A Moment in the Sun (21 page)

He feels weak to have to ask, but this blind leap, this exile, must have some value.

Del Pilar stands, his face unreadable. “Every act of defiance,” he says, “is a nail in the Spaniards’ coffin.” And then, grinning and nodding to the doughty bronze monarch above them, “Let’s be happy we’re not fighting
her
. Come on—we’ll find a place to put you.”

WILMINGTON

If Uncle Wicklow got any second thoughts about being a colored man’s colored man, he keeps quiet about it. He’s worked for Dr. Lunceford since Royal can remember, driving, keeping Boots fed and stabled, keeping the yard up, hauling coal and ice and doing all the other chores most folks got to do on their own. Not that Royal takes anything away from the doctor.

“
Man like Dr. Lunceford
,” his mother is fond of saying, “
provide a aspi
ra
tion for you young ones
.”

Wick is wiping clean the dash on a new carriage when Royal steps in. It is a moment before recognition creases his face in a smile.

“Look at you.”

“Wick. How you coming, old man?”

“
Look
at you.”

There was a crowd at the station, almost all colored, when the troop train pulled in, cheering and waving flags while brass instruments thumped out a welcome, little boys dancing alongside him for blocks calling him Mr. Soldier Man and wanting to touch his uniform.

“They’re carrying us down to Georgia,” says Royal. “Got a few hours to stretch our legs.”

“So Mr. Lunceford Junior be coming by?”

Royal feels a tiny pang at the old man’s excitement. Wick is
his
uncle, not Junior’s.

“He’ll come by shortly.”

“You been to your mama?”

“That comes next. I got business here.”

Wick shakes his head. “You can shinny up the tree, boy, but you aint getting no peach.”

“How is she?”

Wick turns back to his work. “Bout like you’d expect. A fine young lady.”

If it was somebody else’s daughter the old man would be winking and nudging, calling back on his own adventures to offer a plan of action. But this is his livelihood, and there is a part of him that cringes every time Royal steps into the Luncefords’ parlor.

Royal makes a show of inspecting the carriage.

“This is a new one.”

The old man’s face brightens. “Two-seater Park Phaeton, all the way from Massachusetts.” He steps back to indicate the features. “Cut under to the reach, folding top for rain, and the springs—nephew, you roll on these springs you aint riding, you
float
in. I seen Dr. Lunceford fall right to sleep on that seat beside me, coming home from a long day of visitations. Sleep through shell road, cobblestones, pot-holes, you name it.”

“It’s smooth.”

“Like a dream on water. Look here—” Wick runs his hand over the black leather of the front seat. “You ever seen polstry like this? That pattern there, that’s diamond-tucked and button-tufted is what that is. That is
qual
ity. Wherever I stop, these other old boys that’s driving, don’t matter for what kind of white people, they got to shut up and wonder. You know Preston McNary, what they call Pinkeye?”

“Ned McNary’s daddy.”

“That’s the one. He’s in livery for Judge Manigault, got more airs than a peacock got feathers, and even he got to say ‘Wicklow, that is a fine piece of craftmanship you settin on. A
fine
piece.’ ”

Before Royal left the Doctor had an old physician’s coupe, beautifully kept by Uncle Wick but a little secondhand box-on-wheels nonetheless. Royal’s stomach tightens as he studies the coach. He is climbing, the uniform is emblem of that, but maybe the Luncefords are climbing even faster.

“Now if I was a sporting man,” Wick goes on, always one to rhapsodize about his rides, “and Boots was still in his prime, I could make me some pocket silver racing against them young bloods as gets together Saturdays at the river run to match their wagons. Phaeton is built for comfort,” he says, patting a fender, “but that don’t mean she won’t
fly
.”

Another soldier steps into the carriage house.

“Uncle Wick.”

Junior calls him Uncle too, but in the manner of the white people. It is supposed to be affection, maybe even respect, but it always grates on Royal.

“Mr. Lunceford Junior!” Wick makes a show of wiping his hands clean on the chamois cloth before shaking Junior’s hand. “All turned out in blue! What is it now—Lieutenant? Major?”

Junior smiles. “Just a private, like Roy here.”

