James River Crab Cakes (Part V of V)

There may be a few people out there who are wondering what ever happened to Big Al. It's been weeks since I posted the last installment and now... well, here it is...the humble ending to the story.

That night my mama sent me to the community garden for squash, ‘cause we were having grandmama over for dinner.  The community garden was only about a mile away.  Going to the garden was like having store credit.  We had lots of credit at the garden since we had planted four rows of it.  My mama had us all out here this past spring planting peas, cucumbers, carrots and new strawberry plants.  The only thing that had kept me diggin’ was the thought of some of  mama’s strawberry shortcake, with cool lush strawberries dyeing the clean flour of the cake topped with cream she whipped herself after we got it from Farmer Murray.  The squash was on the far side of the garden by the fence of Whistling Fields.  I had set to hackin’ at the thick vine of the squash when I heard big Al’s voice over the fence.  I squatted low to the ground, to avoid him seeing me.  I crawled to the fence and peered through the chain link into Big Al’s trailer.  Dingy cotton curtains blocked Al’s face from my sight and I could tell he was doing his best not to get in the way. He had smashed himself into the makeshift kitchen booth which doubled as a bed.   His mama was at the sink, in front of a plastic Betty Boop clock which rolled her bobble eyes with each tick.  Al’s mama was washing the cheap plastic dishes and hollering at Al about something.   She had a little voice , to match her petit frame but it was rough and strained.  I leaned forward into the fence to get some of the conversation. 

“Al, you just put that out of your mind, there is no way you can go to Hamp’en Sydney, and I don’t want you associating with that black boy, Joey Williams either.”  

“Why Mom?”

“Allen, you know well enough why.  He may be nice and kind and whatever, but its just no good to mix like that.  It leads to nothing but trouble.” 

I heard Al sigh.  His mom stopped washing for a moment and heaved her should with immense strain and then turned to Al and kissed his fat cheek,  “Now you get out there and pick me some more zucchini, maybe I can fix some bread.” 

Al shuffled to the door and I could hear the aluminum floor bend slightly beneath his weight.  I grabbed my squash and took off ‘fore he could catch a glimpse of me outside his window.   I ran hard and I came into the driveway pantin’ something awful.  Right then, I began thinking ‘bout why I’d taken such a dislike to Big Al.  I wondered at how little he had in that trailer, no refrigerator or TV, just him and his mama and barely enough room to walk between the two.  And what about his daddy?  There was a mystery I had only begun to tackle when my mama called me in, hollarin’ for the squash.  I ran up the porch stairs, ready for a nicely fixed squash and maybe some dumplings.

I didn’t see Big Al for a couple days after that.  But the conversation I’d heard through the fence got to gnawing at the back of my mind.  I was kind of miserable every time I rode my bike past Whistling Fields on the way to Winn Dixie.  Until, one Saturday  when my mama was gonna make crab cakes, so I went out crabbing early.  We got two poles in our shed and I figured the time would go faster if maybe Big Al come with me and helped me out.  I stopped at Whistling Fields and knocked on the thin door.  Big Al opened it, looking a little more rumpled than usual, his oversized t-shirt creased from sleep and his brown hair knotted like a squirrel’s nest.  I was standin’ there with two poles and fancied myself an African Huck Finn.  

“Well, ya wanna go crabbin’?”  I asked.  Al nodded and let the door swing shut as he creaked around for a while and emerged looking essentially the same but a little wetter.  We started down the path to the rhythm of our bare feet against the dirt path.

Even the white folk’s country club can’t compete with the cove where Jimmy D. used to live.  It the best crabbin’ spot on the whole James River if you ask me or my daddy.  Jimmy D was my great uncle and he taught my daddy everything we know ‘bout crabbin’.  He’d been killed back before I was born.  Mama said his house burnt down, I could see some of the charcoal posts still sticking up from the ground like blackened toothpicks.   His old boat, Scraps, was tied up to a platform made out of more gaps than wood.  The wood that stayed put was smooth and worn from the water’s wear and tear.  I sat down with my legs in the water, which was salty on account of how close we were to the Atlantic.  We were right outside the channel where they run old boats aground.  There was a whole city of ships out there.  I used to imagine it was a kingdom of steel ruled by ghost generals and dead pirates.  Under the dock were crab holes.  The small air bubbles gave me hope for a good catch.  I licked my fingers after hooking a good n’ greased chicken wing to my pole.  The water was shallow and I watched my bait through the greenish tint of the James.  Big Al did the same.  I wondered if the crabs were looking up at the chicken wing from their tunnel above their warm houses.  The fishing boats dragged their nets through the water, thick with fish.  

