VINES

By

Lindell T. Palmer Jr.

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Fine Arts

In

Creative Writing

Chair:

E.J. Levy

Keith Leonard

Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

Date

2007

American University

Washington, D.C. 20016

AMERICAN UN!'/Fn

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 1452756

Copyright 2007 by Palmer, Lindell T., Jr.

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by

Lindell T. Palmer Jr.

2007

ALT. RIGHTS RESERVED

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEDICATION

In memory of my three muses: Mamie, Joyce, and Miss Shelia. Your spirits live. Haunt.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. VINES

BY

Lindell T. Palmer Jr.

ABSTRACT

Vines is an original novella about an African-American family haunted, both

literally and figuratively, by the past. Set in the fictional town of Warren Hills, North

Carolina, in 1969, a time of great change, three generations of the Taylor family deal

with their own great change when the unfaithful, yet loveable, patriarch of the family

passes away.

Throughout the work, the Taylors attempt to cope with a series of traumatic losses

while they also try to redefine home. Miss Mamie tries to come to terms with the fact

that her perfect, Christian home may never be. Jackson struggles to feel at home with

his homosexuality in a region and household where such is unspoken. Meanwhile,

Joy, Jackson’s mother, possessing the feistiness of her father coupled with the magic

of her people, continues to run away from her true family and home she has yet to

accept.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT...... ii

Chapter

1. MID-AUGUST, 1969...... 1

2. 1949...... 19

3. LATE AUGUST, 1969...... 25

4. 1954...... 40

5. FIRST OF SEPTEMBER, 1969...... 50

6. 1964...... 62

7. OCTOBER, 1969...... 67

8. 1959...... 87

9. OCTOBER, 1969...... 101

10. 1964...... 113

11. MID-NOVEMBER, 1969...... 120

12. DECEMBER, 1969...... 126

iii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1

MID-AUGUST 1969

Jackson had heard the story before, the one about his mother when she was ten,

and the little jar of com liquor that she hid beneath the floorboard of the shed right beside

her daddy's. When Jackson’s granddaddy told this story, he always laughed; but on this

night, as Jackson huddled over his granddaddy fallen on the floor of the shed, the thought

of the story his granddaddy had told made him depressed.

The August night seemed hotter than normal, and when Jackson found his

granddaddy in the shed, in almost complete darkness except for the moonlight that peered

in through gaps between the clapboard walls, Jackson sweated so much that he had a hard

time holding on to his granddaddy’s ashy hand.

“She put the roots on me, you know, back then. Her people knew how to work

them roots. That’s how she got me.”

It took a minute before Jackson realized a new story had begun, one he hadn’t

heard before.

“Joy’s just like her. Pure magic. Know how to work them roots.”

Jackson was confused. His granddaddy’s statements weren’t connecting. His

mind was surely mixing up his stories, and as he became more mixed-up, his words

began to ran together. Yet this time, his slurring and stumbling wasn’t caused by a trip

1

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. down to the juice joint to visit those cheap women and expensive wines Jackson’s

grandma had warned him about. This time Jackson knew his mixed up words were more

serious, graver. His granddaddy sounded strange. This wasn’t even his voice. It was

hard for Jackson to decipher it all.

“Call Joy in here, boy. She’ll tell you. Call her home.”

His granddaddy was talking nonsense. Joy was in New York, far away from

Carolina, their house, this shed, Jackson tried to convince his granddaddy. Couldn’t he

understand?

“Go fetch Mamie.” The command was clear. “Tell her I found Joy’s stash.”

Jackson was confused.

“Fetch her.”

The shed went quiet. The conversation was over. The story had ended a while

ago.

Jackson could hear Chico - his granddaddy’s hound- scratching on the door and

still barking uncontrollably outside the shed, surely alerting Mamie that the problem

she’d sent her grandson down to investigate was still a problem. In fact, the barking had

intensified now. It was now primitive, angry.

Jackson stood to his feet, but his heart sank. Looking down at him, he knew that

his granddaddy was gone. He had never seen his granddaddy looking so calm. His

granddaddy had always been a strong, austere, and stubborn man. Someone who always

had something to say, but who usually spoke it in what his grandma referred to as the

Devil’s tongue. When the doctor had told him to lay off the alcohol, and take it easy,

Jackson’s granddaddy had told the man to go to hell. When the nurse had come in to

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check on him, he’d asked her, right in front of his wife, to sit on his lap and feel how hot

he was.

Looking down at his granddaddy now, there was nothing devilish about his

expression. Though his features remained - blue-black skin, flat lips and wide nose, that

Taylor chin - his granddaddy had somehow softened. Surely this man before him had

never cheated on his wife, slapped his daughter, or called his grandson “peculiar”

because he hadn’t fit the image of a strong young man.

Chico suddenly seemed to throw his entire weight upon the door, and the sound

startled Jackson. He tripped over his granddaddy’s body and fell beside him. A sharp

pain pierced his knee. The floorboards were warped, splintering and Jackson was sure he

was bleeding, but it was too dark to see clearly. His fall stirred up sawdust and powder

that burned his eyes till they watered. Out of all the confusion, the tears and blood, the

dog’s growls, he heard the name: Joy.

Jackson could not determine if he’d imagine it or if the name had actually come

from the lips of his granddaddy. Jackson inched closer to his granddaddy and slowly

reached out and felt his neck: no pulse. He pressed his ear to his chest and felt the heat

of his granddaddy’s body press back. His granddaddy’s body was still producing sounds,

but no heartbeat. He was gone.

Jackson found his way back to his feet. He opened the shed door and a waning

moon and an anxious dog met him. Chico scampered in faster than the light, but stopped

short right before the body. Chico knew death, had experienced it before. He had been

the last living creature to see Uncle Sonny’s last breath a few years back. Now, before

the body of yet another Taylor male, the dog simply sat and sniffed the air.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “Come on boy, let’s go.” Jackson whistled and patted his leg twice trying to get

the dog’s attention, but the dog wouldn’t budge. “Come on, we got to go see Grandma.

Come on boy.”

The dog stood perfectly still, emotionless beside the body.

Jackson didn’t realize that tears were still falling from his eyes until he tried to

call out to the dog again, but only choked breaths came out. He quickly wiped his face

with the back of his left hand and attempted to regain control of his emotions, his body.

Crying was unacceptable. His granddaddy wouldn’t want him crying. His granddaddy

wouldn’t have allowed him to cry. His granddaddy would have probably confessed that

he didn’t deserve tears shed or emotional breakdowns anyway.

Jackson realized at once that he was now the man of the household. He was not

even sixteen, but he now was a man. The last Taylor male. He suddenly felt as if he had

strict obligations and a definite role to play in the family. It was now his duty to go fetch

his grandma, Miss Mamie, and tell her the news, comfort her, protect her. He’d also have

to get in contact with Joy. There’d be a funeral, and no matter how she now felt about

the family or the little town of Warren Hills, North Carolina, she’d have to come home.

“Come on boy, let’s go.”He’d heard these words before. He knew this tone. It

was how Granddaddy had spoken to him. It was now Jackson’s voice.

The dog stood on all fours and circled him awaiting further directions. Jackson

took a step out of the shed and Chico followed.

Jackson fought his natural instinct of lowering his head and instead tried to stay

focused on the small white house less than twenty yards in front of him, beyond the

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dogwood tree and outhouse. It was his home and had been for most of his life. Though it

wasn’t much, it was all he knew.

It was hard to imagine, but the four-room house in front of him, with the chipped

white paint and the frosted-over window panes had been the dream house of Jackson’s

granddaddy. His granddaddy and his grandma, Miss Mamie, had moved from farm to

farm, looking for better opportunities, and Old Man Edward’s place had seemed like a

good deal. He had given them a loan to buy tobacco seeds, and given them the best deal

on the crop’s return, but he’d also placed them originally in a shack of a house with no

running water and an outhouse that seemed a mile away. When he’d saved enough

money, his granddaddy had asked to move to the other side of Edward’s land, and though

they’d always rented, Granddaddy and Miss Mamie had felt like this place was their own.

No legal papers would change that.

Jackson could see a light was on in the bedroom. His grandma’s silhouette was

apparent in the window. He knew she was awaiting his return. She’d sent him down

when she’d awakened to the dog barking and an empty bed. She’d told Jackson that his

granddaddy was up to his tricks again, and it was time to go get him before he got in

more trouble.

She was probably peering through the curtains now expecting to see him

dragging his granddaddy back with him from the shed. But Jackson was alone. It would

be the first thing she noticed. He kept his head up high, kept his gait steady, so she

wouldn’t be alarmed when she spotted him. This was his first official duty as the man of

the house: keep head up, be a rock.

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As Jackson climbed the few steps of the back porch of the house, the bedroom

light went off. The absence of light in the backyard, despite the waning moon, was

suddenly apparent. When the lightening bugs began popping up here and there in front of

Jackson, seemingly lighting his path toward the backdoor, he was thankful. Tonight,

darkness made him uneasy.

Jackson opened the door. His grandma was standing in the shadows inside the

house. Jackson could barely see her face, but he knew she had been crying. He could

sense it.

“Where’s Tom?”

Jackson made his way into the house with the dog. He reached around for the

light switch, but kept missing it.

“Granddaddy was telling me a story...”

Jackson’s voice betrayed him. It cracked.

His Grandma understood his tone. She made her way out of the shadows and into

the light that now cut into the kitchen from the open door.

“We’ll need to call your mother,” his grandma began calmly. “Mama Byrd,

Revered Pascal, and Mosby’s Funeral Home.”

Jackson paid no mind to her words. He continued with the story he was trying to

tell. The point he was trying to make.

“Granddaddy was telling me about rootwork and how Joy and you were just

alike.”

Miss Mamie had left Jackson’s sight and she was in the other room; Jackson

couldn’t see her, but he could hear her fumbling around in the dark, searching for

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something. Perhaps she was searching for his granddaddy’s legal documents: his will,

his insurance policy. Did she keep those here? Did he have them?

“But he never finished, Grandma. He never finished his story.”

“Grandma, I think he’s gone.” It was out of him. The task was complete.

A light went on in the living room. Had Miss Mamie found what she was looking

for? Jackson neared the threshold of the room. She was sitting on the floor with the

family Bible sprung open before her. Scattered around her were funeral programs,

wedding announcements, yellowed copies of legal documents, and loose sheets of paper

with the names and addresses of friends and family members. All of this she kept safe in

the old, ragged-looking Bible that had been in the family for years. Now, she searched

through it all.

“Granddaddy said he found Joy’s secret stash. He told me to tell you.”

Miss Mamie never stopped searching. She never looked up at him.

“Foolishness,” she replied without ever stopping her search, without ever looking

up at him. “All his stories were lies, Jackson. And the truth is I don’t even care

anymore.”

Jackson stared at his grandma. She seemed focused now. Intense.

“What are you looking for?”

“Joy, gotta find Joy.”

From yards away in the shed, lying on the floor, quickly losing body heat, his

granddaddy - Jackson sensed - repeated the name one last time as well.

*

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Joy awoke to his heartbeat thundering in her bedroom, echoing down the hall of

the living room, filling her Brooklyn apartment with its intensity. The sound was

bombastic, seemingly proud of its intrusion, of its ability to wake her from her dreams.

Its presence was louder than the window fan, more omnipresent than her husband

Seven’s snoring.

“Shut the hell up.” Joy attempted to cover her ears, but it was a struggle. She was

awkwardly cuddled, naked in Seven’s arms, between his legs. His grip kept her bound,

and she suspected, trapped in his reverberations. Yet she couldn’t be sure. She had heard

his snoring before, but until now, she’d never paid attention to his heartbeat. She’d never

imagined it could thunder so loudly.

Joy inched a bit closer to her captor, and placed her head upon his naked chest.

Brown flesh against brown flesh. Beauty pressed against beauty. But as her ear neared

the spot where she was sure the fantastic beating originated, she felt a different rhythm,

sensed a weaker beat. His was no supernatural pulse. Joy wrestled her way out of

Seven’s hold. There’d be no rest tonight until she found the source of the beat, and she

knew now that he did not possess it.

The beat skipped, murmured, but then regained its vigor. It seemed to target Joy

alone. Seven was in a deep, satisfying sleep, and no pulsating would disturb him.

However, the beat continued to frustrate Joy. She rolled off the mattress and onto the

floor and looked around the room. It took her a moment to gather her bearings. Sleep

still clouded her eyes and dreams still tempted her back to bed. It was just past 3 a.m.,

according to her wall clock, which was still lying on a box on the floor. Too early to be

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up. In fact, she’d just fallen asleep an hour or two ago, but now she was being tortured

awake.

Joy slid her do-rag off her hair and massaged her scalp. She unwrapped her

freshly permed hair and let it fall to her shoulders. This was her normal waking routine,

but there was nothing normal about this moment. She surveyed her surroundings and for

the first time since they’d moved here after being evicted from their flat in New Jersey,

really evaluated their new living quarters. It was nothing like she’d told her mama, Miss

Mamie.

She’d boasted that the bedroom alone was the size of that shack where Miss

Mamie lived in Carolina. She’d spoken of the brightly colored walls and the cathedral

ceiling, the perfect view of the city from her balcony and the rich and cordial white

neighbors who’d invited her and Seven over for soirees to meet Broadway actresses and

television stars.

The truth was that she and Seven had moved into this small apartment in a decent

neighborhood, but only two blocks away from the projects. The bedroom was only

slightly larger than the size of Mamie’s own, the walls featured chipped tan paint that

only rose to seven feet, most of the windows faced other buildings, and the balcony was

merely a fire escape. But it was a place to live, and she and Seven had paid for it

themselves from money he had hustled and tips she’d earned waitressing. They had had

enough to the pay the rent, but not enough to purchase the fancy oak bedroom set Joy had

wanted and the fine color television she pined for, so they slept on a mattress on the bare

floor and only got to watch T.V. at the Puerto Rican family’s apartment next door.

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Television. Perhaps the heartbeat was from someone’s T.V. or radio. Joy stood

and walked to the window and looked out. Most of the lights were out in the apartments

adjacent to hers. She saw no unusual activies: parties, kids playing ball, older kids

playing with prostitutes in the alley. She walked across the room and placed her ear on

the wall that bordered her neighbor’s apartment. Mr. Gonzales wasn’t playing any of his

music with blaring trumpets and passionate drumming. His wife wasn’t shouting

profanities in Spanish. At the Gonzales’ place, there seemed to be silence. Inside her

own apartment, however, the thundering heartbeat kept beating, more passionately than

Mr. Gonzales’ music had ever been. The heartbeat was coming from somewhere within

her apartment. Joy was sure.

She slowly made her way down the hallway, past the linen closet and bathroom,

straight to the living room. This room too was sparsely decorated with only a few chairs,

a plywood kitchen table, and a few unpacked boxes full of kitschy items Joy had dragged

with her from Warren Hills to Richmond, from Richmond to Trenton, and now to the

heart of Brooklyn. She knew they were destined to remain packed up. She couldn’t even

remember what was in all the boxes. Christmas ornaments? Framed pictures from her

first marriage? Her son’s first toys.

In the living room the beating continued, but something was wrong. The sound

was muffled. It wasn’t its strongest. Perhaps she’d passed the source. Joy backtracked

back down the narrow hallway and stopped at the bathroom door. The door appeared to

shake at each pounding of the heart. In there, she thought, in there.

Joy had never been frightened. She wasn’t that type of person. She boldly

pushed open the door and flipped the light switch on. Fluorescent light lit her path inside.

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The bathroom itself was small, simple. It was much nicer than the outhouse she’d used

when she was kid in Warren Hills, but it was nothing like the models on T.V. The ones

where kids in sitcoms locked themselves inside in order to hide or think. Where soap

opera vixens went to relax surrounded by candlelight in the tub only to be interrupted by

fine looking men who disrobed and joined in the fun. That was the type of bathroom Joy

longed for, but what she had was a bathroom that was purely functional, with only

enough space for a toilet, sink, and shower - little else.

As Joy walked in, she instinctively turned and stared at herself in the mirror above

the faucet. Staring back was her naked self: a brown eyed, brown skinned girl from

Warren Hills, North Carolina, with a mole on her collar and flab around her waist. Joy

was not pleased. She expected to see sophistication, elegance, and stunning beauty, but

all she saw was the same face she’d seen before, only older and with slightly more flesh.

She’d always been called pretty, with pretty eyes, but all she could think of now was how

common she was. She hated her thick lips. She hated that flat nose. Damnit, why wasn’t

her hair longer.

Her thoughts were interrupted by her heart. She could see it in the mirror, beating

beneath her skin, causing her chest to rise and fall. Was the source of the noise her own

heart? No. She could hear two heart beats now. Her own, and another.

“Joy.”

It was his voice. Her father’s.

“Joy.”

She looked around the tiny room. Shower. Toilet. Sink. Mirror. Clothes hamper.

Her naked body.

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“Come on home Joy.”

She backed up against the wall where she felt his heartbeat and her own,

pounding in tangent.

“Come on home.”

Joy grabbed a dirty floral printed dress out of the hamper and fled the room. She

had to get away. She had to escape her father’s voice, his heartbeat. On her way to the

living room she pulled on the garment, brushed down her hair with her fingertips, and

then exited the apartment so quickly she forgot to close the front door behind her. By the

time she remembered the open door, she was halfway down nine flights of stairs and she

figured it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going back. Seven would be okay. He could fend

for himself. He could ward off any looters or bad spirits that got in.

Joy ran down the stairs, out into the street, and up the road. She ran looking for

the nearest bar or club. Surely something was open, even at 3 A.M. Surely someone

would let in a flat nosed, flat broke, disheveled black girl wearing a dirty yellow

sundress. Joy ran and ran and ran until she collapsed at the footsteps of a club with a

fancy name, a fancy red carpet, and a string of red lights flashing above its doorway. Joy

tried to stand up, but found she was having a hard time catching her breath. Damn, she’d

forgotten her purse, her inhaler. She hadn’t had one of these breathing spells in years.

As she struggled to get her breathing right, a black man, a bouncer named Alphonso his

name tag said, helped her up and rubbed her back gently. He looked at her strangely at

first, but when her dress strap slid to the side and part of her breast was exposed the man

smiled.

“Wanna come inside? We’re still hopping. You ain’t missed nothing yet girl.”

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A fusion of jazz and funk blasted from inside the club, and for the first time, Joy

noticed that she didn’t hear- that heartbeat, she didn’t hear that voice. All she heard was

trumpets and electric guitars filling the night air.

Joy gathered herself and pulled away from the man’s hands. His words, and that

music had given Joy her breath back. She wanted to go inside, get a drink, get a smoke,

get away from Alphonso’s eyes. She didn’t know what was inside, but she knew she

wasn’t going back to the apartment anytime soon and this place seemed like the perfect

place to forget herself. Joy fixed her dress strap and her hair, and then walked straight up

to the bouncer.

“You should be lucky,” she reprimanded him, “that I even want to be seen in this

dump.” Joy had only seen the outside of the place, and though she was sure the inside

was fancier than any hole-in-the-wall she’d been in before, her condensing tone made her

feel more powerful. Helped her hone in her airs, despite her dirty sundress and awkward

approach to the bar.

“And who are you, Miss Thang,” he asked.

Joy paraded past the man, making her way up to the faux golden double doors.

Had he bought her act? Was he enthralled by her at this moment despite her

disheveled look?

“If you don’t know . . . “ She waited for him to open the door for her. When he

did, she laughed. “Then you’re not in the know.”

Inside, Joy found the dark bar less thrilling than its flashy signs had promised.

The room was lined with red carpet with black tiled aisles that led from table to table. On

top of select tables, topless women danced for dozens of smoke clouded eyes. The main

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stage featured a Spanish woman in a red brassiere, straddling a black chair, pretending to

perform her act to the music, but Joy could see that this woman, too, was a bit disheveled

and swayed more than danced.

This wasn’t what she’d expected, but Joy knew how to adjust. She walked up to

one of the black men at the bar. One with shifty eyes, and a matchbook nervously

twirling in his hand. Joy knew how to play men like him. Men like him weren’t looking

for a good time or a hot and heavy. All they needed was a half-way pretty looking girl to

speak to them, laugh with them for a while. She could tell a joke, bum a smoke, and then

leave him having made his night. Joy would do just that, and even bent down and let him

light the cigarette for her.

“Thank you, man.”

The man stuttered back, “No, thank you.”

She smoked, regulating her breath with each exhale, calming her nerves with each

slow drag, she tried to wrap her mind around everything that had happened in the

apartment. Had she truly heard her daddy’s heartbeat, his voice, haunting the place?

Perhaps she’d been dreaming? Perhaps it’d all been in her mind. Maybe she smoked too

much grass with Seven before bed.

