Such Sweet Thunder

by Vincent O. Carter

  They don’t care. He lay back down. He felt cold. He tossed and turned and finally doubled his body into a ball and went to sleep.

  Givin’ others some a what you got … some a what you got … some a what you got … Softer and softer: Some a what you got.

  He stepped out onto the porch, his arms laden with Post Toasties and milk, bread and butter, wineballs and chewing gum. He laid them before the kitten, who half sat, half lay on the porch with a dull glaze in her eyes: Here, kitty! Here, kitty.

  H-e-r-e kittykittykitty!

  Kittykittykittykittykittykittykitty … kit … ty … k …

  Tuesday morning was raw and smoky. The sky was filled with a blue haze. Like fog, but thinner. Like looking at the world from behind a blue curtain. The leaves were a whole lot of different colors — some on the trees, some on the ground, and some falling.

  Night came coolly and heavily, like velvet. He said his prayers but he did not hear what he said. And when he closed his eyes the pictures came. He closed them tighter, pushed them down so deep that he could not see them or hear them. He sank heavily down behind the blue wall.

  Wednesday morning he woke up too early. The sun shone too brightly in his eyes. He tried to go back to sleep, but could not, and then he finally went back, but slept too long. Rutherford had to call him twice. Twice he had to answer. He ate his breakfast, too full to eat. He dillydallied on his way to school, avoided the other children.

  At school he could not look at her, he could not look at him. He arranged the colored leaves behind the cardboard basket that he was making.

  The bell rang.

  Already! Racing along the great Admiral Boulevard, trying to beat five o’clock home, with the amber sun in his eyes!

  Again the bell rang. All was quiet. He looked out the window at a sparrow in a tree. He sighed enviously.

  He scraped the dried clay from the palms of his hands.

  “Time to wash up!” cried Miss Chapman. He looked up at the sound of her voice. He looked into her eyes. They were smiling tenderly. He let his eyes fall to the floor, and when the bell rang for the last time he did not look at her. Nor did he run, kicking cans, or laughing and talking with the others who ran on ahead. He drifted through Independence Avenue like a single solitary cloud. His eyes and ears passively perceived the colors, shapes, and sounds. They passed through his consciousness like smoke through the sky, like blue fog.

  The sun shone bright and hard, almost like summer, and yet he felt as though he were walking through a winter afternoon. He shivered and felt cold.

  The backyard was quiet. The bad smell from the empty house had vanished. Maybe he’s gone! He climbed heavily up the back steps: Boom! Boom! Boom! Ten times. He paused at the clean spot, half lay, half fell on the porch, bled at the mouth, and died.

  The sun sank lower in the sky.

  Bra Mo came through the shoot with a cake of ice on his shoulder. He came through the yard, ascended the porch steps, and rapped softly upon the screen door.

  “Hi, ’Mer’go! Your momma told me to bring some ice this mornin’. Lawdy! I durn near forgot!” He smiled pleasantly and entered the kitchen, opened the icebox, took the water bottle out. and slid the cake in. “There!” he exclaimed with a grunt.

  He looked up at him from behind the blue wall.

  “You mighty quiet taday!”

  He looked at the floor. The cracks between the boards made an imprint upon the linoleum, cutting brown parallel stripes through the fading flowered design.

  “Well, sir!” Bra Mo exclaimed, “I guess I’d better be goin’. Hits too chilly here for me! Hee! hee! Winter’s here already!”

  He watched him go down the steps, through the yard, past the empty house, and finally through the shoot. Then he went back into the kitchen and entered the toilet and waited for five o’clock.

  Shortly before five Viola came home and began supper. Her eyes were quiet and serious. He watched her from the chair. Soon sharp savory odors arose from the stove.

  “Set the table,” said Viola. “Your daddy’ll be home in a minute.”

  He checked the sunlight falling across the threshold of the kitchen door. The cool stone flushed amber. He moved dreamily around the table, laying down the plates, the knives, forks, and spoons, the glasses and the bowl for the fried corn that Viola had on the stove. It gave off a sweetish smell that made him slightly nauseous. When he had finished setting the table he stood at her elbow.

  “That’s a very expensive ring, a di’mond! I gave that ring to your daddy the first year after we got married. For Christmas. I don’ think you meant to steal it. I know you didn’. But what kin I do? Your daddy’s right in his way. You just gotta learn that you can’t take things that don’ belong to you.” Her voice trembled. “An’-an’ after Miss Chapman told you to bring it back! Whatever possessed you to do a thing like that?”

