Such Sweet Thunder (13 page)

“He’s very bright,” said Rutherford, getting in on the game, too. “Ol’ Jake said he’s a great man, an’ there ain’ much that that old man don’ know. He’s gonna spin the world on its head one a these days when he gits big enough to be a man, an’ learn how to
not
go traipsin’ off in the alley without his shoes, so his daddy won’ have to beat his brains out, or put ’im in the sideshow with the freaks!”

“What’s a freak?”

“People that ain’ normal. Like people with three hands instead a two, or people with eyes in they stomachs, or little boys that go around lookin’ at dead people gittin’ shot!”

“Ruther-f-o-r-d!” cried Viola, “you stop fillin’ that boy’s head with that nonsense! Don’ listen to ’im, Amerigo, he don’ know what he’s talkin’ about.”

“What did I
say
, Babe?”

“You know good an’ well what I mean. You ain’ no fool, even if you
do
act like one!”

“Aw-aw — you done made me mad, woman! Git me that paper, boy!”

He fetched the paper. Rutherford began to read while Viola put the crawdads away and scraped the dishes and stacked them on the drainboard. Meanwhile he took the tablecloth out on the porch and shook it out over the banister. The crumbs fell into the shoot where the sweet pungent odor of alcohol rose and mingled with the smell of the crawdads, and this mixture reminded him of Miss Sadie’s bosom, and of the maggots in the garbage can, whose stench now mingled with that of the cloudy water around the sewer in front of Aunt Lily’s porch. Mysterious, this mixture of odors now that evening was falling between the trees and the houses, now that five o’clock had come and gone in a twinge of throbbing pain that shot through his big toe.

As he drew the outstretched tablecloth over his head in order to fold it, he heard a step on the stair. He peeped from under the cloth and saw Miss Ada. Where did she come from? He was astonished that he had not seen her descend the steps of her apartment, pass by Mr. and Mrs. Woolf’s door, unhook the gate, and cross the backyard.
Irish
, he heard Rutherford say, thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Woolf’s gray hair and blue eyes. Like Mr. McMahon, the Irish policeman next door, remembering that he, too, had blue eyes and gray hair, and that his sister had blue eyes and gray hair also. Their blue eyes and gray hair confronted him with the fact that Miss Ada wasn’t Irish because her hair was black and long, noticing that though it was thick like Viola’s it hung down her long neck. Her face was of a smooth beige color, like Miss Sadie’s, only Miss Sadie’s had little holes in it and Miss Ada’s didn’t. And her eyes were brown. He surveyed her long thin face with its slightly turned-up nose and wide eyes set far apart.

He stared at her swollen belly — Where did she come from? — surprised that he had not seen her when she had passed through the squarish shadow of yellow light that now stretched out over the little concrete wall in front of Aunt Lily’s door.

“Hi, boy!” she was saying.

“She’s gonna have a baby.” He remembered the way Viola had looked at him when he had asked, “Where do babies come from?”

“Hi, boy.” He lowered his eyes and did not speak.

“Yoo-hoo! Anybody home?” She tapped on the screen and entered before anyone had time to answer.

“Hi, Sister Bill!” said Rutherford.

“Hi, Ada!” said Viola with a smile.

“Sit down, you all, an’ take a load off a your feet!” Rutherford said with a grin.

“All right, smarty,” replied Miss Ada with feigned embarrassment, her smile revealing a row of even white teeth separated in the middle by a gap an eighth of an inch wide. She slid heavily into the chair and grunted, “How you doin’, girl?”

“I’m doin’ all right. How
you
doin’?”

“Gittin’ heavier ever’ day! Tryin’ to work for the white folks in
my
condition ain’ no fun. An’ then to have to come home to a evil niggah that don’ do nothin’ but argue all the time to boot!”

“Maybe you don’ keep ’im busy enough, Sister Bill!” said Rutherford coyly.

“How do you think my belly got like this, man? You crazy! My
problems is how to slow ’im down! But once they got you like me, ain’ nothin’ you kin do ’cept try to git along with ’um.”

“I know just what you mean,” said Viola sympathetically.

“Yeah, but you’re lucky! You got a man to marry you, but a woman jus’ livin’ with a man ain’ got no comeback!”

“You seem to be doin’ all right.”

“You don’ know half the truth, honey. I’m so sick an’ tired a this mess, sometimes I think I jus’ can’t stand it no more.”

