by Desmond Hall
Frankie felt a fleck of embarrassment for his dad. “He’s looking, Uncle.” His father had been out of work for half a year now—but he refused to take Frankie’s money for groceries or anything. Samson’s freakin’ pride was a roadblock. He was going into the bushes to get their food every day, digging yams, picking bananas and grapefruits. No way was Frankie going to tell his uncle that.
Joe spat, leaned closer and closer to a guava tree, inspecting it. Then he began to prune the dry limbs with an intensity that reminded Frankie… of Samson. Joe paused. “Your father can give help but him can’t take help.” He started back at the branches.
It was true. Samson would help out other people even before family. Not a month ago, Frankie had found a basket full of yams, breadfruit, and mangoes on the doorstep as he was heading to school. A note was taped to the basket. Childlike handwriting said that the family down the road had sent it. Samson had built them a new roof and hadn’t charged, because, “They got it hard, Frankie. Not like us.”
Frankie had brought the package inside, already anticipating feasting on the mangoes after school; he was completely sick of the bananas. But Samson read the note, folded it back up, then gestured for Frankie to take the basket and follow him.
Twenty minutes later, along a dirt trail, the sun already hot, his school uniform soaked with sweat, Frankie wished he’d just left that freaking basket on the doorstep.
Finally his father pointed at a ramshackle house almost swallowed up by vegetation. An elderly couple lived there—so frail they rarely came into town.
Frankie got the gist immediately. He set down the basket, pulled out paper and pencil from his backpack to write a new note.
“Put that away,” his father whispered, taking the fruit and heading toward the shack. He left the basket by the door, then hurried back to Frankie.
When they were out of earshot, Frankie asked why they hadn’t left a note.
“You hold open a door fi somebody to say thank you or you do it because you feel it is the right thing?”
Frankie could almost taste those juicy mangoes—even now. It wasn’t like they couldn’t have used the extra food. But that was his father. It wasn’t that he was too proud to take charity—though that had to be part of it—it was more that Samson didn’t need to tell the old couple about the gift he left on their doorstep in order to feel good about what he’d done. Frankie’s friends at school always sported big grins and bright eyes when they reported a new like on their Instagram. Frankie’d want likes too, if he was on Instagram, which required a phone, which he didn’t have either. But his father, not so much. He was an old Jamaican man, from another time.
* * *
“You like my vineyard?” Joe was asking, standing back up, apparently satisfied with the weed-to-tree ratio in front of him. He swung his arm in a wide arc toward skinny, three-foot-tall marijuana plants, row after row after row of them, every other one set in small tires with its own soil, a trick to get more minerals from the rockier areas. His own Rastafarian Eden. The last time Frankie had been up here, the plants were barely seedlings.
What a complicated pride ran in his family, Frankie thought.
“Business must be good, Uncle.”
“Can be better. Me always looking for more good people.” Joe let the hint sink in.
“If I run into any, I’ll send them your way, Uncle.”
Joe gazed up at the moon for an uncomfortably long time, but Frankie stayed quiet. A firefly blinked by. Finally Joe said, “Come, Frankie, it’s late. Ice Box can give you a ride home. Don’t worry about Garnett. Soap and water isn’t afraid of dirty clothes.” He bunched his dreads in his hand. “Me going to send Blow Up down to talk with Garnett’s mother. She’s a reasonable woman. We will work it out.”
As they returned to the clearing, the clench in Frankie’s back muscles eased. He hadn’t started a gang war.
“Coming to my party Sunday evening? Me going to have it down in Troy. Get the people excited for the election.”
That Frankie could say yes to! “Can’t wait, Uncle.” A Joe party was a good party, always. He caught the waft of fragrance—a flowering jasmine bush must be in bloom.
Joe suddenly reached into the air and closed his fist. When he opened it, three fireflies floated away, blinking their lights against the nighttime sky. It looked like magic.
