The Middle Child

They met down there in the field.

Amidst the carnival streamers and hot dog smells stood Freda and her two sisters. While her sisters were quite normal-looking — average size up and sideways with black curls and waves — Freda could be seen a mile away. 

She had bright yellow hair, spiked and shimmering in the hot summer’s light. She stood around 6 feet and some change, and she was built like a chicken — Butterbean would call her “Chicken” for the rest of her natural life, as a sign of affection. She was skinny with a bit of gut, and her legs were anything but straight. They bent out and her butt stuck out, and she walked through that field like she owned the place — stringy strut and all.

Butterbean was on the other side of the field with his brothers. They were smoking and drinking and betting on dice. When the boy they were playing against refused to pay, Butterbean and his brothers put him in one of the empty booths and left to get more cotton candy.

People underestimated Butterbean because of how he looked. He was shorter than most men and a few women, and he was true to his name in width — he was nearly a perfect circle. But damn if he was cute and cuddly. His daddy had been one of the worst men in town, and he’d taught his sons well. His mother had been one of the sharpest whores out there, and she’d instilled a certain pride in the family name all the while being what they called a disgrace.

On that fateful day in the field, Butterbean saw Freda and fell in love with the crooked creature. He’d never seen anything so tall and jiggly and bent out of shape. 

He offered her cotton candy, and she grinned widely, letting her gold teeth reflect the sunlight into his eyes. It wasn’t long before he offered her a ring and a raggedy two-story on Namesond Parkway, and she gladly accepted. He told her, “I always got you, remember that.”

Eventually, Freda popped out three babies. The oldest was named Woody. He was tall and slender like his mother but caramel colored like his daddy. He was handy with numbers and letters, and sometimes his white teachers couldn’t help but sweat at his grades. The youngest was named Pink, her mother’s favorite color. She was beautiful and big, taking up almost as much room as her father. By the time she was 17, she had a mouth like her mother — metallic and painted in matte lipstick. 

The baby in the middle, his name was Ozzy. Ozzy was in the middle of everything — he was regular size, regular height. He wasn’t dumb, but he always fought in school. He wasn’t ugly, but he always said the wrong thing to the girls. Even still, Freda and Butterbean loved him just as much as anything else that came from them, if not more.

Time passed, and Pink met a sly-talking crook in the auto business. With Butterbean’s blessing, everyone gathered in Mount Ararat and gave Pink away to him. Out of Pink came two crying babies — a fat boy and a girl with a big forehead. But soon, that crook became dissatisfied with Pink. He started to sneak away at night, and when Pink told him to quit it, he knocked her across the kitchen floor.

Pink thought about telling Butterbean, but instead, she went to Freda. Of course, Freda wanted to go to Butterbean, but Pink wanted to do something right on her own. Freda obliged and told her to meet up in the kitchen that night.

Under the dark, the two women listened to fast paced music and laughed and gossiped as they whipped up dinner. Toward daybreak, Pink thanked her mama and hugged her neck. “I always got you, remember that,” Freda said.

The next night, Pink kissed her husband and begged him to eat before he went out to do her dirty. Smelling the vinegar on the chitterlings and the gravy on the pork chops, the crook grumbled and sat down at the table. About three bites in, he was dead.

More time passed, and Woody’s boss at the construction place called him into his office. The boss’s face was bright pink and Woody had to dodge spit as the boss cursed him to hell. The boss told Woody that he wasn’t stupid, goddamnit, and he knew what Woody was doing to his daughter. Woody replied that he wasn’t doing anything to that pretty redhead that she ain’t want done, and the boss all but lost it.

That night, Woody and the redhead awoke to chanting and the blazing of torches. The boss and his group of equally pink-faced men were there with fresh rope and pistols. Woody snuck out of his back window and ran to Freda and Butterbean’s with an angry mob on his back.

As he got to the steps, he called for his parents. Freda looked out the window and shook Butterbean awake. Butterbean called his brothers from down the street.

When the boss and his men got there, they were met with twelve Black men in their pajamas, each holding two automatic weapons. The chants simmered down to nothing — nothing but fire from the torches crackling.

The boss finally tiptoed forward and told Butterbean that he wasn’t going to allow his girl to lay up with Woody. Anybody but somebody like Woody. Butterbean told the boss to talk to his daughter about her choices, but he wasn’t about to hang his son. The boss puffed his chest up — what was he going to do, the boss asked, against a bunch of white men?

Butterbean cocked his gun and took a final puff of his cigar before throwing it to the ground. He told the boss to step on up and find out. 

Butterbean had served twice, and Uncle Sam wouldn’t even say what he had Butterbean doing. There was no record of how many bodies Butterbean had laid to rest with the help of his brothers, but the boss knew that he didn’t discriminate.

