Free New Boy by Julian Houston Page B

caught me by surprise, and I was forced to reconsider how I felt about her and what she had to say.

    I said good night, washed up in Cousin Gwen's spotless white tile bathroom, and retreated to the study. It had indeed been a long day, and my mind was spinning as I thought again about the day's events. At last I had seen Harlem with my own eyes, but I wondered what more there was to the place, beyond the huge buildings and the wide streets and the sidewalks flooded with Negroes. There was danger here, I knew from talking to Willie Maurice and reading the newspaper, but I had yet to encounter it. I thought about Garvey, and I wondered if he had been flawed like Joe Louis, losing his way perhaps as only a colored man can. Both were tragic figures, but it seemed odd that Harlem, for all its grandeur and presumed sympathy, could not save them. I was exhausted. In Cousin Gwen's study, I was surrounded by bookcases stuffed with books I was too tired to examine, so I put on my pajamas, switched off the light, and slipped between the covers of the day bed, where I instantly fell asleep in the darkness.

Chapter Seven
    On Thanksgiving, my parents arrived at Cousin Gwen's early in the afternoon. They had left Virginia in the Roadmaster the day before and stopped to visit friends in Delaware, where they spent the night, arising early the next morning to begin the last leg of the trip. By the time they arrived, dinner was almost ready. Cousin Gwen had made candied sweet potatoes, assigning me the responsibility of placing marshmallows on top of the dish and running it into the oven just before serving. Basted, browned, and swollen with stuffing, the glistening turkey rested on top of the stove as Cousin Gwen was busy making the gravy. I had already set the dining room table with Cousin Gwen's finest tableware, long-stem crystal water glasses, Copeland china, and silver flatware she had inherited from her mother, everything arranged according to her precise instructions on a lace tablecloth of white Irish linen. Outside there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and sunlight was pouring in through the dining room windows.

    "Well, well, well," said my father with a grin as he shook my
hand and threw his arm around my shoulder. "You're looking pretty good, I'd say."

    "I'm doing okay," I replied. I didn't want to say any more. I wasn't prepared, at that time, to discuss the details of my experience at Draper with Vinnie or the events of the day before, even though I knew they wanted very much to hear about them. As far as I was concerned, these were private matters, like my decision to go to a nightclub with Burns, and the less my parents knew about them, the better.
    "You mean you're not ready to come home?" said my mother in mock surprise, wrapping her arms around me. I knew she was kidding, but I wondered if there was something more to her question. Since I had arrived at Draper, the thought of returning home had occurred to me more than once, but I had clung to my resolve to remain. Despite moments of great uncertainty, I was determined to finish what I had begun, to prove that I had the will to survive and find my way through the wilderness.
    Cousin Gwen's Thanksgiving dinner was predictably sumptuous. The turkey was moist and perfectly done, and she had stuffed it with cornbread, grated orange peel, and country sausage, which gave it a wonderful aroma. The giblet gravy she had put together made the turkey even more succulent. The collards were tender and smoky from the ham hocks. I had put the sweet potatoes in the oven at the last minute and they were now on the table with the marshmallows, crispy brown and puffed. There were slices of baked ham, and homemade cranberry sauce, and, of
course, Cousin Gwen's incomparable hot rolls. It was a feast, and as the deep blue sky began to take on a rosy hue, we ate ourselves silly, helping ourselves to seconds, and in my father's case, to thirds. And to top it off, when dinner was finished, Cousin