Zack

by William Bell

  He let out a laugh, thin and bitter as vinegar. “No freedom here in Mississippi, not if you was black. White man kept us down here—still does—and at the same time sent us to fight for freedom, as they put it, in ’Nam. Well, not Lucas Straight. I went to jail instead. That’s where I hurt my leg, broke it real bad on a work gang. Not that I was against a shooting war for the right reasons. If we’d been fightin’ the white man, for instance. Yeah, whites is bastards, Mike, ever’ damn one of ’em.

  “But,” he said with a wave of his hand that made it clear he was done with the subject, “that was ages ago, and this ain’t the time or place to talk about it. If you don’t mind, I’d like some more tea. Sure is hot today.”

  With my lunch turning sour in my stomach, I took Lucas’s glass to the trestle table, which now looked as if it had been carpet-bombed. The platters were bare, the bowls scraped clean. I found a sweating pitcher of tea and filled the glass.

  I’m not sure when it had dawned on me, but by the time Lucas had stopped talking I realized, after knowing him only a day and a half, that I had found the answer to the Family Mystery.

  My grandfather hated whites, and my mother had married one.

  The afternoon wore on, shadows inched their way across the yard, a few whisky bottles appeared and someone called for music. Moments later Cal, Ned and another man along with a tall, good-looking woman whose gold earrings reminded me of Mom’s were sitting in kitchen chairs on the gallery. Cal held a harmonica, Ned unpacked a banjo, the other two tuned acoustic guitars, and soon music as familiar to me as my name filled the hot summer air—classic blues.

  On some of the tunes the guests added their voices to the lonesome wail of the harmonica. Ned’s fingers blurred on the banjo strings. The guitar players were almost as good. Even Lucas added his rich, gravelly bass—he could sing harmony effortlessly, it seemed. I mumbled along when I recognized a song, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was lost in thought.

  If I’d had any brains, or if I had considered the matter for any length of time, I guess I could have figured out the Family Mystery myself, and to an outsider it probably seems strange that I didn’t. Family disagreements and break-ups happened all the time, for all sorts of reasons. But having a black mother and white father, having no experience of Mom’s side of the family, had always been a fact of life for me. Besides, it would never have occurred to me that someone wouldn’t like my father. Everybody liked him. And why shouldn’t they? He was a terrific guy.

  But my grandfather, I knew now, had hated him enough to cut his own daughter loose for good. As far as Lucas Straight was concerned, Etta had gone over to the enemy, and the man who had been strong-willed enough to go to jail rather than fight in a hypocritical war had disowned her.

  The foursome on the gallery had stopped singing and now people were taking turns naming a tune, standing and singing solo until the others scattered in the grass around them joined in.

  I decided that telling Lucas my identity was a dead issue. I’d never see him again. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I had blamed Mom for cutting me off from my African roots, but I knew the truth now. I’d get an early start in the morning and close the book on Lucas Straight.

  “Mike!” a voice boomed from across the yard. “Your turn, son!”

  “And don’t try to use that shiner as an excuse,” Sharon said with a laugh. “Y’all got to sing for your lunch!”

  In my neck and face I felt the familiar hot flush that came when I was centred out, and I wished I could have slunk away through the grass.

  “Come on, Mike,” Lucas said. A smile lit his face and crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes. “Give us a song.”

  All right, you bigoted old man, I thought bitterly, I’ll give you a song.

  I got to my feet, my anger chasing away embarrassment. I scanned the faces turned expectantly towards me. Some of these people were related to me, and the man beside me had kept me from them.

  “Um, I don’t know if any of you have heard this one,” I faltered, clearing the sand from my throat, my mind racing over the lines. “It’s called ‘South on 61.’”

  I turned to face Lucas. “My mother wrote it.”

  Lucas nodded and leaned on the cane between his knees. I tried to remember the things Mom had taught me about singing in public—not that I had ever expected to—how to breathe, to squeeze the words up from my diaphragm, and for a moment I wished I had taken music lessons as she had urged me many times. Under my breath I hummed for a second to get the starting note. Then I began.

