By His Own Bad Mind

Kinsey “Jamaica” Rawlings sat alone on the small fold-out couch in her sixth-floor walk-up efficiency apartment. To her right, a small end table held a lamp and a brass ashtray.

Across the room, the only other furniture, a green-laminated dinette table and two chairs with torn but matching padded seats, nestled next to the wall. To the left of that was her front door, and to the right the kitchen, which consisted of a single small seat and a counter with a two-slice toaster and a two-burner hotplate. To the right of that was an apartment-sized refrigerator, and that was all.

In her lap lay the bulk of a heavy winter stocking.

She bent forward slightly, focused, and pinched a loose threat between the nails of her thumb and forefinger, then tugged lightly. Once she got the thread started, it would be a simple matter to deconstruct the entire sock. That and the thread from the matching stocking that lay on the other cushion of the couch would be plenty, she hoped.

Her maternal grandmother had knitted both stockings and a matching sweater long ago.

Even after she was grown, the length of the sleeves of the sweater surpassed the length of her arms by almost a foot. The sweater hadn’t made the trip to New York, though at the moment she wished it had. And not because she was cold. She wasn’t.

Inside the apartment, thanks to her one large expenditure, the air conditioner balanced precariously in the window, the air was relatively dry and held at a steady temperature of 74 degrees.

Outside it was late July and a very humid 98 degrees.

Like the sweater, the stockings had always been far too large. But back in Iowa she’d doubled them and they’d kept her feet warm even when the hardwood floor was cold with the winter chill.

She’d worn them even in New York through the three winters she’d been here. It was like wearing small throw rugs—which she couldn’t afford for her apartment—directly on her feet. But some things were far more important than keeping warm feet.

*

When Kinsey left Iowa, her mother was in her sixty-first year, though she still displayed more of the little girl than the adult. She’d lived within a twenty-mile radius of the farm all her life and been handed directly from her father to her husband—who, truth be told, remarkably resembled her father.

With one exception, the woman had never even dated. That one exception was her high school prom, which she attended, demurely, as a junior with the man she had been expected to marry since he was 7 and she was 6.

A few months later, her new daddy having known her in ways her original daddy couldn’t, she dropped out of school to marry and begin establishing a home. The home in which she would eventually rear seven children, including her youngest, Kinsey.

The other children, four boys and two girls, all had remained in Iowa and done well in spite of it. The three elder boys had become lawyers, the fourth a doctor. None had elected to take over the family farm, a fact that her mother was certain contributed to the premature death of her husband at the age of 62.

Both of Kinsey’s sisters had followed in their mother’s footsteps, although both dated considerably more than she had. In the end, though, soon after their graduation from high school, they’d swapped one father for another and began producing babies as if there was nothing else to be done.

But Kinsey was the difficult one. She started making waves at about the time the moon’s gravity began to influence her own.

Like her mother, Kinsey was pretty, blond with blue eyes, fair skin and what many Iowa farmboys would note was an excellent bone structure and good breeder hips. But she never dated. From the time she was twelve, she had averred she was saving herself for her art. By which, as it turned out, she meant New York City. 

Unlike her mother and sisters, two days after her graduation from high school she’d moved to New York and come of age, escaping forever the icy Iowa winters.

As it turned out, each of those events had a profound influence on the other. Had she not attained her 18th year, she might never have moved to New York. And had she not moved to New York, her coming of age certainly would have been delayed, maybe indefinitely. Like that of her mother and her sisters had been.

*

In New York Kinsey had dated several men.

The first was an old flirt, Harold Tomkins, who frequented the diner where she worked as a waitress.

He was a little over a head taller than she and in good shape for his age. At least he still had a trim waist and broad shoulders, and his perfectly groomed silver hair was very dignified. Especially in the three-piece dark-grey or dark-blue pinstriped suit in which he seemed to have been born.

He pretty straightforward with her too, though the prickles that constantly perforated their budding relationship always came wrapped in his rose-petal soft delivery.

He couldn’t really take her anyplace publicly, he said. The other members of “his” law firm wouldn’t understand. But then, he’d rather not share the sight of her beauty with anyone else anyway. Grin. Wink.

