Gone Fishin' (9 page)

At noon I was saved by a knock on the door.

‘Domaque Harker,’ Miss Dixon said through the closed
screen.

‘How you do, Miss Dixon?’

‘Very fine, and how are you?’

‘I’m fine too, ma’am.’

‘And your mother?’

‘I
ain’t seen her in two, three days, ma’am, but I’m
sure she’s fine and would wanna know that your health is fine
too.’

Dom was
speaking slower than he had when I was with him. I figured that Miss
Dixon was teaching him how to talk as well as read.

‘And
what story are you working on now, Domaque?’

‘I’m
workin’ on Noah’s tale, ma’am.’

All of
this talk was still through the dosed screen.

‘And
how does that go?’

‘How
Noah saw the storm comin’ an’ how he gathered all the
married children an’ all the pairs of animals. How he rode the
storm of God’s righteous anger in love of his wife and his
chirren an’ their chirren…’

‘That’s
the way you have to do it. Make it your own.’

She opened
the door with that and Domaque shambled in. That skinny woman and
barrel-shaped hunchback looked so strange standing there amongst the
umbrella stands and mirrors. To look at them you would say that they
had nothing in common. But there they were understanding each other
so well that they could have been good friends, or even blood. They
would never even sit down at the same table to break bread. But
they’d get together and tell each other stories and laugh and
be happy. I remember feeling loneliness watching them.

Miss Dixon
asked us to stay to dinner but Dom said that we had to be going,
being polite I guess. She gave us some sandwiches and fruit in a
paper bag to eat on the way.

I was
hoping that she’d let me keep her uncle’s suit but she
didn’t. My clothes smelled all the worse for the few hours of
cleanliness that I’d been given.

She waved
goodbye from the front porch like a mother sending her kids off to
school. I felt bad about leaving in some ways. I had never stayed in
such a fine house and I liked it; but I was glad to be clear of that
strange white lady.

‘She
funny, huh?’ Domaque asked.

‘Yeah,
I guess. She comes right out and says what she thinks and don’t
care how it sounds.’

Dom smiled
to himself and then closed his lips over his giant mouth. When he did
that his lips came together in a point as if he were trying to kiss
something very small.

He said,
‘Yeah, that’s why I like her, I guess.’

‘I
don’t know if it’s too good always sayin’ anything
you feel.’

‘Yeah,
but that way you don’t get beholdin’ t’some’un.
She teach me how t’read but not so’s that I owe her
nuthin’. I know she do it fo’her pleasure, not mine.’

Afternoon
was overcast and cooler than it had been. I was feeling better but
after we’d walked a few miles I was ready to rest. Dom said
that Pariah was only a short ways and I had a bed wailing for me
there.

‘A bed where?’ I asked him.

‘Out at Miss Alexander’s.’

‘She any kin to Mouse?’

‘She Raymond’s momma’s sister.’

‘An’
what’s she like?’ I didn’t want to tell Dom about
me and his mother, that wouldn’t have been proper. But I didn’t
want a repeat of my one night in the woods either.

‘Mouse
said you might be worried ‘bout stayin’ there. He tole me
t’tell you that you be safe wit’ his auntie.’

When Dom
walked he put his right foot forward and reached into the air with
his right hand as if he were carrying a staff; his left hip would
fall back and then he’d bring the left leg up with a dragging
movement, straightening his shoulders as he went. He was able to walk
very fast in that odd way. When I asked him what else it was that
Mouse said, that walk became even more peculiar.

‘He
said…’ Dom couldn’t go on for laughing and drooling.

‘What?’
I was worried that Mouse had told him about Jo and me; that this
grinning came just before Dom pulled out his butchering knife.

‘He
said…,’ Dom ducked his head.’…that maybe he knows a
girl be my friend.’

Pariah
looked wilder than the woods. It was a crooked town, not more than
two blocks of unpaved red day street and all there was to it was the
one street. The north side of town was at least eight feet higher
ground than the south side. Crossing the rutted and eroded road
between them was more like going up or down hill. All the buildings
were made from the same weathered wood and only one of them got to
three floors.

