One More River (6 page)

You see, son, you can’t give them goats the chance to gang up on you, which they surely will if you let ’em. And it ain’t always the smartest thing to get in there and think you can best a whole herd. You gotta bribe ’em. Sometimes you gotta outthink ’em, because, let’s face it, they may be smart, but they ain’t as smart as people, no, no, no, not by a long shot. You might not have noticed today, but I had feed ready for them critters, and that’s the only reason, I swear, the only reason on God’s good earth they left you alone long enough for me to dump it and get in there and take you and Dopey out unmolested. You understandin’ me?

I think so.

Bald Horace shook his head from side to side while he tied a bandage in a snug knot just under Mickey Moe’s knee. He was thinking his own thoughts. He came to a decision that had little to do with the goats and everything to do with life as he knew it. He decided to impart some wisdom to this poor, fatherless white child, who obviously, if he’d chosen of his own free will to spend time with a mess of hardscrabble goats on a fine April afternoon, was in need of guidance.

Listen to me, son. Listen to me good. I knew your daddy. I knew him well. And this is somethin’ I know he’d tell you if he could.

The boy’s head jerked up. Daddy had been invoked. He must take heed.

Confrontin’ somethin’ head-on isn’t always the best way. Sometimes you need to run around things to fool ’em, to distract ’em. You get what I’m sayin’?

Mickey Moe considered his experience that afternoon on the street in front of his house. It was an opening salvo, he knew that much. There would be more torment from Ricky Baker and his boys, if only to justify their prior cruelty. And miracle of miracles, here was his dear, dead daddy speaking through Bald Horace in order to tell him how to handle the situation. He shook his head with all the grown-up gravitas he possessed.

Yessir, he said, aware his mama would be appalled if she heard him address the man with an honorific reserved for white men. But Bald Horace had just rescued him from a brute tribe, patched him up, and given him a great and powerful gift to boot. The boy thought he deserved the respect due a white man. Yessir, he repeated for emphasis, Yessir, I do.

Bald Horace smiled wide enough for Mickey Moe to count the spaces in his teeth.

Well alright, then. Alright.

They nearly embraced, so powerful was their moment of man-to-man intimacy achieved amid an abandonment of class and race and age when another entered the house in a bustle of sound and fragrance. Mickey Moe looked away from Bald Horace’s melting eyes toward the front door and beheld for the first time the woman known as Aurora Mae.

Aurora Mae was, without a doubt, the most imposing, blackest woman Mickey Moe had ever seen, and that covered quite a lot of human territory. When she entered the room, she had to stoop a little to make it through the door. She carried half a dozen grocery bags, and once she was inside, she seemed to fill the place up. Her head near brushed the ceiling. It would take arms twice the length of his own—or Bald Horace’s for that matter, as he was a spindly type, shrunken with age and hardship, more on a child’s scale of being—to hug her all the way around. Her chest could feed nations, her nostrils suck up all the sweet air of a spring day, and her deep brown eyes with their brilliant flecks of yellow reminded him of the great river itself and the way golden stones glittered up from its bottom in places near the shore. Every inch of her was doused in Sassaport Five and Ten’s violet toilet water, a scent his second sister favored. He’d only got such a strong dose of it up his nose once before, the time he’d knocked over a bottle she’d left on the edge of the bathroom sink and the contents entire spilled out.

The woman spoke. Could that be young Mickey Moe Levy I see there settin’ at our table? she asked through a wide, curious smile as she bent over to greet Bald Horace with a kiss on the top of his smooth head. Her voice was deep as a man’s but soft, caressing.

That would be him, darlin’.

Bald Horace filled her in on the details of finding Mickey Moe in the goat pen.

My, my, she said. And now it’s gettin’ on to suppertime. I better drive the boy home before his people send folks out lookin’.

Bald Horace agreed. Relieving her of the groceries, he told her he’d put up the peas and grits while she was gone.

Just don’t touch my chicken parts, she said. I’ve got some clever ideas for them tonight.

