A Second Helping

by Beverly Jenkins

  Trent knew his foster son well enough to sense his moods and so asked, “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just not sure how this is going to go.”

  “It’s going to be fun.”

  Amari wasn’t so sure but he kept the doubts to himself. “What time are you picking me up?”

  “Tamar will bring you home.”

  “Oh.”

  Trent gave his thin shoulders a quick squeeze. “You’ll be okay, but do something for me and keep an eye on her. She thinks she walks on water but those feet of hers will be eighty-six come December. Don’t let her do too much.”

  It never occurred to Amari that someone would have to look out for Tamar. She was bigger than life in his eyes. “Okay, Dad.”

  “Did you charge your phone like I asked?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good, in case of an emergency you can get in touch. But remember, you’re not allowed to be on the phone for any other reason while you’re doing this though. No texting Preston in the middle of the night. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  Tamar stepped out onto the porch. “Hey there, Amari. Are you ready?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good. Got all your stuff?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then load it in Olivia’s bed.” Olivia was Tamar’s pickup.

  Once the transfer was made, she said, “Tell your dad good-bye, then come on in the house.”

  Amari looked up at Trent. “Feel like I’m getting ready to be shipped off with the army.”

  Trent pulled him close for one last hug. “See you Sunday. Take care of Tamar.”

  “I will.”

  Amari watched him drive away, and only afterward did he climb the steps and enter the house.

  “You’re looking kinda down, Amari.”

  “Just not sure what this is going to be like.”

  “You’re not supposed to. If we knew how everything in life was going to turn out beforehand, our existence would be pretty boring, don’t you think?”

  “I guess.”

  “Life is an adventure, and you can’t stop living it just because you don’t know what’s coming next or what’s waiting around the corner. The Dusters didn’t know what they were getting themselves into by moving West, but if they hadn’t taken a chance there’d be no Henry Adams, and you and your dad would never have met.”

  “Never thought about it like that.”

  “That’s what some of this weekend is going to be about, thinking about stuff.”

  He smiled, and when she smiled back, Amari felt himself relax a bit.

  “You grab that cooler and I’ll carry this water.”

  He looked at the cut-off cardboard box that held the plastic wrapped bottles. “How about I take the cooler out and then come back for the water.”

  “Your dad tell you not to let me do too much?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I appreciate that. Shows he cares, but I can handle this. You get the cooler.”

  Amari found the cooler to be very heavy.

  “What’s in here?” he groaned as the weight of it tested the strength in his young arms.

  “Bit of this and that.”

  “This and that need to lose some weight.”

  Taking very short steps he managed to get the cooler out to the porch, but how to get it down the steps and over to Olivia and then into the bed of the truck wasn’t going to be easy. He looked at the cooler and then through the screened door to see if she could see him. Hoping she couldn’t, he quickly lifted the lid to see what was inside and found it filled with rocks! “Tamar!”

  “Yes?”

  He looked up to see her standing over him.

  “Why do you have all these rocks in here?”

  “Your first test.”

  “Huh?”

  “You passed the first part. Now, can you get the cooler to the truck?” She set down the box bottom filled with the bottles of water and took a seat on the porch’s old sofa. “We can’t leave until you get this done, and remember, you have a tent to raise when we get where we’re going. Nothing worse than trying to raise a tent in the dark.”

  Amari looked at his watch. He still had a few hours before then. Turning his attention back to his task, he asked, “Did O.G. and my dad have to do this too?”

  “Yep. One was better than the other, but both wound up taking so much time they had to put their tents up at night.”

  He looked down at the cooler again, trying to figure out the riddle. “Can I use something to move it with?”

  “Sure. The biggest part of their problem was they never opened the cooler though.”

  He studied the cooler again and repeated to himself what she said. They never opened the cooler. He repeated it again, and then again. And then epiphany. “Oh hell!” he said, mad at himself. Seeing the censure in her eyes, he apologized for the cussing. “Sorry.”

  “Figured it out?”

  “Yeah. If I unload the rocks I can carry the cooler to the truck. Then I carry the rocks to the cooler until it’s full again.”

  “Very good. Now we can get going.”

  “We’re not taking the cooler?”

  “Nothing we can do with a cooler filled with rocks, Amari.”

  Carrying the water, she walked by him and down the steps. “You coming?”

  He looked at her in shock then down at the cooler. Since she obviously had said all she intended to about the cooler, he hustled to catch up because he wouldn’t put it past her to leave without him.

  With Tamar driving at the upper limits of the speedometer as she always did, they reached their destination in a short time, so short a time that Amari knew where he was. It was July land where he and his dad had gone fishing and hunting over the school break. The old picnic table he and his dad had eaten at was still there.

  “I didn’t know we were coming here.”

  She drove a bit farther and stopped the truck a short walk from the creek. “Where’d you think we were going?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, someplace scary and far away.”

  Her smile was soft. “Sometimes what’s waiting around life’s corner is the familiar.”

  He nodded and felt silly for having worried all week. “I get it, now.”