  “Well, I’m headin’ south on 61,

  I’m goin’ home again,

  Back to where I came from,

  Back to all the pain.

  My leavin’ was so desperate,

  My comin’ home’s the same.

  “Cotton broke my daddy’s back

  It broke his daddy’s too,

  But Chicago’s long assembly lines

  Are silent as a tomb.

  They drove him back down 61

  With nothin’ but the blues.”

  The woman with the guitar began chording along with me and Ned had picked out the harmony on his banjo. The second guitar had come in on the fourth line of stanza two, adding a rich counterpoint to the banjo. Cal waited until the beginning of stanza three, then laid down a sad far-away shading with the harmonica.

  “Oh, Mama, why’d you leave me?

  Why you been gone so long?

  It’s now that I most need you

  To say where I belong.

  I’m headin’ back down 61

  With nothin’ but this song.

  “Ol’ 61, she led us north

  To jobs, prosperity,

  And gave us frozen ghettos

  And a life of misery.

  She runs in two directions,

  And neither one is free.

  “I’m headin’ back down 61,

  I’m goin’ home again.

  My leavin’ was so desperate,

  My comin’ home’s the same.”

  Chapter 10

  It was long past dark when I parked the truck in Lucas’s driveway. As soon as the motor died the night noises leapt from the clammy dark, and the moon threw a broad silver stripe across the bayou and dappled the front yard with soft blue light.

  All the way home he had raved about the song and complimented me on my singing. I had made polite sounds, but made it clear to him I didn’t feel like talking.

  “Better let me go first,” Lucas said, “and put the light on.”

  Inside, he struggled out of his suit jacket and hung it on a kitchen chair. “I’m gonna heat me up some milk and take it to bed,” he said. “Want some?”

  “No, thanks, Mr. Straight.”

  “Helps me sleep,” he added, taking a pot down from a cupboard. He splashed some milk into the pot and lit the burner. “I ain’t gonna fish tonight, but you’re welcome to try your luck.”

  Knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep for hours, I took him up on his offer.

  “Sure,” he said enthusiastically. “They don’t usually bite so good when the moon’s on the water, but you never know.” He turned off the burner and poured the milk into a mug. “Switch for the night light is right there on the jetty. You know where the tackle is. Should be lots of minners left in the tank.”

  “Okay, great.”

  “Well, good-night, Mike.”

  “‘Night, Mr. Straight. Um, I’ll probably take off early tomorrow, so please don’t trouble yourself over making breakfast for me.”

  “Well, least I can do,” he said, “for a famous blues singer, is make some coffee.” He smiled. “And for an old fishin’ buddy.”

  He hobbled down the hall and went into his room.

  I set out two fishing lines and sat in the lawn chair at the end of the jetty in a world of sound—the croak and kerchunk of frogs, the cheep of crickets, the whine of mosquitoes. A breeze swept up the bayou, wrinkling the water and bobbing the floats.

  I wa
s trying hard to dislike my grandfather, without much success. He seemed like a nice man, loyal to his friends, kind to a stranger, but his hatred of white people ran deep and his rejection of my mother and father wasn’t something I could accept—or forgive. How could such powerful hatred and such easy kindness live together inside the same man?

  I fished for a long time after the moon slid away. I caught a few crappies, but I tossed them back. I was damned if I’d save them for him.

  I woke up at eight, pulled on my clothes and padded down the hall to the kitchen. A pot of coffee simmered on the stove. Lucas was nowhere to be seen.

  Good, I thought. I returned to the bedroom and made the bed and packed up my gear. Before I left the house for the last time I laid the copy of my Pawpine research paper beside Lucas’s book on a table in the living room. I had brought it in from the truck the night before. Then I hoisted my pack onto my shoulder. The screen door slapped shut behind me.

