Forged by Fire Read online

  Aunt Queen quietly entered Gerald’s room. She listened for a moment to his slightly raspy breathing, then softly touched his cheek. He coughed, turned, and opened his eyes. At first confused and frightened, he looked around wildly, but when he saw Aunt Queen, he relaxed and smiled.

  “Aunt Queen! Where’s my mama?”

  “Your mama hasn’t been feeling well, Gerald, and she’s going to a place that’s gonna make her feel all better—just like you came here to get better. She told me to tell you that she loves you very, very much. Why don’t you come and stay at my house, Gerald, just till your mama comes home. Okay?”

  “Can we have oatmeal?”

  “Every day!”

  “Can I put syrup on my oatmeal? Mama never lets me.”

  “We won’t tell her!” Aunt Queen smiled with a mischievous grin.

  “What about G.I. Joe?”

  “Who?”

  “My G.I. Joe man. Mama got him for me. I left him ... I left him. ...”

  Suddenly the memories overwhelmed the boy. The flames, the fear, the feeling of utter desolation were too much for him to handle. He cried, huge body-racking sobs. Queen positioned her chair close to his bed, deftly lifted him up, and cuddled him in her ample lap. She rocked and crooned while he wept for all the pain he had known in his short life, and for all the pain yet to come.

  THREE

  GERALD SAT ON Aunt Queen’s back porch, idly rolling rocks down the wooden ramp that had been built for her wheelchair. In the six years that he had been living with Aunt Queen, this ramp had become his favorite spot. It had launched toy cars and boats, and big-wheel riding toys when he was little; later there had been skateboards and, last year, a go-cart he had made by himself. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to ride a skateboard or go-cart down the ramp, but who could resist the temptation? Sometimes he liked to lie stretched out on the ramp, his face to the sun, dreaming. Today he was smiling, because tomorrow was his ninth birthday, and he was really, really hoping for a bicycle. It didn’t have to be new, just red—and fast.

  He was a quiet boy who listened more than he talked and who rarely shared his dreams or fears with anyone, even Aunt Queen, whom he adored. Since the day that she had taken him home when he was released from the hospital, he had lived here with her, under her loving, careful eyes. At first, he had cried for his mother con stantly. Aunt Queen had hugged him and hummed old hymns to him and filled in the empty spaces in his heart. Later, he asked for his mother only occasionally, like on his birthday or Christmas. Over time, his demands for her had become weaker, until she had become only a foggy memory.

  Life at Aunt Queen’s was sometimes hectic, but some-how always comforting and reassuring. Because even though he might wake up and find a stranger sleeping on the sofa, or once, he remembered, in the bathtub (she was real big on showing hospitality to folks in need), he knew that she was always there, and that she would never leave him. Her very presence was like a power source, to be plugged into for love, or security, or a good fried-chicken dinner.

  And it wasn’t always easy. Gerald remembered times when the lights had been cut off, and the phone, and even the water. He figured getting the water cut off was the worst, because you couldn’t flush the toilet. But if it was winter, then doing without the heat and lights was pretty awful. But she managed to get them through it each time, one way or another.

  One time, he remembered, she had gone downtown to the gas and electric company because they had cut off the heat. He had been about five, and she had taken him with her. The lady at the desk, who had looked down her nose at them through her funny-looking glasses, had said, “Unless you can come up with a hundred and fifty dollars by five o’clock, there will be no heat.”

  Aunt Queen had replied quietly, “And unless you come up with some heat by five o’clock, you will be on the six o’clock news. I’m poor, not stupid. I know that you can’t cut off heat to disabled customers in the middle of winter, especially disabled customers with small children. If you look at my payment record, you will see that I pay on time when I have the money. This month, I just don’t have it. Something came up. You’ll have your money next month. You have my word on it. You can take my word as my promise, or you can let me take my word down the street to Consumer Alert at Channel Five. I’m sure they’d love to hear how you folks are treating the public, especially after that rate hike you just got.”

  The heat was back on by four o’clock.

