The Journey of Little Charlie

by Christopher Paul Curtis

Sylvanus rose up and said, “Yes, sir.”

  Soon’s he was outta earshot the cap’n says to me, “Keep him talking, don’t give him no chance to think on what’s happening. You’s a natural at this. You done real good so far; keep it up.”

  I couldn’t believe that I’d been looking to curry favor with this man.

  When Sylvanus come back, I axed him, “You ever been on a train afore?”

  He shook his head.

  “Really?”

  “No, but it’s always been something I’ve wanted to do.”

  He looked out the window at the platform and said, “I’d hoped it would be different circumstances than these, though.”

  I said, “Don’t worry, Sylvanus. This all gonna end good.”

  I thought ’bout his ma and pa in the Dee-troit jail and knowed I was lying through my teeth.

  He give me a long look and said, “I apologize again. I don’t know what I was thinking. Thank you and your uncle for taking the time to come get me; it must be most inconvenient for you. Thank you so much.”

  He stuck his hand out again and said, “And my friends call me Syl.”

  I shooked his hand again and said, “Good to meet you, Syl.”

  The conductor man come through and calls from the front of the car, “Sorry, folks, we expect to be delayed anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour.”

  Everyone on the train groaned.

  Sylvanus said, “I guess that will give us an opportunity to get to know each other better.”

  Great.

  ’Pears that no matter how far you come, how many countries you cross into, the luck of the Bobos follows right along.

  I was starting to line up my ducks ’bout the cap’n. More and more ’spicions was getting raised ’bout him every day.

  I took a chance to see if Syl could prove something that had been boiling up in me when the cap’n had offered the Dee-troit sheriff all that money to come with us. If he could give the sheriff five hunnert dollars, my and Pap’s share should’ve been more than fifty.

  I axed Syl, “So you learnt how to do ciphering in that school?”

  He said, “Course I did. I know Latin and Greek too.”

  Greek?

  “What’s them, fancy sorts of ciphering like algeeber?”

  He give me a look that got my face hot.

  “Those are foreign languages.”

  I didn’t care nothing ’bout no foreign language. “But you really can do ’rithmetic?”

  “Of course I can.”

  “I can give you a problem and you can tell me the answer?”

  “Try me.”

  This wasn’t gonna be fair; he could give any ol’ answer to my question and I got no way of vouching it for true.

  What other choice did I have?

  “Say I was to sell a dog to a man and I wanted him to pay me one-tenth of what he owed up front; how much did the dog cost to start off?”

  Syl give me another blank look and says, “I couldn’t tell you.”

  This wasn’t what I was looking to hear, but I probably should’ve ’spected it. Ma was right, the best these colored folk could do is imitate white people.

  I said, “Hmmph, I figgered you couldn’t.”

  He wasn’t nothing but a bragging liar.

  He tolt me, “I couldn’t tell you unless I knew the amount the man had given you at first.”

  “Say it was fifty whole A-mur-ican dollars.”

  “I don’t even need pencil or paper to figure that out; all you do with tenths is move the decimal point one place. So if one-tenth of the price of the dog was fifty dollars, the full price would be five hundred dollars.

  “Another thing I don’t need paper to figure out is that you were planning to rob that man. There aren’t any ten dogs that are worth five hundred dollars.”

  He was saying that only ’cause he didn’t know nothing ’bout how spec-tac-a-lar a dog Stanky is, but what really got my goat was that by only giving me fifty dollars, the cap’n was thieving from me, his pard-nah. The least he could’ve did was to stick a pistol in my face and make it a honest robbery.

  * * *

  Me and Syl couldn’t help laughing at the conductor man; he come walking through like he was a machine, saying, “Next stop London, next stop London, next stop London,” then he disappeared into the car behind ourn.

  I said, “You know what he bring to mind?”

  Syl smiled. “What?”

  “One ’em automatons, half pocket watch, half tin cup, and half growed man!”

  Syl’s face brighted up and he laughed so hard I thought he was gonna cough up a lung!

  I said, “I seent the way you look at that colored gal back there; is y’all courting?”

  Syl give a big sigh and turned to talk so’s no one but me could hear.

