by Randi Pink
Isaiah wanted to argue. He could not. He’d heard something similar the day before around Miss Ferris’s lunch table. His mother was correct about that.
She grabbed his hand. “You can be however you’d like with your ma, baby,” she assured him. “As awful or as kind. But if you continue to do this with the world, you’ll lose valuable allies. And if you’re planning to wage war, allies are more valuable than guns.”
“I understand,” he said. “I’ve gotten rid of Muggy.”
“His mother told me you two were on the outs,” she replied. “She came by yesterday. Said you made quite a ruckus on her doorstep.”
Isaiah seethed. “Muggy deserved every ounce of that ruckus and more, thank you very much.”
“She told me that, too, in so many words.”
Isaiah was shocked to hear this. “She did?”
They locked eyes. “Mothers know their sons, baby. And God made all sorts of sons—mean ones, kind ones, cruel ones, and ones that will change the world one day for the better. She’s got a cruel one; that much she knows.”
“Do you think you have a cruel one, too?”
“My son is a king, don’t you know that? Now get to work, King, before you lose your job.”
The walk was warm and thick with a dusting. No sense was left untouched in Isaiah’s body. His nostrils huffed as if he were walking through a desert, his eyes puffed from the occasional allergy to Mrs. Tate’s aromatic juniper, the tip of his tongue tasted earthy surroundings, and he heard whistling spirals of wind catching. The most intense of his senses, though, was in his hands.
Crossing the sandy road toward Miss Ferris’s house, he kept attempting to shake the grime from his hands. They felt like sandpaper, rough and scaly. The whites of his fingernails filmed with beige dirt.
“You’re late,” said Miss Ferris, who’d been waiting at the front gate to let him in. “Last time, yes?”
“Yes,” he replied as he walked through. “Last time.”
Angel had already made it. Crouched down scrubbing at the rust on the neck of the bike, she looked less unreachable than she had for days prior. Hair free from plaits and dressed in simple blue, she was stunning, but she’d lost something he couldn’t put his finger on. He was grateful, though; now, he no longer felt quite as nervous to speak to her.
“Good morning, Angel,” he said. “Sorry for the tardiness.”
A bit formal, he thought, but nearly normal.
She stood to greet him. “I haven’t been here all that long,” she said without the smile she’d worn since he’d started paying adequate attention to her.
Looking over the work she’d done on the bike, it appeared to him she had been there awhile. The thing was disassembled and almost totally free of decades of rust. “You’ve been busy.”
“I lied,” she said with her head lowered. “I couldn’t sleep last night. Miss Ferris let me come by before dawn to get started. Sorry, I didn’t mean to hog all the work.”
“You didn’t,” he replied. “I should be thanking you.”
“I’m going into the kitchen to make breakfast and coffee,” announced Miss Ferris with an obvious wink in Isaiah’s direction.
Instead of continuing to work on the bike, Angel sat on a nearby tree stump. “I needed to talk to you,” she said. “Apologize, I mean. I should never have said … You know what I shouldn’t have said.”
Isaiah knew, and he was trying hard to compartmentalize it. She’d called him the worst thing she could think to call him, and it cut deep. She’d grouped him in with the enemy of their people. The worst of humanity. He could tell that she was sorry, very much so, but the comment left its mark. No one should possess such power—to burn another person with a single sentence. But she had it over him. And that terrified him.
“I accept your apology,” he said, bidding to shake the comment off along with the dirt on his hands. “Let’s talk about something else, please.”
“Actually…,” she said, standing from the stoop. “I’d like to talk about Muggy Little Jr.”
Isaiah had an unrelenting urge to wash his hands. Muggy Little Jr. was the worst of him. He, too, was the stuck dirt on Isaiah’s hands. He didn’t want to think about Muggy. Since confronting him on his own porch, he’d successfully eliminated him from his thoughts. And here she was bringing Muggy back. For the first time, anger toward Angel rose in his stomach.
“Why do you care to talk about him?” he asked, clearly cross. “He’s done for where I’m concerned.”
