Daddy had come straight home! We children, me- Marcus, the oldest, Sunny and baby Ben had all felt the tension of the Payday-Friday standoffs. Daddy didnÆt go to the bar and grill this time; our father, James Alonzo Custis was a big man, gruff voiced and clumsy but not usually explosive or hostile. We children had never seen him strike or strike out at our mama but we had heard him rage many terrible times when she or things in general didnÆt behave as they should. Payday Friday marked his release from a week of bone chilling work on the high cranes at the Navy shipyard. Most laborers would look for warmth and whiskey in the bars outside the shipyard gates, Daddy would break one of the three twenty dollar bills heÆd earned that week (good money for a laborer in 1949) and spend five bucks trading rounds with his mates. Our Mother, his wife Jackie, frustration showing beneath her fading brown looks, complained that the five dollars came out of her grocery money since rent and heat took most of the rest.
Shining in her happy victory Mamma grabbed nine year old me and pushed the money and a list of things I was to buy into the deep front pocket of my corduroy pants. She dressed me in layers of sweaters and a heavy coat for the six city block trip to the grocery store. It was the worst of winters, icy and dark outside. She reminded me I was bringing home hot chocolate, raisins, peanuts, smoked bacon... good things we couldnÆt have when Daddy went off drinking. I went off like a soldier.
The cityÆs mighty snow plows had done their work and undulating hills rose from the curb line of every street. High up on the frozen ridges I found trails left by other childrenÆs feet. I found I could transit the entire route to the store along snowbanks high as a mans shoulders. Along the way I fell on treacherous downslides, went down to my knees in soft patches of dirty snow and even found abanetted getting to street corners: I had to go down to Earth and cross the slushed roadway before I could mount the mountains again and continue the adventure. Once, I met a late traveler my own age coming the other way and our eyes locked: King of The Mountain. The other boy was strong but his plastic shoes were slick on the watery ice and he went over the side with a horror-movie scream that left us both grinning as we went on our separate ways. Too soon I stomped into the store and when my hands thawed, felt in my front pocket for the money and the list and found neither of them there.
I searched. I ordered myself not to panic and searched every step IÆd traveled. I consoled myself: any minute I would come upon the patch of green money and white paper and crumple down with a breathy sigh of relief. I called upon my guardian angel who had done favors chasing out dread in my bedroom; but at that instant I felt a visceral dread of facing my father - facing all of them without groceries and without the Twenty. The Mountains were just filthy snow now- shyster traps...the money had been deep in the pocket...how?
When it was hopeless, when I was nearly frozen, I trekked home and told them.
