Killing her would have been worse than killing our own children; killing her, or even thinking of it, would be like killing the only dream we had.
Chapter Eight
The next morning we had breakfast but I pretended to be sicker than I felt and lay back down on the yellow couch after we ate.
It was nice that she took me in but it was strange too. I felt in danger whenever she looked at me.
At noon I was saved by a knock on the door.
‘Domaque Harker,’ Miss Dixon said through the closed screen.
‘How you do, Miss Dixon?’
‘Very fine, and how are you?’
‘I’m fine too, ma’am.’
‘And your mother?’
‘I ain’t seen her in two, three days, ma’am, but I’m sure she’s fine and would wanna know that your health is fine too.’
Dom was speaking slower than he had when I was with him. I figured that Miss Dixon was teaching him how to talk as well as read.
‘And what story are you working on now, Domaque?’
‘I’m workin’ on Noah’s tale, ma’am.’
All of this talk was still through the dosed screen.
‘And how does that go?’
‘How Noah saw the storm comin’ an’ how he gathered all the married children an’ all the pairs of animals. How he rode the storm of God’s righteous anger in love of his wife and his chirren an’ their chirren...’
‘That’s the way you have to do it. Make it your own.’
She opened the door with that and Domaque shambled in. That skinny woman and barrel-shaped hunchback looked so strange standing there amongst the umbrella stands and mirrors. To look at them you would say that they had nothing in common. But there they were understanding each other so well that they could have been good friends, or even blood. They would never even sit down at the same table to break bread. But they’d get together and tell each other stories and laugh and be happy. I remember feeling loneliness watching them.
Miss Dixon asked us to stay to dinner but Dom said that we had to be going, being polite I guess. She gave us some sandwiches and fruit in a paper bag to eat on the way.
I was hoping that she’d let me keep her uncle’s suit but she didn’t. My clothes smelled all the worse for the few hours of cleanliness that I’d been given.
She waved goodbye from the front porch like a mother sending her kids off to school. I felt bad about leaving in some ways. I had never stayed in such a fine house and I liked it; but I was glad to be clear of that strange white lady.
‘She funny, huh?’ Domaque asked.
‘Yeah, I guess. She comes right out and says what she thinks and don’t care how it sounds.’
Dom smiled to himself and then closed his lips over his giant mouth. When he did that his lips came together in a point as if he were trying to kiss something very small.
He said, ‘Yeah, that’s why I like her, I guess.’
‘I don’t know if it’s too good always sayin’ anything you feel.’
‘Yeah, but that way you don’t get beholdin’ t’some’un. She teach me how t’read but not so’s that I owe her nuthin’. I know she do it fo’her pleasure, not mine.’
Afternoon was overcast and cooler than it had been. I was feeling better but after we’d walked a few miles I was ready to rest. Dom said that Pariah was only a short ways and I had a bed wailing for me there.
‘A bed where?’ I asked him.
‘Out at Miss Alexander’s.’
‘She any kin to Mouse?’
‘She Raymond’s momma’s sister.’
‘An’ what’s she like?’ I didn’t want to tell Dom about me and his mother, that wouldn’t have been proper. But I didn’t want a repeat of my one night in the woods either.
‘Mouse said you might be worried ‘bout stayin’ there. He tole me t’tell you that you be safe wit’ his auntie.’
When Dom walked he put his right foot forward and reached into the air with his right hand as if he were carrying a staff; his left hip would fall back and then he’d bring the left leg up with a dragging movement, straightening his shoulders as he went. He was able to walk very fast in that odd way. When I asked him what else it was that Mouse said, that walk became even more peculiar.
‘He said...’ Dom couldn’t go on for laughing and drooling.
‘What?’ I was worried that Mouse had told him about Jo and me; that this grinning came just before Dom pulled out his butchering knife.
‘He said...,’ Dom ducked his head.’...that maybe he knows a girl be my friend.’
