The Planet of Junior Brown Page 3

  “Mama, why you always have to bust in on me?” Junior’s head throbbed as he realized the mama of his mind believed he was afraid to take his lesson.

  Buddy scrambled over the rocks and tried to get Junior to his feet. “Are you hurt?” he said. “Looky, you gone and tore your pants at the knee.” Buddy tried to lift Junior under the arms. Big and strong, he still couldn’t budge Junior. “Come on, get up,” Buddy said. “We can take us a bus right on Riverside Drive and you won’t have to walk so far.”

  “Don’t you dare to get on a bus!” Junior’s mother let loose her fear. “You’ll never get there if you get on a bus!”

  Junior’s shoulders were wrenched once in a sob and then were still. He bowed his head, trying to think. The voice bursting in on him at any time had weakened his nerve. He was on the verge of blurting something about Miss Peebs, so he started talking as fast as he could.

  Buddy sat down in front of Junior, stunned by Junior’s stream of words.

  “Seven-thirty,” Junior said. “We were all finished with the Weight Watchers. I promised Mama I would come back again. I had to do that. They were all waiting for me to say how I would lose ten pounds by next week and come back to lose some more. You know how I can’t stop eating once I get started. I just can’t keep from it. I get out of bed and I don’t even know it. I’m at the refrigerator and I don’t even realize. I eat it all up, everything. I cook the eggs, bacon—and it’s like I’m thinking about something miles away and I don’t know. I never remember I shouldn’t be eating until it’s too late.

  “We left the Weight Watchers and Mama kept on saying how nice everybody had been. She still think they gonna lynch you if you go downtown too far.”

  “She halfway right, too,” Buddy couldn’t help saying.

  “Anyway,” Junior said, “she got started on how we ought to get out of our black world more. With Daddy gone all week, we are getting to be like hermits, was what she told me. I didn’t say nothing because I was hungry and I just wanted us to get on home. And then Mama took this envelope out of her pocketbook. She say to me, ‘Junior, look here what I have for us. We are going out tonight.’ Right then I began to sweat because in the envelope she had two tickets for a concert at the big Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Mama say to me, ‘Junior, it is a modern dance concert we are going to see.’

  “And I say to her, ‘Mama, please, just let me go on home. I got to get me some rest. Please, these Weight Watchers have got me all upset.’

  “Mama, she say, ‘Junior, you are not going to hide out in your room. You have nothing to be ashamed of. A little overgrown you may well be but, Junior, you are talented and you will not hide!’

  “I was wearing my gray suit and my raincoat. Mama, she had on a black dress and that black coat she has with the fur at the collar. She even had her medicine with her. We both looked all right but once we were practically there,” said Junior, “I got to thinking that everybody would stare at us. By the time we were in the lobby, it looked to me like everybody was shrinking away from me. You know, like they were trying to keep from looking at my fat. And Mama, she looked like she wasn’t sure of what she was doing. Even she started to shrink away.

  “And then I had a hard time fitting into my seat,” Junior said. “I started wheezing, the way Mama does when she’s sick. It took all I had just to sit still in my suit and that raincoat, with Mama whispering at me to control my breath.

  “The curtain went up and we saw this program of dance groups. Or maybe it was just one group—how can you tell when they melt away and come back again? All I could see was a lot of thin people jumping and falling. I thought I couldn’t breathe and there was this white lady next to me all full of awful-sweet powder. By the end of the show, I was soaking wet and I got to shaking like some wino.”

  The whole time Junior talked, Buddy sat before him. His eyes never left Junior’s face. One moment, Buddy wrung his hands and the next, he stuffed them deep in his pockets. All his own tough coolness slipped away as he came to understand the awful ugliness Junior felt about himself. Sitting there listening and watching, Buddy could be, for a few seconds at a time, Junior Brown wanting to hide himself from the whole world.

  Junior managed to get to his feet. Without a word he started again for the iron fence.

  “Man?” Buddy said.

  For one more time, Junior had managed to keep from talking about Miss Peebs’ piano.

