Bone's Gift

by Angie Smibert

  The Memphis Red Sox cap fluttered toward the ground, and Bone, without thinking, caught it. Images rushed over her like rainwater after a heavy storm, cold and raw as early spring. White faces were calling Tiny names she could never repeat. He was lying on the ground, held down by two of the white boys. The others smashed their boots into Tiny’s right arm over and over. She felt pinned down by the backwash of memories, unable to look away from the terrible sight of him bloodied and beaten. She was powerless to help him or herself. Then the image faded away, and she smelled the familiar scent of lavender.

  “Thank you, Miss Bone.” Mr. Sherman took the ball cap gently from her hand.

  Bone stood blinking in the sun as the present came back into focus.

  Mr. Sherman put his cap back on. “Now, if you don’t mind, I got to hightail it.” He jerked his thumb toward the Big Vein change house. “Miss Bone. Ma’am. Ash.” He tipped the brim of his cap.

  Uncle Ash nodded, but he was watching Bone.

  Mr. Sherman fell in beside Tom Albert as they walked up the hill. They talked loudly about baseball. Both of them played for Big Vein. The freshly scrubbed members of the day shift began to trickle out.

  “You all right, Bone?” Uncle Ash asked.

  She didn’t answer. The image of Mr. Sherman broken on the ground, cradling his arm, was still in her head. She tried to shrug it off, but it tugged at her. Bone needed to know more about that memory, even if she didn’t want to. She was tired and sad all of a sudden.

  Uncle Ash handed her a peppermint stick. “Sometimes these help. They’re better for you than a Lucky Strike.” He winked.

  Bone bit down on the candy, and energy began to flow back into her.

  Uncle Ash lit another Lucky Strike, but his eyes were still on Bone.

  Miss Spencer was busy making notes in her little book.

  “Uncle Ash?” Bone fought back a yawn. “Did Tiny ever get beat up real bad?”

  Miss Spencer looked up.

  Uncle Ash let out a long plume of smoke. “Back when he was about sixteen or seventeen, some fellows from Great Valley beat Tiny something awful. It was right after he’d gotten signed to that team in Memphis.”

  “The Memphis Red Sox,” Bone added. It was a famous Negro Leagues team.

  Uncle Ash nodded. “Those white boys broke his pitching arm. His baseball career was almost over before it began.”

  This was what Bone saw when she’d touched the cap. She couldn’t help shivering.

  Miss Spencer shook her head. “The doctor must have done a good job fixing it. He got to play, right?”

  “Back then, none of the white doctors would see black folk, and the nearest colored hospital was two hours away.” Uncle Ash looked at Bone. “It was a good thing your mama was home from nursing school. She was the one who fixed up Tiny’s arm. She set and splinted it like a doctor herself.” Uncle Ash turned away and took a long drag on his cigarette. “So, yes, Tiny got to play for Memphis after all, thanks to Willow.”

  But there was more to that story. Bone could feel it in the cap. Maybe Tiny’s aunt who raised him could fill in the blanks.

  “You know, Tiny’s Aunt Queenie knows a lot of stories you ain’t heard yet,” Bone said to Miss Spencer.

  “I could run you all over to Sherman’s Forest one afternoon,” Ash offered as he sat down in Bone’s chair. “I need to check on Miss Queenie’s mare anyways.” Sherman’s Forest was where the black people lived.

  Miss Spencer tidied up her notes and stuffed them into her bag before she answered. “Um, the WPA told me not to collect stories in nonwhite communities. A couple of black writers are doing that in the Tidewater area.”

  Uncle Ash nodded. “Might be best.”

  “But Aunt Queenie won’t mind,” Bone said. “She’s told me all sorts of stories.” She needed to talk to Aunt Queenie about Mama. Bone knew it. Uncle Ash used to drive her and her mother (and Mamaw) over to Sherman’s Forest all the time to see people and animals.

  “We don’t want to get Miss Spencer in trouble with her boss now, do we?” Uncle Ash said to Bone.

  “No,” Bone relented. “Could I go with you to see Aunt Queenie’s mare?”

  “What are you up to, Bone?” Uncle Ash crossed his arms.

