The cobblestones were of a gray-reddish color.
’Cause my baby, she done lef’ this town….
They nodded to all the people on all the porches.
If I’m feelin’ to-morrow …
The lights came on just as they reached the top of the alley.
just like I feel today
He turned and looked down the alley lined with porches cut up into faint circles of corrugated light.
just like I feel today … the man was singing. And a great whirring sound filled his ears. It was like the sound in a seashell.
I’m gonna pack my bags — an’ make my get-a-way!…
“Come on, son,” Rutherford said tenderly. He took his hand and they started across the great Admiral Boulevard.
I don’ live down there no more, he thought.
“If it wasn’t for the powder —” he continued the song to himself, unaware that the voice of the singing man was well out of range.
The new street was paved with bricks, and there was a little yard in front of the new apartment that was crowded with sunflowers that almost reached the second story, their huge heads bowing down toward the wild grass and flowers that grew below. A little walk led to the cement porch of the ground floor. Mr. Christian, the janitor and rent collector, lived on the south side.
“This our mailbox, here,” said Rutherford.
He glanced at the mailbox his father pointed to and read: RUTHERFORD JONES, VIOLA JONES, AMERIGO JONES on a little card that fitted into the space just below the top flap with the slit in it where you put the letters in. There were six mailboxes, but before he could read all the names Rutherford was already ascending the stairs. The porch was painted gray, and the apartment on the south side appeared to be empty, but the screen door of the apartment on the north side was open. A stout black woman and a little black girl eight years old with bowlegs and short nappy hair stood looking at them.
“ ’Evenin’,” Rutherford said.
“ ’Evenin’,” said Amerigo.
“ ’Evenin’,” said the woman in a juicy friendly voice, her face and the face of the little girl who looked just like her breaking up into a smile.
They ascended the second flight of stairs.
“Hot dog!” he exclaimed, as he looked out at the great city that sprawled far to the south.
“An’ there’s the ballpark!” said Rutherford, pointing to the southeast.
They took in the view, which was interrupted only by one or two apartment houses to the south and southwest. A private hospital and nurse’s home stood on the corner at Eleventh Street and next to that, north and opposite 1015, a big frame house and a couple of smaller houses stretched up to Tenth Street where there stood a big empty building with large dirty, plate-glass windows.
The tall buildings of the downtown district towered above the houses opposite his house.
“There’s City Hall!” Amerigo exclaimed. “An’-an’ the Telephone Buildin’ … g! An’- and the Power and Light!” Suddenly he visualized the new way to town.
To the north, across Tenth Street, beyond the vacant lot that filled the corner, stood the ruins of the old St. John’s.
“Come on, son,” said Rutherford, “we better git in here an’ help your momma, ’cause if we don’ she’s gonna be sal-t-a-y!”
They entered the house.
“Hi, you two!” said Viola. “The movers just left. It’s gonna look real nice when we git it all fixed up. Get the floors lacquered an’- and the woodwork washed an’ the windows, an’ the curtains up an’ ever’thin’. That’s what you can do, Amerigo, while your daddy helps me movin’ all these heavy things. I had ’um put the couch over there and the comfortable chair over there, an’ we kin put the gas stove over there in the corner, an’ the mirror goes on the wall, there an’ the bricabrac shelf in that corner, there —”
“Wait-a-minute, woman!” Rutherford exclaimed. “Damn! Let’s git one thing done at a time! Boy, your momma shoulda been a general or somethin’, the way she kin give orders an’ don’ do nothin’ herself!”
“Well,” said Viola, “we’ll see who’s gonna git the most work done. Let’s git at it! We got galores a chores to do before that grub goes on the table!”
All the while Amerigo had been arranging the room in his mind, according to his mother’s description. A smile burst upon his face.
“What you grinnin’ about, you little sharp-mouthed thing!” Viola said.
“It’s gonna be just like it was at home!”
“This is home!” Rutherford declared.
