Some of the education at Correctional was academic; most of it was not. Both kinds honed the cunning needed to secure a place in a big, fancy house on Monarch Street where there was no uniformed woman pacing in the half-light of a corridor or opening doors any old time to check; or where the sleep thrum of bodies close by siphoned the air. This was the right place and there he was, letting her know in every way it had been waiting for her all along. As soon as she saw the stranger’s portrait she knew she was home. She had dreamed him the first night, had ridden his shoulders through an orchard of green Granny apples heavy and thick on the boughs.
The next morning at breakfast—grapefruit, scrambled eggs, grits, toast, bacon—Christine was less hostile but still guarded. Junior tried to amuse her by poking fun at Heed. The lay of the land, so to speak, was not entirely clear, and she had no direction. It was when she’d finished eating and was back in Heed’s bedroom that she knew for sure. The gift was unmistakable.
Awkward in Heed’s red suit, Junior had stood at the window and looked again at the boy below while Heed rummaged in a footlocker. Earlier she had seen Christine shoot down the driveway, leaving the boy holding a pail and shivering in the yard. Now she watched him wipe his nose with the back of his wrist, then brush the residue on his jeans. Junior smiled. And was smiling still when Heed called out to her.
“Here it is! I found it.” She held a photograph in a silver frame. “I keep valuables locked up in one place or another and sometimes I forget where.”
Junior left the window, knelt next to the footlocker, and gazed at the photograph. A wedding. Five people. And him, the groom, looking to his right at a woman who, holding a single rose, focused a frozen smile at the camera.
“She looks like the woman downstairs, Christine,” said Junior, pointing.
“Well, she’s not,” said Heed.
The woman with the rose held his arm, and although he was looking at her, his other arm was around the bare shoulder of his tiny bride. Heed was swamped by the oversize wedding gown falling from her shoulders and the orange blossoms in her hand were drooping. To Heed’s left was a slick-looking handsome man smiling to his left at a woman whose clenched hands emphasized more than the absence of a bouquet.
“I don’t look so different, do I?” asked Heed.
“Why is your husband looking at her and not you?”
“Trying to cheer her up, I suppose. He was like that.”
“That your bridesmaid?” asked Junior, pointing to the clench-fisted woman. “She doesn’t look too happy either.”
“She wasn’t. Can’t say it was a happy wedding. Bill Cosey was very marriage-ing, you know. A lot of women wanted to be in my slippers.”
Junior examined the picture again. “Who’s that other guy?”
“Our best man. A very famous musician in his day. You too young to know about him.”
“These the people you’re writing about?”
“Yes. Well, some. Mostly about Papa—my husband—his people, his father. You wouldn’t believe how proud they were, how classy. Even back in slavery days . . .”
There was more than one reason Junior stopped listening. One was that she guessed Heed didn’t want to write a book; she wanted to talk, although why she had to pay somebody to talk to, Junior hadn’t figured out yet. The other was the boy shivering outside. She could hear the faint scrapes of his shovel moving slush, tapping ice.
“Does he live around here?”
“Who?”
“Kid outside.”
“Oh, that’s Sandler’s boy. He runs errands, keeps the yard up. Nice boy.”
“What’s his name?”
“Romen. His grandfather was a friend to my husband. They fished together. Papa had two boats, you know. One named for his first wife, and one named for me . . .”
Sixteen, maybe older. Nice neck.
“. . . he took important people deep-sea fishing. The sheriff, Chief Silk, they called him. He was Papa’s best friend. And big-name singers, bandleaders. But he took Sandler, too, even though he was just a local man working in the cannery like most everybody then. But Papa could mix with all kinds . . .”
He won’t like this old-lady suit I got on.
“People just adored him and he was good to everybody. Of course, his will left me the most, though to hear some people, a wife shouldn’t be provided for . . .”
Like the boys at Campus A shooting baskets, and us looking at them through the wire fence, daring them. Them looking back at us, promising us.
“I was lucky, I know that. My mother was against it at first. Papa’s age and all. But Daddy knew a true romance when he saw it. And look how it turned out. Almost thirty years of perfect bliss . . .”
