As she shook my hand, she passed me a note. I hoped it was a love note or a love letter of any kind. I had read about love letters in novels, but never had received one. My father put his arm around my shoulder, and the gesture seemed timely and right. We took our good time, then walked into the house talking about what we’d prepare for dinner that night.
As soon as I was alone, I read the note that Sheba had slipped me in secret. It was not the love note I had hoped for, but its shock value was high.
“Dear Leo, sorry about the way Trevor and I acted just now. We knew the man who attacked you. He is the reason we’ve made up an imaginary life together. The man who hurt you was our father. Yes, Leo. You met our dear old dad.”
CHAPTER 7 Party Time
On the Fourth of July, I gave a party to celebrate the end of my probation. All morning, my father and I set up card tables and folding chairs we had commandeered from the high school. Mother decorated each table with a vase of multicolored flowers from her garden. Father had stayed up all night barbecuing a small hog, and he had spent the hours of darkness cursing both the neighborhood raccoons and the untethered dogs driven mad by the aroma of hickory-infused pork. Sheba and Trevor came over in the morning and spent the whole day making themselves useful: they polished the silverware and laid down tablecloths and set immaculate tables all over the backyard, heeding my mother’s ironclad order that there would be no plastic knives or forks or paper plates at any social function at her house.
When Coach Jefferson and his family arrived just after one in the afternoon, he and Father began setting up a makeshift bar. It surprised me that it was going to be a full bar, ranging from the plebian to the exotic, from iced-down beer to Singapore Slings. Mrs. Jefferson and her mother brought huge containers of lemonade and iced tea. Ike and I were sent off to the ice house to buy enough ice to sink an aircraft carrier, according to Father’s orders. I took my ‘57 Chevy and we headed out toward North Charleston on I-26.
We lucked out with the weather. July Fourth in Charleston was capable of being hot enough to blister the paint off moving vehicles, but the day was overcast and the breeze a cool one. Though nervous, I also felt a lightness I had not experienced in years, an exhilaration of spirit nearing floodwater marks. I was trying to gain small glimpses of myself that might help me know anything about the man I was in the process of becoming.
Ike broke my spell by asking, “Why do you have the top down in this car, white fool?”
“Because it is summertime, black dimwit. And the summertime is when it’s most fun to ride in a convertible.”
“What do you think it looks like to a white cop or a redneck seeing a white boy and a brother riding down the highway like they own the world?”
“It’ll do ’em some good. Ike, shut up and enjoy the ride.”
He adjusted his side-view mirror. “It’ll be my black ass swinging from some rope. From an oak tree.”
“If there’s a choice, I sure hope they hang you and not me.”
“They may hang both of us. You don’t know the cracker mind like I do.”
“Oh, really? Who you work for, cracker expert, Mr. Soda, Mr. Ritz, or Mr. Graham? Every time we get together, Ike, every time, you’ve got to turn it into a sociology class. We’re going out to buy some ice. It feels like I picked up H. Rap Brown or Stokely Carmichael hitchhiking along I-26.”
“Staying aware is staying alive,” Ike said.
“Let me put you in the trunk.”
“I like it fine up here. You just need to think about things a little more.”
“That’s why I made friends with a sharp guy like you.”
“You thought about your guest list to this party, white boy?” Ike asked. “You got black people and white people coming to the same party, you dumb-ass son of a bitch.”
“One black girl I want you to meet,” I told him. “She’s from the orphanage.”
“The last thing I want to do is meet an orphan.”
“You’ll like meeting this one. She’s awfully pretty.”
“How you know everything in the world?”
“Cracker-boy just knows.” Then I looked into my rearview mirror and started. “Uh-oh, Ike. Coming up on my left. Pickup truck full of rednecks. Oh, God, they’ve got shotguns and they’re aiming them. Get down! Quick—get down!”
Ike threw himself to the floorboards. We rode on for thirty seconds then Ike asked, “They gone yet?”
“I made a mistake. They were kindergarten kids eating snow cones. False alarm.”
“You lying white Strom Thurmond son of a bitch!” he said as I pulled the car off a ramp onto Remount Road and drove to a newly opened ice house owned by a man my father once taught. I had rankled Ike with my hoax and was feeling bad about it, but he finally broke a stony silence and said, “You tell any of these white folks today that you invited black folks to your getting-out-of-the-loony-bin party?”