  Bone about choked on the last of the peppermint stick. He handed her the Nehi, which she gulped down as she thought of a reply. The combination of grape soda and mint burned going down. She grimaced, and Uncle Ash tried not to smile. Bone wanted to tell him everything. But she couldn’t. Not yet. Uncle Ash might not be able to bear it. “Nothing.”

  “Uh-huh,” Uncle Ash remarked, but he let it drop. He turned to Miss Spencer. “Do you like baseball? Big Vein is playing Great Valley at Centennial Park Sunday afternoon.”

  Centennial Ballpark was this ball field the mines had built between Big Vein and Great Valley. All mines had a team. If Mr. Sherman was playing, all of Sherman’s Forest—including Aunt Queenie—would be at the game. Bone could sneak over and talk to her then. A yawn escaped Bone.

  Uncle Ash raised an amused eyebrow at her. Maybe he already knew what she was up to. Maybe he knew how tired she felt at the moment. “Shall I pick y’all up after church?” he asked Miss Spencer.

  She smiled at Uncle Ash.

  The image of a young black man, not much older than Will, getting beaten by white men still lingered in Bone’s brain. She felt a teeny tiny bit closer to unraveling her mother’s secrets. There was more to that story. Bone felt it in the ball cap.

  But first she needed a nap.

  17

  DADDY LAID TWO SILVER HALF-DOLLARS on the kitchen table in front of Bone. She stopped shoveling oatmeal into her mouth. “Why ain’t … aren’t you at work?” It was Saturday, the last Saturday before he was supposed to leave, but it was still a workday. Daddy never missed work.

  “What are they going to do? Fire me?” Daddy looked especially pleased with himself. “I’m playing hooky to take my best girl to the pictures.” He pushed one of the half-dollars toward Bone. On it, Lady Liberty was walking toward the sun.

  Bone picked up the coin. She could feel the warmth of Daddy’s hand still on it—and she could see him carefully wiping off the coal dust and setting coins aside every payday just for her. The silver was made of coal, sweat, and love.

  Bone slapped the coin down on the table and pushed it back toward Daddy. She was still mad at him. He was still leaving her, and with Aunt Mattie, of all people. He still hadn’t talked to Bone about it.

  Daddy tapped the coin. “This should cover a matinee, some popcorn, and maybe even a chocolate soda at the drugstore.”

  “In town?” Bone gulped down the oatmeal. “You mean a movie at the Lyric?” She’d never been to a real movie theater before. The mine showed movies during the summer on the croquet field and sometimes in the church hall during the winter. The pictures were at least six months behind what the folks in town saw.

  “I borrowed Henry’s car. Go put on one of your school dresses.”

  Bone raced up the stairs.

  “What are we going to see?” Bone asked, climbing into the front seat of the big black Ford. She tugged on her yellow sweater over her blue and green plaid feed sack dress.

  “You look nice, Laurel,” Daddy said before he threw the car into gear. “The main feature is some cartoon about a deer.”

  “A deer?” Bone asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. She’d been hoping for a Sherlock Holmes or another Katharine Hepburn movie.

  “That’s what’s playing.” Daddy shrugged.

  The car bumped down the gravel mine road, past the river, and onto the main road to town. Daddy seemed a million miles away as they wound through the hollows. Bone wanted to confront him about staying with Mattie. He’d said they’d talk about it. They hadn’t. At first Bone avoided him, and then he was busy with work or talking to Uncle Junior about work. And now … And now she didn’t want to spoil her first movie in a real movie theater.

  “How �
�bout some music?” Daddy asked.

  Bone turned the dial until she found something. The twinkly sound of a piano answered by jazzy brass poured out of the radio. It was the kind of music you heard in movies.

  “That’s Glenn Miller! ‘Pardon me, boys,’” Daddy crooned along with the music. Bone giggled. His voice was deep and scratchy, good, but like he hadn’t used it in years. By the time they pulled into town and parked across from the theater, Daddy had serenaded Bone to Glenn Miller, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, and several jingles. It was like being part of her own Hollywood musical.

  And the movie theater was grand. A marquee with bright letters jutted out over the sidewalk. Big glass doors swung into the lobby. The floor was real red carpet, and a boy in a smart uniform took tickets and popped popcorn. Bone and her daddy settled down in cushioned seats just as the maroon velvet curtains parted. The black-and-white newsreel lit up the screen.

