Don't Worry About the Kids (14 page)

Get out and keep going, he said. That's what you should do. You're a good boy. You never said nothing against me. They open the gate and then they close it.

Who?

Women.

Sure.

You know what my father taught me, son? So heavy is the chain of wedlock that it needs two to carry it… and sometimes three.

Sure, I said.

Do you get the joke? he asked.

I get it, I said. It's a good joke.

Listen, son—this is only temporary, my sleeping here. You know that, right? It's just until your mother gets off the rag.

Sure, Dad.

I went into my room. My kid brother Tommy was asleep, his baseball bat next to him on our bed, to keep us separated so that we didn't roll over onto one another. It was ten past three in the morning. On my desk was a new stack of letters waiting for me from all the Saint Colleges, but there was also one with a return address that said Department of Athletics, Brandeis University.

I opened it and read of their genuine interest in me as a student and an athlete.

It was March 17, 1955. I was 17 years old. I read the letter and I felt warm inside my chest, the way I did when Jane rested her head there. I thought of going into the living room, to wake my father and give him the good news, and I imagined how happy he'd be, how he'd want to celebrate my good fortune, how he'd pour drinks for us both and tell me I was going to have a swell life, not like his. He'd laugh and say we should wait until the morning to tell my mother, that she needed her beauty sleep. But if we woke my mother I knew she'd laugh more than both of us put together, that she'd kiss me and hug me and tell me that this was wonderful, having a dream come true—that this was always the best joke of all.

Connorsville, Virginia

S
HERIFF
J
ACKSON
, he a good friend to the colored people. We got a small town without no mayor, so he acts for both, always comes to the funerals of colored folks and asks if he can help. I know it for a fact, if you ain't got enough to do it right, he gets it for you from the town money, you don't ask no questions.

Most folks here work out at the packing plant, black and white, and we ain't got no real troubles like you reading about in the newspapers. Maybe you heard of Connorsville Hams from Connorsville, Virginia. That's us. Me, I don't work out there on account of the smell. It's medical, the doctor says, from when I got hit in the war, makes me dizzy. The hole the doctors made back of my right ear, it never close all the way, so I got to be careful, always wear this fatigue cap they got with a steel plate to cover it. I take it off when I sleep.

People been good to me here, especially Sheriff Jackson. I got a standing order with him, come in every morning to his office, shine up his boots. He got the most beautiful boots you seen, goes to Norfolk to get 'em made, they this milk chocolate color, like the color my cousin Sally's skin. Me and Lucius, that's Sally's brother, we work together down by the square with guys like us, shining people's shoes, running things places, ready to do some lifting or picking for you, you need us. I ain't too strong, of course, but Lucius, he's a bull, bigger than any man in this town, which includes the Sheriff and Roy Barnes, head foreman at the plant, wrestles everybody at the fairs. Only things is, Lucius, he ain't got a hole in his head like me, with him they must of covered the hole up before he was born, but took out the sense first. He just don't remember much is all. He'll do lifting and pulling and shining for you, strong as five men, but you got to keep telling him how you want it done or he forgets. They try him out at the plant a few times, but it don't work out. He gets so angry with hisself when he does things the wrong way, people got scared he gonna hurt somebody. They been keeping him at home now.

Every once in a while some of the white folks live near the packing plant, they get to drinking or something, the Sheriff got hell on his hands. Sometimes they do something nasty to one of us, men and women both, and he don't stand for it. He finds out who did it, he makes 'em pay a fine and he always comes around sees if he can help out. Sometimes he just gives you the fine if you the one got beat up. The jail stays empty most of the time and he likes it that way.

The Sheriff ain't all good, of course. He gets mad at you, he beat you up pretty bad. He don't use nothing but his hands and his boots, though. Plenty black boys know how strong those boots are, but he says they help keep the jail empty and nobody disagrees with him. He lives out about seven miles, got a nice house by hisself, good soil, raises tomatoes and real nice sweet potatoes, he gets me to help him sometimes. Lucius tried once about six-seven years ago, I asked the Sheriff to give him a chance, but he messed things up, smashing the tomatoes and bringing potatoes to the bushels one at a time and the sheriff got so mad, he about ready to whip Lucius. He don't like it you don't follow his orders right. Once I seen him coming in from a hunt, this setter was acting ornery, the Sheriff started whacking him, didn't stop till that dog stopped. We never spoke about it after.

