Those Bones Are Not My Child (36 page)

“Please don’t,” she said when Teo leaned across her to turn on the radio. On every station they seemed to be forever playing “Another One Bites the Dust,” as if prearranged in a monstrous plot. She couldn’t hear that, not when the twelve-year-old Stephens boy had been found on Norman Berry Drive strangled. And she didn’t want to hear campaign speeches. What did they know, what could they promise? And no more about the hostages, when right here in the city was a house, a garage, a toolshed, attic, basement, closet, filling up right now with her longing seeping flammable under the door.

Zala peered into the blue-tinted rearview mirror. Didn’t goodness count? Were the barbarians to inherit the earth after all?

“Sure you don’t want a toke?” Teo was rolling a joint, leaning over to do it between his knees. He looked up at the windows of Paschal’s Motor Lodge as if addressing someone looking down. “Cool you out a little.”

“Teo,” was all she said, because the rooms signaled too much to think about. It was easier to pray than search the hotel. She pushed up on her hands for a good look in the mirror. There was nothing but herself, so she looked beyond the windshield to the L-shaped building across from Paschal’s. Part of it abandoned, an old beauty-supply shop below, an office above, the two-by-fours in the upper window eased away from the nails, months of trash in the doorway, the plywood on the downstairs window weathered, graffitied, and burned through in places by people bored waiting for the bus. The ground-floor hinges looked
hungry for action. A good omen, she decided, and tried then to mold the dark beyond the upstairs window into knowable shapes. Why couldn’t she coax Sonny out of the cave as she’d coaxed him down the birth canal? She could urge him down the stairwell and press him into view in the rain-soaked doorway if God helped.

“Want me to take a look over there?” Teo got out and stretched his legs, then jogged across the street to the L-shaped building.

It would make, she was thinking, an excellent hideout, right there on the main street in ten-minute striking distance of nine points on the map. In the corner of the L was a grocery for food and a beauty salon for news. A quick skip across Mayson Turner was a drugstore for sleeping pills to keep the captives quiet. Sonny liked Moon Pies, did they know that? Hated milk but loved him some Donald Duck orange juice, but only if it was Kofi’s turn to shop: Tropicana if Sonny had to ask for it himself.

She waited as Teo kicked a path through the garbage to the entrance of the building. Waited as she did by the phone, aching; as she did in the low-slung showroom out past Peachtree Towers, hurting; in the new STOP headquarters, straining, by the radio, hunched over the papers, the map. Waited as the net was flung out, clenched in terror of what might be hauled up. And she would have to beg to look. Couldn’t look. Had to look.

Anna and Kenneth Almond had had to look at the bullet hole in Edward Hope Smith’s back. Venus Taylor had had to look at Angel Lanier’s mutilated face. Eunice Jones had had to look at the wounds on Clifford’s head and throat. The Stephens family were looking now at Charles, arranging his funeral. She’d have to ask for permission to look. Couldn’t look. Couldn’t go to the woods again looking, branches grabbing at her courage, snapdragons dry and jabbing, the leaves brown mottled lace on her clothes that stuck like burrs through two washings. Couldn’t step into that old school building another time, the dark dank, the mildew and soil mold sour, the sweat of couples that fucked there, the winos who pissed there, the dogs who slept in that crypt and left half their hair there in mangy clumps. Couldn’t walk those hallways, enter those classrooms where children had once recited their lessons, sung the school songs, saluted the school colors, worn the school emblems till a backstabbing law in their favor said sitting next to each other was a handicap compared to the good fortune of sitting
next to children taught to despise them, and closed E. P. Johnson Elementary School down so years later the worst of blasphemers could carry a stolen, murdered child into that place and stash it beneath rotting floorboards, dropping a stone on top to keep it down.

“I’ve done all I know how,” she pleaded. “Please.” The image of Teo in the doorway kicking at the litter blurred. “Please. What else can I do?” she begged. Five verses a day, she’d done it. Nearly every day of her life she’d slid the red satin bookmark across the crinkly page and turned the gilt-edge sheets, slowly reading, absorbing, her eyes moving along the familiar black type to the red. Done it. Fallen asleep with the Bible flat on her face. Faith can defeat grief. Sung it. Trouble doan lass alwayzz, like her mama and her mama before her over the ironing. Done. This too shall pass, changed. Prayed nightly on her knees.

