Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights

by Susan Straight

  Darnell looked down at the dried wild oats and filaree, burned brown, near his knee. He remembered the altars, the candles, the flowers, and smell of wax and pollen.

  “It ain’t all downhill from here,” his father said sharply. “Don’t go thinkin you smart and you pullin it all off. Lotta men smiled on the trains. Your great-uncle was a Pullman porter, and he smiled plenty. You smilin different, but you ain’t done.”

  “Never said I was,” Darnell started, but his father kept on.

  “Zelene used to work sugar cane in Louisiana. You ain’t worked hard as her, and she was a woman. Sugar cane kill you,” his father said, staring off toward the church.

  Cane sugar, Darnell thought. Leon’s product—all these faces hidin in the porches down the street workin hard for some cane sugar. Rock cane candy. Sprung hard. His father motioned him over to where he’d walked, just outside the cement foundation marks.

  “I ain’t sure where it was exactly, but I know it was in the yard somewhere,” his father mumbled, and Darnell saw him stand near a baby tumbleweed growing new-dark in a circle. “Your mama was still in the hospital; you were just a few hours old. I had been workin some job out in San Bernardino, and when I got home Zelene was there. She said she helped your mama at the hospital, cause it was just county ward and didn’t nobody pay much attention to her. Zelene was talkin about this twin; she was sure a twin got lost, but she said you had a caul over your eyes when you was born.”

  Darnell frowned, looking down at the tumbleweed again. “A caul?”

  “Somethin like, I don’t know, I never seen one, but it’s supposed to be like a smoky kinda web over your face, over some babies’ faces when they just come out.” His father stroked his jaw with black-rimmed fingernails. “Zelene said she took it, said she seen a sign in it, and she buried it in the yard out here by her house.” He paused. “She did things the old way, like my granny did. She buried your navel string here, too. That’s how they used to do, for luck, for the spirits they believed in.”

  “What was a caul supposed to do?” Darnell tried to imagine how it would have looked, but all he could remember of Charolette’s birth was the blood, the red smears on her body, on the bed, on Brenda’s thighs. He winced, feeling saliva trickle in his throat.

  “Caul was supposed to mean you could see things other people couldn’t,” his father said, standing up slowly, clenching and unclenching his hands. “I never seen you act strange except around a damn fire. I ain’t countin that night down in the riverbottom.”

  Darnell tried to keep his voice steady-light. “Can’t see much fire right now. Only smoke comin out the mower, that lousy old one.”

  His father still stared at the baby palm tree near them. “You see somethin special when you were up there? In the canyons?”

  Darnell shrugged. How could he explain the sound, the tremble, the flash of warmth that ran all the way to his knuckles? He glanced at the figures moving through the alley on the other side of the park. Ask one a them sprung guys—that’s probably how it feels. His father looked at him, and he said, “You saw the newspaper: CDF laid off seasonals early this year. October. No money.”

  “So you applyin for next year?” his father said.

  Darnell held his face flat, still. “Maybe—I was thinkin of applyin for paid call reserve. I can’t go seasonal, but if this business works out, my funds are cool, I might get the papers.”

  His father lifted his eyes to the crowd of men near the trash barrel and the domino game. “You ain’t out the woods yet,” he said, grinning slightly, and Darnell shook his head.

  “I hate when you and Roscoe do them puns,” he said.

  “We gotta talk to Victor,” his father said. “You want to walk over there, so they don’t see the truck?”

  Darnell looked down at the crumbled cement, picked up a chunk. “Hell, no,” he said, starting back toward the church.

  The gray lump on the dashboard, he drove up to the small street near the domino game, leaning out the open window. “Victor!” he called, and Victor strolled over to the truck, checking out the doors, the cab, leaning into the window.

  “Brothaman,” he said to Darnell. “Mr. Tucker,” he said.

  “Need you to take out a eucalyptus,” Darnell said. “Where’s Ronnie?”

  “He went to LA to visit his gramma,” Victor said. He looked down at Darnell. “So who hirin me? Tuan?”

  Darnell’s father laughed. “One-day job. Andrew Jackson hirin you. And I’m talkin be here early—not no leisure hours.”

