And he lookin just nice, and his clothes about perfect.
“It mean you can’t harm somebody, innocence,” Silversmith said. “You can’t corrupt somebody. You free of sin. You ain’t guilty of nothin. You free of guilt.” His words rushed over her, cleansing her. “You got nothin to be ashamed of, Tree. You ain’t hurt your brother. All you ever done for him is good. You ain’t the cause of what’s happening.”
“But I am ashamed,” she said, and bowed her head.
“Ashamed of what?”
“Just … of myself, sometimes,” she said.
“You a pretty girl, unsure of yourself,” he said.
Me, priddy? she thought. Me?
“You just self-conscious. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. One day you become a full-grown woman. And the more you come to know, the more you will feel good inside about knowing.”
“You ever feel ashamed about yourself?” she asked him.
“Not ashamed, Tree, just some self-consciousness as you growing up. You give it some space and it will pass on.”
“Huh!” she said. She’d never guessed others could feel like she felt. “I thought I must be ashamed cause of my color.”
He looked at her hard. Her face got hot, and she had to look away.
“Hear me, now,” he said in his deep, soft voice.
Maybe he my real father! Ken! Tree thought suddenly. But that can’t be. You know it can’t. But whatever he was to her, Silversmith was caring.
“You can’t separate your skin from what’s inside it, Tree. Don’t let nobody tell you otherwise,” he said. “Your skin represent who you are. And how you feel about the skin is how you fare inside.”
“But people look at you funny cause you dark-skinned,” Tree said. Saying it made her feel better, less ashamed.
“People look at you all kinds of ways,” he said. “Some look you over cause they don’t like the dark. But that’s their problem. And if the way they look at you make you change your feelins about yourself—make you feel bad inside—then you lettin their problem become your problem. You hurtin yourself.”
“Yeah, that true!” Tree said.
“Sure it is,” Silversmith said. “So how they lookin at you is their problem.”
“Their problem,” she repeated. “Yeah!”
“And don’t always look to see how folks lookin at you. What you don’t see, in this case, don’t hurt you.” He smiled at her, touched her hand.
She smiled back. When she ate again, the food was cold. But it was still good.
He don’t seem to mind spendin the time wit me, she thought. Wonder if he ever read Warren Miller, somebody?
“You like to read some?” she asked him.
“Nope,” he said. “I like the cable. Cable got everything you want to know. Vy and me do go to a movie once in a while. Mostly when she not too tired, we go dancin.”
“Dancin! M’Vy, dancin?” Tree said.
“Sure! And not no disco stuff, either. Shoot. Vy likes the ballroom and big bands. Now that was a time. The fifties. She love it back then and the Latin numbers. Tito Puente’s band. She loves the tango, and so do I. We’ll take you with us one time, teach you a few steps,” he said.
“Me?” Tree was astonished. “Dancin? Me?”
“Why not, you? You can dance, can’t you? Vy will teach you, if you can’t. My boy, Don, he can teach you. He nineteen. Catchin up in the Community College. He’ll be all right. He likes computers. He takes the dances, mambo and tango and adds what he call a Bro-beat to them.” Silversmith smiled wryly to himself.
Tree didn’t know what to say. She was overwhelmed by all the new things he was telling her. Dancin! Who’d think M’Vy be doin somethin like that?
And he was saying she could go dancing, too.
Guess his son, Don, will go dancin with the three of us. Tree thought about that and said after a time, “Guess you can be closed in someplace, but everything keep going on around you, don’t it?”
“That’s true,” he said. “The world keep going; it have to.”
“Nothin gone stop just because you’s stop,” she concluded.
They were talking about what concerned her. What she cared about. Being with Silversmith was so nice. Being calm, grown-up, talking over food.
Tree looked up and saw M’Vy coming in. All at once she remembered Dab.
How’d I forget him like that! He’d slipped her mind completely. In just a short time, Dab had not existed.
A wave of guilt and shame rolled over her. She was terrified that her enjoyment would somehow do damage to her brother.
