SONNY'S
HUES
3<49
many a thousand!"
Not a soul under the sound of their voices was
hearing this song for the first time, not one of them had been rescued.
Nor had they seen much in the way of rescue work being done around
them. Neither did they especially believe in the holiness of the three
sisters and the brother, they knew too much about them, knew
where they lived, and how. The woman with the tambourine, whose
voice dominated the air, whose face was bright with joy, was
divided by very little from the woman who stood watching her, a
cigarette between her heavy, chapped lips, her hair a cuckoo's nest,
her face scarred and swollen from many beatings, and her black
eyes glittering like coal. Perhaps they both knew this, which was
why, when, as rarely, they addressed each other, they addressed
each other as Sister.
As
the singing filled the air the watching, listen–
ing faces underwent a change, the eyes focusing on something within;
the music seemed to soothe a poison out of them; and time seemed,
nearly, to fall away from the sullen, belligerent, battered faces, as
though they were fleeing back to their first condition, while dreaming
of their last. The barbecue cook half shook his head and smiled,
and dropped his cigarette and disappeared into his joint. A man
fumbled in his pockets for change and stood holding
it
in his hand
impatiently, as though he had just remembered a pressing appoint–
ment further up the avenue. He looked furious. Then I saw Sonny,
standing on the edge of the crowd. He was carrying a wide, flat
notebook with a green cover, and it made him look, from where I
was standing, almost like a schoolboy. The coppery sun brought
out the copper in his skin, he was very faintly smiling, standing
very still. Then the singing stopped, the tambourine turned into
a collection plate again. The furious man dropped in his coins and
vanished, so did a couple of the women, and Sonny dropped some
change in the plate, looking directly at the woman with a little smile.
He started across the avenue, toward the house. He has a slow,
loping walk, something like the way Harlem hipsters walk, only
he's imposed on this his own half-beat. I had never really noticed
it before.
I stayed at the window, both relieved and apprehensive.
Ju
Sonny disappeared from my sight, they began singing again. And
they were still singing when his key turned in the lock.
"Hey," he said.
