A Good Heart

A Good Heart

The Greyhound bus had reached the Texas border by the time Maybelle had worked up the nerve to join the conversation. Before that, she had just kept her purse on her lap and her ears sharp. There were two men and a lady sitting behind her, talking about God and the weather. One of the voices really appealed to her, that of the man sitting kitty-corner behind her. The other two people were married to each other. Maybelle could tell by the way the woman was always correcting the man. But she figured she might as well say something, the worst they could do was ignore her.
At the next break in the conversation, she gingered her way into the empty seat next to her, opened her purse, took out a friendly, open smile and pasted it on her face. She spun around. “Hi y'all. My name is Maybelle and I come from Alabama. I’m going to Phoenix to visit my Grandma, and maybe I’ll stay if I like it well enough. Why are you all going to Phoenix?”
They stared at her, silent and open-mouthed, and she could see that the married lady’s teeth were in need of a good brushing. It seemed as if they weren’t going to let her join their chat club, and she was about to turn around, actually in the process of doing so, when the man who was travelling alone spoke. “How do you do, Maybelle? I’m Oliver. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” And wasn’t he good looking? He wore a plaid yellow vest and a matching bow tie, and his skin was as smooth as his voice. He held out his hand.
Maybelle took it, not quite sure what to do with it. “Do they call you Ollie?”
Oliver made a face. “No one does. Ollie sounds like ‘oily’ doesn’t it? It sounds like a sneaky person. And there’s nothing sneaky about me. I say what I mean.” He smiled to let her know he wasn’t offended. “Do they call you ‘Maybe’ back home?”
“No.” She laughed. “But maybe they should. I could never make up my mind.”
“Well, my name is Rema,” the woman said with the authority of one who is usually in charge. She was wearing a dress with millions of blue flowers on it. “ My husband here is Jeb.”
Jeb bobbed his head. “How do.”
Maybelle smiled at them but her attention had been captured by Oliver and his amazing smile. “Where do you hail from?”
“I’m from New York,” Oliver said. “Actually Phoenix is only a way-station for me. I’m headed out to California to make my fortune.”
Maybelle nodded. Her small store of conversational openers was exhausted and she turned to stare out the window. The bus windows had transformed the sunset into a dirty sheet of golden light. As soon as it had faded, she heard Rema announce, “Right now, it’s time I got my beauty sleep.” Her tone of voice let it be known that the conversation was closed.
Maybelle sighed, closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, trying to get more comfortable and relax. She must have fallen asleep, because she awoke sometime later to the soft whisper of men’s voices. What she heard make her eyes snap open.
“You actually kissed a white woman?” Jeb asked.
“A white woman is no different than a black one. Same moving parts.”
“Well, how’d you do it?”
“I’ll show you.”
Maybelle squeezed her eyes tight; his voice sounded dangerously close, moving towards her. She heard his pants rustle as he got up out of his seat and moved toward her. He cupped her chin with his hand and pressed his lips against hers in a kiss that was long, deep, slow and soft. A kiss that she felt even in her toes. And she was kissing him back. Lovely! But then something in her ripped in two and she pushed him away.
“Why you do that?” she asked.
Oliver laughed. “Did it bother you?”
Maybelle blushed. “I feel like a bird with my feathers all mussed up.”
“I’m sorry if I offended you,” he said, and settled back in his seat.
Maybelle sighed and tried to find the island of relaxation that she had been on just a moment before. She heard Jeb offering his whispered congratulations in a voice soft with awe. The bus darted like an arrow through the soft Texas night toward the morning. Maybelle dosed on and off. Sometimes she heard people whisper, sometimes she heard the wet sleeping sounds of the other passengers. She woke with the sun, streaming in through the window opposite hers. The woman on that seat was an older, white woman. She kept her fingers knotted around her purse straps even in her dreams.
Maybelle stretched, her hands reaching up to the ceiling.
“Good morning,” Oliver said, and she whirled around.
“Why, you look so fresh and dewy,” she answered. “Like you just had a shower.”
Oliver adjusted his bow tie. “But I stink as much as anyone else, I’m afraid.”
The movement of the bus slowed, and it pulled into a diner. The bus driver, who looked much worse for wear after driving all night, stood up. He debated whether or not to wake the passengers who were still sleeping. He shrugged and got off the bus without a word to anyone. The fresh morning air wafted in.
