Sketcher (6 page)

Then it was Moms' turn. The doctor took me to a room with some other kids so she could talk to Moms alone, but I snuck back and lay flat on my belly and listened under the door. I couldn't hear what the doc was sayin', but whatever it was, it was making Moms fall to pieces. I could hear her talkin' between tears.

“Yes, Dr Barton” –
sniffle
– “it's not goin' so well between their father and me. He used to be a wonderful man” –
sniffle
– “sweet 'n' kind when we just got married and I came over with him. But he's not himself any more, and it's ruining everything... my poor chil'ren.”

Well, hell, I didn't know what that was all about. After all, I was the reason we went into all that trouble to get dressed up and bother old man Pa Campbell to drive us into town to see the doctor – so why was Moms cryin' about Pops and tellin' all her stuff to this sweet lady?

I listened some more, but then this security guard that looked like Colonel Sanders, he came and lifted me up by the belt and set me on my feet and said: “Go on now” – and that made me miss the best parts.

Anyway, Moms' eyes were all red and she kept rubbing my shaggy head the whole way home. I took the opportunity and got her to buy a Po' Boy for dinner. That's a big ol' Louisiana sandwich and a once-in-a-blue-moon meal in my family.

Well, we never went back to that sweet baby-powder lady doctor Lisa. And for a while I wondered if I went too far with the Frico story.

Anyway, that day I couldn't wait to get home to see if Doug was still in one piece, cos like I said, I drew him all screwed up. So I ran into the house and there he was, sittin' in that big ol' tangerine armchair behind the door. I stopped and stared at him.

“What you lookin' at, Skid?” he hollered at me after about ten seconds of me starin'.

“You doin' OK? You feeling all right Doug?” I went closer to inspect him.

“Yeah, I'm fine, fool, what's the matter with this one, Momma?”

“Don't call your brother those names, Doug.”

She stepped towards us, her eyes all angry.

“I don't care what nobody says, y'all are just fine. And y'all gonna be fine!”

And she just broke down again and started bawling in the middle of the room. And Doug, he said he was sorry and came over and hugged her – and I was hugging her too, but meanwhile I was looking Doug over from head to foot, and it looked to me like he was in one piece. So when I was sure that he was feeling all guilty about making Moms cry, I just told him: “I lost my lunch money today again, Doug.”

Six

“Alrick Beaumont is a brilliant man.
He can fix anything, and he can
shock dead radios back to life,
resurrect old stoves gone cold...
He makes sleeping TV sets open their eyes
and assembles rockets that go
high up on the blue shelf of heaven,
blazing bright above our level.”

September 9, 1983

OK, I know it sounds all artsy-fartsy and real pretentious, but that year my pops was payin' me ten dollars to write that crap about him. And since ol' Skid didn't get much for his birthday, I needed the money. See, on your birthday you got a good breakfast, lunch money and dinner just like other days. If it was on a weekend, Moms would bake cornbread. But generally, she gave you a kiss and prayed for you, Pops slapped you on the back and told your brothers to grab you by the arms and legs and bounce your butt on a rock ten times for good luck and then toss your ass in the bayou – and that was it. “Happy Birthday till next year, y'hear!”

So when this poem thing came about three days after I hit the big One Zero, I sat down on an old car seat beside the house facing the bayou and tried to write something. Now, that car seat is real comfy, cos over it there's an old bedspring leant up against the house that's covered with some herb vine that Moms calls
cerasee
. She says it's good to drink for purgin' the blood. Well, all I know is, that car seat and the bed spring covered with cerasee vine both make a nice, shady spot
for fallin' asleep. So every time I tried writin' I just drifted off into Pops' vision.

So after that, I got Doug and Tony to help me write it, but I didn't tell them about the ten-dollar prize. Doug came up with that “blue shelf” part. Now, I didn't know exactly why Pops needed me to do this, but I think it had somethin' to do with him and Moms. But hell, adults are always weird that way, so I kept my mind on the prize money and wrote proper English like I learnt in school and like Moms taught me. I really wanted to start writin' all my poetic stuff in a journal, but you ain't got no privacy with three brothers and one room. Anyway, the first line of the poem gave ol' Pops goose pimples. I swear the man teared up and I got my ten dollars and went straight to Lam Lee Hahn with it.

I bought a stash of cold drinks and dried plums and a sketch pad for Frico just in case we needed it. I stashed everything up in the tamarind tree by securin' it with copper wires from inside an old standin' fan. Then I banked the other six dollars in that empty propane canister behind the dresser. Apart from the money, I was proud of myself cos I had beaten ol' Fricozoid at somethin'.

See, Pops asked Frico first to write a composition about his father. Told him he'd get the ten dollars and everything. But ol' Frico he just couldn't help himself. He had to tell the truth. He wrote somethin' about Pops not knowin' how to love and care for a woman, and how women need to be cared for, especially the mother of his children – and all that. Well, look: I agreed with Frico one hundred per cent, but that ain't goin' get you no money.

