Miracle's Boys Read Online Free PDF

in a way that makes me look a little bit meaner than I actually am. Still, maybe Aunt Cecile was right. Maybe I was beautiful underneath it all.
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    ALL DAY LONG, PEOPLE HAD BEEN COMING IN and out of our apartment, bringing us food and juice and talking about how sorry they were and how big I was getting. Someone even brought by a pound of bacon, two cans of Spam, a dozen eggs, and a loaf of Wonder bread in case we got up in the morning and didn’t want to eat the other stuff. Ty’ree and Aunt Cecile took everything everybody brought us and thanked them. I sat in the living room mostly, staring at the television set and wishing everybody would just leave us alone. I wanted Mama to come home. Wanted to hear her coming up those stairs singing that “Me and Bobby McGee” song the way she always did.
    Me and Ty‘ree were both wearing black suits. Mine was too short at the wrists ’cause Mama had bought it the year before for me to wear on special occasions like school assembly and church. Since there hadn’t been that many assemblies and I usually wore pants with a shirt and a tie to church, the suit had hung in my closet until Ty’ree pulled it out the day before Mama’s funeral.
    They had let Charlie come to the funeral and stay with us for a few hours afterward. When Aunt Cecile saw him with those two guards from Rahway, she crossed herself and pressed her handkerchief against her mouth. Charlie stood real stiff while she hugged him, his eyes sweeping over everybody, checking us all out. There wasn’t any feeling in them. Just hard, flat eyes that didn’t belong to the Charlie they had taken away.
    â€œCharlie,” I whispered, trying to hold his hand, “Mama died.”
    Charlie snatched his hand away from mine and glared at me. “How come you ain’t save her, huh?” he said. “If I was here, I would’ve saved her.”
    I stared at the guy standing in front of me. It wasn’t Charlie. Charlie would never talk that way—never blame me for anything. This was somebody different. New. Newcharlie.
    â€œI tried,” I whispered, taking tiny breaths to keep from crying.
    â€œI would’ve saved her.” Newcharlie turned away from me, went over to the corner, and crouched down against the wall. He stayed that way, glaring at his hands.
    The two guards watched him the whole time. By the time he had to go, I was relieved. I didn’t kill her, I kept wanting to say to Newcharlie, but I couldn’t. And on the way out of the house, when Newcharlie looked back at me and Ty‘ree, then punched the wall, I felt like he was punching me. Ty’ree had his arm around me, and when Newcharlie punched the wall, he pulled me closer. We stood there listening and could hear Newcharlie crying all the way down the stairs.
    â€œCharlie,” I whispered. Because he sounded like I remembered, like he did when that dog died. Hurt and small and lonely. “Charlie, don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” His crying sounds kept coming though, but they got softer and softer, moving farther and farther away from us.
    â€œCharlie,” I whispered, burying my head into Ty’ree’s arm. “Where’d you go, man? Where’d you go?”

SIX
    THAT NIGHT, THE NIGHT OF THE DAY WE BURIED Mama, Aunt Cecile sat down in Mama’s chair at the table and told me and Ty’ree about her plan to move us back home with her.
    â€œWe’re already at home,” I remember saying.
    Aunt Cecile smiled her perfect-teeth smile and shook her head. “You’re just two boys,” she said. “And Charlie won’t be home for at least another two years. When he gets out, he can come on down south too.”
    â€œYou want to go live down south, Lafayette?” Ty’ree called to me.
    I shook my head.
    Ty‘ree raised his hands and gave Aunt Cecile his St. Ty’ree smile. “Guess we’ll be staying here