They Come and They Go

“DO YOU know what happened to me last night when I got home?” said Simple.

“How could I—when I haven’t seen you since?”

“F. D. was setting in my room.”

“Who in the world is F. D.?”

“Franklin D. Roosevelt Brown.”

“I haven’t the least idea whom you are talking about,” I said.

“I am talking about the fact I never did think I would be being a father to a son who is not my son, but it looks like that is what is about to happen to me.”

“A son?”

“Same as,” said Simple. “I’ve been adopted.”

“It’s beyond my comprehension.”

“Mine, too,” said Simple. “But his name ought to make you remember what I told you once about my Cousin Mattie Mae’s baby being born down in Virginia a long time ago when she were working for them rich white folks, and she named that baby Franklin D. Roosevelt Brown. Them rich old Southerners got mad when they heard it, and told Mattie Mae she better take that white name off that black child. Mattie Mae told them she’d quit first, which she did.

“Well, when I got home high last night at one-two A.M.—having fell off my budget—and come creeping up the steps not to disturb my old landlady, I saw a light under the crack of my door. I thought maybe Zarita had got in my room by mistake, since sometimes she do inveigle my landlady. But when I opened the door, I hollered out loud, also damn near turned pale. I had not expected to see no Negro setting on my bed. I thought he were a robber. Every hair on my head turned to wire. But it were not no robber. It were a boy.

“When he riz up grinning, instead of fighting, I yelled, ‘If I knowed who you was I’d grab my pistol out of that drawer and shoot you before you could speak your name, but I do not want to kill nobody I don’t know. Who in the hell is you?’

“‘F. D.’

“‘F. D. who?’ I said, still shaking.

“‘Don’t you remember me? I’m your Cousin Mattie Mae’s boy, Franklin D. Roosevelt Brown. You saw me when I was five years old.’

“‘You sure ain’t five now,’ I said, ‘and you done scared the hell out of me, setting on my chair in my room at this time of night, and I ain’t seen you since you was a baby. You big as I am. How old are you?’

“‘Seventeen, going on eighteen,’ he said.

“‘What are you doing out so late?’

“‘I’m not just out, Cousin Jess. I’m gone.’

“‘Gone! From where?’

“‘Home. I left.’

“‘Left what home? I ain’t heard tell of you, nor Mattie Mae neither, in ten years. Where do you live, Brooklyn?’

“‘Virginia,’ he said.