Wherever There Is Light (5 page)

“True.” Julian knew next to nothing about art, a state of affairs he promised himself to rectify as soon as he could get to a library or bookstore.

“Plus, so many women photographers are succeeding—Louise Dahl-Wolfe's at
Harper's Bazaar
; Margaret Bourke-White's been hired by
Life
,
and
she's done a book with the writer Erskine Caldwell; and I bet you've seen Dorothea Lange's
Migrant Mother
.”

“In the papers.”

Kendall stopped in midstride. “And I want to . . .”

“Aim for the highest?”

Kendall grinned, and Julian imagined leaning forward to kiss her. “I apologize for carrying on. But I've been telling Derrick: photography has room for women; painting's a man's world.”

“There's Georgia O'Keeffe.”

Her voice rising with surprise, Kendall asked, “You're familiar with O'Keeffe?”

“I saw her naked.”

Kendall giggled. “Excuse me?”

“I'd finished up a meeting in New York, and when I came out, a crowd was next door waiting to get into a photo exhibit. I was curious and went in, and Georgia O'Keeffe was up on the wall without her clothes.”

“Her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, took those.”

For Julian, the exhibit was a fonder memory than the meeting, where he had to persuade a mouthy parking-lot mogul, who had survived the czar and his pogroms and concluded he was immortal, that he'd live longer with Abe Zwillman for a partner. It was the last time Julian had knocked anyone around for money, and he'd decided to quit while he was looking at the photographs. Something about the soft shades of black and white and gray and the conspicuous adoration of the photographer for his subject had convinced Julian that if he didn't quit the rackets, he'd forfeit the last shred of his humanity. One photo in particular had stayed with him. O'Keeffe was standing, arms raised as though welcoming a sunrise, her face out of view of the camera, and he remembered her full breasts, the extravagant curves of her hips, and the tantalizing nest between her legs. He was picturing Kendall in that pose when three girls, in blouses, long skirts, and saddle shoes, went by. Kendall waved to them, and they said hello to her and glanced at Julian, smiling coquettishly for an instant and then looking through him as if he were a wraith.

He said, “They think I'm here to arrest you?”

“They think you're white and therefore forbidden fruit and a mess of trouble. And you may be. I've been so busy going on about myself, I haven't asked about you. You're not a philosopher like your daddy.”

“Who says?”

“Oh?” she said, not believing him for a minute. “Say something philosophical.”

“There's little in life not improved by Russian dressing.”

Kendall laughed. “What?”

“Russian dressing: ketchup, mayonnaise, and some pickle relish. Put it on pastrami or turkey”—and here, spotting an opportunity, Julian got bold. “When you come to New York, I'll take you to a delicatessen and you can try some.”

“I'll keep it in mind.”

The tour lasted for one of the more disheartening hours of Julian's life, because Kendall led the way with Derrick holding her hand, while Julian lagged behind with Eddie and Otis. The campus was a collection of ivied, redbrick buildings with Doric columns and quadrangles of dormitories—a New England college blooming in the wet heat.

Eddie said to Julian, “Ya gotta listen to Jitterbug hammer the eighty-eights. My man can play.”

Otis took a fast bow. “You boys wanna hear singing, take Kenni-Ann to church or pour some wine in her and she'll sing it like Bessie Smith.”

Kendall smiled at Otis, and Eddie said, “No fooling, Jitterbug. Julian's got hooks into nightclubs in Newark, the Picadilly, the Alcazar—Louis Armstrong's there a lot—and if you're home and wanna make some dough playin', give us a holler.”

Derrick strode over to Eddie. “My brother is getting a degree in music. He's not preparing to play for white folks who go slumming. Nor does he need any ‘dough.' Our parents make certain of that.”

“Bro,” Otis said, “will ya back off, please?”

Derrick, in his straw boater, blue blazer, and white bucks, stood up as straight as a headmaster scolding a student, and said to Eddie, “And why do you insist on referring to my brother as ‘Jitterbug'? Why not ‘Tar Baby'?”

Eddie frowned like a cranky leprechaun, and Julian questioned why any sane person would mess with him. Not that Julian would've cared if Eddie downgraded Derrick's looks, though he suspected that Kendall wouldn't approve, so he said, “Let's relax.”

Eddie said to Derrick, “I
refer
to your brother as ‘Jitterbug' 'cause to me he looks like music in motion, and old enough, if it bothers him, to tell me himself. Whatta ya say, JB?”

“JB?” Otis said, sticking out his right palm. “I like that too.”

Eddie slid his right palm across Otis's outstretched hand.

“It's hot as a stripper's fanny out here,” Otis said. “Let's go to the ocean.”

“We can't—” Kendall said.

Otis was already walking away, and Eddie caught up with him.

“Is the beach a problem?” Julian asked, but Derrick had taken Kendall's hand and gone after Otis and Eddie.

The problem was apparent when Julian reached the crest of the hill. Below, where the grassy slope met the beach, stakes at intervals of thirty feet were driven into the sand with red pennants flying from them and attached signs that declared
WARNING
:
WHITES ONLY
. The beach wasn't as jammed as the Jersey shore in July and August, but plenty of people were swimming and sunning themselves.

“I'ma sick of this horseshit,” Otis said, stepping out of his tennis shoes and taking off his shirt. “Kenni-Ann's mama owns the damn beach, and God owns the ocean, and the Bible doesn't say I can't swim in it.”

Kendall said, “Swimming at midnight's one thing; at noon on Sunday's another.”

“Ain't nothing gonna happen,” Otis said, bending to roll up his white ducks past his knees. “Not with my man Eddie for a lookout.”

