Mulberry. Paulette Boudreaux
these children doing fine,” he said.
“Thank the Lord,” Momma said.
“And me,” Daddy said.
Momma glanced up to one of the second floor windows of the hospital. “Jimmie’s mama is keeping an eye on Ida Bea, till I get back. She gon’ signal me when the visiting hours is over,” she told us.
“Early boy, sing that song you’re learning in school,” Daddy said suddenly. “Sing it for your momma.” He winked at Momma.
Earl stood at attention and dropped his stick. He shifted his glance shyly around the barren parking lot, then began in a choppy, high pitch. “Mine eyes have seen, the gory, in the coming of the Lord, he is stumping on the village, where the great big rafts are stored …”
Momma chewed a corner of her mouth to hold in her laughter as Earl continued, mangling the words of the song, hesitating, searching his memory, lurching forward into verse again. He sang earnestly, his eyes rolled skyward and his hands pressed together in front of his chest. Daddy grinned and winked at me, and I was reminded of how Daddy used to make music for Momma.
I never knew what prompted his playing, but Daddy would retrieve his silver and ebony harmonica from where he kept it wrapped in a white cotton handkerchief in a small plain wooden box in the back of his top dresser drawer. He sat in his arm chair, or took a kitchen chair onto the front porch. He pressed the harmonica against his mouth as if it were a delicious piece of fruit, and the sounds that poured out were warm and happy. Sometimes he put the harmonica away from his mouth and sang in a rich, gravel-laden voice about the “hoochie coochie man” or a “mannish boy” or “mule chickens” or “mojos” and “jellyrolls.”
Momma would dance, hips swaying, fingers snapping. Sometimes she grabbed the hands of whichever of us was nearest and coaxed us into her dance. The rest of us did our own versions of her dance around the room or the front yard.
Sometimes when Daddy got out the harmonica he stood, stumping out moody tap dances as he played. When I was little, he taught me how to do some dances that made Momma smile.
Other times Daddy sat on the edge of his chair in the front room, and that metal and wood instrument cried when he brought it to his lips. It bled long, sad notes that rolled out over us like molasses. At those times, Daddy seemed to forget there was anyone in the room but him. Momma would sit on their bed leaning back against the metal headboard, her legs stretched out in front of her, her eyes closed and her face hard to read.
“My muddy, moody Gene,” Momma would say to Daddy looking across at him when the music stopped and he resurfaced. “Mr. Waters got nothing on you.”
Once after Daddy had made his harmonica cry so deep and so wide I felt like my insides had melted, Momma said, “Babies, y’all’s Daddy got the blues in him. Ain’t it beautiful? It’s what he was doing the first time I set eyes on him—bringing out the blues. Everybody in the place was weeping. My love couldn’t help but run to him.”
Now I couldn’t see how to make moments like that for me and the boys.
As Earl kept on with his song, singing way more verses than I remembered that song having, Roy Anthony circled the truck, leaving finger marks in the dusty side panels. I could see by his bunched-up expression that he was unhappy. Occasionally he stopped his circling, out of Momma and Daddy’s line of vision, and stared at Earl with an older brother’s resentment.
“Good job, my boy, good job,” Daddy said, grabbing Earl by the neck and tickling him when he finished singing.
“My turn,” Roy Anthony shouted, running back to join us. “It’s my time to sing. I know a song too.”
But Daddy kept tickling and wrestling with Earl who was squealing with piggish laughter. Momma was laughing too, joy, genuine joy playing on her tired face for the first time since she came outside.
After circling the truck a few more times, Roy Anthony threw himself at Earl and Daddy, kicking and swinging with his fists. His face had taken on the gnarled, tight-lipped expression of malice. He kicked and pounded on Daddy, on Earl, making noises like a small animal, grunting and straining with each blow. Daddy pushed Earl behind him and stood still. Roy Anthony kept slamming his nine-year-old fists against Daddy’s legs and stomach. Finally Daddy grabbed his arms, but Roy Anthony kept swinging. Daddy pinned him in a bear hug and leaned back, lifting Roy Anthony’s feet off the ground.
“What wrong with you, boy?” Daddy demanded.
“Let me go,” Roy Anthony yelled, still squirming.
“Boy, you better stop. I’ll take my belt off and whip your ass right here!”
Roy Anthony went stiff in Daddy’s arms.
Daddy stood him on the ground. Roy Anthony’s anger was still there, visible in the stiffness of his back and the belligerent angle of his neck as he looked down at his shoes.
Daddy grabbed his thin shoulders and lifted him off the ground again. He shook him. Roy Anthony’s body wriggled in the air like a cloth doll.
“Gene! Gene!” Momma jumped off the tailgate and ran toward them with June Bug in one arm and her free arm outstretched.
Daddy stopped shaking Roy Anthony and let his feet meet the ground again, but he didn’t take his hands or his eyes off of him. “What’s got into you, boy?” There was an easy, callous anger in Daddy voice. “The only reason I’m not whipping your ass right now is because of your momma.”
Roy Anthony winced as Daddy’s fingers dug into his shoulders, but he didn’t speak.
“Don’t you ever raise your hand to me again. You hear me, boy?” Daddy shook him again. Roy Anthony’s head jerked forward, then back.
“You hear me, boy?”
“Yes sir.” Roy Anthony’s voice was small, but still tainted with fury.
“I brought you into this world, and I can take you out. You hear me?”
“Yes sir.”
“Now get out of my sight ’cause right now just looking at you makes me mad enough to want to knock your goddamned teeth down your throat. Raising your hand to me. You got to be crazy.”
Roy Anthony turned and walked away, his limbs stiff, his eyes focused on the horizon.
Daddy’s capacity for violence showed itself in his straight, angry back, the veins pulsing in his neck and on his forehead, his hands gripping the air like claws at his side as he watched Roy Anthony walk toward the front of the truck.
Momma’s mouth was trembling, and the fine horizontal lines between her eyes twitched as she looked at Daddy. She cut her eyes to me and held my gaze for a few seconds when she found me looking at her. There was a warning there. Then she sighed and looked away.
“Don’t be too hard on him, Gene,” she said when Daddy’s forehead had stopped throbbing and he turned to her. “He’s just a boy. He’s got feelings about everything and he don’t know what to do with them. But he’s just a child.”
“Just a boy, my ass,” Daddy answered, looking toward the front of the truck. “He better not ever come at me like that again.”
I heard in Daddy’s voice that he could have shaken Roy Anthony until his bones began to break if Momma hadn’t stopped him. I had never known him to touch one of us with that kind of anger before. I swung my legs vigorously under the tailgate, making unwanted connections between the barely contained violence I had witnessed, and my older brother whose death had somehow involved Daddy.
He turned and walked away from the truck, as if headed to the hospital, or to one of the other dusty cars waiting like blind animals in the parking lot. Momma followed him. When she got close enough, she caught his arm to make him turn to face her again. I could see only her back, but I could tell she was talking to him, low and soft, like she was trying to calm a child. She let go of his arm and he started pacing