The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter (17 page)

Gonna happen unless the president gets wise. Then he smile down at me. I'm an organizer, Eliot. I help pull people together, get our rights so the capitalist boss doesn't slave em, so the government doesn't slave em. Slavery's over. Justice.

We put Mr. Randolph on the train to Worshinton an he wave an we wave, smilin! Then we walk home quiet, four of us quiet. I feel sad. I wish Mr. Randolph move into our guess room, live there every day.

The afternoon Dwight come in the livin room, I throw the dictionary at his head.

Ow!

I ain't no syncopant!

He walk out to the kitchen laughin to hisself.

Afternoon I go to my room get my wood robot. A hunnert thousand Negroes, I tell him. Robey can't hardly believe it! Mr. Randolph say Negroes should fight for ourself, Mr. Randolph say we get our rights! I walk Robey over the bed, over the dresser, by the wase-basket. In the wase-basket is jus one piece a paper balled up, paper from Dwight's sketchpad. Dwight don't never throw out his sketchpapers! Dwight drawr good, he don't never make mistakes!

It's him an Carl an Carl's family playin badminton.
Now
I see the mistake! Dwight drawr Carl's family white like he shoulda, then musta forgot an drawr hisself white too.

 

DWIGHT

You like Shakespeare?

I never read no Shakespeare, that don't happen till high school. But I nod, I don't know why. In the livin room Mr. Randolph says I am a Jew and winter a discontent an then he's Othello, a colored man, that one I really wanna understand but even though he give a quick summary a the story it's hard to figure outa context. Middle a the night everybody sleep, I get up to pee. I creep past the guestroom so I don't wake Mr. Randolph, his door cracked. Walkin back I see he ain't even in the bed. Tiptoe downstairs. He on the front porch, settin on the slidin seat. I go to the door. I try bein unnoticeable but he see me through the screen.

You couldn't sleep either, Dwight?

I look at him, cat got my tongue.

Sit with me.

We slide gentle.

Tell me what you know about the night sky.

There's the Big Dipper. An there's the Little Dipper, leads to the North Star.

You know the significance of the North Star?

Slaves followed it north.

Mm hm. First star you see in the night's a bright one: Venus. Gone now. But there's Mars. And Orion's Belt. Pleiades, the Seven Sisters. Do you know the story of Orion and the Pleiades sisters?

I shake my head.

Greek mythology claims Orion the Hunter caught a glimpse of the seven sisters and pursued them for seven years.

He catch em?

The god Zeus turned them into pigeons, then put them there in the sky. When Orion died, he was placed right behind, forever chasing them. Mr. Randolph breathes in air. I like summer nights in the country. No crickets in New York.

How you know about Pleiades? And Shakespeare? College?

I went to the Cookman Institute, an esteemed high school for Negroes in my home state of Florida. Latin, Greek, philosophy, forensics, French, science, music, literature.

What's forensics?

Debate. In my family's home we had few books, but good ones. Dickens, Keats, Austen, Charles Darwin, Frederick Douglass. I was my class valedictorian and still not so strong a student as my older brother James Junior. My father was an AME minister, he made sure we knew about the African Hanibal who fought the Romans, about Denmark Vesey, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Nat Turner. I read from Paul Laurence Dunbar, from home and school I had a first-rate education.

Whadju learn in college?

I never went to college.

Guess my mouth pop open cuz Mr. Randolph smile.

Wanted to. But not much opportunities for Negroes back then. So after high school I worked. Sold insurance a while. Worked in a grocery store. Drove a truck. Pushed a wheelbarrow full of fertilizer.

Why you not a actor no more?

Well. My parents were religious people. They didn't think it was proper.

A cricket all loud. Under the slidin chair?

And I think I had a different calling. I transferred my booming actor's voice to public speaking. When I was young, I'd soapbox in New York City, speaking about our oppression as Negroes, how the poor would rise up. The Irish police would want to harass me. When I'd see them coming out the corner of my eye, I'd make a quick detour in my speech.
See how the British imperialists have been treating the Irish!
And they'd turn right around, leave me alone!

Miss Onnie's wind chimes tingle.

I believe it was meant to be, my path in life. The greatest gift, pearl of wisdom my father gave to my brother and me: You must be concerned about things that are far more constructive and far more valuable to mankind and to all people than just making money.

Then Mr. Randolph turn to me.

You
want to go to college?

I look at him. I look down.

Things are different now. Not the same barriers as in my day.

I shrug. I don't like school much. My parents. They wamme to go.

Uh-huh.

