Alligator Bayou

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “I’m from Iowa.” Frank Raymond’s voice has a small, angry tremble. “Straight north up the Mississippi from here.” He draws a map in the air.

  “I know where Iowa’s at. What are you—eighteen, nineteen? You’re just an overgrown boy who ain’t nearly as smart as he thinks. Let me help you out with a lesson, son: insolence ain’t the proper attitude for someone far from home.” The man walks on.

  Then he stops and comes back. “Everyone’s got an eye out for the first sign of trouble.” He glares at me. “Ain’t no one going to disturb the peace of our Tallulah. Y’all going to learn that. One way or another.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say softly. “I’d rather stand in the side street.” I leave.

  Frank Raymond follows me out to the road. We stop beside a small group of boys having a yo-yo contest. I look around. A brass band plays on the courthouse steps. All the musicians are Negro, wearing white clothes. The ladies on the chairs and the gentlemen standing behind them are white. But the crowd beyond them, spilling into the street, surrounding the buggies, that’s all Negroes. Except for my uncles’ wagon.

  Frank Raymond rubs his neck again. “That was Mr. Snyder.”

  “The one that runs the Madison Journal?”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “His name’s on it. I must have read it a hundred times at your place.”

  “Well, good,” says Frank Raymond. “You paid attention. He’s worth watching out for. All the bigwigs are. Especially the school board.”

  “Will I meet them when I go to public school?”

  “Nope. They won’t have anything to do with what happens in your school. They’re supposed to, but they won’t. Your teacher will do as she pleases.”

  “Good.”

  Frank Raymond cocks his head and laughs. “A genius, like I said.”

  An old woman with a checked apron and a white bonnet walks through the crowd selling fresh peach preserves, the first of the summer. A man tosses a clay saucer high and another man shoots at it. Blue fragments shower the large open area on the lawn. A girl gets up from her chair and shoots. Everyone cheers for her. Now men dressed as knights in royal blues and reds ride out from behind the courthouse on black horses, waving plumes. The crowd hoots and cheers as they parade past.

  And they’re all white—the peach lady, the shooters, the knights, anyone doing anything other than just watching or playing in the band. I’m starting to feel weak-kneed, as if I’ll fall; and I don’t know if it’s the sun or the Jim Crow laws or both.

  I look back at the knights. They each hold a lance at rest. A horn blasts. A knight rides up to a lady in the chairs and, very loudly, he announces he’s doing this for her. Then he turns and gallops with his lance pointed forward, straight for a tall pole. A scarlet ring hangs from it. He tries to get that ring on his lance. No luck. The next knight goes up to a different lady and declares himself. Then he has a go at it.

  Frank Raymond whispers in my ear, “That’s called tilting.”

  But I don’t care anymore. I walk down the street.

  Frank Raymond catches up. “So you’re not taken with this medieval garbage?”

  I shrug. Behind us the crowd cheers. I turn and look. The seated audience climbs onto horses or into buggies, and heads toward the river.

  “Off to the steamboat,” says Frank Raymond. “Let’s get your horses.”

  “They’re harnessed to the wagon. See there? We’ve got to stay out of sight.”

  He gives a low whistle. “Without horses, we can’t go. It’s over eighteen miles to Delta, and that’s where the steamboat’s docked. I’m sorry, Calogero.”

  I watch the buggies leave, lurching over rocks and stumps in the road. People stand on either side as far as I can see and wave handkerchiefs as they pass.

  The inside of my head buzzes. Mr. Snyder’s tone, the sneer when he looked at me, left my brain scrambled, as if I don’t know which way is up. And there was something familiar about it. I bet one of the bully boys is his son. “It’s just as well Francesco has the horses,” I manage to say. “They probably wouldn’t have allowed me on that steamboat anyway.”

  Frank Raymond’s face is all blotchy, angry and sad. “Shut your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “Walk up a plank. Lots of people. Women in those dresses—you know, chiffon and silk and whatever. High ceilings with glass chandeliers. People dancing the polka to violins. A gambling casino, with men already moaning over losses. A dining area with raw oysters in tubs of ice and berries in silver bowls. And ham with crackers; caviar and salted salmon and sardines. Bowls of canned peaches floating in syrup.”

