Whistling In The Dark

...and their home since then had been tiny spaces of little kindnesses people had shown them along the way. 

"Poor little kid. He just sits over there every morning as the sun comes up. Never says a word. Just sits there watching the ocean and listening to the waves. 

One time I walked over to him. 'How you doin'?' I asked. 'What's your name?' He just looked at me. Didn't say a thing. 

I figured he didn't understand me. His granddaddy and momma are migrant workers picking peaches here until they move on down the coast. I thought maybe he only spoke Spanish. 

Finally, he whistled. It wasn't like a normal whistle with a shrill sound and two notes. Nope, it was an unusual whistle. It had all kinds of sounds in it, all kinds of notes. I've never heard anything like it in my life. It was like he was tryin' to say somethin' to me, but I had no idea what it was. Then he looked back at the ocean and was quiet again. 

I feel for him. I wonder what we could do to help him?"

Folks had talked that way about him since the day he was born. 

"Poor little baby," said the labor and delivery nurses at the hospital. "Born on a day like today. And his family has no papers. What could we do to help him?"

His family had just crossed into the United States. They had ridden the train, The Beast the migrants called it, all the way from the scorched earth of El Salvador's twelve year civil war to the Mexican - U.S. border. 

A coyote had brought them into the promised land and had taken them all the way to Miami. 

His mamí was pregnant with him and the time had come for her to deliver. The coyote stopped in front of St. Mary's church, made the sign of the cross, and put them out on the street with nothing but the tattered clothes on their backs and the battered shoes on their feet. As a matter of fact, his mamí’s shoes had fallen apart many miles ago so she was barefooted.

His abuelo lifted the iron knocker on the church's door and let it fall back to it's iron plate. He did this again and again until an old nun cracked open the door to the night.

The nun was a good woman, full of wisdom and compassion. She had worked in the city for many years. "I've seen it all," she said many times. Or she thought she had. For of all the people she had seen as an inner-city nun - convicts, addicts, broken people, oppressed people - she had never seen the beauty and suffering in the faces of Gustavo and Maria at the church door that night.

Their eyes were light with beauty, the beauty of being in a land without war, the beauty of bringing a new life into the world. Yet their bodies were heavy with suffering. They were filthy dirty after thousands of miles of migration over the long, treacherous road. Their shoulders sagged under the weight of years of homelessness, for their first home had been destroyed by bombs and their home since then had been tiny spaces of little kindnesses people had shown them along the way. 

They were quiet with the silence of the fear of the unknown. 

The nun was especially struck by the sight of Maria. She was sitting on the bottom step of the church, her bare feet pressed flat against the concrete sidewalk, her arms wrapped around her swollen belly, and her face anguished in the pains of labor.

"Vamanos á la carro," said the nun. "We have to get to the hospital now!"

Whales and Hope

Tomás, his abuelo and his mami were migrant workers from El Salvador. His abuelo made his way to the United States in the 1980's, when life in El Salvador was mostly death. He came with his daughter, Tomás' mami, who was pregnant with him, to the border. 

A kind priest heard their story and led them to an Underground Railroad that took them to a church in Arizona and gave them sanctuary. They were never able to get their papers and become naturalized American citizens, but they began a migration across the country and dropped their blood, sweat and tears onto the ground across the West, Midwest and South until they found themselves in South Carolina.

They were many thousands of miles from where they began, from home. 

They began picking tomatoes and peaches near the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.  Tomás didn't know where they would go next, only that they would go. He used to despair about the going until he learned that blue whales are migrants, too. They went many thousands of miles, season after season, year after year, like him. That made his heart feel hopeful.

Tomás knew that if a blue whale's brain were a motor, it would be 2.5 Formula 1 race car engines. He also knew if a human being's brain were a motor, it would be a 1960 VW Beetle's engine. His brain was like the blue whale's brain. 

He could solve complex problems simply. He was a living Occam's Razor. It was the little Franciscan monk William of Occam in the Middle Ages who said, "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one," and Tomás' mind always tended toward those simple, best solutions.

As a matter of fact, when he looked at a problem, any problem, it was as if the problem began to glow with the light of a halo and the answer began to show itself to him in that light.

He understood people in this way, too. When he looked at a person, any person, it was as if the person began to glow with the light of a halo and the essence of that person began to show itself to him in that light.

He always found beauty in the plain, genius in the simple and wonder in the ordinary.

"Whales are the most intelligent creatures in the world," thought Tomás. "And I am like them.

