Clayton Byrd Goes Underground

by Rita Williams-Garcia

  As with most things, Ms. Byrd got her way. Instead of hopping on the school bus with Omar, the next day Clayton found himself waiting to speak to Pastor Early.

  Clayton thought only he was being made to talk to someone, although he didn’t want to talk to Pastor Early or anyone else. But there he sat on the bench outside Pastor Early’s study while his mother spoke to the pastor first, and for too long a time.

  Clayton grew tired of sitting and waiting. He pulled out his blues harp. There was a hymn they sang in church that he liked. What Cool Papa called a “southern hymn.” He played softly, but drew in deeply to sink the notes low and hard, just short of bending them to make the song truly bluesy. It might as well have been a blues song, the way it asked a question that needed an answer.

  What wondrous love is this, oh my soul?

  Clayton closed his eyes and spun the melody farther and farther away from its simple original tune. He wondered about the moment that Cool Papa left his body behind. As he got further into his blues-soaked answer, the door opened and his mother stepped out of Pastor Early’s office. Her face was red and swollen.

  Clayton wanted to say something nice or comforting to her, but she wiped her eyes quickly.

  “Clayton! Where do you think you are, playing that music?” If her voice was at all shaky, it was now steady.

  Pastor Early said in his booming pulpit voice, “Who’s making that fine, fine music out there?” He stood at the door.

  “Give me that thing,” his mother said.

  Clayton shoved his blues harp in his pocket.

  “Had one just like it,” Pastor Early said, trying to coax a smile out of Clayton. “Come on in, son. Have a seat.” Then to Ms. Byrd, he said, “We’ll be a few minutes,” and he closed the door.

  “I understand your grandfather was a fine musician.”

  “Bluesman,” Clayton said.

  “Indeed,” the pastor said. “Indeed.”

  When Clayton was younger, about six, he thought Pastor Early was God. His mother said one Sunday that they were going to the house of God, and Clayton was anxious to see him. After all, Clayton was made to pray to Him before he ate and before he slept. It was about time he’d actually see this God. Sure enough, when they arrived, the big man with the big voice said “Welcome to the house of God” to Clayton, his mother, and all the visitors. It was after the service, when he asked Pastor Early to marry his father and mother, that he had learned the truth. He stood before the pastor and shouted, “You said there was nothing God wouldn’t give! ‘Ask and it shall be given.’” His mother scolded him, but Pastor Early laughed heartily and said, “I’m glad you were listening, son, but—”

  Clayton didn’t want to hear the “but.” He cut off the pastor and asked, “Aren’t you all-powerful and all-knowing?” His mother was embarrassed and cried out, “Clayton!”

  From then on, Clayton attended church every Sunday because he was being made to go. He joined the children’s choir to be close to music that sounded like the blues his grandfather played. But Clayton didn’t listen to the sermons, and he said “amen” only when it was a word in a song.

  Clayton sat down but had nothing to say.

  “How are you feeling, young man?”

  “Okay,” Clayton said.

  “You don’t have to say you’re okay if you’re not,” the pastor said.

  Clayton said nothing. He looked around the office. There was one nice thing on the pastor’s desk. A perfect cube made up of smaller cubes. Blue, yellow, orange, green, red, and white. A Rubik’s Cube. He’d heard of them, and now he was staring at one.

  Clayton, who was typically cool, was thoroughly drawn to the object.

  Pastor Early nodded. “Go ahead. Hold it. Figure it out.”

  Clayton didn’t hesitate. He took it, tossed it up for a quick catch to see if it came apart, and then he began twisting and turning the colored cubes. He started with blue, his favorite color.

  While he worked on the cube, Pastor Early explained why Cool Papa died and what happened next. He spoke mainly about suffering and being released from suffering. Being called home “when it’s your time.”

  The pastor was wrong, Clayton thought. Cool Papa Byrd didn’t beg to be released from earthly suffering. He hadn’t been sick or wasting away like Grandma Irene. He didn’t take pills. Didn’t need an oxygen tank, a cane, a walker. Didn’t have emergencies. He might have been older than most people Clayton knew, but Cool Papa wasn’t old or weak. He could get down with his electric guitar in Washington Square Park and make the crowd holler for more. One night he was reading the bedtime book from the watcher’s chair with his eye on Clayton. By early morning he was gone. But he was never sick or suffering, nor did he pray to be released or to be called home.

