by Richard Dry
“I was actually at my brother’s funeral,” the man said. “That’s why I went up.” When Love looked back, the man faced forward but continued to talk to them. “He knew he was dying, so I went up and saw him. He was an antiques collector. Watches especially.” He pointed up, and Love saw a little black suitcase with silver locks.
“He got the AIDS?” Li’l Pit asked.
“Yes, he had AIDS.”
“Our daddy had it too. But he’s all better now.”
The woman in front of them turned around again and then quickly looked away.
“Is she really your wife?” Love asked.
The man shook his head and made a sour face.
“You’re scandalous,” Love said.
“Yes. I guess I am. Excuse me.” He stood up. “I must use the restroom.”
When the man had gone, Love elbowed his brother.
“Don’t bother him no more.”
“But what about the ice cream? We got to get the ice cream.”
“Just forget it. He don’t sell ice cream. He’s just playin with us.” He turned his head and looked out the window. The plowed farmland outside seemed empty and peaceful. It felt good to finally be away from Oakland, to be away from everything. But they would have to stop traveling sometime. He put on his earphones and turned up Public Enemy. It was like some mixed-up music video: the angry bass beat against the rows of alfalfa and the sunlit Central Valley.
CHAPTER 1B
MARCH 1965 • EASTON 19
IT WAS HOT for March, and Easton had forgotten what it felt like in southern humidity. Charles took off his coat and laid it on the top of the car. An airplane passed over, and they looked up and then Easton went back to working under the hood. He’d rebuilt everything in this car, so he could surely fix it, unless it needed a part. Then they were in trouble because Jackson was still at least thirty miles.
“I told you this was foolish,” said Charles. He paced behind the car, looking up and down the highway. He had a pen in one hand and he clicked it in and out. “I liked Clinton. Yes, Clinton was a nice place: friendly, the way those boys spit on the car. Maybe it would be better if we took these California plates off altogether. At least then people would think we were just common car thieves.”
He had the distinct feeling that Easton wasn’t listening to him, so he walked over and watched him work. “You know what’s wrong with it?”
Easton had never seen Charles afraid of anything before, at least not openly, and he didn’t like the edginess, the kind that got you into unnecessary trouble.
“I knew what it was before I opened the hood,” he said. “The thermostat’s busted and we got a leak in the radiator. All we’ve got to do is find some water and a hose and then take it slow. Best if we wait till nightfall. Or we could turn around.”
“We are not turning around.”
“We’ve got another day to Selma,” Easton said, and closed the hood. Charles folded and unfolded his arms. “Out here’s our best chance, anyway. The Black folk will help us before the men at the service station. I’m going to walk up that road and see what I see.”
Easton walked fifty feet to a dirt road. He heard Charles walk after him.
“Look,” Easton said. “Where you think you’re going?”
“I think it’s better to stick together.”
“You want to go up here and let me stay there with the car? That’s fine. I just figured you’d feel more comfortable by the car.”
Charles looked up the dirt road. It curved behind some trees and then disappeared. “I don’t feel more comfortable anywhere. I’d feel more comfortable in Vacaville State Pen, where they got less trees to lynch you from.”
“Whatever happened to ‘Fight the Revolution, brother’?” Easton walked back to him. He didn’t touch Charles because of the heat, but he got right up beside him and talked softly. “Listen, I grew up in the South. There are more of us in this part than them. This is our land. We built all the fields and homes around here. You’re not so far away from home, you just don’t know what home looks like. This is nature. Look over there.” He pointed to a fish hawk circling above the high top of a pine tree. “That means there’s water over there. Why don’t you see what you can find that can carry something and go get some water.”
He left Charles staring at the bird and headed back up the road. After the curve behind the trees, there was an old wood house with a tractor and a chicken shack. A Chevy was parked out front and he noticed the tires were low, for driving over rough ground.