“We don’t go past sergeant in the regulars,” says Royal. “Commissioned officers are all white men.”

“But that will change soon enough.” Junior has submitted letters to editors, has solicited the aid of congressmen, has made it abundantly clear he is a New Negro seeking his proper place in the Army’s hierarchy. He is not the easiest friend to have in the barracks.

“Mrs. Lunceford gonna throw a fit. You didn’t write you was coming.”

“Sudden orders,” says Junior. “We’re moving faster than the mail.”

“I heard there was colored troops passing through, but they never said no regiment numbers.”

“You’re looking well, Uncle.” Junior gives the old man a small pat on the arm, ready to move on. He turns to give Royal a once-over.

“Are you prepared for battle, Private?”

Royal does not feel ready, but there is no telling where the Army will take him next and it is only by chance they’ve stopped in Wilmington on the way.

He tries to avoid Uncle Wicklow’s eyes. “I won’t say very much.”

Junior smiles. He wears his confidence like he wears his clothes, even in Montana with the sergeants chewing you out on the training grounds. There are men in the ranks maybe got more smarts than Junior Lunceford, but none of them carry themselves so high, so sure. If colored officers ever do come in, thinks Royal, Junior be commissioned on the spot.

“Modesty would be prudent,” says Junior. “This is only to put a new image of you in their minds. Replace the shoeless boy and stripling dockworker of their memories with a very presentable military gentlemen.”

“And Jessie?”

It might be hopeless. “
Aint no lack of colored women in this world
,” his mother likes to say.
“They no sense in sniffin after what you can’t have when they plenty at hand do you just fine
.” His mother never runs out of sayings, most of them made to ward off disappointment. If she ever hoped for something good in life it is a secret to him.

Junior laughs and puts his hand on Royal’s shoulder. “My sister dwells in a romance novel,” he says. “She will
swoon
.”

The performers fill the stage, strutting and singing, and Niles is late again. Harry has his skimmer on the empty seat, looking back across the crowd in the Thalian, already smiling and clapping their hands. He knows enough never to wait for his brother outside, or to expect he’ll have the twenty cents admission on his person, and so has bought the extra ticket and left it at the door.

We’s sons of Ham from Alabam

The slickest singin birds what am—

And then there he is, Niles dancing down the aisle fluttering his palms in the air and rolling his eyes and mouthing along with the song—

We’s fond o’ gin an prone to sin

Now let this minstrel show begin!

Niles is winking and waving to his pals scattered in the house around them as he squeezes into the row, stepping on toes, always one to make a ruckus and be forgiven for it. He stands in front of his seat after Harry pulls his hat off it, waiting for the entertainers to make their semicircle, waiting for the Interlocutor, frock-coated and without blackface makeup, to call the session to order—

“Gentlemen,” the Interlocutor calls out in his booming voice, “be seated.”

—and Niles hitches his pants to make a show of sitting at once with the minstrels.

A few people in the seats behind them laugh. “I was detained on the steps,” he tells his brother, not lowering his voice all that much. “Ran into some of the Judge’s politicking comrades coming out from work.” The Thalian serves as City Hall as well as Opera House and Music Academy. “They said they’d heard I’d frozen to death.”

Niles is one week back from the Yukon with plenty of stories and no gold. The rumors have no doubt originated from the Judge’s constant grumble.

“
If my son desires to topple off of a glacier on some fool’s pilgrimage
,” he tells all and sundry who inquire of Niles’s adventures, “
that is his prerogative
.”

“Mr. Interlocutor! Mr. Interlocutor!” It is Tambo, goggle-eyed in a bright orange checked suit and black fuzzy-wuzzy wig.

“Yes, Brother Tambo?”

“What you gets when you crosses a coon wid a octopus?”

“What would that be, Brother Tambo?”

“Don’t know what you calls it, but it sho can pick cotton!”

The audience laughs, Brother Tambo and Brother Bones shake their instruments, and the other minstrels shuffle their feet in appreciation.

“Don’t you think that’s rather demeaning?” asks the Interlocutor.

“De meanin of what?” pipes in Bones, the other end man, in a yellow swallowtail coat and red-striped trousers.

