Land of a Hundred Wonders

colored folks count on getting paid to pick that crop so they can feed their babies, so I hope I misunderstood that report.

“Reynolds, eh?” Grampa inhales deeper than usual. “With a name like that you’d think he’d be all for lightin’ up.”

That must be funny because he’s apple-doll puckering.

“I gave Billy a star today,” I say.

Grampa wriggles his hand around in the Scrabble box, searching for just the right tile. “Has he been spendin’ any time up at his daddy’s place?”

Grampa has affection for Billy and likes to keep track of his whereabouts, too. He believes that Billy should make up with his daddy, which I think Billy might be willing to do if only Big Bill Brown did not look at his son in a way that squeezes whatever gumption his boy’s got left right out of him. Why ever does he do that? Even the most ignorant of us know that kin is the most important thing in life. If they don’t love you and accept you for what you are, you might as well go hunting without a gun.

“Billy told me he was up to High Hopes just this week,” I report.

Grampa picks out his first tile. 'Y.”

“I can’t remember why.”

“No, I meant… what’d you get?” he asks, leaning across the board. I show him my D. “Low letter goes first. That means you.”

“For crissakes, I know that, Charlie.”

Nature’s started up its nightly concert. This time of night the lake reeks of leftover gasoline and heat and… uh-oh. Hemp. I can tell Grampa is smelling it as well. His shoulders are book-ending his ears. Don’t want him getting all crabby again, so I make my move.

“Double word… twelve,” he says, jotting it down. “Where’s your briefcase at?” He reaches across the board and adds on an l-y to my d-e-a-d.

“I don’t know.” I add on m and n on top and below the a, making it deadly man. “That’s twenty-five points, right?”

Grampa takes a last pull off his cigarette and snubs it out on the heel of his boot. “Ya gotta be more careful with your things. That camera wasn’t cheap.”

We got some cash from the Champion Bus people after their driver stalled out his bus in the middle of the road and Daddy ended up bouncing off the back of it. But Grampa’s right, that’s no excuse to be careless. He says he won’t live forever, and that money will take care of me when he’s gone. My stomach clenches badly when he brings it up, at dusk mostly.

Studying the board, I say, “I’ll look for my camera tomorrow. ” Even though I know where the briefcase is, and that the camera’s inside it, I don’t tell him. See that? That’s something I’ve perceived to be different in my mind recently. Like this afternoon with the sheriff? When I didn’t tell him how I already found Mr. Buster dead on Browntown Beach? I think that shows that I’m getting more Right already and it’s a good thing. But I’ve also perceived something else not so good going on lately. Unsettling thoughts are creeping around up top. Nudging me, whispering how wearisome Grampa’s bossy ways can be sometimes. Wouldn’t you just love to cut loose a little, Gibby? You’re not a child, you’re a grown woman! Christ Almighty, that makes me feel ungrateful. All that old man has done for me, and here I am thinking these willful thoughts. I should be horse-whipped.

“I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. I keep my eyes wide open all the time,” Mr. Cash bellyaches out from the parlor.

Grampa says, “As usual, that man is full of good advice,” while he searches the board.

“Do you think you and Miss Jessie would ever get married?” I’ve just laid down w-e-d.

He draws his hand up onto his chest with an agitated look. Swallows down some of the TUMS he keeps in his trouser pocket. (He’s got a fondness for greasy hush puppies.)

“Ya know, one of these days I’ll get Quite Right again and I’m gonna wanna start livin’ by myself,” I say, glancing upward and winking at Mama. “And when that day comes, it’d be nice for me not to have to worry about you anymore.” After I move to my own apartment in Cairo, I wouldn’t enjoy those walks in that wavy desert heat half as much unless I knew Grampa had some company to keep. “It’d be nice for you to be spoonin’ with Miss Jessie in that big brass bed of hers, don’tcha think? She’s quite fond of Scrabble. I asked.”

“Don’t get your hopes up on neither one of them subjects,” he says, irritable again because loud from next door, Willard’s favorite musical group is complaining about getting no satisfaction.

Grampa cups his hands and bellows, “Turn that caterwauling down, ya jackass.”

Willard obeys straight off because even I know that smokin’ hemp is against the law. Willard knows full well that Grampa could turn him in to the sheriff, but not that he won’t. “Grown men should know what’s right and what ain’t right in their hearts. Shouldn’t need no laws or a blowhard like LeRoy Johnson to remind ’em,” is what my old cowboy lectures whenever the subject comes up.

Two lemonades and a bowl of strawberry ice cream later, Grampa is tallying up the score. “Two hundred twenty-seven to one hundred fifty-four.”

“You or me?” I ask, trying to get a look at the score sheet.

“Don’t matter who won,” he says, scrunching up the paper in his fist. (Poor, poor Grampa. Isn’t that what folks always say when they lose at something?) “You sleepin’ out here tonight?”

“I am, but not right off. I gotta finish up my story.” I reach behind me for my extra blue spiral notebook that I keep under my porch pillow. Wish to hell and back I hadn’t forgotten my leather-like up at Miz Tanner’s.

“Not too late,” Grampa says.

“Nightie-night, Charlie. Think about what I said about Miss Jessie’s big brass bed.”

He walks stiff into the house. He’ll splash water on his face in the bathroom. Sit down on the wooden chair next to his bed and unstrap his leg. Have a sip of peach schnapps. “Be sure to brush your teeth and say good night to you know who,” he says, out of the darkness.

He means Mama. Grampa’s hung her paintings all over the cottage walls to help me remember more of her. She was well known for her dreamy watercolors of horses, rearing and playing, kicking and galloping. Mama was an artist. A woman of Refinement: Elegance. Grampa tells me her paintings still sell for a pretty penny up in Chicago. Because she is dead, that makes them worth more, which pains me some days, so bad. There’s photographs of her, too. Winning blue ribbons for her art. Holding a fish on the pier that’s bigger than she is, with the kind of smile that makes you wanna smile back. My mama was my grampa’s only child and the love of his life. Though I probably loved my daddy as well, I know she was mine, too. If only I could net more than a handful of memories of her. Like the feel of her powdered cheek on my fevered forehead. The way her velvety braid tickled the tip of my nose when she tucked me in. Some nights, when I can’t take not remembering her anymore, I lay my face onto the grazing mare and filly painting above my bed, hoping to feel something she left behind. But I should be fine tonight. I got my story to keep my heart out of that longing territory. And a job to do.

As Clever Does

Plumping up my pillow, it’s just me and Keeper and my extra blue spiral out here on the porch now, nobody to bother me for a while. I can’t stop dwelling on Mr. Buster and his twisted noggin and how that would be so useful as an investigator to have eyes in the back of your head like that.

Focus, Gibby. Focus on the Miss Cheryl and Miss DeeDee story. It’s almost done and then you can get busy investigating on Mr. Buster. I press my pencil to my pad, wishing I had my favorite No. 2. Love that worn rolling feeling.