Five Smooth Stones (9 page)

There were other houses along the ill-paved street. Just below the Timminses' a battered shabby house with sagging porch and broken steps housed a man and woman and Ol' Miz Specks, the woman's mother. Between that house and the Timminses' a one-room cabin sat back from the others, and David hated to see the couple who lived in it come home because the sound of their shouted quarrels and banging furniture frightened him.

Right after the Champlins moved in, a man and his wife and little girl came over one Sunday and walked around the lot next to theirs, and Gram and Gramp wondered if they'd be neighbors. The girl, Gram said, must be at least five years older than David. "Pretty as can be," said Gram, "and born to trouble. The devil's own, my ma would have said if she'd seen her."

Tant' Irene came over often, but would not move in with them. She had never lived away from the French Quarter in her life and its sounds and smells, its sights, its crowded streets, the cries of its vendors, were a part of her and she could not give them up.

One of the windfalls that came their way was a huge overstuffed divan, upholstered in a fuzzy blue material that tickled David's skin when he lay on it. The divan opened into a bed, and had been given to Geneva—with the stipulation that she arrange to have it carted away—by one of her employers. "They coulda sold that," said Geneva with grudging gratitude. "Sure is beautiful even if it do take up most of the room."

Irene Champlin knew it to be hideous but praised it heartily for Geneva's sake, slept on it those nights when she came over the river, and crocheted antimacassars for it, making them stiff with starch.

The day Li'l Joe borrowed a truck to carry the divan home he noticed a used electric refrigerator in the lot of the secondhand dealer who owned the truck. He wavered briefly, then

signed up for it. It was hard for him to believe sometimes that he was buying something for his own home, but Geneva's quiet happiness was a sure reality.

CHAPTER 7

Two years after they moved over the river, Joseph Champlin and his grandson were alone. On a night when Tant' Irene was staying with them, David awakened to the sound of strange voices, and called out, and Tant' Irene came in and lifted him from his cot and carried him to the kitchen with surprising strength. He had been sleeping in his own room for almost a year and was, in his own opinion, much too big to be carried. In the kitchen she held him on her lap and sang to him in French and Creole, rocking him gently. The door to the dining room was closed, but through it he could hear voices, and then Gramp came in by the side door from the hall and looked in and shook his head, his face as hard and cold as the black marble bust of George Washington Carver on the Jeffersons' mantel. Behind him David saw a man in a white coat, and then Gramp turned, his face terrible in its stillness, and as he started down the hall David broke from Tant' Irene's arms and ran after him, screaming, but Tant' Irene caught him as he reached the hall and held him with fierce strength.

God had sent His angels for Gram in the night, Tant' Irene said, but David did not believe her. Not even when he saw Gram in her coffin did he really believe it. It was not so much the sight of Gram in her coffin that made him cry as Gramp and Gramp's face, set and still, his eyes not looking like eyes at all, a man who did not speak in the church and who later sat in the front room without speaking, like a dead man sitting in a chair.

David had almost always wakened in the morning before Gram and Gramp, and had stood in the doorway of then-room, not daring to make a noise but willing them to wake, shouting in his mind: Gram! Gramp! Wake up! I'm hungry!

David's hungry! One morning an uncontrollable giggle broke from him as he stood there, and he clapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late. Gramp, who always slept more quietly than what Tant' Irene called their
chat-sans-queue,
Stumpy, had heard him. "Fix yourself some cereal, son," he said sleepily. "You big enough now." Later, at breakfast, he asked, "What were you laughing about, standing in the door?"

David giggled again. "You looks like a mouse when you're asleep, Gramp. Like the little brown mouse I seen on the back porch. You told me a story 'bout him, 'bout the wise brown mouse."

