Clayton Byrd Goes Underground

by Rita Williams-Garcia

  Jelly Bones shut his mouth fast and tight in mid-laugh.

  Clayton couldn’t help it. His eyes filled up. One tear fell. Then another.

  Beat Box had nothing to drop inside a plastic bag, but Boom Box’s dead boom box went into one. Jelly Bones’s fuzzy white Kangol cap went reluctantly into another. The truth was, the cap had stopped being white long before Clayton had first spotted it and the wolf pack on the platform hours ago. It was only now that Clayton could see the cap’s color. Dingy, but not as dirty as Train Ear’s tank top.

  Clayton wiped his eyes and then shifted them to Grizzly Bear without turning his head. He watched Grizzly Bear take Cool Papa’s hat off Train Ear’s head and drop it in the plastic bag along with the mess of dollar bills and coins he removed from Train Ear’s pockets.

  “Yo! That’s my money!” Train Ear said.

  “Our money!” the others said.

  Clayton wiped his face fast. “That’s my hat!”

  Writing Cop said to Clayton, “So, you do know these guys.”

  Clayton almost said, “I don’t.” Which was true. He didn’t know them like he knew Omar. Or the lizard that darted in and out of the rock den inside the cage next to his desk.

  Clayton said nothing.

  “Okay, Twinkle Toes,” Writing Cop said to Train Ear, Jelly Bones, Boom Box, Beat Box, and Clayton, “Looks like you ballerinas have all earned an official escort to the ball. But first, the bracelets.”

  One by one, Clayton and the Beat Boys filed out of the police van and were led into the station, their hands behind their backs, bound by plastic strip handcuffs.

  Cool Papa’s words had been with Clayton from the time he’d sat on the train. Look sharp. Be cool. But those words wouldn’t help him. The plastic strips choked off the blood flowing to his hands. With his head hung low and his chin on his chest, Clayton walked the line carrying within him all he felt Cool Papa had left to give him: ghost notes, wails, and the moans from deep down that Cool Papa made in between his once-hot guitar licks.

  Clayton felt only the numbness in his wrists and the wail in his gut. He could cry. Deep down he could really cry.

  When they came upon a small room, Young Square Cop cut the handcuffs off Clayton, Beat Box, Boom Box, and Jelly Bones, but he didn’t cut Train Ear’s handcuffs.

  Clayton rubbed his wrists and wiped his eyes. Beat Box kicked Clayton’s sneaker. “Quit it, yo.”

  Clayton didn’t know if he meant quit crying or quit rubbing his wrists. He didn’t care.

  Clayton entered the small room first. Its cinder-block walls had been painted and repainted in a bright whitish-yellow that made Clayton’s eyes hurt. He sat on one of the two benches.

  Writing Cop said, “You better pray your guardian angel shows up before nine. Family court is closed for the weekend and the social worker will be gone. If your guardian doesn’t show, you stay until Monday.”

  “In this room?” Clayton asked.

  The boys all laughed.

  The cop said, “Not here. You’ll be on the bus to detention. Your guardian can pick you up there. Except you,” he said to Train Ear, whose hands were still bound behind his back.

  “What did I do?” Train Ear asked, although the time to act innocent was over. “Why I got these on?”

  Writing Cop said, “You’re going someplace special.”

  “Aw, man,” Train Ear said.

  “Let’s go,” Grizzly Bear said.

  Grizzly, Writing Cop, Young Square Cop, and Train Ear left.

  Clayton stopped wiping his face but he couldn’t stop rubbing his wrists. He could still see the impression of the plastic strips that dug into his skin. He still felt the strain in his shoulders from having his arms and hands behind his back.

  The bench was hard but the waiting was harder. He wanted his mother to come soon, but he didn’t want to face her.

  If ever he needed the deep-down blues, now was his time.

  His hand went for his pocket, but his blues harp wasn’t there. He closed his eyes to hear the blues. To hear the words about searching for “up” when everything around him pulled him down. It was his own blues. His own words. His own voice.

  “Yo, Clay Bird. You still crying?” Beat Box asked.

  Clayton knew the boy’s name. His real name. But he was still Beat Box to Clayton.

