The Man Called Brown Condor Read Free Page B

to where Johnny was standing. “Hey, Johnny. What you got?”
    â€œHow do you like this kite I made?”
    â€œYou make the best kites ‘round here.”
    Johnny took the kite and string from his mother and handed it to Teddy. “Here. You take it. And don’t you let it get hung up on no trees.”
    Teddy carefully took the kite with one hand, put the ball of string under his arm, and held the rusty bicycle wheel with the other. “Man, thank you, Johnny.” He smiled and started across the street, yelling to a friend half a block away, “Hey! Osborne Barabino! Look what Johnny give me. Look at this, man!”
    Celeste said, “You didn’t have to do that, son.”
    It was dusk when Celeste and Johnny reached home. Charles Cobb was sitting on the porch.
    â€œWhere ya’ll been? I was starting to worry, not to mention get hungry.” He laughed. “Bertha and me even got the stove hot.”
    â€œI’m sorry, honey. I’ll warm up some gumbo and some hot French bread.” Celeste took the bag of groceries from Johnny and walked to the kitchen.
    From a small cloth bag, Charles Cobb shook a little tobacco onto a cigarette paper, curled the paper around the tobacco with his free hand, lifted it to his lips, licked one edge of the paper, and pressed the edges together to make a cigarette tapered at both ends. Holding the cigarette in one hand, he lifted the little tobacco bag to his lips with his other, grabbed the drawstring in his teeth, pulled it tight, and stuffed the bag into the top pocket of his bib overalls. Charles took a lucifer match from his pocket, lit it off with his thumbnail, and took a satisfying drag.
    â€œNothing better than your momma’s gumbo. What you got to say for yourself, Johnny?”
    â€œNothing, Daddy, except I’m gonna look for work to help with my school money. I figure I can keep up with my chores ‘round here and still shine shoes at Union Station.”
    Charles eyed Johnny. “You and Momma must a been talking mighty serious like.”
    â€œNaw, Daddy. I just figured it’s time I did something on my own. And I’d like to go with you to the shop, too, learn more ’bout machinery and things. Maybe I could help sweep up.”
    Charles stood up and put his arm around the stepson he loved as his own. “That would be fine, son. Now let’s go in and light a fire. I think it’s gonna be right chilly tonight. Maybe after supper you can read me the paper ’bout the war and how our boys are doing over there. Might be a story ’bout those airplanes fighting in the sky. This world’s in a real mess, but some mighty interesting things happening. You keep up with things, Johnny. This old world’s changing, changing for colored folks too. Yes sir, you keep up with it boy. Now let’s go see ’bout supper.”
    Every morning Johnny walked the short distance to the three-room school he attended on Thirty-Second Avenue where grades seven through ten were taught. High school only went to the tenth grade. It was a wood frame building in need of paint. Inside it was clean, the bare wood floors smelled of linseed oil. In the center room there stood a large potbellied stove. On the coldest days, the center room was always too warm and the two rooms on either side too chilly. There were black boards, worn thin, on the walls of all three rooms. The schoolbooks were dog-eared hand-me-downs discarded by the white schools. A one-room building next door, called The Annex, served as the elementary school for grades one through six.
    After school all the next week, Johnny looked for a spot with busy foot traffic where he could shine shoes. What he found was that all the best spots at Union Station were already spoken for by a healthy number of shoeshine boys, most of who were older than John. Then he discovered that his friend Collins was shining shoes at the OK Shoeshine Parlor on Fourteenth