Translation? Actually he was only an associate at the law firm, and the other attorneys would understand all too well.

He couldn’t buy her anything substantial. But then, neither of them wanted to sully their relationship with money anyway, did they? Grin. Wink.

Translation? He couldn’t risk buying her anything that cost more than whatever cash he was carrying at the time.

He might occasionally come to watch her act in small productions. But then, he didn’t really want to draw attention from her performance. Grin. Wink.

Translation? He would never show up because he couldn’t afford to be seen paying attention to her.

He might well consider leaving his wife. But then, she wouldn’t want to be tied down to an old guy like him anyway, would she? Grin. Wink. After all, she had far too much to offer the world through her talent and her art. Devastating grin, and a wink only to temporarily mask the twinkle in his eyes.

Translation? He would never leave his wife, and especially not for a waitress who could never rise to his social stratus.

That was all fine. He was only a stopgap anyway, someone with whom to pass a little time while she went about creating a life for herself. There. Grin-wink that.

And there were a few unexpected perks.

Whenever she agreed to meet with him—he proposed three times per week—she would have full use of his swank Manhattan apartment from the time they met until the following morning. And of course, she wouldn’t want for any “extra little baubles.”

The whole thing worked out well until the morning she stood in the entrance to the bathroom and watched him shave. That’s when she realized, at least from that particular angle, he actually resembled her father.

But that was enough.

Her mother’s situation sprang to mind and she told him from that moment forward they could be nothing more than friends, share nothing more intimate than lunch.

Of course, she never saw him again in or out of the diner, which was in accordance with her expectation and her desire.

Then there was Jeremy Leech.

Never before or since had she met a guy whose name was so suitable. On the other hand, the guy was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. He had a chiseled jaw that always seemed to have just the right amount of stubble to make him look like a bad boy. Ice blue eyes, no hips, flat abs and shoulders to die for.

He dressed in pre-torn jeans and a t-shirt—usually red or green or blue—beneath a long-sleeve button down light denim shirt that he wore as if it were a jacket. His hands were always shoved up to the knuckles into his pockets, giving him just the right touch of that devil-may-care attitude that no doubt added to his self-delusion.

  Over the whole affair, which lasted all of a week, they actually spent very little time together. Maybe less than a full day when it was all added up.

There was a meeting for coffee. That one was his treat.

Then there was lunch the next day and another lunch two days later. He conveniently forgot his wallet for both of those.

Then a few days after the second lunch, he towered over her, leaning seductively against a lamp post outside of her diner, and invited her to supper.

It was all entirely too campy.

She looked up at him and laughed, then asked whether he had his wallet.

He blushed and flashed her a boyish smile. Then he slapped his back pocket (she noted he didn’t slap his back pocket and then blush) and said, “No, gosh darn it.”

But by then she was almost as invested as he. Maybe more so. Those shoulders. Those abs. Those hips.

Standing on her tiptoes and breathing on his ear, she said perhaps they should skip supper and, you know, go directly to her apartment. She could put a pizza in the oven, she said, and she had milk, water, and almost half of a bottle of red wine. And of course, other things.

He thought that was a fine idea.

But when she opened the door of her efficiency flat, his jaw dropped. And it wasn’t from surprise at the lavish furnishings.

They sat at the green-laminate table and enjoyed the pizza—she had milk while he drained her wine—and a bit of increasingly nervous small talk. At least nervous on his part. Then they made their way to  bed. If it may be said that the winner of the latest Preakness made his way to the finish line.

And suddenly Jeremy Leech transformed into a well-thrown skipping stone. He quickly skip, skip, skipped across her smooth surface. Yes, she was certain there were no more than three skips. Then, his energy spent, he flashed through the brush of his clothing and flung himself onto the shore. Which consisted of anything outside of her apartment door. The fool even forgot his shoes.

His leaving filled her with a sense of relief, though. She was probably as relieved as whichever homeless man down at the shelter ended up with his shoes.

Then there were a few others who fell somewhere between the two extremes of Tomkins and Leech.

*

But Kinsey Rawlings hadn’t known love until she met Harlan Campbell.

Harlan was from Iowa too. He told her so the first time they met in the acting class.

