Cry of Angels

22

22 FEELING BETTER, EM DECIDED HE WANTED A BATH, AND SAT BY THE well singing softly to himself. I poured bucket after bucket of water over him and told him all that had happened, the cigarette in his mouth washing apart until only a strip of paper lay on his lip. He sat smiling and humming that wordless song as he watched the dawn drift in from the woods. "Not a thing to worry about," he said, pulling on his clothes. "We'll make out just fine. Damn, I'm hungry!" He walked up to pay his respects to the boarders (returning with a lard pail filled with hot food), and went out to see Jayell, and spent the next few days cleaning attics, basements, and doing whatever odd jobs he could turn up while I was in school. One day a lady whose Florida room he helped redo gave him an aquarium of tropical fish, with which he was delighted. He set it in the window and showed me how the sun striking the corner of the tank just right threw a lavish spectrum of colors across the wall. But all my arguing couldn't save the fish. He fried them up crispy brown and ate them on Ritz crackers. 201 A C R Y O F A N G E L S Pets? You got to feed and look after? Not for him! I don't know what he told the boarders about our condition when he went up there to see them that first day home—he swore he told them nothing—but he must have done some very broad hinting, because pretty soon they started having Mr. Teague, Tio, Em and me up to the house for Saturday night suppers. "To help keep the food bill equal to what we're being charged for!" said Mrs. Porter. And, they said, they wanted a chance to pump Mr. Teague in detail about all that was going on at the store. The boarders themselves, surprisingly, were doing remarkably well. Far from the collapse of spirit I expected when Miss Esther left, there was an activity around the house I had never seen before. They all turned out for yard work now, even Mr. Jurgen. The women were busy making quilts; they were doing some babysitting for members of Pinnacle church. Mr. Rampey and Mr. Woodall ventured down to help Wash Fuller overhaul his Plymouth. And they were all trooping off to Sunday services together—even Mr. Burroughs. Those Saturday night suppers were among the best times I ever had, a riot of reminiscing, with each of them outdoing the other in telling tall tales, often, as was their custom, with two or three of them going at it at the same time. And it was the first of these get-togethers that brought Farette's situation into the open at the boardinghouse and forced the boarders to face it, and make a decision. And having done that, they laid the groundwork for what came later. Farette was about the same age as the boarders, and although she protected her position as official cook and housekeeper with a sharp tongue and a watchful eye, over the years the work had plainly become too much for her to do alone, and it had become natural for Miss Esther and the others to help out in the kitchen at mealtimes and wash the dishes afterward, to take turns with the washing and ironing and general cleaning. In short, Farette had become just one more old person living in the house—except for two notable differences. One was that she still attended Free Rent A.M.E. church in the hollow while the others walked uptown—which I never thought much about; A.M.E. was closer, and Em and I preferred it to Pinnacle Baptist ourselves. The other, to which I had given a great deal of thought over the 202 B O O K T W O years, was that while I was confined to the thunder and roar of mealtimes in the dining room, Farette got to eat by herself in the serenity of the kitchen. The privacy, our invitations to supper cost her. Tio and I were sitting on the front porch that first night, flipping a little mumbletypeg with our knives and listening to the men's voices in the living room as we waited...