Such Sweet Thunder

by Vincent O. Carter

  He sat on the chair beside the desk and inadvertently crashed his knee into the wastepaper basket.

  “ ’Scuse me.”

  “Now,” said the principal, “I should like to know how you would like to have your name signed — should you happen to graduate.”

  “Hot dog!”

  “Surely you don’t mean that!”

  “Aw, Oeh, neo sah.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’d like it.”

  “It?”

  “To be signed: Amerigo Frederick Douglass Booker T. Washington Jones.”

  “But that’s not your name, is it? It’s not the name your mother and father gave you.”

  “No sir, but that’s what I want!”

  “Well, let’s compromise: Amerigo F. D. Jones.”

  Franklin Delano.

  “Jones,” he was saying.

  “Yessir,” replied the Father of the Country.

  Boom!

  A great clap of thunder shook the dark sky, followed by a bolt of lightning:

  “Oh!” rippled through the surprised crowd whose attention had been fixed upon Principal Powell.

  “Amerigo did it!” Chester whispered.

  “What!” Amerigo asked.

  “Made it rain, niggah!”

  The graduating class, ranging in rows behind Principal Powell, burst into snickers that caused him to turn around and give them a silencing look.

  “Too bad it rained,” said Viola in the taxi after the ceremony. “But it was nice. All the kids looked so nice. An’ that little girl that spoke — spoke so nice an’ clear! She was so tiny for twelve.”

  “She’s ten!” Amerigo exclaimed, “an’ they had to hold ’er back to keep from graduatin’ too young.”

  “Well, she sure spoke like a little lady all right!”

  “Yeah, it was real nice, all right,” said Rutherford.

  “They said I did it,” Amerigo said.

  “What?” Rutherford asked.

  “Made it rain.”

  “How come?” Viola asked.

  “ ’Cause I come in long pants. I was lookin’ s-h-a-r-p! Hot dang!”

  “Be careful, there,” Viola warned, “you almost said somethin’.”

  “Walkin’ all cute!” Rutherford exclaimed. “An’ like to fall down. Haw! haw! haw! An’ didn’ win nothin’! Not even a booby prize! They kept callin’ the names a the ones on the honor list an’ I kept waitin’ to hear my son’s name — an’ I ain’ heard it yet! But that little Chester — what was his name?”

  “You know it, Amerigo,” said Viola.

  “Chester Owlsley.”

  “Now he must be a tough little joker! Had the highest marks in the whole school.”

  “He kin do long division without writin’ it down in his head. But his sister, Erma, is better in English, an’ his other sister, Emma — they’re twins — is better’n both of ’um, but she’s sick all the time an’ has to stay home.”

  “Well, you ain’ missed a day!” said Rutherford. “What happened to you? You supposed to be so smart an’ all.”

  “That don’ matter!” said Viola. “You got through, didn’t you, babe? It won’ be long now!”

  The taxi swerved into the alley.

  Amerigo sat on the porch and ate his crawdads and drank his beer.

  “He kin have a glass a beer. He’s a man now — or he soon will be,” Rutherford had said.

  “Aaaaaaw naw he ain’!” Viola had exclaimed. “That boy ain’ nothin’ but twelve years old. Why, he’s just a baby!”

  “Do you remember how old we was when we got married?” Rutherford asked.

  “That don’ make no bitter difference!” she replied.

  “Drink your beer, boy,” Rutherford said.

  “Yessir.”

  “But one glass is all you git!” Viola declared.

  He sat on the porch and drank his beer and ate his crawdads, and watched the stars fill the sky. The moon flushed red and then orange against the lamplight up and down the alley. Meanwhile he indulgently accepted the congratulations of the neighbors and answered all the questions and suffered with those to whom fate had denied the opportunity that he had been privileged to enjoy.

  The nine o’clock whistle blew and stirred the fireflies around Sammy Sales’s tree.

  I can stay up tonight, he thought, laughing to himself with secret pleasure, titillating uneasily upon the verge of an enthusiasm the limits of which he was at a loss to discover.

  “Aw, swing them hips!” cried a man’s voice from the alley. They all looked down and saw Fay, a tall, pretty, muddy-yellow woman of twenty-four, switching up the alley.

