Now and then Vy would touch Dab’s arms or his neck; his hands. Hands that were scarred and mottled. Dab would heave up at her touch and go crazy and vomit the soup on himself.
“What wrong with him?” Tree asked finally. “M’Vy, he don’t eat nothing in so long.”
“Better he don’t for now, you see what happens,” she said.
Late Sunday afternoon, Vy made phone calls. “You go get supper,” she told Tree to get rid of her. “What food you got, we’ll eat, you and me. No, wait. Let me think.” Vy had her palm covering the speaker of the phone. Then she lifted it “Wait a minute,” she said into the phone, like the person was somebody she knew real well. “No,” she said to Tree, covering the mouthpiece again, “don’t cook nothing. We’ll be out. We’ll go head and eat out someplace.”
“Yeah? Yeah?” Tree said, sounding the way Dab would say it “We be out … shopping.”
Vy wouldn’t take the time to say. She shooed Tree away and closed the door to her bedroom. Tree could hear her on the phone, but not the words.
How we eat out, Tree wondered, with Dab so sick? Who going to carry him down the street? You kidding? If she planning to leave him here by himself, I won’t go! She felt her anger rising; it overwhelmed her, and she stood there trembling until her fury at M’Vy passed. It left her frightened, it had come on her so fast.
She went to her brother. She found Dab lying on his back. He looked crazy, gross-out, like from The Exorcist. His eyes looked about to fall out of their sockets. He was crazy-grinning with yellow teeth. Eyes narrowed and were evil. Tree didn’t want to go near him. Dab lifted his head to watch her. Any minute, she was sure his head would start spinning. But he flopped back on the pillow. At once, he lifted his head again, his eyes riveted on her and his face contorted with pain.
“Don’t do that, Dab. Just lie still,” she said from her place against the wall.
He muttered to himself. Words had sound but no sense.
“Dab, you hungry? You want to try some more soup?”
He mumbled. The sheet shook as if he were freezing under it. Dab did look as dry and hot as a desert. She couldn’t believe how thin he’d become in just one day.
Not only one day, it’s been going on for days, and I didn’t see it. Too close to him. I’m to blame. No. Am I spose to take care of everything?
She slipped away, going into the living room to calm herself. M’Vy was still on the phone. Tree turned on the TV and stared at a stock-car race; then fast cutting to golf, until the pictures wouldn’t stay in focus and her eyes got heavy. She was sleeping fitfully but on the edge of a deep, exhausted sleep when the doorbell rang. It pulled her back. She slid off the couch, wide-eyed, but not fully awake. She was moving, and when she got to the door, M’Vy was right behind her.
“I open it?” she asked huskily, still with her sleep voice.
“Yes, open it,” Vy told her.
Opening the door, unlocking the locks. She concentrated and was back to herself.
There stood a man filling the whole space at the threshold. He was tall and big, the way M’Vy was. He was darker in color than M’Vy. There was a red hue to his dark skin.
Like somebody red-color some chocolate, Tree thought. Maybe chocolate left in the path of sundown. Smooth skin.
He had black, silky eyebrows and black hair with some gray through it. His hair was Fro’d. It looked like it had been cut in the past few days. He had big features for a big man. Tree looked him over hard, she couldn’t help it. She hadn’t ever seen anybody just like him. He wore a brown suit with a white stripe, and a white shirt that made his neck turn black against the whiteness. Tree thought the effect was beautiful. He held a brown felt beret in his hand.
Now what kind gone wear a tam-berey, Tree wondered. Swiftly her mind flowed. You see some girl scouts wear them.
She searched her mind and remembered Mr. Sawallow who taught industrial arts. He wore a tam-berey. Mr. Sawallow was a white gentleman, that was the best way to describe him—a gentleman. The dudes made all kinds of things in his shop classes they weren’t supposed to. He pretended he didn’t notice. Girls who took shop said Mr. Sawallow was respectful and kind, showing the dudes something. They all laughed at him for trusting them like they were all the same. They didn’t dislike him and they didn’t treat him rough. They thought he was a fool for trusting all of them equally without a single one of them proving by test and error that he or she was trustworthy. Deep down they suspected Sawallow thought they were all the same because they were all one race. This they resented with a passion.