  “I’m trying; is it that easy to see?”

  I smiled.

  He groaned. “To tell the truth, I haven’t had the courage to talk to her as anything but a friend. She’s so beautiful that when I’m set to say something, I lose my nerve. But all the boys want to court Michelle.”

  He sighed again. “Michelle Taylor. Isn’t that a beautiful name?”

  I said, “Mine was named Julie Jones. I know jus’ what you going through. ’Specially being big as you is and feeling so silly. How tall’s you?”

  “Six feet and four inches.”

  “Naw! Stand up, that’s the same ’zact tallness as me.”

  We stood up and seent our reflections in the train’s window. We was the same height!

  We both said at the same time, “How much you weigh?”

  We laughed and at the same time said, “One hundred and eighty pounds.”

  Me and Syl was starting to draw dirty looks from the cap’n, so we got back in our chairs.

  When the train give a jerk and stopped in London, the man who was sitting ’crost the way from us got off.

  Jus’ as the man walked by us, the cap’n leant forward and tolt me and Syl, “Y’all quit all that folderol and act like you got some sense.”

  The man turned his head quick and with hot eyes kept looking from me and Syl to the cap’n.

  He was fixing to say something, but the fancy automaton conductor standing at the door said, “Sir? We’re trying to make up time.”

  The man turned and got off the train.

  I must be catching the cap’n’s seventh sense, ’cause something ’bout the way the man looked at us left me feeling unsettled and itchy.

  I looked back at the cap’n to see if he’d caught the itching too, but he was staring ahead.

  It must be my conscience plaguing me.

  I looked out the window and the man walked fast-fast to a colored woman who was standing in the station door.

  He said something to her and was pointing o’er at the car we was in.

  The conductor flipped the steps up and yelled, “All aboard,” as the woman come running toward the train.

  The locomotive started calling me slow, “Charl. E. Bo. Bo. Charl. E. Bo. Bo. Charl. E. Bo. Bo.”

  The woman run next to where we was setting. She jumped up to get herself a good look.

  The engine picked up speed. “Charl. E. Bobo. Charl. E. Bobo. Charl. E. Bobo. Charl. E. Bobo. Charl E. Bobo.”

  The woman turnt ’round waving at the man on the platform as though she’d lost her mind.

  Judging by the way she was nodding her head up and down and moving her lips, it was plain she was screaming, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  “CHARLEBOBOCHARLEBOBOCHARLEBOBO-CHARLEBOBO.”

  It didn’t matter what them two was so worked up ’bout, I knowed it was too late and they couldn’t do nothing to stop us. My heart sunked when I knowed we was in the cap’n’s grip and wasn’t nothing that could be done.

  * * *

  “Next stop Chatham, next stop Chatham, next stop Chatham.”

  The conductor walked ’tween the seats.

  The cap’n axed the automaton, “How long to Windsor?”<
br />
  “After we leave Chatham, there’s one stop five minutes later in Buxton, then another forty-five minutes to Windsor. Probably pretty close to an hour, Sir.”

  The cap’n give a big sigh and smile and said to Syl, “Well, boy, won’t be long now ’fore you see your ma; ain’t that grand?”

  Syl returned the smile and said, “I can hardly believe it, sir.”

  “What ’bout you, Little Charlie? Can you believe it?”

  He couldn’t-a cut me no deeper if he’d used Jim Bowie’s own Tennessee toothpick.

  He leant back in his seat, crossed his hands behind his head, closed his eyes, and said, “Struck dumb, huh, Little Charlie? I knows how you feels, I caint believe it neither. There’s gonna be some real celly-brating once we reach Dee-troit.”

  The cat had bit something on the mouse hard ’nough that it couldn’t run no more and all I could do was look down at my hands in my lap, knowing I was doing jus’ as much biting as this low-down cap’n.

  Syl said, “What’s wrong, Charlie?”

  I shook my head and looked out the window as we pulled into the Chat-ham train station.

  I’d figgered things wrong when I said afore that tricking Syl was as bad as what I done to Petey with the rock and rope. I knowed now they wasn’t even close; this was it. Helping get Syl put in Mr. Tanner’s hands was the most ’shamed I’d ever feel ’bout anything in my life.

