The Planet of Junior Brown Read Online Free PDF Page A

downtown too far.”
    â€œShe halfway right, too,” Buddy couldn’t help saying.
    â€œAnyway,” Junior said, “she got started on how we ought to get out of our black world more. With Daddy gone all week, we are getting to be like hermits, was what she told me. I didn’t say nothing because I was hungry and I just wanted us to get on home. And then Mama took this envelope out of her pocketbook. She say to me, ‘Junior, look here what I have for us. We are going out tonight.’ Right then I began to sweat because in the envelope she had two tickets for a concert at the big Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Mama say to me, ‘Junior, it is a modern dance concert we are going to see.’
    â€œAnd I say to her, ‘Mama, please, just let me go on home. I got to get me some rest. Please, these Weight Watchers have got me all upset.’
    â€œMama, she say, ‘Junior, you are not going to hide out in your room. You have nothing to be ashamed of. A little overgrown you may well be but, Junior, you are talented and you will not hide!’
    â€œI was wearing my gray suit and my raincoat. Mama, she had on a black dress and that black coat she has with the fur at the collar. She even had her medicine with her. We both looked all right but once we were practically there,” said Junior, “I got to thinking that everybody would stare at us. By the time we were in the lobby, it looked to me like everybody was shrinking away from me. You know, like they were trying to keep from looking at my fat. And Mama, she looked like she wasn’t sure of what she was doing. Even she started to shrink away.
    â€œAnd then I had a hard time fitting into my seat,” Junior said. “I started wheezing, the way Mama does when she’s sick. It took all I had just to sit still in my suit and that raincoat, with Mama whispering at me to control my breath.
    â€œThe curtain went up and we saw this program of dance groups. Or maybe it was just one group—how can you tell when they melt away and come back again? All I could see was a lot of thin people jumping and falling. I thought I couldn’t breathe and there was this white lady next to me all full of awful-sweet powder. By the end of the show, I was soaking wet and I got to shaking like some wino.”
    The whole time Junior talked, Buddy sat before him. His eyes never left Junior’s face. One moment, Buddy wrung his hands and the next, he stuffed them deep in his pockets. All his own tough coolness slipped away as he came to understand the awful ugliness Junior felt about himself. Sitting there listening and watching, Buddy could be, for a few seconds at a time, Junior Brown wanting to hide himself from the whole world.
    Junior managed to get to his feet. Without a word he started again for the iron fence.
    â€œMan?” Buddy said.
    For one more time, Junior had managed to keep from talking about Miss Peebs’ piano.
    Buddy stood up with the light out of the sky behind him. He closed his eyes, then opened them. He held his body tight together with his shoulders hunched close to his ears.
    Buddy had helped all kinds of people. In the streets he had found all sorts of people who were hurt bad. But every time he tried to help Junior, Junior thought he was feeling sorry for him. Giving a hand to somebody hurt wasn’t something you did out of pity. Buddy could help somebody without thinking about it and without feeling anything. With Junior he thought he knew how hard it was to even walk when you were so big and fat.
    It’s just that Junior looks at you like you’ve already beat him up once, Buddy thought. And to have the kind of mother he’s got—I’d take the street any day—not even to speak about what kind of hold that Miss Peebs must have on him.
    Buddy allowed himself to catch up with Junior at the broad walkway high above the river, near the playground at 97th Street. At