by Renée Watson
I stand in the doorway, hesitating to bother him, but he said to let him know if I needed something and I need to do this interview. I want to do this interview. I want to learn as much from Grandpa Earl as I can. I can’t tell if he’s fallen asleep or if he’s just resting and listening to the news. I clear my throat, even though I don’t really need to. “Grandpa Earl?”
He opens his eyes. “Yes, Amara?”
“I, ah, I was going to ask if I can interview you for my school project.”
Grandpa Earl leans over and turns the volume on the radio down. “Well, you really are something. Doing homework on your vacation. I don’t know if I’ve ever met a girl like you.” He turns the radio off and says, “Shall we get to it?” He walks over to the living room and sits in an old-fashioned rocking chair. It is dark brown and has a thin pillow in the seat. “Are you recording this?” he asks me.
“Recording?”
“Well, isn’t that what a journalist does?” He stands and goes to the cabinet I’ve been wanting to open. He opens the left door. “You ever seen one of these in real life?” He chuckles. “This used to be your father’s tape recorder. He’d walk around the house reciting poems into the microphone and making tapes of his rhymes.” Grandpa hands me the tape recorder. “Now, I have no idea if these will even work, but let’s give it a try.” He pulls out an unopened package of tapes and shows me how to use the tape recorder. “Let’s test it out,” he says. “We’ll need these.” He puts in batteries and hands me the recorder.
I hit the Record and Play buttons at the same time like Grandpa Earl showed me.
“Okay, give it a go,” he says. “Set it up—introduce yourself and talk about the interview you’re about to do.”
It feels weird talking into this machine, especially when it’s just the two of us. “This is Amara Baker. I am sitting with Grandpa Earl in Harlem, interviewing him for the Suitcase Project.”
Grandpa hits the Stop button, rewinds the tape, and pushes Play. My voice booms through the room. It sounds lower than I think my voice normally sounds. Grandpa rewinds the tape again and says, “Okay. This time is the real one. Ready?”
I press the buttons again, and even though I have a list of questions that I wrote down in my notebook, even though I have more questions about Arturo Alfonso Schomburg and Langston Hughes, I don’t ask them. Instead, when I open my mouth I ask the question that’s been floating in my head ever since our walk from the coffee shop. “Grandpa Earl, what did you mean when you said you didn’t understand Dad back when he was a kid?”
Grandpa Earl is quiet for a long time. So long that I wonder if maybe I’ve upset him with this question, if maybe when he opens his eyes he will tell me to stay in a child’s place and stop asking questions that are none of my business. I watch the spokes of the cassette go round and round in the tape recorder. Think how loud this silence will sound when I listen to it later to take notes. Grandpa leans forward, says, “Times were different when I was raising Charles. I think I was trying so hard to teach him how to be a man—a Baker man—that I wasn’t always good at letting him be the man he was becoming on his own. Us Baker men are athletes and, well, a lot more rugged than your dad was when he was growing up. I couldn’t relate to him. I didn’t know how to.”
Grandpa stops talking for a moment, then begins again. “You know, one reason why I took you to the Schomburg Center today is because I never took your dad. I wasn’t aware of all this when Charles was growing up. It wasn’t until after my Grace died that I really understood what she had been saying all along,” he tells me. “It was just me in this house. Retired and alone and so I started reading all these books she had around the house, the books your dad had left behind. Made me feel close to her, knowing she had touched the same pages, read the same words. And, well, my eyes opened—I tell you, it was like being reborn. I kind of had to let go of some of my old ways, my ideas of what it meant to be a man.”
Grandpa Earl stops talking abruptly and says, “Listen to me. I’m sorry, Amara. This is for your school project. I don’t need to be saying all of this. Do you want to start over?”
“No, no—you’re fine. This is, this is exactly what it’s supposed to be. My teacher said there’s no one way to do it.”
Grandpa Earl says, “Well, I guess what I’m saying is, ah, what’s that phrase … if you know better, do better? Well, I’m trying.”