Silversmith got up, pulling a chair out for Vy, who sat down in silence. Tree wanted to know everything but couldn’t bring herself to ask. M’Vy’s face was shut, her eyes half-closed under heavy lids. She looked exhausted. Silversmith went to the counter and came back with soup and crackers, coffee and potato salad.
He know exactly what M’Vy want, Tree thought.
Vy drank her coffee, making slight whispering sounds as she sucked in the scalding heat. She held her coat closed with the other hand. She was big and honey brown. Vy was beautiful, Tree thought.
“They have to put Dab by himself,” she said, setting down the cup. “He have to have a room kept dark. He most needs a high level of medical and nursing care.”
Silversmith took Vy’s hand, and Tree watched as they laced their fingers together. “He can’t have visitors,” Vy said. Looking at Tree, “I’ll have to stay the night. Yo’w go on home.”
Dab always wit me in the night. Tree was seized with panic. Never in my life be all alone!
“I’ll wait in the house for you, Vy,” Silversmith said, “keep Tree company.”
Tree sighed in relief.
“And I’ll call you later,” Vy said. “Don’t know yet when you pick me up.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“You can use Dab’s bed,” Vy said. Tree looked at her sharply but said nothing.
“I’ll just watch some television,” he said.
“I’ll be away from work for a few days,” Vy went on. “What we can do—you bring over the car to here when I call. I’ll take you to work and you tell them I won’t be there for a few days. That’s the way it will be. I got to stay here.”
Tree looked from one to the other. “You both workin someplace?” she said. “Together?”
“Tree, there be much, but not now,” Vy said. “You have to wait.”
“I’m always waitin for not now, seems like,” Tree said, gazing at her hands.
“Watch you mouth, Tree,” Vy told her. Tree knew that she must let M’Vy do the thinking and worrying.
But awhile ago, he treat me like I’m a person.
She felt miserable and slid down in her seat, making herself smaller. Something sad and bittersweet commenced running through her head.
“Everything going to be okay,” Silversmith said soothingly. But Tree didn’t smile at him. She didn’t pretend to agree with him.
I don’t think it’s gone be okay, she thought. I sure don’t. It was strange not having Dab with her, like she had lost some part of herself.
They got up. Vy kissed Tree on the cheek, patted her shoulder. And yet her usual warmth seemed to be missing. Vy went out, and Tree and Silversmith headed home.
All the way there, Tree was distracted. She did not think to enjoy her second ride in M’Vy’s car. There was this sound, which had once been a really good sound, running through her mind. She couldn’t make it stop; and now it was scaring her to death.
She imagined Dab coming toward her in his shuffling light shoes. His voice was just as clear in her head.
Do a little dance, she heard him. Sing a little song, mournful, painful, Do a little dance, over and over again.
Chapter 14
TREE AND DAB WALKED along. They were tiny figures against an enormous suspension bridge. They walked, one behind the other with Dab in the lead. Although it was night, Tree could see Dab’s y
ellow shirt and his arms, held away from him for balance. She reached up and placed her hands on his shoulders. “You my big brother,” she told him.
“Yeah. Yeah,” he said.
“I’ll always look after you,” she said.
“You my best fren,” he called back.
“You be dancin?” she asked him.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, and he did a little dance in his shuffling shoes.
Tree was happy. Dab seemed more content than ever before.
The bridge gleamed under her feet. It was immense, looming above them. But then they weren’t walking on the bridge. They were climbing a huge, thirty-six-inch cable. They were heading for a gigantic masonry tower that supported a whole span of cables. Through the tower windows, she saw sick people resting in beds. They were staring out.
The cable narrowed and became damp and slick. Tree slipped, sliding backward.
“Dab!” she cried.
But he didn’t hear her. He was dancing up the cable; his shuffling light shoes showed him the way.
