Manchild in the Promised Land (7 page)

“Yeah, sumpin is sho wrong with that boy, but I don' think he's crazy or nothin' like that, ‘cause he got a whole lotta sense when it comes to gittin' in trouble. And when I stop to think about it, I don't believe nobody worked no roots on him, ‘cause he got too much devil in him to be tricked by them root workers. But what coulda happen is that he went someplace and sassed some old person, and that old person put the bad mouth on him. Yeah, more'n likely that's what happened to him, ‘cause he always sassing old people. I beat him and keep tellin' him not to talk back to people with gray hair, but that little devilish nigger got a head on him like rock. Lord, I don' know what to do with that boy. I just hope Pimp don't never git that bad.”

When I got tired of hearing how bad I was and about the roots and the bad mouth, I took Pimp to the show. On the way to the show, Pimp asked me to tell him about roots. I didn't want to tell him that I didn't know, because he thought I knew everything, almost as much as God. So I started telling him things about roots and root workers based on the tales I had heard Mama tell about somebody working roots on somebody else “down home.” I said, “Only people down South work roots, because you can't git roots around here.” Pimp wanted to know what was wrong with the roots in the park. “Those ain't the right kinda roots,” I said. “You have to git roots that grow down South. All kinda roots grow down there—money roots, love roots, good-luck roots, bad-luck roots, killin' roots, sick-makin' roots, and lotta other kinda roots.”

“Sonny, do you know how to work roots?”

“Yeah, man, I can work some kinda roots, but some roots I'm not so sure about.”

“Sonny, who teached you how to work roots?”

“Nobody. I just know ‘cause I heard so much about it.”

“Sonny, did you ever work any roots on anybody?”

“No, man, not yet.”

“When you gonna work some on somebody?”

“When somebody who I can't beat make me real mad, that's when I'm gonna work some roots on somebody.”

“You gonna work some roots on Daddy, Sonny?”

“No, man, he's too evil; you can't work roots on real evil people.”

“Carole said God gon strike Daddy dead if he don't stop being so mean to us.”

“Uh-uh, Pimp, I don't think God gon mess with Dad. ‘Cause he woulda did it when Dad cut Miss Bertha husband throat that time or one-a those times when he beat me wit that ironing cord or that time when he cussed out the preacher. No, man, I don' think God gon mess wit Dad.”

“Sonny, you think God is scared-a Daddy?”

“Man, I don' know. I know one thing—all the stuff he been doin' ain't nobody but the police been botherin' him.”

“Maybe God gonna put the police on Daddy, huh, Sonny?”

“Yeah, man, maybe.”

“Sonny, Margie said they got snakes down South and they bite people and the people die when the snakes bite 'em. Is that true, Sonny?”

“Yeah, it's true, but they don' bite everybody. They didn' bite Dad, and they didn' bite Mama, and I know a whole lotta people they didn' bite.”

“Sonny, is the boogeyman down South too?”

“Man, how many times I done told you it ain't no boogeyman?”

“But Margie keep on sayin' it is.”

“The next time she say it, punch huh in huh mout' real hard and she won't say it no more.”

“Mama said the boogeyman comes around at night wit a big burlap sack and gits all bad kids and put in that burlap sack and nobody don't see 'em no more.”

“Man, Mama's just try'n'-a scare you. You know it ain't no boogeyman, ‘cause I told you so. You ‘member all those times Mama and everybody use to say the boogeyman was gonna git me if I didn't stop bein' so bad? Well, I didn't git no gooder; I even got badder than I was then. Ain't no boogeyman got me yet. That's ‘cause it ain't no boogeyman. Every place anybody even told me the boogeyman was, I went there and looked for him, but he ain't never been in none-a dem places. The next time somebody tell you the boogeyman is someplace, git you a big stick and go see him. If I'm around, come and get me and I'll show you it ain't no boogeyman.”

“You ever been down South, Sonny?”

“Uh-uh not yet, but I know it ain't no boogeyman down there.”

“They got crackers down there, ain't they, Sonny?”

“Yeah, Mama said they got crackers down South.”

