“Not much. I mostly liked baseball. My dad used to read baseball stuff to me. He helped me keep a real good scrapbook too. But he died when I was eight.”
—You were lucky.
“How was I lucky?”
—He didn’t die until you were eight.
There was a pause before William said, “I’ve always wanted to talk to you about that, but I didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry I never got a chance to meet you, Bonaventure.” He had to stop then. It took two more attempts before he could clear his throat and get the words out. “I always wanted to have a son to hug and play with, to teach things to. I guess that’s why it felt so good to teach you about your special hearing. I’m so glad we have this way of talking together. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
—I like having a voice with you.
When his dad had gone, Bonaventure thought that William had sounded sad, and he decided to try again to help with that favor they hadn’t talked about in a while.
The very next day, he set about his task. It was going to be harder than he thought. He was still afraid, but William had promised that it wouldn’t hurt him, and Bonaventure trusted his father.
Bonaventure headed for his mother’s closet, taking the sassafras jar with him because it had helped him through scary times before, like hearing the echo of police coming to the door. He sat down on the closet floor and carefully opened the spice jar to let the dry voice out.
“I’ve already told you all that I know,” the sassafras said. “I was there the night your mother waited for your father to come home, a long time ago, before you were born. I heard the police come to the door. I don’t know anything more than that. But the box does. Open the box if you want to know more.”
Bonaventure looked up expecting something to happen. But no sound came from the box. He set the jar down and pulled out the small ladder used to help reach that top shelf. He unfolded it and set first his right foot then his left on the lowest step. Still no sound. He set his right foot on the second step and followed it with his left. Still no sound. He moved up to the third step and finally to the top of the ladder. Still no sound.
It should have been warmer up near the ceiling, especially on a hot July day, but it wasn’t. Bonaventure put a hand on either side of the cloth-covered box and was surprised at how cool it felt. Although there was no sound, several scents had swirled themselves into a smell-print and embossed the box with their combined characteristics. Unfortunately for Bonaventure, the extraordinary silence that let him hear extra did nothing at all for his sense of smell. He could identify only one of the odors: it was cologne like a man would wear. He did not recognize the cold, metallic scent of dried blood; he knew nothing of the smoke left behind by a bullet.
The box remained quiet, holding its breath because it was desperate to keep the boy there and not frighten him again.
Bonaventure stuck his fingers under the lip of the lid in order to pull the box toward him. He was surprised he had to tug so hard; the box was heavier than he’d expected. He managed to inch it forward and scoot it over the shelf’s edge enough to place a hand against either side and pull it toward him. He was breathing hard from the struggle and had to rest a minute. That’s when he got the idea to rest the box on top of his head before slowly making his way down the ladder.
He knelt down to set it on the closet floor and sat back on his heels beside it. Bonaventure noticed the lid was hinged on one side and held closed by a pin-and-hasp lock. He used his thumb to move the pin, but stopped at the edge of discovery. He took in a breath and held it, and he felt a little like he had to go to the bathroom, which is what happened whenever he got nervous.
The voice of doubt snuck into his silence then, warning him that the box belonged to his mother, that it was hers to open or to keep locked up. And then Bonaventure heard something besides that doubt—the crunching ruffle of tissue paper. He let out his breath and lifted back the lid. The wrinkly tissue crackled and creaked, and said to him, “Keep going.”
Bonaventure pulled back the tissue to find a man’s necktie lying crosswise over a neatly folded white shirt. Beneath the tie and shirt were the suit and the belt they’d been worn with. And beneath the suit and the belt were a pair of underwear, a pair of men’s socks, and a pair of black shoes. They were the clothes William had on when he died.
Bonaventure removed the garments one by one. The tie was silk and seemed to be solid blue until he looked closer and found a pattern of tiny diamonds. The white cotton shirt was expensive, but something had put holes in it and left a rusty stain. He couldn’t identify the mark, and the shirt offered no explanation. The coat and pants were of dark gray wool, and the coat had holes and rust stains too. The belt was black and made of very soft leather and was fitted with an engraved silver buckle. The shoes were made of leather too, and shiny as a brand-new penny.
