Edward Jones - All Aunt Hagar's Children

My father’s father had found his way to Washington in an April when my grandmother was still yet a newlywed. My grandfather arrived with his new wooden leg; his whole being was wobbly those first days in Washington, for he had not had a drink in five months. He sent word to let his children know where he was, and he made a life shining shoes. My father, eleven years old, walked the miles to the hotel lobby where my grandfather worked, but my aunts did not go to their father for a long time, and when they did, Grandpa Peter, their stepfather, drove them.

That second Monday in October the hands on the clock had just settled into being eleven o’clock when Mother Superior, the principal, opened the door and looked at Sister Mary Frances. Sister pointed at Regina Bristol and then to the boy the whole class knew as her boyfriend. The boy rose first, then Regina rose, slowly. She put the two pieces of paper on her desk together and slid them up to the corner opposite the well where the ink bottle would have gone, though Sister had not told her to do that. The four of them, the nuns and the children, left, with Sister closing the door behind them and looking sternly at us before she did. We heard them go through the nearby door that led to the stairs going up. They must have stopped in the stairwell because we did not hear them ascending. After a long, long bit of time we heard a slap, then silence. There was another slap, and there quickly followed a wail from Regina. They all returned shortly, the boy quiet and Regina crying, and Sister took up where we were before Mother Superior had opened the door.

I said nothing about it to my parents, but a fear took hold of me through out all the school days, even though Sister Mary Frances continued to look at me with eyes that said In-You-I-Am-Well-Pleased. Regina and the boy were still together on that purple shelf in my imagination, but they were sitting now, hands casually in their laps, sitting as if they were getting tired of waiting. At home in my bed I dreamed of school. I went there in my dreams, but the door was always locked.

That Thursday following the Monday after the slaps, minutes after our snack, I stood to answer a question, an answer that would earn me a gold star. I sat down, and as I listened to others answer, I looked at the backs of Regina and the boy who would not be her boyfriend ever again, their heads turning left or right depending upon which of our fellow pupils was speaking. I thought how easy it would have been for him to turn and make a face at her, the way he used to do. I studied the back of Regina’s head, the way the dark perfect skin of her neck flowed down from her yellow-ribboned hair, down, down beneath her collar. It was such a vulnerable neck. Then, though Sister had not spoken to me, I rose as if a question had been put to me. I looked around as I stood and held tight to my desk, for my head had begun to swirl. I began to sit down again, but stopped, not knowing which way to go, back down or back up. I looked at Regina’s neck and felt a great flood overwhelm me.

It was, I learned later about myself, as if my heart, on the path that was my life, had come to a puddle in the road and had faltered, hesitated, trying to decide whether to walk over the puddle or around it, or even to go back.

Iwoke in my bed that Thursday, and it was dark outside. Dr. Jackson, one of my mother’s cousins, had come over from Myrtle Street. He was sitting on the side of the bed, holding my hand and looking down at me as if I, now that I was awake, could tell him the why of it all.

“How you feelin, sweet of my heart?” he said. He was married to a woman taller than he was and they lived with their five children in a gingerbread brown house.

“Fine,” I said. He helped me sit up. I was wearing my pajamas. My father, in his postman’s uniform, was standing behind Dr. Jackson. He was holding my sister Eva. My mother was at the foot of the bed. My sister Delores was also at the foot of the bed, and I could just barely see the top of her head and her eyes. Seeing them all, I thought, “My room can’t hold all these people. It will bust.”

Dr. Jackson placed my hand at my side. His tools were beside him on the bed. He took up the stethoscope, and after he had listened to my heart, he put all his tools in his bag on the table next to my bed. He stood and commanded me to sleep. As they all left the room, I heard him say that he could find nothing wrong, but I may have dreamed those words later that night, just as I dreamed that I had knocked at the school door:

I stepped away from the locked school door and went alone back down to L Street, but rather than go home, I knocked at our next-door neighbors’. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis lived there. He had been in the merchant marines all his life and had saved a lot of money for his retirement so he could take Mrs. Lewis around the world as many times as she wanted. But not long after he left the sea for good, he had a massive stroke and now lived his days in a wheelchair that his son and my father could not get to stop squeaking. In my dream Mr. Lewis came to the door, talking and standing on his two legs the way I remembered when I was just an infant, no more than two months old. He took me into the backyard that he had given over to my father so my father could have more space to grow things. Mr. Lewis served me a fruit salad with the hundreds of fruits my father had grown. We were joined by my father’s father and Grandpa Peter and my Philadelphia uncle, One-Eye Jack, and a hundred others. My uncle Cyphax was there, once more out of jail, and he kept winking and raising his finger to his lips for me not to tell his secret. It became crowded in the yard, and I couldn’t see all the rest of the men in my life. I kept telling Mr. Lewis that I had to knock on the school door again. “Wait,” he said. “Just wait. Wait till the bell rings.”

Iwoke very late that Thursday night, and after adjusting my eyes to the darkness, I saw my father in a rocking chair across from the bed. He was arguing with someone in his sleep.

When I awoke the next morning I saw my father still in the chair. But when I sat up and cleared the sleep from my eyes, I saw that it was not my father but my father’s father. He was staring at me as if that was all he had to do in his life. I had never once seen my grandfather above our first floor. I had not thought that his wooden leg would allow him to climb the stairs.

“They didn’t treat you so good up there, huh?” he said. He was wearing a suit and a tie and his hat was propped on his wooden knee.

I shook my head No. I wasn’t yet able to do words because I still could not believe he had managed the stairs.

“Well, never you mind,” he said. “Maybe you don’t have all the luck you need.” He leaned forward in the rocking chair. “Here—” He pointed to his wooden leg before lifting his hat. “Get you some good luck.” I leaned over and tapped three times on the wooden knee. “Better get three more just to make sure.” I tapped again. “There be boogeymen everywhere.”

He leaned back. “Now your mama and your daddy say you don’t never have to go back to that school. You can go just cross the street,” and he thumbed over his shoulder in the direction of Walker-Jones Elementary some one hundred feet away. “Go just cross that street and be safe and happy as you would be in that front yard.” And just like that, the idea of going there seized me. Miss Sadie’s son went there, most of my friends in our neighborhood went there. It was only a few steps away, while Holy Redeemer was way out in the world.

My grandfather got to his feet. “Your mama gon come with some food directly.” I nodded. “I best get on. Don’t wanna suck up all your air. But I’m gonna come back to you tomorrow.” After he was full on his feet, he looked a moment at me and ran his hand around the brim of his hat and then placed it atop his head.