Meanwhile, after a long time, the bell rang for the first time, and Viola appeared at the door, and she and Miss Chapman talked softly together so he couldn’t hear, and then they said good-bye, and he said good-bye with his head because he couldn’t say good-bye, couldn’t look at her, couldn’t look at Viola, either, just hold her hand like a baby and let her lead him away through all the kids as thick as leaves making a whole lot of noise, back up the long hill to the avenue, past cousin Rachel’s house.
Just as they reached the little concrete path leading up to the steps he saw a youngish woman with sallow skin and red eyes, in a worn street dress with a tight bodice that revealed a perfect figure, standing on the porch.
“Hul-lo Vi — ola,” she said, taking them both in with a sad defiant glance. He stared at the thick scar on the side of her handsome face. Her legs were bare and the dress was torn on the shoulder so that the faded pink strap and upper part of her brassiere were visible.
“Hello, Rachel. Amerigo, say hello to your cousin Rachel.”
“Hul-lo.”
“He looks just like you, Vi. An’ then agin — he sort a looks like his un —”
“C’mon, Amerigo.”
He looked back over his shoulder, tried to catch the word that died upon her pretty lips. He was thinking that she reminded him a little of Miss Sadie. They passed the place where his father, who was once a skinny little boy, almost got killed — but didn’t — sliding down Troost Hill toward where he was now.
“Look where you goin’!” Viola shouted, pulling on his arm. The streetcar clanged past him. It was crowded now, with more white people in it. It confused him because it was going up the avenue instead of down, as when he had first seen it this morning. It crept alongside of him, placing him and Viola between it and the barrel shop, which was there already! — instead of only later, after the show and the stars of the Silver Screen, which only came now that they were crossing Harrison Street, and the streetcar was now at the foot of Campbell Street, in front of the spaghetti factory, which he knew was there, even though he could not see it yet. Now he was looking down a strangely familiar alley where Aunt Edna used to live. A black-and-white-spotted dog with short ears and no tail was lying in the shade of one of the low squatting frame houses. It isn’t Sammy, he thought proudly, remarking that Aunt Edna’s alley had no empty houses. It was her alley, his father’s sister’s alley, a skinny little girl’s with all those sisters and brothers — Rutherford’s.
When they reached Campbell Street he was surprised to find himself at the bottom, going up, instead of at the top, going down. With a funny feeling he placed his feet duck-footed on the wine-red herringbone bricks and looked upward toward the boulevard. He could just make out the tops of the cars, swishing east and west. The sun, reddish, different than it was this morning, was in his face, but not directly in his face, in the corners of his eyes; it grazed his hair. Now he could make out the facade of Mrs. Crippa’s house, and then Miss Ada’s, and then Miss McMahon’s next to it, and all the houses up to the boulevard.
Saturday I’ll get a quarter for cleaning out the shoot! he thought, but Saturday was a long way off.
And then he saw Mrs. Crippa’s garden above the high wall that came all the way to Viola’s shoulders with flowers sticking out. The concrete steps leading to the porch were wet, with dried-out patches, like in the backyard when it was dew-wet early in the morning before the sun was hot enough.
They climbed the steps to Miss Ada’s yard and followed the path around to the side of the house. Miss Sarah’s door was open. She lived on the first floor, north, while Mr. and Mrs. Fox, who were white and gray with blue eyes — Irish — lived on the first floor, south.
“Evenin’, Miss Sarah!” he cried.
No answer.
“Prob’ly in the kitchen,” said Viola.
He glanced over at Miss McMahon’s porch just before they stepped into the shoot. It was dark and cool like a cellar. When they got halfway through they smelled something stinking. It came as a pleasant surprise to him at first, as though some good meat were frying. Ham and eggs. A gentle pang of hunger smote him in the pit of his stomach.
“What could that be?” Viola exclaimed. “Smells like something dead!”
His stomach wretched with nausea, and the bitter, sweetish taste of this morning rose to his throat.
Viola opened the gate and entered the yard, while he shot a horrific glance at the hole where the cat lay rotting.
