Tomorrow's Bread

by Anna Jean Mayhew

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She makes a note. “What’s his name, age?”

  “Raymond Elijah Glover. He’s seventy-five, be seventy-six in September. My grand say he’s got a problem that makes him have to go, can’t hold it.”

  “Might be enlargement of the prostate, not uncommon in older men.” She scribbles something. “And there’s the scarcity of integrated bathrooms.”

  Her knowing this surprises me. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Has your uncle been arrested before?”

  “My grand say he’s never been in jail. She’s his sister.”

  “Your grandmother?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We all live together.”

  “What’s your address?”

  I give her the number on Brown Street. “In Brooklyn.”

  She opens a box on her desk and flips a bunch of cards in it. “Give me a minute, Miss Hawkins, while I see what I can find out.” Her black phone is like ours, except for buttons across the bottom. She dials, then gives Uncle Ray’s name, smiling into the phone like she’s talking to somebody she knows. They chat back and forth until she say, “Thanks, appreciate it,” and hangs up. “He’s in the holding tank, where they keep people waiting for the judge to set bail. Far as I could find out, he’s okay.”

  Relief comes over me. “When will they let him go?”

  “He’s on the docket for this morning, which means he’ll be out this afternoon, given that his offense is a misdemeanor.”

  “A what?”

  “A minor crime. He shouldn’t even have spent the night there.”

  “What now?”

  “If you hire me, I believe I can have Mr. Glover home before supper.”

  I look out the window, which faces toward Brooklyn. “Pay you, right?”

  She pulls a paper from a desk drawer. “I’m recording today’s date, your name, your uncle’s name, and the charges.” The piece of hair falls forward again, and again she tucks it back. “Do you have a dollar? I’ll write here that you paid me. We’ll both sign it, then go to the courthouse. I have to be back no later than one, so I hope things go smoothly.”

  “Only a dollar?”

  “For now, and you’re under no obligation for more.”

  I get my wallet from my purse. Two dollars. I give her one of them, and sign my name clear and careful beside hers.

  * * *

  We sit on a bench outside the courtroom. People walk up and down, talking loud. Across the hall a woman sits alone, crying. Miss Cruikshank goes to check on when the judge gon see Uncle Ray, and returns fast. “Let’s go, Miss Hawkins.”

  In the courtroom she sits down with me, as uniformed guards bring a bunch of men through a door in the back. Uncle Ray’s clothes are rumpled, he needs a shave, and his mustache got something caught in it. He tips his head to let me know he sees me.

  A man calls out, “All rise.” We get up, Miss Cruikshank telling me, “That’s the bailiff. The judge is next.”

  A fat white man in a black robe comes through a door on the other side from where Uncle Ray entered, settles himself at a high desk. His hair is a reddish brown like Mr. Griffin’s.

  The bailiff calls out, “Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes. This honorable court for the County of Mecklenburg is now open for the dispatch of its business, the honorable Judge Jeremy P. Coley presiding. God save the State and this honorable court. You may be seated.”

  The judge picks up a wooden hammer, taps it. “First case?”

  Other men in suits talk back and forth with the judge, and he takes care of two white men, pretty quick, fifty dollar fine for one, twenty-five for the other. What am I gon do if it’s fifty dollars for Uncle Ray?

  The next one up is a colored man charged with loitering and vagrancy. A lawyer explains things I don’t understand and the judge say, “Dismissed.”

  This gives me hope that Uncle Ray will be coming home with me before long. Maybe without a fine. Maybe dismissed.

  The bailiff calls out, “Raymond Elijah Glover. Indecent exposure. Desecration of a burial site. Resisting arrest.”

  Miss Cruikshank stands. “Your Honor, Mr. Glover’s family retained me this morning. May I consult with my client outside the courtroom?”

  “Is he a risk for flight?”

  “No priors, Your Honor.”

  “Ten minutes, Miss Cruikshank. In the hallway.” He points to some police standing in the back of the court. “One of you go with them. Next?”

  Miss Cruikshank motions to Uncle Ray. When he’s close enough, I stare at his mustache, raking my fingers across my upper lip. He does the same. Whatever it was falls to the floor.

  In the hallway Miss Cruikshank say to Uncle Ray, “Mr. Glover, I’m Sidney Cruikshank.”

  He ask me, “How’d you afford a lawyer?”

  I glance at the cop, who turns his head, rolls his eyes, walks a few feet away but still in earshot. I whisper, “Only cost a dollar. So far.”

  We sit on a bench and Miss Cruikshank say to Uncle Ray, “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  Uncle Ray frowns. “I don’t understand everything that man said, like about the desecration. I was visiting the cemetery. Then the need came on me to make water. The back door of the church was locked, and I couldn’t get to the front, without I might wet myself. So I went behind a tree . . .” He stops, looks down at the marble floor. “Not on a grave.”

