A Dead Man Speaks Read online

  * * *

  Snort, snort, heee, heee…The deputy laughed some more, and then turned his skinny butt to us and farted—a big, fat, disgusting one.

  And at that moment I knew that I was getting out of Hendersonville, out of the South, out of everything that could ever remind me of this place. And I wasn’t scared anymore ’cause I knew that there was a whole lot more out there than this stinking jail, and I knew I was getting far away from there.

  “Well lookie who’s here. If it ain’t yo mamas.”

  “Maaa!!!!” Andy and Jesse jumped up. The three of us ran to the bars of the jail as Missus Caters and Missus Lewis ran over to the jail. Only Ma wasn’t there. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I always thought she didn’t like me, but…

  “There’s my boy!” Daddy’s big voice boomed out from the corner.

  “Daaaddy!!!!!” I don’t know why now, but I cried. I mean really cried. Daddy had come for me. And I just couldn’t stop crying.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ma’s Revenge

  “I tol’ you the boy’s no good. I’m like to lose my job after this. And then what’re we gonna do? You ain’t had a paintin’ job in months, and winter’s comin, who you thinks gonna hire you if Clive’s stirrin’ up all kinda trouble?”

  “Sarah, white folks is always jumpin’ up and down ’bout somethin’. I ain’t worried. We made it every other time. This ain’t no different.”

  “Yeah it is. You don’t know how mad those white folks is. Talking ’bout not letting the white kids use the playground ’cause negras been there. And all cause that boy broke into there. Jus’ like a thief he is. I don’t raise no thieves in my family. When I git through with him!”

  “Sarah, the boy was just havin’ fun. It ain’t no big deal.”

  “Ain’t no big deal!”

  I could hear Ma slam her chair against the wall. I was in the other room with the door tightly shut, but I knew from the way she sounded that her face looked like an ugly steam engine black and belching smoke.

  “Yeah, Sarah, it ain’t no big deal. It’ll blow over, and everythin’ll be fine again.”

  “Look, I hear the crackers talkin’ in town, they saying that Clive is the ringleader. That he’s dangerous. That he might start some mess with the colored folks.”

  I could hear Daddy snort, like the way he did when he didn’t believe something. “The boy’s ten years old. What the hell kinda ringleader can he be? Who in they right mind gonna follow a ten-year-old? That’s just crackers talkin’ crazy.”

  “No it ain’t. I tell ya, Lorenzo, the boy’s gotta go.”

  Suddenly, it felt like a cold hand went up my spine. I ran out into the other room shouting, “Nooooooooo! I don’t wanna go away!”

  Daddy walked over to me calmly. He was never upset about nothin’. He put his arm around my shoulder—warm and heavy, as if I could lean on it and count on him. “You ain’t goin nowhere boy. Jus’ relax. Now go on back in there. Your ma and me’s talking.”

  I looked into Daddy’s eyes, and they were the same as always—warm, dark brown with the smile underneath—and, suddenly, I felt better. He gently guided me back into the room and shut the door behind me. I pressed my ear against the door. They were whispering, really hissing, but I could still hear them. “I don’t ever want to hear you talking about sending the boy away again. He’s staying right here.”

  Silence. Just the sound of Ma banging pots and pans on the stove. She knew better than to say anything.

  * * *

  “Jail bird! Jail bird! Clive’s a stinkin’ jail bird!”

  I glared at the taunting group of kids. My friends, or at least they used to be, were just as bad as the white kids in town. Everywhere I went these days, somebody was teasing me or pointing a finger. I guess it’s because the town’s so small. That’s why I knew I was getting out someday. When I grow up, I’ll never be here again. And all these kids, they’ll just wish that they’d been my friend?

  But right now, all I could do was turn my back on them. Sometimes I’d yell back at them, but today I didn’t even care. I just wanted to get home and away from them.

  I walked down the narrow road alone. Normally, my troops would’ve been with me, but Andy and Jesse’s mamas said they couldn’t play with me anymore. And truth is, they were both so mad at me still, I don’t think they would’ve played with me anyway.