The dancer and music changed, and now a young black girl, not more than

twenty-one, took the stage to an Afro-fusion beat. There were drums, so many drams,

pounding in the bar. At first, Joy covered her ears. She couldn’t take it. It reminded her

of her apartment. The thundering beat. But suddenly Joy noticed that her legs had taken

over her, and she was up on her feet dancing. The bass thundered throughout her body

and her limbs found a natural rhythm, her hips a natural sway. Her dance was primitive,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. primordial. She could not contain it. No technique was followed: this dance could not

be learned. Her dance was the flailing of arms and shaking of shoulders, stomping of feet

and swaying of hips. It was a dance to invoke all Spirits.

Joy noticed that everyone was looking at her, that she was the main attraction,

not the girl on the stage. The man from the bar was cheering her on, was making lame

attempts to whistle using his fingers, and was attempting to standing up at his seat to get a

better view, which made others stand and take notice. More and more people crowded

around until even the paid dancers themselves had stopped and made their way over to

Joy, who danced better than the strippers and received even more attention from the men,

even though she was fully covered up.

Joy was no dancer, but she was a performer, and for a moment, in front of the

eyes of the entertained, lustful, and jealous, Joy almost felt satisfied. But the moment was

fleeting. The longer the drum beat raced and roared, the more exhausted Joy became.

She was tired. Her feet ached. Her heart murmured. A sudden, sharp pain crumpled her

over and to the carpeted floor. It was a sharp pain, below her stomach, to the right. It

hurt so badly she couldn’t think. She hadn’t felt a pain like this is her life.

The strippers went back to their posts. The men lost interest in the scene and

backed away. Someone called the doorman to throw the girl out. She was obviously

cracked out, someone had yelled.

She felt embarrassed.

“My, my, you’re sure causing a ruckus,” Alphonso said as he pushed his way

through the waning crowd towards Joy.

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She could see Alphonso’s lips moving. She felt him lift her from the floor and

carry her to the door, but she couldn’t communicate.

“Come on home Joy.” There it was again. The voice, not Alphonso’s, but one

that was much more familiar.

*

Seven woke to the sound of the phone ringing. He demanded that Joy get it, but

when she didn’t respond, he knew something was wrong. He made his way to the living

room. When Seven saw the open front door, he began to fear he was about to lose her

again.

Joy was a wild one. In many ways she was wilder than him. When he had met

her, they had conned each other. He thought he was using her for money, but turned out

she was using him for a trip up to the city. “You’re perfect for each other,” his friends

had thought. “You done finally met your match,” they had said. And he had. She was as

tough and stubborn as he was, if not more so. When he said left, she said right. When he

said up, she said down. When he snuck into their savings box in the closet in order to

buy a little grass and get some dough to wager in a game of poker with the boys, he’d

found that she’d already spent it and was out with the boys herself, dealing out cards and

smoking on a blunt.

But every little thing had become a big deal in their arguments. Once, when they

were dining in Trenton, he had ordered for her when the waitress had asked what she

wanted.

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“A cola and some potato wedges, that’s what she always wants.”

But that day, he had been wrong.

“You always think you know what I want, damnit, but you don’t. You don’t

know me.” Joy had stormed out of the restaurant without eating a bit of the one meal

she’d always eaten in front of him.

Seven had had to go pick her up from the bus station that time, but had decided

that she was right. He didn’t know her, and he figured he probably never truly would.

Seven stood in the living room wondering where she’d got to now. Before he had

time to think of a plan, the phone rang again. He answered it. “I’m in Community

Health Center,” a weak voiced Joy said. Seven tugged on the phone cord. They’d just

moved to New York a few months ago, she’d just agreed to be his wife a few months

before that. How could things go sour now? He got dressed and headed for the still open

door.

Seven spotted Joy’s purse hanging on the closet door. Why hadn’t she taken it

with her? He picked it up and unzipped the main compartment. A wad of cash, probably

from the tips she made at the restaurant, lay at the bottom of the purse. Good thing it was

still here, he’d need money for the cab. Seven needed cash for many things.

The phone rang again. It was probably her again, asking him to hurry. Seven

hated when she did that, when she treated him like he was slow, stupid, and incompetent.

It had started to be her usual way around him. She was the smart one in the relationship,

she’d always remind him. He was lucky to have her to keep him in line and help him

remember things.

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This time he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of being the nag. Instead, Seven

took out the money and threw the purse back in the comer. Leaving the phone ringing,

he exited the apartment.

He had no way of knowing if Miss Mamie was on the line, longing to reach Joy.

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1949

When she was a little girl, Joy called Mama Byrd grandma. No one told her not to.

What she knew for sure was that Mama Byrd had helped bring her into this world. She'd

heard that story many times from her mama, Mamie. She also knew that there was a

bond between her mama and Mama Byrd that felt like family. They sat together at

church and at family reunions, whenever Mamie needed a recipe she'd call on Mama

Byrd, and when someone in the family died or was in trouble Mama Byrd would be the

first person Mamie would go off crying to. So, since there was no other "grandma” in her

life, Joy figured that Mama Byrd was probably hers.

Joy also knew what everybody else in the community knew, that Mama Byrd was

magic. She spoke magic; she looked magic. Her hair, salt-and-pepper, bewitching and

entrancing, flew out from its roots, feathering all the way down her twisted spine, ending

its journey at the crack of her bottom. Thick and full, tied up with twine, vines, and

ribbons, her hair entrapped men’s wandering eyes, pulled them in, and before long their

lips and hands were lost in her mane; their bodies swallowed up in the labyrinth,

intoxicated, apathetic about their capture. So sacred, Mama Byrd dared not lose track of

any of her parts, attached or not. She burned loose hair caught in her deer bone combs

and clips, buried nail clippings from her hands and feet, and made sure every excrement

19

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was buried into the earth. Mama Byrd was a medicine woman, a shaman, a conjurer.

With no known father or mother, she was the village orphan, claiming to have conjured

up herself.

No one had a reason to doubt her.

And Joy never doubted Mama Byrd was family. Why else would her mama send

her once a week to Mama Byrd’s house with two tin buckets? When she’d arrive at

Mama Byrd's she’d find her there, always on the front porch swinging, sipping on fresh,

milk, smoking a cigarette, and listening to her Mahalia Jackson records.

"Momin, Mama Byrd," Joy said each time. "Mama says hey. How's Mercy

doing?"

Mercy was Mama Byrd's cow, and when she was doing well there was plenty of

milk to go around.

"Doing fine," Mama Byrd answered each time. "Me and Mercy doing just fine.

Now you come over here and give your Mama Byrd some suga."

So, like clockwork, she’d go and kiss Mama Byrd then follow her inside. There,

she'd ration off some of her milk in one of Joy’s tin bucket, some butter or lard in the

other, and most times she'd stick some sweet cakes wrapped in paper under her arms.

Home was less than a hundred yards away. It was so close that sometimes Joy

would skip over to Mama Byrd's and prance back with the buckets on her head in less

than half an hour. Despite the huge curve that you couldn't see past, which Mamie

warned about, Joy would walk in the middle of the road the entire way. She wasn't

worried about getting hit. By this age of ten, she realized that hardly any one came down

their road and if they did, they drove slowly in their big cars with their arms out the

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window, throwing up a hand when they passed on their Sunday drives. When they

reached the sharp curve cars would drive even slower, almost coming to a stop.

Joy took advantage of this knowledge of the road. Sometimes she would dare

herself to sit down in the middle of the road, lie them down and count to five. This

amused her, maybe because it was the challenge, or maybe it was because she knew that

Flora Mable, Joy’s classmate who lived in the house that perched up on the hill a few feet

away from the curb, was always watching Joy’s act. From her porch, Flora would watch

Joy, scared half to death, shaking her head.

Joy was testing her luck, her immortality, and it seemed to thrill her. She dared

herself to stay longer. Five seconds became ten, and ten became twenty.

On the day she’d worked her way up to an entire minute, Flora was no longer a

quiet spectator. She called out to her, and told Joy she was crazy. But Joy was counting

out loud, pretending not to hear Flora. She was counting quickly at first, but then after

noticing Flora’s concern, hearing Flora’s voice in a panic, Joy slowed her pace.

"Get up, stop playing," Flora yelled to Joy, eyeing the curve down the road.

When a car came around the curve Flora got so nervous she ran over to Joy on the road

and knocked over the milk as she helped Joy up. As the car slowly made its way towards

them, a friendly hand was raised into the air as the car weaved to pass the two youngsters

in the road. Joy, frustrated by being cut off a second short of a record, punched Flora in

the nose.

"Stupid, now you've gone and spilled the milk.”

"Stupid? I saved your life." Flora was confused. Hurt by her bloody nose.

Joy didn’t mind going back to Mama Byrd’s for more. She liked visiting Mama

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Byrd even if they only made small talk. There was something different about Mama

Byrd. She wasn't rigid like Mamie. When Joy asked for a second sweet cake, Mama

Byrd gave her "one for the road." When Joy secretly longed for a drag off Mama Byrd’s

cigarette, Mama Byrd read her mind and obliged. When Joy had her first period, Mama

Byrd told her all about her body, boys, and the birds and the bees. Then, like always,

Mama Byrd would lead Joy inside, give her a ration of milk, the butter, and some bread,

and send Joy on her way.

Joy didn't find out Mama Byrd wasn't her real grandma until she was nearly

thirteen. She had left Mama Byrd’s with a full bucket in both hands, heading round the

curve when she started thinking on Flora, her bloody nose, and the record she'd almost

set. That's when she had the notion that right then and there she'd set her record. She

dared herself.

There was nothing spectacular or remarkable about the day. Years later she'd even

forget what season it had been, but she remembered putting down her buckets beside her,

laying down and spreading herself out as far as she could stretch, and then she started

counting. Quickly at first, but then she took a breath and slowed her counts. She didn't

want to rush it. She wanted to be able to say she'd done it. She wanted to say

she was brave. Nothing was coming, nothing usually did, but it was the thrill of the

chance. It wasn't suicide; it was bravado.

When she reached forty-five seconds she heard it. The sound was unmistakable.

The roar of the engine. The sound of disturbed gravel. A car approaching at an alarming

speed. Only an outsider would dare break the lethargic pace in Warren Hills.

Right before fifty seconds Joy flipped her body over and looked up. She saw the

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thick red cloud begin to drift from around the curve, ushering in a wide brown and

burgundy car with foreign tags. At that moment Joy stopped counting. She gazed at the

tags: New York.

When Joy lifted her body the car spotted her, blew on its hom, swerved, then

ended up spinning out of control until it ended up facing the opposite direction. When it

stopped, inches away from turning into a ditch, Joy rose to her feet and grabbed her

buckets.

New York City. She smiled.

The car was filled with black faces gazing at Joy just as she gazed at them.

She couldn't see too well into the car, but she knew these were men, handsome

men, from New York City. She couldn't tell, but she was sure they had nice hair, fine

clothes, and pockets full of money.

She smiled.

As the driver reversed, and the passenger rolled down his window, Joy stepped

closer to the car. She knew if Jackson were there, he would have run towards the

embankment, fearful. But she stepped closer to the car, even as the driver attempted a U-

tum in order to face the correct direction again.

"Sorry aboutthat... truly sorry," Joy called out to them.

The passenger stuck his head out the window. He seemed to be trying to stick his

entire torso out the window so that Joy could see just how handsome he was, just how

fine his hair and clothing were. Joy half smiled, grasping tightly her buckets.

"Get out the road tin bucket girl!"

The boy laughed. The entire car appeared to shake with laughter. The man

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dipped back into the car. As the vehicle sped passed her, Joy fell back, tripping on loose

gravel, spilling the milk, landing on her ass against the jagged embankment. She didn't

have to see the blood to know she was bleeding.

That day she went back to Mama Byrd’s alone. She lingered before walking up to

the porch steps; she couldn't bring herself to ask for more milk this time. She couldn't

even bring herself to mount the steps.

"What's wrong honey?" Mama Byrd made her way to Joy. She wiped off the

blood from the back of Joy's scraped legs with the corner of her own dress. "Tell me

what happened?"

Joy didn't cry. She got angry. Furious. She wasn't a tin bucket girl. Why had her

mother made her a tin bucket girl?

"Honey? Tell Mama Byrd what's wrong."

Joy could not speak.

"Come on honey, you can tell me anything. We just like family."

All Joy could do was hand Mama Byrd the tin buckets, the buckets that had

belonged to her in the first, and walk away.

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LATE AUGUST, 1969

Miss Mamie was worried. She paced outside on the front lawn fanning herself

and praying out loud, hoping a solution would come to her. Her son Jackson rocked on

the porch in the homemade swing like an old man. His swinging and calm demeanor

made her more nervous.

It had been a week since Tom’s death, and Mosby’s was pushing her to have the

funeral. They couldn’t hold out but for so long in August, they had warned. All the

chemicals and refrigeration in the world wouldn’t be able to preserve the body enough for

an open casket viewing if she kept waiting. The funeral had to happen soon, but Miss

Mamie wasn’t about to have a home going ceremony without Joy. She had tried calling

her, but hadn’t gotten a response. She’d even sent a telegram to the Manhattan address

Joy had given her last Christmas, using all her names - given, married, and made up -

but had been told that the telegram couldn’t be delivered since no Joy Taylor, Joy

Livingsworth, or Joy Jordan lived there.

Where on Earth could that child be? Mamie hadn’t seen her since last Christmas,

and even then she had been the same old Joy: putting on airs and full of herself, so that

Mamie hadn’t known what to say to her. She spent most of the time simply listening to

her daughter brag about her extravagant new Manhattan apartment, about her rich new

25

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city friends, about her busy life. It had all sounded suspicious, just like the New York

accent she and her new husband brought back with them. Miss Mamie had been a little

relieved to see her go, but now she wished Joy would have stayed longer, spent some

time with the family, realized that her moments with her father were her last.

“Maybe we ought to take a trip up there, look around for her.” Miss Mamie knew

nothing of the city. She knew she’d be out of her element up there. She wouldn’t even

know where to begin searching, how she’d get around up there. It was too fast, too noisy,

and too many people, Joy had told her once, you wouldn’t like it.

“Maybe we ought to go ahead and bury the body,” Jackson replied.

Miss Mamie glanced up at his swinging. His head was raised high and his eyes set

dead on her. Chico lay a few feet in front of him with his tongue hanging out, protecting

him like man’s best friend should. This entire image was familiar to Miss Mamie. If

Jackson would have had a cigar in his mouth and a bottle of whisky by his side, he’d

have been his granddaddy. She didn’t much care for that thought. What had happened to

Joy’s little boy?

“It wouldn’t be proper to have the home going ceremony without his only

daughter. It just wouldn’t be right. We gotta find her.” Miss Mamie wanted to include

the fact that people would talk. They’d want to know why Tom’s only daughter wasn’t at

his funeral. They’d think their family wasn’t close. That Joy really had abandoned them.

That the Taylors were a family slowly disappearing.

“Maybe Joy don’t want to be found.” Miss Mamie didn’t know what hurt more,

the assertion or the way Jackson had said it. The way he spoke his mama’s name,

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without reverence, like she was a mere acquaintance, not the person that gave life to him,

was just plain wrong.

Miss Mamie was getting too old for showdowns. When she was younger, she’d

had them with Tom, and then later with Joy, but now that it was time to put her grandson

in his place, but she was too tired. She stopped her pacing and made her way slowly up

the steps. He stopped his swinging. The panting dog on the porch stood to his feet in the

space between Miss Mamie and Jackson.

“Any daughter would want to know when her folks pass on. Any daughter in

good mind would like to pay last respects no matter how big she got, how far she travel

off to. Your mama still got a heart, son. She still got love for her people. She should be

told and given the chance to say goodbye.”

Jackson looked away from her towards the road. Miss Mamie decided to let the

subject drop and to make peace. She sat down beside her grandson and slowly pushed

the swing back into motion again. She thought his words were partly in response to how

many times she’d missed his birthday, forgotten to bring him a Christmas present, had

chosen to go out with some man rather than take her son out for ice-cream.

“Your mama loves you Jackson,” she paused, “mothering comes easy to some

folks, but not others.”

Miss Mamie rubbed her hands through his hair. It was wooly and way too long.

She joked with him about getting a hair cut. Of course today it was a joke; the day before

the funeral it would be an order.

Jackson remained quiet and kept staring toward the road. Now Miss Mamie

looked too. Their little lot on Mr. Edwards’ land was full of trees and brush, but just over

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the road were endless fields of tobacco. Her husband Tom had spent most of his life in

those fields, pulling tobacco for Mr. Edwards. Sharecropping they called it, but it hadn’t

much seemed like everyone got an equal share.

Miss Mamie and Jackson watched as a gust got hold of the tobacco. The plants

swayed ever so slightly, just enough to create the illusion of movement. The wind also

seemed to bring something else: a black truck, slowly creeping down the road kicking up

red dust in its wake. Chico began barking and running in circles. Miss Mamie and

Jackson both yelled at him to hush up as the truck pulled into the yard.

As the truck came to a stop, so did the breeze. The humidity bit back fiercely and

sent Mamie back to her fanning. She stopped the swing and stood to her feet, still

fanning, as she greeted the truck with a wave.

The truck door opened and an unfamiliar man stepped out. He had dark skin but

wavy hair, a short round body and a bittersweet smile. He eyed the dog and wedged

himself between the truck cab and the door.

“Don’t mind the dog, he just bark,” Jackson called out to the man. The man gave

a thumbs up and then reached into the back of this truck and pulled out a potted lily.

“I’m from Cox Farms Florist.” The man spoke with a thick Spanish accent. “We

have another one for you.” He put one potted plant on the ground and seized another

from the truck.

“More?” Miss Mamie shook her head.

It was a tradition that every spiritual black family in Warren Hills, North Carolina

seemed to follow. Death brought the lily. And in the case of Tom’s death, it brought

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way too many. The screened-in back porch of the old homestead was flooded with the

potted flower of every sort as if they were in season.

Miss Mamie turned to her son and sighed. Together they made their way down

the steps and met the man midway. She thanked him for the delivery, shook his hand, got

his name.

“We’ll have to call over there to Cox and tell him how thankful we are you came

all the way out hereMr... Huecinas. ” The name sounded awkward in her mouth.

Jackson laughed at her attempt. He shook the man’s hand too, and said in his best accent,

“Gracias.” Miss Mamie repeated her son’s words, surprised how easily he spoke this

strange language.

As the man pulled away, Mamie stared at the newest arrivals; gave them a good

going over.

“We’ll plant some of them in the back. Then they’ll belong to whoever Old Man

Edwards rents this place to after us. It’ll be their job to waterall... them keep ‘em

alive.” She laughed, because she knew no one would ever live there again. Old Man

Edwards had hinted at that. The place would be condemned. He’d ask them to board it

up when they left. Any planted lily would be on its own to survive.

Miss Mamie and Jackson carried the plants to the back porch where the plants

joined the others.

“Hand me Mama Byrd’s vase.” Miss Mamie pointed to the only lily not in a pot.

The plant actually wasn’t in a vase. It was in a tea pitcher, filled with water, no soil. Its

roots floated in the jar in a mass of long tangles, so entwined that even the most precise

surgeon couldn’t dissect the mess. The vines crept out of the pitcher, overflowed onto

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the counter, and wrapped themselves in all directions in the room following every source

of light the screened in porch let inside. This was the original lily of the porch, the one

that Mama Byrd herself had nurtured for several years but had passed down to Miss

Mamie as a gift of condolence when Mamie’s brother-in-law, Sonny, died years before.

It was a miracle the plant survived. Not only did it lack soil, but it had lacked the

care and attention it needed every since it had been passed on to Mamie. Mamie didn’t

have a green thumb. In the spring she often became overwhelmed by the fragrance of

rosebushes in the park and would run out and buy one of her own only to leave it on the

back of the truck and watch it whither away and die there.

Jackson eyed Mama Byrd’s lily. Moving the contraption more than an inch

without damaging a limb seemed a task for Jesus Christ himself. Mamie knew her

request was impossible.

“You’re not going to tell me you can’t pick it up, are you? It can’t weigh that

much.”

“I bet the vines alone weigh half a ton.” They both laughed as if his comment had

made sense. They both laughed at the notion of half-ton vines: vines too tangled and

heavy to be moved.

After a long pause, Jackson turned to his grandma knowingly.

“Did you ask Mama Byrd? Mama Byrd would know where she is Grandma.”

Mama Byrd had always been a confidant to Joy. Mama Byrd got the truth out of Joy

when no one else could and she knew how cut through her acts. Perhaps it was Mama

Byrd’s magic.

“She’s up in the city now too, right? She’ll know how to reach Joy.”

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“She’ll know how to reach your mama,” Mamie corrected him emphasizing the

word mama. Before Miss Mamie could say another word the phone inside the house

started ringing and she ran into the house quicker than she had imagined her arthritis

could have allowed her. She answered the phone expecting to find Joy on the line, but

instead was confronted by Mosby’s funeral home yet again.