I don't like school much.

What do you like?

Flash fronta my face, quick his hand snatch it. Open his fist. Firefly strollin his palm his finger.

I seen this Looney Tunes at the pictures. All from a lightnin bug's point a view. Steada his light attached, he carried it, lantern. I laugh, tired. Mr. Randolph turnin his hand so the firefly keep walkin.

When I was growing up, some of the other boys would pull out the lights. You do that?

I shake my head. But shamed to say I seen Roof do it all the time, never stopped him.

Good, say Mr. Randolph. Something that sits on your hand so peaceful, doesn't bite, doesn't sting. Just brings beauty. Light. Why would anyone want to make violence against the light?

You think we're goin to war? For sure?

He gazin at the bug, small smile like he ain't heard me. Then: Yes.

You think Hitler likes
Merchant a Venice
?

He looks at me, then back at the bug. I don't know, son. And the light flies away. He set back. These mountains. You're lucky, having them with you all the time, part of you. Even in the night you feel their presence. Majestic.

Can I show you somethin?

I tiptoe an nobody wakes. Under the bed, pull it out. Eliot's eyelids flutter but he stay sleep. Back down to Mr. Randolph, show it to him. Mama ironin. Daddy on the train in his uniform. Eliot an his cat. Bugs Bunny an Barney Google, Orphan Annie an Roof an Carl, Miss Onnie an Eliot, Mr. D'Angelo in his store, the New York Black Yankees, Franklin, an Eleanor, an Benjamin Banneker, an self-portrait: me drawin. Sketches an sketches I show Mr. Randolph, I don't genrally show em to nobody. I ain't embarrassed. I jus don't think no one besides my family so interested. Mr. Randolph look through em, studyin each one, sayin nothin. When he's finished he hand em back to me.

Art school, he say.

Actin is an art, I say, but you give it up for public speakin. Higher callin.

I said
different
calling, not higher. Everyone finds their own way.

Kitchen light nex door.

Your neighbor's an early riser.

Miss Onnie. She's old.

Sometimes I visit the Metropolitan Museum in New York. I see Rembrandt and Leonardo and Manet and Renoir, the ancient Greeks and ancient Egyptians and even ancient sub-Saharans, miles and miles of jam-packed galleries. It's big—I haven't seen it all. Still. Several trips and us I haven't found yet. American Negroes. That's a big gap.

Now Miss Onnie open her side door an hundreds a cats rushin out. I look down an there's Parker on our porch, standin on his hine legs, beret on his head, palette an brush, paintin on his easel. Oh hi, Dwight, he say. Eliot up yet?

Dwight.

I snap awake!

Maybe you better go on up to bed.

I gather up my sketchins, draggin.

I sure do like your drawings.

Okay, I say, an pull myself up the steps. Mr. Randolph is gone two days fore I think back to that sleepy moment. Was he askin to keep a drawin?

I already done the sketch a me an Mr. Randolph on the middle a the night porch same day he left. He wrote down his address on the pad in the kitchen. I draw a copy a my drawin for my own keepin, then take out the money I got for cuttin ole Miss Priscilla and Miss Pauline's grass an buy a three-cent stamp. Send the original to him.

I get the hang a Carl's
Monopoly
over the nex couple weeks, clean him out one day leavin him scowlin. Come home, think I'll draw me dressed like the
Monopoly
money man, top hat an cane, when I see a postcard my side a the bed. I never get mail. On the front is this white palace. I wonder is it the White House or do the King a England live there? But flip it over, at the bottom left the printed letterin says
THE
METROPOLITAN
MUSEUM
OF ART
[THE MET] NEW Y
ORK CITY
. On the right side is my name an address an a stamp. On the left-side top, neat and small:
Thank You!
A.P.R. An under it this crude pencil sketch of a lightnin bug smilin at me, carryin his own light.

 

ELIOT

Windy! Sunday school this mornin, wind almost blow me an Dwight away! Mama say it like March but today June the 22nd, outside chilly, inside chillier! Mama holdin me in her chair in the blanket. Dwight on the floor in the blanket, studyin the funnies. Color funnies!

I think Miss Onnie like me better now. I useta think she didn't like me.

She set in her ways, say Mama. I like Mama in her lazy moods.

I thought maybe she didn't like me cuz I'm colored.

Dwight look at me funny.

Why wouldn't she like you cuz you colored? Mama say.

Cuz don't some white people don't like—

Dwight rollin on the floor.

What!

Miss Onnie
is
colored, my mama say.

She look white!

Well she ain't.

