Such Sweet Thunder (46 page)

A taxi swerved around the corner and sped up the boulevard toward Eleventh Street. A brown-skinned woman sat in the backseat. He had caught a glimpse of her thigh, and had discreetly diverted his glance, but then looked again, and had been too late. He followed the pulsating taillight to the top of the hill.

A profound excitement came over him as they approached Eleventh Street. The night was quiet. They moved thoughtfully through the
shadows of silent trees. As they were nearing the middle of the block, a car glided quietly by and hesitated, catlike, at the corner of Tracy Avenue, in front of the redbrick apartment house with the glass door. It slowly turned the corner and moved up toward Tenth Street. Then suddenly its headlights flung their shadows into the middle of Tracy Avenue just as they reached the apartment house. He went around the block, he thought, noticing that the car had stopped. The headlights went out, at which their elongated shadows disappeared from the street. The car door closed cautiously, and a white man with slick hair paused under the lamppost and lit a cigarette, looking carefully up and down the street as he did so, and then dashed into the building.

“All right, men, follow me!” said Turner in an excited whisper.

“Where?” asked Willie Joe.

“Sssssh! niggah!” cried Turner, poking him in the ribs with his elbow.

“That
hurts!
” said Willie Joe.

“I
told you
them li’l niggahs too little!” Turner cried in exasperation.

“For
what!
” William demanded. “I ain’ too little for
nothin’!
An’ if
you
goin’,
I’m
goin, too!”

“Well, hush up then,” said Turner. “Follow me an’ do what I tell you.”

They turned cautiously up Tracy Avenue and walked past the apartment house. The shades of all the windows facing the street were drawn, but pinpoints of rosy light appeared through the cracks. They stole up to Tenth Street.

“Wait a minute!” Turner whispered, watching a suspicious car roll down the street. Then he faced Eleventh Street and studied the windows and doors of the houses on both sides of the street.

“On your toes, men!” he whispered, “an’ be ready to make a fast gitaway!”

They came upon a parked car in the driveway that gave onto the backyard of the apartment house.

“Cover that car!” Turner commanded softly. Willie Joe and Toodle-lum looked in the window.

“E-e-e-e-empty … empty,” Toodle-lum whispered.

“Forward, men!” whispered Turner.

They stole into the yard. It was covered with cinders that cracked and squashed under their feet.

“Ssssssh!” said Turner.

Suddenly the back door of the apartment on the ground floor opened, flinging a bright yellow slant of light across the yard. They
crouched breathlessly under the porch. Amerigo’s heart pounded wildly, his eyes fixed upon the ominous shadow that emerged from the frame of yellow light. It had a long pointed head and a hooked nose. It looked out. Listened …

Sweat ran down Amerigo’s face and tickled his nose. He started to scratch but stopped because the sound of his bitten-off fingernail against his sweating nose made too much noise.

The head disappeared and the light scudded back over the cinders into the house.

Total darkness.

Cricket-song!

“Ssssssss!” Turner whispered, nervously poking Tommy with his elbow.

“It ain’ me, man!” said Tommy.

“What?” said Willie Joe.

“Sssssss!” Turner whispered, “you gonna git us
all
killed! Now come on an’ be quiet!”

They crept into a little shoot four feet wide between the apartment and the house next door. Amerigo could see the parked car through the widely spaced boards of the narrow fence at the end of the shoot. He tried to remember if its owner had had a long head and a hooked nose. He stumbled over a can.

“God
damnit!
” Turner whined. “Be careful, you niggahs!”

“Wasn’ none a me!” Lem whispered.

“Me neither!” said William

“Mmmmmme-me-me neither,” Toodle-lum mumbled.

“Sssssst!” Turner touched Tommy’s shoulder and Tommy stayed the others. They stood dead still. Faint rays of moonlight filtered over the roof of the neighboring house and filled the shoot with a subtle silvery blue light.

Turner signaled for them to move deeper into the shoot, to hug the wall of the apartment house in order to avoid the moonlight.

“Ssssssssh!” he hissed quietly, and came to a halt. He pointed to the two windows overhead. They looked into the bedrooms of the apartment. Their shades were drawn but there was a little space about an inch wide at the bottom of the one on the left and a little less at the bottom of the other one. They were both filled with rosy light.