  “You scared to go to detention?” Boom Box asked.

  “You’re not?” Clayton asked back.

  Beat Box shrugged. “We’re inside. Better than the cold. They’re going to feed us something.” He shrugged again.

  “He scared of that whipping from his mama or his pops. You got a pops, Clay Bird?” Boom Box asked.

  “He doesn’t live with us,” Clayton said.

  “Ours don’t either,” Beat Box said.

  “Or our moms,” Boom Box said.

  Jelly Bones closed his eyes. “Wake me when they take us to D.”

  Beat Box said, “Wish you had your harp, man. Wish we could make some noise.”

  Then outside the door Clayton heard, “Ms. Juanita Byrd? Yes. We have your son. He’s here.”

  GUARDIAN ANGEL

  When the officer called, “Clayton Byrd,” Clayton stood up. He turned mostly to Beat Box but fumbled for something to say.

  Beat Box spoke up first. “Looks like your guardian angel flew in.”

  Guardian angel, Clayton thought.

  “You out, man?” Boom Box asked.

  “Yeah, man,” Clayton said. “I’m out.”

  Boom Box offered a nod and said, “Peace, Clay Bird.”

  “Peace,” Clayton said.

  Jelly Bones snored.

  “Play that harp, man,” Beat Box said.

  “Make some noise,” Clayton said back, although he thought Beat Box, Boom Box, and Jelly Bones could use some blues.

  Clayton stepped into the hallway. He could hear Beat Box and Boom Box going “caw, caw, caw” behind him. He wanted to smile, but his mother stood before him in her white hospital shoes.

  “Clayton,” she whispered. Her voice was crumbly and soft.

  “Hi, Mom,” he said.

  Her face was red. Puffy. He stepped toward her.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  He nodded, then said, “I’m okay.”

  She exhaled and looked up to the ceiling, patting her foot, wringing her hands. She wiped her face, wiped her eyes, and exhaled again.

  “Clayton . . .”

  He waited for more. Waited for what he had coming. She looked so different to him.

  “Where have you been? What are you doing in the city? What’s all this about running with a street gang? Why are your pants ripped? Why didn’t you go to Omar’s? What were you thinking? Jail! Of all places, jail?”

  Words poured out of her like air gushing from a balloon. Her voice was now anchored, clear and fast. Clayton heard only the sounds of her words coming at him.

  “And you’re filthy. You think you’re in trouble? You don’t know trouble. Wait until I get you home.”

  “Ms. Byrd.” The desk sergeant spoke up. “Property’s right down the hall.” He pointed and they followed. Clayton’s mother was still talking.

  “Name,” the property officer stated.

  Clayton spoke up. “Clayton Byrd.”

  The officer got up, went to a cubby, and returned with a plastic bag containing the book bag and the blues harp, which he placed on the desk.

  Ms. Byrd glared at the bag and its contents. At least some of the anger that Clayton had felt came back to him.

  “Sign,” the officer said to Ms. Byrd.

  Clayton took the bag.

  “There’s a hat back there too,” Clayton said. “It’s mine.”

  “Sorry,” the clerk said. “I can only give you what’s in your bag.”

  “But the brown hat’s mine. I don’t want the money. I just want the hat. It’s mine. That dude just took it.”

  “What hat?” Ms. Byrd asked. “You mean that old brown hat? Your gra
ndfather’s hat? As far as I’m concerned, officer, you can keep it. And you!” she said to Clayton. “You just wait.”

  She was back, Clayton thought. The mother who took his things was back, and the mother who might have been a little sorry had disappeared.

  The property clerk went back to a cubby, opened the plastic bag containing the hat and the money, and pulled out the hat.

  “Take your hat,” he said.

  “But officer, I said I don’t want him to have it,” Clayton’s mother said.

  “It’s his hat,” the officer said. “You just confirmed it. What you do when you leave is up to you.”

  Clayton gave the officer a nod and followed his mother out of the police station. He wiped the inside of the felt hat. Wiped it good and then waved it in the night air as he walked to keep up with his mother.

  “Put your seat belt on,” she said when he got in the car. Clayton watched the clock on the dashboard from the time they got into the car until they arrived home. That was all she said for thirty-seven minutes. Which was fine with Clayton.

