The Lost Songs (17 page)

“You scared me!” she shouted.

“Good. You ought to be scared, hanging out here by yourself. I thought you had half a brain, even though teenagers as a rule have only ten percent of a brain.”

“I thought you liked teenagers.”

“I do. That’s why I work with them. Step one, I try to keep them alive.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” said Doria irritably. “Anyway, this is a nice town.”

“With the usual allotment of scum. Get in. I’m giving you a ride home.”

“My mother’s on the way.”

“Fine. I’ll stay until she gets here and then I’ll let her know that her daughter is standing around in an unlit parking lot in a lousy part of town.”

“No! Don’t say that to her. Anyway, it isn’t a lousy part of town.”

“Doria, you think crime and violence are jokes? You think a half inch of house key is going to stop a rapist or a mugger? Of course I’m going to tell your mother!”

Doria hated being corrected. “It was just you,” she said sullenly.

“Doria, you know the boys in my Music Appreciation class? The ones taking it just to give me a hard time? You know anything about them? Train, for example. Formerly known as Cliff Greene. His older brother murdered somebody and got away with it, because there wasn’t enough evidence to bring him to trial, even though DeRade boasted all over town. But DeRade’s in prison after all because he blinded some little middle-school kid. Who knows why? Who cares
why? DeRade likes to hurt people. And who do you think Train wants to be just like? You think Train looks at
you
and says, I wanna be like her—straight As, straight arrow. Guess what, Doria. Train wants to be just like his big brother, only worse.”

“Okay, fine,” she said. “I get the point.”

“No, you don’t get the point. It’s a Friday night. Train and his kind are out in the dark, prowling, like any other kind of predator. He lives in Chalk, and Chalk is just down Tenth.”

“There are fine people in Chalk,” said Doria.

“That doesn’t make it safe for you to be alone at night out here.”

She was sick of all these people who didn’t want her to practice alone.

Her mother turned into the parking lot. Mrs. Bell’s headlights illuminated Doria chatting with somebody in a car. “Hi, honey!” she called. “Let’s go! Daddy’s worried. He doesn’t like you practicing alone after dark.”

“See?” said Mr. Gregg. But he didn’t get out of his car after all, and he didn’t talk to Doria’s mother. Doria didn’t have to lie about not doing it again.

T
he taste of autumn was gone by morning. Saturday was hot, but not summer hot, when the air seemed to pull the marrow out of your bones and all your energy leaked away.

Lutie stood at the top of the hill in the shade of thick green magnolia leaves. The tiny chain-linked yards and grimy houses of Chalk spread out below. On a red clay lane, its surface as hard as pottery, sat Miss Kendra’s dented old Ford Explorer. The big rear window was open and on the high shelf of the back were big metal casserole pans filled with chicken and rice, and a huge vat of green beans. A white plastic clothes basket packed with loaves of cheap white bread sat beside a cardboard box overflowing with homemade saucer-sized iced cookies.

The first time Miss Kendra served food in Chalk, people figured she was an undercover cop or else crazy. What kind of normal white woman drove right into Chalk, rolled down her car window, and yelled to the men sitting on their front porch playing cards and drinking beer, “Hey, y’all! Good evenin’! Got a hot dinner here. Want a plate? Chicken and biscuits.”

“Yeah?” “Why?” “Who you?” were the usual responses.

It was kids who first began eating the meals, and only because they wanted the cookies. Miss Kendra would say, “Your mama want some dinner too? You want to take her a plate?”

They always wanted to take their mama a plate.

One Saturday Miss Veola came out to meet this intruder, and when the women ended up praising the Lord together, people relaxed.

Sometimes being relaxed in Chalk was a bad idea.

This neighborhood had crack houses, houses with crime tape across the front door, houses abandoned to rats, houses where anybody could be doing anything. And yet mostly it had houses full of sweet kids, a mama trying hard, and a baby-daddy stopping by now and then. It was a bad neighborhood but also a good one. People knew each other, and liked each other. They knew who to be scared of, and when. They knew who to check on, and when.

In Chalk, you always wanted company. And you always wanted fresh air, so the lawn chairs were gathered up close. Kids flowed from house to house and yard to yard like kids in the halls at school.

But Chalk could change in an instant. A gang moving down the lane wanted action. The sure way to get action was violence, or taunting that led to violence.

Gangs didn’t care about a nine-year-old babysitting his little sisters. They didn’t care about a ten-year-old practicing free throws to a netless hoop. They didn’t care about an old lady on her front stoop, reading the obituaries. When you wanted action, you needed bystanders. If nobody saw it happening, it wasn’t half as fun.

Chalk knew how to duck, but knowing didn’t always save you. You could misjudge how long to lie low.

Today Chalk looked meager and tired. It had no vibe. It was just there, poor and crowded. Most strangers coming into Chalk today would want to dig in and change everything. But Miss Kendra wasn’t trying to rework anybody’s future or remodel anybody’s choices. She had just been listening to the Lord one day, when he’d told her to take Matthew 25:35 seriously. “I was hungry, and you brought me food,” Jesus had said. “Every time you feed a stranger, you are feeding me.” And to Miss Kendra, he had added, “Start now. In Chalk.”

