The Journey of Little Charlie

by Christopher Paul Curtis

  He said, “You unna-stand, boy? Now you know what cat-hauling is, you satisfied?”

  I didn’t say nothing.

  Another way them Canadians is different than normal folk is if they fount two trees one next to the other and a patch of grass and some water nearby, they’d turn ’round and call the whole thing a park.

  In South Carol-liney, if there was some nice smooth water like this big pond, folks would jus’ willy-nilly pull their shoes off and dip their foots in the water, then go home. Or wet a line and pull some fish out.

  Not in Canada. Them Canadians are keen on putting benches up and throwing pathways down so’s you could sit and keep a eye on the water and the ducks and gooses. They also put up lots of signs that you didn’t even have to know how to read to know what they was saying. They had pictures showing what you wasn’t s’pose to do.

  There was one sign that showed a man holting up a fish on a line with a big X cutting him in parts. Same with a sign showing someone tossing rocks underhand at a bunch of birds in the water with the same X dividing him up, and one that showed a man dropping something with a X. All of ’em had the word NO done up in big black letters so’s you couldn’t make no mistake.

  At first I thought them Canadians also done something to the wild gooses and ducks sitting in the water so’s they don’t tear ’way once you come near ’em the way them down-home birds do.

  I figgered they must’ve tied the birds’ legs to something underwater to holt ’em in place, but when I got too close, one ’em big ganders come ripping at me out the water and give me a right proper bite that drawed blood on my leg, which got the cap’n laughing.

  I was surprised that all them sitting-in-one-spot ducks and gooses hadn’t been took home and cooked. If they was in Possum Moan, all that would be left of ’em would be a feather or two floating on the water and a couple of sets of footprints in the mud showing how far a duck got afore he was snatched up by a barefoot boy.

  But maybe these Canadians was doing something right with this idea ’bout parks, ’cause it sure was soothish and calming to sit there and wait.

  We heard the group of young people afore we seent ’em; the cap’n checked his watch and said, “You got to love these folk up north; even the darkies is always on time.”

  And sure ’nough, it was a bunch of students all dressed up from head to toe, both colored and white. They was chatting and running and jumping ’round with no cares at all.

  Once they was ’bout twenty-five, thirty yards from us, I spotted the one who had to be Sylvanus.

  My jaw dropped when I seent how big he was. I started wondering right off if he was even bigger than me.

  I ain’t sure why it was such a surprise; if I’d-a been paying the proper ’tention, I would’ve knowed that this Sylvanus boy was gonna be big for his age. I mean his pa was purt close to Pap’s size and his ma wasn’t no shrinking violet of a woman neither. She was the kind of person you wouldn’t want to fight less’n you was carrying a good-size stick.

  There must’ve been eight darky boys ’mongst the group of students that come walking toward the pond. I was ’bout as sure as can be the big one was Sylvanus, not jus’ ’cause of his size, but ’cause even though everybody knows it’s kind of tricky telling one darky from the next, the boy who was a whole head taller than every other student, the one you might’ve picked out for being the teacher if he wasn’t wearing the ’zact same clothes as the other students, and was the one who favored Lou, the woman who was cooling her heels in the Dee-troit jail. If you’d-a put a smock on him and shrunked him down ’bout eight or nine sizes, they was one in the same.

  The cap’n said, “I’m thinking it’s that one walking by hisself there.”

  “Why, no, sir, he’s the big one. He look the same as his ma.”

  The cap’n’s eyes rolled. “Oh, so you’s telling me you can tell one darky from ’nother? Ones that you jus’ met?”

  “Why, look at him, sir, there ain’t no doubt.”

  I couldn’t believe the cap’n didn’t see it.

  There was something else the cap’n wasn’t seeing about Sylvanus neither, and even though the boy was a thief, it had me feeling right sorry and sympathetic for him.

  Ma had been poking fun at me once when we was walking home ’cause she said all I’d done that day from when we got to the fields at sunrise to when we left at dusk was ax questions or make comments ’bout Julie Jones.

