Such Sweet Thunder (25 page)

“NOBODY tells ME how to bring up no child a MINE!” Rutherford shouted in front of the screen door, while the child whimpered, sweat running into the welts on his arms and legs. He stood braced, ready for the next blow, the pain already half anticipated, his mouth set for the outcry.

“I guess you won’t forget this evenin’ in a hurry,” Rutherford said. A look of compassion came into his eyes.

“Come here.”

He went to his father. Rutherford gathered him into his arms and carried him into the front room. He made his bed and put him into it. He watched over his prayers and drew the covers over him when he had finished.

“Does it hurt?”

“Yessir.”

“You got a real ’un this time! But m-a-n —
you
ain’ seen nothin’, Amerigo. Ha! ha! I usta damned near git a whippin’ like that
every day!
I was b-a-d! A-l-l-ways into somethin’! Damn you, Momma usta say, I’ll make a man out a you or kill you! An’ she meant it, too, Amerigo. That woman was
rough!
But all in all I don’t regret it. I growed up straight. Ain’ never been in no kinda trouble with the law. An’-an’-an’ me an’ your momma got you an’-an’, uh, an’ we had to come out a school an’ all that, but it turned out good. They all said it wouldn’ — my sisters an’ them, your aunts. Your momma told you, I know, but you was a bright boy an’ we still together. An’-an’ I’m gonna keep you good an’ bright — or see you in your grave!”

He saw from the corner of his eye the heavens filled with stars.
He’s the best man in the whole world!
some wild raucous feeling cried out within him. He felt deliriously happy.

Now his father was telling him stories of his childhood: of fights he had had and won, of T. C. and all the gang, he gave him advice about catching snakes, how to determine a poisonous one from a harmless one, especially a rattler, how to make a jig, how to make a slingshot.

He laughed and wished that he had been there then. When Viola came home from club meeting — much earlier than usual — she found them laughing.

“Unh! You two laughin’ an’ playin’ like nothin’ had happened.”

To him: “You playin’ with ’im after he beat you nearly half to death? You are a fool!”

She undressed without uttering a word to either one of them, and went off in a huff to bed. Rutherford undressed and got into bed. Viola lay still, on her side of the bed, with her back to him.

“Babe,”

Silence.

“Babe?”

Silence.

“Aw, Viola, it’s all right.…”

Silence.

He dozed off to sleep, fell into a deep dark silence reverberant with the suppliant sound of his father’s voice:

“Babe?”

The following evening when she came home from work he stood in the door waiting to greet her, but she brushed past him.

“Aw Mom! It’s all right!”

She looked at him as though he were a stranger:

“You know one thing? If you wasn’t mine I’d swear you was a witch!”

“If it ain’ ready, let’s git it ready!” Rutherford exclaimed as he entered the kitchen. “I’m hungry as
four
wolves! Hi, there, Viola! Son, git your daddy the paper, there!”

He fetched the paper, while Rutherford washed up and took his place at the table. He washed his hands, while Viola put the supper on the table.

“Let’s eat,” she said, and Rutherford put his paper aside.

“That damned paper makes a man sick at the stomach!”

“How you mean?” Viola asked.

“Well, it’s bad enough to have to
live
with the depression. But then you got to come home an’
read
about it! A-l-l the Republicans kin do is
in-vestigate!
Investigatin’ ain’ gittin’ nobody no jobs! Looka that!” He took up the paper and spread out the pictorial section so that she could see it. “Hogs bein’ plowed under! Oranges burnin’! An’ people starvin’ to death! Why ain’ the Republicans investigatin’
that!
Pourin’ coal oil on good food! An’-an’ them damned crooked politicians down at City Hall! A man’s scaired to walk down the street after dark lest he gits knocked in the head, or shot up or somethin’!”

“Yeah, it’s sure bad, all right,” said Viola with a heavy sigh. “They talkin’ ’bout cuttin’ down at the laundry. ’Course, they a-l-l-ways talkin’ about that! Cut off four last month. One was a driver been there twenty-three years! Ever’time you go into the office to git those few pennies they payin’ you, you wonder if it’s gonna be the last. How did you come out with the old man?”

“Said he’d straighten me Sad’dy. Give me five on account. Here.” He withdrew a crumpled bill from his pocket and left it on the table near Viola’s plate.

“That’s a cryin’
shame!
You workin’ like a
slave
an’ have to beg for your money!”

“It’s like that everywhere, Babe. Old Bill an’ them ain’ even gittin’
that. They
have to live on tips an’ what they kin make off a them hustlin’ broads, or handlin’ booze. An’ things gittin’ so tight they scaired to take a chance with
that
even!

