The Journey of Little Charlie

by Christopher Paul Curtis

  “They set up house in Dee-troit, Mitch-again. Ten years has gone by and they up there thinking they got ’way with it; they let theyselves get careless.

  “But they ’bout to get a big surprise; justice sleeps but not for long and one day when it wake up, all sins is atoned for.”

  “But, Cap’n Buck—”

  He yells, “Boy, do you know how much Jesus has graced you with His love on this day? You and your ma was fixing to steal fifty dollars from me, she done took six cracks at blowing my head off, and y’all ain’t said one true thing to me since we met. Even Job would’ve got so vexed with y’all that he’d’ve personally smashed y’all’s heads in for any one of them things.

  “But ’stead of harming y’all, I’m letting your ma go free and offering you a chance to make the easiest fifty dollars you’ll ever make in your life. Plus, I’m-a give you another fifty once we get them thieves back here. And ’stead of getting down on your knees and licking my boots, you gonna whine and gimme some ‘But, Cap’n Bucks’?”

  Ma screams, “You shet up, Charlie! You shet your fool mouth! Jus’ ride on ’long with the cap’n and don’t be sassing the man neither. He doing us a big favor. You hurry ’long and don’t be no trouble to him. Your pa owe the man fifty dollars and it’s on you to honor the debt. You been raised proper and best show the cap’n what a gennel-man you is.”

  The cap’n’s eyes rolled.

  He said, “What you gonna do, boy? How smart is you? Is we gonna settle this right on the spot”—he took the pistol off of Ma and put it on me—“or is you gonna take advantage of this chance I’m giving you? Is you gonna re-deem your pa’s good name?”

  Ma yells, “He gonna do it, Cap’n, and with your permission, sir, I’m already on my way to get Mr. Foster.”

  She rose out the dirt, pulled up her shift, and started running barefoot down the road toward the Foster farm.

  The cap’n said, “Reach me that pistol, boy.”

  I handed him Pap’s pistol. My hands was shaking hard.

  He put it in one of his saddlebags.

  “Now go on and do what I said.”

  My legs and hands was trembling something turrible whilst I unhitched Spangler, saddled him up, and clumb on his back.

  Me and the cap’n started on the road north.

  We hadn’t rode but a couple of miles when the cap’n pulled his horse up.

  “I ain’t saying I don’t trust your ma, but seeing what she done, having a doubt or two ’bout her intentions seems justified. You wait here. I’m gonna go back and make sure your ma ain’t plotting to get my wagon pulled somewhere else.”

  He turned back down the road, calling o’er his shoulder, “Don’t do nothing stupid, Little Charlie Bobo. If you ain’t here when I get back, ooh-ooh-ooh-wee!”

  There ain’t no way of knowing how long I sat there atop Spangler afore my mind started clearing from being scairt near to death.

  The first thing that come to me was the turrible danger the cap’n riding back alone was putting Ma in. Maybe he changed his mind, maybe he figgered he had to kill her. But if that was true, how come he made such a fuss ’bout where he wanted our wagon to be took to?

  As I’s sitting there trying to figger what to do, my ears got keen to every sound in the forest, to the birds and the crickets, to the wind in the trees and the toady-frogs and whatever it was that was rooting ’round behind ’em trees.

  The sound my ears was dreading they was gonna hear most was a scream. Or a gunshot.

  Questions started chawing ’way at me. Should I ride back and try to stop him afore he done anything harsh to Ma? Should I ride off to Possum Moan to get the sheriff for help? Should I find some way to bushwhack the cap’n?

  When I finished thinking on it, I knowed I didn’t have no choice but to go find Ma. I was jus’ ’bout to turn Spangler back down the road when something I heard made my insides melt and run down in my stomach.

  I couldn’t help it, I leant o’er Spangler’s side and retched. I hadn’t had nothing to eat since midday yesterday, so it was mostly water that come out.

  A horse was clomping slow up the road and whoever was riding it was singing.

  The cap’n.

  He was singing in a scratchy, chills-making voice that coulda come right up from the bad place.