The Guards were jealous. Roughing them up because we kept on looking, greedy, like fans, watching those damp sweats rise.
“Neither one of us even looked at anybody else. But it sure wasn’t easy-greasy running the hotel. Everything was on me. With nobody to count on. Nobody . . .”
Sixteen at least, maybe more. Shoots baskets, too. I can tell.
“Are you listening to me? I’m giving you important information. You should be writing all this down.”
“I’ll remember.”
Half an hour later, Junior had changed back into leather. When Romen saw her walking up the driveway, he thought what his grandfather must have thought, and grinned in spite of himself.
Junior liked that. Then, suddenly, like the boys at Campus A, he slouched—indifferent, ready to be turned down, ready to pounce. Junior didn’t give him time to decide on the matter.
“Don’t tell me you’re fucking these old women too.”
Too.
Romen’s embarrassment fought with a flush of pride. She assumed he was capable of it. Of having scored so many times he could choose any woman—and in pairs, Theo, in pairs.
“They tell you that?”
“No. But I bet they think about it.”
“You related to them?”
“No way. I work here now.”
“Doing what?”
“This and that.”
“What kinda this? What kinda that?”
Junior circled her gift. She looked at the shovel in his hands. Then his crotch, then his face. “They got rooms they never go in. With sofas and everything.”
“Yeah?”
Young people, Lord. Do they still call it infatuation? That magic ax that chops away the world in one blow, leaving only the couple standing there trembling? Whatever they call it, it leaps over anything, takes the biggest chair, the largest slice, rules the ground wherever it walks, from a mansion to a swamp, and its selfishness is its beauty. Before I was reduced to singsong, I saw all kinds of mating. Most are two-night stands trying to last a season. Some, the riptide ones, claim exclusive right to the real name, even though everybody drowns in its wake. People with no imagination feed it with sex—the clown of love. They don’t know the real kinds, the better kinds, where losses are cut and everybody benefits. It takes a certain intelligence to love like that—softly, without props. But the world is such a showpiece, maybe that’s why folks try to outdo it, put everything they feel onstage just to prove they can think up things too: handsome scary things like fights to the death, adultery, setting sheets afire. They fail, of course. The world outdoes them every time. While they are busy showing off, digging other people’s graves, hanging themselves on a cross, running wild in the streets, cherries are quietly turning from green to red, oysters are suffering pearls, and children are catching rain in their mouths expecting the drops to be cold but they’re not; they are warm and smell like pineapple before they get heavier and heavier, so heavy and fast they can’t be caught one at a time. Poor swimmers head for shore while strong ones wait for lightning’s silver veins. Bottle-green clouds sweep in, pushing the rain inland where palm trees pretend to be shocked by the wind. Women scatter shielding their hair and men bend low holding the women’s shoulders against their chests. I run too, finally. I say
finally because I do like a good storm. I would be one of those people on the weather channel leaning into the wind while lawmen shout in megaphones: “Get moving!”
Maybe that’s because I was born in rough weather. A morning fishermen and wild parrots knew right away was bad news. My mother, limp as a rag waiting for this overdue baby, said she suddenly perked up and decided to hang laundry. Only later did she realize she was drunk with the pure oxygen that swept in before the storm. Halfway through her basket she saw the day turn black, and I began to thrash. She called my father and the two of them delivered me in a downpour. You could say going from womb water straight into rain marked me. It’s noteworthy, I suppose, that the first time I saw Mr. Cosey, he was standing in the sea, holding Julia, his wife, in his arms. I was five; he was twenty-four and I’d never seen anything like that. Her eyes were closed, head bobbing; her light blue swimming dress ballooned or flattened out depending on the waves and his strength. She lifted an arm, touched his shoulder. He turned her to his chest and carried her ashore. I believed then it was the sunlight that brought those tears to my eyes—not the sight of all that tenderness coming out of the sea. Nine years later, when I heard he was looking for house help, I ran all the way to his door.
