Finding Langston Read online

  The sounds in our apartment come alive at night. Scratching inside the walls. I’ve seen rats big as possums running in the halls. At night, they sound even bigger. Nothing keeps Daddy awake and I still can’t make myself get used to the loud voices down on the stoop below. “Let the Good Times Roll” playing on the radio next door. A mother trying to quiet her crying baby. Daddy’s snores, so close they sound like he’s breathing in my ear. The brakes of the el train screeching as it comes into the station. I used to fall asleep to the sound of crickets and owls. Sometimes they were so loud I’d cover my head with my pillow. Mama and Daddy stayed awake after I was in bed, whispering, laughing softly. Sometimes I could even hear kissing and other things too. I thought I knew what loud was until I came to Chicago.

  I dream of Mama too, only not at night. During the day is when I think of her. Most of the boys I knew had a houseful of brothers and sisters. Wasn’t no one growing up an only like me. I never told no one, but I loved being alone with Mama. Wouldn’t want it no other way. Heard womenfolk whisper once in church how it was “sad” Teena couldn’t have no more children after me. But Mama made it seem like I was all she ever wanted. Like I filled her up. Like any more would have been too much. She fussed after me. Sometimes, when she was tired, she said I worked her nerves, but there wasn’t nothing to it. Time I’d go out and come back again, her face lit up like I was a soldier home on leave. She never worried about me being a “mama’s boy” like some folks said. She loved me hard as she could till she left this world.

  Streetlights shine through the window in the front of the room. In Alabama only lights I saw at night were the moon and stars. Sometimes so bright a curtain couldn’t block them out. I fall asleep most nights listening to Daddy snoring, but wishing for the sounds of an Alabama night.

  There’s a letter waiting today when I get home from school, sticking out of mail slot 4D. It has my daddy’s name written in big, wiggly letters on the front of the envelope. I hold it up trying to see the words but can’t. I’ll have to wait for Daddy to get home and open it.

  Upstairs the apartment is hot and stuffy even with the windows open. I lie down on my bed and it creaks as I turn on my side to face the wall. I pick at the yellowed pages of the Chicago Defender papering over the wall. I close my eyes and try to picture Mama. I can still see her smile with the space between her teeth. Smooth brown skin and eyes that laughed along with her. Before I know it, the tears start and won’t stop. Can’t believe how much I want to hear her just say my name or kiss my cheek at night. Just feel her hand rub my head like she did at night when she thought I was asleep. Sometimes I don’t want to remember because with the remembering comes the hurting. I can let the water go when Daddy’s not home. But when he is, I pinch myself to stop thinking about home and Mama and how my heart is missing her so much it aches. I gotta pinch myself so hard, I left a mark once. Only thing worse than crying in front of Daddy is hearing Daddy fuss when I do.

  I sit up when I hear Daddy’s key in the door. He comes in holding a grocery sack in his hand.

  “What you doing in bed?” he asks.

  “Nothing sir, t-t-t-tired is all,” I stutter. Hoping my eyes ain’t so puffy.

  “You ain’t sick, is you?” he asks. Can’t tell if he’s worried or mad.

  “No sir, I ain’t sick.”

  He moves to me and his rough hand reaches out. I jump back but he’s just reaching to touch my forehead.

  “Ain’t no fever,” he says, and sets down the groceries on the table. While Daddy heats up supper, I sit on my bed looking over schoolwork. The pot of beans bubbles. Daddy sets out two plates, two spoons, and a loaf of bread. Back home, Daddy never cooked a meal.

  We both got up every morning to a hot breakfast of eggs and grits and sausage. The smell of it would wake me up before Daddy even called for me to get a move on. Mama packed my lunch pail for school, Daddy’s for the field. She’d stand over us and watch us eat.

  “Look at my hungry boys.” She’d smile as we scraped up sausage, grits, and eggs. Since we left Alabama, we eat oatmeal for breakfast with a piece of toast Daddy can’t help from burning.

  “How’s school?” Daddy asks.

  I look up surprised. He never asks about school.

  “Fine,” I answer.

