Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writing Part 44

It was Grandpa Thevenet. Two started onto the porch of the pea-green house, and Darryl followed.

"Hey, Grandpa Thevenet," Two said.

"Hey," said Darryl.

Grandpa Thevenet, who was n.o.body's grandfather that either boy knew, was magical. "Hey youself," he said to them.

Grandpa Thevenet had a piano-key smile and told stories that would light up a place, wherever he happened to be. When Grandpa spoke, he sounded like the French Canadians Darryl had seen in droves when Jack Mitch.e.l.l took the family to Disney World, but Grandpa Thevenet was from Louisiana.

On his lap, between hands soft and strong and long like Sunday, rested an accordion. Grandpa could do with his accordion what Hoodie Duncan did with a football. "You boys tell me what you tink of dis song."

Some people called it zydeco. Grandpa Thevenet called it house-dance music. The best music there is. Grandpa said he'd learned it as a boy in the bayous in the twenties. He said his papa would play it on the violin on Sat.u.r.day nights for the family and the neighbors. Folks sway-dancing and laughing; the swamps would be charged on Sat.u.r.day nights. Grandpa had taken to the accordion and joined his papa in the music-making when he was only eleven ("I wasn't not'ing but a son den") and could hardly handle the accordion's bulk between his spindly arms. When his papa followed the oil boom from the swamps of Louisiana to the plains of West Texas, they brought the music along. For awhile, Beezville (which was what Grandpa still called the Flats) had been plugged into the same current that had lit up the bayous on Sat.u.r.day nights. But he mostly played for himself now. And very infrequently.

Two and Darryl, sitting Indian-style on the porch, clapped with the beat. Grandpa smiled and swayed his head with the pumping accordion. The smile seemed to be as much a part of his music as the instrument. It replaced the lyrics, which were few, and let the listeners know that no matter what the words said, the people were together to have a good time.

"Ma Claire est belle," Grandpa sang: Say, ma Claire, elle est belle.

Mais les haricots n'sont pas sales

Faut que je la renvoye chez elle.

He threw back his head, loose sunshine-yellow shirt rustling with his laughter. "Now, what you tink a dis song?" Grandpa asked, carefully laying the accordion beside his chair.

"Tops," said Two.

"It was great," said Darryl.

"Ah, you like it."

"What do the words mean?" Darryl asked.

"Tey means: Ma girl Claire, she a beauty. But she no know how to make my beans, so's I have to send her home."

The boys laughed.

"Naw," Grandpa laughed with them. "High-yalla gals just cain't cook," he said, himself a shade only slightly darker than his shirt; and he laughed some more. But then he stopped. "What's tat you got on your wrists?"

"Rubber bands," Two said, almost in a whisper and no longer looking at Grandpa.

"Rubber bands?"

"Yeah."

"Boys, you take tose off now." He was no longer smiling. "You crazy? Cut off te circulation to your hands." Grandpa Thevenet raised his own to accentuate his point. His hands were beautiful: delicate but strong. They looked sculpted.

When Darryl unwound the bands, he noticed the bulge of veins on his forearms. On Two's, too. Like Hoodie Duncan.

He handed the rubber bands to Two, who was rising.

"We got to go, Grandpa Thevenet," Two said.

"Yeah." Darryl rose, too.

Two said, "Thanks for playing that music for us."

Grandpa Thevenet smiled again. Wide. "You boys don' be so scarce no more. Come by and see me some."

"OK," Two said.

"We will," said Darryl.

And they climbed down off the porch and into the dirt street.

The twins, Fredrick and Dedrick Horton, were walking in the other direction. Two scrawny boys who together might make one normal-sized teenager, they often acted as though, because they were one grade higher in school, they were superior to Darryl and Two. As they approached, Darryl noticed one or the other-Fredrick or Dedrick, he could never tell them apart-snickering and looking toward Two and him.

Two raised a pumped and protruding-vein-covered forearm and pointed at Fredrick and Dedrick. "Y'all see something funny?"

"Yeah," said Fredrick (or maybe it was Dedrick), "you two knot-headed nigros up there samboing like slave days with Grandpa Sambo hisself." The other's laugh (Dedrick's; or maybe it was Fredrick's) was equally derisive.

"If you see a knot-head nigro," Two said, "give him ten dollars." Two waited. "Uh-huh, that's just what I thought."

