Post by kamiiya on Oct 11, 2011 20:21:13 GMT -5
Old Ralph sat on the porch reading the paper, while his grandson toyed with a stack of blocks on the lawn. “Young Girl Shot and Killed in Gang Crossfire,” said the headline. He stroked his coily white beard as he read, turning down the corners of his mouth, and shaking his head slowly. He shut the paper violently and slid it beneath the stool he sat on. The paper was full of nothing but bad news. The blue in the sky began to fade and the clouds appeared to dissolve in the air. The streetlights lit up an empty grey street, ragged and cracked, and every so often one lonely light at the corner flickered, recovering swiftly just as it appeared to give in. Rows of broken houses, made of brick and filthy vinyl, lined both sides of the street, beset by wire fences and flat amber grass.
“Grandpa! Look what I made for you!” Old Ralph looked up at the boy. He pointed to a stack of colorful blocks, lying sideways on the lawn, with two ends that curved like a banana. “That sure is a nice boat you got there,” he said grinning. “No Grandpa, it’s not a boat, it’s a ship,” shouted the boy with his mouth turned up showing a pair of deep-set dimples. He was about four feet tall with long lanky arms that Ralph put to good use, for he had a heck of a swing in the local little league. He wore a brand new Cubs cap that Ralph bought him for his birthday over his short, nicely cut, black hair.
“A ship!” the grandpa said chuckling and slapping his knee, “Well, whose gon’ sail that big ol’ ship?” “You!” said the boy pointing to his grandpa. “Well, I don’t know, son. I may need some help. I never sailed a ship that large before.” “It’s okay, I’ll help.” He ran up to the old man and gave him a big hug. Old Ralph planted him a wet one the forehead and the boy ran along jauntily by the sidewalk playing with his ball. Every now and then he came back to the blocks, building something new. Maybe he would take after his old man after all, thought Old Ralph.
He thought back to when he and the boy went fishing on Lake Michigan. Just him and the grandson out there on the water. It was his first time (the boy) out on the lake. He sat there the whole day, his elbows driven into his knees, chin cupped in his hands, his eyelids drooping sleepily. “Grandpa, why you like fishing?” The grandpa looked surprised, not at the question, but the part about it that said ‘I’d rather be doing something else.’ Kids were so honest. “Well, son,” he said looking into the sky, “I like the idea of catching something, the thrill of waiting, and then the fight. To fight with a fish…boy it sho’ can be exciting. Today’s really calm that’s all. We gon’ come out here a few more times and you’ll see.”
“I don’t like fishing,” the boy sighed. Then he looked up, with those wide eyes. He had the most expressive brown eyes that the sun made a point to shine on that day. “You ever caught a shark?” Old Ralph shot him a funny grin, and then chortled as if he thought of something clever all of sudden. “One day,” he said holding up his hands like an Indian telling stories around a fire late at night, “I was out at sea, (there was no sea, just Lake Michigan) and a huge shark about the size of this here boat come jumping right into the air. I hit it with my pole and then it dove back into the water. The splash was so big it flooded the whole boat. Then it swam to the other side and leaped up again. This time it caught on to the end of the rope. Boy, its teeth done bout’ to tear the pole apart!” The little boy’s eyes got bigger, his lips parted, and his head thrust forward as he clutched the edge of his seat. The old man kept going, “He dragged me down into the deep and goggled me up. But I kept on fighting. I fought em’ until he spit me out and I swam back to the surface.”
The boy sat there for a while, silent, staring out at the water. “Did he come back?”
“Nope, sho didn’t. I showed him a thing or two. No son, no sharks can’t mess with me!”
The boy sank back into his seat, watching the settle waters, hoping it would suddenly split in half at the wrath of a giant fish.
A wisp of nets swarmed in the air and the sky began take on a pink glow above the darkness. Up from the grass, fireflies awoke from a long day of sleeping and the boy chased their green bosoms. In the distance, the old man could see a hideous street cat creeping along Miss Willis’ gate next door. Then he glanced over at the young boys across the street, drinking and cursing. A little boy with raisin eyes and a large head, about the same age as the grandson stood out there with them, looking lost. Old Ralph heard one of them say, “You want a smoke little man?” I done heard it all! The old man thought. He watched a group of middle aged women gossip on the porch behind the boys. One girl in particular, talked so loudly, anyone could tell you all her business. She had dark skin with phony blonde hair that flowed down her back and she always leaned on the banister railing with one foot propped up on a step and the other on the ground, and one hand at her hip. “Girl, I told him he had to go!” he heard her say in a loud echoing voice. He guessed the little boy belonged to one of them.
“This neighborhood used to be so quiet,” he said shaking his head, “and the city go and tear them dang buildings down, and now all these hoodlums come over here, starting trouble!” Back when he first moved to that old forsaken neighborhood, nearly twenty years ago, right about the time his daughter turned two, it sure was different. It had a little bit of everything: white folk, black folk, Hispanic. Nice, clean middle class area it was. They’d just built a schoolhouse for the children down the street. Beautiful building, the outside looked like a museum, compared to the old shack he went to school at back in Mississippi. The grass was grasshopper green and freshly cut and the mothers felt safe enough to let the children go out and play while they tended to the housework. “Not no mo’!” said Ralph. Now the park and grocery store were painted with graffiti. The soil milked cigarette buds and liquor bottles and the air wreaked of piss and smoke, while the same group of thugs dragged up and down the street languidly, their pants sagging passed their groins. Now, every time he left the house, he checked the lock twice, for only two weeks ago; some heathen broke into the garage and stole the boy’s bike. He’d sit on the porch every now and then while the boy was at school, waiting for the sucka to ride pass. “Hey boy, I think that’s my grandson’s bike you ridin’,” he’d say glaring at the helpless thief with his hands at his hips. But he hadn’t seen him yet.
