Ice (11 page)

Our annual spring concert was always a very well-attended affair. We had an excellent, awardwinning orchestra as well as an award- winning chorus. Many people attended who didn't even have students participating. They just knew they would get their money's worth buying a ticket to one of our concerts.

Most of the proceeds went toward a scholarship for a worthy musical student. The winner or winners were announced just before the final choral number of the evening. Mr. Glenn called up the principal to make the presentation. Everyone was sure that Balwin would be this year's recipient. After all, he had volunteered his services for the chorus for more than two years now and had even performed solo at past concerts, always bringing the audience to its feet.

Despite his father's reluctance to praise Balwin for his musical abilities, the accolades and the congratulations he and Mrs. Noble received made it impossible for him not to at least appear proud. It wasn't hard to set, however, that he had hopes Balwin would eventually go on to pursue a career that held more financial promise. Balwin told me that if he hadn't been chosen in an early admissions program to attend Juilliard, his father would surely have pressured him to go to Harvard or Yale, both of which had accepted him, and then get an MBA.

"He's got to get it out of his system," was Mr. Noble's favorite expression whenever anyone talked to him about Balwin's pursuit of music. It was as if he believed music was like an infectious disease or something, a flu or virus he had to purge from his soul, Mr. Noble seemed to think that with time. Balwin would simply outgrow it.

All this applause was nice, he told friends, but when it came right down to it, applause didn't put food on the table or pay for an elegant home or provide a good living. For that. Balwin would eventually have to turn his attention to more mundane things like following in his footsteps perhaps and becoming a financial advisor, manager or even a company chief financial officer. He could always buy a piano and play for people on holidays, couldn't he?

"After all, how many people do you know," his father would ask someone, "who make a very good living on entertainment? We all can't be Frank Sinatra," he pointed out with a laugh.

I heard him say these very things in the auditorium lobby during the concert's intermission. Balwin heard them, too, and was embarrassed enough to try to lose himself in the crowd.

