“And where is it you’re from?” Sid asked.
“Grinder’s Corner, Alabama.”
Sidney shook his head, a sorrowful slow movement meant to show a measure of disgust. “Alabama, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Harrumph,” Sidney grumped. “I guess that’s explanation enough.”
Carmella let go a sigh of relief. “Well, now that you better understand one another, maybe you gentlemen can come to an agreement.” With that she stood and left the table.
For several minutes the three men sat there in silence. Sidney picked up a biscuit and slathered butter on it. Benjamin cut the tip end off a cold sausage and stuffed it in in his mouth. It was a bite so small he could have swallowed it whole, yet he sat there chewing and chewing. Paul pushed a pile of eggs from one side of his plate to the other but didn’t bother to eat.
Eating was little more than a cover-up for the silence. Paul’s eyes went from Benjamin to Sid, then back again to Benjamin. Both were strong, stubborn men, set in their ways and proud; too proud to bend, too proud to be the one to swallow back their words.
In a situation such as this, someone had to step in. Someone had to offer the olive branch. Plucking a cold biscuit from the basket, Paul asked, “Uncle Sid, can you pass that jam down here?” As he casually spooned the jam onto the biscuit, he said, “It may be that we’ve come at this the wrong way.”
Benjamin and Sid waited.
“We all have our wants and don’t wants,” Paul said. “But before we can get to what we want, we’ve got to listen to what the other person doesn’t want.”
“I’m not opposed to doing that,” Sid said.
Benjamin nodded. “Me neither.”
Paul looked over at Sid. “Uncle Sid, I think you and I feel much the same. We’re grateful to Benjamin for pulling me out of that car and bringing me home, so we’re looking for a way to repay his kindness.”
“I done said you don’t owe me nothing,” Benjamin cut in.
Paul turned to Benjamin. “I know, but you’re not hearing what we want. Just as you felt a sense of pride in doing a kindness, we want to feel that same pride by repaying it. You can’t ask us to accept your kindness if you’re not willing to accept ours. That’s the same as a smack in the face.”
Benjamin’s jaw dropped. “I ain’t intending no—”
“I know.” Paul nodded. “But it’s how Uncle Sid sees it.” He turned to Sid. “You on the other hand are trying to repay Benjamin by giving him something he doesn’t want, something he’s uncomfortable taking.”
“Uncomfortable?” Sid grumbled. “What’s so uncomfortable about living—”
“Uncle Sid, I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but you’re not listening to Benjamin any more than he’s listening to you.”
Sid gave a slight grimace and quietly leaned back in his chair.
“Those things,” Paul said, “are what’s at the heart of this matter. But the actual problems are that we need somebody to help out in the store until my arm heals, and Benjamin needs to earn some traveling money.”
“I ain’t looking for a handout,” Benjamin said indignantly.
“And I ain’t offering one,” Sid shot back. “Only thing I offered was a job. You work and I pay you for doing the work.”
“I got no problem with that,” Benjamin said, “but I ain’t gonna move in like family and sleep in that upstairs bedroom. It just ain’t proper.”
Sidney scooted closer and plunked his elbows on the table. “Well, if that’s your only problem, we can fix that.”
Benjamin leaned forward, listening.
“We’ve got a playroom downstairs in the basement. It’s clean and dry but not fancy. I was planning to rent it out to a handyman, but I could instead rent it out to you for a dollar a day.”
“A dollar a day?” Benjamin repeated. “Ain’t that a bit high?”
“Well, I’ve got to figure in the cost of food for you and the boy,” Sid said, making it sound like a business negotiation.
“You got a stove down there?” Benjamin asked.
“No stove, but there’s heat and a bathroom.”
Benjamin rubbed his whiskers thoughtfully. “No stove, huh?”
Sidney shook his head. “Nope. You and Isaac will have to eat up here with us white folks. I’ve come halfway. Now it’s up to you to come the other half.” He struggled to hold the dour look on his face and not smile.
