by Don Keith
"What's your name?" the black kid called out to Jimmy. The way he said it, it almost seemed like some kind of challenge.
"Jimmy Gill," he answered after a pause, seeing no reason not to be truthful. It was the name Momma had given him, after all. "What's yours?"
Jimmy was only being friendly, politely asking the kid his name right back, but his dark face immediately looked suspicious, as if this was some kind of deep, personal question to which no one had any business knowing the answer. Slowly, carefully, the kid stepped over the bike's crossbar and pushed it up onto the crumbling sidewalk, inching toward Jimmy’s perch on the top step.
The others in his platoon had stopped their playing, backed to the far side of the street and were watching curiously.
When he got to the bottom of the steps, the boy stopped, looked down at the packed dirt, glanced both ways up and down the street, and, finally, looked boldly, directly at Jimmy.
"Detroit Simmons."
Jimmy could not help himself. He laughed out loud at the funny name, the way he had said "DEE-troit." The colored kid looked as if he had been slapped full in the face. He once again dropped his gaze and studied the rotted first step just beyond his bare toes. The others were too far away to know what was so hilarious. They looked at each other sideways.
"Sorry, Dee-troit," Jimmy apologized, but simply saying the name goosed another guffaw from him and he fought to get a straight face. "Where'd you get such a silly name as that? Dee-troit?"
Simmons looked up and grinned. It was like someone had removed a cloud from in front of the sun.
"'Cause that's where they say my daddy ran off to when he heard I was gonna be borned," he answered, as if well practiced in the explanation.
"Well, to tell you the truth," Jimmy reassured, "it's a sight better name than 'Jimmy Fish-gill' anyway."
Detroit Simmons grinned even broader, apparently proud that for once somebody preferred his goofy name over his own.
“Where did you get that name...Fish-gill?”
Jimmy explained it was really just Gill and it was the family name, like Simmons was his. That his mother wanted him to be named Jimmy after his daddy. Detroit listened as if he was actually interested, then pointed to the run-down duplex.
"This your house, Jimmy Gill?"
"Half of it is. At least we rent it from some man. Where do you live at?"
He was wondering why he had not seen Detroit Simmons or his buddies before today. After all, he had spent a lot of time the last few weeks sitting on the top of these front steps, as high above the mud and rain puddles and dirty asphalt as he could get.
"I stay over in Ishkooda, the settlement," he answered, waving a hand generally in a direction Jimmy had not yet strayed. "Half mile or so over that way."
"Any place to fish over there?" Jimmy was craving catfish or crappie, longing for a tug on a line, the sight of a bobbing float.
He studied hard, a finger to a dark cheek, rocking back and forth from one foot to the other as he thought hard.
"Just Village Creek, but mostly you gonna catch bean cans and whiskey bottles out of there. My grandaddy knows of some lakes down in Bessemer but he ain't never had time to carry me. You might catch something in that ditch over yonder behind your house when it rains and washes some of the fish out of the mill ponds," he said, pointing through the duplex to the tangled bushes in the back yard.
Jimmy had not spent much time near that ditch either, a little afraid of the orange cloud that seemed to hover in the sky in that direction. He was also skittish about the constant lightning that reflected off the colorful smoke every night and he did not like the smell of the brackish water that trickled along the bottom of the ditch.
"I'll take you over there sometimes," Simmons offered, friendly, helpful, apparently unafraid of the tinted smoke and chemical odor.
"Okay," Jimmy accepted quickly, gratefully, and then pointed toward Detroit’s bicycle. "I like your wheel." Detroit dropped his dark eyes to the grafted-together bike by his side, then back up at Jimmy. Was this white boy making fun of his most prized possession? "I mean it, Detroit! I ain't never had a bicycle in my whole life!”
"Well, all I do is I go over to the city dump and get the pieces and try to plug 'em all together. I can take several junk ones and make one good bike. Maybe we can put you one together. This one turned out real good except for the handle bars. Something heavy ran over it, I expect. Wanna take a ride on it?"
