The Buffalo Soldier Read Online Free Page B
white, and that uncertainty crossed his mind now. He was five when it first dawned on him that skin color was an issue, and he'd been living with the Howards for close to three years. Suddenly Mr. Howard became ill, seriously ill, and within weeks he was living in a group home in Burlington. Alfred thought there may have been a place between the man getting sick and his spending time in a group home--an apartment, maybe, somewhere in the city's North End--but he couldn't quite remember. It was in that brief period when he'd stopped talking completely, and in hindsight he'd come to suspect that the grown-ups around him must have feared he was truly fucked up.
At some point since then he'd grown to believe--either because it was something someone had said to him or because it was something he simply had to assume was true to get on with his life--that the Howards would have adopted him if Mr. Howard hadn't gotten so sick. How much was real and how much he was making up was unclear to him. But he was quite sure that he had loved living with the Howards, and he had been happy.
He remembered the smell of the clean clothes that he wore, and the way Mrs. Howard always seemed to be dressing him straight from the dryer: The clothes were warm. He remembered a swing set made of wood, with a small fort beside the very top of a yellow slide. He remembered Mr. Howard driving him and a girl who was eight--a biologic child of theirs--to the elementary school in the morning on his way to an office nearby where he worked. He went to kindergarten in that school for a couple of months, leaving the class--and the Howards--either just before or just after Thanksgiving.
The Howards were white, and he was with them since he was a toddler. In those days, Renee still showed up once or twice a year. He remembered moments from those visits, too, but only because she always ended up shouting at the Howards.
Then she had another baby and moved to Jamaica, and gave up all her rights to him.
He only spent a couple of weeks in the group home, but it was there that he first began to fear--and fear, at least then, was indeed the right word--that he might never be adopted because he was black. Apparently that was one of the first things he had told a social worker when he started to speak again. After all, the kids in the home were all either Asian or black, while most of the people he saw on the streets were white. White grown-ups with white kids. That's what he saw out the window, at the playground, and in the kindergarten.
For a time he had expected the Howards to come back for him, but they never did. He thought Mr. Howard had died, but he wasn't completely sure. He knew he might have made that up to explain their disappearance from his life.
He squinted, and the tree branches looked like pencil lines against the gray sky. A spider's web, maybe.
He was afraid of spiders, and so he quickly opened his eyes all the way. He liked the cemetery, and he didn't want the place ruined for him. Here there was the undeniable relief that came with being completely invisible--of not being watched--and he wanted to retreat beneath the hydrangea until, at the very least, it was time to go back to the house for his supper.
"[Rowe] spoke very well for a colored, and rode much better than most. A superior horseman, I'd say. Of course, the settlers didn't much like him, but then he didn't like them a whole hell of a lot, either."
LIEUTENANT T. R. MCKEEVER,
TENTH REGIMENT, UNITED STATES CAVALRY,
WPA INTERVIEW,
AUGUST 1937
*
Laura
Laura crumbled the toast over the macaroni and cheese in the casserole dish and slipped their dinner into the oven. Then she sat down at the kitchen table, a slim woman with hair the color of sand when the surf has just receded and a complexion as pale as the skin on the inside of her palms. She was still in her mid-thirties, but her face and her eyes had been aged prematurely by grief, and she hadn't felt her age in two years. She'd
At some point since then he'd grown to believe--either because it was something someone had said to him or because it was something he simply had to assume was true to get on with his life--that the Howards would have adopted him if Mr. Howard hadn't gotten so sick. How much was real and how much he was making up was unclear to him. But he was quite sure that he had loved living with the Howards, and he had been happy.
He remembered the smell of the clean clothes that he wore, and the way Mrs. Howard always seemed to be dressing him straight from the dryer: The clothes were warm. He remembered a swing set made of wood, with a small fort beside the very top of a yellow slide. He remembered Mr. Howard driving him and a girl who was eight--a biologic child of theirs--to the elementary school in the morning on his way to an office nearby where he worked. He went to kindergarten in that school for a couple of months, leaving the class--and the Howards--either just before or just after Thanksgiving.
The Howards were white, and he was with them since he was a toddler. In those days, Renee still showed up once or twice a year. He remembered moments from those visits, too, but only because she always ended up shouting at the Howards.
Then she had another baby and moved to Jamaica, and gave up all her rights to him.
He only spent a couple of weeks in the group home, but it was there that he first began to fear--and fear, at least then, was indeed the right word--that he might never be adopted because he was black. Apparently that was one of the first things he had told a social worker when he started to speak again. After all, the kids in the home were all either Asian or black, while most of the people he saw on the streets were white. White grown-ups with white kids. That's what he saw out the window, at the playground, and in the kindergarten.
For a time he had expected the Howards to come back for him, but they never did. He thought Mr. Howard had died, but he wasn't completely sure. He knew he might have made that up to explain their disappearance from his life.
He squinted, and the tree branches looked like pencil lines against the gray sky. A spider's web, maybe.
He was afraid of spiders, and so he quickly opened his eyes all the way. He liked the cemetery, and he didn't want the place ruined for him. Here there was the undeniable relief that came with being completely invisible--of not being watched--and he wanted to retreat beneath the hydrangea until, at the very least, it was time to go back to the house for his supper.
"[Rowe] spoke very well for a colored, and rode much better than most. A superior horseman, I'd say. Of course, the settlers didn't much like him, but then he didn't like them a whole hell of a lot, either."
LIEUTENANT T. R. MCKEEVER,
TENTH REGIMENT, UNITED STATES CAVALRY,
WPA INTERVIEW,
AUGUST 1937
*
Laura
Laura crumbled the toast over the macaroni and cheese in the casserole dish and slipped their dinner into the oven. Then she sat down at the kitchen table, a slim woman with hair the color of sand when the surf has just receded and a complexion as pale as the skin on the inside of her palms. She was still in her mid-thirties, but her face and her eyes had been aged prematurely by grief, and she hadn't felt her age in two years. She'd
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