  Darnell stuck out his hand, and Victor touched his palm lightly. “See you then,” Victor said, his eyes half closed. “Homey.”

  “Can you drop us home, Pops?” he said in the driveway. “Brenda took the El Camino so she could get her hair done after work. I can’t park the Toyota on the street downtown.”

  “She can’t ride in the big truck,” his father started, but Darnell held up the car seat he kept in his mother’s living room now.

  “She’s portable,” he said.

  She chattered all the way home, and Darnell held leftover monkey bread wrapped in foil on his lap. His father was quiet until he pulled into the courtyard of the apartment, and then he squinted at the threads and yarn dangling from the railing. “What the hell is that?”

  “Charolette,” Darnell said, and she grinned, pointed up. The threads were fluttering from the bars, tied in knots, and the purple yarn was in bows. Brenda had been showing her bows.

  His father frowned. “I saw somethin on TV, some show about a mountain country, and people tie rags on trees and bushes. Like that. They supposed to be prayers.” He shook his head. “I know your landlord ain’t thrilled. Y’all need to get a house. With a yard.”

  “I gotta get out the woods first,” Darnell said, pulling Charolette out of the cab. He lifted her to touch the threads moving slightly in the breeze, the ends that dangled dancing above the carport.

  Juan drove the truck around the corner, and José dropped the gate and walked the mowers down the wooden plank. They worked systematically through the tract, and on the last street Darnell helped them load the burlap sacks of trimmings into the back. He put the edgers and blower into the El Camino and sat in the cab to mark the schedule while Juan and José loaded the mowers. Darnell saw Trent’s white truck pull in behind him, and he got out.

  “Tuan!” Trent said, smiling, and Darnell set his mouth carefully, waiting. But Trent said, “I can’t believe you, man!” and shook his head admiringly. “I didn’t think you had it in you. Nacho told me about this flyer, and I remembered getting a few. Hey, did you get those two new jobs way up in Grayglen, back in the big-money hills?”

  “What two jobs?” Darnell said, still cautious, remembering the vodka and Trent’s slurry voice talking about haircuts, voices.

  “I just did two custom jobs, and when I was done, I told the people they should hire Tuan’s for the maintenance. That Asian stuff cracks me up—they love it.” Trent opened his palms to the sky, leaning out the window, “You’re an entrepreneur, got the pager and all.”

  “Just try in to make it,” Darnell said. “Thanks for the referrals.”

  “I’m glad to see you aren’t into self-destruction like your old running buddies. Man, Louis, Donnie, Leon, all of em pitiful.” Darnell drew his head back from the window. Brothaman, he thought, your definition of… But before he could speak, Trent went on. “I got something big for you and your crew, if you want it. Mrs. Shaefer, the big property? She wants a drought-resistant garden installed.”

  Darnell folded his arms. “I usually do side jobs with Victor and Ronnie, man. Anything off the route I stay with that crew.”

  Trent wrapped his hands around the steering wheel and looked through the windshield. “Hey—that crew isn’t really comfortable working with me, okay? It’s your choice. Can your guys here plant? I mean, have they done it?”

  Darnell pictured Juan and José planting rows of chiles, corn. “Yeah,” he said. “This crew ca
n plant.”

  When Juan and Trent had both driven off, he sat for a moment, staring at the list of names and addresses, thinking of the money. He started up the El Camino and headed out to Woodbine. But the engine stalled after the second stop sign, and he couldn’t get it to turn over again. Damn—the El Camino had gotten vapor lock a few times. He threw his head back and stared at the stained material on the ceiling. And Juan got the good hooptie. He grinned. Tuan’s truck. He slammed the door and started walking.

  Cars sped past, and he stayed far to the shoulder near the block walls of this development. No phone booth for a long way—not till I come to the commercial strip down there. He trudged along, heard a car cruise to a stop. Gots to be patrol, he thought.

  He heard the radio. “What’s wrong with your El Camino?” the voice said.

  Yeah, I know you were scopin it hard, Darnell thought, turning. It was Kleiser, and Darnell couldn’t tell what was in the grin.

  Kleiser ducked his face low to see Darnell. “So the other guys got your white truck?” he said. “Lemme take you to a phone booth.”

