Linden Hills

by Naylor, Gloria;

  Everyone laughed but Willie, who found that it now even hurt to smile. He wanted to crawl across the floor to Ruth on his knees, bury his head in her lap, and beg her to forgive him. She hated him now, he knew it. She would never smile at him again or even talk to him. He was doomed to go through life without hearing the smallest of music from that throat.

  “I think your folks got a great home,” Norman said, staring into space. “I’ve been telling Ruth that soon as we get on our feet, I’m applying for a house in Linden Hills.”

  “And you’ll live in it alone.” Ruth went to the back window that looked down on Linden Hills. “You know, wherever you go, I’m game—Spring Vale, Park Heights, even out of state. But I’m never going back down there again. I’ve had that life, Norm, and I lasted six months. Those folks just aren’t real—excuse me, Lester. I’m not trying to talk about your mother.”

  “No, talk about her,” Lester said. “It’s true. I was just telling Willie this morning, those are a bunch of the saddest niggers you’ll ever wanna meet. They eat, sleep, and breathe for one thing—making it. And making it where?”

  “Up.” Ruth shrugged her shoulders and sighed. “Everybody wants to make it up there.”

  “Yeah,” Lester said, “and up means down in the Hills. Ain’t that a bust? Down toward Tupelo Drive. They’re scraping and clawing to move closer to that weirdo, Nedeed, and his damn funeral parlor. You know, my mom’s got her heart set on Roxanne marrying some turd who’s come around a few times, just because he lives down on Third Crescent Drive. Never comes in the house, mind you. Sits outside in his Porsche and blows the horn as if he’d be contaminated by walking on First Crescent.”

  “Who’s that?” Ruth asked.

  “Xavier something or other—a real fruit name.”

  “Yeah, Xavier Donnell. So he’s still driving that 1950 Porsche. I told you about him, Norm—the one who has his horn rigged up to play ‘God Bless the Child.’”

  Norman laughed. “Aren’t you two being a little hard on those folks?”

  “No, we’re not.” Ruth frowned. “You know his aunt had the gall to call me last week and say she was looking for someone to do her windows for the holidays. And if I wasn’t available—since I’m moving in that sort of crowd now—I might know someone who is. I told her that I not only didn’t do windows, I didn’t have to do housework because my husband provides for me very nicely, thank you. Then I slammed down the phone. The old bitch—imagine!”

  Willie cringed when Ruth spit out the word “bitch.” So she could talk with fire in her voice. And that’s how she would talk about him from now on. “Came into my house and had the gall to insult my husband—the black bastard.” Oh God, why couldn’t he just die?

  “You know what my mom is always telling Roxanne? ‘Make sure you let Xavier know that your grandmother was very close to Luther Nedeed’s grandfather.’ God, Grandma Tilson would piss in the grave to hear that one. She hated those Nedeeds. She said Nedeed would pay her five dollars to catfish with him ’cause the fish would run from his hook.” Everyone laughed but Willie. “No, really. And she said he’d pay double that just for her catfish heads. She promised when I got old enough to understand, she’d tell me what he did with those fish heads. But before she died, she had other stories about them to make your balls curl.”

  “I can imagine,” Ruth said. “A man who looks like that is capable of anything. Willie, you’re awful quiet. Do you want more coffee?”

  He didn’t feel worthy of talking to her and just shook his head.

  “Willie’s a little down ’cause it’s Christmas and he’s short on cash,” Lester said.

  “Join the club.” Norman smiled at Willie.

  “I’m telling you, man, I should be president of that club,” Lester said. “I’ve been racking my brains about what to do for presents for Mom and Roxanne. And it’s hard as hell to pick up work around this time of year ’cause people hold on to their jobs.”

  “You know,” Ruth said while staring out the back window, “I was just thinking—you guys might not want to do it, but there’s plenty of spare jobs around Linden Hills right now. There’s lots of people like Mrs. Donnell looking for someone to do heavy cleaning and clearing up extra bedrooms for guests. And they know you, Lester, so you could take Willie along. Ah, but why would you want to be bothered with them?”

