They Tell Me of a Home: A Novel

by Daniel Black

  “That sounds like something I just might say!” I envisioned myself standing before a raised podium, sweating and hollering what I knew to be the truth.

  “Are you a preacher?” David pondered.

  “No, sir. I never preached. Thank God! I have issues with church dogma and dictates. I probably would have left it years ago, but I love the music. Ain’t nothin’ like church folks singing.”

  “Yeah, I agree. I have one of the best choirs in the country at my church.”

  My entire foot was in my mouth. “You’re a preacher?” I asked, hoping he was not.

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Oh God! I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to insult your profession.”

  “Please! Don’t apologize. I know what you mean. The church has a few wrinkles here and there to iron out.”

  “A few?” I offered sarcastically.

  “Well, a church is only as holy as the people in it.”

  “Amen to that.” I waved my right hand in the air. “Did you go to seminary?”

  “Yeah. I went to the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta”

  “What? I went to Clark, right down the street. How funny is that?”

  “Wow. Our paths almost crossed. Of course, when I was at ITC you were probably in diapers.”

  “Incredible,” I said in amazement.

  “Life is like that sometimes. God is always doin’ His own thing.”

  “Or Her thing.”

  “Right.”

  We fell silent. I suppose we were trying to learn from each other and deal with Ms. Swinton’s death simultaneously.

  “I want to have the funeral as soon as possible. Momma would want it that way. She always said she couldn’t comprehend why it took black folk forever to get a body in the ground. I was thinking Saturday?”

  “That’s fine. I’m scheduled to leave Saturday evening at five o’clock, but, of course, the funeral should be over long before then.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to rush you.”

  “Yeah, it’s fine. It’s just that …”

  “What?”

  “Your mom, I mean our mom, Ms. Swinton, asked something of me that has really left me troubled.”

  “What did she ask?”

  “She made me promise to take over her job at the school here in Swamp Creek.”

  “For real?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you promise to do it?”

  “No, I didn’t. In fact, I told her in no uncertain terms I couldn’t handle it.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “Excuse me? What do you mean, why can’t I?”

  “I mean, why can’t you? It seems pretty simply to me.”

  “It ain’t simple at all. When I left here after high school, I vowed never to return again. I got back Saturday and this is the first time I’ve been home since I left.”

  “Are you serious?” David inquired in stark horror.

  “Yes, I’m serious. It’s a long story, big brother, but I can’t live here. I just can’t. And that’s what I told Ms. Swinton.”

  “What did she say?

  “She never engaged me. Instead, she went on and on about how great I would be and how all the kids would love me and blah, blah, blah.”

  “Do what you need to, but maybe you returned for a reason even you don’t know.”

  Vexation prompted me to ask, “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that maybe taking over the school is something you should think about. You must be a dynamic teacher if Momma implored you to do it. We both know she would only invite the best.”

  “All that’s great, David, but it’s more complicated than you could ever imagine.”

  “As Momma might say, if you can tolerate your own recalcitrance I have no choice.”

  His reverse psychology made me vehement. I rose to leave.

  “Don’t go, Thomas,” David pleaded sincerely, and grabbed my arm. “I’d like to know about your sister.”

  The request weakened my resolve to leave and further frazzled my formidable strength. Clearly, Ms. Swinton had told him everything about me. Hearing him speak of Sister left me vulnerable and powerless enough to collapse, again, onto the floor and say, “That’s another matter altogether.”

  “Momma called me and told me when she died. She knew the news would break your heart. She worried about you.”

  “David, it’s asinine. I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Wherever you like,” he said, embracing my hand with his own.

  I described how close Sister and I were and detailed, nostalgically, the fun we used to have. I told him how we sang duets in church and mocked people shouting. The butterfly story intrigued him most. Tangentially, I talked for hours.

  “Wow. Sounds like she was pretty amazing. How exactly did she die?”

  “I don’t know! That’s why I’m embittered. When I got back on Saturday I saw her grave in our backyard, and I’ve been perturbed ever since!”

  “In the backyard?” David said, bewildered.

  “Exactly! Ain’t that wild? Man, the entire story is bizarre! I’ve been trying to determine what happened, but nobody wants to divulge information. Everybody’s all evasive and hush-hush.”

  “I’m sorry, Thomas. I wish there was something I could do.”

  “Thanks, man.” Suddenly I discovered hope. “What if Ms. Swinton wrote about it in her journal? I mean, maybe she heard something about Sister’s death and noted it somewhere.”

  “Maybe, but I doubt it.”

  “Why?” I whined.

  “Because Momma never wanted to be the source of your hurt. Your past is too painful, she would say. My guess is that she didn’t write anything about your sister because she knew that, one day, you’d be reading these journals. She would never write anything that would hurt you. That’s a promise she made to herself, I think.”

  What David said made sense; thus I killed the hope. Anyway, when I thought about it, Ms. Swinton couldn’t have known the full truth. Nobody did except Momma and Daddy.

  “What if you don’t uncover information about your sister before Saturday evening?” David asked, exposing my dilemma.

  “I’m history,” I offered confidently. “Why would I stay?”