  Both Daddy and Bone leaned forward to watch as the troops headed toward Alaska. They marched through the snow, but in the end, they still had mail call, church, and even dances up there. It seemed more like camp than war. Bone sighed a bit, and Daddy put his arm around her.

  They laughed through the Looney Tunes. Then Superman spotted Nazis with his X-ray vision, and their bullets bounced off the Man of Steel.

  The curtains pulled wider, and the main feature started. Bone stuffed popcorn into her mouth as Bambi took his first wobbly steps. The mother deer was beautiful. The little deer frolicked with his friends. They spotted the Great Prince deer in the woods.

  “I bet that’s his father,” Bone whispered.

  Both she and her daddy tensed as the Man entered the forest with his gun.

  Bone felt the crack go through her as the Man shot Bambi’s mama. Hot tears welled up inside her, and the popcorn slid to the floor. “Daddy, can we go?” she heard herself whisper. Bone shivered in the dark, the memory of the real deer drowning in the river washing over her. Daddy whisked Bone out to the lobby. He dried her tears with his hankie. It smelled of cherry tobacco and Ivory Soap. “I’m sorry, Bone honey. I had no idea what the movie was about. We can go back in if you want. Or we can get an ice cream soda.”

  As much as Bone loved the movie theater, a chocolate soda beat out a story about a dead mama deer any day. The cool air outside the theater made her feel a bit better as they walked the block to Central Drug.

  Bone spun around once on the candy apple red stool and took in the drugstore lunch counter. Daddy pored over the newspaper he’d bought on the way in. The guy in the paper hat mixed Bone’s chocolate soda. The black-and-white floor gleamed. Young men in crisp uniforms perched on other stools. They laughed and flirted with the girls with them. The boys looked like the soldiers in the newsreel, going off to war like it was church camp.

  “Daddy, are those soldiers shipping out with you?” Bone asked, nodding to the young fellows.

  Daddy looked up from the paper. “No, they’re cadets at the college. They won’t be real soldiers until they graduate.”

  One of the cadets glared at Daddy.

  “I expect the war will be over by then,” Daddy added. “There are worse places to spend the war than in school.”

  Like Aunt Mattie’s house. “Daddy, why do I have to stay with her?”

  He sighed and folded up the paper. The guy in the paper hat set a cup of coffee in front of Daddy and a tall chocolate soda topped with whipped cream in front of Bone. “I did say we’d talk later.”

  “It’s later.” Bone stuck a straw down through the thick chocolate ice cream.

  “I told you all my reasons.” He ticked them off his fingers. “Henry and Mattie can give you a good home. Ruby will be there for company. Their house is close to school and church …”

  Bone took a long, deep slurp of the chocolate soda. It was about the best thing she’d ever tasted. She almost forgot what Daddy was saying. Almost. She sucked in the icy chocolaty goodness until her head started to hurt.

  He paused to watch her. “Good, huh?”

  Bone nodded, pulling her sweater tight around her for warmth. She caught a flash of a memory. Mama and Daddy, both much younger, were sitting here at the drugstore arguing. “You don’t have that kind of Gift,” he told her. Mama just smiled and shook her head at him. Bone shook herself.

  “And Mattie and Henry can afford to treat you girls to a movie and soda every once in a while.” Daddy was counting on his fingers again.

  “You don’t think the Gifts are real, do you?” Bone asked.

  Daddy set his coffee cup down with a clatter and looked around to see if anyone noticed. “No, not in the way—”

  “Then why does it matter where I stay?” Bone spun away from him.

  Daddy took a moment to answer. Finally, he said, “Believing in something that’s not real can be dangerous. Kindly like thinking you could stop bullets when you can’t.” He pulled Bone around to look her in the eye. “You can put yourself in a dangerous situation.”

  Bone sucked the bottom of the soda dry as she considered this. He had a way of making things sound so reasonable. Did he think Mama fooled herself into thinking she had a Gift? Bone stroked her sweater, but it was no help. Still, Bone was sure of what she’d experienced when she touched certain objects. Her Gift wasn’t like stopping bullets or X-ray vision, but it was real. And something still didn’t make sense. Aunt Mattie must believe in the Gifts.

  “Aunt Mattie thinks the Gifts are the devil’s work,” Bone ventured.