In a minute, Miss Kendra would finish serving. The volunteers would get back in the Explorer and Miss Kendra would drive around the corner. It was safer on the next block. Mainly grandmothers. Although a fine grandmother could have a grandchild gone bad.

Lutie stood on the hill, thinking of grandchildren gone bad.

Doria Bell was having a wonderful time. She felt useful and good.

The speech of Chalk streamed around her like a slow-moving river. She felt like a turtle sunning itself on a flat rock, sweet water flowing by. She wanted to compose Chalk music, the music of voices in the dusty grass.

She separated a paper plate from the stack balanced on the edge of the open rear of the car. She took a big scoop out of the fifty-serving pan of rice. With a slotted spoon she scooped green beans from the hot water in which they sat. She arranged a big pink-iced cookie where it would not get damp from the beans and handed the plate to a towering black man with a gold tooth and swirling tattoos.

His face fell.

“More rice?” said Doria.

“No,” he said, embarrassed. “No, ma’am, this is fine. Thank you.”

“What? Tell me,” said Doria. “This is my first time serving.”

“I kinda wanted the yellow icing.”

They both laughed. She traded the pink cookie for a yellow one.

A giggling kid whispered, “That pink one is a used cookie now, Miss Doria. Can I have it?”

She was so pleased to be called by name. She studied the little boy, realizing he was one of the kids who had been playing in Miss Veola’s yard the other day. “You aren’t the four-year-old,” she said.

“I’m six. I’m Jayson.”

“Jayson, I’m having a special on used cookies.” Doria handed over the pink cookie. “But why are we whispering?”

“Miss Kendra doesn’t let anybody have a cookie that didn’t have their vegetable.”

Jayson’s brothers popped up. They wanted hot dogs and applesauce and were disappointed to find that Doria didn’t have any. They looked suspiciously into the rice and didn’t like the look of the herbs and sausage bits. And could that squishy thing be a mushroom? “We’ll just have cookies,” they said.

“Boys!” shouted Miss Kendra. “You march around here and let me see you eat those good vegetables first.”

Doria gave them each a teaspoon of beans alongside a tablespoon of rice.

The boys ran around the Explorer to eat a bean or two in front of Miss Kendra. “Don’t run out of cookies!” they hollered at Doria.

“I won’t!” she hollered back.

Doria drank in the scent of sweet shrubs nearby, blossoming
like prom corsages. She served three more plates. Wiped her hands on a towel. Wiped her sweaty forehead with the sleeve of her T-shirt. And was badly startled by bright hard popping gunshot.

“Quander’s family,” said Miss Kendra. “They line up jars on the fence and shoot ’em.”

Doria was shocked. “Isn’t that dangerous? The houses are so close together! Is it even legal?”

“I don’t think Quander’s family cares whether things are legal. And it’s only dangerous if you stand between the jars and Quander,” said Miss Kendra.

Train waited for Doria to notice him.

First Doria had been distracted by the Waitlee boys and the cookie rules. Now she was standing with her shoulders tucked in, as if that would prevent Quander from thinking she was a jar.

Last month, Quander and Jerdoah Williams had been arrested on gun-related charges, but were out almost immediately on bail. Quander and Jerdoah thought the bail amount was a riot. They earned that much in a minute, selling drugs.

Now Miss Kendra was praying with a mama whose son was in the army.

The army was the best ticket out of Chalk, but you could get sent to a war zone. On the other hand, a son was in danger here in Chalk too, and didn’t get paid like he would in the army. Miss Kendra was asking the Lord to watch over Wayne, and she and Wayne’s mama were holding hands and swaying. When Miss Kendra prayed, people often sneaked a look at the clouds, because Miss Kendra was some pray-er.

Miss Kendra had been serving hot dinners in Chalk for a couple of years now, for no reason other than she felt like it.
Back when she’d started, everybody figured she was part of a sting. It was too strange—this white woman driving around Chalk yelling, “Hey, y’all! Want some dinner?” DeRade had never taken a plate. DeRade would rather starve than let somebody think he needed something.

“Why, hello, Train!” said Doria, beaming at him. “How are you? It’s so nice to see you again.” She fixed him a plate and held it out.

The terrible rage that could sweep through Train for any reason or no reason charred his heart. Just the sight of her white fingers on her white plate, her white smile as she took an hour out of her white life to help poor pitiful Chalk set him on fire.

He hated all volunteers at that moment, and all do-gooders, and anybody who prayed. He hated DeRade for blinding Nate and he hated Nate for ratting on DeRade. He hated Chalk and school and his mama and God.

After the barbed wire incident, Train’s mama had stopped cooking. She had stopped being home, actually. Got a second job, worked all the time, kept the refrigerator and the cabinets full of food, but didn’t fix it. “I went to church,” she would say to him. “I took you. You and DeRade.” She wouldn’t cry. She’d just back away.