It was too late by the time I recognized the sailboat zipping towards us.  It was Trent Williams and he was already pulled up close enough to holler his share of insults.  My hand tightened around my pocket knife, we’d fought before.  

“Oh, well, here are two of the saddest creatures on the James River.  I don’t know which one to pity more, the skinny black one or the fat white one.”  He laughed. 

“What do you got against us?” I hollered back. “What did we ever do to you?”

“What did you do to me?” Trent sneered.  “How do you think your daddy got his name?  Your daddy shamed my daddy in front of the whole town. But my daddy gave him the beating of his life for it.”

“Rooster?” I questioned.

“Rooster.” Trent replied.  “After Jimmy D died, your daddy got the notion that it was started by the Klu Klux Klan.  Nobody would believe that over in the west end, least of all Sheriff McKey.  So your daddy swore that he’d hunt down the grand master himself.  The next day he showed up at my house carrying on like a madman, screaming and crying.  He killed our prized Rooster and was nailing it to the barn door out of spite.  My daddy took him and whipped him so bad your mama had to come carry him away.  From then on everybody called him Rooster cause of what he done.  He ain’t nothing but grown up slave boy.”

I think he might’ve gone on with his hollarin’ but his mean tongue got bit by his teeth as a chicken wing knocked him in the side of the head.  I looked at Big Al, whose hands where still drippin’ from the chicken fat.  His round face was swelling with anger as picked up another wing and again clocked Trent right across his face.  I could tell it was gonna bruise and Trent was doing all he could to keep from crying.  “Why don’t you go back home to your daddy?” Al suggested.  “You can come back if you think of something good to say ‘cause all I hear is a load of horse crap coming out of your mouth.”  And with that Trent Williams pulled his sail hard to catch the small wind on the river and he was soon out of sight.  

Al slapped his hands against his shorts and I lamely muttered, “Thanks.”  He nodded, and I smiled remembering the chicken stain on Trent’s cheek.  I started to laugh at the image of chicken fat splat against his jaw and then falling to smear the crisp white of his polo shirt.  Al began to laugh too.  His high chuckle released all the anger which had been pressurized in his large face.  We imitated Trent’s shocked expression until we were bent over with laughter and all the tension was split.

Al’s face sobered, “I’m sorry about your dad.”  

I shrugged.  I looked down into the water, deep down as I could where the water muddied from the wake of the boat.

“My dad’s dead,” Al continued.  “He got killed in LA last year.   It was after the riots ya know.   My mom says he was in the black neighborhood and it was late.  They killed him Joey, He didn’t hate nobody, but they killed him just the same.  So, I’m not supposed to be friends with you.  My mom’s scared.  But I think that is the same on both sides. What’s the difference between Trent and the blacks who killed my dad? ”

My mind reverberated with shock.  I looked at Al as if I’d just met him.  He really wasn’t so fat, I guess.  There was a sort of greatness in his size.  “Yeah,” I agreed.  “I don’t see the difference,” and I really didn’t.  With that, I grinned and turned back to the water, once again smooth.

“Hey ya got something!”  Al exclaimed.  

I looked down to find a huge crab grasping the flesh of the wing with both muscular claws.  “Oh we got ‘em!” I yelled.  “We got ‘em Al, open the net.”  I lifted my pole, bent toward the crab which dangled over the open net bag.  I set him down and then yanked the chicken from him.  It swung high into the clear sky and I laughed with joy as it fell in to the river.  Al squealed with delight.  We must have been a sight us two boys, rejoicing like that over a crab.  It was like we’d finally struck it rich in our own gold rush.  

We caught 6 more crabs that day and headed back to the house, swinging them over our shoulders, whistling off-key with each other but pleased as pie.  We got to Al’s trailer first, and he hesitated to turn off the path.  “Al, ya coming to dinner?  You gotta eat your catch.  Invite your mama too.”  He looked at me like I was good ole Santa Claus with my bag full of crabs.  He clomped up the step stool in front of the trailer, with a grin as fat as his own big self.  