“A dollar a day,” Benjamin repeated. “And how much you gonna be paying me?”
“I’ll pay you what I paid Paul when he started working at the store: thirty-seven dollars a week. I first take out my seven dollars for room and board, then give you thirty dollars cash at the end of the week.”
As Paul listened he held back a grin. The truth was he’d made thirty dollars a week. Sid had tacked on an extra seven dollars to pay for the rent he was charging.
Thirty dollars was considerably more than Benjamin ever made in Bakerstown and he would have been willing to sleep in the truck to make that kind of money, but there would still be the problem of Isaac. Sleeping was one thing, but what would he do with Isaac while he was working?
The whole deal looked sweet to Benjamin—with one exception.
“What kinda neighbors you got around here?” he asked apprehensively.
“Neighbors?” Sidney repeated. “What do the neighbors have to do with—”
“Are they gonna get put out ’cause you got coloreds living in your house?”
“Of course not,” Paul answered. “They’re good neighbors.”
“Any of them good neighbors got coloreds living in their house?” Benjamin asked. “Hired help, maybe?”
“Not that I know of,” Sidney said. “But I’m sure they wouldn’t—”
“If it don’t make no never-mind to you,” Benjamin said, “I’d sooner you tell folks I’m hired help instead a’ claiming we’s company.”
A short while later Benjamin got in his truck and followed Sidney to the store. Isaac remained at the house playing with Jubilee as Carmella cleared the table and began readying herself to take Paul for his X-ray.
When Sidney parked in back of the store, Benjamin pulled in alongside of the car and followed him in. Benjamin had insisted on driving “hisself,” and weary of arguing over trivial things Sidney had curtly answered, “Fine.”
For the first few hours they were like two lovers getting past a spat; they said what had to be said in as few words as possible, then moved on to the next thing. There was no chitchat or pleasantries tucked in between the tasks. Sidney handed Benjamin the broom and told him to start sweeping up. After that he cleaned the front window and loaded bags of potato chips onto a rack. It was near ten when Sid pointed to a carton and showed Benjamin the shelf where the cans were to be stacked.
“Three rows,” he said and turned back to the counter.
Benjamin pulled out the first few cans and started stacking, but when he caught sight of the picture of green beans on the label he laughed out loud.
“If that don’t beat all,” he said, “putting green beans in a can.”
“What’s wrong with green beans in a can?” Sid asked.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with it.” Benjamin chuckled. “I just ain’t never seen it before.”
“You’ve never seen green beans?”
“Sure I seen green beans, I just never seen ’em in a can. We growed ours.”
“What about in the winter?”
Benjamin stopped stacking and stood there with a can of beans in each hand. The sad memory of Delia standing at the stove passed through his mind.
“My Delia used to cook up vegetables from the garden and put them in glass jars to last through winter.” The sadness in his face was obvious, even when he turned back to stacking cans.
For a brief moment, the wall between them disappeared. It was only two men connected by a bridge of unspoken sadness and painful memories. Sidney sensed the connection, but it was gone in a flash.
Perhaps if Emma Withers hadn’t walked in at that moment he would have asked about Delia, but as it happened Emma was in a mood to talk. Once she stared telling about her niece’s wedding, Sidney knew he could do little but listen. As she rattled on, he watched Benjamin finish stacking the cans and move back to the storeroom. Several other customers followed behind Emma, and when the store was once again empty Benjamin was in the back scrubbing out the refrigerator.
Sometimes a single moment came and went in a person’s life. It was there and then it wasn’t. It was a moment that belonged to the present but stretched far into the future. Such a moment could change everything. Sidney thought back to the day Hurt McAdams walked into the store and pulled out a gun. It happened almost two years ago, but it was still right there in the forefront of his mind.
The morning had started out as ordinary as all those that came before it; then Sid looked up and saw the flash of gun coming from McAdams’ pocket. Standing to the side with the “Help Wanted” sign in his hand, Paul had seen it too. He lunged for the gun just as Sidney grabbed his rifle from beneath the counter and fired.
