by Jabari Asim
Some folks in the neighborhood said she was crazy or on dope. Pristine, who’d known Gloria since they were skinny schoolgirls, was more sympathetic. She preferred to say that Gloria was “nervous.”
Big Mama silenced any foul gossip that threatened to stain the residents of the Bates household, staring down the foolhardy with her notorious glare. The only neighbor allowed to cross the threshold, she looked in on Gloria with the loving vigilance of an overprotective mother. She sat in for Gloria at Roderick’s school functions and saw that he got first dibs on Ed’s and Lorenzo’s hand-me-downs. From whispered confidences and heartfelt confessions, Big Mama deduced that Gloria wanted more for her exceptional son than she’d managed for herself. Taking that fervent desire to heart, she initiated the tutoring sessions with Orville as part of a grand ambitious plan.
Now when Crispus returned from running Saturday errands for the Grandmother, he often found Roderick seated at the dining room table with Orville, books and papers spread out all around them. Crispus often arranged to be sitting on the front stoop when Roderick emerged. At first they talked about baseball cards—a common passion—before eventually expanding their agenda to include just about everything and everyone. Roderick reminded Crispus of his older brother Ed, who also knew a lot about a lot of things. Like Ed, he was patient and seemed to genuinely enjoy Crispus’s persistent questioning. Their fields of expertise, however, were nearly opposite. While Roderick could go on at length about French, Latin, and Spanish, or the miracle of photosynthesis, there was nothing that Ed didn’t know about politics, music, or girls. Crispus’s friendship with both of them convinced him that he was about as well-informed as a little kid could be. Heck, if he wasn’t careful, he might turn into a genius himself.
At times Crispus marveled at Roderick’s innocence and wondered how a boy—young man—could grow up in North Gateway and be so clueless about human nature. You didn’t have to be Dilton Doiley to know that big words like thorough and mummify rubbed certain people the wrong way, but Roderick continued to use them, blissfully ignorant of the stares and double takes he inspired.
Then there was the Grandmother. Roderick seemed to think of her as a saint in possession of a boundless and infallible goodwill. He even confided that his mother revered Big Mama as the “truest Christian” she’d ever known. Crispus begged to differ. He thought of her as a bossy figure who sucked all the light out of any room she entered. The way she favored Schomburg even tested his mother’s patience, but Pristine had club meeting on Saturdays and was never around to witness Crispus’s weekly inspections. “Last year she told me that I was the only third-grader she ever met who had a problem with body odor,” Crispus once told Roderick while admiring the Genius’s Tom Seaver rookie card.
“No way,” Roderick said.
“Yeah, way. She said if it wasn’t for my bad breath to balance it out, my B.O. would drive folks to distraction. She wants Schomburg to get his own room so that I can keep my funk to myself.”
“You’re making this up.”
“If I’m lying I’m flying. She inspects me every Saturday. Come early if you don’t believe me.”
The following Saturday, Roderick arrived ahead of schedule on some feeble pretense, just in time to see Big Mama peering into Crispus’s wide-open mouth. The Grandmother didn’t miss a beat.
“Hey there, sugar dumpling,” she said. “Grab yourself something to drink while Orville’s getting himself together. Big Mama will get you some snacks as soon as I send this one to the store.”
Roderick nodded, taking it all in. He could hear Schomburg in the kitchen, slurping far more than necessary.
A week later, Roderick met Crispus in front of D & E and told him he had a plan.
“So what’s on that weird mind of yours? The Gran——Big Mama’s not going to appreciate me keeping her waiting.”
“Appreciate?” Roderick eyed Crispus mischievously. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to say like? Don’t worry, you can blame it on me.”
Roderick was holding a brown paper sack. He raised it with a flourish and waved it in front of Crispus as if it were a magic talisman.
“Got something here,” he announced. “Follow me, por favor.”
“Después de usted.”
Crispus followed Roderick outside and around to the back of the store. They sat in the shade, facing the alley.
He pulled a pint of ice cream from his sack. Crispus recognized the purple Sealtest carton.
