Part 44 (1/2)
It was Grandpa Thevenet. Two started onto the porch of the pea-green house, and Darryl followed.
”Hey, Grandpa Thevenet,” Two said.
”Hey,” said Darryl.
Grandpa Thevenet, who was n.o.body's grandfather that either boy knew, was magical. ”Hey youself,” he said to them.
Grandpa Thevenet had a piano-key smile and told stories that would light up a place, wherever he happened to be. When Grandpa spoke, he sounded like the French Canadians Darryl had seen in droves when Jack Mitch.e.l.l took the family to Disney World, but Grandpa Thevenet was from Louisiana.
On his lap, between hands soft and strong and long like Sunday, rested an accordion. Grandpa could do with his accordion what Hoodie Duncan did with a football. ”You boys tell me what you tink of dis song.”
Some people called it zydeco. Grandpa Thevenet called it house-dance music. The best music there is. Grandpa said he'd learned it as a boy in the bayous in the twenties. He said his papa would play it on the violin on Sat.u.r.day nights for the family and the neighbors. Folks sway-dancing and laughing; the swamps would be charged on Sat.u.r.day nights. Grandpa had taken to the accordion and joined his papa in the music-making when he was only eleven (”I wasn't not'ing but a son den”) and could hardly handle the accordion's bulk between his spindly arms. When his papa followed the oil boom from the swamps of Louisiana to the plains of West Texas, they brought the music along. For awhile, Beezville (which was what Grandpa still called the Flats) had been plugged into the same current that had lit up the bayous on Sat.u.r.day nights. But he mostly played for himself now. And very infrequently.
Two and Darryl, sitting Indian-style on the porch, clapped with the beat. Grandpa smiled and swayed his head with the pumping accordion. The smile seemed to be as much a part of his music as the instrument. It replaced the lyrics, which were few, and let the listeners know that no matter what the words said, the people were together to have a good time.
”Ma Claire est belle,” Grandpa sang: Say, ma Claire, elle est belle.
Mais les haricots n'sont pas sales
Faut que je la renvoye chez elle.
He threw back his head, loose suns.h.i.+ne-yellow s.h.i.+rt rustling with his laughter. ”Now, what you tink a dis song?” Grandpa asked, carefully laying the accordion beside his chair.
”Tops,” said Two.
”It was great,” said Darryl.
”Ah, you like it.”
”What do the words mean?” Darryl asked.
”Tey means: Ma girl Claire, she a beauty. But she no know how to make my beans, so's I have to send her home.”
The boys laughed.
”Naw,” Grandpa laughed with them. ”High-yalla gals just cain't cook,” he said, himself a shade only slightly darker than his s.h.i.+rt; and he laughed some more. But then he stopped. ”What's tat you got on your wrists?”
”Rubber bands,” Two said, almost in a whisper and no longer looking at Grandpa.
”Rubber bands?”
”Yeah.”
”Boys, you take tose off now.” He was no longer smiling. ”You crazy? Cut off te circulation to your hands.” Grandpa Thevenet raised his own to accentuate his point. His hands were beautiful: delicate but strong. They looked sculpted.
When Darryl unwound the bands, he noticed the bulge of veins on his forearms. On Two's, too. Like Hoodie Duncan.
He handed the rubber bands to Two, who was rising.
”We got to go, Grandpa Thevenet,” Two said.
”Yeah.” Darryl rose, too.
Two said, ”Thanks for playing that music for us.”
Grandpa Thevenet smiled again. Wide. ”You boys don' be so scarce no more. Come by and see me some.”
”OK,” Two said.
”We will,” said Darryl.
And they climbed down off the porch and into the dirt street.
The twins, Fredrick and Dedrick Horton, were walking in the other direction. Two scrawny boys who together might make one normal-sized teenager, they often acted as though, because they were one grade higher in school, they were superior to Darryl and Two. As they approached, Darryl noticed one or the other-Fredrick or Dedrick, he could never tell them apart-snickering and looking toward Two and him.
Two raised a pumped and protruding-vein-covered forearm and pointed at Fredrick and Dedrick. ”Y'all see something funny?”
”Yeah,” said Fredrick (or maybe it was Dedrick), ”you two knot-headed nigros up there samboing like slave days with Grandpa Sambo hisself.” The other's laugh (Dedrick's; or maybe it was Fredrick's) was equally derisive.
”If you see a knot-head nigro,” Two said, ”give him ten dollars.” Two waited. ”Uh-huh, that's just what I thought.”
”If I had ten dollars, you the last n.i.g.g.ah see the green on its back.”
”You don't wanna be messing with me today, Fredrick . . .”
”I'm Dedrick.”
”Don't care who you is,” said Two. ”You two big-lipped baboons look so much alike, it's like I'm talking to just one of you n.i.g.g.ahs anyway. Just don't be messing with the kid. Not today.”
”The kid?”
”Yeah,” Two said, shaking his head no and raising his hands as if in disbelief. ”Don't be missing with the kid. Or I'm a have to open me up a can of whoop-a.s.s on you.”
”Whoop-a.s.s on who?”
Two looked around. ”I don't see n.o.body else in this road.”
Dedrick, leering, squared up on Two. ”Well, kid, go ahead. Do it then . . .”
Darryl felt Grandpa Thevenet's stare on them and felt suddenly small. He pulled back Two, who was now face-to-face with and mimicking Dedrick. ”C'mon, Two. I've got to go. Jack Mitch.e.l.l's waiting for me.”
Dedrick turned on Darryl. ”Well, go on and run after that tomming n.i.g.g.ah then. Wasn't n.o.body talking to you. Oreo.”