That made him hopeful, too.

.

William H. Johnson - "Still Life"

Listening

Tomás had small ears. Well, they were less than small. They were minute. He used to be self conscious about them. When he stepped into a classroom for the first time his glasses slipped off one of those ears and hung crooked across his face. His ears weren't big enough to hold his glasses.

"We come from a family with little ears but big hearts," said his abuelo one day as Tomás was moping down a row of tomatoes, thinking about the laughter of his classmates. "Good thing you don't talk. You can use your brain for listening. Your ears sure won't help you out much.

As he grew older and fell in love with whales, though, he discovered that blue whales, which are the biggest animals to have ever lived on earth, have ears the size of the point of a pencil. "The blue whales know how I feel," he thought. And that made him feel better.

Tomás really did have a big heart. Literally. One day, when he was a toddler, he fell at the end of a row of tomatoes in his abuelo's garden and bruised his ribs on a jagged rock. His abuelo mami took him to the free medical clinic. His abuelo wrapped his arms around him and placed his giant calloused hand on his chest to keep him still. He took quick, shallow breaths because if he breathed slowly and deeply his whole body hurt. 

When they looked at the x-ray the doctor exclaimed, "His ribs are bruised but, my God, look at the size of his heart! I've never seen a heart so big in a child so small." An echocardiogram confirmed it, "It's rare in children, "said the doctor, "But his heart in enlarged because his heart muscle isn't squeezing well and his heart grew bigger to compensate. The good news is, we can treat him. He can lead a nearly normal life. He'll just have to use his heart in different ways than other folks."

Later, with a book by his bedside, his abuelo said, "I want you to have a listening ears and a big heart, my grandson, so it seems like nature is helping my wishes come true. Don't you worry. I'll always love you just the way you are. You're perfect to me and for the world."

His abuelo kissed him on the forehead.

It comforted him again when he learned that a blue whale has the largest heart on earth. It's as big as a Volkswagen Beetle.

"I have a heart like a blue whale," he thought.

And that made him smile.

William H. Johnson - "Flowers"

Whistling in the Dark

...and their home since then had been tiny spaces of little kindnesses people had shown them along the way. 

"Poor little kid. He just sits over there every morning as the sun comes up. Never says a word. Just sits there watching the ocean and listening to the waves. One time I walked over to him. 'How you doin'?' I asked. 'What's your name?' He just looked at me. Didn't say a thing. I figured he didn't understand me. His grandpa and mom are migrant workers picking peaches here until they move on up the coast. I thought maybe he only spoke Spanish. Finally, he just whistled. It wasn't like a normal whistle with a shrill sound and two notes. Nope, it was an unusual whistle. It had all kinds of sounds in it, all kinds of notes. I've never heard anything like it in my life. It was like he was tryin' to say somethin' to me, but I had no idea what it was. Then he looked back at the ocean and was quiet again. I feel sorry for him. I wonder what we could do to help him?"

Folks had talked that way about him since the day he was born. "Poor little baby," said the labor and delivery nurses at the hospital. "Born on a day like today. And his family has no papers. What could we do to help him?"

His family had just crossed into the United States. They had ridden the train, the beast, all the way from the scorched earth of El Salvador's twelve year civil war to the Mexican - U.S. border. A human smuggler had brought them into the promised land of the United States and had taken them all the way to Miami. His mamí was pregnant and the time had come for her to deliver the baby. The smuggler stopped in front of St. Mary's cathedral, made the sign of the cross, and put them out on the street with nothing but the tattered clothes on their backs and the battered shoes on their feet. As a matter of fact, his mamí’s shoes had fallen apart many miles ago so she had no shoes at all.

His abuelo lifted the iron knocker on the church's door and let it fall back to it's iron plate. He did this again and again until a nun cracked open the door to the night.

The nun was a good woman full of wisdom and compassion. She had worked in the city for many years. "I've seen it all," she said many times. Or she thought she had. For of all the people she had seen as an inner-city nun - convicts, addicts, broken people, oppressed people - she had never seen the beauty and suffering in the faces of Gustavo and Maria at the church door that night.

Their eyes were light with beauty, the beauty of being in a land without war, the beauty of bringing a new life into the world. Yet their bodies were heavy with suffering. They were filthy dirty after thousands of miles of migration over the long, treacherous road. Their shoulders sagged under the weight of years of homelessness, for their first home had been destroyed by bombs and their home since then had been tiny spaces of little kindnesses people had shown them along the way. 

