“For God’s sake, White, look at it!” Warm blood and tears ran down Willie’s ear.
The front door burned through, sending flames fed by the relentless wind curling all the way up to the third-floor windows. With his chest forced against the ice, his chin jammed into the air, Willie listened as the roar of hot and cold blasts caved in the porch roof. It fell as if moving through solidified air, charred ashes fanning out on the snow in loops and curves that matched the arc of red embers against the smoke. The air kept beating in a dull hum, a deliberate rhythm and pattern that branded itself on his mind. Something inside of him ended there, but the nightmare was still to begin.
Racing up that steep incline, his lungs burning. Falling and tearing his coat and trousers, his palms and knees seared by the icy concrete. Tasting blood in his throat, feeling it wet on his blistered knuckles as he yelled and banged at the lighted houses along Tupelo Drive. Faces appearing and disappearing—the unopened doors. The lights going off, the draperies parting. The lights going off, the shades going up. The lights going off … going off … going off …
“They hear us,” Lester’s breath was coming in short, painful heaves through his bruised nose.
“But they’re not opening the doors.”
“They’re scared, White. Don’t worry. Somebody will call.”
“They’re at those windows, Shit. Look at them, they’re at those windows.”
Willie stumbled up and down the middle of Tupelo Drive, confused and dazed.
“Tell me I’m dreaming, Shit. Please, tell me I’m dreaming—they’re watching it burn.”
But as Lester anchored his hands on both sides of his friend’s neck, the white clapboard house blazing in front of him, those darkened windows looming at his back like gutted eyes, he knew that only real life could be this insane.
“No, White. Somebody will call.”
“Yeah, they’ll call.” Willie backed away from him. “You bet your ass they’ll call.” He bent and picked up a huge rock, ran to a picture window and shattered it. He grabbed up another and was headed for the next house when Lester wrestled it from him.
A shade went down and a light on.
“Yeah, you see? They’ll call now, lousy bastards!”
They heard sirens up on Linden Road. “White, I told you they were coming.” But it was two police cars, racing at a dangerous speed down the icy slope. Lester took Willie’s arm. “We’ve gotta get out of here.” They ran back toward the burning house. With nowhere to hide, they jumped the low fence and crouched behind the gravestones.
Lester didn’t own a watch, so he couldn’t tell how much time had elapsed before the fire trucks actually got there, and he didn’t know how long it took them to extinguish the blaze. But he was certain that Willie had cried through the whole thing. Excited voices had carried into the cemetery, mingling with the muffled sound of Willie’s, as the firemen cursed the lake that sent their tires skidding, cursed the wind and the frozen hydrant caps, while the men scattered about breaking what few windows were left in the back, ice caked on their eyelashes, beards, and gloves as tons of water poured over the house. Lester had expected to see three bodies brought out, but one massive bulk was covered and carried to the ambulance. He couldn’t feel the ends of his toes or fingers any longer but he stayed bent over in the snow, waiting for Willie to get done. Lester kept his back turned away, not daring to move or speak; this was something Willie had to complete, feeling that he was totally alone.
When the trucks finally left, the Nedeed home was a pile of charred wood, one side completely gone and the others only represented by high pointed spikes. The water was freezing over them, so that under the moonlight, tiny droplets glistened as they rolled down the three jagged shafts. But Willie still kept his forehead pressed against the crumbling gravestone. He gripped the ancient monument, crying as only a man-child could. Tight, defiant tears that fought each touch of the night air for the validity to exist in such number and depth.
Finally, a hand touched Lester’s shoulder. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah.” He got up and beat his knees to circulate the blood as sharp pains shot through his joints.
They stepped over the fence and, without looking at the ruins, headed for the rear of the yard.
“We better go this way and just climb the chain fence in the back,” Lester said. “We’ll be out on Patterson Road.”
“Yeah.”
There was silence until Willie told the biting wind, “They let it burn, Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Silence again. Suddenly, Lester stopped walking. “But they let it burn, White.”
“Yeah.”
“No, don’t you see—they let it burn.”
A deep sob caught in Willie’s throat as he told the wind once again, “They let it burn, Shit.”
“Yeah.”
They let it burn
Each with his own thoughts, they approached the chain fence, illuminated by a full moon just slipping toward the point over the horizon that signaled midnight. Hand anchored to hand, one helped the other to scale the open links. Then, they walked out of Tupelo Drive into the last days of the year.
About the Author
Gloria Naylor (1950–2016) grew up in New York City. She received her bachelor of arts in English from Brooklyn College and her master of arts in Afro-American Studies from Yale University. Her first novel, The Women of Brewster Place, won the National Book Award. She is also the author of Linden Hills, Mama Day, Bailey’s Cafe, The Men of Brewster Place, and the fictionalized memoir 1996.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The author is grateful for permission to quote from the following poems:
“Cuisine Bourgeoise,” copyright © 1942 by Wallace Stevens. Reprinted from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens by permission of Alfred Knopf, Inc.
“Gerontion” in Collected Poems 1909–1962 by T. S. Eliot, copyright 1936 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.: copyright © 1963, 1964 by T. S. Eliot. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 1985 by Gloria Naylor
Cover design by Kat JK Lee
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4317-5
This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10038
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GLORIA NAYLOR
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