  “Why, Charlie Bobo,” Ma had said, “I ain’t heard you mention ol’ Stanky one time today. That dog’s gonna be right jealous you dumped her so easy for something as plain and homely as that skinny, knock-knee Foster girl. You done forgot there’s anything else in the world ’cepting for her.”

  She was right, all I could do was blush, and Ma laughed. “Don’t you worry none, Charlie, I felt the same way ’bout your pa first time I seent him cutting trees; I was sure ’nough smited. And once you get smited, ain’t nothing you can do ’bout it but hang on for the ride.”

  Poor ol’ Sylvanus had got hisself smited bad! And judging by the way he was skinning and grinning and frolicking ’round this one colored girl, he wasn’t holting on for the ride, he was getting dragged foots-first by anything the girl done.

  For the first time since I started getting big I could see why the cap’n and Ma would say it ain’t becoming for no one big as me to act the way I do sometimes, ’cause when you seent someone as growed-looking as Sylvanus Demarest spooning and mooning o’er this colored gal, it sure didn’t look normal, it sure made you take a closer look.

  The cap’n said, “We ain’t gonna do nothing till tomorrow, but I sure hope you’s wrong; it ain’t gonna be no picnic getting control of that giant darky.”

  Then, proving me right, soon as the group of students passed by me and the cap’n’s bench, the colored girl slapped at the big boy’s arm and said, “Oh, Syl, you are such a tease!”

  The cap’n looked at me and swore.

  The way Sylvanus’s face took a-glowing and the smile he give showed this colored girl could’ve walked headlong into the middle of the lake and he’d-a sure ’nough followed.

  If there wasn’t but one drop of human blood in your veins, you couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor sap; we was probably doing him a favor getting him outta this turrible sit-a-way-shun.

  * * *

  We waited for two more days, watching the group of students come and eat and play and have fun with each other. I’d been having such a good time that I was right disappointed when at the end of the second day of sneaking looks at Sylvanus, the cap’n said, “We do it tomorrow.”

  We’d noticed that after all the other students would leave, Sylvanus and the colored girl stayed and sat on a bench looking through books. Then after half a hour, the girl would leave and he’d stay another half hour with his nose in a book afore he took off.

  “Everything depends on timing,” the cap’n tolt me that night, right after Bible reading. “If you do jus’ what I tolt you, we can rush the boy out the park right onto the train and have him in Windsor afore his head stops spinning. It ain’t no different than running a con; you got to get your mark off balance and keep him that way till it’s too late for him to do anything ’cept say, ‘Oops!’ ”

  The next day, we got to the park at a quarter to twelve and went to our reg’lar bench.

  At ’zactly ten minutes after noon the voices of the students was heard and my stomach started tensing up.

  They hadn’t paid us one whit of ’tention from day one, but to be on the safe side, the cap’n buried his face in a newspaper and I kept pretending I was looking out at them peculiar-behaving ducks.

  Sylvanus and the colored girl was laughing and enjoying one the ’nother’s company and I slid my eyes o’er to ’em and something all the sudden hit me and made me want to cry.

  It didn’t take but a second for me to see that what was grabbing holt of me was what Ma use to call the green-eye monster.

  Much as a surp
rise as it was to me, I was starting to get teary-eye ’cause I was jealous of a darky!

  I couldn’t help but think, how’s this fair? How’s it fair that these folk, who was right ’round my age, spent their days reading out of books and laughing and joking and whispering in each other’s ears whilst all I done in Possum Moan was have my face looking at the backside of a mule or pulling weeds and working from sunrise to sunset?

  How’s it fair that they’s walking ’round in these fancy u-nee-forms with clean shoes and looking all neat whilst I was most times barefoot in rags?

  Ma was right, these darkies was living better than white folk.

  The cap’n looked at his pocket watch and said, “Wouldn’t you know it, she ain’t leaving when she s’pose to.”

  I looked o’er at Sylvanus and the girl; they was both so stuck in their books they must’ve forgot everything else.

  Didn’t but a half second go by afore the cap’n looked at his watch again and said, “If she ain’t outta here in a minute, we won’t make the train and we’s stuck here till next Tuesday. Something tolt me I shouldn’t-a bought these tickets.”

