Last Season as a Boy
Last Season as a Boy
My summer is ending, and I start to pack for school. Carolina's sun has turned my skin from pecan to blueberry jam, and everything I now say ends with "Sir" or "Ma'am. Pinecones and Spanish moss will be replaced by monkey bars and the asphalt of Grant's projects. I'll miss my grandfather's coffee-voice singing gospel first thing in the morning, young and old roosters his chorus.
Two nights before I'm to leave, my grandfather calls me into the kitchen. Moonlight guides me through the cloaked house, and I can see him loading his pistol. His shotgun and shells lie on the breakfast table. He tells me there's going to be a parade, and for now we need only watch. The parade is on the other side of the fence, the side I'm not allowed on, even to chase down a fly ball. I see them march by, dunce caps made bright by their moonlit torches. I stop counting after twenty-two because my grandfather warns me not to define evil and bring the beasts into our home.
Granddad's a Sunday School teacher, and he says he fears I have too much gumption in me at times—instead of God's word. He starts reading scripture, his shotgun in his lap. His voice, not the words, soothes me. When we hear nothing but crickets again, he tells me come daylight he's gonna teach me to shoot the way he did all his boys.
Come true morning, I wake again to my grandmother's kitchen-offerings, warm buttery grits, fat succulent bacon, strong black coffee, and cornbread.
"Junior," my grandmother hums, as if my name is gospel. "Yes ma'am.
"Go to Mr. Rex's gas station. Get me ten cents worth of kerosene fo' our lamps. And be smart about it, you understand? Don't let that '01 man cheat you.
"Yes ma am.
"I mean it Junior. With men like Mr. Rex, their secrets rest in the lies their eyes can't tell. Listen with your skin. You understand? "
"Yes ma'am.
I'd never walked to Mr. Rex's gas station by myself before, but with all my cousins back in school, the chore fell to me. When I got to the gas station, I could see friends of 01' man Rex under the shade of a tree, playing checkers and sipping pop. They were no longer ghosts of the night, just old fat men laughin' and cussin'.
I went inside the station house store, careful not to let the screen door announce me.
"Morning Mr. Rex, suh. My grandmama done send me to fetch ten cents worth of lamp oil. "
He was busy taking inventory and barely looked up. He just shooed me off like he was brushing away a gnat or mosquita', so I left the ten cents and went to pump the oil myself. Outside, I could still hear the men under the tree, though they paid me no mind. I remembered my grandmother's words as I pumped the kerosene.
As I tightened the spout on the canister, I heard faint whispers passing over me. I followed the echoes past the pumps towards the back of the gas station. I could still feel the whispers but couldn't quite tell from where they came. The outhouse.
The path was covered with knee-high grass, trampled, and speckled with blood.
As I pulled open the wooden door of the outhouse, there he was. He'd been beaten, bad. One eye was the size and color of a ripe Plum, and teeth were missing. He was charcoal in complexion, though his was his own, not borrowed for the summer like mine. His body was long, lean, and hard from working on the docks. I knew him from granddaddy's Sunday school class. His name was Andrew, but folks just called him Drew.
He was hogtied with anchor rope, and gagged with a filthy piece of cloth. His skin reeked with the stench of the outhouse mixed with his blood and sweat. I tried to untie him but the binding on the rope was too tight.
I looked at him and told him, "Shhhh. This is gonna hurt, bad. "
With that warning, I poured some of the kerosene over his wrists to loosen the knots. The sting of the oil musta cut like razors because he teared up like a baby pleading for me to stop, but it had to be done.
No sooner than I'd set him free, I looked up to see the men from the tree and Mr. Rex casting their shadows over us. "Boy, whatcha think ya doin' there?" growled Mr. Rex, a tire chain swinging freely in his hand. One man held a wrench, the other a wooden axe handle. "Smart ass negra' like you gots to be taught is all. "
I looked at Drew and guided his eyes with mine to my waist. Under my shirt, strapped to my beanpole frame, was the lump of grandfather's pistol.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
The three ghosts were down. Drew was on his knees crying. I brushed his tears away the way my grandmother did after a good switchin'.
"Drew you gotta run, get away from here," I whispered to him. "I gotta go too. My grandparents are waiting. " Before I left, I went back into the gas station store. I took my grandmother's ten cents back, and a Honey Bun for myself. I'd probably get switched for teefin' but then again, who was gonna tell?
When I got back to my grandparents' house, I walked along the porch, letting my fingers trace the shotgun holes that peppered the front of the house—my pinky got stuck in one for a moment. Inside, the charred walls cast shadows of gray and black that looked like the boogey man. Broken glass bottles still cradling droplets of gasoline were scattered about. Inside my grandparents' bedroom, I could still see the outline of my grandmother's body under her bed where she had suffocated.
In the kitchen, I could see my granddad's blood and my own splattered over the walls and floors, streaks of pink and crimson ribbons. I stood there for a moment as a gargoyle over the nest of my own death. Just when I thought I'd break down and cry, I heard his voice singing to me. I walked through the deathbed that was once our kitchen and out the backdoor, and there they stood. My grandparents were waiting for me.
"Come on Junior, let's take you home.
"Granddad?"
"Yes son?
"Can I sing for you this time?"
"I'd like that. "
And so I did, as a boy no more, walking between them hand in hand.