Unconditional (9 page)

I knocked on his door, but no one answered. When I heard the sound of children's laughter coming from the backyard, I strolled past the side of the house to where Joe's children sat on patches of the grassy walkway between flower beds. He sat on a table's bench, elbows on his knees, gazing lovingly toward the kids. Beside him, a child's bright-yellow beach pail was filled with bags of M&Ms and other candies.

I smiled at seeing them. At seeing Keisha and Macon in the group. And at Denise, who sat at the edge of the group with Bernard tucked into her lap.

“All right,” Joe said, drawing excitement with his words. “What time is it?”

“Joe's Honor Roll!” the children shouted in unison.

“Excellent work this time around, guys. I'm really, really proud of you. I will be posting your names in the Commons so everyone can see just how great you all are.” He pulled a bag of M&Ms from the pail. “First up, the man who flat-out rocked it. A man who came up in
four
classes.” He held up the corresponding number of fingers. “
Snuffy
,” he said, saying the name as though he were Louie Armstrong singing in a jazz club.

Snuffy stood as the others clapped. He made his way through the small crowd, hugged Joe, and took his candy.

Joe kept going, “Bernard . . . Peach . . . Chloe . . .” He handed each child a small bag of candy. “Keisha . . .”

My heart flipped at hearing Keisha's name, at seeing her—with only the smallest of bandages now—stand to claim her prize.

“Snoop . . . Trent . . . and Willis.” As each name was called, another child stood to proudly claim his or her reward.

“
Ex
-cell-ent work.” Joe looked into the near-empty pail. “Man, you guys are emptying the bucket here. Make a hungry man cry.” He clapped. “Great job, guys.”

Macon stood from the crowd. He looked handsome in an oversized green and white argyle sweater worn over a long-sleeved blue tee, and a pair of dark denim jeans. He approached Joe, who met him with eyes intent on yielding all of his attention to the child.

I took a few steps closer, to hear what Macon had to say, realizing then he'd been the only one
not
called up for candy.

“You owe me some of that.”

Joe seemed to swallow back a smile. “Oh really. Enlighten me.”

Macon looked at the others, making sure they were engrossed in their own bags of candy. “Five
A
's, baby.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Never saw any proof, Einstein.”

“'Cause I don't want my name up on that board.”

“And why is that?”

“I got my reasons.”

“Well, I'm sure you do. But until I see that card, and you let me post your name, I'm gonna assume you doin' what you do best. Which is puttin' the hustle on me.”

Macon's head wove side to side. “I ain't hustlin' you, man.”

Joe's eyes grew large. “Then bring me your card, playa.” He fisted his hand, gave Macon a love tap on his chest. “Show me what you made of.”

Macon turned,
tsk
-ing, frustration etched on his face. “This is
stupid
, man.”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. It appeared Joe was doing the same. But beyond the smile, the look he gave Macon showed just how much he cared. How much he
loved
this boy who was “one of his kids,” but wasn't.

Joe leaned back, resting his elbows on the table. When he did, he spotted me standing close by. “Well, well!” he said. The children stopped chattering, looked at Joe, and followed his gaze to me. “She lives!”

I smiled, my whole body filled with warmth, the first fragment of warmth I'd felt in days. Before that . . . years. Even riding the horses today hadn't given me this feeling.

“Hey, kids,” Joe said, bringing their attention back to him. “Y'all got time for a quick story?”

A cheer rose from the small group.

“See that woman right there?” He nodded toward me.

The children nodded, and Denise smiled at me.

“She saved my life once. When we were kids.”

Oh, no. He wouldn't . . .

“Y'all wanna hear about it?”

I shook my head, but the kids cheered again. “Yeah!”

Joe pressed his fingers to his lips. “Shh . . . listen now. It was on a Saturday,” he began, “not too many months after I first met Miss Sam. I was walking through these woods that we used to play in all the time. A wonderful place for thinking, for being alone, and for being with your best friend.” Joe looked up at me, winked, and turned back to the children. “Now, Miss Sam there, she was always drawing pictures on this sketch pad and making up stories about whatever she drew. I happened to be walking through the woods on this particular Saturday when I spied her, sitting with her back against a tree, drawing. I also happened to see a pretty bird perched up on an old tree stump, posing for little Miss Sam.”