"I've got to check on something," he told his mother and slipped away.
My mama and daddy had come to the concert. I was surprised Mama had actually shown up, even though she had gone into her room to prepare long before I left. She always thought the music was too stuffy and made her sleepy. I had to admit that she looked very nice, dressed in a dark blue dress with her pearls and her hair and makeup perfect. She was enjoying a lot of attention, and every once in a while, glanced at me with her eyes dancing, brightly filled with pride. Daddy looked somewhat uncomfortable beside her, his tie like a hangman's noose on his neck. He flashed me a smile and made his eyes roll toward Mama who had just let out one of her sweet sounding laughs while she absorbed a compliment from someone else's father.
We were called back in to finish the concert. The second half began with three orchestra numbers and then a chorus number, after which the auditorium grew very quiet. Mr. Glenn introduced the principal who stepped forward and announced that this year the school had extremely worthy recipients for its prestigious music scholarships. He then began with a very detailed rendition of all of Balwin's
accomplishments.
I
had forgotten myself how he had often gone over to the elementary school to help that chorus rehearse and once had performed a small assembly program for the primary classes.
The audience rose to its feet when he was called forward to receive his scholarship.
I
clapped as hard as
I
could, He glanced my way and smiled and then stepped up and thanked the school and his parents. He promised to make good use of the scholarship.
Again, there was a hush in the crowd. The principal put on his reading glasses and began by describing someone who was truly a discovery, "a jewel so covered in modesty, someone could walk right by her. Until." he added lifting his head to look out at the audience, you heard her sing. Then, there is no question. It is with great joy that we present a scholarship to someone who has the potential to make us very proud citizens of this school. Ice Goodman."
At first.
I
didn't realize he had uttered my name. I stood there, waiting for another name. Mr. Glenn turned to me, beaming, and the others looked at me. too. All their eyes brought the reality home.
I
thought
I
would be unable to take a single step. but Mr. Glenn came forward and reached for my hand to escort me to the podium.
Balwin's face was so full of joy, his eyes glittered like tiny stars in the footlights. I thought I would surely faint. My heart was beating so fast.
I
couldn't find a breath.
The principal handed me the envelope and stepped back. I knew that meant I had to say something. Everyone in the auditorium was looking at me, waiting.
"Thank you," I said. Then I turned and hurried back to my place. No one applauded.
The principal stepped forward, laughing.
"She makes up for all that when she opens her mouth to sing, folks. Just sit back and enjoy the final number."
The audience finally applauded.
I did sing hard and strong until the final note, after which Mr. Glenn congratulated me first and then most of the chorus. Balwin and I remained backstage waiting to greet our parents. Mama was in her glory. She feasted on the accolades and compliments as if she had expected them, and then Daddy revealed that they had been informed of my impending award so that they would be sure to attend the concert.
"We're very proud of you, honey, very proud," he said hugging me.
Some of the men he knew pulled him off to shake hands and receive their congratulations. Balwin and I stood close to each other, greeting people like the victors of some Olympic event. Finally, his father came up to me.
"I guess your working together helped you both in different ways," he began. Balwin was shaking hands, but listening with one ear turned our way.
I nodded, smiled and started to turn away from his father, when he reached out again and took my hand.
"You deserve this," he said. "And now that I know you've got a promising future, it will be put to good use. I'm sure. Thanks for fulfilling the bargain," he said.
I opened my hand and looked down at five crisp hundred-dollar bills.
Balwin gazed at it as well and then he looked up at me, his face full of confusion and pain,
"No," I said shaking my head. 'I don't want your money, Mr. Noble."
I
cried. "I told you..."
He turned his back on me and walked into the crowd. I looked at Balwin.
"I told him I didn't want..."
He didn't wait for me to finish. He moved away quickly, disappearing into the crowd. I started after him. but Mama seized me and started to praise me in front of her friends, claiming how much she encouraged me to sing in church. Half of me listened.
The other half was off, screaming into the night.

The silence I had once embraced as a friend soon turned into a despised enemy. It was the silence I heard growing between Balwin and me almost the instant the incident with the money occurred in front of him. The pain he felt was so deep, I thought I could never reach down far enough to wipe the salve of my explanations over it. He would always suspect, distrust, even detest me as long as he had any reason to believe I had been part of a conspiracy hatched by his father.

Full of a thousand anxieties. I tried calling him as soon as I was home from the concert, but he didn't answer his phone and when his father picked up their main phone, he told me Balwin was already asleep.

"You did a despicable thing handing me that money in front of him. Mr. Noble. He thinks everything between us was planned, contrived, done for the money." I said, tears burning under my eyelids.

"Wasn't it?" his father asked coldly.
A hot rush of blood heated my face.
"No!" I screamed. "and I want you to take your

