Sweet Song

by Terry Persun

  “I want this properly cleaned and properly repaired, every scratch, then polished by tomorrow eve.” His chin jutted toward Bob, an unloosed arrow. “I’ll inspect it then.”

  “I think I can do that,” Bob said.

  “Think? You don’t Mister and I’ll strap you like a nigger.”

  Bob looked into the sky for a moment. The first stars pushed through. The anger he felt rise in his chest and throat at the moment clashed against the serenity he was experiencing just before Jed split the clean air with his unclean words. Bob’s teeth clenched and his ears rang. “Don’t think you’ll have the chance to strap me,” Bob said, still looking into the night sky.

  “I better not.”

  “’Cause I won’t be here tomorrow,” Bob said.

  “You young, cocky son-of-a-bitch. You’re too damned much a pussy or you’d be workin’ at the mill like the other men. All except for war gimps and I’ll have none of them at my mill.” Jed slapped Bob across the head. “You take the work you can do, or I’ll make sure nobody give you work.”

  Bob turned suddenly. His eyes bulged.

  Maybe Jed thought he’d gone crazy. Maybe he thought Bob had just had enough. Either way, he stepped back and back, and his boys followed him.

  Bob felt anger as he had never felt it before, head-splitting, jaw-clenching anger. Before speaking, he spit at Jed’s feet. “You don’t slap a man unless you’re ready to kill him, Mister. You don’t ridicule a job until you’re man enough to do it yourself.” Bob took a step and Jed leaned backward. For a big, rich mill owner, Bob thought, Jed’s power was only in his mouth. “And, when you address me, you’ll learn to use my name.” He would not get paid for his day’s work. He would not go back to that house. But he felt justified and relieved.

  Jed nodded. Bob turned to leave around the side of the house. To his surprise, the youngest boy ran up as if to jump him. Bob heard the approach and whipped around and hit the boy in the ear. His heart fell. He had hit a white man. He could be killed on the spot if they knew his secret. The boy staggered backwards.

  Before going to Carl’s, he decided to have a drink at the saloon. He hoped he’d see Hugh there and be able to tell his story and ask for advice. He wondered whether Jed Howard really had the power to keep him from getting work in town. Hugh might know. This was no time to visit with the Sisters of Rhythm. Perhaps another evening, or early tomorrow, he would go there.

  The dense and muggy air pulled on his lungs. His bruises made walking uncomfortable, but only occasionally painful. It was a good thing Jed hadn’t hit him. Jed must be a sad and lonely man to feel that striking out at others would get them to work. Bob knew from childhood how a man could find ways to be lazy if he chose to. How planning made doing take longer. How one’s pace could slow, making a day’s work take two days to finish. How hiding often made work stop altogether. Bob was not proud of what’ he’d said to Jed, but he did hum a happy tune on his way to Jimmy Finch’s.

  Hugh was at the bar and his mug stood brimming with foam.

  “Just get here?” Bob said.

  “Have one with me.”

  “All right.”

  Hugh motioned to the bartender and a beer mug slammed down in front of Bob. Foam spilled over the edge onto the smooth mahogany surface of the bar.

  Bob paid, placing his money in front of the mug, near the bartender, who scooped it up almost like magic.

  “Had an interesting day,” Bob said.

  “Tell me.” Hugh turned to listen.

  Eventually, Hugh laughed both when Bob told him about Fist and when he told him about Jed. Hugh then said, “They don’t know who they fuckin’ with.”

  Bob liked the sound of that: as though he were a man of some means. “And what do you think about the songs?”

  “Ain’t no money in it. So, why do it?” Hugh said.

  “But people would be listening to my words. They’d hear what I had to say.”

  Hugh smiled at his beer. He shook his head. “You know, maybe you’re right. For someone who seldom had a voice, even when I met you just months ago, you’re finding it. Others should hear it to.”

  Bob laughed. “Yeah.” He drank down his beer and ordered two more. Sisters of Rhythm were just stepping onto the stage.

