Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writing Part 21

As Sonny-Boy tells me later, he is impressed with the proper way she talks.

"Here," she says. "Look at this."

Sonny-Boy takes the book she hands to him. It is open. And he reads: Dear diary, New York April. Horns honking; pedestrians b.u.mping, freight trucks fart fumes, stirring gritty, eye-stinging dust amidst noises, harsh voices, while the Menthol fresh breeze caresses, raises dresses as funk rises from my parka, sweatshirt, layered clothes of odd sizes, feet aching, sweating while I need a shave, feel a cigarette crave. And on a bench on the corner, a face behind a newspaper, no emotion behind it, looks up as I ask, "Do you have a minute? . . . To talk a little bit?" He folds his newspaper, gives no answer, stands, moves farther away. No answer.

And Sonny-Boy says, "This belong to Gladstone?" And there's surprise in his voice.

"Yes," Isamina tells him. "All of these," flinging her hand out indicating the notebooks scattered on the table. "His whole life, it looks like. He left them for his daughter. Did you know he has a daughter? Yvette?"

Sonny-Boy is silent. Yes he knows but he doesn't want to say the wrong thing, so he keeps his mouth shut. Gladstone always was secretive but he didn't think he would be so secretive as not to tell his wife about his daughter.

Looking at the diaries strewn on the table in front of him he recalls times in New York when he would come home tired and hungry to see Gabby chewing a pencil and staring into s.p.a.ce or scribbling in a notebook. And when he would fuss about coming home and nothing en there to eat, wanting to know if it was too much to ask for Gladstone to at least start the pot till he got home, Gabby would say is homework he doing. Perhaps some of those times he was writing things like this. Is true what Gladstone wife just say: Funny how little you can know about people, even your own flesh and blood.

And as he's thinking this Isamina asks him, "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Got any rum in the house?"

She nods. "How do you want it?"

"A little bit of c.o.ke. Not much. With some ice."

After emptying his gla.s.s for the second time he says, "Just leave the bottle on the table. Save yourself the trouble, heh heh heh."

He pours his third drink and begins to talk, wanting to know why Gladstone didn't call him if he was having trouble. If he want somebody to talk to (and he looked at Isamina saying, "I don't mean no disrespect to you"), why he didn't call him? He was his father, after all. They coulda talk man-to-man. Perhaps if he'd done that and got whatever it was off his chest, perhaps he woulda been alive today. Because problems ain't nothing but obstacles and ain't no obstacle so high you can't get over it. And nothing certainly ain't so bad that you got to take your own life.

But from when he was small Gladstone always was the kind of child that would keep everything to himself. And instead of growing out of it, look like he get worse. Look what happen in New York.

He, Sonny-Boy was living in Florida, true, and Gladstone was up in New York. But what is distance when your son in trouble? If he knew Gladstone was catching h.e.l.l he woulda jump on the first plane and go and see what happening. Gladstone didn't have to suffer through no hard times. He woulda even take him back to Florida till he catch himself.

"Don't blame yourself, Mr. Belle," Isamina says. "Things happen."

Easy for her to say. How could he help blaming himself when is he who send for the boy? He thought he was helping him. But what Esther say to him not long ago is true. America not for everybody. It is a place where good people, just to survive, can put a sh.e.l.l around them so tough that you stop seeing the person you used to know. He, Sonny-Boy, see it happen all the time. But Gladstone never develop that sh.e.l.l and look how it almost kill him. And is his fault for bringing his own son to a city where human decency is as rare as a virgin in a wh.o.r.ehouse, and even when it is there it seem to be buried deep beneath the filth and garbage that surround everybody.

He didn't even recognize Gladstone when he walked out from the airport with a traveling bag over his shoulder, a carton with four bottles of rum in his hand, and a mustache above his lip.

But Gladstone recognized him. "Pa?" he said.

And he stared at this man that was almost as tall as him, so thick-skinned that he know Esther was feeding him like he was the man in the house.

He say, "Gladstone?"

And Gladstone say, "Yes, Pa. It is me. And this for you." And he holding out the carton of rum like he want to hand it over quick before he forget.

