Ahgottahandleonit

by Donovan Mixon

  “You know, yo’ father and me used to live on a farm down south.”

  “Hey Unk, didju see that thing?” The distracted look in Gentrale’s eye told Tim that his uncle’s mind was somewhere else. He wasn’t thinking about caterpillars. “Ye-yeah, I know—musta been a whole different life, huh?”

  They started to walk again. Gentrale sighed loudly. “Completely different. Sho can’t say it was better. Even though it was considered modern times—shoot it was the 50’s and 60’s. Even with the war goin’ on, the country was thrivin’, yet we were living something poorly. We were damn near slaves,” he said, taking Tim’s arm again as they turned towards the alley.

  “Tsk, come on, Uncle Gentrale! I never heard…” His uncle turned quickly and fixed him with his eyes. His whole body jerked rigid. “Boy, don’tchu be suckin’ yo teeth at me if you plan on keeping ’em a while longer!”

  “I-I’m sorry, I wasn’t tryin’ to say that you were lyin’, but…slavery?”

  “Timmy, you can’t know the whole story, but you should’ve heard plenty by now. Share croppin’—which for a black family back then meant slavery. Or close enough. We hadta give over ninety po-cent of our crop just to be able to stay on the land, have work and a place to live.” His words brought them to a dead stop. Tim, not seeming to notice, stood silently staring at his sneakers. His jaw was working like someone in deep thought. Gentrale said nothing. He watched the boy and let him chew on what he’d said for a moment before jerking his arm.

  “Come on!” he whispered.

  They ducked into the alley that led to the street. The narrow passageway was partially blocked by old toilet fixtures and broken baby furniture. They had to move slowly. When Tim heard his mom calling out to them from the backyard, he held his arm out to his uncle. “Shh…take my hand.”

  “Don’t you worry ’bout me, son. Better you look out fo’ yourself. Psst! Wait, boy! Somebody’s coming out onto the front porch. Quiet.”

  “Ok, ok…now keep your head down, Unk. Let’s go!”

  Crouching behind the tall hedges, they scooted over to the neighbor’s front yard. The sudden fresh spring in Gentrale’s step told Tim that his uncle was going to be fine. He almost laughed each time he’d glanced back at the old codger, whose arched eyebrows, wild elbows and frozen grin were the only indication that he was running. Gentrale was having fun, even if it was true that the more energy he committed to his hustle, the slower he went. At the sight of the next door neighbor, Tim stopped short and stood upright. Gentrale ran right into him and flopped to the ground like a rag doll.

  “Hi, Mrs. Green,” called out Tim as casually as he could, extending a hand to his uncle.

  The neighbor eyed them curiously, over her glasses. “Timmy. Mr. Thornton, you okay?” she asked, watching closely as Gentrale brushed off his pants.

  “Uh, of course. I’m fine, Daisy. How you doin’? We just passin’ through,” Gentrale said as sweetly as he could.

  “Make sure to watch out for my violets over there. You’re gonna trample ‘em if ya not careful.”

  “Will do, Mrs. Green. Have a good day,” said Tim, waving at her as he pulled on his uncle’s sleeve.

  It was four in the afternoon and the leaves on the trees were so still that Tim wondered if bugs could suffer from heat stroke. He also wondered if there would be any police hanging around the Chicken Shack.

  “What are you thinking, son?” asked Gentrale, hooking back onto Tim’s elbow.

  Tim wiped his eyes with the end of his shirt. “You know, I just saw him this morning.”

  “Oh yes. So I heard. How was he?”

  “He was good. Better than I’d seen him in a while.”

  “Hmm…not be drinking, I suppose?”

  “Yeah! I mean no! And there wasn’t no liquor around either. I thought that was strange for an alcoholic.”

  Gentrale jerked and stopped. “He wasn’t no alkee,” he said hoarsely. Water had collected in his eyes.

  Tim pulled his uncle to a dead stop on the sidewalk and turned to look at him. “No? Come on, Uncle Gentrale! If he wasn’t an alcoholic, then why—ugh!”

  “Why what, exactly?” Gentrale said, tugging his nephew’s arm. He could feel a tremble in it. They resumed their walk.

  “S-so, when he was living with us, w-why did he and mom battle it out everyday about his drinking?”

