Five Smooth Stones

by Ann Fairbairn

  The owner of the club left before Joseph Champlin finished his job of cleaning. Guastella could do that because he had known Li'l Joe ever since Joe had been a spindle-shanked, brown-skin boy in short pants doing odd jobs wherever he could find them. Guastella had learned through the years that if you gave Li'l Joe a job to do he'd never quit until it was finished, really finished.

  "There's money for you on the back bar, Joe," he said as he left. "Take a beer from the icebox when you finish."

  Joseph Champlin smiled. "Sure will."

  "Leave the key next door in the barbershop. Anyone comes in before you leave, tell 'em I'll open up at eight O.K., boy?"

  "Sure. Sure. I'll tell 'em." He was not smiling now.

  You never could tell with niggers, thought Guastella. Never could tell, even with the good ones like Li'l Joe Champlin. One minute they'd be smiling, and the next they'd be looking at something over your shoulder while you talked, eyes blank, and if there was a smile it would be teeth and that's all, and damned if anyone could tell what made them change. It was the first time Li'l Joe had not discussed the price of a job with him before he started it. It had been evident when the thin, anxious man had knocked on the door that he'd been looking for work all morning. The city was full of them these days, but he'd never trust a nigger he didn't know, and he always sent them away. Li'l Joe he could trust.

  Joseph Champlin gave Guastella a few minutes after he left, then walked to the bar and looked over at the shelf behind it. He saw the gleam of a four-bit piece, looked for green and did not find it, not even after he walked behind the bar and searched the floor and the surface of the shelf inch by inch. "Sweet Jesus!" he muttered. "That what he's giving me for all this work?" He dropped the coal from his mental budget. He wanted to leave the fifty-cent piece on the bar. He'd damned well quit now, he thought. The hell with the men's room and the rest of it. All Guastella cared about was what showed. But he walked back to his pail and mop, muttering, "Four bits. A stinking four bits," and kept on with the small unmopped area in the main room, then started for the men's room, dragging the mop after him, tired now inline late afternoon with miles of walking behind him, and then the work here, and nothing in his stomach but coffee and pretzels.

  He did not see the crumpled bill in the far corner of the room until he pushed his mop toward it. Even though he knew he was alone in the club, he picked it up with the quickness of a cat stealing a piece of meat from a plate, shoved it in his pocket, then hooked the door and took it out. He had thought it was a one; instead it was a ten, crumpled the way a gambler crumples a bill. Some of the men had told him there'd been a bunch of gamblers from Chicago around New Orleans lately; there was one gambler poorer by ten dollars.

  He forgot his anger at Guastella. He was shaky with relief, and wished he dared pour a drink. He knew where Guastella kept the stuff but he was afraid to touch one of the bottles because as sure as he did someone from the neighborhood would come in and then tell Guastella he'd caught the nigger clean-up boy stealing liquor.

  He settled for the beer Guastella had told him he could have, and took it into the back room where the colored musicians were forced to sit between sets. He had already cleaned that room, but no amount of cleaning could change the air, could make it anything but rank and fetid.

  He sat down with the opened bottle of beer and a glass and relaxed for a minute, feeling the ten-dollar bill in his pocket with long, grateful fingers, thinking of Geneva's face as it would be when she had finished giving him hell about the four bits—he'd have to give her a chance to do that—and she saw him take the ten dollars out and lay it on the kitchen table.

  Because there were no other ears to assault but his own, he sang out loud and strong as he walked to the front door to leave, " 'Pharaoh's army got drownded—Oh, Mary, don't you weep—'"

  CHAPTER 2

  As he approached the house on St. Philip Street where he and Geneva lived, Joseph Champlin thought that he must be sure and remind his wife to save enough out of the ten dollars to buy rat poison. It would do little good but it was an effort; it was better than giving in to the rodents—aggressive, obscene, and dangerous—that swarmed through the houses of the French Quarter. He had met them on the stairs, and had them face him and not run; he had battled them in the outdoor privy that was the only toilet he and Geneva had, had awakened in the night to the feel of a rat running across his shoulders. He pitied his neighbors with babies and small children; theirs was a battle that never ended.

  He sighed, and thought that he could have spent fifty dollars and still not had enough with which to buy the things they needed to make life more bearable: a decent stove to keep them warm in winter, oil to burn in it, a fan for the humid, breathless nights of summer, a decent cookstove for Geneva. Or maybe take the fifty and pay up the back rent and move across the river, or over the lake, rent a shack with room enough for his mother, raise their own vegetables and chickens. God knows, he thought, I don't want much. And then felt guilty that he had even wished the ten dollars was more. His mother would give him hell if she knew what he was thinking, right after God had met a present need.

  When he walked into what passed for the living room of their small quarters, he stopped. The night was not unreasonably cool, was, in fact, pleasant and springlike, but the tiny apartment felt like an oven. He could see Geneva in back, in the kitchen-alcove, bending over something on the table. There was a sudden wailing, and he stopped in stride, then moved forward quietly, not speaking. He stood just behind his wife until the shock had worn off, then said: "Neva. You has to put your finger under the pin where it goes through.

  You don't do that you're going to pin that pore chile's skin right into the diaper."

  Geneva jumped, startled, then turned to him, her face wrinkled with anxiety. There was a sound from the baby on the table, and she turned back and picked the child up, holding it against her breast, rocking it gently. "You ever seen a sweeter baby, Li'l Joe? You ever seen a sweeter?"

  "You better get that diaper on that chile, woman, or you're going to be sorry. Who's that baby belong to? Who you taking care of it for?" Then, when she laid the baby on the table, "Sweet Jesus! That baby ain't more'n two, three days old."

  "It's your grandbaby, Joe. Can't you see? That's Ruth and John's pore little motherless chile. Can't you see?"

  "Lawd Gawd!" said Li'l Joe. "What's he doing here?" He moved closer, took the powder can from Geneva's hand, dusted expertly, and then with quick, deft fingers secured the diaper, spare safety pins in his mouth. The baby made a contented sound, and Geneva, standing by silently, said, "He said something, Joe. You hear him?"

  "That chile didn't say nothing. You lost your senses, woman?" He stood looking down at the infant, smiling into its vague, unfocused eyes. "Sure a fine baby," he said. "Sure a fine boy. Look at them shoulders."

  "Now can you see?" asked Geneva. "Now can you see he's your grandbaby? Shoulders just like John's. And long hands like yourn."

  He had forgotten the ten dollars in his pocket, and the fifty cents, and even his hunger. He eyed his wife warily. "Where'd you get him, Geneva? Why'd you-all bring him here?"

  "Listen, Joe, I ain't saying this because Josephine was your first wife, because she was your wife before you and me married up. That baby stays at Josephine's he's going to die sure as he's an inch long. All them kids there, handling him like he was a puppy or a kitten or something, crying his little heart out, all wet, and Josephine so fat and lazy she can't do nothing but sit on her fat butt and carry on about Ruth and John. And this pore little chile like he ain't never been born."

  "Josephine's his grandma."

  "And you're his grandpa."

  "Jesus have moicy!" Like many New Orleanians of both races, there was, in certain syllables, an accent close to Brooklynese in Li'l Joe's speech. "Jesus have moicy!" he said again, and backed away from the table. "What you saying? What you saying?"

  Geneva picked the baby up, wrapped a worn piece of blanket around him, and car
ried him to the chair beside the stove. There was a carton on the chair, and Li'l Joe could see that it had been lined with another piece of the same blanket so that the folds hung over three sides and could be brought over to cover the baby. He let out a long breath. "You planning to have that baby smothered for supper, like an old hen? My Gawd, it's hot enough in here to kill him. We ain't got all that kind of coal. Speck of air never hurt a young un. He's no incubator baby."

  Geneva laid the baby in the carton without answering, turned to the stove and took a nursing bottle from a pan of water. She handed the bottle to her husband. "You understands about this better than what I do. You done raised three, and the Lord only let me have one but a few hours. You test this, see is it all right."

  He took the bottle, shook a few drops of milk on the inside of his wrist, and gave it back to her with a nod. "You giving that baby straight milk? You want it to get colic?"

  "It ain't milk; it's formula. They give it to me at the clinic at the hospital, and showed me how to fix it. They give me the talcum powder too; the sister did."

  "You went to—Neva, what you been doing?" His voice grew husky. "Neva, what you going to do with that chile?"

  She bent over the carton, put the nipple of the bottle in the baby's mouth, then looked up at her husband over her shoulder. "You mean what we going to do with that chile," she said. "We going to raise him, Li'l Joe. We sure as the devil going to raise him."

  Joseph Champlin heated up the supper that night, red beans, rice, some leftover greens, eggs. "Where'd them eggs come from?" he asked.

  "Tant' Irene give them to us."

  "My ma? She been here?"

  "I been there. We went to Josephine's to see could we help, and to find out about the wake. Lady your mamma works for left word at the store across the street she wanted your mamma to work tomorrow. Lady what keeps the store says your mamma could have credit for what she needed. Your ma give us them eggs, and a little coffee and some sugar."

  Li'l Joe had not yet told her of the ten dollars. He felt vaguely cheated that the excitement over the baby had pushed the miraculous finding of ten dollars into the background. He knew that if he had found a hundred dollars it wouldn't bring the look to Geneva's face the sight of the baby brought, wouldn't erase the edge from her voice as the presence of the baby had.

  He had not argued with her at first when she said, "We sure as the devil going to raise that chile." He never argued with Geneva when she said they sure as the devil were going to do anything. Sometimes he lost out when he eventually got round to opposing her; sometimes he won. He knew Geneva had lost a baby right after its birth years before, when his and Josephine's babies had been coming along so fast, and that there had never been another; he thought he knew how she must feel about this one.

  He drew a deep breath. "Geneva, we too old to start raising a child, let alone try to feed one, times like these. Ruth's got folks, real good people, up there in Mississippi. They got a little farm; they'd probably be happy to take the chile, and take better care of him than what we can."

  When they had first been married, the police had come to the house one night and, without warning, broken the lock of the door and thundered in, looking for a man Li'l Joe had never heard of, let alone been harboring. The fear he had seen in her eyes that night, when she had thought the police were after him, had been as great as the fear he saw in them now. He could not look at her, looked instead at his empty plate.

  "We send that chile away, it's flying in the face of Providence," said Geneva. "God sent him to us."

  "God never done no such thing, Neva. Way you tell it, you walked clear across town and fetched him your own self."

  "God don't have to leave no baby on a doorstep to mean He wants it taken care of." She stopped, listening. "You think he wants another bottle?"

  Li'l Joe sighed, and walked to the chair by the stove, stood looking at the sleeping baby. The shadow of a look of his son was there, and more than a shadow—and he did not know this—of a child who had been born more than sixty years before, just a few blocks away. He heard Geneva saying: "Tant' Irene say he's like your boy John was. She say he don't look a bit like you when you was born. But she says more than anyone he looks like his great-grandaddy must

  have looked when he was a baby, only his skin's going to be lighter, like Ruth's. She says she can sure see your daddy in him. Tell me, you think he needs another bottle?"

  Li'l Joe came back to the table. "You want the chile to bust? Along with smothering? He wants feeding he'll let you know. Long about the time you just beginning to get a good sleep, he'll let you know."

  ***

  "We kept 'em in the dresser drawer, me and Josephine did, when they was real little. Makes a fine crib."

  "We ain't putting that baby in no dresser drawer, Joseph Champlin. What about them rats? I'll keep him with me, right in the bed with me."

  "You fixing to finish that chile off before he even gets a good start. You can't keep him in the bed. You'll overlay him sure. You roots, woman."

  "Maybe I does. God knows you don't. You sleeps like a co'pse. Sometimes you so quiet that if I wakes up I puts out my hand to tech you and see is you really breathing."

  "Better watch them hands, girl. No telling what you'll find."

  Suddenly Geneva Champlin laughed, and her husband turned to her and saw the young woman he had married. He had not seen her for a long time.

  ***

  "You comfortable, Joe, laying on the inside?"

  "Reckon I'm all right if you don't turn over."

  "I ain't all that big."

  "You big enough, girl. You big enough so's I don't stand no chance if you start rooting me up against the wall."

  "You sure he don't need another bottle?"

  "I keep a-telling you, Neva, that baby wants another bottle he sure as hell ain't going to be backward about letting you know. Mebbe he won't want one till morning. You get you some sleep, girl."

  "Funny. I done all that walking and I ain't tired."

  "You tired all right. You just ain't got sense enough to know it."

  "You sure you fixed them ropes good around that carton so's it'll stay on that chair?"

  "It's right beside you. Jiggle it and see."

  "Seems all right."

  "That's the way my ma kept me when I was born.... Gawd sake, go to sleep, woman."

  "Joe... Joe... Joe! You awake?"

  "Lawd! I am now. What you want?"

  "You get a job of work today?"

  "Yeah. Made me a little piece of change. Worked for Guastella, cleaning out that club of his. Sure was dirty. Made me four bits."

  "How long you work for a four-bit piece?... How long?"

  "Three, four hours."

  Sometimes when Joseph Champlin described his wife's reactions to anger he would say, "Geneva's a mighty fine churchgoing woman. But she can sure cuss like a grown-up, she puts her mind to it."

  She put her mind to it now. The mildest she came up with was "ofay bastard." Li'l Joe gave her her head, smiling in the darkness. When she had finished he said: "I done better than that. Found me ten dollars. On the floor in the men's room."

  "Ten dollars! And you never said nothing to me about it!"

  "Gawd sake, Neva, you ain't give me chance. I was fixing to tell you in the morning when you wasn't so excited about the chile and all."

  "Ten dollars! Joseph Champlin, you'd oughta be ashamed. I swear you ought. If that ain't proof God sent us this chile, I don't know what is."

  "It ain't proof of no such thing. If it's proof of anything it's proof of what my ma was always telling me—you has good luck, you has to pay for it, somehow, some way or another. How's it proof? You think we can raise a chile on ten dollars? You think we going to live on air, and cook on paper fires, and put water in the lamp 'stead of oil, and pay the rent and insurance with cigarette coupons?"

  "It's going to tide us over, that's what it's going to do. Your ma, she'd call it 'signs of land.' Better times coming."<
br />
  "You said yestiddy better times never coming."

  "That was yestiddy," said Geneva.

  ***

  "Joe!"

  "Jesus!"

  "Joe, I can't sleep for thinking that chile's got no name. They ain't never bothered to give him no name."

  "Worry about it in the morning. He ain't going to fret about it for quite a spell."

  "Ruth didn't pick no name because she say she wanted to wait and see. She wanted a girl real bad."

  Silence, the silence of hope that if one doesn't answer the voice will go away. "Joe... Joe."

  "Gawd sake—"

  "Joe, your ma, she looked at that chile, and the first thing she said was 'David.' She didn't say nothing else, just 'David.' You hear what I'm saying, Joe?"

  The silence was different now. The woman could feel the difference; she could not see her husband, but she had shared his bed for a long time. "You hear me, Joe?"

  "I ain't deaf. David was my daddy's name."

  "I knows that. But ain't no one in your family ever had that name since him. It's a good name, 'David' is. Tant' Irene says there never was a better man than your daddy. It don't seem right never having a chile come from him carry his name."

  She waited a long time for an answer that did not come.

  "Joe—Joe, you thinking 'bout how your daddy died. You thinking you don't want a little chile to carry his name; you thinking it'll bring him bad luck. It says right in the Bible that God loved David. What you thinking is foolish. Tant'Irene don't think that way."

  "She didn't name me 'David.'"

  "That's because your daddy was a good Catholic. You knows that. He made your mamma promise before he went away she'd name you Joseph if you was born on his day. And you was. You got a birthday coming up soon."