Five
frankie’s father had once told him that the old breadfruit tree—trunk broad as the door of their house and stretching five times as high—had been there longer than the town had. Frankie couldn’t imagine how it could have been there for almost a hundred years. He’d heard that in America there were Sequoia trees that were over three thousand years old. If he got his scholarship, he would go see them.
At the standpipe yet again, he filled his water bucket, carried it to the post office, and sat against that breadfruit tree. And waited. People were making their way to the bus stop en route to work. How many people had passed that tree day after day? Some rarely had never been outside Kingston. Few had ever left Jamaica. If he didn’t get the scholarship, Frankie would become one of them.
Finally he heard the telltale footsteps and the click of locks behind him. The postmaster had arrived. The man rolled up the grating. Frankie took a deep breath and followed him in.
And there was the letter!
He would be doomed if it was bad. Had he misspelled something in his essay? He should have had his school counselor read it over one last time before submitting it! If it were a rejection, the agony would be all over his face. No way was anyone going to see him that way. Frankie slid the letter, carefully, carefully, into his back pocket. He would open it at home.
All the way up the mountain, the crimson and blue University of Arizona logo burned at his brain. The first thing he wanted to do, if he got to America, was to go to the Hoover Dam, to set his eyes on the 60-story-high, 660-foot-thick wall of concrete. It was an engineering coup, for sure. But what if the letter wasn’t… no! He wasn’t going down that road. Compared with the burden of the unopened letter in his back pocket, his bucket of water was light. The stakes in his game doubled. The water sloshed, but not a drop spilled over. He was starting to feel dizzy, cold, as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Each step racked his nerves, even after he reached his yard. He had to open that damn letter.
Behind the house, he slid aside the sheet of zinc covering the water drum and spilled the full bucket in. He yanked the zinc back into place, careful not to slice himself against the curved rusted edges.
In the kitchen, his father was pouring exactly a quarter tin’s worth of condensed milk into a steel pot simmering with cornmeal porridge. The heat from the stove made the small kitchen sizzle.
“Wait till it cool,” his father warned, taking the dish towel off his shoulder and wiping the counter.
But it was the letter in Frankie’s pocket that felt on fire. Frankie pressed his elbows into the kitchen table, rocking it side to side. Should he look? Should he wait? The letter was so thin. But how much room did a yes or no take up? How much room did his future take up? He edged a fingernail under the seal, but the adhesive was too strong, his finger too shaky. So he carefully pinched the side of the envelope and ripped the edge off sliver by sliver. Gulping, he pulled out a single folded sheet, a creamy textured parchment. He read the first paragraph, then read it again: On behalf of the University of Arizona and the Presidential Regional Collaboration program, I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected by the Department of Engineering to receive an undergraduate scholarship, inclusive of room and board, starting in the fall semester later this year.
Frankie couldn’t read any further, a sort of tunnel vision setting in. He could only decipher that first paragraph. He looked up at his father. “I got the scholarship.”
Samson paused, blinked. He threw the dishcloth back over his shoulder, then went to the side table and picked up a black-and-white framed photo of Frankie’s mother. Staring down at her image, he said,
“Me almost forget, today would be your mother’s birthday. Me going to lay flowers down by her grave. Why don’t you stop down there after you’re done with school? Pay your respects.”
“Yeah, okay.” Frankie read that first paragraph a second time. A third. One sheet. That was all his future needed.
“Me tell you you would get it.” Samson set the photo back down and started drying some bowls.
Now Frankie stared after him. That was it? It wasn’t that he resented his father choosing this second to remember his mother’s birthday—the way he had looked at her said everything—it was just, well… he’d just gotten a scholarship—a full ride—to the United States! And Samson barely seemed to register the news. A sensation like billowing smoke seared at Frankie’s nose, down his throat, and filled his stomach with toxic, burning acid. His ma—she would have been hooting and hollering, hugging him and reminding him to be as respectful of his American professors as he had been of his Jamaican teachers. And when she finished hugging him, she’d start hugging him all over again. She’d have gone on for days!
