Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writing Part 25

Her mother had died on October 26, 1931. As she sat with Dainty on the bench outside the notary's office, a feeling came over her. She had finished something important, and something else had begun. Finally, she could hold on to autumn no matter what the season was, and have the perfect memorial to Carrie. She could have the perfect way to separate herself from her namesake forever-the perfectly unique name for a girl with a dramatic blight on the brown of her cheek, October.

On the fifth day after Aunt Frances had suffered the stroke, Gene brought Vergie to relieve October at the hospital. Reverend Carter had prayed his ardent prayer, and as they all stood around the bed, a nurse came in with a needle and syringe.

"We need to check her catheter," the nurse said. "You-all won't mind stepping out into the hall for a minute, would you?"

Out in the hall, October tried to sound like she knew what she was talking about and at the same time not scare Vergie.

"Vergie, I know that miracles can happen," she told her, "but remember, we have to be realistic, too."

It seemed to October that until she had entered Aunt Frances's hospital room that day, her own life had not been pinned down. As if at any moment she might be able to put her life in reverse and move into the life she wanted. Redeemable, she thought. But now she was beginning to see that Aunt Frances's death would nail things down. Up until then she had seemed to have a "real life" waiting somewhere, and one day she would wake up and be in her real life. One where Franklin Brown had not killed Carrie. Carrie was not in the cold ground. Franklin had not died in jail. She and Vergie had not been orphans. In a sense, up until then, Aunt Frances and Aunt Maude had been aunts, not parents. And in some part of her, October had always held out for the possibility of "real" parents. All of it, even the David chapter, could have been a dream, and there was time for it all to be corrected.

But now Aunt Frances would be the real mother who would be dead and buried, gone forever. Nothing could be changed. October's messed-up life would be the only one she would ever have.

Vergie said, "The doctor said that it may take a long time for her to pull through." October knew Vergie dared not think she might die.

October thought she ought to make it clear to Vergie. "And, Vergie," she told her, "it's possible that she might not be able to pull through-I mean, she might not make it. We don't know."

Fear blazed in Vergie's eyes. "How can you say that?" She stepped closer to Gene and grabbed his hand.

"I'm just saying might, Vergie. We have to be prepared for the worst. If there's anything you want to say to her, you shouldn't wait. That's all I'm saying."

"Darn it, October, you never look on the bright side. The doctor never said that, and he ought to know." She wiped a tear with her thumb. Gene put his arm around her, and they went back inside the room.

On October's watch the next morning, she had the sense to take her own advice. Say what needs to be said.

Auntie's eyes were closed, and October took her time forming the right words. Auntie's eyes opened and October gave her a chip of ice from a spoon. Auntie stared, and after a few minutes, October could see recognition in her eyes.

October went into how well she remembered the years, the sacrifices, the fevers soothed, the battles Auntie had mounted against the world for her and Vergie, whether they were wrong or right. As well as she could, she said how bad she felt about bringing a child into the world without a father, and giving him away, and fighting with Vergie. And still she couldn't find the words to say what needed to be said.

Auntie never relaxed her gaze.

October tried again. "There is one thing I want to tell you . . ."

Auntie's eyes burned.

". . . something I said to you once, a long time ago. And I never apologized, I never took it back. I know you know I didn't mean it, but I want to take it back now, anyway."

Auntie pressed her fingers lightly into October's palm. She could hear.

Looking into her mute face, October said, "I just want to thank you."

Auntie then made her little humming sound, but kept her eyes fixed on October's face.

"Thank you for being my mother." The tears came then, but October refused to lose the one chance to have it said. "You were a better mother than I ever gave you credit for-better than you ever knew," she said.

Auntie pressed her palm, and October knew a smile was in there.

October wasn't at the hospital that evening to see Vergie reading the Bible to Auntie, or to see the pain in her sister's eyes when Auntie had another stroke. She stood next to Vergie, though, all through the next day, as Auntie's heart marched weakly on.

It was then that I stood by and held for Frances, my sister. She never opened her eyes or pressed their palms again.

Like Trees, Walking.

BY RAVI HOWARD.