  … the darkies roll on the little cabin floor,

  All merry, all happy and bright:

  By ’n’ by Hard Times comes a knocking at the door,

  Then my old Kentucky Home, good night!

  When he rode up next to me, he was smiling and his eyes was aglow.

  He said, “I never should’ve doubted her; she was well down the road to Tom Foster’s. She’s quite the runner, your ma. Reminded me of a doe as she bounded through the forest. A good woman that. Last thing she tolt me was ‘Oh, thank you for being so kind to us, Cap’n, thank you so much.’ ”

  That was ’zactly the kind of corn Ma would dish out. Relief come o’er me so much I near fainted out the saddle.

  “Thank you, Cap’n Buck, sir. My ma is right, Pap would’ve wanted me to honor his debt. I ain’t gonna be no trouble to you.”

  He put the spurs to his horse and said, “We needs to get moving, boy. And if you change your mind and gives me one moment of grief, I will kill you, come back and kill your ma and anything else that was ever alive on that land.”

  “No, sir, no need for that, a Bobo’s word is his bond.”

  We was headed north … but my heart was somewhere out in ’em woods with Stanky.

  The good thing ’bout trailing ’long behind the cap’n is that I wasn’t likely to see nothing that was gonna bring Pap to mind. After his accident, everything ’round our cabin or out in the fields pointed back to him.

  I couldn’t walk by the shed without ’membering that it was here that me and him had done this or that together, or that it was o’er there that he’d cuffed me for being hardheaded, or that it was everywhere and always that I was a second away from hearing his rumblin’ voice calling out, “Little Charlie, you know that ain’t the best you could do …” or “Now, son, your ma don’t mean nothing by …” or “That’s my boy …”

  Plodding ’long behind the cap’n was keeping all ’em worries and thoughts at bay, but it was also giving me a ’preciation for me and Ma’s talk ’bout working in the fields.

  Ma has a peculiar way of looking at most things, but every once in the while she makes sense. And the more days that passed and the more north we got, seemed like Ma’s idea ’bout bumbly bees and ants wasn’t as much a waste of time as I thought at first.

  She’d tolt me, “Jus’ ’cause God give you a brain don’t mean you gots to show off and use it to poke at and worry ’bout everything you see every day, do it? That ain’t nothing but a gay-run-teed way to wear your brain out or get it so tired that when times come and you really do need to use it, it ain’t gonna want to get up and go. You s’posed to be smart, Charlie; that brain of yourn only got so much in it; you keep going to it as though it’s a well and dipping water out, mark my words, one day it gonna run dry and leave you mad as a March hare.

  “If you was really smart as you think you is, you’d quit looking for answers inside your own head and start looking for ’em in God’s gifts.

  “You needs to be more like a bumbly bee, Charlie. Ain’t you never seent how them bees’ll burrow theyself into so many flowers that they very color change? They go from being yellow and black and common-looking to wearing balls of gold all o’er every square inch of theyselves. And there ain’t no mistaking neither that once them bees is wearing those robes of gold, they’s close to Jesus as they can get, they’s happy as anything living can be. They’ll sit on the edge of that flower just soaking it all in afore they starts buzzing their wings and celebrating that sound they makes. That’s where you needs to be if you gonna learn how to work these fields; you need to quit thinking so much and listen to that buzz. You need to give that brain of yourn a break so’s it will
be there when you really do need it.”

  Following behind the cap’n, I tried for the longest time doing it Ma’s way and trying to hear nothing but the bees buzzing, but it was ’gainst my nature; it wasn’t the type of thing that set easy with me. I couldn’t help but wondering where one trail led off to or what the name of the town we was drifting by was. I’d-a drove myself crazy if I kept thinking ’bout a dusty, pollen-covered bee smiling on his way back to the hive.

  ’Cepting for the horses’ hoofs clomping on the hard dirt, and the every-once-in-the-while farts that was drifting back from either the cap’n or his horse, the first couple of days of us heading north was mostly quiet.

  Deadly quiet.

  So quiet that I didn’t want to do nothing more than scream so harsh that my throat would get raggedy.

  But one of the first things the cap’n let me know was that he didn’t want to hear no talking or sounds from me until he was sure I was smart ’nough to be worthwhile to listen to.