He looked at her in a way no man had ever looked at her, though he was dressed similarly to the way Jeremy Leech dressed. Then again, it was the way most young aspiring male actors dressed: jeans, a t-shirt, although his was always white, and an overshirt, though his was grey instead of denim blue.

At the same time, he seemed shy and unassuming, as if he himself wasn’t aware of the feelings his eyes were transmitting when he looked at her.

He had all the best physical characteristics of the men to whom she had always been attracted, and as a bonus he was a perfect gentleman. If anything, he leaned slightly to the shy side. It was an endearing quality to find, especially in New York City.

He capped it all off one calm, quiet evening as he faced her on a park bench and took her small hands gently in his large, meaty ones. “It’s amazing,” he said, and his voice broke, in accordance with his training.

He blushed and looked away for a moment.

He shook his head.

He cleared his throat.

Then he gripped her hands slightly to display his determination to finish the thought. He shook his head again, then quickly turned back to her—no doubt, she thought, before he lost his nerve again—and continued. “To think we both came all the way from Iowa! Only to find true love in each other here! In the largest city on Earth!”

But where they’d met—an acting class—well, surely that should have given her a clue as to the veracity of his sincerity. But it didn’t.

Harlan was the one who had given her the nickname Jamaica. He said it was because she was an exotic beauty. Which of course she knew had to be just so much come-on BS.

Well, except that he didn’t need any come-on BS. So maybe he really meant it.

“And,” he said, that confident smile in place, “because it is so easy for you, even from behind your fair skin and blue eyes, to effect a truly authentic Jamaican accent.”

Well, that much at least was true.

In fact, she was so good, such a natural, even according to Mr. Weintraub, their instructor, that he was considering using her in the lead role in his upcoming production of Welcome to the Islands: The Life and Times of Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley.

They wouldn’t use blackface or anything like that, either, Mr. Weintraub said. Her accent and actions alone would be able to transcend any flaws the audience might imagine in the color of her skin or her gender. Besides this was New York. The audience would see her only a cutting-edge artiste, boldly breaking down gender and race barriers.

The memory of Mr. Weintraub’s words, reinforced by Harlan’s obviously unrehearsed, heart-felt devotion, left Kinsey ecstatic. For the first time she felt like an actual artist. She enjoyed the feeling so much, she almost let slip the time she’d spent with Madame Toussaulle.

Fortunately, she had held her tongue.

*

Madame Toussaulle was a scrawny, wrinkled little old white-haired lady whose skin was black as a raven’s wing and whose heart was the radiant white of a dove’s underbelly.

In her fifth-floor walk-up, which was conveniently located directly beneath Kinsey’s apartment, she had built-in shelves all along two walls, floor to ceiling. On the shallow shelves she kept vials and bottles and pressed-tin containers of every substance known to practitioners of every form of voodoo. In her mind, she kept the knowledge to accompany them.

Each time Kinsey visited Madame’s apartment, which she did at least twice each week, she found new and wonderful discoveries. One time there were tea leaves, freshly splashed across a plate and ready to be interpreted. Another time there was a single eye of newt. Another time there was the finest, thinnest bat wing she’d ever seen.

Well, it was the only bat wing she’d seen separate of a bat, but Madame said it was especially fine and thin, and Kinsey had no reason to doubt her.

Another time there was another ingredient or another or another.

Kinsey was there primarily to learn and practice the Jamaican treatment of the English language, but Madame noticed her interest in whatever happened to be lying around. Soon she turned the names of the ingredients into a game, having Kinsey pronounce them with a Jamaican tongue. And soon after that, Kinsey began to ask regularly how some of those seemingly dissimilar objects might be used together and to what effect.

It had been several years, maybe 40, since Madame Toussaulle had taken on a pupil. That was her grandson, who was now a witch doctor in his own right in the interior of Jamaica. She wasn’t anxious to take on another one, and she told Kinsey so.

Especially a female, for whom the lessons would be more detailed and therefore much more difficult. “But then, they got to be,” she said. “Our bodies, they closer to the tides’a the earth an’ the moon. So the woman, she got much bigger power than a man. The learnin’ll take big effort, big will, big strength from you.”

