IRMA’S GOT TWO DAYS TO find the courage. Evan was inside shining Toby’s shoes when a man from the county coroner’s office stopped by—said that she ought to just have the body cremated. Imagine! Evan’s thumping away on one of his father’s boots, all the while Myrna’s in the next room, sewing buttons onto his suit for the service, and that Mister Wyatt T. Blake, blocking the damn sunlight coming in through the front doorway, is explaining to Irma how an open casket is a terrible idea. Said that Irma ought to just have him taken straight to the crematorium; they can’t allow her to go laying that body out in the state it’s in. Called it irresponsible. And you know what Irma did? She took that tin of shoe polish from Evan and gave him a hatchet instead. Told him to go out back and split wood. That boy’s been splitting wood ever since.
I’d been lying in bed nursing my arm, half-dead to the world, when Mom barked out at me from the kitchen.
Rise and shine, young man! Time to get up! Chop-chop! All play and no work makes Jack a poor boy! It’s a big day, and there’s lots to do!
She strolled in two minutes later and sat down beside me. She kissed me on the head and told me to get up. A look of concern overtook her face. She placed her palm on my forehead.
You feel warm, cupcake.
She looked at my arm.
Is it getting worse?
I felt feverish. I knew that I was supposed to have been getting better for the last few weeks, but I didn’t feel like it. My fingers had ballooned. She touched them, and a sharp pang shot up my arm. I jerked my cast away.
Stop it!
Honey, I don’t think this is healing right—Buck!
Mom examined them more closely. She was dismayed by the discoloration of my fingernails. They were almost black. Dad strolled in holding a razor. He stared down at my cast, then bent down for a closer inspection. He winked.
His fingers look like Vienna sausages. But other than that, he looks fine. Probably just slept on it wrong. I’m sure he’ll be fine just as soon as he gets up and about.
Mom had never seen anything like it. She wondered if I should have it looked at. Dad suggested a wait-and-see approach.
Mom looked at him like he was crazy. Wait and see what? His arm fall off?
Mom demanded that something be done and marched off. Dad asked if it hurt. When I said yes, he hollered out for her to get some aspirin, then dragged me out after her. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, scratching my upper arm. Mom soaked the red spots in castor oil, but it still itched like the devil. She wiped a wet washcloth over my face, gave me two aspirin, and told me to get back in bed.
So I did. Something smacked against the window. I put down my comic book and went over to it. Derrick was standing outside. He gestured for me.
I opened the window and poked my head out. Why didn’t you say hi the other day?
When?
Don’t “when” me.
Jesus, Huey, you know how she is.
Don’t ever do that again.
Okay. Well, don’t just stand there looking at me like a dummy. Lemme have it.
I paused. Danny gone?
Yeah. Miss Lambert had to drive him because the buses still aren’t running. Aw, c’mon. Everybody’s saying all kinds of stuff about what happened. I came to hear it from you.
I hung my cast out the window. About this?
Yeah.
I got hit by the sheriff. He was flying down Main Street, sirens blasting, and bam! I flew over the car. Must have been going at least eighty miles an hour, in hot pursuit.
That’s not what I heard.
Says who?
Everyone.
Well, they didn’t see the toxicology report, and I did. It was in big, bold letters: EIGHTY MILES PER HOUR.
Derrick looked impressed.
BLOOD PRESSURE: ZERO. HEART RATE: ZERO OVER ZERO. PULSE: ZERO, ZERO, and ZERO, LATERAL, VENTRICLE, and DORSAL. So there. Bone was poking out. Lost tons of blood. Even lost a tooth. Here—see? Stung so bad I blacked out. People thought I was dead. But then I came back to life. Kinda like Jesus, only quicker. But no, I didn’t meet any angels, so don’t bother asking. Saw the light at the end of the tunnel, though. Decided it wasn’t my time yet. So I turned around and jogged back. I should probably sue. I dunno. I am a lot better now, though. So maybe not. Except for the purplish color here and the rash here. Spread from my thumb all the way up to my elbow. Here—see? The doctor says I’m lucky to be alive. Says they’re gonna put me in medical books. So I’ll probably get some residuals for that.
Looks like a zombie hand. What in the hell did you do to it?
Oh. You mean the rubber bands? They’re just to help keep it in place.
No, that. Did you take it off and put it back on?
Nah. Just tore some.
Does it hurt?
Throbs sometimes. Mostly just when I bang it in the doorway. You know how your fingers usually move when you want them to? Well, these two don’t.
Lemme see.