A dark green car, green like the boiling sewage beneath the concrete, crept down the street. A shadowy figure sat in the driver’s seat, with the windows nearly pulled all the way up. From the porch, Old Ralph, peering through his glasses, and over the bridge of his large nose, could see the boy had on a cap, but it was neutral, not cocked to the right or left. The music from the car was low, lower than the rambunctious bass that woke the whole town in the early afternoon. He watched the young men across the street follow the car with their necks, as if they were puppets being dragged by a string, as it rolled down the block, like an officer on patrol, swiftly turning the corner.
“Look just like the fool that took my daughter,” he muttered. He didn’t like to think about Rachel, the boy’s mother. He knew the boy was no good when he saw him. He walked into the house, a stout box-head boy smothered in fake jewelry and baggy clothes, the hustling type, too lazy to make clean money, just like them boys out there starting trouble on the street, saying “What’s up Pops?” and plopped down on the couch without even taking off his shoes. She called him Nate, short for Nathan, but he always referred to him by his full name. Ralph tried to stop her from seeing him. “Baby, you could do so much better,” he’d say. But she would only smile and agree, “I know,” and look off to the side in a slow shameful way. “Well, why don’t you leave him?” he pressed. “I don’t know Pop, it’s hard to explain,” and she would rest her chin on her knuckles staring at the nearest wall.
One night she came home around three in the morning, banging on the door, like someone was chasing her. Mary, his wife, slid on her robe quickly and ran down the stairs to see her own child standing there with a purple ring around her eye and her upper lip swollen to a pulp. She stayed with them for a week after that, declaring that she’d never go back to him. The next week, Mary found a pregnancy test in the bathroom waste bin, not hidden near the bottom, or covered with tissue, or anything, but as if she wanted it to be seen; as if she was too afraid to ever confess such a thing. Rachel lay in her room, her faced smashed into a pillow, crying. Ralph didn’t talk to her for eight months, only to say, “Can you pass the salt?” at breakfast, or “Have you seen my paper?” when he forgot where put it during the evenings when he read, but never any casual conversation. She stopped going to school, with only one year of high school left, and he watched all her plans of going to college and nursing school drift away. “How could she do this?” he asked himself.
Nathan said he would be a good father and even shook Ralph’s hand on it one time. He never mentioned marriage, so Ralph took everything he said to be half-hearted. “He may mean well, but he doesn’t have the knowledge to raise no child,” he thought. Soon after the boy was born, he stopped showing up. He only picked him up twice to come along with him to a family barbecue on the West side of town and to drop him off at his mother’s house because she hadn’t spent any time with him. He and Rachel argued in front of the house about everything; pampers, milk, money, time. “Kids having kids,” was all Ralph could make of it. They were so loud the neighbors stood outside to watch. One time he slapped her with the baby in her hands. Ralph saw it with his own eyes through the living room window. He ran out with his gun that he kept beneath his mattress, but Mary came running after, grabbing him by the arm, and calling for Rachel to come in the house. She yelled at Nathan to leave and threatened to call the police. “You don’t need to call the police honey, I got this little nigga! Get your bum off my porch! You must be out your dang mind putting your hands on my daughter” he said charging at him with the gun in his hand. Nathan hopped in the car and sped off shouting threats. “Chump,” muttered Ralph as he walked back into the house. Rachel refused to press charges. She looked lost, the side of her face red, and just a few moments away from bursting into tears.
When the boy turned six months, Nathan went to jail for stomping a guy to near death for stepping on his sneakers at a party. Ralph hoped she would get her life together and she did. She got her G.E.D. and started taking classes at Daley Community College. The boy went to child care while she was at school and in the evenings, she worked at K-Mart, while he spent quality time with his grandparents. They told her should could stay as long as she needed; as long as she was spending her money wisely, and saving enough for her own space, she could live rent-free. He would never make her pay rent, but he thought it would teach her some lesson of responsibility, to think she was having a favor done, instead of freeloading. It was during this time that he developed a strong attachment to the boy. He had his mother’s brown eyes and his father’s oddly shaped head and mud-colored skin. He was always so giggly and happy as babies are. He loved it when Ralph made funny faces or blew air so hard that his lips vibrated and made an engine-like sound and Ralph loved the way he kicked up his legs, put his small feet up to his mouth, and rocked side to side until he tumbled over onto his belly, how he smiled his toothless smile whenever he was tickled.
While Nathan was still in prison, Rachel wrote him a letter saying they would not be together when he got out. Ralph believed her at the time. She seemed so focused on school and began to look like his daughter again. She’d sit at the desk, her dark hair pulled back into a bun, looking studious, as she zoomed in on the text in her books. She worked as late as two in the morning. And he didn’t mind watching the boy, as long as he felt she was being productive.
