Such Sweet Thunder

by Vincent O. Carter

  “Good evenin’,” said Viola with a faint smile.

  “Evenin’,” said Mrs. Derby.

  Mr. Derby worked silently without looking up. He skillfully pulled the middle fins from the tails of the crawdads, threw the long grayish entrail tracts into a can and the freshly cleaned crawdads into the No. 2 tub.

  “Well,” said Viola, throwing a significant glance at Mrs. Crippa, “I guess I’d better git back in the kitchen an’ git that man’s grub on the table. It just don’ do for ’im to come home from work — all hot an’ tired an’ evil — an’ supper ain’ ready!”

  “If you think your man’s bad ’bout that, this’n heah’s worse! Sometimes I think men ain’ nothin’ but stomachs, an’ you know what I mean!”

  Viola went back into the kitchen and the Derbys continued their task together, while Mrs. Crippa hooked up the water hose, turned on the water, and screwed the nozzle until the water came out in a fine spray. It sparkled in the sunlight that caught the edge of the garden, arched high in the early-blue evening air, and descended upon the thriving rows of green things that sprang up from the rich black earth.

  I’m going to have a garden when I grow up and water it every day. With tomatoes and radishes and onions and … His thoughts trailed off into the little river of muddy water between the rows of vegetables, down over the concrete wall in front of Mr. Derby’s porch, and into the drain, disturbing the quiet of a little swarm of blue flies.

  The pleasant smell of fish frying, sizzling in the frying pan, came from the kitchen. Mr. Derby, having finished the crawdads, poured off the dirty salt water and threw the entrails in the garbage can. Then he swished them around in clean water, poured that off and added fresh, until they shone clear. They no longer scrambled over each other, clawing and scratching. They lay clean and still and dead.

  Meanwhile Mrs. Derby had gone into the kitchen to attend to her boiling pots and to prepare the seasoning. Mrs. Crippa had finished watering the garden and was propping the hose between the prongs of a tall forked stick, leaving the water to flow by itself. She dried her hands on her apron and wiped the wisps of silvery hair from her face, taking the pitcher of wine from the sill on her way into the kitchen. Several minutes later she appeared on the porch with a torn paper sack containing cucumber peelings. Lifting the lid of the garbage can, she smiled up at him and said:

  “Ah, To-ny-eh! You beena a badda badda boy? You beata yo’ momma? Tisch! tisch! tisch!” sucking the spittle between her teeth and smiling until her nose wrinkled and the cat’s paws around her eyes deepened into fragments of humor throughout the lower part of her face like cracks in a piece of shattered glass.

  He looked at the kitchen door. Rutherford stood behind the screen, looking at him. Sunlight broke across the toe of his right shoe and painted it red. He shifted his weight and the foot disappeared while his outline remained barely visible behind the screen.

  He heard Bra Mo’s truck in the alley.

  “What you say, boy?” said Rutherford.

  The door swung open and the torn screen flapped quietly, dangerously, as Rutherford stepped out onto the porch, propping the door open with his left foot while he reached into the kitchen and lifted two large suitcases onto the porch.

  He’s goin’ away!

  His face turned ashy and his lips quivered.

  “What’s the matter with you, boy?” Rutherford asked, setting the suitcases against the wall.

  “Nothin’.”

  “Oh, it’s somethin’, all right!” cried Viola from within the kitchen. “Ask ’im what happened to his foot! Ask ’im where he’s been taday!” She stepped to the door, her face between his and the light.

  “Move over there, son, an’ let your daddy set down.”

  He moved over onto the few inches of hearthstone that protruded between the screen door and fixed his gaze upon the boards of the porch. A fly perched upon the crust of blood that filtered through the gauze wrapped around his toe.

  “What happened to your foot? Where you been taday? Your momma told me to ask you.”

  “In the alley.”

  “But how did you git in the alley when you was in the yard?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “What happened to your foot?”

  “Stubbed it on a rock.”

  “Where?”

  “In the alley.”

  “Ain’t you got no shoes? What happened to your shoes?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “What you say? I can’t hear you.”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Your momma told me to ask you where you been!”

  “It ain’ funny, Rutherford!” said Viola angrily.

  “I know it ain’!” fixing her with a meaningful glance. She diverted her attention to Amerigo.