  When they pulled into their driveway, Ms. Byrd said, “First, I get a call from Omar’s mom, and we are both hysterical, trying to figure out what happened to you. When I get home, the school had left a message on the answering machine saying you were absent. Then, I get a call from the police. Clayton, you have no idea what you put us all through. Omar. His mother. Your father. Your aunts and uncles. Me.”

  Clayton took it in. He tried to imagine Omar waiting for him on the afternoon school bus. Omar’s mom asking, “Where’s Clayton?” His mother speeding home to find him. His family worried. None of this had been part of his plan.

  His mother was still talking. “You have no idea. You have no idea what you’ve done to yourself—” Each word in its own box. “You have no idea what you’ve done to your life. All because of that thing.” She meant his harp. “And that hat. I ought to throw it where it belongs. In the trash.”

  Her words made whatever remorse he felt disappear. “You can’t take my hat!” Clayton shouted. “It’s all I have left.”

  “You broke my angel!” she shouted at him.

  “You took my blues harp!”

  “My mother gave me those angels. My mother!” she screamed at him. Not like his mother, but like a little girl.

  “Well you took EVERYTHING from me. You didn’t care where Cool Papa’s things went. You just gave them away like they were nothing.”

  “He was my father, and those things were mine to get rid of.”

  “He was my grandfather, and he left those things for me,” Clayton said. He had never said so much to his mother. Now, he couldn’t stop. “You hated your own father. You didn’t love him.”

  She pointed her finger at him. “Boy, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You gave away his guitars, and those were mine. You gave away his favorite guitar, and he named it after you.”

  “Do you think it’s easy, growing up without a father? Do you think it’s easy having a father who loves his guitars and the road more than he loves you?”

  “At least I loved Cool Papa the way he was.”

  “So now you think you know something. Out in the world. End up in jail. I’m trying to save you from what’s out there. I’m trying to save you from yourself.”

  Her face was getting puffy again, but Clayton didn’t care. He said, “I don’t want you to save me. I want Cool Papa!”

  She pointed her finger at him again and started to say something. Then she turned her head away to look out the window. “Boy. Go inside. Run your bath.”

  MS. BYRD AND MR. MILLER

  Clayton was now clean, dry, and wearing pajamas. He didn’t want to go downstairs but he was hungry. He crept almost halfway down the stairs when he heard his mother say, “I can’t deal with him right now. Come and get your son.”

  Clayton didn’t wait for her to tell him to get dressed or to pack. He was in his room throwing clothes and comic books into his overnight bag. The usual things he packed when he stayed overnight at his father’s house. He didn’t bother to change out of his pajamas. He kept them on and yanked a baseball jacket off its hanger. He’d never worn it before. Baseball was his father’s thing, not his. But the jacket was new and clean and he was ready for new and clean. Still, he put Cool Papa’s porkpie hat in the overnight bag. Cool Papa’s hat would get crushed in the small bag, but it had survived so much.

  Clayton put on his baseball jacket, tucked his blues harp in the jacket’s deep pocket, and then sat by the window.

  Within minutes his father’s car was parking in the driveway behind his mother’s car. He watched his father get out and walk toward the front door. He pulled back the curtain and waved.

  His father looked up to Clayton’s room, stood for a few seconds under the porch light, and waved back.

  Clayton grabbed his overnight bag and ran down the stairs.

  His mother stood before the door, her arms folded.

  “Now, you just wait a minute,” she told Clayton. Then she opened the door and let his father in. Mr. Miller kissed her on the cheek and stepped inside.

  “Jailbird,” his father said to Clayton.

  “Dad,” Clayton said, feeling foolish.

  “That’s not funny, Albert,” his mother said.

  “I’m sorry,” Clayton’s father told her, although he didn’t look too sorry. To Clayton he said, “Kiss your mother, and get in the car.”

  Clayton gave his father a look. “Aw, man.”

  “Kiss your mother,” his father repeated. “I’ll be a minute.”

  Clayton sighed. “A minute” meant five or ten.

  Clayton turned to his mother. She looked at him. He looked at her. She tilted her face to the side and he kissed her quickly where his father had kissed her.

