by Joe Derkacht
In her own mind, at least in the occasional daydream, she was still the young, thin girl who hid herself among the trees, spying on her papa as he went about the work of cooking up a batch of country medicine. Back then, long before he committed his crimes against her, she had been light enough to walk on dry twigs without breaking them. That memory was perhaps what drew Ioletta to an elegantly thin statue she’d noticed Angel working on for the past couple of months. Its delicate shoulders and more delicate suggestion of wings, though she wouldn’t have thought of it in such terms, lent a pixie-ish quality to the work. The close-cropped, kinky hair (besides the dark sheen of the stone) told her the subject was one of their black neighbors.
As Ioletta came around its front side, her eyes were drawn first to the thin, tapering sword and small, round shield held against its body. Her gaze traveled upward, over its shoulders and the slender throat, and into the face, where the lips parted to reveal the teeth. A statue-like stillness overtook Ioletta. Minutes passed. Grass rustled under someone’s feet, and she waved absent-mindedly, acknowledging Lamarr’s arrival without seeing him. There was something oddly familiar about the statue, familiar and at the same time disturbing.
Lamarr stood at her shoulder, silent for the moment, as he stared at Angel’s work. He let out a low, admiring whistle.
“It sure is beautiful, isn’t it, Momma? I think it’s his best work yet, especially the way he’s polished the skin to a high gloss. See how he’s textured the clothing?”
He whistled admiringly again. “Did you know he was thinking of doing it?”
She answered facetiously. “How else, honey? You know he don’t make no move without my permission.”
He tilted his head forward, squinting first at her and then at the statue’s face. “You don’t see it, do you? It doesn’t remind you of some photographs you used to show me?”
“You sayin’ I need glasses or somepin’, boy?”
“It’s you,” he said, looking closer. “Can’t you see? Militant, with the gladiator’s sword and shield, but it’s you.”
She didn’t answer, hadn’t seemed to hear him. The set of its shoulders, along with the weapons, suggested fierce determination. Not nearly so fierce was the gap-toothed smile of the thin girl, reminiscent of someone she knew. But just who had yet to fully sink in.
A tear trickled suddenly down Ioletta’s cheek. Lamarr took her by the hand. “Why--why I don’t believe it!” She exclaimed.
“Is that me, Lamarr?” She asked, still entranced by the delicate face. “Do you think it can be?”
He smiled at her, enjoying the moment. She put her hand to her mouth and giggled with pleasure. Soon, her whole body shook with laughter.
“Why, that boy!” She said, her bosom swelling with love for Angel. Admiring the statue, she felt overcome by awe, both by God and the gifting He had placed upon Angel. How could she feel otherwise? The boy was close to stone blind, and yet, in the statues all around her, he had been able to reproduce the likenesses of people she saw most every day in the neighborhood--and of herself in her nearly forgotten youth. If that wasn’t a miracle, then like the song said, “God didn’t make little green apples.” That was for sure.
“You all comin’ in?” Stella called from the porch. “Ioletta? Lamarr?”
Neither Ioletta nor Lamarr answered, staring a few moments longer at Angel’s handiwork. Stella waited patiently, understanding the joy of recognition felt by her friends.
Mother and son tore themselves away. Lamarr helped her up the steps.
Stella stood aside for Ioletta to enter the house, while Lamarr hastened to brush sawdust from his jeans. “Lamarr,” she said, giving him a joyous hug. “The Lord bless you Lamarr, but it is wonderful to see you.”
“Can you believe that son of yours?” Ioletta interrupted. “He done knocked out a statue of me. If it ain’t the most beautiful thing!”
Stella arched a questioning eyebrow at her.
“Y-you sayin’ you don’t believe me?” Ioletta demanded.
“A statue of you?” She asked, with a wink for Lamarr, as Ioletta rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“Yes. A statue of me.” She pulled Stella back out to the porch and pointed to the monument of herself. “That’s it, right there.”
“That skinny little thing?” Stella asked with mock exaggeration. “That’s the little gap-toothed girl--what’s her name? Chrissy Dawkins from down the street.”
Ioletta’s jaw dropped. “There ain’t no gap in her teeth!” She huffed indignantly.
“No? Well, then I guess it must be her sister.”
“I think she must be right, Momma,” Lamarr said.
Her eyes raced between the two of them. “Her sister? She have a sister?”
Neither Stella nor Lamarr could hold back any longer. Stella tittered gleefully, and Lamarr joined in with guffaws. Shaking their heads, they re-entered the house and headed for the kitchen.
“You devils!” Ioletta exclaimed. “My own son!”
Laughing, she remained on the porch, stealing time to gaze awhile longer at the statue before following them into the house.
“What you eatin’?” She asked, her hunger stimulated by her joy, as she walked into the kitchen.
Angel, his clothes dusted with dirt and stone chips as usual, sat at the table, a white bread sandwich in one hand and glass of milk in the other. Stella poured iced tea for Lamarr, who stood at the counter, waging war on a sandwich by quarters.
“Goobers and jam,” Lamarr mumbled.
“Angel on that kick again?” Ioletta asked.
Stella shrugged her shoulders. “Angel likes his peanut butter, always has. If you want, I could probably rustle up some burned chicken for you from the fridge.”
“Burned chicken, that’s right,” Ioletta said, shaking her head. She took a seat at the table. “I’ll have peanut butter like everybody else, if you’re makin’.
“Lamarr, why don’t you sit down like a human being to eat your sandwich? What do they teach you in that Army of yours? I thought you was an officer and officers was supposed to be gentlemen--I’ll have a glass of that iced tea, while you’re up and all.”
Lamarr brought the tea and sat at the table to eat, Stella joining them. Ioletta’s gaze kept settling on Angel, as she ate her sandwiches (Stella made her two) and drank from a tall glass. Watching her, Stella and Lamarr exchanged glances, smiling at her predicament.
“I always wondered what I would say,” Ioletta said at last, giving up. “What do people tell Angel, when he’s made one of his statues of them?”
“Some people say thanks. Some people don’t say anything at all,” Stella said, smiling. “Some people think Angel’s deaf, so they don’t even try.”
Ioletta nervously scratched the back of her neck. “It’s kinda embarrassin’, when it comes right down to it.”
Lamarr pointedly cleared his throat. “I’d say it must be more embarrassing for Angel, when people talk about him as if he’s not even there.”
“Who--?” Ioletta paused from chewing her sandwich, and frowned. “Well, it’s not like he ever--I mean like you ever say anything, Angel. If you did, I’m sure people would talk mo’ to ya, to yo face, I mean.”
True to form, Angel continued eating as if he had not heard her comment. Gratefully he wasn’t humming, which at the moment would have annoyed and distracted her.
“I do want to thank you for doing one of your statues of me, though,” Ioletta said. “It--it do bless me. I don’t know why, I cain’t explain it, Angel, but it surely do.”
“I think that was nice of your Momma, wasn’t it Lamarr?” Stella remarked, winking at him.
“Very nice,” he said, after a last bite of sandwich. “Very nice, Momma.”
She smiled in appreciation. Angel’s reply, if it could be called that, was to smile ever so slightly and stare at nothing in particular.
“He understands,” Stella s
aid. She brushed crumbs from her hands onto her napkin. “Another sandwich, anyone?”
“No, two’s enough for me, thank you,” Lamarr replied.
Ioletta eyed her son bitterly.
“Whaa-aat?” He cried. “I need to get back to the church--somebody has to do the work.”
“Ioletta?” Stella asked.
She sighed in disappointment. “No, I guess I don’t need nothin’ more.”
“There’s fruit,” Stella suggested helpfully. “Peaches? Apples?”
“You know I’m not fond of that stuff, Stella Jo,” she answered. Mumbling, she said, “Don’t know why God ever made it, exceptin’ it’s nice for putting into preserves once in a while to fill a sweet roll or for makin’ pies.”
Stella and Lamarr played with their empty glasses, content to know she would eventually find her way. It was Ioletta’s stock answer, whenever anyone offered her fruit, whether fresh or canned.
“Course, maybe I should start on one of those diets.”
The two of them exchanged wide-eyed glances. Ioletta never talked about dieting.
“Look more like my statue Angel done of me,” she said, nodding her head. “Be nice to have people remember me that way.”
“Are you dying, Momma? Something you haven’t told me?” Lamarr asked seriously.
“Dyin’! Nobody said nothin’ about dyin’.”
Lamarr glanced at Stella and sloshed tea from the jar into his glass. “Well, for a second there it kinda sounded like it. It’d sure take dying to get that skinny.” More quietly, he said, “Hate to have you die on me after I’ve just been promoted to Captain.”
“I’m not dyin’!” She insisted. “Would you stop about the dyin’? Can’t a body say a word about--”
She stopped in mid-sentence, staring first at him and then at Stella, and then back at her son. “Did you say they done promoted you, or are you just pullin’ your poor old momma’s leg?”
“He did say. And I think this is a fine way of celebrating,” Stella commented, holding up her glass for a re-fill. He poured, saying nothing, only grinning. She raised the tumbler in a mock toast and took a sip.
“That’s just like your Lamarr, now isn’t it Ioletta?” She remarked. “Springing surprises on a person and all.”
Lamarr went on grinning, enjoying the moment.
“Hardly seems decent,” Ioletta said, acting exasperated. “Something like that shoulda been done up proper, not casual like, least not over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”
“So you were promoted, Lamarr?” Stella asked.
He nodded, his expression of pleasure unchanged, and took another drink from his glass.
“Those good ol’ boys done promoted my son,” Ioletta said, shaking her head in astonishment. “Can you beat that?”
“Things are changing,” he said. “I’m betting they’ll make a few of us into Generals, one of these days.”
“And one of them will be you, Lamarr,” Stella put in. “I believe that with all my heart.
“We’ve been praying all these years for the Lord’s favor to be upon him, haven’t we, Ioletta?”
“Oh hush! A General?” She blurted. “Never happen, not in a million years.” Ioletta set her glass down hard. “Does this mean they’ll be sending you back to Vietnam?”
He was silent for a long moment. “Could be,” he admitted.
“Could be? You volunteer for duty over there again just so they can shoot you?”
“I said could be,” he tried to explain. “Besides, the 716th needs me, especially now that the war is supposed to be winding down.”
“Windin’ down,” she said, exasperated. “What good is being Captain when you’re dead?”
“You think maybe I should say no to MACV, when they asked for me by name?” His voice rose in protest. “That maybe I shoulda turned down a promotion, when they loved me in Korea?”
He scraped his chair back from the table. “Dis po’ black boy from Flowers?” He muttered in sarcasm. “Not me.” Scowling, he rose and placed his empty glass in the white porcelain sink. He had eaten his sandwiches off of a napkin, which he now wadded up and threw into the trash under the counter.
“I wish you wouldn’t leave so soon, Lamarr,” Stella said. “Your momma didn’t mean it, and it’s so nice all of us sitting here like old times.”
“Oh, she meant it,” he replied. His mother’s stubbornly set jaw told the whole story. “But it doesn’t matter if she wants to treat me like a little boy--I can stay out of her hair the whole month. There’s plenty of carpentering to do at the church.”
She felt like kicking Ioletta’s shins under the table. Not only was Ioletta’s jaw set, she refused to look in either Stella’s or Lamarr’s direction.
“You’ll come for dinner after church tomorrow, won’t you?” Stella asked.
He went to her and kissed her on the cheek. “I have to make it to Momma Stella’s for Sunday dinner, don’t I?”
“If you don’t, I’ll never speak to you again.”
He laughed, reaching out and touching Angel on the shoulder in farewell, but Angel was reaching for his crutches. The two of them left together, Lamarr glancing at his mother and giving Stella a wink, as he courteously let Angel go through the doorway first.
“Ioletta Brown!” Stella exclaimed, when they were gone. “I can’t believe you. You are a piece of work, treating your son like that! Aren’t you proud of him at all?”
“Huh!” She retorted. “Proud all right, but pride goes before a fall. What good is pride when you’re dead? You know how he won his other promotions, don’t you?” She sniffed loudly. “Love him at MACV--huh! He don’t even talk right no mo’. Sounds more like a white boy--did you notice that?”
