Alice Henry (April 9, 2009. New Pink Moon. Issue 3)

I met Alice Henry on a Friday night the day one of my most unsatisfying assignments ended.  In those days – not so long ago -- I was a free lance consultant working mostly in finance.  Because it was a short assignment there were no sad farewells, no contact information to exchange, no regrets.  I had no idea what my next job would be.

I left the building at five o’clock and immediately regretted not bringing my umbrella.  In a sour mood – no mood for waiting out showers, anyway – I scurried to my car.  I needed to get home, drink a beer, and get ready for the evening.

At that time, I shared a house with some friends from college.  The number of residents and their identity changed as people relocated, got married, moved in with lovers, or broke up.  I had been there from the beginning and had never moved.  Four years of constancy was wearing on me.

I was still out of sorts as I sat at the kitchen table draining a green bottle of beer and watching the rain finally ebb.  We had decided to go to a club where the DJ was spinning techno and house.  I was getting itchy: as the rain shower ended, I still had to wait for my house mate’s shower to end.

Fortunately the music was too loud to be able to hear anyone speak.  I had run out of things to say to people, had lost interest in what they had to say.  I saw her out of the corner of my eye.  She was sitting at a table drinking tonic water with a large group of people, a group of her co-workers I later learned.  She looked up from her drink, saw me standing not five feet away, and acknowledged me.  I asked her to dance.

Thirty minutes later we were still dancing.  Someone from her group motioned for her to join them.  Apparently some people, including her ride, were leaving.  I quickly whisked her to a corner of the room and gave her a pen and piece of paper for her to write her number on.  “Thanks, Jaleela.  It was fun,” I called out to her as she scampered to rejoin her party.  She turned and waved as I put her number in my shirt pocket.  I was relieved that she left in a large group.

It was a typical night at the club.  We stayed too long, drank too much, and returned home too late. My friends hadn’t noticed anything unusual.  It was late the next morning or early afternoon when I was straightening out my room that I remembered that I had her number in my Friday night shirt pocket.  I frowned as I entered her number into my phone.  Her name is Alice Henry:  what would she think of me calling her Jaleela?

I didn’t call her till late Sunday afternoon when my head finally cleared and I had some privacy.  As I feared, she had heard my faux pas.  Her voice had a slight West Indian lilt.  When I complimented her diction, she told me she was an American black.  Her father had some Jamaican blood but she wasn’t sure where it, or her accent, came from.

Two months later we were living together in her apartment.  I had found a much better consulting gig.  I was hoping it would lead to a full time job.  Alice was happy I could help out with her rent and groceries.  She liked the sporty car I could afford.  She teased me about calling her Jaleela as if I thought all black girls were African or Muslim. I asked her if she was Baptist.  She was more Catholic than me.  I was educated by Jesuits. She told me that if she could pronounce my name, a barely pronounceable combination of consonants and vowels, correctly on the first try then a smart white boy like me should be able to enunciate a simple name like Alice Henry correctly.

* * *

A few Sundays after the last local apple had fallen from its tree we were sitting on the couch watching football.  The game was uninteresting but neither of us seemed to be able change the channel or think of something better to do.  I was idly twirling a few strands of her hair in my finger tips.  She languidly arched her back.  “What are you thinking about?” she asked me.

Caught unawares, I told her.  “The narrator of The Nigger of the Narcissus was very impressed by how woolly his hair was.”   I had pronounced the word nigger the way a devout Catholic pronounces the name Jesus, slowly and reverentially. 

She drew back, lowered her brow. I knew she knew Conrad. “Who’s hair, the narrator’s?”

“Of course not.  The subject of the story, the, the black man’s hair.”

“You mean the African-American’s?”

I felt my face turning red.  She bit her lip, still chuckling at my discomfiture.  Did I like her round, full lips?  I tried to change the subject but could not.  My awkwardness amused her too much.

Not many days afterwards, I was unable to perform in bed.  Alice asked me why.  I could not tell her.  She suspected that my reluctance stemmed from our awkward conversation about her hair.  I told her that I didn’t know.  It could have been caused by a simple physical malfunction or by one of my myriad other worries.

My failure was not permanent.  We made love the next day and several other times after that.  Our love was different though.  We broke up not long after.

* * *

Though not yet near forty, my hair is thinning.  House mates and some subsequent girl friends have urged me to shave my shapely head.  I refuse, in homage to my curly headed youth and perhaps to Alice Henry who I still sometimes see but no longer talk to.