“This party has nothing to do with the loony bin. This is to celebrate my coming off probation.”
“You sure have led a good life. First, a lunatic, then a drug dealer. How did you manage all that?”
“I just caught all the breaks, Ike. Just like getting to know you. No, if the white people get upset at blacks being at the party, they can leave.”
“Something wrong in your head, white boy.”
I answered, “But I believe in the power of prayer. Oh Lord, have me wake up tomorrow thinking just like that wonderful, perfect black hero, Dr. George Washington Carver Ike Jefferson Goddamn Forward-Looking Junior.”
“I’ll be lucky if you don’t get me killed this year,” he mumbled, grimacing as I pulled the car onto the loading ramp of the ice house.
When Ike and I drove up with both the backseat and the trunk filled with ice, the orphanage school bus was turning the corner on tires as shiny as licorice, with Mr. Lafayette at the wheel. I saw that Sister Polycarp had dressed the orphans in orange jumpsuits with the words “St. Jude’s Orphanage” printed on both the front and back of the uniform.
“Hey, Mr. Lafayette, why did Pollywog make them dress this way? Didn’t you explain this was a party?” I asked.
“Sister Pollywog doesn’t countenance well to advice, Leo,” he replied with a snort.
As I made the introductions all around, I could read the humiliation of the three orphans in a form of secret graffiti around their eyes. “Betty Roberts,” I said to the new girl I’d met the other day, “here’s the guy I told you about, Ike Jefferson. I met him when I was in the state mental hospital.”
“He did not,” Ike said as he shook Betty’s hand. “Though I think they made a bad mistake letting this boy out so soon.”
There was the nervous laughter of teenagers as I turned to Sheba Poe and asked, “Sheba, you got any extra clothes that Starla and Betty could wear to this party?”
“Follow me, girls, and I’ll fix you right up,” Sheba said, and I could tell she knew exactly what it was I wanted. She took Starla and Betty by the elbows and led them in the direction of her house. “I know some makeup secrets you girls are going to love.”
I said, “C’mon, Niles. You’re now going to select something to wear from a real clotheshorse’s closet. Naturally, I’m referring to me.”
I dressed Niles in a new pair of Bermuda shorts, an old pair of Docksiders, and a Citadel T-shirt, of which I owned about twenty because of my Father’s oxlike affection for his alma mater plus his painful neediness to see me follow in his footsteps.
“You look good, Niles.” I folded his uniform and placed it on my dresser.
“Why do you have two beds in your room?” Ike asked as he conducted a brief survey of my bedroom.
“I used to have a brother, but he died.”
“How’d he die?”
“He killed himself.”
“Why?”
“Never got to ask him,” I said. “Let’s go to the party.”
Niles asked, “Was he anything like you?”
“No, Steve wa
s just a great guy,” I answered. “Nothing like me.”
We heard piano music coming from the living room, where I was surprised to find my mother and Trevor Poe performing a duet. Immediately, I could see that my mother’s skills as a pianist were overmatched by the far more accomplished Trevor. He had long, perfectly manicured fingernails and beautifully shaped hands. My mother soon held up her own hands in a gesture of surrender. “I give up, Trevor. You didn’t tell me you were a prodigy.”
“It’s a God-given gift,” Trevor said. “Wait until you hear Sheba sing along with me.”
“She’s a singer?” my mother asked.
“Dr. King, you don’t know it yet, but you will: Sheba Poe is a star.”
“Do you play classical music?” my mother asked. When she had abandoned her duet, Trevor had begun to play “Hey Jude” by the Beatles. But when my mother mentioned classical, he transitioned to a piano arrangement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, his hands flashing with astonishing grace over the keyboard.
“Once I hear a song—just once—I can play it for the rest of my life,” he explained.
“You ever play any football?” Ike asked him.
“How grotesque! What would be your guess?”
The girls returned from the Poes’ house across the street, where Sheba had transformed Starla and Betty by applying makeup with a light but expert touch. Both wore sundresses and sandals, and Sheba had even figured out how to disguise Starla’s unfortunate strabismus by fitting her with a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses. Starla was a pretty, happy young woman now, and she came up to thank me for giving her up to Sheba.
