“That old boy,” she said, “that old boy. Think he got all the stories in the world, don’t he now?”
Touissant didn’t realize that that was a question and didn’t answer.
“See, Two-saint,” she went on, “we all got our stories, e’ry life got its story, but only some be yellin our business in the street, you see what I’m sayin? Yo’ grandaddy, he gotta tell the world.” Her fingers had stopped on his shoulder. “But it ain’t who shout the loudest. That’s why I like you, Two-saint. Not too many people be quiet like you.”
She paused and he could hear a quick wind beat its reproachful Godhand upon the low roof. He grew aware of the outside world, the night-darkened valley.
“You gon’ have yo’ own, baby, if you keep that quietness and don’t feel like you ain’t got you somethin important just ’cause you ain’t loud, carryin on.” Over the low and sagging sound of her voice he could hear the twins riffing away again. He wondered if his mother, who reminded him so much of Granny, could sing; and if Granny herself could sing. “E’rybody got theirs,” Granny said again. “E’rybody got stories. His old man was a nationalist runnin from his government; my daddy, on the other hand, he was good people, honest to the last degree, worked hisself to death out in them Alabama fields. I still remember his mule carryin him home . . . ”
Erycha was six years old. Erycha was six years old and a girl. Erycha was six years old and a black girl. Erycha was a little six-year-old black girl. Erycha was a little six-year-old black girl living in a poor, cramped under-lit little apartment on the other side of town. Erycha was a little six-year-old black girl living in a poor, cramped under-lit little apartment on the other side of town with her unmarried and impoverished parents: her father, who drifted in and out of the apartment and in and out of her life; her mother, who enabled him in his transience and unreliability with her forgiveness and by paying the bills on time and on her own. Their daughter, being only six years old, took things as they came.
Erycha was a poor little six-year-old black girl living in a poor, cramped under-lit little apartment on the other side of town whose distracted mother would occasionally pay her surprising affection, would buy her a book about ballet or let go an hour in first-grade gossip, rubbing her feet. Erycha was a poor little six-year-old black girl living in a poor, cramped under-lit little apartment on the other side of town whose changeable father, though unreliable and often unemployed, never was away from home for more than a few hours at a time, never truly absent. Erycha was a poor little six-year-old black girl living in a poor, cramped under-lit little apartment on the other side of town who took advantage of her parents’ distracted ways, escaping the cramped under-lit little apartment house by walking out the apartment, down the stairwell, across the walk and over the gates. Standing there, on the empty Avenue, she could see where her Del Rosa Gardens apartment complex ended and the empty street stretched on indefinitely. Erycha was a poor little six-year-old black girl living in a poor, cramped under-lit little apartment on the other side of a beautiful new town called Highland. And she was learning.
“Fresh food,” her mother would say. “Or-ganic. What’s so hard to understand about that word?”
“Best I could do.”
“O’viously. If you actually payin me attention an’ still cain’t buy the expensive ones that say organic on the label.”
“Those the only two options. Either I’m stupid or I ain’t payin you mind, huh? I’m tryin to save you some money. That’s the way I think, practical. I’m not no boojie gentleman like you want me to be, Evelyn. Jus a roughneck, I suppose.”
“Really, now?”
“I’m jus sayin.”
“I’m just askin, why not help me out, make some damn money so’s we don’t gotta go buyin this low-grade unhealthy shit?”
“I been explained this: Messicans take e’ry damn job where they ain’t gotta show papers, which is e’rything but security, an’ you know my paperwork won’t stand up to that background check.”
“Mexicans mess up your papers? Mexicans the reason you gotta mark ‘yes’ where they ask if you been to jail? I never had to trouble over that question, Mexicans or no Mexicans.”
Erycha would hear her father’s heavy steps nearing the apartment door, then the slow apprehensive opening of that door, and finally its close and lock. Then her mother’s voice would again scorch the air with questions. It was always this way, a known protocol: even when he was working and there were no issues around government assistance or staying away when the welfare woman came, even when he was bringing checks home regularly, there’d still be a fight if he brought the wrong groceries, or did something else that could be judged unreliable. Erycha hated it but she was used to it, too, how her dad would come back home after however long away and walk slowly in, sit himself down with that pain in his slouch, and commence to look down darkness. And how her mom would come from her kitchen with suspicion in her voice.
“Takes you this long to get groceries?”
“Stepped out.”
“Been steppin three hours now. Long time to shop. Short time to go to the casino with my paycheck money, though.”
“Wadn’t at the casino. I just don’t like shoppin in the daytime is all. A man shouldn’t go shoppin while it’s light out, all them girls at the stores, makes him feel unemployed. But you wadn’t even home three hours back so how you think you know how long I been gone?”
“Right, of course. I was at work. But Erycha said you left while it was still light out.” She nodded at the child.
“Babygirl.” Her father shook his head. “Dime-dropper.”
“Don’t bother her. She playin.”
“Solidarity, babygirl. We locked down together.”
“You think you’re funny.”
“I’m truthful.”
“Truthfully broke.”
“Warden.”
“Con-vict.”
Erycha remembered her father actually had been a convict at least one time in his life so she knew the joke was a joke with cutting power. The way his story went, he hadn’t infringed on the law in a felonious manner, he just lost control a little bit and ended up with his car in somebody else’s front lawn, a small Cupid statue severed at the loins. Early ’80s East Oakland was apparently so insane and calamitous with drugs and gunfire that drunk joyriding and minor vandalism wasn’t worth much police attention, let alone jail time. But when he was unable to pay his fine he ended up in the county pen. As this was not the first time that they had looked up and found him in County, his loved ones used up all his phone time counseling him bout how he needed to find a higher purpose in life. Religion. Or something like that.
He said that this time he spent his first free Sunday at Allen Temple Baptist Church trying to find that higher purpose. But instead he found the mechanics of praise and worship boring as the Good Book itself. All the gospel music in the world couldn’t hold a candle to a good Ant Banks record burning up a club past midnight, the most animated preacher’s sermon had nothing on the three in the a.m. testament of a girl moaning something that sounded like his name. The only worthwhile thing about church, he decided, was that there were so many fine young ladies there. Of course he knew these were morning, not night, women, but he found them irresistible nonetheless. So he spent each Sunday morning getting dressed as sharp as possible and showed up on the church steps just as the worshippers were filing out. He would pad at his face with his fingertips, whistle loud like the spirit was just too down deep inside him and would generally pretend that he, too, had come from the House