The front door opens. Dad is home, and he has two Nike bags in each hand. I stop the tape recorder and stand up. “Are those for me?” I ask.
“Well, not all of them are for you,” Dad says. “I got something for Nina and Ava, too. And my day was fine. Thanks for asking.” He laughs.
“Sorry.” I hug Dad, and even though I really want to take the bags out of his hands and go through them, I sit back down on the sofa and wait for him to show me what he has.
“What are you two up to?” Dad asks eyeing the cassette player.
“I’m interviewing Grandpa Earl.”
Dad sets the bags down and walks over to the coffee table. His eyes focused on the tapes and the cassette player. “You still have this?” he asks. He picks up the cassette player like it is something precious.
“I have a lot of your stuff,” Grandpa Earl says. “I’m sure some of your recordings are stored away somewhere in this house. Your momma made sure of that.”
Dad puts the tape recorder down. I think he’s going to go upstairs, but instead he sits on the sofa next to me. I think maybe this is a good way to get Dad and Grandpa talking. Maybe I’ll have something good to tell Mom when she calls to check in tonight.
I clear my throat. “Grandpa Earl was just telling me how much you loved writing poems when you were in high school.”
Dad removes the throw pillow from behind his back, tossing it to the middle of the sofa. He leans back, says, “Was he?”
I look to Grandpa Earl and say, “Weren’t you, Grandpa?”
“I sure was, Amara. I couldn’t believe how your dad could just make up a poem right out of thin air, not even writing it down.” Grandpa Earl doesn’t look at Dad when he says this.
Dad says, “But your grandfather wanted me to play ball. Never mind how clumsy I actually was. It was all about the game for him.”
I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing … that Dad and Grandpa Earl are talking about each other, but not to each other.
Grandpa says, “Amara, I have a lot of regrets. A lot of regrets.”
Dad gets up, takes the Nike bags, and goes upstairs.
Grandpa Earl watches Dad walk away. He takes a deep breath, looks at me. I don’t know if I should continue or stop here, but then he says, “What’s your next question?” so I push the Record and Play buttons.
I think of my next question, try to come up with something that will take the sadness out of Grandpa Earl’s eyes. “Can we talk about what you’re proud of?” I think there has to be something to talk about other than regrets and things Grandpa Earl didn’t do so well. He doesn’t hesitate to answer. “I’m proud that your grandma Grace and I raised two smart, decent human beings … I’m proud of our people, how we’ve survived what should have destroyed us.”
I look at the cassette, make sure it is still turning. I ask Grandpa Earl one of the questions from Mr. Rosen’s handout. “What does your suitcase carry?”
“Is this suitcase a symbol for my heart, my memories?” Grandpa Earl asks.
I hadn’t thought about it this way until he said it. “Yes,” I answer. “What does your heart carry with you? What memories do you hold?”
“You know, when I was a young boy my mother took us to the candy store once a week and we’d get caramels and peppermint candies. I would hold on to mine and sit under the porch, savoring it till the candy disappeared from my tongue,” Grandpa Earl tells me. “Hmm. I haven’t thought about that in a long while, a long while.”
I don’t ask another question. Just sit and picture Grandpa Earl as a little boy.
He st
arts up again with another memory. “And, well, I carry the memory of holding my son and daughter for the first time. And of course, I will never let go of your grandma Grace. She shows up from time to time, in my dreams or when I hear a song we both loved.”
“I feel her with me, too, sometimes,” I confess. “Even though she had never been to Oregon or to my house I feel her sometimes when I am in the kitchen with Dad and he is teaching me one of her recipes or when I am alone in my room reading a book.”
Grandpa Earl smiles at this.
“But being here, in this place, I really feel her.”
We sit awhile, just being together. No questions, no stories.
I push the Stop button and thank Grandpa Earl for talking with me.
After dinner, once I am in bed, all I can do is think back over everything I saw today. The mural of black legends, the Schomburg Center. I think about my baby sister, how I want to bring her to Harlem one day, how I won’t be impatient with her as she takes it all in. How I want to show her where we come from, how I’ll whisper in her ear, “You come from greatness, you come from strength.”
