The Darkest Child Page 17

  Jeff placed a hand on my shoulder as the last car passed.“Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I answered. Mattie walked away from me.

  The silence in the yard became a cacophony as adolescent rage replaced grief, as everyone began to speculate about who had lynched Junior. I walked to the side of the building with Jeff, and began firing questions at him.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked.“Why are you asking so many questions?”

  “Because I don’t know much about you.”

  “Yeah, but slow down, Tangy.You don’t have to make it a quiz. We have plenty of time to get to know each other.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “and maybe not.Maybe Junior thought he had plenty of time.”

  “Is that what this is all about?” Jeff asked.“Do you think you’re going to leave school today and drop dead?”

  “It could happen,” I answered. “I could be walking home and get hit by a car, or a dog with rabies could bite me.”

  “In that case, I’ll walk with you.We can both get rabies and go mad together.”

  “It’s not funny,” I said. I was walking away from him when the bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch recess.

  After school, Archie Preston caught up to me before I left the building.Archie was a burly, red man—totally and completely. His hair and face were red, and he had freckles covering his face. It was hard for me to imagine him being Harvey’s father.

  “You need to get your brother’s bike from the back,” he said. “Shouldn’t leave it there all night.”

  “I can’t ride a bike,” I said.

  “I can.” I turned to see Jeff standing there.

  I refused his offer, and pushed the bike all the way from Plymouth, through Stump Town, and on home. It was awkward, but wiser for me to push than have my mother see me with a boy. I managed to get home, then I parked the bike behind the house and went inside. I could hear Wallace talking.

  “They asked me who to call, Mama,” he explained.“We don’t have no telephone. I couldn’t call Mr. Frank or Miss Pearl ’cause they was at work. I didn’t know who to call.That’s when I thought about the midwife. Since she’s something like a doctor, I thought maybe she could help my foot.That’s why I called her.”

  “Don’t you ever do it again,” Mama scolded, but her voice was soft, and she touched his head when she spoke.“You don’t know them people like I do, and I done tol’ you before to stay away from ’em.”

  “I know, Mama, ”Wallace said. “If there’d been somebody else, I wouldna called ’em.That ol’ woman scares me anyhow.”

  He glanced at me, and I saw in his eyes that tangled web of deception woven out of necessity. I folded my arms across my chest and stared at him until he dropped his gaze. He was lying, and he was getting away with it.

  Mama kissed him lightly before leaving him at the table with his foot propped on a milk crate.

  “I brought your bike home,” I said.“How’s your foot?”

  “It hurts.What you think?”

  “You’re lying, Wallace.”

  “It hurts,” he repeated. “It’s my foot. I oughta know.”

  “Not about the foot.You’re lying about the midwife.”

  “Where’d Mama go?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder toward the door.

  “Front porch, I think.”

  “Go see, Tan. Make sure.”

  In the front room, Martha Jean was sitting on the floor reading a book, and our younger sisters were napping. I entered the hallway, then doubled back.“Mama where?” I signed to Martha Jean. I did not want to be accused of spying again, which is exactly what I was doing.

  Martha Jean pointed toward the front door.

  “Front porch,” I said, returning to the kitchen.

  “Good, ”Wallace said.“Help me to the back. I wanna see my bike.”

  He removed his foot from the crate and pulled himself up by bracing his arms against the tabletop. I allowed him to use me as a crutch as we wobbled along toward the back porch. He sat on the top step, and I sat on the edge of the porch with my legs dangling over the side.

  “Did you ride it?”Wallace asked.

  “You know I can’t ride a bike,” I answered. I looked at the bike, then at Wallace’s bandaged foot. I saw on his other foot the dirty, tattered tennis shoe that he had been wearing since last September. There were two large holes at the bottom, and cardboard had been tucked inside. “Wallace, let me ask you something.Why did you go out and steal a bicycle?”

  “’Cause,” he answered.

  “You stole it from some white boy. What if he had seen you? What if he sees you riding it around? Aren’t you afraid?”

  Wallace shook his head.“Naw. Can’t nobody prove I stole it.”

  “They don’t have to prove it.They can shoot you, or lynch you if they want to. Look what they did to Junior, and he hadn’t stolen anything.”