  It was fall, and the leaves were in high piles along the road. Red, yellow, and the crunchy brown ones. I jumped in, and it felt like a deep, prickly mattress of leaves.

  Swishing my arms back and forth in the leaves, I laughed. Sometimes I’d pretend I was rich and I lived in a big house with big, soft mattresses. Not the narrow, stickly ones that I had. And I knew that I’d just lie in bed all day and have people serve me ice cream and sodas. That’s what I’d do if I was rich.

  Suddenly, a dark cloud moved across the sky. I felt huge, heavy drops of rain on my face. I jumped up and ran the rest of the way home, trying to dodge the raindrops and doing fancy moves around the puddles. When I finally got up to the front steps, I was soaked and panting hard from running. I pushed open the door and then stopped.

  Ma was standing there looking at me. Not saying a word. Immediately, I started feeling strange. She was usually still at work this time of day. But that wasn’t as strange as the fact that Gramma Deedee, Ma’s mother, was also sitting there. She didn’t even live in Hendersonville. I’d never actually been to her house. All I knew was that she lived on a farm and that she worked all the time. Or at least that’s what Ma always said.

  They both had looks on their faces as if they’d been waiting for me. Then I saw it. The battered suitcase next to them.

  Ma hissed at me, “Where you been, boy?”

  I tried to swallow, but my throat was too dry.

  “Well, it don’t matter now. We got your things all ready.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “You’re going to live with Gramma Deedee for a while.”

  Suddenly all the fears that I’d had at the back of my mind rushed forward. “No! Daddy said he’d never send me away!”

  “Boy, shut up and get over here.”

  I tried to bolt for the door. The only thing I was thinking was that I had to get out of there. I had to find Daddy. He’d make everything all right.

  Ma had reached a long, calloused hand over to me. She grabbed my collar and pulled my face up to hers. “Now look. I had enough of you. You’re going with Ma, and that’s it. Your Daddy ain’t here, and you’re not going to him.” She slapped me so hard that I fell down on the floor. My face was burning, but I was determined not to give her the satisfaction of crying.

  Gramma Deedee lifted her heavy frame out of the rocking chair and grabbed the suitcase. “C’mon, boy. It’s better for everbody. If you stays here, no tellin’ what the white folks’d do to you or your mama and daddy.”

  I turned and looked into Ma’s eyes, narrow, and yellow at the edges, and I realized at that moment that I hated my mother.

  * * *

  I stared up at the cracked ceiling. The room was dark and close. Gramma Deedee was breathing heavily in the bed. I didn’t even have a bed, just a strip of rag on the dirt floor. I swallowed back a tear. I couldn’t believe that Daddy had just forgotten me. It’d been almost a week since Ma had forced me to go with Gramma Deedee. I kept expecting Daddy to come, but everyday would end as it started—out in the fields pulling weeds between the rows of brown, prickly cotton stalks. I felt like a slave.

  At night I ate the foul tasting food that Gramma Deedee made. Now I knew why Ma couldn’t cook. Everything was boiled in heavy smelly grease. We didn’t even have a bathroom in the house. Just a hole out back. But nights were the worse. I hurt all over. There was nothing I could do besides eat and go to bed as soon as it was dark. Gramma Deedee didn’t have any electricity, but even if she did, we’d probably still go to bed ’cause she never said anything to me.

  She was an old version of Ma: tall, ski
nny, same color skin and her hair in tight curls around her face except that they were grey instead of black like Ma’s. Her hands were also like Ma’s: hard and calloused. The kind that gave you goose bumps if they touched you.

  I tried to stay awake as long as I could. I was always afraid a field mouse would bite me or that one of the big, black, shiny beetles that crawled around in the corners would run over my face. But this night I just couldn’t keep my eyes open, and I fell into a deep, unhappy sleep.

  A hand clamped over my mouth. I bolted awake, but I couldn’t say anything. Then I was being picked up, and I was looking into Daddy’s eyes. Relief, happiness, everything good I’d ever felt rushed over me. I looked over toward Gramma Deedee who was snoring and completely unaware that I was escaping finally. Daddy hadn’t forgotten me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Daddy and Me

  I settled into the stiff seat of the bus. My face pressed against the dirt-speckled window. Trees, bushes, little houses, and colored kids on bicycles all passed by me. I’d never been on a bus before, and I felt free. I knew I was headed someplace where I’d be safe ’cause I was with Daddy.