  Which left me wondering how he could figger if I was worthwhile to listen to if I wasn’t ’lowed to do no talking.

  It only took him a day and a half to figger out that I should listen to everything he had to say to me.

  Maybe being alone most the time and having folk scairt and hateful toward you would make anyone lonely and this was the cap’n’s only chance to get some reg’lar talking done.

  Whilst he was talking, it would’ve been real simple to hear the bees and fall ’sleep but I ’membered something Pap had said once. I ain’t sure of the ’zact words but the nut of it was, “You can learn from anybody. Even dimwits can teach you if you listen careful and pick out the kernels of corn from the horse crap they’s dishing out.”

  The cap’n said we was probably out of South Carol-liney and into North Carol-liney and the words started pouring out of him.

  It didn’t take many miles to see his favorite thing to talk about was how smart he was and how he was better’n anybody else.

  “This here’s the finest job you gonna find,” he said. “This a job that ain’t never gonna go nowhere, it ain’t never gonna change. ’Cause of this job, I ain’t got nothing in common with y’all sharecroppers and dirt farmers who’s got to depend on the whims of weather or weevils or whether or not you got a decent crew of darkies with a good white man who know how to work ’em. Uh-uh, I ain’t got to worry ’bout none of that.

  “This job don’t depend on nothing but the nature of them darkies and the laws of this land and them’s two things that ain’t never gonna change. You gots two hunnert years of history that proves it. Sure as the sun rise in the east, it’s a fac’ of life.

  “My pa and his pa afore him and his pa afore him and his pa afore that was overseers for the Tanners. And if the good Lord would’ve seent fit to gimme a child, he’d’ve been one too.

  “Way I see it, jus’ as long as ’em Tanners keeps pumping out a healthy baby or two every generation, and don’t have another long run of mo-rons, I’m in high cotton.”

  He reached into his pocket and pult something round and bronzy out.

  He said, “You see this? You know what it is?”

  I reached to take it out his hand. He pult it back.

  “I didn’t say nothing ’bout you touching it; I said look.”

  It was a badge of some kind with a big star in the middle and letters circling all the way ’round the outside edge.

  “What is it?”

  “Can’t you read, boy?”

  “Some words, but not them ones.”

  “It say I’m a official South Carol-liney slave catcher. Best job God created.”

  Then he got onto his second favorite thing to bump his gums about: slaves and what horrible beasts they is.

  “Them darkies is the most ungrateful animals you’s ever gonna come ’cross. No matter how good they gets treated, no matter how much you give ’em, it ain’t ’nough. You caint satisfy ’em, and you’s a fool if you try.

  “They’s always looking to get something more, and iffen they gets it or iffen they don’t, sooner or later their nature starts a-boiling and they gonna be unhappy and want to run. It’s in their blood. They ain’t nothing but chirren and they ain’t gonna never be nothing but chirren.

  “And don’t matter what you do, their nature ain’t changing. Two hunnert years has showed you can’t beat it out of ’em, you can’t bleed it out of ’em, you can’t breed it out of ’em. Two hunnert years of trying and here we is in the year of our Lord eighteen hunnert and fifty-eight and I still gotta waste my time doing the same old nonsense my great-great-grandpaps done.

  “Which is all pretty good evy-dence that overseeing’s here to stay.

  “Only other folks that got this reg’lar a job is the darkies theyselfs. And that’s jus’ one more thing they ain’t got no ’preciation for.”

  * * *

  It was getting near dark when the cap’n said, “We’ll pull up here.”

  We was at a spot where a campfire was burning and there was five or six other men gathered ’round.

  The people tolt us we was welcome to stay with ’em.

  There was one old man who looked like he was friendly.

  We introduced ourselves and he said to the cap’n, “You ain’t got to tell me what y’all do.”

  He pointed at the cap’n. “Not you anyway.”

  He pointed at me next. “Now that I looks at you up close, I see you ain’t nothing but a kid jus’ outta diapers.”

  It was dark but the blushing come on strong.

  The man winked at me and said, “Come sit next to me, boy.”