Turner and Tommy who were the tallest merely stood on their toes, gripped the sill with their fingers, and stared excitedly through the crack. He tried to squeeze in between them but he was too short. Lem,
Willie Joe, and Toodle-lum who were even shorter tried to scramble up the backs of Turner and Tommy who poked them irritably with their elbows and continued to fix their attention upon the rosy slit at the bottom of the window.

Meanwhile he discovered three half bricks on the ground, which he stacked one on top of the other, and then stood up on them, on the tips of his toes, so that, straining every muscle, as it were, he was barely able to see, over the tip of his nose, through the tiny aperture. His eyes widened and all his senses took in the rosy room filled with the huge bed covered with a white sheet. A soft, round, pink-skinned young woman with brown hair lay upon the bed with her legs spread apart, the right one drawn toward her chest. She supported herself with her elbow. She was looking up at the naked slick-haired man who stood looking down at her. Trembling. Sweating. Looking. She was smiling and her lips were moving. He could not hear what she was saying, but it sounded as though she were saying: “Now?”

The unheard word echoed within the chambers of his pounding heart. His body ached all over.
He
began to tremble. His sweating fingers were slipping from the sill. The bricks were slipping under his toes. Desperately he tried to secure his grasp. The woman began to squirm teasingly in the bed. Her smile deepened. Her lips parted and her tongue darted between her teeth. She drew her leg higher and repeated the unheard word.

He fell to the ground with a loud crash.

“Gaaaaaaaad daaam!” Turner cried, followed by the frightened scramble of a blind herd of stampeding feet crashing through the darkness, while he lay dazed at the foot of the window. With a dreamy detachment he watched the rosy border at the bottom of the window being pushed upward by a pink hand until it approximated the size of the window frame. A naked face and bosom, half submerged in shadow, stuck out of the window and looked toward the yard end of the shoot where the noise was coming from. Like the Africans in the show! he thought, but was suddenly horrified as her eyes swept down the shoot and looked right at him. Now he caught sight of the big gun she held in her right hand.

“Little black sons of bitches!” she cried angrily. She pulled the shade down until it reached the bottom of the window frame. He was plunged in silvery blue darkness.

She didn’t see me!
he thought, crouching on his hands and knees. He started to crawl toward the back of the house. Like the Indians. But
now the back door opened and light sprawled across the entrance to the shoot. The figure of a man whose upper body was cut off by shadow shot a bright beam of light over his head and pinned him to the ground. He lay as though he were dead. The light flicked out. The door banged to, was bolted. Silence.

His face was wet with something that stank. Slowly, cautiously, he crawled through the filthy shoot, carefully avoiding the tin cans and broken bottles, hugging the shadows until he gained the street. Then he ran all the way home.

The violent yellow moon stared at him through the window of the front room. He closed his eyes and sank heavily into the black room.

Now?

He lay upon the big white bed with his legs drawn against his chest. A naked woman stood over him. She had a long whip in her hand.

“Touch the bottom rungs of the chair!” she commanded.
“Now!”

He tried to scream when the whip bit into his flesh, but the sound stuck in his throat.

“Now!”

The whip descended again — and again. Welts rose upon his naked body. He tried to cry out, but his voice failed him. The pain found him no matter where he tried to hide, and veined his body, like a leaf pierced by a fiery constellation of stars.

“STOP!”

A purple-splotched face appeared.

“If you hit that boy again I’ll …”

He slipped into the warm ooze of an obscurely intense feeling of shame.

Saturday morning was a raw-yellow, noisy-blue morning. The sun stared knowingly through the window. He opened his eyes. Then he closed them and moved his head into the shade. He listened to the familiar noises that came from the kitchen and from the middle room where Viola lay, breathing three times more deeply than he.

“Hi Sonny!”

Rutherford stood over him. He pretended not to hear. Rutherford stepped out the door. He lay still and waited for Viola to wake up.

She woke up, sat on the side of the bed, and yawned. She looked at him. He clamped his eyes tight. She tiptoed barefoot to the toilet. She
brushed her teeth and washed her face and combed her hair. Then she broke the beam of sunlight that stretched out toward him from the middle room window as she stepped behind the door in order to slip out of her gown and into her underwear, stockings, and finally her dress.