“But where, Lord, are you?” Not an accusation, she cautioned herself. God don’t like ugly. But not too resigned, either. God don’t favor the mealymouthed. She angled her chin in the mirror and shaded her eyes just so. But not too much. It wasn’t a case of heysugarwhereyabeen? It had to be done right or it didn’t count. She’d been well taught by hundreds who knew how to get along with God, the church, and ministers of the moment. So she’d get it right. Had to be right or it wouldn’t work. And it had to work.

“Lord?” A humble summons from a humble servant. Course, Maker don’t come ’cause ya call, and Maker don’t come ’cause ya need. But when Maker come, come right on time. “Time, Lord.”

She saw Teo and Spence in the street talking. No Sonny. No angels. The streets ink soup. The cars trumpeting them out of the middle of traffic to the sidewalk. Teo hung by the curb, rained-on. Spence and three other men took off in the direction of Griffin.

By the time God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost arrived there’d be no time for whatkeptya? With great dignity she’d state the time and place of the funeral and let the Trinity feel the sting of her disapproval collectively and individually as she waltzed off in a rustling black dress. Yes: a turrible numbah she’d whip up on the machine. Hah. Singing the hell out of “Lord, don’t move that mountain, just give me the strength to climb.” How she’d sing it—head thrown back, hair wild, sarcasm dripping from her fanged teeth! Hahn. Wouldn’t look back over her shoulder either. Hahn. And let one of them crook a mouth to mention Job. Hah. Have you considered my servant? Don’t even try. Unmerited
grief and suffering and blah blah blah. Shut up. Peradventure fifty righteous souls in Sodom. Blow it up. Salt my ass. Turned to stone when she saw what Lot had done, when she saw what the Great Father allowed, what the city fathers allowed.

“I’ve done my bit,” Zala said. “Through,” she said, dusting her hands off, through with God since God was through with her. There was nothing left in her repertoire, nothing undone on her list of to-dos. She’d come out of the garden and learned to speak up. Made many a scene. Tracked like a cat. Worn her knees out. Prayed herself hoarse. And where were the tribes to go up against the base city that put family after family on the altar rather than change their notions of order or edit a single line of their job descriptions?

“Forget you,” she said, feeling wild and free and crazy fine. “Forget you altogether, God. No more,” she said, enjoying the sweet, crooked pleasure of hearing her voice so strong and defiant.… She laughed and the streak of lightning turned milky. “Yeahhhh, I’ve been here, Lord. But where the hell were you?”

T
he fishbowl was full of sky, and Roger was blue, then orange, then Casper the Ghost scooting through clouds on his rock castle. Kenti sat up and knuckled sleep from her eyes. And for the third time since Mr. Grier’s drill had stopped and the oven door slammed, she got up and told her baby doll it must be time for Sunday school by now.

She heard Kofi saying something fresh in the kitchen just like Mama hadn’t been warning him all morning about his mouth. He was hammering in the freezer when she got there, and a chip of ice skidded across the floor and hit her on her foot. The kitchen was only half a mess now, so Kenti waited, one foot on top of the other, wriggling her toes, for somebody to say something about getting to church.

“Mama, we gonna eat now or later on?”

“Not now,” Zala said, grabbing the saucepan from the fire. Kenti drew her shoulders up. She would’ve used a pot holder. She would’ve kept on the pink rubber gloves. But Mama didn’t even run the cold water over the eggs. She had her head to one side, not to duck the steam but to hear the radio. It was talking about the funeral of the new dead boy. And she told Kofi to shush when he was fixing to say something. Zala cracked the eggs against the sink with her bare hands, listening, peeled the eggs one by one without dropping them, slit them open with a knife and scooped the yellows out, mashed them up in a bowl, not even looking at what she was doing. It had to hurt. Them eggs were hot, Kenti figured.

“We going on a picnic?” But neither of them said boo, so she guessed the devil eggs were for ordinary lunch. She went to the cluttered table to find the puzzle key ring to play with. There were pans of dirty water with frosty ice swimming in it, bowls of green fuzzy stuff, cups of hard, dark things graying around the edges, and a potato with a
spooky pink finger poking out. Kofi was on the floor trying to roll up the soggy newspaper Mama had put down early in the morning. It kept tearing and making him mad. There was blood on the floor where the chop meat had dripped. There were dead moths curled up with celery leaves in the melted ice puddles. Dirty footprints walked across the newspaper and the tile all the way to the counter where the rubber gloves were plopped. They looked like Miz Penner’s pink gloves held against her big chest when she got up to sing with the choir.

