Let The Great World Spin: A Novel - By Colum McCann Page 0,110

good babysitter.

That was always the hardest thing. Getting a babysitter so we could hit the stroll. Sometimes it was Jean and sometimes it was Mandy and sometimes Latisha, but the best of them all woulda been nobody, I know that.

I shoulda just stayed at home and ate all the supermarket cakes until I couldn’t even get outta the chair.

—

I don’t know who God is but if I meet Him anytime soon I’m going to get Him in the corner until He tells me the truth.

I’m going to slap Him stupid and push Him around until He can’t run away. Until He’s looking up at me and then I’ll get Him to tell me why He done what He done to me and what He done to Corrie and why do all the good ones die and where is Jazzlyn now and why she ended up there and how He allowed me to do what I done to her.

He’s going to come along on His pretty white cloud with all His pretty little angels flapping their pretty white wings and I’m gonna out and say it formal: Why the fuck did you let me do it, God?

And He’s gonna drop His eyes and look to the ground and answer me. And if He says Jazz ain’t in heaven, if He says she didn’t make it through, He’s gonna get himself an ass-kicking. That’s what He’s gonna get.

An ass-kicking like none He ever got before.

—

I ain’t gonna whine either before or after I do it. Well, I guess there’d be no whining after anyway. If you think of the world without people it’s about the most perfect thing there ever is. It’s all balanced and shit. But then come the people, and they fuck it up. It’s like you got Aretha Franklin in your bedroom and she’s just giving it her all, she’s singing just for you, she’s on fire, this is a special request for Tillie H., and then all of a sudden out pops Barry Manilow from behind the curtains.

At the end of the world they’re gonna have cockroaches and Barry Manilow records, that’s what Jazzlyn said. She cracked me up too, my Jazz.

—

It weren’t my fault. Peaches from C-49 came at me with a piece of lead pipe. She ended up in the infirmary with fifteen stitches across her back. People think I’m easy ’cause I’m cute.

If you don’t want it to rain, don’t fuck with the clouds over Tillie H. I just hit her one good whack. It weren’t my fault. I didn’t want to juice her up, that was all. I’m not into that. Simple fact is she needed an ass-kicking.

—

The boss matron was up in my face. She said I was gonna have to go upstate. She said: “We’re shipping you upstate for the last few months of your sentence.” I was like: “What the fuck?” She said: “You heard me, Henderson, no cursing in this office.” I said: “I’ll take it all off for you, boss, every stitch.” She shouted: “How dare you! Don’t insult me! That’s disgusting.” I said: “Please don’t send me upstate. I want to see my babies.” She said nothing and I got nervous and said something not too polite again. She said, “Get the hell out of here.”

I went around the side of her desk. I was just going to open my jumpsuit to pleasure her, but she hit the panic button. In came the screws. I didn’t mean to do what I done, I didn’t mean to get her in the face, I just lashed out with my foot. I knocked her front tooth out. I guess it don’t matter. I’m going upstate now for sure. I’m on the pony express.

The boss matron didn’t even beat the shit out of me. She lay there on the floor a moment and I swear she almost smiled, and then she said: “I’ve got something real nice for you, Henderson.” They put me in cuffs and they arraigned me, all formal and everything. They put me in the van and booked me and brought me to Queens court.

I pleaded guilty to assault and they gave me eighteen months more. That’s near two years all together with time served. The defense lawyer told me it was a good deal, I coulda gotten three, four, five years, even seven. He said, “Honey, take it.” I hate lawyers. He was the sort who walks around with a stick so far up his ass you could’ve