  Not like Grandma Irene. She had gotten so sick that Cool Papa had come off the road for good to stay with her. Every day Clayton asked his mother, “Did she die yet?” Clayton’s mother only said, “No, angel,” until one day she just cried and cried.

  After Grandma Irene’s funeral, Clayton had returned to first grade like nothing had happened. In fact, he was happy. Happy they kept the lid closed on her coffin, because she had long ago stopped looking like herself. He couldn’t tell his mother those things, but he told Cool Papa. And Cool Papa said, “Little Man, I know just what you mean.” And then Cool Papa taught him his first blues scale on the harp.

  But that wasn’t how Cool Papa had left him. And there was no one to tell about how he felt about Cool Papa leaving. Even if Pastor Early repeated what Cool Papa had said—“Little Man, I know just what you mean”—Clayton doubted the pastor knew anything.

  No, Clayton told himself. It wasn’t Cool Papa’s time. It wasn’t.

  But somewhere in all of his talking, the pastor said the word road, as in “making our own journey on the road of life,” and something clicked! Something he’d been told at Cool Papa’s farewell. It was a miracle! The pastor said the magic word, and the final cube twisted into place.

  “Right!” Clayton told himself. Or so he thought.

  The pastor only smiled and continued talking.

  By the winding-down tones in Pastor Early’s voice, Clayton knew his time sitting across from the pastor was coming to an end. It was like counting and hearing the chord changes. He could always hear the changes in the music, know what it meant and what he had to do.

  He put the cube down.

  When he stepped outside the pastor’s office, his mother was right there. She’d forgotten about taking Clayton’s blues harp away and kissed him on the forehead, which he wiped with his jacket sleeve.

  “You feel better, angel?”

  Clayton shrugged.

  She thanked the pastor for giving them his time and said, “What do you say, Clayton?”

  Clayton turned around, stuck out his hand, and when Pastor Early shook it, Clayton said, “Good-bye.”

  “Clayton! Say thank you! Say, ‘Thank you, Pastor Early.’”

  He didn’t understand why he was thanking the pastor, but he understood his mother was mad and embarrassed and would blame his blues harp for his rudeness.

  “Thanks, man,” Clayton said.

  “You’re welcome, man,” the pastor said back. To both Clayton and Ms. Byrd he said, “Next time, I want to see you both. Together.”

  Ms. Byrd made the same silence as Clayton. A surprised silence.

  STAY AWAKE

  The next morning, Ms. Byrd told Clayton, “No more falling asleep in class.”

  “What if I can’t help it?” He asked this sincerely, and not in his usual shruggy, cool manner. Clayton wasn’t dumb. He knew The Four Corners of the World wasn’t just a book; it was the bedtime book that sent him off on adventures that folded into a world of dreaming. Even when he read the book himself, he heard Cool Papa’s voice. He couldn’t put his sleeping in class into words, and even if he could, what would it matter? His mother would only blame Cool Papa for one more thing.

  “Clayton,” his mot
her said. “You slept eight and a half hours. That’s how I know you can help it. You’re too well rested to fall asleep during class.”

  “But sometimes I really can’t help it.” He hoped she believed him. He hoped she’d call him “angel”—not that he wanted to be called that all the time. He only knew his mother believed him or wanted to believe him when she thought he was her angel.

  Ms. Byrd said firmly, “Tell yourself, ‘I must not sleep in class. I must not sleep in class.’ You’ll be all right.”

  “But what if that doesn’t work?” he asked.

  “If that doesn’t work, pinch yourself hard the minute you feel your eyelids drooping.” She grabbed his wrists, looked him in both eyes, and said, “Now, promise me you’ll stay awake.”

  The bus driver honked the horn and Clayton freed himself, then grabbed his book bag.

  “Bye, Mom,” he said quickly. But he didn’t promise he’d stay awake.