Throughout all this, Mickey Moe sat mute as a stone and remained so until he was installed in Aurora Mae’s Buick sedan, a sparkling boat of a car the color of old money. He was surprised a Negro woman drove such a remarkable vehicle. He huddled against the door of the passenger side, because she scared him just a little. A minute later, curiosity conquered fear. He ventured to speak.

Is this car your very own? he asked. Or does it belong to someone you work for?

Aurora Mae chuckled in her odd baritone.

Oh no, son. It’s mine. All mine. And I work for myself, too. No boss over me, don’t you know. None at all.

He burned to ask her what she meant, but her tone of voice shut him up quick. As far as he knew, all Negroes in those days in that part of the world had a boss. A boss or a landlord who owned the farm they worked. They rode in silence to the end of his street where Aurora Mae stopped.

You need to walk the rest of the way, boy. You can manage that, can’t you? You ain’t too mangled up?

Mickey Moe shook his head and exited the car.

I don’t mean to be rude, she continued through an open window. But your mama doesn’t exactly like me, and it might be best to keep knowledge of our acquaintance from her. If you don’t mind. You owe Bald Horace that much, don’t you? For lookin’ out for you?

Mickey Moe screwed up his face in consternation. He’d never kept anything from his mama before. Nothing important.

Aurora Mae smiled her big, toothy grin.

You look just like your daddy that way. My, but that man knew how to mark a child.

The boy’s chin dropped, as much for the mere mention of his daddy from out of that particular mouth as for the stupefying assessment that he favored him.

You knew my daddy, too?

I knew him better than anybody. Alive or dead.

Then quick as that, Aurora Mae rolled up her window, executed a perfect three-point turn in the middle of Orchard Street, and peeled off down the road back toward the village in a cloud of orange dust.

Knew him better than anybody. Alive or dead. The way she’d said it, the way she left so sudden directly afterward, informed Mickey Moe that he’d best not ask anyone what she meant, at least any white person of his ken whether within his family or without. He decided sure as heck right then and there that he’d seek Aurora Mae out again, at the earliest opportunity, and ask her exactly what she’d meant.

Unfortunately, his decision was as ephemeral as any other an adolescent makes. Within the next two days, he asked Sara Kate, Roland, and Bald Horace pointed questions about his daddy’s relations with Aurora Mae. Each of them gave him a blank look and changed the subject. On repeated queries, they pretended not to hear. When he insisted, Bald Horace got up in his face. Son, I’d like to help you, but I don’t know much. Aurora Mae comes and goes on the wings of birds. Even when she’s here, she keeps her business to herself. On the third day, Cora Gifford gave him his first kiss and parted her lips when she did. The focus of his thoughts changed so radically that Aurora Mae took up residence in the deepest chambers of his consciousness for nearly a dozen years, until circumstances demanded that she burst forth with all the glorious might of Athena when she charged newborn from out the skull of Zeus.

L
AURA
A
NNE LOVED HER DADDY.
She was a good girl, had been all her life. She was a good girl because it was the way her mama raised her, but also in greater part because she loved her daddy, loved him to distraction, and craved his approval like a fat man craves grease. Good girls, he told her from the time she was small, was what he loved, and so a good girl was what she became. Still there was an agitation in her, an itch she’d noticed first around the age of thirteen, one that often came upon her unexpectedly, started deep in her throat and rose up slowly, inexorably to tickle the back of her teeth, which made her bite her tongue and the inside of her cheeks so hard they bled. It was a compulsion only relieved by a notion to do or say something that was not good. If she had to name it, she’d call it an evil inclination, which is how Mama referred to any temptation to wander from the path of righteousness whether that meant slouching in a chair or talking back. Sometimes the urge beset her when she was all alone and under no onus to behave well. Those occasions occurred when she was bored or fighting a frustration she could not name, one related to boredom and yet not boredom. During the seven years between thirteen and twenty, her current age, she fought mightily against the pull of evil inclination in order to continue being the good girl her daddy loved, believing her efforts bred strength of will. But almost from the very minute she met Mickey Moe, she dropped every bit of pretense, reluctance, fear, filial devotion, or whatever it was that kept her from scratching that itch. Overnight, she surrendered to impulse.