There were
no telephone wires or cars or any sign at all that we were in the
modern age. If people were out in front of a building, on the raised
wooden platform they had for sidewalk, and they were sitting in a
chair - well, it was a homemade chair, something somebody threw
together one morning before breakfast and then they sat in it for the
next thirty years.

But there
weren’t too many people outside. A couple of women carrying
large baskets on their heads and one lone buggy drawn by a spotted
mare. The buggy was at such an angle on that slanted road that I
expected to see it turn over at any minute. But it didn’t, of
course, it’s only cars that need flat pavement.

All the
buildings looked more or less the same. You could tell them apart
though, by the signs. The church had two white crosses on the front
doors and the barbershop had a red-and-white-striped candy cane
painted on the wall. The general store, which was also the bar, had a
wooden Indian out front.

‘Here
we go,’ Dom said when we got to the wooden Indian. ‘Miss
Alexander’s general store and music bar.’

It was a
country store. Canned goods along the walls and fresh food on a
counter at the back. There was one rack for dresses and men’s
jackets and a table full of shirts, socks, and shoes. Three men were
playing cards and drinking at a table in the centre of the room. It
was a big room and, for the most part, empty.

‘Hi,
Dom,’ one of the cardplayers said.

‘Afternoon,
Domaque,’ hailed a big woman from behind the counter.

‘Miss
Alexander!’ Dom yelled. ‘This here is Easy, friend’a
Raymond.’

‘Well…’
She smiled and showed us a mouth full of gold-rimmed teeth. ‘I’ve
heard a lot about you, baby.’ She smiled again, turning her
profile on us. ‘Raymond think the sun rise and set on you.’

‘But
he still don’t come out till night,’ I said.

That big,
colorful, woman let out a laugh so loud that it almost knocked me
over. She was wearing a bright white dress with giant blue flowers
embroidered on it, a dress like the Mexicans wear to Carnival.

‘He
said that you was all taciturn ‘cause you was sick but he
didn’t say that you was funny too.’

She had
large eyes that followed everything happening in the room. If
somebody raised their voice at the card table she was taking it in.
If someone walked in the door her eyes said hello to them but the
whole time she was talking to me and Dom.

‘Raymond
say he want you t’stay wit’ us a couple’a days,’
she said. ‘I got a room right out back that you can use, an’
on weekends we got entertainment. I mean we ain’t got nuthin’
t’compete wit’ Houston, Fifth Ward, but it’s nice.’

She put
her hand on my forearm. ‘You can take some clothes from the
rack while I clean what you got.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I hope you like it while you here.’

‘I
ain’t too worried ‘bout that, ma’am. I been a
little sick an’ I could use some sleep. But when I get better
I’ma go get our car an’ head back down t’Houston
whether Mouse come back or not.’

‘Oh,
he be back fo’ then. Raymond ain’t gonna miss no free
ride.’

‘I
hope not. But either way I’ma be gone by day after tomorrah at
the latest.’

‘Uh-huh,
yeah.’ A woman had come in the door and Miss Alexander went
over to talk with her. As she left she said to Dom, ‘Show Easy
t’his room in the back, honey.’

‘Yes,
ma’am,’ the hunchback said.

Dom showed
me to a little shack behind the store. It was put together pretty
well and there was no need for heat. It had a spring bed against the
wall and a crate table in the middle of the floor. There was a big
tin pitcher full of water in the corner and sheets and towels neatly
folded on the bed. There was a stack of old newspapers next to the
door.

‘I’ma
leave you now, Easy. Momma want me t’come out to her place an’
see her guests, an’ Raymond might come by.’

‘You
tell Mouse t’get his butt down here fo’ I leave him.’

‘He
be here soon, Easy. But you know he gotta finish up business wit’
Reese first.’

I wondered
how much Dom knew about the crazy violence Mouse had in his heart for
daddyReese.

‘Can
you read them papers, Dom?’

‘Oh,
yeah, I already read mosta them. Not all of it, but what I could.
Them is Sweet William’s papers.’

‘Who?’
.

‘Sweet
William. That’s Miss Alexander’s entertainment. He’s
a barber down in Jenkins but on the weekends he come up here t’play
guitar an’ sing.’

‘He reads?’

‘Oh, yeah. William read the whole paper.’

‘Must be a lot in that.’