  CHAPTER 26

  The room did not smell of piss. The bed felt comfortable to lie in. Carl’s family remained quiet much of the time. And the house felt safe and secure, unlike many of the inns and boarding Houses and barracks Bob had slept in. Still, he slept fitfully.

  He didn’t belong there. The family didn’t want him. He had displaced the sons. And, it was temporary. Carl would heal enough to start work again, this time in a different job, but he’d do it. And the mill owner wouldn’t care as long as the work got done. Carl might even be better off in the long run. Regardless what happened next for Carl, Bob would not be wanted there.

  By morning, Bob hadn’t slept more than a few intermittent hours. He rolled out of bed, placing his feet on the bare planks, already warm. The day would be hot. Sweat slipped down from his armpit and beaded along his hairline and above his lip.

  He had to go to the bathroom and get something to eat. The beer had made his mouth dry.

  He shuffled around the room in the half-light. He had read the night before. The candle scent still hung in the room. The tart scent of Carl’s sons had been replaced in one night.

  Money was stashed inside his book. He kept the rest in his pockets. Thanks to his discriminate spending habits, he didn’t need to worry about getting work for a few weeks, especially if he emptied his bank account.

  He slipped on his pants and shirt and stood to go. He opened the door slowly and noticed that it didn’t creek. After closing the door behind him, Bob walked down the hall and went out the front. He felt freed. He ran his fingers through his short hair. He took in the humid morning air. Mosquitoes already pestered him. He itched an old bite and slapped at a mosquito that landed on his arm. Blood dot. He wiped it on his pant leg.

  The smell of bacon and eggs rested on the dead air, slight, but noticeable. He wondered whether the odor came from Carl’s kitchen at the end of the hall, wafting outside through an open window instead of traveling through the blocked hallway. As he ambled down Campbell Street, the scent got stronger. Carl and his family were still asleep.

  Bob ran into people heading toward town or one of the mills. Many said ‘morning’, others didn’t. One man asked whether he’d quit working for Jasper and Bob ran through a quick explanation, while the two of them continued to walk.

  Bob stopped in at the Park Avenue Eatery and took a seat. A middle-aged woman yelled from the door to the kitchen asking what he wanted. Several men turned to look at Bob as he answered, “Eggs, bacon, coffee.” The rest of the clientele didn’t look up, stop talking, or acknowledge the woman hollering from the back of the place.

  Seven tables sat inside the small space. Bob could hear every conversation in there had he wished to listen. Instead he thought to himself, wandering through every possibility for his day. When he decided, he ate quickly, drank down his coffee, and stepped back out into the street, leaving his money on the table.

  His heart pounded. His ears rang. Like when he talked back to Jed Howard and then punched his son, Bob’s adrenaline took over.

  By the time he reached the saloon, sweat dripped down his face and arms. He didn’t know what he’d say, but stepped up to the door in the back and hit it hard with his fist. The wait was endless.

  Jenny answered. “Oh my.”

  Bob knew why she said that. Her face blushed and she placed her hand over her mouth.

  “Sweet Jenny,” Mary said from behind her. “Why I would never a guessed it.”

  Jenny turned toward Mary who looked at Bob and said, “Why, you got the same look on you.”

  Mary put her arm around Jenny lovingly. Bob had never seen one woman do to another, let alone a Negro woman and a white woman. “Now I got no idea why you come,” she said. “You w
ishin’ to see me an’ my sisters or just Jenny here?”

  Bob stuttered and couldn’t seem to get the words out. The room lighted up behind Jenny. The sun touched her hair gently.

  “I get ‘im first,” Mary said.

  Bob could tell that Jenny had no idea what was going on.

  Mary hugged Jenny close to her, a little squeeze, and explained. “We meets this man on the street and he be singing what we never heard a-fore.” She lowered her voice. “He gonna write us a song or two.”

  Jenny backed out of the doorway. “Well he’d better come in then.”

  Bob brushed past them and stopped. He suddenly didn’t know where to go.

  “We have a parlor,” Jenny said.

  “A parlor? Well, we usually use the gamblin’ table in the back a the bar, but if’n you want us in the parlor dat’s fine too,” Mary said before leaving to round up the other women and John.