“Chocolate ripple, right?” Roderick brandished two flat wooden spoons and smiled.
“Fo’ sho,” Crispus said. He reached for the offered carton and quickly flipped it open.
“That’s not all,” Roderick said. He reached in the sack again and produced two small, tightly wrapped packages.
“Baseball cards,” he said triumphantly. He tossed a pack to Crispus.
Crispus opened it and let out a whoop. “Man oh man! Curt Flood and Lou Brock in the same pack.”
Roderick laughed. “Looks like today’s your lucky day.”
The two friends relaxed and enjoyed their cool treat. Crispus amused Roderick by imitating Schomburg, slurping enthusiastically and smacking his lips.
The sun overhead beamed intensely, making it warm even in the shade. Crispus examined the back of the Lou Brock card.
“All right,” he said. “Tell me what you know.”
Roderick closed his eyes. “Okay. Middle name is Clark. Born June 18, 1939, in El Dorado, Arkansas. Bats left, throws left. Five eleven, 170 pounds.”
Crispus nodded his approval. “Good. Now what’s so special about 1962?”
“Easy. First full season in the majors. Played 123 games. Struggled a bit at the plate, although an average of 263’s nothing to sneeze at. And he already showed clear indication of his brilliant speed with sixteen stolen bases.”
Crispus shook his head. “Man oh man. How do you have time to learn all this stuff?”
“No es nada. It’s nothing. And I don’t try to learn it, I just do. It’s not like balancing equations or anything. If I see the back of the card, I can usually manage to see it again in my head.”
Crispus smiled. “I guess that’s why they call you the—”
“Well, looky here. If it ain’t the muthafuckin’ genius.”
Crispus immediately recognized the voice as belonging to Bumpy Decatur. He didn’t want to look up, but he had to. Into the leering faces of Bumpy and his brother Darwin.
“He ain’t no genius,” Darwin said. “That punk be fakin’. He don’t know shit.”
Roderick said nothing.
Crispus extended the purple carton. “Y’all want some ice cream?”
“Shut up, Beanshots,” Bumpy said. He said it with such violence that spit flew from his mouth and just missed Crispus. “This ain’t about yo’ nappy-headed ass. You lucky La-La ain’t here or I’d let her beat the shit outta you.” He turned to Roderick.
“Stand yo’ ass up when I’m talkin’ to you!”
Roderick reluctantly complied.
“Everybody always goin’ round talkin’ ’bout you a genius. What you think? Is you one?”
Roderick sighed. “Genius is relative,” he said weakly. The witty Roderick was fast disappearing. The muttering Roderick was taking over.
Darwin snorted and snarled with the confidence of a bully who has many brothers. “We ain’t talkin’ about yo’ goddamn relatives. I’m talkin’ about yo’ sorry ass.”
Bumpy laughed and shoved Roderick. “He ain’t got no relatives nohow, except his crazy-ass mama. That bitch ain’t nothin’ but a dope fiend.”
“What did you say?”
Something in Roderick’s tone made Crispus look up at his friend. Muttering Roderick was gone, just like that.
“You heard me. I said that bitch ain____”
Bumpy grunted as he fell, hitting the ground before he could finish the sentence. There was a moment of silent astonishment as he rubbed his jaw and stared at Roderick, who was studying hi
s own fist as if it belonged to someone else. Crispus rose to his feet, ready to run.
Roderick tried to explain. “Look, I—”
“Aw naw,” Bumpy said. He was grinning now. “That’s my game, fo’ sho.”
Darwin grabbed Roderick and held his arms. Bumpy moved so fast that Crispus didn’t register the fact of his motion until he had pulled back, a flash of silver glinting in his hand.
Roderick slumped.
“Teach you to mess with me, bastid!” Bumpy shouted.
“C’mon, Bumps, les go!”
They took off in a flurry of footsteps.
Crispus turned to Roderick. He was slowly sliding down the wall, eyes open. His hand pressed against his shirt. Between his fingers, a trickle of blood.
“Roderick! Did he?”
“Stabbed me,” Roderick gasped. “I think it was a screwdriver.”