Her eyes cole blue. When I was settin on the curve cryin—

Curb, say Dwight.

I think Miss Onnie a nice white lady! Save Parker's life after she seen me settin on the curve cryin—

Cur
b
!

She's not white. She jus got a lotta white in her.

Whatcha mean? I ask Mama that, in my head I see all these little white people walkin aroun inside Miss Onnie.

White people come before her. I bet some of her white male ancestors didn't come by invitation neither.

I can tell Dwight sigh a little, then go back to drawrin. I frown, gonna ask Mama what she mean again, but she rip it in the bud: An that's all you need to know on that subject.

The wind
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Dwight flip to The Yella Kid, got his sketch paper sketchin The Yella Kid. Why on't he bring
me
some a the funnies?

Miss Onnie same like The Yella Kid? Dwight find that funny too,
Shut up, Dwight!

Don't say that, my mother say to me.

I wanna read Annie!

When I'm done.

He gonna take all day drawrin!

He only had the funnies a little while, he ain't gonna take all day drawin. Right?

Right, Dwight say, an don't even look up at her! He ain't respeckful!

Well look like he
is
! I'm jus tryin to rip it in the bud!

Nip
, an Dwight laugh like the funniest thing ever, like
he
the smart one. On my report card Miss McAfee wrote It has been a delight to have had such a fast learner in my classroom, nobody wrote that for
him
! I start to say somethin else but Mama rip it in the bud: You gonna get your turn, an she snuggle me warmer.

Tray's The Yella Kid! Hahahaha!

Don't talk like that boutcher cousin, stop callin people yella. She quiet a while. Then she say, Don't say nothin. But I heard when Miss Onnie was young she was pretty, an light enough to pass. She got the offers for dates an even offers for marriage from the white men, but all she refused. Coulda past on over to white never look back, but liked her own people too much.

I never hearda
pass
before excep like I pass firs grade, but I think I got it from the contest.
Whoosh!
the wind comin through the cracks under the doors. Mama hole me tighter. Dwight, you need another blanket?

Nah.

When she did marry her husband, he a real dark man. I heard wunst they was visitin Boddimore on a trip, he jus enlisted in the army an wearin his uniform, an walkin down the street some white men surround em. They didn't think colored should be soldiers anyway, an him there with a white woman. Threatenin to lynch him.

Now Dwight look up.

They grabbed him an her screamin
I'm colored!
Lucky she got a colored voice, it spared her husband. I heard they never went back to Boddimore.

What war Miss Onnie's husbin a soldier in, Mama?

I don't know, she say, holdin me warm. One of em.

We gonna have a war?

Hm. Might be.

Daddy gotta go to the war?

No, your daddy too ole, she answer Dwight. Too young for the other war, too ole for this one.

Too young for the other war, too ole for this one, my daddy jus right! Hahaha! When I get to read Annie, Dwight?

Wonder how Daddy Warbucks got all rich? Dwight ask me, I know he bein smart.
War
. Bucks.

Your daddy thirteen, too young but his brother gone. Uncle Leeroy in Harlem then, parta the Harlem Hellfighters dontchu say that word. The Three Sixty-ninth. Good soldiers, earned the medals.
An
good musicians, Uncle Leeroy play the clarinet, the Hellfighters had a jazz band. The French dancin, happy, French didn't know nothin bout jazz. Till then!

Mama, what's lynch?

She look at me. Dwight don't look up but he stop sketchin, he was shadin but I hear him stop. Time tick-tick I think she ain't gonna answer. I hope she tell me, Miss McAfee say you learn a vocabulary word by usin it in a sentence.

Killin colored people. When white people kill colored people, they don't need a reason. Kill em jus cuz they colored.

Firs I wanna laugh, I think she kiddin. Then I see she not. I stare at her. I turn to Dwight, he don't look up but he don't drawr, his face all serious. Then I'm cryin, cryin, I can't stop, I don't know why I'm cryin! I don't understand what she say but I feel sad! Sad! Mama hole me. Dwight get up an leave. I don't know why Dwight get up an leave but I don't think it's meanness.

Mama gotta go make supper. Dwight leff the funnies behine, mine! I see the funnies, but in my magination I see me in the mansion, me an Annie an Daddy Warbucks but Annie's colored. Her hair already look colored, hahaha! An Daddy Warbucks colored, then in come the soldiers, the Three Sixty-ninth, nobody shootin, jus marchin an playin the jazz toot-toot. Then they salute me, an I salute em back! Then I'm singin! I'm the boogie woogie bugle boy a Company B!