Such Sweet Thunder (36 page)

A hard egg-yellow tone filtered into the sky, animating the sound of the bells in the tower of the tall church on Campbell Street. Rutherford had gone to work a little later than usual, all dressed up like on Sunday. Now Amerigo said good-bye to his mother and stamped proudly down the icy steps, adroitly avoiding a rusty can as he made his way up to Tommy’s house.

“Hot dog!” Tommy exclaimed, “look at ol’ ’Mer’go!”

“Thought-you-said-it-wasn’t-no-Sanie-Claus! He brought
me
a Western Flyer. I kin
show
you! An’ these boots an’ corduroy pants an’ a sheep-lined coat an’ goggles an’ a cap!” He flipped open the knife case on the outer side of the right boot and flourished a small hunting knife.

Tommy grinned and showed his sweater, his new shoes and stockings. William came out onto the porch with a cork gun. Eddie came running up with a BB gun. Helen Francis had a doll and a new dress.

Minutes later they all spilled down the steps into the alley and made their slippery way toward Sunday school, collars up, steam spouting from their nostrils and mouths, arms flying, swaggering all the way.

Sunday school glittered warmly, impatiently, for a full hour and a half, followed by church service. The choir sang a song with a lot of hallelujahs in it, and the reverend talked a lot about Jesus. Nobody got happy because they were all dressed up in their new clothes. Then the doors swung open and they poured out of the church with their presents from the big tree standing in the lobby, a host of smiles and merry voices, which suddenly turned all speckled and flakey, as a great flurry of snow filled the air!

“Hot dog!” Tommy shouted, “now maybe we kin go sleddin’!”

“I don’t care,” he said, regretting that he had forgotten to ask Santa Claus for a sled.

They entered the mouth of the alley. Old Jake was coming out of the shoot between his house and the empty house. He trudged heavily toward them, wearing his old brown overcoat with the collar turned up around his face. A worn scarf tied around his head covered his ears
and chin. One hand was stuffed in his pocket and with the other he carried his sack. His feet were swaddled in gunnysacks.

He looks like he’s awful cold, Amerigo thought, wondering what had become of his staff.

Just as he came within speaking range he fell into a fit of coughing. The cough came from deep down in his chest and caused his whole body to shake. His eyes shone dimly within their hollow sockets.

“Merry Chris’mas, Mister Jake!” he said with forced gaiety. And suddenly there was a tight feeling in his chest. An unexpected feeling of rage overwhelmed him. A procession of fragmentary images — hot, color-spangled, cool — whirling within a globular burst of sad voluminous sound filled his mind.

“Merry Chris’mas, Ole Jaky!” shouted William. They giggled; he, did too, self-consciously, against his will. But the giggle froze in his throat, for the old man looked at him the very instant his mouth flew open. A cold vacant stare. And then he turned and continued up the alley.

When Amerigo reached the stair of his front porch he hit his knee against the bottom step. A cold blast of air splashed against his face. He was oppressed by a profound feeling of shame.

I forgot to buy Santa Claus a present! But Tommy said it ain’ no …

“Merry Chris’mas, ’Mer’go!” Mrs. Derby was saying, as she closed the door behind her and started down the slippery steps. “My! Don’t you look pretty! Santa Claus sure was nice to you, wasn’ ’e!”

“Yes’m.”

He dashed up the steps. A man stood before Miss Sadie’s door. He trembled and looked at Amerigo with downcast eyes:

Who among you here!
exclaimed a familiar voice, and Amerigo rushed into the house.

Viola was busy in the kitchen, like she had been at Thanksgiving, but now she was much busier. The pies were all baked, the chocolate icing was on the cake, the turkey lay stuffed on a big platter.

She asked him about church, but was much too occupied to listen when he told her: how big the tree was, how many baskets were delivered to the poor, how Brother Jones talked about Jesus when he was born and the Star of Bethlehem that stood over the barn and told the wise men where to look. There were three of them. One was a Negro: Bal-ta-zar! How after that Sunday school was over. And suddenly he discovered, as he narrated the strange colorful events, that he was repeating himself, that he had said all of that before, at some
other time, that he had seen it all and felt it all — before! And the voice within him that had previously spoken rose to the surface of his consciousness and blended with the voice that now spoke to his mother. He looked through the kitchen window at the sky, he looked at the trees.