  “And then?”

  “Policeman came up behind me, took hold of my arm, told me, ‘I’m arresting you for indecent exposure.’ ”

  She takes her pad and pen from her briefcase. “Did you resist him?”

  Every once in a while, Uncle Ray gets mad. A look comes in his eyes telling me this is one of those times. “Yes, ma’am, I reckon I did. He grabbed me because I’m a colored man, doing nothing but what nature intended.” He touches his head. “Bopped me when I tried to pull away.” Uncle Ray shows us a cut under his thinning white hair. “I pushed him. He got me down, cuffed me.”

  “According to your niece, you don’t have a criminal record.”

  “That’s right. Drove a truck for Eckerd’s for twenty-five years, not even a parking ticket.” He clears his throat. “Don’t have a driving license anymore, don’t need one.”

  Miss Cruikshank writes on the pad. “We’re pressed for time, let me tell you what might happen. Having no prior arrests is very much in your favor. Do you have a prostate problem?” She pays attention to her pencil.

  He mumbles, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you have a report from your doctor?”

  “I could get one.”

  “I might have you do that, depending on the amount of the fine.”

  I hear somebody laughing nearby and see our cop talking to another police. Are they joking about us?

  “So there’s gon be a fine?” I say.

  “Probably. There’s been talk of punishing people who relieve themselves in public, when what we need is more integrated bathrooms.”

  Uncle Ray ask me, “How’d you find this lady?”

  I smile for the first time that morning. “I went in the law building, picked her name. Thought she was a man because of Sidney.” Makes me want to tell Pastor Polk that God brought me to her, even if she’s a woman.

  She laughs. The cop across the hall taps his watch. “Couple more minutes.”

  “Are you employed, Mr. Glover?”

  “Retired. Started getting my social a few years back. Odd jobs. What you call a shade tree mechanic, a bit of carpentry.”

  “This judge feels bound to make an example of people he labels a nuisance to the general public.” She clicks her ballpoint pen. “We can most likely get the indecent exposure charge removed. You obviously weren’t exposing yourself for”—she stops—“for the usual reasons behind such a charge.”

  Uncle Ray nods.

  “Were you near a grave when you relieved yourself ?”

  “No. That cemetery is at St. Timothy’s Second Presbyterian, our church. Got family buri
ed there.” He means my cousin Lee, who I’m named for.

  The cop heads for the door to court. “Let’s go, Sidney.”

  Miss Cruikshank stands. “I might get two of the charges dismissed, if it’s a good day for the judge.”

  “And if it’s not?” I say.

  “A fine. Should be less than twenty-five dollars. Will that be a problem?”

  I start to speak, but Uncle Ray say, “No.” He turns to me. “Not a problem, Loraylee. I got some put by.” He frowns. “Never thought it would be for a thing like this.”

  Pastor Polk comes down the hall, almost running. “Ray, Loraylee! Livinia called me.”

  I tell Miss Cruikshank, “This is Reverend Ebenezer Polk, of St. Timothy’s.”

  “Wonderful. I’m Sidney Cruikshank, Mr. Glover’s attorney. If the judge wants to question you, are you willing?”

  He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, wipes sweat from his forehead. “It would be a privilege.”

  Uncle Ray say, “Pastor, that elm tree in the cemetery, any graves near it?”

  “No. The roots make that impossible.”

  Miss Cruikshank makes a note, and we go back in. The judge is deciding on a colored woman charged with prostitution. She doesn’t look like a whore. “Fifty dollars and thirty days,” the judge tell her. “This is your fourth offense.”

  She stares back at him.

  The bailiff calls Uncle Ray. “Indecent exposure. Desecration of a burial site. Resisting arrest.”

  Miss Cruikshank stands. “Your Honor, as to the exposure and desecration, Mr. Glover was visiting his family’s graveyard yesterday and had a sudden need to relieve himself. A prostate problem. We can pursue getting a note from his doctor. At any rate, Mr. Glover concealed himself behind a tree and urinated. Not on a grave. The arresting officer happened to be passing the cemetery.” She looks down at her pad. “As I said earlier, he has no priors. He’s retired from long employment with Eckerd Drugs, receiving social security, works odd jobs as a mechanic and carpenter. Mr. Glover’s minister is here, and willing to speak on his behalf.”

  The judge say, “What about the third charge, resisting arrest?”

  “We’ll plead to that. Mr. Glover was startled when he was approached from behind, tried to pull away. The officer struck him on the head, causing a laceration.”