  “You don’t know what Junior did, ”Wallace replied.“Maybe he stole a horse, or a car, or somebody’s money.You don’t know. But ain’t nobody gon’ shoot me for taking some ol’ bike.”

  “All I’m saying, Wallace, is if you were going to steal something, why didn’t you take a pair of shoes? That’s something you need.”

  “Aw, shoot, Tan,” he whined, “you take the fun outta everything. It’s almost summer. I don’t need no shoes for summer.”

  “You don’t need shoes at all,” I said. “All you need is one shoe. One shoe, Wallace.You can’t get anything on your right foot.You’re being punished for stealing. God saw you take that bike, and He’s punishing you so you can’t ride it. Now you can’t run, or walk, or ride that ol’ stupid bike.”

  For a moment it seemed as though Wallace was going to cry, but then he said, “Tan, I didn’t steal it. I had to tell Mama that. If she knew where I really got it, she’d try to kill me.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “From the midwife.”

  “I thought you were afraid of the midwife,” I said.

  “I was at first, but she ain’t all mean like Mama make out. Her husband ain’t, either.Tan, I had to see what was scaring Mama so bad. I went over on Selman Street that day after Mama went to the hospital to have Judy. Didn’t look like nothing was wrong wit’ the house, but I couldn’t be sure, and I was scared to get too close. I kept going back every day, looking. One day that ol’woman saw me, and called me. I went to see what she wanted. She remembered who I was and knew everything ’bout me, like she was a witch or something. I started talking to her, and I just wadn’t scared no mo’.”

  I swung my legs up onto the porch, drew my knees up to my chest, and watched Wallace closely as he spoke.

  “You shouldn’t sit like that,” he admonished.“It ain’t ladylike.”

  “Shut up,” I said.“How can you worry about modesty? Mama’s gonna kill you when she finds out about the midwife.”

  He flipped a hand nonchalantly, as if to say, I’ve considered that. “She’ll have to catch me first. Mama can’t catch me.”

  I laughed. I dropped my knees and rocked my legs against the porch as I pointed at his foot. “Wallace, a snail could catch you. How are you gonna run with all of that stuff on your foot?”

  He stretched a hand down and tugged at the bandages. “If she comes after me, I’ll pull this stuff off and run so fast it’ll make yo’ head spin.”

  He waited until I had my laughter under control, then asked if I would help him back inside. He draped an arm across my shoulder, and as we approached the door, he reached up and gave my ponytail a timid yank.

  “I want you to talk to Miss Zadie,” he said.“You’ll see, Tan, she ain’t so bad. She gave me that bike for my birthday. I didn’t even have to tell her it was my birthday. She just knew. Nobody else remembered, except Miss Pearl.”

  I planted a wet kiss on his cheek, then supported his weight as he awkwardly wiped it away. “Happy birthday, Wallace,” I said. “I hope you enjoy your bike.”

  twenty -
four

  Men with trucks began to arrive three weeks before Plymouth School was to close its doors for the summer.Wallace was still home nursing his injured foot, and missed the noise of trees going down, the smell of deep earth coming up, the ground-breaking for our new school. It was an exciting time for everybody, but even more so for me. Jeff Stallings had asked me to the prom.

  Having rehearsed what I would tell my mother, I entered the house that Thursday afternoon only to find the place deserted. I dropped my books in the front room and went out to the kitchen. Through the window I could see Wallace, Laura, and Edna.Wallace had wrapped his foot in a thin strip of checkered cloth, knotted at the toes. He had the front wheel of his bike propped on the bottom step with Laura and Edna holding it steady while he practiced pedaling.

  “Where’s Martha Jean?” I called from the window.

  “Who knows?”Wallace called back. “Somebody came in a car and got Mama.Two minutes later, Martha Jean was walking up the road wit’ Judy. Nobody said nothing to me.They just left me here wit’ these two. I ain’t staying home tomorrow.”

  Turning from the window, I picked up my books, and went to sit on the front steps. It was quiet, an ideal time for studying, but I found myself studying the world around me instead of the books on my lap.

  Mama had not purchased seeds to plant a garden in the yard as she had said she would, and I did not think anything would have grown anyway.The field would have made a larger garden, but who knew what might grow there, or who it belonged to? It was a place where towering weeds seemed to grow and die in the same breath.