The children looked back at me and giggled.

“Well,” Joe continued, drawing their attention back to him. “I snuck around the tree—it was a
big
oak tree—and . . . ‘Hiiiiiiii-yaaaaa-hhhh!'” Joe jumped toward the children, landing in a karate-chop pose.

I had walked over to sit next to Joe by now, granting me a full view of the kids. Their eyes grew large as they jerked in place at Joe's theatrics. The look on Denise's face told me she'd already heard this story.

“The little bird flew away,” Joe said, casting his eyes upward as though that very same bird were here now, then gone.

“Little Sam said, ‘You scared away my bird friend.'”

The children giggled again, this time at Joe's voice, made high and squeaky to imitate mine at that age. “She turned her drawing pad toward me and, sure enough, there it was, that same little bird, drawn just as pretty and perfect as you please. But Miss Sam was not happy with me. No, she was not. She said, ‘He was the main character in my new story. See?'

“‘Oh, yeah? What's this one about?' I asked her.

“She said, ‘It's about this little bird who finds out God even cares for the little sparrows. Then he's happy.'

“‘That's it?' I asked her. ‘Why you always messin' with all that drawing and story-tellin' stuff?'

“Now, what I haven't told you is about what I was wearing at the time. I had on this really cool karate
gi
—a uniform, let's call it—but I just wore the top, not the bottoms. My grandmother had bought it for me at a thrift store.” He nodded at the kids, knowing they understood. “So there I was wearing my gi, white sash all tied around my waist, a pair of cutoff jeans, and a makeshift black cape. I am telling you right now, I . . . looked . . . cool.”

I breathed out a sigh and a smile, hoping the children couldn't tell from my own memory of the event just how
un
cool he'd been. But they saw, all right, and they giggled.

Joe looked at me. “Stay out of this,” he teased. “Today, I'm the storyteller.”

I sat up straight and saluted him. Denise laughed silently.

“May I continue?” he asked his audience.

“Yeah!”

“So Miss Sam says, ‘Why are you always wearing your pajamas in public?'

“‘For the
last time
,
' I said, ‘these are
not
pajamas!' This only made Little Sam giggle. But she was my best friend, so I couldn't be mad at her, now could I?”

“Nooooooo,” they said.

“I took her by the hand and said, ‘Come with me.' We walked for a ways, and then I made Miss Sam cover her eyes.” He briefly covered his eyes, and I did the same, showing the children how agreeable I'd been so many years before. “I told her, ‘We're going somewhere special.' And then I took her to my secret place. I'd gotten some old metal and boards and made a lean-to. I also got one of my grandmother's potato sacks and filled it with pine straw, hung it up, and used it as a punching bag.”

Joe fisted his hands and boxed the air around him.

“I got an old pair of my grandpa's pants and a hoodie and filled those full of straw too. Propped them up on a stick like a scarecrow.” He boxed the air again. “All the bad people in the world was inside that one scarecrow, and I was the hero to be reckoned with.

“I told Little Sam, ‘I'm going to be a samurai warrior one day.' I picked up this tin bucket I'd brought from home, put it on my head, and gave her my best samurai pose.” Joe stretched his upper torso to its full height, placed his fists on his hips, and swung from side to side.

I looked at the children. He had them mesmerized.

“Miss Sam reminded me there were no black samurai warriors. Can you believe that? I just said, ‘I know. But I'm one of a kind!' I then showed her how tough I was by grabbing hold of this stick I'd nailed between two posts—a chin-up bar for making me strong.” Joe demonstrated his actions, fists clutched in the air, pulled his chin to the bar, back down, back up, back down.

I shook my head. “If I remember correctly,” I said, “you got your nose to the bar, but your chin never made it.”

Joe looked at me, pretending to be put out. “Who's telling this story?”

I smiled at the children. “Please, continue then.”

“Okay, so it's true. I wasn't very strong in those days. But I had a plan, you see. I said, ‘I'm gonna train hard, fight hard. Gonna get out of this little town. Live in the big city. Save the world! I'm gonna be big, Sam.
Huge
.' And do you know what she said?”

