Kia Corthron - The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter

THE

CASTLE

CROSS

THE

MAGNET

CARTER

THE

CASTLE

CROSS

THE

MAGNET

CARTER

A Novel

Kia Corthron

Seven Stories Press

New York - Oakland

Copyright 2016 by Kia Corthron

A Seven Stories Press First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Excerpt from The Story of My Life by Hellen Keller. Used by permission, W. W. Norton & Co., 2003 [originally 1903], New York.

Excerpt from Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans, copyright 1939 by Ludwig Bemelmans; copyright renewed 1967 by Madeleine Bemelmans and Barbara Bemelmans Marciano. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Excerpt from Pittsburgh Courier archives, January 31, 1942, James G. Thompson, Letter to the Editor.

Excerpt from Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, used by permission, Penguin Random House LLC.

Excerpt from Helen Keller: Her Socialist Years by Philip S. Foner, used with permission from International Publishers Co., Inc., New York.

Excerpt from A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, copyright 1929 by Charles Scribners Sons. Copyright renewed 1957 by Ernest Hemingway. Used with permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Seven Stories Press

Watts Street

New York, NY 10013

sevenstories.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Corthron, Kia.
The castle cross the magnet carter : a novel / by Kia Corthron. -- Seven Stories Press first edition.
pages ; cm
ISBN 978-1-60980-657-6 (hardback)
1. Brothers--Fiction. 2. African Americans--Fiction. 3. United States--Race relations--Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.O724C37 2016
813.54--dc23
2015029672

Printed in the United States of America

987654321

In memory of my parents

Shirley Elaine Beckwith Corthron

and James Leroye Corthron

194142

Prayer Ridge

RANDALL

I got the world.

My family and the trees, the library, picture shows, history and geography and Nathaniel Hawthorne and Longfellow and in the advanced class Mr. Faulkner. I got Prayer Ridge and Lefferd County and the state of Alabama and the United States of America. I got the future: college, law school, med school. Or businessman, choices. And ocean liners to Europe, China: all waiting.

B.J.s world is smaller. The family, and the trees. Some days its smaller still, all inside himself. Hes my little brother. Hes eighteen. Im thirteen.

I sit with him on the rug between our twin beds. A s a fist, B.J., see? And B s four fingers up. And lets see, C , you just cup your hand like C , see? Then D oh wait. S is the fist, A s sort of a fist but thumb points up. Then E wait, thats trickier. Shoot, I missed D . Guess if I were a better teacher, Idve learned em myself before trying to teach him but Im short on time, algebra exam tomorrow. I come across the drawings at the front of this book I borrowed from the school library, the Manual-Finger Alphabet. The book is The Story of My Life by Miss Helen Keller, which she wrote while still at Radcliffe. Barely anything been translated into Braille back then, yet Helen at fourteen knew Latin, devouring books in German and French and I dont mean See Jack run. Grown-up books, literature!

A few verses of Omar Khayyms poetry have just been read to me, and I feel as if I had spent the last half-hour in a magnificent sepulcher. Yes, it is a tomb in which hope, joy and the power of acting nobly lie buried. Every beautiful description, every deep thought glides insensibly into the same mournful chant of the brevity of life, of the slow decay and dissolution of all earthly things.

Essay she wrote, and only a freshman! Well heres my point: If Helen Keller could do all that in a world of total darkness and silence, why cant B.J. read when all he is is deaf?

Next day I breeze through the test, 3y + 34 = 2y + 89 easy, finish five minutes early and turn it over in the avoidance of copycats which provokes a few glares in my general direction. Late September, the year barely begun but my reputations long been sealed: smartest in the class which is not exactly the golden path to eighth-grade popularity. Lunch I always eat alone which is finegives me good time to think. And today what crosses my mind: Howm I supposed to teach B.J. letters when he cant hear the sound they make, words when he doesnt understand what language is? Suddenly this whole teaching thing seems way too big, I better just return that Helen Keller book. Then again Helen had her breakthrough, right? Didnt her teacher help her into the social world? Then again Helen was toddling, already a vocabulary when the sickness stole her senses, so was it that foundation of speech what sprungboard her into communal consciousness? I sip my milk pondering it all as Earl Mattingly pulls my seat out from under me, sticky white all over my shirt, my ass on the floor and half the school laughing.

When I get home the book is not top drawer of my dresser where I know damn well I left it, where the hell? Now B.J. at the doorway holding it, looking at me all eager for the next drill. I take lesson time down to the kitchen, ginger snaps my mother baked, and usually B.J.d indulge with me but today too raring to learn. Or play, a game to him, like it was to Miss Keller at first.

Two Saturdays back he threw a fit. My mother: This mighta been cute when you were a baby, but it is not cute anymore, like he would have any idea, like her trying to reason with a cat. He only pulls that stuff when my fathers not home because Pad take the belt to him, I dont care how big you are, though long ago hed stopped whooping me and Benja. B.J.s tantrum all about I wasnt taking him to the park with me. Used to every couple weeks but then, July, there we are, the blanket all laid out, food my mother made for us and I saw em. Kids from my class, coming out the woods and spy B.J. and me. Even with the distance I can make out their smirks.

So lately when I go to the park I go alone, and heres B.J. home by himself, nobody to play with, and this I think is related to how hes such an attentive student now: got his playmate back. I dip cookie into milk and say the letters real exaggerated as I hand-show em. Hes all delighted with cross-fingers R , and when I accidentally confuse G for Q he looks in the book and corrects me. I I show him, J . He stares at J , making that hook with his pinkie over and over, then he big-time catches me unawares. B he spells and speaks it, pretty distorted but not out of the ballpark, then J , then points to himself. I smile. He figured that out without me telling him, my big little brother B.J. got his Helen-eureka fast. I spell him the rest of the family: Mother, Father, Benja, Randall and, smart again, he knows with the last one to point to me. When the lessons over I close the book. He snatches it and takes it back with him to our room. Oh Lord, howm I gonna explain to him its borrowed and due back less than a week?

The next days Friday and by some miracle Mrs. Goodmans already checked the algebra tests, and Im pleased and unsurprised at my big fat A though perturbed her nitpicking brought me down to 96 even if its still the class high. When I get home B.J. and Ma are all into it. She doesnt understand what kind of game hes playing with his hands, with her hands, is beside herself with his frustrated conniptions. I give her the news flash: B.J.s spelling Mother. She gets this dazed look like she cant hardly believe it, and B.J. looks at me grinning, spelling Randall over and over so fast, faster even than fourth-period Madame Everharts spoken French so takes me till the third time before I get it.