“Man oh man! What should I do?”
“Get one of those pallets over there. Elevate my feet.”
Several pallets leaned against the wall next to the back door of D & E. Crispus knocked one down and dragged it over to Roderick. He lifted his friend’s feet and placed them on top.
“Good,” Roderick said. “Now get help.”
“No way,” Crispus protested. “I’m not leaving you here. Forget about it.”
Roderick smiled despite his pain. His fingers were now wet and red. “I’m not going to die,” he said. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t get any of my internal organs.”
“You sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure? What kind of sure is that?”
“Hey, are you doubting the Genius?”
The back door of D & E burst open. The butcher ran out in a crimson-spattered apron. “I hear you little cretins! Always loitering in back of the store. This ain’t your house, so go home, why don’tcha?”
He paused, taking note of the small boy kneeling beside his stricken friend. The wet hand on the shirt. The buttons misaligned.
“Jesus God,” he said. “I’ll get help. I’ll call the cops.” He ran back inside.
“Hear that? Help is coming.”
Roderick chuckled weakly. Crispus somehow knew that he should keep him talking.
“Why are you laughing? We got a serious situation here.”
“I was just thinking how good it would be to see my mother right now.”
“Makes sense to me,” Crispus said, but Roderick didn’t hear him.
“It’s funny,” he said. “All my life I’ve wished and wished for a father. And now I can’t think about anything else but my mama.”
He closed his eyes. “Do you hear me, Mother? Le necesito, mama.”
The Genius continued to laugh. The blood continued to ooze. Slowly and thickly, like chocolate ripple melting in the sun.
Sic Transit Gloria
roderick’s voice was the third sign.
All these years of fearing—maybe even believing—that I’ve been marked by the Devil. All these years spending every living minute looking over my shoulder for Satan, and here come God, right on time.
There’s no stories on Saturdays. Can’t watch the Ames family on Secret Storm. Can’t watch General Hospital and see if Jessie’s gonna dump Dr. Brewer for good. My boy’s away studying, and I’m keeping company with Tent Meeting on the gospel station. Tent Meeting with Rev. Josiah Banks. I’m a regular. When my disability comes, I always write a check to that wonderful Rev. Banks. He’s going to remember me in his prayers for the sick and shut-in. I’ve never seen him, but I can tell by the way he sounds that he’s a handsome man. And a good one too—didn’t he tell me to never doubt my God? Oh yes, I know that God is real because these moving feet are a testament to His Grace.
The Swan Silvertones begin to sing “Walk with Me.” I hear their harmonies fade and I turn to shake my radio. It’s like someone’s turned the volume down. Then I hear my son’s voice ring out strong as faith.
“Do you hear me?” he says. “Do you hear me, Mother?”
The sound doesn’t enter my ears like noise normally does. It’s born in my bones, rises out of my pores, and takes shape in the air. It makes me hot and cold at the same time. Chills up my spine, sparks in my limbs. My son speaks, God touches me, and I get up and go. But first I have to get dressed.
I know something has happened because Roderick seldom calls me Mother. It’s usually Mama, and just as often it’s Madre or Ma Mère. Lots of languages in that young man.
The radio gets louder and I haven’t even touched the dial. The Silvertones sing like they got the Holy Ghost. I know how they feel.
Walk with me, Lord.
My way has been rough, but I can’t complain because I brought it on myself. Big Mama says don’t blame God when the flesh won’t function, and I’m sure she’s right. Nothing holding me back but my own weak will.
Big Mama’s as good to me as my blood mama was, God rest her soul. But when she loses her patience, Big Mama can’t hold back. She gets to snorting and says she got to tell it like it is. She lights up a Viceroy and tells me, “Look here, Gloria, you know where the front door is and ain’t nothing wrong with your feet.”
I tell her it’s not that easy. She says nothing ever is.
I love this song. Rev. Banks plays something by the Silvertones almost every Saturday. Let me take another look at this blouse. I’m not the best at buttoning.
Folks got tired of me saying I had to stay inside to keep the Devil out. I used to tell them, “Better mind your own doorstep and stop creeping around mine. I’m on Satan alert all day every day.”
