How you know?
A warren of corridors and rooms. Tiled roof. Whitewashed walls. But the walls are really doors. DAZE MAZE. Abu squeezes a buzzer. A door spits him out of the room into another, sopping wet and crying for his mother. You continue on, determined to win the prize, a red wax bull. One room hides another room clicking clocks of every shape and description. You take several more wrong turns, wind your way through more identical corridors. Your sense of direction deserts you. You try to double back. The corridors all look alike. The same tiles. The same light. Perhaps you have only orbited the main chamber. You crawl through a tunnel-like vent. Rise into space. In front of you, a sign reads THIS IS IT. A thick red arrow points down to a lever. You pull it. Moments later, the wall spits out the wax bull, red and warm to the touch.
You run to Abu with your prize. Told you I would get it.
Man! Abu says. He blow-dries his tears. Licks his snot. Let me see it.
You let him touch it.
Man. I wish I had one.
You coulda got one.
I know. What do we do now? Anxious, Abu hops on one leg then the other as if he must pee.
Follow me.
He follows.
Bull in hand, you know what to find and think you know where to find it. You claw the air. Duck under light. Squeeze through the dark. The air quick around your head with spastic machinery. Ah, yes. Here. Here.
Is this a real coal mine?
Yes, you answer. Come on. Let’s go in.
He comes.
You board blackness. The coal car rattles down through the dark. You see Abu’s face floating in the crowded blackness.
Wait a minute, Abu says.
What?
This an elevator?
Yeah.
It hold all these peoples?
Yes.
Why it going so fast?
The cables grip your guts. You bleed icy sweat. Surrender to the will of your body. Your bowels fill with an explosion of loose brown mud.
What happened?
Nothing.
What’s wrong?
I had an accident.
Don’t worry, Abu says. His head is covered with thickly woven coal-mine cobwebs. You can wear my draws.
THE SADDLE LIFTS YOU HIGH. The horse warm underneath you. You smell its sweat. The horse snorts like a dope fiend. Tail swipes at hot summer mosquitoes. Its motion helps you to think. But riding requires effort. You can’t sit and let the horse take you where it wants. You must direct it with iron, muscular force.
Wait a minute, Abu says. How many stories is this? My horse is too tall.
That ain’t no horse. It’s a pony.
I’m gon fall off.
Just hold on to the reins. These horses are trained. He’s walked this path a thousand times.
How do you stop it? It’s walkin too fast.
It’s not walking. It’s trotting.
I can’t hold on. Abu bounces in the saddle.
It’s actually easier to hold on when the horse is galloping. That’s why jockeys can ride so easy. I’ll show you.
Your heels stab the horse’s ribs. Can’t break them, no matter how hard you kick. The rapid light beat of hard hooves on packed earth. A run of space. You sail. Your flying feet never touch the ground. The road flows under the horse’s flicking hooves.
FAMILIAR MOVING BODIES, jangling colors, wandering fragments.
Sound off!
One two.
Sound off!
Three four.
Change count.
One two three four one-two, three-four.
Line it up. The troop can never hike in formation. They blow like lost sails behind you. The concrete road vibrates in your boots. Small red trees line it on both sides. Taller ones behind. And vines like twisted snakes.
I walk in moonlight
To lay this body down
I walk in starlight
To lay this body down
The troop cuts the fool and bends the forest with their voices.
Beans beans, good for your heart
The more you eat, the more you fart
Beans beans, the musical fruit
The more you eat, the more you toot
Simmer down, Mr. Baron says. Let me hear the sound of your feet.
Abu taps your shoulder. Hatch, give me a swallow of water. I’m sweatin. His sweat runs red — he drank a canteen full of well water — then silver, then red again.
No, Mr. Baron says. Horses sweat, men perspire, and women glow.
AUTUMN FILLS THE GRAY-BROWN EMPTINESS between summer and winter. The world aglow with color as trees shed gusts of dead yellow leaves. A breeze holds up their fragrance. The woods stand tall and black—Ah, the woods, where you could take a long swig of the dead-black wine and make your way out of this world—sun in the treetops, sun on the branches, sun hazing the lake. You and Abu race through a yellow field bleached with rabbits. Race down the Hill — a steep crust of land, an upturned nose that grows steeper every month, wind in your legs, the speed and pull of gravity. The challenge is to stop before you reach the bottom; if you don’t, your legs will hurricane you into the muscular lake where water moves like paper in the wind. (Abu can’t swim.) Jump into the water, silent to your own splash. Break the wave’s skin with ease. Knife downward, then float back to the surface, buoyant in weightless sleep. With sharp, clean strokes, swim the thick blind muddy lake. Uncle John tosses you and Jesus into the live currents of the Kankakee River. The bank wafts sharp odors of gunpowder, worm, and fish. The two of you barely have time to draw breath before being sucked beneath the surface. Uncle John jumps in to pull you two back to the water’s surface only after the water has filled the cups of your skulls. On the next fishing expedition, he tosses you two into the muddy water again. Lesson learned, you resurface at the same moment, trying to hurt each other with playful kicks. Flip over onto your backs. Eyes pinned to the sky, you swim the thick blind pond. With mud-black fingers, crawl out of the water. Sun sponges you dry. See, Uncle John says. See, now you know how to swim.
Race done, fish.
You catch more fish than Abu, using your bait of locusts and wild honey, as Uncle John had instructed you on the banks of the Kankakee River. Uncle John prepared his reel, fishhook in his mouth, silver-shining like a new dime.
WITH FULL LUNGS, you blow on the covered pile of ashes. High clean flames lap up the spring chill and fill the air with fresh smoke.
They look like they ready, Abu says. Are they ready yet?
The meat lies on the grill.
I don’t think so.
Maybe you should put some mo lighter fluid on the charcoal.
You aim the fluid and squeeze. The meat flies up from the grill and descends on you two, talons curled.
Damn!
Watch out.
Hey, Uncle John says, what yall tryin to do, burn up Gracie’s yard?
Nawl.
He steps down from the back door, Dave behind him. He walks over and adjusts his eyeglasses. Examines the grill. Dab on some of that barbecue sauce.
You aim. Splatter red. The bird flutters sideways, shrivels and falls to the nest/grill.
Now take them off. They ready.
You take it off.
Man, Dave says, in the old days nobody used to buy ribs, cause the stockyard used to give away rib tips.
Yeah, and you used to be down there every day all day lookin fo a handout.
Fuck you, John. Dave sucks his Canary.
Uncle John looks directly at you. Don’t they teach you nothing bout cookin in those Boy Scouts?
Nawl. We never cook on no grill.
Shit. You want Gracie to start complainin? Uncle John grits his teeth.