He ran his hand over the short, bristling hair of his new cut. Strange, he thought again, how instead of his ma’s death bringing him and Samson closer, it left them more isolated. Sometimes… sometimes he couldn’t help wondering if Samson would have preferred it if his mother had lived and Frankie had died. The only time his father ever noticed him was when he was doing something Samson didn’t like, even if—thinking about the last beating—it wasn’t his fault. His grades were already top of the class. He’d never skipped a day of high school, not once! Maybe he should have just become a bushman—seemed like that was when his father was happiest. Frankie swallowed hard and looked back at the letter.
This was no letter.
It was a portal, the transport to his future.
Six
frankie strode down Troy’s main street after school like an emperor with a new groove, a legit one. His teachers, his classmates, they were all full of props at the scholarship news. Mrs. Gordon went ballistic, in the best way. Dragged him by the hand to tell the principal, even! Today hope wasn’t a one-word prayer to a God who laughed at well-thought-out plans. Frankie nodded happily at everyone he passed.
He fished out his bandless rotary watch from his pocket. Under the scarred glass, the dial read four thirty. He was a little late, but his father would be right on time; he always was. Frankie picked up his pace. Past the rum bar, he took the snaking dirt path toward the cemetery. He wondered if he should find some flowers, then figured he would see some once he got closer.
Though he’d done so eighty-seven times already, at least, Frankie had to read the letter again to prove to himself it was real. This time, he focused on the last paragraph: I am delighted that the University of Arizona Board of Engineers has recommended you for a full scholarship. If this offer is acceptable to you, please let me know in writing two weeks from the date of this letter.
Acceptable? Were they kidding? How could the offer not be acceptable? Who would turn down a winning lottery ticket? Frankie looked around, and satisfied no one was there, he broke into his own little happy dance. Immediately, a thought nagged, warning him not to feel too good, trust fortune, but he ignored it and full-on danced, hands in the air, twisting and spinning, laughing.
At last he folded the letter, eased it back into the envelope. He might read it out loud when he reached his mother’s grave. She’d like that. He wished he could tell her the news in person. He broke into a trot.
A hundred meters ahead, Frankie spied his father in the small cemetery. He was kneeling, head bowed, staring at the poured concrete that was his wife’s grave, hands clasped. Frankie froze. A pang gripped his throat.
The tip of Samson’s machete pierced the earth, the machete tilting sideways as if it hadn’t the strength to stay upright, like his father right at that moment. What might happen if Frankie went up to him, put his arm around his father’s shoulder, tried to share the grief they had never talked about?
Samson was all he had, Frankie told himself, so why not go to him now? He felt like he was teetering on the edge of a cliff. And then Samson groaned. Frankie shrank back, wishing he could become invisible, let his father’s moment be his alone. For Samson, pain was private, not to be shared, not even with his son. At his mother’s funeral, Samson had demanded that Frankie not cry. So now he backed away, each step soft and silent. His father was wrapped tight, sealed like a package. Maybe Frankie might open that package one day. But not today.
“Frankie.” His father’s voice sounded like a beacon, an announcement, like dinner was ready.
Hesitantly, nervously, Frankie walked toward the grave, toward his father, reaching past him to run his finger along the stone. Dirt had gotten wedged into Ma’s surname. Frankie edged his fingertip into the date of his mother’s death and followed it, digging out the remnants of a leaf. He traced the rest of the letters, felt the rough texture of the crevices. The stonecutter could have done a better job.
“Come, mon,” Samson said, a paper bag crunching in his grip as he moved to sit on the slope.
He opened the bag and pulled out something wrapped in reused tinfoil. “You must be hungry.” Is he proving to his wife that he is feeding her boy? Frankie thought wryly as he joined his father.
He wasn’t particularly hungry, no. But they had eaten at his mother’s grave before—in fact, Samson always brought food. It was a kind of ritual.