Those of us already gathered along the beach check the wind. With matches cupped in our hands, we watch the smoke rise into the breeze that comes off the water. The conditions have to be right. The wind has to be blowing east. Rising tide and an overcast sky. Nights like this, when conditions are right along the eastern sh.o.r.e of Mobile Bay, the salt water from the Gulf mixes with the fresh water from the rivers. The fish and blue crabs stop swimming then. Why it happens, I'm not exactly certain-something about the oxygen and the water temperature and the currents no longer running true-but the fish and blue crabs are stunned, traumatized. At the place where the waters meet, they just float on the surface as if they're dead.

When the tide rises in the early morning hours, the silver sides of the flounder shine as they wash up on the sh.o.r.e. The crabs collect in the soft sand just below the surface of the water. We wait for them here. Some gather them with scoop nets and stakes. Others just pick them up in their bare hands and carry them home in washtubs and baskets. Nights like these are called "Jubilee."

I unfold our blankets at the place we like to claim while my son wades ankle-deep in the surf. He shines his flashlight on the wet sand, looking. But it's too early. We have time. My daughter holds my hand and taps my thigh with her plastic shovel.

"Daddy, may I go to the water with Reggie?"

"For a little while. Then I want you to come back so you can take a nap before the Jubilee."

"First graders don't take naps."

"You're not a first grader until September. You know what that means? You're still a Daddy grader. Daddy graders take naps so they're awake when the tide comes in. Is that a deal?"

"Deal," she says, shaking off her flip-flops. She points to the glowing hands on her watch. "When the big hand and the little hand are on the twelve, it's your birthday. I'm gonna sing 'Happy Birthday.' Happy Birthday to you-"

"Make sure you stay with your brother."

"Okay. Happy birthday to you-" She beats time with the shovel against my leg before she runs down to the water to where her brother stands.

It's 11:45 P.M. In fifteen minutes I'll be forty. Forty is supposed to be a milestone, a "big one" as they say. A party has been planned in my honor. My wife, my kids, and my parents have been up to something. They have that obvious silence about them of people trying too hard to keep a secret. So I'm sure they've gone to a lot of trouble to get everyone together. I'll act surprised.

I'll have a good time as I always do. July means family reunions, the Fourth, fireworks and picnics. July for me means celebrating one more year, and sharing some time with my brother, Paul. I don't see him like I used to.

He was born 362 days before me. We were, as my father would sometime call us, "the d.a.m.n-near twins." For three days every July, I catch up with him.

Jubilee nights only happen in the summer months, twice, maybe three times a season. Every few years one would fall somewhere between our birthdays and we would celebrate here. There was a Jubilee the night after I turned eighteen, in July 1981. Eighteen was a milestone for me, not so much because of the age, but because of all that happened. That spring I finished high school. That summer I started working full-time with my father at our funeral home before I started college that fall. That July was four months after my brother found Michael Donald's body hanging from a tree on Carlisle Street. Michael Donald was a friend of ours.

My mother saves the newspapers from our birthdays. Tomorrow's early edition will come off the press soon. In the morning she'll add it to the stacks of the Mobile Press Register, neatly arranged in blue wooden RC Cola crates that she keeps in the closet under the staircase, stored away from the sunlight. Next to the crates she has a small filing cabinet where she stores her important papers. There she kept the news clippings about Michael Donald, neatly trimmed and filed in order. On the manila folder, in her impeccable schoolteacher handwriting, a simple label: "Michael."

The first clip in the stack was from the evening edition of the March 8, 1981: Local man found slain on Carlisle

Police follow leads as investigation moves forward MOBILE-Michael Donald, 19, of Mobile was found dead shortly after 6:00 a.m. on the 1400 block of West Carlisle Street. The body of the deceased had been hanged from a tree. Police officials report that the victim had been severely beaten prior to the hanging.

Paul Deacon, 19, of Mobile, a pulp processor at International Paper, discovered the body and notified police.

The lights are on tonight at the paper mill. At the north end of the bay, the smoke stacks made their own white clouds. The mill operates three shifts a day, every day of the year, Christmas and Easter included.

Some nights the smell of the mill carries across the bay. The stench is awful. It's the sulfur. The sulfur breaks down the fibers in the wood, so the pulp is soft enough to make paper. We learned this from Mr. Lewis, our Cub Scout leader, who was a supervisor there.