When Nathan got out of prison, he called the house several times. The first few times, Ralph didn’t answer the phone, for he knew it could have been him calling from the unknown number. “She doesn’t need him, nor does the boy. He has no job, no education. We’re doing just fine without him,” he reasoned. But Rachel started answering the phone. He begged her to “go back with him,” and that he had “changed so much.” “You had your chance,” she’d say “Me and junior doing just fine,” and she hung up the phone. Ralph felt proud of her, for being so strong-willed, but soon she became weak and it didn’t take long for him to woo her back in. They started to stay up for hours in the night, talking. He called more often, without even the courtesy to say ‘Hi, how are you?’ just, “Rachel there?” Once he got so mad he snatched the phone out of her hand and slammed it on the kitchen floor, where it broke in half. “Don’t you know this guy ain’t no good for you! Why do you keep doing this?” he asked, his eyes filled with rage and love. “Don’t you know this ain’t none of your dang business!” she said picking up the phone pieces and stalking out the room.
On the last day he saw her, Nathan came by the house. Ralph didn’t even know he was there, until he peaked out the curtains to see if the paper had been dropped by their porch yet. There his car was, parked out front, with him sitting in the driver’s seat, his hair now in cornrows that laid just below his shoulders, tapping the wheel and nodding his hand to some hip-hoppy tune. “Rachel!” he yelled dropping the curtain and trotting over to the staircase, “What the heck that boy doing outside?” She didn’t respond, but came down with her purse over her shoulder and jacket hanging by the arm. “And where the heck do you think you going?” he said with his hand at his hips. She walked right pass him and said, “We just going to have a little talk Daddy,” with that same shameful look. “Sweetheart,” he walked closer to her, “there’s nothing you have to talk about. I mean how many time is he going to have to bust you upside your head for you to get it?” He didn’t mean to hurt her, but to him, to love someone, meant to tell them the truth. “Mama is going to keep the baby until I get back,” she said walking out the door and then, “I shouldn’t be long,” as she shut it behind her. He stood there until he heard the car pull off, and then peaked out the curtains to see the empty space. Where did I go wrong, was all he could think.
By midnight, she still hadn’t showed up. He thought about calling the police, but the worst of him thought they were just laid up somewhere making another baby. He went to bed. That night Mary told him there was nothing he could do about it, “she’s going to do what she want to do,” she said. The boy woke up crying in the middle of the night and he and Mary took turns rocking and singing him back asleep. “Hush, hush, little baby, your mama will be back soon,” Mary said.
The next morning was a hot day, but the air felt sticky. He opened the curtains where the sunlight, filled with dust particles, laid across the hardwood floors. He sat on the loveseat reading the paper, occasionally looking up expecting to see a ragged green hoopty parked outside or at least hear some loud bass when he pulled up. But he heard nothing. And he saw nothing. He waited until five in the afternoon for her to show. No matter how stupid she behaved sometimes, something didn’t feel right that day. He and Mary decided to call the police. When an officer arrived at their residence, they described the car, an old green Ford, with a large dent on the side, and one of the back windows smashed out. I should have gotten the license plate, he thought. Mary told them about Nathan’s box-head, Rachel’s beautiful brown eyes and curly dark hair. The officer wanted to know where he lived and where they could have possibly been going, but they couldn’t provide those answers. I should have asked more questions, instead of blowing up at her, he thought. He and Mary, with the baby sleeping over her shoulder, watched the car pull off, not knowing what to feel or think. She started to cry once they got into the house.
Two days passed and he heard no word back from the police department. On a Monday afternoon, he got a phone call saying they found Rachel dead and they suspected she’d been murdered. He dropped the phone and slid to his knees panting as if he were about to have a heart attack. “Mary!” he called sobbing and breathing heavily. Mary ran down the stairs with the baby in her arms, “Ralph what is it?” she said with a look of terror upon her face. “Rachel,” he said holding his forehead while tears trickled down his face onto the tiled floor.
The next time he saw her she lay dead in a vacant garage from being strangled to death. Apparently, they had got into an argument, when Rachel threatened to leave him for good. He got angry and they began to fight. When Ralph went to see the body, her mouth was stuck open and he could hear the screams still echoing throughout the air. Her eyelids were so far back that her pupils stared lifelessly into his soul. Her coffee-colored hair stood up all over her head as if it’d been pulled and dragged. Her clothing drenched of blood and dirt “My little girl!” he wept. He took custody of the boy and Nathan was sentenced to life in prison.
It was a little passed seven-thirty, about time for the boy to take a good bath and go to bed. He had on his baseball glove, practicing his pitch across the lawn. “Make sure you don’t throw that ball over the gate. Just a little longer there son, and we gon’ head on in,” the old man said leaning forward in his chair so that his elbows and knees joined. “Okay, Grandpa” the boy obliged, dropping his glove and heading back over to the blocks for one last creation. The same car circled the block again, down the block it went, and the tires screeched as it swerved around the corner.
A rough chill of air crawled up his spine and the starlit sky suggested a cool, calm night. Green lights continued to emerge from the dry grass and the sound of restless crickets filled his ears. Soft, white heads of dandelions sprouted from the soil, some tall and others rather short, but nonetheless fragile and friendly. A large tree branch lay on the side walk in front of Miss Willis’, struck by the lightening from the night before. There was a harsh downpour that pounded against the roof of every home on the block. He got up in the middle of the night to turn on the television. It felt like there may be a tornado, even though they were so rare in that part of the country. But the power was out, so he went back to sleep, where Mary waited for him in a white gown that draped passed her toes. It flowed down a dirt road blowing steadily in an easy wind, leading him to a vast forest where the sun shined on her like a spotlight and the tall trees stood like dark shadows drowned in her splendor. He dashed for her on barefoot and he could feel the blisters upon his heels and the swollen toes that caused him to limp in such a broken way; and then the sun would set and she’d vanish into the air leaving a puff of white dust in the midst of his grasp. He fell to his knees and wept. He looked forward to the same beautiful nightmare; for it was the only way he could have her.
