Family by J. California Cooper

Author:J. California Cooper [Cooper, J. California]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-77858-1
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-01-12T05:00:00+00:00

IN THE MEANTIME. From time to time, and I didn’t know much bout my kind of time early on, when I would think on one or other of my children, swift as a second I find I am where I can see the one I’m thinking bout. That’s how I knew Peach was doin alright.

Thinkin hard on Sun, one time, I found myself where he was and stayed for a while.

Sun, still young, had been scrounging and makin his way north for some two years. Workin here and there for practicly nothin. Doin odd jobs all along his way from the time his little money ran out. His bein white-lookin helped him a lot and he could read way enough to understand which way he was goin and many other things.

He had reached a place near some water with beaches. Layin on the beach one day, havin swum in his clothes for a bath, he got hungry as usual. The season musta been bout over for swimmin cause not many peoples was there and the food stands was not always open. But hunger can see things when satisfied can’t. Sun spied one with a man walkin round it and in and out of it, so he went over to see what he could do to get some food in him.

The man was just a-walkin and cussin and fussin, picking one thing up, settin it down only to pick up another and do the same thing. Sun was bout seventeen then. He was growin tall and hard times made him look older, even tho the young sunshine in his face told he was very young.

He greeted the white man in a mannerable way and asked him if there was some job he could do in exchange for food. The man ignored him after a mean glance. After a minute, Sun asked again.

The man found his voice, which had a foreign accent, and ranted and rowed about people always be able to ask for somethin, but never able to do anything worthwhile to get it. “Just look at this place! A mess! I can’t get no cook to come and stay and work without them cheating me. Stealing me blind! Eating up my profit or giving it away to their friends. Then, leaving! They even leave sometime with the door open, so anybody can come in and help themself to anything that may be left.”

Sun just stared at him and round the good-size stand. It was for sandwiches or somethin like that, and french fries. I never heard em called that, we just called em fried potatoes.

The man went on talkin with his strange accent that turned out to be French. “I’m not gonna take it anymore! I’m gonna close the damned stand and just keep the restaurant in New York I run myself. I’m sick of this American business shit!”

Sun just started movin around pickin up things for the man. He was still listenin as he put em on the nearest convenient spot, piling dirty pots and pans in the sink.

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