They were quiet with the silence of the fear of the unknown. 

The nun was especially struck by the sight of Maria. She was sitting on the bottom step of the church, her bare feet pressed flat against the concrete sidewalk, her arms wrapped around her swollen belly, and her face anguished in the pains of labor.

"Vamanos á la carro," said the nun. "We have to get to the hospital now!"

Tomás

Listen.

He’s a genius, but no one knows this about him except me. He looks at the world with a heart and mind full of curiosity. That is how I first learned about him - because of his curiosity about whales. 

"There's a boy who knows a lot about whales," came the word over the water. And he did. 

He drew a beautiful, detailed picture of a bowhead whale and wrote beneath it - "A bowhead whale's blubber is over two feet thick so it can withstand the Arctic cold. The bowhead can create it's own breathing hole by breaking through ice up to one foot thick." 

He drew a blue whale and wrote - A blue whale's heart is as big as a Volkswagon Beetle, but it's ears are the size of the point of a pencil." 

And he drew a sperm whale with these words - "For many years, oil from a sperm whale's head was used to provide light for people. In fact, people measure the strength of light in lumens, which is the light of one pure white spermaceti candle." 

He’s a whale genius.

It’s not his ingenuity that causes me to love him, though. No, I don't love him for what he can do. I love him for what he can't do. He’s ten years old and he can’t speak. He hasn't spoken a single word in his whole life.

When he was two, his mamí talked with him in the language of poetry as she walked with him tied to her back down the long rows of peaches under the South Carolina sun. His mamí reached up to the trees, took the peaches in her hands, and rubbed the fuzzy skin against his soft cheek and whispered,

Amo el trozo de tierra que tú eres

porque de las praderas planetarias

otra estrella no tengo. Tú repites

la multiplicación del universo.

I love the handful of earth you are.

Because of it's meadows, vast as a planet,

I have no other star. You are my replica

of the multiplying universe.

She waited for him to talk back to her in toddling language, to say words like mamí and amo and tú, but he didn't say them. He didn't say anything at all. He only looked at her with his wide, unblinking, brown eyes, eyes the color of the deep parts of the earth, and jutted out his little, bottom lip as if to say, "There’s much I want to say, but I can't. I just can't find the words."

Now, people ask him, "What's your name?" or "How old are you?" or "How are you?" and he answers them with a whistle instead of with words. They ask his abuelo and mamí, "What's wrong with him?" and they simply sigh the sighs of people who have carried heavy loads on their backs and in their hearts and answer, "Dios sabe, God knows." 

I know, too. 

I want to tell you so you will know. 

That's the purpose of life, right? To know and to be known. If I don't tell you his story, if I don't help you hear him, then he might never be known. And that would be sad, because he is someone the world needs to know.

William H. Johnson - "Mother and Child"

Taki

In a place that hadn't been seen by many people, she hadn't been seen by many people either. 

The Iñuit people know that every snowflake that falls from the sky is different from all the other snowflakes that fall from the sky. No two snowflakes are alike. No two snowflakes have ever been alike. No two snowflakes will ever be alike.

I’m dropping some Iñuit wisdom for you.

The crystals that come together and build the beautiful snowflake are so sensitive to the conditions around them, a wind blowing across the ice or a cloud moving between the sun and the earth or the heartbeat of a whale surfacing in the waters of the Arctic Ocean can change them into something new. 

So Taki's mother and father knew in the beginning that she was unique, that when she was born something new was happening in the world.

This is how they knew.

On the first day of her life, as her mother bundled her in warm blankets in her arms, she made a sound her father had heard only once in his life. 

When he was a boy, her father was roaming across the ice near the edge of the sea, hunting whales with the elders of his village. There, silently by the sea, a bowhead whale rose to breathe out his old, salty breath and breathe in the cold, crisp, clean air of the far north. 

The balaena mysticetus, the bowhead whale, was the subsistence and a symbol for the Iñuit people. Whenever they say it’s name, they whisper it with reverence and awe.

He raised the harpoon to strike the whale, and prayed an ancient prayer taught to him by an old woman...

I think over again my small 

adventures

My fears, those small ones 

that seemed so big

For all the vital things I had 

to get and reach

And yet there is only one great 

thing, the only thing 

To live to see the great day 

that dawns

And the light that fills the 

world

Then he plunged the harpoon into the whale.

Normally, when a bowhead whale is struck by a harpoon, it dives to the depths of the icy water and tries to flea across the sea. It hopes with all it's life to live. 

