CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE

Memphis was late. He’d told Isaiah that he’d pick him up from Sister Walker’s house at five o’clock, but it was coming up on six, and Isaiah was hungry. Aunt Octavia served dinner promptly at six fifteen. If they weren’t washed up and sitting at the table by then, they went to bed hungry. Isaiah was already mad that Sister Walker wouldn’t let him read the cards. All they’d done that afternoon was sums and computation, and he was pretty sore about it. He did not intend to spend the night tossing and turning on an empty stomach just because of Memphis. Isaiah knew Sister wouldn’t let him leave without an adult, so he waited until she went to the kitchen for her tea, then called loudly, “I think I see him now, Sister!” and bolted for the door before she could catch up with him. He’d never walked home from Sister’s house by himself before. It was exciting, like he had a secret world to explore. He wished it weren’t getting dark, though. He didn’t like the dark. His path took him past the funeral home, and he thought of his mama, lying in her coffin in her white Sunday dress, and of Gabe, too, and that made him sad and a little frightened. Now he had to walk past Trinity Cemetery at night. Everybody knew that was when the dead walked. His stomach growled, and he thought about Octavia denying him dinner.

Isaiah held his breath—you were always supposed to hold your breath walking past a graveyard; everybody knew that, too—as he ran through the first fallen leaves of autumn past the high stone-and-iron walls. He hoped his lungs would hold out. It was hard to run and hold his breath at the same time. By the time he reached the end, he was dizzy. He bumped headlong into Blind Bill Johnson and yelped.

“You scared me!”

Bill smiled. “Isaiah Campbell! Didya think I was a ghost?”

“Uh-huh. I don’t like walking past the graveyard, but if I don’t make it home in time, my aunt Octavia won’t give me supper.”

“Guess we better hurry, then. Come on, I know a shortcut.” Bill’s cane tap-tap-tapped down the sidewalk. They stopped at the corner. “Say, do you like magic tricks?”

“I guess so.”

“You guess so? What sort of answer is that?” Bill said, pretending to be put out. “You in for a treat. I been practicing my magic act. Wanna see?”

“Sure,” Isaiah said. He bounced a ball, catching it neatly each time.

“Behold! In this hand lies a rose.” Bill opened his right hand to show the boy, then closed it again. “Alakazam!” He opened his hand. “Whaddaya see?”

Isaiah squinted at the slightly squished rose. “Nothing happened.”

“Nothing?”

“Nope.”

“Lemme try this again. O great spirits of the land, gimme a frog in my right hand!” Blind Bill opened his hand again. The rose was still a rose.

Isaiah laughed. “Still ain’t no frog,” he said.

“Confound it!” Blind Bill said. “I read me a book on magic and everything. I guess I just don’t have the touch.”

Isaiah wanted to tell the old man what he could do. Memphis always said not to talk about it, but Memphis wasn’t there. He’d gone off somewhere and forgotten all about his brother. It made him feel like crying, but boys weren’t supposed to cry. Seemed there was a whole list of things Isaiah wasn’t supposed to do, and he was tired of it.

“I can do magic,” Isaiah blurted out.

“Can you, now?”

“Mm-hmm. Sister says I’m something special.” If Memphis was keeping secrets from him, then Isaiah could keep secrets from Memphis. He could tell them, too.

“Does she, now? What makes you so special?”

“Sister says I’m not supposed to tell.”

“Well, now, you can tell old Blind Bill, cain’t you? Who’m I gonna tell?”

“Sister says no.”

“Mm-hmm. I see. You gonna let a woman own you, little man?” Quick as a snake, he grabbed the ball with his left hand and held it up out of reach.

“Hey!”

“You so special, how ’bout you take it from me? Or maybe you not really special after all, is that it?”

“I am!”

“ ’At’s all right, son. We cain’t all be special.”

“I am special!” Isaiah said, so angry that the tears came.

Blind Bill gave Isaiah his ball and patted his head. “Now, now, I didn’t mean any offense, little man. ’Course you special. I can tell. Blind Bill can tell.”