  The cap’n starts up cursing his luck.

  I’d been tolt not to do it, but I decided to do something off the top of my head.

  Besides, I wanted to see this girl up close.

  I walked o’er and rested myself on the bench right next to the girl and Sylvanus.

  They was so stuck on ’em books that they didn’t take no notice that I was there.

  I could unna-stand why Sylvanus was so thunderstrict by the girl; she was sort of pretty.

  I cleared my throat and said, “ ’Scuse me, do y’all know what time it is?”

  They both turned their heads up from the books.

  She looked at a watch on her arm and said, “Oh, no, Syl! I’m late! It’s five minutes after one, sir.”

  She got up and they shooked hands.

  “Hurry along. I shall see you tomorrow, Michelle.”

  He wouldn’t let go of her hand and she laughed.

  She said, “Syl!”

  She looked at me and said, “Excuse me.”

  She run off back in the direction they come from.

  Sylvanus give me a smile, then put his head back in his book.

  I said, “ ’Scuse me again, but ain’t you Sylvanus Demarest?”

  His mouth falled open and he said, “Pardon me?”

  “Ain’t you Sylvanus Demarest from Dee-troit, Mitch-again?”

  He didn’t say nothing, but the look on his face showed he wasn’t feeling welcoming to my questions.

  “My name is Charlie Bobo and your ma and pa axed me and my uncle to come talk to you. Your ma tolt me it was gonna take some convincing so she said I should tell you that you use to be called Sylvester but now is Sylvanus, that your pa use to be called Cletus but now is Chester, and that she use to be called Lou but is now Eloise. She said since y’all got free, you’s changed your name from Tanner to Demarest. She said you’d know the only folks who’d know them things was your ma and pa, and I wouldn’t know less’n they tolt me.”

  The boy was thunderstrict. The cap’n said all we had to do was keep him feeling dizzy for the six-hour train ride and we’d have him in Dee-troit.

  I kept talking.

  “Your ma and pa need you to come to Dee-troit, Sylvanus. They needs to talk to you face-to-face and they’s gotta move fast as they can. They’s hiding and need you.”

  He set the book aside and said, “They’re hiding? Is someone hurt? Is something wrong?”

  “No, but they needs you soon’s possible.”

  He said, “But why didn’t she have Gina write me or even send a wire? Why would she have you—”

  “She tolt me to give you something so’s you’d know for sure I was here only doing her wishes.”

  I pult the chain and locket the cap’n had stole offen Sylvanus’s ma out of my pocket and swung it back and forth.

  Sylvanus rose off the bench and took the chain ’way from me.

  He opened the locket, seent the three bundles of hair, and I’ll be blanged if tears didn’t start coming to his eyes. “Please tell me, I can take it, this is so unusual, something must be very bleak with them. Is Mother or Father badly hurt? For the past month I’ve had the most horrible premonition! Oh, please forgive me for being so rude earlier! I’ve been taught not to trust anyone. What did you say your name is?”

  The same way being jealous had swept me up a minute ago, something else swept o’er me now.

  It was shame.

  I was ’shamed to have to tell this boy, “My name is Charlie Bobo.”

  This wasn’t going to plan at all.

  I thought for sure if I could figger a way to get Sylvanus to come ’long with us, the cap’n wouldn’t have no choice but to be proud of me and see I wasn’t no idiot. I figgered he’d look at me and say, “You done a good job, Little Charlie Bobo.”

  But when I seent how my lies and tricks had worked so good on this colored boy, the only thing I felt was puny and low.

  Only other time I felt near this bad was when I’d come ’crost one of the older boys, Tug Smith, as he was setting a booby trap for Petey the dimwit.

  Tug knowed Petey walked home from sweeping a pile of dust from one end of the mill to the other every day. He come by the same way the same time every day.

  Tug ’splained to me, “So when he come by, he’ll see this here leather pouch laying on the ground and he’ll bend o’er to pick it up. Once he do, he’ll pull on this string and that’ll release this.”

  Tug pult the string and from the tree on the other side a Bowie knife tied to a piece of cord swung down at the spot where the pouch had been setting.