We don't speak much, you want to count words. Sometimes I helping him work on something big, painting the house, or putting up a new shed like we did last spring. I sleep over, but it don't create conversation. He pays me good money when I work out there, a dollar and a quarter an hour, says it's the wage you got to pay somebody if they do a man's work, “according to the U.S. government.” I tell him cause of my head, I ain't all there he ain't got to pay me all a man gets, but he laughs and does anyway. He drinks a lot, don't offer me none, and when he goes up to sleep you can hear him walking and walking, I go up and say, “You all right, cap'n?” and he says, “Go on now, Homer,” and by and by he sleeps like a dog. I go in and take his boots off and we eat together in the morning, he fixes the food, says in his home I'm his guest. He fries up scrapple real good, I put lots of syrup on it. Still, we don't talk much.

The other thing I got to tell you about is James, who's Lucius' younger brother, he ain't got too much more sense in his head than Lucius, only with him it's crazy sense. Ever since he a boy he been reading books it seems like and you can't always understand what he's talking to you about, so folks never paid him much attention, just listened and give him praise for knowing so much. He could always quote you long things, didn't matter what, plays or geography or how to build a airplane or love stories. Mister Turner come in to tell us about what happened to him in the morning when I finished doing the Sheriff's boots and we knew right away this real trouble. But maybe you expected it somehow. I was finished working his boots and he was letting me make some money cleaning his guns for him, polishing them up really, he likes to do the cleaning himself, but he trusts me to clean them on the outside. Lucius's family, it's hard to figure out, none of them got too much sense and their father, he was real respected among all of us, ran the medicine place you went to when you sick and need something. The mother, you look at her, you think she gonna break in two like a twig, dry and thin with yellow things been growing around her eyes long as I can remember, she can hardly see, but her children—they got three more after Lucius, James, and Sally—they all come out healthy and good-looking. There lots of white folks like to have Sally come visit them some dark night, you bet. If she not scared of what Lucius do, he find out, she prob'ly do it, she so simple. The others, two boys and a girl, they all married, working out at the packing plant, got kids of their own. James, though, he like his mother, got pigeon bones it looks like, seems he been wearing thick glasses since he was a boy—his father always feeding him pills to keep him alive. He always wiping his nose when I remember him, coughing too. But his father pretty proud on James's books and just before he gone to rest he send James off to this college somewhere, first one in the family, we figure maybe he get enough sense there to run the store when his old man passes on, but he comes back after the funeral, he ain't got drugstores on his mind. He come home again last summer, he talking about civil rights stuff, trying to organize us to vote and things. He got some good points, you listen careful, but after a while it get hard to follow him cause he throwing in things about animals or his mother or a movie he saw and I tell Sheriff Jackson he ain't got nothing to worry about, James so scared of you when he talks, people pretty satisfied the way things are, so long as he running things we don't got to worry. Anyway, I tell him, not for the fact folks don't want to hurt James's feelings they wouldn't listen to him much, you ask me. They just being polite. The college, they prob'ly do with him like the schools here, cause he don't hurt nobody and he ain't fit to work in the packing plant or places. His father, he a real good man, smart too, left lots of insurance so I guess they pay the college some to keep him there.

“Why anybody wanna kill James though?” That the first thing I say when Mister Turner brings the news.

The Sheriff turns on me real angry. “You shut up your mouth, hear?” Then he curses some and Mister Turner, he look real scared, twirling his hat in his hands like he courting some gal the first time. “C'mon, c'mon—the rest of it!”