“Let’s set the date for a few days from now,” Miss Mamie compromised. “I think

everyone’ll be here by then.” Miss Mamie wiped the sweat from her brow. It was hot,

even more so in the house now. Had August ever been this hot? “And we need to put

Joy and her husband Seven on the paper, they’ll be delivering a eulogy.” Miss Mamie

was hopeful. Mama Byrd would know where Joy was. Mama Byrd, if no one else, could

bring her back home safely.

*

In the quiet neighborhood of Trinity Church Road, Mama Byrd performed blessed

rites that no one else seemed to remember, mixing roots no one knew existed, and

conjuring up spirits long forgotten by the Blackfoot. There, she kept quiet, collecting

secrets. Secrets, old women said, that kept her powerful, made her revered. Secrets, old

men said, kept her dangerous, made her feared. Though seemingly content among her

people during Jim Crow, during the wars, she longed for a change. So when the 60’s had

begun, and the world had started to change, to grow, so did Mama Byrd’s horizons. Life

for her in Warren Hills had become stale and stagnant. No place for a woman of magic.

There was so much more of the world out there to see. The was so much left to do. After

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she celebrated her 77th birthday, she packed her bags and decided to start a new

adventure. She’d campaign alongside the civil rights activist. She’d show those young

folks how to dance to music, how to holler and scream to the drumbeat. She’d tell those

stuck up old-fashioned men that women were going to party too, like they did, in and out

the bedroom, and not feel bad about it. All of this, coming from an old woman would be

taken easier, laughed at, but paid attention to. So, longing for an adventure, she’d traveled

north to share her magic with the city folk, the New Yorkers who’d forgotten magic

altogether. Away from the slow way of life, nature, and their bloodlines, these people

had forgotten to take time for magic. They’d forgotten to listen to thundering magic in

their veins. Mama Byrd would re-teach them how find that spirit. They’d become her

pupils, all of them, black, white, and red. She’d call them all her children.

When Joy arrived at the comer of 120th and Douglass in Harlem that hot August

day, she expected to find Mama Byrd in her home, looking the same as she had so many

years ago back in Warren Hills, rocking in a chair, drinking a tall glass of milk and

humming to Mahalia Jackson. Instead, as she neared Mama Byrd’s new neighborhood,

she spotted the wrinkled yellow woman hunched over with a hand carved cane outside a

Texaco gas station, smoking by the ice machine, digging through her purse. Joy made a

quick illegal U-tum and parked parallel to the curb where Mama Byrd stood. She rolled

down her window and yelled out to the old lady.

"Yes, honey?" Mama Byrd didn't move closer to the car. Didn't stop digging in

her purse. Never stopped taking drags off her cigarette.

"Betcha don't recognize me, do you?" It had been a few years since she’d seen her.

Since then Joy had gained a few pounds. Her hair was differently. Natural. Softer.

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"Course I do, baby, where you been? I was expecting you earlier."

Though Joy was puzzled by the assertion, it was the truth. Mama Byrd had had

that feeling, she said, she just knew it had been too long since anyone had last heard from

the girl, and girls like Joy don't stay quiet long.

"I'm on my way down south. Heading home for a while I guess. Thought I'd

swing by and see you first."

Mama Byrd kept digging in her purse, seemingly unaffected by Joy's surprise visit

or the meaning behind her words.

"Mama Byrd, what the hell you looking for?"

Mama Byrd didn't answer. She simply closed up her purse and started towards

the store.

"Get out that car, Joy, and come here inside with me. I need to get a few things. I

hope you brought some spare change. I hardly got a pot to piss in." The old woman

trailed off as she made her way into the Texaco store.

Joy smiled. Mama Byrd hadn't changed. Joy reached down in the floorboard of

her car and retrieved her own purse. She checked herself in the rearview mirror. It was a

wonder Mama Byrd had recognized her. She hardly recognized herself. Her face was

hidden behind layers of makeup and oversized dark sunglasses. Her hair was wrapped up

in a floral do-rag and she sported neon-green hoop earrings.

Inside the small store Joy followed Mama Byrd around, listening to her mumble

about the price of Saltine crackers and her bowel's irregularity. Joy was unusually quiet

during the entire gas station shopping spree. She held Mama Byrd’s items, promised to

pay for them at the counter no matter the expense, and occasionally tried to look

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interested in Mama Byrd’s ramblings. Yet she kept waiting for Mama Byrd to look at

her, truly look at her.

As they got in the checkout line, the old woman opened up her purse again and

dug around inside it. She pulled out a City of New York Power electric bill envelope and

studied her scratches on the other side of it. "It’s about time for those numbers to hit."

She again fumbled around in her purse then took out a blank lottery card. She handed it

to Joy and motioned for her to fill it out quickly. "You just put in that triple three and let

it ride honey. I've been dreamingit... I know its coming and seeing you today is good

luck. It’s coming for sure now."

The cashier called for the next in line.

The old woman took a few cane-enabled steps forward to the service counter and

handed in her lottery picks as Joy quickly filled in her own card. She wasn't much for the

lottery, but when she had played, she'd always played the same numbers. She only

played numbers that meant something to her: her daddy's birthday, the day she graduated

from high school, her mama's house number. She would have never played anything

else, if Mama Byrd hadn't seemed so convinced. Perhaps this number could bring her

luck. That's what she needed now.

"You think we gonna really hit it big this time. Get the jackpot?"

"Count on it, baby girl!" Mama Byrd helped Joy place the items on the counter.

“Three’s a magic number, more divine than me,” she laughed. “Things always come in

three honey, the good and the bad.”

As Joy pulled out her money and handed it to the cashier Mama Byrd looked up at

Joy.

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"Thank you, honey, now bend down here and give your Mama Byrd some suga."

When Joy came in close, Mama Byrd snatched Joy's glasses off with one hand, and

steadied herself with her other hand. The two locked eyes.

“I can hear your heartbeat,” Mama Byrd whispered.

Joy could hear Mama Byrd’s as well.

Together, their hearts pound rhythmically in time with each other. They thundered

together. It was a drum song.

The store clerk interjected. “Here you go Ma’am.” He pushed the grocery bag

towards the edge of the counter but neither Joy nor Mama Byrd moved. Mama Byrd

stared into Joy’s eyes. Joy could see her hurt, her vulnerability, but her same old fiery

spirit.

“New York has not been good to you child.”

Mama Byrd took Joy by the hand. She knew why Joy was here. Joy was done

with the city. She was physically homesick. She was soon to go home to her father.

And now she stood before Mama Byrd needing her to bless this passage home.

“Do you know about your daddy, child? Do you know your mama is waiting for

you? She’s sick to death worrying about you?”

Joy couldn’t have known, yet she did. She’d felt it.

“Daddy? Did something happen?”

Mama Byrd clasped Joy’s hands in her own, and right there inside the Texaco

store, they prayed together, Joy, for the first time.

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*

Mama Byrd hadn't always been a friend to the dying. Not ten years earlier she

had been a friend to the living back home in Carolina. There, all the women in the

neighborhood, excluding the white ones and the Black ones with complications, had

called upon Mama Byrd when they were almost due, when their baby dropped and the

water was sure to break any minute. That's when they'd call Mama Byrd for her to come

by with her quick thinking, her expertise, and her bedside manner. She'd hold their

hands, calm their fears, give em a bit of motherwort, then take her place at the foot of the

bed.

But that was years ago when it was fashionable, when hospitals that would even

admit coloreds were too expensive to afford and too far away to drive. But now all that

had changed. Seemed like everybody went to the hospital to have children. Yet they

weren't going to the hospital to die, so that's where Mama Byrd found her new job:

delivering souls.

In Harlem, folks came to Mama Byrd’s to die. Joy was no exception.

In a hot little kitchen with green walls and yellow floral patterned curtains at the

windows, Joy sat in a chair at the table as Mama Byrd stood behind her and combed

through Joy’s hair. She hummed a hymn as she did so, every so often getting a little too

passionate and pricking Joy’s scalp with the teeth of the comb. Joy felt like a child again;

Mama Byrd’s was taking care of her.

“I don’t do funerals. They know I don’t do funerals.”

Joy rubbed that spot, the one right at her waist line, that pained her so.

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“I don’t want to see Daddy like that, spread out in some casket. I’m not going

down there to see that.”

Mama Byrd simply kept combing.

“What about your boy? Don’t you think a boy needs his mama at a time like

this?”

Joy attempted to shake her head no, but Mama Byrd held it steady as she

continued to comb.

“Jackson needs his mama.”

Joy spoke the boy’s full name: Paul Jackson Taylor. She had wanted him called

Paulie, but Miss Mamie hadn’t liked it. She had said that she didn’t want her grandson

named after some ole ghost. She wouldn’t ever use it. At the time, it didn’t much matter

to Joy, she’d call him one thing, and Miss Mamie would call him another, but now it

seemed it did matter. There was an importance of names.

“Paulie’ll be alright.”

“He will,” Mama Byrd began, “once you talk to him. Once you tell him. A child

ought to know.” They were no longer simply talking of Tom’s death. “How sick are you

child?”

Joy thought back to the hospital visits. She had been in and out of them for the

last two weeks, and Seven had been at her side, not holding her hand, but closer than he’d

ever been by her in public before. She remembered the doctor’s sad expression, his

serious tone as he announced, despite his Middle Eastern appearance, in a T.V. news

reporter voice, in perfect English: Ovaries. Cancer. Malignant. Metastasize. Stage III.

Terminal. He had said terminal.

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Yet as he said this, Joy had studied his lips, his olive skin, his five o’clock

shadow, his large hands, fingers, no ring. In another place, at another time, with no

Seven by her side, she would have had him begging for her. She would have put on the

Taylor charm, and convinced him that she was his Nubian princess.

The thought had almost made her forget his words. Almost.

“Honey child,” Mama Byrd cooed. “It’s gonna be all right.” She stroked Joy’s

face with the side of her wrinkled hand.

Joy didn’t want Mama Byrd’s sympathy or gentle strokes. She wanted her magic.

She wanted to know how to beat this thing. How to mix up some herbal teas to cleanse

her system of this cancer. These destructive cells overtaking her ovaries, her liver, her

body.

“You got any spells in your cabinets, Mama Byrd, any secrets in your

cupboards?” Joy laughed because she had to. Mama Byrd laughed at the foolishness of

it all. No amount of back woods magic could cure cancer.

Joy rose and spun around the room, opening up drawers and cabinets like a little

girl looking for a treat. This is what she’d done back then, in Warren Hills, when she’d

needed, desperately needed Seven’s love, she’d turned to Mama Byrd. Mama Byrd had

laughed then too, at first, but then had taught her how to cast spells with her lips and her

voice.

“Whatcha got in here? In here? Over there?” If she’d brought it with her to the

city, Joy would find it.

Mama Byrd didn’t move during Joy’s performance. When Joy settled down,

Mama Byrd spoke. “The only cure you gonna find, girl, is back at home.”

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Joy knew it was true. Her daddy’s voice had never stopped haunting her. Come

on home, it said, come home.

But Joy was headstrong on not giving in to him again.

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1954

When Joy was fifteen she began sneaking out every other night searching out Ole

Paul. Ole Paul, word had it, didn't know he was dead. Joy heard the slave would

scamper down Trinity Church Road every night running due north. Brave schoolboys

would straddle the middle of the dirt road blocking his path trying to catch him. But that

wouldn't stop Ole Paul, they said. Ole Paul would keep moving, running right through

them, giving them momentary chills.

"Where you off to so fast, Ole Paul," they'd call out.

He'd never answer. Yet the very next night he'd be in the same spot, kicking up

gravel and dirt in his path, not gaining ground. At least that's what Joy's daddy told her.

From the first time her daddy had crept into the house late, blaming Ole Paul,

Joy's interest had been piqued. On the nights when Mamie chewed him out Joy knew her

daddy would be ready to tell an Ole Paul story. Joy would wait for Mamie to stop

fussing, then make her way into the main room. Without him even asking, she'd pour her

daddy a drink and would sit down on the footstool beside his favorite chair. Her daddy

would kick back his feet, sip on his drink, and think hard. Once his eyes had reddened,

his speech slightly slurred, when Joy was sure he wouldn't remember a word of it in the

morning, that's when she'd ask about Ole Paul.

40

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Once he told her that Ole Paul had killed his master and led a revolt that nearly

toppled over slavery. Some times Ole Paul didn't seem so glorious, just a slave that had

tried to escape, had run in circles, and was captured the very next day. Other times her

daddy didn't seem so sure that Ole Paul was a slave at all. All her daddy knew for sure

was that Ole Paul haunted the road next to Warren County's finest hole in the wall, and

held him up on the way back home.

Joy walked up and down Trinity Church Road longing to see Ole Paul for herself,

but she never saw Ole Paul. The only man she saw was Old Richard, with his slicked

back hair and beady eyes, blue-black skin against a starched white work shirt, smoking

Philly blunts under a Sassafras tree. The tree propped him up since the Jim Beam by his

side kept him falling over.

"Where you off to, little Miss," he called out that first night.

Joy took a deep breath, and exhaled through her nostrils.

"Wherever you ain't."

Old Richard reached down and found his bottle, took a swig and sighed.

"Honey, I'm everywhere."

Richardwas everywhere. When Joy would go over to Joe's Side Street Market to

buy tomatoes and celery, Richard was there, packing her bags. When she went to visit

her uncle Willie down in The Grove, she saw Richard working in Willie's fields, pulling

tobacco. Once when their sink overflowed and Miss Mamie called a plumber, Richard

arrived. Each time Richard saw her he'd stop, smile, and tip his hat.

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Joy didn't really care much for Richard, but his smile was contagious, and each

time he smiled, she smiled back. Each time he would pat her hand, she'd pat his back. So

naturally, the first time he kissed her, she kissed him back.

Then the offers came.

"Wanna take a ride in my Cadillac?"

"Wanna join me for a slice of pecan pie at Clem's Cafe?"

"Wanna come over to my place and watch a little color TV? Check out my blues

records?"

Joy wasn't too impressed, but Sally Davis was, and Flora Mable was, and Tina

Harper thought Joy was lying through her teeth when Joy told her about the offers.

Richard, they all had heard, was a hard worker, knew how to take care of his women, and

his previous girl had lived a charmed life until she had passed away of leukemia.

When Joy stepped out of Richard's Cadillac at the front of the schoolhouse, all

their mouths dropped open. Richard handed Joy a few dollars through his open window

and winked.

"Have a good day, honey."

Soon, Joy was sneaking home more than sneaking out. She spent more and more

time at Richard's house on Trinity Church Road and started coming home to Miss Mamie

later than daddy. After a while, Miss Mamie stopped noticing her husband's lateness and

started chewing out Joy. Joy tried blaming Ole Paul, but Miss Mamie didn't believe it.

Her daddy didn't either.

"Awh, hush up now," Daddy said once. "You ain't seen Ole Paul."

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But Joy was sure she had. She could have sworn she heard rusty shackles

echoing outside the night she first made love to Richard. She could have sworn she felt a

chill go through her the night she found Richard slouched over at that same Sassafras tree

too drunk to understand when she told him she was pregnant. She could have sworn she

heard Ole Paul laughing the night Miss Mamie shook her head crying, the night Joy

packed her bags one final time and left her mama's house for good to live with the father

of her child to be. That night she was almost sure Ole Paul was near. She couldn't prove

it, but she was sure that Ole Paul had lived in the same spot where Richard lived now.

How else could she explain the way her skin tingled and crawled when she unpacked her

stuff that night she moved in with him?

Richard's house was haunted; she knew it for a fact.

When she was six months pregnant, Joy claimed she would name their unborn

child Paul no matter if it were a boy or a girl. Richard laughed. He didn't believe in Ole

Paul. Said he'd lived on Trinity Church Road all his life and had never seen a ghost. Yet

Joy was more convinced than ever that the ghost existed.

It had been a year since Joy had given up searching out that ghost, but now it

seemed the spook was searching for her. Though she'd never seen him, she'd heard him

all over her new house. When the floors creaked in the backroom she yelled out, "Stop it,

Ole Paul." When the dog barked at the wind blowing she calmed him, "Ain't nobody but

Ole Paul." But Richard never heard him though, because Richard was always out

working, or so he claimed.

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When the first storm of the monsoon season hit, stronger than any that had ever

brewed in Warren County before, Joy stared out the rain streaked window and was

certain that she finally saw the man haunting the edge of her property. She watched in

wonder as a flicker of light bobbed up and down near the edge of the woods.

Ole Paul, she thought,will this be the night you show yoface?

Something about the prospect of revelation scared her. Made her nervous about

finally confronting what’d haunted her for years. Joy steadied herself and held her

breath.

Sometimes Joy forgot to breathe. Gasping for air she'd fumble around in a

trance, searching out her inhaler to help pace her breaths. She had her first attack when

she was thirteen. Her mama had gotten on her about beingfresh sowith the boys at

school. The switching Joy received that night had stung her legs and hurt her heart. So

with little thought or plan, she waited for nightfall then ran away from home for the first

time.

Alan Hardy found her by the creek staring at the welts on her legs. She found a

moment of tenderness in his arms. Then he found a paper bag and told her to suck in the

air, then blow. That was the first time she'd lost her breath.

Now, a few years later, just as she thought she’d outgrown it, she found herself

gasping again.

Joy sat rocking for hours watching raindrops seep through the roof planks,

plummet towards the floor, and hit the bottom of her pans with a thud. The sound was

constant, not unlike the beating of a drum. Joy constantly emptied full water pans down

the sink and retook her seat. She sat in darkness, in silence, as her mother had instructed

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her many years before: “Hush up now, during a thunderstorm. Let the Lord do his

work.”

When headlights peered through the front curtains, throwing strange shadows on

the walls, Joy ran out onto the front porch expecting Richard, but finding Miss Mamie

with a mother's worried eyes.

"Figured I'd come keep you companyhe gets till home." Mamie added, "First

storm of the year's always the worst. I remember when storms used to scare you half to

death."

"I don't," she paused. "But you might as well come on in out this weather. . .

Since you come all this way and all."

Joy took out a pack of Newports and a lighter. As her mother stepped onto the

porch, lightening lighting her path, Joy tapped the package against her palm. She wanted

to show her mother how grown she was. And she was for a sixteen-year-old.

"Joy, I wish you wouldn't. You're expecting for God's sake."

"It helps regulate my breath."

"Have you had one of your spells?"

Joy stuck a cigarette in her mouth and squinted as she attempted to light it. When

she raised her cupped right hand to block the wind, she let her new silver bracelets, gifts

from Richard, jingle.

"I'm fine, Mama. Fine."

"Really, how are things?"

Joy straightened her back and leveled her shoulders. She let out a stream of

smoke.

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"Everything's just fine, peachy even." She ushered Miss Mamie inside. "Richard

got that new job at the pickle plant. Sure he'll be management soon. Work all the time,

saving so he can get me an even bigger ring." Joy flashed her wedding ring and smiled.

Miss Mamie didn't bother to look, instead she turned around and sighed. "Devil's

sure giving his mistress a good whipping tonight."

"There ain't no such thing as the Devil, and if so, he sure as hell don't have no

wife."

"Bible says there's a Heaven and a Hell," Miss Mamie lingered on each word.

Joy coughed then patted her chest. She took another drag off her cigarette.

Miss Mamie wandered around the room; she sneered at the rain-filled pans and

rolled her eyes at the creaking floorboards. She ended her wandering at the back window

where she adjusted the thin, veil-like curtains mercilessly.

About that time, the shadowy figure with a bobbing lantern reappeared moving in

and out of the woods’ edge.

"Ya'll got neighbors?"

"Not for half a mile in any direction."

"Then who the hell was that?"

Had her mama seen him too?

"Ghost of Ole Paul, I reckon?"

"More like some lost fool."

Miss Mamie volunteered to take the dog down and see for herself. But when Joy

gazed hard out the window and saw the shadowy figure's side-tipped hat, she sighed

heavily in displeasure and mumbled, "Damn it all to hell.” Before Miss Mamie could

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rouse the dog, Joy had put on her hood and was out the door, chasing down the mystery

man who haunted the back of her fields.

When Miss Mamie witnessed Joy grab the man by the collar and start walking

back to the house with him in tow, she knew who it was.

"Richard, what's wrong with you!"

Richard staggered and swayed.

"I tell ya Miss Taylor, I come up to that field, and I look and I see this house." He

staggered. "But it don't look like my house. I went back to the woods cuz I figure I had

come out the wrong side of the field." He swayed. "So I come back out and I see this

house, and it still don’t look like my house."

The com wine had Richard's house messed up and his wife furious.

Richard shrugged. He had found himself working less and less at his actual job at

the pickle factory in Shady Creek, and more and more at the com liquor still. The liquor

still that the neighborhood men had put together down in the woods by the creek kept all

of them, especially Richard. This was Richard's new secret, one that he thought was his

secret alone. Yet Joy knew well of her husband's secrets. All the women down Trinity

Church Road knew more than their husbands thought they knew. As they hung up their

laundry on the clotheslines or took Sunday strolls down the street to pick wild berries,

they'd call to each other and laugh, "Yo husband down the creek fishing?" There was

never much need for cleaning fish in the afternoon.