"Sure you do," he said. "Mail it to me," he challenged and hung up.
I found an envelope immediately and addressed it. Then I stuffed the money in it and set it out to mail it to him first thing in the morning. Balwin's mother answered his phone the next day and told me he had gone for a ride with some friends. I didn't know whether to believe her or not. I asked her to tell Balwin I had called and she said she would, but I didn't hear from him, and I decided not to keep calling.
Of course, we saw each other in school the following Monday, but as soon as he set eyes on me, he turned and headed in the opposite direction. His avoidance of me caused more of a stir than when we had begun to be together. Everyone wanted to know what was going on. but I ignored the questions and the comments, all except one: Thelma Williams's implication that Balwin was upset he had to share the award with me.
"The only reason why you don't know how stupid that is." I told her. "is because you're so stupid."
It nearly started a bad fight. If Balwin heard about it, he didn't say anything to me before the day ended. Chorus was over for the year so we didn't meet after school, but on my way home. I saw him driving his car in my direction. When I rounded the corner to my street. I found him parked alongside the curb. He was staring ahead. waiting.
I got in and closed the door.
"I heard about you and Thelma Williams," he began. "Thanks for defending me,"
"It was a dumb thing for her to say." He nodded and then he squinted at me.
"I just want to know if everything you did was paid for with that money my father gave you," he said.
"Nothing was paid for. Balwin. I've been trying to tell you that, but you won't listen."
He stared at me, the pain and hurt tearing at his eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me what my father had done? Why didn't you ever say anything about it?"
"I thought you would always be suspicious. I thought you would never believe it wasn't true." I replied. "I also thought your father would get so angry. . . he would forbid you from ever seeing me."
"You should have told me," he repeated, shaking his head. "If you like someone, really like him, you trust him. Trust is a very important thing, Ice, very important."
"I know, I'm sorry, Balwin. Really. I am.
I
sent the money back to him. When I called and told him, he said I wouldn't and he laughed at the idea."
"You called?"
"A few times. I called your phone and spoke to your mother, too. Didn't anyone give you the messages?" He shook his head.
"I guess they thought my usefulness was ended," I said. I was feeling so sorry for myself. I wished someone would dig me a well to cry in. "Your father didn't have to pay me to like you and to help you feel better about yourself, Balwin."
I turned on him, my eyes burning with unrequited tears.
"I enjoyed every minute we were together and the song you wrote for me will always be something special to me."
Balwin glanced at me and I stared at the floor. I was afraid to look directly at him again. afraid I really might start to cry and never stop. I think he sensed it. His voice turned so much softer.
"I should have given you more of a chance to explain. Ice. I'm sorry about that. but I was so hurt, so angry. I felt betrayed."
"I know."
"Will you come back?"
"No." I said. "I don't think I'll feel comfortable there just now."
"Well, then let's keep practicing at school. Mr. Glenn will let us use the chorus room. okay?"
I was silent.
"Ice? Okay?"
"If that's what you really want," I said.
"I do,"
"Then. okay," I said and got out of the car.
"Tomorrow, after school?" he called.
I nodded.
Then I turned and walked away. He watched me walk all the way to my apartment building before he started his car and left. I watched him drive off.
Music, I thought, music was still the tie that binds. The rhythm, the melody and the words flowed through my heart as well as my mind. I could face anything if that was always true. I thought.
I was soon to be put to the test.
It came in the form of a loud knock on our apartment door just a little after eleven that same evening. Mama was already asleep and when she fell asleep, she was pretty much dead to the world. Sometimes, she even put cotton in her ears to keep anything from disturbing her.
I thought the knocking was part of a dream I was having. I tossed and turned all night, fretted in and out of the nightmare trying to settle in my brain. I heard the knocking continue and finally opened my eyes. I listened, heard a voice and more knocking and then rose quickly, scooping up my robe and shoving my feet into my slippers.
"Who's there?" I called through the closed door. There were two robberies this month in the building, and both had happened because someone had opened her door too quickly.
"Mike Tooty, from the agency." I heard. I knew that was Daddy's security company and I knew Mike Tooey. I looked toward Mama's bedroom, but she hadn't vet woken.
