Those Bones Are Not My Child (26 page)

Clang-a-lang, clang-a-lang. Send them out that we might know them. Bam-a-lam. Give us the strangers that we all might know them. Bam-a-lam, bam-a-lam. Send the men out that we might know them. The mob in Sodom demanding that Lot turn over his male guests to be fucked.

Her minister fed her gore when she needed solace. No balm in Gilead for you, sister. What was she being punished for?

The hiss of the back door opening pulled her straight up in her seat. Passengers who’d glimpsed the length of the train passing preferred to get out and walk. Zala stared into the weeded lot and forced the dead bodies back into the shape of trash heaps. If worse came to worse, would she ever be able to see things as they were? Did she have the capacity to go on slogging through the days up to her hips in ice the way the others did, telling their story over and over, never quit of it, opening their veins to police, reporters, the caller from the obit section, the curious, the sympathetic, over and over, bleeding into each other’s wounds, nursing mothers hearing it, turning away fearful of panic in their milk,
over and over, throats rasped with the telling and hope that someone hearing would avenge the bones or at least bring the thing to a halt? And what kept her on her feet? The dark root of a scream coiled in her pit, draining her dry till she thought she would split open.

“Here, take it.” The couple in the seat ahead were waving a tissue. They whispered quietly so as not to embarrass her further, all alone on the seat weeping, head at an odd angle.

The train picked up speed and rumbled past: flatcars, boxcars, double deckers carrying jeeps, yellow cars marked
GRAIN
, aluminum canisters marked
PROPANE
, sweaty refrigerator cars dripping in the cinder bed along the ties. The bus shook, the bell clanged, the light was a mad red eye. Several cars pulled out from behind the bus and U-turned for another route. More passengers got up, covering their exit with small talk. They jumped down into the gravel and cut through the ragweed. She searched the faces going by for someone who once knew Sonny. Children were playing in the high grass, decapitating puffballs with dry branches that withered in their hands.

Where would Sonny run to, running away? She pictured him hitching a ride to Epps, Alabama, and hiding out in Mama Lovey’s bee colony. Stowing away in the restroom of a Trailways bound for Brunswick, Georgia, where the crazy Rawls relatives whooped it up but always held even the elders’ rockers quiet if Sonny was in the mood to enact the tale behind his name. She saw him on the airfield running close to the ground on the runway, then, while the loaders’ backs were turned, secreting himself in the baggage compartment of a jumbo jet on its way to New York. He and Aunt Myrtle would take to each other right away, her aunt the first relative to lay eyes on the newborn. They’d hang out together while Uncle Paul was on the road with the band. Uncle Paul would take to him too, encourage him to master the guitar instead of beating on it. But they would call. So would Mama Lovey and the Rawlses. Besides, Sonny was not adventurous stupid. She dabbed at her face with the shredded tissue and sank back down in her seat.

She had never thought much of Central City Park, a five-acre plot in the lap of the banking district. A few sweetgums, myrtle, and lindens, planted in two-inch-deep soil spread over the rubble of old buildings,
looked temporary, makeshift. No benches, no band shell, no playground for children, it seemed designed for strolling through at lunchtime, for looking at while waiting for the bus, for glancing down on from a ten-story window while placing a file in a drawer and taking a daydreamy break. But she was glad that she’d come. The park was flooded with sunshine, and it was unusually crowded. There’d been a noontime jazz concert. Musicians were rolling big drum cases to vans at the curb. A white girl with headphones around her neck skated past and Zala caught a bit of Olivia Newton-John: “You have to believe we are magic / Don’t let your aim ever stray.” Zala smiled to herself and looked around for Gloria and the kids as the crowd thinned out.