  “She’s really puttin’ it on, there!” Rutherford exclaimed.

  “Yeah,” said Viola, “she’s gonna break ’er backbone, if she ain’ careful!”

  “Tee! hee! hee!” Amerigo exclaimed. “Look at that broad walk!”

  Rutherford and Viola looked at him. The grin froze on his face.

  “What did you say!” Rutherford asked.

  “Nothin’.”

  “Well, you better not say it agin! Look at that broad walk! You must think you a man or somethin’!”

  “It’s about your bedtime, anyway, ain’ it?” Viola asked.

  “Aw, Mom!”

  “Well, you straighten up an’ fly right, then.”

  He trembled within the happy stillness of ten o’clock, soothed by cricket-song, singing the tale of the hero who graduated from elementary school and who was going to junior high school for a year, after which the great doors of North High would open, and the secrets of its many rooms would satisfy his thirst and his hunger to know. Once wise, he would win the prizes of the world. Mom and Dad, and Aunt Rose, and Aunt Lily — the whole North End — would be so proud.

  Be a race man!

  Fight for the rights of our people!

  Things is gonna be a lot better for you than it was for us — if we don’ git tangled up in another one a Europe’s wars!

  “Ain’ that the truth! We oughtta stay over here an’ attend to our own business — an’ let them Frenchmens an’ Germans kill theyself up if’n they got a mind to!”

  “We all in the same boat!” Rutherford exclaimed.

  “What you mean, we all in the same boat?” T. C. exclaimed. “We got two big oceans between us an’ them. We kin just lay over here, Jack! Cool as a cucumber, an’ when they start cryin’, Come over an’ help us, tell ’um, Unh-unh!”

  “We’re a half a block from the avenue, T. C.,” Rutherford said, “but if one house starts burnin’, all the rest is goin’, too. A plane kin fly everywhere a bird kin fly, an’ birds fly everywhere, you hear me?”

  “Well, I sure don’ want nothin’ to do with no war!” T. C. exclaimed. “I didn’ start it an’ I ain’ gittin’ nothin’ out a it! Let these white folks fight they own wars.”

  “Mrs. Jones,” Miss Jenny whispered, slipping quietly out onto the porch. “Did you hear what I heard?”

  “Naw, what? Good evenin’, Miss Jenny.”

  “ ’Evenin’. Mrs. Crippa’s tryin’ to raise the rent!”

  “Naw!” Viola turned to Rutherford. “You see, I just knew it was comin’!”

  “I got it from the folks downstairs,” Miss Jenny said.

  “How much?” Rutherford asked.

  “Whatever it is is too much!” Viola said. “She’s done gone too far this time!”

  “Yeah!” Rutherford said, “we oughtta move!”

  “We oughtta start lookin’ for a place right now!” Viola said.

  “But someplace close to the hotel,” Rutherford said, “so I won’ have to pay no carfare.”

  “Maybe you could study up for one a those civil service jobs,” Viola said. “They pay good an’ you don’ have to work too hard.”

  “Yeah,” said Rutherford, “but, Babe, you know I ain’ got enough education. You gotta have at least a high school diploma.”

  “With all that readin’ you do! You could
do it like — that!” snapping her fingers.

  Rutherford grinned with embarrassment. “But old Amerigo’s goin’ to high school. He’ll be out a high school — an’ college — in no time. He’ll git him one a them high-powered jobs, Jack! An’ we’ll have it made! Hey! hey! Won’ that be somethin’?”

  Viola looked down into the alley. The shades of the streetlights cut hard eleven o’clock holes in the cobblestones. A sad sound seeped down through the crevices between the cobblestones, filled the holes and rose until it filled the crevice that was the alley, and rose until it flooded the sky and made the stars shimmer as though Amerigo were seeing them underwater. Tears rolled down his face, as he gulped down a breath of air.

  “You’re sleepy, boy,” Viola said. “You better go to bed now. You been up late enough for one night.”

  He said good night and ascended the stairs. Minutes later he turned out the light, slipped into bed, and reached for the star with his toe.

  “We oughtta start lookin’ for a place right now!” Viola whispered from the middle room, and he turned over on his side and gazed at the sky.

