Standing at the Scratch Line (28 page)

S
 A T U R D A Y,  
M
 A Y   2 4,   1 9 1 9
   

The boxcar rattled and clanked in a familiar rhythm as the train hurtled down the track. The big, sliding door was cracked open a few feet and allowed the occasional streetlight to shoot narrow bands of passing light into the darkness of the boxcar. Whenever bands of light did penetrate, they swept across the straw-covered floor. King sat alone on a bale of hay in the corner of the boxcar, shrouded in shadows.

He sat in the shifting dimness and listened to the rhythmic metal sounds of the train rolling along in the early morning darkness and recalled that this was the first time he had traveled alone since he left New Orleans in 1916. He exhaled slowly and allowed the rocking monotony of the train’s movement sweep over him. The train was passing through the outskirts of a small town in Pennsylvania. Most of the township buildings were dark, but here and there were house lights glowing along lonely dirt roads. The clouds that had caused an overcast sky earlier in the day were being pushed eastward by a west wind. The constellations were beginning to appear on the dark, blue satin of the night sky as the openings increased in the shifting clouds. King stared at the darkened countryside that was rattling past, and he felt a gnawing loneliness.

Splitting up with Big Ed had been one of the most difficult decisions he had ever made and he still puzzled over the intelligence of it. It was the result of an impulse that occurred at four o’clock in the morning, a week prior to his catching the midnight freight train. They all had been sitting on stools in the kitchen of the Biloxi after closing time. Butterball was busily clanking pots and mixing spoons while cooking up omelettes and smoked sausages on one of the big six-burner stoves. Leah and Mamie were talking and laughing with Smitty’s wife, Cassandra, at one end of the long prep table while King, Smitty, and Big Ed sat at the other end, close to the stove, downing shots of rye with Butterball.

“Me and Cassandra, we goin’ out to Frisco,” Smitty said. “She got a brother out there who say they’s plenty of work in them shipyards and plenty of land to be bought by anybody that’s got the money.”

“I heard good things about Frisco,” Big Ed said. “They say that a colored man ain’t ridden so hard out there.”

“I heard the very same thing,” Smitty nodded his head in agreement. “Say, I got an idea! Why don’t you all come on out to California with us? There’s bound to be somethin’ we can set our hands to.”

“I don’t know,” Big Ed said, glancing at King for direction. “I don’t think we’s made up our minds as to which way we gon’ go.”

“Ain’t it just like men to pick up and leave once you get used to them,” Mamie said in a loud voice. Only her smile made the abruptness of her words acceptable. “And generally, we’re happy to see them go too.”

Smitty would not be deterred from his line of questioning. “How come you boys won’t come to California with us? Ain’t you interested in seein’ the country we fought for? I hear there ain’t no other state prettier’n California.”

“I guess I am,” Big Ed said. “The first time I left Nebraska was when I joined the army and I know I ain’t really seen that much of the world even though we was all over France. It’s just you can’t see that much from a trench or out the back of a truck that’s barreling down a road. Still, I don’t know if there’s a prettier place than Nebraska when the sun first breaks through after a thunderstorm in the spring. The whole sky’s a gray purple with dark clouds tumblin’ across it and below it is miles and miles of green corn and wheat, just a bendin’ before the wind all at the same time, like people in church. The sun shoots through them clouds in different spots and makes the fields glow green like phosphorous.” Big Ed shook his head and took a deep breath. “You could smell the damp richness of the soil and the greenness of growing things. It’s in the air.”

“You’d never know he was just talking about the smell of mud,” King said with a chuckle.

“In the army I seen all the mud I ever wanted to see,” Smitty declared.

Leah looked directly at Big Ed. “I know what you mean. My family had a small farm in Missouri. I remember standing out on the porch after a strong rain, smelling the dampness of the earth and waiting for a rainbow.”

“I didn’t even mention rainbows,” Big Ed said, smiling at Leah. “In Nebraska we got a big sky. It goes as far as you can see. See, you ain’t got no sky here in New York. The buildings block it all out, but in Nebraska you can see both ends of the rainbow even if it’s thirty miles away.”

“I remember on some nights,” Leah said as she looked into Big Ed’s eyes, “that the loudest sounds you could hear would be the bullfrogs and crickets. And how the birthing of a calf or a colt was the biggest thing to happen in a season.”

“My father used to say, ‘You got to take joy in simple things, if you want to make your life bein’ a farmer.’ When I first joined the army, I used to dream about returnin’ to the farm, but I sort of got away from all that,” Big Ed laughed with a shrug. “I even got used to walkin’ on pavement.”

“Now you have money to do whatever you want,” Cassandra said before putting a forkful of omelette in her mouth. Butterball slid two more plates down the prep table. Smitty took one and offered the other to Leah. She declined with a shake of her head. King picked up the plate and handed it to Big Ed.

“Big Ed, I’ve never heard you talk so much before,” Mamie said with a teasing grin. “You must really love that farm in Nebraska.”