“Ain’t we going to church, Mama?”

“I don’t see why I got to do this,” Kofi said. “Paulette and them already cleaned up in here. And now the whole house stinks of oven-off.”

“Just do it.” She sounded far away, but she was right there, her neck bent, her head to the side, listening to the funeral. And when the drill began again, she wheeled around and spattered eggshells in Kofi’s hair, which gave him something new to fuss about.

“Dammit.” Zala looked toward the front of the house. Then she looked at Kenti like maybe it was her fault Mr. Grier was drilling holes. Kenti rummaged among the stuff on the table and found the key ring number puzzle next to the juice jug, syrupy orange and sticky on the numbers side. Kenti backed out of the kitchen out the door when she saw her mama staring at her hands, red shiny slashes across her palms going white and puffy.

Mr. Grier gave Kenti a look, then wound up the cord, picked up the stepladder, and called his wife to come see what he’d done. He’d put a light over their front door. Seemed like he could’ve put the light between the two houses to share it, but Kenti didn’t say so, ’cause Mr. Grier hadn’t said a word to her since summer. She thumbed the numbers around in the puzzle tray and almost had 1, 2, and 3 in order by the time Mrs. Grier poked her head out and twisted around to see the lamp.

“He won’t reimburse us, ya know.” Mrs. Grier sucked her teeth in that special way, so Kenti knew she was talking about the landlord. Kenti wanted to try sucking her teeth too, but she didn’t want them to think she was mocking. Mr. Grier flicked the light off and on, and then the two of them looked at her like she should be shame still in her nightgown. Her face felt hot, her fingertips cool, though, on the plastic puzzle.

“You don’t suppose we should have offered to buy a pair of coach
lamps and go halves?” Mrs. Grier said, scratching her head scarf. She wore it pirate-style, and one of the tails was caught in her earring. “Neighborly,” she added, looking at Kenti’s feet and then her ashy legs. Kenti yanked her gown down, waiting for somebody to say good morning. “Silas?”

“I’m not keen,” Mr. Grier said, sounding strict. “I’m not keen atall.”

And then he backed Mrs. Grier into the house with the ladder, the two of them looking at her funny like there was some bad thing going on that had made her come out of her house. Kenti skipped back into the living room singing the Christopher Columbus song she’d learned in school. She added a few extra tra-la-las and piped up when she got to the good part about the
Nina
, the
Pinta
, and the
Santa Maria
, real loud, to show there was nothing bad going on in her house. She heard the couple’s door click and the chain drawn across the lock, and her face felt hot again. She kicked back the edge of the carpet and slammed the door as hard as she could.

“Dag, Ma, I don’t know nothing about it,” Kofi was saying in the kitchen. Kenti heard her mama’s slippers clopping across the floor fast, fast, so she hurried in to see if Kofi was going to get it. But Mama was only screwing the lid on the mayonnaise and shoving it in the refrigerator. Kofi was banging cereal bowls down on the table looking like Daddy dealing cards, leaning high over the table, his legs on either side of the chair, butt stuck out, popping them cards, slamming them down, and telling the players they were going to Boston. But Kofi wasn’t playing, look like he was trying to bust up them bowls. And Mama wasn’t playing at nothing, either. She threw herself down in the chair and started studying in her books. And nothing about the kitchen looked like Sunday.

Kenti’s good dress wasn’t hanging on the ironing board. The bowl of batter wasn’t on the counter with the wooden spoon sticking up in it. The rubber gloves were flopped over the side of the sink like Miz Penner was drowning in the catch cup trying to climb out. The black griddle was hooked over the stove on the board next to the skillet, not heating up on the burner with bacon sizzling on the back jet. The funnies weren’t on the table, the Bible neither. Books and notebook paper were on the table. And the killer map was on Sonny’s chair but not
wound up. Mama had the rubber band on like a bracelet, so Kenti figured she’d been drawing on the map on account of the new boy that got killed.

“Mama, Mr. Grier wouldn’t speak to me.” Kenti waited for a hug or something, but her mama went right on reading, moving from one book to another, and scribbling on three-hole paper. “Her neither, Mama.”