  “‘Getting it’ is part of the reason we’re out here.”

  “What’s the other part?”

  “To have some fun.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. So raise the tent and we’ll get started.”

  Easier said than done. Although he’d practiced putting up the tent under his dad’s watchful eye every day after school, and had even managed to do it alone by week’s end, now, for reasons unknown, nothing went right; not putting in the poles, or tying the guide ropes to the stakes that anchored the tent to the ground. Everything that could go wrong did, and when he was done, forty minutes later, the tent was up, sort of, but to his dismay there were two extra metal poles lying on the ground waiting to be used.

  Biting back his frustration, he tried again. Another forty minutes. Only this time there was one pole left over, and the prospect of having to tackle it again made him want to cuss. Loud. He was tired, he’d cut his finger on the metal, and he was hungry. He glanced over at Tamar sitting serenely on the picnic table and asked, “Can we eat? I’m hungry. I’ll put this up after.”

  “Always secure your shelter, first. Tent, then food.”

  “But Tamar,” he whined, then snapped his mouth shut. Whining wouldn’t get the job done, but he was so frustrated, hot tears were stinging his eyes. He wiped them away quickly, praying she didn’t see.

  She did. “Amari?” she asked gently.

  “Yeah,” he responded with muted anger as he snatched the stakes and guide ropes out of the ground so that he could take the lopsided tent down again.

  “Do you remember what I asked you the first time we talked about this quest?”

  He took a deep breath and quickly wiped away more unsh
ed tears. “Yes. You asked me if I could put up a tent.”

  “And what was your answer?”

  “No.”

  “So?”

  When she didn’t say more, he waited, and when she still didn’t say anything, he asked testily, “So? What?”

  No response. The sun was getting lower in the sky. He studied her for a few more moments, then epiphany time again. “This is another test, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “What do you think it relates to?”

  He looked at the messed-up tent and then back at her seated on the old picnic table. “I don’t know.”

  “Think about it, Amari. If you can’t raise the tent alone, fine, but that means we sleep in the bags under the stars. Been doing it all my life. You, however, are a city boy.”

  Amari hadn’t minded sleeping on the streets of Detroit in the summertime. Only thing you had to worry about were the vampire crackheads and the crazy homeless, and them he could deal with, but out here on the plains, there were coyotes and snakes and big-ass bugs. He preferred to sleep inside the tent, but he was going to have to sleep outdoors, if he didn’t get some help. The word help resonated and brought him up short. He had it. He hoped. “Can I ask you to help me?”

  She smiled. “Of course.”

  “But will you, is the big question.”

  “Won’t know unless you do.”

  “Tamar, will you please help me put up this tent?”

  “Certainly, but first, what’s the lesson here?”

  He thought for a few moments, then said questioningly, “If you need help, ask somebody?”

  “Exactly. Sometimes we think we’re the only person we need in life, and folks wind up giving themselves heart attacks or worrying themselves right into a hospital bed when all they had to do was ask the person maybe sitting on the picnic table right in front of them. Women sometimes think only men have that problem but we ladies can be just as guilty.”

  He understood and so told her, “I get this one too.”

  “Good. Now, pull those stakes out of the ground and let’s get this joker up before it’s too dark to see each other.”

  As he went about it, he asked, “Did my dad or the O.G. have trouble with their tents too?”

  “Nope. They’re country boys, they’d been raising tents all their lives.”

  Amari was disappointed. “Oh.”

  Tamar smiled inwardly and began taking the tent apart.

  In town, Mal and Trent were out on Trent’s deck enjoying the warm night and a couple of cold ones. Trent had a beer; his dad a Pepsi.

  Trent asked, “How do you think our boy is doing out there with Tamar?”

  “I don’t know. Because of where and how he grew up he’s smarter than we were, but dumber in a lot of ways too. I’m sure he’ll do fine though.”

  “I remember my weekend and how anxious I was the first night. Did she make you carry the cooler?”

  “Did she? By the time I got that thing in the truck, I wanted to run her over with the truck.”

  “Me too. Have you ever figured out what it was about?”

  “Nope, and she never volunteered anything, of course. All I knew was I had to put that sucker in the truck and take it out when we got back.”

  “Me too. What was inside, do you know?”

  “Nope. Too scared of her to crack it open and see.”

  “Ditto. Maybe he’ll be the first one to figure it out, and he can tell us.”

  “She’ll probably swear him to secrecy.”

  They shared smiles.

  “I asked him to keep an eye on her. I don’t want her pushing herself. She still thinks she’s sixty.”

  “Sometimes, twenty-five.”

  Trent sipped his beer. “That too.” He looked off into the night for a moment. “I can’t imagine life without her.”

  “You probably won’t have to. Knowing her, she’ll outlive us both.”

  “Wouldn’t that be something?”

  “Wouldn’t I be pissed?”

  Trent laughed. “Not nice.”

  “I know, just kidding. I love her madly. May she live forever.”

  They clinked cans and went back to enjoying the silence of the night.