“You and Betty look like you’re ready to party. Great job, Sheba. Some party music, Trevor,” I shouted, and Trevor began blasting away at “Rock Around the Clock.” My party for myself officially began.
In the small, insular world I had created for myself in Charleston, I had invited everyone who had played a significant role in my long struggle to get back to myself. I had experienced a lostness so profound that it seemed like a rain forest, impenetrable and inhospitable, had grown up around me one day; in that dispiriting forest, I had found no relief. But now I planned to leave its alien geography far behind me, and I could feel a child’s pleasure every time the doorbell rang and I welcomed Monsignor Max, or Cleo and her husband, or Eugene Haverford, who brought me an afternoon paper. Judge William Alexander and his wife, Zan, came; it delighted me that they brought my shrink, Jacqueline Criddle. Harrington Canon walked up the sidewalk, then came Henry Berlin with his wife and his two oldest kids; I introduced them to Chad and Fraser Rutledge and Molly Huger, who came in right behind them.
“I’d go out of business without the Rutledge family business. And the Huger family is just icing on the cake,” Henry Berlin said. “So this is where my favorite jailbird lives!”
“Quiet, Henry,” Mrs. Berlin said, but Henry winked at me.
“I tried to get a date for Fraser,” Chad said, “but not much luck there.”
“It’s great to see you again, Leo,” Molly said as we shook hands.
“Hey, Fraser,” I said. “There’s a guy I want you to meet. Come with me.”
I took her by the hand, led her through the crowd in the backyard, and walked her over to a table where Ike and Betty were chatting with Niles and Starla.
“Hey, Niles,” I said. “This is a friend of mine, Fraser Rutledge, and I thought you two might enjoy each other. Niles Whitehead.”
“You seem to be quite the matchmaker, Leo,” Starla said.
“I don’t know, I’ve never done it before.”
“Who you going to match me with?” she asked.
I looked around the yard and didn’t see an obvious candidate, but my eyes came to rest on Trevor Poe.
“Hey, Trevor. Will you play some love songs for my friend Starla?” I asked.
Trevor said, “I find that prospect divine.” He took Starla back into the house, then the prettiest music in the world started pouring out of our living room window into the backyard as the tide rose toward us, moon-summoned and spiced with summer.
Walking over to a table where Harrington Canon sat in solitude, I asked, “Want me to get you another drink, Mr. Canon, or refresh the one you have?”
“Sit with me for a second, Leo,” he said. “I have some statements to make to you. Some are general, some provocative.”
“Sounds like the Harrington Canon I know and love,” I said, pulling a chair up beside him.
“Your parents don’t own a single item of interest,” he said. “I’ve never seen such an awkward display of tastelessness.”
“They have simple tastes. Plus, they’re teachers,” I explained. “They couldn’t afford much in your store. You even say that you can’t afford to buy anything in your store.”
“There are people of color here,” he said, looking off toward the Ashley River.
“Yes, I invited them,” I said. “They’re friends of mine.”
“I think it is disgraceful to bring colored and white people together for a party. I wouldn’t have the first idea of what to say to any of them.”
“You aren’t talking to anyone, white or black. You’re sitting by yourself staring at nothing.”
“I’m admiring a river,” he said. “God’s handiwork at its most superior.”
“You’re being a teensy bit antisocial,” I said.
“A convicted felon, calling me antisocial. I’ve never heard of such raw presumption.”
I made my way across the backyard and greeted some of my favorite customers who stood in line at the barbecue pit. As I made my way toward Judge Alexander’s table, my mother called to me from the far side of the yard, where I saw her hugging Septima Clark and her daughter. Septima had been a civil rights leader in Charleston for decades. It was a brave act to invite Septima Clark to any function in Charleston, but it was unheard-of for a white family to invite her to a purely social occasion. I felt a shiver of pride as I saw Septima and my mother embrace. I thought that one could entertain doubts about the personas my parents presented to society, but no one could doubt their courage. Monsignor Max rose and led Septima across the yard to eat dinner with him at his table.
