“From all the waves in the sea …”
Clap! clap! clap! clap! clap!
“From all the stars in the sky!”
“You ain’ got no money, honey, but you sure got a whole lot a nerve!” cried a husky male voice that came from the spinning phonograph record in the room behind the screen. The shade was drawn, but a blazing right angle of sunlight fired its side and bottom edge, diffusing a pregnant green light throughout the room.
“Naw! — you ain’ got no money, honey, but you sure got a lot a nerve!” The guitar whined plaintively. He rang the bell.
A tall shadow in a sky-blue dress filled the screen and partially obscured his view of the large round table around which three men sat. Jus’ ’cause you know that I love you —
“Good afternoon, Mister Jones!” said Ardella tartly.
“Hi,” stepping self-consciously into the cool sweet smell of whiskey, beer, gin, the blues, and the animate expressions in glazed eyes sweltering in the nurtured shade of a hot Sunday afternoon.
“Hi Aunt Rose!”
“Why, hello, baby!” She smiled from the doorway of the little hall that connected the kitchen and the bedroom to the parlor. Now she moved heavily into the parlor and joined the men at the table.
“Been to church?”
“Yes’m,” moving deeper into the room.
More’n anything in this world! cried the man who was still singing the blues. If you had a dollah — One of the men signaled Ardella to pour another drink. If you had a dollah — for eeevery lie you told!
“You’d be rich, wouldn’ you, Dan?” said Aunt Rose to the man sitting next to her. He downed his whiskey in one gulp, a tall, lean smooth-skinned black man in a clean lumber jacket over a white shirt that was open at the throat.
“I don’ know as I’d be ex-actly rich, but I reckon I’d need a small train just to carry my change in!”
“You’d a been rich as Rockerfelloooo ’fo you was ten years old!”
“Have a seat, Mister Jones,” said Ardella, “an’ pour yourself a drink. That is, if we humble folks are good enough for you.”
“You cut out that foolishness, Ardella,” said Aunt Rose. “You know that boy don’ drink. Come around here, boy, an’ let your auntie have a look at you. I ain’ seen you in a long time. This is Mister Williams, Amerigo,” indicating the tall man on her right: “Mister Williams, Mister Jones.”
“Say, I know this little darkie!” exclaimed Mr. Williams. “He looks just like Viola, don’ ’e?”
“Spittin’ image of ’er!” said Aunt Rose.
“Why, I knowed your momma, boy, when she wasn’ no bigger’n you!”
He put his arm around his waist and drew him to him. The strong smell of whiskey perfumed the air when he spoke, and droplets of spittle flickered out in rays of diffused sunlight.
“You turned out to be a f-i-n-e lookin’ young man!” continued Mr. Williams. “Well, sir, if I could just go back an’ start all over agin!”
“How many times have you an’ I wished that!” Aunt Rose sighed.
“If! if! if!” Ardella said, rubbing her flat stomach. “If one of you gen’lemen would offer a lady a drink.” She smiled bitterly and moved toward the Victrola.
RCA, Victor! he thought.
She put on a record.
“Drink up, girl, I’m buyin’,” said the second man, a yellow-skinned freckle-faced man who motioned sleepily at the bottle on the table. Aunt Rose looked at Amerigo with a private knowing smile:
That’s my daughter, it said. That’s my pride an’ joy! Take a good look at ’er an’ at the rest a these niggahs, Amerigo, an’ see how it is to be dead before your time! An’ please try not to judge your auntie too hard. She’s had a hard time. But she loves you! You hear me, she loves you!
He felt Ardella’s oblique glance, darting between her mother’s eyes and his eyes, just after the record began to spin, the needle to crack, the piano to play — then a mellow commenting trombone backed by an ingratiating fiddle and a signifying drum:
“If I ever git on my feet agin!”
He diverted his gaze to the floor while Ardella poured herself three fingers of whiskey, threw her head back, and gulped it down with a frown, her head recoiling to its former position as she set the glass on the table just in time to catch him stealing a glance at her:
You think you’re smart, don’t you? he felt her eyes saying. You and that big-eyed momma of yours. All dressed up in your Sunday suit! Been to church, heard every word the reverend said. Smart, too. Real smart! Gonna be somebody someday. Then Momma’s gonna point to me and say: ‘Now why couldn’t you have been like him? Why couldn’t you have tried!’ You little shrimp! You aren’t any better than I am! You’re no smarter than I am! You’re luckier than I am, though.…
“If I ever git on my feet agin!” the woman sang.