  “Yo, Sleepster!”

  “SleepSTAH!”

  It wasn’t only his classmates calling him that, but everyone on the bus was doing it, too. Sleepster. He didn’t hate it, but he didn’t like it, either.

  Ms. Treadwell smiled when he walked in and placed an envelope from his mother on her desk. She didn’t make a big fuss about his return, which Clayton liked.

  His mother was right about being well rested, he thought. He felt alert and ready. Restless. It wasn’t fun being away from things, especially if his mother stayed home with him and he couldn’t play his blues harp. He’d rather be in school.

  Clayton was having a fairly good school day. He sang “The Colors of the Sun” along with his class, and he solved a math problem. He volunteered to read a paragraph aloud during Social Studies, but didn’t feel like helping his team advance the soccer ball in gym. Too much running. As long as he was quiet in his disobedience, he figured he was okay. Finally came lunch, and after lunch there was reading. The class was now up to chapters five and six. It didn’t matter that he knew what happened in those chapters. He worried about actually reading in class and keeping his eyes open. He repeated his mother’s words as he opened his book. “I must not sleep in class. I must not sleep in class.”

  Clayton got into the groove of reading and chanting. He found that he could read the words on the page and silently chant at the same time. It was like counting while playing the blues harp. He could do both.

  He could also steal glances at the lizard when it moved, swinging its tail from side to side. Tilting his head, Clayton saw the lizard, frozen where it stood atop the rock den. The lizard shot its tongue out and then disappeared into patches of clover. That made Clayton smile. He liked that lizard.

  Clayton heard pages turning around him, so he rejoined Pablo de Pablo on his journey and shortened his chant to “Stay awake, man. Stay awake.”

  His neighbor Alma giggled so he whispered, “Stay awake, man. Stay awake.”

  But the drowsy feeling was coming in waves. Small waves, like the first waves that met Pablo de Pablo and his boat. Then larger waves, crashing and pulling. Clayton’s eyelids began to flutter.

  “Stay awake, man. Stay awake.”

  Pablo de Pablo, by most measures, was a boy—and a small one at that. Rising toward him came a group of men. Small men. Smaller than he was tall. Yet still, they were men. They came by the hundreds, chanting words unfamiliar to his ears.

  Clayton couldn’t see them, but he could feel them. Small men by the hundreds surrounding him, dancing on his head and latching on to his eyelids.

  “No,” he said aloud, and pinched himself. Hard.

  That helped. For one whole page. He had shaken the small men off and away from him. At least most of them.

  Clayton tried. He really tried. How he tried to stop the men from climbing down his head and pulling him down deep into sleep, but Cool Papa’s voice in his head was getting to the good part of the story.

  Deep in his heart Pablo de Pablo feared the small men. There were so many of them and there was only one of him. And then he remembered! He had the most wonderful gift to offer, and walked boldly to greet the throng of men.

  Clayton stopped chanting altogether as he read. He felt the words on the page lulling him to go deeper into the adventure. His breathing became sleep-heavy while his body no longer fought to stay upright and alert. His mouth slackened like a wet, boingy rubber band, and before he could do anything about it, his head teetered, tottered. Then, THUNK! His forehead hit his desk.

  He snorted a big snore and awakened and cried, “OW!”—each thing happening on top of the other.

  His classmates roared with laughter, but his forehead smarted. When he looked up, holding his head, Ms. Treadwell stood before him, tapping her toe. It wasn’t a music-loving toe-tap.

  SCOLDING TONES

  Everyone saw Clayton leave the school with his mother. Some had even laughed at him and teased him about the whipping he had coming.

  Clayton wasn’t worried about a whipping. His mother wasn’t the whipping kind. She’d take away his treasures first, the things he loved, and the things he loved to do. But she didn’t believe in whipping. She did, however, believe in scolding.

  Clayton’s mother scolded from the time they left the school to the time she drove home to the time they got in the house. Even when she wasn’t out-and-out scolding, she spoke in scolding tones. In you-know-betters, what’s-gotten-into-yous. She said over and over, “Your grandfather’s passing is no excuse for this behavior.”

