My Water Path

by Timothy Joseph

  “What?” I said, startled at the excitement of my response.

  “What you feel in that piece of Mother Nature will reflect your own self. By simply absorbing the reality of everything the flower is, you will sense the truth of life, the truth of your own being, more deeply.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Tell me more, Grandpa.”

  Moses smiled. Surely, he felt my search for understanding, my yearning for knowledge. He looked me in the eye. “Jory, when you don’t try to cover up the entire world with labels or words, life has much more depth. Things regain freshness. They become brand spanking new again. Labels of things, including people, just make them shallow and lifeless—you miss the miracle of life as it continually unfolds within and around you, like a cicada coming out after seventeen years. Don’t reduce nature to words, and you will feel, rather than label.”

  By the fireside, with Moses’ words sitting comfortably in my head, I tried to feel it, feel life unfolding—I think it was working.

  35

  Pluck Away Memories

  IT WAS SATURDAY. I woke up sad, but I didn’t know why. When we went to the table for breakfast, Moses was reading a book, as usual, with his coffee mug in front of him. Bess was at the stove and had just put a plate of toast on the table. Mayhew and Lucilla each took a piece, awaiting their scrambled eggs. Bess carried the cast iron pan to the table and scooped out the eggs onto everyone’s plate as, “Thank you Grandma,” was declared by all. Moses put his book down when Bess sat down, and Mayhew and Lucilla dove into their eggs and toast.

  It wasn’t long before Moses asked, “What’s bothering you, Jory”?

  I looked at him, not at all surprised he noticed my silence. “Nothing, Grandpa.”

  I happened to look at the calendar Bess had hanging in the kitchen. Every day, she put a big X on the day before, so just with a glance you would know what today was. When I saw the date, the tenth of May, my heart sank—Dad’s birthday. Thoughts of my father filled my mind, and pain filled my heart. There would be no party or gifts, no going out for dinner somewhere special instead of the Palmetto Grill. My dad hated getting older because he knew it was time gone, and he was closer to when there would be no more sharing, but he knew I wanted to share his birthday, and we always did.

  One time, we were talking about age I asked why he hated getting older. He smiled. “When you’re your age, Jory, time is your friend. You want to be older. But when you get my age, time is your enemy because you know you have less of it.”

  I glanced at the calendar and fell deep in thought, oblivious to all else. Moses followed my eyes, looked at the calendar, and said, “I love May, it’s such a beautiful month. Many things growing, and such fine weather.”

  I looked back to my plate and quietly ate my eggs and toast. I could hear their voices in conversation, but my attention was misdirected. As I ate, I stared either at my plate or at the date. My mind barely moved from that single thought all day, and Mayhew asked me a couple of times what was wrong. I simply said I wasn’t feeling that well.

  * * *

  After dinner, we made our way to the living room. Mayhew and Lucilla went to the table and started working on something, and I sat with a closed book in my lap. Moses walked by, telling Mayhew and Lucilla he wanted to talk to me, and we were going for a walk. He smiled at me and I got up to follow him. We walked out the door, down the ramp, and when we reached shore, he waited for me to get beside him, placing his hand on my shoulder. We walked together toward the fire pit and sat down on the big log. The sun would be setting soon.

  “I’d like to know what’s bothering you, son,” he said. “You just aren’t yourself today.”

  I looked down at the ashes in the fire pit. “Today was my dad’s birthday.”

  Moses squeezed my shoulder. “No, Jory, today is your dad’s birthday. My goodness, son, this is indeed a special day. No wonder you’re feeling down. It is a reminder of someone you love more than anyone else in the world, and I am sorry he isn’t sitting here in my place. I know how much you miss him.”

  “Why did he have to die?”

  “I don’t rightly know, but I do know it was unfair. No one knows why someone gets a heart attack when young, and some hearts keep on pumping for a hundred years. I’d have traded hearts with him if I could have.”

  I knew he meant it, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. “I miss him so much. I can’t stop thinking about him.”