I showed him, after which I explained the frustrations of being a one-armed cripple. Like having to do everything with an arm that I wasn’t used to using, and how everything from pouring milk to opening the cookie tin was twice as hard and took twice as long. And how even something as simple as tying my shoelaces made me furious with frustration.
Is it waterproof?
What the hell do I look like? You think I’d let them put something on me that wasn’t waterproof?
You’re so lucky. Jesus, what I wouldn’t do to be in your shoes. You get all the excitement. I can’t wait until I break my first bone. Which reminds me—I also came to tell you to be on the lookout. My mama’s put the double-barreled shotgun by the window. She’s claiming she’ll shoot at the first sign of anyone creeping around. Said she’s gonna shoot first and ask questions later. So if you come by to talk, hide behind that old root-choked tree out front. Say, what are you up to later? Maybe we can meet up.
Nah. Toby’s service is today.
You’re going?
Of course I’m going.
Derrick looked at me funny.
What? You wouldn’t go to Sheldon’s service?
Sheldon hasn’t reported to work in over two weeks. Which makes him a traitor. So no, I wouldn’t.
Okay, Miss Della, then?
Jesus Christ, Huey. Miss Della does what she’s supposed to. My mama says she hasn’t missed a day of work in fifteen years. Sweetest old lady I ever knew—even came to work the day God took her baby back. Never mind the time she worked straight through Easter Sunday so that my poor little sister Claire was able to get her new outfit in time for her baptism. Not to mention that she’s the only colored in town who’s still standing by us. And thank goodness for that, because my mama doesn’t even know how to boil an egg. Talking about how long they’re supposed to boil for and if you’re supposed to put salt in with them like you do potatoes. Now she’s got Miss Della running around doing the work of Harriet, Ora, Ross, Gladys, Shapely, Donovan, Lester—all of them. If that’s not loyalty, by Jove, I don’t know what is.
Miss Della, a sweet old lady?
The question you need to be asking yourself is, would you have gone to Benedict Arnold’s service?
I had to think. I know what you’re driving at. And the same thing occurred to me. But he didn’t. Trust me. I just know it. It’s all just a big misunderstanding. Sure, he fixed Mister Abrams’s filter that one time. But he just put a finger in the water to check the temperature. That’s all. I doubt he ever even put his arm in up to his elbow, never mind swim in it. Didn’t even like the stuff. Niggers don’t like water, you know that.
We got forty more niggers working for us than you do, Huey, so go figure. Miss Della doing the wash. Harriet cooks up supper. Ross keeps up the yard. And whatshisface—the new guy—goddamnit, I can’t even remember all their names. We got so many coming and going, sometimes I’d swear I know them better than they know themselves.
Doesn’t matter. Your daddy even said so—I heard him. Called Toby “the goose that laid the golden egg.” Remember when the sewage line backed up, and someone fixed it? Well, that was Toby. And how that one morning we woke up and all those red-winged blackbirds were lying out in the road, bloated and stiff, and no one knew why, until someone figured it out? Well, that was Toby, too. And who fixed the water main when no one else could? Toby. It was all Toby.
Derrick was very generous with his knowledge of practical matters. Among other things, he taught me stuff he knew about colored people. And I was grateful. Mom and Dad rarely touched the subject—which was just as well, because whenever they tried, they just complicated it. But with Derrick, everything was always cut-and-dried. Which was what frustrated me most about Mom’s having taken me to Toby’s house. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted to pay my respects. I just wished I could have done it in a way such that I’d never had to actually go visit the goddamned place. It would have made life so much simpler. Because as unsettling as Evan’s threat on my life had been, I couldn’t help but admire someone who could not only make a bow but shoot it like he had. Didn’t matter if it was cruel. It was amazing. It instantly put him up there with the legendary warrior chiefs and the great Eastern mystics. At the end of the day, I didn’t know whether I should be angry at Toby for the headache he was causing me or feel sorry for him because he was dead.
Derrick held his nose and made fun of me for having to suffer through a three-hour-long, nigger-filled service. Mom called out for Dad. Derrick and I froze, listening. Derrick stepped closer to the window and broke it all down for me, explaining how Toby had been in league with those college kids all summer. My bedroom door was closed, but we could still hear Mom and Dad rummaging around in the kitchen. It sounded like Mom was setting out breakfast plates. I leaned farther out the window and whispered.
And?
Derrick went quiet at the sound of Mom’s voice.
. . . said Toby always thought you a lackluster overseer who could do no better than live off the spoils of his family name—the man who lacked the wherewithal to prod a field hand into the strenuous labor required of him either by example or force. Who could respect a man hardly capable of fulfilling the duties of the job that had been handed to him on a silver platter? Called you a small man who had taken the easy road in love as well as life and frankly thought I deserved better.
