God's Gym Read Online Free PDF Page B

self-destruct of race's grasp.
    I don't think so.
    So there we were one day, a beautiful sunny June day, lounging in a grassy meadow where we'd hiked after escaping far from the ugly city on a bus. Just the two of us talking, exchanging stories, cooing, speculating on our miraculous survival, the possibility of Jack and Jill withering away, melting down, and the two of us getting it on in new terms, shit we'd invent as we plowed along, after first burying the hatchet, the nasty past, the hate suspicion jealousy anger at what had conspired to turn us both into so much less than we desired to be, turned us into antagonists in some evil scriptwriter's dumb show, in the perverse theaters of our minds conditioned by unlove of self and each other we'd learned in the best schools, a lesson and discipline passed on to us as the sole means of making it, getting ahead, getting along, surviving, entering the mainstream, transcending race, you know what I'm saying. Rapping in the grass, busy regretting and redefining ourselves, and I admit, yes, maybe I was also hoping maybe Jill might be turned on by our prospects, the lovely summer day, our isolation, our positive vibe, our escape to this primal, sylvan sort of green garden and we'd hug and I'd weave wildflowers into her nappy crown, and eventually, though it wasn't the only thing on my mind, braid flowers as in
Lady Chatterley's Lover
into the cashmere thicket between her chocolate thighs, get down finally to our personal, intimate shortcomings and longcomings, exploring what we might offer each other, do for one another once we'd molted, once we'd discarded if we could the silly skins of Jack and Jill and rebap-tized ourselves in Zion's cool, clear, crisp waters, our spirits hungering, loving the chance for a new day like that dawn Coltrane blasted in his solos or hard-pressed Malcolm preached near the end before they wasted him...
    Kap-plow. Crack. Boom. Pow. Pow. Boom. Boom. Boom.
    Forgive me father for telling tales in Babylon's tongue, stories full of Babylon's lies, stories slaying us as surely as we die in Babylon's stories.
    Let the curtain descend, the phoenix rise. Let me scoop up our bloody bodies sprawled on the grass. It's only ketchup. It's only my green jealousy and red anger.
    Let me blow a whistle and start the scene again. All the players on their feet, whole, cleansed of crimson wounds and burns. Let their eyes be clear, expectant.
    And you, love. Forgive the jolt of seeing us undone by my unkind imaginings. Forgive me. Forgive yourself. Let's start again. Let's begin. Let's run.

Sharing
    M AYONNAISE .
He asked for mayonnaise. You can imagine my surprise, since this was the only real word he'd ever spoken to me. For the first two years, every time we passed on the neighborhood streets, he managed to avoid my eyes. For the next two, there was an occasional nod or wave after both of us had figured out that we were going to be around for the long haul, not like lots of families, who seemed to come and go regularly as the seasons, FOR SALE signs sprouting on lawns each spring, moving vans large as whales docked at the curb or backed up into driveways. Though it seemed that his family, like ours, had settled in for the duration, quiet, minding their own business, business the man had made perfectly clear was nobody else's business, you can imagine my surprise after four years of silence when I hear a knock on my door and it's him and he asks for mayonnaise.
    His reluctance to speak in our early encounters had convinced me he didn't like white people. An unwelcoming message in his surly look seemed directed not only at me but at all of us. When I discovered he was married to a white woman, it puzzled me. If he held a grudge against us, why'd he marry her. If he loved his white wife, why would he stay mad at everybody like her.
    "Mayonnaise," he said. "I'm sorry to disturb you, ma'am, but could I please borrow a dab of mayonnaise."
    I'm thinking,
Mayonnaise?
You've never