  “Don’t you ever stop thinking about your dad, Jory. When people we love leave us, they scatter themselves around our world. At first, we wish they would take every memory with them, one by one, so they won’t bring us pain. We don’t want to remember. However, they show up in the clouds, the wind, a date on the calendar. Death does not mean complete silence or absence for those left behind. It may seem cruel that a lost soul will not rest until everything about us echoes with reminders of their habits, their love, but this happens because of us hanging on to them. Love will not let go, for love is wise.”

  I leaned against him and started to cry softly as the orange sun sank behind the trees. He twisted a bit on the log and wrapped his other arm around me, squeezing me into his chest, and I felt his cheek against the top of my head. He said softly in the voice I had come to love, “This year, Jory, your birthday gifts to your father are your tears of love lost. Next year, your birthday gifts will be your tears of love remembered. We’ll make sure of that.”

  36

  Jail Bars

  ONE DAY, NOT LONG AFTER I HAD TURNED FIFTEEN, we had just been given a math assignment when one of the kids saw two police cars pulling up to the church. I dashed out the back door, heading for the woods, when one of the cars came quickly around the church and locked its brakes between my escape and me, kicking up dust. Two policemen jumped out.

  “Well, look what we have here. The boy who doesn’t exist. You done been caught, boy. This time, you ain’t getting away.”

  The skinnier of the two grabbed me and put me in the back of the car. When he slammed the door, I looked for a door handle, but they had been removed, and there was a heavy wire barrier between the front and back seats. I was in a cage on wheels.

  The fat cop drove the car to the front of the school. He told the skinny cop to go in, ask the teacher which one of the kids I was staying with, and bring him to the car. He disappeared inside the church and returned a couple minutes later with a terrified Mayhew in tow. He had hold of the back of Mayhew’s shirt and was leading him toward us. The fat cop rolled down his window and the other one held Mayhew in front of the open window.

  He twisted Mayhew’s collar. “You listen up, boy. You go home and tell your grandpa he better come to the police station and turn himself in for kidnapping a white boy.”

  “He didn’t kidnap me!” I shouted through the grate behind the fat cop’s head. “I asked him to let me stay with him. That’s the truth.”

  “Shut up, boy. He be holding something over you. No white boy wants to be living with no niggers.”

  “I’m telling you the truth!” I shouted louder.

  “T’ain’t no white boy ever supposed to live with niggers, like it or not.”

  His partner shook Mayhew. “Now you go home and deliver that there message, you hear, boy?”

  Mayhew nodded his head and looked at me. Softly I said, “Tell Grandpa to get Uncle Jacob.” Mayhew nodded again. The cop let go of his collar, and Mayhew ran back into the church.

  The slim cop got in the front seat and both cars headed away from the church. I looked back and saw the teacher and a bunch of kids on the stoop watching us drive away.

  When we arrived at the station, the fat cop opened my door. “Come on, boy. You try and run away and I’ll lock up that nigger forever, you hear me?” I wasn’t about to run, for I needed to be there when Moses showed up. I was certain Moses would get Jacob, because I knew he didn’t stand a chance of talking or explaining anything to the cops.

  They led me into the station and through a do
or at the back. There were four jail cells along the back wall. In the cell nearest the door was a colored man; he looked drunk. When we came through the door, he got up and staggered to the cell door bars, grabbing them tight to hold himself up. His clothes were partly shredded and filthy. The second cell held a white man who looked even worse. When we passed him, he said to the fat cop, “Well now ain’t you a big bad copper, picking on a little boy. What’d he do, rob a piggy bank? Maybe you best handcuff him. He might just whip your fat ass.”

  The fat cop reached for his nightstick and swung it hard, hitting the man’s fingers that gripped the bar. He screamed, cradled his fingers with his other hand, and said, “That’s how you handle the truth.” He grabbed the bar with his good hand. “Here’s my other hand. If it’ll make you feel like a big boy, go ahead

  and break these, too.” His eyes flashed to the nightstick. It was swung instantly and hit the bars a fraction of a second after the man’s fingers disappeared into the cell.

