Lester eyed his extended hand, letting his bottom lip tremble slightly for effect. “You’re really saying you’re sorry?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean—really sorry. Not just half-assed sorry, or white folks’ sorry. But deep down in your black balls sorry. The way someone should be who’s been biting off his best friend’s head every time he’s opened his mouth this morning—that kind of sorry?”
Willie just stared at him, his lips pushed to the side.
“’Cause if that’s the kind of sorry it is,” Lester said and smiled, “if that’s really and truly the kind of sorry it is, then I just might consider—”
“Aw, go find a high roof and a slippery ledge.” Willie laughed and Lester joined him.
“But seriously, White, I’ve been wondering what’s been eating you this morning. I thought you were pissed off because me and my big mouth got us into all this in the first place.”
“Naw, it’s got nothing to do with you. I just …” Willie sucked his teeth. “I just don’t sleep good at night anymore.”
“Man, you should be sleeping like a stone as hard as we’ve worked this week. I’m gone before my head hits the pillow.”
“Me, too. But then I get all these crazy dreams and when I wake up, I can’t get back to sleep. I must have been up since three o’clock this morning.”
“Yeah? Those must be some kind of dreams.”
“No, a lot of stupid crap. Like last night. I went into this store downtown and wanted to buy my mother one of those new Disc cameras for Christmas, and the woman behind the counter wouldn’t sell it to me. And so I started shaking her but she kept yelling, ‘I can’t sell it to you.’”
As Willie talked, he wondered why he couldn’t bring himself to tell Lester the real truth about that dream. The saleswoman wasn’t just shouting, she was terrified when he walked into that store and had kept screaming over and over, “You can’t use my camera because you have no face,” And there was no way he was going back to sleep after that. Because he knew that when she struggled free and reached for the mirror that she’d tried to get before he grabbed her, it would be true.
“And that kept you up? It doesn’t sound that scary to me.”
“I didn’t say the dreams scared me, Les,” Willie snapped. “I’m not a kid. I just said that when I wake up I have trouble sleeping again, so I’m tired in the morning.”
“Tired and evil.” Lester winked.
“Yeah. Especially when I realize I’ll be stuck with you all day,” Willie said, as he went back to get his shovel. A wad of wet snow hit him in the collar and he spun around.
“See, no hands.” Lester held up his palms and grinned.
“I’ll no hands you, turkey.” He scooped up a large mound while Lester put his hands in front of his face and began to dance.
“You get one throw to square it up—just one.”
“I need Spoon and the Brown Bombers right now.” Willie made an exaggerated attempt to round off the ball and aim. “They wouldn’t miss, and those niggers were deadly. They loaded their ammunition with boulders and aimed right between the eyes.”
“They caught me once, too.” Lester pointed to his forehead.
“It shows.”
Willie’s smile disappeared, and he dropped the snowball when he saw Luther Nedeed coming toward them. He walked slowly around the two-foot drifts, his narrow English boots leaving triangular prints along the side of the house. Wherever he had appeared from, they knew he’d been outside for quite a while because there was a layer of snowflakes on the shoulders of his worsted overcoat.
“It seems that this is my week for running into you gentlemen.” He addressed them both but looked directly at Willie, who picked up his shovel and held the handle in front of his chest.
“Looks that way,” Lester said, “but you sorta surprised us this time since there’s no funeral going on.”
“I think you tend to forget that I have interests in this community beyond that, Mr. Tilson. If everyone died, who would occupy these homes?” Luther frowned slightly. “Yes, it’s important that people decide to live. But then you can’t stop them from doing the other either, can you?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Nedeed,” Lester said. “I never thought of folks having a choice about that.”
“Sometimes they do.”
Willie wanted to start working again, anything to get that guy’s eyes off him. Why did he keep staring at him when Lester was the one talking?
“Well, I guess you should know.” Lester kicked at his shovel. “It is your business after all.” He was growing visibly uncomfortable. “Well, we’ll see you.”