Pariah looked wilder than the woods. It was a crooked town, not more than two blocks of unpaved red day street and all there was to it was the one street. The north side of town was at least eight feet higher ground than the south side. Crossing the rutted and eroded road between them was more like going up or down hill. All the buildings were made from the same weathered wood and only one of them got to three floors.
There were no telephone wires or cars or any sign at all that we were in the modern age. If people were out in front of a building, on the raised wooden platform they had for sidewalk, and they were sitting in a chair - well, it was a homemade chair, something somebody threw together one morning before breakfast and then they sat in it for the next thirty years.
But there weren’t too many people outside. A couple of women carrying large baskets on their heads and one lone buggy drawn by a spotted mare. The buggy was at such an angle on that slanted road that I expected to see it turn over at any minute. But it didn’t, of course, it’s only cars that need flat pavement.
All the buildings looked more or less the same. You could tell them apart though, by the signs. The church had two white crosses on the front doors and the barbershop had a red-and-white-striped candy cane painted on the wall. The general store, which was also the bar, had a wooden Indian out front.
‘Here we go,’ Dom said when we got to the wooden Indian. ‘Miss Alexander’s general store and music bar.’
It was a country store. Canned goods along the walls and fresh food on a counter at the back. There was one rack for dresses and men’s jackets and a table full of shirts, socks, and shoes. Three men were playing cards and drinking at a table in the centre of the room. It was a big room and, for the most part, empty.
‘Hi, Dom,’ one of the cardplayers said.
‘Afternoon, Domaque,’ hailed a big woman from behind the counter.
‘Miss Alexander!’ Dom yelled. ‘This here is Easy, friend’a Raymond.’
‘Well...’ She smiled and showed us a mouth full of gold-rimmed teeth. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you, baby.’ She smiled again, turning her profile on us. ‘Raymond think the sun rise and set on you.’
‘But he still don’t come out till night,’ I said.
That big, colorful, woman let out a laugh so loud that it almost knocked me over. She was wearing a bright white dress with giant blue flowers embroidered on it, a dress like the Mexicans wear to Carnival.
‘He said that you was all taciturn ‘cause you was sick but he didn’t say that you was funny too.’
She had large eyes that followed everything happening in the room. If somebody raised their voice at the card table she was taking it in. If someone walked in the door her eyes said hello to them but the whole time she was talking to me and Dom.
‘Raymond say he want you t’stay wit’ us a couple’a days,’ she said. ‘I got a room right out back that you can use, an’ on weekends we got entertainment. I mean we ain’t got nuthin’ t’compete wit’ Houston, Fifth Ward, but it’s nice.’
She put her hand on my forearm. ‘You can take some clothes from the rack while I clean what you got.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I hope you like it while you here.’
‘I ain’t too worried ‘bout that, ma’am. I been a little sick an’ I could use some sleep. But when I get better I’ma go get our car an’ head back down t’Houston whether Mouse come back or not.’
>
‘Oh, he be back fo’ then. Raymond ain’t gonna miss no free ride.’
‘I hope not. But either way I’ma be gone by day after tomorrah at the latest.’
‘Uh-huh, yeah.’ A woman had come in the door and Miss Alexander went over to talk with her. As she left she said to Dom, ‘Show Easy t’his room in the back, honey.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ the hunchback said.
Dom showed me to a little shack behind the store. It was put together pretty well and there was no need for heat. It had a spring bed against the wall and a crate table in the middle of the floor. There was a big tin pitcher full of water in the corner and sheets and towels neatly folded on the bed. There was a stack of old newspapers next to the door.
‘I’ma leave you now, Easy. Momma want me t’come out to her place an’ see her guests, an’ Raymond might come by.’
‘You tell Mouse t’get his butt down here fo’ I leave him.’
‘He be here soon, Easy. But you know he gotta finish up business wit’ Reese first.’