“Brother Bones, you are a buffoon.”

“Nawsuh—I’s cullid on
bofe
sides of de fambly.”

Another laugh, and a little undertone of discussion among the patrons. Harry wonders how far this group, down from the North, will dare to go.

“Mr. Interlocutor,” cries Brother Bones, clacking the ribs together to grab his attention. “Did you hear I gots me a new gal?”

“Excellent news, Brother Bones. What is her name?”

“They calls her Dinah the Drayho’se.”

“And why, pray tell, would they call her that?”

“Cause when she move—”

“—she got a waggin behind!” calls Niles along with the minstrel.

Waiting out back in the dark makes Coop feel like a thief again. Not the high, fine feeling when you’ve cleaned a mark out, when the goods are safe from sight or already sold and you can imagine the rich people faces in the morning, no, but that nagging tug at your insides Tillis used to smoke hemp to be shed of.

“
Dulls the senses a mite
,” Tillis would smile before a job, pupils wide as gopher holes, “
but it don’t make you
stu
pid
.”

These are high-tone niggers all right, the Luncefords, Nun Street swells with white folks living right next door, and Alma don’t like him skulking round their house.
Skulking
. She learned all kinds of polite ways to say nasty things since she started working for the Doctor, and made sure none of the family ever set eyes on him. Lunceford has laid hands on Coop more than once, of course, stitching him up at City Jail on his Sunday evening visit, but never looked him in the face.

Alma comes to the door frowning.

“What you want?”

“It’s me.”

There is no gaslight at the back door. It takes her a long moment to figure it out.

“Lord help me. Clarence.”

“Name Henry now. Henry Cooper. Call me Coop.”

“Whoever you is, keep your voice down! They all in there—what’s that you wearin?”

“What’s it look like?”

“You joined up too? I be damn! Mr. Lunceford Junior and Royal Scott in there right now, wearin the same uniform.”

“Big-headed darkies gummin up the works for the rest of us.”

“Told me you was on the work gang, down South Cahlina.”

“Well, I aint there no more.”

Alma is round-faced and butterscotch brown, with wide shoulders and a nose that lays flat on her face. She always smells like cinnamon, even when she hasn’t been baking.

“You glad to see me?”

Alma cocks her head, looks him over. “Something don’t look right, you in that uniform.”

“I got as much right to wear it as any man. Hell, on my way from the station I seen old Joe Anderson dressed out like a policeman—”

“He
is
a policeman.”

“How the white folks let that be?”

“Cause we won the ’lection. Things took better since you was chased off.”

“Didn’t nobody chase me nowhere. I had some oppor
tu
nities to look out for down south—”

“Draggin a chain from your ankle—”

“That come after. They really made Joe a police?”

“We got six or seven that’s police. We movin up here, Clarence.”

“Coop.”

Alma smiles. “You done
flew
the coop, I expect.”

“Didn’t stop to look behind me till I cross that state line. And then the Army, they don’t expect no papers from a black man. They likely a good number of men I barracks with who don’t go by the name their mama call em.”

“You look real nice.”

Alma was sweet when she wasn’t worried about her people watching over her, had those dimples at the sides of her mouth when she smiled and never scolded too much if a man needed a loan to tide him over. They’d been tight as twine before Wilmington got too hot for him to stay in.

“How bout you step into the carriage house with me, we get back where we left off?”

“Wicklow be out there.”

“They aint put him to pasture yet?”

“Besides, they gonna need me, with company and all—”

“We only here till they service the transport, Alma. Aint nobody staying over.”

Alma looks back into the house, calculating. “I was spose to be home by now.”

“Tell them your sister took sick.”

“Reesha moved on to Charlotte, got married.”

Alma’s sister has a wall-eye and sour disposition. Coop holds his tongue.

“I might could just ask if they need anything else—”

“We spose to get back to the station by ten o’clock,” says Coop, catching her eye and holding it. “I been thinking about you all the way from Montana.”

“That’s where you been?”

“Fort Missoula. Girl, they got some winter there—snow come right up under my arms.”

Coop is a medium-tall man, dark skinned, his arms thick from years of wrestling barrels up a gangway.