  I looked at the cap’n, he nodded his head and tolt the friendly man, “You so good at guessing what folk do, what’s your line of work?”

  “I spent half my life sailing and the other half working the rails. Before, between, and since, I done everything else. Ain’t a job you can name I ain’t done.”

  He looked at the cap’n. “I stands corrected. I ain’t never had nothing to do with slaving.”

  The cap’n snorted.

  One of the other men said, “Ol’ Jerry here was telling us ’bout why he give up being a cap’n on a ship and switched o’er to working the rails.”

  Ol’ Jerry said, “The main reason I give up being a sailor was they got this one ridic-a-lus rule that the crew’s got to be the last boodle of folk to get off once the ship start sinking. And what’s worst is the cap’n’s suppose to be the last one off.

  “I don’t know and it ain’t none my concern whether or not y’all’s religious men, but my Bible clearly state that you can’t go ’round killing yourself. Suicide’s plainly a sin. And being the last one off a ship is suicide if you’s to ask me.

  “I knowed if push come to shove and the boat was going down and the lifeboats was full but for one seat and there was a frail old Virginny lady or some young ’un looking to take it, it would sound a powerful lot like suicide to me if I didn’t get involved in some type of tussling for that last seat.

  “So, to make sure there wasn’t gonna be no moral di-lemma, I jumped ship and took up being a railroad man. I soon fount out railroad folk was a lot more reasonable when it come to who gets saved and who don’t.

  “Lemme give you some proof.

  “There was this old bridge jus’ outside Hamburg, South Carol-liney, that everyone knowed was only a matter of time ’fore it went down. Every crew that crossed her tolt the company over and over that it was ’bout three years overdue from collapsing, but them folk in Charleston didn’t care. They always said, ‘We gonna get right on it.’ And never done nothing.

  “This bridge was so bad that one of the rules ’mongst the crew was that you couldn’t eat no beans eight hours ’fore we was set to cross it.”

  The man looked o’er at me and said, “You know why?”

  I couldn’t figger what eating beans had to do with crossing no bridge, so I shrugged my shoulders.

  “It’s ’cause if you farted whilst the locomotive was
on the bridge, you’d knock the whole thing into the river.”

  Me and all the other men at the fire, ’cept for the cap’n, busted out laughing.

  Ol’ Jerry said, “Now, once one ’em trains go down off a bridge, there ain’t no one in the locomotive who ever lives, and if you ain’t lucky ’nough to get snuffed out soon’s you hit, the chances is good you gonna die in a horrible way, either pinned to the boiler and cooked, or having the coals spilt out on you to slow-roast you on the spot.

  “Well, all the crews knowed this Hamburg bridge was one sneeze away from going down, so what we used to do was, right afore we crossed, the engineer would stop the train, lock the Johnson bar, and set the locomotive’s idle on low so that the train would jus’ creep along at two, three mile a hour.

  “Then he’d jump off, walk ’crost the bridge, and wait for the train to roll o’er, at which time he’d jump back on board and get her rolling again.

  “ ’Cepting for the darkies what worked serving folk, the whole crew done the same and walked to the other side, then jumped back on once the train safely crossed.

  “And wouldn’t you know it, one perfect clear day, no wind, no rain, no nothing but sunshine, soon’s the crew walked ’crost that bridge and turned to wait on the train to follow, someone on board must’ve farted; there was one big crack and down goes six cars, twenty-seven passengers, six darkies, and not one single crew member. The explosion when that boiler hit the water finished off anyone who was unlucky ’nough to survive the fall.

  “Well, sirs, we was stunned. After we all give a hearty cheer and congratulates ourselves on being so smart, we seent the problem we was gonna have ’splaining to the company and the law what happened.

  “Well, not so much ’splaining what happened but ’splaining why it didn’t happen to no one in the crew.

  “Some wanted to draw straws and pick three crew members to get knocked in the head and throwed into the river to balance things off so’s it wouldn’t look so bad, but ‘the devil’s in the details’ and whilst everyone was happy to be a head knocker or a body tosser, the list of volunteers to get head-knocked or body-tossed didn’t have no names at all on it.