  “It sounds like a palace.”

  “The sleeping quarters are small, but the drawers are velvet lined and the mirrors are beveled.” Frank Raymond stops talking.

  I don’t know what beveled means, but it doesn’t matter. I open my eyes. “Thank you.”

  He walks now, and we slowly go west, the opposite way from the procession. “After the war steamers carried people and cargo along the river all the time. Then they rebuilt the railroads in 1870 and put most of the steamers out of business. Today they’re used for traveling circuses or gambling or theatrical shows. Or parties, like this one.”

  “It would be fun to see a circus,” I say, trying to keep my voice normal, like him.

  “A circus boat is coming in autumn. A sign in Blander’s barbershop says there’ll be elephants and ring performers. It’ll take days just to disembark and set up the show.”

  “When in autumn?”

  “After the cotton finishes. When everyone’s got money to lose. And they will. Tell you one thing I saw. When I was ten years old, my dad took me traveling along the river in late October. We were actually near here, and there was a fire on a steamer.”

  “You saw a fire?”

  “The boilers exploded and the entire boat was consumed.”

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  “I don’t think so. My dad bought us two horses and we left fast. It spooked him.”

  I look at Frank Raymond in wonder. He’s only four years older than me, but he always seems to know everything. “How did you learn so much?”

  We’re already at the far edge of town. He turns up West Street. “I don’t know anything compared to what there is to know. But what managed to get into my head is there through two things: travel and study. I read everything my father put in front of me till he died. Then I joined the seminary and…”

  “The seminary? So why aren’t you a preacher?”

  “I thought about the things God lets happen, and decided I didn’t want to be His voice on earth. So I left after only a year. I painted my way down the Mississippi, staying with rich people while I did family portraits—and they had libraries that I lost myself in for days.” Frank Raymond crosses the road to a blackberry thicket. He drops berries in my palm. “The Mississippi is just the start. There’s a whole world out there, Calogero. Travel. Don’t let men like Snyder define how you see things. He wears blinders, like a horse.” His voice breaks. He presses his lips together. “Don’t let them put blinders on you: travel.”

  First, Miss Clarrie and now, Frank Raymond. Maybe travel is the religion of all teachers.

  We pick berries till the mosquitoes come on fierce. We slap like crazy. “You ever gambled on one of the steamers?” I ask.

  “Never had anything to gamble with.” He looks at me sideways. “But I’ve watched. Once, I saw a man lose a whole plantation.”

  “Really? He must have wanted to shoot himself.”

  “No. He shot the man who won.”

  I stare. “He killed him?”

  “No, but he went to jail for shooting him.” He chews on his bottom lip.

  And I notice now—his face really does look thinner than it did last week.

  “All that imaginary food you painted in my head was good. But I’m wondering, you hungry f
or real food yet?”

  “Ha!”

  “Let’s go home.”

  twenty-three

  Bang bang bang!

  Cirone and I jump up and out of bed. We stand in the hot, dark night turning in circles, stupid as chickens.

  Bang bang bang!

  “Who’s there?” calls Carlo in Sicilian.

  “Who?” shouts Francesco in English.

  “Open this damn door before I bust it down.”

  “Dr. Hodge? That you?” Francesco goes to the door.

  Rosario lights a candle and we all follow Francesco.

  Francesco opens the door and Bedda comes skittering in.

  “Goats! You and your cursèd goats! There were three of them on my porch tonight. Three! How many times do I have to tell you? You keep your goats at home or I’ll shoot them. This is the last warning. You hear me?”

  “You shout. Everybody hear you. God, He hear you.”

  “It’s Tuesday, God’s working day, my working day, your working day. So He better hear. And you better hear. Tie up those infernal goats!” Dr. Hodge stumbles off the edge of the porch. He brushes at his cloak and disappears into the night.