  “Because it doesn’t make sense to leave before your questions get answered.”

  “It does if you’re in my shoes.”

  David stared at me pitifully. “Oh, I see.”

  “For real, man. I’m not staying past Saturday. These last couple of days have been torture for me, and I can’t endure much longer.”

  “Could you live without ever knowing?”

  “I don’t know. I could if I had to, I suppose.”

  The smirk on David’s face revealed he didn’t believe me. “All I’ll say is stay long enough to leave with peace, because if anything happens to your folks, the peace you have is all you’ll get.”

  “Amen,” I chimed.

  David preached on, “Every man’s gotta walk his own path and decide how much luggage he can carry. Don’t let me convince you to stay. That’s a decision only you can make.”

  “And I’ve made it. I’d die here, David. I can’t stay. I’m flattered Ms. Swinton thought highly of me and I intend to find out what happened to Sister, but I’ve got to leave here. Sister was the only reason I came back anyway. And even if I find out what happened, why would I stay?”

  David glared at me, sensing I was talking more to myself than him. “Again, do whatever you need to.”

  He rose to his knees and began to place the journals into a cardboard box. I surveyed the room Ms. Swinton had left behind and became engulfed in emptiness, despondence, and agitation made most acute by David’s ascension to the role of quintessential big brother.

  “What time Saturday?” I stood.

  “I don’t know. Maybe around noon or one o’clock?”

  “That’ll work,” I heralded, trying not to be melancholy about Ms. Swin
ton’s funeral. “Who has the body?”

  “Marshall Brothers.”

  “Oh, good. They’re the best.”

  While exiting, I noticed an old picture on the wall. “Who’s this? Do you know?”

  “That’s your grandfather.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. That’s Granddaddy Swinton. He was a buffalo soldier. The buffalo soldiers were black cowboys who went out west to—”

  “Yeah, I know. I have a Ph.D. in black studies.”

  “Are you serious? You have a Ph.D.?”

  “Uh-huh. I graduated last month.”

  “Did you tell Momma?”

  “Yes. I told her the other day when I came by.”

  “Good. She’s at peace then. I’m glad you told her before she died.”

  I kept marveling at the picture. “Did you ever meet him?”

  “Yeah, once. He was the funniest man! All he did was tell stories about the Old West. My father took me to see him when I was about eight. I don’t remember him well. I just remember that he was funny. And very dark.”

  “Really? Darker than this photograph?”

  “Much. That picture makes him look light skinned. He said his momma and daddy were full-blooded Africans. You look a bit like him, actually.”

  “Yeah, right,” I chuckled.

  “Honestly. He was thin like you and had a wide, flat nose. Look at him good.”

  I examined the man’s profile intensely and suddenly saw myself. “Wow. I see what you mean. This is incredible.”

  “Told you, didn’t I?” David smiled. “Take it with you. I knew him. The picture will help you know him, too.”

  “No, no. I couldn’t do that.”

  “Why not? Who else wants it?”

  “You don’t want it?”

  “I want you to have it. You need all the pieces of the puzzle you can get. They’ve been denied to you up to this point, and you deserve them.”

  I slowly dismounted the black-and-white picture from the wall. It was framed in the antique oval style and had yellowed over the years. I held it out from me and perused it like I had found a treasure.

  “Take these, too,” David said, handing me the box of journals. “They chronicle your life, so you should have them. You won’t really know yourself until you read them, and why not start today?”

  David extended a warm smile and dismantled my hesitation. “Go ahead; take them. Under normal circumstances, I might be jealous, and I probably am a little bit, but I know Momma wanted you to have them. Please take them and keep them forever. They’re all you’ll have of her now.”

  “Thank you, David,” I maundered, unsure of how to express my gratitude.

  “It’s the least I can do,” he assured as I laid the picture on top of the box and embraced it with both arms. “Don’t thank me. Thank Momma.”

  David resumed packing other items in the room, seemingly unmoved by his mother’s death. Knowing Ms. Swinton, she had prepared him for it.

  “I guess I’d better go now. I told my brother I’d meet him hours ago.”

  “All right. I’m gonna stay around here for the next day or two and pack the house up and finish other last-minute details. Come back and rap with me more if you get a chance.”

  “I will. I promise.” I had turned to leave with what I hoped would not be Pandora’s box when David asked, “Do you want to be listed on the obituary as her son?”

  The question should have been easily answered, but it was not. “Yes, I do,” I reconciled after a moment. “No need to harbor the secret any longer.”

  “Good,” David said, relieved. “Momma would like that.”

  I got almost to the front door when he announced, “Thomas, I’m glad to finally meet my little brother. I hope we stay in touch.”

  “Let’s promise we will. For Ms. Swin … for … Momma.”

  “Deal.”

  I left jovial and excited that, for the first time since I arrived, my coming home had proven gratifying.