  The “something” that had come up was Christmas. Aunt Queen believed passionately in many things, but Christmas was her supreme passion. She thrived on Christmas carols, delighted in decorations, and indulged in special treats and goodies. The tree went up, with a great deal of traditional fanfare (like making popcorn to string for garlands and making ornaments of soap and old Christmas cards) during the first week in December and stayed up until New Year’s Day. The house always smelled delicious this time of the year. One day it would be cookies in the oven when Gerald came home from school, and the next day it would be homemade cranberry sauce. Even in years when there wasn’t much money, they managed to have a wonderful Christmas, with Aunt Queen always stretching the cookie dough and the turkey dressing just enough to make ends meet.

  His gifts were never frivolous or the result of Saturday morning cartoon advertising, but thoughtful and delightful. Last year, when he was eight, in addition to two books (he loved to read), a new winter coat, and a used but still bright and shiny blue sled, he got a flashlight, two sets of batteries, and permission to explore the basement and the attic (which had previously been off-limits). No amount of money could have purchased the adventures he had in the next few months, exploring the secrets of the outer limits of the house.

  In the basement, he had found an old wheelchair, covered with dust and cobwebs. Gerald never thought much about Aunt Queen’s being in a wheelchair. Rather than being a limitation, her chair seemed to be merely an extension of her personality. She wheeled around the house and neighborhood with very little difficulty, although buildings without ramps and inaccessible public transportation could really start her to fussing. He knew that she had been born with brittle bones, and that she got fractures easily, and that two of her six children and two of her grandchildren also had the condition. She could walk for short distances, but it was sometimes very painful. However, she treated it the same way she treated any other difficulty in her life—first with a sigh, and then a smile.

  “No use stewin’ about stuff you can’t change,” she’d tell Gerald. “It’s the things we do have control over that I’m worried about. Like whether you’re going to finish those carrots—or that book report—before midnight!” He had smiled, and finished both.

  She had given him permission to take the old wheelchair apart, and he had made something that he had called his go-cart. It was lopsided, but it rolled, and when he was in it, he felt like he was king of the world. He had begun it in the basement, but it was cold down there, and there was not much room, so he brought it out to the back porch. Every day after school he hammered and nailed and pounded on it, making it the “ultimate racing machine.” (He had heard that on TV somewhere.)

  Of course, he had to practice on Aunt Queen’s ramp. She had fussed, “You’re gonna tear up my ramp, boy. How am I gonna get down it to go to the market if you got it set up like the Indy 500?”

  “Aw, Aunt Queen, I ain’t messed up your ramp. I made it better! I put racing skids on it, so it won’t be slippery for you when it rains.”

  “Lord help me! Racing skids! Do I look like some kind of race car driver? Next thing I know you’ll be tellin’ me you put warp speed on my wheelchair!”

  But the tar paper that Gerald had found and nailed to the ramp really did help her, so she had let him play on it. He had soon grown tired of the tameness of the ramp, which had a gradual slope, and he looked with interest at the driveway of the house next door, which was steep and sloped right down to the street.

  One afternoon, when Aunt Queen was ta
king a nap, Gerald quietly took the go-cart to that driveway, got on, and rolled cautiously down the big hill. He had used his feet to stop himself every few yards, so it didn’t go very fast that first trip. The second time, he only used his feet once or twice, and then it was just to slow himself down when he reached the curb leading into the street. By the fourth or fifth trip, he had increased both his confidence and his speed. He even gave himself a little boost with his feet before he tucked them on the piece of wood that was his rudder, so he sped down the hill this time like one of those bobsledders that he’d seen on TV in the Olympics. Just as he got to the curb, he turned the rudder slightly, rolled to the left, and slowed to a halt by bumping into one of the garbage cans sitting there.

  This is awesome! he said to himself. One more time!