  Wearing a stained tank top, baggy jeans and rubber boots, Lucas stood beside the Toyota with a hose in one hand and a big sponge in the other. The side of the truck gleamed in the morning sunlight, washed clean of mud and dust. He turned, nodded, and moved around to the tailgate, playing the stream against the truck, wiping with the sponge, rinsing off the dirt.

  I opened the driver’s door and tossed my gear into the cab. My vacuum bottle lay on the seat. I took off the cap, releasing the odour of hot coffee.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” I said grudgingly as I stepped to the back of the truck.

  Lucas stood rooted to the spot, hands at his sides, the hose pouring unnoticed onto the toe of his boot. He stared at the clean white licence plate with the blue letters and numbers and the word Ontario across the top.

  “Dammit!” I whispered.

  He looked up at me. Jaw muscles worked under his skin.

  His whisper rasped like a file. “Who are you?”

  It was over. I took a deep breath.

  “My name is Zachariah Lane,” I told him. “I’m your grandson.”

  His eyes saucered momentarily, then a frown creased his sweating forehead. His chin trembled and he turned his head to look out over the bayou. He swallowed.

  “I didn’t know Etta had no boy,” he murmured. His gaze dropped to the wet ground at his feet. “Zachariah. That was my daddy’s name. I didn’t know I had a grandson.”

  “You don’t,” I said.

  My words struck him like a blow, and his shoulders flinched. Without uttering another sound, he dropped the sponge and the hose and hobbled slowly and stiffly to the house. Without looking back, he went inside.

  I shut off the hose, climbed into the truck, and drove away.

  Chapter 11

  In planning my trip, I had thought about taking Highway 61 to Memphis on my way home, just so I could tell Mom I had done it, but things had changed. All I wanted to do now was point the truck north and get to Fergus as directly as possible. So, after stopping to replace the front licence plate just outside Natchez, I took the Trace—not the fastest route, but it was familiar. At Nashville I got onto the Interstate and stayed on the big highways. The trip home was depressing and long, and it was dark when I pulled into our driveway.

  I was exhausted, as depleted as an empty sack, but I still had my wits about me. The first thing I did was erase my phoney message from our answering machine and then call my parents in Montreal. Mom sounded as tired as I felt, said she was anxious to get home. I curbed my urge to tell her where I’d been, to tell her I was sorry for misjudging her for so long, because to do so would have upset her. I hung up, promising myself I’d find a way to make it up to her.

  I called my grandparents and, as cheerfully as I could, announced that the telephone had been fixed.

  “About time,” Grandpa said.

  It felt good to be home. I made my way through the house, turning on a light in every room, and each time I did I was greeted by withering plants drooping accusingly in their pots. I threw open a few windows to clear out the stale air, then made a dozen trips to and from the plants with Mom’s favourite hammered-brass watering can.

  I collected my gear from the truck, wincing at the sight of the crumpled fender and hood, and threw all my clothes into the washing machine before taking a hot shower. I put on a pair of boxers and a tank top, slipped into my flip-flops and walked out to the road to collect the mail. I tossed the junk mail into the recycling box and piled the rest on the table inside the front door. The stack of envelopes reminded me that my report card should be arriving soon. I had done my best to salvage my credits and I was pretty sure that, although my marks wouldn’t make my parents glow with pride and rush out to buy me a new car, I had passed everything.

  Except, maybe, history. That depended on how Ms. Song had liked my Pawpine essay.

  Even if she had given me the credit, university acceptance was touch and go. I had applied to three places and hadn’t received early acceptance from any of them. It had been a rough two weeks in June when other kids got theirs, strutting around and pretending to be surprised, babbling excitedly about courses and residence fees, clubs and teams. I’d have to wait until the end of the summer. Wait and hope.

  I popped open a can of tonic water and, in my room, took Pawpine’s white straps and neck iron out of my dresser drawer and looked at them. I wished I still had his gold, but it had probably been melted down by now. I wondered what the jeweller had made from it—a ring, maybe, or the setting for a precious stone in a pendant or brooch. Maybe some woman was wearing it right now, the gold with all that history resting against unknowing white skin at a boring party in a boring town. Well, it was none of my business any more.

