Victor LaValle: Born in the U.S.A.

Victor LaValle was commissioned by Hugo House to write a new story on the theme of Born in the U.S.A. as part of the final event of the 2010-2011 Hugo Literary Series. LaValle premiered his story, "Born in the U.S.A." at Hugo House on March 18, 2011, alongside author Debra Magpie Earling, poet Alan Chong Lau and rapper Khingz. Read more about Victor at victorlavalle.com.

Born in the U.S.A

When I was three years-old my mother tried to kill me. Really, she was trying to kill herself, but I happened to be in her arms at the time. She jumped in front of a subway train. If I’m telling you this I must have survived, right? I used to think so too, but now I’m not so sure.

It’s funny, the kind of thoughts that come to you in line at the post office.

And when you are at the 180th St. branch, in Washington Heights, waiting in line is most what you do when you visit. The 180th! A postal branch so beat down and lifeless that they don’t even lift most of the metal grills of the shop front windows each morning. They only raise the grill that blocks the branch’s two front doors. That’s it. If you didn’t know it was a post office you’d pass it right by, thinking it was just some store going out of business. Which, from all reports, it is.

I’d been on that line for an hour when I had that thought about my mother. Forty years-old and it still returned to me often. There were fifteen folks behind me on the line and one old woman right in front, all of us watching the clerk behind plexiglass; the one slowly—so slowly!—selling stamps to a man who was clearly drunk at 11 a.m. He held on to the lip of the counter with two hands, standing straighter than a dancer; he enunciated better than a newscaster. He was working hard at both. When people put that much effort into simply standing and talking simultaneously you know they are blotto.

The postal clerk, an older Asian woman with little eyes, stared at the man who declared his order—two books of stamps! Why he needed them right then I couldn’t guess—and the clerk tried to fill his order without leaving her seat. The stamps were at the far end of her counter, hop off her chair and walk two steps and she’d grab them easy, but the lady wouldn’t get up. Her job might include selling but, apparently, not standing. She leaned to her left, stretching, wriggling her fingers but she wasn’t getting any closer to the goal. The whole time her large, round face remained expressionless. The drunk man watched her with a bristling silence. So did I. So did the other sixteen people on the line.

The sooner she accepted that she couldn’t remain seated and snatch up those stamps the sooner she’d be done with this guy and be ready to help the old woman in front of me. The sooner she’d get to me. And so on. We could all see this so why couldn’t the clerk? The ones at the back of this line probably wouldn’t get out of here until 5 p.m. And you had to feel sorry for people who came to this branch after 11 a.m. and expected to conclude their business today. But that was the reality visiting the 180th St. branch: Purgatory probably feels less punishing.

I’d been so unhappy when I got the little notice in our mailbox—mailman tried to deliver a package; requires signature; no one was home so you’ll have to come pick it up—I’d been so upset at the thought of visiting this lousy branch that I’d growled at my wife as I left our apartment. I’m going to get the mail! As if, somehow, she’d done this to me. So that’s the spirit in which I’d entered the place; the mood that made me curl my hands into fists as that postal clerk still would not get off her ass and grab the god damn stamps. The drunk leaned forward until his forehead rested against the plexiglass; he was having trouble keeping his balance maybe. All seventeen of us still in line leaned to our right, nearly in unison, as if we might tip the whole building, just slightly, and slip her off her perch. Stand up. Stand up! Now there was a certain satisfaction in anticipating the moment when she would have to give up and get up. That’s the closest we would come to enjoying some kind of petty revenge. At least she’d have to rise. But then, finally, another postal clerk came in through a grey metal door along the back wall in there and the clerk asked this guy to pass her two books of stamps. Which he did. And she stayed seated. Talk about an anticlimax. Although there was a moment’s chance for hope because maybe this new guy was about to open a second window. He even shambled over to another counter and slapped at the keyboard the way bears slap at fish in a river. But his face remained lifeless, eyes so dull, that I doubted the computer screen was even turned on. And it didn’t matter anyway because after another thirty seconds of clearly useless clacking this mutt stepped away from the counter and shuffled right back out that grey door and we were left at the mercies of the seated clerk again. All of us in line slumped. We fizzled.

The drunk guy paid for his stamps—oddly he had exact change—and then he turned from the counter and looked down at his feet and concentrated on walking a straight line toward the exit. Honestly, he did a pretty good job. With that business finished the clerk looked up at the line and called to the old woman in front of me.

“Next,” she said, with a weary voice. She seemed worn out and it wasn’t even noon. At least she knew how those of us on the line felt.