Miss Mamie said dryly, “Does your husband always work so hard?"

"I don't work on Sundays," Richard exclaimed before thinking better of it.

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As she helped Richard to the bedroom, she saw the dark features of her father,

alcohol-laced breath and all, and it scared her.

"Joy, you too young to be putting up with this foolishness," she heard her mother

say as they passed.

Joy pushed back her loose hair and thought one good minute.

"How old were you Mama, when you stopped putting up with foolishness?"

After the storm had passed and Joy had shooed her mama home, she lay down

beside her drunken husband. Richard kissed Joy goodnight and the stench of alcohol

filled her nostrils. He then rolled over and passed out. There was a time when Joy would

have spooned with him, smelling his skin and holding on to his flesh, lovingly calling

him her man, her suga daddy. Now, she simply turned her back to his. This is not what

she had expected. She had expected pampering, the gifts she’d grown accustomed to.

She had expected her mother to be jealous of how well she’d done for herself, of her nice

car, big house, and modern electric refrigerator full of expensive store bought milk and

eggs ad real butter. She hadn’t expected car repossession, a leaky roof, a drunk.

As Richard snored, Joy stared at the picture on her nightstand. It was a black and

white picture of a young Mama Byrd, one that showed her pretty and full of life, with her

hair a mix of braids and ribbon adorned curls. Joy studied those charcoal eyes. The

moonlight filtered in through the window as if it were a spotlight on the picture. A

strange comfort.

Joy tried all she could to fall asleep that night, but every time she laid her head

upon her pillow and closed her eyes she could have sworn she heard twin heartbeats,

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strong and loud, reverberant against the bed and echoing in her ear. The sound, slow and

constant, was not unlike the beating of a drum.

That night she dreamed of Ole Paul killing his master and leading a slave revolt.

He followed the Underground Railroad up towards freedom. Joy woke in a sweat,

gasping for breath.

The next day, she ran away north.

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FIRST OF SEPTEMBER, 1969

There were some things you just didn’t do. Missing your daddy’s funeral was one

of those things. No matter what. Miss Mamie had told Joy this. She didn’t understand

why the girl was so hard headed and wouldn’t listen. As Miss Mamie entered the church

with her grandson, the pain of her missing husband and daughter weighed heavily on her

heart. She fanned herself with the program, the one that still announced her daughter and

son-in-law as delivering the eulogy, and leaned on her grandson’s shoulder. Today, he

was her crutch.

The packed church looked at Miss Mamie as she entered and everyone within

seemed to make a motion, with their heads, their mouths, their fists, to show their

solidarity with her, to show their empathy, but Miss Mamie kept strong. No more tears,

she thought, she’d shed enough of those while Tom was alive.

As she made her way to the casket, she couldn’t decide if she wanted to see him

one last time or not. Maybe she’d look away or maybe she’d close her eyes and pray for

his soul. He needed that. When people had come with their lilies, shook her hands and

said, “He’s in a better place,” she had hoped that they were right, but there was no

telling.When she was before him, her eyes focused on him before she’d had the

opportunity to decide to look away. Her eyes were stuck on his lips. Were they pouting?

50

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Surely he wasn’t pouting. How’d he have the nerve to pout?

“I’m bringing her home,” the voice was in her ear as if by an invisible force.

“We’ll be a family again.” Miss Mamie crumbled over on top of the casket. Her legs had

given way at the sound of his voice. Jackson held on to her, pulled her up.

The congregation had been waiting for this. They hollered out, “Let him go

child,” and “It’s alright, baby,” and “Praise the Lord, Amen.”

They didn’t understand. They hadn’t heard him. They hadn’t heard him speak

the words that Miss Mamie had longed for him to say all these years. A family. That’s

all she had wanted, a family that worshipped together and sat around at the table together,

and tucked each other end at night after their prayers. She had wanted them all to be

together at night in their small house, under warm home-sewn blankets, dreaming of the

future together. Loving one another.

*

She knew Seven was waiting for her in the hospital room, but she had wanted to

be anywhere but there. There, in the Brooklyn Community Health Center, in that room,

the doctor had confirmed all the tests. Terminal. He had said inoperable. That was a

truth that Joy wasn’t ready to hear. A truth Mama Byrd had known even without the

fancy equipment and tests.

To avoid the truth, Joy had lived in her fantasy. She wandered the halls of the

pediatrics ward and pretended to be candy striper and brought the kids lollipops she had

confiscated from some nurse’s station. She ran into the room of an octogenarian and for

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a moment was recognized as a longed-missed granddaughter, who received hugs and

kisses until the woman’s real daughter entered the room. Joy went outside in back of the

hospital to the smoking nook, and bummed a cigarette off a male doctor. She told him

about how hard her shift had been, and how working with all these sick people all day

made her sick. How she couldn’t wait to get home.

When she finally returned to her hospital room she was happy again.

“Where you been, girl?” Seven always began this way. It was his recognizable

opening line, followed by some fake compliment.

“Doing the rounds, you know,” Joy began. “Gotta keep busy.”

Joy took a seat on the hospital bed. She took off her shoes and stretched out. Her

adventures had worn her down. She was out of breath and tired, two conditions that were

becoming more frequent.

“Joy, I been thinking.”

Joy knew that tone. This was the tone of a man searching in pockets at the bus

station for phantom tickets. This was the tone of a man who wanted to invest all their

savings in a bid whist tournament.

“Didn’t your uncle Sonny leave something to you, a big piece of change you been

keeping in the bank in case something happened, isn’t that what you said?”

It had been years since Joy’d told that lie. She barely remembered it. It was one

of the first things she’d said to him when she thought the roots weren’t working and

thought he’d leave her for some better opportunity. Perhaps they’d still been in Carolina

when she’d made that up.

“Well ain’t now one of those times?”

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He was right. The cost of the hospital bills wasn’t cheap and any savings right

now could help. But then again, the money she’d been willed wasn’t real, didn’t exist.

“Maybe we should get a lawyer. Draw up a will.”

Joy felt that sharp pain again; she thought it’d kill her. Perhaps the roots hadn’t

worked. Perhaps Mama Byrd’s magic wasn’t real. After five years together, Seven still

only saw her as bus fare, she was still being hustled. Was there ever love?

Joy’s pain was so miserable that she screamed at Seven to go get the nurse.

Seven slowly rose and left the room. When he returned with the nurse, she asked

the nurse to close the curtain and tell her husband to take a seat in the waiting room. The

pain she needed to show the nurse no man should see.

When Seven was long gone, Joy asked the nurse to fetch her a phone. She had to

call her next in kin, Mama Byrd. Mama Byrd would get her out of this. Mama Byrd

would help her get home.

*

The car ride to church was silent. It usually was on Sunday mornings, especially

now that his granddaddy was dead. In the past, the Sunday morning discussions were

usually about why his granddaddy’s excuses for not going to church were not credible in

the eyes of the Lord, or how fearful Mamie was for Tom and Joy’s souls since they both

seemed bent on courting the devil. But now there was less to talk about.

Jackson rolled down his window a bit to allow the wind a chance to speak, to

break the silence. Mamie shivered. He rolled the window up.

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“I’m glad today’s Sunday,” Jackson said. The words came out of his mouth

awkwardly. “I’ve got a lot to pray about today.”

“You don’t need to go to church to talk to God son. You can talk to him anytime.

I do.”

“Do you think God is vengeful?” Jackson asked.

Mamie didn’t answer.

Jackson wondered if she saw her husband’s death as vengeful, he was so young,

only in his fifties, and he’d been sinful. Was this God’s vengeance?

“Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering,” Jackson paused a moment to allow the silence to replenish the

air.

“What happened to Uncle Sonny?”

“God, rest his soul,” Miss Mamie said, as if that were the answer Jackson was

looking for.

“I want to know . . . I mean, he was a good person, a pious person. I don’t

understand.”

“It’s the Lord’s plan,” she said. “He has His ways, His plan, His rules.” Jackson

had been taught all this, but unlike his mother, he was trying to figure it all out. He was

trying to unlock the divine secrets. Both his granddaddy and his great uncle had been

taken home to glory early. Only Uncle J, the oldest, with a failing memory and ailing

condition, had survived to an old age and was now being taken care of by his son Danny.

Were his father and Uncle Sonny not as pious, religious, dutiful?

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Jackson had always been the dutiful son. He had always blessed the table before

family dinners, prayed for his loved ones and the less fortunate at night, and had usually

accompanied his mother to church even when his dad had needed him to errands or help

him in the fields.

“Gotta go to church first,” he’d always tell his granddaddy, “Gotta take Mama to

church.” He said this as if he drove, as if he were dropping her off or escorting her down

the aisle to her pew. It was a duty, but one he had enjoyed. He treasured the alone time

with his mother, listening to the inspiration church choir, spending time during the

sermon daydreaming about how wonderful heaven could be - the splendor and the

exuberance.

Today though he wanted to find his Uncle Sonny. He wanted to see Sonny’s

grave incase, by some chance, someone would have scribbled the cause of death there. A

cause that his grandma nor his granddaddy would speak.

His boots sank deep into the red earth tilting his muscular frame and almost

caused him to fall over onto his uncle’s grave. Steadying himself the best he could,

Jackson folded his black umbrella, then used the tip to brush away wind blown branches

and dead leaves in order to reveal the partially submerged name plaque. To his

annoyance, the name remained covered by a layer of wet soil.

Beside him Uncle J, Jackson’s senile great uncle, crouched over his cane. He had

met Jackson in the parking lot outside the service, and when Jackson told him where he

was going to the graveyard, Uncle J had volunteered to help him find Sonny’s grave. But

Jackson remembered where Sonny was buried. Uncle J’s presence was a burden, a child

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to baby sit while trying to take care of business. Uncle J was old, senile, could hardly

walk or remember his own name.

"What's your name again young man," Uncle J asked as Jackson knelt down and

scooped away mud from the grave's nameplate with his hands.

"Young man?"

Jackson read the uncovered name aloud: "Samuel Taylor." So that was Sonny’s

real name?

“I don't think I know a Samuel,” Uncle J said.

Jackson looked back over his shoulders. Weak, ancient eyes stared back down at

him in confusion. Jackson shook his head once he realized the old man was serious in his

question. He attempted to stand up, but the soft ground thought better of it and thwarted

his attempts. The old man held on tight to his cane with one hand and reached out to

Jackson with his other. The two wobbled, then slowly steadied each other.

"No, no, not Samuel. It's me, Jackson ... Jackson Taylor. Remember?"

The old man's eyebrows lifted.

"Taylor? I'm a Taylor too!" The man smiled. "Maybe we kin."

"We are kin, Uncle J; you're my granddaddy's older brother."

The man, for the first time, seemed truly lost.

"Uncle J, it's me Jackson. Remember, I was named after you and my sister after

your wife."

"You Tom’s grandson?"

Jackson nodded and tried to smile. "Why were you in the parking lot alone Uncle

J? Where's Danny?"

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"Back in the church, I s'pose. He'll be looking for me after while. Told him I was

going to the bathroom, I...but You seen Vera Joy, she told me she was going to Bible

study then to church. I told her I was going over to the bluff, then I'd meet her here, but I

can't find her."

The man looked past the church to the overgrown path that led to the bluff, the

place where the men gambled while their wives studied the Good Lord's book. It had

been years since anyone had even gone over to that landing. It had been even longer

since Vera Joy - Uncle J’s wife - had been alive.

Jackson followed the man's gaze then looked back to the spot in the cemetery

where he knew Aunt Vera would be: an adjacent grave, simple with no headstone, just a

small mound of cement with faded blue plastic flowers laying across the body.

"I'm ready to go," the old man shouted. "Lost ten whole dollars by the bluff.

What's taking her so long? Think she okay? Think she gonna get here soon?"

Jackson saw the man's hope like a ghost rising before them.

"Yeah, Uncle J. She'll be back soon."

Jackson slowly guided the old man back towards the church. He’d have to

commune with Sonny some other time.

"So you said Danny's in the church?"

The man looked as serious as ever.

"What's your name again, young man?"

"Jackson. Jackson Taylor."

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The man searched out some sort of validation in Jackson’s eyes. What he found

brought back a memory. He stopped in his path and opened his mouth wide. Before

long, a story came out.

"You probably don't remember this, but back when your folks lived on Old Man

Edwards’ land, I used to take you to fetch water."

Jackson didn't remember, but something about the man's tone told him not to

dismiss what he said. He had heard his father talk many times about how tough times

where when he share cropped on Old Man Edwards’ land. Jackson wasn't too young to

remember living there in the days of sharecropping; he was well past five before they

moved to the house on the other side of the Edwards’ place. The original house lacked

plumbing but had a wood iron stove they’d all had to gather around in winter, wearing

quilts and praying for spring. For some reason he never remembered the outhouse in the

back and the fact that they hadn’t had running water there. He’d heard his father mention

it on more than one occasion, though, the hassle of fetching water.

"It was right over there, you know, Old Man Edwards’ land. It stretched from

that side of the church way over yonder to the riverbanks. And all us lived on it. Your

daddy and me, John Willard had a place, Uncle Thomas and his folks, those Bullock

people. All us worked in Old Man Edwards’ fields. Sho nuff. None of us had running

water and everyone had to come up here to the church spring twice a day. Everyone

except you and me.”

"I'd come get you early in the morning and we'd walk nearly two miles in the

other direction to get to that spring near Riverdale Road. You see, we knew our

geography, and we knew our science, and we knew that the well water here at the church

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lies right underneath all these dead people. And after a couple of years dead when all

them preserving chemicals seep out of these bodies, those chemicals going straight to the

well water. So you and me, we were smart, we took that mile-long walk to fetch fresh

water. Of course, it was a long walk back with those heavy jugs, and sometimes I

couldn't go with you, so you'd have to go alone, and oh how I worried about you.

Because yo folks thought you were going to the church spring, but I knew you were

going to the fresh spring, much further away. To get to that spring you had to cross over

the road, you had to go through white people's land that you didn't know, and some of

those white boys rather hang a nigger than let one go through they property.

Jackson thought hard. He couldn't remember the long walks with Uncle J to fetch

water. He couldn't even remember fetching water at all.

"But I wasn't worried but so much, cuz I knew you had that same fighting spirit as

my brother Sonny in you. And I knew that long walk to fetch water was worth it. Cuz

think about it, all them others, the Bullucks, the Williards, they done all died out. But

you and me, we still here."

"Tell me about Uncle Sonny," Jackson said.

The old man's knees wobbled and teetered a moment. Jackson helped him steady

himself again.

"What's your name again young man?"

In the distance people spilled out of Mt. Olive Baptist Church as the piano player

kept pounding out songs that sounded more like down-home blues than church hymnals.

Big women in even bigger frayed and ribbons hats, laughed and gossiped on the church

steps. Their voices carried in the wind, divulging secrets of the service. They told the

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wind about how service had stretched out long past four hours and how the paper fans,

nothing more than a piece of cardboard paper imprinted with funeral home ads attached

to an oversized Popsicle stick, had done little to cool down Aunt Isobel who had fainted

twice during the preacher's hour-long sermon. They told of how there had been a pretty

good guest choir, much better than the host choir, and how Sister Katie, Mt. Olive Choir

director and soloist, had purposely started a powerful communion prayer during the the

guest choir's rendition of "I Know It Was the Blood" in order to take attention off of their

fine singing. And They counted at least seven people who had gotten the Holy Ghost.

Though They skipped over Sister Patty, who didn't really matter since she got the Holy

Ghost every Sunday, and some said, Monday through Saturday, too.

Suddenly Jackson didn't feel like seeing any of the church people. He wanted to

know about Sonny.

When Jackson saw a man that looked liked Danny stepping out of the church, he

pointed to him and ushered his uncle towards him.

"Take care of yourself Uncle J." He shook the man’s hand and embraced him as

brothers do before he took off running towards Grandma’s car. He was on a mission.

Drive mother home. Call up Mama Byrd.

*

Meanwhile Uncle J began aimlessly walking toward the bluff. The man whom

Jackson had mistaken as Danny didn't even notice. He made his way to his car and

ventured home. Home too, was on Uncle J's mind. Not long after Jackson had left him,

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he found himself lost in the woods. He tried hard to gather his bearing, but everything

had changed so. The saplings had grown to trees, the springs had dried up. After finally

making his way to a dirt road, he decided he would take it wherever it led him. He

walked and walked until he figured out where he was, only a few miles away from home.

Tired from the walk, yet with many miles left to go, Uncle J lifted his legs into the

air, and let the wind carry him home.

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1964

It seemed it always rained when someone Jackson knew died. It rained for weeks

after his Great Uncle Sonny died. Jackson was only ten and hadn’t paid much attention

to the preacher or the actual ceremony. He’d drawn dancing stick figures on the back of

the funeral program to keep himself occupied and had sung to himself a Howlin’ Wolf

song as the choir sang Sonny’s favorite song, but what Jackson did pay attention to at the

funeral was the constant rain. It rained so much that Jackson could hardly keep his

footing next to the casket. His grandma, standing beside him at the grave, kept nudging

Jackson with his elbow, trying to make him stop squirming during the preacher’s eulogy,

yet Jackson kept squirming. He feared that if he didn’t, he’d sink into the earth along with

the dead man. His granddaddy too had made a face at Jackson, telling him to stop acting

“peculiar” under his breath as the preacher continued to preach and Jackson continued to

squirm.

But as the family made the short walk together from the gravesite towards the

right side of Mt. Olive Baptist Church where the new fellowship hall had been built for

occasions just like this, the skies cleared and the sun appeared. By the time they’d made

it inside this new wing of the church, the sun was lighting the room through the many

stained-glass windows that lined the hall and filling the place with color.

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Except for Jackson, no one seemed to notice the weather. The entire family was

busy laughing, eating, and storytelling. There were very few tears. There was no time for

it. Instead everyone was telling their own story or lie about Uncle Sonny. They all sat

around the fellowship hall, basking in the sunlight, spinning tales. Remembering him.

The room was filled with sisters and brothers, some related by blood, others by

name, most not truly relatives. Yet all of them, related or not, were called Sister So-n-So,

Brother What’s-His-Name. They were all brothers and sisters here, here to moum the

passing of another loved one, another brother. In reality, no one knew who was related to

whom in the distant past. Everyone here had large immediate families, but the extensions

were tricky. Men moved around so much to find jobs. Families were used to being

split-up. It was a tradition lingering from slavery’s days. And it was hard for any black

family to trace back great grandparents and great-great grandparents. An X on one man’s

property list looked just like an X on another’s. So here, on Trinity Church Road, they all

broke bread together. They all drank wine together. They all were sisters and brothers.

Yet Jackson felt a disconnect. He sat fidgeting at the table, listening to the stories

not telling any of his own. He looked around at the family. When he peered into the

faces of his family he saw his grandma’s eyes, Joy’s lips, his daddy’s prominent Taylor

chin. Yet no one looked like him, save Uncle Sonny, dead now.

“Was Uncle Sonny really your brother,” he’d asked his granddaddy years before.

“He didn’t look like you.”

“Course he was. When we were younger, we looked like twins,” he’d replied.

On the day of the funeral, Jackson only had one question.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “How’d he die?” The question was innocent, but his granddaddy and grandma

gave Jackson the eye.

“That ain’t a proper question at a homegoing service,” his grandma chided.

Jackson started to argue the question, but thought better of it. You didn’t argue

with Grandma, especially not in front of folks. He put his head down on the table and

stared out the window. The sun was letting in the most radiant light Jackson had ever

seen.

That night, when they returned home, he and his grandma had gone inside the

house, his granddaddy to the shed. He’d stayed so long that supper time had come and

gone and now both grandma and grandson drifted in and out of sleep on the couch.

“Go fetch him to bed,” she’d said to Jackson as she got up to go turn down the

bed covers.

Jackson made his way down to the shed and quietly peered inside the doorway.

He watched his granddaddy inside, putting his matches back on top of the cigar box he

left on the high shelf in the shed. He then spotted Jackson stepped out of the shed and

closed the door. He looked at his grandson and laughed.

“Mamie sent you down here?”

Jackson nodded.

“You know she can’t keep her mind out of my business. She used to send your

mother down here, you know.”

Jackson nodded again. He did know. He knew this story.

“Joy used to come down here to get me sometimes, and I’d bribe her not to tell

Mamie by giving her a little sip, you see I used to stash a little quality moonshine down

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here.” His granddaddy walked him towards the back porch, telling the same old story

he’d told many times before, but this time it had occurred to Jackson that the stash still

existed, that maybe there’d be a little jar with his name on it. Tonight the story would

end with him getting his first sip.

But it didn’t.

Jackson’s granddaddy went on into the house and bid his grandson good night.

But Jackson couldn’t sleep yet. He was curious. He was jealous. When would he get his

first nip?