Still, Kinsey was so bright-eyed, so eager, the old woman finally said, if tentatively, “So this is somethin’ burns in your heart?”

Actually, it was something about which Kinsey was fervently curious, but not passionate. She had decided to reserve her passion for the young man who seemed so perfect.

But to truly capture the essence of the accent, she must become part of the culture. And she would never master the culture without knowing all there was to know about the dark arts.

So in response to Madame’s question, she nodded an implied half-truth, then followed it up with a verbal one. “Oh yes, Mamá,” she said, drawing on her training. “I long to have the knowledge!”

Madame eyed the pale, blond, blue-eyed girl for a long moment. And eventually, against her better judgment, Madame set her a rigorous schedule. “I got a hunnert an’ two years on this plane, child. Your trainin’ will have to be sped up, but not abbreviated. Abbreviated ain’t allowed, no. But I mus’ teach you all or nothin’. You mus’ do what I say, no question, no delay. Even when I ain’t aroun’, the spirits, they know.”

And thus began her training.

Over the next months and years, she learned her lessons well, all the while maintaining her training as an actress and her relationship with Harlan Campbell.

Through her absorption of the knowledge of the dark arts, her spirit swelled with the culture of Jamaica, and soon she birthed the creature her own true love would dub Jamaica Rawlings.

Languishing, her hands resting easy on the arms of her overstuffed easy chair, Madame Toussaulle gestured weakly. “Come closer, child.” She’d gestured toward the floor next to her chair. “Here.”

Kinsey had crossed the floor quickly and knelt at the side of the chair, a frown on her forehead. “Mamá, should I call for a doctor?”

“Oh no. No, child, it’s my time. No doctor can stop that. But you. You done good. You almost t’rough. Only one t’ing still you got to know.” She paused and took a great breath. “The mos’ powerful blessin’, the mos’ stronges’ spell, the mos’ unbreakable curse, that’s the one gave up by his own bad mind.” She took another breath, as long but more ragged. “You un’erstan’?”

Kinsey nodded. Barely above a whisper, she said, “Yes.”

But she wasn’t certain she understood. The one given up by his own bad mind? But who did “his” refer to. She had only two men in her life. One was her instructor and producer and the other was the love of her life.

Probably Madame Toussaulle meant she would understand when it was time. 

The old woman rolled her left arm over so her palm faced the ceiling, then slowly flexed her fingers.

Kinsey gripped the thin black hand in both of hers.

The old woman said, “You got it all now, child. You... got it all.”

When the spirit left the body, Kinsey felt it.

*

That was almost a year ago. The next day Harlan Campbell dubbed her Jamaica. In gushing his pride for her, he reiterated that she was his one true love, and that his own love for her would never die.

But he hadn’t meant it. He hadn’t meant a word of it.

The thought caused her to tug harder on the thread of the stocking, a third of which was unraveled and lying in a separate little heap on her left thigh.

He should have meant it, but he didn’t.

Why did he lie?

She would have slept with him without the lies. Without the deception. The disingenuity. Hadn’t she done so with others, based only on physical attraction?

Hadn’t she done so with Harold Tomkins, who was more sincere than was even necessary?

Hadn’t she done so with Jeremy Leech, who was at least honest enough to keep his lies shallow and transparent?

Hadn’t she done so with—whatever his name was—Jim or Jack, some one-syllable thing like that? And with the red-headed cool-guy wannabe, Fred Something Or Other? And the skinny black kid who insisted she call him Othello? And the utterly wholesome-seeming Steve, who’d stolen his lines from Leech’s playbook?

Yes, she had. Of course she had.

But always she’d held her heart in reserve.

So why had she allowed Harlan full admittance? Why had she given herself, body, mind and soul to Harlan?

Whatever the reason, Harlan had used her for target practice. He had used her to hone his acting skills. And when he was through, he had discarded her as easily as a mountain man might discard a whetstone worn too thin to be of further use.

Harlan had lied. He had deceived her. He had been disingenuous. And all for nothing.

She sat very still for a moment to calm herself, then went back to a more studious, gentler unraveling of the stocking.