After a while they stopped coming around. Even Orville. Don’t suppose he found much joy in talking to me through the screen door. If it wasn’t for Big Mama and the deliveryman from Tom-Boy, it would just be Roderick and me.
When I say to Big Mama that I’m trying to raise my son to be a good man, she can’t help but snort. “How’s he going to be a good man when he sees you doing your best to avoid being a good woman? A good woman can hang her own clothes on the line. A good woman can meet with her son’s teachers at school. A good woman can pick out her own cuts at the butcher shop.” A few more good womans and she gets me to crying. She feels bad and prays with me, says she’ll be back when I’m feeling better.
While I’m on this tedious journey,
I want you, Lord, to take a little walk with me.
Oh, those Silvertones. They know how to bring the good news. If Rev. Claude Jeter doesn’t sing like an angel, I don’t know who does.
Manhood’s a sensitive subject with Big Mama. She’s from the South. Florida. Her daddy worked in a turpentine camp. Did fine, she said, until a white man called him “boy.” They locked horns, and her daddy laid that man against a blade and split him like a log. He ran from camp, but he didn’t run far. Just went home and got his family together. Packed them up, gave his oldest son a rifle, and told them to head north. Big Mama was just a little girl, but she remembers. She says her mama begged and pleaded for her daddy to run, but he said he’d decided that running was for boys, and he was nobody’s boy. He stayed and fought, and he died fighting. The family came up to Gateway City with little more than her daddy’s pennies and the clothes on their backs. Her mama told her that folks could say many things about her father, but no one could ever say that he wasn’t a man.
Big Mama grew up and met a fellow. He started calling on her, and things got serious.
Now where did I put that house shoe? Don’t imagine I got an outside shoe that fits. Suppose I gave most of them to charity.
One day Big Mama goes to see him on his job. Sees him bowing and scraping but tells herself he’s got no way around that. But then a white man calls him “boy” and he keeps right on scraping. Big Mama tells him her daddy couldn’t rest right if she married a man who didn’t know how to stand up for himself. She told him she wouldn’t see him again, and she didn’t. She found another fellow after a while, married him, and now she’s widowed. She’ll be the firs
t to tell you they raised sons, not boys. She called them young men when they were still in the cradle and brought them up never to even say the word. Now she’s got me calling Roderick a young man. Of course he is thirteen.
Rev. Banks says God can pull a blessing from a burden, and who knows that better than me? I got Roderick in my darkest hour, and look what he’s become, the smartest young man in the neighborhood if not all of Gateway City. People call him the Genius. He didn’t tell me, Big Mama did. The deliveryman brings me my groceries, right? He’s heard stories, doesn’t want to look me in the eyes, and that’s just fine with me. One day he sees Roderick’s picture on the piano, and all of a sudden he wants to be my best friend. “The Genius is your son?” he says. “How did you do it?” He doesn’t want to take a tip. All of a sudden my money’s no good.
The Genius, they call him. I hear you, Son. Can you hear me?
Orville and I were at the senior dance. My mama, rest her soul, had made me the most beautiful dress, and my corsage came straight from Big Mama’s garden. Orville was headed toward Tuskegee, and I still had a year to go. I told him he had nothing to worry about. Just write me regularly, I said, and I’ll wait. How about that?
That was before the dance. I don’t know what got into me that night. I always had a notion that Janice Compton wanted him for her licking stick, and then I find out that she’s going to Tuskegee too? Took all I had not to give her what-for in the toilet. She was hogging the mirror just as fancy as she please, primping and pulling on that hair Miss Bernice had nearly hot-combed to death. I’d’ve had to be blind not to notice her in Miss Bernice’s all that Saturday morning, sitting in that chair with smoke coming out of her skull. Later she gets the nerve to cut in on me. “May I have this dance?” Practically stepping on my feet.
“No, you may not,” I answer, but Orville looks at me like I’m from the moon. He whispers to me that it wouldn’t be polite to refuse her, this being their last school dance and all. They dance and I pout. I pout and they dance.