  We take a few more bites in silence. “Teacher says I’m real good at my spelling words. Best in the class.”

  “Mmm-hmmm,” Daddy answers. I can tell he’s done talking.

  I clear our plates, put them in the sink.

  I turn on the faucet to sputtering cold water. “No hot water,” I say to Daddy.

  “Leave ’em be for now,” he says. “I’ll get ’em in the mornin’.”

  I go to the table, turn on the lamp, and start my schoolwork.

  I see the letter, sitting on top of my books.

  “Daddy, I forgot. This came today,” I say, handing him the letter.

  He takes his time looking at the writing. Turns it over in his hands.

  “Who’s it from?” I ask, wishing he’d hurry up and open it.

  He turns and goes to sit on the bed. Still not opening the letter.

  “Daddy?” I ask. I go to the bed.

  “I’ll look at it in the morning,” he says. “Too tired to read right now.”

  “Want me to read it to you?”

  He stands then. His voice is low and mad. “You think I can’t read?”

  “No, Daddy. It’s just if you’re tired is all—”

  “I said I’ll read it in the morning. Now go get to your schoolwork!”

  He leaves the letter on the bed, grabs his towel from the hook by the bed, and heads down the hall to the bathroom.

  THE rain started right after lunch, and I was hoping I’d get to go on home without seeing Lymon and his crew after school. But from the classroom window I can see them still waiting in the school yard. The three of them are standing around a boy, laughing. Lymon slaps the boy’s lunch pail to the ground. They are keeping themselves busy till I come down. Everyone else has gone from the classroom, but I’m pretending to look for pencils in my desk.

  “Can you help me carry these to my car?” Miss Robins asks, tying a rain scarf on her head.

  I nearly fall rushing to help her. Parking lot is on the other side of the school yard.

  “Thanks, hon,” she says when I load the box into the backseat of her Buick. I shut the door.

  “Bye, Mrs. Robins.” I wave and walk quickly through puddles to the fence where there is an opening, looking behind to make sure no one is following. I walk fast, turning right, right again, then left onto Michigan Avenue, and keep walking till I’m out of breath. My socks are soaked through, and by the time I stop, nothing looks familiar. Scared sweat prickles my skin. This neighborhood is quiet. The streets are wider, with tall elm trees like back home running along the sidewalks, their branches stretching over me like umbrellas.

  Daddy walked me to school the first day. Pointed to the streets I would pass: “Forty-Fifth, Forty-Sixth, Forty-Seventh…just stay on this street and count up when you going to school and down when you coming home and you’ll be all right,” he said.

  But this street looks nothing like my neighborhood. No stores and cart men. Just row after row of nice-looking houses with trees standing at the edges of sidewalks. Almost each one has swept stoops and windows with curtains that don’t have signs that say FURNISHED APARTMENTS FOR RENT.

  Standing on the corner across the street is a big, white stone building with another building in the middle with a pointy top. Looks like a fancy building, but I’m thinking maybe someone there can point me to Wabash. I walk closer, and carved above the door is GEORGE CLEVELAND HALL BRANCH, CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY.

  Once, when Daddy let me go into town with him one Saturday to get supplies for our planting, we passed a building with a sign above the door that said LIBRARY. I was just learning my letters and figured I knew just about every word ever invented, but that word I’d never seen. Daddy told me th
e word but said it was a building for white folks, and that meant I couldn’t go in. Didn’t look like nothing to me but a small little house, painted bright white, two windows in front. Other than that, I would have passed on by not noticing. But back home, in the kitchen, I asked Mama if she knew anything about a library.

  “Library is a place you borrow books,” Mama said, sweeping the dirt out the kitchen door.

  “What kind of books?” I asked, following behind her.

  “Any kind you want—books with stories and pictures ’bout anything you can think of, I reckon.”

  I remember thinking, A house just for books? “You ever been inside a library?” I asked.

  She laughed then. “They don’t let colored folks in libraries, baby. Now go fetch some eggs for your mama so I can start this cornbread.”

  While I went to the coop to fetch the eggs I thought to myself, Any kind of books you want?