Those early days was good days. Good days. Showing Gladstone around, going to places he never went to in all the years he was in New York.

"This is the Empire State Building," he remember saying. And Gladstone staring up at the building, making Sonny-Boy chest swell out because he can bring wonder to his son face just by showing him things that he pa.s.s by every day without even noticing.

He remember Gladstone saying, "When you going show me where you work, Pa? I want to see where you work."

But he was embarra.s.sed. Didn't want the boy to know he was only a janitor. Told him he was an office services engineer. That is what they was calling themselves: office services engineer. Because n.o.body en what they is anymore in America. Everybody is some kind of engineer or technician. h.e.l.l. n.o.body en even plain stupid no more-they mentally challenged. You know that? That is the new-fashion word: challenged. What a stupidness, eh?

Anyway, he was always giving excuses like "One day when things not so busy," or "They don't like you bringing people on the job." Excuses like that.

He couldn't understand why he was embarra.s.sed. After all, it wasn't like he had a big job back home before he left. If he had, he wouldn't have had to leave so he could get the money to send Gladstone to high school.

After a while Gladstone stopped asking and it seemed around that time that distance begin to widen between them, probably because he began to hint to Gladstone that he could do with some help. He knew Gladstone was in college and had to study but perhaps he could get a little part-time job to help out. He was working two jobs trying to make ends meet and still save a little something-doing janitor work at night cleaning offices in the city, knocking off at seven o'clock in the morning and going straight to his next job at a gas station in Queens till four in the afternoon, then going home and sleeping till nine, when he had to get up and get ready for his eleven-to-seven night job.

It was hard.

Meanwhile all Gladstone doing, as far as he could see, is reading books. So he told him one day, "In America you have to get up and get. n.o.body don't give you nothing free. They always take something in return, even if it is only your dignity."

And all Gladstone saying is "okay, okay." Till one day Gladstone look at him and say, "Look, it is you who send for me to come here and study. And it was you who come over here as soon as I pa.s.s for secondary school and left me and my mother there to scramble. Least you can do is help me out now."

What a blow, eh? What a blow. That is one Sonny-Boy didn't expect. It knock the wind out of him so hard he had to sit down. When he catch himself he say real soft, "That is what you think? After all the money I send for school fees, for books, the barrel of clothes and school supplies and food I send every year, you saying I left you and your mother to scramble for yourself? That is the thanks I get? That is what education does do to people? Turn them stiff-necked and ungrateful?"

But it seem that Gladstone had it in his head that Sonny-Boy owe him something so he living in the apartment like he is Lord Byron while Sonny-Boy working his tail off and coming home and cooking food for he and Gladstone like he is Gladstone mother or woman, one of the two-Gladstone say his mother never learn him how to cook.

One day Sonny-Boy couldn't take it no more. "Look, Mr. Big Shot," he say. "Money don't grow on trees over here, you know. You see them people you see going back home spending money and showing off? Well they just like me, working like a mule from the minute they land here. Like now, I working these two jobs just to support the two of we. Time for you to get up off your backside and help out, too."

That wasn't too much to ask, eh? But Gladstone bust out with, "Why you send for me, then?"

So now the blood really flying to his head. "Wait a minute!" he bawling. "Wait a gad daim minute! I send for you. Yes. But not for you to live like a king while I slaving to support you! This is America. Every tub got to sit on its own bottom over here. You think it easy? Eh? You see gold on the streets here? Eh?" He steups his teeth. "You just like these black Americans over here. Lazy. Living off welfare and food stamps and expecting somebody to help them. . . ."

And Gladstone b.u.t.ting in saying, "You know how you sound? Eh? You know how you sound?" And asking him if Francine that live across the hall is a black American. Because if he not mistaken, the last he know she was from back home just like them and ent she living on welfare? Eh? What about that? And he going on to give this lecture about how all kinds of people get welfare and that more whitepeople living on welfare than blackpeople, as if Sonny-Boy concerned about what other people do. Is he own color he care about. But this young generation? You can't tell them nothing. You can't reason with them.