A black anybody know better than that, Tree thought.
All white folks ain’t alike—are they?
Dab trusted people, she had time to think, as Vy gently took her shoulders and planted her on the side, out of the way, so the man standing there could come inside. Tree must’ve been standing there staring at him like a fool, herself.
“Teresa, this is my friend, Sylvester,” M’Vy said, using Tree’s proper name as the man walked in.
He had such a wonderful smell about him. After-shave cologne, Tree suspected. She couldn’t take her eyes off him; managed to say, “Pleased to meet you.”
“Everybody call her Tree,” Vy said to Sylvester. “You know, shorten Teresa and what d’ya get? But she so tall, like me, she is like a Tree, anyhow,” Vy said, almost as bubbly as a girl.
“Glad to meet you, Tree,” Sylvester said. He had a real nice voice, Tree thought. It was deep and husky, like a blues singer. And he was big, just the way she pictured the best father to be. “Call me Silversmith,” Sylvester told her. “That what everybody call me.”
“Okay!” Tree said. “Silversmith.”
“That’s it. You got it,” he said and let go of her hand. Hand so warm, Tree had been hardly aware he had hold of hers. Nice, neat fingernails he had.
“Well, make yourself at home,” M’Vy said.
He looked around. Tree couldn’t get over how big and manly he was.
Some men just big, she thought. But they don’t move like they be careful of you or what all that strength can do if it knock into something. Silversmith know how to move and be smooth.
“You got a nice place,” he said to M’Vy in an easy voice. “A nice home.”
“Try to make it that way,” Vy said, leading the way to the living room. They went in. Tree gave a glance once toward the little room beforehand, and then away from it. She didn’t give all the questions she needed to ask M’Vy a chance to come welling up inside her to trouble her.
“Me not being home,” Vy said, “well, I depend so much on Tree to take care of things.”
“Know you do all you can,” Sylvester told her. “Tree not like most kids these days, thinking just themselves,” he said, looking kindly at Tree.
She managed to smile. How your kids? was what she wanted to say but thought better of it. Supposing his kids, if he had any, were all strung out and shiftless?
“Silversmith has a son,” Vy told Tree, almost reading her mind.
“You meet him sometime, know you like him,” Vy went on. Shyly, she smiled at Silversmith. Nice looks passed between them.
Tree felt comfortable with Silversmith and M’Vy. She could imagine the three of them together for all time, the way they say it in fairy tales. She smiled wryly to herself at the thought, for she knew better than to dream. And yet she could not help herself as her mind slid easily away until she no longer understood what they were saying. She didn’t even try as she swung into a warm reverie. She made up her own words and pictures to please herself. Words and pictures by Sweet Tree. Silversmith and M’Vy together in the living room with neatness, and a book by Warren Miller, provided by Sweet Tree. They would stay in the house as long as Tree needed them to. Even Brother Rush would stay.
Tree thought, Sweet, whispers Brother Rush. Naw, that ain’t it. It, Sweet whispers, Brother Rush. Brother Rush!
Somewhere inside, Tree cried out, longing to be in that place she had seen, where sh
e was forever a child.
“We have to get started,” Vy said.
“Huh?” Tree said lazily, reluctant to come back.
“Be time, Tree. We taking Dab on out.”
“What?”
“Look, I ain’t got the time now. Dab’s so sick. You know it. It’s my fault, dint want to face up to it. And you got the word from—but none of that could happen. It has, though. It has! My Brother! But Dab’s got to go. He too sick to stay here.”
“What you talkin bout?” Tree said. A chill came over her all of a sudden. She was suddenly really furious at M’Vy. She threw some kind of fit, and knew she was doing it. She couldn’t stop herself because of the thought of Dab being taken away.
“To where!” she hollered. Taking him away got to her. Because they thought he was half-wit, they were going to take him out.
“Out where?” she yelled. “How I know where!” And threw the couch pillows up against the wall. She almost threw Warren Miller at the lamp, but then slammed it to the floor at her feet. “You ain’t takin him nowhere.” Spoken with dangerous calm.
“Tree,” Vy said. But Tree turned away and wouldn’t let Vy come near her.