He climbed the first two steps of the porch and then stopped. A heavy feeling came over him as he looked at the house. Driving the highway was one thing, but here, in the silence of the clearing with this house so much like his own standing before him, he remembered. Below the steps would be the bottles that Papa Samuel hid from his mother. He remembered the feeling coming home after school, wishing he didn’t have to climb the steps and go inside.
A dog barked somewhere in the field and shook him back into the present. He tapped his shoes to get the dirt off and walked up to the door. He knocked softly at first, but no one answered. He knocked again and yelled out: “Hello there.”
“Yes?” A man came from around the side of the house by the chicken coop, a White man in his late sixties in shirtsleeves and slacks.
“Hello.” Easton came down from the porch, slowly. “Hello, sir.”
The man stared at him with his hands at his sides.
“Well?” the man asked. “Are you callin for me?”
“Yes, sir. Yes, I was hoping that you could assist me and my friend.” Easton wiped his cheek. He could hear the submissiveness in his own words, feel his eyes trailing on the ground—and he hated it. But he couldn’t seem to keep it from happening. “We’ve got ourselves a busted water pump, and I wondered if you might have an extra hose on you.”
“Tom,” the old man yelled toward the chicken coop. “Dare’s a nigger out here say he’s lookin for a hose?” He turned back to Easton. “Ya say you’re lookin for a hose? What kind a hose?”
A large man in his forties came out, wearing overalls and rubber gloves. He pulled off the gloves and stood by the older man.
“What kinda hose you lookin for?”
“A radiator hose, sir. My car’s busted up there on the road. Sure could use a hose.”
The younger man wiped his brow and looked at his car. “Where you headed?”
“Us? We’re just passing through.”
“Where you coming from?” asked the older man. He removed his hat and put his forearm against his head.
“California.”
“Oh.” The old man looked at the car too, but neither of them moved, like they were waiting for a breeze to tell them what to do. A three-legged dog hopped across the path and sat against one of the tires, panting and smiling.
“What happened to him?” Easton asked.
“Tractor,” the old man said. “Don’t bother him none, though. Runs fast as before.”
“Here, watch this.” The larger man picked up a stick and tossed it so high that it hit the upper branches of a tree, and at the same time he whistled two quick chirps. The dog stood, his ears perked. He followed the stick up and then down through the air until it fell to the same height as the car’s rooftop. Then he leapt up, his two front legs pushing off with his back one. He caught the stick in the air and brought it over to his master. Tom took the stick and patted the dog between its ears.
“That’s a talented dog,” Easton said.
“Took him a hardship ’fore he showed his real talent,” said the old man. “Was just run-of-the-mill mutt ’fore his accident. Now he’s our favorite. Tom’s got to show all the strangers come by here his famous dog.”
“I can sure see why that is.”
“You got some friends out at the car?” Tom asked.
“Yep, yep. One friend. We’re hopin to get a hose and fix up the radiator.”
“Well, we got hose.” Tom walked to the
car and popped the hood open. “We can take some of this for now.” He pulled off the O-rings and held up a footlong piece of black rubber hose. “’Bout this long do for ya?”
“Sure. Yes, sir.”
“Alright then.” The man left the hood open and placed the rings on the fender. With the hose in one hand and the stick in the other, he led the way up the dirt road toward the highway, and Easton followed. Just as they got to the curve by the trees, Tom turned and whistled. The dog scurried up and hopped after them, running just as fast as a jackrabbit.
CHAPTER 1C
MARCH 1979 • RUBY 41, LIDA 19
LIDA WAITED FOR her mother to get two glasses out of the cupboard and fill them with milk. It had been exactly two years since she’d been in this house, but immediately the desire to scratch herself returned. Ruby brought the drinks into the living room and placed them on cork coasters.
“When I was pregnant with you, they told me to drink lots of milk. So you finish that whole glass. Go on.”
Lida picked up her glass and drank the sweet milk. It was a relief to have an excuse not to speak. She continued to sip and hope her mother would say everything for her, that she wouldn’t have to ask to bring Marcus back to the house.
“You don’t remember your papa, Ronal, but he was so excited ’bout you coming. He put his hand on me and he ask, ‘How you know it’s a girl?’ and I say, ‘I just know, that’s all.’”
“Did you really know?”
“Well I guess I did. But you know men, how they don’t even think you connected to the baby in no way. Don’t you feel you could know?”
“Well Marcus says if it sticks out far then it’s a girl, and if it’s wide, then it’s a boy.”
“See, that’s just what I’m saying. Menfolk think everything got a shape to it. They’ve got to look at everything from the outside. You goin over to Kaiser or Highland?”
“I guess Kaiser.”
“That’s where everyone here go now. Used to be you had a doctor and you knew they name. I don’t even got a tooth no more. See here.” Ruby pulled her lip up to show Lida the space in her back teeth. “I don’t even recollect that doctor who got my tooth.” She took a sip of her milk, and they sat in silence for a moment.
“Well I think it’s a boy,” Lida said.
“Well then it got to be a boy. Ronal sure would have loved a little grandson. What about his daddy? He want you to have the child?” Ruby never said Marcus’s name.
“He is thinking up names already. He hopes it’s a boy.”
“He wanna call him after his self, I suppose.”
“No. He doesn’t want that. He’s thinking Jimmy or Keith, or some other names.”
“What about a name from the Bible, like Matthew?”
Lida laughed.
“Why’s that so funny? Just ’cause he don’t go to no church? He gonna marry you in a church, ain’t he?”
“Yes.” Lida sipped her milk.
“He say he was going to marry you, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have to tell him or he asked you?”
“He asked.”
“Well that’s good. Least the boy has some pride in him.”
Lida nodded, and her stomach growled.
“Why didn’t you say you was hungry? I’m hungry myself now that your stomach remind me. Isn’t he feeding you nothing?” Ruby stood up and went into the kitchen. “What kind of job he got? He got a job, I hope. A real job.”
“Yeah. He’s working at Lucky’s.”
Ruby pulled down two bowls and took out a pot of stew from the refrigerator. She put the pot on the stove, and they stood in the kitchen and talked while Ruby stirred the food.
“You got the child to think of now, you know. You have to keep him away from all that junk you-all be doing.”
“We don’t do that anymore, Mama.”
Ruby didn’t argue. She shook some salt into the stew and then tasted it with a big wooden spoon. She got brown sugar from the cabinet and dumped in a stream of it, then tasted it again.
“You can’t give it too much salt or too much sweet or it gets rotten. Hard to know exactly what it needs.”
“We’re all through with that junk, Mama. I swear we are. He didn’t have none since he’s been outta jail.”
Ruby turned to her. “You sure he’s the papa?”
“Mama! Yes, I’m sure.”
“I’m just asking. Love E told me you were sleeping ’round with all kind of men.”
Lida felt a burning in her face. It took a moment before she could bring any words to her mouth.
“An you believed him?” she finally asked.
Ruby turned off the burner and got a ladle out of the drawer. She scooped the stew into the bowls. “He was my brother.”
“I’m your daughter.”
“But look what kind of boy you took up with.”
“You don’t even know.” Lida shook her head. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.” The smell from the stew nauseated her and she walked out into the living room holding her stomach, as if poison had just filled it. She paced by the front window until Ruby came in holding the steaming bowls.
“Get me those red place mats out of the drawer,” Ruby said.
Lida turned.
“Marcus is the father of my child. Don’t you talk about him like he’s nobody. You didn’t even know all the things going on right under your own nose, but you think you know all about him and me.” The words came from her without her permission, as if she’d filled up with them and now they were overflowing. “You got no right to call him out of his name. He was a hundred times better than Easton. A thousand times. I don’t care if you never let us back in this house again, but you should have to know the truth, ’cause Easton was a liar. He was worse than a liar.” She shook her head. “I can’t eat none of that now. I just can’t eat.”