He laid the shirt out on the floor and undid every button before picking it up to slip his arms through the sleeves. It took a long time to re-button because he had to keep sliding the sleeves back up his arm. He managed to loop the tie around his neck and tie it in the same kind of bow he tied his shoelaces in; it was the only way he knew to tie anything. He pulled off his own shoes and stepped his small feet into the black leather ones that shone like a brand-new penny.
Bonaventure examined himself in the mirror that hung on the closet door and was amazed at how different he looked. Though the sleeves kept sliding down, and he’d gotten off track with the buttons so the shirt hung sort of crooked, and the tie didn’t look like it should, Bonaventure still thought he looked very fine. The last thing he put on was the soft leather belt, which wrapped around him twice. It was then that the clothes spoke to Bonaventure, telling him they belonged to William.
Bonaventure reluctantly took each article off, folded it as best he could, and returned it to the box. It was then that a good and tender silence took over, extinguishing every sound except one. From inside the pocket of the torn and rust-marked shirt came the whisper of a promise made of chains.
After what sounded like a clearing of the throat, the cloth-covered box found its voice. “Look in the pocket,” it said. “Your mother thinks it was all her fault.”
Bonaventure reached into the shirt pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. It was a little note that wept, and it was written in his mother’s hand:
Sweet William,
If you’ll stop at the A&P on your way home and get some butternut squash, I will love you forever and ever and ever.
XoXo
Dancy
P.S. I would love you forever even without the squash.
And that is when Bonaventure heard the bullets, loud and fast, coming from those rusty holes in the clothing. There were four of them. He counted.
Bonaventure returned the box to its place on the shelf. But he had not put the note back in, for he knew it was the thing he was supposed to take away. He also knew that he couldn’t put it in the memento box that lived under his bed, full as that box was of happiness. To put it there might make the note even sadder, which didn’t seem fair at all. And anyway, he was supposed to take it out of the house.
He talked to William about the dilemma that night.
—Is this what Mom is keeping that she shouldn’t keep anymore?
“Yes, Bonaventure, it surely is.”
—It makes a real sad sound. Can you hear it?
“No, but I know you can.”
—Does Mom hear it?
“She hears it all the time.”
—Those are your clothes in the box, aren’t they?
“Yes.”
—You and Mom say you died in an accident, but I think somebody shot you with a gun. I heard gun sounds like in the movies.
“That’s right. Somebody did. I used to think he did it on purpose, but then I realized he couldn’t help it.”
—Why couldn’t he help it?
“Because his mind got hurt and it never got better.”
—His mind must have been hurt pretty bad.”
“It was. Broken just like his heart.”
—The box told me something.
“What did it say?”
—It said Mom thinks it was all her fault.
“Your mom blames herself because she asked me to stop at the A&P that day, and that’s where I got shot. But it wasn’t her fault at all. We need to take the note away so it can’t blame her anymore.”
The second challenge was met.
—What should we do with it?
“I don’t know, but you will. Wait and see.”
—I’ve been wondering about something, Dad.
“What’s that?”
—Will you be leaving for Real Heaven now because our job is done?
“Not yet, but soon.”
—How soon?
“I don’t know.”
—Will you still be able to talk to me from there?
“I don’t know that either.”
Bonaventure lowered his head and said, —I’ve been wondering about something else.
“Oh?”
—After you go to Real Heaven, will I get a voice?
The question took William by surprise. “Do you want one?”
Nothing at first and then, —Maybe. It might be nice to be like everybody else.
“No, Bonaventure, always be you. And anyway, maybe you’re supposed to be the only super-hearing guy in the world. Like there’s only one Captain America.”
Bonaventure’s head lowered once again, and he gave a pretty big shrug, —I don’t know about that.
“Well, it sure would explain why none of the other kids at school can hear like you can.”