“Aw, yeah.” He grinned self-consciously, comforted by the fact that there was a window in the south wall of the front room and one in the west wall where the door was. The sofa faced the window. When I go to sleep I can look out … He gazed at the south window. The roof of the neighboring house was very close. I could leap it, I bet! He peered very far down into the shoot in order to calculate the risk, and having calculated it, put the thought of jumping onto the neighboring roof out of his mind.
When supper was over they worked far into the night. They spoke very little, each bent seriously upon his task. The “middle” room gradually began to look familiar: the vanity dresser on the left, the rocking chair in the left corner, the tie rack with the color chart on the wall to the right of the vanity dresser with the straight-backed wicker-bottomed chair. Opposite the dresser stood the bed, and in this wall there was a window. At the foot of the bed was the chest of drawers, underneath which Rutherford’s house shoes had magically appeared. The telephone stood silently upon the end table Amerigo had made in the carpenter’s shop at school, and above the telephone hung the Indian maiden and over the bed the picture of the Last Supper.
He listened unconsciously for the streetcar to rumble up the avenue, but instead it hissed out Tenth Street, a new modern streamlined streetcar with two big pedals, one for the brake and one for the clutch, and a lot of switches and fancy light — and f-a-s-t!
It stopped at the corner of Tenth and Troost to take on passengers, and then leaped — lunged — down Eleventh Street, and paused resiliently, stayed by the red light and the swift current of whizzing cars and buses that went all the way to Independence. The bell rang, a soft, pleasantly penetrating catlike bell, and it sprang down to Twelfth Street. If he ran through the house to the back porch, he could catch the flicker of its taillight just as it glided past the A&P, like the Silver Streak! Like a whale! Over the bridge and over the bridge and over the sea to France and England!
He entered the new dining room; it had a window facing south. The trunk stood in a corner, and in the middle of the room stood a bright new dining room table. Almost like Miss Fortman’s! Rosewood …
“Is that rosewood?” he asked Viola.
“Naw, it’s walnut.”
“Aw,” thinking: Walnut Street. English! Realleh! Wall-nuts — aaaaaaaaw!
“M-a-n!” he exclaimed, as he beheld the new coolerator that had suddenly replaced the old icebox.
“Oooooo-whee!” Bra Mo exclaimed, sweat dripping from his smiling face, “sho gotta have it to git it up there with this one!”
“Seventy-five pounds!” he said proudly, noticing the feather edge of gray that ringed Bra Mo’s head, reflecting that his face seemed to wrinkle more than it used to when he smiled, and that one of his strong white teeth was missing. He shoved the ice into the box as though he were glad to be rid of his burden.
“Look!” Amerigo exclaimed proudly, “I’m almost as big as you!”
“Yeah, I see you catchin’ up with the old man!”
“Mom said she’ll pay ya Sad … you Saturday.”
“Aw … eh … that’s okay. Yeah, that’s all right.”
He took out his dirty little flap-eared book, which also appeared to have grown old, and wrote down his account with the ancient blunt-edged pencil.…
The little corridor between the middle room and the dining room was just large enough to fit the new cedar chest where Viola kept the sheets. Rutherford
had screwed hooks into a panel along the wall above where you could hang your hat and coat, and there was enough space between the end of the chest and the wall for umbrellas and things like that. This little corridor gave onto the bathroom, which contained a south window over a bathtub, and between the tub and the door were the washbasin and the toilet. To get hot water you had to heat the long cylindrical boiler in the kitchen next to the gas stove. Rutherford had made a shelf in the corner over the bathtub for the toilet articles, and Viola had hung the hot-water bottle with the long tube with the plastic nozzle with the holes in the end of it on a hook screwed in the back of the door, which, along with all the woodwork, was painted apple-green and the floor was lacquered mahogany and there was a soft yellow rug in front of the toilet stool, you put your feet on when barefoot. Another larger one draped over the side of the tub.