“Sonny, what is crackers? They ain't the kinda crackers you buy in the candy store, is they?”

“No, the crackers down South is white people, real mean white people.”

“Is Mr. Goldman a cracker, Sonny?”

“No, he's a Jew.”

“But he's white and look real mean.”

“I know that, but some white people is crackers and some-a dem is Jews, and Mr. Goldman is a Jew. You see, Pimp, white people is all mean and stingy. If one-a dem is more stingy than he is mean, he's a Jew; and if he is more mean that he is stingy, then he's a cracker.”

“But, Sonny, how kin you tell 'em?”

“That's easy. Just ask me. I'll tell you what they is.”

“Sonny, I ain't goin' down South.”

“Why ain'tcha?”

“ ‘Cause they got snakes down dere, they got roots down dere, and they got crackers too. Uh-uh, I ain't goin' down dere. You goin', Sonny?”

“Yeah, I'm goin'.”

“Why?”

“ ‘Cause that judge said I better go.”

Two weeks later, I was on my way down South for a summer vacation that lasted a year.

A
YEAR
later, we were passing a farm in North Carolina. Mama was showing Pimp some goats from the train window. I was glad that she had brought Pimp down with her. I think I had missed him more than I had anybody else in the family. But Mama and Pimp had been down South for about a week before we got on the train this morning to go home, and I was tired of playing with Pimp and answering all those questions.

I wondered if Dad had missed me. I knew he hadn't. I knew what he would say to me when I got back. As usual, he would have a hard time, stumbling over words and repeating himself at least five times to say nothing more than, “Be good or I'm'a kill you.” I hated that more than anything else. When Dad tried to talk to me, it never worked out. It would always end up with him hitting me, not because of what I had done but because it came easier to him than talking. Most of the time, I didn't mind. It was easier for me than trying to listen to all that stupid shit he was telling me with a serious face. Sometimes I would bullshit him by looking serious and saying something to make him think he was saying something real smart. I had a special way of bullshitting everybody I knew, and that was how I bullshitted Dad. But most of the time, he would be too mad to be bullshitted, and he would end up pounding on me anyway. I didn't really care, because I was just waiting and wondering—waiting till I got big enough to kick his ass and wondering if he would want to talk then. I could just see him trying real hard to talk and me not listening to anything, just kicking his ass time after time.

It was going be good to get back to New York and see Danny and Butch and Kid. I thought that Carole and Margie would be glad to see me, and I had missed them too. But I hadn't missed anybody as much as I'd missed Grace, except maybe Pimp. Grace was the prettiest girl I had ever met, and we were in love, or something like that.

When Grace first came into my class in P.S. 90, Mrs. Newton introduced her to the rest of the second graders as a “nice little girl in a pretty new dress” and told her how we were all glad to have her. Grace
never lifted her eyes from the floor while Mrs. Newton introduced her. She looked like she was scared or shy; it was hard to tell which. Anyway, she didn't look pretty then.

I used to bother all the girls in the class. Most of them I had beaten up at least once. I didn't like girls much and used to get a lot of fun out of beating them up and chasing them home after school. I chased Grace home one day, but I didn't beat her up. I pulled on her, grabbed her around the neck, and ran with her hat. After a while, I stopped chasing other girls home and only chased Grace home.

One day when Grace didn't come to school, Rosalind, one of the girls I used to chase and beat up, asked me why I didn't chase her home any more. I told her that she wasn't as pretty as Grace and not to mess with me any more, because I wasn't going to chase her, but I would punch her in her mouth when I got a chance. Rosalind started saying that Grace looked funny with that brace on her teeth. I punched her in her mouth, and she ran home crying and promised to get her big sister on me. That was the first time I had thought about the brace on Grace's teeth. I had seen it, but I just never thought about it. When I thought about Grace, I thought about her long hair with the Shirley Temple curls and the freckles on her face that used to look funny. They sure didn't look funny any more. Anybody who laughed at them had better be able to beat me. Grace was the first girl I ever saw with freckles, and I liked her, freckles and all.

