The Planet of Junior Brown (12 page)

“She being nice to you,” Junior said. He looked sullen and guarded.

“Wouldn't want to see her when she's being mean,” Buddy told him.

Junior stared at him. “Never mind,” Buddy said. “You want to go to a film or not?”

Junior's mother came in with a tray. She handed Buddy a glass of water. “I forgot the salad,” she said. Buddy said he didn't want any but Junior had some. There was apple pie for desert. Junior had two slices. Buddy drank the water, gulping it, not caring about the sound he made. The water cooled him off inside.

Junior's cheeks bulged with pie. His mother eyed his hunger, her face feverish and damp. She saw that Buddy Clark had not eaten his roll, although he had cleaned his plate of vegetables and gravy. She sighed to see so much leftover food. Better to put it away now before Junior became hungry again. She knew she would be short of breath before she had the dishes done.

“Junior and me want to go see a movie,” Buddy said. “I'll see he gets home safe.”

Slowly Junior's mother began to clear the table. As she worked, going back and forth to the kitchen, she commenced to wheeze. Midst muffled coughing she managed to load a pile of dishes and silverware in her arms, and lurched into the kitchen. The dishes clattered in the sink. At once Junior was heaving himself out of his chair. Still chewing, he moved toward her bedroom. A moment later Junior returned with a bottle of medicine and an oxygen mask.

It all happened so quickly, like a crazy, speeded-up film. Buddy was standing, not realizing he had got to his feet. He hooked his thumbs on his pockets and held himself utterly still inside. Always he could silence feeling when instinct told him death was stalking. Mechanically he gathered small plates neatly in his arms, while hearing as in a dream the muffled sobs of Junior and the choking of Junior's mother.

At the sink Buddy washed turkey grease from his hands. Junior's mother was sprawled helplessly in a kitchen chair. Junior had hooked her arms through the ladder back so she wouldn't fall to the floor. He had attached the oxygen mask to a silver cylinder he had rolled from a kitchen closet. He shoved the mask over his mother's nose and mouth and held it there. With the other hand Junior released a valve on the cylinder. There was a hissing sound as the oxygen surged, rushing to bring back life.

Buddy had seen Mrs. Brown's discolored face. He knelt beside Junior and took her hands in his. Her hands were no longer warm. Contact with their lifelessness made Buddy wince.

“She's choking to death,” Buddy said. “Junior, take off the mask, she's choking.”

Splashed with tears, Junior's face looked as though someone had sprinkled droplets of water on it. His body quivered with minute tremors. His hands were steady.

“The mask stays on until she can cough up the sputum. Here,” Junior said to Buddy, “hold it for me.”

Buddy reached to hold the mask in place. He had to press hard on the mask to keep his fingers from jumping.

Carefully Junior took a gleaming hypodermic syringe from a black box on the table. Buddy hadn't noticed the box until Junior opened it. Junior attached a long, hollow needle to the syringe and then, sunk the needle into the bottle he'd brought from his mother's bedroom.

“She's a junkie,” Buddy said. He couldn't believe his eyes.

“No,” Junior told him. “Needle used for other things, mainly asthma.”

“What's the stuff in the bottle?”

“Epinephrine,” Junior said. “Sometimes I use it in the needle and sometimes I let her inhale it from a nebulizer.” Junior had taken his mother's arm, finding the large vein below the forearm. Buddy knew better than to ask him questions now. He watched as Junior rested his thumb lightly on the needle's plunger. He saw the needle pierce the vein in one sure thrust of Junior's hand. Junior's thumb pressed down on the plunger. Buddy turned his face away.

By the time Junior had cleaned and put away the needle, his mother was no longer choking. She began to cough into the mask.

Alarmed, Buddy turned to Junior. Junior turned off the oxygen. As though she were a rag doll, Junior tossed his mother toward the sink and then was there to prop her up before she fell. His mother gagged and brought up a mass of sputum over the dirty dishes. That was all. The siege ended; Junior held her like a doll, dragging her to her room.

Junior and Buddy cleaned the entire kitchen and dining room. With no trouble, they worked together—they were both so used to being careful and to silence. For an hour they hardly needed to speak; when they finished, the two rooms were spotless.

