Solemn Page 7

  “Fine.”

  “How your folks?”

  “Fine.”

  “You ain’t been running round in the dark in the road no more, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. What you doing round this well?”

  Solemn stared.

  “Probably should go on home. You don’t want to fall in or nothing, you know? Lemme ride you on up.”

  “I’m gonna get in trouble.”

  “No, not if I take you.”

  “’Specially if you take me.”

  “You won’t.”

  Hanson stayed in the car. After that baby in the well, he took no chances here.

  Landon answered the Redvine door with a trained grid of confusion and exoneration at the sight of an officer of the law. It didn’t matter this was another black man. All were caution. Bev had nylons tied around her head for a bonnet, and forgot this.

  “Again?”

  “Mrs. Redvine,” Bolden told her, “Solemn sure has a wandering nature. I know you love your daughter. I can see that. But, you know, law say kids her age are minors. She really shouldn’t be out here all by herself.”

  “She out here with her own people. We don’t hurt our own,” Landon said.

  “Might not be as peaceful as you think,” Bolden said. “The garter snakes out. Can make you sick. There’s a well round here where a baby got drowned. Dropped in. You gotta wonder, all the time, who your neighbors are.”

  “Well,” Bev said, “thank you so much for seeing Solemn home again, Officer…?”

  “Bolden.” Bolden extended his hand. Bev shook it. The camper shook, faint footsteps, then a face behind Landon’s. A girl with slit eyes and a nose wide enough to make up for it. Afro around her fudge-colored face. She wore a T-shirt silk-screened with “Free Mumia” on it. She balanced a cup of chicken noodle soup on her belly. Her eyes steadied on Bolden’s badge and outstanding billy club.

  “Mrs. Redvine, we in trouble?”

  “Oh no, Akila,” Bev said. “We know him.”

  “Mama, we don’t know this man,” Landon said.

  “I’m going along,” Bolden said. Then: “Solemn, mind your mother.”

  Solemn was already in the house, past the others, on to ennui. Before Landon bolted the door, Bolden came back to Bev. She tamed Landon’s puffed chest with one look. Her son stomped back in behind the young woman, her arm on his shoulder.

  “You know,” Bolden whispered above the crickets, “there’s that woman over yonder … Pearletta?”

  “Yeah,” Bev answered. Her chin flinched up at the name and the story. She always thought she should invite the woman over, or maybe to the church. But, the few times she had mentioned it to Redvine, he told her they had enough to worry about.

  “Well, she’s decided to go on and move outta here.”

  Bev shook her head. Knew that was coming.

  “I came out here ’cause she’s been calling the station asking for help, and we ain’t really authorized to go into people’s homes for that purpose,” Bolden said.

  Bev stood barefoot in a patch of grass before her home with two children inside and a grandchild on the way, without the modesty or mind now to remember the stocking cap atop her head before she greeted a knock. She totally understood. And she laughed.

  “I’m sorry … did I insult you?”

  “Oh no,” Bev told him. “It’s just, well, Solemn’s been buggin’ me about that woman ever since a day we ran into her at the road, coming from dinner in town, and me and her daddy got on the subject. Told us we should be her friends. Help her. So, I’m just laughing you say this now. I don’t know. Solemn kind of just has her funny ways.”

  “I can tell,” Bolden agreed.

  And that’s how Bev, Solemn, Landon, and a few partners from his makeshift “movement” wound up moving Pearletta Hassle out of Singer’s with fresh lemonade Akila pressed.

  SEVEN

  Redvine mumbled something about double overtime somewhere, so he couldn’t help move Pearletta. Bev was so pleased to help and get noticed for a good deed. Landon was eager, unaware of what all had exactly happened, and convinced (no, certain) the “White Man” tried to persecute another brother for having a few too many beers and playing with his baby and being careless—not criminal. He corralled two other strong backs to skip school and join him, hoping for some money out of the deal. They all stood in a circle and said a prayer for God’s good mercy and healing to Pearletta Hassle. Then, it was time to run along and get the work started. Solemn lagged.

  “We ain’t got all day,” Bev told her, suspecting Solemn just wanted to get lost.