Not an hour later, Al and his mama was at our door holding some onions and cabbage for the coleslaw.  That night, we sat down to one of the finest meals of crab cakes this side of the James River has ever seen. The smell of dill and pepper filled the house. The cakes were so light I bet Al that I could eat 10.  He laughed in that high pitched delight and reached for the cool pitcher of sweet tea which stood on our finest blue tablecloth. I smiled back at him, digging into my dumplings which were still hot enough to steam as I split them. 

His mama was smiling too.  She had on a floral sun dress, and was closing her eyes with apparent pleasure.  Her red lipstick brightened her face and reminded me of the strawberries which would follow the meal.  My dad, Rooster, set down his fork and wiped his hands happily.  “Oh what a day!” he announced.  “If this ain’t a proper welcome to the neighborhood I don’t know what is!”  I looked at my daddy at the head of the table and noticed again the small scars on the back of his arms, peering out from his t-shirt sleeves.  I glanced up to catch his smiling eyes and saw that they were deep and strong like the James River itself.  “It don’t get much better than this,”  I whispered to Al and he nodded his big head.  That night was the brightest of the whole summer, playing pick-up in the moonlight, eating strawberries and cream.  I looked out over the river and thought, “The James it ain’t too rich a place to live but it ain’t too poor.  It’s got all sorts of secrets in that water, floating by, slow but powerful.”

James River Crab Cakes (Part 4)

Painting by Marion Rose

The boss gave me an earful when I came runnin’ in five minutes after my shift began.   As a punishment she sent me to bag for crazy Ann Marie, who, I swear, had perfume for blood and Chiclet gum for teeth. I hadn’t been there but two minutes before Mr. Williams and Trent walked up. “Lord, have mercy,”  I thought.  Ain’t nobody in Hampton County can git under my skin like them Williams.  I looked down but I felt Mr. Williams’ beady eyes bore into my downturned head.

“Well if it ain’t Rooster’s boy…My oh my ain’t you a skinny rail of a kid...  just like your daddy.  If he ain’t ugly I don’t know who is.  I used to think he had some sorta brains behind his ugly face but turned out he’s not just as cocky as a Rooster and he’s as dumb too.” 

I bagged up those groceries as hasty and as hard as I could, I hoped to break everything inside.  I wondered if the name Rooster was a simple as that, an attempt to insult my dad’s intelligence.  Mr. Williams’ knowing voice grated against my ears.  I slammed the last bag of beer and bread into his cart and cursed under my breath.  Right across the lane was Big Al, staring mouth open in stupid contemplation.  I could’ve jumped over that cart and pummeled his dirty white face into the linoleum flooring.  Ann Marie snapped her gum as she ripped the receipt. “Will that be all Mr. Williams?”  

“Yes, that’s all.”

“Have a good day.” 

I wished for the courage to spit on that man’s new white sailing shoes.  But, instead I simply looked down and when I looked back up he was gone.  I glanced around and Big Al had vanished too. 

James River Crab Cakes (Part 3)

The third installment of my short story, which admittedly is in the nascent stages.  Still, it is fun to chop it into installments because it makes me look at each scene in new ways.  Thank you so much for reading.  

(click on the tag James River below if you want to read the first two parts...)

Saturday morning, I was out back of my house when Big Al moseyed up.  My dad and I had made a makeshift basketball court four years ago, hauling sand from the river bank and packing it till it was hard and even.  The basket was a five gallon pail nailed to a board we’d found and then attached to a tree nearby.  That court had part of me in every grain of sand.  My dad and I would play one-on-one when he’d get back early from the shipyard.  In the summertime I shot baskets out there for hours; I had never beat my daddy to twenty-one.  It’s hard to say who I admired most in those days, him or Michael Jordan.

That day, Big Al stood awkwardly at the edge of the court like a stray dog that won’t stop sniffing you ‘till you kick it.  I forced myself not to look but to focus on my shots.  But after missing three in a row, I got to thinking that I better kick him before he ruined my whole morning.  

 “What are you waiting for?”

“Nothing, my grandma just sent me to ask if I could have some of your mom’s recipes cause we heard she’s a pretty good cook.”  Thanks to the Annual James River Seafood Festival, my mama’s cooking had made us almost famous in the county. Her recipes were secret.   Her mama had gotten from her mama and so on all the way back to when grandmama’s grandmama cooked on the Perkins Plantation that was now the Yacht Club.  We weren’t in the habit of giving those secrets to white folks.

