The Darkest Child Read online

  Toward the middle of the lawn, Mama was fighting with Kirk Griggs. They were using their fists against each other, and Kirk’s were landing with a lot more force than Mama’s, but Mama stood her ground. She matched him blow for blow. I glanced about the yard for something to use against Kirk, but saw nothing. Finally, I ran toward them, jumped onto Kirk’s back, and sank my teeth into his shoulder.While Kirk struggled to free himself from my grip, Mama stood there momentarily doing nothing, then she raised a knee that connected with Kirk’s groin. He groaned, and sank to the ground with me still clinging to his back.

  “Let’s go!” Mama said. She seemed to be all right, except for a bruise on her cheek and the cut at the corner of her eye.

  Becky released the boy she was holding, and she, Mama, and I moved out onto the sidewalk, winded, but walking as fast as we could.

  “I was ready to quit anyhow,” Becky mumbled. “Four days I been working for ’em, and they been the worst four days of my life, let me tell you. Most folks don’t have you working so hard. But them—they gon’ get the last drop of blood outta you. All time struttin’ ’round that house calling folks niggers like I can’t hear ’em. I ain’t studyin’ ’em.”

  “Do you think they’ll call the police?” I asked.

  “They ain’t gon’ call nobody,” Mama said.“You think they gon’ tell somebody they let three women beat ’em up like that?”

  “That’s right,” Becky agreed. “That Kirk older than me, and don’t work nowhere in the world. Just sit ’round all day being lazy. And they done went out and bought him a car like he just oughta have it. I don’t understand white folk, but I know I put a beatin’ on that boy’s behind like his daddy oughta been doing for years.”

  Mama stopped to catch her breath, then she laughed.“Wonder why that ol’ big, round one come after me?” she asked.

  “They planned it that way, Miss Rosie,” Becky said, and she began to laugh, too.“I was gon’ come help you, but I didn’t wanna stop beatin’ on that boy‘s head.That’s something I’d been wanting to do for four days.”

  Becky left us just after we crossed the bridge, and it did not matter that Mama had asked her not to tell what had happened. Becky James would tell. She would tell everybody, and no decent colored woman in Triacy County would ever work for the Griggses again.

  “Ooh wee,” Mama said as she watched Becky walk off.“I know just what that girl mean, Tangy Mae.Them ain’t the kinda people to work for. If the rest of ’em anything like them boys, it’s likely they wouldn’t even pay you.”

  She stopped abruptly and pulled at something on her face.The way her hand swept across her skin, I thought maybe she had walked into a spider’s web. She checked her hand and brushed it off with the other, then she continued walking.

  “I’m glad Janie ain’t out in that yard.That woman know she get on my nerves,” Mama said. She stopped again and glanced back toward the creek. “That water’s got a peculiar odor, don’t you think, Tangy Mae? Like a skunk done crawled down there and died. Be nice if a good gust of wind came along and blew that odor into them fancy homes back there.”

  She brushed at the invisible spider’s web once more. This time it was on her arms.“When we get home, I want you to warm me some bathwater. Something’s crawling all over me. I wonder if I ain’t done picked up something back there at that Griggs house. You know them fancy homes don’t mean a thing. Sometimes they got the nastiest folks living in ’em.

  “Yeah.” She pursed her lips and nodded her head.“There’s nasty folks everywhere, coloreds and whites, all over the world. That’s why I try to teach y’all to be clean, and that’s why I don’t want my children traipsing halfway ’cross the world like Mushy done. It ain’t bad the way Harvey left, leastways he’s still in Pakersfield where he knows what type of people to stay away from.”

  We cleared Oglesbee Street without seeing Miss Janie, and Mama paused on Chestnut to catch her breath. She rested for a few seconds, then started talking again. “You remember that ticket Mushy sent here?” she asked. “I sat on my bed one night thinking ’bout that ticket. I was holding it in my hand when something tol’ me to tear it up. At first I wadn’t gon’ do it, but seem like something just kept telling me to do it. Finally, I went on and tore it into pieces, and I felt a whole lot better ’bout things.

