Fire Shut Up in My Bones Read Online Free
Author: Charles M. Blow
Handguns were on display. Porn magazines and condoms were hidden under my grandfather’s bed. It was as far from Gibsland—in every way—as I had ever been.
One day when we were visiting, Grandpa Bill was playing a small-money card game in the open garage with a neighbor from across the street. My brothers, our young aunts, and I were playing in the driveway. My grandfather accused the man of cheating. The minor disagreement quickly escalated, fueled by alcohol and my grandfather’s sense of honor. My grandfather disappeared into the house and returned with his pistol cocked and aimed. My mother, hysterical, wrestled it away. I was shocked and frightened by how a good time had gone so quickly and badly wrong. Grandpa Bill would surely have killed the man that day, us children watching or no.
Grandpa Bill was quick to violence and unafraid of it. He knew the feel of cold steel in his hand and hot lead in his body. He had been shot twice since the war, for playing around with women who didn’t belong to him. Still, he survived. He seemed indestructible, but in need of defense. So his pearl-handled pistol was always nearby.
The feeling I got in Houston was the opposite of the feeling I got in Kiblah. The air in Houston was always charged, and an explosion seemed always imminent. In Houston, even when having fun, I was a ball of nerves.
After her pregnancy with me, and the sickness it brought, my mother got back on her feet, and a neighbor got her a job at the poultry plant in the town of Arcadia, eight miles east of Gibsland, where she stood on her feet on a production line all day cutting chickens for next to nothing: seventy-five cents an hour. She put in two years in that pit before getting a secretarial job at the high school in Gibsland.
All my other brothers were already in school, but I was not. So my mother had my great-uncle Paul keep me during the day so that she could work and then go to school in the afternoon.
Uncle Paul was Papa Joe and Mam’ Grace’s youngest son, a quiet man unable to read or write his own name. He was dark like a wad of half-chewed tobacco, had wide shoulders into which he diffidently tucked his head like a box turtle, and had a large nose, spread wide and pointed down like a raven’s tail. Uncle Paul was now near fifty and had failed to leave the nest. He had lived with Papa Joe and Mam’ Grace his whole life.
Every morning I’d stand on the car seat, my small arm tenderly draped around my mother’s neck as she drove me to Papa Joe’s house. Uncle Paul was my babysitter, but he was also my best friend—I was growing into childhood, and he had never truly left it.
Papa Joe’s house was dimly lit and filled with old furniture, dark and heavy, collected over a long life, imbued with memories but devoid of value. Papa Joe was a former moonshine runner, an enterprise that had earned him a stint in prison. Now older, wiser, and more settled, he farmed hogs and chickens. I followed him around as he did his chores—fixing things, slopping hogs, collecting eggs. Now that Mam’ Grace was gone, he barely spoke.
One day Papa Joe went out back to get a chicken from the coop for supper, and I blithely followed. He grabbed one by the neck, walked it over to the well-scarred chopping block, pinned its head down, and chopped it off—one swing of an ax, swift and strong. The headless bird sprang from the block and ran around in a spiral, blood spurting from its neck, until it fell lifelessly to the ground. I was horrified. I passed on chicken for a while.
By late morning, Uncle Paul and I began our long walk back to the House with No Steps. Along the way we passed layabout men leaning against muddy trucks parked under favorite shade trees. They checked in every day like it was a job, swigging cheap liquor from twisted paper bags, entertaining themselves with profane ruminations on the world as it passed them by. They cracked wise about other people’s problems, even as they
One day when we were visiting, Grandpa Bill was playing a small-money card game in the open garage with a neighbor from across the street. My brothers, our young aunts, and I were playing in the driveway. My grandfather accused the man of cheating. The minor disagreement quickly escalated, fueled by alcohol and my grandfather’s sense of honor. My grandfather disappeared into the house and returned with his pistol cocked and aimed. My mother, hysterical, wrestled it away. I was shocked and frightened by how a good time had gone so quickly and badly wrong. Grandpa Bill would surely have killed the man that day, us children watching or no.
Grandpa Bill was quick to violence and unafraid of it. He knew the feel of cold steel in his hand and hot lead in his body. He had been shot twice since the war, for playing around with women who didn’t belong to him. Still, he survived. He seemed indestructible, but in need of defense. So his pearl-handled pistol was always nearby.
The feeling I got in Houston was the opposite of the feeling I got in Kiblah. The air in Houston was always charged, and an explosion seemed always imminent. In Houston, even when having fun, I was a ball of nerves.
After her pregnancy with me, and the sickness it brought, my mother got back on her feet, and a neighbor got her a job at the poultry plant in the town of Arcadia, eight miles east of Gibsland, where she stood on her feet on a production line all day cutting chickens for next to nothing: seventy-five cents an hour. She put in two years in that pit before getting a secretarial job at the high school in Gibsland.
All my other brothers were already in school, but I was not. So my mother had my great-uncle Paul keep me during the day so that she could work and then go to school in the afternoon.
Uncle Paul was Papa Joe and Mam’ Grace’s youngest son, a quiet man unable to read or write his own name. He was dark like a wad of half-chewed tobacco, had wide shoulders into which he diffidently tucked his head like a box turtle, and had a large nose, spread wide and pointed down like a raven’s tail. Uncle Paul was now near fifty and had failed to leave the nest. He had lived with Papa Joe and Mam’ Grace his whole life.
Every morning I’d stand on the car seat, my small arm tenderly draped around my mother’s neck as she drove me to Papa Joe’s house. Uncle Paul was my babysitter, but he was also my best friend—I was growing into childhood, and he had never truly left it.
Papa Joe’s house was dimly lit and filled with old furniture, dark and heavy, collected over a long life, imbued with memories but devoid of value. Papa Joe was a former moonshine runner, an enterprise that had earned him a stint in prison. Now older, wiser, and more settled, he farmed hogs and chickens. I followed him around as he did his chores—fixing things, slopping hogs, collecting eggs. Now that Mam’ Grace was gone, he barely spoke.
One day Papa Joe went out back to get a chicken from the coop for supper, and I blithely followed. He grabbed one by the neck, walked it over to the well-scarred chopping block, pinned its head down, and chopped it off—one swing of an ax, swift and strong. The headless bird sprang from the block and ran around in a spiral, blood spurting from its neck, until it fell lifelessly to the ground. I was horrified. I passed on chicken for a while.
By late morning, Uncle Paul and I began our long walk back to the House with No Steps. Along the way we passed layabout men leaning against muddy trucks parked under favorite shade trees. They checked in every day like it was a job, swigging cheap liquor from twisted paper bags, entertaining themselves with profane ruminations on the world as it passed them by. They cracked wise about other people’s problems, even as they
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