  “Hungry?”

  “Uh huh!”

  “Well let’s see what we got.” Daddy opened a greasy brown bag and took out the biggest juiciest piece of fried chicken I’d ever seen. Then he dug down further into the bag and took out a soft, crusty biscuit and the best of all, a big bottle of strawberry soda! Now I knew I was in heaven. Just me and Daddy and the best food I’d ever eaten. In between munches of chicken and big gulps of soda, I listened eagerly to Daddy.

  “Now the way I figure, we’ll settle in Aiken for a little while. I found a nice place for us to live in. It’s small, but it’ll do for right now. There’s lots a work there, it’s kinda a boom town, lots a building going on ’cause of the new factory. So there oughta be plenty of painting work. I figure I’ll be able to save up some money and buy a little house in not too long.

  “I already moved all my painting gear to the place where we’ll be staying. It’s the colored boarding house, and the landlady, Missus Foster’s her name, real nice lady, anyway she’s letting me store all my stuff in the basement.”

  I couldn’t believe this was all real. The week I spent at Gramma Deedee’s seemed like a bad dream that I finally had woken from. The best thing was that Ma was nowhere around. It was just us men. Daddy and me. Thinkin’ about Ma made me feel funny. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it. I was still mad at her for sending me away, but mainly I was confused. I thought that maybe Daddy could help me understand.

  “Daddy, why doesn’t Ma love me?”

  Daddy looked at me with this real sad look in his eyes, which was pretty strange for Daddy, ’cause Daddy usually didn’t look sad. He rubbed his hand over the top of my head and kinda played with the collar on my jacket. “She loves you, Clive.”

  “Then why’d she send me away? Nobody else’s ma would send ’em away like that, why don’t she like me Daddy, what did I do wrong?”

  Daddy took my hands in his and rubbed ’em gently. “Nothin’, partner, nothin’ at ‘tall. Your ma, she just had things kinda rough for a long time. And I think that ’cause a that she don’t really know how to show that she loves folks even when she does…” His voice kinda stopped, like he was going to say something else, but he didn’t. I didn’t want to stop there. I’d always known there was something wrong between me and Ma, but I didn’t know what. This was the first time that Daddy and me had ever been alone to talk about it.

  “So Ma really loves me, Daddy?”

  “Course she does…”

  “Like she loves you or her own ma?”

  “Sure she does.” Then Daddy stopped for a second and hugged me real tight. “By and by, when you get a little older, I’ll tell you some things.”

  “What kinda things?”

  “Just some things you oughta know, but not now, when you get a little bigger. In the meantime, you gotta just try and love your ma. Don’t hold things against her, even the mean things she done. Just remember she’s your ma, and things ain’t been easy for her. So just love her, cause she needs to be loved.”

  But all I could remember was the way she looked when she shoved me out the door to Gramma Deedee’s house and the way she slapped me and grabbed me by the collar. “I don’t care if I should love her. I don’t. I hate her!”

  As soon as I said it, I was sorry. I thought sure Daddy’d be mad at me. Instead, he gently rocked me back and forth, saying softly, so I could hardly hear him, “Don’t ever hate nobody, Clive. Leastwise not your ma. When you hate somebody, you’re the one ends up getting hurt, ’cause all the anger and bad feelings you have just eats up your insides, and ’fore you know it, you’re worse off then the person you’re hating. Remember you can always love somebody, even if they don’t love you. God loves everybody, even when we ain’t been good or nice. That’s what it says in the good book, and that’s how I want you to live, Clive.” Daddy looked at me real serious. “Promise me that, Clive. Never hate nobody. Just try, no matter how hard it is to love ’em.”

  I nodded my head yes, even though I wasn’t sure how or why you’d want to try and like somebody, much less love ’em if they didn’t like you, but I could tell it meant a lot to Daddy. “I promise, Daddy. I won’t hate nobody ever again. Not even Ma.”