“Truth is, I ain’t ever wanted to do much but farmin’. I ain’t ever thought about what I’d really like to do. Now we got money, I can’t think of a better way to spend it exceptin’ on a farm or a garage.” Big Ed looked at King and said, “But, we ain’t really made any plans. I guess me and King needs to sit down and parley a piece on what we gon’ do.”

Leah interjected. “Ed, there’s nothing wrong with a farming life if you don’t owe your crop to the bank. It’s hard work but it can be a good life, a life where you get to watch your children grow.” There was a disjointed moment of silence as all eyes turned on her because of the quiet intensity in her words. It was clear to all present that she was offering herself to Big Ed.

Smitty stood up and raised his glass. “Here’s to the Professor. The only educated man I ever met who made sense.” It took several seconds before the others followed the sharp change in the conversation, but King stood and raised his glass immediately. Big Ed and Butterball raised their glasses, followed somewhat reluctantly by the women.

“To Professor!” King called out, remembering the pallor of his friend’s face in the hospital ward shortly before his death. It was strange that out of all the experiences they shared together, the images lodged closest to the surface were of Professor’s dying moments, memories that left a terrible taste in King’s mouth. The rye went down his throat with a burning sensation but did nothing to alter the taste on his tongue. He realized that it was time for Big Ed to go back to his farm.

King had seen the way Leah and Big Ed looked at each other, with eyes filled with longing. He didn’t know if what they felt for each other really was love, but it appeared to be stronger than anything he had ever felt. Life was a gamble any way you tried to live it; might as well gamble on love, he thought as he remembered all the colored men who died in the war without ever knowing why they were dying, men no older than himself fighting and dying in frozen trenches merely because they were there. King saw Big Ed lumber over to say something into Leah’s ear. She nodded her head and smiled briefly in response to Big Ed’s whispered message. When King left later that evening, the primary image that he remembered was the expression of need in Leah’s eyes when she looked at Big Ed. It had to be love.

The train rattled and clanked along in the early morning darkness. A cold wind whipped through the partially opened door and whisked through the car’s darkened interior, rustling the hay. The wind brought a frosty chill with it. There were no longer any lights flickering past. The train appeared to be traveling through open country.

King stood looking out the door as the force of the wind flapped his clothes about his body. The wind carried the smell of freshly plowed earth. To King it was a rich smell, fraught with the memories of his childhood. The landscape was shaped by shadows and the gleaming light of faraway stars. There was no moon and there were only a few electric lights twinkling in the distance. The Milky Way overhead seemed unusually bright. King saw that the train was ascending to a ridge where the terrain dropped away sharply.

He sat down in the open doorway of the car, with his legs dangling out, and despite the wind lit a cheroot. As he took a deep puff of the tobacco, he thought about Mamie. It was she who had introduced him to Cuban cheroots. She had also tutored him in the ways and dress of the city. In many ways, he was grateful to Mamie, but he did not love her. Their relationship was one of mutual convenience and it had been what he wanted for a while. Now he was happy to be leaving. He had begun to feel the growing need to escape Mamie. She had begun to expect things of him that were not part of their original bargain. It was not that she expected expensive gifts, although she liked gifts, but more that she expected him to feel things he didn’t feel and to spend more time with her than he wanted. She always seemed to be asking questions with her eyes that he had neither the words nor the inclination to answer. Staring out into the darkened landscape, King breathed a sigh of relief. He had escaped more than one danger. He wondered whether he would ever fall in love. The train’s whistle blared out again, sounding a little bit like a scream.

F
 R I D A Y,  
J
 U N E   1 8,   1 9 2 0
   

Journer Braithwaite ran swiftly down Rue de Charlemagne and turned into a small alley leading into Market Square. She was gasping and out of breath. She peeked around the corner to see if she was still being followed. The street was crowded with hawkers’ carts and other morning traffic. Horse- and ox-drawn carts were lurching slowly along in both directions. There were very few cars because Rue de Charlemagne was informally reserved for the slower, unmotorized traffic. Journer saw both men clearly for the first time since she discovered that they were following her. One man was tall, dark skinned, and wiry, while the other was of squat build and was light skinned with a gleaming, bald pate. They were obviously looking for her. The tall man had a long neck and a head that seemed almost too small for his body. He and his partner nosed their way through the slow-moving traffic like ferrets seeking prey.

She frantically looked for a place to hide. The alley had doorways leading off of it, but they were to people’s homes. If they didn’t know her, they wouldn’t let her in their doors without some long-winded explanation. She needed something immediately. She rapidly walked down the alley and into the maze of stalls known as Market Square. She hunched down and continued quickly between the rows and rows of stalls, hoping to lose her pursuers. Journer got caught behind a slow-moving donkey cart that she couldn’t get around. Finally, at a large intersection, which consisted of a convergence of rows, she was able to turn into an aisle going in her direction. She stopped for a moment in the shade under the canvas awning of Old Mrs. Whitaker’s fish stall. The smell of shrimp, crawfish, and catfish was strong in the early morning sun despite the ice Mrs. Whitaker had placed on it to keep it fresh. Sweat dripped down Journer’s dark brown face as she peered around the canvas searching for the two men.