In his room once more, Junior sat on the piano bench facing Buddy, who sat on the bed. Junior's face was innocent, like a child's could be. He did not plead for anything from Buddy. In his mute exhaustion, he told Buddy how it was he had to live.

Buddy got to his feet. Junior swung around until he was facing the piano. His dark, brawny hands, swollen with flesh, arched skillfully as he pressed the keys. Swaying, and with his eyes closed, Junior played the music he alone could hear.

“So that's all, then,” Buddy said.

Junior heard Buddy but it was hard for him to listen and hold the music steady at the same time. He could feel heat rising in the core of him, where he kept his fire. He waited to flame.

“It's my fault your mama got sick,” Buddy said. “She went to all that trouble fixing that turkey.”

“She won't ever mind cooking,” Junior heard himself saying. “She always manage to make a nice dinner.”

“Anyway, I'm sorry,” Buddy said. “I didn't have to come—I made you bring me here.”

Music grew distant. Junior's hands fumbled with the keys. His hands ached with muscles too taut and he had to stop playing a moment. Some halfhearted need took hold of him. He recalled how much of a friend Buddy was. He and Buddy were together. He had no one else to be with. Junior remembered, he took care of his mother but he cared about Buddy. He cared about music—Miss Peebs.

Junior said, “I got checkers. We can play some, if you want. You can take the black. When me and my daddy play, I take the black and black always wins.”

Buddy thought about playing. How could they play a game after what had happened?

“I haven't played checkers in a hundred years,” Buddy said. He didn't know whether to go or stay.

“You don't ever forget how to play them.” Junior left the piano to get the game from his desk.

“Why is that?” Buddy asked him.

“Because you learn it when you're so young,” Junior told him.

“How come you so sure I learned it?” Buddy said.

“You learned it,” Junior told him. “Somewhere, sometime, you had to learn to play checkers.”

Buddy had to smile. He and Junior sat on the bed with the checker board and the box with the checkers between them.

Junior had placed his red pieces before Buddy had half the blacks arranged.

“How come you so fast?” Buddy said.

“Why you so slow?” Junior said.

Buddy said, “I was thinking about when I learned to play checkers. I couldn't have been more than four or five.”

“With your dad?” Junior asked him.

Buddy had this vague feeling, almost like night and shadow. He recalled a figure of a man, laughing, playing with him. “Must have been my dad,” Buddy said. The memory sank into forgetfulness.

“Down in Texas, where you were born?”

“Must have been,” Buddy said.

They played the game. Buddy couldn't get in the mood of it. In the middle of it Junior went to see if his mother was feeling better. When he came back, he sat down again on the bed.

“She all right?” Buddy asked him.

“She's sleeping,” Junior said. “She'll sleep real hard like that until morning.”

They played. Black won the first game and the second.

“You want to play another?” Junior asked Buddy.

“Not if black's going to win again,” Buddy said.

“What you got against winning?” Junior asked him.

Buddy got to his feet. “If I'm going to win altogether every time, there's no fun even playing.”

“Black always wins,” Junior told him. His face broke into a wide grin. He shook with laughter.

“Why you want me to win every time?” Buddy wanted to say. Instead, he said, “Okay, I'll play another game if you take the black.”

“I can't take the black,” Junior said. “I'm always red because I'm fire.” He laughed in stitches, shaking the bed, his big hands hitting the board and overturning the checkers.

Buddy stared down at Junior. Junior sat there, his arm outstretched on the board and black checkers squeezed tight in his fist.

To Junior Buddy's eyes were glinting pins, then one steel needle darting out to go right through him. Junior imagined Buddy's eyes were telling him he was a mama's boy.

“Why don't you just come on out with me and leave her?” Buddy had to say. “You not supposed to take care of her the rest of your life. Your daddy's supposed to.”

Junior moved. He threw black checkers at Buddy's eyes as hard as he could. He was up off the bed with his fists swinging. Buddy was too swift for him—he knew that fighting was living and breathing. He had brought Junior to life.

