Part 32 (2/2)

he said, indicating the flask, ”was given to my great granddaddy by the man that owned him. My granddad was born just before the Civil War. Born into slavery. After the war was over and we was freed, the owner come back and 'cause my great-granddad and granddad and others stayed and looked after his wife and kids (nowhere else to go, my granddad said. You want to be runnin' around with a war goin' on?), he gave them things to help. A horse, some money, a gun. Things he didn't need. This owner be kind. Kind to dogs and slaves, my granddad say, he can't tell the difference.

”This flask go to my granddad, my dad, now me. After me, it go to my granddaughter, 'cause she be my favorite and I be old enough to have favorites. She a teacher. She teach white and black kids. T'other day she send a white boy to the princ.i.p.al's office. She call and tell me this. His name be Henderson, she tell me. Same name as the name of that man that owned my grandfather. Maybe they not related. Probably, like she say. But maybe they be so.”

He stopped and opened the bag and pulled out something wrapped in brown paper. He unwrapped it slowly, spreading the paper out like a table cloth.

”You hungry?” he asked. ”I got me a pile o' crawdads. Don't know I can eat this many. Don't know 'bout you, but crawdads always help me when I be sad. Don't always make me happy, but at least get me pointed in the right direction.” He picked up a big, dark red crawfish and offered it to me.

”Thanks,” I said for both the crawfish and the story.

We cleaned them, watching the sh.e.l.l pieces disappear in the * 216 *

eddying river. He sucked the juices out of the head, so I did the same.

I hadn't done that since I left the bayou. Too rude for Aunt Greta. I watched the thick red head disappear into the dark water.

”Feed some skinny lil' catfish down in the Gulf,” he said as he tossed some sh.e.l.ls into the current.

”Skinny? There's no such thing as a skinny catfish.” I threw another head in. We were probably violating all sorts of pollution laws.

”See, there be a twitch of a smile on your face, girl. Them crawdads be workin',” he commented.

But it wasn't the crawfish. It was the kindness of a stranger. And a story reminding me that mine wasn't the only or even the worst tragedy in the world.

”Thank you,” I said. ”You've been kind to me.”

”'Course, chil'. Oftentimes you give kindness and get nothin'

back. The world goes that way. But the only chance you got to get kindness back is to give some out. When it don't return to you, you just shrug your shoulders and go on your way. But you can't stop giving kindness out. For every person stop being kind, the world a sadder place. The world get too sad, there be no joy left for n.o.body.” He tossed another head in. An unseen fish nibbled at it, bobbing it along out of rhythm with the river.

We sat for a little while, throwing sh.e.l.ls into the river, watching for fish or crabs to start nature's cycle. Birth and death. Birth and rebirth.

”You've seen a lot of people die?” I asked, not sure of my question.

”Course. Some of us easy, some hard. Old as I be, probably easy for me. Something hard when people die young. No matter how.”

”Why?” I asked. That was the question. The question that I spent four years of college studying. And all the time after avoiding it, it seemed. ”How do you go on after death? After someone has died?”

”How's easy. Sleepin' and eatin' take care of how. If I knowed the why part, I wouldn't be sittin' on this here dock, but be speakin' at one of them fancy colleges or talkin' to the president. Maybe G.o.d know, but he ain't tellin', near as I can figure.”

I nodded, knowing I was asking too much.

”Maybe, why changes for every person. Some go to G.o.d, some to drink, some to eating crawfish on a pier. Maybe there be a whole bunch of whys. You got to find your own.”

* 217 *

”Yes, that's what I always heard,” I said.

”Just don' kid yo'self, girl. Lookin's a b.i.t.c.h.” He flashed me a big grin. ”Some folks take the short route and follow somebody else's why.

Religion got to be big that way. So did hatred, I think. Most them boys probably didn't even know why they lynched Abraham, 'cept someone else had a reason for it.” He paused. ”It be getting cold and late, sugar, my old bones need's be gettin' off this dock. Your bones get old if you keep sittin' here.”

He stood up, sweeping a few dropped crawfish sh.e.l.ls into the Mississippi. He carefully put the silver flask into his pocket and folded up the paper bag.

”Thank you for the crawfish and talking to me,” I said as I stood up.

”Talk's cheap, chil'. The day I stop talkin' be the day I die. Now you be on your way. The next couple of days when you finally able to smile, you think of me and my crawdad pointers. I know you got sadness today and tomorrow. But someday you start to remember it all together and the bad times won't seem so big and the good times grow to their right size.”

I nodded slowly. He was right, I suspected, but I wondered if time was different to an ninety-year-old man than to a woman almost thirty.

We walked back to where the pier touched ground, he turned to me and said, ”Now you be good, chil'. There's a world out there, full of sadness and joy. Take what you want, don't just let it hand things to you.” He extended his hand. I took it and we shook hands.

”Thank you,” I said. ”I don't know when, and it may take some time, but I'll pa.s.s your kindness on.”

”You a good kid,” he said, echoing Ben's words.

I nodded and smiled at him. Maybe I wasn't too bad a kid. He turned and walked away, slowly, not with the infirmity of age, but with an understanding of the uselessness of haste. I stood watching him until he was almost out of sight. Then I turned abruptly and walked in the direction I had to go. I didn't want to see the horizon with him not in it.

It was late in the day and I had a long walk. I found two dimes in one pocket. Not enough to even make a phone call. I found the keys to my apartment in the jacket pocket where I had put them for safekeeping.

My apartment, at least, was closer than Ranson's. I supposed that I * 218 *

would call her and let her chew me out and get it over with, but the thought didn't make me happy.

The gray clouds kept their promise and a light drizzle started at around the halfway point in my walk. I turned up my jacket collar and hunched my shoulders against it. I hoped the old man was inside, safe and warm, sipping his bourbon and telling his favorite granddaughter joyous stories.

I wanted that. To know that life had done what it could to me, but that, no matter what, there were always possibilities. Even the gray of this day no longer seemed so bleakly relentless, but rather a fitting tribute to a man who had died. I would take it as that.

Would I trade the time I had had with my father to avoid the tragedy of his death? What if he had never been?

No, if that was the deal, the ten years with a kind, gentle man who loved me, to be ended with the horror of that night, I would take it again. By denying the night, I denied all the days before. Don't ever let them take the joy away from you, the old man said. I had. I had let them take both pain and joy. If I had been able to cry at my father's death, all the tears that needed to be cried, not just the few that Aunt Greta thought appropriate for public display, then maybe the next day, the next year, I could have laughed. I could have held on to the joy.

Maybe if I stopped running from the memory of his loving me, I could stop running from the possibility of others loving me.

* 219 *

CHAPTER 21.

It was dark and the drizzle was veering toward rain when I got to my apartment. After letting myself in the bottom door, I shook myself like a dog, trying to get some of the wet out of my hair and off my shoulders. I decided to make myself some coffee and change clothes before I called Ranson.

I walked up the stairs, slowly, tired from the walk and the day. I had pa.s.sed the second floor landing before I noticed a shadow above me on the stairs. s.h.i.+t, I thought. They must have seen me, certainly heard me. Reality intrudes, as it usually does. But I must say, fate has an exquisite sense of timing.

I hung motionless on the landing, trying to decide whether I wanted to get shot in the back running down the stairs or in front charging up them. ”There are ten cops behind me and I've got a shotgun,” I said in a loud, and I hoped, threatening, voice.

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