Tar Baby

“I’ll get em if I want to. Later on.”

“Well, I’ll leave you alone now,” and he turned to go just as Sydney walked in. His face zigzagged like lightning as soon as he saw who was standing there talking to his wife.

“What are you doing in my place?”

Ondine held up a hand. “He came to apologize, Sydney.”

Son moved aside so he would not be standing between them and said, “Yes, sir…”

“Anything you got to say to me or my wife, you say it somewhere else. Don’t come in here. You are not invited in here.”

“It was Jadine,” Son began. “She suggested…”

“Jadine can’t invite you in here, only I can do that. And let me tell you something now. If this was my house, you would have a bullet in your head. Right there.” And he pointed to a spot between Son’s eyebrows. “You can tell it’s not my house because you are still standing upright. But this here is.” He pointed a finger at the floor.

“Mr. Childs, you have to understand me. I was surprised as anybody when he told me to stay—”

Sydney interrupted him again. “You have been lurking around here for days, and a suit and a haircut don’t change that.”

“I’m not trying to change it. I’m trying to explain it. I was in some trouble and left my ship. I couldn’t just knock on the door.”

“Don’t hand me that mess. Save it for people who don’t know better. You know what I’m talking about, you was upstairs!”

“I was wrong, okay? I took to stealing food and started wandering around in here. I got caught, okay? I’m guilty of being hungry and I’m guilty of being stupid, but nothing else. He knows that. Your boss knows that, why don’t you know it?”

“Because you are not stupid and because Mr. Street don’t know nothing about you, and don’t care nothing about you. White folks play with Negroes. It entertained him, that’s all, inviting you to dinner. He don’t give a damn what it does to anybody else. You think he cares about his wife? That you scared his wife? If it entertained him, he’d hand her to you!”

“Sydney!” Ondine was frowning.

“It’s true!”

“You know him all this time and you think that?” she asked him.

“You tell me,” he answered. “You ever see him worry over her?”

Ondine did not answer.

“No. You don’t. And he don’t worry over us neither. What he wants is for people to do what he says do. Well, it may be his house, but I live here too and I don’t want you around!” Sydney turned back to Son, pointing at him again.

“Mr. Childs,” Son spoke softly, but clearly, “you don’t have to be worried over me either.”

“But I am. You the kind of man that does worry me. You had a job, you chucked it. You got in some trouble, you say, so you just ran off. You hide, you live in secret, underground, surface when you caught. I know you, but you don’t know me. I am a Phil-a-delphia Negro mentioned in the book of the very same name. My people owned drugstores and taught school while yours were still cutting their faces open so as to be able to tell one of you from the other. And if you looking to lounge here and live off the fat of the land, and if you think I’m going to wait on you, think twice! He’ll lose interest in you faster than you can blink. You already got about all you can out of this place: a suit and some new shoes. Don’t get another idea in your head.”

“I’m leaving, Mr. Childs. He said he’d help me get a visa—something—so I can get back home. So…”

“You don’t need no visa to go home. You a citizen, ain’t you?”

“Well, I use another name. I mean I don’t want nobody checking me out.”

“Take my advice. Clean your life up.”

Son sighed. He had told six people in two days all about himself. Had talked more about himself than he had in years and told each of them as much of the truth as he had to. Sydney, he knew from the start, would be the hardest to convince. But he kept calling him Mr. Childs and sir and allowing in gesture as how he was a reprobate, and ended by asking them both if they knew somewhere else he could sleep while he waited for Mr. Street to get the visa and some identification for him. Outside if need be, he said. It would just be one more night, he thought, and he didn’t feel comfortable up there on the second floor.

The couple exchanged glances and Sydney said he’d think about it. Maybe on the patio outside the kitchen they could fix something up for him.

“I’d appreciate it,” Son said. “And would you do me one more favor? Could you let me eat in the kitchen with you all?”

They nodded, and Son left quickly, pleased, rather, that Sydney thought he was interested in Valerian’s generosity.

THE HOUSE locked back together that evening and busied itself for Christmas. In Ondine’s kitchen Son ate so much of her food she softened considerably toward him. Sydney was less accommodating than his wife, but he could not doubt the man’s hunger and his ways were quiet and respectful, almost erasing the memory of that “Hi.” By the time they finished eating and reminiscing about the States, Sydney was calling him Son.

Valerian and Margaret and Jadine had eaten together in the dining room earlier, Sydney serving regally. Margaret was mollified by two telephone calls and a window view of the man who’d been in her closet which made her feel as Jadine apparently did now—that he was harmless. At any rate, he was not sleeping upstairs, she’d been informed by Jadine, nor eating with them, and maybe Michael would enjoy him if he was still on the property then. Especially if B.J. didn’t show. The travel agency said the ticket had not been picked up yet. She tried to hang on to her despair about Valerian, but it was hopeless. He was tickled to death by the sight of four cyclamen blossoms, so