This whale, though, was not a normal whale. 

As he stood at the edge of the ice and looked into the eyes of the bowhead whale, the whale willingly gave up it's life.

“Did my prayer reach the small, powerful ears of the giant, kind whale?” he wondered. “Is the ancient wisdom working in the world again?”

The sound that Taki made on that first day of her life was the same sound the bowhead whale had made as her father looked into it's eyes.

Newspaper

The Ku Klux Klan does not much worry me. When they get together under the cover of darkness and white sheets, in the flickering light of burning crosses, around heated, hateful speeches, I can see and hear and feel who they are, what they do, and why they are there.

The silent people worry me a lot, though. They don't get together in big groups. They walk around in the light of day in shirts and ties, dresses and heels, t-shirts and tennis shoes. They go to church. They speak in small groups, many small groups in many places. I can't see and hear and feel them.

I think I know what they want, the Klan and the silent people, I do. They want the world to be black and white. They want the black part of the world - colored folks, poor folks, gay folks - to stay in it's place, quiet and powerless. They want the white part of the world - white folks, wealthy folks, straight folks - to stay in charge and powerful.

The Klan yells it loudly.

The silent people whisper it softly.

I know how many yellers there are. I can look them in the eye, stand nose to nose with them and tell them who I am, what I do, and why I am here. I can confront their hatred and fear and injustice with love and understanding and justice.

I don't know how many silenters there are. That's what worries me.

I simply hope there are more folks filled with love, understanding and justice than the Klan and the silent people.

Snow

Everything was covered in white.

The fields that provided food for us to eat and vegetables for us to trade, the trees that provided shade for us to rest under and lumber for us to sell, and even Poppa's hunched shoulders as he trudged his way to the barn to milk the cows were blanketed in snow. 1948 would be a year of surprises for us in Clarendon County, South Carolina, surprises that started on the first day of January when we had the coldest stretch of days and the heaviest and deepest of snows that the midlands had seen in a hundred years.

Momma put her arm around me and we snuggled close together as we watched Poppa disappear into the blinding whiteness of the pouring snow.

"My, my...look at all that snow, Carter...look at all that snow."

"It's turnin' ever'thin' white. It's beautiful."

"Yes, sweetie, it is beautiful."

"It makes ever'thin' look so bright and clean and new."

"Yes, it does...it sure does. But, you know what? I like to think about what's underneath the snow."

"But there's nothin' but frozen ground and bare limbs underneath the snow."

"And don't forget there's a Poppa under it, too!"

"Why do you like to think 'bout things like that, things that're frozen and bare?"

"Well, it's 'cause of som'thin' that happened to me when I was a little girl about your age. Ev'ry Sat'dy afternoon, my Daddy and Momma would take me and your Aunts and Uncles into town. We didn't own our own farm like your Poppa and I do now, so we lived in what was called a 'sharecroppers shack' on Mr. Wilson's farm.

That shack was a dark, bare place that was too small for a family of nine. We all worked so hard on that farm, but on Sat'dy afternoons Mr. Wilson let us outta work to go to town. In town, ev'rythin' looked like it does now under this blanket of snow - white, clean, and new.

The som'thin' that happened that I wanna tell you 'bout is this. We were walkin' down the sidewalk, Daddy in front, Momma behind him, and the seven of us chil'ren all in a row from the tallest to the shortest. My goodness, we did look like ducks in a row, we chil'ren did. A young man and a young woman, a white young man and woman, came a'walkin' toward us arm in arm. As was the custom, we stepped off the sidewalk to let the white folks pass. I looked down at the ground, as I was supposed to do when a white man passed me, and it was then that I saw a sup'risin' thing.

The cement sidewalk had a small crack in it, and out of that broken place grew a flower, a tiny flower. Even though I was a'wearin' my Sat'dy dress, I knelt down on the ground close to the flower so I could cup my hands around it and really see it. It was the most beautiful flower I had ever seen in my life and it is still the most beautiful flower I ever saw. It's petals were red and yellow, its stem was green, and the center a'holdin' it's seeds was black. The yellow was the color of the sun in the early mornin', the red was the color of the sun in the late ev'nin', the green was the color of the april fields at dawn and dusk, and the black was 'zactly the color of black folks like us's skin. And there was that flower, a'growin' through the hard, white concrete that covered the earth!
That's why I like to think 'bout things that are covered up, Carter, 'bout things that're underneath. Oft'times, you cain't see them but they're there and they're beautiful and they're a'waitin' for a crack so they can grow and be seen and make the world a more beautiful place."

