Such Sweet Thunder (19 page)

“So this big healthy youngster is your son!” she was saying. He was overwhelmed by a feeling of comfort, a feeling that he would be safe, that she could protect him from the manifold dangers of the earth and sky that had plagued him these past three days.

“I gotta, I must go now, honey!” Viola was saying. He looked into the face of the little girl who was his mother with a feeling of profound embarrassment, and then he looked apologetically at the older woman, as though he hoped that she would understand something deep and mellow in him, which he himself could not understand, but feel.

“You be a good boy an’-
d
do what the teacher tells you — an’- and if anything goes wrong — you just go to her. You gonna kiss your momma good-bye?”

“Aw, Mom …” reluctantly proffering his cheek, after which Viola said good-bye to Miss Chapman, and turned and walked down the hall. She turned at the head of the stairs and waved her handkerchief at him, blowing her nose as she descended the steps. When she was out of sight, Miss Chapman touched his shoulder gently, and he threw his arms around her waist and buried his face in the pit of her stomach.

“Go to your seat,” she said.

An instant later he was seated in a room filled with windows. The sun shone in bright golden bars upon little lacquered yellow-pine tables and chairs occupied by little boys and girls just like him. Miss Chapman, now here, now there, like a big soft magician, yielding warmth, yielding comfort, conjured up deep bright enchanting secrets of children and things: of clean white pulpy paper and Crayola, of water paints, and lines and circles and squares filled with bird and apple and color, worm and rat, house and boy and girl and rabbit, duck, pear, and peach — elephant! — maple leaf and walnut, of a wet gummy stuff called clay that you could squeeze and pull better than mud this way and that, and pat and roll into little balls, and sticks to look like dogs and cars and houses and stars and horses and things.

Meanwhile, after a long time, the bell rang for the first time, and Viola appeared at the door, and she and Miss Chapman talked softly together so he couldn’t hear, and then they said good-bye, and he said good-bye with his head because he couldn’t
say
good-bye, couldn’t look at her, couldn’t look at Viola, either, just hold her hand like a baby and let her lead him away through all the kids as thick as leaves
making a whole lot of noise, back up the long hill to the avenue, past cousin Rachel’s house.

Just as they reached the little concrete path leading up to the steps he saw a youngish woman with sallow skin and red eyes, in a worn street dress with a tight bodice that revealed a perfect figure, standing on the porch.

“Hul-lo Vi — ola,” she said, taking them both in with a sad defiant glance. He stared at the thick scar on the side of her handsome face. Her legs were bare and the dress was torn on the shoulder so that the faded pink strap and upper part of her brassiere were visible.

“Hello, Rachel. Amerigo, say hello to your cousin Rachel.”

“Hul-lo.”

“He looks just like you, Vi. An’ then agin — he sort a looks like his un —”

“C’mon, Amerigo.”

He looked back over his shoulder, tried to catch the word that died upon her pretty lips. He was thinking that she reminded him a little of Miss Sadie. They passed the place where his father, who was once a skinny little boy, almost got killed — but didn’t — sliding down Troost Hill toward where he was now.

“Look where you goin’!” Viola shouted, pulling on his arm. The streetcar clanged past him. It was crowded now, with more white people in it. It confused him because it was going up the avenue instead of down, as when he had first seen it this morning. It crept alongside of him, placing him and Viola between it and the barrel shop, which was there
already!
— instead of only later,
after
the show and the stars of the Silver Screen, which only came now that they were crossing Harrison Street, and the streetcar was now at the foot of Campbell Street, in front of the spaghetti factory, which he knew was there, even though he could not see it yet. Now he was looking down a strangely familiar alley where Aunt Edna used to live. A black-and-white-spotted dog with short ears and no tail was lying in the shade of one of the low squatting frame houses. It isn’t Sammy, he thought proudly, remarking that Aunt Edna’s alley had no empty houses. It was her alley, his father’s sister’s alley, a skinny little girl’s with all those sisters and brothers — Rutherford’s.