“Yes, tomorrow night, isn’t it?”
Willie cringed.
“Well, uh, no, Mr. Nedeed,” Lester said. “I don’t think we’ll be able to make it—Christmas Eve and all that.”
“That’s a pity,” Luther said, and it seemed as if he meant it. “I know how hard you’ve been working this week, and why you’ve been doing it. I didn’t plan to take up much of your time and I was willing to match every dollar that you’ve earned so far.”
“Every dollar?”
“That shouldn’t surprise you, Mr. Tilson. My family has always believed that industry should be rewarded.”
Lester looked at Willie. “Why, we’ve already made almost two hundred and fifty dollars each this week.”
“Then I would match it for each of you.”
“One night’s work?”
“A little less than two hours’ work. I imagine that’s the best offer you’ve gotten this week.”
“God, I’ll say. Why, sure we’ll—”
“Money isn’t everything, Mr. Nedeed.” Willie found his voice and forced himself to look directly into Luther’s face. His hands gripped the shovel as if he expected the earth to open up or lightning to strike. He didn’t know why, since it was only a man—a short, well-dressed man who was standing there waiting patiently for his next sentence. But staring into those flat brown eyes, Willie felt that, somehow, those following words would be extremely important. “And I think that if you were in my place,” Willie continued slowly, “your next question would be, exactly what do you want us for?”
It seemed to take a slow age for Luther’s eyes to move over Willie’s body. No, it was more like moving through his body, well beneath the tissues that covered his internal organs.
“I see that I’ve assessed you correctly, Mr. Mason. And that gives me great pleasure, since I pride myself on being a good judge of men.” And then he smiled, an unhurried full curve of the lips that took another age to complete. “I want you to help me trim my Christmas tree.”
“That’s it? Just trim a tree?” Willie asked.
“That’s all. You see, my family is away for the holidays and, unavoidably, I’ll have to spend Christmas alone. Don’t think I’m buying your company, it’s just that old habits die hard, and it’s been a tradition in my home to adorn our tree on Christmas Eve. The ornaments are quite unusual, they’ve been used by us for generations. And it’s a beautiful sight when it’s completed—but like all beauty, it’s much more meaningful when it’s shared, wouldn’t you agree?”
Willie only nodded.
“Fine. Then I’ll see you tomorrow night at nine o’clock.” He turned and walked away as quietly as he’d come.
Lester blew out his breath. “Christ, what a creep show. Just when you think you’ve got that guy figured out, he comes up with surprises. Imagine Nedeed getting all choked up over a tree.”
For a moment Willie didn’t answer. He knew what it would take, Willie thought, he knew exactly what it would take to get what he wanted from each of them. He was in awe of the man. Sure, they could go there and decorate his tree, ooh and aah, then collect all that money and split. But for Nedeed there was much more to it than that. Nedeed had told them what he wanted without ever really telling them why.
“It’s not about his stupid tree,” Willie finally said.
“Hey lo
ok, don’t start that again. You said you would go if you knew what we were going for, and now you do. Willie, I’m begging you, don’t mess this up. A hundred and twenty-five bucks an hour.”
“No, I’m going.” Willie frowned. “I’m just saying I know it’s more than just some tree.”
“Yeah, right.” Lester shook his head. “You forgot to ask him exactly what we’re gonna hang on the tree—maybe shrunken heads. And then we’d have to find out exactly whose heads.”
“Well, that leaves yours out ’cause he said the thing’s really pretty when it’s done.”
Lester bent to pack a snowball and Willie picked up his shovel like a baseball bat. “Throw it on your life.”
“Come on,” Lester said as he brushed off his hands, “let’s stop jacking around so we can get out of here.”
They worked steadily for the next half hour, clearing the left side of the house and the front walkway. They had just started up the right side, moving toward the back again, when they heard a woman’s voice calling, “Laurel.” It was much softer than the other sounds of life around them. It blended with the scraping of their shovels, the clinking of tire chains on a car driving slowly up Tupelo Drive, the distant whir of a snow-blower on the next street.