The old woman in front of me had a grocery cart with her, many bags of groceries stacked inside. I saw cans of beans and bags of rice and a dozen potatoes. I doubted she weighed half as much as the food in her cart. How this tiny lady had pushed all that from the supermarket to the post office I couldn’t guess, but I was impressed. Her hair, still a deep brown and pulled back into a bun, made her seem vital. She looked back at me before she moved and her eyes were slightly red. My exhaustion seemed silly compared to hers.

Then she said, “Which train was it?”

I nodded and grinned because I assumed she’d said something in Spanish, a language I don’t speak though everyone in Washington Heights assumed I did. I’ve got the right look for a Spanish speaker: vaguely brown. This kind of thing happened daily. I’d learned a little pantomime for when the occasional Spanish phrase was directed at me. So I nodded and grinned. That was my routine.

But when I didn’t say anything the old woman spoke again.

“Which train was it? The one your mother jumped in front of?”

I remained quiet. Sure it was English this time. And then replaying the questions and feeling my face get warm. And the whole time she looked up at me expectantly, her hands on the handle of her shopping cart. Ready to step forward as soon as I answered her. And then I actually did.

I said, “The 7 train.”

I answered her because a logical explanation for the moment occurred to me: I’d been standing in line, my mind and body slipping out of sync as I waited; I might’ve spoken out loud. Maybe just a whisper. Like a secret shared between her and me. A slip. It was possible. Almost like talking in my sleep. Something I also did. So I answered the old woman and waited to see how she would respond.

She turned away from me, didn’t even nod and wheeled her cart forward, toward the clerk’s window. She opened her white purse and pulled out a handful of unstamped envelopes. She didn’t even look back at me once.

Meanwhile, I watched the brown bun of hair at the back of the old woman’s head, feeling my face get warmer. I looked behind me, a man my age standing there. A big box sat at his feet. I wondered if he’d heard me too and I felt an overwhelming shame. My shoulders hunched forward and my head drooped. But the guy behind me didn’t seem aware of what I’d said. Not interested either. When I looked at him he only watched me for a moment then turned away with exaggerated boredom.

I have funny relationships with older women. They’re drawn to me. I’m not always the most sociable guy, but no matter where I go older women respond. When I was younger I thought this was some weird magic. Why me, of all the people they might come speak to in a room? But when I got older I realized most folks draw exactly the people they want near. And considering my history with my mother, it wasn’t all that surprising older women would be special to me.

So by the age of forty relationships with older women, of one kind or another, even just a ten-minute conversation on a bus, seemed normal. I enjoyed them. So of all the people here it made a kind of sense that I’d said a bit too much to the woman in line. She could’ve at least offered me a cluck of sympathy though. Or a shrug of human camaraderie. But she didn’t. She’d only asked, listened and moved on. I felt like I’d volunteered the passcode of my savings account to a complete stranger.

When the old woman was done getting her mail stamped I watched her, stared I guess, as she turned from the clerk and put both hands on her cart and exhaled deeply and pushed.

As she passed me I couldn’t stop myself, I reached out and touched her arm. What was I expecting? I don’t know. Some reaction to what I’d said. But as soon as I touched her she snapped her head at me, her red eyes vibrating and her thin lips squeezed tight, and I was reminded of that universal rule: don’t go around grabbing at women you don’t know. Generally speaking, it’s never a good move. So I pulled my hand away fast and an air bubble of fear burst between us; she sprinted away, triple time, the wheels of her cart squealing. That lady would’ve won an Olympic bronze, at least.

“Next,” the clerk said.

The guy behind me scowled when I hesitated. If I hadn’t started walking toward the window, he would’ve stepped on my neck just to get his business done.

When I reached the window, still slightly dazed, the woman behind the glass sighed and said nothing. She looked at me without interest. This counts as high professionalism at the 180th St. branch. After all, she could’ve gone on break, left through that grey metal door and stranded us all there for hours.
I slid my delivery slip under the partition, and my driver’s license along with it. She looked at the two and rubbed her forehead.

“I’ll have to go in the back for this,” she said.

Then she didn’t move. She watched me. As if I might tell her not to go through so much trouble. She watched me for another thirty seconds. I didn’t know what to do, since I wasn’t going to wait all this time and not get my package, so I smiled, but then I felt stupid for smiling at someone who was working so hard at not working so I stopped.

Who would give in, her or me?

Finally, the clerk slid off her chair and shuffled toward that grey door. I imagined all the postal workers on duty—five of them? Fifty?—spent the whole shift behind that door, peeking through some unseen porthole, taking bets on how long different people could stay on their feet. That’s probably not true, but it felt true. So when the clerk moved toward the door I feared we’d lose her. A new bet would be made: how long will this idiot wait for his package? No time to call her back though. She opened the door and slipped away.