Even that didn’t cheer Bonaventure up. Ever since kindergarten, when he’d heard the color orange and been accused of cheating, Bonaventure had held himself apart, not wanting to get hurt again because of his super hearing.
Later that evening, after he’d said good night to everyone, Bonaventure reached under his pillow and pulled out his mother’s note. He knelt down, closed his eyes tight, pressed the paper between his hands and said every prayer he’d ever learned. He kept his eyes shut for a few minutes even after the prayers were done, and listened for his father.
He called to him, —Dad?
But William wasn’t there. He’d gone back to the shore in Almost Heaven to think about what was left to do. He’d forgiven his killer and removed the reminder of Dancy’s misplaced guilt, but he hadn’t met the third challenge yet: he had to let go of Dancy, and there was no help for that one. And then something opened up inside William, some small perforation on the dark side of his soul that let in a cosmic light. He admitted then what he’d known for a while, that he’d held them both captive far too long, and it was time for him to go.
Bonaventure listened for maybe ten minutes more, which is a very long time to a seven-year-old boy, and then he figured that maybe his father was tired. He opened his hands and told the note he was sorry, but he would take it out back to Mr. Silvey’s shop until he could think of what to do. His last thought of the day was that maybe a gris-gris idea would come along and mix in with all the prayers.
T
HE
Wanderer recalled the white
light of welding and the sound of flying sparks. He could feel the wetness of his own sweat and the soreness that entered his muscles at the end of a day that had been filled with grueling work. He could summon the taste of an ice-cold beer, and how it felt to drink when he still had a jaw. But The Wanderer didn’t know when any of those things had happened.
Bonaventure heard the echoes of that white light and those sparks and the cries of those worn-out muscles. The biting sound of hatred accompanied those sounds, as if the welder was taking things out on the steel. Bonaventure conveyed those clues to Coleman Tate the next time the investigator came around, just as his father had told him to do.
Voodoo and Hoodoo and the Sweet By-and-By
B
ONAVENTURE
had grown to love Trinidad like a second mother. She smiled and sang more than most people do, and everything she baked tasted better even than the stuff from TouTou’s Patisserie. Trinidad had a smell like soap, sunshine, and sweet, moist earth. Bonaventure liked to breathe her scent until it filled up his lungs and went to his ears and mixed in with the sounds of his silence.
He wanted to ask her something and he wanted to be very specific, so he used the note system for the conversation.
—Did you ever put the gris-gris on somebody?
Trinidad turned from the kitchen island where she was frosting a cake and acted like she hadn’t read his note. Bonaventure waited for a minute, and when it looked like she had gotten busy with washing the cake pan, he went over to the sink and tugged on her arm and held the notepaper closer to her face.
She sighed. “Well, now, there’s gris-gris and then there’s gris-gris. If you mean the voodoo sort that brings all kind of bad down on people, then no, I haven’t done that. But if you mean the hoodoo kind, well, then, maybe I have.”
—What’s the difference?
“One’s spelt with a
V
and one’s spelt with a
H
.”
Hands on hips, exasperated look.
“Oh, go on with that face. You know Trinidad only joking with you,” she said. “Voodoo be a religion. It got its own spirits. Voodoo folks make gris-gris out of all kinds of things. Voodoo folks have a lot of superstitions and charms and such. And some believes things like if you lay a broom across your doorway at night a witch can’t come in; or if you sweep trash out the house after dark, you’ll sweep away your luck; or that you can bring harm down on people by burning some of their hair.
“Hoodoo, now, at least the hoodoo I know, be different than that. Some hoodoo be about conjure, you know, calling up magic. My kind of hoodoo comes from root work. It bring about God’s healing. That’s the hoodoo I know. Now, here be a example of the difference between hoodoo and voodoo: There be a voodoo cure-all recipe that say to mix jimson weed with sulfur and honey in a jar, but then that recipe say that you gots to rub that jar against a black cat before you sip the mix down real slow.