South

February 18, 2019

Greetings from the sidewalk,

Sara had never seen one of them before, they didn’t have any in her school at all until some law changed and then the principal, Mr. Gillespie, made an announcement which no one understood at first.  When the boy came to her class they all tried not to gawk, but did anyway.  They were told his name was South.  Later some of the kids teased him on the playground about it, but it wasn’t any fun because he didn’t react. Even when they made rhymes like South the Potty Mouth, which Larry Snyder thought was so funny he laughed milk out of his nose.

She first saw him close up because he wouldn’t get his picture taken for the class yearbook.  She heard Mrs. Graham tell the custodian later that it was some cultural thing.  He sat on the wrestling mats in the gym while everyone lined up for the photographer, not watching them just reading a book.  She stood a few feet from him, not staring, but watching him out of the corner of her eye.  Finally, he looked up and they locked eyes.  She was frightened for some reason and looked away.

At lunch break he would not go on the playground, instead ate his sandwich under the shade of the awning near the school, or under the only tree inside the chain link fence.  Sara felt something pick at her, watching him sit alone.  She hooked arms with her friend Holly, and they walked to stand in front of him, asked him if he wanted to play kickball.  He looked up and shook his head.  When they walked away Holly said something mean and Sara poked her in the ribs.

“Honey, he’s not like us.  I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but you and your friends should play together and not hang around him or his people.”  Her Mom delivered this little speech, obviously practiced, in the car after school one day.

He walked home alone.  His parents never came to school, not even for the Christmas pageant.  Her Mom said that she saw them at the parent-teacher meeting one night and they seemed nice, but a little stand-offish.  Sara knew he lived at the far end of town, because that’s the direction he walked and the only houses there were the old tenant farmer places beyond the rail line and the grain silo.  She and her friends were not allowed to cross the rail line ever.

After school one day she went past the playground fence to walk home and he was there.  They were too close for her not to say anything, but somehow her tongue failed her.  He saved her by saying hello.  When she heard his voice, she felt a puzzle piece sliding to its place, and she looked at his eyes, felt it snick into home.  She stammered hello, and later couldn’t remember if she said her name, but must have.

“My name is South.” he said.  “I wanted to thank you for being kind the other day.  I hope I didn’t seem rude to you.”  There was something close to a smile.  “I should have told you I need to stay out of the sun when I can. That’s all.”

The two of them walked to the end of the block where the crossing guard was and then he turned to walk toward the rail line.  Sara turned with him, and even in that little moment felt a rush of electricity, like the first time she jumped from the rope swing into the swimming pond.

They walked a few blocks, trading puffs of frozen air in the February chill, talking about school and pets and then families.  Sara learned he had no sisters or brothers, and that this was the third school he had gone to in three years. 

They reached the rail line and South turned to her and held out his hand.  She shook it lightly, which to both of them felt exactly right and completely silly.  They both smiled, then turned to walk away.  When Sara looked back over her shoulder he was walking backwards, already watching her.  Sara retraced her steps and went back past the schoolyard, aware of the eyes from the kids still lingering there.  She walked home, feeling like feathers were whirling in her.

The week before Valentine’s Day they brought shoeboxes to school and during Art Hour Mrs. Graham brought out construction paper and foil and those scissors made for little kids.  They taped and pasted the decorations on the boxes, cut a slot on the lid.  When they were done the boxes were lined up on the top of their cubby shelves, waiting for the day. 

Sara sat across from South on the teeter totter.  No one else was near, because they were too cold to sit on, but the two of them didn’t care.  They had lunch together every day now, and Sara no longer thought about what Holly said when she saw them together. 

They moved gently up and down, first him pushing up, then her.
“Is it true what they say about, um, … your kind of people?” she asked.

He looked at her, curious but a little sad.  “I don’t know, what do they say?”

She took a breath, put on her 10-year-old authority voice: “They say you can’t see yourself in a mirror.  Is that true?”

He smiled.  “How else would I comb my hair?” he said.

She glanced at his hair, and then back at his face to see if he was serious.

He made his eyebrows go up and down and she laughed. 

“What about the other stuff?” she asked.  “Do you live for eternity?  You know for-ever?”

He thought for a moment.  “Maybe.” And that seemed like the answer.  And then: “Sitting alone on the playground, that feels like eternity. So maybe.”  He was not looking at her, but just over her shoulder at some middle distance.  A quiet fell on them like a shadow. 

“You want to ask about the blood, don’t you?” he asked.  “The answer is no, but people never forget it when it was yes.”

She said nothing, just watched him raise up as her side went down, until he looked like he was in the sky, flying in the clouds behind him.

She asked him why his parents named him South.  He shrugged at first, and then a moment later he said:
“My Momma said if there was ever any trouble and we weren’t together, that I was to head south, and they would find me.  She didn’t ever want me to forget.”

“What? That’s a silly reason for a name.  Like what kind of trouble?”

“Depends.” He took a deep breath and let it out.  “Momma says they’ll always be trouble.”

The next day the Valentine boxes were on their desks.  When Mrs. Graham said it was time, the class moved around the desks, dropping home made hearts and scraps of paper Valentines into the various boxes, giggling and being goofy, knowing they were almost too old for this, and not wanting to let it go.

Sara held the one folded heart in her left hand until she reached South’s desk and then went to drop it in, seeing in the slot that his box was empty and felt an ache her young soul didn’t know how to describe.  She put her Valentine in the box and went on to the next desk.

She sorted through the paper notes later, hoping to find one from him, and nearly teared up when she thought he’d ignored her.  And then there it was, a small red paper heart, folded and refolded so many times the creases nearly showed light through them.

“Sara- You are my Light and I am your Fire. Love, South.”

The next morning his desk was empty.  She felt something pick at her again, and the shook it off; maybe he was just sick or something.  When she went to get her coat she found a note in the pocket, and knew before she unfolded it that he had put it there.

“I have to go now because trouble’s coming.  I don’t know how long before I see you again but it will be in this life, and then the next one. In between we have something to hold on to.  It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever, likely one of us will have to spend some days alone, but one day you’ll want to see me. When you’re ready, head south, and I will find you.”

Sara folded the note again and held it to her eyes, felt the wetness against the paper.  She breathed in and out, and let the pain settle where it needed to. 

The Andrew Jackson Hotel is wedged among its neighbors on Royal Street in the French Quarter, seasoned by generations of good times and bad.  The wild crowds on Royal are not as thick as other parts of the Quarter can be, and some days, in the good light, the hotel passes from seedy to charming.

Sara stood on the sidewalk, ten minutes into her five-minute break, and lit a second cigarette, let the smoke billow around her face, lifted her chin to blow a stream away from her.  Her first job out of college, three weeks in, and she already dreaded going back into the hotel to work the desk.  She watched people go by on the narrow sidewalk across from her, and then looked down so not to attract anyone’s attention.  She already knew what it was like for young girls in New Orleans.  She let the sounds of the city wash over her and her mind go to where it always went.

“Do you have a light?” he said.

Sara held her breath.  She stared at the scuffed workboots in front of her.  Before she looked up she knew, and was afraid she would be right, and terrified she’d be wrong.  She raised her eyes.

“You know,” he said, his eyes giving her that same snick in her heart, “cigarettes are bad for your health.”  He finished by putting a Marlboro to his lips.  Waited while she held the lighter to the end.

“Can’t live forever.” she said.

He laughed.  “We’ll see.”

Hope this finds you going on forever,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith