I had to laugh. It was funny and it was true. I celebrated the moment of joy by lighting up a cigarette.
“I ain’t askin’ you to work. I mean, maybe one day, tops. I just want you to apply for the job and then take it. But you don’t have to build up no real sweat or nuthin’.”
“What kinda job?”
“Construction.”
“Construction? Damn, Easy, that’s the hardest work out there. Just spendin’ the day out under that sun like to give me heat stroke.”
“Two hundred fifty dollars for one day,” I said.
“Where do I sign up?”
“Manelli Construction Company down in Compton. You can use John for a reference.”
“What you wanna know from them?”
“Everything you can find out. Who’s in charge. Who’s workin’ there. I wanna know about payroll and catering trucks and who’s on duty what hours. I wanna know about security and what anybody knows about Henry Strong’s murder three nights ago.”
Jackson digested the order, nodded.
“This about Brawly and the First Men?”
“Strong got killed out to there. John’s crew worked for Manelli when John couldn’t make the paychecks and they needed help. Somehow Mercury and Chapman got sumpin’ to do with what’s happenin’ with Brawly. I just need to know.”
Jackson nodded again and then extended his palm. I laid one of Mr. Strong’s hundred-dollar bills across it. That made Jackson smile.
We settled up quickly after that. He’d go down to Manelli’s that afternoon and show up for work the next day. Because the amount of time crossed over two days, I promised to pay for his expenses, as long as they didn’t get out of hand.
After that we talked about Newton some more. Jackson told me that the kind of calculus Newton created was called differential calculus. He tried to explain that mathematics was the language of the way things worked, that that was the real secret men were always going for — to speak in the language of things. I barely understood him, even on an everyday level, but I knew that he was saying something that was important to my life.
— 40 —
I came home to find Jesus and Feather in the front yard with Bonnie. They were trimming rosebushes that I’d cultivated on either side of the front door. Bonnie loved the apple-sized, mottled red and yellow roses. When she agreed to come live with me, she’d said, “Only if you promise to keep those roses by the door. That way I’ll think that they’re flowers you give me every day.”
Feather was collecting the roses in a tin pail that looked too big for her to carry. She was laughing while Jesus used his shears on one of the bushes. It was getting close to sunset and the sky was full of clouds that were a brilliant orange and black with the light at their back.
“Daddy!” Feather cried. She ran at me and tackled my legs. “I got another B-plus.”
“That’s great, baby.” I lifted her over my head and then brought her down for a kiss on the cheek.
Bonnie was taking off her thick gardening gloves, but Jesus kept hacking at the bush. He was doing a good job of it, too. I had taught him when he was Feather’s age. I didn’t need him to work, but he wanted to. He wanted to work with me, eat with me, walk with me down the street. If he was out in the world in trouble, I’d do anything to save him.
By then Bonnie was kissing me.
“Are you okay?” she asked, looking deep into my eyes.
“Okay,” I said, turning away as I spoke.
I went in the house, followed by Feather. Her B-plus paper was about “Betsy Washington” and the flag.
While I made us grilled-cheese sandwiches, Bonnie and Jesus joined us in the kitchen. I offered them sandwiches, but Jesus never had much of an appetite and Bonnie didn’t eat between meals.
“I know,” Feather said when we were all together. “I could read you my paper out loud.”
“Not right now, baby,” I said. “First I got somethin’ to say.”
Feather flashed an angry glance at me. The woman she was to become flickered a moment upon her face. She pouted and looked down. Then she took Jesus’s hand and leaned against his side.
“I wanted to talk to the family,” I said. “I want to say something to the kids.”
They were all looking at me. I took a bite out of my sandwich. I felt a little dizzy.
“School is the most important thing in the world,” I said. “Without an education, you can’t do anything. Without an education, they will treat you like a dog.” I glanced at the cabinet and saw the little yellow dog’s snout sniffing out my scent. “I expect you to go to college, Feather. Either you’ll become a teacher or a writer, or something even better than that. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Daddy,” she said.
We were staring at each other.
Jesus was staring at the floor, clenching his fists.
“All right,” I said. “That’s important because Juice is going to learn in a different way. From now on he’s going to study being a boatbuilder. He’s found his calling in that, and I won’t stand in his way. But if he’s going to do that, he has to study even harder than if he was in school. I know all of the curriculum for school and I’m going to make you read out loud to me for forty-five minutes every night. And after you read, then we’re gonna spend another forty-five minutes talking about what you read. You hear me? And if you ever stop working on that boat, you have to get right back in school. I don’t care if you just turned eighteen, you still have to go back. You hear?”
Jesus looked up then and nodded with the kind of conviction that only young men can have. If he was any other child, I would have dismissed the hard look in his eye. But I knew my boy. Not only would he finish the boat but it would be seaworthy and so would he. And he would read to me every night. And he would love it. I realized that he wasn’t the type of child who could learn from white strangers who couldn’t hide their natural contempt for Mexicans. I had seen it at Sojourner Truth. Most children ignored the signs or connected with the two or three teachers who really did care about them. But Jesus wasn’t like that. He was connected to me, and it was my job to make sure that he learned what he needed to make it through life.
“I’d rather you stay in school,” I said. “’Cause you know it ain’t gonna be easy goin’ through your lessons every day. Some days I might be late. Some days I might miss, and then you’ll have to do double duty the next night.”
Jesus grinned and I realized that this was what he had always wanted.
“I’ll help on nights that you can’t be home,” Bonnie said.
“You got them papers up in your room?” I asked Juice.
He nodded.
“Leave ’em on the table for me. I’ll read ’em after you go to bed.”
Are you really going to do all that, Easy?” Bonnie asked me after I’d signed the papers and we were both in bed.
“What?”
“Read with Jesus every night.”
“Oh yeah. Now that I made the promise, I got to do it. That’s our deal.”
“What do you mean? What deal?”
“When he came to live with me. He couldn’t even talk, because he’d been through so much. But he’d sit by my side and listen to every word I said. And if I said somethin’, then he took it for truth. If I said to jump off a building ’cause he wouldn’t break his leg, then he would jump. And if he hurt himself, he would know that I had tried to tell him what was right but somehow had made a mistake. And if I told him to jump again — he would. That kinda faith makes a truthful man outta you.”
“But suppose you can’t do it?” Bonnie asked. “Can’t do what?”
“Can’t keep your word.”
“But I will keep my word,” I said. “That’s what you don’t understand. I have to keep my word to that boy.”