Mary died of a heart attack on their way to church on an early Sunday morning. She wore a yellow linen dress suit with a white rose pinned at the front of her breast. Her salt and peppered hair ironed slightly passed her cheeks in fine curls. Her lips were painted a deep red that brought a bright splash of color upon her dark skin. Her wrinkled hands clutched an old worn-out bible and a small black purse; so as she closed her eyes that pale morning, as they sat in the van, his hands on the wheel, prepared to let up the gas, she appeared ready to praise the Lord, as if she knew He were going to call her home that day.
They met when he was a young man working as a car porter at the railway downtown. He was toting a piece of luggage down the aisle when he noticed her. She wore a sleek black hat decorated with shiny studs and feathers across the front that tilted nicely on her narrow face only exposing one of her fox-colored eyes. Beneath the brim of that noticeably stylish hat, she bore a long pointed nose and perfectly shaped lips. She sat cross-legged reading a book and a certain glow floated around her in that dimly lit car. She turned the pages with great curiosity, wetting her finger every now and then. She wore a glove on one hand, that matched the hat, and the other sat on her lap. Then she took off her hat and set it on the seat beside her, revealing her thick wavy hair that was pulled neatly into a bun. She wore an off-black dress suit with V-neck trimming that tucked her breasts perfectly. And her skirt, of modest length, left enough curiosity for a man who dared to think of what it would be like to see those buxom curves bare. As she sat there reading, looking like a movie star, but having the rich air of common folk; something about this mysterious women transfixed him.
When the train came to a halt, she quickly began to gather her belongings. He had to say something, but he couldn’t find any words. There was no time to think. He walked up to her, “Need any help there miss?” he asked reaching out for the luggage before she could respond.
“Well thank you sir,” she said with a kind smile, handing him two heavily packed brown cases.
“You’re very welcome,” he said with a wink.
She seemed flattered, yet shy.
“What’s your name miss?”
“Mary Pollin.”
“Well, nice to meet you Mary Pollin. My name’s Ralph Johnson,” he held out his hand, but she only nodded and said “How do you do Mr. Johnson.” Something about this intrigued him.
“What’s a pretty lady like you doing travelling all alone?”
She said she was from Memphis and had come to live with her brother who had lived in the city for about six months. He worked as a porter too and saved enough money to send for her. A lot of blacks were leaving the old South back then looking for a fresh start. Later, after they were married, when he asked Mary what she was looking for she always looked at him for a while and said, ‘I think I found it as soon as I got on that train.” He saw women all the time, some hauling children, others alone, some looking like they never lived a day in the South, and others who looked like they just stepped off the plantation for the first time. But out of all those folk, Miss Mary Pollin struck him different.
“Well, I come here from Mississippi, not too long ago myself,” he said attempting to tell his story but neglected getting too deep, “and I live on the Southside of town. It’s a mighty large city. I could show you around some time if that’s alright with you Miss Pollin.”
“I don’t see nothin’ wrong with that,” she said softly.
They stood eyeing each other for a brief moment, he taking in every detail of this graceful being before him. Then she smiled with a small puff of air and a pair of innocent dimples appeared in the middle of her cheeks. Ralph laughed to hide his blush. She reached in her purse to grab a piece of paper. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around then,” she said handing it to him. It was a white business card for a bakery in Memphis, with her name and number scribbled on the back of it. Had she been meaning to give it to him all along? Even before he walked up? “Yes you will Miss Pollin,” He handed her the luggage and she hurried off the train.
The boy kept chasing fireflies. And out of all that well-kept sorrow, Old Ralph couldn’t help but smile when he looked at him. The boy ran around the yard flinging his arms, singing, talking with nature as if he understood it better than anyone. “It’s a shame Mary won’t ever get to see this,” the old man thought while cleaning his spectacles with a corner of his shirt.
The car rode pass a third time. It was so dark now, that he couldn’t make out a face if he tried. Old Ralph saw the thugs across the street begin to get rawled up. I may be old, but I can tell when something’s about to happen, he thought. “Boy, get on in this house,” he said to the boy lifting up from his stool. He was on the lawn playing with his blocks again. He was such a good boy. “Okay grandpa,” he said looking at Ralph with those large eyes, “just let me get my ball.” He ran off the porch to grab his baseball that lay on the lawn and as he picked it up he saw a giant black spider that crawled through the grass anxiously, as if he’d just been disturbed. It startled the boy so, that he stared at it motionless, watching its gazillion legs trample over one another, and then felt a sort of guilt for disrupting the little home it made underneath his ball. “Come on nah, boy! It’s time to go in the house,” the grandpa said sternly. He glanced at the boys across the street again whispering to each other and moving about in suspicious ways.
