“Hey, Papa,” Angel said to her fragile father. “Mrs. Nichelle been by?”
“Not today,” he replied with a labored smile. “Good thing she’s married to the vice principal or else I might be worried about you playing hooky on the second-to-last day of school. Didn’t you have a big Latin test this morning?”
“Like you said,” Angel said. “Good thing this little guy’s father is my vice principal. Besides, Mrs. Nichelle was really catching it this morning.”
“I’m sure she’s grateful,” he said, wincing as he shifted himself on the couch.
“Anything I can bring you before I go back next door?”
“Just want to sit with my favorite girl for a while,” he replied in broken breaths.
When he lifted his arm, he nearly tilted off the couch. Angel leaped to stop him from crashing onto the living room floor; she’d caught him in time, but Michael lunged on her hip and began to scream. He reached his tiny fingers for her father’s cheek, and when Angel stopped him, he began wailing even more.
“Give him to me,” said her father, who was hardly able to lift his own arm without flinching.
“You sure?” she asked. “You’ve been feverish lately.”
“I think I can handle seventeen pounds pretty well,” he said with a labored chuckle. “Come here, little man.”
An unseen energy came over her father as the boy fell into his arms. Angel felt her heart break a little as she watched him bounce the baby on his tired, skinny knee. It must’ve been excruciating and exhausting to bounce like that, but her father did it with joy all over him. A similar joy came over Michael, too. He stopped flailing as soon as he sat with her father.
“See?” said her father. “He knows that I’m about to leave this place.”
“Papa…,” Angel tried interrupting, but her father wouldn’t allow it.
“Let me finish,” he said calmly. “Children this age can tell who’s coming and going soon. You ever notice that babies gravitate to expecting women? It’s the same thing. They remember what we’ve forgotten.”
“Papa,” Angel started. “God’s going to bring you out of this. I just know it.”
Angel’s father’s breathing quickened. Then, after much thought, he said, “You know what? I agree with that with my whole heart.”
Angel watched them, grinning at each other as if they were sharing a secret, and it hit her that she and her father were talking about two different types of deliverance. She meant healing, while he meant death.
She lifted Michael from her father’s knee. “You need rest, Papa,” she told him before walking back out the door.
“Did you see the sky today?” he asked her. “And yesterday, too?”
“I did see that,” Angel replied.
Her father smiled, but it didn’t reach his tired eyes, not even close. “A warning. Something’s coming.”
Angel watched his eyes slowly blink as if every one took away energy he didn’t have to spare. “Rest now, Papa.”
As she left her own dreary living room and looped her own backyard, Mrs. Nichelle ran outside to find her. “My God, Angel, I’m so sorry. I’d just closed my eyes for a minute, and I fell asleep by accident.” She eased the baby from Angel and hugged her too tightly. “You’re an angel, truly. I’ll call Jack, I mean, Vice Principal Anniston, and let him know why you’re so late.”
“Anything you need, Mrs. Nichelle,” Angel replied. “Now, I have to get to school before I miss it altogether.”
“I can walk with you!”
“No, ma’am,” she said, picking up her thick stack of books from her front porch. “Baby boy has been in the heat all day. He’s worn out and calm. Enjoy the quiet while you can.”
She jogged toward school with a wave.
Her high school was nearly a half mile away, but the walk was flat with new walkways and freshly popped purple verbena everywhere. The sunlight had been pulling them out for a while—all bright and warm—telling the underground bulbs that it was the ideal time to reveal their beautiful faces to the waiting world. They reminded her of another quote from her favorite orator, Booker T. Washington:
Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the everyday things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.
Washington spoke directly to her tender heart with such axioms. He packaged his activism in tolerance, a method highly superior to the likes of W.E.B. Du Bois, whose so-called action would only lead to more destruction. Washington, unlike Du Bois, was wise, patient, and calculating in his strategies of eventual change. Much like the sun teasing out verbena, Angel thought, Washington believed in the gentle power of waiting his turn. She was glad her high school donned his brilliant name.
She did, however, question. When she stood staring at burgundy boxcars with golden swirls that she could never see on the inside, she questioned. The blaring injustices and inequalities she’d learned about in history class, the stories and warnings from her father, the plight of her distant relatives. Angel was not naive; she certainly questioned. Never aloud, but on the quiet inside, doubt ran through her mind as quickly and as often as those fancy, untouchable trains ran along the Frisco tracks.
ISAIAH
“I can’t right now,” Isaiah whispered to Muggy. “I have a Latin test.”
“It’s Mrs. Greene,” Muggy said as if Mrs. Greene weren’t a real teacher who could give a real failing grade to both of them. “She’s my father’s best customer. We can throw a bit of extra bacon in her bag this Thursday or something. Come smoke with me. I’ve got to tell you about Dorothy Mae.”
Nothing within Isaiah’s body wanted to hear about Dorothy Mae or Frances or any other one of Muggy’s conquests. Isaiah wanted only to take the Latin test. He’d studied hard for many days. He wanted to ace it as he knew he would, but in the same way Mrs. Greene would likely let Muggy slide, Isaiah couldn’t say no to him, either. He hung his head and followed Muggy out to the back bleachers for a smoke.
Muggy slashed alive a matchstick before they even left the inside of the school and lit his fat cigar until it sizzled red at the tip. Puff, puff, puff, and then Muggy passed it to Isaiah.
“Here,” Muggy said, smiling and proud. “Take a taste of that. My father brought it back from vacation last week. Well, what he calls vacation.”
A hint of sadness flooded Muggy’s usually overconfident countenance, so small only Isaiah could see it.
“All right?” Isaiah asked, not wanting to say too much. Muggy was a spitfire on edge whenever he brought up his father.
“All right,” Muggy replied without seeming upset. “I know what everybody’s saying about us. I’m not as stupid as you all act like I am.”
“Muggy, I…”
“Know what my father told me when he got back this time?” Muggy asked as if Isaiah hadn’t interjected. “He saw us walking together, me and you, and had the gall to tell me I should be a little more like you.”
“I…”