Madewell Brown Read online

  Madewell Brown

  Also by Rick Collignon

  A Santo in the Image of Cristóbal García

  Perdido

  The Journal of Antonio Montoya

  Madewell Brown

  RICK COLLIGNON

  Unbridled Books

  Copyright © 2009

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  ISBN 978-1-932961-65-2

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Collignon, Rick, 1948–

  Madewell Brown / Rick Collignon.

  p. cm.

  1. African Americans—Fiction. 2. Spanish Americans—Fiction. 3. New Mexico—

  Fiction. 4. Psychological fiction. I. Title.

  PS3553.O474675M33 2009

  813'.54—dc22

  2008053137

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  BOOK DESIGN BY SH · CV

  First Printing

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To all the men who played

  Madewell Brown

  South Cairo

  Of all of them, Obie Poole was the only one who ever came back. At least that was what he would tell Rachael. But she had heard so many stories come from Obie’s mouth over the years that, even after he was dead, she was never quite sure what was the truth or what was a tangle of lies.

  “By the summer of 1954,” he would tell her, his voice harsh from tobacco, his bald head nodding up and down, “we was all done in. By then Syville didn’t have no legs left to speak of. His knee bones had been broke so many times that they’d been ground to jelly. And his ankles, well, they’d got so swelled up that they looked like ankles on an old, fat lady. And some of them others, like Slip Marcelle and Ollie Swan, they weren’t much better. Their lungs so bad from all the dust they’d swallowed on those back roads that even the short run to first base would double them up with a hard fit of coughing.

  “I tell you something,” Obie would go on, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands together. “To this day, I don’t know how it all fell apart on us. It seems like all those boys just drifted away until I was the only one left standing. I didn’t have much to choose from, so I did the only thing I could. I took up clown ball. Yes sir, that’s what I did. For five long, sorry years I stormed from one damn town to another. By then the coloreds had all moved on and left us behind. All that was stuck in their heads anyway was that Jackie Robinson. So the only ones who come out to watch us play the fool was white folks. They’d come out with their umbrellas and their sodie pops, dragging their little children along so they could have one last look-see. And there’d we be, grown men taking the game to a place it never ought to go.

  “I tell you a thing, girl,” Obie would say, looking off at the river, his eyes half closed. “Where a man ends his life can make him think that nothing that come before it was a damn bit better.”

  When Rachael was a young girl, she’d sit with Obie on his front porch and listen to his talk. He would sit in a wicker chair leaning back against the wall of his house, gazing out at the wide stretch of flat grass and cattails that ran all the way to the river’s edge. As he went on, he would fan away the bugs and the heat from his face. And all the while, Rachael would fidget along the porch railing.

  Even back then, she was aware that the things the old man said had a way of changing. Sometimes it would be just the little things that changed, like names popping up where they hadn’t been before or dates moving years forward or backward. But at other times, it would be a thing so big that Rachael would think there must be storms blowing around the old man’s head. And all it would take to get things going was just one little breeze.

  “Did I tell you,” Obie said one day, “that a rumor come to me?” He was hunched forward in his chair, a little more excited than usual. His hands were hanging down between his legs, his fingers twitching.

  It had rained earlier that afternoon. The air was hot and muggy and water still dripped from the eaves. Sweat was running down both sides of the old man’s face and his shirt was undone so that you could see his hollowed-out chest. Rachael realized that, once again, Obie hadn’t bothered to mention where he had heard this rumor or who had told it. She wondered how a man who never went anywhere and who never had one visitor managed to hear so many things.

  “What I heard,” Obie went on, rocking his body back and forth slightly, “was that those Pittman boys, James Lee and Earl, got themselves drunk and killed by a slow-moving freight train up north. Now, it don’t surprise me none that such a thing might happen to Earl. There never was one bit of sense in that head of his. In fact, he probably thought that standing on those tracks was a fine place to watch a train go by. But James Lee, now, he wasn’t like that. He was a cautious man and always took the time to look out for his little brother.”

  Rachael was sitting up on the porch railing with her back to Obie. She was swinging her legs back and forth slowly and staring out past the swamp grass at the river. It was early evening and the surface of the water was flat and still. Not far from the shore, there were some white trash boys in a rowboat. They were fishing for carp up close to the riverbank.

  “That’s not right,” she said softly.

  “What’s not right?” Obie asked, scratching at a mess of mosquito welts on his arm.

  “What you just said. You told me that James Lee and Earl got themselves killed playing ball in a lightning storm. You said that it happened in South Texas, down in dirt country.”

  Obie dropped his arm and stared straight ahead. He stayed quiet for a moment, his head shaking slightly like it was a strain to hold it up. Then he let out a loud grunt. “I never told you no such thing,” he said. “I recall a white boy who once got struck, but that didn’t have nothing to do with the Pittman boys.”

  “Well,” Rachael said, “I remember even if you don’t.” She was swinging her legs a little higher now. “You told me that Earl got himself blown fifty feet in the air like God yanked him up by his scalp. You said that when he hit the ground his shoes were dripping hot rubber and his hair was on fire.” Rachael watched the rowboat drift into the low-hanging branches of a sycamore tree. She could hear the sound of one boy yelling at the other. It made her want to laugh and yell out at them for being so dumb.