  Clayton remained silent through the scolding. He couldn’t tell her what was wrong if he wanted to. He didn’t understand it all himself. Even if he could tell her, she would only blame Cool Papa, and Clayton was tired of her being angry at the person he loved the most. He said nothing.

  “You can’t just do as you want to because you want to.”

  But Clayton hadn’t done a thing he wanted to do. He didn’t want to read the book, but he didn’t want to fall asleep in class, either. He wanted to jam with his grandfather. Be with his grandfather. But his grandfather was gone. The Bluesmen were ready to hit the road again. If he did what he wanted, he’d go on the road with the Bluesmen. And the thought popped into his mind again, like it did when he sat in the pastor’s office and figured things out with the Rubik’s Cube. It wasn’t like a fleeting idea that disappeared like waking dreams, but like something that could be real.

  “You’ve been nothing but disruptive in class.”

  “I couldn’t help it.”

  “Your teacher assigns the book to the class but it’s not the book you want to read, so you tell the teacher you don’t want to read it.”

  “That’s because I already read it.”

  “That’s not the point, Clayton. You don’t listen. You’re just like your father.”

  That wasn’t what he expected. She always said, “You’re just like your grandfather,” which he had always taken to be a good thing no matter how angrily she said it. But his father? Even though his mother made sure he spent one weekend out of the month with Mr. Miller, Ms. Byrd rarely spoke of him. She’d ask if they had a good time when he went on his monthly visit, and what did they eat? But that was about all.

  “You can’t just do what you want. Take off and go where you want. Have everything your way.”

  Clayton didn’t answer because he didn’t know who she was talking about. Him? His grandfather? Or maybe his father.

  It couldn’t have been him. She didn’t know about his playing in Washington Square Park with Cool Papa and the Bluesmen. If she’d known, he would have heard about it in scolding tones from sunup until sundown for nearly the rest of his life.

  His mother couldn’t have meant his father, who’d missed one monthly visit because of a business trip. His father wasn’t the “take off and go” kind. In fact, his father offered to pick Clayton up every other weekend, but Ms. Byrd always said, “Not yet.”

  Clayton knew exactly who she meant. Ms. Byrd was still angry with Cool Papa. He had been the one wh
o’d taken off and gone when the sea or the road called. That’s who she was mad at this time. And him. His mother was angry at him, too.

  “You can’t make it by following your own tune,” his mother said.

  Tune! Of course she meant Cool Papa Byrd. And the blues.

  “I want you to succeed in this world,” she said as she marched up the stairs. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.”

  Just like Clayton could read the tones and nods and ghost notes of Cool Papa’s guitar-playing, he could read what it meant when her usual scolding tones changed to something more hard and firm. He knew she had come to a decision, and he was afraid of what that decision could be. He followed her, running to catch up, all the while chanting “Nomommynomommynomommy” the way kids plead to be spared the belt. He hadn’t called her “Mommy” since he was a little kid, but “Nomommy” was all that poured out of his mouth.

  She marched to his room. He was close behind her. She threw back the pillow where his silver blues harp lay. Clayton dove for it, but Ms. Byrd was faster and snatched it in one clean swipe.

  “No more blues,” she said, waving the silver harp. “No more of this low-down sound in this house.”

  She turned on her heel and took the blues harp into her room, her white marshmallow soles thumping.

  The next sound he heard was a drawer slam.

  A pain shot into his gut. A deep-down pain. But he didn’t cry. Wouldn’t cry.

  THE PLAN

  Clayton Byrd went to bed that night with a lot of anger, but also with a plan. He thrashed about, kicking the covers away. He was too angry to hear the music in his mind that had put him to sleep for the past two weeks since Cool Papa died. He was too angry to close his eyes to hear the sweet, sleepy melody of their last midnight jam. Clayton didn’t want to imagine the sound of his blues harp. He wanted to hold his blues harp and sink it down between his lips while he savored those notes and chords. But his blues harp might as well have been an ocean away. All he could hear was the sound of a drawer slamming, over and over. So he came up with a plan as he lay in the dark.