When they reached Campbell Street he was surprised to find himself at the bottom, going up, instead of at the top, going down. With a funny feeling he placed his feet duck-footed on the wine-red herringbone bricks and looked upward toward the boulevard. He could just
make out the tops of the cars, swishing east and west. The sun, reddish, different than it was this morning, was in his face, but not directly in his face, in the corners of his eyes; it grazed his hair. Now he could make out the facade of Mrs. Crippa’s house, and then Miss Ada’s, and then Miss McMahon’s next to it, and all the houses up to the boulevard.

Saturday I’ll get a quarter for cleaning out the shoot! he thought, but Saturday was a long way off.

And then he saw Mrs. Crippa’s garden above the high wall that came all the way to Viola’s shoulders with flowers sticking out. The concrete steps leading to the porch were wet, with dried-out patches, like in the backyard when it was dew-wet early in the morning before the sun was hot enough.

They climbed the steps to Miss Ada’s yard and followed the path around to the side of the house. Miss Sarah’s door was open. She lived on the first floor, north, while Mr. and Mrs. Fox, who were white and gray with blue eyes — Irish — lived on the first floor, south.

“Evenin’, Miss Sarah!” he cried.

No answer.

“Prob’ly in the kitchen,” said Viola.

He glanced over at Miss McMahon’s porch just before they stepped into the shoot. It was dark and cool like a cellar. When they got halfway through they smelled something stinking. It came as a pleasant surprise to him at first, as though some good meat were frying. Ham and eggs. A gentle pang of hunger smote him in the pit of his stomach.

“What could that
be?
” Viola exclaimed. “Smells like something dead!”

His stomach wretched with nausea, and the bitter, sweetish taste of this morning rose to his throat.

Viola opened the gate and entered the yard, while he shot a horrific glance at the hole where the cat lay rotting.

“Better go up an’ change your clothes before you git ’um all dirty, Amerigo,” said Viola.

“Yes’m,” distractedly entering the yard. It was bathed in afternoon sunlight. There was no one to be seen, although all the doors behind the screens were open. Nothing stirred!

Shortly after five o’clock, Rutherford asked: “How’d it go, boy?” Sitting on the orange crate on the back porch in an old pair of pants and tennis shoes, he looked up at his father through the screen, the word
boy
blending with the image of a skinny little boy with all those
brothers and sisters sliding down Troost Hill, all the way to Garrison Square. He smiled with embarrassment.

“Come on an’ git your supper,” said Viola.

“Yooooo-hooo!” Aunt Lily cooed softly, peering up on the porch from under the palm of her right hand. “How’d our young ’un do on ’is first day in school?”

“Fine, Aunt Lily!” cried Viola through the screen. “How’re you?”

“Aw, girl, you know how it is with your aunt Lily.”

“Hi, Aunt Lily,” Amerigo said shyly. Rutherford waved. Then she went back into her kitchen and he and Rutherford entered theirs.

Sitting at the table the smell of crawdads and all the suppers throughout the alley crept into his bizarre impression of all that had happened during the day. Viola placed a bowl of fried cabbage on the table, which was soon accompanied by a platter of salt pork strips fried in cornmeal, a pitcher of buttermilk, and a plate of corn bread. He picked disinterestedly at his food, while Viola told about the day.

He listened to her voice with interest, as she recounted all the events, but in quite another sequence than he had experienced them, placing the accent on sights and sounds that had passed him by unnoticed, or which he had seen in another way. It wasn’t like that at all! he wanted to exclaim, but Viola spoke so quickly, and he was very tired. Besides, supper was over already, and Rutherford was reading his paper with deep concentration, while he helped his mother with the dishes. When the dishes were over he would have to go to bed early in order to be up in time to go to school.

The night was quiet. The alley was quiet. In bed, in the dark, looking at the stars through the window, he thought of the previous night. Suddenly he was swept in the wake of an upsurging wave of fear, as though he were going to school tomorrow for the first time! He raced through the previous day until it was night and Tom Johnson sat on his steps and Rutherford and Viola talked softly behind the middle room door and the fear exploded:
Boom! Boom! Boom!
in his chest. He listened for the crickets. No crickets.

Then he heard the birds. He stood on the back porch. The air was fresh and cool and bright and alive with the smell of dew and falling elm leaves and the aroma of coffee that Rutherford had made and soap and toothpaste and the stench that rose from the empty house.