The package crinkled as Samson unfolded it, and Frankie smelled the spice bun immediately, saw the orange Gouda center. His favorite sandwich. His father had remembered. The few times Frankie’s mother had been too ill to make lunch, his father had stepped in and always made a spice bun sandwich, winking, saying they didn’t have to tell Ma. So Frankie took the bun, raised it in a sort of salute to his ma, and bit into it, sinking his teeth deeper, bursting a raisin before reaching the sharp cheese.
His father unwrapped a bun and bit into it. This was what they had left—mealtimes together. Frankie tore off a chunk of bread and popped it into his mouth. Lots of raisins, and the dough was soft. Samson must have timed it perfectly to get a bun this fresh; the bakery was in the farthest part of town. For a moment, it felt like old times.
“One night we went to this restaurant,” his dad started up out of the blue. “It was on a boat at a dock near Mobay. Your mother never drink but she had a white wine. Mon, after all the customers gone, we danced right next to the table on that boat.”
Samson seemed to be gazing at her right at that very moment. Maybe he could see her dancing.
Seven
late Sunday morning, shadows creeping across the backyard, Frankie’s father pounded the final nail in the back window for a makeshift security device—a broad machete without a handle, attached to two strong springs.
“Okay.” Samson nodded to Frankie, ready to test his latest invention. He lowered the window to set the position, leaving it partially open, just enough for someone to slip their hands under the frame and lift. Then he eased a two-by-four under the window frame to pry it open, as a burglar might. He raised it another five inches and… the springs uncoiled, sending the machete slicing into the wood with a loud thwack.
Frankie came close, poked at a spring. His father really belonged in the last century. Still, he said, “Works great, Dad.”
Then Samson surprised Frankie by saying, “Frankie, me really proud of you and what you accomplish by getting the scholarship. Me pray you would get it, and me will miss you while you gone, but me glad all the same.”
Frankie tried to stay chill. He couldn’t remember the last time Samson had said he was proud of him. Maybe never.
“I’ll miss you, too,” he said back, all awkward, but still.
And for the first time since getting the scholarship letter, the reality of leaving, leaving Jamaica, leaving his dad, hit. He’d never been away from his family. Pffft. Up until now, it was family leaving him. Now he was about to be on his own. And he wanted it.
Wanted it so bad. But yeah, he’d be leaving. And leaving his father all alone.
Samson was yanking, yanking the machete blade until it came loose. He reset his contraption. “We have to celebrate when we finished here,” he went on. “Me will make some cow foot and kidney beans.”
Cow foot and kidney beans! Frankie loved that even more than spice buns. He imagined sinking his teeth into the tender meat, heaping his plate twice; his father always made double. Then with a jolt he remembered: tonight was Joe’s party. Shit.
“Samos, you back here making mousetrap?” It was Joe, of course it was Joe, and right behind him, Ice Box and Buck-Buck.
Samson wiped his hands against his pants. “You never know what kind of common thief might come into your backyard.” Of all the tightropes Frankie walked, this was the thinnest. His father loathed Joe. Joe loathed his father.
Seeing the frown that flitted across his uncle’s face, Frankie called out quickly, “Hello, Uncle.”
“Nephew, blessings, and big up on di scholarship.”
What? Frankie hadn’t mentioned the scholarship to Joe yet.
“Yeh, mon. Like I say, my eyes is long.”
“Why are you here?” Samson asked.
“That no sound like no welcome. You no long fi see your brother?”
“Is what you want, Joe?”
“Me haffi’ want something?”
Samson gave the spring a small adjustment. “You always do.”
“Like me say, me come fi greet up me nephew. Him going foreign fi go turn big man. Me want fi see him first. Celebrate.”
If Uncle Joe brought up the party, Samson’s head would explode. “Thanks, Uncle!” Frankie said, loud, shifting the conversaion. “I was worried about it for a long time. But the University of Arizona is really good for engineering.” Keep talking. “I’m even going to see the Hoover Dam—it’s close by!”
“Mr. Engineer.” Joe stroked his chin. “Samson, you ever wonder how Frankie would do inna my business?”