  Francesco closes the door. “Get back to bed,” he says to us all in Sicilian.

  We stand here.

  “Bedda’s still inside,” I say at last.

  “She can stay inside. Tomorrow after supper you tie her back legs together. That way she won’t go wandering.”

  Carlo makes the sign of the cross, then he looks upward with gratitude on his face. That’s how I feel, too.

  “What about the other two?” says Rosario. “Dr. Hodge said there were three.”

  “The others are idiots. They follow Bedda. She doesn’t go, they don’t go. Get back to sleep.”

  Rosario blows out the candle.

  I fall onto the bed and roll on my side, away from Cirone’s feet.

  Bedda jumps onto Francesco’s bed. He pushes her off. She clomps around the room, around and around. Finally, she makes a loud snort and drops clunk on the floor beside Francesco’s bed. She groans. Francesco sits up and looks at her. “Oh, damn. All right.” Bedda jumps onto his bed and settles down. “Nobody’s going to shoot you,” murmurs Francesco. “Dr. Hodge was just angry. Nobody shoots goats. Goats are too important. And Dr. Hodge is a decent man. He wouldn’t do that to me; he likes me. But from now on, you stay here at night. Understand?”

  The room goes quiet.

  After a while a whisper comes: “Calo.”

  I roll to face Cirone.

  “You think Hodge had on his nightdress under that cloak?” He’s speaking English. That’s all he ever uses with me these days.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper back. “But it sure must be hot under there in this weather. Hot enough to make me glad I’m no gentleman and I don’t wear cloaks.”

  “Maybe he ain’t got nothing on at all under it.” Cirone laughs softly. “He looked like a big loggerhead, he was so angry.”

  “Like the one that mashed your foot?”

  “Nah, that one was little. He looked like a giant snapper.”

  I gulp. “Have you seen a giant snapper?”

  Cirone doesn’t answer.

  I push myself up on my elbows. “Tell me.”

  “Stay down or you’re going to get us both in trouble.”

  “Did you go back to Alligator Bayou? Did you go with the boys without me?”

  “Loggerheads sell for a dollar fifty apiece. A giant one sells for two dollars.”

  Where was I? Where was I when Cirone was out hunting turtles? “How much did you make?”

  “Five dollars. But split among the four of us.”

  “Still, a lot.”

  “Don’t be jealous. You hate the swamp.”

  That’s not the point. “What else have you done without me?”

  “It don’t matter.”

  “It does too. I met them first.”

  “So?”

  “So they’re my friends first.”

  “That ain’t how it works and you know it. Friends is like teeth; ignore them and they go away.”

  “Who taught you to say that?”

  “Ben’s mamma.”

  Cirone’s been in Ben’s house. I want to punch something. “I haven’t acted unfriendly.”

  “Come on, Calo. Who’d you spend time with at the Fourth of July picnic?”

  Patricia. If I have to choose between the boys and Patricia, she’s my choice. But I don’t want to choose. “Can we all do something together? Maybe tomorrow night?”

  “Tomorrow?” says Cirone. “I’ll ask the others.”

  “Thanks.”

  Wednesday supper is like a party. Frank Raymond is here, but that’s no surprise. When he showed up with me on Sunday and raved about the spaghetti, Carlo insisted he come back every night. The first tomatoes from our own garden were in the sauce that night—so good.

  Tonight Father May is here, too. That makes it a party. It turns out Frank Raymond knows a lot about the Catholic religion, though he’s Lutheran. And Father May likes to drink wine, whether it’s part of the Mass or not. Supper so far has been a long discussion about popes and the method for choosing the next one. Pope Leo XIII is almost ninety years old, after all.

  My uncles don’t talk. Probably they stopped listening, since the conversation is fast and in English. Cirone and I don’t talk, either. Cirone keeps yawning. I have to work to keep my own mouth shut.

  Frank Raymond turns to Cirone. “What do you think of all this?”

  “I don’t,” says Cirone.

  That was rude. I kick him under the table.

  “What about you, Calogero?”

