SONNY'S BLUES
337
panes and you hear the street noises every now and again, or maybe
the jangling beat of a tambourine from one of the churches close
by, but it's real quiet in the room. For a moment nobody's talking,
but every face looks darkening, like the sky outside. And my mother
rocks a little from the waist, and my father's eyes are closed. Everyone
is looking at something a child can't see. For a minute they've for–
gotten the children. Maybe a kid is lying on the rug, half asleep.
Maybe somebody's got a kid in his lap and is absent-mindedly strok–
ing the kid's head. Maybe there's a kid, quiet and big-eyed, curled
up in a big chair in the corner. The silence, the darkness coming,
and the darkness in the faces frightens the child obscurely. He hopes
that the hand which strokes his forehead will never stop--will never
die. He hopes that there will never come a time when the old folks
won't be sitting around the living room, talking about where they've
come from, and what they've seen, and what's happened to them and
their kinfolk.
But something deep and watchful in the child knows that this
is bound to end, is already ending. In a moment someone will get
up and turn on the light. Then the old folks will remember the
children and they won't talk any more that day. And when light
fills the room, the child is filled with darkness. He knows that every
time this happens he's moved just a little closer to that darkness
outside. The darkness outside is what the old folks have been talking
about. It's what they've come from. It's what they endure. The
child knows that they won't talk any more because if he knows too
much about what's happened to
them,
he'll know too much too soon,
about what's going to happen to
him.
The last time I talked to my mother, I remember I was restless.
I wanted to get out and see Isabel. We weren't married then and we
had a lot to straighten out between us.
There Mama sat,
in
black, by the window. She was humming
an old church song,
Lord, you brought me from a long ways off.
Sonny was out somewhere. Mama kept watching the streets.
" I don't know," she said, "if I'll ever see you again, after you
go off from here. But I hope you'll remember the things I tried to
teach you."
"Don't talk like that," I said, and smiled. "You'll be here a
long time yet."