In our younger days the members of the Cub Scouts Pack 211 from First A.M.E. Church, Paul and I included, followed Mr. Lewis on a tour of the mill. With goggles and hard hats, we toed a broad yellow line painted on the concrete floor. We felt through our feet the rhythm of the vibrating concrete as the large steel combines ripped the timber to shreds.

Paul was historian for Pack 211. His job was to collect pictures for our sc.r.a.pbook. In the picture Paul took that day, Michael stood in the back row with the taller boys, next to Mr. Lewis. My mother held on to that photo. She keeps it with the others.

Our uniforms reeked when we left the mill. My mother made us take them off before we walked in the kitchen. While our clothes soaked in a bucket of water and ammonia, Paul stood in the middle of the kitchen, in Scout socks and drawers, recounting in dramatic fashion the motions of the combine.

"Mama, do you know why it stanks so bad?"

"Stinks, Paul," she said, grading a stack of composition papers on the kitchen table. "Stanks is not a word."

"Sulfur," he said. "It smells like the whole world farted at once."

"Paul, do you want a spanking?" she said. She wanted to laugh, though. I could tell.

"You mean a spinking?"

"Oh, so you do want a spanking?"

"No, ma'am," he said. "But, Mama, do you know what else?"

"What else, Paul?"

"I'm gonna work at the mill."

"Going to," she said. "Going to work at the mill. You aren't going to do anything until you go upstairs and take a bath like your brother."

"Yeah. You smell funky," I said.

"Roy you know I don't like that kind of talk. I have told both of you about being so mannish. When your father gets home . . ."

When our father got home that evening, Paul told his story again during dinner. He reenacted the motions of the combines and the men who tended them. When he got to the part about the sulfur, he said, "It stinks tremendously," and waited for our parents to laugh, and they did. He had a way of making them laugh with the things he said. He had talked himself out of a few spankings, but he had talked himself into some, too.

Before our evening dinner conversation, we carried out the nightly tradition of blessing the food and reciting Bible verses. I would say, "Jesus wept," the shortest verse in the Bible, and be done with it. Paul would go on forever. With one eye open, I would watch the steam rise off the food while Paul recited. Sometimes his eyes were open, too. We'd make faces at one another across the vegetables when no one else was looking. I never remember Paul saying the same verse twice. He was good at remembering.

Paul asked Mr. Lewis when he could have a job at the mill. Mr. Lewis told Paul to ask when he turned fifteen. Shortly after his fifteenth birthday, he started working in the office, filing time sheets, moving boxes, running errands. Paul worked in the office for the rest of that summer and after school during the year. The summer he turned eighteen, he applied for a processing job on the floor, working with the same machines that as children we watched turn trees to pulp.

Once he graduated from high school and started college, Paul worked the night shift, ten-to-six three days a week, and went to cla.s.s in the afternoons. My father wasn't sure what to make of it at first, but he had always believed in good money and hard work, which is what the mill offered. Paul was serious about it. He worked his shifts on time and when he got home, he soaked his work clothes before washing, drying, and ironing them. My parents were impressed, but they considered the job a temporary pursuit until he was old enough to fulfill his calling.

Paul, champion of Sunday school memory compet.i.tions, oratorical contests, and composition prizes, was going to go to be a preacher. He had decided that he would go to the seminary once he finished college. My father accepted the fact that Paul had never been interested in working in the funeral home. But on occasion my father would ask him to eulogize those who had no close family or no minister to bury them properly. We would be their family, and sit in the pews of the mortuary chapel, listening to Paul's words.

From the few comments he gathered from the one or two people who knew the departed, or from the unclaimed things that they left behind, Paul would piece together a message, warm words that seemed so familiar it was hard to imagine that the two people-the one in the pulpit and the departed-were strangers.

People in Mobile knew my father. They knew us all. They had seen our family photo on the church fans parishioners waved on hot days, trying to cool down the humidity or the Holy Ghost. Among the black funeral homes in Mobile, ours was one of the oldest and considered the best. In the picture, my grandfather, my parents, Paul, and I stood on the front steps of the funeral home. In black script beneath our feet, "Deacon Benevolent: Three Generations in the Service."