  I hope it never changes. The way to Garrison School stretched out before him. He bolted upright in a seizure of fear.

  Next year, said a voice, which catapulted him into the deep mysterious regions of the black room. Stars rained down and covered the way to Garrison School, buried all the houses and all the trees.

  It ain’ no Sanie Claus!

  Aw — yes it is!

  Aw — naw it ain’!

  I don’ …

  The stars rained down and rained down and filled the black room:

  Four!… Three!… Two!… One! — Boom!…

  “Rutherford!” Viola exclaimed, just as he was stepping in the door the following evening.

  “What you say, there, Vi?”

  “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I was talkin’ to Sister Bill an’ she said that she heard from Mister Williams that they were plannin’ to move next month — an’ she thinks it might be somethin’ for us.”

  “Where is it?” He took off his coat and hat and handed them to his son, who put them away and brought his house shoes. “Thanks, son.”

  “It’s up on Tenth Street. It’s got four rooms an’ a bathroom. An’ it’s about the same distance from the hotel. But I don’ know if we kin git it ’cause they don’ want no kids.”

  “What you think we oughtta do?”

  “I think we oughtta take a look at it,” said Viola. “Ain’ no use waitin’. It wouldn’ cost but a little more’n we payin’ here when the old lady raises the rent. Ever’body we know — practically —’s gone. Amerigo’s graduated. Ain’ a thing to keep us down here.”

  “Maybe we could talk to ’er,” Rutherford said.

  “I done tried that! She come givin’ me that old who-struck-John about prices goin’ up an’ all that jive — you know how she is. An’-an’ I said in that case, we’d have to move.”

  “You done told ’er?”

  “Yeah! Wasn’ nothin’ else to do!”

  “Unh!” He rolled up his sleeves and started washing his hands and face while she sliced the potatoes for the hash. “What did she say?”

  “She sure made me hot! Come laughin’ an’ said, ‘Oh you won’ move, Viola, you been here too long,’ throwin’ up ’er hands ever’ whichaway — you know how she talks.”

  “Yeah. An’ what did you say?”

  “I said we done already found a place — an’ … that we’ll be movin’ next month!”

  “Ain’ that somethin’! Boy, your momma done gone an’ talked us out a house an’ home! Hot damn! Here it is — almost winter! — an’ we gotta move — an’ ain’ got no house! Now you kin see what I had to put up with all these years!”

  “Yeah, I told ’er —” said Viola.

  “Well — if you told ’er, I guess that’s that. Now lay that hash on me, all this talkin’ about movin’ done gone an’ made me hungry!”

  “Won’ she be surprised!” said Viola with a triumphant grin. “She don’ really think we’ll do it, yet — we been takin’ all that jive for so long. An’ just think, it’ll be close to the car line an’ we’ll have a bathroom! Won’ have to be ashamed to tell people where we live. Livin’ on a street for a change an’ not in no alley!”

  “Hey! hey!” Rutherford exclaimed.

  Evening settled down around the kitchen. A strange blue-black light filtered through the curtained windows and mingled with the yellow electric light, giving off a cold color that made the kitchen feel uncomfortable. The new cheap wallpaper spangled with strawberries was beginning to sweat. The smell of the paste that the paper hanger had used to stick it on was still in the air. It made the hash taste funny. He tried to peer beneath the paper and see the faded purple flowers on the old yellow paper, but remembered with a pang of regret that it had been scraped away, that he had helped to scrape it away. He looked about him. The table, the cupboard, the chairs, the plates, even the gas stove, appeared strange, temporary, in the sweating brightness of the room.

  “Looks like it’s gonna be all right,” said Viola to Rutherford the following evening. “Mister Williams talked to ’um an’ told ’um that we was decent folks an’ that Amerigo wasn’ no baby — that he’s in junior high school an’ goes to church an’ has good manners an’ all an’ that you an’ me’s workin’ steady. I went an’ met ’im. His name is Mr. Christian. Him-he and his wife have been there for twenty years. He looks after the place like nobody’s business! An’ old lady Crippa’s fit to be tied!”

  “I bet!” Rutherford replied.

