They Tell Me of a Home: A Novel

by Daniel Black

  The mistake of my life would have been to engage Daddy’s question.

  “I don’t know what else there is to it, but I know dat ain’t enough. I shoulda told y’all I loved y’all, but I didn’t know how to say it, especially to you. You was soft and sensitive, and God knows I didn’t know what to do wit’ a boy like dat. So I beat you, thankin’ I might toughen you up a little bit, but I guess not.”

  “I was already tough, Daddy. I simply wasn’t like you and Willie James,” I dissented, resenting his insinuation.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t see it lak dat. Now that I looks back, I guess I woulda done a whole lotta stuff dif’rent. You can’t change the past, though. You jes’ gotta keep movin’ on, even when you see dat you done fucked up real bad. See, ain’t no use in us clownin’ now ‘bout what happened yestiddy. Ain’t nothin’ you can do’bout it noway.”

  This was the father I remembered. He peered at me fiercely, making sure I understood what he was saying. “You got to take yo’ burdens to de Lawd and leave’em there. Once you done done dat, let’em go.”

  “What if that ain’t enough? What if God tells you to fix your own problems since you created them? That’s why we got a mind, Daddy, in order to think for. ourselves and stop complaining to God all the time. I’m not asking you to be the all-American father. I only want to know what happened to my sister. I wasn’t here, but I still have a right to know. She is my sister, isn’t she?”

  “What chu tryin’ ta say, boy?”

  “Don’t get angry, Daddy. My aim is not to insult you. More than anything, I’m trying to get you to see how much my sister meant to me. That’s all. And it would really help if you told me the truth.”

  “I done already done dat.”

  Daddy disappeared into the night. I heard the screen door slam behind him, reminding me he would always have the last word. Only the mosquitoes and crickets remained. I gazed at the night-light again, wishing it were another planet where I could escape and start a whole new life. Yet a hoot owl brought me back to reality and caused my fantasy to fade. I paced the yard deliberately, searching for memories of Daddy that would help me understand him. The old family car standing in the field, overgrown by grass and probably snakes, symbolized his divinely ordained position as head of the family and reminded me that, in whatever direction the family evolved, it was Daddy’s life we were following. Grandma’s neat little shotgun house made me imagine Daddy as a kid opening his Christmas bag of peppermint and fruit, content, ultimately, to have a gift not scarred by a previous owner. Somehow, with Daddy at the helm, the Tyson family had survived death, hunger, emotional dependency, and enough self-hatred to annihilate us. Yet, because we survived, I realized Daddy had a sacred, adhesive power to hold people together stronger than anything for which I had given him credit. In some ways he was a very great man, and in other ways his greatness I had missed altogether.

  Yet, with all of this, he still didn’t say he loved me. Or did he?

  14

  I didn’t sleep well that night. Indeed, I had had many sleepless nights in my parents’ house. Nightmares haunted me incessantly as a child, resulting in hours of early-morning reading time as I awaited the dawning of a new day. Sister and I thought ghosts dwelled in our house and were determined to get us. Sometimes we would hide under the covers holding hands, praying our collective strength was sufficient to ward off evil. By morning, we would rise joyfully, relieved the previous night had not been our last.

  However, I must have fallen asleep at least briefly, for I remember having had the strangest dream. I was seventy or eighty years old, walking with a cane down a dusty dirt road. The sun was shining resplendently, and suddenly I found myself entangled with a host of beasts. The first was big and red, with one eye. He had alligator skin and tigerlike teeth. The monster stood at least nine feet tall and weighed well over a ton. I was swinging my cane with all my aged might, but the red beast was clearly my physical superior. Fatigue consumed me, but I refused to abandon the fight. The beast’s razor claws sliced my arm into layers of flesh and blood. I bellowed curses unmentionable and conjured virility enough to pick up a nearby rock and fling it at the monster’s eye. It hit the creature, but it did not hurt him. He roared loudly, frightening me, and then charged me ferociously. He was about to devour me when another beast appeared. This one was forest green, with no head. She had one eye the size of a watermelon in the middle of her head. Her breasts were hairy, firm, clearly distinguishable, standing upon her chest, like grassy mountain ranges. She, too, roared vivaciously, but, much to my astonishment, she attacked the red creature. She was a little smaller than him, but no less fierce. Frozen in the moment, I was unable to run or scream. The beasts’ intertwined bodies made it impossible to ascertain which of the two was overpowering the other. Both shrieked wildly when the other struck intensely, and neither appeared the worse for it.

