Right by My Side

by David Haynes

  “You could do without a trip like that,” Gayle says.

  We are eating the chicken that she … that we all made. It is baked, and covered with spices.

  “We went down to the Ozarks once, didn’t we Marshall?”

  I nod.

  “Stayed about a half a minute.” Sam laughs. He looks distracted. He doesn’t tell her how Rose wouldn’t stay because there was a spider in the cabin, and because it was too hot, and because she was bored.

  Gayle watches Sam quietly. When she’s not eating she rests her chin on her hands. She makes a bridge, her elbows on the edge of the table. Her round brown head sits on those hands and looks from Sam to me, like she was looking for a connection.

  Sam goes on with his tale:

  “When I was coming up folks just didn’t go off places. Everybody stayed right here, visited with neighbors. You know what I mean?”

  “But I bet sometimes you wanted to go away,” Gayle says. “Everyone wants to see the world.”

  “Not me,” Sam says. “I know Washington Park ain’t much, but I’ve always liked it here. You can get too far from home, you know. When I was little a big day was going in to the city—going shopping down to the big Famous and Stix stores. Nowadays I don’t know,” he says sadly.

  Gayle reaches over and pats Sam’s arm.

  Sam puts one of his hands on top of hers.

  12

  A SHIPMENT OF spent nuclear fuel is scheduled to pass Eisenhower High School on April first. Todd and Miss O’Hare are shocked when they get an endorsement—albeit cool—from the administration for the protest they are planning. It seems not even the big shots in the central office are too crazy about having this stuff come so close to the school. Seems not even the suits believe the government safety assurances. Though Ohairy would rather not tailor the demonstration to the school’s regulations—thirty minutes max, no profanity, no damage to property—she and Todd are pleased with the respectability that comes with official recognition. They expect a big turnout. They can save the real stuff for next time, she says.

  Todd comes up with the idea of a die-in. He says what we’ll do is have a bunch of people in the field out by the fence—dancing and playing and other stuff. When the train passes we’ll all fall down dead and then rise as skeletons and zombies. Ohairy thinks this is a great idea, real “telegenic,” just the sort of thing that shows up good on the six o’clock news.

  Mr. Shannon adds one other catch: you have to have your parents’ permission to be out of school.

  *

  “This is gonna be lots of fun,” Artie says, driving home. “I know just what I’m gonna wear, too. Can you wear whatever you want?”

  “Jesus,” mumbles Todd. For some reason he’s grumpy.

  “You see what I mean,” I say. “A demonstration is just like a big party for these folks. Do you think they even know why we’re going out there? Hell, no.What’s this for?” I challenge Artie. “Why are you going out to the fence?”

  “There’s dangerous stuff coming by school. Where it could hurt kids. We don’t want that, right?”

  “Dangerous stuff. Lions and tigers and bears,” I laugh. But Todd pats Artie on the shoulder and tells him that he’s right. He tells him he appreciates the support.

  *

  Walking down from the store Todd’s real sullen, and I figure with my big mouth I’ve done it again. So I go to covering my behind.

  “Okay, so maybe people don’t need to know all the facts about things to get involved in them. There probably isn’t time; people should act on their feelings.” All the crap we get in Ohairy’s class.

  “Marshall, I need a big favor.”

  “Just ask.”

  “There’s no way my parents are gonna sign any permission.”

  And he knows that I know what he’s going to ask. And already he starts begging—as if I were going to say no, which I wouldn’t.

  At least I don’t think I would.

  “It’ll be just this once, and there’s no way we’ll get caught.” He says this with a catch in his voice; what sounds almost like shame.

  “Just tell me what you want it to say.”

  He says “thanks” and, though he’s relieved, I can tell he’s still upset about forging the note.

  We walk up to my place. Gayle is there again. I introduce Todd. She gives Todd a long, friendly handshake, looking him right in the eye.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she says.