So I sat down, gathered my big brothers around me, took out my dictionary and wrote Mr Alrick Beaumont a poem. Not a composition... a poem. Oooh – you shoulda seen that money comin' out of his wallet. He wanted to give me one big, borin' old Ten Spot just like that, but I told him I needed ten one-dollar bills, so I could throw them up in the air and
count them over and over.
Freeze frame
. And for his honesty, Frico got squat.

Of course, Valerie Beaumont found out about the whole poetry-sweepstakes thing and she silently raised hell
.

It was one of those whisperin' arguments done inside when we kids were out in the yard playin' soccer penalty shootouts. Pa Campbell had just come over to help Pops raise the porch again. We had to do this every year or so because of the subsidence in the swamp – and the porch, which was on the softer side closer to the water, always sank faster. Pops used to say if I shut up long enough I could hear the house sinkin'. Anyway, they dumped a load of marl and gravel and took apart the porch, and while Pa was busy hammerin', Moms and Pops used the noise for cover.

“I don't know what the big deal is, Valerie.”

“Oh, you mean apart from teaching your child to gamble and using money we don't have?”

“Gamble!”

“Yes, gamble. And bribery. Tryin' to buy their loyalties. To prove you're special.”

“What's botherin' you, Valerie?”

“Do you know why we're here? Cos I've always believed in you. I look into the sky at night and I know that the man I married helped put rockets all the way up there.”

Her voice went softer, so I had to press my ear up against the frosted-glass louvre. It was cold.

“Alrick – he can do anything. But one thing he can't do is take us out of this swamp.”

“Is that what's botherin' you?”

“What's botherin' me is that your chil'ren are losin' the father they know... that we're poor... that we been here too long.”

“Here we go again. You've never—”

“See that old PVC pipe out in the yard? The one that leads from the tank? That plastic pipe is a symbol for me.”

“Jeez...”

“It's above ground, Alrick,
above
ground
.
And do you remember why? Cos when we just got here, you said: ‘Let's not even bury that pipe, cos it's only temporary... all temporary.' Soon the city'll be sweepin' through here and we'll be in a better place. Now congratulations on finishin' the well, but that pipe is still there.”

“Look, Val—”

“No,
you
look around you, Alrick! I'm still here – we're all still here – taking it lying down just like that plastic pipe. The city is afraid of these backwaters. And meanwhile, you think it's OK to give your chil'ren money to feed your vanity?”

And then Pa Campbell hammered up a storm – and I was happy, cos I didn't want to hear any more. I went up into the tree for a cold drink and looked into the city.

Well, by early the followin' year, we started goin' to church more and “spendin' more time as a family”, as Moms put it. On weekdays, as soon she got home from cookin' and waitin' tables, she would help us with our homework by herself. And then before dinner we'd light a small fire outside behind the house and put some wild bushes on it to help chase the mosquitoes and the gnats away, cos especially when it rained and you heard those sad ol' cypress trees weepin' into the water, you knew the bugs were comin' out to feed. You heard them coming. Then after dark the crickets took over and worked the night shift – thousands of them chirpin' all night to the beat of one raindrop at a time, sliding off a leaf into the swamp water or drumming into one of Moms' cookin' pots through the tin roof. That's how you'd pass time when it rained: counting drops and cursin' crickets. Then all you needed was Pa Campbell wailin' the blues on his harmonica for you to feel like you could lay down in the bayou and blow bubbles like a bullfrog just so you couldn't hear all that sadness. But when it was dry, we'd all sit on this makeshift bench at the back of the house
and watch the sunset. Calvin would be close by, scratchin' himself or runnin' from his kids, and I'd look at the edges of the sky change from blue to blush and listen to the critters and wonder why God spent so much time decoratin' a day that was dyin'.

One time Moms said that the clouds were lemon custard with the edges toasted golden and the westbound birds were like sprinkles, and those frogs going glug-glug-glug were prob'ly singin' their li'le ones to sleep. So I thought, “Wow, that's really nice.” Then right after that, Pops came home smack in the middle of the crème-brulée clouds and the lullaby singin'. He'd been away for two nights and smelt different and sounded tipsy. There was a big peace sign painted on his face, and he had these fancy new clothes on. And I just went right back to thinking that God was wastin' his time decoratin' a day that was just about dead.

Now, usually we all went to Long Lake Free Gospel Church on the weekend, but one sleepy Sunday mornin' Moms got up and after breakfast she told me she wanted me to go with Pa Campbell into Gentilly on a mission for her. I wasn't too keen on the idea till she said I was goin' to do it “like a ninja”. We didn't have no television at our house, so at the time I had no idea what a real ninja looked like, but I heard Harry T talkin' about ninja shows all the time. That boy watched a hell of a lot of TV, and I think it must have messed with his brain a little bit. He believed some impossible things just because they came over the tube, I tell ya.