She stood firmly on both of her feet, staring at him. “We can’t pretend that you and Muggy weren’t insistently nasty to me for many years,” she said with a calm he didn’t expect. “I want to know why. Actually, I deserve to know why.”
Isaiah’s top teeth scraped his bottom lip in one harsh movement. “There is no why, Angel. I can’t tell you what I do not know.”
He was lying, unwilling to dig into the rotten parts of himself, the hanger-on who chased bravado for acceptance. How could he be expected to expose the parts of himself he loathed? No way—not now and maybe not ever.
She took her place at the side of the bike and continued scrubbing at the fading rust. “When you’re ready then,” she told him.
As he watched her work, he knew something must be revealed in that moment or he would lose her. He couldn’t let his guard down, but he had to be brave. Stronger than ever. She was right; after all of that hell he’d put her through, she deserved his honesty. He stooped to her side, close enough to feel the warmth of her exposed forearm. She looked at him with those eyes.
“I saw you that night.” He blurted it out before he had a chance to change his mind. “Surrounded by all those boys. Did you see me?” He shook his head. “That doesn’t matter, sorry. I saw you and I didn’t help. That’s what I’m trying to say. They could have hurt you. Or…” He softened his voice. “Or worse—”
“I didn’t see you,” she interrupted his rambling, and he was grateful. “I heard you when you opened your window.” She laughed a little and playfully hit him on the arm. “The whole of Greenwood heard that window open, Isaiah. It echoed throughout the district.”
He couldn’t look at her. Instead, he studied the bike from tip to tail for a distraction. Isaiah was ashamed. “I should have come down,” he said. “But I hid.”
Angel rested a hand on his shoulder, and that simple touch sent lightning up and down his spine. Then he thought, she shouldn’t be comforting him. It should be the other way around. He, after all, had left her in the street with sixteen white boys, like a lamb to slaughter. He’d hid behind the curtain while she stood alone.
“I don’t know why you’d want to be anywhere near me,” he told her, avoiding her eyes. “I’m a coward. A loser. A stupid, stupid idiot.”
Angel laughed again. To Isaiah, it sounded like ringing bells at Christmas. “I don’t know you well enough to tell you what you are, but I think I can assure you that you are no coward. That’s a dishonor few people this side of the track have to stomach.”
Angel lifted to her feet and began pacing in front of him, seemingly in deep thought, carefully choosing words. “We, as Black people, carry too much guilt around with us. It’s heavy, Isaiah. Generations of our fathers carried it. Our mothers and their mothers. I’ve noticed this, even in small children. Tiny ones like Nichelle’s boy, Michael, believe it or not. And definitely you. It’s an irrational and uncontrollable baggage that we cannot seem to release ourselves from.”
She sat back down at Isaiah’s side. This time so close he could smell her sweet honeysuckle breath. “You brought it up, just yesterday, remember? The guilt of a stocked pantry. Even as I say it aloud now, it’s a completely unreasonable thing to feel guilty about, but I get it. All Black people do.” Angel covered both of Isaiah’s hands with hers. “What I’m saying, or trying to say, is don’t be sorry for not coming down to the street that night. You shouldn’t have to hurt for hurt inflicted by sixteen boys you’ve never met. Let them hav
e the guilt. They deserve it, not us.”
Isaiah’s words escaped him, and he realized he’d been holding on to his breath. He could think of nothing clever to say, so he decided just to speak freely.
“I watched you dance,” he said to her, letting out a sigh. “You move like nothing and no one else matters. You’re transported, shifting in and out of this world seamlessly, like a spirit. I don’t know enough to say what you were born to do, but I can’t imagine anyone being better at melding body and spirit and soul and song. I can’t quite—” He interrupted himself. “But let me continue to try.
“My own eyes were tired from too many testimonies and entirely too much male chorus wailing that Sunday morning,” he said, and she laughed loudly in agreement. “You came out of nowhere, my angel, transporting not only yourself, but me. You appeared there in the pulpit while I was kicking dimples into Mount Zion’s carpet. You just, sort of, shone in never-ending white with your hair just like this.”