But the spirit did not pollinate everyone in equal doses. I noticed that Niles and Fraser, Ike and Betty, and Starla Whitehead were on the fringes of Judge Alexander’s group, laughing out loud at the stories he offered up in the late-afternoon air. Chad Rutledge broke away from Molly when he saw me retracing my steps back toward the judge’s table. He got a firm grasp on my arm and led me toward the edge of the lake where we were all but hidden from view behind a water oak.
“What do you think you’re doing, King?” Chad said.
“What’re you talking about, Chad?”
“The niggers. You’ve invited niggers to your party! Are you and your parents nuts?”
“Why don’t you go ask my mother and father if they’re nuts, Chad, old pal?” I said. “I’d love to see their reaction.”
“This is Charleston, son,” he informed me.
“Thanks for the news flash.”
“We don’t do things like that here. We’re too smart for that.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. “Hey, Chad, this is only the second time I’ve met you, but smart’s not the first word I think of when I think of you.”
Chad bristled. “What’s the first word you think of, loser? Aren’t we having this niggered-up party because you’re coming off probation? Poor Molly and I got caught snorting a little coke, but they found enough in your cheap sports coat to get half the city high.”
“I screwed up, Chad. So far, it’s been the story of my life.”
“So what’s the first word you think of when you think of me?”
“My mother taught me not to talk in clichés. It offends the English teacher part of her.”
“Give me a try. I don’t mind clichés,” he said.
“The first word that comes to mind is this: asshole. Yep, that’s it,
all right. The second is flaming asshole. The third is flaming, fucking asshole. That about sums it up, Chad. Need anything else?”
“One thing. Why did you set my sister up with a fucking orphan?”
“Well, you teased her about not having any dates at the yacht club. You made fun of the way she looked. I thought she was pretty, and very nice. I’d just met Niles, and he looked like he could use a friend or two. They seem to like being with each other tonight.”
“I’ll guarantee you it’ll be the last time you see them together,” Chad said. “My parents’ll go nuts when they hear about Little Orphan Annie.”
“I imagine so,” I said. “But I’ll bet Fraser and Niles’ll have something to say to that.”
“You don’t know a thing about how the Charleston aristocracy thinks or works.”
“But I’ve watched people a lot. They look pretty easy to predict.”
“I’m leaving this party,” Chad said. “And I’m taking Fraser and Molly with me.”
“God, it was such a pleasure getting to know you, Chad,” I said, not bothering to hide the mockery in my voice. “Don’t go out for football, pal. A warning.”
“You think I’m afraid of you?”
“You should be,” I said, “because I plan to knock you on your pussy Charleston aristocratic South of Broad ass.”
“You and your niggers?”
“Yep, me and all the rest.”
“Keep your mountain nigger away from my sister,” Chad warned.
“Who?”
“The orphan. He’s out of the mountains of North Carolina, so he’s a mountain nigger. Pure white trash, which is lower than a nigger.”
“Bye-bye, Chad,” I said. “What a swell guy. You make me even hate white people.”
Chad stormed away, and I wandered through the yard, offering more helpings of barbecue and fried fish and calming myself down. Chad seemed both venomous and insecure, a flammable combination. I pulled a chair up to Judge Alexander to hear him ending a tall tale to laughter and applause because it seemed mannerly, what a good host should do. But my peripheral vision caught a serious argument being conducted in a whispered fever at the side of the house where my mother’s prized camellias grew to unseemly heights. Chad and Fraser Rutledge were locked like dissonant enemies in one of those battles that often spring most violently between people who are supposed to love each other. One fact I was sure of was that Fraser was giving no quarter nor taking a foot-long hot dog’s ration of shit from her brother. From a distance of twenty feet, I watched Niles and Starla witnessing the dispute, and I was sure they knew where the heart of the argument lay. I wondered how long these orphans had felt humiliation at the hands of the native-born citizens of towns where they would always be dishonored visitors. Fraser broke away from her brother’s grip, and when he tried to prevent her from going back to Niles, I saw the exact moment when the leading rebounder among South Carolina high school women basketball players shot a well-placed elbow into her brother’s ribs and sent him flying into a ten-foot camellia bush.