  After a moment, the fighting ceased. The creatures stared at each other as though wondering why they had ever been contentious. Then, suddenly, they turned on me, approaching cautiously, having prepared themselves, it appeared, for this confrontation. The green female grabbed my arm and began to jerk it violently. I wasn’t going to die easily, I resolved. Gritting my teeth, I screamed, “Bitch,” and kicked her mightily, although to no avail. She twisted my arm out of its socket and threw it over her shoulder like one discards a chicken bone. Her subsequent laughter incensed me. In fact, she laughed hysterically and fell to the ground. In my distraction, the red male grabbed me from behind and squeezed my stomach until pus issued from my mouth and ran down my cheeks onto my shirt. That’s when I noticed laughter coming from every direction around me. The beasts had multiplied, and each of them examined my bizarre one-armed form as they mocked me. There were hundreds of them. I kept turning in circles, and everywhere I gaped I saw a beast jeering at my accursed lot. Since I could neither run nor hide, I stood there trying to scream but emitting no sound. Unexpectedly, the red male exposed a penislike extension of himself, exuding from his right side. He began to beat me with this long rubber tube, and I had no defense against such extreme force. I tried to catch the rod with my one hand, hoping somehow to tear it away from him, but the monster was quicker than me. In the midst of this battle, the green female was further humored. She laughed heartily, unable to regain composure, as blood ran from her nose. However, I couldn’t concentrate on the female very long, for the thick tube was leaving welts all over me. Blood covered my body, and I knew if I didn’t destroy this red beast soon I was going to die. So, without thinking about it very long, I charged the monster. My confidence only fueled his anger. With one arm, I knew I couldn’t do much damage, but I knew I wouldn’t get a second chance, either. I aimed my head at his right kneecap, hoping the impact would cause him to lose his balance and fall. My plan worked. When he fell, I bit his leg and ripped away a mouthful of flesh. He threw his head back and released a scream that sounded like a thousand elephants. Immediately the female stopped laughing. She rose and came to where I was standing, then knelt down and gazed at me with her gigantic eye. I was trembling, wondering if I were about to die.

  To my utter surprise, the female extended her hand to me, offering assistance. The red male was still hollering in agony, for the wound to his leg disallowed mobility. I can’t explain why I trusted her, but I took the female’s hand, and she stood me aright again. I noticed that the long tubelike extension on the male’s body had retreated back into the monster and left no sign of its existence. The green female let go of my hand and began to walk away with slackened, hunched shoulders and a countenance of defeat. She waltzed clumsily and lazily, dragging her incredible frame to God knows where. Perplexed and exhausted, I was too afraid to speak or move.

  I woke up. The sheets were soaked with sweat and my body was quivering. For a few moments, I lay still, trying to calculate the meaning of the dream. Nothing came to me except fear of the unknown. I rose and went inaudibly to the bathroom to splash my face with cold water. Hoping t
o confirm my sanity, I studied my reflection in the mirror, but it only frightened me further. My rose red eyes and dilated pupils testified to a night of horror I sought desperately to forget. I turned the light off and returned to bed, although never to sleep. Lying on my back, gazing into absolute darkness, I prayed the dream would never come again or, if it did, its meaning would accompany it. Grandma always said dreams were signs sent from God to inform us about our life’s destiny. Most people circumvent the truth, she claimed, in order to avoid personal and spiritual accountability. On second thought, I prayed never to know the meaning of the dream.

  I sprang up and went to the kitchen in search of a snack. The digital clock on the stove read 3:12 a.m. “Great,” I muttered, retreiving from the refrigerator a wax paper package of souse meat. This was the nastiest lunchmeat in the world, but it was the only thing available, so I ate it. I sat at the kitchen table inconspicuously, miserable because it was three o‘clock in the morning in Swamp Creek and I was awake with nothing to do. I dared not turn on the TV and wake the folks lest I invite a brawl in the midnight hour. Thus I sat there eating souse meat and crackers, hoping a little food would sit heavy in my stomach and make me sleepy again. After several minutes, I returned the crackers to the cabinet above the stove and the meat to the refrigerator. While tiptoeing pass my folks’ room back to bed, I overheard Momma hiss, “You gon’ have to tell dat boy somethin’. He ain’t leavin’ hyeah till you do.”

