by Daniel Black
“Damn!” I sputtered aloud.
“Is everything all right, son?” the driver asked.
“Um, yessir. Here’s the ticket.” I dropped it on the floor and the driver retrieved it.
“You seem nervous ‘bout somethin’. You sho’ you all right?”
“Yessir,” I said as I began to move down the aisle toward a seat.
“Don’t let nothin’ worry you too bad, boy. My daddy passed last Sunday—had a heart attack in his sleep, they say—and I promised myself after we buried him that I wasn’t gon’ let nothin’ worry me too bad.”
I stood in the aisle and felt a cold shiver go all over me. “Shit,” I mumbled when I found a seat and sat down. I kept reading the one line over and over again as though hoping it would disappear. I only made myself more upset. Momma always had the last word, and now I felt like crap for leaving Swamp Creek—again. “But did you love me?” I asked aloud in response to the note. Peering out of the big bus window, I saw a field of butterflies dancing wildly in the air. Their movements were frantic, as though trying to remind me of something important I had forgotten. I ran to the front of the bus.
“Let me off, please,” I begged the driver.
“Excuse me?” he said, looking up at me, confused.
“Let me off. Now.”
He didn’t understand.
“Please, sir. Let me off. Please!” I was screaming.
“OK, OK. You sho’ is determined’bout somethin’!” The bus driver pulled to the side of the road. “It’s got to be at least two or three miles back to that big tree, son. You gon’ walk in all dis heat?”
“The ancestors did it,” I proclaimed.
He opened the big door and, as I exited, he said, “Take care o’ yo’self.”
“I will,” I returned. “I’m sorry to hear about your father.”
“Thank you, son. Jes’ be glad yours is still in the land of the living. Take care now.”
The bus pulled away. I surveyed those thousands of butterflies dancing, though now very gracefully.
“I’ll jes’ keep Ms. Swinton’s books right where they are,” I said aloud as the heat wave greeted me again. “That house can’t be too expensive, can it, Mr. Butterfly?” A beautiful yellow and black one rested on my shoulder. “David’ll be glad to sell it to me, I’m sure.”
I was trying to talk myself into believing what I had just done. It was right, but I still couldn’t believe it.
“Never say never,” I chuckled, then took a deep breath, grabbed both bags, and began to walk home in the midst of a warm, uncloudy day.
Acknowledgments
To my literary elders: Sonia Sanchez, Michael Eric Dyson, Melvin Rahming, James Baldwin, Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison, Randall Kenan, Jonathan Franzen, Percival Everett, John Edgar Wideman, Ayi Kwei Armah, Zora Neale Hurston, Ernest Gaines, and Jeffrey Woodyard. You have blazed the trail upon which I now travel. Thank you for clearing the way.
To Tony Clark, my literary agent: Thanks for laboring on my behalf, brotherman.
To all the descendants of Blackwell and Happy Bend, Arkansas, especially my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Black, and my siblings: Together, our history and memories make this novel possible. I hope I’ve made you proud.
To Akino Aeikbns, The Nation of Ndugu and Nzinga: Your healing power and love kept me sane when I thought I was losing my mind. Don’t worry about others’ evaluation of you. Everyone who ever changed the world was first thought strange. Thank you for saving me, and now let’s save the universe.
To the Norments: A crown awaits you in the kingdom of God.
To the members of First Iconium Baptist Church: Thank you for providing a place wherein my creative gifts could bloom. I pray that my presence has enlarged the body, and I give thanks for the embracing so many of you provided.
To the Clark Atlanta University family: The literary training I acquired while an undergraduate planted the seed for this achievement. Now, as a faculty member, I thank all of you for the support you’ve given. Thanks, Dr. Liddell, for encouraging me to write when this project was still an embryo. For your wisdom, Ms. Maolud, I am eternally grateful.
THEY TELL ME OF A HOME. Copyright © 2005 by Daniel Omotosho Black. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Design by Phil Mazzone
eISBN 9781429929110
First eBook Edition : January 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Black, Daniel Omotosho.
They tell me of a home / Daniel Black. p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36283-6
ISBN-10: 0-312-36283-8
1. African American families—Fiction. 2. Conflict of generations—Fiction. 3. Parent and adult child—Fiction. 4. Children—Death—Fiction. 5. Young men—Fiction. 6. Arkansas—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.L267 T47 2005
813’.6—dc22
2005044137