  Daddy gave me another hug and then settled back into his seat. “Now that’s my little Clive.” The last thing I remember was snuggling up next to Daddy, closing my eyes and being happier than I think I’d ever been.

  * * *

  “Well, hello there. Aren’t you a fine-looking young man?”

  I sorta smiled, but I didn’t quite know what to say. The landlady, held out her hand to me.

  Daddy nudged me gently. “Shake Missus Foster’s hand, Clive, and tell her thank you for lettin’ us stay here.”

  “Uh…thank you…”

  “Oh, it’s my pleasure. I’m happy to have you both here.”

  Missus Foster sounded different than other colored women I’d met in town. Her voice was sweet, and she talked really proper. Maybe it was because of all the books she read. In her living room, all the walls had bookshelves from the floor to the ceiling, and they were all filled with books.

  Now I could read. In fact, I could read really good, but I don’t think I’d ever seen so many books in one place. Maybe in the library in town there were that many books, but it was for whites only, so I never got to go inside.

  There was another way Missus Foster was different from other colored ladies I knew. She always looked kinda like a picture out of a magazine. Her hair was smooth and black, and her skin was a pretty, red-brown color that I’d never seen before, but I guess the most different thing about her was the color of her eyes, light brown. So light that when I looked into them, I could see my reflection, like a mirror.

  There was no Mr. Foster, or at least nobody who lived with her. I guess he musta been dead. When I asked Daddy about it once, he just said it wasn’t none of our business. So I didn’t ask him again. One thing about Daddy, when he had that certain tone, I usually knew better than to ask any more questions.

  The months passed nicely at Missus Foster’s. Every day me and Daddy would get up early and go down to breakfast. The only other boarder was a really old man named Mr. Beavers. He would come down at 8 a.m. every morning, have a cup of steaming black coffee and a sugar donut, and then he’d go in the living room and read. Missus Foster told us that Mr. Beavers had been a teacher, but he didn’t have any family or anything, so now he lived there with her. Seemed that lots of folks who didn’t have anywhere to go came in and out of Missus Foster’s place.

  She was nice to everybody, but I think that she was the nicest to us. For instance, what she’d fix us for breakfast, every day it was something different. One day she fixed eggs in a way I’d never had before. She said it was called an omelet. There was cheese and crisp pieces of bacon and onions and tomatoes all fried in, and
then she folded it over. There’d be steaming bowls of hot cereal, but not the lumpy kind that Ma would make. The kind Missus Foster would make was smooth and had a cinnamon flavor to it. Sometimes she’d plop a big raisin or cut up pieces of apple in it. It was always special.

  After we had breakfast, I’d go with Daddy to his painting jobs. I couldn’t get in the local colored school until the next semester, but I didn’t care. I’d rather be with Daddy anyway.

  I loved the way paint smelled, not as much as I loved the smell of gasoline, but that was a different kind of smell. Paint was clean, but at the same time not like soap or stuff like that. Every color had a different smell. The white paint was kinda potato-starchy smelling. The bright green paint that Daddy used for the trim of the buildings had a grassy smell to it. The best was the red paint. Daddy didn’t get to use red paint much. Most of the houses in town were either white or brick with dark green or black roofs. Once in a while he got to paint a rooftop red. I’d help him get his brushes ready, and then he’d let me stir the paint with a big, long stick that he took along with him.

  He’d give me my brush, and I’d paint the bottom parts, while he painted the top. Daddy would never let me paint anything where I had to get on the ladder. Said the ladder wasn’t that sturdy. But I didn’t care that much ’cause climbing that ladder reminded me too much of the stairs on the slide in the white playground, and right now, I didn’t want to think about that too much.

  At around noon Daddy would turn to me saying, “Ready to take a break, partner?”

  “Yep.” And I’d pull out the plastic bag with our lunch in it—usually thick, flavorful sandwiches that Missus Foster made us. Sometimes, leftover pot roast or meatloaf or my favorite, sharp cheddar cheese with mayonnaise and pickles.