  “An’ Amerigo,” said Viola, “I know we don’ have to tell you this, but just the same, we do have to be a little careful ’cause they’re so funny about kids. It ain’t you I’m worried about, it’s about a lot a kids runnin’ in an’ out a the house when we ain’ home. An’ you gonna have to stop singin’ so loud an’ trompin’ up an’ down the stairs like a hoss! It won’ hurt you to walk for a change.”

  “Yes’m.”

  The following evening Rutherford appeared on the back porch with two large suitcases.

  Is he goin’ away? he wondered, his thought accompanied by a sudden terrific pounding of the heart.

  “Hi, son,” said Rutherford.

  “Hi.”

  Viola came home soon after with the groceries. She smiled and talked as usual. She cooked a good supper, fried apples and short-cut steaks, which were not disturbed by the telephone ringing. After supper familiar voices came from the radio, provoking laughter and dramatic suspense. These gradually became lost within the procession of songs that issued from Amerigo’s lungs as he washed the dishes. He was in no particular hurry now, because there was no school tomorrow, no fear of the possibility of not being graduated from Garrison School.

  Each evening more and more suitcases appeared, and wooden and cardboard boxes and piles of cord string and rope and little cans with nails. Suddenly a bizarre disorder pervaded the rooms. The front room rug lay rolled up in a corner and the windows stood stripped of their curtains. All the perfume bottles on the vanity dresser had disappeared. He wound his way through a labyrinth of jagged piles of kitchen utensils and upset furniture, old bottles, cans, shoes, a host of useless things that frustrated his memory. He noticed that his mother was having the same experience, for now she was saying:

  “Unh! Here’s that old hat! The first one I ever made. You remember that hat, Rutherford?”

  “You got so many hats I can’t keep track,” he replied, trying to place the hat.

  “Look at this!” Amerigo exclaimed, holding up a tiny bottle containing a tooth.

  “I sure remember that!” Rutherford declared, “a perfectly good tooth! G-i-r-l, you oughtta be hoss-whipped!”

  Viola grinned, and her gold tooth sparkled in triumph.

  “The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci!” Amerigo proudly exclaimed as Rutherford took the picture down from over the bed and wrappe
d it carefully in newspaper. Then he took down the calendar with the picture of the Indian maid and rolled it up and put a rubber band around it and stuck it in a corner of one of the packing boxes.

  “I don’ see what you takin’ that ol’ out-a-date calendar for,” said Viola.

  “Aw, Mom, can’t I have it?” Rutherford looked at Viola in confusion.

  Like at the show … he gazed at the two clean spaces on the wall where the picture and the calender had been.

  “What?” she asked absentmindedly.

  “Nothin’,” he said sadly, as the familiar order of the rooms of 618 Cosy Lane continued to change.

  Day after day.

  In the red room filled with packing cases he tried to visualize the new house, the new way to school. At times he saw the charred remains of St. John’s, reexperienced subtle feelings of relief and guilt. He tried to measure the distance from the new house to the Municipal Auditorium, to the art gallery, the Fifteenth Street dance hall that was not becoming the new St. John’s, to R. T. Bowles Junior High.

  Then one day he watched two big men grab the chest of drawers and carry it down into the alley and put it into the huge moving truck. He took the bird-of-paradise lamp down himself and handed it to the third man who stayed in the truck and told everybody where to put things.

  When everything was in the truck the third man swung up the huge tailgate and rattled the chain through the iron rings, and made it fast. It was twilight when the truck moved up the alley.

  “Bye, baby!” said Miss Jenny softly.

  “Bye.”

  “Be good now!”

  “Yes’m.”

  “I hate to see …” sang a deep-throated voice from the interior of the Shields’s house. Toodle-lum sat on the porch looking down at him. He waved, almost shyly. Toodle-lum waved back.

  “Come on, Amerigo,” Rutherford said, “we’ll walk. It ain’ far.”

  … the evenin’ sun go down.

  They walked slowly up the alley through the twilight.

  I hate to see …

  “So long Mister Jones, Amerigo!” It was Aunt Nancy, just stepping out onto her porch.

  “So long Miss Nancy,” Rutherford said, tipping his cap. Amerigo simply smiled.

  … the evenin’ sun go down!…