“She ain’t home.”  I answered. “You just fixin’ to stand there and watch me?  Don’t ya have anything better to do?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, well I’m just gonna keep shooting.  I’ll see ya later.” I picked up my ball. 

“Ya wanna donut?” Al called.

“What?”

And right then before my eyes Big Al produced two chocolate frosted donuts from the side pockets of his cargo short.  They were wrapped in napkins and some of the frosting peeled off with the paper.  Later, when I told my sister, Leticia, about it she couldn’t stop laughing for a good five minutes.  “Big Al and the donuts,” she’d say to herself and then start rolling with laughter again.  

“No thanks,” I said to him.

“Okay,” Big Al mumbled.  He shoved half of the first one in his pink mouth, leaving a smear behind.  He stood there a while more, taking huge bites of the doughy circles.  The way he chewed reminded me of the cattle we used to own, mullin’ over their cud till it makes you a little sick to imagine it.  Finally, he finished them both and lumbered off toward Whistling Plains and I got ready for work. 

James River Crab Cakes (part 2)

Even as I post this I see about a million ways it needs improvement.  Please give me comments and questions.  Sometimes I think something is clear and it really makes no sense at all.  It is good to know that sort of thing sooner rather than later, so please let me know.

See the post on September 3rd for the first paragraph of this story...

     Everybody ‘round here called me Rooster’s boy, but my mama named me Joseph Paul Williamson.  Mama told me our family was slaves of  Mr. Williams’ great great great  granddaddy and that’s how we got our names.  I didn’t like that much.  Mr. Williams was the kind of boss who made my daddy’s shoulder’s sag at the mere mention of work.  His son, Trent, was in my grade and had the uncanny ability to torment all of us at Warwick Middle School without ever catching hell for it.  I turned fourteen that spring, finally old enough to work by Virginia law; fourteen and skinny as the corn stalks my daddy grew behind our ramshackle shanty.  

Our closest neighbors were the residents of Whistling Fields trailer park, who were mostly elderly.  That is, until Big Al moved in with his grandma.  It was three weeks before we got let out for summer break.  The first day he lumbered into Mr. Huffman’s English class I worried that Al would be a bully, being so big for his thirteen years.  As it turned out, he was worse than a bully.  He was a leech; the kind of kid who will latch onto you with an unnatural affection, thinking that you and him is just like Carl Malone and John Stockton when he is like a washed up waterboy.

The desk arm of his chair twisted unnaturally as he crammed himself into the seat without thinking to remove his backpack first.  This made it near impossible for him to escape once the bell rang.  He called out to me just as I was packin’ up and I felt obliged to answer which stranded me there, alone with him and Mr. Huffman.  

“Which way’s the lunch room?”  He begged as he shoved his weight forward rocking the whole desk contraption.  Figures, I thought to myself. “It’s straight down the hall on the left.”  I pointed.  With a monumental shove he launched himself free at last but I was already out the door.  Still, somehow he managed to overtake me in the hall, completely winded by the effort.  “Are you going to Warwick High next year?” he panted.  I shrugged and walked faster.  “I’m planning on getting into Hampton Sydney,” he bragged.  “I already passed the exam, I just have to come up with the money.  If not, my grandma says I should play football, be a linebacker or something.  I heard the team should be good next year with Vick at QB.”  

I was so absorbed in my attempt to lose Big Al before we reached the lunchroom that I forgot to be on the lookout for Trent Williams.  I remembered just as the palm of his hand smashed into my crotch.  I doubled over, the breath knocked clean out of me.  Trent just kept walking as Big Al pressed himself up against the lockers to make room.  I scrambled up and set to making my way to lunch without Big Al, no such luck.  

James River Crab Cakes

Dear  Editors (and readers) ,

  This is my first submission ever to a literary publication.  I stumbled upon Glimmer Train and found helpful, hopeful writing and inspiration.  Thank you. -K.D.  (I have only included the first paragraph since I think that is the most important paragraph of a story.  If you want to read more, let me know, maybe I will post the rest in installments.)

Everybody on the James River called my daddy “Rooster.”   Mr. Williams, the foreman down at the shipyard, gave him the name years ago and it stuck.  My daddy never much cared for the name though and I had a mind to find out why.  Only clue I could get was that it had to do with a prize fighting cock my daddy killed a long time ago, back before I was born.