  “They were fighting about a lot of other things besides that, Timmy. Believe me! But please, please don’t get yourself worked up ’bout that old business, boy. Yo’ mama didn’t know how to talk about the deeper stuff. The drinking, humph—was easy to see, easy to point to.” Releasing his grip on his nephew, Gentrale wiped his brow with a handkerchief.

  Tim flicked sweat from his face with his hands. “W-why then were all his friends drunks? Why did he keep such big bottles of vodka around all the time?”

  The insouciant wise-ass laughed hard at this one. “Because—yo’ daddy preferred to drink in company. Ha! Aw my-my goodness, Timmy boy. Those friends of his were terrible, weren’t they? That Baggy though was one funny son-of-a-gun! I’ll give him that!”

  Other than the feeble cackles of Gentrale, the street was quiet. His uncle was right, of course, but Tim resisted laughing. Instead, he worked hard to distract himself by squinting hard to see the hot air rise from a sidewalk grate. This time, when he spoke, it sounded more like whining. “W-well, if he wasn’t no alkee like you say, why then was he usually drunk whenever I went to see him?”

  On that one, Gentrale gave a loud snort and fixed his eyes across the street at a couple skateboarders whizzing by. Sighing, he almost seemed to lose interest. “Oh, I don’t know, Timmy. Can’t say really. But I can say this: he was no alkee, he just liked to drink. That’s all. Had a tolerance for the stuff. Wasn’t no alcoholic.”

  Tim smiled at how sure his uncle sounded.

  A cop car screamed past them down the street. Tim jerked but masked his alarm by nudging his uncle in the ribs. “Hmm, that’s good to know. But this mornin’, he-he was—different. Like he had to tell me a lot of important stuff in a hurry. It was like he knew that he was out of time. Was he like that when y’all was young? I mean, for example, did he seem to know things?”

  For a while, they simply walked arm in arm, saying nothing. Gentrale had gone off deep in thought. Tim nudged him in the ribs.

  “Well, Unk?”

  “Eh-hem. Yes, I was thinking ’bout whatchu asked me. I can r’member back on the farm. Yo’ daddy was always going on ’bout how he couldn’t see no difference in our lives compared to how our folks was describing the olden days, when life for us black folk was really hard. As soon as he got his legs, so to speak, he up and hauled ass out of there. He was one year older than you—eighteen. I remember it ’cause it was July of 1968, three months after they killed Martin Luther King.

  “One night, after that mess in the barn concerning the white landowner and Papa—yo’ granddaddy—I know you heard about it—Victor was talkin’ somethin’ fierce ’bout conditions ’till all nine of us in that two-room shack begged him to shut up. We didn’t beg him exactly. We jumped him, all of us. I even had his arm behind his back. He finally closed his trap. Next mornin’, his cot and him was gone. Humph, ten years my junior and he knew somethin’ I didn’t at the time. That’s fo’ sure! Dunno why I hung around for so long.”

  “Ha! So, it wasn’t real slavery!” exclaimed Tim, clapping his hands.

  Gentrale stopped short again and looked at his nephew from head to toe with pity in his eyes. He was angry. “Is that all you got out of what I just said? Knucklehead!”

  “Ahhh-ha, aw man! Gotchu, Uncle Gentrale. You’re really pissed off!”

  “Watcho mouth, boy! Now…let’s sit down here for a bit. Ahh, oooh, whew…these ol’ bones need a rest. Run over to the store, Timmy, and bring me back a Coke. Here, take this, buy whatever you want.”

  They’d paused at a bus stop. Half of the Plexiglass panels were broken or torn out. The remains of a public
telephone hung dumbly on a street lamp pole. A wire mesh trash receptacle overflowed with debris. A city map decorated with permanent markers outlining sexual images remained visible. Tim worried about leaving the old man alone. The police cruiser parked in front of the Shack worried him too, but Gentrale detested fast food joints, claimed they made his clothes stink. Anyway, it was just a couple of colas and he would only be a minute. He returned in what seemed like seconds smiling victoriously. His uncle’s face lit up as he reached greedily with both hands for the can.

  “Damn, that was quick! Did you beam over there and back, Timmy?” he quipped, taking a long swig.

  “It’s a fast food joint, man! Get it? Dag! Now, what was we talkin’ ’bout?” he asked as he helped Gentrale up from the metal bench and aimed him back towards the house.