Before long he had snuck back to the shed, searching out his granddaddy’s

moonshine. If his mama had deserved a taste when she was his age, he sure enough did

as well. He searched and searched but found nothing, but the stash of cigars, high up on

the shelf, but not high enough to keep out of hands of a thirteen-year old with a little

height on him and the ingenuity to turn a bucket upside down and use for a foot stool.

It was the excitement of being like his granddaddy, being a man that incited

Jackson to light a match and, just as he’d seen his daddy do a thousand times, carefully

smell, lick, then light the cigar as if it were a prized possession. He coughed for minutes

and got an instant headache from the smoke, but he felt like he’d done something that

grown folks did. He felt that, like his granddaddy, he had his own little secret in the shed.

But his secret hadn’t been his for long. When Mamie discovered him in the shed,

an hour later, after she’d checked his bed and found him missing, he received twice the

number of licks than usual from a switch that she made him fetch. But it was well worth

it. It was also somehow satisfying to Jackson when an enraged Mamie told his

granddaddy in front of him, and his granddaddy had only shrugged and said, “Boys will

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be boys.” The words meant very little to his granddaddy, but a tremendous amount to

Jackson. It was a change from his normal “the boy’s too damn timid” or “he’s peculiar.”

In Jackson’s mind boy’s will be boys was like saying men will be men.

That night, when his grandma put him to bed, Jackson still had a lot on his mind.

“How did Uncle Sonny die? You and granddaddy never told me.”

His grandma answered his question without missing a beat.

“It don’t matter how he died honey. Truth is, he gone. It was his time and the

good Lord took him on home.”

Her answer wasn’t satisfying, but she was done.

From downstairs they could hear Granddaddy playing the piano. He was singing

the blues for no one’s ears but his own.

As Jackson slept, the music and the cigar smoke concocted a spell inside him.

When he woke the next morning, somehow, as if by voodoo, he new each one of his

granddaddy’s sad songs by heart, as if somehow they were now his own. His body

carried him to the piano, and at 4 A.M., as his granddaddy rose to go feed the hogs,

Jackson was banging out the blues.

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OCTOBER, 1969

In October, God proved his existence to Jackson Taylor. There was no lightening.

No earthquake shook the foundations of Warren Hills. Yet He had acted quickly and

biblically, taking Victor from this earth the very moment Jackson had thought of him, in

that way, lying in the shed with his hand down his own pants. Jackson was sure that’s

when it happened. As he had smiled in the shed, the truck had lost control down

Highway 1, run off the road right before the Steel Bridge, hit a tree and flipped over

crushing Victor’s fifteen-year-old body. This was God’s punishment.

He shouldn’t have had those thoughts, there, in the same shed where his

granddaddy had died. But he had figured this was the spot for secrets, where his

granddaddy had snuck off to hide from Miss Mamie, where his mama Joy had first tasted

alcohol. Yet his act alone had desecrated it. He hadn’t known it then, when he breathed

hard and daydreamed, but the next day, at school, when the news spread and Jackson saw

Victor’s best friend, Torres, walking the halls alone for the first time, a great sense of

shame gripped him. It was all his fault.

Jackson had hardly known them, the two interlopers in the black school, too dark

for the white school but too different to be accepted here. Jackson’s granddaddy had told

him to be suspicious of them. They were different, he had said last school year when

67

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Jackson had first mentioned them. You can’t trust them, he warned, and you can hardly

understand them. Surely other parents had warned their kids as well since it seemed at the

high school no one spoke to the two. Yet Jackson was fascinated by both of them. He

loved listening to them speak Spanish during lunch and admired their speed and agility

on the basketball court. No one knew it, and Jackson had a hard time understanding it

himself, but he eventually found himself studying them as if they were some foreign

species of bird just discovered in a new environment. He sketched pictures of them in the

margins of his books and charted their schedule on a spare notepad.

Soon he knew for a fact that Victor went to the restroom twice a day. He

wondered why they both seemed to disappear thrice a week during gym. He noted that

Torres arrived late to school almost every day. Jackson had watched from the classroom

door as the two - best friends if not more - came and went. He wondered if they knew

how lucky they were to have each other, to share such an intimate connection and not be

questioned. He wondered if they knew how lucky they were to share a private language

that no one else around understood, so that they could discuss their secrets in front of the

world.

But sin had arrived the day Jackson noticed how different the two were from each

other. Jackson had pulled a muscle in his leg and had gotten permission from the teacher

to exit the game of basketball, go to the locker room, and ice up. As he hobbled into the

locker room he saw Victor, standing by the bench in front of the underclassmen’s lockers,

with his back to the entrance door. Jackson tried not to stare, but he couldn’t help

himself. He watched as Victor changed out of his gym short into his burgundy pants that

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fit snugly around his shapely ass. When Victor turned around and looked directly at

Jackson, both boys were startled.

At that moment Jackson realized that Victor was more handsome than he’d first

thought. His dark hair was curlier, his full lips were topped with a thin line of fuzz

already, his body was trim, muscular. Jackson wondered if Torres knew how handsome

he was.

Jackson looked down and hobbled to the bench. He acted out his injury.

Exaggerated the pain, so that Victor would know that he was in the locker room for other

reasons than for just peeping at him.

“You okay,” Victor questioned. His English sounded foreign, but his accent like

music.

Jackson nodded and tried to act unconcerned with Victor’s presence. Inside,

however, his body was feverish being so close to the subject of so many of observations.

He was now sitting inches away from the best bird in the school.

“Hey, I’m sorry to hear about your granddad.” Jackson was now startled once

again.

“My friend’s dad works for Cox Florist. He said when your granddad died, so

many people bought flowers. Must be a well liked guy.”

Jackson nodded again. “Well sort of.” He found it strange that Victor had

mentioned the hearsay, but then again, he knew it was stranger that he could deduce who

that friend was. He knew all of Victor’s friends: he only had one, Torres.

Jackson looked up at Victor. Victor was far more handsome than any man

Jackson had ever met.

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Victor gave a soft smile and then hurriedly gathered up his belongings, and

scuttled towards the locker room exit. Jackson couldn’t let him leave, he couldn’t end the

moment.

“You off to the nurse? Did you get injured too?” Jackson asked.

“No, no. Going to English lessons, I’m late.”

“Oh, okay.” Victor flew off. Jackson watched him make his clumsy exit thinking

thoughts that he knew his grandma would surely declare a sin.

That night, when she started singing her hymns around the house as she cleaned,

Jackson had escaped to the shed. He hadn’t been there since the night with his

granddaddy, but the place seemed more sacred than spooky. This was a shed for secrets

and guilt free pleasures, and so as he let himself think of Victor’s beauty this once, alone

in the shed, he’d enjoyed himself. This time, he’d make it to his bed before nightfall, so

he wouldn’t get caught, wouldn’t get any whippings.

But Jackson had been punished by a greater source. Jackson was made to

understand the power of God and the enormity of his sin the next day.

That day, after the accident, Torres ate alone in silence during lunch, and he’d

disappeared for a long time during gym class. Jackson had noticed. Perhaps Torres had

stayed hidden away from Jackson’s sight. Perhaps he knew that Jackson’s stare,

thoughts, and lust could make bad things happen.

As the school day came to a close, Jackson found himself trying to erase all the

pictures in the margin of his book, and he drew lines through every reference to Victor’s

bathroom breaks and Torres’ tardiness in his notepad. As he walked out of the classroom

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that afternoon he passed the trashcan then stopped. To be safe, he figured, he would

throw the entire notepad away. Perhaps the notebook was cursed.

It was all too much to bear. First he’d watched his granddaddy die, now he had

been involved in the death of a classmate. Perhaps it wasn’t the notebook that was

cursed. Perhaps it was him.

As he walked home with his usual pack of friends, down the gravel road, kicking

rocks and trash talking, Jackson was quiet and pensive. He lumbered near the back of the

pack and held his head low.

“What’s wrong, Taylor,” Marvin, the oldest kid, finally questioned. Marvin was

the leader of the group. The kid with the biggest afro, whose lingo matched the city

slickers in the movies.

“Nothing. Just feeling sickly, you know.” Jackson covered his forehead, then

thought better of it and touched his stomach. A stomachache was easier to fake. People

usually didn’t question a stomachache. It made for rude conversation.

“I told you those beans at lunch were going to turn your belly,” one joked.

“Go head, let one out,” another snickered. “You’ll feel better.”

Jackson laughed. It was for the first time all day. He felt guilty doing it.

“Isn’t it crazy how that boy died,” he asked of the other boys, having asked

himself all day.

Marvin nodded. The others said little more than that.

“Did ya’ll hear that he was the one driving?He was driving. His dad let him drive

all the way to Norlina by himself. I know his dad must feel bad about that now.”

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The other boys seemed to miss the point. “Whatever, man; my dad lets me drive

all the time.”

“Mine too,” the littlest one echoed.

“Around the farm don’t count,” Marvin laughed pushing the little one into the

brush by the embankment. The act started a shoving match with the boys where no one,

not even the assumed sick, was spared a good push. Books were thrown to the ground,

spare papers and pencils were scattered, and not even the littlest one’s pleas stopped the

match. The boys, even Jackson now, were all riled up. They all laughed, even the littlest

one, as they pushed each other harder and harder. One by one they fell over into the briar

patches that lined the corner of Trinity Church and Plank Roads. The thorns tore at their

britches and scraped their arms and legs. Jackson’s arms were covered with pricks of

blood, but that didn’t hinder him from rising to his feet and going after Marvin one more

time. Only the sound stopped him.

In the distance they heard it, the sound of a hard rain hitting the leaves of all the

millions of trees, saplings, and underbrush in the woods.

“Listen,” Jackson warned the others. They all stopped mid step, looked north and

saw it.

They watched in wonder as the rain approached. Down the hillside into the

valley, the rain crept slowly across the field, towards the very comer where they stood in

awe. It was a welcomed rain, a heavy rain, cooling down the hot scorched earth. It had

been months since they’d had a rain like this.

“Holy shit.”

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All the boys, except for Jackson, scrambled to pick up their belongings then took

off running towards their homes. Jackson stood there, letting the rain shower him.

He wasn’t surprised when he saw Torres in the distance walking quickly in the

other direction. It was fate; he knew it: the rain and Torres’ sudden appearance. God was

speaking to him. Trying to tell him something.

Quick as a tick, Jackson was following Torres. He hadn’t thought on it for one

moment, he had just done it. He only paused to consider that he didn’t know where -

hadn’t thought about where - the boy lived. It was odd, he thought, he knew where

everyone else at his small school lived or at least which paths they took home. Yet,

despite his weeks of observation, he had no clue where Torres and Victor had lived.

As he followed Torres down Plank Road, up High Street, across the one lane

bridge, Jackson planned what he’d say to Torres. By the time he reached Torres, Jackson

was soaking wet, shivering, and tired. And when he came close enough to call out to him,

Jackson reconsidered.

Torres reached the house he called home. It was a massive farmhouse complete

with a white picket fence. Jackson felt envious. He didn’t know then that Torres, his

mother and brother, only lived in the attic. He didn’t know that like his mama, Torres’

mother was a mammy and a cook for white folks. He didn’t know that that like his

family, Torres’ family rented a small place to live from a white man named Osgood who

took it out of his mother’s pay.

“Why you following me?” His accent was thick, jarring. Torres was suddenly

facing him. Jackson took a step back back. He had no idea how long the boy had known

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he was being followed. Now his stomach really did turn and he rubbed it through his wet

shirt vigorously.

Torres stared straight into Jackson’s eyes and Jackson realized it was only the first

time the two had ever made eye contact. Jackson realized that even with his hair dripping

wet, falling upon his face unevenly, Torres was as handsome, if not more so, than Victor.

Torres stood at the gate to the yard, his hand on the hinge, awaiting an answer.

It’s all my fault, Jackson wanted to say. God took away Victor because of my sin, he

wanted to say. I’ll make up for it, he wanted to promise. Yet all that came out his mouth

was “Sorry.”

When Jackson returned home that night and his grandma announced the insurance

had come through, and the move was going to happen soon, Jackson was ecstatic. That’s

exactly what he needed, he thought, a new home, a fresh start, even if it was only on the

other side of town. There he could escape the memories of this house, the shed. There,

he would go to a new school, one without the temptation of Torres, without the constant

reminder of the death he knew he’d caused.

*

No kind of magic work could bring Mr. Roberto Huecinas’ godson back. No amount of

secret prayers to Orishas could reverse the head trauma and stop the internal bleeding that

had taken Victor’s life. And no matter how much Mr. Huecinas prayed on it, he just

couldn’t understand the purpose of it all, the plan God had. It didn’t make sense. He was

so young, the same age as his own son, his own son’s best friend. They could have been

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riding together; God could have taken them both, but he had spared his son. For what?

There used to be two young Cuban boys in Warren Hills, but now there was only one, his

son, Torres, and Mr. Huecinas wasn’t sure his Torres would be strong enough to make it

alone. The only Cuban boy of his age, in his school, constantly ignored by those black

boys whose skin was of the same hue, but who didn’t dare welcome Torres into their

brotherhood. It didn’t make sense to Mr. Huecinas that a black face, similar to his own,

could be so cruel to another black face.

Mr. Huecinas sat beside his son Torres on the twin bed in the attic loft where

their family lived, weaving waxy vines into tightly knitted crowns. His wife busied

herself on the floor in front of them with hundreds of tiny maroon and white beads which

she strung into necklaces. It’d all have to be done before the funeral. Oya would need to

be called upon to bring the winds that would take Victor home to heaven.

“This is how you weave for a saint, for a deity. Don’t forget details,” he said to

his son in Spanish.

“Yes, sir,” Torres answered back in English.

Mr. Huecinas didn’t have to worry. He knew that though his son didn’t say

much, that he was a great observer. Torres listened and paid close attention to everything

his father did. He had helped his father out at the Cox’s flower shop many times before

and had watched, said very little, but watched as his father mixed soil with his bare

hands, pruned dead leaves off the vines of ivy, and loved the petunias, the most sensitive

of plants, into a healthy existence. He son, his apprentice, Mr. Huecinas knew, would

someday make a great florist, a powerful magician. But hopefully, by the time Torres

would be old enough, he’d have the opportunity to have his own shop, and wouldn’t have

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to answer to any white man, and wouldn’t have to worry about the blacks boycotting his

shop.

“You going to see the body?” Mrs. Huecinas asked the question softly,

delicately in Spanish. She had meant it for her husband’s ears more than her son’s,

because she knew her son’s answer already. Torres couldn’t endure a wake right now.

He didn’t want to see his friend’s body. If he didn’t see it, he told his mama, it wasn’t

real.

Mr. Huecinas had a hard time answering that question. He knew he had to be

there. There were important rituals to be performed, and who else would know them?

Who else would be there for Victor’s father? The only other Cuban man in this town.

Mr. Huecinas feared his wife’s response to his answer. He didn’t want to

answer her out loud. Instead, he tried his damnedest to send telekinetic waves straight at

wife, shot her a look from one old eye to another, hoping that after almost 20 years of

marriage she would understand his silence, hoping that she’d be able to decipher his look,

so he wouldn’t have to muster the energy to open his mouth and speak the blasphemy:

No.

“But you gotta go Roberto . . . put some sprigsfeet... by his bless his passage

home.”

Mr. Huecinas shook his head. Home seemed like a very far off, distance place

now.

Torres placed his soft hands overtop of his father’s calloused ones, halting his

father’s weaving. He lifted the crown of vines from his father and took over his father’s

duties.

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“I’ll go,” Torres said calmly. He continued the weaving his father had begun

and did so at a rapid speed. Mr. Huecinas almost cautioned him to slow down, but his

craftsmanship was excellent. Mr. Huecinas was proud of his son’s technique.

“You sure?” Mrs. Huecinas asked.

Torres did not respond.

“He’s sure,” Mr. Huecinas replied for him. He was proud of his son, learning

the traditions, putting them to use. He’d pass them on.

When he heard his son’s sniffling nose, and saw his son fighting back tears, Mr.

Huecinas left the bed and made his way to the corner of the room. There, he retrieved the

three hand-carved, double headed drums that had been covered by a large red cloth,

protecting them from the attic’s dust.

It had been a while since the drums had been used. Not since they’d moved to

Warren Hills a few years ago. Mr. Huecinas hadn’t drammed since the move. He’d not

had a reason. He’d not had any trained hands to join him in the dramming. He’d almost

forgotten their magic. But now, he thought, was the right time to teach his son this art.

Mr. Huecinas knew that Torres was ready to play: the passion Tones felt now, upon the

loss of his close friend, was what his son needed to learn such rhythms.

*

Before that October’s rainstorm had ended, before Victor’s body could be buried,

Miss Mamie and her grandson moved into the new house. The move was quick,

impulsive. Much was left behind: Clothing. Old furniture. Memories. They abandoned

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in the old homestead almost everything associated with that era of their lives, including

the lilies they had received as condolence in their mourning.

Mama Byrd’s lily was the only lily to transplant to the new house. The pitcher

containing the plant sat in the kitchen window of the new house, just above the sink,

untouched for days as they unpacked. Miss Mamie had trimmed it down tremendously,

but the plant had survived the relocation and its creeping vines clung to the window sill,

fondled the curtain rod, and snuggled leaves in between chinks in the new blinds.

Whenever Jackson went to the sink to wash and replenish his cup of water, he stared at

the plant’s strong vines, delicate leaves, and the source of its vitality: a pitcher full of

stagnant water that hadn’t been changed since Mama Byrd herself had poured it in many

years before.

“How does it survive so long without dirt?” He asked the question each time he

looked at the plant, and each time Miss Mamie would shake her head and answer, “Some

plants don’t need dirt I guess. Some plants just need love, not some special type soil, for

them to grow.”

Jackson contemplated this and nodded, “I guess.” But he never truly believed it.

In his gut, he had a feeling that the lily wanted more than just stale water and filtered sun,

and no amount of love would change that. It needed soil to hold it and nutrients to

strengthen its roots. It needed much more than a tea pitcher of water could give. It

needed earth. Its own patch of earth. Without it, Jackson feared the lily would die, just

like he surely would have if they hadn’t left Mr. Edwards’ land. A place of bad

memories and broken dreams, on property that they’d never even owned.

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The new house though was theirs, not rented, not traded for services, but owned.

It was on the other side of the railroad tracks a few miles away from the small four-room

structure they had rented. During the last month Miss Mamie had scraped up their

savings, banked his insurance policy, and moved knowing this is what he’d have wanted

for her, for the family. And it was nothing like the old homestead. It was an old colonial

with a fresh coat of paint on the porch banisters and shutters. It was much more like Old

Man Edwards’ big house than the quarters he’d rented to them. It had a huge font porch,

a small attic, and a spacious living room complete with a picture window, perfect for

showcasing a lopsided Christmas tree during winter or letting in a bounty of sunlight in

summer that reflected off the hanging crystal prisms that dangled from the curtain rod. It

was a modest house, in no way spectacular. Miss Mamie understood that, but it was her

pride and joy, the nicest house she’d lived in, and it was hers. In her usual roundabout

way, she’d brag about it to her church friends year after year. Yet it was never her house,

let her tell it, it belonged to everyone. “This here is the family house,” she’d say. “All my

children welcome here anytime. This ain’t nothing but a place for me to lay my head till

I get called home to glory, but it’ll be their new homestead.”

All she brought with her in the move was an oak chest full of homemade quilts

and family pictures; a dresser full of casual and Sunday clothing; and of course the piano:

a hand-me-down from the church that had become a family member. Miss Mamie’s

husband and their son played it with perfect artistry, both by ear. Miss Mamie’s husband

had only played when he was drunk or depressed, banging out sad melodies in harsh

chords accompanied by sorrowful shouts that he called singing. Jackson only played

during the gayest of times: holidays, homecomings, and home goings.

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At the housewarming, Jackson played the piano nonstop. He’d vowed he

wouldn’t play any of those old sad songs that his granddaddy use to play, but it seemed as

if that was most of what Jackson knew. He tried playing jazz songs, but found he didn’t

know many, so he played the same few over and over. It had been exactly two months

since his granddaddy’s death, only a few days since the Victor incident, but Jackson tried

to keep his spirits up and his fingers moving.

Meanwhile, a small congregation of sisters gossiped in the kitchen, telling lies and

burning ears. As Jackson played on, they worked magic as they talked, stirring up

enormous pots of potato and macaroni salad, com and banana pudding. Each newly

completed dish merited a fresh swig of “tonic for the body” that smelled and tasted of

pure Southern Comfort. With all the clinking dishware, talking, coughing, and

melancholy piano playing.

Miss Mamie had needed some fresh air, she’d said, and had stepped outside for a

while, leaving her own party to get some fresh oxygen, to get some peace from Jackson’s

raging tunes. Yet she hadn’t found peace outside.