“But,” he continued thoughtfully, “but things can’t go on like this much longer. The national debt’s higher’n it’s ever been in the country’s history, an’ the relief roll’s gittin’ longer every day. Things keep up like this an’ there’ll be another war. I read a editorial the other day that said it’s tough all over the world, Babe.”

What can I do about the depression and to stop the war? Amerigo wondered silently. Suddenly he remembered the soldiers he had seen parading down Main Street last Decoration Day. The flag had gone behind the men with the drums and everybody had taken off their hats. Everyone except the women. They didn’t have to because they were women. He lightly tapped his foot to the rhythm of the music. Rutherford was saying:

“Jack Deal says it’s the fault of the Jews. He sure hates a Jew!”

“Why?” retorted Viola, “ ’cause they’re smart an’ stick tagether? If
we’d
stick together the way
they
do, we’d be a whole lot better off. That’s why we can’t git no place now — always fightin’ ’mong ourselves!”

“Old Jake’s a mess!” Rutherford exclaimed. “He reads all the papers just so he kin find somethin’ aginst a Jew. An’ he’s death on Mexicans, too. ‘Now I’ll tell you, Ruthafahd,’ he says, ‘I’ll tell you, R-u-t-h-a-f-ah-d, they ain’ no damned good, by God!’ He come up to me, shufflin’ on them bad feet a his. You know how he walks, Babe. B-i-g head, bald in front, an’ b-i-g cold blue eyes. Like a fish! I ain’ kiddin’!”

“What’s a Jew?”

“I … uh … well —” Rutherford stammered, “uh, Jews are people like Mr. Fineberg an’ Mary with the dry-goods store. Like the people in the Bible. They came from Israel a long time ago. An’ people don’ like ’um ’cause they keep to theyselves, I guess. An’ s-m-a-r-t! M-a-n — they got you figured out before you git there! But let me tell you somethin’, they ain’ gangsters an’ pimps! An’ they don’ play no dirty politics, an’ they nice to Negroes. I was just a boy when I started workin’ at the hotel, an’ the old man always treated me like I was his son. No kiddin’, Jack! I remember when I usta have to go out to his house to help old lady Mac in the garden sometimes. An’ they’d be eatin’ an’ she’d fix a plate for
me
. At the table, Jack! An’-an’ I’d eat right along with ’um. ‘You got enough, Rutherford?’ she’d say, an’ I’d say, ‘Yes’m!’ ”

“Kin I go down to Aunt Lily’s?” he asked.

“All right,” said Viola, “but you be back by nine o’clock.”

“Yes’m.”

“Hi, hon!” said Aunt Lily when he stuck his head in the door.

“Hi, Aunt Lily, where’s Unc?”

“Aw he’s gone to the late drawin’ I
guess!
No tellin’ where that man is half the time!” She shook her head with a sad thoughtful smile. “How you gittin’ on in school?”

“All right.”

“Forgotcha ABCs?”

“No’m!”

“Bet you have!”

“ABCDEFGHIJ … KLMN … OPQ … RSTUVWXYZ! — There!”

“That’s fine, baby!

“But I bet you forgot how to write your name, though. Sanie Claus ain’ gonna know who to bring the toys to if you can’t even write a letter!”

“No’m, I ain’ forgot! Gimme a piece a paper!”

“Looka there on the sewin’ machine an’ take a piece a your unc’s paper an’ one a them pencils.”

He took a pencil and paper and settled himself on the floor. He printed out his name, while she looked down over his shoulder.

“That’s just fine,” she said. “Here I’ll tell you what.” She reached for an old copy of the
Voice
. “Put your paper on the top and copy out the letters that show through.” He started copying the letters. Meanwhile she put her coffeepot on the stove and settled down in the rocking chair, her glasses resting on the tip of her nose, the way Unc wore his. She picked up a dress from the table and started to mend it.

He worked intently, oblivious to everything except the black letters that shone through. He spelled the letters out as he wrote:

“D.… EAT … H!… C O M EEEE — S TO FAT HER OF FIVE. F-I-V-E spells
five
! BOY OF SIX-TEENDIES IN HOSPITAL FROMPOLICEBRUTALITYNAACPDRIVEGETS UNDERWAY.

“Look!” He held up the lettered sheet of paper with pride.

“Unh-huh, that’s good …” she said in a distracted tone, intent on her sewing. “One a these days you’ll be readin’ an’ writin’ as good as me!”

