The Fugitivities, стр. 16
When I was a boy, your grandfather (my father), Earl Winters, worked in the casinos in Atlantic City. It was a grand destination back then, not the seedy place it has become. But back then, things for us were also harder. In the summer, me and my brothers used to pick up white folks at the Steel Pier and push them around in rickshaws for a nickel. I went to the Indiana Avenue School, which was for colored students only. I liked school, but I was often in trouble. When we’d get into trouble, sometimes we’d have to go sit or stand in the hallways with the school janitor, a big man everyone called Pop. One day, because I had been bad, I was sent to “cool it,” and I found myself sitting with Pop and talking. He wanted to know what was bothering me. I told him these kids were bugging me, that I felt stuck here. And he said, “Well, you can’t let these things get you down. You can’t let things stand in your way.” He said, “You know, if I’d been that way, I never would have become a ballplayer.” Well, I had no idea Pop had played ball. But Pop’s real name was John Henry Lloyd, and he was one of the greatest baseball players to ever play the game. He was a real legend back in the days before Jackie Robinson, when black folks played in the Negro League. I was stunned.
“And now you’re here?” I asked him. I was a kid, so I didn’t know any better, and that must have hurt him the way I said it. But he wasn’t bothered by it at all.
“Sure, I’m here,” he said. “But I’ve also been there. I did those things. I set those records. I heard the crowds shout my name. No one can take from me what I done. Where I’ve been. What I seen. And even if all the records of all my games were lost, and nobody even remembered my name, God would know, and I would know, and I am well with him. You see boy, time is like God’s great wax cylinder. He keeps track of everything, and what I’ve done and who I am are fixed that way for good, like a line engraved in God’s hand.” Pop had huge hands, and after that talk, he got up and took my little one in his, and he walked me back to class. To this day, I have not forgotten that. Make your lives whatever you will with where my helping hand will take you. Don’t go making excuses. Work hard. Do something righteous with your life.
Faithfully,
Your Uncle Vernon
They drove back to Newark the next day and dropped off the car at the airport lot where they had picked it up. His father was very agitated now, and he ended up arguing with the clerk about the cost of the rental. Then suddenly it was time to part, and they were hugging warmly, Jonah assuring his father he would stay in touch. He felt a sense of relief once he was on the train heading back to New York, but when he did finally reach Penn Station, a terrible sense of emptiness overwhelmed him, a void in the midst of the surging crowds. Back at his apartment, he found Isaac eating takeout and listening to records. They talked a bit about the funeral. Isaac’s grandparents were still living in Detroit.
“So I guess you haven’t gone through it like that,” Jonah said.
Isaac looked away toward the window with their fire escape. When he answered, it was without looking back and in a tone of voice Jonah hadn’t heard before.
“Nah, I been to a lot of funerals. Too many.”
Jonah had willingly let his phone battery die on the trip and hadn’t charged it for days, so he assumed he would have a million messages and reminders waiting on him. It turned out, apart from reminders to pay his phone bill, the only one trying to reach him was Octavio, who was trying to get him to confirm he was down for the trip to Brazil. He must have left thirty messages ranging from one word to rambling non sequiturs to just random background scratches and a huff.
“So what’s the word?”
Because Jonah hadn’t replied, Octavio had followed with, “I’m going to assume this is a no.”
Jonah rang his number, not expecting him to pick up.
“Yo. Why’ve you been avoiding me?”
“I had some family stuff to take care of. I’m in, actually. Let’s do this.”
Jonah could hear Octavio’s voice change from grim to glorious as he first sputtered disbelief before whooping his enthusiasm.
“Alright, then, alright,” said Jonah, trying to calm his friend down. “So when we leaving?”
“How’s July 1?”
“ ’Til?”
“Open ticket.”
“Open ticket?”
“Yeah man, we come back when we’re done, not when we feel like we’re supposed to. I can even get us tickets through my friend’s mom, who’s a travel agent. You good to pay me back?”
“Yeah, I’ll cut you a check next I see you. When can that be?”
“There’s a launch party for a literary journal this Friday,” Octavio replied. “A couple friends are in the first issue.”
Jonah could imagine the kind of time he’d have. Literary parties were infamously the worst gatherings of any kind in New York City. You could guarantee zero dancing, stilted conversation, nasty sexual tension, quipsters, conservative outfits, liberal politics, and much playing at being adult. There would be enough booze to get everyone seriously sloshed, but not enough of a good atmosphere for anyone to willingly want to be there. Token minorities were de rigueur.
“I don’t know. Could be a drag.”
“C’mon, man, these parties are for networking. I’m doing