  I slowly walk up the steps to the big wooden door. A man brushes past, his arms filled with books, and I hold open the door and follow him inside. I stare up into a ceiling so big and bright, seems like God himself is looking down.

  “Can I help you, young man?” a woman asks.

  I can’t find a way to make my mouth ask for directions to Wabash Street, so I nod and walk along behind her into sunlit silence and shelves and shelves of books. I don’t see any white folks, just all kinds of colored people, some rushing past bringing books in, some bringing books out, some working at the front desk. Every one of them look like they belong here. Back home, I read all the books in my class at school till I knew them by heart. Mama said once, “They can’t make books fast enough to keep up with your readin’.”

  Only time I ever heard Mama and Daddy fuss was about me.

  “The boy’s up under you too much.”

  Daddy said I wasted too much time reading, when I should be outside playing and helping him ’round the house.

  “Henry, let the boy be. Ain’t nothing wrong with him spending time with his mama.”

  “Sitting in the house reading ain’t gonna help him grow into a man, Teena. There’s things a boy’s gotta learn.”

  “Reading is learning, Henry,” Mama said, mad.

  “That ain’t the kind of learning I’m talking about.”

  Seems Mama got tired of fighting after a while. So when I wasn’t in school, Daddy kept me busy working ’longside him chopping firewood, clearing brush, fixing things ’round the house needed fixing. Working and sweating side by side, Daddy didn’t say it, but I could feel his pride in me then.

  I walk behind the library lady. Floors look like someone just finished polishing them. So shiny, I bet if I leaned down it’d be like looking in a mirror.

  “Can I help you find a book?” she says, still walking but looking back at me. I want to say no, ask for directions to get on home, but I don’t want to leave this quiet place. Again, my head nods, yes.

  The lady starts walking farther into the library and I keep following and let myself breathe in the library smells. Old paper, glue, and wood. Smells better than Mama’s peach cobbler. Everything in here is so new it makes my worn shoes look more worn. Looks like they could fit five of those little libraries from back home into this one room.

  I scuff downstairs and into a smaller room with round tables and shorter bookshelves. I walk over and run my hand along the bookcases, forgetting all about asking the way home.

  “Can I read one?” My voice sounds squeaky as a girl’s.

  “You can borrow any kind of book you want,” she says kindly. “Just see the librarian at the desk.”

  “Any kind of book you want,” I whisper to myself, and I take a few down from the shelf and pull a chair up to a table.

  I trace the letters on the covers of each and stop. One has my name. I pull it out and open to the first page.

  I pick up my life

  And take it with me

  And I put it down in

  Chicago, Detroit,

  Buffalo, Scranton.

  Feels like reading words from my heart. I keep reading till I feel a tap on my shoulder. I can tell by the sun outside, the rain stopped and it got late and that means Daddy’s already home and waiting.

  “We’re closing soon so you’ll need to make your selections,” the library lady says. I tell her I got a little lost on the way over, and she shows me to the door and points.

  “Walk down two blocks,” she says, “then turn left on Wabash and you should be close to home.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Hurry on home, now,” she says. “I’m sure your mama will be waiting.” My stomach tightens into a ball, but I run out the door and down the steps toward home.

  I open the door.

  “Why you so late?” Daddy asks, his words sharp enough to cut.

  “I was out playing with some boys after school.”

  “Well, go wash up for supper,” he says. His words are still sharp, but his eyes have a softness I haven’t seen since he sat helpless as a baby by Mama’s bedside.

  I keep my hands under the cold water spout. Why didn’t I tell Daddy about the library? Why didn’t I tell him about the boys at school and the way they poke fun every day? Why didn’t I tell him how alone I feel in a city full of people? Same reason I don’t tell him how much I miss Mama. Don’t seem like Daddy can take any more than he already got. Before we left Alabama, I heard him talking to Grandma.

  “Ain’t nothing left for me here, Ma.”

  “Leave the boy,” Grandma said. “Ain’t no sense in dragging him ’long till you’re settled.”