The green car jetted down the street again, this time even faster, and the headlights were off, but the streetlights were lit enough to see it coming. A shot was fired! The grandpa fell to the ground and tumbled down the porch steps. “Bam!” Another shot. And the car disappeared around the corner again. Old Ralph looked up, he hadn’t been hurt. He ran over to his grandson, panting with his hands atop his head. The boy laid there, his head submerged in a puddle of blood, still clutching the little white ball in his tiny hands. He looked across the road at the boys, slowly getting up off the ground, dusting their backs and reaching beneath their belts, and, in helpless fury, he cried out to the sky.
“Grandpa! Look what I made for you!” Old Ralph looked up at the boy. He pointed to a stack of colorful blocks, lying sideways on the lawn, with two ends that curved like a banana. “That sure is a nice boat you got there,” he said grinning. “No Grandpa, it’s not a boat, it’s a ship,” shouted the boy with his mouth turned up showing a pair of deep-set dimples. He was about four feet tall with long lanky arms that Ralph put to good use, for he had a heck of a swing in the local little league. He wore a brand new Cubs cap that Ralph bought him for his birthday over his short, nicely cut, black hair.
“A ship!” the grandpa said chuckling and slapping his knee, “Well, whose gon’ sail that big ol’ ship?” “You!” said the boy pointing to his grandpa. “Well, I don’t know, son. I may need some help. I never sailed a ship that large before.” “It’s okay, I’ll help.” He ran up to the old man and gave him a big hug. Old Ralph planted him a wet one the forehead and the boy ran along jauntily by the sidewalk playing with his ball. Every now and then he came back to the blocks, building something new. Maybe he would take after his old man after all, thought Old Ralph.
He thought back to when he and the boy went fishing on Lake Michigan. Just him and the grandson out there on the water. It was his first time (the boy) out on the lake. He sat there the whole day, his elbows driven into his knees, chin cupped in his hands, his eyelids drooping sleepily. “Grandpa, why you like fishing?” The grandpa looked surprised, not at the question, but the part about it that said ‘I’d rather be doing something else.’ Kids were so honest. “Well, son,” he said looking into the sky, “I like the idea of catching something, the thrill of waiting, and then the fight. To fight with a fish…boy it sho’ can be exciting. Today’s really calm that’s all. We gon’ come out here a few more times and you’ll see.”
“I don’t like fishing,” the boy sighed. Then he looked up, with those wide eyes. He had the most expressive brown eyes that the sun made a point to shine on that day. “You ever caught a shark?” Old Ralph shot him a funny grin, and then chortled as if he thought of something clever all of sudden. “One day,” he said holding up his hands like an Indian telling stories around a fire late at night, “I was out at sea, (there was no sea, just Lake Michigan) and a huge shark about the size of this here boat come jumping right into the air. I hit it with my pole and then it dove back into the water. The splash was so big it flooded the whole boat. Then it swam to the other side and leaped up again. This time it caught on to the end of the rope. Boy, its teeth done bout’ to tear the pole apart!” The little boy’s eyes got bigger, his lips parted, and his head thrust forward as he clutched the edge of his seat. The old man kept going, “He dragged me down into the deep and goggled me up. But I kept on fighting. I fought em’ until he spit me out and I swam back to the surface.”
The boy sat there for a while, silent, staring out at the water. “Did he come back?”
“Nope, sho didn’t. I showed him a thing or two. No son, no sharks can’t mess with me!”
The boy sank back into his seat, watching the settle waters, hoping it would suddenly split in half at the wrath of a giant fish.
A wisp of nets swarmed in the air and the sky began take on a pink glow above the darkness. Up from the grass, fireflies awoke from a long day of sleeping and the boy chased their green bosoms. In the distance, the old man could see a hideous street cat creeping along Miss Willis’ gate next door. Then he glanced over at the young boys across the street, drinking and cursing. A little boy with raisin eyes and a large head, about the same age as the grandson stood out there with them, looking lost. Old Ralph heard one of them say, “You want a smoke little man?” I done heard it all! The old man thought. He watched a group of middle aged women gossip on the porch behind the boys. One girl in particular, talked so loudly, anyone could tell you all her business. She had dark skin with phony blonde hair that flowed down her back and she always leaned on the banister railing with one foot propped up on a step and the other on the ground, and one hand at her hip. “Girl, I told him he had to go!” he heard her say in a loud echoing voice. He guessed the little boy belonged to one of them.
“This neighborhood used to be so quiet,” he said shaking his head, “and the city go and tear them dang buildings down, and now all these hoodlums come over here, starting trouble!” Back when he first moved to that old forsaken neighborhood, nearly twenty years ago, right about the time his daughter turned two, it sure was different. It had a little bit of everything: white folk, black folk, Hispanic. Nice, clean middle class area it was. They’d just built a schoolhouse for the children down the street. Beautiful building, the outside looked like a museum, compared to the old shack he went to school at back in Mississippi. The grass was grasshopper green and freshly cut and the mothers felt safe enough to let the children go out and play while they tended to the housework. “Not no mo’!” said Ralph. Now the park and grocery store were painted with graffiti. The soil milked cigarette buds and liquor bottles and the air wreaked of piss and smoke, while the same group of thugs dragged up and down the street languidly, their pants sagging passed their groins. Now, every time he left the house, he checked the lock twice, for only two weeks ago; some heathen broke into the garage and stole the boy’s bike. He’d sit on the porch every now and then while the boy was at school, waiting for the sucka to ride pass. “Hey boy, I think that’s my grandson’s bike you ridin’,” he’d say glaring at the helpless thief with his hands at his hips. But he hadn’t seen him yet.
