A Place Of Light Read online

  I was just turning to go when an old pickup truck came down the road. It was the only traffic since we’d stopped. We had to take what Robert called the back roads because he was afraid of being pulled over. Robert stood on the shoulder to flag them down. It was hot out. The hair around his ears and against his neck was wet. The truck slowed and they stared at us as they went by, an old man and old lady. She had a polka dot kerchief tied around her head. A big yellow dog in the back of the truck barked at us as they went by.

  “Son of a bitching bastards,” Robert said. He kicked at an empty cigarette wrapper on the side of the road, and the dust blew back against his pant leg. “Go on,” he told me.

  I didn’t see any house, but I headed where he’d pointed.

  “And see if they got anything to eat,” he called after me.

  The woods were full of tiny bugs. I slapped at them as they went for my face and arms. I kept looking back. The blue of the car showed through the trees. Then the trees closed and I didn’t see the car anymore. I went back a few steps until I could see it again, to make sure they hadn’t left. I looked ahead through the woods, trying to make out a house. I wondered if Robert had been lying. I started walking again, but I didn’t know if I was going in the right direction. Then I parted some branches so I could pass on, and I stepped into a new place.

  It was an open place, full of light. The grass was short, growing right down close with the earth. Stones and small boulders cropped out from the wide, rolling field. A few clumps of tall weeds with bright purple and yellow flowers stood out against the pale grass and the white rocks. Farther out was a run-down house, and next to it a shed of the same weathered boards. One tree shaded the house, and under the tree was a rusted barrel with red chickens strutting around it.

  After a minute, I noticed the cow, on the very edge of the open place, in a little patch of shade from the woods, not far from where I stood. The cow watched me, its big eyes blinking. It was a ghost cow, the color of bone. I held still and waited. Then I moved my arms and took a few steps to see if the cow would charge. It kept chewing and watching. I headed for the house. The cow followed, slow, keeping its distance.

  I reached the back of the house, then had to walk past the chickens to get to the front. The cow stayed behind with the chickens, nosing around the barrel with them.

  A long open porch ran the length of the house, and two rickety steps led up to the porch. A black girl in a print dress sat at the top of the steps, her knees apart, her legs reaching down to the bottom step. She wore red high-top sneakers. Her braids were coming undone, and she had bits of dried grass in her hair. In the dip of her skirt she held an aluminum bowl half-filled with green beans. On the porch beside her lay a newspaper heaped with the beans. She stopped in the middle of snapping them.

  “What you want?” she asked.

  She was blacker than anyone I’d ever seen, and shiny, just like she’d been oiled and polished. She looked about Naomi’s age, but her breasts were bigger. The blouse pulled tight across her breasts, flattening them. Her face was wide, with a big nose and mouth, and she looked like she could hurt somebody.

  “You a dummy?” she said. “Can’t you talk?”

  “Our car broke down,” I told her.

  “So?” She snapped the beans and flicked the ends into the flower bed alongside the porch.

  “Can somebody help us?”

  She eyed me up and down. “You come to a sorry place for help,” she told me. “Mama,” she said.

  From somewhere on the porch, a woman’s voice said, “Whose child is this?”

  I looked up at the shadow inside the screen door. The girl flicked the bean ends.

  “Says their car’s broke down.” The girl spoke without turning.

  “Nobody’ll stop,” I told the shadow. “We been waiting all afternoon.”

  “Ain’t that a shame,” the girl said, snapping the beans. The woman asked, “And who is ‘we’?”

  “Me, my sister, and my mother. And my mother’s husband.”

  The girl snorted.

  “Well,” the woman said. She opened the screen door and stepped out. “Well, well.” She was tall and big and full of muscles. Her hair was cut short and was sprinkled with gray. She wore a flower print dress like the girl’s, only not as faded. She, too, wore sneakers, but hers were cut low and were the color of dirt.

  “You’ll find a garage five miles in to town,” she said.