  Tug said, “If I’s planned it jus’ right, the Tennessee toothpick’ll hit Petey right in that fat butt of hisn!”

  I seent how dangerous this was and knowed I had to talk Tug out of it.

  “Look, Tug, what if that knife hit him in the heart? He could die.”

  Tug hadn’t never thought of that.

  I said, “How ’bout ’stead of using the knife, you tie a rock to the end of the rope and aim so’s it hits him in the butt? That way it’ll jus’ bus’ him up some, not kill him.”

  Tug done what I said and I was feeling pretty good ’bout myself for saving Petey.

  We hid behind a tree and waited.

  Everything went perfect.

  Almost.

  Petey come by, seent the pouch, bent o’er to pick it up, and the rock come swinging out at him and, ’stead of catching him in the butt, it crashed into his left knee.

  There was a loud crack and Petey falled to the ground squealing and holting on to his knee.

  Tug bust out laughing so loud I thought he’d bus’ his gut.

  Petey pult hisself up and acted like he was gonna laugh too, but the pain in his leg was too much and, even though he’s got to be more’n thirty years old, he bust out bawling same as a two-year-old.

  Tug come from behind the tree and said, “Come on, Petey, be a good sport, it ain’t nothing but a joke! It couldn’t-a hurt that much, it coulda hurt a lot more.”

  Petey said, “Shut your mouth, Tug Smith, you ain’t nothing but a dirty piece of trash and you ain’t never gonna be nothing but dirt for all your days.”

  Then Petey turnt to me, and even though I hadn’t laughed once, he said, “And you, Little Charlie Bobo? I always thought you was my friend! I ain’t never done nothing to you!”

  His leg give out and he falled back on his butt. Tug near died from laughing. But Petey wasn’t done dusting me off.

  He said, “I always tolt Ma you treats me good, Little Charlie Bobo, that you wasn’t one ’em mean boys! But you is! You’s the worse of ’em all ’cause you tricked me into thinking we was friends; you tricked me into thinking you wasn’t one ’em laughers. But look at you!”

  Petey limped off crying back toward Possum Moan.

  I probably should’ve chased after Petey and ’p
ologized but I didn’t. I swore to myself that I wasn’t never gonna do nothing that low-down ever again.

  But that same ’zact feeling come creeping up all o’er me when Sylvanus Demarest stood there clutching on to his mother’s necklace with tears in his eyes.

  My mind run back to that railroad man me and the cap’n come ’crost on the trail that said, even if you get a second chance, all you end up doing is the same thing all o’er again, but in a different place with different folks.

  I jus’ proved him right.

  I was sore confused when the boy reached out his hand and said, “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Charlie Bobo. Please forgive my rudeness.”

  I hadn’t never shook no colored person’s hand afore. Didn’t seem like a rich white girl’s hand could be no softer. I knowed he hadn’t done no kind of hard working in his life.

  Wasn’t no doubt what to do. I had to warn Sylvanus to run and don’t stop running till he was away from here. But afore I could say a word, the cap’n butted hisself into our conversation.

  I hadn’t noticed he’d sat hisself right next to me.

  “Yes, son,” he said. “Your ma’s right worried you wasn’t gonna come with us, but she said once you seent her locket you’d know we was here on her bidding. I come ’long with my nephew here to make sure everything go ’cording to plan and we gets you back home safe and sound.”

  Sylvanus looked from the cap’n to me.

  He wiped at his tears and said, “What do I need to do?”

  And with them words Sylvanus was ourn.

  I could’ve cried right ’long with him.

  Only thing I knowed for sure was I had from ’twixt Saint Catharines and Dee-troit to undo what I done and figger a way to get Sylvanus Demarest away from the cap’n.

  * * *

  We rushed to the train station and got there jus’ as a man was calling, “All aboard!”

  The cap’n give him three tickets and we clumb up in the train. Me and Sylvanus sat next to each other on the same bench.

  The cap’n put hisself di-rect behind us.

  He said to Sylvanus, “Could you go ax that conductor when we’s s’posed to get to Windsor?”