Eddie said, “Jitterbug—” and Derrick clamped a hand on his brother's shoulder, but Otis pulled away. Sunbathers did a double take as Otis flew by and dove into the silvery-green water.

“We better wait for him,” Eddie said, lighting a Camel.

They sat on the winter grass. Eddie held out the pack to Derrick, who hesitated before taking one. Eddie flicked his lighter, and Derrick dragged on the cigarette, nodding his thanks.

“Your mom owns this beach?” Julian asked Kendall.

“It's part of the two thousand acres my grandfather bought. It used to belong to the Scales family. Jarvis Scales—he's the mayor of Lovewood—owns the land around the campus. My mother says Jarvis has been trying to buy her parcel, but my grandfather wanted a college on it.”

“It's legal to keep owners off their property?” Eddie asked.

“The Jim Crow laws say it is,” Derrick said.

“Jesus. How do people live like that?”

“Practice,” Derrick replied.

Kendall was the first one to see them—four white men in denim overalls and T-shirts loping across the sand, two of them wading into the surf and grabbing Otis. Kendall shouted, “You leave him alone!” and took off for the beach, with Derrick, Eddie, and Julian behind her.

“We jake?” Julian asked Eddie, who answered by taking a snubbie .38 from an ankle holster and holding the pistol by his side.

A pale, gangly kid—twenty at most—with a patchy blond beard, buck teeth, and a jaw that appeared wider than the top of his head was cheering on his two friends who were dunking Otis's face up and down in the water. Kendall went toward him and snapped, “Hurleigh Scales, you tell them to quit!”

“Quit,” Hurleigh whispered.

The older, husky guy behind Hurleigh had a pushed-in face the color of a boiled lobster, and Julian waited until Eddie had circled closer to the sun-fried goon before stepping in front of Kendall and extending his hand. “I'm Julian Rose.” The kid scowled at Julian as if he were offering him a dead rat. “Hurleigh Scales, you're the mayor's—”

“Younger brother. Why, y'all know Jarvis?”

“Haven't had the pleasure.” Julian removed a gold money clip from his pocket and held up a hundred-dollar bill for Hurleigh to see. Well versed in the art of pressuring unwilling sellers, Julian pondered why Hurleigh—who, with that fish-belly-white complexion, was no sun worshiper—was at the beach, a stone's throw from the campus. Tucking the bill into the bib of Hurleigh's overalls, he said, “Why don'tcha let the kid up and buy your pals a beer?”

Hurleigh's expression made him look like death sucking a lemon. “I might could do that, 'cept niggers ain't s'pose to be heah. That's why there's signs.” He glared at Derrick. “Y'all
can
read?”

“Yes,” Derrick said.

“This boy can read,” Hurleigh called out. “Well, slap my head and call me silly.”

Which is precisely what Derrick did, slapping Hurleigh with such force that Derrick's straw boater fell off. Hurleigh stumbled back onto the sand as Derrick, with the measured tone of a judge announcing a verdict, said, “Silly.”

No one moved, and Julian felt as though he were at the movies and the projector had gone on the fritz, leaving the actors frozen on the screen. Then Hurleigh sprang toward Derrick. Julian, who had three inches and thirty pounds on Hurleigh, got one hand on this throat and the other on his overalls and lifted him off the sand, while he saw the goon collapse as Eddie smacked his skull twice with the butt of his .38.

Julian said, “Let that kid out of the ocean.”

“Why should I?”

“One, if you don't, my associate will shoot your pals. And two”—Julian dug his thumb into Hurleigh's Adam's apple—”it's gonna get difficult for you to swallow.”

He heard Hurleigh choking and drew back his thumb.

Hurleigh croaked, “Let the coon go!”

Otis came up from the sea, spitting out water and grit, and Julian released Hurleigh, who said, “I be waitin' on that nig-nog, and when I's finished, he gon' feel like a alligator done chewed up his ass and shit him down a swamp hole.”

“That's not very neighborly, is it?”

Hurleigh appeared confused, as if Julian were asking him a trick question. “Y'all can jist fuck yoah—” Hurleigh spat, but he was unable to complete the sentence because Julian clutched the straps of his overalls and brought his knee up into Hurleigh's groin, hearing him yelp with pain and letting him fall onto the beach, where he lay on his back, groaning.

Julian turned. Kendall was gaping at him, her eyes shining with anger and fear.

“I guess the tour's over,” he said.

A
n hour later, Eddie was packed and waiting outside the college gate for a taxi to Miami Beach. “We should both take off. Suppose the Lovewood cops pinch you?”

“I'll call Abe,” Julian replied. “He has a piece of a gambling joint in Hallandale and told me the Broward County judges and the sheriff are on the payroll. You check into the Arlington. I'll be there tomorrow, and we can go shopping.”

“Shopping?” Eddie's eyebrows arched so high they almost got lost in his hairline.

“Give your eyebrows a rest. I gotta come here to see my mother and—”

“And you need to own a hotel so you have somewhere to stay?”

“A little hotel.”

“Only a little hotel?”

“The bums running Miami Beach won't let Jews buy a big one.”

“You don't a need a hotel, you need your friggin' head examined. Did Kendall strike you as overly friendly when we got done beating on those boys?” Kendall hadn't spoken, even after Otis had apologized to Eddie and Julian, and Derrick had berated his brother for causing the trouble.

“She'll get over it,” Julian said.

Eddie saw the cab coming down US 1. “Remember I once told you I was your friend because you're as crazy as I am?”

“Yeah.”

“I was wrong: you're crazier.”