Those Bones Are Not My Child (38 page)

Kenti prayed she would get to church. She wanted Miz Butler to hug her. She wanted to hear Miz Penner sing out while the choir clapped and swayed. She wanted to see Revun Michaels hit the pulpit, rearing up on his toes and straining, his throat gravelly and his tongue fat, calling the Lord a shoving leopard and even the grown-ups giggling. And when he said, “Let’s bow our heads,” she’d pray for Sonny to come home and put on his birthday bathrobe and get everybody to act right. And though house praying wasn’t as strong as church praying, Kenti clutched her hands on Baby Crawler’s back and prayed and prayed, sinking down to the place where the seals poked their whiskered noses over the back of the pews. There were three husky zebras munching hay in the choir stall. And she could hear the rodeo ponies trotting down the aisles. Kofi was riding one of them and saying, “Daddy’s coming, Daddy’s coming.” Well, Daddy could just come on and grab hold them ropes and hold them ponies, ’cause she was going
to go up and feed her cornflakes to the zebras. And then she’d give the lesson. ’Cause it was her turn.

Holding the phone loosely, Zala looked over Kofi’s shoulder and conceded that Paulette’s cleaning brigade had certainly done a job on the table. She could no longer tell where the stereo had been, the whole tabletop a sheen. While Mattie expounded on the pros and cons of capital punishment, Zala nudged Kofi by way of telling him to go fix his plate, but he jerked his shoulder away and went on reading his comics and eating cookies. She carried the phone to the couch and let him smolder alone.

“Not in general, Mattie. But do you think Clytemnestra had a case for executing her husband? Although in some versions of the story, the goddess Diana whisked Iphigenia off to safety at the last minute.”

“I get the feeling, dear friend,” Mattie said after a pause, “that either you’re trying to tell me something or you’re setting me up.”

Zala went over it again, trying to keep to the version of the drama closest to her feelings. “Even so,” she said, “I mean, whether the girl was rescued through divine intervention or not, the point is, Agamemnon had murder in mind.”

“But did they consider it murder? Was that the consensus?” Mattie jangled her bangles over the wire, or someone else did. Zala realized she hadn’t asked first if Mattie was free for a lengthy chat.

“Are you alone?”

“Never.”

“Never?”

“You’d be amazed. One day I’ll explain,” Mattie said; then a match was struck close to the phone. Zala heard it sizzle, then flare. Instinctively, she held the phone away from her ear, then replayed Mattie’s response, hearing “a/maze” and “ex/plane,” for Mattie had a way of leaning on key words making them sound other than conventional.

Now Mattie was talking about the ancient Greeks’ borrowing of ethical systems from a culture more advanced than their own, a culture that they’d conquered but not mastered.

“Well,” Zala sighed, “it’s all Greek to me.”

“It may be Greek to you, dear friend, but it’s all Egyptian to me.”

There was laughter in the background, at least three other voices. Then once again Mattie invited her to join a study group investigating the mysteries. Zala heard, though, ‘come mass-store the miss stories.’ ” It was no simple thing talking with the likes of Reverend Mattie Shaw, Reader & Advisor.

“I’ve got to go, I’ve got makeup work to deal with,” Zala said. “I refuse to fall behind anymore. I’ve been at this thing too long as it is.”

Seven years, she calculated, setting the phone on the floor by the stacks of books and newspapers Speaker had loaned her. She opened to the introductory notes on Gluck’s opera based on the drama and settled back in the corner of the couch where the light was good. She was determined to double up on courses in the spring and get her degree by winter ’81–’82 no matter how pinched they’d be by the budget. All around her people were busily re-educating themselves—the poli-ed study group led by Leah over Hakim’s Book Store, the various workshops Mattie led at her house, and B. J.’s project with her husband and her brother, designing new curriculum for police training—while she was still struggling to get to the stage where she could afford to look back on her education and call it bogus, as Speaker had, urging her to consider doing her graduate work at Atlanta U poli sci, though she kept explaining that she was an arts type.

Those thoughts made her read impatiently, wishing the musician of the family would return to the house and sight-read the overture to
Iphigénie
as an additional spur. But could Sonny pick up a piece of unfamiliar sheet music and sing out? That she didn’t know disturbed her. She shoved her back against the bolster and reread from the top of the page, riveting her eyes to the type.