“When’s Dad comin’?” he asked testily, thinking: “He oughtta come soon.” A secret thrill frightened him a little when Viola answered:

“He oughtta be here now!”

And then he felt a blast of cold air that shot through the house like a prophecy:
Boom!
The front door banged, and Viola, shaking her head without even looking up, cried: “You just as bad as Amerigo. Why close a door when you kin
slam
it!”

Boom! Boom! Boom!
— his father’s approaching steps.

Hi Babe! Amerigo whispered to himself.

“Hi, Babe!” said Rutherford with a smile. “I’m a little late. Fetch your daddy’s house shoes, there, son.”

He went and got his new house shoes from under the tree. When he returned to the kitchen Rutherford was showing Viola the presents he had received from the guests at the hotel. “An’ m-a-d!” he was saying: “Come givin’ me a cheap two-bit tie after all the work I done for her — an’ the
whole year
, Babe!”

“What you expect from those poor paddies at that fifth-rate hotel,” said Viola, sliding the turkey into the oven.

“Unnnnnh-unh!” Rutherford exclaimed, “look at that bird!”

Amerigo looked at the turkey, remembering its dead dangling head and long limp horny feet. He saw the man trembling in front of Miss Sadie’s door just after he had hurt his knee on the bottom step, just after … A sour sweetish sensation rose from the pit of his stomach and reminded him of the bile-green smell that had stung his nostrils and caused him to jerk his head toward the shadows of Aunt Lily’s porch, just before he had slammed the lid down on the garbage can.

He went to the window and stared absentmindedly into the yard. Large dusty flakes of snow fell by starts and fits. They fell into the yard. They fell upon the narrow cement shelf in front of Aunt Lily’s porch — he knew it, though he could not see the shelf from where he stood. Upon the three cement steps they fell. Like heavy cat’s feet they ascended the porch steps:
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A gentle wind swept them onto the edge of the porch, onto the banister railing, and off again! Down down down:
Boom! Boom! Boom!
six times, seven times. Down, down. Nine times:
Boom!
They crept back up again, and half
stumbled, half fell upon the porch and died.
That’s a ghost
, said Aunt Rose as the snowflakes fell to the bottom of the tall elm trees in Miss Ada’s yard, upon the roof of her house, in, on, through the windows of the empty house, through the caved-in floor and down through a pair of bleached hollow eyes.

His face grew hot and his heart pounded.

“Sister Bill’s baby’s due next month,” Viola was saying.

Old Jake appeared from the mouth of the shoot and poked his staff through the window of the empty house:

“How!” he cried, turning desperately upon his mother and father, “kin Sanie Claus come if it ain’ no chimney!”

“If you don’t take the cake!” Viola exclaimed. “You hung up your stockin’, didn’t you? An’-an’ you
saw
the wagon an’ things! Why did you ask that — all of a sudden?”

Tears stood in his eyes. His lips trembled. A bright sheen of sweat stood out on his forehead.

“What’s the matter, son?” Viola asked, taking him in her arms. His tears flowed freely. “Don’t you feel good? Huh? What is it?” She cupped his chin in the palms of her hands and lifted his face toward hers.

“He’s just tired, Babe,” said Rutherford, “Eatin’ all that candy an’ trash. It’s a wonder he ain’ sick. He ain’ really slept right in two days. Go in the front room, Amerigo, by the fire. Lay down a while. Make you feel better.”

“Yeah, babe, maybe your daddy’s right. Come on. Rutherford, you keep a eye on that turkey. Come on, babe.”

He lay on the sofa with his head on the wine-red cushion that Viola had made. She tucked Rutherford’s old Indian bathrobe around him, and felt his forehead.

“At least you don’t have a fever.” She turned off the bird-of-paradise lamp. The Christmas tree lights glowed in mellow subdued tones through the frost-gray light that entered through the window. It made the silver tinsel on the trees glisten, and softened the faint rose coloring that issued from the gas stove.

