"Da-da!" - short story - Black South Fiction, Art, Culture

African American Review, Summer, 1993 by Louis Edwards

Malcolm let his thoughts return to Paulie. And he found that he had already made a decision about what to do with his memory of the boy. He would not let himself forget about Paulie. He needed to remember. He would write about Paulie. If writing was, as he believed, the documentation of truth through translation, he would accept this challenge. In writing about Paulie, he would simply seek to discover the truth.

Two days later he began:

My name is Paul. But some people call me Paulie. I'm not afraid of anything in the world except maybe being by myself. I am strong. I am only a boy, a small one, eleven years old - but I have the strength of a man. I am stronger than a lot of men. I am wiser than even more. But what is strength? And what is wisdom? I'm only a boy, so I'm sure you don't rare to hear my definitions, anyway. And, besides, they're not really definitions; they're only feelings, vague impressions, obscured by the glorious but miserable haze of my childhood. So many things I cannot know for sure. And, too, the inevitability of instinctive action - and inaction. Nothing you can do about all that.

Sometimes I wish that I were someone else. It is a burden being so strong and wise. Sometimes I wish that I were a stone, a tree, a bird, or my friend Morris, who once almost kissed me. Yes, sometimes I wish I could rest at the bottom of a lake forever. I wish I could jingle in a breeze. I certainly wish I could fly. And if it meant that I wouldn't always have to be so wise and so strong, I suppose I even wish I could be afraid to kiss someone. But, no. I on not afraid to kiss anyone. As far back as I can remember, I've been generous with my kisses. I've always been either puckering or presenting one cheek or the other. Such behavior strikes me as kind and humane. And though my lips have occasionally been bloodied and my cheeks slapped and bruised, I still sometimes feel compelled to offer careless invitations to partake in my affection. Slightly beautiful, I, too, must react to the advances of others. Like Morris.

Morris, to me, is such a weakling. A beautiful one, but a weakling, to be sure. I say that not only because of the way he refused to kiss me when we were standing in the wings of the stage in the gym - so close he might have been blowing me a charge of marijuana (the way I've seen my brothers do with their friends), his breath intoxicating enough for me - but also because of the cowardly shove he gave me when the ball came bouncing onto the stage. He thought he was protecting the image of his manhood, making sure that the person who was coming up onto the stage to retrieve the ball would see him in an aggressive, manly pose. I don't remember if anyone else saw him or not. But I saw him. And what I saw was a silly boy - a weakling, a wimp. He was more of a sissy than I'll ever be.

I didn't want him back again until the day when he sneaked up behind me, grabbed me hard, pulled me up against him, and bit me on the car. That day I wanted him. But even then I told him no.

Are you writing this down? I see that you are. It's okay. I don't care. Tell the world. Make me famous. Or infamous. Whichever.

I suppose strength is a good trait to possess. Is it one of the things about me that attracts you to me? I know I certainly admire strength. Once I thought that all men are strong. But, of course, that isn't true. I guess in the beginning everyone thinks his own father is strong; that was probably where the false correlation between masculinity and strength began for me. Physically, to a one-year-old, two-year-old, three-year-old - even eleven-year-old - any grown man is massive, powerful. But the day comes, all too soon, when a boy or a girl realizes his or her own worth, realizes that he is someone. He finds himself thrust into competition with the rest of the world, constantly evaluating and comparing himself to others, his brothers, his sisters, his mother, his father.

Perhaps it is only natural that I found myself, from about age five, most intensely involved with the examination of the characteristics of other males as they related to my own. (I say that such fundamental behavior is natural in so much as most little boys and little girls seem to have some basic sympathy for all creatures of their own gender.) I suppose this obsessive, if normal, mental activity led to my drawing some early conclusions about men.

My father I have always loved and respected. I could write a book about what his existence has taught me, and someday I probably will. Speaking truthfully, I don't think I know him that well, yet somehow his example as a male, as a person, really, is clear to me. I can rate him on a strength-wisdom scale. From one to ten - he's a seven.

Let me see. What's my earliest memory of my father? Hmm. Oh, I think it must be - yes. We were in this old car he used to have. I think it was white, but it could have been gray or even yellow. My father was driving, as usual. My mother was sitting next to idm with Grace, who was just a little baby, in her arms. I had the whole back seat to myself, the way I liked it, and I was bouncing around from side to side, looking out one window and then the other. It was summertime, I think. Dw breeze that rushed over my face whenever I stuck my head out of either window was welcomed. Maybe we were going to the lake front. This was in New Orleans, not South End. Lake Pontchartrain. Yes, that's probably where we were headed. Anyway, I remember that the car came to an abrupt stop. the tires screeched, and I tumbled forward onto the wide floor. I heard a horn being blown angrily. My head sank into the vinyl covering stretched over the front seat. It was quickly tossed outward by the vinyl's trampoline effect, and I settled into a neat little pile on the floor behind my father. Then I heard his voice. "Goddamn it!" The car began to move backward, Om stopped. I slid upward, hands gripping the top of the front seat, and saw that we were at an intersection with traffic lights. Our light was red. My father and mother both mumbled words asking if I was all right. I must have nodded instead of speaking, because my mother, who could see me, turned away and went back to attending to Grace, who looked vaguely frightened; however my father turned his head toward the back seat and said, "Huh?" And I said, making an effort to speak clearly, I'm all right." That's the first exchange I can remember having with him - his asking me in a grunt if I was okay and my telling him I was fine. I don't know how old I was. No, if Grace was a baby, I must have been four.