So all Sonny-Boy can do is stare at his own son to see how the boy turn just like these Yankee children-contradicting their elders; talking, talking, talking and not stopping to listen and learn. And all he can say to the boy is, "This is what all this book learning doing for you? Turning you stupid and disrespectful? If that is the case, you better off back home."

That is when he feel his heart pounding so hard he think it going bust in his chest. He inhale, take a deep breath and sit down, and he thinking, look his crosses, this boy only here a few months and already with his American rudeness he giving him heart attack. But he also realizing that this isn't the only time here of late that his heart racing like that.

When he get home from his gas station job, even though he tired as a dog, sometimes it taking him a long time before his heart can settle down enough for him to drop off to sleep.

Not only that, he don't have time for enjoyment anymore. He used to be able to go to a dance every now and then on Sat.u.r.day nights, even when Gladstone first come over. Now his days off at the gas station job is Tuesday and Wednesday, so he working there Sat.u.r.days and Sundays and when he get home he too tired to do anything but sit down in front the TV and doze off.

Couple mornings after that argument is when he collapse in the bathroom and when he wake up he find himself in a hospital breathing out of an oxygen mask and with a tube in his arm and Gladstone standing up next to the bed looking down at him.

First thing Gladstone say after he ask Sonny-Boy how he feel is, "Pa, I have a job."

All Sonny-Boy was able to say was, "Uh huh?" And he thinking, Look at this, eh? He had to nearly dead with a heart attack and end up in a hospital bed for the boy to get off his backside and find work. But he got a good feeling inside him anyway and he resting his hand on Gladstone arm.

When he come out the hospital things was better, with Gladstone holding down a little job at the college library and helping out with the bills. But Sonny-Boy decide that even though the heart attack wasn't serious (the doctor tell him he could live a long healthy life but he had to slow down), he would hold on a little bit till he figure his son could handle himself, then he would move to Florida where his cousin write and tell him things not so fast down there and the cost of living lower.

When he left for Florida, Gladstone had two part-time jobs: the one at the college library plus another one at a bank.

Next time he see his son, the boy sitting on a park bench like he sit down there waiting for his father from the moment he hang up the phone from calling him in Florida.

And Sonny-Boy can scarcely recognize his own son, this young man with bushy hair and fidgety hands but with his clothes clean somehow.

At first he feel himself standing there like he stick to the spot; then he have to control himself from rushing over, shouting out his son name and hugging him. Instead he walk over calm and cool and say, "Gladstone?" real easy.

Gladstone look up, see him, and start crying, tears running down his face and dripping off his chin.

Dear diary, Here I am, weeks away from my forty-eighth birthday yet in my memory the day my parents got married feels like yesterday when I, a child of no more than about two or three, am being tossed up among the rafters by my father who is looking up at me with his mouth wide open in laughter, his hands open and waiting to catch me while I laugh with the thrill and fear of suspension in midair.

Forty-six years later I still see through the eyes of that two-year-old infant a tarpaulin stretched from poles at each corner of the yard, turning the entire yard into a tent filled with grown-ups eating, drinking, talking, merrymaking.

And my father's gold tooth glistens as he catches me and asks, Enjoying yourself, Brute?

His hands grip me under my armpits while I look down at the floor far below, screaming, kicking, and laughing the same way I yelled and laughed years later on my first roller coaster ride with him, years older and gray-haired, sitting beside me tense and clenching the bar in front of him. And walking home later after the bus ride back I glanced at him breathing heavily from too many years of cigarettes and I say, You know, I had a real good time today.

And without looking at me he says, Me too.

That evening we sat in the apartment watching TV together and I was content in a way I never felt before.

But happiness is as evanescent as a raindrop on a hot stone at midday. Because it wasn't long after this that I stood in a room watching my father lying in his hospital bed with a tube in his nostrils and clear liquid dripping from another tube into his arm.

