Sonny

Busy Bee

Emily Hiner

37

Sonny

Melanie Matiyabo

“Sonny, where ya goin’ this time?” Pearlie Mae yapped through her dentured mouth. “’Bout my business. Why?” “No big deal. Just wanted to know where you was goin’, that’s all.” “Ma, I ain’t goin’ nowhere except up the street.” “Well, you ought to throw that bag away first before the law catch you. I don’t know why you keep goin’ up them streets anyway. It ain’t like you have a job.” “I got me a job. I work for the government! Only part-time.” Sonny turned away from his mother, standing in the doorway. He was tired of the same ol’ conversation. Where am I going? She knows where I’m going, Sonny thought. “Yep, just me, myself, and I waiting to get a piece of that American apple pie. Don’t keep asking me why a black man can die a thousand times. People cry why, oh, why—why didn’t he eat a piece of that apple pie. Heee-hee,” Sonny sang to himself. Pearlie Mae watched from her porch as her son stepped out of the yard. Her mahogany skin wrinkled in her face. Sonny just don’t care for himself no more, she thought. He just ain’t the same. When will he change, Lord? His children need him, she prayed. Pearlie Mae turned wearily to go inside. The porch door banged loudly in the cool morning air. The blue jays were singing their song. The wind howled gently as it stirred up the dust on the porch. No one was up this early in the morning, save for the kids racing toward the red and white school bus that just pulled up around the corner of Taft Street. Sonny passed the bus up. His strides began to lengthen as the wind picked up some more. He cinched his thin jacket tighter around his thin frame. He had no hat to cover his short, curled-tight hair. He turned the object in the brown bag up to his lips and took a long, healthy swallow. His insides began to warm up. As he turned off Taft and onto Cherry Street, a group of dogs began to bark. They smelled him from the oncoming breeze. “Why them ol’ mangy mutts keep bawlin’ whenever I come ‘round here? It ain’t like they never saw me before.” A few cars lined the street, while others sat still in the driveways. Sonny turned into one of the driveways that held a blue, 1995 Chrysler LeBaron. Smells of Season-Alled eggs and sausages wafted toward Sonny’s nose as he threw the bag into an open garbage can. His stomach growled, but he ignored it. He made it to the top of the steps, knocked on the door a couple of times, and listened to someone opening the door. He smiled at the forty-six-year-old youthful face that answered the door. His friend Nank smiled back at him with his gold front tooth. “Good morning, Sonny, my man. Come on in,” Nank said. Sonny went inside the warm house. He said hello to Tara, Nank’s wife of twelve years. She mumbled hello to him through the brush in her mouth. Tara was combing their daughter Jessica’s hair. Tara gestured for him to take a seat. Sonny sat down on the worn-in burgundy couch. It felt comfortable, familiar. A twelve-inch colored TV was playing Bozo the Clown. From a bedroom, Sonny heard Nathan, Jr., hollering for his mom to help him find his other shoe. Nank excused himself to go help his son find his other Nike.

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On his way back, Nank brought Sonny a plate of food. Sonny said to him, “No, thank you, man. I’m not hungry.” Tara kissed her husband goodbye, led Jessica and Nathan, Jr., outside to the car and drove them to

school.