Ruby brought the bowls back into the kitchen and placed them next to the sink. She stood over the counter and kept her back to Lida.
“What did Love E ever do to you that was so awful?” she asked, just loud enough for Lida to hear in the living room.
Lida didn’t answer. She didn’t know where to begin. Everywhere she looked in that house, she could picture him, could see a moment when she felt terror. She saw him smiling at her from the couch as he drew pictures, eating at the table, sitting in the chair listening to records. She closed her eyes.
“It doesn’t matter, Mama, ’cause he’s dead now. I just want to go on. I just want to get this baby out of me and go on.”
“You have space for a baby where you living?”
“No. Why?”
Ruby dumped the stew back in the pot. “’Cause there’s so much room I got here.”
“You saying we could all move in back here?”
“I don’t know why you won’t tell me what Love E did. I know he didn’t mean it. He never did anything to hurt someone on purpose.”
“I definitely can’t live here, Mama, if you’re gonna keep bringing that up on me.”
“But if you just tell me, then we won’t have to bring it up anymore and it will be done with.”
“You aren’t going to believe me anyways, and you’ll just hate me more than you already do.”
“I don’t hate you, Lida. I love you.”
“Then you’ve got to pick, Mama. ’Cause it’s got to be him or me. You’ve got to promise to never talk about him.”
“But Lida, why do you want to hurt me this way? Can’t you at least let me have my memories?”
“That’s what I’m doing. I’m letting you have your memories, the way you want to have them.”
“You’re talking crazy. I don’t know what you’re saying.” Ruby sat down on the stepladder by the counter and held her head. “It’s not fair of you to make me choose like this.”
“There’s nothing to choose. I won’t make you choose, Mama. I can’t live here again, anyway. This place makes me shiver. It’s like
coming back to some kind of nightmare.”
Lida left the kitchen, and Ruby stayed on the ladder holding her head, looking at the floor. Lida picked up her purse from the couch and was almost out the door when she stopped and saw her old pair of Eastman shoes by the mat. She touched them lightly with the tip of her foot, like nudging a small animal to see if it was still alive.
“This was a good idea of mine to leave these shoes down here, wasn’t it, Mama?”
Ruby didn’t answer, and Lida let herself out.
SANTA RITA JAIL
I READ TO you today from Mississippi law known as the Black Codes:
3. Mississippi Vagrant Law; Section 2
All freedmen, free Negroes and mulattoes in this State, over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawful assembling themselves together, either in the day or night time, and all white persons so assembling themselves with freedmen, free Negroes or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen, free Negroes, or mulattoes, on terms of equality, or living in adultery or fornication with a freed woman, free Negro or mulatto, shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free Negro or mulatto, fifty dollars, and a white man two hundred dollars, and imprisoned at the discretion of the court, the free Negro not exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six months.…
4. Penal Laws of Mississippi; Section 5
If any freedman, free Negro, or mulatto, convicted of any of the misdemeanors provided against in this act [including “insulting gestures” or “exercising the function of a minister of the Gospel without a license”], shall fail or refuse for the space of five days, after conviction, to pay the fine and costs imposed [up to one hundred dollars], such person shall be hired out by the sheriff or other officer, at public outcry, to any white person who will pay said fine and all costs, and take said convict for the shortest time.
CHAPTER 2A
JANUARY 1994 • LOVE 14, LI’L PIT 10
AT TEN P.M., after winding through Bakersfield, the bus arrived at the L.A. terminal. Love and Li’l Pit were tired and groggy as they got off and wandered into the main waiting area, a cavernous hall flooded in fluorescent light. The room was crowded and the floor tiles were covered in ashy dirt. In the center were rows of long wooden benches, divided with a wooden bar every three feet so people couldn’t sleep on them. They sat down and looked around. There was a video arcade off to the side with loud laser explosions and flashing lights. At the entrance to the building, three teenagers stood against the wall, looking around at the passengers and every once in a while whistling across the street. Li’l Pit sat at the end of the bench and put his feet up.