Not long after that he moved to Florida leaving me alone in a city surrounded by strangers, searching my memory for childhood recollections of him, which was like peering into a darkened room and glimpsing the outline of a man with a golden-toothed smile coming in at night while the lamplight cast flickering shadows on the walls and danced in the corners of the house as I lay on my bedding on the floor; hearing him wake up early on mornings and the sound of his bicycle ticking along the side of the house as he pedaled off for an early-morning sea bath, and seeing him later flinging one leg over the bicycle saddle and riding off to work; watching him walk out through the front door one night while I am doing my homework at the dining table and hearing him say, I am going to have a kick out of life, and hearing Mamuh mutter, Well, I hope life don't give you a stiff, hard kick in your a.s.s.

That was the year I pa.s.sed the eleven-plus exam for secondary school with a scholarship to go to Wilberforce.

The day the letter came my old man went straight down by the rumshop after work. He got to brag with he friends, Mamuh said. But she could not hide the faint smile on her face. Earlier in the day she couldn't keep the news to herself either, telling Miss Clarke next door, The government paying for everything-school fees, books, uniform, everything.

Pa didn't come in till late that night, drunk and happy, singing and waking up me and my mother. But that night she didn't quarrel, just said, Keep quiet and go to sleep.

Two weeks later another letter came from the Ministry of Education.

To this day I've never seen the letter but I remember my mother opening it with the sound of the postman's bicycle tickticking away in the stillness of noonday, and my mother standing next to the morris chair by the front window staring at the letter with her mouth slightly open, then saying after a while, Error? What they mean error? and sitting down in the chair clutching the letter in her lap and staring through the window.

What happen? I asked her.

She stared at me, and it was a long moment before she said, You pa.s.s, but not with a scholarship.

Which didn't make sense. The letter from the Ministry of Education saying that I had a scholarship for Wilberforce was right there in the shoe box under the bed with all the other important papers like birth certificates and so forth.

But her eyes were still locked on and mine as she waved this new letter and said, They say they make a mistake.

And right then, at the age of eleven, I learned that folks like us who didn't have connections to influential people would suffer disappointments and face obstacles in life, or as Ma said as she sat staring through the window with the letter in her lap, Boy, if you don't have a G.o.dfather in this country, you suck salt. Or as Pa said later that night to Ma, If you stand up under a coconut tree a coconut bound to drop down and bust open your head.

Ma gave him a long, hard stare and then burst out, Harold, what stupidness you talking, eh? This is the boy future we talking about. Why you always got to be talking gibberish? What wrong with you?

But nothing was wrong with Pa. He couldn't help himself. He was a man thrust by circ.u.mstance into a role he wasn't prepared to maintain.

I still remember the night, one of many nights when rum made his head light and his tongue heavy, when Pa made a statement so heavy, so profound, that his rum friends opened their eyes wide and their mouths fell open in astonishment. At least that's the way the story was told when it started to spread the next day.

To this day everybody has a different version of what Pa said that night, which means that no one really remembers. But Miss Clarke, our next-door neighbor, came to the house bright and early the next day and told my mother, Sonny-Boy is a prophet.

And Ma stared at her. A prophet? she said.

Yes, Miss Clarke said. Like in the Bible.

In the Bible?

Which caused Miss Clarke to ask Ma, "What happen to you? You's a echo?" Then she began to tell the story of what happened at the rumshop the night before.

That evening before Pa could get in the door Ma asked him, "What this about people saying you's a prophet?"

So now it is Pa's turn to look puzzled and say, "Prophet? What you mean 'prophet'?"

It wasn't long before people began to come knocking at the front door, sometimes as soon as he got home from work, before he even had a chance to eat, asking for all kinds of advice. It is like all of a sudden Pa had turned into an obeah man with people saying things like: -"Yvonne acting funny, like she got another man. What I should do?" and; -"I like this fella that does work for the waterworks company, but all I try to catch his attention, he en paying me no mind. What you think?"

People coming from far and near, and Ma grumbling and asking Pa why he don't charge them. He's the only body she know does give away free advice. And Pa saying how G.o.d give him a gift to help people and how she expect him to charge them? If people want to give donations that is one thing, but he can't charge. And Ma saying low so that only I can hear, "Is one thing to be kind, is another thing to be stupid." But that comment doesn't reach Pa's ears, otherwise wise man or no wise man her a.s.s would've been in trouble.

