Read Online The Water Is Wide by Pat Conroy - Free Book Online Page B

flourish on Yamacraw Island. The projects of concerned white folks are evident everywhere. Supply books and by a miraculous process of osmosis, the oyster-pickers will become Shakespearean scholars. All dem nigras need is books and a little tad of education.
    James Brown is the Yahweh substitute on the island. The kids tingle every time his name is mentioned; they have memorized his songs as though they were the Gospel according to Luke. Top Cat, numero uno dispenser of good poop on Mr. Dynamite and his Famous Flames, shook and gyrated his way around the room when he thought I was not looking. The contorting moves he put his body through defy description and he is acknowledged by his peers as being the finest dancer on the island. “That Top Cat, crazy. Watch Top Cat shake that thing,” they say with profound respect. Once in a while he felt the fire within him rage and, at that exact moment, strutted and jerked up to my desk and asked to sing James Brown’s latest song. We turned on the tape recorder (discovered in a corner in Mrs. Brown’s room) and Top Cat lost himself in his art. The kids loved it. Of course, Mrs. Brown hated it and delivered an impassioned lecture against wasting valuable school time and ignoring the sacred laws of the state government.
    One day in late September Top Cat was studying the covers of some long-playing albums beside my record player. Since I had not yet moved into my house, all my earthly possessions stood in one corner of the schoolroom. The record album that came under the most careful study by Top Cat was a gift from my mother back in those ancient days when Mom thought her family should develop some familiarity with the arts. She invested a considerable sum of money in the Reader’s Digest series of records and books designed to give cultural dimwits at least a surface knowledge of the world’s finer things. Somehow I had confiscated the “Fifty Favorites,” a collection that included brief but famous fragments of the great composers. Top Cat asked me if James Brown, Mr. Dynamite and his Famous Flames, sang any “tough” songs on this here record.
    â€œTop Cat, James Brown and his Famous Flames were not good enough to make this record. They tried but they just couldn’t make it. The Reader’s Digest put this thing out. Ever heard of the Reader’s Digest?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œAnybody ever heard of the Reader’s Digest?”
    Nobody had ever heard of it. Being an American and not knowing the Reader’s Digest is like being English and not knowing the queen.
    â€œThis little magazine put out this little record you see here in my hands. This record is a treasure, an absolute delight. A collection of greatness. Now the first great tune I am going to play for you was written by a long-haired cat named Beethoven. Who was that?”
    â€œBay Cloven.”
    â€œClose enough. Now old Bay Cloven loved music, and he could write some pretty mean songs. He was the James Brown of Germany. What continent is Germany in [pointing to the map]?”
    â€œEurope.”
    â€œGood. Now one of Beethoven’s most famous songs was written about death. Death knocking at the door. Death, that grim, grim reaper coming to the house and rapping at the door. Does death come to everybody’s door sometime?”
    â€œYeah, death come knocking at Dooney’s door last year,” Big C said.
    â€œWell, Beethoven thought a little bit about death, then decided that if death were really knocking at the door, he would sound something like this: da-da-da- da . Now I am going to place this little needle on this valuable record and we are going to hear death knocking at Bay Cloven’s door.”
    The first notes ripped out. Ol’ death, that son of a bitch.
    â€œDo you hear that rotten death?” I yelled.
    â€œDon’t hear nuttin’,” said Prophet.
    â€œSound like music,” said Lincoln.
    â€œShut up