  Lying in his sleeping bag inside the tent, Amari looked over at Tamar lying in hers nearby. “Why do you do this?” he asked her.

  “You mean this Spirit Quest?”

  “Yeah.”

  “One, it’s tradition, and two, it lets me spend some time alone with my kids.”

  That surprised him.

  “Parents watch their children and grandchildren grow up from tiny babies, and when the kids get to be about the age that you are now, their relationship with their mothers or whoever’s raising them changes. They no longer need you for every little thing anymore, they start developing strong friendships, discover girls, music, sports, and the older they get the less of them you have to yourself. So this was my way of letting go, for me. It’s like having the last dance before the doors close on the club.”

  “You used to go to clubs?”

  Her responding chuckle barely ruffled the silence. “Yes, Amari. I haven’t always been eighty-five.”

  This was definitely not the Tamar Amari thought he knew, but being with her made him feel special. Honored.

  “But since I am eighty-five, I need my beauty rest. I’ll see you in the morning. Night, Amari.”

  “Night, Tamar, and thanks for bringing me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Saturday morning when Amari opened his eyes inside the sun-dappled interior of the tent, it took him a couple of minutes to figure out where he was. When his memories filled him in, he immediately turned to the spot where Tamar had been sleeping but saw only her sleeping bag. Thinking he might be late for whatever she had planned for the morning, he got up quickly, pulled on his jeans and sneaks, and made his way outside.

  “Morning,” she called.

  Glad to see her smiling, which he hoped meant he wasn’t in trouble for just getting up, he called back, “Morning.”

  The air was alive with smell of the bacon she was frying in a skillet atop a small black grill.

  “Grab a bottle of water and go down to the creek. You can brush your teeth and take care of whatever you need to take care of,” she said. “Breakfast will be ready by the time you get back.”

  Amari, like most urban kids, was a bit hesitant to go off alone, even knowing Tamar was just a shout away, but he did as he was told.

  The creek wasn’t very wide by nature’s standards, nor by Amari’s, who’d grown up in Detroit and was therefore familiar with the city’s river that separated it from its Canadian neighbors in Windsor, Ontario, but it was for sure deep enough to drown in for a kid who couldn’t swim, and he was one of those. Still, he was curious about the water and what was in it, so he carefully made his way down to the bank. A big white-tail doe and her spotted fawn were drinking on the other side and the sight stopped him in his tracks. He knew to stand still so as not to scare them and he did so until after they’d had their fill and bounded away. He and his dad hadn’t seen deer when they were fishing so he thought seeing them now was cool. And the fact that there were no hunters around to shoot at the mom and her baby made it perfect. On the water’s surface a big brown duck led a line of six fuzzy ducklings on a morning trip. Watching them gliding along made him smile. The way the mother was leading them made him think about the way Tamar was leading him. Tamar the mama duck. Amari the duckling. He wondered if the mama duck had a cooler filled with rocks. Deciding he’d better get going, Amari brushed his teeth, took care of what he needed to take care of, then climbed the bank to rejoin Tamar.

  For the rest of the day they did a whole lot of nothing, but as she’d promised it was a fun-filled nothing. They walked and looked at the grasses growing, caught crickets that Tamar said they’d need to fish with later, and stretched out in the grass and searched the clouds overhead for f
aces and shapes. Amari spotted one that he swore looked like Crystal and her weave, and Tamar laughed until tears formed in her eyes.

  The whole while she talked to him about Seminole history: the thirty-year war the Black and Native members of the tribe waged against the United States government for their land and freedom; the forced removal of all the tribes to Indian Territory—which later became the state of Oklahoma; the Long Walk led by Wild Cat and the Black Seminole chief John Horse; and the present-day court battle between the Native Blood Seminoles and the Black members of the tribe over who should be able to file a claim to receive a share of the millions of dollars due to the tribe by the government.

  She taught him some of the old songs that had been handed down. Some were traditional Seminole songs sung in words and a language that sounded foreign to his ears. Other songs were Texas trail songs taught to Tamar by her outlaw aunt Teresa July Nance, who’d grown up in a Black Seminole township on the Texas Mexican border before she and her brothers started robbing trains and stagecoaches.

  “Aunt T was tough,” Tamar told him. “But she was funny, smart, and loved her family. You would have liked her. She would have liked you too.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yep. You have a lot of her qualities, especially the family part.”

  “That’s because I never had one until I found you guys.”

  “And we’ve been waiting many years for you to find us.”

  He saw a hawk circling above and it made him think about his dreams. “So have we seen my sign yet?”

  They were walking back to the picnic table after having spent most of the morning just wandering and talking.

  “I don’t know, have you seen anything memorable?”

  He told her about the deer and the ducks.

  She shook her head. “It will be something more powerful than that. We’ll just keep waiting on the Spirits. We have until tomorrow morning.”

  Amari was trying to be patient, but the longer they went without seeing anything, the more worried he became.

  When they reached the picnic table, Tamar said, “One of the things Aunt Teresa was famous for was her fishing.”