Tree was big and growing bigger. Not as large as Vy, but she was strong and she could do damage, becoming wild when cornered.
“Who you?” Tree said, turning on Silversmith. “Coming in here like you king somebody. You not my father. I ain’t got none.”
“Oh, Lord, it my fault. Forgive her, Silversmith, forgive us, I’m to blame.” Vy turned her face away.
Silversmith went to her and folded her close. Tree watched, seeing his ease with M’Vy, as though such feeling enveloped them all the time.
Because he care, Tree thought through her anger. Like I care for Dab. He love M’Vy, like I love a ghost.
The awful feeling drained from her. Tree sat down and soon was very still. She kept her eyes on her hands. “Dint mean to do it, M’Vy,” softly she spoke. “Mr. Silversmith, I’m sorry.” She was bewildered at herself, at her sudden swings of mood and heart. Slowly her anger went. She felt alone, which was how she was used to feeling. But now she knew she didn’t want to be by herself with Dab anymore. It came to her that she did not like being alone with him.
“Everything gone be okay,” Vy said soothingly. She sat next to Tree, hovering over her. “My honey, my Sweet Tree, you don’t know what going on. I don’t neither, not all of it.” She sighed and looked around at Silversmith. He came over, sat down next to Tree and took her hand. Such gentleness seemed to be his way.
“Tree seen something,” M’Vy said. “I kept from mentioning it you before because dint want to talk the subject on the phone. Tell you only that something happening here and to get on over quick, the boy be ill. But it was more,” Vy said.
“My daughter, Tree, has seen the mystery!” And in a whisper, Vy went on, “Oh, when I was a girl, they talk about it. Long time, in a place deep in country. New Jersey, where I come from, before the whole lot of us family remove to near Wilberforce. Back then, you wouldn’t think there was some cities close by. New York. Because of so much country sky and thick country woods. In the hollows lived black folk. When it rained, the dirt roads ran to mud. They owned all that land of rain and mud and what roads they made. What I remember most was that, so far separated, there was nobody come pick up any trash, our garbage or our plain old junk the way they do now. We had mounds of wrecked things half-buried in the mud. Shoot. Talking bout land fill! We bury our garbage, feed it to animals, feed the flies.
“I never seen the mystery,” Vy said, simply. “But I remember the talk. Like it happen this morning! Old womens, hanging around. They didn’t belong to nobody no more, even they chilren had left the place or died off. There was one who’d look at me and say, ‘Afrique! Afrique!’And say some kind of words that rolled out of her like dancing on drums. And she told of mysteries, the way you learn them and see and feel them. I guess my Tree doing something right. For she seen without nobody telling her how. Say it’s in the blood of centuries, comin down the line, just like health or sickness. Dab seen it. It in him, too, down the line, blood and sickness!”
“Vy, what’s this you’re trying to tell me?” Silversmith said.
“I’m just so worried you won’t believe it,” Vy said. “But do believe it, for it’s truth.” She smiled apprehensively. “You know, I’m only a practical nurse. I had a year of training but not near enough to become an RN.”
“Vy,” he said, “what you do is worthwhile; no need you apologize.”
Tree loved the way he caressed M’Vy with his eyes and voice.
“What I mean,” Vy said, “you might not taken with ghost.” She looked him straight in the eyes. “But there be a ghost here in this place. I know my Tree! This girl wouldn’t lie about nothing. This girl, alone here with her brother—and faithful to me! She been living with it until I come on back. I know this ghost to be my brother, yes.” Vy said. “Tree, nor Dab, has never seen or heard of my brother.”
“But why?” Silversmith asked. “Why not know you have a brother? You never told me.” He looked pained, hurt.
“Because. Because. I dint have the heart—it’s a long story. Or about they father, either. I lied about him. I kept it closed. You close a fist so you can beat the fate!”
“Vy, what is it? You have to make more sense than you making, hon.” Without taking his hand from Tree’s, he took Vy’s shoulder and patted it gently.
He make it right, Tree thought.
“Well.” Vy began again. “Tree taken me to the little room down the hall where she like to do things, be by herself. Draw things. That’s where she seen it. Tree?”