  Any chance I’d had of warning Syl now was long gone; the cap’n wasn’t ’bout to let him outta his sight till he was shackled in Dee-troit.

  The conductor yelled, “Chatham,” opened the door at the front of the car, and pushed the big set of steps down to the platform.

  The cap’n looked out of his window and give a snort.

  He leant up to me and whispered, “Well, if this don’t beat all! Look at what’s getting on the train; it’s a go-rilla wearing a twenty-five-dollar suit!”

  A short, dark-skin colored man in a fancy suit and round-topped hat walked up the stairs into the train.

  He looked ’round the mostly empty car afore he took a chair jus’ the other side of the lane from me and Syl.

  Syl leant forward on our bench and said, “Afternoon, sir.”

  The colored man smiled and nodded at Syl.

  Sitting behind us, I could feel the wind was getting into the cap’n’s sails and he was ’bout to raise Cain that a darky thought he could set hisself next to white folk without axing first.

  But the fancy-dressed colored man snatched the wind outta everyone’s sails when he said clear out the blue, “Are you having a pleasant trip, Sylvanus?”

  Me and Syl both was shocked.

  “Why, yes, sir. How do you know my name, sir?”

  Cap’n Buck’s seventh sense kicked in; he said, “Call that little go-rilla ‘sir’ one more time and I’ll have you wishing you wasn’t born.”

  Syl looked back at the cap’n and the surprised face he made showed he was really seeing him for the first time.

  The cap’n leant toward the man and said, “Now look here, boy, you best tell me how you know this darky’s name and I don’t mean maybe.”

  The short man laughed and said, “Really? You’re quite the big bug, aren’t you, little fella?”

  The cap’n was tongue-tied! Didn’t no white folk dare talk to him with that kind of tone down in South Carol-liney, and this colored man had the nerve?

  The mouthy man said, “If you look out of that window, you’ll see there’s a welcoming committee gathering in your honor, and it’s growing by the minute.”

  Even though the cap’n couldn’t pull his eyes offen this dark man, I couldn’t help myself; I looked out the window.

  He was right! There must’ve been thirty colored folk—men, women, boys, and girls, some of ’em holting on to sticks and guns. There wasn’t one happy face ’mongst the whole boodle of ’em and all their ’tention was pointed in the di-rection of the car we was in.

  There was another ten or fifteen white folk with guns, sticks, and scowls too. And the peculiar thing was, ’stead of attacking the colored ones, they was mingling right ’longside of ’em!

  The black man in the fancy duds said, “I represent the Chatham-Buxton Vigilance Committee. To be more accurate, I represent the decent, law-abiding faction of the committee. They”—he ducked his head toward the windows—“do not. Now, which of us would you prefer dealing with, shorty?”

  It took him a while to get his footing, but the cap’n wasn’t ’bout to be bluffed down.

  He spluttered out, “Why … I … I demand you let me go ’bout doing my legal duty! You think I ain’t run into no uppity darkies afore? I promise you, you gonna rue this day if you don’t let us be.”

  The man said, “Suit yourself.”

  He stuck out his hand toward Syl.

  “Sylvanus, please come with me.”

  Syl was confused. He looked from the man to me, then said, “But, sir, my mother has sent Charlie and his uncle to fetch me to Detroit.”

  I felt my face growing hot.

  The man said, “Sylvanus, these men are not your friends.”

  “But—”

  The man barked, “Boy! It jus’ isn’t right that someone as large and as advanced at school as you can be so gullible. If you do not get your no-common-sense, naïve, foolish arse out of that seat this minute, I’ll really make you wish you’d never been born.”

  Afore Syl could move, the cap’n snatched his throat from behind with his left hand, then reached his right hand into his pocket. When it come out, it was gripped ’round his six-shooter.

  He mashed the barrel of the pistol into the side of Syl’s head and tolt the man, “There’s jus’ one of two ways this darky’s getting off this train.

  “The first is y’all can walk off together, holting hands, singing and skipping, for all I care. But that ain’t happening till somebody’s give back the one thousand five hunnert A-mur-ican dollars this boy’s ma and pa stole from his master.