I wondered how much Dom knew about the crazy violence Mouse had in his heart for daddyReese.
‘Can you read them papers, Dom?’
‘Oh, yeah, I already read mosta them. Not all of it, but what I could. Them is Sweet William’s papers.’
‘Who?’ .
‘Sweet William. That’s Miss Alexander’s entertainment. He’s a barber down in Jenkins but on the weekends he come up here t’play guitar an’ sing.’
‘He reads?’
‘Oh, yeah. William read the whole paper.’
‘Must be a lot in that.’
‘Uh-huh, Easy. Things you couldn’t even believe if you ain’t read ‘em yourself. It use t’be that William read t’us an’ I always say, “No!” like I didn’t believe what he said. I said, “No!” an’ that was it. But since I can read I know that a colored man runned a race in Europe an’ beat all the rest of the runners of the world. Yeah, an’ he was from America just like us. Uh-huh. You know Bunny Drinkwater say that the best thing we can do is run, but that’s just jealousy talkin’. Yeah. Readin’ is sumpin’.’
I wanted to ask him more but I was tired and a little shy of how ignorant I was. Being a young man I felt I should be able to do anything better than a hunchback, and the fact that I couldn’t rubbed me wrong.
After Dom left I laid down on the bed and thought about things again. It was the first chance I’d had to collect myself in a few days and I wanted to get my head straight.
But no matter what I tried to think of my mind went back to those dogs. I could see them jerk around as the bullets tore through their skinny bodies. Just a quick jerk and they hit the ground, dead. I had seen dead before and not long after that I was in the world war where death came by the thousands and the tens of thousands; but I never felt so close to death as when I saw those dogs die. Just a twitch in the air and then they fell to earth, one by one, heavier than life can ever be.
I’d close my eyes but then I’d start awake thinking about what must’ve crossed before their dog eyes as they died; I was so upset that I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid to sleep; afraid because I had seen death in a way where it was real for me and I worried that I’d never wake up. I wanted my father again; wanted him for the thousandth time since we ran out of that slaughter house and he ran out of my life forever. I wanted him to come back and protect me from death.
That’s when I decided to learn how to read and write.
I looked at those papers and thought that if I could read what was in them I wouldn’t have to think about those dogs; I thought that if I could read I wouldn’t have to hang around people like Mouse to tell me stories, I could just read stories myself. And if I didn’t like the stories I read then I could just change them the way Dom did with the Bible.
That was a big moment for me. And I’d say that the whole trip was worth it just for that, but I can’t say that because I lived to tell about it and not everybody else did.
Just thinking about reading calmed me down enough to get to sleep. I rested for a long time and then I found myself awake: I was laying back on the bed, staring out of the window, thinking how pretty the moon was. A man was sitting on the crate with a tin guitar in his lap, pulling on the frets and plucking odd notes. When he noticed my eyes he lit a match and set its flame to a candle at his feet.
‘Well... you back wit’ the livin’, eh?’
He was a well-dressed, dark-skinned man. He was wearing a tapered white suit, like the deacons wear in church on Easter, and a black shirt with pearl buttons that were open down to the middle of his chest. His hair was long and processed straight back. His face was so dean and shiny that I remembered thinking that he must’ve shaved three times before he oiled his skin.
‘They say you come out here wit’ Mouse?’
‘You call ‘im that too?’
‘Shee... I’m the one named him.’ Sweet William ran his red tongue along black lips. ‘You could say that I was a buildin’ block that help t’make Mouse who he is.’
‘Might not be too much t’be proud’a,’ I said.
William leaned back and gave me a leery stare. ‘I thought you an’ him was friends?’
‘We are friends, yeah, but I been th’ough some things out here in the country, man... I wanna go back t’Houston.’
Instead of talking he started playing a slow blues tune. I’ve always loved blues music; when you hear it there’s something that happens in your body. Your heart and stomach and liver start to move to the music.