Tree spoke promptly. She knew what Vy wanted her to say. Just the truth, as clearly as she could. It wasn’t hard for her to talk about. It came easy, the way it stayed in her mind. “First time, I see him on the street,” she said. “He standing by himself. He real good-looking, about eighteen. Then he come on up here, but I mean, he don’t walk up here like anybody. He appears through the round table in the little room. Come, standing there the same way as in the street, all dressed to kill. Lookin cool. So beautiful dude, I swear he is! But he through the table, that’s how and when I know he be a ghost.”
“When Brother die,” Vy said, “Brother be his name, we lay him out in a fine suit and shirt he have, like we lay out his brothers… . But he a man, then. Can’t see why he visit Tree eighteen year old.”
“Did he say anything to you?” Silversmith asked Tree.
“No sir,” she said. “He holden something in his hand, like a mirror. When I look in, I see springtime. Real pretty, freshening. I go in it.” While she spoke, she was thinking about what Vy had said, about Brother having brothers, we lay out his brothers. His brothers die, too? Tree wondered.
“She taken me to the little room,” Vy told him. “I didn’t see. I felt him, though. It was Brother. My baby brother!” she stifled a sob. “So long time! He come visit my Tree. Some say the mystery come in a seeing light.”
“It true!” Tree said. “I see the light and then him.”
“That’s how it was for Tree and Dab. I don’t doubt it,” M’Vy said. “I would give anything to see. But it not for me. Not now or ever.”
“You believe in ghosts?” Tree asked Silversmith. She was too shy to look at him after her tantrum.
“Shoot,” he said, and squeezed her hand. They were close, the three of them. “Folks stay with us, whether dead or alive,” he said. “Ways to keep time from wearin out. I know a lady talk to her dead mama anytime she need to buy a new dress for her baby. Now a new dress mayn’t be much to you and me, but for a poor woman alone, it takes some calculating. And she ask her mama what kind a dress and where to purchase. The mama right there in her place at the foot of the bed, too. Tell the lady where to go and how much to pay and never a cent more. Shoot. Ain’t nothing to it. It just our way. Black folks is gifted.”
M’Vy grunted, then giggled. Tree giggled. “How we gif
ted?” Tree said, laughing.
“Any way you name,” Silversmith said. “We see what ain’t there. We see through anybody.”
“Shoot,” said Vy. “But it the truth.” Sobering. “Something, in health and sickness, down the line.”
Tree stared at her. Gazing through her. “How come you never tell anything?” Tree said. “Where are Brother’s brothers? No, where my father? How come you never tell anything. Why didn’t I even ask until now? Was my father killed?”
“Killed?” said Silversmith. “Killed?”
“Listen,” Vy said, “you don’t know. No,” she said to Tree.
“He was in the car when Brother die,” Tree said.
“Who told you that!”
“M’Vy, I told you, you saw, we go in that place. He died in the crash, dint he, my daddy?”
Vy was shaking her head. “Brother die in the crash, yes, and it all my fault. Every bit of him was broken bones but he look just like he sleeping. Just one mark under his chin where they say the car door hit him.
“Oh, it my fault!” she continued. “My fault! But you daddy, Tree. He didn’t have a scratch. That bike lady, him, walk away from the wreck, not even a broken fingernail.”
“Then where he is?” Tree cried. “Where my dad?”
“Oh,” Vy murmured, “oh. Oh.” Her voice rose like a question. “Oh, that man. Your father and my brother did so love the Cincinnati Reds baseball and the night games!” Big tears streamed down her face. “Like two kids, couldn’t wait to get there, sit in the bleachers. Never knew how much of a game they watch. It was being there they loved. They come back renewed.”
“Where my father?” Tree said, as calmly as she could. “You got to tell me.”
Vy smiled at her. Wiped her eyes absently. “Don’t know,” she said. “Been a long time now. Brother dying be one too many sorrows. He walk away one day. Came off the job but he never come back. Some say he went to Cincinnati, but I never knew. Didn’t go looking. A woman, a mother of two kids, cain’t just pick up and go hunting.”
She held onto Silversmith’s hand. Tree held tight, her mind stunned.
Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush Page 11