  “You know something?” Obie said. He leaned forward and spat out a stream of tobacco juice. “You just like your damn granddaddy, you know that? Think you know so much. And if you going to talk to me, turn yourself around. I don’t want to be talking to your skinny backside.”

  Rachael swung her legs up and swiveled around on the railing so that she was facing the old man. He was hunched forward, his knotted-up hands hanging loose between his thighs. He was looking up at her, his eyes wet and bloodshot. From out in the flat grass and the cattails came the deep-throated sounds of bullfrogs and the clatter of a million crickets.

  For a few seconds, they just stared at each other. Then Obie shook his head slowly. “You just a little girl,” he said. “What you doing talking to me this way?”

  “I’m not so little anymore,” Rachael said. She put her hands down flat on the railing and began to swing her legs again. “I’m eleven years old now and you didn’t even know that.”

  Sweat was beaded up on Obie’s forehead and there were damp stains spreading beneath his arms. The air between them stank of unwashed clothes, and the odor of food gone bad was drifting out the open door to the house. Not for the first time, she wondered what this old man did when
she wasn’t around for him to tell his lies to.

  “Eleven years old,” Obie said harshly. “Eleven years old ain’t nothing. Eleven years old ain’t spit.” He put his hands on his knees and scooted himself closer to her. “If you’re not careful,” he went on, “you going to end up just like your granddaddy. I was there when he walked off. He never said a damn word to nobody. He just walked off that field of play and was gone like a little bit of smoke. Syville, he told us not to worry none, that old Madewell Brown would come sauntering back in his own good time. But you know what? He never did. He got himself lost somewhere and wasn’t no better than the rest of us.” Obie moved back in his chair and turned his face away.

  “You go on now,” he said, his voice tired and hushed. “You take your damn sass and get away from here. I got no time for the likes of you.”

  Rachael pushed off the railing and jumped down. “I got to get home anyway,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Obie said, without looking at her. “Sure you do”.

  Rachael walked over to the edge of the porch. She stood there for a moment and then looked back at the old man. “I remember,” she said, and she said the words in a singsong voice, her hands on her hips. “I remember you once told me that Sully Greene run off to Mexico with a sweet, brown-skinned woman.” Her eyes were half closed and her head was moving from side to side. It made Obie think of little girls playing games of skip rope.

  “You told me,” she went on, “that Sully Greene went off to live in a place where there wasn’t no snow or hardship. You said it was a place where you could walk down the street without shame. Then last week you told me different. You told me he got both his legs cut up by some white men down in Louisiana for looking wrong at a white woman. You said they dumped poor Sully in a drainage ditch. His legs bleeding so bad that the water turned milky with blood.”

  “I never did,” Obie said quickly. The corners of his mouth were stained brown from tobacco juice and a thin stream of saliva ran down his chin. “And you ain’t got no home neither. You just a damn charity case.”

  Rachael took the steps down off the porch, her skinny hips moving. “I don’t have a granddaddy,” she said, without so much as a glance back. “I don’t care what you say. I never had a granddaddy and I don’t believe a word you say. You just a crazy old man telling me lies.”

  “I said go on now,” Obie said, waving an arm. “You get on away from here.”

  Obie Poole had come back to South Cairo on a bitter winter day in 1959, thirty-seven years after he’d left. He came back on the north-south railway train that let him out on an open wood platform not far from the river.

  “Obie Poole’s come back,” he muttered, his breath hanging in the air. “Obie Poole’s done come home.” He put his suitcase down beside him and looked around at where he’d once been a boy. At where they’d all once been boys.

  A wet snow was falling and the air was gray and cold. A few yards away from where he stood, the river was flowing heavy and full and quiet. Already, the raw damp that rose from the surface had begun to settle deep in his hips. The joints in his ankles and wrists felt stiff and swelled up. He hunched his shoulders away from the weather and let his eyes rest down the shoreline.

  He remembered that there’d been a string of houses that had stretched for a mile or so along the riverbank, but all there was now was one caved-in place after another. Most had slid off their stone foundations and were flattened out like a giant hand had pressed down on them. Thin, scrawny saplings grew out of the gaping windows and the roofs were stripped down to bare wood. The few places that had withstood the years were boarded up, the yards trashed out and weeded high.

  Wondering what had happened here, Obie glanced across the river at Cairo. A run of tidy houses that hadn’t been there before sat high up on the riverbank, their yards spaced with gray oaks. And where the Cairo Slaughterhouse should have been was a long run of rubble that spread all the way down to the water.

  Sweet Jesus, Obie thought. Where’d that damn train leave me anyway?

  It was snowing harder now and though it wasn’t much past midday, light was fading fast. Cold water was dribbling down the back of Obie’s neck and his feet were numb and aching. The road that led away into South Cairo was a mess of black mud. Each side was strung with high grass and water was rising in the ruts. About a half mile off, a small garage sat in a hollow of trees. He remembered buying hard candy and packets of chew tobacco there as a boy. A faded cola sign hung over the front door, smoke was snaking out of the stovepipe. The sight of it calmed Obie down a little bit and made him realize that he’d been standing out in this cold long enough.