I don’t hate you! No, I don’t! I hate Momma! But she’s all I got. She’s all I am! And she loves you. I don’t hate you. I just wish you were somewhere else — miles away! I wish you and your big bright eyes had never been born! Maybe, maybe it would have been better if I had never been born, if I were dead.
“Yeah,” Mr. Williams was saying, “if things was then the way they is now —”
“It ain’ never too late,” said Aunt Rose, shooting a glance at Ardella.
“It’s too late for me!” said Mr. Williams.
The third man, a little blue-black man dressed in a gray suit, with huge gnarled hands with enormous pink fingernails that he drummed nervously on the table, looked up from his drumming.
He’s got hands like Bra Mo, Amerigo thought.
“It’s too late for me,” Mr. Williams was saying. “Momma’s dead, Poppa. I got a sister — but she’s so good a Christian that she turns ’er head the other way when she sees me comin’ down the street. Hell! I been in too many crap games, too many sportin’ houses. Never could keep still long enough to git married. I got a few kids … here an’ there. Yeah! but they don’t even know my name! Ain’ got no schoolin’. Been out workin’ ever since I was ten. An’ I got more gray hairs then I got black ’uns. Heh! — an’ you ’spect me to go where this boy’s goin’?”
“What you got to say to that, Josh?” Aunt Rose looked at the little man in the gray suit who looked like Bra Mo.
“Well, the way I look at it is this: that a man ain’ no more then he thinks he is. You kin be born high an’ you kin be born low, but here’s one thing that I do know: Ain’ nobody comin’ till he gits called! Maybe He call you when you young, like Jesus, or when you old, like Job. But whether you git called or not ever’ man — ever’ livin’ ass — got the price to pay! ’Scuse me, son, but I got to call it like I see it.”
“Your momma tells me that you been to the art gallery,” said Aunt Rose.
Clap! clap! clap! clap! clap! clap!
“Yes’m! Last Frid’y. We went in a bus for nobody else but us! Went thataway! Out a big boulevard lined with r-e-a-l pretty trees. After we passed the station an’ Memorial Hill, then we turned into a driveway an’ stopped in front of a g-r-e-a-t big buildin’! With a park around it full a real real pretty trees — an’ pur-d-a-y! — with a lot a leaves an’ things that ain’ like none a the ones around here!
“We went between the tall black shiny posts, bigger’n a telephone post — with real funny things on top where it held the roof up that looked like baskets of fruit cut out a stone. The roof rested on that. An’-an’ on the front a the roof shaped like a triangle was a picture cut in the wall. They call that skulpcher —”
“Go ahead, boy!” Mr. Williams exclaimed.
Aunt Rose smiled with approval.
“S-c-u-l-p-t-u-r-e —” said Ardella, “I know a little bit about that, myself.”
“That’s what I said!”
“Go on, honey!” said Aunt Rose:
Clap! clap! clap! clap! clap! clap!
“Just after the entrance where you give your coat an’ hat an’ a tall gray-headed white man in
a blue-lookin’ uniform with writin’ on the pocket pushed the gate open — almost like on the streetcar — after the conductor turns the handle an’ the money falls.
“There was a g-r-e-a-t big pretty room! With big big big rugs on the walls with pictures on ’um of knights of the Round Table, an’ big horses all covered with iron so they couldn’ git stuck with spears an’ cut with them big long swords —”
“S-o-r-d-s!” said Ardella.
“Yeah, an’-an’ standin’ up side the wall was a-was a r-e-a-l horse made out a stone like in a picture, with a man on top of ’im, all dressed up in a iron suit with a long spear an’ a shiel’ an’ —”
“D!”
“Shield! — an’ axes an’ big balls with a lot a stickers stickin’ out of ’um connected to a chain — to fight with.”
“That sure is somethin’, all right!” said the freckle-faced man, who had aroused from his slumbers. “An’ then what?”
Clap! clap! clap! clap! clap! dap! dap!
