Lay that Trumpet in Our Hands Read Online Free

‘
Whip-Will’s-Widow!’
”
    “Marvin, I never heard the birds say that!”
    “Oh,
lots
of folks hear, but only a
few
listen,” he’d reply, dropping his chin, narrowing his eyes at me.
    The sky is bright, bird’s-egg blue, cloudless; the sun March-warm, not yet summery hot. The DeSoto glides past the pure geometry of the groves. So my grandmother won’t see or say anything about my tears, I turn away, tapping out the rhythm of the green rows flying past the window, haunted by the awful singsonging inside my head:
Marvin’s
dead, gone forever.
    North into Lake County, we reach the historic New England-style mansion that’s the Lakeview Inn. The Inn sits between two stands of navel trees still in full bloom, on a slight ridge above pretty Lake Laura. As we pull into the driveway, the smell of orange blossoms and fried food fills the car. The azaleas, blazing pink against the wide white porch, look like they’d smell good, too, but I know they have no scent at all.
    “Your grandfather and I used to winter across the lake from here,” Doto tells four-year-old Mitchell, reaching out to rub his buzz-haired head. “The first time I brought your father here, he was a babe in arms.”
    Mitchell squints up at her, knitting his pale brows at the idea of a baby Daddy in Doto’s arms. We call him our human fireplug because he’s about that high and wide, and bursting with me-too energy. Spitting image of your uncle Harry, Doto says. Eight-year-old Ren, on the other hand, is lean and lanky, with Mother’s curls and easygoing disposition except, Doto says, for the streak of the daredevil that’s pure Daddy.
    The Inn’s hostess, who’s older than Doto and remembers her, greets us loudly, exclaiming over how big we’ve grown, and settles us in a booth with a view.
    Outside, the lawn runs down to the lake. People stroll on white crushed-shell pathways admiring more pink azaleas, late red camellias, lavender clusters on the lolly-popped chinaberry trees and the sweet, sun-colored jessamine trained over a trellis. Beyond the lake, orderly rows of blossoming trees march up and over the rolling hills. This is the Florida the snowbirds fall for.
    The menus, the size of newspapers, dwarf us. We know what we want so we slap them shut right away and order as soon as our waitress appears. Doto sips her iced tea and Ren and I carefully suck our Coke straws. Mitchell’s another story. Since our baby brother is not yet accustomed to Doto’s strong opinions on table manners, the appropriate use of a straw and napkin, she quietly lectures him. Just after the waitress delivers our food—clam chowder for Doto, fried clams and French fries for us—a loud burst of male laughter from the booth next door startles us.
    “The hell of it is, they grabbed the wrong nigger!” roars one of the men.
    Doto’s soup spoon freezes midair; her eyes slit at the man’s language.
    “They cruised the juke joint and saw him, young buck leanin’ up against this white Caddy with New York plates. Uppity-ass burr-head smart-talked Jimmy Sims at his garage. They got the bastard, shut him up right quick and headed for a little stompin’ party at Round Lake.”
    The man telling the story stops for a noisy swig of his drink.
    “Reed Garnet, y’all know him? Got there little late and that half-dead nigger looks up at him and whimpers, ‘Mr. Reed, Mr. Reed, it’s
me
, Marvin!’ ”
    Again the table laughs, this time at the storyteller’s high-voice impersonation of the Negro dialect. Doto glares at us around the table, hazel eyes beading the unmistakable message
don’t make a sound
.
    “Well, Reed, he was hoppin’ mad, called those boys a bunch of morons, told them this boy’s mamma works in his house and now what were they gonna do? J. D. Bowman, y’all know that crazy Opalakee boy, just got back from Korea? Well, J.D. he just laughed, pulled out his pistol and shot that nigger boy in the head. ‘Problem solved,’ he told ol’ Reed.”
    At