What if Paul had hesitated? What if he’d turned back to look for the baby sister he’d left sitting on the bench across the street? What if he’d ducked down to save himself? He’d done none of those things; instead he’d stretched his arm out and grabbed for the gun. In doing so he saved Sidney’s life.
Sometimes life provided opportunities to reach out and make a difference, and when that happened a man worth his salt had to step up to the challenge.
That thought was churning through Sidney’s mind when he came up behind Benjamin and said, “When you finish that, let’s grab a cup of coffee.”
Benjamin turned and smiled.
Sidney
All men have pride. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the lowest rung of life or at the top of the ladder. Take away a man’s pride and he’s got nothing. That’s why I have to charge Benjamin for staying here.
I tried explaining there’s not enough money in the world to pay someone for saving your boy’s life, but Benjamin didn’t see it that way. He saw it as charity. When a person’s needy, he tends to think that way.
From what I can see it doesn’t look like they’ve got a whole lot of possessions, but Benjamin certainly has got a lot of pride.
The funny thing is that while I disagree with his way of thinking, I’ve got to respect the man. He’s looking to make a better life for his son, and that’s something you simply can’t argue with.
Talk of Babies & Bombers
It was early afternoon when Paul hobbled into the store, a leather brace on his leg and a plaster cast on his arm. The rain had already started, and Carmella walked alongside him stretching her arm in the air to hold a small red umbrella over his head. They had the look of a pair of mismatched socks, one stretched out long and skinny, the other shrunk to half its size.
Sid and Benjamin were both behind the counter, laughing like they’d shared some kind of joke. “I never would a’ guessed it,” Benjamin said and gave another chuckle.
“Guessed what?” Carmella asked.
Sidney gave a guilty grin “I was telling Benjamin about that time we passed through Alabama on our way home from Arthur’s bar mitzvah.”
“Oh, Sidney,” she groaned. “That story’s twenty years old. It wasn’t funny then, and it still isn’t funny.”
“Okay, maybe it wasn’t funny then,” Sidney said, “but looking back it’s funny.”
They chatted for a few minutes, and then Carmella convinced Sidney to take the afternoon off.
“Benjamin and Paul can handle things,” she said, rationalizing that it was a rainy afternoon and the store wasn’t going to be that busy. “Besides,” she added, “I’ve got a few things I need you to do at home.”
Once Sidney disappeared out the door, Paul lowered himself onto the stool behind the register and Benjamin went back to filling in empty spots on the store shelves. Other than a couple of questions as to what went where and the few chores that needed to be done, there was little conversation.
After everything was unpacked and shelved, Benjamin broke down the cardboard boxes and tied them for the trash collector. By mid-afternoon there wasn’t a thing left to do, and that’s when he and Paul settled into long stretches of conversation.
“How’d you come to meet Mister Sidney?” Benjamin asked.
Paul gave a sad little laugh. “He shot me.”
It was one of those funny but not funny moments. Paul went on to tell of how he’d walked in looking for a job and got caught up in a robbery.
“The shooter got away,” he said, “but Uncle Sid and I ended up in the hospital, neither one of us able to tell what happened. The police figured I was in on the robbery, so once I regained consciousness they arrested me.”
“Why you didn’t say you was innocent?”
“I didn’t remember. I didn’t even know who I was until the detective brought Jubilee in to see me. He was a friend of Olivia Doyle, the woman caring for Jubilee. She called him and said Jubilee was looking for a brother who’d disappeared the day of the robbery. He put two and two together and got to thinking it might be me.”
“Whew,” Benjamin said. “You’re lucky to find a detective what listened.” He hadn’t intended to tell Paul or anyone else what happened with Sheriff Haledon, but once they began talking it spilled out like rainwater from a leaky barrel.
Tragedy is a thing to be shared, and as they sat there listening to the rain pinging against the window he told the whole of it: how in the dark of night he’d spied on Luke Garrett and reported his findings to the deputy.
“I figured a man of law had to do what was right,” Benjamin said sadly, “but I was wrong as wrong can be.”
A hard edge settled across Benjamin’s jaw as he told Paul that he was certain the deputy had warned Luke Garrett, and how by the time the sheriff got back from vacation the whitewall tire was missing and Garrett was clean-shaven.
“But the sheriff could investigate it, couldn’t he?” Paul asked. “Somebody had to notice the guy had a beard a week earlier.”
“Yeah, I’m betting plenty a’ bodies noticed, but white folks don’t turn on their own.”
“What about some of your own people?” Paul asked.
Benjamin gave a sarcastic grunt. “In Alabama, a colored man’s word ain’t worth speaking. Sheriff Haledon told me what’s done is done. He said the best I can do is take care of my boy and that was the end of it.”
“All you needed was one friend,” Paul said, “one person willing to stand up and say ‘I know the truth’.”
Benjamin sat there and thought back on the people he’d worked for, white people mostly. Abigail Evans had always treated him fairly; she’d even invited him in for a glass of cold lemonade last summer. When she heard what happened to Delia, she’d held his hand and told him how sorry she was for his loss. And Butch Dudley, he’d shared in the work of painting his house. Benjamin could still see the splatters of yellow paint on both white and black hands. They’d passed the turpentine soaked rag back and forth, wiping away the spots of paint stuck to their skin. Butch was an honorable man, a daddy to two boys, not someone likely to lie for a man like Garrett.
There were others, perhaps some would be willing to swear Benjamin was a man who spoke the truth. But did any of them even know Luke Garrett? Benjamin felt a lead weight drop into his heart. He knew the truth was that he’d not asked one of them. Not one. He’d just sat there and listened when the sheriff said nothing more could be done. He’d not argued or fought for the truth. Isaac had argued for the truth, but Benjamin had not.
The sound of the rain was a heartless reminder of the night Delia was killed. The image of lifting her from the muddy roadside came to mind, and Benjamin’s eyes grew teary. He rubbed his shirtsleeve across his face and wiped them away.
He stood and stared down at his feet. He’d told everything there was to tell but said nothing about how Luk
e Garrett had yelled the word “nigger.” That somehow seemed too shameful to tell.
“Maybe there was such a friend,” he finally said, “but I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to go looking for them.”
“We’ve all got regrets,” Paul said. He moved closer and wrapped his right arm around Benjamin’s shoulder. “It’s always easier to know what you should have done when it happened yesterday.”
On Saturday the store closed at six, but lost in their shared stories and the drumming of rain Benjamin and Paul lost track of time. They were still standing there talking when the telephone rang. Paul lifted the receiver and said, “Klaussner’s Grocery.”
“Oh, thank God you’re there,” Carmella gasped. “I was worried sick when you and Benjamin didn’t come home.”
Paul glanced up at the clock on the wall. Seven-fifteen. “Sorry, Aunt Carmella, we lost track of time.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, come on home,” she scolded. “I’ve had dinner waiting for over an hour.”
After the lights were out and the store locked, they circled around the building to the back where Benjamin’s truck was parked. With his leg stiffened by the brace Paul found it difficult to get into the cab, so he sat sideways as Benjamin lifted his leg and eased it over the edge of the door.
~ ~ ~
As they sat at the dinner table, Benjamin felt the tension in his stomach melt away; not because of a single word or gesture, but something he couldn’t touch his finger to—a sound maybe. He ate slowly and listened.
It was the sound of ordinary, everyday small talk, the sound of a family gathering and sharing. It brought back memories of Delia and the early years of their marriage, a time when Otis was alive and their own table was ringed with the same happy sounds. When Carmella laughed he could almost hear the sound of Delia’s laughter threaded through long-forgotten conversations and suddenly it came to him: laughter was the cord that tied a family together. Sadly, he couldn’t remember the last time he and Isaac had really laughed together. He knew it had not happened since the night Delia died.
Passing Through Perfect Page 18