  “I’ll be ’long,” Solemn assured. Bev sashayed down the way, on to good deeds.

  Solemn had something to return, to this woman she once met barefoot on a road. She did not remember what, in the senses of things. She only remembered covering a man come down out of the trees, from dark air, against her heavy breath and her strong will, a foe to her questioning eyes and witnessing mouth. She recalled the anchor of cotton or linen or soft and sticky cloth in her hands, come down from The Man at the Well. The red of it.

  Her home was placed in its usual order, where even tiny eyes in brass-framed photos pointed to the same direction. Her socks and underwear were folded inside her one dresser bureau, color coordinated from light to pastel to browns and darks. Her music jewelry box was on the windowsill and its safekept contents (about one hundred dollars now) remained. And the couch, bolted to the floor as part of manufacture, had no underneath she could pinch her hands into. Hardness alone filled the cabinets—plastic, tin, porcelain, stoneware, ceramic. Pumpkin-colored linen napkins (for Thanksgiving) and small hand towels (for other days with guests) were the only softnesses Solemn uncovered in the kitchen. Not a hat, not a cap, not a hood, not a scarf she knew did not belong to her family. But to another’s, now cut down to one woman whose coffee tables and box springs were set against her trailer days before the one the Redvines promised to help her move on. Solemn finally went on, to meet them there.

  She saw Landon in the yard with a few boxes on his back, steadied by his friend. They were going to drive the U-Haul truck for Pearletta. They did not know where to, yet. Solemn ran to her brother. She saw the woman from the road sat down on a stool in her soon-to-be-past yard, no words and no baby now, a hand on her cheek. And Bev was talking on and on and on to the quiet woman.

  “And this my daughter, Solemn,” Bev said, looking more excited than usual to see Solemn. Pearletta looked up. Solemn looked down at her.

  “Hello,” Solemn said, giving her hand.

  “Don’t she look just like you,” Pearletta managed, a knot in her speaking.

  “Oh.” Beverly laughed, as she watched Landon falter with an even bigger box. “I always thought she looked just like her daddy. Excuse me … Landon!”

  One of the boys had beer, Bev saw. “No drinking out here now!” Bev shouted.

  “Ma’am, what should I do?” Solemn asked that poor woman. She did not answer. So, Solemn walked in through the trailer’s open door, to find her own way into something to do.

  Solemn packed newspaper around dishes and glasses in hatboxes, folded rayon skirts in tissue paper, and tied up ten records at a time in twine. That poor woman liked strange music: white men with girly hair, makeup on, white women wearing black pants and holding guitars. Then, that poor woman came to rest with Solemn in the kitchen, with no overbearing or fussing as to how her things were handled. She gave Solemn a tuna sandwich and pop. Solemn kept a grin on her face, to let “that poor woman” know she knew but she did not know and even if she did, she did not care or judge or gossip.

  Pearletta Hassle stared often at Solemn, then looked away. Unlike the girl’s mother, she had arrived at Singer’s as a newlywed and left as an open space in the world. But she would forever recall the last face waving good-bye from the edge of that goddamned fence at the oddly exclusive road being a little girl she wished she had spoken to and invited over once.
At least once.

  * * *

  With Pearletta gone, even her trailer pulled away by men who did not introduce themselves to anyone but appeared to have permission, only a straw yellow rectangle of trampled grass left to mark the stubborn Hassle plot no one bought again. The rest of the families aspired to shoo away the spell of misfortune cast by such a nightmare in their midst. Soon, they could enjoy Christmas and the holidays with no stress or question or reporters or strange news mentioning their whereabouts. Singer’s Trailer Park in Bledsoe. The events of the summer, and the intrusion of strangers (white ones at that) dipping in and out of their makeshift blocks, called for a laid-back tone to the holidays.