“Better go up an’ change your clothes before you git ’um all dirty, Amerigo,” said Viola.
“Yes’m,” distractedly entering the yard. It was bathed in afternoon sunlight. There was no one to be seen, although all the doors behind the screens were open. Nothing stirred!
Shortly after five o’clock, Rutherford asked: “How’d it go, boy?” Sitting on the orange crate on the back porch in an old pair of pants and tennis shoes, he looked up at his father through the screen, the word boy blending with the image of a skinny little boy with all those brothers and sisters sliding down Troost Hill, all the way to Garrison Square. He smiled with embarrassment.
“Come on an’ git your supper,” said Viola.
“Yooooo-hooo!” Aunt Lily cooed softly, peering up on the porch from under the palm of her right hand. “How’d our young ’un do on ’is first day in school?”
“Fine, Aunt Lily!” cried Viola through the screen. “How’re you?”
“Aw, girl, you know how it is with your aunt Lily.”
“Hi, Aunt Lily,” Amerigo said shyly. Rutherford waved. Then she went back into her kitchen and he and Rutherford entered theirs.
Sitting at the table the smell of crawdads and all the suppers throughout the alley crept into his bizarre impression of all that had happened during the day. Viola placed a bowl of fried cabbage on the table, which was soon accompanied by a platter of salt pork strips fried in cornmeal, a pitcher of buttermilk, and a plate of corn bread. He picked disinterestedly at his food, while Viola told about the day.
He listened to her voice with interest, as she recounted all the events, but in quite another sequence than he had experienced them, placing the accent on sights and sounds that had passed him by unnoticed, or which he had seen in another way. It wasn’t like that at all! he wanted to exclaim, but Viola spoke so quickly, and he was very tired. Besides, supper was over already, and Rutherford was reading his paper with deep concentration, while he helped his mother with the dishes. When the dishes were over he would have to go to bed early in order to be up in time to go to school.
The night was quiet. The alley was quiet. In bed, in the dark, looking at the stars through the window, he thought of the previous night. Suddenly he was swept in the wake of an upsurging wave of fear, as though he were going to school tomorrow for the first time! He raced through the previous day until it was night and Tom Johnson sat on his steps and Rutherford and Viola talked softly behind the middle room door and the fear exploded: Boom! Boom! Boom! in his chest. He listened for the crickets. No crickets.
Then he heard the birds. He stood on the back porch. The air was fresh and cool and bright and alive with the smell of dew and falling elm leaves and the aroma of coffee that Rutherford had made and soap and toothpaste and the stench that rose from the empty house.
After a little while Tommy was waiting with William at the gate. Amerigo looked into his face in order to see if he knew, then he looked at the sky, and at the trees.…
“Now, you be good an’ go with Tommy like I told you, you hear?” Viola had said just before she had gone off in a flash to work. He felt the dime and the nickel she’d given him tied in the corner of the handkerchief in his pocket with the star. “Keep your hand on it so you don’ lose it.”
“Come on, ’Mer’go,” said Tommy, and he went down and joined them and they proceeded through the shoot, leaped down Miss Ada’s steps in a bound, and cut across Campbell. They went through the shoot beside the white people’s apartment and slid through a hole in the
backyard fence and came out near a row of redbrick apartments with long gray porches. Other children were coming out of their houses: Sammy, Leroy, Margie, Robert, and others he didn’t know, and they all went down Harrison to the avenue.
“Lookit that little hatch-legged niggah in them fancy breeches!” Leroy shouted. “Ah! ha! ha! ha!”
“What you say, there, you little sissy?” Robert jeered. He and Leroy were big.
“Come on, ’Mer’go,” said Tommy in a conciliatory tone. Sensing danger, they walked faster. Other kids joined them along the way, and finally the noisy crowd arrived at school just as the bell was ringing.
After a while the bell rang for recess. The gray asphalt immediately flashed with movement and color. Rubber and leather balls bounced, and the metal rings clanged against the poles while others flew freely through the air.