  “Where you been, son?” he asked mockingly.

  “Down on the avenue.”

  “An’ then where?” Viola asked.

  “In the soup line.”

  “In the soup line!” Rutherford smiled broadly.

  “Men!” cried Viola in disgust, sharply turning into the kitchen.

  “What give you that idea?”

  “Sammy said you kin git ice cream an’ cake an’ things for nothin’!”

  “For nothin’! An’ you believed ’im? Unh! You is a fool! Go in the house an’ git me that paper, boy!”

  He went into the house.

  “You let your son go in a soup line, Babe?” said Rutherford.

  He returned with the paper.

  “Thank you, son.”

  Viola appeared in the door with a tomato and a paring knife in her hands.

  “Ten people told me they saw ’im. What’re they gonna think? Our son in a soup line with a bunch a tramps, an’ us slavin’ all day long to keep ’im decent. Well, I care, even if you don’!” She slammed the door. The pane rattled.

  “Unh-unh! She sho’ is mad, ain’ she? Boy, you done the wrong thing — makin’ that woman mad. I bet she sho’ brought the tears to your eyes!”

  He looked down uncomfortably at the porch. The kitchen door opened.

  “You kin come in an’ git your supper. An’ wash your hands an’ face — both a you! Comin’ down to the laundry with all them little brats — an’ him dirtier than all the rest!”

  “Was you at the laundry, too! M-a-n! Now I know she got you! Lettin’ those niggahs — an’ white folks, too! — see you when you wasn’ all shined up.” Looking down at him though the towel. “Say, you got a bandage on your knee, did she break any of your bones, do you think?”

  “He coulda been killed, Rutherford! A dago got shot in the head an’ he was there when it happened. He stayed there to watch him bleed to death!”

  Rutherford finished drying his hands and face, and gave the towel to Amerigo. The smile had left his face. He sat down at the table with a serious air, his back to the door. Viola sat on his right in front of the sink and he sat opposite his father.

  “Say the blessin’, Amerigo,” he said gravely.

  “Lord, we thank Thee for the blessin’s we are about to receive.” When he had finished Rutherford looked up and said:

  “Well, son, I guess your momma’s punished you enough for one bad thing. She’s tellin’ you right.” Viola put a helping of buffalo fish fried in cornmeal and some fried potatoes on his plate. She filled his glass with iced tea. “Why do you think we try to keep you out a the alley? ’Cause we like for you to have to stay cooped up by yourself ever’ day? It’s dangerous in the alley! You kin git killed by a car. It coulda been you that got hit by that bullet ’stead a that I-talian, or by a stray bullet! Just from lookin’. Curiosity! We live in a tough neighborhood. We got some a ever’thin’! Hustlin’ women, dope peddlers, bootleggers all around us. If we tell you to keep away from those things, we know what we talkin’ about. It’s hard for a child to grow up in this slum an’ not git hurt, maimed for life by dope or whiskey or low-life habits. My sister an’ brother came to a bad end ’cause a things l
ike that. Now, listen to me: If this ever happens agin, if ever I even hear tell a you gallivantin’ all over the street like that agin, you gonna hear from me! You heah!”

  Tears welled in his eyes.

  “Yessir.”

  Rutherford helped his plate to the fish and potatoes. Viola passed the corn bread. He said: “It’s gittin’ so’s a man’s half scaired to walk on the street.” He poured himself a glass of tea and took a swig while Viola ate silently. “But when I was little it was even worse!”

  Through the screen behind his father’s head he could see the large globe of light shining through Mrs. Crippa’s curtained window. “It was so bad that the cops had to walk four abreast.” All the doors on either side of Mrs. Crippa’s house were open, filled with soft light that seemed to have grown brighter since he first noticed it. “The cops had to walk four abreast! All except Mister Carter! There was a policeman, Amerigo! A colored man, a big black handsome niggah. An’ smart! He usta walk the avenue by h-i-s-s-e-l-f! Aaah! An’-an’ he didn’ need no gun. He could throw that stick an’ git you a block away. I mean break your leg! Yessir! When that man, an’ I mean man, when he walked the block, the niggahs, the paddies, an’ ever’body else got just as quiet as mice at Sund’y school!

