Sweet Song Read Free Page A

him?”
    “Yes, Sir.”
    “He teach you the work?”
    “Yes, Sir.”
    “And he don’t say you his boy? Back there, he called you the boy, like you not his. You know why?”
    “No, Sir.”
    Fred scraped the buckle across Leon’s chest again. “Sounds like you got the nigger brains, but not the nigger skin.” He shoved Leon. Shoved him hard. “Don’t know why I’m bein’ easy on you, except that your life must be hard enough. You can go home now. Be ready to work at sunup, boy. And wash up first. You stink and I don’t want that smell stickin’ to my boy who’s left.”
    Leon walked into the shack, and Bess was already gone.
    “Boy, you look a mess,” Martha said right off. “I clean you up.”
    The sun was all but a sparkle from setting.
    Martha lit two candle lanterns and wet and soaped a rag. “This goin to hurt, but not like yo’ beatin’.”
    “Weren’t no beatin’.” Leon said. “More like a scrapin’ and a smackin’.”
    “You lucky as much as you unlucky.”
    “Why don’t Mr. Carpenter be upset at Freddy diein’?”
    “He upset. He fightin’ with his own self. I seen it. Like the devil fightin’ with the Lord. Men folk always like that. They always fightin’ with demons. He have plenty a demons, that man do. He down right guilty. But thinkin’ about this evenin’ he sharin’ his guilt with this family.”
    Martha prepared a dampened rag and ran it across Leon’s scrapes, first his cheek, then his chest.
    Leon tightened at the sting. “He say I stink and to clean up.”
    “You don’t stink. He just don’t like the smell of work. Or maybe the smell of truth.”
    “I don’t mind smellin’ different.”
    “You fine.” Martha said.
    After a moment, while putting his shirt on, Leon asked, “Does Pa love me?”
    Martha stopped fussing. She looked out the window for a moment. The light from a half moon flattened her face and put a shine in her eyes. Her teeth, too, shined when she spoke. Her lips quivered. “Yo’ Pa love you, boy. Yo’ Pa love everythin’. He love everybody. All except his-self. And that hard to get out of.”
    Leon breathed. He had been holding his breath. His cheeks tightened near tears even though he didn’t know why. “I love Pa. I be proud he boss of some of the work. I be proud he look Sir in the eye. I love him ‘cause he my Pa. Just ‘cause.” The tears streamed down his face.
    Martha took him to her breast. “Now, boy. You stay proud. You keep lovin’ yo’ Pa. No matter what you learn, Big Leon yo’ Pappy. You remember.”
    “I don’t want extra chores. I don’t want to work with those white boys all the time. They try not to do nothin’.”
    “I know. I know.” Martha rocked Leon while they stood there.
    That night Big Leon didn’t come in until very late. Later than usual.
    Bess had returned to the shack and Leon lay on the floor with her, his muscles so tense they hurt. He lay naked after being washed. Bess ran her fingers absentmindedly up and down Leon’s body from knees to neck and touching everything between.
    The cool night air blew into the shack, shocking Leon at first. Then he rose from beside Bess and walked to his own corner. His body relaxed instantly. He slipped on his shirt. In slow silence, Leon reached and touched his father’s hand briefly before going over to lie on his own straw bed.
    Big Leon pulled a tattered blanket up and around Leon’s shoulders. Then with his big hand, he patted Leon on the back and brushed his face where it had been cut. He slid a vegetable crate to the back door and stared into the black woods.
     

CHAPTER 3
     
    I n the fall of his twelfth year, the air deep with winter urgings and blowing at him through the barn door, Leon busily mucked stalls and transferred feed barrels. By his side were Hank and Earl, who were alternately cruel and kind to Leon, one moment ordering him around, the next asking how Leon thought they should fix the barn door. Leon settled into his position as half