Dunfords Travels Everywheres

by William Melvin Kelley

  “Carlyle, don’t think I don’t appreciate what you did.” Hondo turned from the blaze, his face too serious above the jewel-studded dog’s collar. “But if you bringing sickness back in my mama’s life, I’ll never forgive you, Ras.”

  “Don’t worry, man.” Even with his camel’s-hairs and the fire, he felt chilly. “That woman’ll live forever.”

  29

  “JUST A SECOND, bud. I don’t think I understand. You act like you believe I didn’t like her.” Oglethrope nodded his head, once. “But I did. I watched her offensive, and at the end, of course, we took the prize.” He stopped, grinned. “Yes, sir, boy!”

  Chig did not want to hear about the prize, not quite yet. He raised his wrist, checked the time, almost nine. “No thanks. I want to get some sleep.” He paused, added for protection, “This was my first game.”

  “Sure, Dunford.” He turned on Lynn. “You see how these boys play for keeps? That’s the way you have to be if you want to expect to win.”

  “But, Mr. Oglethrope, you assigned me to go—”

  “Good night, everybody.” Chig hurried, calmly, to the door.

  “I assigned you a mousetrap, Lynn. But you got to vary your offensive. You don’t golly every time you get ass—”

  Chig stepped out of the padded room, into the passageway. The door to the cabin stood open. Inside, Wally sat at the desk, writing. Chig did not stop.

  Back in his cabin, he sat on Wally’s bunk, shook his head. He tried to picture Wendy’s parents, light-skinned Virginians of African descent, passing perhaps. But probably not; more than likely, they just lived ordinary light-skinned lives. His own parents had acquaintance with at least three such couples. Chig had met their children at parties.

  He undressed, put on his pajamas, bent over the little wash-basin to brush his teeth. He had liked Wendy’s smile, her dimple, a mole on her chin. He wished he had met her before he left for Europe the first time, but sensed that neither of them would have liked the other.

  “Wow.” He tapped his toothbrush against the basin, replaced it in its glass tube, readied himself for the climb into bed, and climbed, but could not sleep, rolled from side to side in the narrow bunk, fearing that each passing step brought Oglethrope to his cabin, sweating in the tight space, pulling down the legs of his pajamas, flattening the buttons against his chest, pushing back the blanket, then the sheet, punching his pillow, for hours, and hours, and hours.

  He gave up at seven in the morning, dressed and tottered to the dining room to breakfast with poached eggs on wet toast, coffee. Then he went on deck.

  The sky domed blue, cloudless, high; the sun rose over the stern of the ship. He walked toward the bow, thinking about the Africans and the ways they might have gotten off the ship. And Wendy. Stopping at the rail, he leaned over to look for a cargo door in the ship’s hull, found only fields of gray rivets, neatly joined slabs of steel.

  He closed his eyes, saw the rivets’ shadows in bright colors, and wondered whether his eyes, and not his ears, had spoiled; his jest did not cheer him.

  He returned to his cabin, set his watch, but did not change clothes, and climbed into his bunk, but again could not sleep. Instead he built Wendy’s face in his mind, having difficulty coloring her. She always turned out too ashen, unhealthy, untanned.

  He abandoned her face for her voice, tried to recall having heard a trace of the nigger at another time in the years he had known her. But the nigger had stayed well hidden. Still, he felt he should have known. She had always known, the inside knowing what the world believed the outside to represent. He should have known too, at their first meeting. He had never missed before. But then, he realized that as a professional, Wendy had trained to make him miss.

  He sat up, dangled his legs over the edge, then swung down to the floor. He laughed as he tucked in his shirt, counting the hours he had wasted trying to sleep, then climbed the stairs to the crowded decks, old women in black, old men in gray, lining the railings for a look at the city, already within the range of sight: tall hills of buildings on black water, haloed by yellow smoke.

  He watched it loom closer, then turned, running in his mind, but walking into the lounge. He did not feel ready for that yet.

