SONNY'S BLUES
335
hadn't lived in Harlem for years. Yet, as the cab moved uptown
through streets which seemed, with a rush, to darken with dark
people, and as I covertly studied Sonny's face, it came to me that
what we both were seeking through our separate cab windows was
that part of ourselves which had been left behind. It's always at the
hour of trouble and confrontation that the missing member aches.
We hit llOth Street and started roIling up Lenox Avenue.
And I'd known this avenue all my life, but it seemed to me again,
as it had seemed on the day I'd first heard about Sonny's trouble,
filled with a hidden menace which was its very breath of life.
" We almost there," said Sonny.
"Almost." We were both too nervous to say anything more.
We live in a housing project. It hasn't been up long. A few days
after it was up it seemed uninhabitably new, now, of course, it's
already rundown. It looks like a parody of the good, clean, faceless
life--'God knows the people who live in it do their best to make it
a parody. The beat-looking grass lying around isn't enough to make
their lives green, the hedges will never hold out the streets, and they
know it. The big windows fool no one, they aren't big enough to
make space out of no space. They don't bother with the windows, they
watch the TV screen instead. The playground is most popular with the
children who don't play at jacks, or skip rope, or roller skate, or
swing, and they can be found in
it
after dark. We moved in partly
because it's not too far from where I teach, and partly for the kids;
but it's really just like the houses in which Sonny and I grew up.
The same things happen, they'll have the same things to remember.
The moment Sonny and I started into the house I had the feeling
that I was simply bringing him back into the danger he had almost
died trying to escape.
Sonny has never been talkative. So I don't know why I was
sure he'd be dying to talk to me when supper was over the first
night. Everything went fine, the oldest boy remembered him, and
the youngest boy liked him, and Sonny had remembered to bring
something for each of them; and Isabel, who
is
really much nicer
than I am, more open and giving, had gone to a lot of trouble about
dinner and was genuinely glad to see
him.
And she's always been
able to tease Sonny in a way that I haven't. It was nice to see her
face so vivid again and to hear her laugh and watch her make Sonny