Kofi turned on the lamp so he wouldn’t have to hear her mouth about ruining her eyes. He put the last of the Lorna Doones in his mouth and let it dissolve so he wouldn’t have to chew. He was too tired, too fed up, and he had only two comic books left unread from the pile he’d traded Sonny’s tapes for with his friends Andrew Pierce and Kwame Penn, a
Super Heroes Atari Force
comic and an
Incredible Hulk
. He discovered that he wasn’t following Dr. Orion and Commander Champion’s exploits closely, just looking at the pictures and turning pages. He was listening out. He even skipped over his favorites, the guy called Singh and the other one named Perez, ’cause he heard a car coming. He looked toward the door, careful not to look at her. He wasn’t going to
look at her, eat her food, or talk to her again. He hadn’t decided yet about his father. He’d see first what he had to say for himself. The car went by. Kofi dropped his eyes. The boots were propped by the door so that company coming in would see them and maybe solve the mystery. He wanted to tell her that it’d been stupid to take the stereo to the pawnshop just to buy them new shoes. But he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t talking to her.

Kofi shoved the comic aside and could have caught the falling records, but he let the Stevie Wonder album hit the floor. He’d heard her talking to Aunty Delia earlier about the secret life of a boy. Did Cousin Bobby have a secret life? she’d asked. Like he was a plant. What a stupid question. If Aunty Dee knew, then how could it be secret?

Kofi wiped the smirk from his face when he heard a car door slam out front. Then he heard his father whistle the signal. He didn’t move. Let her get the door.

Spence came in empty-handed. That made Kofi mad. But then his father looked pretty scuzzo too. Kofi didn’t know how he felt about that—pleased, worried, curious? He folded his arms over
The Incredible Hulk
and watched his father, trying to decide. He was kissing her. Nothing heavy, third-grade stuff. Then when Kenti came running in, he swung her up with one arm and hugged all over her. Then, kind of late to be thinking about it since he was right there, he started shadow-box-dancing in Kofi’s direction. Some hello. Kofi waited to see how the explanation would go, but first there had to be an apology. He was firm about that, because he’d promised to come get them hours ago. And when Kofi called again there were people there talking and his father said he’d come as soon as he could but it would be closer to supper than lunchtime. So Kofi had asked him to bring dinner along. Kofi had gone to a lot of trouble too, putting in his order—extra crispy for Kenti with salad and yams, and a double order of macaroni and cheese for himself. If his father remembered
her
on his own, that was his business. Kofi wasn’t going to order for her.

“You forget?” Kofi timed it just as Spence was almost sitting all the way down on the couch with Kenti hanging on his neck.

“No, I didn’t forget, little man. I’m broke, busted.” Spence tried to turn his pocket inside out, but Kenti was sitting on it.

“That’s pitiful,” Kofi smirked, turning quickly to his comic book when Kenti drew in her breath sharply and looked up to see how her
daddy heard it. The Hulk was kind of pitiful himself when Kofi got to thinking about it, but not as bad off as he was. At least the Hulk could go into any restaurant and eat up everything without paying.

Spence sent Kenti for the TV-page pullout and the map while he brought Zala up to date. There’d been a meeting at his house; Teo had brought the news that several of the Cobb County conventioneers were sticking around for the TV special on the Klan scheduled for Monday night. He asked her again if she was going to take up the minister’s suggestion that she speak in church, or Speaker’s suggestion that she address the audience at the film festival. She gave him a lukewarm response. He sensed something in the air. It wasn’t like Kofi not to greet him, not to want to wrestle a little. He supposed the boy had reached that handshaking stage where kissing and hugging were out. Spence twisted around and turned on the radio. Maybe a little music would help.

“I’ve been wondering,” Spence said, when Kenti climbed back into his lap and fingered his gold chains, “what some of these symbols mean, Kofi.”

Kofi recognized the invitation to come over as a “ruse,” as Dr. Singh would have called it. He turned the page and watched Banner go through his changes, puffing up, turning green, busting out of his shirt but never out of his pants. That would’ve been something, the Hulk streaking through the city. Kofi muffled a smile, then took his time getting up. He’d sure like to bust out. Bust out of the house. Bust out of his almost-nine-year-old life. He wondered where Sonny had run to when he busted out. He was sure it was Sonny calling on the phone like that, waiting for the coast to be clear before he spoke, before he told Kofi how to come where he was. Next time, Kofi decided, he’d say, “Coast clear, where do we meet?” As soon as his father left, he’d pack a bag and keep it ready.

