Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights by Susan Straight

Author:Susan Straight [Straight, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780385474344
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 1994-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

TRACKS

THE VILLE STREETS WERE wide and pale, houses set far back on blank squares of lawn with tall palms shooting up in the sky, Charolette’s favorite head-thrown-back palms: the ones whose trunks he’d leaned against to pull Brenda onto his chest for one last kiss, in the dark, away from her father’s front door. Brenda was home now, sure he was with some other woman or at the riverbottom fire. And Donnie was winding around the streets.

He ran down the slope after Donnie, who kept his head down to watch his feet. The sidewalk was white as chalk. He stopped running, stared into a dry dark sewer opening, low and long. Would the baby-nine wash away, if it ever rained? “Donnie!” he said, but Donnie didn’t pause, even when Darnell clamped his hand onto the wide shoulder. “Man, we can’t be stridin around the Ville at night. We got no vehicle, nothin on us, look suspicious as all hell. Come on—I gotta get back.”

Donnie went up Brenda’s parents’ street instead. “Brenda’s mama took care a your leg, huh?” he said, dreamily. “Maybe she can fix up my leg.”

“Man, it ain’t your leg,” Darnell said, passing the New Yorker in the driveway. The light was on in the back, which meant her father was working on the patio. “Been a long time since you came up here with me,” he told Donnie.

James came to the door, holding a schoolbook with his forefinger jammed into the pages to hold his place. “Darnell?” His thin face was all eyes under the baseball cap.

“Hey, James, can you get your mom for me?” Darnell said.

“My sister sick?” James said, working his tongue in his mouth.

“No, man, I just need to ask your mom a favor.” Darnell squinted in the glare of the porch light.

“What’s wrong, Darnell? Brenda ain’t called.” Her brows were drawn together tightly. “Y’all go to Oklahoma Day?”

“Yeah,” Darnell said. “Brenda’s at home.” He heard a faint tapping of metal from the back.

“Etienne fixin on a water heater,” she said, seeing his hesitation. She looked at Donnie. “What’s wrong with you, baby?”

“I know you fixed Darnell’s leg up,” Donnie whispered, staring at her so hard that Darnell heard her breathe in. “My leg ain’t healed.”

Darnell said, “Maybe you could give him some a that tobacco.” He looked at the street. “We gotta go, Donnie.” Behind her, he saw the familiar baby portraits of Brenda and James, hung on the entry wall. Brenda’s roomy beige cheeks—he thought of the dark-welled circles under her eyes now. She ain’t called her mother to talk about me. I have to call her.

“I can’t do nothin standin here like this,” Mrs. Batiste said, but Donnie’s face slid shapeless, and she said, “Wait.” When she came back, she handed Darnell a string with knots. “Remember?” she said, looking into his eyes. “That one already got prayers on it.” She paused. “I don’t know if they worked for you anyway, Darnell.”

He couldn’t look at her, and he saw Mr. Batiste come out from the back gate, his face moon-gray in the sensor light that snapped on in the driveway.

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