Out there, by the giant maple tree, lingered a shadow of man. When Miss Mamie

had walked out of the house an hour earlier, off the front porch, she found herself startled

by the figure that loomed yards away under the maple tree talking to itself in a low

tongue. At once Miss Mamie realized that she had closed and locked the door behind

her. She fumbled for her new house key, but in a panic unknowingly singled out a copy

of her old one. As she turned from the spook, and tried to jab the key into place, she

panicked and the crowded ring of keys fell to the ground. With a surge of emotions

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powering her movements, she pounded vigorously on the door and hollered out her son’s

name. The night swallowed her voice.

Fearing abandonment, Miss Mamie had turned her back to the door and searched

out the figure. She closed her left hand tightly around her little black purse, squeezing it

into a ball, preparing it for battle as if it stood a chance. Doubting her sight, she pushed

her thickly framed glasses closer to her face with the palm of her hand and then squinted.

Yes, it was him all right, under the tree, looking ominous, waiting patiently, for what, she

wasn’t sure. With her eyes fixated, and her ears alert, she began to decipher his words.

They flowed out of him in song, soft and low, you had to listen quiet to hear. The tune,

Miss Mamie had heard before, but this time she actually listened to the words. They

assuaged her fears. Her nerves eased. The purse fell next to her keys.

She heard him say “Baby Doll” before the words had ever left his lips, and she

smiled a hard smile. It took all the restraint she had in her not to skip, leap, run over to

him the way she used to do. The way she did when she was younger, when she still had

the energy, when her muscles didn’t ache and her arthritis didn’t flare up, when she still

believed in a man’s love, when she still believed in him. Somewhere inside her, that

Mamie still existed in a naive state wanting to believe that this was real. As quickly as it

had come, the smile was gone. Mamie whispered to herself, “G’nite, Tom” then gathered

up her purse and keys, and knocked at the door once more. This time the knock echoed,

followed by footsteps, and then the sight of Jackson. With a smirk, Jackson said in a

deep voice, “Welcome home, Grandma.” Miss Mamie shook her head. This wasn’t her

home. Her home, she knew, was on Old Man Edward’s place with Tom.

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Jackson didn’t like the way his grandma looked. Her face was flushed, her hair

disheveled. It was the worst she had looked in the weeks. And now, obviously a little

shaken, she would have to entertain the masses of friends and extended family that had

invaded the new kitchen. Jackson was never much for entertaining, especially during

times like this. It had always been Joy that cut the fool, weaved the tallest tales, and sang

the blues for company. Yet now, with Joy away, he knew it was up to him.

“What’s wrong Grandma? You feeling down?” This would have been a

ridiculous question for any other new widow, but Tom and Miss Mamie had been no

ordinary couple. Jackson often wondered how the two ended up together and stayed

together for so long. She loved God, and he loved every vice listed in the Bible.

He knew his grandma’s feelings about his granddaddy were ambivalent at best.

He didn’t know if she could really mourn him in the traditional way, but things surely

would be different without him there. His grandma wouldn’t have to worry about his

daddy’s mistresses calling the house and hanging up when she picked up the phone.

There would also be no more late-night drives to Miss Patty’s, like the ones he’d

had when he was ten. That night Miss Mamie woke him up around midnight. Brushed

his hair and dressed him in his best Sunday slacks, then drove them down Route 47 to

Miss Patty’s place. When they arrived, Mamie parked right behind Tom’s car, turned the

headlights on bright, and blew the horn seven times. When Miss Patty came to the door

in her night robe, Mamie rolled down her window and shouted, “I just wanted him to

know we know where he at.”

She then backed out of the driveway and sped back down Route 47.

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Now Miss Mamie with Jackson following, lumbered down the small foyer and

down the carpeted hallway, right past the kitchen where Miss Patty sat peeling potatoes

with the rest of the guests, in this new house that Miss Mamie now owned without Tom.

“It’s all catching up with me,” Miss Mamie said as she continued her journey to

her bedroom, neglecting the chattering noise and cigarette smoke billowing out from the

kitchen.

“I’m learning to forgive and let go,” she said softly, quietly. “I’ve made my peace

and now I’m leaving it all up to the Lord.”

Jackson stopped following his grandma. As he stood by the kitchen entrance he

pondered his own state of emotions. Had he been forgiven for what he’d done to Victor?

Make peace and leave it up to the Lord. The thought echoed within him. He’d have to

find a way to make amends first. And when he’d done all he could do, he would leave it

up to the Lord.

Jackson stood at the entrance of the kitchen thinking of his granddaddy and

Victor. When he noticed he’d been spotted by the gossips in the kitchen, he tried to be

witty, he tried to channel his mother’s spirit.

“I would come in, but I don’t want to get in y’all’s way.”

The sisters laughed.

“Nah child, you won’t be in the way. How could a fine young man like you ever

be in any woman’s way? You know, you gonna break young girl’s hearts.”

They laughed some more.

“You doing all right?” Another one asked, “How you and your granny liking this

big ole place?”

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“Fine. Fine. We’re liking it just fine,but...”

They all hushed to hear his response.

“Grandma’s struggling you know. Missing Granddaddy. Waiting for Joy. And

you know how her nerves are.”

“Mmmh,” they seemed to let out in unison before breaking out in dozens of

simultaneous remarks.

“She’ll be better once everything is settled and back to normal.”

“She’ll probably be better off than she was before she ever met

“Hush now, don’t get ugly.”

“Good thing we here. We ain’t leaving till she pick up all the pieces.”

“Yep, don’t worry about a thing. We’ll take care of everything.”

Yet before all had spoken, Miss Mamie herself had entered the room. She had

changed into an old lilac robe, flower printed but with as many holes, rips, and frays as it

had petals. A complementing silk scarf wrapped up her hair.

“Y’all act like I’m the one dead. I don’t need no taking care of; I ain’t no child.”

“Awh, hush now!”

Some laughed; other’s sighed. Yet all were pleased to see her spirit still intact

despite the fact that her eyes betrayed her, displaying hidden sorrow.

“Girls, I love you all, but now its time for ya’ll to get the hell out of my kitchen

and let me settle in by myself. I thank you for all you done: the food, the gifts, the

fellowship. But now go on home.”

The gathering broke up with buts and huhs, yet it dispersed quickly none the less.

Miss Mamie ushered them all towards the front door, holding the screen as they exited.

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She turned to Jackson who stood beside her in the doorway, half in the night, half

in the new house. he “Is still there?”

Without looking, Miss Mamie pointed to where her phantom had appeared earlier,

but nothing stirred in that direction but the wind. The maple stood firm alone,

unaccompanied except by darkness. Miss Mamie’s hand remained pointed for a moment.

Finally, Jackson lovingly reached hold of Mamie’s outstretched arm and guided it down.

“Who, Grandma?”

The look she gave him was telling.

“There’s no one out there, at least not now.”

The parting friends honked their car horns and shouted goodbyes out of their

windows, but Miss Mamie’s attention had shifted back to the maple tree.

“You sure you okay, Grandma?”

She tugged at her night robe as a gust of wind suddenly arose whipping around

their bodies.

“Yeah,” she said. “Go put out a fresh quilt on the bed in back; Joy’ll be coming

soon. That’s going to be her room.”

“But Mama didn’t even come to the funeral, even after we put it off for so long. I

don’t imagine she’ll be coming home anytime soon. Why you making her out a room?”

It was true. Miss Mamie knew that Joy probably wouldn’t be coming anytime

soon.

She raised her brow and shook her head. She gave Jackson the same look she’d

given him on the porch that day at the old house, when he’d suggested that they bury the

body without contacting Joy. As he entered the house to carry out the task, she yelled out

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to him, more for her own benefit than his, “As long as I’m living Joy will always have a

room here.” Yet Joy did not arrive for quite some time.

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1959

In 1959, in Warren Hills, integration was new and still fresh, but segregation was

old and reliable. Despite talk of a new found relationship between black and white, in

Warren Hills blacks were still colored and Joy could not get served at Martha’s Grill,

Painter’s Station, or the Horse Shoe Restaurant. Even Lambert’s General Store was

questionable. Lambert’s had been open to all for less than ten years, and Mr. Lambert

himself was still on the fence. He welcomed new money, but cherished the old.

Miss Mamie had given the eighteen-year-old Joy strict instructions that morning

in June: go to Lambert’s and get one jar of cod liver oil and a box fan for the living room

window, mindful to not pay too much for all of it. Joy knew her mother would be

waiting by the kitchen door when she returned, one hand on her hip, the other reaching

out waiting for the change. She would count it right then and there in front of Joy before

unblocking the door. “Times are tight,” she’d say, “every penny counts.” Joy hated

having to account for every penny and every minute she was gone. Yet ever since she’d

gotten her license a few months back, she loved having an excuse to get out of the house,

to escape from home even for a few hours.

As Joy drove down South Hill Road towards Lambert’s she basked in her

freedom. It was her daddy’s car, and she was spending someone else’s money, but she

87

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felt grown. Hell, she was grown. She had a child, an ex-husband, and had already

packed her bags and left her mother’s house, multiple times. At eighteen, Joy had lived

life.

However, as she drove, she didn’t feel her best. She was hot and felt dirty.

Though she’d rolled down both windows in the Ford to cool her off, the humid August

air had ridden all the way into town with her, sweating her face and limping her curls. As

she drove, she continuously checked her reflection in the rearview mirror to make sure

her hair wasn’t too flat, her face too sweaty.

When she parked the car in front of Lambert’s, Joy scanned the town. She

imagined that 1959 looked a lot like 1859 in Warren Hills, North Carolina. The dusty

streets looked ancient, the smell of tobacco and honeysuckle still permeated the air, and

though more and more stores sprung up trying to create a city, this was still a farming

town. People still drove their ever-creeping tractors straight through town, riding

alongside a sparse crowd of people that crept even more slowly in flocks of black and

white.

Joy fumbled through her change purse. She barely had enough for the fan and oil

she’d been sent to get. Picking up anything extra was out of the question, especially

squandering money on an ice cream float. Yet, homemade vanilla ice cream floating in a

lather of RC Cola was an exquisite thought right now, and the sign in the window,

marked in bright red letters, was a temptress.

Joy thought of her mother. Even as she had put the money in Joy’s hand, she had

laid down the law with her eyes. “Go straight there, and straight back,” she warned, then

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visibly hesitated, trying to determine if such cautionary words were a mistake. Her

mother knew warnings were pointless, perhaps even a dare - an incentive - to Joy.

“Girl, don’t sass your mother,” Joy had heard her mother utter, even plead many

times. “I’ll do what I please,” was Joy’s constant reply, if only under her breath; doing

what she pleased was what she did best.

Joy snuck out at night at the age of thirteen, and hunted ghosts down dirt roads,

followed the North Star to town, smoked vending machine cigarettes with the busboy in

the back of Clem’s Bar-B-Q.

Joy experienced the passions of Carolina’s finest holes in the wall, cochie-cooed

with men twice her age, let them hand feed her peaches soaked in mason jars filled with

distilled liquor, and watched her daddy’s infamous smooth game with the ladies until he

spotted her in the crowd and sent her home shushing her with a five and a mutual

understanding.

And when Mamie warned Joy to stay away from the Hardy boys since they spoke

nothing but trash, Joy discovered - or rather Alan Hardy did - how to make Joy giggle

without saying a word.

Over the years Joy had found that not listening to Mamie paid off.

After counting her mother’s money once more, finding no room for play, Joy

fumbled around her purse some more and pulled out a small handkerchief. Before she

entered Lambert’s, Joy checked her rouge in the reflection of the store window, casually

reapplied red lipstick, then batted her eyes at herself. She was not quite the master of

make-up she would become, and the cheap products available to her that she could afford

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were more hindrance than help. Yet today she felt confident that she looked her best, or

at least better than anyone else walking the streets of Warren Hills.

“Afternoon.” She smiled at Mr. Lambert. Despite the ringing cowbell above the

door that announced her entrance into the store, Mr. Lambert made no reply. Joy noted

this cooly as she gracefully navigated the narrow aisles, running her fingertips along the

shelves. In her mind she wasn’t in a small country store in the dirt poor South,

overlooked by all that mattered. She was no tin-bucket girl. No unwed teenage mother.

Instead, she was a jazz singer in Harlem, fresh off the stage, prancing towards the bar,

fussed over by club owners and bandleaders. She’d seen such in movies. She was

Josephine Baker in an auspicious Paris cathouse, performing a scandalous number under

a scorching spotlight, in between V.I.P. tables in front of dozens of hungry eyes and

daydreaming minds. She’d seen her image in picture books many times before and

surely she was as beautiful if not more than Josephine right now. Each step Joy took

presented these images. Her presence commanded attention, even from Mr. Lambert,

who would never admit it.

She could feel Mr. Lambert’s unease, which pleased her. She added more hip in

her stride. She ever so gently tipped over a small box of detergent with her fingertips, a

package of beaded soap with her swaying hips. The men in the store, black and white,

took notice. Chaos was interrupting in an otherwise ordinary store.

“Gal, can I help you,” Mr. Lambert finally called out. Joy ignored his question.

Her family had shopped Lambert’s for the last few years. He knew her family. Knew her

name. “Gal?”

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Joy continued to sashay down the aisle, knocking down this and that. Mr.

Lambert left his station behind the counter and accosted her right in front of the penny

candy display.

“Got a sweet tooth?” Lambert’s tone was caustic.

Joy remembered the first time she’d come into his store. He’d looked like a giant

then, tall with a protruding stomach, but that was years ago. His hair had grayed and his

stomach doubled, but somehow he looked insignificant now. Dwarfed.

“I’m not here for candy.” A raised eyebrow, more delicate than her mother’s, for

all to see. “You know I’m too old for candy, Roger Lambert.” The “Mr.” noticeably

absent. Lambert’s expression changed. She’d seen this expression with her daddy when

Miss Mamie had gotten on his nerves, had once too many times told him God didn’t like

his ugly ways.

“Then what the hell you here for? To tear up my store?”

Joy had crossed the line. She took a step back, but not in fear.

“If you gonna be knocking down every-damn-thing then you gonna hafta leave.”

“I just need a few items for Mama.” There was sincerity in her voice. “I can’t

seem to find the cod liver oil. And you know Mama swears by it.” Joy was in character.

She was the sweet temptress, the naive yet precocious Southern belle. It was all an act

she’d lifted from T.V., from movies, from censored books in the back of the library.

“Now, Joy...” Redemption. He had said her name. This ploy had worked.

“You know good and well the cod liver oil is on the far shelf near the window.”

“I guess you’re right.” She turned and headed toward the shelf. Satisfied.

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“Who the hell does she think she is,” she heard someone white whisper as she

paid for her items. She reveled in the attention. These were roses from adoring fans.

There words were applause.

As she walked by the fountain sign near the exit, she slowed her step. Her mouth

watered as she tasted the creamy carbonation in her memory. Her daydream was broken

by Roger Lambert Jr., the boy everyone called Baby, gazing at her, smiling. The boy

stood behind the drink counter, preparing a float for a blond girl at the bar.

“Can I help you, Miss Taylor?” He called out to Joy. He had obviously witnessed

her previous performance and was impressed.

Caught off guard by his directness, Joy let the fan slip.

“Pardon me,” she said. A gentleman had just offered to buy her a cocktail and she

had only seconds to think of a witty one liner worthy of the movies.

“Would you like a float?”

Joy had never wanted one more in her life. She cleared her throat. Coughed.

Looking around she noticed all eyes were still on her.

“No, thank you, Baby, I like my drinks stronger.” Joy smiled. Baby laughed. In

the distance Joy felt Roger Lambert grimace.

Best leave them wanting more, she thought. Excited, she exited the store and

walked out onto the sidewalk. She peered back, looking past her own reflection to see

Baby’s small frame behind the counter, gazing at her.

When she made it back to Miss Mamie, Joy smiling, she explained how she’d

avoided the temptation of spending money on the ice cream float, but had roused the

attention of the Lambert men.

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“You may not have spent a dime extra,” Miss Mamie started fussing, “but you

done bought yourself a whole lot of trouble.”

*

Baby couldn’t get Joy out of his mind. She reminded him of someone he’d seen

before. An actress? A model? He didn’t remember, but she was so damn sexy, and fun;

Baby needed fun. That autumn, as Baby drove into the black part of town, that prospect

of fun kept his mind at ease. He wasn’t scared to be here. Hell, his family owned most

of this part of town. He’d been out this way with his uncles many times as they collected

rent money or evicted people from their lots who hadn’t paid. But there was always

something strange about being white and in this part of town. Most times he felt

uncomfortable. Like they had a secret bond with one another and wanted to keep the

white man out.

When Baby reached Clem’s Bar-B-Q, the place where he’d heard Joy waitressed,

he saw her outside directing the painting of a mural on the side wall of the restaurant.

Her hair was tied up in twine and she wore a long floating green gown that made her

appear as if she were floating as she walked back and forward telling the true artists at the

wall how to do their job.

Baby watched her for a moment or two, then reached over in his seat and picked

up the brown bagged gift he had acquired for her. This, he knew, would make her smile.

It would assure their fun together he thought. He rolled down his window and hollered at

her.

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“Shouldn’t you be inside taking orders?”

Joy laughed with her hands in front of her mouth. She tilted her head back as she

laughed and she looked like a picture of femininity to Baby.

“There’s a few things you need to know about me, Baby. The first is I don’t take

orders from no one.” Joy made her way to his truck window and put her hands on the

window sill.

She was being fresh. Baby knew it, and though he’d never have let her do such a

thing in public in the main part of town, here it was different. It was acceptable. Nobody

important would know. Not his family. Not his friend. Not the blond girl he was dating,

Jessica.

“So what exactly is it you do here for Clem?”

Joy seemed to consider the question. It appeared as if she were looking for the

right answer. She put one hand on her hip and the other caressed her chin, her neck.

“Well I bring the customers in, Baby, that’s all. I pack the house and keep ‘em

happy.” Baby could believe it. It wasn’t so much her physical features that were

attractive; it was her manner. She could grab the attention of any room. He was sure of

it.

“And what y’all painting,” Baby asked, placing the bag of alcohol in his lap as

Joy turned and admired the slowly forming mural.

“It’s hard to put into words.”

When she looked again at Baby, he showed her a glimpse of what was in his lap.

“For you.”

Baby waited for her response, but it was a delayed and unexpected.

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“Am I supposed to fall all over youthatl” for

“I don’t know. Meet me in a few minutes down Chutney Road. We’ll see.”

Chutney Road was a straight shot to nowhere, where nobody lived. Chutney Road was

perfect for taking the girls you wanted to practice on, not marry.

“Can you give me a ride?” Baby thought about it, but it couldn’t allow it. It was

one thing to allow her to put her arms in his truck beside Clem’s Bar-B-Q, it was

something totally different to ride through town. Who knew who they’d meet on the

road. So, Baby simply let the question fall as he looked around nervously. That was his

reply.

“Meet me in twenty minutes.” Baby was impatient.

“What about my mural, my job?” Baby wanted to say the hell with her job. He

was more important. He wanted to say that the pennies she’d make there doing nothing

he could pay her for keeping him company up on Chutney.

Joy stepped away from the window.

“I can’t,” she frowned. “We’ve got to finish this now. Maybe some other time?”

Baby slammed the bag down on the passenger’s seat. He gritted his teeth. He

could tell she was making excuses.

“Next time remember,” Joy began, her voice had changed, it was lower, raspier,

“bring a lady flowers, not whisky.” Joy turned from him so fast that her dress seemed to

rise around her.

Baby was frustrated and homy as he backed out of the parking lot. He had been

had. The girl in his daddy’s shop wasn’t the girl out in front of Clem’s. To get her, he’d

need to work harder.

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When he asked his daddy later that week for money to visit Cox Farms, Mr.

Lambert had asked if it was for his homecoming date, Jessica’s, corsage. Baby hadn’t

answered directly, he had just uttered, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” Mr.

Lambert had laughed, but when his wife developed the homecoming pictures, and Mr.

Lambert noticed Jessica’s bare arms, Mr. Lambert shook his head in disappointment.

*

This was real to her. The blond wig and red lipstick. The borrowed purple dress

that hugged her curves. Being alone with him in the house, their house. As she stared

out the picture window, Joy couldn’t decide which was a more magnificent view: the

frosted evergreen lined hillside or the reflection of the brown-skinned girl in the blond

wig gazing back at her.

Baby came up behind Joy and placed his arms around her. Together they stared

out into the yard where winter covered everything in white. No snow, just the thick frost

that Carolina wore this time of year. The tobacco fields lay nude. Acres of straw

replaced vegetation. And the bare limbs of oak trees waved gently under so much

pressure, one or two would break off onto the ground taking others as they fell.

“My family’s owned this house for more than sixty years.” Baby said.

Joy didn’t have to hear this; she knew it before he had said it. Farmhouses like

this were from a distant time. They had existed forever. Joy could tell by the

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architecture, the landscaping, the way little shacks and smokehouses speckled the

perimeter. The estate reminded her of Old Man Edwards’.