  “ ‘G’d evenin’, Mister Carter!’ all the broads’d say. ‘Evenin’,’ he’d say. ‘Evenin’, Jack!’ A bad man. An’ he wasn’ killed neither, or took for no ride. Mister Carter died in bed. He had one a the biggest funerals that’s ever been on the north side!”

  The sharp pungent aroma of boiling crawdads filtered into the kitchen as Rutherford’s voice died away. They were hot and red with red and black peppers, Irish potatoes, and sweet white onions. The smell of crawdads mixed with the smell of buffalo fish and fried potatoes, and sausages and Boston baked beans from next door. And now a shuffle of feet in the little toilet separating the two kitchens followed by a heavy masculine grunt and the splash of water in the toilet basin and then the sound of newspaper being torn from a sheet and crumpled in an unseen hand and finally the drag and flush of the flush-box. They looked embarrassedly at the table.

  “Here kitty!” cried Aunt Lily from downstairs.

  He froze with terror.

  “Aunt Lily an’ her cats!” said Viola. “She’s got the cats an’ the mice eatin’ out a the same plate!”

  “Here kittykittykittykitty!”

  “Looks like that ’un ain’ hungry,” said Rutherford distractedly, his eyes aglow with the memories of times past.

  He laid the piece of corn bread he’d been eating on the side of the plate.

  “Ain’t you hungry?” asked Viola.

  “No’m.”

  “Well, eat anyway. After all you been up to taday, you need some food in your stomach.”

  He forced the fish and potatoes down and sipped his tea.

  “Kittykittykittykitty!”

  “You’ll be goin’ to school soon, the same as me an’ your mamma usta, an’ you gonna have to learn to look out for yourself,” Rutherford was saying: “An’ there’s one thing I don’ never want you to forgit — mind your own business! If you happen to be where there’s a fight — shootin’, cuttin’, any kind a trouble — you go ’round it. An’ don’ go gittin’ into no fights with them little tough niggahs. Ah’m twenty years old, an’ —”

  “Twenty-one,” said Viola cautiously. They exchanged significant glances, and then Viola dropped her eyes.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s right — your momma an’ me was, was sixteen when you was born. Anyway — what was I sayin’? Aw, yeah, I’m twenty-one years old an’ I never carried a knife or nothin’ in my life, not even a penknife. If a man’s got a knife or a gun an’ trouble does start, he’ll use it nine times out a ten. But if he’s clean, he’s gonna do his best to stay out a trouble. If you can’t talk your way out a trouble — run! It ain’ no disgrace to run. But if you can’t run, then fight! But fight! To win! An’ don’ do no lot a playin’ ’round with them little jokers. A joker starts to playin’ with you, see, ‘Let’s box,’ he says, or ‘Put up yo’ dukes!’ Well, you hit ’im right away — hard! An’ then you say, ‘Aw did I hurt you? ’Scuse me!’ An’ from then on that cat’s gonna let you alone! An’ if you git to fightin’ with a joker, fight fair. An’ if he says he’s got enough, let ’im up, but don’ turn your back on ’im — don’ turn your back on nobody! An’, Amerigo, don’ never force no man in a corner; the biggest coward in the world’ll kill you if you git ’im hemmed in with no way out! But if you git beat up, git up an’ brush yourself off an’ keep on goin’. Okay, you tell yourself, I got beat that time. Can’t nobody win ’um all. They’s always somebody — you heah me? They’s all-ways somebody stronger an’ quicker’n you. Just as much in one hand as it is in the other, so you don’ have to be ashamed. Give me a little more a that fish there, Babe. You must a put your finger in it, it taste so good!” She helped his plate to more fish. “An’ comin’ an’ goin’ to school, anybody ask you. ‘Did you see So-an’-so doin’ such-an’-such?’ or ‘Did you hear So-an’-so say this-an’-that to So-an’-so?’ you don’ know nothin’!;Meddlin’ git you killed quicker’n lyin’. Don’ nobody like a meddler!”

  “An’ don’ go doin’ no whole lot a signifyin’!” added Viola. “You have to git along with people. They got a lot a tough girls down at that laundry, an’ I keep my distance. I don’ kid with none of ’um! They git to lyin’ an’ jokin’, playin’ the dozens, an’ the first thing you know there’s trouble.”

  “What’s the dozens?”