  In each hand I held a strap, overcome once again by pity and admiration and affection for the man who had lived his days in an alien world against his will. Pawpine’s life had given me the inspiration to go south and find my roots. His gold had given me the means. No matter what kind of hell I caught from my parents, I would never be sorry.

  I knew now why Mom had stayed distant from her family. And I knew I had blamed the wrong person. My mother and father lived for each other. Even though they were my parents, I knew their love was like gold, and Lucas’s hate was like the silt that clogged the bayou behind his house. My mother would never accept someone who hated my father, not even her own father. She had been forced to make a choice, and being with my grandfather even for a short time had given me a whisper of an idea how hard it must have been for her.

  I picked up Pawpine’s neck iron. To be hated, I thought, to be exiled from your home, must be the worst thing in the world.

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 1

  As soon as the clock on our mantel chimed nine o’clock I picked up the phone. On the eighth ring a grumpy voice came on.

  “Piffard’s Jewellery.”

  I had awakened in the middle of the night to the sigh of a gentle rain, and as I slipped through the dark rooms closing windows an idea had formed in my groggy head: maybe Mr. Piffard hadn’t sold Pawpine’s gold. Maybe I could buy it back.

  In the morning I fretted and paced from the time I got up until the main-street stores opened.

  “Um, Mr. Piffard,” I began.

  “This is he.”

  “It’s Zack Lane calling.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  He said it the way people do when they don’t have a clue who you are but don’t want to admit it.

  “I sold … You bought a gold nugget from me a while ago.”

  “Oh, that. Yes, I remember,” he said warily.

  “Well, I was just wondering if you still have it.”

  “Why?”

  I hated it when people answered a question with another question. Why was Piffard being cagey? You’d have thought I was accusing him of peddling Rolex knock-offs.

  “Because I want to know,” I answered, as politely as I could.

  “Well, I don’t have it.”

  “I see,” I said. “Can you tell me where it is?”<
br />
  “That’s really not possible.”

  “No, I mean, did you melt it down, make something out of it? Or is it still in its original condition?”

  I paused, desperate to hear him tell me that the nugget was whole and sound, waiting for me somewhere. I hurried on. “Because if it is, maybe I could buy it back from whoever has it now.”

  “It’s gone. I’m afraid that’s all I can say.”

  “But—”

  “Good morning.” And he hung up.

  “You scum,” I muttered, slamming down the phone.

  I was worse off than I had been before I called. If Piffard had told me he had made a brooch out of the gold, I could have handled that. But to think the nugget might still exist, that if I only knew whoever had bought it I could make them an offer, drove me batty.

  Vowing never again to follow half-baked ideas that came to me in the middle of the night, I pushed through the kitchen door, pulled the lawn mower and trimmer out of the garage, and spent the morning vengefully attacking the grass, seeing Piffard’s squinty eyes and smelly cigar stub in every blade.

  After a shower and a lunch of “the yellow death,” I brought in the mail. Among the envelopes I found one from my school. It was addressed to Mr. and Mrs., but I told myself it was my report card inside and opened it anyway, a little surprised at how calm I was as I unfolded the computer-generated document whose lines and squares, course codes, averages and medians and, in bold print down the right side, final grades would tell me my future.

  “Hooray!” I bellowed, throwing the mail into the air.

  I had passed everything. Three Cs and one B—in history. The Book must have liked my research essay. I was free!

  Maybe.

  Noting a C average in my graduating courses, universities wouldn’t exactly be sending recruiting teams to sign me up, but—maybe.

  Feeling pleased and a little like I had escaped the hangman, I bounced outside to wash the truck and remove the cap. I had to pick my parents up at the airport at nine-fifteen. When I laid eyes on the dented hood and crumpled quarter panel all my good thoughts flew away. It was time to face the hangman after all.