Tree couldn’t hold on. She fell; falling, long and deep in the dark. She screamed for her brother, but he was beyond her, a dancing fool. Soon she would be gone. Still, she clawed at the night. She hit. She was lying dripping on a pavement. It was a wet highway. Cars flashed by. They had their lights on inside. She could see plush upholstery. She lay, wet and dripping as cars flew by. Her bones were dripping her flesh.
Tree woke up screaming and crying. Someone had hold of her and was lifting her back in bed, for she had fallen out. Someone patted her until she calmed down, and straightened her bedding. She knew it must be Silversmith who had taken care of her. But she dreamed it was sweet Dabney. Too sleepy to thank who it was. She felt ashamed at dreaming so hard and falling on the floor. Now she slept a sound sleep for the rest of the night.
Tree finally awoke to a house of silence. She lay a long time just listening. Nothing in particular. She heard her alarm clock on the dresser. She didn’t even bother to look at it. She knew by the complete silence of the building that it was long past time for school or for work. The night came back to her as it had happened. Even the nightmare. She remembered the bridge and falling off the scary span.
She thought of Dab, closed her eyes tightly. She hugged her pillow until some of the sad feeling passed.
It me fallin down, not Dabney, she thought. Maybe him climbing and climbing and not falling was a sign he would be all right. Presently she felt better and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
The house was quite empty, she was sure of it. But she pulled on her blue robe anyway and walked to the door.
“Silversmith?” she called down the hall. She went to the living room. Not a soul; but she saw signs that he had straightened up the room. She tried to find some change in the room, since only awhile ago it had held so big a man. But it wasn’t changed.
Why it feel different, then? she wondered. No, it’s me, she concluded. Me, changing.
She looked at the closed door of her little room.
Ghost, don’t come now—me, by myself!
And hurried to the kitchen. There was a note pasted on the refrig. She sat down at the table to read it. And smiled. Silversmith wrote large. “LOOK INSIDE,” she read. She got up again, stifling a giggle. It didn’t seem right to be silly without Dab.
On a sudden impulse, she hurried to Dab’s room. She opened the door and peeked in. His bed was still rumpled, the way they had left it. His pillow was on the floor. Dirty pajamas on the floor. Tree gathered up everything, including his trousers where he’d stepped out of them. She tried to figure out how long ago he had stepped out of them, but couldn’t.
Just when she was about to leave, she spied something sticking out from under the bed. Part of a shoe was what it was. Tree smiled in recognition.
Dab’s light shoes! she went over and got them. Held them, looked at them and slipped them on. She had to push her toes forward to make the shoes light up. They lit up, and she laughed. The next minute she was sobbing. Looking down at the shining shoes, she got hold of herself and wiped her eyes.
Oh, Dab! She walked to the bathroom, depositing the dirty clothes in the hamper, watching her feet. And went back to the kitchen, still watching her feet light the way ahead of her.
She sat down to read the note again. “LOOK INSIDE.” She went over and opened the refrigerator. Two stacks of pint cartons were before her. There was another note taped to them. “THIS IS WHAT’S LEFT, CASE I CAN’T GET BACK FOR YOUR DINNER. NOW LOOK IN THE OVEN.”
“What?” Tree said out loud. “You some kind of crazy, Silversmith?” But the note made it a game. It was like Silversmith was there with her.
The oven dial was on on the stove. She peeked in the oven and found serving dishes of Chinese food. Tree loved Chinese.
Maybe he is my dad! She clapped her hands and laughed down at the shoes. “Look what Silversmith left us!” Talking like that to the shoes was almost like having Dab as close as could be.
The clock on the oven read twelve o’clock.
Noon! I never sleep that long even on the weekend, she thought.
With pot holders, she carefully took the dishes from the oven. Four dishes, different kinds. One was Chinese spare-ribs. Another looked like chicken and pea pods. There were noodles in one dish and shrimp in the other.
I can’t eat all this!
She set her place at the table and, eagerly, she ate. And ate.