14
Wednesday starts off the same as yesterday—eating oatmeal and apples with Grandpa Earl. After breakfast, Grandpa Earl leaves to go on his morning walk. Being in this brownstone alone makes me hear every little noise that creeps and creaks. I grab my phone and put on some music so I can drown out the moans of the house, which has a song of its own. I wash the dishes from breakfast, and after, when I walk into the living room, I notice the tape recorder is still on the table. I get to thinking about that cabinet and what else is in there. For some reason, I look around the room before I open the door, even though I know nobody is here but me. I walk over to the window, look out of it just to make sure Grandpa isn’t coming back yet. I tell myself that I’m not being nosy, I’m doing research and that gives me the nerve to go looking through Grandpa’s things. I open the cabinet and the first thing I see is a photo album.
I look through the pictures. There’s one of Grandpa Earl and Grandma Grace sitting on the stoop. Grandpa Earl’s face doesn’t have any wrinkles. He looks like Dad. His arms are wrapped around Grandma Grace’s waist, and they are caught in a laugh. I look through the rest of the album. There are photos of people I don’t know and faces that look familiar. There are pictures of Dad and Aunt Tracey with Grandpa Earl and Grandma Grace. In every shot, Dad is standing next to Grandma Grace.
I want to include some of these photos in my Suitcase Project, but there’s no way to make copies of them without asking Grandpa Earl and then he’ll wonder how I know about them. So instead, I pull back the thin sticky plastic and take out the photos. They must have been in here forever because it’s hard to lift them off the page. I take pictures of them with my phone and just as I am putting the photographs back, I hear keys in the door.
Grandpa Earl is back.
I rush and smooth the plastic back over the photos, toss the album back in the cabinet, and slam the door.
“Hope I wasn’t gone too long,” Grandpa says.
Uh, no. Nope, you really could’ve taken your time.
“I stopped at the coffee shop. Brought you back a hot chocolate.”
Now I feel bad. “Thanks.” I sit in the kitchen at the island and slowly sip. I scroll through the photos I took and realize they’re all horrible. They’re blurry, and I won’t be able to use them.
“What’s that frown for?” Grandpa Earl asks.
I put my phone in my pocket. “I, oh, nothing.”
Grandpa Earl asks what I want to do today. The truth is all I want to do is spend time with Dad, and since that’s clearly not happening, it doesn’t really matter what we do. Grandpa Earl says, “You want to take a trip down memory lane?” He walks over to the cabinet and takes out the photo album. The one I just peeked through. When he opens the book, I see a big wrinkle in the plastic cover because I didn’t press it down good enough. He looks puzzled and lifts the thin sheet, then slowly presses it down, ironing out the wrinkles with his hand.
We look through the album, me pretending like I haven’t seen the photos already, and then I ask Grandpa, “Can we make copies of some of these?”
And it’s just that easy. Within minutes we’ve selected photos and our coats are on and we’re heading to the print shop to make copies for my Suitcase Project.
When Dad calls to say he won’t be home for dinner, Grandpa orders delivery from a nearby Chinese food restaurant, and we eat dinner while watching back-to-back episodes of Family Feud.
Once it’s time for bed, we say our good nights and I go upstairs to Aunt Tracey’s room. It doesn’t take me long to fall asleep, but in the middle of night, I wake up. It is eleven o’clock here, but my body thinks it’s only eight in the evening. Back home, I’d be reading a book or talking on the phone to Titus. Here, Grandpa Earl is in bed for the night and Dad is out with Mr. Arnold and a few of his friends from his college days.
The house is quiet. The only noise I hear is from outside: sirens, trucks, a person walking by and talking—screaming—into their phone. I tiptoe to Dad’s room. The headboard has shelves on the side, and I look through the books: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, Haiku: This Other World by Richard Wright.