  Viola flushed with embarrassment. “It’s, it’s —”

  “It’s a nasty game,” said Rutherford, “a way of supposed to be jokin’, talkin’ ’bout each other’s mommas. Aw, it don’ mean nothin’ for real, an’ sometimes it kin be funny. But then one wisecracker loses an’ ever’body laughs at ’im, an’ he can’t take it. He takes it to heart. An’ before you know it they’re swingin’ on each other! ‘I see your momma’s wearin’ a new wig!’ says one joker. ‘Yeah, she borrowed your ol’ lady’s G-string!’ the other joker answers. An’ then it starts. ‘Is that so!’ says the first joker. An’ then —”

  “That’s enough, Rutherford, he’ll learn that filth soon enough.”

  “That’s the way it is!” Rutherford protested.

  A soft knock on the screen door.

  “Yeah?” he said, turning around in his chair.

  “Ain’ nobody but me,” said Mrs. Derby, smiling broadly, thrusting a large steaming plate through the door, piled high with bright coral crawdads, with little round potatoes and onions that had been cooked in the juice. Here and there appeared small black peppers and red-hots and bay leaves and pods of garlic, the savory odors of which spiraled upward in coils of steam.

  “Unh — unh!” Rutherford exclaimed. “Looka that, Babe!”

  “You really laid it on us this time, Mrs. Derby. How much are they?”

  “Aw — take ’um for nothin’!” she said in a low cautious tone, making sure that Mr. Derby could not hear.

  “Aw, thanks a lot!” said Viola in a tickled whisper.

  “Yeah, that’s sure nice a you,” Rutherford added.

  “Just send ’Mer’go with the plate when you git through,” waving her hand in such a way as to indicate what she really meant: when he’s gone, meaning, her husband.

  “Aw-yeah, I see,” said Viola, taking the plate. Mrs. Derby shuffled quietly down the back steps.

  No sooner had she gone than there was a knock on the toilet door. Rutherford looked at Viola and then got up and unfastened the hook and opened the door. Miss Sadie stood in the toilet with a box under her arm. She held the bosom of her dress as she spoke, hardly above a whisper:

  “Kin I come in, Mrs. Jones?” peeping past Rutherford at Viola.

  “Why, a course, Miss Sadie, come on in.”

  Rutherford’s eyes swept up and down her tight-fitting dress. It was thin and there was nothing under it. Amerigo stared at her vacantly, remembering the sm
ell of her body when she had held him in her arms that morning. Now he stared at her high-heeled house shoes trimmed in white fur.

  “I was downtown today. I know Tony’s goin’ to school next week, an’ I saw this li’l suit, an’ I bought it. I thought if you wouldn’ mind. I bought it for him.”

  She nervously opened the fancy box.

  “From the Palace!” Viola exclaimed.

  “Unh!” Rutherford grunted.

  “Ain’ that cute, Mrs. Jones?” Miss Sadie exclaimed.

  “Velvet britches!” Rutherford exclaimed. “If that boy goes to school wearin’ velvet pants, they sure are pretty an’ all that, I ain’ sayin’ they ain’, but he’s gonna have to fight e-v-e-r-y li’l niggah in school!”

  “But he’ll look so sweet!” argued Miss Sadie. “An’ look, there’s a top to match, pure silk, with a little collar!”

  He beheld the suit with awe. He touched the pale green mother-of-pearl buttons along the waist to which the top part was attached and rubbed his fingers over the dark green velvet pants. He spied a pair of pea-green anklets in the corner of the box.

  “Look!” He held them up.

  “Them’s to go with the en-semble,” Miss Sadie explained with a grateful smile. She had forgotten the collar of her dress, and now the deep lapels from which the two top buttons were missing dropped away from her bosom. Viola rose suddenly to her feet, stepped between Miss Sadie and Rutherford, grabbing the suit from her hands as she did so, holding it in front of her exposed body:

  “My, my, Miss Sadie. I don’ know what to say! That’s about the cutest little suit I’ve ever seen, ain’ it, Rutherford?”

  “Unh.”

  “You’ll have Amerigo goin’ to school lookin’ like a rich white boy!”

  “Then he kin have it?” asked Miss Sadie.

  “I guess so, if it’s all right with his father. What you got to say, Father!”

  “Who, me? It’s, it’s all right with me if it’s all right with his momma.”