Counternarratives (23 page)

“Get your pay and you got to clear out of here!” Kerney had stacked the
money in piles for each of us on a table, so we lined up and collected what was
ours. When I reached mine he said, baring the yellow kernels in his mouth as if
trying to appear friendly, “Better not end up in the bottom of them rivers, boy,
cause I spect to see you come September, y'understand?” and I answered him, “Yes
Sir, Mr. Kerney, and you have a good summer too.” I grabbed my pay and raced
outside, where Horatio and Jonathan were waiting.

“Where, you off to, Dameron?” Jonathan was rolling a moundlet of tobacco
from a pouch he kept in his waistcoat in a piece of newspaper look like he took from
the back room.

“Sure nough, what about you?”

“Bout to go relax these dogs for a little bit fore I go get Angie. She
get off today round 4.” He was licking the end of his cigarette but didn't have a
light. “We sposed to be meeting up with Johnny and his lady, and Tut-Tut and
Queenie, we probably go try to find a dance or something to get into.”

Horatio was quiet, looking like he wanted to leave but I could tell he
was waiting till Jonathan did so first so that we could walk together and talk.

“Well if'n I don't see you fore you head out I'll catch you when I get
in,” Jonathan said, “I don't need to tell you but I'm going to, Red. Stay out of
trouble.” We all slapped palms then he scooted off to light his cigarette at a
pushcart down the street and cool wherever he cooled when he wasn't at home or
Angelica's.

“You walking to Dameron right now?” Horatio asked, towering over me.

“Sure nough, I need them coins, what you doing?”

“Ain't on for no upholstering this evening, prolly just going to go
home, you know it be like the circus up in there, can't hardly even breathe with all
of them. Edray, I almost didn't have no shoes this morning cause Franklin walking
out the door with mines.” We laughed in unison at the thought of his brother, with
even bigger feet than his, stumbling in Horatio's boots out the door. As we did so
he winched his long arm around my shoulders. I could smell his underarms cutting
through the rosewater he had splashed on himself in the backroom, and the
combination was not at all bad. “Why don't we take some ladies out tomorrow after
service for a stroll, that'll get you to hang out with ya boy, no?”

I paused there on the walkway. “Rosaline sent my last note back, she
ain't want to talk to me at all when I seen her two days ago. Who I supposed to take
out if I ain't got no lady?” Horatio stood in front of me.

“I'll talk to Rosaline, you remember how her sister Janie was sweet on
me.” And he was right, Janie, a year older than us, had been utterly infatuated with
my best friend for several years, beginning when we were thirteen so, until she gave
her heart completely to Christ and chilled on everyone who wasn't always in church
except her immediately family, and strangely, Horatio. “Say yes and I'll head over
there right now.” I looked up at him and he cupped my chin, drawing his face closer
and closer to mine until I pushed his hand away, though for a second I felt I wanted
him to put it back. Horatio slid back alongside me and was now looking off into the
Saturday crowds, all the human hustle and bustle up Broad, the horses and coaches
and wagons, people alighting on or off the street cars. I seized both his big hands,
which immediately grabbed his attention, and said, “You talk to her for me and we
definitely roll tomorrow,” though I knew it probably would just be me and him in the
park playing Takeaway or improvised cribbage.

“Bet, Edray,” he said and I answered, “Bet and better be, Ray-Ray,” we
slapped palms, then I darted through the maze of traffic to Dameron's.

W
hen
I had finished all my preparatory tasks for the soup and the desserts, which the
main cooks would take charge of, I beat a path straight home and lay down, feeling
the day's work had wrung me out. My mother wasn't there, Jonathan neither, so I
spread out on the bed I shared with him and just let my mind float free thinking
about Rosaline and what I might have done to cool her so, and about Horatio, who did
know how to talk to or least get the attention of girls, though he didn't ever
really seem to want to. Jonathan also had that charm, girls and people in general
had always flocked to him. I consoled myself by recalling that too much nectar, my
mother would warn, would draw more than the butterfly. Always fumbling and stumbling
and saying the wrong thing, I didn't have whatever it was anyhow. I forgot to look
girls in the eye, bring them something sweet, special, cajole and inveigle them to
reach that sweeter spot. Rosaline nevertheless had used to like to spend time with
me especially during our last year at the Institute. As I traced circles on my
stomach and thighs I reminded myself that truth be told I didn't want to be courting
so hard yet anyway, although I knew having a sweetheart was best when the summer
came and you could sit up on the riverbank and watch the steamboats streaming by, or
walk the promenade late on a Sunday afternoon after services, and I liked when
Horatio and me had gone courting together, I would be studying what he said and
deploying my own version, and now I could feel my eyes leadening but I knew not to
fall into a deep sleep, because I might miss tonight's job—