"Just a minute." I said and undid the locks. I opened the door and faced him. He had his hat in his hands and he was in full uniform. "What is it?"
"Your dad." he said, "was shot about an hour ago. He was stopping a robbery."
I pressed my hand to my breast. My whole body felt as if I had fallen into a large pot of boiling water. I could barely move a muscle.
"How is he?" I finally managed to ask.
"He's in intensive care at the hospital. You and your mother should get over there." he said. "Sorry."
Sorry? It sounded so simple, so nonchalant, so nothing. Sorry to wake you. Sorry I stepped on your foot Sorry I snapped at you. Sorry I bumped into you. Sorry your father was shot.
"I can take you two there," he offered."I'll wait outside in the company car. okay?"
I nodded, closed the door, took a deep breath and started for Mama's bedroom.
There was no music in my mind, just the continuous, ominous roll of parade drums.
Almost as if she knew she would be facing unhappiness when she woke. Mama stubbornly clung to sleep as I shook her. I shook her again and called her and shook her until finally her eyelids fluttered, closed, and then snapped open.
"What?" she practically screamed at me.
"Daddy's been shot,"
I
said.
She stared up at me a moment and then she sat up so quickly and firmly. I stepped back.
"What?"
"Mike Tooey is outside waiting to take us to the hospital in the company car," I said. "Daddy stopped a robbery."
"Oh Jesus," she muttered. "oh Jesus. Jesus."
She rose and began to get dressed.
I
hurried back to my room to do the same. Less than ten minutes later. I was ready, but Mama was still brushing her hair.
"I look a mess." she moaned at her own image in the mirror.
"I don't think that matters at the moment. Mama." I said dryly. She paused and looked at me as if I had gone crazy.
"It always matters. child. You think I want your father looking at a hag when I get there. The better I look, the better he's going to feel," she predicted, finished her hair and then joined me at the door. "I shoulda bought that wig the other day," she muttered as we hurried out. "You got a wig, you just throw it on and don't worry.
I
should have bought it."
Mr. Tooey either really didn't know very much or was too frightened to give us the details. However, we were told everything almost as soon as we arrived at the ER. Daddy had taken two bullets: the first had lodged in his shoulder, but the second had hit him in the abdomen and nicked his spine as it passed through. He had lost a lot of blood and was in critical condition.
"Is he going to live?" Mama demanded from the doctor.
"We'll see." was the doctor's best reply no matter how much Mama pressured him.
Different places have different kinds of silences, I thought as we
waited in the lounge anxiously. Hospitals weren't really quiet places. Staff workers, interns, nurses, all spoke rather loudly to each other. There was much activity going on, too: people being pushed along in wheelchairs or on stretchers, doctors talking to relatives or to the patients themselves, technicians rolling machines from one room to another, nurses and doctors shouting orders across hallways.
The silences I did see and hear were the silences in the eyes of the worried wives, mothers, husbands, brothers, sisters and friends who lingered in corridors, quietly comforting each other, holding each other, standing in the shadows and gazing absently at the floors or walls or looking out the windows at nothing, just waiting in a world where all time seemed to have stopped, where everything said or done seemed so far off reverberating into the darkness.
There were many elective mutes here, many people who didn't want to speak, to hear the sounds of their own voices for fear it would make them crumble or turn to tears and cries of pain.
"Will my daddy die?"
"Will Bobby get better?"
"When will the doctor tell us anything?"
"When will my mammy come home?"
It was so much better not to hear these and similar questions, not to have to answer, not to have to look into the face of reality and recognize what tomorrow could be like. It was better to wait quietly, to hold your breath and not think about anything, anything at all.
Mama couldn't do that. She talked incessantly, commenting to everyone who would listen, complaining about the waiting, the world today, the criminals out there, her poor husband's miserable fate, moaning and groaning, drawing all the sympathy she could to herself until finally, exhausted, she sputtered like some boat running out of fuel on some lake, her words growing farther and farther apart, half spoken, and soon altogether stopped.
She stared along with the others and waited and looked at me and took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Time tormented us. Minutes took longer. Hours stretched. We were stuck in forever, until eventually, almost like an afterthought brought back from some dark corner of the hospital, the doctor made his way toward us, his face glum, a doctor's face full of ifs and maybes.