  Todd gets all red in the face and embarrassed. All he can manage to say is “Hi.” Gayle has that effect on you. She can look at me and make me feel like I ain’t got no clothes on. It’s like, one look from her, and she knows everything about you.

  I tell her we’ve got homework to do. She says it’s my house, and goes back to kitchen duty.

  Todd wants the permission written on a crinkled piece of notebook paper. I try to write left-handed, but can’t, so I write with the paper at an angle. We decide that that changes my scrawl just enough. I put it down as follows:

  Todd has our permission to go to the event.

  I sign it Mrs. Walter Lawrence. Todd looks it over and pronounces it okay.

  “I wish my folks were different,” he says.

  “Don’t we all,” I say. Maybe for only the third time in our lives here is Todd talking about the P.W.T.

  “I hate that they’re so ignorant.”

  “I don’t know anybody whose …”

  “Just shut up …” Todd holds a shaking hand between us. He puts the hand to his forehead as if to still it. Or himself. Then he gets his composure back. He asks me to hold the note till tomorrow. He’s acting as if we’d just robbed the First National Bank.

  *

  After Todd leaves, I go in to be polite to Gayle. It’s still hard to get used to someone else around a lot. Someone who is not just Sam.

  “That a good friend of yours?” she asks.

  I tell her a really good friend. About the best.

  She nods, and I can tell that she doesn’t think there’s anything funny at all about that. A lot of folks would. That is, the fact that a black kid and a P.W.T. would be friends. She acts like it is the most normal thing in the world.

  Today she is chopping up vegetables, but pretty quick she stops. She wipes her hands and comes out to the living room. She picks up a magazine to read—one she’s brought with her, an Essence magazine. We never have magazines around here.

  I stand there with my arms crossed.

  “You don’t have to entertain me, Marshall.”

  I fumble around in the kitchen to make it look like I’m supposed to be doing something.

  “If you feel the need to be here,” she comes over and guides me, “then sit down and let’s talk.”

  “Sam would be mad if I didn’t …”

  She waves a hand at me. “People don’t need an excuse to talk. If you want to, cool. If not, that’s cool, too.”

  Even though I can see right through her, I kinda like the way she says this stuff—like she’s got hurt feelings, only not really. All Sam’s gals have a certain style. You either like it or you don’t. I am starting to like hers. It won’t kill me to sit there for a while.

  “Tell you what,” she says. “Ask me something about myself. We’ll take turns.”

  I decide to start with a hard one. “Where did you meet Sam?” I’ve been dying to ask that. Really, I want to ask all of Sam’s gals that. Who knows where he finds them. There must be some trick to it.

  Gayle looks at me as if she’s wondering what kind of question that is.

  “I had an old refrigerator in my way,” she starts out. “It’d been my folks before mine. I’m telling you, it wasn’t worth nothing. I didn’t know what to do with it. Couldn’t just leave the old dear out on the curb.

  “I came by the dump and asked your dad if I could leave her there and he said ‘yes.’ Then I asked him if he’d come and get it for me. First he said ‘hell, no.’ Then he just came by and he got her out of there. Th
e two of us did, actually. Sam just showed up. And afterwards, he asked me out.”

  She giggles like that was real funny. She asks me does that answer my question.

  I ask her why’d she want to go out with a trash man, anyway.

  She pats my arm, looks me right in the eye. She keeps looking at me with this smile on her face, a haughty smile that makes me shudder.

  “I wanted to go out with Sam,” she says. For a while she says nothing else. She looks away almost as if she were embarrassed.

  Finally she says, “Your turn. Time to tell me about you.”

  “Nothing to tell.”

  “Just plain old dumb boring Marshall?”

  Which is not what I said. All these women—Sam’s gals—they all want to know stuff about you. I figure it’s their job. Just like, according to Sam, it’s my job to sit here and entertain, it’s their job to act interested. This Gayle, though: she’s the first one to get the smartmouth about it.