He reached up to touch it, expecting her to swat his hands away from her head. He’d been told countless times never to touch a girl’s hair, but to his surprise, she allowed it.
“Every strand floating behind you,” he continued. “Fluffy like whip on a sundae.”
His hand lowered from her hair to her soft cheek. He waited there, staring into her bright eyes, wondering if she would allow him to kiss her. His thumb glided to her lower lip, plump and naturally pink at the bow. He could feel her trembling under his rough palm.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked, and immediately regretted it. What a stupid thing to ask. He’d never asked a girl if he could kiss her; he just did it. Muggy would’ve laughed at him.
“I don’t know how.”
“No one knows how,” he replied, shaking off thoughts of pesky Muggy. “It’s a leap for all of us.”
She closed her large eyes and leaned her forehead into his chest. Her scalp smelled like cocoa butter and earth. “I don’t know what ready feels like, but I don’t think this is it.”
He briefly touched her cheek again. “You’ll let me know, then?”
When she nodded, he kissed her gently on the forehead.
He then pulled the read copy of The Secret Garden from his pocket and handed it to her. “This book is pitiless.”
She pulled back to look him in the eyes. “How could you mean, pitiless?”
“Turns the strongest men into big, ugly puddles of tears, that’s how,” he told her. She laughed out like a singing bird. “Not a masterpiece, but dangerously close.”
“Told you.”
“Yes,” he said. “You did.”
After breakfast, the three of them began to reassemble the bike, which turned out to be a real task for Isaiah, since his mind worked academically, not systematically. He had no idea how to contribute but refused to admit as much.
“No.” He picked up a random bolt. “I think this goes here.”
Miss Ferris and Angel looked at each other before easing the bolt from his hand. “Actually,” said Angel, “that’s the piece that holds the handlebars in place, not the wheels.”
“Hey,” Miss Ferris said to Isaiah. “I have an important job for you while we assemble. Why don’t you take these renderings next door to Mr. Morris and ask if he’ll rebuild our wooden book hauler.”
He jumped up, happy for the break. “I can do that!” he said.
The dust in the air had finally settled, and he quickly reached Mr. Morris’s front gate.
“Isaiah,” Mr. Morris called out. “Been a minute, my boy. Come on up and show me what you’ve got there.”
Mr. Morris’s gate was in no ways ordinary. Made of hand-carved cedar and repurposed steel, it was a true work of art. Mr. Morris sat on his handmade porch swing, grinning at Isaiah’s approach.
“Miss Ferris sent you with renderings, I surmise,” he said, and let out a thick cough. “Well, where are they? I’ve been itching to get back in the shop.”
Looking the old man over, Isaiah wondered if it was wise at all for him to move, let alone work with machinery.
“I can do it, boy,” he told Isaiah as if reading his mind. “Been working wood my whole life.”
Isaiah remained silent, not knowing the correct way to respond.
“Help me up, young man.” Mr. Morris twisted his body toward the edge of the swing and held his arms in the air for Isaiah to lift him.
Both hands under Mr. Morris’s hot armpits, Isaiah lifted with his legs and hoisted him to his feet. “How far is the shop?”
“Just over there,” Mr. Morris said through labored breaths. “Not too far yet.”
If it were only Isaiah walking, it wouldn’t’ve taken a minute, but practically carrying Mr. Morris, it took nearly fifteen. “I need another quick break, my boy,” he told Isaiah, who sat Mr. Morris down on a bench outside his shop. Isaiah needed a quick break, too.
“Phew,” he said, plopping down on the bare grass.
“Here.” Mr. Morris handed over the renderings. “Fan yourself with this. I don’t need it anymore.”
“But don’t you need the blueprints to work from?”
Mr. Morris grabbed his belly as he laughed. “I said I’ve been doing this since I was a boy. Blueprints are for folks who don’t know what they’re doing. And, too, that defeats the purpose. Working wood takes a lion’s share of vision. Matter fact, look at the bench I’m sitting on here.” He patted his palm over the wood as if it were a living, breathing thing. “No blueprint made this. Only a God-given free mind can build beauty such as this. ’Ey now, speaking of rare beauty, I’ve seen you with Angel lately.”