He began to trace the picture in the center of the page. There was a tree in the middle of the picture. A black man was hanging from one of its branches. His eyes were popping out.

“Don’ he look funny!” he cried, holding up the paper. Aunt Lily looked at it, and then she looked at him, and then her eyes darkened.

“Naw, honey, he don’ look a bit funny to me. What if it was
your
daddy?”

He studied the picture carefully. He looked curiously at the white people standing around the hanging man. He felt Aunt Lily’s eyes on him. It
does
look funny! he thought, and at the same time he was stung by a feeling of shame.

The nine o’clock whistle blew.

“Mom said I have to come up at nine.”

“You better git goin’ then,” she smiled sadly. She started to kiss him, but he stooped to pick up the piece of paper on which he had drawn the man on the tree, and ran out the door without looking back. He scampered the dark corridor steps, paused a second before Miss Sadie’s door and, hearing no sound on the other side, burst into the house, holding the sheet of paper in the air.

“Look what
I
done!” showing the drawing to Viola.

“You traced it, didn’t you?”

“I put it on top a the
Voice
an’ wrote over the letters that come through.”

“That ain’ nothin’ to brag out. Anybody kin copy the letters, but it takes some doin’ to write it freehand.”

“Look!” He pointed to the scanty tracing of the hanged man. “I did it!” He smiled with deep satisfaction. “Don’t he look funny! Ho! ho! ho!”

“Ain’ that the picture of the man that got lynched?”

“He was in the paper that Aunt Lily gimme, an’-an’ his eyes was all poppin’ out all funny-like!”

“Go to bed!”

“Aw Mom.”

She looked like she meant it. He stalked into the kitchen into the toilet.

“If you ain’ in bed,” she called after him, “in five minutes, I’m gonna tell your daddy to tell you!”

Rutherford looked up from his detective magazine, and Amerigo quickened his step. He spelled out the word of the magazine as he sat on the stool: S-H-A-D-O-W — that spells
shadow!

In bed, in the dark, he thought about the man in the tree. There was blood on his shirt and all the white people standing around him had burning sticks in their hands. He saw the man’s bulging eyes. They shone like bright points of light in the dark. He was dead! he thought suddenly. What’s lynching? Why had his mother made him go to bed so suddenly? I didn’t do nothin’! Ain’ that funny! Aunt Lily’s eyes grew dark. Shame shocked him awake, but he tightened his eyes upon the deep mysterious satisfaction he had gotten out of looking at the man:
Look what
I
done! Look what
I
done! LOOK WHAT
I
DONE!

“Boom! Boom! Boom!”

“What was that!” Viola cried in a quiet frightened voice. Amerigo peered into the darkness of the middle room.

“What?” said Rutherford drowsily.

“Thought I heard some shots.”

“WHATWASTHAT!” demanded a woman’s voice from the alley.

Sounds like Mrs. Grey’s, he thought.

“SOMEBODY SHOOTIN’ DOWN THE ALLEY!” cried Miss Anna Benton. “Aw, LAWD! Mun ain’ home yet!”

“What time is it?” Miss Sadie asked someone in the corridor. A second later: “Come away from that window!” And then Mr. Nickles grumbled something that he could not understand. Meanwhile he heard the doors shutting up and down the alley.

“Did you lock the back door?” Viola whispered.

“I think so,” Rutherford lay in bed for two minutes, then he got up and went to the kitchen and checked the back door.

“It’s locked,” he said, getting back into bed. “Unh! It’s q-u-i-e-t as a graveyard out there. An’ d-a-r-k! I think that streetlight’s burned out, or knocked out.” Amerigo looked out the front window. The stars were shining here and there.

Clouds, he thought. He squirmed quietly, cautiously in his bed. Settled, he listened to his mother and father breathing. He measured his own breath against the length of theirs. Viola’s breath was long and deep, Rutherford’s was shorter, and his was the shortest.

She takes one breath to my three!
he heard Rutherford saying. And then he felt a sharp stinging pain in the pit of his stomach. He doubled himself into a knot, pressed his hands between his legs, and waited for daylight to come.

“You come straight home from school — an’
stay
home!” said Viola before she left for work the following morning. “Don’t go cuttin’ through no alleys an’ yards or nothin’, go the venue way.” Rutherford had already told him.

On his way to school he saw little knots of people along the streets, talking excitedly.

“Riddled with bullets!” Mr. Ted was saying to Miss Emmy.

“Yeah? Wheah?” asked Miss Emmy, tall short-haired, dressed in overalls, looking just like a man, he thought, as he paused to listen.