My mother held on to that family photo in an alb.u.m she keeps. She also saved our team sports pictures. Flanked by backboards and bleachers, we wore sponsored uniforms and the mean-mug faces of adolescent boys trying to be men. Michael Donald was in some of these, one of the tall boys who stood along back rows, or the kneeling captain who held team trophies. Other pictures she kept as well. Color versions of the school day portraits that appeared on the black-and-white pages of our collected yearbooks. Portraits of Michael Donald and Paul Deacon often shared pages or faced across the fold.

In their senior yearbook, they were five cla.s.smates removed from one another. That same photo of Michael appeared in the newspaper and in the pages of the glossy magazines that mentioned his name. These magazines my mother saved in a small twine-bound pile on her bookcase, below our trophies and the diplomas on the wall.

Mobile is bright at night, the lights from the bay bridge, the spotlights on the old battleship, the shipyard beacons. Here it's dark. But the eastern sh.o.r.e darkness is familiar. It took a few minutes for my eyes to get accustomed, but now I can see the shades of dark, the outlines that separate the water, the tree line, and the overcast sky.

The only lights that connect the east and west sh.o.r.es are those suspended above the bay bridge. When Paul and I were young, riding in the back of my father's truck, we lay on our backs and counted them, 240 each way. Beyond the main roads, only a few dim lampposts light the Baldwin County woods.

When my father brought us over to the eastern sh.o.r.e on Jubilee nights, it took a while to reach the place we like to claim. People would stop us and speak. My father would stand for a while and talk to those who greeted him. He stopped and listened as long as they had something to say. He remembered everyone. He said it was his business to remember.

I didn't remember the faces of the people who spoke to us then, but some of the voices were familiar. When I answered the phone during my cartoons some early Sat.u.r.day mornings, when no one else was awake, the sad, polite voices would ask me how I was doing before they asked me to put my father on the phone. I was old enough to know by the soothing tone of my father's voice-the tone I emulate now-that someone had died and there would be work to do. As he talked to them, my father ran his fingers along the carvings on the edge of his desk and looked out the window to where the ginkgoes grew.

After his night shift, Paul would stop by the Krispy Kreme on the corner of Chastain and Carlisle streets and pick up a dozen glazed doughnuts. When he got home, Paul would sit on the edge of my bed, and we'd eat them while I told him what happened on the late episode of Sanford & Son on Channel 44. The day before he found Michael, I told Paul about the episode where Fred and Lamonte went to the junkmen's convention in Hawaii.

"s.h.i.t. I've seen that one."

"You've seen them all. They're reruns."

"I just hate it how on the reruns how they show part one of the 'To Be Continued' and never show the part two in the right order. I bet you a dollar they show something entirely different tonight. Watch and see."

"You know what happens anyway."

"It's the principle, brother," he said, mouth full of a Krispy Kreme and digging in the box for another one.

"You wash your hands before you handled my food?"

"I washed my hands at your lady's house."

"I'm just saying you smell like the mill. Before you sit on my bed, you need to wash your stankin' a.s.s."

"Speaking of stankin' a.s.s, your lady told me to tell you h.e.l.lo."

If I was asleep when he came in, he would leave my half of the box on my dresser. He'd bring in the paper from the front steps and leave it on the kitchen table for my parents. On March 8, there were no doughnuts waiting. The morning edition of the Press Register was not on the table when I ran downstairs to answer the phone. It was Sgt. Kincaid, his voice familiar from our church choir. The strong, smooth tenor that would lead songs, the rock-steady voice expected of police officers. His voice was shaking somewhat when he asked for my father.

My father didn't say much in the car on the way over. He said as much as he had to: Michael Donald had been killed. My brother had found the body, and we had to go see about Paul.

A crowd had already gathered on Carlisle Street when we arrived. Before we could get over there, an elderly woman who was crying stopped my father. He put his arm around her and told me to go find Paul. I saw Sgt. Kincaid moving a barricade trying to clear the people standing in the street.

"Sergeant Kincaid, where is he?"

"He's still hanging. They won't let us cut him down until the coroner gets here."

"My brother, Mr. Kincaid. Where is he?"