“I think the circle with the dot represents the sun,” Spence said, leaning forward and unhooking the necklace.

“Yeah.” Kofi fingered the oblongs set at intervals in the chain. “And this one, the crescent, that’s the moon. And the circle with the cross underneath is the mirror of Venus. So we know which planet that is. The arrow’s for Mars. Course,” Kofi looked up, “if I could get to the planetarium sometimes, I’d really know this stuff.”

“And the zoo,” Kenti chimed in. “And the liberry.”

“I’m gonna get a bad mark if I don’t turn in my report on my class project.”

“Tuesday,” Spence said. “I’ll pick you both up from school and we’ll hit the library, then McDonald’s, then the planetarium.”

“I’ll pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today,” Kofi and Kenti said in unison.

“Just like Wimpy, Daddy.” Kenti played with his jewelry.

“Tuesday,” Spence said. “I promise.”

Zala sighed and nudged Spence with her foot. Would he never learn?

“You promise,” Kofi said, dangling the chain over the map. He could tell that he was being given the chain. A bribe, to be friends, and with her too. And he could tell by the way she kicked his father, then drew her foot back under her, that she didn’t want him to give Kofi the chain, which made Kofi want it, but not on bribe terms. This was what Commander Champion would call a “dilemma.” Kofi let the chain coil on top of the map. Then he sat back on his heels.

“Where’d you get all these necklaces, Daddy?” Kenti was counting the ones around Spence’s neck.

“Yeah. You sure got a lot of them.” Kofi saw her draw her legs up even tighter, and his father looked uncomfortable.

“Gifts … from a friend.” Spence patted Kenti’s leg in time with the music.

“All of them? And from the same friend? Must be a good friend. They cost a lot, don’t they? This one looks like the real deal.” Kofi had seen Sonny dog her around the house, signifying, and her trying to get away, justifying. Kofi leaned forward for the kill. “Valentine Day’s gifts?”

“Friendship gift,” Spence said, picking up the chain from the cable-spool table and gesturing for Kofi to come closer so he could fasten it on. But just when he almost secured the clasp, Kofi pulled away.

“But is it okay to give away a present a real good friend gave you? Your friend wouldn’t be mad?” He was careful not to use a pronoun. It made it more fun. While he looked at her foot, he fixed the clasp himself, then plastered the oblongs down on his chest bone. He unbuttoned the top of his shirt so the chain showed, so she would see. He was sure now that the pretty woman with the dark lipstick up at Aunt Dee’s and Uncle Bry’s office had given his father the jewelry. She was always
falling all over herself getting him and Kenti sodas and comfortable chairs and trying to teach them how to typewrite.

“You’re sure?” he said when his father nodded, then threw his hand around like he was catching flies. “You’re not going to go back on your word, are you?” Then Kofi looked at her, straight in her face. She was mad all right, but trying to play it off like it didn’t matter. He stared her down like his brother had taught him.
Always stare ’em dawn, Kofi, ain’t nobody so damn tough they won’t back up if you stare ’em down and work some telepathy on their mind
.

Once they were hopping the fence to take the shortcut through the Robinson yard and Mean Dog got loose, and a whole pack of his dog friends backed Kofi up against the hedge, barking and snarling, leaping forward trying to bite his pants legs and drag him down. Sonny had doubled-back to get him. “Stare him down, Kofi. The leader. Stare him down. Use your mind powers.” And Kofi had stood his ground and stared the yellow-eyed beast down, sending him messages that he’d get a foot in his nose or a stick upside his head if he messed with Kofi Monroe Spencer. And the leader had blinked and backed away, backed up into the pack, nipped one of the smaller dogs on the ear for getting in his way, then slunk off, and the rest of them followed, barking at Kofi from the curb.

Kofi stared his mother down till she closed her eyes, little damp marks squeezing out at the edges. Tough nuggies, Kofi thought, until he noticed that his father was looking at him, his jaws bunched as he lifted Kenti off his lap and set her down on the cushion beside him. Kofi didn’t know whether to crawl, run, or apologize. He ducked when his father rose and lifted his hand.

Slowly, in time with the music, Spence rolled up the frayed cuffs of his work shirt, one at a time, trying to think how he could change the climate in the room. Something was definitely wrong, and the way Zala had been nudging him with her foot he feared he was at fault. Spence looked at his son crouched on the floor watching him.