The sign outside reads “Maceo’s Cafe——ria” but the diner really belonged to me. Indeed if not in deed. I had been cooking for Bill Cosey close to fifty years when he died, and his funeral flowers were still fresh when I turned my back on his women. I’d done all I could for them; it was time to quit. Rather than starve, I took in laundry so I wouldn’t have to. But having customers running in and out of my house was too bothersome, so I gave in to Maceo’s pleading. He had a certain reputation for fried fish (sooty black and crisp on the outside; flaky tender inside), but his side orders let you down every time. What I do with okra, with sweet potatoes, hopping John, and almost anything you could name would put this generation of takeout brides to shame if they had any—which they don’t. Every house had a serious cook in it once; somebody who toasted bread under an oven flame not in an aluminum box; somebody who beat air into batter with a spoon instead of a machine, who knew the secret of cinnamon bread. Now, well, it’s all over. People wait for Christmas or Thanksgiving to give their kitchens proper respect. Otherwise they’d come to Maceo’s Café Ria and pray I hadn’t dropped dead at the stove. I used to walk all the way to work until my feet swole up and I had to quit. A few weeks into daytime TV and my bad health, Maceo knocked on the door and said he couldn’t take the empty tables any longer. Said he was willing to drive back and forth between Up Beach and Silk every day if I would save him one more time. I told him it wasn’t only the walk; it was standing as well. But he had a plan for that, too. He got me a high chair with wheels so I could scoot from stove to sink to cutting table. My feet healed but I got so used to wheel transportation I couldn’t give it up.
Anybody who remembers what my real name is is dead or gone and nobody inquires now. Even children, who have a world of time to waste, treat me like I’m dead and don’t ask about me anymore. Some thought it was Louise or Lucille because they used to see me take the usher’s pencil and sign my tithe envelopes with L. Others, from hearing people mention or call me, said it was El for Eleanor or Elvira. They’re all wrong. Anyway, they gave up. Like they gave up calling Maceo’s Maceo’s or supplying the missing letters. Café Ria is what it’s known as, and like a favored customer spoiled by easy transportation, I glide there still.
Girls like the place a lot. Over iced tea with a clove in it, they join their friends to repeat what he said, describe what he did, and guess what he meant by any of it. Like
He didn’t call me for three days and when I called him he wanted to get together right then. See there? He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t want to be with you. Oh, please. When I got there we had a long talk and for the first time he really listened to me. Sure he did. Why not? All he had to do was wait till you shut up, then he could work his own tongue. I thought he was seeing what’s her name? No, they split. He asked me to move in. Sign the paper first, honey. I don’t want anybody but him. It’s like that, huh? Well, no joint accounts, hear? You want porgies or not?
Foolish. But they spice the lunch hour and lift the spirits of brokenhearted men eavesdropping at nearby tables.
We never had waitresses at the diner. The food is displayed in steam trays, and after your plate is heaped you take it to the cash register for cost analysis done by Maceo, his wife, or one of his no-count sons. Then you can eat here or take it on home.
The girl with no underwear—she calls herself Junior—comes in a lot. The first time I saw her she looked to me like somebody in a motorcycle gang. Boots. Leather. Wild hair. Maceo couldn’t take his eyes off her either—had to lid her coffee twice. The second time was on a Sunday just before church let out. She walked the length of the steam table checking the trays with the kind of eyes you see on those “Save This Child” commercials. I was resting by the sink and blowing on a cup of pot liquor before dipping my bread in. I could see her pacing like a panther or some such. The big hair was gone. It was done up in a million long plaits with something shiny at the tip of each one. Her fingernails were painted blue and her lipstick was dark as blackberries. She still wore that leather jacket, and her skirt was long this time, but you could see straight through it—a flowery nothing swinging above her boots. All her private parts going public alongside red dahlias and baby’s breath.
One of Maceo’s trifling boys leaned up against the wall while Miss Junior made up her mind. He never opened his lips to say good afternoon, may I help you? anything in particular? or any of the welcoming things you’re supposed to greet customers with. I just cooled my liquid and watched to see which one would behave normal first.
She did.
