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CLAYTON BYRD GOES UNDERGROUND

Page history last edited by RichiesPicks 6 years, 8 months ago

27 July 2017 CLAYTON BYRD GOES UNDERGROUND by Rita Williams-Garcia, HarperCollins/Amistad, May 2017, 176p., ISBN: 978-0-06-221591-8

 

When no one steps on my dreams there'll be days like this

When people understand what I mean there'll be days like this

When you ring out the changes of how everything is

Well my mama told me there'll be days like this

-- Van Morrison (1995)

 

“It was seven forty-five and the plan was in action. Clayton avoided the main streets and began the three-quarter-mile hike to his house. His mother should have been on her way to work, creeping along on the expressway in her car.

Still, Clayton took a deep, careful breath when he turned the corner onto his block. He saw what he expected to see. An empty driveway. He exhaled, ran to the side door, let himself in with his key, and ran up the stairs. So far, so good.

He opened his mother’s bedroom door carefully, as if she might still be there. But he was alone. And now, to find his blues harp.

He opened drawer after drawer of her highboy. Six drawers of silky things. Underthings that belonged to his mother. It was when he pulled open the highest drawer that he knew.  He should have known to begin with! The highest drawer was a hiding drawer to keep something away from a kid. But though Clayton was a kid, he was tall enough to get what he needed from the top drawer without having to stand on anything, He was sure he’d be able to look his mother straight in the eye in another year. After all, his mother wasn’t growing any taller, but he could feel himself inching up.

His hand found the candy-bar-shaped metal instantly. He wiped it clean of the silky, girly things it had been smothered by, and then sank it in his mouth to slick it up. Then he blew into all the holes, sliding upward, and drew in the air to slide back down.

He went inside his room, opened the closet, and grabbed the porkpie hat. He took the rest of his money--seventeen dollars in bills--folded them, and zipped up the cash in his book bag. He ran down the stairs, threw a peanut butter cracker snack into the nearly empty book bag, tucked his MetroCard in his pants pocket, stuffed his silver blues harp in his jacket pocket, and put the porkpie hat on his head.

He was about to run out the back door, but he stopped. Turned. Walked to the dining room table. Picked up the glass saltshaker. The angel with the glued-on wing. He put it on the floor, raised his right foot, and smashed it.

Then he left.”

 

Clayton Byrd is miserable. His blues-playing guitarist grandfather has died. He loved his grandfather who taught him to play a blues harp and took him along to jam with his blues band.

 

Clayton Byrd’s mother, the daughter of his beloved grandfather, still resents her father for having been off on tour through much of her childhood. She thoughtlessly sells off all of her dead father’s belongings in a yard sale, including the guitars that Clayton thought would be his. All he can  salvage from the sale is his grandfather’s porkpie hat.

 

On top of all this, Clayton’s teacher is requiring the class to read the very same book that Clayton’s grandfather would read him to get Clayton to fall asleep. Clayton can’t read it without thinking about his grandfather’s voice and, embarrassingly, falling asleep in class. This leads to his mother confiscating his blues harp.

 

Clayton is so miserable that he decides to run away and go hang out with his grandfather’s blues musician friends. His adventure lasts just one harrowing day before he’s caught up in the arrest of a gang of teens on the subway. Fortunately, Chayton’s father, who we hadn’t previously met, steps up to help Clayton sort out his feelings about his mother.

 

Some people are fortunate enough to forgive and be forgiven for the terrible manner in which we humans sometimes treat one another. So often, this bad behavior is rooted in the way in which parents treat their offspring. CLAYTON BYRD GOES UNDERGROUND leaves us hopeful that Clayton will be able to move toward a better, more communicative relationship with both of his parents. It may inspire readers to make peace with their own.

 

Richie Partington, MLIS

Richie's Pickshttp://richiespicks.pbworks.com

https://www.facebook.com/richiespicks/

richiepartington@gmail.com

 

 

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