted Jack. The woman behind the counter had not gotten down the doll in the blue dress for Althea. Althea walked back and forth along the counter, then she pointed to the doll in the blue dress that didn’t shine.

“I want to see that one,” she said.

“That one?” the woman asked. She looked at Althea’s mother and grandmother. “Do you want me to get that one down?”

Her mother nodded. “Let her look.”

Althea reached for the doll who smiled at her and reached back. She hugged her and the doll felt warm. She was ready to be Althea’s friend. She would have liked Jack. “I want this one,” Althea said.

“No,” her mother said with a high little laugh.

“Oh dear,” her grandmother said. “We’re in for it now.”

“You said I could pick out the doll I wanted. You said. . .”

Althea held the doll so tight against her chest it hurt.

“I know what I said,” her mother said, her voice sharp as ice. “But you can’t have that doll.”

“I WANT this one,” Althea said.

“Look,” her mother handed the baby to her grandmother, “that doll isn’t even pretty.” She took one of the dolls with yellow hair and shiny dresses from the woman behind the counter. It’s not nearly as pretty as this one.” She fluffed the dress of the smiling blonde doll.

“No,” Althea said. She wanted a Jack doll, a black doll.

“You can’t have that doll,” her mother’s voice was upset. She was angry. Althea knew that anger, that voice. She knew it went before a spanking. “Give it to me.” Her mother grabbed Althea’s elbow.

“No,” Althea made herself stiff. She tried to make herself stick fast to the floor under her. Nothing could move her. Nothing could take this doll from her.

Her mother pulled the doll away. She forced Althea’s arms away from the doll and handed it to the woman behind the counter who looked as if she wanted to laugh, but only shook her head.

Althea dug her heels in the floor and made herself a tree. You couldn’t move trees. Her mother grabbed her arms and pulled her picking and screaming the store. Outside, Althea kicked and screamed some more. She kicked and screamed all the way to the car where she got spanked until her bottom burned like the fire that melted Jack. Then she sat in the corner of the backseat and cried until her chest felt raw.

“You can cry until doomsday,” her mother said, “and it won’t do you any good. You can’t have a black doll. Little girls like you don’t play with black dolls. So hush.”

“Lord,” her grandmother said, “wouldn’t he have had something to have a fit about then?”

When her grandfather came to the car, he slammed the door and started the motor. On the way home her mother and grandmother didn’t mention the doll.

Her grandfather behind the steering wheel said, “What’s wrong with her? All the snuffling I hear from the back seat is about to get on my nerves.”

“Nothing,” said her mother.

“Hope she didn’t carry on like that in the store. Somebody in the congregation will let me know if she did. There’s some that can’t wait to carry a tale and they’ll take it as far as it will go.”

Althea’s grandmother pulled her on her lap and hugged her close.

“She’s too big for that,” her mother said.

“No she’s not,” her grandmother said. She kissed the top of Althea’s head. “You can sit on my lap as long as I’ve got one,” her grandmother said.

Althea, exhausted and empty, leaned into her grandmother’s warmth, felt the roar of the car on the road under them and finally slept.

They thought she had forgotten Jack and the promise of the new doll, but she never did.