The Planet of Junior Brown (10 page)

“Hope he didn't get into too much trouble,” he said softly.

Across the street from Junior's house Buddy rested his back up against a building. He looked questioningly over to the other side of the street and up three stories to the windows of Junior's apartment. He stayed in that position for nearly two hours. Ever so slowly, excitement left him. His face fell in resignation as he realized Junior wasn't going to come down. It was then Buddy remembered Junior had told him his father would be home way early in the morning this Saturday instead of Saturday evening, which was the usual time he came home.

Buddy stayed for a few minutes more; then he turned around, going back the way he had come. This time he walked the long city blocks, stopping to rest when he had to but always continuing on. He didn't go to Inwood Park, nor did he go to the public library. Half dragging himself, he went to the basement room of the school. The basement hallways were still as tombs as he passed silently along them. In the secret room Buddy didn't bother to turn on the power of the planets. He stretched out on the floor under them, comforted by them and the steam heat of the room, which warmed the dark. Instantly Buddy's eyes closed. He dreamed nothing. He slept the whole day.

On Saturday morning Walter Brown didn't stand there at the threshold of Junior's room. Half asleep, Junior knew his father wasn't there.

“Daddy,” he said, because he wanted to.

His father might have come in the room wearing his robe and slippers and freshly creased slacks. He always did come in to Junior in a warm, respectful manner, as if Junior's room were the chapel he had known all his life. Usually Mr. Brown entered Junior's room at night. This morning might have been different. They could have had the whole day before them.

“Daddy,” Junior said again. His voice was husky with feeling. “I haven't seen you on a Saturday morning in forever.”

Junior reached up and rubbed his hair. There was a breeze up there, it felt like, blowing through his scalp and lifting up the top of his head like a lid. At once he had a huge and terrible hunger. Then his mother came swooping in on him, pulling at him. Opening drawers, she found his clothing for him. Straightening chairs, his mother bothered the room into near human retreat and suffering.

“Junior,” she said, “you and I will just have to share the day between ourselves.”

“Then Daddy's not coming at all,” Junior said. He knew all along.

“Your breakfast is fixed so get your clothes on,” she told him.

“What do I get to eat?” Junior said. He had a suspicion, like a bad taste.

His mother tried to get out of the suspicion by being sweet to Junior.

She said, “I've made you some coffee. You can have milk in it but no sugar. There's cereal and milk, with peaches—fresh peaches—sliced on it. There's toast. I cannot allow you to have butter on the toast.”

“I want some eggs and bacon and hot rolls and pancakes.”

“No.”

“Mama, I'm so hungry.”

“Get up,” she said to him.

Junior sat up on the edge of the bed. His mother helped him into a clean shirt, manipulating his heavy arms as though they were lifeless hams, first one arm and then the other. She gave him one-word directions. “Lift. Move. Turn. Lift.”

She had Junior dressed in a few minutes. Junior made his own way into the kitchen while his mother stayed behind to order his room. When she returned, she found Junior had prepared his own breakfast. He had six eggs on a plate in front of him. He had cooked a mound of bacon placed next to the eggs.

Junella stared at the bread she had toasted for him. Junior had spread it with butter and a thick layer of jelly.

Junior wolfed down the food, eggs first, in oozing gobbles. He consumed everything he had prepared, every bit of bacon and all of the toast his mother had made.

Without seeming to notice, Junior saw every look, even the slightest movement of his mother watching him from the doorway. He loved his mother. He had this toy he had kept for a long time, he didn't know why. You wound it up and it would do the same thing over and over until it wound down. You wound it again and always it would do just what it only could do. Like his mother. Junior always knew she would do the same things over and over. There was safety in knowing that.

He loved his father. At fifteen and a half, his father had walked out of the Big Black River country of northern Mississippi. He had taken one last look at the rich and bloody river-bottom soil and had headed into sandy foothills of scrub piney woods. His daddy told him, by the time he had walked across a third of the state and into Tennessee he was no longer a boy. He had become a man who ever after carried with him the scent of Mississippi danger.

