Fortunate Son

Pressing through the chink in the wall, Thomas cut his cheek. He knew from many, many cuts and scrapes that he had to put pressure on the gash. And so he entered the double door of Holy Baptist Congregational pressing his fingers against the bloody cut, with a crooked nose and pants torn at both knees revealing the scabs from his recent falls.

He sat at the back of what seemed to him a huge room.

There he looked up at the black men and women dressed in off-white satin gowns singing about Jesus and his Word. The stained glass and dark woods reminded him of the church where they’d had his mother’s funeral. He felt that the singers 1 2 0

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both in the choir and among the parishioners were offering hymns for his mother, and so he hummed along with them.

He didn’t notice that the well-dressed church members were looking at him sitting there, with his broken nose and bloody face, his sockless feet in muddy shoes, and his torn pants.

A tall, white-gloved deacon came up to him and asked,

“Where are your parents, boy?”

“My dad’s asleep and my mother’s dead,” he said.

“They have to be members of the congregation for you to be here,” the man told him.

It took Thomas a few moments to realize that he was being asked to leave. He went out the front door and sat on the concrete stairs listening to the chants and sermons under the shadow of the eaves.

That was Th omas ’s life for the next few years. He spent his weekdays in the alley valley and Saturdays at Bruno’s house. On Sundays while Elton slept he perched in a tree behind the church where he could listen to the beautiful songs, which were, in his opinion, about his mother.

He made his way into the old brick apartment building.

There he set out candles to use when it was raining or too cold outside.

Mr. Meyers took Bruno at his word and struck Thomas Beerman from the class roll. Somehow the registration office also overlooked Thomas, and so he nearly ceased to exist in the files of the school system. The cut he got on the church wall turned into a scar, and though his body stayed small his hands became large and callused as a result of the work he took on.

Thomas decided that he would clean up his alley valley.

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And so he brought an old broom from the back porch and plastic trash bags from the bathroom to begin that task. He swept and picked up the papers, cans, and man-made items that had been thrown over the fence. The first place he cleaned was directly behind his father’s rented house.

Th e days we nt by peacefully for the next few weeks.

Thomas explored and cleaned his little Eden. He left bread crumbs for the opossums and salvaged discarded furniture from various apartments in the abandoned building. In the dark, on the second floor, Thomas would get on his knees and feel himself sinking into the floor. He loved this feeling and would sometimes stay like that for hours. Once he stayed too long, and Elton was already home and angry that Thomas was so late from school.

“Where were you, boy?”

“I went to play at Bruno’s house.”

“I don’t want you seein’ that fat boy no mo’. Hear me?”

Thomas nodded, but he didn’t worry. Elton had other things on his mind. He wasn’t concerned about Thomas unless he was late for dinner.

The next day, Thomas had a conversation with his mother.

“Why’s Daddy so mad at me, Mama?” Thomas asked in his normal voice.

Then in a deeper, more musical register he replied,

“Because when he was a boy he didn’t have anybody to be nice to him.”

“Like you are to me?”

“That’s right, honey,” Branwyn said. “And now you have to be nice to him and let him be mad. Don’t worry, I won’t let him hurt you.”

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“Do you mind it that I don’t go to school, Mama?”

“You know I want you to be in school and to get smart like your brother and Dr. Nolan.”

“But I hate it, an’ it hurts my eyes.”

“Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like, Tommy.”

“I know. But I go to Bruno’s house after school sometimes and on Saturdays, and we do his homework together a little bit.”

“Well, okay,” Branwyn replied after a meditative silence.

“For now. But later on you have to go back to school.”

“I promise.”

Th omas wor ke d hard to clean up his alley paradise.

Along the edges of the fence, he’d come upon small patches of wild strawberry plants. He loved eating them with the peanut butter sandwiches he’d make when he’d sneak into his father’s house in the middle of the day for lunch and other supplies.

When he wasn’t talking to his mother, he’d go to the oak tree and call to No Man. He’d put bread crumbs on the ground at his feet, and after some days the parrot would fly up and eat, croaking “no man” now and again. After a while the parrot would follow Thomas around looking for food and maybe, Thomas thought, a little company.

One late morning when going up to the house, Thomas found May sitting on the porch with her head on her knees, crying.