Jimmy was shocked by the friendly offer, embarrassed that he couldn't take him up on it. He had never straddled a bike and would fall flat for certain. But he stood up anyway, aiming to go give Detroit’s machine a closer look. And maybe give this dark, friendly boy a closer look at the same time.
Just then, like a surprise clap of thunder from a close stroke of lightning, the neighbor’s duplex door flew wide open behind Jimmy and slammed hard back against the wall. The wild-eyed old man who lived there burst through, teeth bared in a vicious snarl, eyes wild as a summer cyclone, waving a double-barreled shotgun in front of him.
The kids in the street scattered and hid. Detroit Simmons stood frozen, eyes like moons. Jimmy Gill hugged the porch support to keep from falling the five feet into the dirt yard.
"Get your ass out of my yard, nigger!" the man screamed, his shrill voice bouncing sharply back off the houses across the street. The echo seemed even more threatening and obscene on its return. The few brave birds in the sycamores along the street stopped singing and fluttered away.
Detroit dropped his bike and danced back a few steps, staring at the shotgun. But then he slowly, deliberately, bravely stepped back to the bicycle, picked it up, showed the crazy man an icy glare of defiance, gave the crooked bike a push and expertly jumped on board. He peddled as fast as he could into the distance without looking back once, his legs pumping like pistons under the cockeyed handlebars.
"Boy, you ever see another nigger on this street, you come get old Hector George. I'll make sure they don't come back over here anymore. We don't put a stop to 'em here, they'll take over this whole town," he spewed. Then he spat into the muddy yard where Detroit Simmons had just stood, spun and stomped back through his door. He slammed it so hard behind him the entire porch shook and a fine dust sifted down from the rafters.
Anger hung in the air like dynamite smoke. Jimmy Gill sat back down in the same spot on the steps but the sun was gone now.
It had just started to rain softly and a cold wind had begun to blow.
Three
It didn't even occur to Jimmy until the next day that he may have seen the last of Detroit Simmons and his friends. He had been sitting on the steps hoping to again hear their happy, carefree laughter when it hit him. No, they would not come back to play on this street. Not after being chased away by the crazy man with the shrill mouth, the wild look in his bloodshot eyes, waving around his double-barreled shotgun.
A long, damp, empty week passed slowly. Nothing to do and nobody to do it with. He listened to the thunder. Watched the rain. Measured the time by the occasional car that splashed its way along Wisteria or the comings and goings of the shows on Grandmama’s television set. He begged for a bluebird to break the boredom, a stroke of lightning to jolt the clock on the kitchen wall into a faster spin.
Finally, Jimmy sucked up his courage and put aside his hesitancy to venture any distance away from the duplex. He wanted to see Detroit Simmons and his friends again, no matter what. Maybe he could learn to ride the colored kid’s bike, let him lead him to a good fishing spot in Bessemer or somewhere. As soon as the next day's regularly scheduled thundershower had rained itself out, he bravely set out to find the "settlement of Ishkooda.”
It was hard for him to believe, but the houses a block or two south of their dismal little duplex were even more ramshackle and decrepit than those on Wisteria Street. The pavement even more potted and ridged, without the luxury of a sidewalk or curb. And the few solemn, elderly people who sat propped up in the shade on their porches seem
ed too tired and downcast to even acknowledge him. They refused to return his friendly waves and merely stared off into space as if looking for something that had gotten away.
A pair of railroad tracks was set high up on a red-dirt bank, crossing over the street on a narrow trestle. As Jimmy walked closer to the underpass, he heard a deep rumbling. Then a short train, tugging only four or five cars behind a small engine, rolled overhead. It was carrying blood-red iron ore northward to be cooked in the blast furnaces at the mill. A few chunks rained off and bounced along on the pavement as it crossed the street. Jimmy waited until the crimson hailstorm was over and hustled through the short cavern before a car came along and caught him in the tight underpass. Before he could change his mind.
On the other side of the track, the houses were much better kept. Not bigger or fancier, but neater. Yards were green. Flowers bloomed so brightly they would rival Mr. Polanski's corner. There were no beer cans in the ditch alongside the street, no kudzu creeping up the power poles. Even the wild honeysuckle was trimmed back, carefully shaped, and bloomed fragrantly in the damp air.