  “The world is changing, Tangy Mae.There was a time when you couldn’t find a man to marry a girl if she was dark as you. And I think they probably just drowned po’ dumb people like Martha Jean. But it ain’t like that no mo’. I think men must be getting desperate or something, but there still ain’t no guarantees.You and Edna might have to be wit’ me yo’ whole life. I don’t know. I gotta plan for it, though. ’Cause if it comes to that, it’ll be up to you to earn a living for us, and I gotta get you started knowing how.”

  We walked down Fife Street.The field came into view, then our house, and still Mama talked on. “I hope you understand that sometimes we gotta do things we don’t wanna do. Like you. I know you don’t wanna come outta school and go to work, but you gotta—ain’t no way ’round it.”

  We reached the house, and Mama plopped down on the bottom step and sent me inside to get her cigarettes. When I came back out, I sat down beside her feeling weary from a day that seemed eternal, although it was still morning. My chest felt light, like something my body needed desperately was floating up and out of me, and breathing only hastened the process. I studied my mother’s profile as she puffed on her cigarette.

  “Mama,” I said, “what’s Crow’s real name?”

  She held the cigarette away from her face as she considered my question, then she said, “I don’t know. All I ever knew was Crow. That’s all anybody ever called him. Now, get me some bathwater! And, Tangy Mae, you go on back and work them two days for them people ’til something better come along.”

  Mama had bathed, napped, dressed, and left by the time Sam came in that evening. Her car was gone, but Sam looked for her in her room anyway before asking, “Where’s Mama?”

  “She went out,” I answered.

  “Tangy Mae, did you and Mama go over to East Grove and fight wit’ them Griggs boys today?”

  “Mama told me not to talk about it, Sam. She said it’s best forgotten.”

  “Mama got a bruise on her face?”

  I nodded, figuring he would see it sooner or later.

  He nodded, too.“Yeah,” he said, “it’s best forgotten.”

  thirty - two

  Pith a cup of water, Pakersfield soil can swallow itself and make a puddle. During an all-day rain, it swallowed my mother’s car. I arrived home from the Whitmans’ on Saturday afternoon to find Mama pacing the muddy road below our house, swearing and condemning Velman Cooper to Hell for all eternity.

  Out in the field, Harvey, Sam, Wallace, Hambone, Maxwell, and Skip Carson were attempting to push the car out of the thick mud and up onto the road. Anybody could see that they were wasting their time. In fact, the car sank a little more with each push.

  “It ain’t coming out, Mama,” Harvey yelled.“We gon’ have to wait ’til this rain lets up, and dig it out.”

  Mama stopped pacing and turned to me.“Will you just listen to that fool,” she said, then raised her voice and shouted out, “It’s a car, Harvey. Drive it out. And don’t get none of that mud in it.”

  “Didn’t you already try that, Mama?” Sam asked. “Ain’t that how it got stuck in the first place?”

  “It got stuck ’cause y’all didn’t cut that field right,” she answered. “Instead of paying attention to what you oughta been doing, y’all was out there running from a rat.You hadda laid planks like you shoulda done, the damn thing wouldn’t be stuck.Now, you shut up, Sam, and get my car outta there!”

  “On three,” Harvey said, and began to count.They pushed, and all four tires disappeared with a sucking sound, sending mud splattering across the fenders and the hood of the car.

  “Well, I just be damn!” Mama spat, placing her hands on her hips,
and shaking her head in disbelief.

  Out in the field, five young men stood with their arms dangling idly at their sides.The sixth, Maxwell James, held his abdomen and convulsed with laughter. He lifted an arm and pointed to the sunken car, then he leaned forward. Each time he tried to straighten up, his howls would fold him over again.

  “Max!” Hambone said sternly. “Max! Shut up, nigger. Ain’t nothing funny.”

  “Damn, man, I’m trying, ”Maxwell gasped, “but did you see that thing? I mean, plop, man. It just went plop.”

  Harvey kept his composure. He trudged two steps, then stopped.“Mama, we can’t get it out,” he said.“We done tried lifting it wit’ planks.We done tried pulling it.We done tried pushing it.We . . .”

  “We, we, we, we, we, ”Mama shouted angrily.

  At that, Harvey chuckled, then they all began to laugh, hooting and howling in mirth and frustration. Mama stared out at them. Rain dripped from her nose and chin. She slid a hand from her hip, made a fist, and knocked me to the ground.

