The Bluest Eye

" Hoover give it me. I did him a favor once, for the F. B. and I."

"What'd you do?"

"I did him a favor. They wanted to catch this crook, you see. Name of Joh

"We know that." China arranged a curl. "… the F.B. and I. wanted him bad. He killed more people than TH. And if you crossed him? Whoa, Jesus! He'd run you as long as there was ground. Well, I was little and cute then. No more than ninety pounds, soaking wet."

"You ain't never been soaking wet," China said. "Well, you ain't never been dry. Shut up. Let me tell you, sweetnin'. To tell it true, I was the only one could handle him.

He'd go out and rob a bank or kill some people, and I'd say to him, soft-like, 'Joh

"Well, this hippo had a ball back in Chicago. Whoa Jesus, ninety nine!"

"How come you always say 'Whoa Jesus' and a number?" Pecola had long wanted to know. "Because my mama taught me never to cuss."

"Did she teach you not to drop your drawers?" China asked. "Didn't have none," said Marie.

"Never saw a pair of drawers till I was fifteen, when I left Jackson and was doing day work in Cinci

"You must have been one dumb somebody."

China lit a cigarette and cooled her irons. "How'd I know?" Marie paused. "And what's the use of putting on something you got to keep taking off all the time? Dewey never let me keep them on long enough to get used to them." Dewey who?" This was a somebody new to Pecola.

"Dewey who? Chicken! You never heard me tell of Dewey?" Marie was shocked by her negligence. "No, ma'am."

"Oh, honey, you've missed half your life. Whoa Jesus, one-ninety! You talkin'

'bout smooth! I met him when I was fourteen. We ran away and lived together like married for three years. You know all those klinker-tops you see ru

"Then why left you to sell tail?"

"Girl, when I found out I could sell it-that somebody would pay cold cash for it, you could have knocked me over with a feather." Poland began to laugh.

Soundlessly. "Me too. My auntie whipped me good that first time when I told her I didn't get no money. I said 'Money? For what?

He didn't owe me nothin'.' She said, 'The hell he didn't!'" They all dissolved in laughter. Three merry gargoyles. Three merry harridans. Amused by a long ago time of ignorance. They did not belong to those generations of prostitutes created in novels, with great and generous hearts, dedicated, because of the horror of circumstance, to ameliorating, the luckless, barren life of men, taking money incidentally and humbly for their "understanding." Nor were they from that sensitive breed of young girl, gone wrong at the hands of fate, forced to cultivate an outward brittleness in order to protect her springtime from further shock, but knowing full well she was cut out for better things, and could make the right man happy. Neither were they the sloppy, inadequate whores who, unable to make a living at it alone, turn to drug consumption and traffic or pimps to help complete their scheme of self-destruction, avoiding suicide only to punish the memory of some absent father or to sustain the misery of some silent mother. Except for Marie's fabled love for Dewey Prince, these women hated men, all men, without shame, apology, or discrimination. They abused their visitors with a scorn grown mechanical from use. Black men, white men, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Jews, Poles, whatever-all were inadequate and weak, all came under their jaundiced eyes and were the recipients of their disinterested wrath. They took delight in cheating them. On one occasion the town well knew, they lured a Jew up the stairs, pounced on him, all three, held him up by the heels, shook everything out of his pants pockets, and threw him out of the window. Neither did they have respect for women, who, although not their colleagues, so to speak, nevertheless deceived their husbands-regularly or irregularly, it made no difference.

"Sugar-coated whores," they called them, and did not yearn to be in their shoes. Their only respect was for what they would have described as "good Christian colored women." The woman whose reputation was spotless, and who tended to her family, who didn't drink or smoke or run around. These women had their undying, if covert, affection. They would sleep with their husbands, and take their money, but always with a vengeance. Nor were they protective and solicitous of youthful i

They were whores in whores' clothing, whores who had never been young and had no word for i

"Yeah. Yeah. We had some." Marie fidgeted. She pulled a bobby pin from her hair and began to pick her teeth. That meant she didn't want to talk anymore. Pecola went to the window and looked down at the empty street. A tuft of grass had forced its way up through a crack in the sidewalk, only to meet a raw October wind. She thought of Dewey Prince and how he loved Miss Marie. What did love feel like? she wondered.

How do grown-ups act when they love each other? Eat fish together??! Into her eyes came the picture of Cholly and Mrs.

Breedlove in bed. He making sounds as though he were in pain, as though something had him by the throat and wouldn't let go.

Terrible as his noises were, they were not nearly as bad as the no noise at all from her mother. It was as though she was not even there. Maybe that was love. Choking sounds and silence.

Turning her eyes from the window, Pecola looked at the women.

China had changed her mind about the bangs and was arranging a small but sturdy pompadour. She was adept in creating any number of hair styles, but each one left her with a pinched and harassed look. Then she applied makeup heavily. Now she gave herself surprised eyebrows and a cupid-bow mouth. Later she would make Oriental eyebrows and an evilly slashed mouth. Poland, in her sweet strawberry voice, began another song: I know a boy who is sky-soft brown I know a boy who is sky-soft brown The dirt leaps for joy when his feet touch the ground. His strut is a peacock His eye is burning brass His smile is sorghum syrup drippin' slow-sweet to the last I know a boy who is sky-soft brown Marie sat shelling peanuts and popping them into her mouth.