“It’s funny about white people,” Maybelle said. “You can see the circles under the eyes so much better.”
“Ain’t that the truth!” Oliver said. He leaned over and shook the shoulder of the sleeping Jeb gently. “Hey man, time for breakfast.”
Jeb rolled into wakefulness, his eyes drooped open. His still sleeping brain tried to process where he was and who he was with. Then it clicked. “Ah, good mornin’. Did you sleep well?”
“I didn’t sleep,” said Oliver.
“Ain’t you tired?” Maybelle asked.
“Can’t sleep in moving vehicles,” he said. “How did you sleep?”
“I slept like I was in a dream. Always moving, always listenin’.”
Jeb shook his wife awake. She made a protesting groan.
“Let’s get off this godforsaken bus!” Oliver stood up and reached for Maybelle’s hand. She took it and allowed him to help her up. She led the way off the bus. A few people were already off and blinking in the naked daylight, moving slowly toward the diner.
“You wanna get some breakfast?” Maybelle asked.
“Let’s go for a quick stroll first.”
“You ain’t hungry?”
“Like a bear. But first I gotta move some. Been on the bus too damn long.”
“I’ll come with you,” she said. “But we don’t have much time.”
“We won’t go far,” he promised. “And we’ll still have time to get a doughnut.”
They were in a white suburban neighborhood. Maybelle could tell by the way the trees looked: prim and pretty. They walked a couple blocks to a schoolyard. Children were already beginning to arrive, playing tag in the morning sunlight. Maybelle leaned on a post to watch them. Their colourful clothes with streaming golden hair and innocent faces. Not a black child among them. Maybelle and Oliver gained suspicious glances from the white mommies in their big cars dropping their children off.
“Why did you kiss me last night?” she asked.
Oliver scratched his ear. “I wanted to.”
“No. You were trying to prove something to that Jeb. How to kiss a white woman.”
“You were there.”
“Just because I’m black don’t mean you have the right to just kiss me, you know.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Really I am. But I wanted to kiss you. You ain’t beautiful, Maybelle, but you got something.”
“People back home says I got a good heart.”
Oliver smiled. The whole of the sun in his face. “They’re right. I know people, and you got a good heart.”
“But you keep sayin’ that you’re sorry you offended me. But I don’t think you are. You just talkin’. You think in your heart you had every right to take a kiss from me.”
“You like me, though, don’t you Maybelle? You were kissing me back.”
Maybelle scuffed her feet on the sidewalk. “Sure I like you. You’re a handsome man. And I might -- I would have said yes if you had asked me. But you didn’t ask.”
Oliver laughed. “You make it sound like I raped you!”
Maybelle looked up at him. “It wasn’t no rape, sure not. But it wasn’t right.”
“Look, I like you, you like me. What’s one little kiss between friends?”
“I don’t know you,” Maybelle said. She started to walk away.
“Wait!” Oliver called. She turned around and saw that his face was twisted in pain. His hand grabbed his chest. Then he fell, convulsing on the ground.
Maybelle ran back to him, knelt down and cradled his head in her arms. He was jerking, as if his body was being pulled by invisible strings.
“Somebody help us!” she cried.
The children on the playground ran over and formed a circle around them. Adults started streaming over, pushing the children back.
“What’s going on here?” A man in a grey suit demanded of Maybelle.
“This man, he needs a doctor. Call an ambulance!”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Damned if I know,” Maybelle answered. Oliver was flapping around like a fish out of water. His eyes had rolled up in the back of his head. “Somebody help me! Please!”
But no one moved. All their eyes were on her, and she could see their horror and disgust. The mommies started yanking their babies away from the sick man, as if he were contagious.
Maybelle stood up and pushed through the circle and ran away.
“Hey, girl! Where do you think you’re going?” cried a voice behind her.
But Maybelle did not stop. She ran back the way they had come. As soon as she was out of sight of the school, she slowed to a walk. She patted her hair down and smoothed her dress.
When she got to the diner, the bus was still there and Jeb and Rema were just boarding it.
“Where’s Oliver?” Jeb asked.
“He was a pretty enough man,” Maybelle said. “But his heart was no good.”