  An old black Dodge with its stereo blasting careened up to the curb. Fidel sat at the wheel, chewing on a toothpick. He didn’t look at Tim. Spank called out from the back seat. “Yo, Tim! S’up?”

  It surprised Tim. He looked at his uncle who leaned on his cane and deadpanned him like a pro. Tim wanted to sound friendly. “Aw, man! Spank, what’s up, cuz? Ain’t seen you sin-since the—party.” After that night at Rasheed’s, something inside him had hoped that he wouldn’t see these dudes again.

  “Ye-yeah, cuz, that’s right. Since the fucking—party,” Fidel sneered, never turning his head.

  Gentrale spoke up. “Timmy, we need to get back. You know? In case your mama needs us. Come on, let’s go, son.”

  “This yo’ pops, Tim? For real?” Spank exclaimed from the car window. Then he said to his boys in the car, “Oh man, that dude is dusty!” It seemed the junker would fall apart from their screams.

  That was enough friendly tone for Tim. “That was funny Spank-a-Lank, but y’all about to step in some shit here. That’s my uncle, my father’s brother. His name is Mr. Thornton. So, tread lightly, motherfuckers.”

  “Timmy! We don’t need no trouble here. Let’s go!” Gentrale said, pulling him by the arm. As he turned to go with his uncle, Fidel killed the engine. Suddenly, you could hear the kickball game going on in the street right next to them.

  Spank’s high-pitched laugh mocked Tim in a girlie voice. “Ooh, tread lightly…breaking bad on us, Tim, or should we call you Mr. White?”

  Even Fidel cracked a serpent-like smile for about a half second. “Yo, Tim. I would appreciate it if you see my cousin Chucky, tell him to make a presence. People are looking for him. Maria asked about him yesterday.” Fidel sounded really pissed, but he managed to smile again when he said Maria.

  Tim was worried but as long as the thug had both hands on the wheel, he could handle the tension. Obviously no one had found Chucky yet—he would know if Fidel suspected something. But that Maria crack really fucked with him. He turned and faced them again. “Let me ask y’all so-something. Fidel, Spank—you listening?”

  Spank looked at Fidel as if for some kind of cue. Before they could respond, Tim continued, “Do I look like the Lost & Found to you? Just leave me the fuck alone. Alright?” Tim took Gentrale’s arm and turned towards home. He heard the car start and the boom of the fifteen-inch woofers.

  Fidel yelled over the music, “Yeah, I ain’t forgot that shit you pulled at Rasheed’s. Word on that!” When the car tore off down the street, Tim peeked over his shoulder, relieved to see that they were gone.

  They walked in silence and let the tension of the encounter subside, each wondering what the other would say next. A half block later, Gentrale solved the mystery. “Yep, your old man was no alcoholic—an asshole, maybe, but no alkee! ‘Scuz ma French!” he quipped.

  Tim laughed hard—happy to ignore the elephant in the room. “Hmm…yeah, uh, like what happened, Uncle Gentrale? I mean, between you two? Seems like y’all hadn’t spoken for ages. And Dad never wanted to talk to me about it.”

  “Humph. I don’t blame him,” Gentrale said.

  “Come on, Unk. Did y’all fight? Can’t imagine what could happen so bad ’tween Sheila and me—I mean…Sheila and I!” he said wondering why his uncle looked at him so curiously. “What?”

  “Sheila and me works just fine, Timmy. And I’ll let it slide for now that you pretend to know less than you do. I’ll say this. Let’s hope that nothing so heavy comes up ’tween you two. No matter what, try to remember that she’s your sister, and she deserves your respect. Even if it seems like she doesn’t deserve it, her place in your life should be respected. Without respect, you can break y’all’s relationship, just like you can with anybody else—hmm.”

  “Sounds like you saying that Dad seriously dissed you at one time,” Tim spoke softly. He didn’t want to sound like he was blaming his uncle.

  “You could say that. But worse…he dissed my place, my meaning in his life.” Gentrale practically coughed out the word meaning. Feeling his uncle’s arm shake as he spoke, Tim didn’t know what to say. He let the slow pat and scrape of their shoes on the pavement accompany their thoughts.

  A bus with a single passenger came out of nowhere and sped by like an ambulance. They walked past an empty playground. The air was still.

  “What you mean by that?” Tim asked.

  “What?”