Buddy had whacked the checkers away to the floor in a motion so fast it had ended before Junior saw it. Buddy had Junior's flailing arms pinned behind Junior's back before Junior realized Buddy had got behind him.

“You so smart,” Junior said. “Think you're so tough.” With one great heave Junior lifted Buddy onto his back and shook Buddy off again over his head. Buddy landed, tumbling over his own head onto his shoulders and then on his back. He barely had time to get one hand in position to protect his neck as he went over. As it was, he had to lie still until air seeped back into his lungs.

“If I sit on you, I'd crush you like stepping on a worm,” Junior told him.

“Man, don't sit down on me!” Buddy managed to say. He had to laugh, he couldn't help himself. “Whoo! Man! You got me that time!”

“Get you any time I want,” Junior said, “s'long as I'm red—talking about my mother.”

“Ohhh!” Buddy said, holding one shoulder. “Yea, that's right. I did hit on your mother. Yea, okay, you're red, all right.”

Junior collected all of the scattered black pieces, and with the checkers on the bed, put them in the box. He put the game away in his desk, then stood by Buddy as Buddy slowly got to his feet.

“I have to go,” Buddy told him. “I got to get out and walk around.”

“You going to see a movie?” Junior said.

“Maybe I will. I got to go.”

“You going to wait for me downstairs in the morning?” Junior asked him.

“If you want. Sure.” Buddy turned away from Junior, heading for the door.

“I thought maybe you was mad at me,” Junior told him.

“You took me fair and square, I'm not mad,” Buddy said, and added, “I know you can't leave your mother like she is.”

“Remember, on Friday,” Junior said.

Buddy remembered. “Don't you have enough to worry over without thinking about that Miss Peebs?”

“You promised!”

“Okay, okay.” Buddy's head ached. He wished he'd never said he'd go with Junior to Miss Peebs' house. This one night of people's houses was enough worry to last him forever. “So tell your mother I'm sorry she got sick,” Buddy said. “Maybe you ought to get yourself some sleep, Junior.”

Buddy went out, leaving Junior standing in the middle of his room. Once outside on the street Buddy looked up and he thought he could see Junior still standing there.

The poor boy, he thought. He was feeling so old now. But the air was crisp and fresh. The night of sounds and lights brushed over him, cleansing him.

Oh, man, it sure is good to be out.

6

JUNIOR WAS RED
under his skin. Standing in the middle of his room, he rocked from one foot to the other, swinging his heavy frame from side to side. His fat careened and rolled around him. He kept his eyes tight shut in order to know blackness within which he was red.

Junior's swaying became rhythmic. He did a few turns of a dance, bobbing and flailing his arms. He performed an intricate routine with his feet, sliding them, then quickly stepping and turning. Junior had seen the slim black kids work their feet. He could do it just the way they did it, with his eyes shut, when he could be red.

“
A'm lookin' forty mile
,” he sang. “
Shuh, b'lieve a'm fixin' ta die
…” Junior held his wrists close to his belly. His elbows pumped at his sides and his fat hips swiveled, rippling the flesh beneath his clothes:

“Shuh. Shuh. I knew I was bound to die, Cluney,

But I hate to leave my children cryin' …”

Junior could dance. Ah, he was a dancing fool. Cluney was his partner and she could dance real good. But Cluney had no weight on her. She was a black stick. She had black rod legs and arms; she had no red on her at all.

“
A'm a low-life clown, with ma head on upside down, Cluney-Cluney
.

Livin' ain't worth even the buyin'

But I hate to leave my children cryin'
…”

Baby sticks were sobbing all over the place, so Cluney took them and split.

Junior opened his eyes to the soft light of the room.

“If I went out for a little while Mama wouldn't even know it.” Junior sat on the floor next to his desk, by the closet door.

“But if she should almost die, I would be the cause.” Junior knew his mother would never really die. If she ever did, she wouldn't be able to blame him.

His room was all over silence, and filled with the odor of silent dancing. Some silent cotton curled in Junior's hearing, making a hum in his ears. The cotton silence had taken over the sound of his electric clock on the desk. Junior looked at the clock. It told time but it made no sound, since its sound had been taken up.