He had walked about half a block without seeing anyone. And then he saw a huge black woman, on her knees, pulling wild onions from a patch of grass in the middle of a neat lawn. She looked up and jumped, startled to see Jimmy Gill standing there looking at her.
"What you doing over here, mister?"
She did not appear friendly at all.
"Looking to find the settlement of Ishkooda, ma’am. Could you kindly direct me?"
With obvious great effort, she slowly rolled over onto her hip on the muddy ground, showing her nylon hosiery rolled halfway up her thick shins. When she got herself comfortable again, Jimmy saw that she was laughing, obviously at him, making a funny cackling noise like a choking hen.
"And what business you got in the settlement of Ishkooda, little mister?"
"I'm trying to find a friend of mine. His name is Dee-troit Simmons. Do you know him?"
That set her to snickering again as if he had somehow turned over her tickle-box. She seemed to shake all over. Jimmy was afraid she was going to lose her breath, collapse backward on the grassy lawn. He was not sure he was strong enough to help up such a massive woman.
"You better get on back to the other side of that high line railroad before your momma comes looking for you to blister your behind," she was finally able to say between giggles.
He backed away as the woman suddenly quit laughing.
“You ain’t thinking Detroit Simmons stole something from ya’ll?”
“Oh! No, ma’am. I just wanted to play with him is all. He said I could ride his bicycle and he was going to show me some fishing holes.”
"Well, mister, let me ask you something. When I see Mr. Detroit Simmons and his pack of rapscallions, who should I say it was that came all the way to Ishkooda looking for them?"
"Jimmy Gill, ma'am."
"All right, 'Jimmy Gill, ma'am'. I'll tell that little ruffian you’re looking for him. Now, scat!"
Jimmy double-timed back down the street, through the underpass, into the humid stillness on the other side, and then cut through an alley back toward Wisteria. He was still stinging a little from the colored woman's shortness, and he was lost in his own thoughts. As he approached the corner, something unsightly and out of place caught his eye.
A new set of angry, muddy tire tracks bisected Mr. Polanski's green lawn and left an ugly gash in the row of lavender-blooming azalea bushes. Somebody had violently uprooted several of the beautiful bushes, apparently while Jimmy wandered off in search of Ishkooda.
There was Mr. Polanski's gray head, popping up above the hedgerow as he worked furiously, down on his hands and knees, trying to salvage what he could from the mess. Mrs. Polanski stood nearby, in the shade of the porch, wringing her hands, afraid this latest desecration would push her husband to a stroke.
He loved his azaleas, nursed them like sick children, talked to them like pets, suffered their loss as much as he might have that of a son or daughter. They bloomed beautifully only a week or so each spring, and now, when they were at their most spectacular, someone had tried to cruelly shut off their glory.
As he got closer, Jimmy could hear the old man muttering. His wife spoke quietly to him, to herself, to God, in whatever throaty language it was that she preferred to use when she was upset.
"What happened, Mr. Polanski?"
"Damn white trash! Damn rednecks!" the old man fumed, a trace of the foreign accent now creeping in to flavor his curses.
"Here, I'll help you," Jimmy offered, falling to his knees in the damp, soft soil next to him. But just then, Grandmama yelled for him from the porch, calling him to supper. “I’ll come back directly and we can get this mess fixed,” he promised.
"Thank you, boy. I appreciate it," Mr. Polanski replied, biting off his rage for the kid’s benefit.
As he trotted away, Jimmy looked back and could again only see the top of the old man’s head above the remaining azalea bushes as he furiously worked on. It was as if he had to get the damage fixed before anyone else saw it. As if it would be a battle lost in the war if it was there any longer.
As Jimmy got closer to the duplex, he heard something else ugly and crude. The shouts and curses of Hector George filled the air like a swarm of angry bees. He scurried up the steps and through his front door before any of the gathering fight, the bumping and knocking, the shattering glass and pained screams spilled out onto the porch.
Then, as he munched his soda crackers and sardines a few minutes later, Jimmy heard the front door of the duplex next door torn open violently with a splintering of wood. There were more curses and the pained squeals of a woman. Then he saw a dark shadow pass hurriedly in front of their window and heard someone stumbling awkwardly down the front steps.