I think about what Grandpa Earl said, how Dad’s old tapes are here somewhere. I want to find them. The first place I look is in the closet across from the bed. I have to stand on a chair to reach the top shelf, which has sealed plastic containers. I take one down, open it. It is full of quilts and blankets. I put it back and take down another. This one has more photo albums and stacks of Polaroid pictures.
There is a second closet in his bedroom, so I go over there. There are no tapes, but there are notebooks. I open the one on the top—it’s blue, and the bottom of the cover is loose from the silver rings. Dad’s handwriting fills the pages. His poems. I carry the container across the hall to Aunt Tracey’s room just in case Dad gets back soon.
I sit on the edge of the bed taking in all of Dad’s words. It feels like I’m eavesdropping on a conversation I shouldn’t be hearing, like I am finding out his secrets.
I turn through the pages and flip to the back of the journal. The top of the page says, Things I Want to Do Before I Die. The first thing on the list says, Perform at the Nuyorican Cafe. I don’t know if Dad ever did that, but I scroll down his list and see some of the things he has definitely accomplished: Get Married … Work at Nike … Travel to Japan.
And then the last thing on the list that I’m not even sure he still cares about: Have Dad Listen to My Poetry.
15
“You want to go get some breakfast? I know you’ve got to be tired of oatmeal.” Dad is standing in the doorway, already dressed.
I get out of bed. “And after breakfast what are we going to do?”
“I’m going to walk you over to Tracey’s house so you can hang out with Nina and Ava.”
“But, Dad, when are we going to spend time together? It’s already—”
“Amara, I told you several times—this is a business trip for me.”
There’s no use in complaining, so I just get ready. As we walk down the sidewalk, Dad says, “You’re about to eat the best breakfast sandwich of your life.” He zips his coat.
“Better than McDonald’s Sausage, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle?” I ask.
“Oh, you have no idea. After you eat this, you will never want McDonald’s again.”
I doubt that.
We walk to the corner store, and when we get in, I am thinking Dad made a mistake because there is nothing in here but chips and soda, random household items and freezers full of pints of ice cream and Popsicles. A cat strolls by, yawning, and finds a comfortable spot at the back of the store to lie down. “We’re ordering food here?” I ask.
Dad walks up to the counter, and even though there’s no menu posted anywhere, he orders. “Can I get two sausage, egg, and cheese on a roll?”
“Butter?”
“Light.
”
“Okay, boss,” the man says. He yells the order over to another guy who is standing at an open grill. The cook cracks a few eggs, and they sizzle on the hot iron.
Dad tells me to pick something to drink from the tall coolers lined against the walls. I get a bottle of apple juice and an orange juice for Dad. We eat our sandwiches on the way back to Aunt Tracey’s. Dad says, “Told you it would be the best breakfast sandwich you’ve ever had.”
“I didn’t say it was the best, Dad.”
“Yes, you did. By not saying a word, you’ve told me all I need to know.” He smiles and takes a bite of his breakfast.
He’s right. But I don’t have to tell him.
We walk three blocks, and then Dad stops in front of an apartment building and says, “We’re here.”
We walk into the lobby of the building, and Dad hits a buzzer next to a glass door. I hear Ava’s voice, “Who’s there?”
“It’s Uncle Charles and Amara.”
“Hello?” Ava yells.
Dad repeats himself.
There is silence, and then a buzzer sounds off. Dad grabs the door quick. We walk to an elevator, and Dad hits the button. We stand for a moment, but nothing dings and the door doesn’t open right way. Dad opens the heavy door, says, “Old-school elevators. You’ve never been on these before, huh?”
“Never,” I say, and I feel like I’ve stepped back in time, but I try not to make a big deal of it because I can just see Ava rolling her eyes at me saying, What’s the big deal, it’s just an elevator.
We get off at the tenth floor.
When we enter Aunt Tracey’s apartment, the first thing I notice is how compact everything is. The kitchen can probably only fit two people comfortably at a time, and the dining room really isn’t a room but a space in the corner before you enter the living room. But just like Grandpa Earl’s house, the walls are covered with photos.
