Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart_ A Novel - Alice Walker [56]
Kate laughed. The tingle?
Yes, said Missy. And if I tingled really well and enjoyed it a lot, he was so pleased.
Like after going to the bathroom by yourself when you’re little, said Lalika.
Exactly, said Missy. I think he thought good sex could be trained, like potty training. But when I understood what we’d done was wrong I was afraid to let myself tingle anymore. I couldn’t with boyfriends, I couldn’t with the man I married. It just felt like the wrong thing to do.
How did I learn it was wrong? I’m not sure I remember. It just started to feel wrong. And I noticed none of my friends ever talked about any tingling.
I couldn’t express to anyone, especially not my mother, how much I had enjoyed playing. Even in therapy I had the feeling of being perverse.
What happened to your grandfather? asked Rick.
He died, said Missy. He couldn’t be a clown anymore because his heart wasn’t in it. He missed us. I used to wake up at night crying thinking how much he must be missing us. We were his reason for living.
And yet, said Hugh, he took advantage of you. You were a child.
I was an infant when it started. Missy bowed her head.
I had such a hard time figuring it out. I took to marijuana like a duck to water. Always high. Then I switched to every other pill or potion you can name. Cocaine made me think I was smart enough to cope, but it was so expensive and my nose started to collapse.
Wow, said Kate.
But, said Missy, Grandmother told me to come and sit by the river. I sat here for most of the morning and part of the afternoon, looking at the water. What I see is that it has everything in it and it just keeps flowing. And look what else happened, she said, looking at them, you all have drifted down to the river to be with me. I promised myself, sitting here, that the first person who disturbed my solitude I would open to. That opening beyond where I was afraid to go would be the medicine for my cure.
Are we the first people you’ve told?
The scary parts? Yes.
Lalika took one of Missy’s hands. Kate took the other. Hugh and Rick placed their hands on her knees. Ah, said Armando, coming up behind them. Are we praying?
Yes, they said simply, inviting him and Cosmi, who walked behind him, to join them.
After ten minutes Missy opened her eyes wide, looked around at all of them, and asked: Did anybody else see dragons?
Gosh, I’m glad you asked, said Rick. When I finally let go I saw a dragon like the one in Way of the Shaman. I was reading it on the way down here; I think that might have had something to do with it.
I don’t think so, said Hugh. I haven’t read it yet, although I intend to as soon as I get home. I saw humongous dragons. Breathing fire.
Well, said Rick, mine breathed fire for a while and then water for a while, and then people. Streams of people just poured out of its mouth. He was thoughtful for a moment. We were being vomited up, our species, out of the depths of our own unconscious, is what it felt like.
Gee, said Missy.
Yeah, said Rick. And at that point, seeing all of humanity aimed at my head, I gratefully died.
It felt like I died, said Hugh. And I was afraid, right up until it happened. I had this feeling of foolishness too. Like, whatever possessed me to leave my cozy home in the good ole US of A to come to this godforsaken wilderness and drink this foul-tasting stuff handed to me by Indians who really should be giving me hemlock, if they knew what my people had done to them? But then when I actually started dying, I saw it wasn’t so bad. He lay back from the circle, his hands under his head, and looked at the sky. Being dead is profoundly peaceful, he said.
Well, said Missy, everybody told me I’d see dragons. But I just saw really big snakes. A couple of them, she added. Wrapped around each other.
But aren’t dragons snakes that get out of hand? asked Rick.
The creature I entered was so huge, said Kate, I couldn’t even tell it was a snake. Or a dragon. It looked