Natalie Baszile - Queen Sugar

Ralph Angel motioned to Blue, said, “Come here, boy,” and when Blue climbed into his lap and folded himself over Ralph Angel’s shoulder, Ralph Angel slipped his hand under his son’s shirt and rubbed his back, trying to remember how Gwenna used to do it. “How’s that?” He patted Blue’s back.

“Pepto Bismol tastes like vomit,” Micah said, returning with a bright pink bottle.

“That’s very helpful,” Ralph Angel said, dryly. “I can’t thank you enough.” He turned Blue around, poured a capful of the pink liquid, and held it to Blue’s lips.

Blue eyed the bottle and whimpered. “I don’t want to vomit.” He pushed Ralph Angel’s hand away.

“It won’t make you vomit. She said it tastes like vomit, but it doesn’t. It’s just medicine. Come on now, open up.”

But Blue pressed his hands to his mouth, turned away. Medicine sloshed out of the cap, dribbled down Ralph Angel’s arm, across his pants, onto the sofa cushion. Ralph Angel drew in a shallow breath. It felt as though someone were picking a thread inside him, picking and picking, and now the stitch was coming lose, pulling through him in one ragged piece. “Goddamn it. Do you want to feel better or not?”

Which only made Blue start to cry.

“Good Lord, Ralph Angel.” Miss Honey slid out of her recliner and pulled Blue into her arms. “The child doesn’t know what he wants. Stop barking at him.” She backed into the recliner, pressed Blue to her chest. “How about a hot water bottle, chère ? You might like that better.”

Ralph Angel looked at Miss Honey and felt his face get hot. He shouldn’t have answered the phone that day he saw her number come up; shouldn’t have let her talk him into coming back. He’d been fine out in Phoenix; okay, not perfect, but getting through the days, getting by. He’d managed to squeeze his life down into something small, something manageable, no more than he could handle. No big dreams. A postage stamp of a life. And to the extent he dreamed, it was of Billings and the life he’d make for them somehow. Why hadn’t Miss Honey just left them alone? But he’d come like she’d asked. Okay, maybe he wasn’t as good at this mothering stuff as Gwenna, but he didn’t have to sit around and be insulted.

“I’ll take it from here,” Ralph Angel said, rising, because this was how things started between them last time, and he was trying to be good. Last time, she got in his face with all her questions, pressed and pressed him to explain about his stash, and he’d felt like an animal being poked with a stick. Then she said she was disappointed, that he’d let the family down, which was exactly what his father had said when he found out about the tuition money. It was as though she’d opened the levee and all that darkness had rushed in and he was sucked under. He hadn’t meant to push her, but he couldn’t breathe, had just been trying to get some air. “Come on, buddy. I’ll read you a story.” He pried Blue from Miss Honey’s arms and ushered him out of the room.

• • •

In the back room, on the large bed, Ralph Angel pulled the sheet up around Blue’s waist. “Go to sleep.”

“But you said you’d read to me.”

Ralph Angel looked at his son. Yes, he’d said that, but off the cuff, as an excuse to get out of the den. Gwenna had always been the one to read bedtime stories. That was so long ago, though, he wondered if Blue even remembered. But now Blue was looking at him, watching, his eyes wide and expectant, as though he were waiting for Ralph Angel to do a magic trick. “Right. Well, uh, let’s see what we’ve got here.” Hollywood had stacked the few remaining boxes in the corner and Ralph Angel eyed them warily. Just the thought of sorting through them made him tired. He pulled the nightstand drawer open, saw a Bible, black and solemn, lying among the buttons, old church bulletins, broken pencils and ballpoints, and felt a dull, heavy feeling roll through him. He didn’t like to think about God. He glanced at the stack of boxes again, then reached for the Bible. “Scoot over.”

Blue sat up. “It doesn’t have any pictures.”

“I know,” Ralph Angel said, flipping the tissuey pages. “You’ll have to use your imagination. I’ll read an adventure story — about a boat.” And so, Ralph Angel turned to Genesis and began to read, or rather, began translating the old language. And it came to pass, when man began to multiply on the face of the earth… And God saw that the wickedness of man was great, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually… “Once upon a time,” Ralph Angel began, “the world was full of people doing bad things.”

“Bad things like what?” Blue said.

“I don’t know. Just bad things. Beating up on each other, stealing cars. Be quiet. Listen to the story.” And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowl in the air… “So God, who had made the earth and all the people and all the animals in the first place, got real mad and decided to start over. He decided to make it rain until the whole earth was covered with water.”

“Could the people swim?”

“No, they couldn’t swim.”

“So they drowned?”

“Yeah. They all drowned.”

“Even the animals?”

“Sorry, buddy. Even the animals.”

“I don’t like this story.”

“Don’t worry, it gets better. Just listen.” Blue nuzzled against his arm, and he felt heat radiating off his son’s limbs. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord… Grace in the eyes of the Lord. Ralph Angel read the line again and looked up from the page. He’d had the thought for a while now that the world was divided into two kinds of people — those who believed they were worthy of God’s grace and those who believed they weren’t. It wasn’t something to fight — it just was or wasn’t, much the way some people were natural-born leaders while others were born to follow, or the way some people’s bodies were built for long-distance running while others’ were built for sprinting. Was it destiny? Was it fate? He didn’t know. But reading the verse seemed to confirm that what he’d felt way down in the pit of his gut was true, and he knew, just like he knew his own name, what side of the line he was on, would always be on, and the same emptiness that opened within him as he stood in the minimart that day opened in him again.

“What happened next?” Blue shook his arm. “Why did you stop reading?”

“Sorry.” Ralph Angel found his place and forced himself to read more. And God said unto Noah… And thou shalt come into the ark. “But there was one man who was God’s favorite,” he said. “His name was Noah and he was a good guy, and God decided to let him and his family live. So he told Noah to build a big boat.”

“A speedboat?”

“No, a wooden boat. Bigger than this house.”

• • •

In the winking hours, Ralph Angel startled awake. The light was on and the Bible lay open on his lap. The clock radio read 12:28 a.m., and for a long time he sat listening to the night — the refrigerator humming through its cycles, the buzz of the streetlamp, the faint croak of frogs in the gully. The minutes dragged. He’d planned to wait up for Charley so that he could ask her again about a job, but it was too late now; he’d try to catch her in the morning. Right now, he had to get out of this room, out of the house.

• • •

In the dark, Ralph Angel eased the Impala’s door open, and was halfway down the block, past the old church and over the railroad tracks, before he turned on his headlights. On the open road, he picked up speed. Moths and beetles flitted across the narrow tunnels of his high beams, warm air spilled through the open window, the road unfurled like a length of movie reel.