Slowly Junior started eating the cereal his mother had wanted him to have. He ate it all while staring at her and willing her to sit down. She did come and sit down right next to him at the table. She gathered her skirt in around her. She crossed her legs under the table. She folded her hands in front of her and cast her eyes down to one side.

“We can go to a museum,” his mother told him. “We can go to the park. It's cold, but we can walk around. Junior? Try to believe I'm sorry. I thought he was coming home. Maybe he'll come home by tonight. No. Don't even think about it. No, just don't get your heart set again.”

Junior could hear movement, televisions, in other apartments, so still were he and his mother. He could hear the street; and beyond their street, other streets. The city out there was loud and bright. All of it revolved around Junior like a wheel, like a system in an immense spiral. Junior knew he was the center and the point of it all.

He commanded the system to halt. A thunderous roar was the city stopped. With the crack-up of the last corner, Junior was left with the kitchen. His mother hadn't moved or made notice of ended sound. She was caught there in time with him. She dangled in rhythm with him drinking his coffee. Junior knew the fire-chord which could make her spin and dance. He played one red tone at a time. Their street crackled, other streets kindled. The city flamed and lived.

“Buddy Clark might be waiting for me to come on down and spend some time with him.”

“The boy has gone and left you,” his mother said.

“Why didn't you wake me?”

She shook her head rapidly, as if to dislodge cobwebs. “You needed your rest,” she said.

Junior's hunger lay curled like a warm ache from his core. He burned from a great distance. He was a lonely star.

5

THIS MONDAY MORNING
was no different for Buddy than any other Monday. He was by himself and ready for the day. He had slept all day Saturday and all day Sunday. Saturday night he had looked in on Nightman and Franklin and had taken care of them the way he knew how. The boys were getting along together. Nightman was developing a keen eye. He had found a fantastic spindle of green butcher's string in an alley.

“I make out how it must've fallen offen a truck,” he told Buddy. The spindle was cream colored, huge and heavy, and made from wood. The green string was wound on it half a foot thick.

“Man,” Buddy told him, “I bet that spindle is some kind of antique. I bet some antique shop in the Village would pay good money for it.”

Nightman had looked shocked, clutching the spindle tighter in his arms. He wouldn't allow Franklin or Buddy to touch it. “I found it, so it's mine, isn't it?” he asked Buddy.

“It's yours,” Buddy told him, “if you can think of something to do with it. Otherwise it's dead weight and useless. We'll have to sell it for the money. The string ain't worth a thing.”

Nightman studied the string, touching it with his hands. Finding the string end, he unwound some of it, lacing it through his delicate fingers.

“I know it's good for something,” he said. “Now if I could just think what could be that something.”

“Let's set a time,” Buddy had told him. “Let's say about Wednesday.”

“A time for what?” Nightman had wanted to know.

“When you have to think of something else or I will sell the spindle for the money.”

“Let him have until Friday,” Franklin had said. “Give us some time to look around and see what we can do with it.”

“We won't do anything with it,” Nightman said, “because I got to do it all by myself.”

“You can have Franklin help you, it's all right,” Buddy told him.

“I do it by myself, or you can have the whole thing right now,” Nightman said. Stubbornly he had clutched the spindle of string. Then he thrust it toward Buddy.

“You keep it,” Buddy had said. He had pushed the spindle back into Nightman's lap. “You keep it and you figure out what to do with it all by yourself.”

Buddy had not seen Junior Brown for the whole weekend. This Monday morning he didn't feel like going by Junior's house, he told himself. So he went on to school alone. When he arrived in the basement room, he found Junior already there and Mr. Pool there, with the solar system full of juice and turning silently through the void.

Not so silently. There was a piercing squeak somewhere, a high scraping sound like metal grating against metal. As the planets revolved, Mr. Pool tried to pinpoint the squeak. When he thought he had it, he turned off the solar system. He pulled a ladder over and set it up by the planets. Then he climbed up and cleaned all of the tracks from which the rods were suspended.