"If I had ten dollars, you the last n.i.g.g.ah see the green on its back."

"You don't wanna be messing with me today, Fredrick . . ."

"I'm Dedrick."

"Don't care who you is," said Two. "You two big-lipped baboons look so much alike, it's like I'm talking to just one of you n.i.g.g.ahs anyway. Just don't be messing with the kid. Not today."

"The kid?"

"Yeah," Two said, shaking his head no and raising his hands as if in disbelief. "Don't be missing with the kid. Or I'm a have to open me up a can of whoop-a.s.s on you."

"Whoop-a.s.s on who?"

Two looked around. "I don't see n.o.body else in this road."

Dedrick, leering, squared up on Two. "Well, kid, go ahead. Do it then . . ."

Darryl felt Grandpa Thevenet's stare on them and felt suddenly small. He pulled back Two, who was now face-to-face with and mimicking Dedrick. "C'mon, Two. I've got to go. Jack Mitch.e.l.l's waiting for me."

Dedrick turned on Darryl. "Well, go on and run after that tomming n.i.g.g.ah then. Wasn't n.o.body talking to you. Oreo."

Darryl felt himself tighten, terror and rage racing through his body so strongly it turned his stomach. His legs felt weak. But he just stared at the other boy, who was now equally quiet.

Two stepped between Darryl and the twins, speaking excitedly. "Man, if I was you, Fredrick . . ."

"I'm Dedrick . . ."

"Don't care who you is, I'd quit that squawking and I'd be walking if I was you. My man Darryl wind up doing you just like I saw him do yo' momma the other day."

Dedrick surged at Two-"Don't be talking about my momma, n.i.g.g.ah!"-but Fredrick reined his brother's charge. "Chill, Ded," said Fredrick. "Chill."

Grandpa Thevenet called from his pea-green porch, "Y'all boys cut t'at mess out 'fore I comes down t'ere and whups all ya's skinny tails myself."

Two, pulling Darryl by the shirt, shuffled backward, like an Ali dance step, wearing a victorious smile. Darryl still felt his throat choked up, his legs shaky; but Two, speaking with his hands, his body still dancing, delivered the knockout punch: "Yo, Dedrick. Yo, man . . ." When Dedrick finally calmed enough-leaning against his brother's restraining arm-to listen, Two sang: "I saw yo' momma at Burger King;/ Hit that b.i.t.c.h with a chicken wing!"

Dedrick swung wildly, but Darryl and Two were already laugh-shuffling up the road.

"Chill, Ded." Fredrick struggled to restrain his teary-eyed and flailing-armed twin. "Chill!"

"Yo, Fredrick," Darryl called over his shoulder. "She's your momma, too."

And Darryl and Two, hoofing it up the road, burst out laughing.

Their smiles died when they arrived at the gravel intersection where they would part. Two lived a few houses down the side street. The Three Jacks', cast in the shadows of trees, loomed quietly just a hundred yards up the road.

Looking toward the bar, Darryl said, "Jack Mitch.e.l.l's going to kill me." Jack Mitch.e.l.l didn't usually scold Darryl. Over dinner, driving his stepson to and from the Flats, he hardly even spoke. But this was different.

"Maybe they won't know," said Two, looking toward his house. "I'm a tell my daddy we got fired and white man didn't give us nothing."

But Jack Mitch.e.l.l would know. He'd know how much they got, when they started and when they stopped, and he'd know what Darryl had said in the song. Jack Mitch.e.l.l and Wiley Edwards and the other councilmen were buddies. In fact, had it been anybody but one of them, Jack Mitch.e.l.l probably wouldn't say anything.

Two patted Darryl on the shoulder, moving past, and he smiled. "Oh well," he said, "can't die but once, and never be deader than that."

Darryl stood, looking down the road at the Three Jacks'. He could hear Two's quarters jingling in his pocket as he jogged toward his house. Then Darryl started walking to face Jack Mitch.e.l.l. He steeled himself, his step steady and resolved, because he hadn't done anything wrong.

Pool b.a.l.l.s' clacking clatter burst over the dusk of the Three Jacks' Bar and Lounge as Darryl entered. After his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, Darryl noticed the other two Jacks, Jack Pickering and Jack Johnston, playing cards at the bar. When he saw Darryl, Jack Pickering pointed over his shoulder. "Your daddy's waiting for you out back."