“Laurel.”
Now they could tell it was coming from the rear of the house. The woman’s voice had increased only slightly in volume, registering the image of someone being summoned to take a forgotten package or a set of keys. At first Willie thought that the footprints leading from the back patio to the street belonged to that person. But they would have seen her pass long before, and no one would wait until now to call. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting the person to emerge through the front door, and then he could tell her that someone back there wanted her. But the door remained closed and the street vacant as the woman called again, a bit louder and insistent—“Laurel.”
Willie saw his own question reflected in Lester’s face. Why was the voice in the rear of the house? There was no passage back there. No one could walk through those eight-foot hedges.
“Law-rail,” it sounded to their ear, “Law-rail.”
They frowned at each other and took their shovels with a silent accord and returned up the path they had just cleared, moving toward the patio and the long-drawn call. It now held an edge of impatience that might be used to summon disobedient children. Looking up, they saw the old woman they had met in the house. She was leaning over the windowsill, the printed housedress open at the throat, and snow flurries blowing into her face. “Law-rail.” Her impatience now turning into mild anger at being ignored as she shifted her numb hands on the ledge, wisps of gray hair collecting snowflakes like soft lint. It could have been a child with her mittens off, books dragging, and boots filled with snow. It could have been a bowl of soup growing cold, or a sandwich going stale. They followed the direction of the woman’s voice and saw that it was a tall, slender body in a silver bathing suit crushed into the bottom of the empty pool—“Laurel”—but it remained the cry of an old woman, calling a little girl home.
“I heard you the first time, Grandma.” The child ran into the house, her dress and socks splattered with muddy water.
“So why didn’t you answer the first time, miss? A hard head makes a soft behind.”
Roberta Johnson closed the screen but hesitated before shutting the peeling wooden door. The wind was sending damp gravel spinning down the Georgia dirt road, and the tops of the sycamores and pecan trees were already bending over. It was going to be a blowing rain, no doubt about it. But it might not reach past the porch, and she would welcome the breeze.
“You still standing there in them wet clothes? The last thing I need is a case of pneumonia on my hands.”
She got a towel and sat the child on a kitchen chair, kneeling to remove the damp shoes.
“You’re determined to be a trial today.” The towel dabbed gently at the feet and legs dangling from the chair. “Determined to wear me out—as if this heat isn’t doing a good enough job as it is. You think I got nothing better to do than chase up and down these roads after you? Well, I’ll tell you, miss, I got a whole lot of things more than you on my mind.” She spied a tiny scratch just above the calf and bent to examine it closely, satisfied it was the same one she’d seen yesterday. “Heartaches. Children ain’t nothing but a mess of heartaches. And ain’t this red mud?” She frowned at the towel and then picked up the discarded socks. “You been in that ditch! Laurel, I have told you and told you more times than you—”
“I know”—Laurel nodded, her thick braids swinging over each shoulder—“more times than I have fingers and toes. And guess what, Grandma? I know how many times that is—it’s twenty. I can count up to twenty now.” Her full, round eyes were triumphant and only a shade less proud than the ones she smiled into.
“Well, ain’t you something,” Roberta said as she took in the coffee skin and thick, bushy brows. “Hardly five and doing that.” She might be the spitting image of her poor mama, but she always knew the child would take her brains from their side of the family.
She stood Laurel on the chair to pull off her dress. “But I’m warning you, miss—stay out that ditch or you won’t live to count past much more than that. All I need is a drowned child to show your daddy when the summer’s over. Yes, Lord, that’s all I need.”
“Oh, I can’t drown, Grandma.”
“You’ll drown fast as the next one, miss.”