  “Come on, Miss Rosie,” Hambone said.“You don’t need to hit nobody.We’ll come back tomorrow and try again. If there’s somewhere you gotta go, I’ll take you. How about it?”

  “I got somewhere to go awright,” Mama said.“I’m going to get Martha Jean. I ain’t gon’ stand by and let that Velman Cooper swindle me. He can have that piece of junk back.”

  Pulling myself up from the mud, neither hurt nor embarrassed, I went up to the faucet in the yard to wash the mud from my arms and legs. Mama, muddy shoes and all, stomped over to Ham-bone’s car and opened the door.

  “You coming?” she called to Hambone.

  “Just give me a minute to get this mud off my hands, Miss Rosie,” he said, as he and the others joined me in the yard.“I don’t know about taking your mama over there, Sam,” Hambone whispered.“ What do you think?”

  “I think she going whether you take her or not,” Sam replied.

  Harvey agreed.“Yeah, man.When she makes up her mind to do something, ain’t no stopping her.”

  “I sho’would like to see that boy’s face when yo’mama go over there and take his woman,” Maxwell said. “What kinda man, you reckon, just gon’ let somebody take his woman?”

  No one answered.They rinsed the mud from their hands, then Skippy asked, “What time y’all getting up to Greg’s tonight?”

  “’Bout seven or eight,” Sam answered. “They got everything ready?”

  “Yeah, man,” Skip said, “but they scared.You better make sure you be there.”

  “I’ll be there,” Sam assured him.

  “Yeah, Sam’ll be there,” Hambone said. “How about you, Harvey?”

  Harvey shook the water from his hands and dried them against the legs of his pants. “I don’t know,” he answered quietly. “I just don’t know about this.”

  “I’ll be there,” Max said.

  Sam gave him a slap on the back.“I know you will, Max.”

  Skip and Maxwell went with Hambone, but Harvey did not leave right away. He came inside and dried himself in the kitchen while I prepared supper. Laura and Edna clung to him until he shook them off and shooed them away.

  “They miss you, Harvey,” I said.

  “I know. Any other time I’d be glad to see ’em, but I think I done hurt my back pushing that car.”

  “Boy, that was really something the way it went down in that mud, ”Wallace said.“You think we gon’ ever get it out?”

  “Somebody will,” Harvey answered. “I ain’t straining my back on it no mo’. Mama gon’ have to wait and get a tow truck.”

  “She ain’t gon’ pay for nothing like that,” Sam said, leaning back on a chair with his bare feet propped on a milk crate.“Mama didn’t need that thing no way.You ever seen how she drive? She be all over the road like other people ain’t got no business on it. Like the world belong to her.”

  “It do, don’t it?” Harvey asked with a chuckle.

  “I don’t know about that,” Sam said, “but Martha Jean belong to her. I hope Velman don’t go acting no fool.”

  We heard the front door open, then Tarabelle came into the kitchen carrying a newspaper that was drenched from being held over her head. She wiped rainwater from her face as her gaze met Sam’s.

  “Sheriff ’s right behind me,” she said. “He got that Chadlow wit’ him. Asked me if you was here.”

  “What they want wit’ me?” Sam asked, slowly lowering his feet, bringing his chair into an upright position.

  “I’m here to arrest you, Sam,” Angus Betts answered, stepping into our kitchen with Chadlow on his heels.“Has to do with one of the Griggs boys from over in East Grove. I’ve got a complaint that you threw a brick through the windshield of his car. Heard you drug him from that car and beat him to within an inch of his life.You know anything about that?”

  “He hurt my mama,” Sam said, “but I didn’t beat him that bad.”

  The sheriff arched his brows.“Well, that’s the complaint I got from Kirk Griggs’s hospital bed.That boy says you tried to kill him, and it looks like you did beat him up pretty bad. His daddy is screaming bloody murder, threatening to take matters into his own hands if I don’t do something about it, so I’m taking you in. And speaking of murder, a description of you keeps coming up in connection with the death of Tannus Fess. It seems you were the last one seen with him.”

  “What?” Sam exclaimed, shaking his head as if to clear it. “I didn’t kill Junior.”

  “That may be so, but right now I’ve got one fellow in the hospital who positively identifies you as his attacker, and I have a witness who says he saw somebody looks like you with Tannus Fess.”

