Virginia Hamilton (7 page)

Boys who had come on time watched and listened in awe. The two who had come over in spite of themselves grinned uneasily and hung their heads.

Levi gave a quick glance to Dorian Jefferson. The boy rested in a sprint-start position on one leg. He was dirty, as usual, and ragged, not because he had to be, but because nobody in his house took notice of or seemed to care how he looked. Levi knew that Tom-Tom’s snide remark about “dumb” baseball had been directed at Dorian’s father. He hoped Tom-Tom wouldn’t insult any of the boys. For he never liked confronting his brother—how easy it was to substitute this vague thought for the truth!—and he hated the rare times when they quarreled.

For the moment, Levi was content to lean comfortably against the fence. He thought how easily Tom-Tom could bring a pack of boys together and control them. Levi never wanted or needed to do that. Yet, watching his brother, he was struck once again by the familiar notion that he watched himself.

The drums beat steadily. Thomas gazed around the field. He focused on Justice at the fence near Levi and gave her a searing look of menace. He stared at her for a full ten seconds, ceasing to drum and holding the sticks poised above the drumheads. His pink plume stood straight up, trembling.

Every boy followed Thomas’ gaze. They all looked at Justice, smirking at her until she crumbled inside. Feeling miserable and short, she slunk away as Levi unfolded his arms.

It was then she heard him say softly: “Don’t go. Stand by the gate.”

She stood at the gate, pretending she would fix something on the latch.

“How come she has to be here?” she heard one boy say.

Levi waited, guessing that Tom-Tom struggled with feelings of spite toward Justice, of family loyalty, and an urge to put the boy down.

“
You!
” Thomas ground out the word. “Youuu … youuuu—” Hanging it there like a question; and on the same note: “—got-a rrright-to-say-wh-who … who caaan come-into-this-field?” Almost singing at the boy. “
IIII
say-who-can-be … be-
here
!” he said, still in a single, but lower tone. He added, “Me-and … Lee …
both.”
Bursting through his teeth.

“Mom and Dad say Justice can be here.” Levi spoke reasonably. “Or else nobody can play here.”

Thomas began a drumroll, drowning out Levi. But they all had heard him.

Justice hung on the gate, peeking at them under her arm. She was glad to be at a distance where the boys and Thomas would most likely come to ignore her. She could still watch them and hide herself behind Levi as well.

“Now,” Thomas said, with a flourish of flailing arms. The sticks beat the drums with tremendous force.

All at once, he stopped. One of the boys was saying, “Ough, ooh, it’s too loud—save me!”

They all could see Thomas go tense. But then he relaxed and beat the drums with moderation, in jazz figures, repeating them again and again. There were riffs of complex beats and rhythms. And they varied in depth from somewhat loud to a pulsation more felt than heard.

Through a blur of sticks, they saw Thomas flicking hand screws without missing a beat. They listened as the tone rose and fell from the shimmering copper kettles and rose again. Thomas leaned slightly over one drum, his tall plume flicking and leaping.

What had first struck them as jumbled blasts of noise, they soon distinguished as thrilling sound. Soon no one needed to tell the boys they were privileged to hear a masterful drummer. They watched and listened with rapt attention as the drums beat on and on.

Levi’s fingers began to twitch of their own accord. He was having a sudden, urgent sensation of what it must be like to hold the felt sticks and make such wonderful sound.

Thomas’ talent had been discovered by someone whose job it was to notice. His teacher, Mr. Phil Grier, had brought the kettledrums over as soon as school was out so Thomas could use them all summer long. They belonged to Mr. Grier personally and not to the school. And everyone had been impressed that he would lend Thomas such valuable equipment.

Levi had no apparent talent, although he enjoyed writing prose as well as poetry. He wrote easily, constantly, telling no one. He felt no envy for Tom-Tom and the crowds of kids he attracted. Summers could be the worst times. For, with little to do, Thomas had in the past gotten into trouble with their dad. Usually, he had dragged Levi in with him. So Levi was glad that Tom-Tom could do something so special. Also, this way, Tom-Tom’s attention focused elsewhere than on Levi.

Thomas did poorly in school, almost as if he tried. Rude to teachers, contemptuous, he made poor marks in conduct. He was smart enough, Levi knew. But he would have flunked his subjects if not for Levi’s steady coaching at home.