The armor and mail clashed and clanged in hot combat, the legions of brave warriors gushed with blood induced from their bodies by spear, lance, pickax, mace-and-chain. Horses hooves wildly churned the turf into a slimy mass stained red by the thick coils of blood that oozed from the wounds in the necks of the walleyed dead men.…
“There was some steps made out a real marble on that side of the room an’ on the other. They went windin’ up an’ around — a little bit like the steps on Twelf’ Street in front a the show.”
“Th!” said Ardella.
“An’-an’ on the wall that the steps wind up aginst — on that side — was a real big picture. Pur-d-a-y! With a pretty blue sky an’ pretty green trees, an’ under the trees some men was standin’ with long white beards all dressed up in sheets an’ sandals, lookin’ at another man who was talkin’ to ’um. He had his arms all stretched out like he was sayin’ somethin’ important. An’ the wall over the other steps had a blue sky, too, with real tall good-lookin’ men with straight noses an’ big eyes an’ pretty legs — just like a woman! — ridin’ naked on pretty horses, like Indians racin’!”
Cloppidycloppidydoppidydoppidydoppidydoppidydop …
“But we didn’ stop there —”
“Where?” asked Aunt Rose.
“Downstairs in the basement. Only it wasn’ like no basement around here. It was a basement like a front room, only it didn’ have no rug on it an’ stuff like that, with a real shiny floor that you couldn’ see no dirt nowhere. It had a lot of glass closets with a lot a pretty rocks that the Indians usta use for bows an’ arrows an’ hatchets an’ tomahawks for huntin’ an’ a g-r-e-a-t big hat with a lot a feathers for the chief. Pontiac, Jack!”
He stared at the right angle of blazing light that fired a fringe of shiny hair on Aunt Rose’s head.
“You woulda been a wonderful woman, if you hadn’ a …”
“She dyes it.… Ssssssh.”
“An’ dresses an’ a lot a pretty beads an’ bracelets …” his voice was saying.
“Did they let you go through the whole buildin’ by yourself?” asked Aunt Rose.
He gazed into the cool clear skies of her eyes. He watched her tapering brows take flight like a pair of birds in the velvet picture on the front room wall:
“Did they let you go through the whole building by yourself?”
“The gentleman’s dreaming,” said Ardella, “he must be in love!” Her prune-colored lips spread out in a sensuous smile, and her eyes narrowed into slits, so that the whites were barely visible through the feathery sheen of her eyelashes. He shivered, a funny feeling crept between his legs, and he dropped his glance to the polished floor.
“What was she like, son?” Aunt Rose smiled tenderly. Her eyes articulated the assurance that she understood, that she really understood, that she knew.
“Who?” in a flood of embarrassment.
“The guide,” said Ardella. “You had a guide, didn’t you?”
He looked puzzled.
“The young lady who took you around an’ explained ever’thin’,” said Aunt Rose.
Ardella was still smiling sensuously.
He stood a-tremble before the young lady with the soft red hair and large green eyes spaced far apart. The sun glistened upon her moist red lips, as she signaled for the class to sit down upon the floor in front of the long wooden box with the carved figures. The class obediently crumbled to the floor in a mass of heads, eyes, arms, and legs akimbo, while he remained standing, his foot caught in the shadow of the iron bars of the Spanish window.
She smiled at him and motioned for him to sit down.
He writhed in a fury of embarrassment, but remained standing. Giggles spilled from his classmates’ mouths onto the floor.
This is my Sund’y suit! he thought.
An instant later her hand touched his shoulder, like a magic wand. His will flowed out of his body and he sank to the floor.
He studied the movement of her throat as she spoke. It was framed in the blazing white collar of her blouse.
I bet it never gets dirty, he thought.
She unconsciously touched her neck with her fingertip and shifted her attention to the box with the carved figures, explaining that it was used by the rich Spanish noblemen to store their treasures of: … balls an’ grasshoppers, june bugs an’ rubber-guns, Libby labels an’ glass stars in …
And presently the group had sprung to its feet and was moving through a series of beautiful rooms. He walked at her side, sipping the sweet wisdom from her … licked-wineball-colored … lips!
“The young lady who took you around an’ explained ever’thin’,” Aunt Rose was saying.
“An’ there was a —”
“Were!”