Daddy was still alive. The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours were critical. If he lived, it would be a long recuperation with a lot of therapy. He would most likely regain his ability to walk, too, but it was all somewhere way out there like a promise at the end of a rainbow.
It was best we went home and returned the next day. There wasn't much left to do, but wait.
"He's a strong man. Mrs. Goodman," the doctor told her. "A lesser man would be gone by now," he said. I could see he meant it sincerely.
Mama nodded. For once, she seemed
speechless. She threaded her arm through mine and we left to get a cab to take us home. All the way she rested her head against my shoulder. As soon as we arrived, she went right to sleep.
I sat in the living room for a while, looking at Daddy's empty chair and humming some music to myself. Finally, I went to bed and fell asleep, too exhausted to entertain a single dream.
I was up and out of bed the moment my eyes snapped open in the morning. Mama was still asleep. I went right to the phone and called the hospital. When they heard I was immediate family, they forwarded my call to the nurse on dim
^,
who told me Daddy was stable, but there was nothing more to say until the doctor came to evaluate.
I rushed about the apartment, putting up some coffee first because I knew Mama wouldn't budge without some. Then I called to her and woke her. She mumbled and cursed and cried, but finally rose. I showered and dressed and had her coffee poured and waiting when she emerged from her room, practically sleepwalking to the table. I told her
I
had called the hospital and what the nurse had said.
"We've got to get there as quickly as we can. Mama. We've got to talk to the doctor."
"Why rush? All they do is make you wait and wait until they're good and ready," she said.
"We don't want to miss him." I insisted. "If you're not ready, I'll leave without you," I threatened.
She looked up at me with surprise and then shook her head and complained all the rest of the time and all the way to the hospital, moaned about how I had hurried her so much she couldn't fix herself properly to face the world. I was to be blamed for her mediocre appearance. I worked hard at closing her out of my mind and soon her words bounced off my ears like raindrops off the top of an umbrella.
I was right about being there as soon as we could. The doctor was on his way to another hospital after seeing Daddy and we wouldn't have gotten any direct information if we hadn't been there.
"He's improved far faster and better than I had anticipated," he told us. "I believe he's out of danger, but he's going to begin a long recuperation. Prepare yourselves for that," he warned, his eyes on Mama as if he could sense how difficult it was going to be for her, maybe even more difficult than it would be for Daddy.
He told us we could see Daddy later in the day when he was conscious. I had the hardest time keeping Mama at the hospital to wait for the opportunity. She wanted to go home and dress herself all over again. We ate some lunch in the hospital cafeteria and then went back to the ICU waiting room and waited for the nurse to come out to get us.
"You can stay ten minutes," she said. "He's conscious now."
"Well, Hallelujah!" Mama muttered.
We followed the nurse in to Daddy's bedside. Even on his back with all the tubes and monitoring devices attached to him, he still looked big and powerful to me.
He smiled when he saw us.
"Now look what you've gone and done," Mama told him immediately. "I bet you didn't have to stick your big neck out. Cameron Goodman. I bet you just couldn't wait to be a hero. huh?"
"Hi Daddy," I said. I kissed him.
Mama looked around, held her face of chastisement, but kissed him. too.
"Now, what are we supposed to do?" she asked him.
"Mama." I whispered. "Don't cause him any worry now,"
"You'll be fine," Daddy said. "Money comes in anyway. Insurance. Don't worry." he said.
"Great," Mama said. "And you have a long recuperation. You'll be hanging around the house playing that music all day and night now. I'm telling you right now, Cameron. I'm no good as a nurse," she warned.
Daddy smiled at me.
"Well. I'm not. I won't be carrying bedpans and breaking my nails changing bandages and such."
"There's home nursing care when we need it," Daddy told her, his voice just above a whisper. "Stop your worrying. Lena. You'll be fine. all be fine."
"Right. Getting in the way of a bullet. I do declare. Cameron. I never wanted you to do this job. You shoulda... shoulda drove a taxi or something."
Daddy widened his smile. but I could see he was fading again fast. "Don't worry," he whispered and fell asleep.
"You'll have to leave." the nurse said quickly.
"Leave? We haven't been here five minutes!" Mama cried.
"Please," the nurse insisted,
I took Mama's arm and practically walked her out forcibly. She muttered to herself until we were in the hall.
"You see his face when he looked up at me?