—And I heard Mama calling out, “Theodore, if you sleeping wake up,
sugar, and get dressed,” and I rose, washed up, scrubbed my teeth with baking soda
even, donned my serving clothes. Before I left I gave Mama, who as soon as she set
her sacks down had begun readying dinner, a big kiss on the cheek and some money
then I headed off to Mr. Linde's.

I hopped on the streetcar that ran up Broad, since that one we could
ride and the conductor was one I saw all the time, he never spoke but didn't curse
me either. I let the white folks climb inside then I held out my coin and he
snatched it, I grabbed on, wondering as we rode whether I might not be too early. I
glanced around for a clock in a pane, and seeing none, asked the conductor what time
it was. He consulted his pocket watch and said, “Seven past six.” I had almost an
hour and a half, so I rode up a few blocks to Prune. With the party two blocks east
of Rittenhouse Square, I decided to kill time by walking a roundabout route down to
the Schuylkill before circling back. Right outside the New Opera House I ran into
Reverend Johnson, the pastor of our old church, who asked about my mother, and then
once on Pine I saw the Holland twins, and Miss Catto, who wanted to chat for a good
minute. On Aspen, I paused to talk briefly with my former classmate Simpson,
shoveling up manure, who people called both Simple
and
Samson since he fell
first off a horse, then off a roof, and had survived both. At S. 23rd I ran into
another acquaintance and former classmate, Amos, sweeping the sidewalk outside a row
of stores. He asked me why I was all dressed up, then said if Dameron had any
openings to let him know. He also warned to watch myself near the river, but I
assured him I already knew to be careful, and reminded him that steps from the Water
Works near here they had slain my father one evening three months ago. I said
goodbye to Amos, picking up my pace and counting down the blocks until I could see
the wharves and boats, and be ready, if need be, to run.

A couple blocks from the river, near Cope, from behind the corner of a
warehouse my first cousin on my daddy's side, Daniel Lyons, emerged, smoking a
cheroot as thick as a tree limb, and soon as he saw me he tipped his brim and called
me over. He had been a few years ahead of Horatio and me in school, though after
Jonathan, but he had always seemed as if he were much older. People in the streets
called him “Dandylion,” though to me he was just “Dandy.” The blue serge suit he
sported was as fine as anything the white gentleman at the Academy this afternoon
had worn, and even in the evening light the rings glinted from every other one of
his stubby copper fingers. I hadn't seen him in a while but wherever he happened to
be, my mother warned me constantly, so was trouble. Nevertheless I didn't know
anybody walking the streets of Philadelphia who could stay so close to danger yet
outside the lasso of the law or always have as good a time doing so.

“Uzcay, where you rolling?” He extended his cigar. I declined. When he
pulled a flask out of his inner pocket and offer me some after he took a sip, I
declined again.

“Work, Uzcay,” I said. “An event. Near Rittenhouse Square.”

“Ahh.” He smoothed his full mustache, which looked like he had been
trimming and waxing it for decades. He added, “Rittenhouse. That's some fancy pish,
Red. What you doing over here? Little play before you toil the night
away?”

“Just got some time, taking a walk to burn it off before I got to
sweat.”

“Sweet,” he said. “What time they expecting you? I want to show you
something if you got just a few minutes.” His voice lowered, like he didn't want
anybody, not even me, to hear what he was about to say. A man on a horse trotted
past and he grew silent. “Something real good. Only for my blood.”

“Oh no, Dandy,” I said, registering at that moment that I ought to slap
palms and run straight to the event, even if I had to expend a half hour to spare
just milling about outside the back gate or in the square itself. “I can't be late
for this, I swear.”

“Why you think I'ma make you late? Edray, my little man, come on now.
All I axing you for is a few minutes. Just got something to show you. Know you'll
like it.” He took off his hat and stroked his perfectly parted and pomaded head of
hair, the shine on the black bales setting off his beringed fingers.