“Whee!” cried the girls in the swings, the wind billowing out their dresses. A clump of boys peeped up between their legs and sniggered, while others wrestled and fought or huddled along the little wall near the edge of the playground.
“Your momma!” cried one of the big boys, and another big boy hit him in the nose and big drops of blood dropped onto his white shirt and the ground. A crowd gathered.
“Hit that niggah, George!” cried one skinny little boy.
“M-a-n, I wouldn’ let no-body talk about my momma like that!” shouted another with laughing eyes.
Meanwhile he was pushed by the jostling children to the front of the crowd. George and the other boy were wrestling on the ground. “Kill that niggah, man!” and “Fight! Fight! Fight!” and “If you don’ beat that cat, I’m gonna beat you!” rang from all sides, as the children screamed with delight.
When all of a sudden a little man appeared among them who was no bigger than Gloomy Gus. His hair was good like Gloomy Gus’s, but silvery white, and he wore a simple well-tailored black suit, a white shirt, a vest, and a blue tie. He noticed that his hands were small and fine, and that his face was of a golden color, like a white man, almost, but he was colored. He moved slowly through the crowd. As the children noticed him, they became silent, so that by the time he was halfway through, the rear half stood in awe-filled silence, while the front half still shouted and screamed words of encouragement to the fighting boys. “Hit ’im!” “Git ’im,” “Hit,” “Git.” Silence. The two boys fought, alone. Finally, they both looked up sheepishly at the man.
“He started it!” cried the smaller boy, the one whom they called George, a copper-colored boy with green eyes and reddish brown curly hair. Mr. Bowles commanded silence with the raised palm of his right hand and cut his words in two, just as the larger boy, tall for his age, black, with sad hungry eyes, panting for breach, declared: “I’m gonna git you for that!” in a cold, uncompromising tone.
“I’m glad to see that you two have so much energy,” said Mr. Bowles with a warmth and a calmness that mellowed but did not detract from the seriousness of his tone.
Like the reverend, he thought.
“The playground needs sweeping, and I’m sure Mr. Johnson would appreciate some help with the blackboards. And I would appreciate it very much if you gentlemen would come in and see me after school. Perhaps by then I shall have thought of a few other useful things for you to do with those big muscles of yours.” A few sniggers burst from the crowd. “When,” with a look that demanded silence all around, “when you’ve finished your chores, and you’re not too tired, and you are still angry enough to fight, why, then, you may fight as long as you like — with boxing gloves! We’ll have a match. And I shall be there with bells on, pulling for the best man!”
The bell rang.
“Back to class!” he said with a humorous twinkle in his eyes, raising his arms like Aunt Tish when she talked to the flowers and the birds. The children ran into the building, bustling with excitement.
He stood transfixed by the beauty of the man after the crowd had dispersed.
A fine man! said a voice.
A race man! cried Viola.
A real educator! said Rutherford.
The image of Miss Chapman surprised him by its sudden appearance. He was bewildered by a kind of magic through which the faces of Viola and Rutherford — who were little kids like him — were fused with the faces of Mr. Bowles and Miss Chapman!
“You’re Amerigo Jones, aren’t you?” the great man was saying.
“Yessir.”
“I believe the bell has rung. That means that you have to go inside with the others.”
He walked dreamily toward the building at the great man’s side.
“When you go home this evening, say hello to your mother and father for me. We’re old friends.”
“Yessir.” He stumbled up the steps, while Mr. Bowles turned and scanned the playground to see if all the children were in.
The bell rang again; for the noon recess. It rang again, and all grew gradually quiet. Again it rang, and and he stood at the front entrance, waiting for Tommy who finally came.
Then the hazardous journey home by a route crowded with fences and alleys strewn with cans and rocks to kick, with hills strewn with wildflowers and thorns and briers and cockleburs and sunflowers with stalks crawling with grasshoppers. A little boy in the kindergarten named Harry Bell got hit in the eye with a rock and two girls in the third grade had a fight over the gym teacher and there was an exchange of rocks between gangs of Italian and Negro children.
“Come on!” Tommy cried suddenly, and he ran with the Negroes.