  On that last trip, he had given himself a really big boost to get the most speed possible, and he felt like he was flying. When he had almost reached the bottom of the hill, he turned the rudder to slow himself, but instead of slowing his progress, the rudder came off! Still going full speed, and almost to the street, Gerald could see a long black Cadillac approaching from the left and a dirty green Ford coming from the right. He rolled off the go-cart and into the garbage cans, knocking them over with a terrible commotion. The go-cart sped into the street, where it was first crushed by the Cadillac, then demolished entirely by the Ford, which blared its horn loudly and screeched to a stop.

  The driver of the Cadillac never even stopped—he couldn’t have known that he had only killed a homemade go-cart, and not a child, but he sped on down the street, never looking back. The driver of the Ford got out of her car, checked to see that Gerald was okay, (he had bumped his head on a garbage can), then took him up the steps to the very awake and very angry Aunt Queen.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Aunt Queen had said to the woman. “I appreciate your kindness. You saved my boy’s life.”

  “Well, actually a garbage can saved his life, but it could have been tragic. Don’t you people watch your children? Letting him play in the street like that! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” When she saw the blue thunder on Aunt Queen’s face, the lady wasn’t sure if it was directed toward her or toward the boy, so she backed off a little, saying with a smile, “I’m afraid his little go-cart is a total loss, however.”

  “So are his privileges—probably for the rest of his life!” Aunt Queen had smiled through clenched teeth as the lady returned to her car.

  Gerald had been terrified, because he had never seen Aunt Queen this angry. He was sure he saw blue smoke coming from her ears. She said nothing for at least five minutes. He had to go to the bathroom, but was afraid to move. Finally, she spoke, slowly but explosively.

  “You will never, as long as you live on God’s green earth, do anything that stupid again!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gerald whispered.

  “You will never, as long as the grass is green and the sky is blue, make me look like a fool in front of strangers!”

  “I’m s-s-sorry, Aunt Queen,” he stammered. “I was just tryin’ to—uh—see—uh—let me explain—I was gonna—but it started goin’—and—”

  “SILENCE!” she interrupted. “And you will never, as long as you walk the sands of time”—when she got really mad, for some reason she got poetic—“endanger your life again! Do you understand me, boy? Never again! You hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am ... I mean . . . no, ma’am. I mean I promise I won’t ... I mean I promise I understand.” Gerald had been so scared and so confused that he wasn’t sure which of her demands to answer first.

  Then she had sighed and said, “Come here, boy.” Gerald had walked slowly to her. “Give me a hug,” she’d said finally. “I love you, boy. Don’t do that to me again, you hear?”

  Grateful and tearful, Gerald had buried his face in her hug.

  That had been last summer. The go-cart had never been rebuilt, but the closeness between Gerald and Aunt Queen was probably stronger than ever. She continued to read to him almost every evening, just as she had been doing from the time he had come to live with her, stories of adventure and suspense like Sherlock Holmes and Tom Sawyer, as well as poetry—Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes and many others. Many nights, the rhythm of the poetry had rocked him to sleep.

  Gerald was a great help to Aunt Queen around the house—especially in things like reaching and lifting and running errands—and he was even becoming a pretty good cook, learning the basics like hamburgers and scrambled eggs, and even inventing a couple of meals of his own, just to please her.

  “Gerald,” Aunt Queen would say. “Scramble me some hamburgers.”

  “One scramburgler, coming right up!” he’d reply with a grin. “It looks a little funny, but it tastes great!”

  Now, with only one day to go until his ninth birthday, Gerald was almost as confident in the kitchen as Aunt Queen, and more important, she trusted him to handle any situation there.

  He was just about to go into the house to make himself some lunch, and to see if she needed anything from the store around the corner (like maybe cake mix or candles), when Aunt Queen met him at the screen door.

  “Sit down, Gerald,” she said quietly. “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  Gerald tried to remember what he had done wrong. Forgotten to clean out the bathtub? Eaten all the cherry pie? This close to his birthday, he wasn’t likely to mess up too badly, he figured. He wasn’t sure, but you never can be sure with grown-ups, he thought.

  “Did I do something wrong, Aunt Queen?”