  “Bye,” he said, and turned to walk away.

  “You just wait,” his mother said, and wrapped her arms around him.

  After more than he could stand, Clayton said, “Okay, Mom.” He eased his way out of her arms, gave his father a slug, and walked toward the car.

  Ms. Byrd and Mr. Miller watched Clayton open the car door and get inside. They turned to each other.

  “Who are you really angry at?” Mr. Miller asked. “Clayton, me, or Papa?”

  “Don’t call him that. He was nobody’s Papa. Least of all yours.”

  “I beg to differ,” Mr. Miller said. “He was Clayton’s ‘Cool Papa.’ He loved that boy and that boy loves him. And he was pretty good to me.”

  “Well, he was no father to me.”

  Mr. Miller shrugged and raised his eyebrows the way Clayton shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “Maybe. But you can’t erase Papa and who he was. You got to let that boy love Papa. Or you get this.”

  “You’re making excuses for his behavior,” Ms. Byrd said. “Acting up in school, then ditching school and joining up with some gang and”—she took a breath, shook her head, blinked her eyes like someone imagining an awful, awful sight—“getting arrested by the police. By the police.” Her voice quaked like it had in the police station.

  Mr. Miller grabbed her hands. “I know. I know. We are very lucky.”

  “And he broke my mother’s angel!” Ms. Byrd snatched her hands away. Her voice was once again in control of itself.

  “What?”

  “He didn’t just break it,” Ms. Byrd went on. “No. Your son smashed it to pieces so it can’t be fixed.”

  Mr. Miller looked at her. Hard. “Juanita Byrd, do you hear yourself? Do you?”

  “He’s out of control,” Ms. Byrd said.

  “He’s hurting,” Mr. Miller said.

  “That boy doesn’t know the meaning of hurting.”

  Mr. Miller smiled. “Tough talk, Wah-Wah Nita. Your face is still puffy from crying.”

  Ms. Byrd pointed her finger at Mr. Miller. “Do not call me that.”

  “Why? Reminds you of Papa?”

  “He wasn’t your Papa.”

&nb
sp; “But he was Clayton’s Papa,” Mr. Miller said. “Look, Juanita. We can do this till the cows come home. But we need to talk. All of us. We have to face it. We’re all hurting. We’re all angry. Now, go back inside. Finish crying. I’ll bring him back when he’s ready.” Then he added, “When you’re ready too.”

  BELIEVE

  “Son,” his father said when he got in the car. “Clayton.”

  “I’m hungry,” Clayton said. He was cold, too. And tired.

  “Don’t worry. I got you,” his father said. “Fish sticks and spaghetti.” He turned to Clayton. “All right with you?”

  “All right,” Clayton said. His father didn’t make his favorite meal the way Cool Papa did. Cool Papa fried the fish sticks and poured ketchup on the spaghetti. His father nuked the fish sticks and used marinara. But that was all right. Spaghetti and fish sticks was what he wanted.

  “We have to talk,” his father said. “We have to talk.”

  Clayton was tired and hungry. “Can we talk tomorrow?”

  His father shook his head no and said, “You can’t do that, Clayton. You can’t take off like that.” His father spoke calmly. Clearly. His voice didn’t break like his mother’s, but Clayton could feel the difference from how his father usually spoke. “You’re old enough to know what could happen to you out there. Suppose instead of, ‘Ms. Byrd, your son has been picked up,’ your mother heard, ‘Ms. Byrd, there’s been an accident.’ Suppose instead of coming to get you, suppose I was coming to see you at the morgue.” His father looked straight ahead. He was still shaking his head.

  Clayton didn’t know what to say to any of that. None of it had occurred to him. Only getting through the day. He let his father drive. Then he asked, “Why does she hate Cool Papa?”

  Albert Miller cleared his throat, wiped his eyes, and said, “Your mother doesn’t hate her father.”

  Clayton looked at his father. The truth was one thing he could count on from Mr. Miller. “Why won’t you marry my mother?” “Because she won’t marry me.” Now, his father was lying to him.

  “She hates everything about him,” he said.

  “Not everything.”