  As if Marshall were any of her business.

  I bet everybody has this whole private part of themself someplace inside, and I’m no different. Fve got my secrets and my wishes and my dreams. None of that is anyone’s business. Still: that’s what these people want. They want to open you up like a frog in biology and look around. They’d be in there picking up your heart, lifting up your guts. “Ah, hah! Looky here! This boy is nuts. He’s got a dirty mind, too. See, that’s all he thinks about all the time.”

  1. As if you don’t, too.

  2. As if it were any of your concern what I think about.

  Do yourself a favor: keep the personal crap to yourself.

  Still: Old Gayle’s sitting there raising her eyebrows waiting for me to spill.

  I shrug my shoulders hoping she’ll lose interest.

  “Tell you what I’ll do,” she says. I’ll ask some questions and all you have to do is answer them.”

  I decide to play along.

  “What’s your favorite food?”

  “Pizza.”

  “Do you like your school?”

  “It sucks.”

  “See how easy this is? Let’s see—let’s try a standard: What do you want to be when you grow up?”

  An adult?

  “I haven’t given it much thought,” I say.

  Gayle tells me I should give it thought. Tells me to tell her when I do know.

  “You can spend your whole life floundering if you’re not careful. Not that you have to do just one thing. You just have to do some thing. Something you care about, something worthwhile.”

  I promise her I’d think about it.

  She gets herself some Red Zinger tea, and comes back and puts her arm behind my back.

  “We’re ready for the tough ones now,” she says. “You ready?” “Not really,” I say.

  “Here we go: What do you value most—what’s the most important thing in the world to you?”

  “I’m not sure I understand. Maybe it’s friends?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Gayle says. “And don’t be so vague. If that’s what you mean, then say it like you mean it. Say friends are the most important thing to me.”

  Gayle goes on:

  “Folks need to say what they need to say. You shouldn’t be afraid of what people think. Especially if it’s your own opinion. There’s all these people out there who try to make up the rules on what gets said, how it gets said, who says it. That’s how they keep quiet the people they didn’t want to hear from.”

  “What do you care about?” I ask her.

  “Our people. Most of all. More than anything else.” Then she asks the real big one.

  “Do you miss your mother?” she asks. Then she says, “Now, this time, what you do is—you tell me to mind my own damn business. You don’t have to answer everything, you know.”

  She doesn’t know me too well.

  I tell her no. “I don’t miss her at all.”

  “A very direct answer,” she says. “Though I think an unfortunate one.”

  I look at her while I think of what to say. If anything. She’s a tiny person, smaller than me, really. Brownskin. An Afro. There’s something open about her face. A face you’d hate to have. Not because it’s homely—it’s not. But because I bet you could never hide how you felt.

  I can tell, for example, she is sad that I don’t miss Rose. Her face also tells me that it’s my choice. Strangely, that makes me think it over.

  Do I miss Rose?

  “We weren’t getting along too good.” I tell her. She asks me why.

  Talking to Gayle, looking at Gayle—it’s so easy. Just then I have a realization: it was never like this with Rose. With her it was always like just before a storm. You checked every word, never looked too close. One false move and there would be an explosion. Before I can stop, I say the terrible thing.

  “We didn’t like each other too much, my mother and me.”

  “But you love each other. I know how that is. It’s a very sad thing.”

  “Don’t feel bad about my mother. She made her choice.”

  “No question—she jacked ya’ll up real good. I’m sad for you, though. It’s sad when people hurt you so much.”

  I’m just fine,” I say. “Sam and I both are. It’s like she was never here.”

  “It’s not that easy, my friend.”

  I lower my head and don’t look at Gayle. I’ve said too much.

  Damn her, she pried right in.

  She pats my arm and says, “Well, maybe sometimes it is that easy.” She does that in a way that is surprising and calming. For once I sit still and I know that there is nothing I need to say.