  “The cardinals will do a good job choosing someone else.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “They always do.”

  “Hmm.” Frank Raymond looks at Father May. “If the cardinals always did a good job choosing a new pope, do you think that would constitute a miracle?” He laughs.

  Father May doesn’t laugh. “The nature of a miracle is no joke.”

  Frank Raymond’s face goes serious. “What is a miracle, Father?”

  My uncles come to attention. The English word miracle—so close to our word miraculu—is dear to them.

  “A wonder. A power given to a human by God, to show His grace.”

  “Is having a baby a miracle?” asks Cirone.

  I blink at him. “What a dumb question. A mouse can have a baby.”

  “You really think it’s dumb?” Frank Raymond folds his arms on the table and leans toward me. “It’s life where there wasn’t life before.”

  “Calogero’s right,” says Father May. “A mouse can do it. A cockroach can do it. It’s natural. A miracle isn’t natural. It must be divine. It must be something that happens only through the grace of God.”

  “Dead.” Carlo speaks slowly and deliberately. I know it’s because he feels odd saying an English word, but the effect is that it feels like a pronouncement from on high. We all look at him. “Dead…then alive.”

  “Right,” says Father May. “Raising the dead is a miracle.”

  “Water, wine,” says Giuseppe. This may be the first time I’ve ever heard him speak English.

  “Turning water into wine,” says Father May. “That’s right. That’s a miracle.”

  “Hmm,” says Frank Raymond. “That makes me think of what Spinoza said. He called miracles violations of nature.”

  Father May stands, his mouth open in shock. “Spinoza was a Jew.”

  “So?”

  Father May looks from Frank Raymond to me. “Has he been teaching you heretical ideas?”

  “He’s a good teacher. We don’t talk about God.”

  “A good teacher who does not talk about God?” Father May’s voice rises. “That’s impossible—a contradiction.”

  Francesco clears his throat and puts up his hand: halt. “The English, it go too fast.” He turns to me. “What’s happening?” he asks i
n Sicilian.

  “They’re fighting about miracles and what some Jew said.”

  “Quick,” Francesco says to Giuseppe in Sicilian, “get out the grappa. And, Carlo, didn’t you make a sweet tonight?”

  “I made pie from those orange potatoes.” He used the English word pie in the middle of his Sicilian sentence. Now he looks at me, a little shyly. “Are you happy, Calogero? Giuseppe told me that’s what you wanted.”

  “Sure I’m happy.” But I wonder where Carlo got a recipe.

  Giuseppe is already pouring Frank Raymond a small glass of grappa. Now he pours one for Father May.

  Frank Raymond lifts his glass to us, then downs it all at once. He falls off the bench coughing. No one drinks a glass of grappa in one big gulp. It’s like fire blasting through your chest, exploding your stomach.

  Francesco pats him hard on the back and offers water.

  Frank Raymond’s eyes stream and he coughs and coughs. Then he stands up straight. “What was that?”

  “Grappa,” I say. “You’re supposed to sip it.”

  “Like this.” Father May sits and takes a small sip. “My compliments to the maker.”

  Frank Raymond looks at Father May. Then he laughs.

  Father May’s mouth twitches. Then he laughs, too. And we’re all laughing.

  Carlo brings in the sweet potato pie. But it’s not pie at all. It’s a layer of dough with thinly sliced sweet potato arranged in overlapping rows. It’s nothing like Patricia’s recipe, or anyone else’s, I bet. “So, Calogero,” he says in Sicilian, “what do you think?” He proudly thrusts his face forward over the baking tray.

  “It’ll be perfect with grappa.”

  Frank Raymond grabs the bottle from the table and pours me a little. I spoke in Sicilian—but Frank Raymond must have picked out the word grappa. I dip in my tongue tip and savor the burn.

  We eat the dessert. It’s far from delicious.

  Carlo frowns. “Sicilian sweets are better.”

  We move to the front porch and the men smoke cigars and drink more grappa. In little sips. Frank Raymond refills my glass.