And the whole thing reaching national proportions when Dear Suzy who used to give advice to people every day in the newspaper began ending her columns with a warning to her "Dear readers" not to seek the advice of barefoot charlatans who only want to take their money. And the woman who does housework for her, who happen to live in the Village, coming to Pa and saying how Dear Suzy going to obeah man for him because Pa taking away her business. And Pa's only response is to shake his head and say, "Poor woman," which really impressed the woman who brought the news and she's telling people that Pa really is a holy man who, in her words, "have no fear of man nor beast." Which is a big joke to Ma who knows better.

It is around that time that I came to learn another lesson: when people say they want advice, what they really mean is they want you to confirm whatever it is that they already decided. Or at the very least they want you to tilt them in the direction they already were intending to go.

And it seems that Pa learned the same lesson after Gladys came to him with this question: Sammy en doing so good in school. You think you can help him?

To which Pa replied, I can't work miracles, adding that he knew Sammy since the boy was a baby in diapers and to the best of his knowledge her son always had a hard head and in his opinion she should try to get the boy apprenticed to somebody to learn some kind of trade because Sammy never going to be a scholar. The boy just not academically inclined, Pa saying.

You see, Pa had got into the habit of telling people whatever was on his mind, like he thought that whatever gave him the gift of wisdom would also shield him from the wrath of people when he told them what they didn't want to hear.

Gladys started raising her voice. "Wanting to know what kind of prophet you is, eh? Telling me to send my boy to learn a trade? Why you don't send that little, bony boy of yours to learn a trade, eh? Why you don't do that?" And she's looking me up and down with scorn while she's saying this.

That hurt my feelings.

But Pa was calm, replying how he never tell n.o.body he is no prophet. That is something they put on him. And if she not satisfied with his advice, then she should do like Dear Suzy and go see Papa Sam the obeah man who going tell her some mumbo jumbo and take her money.

Gladys flounced out of the house. Next thing you know, she is spreading a rumor that every night when Pa got drunk he would always come knocking at the side of her house whispering and begging her to let him in. But she is a Christian-minded woman, so she always tell him to go home to Miss Esther and stop bothering her. He should be ashamed of himself. Prophet? He en no prophet. If people stupid enough to believe that, well that is their business but she know better.

As soon as Ma heard this, she stopped speaking to Pa, sulking around the house and talking to him through me, saying things like "Tell your father his food ready," or "Tell your father to pick up some fish when he coming in from work this evening."

And Gladys's next-door neighbor, Mildred, is telling people what a lying hypocrite Gladys is, calling herself a Christian, when some nights she can stay over in her house and hear Gladys moaning and carrying on. And it en Sammy's father that causing her to carry on so, because everybody know Sammy father left her and living with another woman. Mildred figuring she doing Pa a favor by calling Gladys a hypocrite, but she's only making things worse.

After that, Pa stopped giving blunt advice and instead began answering people in baffling, head-scratching parables. So, grown people would come up to me after they talked to my father, asking me questions like, "What your father mean by so-and-so," or "What he mean by this-and-that?"

But if they couldn't understand my father, how could they expect me to? I was only a boy; they were grown. But of course I couldn't say any of this because in those days children couldn't talk back to adults (not like nowadays), so I would just stare at them or shrug, which would only get them vexed and cause them to suck their teeth and fling off their arms and walk away muttering about how I just as stupidy as my jacka.s.s father.

Well, needless to say, the flow of people coming for advice began to trickle, although it never really stopped. Once in a while somebody would come to see him as a last resort.

But the parables never stopped. Sometimes he would be sitting quietly and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he would let loose a parable.

So the night when Ma told him about the letter that said I didn't have a scholarship, his proverb about a coconut busting your head was the last straw.

That was the first time I could remember Ma raising her voice in the house. But I suppose the frustration that had been building up from having to listen to Pa's stupid parables, plus the shock of shattered expectations were too much to bear, so she let loose.

"These stupid sayings of yours got people looking at me funny! You know that?! People laughing behind my back when they see me, or else they feeling sorry for me and Gladstone-you can see it in their face. You en know you is a big joke?!" she asked him. "You en care you making your whole family a laughing stock?!"