In fact, on their very first date, Laura Anne gave Mickey Moe such damp, smoldering looks he could not be blamed for thinking a gentle assault at the outposts of her modesty would not be unwelcome. Before either of them had time to process the consequences, he crossed the moat, scaled the parapets, and raided its innermost chambers, planting his standard at the heart of her vault of treasures.

Afterward, he raised himself up from the fine leather seat of the LTD Brougham he’d bought used from a chum to drive to Greenville to see her knowing the battered pickup he used for work would not do for such a girl and, with tears in his eyes, said, I’m sorry, Laura Anne. I am so sorry. I got carried away. I didn’t mean to . . .

There were tears in her eyes, too, tears of wonder, tears of joy she told him, but since he knew she was a good girl, he did not believe her. The only thing she could do to convince him was wind her fair arms around his neck and pull him back down to her while sliding her hips against him up and down and side to side because, Lord almighty, as soon as her urge got satisfied, it started up again, twice as strong. It came to her twice more that night. In between, they took a stroll along the river to appreciate the moon and the stars and their great good fortune at finding each other.

She could barely walk straight in the morning but made a valiant stab at keeping evidence of soreness to herself. Mama was not entirely fooled.

Are you alright, child? You look like a little lamb lost today. She regarded her daughter with narrowed eyes, her lips pinched, her hands on her hips in that pose mamas everywhere use when demanding the truth from their girls.

I’m alright, Mama.

Are you sure?

It takes time for good girls to learn how to deceive. Laura Anne nearly walked into a wall trying to quit the kitchen and escape Mama’s prying eyes.

Yes, Mama.

Well, I’m not. That boy try anything with you last night?

The girl’s blood pounded so hard in her ears it wasn’t difficult to pretend she didn’t hear. She left the house in a hurry, calling back to Mama something about being late to work at her father’s furniture store.

It was a clumsy dodge. It was a Sunday, and the store was closed to trade. There was no need for punctuality. Normally, she worked Monday through Thursday with half a day on Fridays and Sundays. Friday afternoons she took off early to help Mama get ready for the Sabbath, which she kept, sort of. In other words, although Needleman’s Furniture was open Saturdays, she didn’t go in. She kept coin in her pocket, spent it if she wanted to, used the television, the car, the oven, her curling iron, in fact, all manner of things electrical or requiring fuel. During the week, Laura Anne served as store accountant and worked the floor with the sales force. Her specialties were kitchen and bedroom furnishings. Most days, she put in long hours, but her duties were light on Sundays. She recorded the Saturday receipts and sent out invoices, monitored both incoming and delivery orders while her daddy did the payroll and inventoried stock. Laura Anne had an associate’s degree in business administration from the junior college, but her real preparation for her job came from life with Daddy. She liked to think he taught her everything she knew. It was only rarely that she wondered what else in the world she might like to learn, but somehow her ruminations tended to lead to bouts of agitation, so whenever fancy chanced to visit she distracted herself by chanting one of Daddy’s maxim’s, “If it was that much fun, they wouldn’t call it work,” or lost herself in numbers.

Although the women of the house observed the Sabbath in their fashion, the patriarch didn’t at all. Motivated by social obligation as much as piety, Laura Anne and Mama often went to services at Temple Ohabai Shalom, the largest Reform synagogue in three counties, while Daddy took Saturday mornings off to sleep in. In the afternoon, he went to the store. Sometimes, fresh from rabbinical exhortation, Mama resented his behavior and cajoled him to change his heathen habits on his way out the door. Daddy would respond, Dang it all, I have a living to make in Babylon. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. No one, especially not Laura Anne, dared criticize him or point out his amalgamation of empires. Nor did she think to complain that she and Mama were restricted by religious law solely because of their gender. In those days, there were many restrictions upon young women of both secular and religious nature. The rules of living in the Needleman household seemed as natural to a child of the river as breathing moist air.

That particular Sunday, she worked hard at keeping Daddy in the dark about her moment of truth the previous evening. Out of fear he’d know everything if he looked in her eyes, she kept her back to him as much as she could, pretending to be busy with lists and sales slips, responding to his small talk with pleasantries and noncommittal expressions like uh-huh and mmm.