“What is it? Where is it?” I looked around and wondered at that moment
what Dandylion was even doing over in this neighborhood with all the toughs and
bandits and everything else, especially since these west-side white folks were known
for jumping out of alleys ready to fight. I told him, “Look, Dandy, I wish I could
roll with you right now but I got to get to work. Plus, this area over here—”

“See, Uzcay,” he said, “you always wanna be like that. Hincky. Last time
we cooled it ain't you have a good time?” and he was right, we had gone to a house
south of here, ten blocks perhaps past the Naval Asylum, where some people he knew
had set up a gambling parlor, with enough free liquor for a shipload of sailors,
several fiddlers, and hours of dancing. There were even white folks there too.
Before that, right after I turned fifteen I had ridden the ferry with him to Camden
to attend a cockfight, and had had my first taste of beer there. “Rittenhouse Square
is it?”

“Just east of there. I swear I can't miss work, Dandy, you know how hard
things is these days.”

“Red, cool your heels. You ain't going to miss no work, we only going a
few blocks away, in the direction of Rittenhouse. By the time we done you could
crawl there and still wouldn't be late.” So he started walking but I stayed where I
was, until I spied these two white boys, men really, across the street, they were
watching me, not frowning but not looking neutral either, and at the very moment
they started to advance in my direction I thought it best to follow Dandy.

At a three-story building that on the outside looked like any other on
the block but also like one in which no one had lived for a while, he knocked six
times on the weathered front door. I started to turn around as soon as we entered
because it was very dark, except for a single lamp, not even gas, in the foyer, but
Dandy took my arm, guiding me up the stairs, past a brother I didn't even see at
first with a face so hard it could cut metal, though when our eyes met they
contained the glimmers of assent, slightly reassuring me. We reached the second
floor, which appeared empty though I could hear things going on in several of the
rooms, cackling, flesh clapping against flesh, dice or marbles hitting a wall. Dandy
proceeded up the stairs to the third storey, still holding my arm, and I knew then
that I should turn around but I also wanted badly to see what he had in store.

We walked down a near-black hallway, and he again knocked six times on a
door. To our left I noticed another door open but a crack. I walked over toward it
and peeking in it saw a stairwell look like it led to the roof. The door Dandy had
rapped on opened, baring a brother, face backlit by lamplight. Dandy pushed in,
towing me with him. Before us sat a bed, face down in it, I saw squinting, lay a
white lady, least I thought she was white, and a female, but sheets covered her
legs, pillows concealed her head. Since she wasn't moving I didn't know if she was
alive. The room stank of sweat and piss, no one had ever cleaned up in here, and I
could also smell urine rising from the floorboards and the dark sheet shrouding the
window. I turned toward the door and Dandy grabbed my elbow and said, “See, I told
you I had something I know you'd like. Who don't want a pretty girl like that?”

The brother, double our age, probably 30, skinny as a knifeblade and
just as ugly, whose presence I had almost completely forgotten, piped up from the
shadows, “Who this little red bastard, you only sposed to be up here by
yourself.”

“This my cousin, slave,” Dandy replied, placing his hand inside
his jacket like he had a shank or revolver in there, and I really wished I had left
him on Cope and just headed straight to the event. “What mine is my blood, plus you
owe me triple anyway.” While he was talking the white lady began moaning and lifted
her behind in the air and spread her legs wide open. “Just think of this as partial
repayment.”

The man looked from me to Dandy, then said, “Y'all got an hour with her,
and no mad shit neither,” and Dandy said, “Slave, who the fuck you think you dealing
with?” He reached into his jacket again, then said, “Where that special cigar you
sposed to have ready?” The man pulled a cylinder, wrapped in what looked like
butcher paper, from a cloth pouch slung over his shoulder. “Light it, so we know it
okay.” The man lit the cigar from a candle near the door, and drew hard on it three
or four times, then he passed it to Dandy, and Dandy drew on it some before passing
it to me. “You can get out now,” he said to the brother, who stood staring at us,
“we knows how to tell time.” Soon as the door closed, Dandy pointed to the cigar,
which reeked of burning trash, and I took a hit, I had smoked tobacco before but I
still choked some because it was so strong. When I handed it back to him he took
another hit, then rubbed it out on the wall.