He looked into the kitchen from the porch, his nose and palms pressed against the screen. He watched the tears well in Miss Ada’s eyes. He wondered what the screen tasted like, and licked it. It felt cool and rough and gritty. He let his tongue lie flat against it. The tears rolled down Miss Ada’s cheeks.

“I promised Momma before she died that I’d try to do right, to live decent. Lord knows I’ve tried. But these no-good men, all they know is one thing.”

“Well, Ada,” said Viola consolingly, “ever’body — I don’ care where you look — ever’body’s got his burden to bear.”

“Oh, but wait!” Miss Ada exclaimed in the midst of her tears. Now her slender brows arched cunningly over her beautiful eyes. “I almost forgot to tell you what I come to tell, if you don’ know already —”

“Yeah, I know,” said Viola grimly.

“Ain’ no tellin’ just what these young ’uns’ll think a next!” Sucking the air through the gap in her teeth. “When Jenks come home an’ told me that
Viola’s
boy, Amerigo! was in the
soup line!
Why, why, I said to myself, Jenks must a made a mistake, Amerigo wouldn’ do nothin’ like that, not with Viola an’ Rutherford workin’ every day tryin’ hard to feed ’im an’ clothe ’im an’ make a man out of ’im. I
know!
G-i-r-l, Jenks said he almost dropped the spoon!”

“The rest of ’um talked ’im into it,” said Viola shortly, “after all, he’s only five years old, goin’ on six, how in the world would a idea like that come into his head all by hisself? As good as we treat ’im at home!”

“He’s a man, ain’ he! They don’ need
nobody
to give ’um no ideas ’bout how to git into mischief, honey! Next thing you know you’ll look around an’ he’ll have some poor innocent girl in trouble! When mine do come, I’m sure gonna make ’um toe the line. After all I been through with these no-count men, no daughter a mine’s ever gonna have to go through what I been through. I’d kill ’um first!”

“Aw, Ada,” said Rutherford.

“You kin
smile
, Rutherford Jones! A-l-l you men kin smile, while we women have the babies!”

“I didn’ say nothin’, woman, what you beefin’ at me for?”

He came in the kitchen and stood at his mother’s elbow.

“ ’Bout time for you to go to bed, ain’ it, mister?”

“Aw Mom!”

“What time is it, Rutherford?”

“He’s got a little while yet.”

“What else I wanted to tell you was how much I liked the way you straightened an’ marcelled my hair. Honey, you do my hair better’n all them gals in the beauty parlors an’ you just picked it up!”

“Learnin’ don’ mean nothin’ if you ain’ got it in you. I kin see it once an’ come home an’ do it just as good — if not better!”

“What they gonna do ’bout club meetin’?”

“I talked to Susie on the telephone, an’ it’s gonna be on Wednesday from now on. I was gonna call you an’ tell you if you hadn’ come over.”

“Kin I have a crawdad?” he whispered in his mother’s ear.

“Now, what did I tell you ’bout whisperin’ in front a people!”

“ ’Scuse me.”

“Got a name yet?” asked Miss Ada.

“I thought The American Beauty Art Club,” said Viola.

“That sounds nice, but you better call Vera an’ Mabel an’ git together on it
before
the meetin’. ’Cause you know how contrary them gals kin be! That biggidy Miss Waters can’t let
nothin’
pass without a argument!”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” said Viola, giving Rutherford a quick sly look.

“You oughtta be the president, anyway.”

“I been the president once!”

“That don’ cut no ice, you oughtta run agin. We got a democracy, ain’ we? We kin vote on it!”

“Craw-pappy! R-e-d — hot!” A singing cry resounded from the top of the alley.

Mr. Derby! thought Amerigo. In his big white cook’s hat and his white jacket with the white buttons and his apron — all white; with a tray with big, big crawdads on a little wagon. Coming down the alley. Hot dog!

“You always presidentin’ anyway,” continued Miss Ada, “might as well do it legal. Some people just cut out to be president, an’ honey, you one of ’um.”

“Craw-pappy! R-e-d — h-o-t!”
Mr. Derby was coming closer. He tugged impatiently at Viola’s arm. Rutherford looked up from his paper.

“Well, I’ll have to leave you an’ the president to look after the country, while I go down on the front porch with the crawdads an’ a bottle a homebrew an’ have a look at the alley with my son. Come on, boy!”