  Darnell stared at the patrol car, heard the radio spitting. “I can walk, man, if you got things to do.”

  “Come on,” Kleiser said. Darnell sat in the front seat, staring at the ribbon of road, trying not to see the eyes of approaching drivers. Shit—Pops happen to see me in here, he have a heart attack. “You got a beeper, huh?” Kleiser said.

  Darnell stiffened. Yup—there it is. You know what, man? The hospital rents out beepers, for your wife’s last month. I remember. But me—no, I’m slingin, huh? Rock daddy. Normal for a nigga. Kleiser spoke again before he opened his mouth. “I saw you, saw the truck. But you don’t spell it like your middle name.”

  Darnell felt the web of tingling lift from his scalp. Antoine. He know my middle name from the reports. He glanced over at Kleiser’s half-grin. “I spelled it different.”

  “Yeah. I got one of the flyers, too, and I put it together. I live in Stonehaven, man, so I had my wife call. You guys been doin our yard for a few weeks now.” Kleiser’s teeth showed full now. “Your using your middle name is slick. I got a friend with a tow truck uses a different name.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Darnell said carefully. They pulled up at the 7-Eleven at the bottom of the long slope, and Darnell scanned the parking lot, but no one looked at him when Kleiser got out, too.

  In the phone booth, Kleiser said, “Here he is. Just who you need. Check it out—Aaron’s Towing.” Darnell looked at the ad. “When you call him, this guy named Jamey Wilson will answer. We went to school together, out in San Bernardino. If you go, ‘Is Aaron there?’ he’ll go, ‘No, he’s out, but I can help you.’ Cause his name is Wilson, so he’d be last in the phone book, but now he’s first. You guys are pretty slick.”

  Kleiser backed out of the booth, looking around the lot. “I gotta go, but I’ll cruise up past your El Camino so nobody steals your stuff. Call Aaron’s, man, he’ll get you.” The grin faded, and Kleiser looked down at the trash-littered asphalt. “Hey, I heard your friend left town for a while. I won’t tell nobody I saw you, okay?” He glanced back again. “I’m real sorry, man, I still am.”

  Darnell stood inside the phone booth. What am I supposed to say? It’s a scar. I fall out sometimes. That drama gotta be over. He heard wheels turn into the street, and he looked down at the A names in the yellow pages.

  On All Saints’ Day he took Brenda and Charolette to meet Mrs. Batiste. Charolette clutched her plastic pumpkin with the few pieces of candy she’d gotten from touring the apartment complex. Brenda and her mother cleaned the headstones, their voices too soft for him to hear. He stared at the etched name growing blurry. Antoine.

  Brenda held up a pecan. “Guess who been finding these everywhere?” she said, and her mother took the pecan to smell it.

  “I ain’t been to the riverbottom for pecans in so long,” she said, and Charolette held out her hand with another one.

  “Daddy! Birdy drop.” He looked at the pale brown shell with lengthwise tiger stripes, remembering how Louis always held the first few nuts in his huge palm. He hadn’t realized how many months had passed since Louis had gone to prison. Charolette dug through pine needles, looking for more pecans. Louis used to watch the flock stream over while they were raking leaves and stacking wood after school; he always said the pecans weren’t ripe until the crows hid the first fat ones for later, pushing the nuts into loose piles of dirt and stems.

  He ate the soft gold nut, but Charolette spit it out. “Birdy eat,” she said, brushing off her tongue.

  He held the jagged edges of the shell. “Me and Mama’s friend used to watch the crows. They fly real high and drop the nut on the street so it’ll crack.”

  “Then they can get the nut out with their beaks,” Brenda said. She looked at Darnell. “I guess Roscoe’s gonna be sad now, all fall, with the crows and the blackbirds.”

  Mrs. Batiste nodded. “He done lost a child for a while.”

  “No,” Darnell said. “I think Roscoe feels like him and Louis might never talk again. Like they strangers now.”

  “Like me and Daddy,” Brenda whispered, and her mother’s eyes filled with tears.

  “That’s my fault,” Darnell said. “But it ain’t gotta be like that forever. I know he gotta come around.” He tried to change the subject back to Louis. “Remember Roscoe was so hard on Louis? My pops hard on me, too.”