Now, I loved to spend time with my Momma and if I had to choose the best times I spent with her then I'd choose times like those, times when she held me close and told me stories. I felt her protective arms around me, felt my future brother or sister move and move in her belly to the rhythm of her words, breathed in the smells of buttermilk and flour from the morning's biscuits, and saw her story as if I were there with her.

Everything' was covered in white. The ground around me was frozen. But everything inside of me was full of color and warm.

character sketch - Carver

Just tonight, he stood quietly beside his desk with a magnifying glass in his hand. I looked at him from the splintered pine frame of our kitchen door where I was standing. He turned around slowly, like a person who is in deep thought, and looked at me through the lens of the glass. His magnified eye was astonishingly big and brown – as big as the globe in my second grade classroom and as brown as the turned soil of our farm.

- Carver, why you up? It’s the middle of the night.

- I cain’t sleep.

- What you doin’?

- I’m studyin’ a tomato.

I walked to him and knelt beside him. I turned his magnifying glass around and looked into his eye. I saw clearly the parts of his eye that my teacher taught to me at school – the colored part that is the iris and the black part that is the pupil. But it was Carver, my five-year-old brother, who taught me how these parts work together to give us our sense of sight. It was Carver who helped me understand how we see. His lessons always began and ended with questions and were filled with an amazing assortment of facts that came from God only knows where. Our talk about seeing went something like this –

- Carter, you know the five senses?

- Yeah. Let me think…seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.

-Did’ya know if we divided our brains into three parts, two of the parts would be filled up by seeing?

- Naw, I didn’t know that. Seein’ is that important, huh?

- Yeah. You know what a person who studies the inside parts of the body is called?

- Naw, I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout that.

- Well, that person is called an anatomist. An anatomist is kind of like an artist whose art he’ps us know
where those parts are and what they do. Did you know there were artists like that?

- Naw, I didn’t.

- Yeah, there was this anatomist in Africa a long time ago named Rufus. He he’pd us understand the parts of the eye. Do you want me to teach you about the eye?

- Sure

- There’s a thin layer on the inside of the eyeball. It’s the retina. No one could see into the retina until microscopes were invented. When people looked inside the retina for the first time they found millions of rod and cone cells. The rods and cones find rays of light and turn them into signals for the optic nerves. The optic nerves send signals to the brain and it turns them into pictures. ‘Cause of the way lenses work, the picture is upside down. The brain turns it right side up. Idn’ that amazing?

- Yeah, it's amazing. And, you know what? So are you.

He taught me the parts of the eye that helped him see the world as everyone sees it. In that moment, though, deep in the dark of night, I tried to see the parts that I didn’t understand, the parts that woke my brother in the middle of the night to study a tomato while our corner of the world slept, the parts that helped him see the world as only Carver could see it. But those parts remained hidden to me. I gently put my arm around his shoulders and held him close to me.

character sketch - Momma

Everything was covered in white. The fields that provided food for us to eat and vegetables for us to trade, the trees that provided shade for us to rest under and lumber for us to sell, and even my Poppa's hunched shoulders as he trudged his way to the barn to milk the cows were blanketed in snow. 1948 would be a year of surprises for us in Clarendon County, South Carolina and for all of the people in all of the places in the United States of America where the Jim Crow laws were enforced by law or by practice, the Jim Crow laws that gave us black folks our place and them white folks their place and no place for us all to be together. Yes, it would be a year of surprises, the first of which was the coldest stretch of days and the heaviest and deepest of snows that the midlands had seen in a hundred years. Momma had her arm around me as we snuggled close together and watched Poppa disappear in the blinding whiteness of the pouring snow.

- My, my...look at all that snow, Carter...look at all that snow.

- It's turnin' ever'thin' white. It's beautiful.

- Yes, sweetheart, it is beautiful.

- It makes ever'thin' look so bright and clean and new.

- Yes, it does...it does. But, you know what? I like to think about what's underneath the snow.

- But there's nothin' but frozen ground and bare limbs underneath the snow.

- And don't forget there's a Poppa under it, too!

- Hee hee hee. So why do you like to think 'bout things like that, things that're frozen and bare?