  “Can I use your telephone?” I asked.

  The girl laughed.

  The woman said, “Gilberts is the only ones with a telephone. Town’s closer.”

  Robert had told me to find the house and ask for help, that’s all. I decided to go back to the car and let him find the garage himself.

  “Hyacinth,” the woman said. “Take this child to her car and see what you can see.”

  “Probably out of gas and don’t know it,” the girl said.

  She plunked the aluminum bowl down on the porch and looked at me. “Ain’t that about right?” The girl stood and stretched. She was tall and big-boned like the woman. She worked her mouth, like she was chewing, then spit a glob of brown drool into the dirt near me. Her eyes narrowed, as if she would smile.

  “When the angel blows his trumpet,” the woman said to her, “I pray the Lord will be kind enough to let you hear.”

  “I bet you ain’t got no tools, either,” the girl said to me.

  “We got some,” I told her.

  “Huh,” she said.

  “Take Samuel and drag that car back here if you worried about tools,” the woman told her. “At least you be off the road and where it’s cooler.”

  The girl walked away and called into the air, making a sound like a squirrel. She went into the shed. The woman looked up at the sky. “Keep burning my back,” she said. She picked up the bowl and went inside.

  The girl came out with a harness folded over one shoulder. “You coming or ain’t you?” she said.

  I started back the way I’d come.

  “If it’s all right with you,” she said, “I’ll be taking the road.” She headed down the driveway. A thin mule stepped from behind the shed and plodded along with her. The cow followed the mule, nosing its tail. The girl looked back at me and shook her head. “If you waiting for the Kingdom coming, you got a long wait.”

  I followed the girl, the mule, and the cow. At the end of the driveway we turned right, onto the road. The cow stayed behind, dropping its heavy head into a clump of grass. There were woods on both sides, and then up ahead I saw the car, and Robert and my mother.

  Robert came out to meet us. When he saw it was me, he said, “What the Jesus hell?”

  The girl dropped the harness. She glanced at Ma and Naomi. “Your car got gas?” she asked Robert.

  “Course it does. Damn fuel pump’s gone,” he said.

  “Did you find somebody to help us?” Robert asked me.

  “Maybe she did,” the girl said. She was already in front of the car, looking under the hood. The mule nibbled leaves from a bush. Ma stood beside the car, her hands folded against her stomach, watching Hyacinth. Naomi sat on the grass in the shade. Her eyes, too, were on the black girl.

  “Is somebody coming?” Robert said to me. Hyacinth got in the car and tried to start it. When Robert heard the engine turn over he took a step forward and called, “Hey. What do you think you’re doing?” She kept cranking the engine, but it only sputtered.

  “You. Get out of there,” Robert told her. He reached in to pull her out.

  “Thanks, but I don’t need no help,” she said. She stood up.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

  The girl walked to the front of the car and took up a screwdriver. “Is this all the tools you got?” She began poking under the hood.

  Naomi stood up in her spot of shade, and Ma stepped closer to the car, her hands still folded in front of her, the fingers fidgeting. Robert grabbed the screwdriver from the girl.

  She stra
ightened up. “That ain’t no busted fuel pump you got, neither,” she said.

  “What do you know?” Robert said.

  “I know you going nowheres in this car,” she told him. She nodded her head at the car, but she kept her eyes on Robert.

  I saw that look come into Robert’s face. “She came to help us,” I told him.

  “There’s no help she can give me,” he said.

  The girl said nothing. She stood working her mouth, then let sail a glob of brown tobacco spit past Robert’s leg. It landed with a splat behind him.

  Robert didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he started gathering his tools from the fender, moving his arms more than he had to. Ma and the black girl’s eyes met while Robert collected his things. Ma seemed ready to say something to her.

  Robert said, “You want to help, get us a tow truck.”

  “That’s just what I done,” she said. “I don’t plan to spend the day passing between home and here toting wrenches.” The girl picked up the harness she’d dropped and carried it to the mule. Naomi held a handful of grass out to the animal. It nibbled from her hand.