‘What kinda things?’ he asked, still playing.
‘Things.’
‘Like what?’
He kept on playing.
‘Man, I don’t even know who you is. What you gonna be askin’ me all this?’
‘My name is William. I play music here on Friday an’ Saturday. An’ I wanna hear ‘bout Mouse; I ain’t seen him in, oh, ‘bout four years. That’s all, I don’t mean nuthin’.’
All this time and he was still playing his guitar.
I shook my head and said, ‘It’s just that I ain’t been in the country for a while an’ it kinda gits t’me. An’ Mouse don’t know no normal peoples. He know witches an’ hunchbacks an’ old white ladies an’ everything.’
William’s teeth were pure white.
‘Yeah, that Mouse don’t be foolin’. But you know folks is diffrent from country than they is in the city.’ He was rocking back and forth to the rhythm. ‘In the city they all wear the same clothes and they get t’be like each other ‘cause they live so close together. It’s like trees; when they real close they all grow straight up to get they li’l bit’a sun. But out here you got room t’spread out. They ain’t no two trees in a field look the same way. Maybe one is in the wind an’ it grow on a slant or another one be next to a hill so one side is kinda shriveled from the afternoon shade.’ Then he began to hum a tune in a strained high voice that sent shivers down my backbone.
After a while he started talking again. ‘It’s like my music; I ain’t so good at it. Once Blind Lemon Jefferson played here, it was more’n fifteen years ago but I remember how good he played like it was last week. An’ you know if ole Lemon lived round here I wouldn’t never even look at a guitar. Why would I bother when I could hear him?
‘But I can play out here an’ be who I wanna be ‘cause it’s only me who does it. Uh-huh, uh,’ and he started his wordless song again. I could see where Mouse learned a lot from William. He was a smooth character from his slicked-back hair to his way of talking in song.
When he stopped again he asked me to come listen down in the store. ‘It ain’t Houston but we get pretty wild on a Friday night. Uh-huh.’
They had cleared out the tables from the centre of the store and a dozen or more people were there drinking and talking. The cardplayers had moved their table into a corner. William went to his chair and started playing as soon as we walked in. Miss Alexander came over to give me a tumbler full of moonshine.
‘You feelin�
�� better, honey?’ she asked.
I lied and said I was.
‘How you like it out here so far?’
‘It’s pretty nice, ma’am. I’m not used to all this fresh air though.’
She knew that I meant more than I was saying. She laughed and took me by the arm and introduced me to various folks.
‘...this is Nathaniel Peters,’ she said when we came up to a stout farmer with hamlike hands. ‘Our best farmer and minister. This here is Easy, reverend.’
‘Please t’meetcha, son. I hope we see y’all on Sunday.’
‘If I’m still here, sir.’
‘Well... you know the Lord wants to see ya.’
‘Then I want you to meet a girlfriend’a mine, Theresa.’ Miss Alexander turned and waved to a woman across the room. ‘Com’on over, honey, an’ meet Easy.’
‘You from Houston, huh?’ the skinny black girl said. She was missing one of her front teeth. ‘My cou’in Charlene live down there, on Avenue B.’
‘What’s her last name?’ I asked.
‘Walker.’
‘Yeah, I think I know her. She like to dance?’
‘That’s Charlene,’ she laughed. ‘She love t’dance.’
We lied like that and drank and danced to William’s songs for the rest of the night. She told me all about her dreams and her plans and her family but I forgot everything she said; I was just being friendly. The only thing I remembered was that she told me how to get out to her house - which wasn’t too very far away.
I don’t remember passing out.
I woke up in the bed out back, alone and hungover.
Chapter Nine
By the time I had the heart to get out of bed it was noon. Miss Alexander was sitting at the counter in the back and the cardplayers were still at their table in the corner; Sweet William had joined them. He waved at me and I smiled, or at least I tried to.
Gone Fishin’ er-6 Page 7