  “The second way is someone’s gonna have to carry him and you both off, and they best brang a pail and a mop for cleaning brains off the floor iffen you don’t yield, boy.”

  The black man put his hands up and backed away.

  “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

  “Shet your mouth, you uppity little Sambo. You telling a white man what to do? What kind of place is this?”

  I couldn’t believe the way the cap’n was almost whining when he said, “Ain’t there even no white man I can talk to?”

  The fancy-dressed colored man eased toward the train’s door, then disappeared down the steps.

  The cap’n said, “What’d he think he was gonna do, come up on this train and waltz off with this darky jus’ ’cause he said so? I ain’t never backed down from no darky in South Carol-liney and I ain’t ’bout to start that bad habit jus’ ’cause I come ’crost some blanged border.

  “I know now what that Dee-troit sheriff meant when he said this was something you have to see to believe! Hearing them words come out that go-rilla’s mouth all proper and fancy-sounding wasn’t no stranger than if a murder of crows got together and started up singing ‘Amazin’ Grace’!”

  Poor Syl! He hadn’t moved since the cap’n snatched his neck.

  He kept his eyes clenched tight and his hands was holting on to the cap’n’s left hand, which was wrapped ’round his throat. He had the look ’bout him of one ’em kittens whose mother had bit holt of the scruff of its neck and was walking ’round with it swaying from one side to the ’nother.

  The cap’n said, “So far, you done good, Little Charlie; you standing tall and keeping your trap shet. Lots of boys your age couldn’t-a done that. You’s gonna make a fine overseer. I’m gonna—”

  The train lurched, throwing me back into my seat.

  I could hear my name being called slow. “Charl. E. Bo. Bo. Charl. E. Bo. Bo. Charl. E. Bo. Bo.”

  But the sound faded away from us and after that first jerk, the train hadn’
t moved a bit.

  The cap’n dragged Syl back to his seat, then o’er to one of the train’s windows. He forced Syl’s head out, then jammed the gun’s barrel in his ear.

  Keeping his head di-rect behind Syl’s, he yelled, “What was that? What y’all up to? If someone don’t talk, I swear that platform’s gonna be running with this boy’s blood.”

  A white man spoke up. “The locomotive has been disconnected from the train, sir.”

  “What? You best tell him he’s got three minutes to hook it back up and get us to Windsor.”

  “Well, sir, that train’s already left the station.”

  The cap’n took the Lord’s name in vain.

  The man said, “I’m Sheriff Geoffrey Sudbury, sir. I’m certain I can help get you safely out of this and back on your way to the United States. But if we’re to talk, you simply must remove that pistol from the young man’s head.”

  The cap’n said, “You’s the sheriff? Well, sir, upholt the law! This boy’s a fugitive and he’s under my legal arrest. I demand you do your God-give duty and banish this mob, hook that locomotive back up, and let us pass!”

  The cap’n let go of Syl’s neck and fumbled ’round till he got his slave-hunting badge outta his pocket. He helt it in front of Syl’s face.

  “This here says I’m a legal agent of the U-nited States of A-mur-ica. Y’all don’t want to get me riled.”

  The sheriff said, “Sir, we’re Canadians; riling people isn’t in our nature. But perhaps you failed to notice you’re no longer in the United States. With that in mind, if there’s to be any more conversation, I insist you take the firearm off of this young man and hand it to me.”

  “Are you daft?” The cap’n pointed at me and tolt the man, “The minute I take this pistol offen this boy, them darkies will rush the train and tear me and my son to shreds.”

  His son!

  His son? I near swore out loud when the cap’n hooked me to his family that way.

  The Canadian sheriff said, “My good man, if you do not immediately desist threatening that child, we won’t be able to discuss anything. Now, please, hand me the pistol.”

  The cap’n said, “I swears on a whole tower of Bibles that ain’t never gonna happen.”

  He pulled Syl’s head from out the window and, putting the cat-neck grip back on him, scooted with him toward the lane that run ’twixt the seats. I could see the cap’n had pressed the gun so hard ’gainst Syl’s ear that a line of blood was running down the right-hand side of his face.