  Sam rose from his chair and glanced toward the back door. He placed his hands flat on the table that blocked his path, then he glanced at Chadlow who stood with one hand resting on his hip.

  “Come easy, son,” the sheriff said.“Don’t make Chad shoot your knee caps off.”

  “I didn’t kill Junior,” Sam protested.

  “Maybe not, but I’ve heard Tannus was last seen with a white boy,” the sheriff said. “I don’t know any white boys in this county who run around with coloreds. I’ve spent some time thinking about this, and I keep coming up with you. Now, after this thing with Kirk Griggs, I’m pretty sure I should have arrested you a long time ago. I’ve seen that bunch of hoodlums you run around with. It’s a wonder I haven’t gotten you for something long before now.”

  “It couldna been me,” Sam said, his lips quivering as he spoke. “Ain’t nobody seen me wit’ Junior, and I ain’t white.”

  “No, you’re not,” Angus Betts agreed, “but it was you, and we both know it.”

  Chadlow stepped around the table and, with more force than necessary, handcuffed Sam’s wrists behind his back, then shoved him toward the door while the sheriff kept watch on the rest of us. I looked at Harvey, waiting for him to do or say something, but he remained unmoving and silent.

  “Where’s Mama?”Tarabelle asked, after the sheriff had left the kitchen.

  “She went to get Martha Jean, ”Wallace answered. “She’s taking her back from Velman.”

  A short while later, Mama arrived home with Martha Jean, and Harvey broke the news to her. He led her to a chair in the front room, and held her as she sobbed. She clutched his shirt and would not let go.

  “Don’t leave, Harvey,” she pleaded between sobs.“Don’t go.You stay here wit’ me tonight. I need you here.”

  “I’ll stay, Mama,” Harvey said. “I ain’t gon’ leave you.”

  “Harvey, do you think I’m being punished for bringing Martha Jean home?”Mama asked, as tears rolled down her face.“I had to fight Skeeter to get her.Maybe I’m being punished. I’d rather have Sam.”

  “He’ll be back,” Harvey soothed.

  “When?” Mama screamed.“They done took my baby from me. They done took Sam. People trying to take all my babies from me.”

  Wallace tried to explain things to Martha Jean. She nodde
d, although her eyes seemed not to follow the movement of his fingers. They appeared hollow, staring out at nothing.

  Surprisingly, we were able to eat supper, and as we did, the rain gave a final tap against the roof and hushed.

  “Roof holding up pretty good, ain’t it?” Harvey observed.

  Mama nodded absently, and no one else said anything for a long while, not until Edna announced that she was sleepy.

  We settled down, and the house was quiet, but I knew we were all thinking about Sam. He was easily influenced by Hambone, he had a mean streak, and he hadn’t denied throwing the brick through Kirk Griggs’s car window or beating the boy up. But he never would have killed Junior Fess.

  I drifted into a light sleep and was awakened by Tarabelle shaking my shoulder.“Tan, listen,” she whispered.

  I brought my head up from the floor and strained to hear the low voices coming from the hall. It was Mama and the sheriff.

  “Rozelle, I did it for his own good,” Angus Betts said.“Do you want somebody to kill him?”

  “I want him outta jail,” Mama answered.“Ain’t nobody gon’ kill him. Let him out, Angus, or I’m gon’ tell everybody he’s yo’ son.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Rozelle. I’m trying to help. Bill Griggs cares about his boy the same way you care about yours. He didn’t say it to me, but I’ve been hearing rumors of trouble. He could get a bunch of men together to come out here and snatch Sam from this house, and you know what would happen. I’m trying to keep Sam safe until this dies down some.”

  “Go to Hell, Angus!” Mama said angrily.“Why you trying to keep him safe? We ain’t asked for yo’ help.You ain’t never claimed Sam to be yo’ son, so why you all of a sudden wanna keep him safe?”

  “First of all, I’m not convinced that he is my son. All I know is what you told me. I was just a boy, Rozelle, and you had me thinking you were a white woman. Remember that?”

  Mama laughed bitterly.“You knew what I was.That’s the reason you wanted me. Stop fooling yo’self, Angus.You wanted me then, and you want me now.You can have me if you let Sam go.”