  I stopped abruptly and leaned my ear to the door, listening arduously.

  “I ain’t got to tell him nothin’. Shit, I’m de daddy round dis place. He ain’t runnin’ nothin’, includin’ me!”

  “Stop talkin’ so loud, man,” Momma admonished intensely. “You gon’ wake him up and then we’ll have to hear his mouth all night long.”

  Their voices hushed considerably. I couldn’t move. I wanted to hear everything they said, especially about me, but I didn’t want them to know I was outside their door. Therefore, I quietly lay on the hall floor and put my right ear next to the open space between the floor and the bottom of the door.

  “Cleatis, listen. We can’t jes’ keep tellin’ de boy we don’t know what happened. He gon’ figure it out sooner or later.”

  “I don’t care what he figure out,” Daddy threatened. “He ain’t gon’ know de truth’cause we ain’t gon’ tell him, and don’t nobody know but you and me. So you betta not say nothin’ to him.”

  “How can we jes’ keep walkin’ round like we don’t know nothin’? T.L. ain’t stupid.”

  “Well, dat’s exactly what we gon’ do till I say dif’rent.”

  There was a short pause wherein I imagined Daddy’s grimace, and thereafter Momma said, “I got a mind to tell him everything. If I do, I can be through with all this shit.”

  “I’ll kill you first,” Daddy whispered boldly.

  “Maybe that’s what you gon’ have to do,’cause I can’t live with this forever.”

  “You’ll live with it long as we need to.”

  “Fine, Cleatis, don’t tell him. But at least tell de boy who his momma is. He got a right to know.”

  “You his momma and dat’s all to it.”

  “No, I ain’t. I ain’t neva felt like I was his momma. I neva shoulda told you I would be.”

  “Well, you did, so now ain’t nothin’ you can do about it.”

  “Dat’s where you wrong. I can tell him who his real momma is, and dat’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  “I thank you betta be cool, woman. You ‘bout to git yo’self in a heapa trouble.”

  “Trouble?” Momma responded turbulently. “I ain’t scared o’ nobody. De truth is jes’ de truth. I ain’t neva been scared o’ de truth before and I ain’t scared of it now.”

  “If you tell dat boy anythang, I sware ‘fo’ God you gon’ regret it.”

  “What chu scared of, Cleatis? T.L. can’t do nothin’ to you. He can’t change nothin’, neither. All he can do is know what everybody else already know.”

  “But he ain’t gon’ know’cause you ain’t gon’ say nothin’.”

  “I can’t promise you dat no mo’. He come back here searchin’ for de truth and I think he oughta get it. He oughta know who his momma is and he oughta know why dat girl’s grave is in de backyard. He ain’t no li’l boy no mo’.”

  “He a li’l boy to me and I say he ain’t to know nothin’. It wouldn’t do nothin’ but make thangs worser’n dey already is.”

  “How could things be worse than dey already is, Cleatis?” Momma screamed quietly.

  “’Cause soon as T.L. know, dey whole world gon’ know. He neva did know how to be calm’bout nothin’. Everythang he do is full of a lotta goddamn drama.”

  “Everybody already know I ain’t his momma! He oughta know de truth, too. What he do wit’ it is his business.”

  “No, it ain’t, woman. It’s our business. We du ones in de middle of dis shit.”

  “In de middle of what?” Momma asked through clinched teeth. “I ain’t done nothin’ I got to be’shame’ of. Is you?”

  “You know it’s not dat simple, woman.” Daddy sounded exasperated. “If we tell him what happened to Sister he might lose his mind or somethin’. You know how frail and weak he is.”

  I was offended, although I finally knew Daddy’s perception of me. Muthafucka, I mouthed.

  “T.L. might fool you, man. He’s not as weak as you think. But even if he is, he got to learn to be strong fu’ hisself. And how he gon’ learn dat if he don’t neva have to walk wit’ de truth?”

  “I don’t know how he gon’ learn and I don’t give a damn. Dat’s his problem—not mine. What I got to do is keep on livin’ de way I been livin’ and not let dis boy come back here and disturb my peace.”