“You can?”

“Yes, sir, yes, sir.”

The old man’s words settled over Isaiah like a balm. At least somebody cared about his feelings. Isaiah was tired of being small and easily dismissed. He was tired of everybody—Sister, Memphis, Octavia, his teachers, the folks at Mother AME—telling him what he could and couldn’t do. What good was it having something special if he couldn’t let anybody know about it?

“All right, then. I’ll tell you. But you have to promise to keep it a secret.”

The old man crossed his heart with a long finger. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

That was the most solemn promise Isaiah knew.

“I can see things in my mind. When Sister’s holding the cards, I can tell what shapes she’s got without even seeing ’em.”

Bill’s mouth twitched. “ ’Zat so? You’d clean up real good at poker.”

“Sister won’t let me.”

“No, I expect she wouldn’t.”

“And sometimes…” Isaiah paused.

“Yes?”

“Sometimes, I can see things that haven’t happened yet.”

A tingle started in Bill’s stomach, working its way through his blood like a hunger.

With a shaking hand, he patted the top of the boy’s head again.

The boy took the blind man’s big paw, turning it over. “You got a mark on ya.”

“Old cut from back when I used to work the cotton. Them bristles reach out and GET YA!” Bill spooked Isaiah, who shrieked, then laughed. He liked Bill, liked being teased by the old man. It made him think of his daddy, how he used to swing Isaiah up by both of his arms when they walked down the street, and his mother would scold the both of them, saying, “Now, Marvin, you’re going to stretch his arms clean out.” Thinking about his mama and daddy made him sad.

They’d reached the small alley Bill had told him to be on the lookout for. “Shortcut,” he said to the old man.

“Thank you.” Bill’s walk slowed. “You all right there, little man? You sound sad.”

“Just thinking about my mama. She died.”

“Well. That is sad.” Bill slowed just a hair more. The alley, he knew, would dead-end at a brick wall. He’d slept there a few times. “I could take the sad right out of your head if you want.”

“How you gonna do that?”

“Come on over here and I’ll show you.”

Isaiah was dubious. It wasn’t just that his auntie had told him about being careful with strangers; Blind Bill wasn’t a stranger, exactly. There was just a moment’s pause, something deep down that made him wary, but he followed Bill anyway.

“Not much of a shortcut, Mr. Johnson. Got a brick wall at the other end.”

“My mistake. Must’ve been thinking of another street. Hard for a blind man, you know. Now come on over here. Come on, now.”

Isaiah looked back down the alley at the empty street.

“You not scared, are you? Special fella like you?”

“No. I ain’t scared,” Isaiah said. Not scared, Memphis would say. Well, Memphis wasn’t there. Isaiah went to the old man.

“I just have to put my hand on your head, like so. That tickle?”

It did just a bit, and Isaiah laughed.

“I take that as a yes. How ’bout here?” Bill moved his hand forward so that the tips of his fingers gripped the front of Isaiah’s forehead firmly.

“That’s good.”

“All right, then. Gonna be a little squeeze, and then you won’t feel sad no more.”

Anymore, Isaiah silently corrected. Just like Memphis. He had a sudden premonition about his brother, the growing sense that he was in trouble, that something wasn’t right.

“I have to go home, Mr. Johnson. Octavia’ll be waiting dinner on me.”

“Just hold still, son.”

“I have to go.”

“Don’t struggle, now. Don’t struggle.”

Panic beat its fists against Isaiah’s rib cage. The sense of dread bloomed into a terrifying vision: He saw his brother standing at a crossroads under a blackening sky.

“Let me go!” Isaiah shouted, trying in vain to break free from Bill’s fierce grip. “Let me go, let me go!”

Bill grunted and held on tightly and was rewarded by the electric jolt.