  “Missed—ha!”

  The cop pointed the nightstick at the man. “One more word from you and I be in there like flies on shit and show you how many times I ain’t gonna miss your ugly head.”

  The man gave him a stare that would melt steel, but sat down and kept quiet. The cop grunted and shoved me forward, where he took me to the last cell, opened the door, ushered me in, closed and locked it.

  “You really locking up a little boy?” the white man shouted. “I don’t believe it.”

  “I ain’t locking him up, just keeping him from running away. And you shut your mouth, or I’ll fix it so it don’t work no more.”

  It was late in the afternoon when Moses arrived at the station. When he was escorted to my cell, I asked, “Did you tell Uncle Jacob to come and get me?” I didn’t want Moses to take the blame.

  The fat cop said, “Now boy, we both know you ain’t got no Uncle Jacob. We knows yous living with this here nigger, and yous being kept there.”

  “His name is Moses Kent.”

  “Oh, then Nigger Moses it is. I wouldn’t want to offend no one.”

  An angry sound slipped between my teeth. I wanted to spit on him, but Moses was a still, silent statue beside him. I said, “I stay with my friend Mayhew because of school. I told you before, I live with Uncle Jacob. You’ll see when he gets here.”

  The skinny cop from before came quickly into the jail. “Hey, Mac, just got a call, there’s done been a crash downtown, four cars, blood all over. We gots to go.”

  “Mac” opened the cell next to me, saying to Moses, “In you go, nigger, till I get back.”

  Without saying a word, Moses walked into the cell. I grabbed the bars on my cell door. “Why are you putting him in jail? He didn’t do anything. I’m the one who asked if I could stay with them.”

  “So you are living with them. Well, now, sounds like you be changing your story, boy. I’m thinking maybe you two might tell the truth when I get back. Otherwise, we be looking at kidnapping here.”

  “I live with Jacob, but I stay with Mayhew. Don’t you get it?”

  “I get it, all right.”

  “Put Moses in here with me, please.”

  “Boy, we never put coloreds with whites. T’ain’t right.”

  Both cops left without another word.

  Moses walked slowly to the back of the cell. He sat on the bench along the back wall and up against the bars separating us. I sat on the bench in my cell next to him. His right hand crossed his lap and came through to my side of the bars. I placed my hand in his. “Everything will be okay,” he said.

  “But I’m the cause of all this. I put you here.”

  He smiled. “I’ve been in this jail before.”

  My eyes grew wide. “You have? How? What happened?”

  “I walked in front of a white woman.”

  “What?”

  “I never saw her. I crossed the street, walked past a big oak tree, and when I passed it, there she was. I didn’t even know I had done it. She shouted at me, the cop came over, and they tossed me in jail as a lesson.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I just want to kick that ugly cop in his ugly face.”

  “Son, such feelings are harmful for you.”

  “I hate him.”

  “No, you hate what’s happening, what he represents, but hate must always be avoided, even when it’s difficult.”

  “I can’t stop being mad—just can’t.”

  “I know.”

  “Grandpa, we didn’t do anything. What are we going to do?”

  “Well, I reckon we need to tell the truth. It’s always best.”

  “But they will take me away. I don’t want to leave. What will I do if they take me?”

  “We only need to take it one day at a time, Jory. One day at a time.”

  37

  Lies

  AN HOUR HAD PASSED when I heard Jacob’s voice on the other side of the door that separated the cells from the front room. He was arguing with one of the cops. His powerful voice was demanding that I lived with him but stayed a lot with Moses, and he was paying Bess to watch me for him because of his work schedule. The door suddenly flew open, and Jacob walked quickly toward our cells.

  “That stupid idiot,” he said. “Stupid idiot. Says I need to talk to Fat Ass.” He looked at us. “Tossing you both in jail? What the hell’s the matter with these dumbasses?”