  Sucking some kind of cherry-colored liquid through a straw, Lynn sat in the curved corner seat where he and Wendy had met the afternoon before. He set himself to flee, and watched her. She wore a dark-blue travelling dress, buttoned to the throat, red barrettes in her hair. She did almost look fourteen, a girl in an advertisement for training-brassieres. But what she knew would fill books. And she had seemed really to want him to know her address. He made himself approach her. “Hello, Lynn.”

  “Mr. Dunford?” She smiled up at him, whispered, “I tried to get down to your cabin last night, but…” She sucked on her drink.

  “I understand.” He slid in beside her. “But, Lynn?” He hesitated. “Where do you stay in New York?”

  “Golly, Mr. Dunford, I’m sure glad!” She leaned closer, the straw still between her lips. “Can you remember? In Westchester, you know the area code, Richland 850—”

  “I hope I can sit down, sugar, because this Harriet is surely pooped.”

  He looked up; she wore brown-rimmed glasses like cat’s eyes. “Sure, Harriet did you say?” The table would not allow him to stand. “Have a seat.”

  She smiled, thanked him, bounced into a chair on the outside of the curved table. “You been on board this whole trip and I didn’t see you?” She seemed made of gingerbread.

  He nodded, wondering what Lynn thought. “Lynn, this is Harriet.”

  “Hi, Harriet.” She turned her head slowly, stared at him. In her eyes, he saw fear.

  Harriet leaned forward, peered through her glasses. “How long you been in Europe, dear?”

  “Huh?” A smile fluttered across her lips. “Well, like my Mom says, three’s a crowd, Mr. Dunford. And I have to find Wally.” She wiggled her nose, then slid around to the end of the seat. “He’s my boyfriend, Harriet. Bye-bye, Mr. Dunford.”

  “I’ll call you, Lynn.” He gazed at her sturdy legs, her loafered feet, as she walked to the door. He hoped he remembered the number correctly.

  “Now that she’s gone, sugar, tell me your name too.”

  He told her Charles, but that most people called him Chig.

  “Charles.” She nodded, her head covered with brown curls the size of half-dollars. “Charles. Chig. Charles, I could never begin to tell you how tired this sister is. Nothing but travel for a whole month. The first week I was on a tour, but then I didn’t go with them people anymore, just walked around looking. I bought some beautiful shoes in Rome, thinking they’d be nice for my job, but sugar, I walked those shoes to death.” She stared at him, brown eyes magnified. “What did you do?”

  He considered the question impolite. “I travelled around.”

  She cleared her throat. “I’m a writer.”

  He did not comment.

  She wore a red shirt, black crepe slacks. “I mean I cover society news and human interest for The Citizen. It’s Harlem’s only daily newspaper.”

  “I remember seeing it.”

  “You lived in Harlem?”

  “All my life until I left. Over by the drive. My folks still live there.” He decided he had nothing more to say to her, and told her he wanted to go to his cabin. “I still have to pack.”

  “I hope you don’t mind my coming with you, sugar. I’ll help.”

  He could not stop her returning with him to his cabin, or from pushing him away from his own bag, or packing for him. He thanked her, confessing he felt tired. She took him and his bag to her cabin, gave him a drink from a bottle of brandy, bought in Europe, which she had planned to save for the editor of The Citizen. He watched her pack her bright clothes into one suitcase, then finished his brandy.

  They carried the
ir things up on deck, more crowded still, the buildings over them now, and witnessed the ship docking, ropes and streamers linking ship to shore.

  Harriet continued to talk, detailing for him her month in Europe. “Sugar, those people are poor!”

  They quit the ship, did not wait for a porter, stepped unassisted from gangplank to asphalt pier, commenting that they continued to feel the sway of the ship. “How long will it last, sugar? I feel drunk. And I don’t like feeling drunk since I drank so much in Paris. I have a girlfriend living there, who used to model natural wigs, living with a painter from Yugoslavia it turned out—”

  “Is your bag unlocked?” He had just remembered Customs.