  17

  When I arrived at the old Whitcomb place, it was after one o’clock and I noticed, either to my chagrin or to my relief, Willie James had almost finished cutting the entire field of hay. Bobbing up and down on the old tractor, he scrutinized me, shaking his head in complete disgust. There was no way I could justify my tardiness. I couldn’t tell him I had met my older brother from Detroit and we had spent the morning hours reminiscing about what our mother wrote in her journals. First of all, Willie James wouldn’t believe me. And second of all, even if he did, the fact remained that he had done all the work in the hay field without me. Either way, my actions confirmed Willie James’s notion that I was simply a sorry-ass nigga.

  “What happened this time?” he yelled, rounding the corner for the last strip of hay left standing in the field.

  “Long story! You wouldn’t believe it anyway!” I screamed back. He chuckled and mumbled inaudibly. I stood there and watched the green moody grass Willie James had cut slowly turnin’ golden brown in the sun. It was thick. This meant lots of hay bales, which, of course, meant food for Daddy’s cows and several large round bales to sell. Maybe Willie James would make a little pocket change, I thought, and come visit me in New York or wherever later in the year, but on second thought, I knew better. Willie James had gotten used to the entire world being contained in Swamp Creek. Anything outside of the ordinary would shift his world too drastically. Even as a child, once Willie James learned a rule, he never apprehended how to accommodate its exception. Like the time Ms. Swinton told him “i before e except after c.” He said he understood. He knew if the “i/e dilemma” came after any other consonant, the correct spelling was ie. One day, on a weekly spelling test, Willie James spelled seize “sieze,” confident the rule had helped him pass the exam. When he got it back and saw that he had misspelled the word, he was dismayed.

  “I thought you said i comes before e except after c!” he protested to Ms. Swinton.

  “Then the rule ain’t no rule at all! You just gotta learn how to spell everything by itself!”

  “I guess one could see it that way,” Ms. Swinton offered sympathetically.

  Willie James decided then that he’d never be a good speller because the rules simply didn’t make sense.

  I sat on the ground underneath a nearby persimmon tree and waited on him to finish the last lap. Ants were busy gathering food and taking it into their little mound. I picked up a stick and scattered their dirt fortress to see how the ants would react. They panicked. Some ran north and others south as they tried frantically to right the wrong I had committed. I was intrigued by the speed and diligence with which the ants worked to reestablish communal balance and harmony. Only a second or two passed before they slowed once again and resumed their normal living arrangement. Amazingly, they were absolutely unconcerned with the source of their disturbance. They did what they needed to do in order to protect themselves, regardless of who originated the mayhem among them. “Brilliant,” I whispered.

  “We oughta be like them,” Willie James noted, wiping sweat from his face. He had parked the tractor and walked over to where I was sitting without my noticing.

  “I didn’t see you walk up,” I returned, slightly startled.

  Willie James peered at me sadly. “At least you see me. Usually people don’t see me.”

  He sat on the ground next to me and leaned back in the grass as he sighed heavily. “I’m tired o’ dis shit, man,” he said distressfully.

  “I feel you,” I consoled him.

  “You was smart. You got outta here years ago. I don’t blame you fu’ dat.” Willie James patted my shoulder condescendingly.

  “You could have left, too. Daddy nem would’ve been OK without you.” My words didn’t come out right.

  “Yeah, they probably would have, but I never had the balls to leave. Too scared, I suppose.”

  “Scared of what?”

  “Myself. I always knew, if I left, I wasn’t comin’ back. I stayed here to keep from runnin
’ so far away I couldn’t find my way home.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “You’ll understand if you think about it.” Willie James started playing with the same anthill.

  “I am thinking about it, and I still don’t understand. Explain it to me.”

  “Uhh … ,” Willie James began demurely, eyes never meeting mine. He had been waiting a lifetime to express the thought, it seemed, and all he wanted was an interested ear. “Remember how we used to cuss Daddy out behind his back and sware when we got eighteen we was gon’ leave? I intended to keep that promise. When my eighteenth birthday came round though, I got scared’cause I hated the place bad enough never to come back if I left. I wasn’t confused about my feelings; I jes’ couldn’t imagine starting life all over again someplace else. See, I always knew I hated this place more than you did. You were jes’ mad people didn’t love you. If they loved you right, you wouldn’t ever have left. Dammit, I actually hated this place. I’m not bullshittin’. I thought you’d come back one day’cause you cared too much about what Momma nem thought about you, and you and Sister was jes’ too close fu’ you to leave and neva come home. I ain’t neva been close to nobody, so I ain’t had nothin’ to lose.”

  He shrugged his shoulders with a contradictory carelessness. “I was always de workhorse. Sunup till sundown, Willie James was sweatin’ fu’ somebody. I didn’t know nothin’ else, but I knowed I didn’t like it. I didn’t have no choice back then.”

  “We sho’ didn’t!” I blurted.

  “Man, come on, T.L. You ain’t neva been one fu’ no sweatin’! You dodged hard work every chance you got!” Willie James pursed his lips, daring me to challenge his declaration.

  “What? Are you crazy? I worked hard, too, man. Just as hard as anybody else.” His assertion of my indolence offended me.

  “Yeah, you worked a little bit,” he conceded, “but what you did most was read and write or whatever you liked.”

  “Hell, yeah! That was the only way to survive this madness!”