At least now she realized the reason for her years of study. All roads had led her to this point in her life.

Her study of acting would culminate in Mr. Weintraub’s production, which would open tomorrow night.

She would play the lead role. A role that had waited patiently in the back of Mr. Weintraub’s mind all through is formative years as a writer and actor and director and instructor and producer. He’d said so himself. It had lain dormant there until she, Kinsey Jamaica Rawlings, had presented in his class as the final, perfect bit of the puzzle that would complete his dream. The capstone, he’d called her.

And Harlan. Harlan would play Mr. Marley’s disingenuous first manager. A role for which he was perfectly suited.

And the audience—oh, would they get a show. Harlan himself had guaranteed that.

*

She bent again to her task, barely able to contain the smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth and stretched broadly across her mind.

When the stocking was reduced to a nondescript heap of thick woolen thread on her leg, she brushed it to the cushion on her left, picked up the second stocking and found a wayward thread.

*

By the time the sun rose, round and red above the eastern horizon, the pile of thread on the cushion had doubled.

Jamaica Rawlings stood, interlocked her fingers and stretched her arms high above her head to stretch. Then she went to the refrigerator, opened a bottle of water, and returned to the couch.

She assumed a new position, her back in the corner formed by the back of the couch and the arm farthest from the pile of thread. She took a long drink of the water, then capped the bottle and set it on the end table, using the brass ashtray as a coaster.

Then she turned back to the task at hand. She leaned forward, picked up the wad of woolen thread and dropped it in her lap.

She took a loose end with her right hand and started wrapping it around the first two fingers on her left hand.

She built the torso first, then drew the thread through itself and created the legs, the arms, the head.

Three hours later she was finished.

The figure was tight, perfectly constructed.

Except for the single, quarter-inch of thread dangling from between the figure’s legs.

*

The ashtray hadn’t been used as an ashtray since Harlan had snuffed out a cigarette in it three mornings ago.

He’d risen from her bed for the umpteenth time, tugged on his jeans and t-shirt and overshirt, then dropped onto the couch and lit a cigarette. As he drew on it, he smiled. “We’re open with each other, right babe? We’re honest, right?”

She looked at him from the bed. A slight sense of dread filled her. He’d never shortened “baby” to “babe” before. Why had he done so now? Something was wrong.

“Sure,” she said.

She fought down the feeling of dread. She put on a smile that she hoped didn’t look forced. Probably it was nothing anyway. Probably she was just overwrought at the impending performance in the biggest role of her life. Probably he was too.

After all, he wanted only the best for her, didn’t he? He’d said so often enough. And they’d agreed that what was best for her—for both of them—was a lifetime spent together.

He smiled back at her, then took another drag of his cigarette and pulled on one boot. They were fashionable ankle boots, laced just loosely enough so he could pull them on without unlacing them first. “You know I want only the best for you, right?”

He looked down, the cigarette dangling from the left corner of his mouth. He closed his left eye against the thin wisp of blue smoke curling up past his cheek on that side. He pulled on his second boot.

Her words caught in her throat, and she could only nod. She managed, somehow, to keep the smile from draining away.

He stood and lightly clomped the left foot, then the right to adjust the boots on his feet. The boots in which he was about to walk out of her life. It was all she could do to breathe.

When he was satisfied with the boots, he looked up again, took another drag of the cigarette. Then he took it from his mouth, pinched it—effeminately, she thought—between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, and bent to the right to crush it out in the brass ashtray.

“Thing is, after the show I’m heading out to LA. I don’t really want to do the stage thing. TV’s more my style, y’know?”

She looked at him, waited. In a moment he would say, So whaddya say? Should we try LA for awhile? How long will it take you to pack? The show probably won’t run a week, and we could leave the next morning.

But he didn’t.

He said, “We’ve had a good run, you and I, right babe? Maybe it’s time we both test other waters.”

After that the memory was a blur.

She’d sat up, pointed at the door, screamed at him to get out.

He’d crossed the floor quickly, grabbed the door knob, turned it.

He should have kept going. Being yelled at and handed his freedom was a very small price to pay—an insignificant price, really—for having shattered her, especially only a few nights before her first big role.