Brothers in cufies and sisters in geles, merchants of jewelry, books, incense, fruit, bean pies, trying to create an African bazaar at MARTA’s Five Points, had been dispersed by the police, she heard them saying as they lugged their wares past the park. A white couple with sheaves of newspapers slung over their arms stopped several merchants and sold a few papers, then attempted to engage people at the bus stops in conversation about the headlines. As usual, Zala noted, people were courteous, attentive even when clearly not interested. Pretty sisters in back-out dresses sat on the low brick wall that bordered the park laughing and talking. An intense middle-aged man with a receding hairline strode up and down thumping his Bible and haranguing the people on the wall; he and the radical newsdealers crossing each other’s path nodded politely. Behind the pretty sisters, two brothers and an Asian companion admired the back-out dresses while doing slow-motion martial-arts moves on the green. Near them a circle of white youths strummed guitars and combed their hair, one girl in a prairie dress flinging a Frisbee for a dog to fetch. It was clear that Gloria and the kids were not there yet, so Zala was hunting instead for the Bureau of Cultural Affairs chief when she noticed several workers winding cable were wearing T-shirts she’d designed for the bureau last year. Maybe there was time to submit designs for the up coming Third World Film Festival. The curly-haired woman she’d thought was Shirley Franklin turned out to bear no resemblance at all close-up—heavier, darker, an older woman with big, round electric-blue glasses. They smiled and went past each other as a few pigeons, flustered by the unusual number of people milling about, flew up over their heads to perch on the ledge of the First Georgia Bank.

Zala drifted over by the waterfall fountain. Two boys on the top steps were daring each other to walk the water. Below, musicians snapped horn cases shut and slid cymbals into chamois cloth bags. She looked around again for her T-shirts, remembering that she was on the screening committee but hadn’t been notified yet by the film festival coordinator. She saw again the woman in the blue owl glasses smiling slyly at her about a group of businessmen standing between them. The sister in her African print dress and sandals, carrying a straw tote bag, had the kind of style that would prompt Mama Lovey on visits to say, “Is she a friend of yours, baby?” then admire the hair and sniff at Zala’s big bush, muttering, “Who ya gonna eat today, Wamba?” The businessmen were a self-consciously integrated group, they talked overloud and worked hard at laughing; each carried his jacket hooked on one finger and slung over the shoulder exactly like the models on the glossy Atlanta brochures: City Too Busy to Hate.

The summer before, she and Spence used to meet in the park for brown-bag lunches between her classes at Georgia State. They’d reminisce about picnics at real parks—Mozley and Adams on the south side, Piedmont in the northeast, especially during arts festival time, lounging on blankets, listening to jazz while the kids darted back and forth from the African Village the Neighborhood Art Center set up every year, reporting how many of Zala’s halters, macramé hangings, tapestries, and weavings had been sold. Then, later, Kenti worn out and asleep in her lap, Kofi leaning against Spence the way old folks do claiming they’re resting their eyes, Sonny would ask for Spence’s whittle knife to turn a tree branch into a royal staff. Then he’d entertain them and other families on blankets nearby with the story of Sundiata the Bowman, pulling on the staff now a great bow and cueing Kofi when to keel over clutching his chest.

“Wake up, Africans!”

Zala spun around, knocked out of her reverie by the thunderous voice of a dark-skinned, bumpy-faced brother in blue seersucker overalls and knitted cap. He was standing on the low perimeter wall jamming the black-red-and-green into the dirt behind him. Several people got off the wall and boarded the number 23 Oglethorpe. The sister in the owl glasses sat down and pulled a tape recorder from her straw tote.

“People, what are we pretending not to know today?” He smiled a glorious smile and a group of college students from the number 3
Auburn moved into the park and sat down on the walk by the owl-glasses sister’s feet.

“I say, what are we pretending not to know today, African people? The U.S. government is up to no good in Grenada. They’re sending infiltrators into Jamaica to bust up the trade union movement. They’re down there in Miami training death squadrons for South American fascists. Can you hear me?” He straightened his cap. The martial-arts trio, moving like taffy, came closer and the radical newsdealers came in from the sidewalk. The Bible man wheeled around and scowled at the speaker. Two old-timers remarked that Jesus was one thing, but bringing politics into the park, hmmph. They shoved over for Zala to sit down between them.

“The Klan was barely beaten back in Dominica, good people. You know they’re consolidating their international network. And everywhere they forge a link with other pig-dogs, it’s bloody murder for the people. They’ve got their eye on Guatamala now. So wake up!”

The old gent on her left nudged her. “Only one kinda killing ’poze to talk about in the financial district.” His shoulders shook up and down as he chuckled.