“My great granddaddy built this place himself for my family . . . “

“One day this will be ours.” Joy knew it was a lie when it came out of her mouth.

Baby kissed Joy, but kept quiet.

“He built this house for us, you know. Your granddaddy was a wise man. He

could see into the future.”

Joy left the comfort of Baby’s embrace and led him through his family’s house,

giving him the tour as if he were a visitor. She led him up and down the stairs, showing

him her dream.

“Great Granddaddy knew I’d love trim and molding like this, and I’ve always

wanted a banister on my staircase like that.” She caressed the wall paneling, the staircase

railing, and the trim. Not knowing that all had been replaced recently, long after Baby’s

great granddaddy had died.

“You see Great Granddaddy knew we’d love the parlor on the east and the living

room on the west, so we could rest on the sofa in the evening and marvel at the sunset.”

Joy led Baby into the living room, pushed him down onto the sofa and straddled his lap.

She looked down at him and let her blond hair fall into his face.

“That’s why we’ll put a big ole painting of him right in the middle of this room.

So we can always be reminded of what he passed down to us.”

Baby remained quiet. He looked up at her squinting.

“You look silly in that wig,” Baby said. “Mama would kill me if she knew I let

you try it on.” In one quick gesture Baby took off her wig and destroyed her fantasy.

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When her thick black plaits fell to her shoulders, Joy plummeted to Earth, to Warren

Hills, 1959.

“You didn’tlet me wear her wig. I chose to do it.” Her voice was forceful, yet

still sounded like a child’s. She climbed off of Baby and turned her back to him. She

straightened her back and unfastened one of the buttons of Mrs. Lambert’s dress. The

entire garment fell to the floor. Perhaps it hadn’t been as snug fitting as she had thought.

Standing before Baby in her underwear, Joy felt comfortable, but when she turned

back around she noticed Baby looking down at his feet. He clasped his hands together

nervously, then looked up and took her at a glance.

“Gorgeous.”

Joy tried hard not to let down her guard. She tried not to show that his

compliment was breaking down walls, but it was too late. He helped her back into the

dress, adorned her with his jacket, and led her outside to the bam to show her his dream,

his fantasy.

This bam had been his playroom, he told her, his hideaway and joy as a kid. Up,

in the loft, he showed her his model car collection, parts from old tractors he had fixed

up, old signs from his father’s store he had saved and collected, and finally his secret box.

The lock box was in the comer, under one of the barn’s windows, tucked under the

floorboards.

“I wanna show you something,” he said picking up the box, “something you

reminded me of just now.”

Joy was at once excited yet apprehensive. What if he wanted to present her with

his great grandmother’s ring, or an old antique bracelet he had been saving for the right

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girl? She looked down and saw that her hands were ashy from the dry coldness of the

barn. She was ashamed. He wouldn’t want to put such a priceless piece of jewelry on an

ashy hand.

“What is it?” She asked, impatiently, placing her hands behind her.

Baby opened the box to reveal a container full of adult magazines and

photographs, featuring women of various shades and shapes.

“Look,” he exclaimed proudly holding up a picture of a light-skinned black

woman in all her glory, straddling a zebra printed carpet. “I think she’s a real beauty.

You look alike. Curvy. Tanned. It says here she’s from a tropical Caribbean island. Ain’t

that something?”

Joy snatched the photograph with her ashy hands. The woman’s homely face and

deadpan eyes were horrible to Joy. Her thick parted legs were offensive. She was no

Josephine Baker. No coy temptress. No diva. The woman in the picture was just a body,

naked. Joy saw nothing of herself in that picture.

“Who is she to me?”

“She could be your twin. Maybe your people are from the Caribbean.”

Joy shook her head and backed away from Baby. Her people weren’t from

Jamaica. Surely they were from France or Quebec, formed themselves out of smoke in

the night clubs of Harlem or Detroit. Her people were not from an isolated island where

the women wore such little clothing and had such dead eyes.

In his face, she saw that he didn’t understand her reaction. That’s when she knew

she wasn’t the only one with a fantasy here.

His look, his touch, his excitement for her body, suddenly scared her.

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He was not her ticket out.

In the distance, the sound of crushing ice down the road alerted them that they

weren’t alone, and sooner than later Mr. and Mrs. Lambert would be returning, driving

that same path not expecting to see a colored girl on their property.

“I’d better go, it’s about that time.”

Joy exited the bam despite Baby’s pleas for her to stay. When she reached the

outside, she began to ran towards her daddy’s truck she had borrowed to drive out here.

The impulse to get back inside its hub she didn’t understand.

From the bam door Baby called out to her. Pursued her when she didn’t stop.

Reached her quickly, and smothered her with his embrace. And there, they stood among

the ice, embracing for what seemed like hours but was mere seconds. There were no

words to express how cold they were; they shivered in each other’s arms. For the first

time, they each understood one another.

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OCTOBER, 1969

Torres thought he was prepared for this moment. He was ready to perform the

sacred ritual, pray for Victor’s soul to find peace, and more importantly, to let go of his

friend. But as Mr. Mosby pointed Torres towards the small chapel where Victor’s body

lay, Torres began to doubt his own strength. He didn’t really want to see the body, not

simply because he’d never seen a dead body up close before, but because seeing it

confirmed that his only friend was gone and now Torres was all alone. As Torres made

his way down the burgundy carpeted halls, dimly lit with electric candles, he was

overcome by the smell of chemicals and incense. The blend made him nauseated. It was

as if someone was trying to cover up the fact they hadn’t showered by spraying on

cologne, and this cologne stank.

Torres prayed that he wouldn’t be sick. He prayed that he’d be able to get

through this small ceremony without getting sick and running out to the bathroom. As he

neared the chapel, he fingered the beaded maroon and white necklace in his jacket

pocket. He stopped for a moment and closed his eyes. Though they weren’t rosaries, he

counted and prayed with them as if they were, not out of penance, but out of duty. It was

Monday, so he prayed the Joyful Mysteries.

He prayed fervently.

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When he was done, and had made his way inside the chapel, he saw that he was

not alone. There was a priest, Victor’s family, one of Mosby’s attendants, and that boy

from school, the one who had followed him that day in the rain. The one who had

apologized meekly, then had run away. Torres did not understand the boy’s presence.

He wasn’t a friend or family. Torres was sure of it. But, Torres liked the fact that the

boy was here. It filled up the room more. It made it appear as if Victor’s death mattered

more.

Torres quietly took a seat in one of the white folding chairs placed before the

casket. The priest was already conducting the service and Victor’s mother was already

sobbing uncontrollably, the way one does during the last goodbye as the body is lowered

into the ground. Torres avoided eye contact with her. He knew that if she’d noticed him,

she would have relived even more memories. She might have reached out for him, in an

instant of severe grief, calling out her son’s name, seeing Victor in Torres.

When the priest finished, and the attendant ushered Victor’s parents to a private

room, Torres made his way to the casket. There Victor was. He looked darker than

himself, thinner. In fact, the more Torres looked at the boy, the less he looked like his

friend.

“You all right, son?” Torres felt the priest’s hand on his shoulder, and it startled

him. He had forgotten that he wasn’t the only one left in the room. Torres waited for the

customary words of solace in a time like this.

“You’re not alone in your grief, son,” the priest said calmly. “God is with you

always. He’ll see you through. Call on God.” Torres thought about the next part of the

ceremony that he was to perform, the part that the priest didn’t know about and probably

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wouldn’t approve of. He wondered if the priest knew that God wasn’t the only one the

Huecinas and Hernandez families called upon.

“Yes, Father,” Torres replied. He resumed his seat pretending to pray while

waiting for the priest to leave. His act was interrupted by a familiar voice and face, that

of the boy who had taken a seat beside him.

“My name’s Jackson.” Today he sounded more sure of himself. He looked

friendlier than before, and up close in this lighting, less threatening. The first time he’d

seen him, outside in the rain, following him home, he’d seemed like a threat. Like

another one of those kids at the school who taunted Torres simply because they didn’t

know what to make of someone dark enough to be their kin, but different enough to

deserve contempt.

“I met Victor once. I know ya’ll were good friends,” Jackson rambled out. “Sorry

for your loss, I guess that’s what I tried to say before . . . that day . . . well, sorry.”

Jackson rose to leave the awkward meeting before he’d finished his words.

“Wait, sit.” Torres hadn’t thought too much of his words before they were out of

his mouth. “You knew Victor?”

The prospect of this boy even knowing Victor made Torres elated. He could talk

with someone, a teenager, not an adult, about his friend. Someone else could help carry

on Victor’s memory.

“Kinda.”

That was enough for Torres. Maybe Jackson had a similar spirit as Victor.

Maybe Jackson would have the same sense of humor and laugh at his jokes. It was a silly

thought, but Torres had had it: maybe Jackson would distract him from missing Victor.

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Torres looked around. The priest had left the room. It was time.

“You mind helping me pay respect to our friend?”

Jackson seemed touched by the question.

“I’d do anything to help,” Jackson said.

Torres pulled out of his pocket the bright beads and a bottle of anointing oil.

He’d only momentarily questioned his decision to involve Jackson. Jackson didn’t seem

apprehensive.

“Help me call upon the wind.”

At home, Mr. Huecinas beat secret rhythms on the sacred drums as the two boys

held hands and recited magical words.

*

From sun up to sun down they jammed, made sweet melodies for no one but

themselves. Melodies that sounded nothing like blues. Sangria. Clove cigarettes.

Music. It was all they needed. Torres had accepted Jackson’s invitation to come over

and play together, to teach each other new songs. Jackson was ecstatic. Since the

funerals, he felt as if he had been reborn and cleansed of the past. With the past now

dead behind him, Jackson needed new rhythms in his life.

“You do your thing, I do mine,” Jackson had said, “and together we’ll make

magic.” It was the most articulate he had ever been in front of Torres. Now days after

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they’d held hands for the first time at Victor’s funeral and shared magical words, they sat,

inside Jackson’s piano room sharing music.

Jackson on piano, Torres on drum. The two invented a new jazz, improvising off

each other, letting their instruments converse. Jackson’s dog Chico danced back and

forward between the pair. He occasionally barked in time. He rolled on the floor in

some type of primitive dance.

Torres sped up the tempo, and Jackson followed suit.

Lightheaded from the wine, vision clouded by the smoke, their jam session went

on and on, later and later into the night. Tipsy, Jackson confessed he loved Torres’

cadence. Torres smiled. Jackson waited for a sign, perhaps from God even, but nothing

arrived.

When Jackson stood from the piano bench and made his way over to Torres, he

saw his own fear reflected in the other man’s eyes. This was all improvisation. He

placed his hand on the top of Torres’ drum and silenced the instrument. Torres mouthed

Jackson’s name, but with his thick accent, the name had taken on an exotic sound, a new

meaning. Jackson came in closer to hear it, to decipher it. He came in so close that the

two could hear each other’s rhythms. Jackson had no clue what was about to unfold, but

he took lead. He prayed to God to be merciful.

It was passion and the peg-legged sofa (as it scraped against the old wood floor)

that brought back Jackson’s Uncle Sonny, his favorite uncle, from the dead, summoned if

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only for a moment, to see his only nephew in the most passionate of embraces that two

men could engage.

The room was dark, and the sangria had Jackson seeing double, yet he was

positive that as Torres perched atop him, straddling his manhood, his dead uncle watched

quietly from the comer, a voyeur. The ghost didn’t look ominous, and maybe it was the

wine, but Jackson wasn’t even startled when he first glimpsed him over Torres’ shoulder,

hovering in the comer, a familiar though faint portrait, hovering inches off the floor as if

he belonged there, as if he’d always been there, and perhaps he always had been.

Jackson kept looking up, looking up into the eyes of his uncle, ignoring those of

Torres even as Torres leaned in, massaged his neck, traced the side of his face with his

thumb. Yet Jackson kept looking up, studying his uncle’s deathly-pale face, searching

out a sign of disgust, disapproval, objection. Instead Jackson found it stoic, solemn.

Giving no answers.

Jackson pushed Torres off of him and stared at him blankly. Had he seen the

ghost? Was this all in his head, or some sort of messenger sent by God? A sign. The

ghost had faded now.

“What’s wrong?”

Jackson’s eyes darted around the room searching, but he was gone. Out of

desperation Jackson kissed Torres’ neck, then looked up, squeezed his thigh, then looked

up again. The actions didn’t re-conjure the spirit, but only confused his partner. Jackson

stood, knocking over Torres’ hand dmm, almost falling over himself.

He stared at Torres, as he had the first time they’d come face to face in the rain.

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“Sorry,” the only words he could manage again. Yet it wasn’t anyone’s fault; it

was the wine that had brought them to this point. It was the passion of music.

But then there was his uncle. Silent. Stoic. Solemn. Jackson had never seen a

ghost before, and he didn’t know what it all meant. His granddaddy and grandma had

told him dozens of ghost stories. Stories about haunts coming back to finish old business

or deliver a message. But this was the first time Jackson had believed them, the first time

a he felt a message was being delivered to him, but he wasn’t sure of the message this

ghost’s presence relayed. Fearful of its implication, Jackson simply gathered his clothing

and left the room to go outside on the balcony.

Jackson had built the balcony himself, plank by plank, foundation on up. Jackson

was good with his hands. He had helped his granddaddy rebuild the shed when he was a

boy. Then, his granddaddy had taught him a lot about carpentry. Since then he’d worked

on many small projects at school and for neighbors, but he hadn’t put as much heart into

any of those other places as he did into this balcony which he had hoisted together in a

weekend. The structure was magnificent. As he sat on the balcony he counted the 2” x

8’ floorboards and the 4” x 4” pickets in the railing and he marveled at the fact that he

had bought and nailed into place each an every board.

When the door opened, Jackson didn’t have to turn around to know the confusion

in Torres’ face.

“I built this entire deck in two days,” Jackson said.

Torres closed the door behind him and sat down a few feet away from Jackson;

together they stared off into the distance.

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“Over there I banged my finger real good . . . bled all over the steps. See those

pickets there, I knew I always wanted those around my house when I saw that place you

lived in and how good it looked.”

“That wasn’t my house.”

“I know. But it was what you called home. As long as your mom worked there.”

Jackson turned to Torres, hoping to get some hint as to whether he’d seen the

ghost. Perhaps his hair would be streaked gray. Isn’t that what happened? Maybe his

was now. He felt he’d aged.

“Do you think about Victor?”

Torres dropped his head. He obviously did now.

“Sometimes.”

“You must. I mean, to lose someone so close.”

The air swallowed time.

“I mean, y’all were very tight, I remember. I felt so . . . sorry did you love him?”

Torres looked up at Jackson.

“We were friends out of circumstance; what do you mean love?”

“Weren’t y’a ll. . . ” Jackson didn’t finish; the answer was obvious. They had not

been lover’s, and had barely liked each other. Their alienation had kept them together.

Tonight was the first night Torres had ever even looked at a man that way.

All at once, Jackson felt guilty. Had he corrupted an innocent? He didn’t know

what to say. He didn’t know how to apologize. So, he simply kept quiet.

“I guess I should go.” Torres got to his feet and began to leave.

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Jackson wanted to warn Torres, he wanted to beg him to run as far away from him

as possible, he wanted to instruct Torres to cleanse himself in the holiest water. He

wanted to let him know that God had sent a sign that what they had done was

blasphemous and that surely they would both pay.

“Did you see him in there?”

“Who?”

Jackson didn’t answer, he simply stood and ushered Torres out of the house.

“I’m sorry I even came here,” Torres said as he walked down the balcony steps.

“It’s my fault,” Jackson whispered in reply.

Jackson heard Chico scratching from inside the house. Barking. Beating his

paws up against the door. He wanted to go out. The ferociousness of the way Chico

began scratching scared Jackson. He’d only seen the dog this impassioned once before.

That night his granddaddy had told his last story.

Jackson ran and opened the door. Had the dog smelled something? Was death

nearby?

“What’s wrong Chico? What’s wrong boy?”

The dog raced out of the house, past Torres, through the backyard, and into the

woods. Jackson ran after the dog, trying to keep up, but failing miserably. Torres trailed

the two, as if by instinct.

*

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It was now dark in the woods and Torres couldn’t figure out why he was here,

with the boy who’d just taken his virginity and his pride, yelling out the name Chico,

hoping for a response.

He had come down from his high a while ago, and now Torres was only tired,

sore, and scared. He was afraid of snakes hidden in the brush below his waist, and poison

ivy and poison oak that he may not see in the darkness and get entangled in, but more

importantly he simply didn’t like being out in unmarked property so late in Warren Hills.

The latter was dangerous for any boy of color.

“I can’t believe we’ve lost Chico.” Jackson’s statement made Torres mad. They

hadn’t lost the dog. Jackson had let him out and now, Torres felt, was trying to implicate

him in it. Blame it all on him.

“He’ll be okay,” Torres replied calmly, coolly. “Dogs always find their way back

home.”

Jackson shook his head. “You don’t understand the history of this dog. I can’t

lose him. You don’t understand this dog, my family, me.”

Torres understood more than Jackson could imagine.

Torres had seen him there in the comer. A face that looked familiar yet older,

stronger. But Torres had lived with ghosts his entire life. His father prayed to them. His

mother secretly offered up fruit, cake, and dead chickens to them. So when the spirit had

appeared at that moment, when Torres was making love, in a rite of passage that had

existed since the beginning of time, Torres wasn’t alarmed. The ghost, a man, looking

strong and vital, not revengeful, was a divine sign. A spirit conjured by powerful magic,

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a sacred union. At such a moment, the ghost’s presence was to be expected, celebrated. It

was not alarming at all.

What did alarm Torres was the way Jackson had dismissed him.

“You don’t want me to understand,” Torres said softly, blending his voice with

those of the crickets that now begin to call out to each other.

Jackson leaned against a sassafras tree. He covered his face with arm, and wiped

his face with his sleeve. Torres felt he held the position for too long. He was hiding

something.

“Am I right?”

“I’m tired of offending God,” Jackson said, avoiding eye contact.

Torres couldn’t reply to that. He was still seeking God himself. He was still

studying the catechism. But he did know about the spirit world. He knew that Jackson

wasn’t offending his people’s spirits.

“Your family spirit looked pleased with you,” Torres replied.

Jackson lowered his arm from in front of his face. He looked surprised. “Family

spirit?”

“Your guardian angel, keeping you safe.”

“Did you see him?”

Now Torres was surprised. He smiled, “You showed him to me.”

Chico didn’t return that night, but Jackson wasn’t as worried as before. The dog

was old. Perhaps his uncle had returned to carry him home. Besides, Jackson thought, as

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he held hands with Torres under the sassafras tree, maybe his uncle was his guardian

angel. Maybe he had taken the dog, but was delivering him a new partner.

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1964

On the day of her Uncle Sonny’s funeral, Joy woke early, put on her Sunday best,

stole her mother’s fanciest umbrella, and hitched a ride to the bus station. She wasn’t

going to any funeral. She was getting out of Warren Hills, once and for all. People of

Warren Hills were dying; she wanted to live.

Joy was barely twenty-three, alone, with only enough money to buy a one way

ticket, but she was determined to make it to New York City. As she stepped into the bus

station and got in line behind a large lady smelling of cheap perfume and strong hair

grease, she felt one step closer to freedom.

As she waited, she marveled at how well she’d put herself together. Compared to

the lady in front of her, Joy was a diva. With her pointed black pumps, mink stoll, and

elegant French hat, Joy was confident that she didn’t look like these other homely

country girls in the bus station. Joy felt sophisticated, divine if not holy. She was sure

her looks and her charm would fool people into thinking that she was bom and raised in

some fashionable place like Manhattan or Paris.

Her neighbor in front of her lacked such refinement. She wore a home sewn

dress and carried a large purse that she clasped tightly to her chest at all times. Surely the

ticket taker would be happy to see such a put together lady such as Joy after dealing with

113

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such a ragamuffin.

The lady in front of her opened her purse and pulled out a small glass container

filled with an obnoxiously smelling liquid and took a swig. Once when she noticed Joy

noticing her she looked around, and then leaned over and said, “It’s my medicine. Never

leave home without it. Never know when I’m going to get one of my spells and need to

take a swig? You need some?” She put the jar in Joy’s hands and gently patted Joy on

the arm. “Good for what ails ya.”

The smell alone was enough to make Joy feel cross-eyed. It reminded her of her

daddy, of Richard, of Baby, of what she was running from.

The lady took another swig and began to hum, a raising and lowering the notes,

the pitch. Joy couldn’t think of the name, but she was sure she’d heard her daddy sing

the blues song many times before in a drunken stupor.

As she tried to think of the song, she heard the voice of the man behind her in line

bleeding through. It was deep, raspy. She turned around to see his dimples, pretty smile

and an abundance of hair. He was dressed sharply and looked smart. He looked fake.

“A pretty thang like you shouldn’t be traveling alone,” he said to her matter of

factly.

Joy didn’t quite understand his way of talking. He was a fast talker.