“S’long, babe,” she said, as she slipped down the steps.

His eyelids quivered guiltily. He stirred, as though the sound of her voice had awakened him.

“Uhn … S’long.”

Her footfall faded. He leaped out of bed and rushed to the toilet, and poured the remains of the hot water into the wash pan and scrubbed his face, arms, and legs. He stared curiously, guiltily, at the chalky white stuff that stained his thighs, which he could not rub away with his fingers.

It’s in the bed, too! he said to himself as he covered the stain with the sheet. He straightened up the front room, the middle room, and the kitchen. Then he gulped down the oatmeal and milk his father had left him. He hurredly rinsed the breakfast dishes and stacked them on the drainboard. Seconds later he was dashing down the front steps.

He sprang up the alley and turned into the path behind Mr. Harris’s old house. It stood next to Aunt Nancy’s house, almost at the top of the alley.

“There’s that cat!” Turner cried. “What happened, man?”

“Oooooo wow!” laughed Willie Joe, louder than all the others. “What happened to you maaan?”

“You niggahs run off an’ left me, that’s what!”

“I waited for you at the corner,” said Tommy.

“Me, too!” said Carl.

“That’s what
you
say!” he said.

“Didn’ I, man?” said Tommy to Turner.

“Yeah, m-a-n,” Turner replied. “But we couldn’ wait all night. We was hot!”

“They catch you?” asked Willie Joe.

“You see I’m
here
, don’t you! But m-a-n, that sure was close! Just as I fell I heard old Turner cuss, man —”

“Just as that cat was about to git that pussy!” said Turner.

“Yeah! An’ then I heard you guys beatin’ it through the shoot —”

“I was first!” said Tommy.

“But I was right on you, Jack!” said Turner.

“I was third,” said William.

“Me, too!” said Willie Joe.

“What
you
mean,
me, too
, man?” said Turner. “Can’t be but
one
third.”

“I was really comin’, though!” said Willie Joe.

“What was you doin’ back there, ’Mer’go?” Tommy asked.

“Them old bricks fell down under me, an’ the woman that was naked on the bed — man! She sure was pretty. All naked with
real
big titties — she stuck ’er head out the window an’ pointed a g-r-e-a-t b-i-g f-o-r-t-y — f-i-v-e six-shooter! at you niggahs. She was m-a-d! Man! Oooooooo-whee!”

“But we was hittin’ ’um!” cried Turner.

“An’ I was lyin’ real real still in the shadows, man.”

“Man, I bet you was s-c-a-i-r-d! Hee! hee!” Willie Joe laughed.

“Naw, I wasn’ either!”

“Aw man, you
know
you was scaired, man!” said Turner.

“Shucks! You’d be scaired, too. That gun was b-i-g! She cocked it an’ took aim, but you cats was
gone!
”

“Done cut out!” said Willie Joe with a grin.

“An’ man! When she went to shut the window it looked like she was lookin’ right
at
me. But I didn’ move!”

“That little niggah
couldn’
move!” cried Turner. “He was scaired shitless!”

“An’ when she shut that window an’ pulled the shade down, man, I was just fixin’ to run when the back door opened up. A big m-e-a-n-lookin’ cat stuck his head in the shoot with a b-i-g flashlight in his hand. I couldn’ see
what
he had in his other hand. An’ he flashed it up and down.”

“What did you do?” Tommy asked.

“He dug a tunnel in the ground!” Turner laughed, joined by Willie Joe and the others.

“I hugged the ground like a Indian, Jack!”

“Old Toodle-lum was last!” cried Willie Joe.

“Aw naw I wasn’, neither! You wasn’ in front a me, neither … neither.…”

The sun rang out like a great golden bell! Like a Heavenly Bell, shimmering upon the blue-golden air, upon the green-golden trees, upon the red-golden houses with the gray-green-golden porches, which he knew
were there, though he could not see them, as he lay in the Sunday beams that shone through the window.

The way to church, and church, rang out with golden song. The reverend warned the faithful congregation against the consuming fires of hell, while the emerald-green, gold-edged wings of the flies flitted in and out of the open transoms through which summer sounds floated, animating his words and intensifying the eternal pain and suffering that was to be the fate of sinners.