  My gaze shifted from the field to the road. I saw Tarabelle turn at the bend and stride briskly toward the house.Tucked under her arm was a bag of something that I assumed Mrs. Munford had given her. She mounted the steps, paused at the door, and removed several items from the bag before dropping a garment on top of my open book.

  “Miss Arlisa’s expecting,” she said before entering the house, and I could not tell from her expression whether that was good news or bad.

  I inspected the garment she had given me. It was a straight-cut, long-sleeved, brown gabardine dress with a pink vest. It would need some alterations, but I thought it would make a nice Sunday dress, and I needed one.

  A car stopped in front of our house and my mother stepped out. “Y’all come back in ’bout a hour,” she said.“We’ll be ready.” She glanced up and saw me sitting on the step. “Tarabelle home yet?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Today she was the beautiful, happy mother whom I feared so very much. Her hair was loose and flowing. She wore a yellow dress with a full skirt. Her legs were bare, and on her feet were a pair of flat, white shoes that I had never seen before. She came up the steps, lightly brushed my cheek, and smiled down at me.

  “That was Crow,” she said, as though I should know who Crow was. “He done come back from New York. Got a pocket full of money. I’m gon’ get some of that money for you, baby. Don’t you worry ’bout a thing.”

  She entered the house and immediately began to shout orders at Tarabelle, excitedly. “Get yo’self together, girl. Put on the best dress you got, and tell the dummy to fetch me some bathwater.”

  I placed my new dress on top of my books and rose to prepare my mother’s bath, formulating a lie to tell in Martha Jean’s defense if it should become necessary. I carried the tub into Mama’s room and found her sitting on the bed checking her stockings for runs. “I ain’t got a decent pair of stockings,” she said. “I’ll buy me two pair tomorrow. I bet Crow would buy me fifty pair if I ask him.”

  She reminded me of a spoiled child, not knowing whether to throw a tantrum because of the stockings or jump for joy because of this Crow. I waited until it seemed that joy was winning out, then I spoke.“Your water is warming, Mama,” I said.“Do you want me to help you check your stockings?”

  She passed half the bundle over to me, and I took a seat beside her on the bed. I stretched a stocking, stuck my arm inside, and turned it to check for snags. Mama tapped a foot against the floor as she concentrated on her task. She was in a good mood—a really good mood.

  “Mama, Jeff Stallings invited me to the prom,” I said quickly. “Can I go?”

  “Jeff Stallings? Ain’t that John Henry Stallings’ boy? Why he ask you?”

  I shrugged.“He just did.”

  “What you doing, Tangy Mae, the reason that boy ask you? Them people got money.They don’t even half speak to people like you.”

  “He thinks I’m pretty, Mama.”

  “Nah. That boy ain’t said nothing like that. Is he blind?” She removed a stocking from her outstretched arm.“Here’s a good one. Don’t mix it back wit’ the others.”

  I took the stocking, placed it on her pillow, and waited.

  “That boy up to something,” she said after a moment of silence. “I don’t know what it is, but he up to something. He’ll probably be driving that nice car they got.And you mean to tell me he gon’ come out here and pick up some skinny, little black girl when he can take anybody he wants? Why ain’t he taking one of them Brandon girls?”

  “He asked me, Mama.”

  “Well, if he asked you, then you go.You go and have a good time. And you make sho’ that boy bring you home when the dancing over. Don’t play ’round wit’ him, Tangy Mae.You ain’t the kinda girl he gon’ have much time for later. Boys’ll play ’round wit’ girls like you, but they’ll marry one of them Brandon girls.You mark my word.”

  She got down on her knees, reached beneath the bed, and withdrew a box. From it, she pulled three white brassieres, and placed them side by side on the mattress.

  “Here,” she said. “If you going out wit’ John Henry Stallings’ boy, I want you to look decent.Take whichever one you want.”

  I studied the brassieres, and could see no difference in color, shape, or size.They were all white, cotton, and too small for me. I chose the one from the middle.

  “Thank you,” I said, and was moved nearly to tears. I pressed the brassiere to my nose and sniffed the faint scent of lilac.