Grace was the only person I didn't have a way to bullshit. Everybody else I knew, I had a special way, everybody. Grace was the first girl I wanted to play with, and I wanted to play with her all the time. She was the first girl I knew who was nice to look at all day long and whose face I could see even when I wasn't looking at her. Mama's name was the first name that made me happy when I heard it. Grace was the second name to make me happy at the sound of it, and it made me happier than Mama's name sometimes.

In Mrs. Newton's second-grade class, the kids had to rest for one hour each day, and there were cots in the class for them to lie down on. One day, when I found my cot next to Grace's, she asked me which girl I liked best in the whole class. Even though I knew the question would come one way or another at some time or another, that was the happiest question I had ever been asked, and all I could answer was, “You.” I prayed she would give me the same answer when I asked her who was her favorite boy in the whole class. We both gave the right answer, and
I told everybody I knew that Grace was the prettiest girl in the world, and some of them I told it to over and over again.

I sure wanted to see Grace again and find out if she still liked me. I sure was sorry for not doing it to Grace when I had the chance that day up on the roof. I knew she wanted me to. She wanted me to do it to her real bad. And I would have too, if it wasn't for her little sister wanting me to do it to her too and not giving me a chance to get Grace by herself.

The year I had spent down South didn't look so bad from the train going to New York. I could even remember some good things about it that I didn't even know before. I had some fun down there. I didn't even hate Grandpa any more. Maybe I never did really hate him except for that time when he made me stay in the woods and saw down a tree when I was freezing. Or when he got the gun at me that time when he caught me playing house with Reverend Green's daughter. He told me he was going to kill me for being such a nasty damn scamp that nobody could bring their daughter around without me taking them under the house. He would have killed me that day if I hadn't run in the woods and stayed until that damn old owl scared the hell out of me. I know he would have shot me, because he had the devil in him. I had heard of a lot of people having the devil in them, but I never saw anybody who had it in them for sure until I met Grandpa.

The people down South said that somebody had put the bad mouth on Grandpa or had worked roots on him because he was so evil and that was why his whole right side was stiff. Grandma said God had put his hand on Grandpa as a warning for him to change his evil ways, but it seemed that the only thing that changed about Grandpa was that he was only half as able to do the evil he used to do. He sure was an evil man.

The time I hated him most and shouldn't have was that “hog-killing” time when I hit the hog on the head with the ax. The hog didn't die. Grandpa said, “Boy, you ain't shit.” I wanted to hit him in the head with that ax, but I was scared of what would happen if he didn't die. On the train, I started hating that damn hog for not dying. Grandpa was still evil as hell, but he was all right with me now.

I learned some things down South too. I learned how to talk to a mule and plow a straight row in the sweet-potato patch. I even learned how to say “yas'm” and “yas suh.” And Grandma told me what pecker-woods were and taught me not to call white potatoes white potatoes,
“because they ain't white potaters, they is ice potaters.” But I don't think I really learned those things—I think I just made believe I learned them. As soon as I got on that train going back to New York, I knew white potatoes were white potatoes, and I knew I had said “yas suh” and “yas'm” for the last time. And Grandpa told me some of the best-sounding lies I'd ever heard. At first, the only way I could tell they were lies was to keep watching Grandma when he started telling me things: when he was lying, Grandma would be peeking at him over her glasses in a certain way. After a while, I could tell when he was lying, because he would always start scratching his head when he started lying. I guess that's what made me pretty good at lying when I went back to New York. I learned to tell when Grandpa was lying, and I learned to lie to him so well that he only hit me with that oak stick of his two times for lying. That oak stick was real hard, so my lies had to be good.

I learned a lot about the church songs Dad and I used to sing. Grandpa didn't go to church any more, but he knew all about the songs and who sang them at what funeral. The best songs were sung at the funerals for the “bad niggers.” I learned that a bad nigger was a nigger who “didn't take no shit from nobody” and that even the “crackers” didn't mess with him. Because a bad nigger raised so much hell in life, people couldn't just put him in the ground and forget him. I met an old man who used to be a bad nigger; he had one eye and one hand, and he looked just like what people said he used to be, a bad nigger.