After the frightening night when they took Gram away, Gramp was never asleep no matter how early he went to the door; instead he would be lying quietly, his eyes open, the pillow that Gram had always slept on gone, used now on the divan-bed Tant' Irene was sleeping on. It was about a week after Gram had gone when the full realization came to David that Gram would never be lying beside Gramp again when he came to the door in the morning. He didn't mean to slam the door when he ran into his own room, but it crashed behind him. He tried not to cry too loud, lying face down on his cot. The sobs were so hard that they hurt him, deep inside. Then Gramp was sitting on the edge of the cot in pajamas and slippers, talking to him, but what he was saying didn't help, only made it worse. At last Gramp said: "All right, son. All right. You cry it out. Seems like it's better that way. Makes a person sick, all that grief inside 'em, never coming out, like poison." He felt Gramp's hand on his head, roughing his hair, heard him say, "Going out and fix us some hot biscuits for breakfast, son. Time you feels better they'll be ready."

That night the feeling of loss woke him, even though Gramp had come back, had been Gramp again, talking more than he had since Gram had been with them, even playing a game with him after supper, and it was Gramp instead of Tant' Irene who heard his prayers that night. Ever since Gram had gone, Tant' Irene kept the light on in the hall, with dark blue cloth carefully draped over it to cut the glare. Now, in the dark and no-time of the night David got up and padded to Gramp's door and opened it softly. The dim light from the hall showed Gramp's eyes open, gleaming.

"Gramp."

"You all right, son?"

"Gramp, if I bring my pillow can I sleep in your bed?"

"Sure can, little man, sure can."

The sad feeling was not so big with Gramp beside him, warm and still and as quiet as the little brown mouse he had seen on the porch. As he drifted into sleep he wondered about the mouse and where it slept at night, and hoped Stumpy the cat wouldn't catch it. In the morning he-would-tell-Stumpy-not-to-hurt-the-wise-brown-mouse.

***

They took Tant' Irene to the big hospital in the heart of the city. The buildings were so huge and sprawling David was sure she would never come out, and wondered how Gramp could ever find her when he went there to see her. There was a hazy, lonely period while Tant' Irene was in the hospital when he and Gramp stayed with Pop and Miz Emma, sleeping together on the divan-bed that was like their own. Gramp was very still and quiet all the time, the way he had been after Gram died, and David begged to stay with the Timminses, but Gramp said there were too many young uns there already and it would be too crowded. "We'll be back soon," said Gramp.

"Stumpy don't want us to go," he said desperately.

"Sure don't," said Gramp. "But them Timmins chilren, they'll take care of him. After the trick the Prof played on that pore animal, he ain't going to be doing no tomcatting around."

David giggled, remembering when Stumpy had come to them, a bedraggled yellow wisp of half-grown cat with a stub of a tail no longer than his own thumb, and remembering how one day when Stumpy was bigger the Prof had carried him off in a basket, and how Gramp had roared and raised a sand when he got home that night.

"They ain't going to hurt him," Gram had said. "The Professor says they puts 'em to sleep and when they wakes up they don't know what happened."

"The hell they don't!"

"The Prof says he's going to be a better pet for David; says he won't be off getting in fights and losing an eye and all; says he'll be kind and gentle 'stead of mean."

"What'd they
do?"
asked David. "Huh, Gramp? What'd they
do
to Stumpy?"

"Never you mind, son. Took his manhood, that's what they did. Lawdgawdalmighty! Dirtiest trick I ever heard of. You wait till I sees the Prof. You just wait."

But when the Professor drove up to the door with Stumpy and carried him inside, Gramp was smiling as he always was, and the Prof ate with them that night, and as David was going to sleep with Stumpy curled beside him and his calico tiger on his pillow, he could hear the Profs voice rumbling like a train and now and then the soft purr of Gramp's voice answering.

CHAPTER 8

There was a pain, a big one, only it was a long way off; it was a pain happening to someone else and he was whimpering with it. There was something touching his face and his forehead, but when he opened his eyes there was only a blur. He closed them again, and a jillion years later opened them and the blur was gone and Gramp's eyes were just above him, filled with tears. Gramp was touching his forehead and cheeks with the back of his fingers. "You all right, son." Gramp was whispering. It was not a question; he was saying it, "You all right, little man."