“I swear to you,” Mister Turner says, the Sheriff standing by the window now, next his guns, he don't like this none. Like I tell you, folks get nasty on us sometimes, but long as I can remember this the first one end in murder. “We tried to stop him, Jim. We did. But he was too likkered up. Got in some of that special stuff from over in West Virginia, and—well—I guess some of the other boys, we weren't too much more sober. But ain't none of us figger on what happened—I swear to you—”

“Okay, okay,” the Sheriff says. He looks at me strange, but I go about my business like nothing happen, get my shine stuff together. “Where is he now?”

“Like I said, we figgered it don't do nobody any good, let the story out, so we kept him out at Hiram's place overnight. Nobody knows but you and us—and—” He looks over at me.

“Homer got a hole in his head, don't you know?” the Sheriff says. He seems calmer now. “Everything that goes in comes right out again. Right Homer?”

“Yes sir, cap'n,” I say, smile some. How come I smiling though, I wonder, when I got a cousin just been shotgunned the other side this world? James, I guess nobody count him a real person somehow.

“I don't even think Ed meant to do it hisself,” Mister Turner says. He sweating a river, the way the Sheriff looks on him, he can't stop talking. “We all just wanted to have a little fun with him. He was down by the square, see, handing out these papers about those kids got cut up in Miss'ssippi, Ed says let's take him along, tell us all about it. We just wanted to have a little fun with him is all—but then James keeps on

about all this stuff—it was real hard to follow him, Jim—and before you know it he's getting Ed so riled up, we stop the car, Ed says there been enough talking. Still, James, he don't stop—starts in—lemme see—oh yeah, all about how kids right here in Virginia they don't go to school cause they helpin' with tobacco, their folks in debt to men like Ed, and Ed he takes a whack at him, the kid goes down and then he starts saying how he knows Ed gonna murder him, but he don't care cause freedom's coming.” He wipes his mouth, we don't say nothing. “That was when he started in about how he knew Ed was gonna kill him, but he didn't care cause freedom's coming, he kept repeating, again and again—and then he started spinning on about changing this town—real loud—'I know I'm bound to die!' he kept yellin'—”

“Okay, okay,” the Sheriff says, some starch wash out of him. He thinking hard.

“You know Ed,” Mister Turner says. “He can't concentrate too much better than James once he gets stuff in him. But I—”

“You say you brought James home?”

“That's right,” Mister Turner says. He swallows hard, remembering. “He's a real mess, Jim. We didn't leave no traces, though. Banged on the door and took our blanket from around him, left straightaway. I burned the blanket this morning, washed my car good. I pray to the Lord to forgive me, Jim—”

“Get out,” the Sheriff says. “I'll be to Hiram's place later. You keep Robinson there, hear? And keep your mouth shut, too.”

“Sure, Jim. That's why I come here first thing, before—” The Sheriff looks at him hard and Mister Turner shuts up, nods his head real nervous and goes on his way. He got trouble closing the door. The Sheriff don't do nothing for a while and it real still in the office, you can see the sun shine on the gun barrels. “Okay,” he says after a while, I don't ask no questions, get in the station wagon with him, sit up front like always, we drive out to Lucius's house.

I tell the Sheriff I ain't feeling too good, could he take it easy over the bumps, he looks at me and smiles. “Relax,” he says. Then, “I'm sorry, Homer.” I tell him he didn't do nothing, whatever he do, we all know he just doing the best he can. “We know what you up against, cap'n,” I say. He don't answer me.

We get out to Lucius's place, I remember that James, he belong to somebody. The Sheriff takes his hat off, leaves his gun in the car, locks up, we go inside. James's older brother, he thanks the Sheriff for coming, the Sheriff says he's real sorry, but everybody says the same thing to him I did. It's all right. We know he do the best he can. James's mother, she cries some she sees us, I try to say something, but I get so dizzy, they got to help me sit down. Doctor Kinnard, used to be a good friend to Lucius's father, he puts stuff under my nose, it wakes me up. Lots of cousins and aunts walking around the house, soft, we all look at each other, what there to say? Sally, she look real pretty in black, tells me the doctor got to give Lucius all kinds of needles to quiet him down. “He really love James,” she say to me. “James used to read to him lots.”