“Nice! nice! Nice!” he heard Miss Parks — the seventh-grade teacher, instead of Miss Tucker who had retired before he had had a chance to sing: Some think the world was made for fun and fol-ly — and so do I! — say: “There are many words in the English language besides the word nice — interesting, charming, pleasant, agreeable — anything but nice!” It’s realleh cha’ming! he thought, stepping over the freshly lacquered border of the floor into the corridor and went into the kitchen. It was just like the kitchen of 618, only there was no toilet door in the northwest corner of the wall near the window.
Viola had painted the cupboard white and the chairs white with green leaves on the side panels and on the backs of the chairs, like the green leaf on the big red apple that the Spanish lady had been holding in her hand longer than he could remember.
He walked down Troost, the new way to Aunt Rose’s, the new way out south, cutting across the busy juncture at Twelfth Street and down past the ice cream factory. He waited for the light to change at Fifteenth Street and dropped down to Seventh Street, past apartment buildings gray in the sun with grass yards, stores closed on Sunday. Just as he reached the corner he gazed up at the porch of a weatherworn house that was bathed in the shade of a large tree. Suddenly a blast of brilliant sunlight blinded his eyes and his heart pounded violently in his ears. Children’s giggling voices filled his ears. On the porch, in the swing, within the cool aura of shade sat an old lady with a wizened purple face and thin faded purple lips. She sat very still with her arms folded in her lap, with her shoulders straight and her head erect, as though the slightest movement would cause the tower of long coiled iron-gray hair, held in place, he knew, by a huge white comb, topple down.
The Queen!
He stood in the path leading to the porch, whispering softly to the still waxed figure: “Miss Moore?”
“Eh? Oh, what is it? What did you say, young man?”
Her voice was very old and thin, but precise and clear. Not like Old Lady’s, like a witch, but like a queen, like an old dead queen that’s been put under a spell and has to wait a long time on the porch and not say a word … until the prince comes … and kisses her on the cheek and she wakes up, a new and beautiful queen! With tears of joy running down her face. Oh my beloved! she has to say, and then he says, Oh, my beloved! I’ve found you at last! And then they return to her father’s kingdom where the wedding bells ring out, and they live happy ever after.
“Miss Moore?” his voice was saying, “don’t you remember me? My name is Amerigo Jones from the first grade.”
She looked dreamily at him. A vague distant smile wove a web of wrinkles in her face, and she touched her hair with the thin pale fingers of a tremulous hand.
“Amerigo Jones!”
“Yes’m! My mother’s name is Viola Jones and my father’s name is Rutherford Jones, and they used to be in your class, too!”
“Oh, yes,” she whispered, as if in a dream. “My! Eh, won’t you sit down? Yes, sit, do sit down. Eh … how old are you now?”
“I’m twelve and next year I’m going to R. T. Bowles Junior High.”
“Hum? Ah, yes, that’s … that’s fine!” She lapsed into an absentminded silence that lasted for some minutes. Suddenly a car whizzed noisily by and startled her. “Uh! What’s that? Ah, yes, I see. That’s nice.”
“She’s dead. Asleep.”
He wanted to kiss her on the cheek, but he only gazed at her in silence. From somewhere within the house a clock was ticking. Gradually he grew impatient within the pale aura of her dream.
“I have to go now.”
“Yes yes, that’s fine.”
“Aunt Rose is waitin’-waiting.”
“You must come to see me again sometime, young man. Eh, what did you say your name was? Ah yes — eh —”
“Amerigo. Amerigo Jones.”
He bowed to the Queen.
“Ah yes. Yes.”
The giggles swirled through the channels of his ears and washed him down into the street and up the hill. After a while he turned into a pleasant little yard and stood before the screen door. From the shaded interior of the room he heard the clock ticking, and he was amazed that time had followed him, had overtaken him.
He rang the bell, and a tired but familiar voice bade him to enter. She’s getting old. Now I lay me down to sleep….
“How you like your new home?” Aunt Rose was asking.