“Yessir!”

“Aw naw you don’!” cried Viola in the same mocking tone in which Rutherford had made his speech. “You don’ go nowhere with them crawdads without
me!
Come on, Sister Bill.”

“Naw, girl, I gotta git back over there an’ fix that man’s supper.”

“What?” exclaimed Rutherford, rising to his feet. “You mean you ain’ fixed the man’s supper
yet!
It’s a wonder he ain’
killed
you!”

“My belly’s already full! If he can’t wait till I git over there, he kin cook it hisself. He’s a cook!”

“Hot damn! Tell ’im, Sister Bill!” cried Rutherford.

“A-d-a-h.”
A loud voice from across the yard. All eyes turned toward the kitchen door. A tall thin black man in a white short shirt stood on the porch framed in the kitchen door, which was flooded with light.

“A-D-A-H!”
Mr. Jenks called again. Amerigo saw his purple bottom lip as he ladled out the soup.

“Aw — I’m comin’,” said Miss Ada, rolling her eyes.

“Well,
come on, then!”

“I thought you was gonna tell ’im to cook it hisself!” said Rutherford. “Git out a my house, girl, before that niggah comes over here an’ kills you an’ gits my floor all bloody an’ I have to call the law!”

“Guess I
had
better go,” said Miss Ada, laughing nervously. “Well, take it easy,” moving toward the door.

“You take it easy yourself,” said Viola, rising from her chair and following her to the door while Rutherford pulled back the curtain in front of the sink and took a bottle of beer.

“Unh! No
wonder
there’s so many flies an’ bugs around here! Looka here, Babe.”

“HI, JENKS! I’M SENDIN’ ’ER TO YOU RIGHT NOW!”

“HI, VI! IT SHO’ IS A GOOD THING YOU SENDIN’ ’ER ’CAUSE IT WOULDN’ DO FOR ME TO HAVE TO COME OVER THERE AN’ GIT ’ER — HUNGRY AS I AM!”

“Babe!” cried Rutherford from within.

“CRAW-PAPPY! R-E-D H-O-T!”

Amerigo slipped quietly into the toilet and sat on the stool. Very still.

“What?” asked Viola, turning around.

“Looka here!” pointing to the dust and dirt that had been brushed among the bottles. “That boy kin think a more ways to git in trouble taday than …”

“Now what the —” cried Viola suddenly, looking down at her stocking. There was a small tear in it. She looked at the bottom of the screen and saw a thread from her stocking caught in the wire fringe of the torn screen.

“What’s the matter?” asked Rutherford.

“I tore my stocking.” She bent down and examined the screen. “Why, there’s a hole in it! Amerigo!”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
resounded suddenly from the alley.

“What’s that!” cried a voice from the yard.

“Shootin’ — what you think?” said another voice.

“Where’s Amerigo!” cried Viola.

“Aw — ’em ain’ no shots,” said Rutherford, “that’s just a carburetor explodin’!”

“GIT CHO RED-HOT CRAWDADS — CRRAW-PAPPY — R-E-D HOT!”

“Over here, Mister Derby!” cried a voice.

“I’ll have a mess of ’um, too!” yelled another voice. Miss Jenny, he thought, still sitting on the stool, waiting for the excitement to die down. In the dark he heard the clang of a slightly out-of-tune piano accompanied by a guitar.

“Listen to that joker cut down on that bass!” said Rutherford, opening the bottle of beer. A rich creamy foam oozed out and he quickly stuck it in his mouth. In the dark the child could see it all.

“BIG-LEG WO-MAN —” A raucous baritone voice rose between the beat of the bass and the wang of the guitar. Amerigo deceptively pulled the chain. “KEEP YO’ DRESSES DOWN!”

“CRAW-PAPPY!”

“Mister Derby! Aw — Mister Derby!”

“R-E-D — HOT!”

“YOU GOT SOMETHIN’ MAKE A BULLDOG — OOOO-WHEE!”

He came quietly out of the toilet and latched the door.

“Wash your hands,” said Viola.

“HUG A HOUN’ — BIG-LEG WOMAN! KEEP YO’ DRESSSES DOWN!”

A door slammed and the music ceased.

“Bring a chair an’ I’ll bring the pillow,” said Viola, taking the dish of crawdads off the oven.

“How come I always gotta bring the chair?” Rutherford complained. “Boy, bring a chair for your momma!”