- Well, it's 'cause of som'thin' that happened to me when I was a little girl about your age. Ev'ry Sat'dy afternoon, my Daddy and Momma would take me and your Aunts and Uncles into town. We didn't own our own farm like your Daddy and I do now, so we lived in what was called a 'sharecroppers shack' on Mr. Wilson's farm. That shack was a dark, bare place that was too small for a family of nine. We all worked so hard on that farm, but on Sat'dy afternoons Mr. Wilson let us outta work to go to town. In town, ev'rythin' looked like it does now under this blanket of snow - white, clean, and new.

The som'thin' that happened that I wanna tell you 'bout is this. We were walkin' down the sidewalk, Daddy in front, Momma behind him, and the seven of us chil'ren all in a row from the tallest to the shortest. My goodness, we did look like ducks in a row, we chil'ren did. A young man and a young woman, a white young man and woman, came a'walkin' toward us arm in arm. As was the custom, we stepped off the sidewalk to let the white folks pass. I looked down at the ground, as I was supposed to do when a white man passed me, and it was then that I saw a sup'risin' thing.

The cement sidewalk had a small crack in it, and out of that broken place grew a flower, a tiny flower. Even though I was a'wearin' my Sat'dy dress, I knelt down on the ground close to the flower so I could cup my hands around it and really see it. It was the most beautiful flower I had ever seen in my life and it is still the most beautiful flower I ever saw. Its petals were red and yella, its stem was green, and the center a'holdin' it's seeds was black. The yella was the color of the sun in the early mornin', the red was the color of the sun in the late ev'nin', the green was the color of the april fields at dawn and dusk, and the black was 'zactly the color of black folks like us's skin. And there was that flower, a'growin' through the hard, white concrete that covered the earth!

That's why I like to think 'bout things that are covered up, Carter, 'bout things that're underneath. Oft'times, you cain't see them but they're there and they're beautiful and they're a'waitin' for a crack so they can grow and be seen and make the world a better place.

Now, I like to spend time with my Momma and if I have to choose the best times I spend with her then I'd choose times like this, times when she holds me close and tells me stories. Just now I felt her protective arms around me, felt my future brother or sister move and move in her belly to the rhythm of her words, breathed in the smells of buttermilk and flour from this mornings biscuits, and saw her story as if I were there with her in her mind and in her heart. Everything' was covered in white. The ground around me was frozen. But everything inside of me was full of color and warm.

character sketch - Poppa

“You always ‘a askin’ questions,” said my Poppa early to me one morning as I walked my shoeless feet through the freshly turned soil. His hands were on the plow and he was following our old mule Charlie and I was following him.

“That’s a good thing, askin’ questions. Did you know questions drive the world forward, like I’m drivin’ ol’ Charlie down the row? Did you know questions can turn the world upside down, like the plow turns the hard, rocky ground into soft, helpful soil? Did you know questions are like the seeds we’re gonna plant in these rows? It takes a long time to get from seeds to fruits and vegetables and it takes a long time to get from questions to answers that can make a difference in the world. But seeds change to food that feeds people and questions change to answers that can make the world a better place. You keep ‘a askin’ questions always, Carter. Always keep ‘a askin’ questions.”

I’ve always tried to do just that, to ask as many questions as I can ask.

lightning bugs and soil

lightning bugs and soil

- Hey lightning bugs.

At the sound of Carver's voice, the lightning bugs in the mason jar on the table beside our beds began flashing their lights until a warm glow surrounded us.

A surprising thing happened on the day he was born. My little baby brother was wrapped in a blanket, snuggled by Momma’s side with his wide brown eyes open. He was as still as the water in our farm pond on a mid July afternoon. A lightning bug came into the room with the breeze and lit gently on his nose. I watched in wonder as he blinked his eyes four short blinks and the lightning bug blinked it’s light four short times. He blinked his eyes three long blinks and it blinked its light three long times. Was my brother talking with the lightning bug? Was such a thing possible? The lightning bug took flight and went out the window it came through.

When he was two he was laying on his back underneath the afternoon shade of the old apple tree in the back corner of our yard. I was laying beside him, looking up into the branches heavy with green apples, a color of green that we can't rightly make but that God seems to be able to create with a stroke from a divine brush and palate. I was sharing my thoughts about this with Carver, talking quietly and circling the pad of my thumb around and around his cubby cheek, when a lightning bug lit on his nose and flashed its soft yellow light three times. His eyes turned inward toward the lightning bug. He blinked three times, as if he was sharing a soft light of his own that was yet unknown to human heart and mind but could only be understood by the natural world around him. I knew then that he was special, the kind of special person who comes into the world to help it and make it a better place.