  “She wouldn’t want that,” Daddy grunted. You knew when Daddy was finished talking.

  I was hoping right up till we got on the train that Grandma would come with us. But saying goodbye to Alabama meant saying goodbye to everyone, even Grandma.

  After we buried Mama, Daddy started selling off what little we had—the bureau, Mama’s trunk. Then he started packing. Most of my things I had to leave behind.

  “Take just what you need,” Daddy said.

  Grandma watched us go from the front porch. She squeezed me so tight, I thought she’d never let me go. All of a sudden she looked old and tired, not the Grandma who worked from sunup till sundown. Mama’s death had taken something from her too. Grandma always said I had the best of my mama, and now I was leaving. Barely had a chance to talk to Jimmy and Roland. My Sunday pants rode up above my ankles while we walked the miles to the train depot. Mama never got to let them down before she passed. She said I must have grown three inches in one month, and she just couldn’t keep up. Fast as she took out a hem, I grew some more. I stared hard at everything we passed so I could take a picture in my head to remember in case we never came back to Alabama. I dragged my suitcase behind Daddy’s long steps. Every time Daddy slowed to take out his handkerchief and wipe his forehead, I hoped he was gonna turn around and head on home. But he just kept walking. And I just kept following. Folks stopped, asked if we wanted a ride, asked if we was heading out of town. Daddy answered, “We’re just fine now. Have a good day,” and kept on walking. Time we reached the depot, our clothes were soaked through.

  Everyone always said I looked just like my daddy. Thick arms and middle. Big, flat feet. “Strong boy,” “Handsome just like his daddy,” folks been saying since the day I was born, but I never took a liking to the work Daddy did in the fields. Or chopping firewood or toting heavy bundles. That day I must have looked like his shadow trying to keep up behind his fast walking. The pebbles from the holes in the bottom of my shoes pinched every step, but I didn’t slow. Figured Daddy was so mad about Mama dying, he’d leave me behind too.

  Here now with Daddy that seems like such a long time ago, but I’m glad I took the pictures of Alabama in my head. They’re fading, like the pictures of Mama, but they’re still with me. Daddy calls from down the hall and I dry my hands on my pants and head in to supper.

  * * *

  —

  At school the n
ext day, Miss Robins is barely finished with our lesson when I start watching the clock. Fridays seem like the longest days, counting every minute till the school bell rings at the end of the day. The bell rings at 3:00, but at two minutes before, I slip my books quietly into my satchel.

  BRRRRIIIINNNNG

  “Okay, class, tomorrow, don’t forget…”

  I miss the last of what Mrs. Robins is saying as I rush toward the door. Halfway down the hall I hear “Wait for us, country boy!” so I run faster. Down the two flights of stairs, out back to the parking lot. I hide between the cars and squeeze through the hole in the fence. I don’t slow down till I get to Michigan Avenue. The air feels cleaner here. Still and fresh. I turn around and there’s nothing behind me but sidewalk. I cross the street and walk up the steps of the library.

  THE library looks different today. The smooth, polished floor feels cool through the holes in my shoes. And up above, where I thought I saw God, is actually a pretty ceiling that comes to a point like a hat. I walk in circles staring up at that ceiling and bump into a woman with books.

  “Excuse me ma’am,” I mumble as she cuts her eyes at me.

  The light comes from the tall rounded windows behind the front desk where some women stand, dressed nice and stamping books and answering questions. I don’t remember how to get to the room downstairs—the room I was in yesterday, with tables and shorter bookcases. I turn one way and then another. Finally, I walk over to the front desk.

  I wait, but no one says anything so I wait some more.

  “I see you found your way home and back again,” I hear behind me.

  I turn. It’s the lady from yesterday.

  “Would you like to look at more books?” she asks. Wish I could make my mouth do some talking, but I mumble, “Yes ma’am.”

  I look close as we pass by shelves of books and big wooden tables and people sitting in chairs with round backs. We pass rows of pictures of colored people in frames like the ones in Miss Fulton’s apartment. Lined up nice in one straight line. Each person smiling back, with a gold nameplate under their picture.