  Mama watched me. She stood up, held my head between her palms, and kissed my hair.“Tangy, baby,” she said tenderly, “it’s just a ol’ brassiere.Ain’t nothing but a ol’ brassiere.Don’t cry ’bout it, baby.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, as the tears spilled from my eyes.

  I left the room, and returned shortly with her bathwater. I poured the water into the tub while she hummed a tune and laid her clothes out on the bed.

  Time seemed to stand still. I kept waiting for Mama to detect Martha Jean’s absence, but she never did. When the car returned, she rushed Tarabelle out and followed behind her, glowing with happiness.

  I was already awake when Tarabelle tapped the back of my head with the toe of her shoe.

  “Stop,” I mumbled irritably.

  “Well, get up then,” she said.“Mama want you to come outside.

  There’s a big, black ape out there wanna have a look at you.”

  I crawled up from the floor and stumbled about in moonlight, looking for something to put on.

  “Here, ”Tarabelle said, then slipped out of her dress and gave it to me.

  Outside, Mama was leaning against a car, talking to someone who was seated inside. I walked slowly down the embankment to the road wondering what was so important that she needed to drag me out of the house at this hour.

  “Here she is, Crow,” Mama said as I approached the car.“Come stand right here, Tangy Mae.” She positioned me in front of the car where I was illuminated by the glare of headlights.

  A man stepped from the car. He was as dark as midnight, with large, white teeth that chewed on a matchstick. He was tall—very tall, and muscular.He wore a light brown suit and a brown fedora.

  “Damn, Rozelle,” he said.“We got us a queen here. A sho’ nuff queen.”

  “You like her, Crow?” Mama asked, beaming with pride.

  “If I hadda knowed we could do this,” he sa
id, “we coulda stayed together and made a dozen little Crow queens.” He stepped closer, towering over me, and brought a hand down to the top of my head.“Lord, if she ain’t got my mama’s hair.”

  “I told you so,” Mama said. “Didn’t I tell you?” She’d had too much to drink. She slurred her words, and rocked unsteadily on the dirt road.

  “Look here, Rozelle,” Crow said, reaching into his pocket and extracting a billfold, “you go on in the house now. I wanna talk to this gal.We got sixteen years to catch up on.”

  “Tangy Mae ain’t sixteen, yet,” Mama said, accepting the bills that Crow offered her.“Don’t you keep her out here too long.”

  “I know she ain’t sixteen,” Crow responded, staring at me. “We gon’ catch up on time ’fo’ she got here. I just might tell her a little something ’bout you. How you like that?”

  He winked, and Mama tried to wink back, but failed to manage more than a dull blink of both eyes. She stumbled up the embankment, and Crow watched until she was safely on the porch, then he turned his attention back to me and walked me around to a door of the car.As he opened the door for me, Mama yelled down from the porch, “You coming back tomorrow, Crow?”

  “Not tomorrow,” he answered.“I gotta run up to Knoxville, see my mama. Maybe Sat’day, Rozelle.Maybe I’ll see you Sat’day.”

  There was a man asleep on the back seat of the car. He snored in the ragged rhythm of drunkenness, and I tried to see who he was, but could not because of the way his arm was draped over his face.

  “That’s Melvin, ”Crow said, sliding in behind the steering wheel and turning his key in the ignition.“Dorothy probably gon’ hit him upside his head wit’ something, but that ain’t my worry.”

  “What do you want to talk to me about?” I asked, as the car rolled up Fife Street.

  “Don’t tell Rozelle, but I thought you was sixteen,” he said. “It ain’t that you look it or nothing. It’s just that I get mixed up wit’ the years sometimes.They roll by so fast.”

  He produced another match from his coat pocket, tossed the old one out the window, and placed the fresh one between his teeth. “Yo’ mama is really something,” he said after a lengthy silence. “I been knowing her for years. I asked her to marry me once, but she wouldn’t do it.You know what she tol’ me? She said, ‘Crow, I can’t marry no man dark as you. I just can’t do it.’ That’s all the reason she ever gave.” He chuckled, dry and throaty. “She kinda stuck on that color thang, you know? I was willing to take them babies she had and give ’em a home, but all yo’ mama could see was color. She ain’t changed a bit, neither. She’d go out wit’ me, help me spend my money, have a little fun, but that was all. She didn’t want nobody to see her wit’ me. She still don’t.”