A dark green car, green like the boiling sewage beneath the concrete, crept down the street. A shadowy figure sat in the driver’s seat, with the windows nearly pulled all the way up. From the porch, Old Ralph, peering through his glasses, and over the bridge of his large nose, could see the boy had on a cap, but it was neutral, not cocked to the right or left. The music from the car was low, lower than the rambunctious bass that woke the whole town in the early afternoon. He watched the young men across the street follow the car with their necks, as if they were puppets being dragged by a string, as it rolled down the block, like an officer on patrol, swiftly turning the corner.
“Look just like the fool that took my daughter,” he muttered. He didn’t like to think about Rachel, the boy’s mother. He knew the boy was no good when he saw him. He walked into the house, a stout box-head boy smothered in fake jewelry and baggy clothes, the hustling type, too lazy to make clean money, just like them boys out there starting trouble on the street, saying “What’s up Pops?” and plopped down on the couch without even taking off his shoes. She called him Nate, short for Nathan, but he always referred to him by his full name. Ralph tried to stop her from seeing him. “Baby, you could do so much better,” he’d say. But she would only smile and agree, “I know,” and look off to the side in a slow shameful way. “Well, why don’t you leave him?” he pressed. “I don’t know Pop, it’s hard to explain,” and she would rest her chin on her knuckles staring at the nearest wall.
One night she came home around three in the morning, banging on the door, like someone was chasing her. Mary, his wife, slid on her robe quickly and ran down the stairs to see her own child standing there with a purple ring around her eye and her upper lip swollen to a pulp. She stayed with them for a week after that, declaring that she’d never go back to him. The next week, Mary found a pregnancy test in the bathroom waste bin, not hidden near the bottom, or covered with tissue, or anything, but as if she wanted it to be seen; as if she was too afraid to ever confess such a thing. Rachel lay in her room, her faced smashed into a pillow, crying. Ralph didn’t talk to her for eight months, only to say, “Can you pass the salt?” at breakfast, or “Have you seen my paper?” when he forgot where put it during the evenings when he read, but never any casual conversation. She stopped going to school, with only one year of high school left, and he watched all her plans of going to college and nursing school drift away. “How could she do this?” he asked himself.
Nathan said he would be a good father and even shook Ralph’s hand on it one time. He never mentioned marriage, so Ralph took everything he said to be half-hearted. “He may mean well, but he doesn’t have the knowledge to raise no child,” he thought. Soon after the boy was born, he stopped showing up. He only picked him up twice to come along with him to a family barbecue on the West side of town and to drop him off at his mother’s house because she hadn’t spent any time with him. He and Rachel argued in front of the house about everything; pampers, milk, money, time. “Kids having kids,” was all Ralph could make of it. They were so loud the neighbors stood outside to watch. One time he slapped her with the baby in her hands. Ralph saw it with his own eyes through the living room window. He ran out with his gun that he kept beneath his mattress, but Mary came running after, grabbing him by the arm, and calling for Rachel to come in the house. She yelled at Nathan to leave and threatened to call the police. “You don’t need to call the police honey, I got this little nigga! Get your bum off my porch! You must be out your dang mind putting your hands on my daughter” he said charging at him with the gun in his hand. Nathan hopped in the car and sped off shouting threats. “Chump,” muttered Ralph as he walked back into the house. Rachel refused to press charges. She looked lost, the side of her face red, and just a few moments away from bursting into tears.
When the boy turned six months, Nathan went to jail for stomping a guy to near death for stepping on his sneakers at a party. Ralph hoped she would get her life together and she did. She got her G.E.D. and started taking classes at Daley Community College. The boy went to child care while she was at school and in the evenings, she worked at K-Mart, while he spent quality time with his grandparents. They told her should could stay as long as she needed; as long as she was spending her money wisely, and saving enough for her own space, she could live rent-free. He would never make her pay rent, but he thought it would teach her some lesson of responsibility, to think she was having a favor done, instead of freeloading. It was during this time that he developed a strong attachment to the boy. He had his mother’s brown eyes and his father’s oddly shaped head and mud-colored skin. He was always so giggly and happy as babies are. He loved it when Ralph made funny faces or blew air so hard that his lips vibrated and made an engine-like sound and Ralph loved the way he kicked up his legs, put his small feet up to his mouth, and rocked side to side until he tumbled over onto his belly, how he smiled his toothless smile whenever he was tickled.
While Nathan was still in prison, Rachel wrote him a letter saying they would not be together when he got out. Ralph believed her at the time. She seemed so focused on school and began to look like his daughter again. She’d sit at the desk, her dark hair pulled back into a bun, looking studious, as she zoomed in on the text in her books. She worked as late as two in the morning. And he didn’t mind watching the boy, as long as he felt she was being productive.
When Nathan got out of prison, he called the house several times. The first few times, Ralph didn’t answer the phone, for he knew it could have been him calling from the unknown number. “She doesn’t need him, nor does the boy. He has no job, no education. We’re doing just fine without him,” he reasoned. But Rachel started answering the phone. He begged her to “go back with him,” and that he had “changed so much.” “You had your chance,” she’d say “Me and junior doing just fine,” and she hung up the phone. Ralph felt proud of her, for being so strong-willed, but soon she became weak and it didn’t take long for him to woo her back in. They started to stay up for hours in the night, talking. He called more often, without even the courtesy to say ‘Hi, how are you?’ just, “Rachel there?” Once he got so mad he snatched the phone out of her hand and slammed it on the kitchen floor, where it broke in half. “Don’t you know this guy ain’t no good for you! Why do you keep doing this?” he asked, his eyes filled with rage and love. “Don’t you know this ain’t none of your dang business!” she said picking up the phone pieces and stalking out the room.