  “Look,” Lester said, “a buck’s a buck. And they’d get a real charge out of seeing me doing their dirty work. They could bring their kids to the window, point, and say, ‘See how far you’ll fall if you don’t keep kissing ass and get a dah-gree?’”

  Even Willie laughed at the way Lester curled his top lip under and spoke through his nose.

  “And my mom would have a shit-fit knowing I was doing that to buy her a present. That alone would be worth it.”

  “What do you think, Willie?” Ruth went and put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s not much of an idea, but I hate to see you looking so sad just because of money.”

  Not much of an idea? It was a wonderful idea—colossal. Anything that put the music back in Ruth’s voice as she spoke to him. He would go into Linden Hills and work his butt off. Then he’d take the money and buy her and Norm a great gift—maybe even a turkey, too. Ruth wanted him to go into Linden Hills and he would go. He was just sorry that she hadn’t asked him to go into hell for her so he could really prove himself. “Sounds ace-boon-coon to me.” Willie swallowed to dissolve the joy in his throat from her touch.

  “Great,” Lester said. “Now you’ll see what I was telling you before: all that glitters ain’t gold, baby.”

  “And all that shakes ain’t Jell-O,” Norman added.

  “Norm, leave the poetry to the boys and just do what you do best. Don’t ask me what it is, but when I figure it out, I’ll let you know.” He went to throw an empty cup at Ruth, and she started to duck behind Willie’s chair but stopped suddenly. “What’s that sound?” She tilted her head and went toward the back window.

  “I don’t hear nothing but the steam pipes,” Norman said.

  Ruth frowned deeply and stared through the pane. Then she lifted up the window.

  “Ruth, are you crazy? It’s three degrees out there.”

  “Shh, listen.”

  The cold wind blew into the kitchen, and they didn’t know if it was the freezing air or the long, thin howl it carried with it into the kitchen that made the hair stand up on their arms.

  “Christ, what’s that?” Norman’s jaws were trembling. “A sick animal?”

  Ruth closed the window and stared down the hill. “That wasn’t an animal. I don’t know what it was, but God, it wasn’t an animal. Sometimes when the leaves are off the trees, sound can be carried like that all the way up the hill. When I was on Fifth Crescent Drive, even in the summer you could hear organ music coming all the way up from the funeral chapel. That lake acts as some sort of springboard for sound.”

  “Maybe old Nedeed’s down there embalming someone who wasn’t quite ready.” But Lester’s joke died under the icy echoes that remained in the room.

  “Lester, when you guys go down looking for work, be careful.”

  “Careful of what, Ruth?”

  “Well, Lester, you know, they’re very security conscious. Someone might not recognize you, think you’re prowlers, and call the cops. And there are Dobermans and wired fences and …” Ruth stared back at the window. “And things like that. Just be careful, that’s all. Look, humor an old lady.”

  “Since when did you get old?” Norman patted her on the hip.

  “Two days after I became Mrs. Anderson.” She slapped his hand gently. “Didn’t your mama ever tell you not to touch things that don’t belong to you?”

  “It belongs to me.” Norman gave her hip a squeeze.

  Ruth shook her head. “God help you, Mr. Anderson, it sure does.”

  “Now, them are some nice folks.” Lester closed the collar of his coat to block the first shock of the wind.

  “Shit, I
could kick myself for what I said. I wouldn’t hurt Ruth for nothing in the world.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it. I bet they’ve already forgotten the whole thing. She’s not like my mom. Man, she can tell you things somebody said to her in 1958 and she’s still waiting to get ’em back. So all’s well, blood, your baby still loves you.”

  “Cut that crap out.”

  “Cut what out? You’ve got a crush on her a blind man can see.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “She’s a looker though, huh?”

  “She’s all right.”

  “And them tits,” Lester said, cutting his eyes at Willie. “Wouldn’t I just love to stick a hand down that blouse and grab one of them monsters.”

  “Chill it, Shit.”

  “And Lord, them thighs. I could spread those winners and ride all the way to Alaska.”

  “I said, lay off!”