After a little while Tommy was waiting with William at the gate. Amerigo looked into his face in order to see if he knew, then he looked at the sky, and at the trees.…

“Now, you be good an’ go with Tommy like I told you, you hear?” Viola had said just before she had gone off in a flash to work. He felt the dime and the nickel she’d given him tied in the corner of the handkerchief in his pocket with the star. “Keep your hand on it so you don’ lose it.”

“Come on, ’Mer’go,” said Tommy, and he went down and joined them and they proceeded through the shoot, leaped down Miss Ada’s steps in a bound, and cut across Campbell. They went through the shoot beside the white people’s apartment and slid through a hole in the backyard fence and came out near a row of redbrick apartments with long gray porches. Other children were coming out of their houses: Sammy, Leroy, Margie, Robert, and others he didn’t know, and they all went down Harrison to the avenue.

“Lookit that little hatch-legged niggah in them fancy breeches!” Leroy shouted. “Ah! ha! ha! ha!”

“What you say, there, you little sissy?” Robert jeered. He and Leroy were big.

“Come on, ’Mer’go,” said Tommy in a conciliatory tone. Sensing danger, they walked faster. Other kids joined them along the way, and finally the noisy crowd arrived at school just as the bell was ringing.

After a while the bell rang for recess. The gray asphalt immediately flashed with movement and color. Rubber and leather balls bounced, and the metal rings clanged against the poles while others flew freely through the air.

“Whee!” cried the girls in the swings, the wind billowing out their dresses. A clump of boys peeped up between their legs and sniggered, while others wrestled and fought or huddled along the little wall near the edge of the playground.

“Your momma!” cried one of the big boys, and another big boy hit him in the nose and big drops of blood dropped onto his white shirt and the ground. A crowd gathered.

“
Hit
that niggah, George!” cried one skinny little boy.

“M-a-n, I wouldn’ let
no
-body talk about
my
momma like that!” shouted another with laughing eyes.

Meanwhile he was pushed by the jostling children to the front of the crowd. George and the other boy were wrestling on the ground. “Kill that niggah, man!” and “Fight! Fight! Fight!” and “If you don’ beat
that cat, I’m gonna beat you!” rang from all sides, as the children screamed with delight.

When all of a sudden a little man appeared among them who was no bigger than Gloomy Gus. His hair was good like Gloomy Gus’s, but silvery white, and he wore a simple well-tailored black suit, a white shirt, a vest, and a blue tie. He noticed that his hands were small and fine, and that his face was of a golden color, like a white man, almost, but he was colored. He moved slowly through the crowd. As the children noticed him, they became silent, so that by the time he was halfway through, the rear half stood in awe-filled silence, while the front half still shouted and screamed words of encouragement to the fighting boys. “Hit ’im!” “Git ’im,” “Hit,” “Git.” Silence. The two boys fought, alone. Finally, they both looked up sheepishly at the man.

“
He
started it!” cried the smaller boy, the one whom they called George, a copper-colored boy with green eyes and reddish brown curly hair. Mr. Bowles commanded silence with the raised palm of his right hand and cut his words in two, just as the larger boy, tall for his age, black, with sad hungry eyes, panting for breach, declared: “I’m gonna git you for that!” in a cold, uncompromising tone.

“I’m glad to see that you two have so much energy,” said Mr. Bowles with a warmth and a calmness that mellowed but did not detract from the seriousness of his tone.

Like the reverend, he thought.

“The playground needs sweeping, and I’m sure Mr. Johnson would appreciate some help with the blackboards. And
I
would appreciate it very much if you gentlemen would come in and see me after school. Perhaps by then I shall have thought of a few other useful things for you to do with those big muscles of yours.” A few sniggers burst from the crowd. “When,” with a look that demanded silence all around, “when you’ve finished your chores, and you’re not
too
tired, and you are still angry enough to fight, why, then, you may fight as long as you like — with boxing gloves! We’ll have a match. And I shall be there with bells on, pulling for the best man!”

The bell rang.

“Back to class!” he said with a humorous twinkle in his eyes, raising his arms like Aunt Tish when she talked to the flowers and the birds. The children ran into the building, bustling with excitement.

He stood transfixed by the beauty of the man after the crowd had dispersed.

A fine man!
said a voice.