Cry of Angels

19

1 9 I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING IN A NEW WORLD. IT WAS RAINING, and water leaked through a crack beside the window and splattered on the sill. It took several moments to realize where I was, and then I lay on Em's cot listening to the rain drumming and fighting the empty feeling inside me. I pulled the footlocker up to the window and sat looking up through the trees toward the boardinghouse. It sat still and gray in the rain, the warmth, the look of life still lingering . It wouldn't be for long, I thought, without Miss Esther. I stood up and shoved the footlocker back in place. Enough, she would have said. There wasn't time for that. There were too many things to sort out. Too much to be done. One step at a time, Mr. Whitaker. Just one single step at a time. When the rain let up I bounded out of the loft and went looking for Tio. And once out again and moving, I felt better. I broke into a run, skimming along the familiar ridges. At last I spotted him struggling along Cabbage Alley, his basket loaded and a kerosene can on the handlebars with an Irish potato plugging the spout. 178 B O O K T W O With a shout and a running dive off a high yard I caught him around the neck and we, the bike and the groceries went piling into the gutter. The hollering and wrestling brought out the neighborhood dogs, and they danced around the mud puddles rejoicing with us until one of them found a broken package of bologna and led the others away. Finally Tio shoved me away. "Hey man! What's the matter with you? Help me get this stuff!" and he scrambled to replug the pouring kerosene. I tried to help him, but I couldn't. All I could do was sit in the mud and laugh. A woman came around the corner leading a little girl in pigtails and stopped and stared at my condition. That was even funnier. I jumped up and started grabbing canned goods and shoving them in her arms. She hurriedly dragged the child away. I couldn't stop laughing. I was drunk, and could not be responsible. "All right," Tio said firmly, "now get a hold of yourself. What you doin' back here?" I told him, as best I could, about the break from the Cahills, about leaving the boardinghouse. "I'm a man," I said. "Yeah. Right. Now get your head about you. You hungry? You had anything to eat?" I shook my head and Tio unwound a can of Vienna sausage. I wolfed it down, along with a wedge of cheese. "Where you gon' live now?" "In the loft, I guess. Where's Jojohn, have you seen him?" "Some of 'em said he was hittin' the joints down river toward Cedar Crossing. Said they seen him in Birdsong's the other night, tyin' on a drunk that'd put all his others in the shade." "Birdsong's? I heard the sheriff had closed him down." "The sheriff's always closin' him down. But somehow he gets open again. You goin' after Jojohn?" "No, I don't think so," I said. Tio looked at me. "How come?" "I don't know. I've just got this feeling . . . No, if he's still around, and he wants to come home, let him. If not, well, that's okay too." Tio shrugged. "Suit yourself." He kicked up the stand and got on his bike. "Hey," I said, "let's go take a dip in the river." "What? I got work to do, I ain't got no time to go swimmin'!" 179 A C R Y O F A N G E L S "Aw, come on, Tio, just one . . ." "And you ain't neither! You got to start figurin' how you gon' live now your aunt's gone! Where you gon' eat? You thought about that?" "Aw, Tio . . ." "Naw, man, you got to think about them things. You're on your own now, you got responsibilities." "Tomorrow!—I'll work it all out tomorrow." "Tomorrow! You don't even know where you gon' eat tonight! You talkin' 'bout bein' a man—you're more like a newborn baby! Now you get that playin' out your head and start tendin' to business...