  “Why?” Lester shrugged. “She’s nothing but a broad.”

  “You know what your problem is?” Willie narrowed his eyes at Lester. “You been hanging with these whores on Wayne Avenue so long you don’t know class when you see it. That’s a lady, dammit! And she’s too good for you to be wiping your greasy mind all over her body. You ain’t worth six inches of her toe-nails. She’s a saint … She’s a—”

  “Yesss?” Lester lowered his voice and pulled his right eyelid down with his finger.

  Willie stopped. “Why, you … son of a …” And he swung at Lester, who ducked and ran across Linden Road toward the school yard. Willie chased him. “Come back here, you turkey. I owe you one for that!”

  He caught up to Lester by the fence and pinned him against it by the collar. “Now say, ‘Long live Uncle Tom,’ six times.”

  “Aw, Willie, that’s kid shit.” Lester laughed.

  Willie banged him hard against the fence. “Go on, say it. ‘Long live Uncle Tom.’”

  “No!”

  Willie bounced him again. “You know I could always beat you, Les, even though I’m shorter. Say it!”

  “Okay. Long live Uncle Tom.” Willie released him and Lester backed away a few steps and shouted, “So he can marry your mama!”

  Willie laughed and tried to kick at him, but slipped on the ice. Lester came back and helped him up. “You all right?”

  “Yeah.” Willie looked through the chain-link fence. “Man, we sure had some good times here.”

  They walked along the front of the school and passed the main entrance. There were three bronze plaques over the triple doors.

  I am the way out of the city of woe

  I am the way to a prosperous people

  I am the way from eternal sorrow

  Chico and the Raiders had spray-painted their insignia over the middle plaque:

  Sacred justice moved my architect

  I was raised here by divine omnipotence

  Primordial love and ultimate intellect

  “You know, Shit,” Willie said, looking up at the last bronze plaque—

  Only the elements time cannot wear

  Were made before me, and beyond time I stand

  Abandon ignorance, ye who enter here

  —then down toward Linden Hills, “I could have done all right if I had gone on to school.”

  “You’re doing all right now.”

  “Naw, I mean I could have been a doctor or something. You know I have six hundred and sixty-five poems memorized up here—six hundred and sixty-five, and lots of ’em ain’t mine. I have all of Baraka, Soyinka, Hughes, and most of Coleridge. And Whitman—that was one together dude. My mom says with a memory like that, I could have breezed through med school.”

  Lester didn’t say anything for a moment, but then he stopped walking and pulled at the chain fence. “Ya ever wonder why they put fences around these schools, White?”

  “Huh?” Willie had been lost in thought.

  “I mean, you can see it with an elementary school ’cause the little kids might run out in the street without thinking or something, but why around a junior high and high school? It’s not to keep people put, ’cause the gate’s always open and sometimes even stray dogs wander in. Remember the time that mutt came in and we tied Miss Thatcher’s math book to its tail and ran all over the school yelling, ‘Yeah, Miss Thatcher’s finally gone to the dogs’?”

  Willie smiled. “What ya getting at, Shit?”

  “Fences, White, fences. Even at the university: big, stone fences—and why? The gates are open, so it’s not to keep anybody out or in. Why fences?” He looked at his friend’s blank face. “To get you used to the idea that what they have in there is different, special. Something to be separated from the rest of the world. They get you thinking fences, man, don’t you see it? Then when they’ve fenced you in from six years old till you’re twenty-six, they can let you out because you’re ready to believe that what they’ve given you up here, their version of life, is special. And you fence your own self in after that, protecting it from everybody else out there.

  “You wanna be a doctor? All the books are in the library. Why can’t you just go and read them, sit for an exam, and get an internship? No way, right? Why? ’Cause they gotta get you inside that fence. You gotta get that mark on your forehead and that print in the palm of your hand that you’ve sat through the philosophy and history and crap that goes along with it. They gotta be sure that when you go out among real people, your fences are all intact. Then when you move to Linden Hills, or wherever, you’re gonna stay put and help vote out radicals and heave a sigh of relief when you read that a Panther got it in the back from an L.A. cop.”