  “Your place in his life—your meaning?”

  Gentrale let go another long sigh. He took a deep breath before speaking. “We are all capable of evil, son. Don’t be fooled. All of us! But almost always the opportunity to own up to our mistakes comes around. With your kin especially, you should take advantage when it does, to do and say the right thing, take your part without any double talk. Your family’ll forgive you. Because when you forgive a family member, more than with people unrelated, you be forgiving yourself for your own misdeeds. Now, that’s all I have to say on the matter. The man isn’t even in the ground yet. God bless him.” He shook his head slowly.

  “Hmm. My teacher Mr. Jones was going on and on ’bout respect and stuff on the last day of school. Was saying that we can’t be going ’round saying and doing stuff as if what we say or do don’t matter. We have to think about the conse, conse…”

  “Consequences,” Gentrale said, without looking up.

  “Yeah, the consequences. Like, what could happen if I did such and such? Or how somebody would feel about it? Saying you got to think about other people. He was pretty serious. Sounded like he was talking about plain old selfishness to me. Was what happened something like that?”

  “Yeah, it was something like that and it broke our family. ’Cause, unfortunately, your daddy couldn’t or wouldn’t come clean with what he did after it was all out in the open. Absolutely didn’t show no remorse. Deep down, I believe that he was sorry for abandoning us like he did, but was too weak to face it. It was terrible and well…I personally was dying for him to fess up so that I could get on with respecting him again. He didn’t know it, Timmy—he was already forgiven, he only had to ask for it. He didn’t. Now I can’t say no more. Except that it sounds to me that you got yourself a good man for a teacher! Stay close to him. I’d say.”

  “Hmm…yeah, I guess so—too bad about y’all and all. Hey look, I can’t handle going back in the house now. Tell Mom I went to see Les. She’ll understand,” Tim said, having already skipped away a couple yards. He didn’t see the police cruiser that silently passed behind him.

  Gentrale saw it though. Through a forced smile he called back to his nephew, “I’m sure she will. Here comes the bus. Hey! Where you going? You walking?”

  Hopping over a hydrant, Tim yelled back, “Yeah man…see you.”

  He never heard his uncle’s response. “See you later, Timmy. Love you, boy.”

  SOME MEMORIES SUCK

  At barely five o’clock, the air was sweltering and Ol’ Sol hadn’t shown any signs of retiring. Tim smiled at the kids on their afternoon play shift and thought that for a shadow, the summer meant a lot of overtime. As he remembered chasing down his own shadow on broken sidewalks, his smile became a giggle, his walk a jog. The dark boy shap
e on the pavement matched him stride for stride—until the wombat face of Chucky loomed into mind.

  Maybe the dude wasn’t dead, had played possum ’till he’d left, like he did when Maurice and them kicked his ass. The delusion made him sick, unable to think or see for the water welling up in his eyes. But deeply he knew that those tears were really for his pitiful father who had fucked up and died on him just that morning. The stark cold reality was that there wasn’t room inside him for two dead bodies at the moment.

  As the darkness soothed him, the memory of the one and only summer his mom let him go on painting jobs with his dad seeped into his mind. He was twelve years old and about to start middle school.

  Tim! Take out four gallons of flat white from the trunk and bring ‘em over to the scaffold.

  Is this them, Dad?

  Yeah, that’s them. What you thinkin’ about, boy?

  Was thinking how cool it would be to have my own painting business like you. I mean, even you say I gotta steady hand.

  Come over here. Hold out yo’ hands—go on, let me see them. That’s right.

  What are you doing, Dad?

  Eh…turn them over.

  Daaaaaad!

  Turn them over like I said—come on.

  Let go my hands. Stop!

  Now ain’t that a co-accident!

  A wha…?

  You ’bout got the same markings on yo’ hands as me!

  Oh, you mean coincidence!

  Those ain’t working hands, Tim! You don’t want to do this, boy…and get off that scaffold! Yo’ mama’ll kill me twice if I let you go up on that thing. Make sure to stay in school, son.

  It was an exceptional summer—before he’d been kept back the first time, before his dad started working for the bus company and the arguments, before his dad moved out and started drinking heavily (or was it the other way around?), long before his mom got into trouble with the law, before his dad and uncle really stopped talking. That summer was special, because the sad simple fact was that, afterwards, there were no other such summers.