“…The stars seem so much nearer in the wide open. Or they did once. The snows came one year. Colder than ever before. The fields blew past like the wind, a squared off view from the boxcar. Snowy field after snowy field. Not since ‘52 had I come back. Down in Denver, state of Colorado it was. I smoked then. I put a cigarette in my mouth and lit it, then I threw the match away and the whole thing, it had been soaked in some kind of solvent, or something like that to clean it, because the whole inside of the car lit up on fire. I jumped up and I still had my cigarette in my mouth. I didn’t know what I was doing. I jumped out of the boxcar while it was on a bridge and fell through I don’t know how many pine trees before I landed in this deep, deep snow. My boxcar ride was still burning as it rolled on past, and the fire reflected on all that snow, must’ve been miles an miles of this deep, deep snow, and the world lit completely up for miles, like the whitest day there has ever been, and the shadows of all these thousands of pine trees spun around so fast in all that snow and shadow and then just vanished and I have never seen anything so beautiful again in my entire life.” Quiet in the dark bunker. “So that’s it,” Cider said at last. “Yeah,” said the junkman. “That’s it.” Cider left that tiny world away from the world. That next day he walked. The sun burned hot in the sky. He was about to pass the convenient store when he noticed a new sign that boasted of fresh fish for sale, tasty table favorites. His curiosity peeked and he stepped inside. The store owner was laughing loudly behind the counter and he held up two large catfish. There were new aquariums against the rear wall that had fish in them. “Fish?” asked Cider. “Great God yes,” said the store owner. “There’re tons of em. I get them from this Indian. He’s the best fisherman I have ever seen in my life. He’s a natural. He brings em in all the time, loads of em. I don’t know how he does it. Boy shoot. Want one?” “Maybe sometime.” “Well they’re fifteen dollars each. The catfish are.” “Alright,” said Cider. He stepped toward the door. The manager waved. Cider lifted his chin. He routed his way up through the trees toward the cave of the Native American. He stood at the mouth of it and called in. Soon the Indian emerged from the dark and grinned and gestured him in. “Hey there,” he said. “Hey,” said Cider. “The fish have been really biting,” said the Indian. “That’s good,” said Cider. “I got a catfish that weighed sixteen pounds,” said the Indian. “Big one,” Cider said. The Native led him into the cave and told him to take a seat. There was lawn furniture now in the living space and Cider eased down. “Boy,” said the Indian. “I sure got some money from these fish.” “How many do you catch?” “Oh, fifteen or so a day.” “What?” “About fifteen or sixteen or so.” “I see.” “Let’s eat one.” “Okay.” “You look pretty thin.” “Well.” “You need some meat on your bones there.” “I guess I do.” The Native prepared the meal fast and set the fish on the table and they ate of it. Cider upon tasting it could not contain his glee. He ate the meal fast and leaned back. “Thanks,” he said. “You bet. Say, you seen a boat around?” “A boat? No.” “Well, someone stole mine.” “I’ll look around for it.” “It was a real fine paddle boat.” “I’ll find it.” “Ah, just let it go.” “I’ll probably come across it. It’s a whole boat.” “Nah, I already made another one.” “You what?” “I made a canoe from a tree. It’s better anyway.” “Ah,” Cider said. “Say,” said the Native American. “I saw this nigger being dragged off by police the other day. They were whacking him with their clubs and stuff.” “Well,” said Cider. “I best be off. I’ll see ya around.” “Sure thing. You take care.” “You too.” Cider walked to the arcade and pushed open the door but Jim was not there. He walked toward his mother’s house and tapped on her wooden door and it creaked open. She stood in the doorway emotionless and her expression did not change when she saw him and she simply turned around and walked back into the kitchen and left the door open. Cider stepped inside. She was sitting in a chair at the table and it seemed as though she had been crying. There hung a picture of Jim on the wall, sixteen years old, his face a composition of black and grey and white dots. How like the man himself. The room was small and dust swam in the spears of green murky glow. “I haven’t seen Jim,” said Cider. “He’s hid,” she said. “He run into some trouble?” “He’s dying.” “He’s what?” “You wouldn’t know, boy. He’s an ancient.” “How old is he?” “Forty-seven. That don’t matter. He took it on himself.” “Why is he dying?” “They have it out for him,” she said. “Who?” She moved her hand vaguely as if to gesture to legions of the white race. “When?” asked Cider, stricken with a sudden understanding. “He must kill all of his foes.” “I don’t understand.” She nodded. She told him where he was. He found the steakhouse that afternoon. He entered and sensed the hostility toward him by all of the colors in the place. A tall man seemed interested in his presence enough to look at him for a moment and he asked for Jim. The man shook his head. In the back someone spoke. Then there was a shout. “You can go on back,” the tall man said. Cider stepped across the wooden floorboards toward the back. He stood in the bleak room and saw Jim laying down on the couch. “Hey there kid,” said the Negro. “I heard about the police.” “Yeah.” “Why do they have it out for you?” “They don’t want no black male acting like a man,” said the Negro. “You need anything?” “Nah.” “You sure?” “You’ve got a good heart. You do, Newblood. You look out for your close ones.” “I don’t have any close ones.” “Yes you do.” “Where are they?” Jim wiped his mouth. “Let me tell you about some people,” he said. “Some people ain’t worth nothing. Rich, poor, some of em aren’t worth a shit and that’s all there is to it. I have never known a man who had made it big and didn’t forget where he came from. I had a friend in this town, use to stick up for him. Took him to fights when he was just a kid. Now he drives a new car. Got new clothes. He don’t know me. He’s a big man now. A big man. I have no use for a man who spits backward on where he came from.” Cider watched him. “Say you make it big one day,” the Negro said. “You make it big and I don’t care who you are. You get up one morning and you’re old. And you don’t got nothing to say to your brother.” “I’ll get you something if you need it.” “Ah you. I know you’d get it. But I’m fine. You take care.” Cider fought three thugs in an alleyway and left one unconscious in the stairwell of a cellar and located a bathroom and washed his bloody fist with lukewarm water. He thought long in a badly lit corridor with no mirrors, a corridor whose walls were all mirrors. This season one of violence. Two Crips, fourteen and twenty-one, shot to death on Troost Avenue. A clerk on 27th and Prospect shoots and kills unarmed robber. Among the trash shuttled on the wind there blew a loose scrap of newsprint that had a black and white picture of Brandon Sheppard who had been shot in the head and was nineteen years old forever. For Richard Abbey it ended on 18th and Roe in a cafeteria, pockets full of stolen cash, he rocked back on his heels, his last word a lie, the roar of the pistol in his face. In the street a woman crying, the first thing we heard at birth. That next day a smoldering automobile crashed into a street-sign, a local boy on Troost had run to open the door to see the driver dead. Jessie VanTrill shot to death by police. There is only this heart in me, have mercy. He lay outside against the brick wall of an alley to sleep then to dream. A galaxy dissolves like a snowflake in a puddle. He gasps and wakes and walks for a long time lonely and crazed and approaches the apartment of his friend Michael, the academic poet, and knocks on the door. But only silence to greet. He walked away. And how that silence surged softly backward. A youthful Blood in the streets shot in the heart gushed his lifeblood from his chest and it became the blood of a dead man.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 08:08:48 +0000
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