Her order must have been for herself and a friend, because Christine came back home a champion cook and Heed won’t eat. Anyway, the girl chose three sides, two meats, one rice pudding, and one chocolate cake. Maceo’s boy, Theo they call him, smirking more than usual, moved from the wall to load up the Styrofoam plates. He let the stewed tomatoes slide over the compartments to discolor the potato salad, and forked the barbecue on top of the gravied chicken. I got so heated watching Theo disrespect food I dropped the bread into my cup, where it fell apart like grits.
She never took her eyes off the trays. Never met Theo’s hateful stare until he gave her change at the register. Then she looked right at him and said, “I see why you need a posse. Your dick don’t work one on one?”
Theo shouted a nasty word to her back, but it fell flat with no audience but me. Long after the door slammed, he kept on repeating it. Typical. Young people can’t waste words because they don’t have too many.
When Maceo walked in, ready to take over before the after-church lines started forming, Theo was dribbling air balls in his dream court behind the register. As if he’d just been signed by Orlando and the Wheaties people too. Not a bad way to work off shame. Quick, anyway. Takes some people a lifetime.
This Junior girl—something about her puts me in mind of a local woman I know. Name of Celestial. When she was young, that is, though I doubt if Junior or any of these modern tramps could match her style. Mr. Cosey knew her too, although if you asked him he’d deny it. Not to me, though. Mr. Cosey never lied to me. No point in it. I knew his first wife better than he did. I knew he adored her and I knew what she began to think of him after she found out where his money came from. Contrary to the tale he put in the street, the father he bragged about had earned his way as a Courthouse informer. The one police could count on to know where a certain colored boy was hiding, who sold liquor, who had an eye on what property, what was said at church meetings, who was agitating to vote, collecting money for a school—all sorts of things Dixie law was interested in. Well paid, tipped off, and favored for fifty-five years, Daniel Robert Cosey kept his evil gray eye on everybody. For the pure power of it, people supposed, because he had no joy, and the money he got for be
ing at the beck and call of white folks in general and police in particular didn’t bring comfort to him or his family. Whites called him Danny Boy. But to Negroes his initials, DRC, gave rise to the name he was known by: Dark. He worshiped paper money and coin, withheld decent shoes from his son and passable dresses from his wife and daughters, until he died leaving 114,000 resentful dollars behind. The son decided to enjoy his share. Not throw it away, exactly, but use it on things Dark cursed: good times, good clothes, good food, good music, dancing till the sun came up in a hotel made for it all. The father was dreaded; the son was a ray of light. The cops paid off the father; the son paid off the cops. What the father corrected, the son celebrated. The father a miser? The son an easy touch. Spendthrift didn’t cut ice with Julia. Her family were farmers always being done out of acres by white landowners and spiteful Negroes. She froze when she learned how blood-soaked her husband’s money was. But she didn’t have to feel ashamed too long. She gave birth and waited a dozen years to see if history skipped a generation or blossomed in her son. I don’t know if she was satisfied or just lost interest, because her last whisper was, “Is that my daddy?”
4
BENEFACTOR
Heed eased down into the froth, hanging on to the tub’s rim with a practiced use of her thumbs. Once on her knees she could turn, sit, and watch the lilac foam rise to her shoulders.
This can’t last, she thought. I’m going to sink or slip and not have the wrist strength to save myself from drowning.
She hoped Junior’s list of things she was willing to do—“You want your hair fixed, I’ll fix it. You want a bath, I’ll give you one”—was honest, not the eager lies of a job hunter. Heed decided to test her on the hairdressing before asking for help with her bath. July was the last time she had been able to hold the Clairol bottle and flood the silver seams at her scalp with Deep Walnut. How, she wondered, how had it happened that she, who had never picked a crab, handled crawfish or conch, ended up with hands more deformed than those of the factory workers who had. Ben-Gay, aloe, Aspercreme did little to help, and constant bathing was needed to stop the sea life she had never touched from touching her. So the first two tasks for Junior would be to color her hair and help in the bath—assuming she could get her attention away from Romen long enough.