Meanwhile, Nank turned to Sonny and asked him, “What you doing up so early, man?” “Nothing. Just couldn’t sleep,” Sonny said. “When do you sleep? Man, you need to talk to somebody.” “I don’t want to talk about it, Nank. What is your boy doing now? Ain’t he in basketball, Biddy Basketball?” “Yeah, Jr. starts on his team. He scored 17 points in their game against the Berwick Panthers last night. Jessica is in kindergarten. Man, you should see how she draws.” Nank left the living room and came back with a picture full of Crayola-drawn figures. Sonny took it from him, studied it for a while, and thought about his daughter Shannon. She used to draw pictures like this of four people—him, Cheryl, Derick, and herself. But now she only draws herself. It’s been two years since he saw Shannon and Derrick. “Sonny? What is Pearlie Mae doing, man? How is she doing?” Nank asked him. Sonny said that she was doing fine. Nank asked him about rehab and what it was doing for him. Sonny said that it was helping him sort out his problems and deal with his past. But Sonny didn’t talk about it further. He asked Nank instead about what had been happening around Patterson since he was gone for the past two years. He and Nank talked for the rest of the afternoon and watched some news and sports. By three o’clock, the Jennings kids rushed through the front door, bringing with them a lot of noise. Sonny thought back to the last time his children burst through the doors at his house. Sonny got up to leave. Nank walked him to the door. Sonny said he’d catch up with Nank later. Sonny headed up toward Dete’s Pool Hall. On his way there, he watched as cars and busses passed by. Mothers held onto their children’s hands. Teenagers were shouting to each other about the dance at the high school tonight. Sonny felt like he’d been away for more than two years. This scene of people didn’t look so familiar. At Dete’s,he encountered a different scene. Smoke, laughter, and the smells of liquor and beer greeted him as he made his way through the doors. The juke box was playing loudly in one corner of the bar. R. Kelly, After-7, and then X-Scape played for a while till the blues came on. Sonny walked to the far end of the bar toward the 20-inch Sony TV screen. The Young and the Restless played for a while. Next the evening news. Then scenes of the Serbs, O.J., the local weather. Then ABC’s TGIF. Sonny grinned at the simple antics of the Family Matters main character Steven Q. Urkel. But he wasn’t smiling inside. His mother’s words kept echoing through his head. “Where ya goin’ this time? You hardly stay still since you came back, Sonny. Where ya goin’, where ya—” His head started to hurt again. This time the pain lasted longer. So, Sonny asked the bartender for two shots of E&J, straight. He took a quick swallow of the first one. Then sipped his second one. It tasted good. The pain in his head didn’t pound as much now. He watched the TV till 11 p.m., told Jake the bartender goodnight, and then left Dete’s. Outside, the air had turned colder, just like the weatherman said. It was about forty-five degrees. Sonny closed his jacket tightly around himself, trying to get some warmth from it. His faded blue denim jacket offered him little protection from the wind. He made a block to Cleveland Street. More clubs. More wannabes, Sonny thought. He used to live out here. He knew the roles the guys played with the girls. He saw

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how the idle chit-chat flowed from one mouth to another, apparently not registering to any interesting ears. There were BMWs, ol’Cadillacs, and 5.0’s surrounded by some youngsters rapping to some women. “It’s still the same ‘round here. Ain’t nothing changed,” Sonny said to himself. He turned onto Taft. A few people were outside, huddled into groups. Some young man called out his name, and Sonny quickly nodded his head toward him. Sonny weaved his way into his yard. His head began to pound again. As usual, the pain only pretended to leave. Taking one step at a time, Sonny climbed them slowly. He was almost to the top of the porch when he noticed how the stars in the clear black sky looked much too bright, how they were spinning around instead of being still, and how he felt colder than when he was at Dete’s. He suddenly clutched his head with both of his slender hands. He began to hear bombs bursting in the air, people shouting in another language, and felt someone kicking him in his ribs. He started to fall down the steps, putting his hands out to catch hold of nothing but air. The last thing he remembered was hearing a loud Thump-Thump!

“No, where are you taking me? I’m not supposed to be here!” Sonny shouted to the yellow-skinned man in front of him. “Shut up, youAmer’can!!! Take him to hut!!” a fierce Vietnamese commanded to the other two ‘Congs holding Sonny under his shoulders. Sonny twisted and turned to break loose of their grips. “Let me go!” Sonny shouted at the tan-dressed officer. “Yen lang! Yen lang!!” the tan-dressed ‘Namese shouted at him. “Screw you! My men are gonna look for me, and you’re gonna get your butt—” A hand whipped quickly across Sonny’s face so fast that it made him speechless. “Yen lang! Yu stoopidAmer’can. You in my territory.” The officer spoke rapidly to his two men. They started to take Sonny toward the hut. Sonny pulled against them. “Let me go. I didn—”Arifle was jammed into his lower rib cage. “AAAARRRRGGGHHH!” Sonny hollered. Then, it struck him in his head. Darkness overtook him as the two officers pulled him toward the prison.