Stella sighed deeply, wondering how she could smooth things over between Ioletta and Lamarr.
“Always stickin’ his neck out for somebody!” Ioletta exclaimed with a snort of disapproval. “Well, somebody has to think for the boy, don’t they?”
“I’m sure it takes brains, Ioletta, not just foolhardiness,” she replied, remembering Lamarr’s heroism in her own behalf. “I don’t think they would promote him if they didn’t have every confidence in him. They’re not stupid, you know.”
Grudgingly, Ioletta shook her head and smiled. “Somebody has to caution the boy.”
Suddenly they heard a knock from the direction of the living room. The front door opened, and there were footsteps. Lamarr coming back to apologize like a good son? Both women looked expectantly toward the hallway.
“Sister Stella?” A woman called out.
Ioletta stiffened visibly, as she recognized the voice. Stella glanced at Ioletta before answering.
“In the kitchen!” She called in return. “Come and sit.”
A petite woman with naturally red hair and rust complexion hesitated at the kitchen doorway.
“Sister Brown,” she greeted Ioletta.
Ioletta sipped from her empty glass. “Persimmon,” she answered stiffly.
“Sit, please sit, Cinnamon,” Stella politely said, using the name the woman preferred, as she rose to serve her. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the story of how her daddy had named her Persimmon, once he caught sight of her dark red hair on the day she was born. Everyone knew, too, how she hated that name. A lot of folks, like Ioletta, acted like they didn’t think the name of a spice was any better than the name of a fruit.
Stella fetched a glass from the shelf and poured tea from the dwindling supply in the gallon jar, as the newcomer took a seat at one end of the table.
Ioletta frowned, and Cinnamon looked straight ahead, avoiding her gaze, ignoring the unspoken, What are you doing here?
Stella went to the refrigerator for a fresh lemon to slice. She plopped ice into the glass, bringing the tea almost to the brim, and slid the lemon round neatly over its rim. She set the glass in front of her guest, and handed her the sugar bowl and a long spoon.
“Thank you, that’s nice,” Cinnamon replied with obvious gratitude. She carefully stirred sugar in, and while it still swirled in the glass, took a long drink.
“More?” Stella asked politely.
Cinnamon shook her head, and drained the rest. The ice clinked in the glass as she set it down. The other two women exchanged glances. Moaning and sighing at one and the same time, she glanced furtively at Ioletta, whose frown remained unchanged.
“Did you want to say something privately?” Stella asked, reaching out with one hand and touching her on the arm. “You know you can speak freely, sister, in front of Sister Ioletta.”
Tears sprang from the red-haired woman’s eyes. Seeing them, Ioletta roared as if someone had jabbed her in the ribs. Stella looked after her in alarm as she slid her chair out from the table, its wooden frame splitting loudly from the sudden shift in weight, and rushed from the room. Moments later, the front door slammed shut, the house quivering as she descended the front steps.
Stella eyed Cinnamon and reassuringly patted her hand. “You just tell me what you have to tell me, and don’t worry about what anyone but God thinks.”
“I didn’t ask for this burden,” she said, sobbing loudly and taking Stella by the hand.
#
Tears ran freely down Ioletta’s cheeks. It was not the first time she had shed tears in Stella’s yard, nor would it be the last. As she stood in front of her own likeness, pretending to admire it when her heart was really back in Stella’s kitchen, she drew strength from Angel’s presence, from his melodic humming and from the sound of chisel on stone. Like most of what he hummed, she recognized the tune as a hymn. Near the Cross had always been a comforting song to her, and it was now, too. How many crosses were there, though, she wondered? Sometimes it seemed like there was never an end to them, like they stretched from one horizon to the other for all of one’s days.
She wondered if Angel was aware of Cinnamon’s arrival and what he thought about her. Silly question, though, since he had carved out a wooden bust of her years ago, one of his first, likely as a tribute to her kindness. When it came right down to it, Cinnamon was a kind girl, even if she didn’t much like her. And besides, Angel didn’t carve people he didn’t think nice. Yet, standing now in front of her own statue, it was a comfort to her that she could honestly say Cinnamon’s image wasn’t half so pretty.