  They walked on in silence and finally reached the marble banister that separated First Crescent Drive from Wayne J.H.S. “Okay, good buddy.” Willie slapped Lester on the back. “What time do you want me to meet you tomorrow so we can start hustling a little change?”

  “Hey, White, look. Why don’t you come home with me and spend the night, and then we can get up early and head right out?”

  “Ah, man, I don’t know. Your mom has never been too keen on me.”

  “Look, it’s my house, too. And if I wanted to pull rank, Grandma Tilson really willed it to me anyway. She said she knew I’d do the right thing after my mom dies, and burn it to the ground.”

  Willie still looked hesitant.

  “And see, what we can do is take it drive by drive and work our way down from Second Crescent to Tupelo. That way you won’t miss a thing and you can see what I was telling you about these people. And remember, Ruth thinks it’s a good idea for you to do it, too.”

  “Ruth ain’t got nothing to do with me doing this.”

  “Yeah, I know, but since she’s going out of her way to call people for us and all—even though she doesn’t mean anything to you—it would just be human to meet her halfway and get an early start. I mean, not that you give two shits about what Ruth—”

  “What y’all having for dinner, Les?”

  Lester smiled broadly. “Whatever it is, it won’t taste good. The only woman in the world who cooks worse than my mother is my sister. And tonight is a toss-up between them two.”

  Willie looked over the marble banister. “Hey, can you still jump this stream?”

  “Probably not. My legs are longer now, but somehow they’ve gotten stiffer.”

  “We could probably walk over it today—the water’s frozen solid.”

  “Thank God for that. In the summer that water stinks so you wake up with the taste in your mouth. And these folks refuse to get this stream filled up, but they’ll spend money to keep this banister repaired.”

  “Well, because of the school. I heard two white kids drowned here once.”

  “Willie, they don’t give a damn about them kids. None of their children go to that school now. It’s what I was telling you before—it’s a them-and-us thing—it’s a fence, man. Just another fence. Hey, why don’t you jump it?”

  “You kidding? I’m walking right down Linden Road to your house.”

  �
��What happened? You used to think you were the world’s greatest athlete.”

  “Yeah, I also used to think that you were big enough to break a rubber. But reality sets in after a while, don’t it?”

  Lester laughed. “You’re right about that.”

  It was impossible to see the bottom of Linden Hills from where they were standing on Linden Road. The land didn’t slope down on a smooth incline—it was steep and jagged, so even with the trees bare only the housetops on Second Crescent Drive were visible. The hill seemed to slope for about three hundred feet and then fall into an abyss. They were about to turn left into First Crescent Drive when Willie grabbed Lester’s arm.

  “Hey, listen, there it is again.”

  Lester stopped but he only heard the wind whipping through the naked branches. “Aw, don’t tell me Ruth’s got you spooked. It’s nothing but the wind.”

  “No, I swear, Les. I heard something weird.”

  They waited a moment longer and Lester’s chin began to tremble. “White, the only sound out here is my teeth chattering. Come on inside before I freeze.”

  The Tilson home was the first one just off Linden Road. It was the smallest house on a street of brick ranch houses with iron picket fences. Its two-story wooden frame had been covered with light green aluminum siding, and three brick steps led up to a dark green door. Going inside, Willie noticed that Lester had been right about one thing: his mother loved green. Willow-green print furniture sat on jade carpeting and there were green-and-white Japanese porcelain vases arranged on the tables in the living room. The curtains in the hallway and living room had avocado stripes and fern prints, and with the light coming through them, they gave a whisper-green tint to the white walls. He had expected the dark green Christmas tree, but it was decorated entirely with emerald satin balls that reflected onto the tinsel.

  “Les-ter, is that you?” A twittering voice came from the kitchen followed by mincing footsteps and the appearance of a petite woman. There was something quick and nervous in Mrs. Tilson’s movements that always reminded Willie of a bird. And she did have the milky skin of a canary, but coming through the hall beside the curtains even that shade seemed to have turned green.