Isaiah shook his head, hoping he wouldn’t express disdain toward them. Isaiah knew the town didn’t think he was worthy to share company with Angel. Maybe he wasn’t, but he’d hoped for an opportunity to try.
“Girl like that can turn the worst of us around,” Mr. Morris said, eyeballing Isaiah in a way that made him feel uncomfortable. “She won’t be turned around, though. You hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Isaiah replied with a bowed head.
“Well, good, then,” Mr. Morris said with all of his jovialness restored. “Now that we understand one another, allow me to give you another bit of unasked-for advice. If she opens up her heart to you, hold it like you would a baby bird’s. You’re a young man. Not nearly old enough to appreciate such a girl, if you ask me. But if you utilize your God-given wisdom, even at this age, you’ll cherish her for the whole of your life. Never let a girl like Angel go or you’ll forever regret it.”
“Yes, sir,” Isaiah replied with as much respect in his voice as he could gather. “I understand.”
Everyone in town seemed to know how Isaiah felt about Angel. Had he been holding himself differently? He looked himself over. First at his feet and legs, and then his arms and hands. He saw only himself.
Mr. Morris laughed louder in response. “My dear boy,” he started. “You most certainly do not understand. You can’t. Know this, I look at you the same way you might look at a newborn babe. With a bit of pity, you see?”
Isaiah looked at Mr. Morris, confused. “I’m sorry, sir. I do not follow.”
“Pity of things to come,” Mr. Morris said without a hint of laughter left in his voice. “You know what they don’t. You know cold, even frozen, days are not to be avoided. You know there’s loss to be endured and hardship to overcome.”
“Sir,” Isaiah said. “There’s also love.”
Mr. Morris grinned genuinely at Isaiah. “Yes, there is that. But for a boy of your age, there’s no angle for viewing such things as love. No hindsight in you to not take an angel for granted. We all do it, my boy; you’re not stupid all alone. We all run around on the one we prayed for until she won’t be run around on anymore. But you can’t see that now. Live life a little longer and you will.”
“I know Angel Hill is too rare to squander,” Isaiah said almost into the air. “I don’t even know if I’m worthy of a girl like that.”
“Like I said,”
Mr. Morris said, shifting in his seat. “If she’ll have you. Now lift me into that shed and throw those drawings in the trash.”
ANGEL
Angel and Miss Ferris almost had the bike completely reassembled, and it looked brand-new.
“Would you like to screw in the final bolt?” asked Miss Ferris. “You deserve it, Angel. You worked tirelessly on this project.”
“You do it,” Angel told Miss Ferris. “This was all your idea.”
As Miss Ferris slowly screwed in the final bolt on the left handlebar, she smiled. “I like Isaiah for you,” she told Angel. “I know this is not my business. I just have to say out loud what I’ve been thinking for a while. You fit.”
Angel thought carefully about her reply and settled on “I think so, too.”
Then she thought of all of his meanness over the years.
“But do people really change that quickly, Miss Ferris?” she asked. “He’s seemingly done a drastic roundabout for my sake. I’m having a hard time believing beyond the surface.”
Miss Ferris, done with the handlebar, took a seat cross-legged in the grass. “Has he shared his poetry with you?”
“Not him, actually,” she replied. “Muggy took his journal from him and read one aloud. It was short, but it made me cry.”
“I’m sure so,” she said in response. “Even he doesn’t understand their power. Isaiah has been shifting for some time, only he hasn’t allowed anyone to see this. He’s kept his armor on while in transition, and that’s a mistake.”
“I’ll say.”
“Hopefully, not an irreparable one.”
“No one’s mistakes are irreparable.”
Isaiah burst through the gate with his hair covered in sawdust. He looked exhausted but happy.
“He’s a genius, Mr. Morris,” he announced animatedly. “Did you know?”
Both women nodded in response.
“How did I not know this?” he asked. “He showed me a few of his more intricate works, and my Lord, the man is a master with wood.”
Miss Ferris stood to her feet. “You must take up time with folks to justly know who they are.”