On the last day he saw her, Nathan came by the house. Ralph didn’t even know he was there, until he peaked out the curtains to see if the paper had been dropped by their porch yet. There his car was, parked out front, with him sitting in the driver’s seat, his hair now in cornrows that laid just below his shoulders, tapping the wheel and nodding his hand to some hip-hoppy tune. “Rachel!” he yelled dropping the curtain and trotting over to the staircase, “What the heck that boy doing outside?” She didn’t respond, but came down with her purse over her shoulder and jacket hanging by the arm. “And where the heck do you think you going?” he said with his hand at his hips. She walked right pass him and said, “We just going to have a little talk Daddy,” with that same shameful look. “Sweetheart,” he walked closer to her, “there’s nothing you have to talk about. I mean how many time is he going to have to bust you upside your head for you to get it?” He didn’t mean to hurt her, but to him, to love someone, meant to tell them the truth. “Mama is going to keep the baby until I get back,” she said walking out the door and then, “I shouldn’t be long,” as she shut it behind her. He stood there until he heard the car pull off, and then peaked out the curtains to see the empty space. Where did I go wrong, was all he could think.
By midnight, she still hadn’t showed up. He thought about calling the police, but the worst of him thought they were just laid up somewhere making another baby. He went to bed. That night Mary told him there was nothing he could do about it, “she’s going to do what she want to do,” she said. The boy woke up crying in the middle of the night and he and Mary took turns rocking and singing him back asleep. “Hush, hush, little baby, your mama will be back soon,” Mary said.
The next morning was a hot day, but the air felt sticky. He opened the curtains where the sunlight, filled with dust particles, laid across the hardwood floors. He sat on the loveseat reading the paper, occasionally looking up expecting to see a ragged green hoopty parked outside or at least hear some loud bass when he pulled up. But he heard nothing. And he saw nothing. He waited until five in the afternoon for her to show. No matter how stupid she behaved sometimes, something didn’t feel right that day. He and Mary decided to call the police. When an officer arrived at their residence, they described the car, an old green Ford, with a large dent on the side, and one of the back windows smashed out. I should have gotten the license plate, he thought. Mary told them about Nathan’s box-head, Rachel’s beautiful brown eyes and curly dark hair. The officer wanted to know where he lived and where they could have possibly been going, but they couldn’t provide those answers. I should have asked more questions, instead of blowing up at her, he thought. He and Mary, with the baby sleeping over her shoulder, watched the car pull off, not knowing what to feel or think. She started to cry once they got into the house.
Two days passed and he heard no word back from the police department. On a Monday afternoon, he got a phone call saying they found Rachel dead and they suspected she’d been murdered. He dropped the phone and slid to his knees panting as if he were about to have a heart attack. “Mary!” he called sobbing and breathing heavily. Mary ran down the stairs with the baby in her arms, “Ralph what is it?” she said with a look of terror upon her face. “Rachel,” he said holding his forehead while tears trickled down his face onto the tiled floor.
The next time he saw her she lay dead in a vacant garage from being strangled to death. Apparently, they had got into an argument, when Rachel threatened to leave him for good. He got angry and they began to fight. When Ralph went to see the body, her mouth was stuck open and he could hear the screams still echoing throughout the air. Her eyelids were so far back that her pupils stared lifelessly into his soul. Her coffee-colored hair stood up all over her head as if it’d been pulled and dragged. Her clothing drenched of blood and dirt “My little girl!” he wept. He took custody of the boy and Nathan was sentenced to life in prison.
It was a little passed seven-thirty, about time for the boy to take a good bath and go to bed. He had on his baseball glove, practicing his pitch across the lawn. “Make sure you don’t throw that ball over the gate. Just a little longer there son, and we gon’ head on in,” the old man said leaning forward in his chair so that his elbows and knees joined. “Okay, Grandpa” the boy obliged, dropping his glove and heading back over to the blocks for one last creation. The same car circled the block again, down the block it went, and the tires screeched as it swerved around the corner.
A rough chill of air crawled up his spine and the starlit sky suggested a cool, calm night. Green lights continued to emerge from the dry grass and the sound of restless crickets filled his ears. Soft, white heads of dandelions sprouted from the soil, some tall and others rather short, but nonetheless fragile and friendly. A large tree branch lay on the side walk in front of Miss Willis’, struck by the lightening from the night before. There was a harsh downpour that pounded against the roof of every home on the block. He got up in the middle of the night to turn on the television. It felt like there may be a tornado, even though they were so rare in that part of the country. But the power was out, so he went back to sleep, where Mary waited for him in a white gown that draped passed her toes. It flowed down a dirt road blowing steadily in an easy wind, leading him to a vast forest where the sun shined on her like a spotlight and the tall trees stood like dark shadows drowned in her splendor. He dashed for her on barefoot and he could feel the blisters upon his heels and the swollen toes that caused him to limp in such a broken way; and then the sun would set and she’d vanish into the air leaving a puff of white dust in the midst of his grasp. He fell to his knees and wept. He looked forward to the same beautiful nightmare; for it was the only way he could have her.