  *

  Just so, here comes the next letter from Rose:

  Son,

  Wish this was a letter to tell you I’d gone over the rainbow. Wish I had big news.

  I work and I work and then I work some more. I get pinched and patted on the behind. I laugh with the girls when we count our tiny tips. We’re too tired to talk about much of anything except how tired we are.

  I share a tiny place with two others. I work and I sleep. That’s all.

  Oh, and I think. About me and about you. And Sam.

  You know me. I am the way I am.

  And how’s that?

  Most important, I can take care of my own self. Do what I want. Be as tired and as lonely as anyone else. And stupid. But, at least I’m in charge of it. I wonder did I travel all this way just to find that out.

  You the other thing I was ever in charge of. I know that now, too. Sam was so busy being the best trash man west of the Mississippi. So Marshall Field Finney was my little project. I made you the way you are. Bet you don’t want to be hearing that.

  Listen, one time I had taken you shopping up to Northwest Plaza. Back when it was still new. You were just a little thing. We were outside that Woolworth’s and heading across to what used to be Vandervorts and Scruggs. A white woman stopped and patted you on the head.

  “Isn’t he a cute little thing, “she said. One of those scrawny old white ladies, and I told her to watch where she put her damn hands. I pulled you to me and told her she best move herself on. Acting like she ain’t never seen a black child before. I told her we was all cute, every damn one of us.

  I looked down at you and you got that scrunched up rat-faced look on your face. We stalked off, almost ran. Had us a good laugh, too.

  Remember that. Remember all the times like that. Right afterwards I bought you a strawberry cone at the Baskin Robbins. Do you remember that?

  I decided early I wanted you to be as hard as nails. Not a paper cut-out doll like me. Stubborn. Tough-minded. I told off teachers at parent conferences right in front of you. I made you throw books in the librarian’s face. If they got that tone with us. Like we was dirt.

  “Don’t move,” I told you. ‘Don’t move until they do it the way you want it done.” Take nothing off of no one. Live proud.

  And when you turned into what I wanted to be … When it was too late … When you
were already Sam’s boy … When there was nothing left for me …

  You know, I’d do it all again, too. Build that wall between us. I don’t have one regret. I know at least you’ll never be running off to a place like this. A place that’s all plastic and cardboard. Painted and fancied-up with lights, but then underneath is a place just like everyplace else. Like Washington Park.

  A crackerbox is a crackerbox.

  That song is on the radio now. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” If you need me, call me, it says.

  I don’t expect you will. And that makes me sort of happy.

  Mother

  *

  Poor Rose: she’d completely lost it.

  I stash the letter with the others—in there with the pictures of Czechoslovakia, of cyclones. In Rose’s encyclopedias. Her genius books. The books she bought—Sam bought—so that “little Marshall would have an advantage at school.” The books for which every year she orders the yearbook that updates it: ’82, ’83, ’84, ’85, ’86. She waits for it by the mailbox and unwraps it like a present. She wedges it in there with the rest of them until they explode from the shelves. “A,” and ’85 and ’86 have to rest on their sides on the top. The only books she owns whose main characters don’t have guns or one syllable names like Mick or Duke or Tack.

  “Use them,” she orders, her finger pointed. “Use them.”

  I’m using them now.

  *

  Sam and I have dinner alone for the first time in a while. Gayle has to work late at her clinic. We fry up in a skillet a whole bunch of greasy hamburgers and onions. I put a couple of slices of cheese on each of mine, but Sam likes his plain with a lot of salt and a little mustard. We eat Kass BarBQ potato chips right from the bag, pass it back and forth between us.

  Sam gets hot about this story on the news.

  “What do they need to build some damn football stadium out in the county for. Too much damn traffic on 70 as it is.”

  “Must be some money in it someplace,” I say.

  “There you go—now you’re talkin. You see one of these big deals and you know there’s got to be some money in it for somebody. Pass them chips over here.”