“Yo daddy should have you at home giving you foot massages, kissing your toes,

taking care of you.”

“I ain’t got no daddy,” she replied.

Seven smiled. “You looking for one?”

He was from Detroit, he explained, but he said he’d be willing to take the bus to

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anywhere she was going. She was flattered.

Seven, she was soon to discover, despite his appearance had as few cents as she.

So they both ending up going no where at all.

The two sat on one of the wooden benches in front of the bus station under Joy’s

umbrella waiting for the rain to go away and the sun to come out. For most of the time,

they sat in silence, smoking, staring at the lingering cloud of cigarette smoke between

them under the umbrella.

“Shit!” Joy drew the word out with meaning, with purpose. It sounded sweeter

than its meaning. She let the word linger for a moment with the cigarette smoke and rain,

the last ingredient in some concoction that Joy herself didn’t quite realize she was

creating.

The profanity had revitalized the conversation, since in her

mouth the curse word was more like an incantation.

“Ain’t nothing going on in Warren Hills. It’s a good thing we’re leaving.”

You right, Seven articulated in body language: a nod, a raised brow. He fanned

the cigarette smoke as if suddenly realizing that the smoke was willing to stay around this

spot longer than he would.

“Well I can’t wait to see the entire East Coast with you, honey. We gonna really

have fun.”

Finally, the rain ended, the sun came out, and the bus pulled into Warren Hills.

As the bus pulled up to the front of the Joy jumped up. This was it. Her final departure,

and she was leaving with a handsome man by her side, a hip young man who knew city

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life, who knew the world outside of North Carolina.

She looked at him and grinned a toothy grin, but he did not return the favor. He

patted his pockets, turned them inside out, looked around the bench, yelling he’d lost his

ticket.

“Damn it all to hell,” he let out. His curse words weren’t as magical. His act

wasn’t nearly as convincing as Joy’s performance.

Joy was suspicious.

The bus was boarding and Joy immediately understood the game. She didn’t

know anything of city hustlers, but she’d been acting all her life. She recognized a fellow

performer. She admired his effort.

“What are we going to do? I don’t even have any ID on me,” Seven shouted. He

had a hand on each of her shoulders. He was looking her dead in the eyes. He was

reminding her of his beauty. Of their possibilities.

“Look, I ain’t got no extra money,” Joy replied. She removed herself from his

grip. She looked away from his gaze.

Seven got on his knees. He looked up at her and opened his palms to the sky.

The motion reminded her of her of prayer.

“I know we just met and it sounds funny, but is there anyway you can help me out

here?”

Joy knew it was con, but she liked her position now, towering above this

handsome man, having him at her mercy. It wasn’t a con, if she was in control. Right? If

she played the game. If she played him as well. She’d been able to handle much more

dangerous men than him.

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Joy didn’t have another cent on her, but this was her town, and she knew

someone, someone like family that would loan her the money, that wouldn’t judge her,

that might even give her a little something extra for the road.

“Tell you what,” Joy said closing her umbrella and tapping off the water on the

curb beside her kneeling friend. “I’ll cash in my ticket now, we’ll go back to my

grandma’s place, and we’ll regroup. Another bus’ll be back in the morning if you can

wait that long.”

Seven kissed the exposed ankle of Joy’s foot. He worked his way up her leg with

kisses.

Joy giggled but stopped him before he went too far.

She thought she’d made the right decision.

*

It was 4 A.M. the morning after she’d met Seven, the day after Uncle Sonny’s

funeral, and Joy was pulling up floorboards in her daddy’s new shed, looking for the right

spot to hide her secret stash.

This was back woods magic, Mama Byrd had explained, it was guaranteed to

work. A love spell. She told Joy to bury the concoction at the spot she first fell in love.

In the spot her womanhood had been born; the child in her had died. Joy went to the

shed.

She’d only met Seven hours before, but Joy was sure that he was it, the man she’d

been looking for, the man who was going to show her the city and make sure that this

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time she left home for good. But Seven had his own tricks. She couldn’t trust him. She

needed protection. Insurance.

As Joy hid the concoction, she heard her daddy’s piano playing from in the main

house. The sound soothed her. It was the old songs she had heard all her life, yet never

really cared for. His favorites were the blues. Joy didn’t much care for that. She was

looking forward to hearing a new type of music up north with Seven. She was looking

forward to visiting the jazz clubs, bars with fancy names and big named scatting out tunes

by a shiny black grand piano.

When the door to the shed opened and Joy’s daddy walked in, she was shocked.

Who was playing the piano? Mama? Her son, Jackson?

“I thought’d you’d be gone,” her daddy said after he caught his breath from the

shock of finding someone in his shed.

Joy tried haphazardly to conceal the task she’d been trying to complete. She’d

forgotten how early her dad rose and went out to the shed in order to get started work on

the farm. But the piano playing had thrown her off. She tried to put on a show face.

“Leaving today, but I thought I’d left something.”

Her daddy looked puzzled, “What?”

Joy giggled. “Well, actually, I was coming to steal some smokes.”

Her daddy now looked pleased. “I guess its in the Taylor blood,” he laughed. “I

like a good cigar, you do, and so does your son.”

Joy couldn’t imagine her young son smoking. She had smoked when she was his

age, but she had been more mature, more grown.

“But you didn’t have to steal them. Girl, you know I’d do anything for you.”

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It was true. But her daddy’s face was so sad by this point. It was old. Tired. Joy

was sure thathe couldn’t do anything for her anymore. Her daddy couldn’t compare to

Seven. Seven was excitement. Possibility. His love, at that moment, was what she

needed to secure.

“I love you daddy.” She gave him an awkward hug. He didn’t hug her back. She

knew it was because such emotions were beyond his reach. She knew that they were out

of hers as well, this was an act.

Joy grabbed a few cigars and made her way out of the shed. She would have

waved him goodbye, but she knew her daddy wasn’t good with goodbyes. Didn’t

acknowledge them.

As Joy walked back to Mama Byrd’s, she hoped that her daddy had bought her

act. She hoped that he hadn’t been suspicious and checked the floorboards, finding the

elixir wrapped in Seven’s jacket, meant to tie him down and put him under her spell. She

hoped that if her daddy did find it that he’d let it be, and allow her move on with her life,

and leave Warren Hills with another man.

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MID-NOVEMBER, 1969

Jackson did not understand why it mattered to him so much, but he knew that his

hand trembled so badly that he could hardly hold the receiver to his ear as Joy spoke. It

was Thanksgiving, and his mama was on the phone, but she hadn’t called to wish him a

happy holiday. She had called to answer questions.

She told him that when Uncle Sonny had cancer, back then, folks didn’t

understand cancer as they did today. Daddy had thought you could catch it. Mama had

feared it was punishment for his sins, but all Joy knew was that now she understood, and

now she knew for sure it wasn’t contagious and it wasn’t punishment, but it was some

evil multiplying cells that have nothing to do with transgressions but was probably

inherited.

She understood, she said, how your own people could disown you because of

their own hang-ups, over what they didn’t understand, or couldn’t rationalize, or didn’t

want to be themselves, but Joy, as calm and direct as ever, told Jackson that people

sometimes are wrong, misled, and ignorant.

On the phone, Jackson could not see the tears that streaked Joy’s face, but he did

understand that at this moment, for the first time in a long while, she was not acting. She

was being sincere.

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“Uncle Sonny died in his lover’s arms with that damn dog Chico by his side,” Joy

said simply. “Whether that lover was a man or woman, rich or poor, black or white, is

irrelevant. Hell, I’m not even certain I know the real story. But I do know he was

happy.”

She paused. Slipped into a tough Brooklyn accent. It was easier this way, he

supposed.

“But I do know how I want to die. With the only men who have ever truly loved

me by my side.” Jackson knew that she was referring to him. But who else?

She told Jackson they’d be in town soon, to tell Mamie they were coming, not the

reason why. She told Jackson that it wouldn’t be long now. She told him that she needed

to be home with her daddy.

*

It had been less than six months in the new house and already Jackson needed a

change. He needed a new order in his life. He needed to be rejuvenated. He needed

everything around him to look different, feel fresh. He needed everything rechristened;

he needed a rebirth. He needed to rid the house of old harsh feeling and be prepared for

Joy’s arrival.

Without Mamie’s consent, Jackson did a little winter cleaning. He rearranged the

kitchen and the dining room from the way the sisters had left them, painted Joy’s room a

vibrant orange. He filled the house with fresh flowers, green plants, and moved Mama

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Byrd’s plant from its cracked tea pitcher into an expensive crystal vase. He did anything

and everything to make the house alive.

The burden, he felt, was on him. Mamie had decorated the new house so that it

felt nothing like the old homestead. But then she had retired to her room in her hole-

ridden pajamas for what appeared to Jackson a prolonged mourning. So now he made it

his duty now to take his grandma’s mind off death, and place it on Joy.

It almost worked.

Upon his return from the market he found his grandma on the ground with her

hands on her knees, sobbing. Before her were pieces of Mama Byrd’s lily, yellowed and

dried up, lifeless. The dead leaves and vines coated the entire living room floor. The

crystal vase stood in front of the picture window, on a table, sparkling in the sun light, but

with browned stems sticking out from within.

All that she could do was ask her grandsonwhy. Why he’d rearranged the

furniture, why he’d traded the pitcher for the vase? Why he’d thought that the more

expensive, beautiful container would be better at holding the plant, nurturing Mama

Byrd’s magic.

Jackson dropped to the floor beside his grandma. He held her in his arms.

He tried to tell her it was all right, but instead what came out was “We all right.”

He repeated the phrase until he too was crying. It’s just a plant, he imagined Joy would

have said if she’d have been there. A stupid plant. They grow; they die. But Jackson

understood the importance of this lily. He understood how its mere survival was magic.

He understood how it had gotten the family through a painful death, through a difficult

move. It had been a constant in their lives.

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When they were already down, crying over broken stems and crumpled leaves, it

seemed like a good time to tell Mamie of Joy’s condition.

*

When Mama Byrd entered the house the first thing she noticed was the lily. But

there was no use in worrying about such things. They had to take care of Joy. Joy was

the first priority. The family escorted Joy to her room and raised the shades so the

brilliant sunlight from the autumn sky could shine in.

With her swollen, ashy hands, Joy slowly pulled the afghan that Mamie had made

for her across her knees, up her lap to the top of her stomach. In order to preserve her

dignity, Jackson looked down as Joy wiped away the film from her lips with a crumpled

piece of tissue she kept stuffed into her left hand.

Mamie tried her best to resist helping her daughter, to resist being the doting

mother she’s always been, the protective mother a girl like Joy needs.

Joy, a performer till the end, was an aging actress. She was one of the great

Hollywood divas, making demands she knew no one could meet.

“I don’t want no crying at the funeral.”

Mamie tried to hide the fact that she’d already began to tear. But it was to no

avail. Joy smacked her lips together is discontent, then looked at Mama Byrd, her North

star, who remained regal, stoic. Dry eyed.

Meanwhile Jackson sat in a rocking chair in between the two women. Rocking

and looking more like granddaddy than ever. He fixed his shirt collar, faked a cough: an

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excuse to grab the tear that was getting ready to fall. He reminded himself that men

didn’t cry in front of people. It made you weak. His granddaddy had told him that.

“I brought my blue dress down with me. It is hanging over yonder in the comer.

I know I done fell off since I bought it, but they gonna have to cut it and sew it on me

anyway, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Jackson tried not to look up at the dress. He tried not to imagine the mortician

sewing it on his mama, haphazardly; not caring about how roughly he handles her

delicate arms, her dainty fingers. He tried not to think of her final appearance being at the

mercy of someone who didn’t know her, who didn’t know how much pride she took in

fixing her hair, putting on her own makeup, looking good. He tried not to think of how

unnatural she’d look. How dark. How the wig wouldn’t fit right. He tried to keep his

mind blank. He tried to be mad at her abandoning him when he was younger, for not

being in his life when he needed her, for making him care about her now when it was too

late. But he couldn’t.

“I don’t want Baby seeing me like this. If he’s planning on coming, or any white

person for that matter, close the casket. We gotta look good in front of them at all times.

Can’t let them see us looking po’ly, looking down.”

Mamie stared at her daughter. She was the spitting image of Tom. She had his

features and personality. But her voice, the inflection in it was so foreign. She had spent

her life trying to be someone, anyone else, but only her voice succeeded. She still looked

like Tom. She was still her daughter. Mamie started to cry.

Jackson also let a tear slip. To hell with his granddaddy, he thought. Mamie

crushed her daughter’s hand in hers and began to pray.

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Torres had come at the wrong time. Everyone was tending to the needs of Joy, so

no one heard him knock at the screen door before entering into the house. He began to

follow the voices in the house, but became sidetracked when he saw Mama Byrd’s lily. It

still lay across the living room floor, limp and in pieces.

Torres was transfixed. He followed each vine back to the vase, traced the roots

back into the jar, attempted to find the cause of its dying. This was something he knew

about. Flowers and plants. Rootwork. His daddy had taught him. He had had a green

thumb and had passed it on to him. Had told him about the most magnificent window

garden they had back home in Cuba. Here, in America, Torres had started creating one of

his own.

Torres had grown to love plants. Had developed a knack of loving things into

beauty.

When Mama Byrd spied him clipping the dead leaves, detangling the roots by

massaging them with his fingertips, and talking to the stems and shoots as if they were

his children, she stood back and watched in wonder. She knew that someday the plant

would flower again, would grow back to a state even more beautiful than before.

Later, when they’d all sit down to dinner, as a family, Mama Byrd would turn to

Mamie and Jackson and point to Torres with conviction and faith and say, “That boy

right there is pure magic.”

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DECEMBER, 1969

“No matter when I die,” she began in her soft, drawn-out Southern accent, more

show than real, “put my body on ice and save it till Christmas. Make sure you get

everybody’s name on the register then throw it in my casket.” She stuck a cigarette in her

mouth, more out of habit than desire. “That way I’ll know who my real friends were: the

ones who loved me enough to get up from their holiday table and come cry over this ole

body.” Jackson laughed, but Joy was dead serious.

She was sick, real sick, and she knew it wouldn’t be long. It was mid-December

and Joy had come to terms with not making it to the New Year, her thirty-second

birthday, but she did want to at least see the old homestead one last time, Old Edward’s

place. The first house they’d lived. Stirred by his mama’s wish, Jackson kept chopping

down overgrowth. Chopping fast and hard, trying to clear a path to the old homestead.

Chopping down thorn bushes, saplings, and waist high weeds.

The driveway had grown up so much that Jackson had to park the car yards away

from the house and make his way up the drive on foot, hand gripped tightly to the swing

blade. The only way he knew he was still in the old dirt driveway at all was the way the

Virginia pines seemed to part, lining up parallel on both sides of him. When the trees

finally opened to reveal the meadow, Jackson stood in awe. A huge cedar was where the

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house should have been. On both sides of the tree, vines appeared to wrap around

themselves, all the way up the twelve-feet of tree in the sky, forming a lopsided rectangle.

Had it only been ten years? Could all of the lilies they had planted mutated and grown to

this?

Joy could barely see him from the car now, yet she kept yelling at him, telling him

if he didn’t hurry she’d be dead soon. But her voice was weak; Jackson couldn’t have

possibly have heard her. Yet she kept calling anyway, barely able to raise her voice past

the hum of the engine that kept running or the AM radio that merrily played Charles

Brown’s rendition of “Merry Christmas, Baby.” Despite her annoyance, Joy was too

weak to even turn down the volume. She was too weak to shut off the engine and roll

down the window. So, she just kept yelling out to Jackson, knowing her voice could

never escape the car.

Cancer had ravaged her body. Though she was young, the disease had darkened

her mahogany skin, had thinned her once robust figure, diluted her hazel irises to a light

yellow-green. A sign the doctor said of kidney failure, part of the final stage. Joy

understood this, and so did Jackson. So, he continued to chop, trying to get to the old

homestead, trying to satisfy his mama.

After cupping his hand over his brow, shielding his pupils from the sun, Jackson

could see, though barely, glimpses of the structure that the ivy let slip from its grasp.

Staring at the overtaken homestead, Jackson could not tell front from back, side from

side. The only clue that drove him chopping towards the front porch was the faint sound

of the abandoned wind chime that tried to ring out every time the wind blew. As quickly

as he could, Jackson made it to the place he figured the front porch should be, then

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started chopping down teenage sycamores that blocked the steps, stomping down

creeping myrtle that crept all around the house, and tearing down with his bare hands the

poison ivy that wrapped around the structure. The vines fought him with all their might;

whenever he tore down one, another seemed to spring-up in its place, tangling him,

making him itch, trying to send him away. But Jackson was strong. He kept on

chopping, stomping, tearing down vines, untangling himself, de-thoming his britches,

fighting back the burning itch that traveled up and down his legs, across his arms as he

followed the sound of the wind chime.

Jackson too wanted to see the old homestead. Who wouldn’t want to see the first

place they’d lived? That place, not the biggest or fanciest, not the place where they’d

eventually settle down and make their own family, but that first one, that first one in

memory would always be home, and there’s nothing like a homecoming. So, when his

sister asked, Jackson had gladly agreed. But the place had grown so, no one had even

been down there, save the hunters and poachers, since the Taylor family had left it.

Young Mr. Edwards had been touched by the notion. He had gladly allowed the

Taylors onto his family’s land to see the house they had lived on when their daddy

sharecropped. He was so touched by the situation that he had followed a few minutes

behind in his Ford. In the truck bed were the things he felt Jackson might need to get

anywhere near the place: a chain saw, an electric weed eater. But by the time Young Mr.

Edwards had arrived Jackson had made it all the way up the drive to the house. Young

Mr. Edwards watched from afar as Jackson, with only a swing blade and his bare hands,

tore at the vines that covered the house. Though he didn’t feel like traversing the tall

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grass and brush himself, Young Mr. Edwards decided he’d call out and offer assistance

out of kindness.

“Need some help boy?”

Jackson waved him back, “I’m fine, just fine.”

Edwards sighed to himself. “Boy, you gonna work yourself to death trying to

chop down all that stuff. I got some tools here . . . weed eater, saw.”

“I’m fine, just fine. Don’t reckon I need all that.” And he didn’t. By now

Jackson had completely uncovered the front porch. The busted swing lay in shambles at

one end, on the other, where the door ought to have been, was a tree. Strong and surly,

springing up from below the floor boards all the way through the porch roof. Its

branches, just as strong, sent arms this way and that, into the house and out. The tree

stood in the way of the entrance, confidently. But Jackson was stronger. By the time

Edwards had hollered, “the saw, I gotta electric say here, boy!” Jackson was brutally

chopping at the tree as if he were possessed. Chopping, chopping, with only a swing

blade, chopping until the whole thing had slowly edged over and edged to the ground,

taking with it half of the front porch, condemning the other half. Jackson had to run

inside before the porch roof collapsed.

Inside the air was stale. Contrary to what he’d expected, being there brought back

no memories. He saw nothing; saw no refraction against the wall, heard no distant voice

from the past. All he heard was the wind chime that seemed to announce everything: a

gust, a breeze, a sigh.

As Jackson entered the back bedroom, a sparrow flew past him and out a hole in

the window. Its makeshift nest on top of a tattered canvas lampshade was the only sign

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of its former home, now left behind. Startled, Jackson nonetheless proceeded into the

dusty room. As far as he could tell, besides the bird, there had not been any other

intruders. The room sat untouched, trapped in a time warp. One of Mamie’s many

church going hats, the red one, adorned with fake flowers and fringe, still lay on the bed.

Beside it a canary yellow dress with a scarlet sash waited patiently, still attached to its

hanger. The matching pumps were located at the foot of the bed, laid out and ready to

go. On the dresser the small wooden jewelry box was open, spilling over with fake pearls

and turquoise earrings.

Jackson crept about, cleared the visible spider webs, dusted off the most untidy

places. After drawing back all the curtains and opening the remaining windows, Jackson

made his way back to the car, past and inquisitive Young Mr. Edwards, to retrieve Joy’s

frail body. Jackson didn’t bother to unpack the oxygen tank nor the wheelchair. Instead,

he gently lifted her into his arms, careful not to hit her do-rag covered head against the

car door seal, and carried her down the overgrown path, up the rotted condemned porch,

into the dimly lit house.

For the first time since that morning, Joy opened her eyes wide. She smacked her

lips together in contempt, shook her head, but then surrendered to a painful smile. She

realized they were not alone. You win, Joy thought, I’m finally home. Though not

visible to her, she was sure her father lingered about somewhere in the house. The sound

of piano playing flooded her ears. “Greensleeves” was it? After decades of searching, Joy

finally felt safe. She looked up at Jackson and watched his lips move, but she could not

hear what he said. All she heard was familiar music.

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Alone in the house with his mama, Jackson let out the words, “I love you” as he

felt Joy’s body go limp. Resting in her son’s strong arms, finally at peace, she closed her

eyes, but like Mama Byrd’s lily, she did not die.

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