‘Uh-huh,
Easy. Things you couldn’t even believe if you ain’t read
‘em yourself. It use t’be that William read t’us
an’ I always say, “No!” like I didn’t believe
what he said. I said, “No!” an’ that was it. But
since I can read I know that a colored man runned a race in Europe
an’ beat all the rest of the runners of the world. Yeah, an’
he was from America just like us. Uh-huh. You know Bunny Drinkwater
say that the best thing we can do is run, but that’s just
jealousy talkin’. Yeah. Readin’ is sumpin’.’

I wanted
to ask him more but I was tired and a little shy of how ignorant I
was. Being a young man I felt I should be able to do anything better
than a hunchback, and the fact that I couldn’t rubbed me wrong.

After Dom
left I laid down on the bed and thought about things again. It was
the first chance I’d had to collect myself in a few days and I
wanted to get my head straight.

But no
matter what I tried to think of my mind went back to those dogs. I
could see them jerk around as the bullets tore through their skinny
bodies. Just a quick jerk and they hit the ground, dead. I had seen
dead before and not long after that I was in the world war where
death came by the thousands and the tens of thousands; but I never
felt so close to death as when I saw those dogs die. Just a twitch in
the air and then they fell to earth, one by one, heavier than life
can ever be.

I’d
close my eyes but then I’d start awake thinking about what
must’ve crossed before their dog eyes as they died; I was so
upset that I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid to sleep; afraid
because I had seen death in a way where it was real for me and I
worried that I’d never wake up. I wanted my father again;
wanted him for the thousandth time since we ran out of that slaughter
house and he ran out of my life forever. I wanted him to come back
and protect me from death.

That’s
when I decided to learn how to read and write.

I looked
at those papers and thought that if I could read what was in them I
wouldn’t have to think about those dogs; I thought that if I
could read I wouldn’t have to hang around people like Mouse to
tell me stories, I could just read stories myself. And if I didn’t
like the stories I read then I could just change them the way Dom did
with the Bible.

That was a
big moment for me. And I’d say that the whole trip was worth it
just for that, but I can’t say that because I lived to tell
about it and not everybody else did.

Just
thinking about reading calmed me down enough to get to sleep. I
rested for a long time and then I found myself awake: I was laying
back on the bed, staring out of the window, thinking how pretty the
moon was. A man was sitting on the crate with a tin guitar in his
lap, pulling on the frets and plucking odd notes. When he noticed my
eyes he lit a match and set its flame to a candle at his feet.

‘Well…
you back wit’ the livin’, eh?’

He was a
well-dressed, dark-skinned man. He was wearing a tapered white suit,
like the deacons wear in church on Easter, and a black shirt with
pearl buttons that were open down to the middle of his chest. His
hair was long and processed straight back. His face was so dean and
shiny that I remembered thinking that he must’ve shaved three
times before he oiled his skin.

‘They say you come out here wit’ Mouse?’

‘You call ‘im that too?’

‘Shee…
I’m the one named him.’ Sweet William ran his red tongue
along black lips. ‘You could say that I was a buildin’
block that help t’make Mouse who he is.’

‘Might
not be too much t’be proud’a,’ I said.

William
leaned back and gave me a leery stare. ‘I thought you an’
him was friends?’

‘We
are friends, yeah, but I been th’ough some things out here in
the country, man… I wanna go back t’Houston.’

Instead of
talking he started playing a slow blues tune. I’ve always loved
blues music; when you hear it there’s something that happens in
your body. Your heart and stomach and liver start to move to the
music.

‘What kinda things?’ he asked, still playing.

‘Things.’

‘Like what?’

He kept on playing.

‘Man, I don’t even know who you is. What you gonna be
askin’ me all this?’

‘My
name is William. I play music here on Friday an’ Saturday. An’
I wanna hear ‘bout Mouse; I ain’t seen him in, oh, ‘bout
four years. That’s all, I don’t mean nuthin’.’

All this
time and he was still playing his guitar.

I shook my
head and said, ‘It’s just that I ain’t been in the
country for a while an’ it kinda gits t’me. An’
Mouse don’t know no normal peoples. He know witches an’
hunchbacks an’ old white ladies an’ everything.’