Marching through, Darryl thought: Jack Mitch.e.l.l is not my daddy. Darryl called him Dad when addressing him directly, but otherwise he was always and only Jack Mitch.e.l.l. A nice enough man; his mom's husband, his little sister's father; but not his own daddy. And it wasn't spite that made him feel this way. It was just the truth. So if Jack Mitch.e.l.l was waiting out back to scold him, well, it disturbed Darryl; because Jack Mitch.e.l.l was his elder, because he was an authority figure, it cowed Darryl-but it didn't haunt him, because it could involve no fall from grace. Jack Mitch.e.l.l was not his daddy. Not like Mr. Waymans, the boxer, was to Two.

Jack Mitch.e.l.l sat heavily in a too-small chair at the desk in the back office. He looked up when Darryl entered, stared, but said nothing.

Darryl stayed where he was, near the door. "Hey," he offered as greeting.

"What happened at the post office?"

"At the post office?" Darryl asked.

"You heard me fine."

Darryl shifted his weight. "Mr. Edwards sent us home," he said.

"Sent you home?" Jack Mitch.e.l.l's eyes were working to meet Darryl's.

"Yes," Darryl said, looking from Jack Mitch.e.l.l to his feet.

"Boy, you know better than playing around! . . ."

"We weren't playing around," Darryl said, looking back up. "We were working hard, but he heard us singing and told us to go home."

Jack Mitch.e.l.l stopped. "Weren't playing around," he said. "But he told you to go home."

"Yes," Darryl said, eyes slipping down to his feet again.

"He told you to go home for a reason, I suppose?"

"For laughing, but we worked hard . . ."

"Boy, you know better than playing around! Laughing! White man sees you playing around and laughing, he thinks you're not working. He thinks you're clowning. Just another lazy n.i.g.g.ah wanting a handout"-Jack Mitch.e.l.l never used the word n.i.g.g.e.r; he said it was beneath him-"and now here you go, clowning and playing the fool and acting like a n.i.g.g.ah. Is that what you want?" Jack Mitch.e.l.l asked, and he stared at Darryl. Just stared.

Darryl didn't answer.

"You want to grow up to be nothing?"

He didn't answer. He stood by the door, looking down. When he looked up, Jack Mitch.e.l.l had put his hat on his head and was rising, no longer even looking at Darryl, looking past him. "Let's go," he said, and he carried his bulk through the door and out of the office.

Darryl followed, a few feet behind, his face trained on the ground. He looked steadily down because he felt tears fighting their way up, and if he couldn't keep them in, he didn't want anybody to see.

"See you all tomorrow," he heard Jack Mitch.e.l.l say.

The two other Jacks grumbled.

Outside, Darryl followed Jack Mitch.e.l.l's round shadow to his Chrysler New Yorker. The tears were still there somewhere, but he felt that as long as Jack Mitch.e.l.l didn't scold him anymore, he could keep them corralled on the inside.

Two would never cry like this. Two would go home and get his tail whipped for wasting his money and cry because of the pain, but never like this. Two would get sent to bed and wake up tomorrow and all would be forgotten, because Two was just a boy growing up, like Mr. Waymans had once been a boy growing up, and it was expected that a boy growing up get into trouble like this. "Spending all your money on games." He could hear Mr. Waymans say, the whip of the belt singing the chorus: "I sure ain't'bout to give you no more." But tomorrow all would be forgotten. Two would come out to play, Mr. Waymans staring on, his face quiet as a closed door, and all would be forgotten.

The inside of the car was too tight. Darryl was very close to Jack Mitch.e.l.l and couldn't distance himself at all. Inside himself, though, was infinite s.p.a.ce in all directions and nowhere anything to hold onto. Behind his eyes, Darryl was in midair, in free fall, and he didn't know when he would hit, nor where, nor how hard would be his landing. Behind his eyes, Darryl could see Grandpa Thevenet's Sambo song and Hoodie Duncan's wolfish leer and the twins' clowning scorn, black faces in blackface, with wide red lips and bug eyes, and laughing . . . These images, dancing in s.p.a.ce behind his eyes, were all that Darryl could see. And inside he felt himself falling, falling, falling free.

My Mama, Your Mama.

BY CONNIE PORTER.