  He looked down at the floor.

  “Huh?”

  She took his chin in the palm of her hand and gently raised his head. He looked up into her eyes. They blended into Miss Chapman’s eyes! His lips trembled and tears ran down his face. He buried his face in her stomach.…

  They heard heavy foot steps on the front stair.

  “Shh!” — touching her lips with her forefinger and motioning for him to go out onto the back porch.

  “Hi baby!” cried Mrs. Derby from her porch downstairs. “Ain’ seen much a you since you been in school. You been a good boy an’ doin’ what your teacher tell you?”

  “Yes’m,” looking down at her from the orange crate. He could hear his father and mother talking in the kitchen, but he could not hear what they said.

  Mrs. Crippa appeared at her kitchen door, looked out over the yard and disappeared behind the screen. After that Mr. Derby came out onto the porch and started tending to his crawdads. Amerigo looked on indifferently, straining to hear what was being said in the kitchen.

  “To-ny! Toooo-ny!” He looked through the branches of the elm trees in Miss Ada’s yard and saw Miss McMahon standing on her back porch with something in her hand. “Ask your mother if you kin come over here for a minute, I’ve got something for you!”

  “Yes’m!”

  He opened the screen door and looked at Viola. Viola looked at Rutherford.

  “Go on,” he said, “but git back over here in a hurry!”

  A few minutes later he returned with a huge all-day sucker wrapped in cellophane. It had eyes, a nose, and a mouth made out of candied sugar.

  “Aw, how n-i-c-e!” exclaimed Viola. “She sure l-o-v-e-s you! But you can’t eat it now, put it away till after-after,” avoiding Rutherford’s eyes, “until after supper.”

  “Yes’m.”

  “What am I supposed to be — the bastard around here?”

  From the front room where he had gone to put the candy away, he heard his father’s angry voice: “Ain’ no use in you carryin’ on like this. I done said what I mean to do — an’ that’s that!”

  They ate silently, without looking at each other.

  “HI, VI!” Miss Ada called from her back porch.

  “HI, SISTER BILL!” Viola answered, stepping to the threshold of the kitchen door, “I’LL BE READY AT SEVEN-THIRTY! WE GOT A LOT A BUSINESS TO DISCUSS TANIGHT!”

  “YOU TELLIN’ ME! OKAY. I’LL BE SEEIN’ YOU!”

  Rutherford rose from the table and went into the front room and settled down to his paper. Viola began to dress while Amerigo washed the dishes. When he had finished he went out onto the back porch and sat on the orange crate in the beam of light shining through the screen door. After a short while Viola appeared in the door dressed for club meeting. Miss Ada called from her porch:

  “YOU READY?”

  “YEAH, I’M READY!” looking solemnly at him. “S’long, babe.” She kissed him, and then descended the steps, crossed the yard, and unlatched the gate. She paused to look back at him and saw Rutherford’s tall shadow blotting out the light that streamed through the kitchen door.

&nb
sp; “Hi, baby!” said Miss Ada.

  “Hi,” he replied hoarsely.

  “Hi, Rutherford!”

  “What do you say, Sister Bill?” In a strained voice.

  The two women disappeared through the shoot.

  “Come in here!” Rutherford commanded. He went into the kitchen. “Sit down there on that chair.” He sat down. “You know what’s gonna happen, don’t you?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Why you gittin’ a whippin’?”

  “ ’Cause a the ring.”

  “That’s right. ’Cause I don’ know no better way to make you feel the wrong thing you done. I want you to rem’ber this for the rest of your life. So that you won’ never do that agin.”

  He stared at the floor.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  He took off his clothes.

  “Now, go git me that strap.”

  He brought the strap to his father, and then ran to the far corner of the kitchen, near the toilet door, covering his body with his arms and hands. Rutherford took a step toward him. He began to whimper. Rutherford raised the strap over his head, and he let out a soulful yell. Rutherford’s hand faltered. Then his lips tightened with determination, and he raised the strap again. He yelled again. Louder than before.

  “Whap!” the strap resounded against the toilet door. He jumped up and down, ran to and fro, shouting and begging his father not to beat him. Rutherford raised the strap again.