  Come first of the year, they would marvel at how a dozen or more people could jigsaw their ways into the buffet dinners everyone gave at Christmas. People lumbered home with showy shopping bags dangled at their hips like toddler ghosts. The insides were secrets causing riddles to go on well into middle of the night, no robberies though. Shiny paper mixed in with large trash bags dropped into the bins at the front of the gate, gift-wrapped trash for the garbagemen to collect. More and more yells of “What you cooking today?” sailed through the air, along with the smells of their answers. The outside air cooled off to sixty. The breeze turned to chill, lifting up handfuls of dust, which would have been snow just one state north. The families retreated in to more cheerful televisions now: holiday jingles, soap opera and sitcom sets beaming with little lights, news shows and movies carrying the themes of God, giving, and, most important, buying.

  “What is it?” Solemn asked of the heavy silver box Redvine presented on Christmas morning. It had not been part of the rest of the packages Bev wrapped behind closed doors in her bedroom during December. Usual and unusual stuff: Connect Four, a new Barbie doll Solemn did not quickly unpackage by now, a basketball for Landon, a collapsible air hockey set for them both, a few shirts for them all, the more dainty earrings and jangling watches the parents whispered into each other’s hands, heavy dish sets and fruit baskets brought by old friends and relatives, tree ornaments and booze from running buddies like Alice Taylor. But the electronics plant had had surplus. They already had a floor-model TV, radios, and a VCR. So Redvine decided to atone for his shortcomings, to spoil his daughter and his wife. He kept the surprise locked in the Malibu’s trunk. The silver box had a tiny slit of a mouth with many small steel buttons dotting its face like pimples. It was a DVD player.

  Landon and Redvine got to men’s work with the cords and pinholes in back of the new machine and television. Bev was skeptical and scared. If they messed something up, then there went the shows she set her rhythm to for the day and its tasks. And how much all these DVDs gonna cost? The TV screen whisked to silver dots. Its blistering static scratched the peace out of Christmas morning. Bev fled to the kitchen, to fix up coffee, eggs, bacon, French toast, fried potatoes, and orange juice from concentrate.

  Solemn tucked into the underside of her makeshift safe a twenty-dollar bill she found at bottom of her stocking, under peppermint chips and walnut crumbs. Then, she ripped beef summer sausage and Monterey Jack cheese out of a gift basket. She took the snack out so she could spy on what more others had received. Most doors were open and music coming out of them clashed. Not just because it was Christmas but because it was custom, strangers waved to her when she walked past. Looking down the steep, she saw a girl fly around a larger trailer east of her eyeshot, around peach and fig trees towered like rooks around two plots. The girl rode a pink bike with white-and-silver tassels, a red bow tied to its frame. A woman stood at the door of one of the larger homes, with her pink duster barely tied in place and somewhat open to her freckle-specked chest. She cradled a cup of something steamy and waved to the riding girl. She seemed to wave at Solemn. Solemn did a double take. Yes, she was waving.

  “Come, come!” she said.

  Just as Solemn was about to come on, Bev shouted to her, “Come help me set the table!” She was too far to hear, but she heard anyway. Like right there. So Solemn came back and did as her mother asked before she was asked, to please Bev immensely.

  “Let’s bring our plates in the living room,” Redvine said. They never ate in the living room. They always ate their meals together at the family table.

  “What about the furniture?” Bev wondered.

  Redvine grabbed her shoulders. “It’s all good,” he said. The family shuffled around the kitchen to fix a heavy Christmas brunch on special plates. Redvine plopped a few splashes of rum into mugs of eggnog for his son and himself. Then, they ran to test out their work on a movie Redvine bought with the box: It’s a Wonderful Life. Landon prepared to do the honors with the remote, but Redvine grabbed his hand to stop him.

  “I got something to tell y’all,” he said.

  Now what? Solemn thought. Bev too. Landon was too tipsy to think.

  “We been driving on past the new development out there on seventeen all this time and I ain’t said nothing ’bout it yet,” Redvine started, “but we gonna be moving.”

  Landon was halfway out the door as it was. Solemn was too tickled to move.

  “When all this come about?” Bev said.

  “Last week. I stopped by the lil’ trailer office on the grounds to get the paperwork to get it all started … I’m fixing to put a bid on real soon.”

  “Red, them houses cost a lost of money. How—?” Bev didn’t want to laugh at him.

  “Look, don’t fret,” Redvine said. “It’s not as much as you think. It’s many different sizes they building. I talked to the folks even, ’bout picking up a little bit of work. So long as I get a license, they tell me. We just gotta get a down payment. Okay?”