  “I’m going to ask your old bones to do a little work, Samuel. There now,” the girl said to the mule. She rubbed the top of its head, between the ears. She led the mule to the car and attached the ends of the harness underneath the front of the car.

  “You wait a minute,” Robert said.

  “You won’t find no other help on this road, mister,”

  the girl told him. “Take it or leave it.”

  Robert didn’t answer.

  The girl led the mule forward a few steps and looked behind at the straps as they pulled taut.

  “Can you steer this car?” she said to me. I nodded yes. “Then get in behind the wheel,” she said. “I don’t want Samuel taking no more load than he’s got to.” She looked at Robert when she said this.

  I got in, and she walked the mule back onto the road. I steered the car behind the animal, and Hyacinth took us back the way we’d come. She was a big girl, but when she walked, the dirt beneath her feet didn’t stir.

  “You hauling this car to a garage?” Robert asked. He and Ma and Naomi followed alongside the car, off the road.

  “I sure ain’t,” the girl said.

  We stopped in front of the house. Robert played with the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. Ma looked around at the house and field and flower garden. Hyacinth unhitched the mule.

  “You got anybody here can fix this car?” Robert said.

  The woman came out and stood on the porch. She and Ma nodded hello to each other, then Ma looked away. “There’s water there if you’re thirsty,” the woman said. She pointed to the pump. “What is it?” she asked her daughter.

  “Maybe needs a new coil,” Hyacinth told her. Then to herself she said, “We’ll see about getting into town.”

  “Can’t your mule tow us in?” Robert asked.

  “He don’t go that far pulling a load,” the girl said. “Bad leg.”

  The woman nodded at the girl, then she turned to go back in the house. “You’re welcome inside where it’s cooler,” she told us. “I got work to do.”

  The girl carried the harness into the shed. The mule laid back its ears and blew air from its lips. The white cow trotted over from behind the house, as if it had been called, and the two animals rubbed noses. Robert squatted on his heels and lit a cigarette. “Good God Almighty,” he said.

  Hyacinth came back with her tools and lifted the car’s hood. “We got to be sure of this,” she said. She tried the engine again and listened. Robert squatted and smoked his cigarette, watching her.

  “The girl says it’s five miles to town,” he said to her.

  “That’s right.”

  “How late’s that garage open?”

  “Late,” Hyacinth told him. “Till dark.”

  Robert watched her, thinking. “You got a car?” he asked.

  “No sir.” She kept working under the hood.

  “Truck? Tractor?

  “I got a bicycle, but it’s got a flat tire. And one of the pedals is missing. Maybe I can get into town for you a little bye and bye. ‘Less you want to go.” She looked at him. “Awful hot on foot now.”

  Robert ran his hand through his hair. He looked around. “What about that mule? Can I ride that mule to town?”

  Hyacinth stopped and looked at him a minute. “I sure don’t think you can,” she said. She stuck her head under the hood. “Anyways, he’s a working mule, not a riding mule.”

  “Well, Christ,” Robert said. He looked at Hyacinth as she bent under the hood. He shook his head, slow.

  The pump clanged and squeaked as Ma worked it. There was a tin pail under the spout and a tin cup tied by a string to the pipe. She called, “Audrey, Naomi, come have a drink.” Naomi turned when Ma said her name. Her hand was stretched out, her fingers touching the cow’s face.

  “It’s nice and cool,” Ma said. She sipped from the tin cup, then smiled. We went over and drank with her.

  Then Ma said, “Robert, I am going in the house.”

  “What you going in there for?”

  “It’s too hot out here. And I have been invited,” she said. “Are you girls coming?” Naomi went back to the animals without answering. I shook my head no. I was hot, but I wanted to watch the black girl.

  “If you know what’s good for you,” Robert told her, “you better not go in there.”

  Ma started for the house. Naomi stood near the animals, watching.