  I got up and went to the cell door. “Jacob, they’re going to take me away from Moses. I just know it.”

  He looked at Moses. “Why did they put you in here?”

  I grabbed the bars. “The fat cop said he wants to know what’s going on, or he’ll say Moses kidnapped me.”

  “He’s full of hot air.”

  “When I told him I lived with you, he said he knows it’s not true. He wants to know the truth. If I tell him, he’ll give me to the State. Jacob, don’t let him do that. Please.”

  “Jory, if they take you away, we will know where,” Moses said, “and we will do something.” He looked at Jacob, and I could see his concerned demeanor—Moses was worried, too.

  Jacob said with a forced smile, “Don’t worry, kiddo. If the State takes you away, I’ll come and bust you out.”

  It wasn’t long before the fat cop came walking through the door. Jacob looked at him. “When did you start locking up little kids and harmless old men?”

  “When they be lying through their teeth. When they be hiding from me at the colored school. When they, and you, think me stupid enough to buy the story he lives with you. He even lies to me telling me his last name is the same as yours.”

  “He’s my brother’s son, and I’m responsible for him while my brother’s in a jam.”

  “And just where ’bouts does this brother of yours live? And how’s come, there ain’t nobody around who knows about your brother? Tell me that, Uncle Jacob. Yous all ain’t lying to me no more.”

  He looked at me. “What’s your name, boy? And if yous tell me it’s Pilcher and Mr. Pilcher here agrees, I’m tossing him in jail for impeding the law.”

  I looked at Moses. He nodded. “I’m Jory Sheppard,” I said, my voice shaking.

  “That’s better. Who’s your daddy, boy, and where’s he live?”

  “My dad was Warren Sheppard. He died. My mom died a long time ago. I don’t have any relatives.” I told the rest of the story, even how Moses rescued me.

  “Well, finally, the truth.”

  “Please let me stay with my grandpa.” I reached for Moses.

  He looked at Moses. “Why, you ain’t the right color to be this boy’s grandpa. And I ain’t lettin’ no darky keep no white boy.”

  I saw the anger in Jacob’s eyes; he wanted to throttle the man. “He can live with me. I’m the right color, dammit.”

  “Now, I can’t just be dealing out a kid. I ain’t got no authority in the matter. Have to call the State people.”

  “No!” I screamed. “Please, no! Please, I’ll stay with Jacob, please.”

  “S
orry, kid. I gots rules to follow.”

  The cell was unlocked and Moses walked slowly out. The cop slammed the door, saying, “The boy’s gonna stay here till the State comes.”

  Jacob clenched his fist. “You’re gonna lock up a kid? Come on, man, there ain’t no reason to do that.”

  Moses put his hand on Jacob’s shoulder and looked at the cop. “Officer, you have my word. I’ll bring Jory back here whenever you say. That is my promise. I never break a promise, never. Please, let us take Jory with us. He has things that belong to him back at home, and if he is going to have to go somewhere else, he’ll need them. This is only fair.”

  The cop looked at Moses. “You expect me to believe the word of a nigger?”

  Jacob took a deep breath. “Mac, I also give you my word. And you know where I work should I go back on it. We’ll bring the boy back.”

  The cop scratched his head. “Well, I reckon it’s a hell of a lot easier than having to feed him here. You bring him back here Monday, at one o’clock. Surely, I be able to have the State here by then.”

  Moses nodded. “Thank you.”

  “And if’n you don’t, I knows where you live, and yous best not make me come get him or you be in jail for kidnapping. Hear me?”

  “Yes, sir,” Moses said.

  The cop looked at Jacob. “And if’n he don’t show up, I’ll come to the dock and pick yous up for accomplice to kidnapping, and yous be sleeping behind these here bars.”

  Jacob was ready and willing to tear the cop to pieces. Moses squeezed his shoulder hard. “I’m sure you will,” Jacob replied. “I’m sure you will.”

  38

  My Pouch