  “Shole be nice to have my attic back. Oh Red, you stop now.” Bev chuckled.

  “Man Daddy it wouldn’t even be our house that’s all a facade modern day slavery the white man own the bank and gone raise the—”

  “How big the house?” Solemn asked.

  “Biggest kind they building,” Redvine said.

  “When can we go look at it?” Solemn asked.

  “Let ’em get built first, Solemn, and then—” Bev told her.

  “Soon,” Redvine told them all.

  Somehow, all four knew one was lying or fantasizing or dreaming or all three. But it was Christmas, and so they just laughed about the new goals and waved to some folks walking by. Bev was satisfied this Christmas morning, to have more than energized feet run out the house in response to a meal she cooked. They ate their meal in silence and let the pictures do the talking for them. The surprise alone, not to mention its revelation—a machine they could remotely stop and start and pause the pictures on, unlike how the television stopped and started and paused them—was enough for them to resolve the movie’s title as correct, as their mandate and approach to the next year.

  EIGHT

  Stephanie Longwood was the only one within Singer’s gates with a fruit tree. Three, actually. Wasn’t nobody else going to pay extra for adjoining plots. But the Longwoods thought one peach and two fig trees were well worth it. Figs always came first, peaches later. If the subject of a house somewhere else came up, Stephanie put her foot down: “Hell no.” She would miss her trees. Because of her husband, Theodis, Stephanie was one of few women she knew who could say she had looked down on the trees—not up to them. He was a security guard in Kosciusko, shifting around downtown depending. She surprised him sometimes, in bank buildings and such. Not too many black folks could say they pulled a full-amenity twelve-hundred-square manufactured home atop three plots of property—with fruit trees alongside to match. With money in the bank to boot. They were lucky.

  Stephanie knew it wasn’t no accident Gilroy Hassle dropped that baby down the well. She did remember, well, seeing the child a few times, on account of living closer to the Hassles farther down the steep. The baby hadn’t looked all that healthy, like it should have nibbled the tit a little longer. Took all them and all that to figure out something was wrong with Gilroy? So, when
police officers and reporters and property owners started to appear to ask her if she knew him and her and them and “it,” she did not. Stephanie always spoke but knew how to hold her tongue.

  Her birthplace was situated in Sunflower County, Indianola, where Mississippi greased up a death chamber. To make a better than good life, her maiden name people capitalized on purchase of multiple leftover stops from the Underground Railroad, sweeping out and upkeeping the once-secret “barn in the back” and “cabin ’long the creek” and even a “big ole church on a hill” with a bathroom trapdoor for tunnel to a conductor’s safe house, chamber pot on top of the latch. Unlike most could not, her father’s father learned not to pay no mind to the fret horses and cows and his own goose bumps when the captured slave souls awoke. Eventually came a small ranch with pasture to land the little planes he shared with a league, some being carryover from Tulsa’s Black Wall Street who lived to tell. Stephanie’s mother married into circumstances to self-employ as a driver of gift and food donations. She had even watched her mother give free pony rides to the most abject kids’ birthday parties. And free horses to the parades. Soon as Stephanie came of age, one of her mother’s friend’s sons took her to the Ebony Club. They snuck in underage to drink, and he proposed. Uninterested in her gritty measure of prestige, they left Indianola when Theo’s job asked. Stephanie returned for her dad’s homegoing and very often to make sure her mama’s help minded.

  But Stephanie didn’t bother to tell all that. Where she came from put her at risk to be overrun with favors, unpaid tabs, and unclaimed baggage. When it came time to divvy out a couple Cessnas her heart-attacked father left, she passed. She took his silk pajamas instead. Even the Cadillac and Harley were too telling. She traded them in for her Imperial and remainder checks. For even more affect, she sent her only child out to collect bottles and cans for full display in clear plastic bags outside the trailer. Her luck was never going to be a gossiper’s mantelpiece. She made it easy on herself. That way, she could say no to any hint without backlash. Or she could say yes (like she would today), with the faith that one word would be appreciated like it was all she had.