  Daddy chuckled. “I know. Some beliefs are more harmless than others. Mattie’s harmless. She’s more bark than bite.” He drained the last of his coffee and stood up. “Ready to go home?”

  Bone was not sure Daddy was entirely right about Aunt Mattie, or anything else at the moment. They rode home in silence. Not even Glenn Miller had anything more to say.

  18

  AS SOON AS THE LAST HYMN was sung, Bone—and about every other person in the congregation—ran home to change clothes for the last game of the season. Her daddy didn’t hold with church but still made her go with Mrs. Price every week. Bone tore off her Sunday best, which Mrs. Price had made from one of her mother’s old dresses, and put on her dungarees, a white T-shirt, and her yellow sweater.

  Uncle Ash pulled up in his old yellow pickup as the mine truck with the players was driving past. It was an open-back monstrosity the outside men used to cart timbers down to the mill. The truck bounced down the gravel road with Junior at the wheel, the players hanging on for dear life. Will and the boys waved, and Mamaw leaned over and honked the horn back at them. She wouldn’t have missed a game. Uncle Junior was team captain, like his father had been back in his day.

  Uncle Ash, Mamaw, and Corolla got out of the cab of his truck.

  “Is your daddy coming?” Uncle Ash asked Bone as he held the door open for Miss Spencer. She slid into her usual spot, and Corolla jumped up into her lap.

  “He went with Aunt Mattie,” Bone answered as she climbed into the back. She hadn’t said more than five words to Daddy since they got home from the movies. Mamaw handed her a picnic basket and some blankets before she followed. Uncle Ash held out his hand to help her, but she waved it off. “And Ruby. They went early so they could set up the scrap drive,” Bone added.

  “Amarantha does like doing her part,” Mamaw said. “And she makes sure Ruby does too, whether she likes it or not.” She spread out one of the blankets for her and Bone to sit on and then handed her a still-warm slice of coffee cake from the basket as they settled in for the ride.

  “Hold on, Mama.” Ash backed the truck up in the yard and gunned it out into the gravel.

  As they rambled down the mine road, Bone could hear the quiet strains of the country music on the radio coming from the cab. The ride smoothed out when the truck turned onto the paved river road and headed north.

  “I hear you been asking about Willow,” Mamaw said, out of nowhere.

  “What’s wrong with that?” Bone snapped.

  “
Not a thing,” Mamaw reassured her. “I like hearing about her, too. I miss Willow as much as I do Hawthorne. Maybe more even.” Mamaw brushed the crumbs from her dungarees before she continued. “Your Uncle Ash is worried about you, is all.”

  She reached into the picnic basket to pull out something wrapped in brown paper. There were more little brown bags and packages with folks’ names scribbled on them than there was actual food in the basket. Her grandmother unwrapped the paper, revealing an old-timey-looking baseball cap. It was white with a black bill and letters that said Big Vein. “You know your grandfather loved baseball. He only wore this while he was playing and then he’d carefully wrap it up in butcher paper and keep it in one of my old hatboxes.” She placed the cap on Bone’s head before she could object. Bone squinched her eyes closed, readying herself for the cold onrush she’d felt with Tiny Sherman’s cap. This time, though, the images lapped gently against her like she was floating on the river on a hot, sunny day.

  Papaw’s happiness washed over her as he ran, the flannel cap pulled tight down over his forehead, onto the green field. He pounded the well-oiled mitt with his fist. His heart raced when the batter stepped up to the plate. The smell of cut grass and hot dogs filled his nostrils. Salty sweat rolled down his face. He scooped up a ground ball and threw it to first.

  Bone described what she saw as they pulled into the paved parking lot of Centennial Ballpark. Mamaw removed the cap from Bone’s head, rewrapped it in the butcher paper, and gently placed it back in the basket. “Anytime you want, you can borrow Papaw’s cap. Baseball was his church, and he was happiest when he was playing.”

  Mamaw was offering her a safe object to practice her Gift on, one with nothing but good memories in it.

  The happy feeling lingered as Bone surveyed the ballpark. The mines hadn’t slapped a diamond on a field and called it baseball. They’d built bleachers behind home plate, a concession stand, covered dugouts for the teams, and a proper scoreboard out past the cyclone fence that ringed the field.