  Buddy stood up with the light out of the sky behind him. He closed his eyes, then opened them. He held his body tight together with his shoulders hunched close to his ears.

  Buddy had helped all kinds of people. In the streets he had found all sorts of people who were hurt bad. But every time he tried to help Junior, Junior thought he was feeling sorry for him. Giving a hand to somebody hurt wasn’t something you did out of pity. Buddy could help somebody without thinking about it and without feeling anything. With Junior he thought he knew how hard it was to even walk when you were so big and fat.

  It’s just that Junior looks at you like you’ve already beat him up once, Buddy thought. And to have the kind of mother he’s got—I’d take the street any day—not even to speak about what kind of hold that Miss Peebs must have on him.

  Buddy allowed himself to catch up with Junior at the broad walkway high above the river, near the playground at 97th Street. At Junior’s side once more, Buddy let himself ease into Junior’s mood. Soon they were again together in some unspoken regard.

  There were many cars on the street called Riverside Drive. There were lots of people, folks who lived in the tall, orderly apartment buildings lining the street. Buddy looked up at the buildings with something close to awe. He could imagine the good life of those folks living in the buildings, he just couldn’t see himself ever living there or having such a life.

  No way, he thought. He felt suddenly tired. His body ached from the cold.

  In this neighborhood Junior and Buddy walked closer to one another, with their shoulders sometimes touching. They were both tall. They looked older than their years and their sudden, loud energy often scared people. Buddy was as muscled and well proportioned as a college freshman just out of high school playing fields. Junior was huge and oddly graceful, like a man who has lived comfortably with his fat for a long time. His face with its smooth black skin was so round, his eyes appeared to be swollen closed into slits. He had no eyebrows to speak of, just two lines of movement above his eyes which drooped toward his temples in a permanent expression of sadness.

  Junior was soaked through with sweat in two oblong circles under his arms. That was the reason Buddy paused at the bus stop as though it had been decided they would take a bus. Not saying a word, Junior went on. If he were to get on a bus this time of day, he could usually find two empty seats together. He could sit down. Hiding himself there in the rear of the bus, he could look like anybody else of ordinary size. He could stay on the bus for as long as he wanted, usually to the end of the downtown line.

  At the bus stop on 97th Street, Junior started across to the opposite corner. The light had turned green by the time Buddy saw him. Buddy had to cross against the traffic; he put out his hands menacingly to the cars. Tires screeched. One driver came too close and yelled something. Buddy didn’t bother to worry about what someone tried to say.

  Probably think I’m some alcoholic. Buddy grinned at the cars and spun around once on his heels before leaping onto the curb on the other side of the Drive. He saw the Riverside bus coming down the winding hill above 99th Street. He watched it a moment and then turned away toward Broadway.

  The two of them reached Broadway and Junior’s face was burning hot under the skin. His body tingled from the effort of keeping it moving. Itching, the very top of his head felt as though it had detached itself from the rest. Junior was lightheaded. The sensation that his scalp was floating had been with him for days.

  Junior loved Broadway. He knew he belonged to it the way the fixtures of newsstands and traffic lights belo
nged to it. The wide avenue had its lanes of uptown and downtown traffic divided by concrete islands. The islands had green benches, grass and bushes. A few trees struggled to grow in an atmosphere choked with automobile exhaust fumes. Junior found all of it beautiful—the stunted trees, the winter-brown plants and the old men and women. Out of the cheap retirement rooms of the side streets, the lonely old people rested awhile, like lost bundles on the cold, sunny benches. In summer the old folks were joined by young drug trippers. And nodding together in the light, they would all cover the island benches from noon to dusk.

  Odors from the bakery and the fresh-fish store wafted on the cold air as Junior and Buddy walked toward the subway. Junior felt heat with a scent of raw meat coming from the supermarket as the entrance door opened and closed for customers.