“Sonny, wake up. Take it easy before ya roll out of ya bed.” Sonny opened his brown eyes slowly to see Pearlie Mae hovering over him with a concerned face. “Wake up. Don’t go throwin’ your arms. Wake up, baby.”

“Ma?” “Hush, boy. You done went and got yourself a big black bruise on your head. Doc Stevens said you gonna be okay, though.” Sonny slowly eased himself up. His arms trembled a lot, so he sank back down into his bed. It was morning outside; the sunlight poured through his drawn-back curtains. A plate of grits, bacon, and orange juice was on a table beside his bed. He didn’t feel like eating. He wanted a drink of Crown Royal. He had a bottle in his drawer. Ow-ow, my head hurts, he thought. Sonny turned toward his mother. He stared at her for a while. She sat on the edge of his bed waiting for him to start eating. “Why do you do this to yourself, Sonny?” She didn’t say the words. They spoke to him from the pale, milky brown eyes watching him. His mother left him alone. Sonny closed his eyes. He saw the jungle. He saw the women and children running to some huts,

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trying to hide from the helicopters whirring above them…He heard shouts of agony, cries of despair as bombs exploded around him, hurdling bodies into the air…It was smoky; the air smelled like charred meat; he was chained to a wall…. Pearlie Mae walked into the room. Sonny knew he had to tell her before he took another drink, before he lost his nerves. “Here you go, Sonny. Doc wants you to take these painkillers soon as you woke up.” She handed him two blue-colored pills and a glass of water. Sonny took them from her, put the pills in his mouth, and drank the water. The medicine would only dull his pain, just like in rehab. He wondered if those doctors at the Veteran’s Hospital gave him candy, not something stronger. He closed his eyes again, tightly this time to shut out the pictures, the screams, the bodies falling, the U.S. Army men breaking into the hut that was his home for six months, the rats and roaches gnawing at his skin….

Pearlie Mae got up to turn the light out, but she stopped when her son asked her to sit back down. His eyes remained closed. He didn’t know where to start. Pearlie Mae sat silently. She watched her son’s face twist into a shape of whatever was on his mind. She wondered what held him in this condition, a condition that had him wandering them streets. “The VA hospital let me out earlier than usual. I was not progressing any faster. I wasn’t responding to the medication in the first year. They said I had post-traumatic stress disorder.” “What’s that?” his mother asked. “It means that I was repressing things that I went through and saw during the war. Ma, they said I got shell-shocked. That’s why I can’t sleep or eat. I have nightmares.” “I didn’t know, Sonny. I just thought you was stressed out. That you took things hard. I didn’t know you suffered. You hardly wanted to talk to anybody after the war.” “Ma, I—. They said I was incapable of rationalizing. Some junk, something.” “You’re okay, boy. Just took the divorce with Cheryl too hard. Miss your kids, that’s all.” “Yeah, I do. I miss them. But I couldn’t handle it, Ma. I couldn’t handle a family, my family. That’s why I started to drink.” Sonny got quiet. He wanted a drink so bad, but he kept his craving at bay. Must be God helping him ‘cause he didn’t know he could get this far talking to his mother about the war, about his family, the divorce. It had been four years since he talked to anyone about it. “The government lied when they said I was recovering at a hospital in ‘Nam. I was captured by the enemy. They held me as a prisoner for six months. They tortured me by not feeding me and by keeping me isolated from other prisoners. I had no one to talk to, to see, except for the rats and roaches that wanted my dinner! A dinner of stale molded bread and dirty water.” His mother held her son’s hand tightly. “They wanted to know, they wanted me to reveal the locations of several American Army Headquarters. But I wouldn’t tell them. For six months, I wouldn’t tell them a thing! They didn’t want to kill me. I wished they had. “Then, the Army rescued me. Good ol’ Uncle Sam didn’t forget about me. After that, for the next fifteen years I blocked everything out. Went on with my life as usual. You couldn’t tell, Ma. Had to be a man, proud black man, and wear my stripes of service to my country with my head held high,” he said bitterly. Pearlie Mae just sat there on the edge of her son’s bed, holding his hand and rocking back and forth gently as she took in all that Sonny said. “Dear Lord, have mercy on his soul,” she prayed. Sonny kept on talking about the war, the casualties he saw at that young age of twenty. He talked 41