  “That’s right. You go ahead, then,” Robert told her. “Just remember, you got to come back out. And I’ll be right here when you do.”

  Hyacinth straightened up. Her face was dark and serious, and she looked hard at Robert. I could see him get worried. She said, “I’m taking this bad coil outta your car. I hope you got some money. You going to need it.”

  Robert stood and watched Ma climb the two steps to the porch. She knocked, then opened the door and went inside. Robert threw the cigarette in the dirt. He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned, looking across the planted fields.

  Naomi watched him, her hands at her sides, closed.

  I stood next to Hyacinth and looked at the muscles in her arms as she worked. I wiped the sweat from my face.

  “You from way north, ain’t you?” she said. “You come from Iceland?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You look like you do.”

  She took the coil out. Her skin was smooth and black.

  “What you staring at?”

  “Nothing,” I told her.

  “I bet there’s no colored Eskimos where you come from.”

  “There’s no Eskimos at all.”

  “You can say that again,” she said. She saw me looking at her face, so I dropped my eyes to her red sneakers and kept them there. I could smell her, a sharp, sweet smell.

  She turned the coil in her hands. “Hmm,” she said. She hefted it. Then she put the coil on the fender. She pulled a wire loose from the engine, took up a wrench, and started working again.

  “You know how to play Pigs and Aces?” she asked me. She kept her head under the hood as she worked the wrench.

  “No,” I told her.

  “Figures,” she said.

  She took out the spark plug. One end was caked black with soot. “Like pulling a bad tooth,” she said. She scraped at the black with her thumbnail. “What’s wrong with him?”

  She looked out at Robert, and I looked, too. He walked along the edge of a cornfield across from the house, working his arms, his hair sticking up. When he got to the end he stopped. Then he turned and came back, slower. His shirt was open halfway down and the bones of his neck and chest showed, even at a distance.

  “He’s always like that,” I told her.

  “Yeah?” she said. “He looks like something halfgrown, don’t he?”

  She went in the house.

  I looked over at Naomi. When our eyes met, she turned her back to me a
nd ran her hand along the cow’s neck.

  That time last year when Naomi tried to tell me I didn’t understand. It was after he’d had a fight with Ma. Naomi had yelled at him to stop. He called her the same names he was calling Ma.

  And then, when Ma went in the other room, he tried to get smart with Naomi. She wouldn’t let him touch her. She stayed away from him. But, still, he would bother her.

  I heard him tell her once. “You’re getting to be a big girl.” It was the way he said it, and the way he looked at her when he said it.

  He was only trying to be friendly, Ma told her.

  Then Naomi started hating Ma for it.

  I looked at Robert standing on the edge of the field, then over at Naomi standing near the animals, her back turned on everything. Something in my stomach ached.

  Only Ma and the woman were in the kitchen. I saw a metal table with four old chairs around it, a stove, a cupboard, and shelves full of jars and cans. Ma sat at the table, snapping beans. The woman was at the stove, pouring salt from a cardboard box into a pot.

  She was saying, “I been there once, before I married. But this is the best home I know.”

  Ma looked at me while the woman talked. She was always nervous around people. I sat across from her. Ma said, “It’s a nice home you got.”

  “It does me,” the woman answered. She crumbled leaves into the pot. “My girl gets wild sometimes. As you can see.”

  “She seems like a nice girl,” Ma said. Her hands fidgeted even while she worked.

  “When she’s not a bulldog,” the woman answered. She turned from the stove and saw me. “Ain’t we all?” She sat down and took up a handful of beans. She put them in my hands with a little push. Then she took some for herself.

  We finished without talking. The pot bubbled. I could smell meat. We sat and looked at the beans in the middle of the table. The woman said, “Why don’t you put these in now, honey?” I looked up to see if she meant me. Hyacinth stood behind her mother. The girl reached her big arms across the table and lifted the bowl without a sound. I watched as she dumped the vegetables into the pot and stirred.