  As he made his way through the slush along the side of the road, a couple of pickup trucks swung around the trees and headed toward him. The first one sped up as it passed by, sending up a splatter of mud that splashed cold against his trouser leg. The other downshifted hard with a grinding of gears and pulled up beside him.

  Two white boys were inside the cab. The driver was drinking from a soiled paper cup and staring out at him through the open window with a little grin on his face. The other one was slumped up against the passenger door.

  “Hey, old man,” the driver said. He leaned forward and switched off the engine. “What the hell you doing out in the cold wet?” He was a tall, skinny boy, his hair long over his ears. A few black hairs were growing on his chin and his skin was smooth and flushed. He was grinning wide now, like he’d been waiting his whole life for the day Obie Poole finally came home.

  “I ain’t doing nothing,” Obie said, moving his eyes away. “I’m just walking down this road.”

  “You always go walking with a suitcase?”

  “Well, I just come home,” Obie said. “On that north-south train. I been off playing ball for a time and I just come home.” He hefted his suitcase a little as if to walk away, but he stayed standing where he was.

  The boy in the passenger seat twisted his head. He took one look at Obie and let out a low moan. “C’mon, Lee,” he said, the words slurred. “I got to get home.”

  “Ain’t you a little old to be playing ball?” Lee asked, taking a sip out of his paper cup. The boy beside him moaned again and then laid his head back against the door frame. “I thought baseball was for little boys.” Down the road, two men were standing outside the old garage. They stood there for a while looking, then turned and went back inside.

  “Hey, old man,” Lee said again, and now his voice, too, was slurred and thick. His hand was resting on the edge of the open window and what was in the cup was spilling out onto the road.

  The day was growing bitter cold. A flat, gray sky hung low over the trees and snow was beginning to build up on the grass. There wasn’t a breath of air. The only sound was the ticking of the truck engine as it cooled.

  Obie glanced over at the pickup. The driver had stopped grinning and was staring off at the river. His eyes were dull and empty, as if whatever had once been in there had taken off and left. Obie felt a surge of fatigue go through him. He thought that this boy looked like every other white boy he’d ever seen in his life.

  “I played ball for thirty-seven years,” Obie said softly. “And I just come home for a little peace of mind. I don’t want no trouble with no one.”

  The boy suddenly shook his head hard. “Whew,” he breathed out. “We sure had us a time, didn’t we, Billy?” He pushed back in his seat and looked over at Obie.

  “I heard what you said, old man,” he said. He leaned his head out the window and the snow that fell, fell on his hair. “You one of those colored ballplayers, aren’t you? My daddy told me he’d seen the likes of you once. Up near Harrisford. Way back before I was born. He said you all played the game as good as any white man. Maybe it was you he saw play.”

  “Maybe,” Obie muttered, but he couldn’t recall playing so much as an inning up in Harrisford.

  The boy’s eyes stayed steady on Obie like there was something more he wanted to ask. But then he grinned and pulled
back inside the cab. “Hey, old man,” he said, “you ever see that nigger up in Milwaukee play ball? Hot damn. I’d like to see something like him. I tell you, that nigger had himself some kind of a year.”

  “Yes sir,” Obie said, nodding slowly. “He surely did. But I never did see that boy play. He come along after my time.” He looked down at his feet. They were wet and seeping water. He wondered if he would spend the rest of his life out here talking to this white boy.

  “Yeah,” Lee said. “I guess some of us don’t have no luck except the kind we don’t want.” He shifted his body and dug a crumpled dollar bill out of his pocket. “Here,” he said. “You go on and take this. Don’t say nobody never gave you nothing.”

  Obie stared at the bill hanging between the boy’s fingers. Well, lookee here, he thought. A dollar bill for Obie. He took it from the boy and balled it up in his hand. “I thank you,” he said.

  “Yeah,” the boy said. “Well, it’s nothing much.” He switched on the engine and shoved the truck into gear. “I just stopped to pass some time,” he said, without a look at Obie. “I didn’t stop to give you no trouble.” He wiped a fist at the moisture on the inside of the windshield. Then he let the truck roll forward slowly.

  “It’s going to snow all night, old man,” he said. “You better find yourself someplace warm or you’ll catch your death.”

  Obie stood in the falling snow and watched the truck drive across the bridge and disappear among the trees of Cairo. He let the wadded-up dollar bill drop from his hand to the wet mud. And then he hefted his suitcase and, once again, began his slow walk back home.

  A few months after Obie returned, he bought an abandoned house that sat up from the river on the outskirts of South Cairo. It was a small, rundown old place, but he didn’t see the need for more than what it was. He didn’t mind that the wood floors in the three rooms were warped or that the supports beneath the porch had rotted out. Or even that the stretch of ground that ran all the way to the river’s edge wasn’t much more than swamp full of bugs and snakes. That house was the only thing that Obie had ever owned in his life, and he felt as if he was finally in a place where he belonged.