Not that your father’s new girlfriend would mourn much, Roberta thought. She had never seen a clutchier, more mean-spirited woman. And her son couldn’t see through it. He actually thought there was something behind all that head-patting and cheek-pecking that barracuda rained on Laurel when they brought her down in the summer. Why, the only sincere thing that woman ever did was wave good-bye to the child through the window of that car: just like his daddy, God rest his soul, soft in the head and loose in the pocket when it came to a pretty face.
“But Daddy told me I can’t drown.”
“Now, why you making up tales on your daddy? I know he never told you any such foolishness.”
“Uh huh.” Laurel’s face was serious. “He told me I was his brown sugar baby. And sugar don’t drown, Grandma, it melts in the water and makes it sweet.”
Roberta laughed in spite of herself. “Well, I’ll tell you what. I don’t want all this brown sugar melting away in a nasty old ditch, ’cause then I couldn’t do this.” And she gave her a hug.
Laurel’s small arms wrapped around the woman’s neck, and she whispered in her ear, “Oh, but, Grandma, you should hear what pretty music the water makes.”
Roberta released the child slowly, stared into her face for a moment, and set her firmly on the ground.
“It’s time for your nap.”
Then she sat alone in the quiet house, listening to the rain drum on the tin roof. When it finally stopped, she put on a pair of her husband’s old overalls and fishing boots, and dragging a pick and shovel to the road, she began to fill up the ditch. Since the ground was soft and she worked steadily, Laurel was still asleep when she came back into the house.
Music and water. Laurel brought both in abundance to that five-room cottage each summer. There was a constant chorus of glasses breaking mezzo-soprano, chairs scraping baritone, doors slamming in measured time to the shrill notes of her laughter mixing with those of the neighborhood children. The only silence came from dripping bathing suits and towels thrown over the shower rod and back-porch railing. When Roberta had realized that it was impossible to keep Laurel away from the water, she made sure that she learned to swim. Standing by the edge of the sandy pond with her arms folded, she had watched five summers ago as a neighbor’s boy taught Laurel to float. He had a difficult job because the eight-year-old kept struggling against his hands. She didn’t want him holding her up, she wanted to be free. Now Roberta shook her head and cursed that day as she maneuvered around the pools of water left by the dripping clothes. No one neede
d this many bathing suits. Whoever heard of such nonsense: freshwater suits for the pond, and saltwater suits for the lake. And when you multiplied that by three times a day, it added up to a whole lot of aggravation. And she knew Laurel was lying about not going out to the far end of that lake, ’cause she was hardheaded.
Once Roberta had walked those three miles behind Laurel’s bicycle tracks and stood in the lake’s high weeds among the maidenhair fern and sea roses, watching her slender arms cut through the glassy surface, well past her friends, until she could have been some sort of silver fish way out on the waves that Roberta, arms crossed, willed to hold her up. She knew that if they didn’t and Laurel went under, no power on earth could have kept her on that shore, and she didn’t swim a lick. She waited and argued with the girl all the way home, contented now that there was no need to worry. But she still asked the same question each time her long-limbed granddaughter bounded through the door.
“You been out to the deep end of that lake?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Liar!”
Laurel laughed and sat spread-legged at the kitchen table.
“Get your wet bottom off my chairs, miss. It ain’t enough I hardly got one dry spot in this house already? Go change into something.”
“It’s too hot.” Laurel folded her towel over the chair seat.
Roberta stopped chopping her turnip greens and went to the refrigerator. “The Morgan boy came by looking for you today. Seemed mighty disappointed that you weren’t around.”
“Aw, who cares about him? I don’t even like boys.”
“Yeah, and a kitten don’t like cream.” She set the glass of lemonade on the table and went back to the sink. “But it does my heart good to hear you say that, ’cause it’s just what I told him.”
“Oh God, what did you say, Grandma?”
“Just about what you just got through expressing.”
“No, I mean what exactly did you say?”
Roberta never turned around. “For somebody who don’t give two hoots about a somebody else, you sure seem awful interested in what went on this afternoon.”
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