  “eeeeeEEEEOOOOOW!” he cried.

  Just as Rutherford was about to bring the strap down a second time, a voice stayed his hand:

  “Stop!”

  Miss McMahon stood in the door. Her eyes flashed with anger. Her cheeks were flushed with patches of crimson color, while the rest of her face was waxen and bloodless. Her gray hair was awry and her lips were purple. She breathed with difficulty.

  “If-if,” she gasped, “if you h-i-t that-that boy a-g-a-i-n, I’ll CALL THE POLICE!”

  “What?” cried Rutherford, “I ain’ even TOUCHED ’IM YET! Why-why-why-whatdoyoumean — comin’ in my house tellin’ me what to do with my son?”

  He stood in the corner trembling, his face wet with tears. Miss McMahon looked at him as if to see what Rutherford said was true. He could not speak. He ain’ hit me!… he heard himself saying, but his lips could not utter the words, they trembled so. He only shook his head nervously from side to side.

  “Git out a my house!” Rutherford commanded.

  Miss McMahon dropped her head heavily and turned toward the door, which she opened and closed carefully behind her. She moved slowly down the steps. No sooner than she had closed the yard gate than Rutherford turned toward him. He raised the strap and let it fall upon his legs. A hot stinging pain coursed through his body. The strap fell upon his arms, and the hot pain seared his trembling flesh. He cried and screamed, darted from one side of the room to the other, ducked behind chairs and under the kitchen table. But always Rutherford’s strap found him. With each blow he flinched and clenched his teeth, red and silver sparks flew within the darkness of his shut eyelids, giving animation to the pain that was not altogether unpleasant.

  “NOBODY tells ME how to bring up no child a MINE!” Rutherford shouted in front of the screen door, while the child whimpered, sweat running into the welts on his arms and legs. He stood braced, ready for the next blow, the pain already half anticipated, his mouth set for the outcry.

  “I guess you won’t forget this evenin’ in a hurry,” Rutherford said. A look of compassion came into his eyes.

  “Come here.”

  He went to his father. Rutherford gathered him into his arms and carried him into the front room. He made his bed and put him into it. He watched over his prayers and drew the covers over him when he had finished.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Yessir.”

  “You got a real ’un this time! But m-a-n — you ain’ seen nothin’, Amerigo. Ha! ha! I usta damned near git a whippin’ like that every day! I was b-a-d! A-l-l-ways into somethin’! Damn you, Momma usta say, I’ll make a man out a you or kill you! An’ she meant it, too, Amerigo. That woman was rough! But all in all I don’t regret it. I growed up straight. Ain’ never been in no kinda trouble with the law. An’-an’-an’ me an’ your momma got you an’-an’, uh, an’ we had to come out a school an’ all that, but it turned out good. They all said it wouldn’ — my sisters an’ them, your aunts. Your momma told you, I know, but you was a bright boy an’ we still together. An’-an’ I’m gonna keep you good an’ bright — or see you in your grave!”

  He saw from the corner of his eye the heavens filled with stars. He’s the best man in the whole world! some wild raucous feeling cried out within him. He felt deliriously happy.

  Now his father was telling him stories of his childhood: of fights he had had and won, of T. C. and all the gang, he gave him advice about catching snakes, how to determine a poisonous one from a harmless one, especially a rattler, how to make a jig, how to make a slingshot.

  He laughed and wished that he had been there then. When Viola came home from club meeting — much earlier than usual — she found them laughing.

  “Unh! You two laughin’ an’ playin’ like nothin’ had happened.”

  To him: “You playin’ with ’im after he beat you nearly half to death? You are a fool!”

  She undressed without uttering a word to either one of them, and went off in a huff to bed. Rutherford undressed and got into bed. Viola lay still, on her side of the bed, with her back to him.

  “Babe,”

  Silence.

  “Babe?”

  Silence.

  “Aw, Viola, it’s all right.…”

  Silence.

  He dozed off to sleep, fell into a deep dark silence reverberant with the suppliant sound of his father’s voice:

  “Babe?”

  The following evening when she came home from work he stood in the door waiting to greet her, but she brushed past him.

  “Aw Mom! It’s all right!”

  She looked at him as though he were a stranger:

  “You know one thing? If you wasn’t mine I’d swear you was a witch!”