  Jenny sat opposite Bob. She stared at her own feet. Her hands were folded in her lap.

  Bob’s hands shook, and he thought he felt his lip twitch. He knew the dangers of what he was about to do, but couldn’t stop himself. “Can I come back later? Or can we meet somewhere?”

  Jenny raised her face and looked into his eyes.

  Bob’s whole body tensed. His memories of women were not pleasant, but this woman, this feeling, pulled at him differently. In a strained voice, he said, “I’d come to tell you one of those stories my feet knows.” He looked down at his stretched out legs and wiggled his feet.

  Jenny laughed in a nervous way. “You most certainly can come by.”

  Bob’s entire being took in her reply.

  When the Sisters of Rhythm came into the room, Jenny stayed seated. No one seemed to care. Bob didn’t know what to expect or what to do, so he sat and waited for someone else to begin.

  Mary set paper and pencil on Bob’s lap. Then she introduced the others one after another, and nodded to John when she was finished.

  Bob picked up the pencil.

  A moment later, John began to run a baseline rhythm singing, “Bum, bum, bum, do-dip, bum. Bum, bum, bum, do-dip, bum,” repeatedly.

  Bob listened. No one looked at him except Jenny who only glanced occasionally in his direction. He closed his eyes for a moment just to escape the room and its occupants. His nervousness rose to a pitch of its own. What if he couldn’t do it? What if nothing came to mind?

  Soon Mary, or Joesy, began to hum. It soothed him. Martha came to mind, humming in the corner of the white-washed shack. He was a little boy again. Another voice placed a twinkling, tighter rhythm over the other two. It was as if the entire room had been filled with music.

  Bob followed the sound to the fields where he grew up. He opened his eyes, thin slits, only enough for him to see the paper where he wrote: “The yellow-tipped fields of grain/ where I grew to be a man/ are long behind/ here I sit blind/ at the end of life I stand.”

  The words continued – his life but not his life. An old man remembering youth, a youth that Bob never got to experience or live out. But in the sound, somewhere, there rode the possibility for him to live out a different life, one where he didn’t have to work a day of double-chores, stealing time alone when he could. He wrote on and finished the song. The old man dying with a hint of a smile for the strength it took to travel through life.

  When he put his pencil down, a tear braced itself at the corner of his eye. He brushed it away. He had fallen into a dream. The room and the voices had disappeared for a time. They could have eaten lunch and he would not have known it. The beautiful and empty feeling he experienced while riding the lyrics swelled inside his chest. He sighed out of relief and exhaustion.

  Somehow Mary and John and the other Sisters understood the calm, the sacredness of what he’d just done. They stopped humming and singing, but did not say a word. No one reached for the paper.

  Jenny sat still.

  Bob didn’t understand what he had just done. He didn’t know how much effort writing lyrics was supposed to take. He wasn’t aware of how it was supposed to feel. He just allowed it to happen its own way, just as he had done his entire life.

  He stirred. Then he bent to look over what he’d written. He wasn’t sure about the way the words flowed. What would the accompanying music sound like? Who would sing the words he had written down? “I don’t know,” he said, breaking the stillness, the silence.

  The room came alive. Several Sisters stood up and left the room. John leaned back and placed a big hand on the top of his own head, then let his shoulders relax. Mary said, “I could juss feel it. Didn’t I tell you, John?” She reached for the paper that Bob held onto.

  He released it. “I don’t think it’s very interesting,” he said.

  John spoke for the first time. “You wouldn’t know. Once it come out, it take somebody else to know. Mary tell you da truth. Yes, sir.”

  Bob looked over at Mary. She appeared to read the paper several times over, nodding at her own tunes. Each reading brought a different nod. “Well,” she said.

  Bob didn’t feel good about how she said well.

  “It’s close.” She slapped it in front of John, but she spoke to Bob. “John can fix it. We juss need our instruments.” Just then the other Sisters came into the room carrying guitars and banjos and a fiddle. “Here they are,” Mary said.

