Free Gone Fishin' by Walter Mosley

woman again - she must’ve been in her late
seventies.
    I’d
seen it happen before. The oldest member of the family outlives all
of her husbands and siblings, and even her children sometimes, and
all the belongings of all the families come to her in a big lonely
house. She lives with five houses’ worth of furniture and
dishes, old clothes, and knickknacks.
    ‘Come
on, Ezekiel, you’re in my charge now.’
    The next
room was the music room. There were three upright pianos and
different leather bags in the shapes of guitars, fiddles, and even a
tuba.
    ‘Go
on, take your clothes off and get in that tub.’ She opened a
door that led to a small washroom. I hesitated a minute but she just
shook her hand back and forth to show how impatient she was and I
went in.
    ‘You’re
lucky I take my bath on Wednesdays; I just filled the tub,’ she
said, leaving me to my toilet. ‘And I have clothes from my
uncle you can wear, he was ‘bout your size.’
    The
washroom smelled of soap. There was a brass sink and a commode and a
large washtub on lion feet. Next to the sink was a table with a giant
clamshell on it. The clamshell was filled with hundreds of little
flowers made from soap. Red, green, and yellow soap, and violet and
blue too. Each one hinted of a different spice but mostly they
smelled like soap.
    I took off
my clothes and realised how bad I smelled after the last two days. I
tried to pile them in a corner where the smell wouldn’t be too
offensive in that sweet-smelling room, and then I jumped into the
tub.
    ‘Ow!
Oh!’ The water was so hot that I nearly jumped up. I thought
she was trying to kill me.
    ‘Nice
an’ hot, huh, Ezekiel? Secret to a long life is a hot bath
twice a week and no liquor,’ she called through the closed
door.
    I got used
to the water after a bit. The heat along with fever made me even more
light-headed and tired. The sun was shining in through the lace
curtains on the window. Miss Dixon - I found out later that Abigail
was her first name - turned on a radio somewhere in the house and it
was playing big-band music. The house was filled with the sound of
scratchy clarinets and pianos. That was the finest living that I had
ever experienced up to that time.
    I’d
wake up now and then and look at how my fingers and toes wrinkled in
the water. Finally the water turned cold and I started shivering. So
I got out and put on the green suit Miss Dixon had hung outside the
door.
    ‘Welllll…
don’t we look so much better,’ she said when I came into
the kitchen. ‘Clean and scrubbed is halfway back to health.’
    ‘Yes, ma’am.’
    ‘You hungry, Ezekiel?’
    ‘Yes, ma’am.’
    ‘Well you just sit down and I’ll give you some stew.’
    There was
already a plate on one of the three tables she had in the dinette. I
went to a chair next to that setting but she yelled, ‘Not
there! Sit at one of the other tables.’
    I didn’t
know what she meant but I went to the pine table near the back door
and sat down.
    ‘You
know I cain’t sit at the same table with you, Ezekiel,’
she said as she put a bowl of beef stew in front of me. ‘You
know it’s not proper for white and colored to sit together. I
mean it’d be as much an insult to your people as mine if we
were to forget our place.’
    I watched
her go to her separate seat and I thought to myself that she was
crazy but I couldn’t keep my mind on I it because that was the
first food I’d had in almost a whole day. It was good stew too.
I can still remember how it tasted of black pepper and wine.
    ‘How
do you know Domaque, Ezekiel?’
    ‘Well,
uh, well I wanted t’learn t’read bettah, an’ Mouse,
I mean Raymond, tole me ‘bout him.’ I was lying but I
wasn’t, not really.
    ‘Do
you read?’
    ‘A
little, ma’am. I can sign my name and make the sounds of
letters… I know that a “p” and a “h”
together sound like a “f.” ‘ I thought about
Domaque quoting the Bible and about my father then. My father always
told me