Um-um-uuum! Looking down at her light shoes, pushing her toes forward. “It’s hot and it’s good, real good. You’d love it,” as though Dab could hear her. Tree hoped there was some way he knew she was thinking of him. “I have to eat,” she said quietly. “But you still stay on my mind, every single minute. Everythang gone be all right.” She held onto this thought. She would not let any doubt come near.
Tree spent the day by herself. There were things to do. She knew the routine. But before she could straighten Dab’s room and change his sour-smelling bed, making sure everything was clean and neat, she had to know for certain about the little room—her round table.
After eating, she rested at the table in silence; it was more than an hour later. She left the dishes and went slowly down the hall. Halfway, she stopped and studied the shuffling shoes.
You ain’t scared, are you? she thought to them. It was awfully quiet around her. She made the lights go off and on by moving her toes back and up. Nothing to be scared of, she thought. You with me.
“Ohh, wait,” Tree said. “I forgot to call the school!” She always called when she or Dab was under the weather.
In the kitchen again, she called the school office. She told them Dab was ill in the hospital and that she wouldn’t be in because she had the flu herself. Dab had pneumonia, she said. She didn’t much mind lying over the phone. The aides weren’t going to believe half of what she told them, anyhow. Over the phone they were just voices, and she was only a voice to them.
Be workin they jobs, she thought as she hung up the phone. Ain’t got no time to care about me.
Dab got pneumonia and I got the flu, that’s all it is. She headed down the hall again. She didn’t stop this time. She came to the door and did not hesitate to open it.
She wanted to see Brother Rush now. She wanted him to take her out again. Yet, there was another part of her that was always very much afraid of seeing a ghost. But in the room now there was no mystery of strange light. There was no ghost through the table. She leaned on the table, reaching out over it. And passed her arm back and forth; closed her eyes. Rush was not settling in.
“You come on, take me out,” she whispered. “I got on Dab’s shoes. See? We got a lot of trouble. Dab sick like you was sick. Please come and tell me what gone happen to him.”
But nothing came. She stood, arms outstretched, for five, ten minutes. And nothing settled in.
Bet I’d have to come back every half-hour to catch him. Rush so fast! she thought. She remembered the times she had gone to the place of R
ush and riding in his automobile.
Why I love cars so much, it came to her in a flash.
Staring at the table, she saw scenes of the past in her mind. She caught and held the one of the car crash, when she had escaped through the trunk. When Ken, her father, had lived and Brother had died. Thoughts snagged on the way Rush fell from the car.
What it is. Something. Seem funny.
She couldn’t tell what was funny about it. Everything surrounding that moment was too much for her to fathom. To fall from a crashing car was the worst thing she could think of.
To fall. Falling. Fall from a bridge!
She was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of closeness to death, and to Rush.
Brother got hit by that door. He got knocked cold, you could see it. To die, never knowing it happen. Never know how it feel when you hit the ground.
She turned and left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
I got things to do. She took a shower, and afterward, when she was dressed again, she took away the dirty towels and put clean ones on the racks. Then she went about cleaning up Dab’s room. It had an odor, so she opened the windows. She kept her mind away from all trouble while changing the bedding. She worked hard, so as not to think. She loved hard work.
Get me a job, do what I want to.
At three o’clock, the phone rang. Tree dropped the dust cloth and covered her ears, shaking all over.
Don’t answer it. Answer it!
She ran to the kitchen and picked up the phone. “Tree,” said the phone. It took her a moment to recognize the voice, her heart was beating so loud. It was M’Vy.
“Hi! M’Vy, Hi!”
“Hi, baby. How you doin? You all right? You find the food?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. The food was great. Silversmith bring it for me, keep it warm, too. He nice, M’Vy. I’m fine. What’s happening? Where are you?” She didn’t want to ask. She would not dare ask about Dab. Let M’Vy tell her all she wanted to. But she could not bring herself to ask.
“I’m at the hospital,” Vy said.
“You ain’t slept or nothing?” Tree said, her mind and heart racing.
Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush Page 14