“There, Babe,” she said softly, “you try to rest a little, an’ in a little while dinner’ll be ready, an’ you kin have the drumstick!” She tiptoed quietly out of the room.

He lay on his back with his head propped up toward the window. His eyelids closed slowly, dreamily, indifferently, and he sank, floated effortlessly throughout the vast reaches of the gray room. Vague sounds from the kitchen filtered into the grayness.

“ ’Mer’go! Aw, ’Mer’go!” Mrs. Derby peered up through the front corridor.

“Ma’am?” He looked down at her from the top of the stairs.

“It’s Sad’dy evenin’, ain’ it?”

“Yes’m!”

“Well, where’s my kindlin’ then?”

“Aw shucks, I forgot!” He yelled into the house. “Mom, kin I go an’ git Mrs. Derby’s kindlin’?”

“Yeah, but you come right back. Your daddy’ll be home in a few minutes an’ then we kin eat.”

“Yes’m.”

He put on his sheep-lined coat and buttoned it up tight and then put on his sheep-lined cap and pulled the goggles down over his eyes and fastened the chin straps under his chin good. And then he pulled on his new rabbit fur-lined gloves.

He had to tug hard at the kitchen door because it was stuck along the bottom where the wind had frozen the sweat that had rolled down over the panels onto the threshold. He closed the door firmly behind him and stepped onto the porch. It made a cracking sound under his weight, like the frozen branches of the elms creaking in the wind. He grabbed the Western Flyer by the tongue and pulled it to the top of the stair and half dragged, half carried it down the steps, its rear end banging noisily against each step as he descended. When he reached the bottom he pulled the wagon up to the gate.

“Hallo, Tony!” roared the huge overcoated figure of Mr. Crippa coming up out of the cellar with a pitcher of wine.

“Hi, Mr. Crippa!”

He muttered a volley of indistinguishable sounds that seemed to fall heavily upon the frozen ground as he lifted his powerful bulk up the steps. His screen door banged to just as the kitchen door opened, at which instant an angular bar of light skidded out over the porch into the yard, accompanied by an upsurge of strange husky words. The door closed, muffling the voices, while the bar of light slipped noiselessly back through the door and froze in the large yellow squares behind the kitchen window. After that he heard only the sound of the wind.

— But as soon as he had shut the gate he heard a siren from a long way off. He pulled his wagon into Miss Ada’s yard and started through the shoot.

The siren grew louder.

Coming this way.

Miss Sarah’s door flew open, and the light cut a sweeping path over the frozen yard, coming to rest against the corner of the empty house. Aunt Nancy’s door opened, and blazed another trail of light through the yard, catching the entrance to the shoot between Miss Ada’s house and Miss McMahon’s house. More doors opened, firing a luminous pattern of crisscross trails accompanied by cautious yet excited exclamations as the siren screamed into the mouth of the alley, shooting two brilliant cat-eyes of light into Amerigo’s face just as he was emerging from the shoot.

A crowd drew around the ambulance in a shadowy mass, breaking the beams that streamed from the headlights as it stopped in front of the empty house. Bright silvery jets of steam issued from excited mouths, animated by fragmentary hands, fingers, feet; eyes burning with fear and curiosity; flashes of gold or silver in a ring or an opened mouth. Two black, white-uniformed men jumped out of the cab and pulled out a stretcher.

“In here!” said Mr. Dan, balancing himself upon his crutch, pointing to the interior of the empty house with his free hand, which looked very large and gray in the beams of the headlights. “Little Tom Johnson, here, found ’im.”

The men disappeared into the shadowy twilight-gray interior of the house. Seconds later they emerged, straining under the weight of their heavy burden.

He
caught sight of the feet first. They were wrapped in gunnysacks. The legs were stiff and straight. He stuck his head between Mr. Everett’s and Miss Anna’s hips and managed to catch sight of the face of the dead man just before they slid the stretcher into the ambulance. A scarf was tied around his head. His mouth was ajar and his eyes stared up at the sky.