On that same summer evening, when he was two years old, with waddling walk and toddling talk, we were holding hands under the same apple tree.

- Carver, be very quiet, look very clos’ly, and listen very care’fly, okay?

- ‘Kay!

- What color is the grass?

- Gween!

- The color is green. Good. Do you know what's special about the color green?

- Gween is special?

- Yeah, it is special. Look under you. Look out over Poppa's fields. Look up in the trees. Green is under our feet. Green is all around us. Green is over us. Green is everywhere.

- Gween is evweewheyah.

- Uh huh.

I put my hands on the ground, pushed my fingers into the soil, and pulled away a patch of grass.

- What is this?

- It's duwt.

- Well, it's soil. Poppa taught me the difference between dirt and soil and now I want to teach it to you, okay?

- 'kay.

- The word “dirt” comes from the old, old word “drit”, which means “excrement”. “Excrement” is just a big word that means “poop”.

- Poop!

- Ha! Dirt is the bottom part of the ground. It's used to make a road or a floor.

The word “soil” comes from the old, old words “solium” and “solum”, which mean “seat” and “ground”.

Soil is the top part of the ground. It helps plants grow. It's black or dark brown. It's made up of helpful things.

Are you lis’nin’?

- Yeah!

- Well, I want you to remember that ev’rybody in the world is like the green grass. We’re all the same. We all have hearts and minds and souls and bodies. No person is better than another. We’re all good and we’re all green on the inside.

- ‘Kay! We’ew aw good and aw gween on th’ inside!

- Yeah, but if it’s hot ev’ry day and it don’t rain for weeks and weeks, the grass gets brittle and ugly. Some people are like that on the outside. Life just dries them up and they do ugly things. You gonna’ see them and hear them when we go to town with Momma and Poppa. They gonna’ tell us that we’re dirt, that we’re only good for being used, that we’re no better’n “poop.” Ev’ry time that happ’ns, I want you to remember that we’re not dirt. I want you to reach out and hold my hand, and when you feel my hand I want you to remember that we’re soil, that we he’p the earth grow, that we’re good in the world. Can you do that? Can you hold my hand? Can you remember that? Can you remember that we’re soil?

Carver reached out his toddling hand to me. I took it gently into my own little hand. We were light. We were green. We were soil. We were brothers.

William H. Johnson - "A View Down Akersgate, Oslo"

character sketch - Corky

“Hey li’l brothers,” Corky slurred as we stepped off the sidewalk to let him pass by on his bicycle.  A broken headlight dangled from two frayed wires, the once fiery red frame was faded by rain and sun and tarnished by rust and seasons, and spokes were missing from the wobbly wheels.  He smelled of old liquor, new sweat, and days without bath or change of clothes.  A lens on his glasses was cracked but he didn’t seem to notice.

“What’s happ’nin brother?”  He stopped and leaned unsteadily on one leg to greet the minister of the little Baptist mission for white folks across the railroad tracks.  He leaned too far and crashed to the ground with a thud and a moan. The bemused minister untangled him from the thicket of arms, legs and metal, lifted him  onto his feet, and brushed the red chalky dust and tiny jagged rocks from his shirt, pants, and skin.

“Corky, are you okay?  What in the world…?”

“No…nope…yep…yes, I’m okay.  Hey, where’re you off to?

“I’m goin’ to the noon Holy Week Service in town.  It’s at the First Baptist Church today.  Let’s park your bike.  You can come with me.“

“Well hell.  You Baptists go to church all the time.  Even on a Thursday.  You all must need it more than other folks do!”

“The services are for ev’rybody…Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians…ev’rybody.  I reckon we all need it!  Come on.  It’ll do us both good.

Hello there, boys.  I almost didn’t see you.  Come here.  Close your eyes.  Hold out your hands.”

We said hello to the minister, careful not to look him in the eyes as Momma and Poppa taught us to do with white folks.  He wore a blue shirt, ‘Dickies’ pants like the ones Poppa wore in the fields, and tattered black shoes.  This must have been his uniform because it was what he was wearing every time we saw him. His bespectacled eyes were circled by perfectly round lenses in wire frames that hooked around his ears and made him look more like a college professor than a new minister just out of minister training school and just starting ministering in our town.  We came to him, closed our eyes, held out our hands and felt the small, barrel shapes of the chewing gum they sold in big barrels at the counter of the S & H Green Stamp store on Main Street.  It was a store we couldn’t enter but that we knew well from the detailed stories of all the things inside by our white friends whose families were welcome to shop there.