“Nooooooo.”

I decided to answer the question. With a half smile I said, “‘Writing stories is still way cooler.'”

“What did Papa Joe say to
that
?” Bernard asked.

“He said, ‘Whatever.'”

“I decided to show Sam what I was made of,” Joe went on. “‘Oh, you ain't seen nothin' yet,' I told her. I boxed at the potato sack a few times and then front-kicked the legs right out from under that scarecrow.” Joe leaned forward. “What I didn't know, was I had just disturbed the hiding place of a big ol' rattlesnake.”

The kids drew back.

“That thing shook its rattles at me. Hissin'. Little Sam gasped like a girl, but I was Samurai Joe. ‘Stay back, Sam,' I told her. ‘I got this.' I grabbed a broomstick I had propped up nearby, never taking my eyes off that viper. I twirled the stick slowly, slowly like a Japanese fighting bo . . .” Joe continued making the motions as the children leaned toward their storyteller. “Miss Sam was scared, but not me. Not Samurai Joe. I wasn't backin' down. I
jabbed
at the snake . . . jab . . . jab . . . when . . .
whoosh
!” Joe lunged at the children. They screamed. Even I jumped a little.

“That snake bit me right on the leg.” He nodded toward me. “Little Sam here had to tote me all the way back home. She carried me, dragging my body through the woods, blood dripping down my leg, until I passed out cold in the grass.”

“Then what happened?” Snuffy asked.

“I ran as fast as I could to get help,” I said. “The ambulance came and took Joe to the hospital where . . . he got better.” I didn't say the rest. I didn't tell them how I'd begged my daddy to take me to the hospital to see Joe that evening. I didn't say how I'd seen his grandmother sitting next to the bed where he lay, reading from her Bible. I'd never even told Joe what I'd heard from where I'd paused just outside the door. About how he'd asked his grandmother if his father was coming.

“No, baby,” she answered. “I called him, but he . . . he ain't gonna be able to make it.”

Joe nodded as though he understood. Then he asked, “Grandma, am I gonna die?”

Joe's grandmother shook her head. “I don't think the good Lord's done with you jus' yet. I think you got a long life ahead of you, boy.”

“Grandma?”

“Yes, sir?”

“How come my dad don't love me?”

I remember how my heart hurt at such a question. I'd never known such sorrow. My father had shown me nothing but love my whole life. All I wanted in that moment was to run into the room, to throw my arms around my young friend and tell him how much
I
loved him.

Joe's grandmother saw me then. Her face grew bright, and she smiled. “Well, look-a here. Look at this pretty thing.” She turned to Joe. “You got yourself a visitor.”

“Hi,” I said, stepping into the small hospital room.

“Come on over here, Miss,” his grandmother said, closing her Bible and placing it on the bedside table.

I stepped over to the bed and peered at Joe, who looked pitiful with his half-opened eyes, dry and cracking lips, and oxygen tubes up his nose. I pulled a piece of paper out of the sketch pad I carried and handed it to him. “Made you somethin',” I said. It was the
Samori Joe
sketch he now kept framed and hanging in his hallway.

“Samurai Joe,” Joe had muttered, his dark hair looking all the darker against the white pillowcase. “Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.” He looked back at his grandmother with a set jaw. “I was thinking . . . you survive a snakebite, you can survive just about anything. I mean, you're invincible. And you're strong enough to make it on your own.”

Grandma sighed before looking straight into her grandson's eyes. “No, baby. Ain't none of us that strong. And you ain't got to be. 'Cause you never really on your own, Joe. You're never alone.”

With just over a dozen children sitting at our feet, Joe now looked at me and I at him. He reached his hand toward mine that night, just as he was doing now. And, as before, I slipped mine into his.

“Truth is,” Joe said to the children sitting before us, “I would have died that day if Sam hadn't been there with me.” He squeezed my hand before releasing it. “Now, how many of you guys comin' up without a father?” he asked them, causing me to wonder if he remembered the part of the story neither of us seemed willing to share.