  But Brenda’s face was blurred with sadness, and she scooped up Charolette, tucking her head near Charolette’s neck. “Pop-Pop hammer,” Charolette said, still holding another pecan.

  On the next Saturday, his parents and his sisters followed in the big truck, and Darnell drove toward the grove, pointing out the window so Charolette could see the riverbottom. Brenda said, “Your mother said she doesn’t remember the last time she was out here.”

  “Been a long time,” Darnell said. The bridge over the river was sharply outlined farther down, and when he came out on the dirt road that ran along the levee, where the concrete chunks were high, he could see the thin strip of water, narrow from the drought. The cane and arrowroot had been pushed back, bulldozed by the city, to keep the fire hazard down, but already they were creeping across the sand again, almost as lush as when Leon had driven him here to see the fire.

  When they had parked in the dirt clearing and begun to walk, Sophia grumbled, “We need to be walkin at the mall, not out here in the dirt.”

  The huge, arching branches came into view, and Paula said, “Okay, now I remember. We used to bring picnics sometimes, right, Daddy?”

  Darnell’s father said, “Your mama used to make a lot more pies,” and she glanced at him sharply.

  “Your mama used to be shellin them pecans way into the night like a fool,” she said, and then she and Brenda laughed as Charolette ran forward waving her hands and yelling at the crows.

  Other families were in far parts of the grove. Darnell saw a few old, dark women with broad-brimmed straw hats. Mrs. Strozier, from DaVinci Street, and her sister. Even Nacho’s Aint Rosa was way down the line, with one of her nieces. And Mexican families were everywhere, the women filling transparent plastic grocery bags, the men poking with long sticks, the kids running over to look closely at Charolette, the way kids did.

  His sisters went on ahead, holding Charolette’s hands, and Darnell’s father said, “They didn’t even want to come, cause two things missin: boys and clothes hangin on a rack. Now look.”

  They squatted beneath one tree in the long rows, probing the leaf litter, and Charolette held up a long pecan like a prize.

  Darnell’s father sat in the dappled shade, his back against a trunk. “You used to always do that, all three of you,” he said to Darnell. He nodded toward the boys facing a tree at the far end of the grove. “You and Melvin and Louis loved to pee behind a tree.”

  Darnell watched the boys disappear into the brush that led to the river, the dry arrowroot that had grown taller than them. He stared at the de
ad cottonwood, gnarled black trunk and stark branches, in the brush, and he couldn’t help wondering whether the fires would start again in late spring. I’ma apply this year, he thought suddenly. It’s time. I’ma try for paid call reserve. He heard shouting, and Brenda’s face, above Charolette’s, turned toward him. His mother was covering her mouth, shoulders shaking with laughter, and Charolette’s shirt front was stuffed bumpy with pecans.

  The first serious wind came through a few weeks later, when he was helping Roscoe trim an old fruitless mulberry in the historic district. His father was in the tree, cutting the long, arrow-straight branches off, leaving huge fist-blunt knobs on the trunk. “She ain’t had this tree done for three years,” Roscoe grumbled.

  “Pops swayin around up there,” Darnell said, his head thrown back. The gusty wind tore away the sound of the chain saw.

  “Gotta have wind before rain,” Roscoe said.

  “What?”

  “You can’t mop a dirty floor—not before you vacuum it. Wind clear all the big trash out, and the rain wash it down.”

  Darnell said, “I didn’t know you was into housework, man. Must be your female nature tryin to sneak out.”

  But Roscoe gave him a hard look. “My father nature, fool. Who you think cleaned up after Louis—the fairy maid mother?” He walked over to a bundle of branches and tightened the rope.

  Darnell thought, How can I tell him? He had another pecan in his pocket; Charolette kept handing them to him now, every day. He’d been looking for the right moment to hand it to Roscoe. But toward afternoon, whenever Darnell saw him, he was watching the crows with his tongue pushed far into his jaw. Sometimes he seemed happier, softer around the middle, because of Marietta Cook, but whenever Darnell tried to talk about Louis, Roscoe said the name like it was only a memory.

  Darnell said, “You know when Louis gets out?” He thought of Leon, saying that someone who looked like Louis might be cruising the streets, packing a serious weapon.