If you git into trouble, he heard Rutherford say, run, but if you can’t run, fight! But fight to win!
“Hurry up!” cried Tommy, ducking to avoid a barrage of gravel, and he had to dispense with his questions as to the reason of his flight in order to keep up. By the time he got home the question had exhausted itself. He came to the gate, paused briefly, absentmindedly, to stare dumbly at the empty house, irritated by his growing awareness of the strong nauseating odor that came from the hole in the foundation.
The sky flushed rose, and then blue, and was shattered into particles of light; the air was pregnant with savory sound and movement that satisfied his stomach, but merely filled his mind with a hungry anticipation of what tomorrow would bring, and tomorrow, until Saturday, and then Sunday.
… Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.… God bless Mom an’ Dad … Dad an’ Mom … an’ Aunt Rose an’ …
Saturday leaped into his mind in a special way: “We usta go snake huntin’ ever’ Sad’dy on Clairmount Hill an’ in the woods down ’roun’ Cliff Drive an’ down by the railroad tracks.…”
And then Sunday and Sunday school. The church loomed up out of the darkness.
I’ll get a quarter! And suddenly the sound of his mother’s voice made him tingle with excitement.
Yeah — I guess you kin go to the show with Tommy — if it’s all right with your daddy….
It’s all right with me, if it’s all right with you.
Okay by me.
I wish Sunday was tomorrow!
He scanned the sky for a falling star.
“Hi, Vi!” cried Miss Ada the following evening after supper.
“Hi, Sister Bill, I’m ready!” Viola answered with a smile, stepping to the door to meet her. They said good-bye and rushed off to the club meeting in a whirl of powdered, perfumed enthusiasm. And before he could finish his dream of Miss Chapman and Mr. Bowles she was home.
Thursday passed unnoticed.
Friday he learned a song:
Good mornin’ to you, good mornin’ to you, good mornin’, dear teacher, good mornin’ to you!
“That’s fine!” said Viola.
“That boy’s gonna be a Irish tenor — like his uncle Montroe!” Rutherford exclaimed with a mischievous smile.
“Who’s Uncle Montroe?”
“Don’t you remember him? He had the best Irish tenor on the avenue!”
He thought of
a blue-eyed man with gray hair in a policeman’s uniform, or a fireman’s.…
“He usta take you ’round with ’im all the time when you wasn’ no more’n two years old!” said Viola.
“Closer to three!” Rutherford exclaimed. “That little niggah wasn’ walkin’ till he was almost old as me!”
“Miss Chapman says you ain’ supposed to say nigger, ’cause that’s what igner’nt people says,” Amerigo said. Anger and surprise rushed into Rutherford’s face, followed by an expression of profound embarrassment. Viola struggled to suppress a smile and dropped her eyes to the floor.
“Yeah, well — anyway …” Rutherford stammered, “remember, Babe? He was eh, crossin’ crossin’ the boulevard with the pr’fessor here. He wasn’ nothin’ but a baby then, an’ didn’ go ’round teachin’ his father — an’ the traffic was heavy, I mean heavy! You know how it is at five o’clock! An’ that little-eh-joker was doin’ the mess-around!”
“Ohooo!” Viola yelled, “an’ gruntin’: unh-unh-unh-unh — messin’ around to beat the band! The cars stopped on the boulevard an’ all the white folks was a-lookin’ and a-laughin’! I just knew you was gonna be a dancer like Ruben!”
“He’s gonna be a pr’fessor — or a preacher!” said Rutherford wryly, “tellin’ his daddy what to say! But Miss Chapman’s right, Amerigo, we shouldn’ use that word. If anybody calls you that, just ignore ’um. That’s funny, if a white man’d call you that, you’d wanna kill ’im, but we call each other that all the time. I hear the Italians callin’ each other wop all the time, but if you said it, they’d want to take you for a ride! The Jews do it, too. I guess it ain’ what you say, as much as how you say it — what you mean by it. It’s about time for you to hit the hay, ain’ it, Rev?”
Such Sweet Thunder Page 15