  “No, child. It’s nothing like that. This is something I’ve been dreading for six years.” She paused. “Tomorrow is your birthday, you know.”

  Gerald started to panic. Maybe she wasn’t going to be able to get the bike. Maybe she’d been dreading his turning nine, although he couldn’t see why. Nine was cool, as far as he was concerned. What could it be?

  “Gerald, you’re getting an unexpected present for your birthday tomorrow. . .. Your mother is coming home.”

  FOUR

  GERALD COULDN’T BREATHE for a moment. His heart felt tight and crunched inside his chest. All of the hot fears and fiery memories that he had let fade over the last few years were only hidden, not forgotten. He looked up, confused and frightened, and let Aunt Queen soothe him with one of her warm, soft hugs until he was able to speak.

  “Mama’s comin’ here?” he asked quietly. “How come?”

  “Well, child, it’s like this.” Aunt Queen took a deep breath. “It’s time you knew the whole story. When I brought you home with me six years ago, after the fire, your mama was tried on child abandonment charges and was sent to jail.”

  “I knew where she was, Aunt Queen. I just didn’t like to think about it, so I let her fade away from me.”

  “I know, Gerald, and I was never sure if I was doing the right thing by keeping you away from her, but she asked me not to bring you there because she wanted you to grow up strong and secure, and she didn’t want you to see her in a place like that. I always sent her pictures of you, and she’s kept up with how well you’re doing in school and what a fine young man you’re growing up to be.”

  “So when did she get out?”

  “She’s been out almost a year, Gerald.”

  He gasped. “A year? But where has she . . .? Why hasn’t she ...? I don’t understand!”

  “She got out, found a job and a place to stay, and decided she wanted to get her life together before she came to see you.”

  “What about me? It’s not fair!” Gerald cried angrily. “She’s had a year to plan for all this, and you two dump it on me on my birthday! Suppose I don’t want to see her?”

  “Then you don’t have to,” declared Aunt Queen. “But she’s been workin’ real hard to make up for the past, and she really wants to share your birthday with you.”

  Gerald just grunted and slumped in a seat by the kitchen table.

  Aunt Queen sighed again. “She’s got a surprise for you, child.”<
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  “I don’t think I want no more surprises, Aunt Queen,” Gerald answered quietly.

  “I understand, child. Tell you what—go out to the garage for me, look under that old green blanket, and bring me what you find. I finally bought me a new sewing machine and I want to try it out.”

  “Okay,” Gerald muttered glumly. He didn’t feel like carrying any old sewing machine. He didn’t feel like helping Aunt Queen. He just wanted to go someplace and think. He walked slowly to the garage, checked for spiders like he always did, and pulled the old green blanket off . . . not a sewing machine, and not an old, used, repainted bike, but a shiny, new red ten-speed bicycle.

  He tried not to grin, but he couldn’t help it. He knew Aunt Queen had been saving this for his birthday surprise, and he knew that she had put money aside for months to get such a fine bike. And he knew that she had given it to him today to soften the shock of his mother’s return.

  As he rolled it out of the garage, Aunt Queen sat on the back porch, smiling at him. “Happy birthday, Gerald,” she said simply.

  Gerald, whose grin was about to be erased by uncontrollable tears, looked at her, and knew she understood. “I love you, Aunt Queen. It’s the greatest!”

  “Go on, boy—go try it out. But don’t go too far, and stay out of the street, you hear!” She smiled as he took off, waving his hat, T-shirt flapping in the wind.

  Gerald rode around the block fourteen times, came in for a glass of Kool-aid, and persuaded Aunt Queen to let him explore a little further. She said he could ride two blocks away, but by the time it was dark, he had explored six blocks in each direction. She knew he needed the time to think and sort things out, so she didn’t bother him. By the time he came in at dusk, tired and hungry, he was ready to face whatever tomorrow would bring.

  “What does Mama look like, Aunt Queen?” asked Gerald as he was getting ready for bed. “I sorta remember a really pretty lady.”