  “I think so.” She cocked an eye at him. “And yours?”

  He nodded. “I never carry anything they want. I don’t smoke.”

  “You trying to tell me something, Charles?” She had a way of jiggling when she walked, even carrying a heavy suitcase.

  They joined the Customs line. Ahead of them, in a chained-off enclosure, uniformed inspectors ran their hands along trunk-linings, under shirts—squeezed ties, patted panties, opened cases, valises, and purses, searching.

  “Like what?” He put down his bag, reached for his passport. He hoped the inspectors would not find his picture too dated.

  Harriet’s passport shone dull-green and new. “Like matchboxes.”

  “I don’t usually carry matches.”

  “I bet you don’t. Give the man your thing, your passport, sugar.”

  He had shuffled forward, guiding his bag with his foot, had reached the head of the line with his back to the inspector, behind him in a mesh-cage. He turned, displayed his passport, his eyes on the inspector’s metal buttons, all dented and crushed. “Looks real at a distance, bud, but let me see it close up.”

  The inspector reached out, seized his passport, thumbed it. “Feels good too.” He took Harriet’s passport, slapped the two together, and folded his hands around them. “You folks related?”

  “No, sir.” He tried to stand at attention, did not want to fidget. “We met on the ship.”

  “Fast work, Dunford. Nice.” He stamped their passports, handed them back. “Welcome home.” He winked his left eye, watched them with his right, then stood up in the cage and shouted to an inspector near the door. “Hey, Burison, let these folks in!”

  They crossed the enclosure, brushed by Burison’s belly as they passed through the door he held for them, carried their bags the length of the covered pier to the cobblestone street, and reaching the corner, rested.

  “They always so nice, Charles?” She looked at him as if she idolized him. “Or was it just you?”

  “That’s usual.” He wondered how long it would take her to realize she did not interest him, no matter how attractive she appeared. “For everybody.”

  “He certainly acted like he knew you.”

  “He doesn’t.” The idea surprised him.

  They had to wait twenty minutes, feeling the city summer in the buildings like steam in radiators, had to wave their arms forty times, but finally a taxi stopped. The driver wanted to go to Harlem anyway, to eat. “So you two just come back from the far side of the big water.”

  “That’s right, sugar.” Harriet sat on the edge of the seat, blinking at the city from behind her glasses.

  The taxi was going to crash.

  “Honeymoon?” The driver looked at them in his mirror, a large shiny dark-brown nose over a mustache, two dark eyes under a narrow brim. “Or funnymoon? I wouldn’t tell.”

  Harriet sucked her tongue. “Well, thank you.”

  “You welcomed, baby.” He nodded in the mirror, gassed the motor, climbing the ramp onto the drive going up the west side of the island. “Have fun? I know you did. I always cruise where the ships docking. Always one or two cousins coming in. So I know.”

  Before they crashed, he would have to tell the driver to leave the drive and let them out.

  “You two young people starting out quiet. I like that.” He shook his head. “Now me and Mama be another story.”

  He would have to tell the driver to stop right there on the drive, and let them out, before they crashed. He did not want to die yet. He had just begun to realize what had happened, what they had come through. He started to shake, hoping Harriet and the driver did not see.

  “What’s the matter, sugar?” Harriet leaned toward him. She smelled spicey, like cloves. “You’re shaking.”

  “Yes.” He tried to stop himself. “I know.”

  “What’s wrong, bubbah?” The driver’s eyes filled the mirror. “Don’t tell me you people hot. Oh, shit!”

  “Charles, what’s the trouble? Oh goodness, what’s his other name? Chig?”

  He sat up, still shaking. “I’m tired.” Wendy had pronounced Chig just that way, holding the short vowel long, soft on the final consonant, the trace. “I’m just tired, man, am I tired.” He took a deep breath, quaking, then felt trouble pass. “Listen. Do you know a nice café?”

  “Sure, bubbah. Want some liquor?”

  He had imagined himself in Europe, realized again he was in New York. “In a nice place.”

