The Bag

The Bag

I remember the year I turned eight like it was yesterday. I was way too young to wander into a pool hall, but that is exactly what happened almost every night that year. Wrapped in my powder pink robe and rabbit-eared slippers, I hopped off my red vinyl chair, grabbed the quarter Mama left on the table by the front door, and held my breath until I made it to our porch.

“Tell Mr. Earl I said hello,” Mama would yell before I reached the bottom step.

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered before she finished, kinda like when grownups say “fine” before other grownups ask them, “How ya Mama and dem?”

Almost every night that year, I took the long walk to Mr. Earl’s Place three doors down from my house on Owen Street. I walked in slow motion, savoring my freedom and prolonging the magic that happened each time our screen door slammed behind me. I could hear Mr. Earl’s golden saxophone as soon as I stepped onto our porch. Like a “you-betta-be-home-before-the-street-lights-come-on” command, it called me. And I obeyed, not out of the healthy fear that command usually invoked. I obeyed the saxophone’s call because of who held it.

Otis Ray Earl was a special man. He had three first names. That was pretty special to me. The story is that his mama was in love with three men, so she named her first son after all of them: Otis, her favorite soul singer; Ray, her first crush; and Earl, the man she married.

Even more special than his three first names was the number of instruments Mr. Earl played and how he made me feel. String, woodwind, brass, percussion, or keyboard did not matter. Mr. Earl could play them all, but his saxophone was my favorite. He made that horn sing. When he was troubled, it sounded like Sunday morning. When he was happy, it sounded like the time Big Papa took me to the French Quarter in the daytime. When Mr. Earl was sad, Goldie sounded like the songs Mama sang after Daddy did the thing he promised he would never do again.

I had my fill of sad news, so I only asked about the happy songs. Mr. Earl said those songs were by his friends Charlie and John. I never met them, but Mr. Earl talked about them all the time, and I mean ALLLLLL the time.

“Charlie’s got Yardbird, and John’s got Giant Steps,” Mr. Earl would say more times than I remember. When I was eight, I tried real hard to figure out what a chicken and big feet had to do with the happy music he played, but that didn’t matter as long as I got to visit the pool hall on those fairy-tale nights after supper.

My favorite visits were in March, April, and May because June – September was way too hot, and October – February was way too weird. Strange bugs that made strange sounds showed up in July, August, and September. Short pants and sticky Halloweens, Thanksgivings, and Christmases were even stranger to the girl who read about smores, earmuffs, and snowmen that I never saw in my neighborhood during that time of year.

So I loved spring, but I really loved it the year I turned eight. Almost as much as I loved Earl’s Place and the man who owned it.

By the time I reached his stoop, I could hear the muted clack of balls as they kissed each other on the way from their velvet playground to the nylon pockets that announced the winners and losers waiting to greet me as I entered. I didn’t realize it then, but I held my breath each time I swung the door open on the house that smelled like spittoons and old men’s dreams, and I exhaled when I saw Mr. Earl’s smile.

“Get on in here, Suga!” he said as he lifted me onto his spit-shined shoes and walked me to the barstool he reserved just for me. Almost every night that year, I wished he’d walk just a little slower. I felt cherished standing on top of those shoes.

“What can I get ya?” he’d ask when we reached the bar.

“I’ll take a ice-cold soda water,” I’d say, knowing what the next question was bound to be but withholding the answer to prolong the scene we reenacted almost every time I slapped my quarter on Mr. Earl’s bar.

“What flavor?” he’d ask.

“A grape one, please.”

And then my favorite line . . .

“Coming right at ya, little lady,” Mr. Earl would say, making me giggle so hard my side hurt.

I loved everything about that pool hall. The tobacco smoke mixed with the smell of ground sassafras in the gumbo pot simmering on the stove behind the bar. The faded roses on the wallpaper in the room that used to be Miss Fanny’s beauty parlor before she sold the building to Mr. Earl. The fans that made my can of soda sweat while they kept me cool. I loved it all. I even loved the way the deacons who preached fire and brimstone on Sundays smiled when they were in the pool hall. Their ease made me feel like I had a better chance of making it to heaven.

I treasured every nook and cranny of that place and all the souls who filled it, but there was something peculiarly powerful about the brown paper bags Mr. Earl handed me right before I left.

“Give this to your Mama when you get home,” he’d say.

I knew what to do with the bag. I gave one to Mama almost every night in the year I turned eight. What I didn’t know was what was in it.

Nobody told me not to look in those bags, but nobody had to tell children not to look in grown folks’ things back then. Curiosity didn’t kill any cats in my house. Curiosity made Mama tell me to wait for her in my bedroom while she counted to 10 and pondered on what should happen to curious little girls who stuck their noses where they didn’t belong. I didn’t like what happened when I made Mama ponder, so I never looked in the neatly folded bags I transported from the pool hall to our kitchen.

Still, I could not help but wonder what mojo I carried in those sacks. My mystery parcels were neither light nor heavy. They were just right, and they were valuable. So I walked slowly, listening for the soft clink I imagined hearing on some nights or the whispered swish I heard on others. Sometimes, I was sure I heard a soft jingle. While I was never certain what I delivered to Mama, I knew it was worth more than the quarter she paid because Daddy didn’t do the thing he said he’d never do again when she handed him the brown bags from Mr. Earl.

And so it went in the year I turned eight. I put on my pink robe and bunny-eared slippers right before supper and went to the pool hall as soon as it ended. Mr. Earl met me at the door and walked me to the bar on his shoes. I drank my grape soda slower than anyone in the history of the world drank a cold drink on a hot night, and I delivered mysterious packages to Mama when I got home.

Then it all stopped. No warning. No goodbyes. Nothing.

It was the end of October, and Mr. Earl was gone.

“He’ll be back,” Mama said. Her eyes told me she didn’t believe what she was saying.

“He’ll be back,” the deacons said when I asked about him three Sundays in a row, but their eyes looked just like Mama’s.

Deacons lie, too.

I didn’t like my Daddy much during all of November and most of December in the year I turned eight. He was doing that thing again, and Mama was cussin’ and fussin’ like she always did when Daddy broke his promises.

Christmas was coming soon, but I wished Mama would skip the tree and lights that year. Nothing felt merry to me. After Mr. Earl left, the only time I saw the deacons was at church, so I started to wonder if I really would make it to heaven again. Nobody let me walk on their shoes – especially the spit-shined ones, and nobody ever asked me what I wanted to drink.

I was sure that was going to be the worst Christmas ever until the day I heard a noise that reminded me of velvet playgrounds. On that day in December in the year I turned eight, I hopped off my red vinyl chair and stomped to our porch in my pink robe and bunny-eared slippers, and I saw it. A neatly folded brown paper bag sat on the edge, and next to it was an ice-cold grape can of soda water that had barely begun to sweat.