  And the people. Junior loved the people walking on Broadway. He longed to have a full look at the different faces he saw passing him. Not aware of what he was doing, Junior moved away from Buddy into the flow of people coming toward him. He lifted his hand as if to touch a profile here and a full face there. Without looking at him the people walking on Broadway sidestepped Junior. Knowing they might run into someone like him at any moment, they left him standing in the middle of the sidewalk with his hand raised.

  “Don’t do that!” Buddy whispered at him, taking his arm. “I told you before, you can’t do that, people don’t like that.”

  The two of them moved together through the crowd. Junior had not said a word. Buddy had to keep him moving, for Junior was still seeing and longing for the faces. Into the separate places of his mind he sorted features of black Haitians and Puerto Ricans from black Americans. Later, in his room, he would draw them all. The many Jews he saw Junior kept apart from all other groups. Jews were a contradiction in his mind and out of it. By design, they kept themselves separate; they would have been shocked to find themselves trapped inside Junior’s head.

  Junior’s mind gave every Jew he saw a powerful place on Broadway. Here they owned businesses or they were teachers, doctors, lawyers. They allowed the blacks to seize the apartment houses on the side streets while they held onto their enormous buildings on the avenues.

  The overwhelming noise of Broadway throbbed in Junior’s head. He had been walking as if in a trance, guided toward the subway by Buddy Clark.

  Something stirred inside Junior. He remembered. In the basement room of the school just today Buddy had asked Mr. Pool something—“Is one folk measured only in relation to some other folk”—that was it. But Junior couldn’t remember what Mr. Pool had answered.

  The top of Junior’s head itched with a new intensity. It seemed to lift away from his skull. At the pay booth in the subway he fumbled for change in his pockets with fingers that could not grasp.

  “Keep your hands at your sides before you get into trouble,” Buddy told Junior. “I’ve got the right money for both of us.”

  “What am I going to do?” Junior said. “I won’t never get through the turnstile.”

  “Man, what’s the matter with you?” Buddy said. “Do like you always do. I tell the lady at the booth. We put the money in right where she can see. I go through and hold open the exit door for you and then I go out and go through the turnstile again.”

  “She won’t let us,” Junior said.

  The lady in the booth watched them closely but she let them pass through the way Buddy had planned.

  “You worry about everything but what you need to worry about,” Buddy said to Junior. “I’m telling you, you ought to see yourself on Broadway, just standing there staring at people going by and then walking like you asleep. Like some nut—that’s what you ought to be worrying about.”

  I maybe could tell about it to Daddy, Junior thought, but he is there working in Jersey and staying the nights, too. If and when he gets home on a Saturday, I’ve been to the lesson and I can’t talk about it.

  Buddy steered Junior along the platform to where they could catch a local train which would make more frequent stops.

  I never do feel like talking about it until around Wednesday. I get to thinking about Friday and how something might’ve happened and how I won’t stand it if it has, even when I know there’s nothing I can do.

  They heard the train coming before they saw it. It pulled into the station. There were many people getting out. Buddy Clark pushed his way into the car. Junior waited until all the people were out of his way. The door was about to close again. Still Junior didn’t move. Buddy rushed to the door to hold it open.

  “Man!” he said. He jerked Junior forward so that Junior fell inside the train in a rush of his own weight.

  “I’ve got to make sure.” Junior’s mind spoke to him. “I’ve got to see it and play on the keys this time, just for a little while.”

  3

  CAN I COME IN?” Junior called through the door. He was breathless and aching to rest. He banged on the door for all he was worth. “Can I please come in and sit myself down?”

  For longer than a minute there was silence on the other side of the door. Junior sensed that Miss Peebs was there waiting, deciding whether she would let him enter for one more time. Finally there was movement and the sound of locks being released. First Miss Peebs unlocked the two chain locks. Next she opened the spring bolt lock. And last she unlocked the police lock and removed the heavy iron bar from its mechanism.