She said that?
And plenty more.
Toby didn’t say that, and you know it. He’d never say a thing like that. That boy loved me. Listen, people say mean things when they get upset. Besides, Irma’s probably just jealous. Okay? You know that. We’ve been over that a million times. Comes with the territory—being a diamond in the rough in a small backwoods community such as this. She probably just resents you for it. Probably wants what you have—sees all you’ve got and wonders why she can’t have the same. Honestly, she probably expected that Toby ought to have been able to provide for her like I provide for you. Who knows? She may even hate you for it. And you and I both know it. Mean-spirited women like Irma make it their life’s work to undermine people like you and me. Frankly, I’m used to it.
I looked down at Derrick. I tried to say something funny but came up empty. Derrick put a finger to his lips. Dad was in the kitchen, admitting to Mom that Toby had once asked if he could sharecrop a couple of acres of our land, but that he had said that he couldn’t afford to do that. Derrick laughed. I hung out the window and took a swing at him. He shut up and there was a moment of quiet.
When I leaned back into the house, he blurted out, You can always come work for us!
I whipped my home-run ball at him, but my left-handed throw was clumsy. Derrick disappeared through the bedsheets drying on the line. My door creaked open.
Huey?
Dad poked his head in from the hallway, clean shaven and stinking of aftershave. He asked what the hell I was doing out of bed and what all the racket was about, then told me that if I busted my cast, my arm could set as crooked as a coat hanger for all he cared. I wasn’t getting a new one. I stormed past him and plopped myself down at the kitchen table. Mom was washing her hair over the sink.
Was that Derrick stirring up trouble again?
None of your goddamned business.
Neither Mom nor Dad flinched, which was unexpected. Mom lifted her head out from under the faucet and wrapped a towel around it and told me to go wash up. I didn’t budge. She was in the middle of greasing her scalp. When she finished, she set the open tin of bergamot down in front of me and asked what I was staring at. She knew I didn’t like how it smelled but did it anyway. Which irked me. I held my nose and said that it stank, then put the lid back on and held it up. The woman on the label looked like she could have been Mom’s sister. Mom turned away from me and set the steel prongs on the stove and dialed up the knob.
I slammed the tin down on the table. That goddamned nigger of ours broke into Mister Abrams’s pool, didn’t he? He did it, didn’t he? Go on. You can tell me. Just admit it. For God’s sake, can’t anyone tell the truth around here?
Mom’s hot comb fell to the floor. She picked it up and smoothed over the nick it made in the linoleum, then stood up and snatched the tin of bergamot out of my hand, slammed it on the table, and marched me into the bathroom. That is not a word we use in this house!
Out came the soap. I closed my mouth.
She pried my lips apart. Do you hear me?
I held my breath, but it still stung. I kicked and screamed bloody murder so bad she nearly shoved it down my throat. I tried to get her to stop, but she just kept swishing it round until I was foaming at the mouth, all the while hollering out at the top of her lungs.
It’s every bit as blasphemous as shit, cunt, fuck, bitch, kike, motherfucker, Chink, penis, and vagina. Nod if you understand that!
My watery eyes were suddenly wide open and astounded. She had my undivided attention. I nodded. With my whole body, arms, fingertips—everything. Over and over again. Several times, and vigorously. Besides being terrified, I was shocked. She knew more cuss words than me.
Dad came in and wrestled the soap from her. He led her out and sat her down in front of Bill Cullen on the TV, then returned to the kitchen and put on a pot of hot tea. I was pitched over the bathroom sink, coughing and gagging and spitting out white chunks of soap cake stuck between my teeth and in the crevices of my premolars. I kept rinsing my mouth, but that damned bitter soap taste just wouldn’t go away.
That boy’s wearing a real tie! Look! Bill Cullen’s got on a real tie. Everyone important has a real tie on. Why doesn’t my boy wear a real tie? Answer me that? I want my boy to have a real tie, too! He’s practically a grown man! How’s he gonna get a good job without a necktie? For goodness’s sake, when are you going to get around to teaching your boy to tie a necktie? How’s he supposed to make it in this world if he can’t even tie a necktie? When all you do is get on him about sorting stack poles? Teach him something useful, like how to tie a necktie!
I riffled through the cabinet for something to help me get rid of that disgusting taste. I found the bottle of pills that Dad took for his knee—not what I was looking for, but maybe they would help my arm. When I finally got the cap off with my teeth, they spilled out all over the floor. I popped two and scooped the rest back up into the bottle.