Mary died of a heart attack on their way to church on an early Sunday morning. She wore a yellow linen dress suit with a white rose pinned at the front of her breast. Her salt and peppered hair ironed slightly passed her cheeks in fine curls. Her lips were painted a deep red that brought a bright splash of color upon her dark skin. Her wrinkled hands clutched an old worn-out bible and a small black purse; so as she closed her eyes that pale morning, as they sat in the van, his hands on the wheel, prepared to let up the gas, she appeared ready to praise the Lord, as if she knew He were going to call her home that day.
They met when he was a young man working as a car porter at the railway downtown. He was toting a piece of luggage down the aisle when he noticed her. She wore a sleek black hat decorated with shiny studs and feathers across the front that tilted nicely on her narrow face only exposing one of her fox-colored eyes. Beneath the brim of that noticeably stylish hat, she bore a long pointed nose and perfectly shaped lips. She sat cross-legged reading a book and a certain glow floated around her in that dimly lit car. She turned the pages with great curiosity, wetting her finger every now and then. She wore a glove on one hand, that matched the hat, and the other sat on her lap. Then she took off her hat and set it on the seat beside her, revealing her thick wavy hair that was pulled neatly into a bun. She wore an off-black dress suit with V-neck trimming that tucked her breasts perfectly. And her skirt, of modest length, left enough curiosity for a man who dared to think of what it would be like to see those buxom curves bare. As she sat there reading, looking like a movie star, but having the rich air of common folk; something about this mysterious women transfixed him.
When the train came to a halt, she quickly began to gather her belongings. He had to say something, but he couldn’t find any words. There was no time to think. He walked up to her, “Need any help there miss?” he asked reaching out for the luggage before she could respond.
“Well thank you sir,” she said with a kind smile, handing him two heavily packed brown cases.
“You’re very welcome,” he said with a wink.
She seemed flattered, yet shy.
“What’s your name miss?”
“Mary Pollin.”
“Well, nice to meet you Mary Pollin. My name’s Ralph Johnson,” he held out his hand, but she only nodded and said “How do you do Mr. Johnson.” Something about this intrigued him.
“What’s a pretty lady like you doing travelling all alone?”
She said she was from Memphis and had come to live with her brother who had lived in the city for about six months. He worked as a porter too and saved enough money to send for her. A lot of blacks were leaving the old South back then looking for a fresh start. Later, after they were married, when he asked Mary what she was looking for she always looked at him for a while and said, ‘I think I found it as soon as I got on that train.” He saw women all the time, some hauling children, others alone, some looking like they never lived a day in the South, and others who looked like they just stepped off the plantation for the first time. But out of all those folk, Miss Mary Pollin struck him different.
“Well, I come here from Mississippi, not too long ago myself,” he said attempting to tell his story but neglected getting too deep, “and I live on the Southside of town. It’s a mighty large city. I could show you around some time if that’s alright with you Miss Pollin.”
“I don’t see nothin’ wrong with that,” she said softly.
They stood eyeing each other for a brief moment, he taking in every detail of this graceful being before him. Then she smiled with a small puff of air and a pair of innocent dimples appeared in the middle of her cheeks. Ralph laughed to hide his blush. She reached in her purse to grab a piece of paper. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around then,” she said handing it to him. It was a white business card for a bakery in Memphis, with her name and number scribbled on the back of it. Had she been meaning to give it to him all along? Even before he walked up? “Yes you will Miss Pollin,” He handed her the luggage and she hurried off the train.
The boy kept chasing fireflies. And out of all that well-kept sorrow, Old Ralph couldn’t help but smile when he looked at him. The boy ran around the yard flinging his arms, singing, talking with nature as if he understood it better than anyone. “It’s a shame Mary won’t ever get to see this,” the old man thought while cleaning his spectacles with a corner of his shirt.
The car rode pass a third time. It was so dark now, that he couldn’t make out a face if he tried. Old Ralph saw the thugs across the street begin to get rawled up. I may be old, but I can tell when something’s about to happen, he thought. “Boy, get on in this house,” he said to the boy lifting up from his stool. He was on the lawn playing with his blocks again. He was such a good boy. “Okay grandpa,” he said looking at Ralph with those large eyes, “just let me get my ball.” He ran off the porch to grab his baseball that lay on the lawn and as he picked it up he saw a giant black spider that crawled through the grass anxiously, as if he’d just been disturbed. It startled the boy so, that he stared at it motionless, watching its gazillion legs trample over one another, and then felt a sort of guilt for disrupting the little home it made underneath his ball. “Come on nah, boy! It’s time to go in the house,” the grandpa said sternly. He glanced at the boys across the street again whispering to each other and moving about in suspicious ways.
The green car jetted down the street again, this time even faster, and the headlights were off, but the streetlights were lit enough to see it coming. A shot was fired! The grandpa fell to the ground and tumbled down the porch steps. “Bam!” Another shot. And the car disappeared around the corner again. Old Ralph looked up, he hadn’t been hurt. He ran over to his grandson, panting with his hands atop his head. The boy laid there, his head submerged in a puddle of blood, still clutching the little white ball in his tiny hands. He looked across the road at the boys, slowly getting up off the ground, dusting their backs and reaching beneath their belts, and, in helpless fury, he cried out to the sky.