  “Well, somebody oughta disturb yo’ peace,’cause you disturbed mine thirty years ago when you went and decided to fuck somebody else.”

  “Is you gon’ ever let dat go? Damn!”

  “Naw, I ain’t gon’ let it go’cause it wasn’t right and you ain’t fixed it yet.”

  “How I’m s’pose’ to fix it, huh? Tell me dat.”

  “By tellin’ dat boy de truth. You done let him live his whole life believin’ I was his momma. I neva could love him right’cause I knew he wasn’t mine. I tried to act like he belonged to me and sometimes I convinced myself he did, but, in de end, I knew he didn’t.”

  “So why ain’t you told him yet? You had every chance in de book.”

  “’Cause dat’s yo’ job and yo’ responsibility. It’s de only way you can make right what you messed up. I been waitin’ on you to be right for de last thirty years and it ain’t come yet. I ain’t waitin’ much longer.”

  “So I’m s’pose’ to jes’ go in dere and tell dat boy everything about me and Ms. Swinton? Is dat what you want me to do?”

  “No, dat ain’t what I want you to do. Dat would be too easy. What I want you to do is sit him down like a man and tell him de truth of what you and Carol Swinton did. Tell him how it happened and why. Let him see yo’ sorry ass for what you really are.”

  “I ain’t tellin’ dat boy nothin’. It ain’t gon’ make no dif’rence noway. He love dat woman too much to tell him dat. She over dere on hu’ deathbed right now, so it don’t make sense for me to stir up some mo’ strife.”

  “You mean to tell me, Cleatis, you’d let dat woman die befo’ you tell yo’ own son dat dat’s his real momma?”

  “I ain’t got no choice, woman! She gon’ die and T.L. gon’ leave hyeah in a few days. It don’t make no sense to start a bunch o’ shit’bout what happened thirty years ago. It wasn’t s’pose’ to happen noway.”

  “But it did! And you wanted it to happen. Dat’s why you used to go over there every chance you got. You think I didn’t know you had a thing for Ms. Swinton? Come on, man! Everybody ain’t as stupid as you thank dey is.”

  “I ain’t neva said you was stupid, woman.”

  “No, you ain’t said it, but you act like it. You ac
ted like it back then, too. What sense did it make for a grown man wit’ children to be hanging round a teacher woman’s house when he couldn’t even read? What did you think people would say? You made up some lame excuse every day to go over there. I knew you thought she was pretty, and she was pretty. I jes’ neva thought you’d take it so far.”

  “Woman, will you let it go? I done apologized to you every day of my life. How much mo’ can I do?”

  “Oh, is that what you been doin’? Tryin’ to convince me dat you sorry? Well, you can let dat go right here and now’cause I forgave you the day you brought T.L. home. What I’m fussin’’bout is dat you ain’t neva corrected yo’self. And de only way to make right what you made wrong is to tell T.L. de truth. If you ain’t gon’ do it, I will, ‘cause since both of us know, I guess we both wrong and I ain’t gon’ be wrong wit chu no mo’. I done been wrong long enough.”

  “Then we gon’ be wrong some mo’, ‘cause you ain’t sayin’ nothin’. Did you hear me?”

  “I done said what I needs to say. You gon’ do what de hell you wanna do anyway. That’s what you been doin’ ever since I knowed you, so ain’t no need in me thinkin’ you’bout to change now. But I’m gon’ do what I gotta do, too. I done lived with you, but I ain’t got to die with you, too.”

  Momma must have turned over, for her words ended the conversation. I arose from the floor dazed, went to my room, and sat on the bed in the dark. “Oh my God!” I whimpered. “Ms. Swinton? How could it be? She and Daddy? I don’t believe it!” Yet I had no choice. The truth was the truth, and I simply had to accept it. I never thought of Ms. Swinton having sex, though. Of course, she, like other women, has a vagina and breasts, but I never associated sex with her. “My mother?” I couldn’t make sense of it. “Ms. Swinton is my mother?” I kept whispering it over and over, hoping my words might make the truth more bearable. “Why didn’t she tell me?” I wondered. All the special attention, books, and extraordinary love made perfect sense now. She was loving her own son. But, again, why didn’t she tell me? Was she embarrassed by her actions? Having a child out of wedlock was certainly a no-no in Swamp Creek fifty years ago, but I thought certainly times had changed.