“Thank you, sir!”

“You’re welcome.  Now you boys run on to where you’re going and do what you need to be doing.  Blow some bubbles along the way!”

The minister put his arm around Corky’s shoulders and they started up the road toward Main Street.  As they lumbered along side by side the midday sun sat high in the sky and cast their shadows straight down behind them.  A minister and the town drunk going to church together!  It was a sight to see.  We were finished with the chore Poppa gave us to do so there was time before we had to be home for lunch.

“Carver, I’ve never seen a drunk person go into a church before.  What ‘cha ‘spect’ll happ’n?  You reckon he’ll get struck by light’nin’?”

“I don’t know but I figure som’pin’ll happ’n.”

Carver was only five years old but he knew the scientific method like a seasoned scientist.  At home on the farm he was always leading me through the steps of his way of thinking.  We found that it helped us to think this way about people and events because it helped us work our way through our place and position in the world and ways of white folks.

“Well, we did the first step in the method.  We asked a question.”

“Let’s follow behind ‘em and see what happens.”

We’ve never been inside of the white folks churches downtown before.  We’ve only seen the outside of them.  The church we go to is plain and simple.  It’s a one-story building with a steeple on top.  It’s made with pine boards painted white.  There’s an iron bell in the steeple, a bell that rings us awake and calls us to church on Sundays.

The white folks churches, on the other hand, are beautiful and stately.  They’re the tallest buildings in town.  They’re made with bricks, stones, and oak wood and look like castles on each corner of the town square.  There are copper bells in their towering steeples, bells that ring in each hour of the day and play hymns at noontime.

The First Baptist Church is the biggest church of all.  The town doctors, lawyers, bankers, and planters go there, the men and their families who run our town, who cast long shadows over us black folks that stretch from Jim Crow to the Civil War all the way back to the slavery days.  We hid behind the grand old magnolia tree on the front lawn to watch the minister and corky climb the steps to the heavy oaken doors that opened in toward the entrance hall.

Two men in their Sunday suits stood at the doors to welcome them to the service.  We could see around them inside of the wide doors.  On the wall there was a picture of Jesus with long brown hair and a long beard with light around his face looking up to heaven.  Under the picture there was a long table with the words “This Do In Remembrance Of Me” carved into the front of it.  There were colorful spring flowers and gold offering plates on top of it.

The men reached out to shake hands with the minister and Corky.  The minister took his hand from Corky’s shoulder to offer a handshake in return.  Corky wobbled at the sudden freedom and fell into the arms of one of the shocked men. You should have seen that usher’s face!  He looked like he had just eaten a plain radish chased by a spoonful of castor oil!  He pushed Corky back onto the embarrassed minister and into the other usher.  He must have breathed in Corky’s smell because he turned his face away wretching and gagging.

The discombobulated group held onto each other and sort of jitterbugged their way into the church.  They stopped in stunned surprise in front of the table.  Corky raised his arms.  A bottle of liquor he was hiding in the waist of his wrinkled, baggy pants fell out and crashed onto the marble floor.  Streams of whisky flowed everywhere.  Pieces of glass gleamed in the flood of light.

“What the …?!”

“Get him out of here right now!”

The poor minister looked frantically around for a broom or a cloth to clean up the mess.  The smell of the whisky wafted over the lawn and burned our noses.  What were the folks in the sanctuary thinking?

“Go on.  Get him outta here!  We’ll clean it up.”

The bewildered minister took Corky into his arms and limped him down the steps and onto the sidewalk.  They hobbled away.

The men came out onto the steps.  Nervous chuckles gave way to relieved belly laughs.

“He oughtta’ve known not to bring him here.  Especially when he’s drunk. Somebody needs to sit down with that boy and let him know what’s what.”

“Yeah, the next thing you know he’ll be tryin’ to bring nig..."

We moved on around the tree and started home.

William H. Johnson

William H. Johnson was a painter from South Carolina. He was born in 1901 in Florence, S.C. I discovered his life and work at the Greenville County Museum of Art. His paintings of farm life for African Americans in S.C. during the pre-Civil Rights Movement days and windows into the life and hearts of the characters in my story. It was a serendipity for me to find him.

You can find out about William H. Johnson by clicking on his name above. You can also visit the excellent Smithsonian Institute American Art website and type in his name - http://www.americanart.si.edu

William H. Johnson - "Abraham Lincoln"