Harry lived over in the city, but that boy loved diggin' for adventure, especially in the swamp, so I wouldn't even call him a real city boy. He'd hitch a ride on his bicycle in someone's truck all the way to where the asphalt disappeared and the dirt road began. Then he'd ride the rest of the way into the swamp and drop by just in time for some food and then haul his ass back home to sit in front of his damn TV set till he fell asleep.

Now, me and Harry, during the summer, we used to plan missions just to mess with angler fishermen or daring tourists who believed in brochures and prob'ly thought they had found some place “untouched by human beings”. So we'd see them all peaceful, in their little fishin' boat out on the bayou, and we'd just ride up suddenly and look all queasy and tell them to get out of our toilet.

So when Moms said “ninja mission” and my brothers didn't sound interested in going with me, I decided the best person to tell was Harry T, cos sure as the sun he'd be comin' into the swamp early that Sunday.

Well, would you believe it, when Harry turned up at our place, I couldn't recognize the guy. He had bought some kind of Jheri-curl kit and put it in his hair, and it was dripping all over his bicycle like he'd fallen into the bayou a coupla times. Plus, he had on these sunglasses two sizes bigger than his face, and he was wearing a leatherette jacket and some extra belts with big buckles. He also kept grabbing at his pants. I asked him if that's what a ninja looks like, cos there was no way in hell I could tell at the time that he was tryin' to look like Michael Jackson or whatever. My father only fixed TVs: we didn't have one for ourselves. Well, that just started the ninja mission off on the wrong foot, cos he was mighty pissed at me – and when Pa Campbell dropped us off in Gentilly, he just kept pedalling the bike the rest of the way real fast with me ridin' on the handlebars, till I got scared and told him he did look a li'le bit like Michael Jackson and he slowed down. The truth is, Harry Tobias couldn't look like Michael Jackson even if he prayed for it. He kept tellin' people he was half Cherokee, half black and half something else, so he couldn't even get his fractions right... idiot.

So, there we were in Gentilly, and after a while I hopped off the handlebars and walked up to a clean, white wroughtiron gate with “
Deux Cent Quarante-Deux
” written in gold cursive on a black iron plate. Behind the little gate was one
of those gardens I saw in the magazines that Moms used to buy. She knew all the flowers in French gardens by name. She wanted a garden based on that Marie Antoinette lady we studied in school. So she'd stay up nights readin' and wishin' she could grow boxwood bushes, pink petunias, white roses and peonies – but all that salty soil in the swamp don't allow for that kind of daydreamin': we had to settle for some aloe vera, peppermint or periwinkle in a couple of Sherwin-Williams paint cans out on the porch.

I pushed the gate and went up the narrow walkway with the flowers nodding at me on both sides, while Harry T waited by the kerb, looking in a little mirror and fussing with his Jheri-that-didn't-really-curl. The house was baby-blue with French windows and white mouldin' that made it look like a birthday cake. Tiny peach-and-brown birds bounced around a fancy concrete bath in the courtyard, and through the trees little sequins of light came down and sprinkled a few wrought-iron chairs and a table in the garden shade.
Ahhh yes
. You could sit there all day in the shade and have tea and soup, if you wanted to – though with so many birds above your head I don't think it would be a good idea.

I stopped at the door and fished around in my jeans pockets for the note Moms gave me to deliver. She said Pops would be at 242 Plume Noire. He would be there calling on a customer to fix a stereo, and I was to go give it to him, this note. As usual she was very specific. She said: “Now, when you knock and the person comes to the door, say good morning, ask for your father and hand the note to him.” I said OK, cos that sounded real simple for a ninja mission, but somehow as I stood there looking at the note in my hand, something began to stink about this whole thing.

The damn door knocker seemed to know it too. It was one of those knockers that you see all the time with a mean-lookin' lion bitin' into a big ol' cast-iron ring. But this pa'ticular lion was grinning like he was saying to me: “Go ahead and knock,
if you have the balls, kid.” So I did. Well, after the fifteenth knock-knock-knock, Harry was getting antsy, cos his hair was melting in the sun and I was all ready to quit this mission. But someone peeped through the fancy fleur-de-lis latticework over the top of the door. Then the latch goes kruckkruck, I hear the bolt sliding out slow, the door groans open, I look up and... I'm standing face to belly button with Miss Fiola Lambert.

I'm thinkin' Moms set this up cos I'm always talkin' about Miss Lambert. This is obviously my belated birthday party – and I was expectin' to walk inside and everybody would be there to shout “Surprise!” And here comes the Sunday-morning breeze suddenly sweepin' down the slope and rufflin' Miss Lambert's curls and pressin' her green silk nightgown closer to her skin. She brushed some of her little girl curls from her face, and the white roses and peonies threw butterfly confetti all over the place.
Super slow motion. And freeze frame.