I turned around, maybe hoping to catch last sight of the old woman with the cart, but she was long gone. I willfully ignored the people on the line. I actually felt their hatred—I had to send the clerk to the back for a package, right?—as a wave of heat that made my neck flush.

But to my great surprise the clerk returned in quick time. She stepped out of the doorway and in her right hand she carried one of those white and blue Express Mail Flat Rate Envelopes.

The clerk came back to her station. I had to wait while she climbed back up in her chair. She did this before sliding the envelope to me. She climbed it like a toddler trying to get up on a couch. Her upper body flopped across the seat then she basically pulled her legs up behind her. She got up there then rocked herself, left to right, right to left, until her butt was comfortable.

Finally she looked at me. And for all that effort her face remained as impassive as ever. The only sign of exertion was a little perspiration on her cheeks and forehead. I’d never seen someone sweat indifferently before.

But who cared, right? My package was here. I was so close to the conclusion of this hour and a half of foolish waiting.

The clerk looked at the slip, comparing the signature I’d set down at home to the one on my license. Then she slid the license and the Express Mail envelope to me.

Success!

I took them both and the clerk looked over my right shoulder, at the guy waiting there with the big box at his feet. The man took this look as an invitation, didn’t even wait for her to say the word ‘next,’ and with a deep huff he lifted the box and held it against his belly.

Then the clerk leaned forward and she said, “Did your mother die when she jumped in front of the 7 train?”

*

I was raised by my grandmother after my mother killed herself. The first question women used to ask me, after I told them what happened, was “How could your mom get killed but you survived?” As if the most important question had to do with a bit of luck. Bad luck, or good luck? I honestly couldn’t say. Depended on the day, I guess. But that was always the first question. How did you survive? Of course they meant this literally and figuratively. I only had an answer to one.

When I first told that story to a woman I was dating—nearly any woman—she’d tilt her head and her eyes would get moist. She might not always cry, but she’d come close. For a few years, like in high school, I’d share the story just because we were becoming intimate. Genuine. But after telling it four times to four different high school girlfriends; many more times to many different women in college, by then I was just reciting some old details. The incident had become, to be honest, a way to get some ass. And good God did it work. If there’s a woman who wouldn’t sleep with me after I shared that story I certainly never dated her. There are predatory home loan companies whose moral corruption was worse than mine, but at least with those bastards you get to own your home for few months. With me you just got to have more sex with me. I’m a pretty confident dude, but even I have to admit that’s an investment with diminishing returns.

Eventually I realized that leading with that story wasn’t helping me out in a long-term way either. Suppose I did meet a woman and we really kicked it off, like it’s time for something serious. I’ve shared myself into a tight corner. Already this woman thinks of me as either a damaged faun, to be nursed until healthy though, of course, “healthiness” should never actually be achieved. (That’s sort of the appeal.) Or the woman thinks of me as a dude whose genetic pantry is stocked with fruitcakes. (And do you know what type of woman is attracted to that menu? Yep, fruitcakes.) In other words, acting like a damaged and somewhat shitty human being had only put me in contact with other damaged and somewhat shitty human beings. You want to meet better people? Fix yourself up first. It took me over thirty years to learn this simple concept.

So by the time I met my wife I’d stopped leading with the tale of how my mother climbed down onto the tracks of the busy Corona Plaza stop when she saw the headlights of the oncoming 7 train there in the darkness of the tunnel. And that she took me, her only child, her baby boy, down with her. I didn’t mention that my only reliable memory from that morning—the one I never exaggerated; the one I knew wasn’t imagined—was the way my mother clutched me when the train ripped out of the darkness of the tunnel. She held me with her right arm, gripped so high on my torso that my arms were pinned. And when the train appeared she squeezed me so hard that I couldn’t catch my breath. It was her fear reaction. And maybe an instinct to protect me, even right then. And it did save my life. She choked the air out of me and I couldn’t breathe and I kicked and wriggled until she let me go and I fell away and she stayed standing on the track and then the train arrived.

Now you see why it always worked?

But I had to stop telling it. It was haunting me. A greedy old ghost. At thirty-six years-old I finally put it to rest. Then I met my wife. We dated for two and a half years. Now we’d been married for six months, and had a child due in two (yeah, that still happens). I’d told her about the incident, but not as much as I could have. My mother committed suicide when I was three. I survived. That’s what she knew. In a way I think she liked me more for being the type of man who’d gone through something traumatic but didn’t go yapping about it day after day. I’m sure she wanted to know more, but she rarely pushed. And I felt that at a certain point, a certain age, you’ve got to stop telling the old story about yourself. Eventually it’s time to start a new one.

But what if that old story isn’t through with you?

*