But he didn’t.

The door knob still in his left hand, he pulled the door toward himself, then turned to look at her. And he sneered. “What?” he said. “This is just another girl-guy thing, right? Nothing to come all unraveled about. Later, babe.”

At last she understood Madame Toussaulle’s final lesson.

Poor, stupid Harlan.

He should have kept going.

He shouldn’t have stopped.

He shouldn’t have turned back.

He shouldn’t have given her the idea.

The one gave up by his own bad mind.

*

The curtain rose at 6:45 p.m., Mr. Weintraub’s idea. It was always better to start at an odd time, he said, a time not at the top of the hour. It was more memorable that way. The audience was more likely to be seated and waiting, instead of filing in and restless.

Everybody was on.

The actors moved perfectly through the blocking and dialogue in each scene.

The curtains lowered and raised between acts precisely on time.

The stage hands shifted the setting for each act as if they’d done it for years.

The only flaw in the entire production was one that nobody noticed. The right pocket on Bob Marley’s jacket bulged ever so slightly.

In the final moments of the play, Marley had received the final proof that his manager was ripping him off. He—played brilliantly by Jamaica Rawlings, a stunning, barrier-busting new actress on the New York scene—summoned the man, Jon du Lac, played by Harlan Campbell.

“Jon, is dis true what I hear? Dat you stealin’ from me? Dat mebbe you gonna leave?”

The man’s head lowered, almost as if he were contrite.

Then a smile formed on his face and he looked up slowly. “Yes!” he said, his right arm shooting into the air, his index finger raised. “It’s all true!” He took a step toward Bob Marley and sneered. “You a no-account singa’, you hear? You not good. People gonna catch on, an’ you reggae gonna die. Den where I be? I got to go while the gettin’s good, mon.”

Here, the character Jon du Lac turned to face the audience. “So yes, I took what I seen was comin’ to me. I was owed it for stayin’ aroun’ dis broken ship dis long.” He turned back to Marley. “So what? Whadda you gonna say to dat?”

Some in the audience hissed at him, and some began to boo.

And Jamaica Rawlings, in the guise and spirit of Bob Marley, went off script. Way off script.

Suddenly Marley shrugged. His right hand raised slightly, found its way into his right jacket pocket, and came out with a small figure. From the front row, it looked like a ragdoll, albeit a tiny one created of yarn.

Marley spread his lips to display a mouthful of teeth, but the smile behind it belonged to Jamaica Rawlings.

Marley transferred the figure to his left hand and held it aloft. “So be it, mon, mah fo’mah fren’. You wanna go? Den hey, you go!” With his right hand, he reached across and pinched the loose thread. Hard. He rolled it between his thumb and forefinger.

Harlan Campbell screamed. He grabbed himself with both hands, then collapsed.

The audience began to applaud.

In Marley’s own inimitable Jamaican accent, Jamaica Rawlings said, “Unraveled, mon, from you own bad mind.”

And she jerked on the thread.

*

The stage hands tasked with lowering the curtain were torn between doing their job and watching the strange events unfold onstage. The curtain did come down, although much more slowly than before.

As it came down to thunderous applause, from the audience the writhing figure of Jon du Lac seemed to shrivel and grow smaller. How the genius Mr. Weintraub had created the effect, nobody could tell.

Mr. Weintraub himself, who’d been watching the altered final scene from the wings, raced onto the stage and came up behind Jamaica Rawlings. When he stopped next to her, his right foot landed on something soft. He looked down and jerked his foot away.

It was only the pile of thread that Marley—Jamaica—had dropped.

He looked at Jamaica again, grabbed her shoulder. “Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful! I don’t know why you changed the ending, but did you hear that applause? We’re a hit! We’re a—”

He glanced past Jamaica, wanting to include Harlan Campbell in his gratitude as well.

But Harlan wasn’t there.

Mr. Weintraub frowned. He looked left, then right. Finally, to nobody in particular, he said, “Where’s Harlan?”

Jamaica only shrugged. “Ain’t no tellin’, mon,” she said, still in character. “I heard de man say he was goin’ to LA. Mebbe he got a’ early start.”

* * * * * * *