Of course, funerals were no fun. And Toby had been close to us. But what the heck was up with Mom was anyone’s guess. I turned on the water in the bathtub and staggered to the open doorway. Dad was standing at the stove, watching water boil. He looked a little lost. I told him I needed help tying a bag around my cast. Dad followed me into the bathroom and slipped a garbage bag over my arm and wrapped some duct tape around it. He consoled me with the admission that Mom was a little tense, then started talking about life not being fair and needing to grow up in a hurry sometimes because life was filled with the unexpected.
Unexpected indeed. When I finished with my bath, Dad picked up the necktie from the chair back, called me in, and slung it around my neck. A warm, fuzzy feeling spread throughout my entire body as he tied it into a fancy knot. The pain in my arm melted away, and the room was spinning just a little, but I felt great. When he finished, I went into the bathroom and jumped up and down in front of the mirror. I was laughing because of how important the stupid necktie made me look.
Dad brought my suit coat in from my bedroom closet. He dusted it off. Mom laid it out over the kitchen table, sat down with needle and thread, and let the right arm out. And as she sat there, quietly letting out hem after hem, all I could think to myself was that Toby’s service required the same getup as Easter, which put it right up there with the Resurrection in my mind.
Dad stood in the kitchen, ironing a dark tie, in nothing but a white T-shirt, boxers, and black socks. He was good with an iron—said he’d learned it in the ROTC. Never told me anything about what else he’d learned, though. Mom sat hunched over the kitchen table with a nest of pins and rollers in her hair, blaming the fact that we were running late on all the time it was taking her to fashion my suit coat to fit over my cast.
My fingertips tingled, and my hand was purple. When I showed Mom, she answered by telling me that we had no ice in the house and to talk to Dad about fixing the freezer, and then took hurriedly to the back door. She returned with my wind-blown button-down, snatched the iron from Dad, and began ironing it, all the while quizzing me about all that was going on in town.
I held my hand up over my head because that seemed to relieve some of the pressure.
All I know is that someone broke into Mister Abrams’s pool. And the police are still trying to figure out who did it. And that everyone in town is betting their bottom dollar it was Toby—coloreds included.
How can you be so sure?
Derrick.
Mom wasn’t surprised. She seemed to know Derrick better than she let on. Anyway, my fingers felt a little better. At least I could wiggle them a little. Mostly my middle finger, which I was starting to think was the most important. That warm, fuzzy feeling was making me bold.
I’m guessing because he was the only colored ever close enough to it to ever actually have a shot at getting his whole body inside, not counting Aurelia. Or Edna. Or Mister Hardee, for that matter. But they’re too old, probably. Besides, Edna never left the laundry room, and Mister Hardee was always out front, clipping the hedges. But what really gets my goat is that Pop’s the only damned person in town who’s still upset about it and won’t let me go back. We ran into Derrick and the guys last week, and they were on their way there. Why, I bet they’d probably been swimming in there the whole time, splashing around and having the time of their lives.
Mom was standing at the ironing board, talking with her back to me. Huey, that pool’s done for. I assure you, it’s a ghost town back there right now. Stanley may as well fill it in with dirt and plant petunias. Because they’re never gonna find who did it, and no one except maybe a few kids is ever stepping foot in that pool again until they do. That’s just how people are around here. It’s Blakely or bust for all of Akerburg’s swimmers from here on out, I can promise you that. So you may as well just put it out of your mind and forget it.
I kicked the table leg so hard I nearly busted my toe. Mom set the iron down and held the suit coat out. I was still trying to wiggle my cast into a shirtsleeve as stiff as an envelope.
If you ask me, it was a harebrained idea for Mister Abrams to have ever built that pool in the first place. That pool was never anything but a place for fat, lazy old white men to twiddle their thumbs and sip drinks as they chatted about the weather in between spraying their crops. If you ask me, your father’s silly insistence on giving you swim lessons there when he knew good and well we didn’t have the money for it is partly to blame for this mess. I don’t give a hoot about four generations of Fairchilds having been varsity swimmers, either. It’s as much to blame as all the rest of it. Never did get his money back, either. My word. Opportunity of a lifetime, my A-S-S. And the stupidity of paying up front! I never will understand that. Will you just look at the fix it’s gotten all of us in? Maybe if people like him hadn’t, Toby would still be alive.
I’d been bracing for Mom to say those words ever since we came home from the pool that day ten dollars poorer and with nothing to show for it but a bruised ego and a canceled swim lesson. A big part of me was relieved that she’d finally come out and said it. I hopped over to her, dragging my suit coat behind me.
I’m sorry, Mama. I really am. I don’t care about that pool or swimming. Don’t care if I never learn to swim. I’m done thinking about that pool. Done. Done. And done.