“There. That ought to do it,” Mr. Pool said when he was finished. He shoved the ladder away into the void and turned on the solar system. The squeak remained.

Buddy laughed. He came around the planets to where Junior was slumped in his folding chair. Buddy didn't say anything; he just stood quietly behind Junior's chair. This way he let Junior know they were together. And together they both watched the system.

The planet of Junior Brown soon became a giant presence in the darkness. The solar system became all and mighty in the void. Except for the squeak.

Mr. Pool's bald head glowed yellowish in the light of the system's dim reflection.

“Damn it all to glory!” he muttered. “It's got to be up in the tracks.”

Buddy told him, “You ought to let the master of sound tell you where the squeak is. Meaning Junior,” he added. He leaned to one side, peering around Junior until he could see Junior's face. “Good morning to you,” Buddy said. “You have a nice weekend with your daddy? U-huh? You and your daddy eat in some big-time restaurant and see some two-dollar technicolor movie?”

“Cool it off now,” Mr. Pool said to Buddy. He had heard the anger in Buddy's voice. It had surprised him, but when he thought about it, he supposed Buddy's anger was there in almost everything Buddy did.

“So Junior's father took him some place,” Mr. Pool said. “You don't have a father to give you things—is that it?”

Buddy let himself go loose. He collapsed on the floor, on his stomach, half in the light of the solar system. “No,” he said. He turned away from Junior and Mr. Pool to rest his head on his arms.

He was tired. Why in the world did he have to say that to Junior! He only meant to let Junior know that he understood how Junior had to spend the weekend with his father. He was tired down to his bones. He had walked around a good part of the night again—that didn't make this Monday any different from some other. But the night and this early morning was colder; he had to keep every muscle working to keep from freezing. Buddy knew he would have to steal a warmer jacket and he was tired of stealing.

Way early this morning, old Doum Malach had given Buddy his pay. Thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents.

Buddy grunted to himself. The grunt sounded like pain to Junior. Mr. Pool had heard it too. He came around the revolving planets to where Buddy lay half in darkness.

Thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents, with some kids coming up to his planet next Friday from someplace down at the Brooklyn Bridge. He would have to find warm clothes for them to wear. He would have to get them cleaned up, and enough food, Jesus, all on thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents.

Again Buddy grunted with the deep-down worry of it.

“Are you all right, Buddy?” Mr. Pool stood over Buddy, wondering if the boy maybe was going to be sick.

Suddenly Buddy felt strange, like he was coming down with something.

All I need is to catch me a sneaking pneumonia.

“You want to set yourself down?” Junior spoke. Since he had entered the room, Junior hadn't said a word. He had wished for so long to be able to say things to his daddy, but he never had his daddy to talk to. It was only Buddy he could tell things to. Buddy had to be the one. “You want to sit down here?”

Junior pulled his chair over closer to Buddy. Buddy looked around and then got to his feet.

“Naw, man,” he said to Junior. “You sit on down like you were. I'm just getting myself warm.”

“Well, how you feeling then?” Junior asked him.

“I'm feeling fine. I'm just a little tired, that's all,” Buddy told him. “I meant it serious though,” Buddy said, “when I ask you did you have a good time this weekend—did you?”

Junior stood there with his hands folded in front of him. His legs were slightly bent, as though they weren't quite strong enough to hold his bulk. He shook his head. “It wasn't much of a time,” he said.

Mr. Pool retreated to the far side of the solar system to let the boys talk. As the planets spun by him, he touched them with the very tips of his fingers and waited.

“Why wasn't it much of a time?” Buddy was asking Junior.

“It just wasn't,” Junior said. He sat down in the folding chair once again. Buddy moved closer to hear. “He never did come home,” Junior said.

“Aw, man,” Buddy said, “I was up there too. When you didn't come down, I thought sure … All that weekend by yourself!”

Junior felt like he might cry all of a sudden. “You got to go with me on Friday,” he said. “Buddy? Right? You promised you'd go with me to my lesson on Friday.”