“Are we sleepwalking Africans or what? People, the poultry workers in Laurel, Mississippi, need our support. The textile workers at J. P. Stevens could use a hand. Folks in Liberty City in Miami are calling us. And you know Central America’s the next Southeast Asia. Don’t let the state force-feed you knockout drops, Africans.
Aaaaafrrriiaa-aannzzzzz!
”

“What about Wrightsville?” one of the students said, smoothing down her Clark College sweatshirt while her friend slapped her shoulder at her boldness.

“That’s right. Wrightsville. Thank you, sister. People, the folks in Wrightsville shouldn’t have to face the fight alone. And the chemical workers in—”

“Aw, shut up all that noise!” A flashily dressed dude was bopping through the park, shifting a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. He glanced over his shoulder at the speaker and tugged at the brim of his polished straw white as he disappeared.

“He’s giving that toothpick a natural fit,” the speaker said, hands on his hips, shaking his head at the man, dimples puckering. “But is his mind in gear?”

“Teach!” one of the Morris Brown students said.

“Shiiiit,” came the dude’s voice, carrying all the way from Park Place.

The pretty sisters on the wall got up, pulled their dresses from the back of their thighs, and stretched. “One monkey don’t stop no show,” someone yelled to discourage their leaving. The pretty sisters sauntered into the park, but others left the wall to wait for their buses at the curb. A couple and their two children, in four identical white caps with their names stitched on the brims, strolled into the park to see what was going on. The husband tugged his wife’s arm, and she in turn pinched the children. They all stopped to listen.

“Hear me, Africans,” the speaker was saying. “While the U.S. government is hogging the airwaves murder-mouthing Khomeini, big business has taken this country hostage again.”

“Well, it’s not my government,” one of the students said petulantly.

“Oh yes it is,” Speaker and Bible Man said in unison, then nodded to each other.

“Now, that’s the truth,” the old gent on Zala’s right said. “America’s my home and I’m proud of it.” He leaned over to see if his buddy on her left wanted to argue.

“We got a stake in this place,” Bible Man said loudly, cords rising where his hair receded. “Make no mistake. The white man tief it from the red man, den he tief us from the homeland, but all o’ we got a stake in this place.” He rapped the Good Book.

“We can’t go to sleep and act like none of this is our business,” Speaker said. “Things ain’t shaping up so hot for the Tchula Seven or the Pickens County Two. What’s that? you say—what’s the Tchula Seven? An exact replay of the showdown that took place right here in Atlanta not so long ago. You were there,” he said, pointing toward the old-timers around Zala. “Some of you were there,” he said to the students sitting cross-legged below him. “When Maynard demoted Inman by creating a new post, what did the police chief do? Called in the SWAT team to hold
his
department and defy the mayor the
people
elected. History’s repeating itself down there in Mississippi, good people. The ex-sheriff and his boys are trying to put Mayor Carthan and the whole City Hall staff under arrest, and to hell with the voters, to hell with the law.”

“Whatchusay!” the old-timer on Zala’s right growled.

“And the Pickens County Two?” one of the newsdealers shouted, holding up a copy of her paper that carried the story.

“Talking about the courageous women in Aliceville, Alabama, good people. Miz Maggie Bozeman and Miz Julia Wilder. Can I speak on it? Do I have your permission?”

“Tell it,” Bible Man ordered. “Then hang down de phone.”

“Talking about some serious voter-registration workers. Talking about little Miz Julia, who registered two hundred voters in Pickens County. How many, you say? Said two hundred voters, and in one day and on foot. And how old is Miz Julia? She’s seventy. Hear me?”

“Whatchusay!” The old-timer slapped his leg a few times.

“But the good ole boys want to put Miz Julia and Miz Maggie in prison. Say they committed a crime registering all them voters. Say they committed voter fraud.” Speaker paused for the groans and
tsk-tsks
to subside. “Five years of hard labor in Teitweiler Prison—that’s what they want to give them righteous African women.”

“We gonna put up widit?” Bible Man was challenging the gathering.

“No sir, nosiree,” the old gent on Zala’s right said.

“That’s Alabama,” the woman with her name stitched on her cap said. Her younger child fidgeted. The woman thumped the girl’s shoulder and continued, “And this is Atlanta.” It was apparent that she wanted to leave, having spoken.

“Now, that’s an ignorant ole gal.” The gent on Zala’s left poked her. “Pure blind ignorant.”