Free Music of the Swamp by Lewis Nordan Page A

“They’s a blue smoke coming off this gravy.”
    My mother said, “Spoon some over a slice of that Wonder Bread, you want a special treat.”
    My grandfather said, “I don’t even remember the color blue, I been blind so long.”
    I said, “It’s the color of sparks flying out of your nose when they pull the switch.”
    My grandfather spooned the chemical fluid straight out of the gravy boat and into his mouth to break up a rice blockage in his throat. He said, “Getting rid of you might help.”
    He said this beneath his breath, but he was fierce and serious and I heard him.
    My mother said, “Now, Pap.”
    My grandfather said, “Eleven years old and still don’t know how to listen to the radio.”
    I said, “Can I watch television?”
    My father said, “I don’t want you watching any colored people on that television.”
    My grandfather said, “Sammy Davis is on tonight. I heard about it.”
    My father said, “Better leave the TV alone tonight, Sugar.”
    My grandfather said, “If he knew how to listen to the radio he wouldn’t have to watch a bunch of coons on the TV.”
    My mother, said, “Now, Pap.”
    I DID NOT attend the execution, obviously. Even I knew it was impossible. The man did die, though. His name was in the paper, not his picture, which meant he was a black man. I cried my guts out when I heard about it. Right in front of myfather I turned on the television and watched Pearl Bailey sing “Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey” and said, “She’s pretty.” My father left the room in disgust and got so drunk he had to be taken to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. I had always known he drank because of me, and for the first time I didn’t care. I wished he would die and then I cried my guts out about that too. My mother said, “If anybody asks you, just say he got food poisoning.” My grandfather said, “If he was blind, he would have something to get drunk about.” I said, “If it was food poisoning going to kill him, he’d been dead long time ago.” My mother looked at me like this. I looked right back and double-dog-dared her to say a word and she didn’t.
    You might as well know the end of this. What is the point of dragging it out? I got up from the dinner table that night and left the house without speaking to anyone. I walked straight to the Baptist church and climbed into the loft and, with a four-foot board, I swatted down a metallic-colored pigeon from the rafters and stomped it till its hard eyes popped out, and pulled out all its feathers and stuffed them in my mouth and puked and swore I would never say, not even to condemn it as evil, the word nigger for the rest of my life. Today, for the one millionth time, as I tell this story, I am breaking that vow. I have no explanations. To seal the vow I pulled down from a corner of the church loft a wasp nest, papery and alive with terrified little red dive-bombers, and squeezed the fiery nest in my hand until my hand was filledwith poison and big as a football and I was stung many times all over my body. I also vowed to catch the train. This has no explanation either. I had been wearing a steel beanie and a steel cuff on my leg all my life. I had been eating my last meal forever, and it was not what I ordered. Goodbye, I’m leaving, I’m gone.
    I SLEPT in my bed that night and caught the train the next day and rode it forty hard miles. I was sick with fever from the wasp stings. My damaged hand glowed like a bulb. I could scarcely cling to the ladder of the boxcar. I could still taste pigeon feathers in my mouth and throat.
    A thousand times, when the train slowed or stopped, I thought of jumping off. I wanted to die in a ditch. I wanted to disappear. I wanted a different history and geography. In rhythm with the wheels I said
I want I want I want I want
I stayed on the