The boss squeaked at Woody to stay away from his daughter and then the group of pink-faced men staggered away, limp rope between their legs. Freda and Pink watched through a window as they left, exhaling and hugging one another. Woody shook his father’s hand, thanking him for saving his life. “I always got you, remember that.”

It took a bit longer, but Ozzy finally found a woman that would marry him. She was as yellow as cornbread with a bunch of freckles and a small gap between her two front teeth, earning her the nickname “Whistle.” She found Ozzy so funny — as Ozzy was. He made everyone laugh, and he made her laugh right down the aisle.

Soon, she was as big as a house and during the holiday season, Freda and Pink laid her on the couch to have the baby. As tradition went, the men sat in the kitchen, drinking and smoking and congratulating Ozzy on being a daddy. Ozzy drinked his kool-aid, as he’d never touched a strong drink, and laughed as his wife yelled in agony. Hours passed, and Ozzy Jr. came out — as yellow as his mother and as loud as his father.

Ozzy loved Junior with every penny he had and every minute he could spare. But Junior, like his father, was hardheaded. Whistle and Ozzy told him — “don’t go near that river.” But Junior loved to watch the fishies. He adored the silver lining of the waves and the whish of the water. He did as he was told not to do, and he fell in. It was days before he washed up.

Ozzy couldn’t get the image out of his head, but the liquor made the picture fuzzy at least. So Ozzy kept a bottle near — Ozzy always kept a few bottles near. Whistle went back West, Pink got remarried, and Woody took care of his children and their mothers. But Ozzy only drank.

Butterbean had to run him off of the porch with a shotgun like a roach when he came to borrow money. But like a roach, he always came back — he’d knock on the back door three times, and Freda would cry and give him a few dollars “but only this one time.”

Soon, Butterbean found out and forbade it. Ozzy started to run out of money. None of his girlfriends bought his sweet talk anymore. None of his buddies would share their booze. So, Ozzy visited an old club and asked to speak to the man in the big booth. The man said he could help Ozzy out, but when the time came, he said, “you best make sure you pay me back. You hear me, boy?”

Ozzy’s birthday came up, and Freda cooked all of his favorites — neckbone, navy beans, cornbread, chitterlings, side meat. It was a meal fit to kill somebody. The family waited. Pink lectured her son about cigarettes as her daughter sang to the record. Woody smoked a cigarette and wondered whether his new girlfriend was pregnant. Freda worried by the window, sucking on her gold teeth. Butterbean fed the dogs, just as worried about Ozzy.

Time passed, and the family couldn’t wait anymore. Freda begged Butterbean to find him.

Come to find out, when the time came, Ozzy didn’t have a penny with a hole in it to pay back the man in the big booth. So, the man sent out his goons. They found Ozzy on his birthday, slumped over in a park somewhere. They carried him over to Broad St, by Boogie’s old restaurant.

They tied him up and sat in their car to watch.

Meanwhile, Butterbean and his brothers set off with the hounds and the guns and the lanterns. “I’ll find him, Chicken,” Butterbean had said to his wife, but he wasn’t sure if that was true. He only knew that when he did find Ozzy, he was going to knock him into next week for worrying his mother like this.

Ozzy finally woke up from his stupor. He groaned and tried to get up, only to find himself in the finest rope and the tightest knots. The ground began to shake, and the ghostly horn started to taunt Ozzy.

At home, Freda paced the floor like a plucked chicken, jiggling about in her apron. She could feel something was wrong, but she didn’t know what.

Butterbean heard the train, and the dogs began to bark. He told them to shut up unless they found something. He pulled on their leashes and they yelped shut. That’s when he could hear properly. That’s when he could hear Ozzy.

Ozzy yelled at the top of his lungs, shaking his entire body to try to get free from the ropes. All it did was make him burn at the wrists and the ankles as the train trudged along the track.

Ozzy begged the men in the car — he’d get the money back, he promised. He’d get a job, he’d ask his women, he’d steal it, for God’s sake. Just please, please untie him.

Butterbean rushed forward, heading down that hill like a beach ball. With every heavy step, the train got closer and closer. Butterbean’s more slim brothers ran down the track, yelling to stop the train.

The harsh, yellow light of the train made Ozzy squint and tear up. He thought to himself, maybe Heaven would have a similar light. Maybe Hell would have a fire just as bright.

Butterbean yelled out to his son. Ozzy yelled back. He yelled for Freda, too. He yelled that he was sorry. He yelled for Butterbean to tell Pink and Woody and Whistle that he loved them.

The conductor frantically pulled on the brakes, but it was far too late. Butterbean fell to his knees and cried out as his dogs barked at the steel snake, like that would stop it.

But it didn’t. It didn’t stop the train one bit.