He said, "Gramp," and then the pain came back, happening to him now, happening to him in a high bed in a strange place, happening to a foot and leg that wouldn't move. He whimpered again, and Gramp took his hand. "I
hurt."
There was a crackling sound, and a woman was there, all in white, with starched coif and bib, holding a pill to his lips. He clenched them tightly closed and turned his head away, and Gramp said sternly, "You do like the sister says, y'hear, boy! It's going to help that hurting." He took the pill, but the water from a cup dribbled down his chin, and Gramp wiped it off gently, held the cup so he could swallow the water and the pill.

He closed his eyes and in the darkness through the pain heard Gramp saying in a shaky voice, "He was playing in the street. I done told him so often—"

"I know," said the woman. "They will do it. I think I can find Doctor now, and he can tell you just what's happened."

David opened his eyes. "You ain't going?" he whispered.

"You going to sleep now, son. You do like they tells you, understand. I don't want to come back and hear nothing about you being bad. You do like they says."

He nodded dumbly.

"Gramp's got to go over the river and feed Stumpy. You knows that." Gramp leaned over and put a moist cheek against his and whispered: "Pray to Jesus, son. He's helping you. You pray to Jesus like Gram taught you. I'll be back. You take your rest—"

There wasn't anybody there then, and the pain grew bigger and he began to cry. He remembered now. He had been spending the day in New Orleans, and playing duck-on-a-rock in the street. He remembered hearing Abraham Jefferson scream, remembered a terrible noise and a blinding crash. There had been a bed that was moving and a man sitting beside it; then the bed was lifted and carried, and then he had awakened here.

The pain began to go farther away, and he clung to Gramp's last words: "I'll be back." He fought sleep off because maybe Gramp had meant right away, to take him home, but sleep was too strong for him. He knew he'd be asleep if Gramp came back because he saw the wide, dark water, saw the people on its banks and heard them singing.

***

Joseph Champlin followed the sister down the corridor, shaky with relief. Less than half an hour before he had walked along that corridor, shaking with fear, and as he had approached the ward where his grandson lay, his lips had been moving. "Lord! Lord Jesus! Don't let there be no screen around his bed. I can't take no more, Jesus; I can't take no more."

There had been no screen, but his heart had almost stopped at the stillness of the child's face in the high bed, the lavender tinge that paled the lips and underlay the tan-brown of his skin. The bedclothes were tented over bis legs. "A rather bad leg injury," the sister said. "The doctor will tell you about it." Now they were seeking the doctor, and he followed respectfully, just behind her, and when she turned into a small room near the end of the corridor he stood outside its threshold.

The thin young man in a white uniform who faced him from the center of the room had dark hair, small dark eyes, and was pale from fatigue. His speech was quick, southern, impatient. He said, "Well? You're here about the Champlin boy?"

Like I was doing something wrong, thought Joseph Champlin; like I was doing something wrong, being here about the Champlin boy; like he was God Almighty chewing out the Philistines.

He said, "Yes, sir," politely when the doctor snapped, "Come in."

The doctor turned from him and walked rapidly to a desk against the wall and sat down. Li'l Joe remained standing. He felt a consuming anger when the doctor said, "Why in hell do you people let your children play in the streets! You're lucky the boy's alive."

Li'l Joe did not speak. His lids dropped over his eyes to hide the rage in them, and he looked at the floor. Behind him his hands were gripped so tightly he could feel the knucklebones grinding together, bone on bone. At last he spoke. "They got no place else to play." In his mind he saw green parks with white children running over grass, and playgrounds with colored children running past, stopping to look and watch, then running on, eternally shut out. God, don't let me do no wrong thing, he prayed. God, don't let me do or say nothing that will hurt David.

"All right," said the doctor. "All right." He swept the subject away like a sloppy housewife sweeping dirt under a rug. He was looking at a typed report, and Li'l Joe shifted the weight on his legs, cramped by the tension of his anger. "The boy has a crushed ankle and foot," said the doctor. "As bad as I've seen. The wheel of the truck must have passed clear over it. I don't see how we can hold out any hope."

"You means—the chile's going to die?"

"Of course not. He had a slight head injury, nothing serious. I mean I don't see how we can hold out any hope of saving the foot and ankle." He looked up, saw the man before him sway, and said, "Sit down."

Li'l Joe shook his head. The doctor was saying, "As his father, his legal guardian, we should have your written permission."