I ask Bitter, “Was Cletus’s father a slave on the Morgan farm, before they moved to town?”
He shakes his head. “I know squat about Cletus ‘cept he didn’t rape nobody. That was Sahry’s fambly, embarrassed by their daughter, looking for someone to blame. She told me Cletus was trying to leave her, and she was pissed about it.”
“Why did he want to break things off?”
“Cain’t answer that.”
“Why did she decide to keep the baby?”
“Don’t know that, neither, Seam.”
My forehead is sweating. “And my grandma? Jean?”
“Jean struck me as a lost young lady, tell you the god’s honest truth. She had that light skin, like your mama and you. Flirted with all the boys in the building — found her exotic, I guess.”
I grip my knees.
“Well. Lord knows who your mama’s father was. Some roughneck in the oil fields.”
“Black?”
“We didn’t mix with no whites. ‘Cept Sahry. Poor ol’ misfit, shoved out on her own.” He reaches for the teapot and winces. His hand shakes, and he sits back, wheezing.
“Are you all right, Uncle Bitter?”
“Getting old, that’s all.”
“What is it?”
“Damn chest squeezing me lately.” He rubs his elbow.
“Is the pain in your arm, too?”
“I don’t need no nurse.”
“Uncle, those are heart symptoms — ”
“On’iest thing wrong with my goddam heart is it’s broke, way your mama run from us.” He reaches again for the pot, pours himself some tea, and sips it sullenly. I’m ashamed that, along with concern for him, I feel a spike of resentment: after caring so long for Mama, then coming all this way, now I’ve got to care for Bitter too? He’s supposed to watch after me. Another shameful thought: like the “uncle” routine, pain is expected of him, so of course he displays it. He’s always provided what’s called for. And to an extent, that’s really what’s paining him now, I think — the confines of a ready-made identity. Watching his fingers and the gnarled veins in the backs of his hands, I realize for the first time I’ve never seen him as a man, or as a worker, a father. He’s always been just “Uncle” to me, always one of the “old ones.” I’ve taken him for granted, yes; on the other hand, as a child, I thought certain old men, like Bitter, were the only men of feeling. They were the only people I trusted. Unlike the boys I saw, most of them didn’t drink in the middle of the day (Bitter was an exception). They actually listened and talked. They carried hankies in their pockets and were quick to offer one if you cried. They went to church. They knew amazing skills: carpentry, plumbing.
He looks better now.
“Do you want to stop?” I say.
“Go ahead. Ask.”
“You’re sure?”
“Seam — ”
“Not if you’re — ”
“Goddammit, girl — ”
“Okay, okay. Mama.”
“What about her?”
“She ran because of my father? Something to do with a man?” I watch the rhythm of his breathing.
“That’s what we figgered. She never did say directly.” He’s still wheezing. “She’s awful unhappy here. Missed Maevey something fierce. I married again for a short spell — Ariyeh’s ma — woman name Cass. You ‘member her?”
“No.”
“Neither does Ariyeh, much. Both too young when she left. Your mama and Cass never did square with each other.”
“And my dad?”
He sits up on his knees, kneading his calves. His joints creak. “You want it all at once, do you?”
“Your answers just leave me with more questions.”
“It’s always gonna be that way. You know that.”
“Please.”
“It’s hard for me to talk about your dad.”
“Why’s that?”
He scratches his head. “Jim Clay Washington was his name.” Simple. Flat. The awful secret all these years. Just a pair of words, Jim Clay, a couple of lost buttons in the dust beneath a bed. Damn it, Mama, what was so hard about two words? “Worked as a wildcatter, played the juke joints at night. I didn’t like him when he first come sniffing around Helen. Real arrogant manner. I come to see, later, he’s mostly bluff. Scared puppy, like the rest of us. Scared of the Man. Scared of being poor. He had some greatness in him as a singer. Frittered it all away. Booze and such. You know. The old story.”
“Did he play at Etta’s?”
“Sometime.”
“He met Mama there?”
“Might have.”
“They never married?”
“No.”
“And I was just a mistake. A bottle baby.”
Bitter squeezes my hand. “He run off about the time Cass did. I wish I had more to tell you.”
“Why don’t you like to talk about him?”
“It’s just painful for us all. ‘Specially Helen. She stuck around awhile, helping me raise Ariyeh and you. Then she up and took you north.”
I snort. “She was going to better herself.”
“No. Well, sure. But she wasn’t like the others who left once they got a little money or once the white-owned businesses started moving in and taking over. You know”—a rueful laugh — “we used to have high standards around here. You could ‘better yourself ‘thout leaving home. But since the integration and such, that’s all been lost. Pride in the neighborhood been lost. Anyways, your mama, she was running sad, like she knew no ‘betterment’ could save her. At first, I talked her into visits — mostly for you kids, pining for each other so. Then: nothing. Till you show up two days ago.”
“I’m sorry, Uncle Bitter.” I pause. “Can I still call you Uncle?”
“We fambly, Seam. Not by blood, maybe, but by circumstance. I don’t know about you, but I look around, all I see is circumstance.”
I smile. “Thank you for breakfast.”
“You get what you come for?”
“Like you said, there’ll always be more questions.” I pull my damp T-shirt away from my skin. “And I don’t really know what I came for. A break in my routine, maybe.” Running sad, I think. Damn straight.
“How’d you start trailing Cletus?”
“In college, I tried to study the Houston riot. There wasn’t much on it anywhere. Finally, from a federal records center, I got hold of the trial transcripts… all I knew from Mama — her version of things — was that a black soldier had raped my great-grandma. I knew she wasn’t telling me everything. I figured that incident, whatever its truth, had to be the beginning of me. The black and the white.” My head spins from the heat — and the news Bitter has brought me. Suddenly, I need to go. To be on my own for a while. “I have a lot to chew on, Uncle.”
“That you do.”
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a drive. Then I’ll stop by and see Ariyeh.”
“You okay, Seam?”
“Yeah. You? Your chest?”
“Healthy as a radish. How long you got here? Your Sabbath-leave?”
I stand and reach for my purse. “I don’t really know. I took a month off from work, but I hadn’t given it much thought … why?”
“I’s just thinking it’s good to see you.”
I nod. Opening the door, I catch a red flash. “Uncle, what’s that flannel for? Nailed to the wall?”
“Wards off hurt. My buddies who sleep here — fellas at Etta’s — they feeling, you know, pretty hurt most the time.”
“I thought maybe you were trying to get rid of me.” I grin at him.
“Hell, I already been rid of you, girl. You’d think I’d throwed a black chicken over your head. That’s how you chase folks off.” He laughs, wheezing. “When I’s a boy, to make the cats come home, we used to spoon sugar into they mouths every morning, then make ‘em look in the mirror. They’s back at sunset, never fail. I gotta do that to you?”