Maybe You Never Cry Again Read Online Free PDF Page A

nothin’. Didn’t tell me I fought good or anything. He must’ve figured I knew I’d fought good and that I must’ve felt that inside me. It wasn’t for him to judge my fighting, anyway. It was for me. And then he said, “See ya.” Like it was nothing. And off he went down the street.
    â€œWhere you goin’?” I said, hungerin’ for him.
    â€œPractice,” he said, not even turning to face me. “I got me a new band.”
    â€œBand?” I hollered. I didn’t know he had a band.
    When I got home, I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. My mama said, “How you doin’, Bean?”
    â€œGood,” I said.
    â€œYou know,” she said, “funny thing about life. Most people, they got a problem, they crank and moan. What they don’t think about is fixin’ it themselves.”
    I didn’t say nothin’. I just listened.
    â€œBut if you fix it yourself, you’re going to find that there’s always going to be one person in the world you can turn to. You. ”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œOne person you can depend on.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œThinking is something people don’t do enough of, Bean. It’s a strong man that knows how to sit in the dark and be alone with his thoughts.”
    â€œI’m trying, Mama.”
    She had it down. Suffering is the best teacher of all. If you want people to respect you, you got to respect yourself first. Life don’t change unless you make it change.
    Mac-isms, I call ’em. They’re with me to this day. I use them to this day.
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    Later that same evening, before dinner, my grandma came into my room, clutching her worn Bible. “Read to me, son,” she said. When I was a kid, she used to read to me all the time, but now her cataracts were so bad she could hardly see. Still, she knew that Bible inside out. Every last detail: who did what where and who was who’s brother and that bit with the burning bush and so on and so forth. Someone had sure drummed that book into her head when she was a little girl.
    â€œMen are weak, son,” she said. “They like sheep. They followers. And usually they follow the wrong man down the wrong road.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œYou remember your seven deadlies?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œTell them to me,” she said, and she closed her cloudy eyes to listen.
    â€œPride, greed, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, and sloth.”
    â€œGives me the shivers just to think on it, son. Lot of wickedness in this world. Takes a strong man to find the right path and follow it.”
    We went down to dinner, and my grandfather was already waiting at the table. He looked at me like he wanted to slap me up the side of the head.
    â€œMessing with that bad element!” he said. “Pass them there bread rolls, boy! You never gonna learn.”
    He didn’t mean anything by it. He just didn’t know how to spin things the way my mother and grandmother did. There wasn’t any lesson in it—which was odd, seeing how he was a deacon. But it was just the way he was. Wasn’t warm or affectionate, either. Never once put his arms around me; never once told me he loved me. But that had power, too. His attitude shaped me, too. He was there for a reason.
    I passed him the rolls.
    â€œWhen you gonna start using your head, boy? You know what that even mean— thinkin’ ?” Didn’t bother me. He could call me a damn fool if he wanted to. I’d been hearing shit like that my whole life. You stupid skinny ugly and your hair nappy, too. But so what? Take it in; only makes you stronger. And at the end of the day, you’re gonna need your strength. At the end of the day, you in this fight by yourself.
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    A few days later, a Saturday, early evening, Darryl swung by and picked me up and took me to the Regal Theatre. It was Chicago’s answer