“Yeah. A whole lot a pictures, too, with real people in ’um — in every room! — pictures of watermelons an’ or’nges an’ grapes that looked like you could eat ’um off the wall, but they was painted. An’ they was a lot a cows an’ sheep an’ old brown houses in the middle of big yellow fields with men an’ women workin’ in ’um, plowin’ an’ tyin’ up hay into bundles … an’ sittin’ an’ talkin’ an’ laughin’ an’ dancin’ — real funny-like, with they legs all stuck up in the air, all funny-like. But they wasn’ movin’, an’ you couldn’ hear what they was sayin’, but they was movin’ — an’-an’ you knowed — knew they was sayin’ somethin’! Ain’ that funny?”
“What?” asked Aunt Rose.
“That you kin see somethin’ movin’ that ain’ even movin’? An’ that you kin hear somethin’ that you can’t even hear! You know what I mean! There was a cat playin’ a violin in one picture, an’ I could hear it just as p-l-a-i-n —”
“You lucky, son,” said Aunt Rose, “there’s a lot a folks can’t even hear it when they hearin’ it!”
“An’ then — in a-nother picture there was a little boy in a blue suit that was laughin’! An’ he looked just like it, too! Sort a dancin’-like, but he wasn’ movin’. I looked away an’ then looked back agin — real quick! — an’ he wasn’ gone nowhere, but he was still dancin’ just the same, Jack!
“An’ there was another picture — the prettiest picture in the w-h-o-l-e w-o-r-l-d!”
“What was that?” asked Ardella.
“The picture of a man with a iron hat on his head made out a gold. His head was kinda in the shadow-like, so you couldn’ hardly see what he looked like, but you could see ’im just the same. But you could see his hat best. It was gold an’ shiny. A man from olden times. He’s called The Man with the Golden Helmet, Jack! — an’ —”
“B-o-y!” cried Aunt Rose, “was there anything you didn’ see?”
“No’m. An’ listen! There was a b-i-g b-i-g room — from China! All the way from China! With a lot a shiny horses an’ things made out a glass, an’ dishes an’ vases, an’ on a wall — real tall — was a statue of a b-i-g man with pretty ears! The biggest ears in the w-h-o-l-e — w-o-r-l-d! An’ long eyes that looked like he was half asleep. He was
sittin’ down with his legs crossed — Indian-fashion — an’-an’ his hands an’ his fingers looked like a woman’s. But he wasn’ sleepin’. If he was sleepin’ he’d be lyin’ down. He was thinkin’ about somethin’ that he knowed.”
“Knew.”
“Unh-huh. Kinda dreamin’-like.”
“What was he supposed to be?” Mr. Williams asked.
“He was God. Not exactly God ’cause he was dead. Like God — only they call ’im Booda. Funny name!”
“You must be hungry after —” Aunt Rose began.
“But how kin He be God when GOD’S GOD?”
“Ain’ no use in me lyin’,” said Aunt Rose with a sigh, “I really don’ know, but I reckon those people over there that believe in ’im’s gonna git to heaven just as quick as any a the rest of ’um. Your cousin Ardella went to college, ask her.”
“I don’t know, Momma,” said Ardella.
“Come on back in the kitchen,” said Aunt Rose. He followed her into the kitchen. It was smaller than the kitchen of the old red house on the hill. It was on the ground floor and looked out onto a porch walled in with narrow slats running crisscross.
He sat down at the little table in front of the narrow north window that looked onto a neighboring house. While Aunt Rose busied herself about the stove, a brown-and-white collie dog poked its long thin muzzle against the screen and whined in a friendly way.
“Go ’way, Queenie, I done fed you once taday,” said Aunt Rose without looking up from the pot she was stirring.
He observed unconsciously that Aunt Rose’s feet and legs were swollen, that she moved with greater difficulty, a faint groan or grunt accompanying each radical shift of position. And that almost always now her tightened lips betrayed the laughter in her eyes.
She’s getting old. He felt sad, as he ate the chicken she offered him, even though he wasn’t really hungry. But then after a while it made him hungry because it was so good.
“Why’s that?”
“Why’s what?”
“That you kin git hungry even when you ain’ — aren’t?”
“I hope you don’ never have to be hungry when you hungry,” she said, caressing him and pressing a coin in his hand. “Buy yourself somethin’ good for the show.”
Such Sweet Thunder Page 37