  When Lynora Peebs opened the door for Junior Brown, she was dressed in red slacks under a finger-length dressing gown similar to a kimono. She looked younger than her fifty-six years, as though time had forgotten about her at the age of thirty-nine. Her skin was light brown with a yellowish tint glowing through a girlish smoothness. Her eyes were black and feverish in their narrow oval shapes. There was no bridge to her nose and her graying hair had been straightened with a hot comb and pulled back in a flip ponytail. Lynora Peebs’ feet were shoeless and heavily powdered. She had told Junior once that she powdered her feet so she could follow her footprints and know when anyone crossed her path. Junior had laughed when she told him that but Lynora Peebs had not even smiled.

  “Can I come in?” Junior said again.

  “Be quiet,” Miss Peebs told him. “Junior Brown, I don’t know how you are going to take your lesson today.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Junior said. “Why is that?” He eased his bulk around her and into the foyer.

  “As you may well remember, I had to destroy the piano,” Miss Peebs said.

  “I can take the lesson on a chair, using my fingers.” How many weeks had Junior been telling her that? He had spoken in a flat tone, as though reciting a boring line of poetry. “I can prop my music up and beat the lesson out on a chair.”

  “It’s so hard for me to concentrate on harmony,” Miss Peebs said softly.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Junior told her. “Don’t you worry about that.” His voice was as gentle as he felt toward her. He longed to be able to talk openly with Miss Peebs the way he used to. There had been a time when she would sit him down and tell him stories of her family. He in turn had told her about his most private dreams.

  Their conversation every Friday had become no more than a ceremony. Miss Peebs had for weeks greeted him with the news that she had destroyed her piano. The first time she had told Junior that, she had refused to let him into her apartment. Finally Junior had thought of telling her he could beat out his lesson on a chair. With that, Miss Peebs had allowed him to come inside. But she would never go into her living room while he was there, nor let him practice on her grand piano. Junior had not attempted to enter the living room out of respect for Miss Peebs’ wishes. But every day he found himself worrying about her piano. Each Friday, the urge to play the piano grew stronger.

  Now that Junior was in the apartment, his fear for the piano settled back into the steady pounding of his heart. Almost patiently, he waited for the ceremony to continue, for Miss Peebs to make tea, which they would sip while he beat out his lesson.

  “Be quiet!” Lynora said sudde
nly. Junior had not moved from where he leaned against the wall. He turned his head slowly and found Miss Peebs staring down the hall leading to her living room and kitchen.

  “I didn’t say nothing,” Junior said quietly.

  “If you’ll just be still, you can wait in the hall,” Miss Peebs told him. “I will call you.” She rushed to the kitchen to make them tea.

  Now why did she have to tell me to keep still? I wasn’t talking or moving either, Junior thought.

  He left the foyer and walked into the hall where there was only a faint, natural light. As wide as a room, the hall was some twenty feet long. At the far end was a round breakfast table with wrought-iron chairs to one side of the kitchen entrance. To the left of the table was the closed door leading to Miss Peebs’ living room.

  It appeared that Lynora Peebs had taken all her furniture into the hall and piled it along the walls in preparation for moving out of the apartment. But Miss Peebs was not moving anywhere. The rest of her house looked the same, crammed with furniture on all sides and piled three quarters of the way up the walls. There were paths through the mess from one room to another, with her powdered footprints marking the way. Stacks of newsprint, periodicals and books spotted with cockroach eggs spilled to the floor from warped, dusty bookcases.

  Lynora Peebs’ parents had been serious collectors of exotic books and musical instruments. They had raised her, their only child, in this same apartment and had willed to her all they had treasured.

  “Perhaps owning so much was more than one slim girl could handle,” she had once said to Junior’s mother.

  Maybe one time it was a collection, too, Junior thought, but now it’s nothing but crumbly trash.

  Junior’s mother had met Lynora Peebs during one of her frequent searches for culture. Miss Peebs’ collection of instruments, her books, the fact that she was a concert pianist, would have been quite enough to impress Junior’s mother. But more astounding than these accomplishments was the fact that for three hundred years Miss Peebs’ family had lived and prospered in America. None of them had ever been slaves.