“All right.” He sat in the rocking chair near the bed — it took up almost half the space in the little room — a brass bed with shiny bedposts the tops of which you could screw off and hide things in. The mattress was very thick and soft and the sheets were very white and the blankets were very fluffy and light and clean. She lay with her head propped up on a huge white pillow, very brown and wise and clean and quiet. She gritted her teeth now and then because of the pain in her heart. He pretended not to notice. He looked at the three long windows with the green shades that diffused a soft green light throughout the room, and stared as long as he could at the pinpoints of light that broke through the shades behind the embroidered curtains. Like a church … a very small church. He noticed that the light was further diffused by the narrow mirror in the vanity dresser with wings on either side, so that you could close the panels toward the middle and cover up the larger mirror, if you wanted to. Like the pictures of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the middle and the angels and things on the sides. Triptych. Tri means three, like in triangle.
“All right,” his voice was saying. “We got a new icebox, a coolerator, and a new dining room set made out of walnut on credit. I have to go down to the furniture store on Twelfth and Main and pay the bill every month.”
“Well … that’s nice,” in a weak, breathy voice.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Aunt Rose?”
“Naw, honey, ain’ nothin’ nobody kin do — ’cept the Lord.”
Pray, he heard Miss Jenny say, wondering how it would be if Aunt Rose died, how the world would look, what would happen to the house and the grass and the flowers and Queenie and Viola and Rutherford … and me? If she wasn’t there when they needed something or somebody, not just to give you something, but to talk to and be around and look at. He bent down and kissed her.
“Boy! You better git away from here — with your foolishness!” she muttered in a breathless spasm of painful embarrassment and joy. “You gonna come up to see me when you start to high school? I know your old auntie ain’ much, I ain’ got no education an’ all —”
“Aaaaaaw! I’m comin’. It’s just right down the hill. I kin come almost every day!”
“You got a sweetheart?”
“Aaaaaaaaw shucks!”
“Well, you gittin’ to that age. Your momma an’ daddy wasn’ much older’n you when you was born. Little big-eyed devil! You bring your girlfriends around when you wanna an’ let your auntie see what kind a company you keepin’. I’ll be up an’ out a this bed one a these days, the Lord willin’.”
“Yes’m.”
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to …
“Next thing you know, you’ll be goin’ to North High,” she was
saying, “an’ then we’ll have to think about you goin’ to college.”
“Yes’m.”
And suddenly he was looking around the corner to see if he could see September coming, just before he crossed over to Twenty-Second Street. Gradually he became lost in a usual late-summer Sunday, except that it was a little sad, its heart was weak, diffused with a mellow somber heat agitated by subtle airs that issued from winter’s thin purple lips.
As night fell he walked the familiar way home, until he got to Eleventh Street, then he cut west to Harrison and turned up the hill and into the little yard where the sunflowers stood almost a story high, bowing their heads toward the wild grass that Mr. Christian had freshly cut. The scent filled his nostrils as he climbed the stairs. He stood on the porch and looked at the city by night. Scattered clusters of light shone from the tall buildings, and the lights from the shops and lampposts shone from the streets.
The front looked the same as the old one, almost the same. He tried to discover what was different and decided that it only looked cleaner and fresher, newer. Everything was in its old place, but in a new way. Like in the middle room that isn’t really — realleh — the middle room because of the other room that’s got the new ice — coolerateh — and walnut dining room table and flowers in the window with the trunk in the corner. Eh!… with the big medical book behind it with pictures of men and women all cut up in little pieces, just to show how babies are born, and how men and women look on the inside naked. They put it theah on purpose!
He thumbed the pages and inspected the bodies, the round red chamber where the baby lay with its head down and his feet up, like he was doing a somersault!, spinning through cool blue worlds of light that emptied into the deep alluvial regions of the black room, and then the red room:
“Them’s the facts of life, men!” Turner was saying.
“What?”
“You ain’ a man till you git the claps!”
“What’s that?” Willie Joe asked.
“Gonorrhea,” Tommy said.
“Aw.”
“Kids!” Turner exclaimed.
Such Sweet Thunder Page 45