Under his grip, Isaiah twitched and shook, and if it was anything like the past, when he could see, Bill knew the boy’s eyes had rolled back in their sockets. Maybe a small bit of drool foamed in the corners of his mouth. Bill’s own heartbeat sped up, and for a second he remembered running through tobacco fields barefoot under skies that stretched in every direction. A number floated before him—one, four, four. A number. He’d gotten a number in the bargain! Another jolt rocked Bill’s body, stronger than the first. His tongue curled in his mouth and he tasted metal. He saw a crossroads, and a cloud of dust billowing up on the road as if before a storm, and tall, gray stick of a man in a stovepipe hat. Under his palm, the boy was still and quiet. He dropped to the pavement at Bill’s feet and the old man crouched next to him, listening to the sound of his breathing.

“Hey! Hey!” someone yelled from the street.

Bill cursed under his breath and pulled his hand back. “Over here! We need help over here!”

The voice moved toward them and became the dim outline of a man. A shadow. Oh, if only he’d had a few more moments! How much more could he see? How much more power could he taste?

“What happened?” The man’s voice was hard, accusatory.

“I don’t know. The little man was lost. I was trying to help him find his way, and he started having some kind of fit, I think. I couldn’t rightly tell ’cause of my condition.” Bill put a hand on his cane. “I been calling out—didn’t you hear me?”

“I expect so,” the man answered. “I expect that’s what brought me. It’s lucky you were here.”

“The Good Lord musta been looking out.”

People were so suggestible.

Octavia cried out when she saw the man carrying Isaiah’s limp body up the walk, Bill Johnson trailing just behind. The boy was put to bed. A doctor was called.

Plates of spoon bread were offered. Bill cradled his on his lap and gobbled it down. He hadn’t tasted home cooking in a long time, and Octavia was a fine cook.

“What happened?” Octavia asked.

“Well, ma’am, the little man was lost, and I was just tryin’ to help him out….” Bill told her the same story he’d given before. He was nearly finished when he heard the older Campbell boy bursting through the front door as if he might break it down.

“Where is he? Where’s Isaiah?” Panic in his voice.

“Resting.” Steel in hers.

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Save your breath for prayer, Memphis John. I already heard from Mrs. Robinson that you were arrested and Papa Charles had to bail you out,” she said bitterly.

“Can I see Isaiah?”

Bill didn’t hear anything, and he could only assume the communication was a signal—a nod, a gesture. How many such silent conversations had he missed over the years? He could hear Memphis slinking away to some other room—to his brother’s side, no doubt. Those two were close, a bond forged by tragedy. That gave Bill the smallest pause, but he pushed it away. It wasn’t his job to put the fairness back into the world.

“Don’t be too hard on the boy,” he said to Octavia, a peace offering. He stood to go, and Octavia gave him his cane plus another piece of spoon bread in waxed paper.

“Thank you, Mr. Johnson.”

“Bill.”

“Thank you, Bill.” He could hear the catch in her voice. “Oh, my sweet Jesus, Lord Jesus. What if you hadn’t been with him? What if he’d been alone?”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways, Miss.”

“You call anytime,” Octavia said after him. He was at the little gate out to the street.

“Thank you. I believe I will.”

Bill Johnson turned toward the night, which was not as dark as the place he’d been. He took the rose from his pocket and curled it tightly in his left hand. “I’m sorry, little man. I’m real sorry,” Blind Bill whispered. When he opened his hand again, the rose had turned to ash.

In the quiet of the back bedroom, Memphis watched his brother breathing in and out. Each breath felt like an indictment: Where… were… you… brother? He swallowed dryly, terrified. What if he had brought this on Isaiah? What if a curse meant for Memphis had reached out and touched his brother instead? He felt sick inside, and sweat beaded on his forehead.

“Don’t you worry, Ice Man,” he whispered. “I’ll make it right. I’ll take it on.”

Memphis placed his hands on Isaiah’s small body, shut his eyes tight, and waited for the warmth and the trance, the strange dreams of healing. But nothing happened. His hands never gained warmth. His brother slept on, like the enchanted resident of a bespelled fairy-tale kingdom, and Memphis, the dragon-slayer, stood on the other side of the kingdom’s unassailable walls.

He slunk down by the side of the bed and buried his head in his useless hands.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 721