One of the George’s old cars coughed angrily to a start. When he heard the squealing tires, Jimmy ran past Grandmama sitting there, lost, in front of the television, and cautiously stepped out onto the porch. Blue smoke was rolling from the car's tires as Hector George, in his drunken rage, punched more horsepower from the vehicle’s screaming engine. It fish-tailed toward the corner at the end of the street. Then Hector George jerked the car's front wheels to the right, heading straight across Mr. Polanski's neatly clipped zoysia lawn. He followed a path parallel to the latest muddy tire scars.
Once he gunned the car across the sidewalk and over the line of sentry rocks, Hector kicked the accelerator harder and sent mud and grass sprigs flying in his wake like a speed boat’s rooster-tail.
Jesus, no! Jimmy could see exactly where Hector was headed but there was nothing he could do but gasp in horror and watch the scene play out.
Oh, God! He had the car pointed straight for where Mr. Polanski crouched, head down, behind the four-foot-high azalea plants, cursing and digging and pruning, repairing the latest damage.
The old car struck him full force, head-on, the thudding impact not blunted at all by the narrow wall of brilliantly blooming shrubs that he was behind. The collision sent the old man flying crazily, crookedly, ten feet into the air, arms and legs spinning after each other, tumbling upward and over the top of the speeding auto. He landed in a twisted pile directly at the feet of his wife, who looked on in disbelief, first at the body of her husband before her, then at the fleeing car and its angry, drunken driver.
Hector George did not show any sign of being aware that he had hit anything more than a hedgerow, just as he and his twin boys must have done dozens of times before. He never looked back. Never checked the rear-view mirror to see the damage he had done. He only pushed the car harder, careened around the corner beyond the Polanski house on two wheels, punished the engine cruelly as he roared off.
Jimmy could only hold his ears, close his eyes tightly to blot out what was happening, try to erase the image of the poor old man flying through the air like a rag doll tossed aside by an angry child. He shakily moved to sit on the high steps, trying to fight back the tea
rs. He soon heard the ambulance siren approaching from a distance, pulling into the yard, sliding to a stop on the ruined grass.
But when he dared to look, it was clear it was much too late. Mr. Polanski was gone. There was no hurry in the way the attendants lifted the lifeless mass onto the stretcher and slid it into the back of the ambulance. The men’s faces were dark, their voices quiet.
Slowly, Jimmy walked down the steps and along the buckled sidewalk. Carefully, he stepped across the twin set of tire tracks and stood there at the edge of the yard. He watched and listened to what was happening. The sad-eyed policemen tried to talk with Mrs. Polanski, but their frustration with her thick accent and grief caused them to give up. They would come back tomorrow, they told her. They did not notice the kid standing there in the shadows and had no idea anyone had witnessed the tragedy.
Jimmy did not know what to do. Maybe tomorrow, he would come forward and tell them who had done this terrible thing. Or maybe he would just keep quiet to make sure Hector George did not come looking for him with his double-barreled shotgun.
It was getting dark when Jimmy noticed Detroit Simmons standing a few feet away. His eyes were wide as he took in the flashing lights retreating into the dusk.
"What happened here, Jimmy Gill?" he asked in a low voice.
Jimmy, still mostly in shock, stammered and stuttered his way through the story. Detroit listened quietly. Then they walked slowly, sadly, back up the street together and sat side-by-side in the darkness on the edge of the front porch, their feet dangling into the scrubby hedge, and talked.
Detroit told of gruesome events he had witnessed or heard about in the settlement, of shootings, cuttings, head-on collisions, sleeping drunks run over as they slept on railroad tracks. Jimmy listened in awe, letting the tales of gore distract him from what he had just seen. He added his own stories of drownings and hunting accidents, but left out his mother and daddy and how they had met their violent ends. He did not want to talk or think about that.
It was completely dark now, save for the inappropriate smile of a new moon in the western sky. A single dim streetlamp tried to give some light, but it seemed to be losing to the night. Blue, flickering lights in the windows up and down the block marked the houses with television sets.