  “The nicest!” The driver sped, knowing his destination, happy to go there. He wove the lanes, gliding, braking, the taxi a smooth-moving package of rattles, until he left the drive and hit the stretch passing Soldier’s Tomb. He came to a full stop, looked both ways, cursing the hidden police, and made his turn into Harlem.

  “Dig, the place I’m taking you have a history. Not just one of your little monthly opening with a cocktail-sip bars that never caught on, and had its windows waxed over in six months. You follow music? Then, man, you in for the thrill of your life, because this bar’s owner be none other than the Golden One himself, Jack O’Gee.”

  “I’ve been there.” Harriet puckered her lips. “And I don’t mind telling you—”

  “You right, sister. Listen, you be sitting in the Grouse and anybody might happen to come in. All kinds of distinguished ladies and gentlemen, congressmen, beauty-parlor queens, number-runners, judges, musicians, movie stars, preachers, visiting taxi-fleet owners from Chattanooga, the manager of the ex-fly-weight-champion of the world, Skeeter Jimson, I met one night, Cripple Christopher on his wooden leg, Shorty Moreland the midget m.c. and just about any other bodies you could think of.” He swung left around an avenue-divider, double-parked the taxi, and opened his door. “I’ll just have me a little taste too.”

  They climbed out. The driver told them to leave their bags in the trunk; he would stop the meter, and if they bought the drinks, he would take them home after a while, for free.

  On the three-step stairway leading down into Jack O’Gee’s Golden Grouse Bar and Restaurant, Harriet grabbed his arm, whispered: “He still thinks we travelled together, Charles.”

  He held the door for her. “That’s all right.”

  The Grouse had air-conditioning. “…as my body had been in at that time, if he ever try to pull some knife on me, man, and you buy the next do it whenever I get to drinking, I also get to thinking about we, Marky Electo, and Julius Chambernard, his brother Roger, and Norton Williams standing in that same bar bell or something, a bus-stop sign with a stone bottom on her Paul and Terry picked that mother over his head with one hand and pressed it five or ten times a day I be getting up and running to the bathroom last winter some or other time, I recall, staying home and the snow start falling by the window. Now I never been exactly what you’d call a Polar-bear, you understand, but that snow sure looked seven kinds of good to me. Because of what me and my man’ve just go through. Right, Juan?”

  Juan had shaved his dark-brown head bald like some imitation movie star. He smiled, did not speak.

  The driver had guided them to a table against the wall, ushered them inside to a long upholstered bench running the length of the room. He sat a
cross from them, his hat on the table. “You see? The Grouse always—”

  “—trying to tell you something about the time I sold my soul to the damn Devil, then took that soul right straight back again.” The speaker leaned forward, a little mustache above a wide mouth in the middle of a round brown face. He sat at the next table, addressing someone beyond the man called Juan. “Not that I ever got convinced by his Devil stuff, even after he made me sign my name in blood. The man have some money for me. But Juan, he started to carry garlic around in his pocket!”

  Juan nodded. Without hair, without a voice, he could have come from anywhere. Dark enough to pass for an African, his clothes had a South American flair.

  “And we got some money. Devil had me put on this dog collar beat out of gold and covered with precious stones, and then, went away and forgot I was wearing it. We sold it to what they call a private collector for, now let me tell you, twenty—”

  “Hondo be one of the fastest-mouthed cousins I ever heard.” The driver smiled, one tooth glittering. “Every time I see him, he have a new story.”

  “You know him?” Harriet touched the driver’s hand, a sister’s touch. “To talk to?”

  “Know him!” The driver seemed slightly insulted. “Why he come in here almost much as me.”

  Harriet leaned back, put her hand on his cheek. “Charles, you’ll have to forgive me, sugar, but I want to do a little work.”

  “Yes. All right.” He allowed himself to slide down on his spine, and relax. “Human interest for The Citizen. Go on, Harriet. I’ll wait for you. No one’s expecting me. I can stay out as long as I want.”