  “If it ain’ ready, let’s git it ready!” Rutherford exclaimed as he entered the kitchen. “I’m hungry as four wolves! Hi, there, Viola! Son, git your daddy the paper, there!”

  He fetched the paper, while Rutherford washed up and took his place at the table. He washed his hands, while Viola put the supper on the table.

  “Let’s eat,” she said, and Rutherford put his paper aside.

  “That damned paper makes a man sick at the stomach!”

  “How you mean?” Viola asked.

  “Well, it’s bad enough to have to live with the depression. But then you got to come home an’ read about it! A-l-l the Republicans kin do is in-vestigate! Investigatin’ ain’ gittin’ nobody no jobs! Looka that!” He took up the paper and spread out the pictorial section so that she could see it. “Hogs bein’ plowed under! Oranges burnin’! An’ people starvin’ to death! Why ain’ the Republicans investigatin’ that! Pourin’ coal oil on good food! An’-an’ them damned crooked politicians down at City Hall! A man’s scaired to walk down the street after dark lest he gits knocked in the head, or shot up or somethin’!”

  “Yeah, it’s sure bad, all right,” said Viola with a heavy sigh. “They talkin’ ’bout cuttin’ down at the laundry. ’Course, they a-l-l-ways talkin’ about that! Cut off four last month. One was a driver been there twenty-three years! Ever’time you go into the office to git those few pennies they payin’ you, you wonder if it’s gonna be the last. How did you come out with the old man?”

  “Said he’d straighten me Sad’dy. Give me five on account. Here.” He withdrew a crumpled bill from his pocket and left it on the table near Viola’s plate.

  “That’s a cryin’ shame! You workin’ like a slave an’ have to beg for your money!”

  “It’s like that everywhere, Babe. Old Bill an’ them ain’ eve
n gittin’ that. They have to live on tips an’ what they kin make off a them hustlin’ broads, or handlin’ booze. An’ things gittin’ so tight they scaired to take a chance with that even!

  “But,” he continued thoughtfully, “but things can’t go on like this much longer. The national debt’s higher’n it’s ever been in the country’s history, an’ the relief roll’s gittin’ longer every day. Things keep up like this an’ there’ll be another war. I read a editorial the other day that said it’s tough all over the world, Babe.”

  What can I do about the depression and to stop the war? Amerigo wondered silently. Suddenly he remembered the soldiers he had seen parading down Main Street last Decoration Day. The flag had gone behind the men with the drums and everybody had taken off their hats. Everyone except the women. They didn’t have to because they were women. He lightly tapped his foot to the rhythm of the music. Rutherford was saying:

  “Jack Deal says it’s the fault of the Jews. He sure hates a Jew!”

  “Why?” retorted Viola, “ ’cause they’re smart an’ stick tagether? If we’d stick together the way they do, we’d be a whole lot better off. That’s why we can’t git no place now — always fightin’ ’mong ourselves!”

  “Old Jake’s a mess!” Rutherford exclaimed. “He reads all the papers just so he kin find somethin’ aginst a Jew. An’ he’s death on Mexicans, too. ‘Now I’ll tell you, Ruthafahd,’ he says, ‘I’ll tell you, R-u-t-h-a-f-ah-d, they ain’ no damned good, by God!’ He come up to me, shufflin’ on them bad feet a his. You know how he walks, Babe. B-i-g head, bald in front, an’ b-i-g cold blue eyes. Like a fish! I ain’ kiddin’!”

  “What’s a Jew?”

  “I … uh … well —” Rutherford stammered, “uh, Jews are people like Mr. Fineberg an’ Mary with the dry-goods store. Like the people in the Bible. They came from Israel a long time ago. An’ people don’ like ’um ’cause they keep to theyselves, I guess. An’ s-m-a-r-t! M-a-n — they got you figured out before you git there! But let me tell you somethin’, they ain’ gangsters an’ pimps! An’ they don’ play no dirty politics, an’ they nice to Negroes. I was just a boy when I started workin’ at the hotel, an’ the old man always treated me like I was his son. No kiddin’, Jack! I remember when I usta have to go out to his house to help old lady Mac in the garden sometimes. An’ they’d be eatin’ an’ she’d fix a plate for me. At the table, Jack! An’-an’ I’d eat right along with ’um. ‘You got enough, Rutherford?’ she’d say, an’ I’d say, ‘Yes’m!’ ”