Winter, 1948

WINTER, 1948 [40 Saxton Street] for W.W The winter nights that pass now are so unlike the winter nights that passed before, that I often struggle back in those suspended moments when sleep grapples for a hold, to once again hear the voices of those nights and smell the smells that lingered in those well-worn days, and see my grandmother standing over her coal stove where I huddled on frost-filled nights watching my mother and father, aunts and uncles play penny poker while I broke pieces off an old straw broom, poked them through the grating and watched them explode into a kaleidoscope of orange and blue and then die out, twisting and snaking, all black and stunted. When the top of the stove got finger-searing hot, I'd lean over and let spit drop from my lips, watch it bubble, scamper and dance across the hellish top until it disappeared in a hiss, a wisp. There were laughs and shouts whenever someone won a hand and raked the pot across the porcelain table-top, occasionally dropping a precious penny or two for me to reclaim from the darkness underneath. While they played, I sometimes crawled through my grandmother's bedroom, past the creaking and groaning bed where, on another night, they hefted my grandfather to his feet, to the ambulance that wailed him off to die; past the rounded, heavy-handled bureau where she kept the clutters; the wrinkled and tattered paper bags of string and stubs of tooth-marked pencils wadded, worthless bills of the Confederacy, stamped with the faces of bearded men in stiff collars -- "Naming your children after Confederate Generals makes for slow, steady drinkers," Atticus said. and now I think of the uncle named for Lee and the nights I hoisted him out of Eddie Connor's Tavern. There were half pieces of Juicy Fruit gum in gold cameo boxes stuffed with coins and uniform buttons. There were photos, frayed, crumpled-edge, pale with time, of old women in print dresses and always, aprons. Into the parlor as softly as the old black cat she kept to find some uncle dozing on the couch. With a screech wild enough for any Indian, I was on him, arms flailing, legs around his middle as we rolled to the carpet and fought great battles over the room and under the teeter-tottering library table. Once we tipped over the statue of a headless angel poised on the prow of a half-sunken ship and a spider plant, its long thin arms gangling clusters of finger leaves, and the laughing stopped. A shout and a scrape of chairs from the kitchen, and we scrambled to the hall, to the uncle's room where we crouched in a lightless corner until there was only the sound of our breathing and the hot, sweaty, rug-burned sensation of battle on our faces. When the laughter began again and our breathing quieted, we climbed onto the bed, slipped out the smooth, metal-cold Daisy Air Rifle from its nest between bed and wall, gently and quietly lifted the complaining window and rested the oil-rubbed barrel on the sill, while our hearts pounded loud enough for everyone in the kitchen to hear. But they didn't. I cocked the rifle and aimed it across the street at old lady Cinderella's shade-drawn window, sucked in the cold night air and gently, nervously, hesitantly squeezed the trigger -- "squeeze it, don't jerk it," the uncle beside me whispered. With a click and a whoosh the barrel jumped ever-s0-slightly off the sill, and somewhere in the blackness a ping resonated in the night. "Nice shot," the uncle breathed, and a warmth spread over my face. "My turn," the voice whispered. After the card game there'd be cocoa, dark, creamy coffee and amber tea in chipped white mugs, occasionally with broken handles. Everyone talked, stirred, tousled our hair and slipped warm coins into our damp, ready hands. Heaps of doughnuts, bloody with jelly pyramided on movie theatre plates next to wedges of cervelat, sausage and thick slices of cheese. Full mouths chortled and garbled about the game and Uncle Frank, he of the great beak nose and occasional long, discolored teeth let out throaty chuckles, boasting of brilliant bluffs. We knew that someday we would sit at that table, snap and slide the cards across the smooth surface. Like Uncle Nick, we'd chew a big cigar, blow rolling clouds of smoke to the ceiling and watch them drift back around us like a pale blue scarf. The night ended all too quickly when my father stretched and yawned and unfolded himself from his chair. I hated to swap the warmth and the light for the long walk down streets glazed with frost and people walking head down and, it seemed, lonely. We stood in the crisp night air, stars flaring like kitchen matches, until the bus ambled up, wheezing and coughing like an unsteady drunk. With a hissing of doors and a jounce that sent us stumbling first backward, then forward, the bus plodded on into the night. I sat on my father's lap, braced against the brittle cold of his leather jacket as the bus gently rocked and swayed its way up Dorchester Avenue. I lay my head against his shoulder and all eerie lights passed in front of my eyes, slowly blurring, blending and fading into darkness.