Through the roll and echo of deep drumming, Justice discovered the twitching of Levi’s hands. He was perspiring, glistening with sweat, although the shade had cooled the field somewhat. It was a mystery to her why Levi’s hands had to twitch. No other boy’s hands did that.

Thomas beats the drums and Levi’s hands make to do the same. So who’s the copycat?

Justice couldn’t believe that Levi would want to be a drummer. Oh, she’d heard Thomas drumming for her whole life, it seemed like. And just because he’d thought to bring those big, sickening drums outdoors, everybody had to go make him something special. See the way they look at him! Before, Thomas hadn’t brought anything bigger than a parade drum outside.

Standing there with that dumb, moth-eaten hat, she thought. Like it makes him some better than Levi. Because he got it from them Ultramunda actors the last time the straggly troupe came to town. With their circus tent and their made-up faces!

Anybody can wear a hat. And play drums, too.

She was sure of this, if and when the drums were that terrible loud. Even a monkey wouldn’t have any trouble playing them.

Suddenly, Thomas made the drums sound comical. Fleetingly, Justice wondered how it was possible he could do that.

Sitting utterly still, the boys sensed the change in the air. They screwed up their faces, covered their ears at the crashing shenanigans. Some jumped up, knocking into one another. Others staggered around and fell down again. Suddenly, boys were wiggling and crawling on their stomachs like the worst unbearable pain had hit them. Moaning and groaning, they were putting on quite a rambunctious show themselves.

They made Justice about sick to death. But, in spite of that, she would have loved to be as free to play around in the field as they were. Why couldn’t she? Yet she knew the answer to that. It made her sad to be so alone and left out of things.

Through the din, Levi had to smile. He caught Tom-Tom’s eye, and identical smug grins flowed between them.

The comical drumming had been a lead-in, something Levi had recognized the moment the boys began slithering on the ground. The thunderous sound of kettledrums ceased abruptly, as somehow he’d known they would. Such an immense, sudden absence of noise froze the boys in twisted poses.

“Youuuu
snakes-in-the-grass!” Thomas screeched at them.

Shocked, they sat up, looking like a bunch of babies wakened from sleep. Then, again alert, they settled into their semicircle. All eyes watched Tom-Tom.

The drums rolled softly. “Well, I ain’t no snake charmer,” he told them. “I’m the Major Drummer and I lead the parade. Except we ain’t going on any march.

“And you guys won’t be some little snakes in the grass,” he said.

The drums sounded deeply, but as if from a great distance: “The Great Snake Race is my snake race … ,” Thomas chanted.

A staccato beat began on one drum: “Is my great race. …”On the other drum, a long, resounding roll: “Is a race for snakes. …”

Both drums rolling. Smooth, like the sound of rivers: “The Great Snake Race won’t be just snatching snakes.

“Y’all have to hold them.” (Boom-pah!)

“You got to sack ’em and keep ’em in.” (Pom-pa-pom/
P
OM-PA-POM!)

“Cause snakes can get out-a most anything.” (A-ret-te-tet-tee!)

“They can get out-a
hand.”
(A-rolica-rolica/ Pom-pa-POM-POM!)

Justice watched Levi. With eyes shining at his brother, he wore a strange grin. It was Thomas’ smirk stretched across his face.

A long drumroll echoed through the trees and sundown. They all did glance to westward, where the osage trees of the Douglass property twisted black and were backlighted by a spectacular red sun going down. It didn’t look real to them, that bloodred sun, and it didn’t look painted. It looked as if it would burn down the horizon. It would sear out a trench and come sliding all the way back to them.

Sure, Justice thought. Red sun at night is a sailor’s delight.

They none of them knew much about sailors. But she guessed that the rhyme she’d heard somewhere would hold true for The Great Snake Race. It meant that tomorrow would bring another day of hot, cloudless weather. And if Thursday was going to be fine, then Friday had a good chance of being the same.

Drums sounded a steady but soft pom-pom/ pom-pom.

“Any you guys ever catch some snakes?” Thomas said, his voice pitched just loud enough to be heard.

Boys looked at one another. They were uncertain whether to say anything, for fear Tom-Tom would produce a snake and make them snatch it.

A boy spoke timidly. “I did, once.”

“I buried one once,” said a kid named Slick Peru. “But I didn’t catch it. It were already dead.”

Boys snickered.

“I caught a water moccasin once,” Talley Williams said. Sitting in front, he was a plump, friendly boy and had come on time.

“No, you didn’t,” Tom-Tom told him through the pom-pom beat. “You might think you caught one. But nobody in they right mind go catching water moccasins.”

“Because they venoms,” Dorian Jefferson said.

“Cause they’re venomous,” Tom-Tom corrected him. “Poisonous,” he added. “And if you see anything out there Friday that don’t look like a garter snake”—Pom/pom/pom—”you walk away from it.”

You mean, there are
poisonous
snakes out there? Justice thought.

“I’ll kill anything that’s not a garter,” Dorian said. “I’ll grind ’em in the ground!”

“No, you won’t!” Tom-Tom yelled at him. The drumming ceased. “An-an-anybody st-starting in-killing … snakes-for-sp … sp … sport-is …

“… disqualified,” Levi finished for him.

“Yeah, annn-dh c-c-caaan’t never be …”

“… in The Great Snake Race,” Levi finished again.

“I
thought
it was a water moccasin,” Talley Williams said. “It was whipping through the water.”

Water moccasins! And I fooled around out there! Justice thought.

Thomas’ sticks made a blur as a delicate rolling sound began.

“That’s another thing,” he said easily. “You don’t catch nothing is in the water. Stay out of the water. The Quinella Trace has a mess a leeches in it.

Thomas stared pointedly at Levi. Pom-ah/pom-ah sounding from the drums in a whisper.

Justice felt a chill crawl over her. It hurt her so deep inside to see Levi hang his head.

“I told you about the leeches before,” Thomas was saying to the boys.

“My dad says there ain’t a leech in that water,” Dorian said.

“Sure, your dad knows a lot,” Thomas said. “I mean”—Pom/pom/pom—“between yelling his head off at the Little League”—laughter from the boys—“and throwing a fit ’cause the car won’t start”—Pum-pa-pom—“when does he have any time for fishing at the Quinella—huh?”

Boys whooped, “Ooh, cold on Dorian!”

“He say he going move on out of here, too—my daddy,” Dorian said when they had quieted. He turned away from them.

“Going to move what from where?” Tom-Tom said, brimming with impatience. Only his hands moved.

“Going to move Mom and me and him. And pretty soon, too,” Dorian said. “Say he don’t like the feeling of this place.”

“He just talking,” Slick Peru said. But he glanced uncertainly at Tom-Tom.

“Y’all be here forever,” another told him.

Tears welled in Dorian’s eyes. They were tears of anger and gratitude, tears which Levi saw him blink away.

“My daddy says … ,” Dorian went on unsteadily, “… says can’t even Jesus save all you Douglasses.” He wrapped his arms around to cover his head.

“Why he has to pick on us all the time!” Thomas said, to no one in particular. He did give a glance at Levi, and Levi gave him back a look of warning to take it easy.

“My daddy says this field oughtn’t be y’all’s,” Dorian said. “Says to make it a baseball diamond for everybody, too.”

“Sure, so he won’t have to spend a nickel for gas getting over to his Little League,” Thomas couldn’t help saying. But he left off. His drums ceased. He was silent a moment, staring at the boy.

He’s lying. He’s making the whole thing up, Justice thought vaguely about Dorian, she didn’t know why. Dorian never had lunch money, was the next thing she thought about. In school, kids give him nickels and dimes, or they gave him part of their own lunches. When the Jeffersons first arrived last year, this happened about once a month. By the end of this year, it was happening most every day and kids resented it. It wasn’t as if his parents couldn’t afford to buy his lunch. It was as though his mom, especially, wanted him to hustle it from the kids.

“Dorian,” Thomas said, drumming the instant he spoke the name. “Just don’t mention to your dad about the race for snakes, hear? And don’t any the rest of you say anything about it, either.”

“Man, maybe Dorian shouldn’t even be in on it, too,” Talley Williams said.

Dorian leaped to his feet in a second in an exaggerated fighting stance.

“Don’t get yourself all upset,” Thomas told him. He played a soothing beat until Dorian had settled down again. “He gets to be in it like everybody else,” Thomas told Talley. “But get out a line and you are out, Dorian, understand? That goes for the rest of you guys, too.

“Now.” Thomas looked them over and then all around. His drums seemed to pause.

Shade covered the entire field. Dogs could be heard barking for nothing, announcing their progress through town. Cars were sounding along Dayton Street. Over in the park, the Little League practice must have been coming to an end. There was a suspended stillness from that far away, punctuated every once in a while with a yell. The high wind had breezed itself out and the line of ancient osage orange trees was still.