  John read through the lyrics as everyone except Mary stood and took an instrument. Jenny and Bob stood too, but backed away and against the wall to give the group space.

  Although Mary appeared to be in charge, she looked at John to lead them on. He had a deep voice that resonated like music even when he just talked.

  “Gonna start happy,” he said. “Da boy in his chile-hood play. When we gets to the part where he growed, life still good, but more routine.” He looked at Joesy and Bet. “I’ll signal the change. You all keep a repeat chord so’s it sound like life be the same day after day.” All the while he spoke, he picked at the guitar slung over his shoulder using a piece of frayed rope. His words and the notes he played mimicked each other. “The end. Da lass bar, that one he sad.”

  No sooner had he stopped speaking, he handed the paper back to Mary and began. The others came in a little clumsily at first, then smoothed out as they played. The transitions were rough and painful to the ear. Mary stumbled over words and would bend to her knee and mark the sheet. After one run through, John suggested a few more changes. Instead of ‘yellow-tipped fields of grain’, he changed it to read ‘yellow-tipped plains’, tightening the line to go at a faster pace. He made similar changes to each line for the first half of the song.

  Bob sensed that he had failed to produce what they’d wanted because they didn’t just accept the lyrics out of hand. Then, as the morning progressed and the music became more complex and smooth, he understood that their adjustments were necessary, and what he had given them was a solid foundation on which to build.

  “We breakin’,” Mary said late into the morning.

  Instruments all went down near one wall and out of the way. “This song,” John announced, “we picked up from an old black man, blind as can be, livin’ out his final days in the sun next to the mid-western flat plains of his youth.”

  “I likes that,” Mary said.

  “Me too,” Bet said.

  And as they left the room, Bob realized it was no longer his song, no longer his childhood, but everyone’s and no one’s.

  He turned to look at Jenny who had stood as silent and in awe as he had.

  “I have never seen anything like that in my life?” She laughed as if in relief from the tension in the room.

  “It was beautiful,” Bob said.

  “The song was beautiful. And sad,” she said.

  Those were the first words about the song that gave Bob the least bit of credit. He felt partly responsible for what had occurred, and that was enough.

  “I have to find work,” he said quickly.

  Jenny touched his hand with her fingertips. “You
said you’d come by. I’m looking forward to listening to those feet.” Her smile appeared tight, her wet eyes sincere.

  Bob’s nervousness had his legs shaking, so he walked away. At the door he looked back. “I’ll come by after dinner. We could walk somewhere?”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  Outside, Bob let out all the air that had been trapped in his lungs for what seemed like hours. He felt light-headed. He wandered a bit, stopped in for nut bread at Jasper’s, who didn’t charge him. They actually laughed together about nothing in particular, they were so happy to see each other.

  “I pray you’re doin’ fine,” Jasper said.

  “Very fine,” Bob told him.

  “Well, you look it.”

  “And you too. Thank you for the nut bread.”

  “My pleasure.”

  With his lunch in hand, he walked to the swelled river, bleached with floating logs, dotted with river rafts. He sat on the bank and listened. A breeze kept the mosquitoes busy, and clutches of gnats hung over the water’s edge as if they were held in place by a thin thread.

  He noticed how his life had changed. He had run from harm, a black boy. He knew even growing up that he was treated differently than the other Negroes on the farm. And he had heard stories of even more horrible treatments than he witnessed. He had been different, and to a community of workers, like the clutch of gnats sticking together, different meant outside. And to people afraid of being outside, like Edna, that meant evil. Yet, Leon had been different only in his features and his skin color. But that had made all the difference in the world.

  “Leon,” he said aloud as though it were someone else’s name.

  In crossing the river, he had been baptized by dark and by water. He had walked through fear and survived. He had learned about his other heritage. His white heritage. But freedom, white freedom, had its complications, too. On either side of that color line, a trusting soul seemed difficult to find. Bob had been beaten worse as a white man than he had ever been as a Negro. He had been cheated, threatened, and emotionally assaulted because of his difference, whether for skin color or social aptitude.