  When they’re done, the judge takes off indecent exposure and desecration, but he say, “As to urinating in a cemetery—consecrated ground—I caution you to use better judgment in the future.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The judge makes a note. “Fifteen dollars, time served.”

  Pastor Polk takes out his wallet. Uncle Ray whispers to me and Miss Cruikshank, “He knows I’m good for it.”

  At noon the four of us are standing outside the Law Building. Uncle Ray tells Miss Cruikshank, “Send your bill and I’ll pay you right away.”

  “I’ll do that. Twenty dollars. Glad I could be of help.”

  I’m pretty sure she’s only charging us because of Uncle Ray’s pride. I say, “Miss Cruikshank, this morning I didn’t like it you were a woman. Now I’m glad.”

  When I get home from work, I sit with Uncle Ray on the porch, him smoking his pipe, Little Sugar gurgling down in the gully. Evening, the sun giving up and the lightning bugs taking over.

  “Must have been rough on you last night. Did you have a bed?”

  “A cot, a pillow. It’s noisy and they never turn the lights off. Smells bad. Men who been there over and over tell me what I did was nothing.” He takes a puff, then taps his pipe on the rail, staring up the street like he’s looking for something. “Maybe nothing to them, but now I’m just one more jailbird nigger. That’s what some folks will say.”

  CHAPTER 27

  The day before the destruction of the graveyard was to begin, a cool Tuesday in June of 1965, Eben woke an hour earlier than usual, lying on his back in the double bed that felt too wide. He stared at the ceiling, a crack he hadn’t noticed before. The manse showed its age. Next year a wrecking ball would split the ceiling in two.

  After breakfast he walked to the cemetery, felt comfort in the familiar creak of the iron gate, the uneven pavers, the abundance of periwinkle at the peak of bloom, seashells on the most humble of graves, tombstones on others, the one soaring ornate marker. Small sites with rocks at head and foot where children were buried during the polio epidemic.

  He walked to Nettie’s marker: NONETTE SERENA HASTY POLK, BELOVED WIFE, NOVEMBER 5, 1910, AUGUST 29, 1958. He settled on the iron bench beside her grave, where he’d sat at least once a week for six years. “Dear girl, this may be our last visit here.” When he’d first come to her grave shortly after she died, he’d sat in silence. Then one Sunday, he’d spoken softly to her as if she were sitting beside him, told her about having lunch with a church family who’d squabbled all through the meal, that he felt he’d failed by not soothing ruffled feathers. He got great comfort in sharing the story with her, though he kept looking around to be sure no one could hear him. After a while he realized that this worry was needless. Anyone who saw him sitting in the graveyard stayed at a respectful distance. After that he avoided going to her grave on Sundays, when families most often visited their dead, and came to appreciate the solemn silence of weekday mornings.

  “Well, old girl”—he took a deep breath, let it out slowly—“tomorrow it begins. I’ve taken to praying again, really and truly praying, because I cannot stop them from disturbing you. All I can do is seek peace, given that I’m not one for prayers of intercession. But peace is not easily won, Nettie.” He sat in silence for a few minutes, as if waiting for the ground to respond.

  “We’ve taken some comfort from breaking the code, Marion, Georgeanne, and I. Connects us to Second Presbyterian Church Colored in a way I never realized I needed. My, my, can you imagine what a hard life they had back then? Had to keep silent about those who could read and write, even the freedmen, and Lord knows what would have happened to gifted slaves.” He heard the rusty gate, looked over his shoulder.

  Georgeanne walked up, touched his back. “Talking to Nettie?” She seemed to find this perfectly normal.

  “Yes, telling her about the register, the code.”

  “Do you mind if I join you?”

  “I welcome the company.”

  She sat down beside him. “Wanted to share one last piece of the mystery, if now’s okay.”

  “It is.” Now that you’re here.

  “After we saw that the code identified literate members of the church, named the whites to be avoided, Klan and all, I got so caught up in it that I forgot the remaining puzzle.”

  “Which is?”

  “JTQ.” She pointed to the stone at the edge of the graveyard.

  “Oh, yes, slipped my mind, too.”

  “I wondered why a stone as recent as 1926 was at the back of the cemetery. Didn’t make sense. It should have been at least in the middle.” She took folded papers from her purse. “Here’s what I found.”

  The name “John Thomas Quarry, 1860–??” was centered at the top of the first of three typewritten pages.

  “This is the man’s history, gleaned from several sources. Fascinating what it reveals. You can read it now, or I can synopsize it for you.”

  She’d done a huge amount of work. He said, “Please give me the essence, then I do want to read this.”

  “Oh, good!” she said with obvious pleasure. “He was born a slave in 1860, as noted, in Pineville, on what had once been the Polk plantation.” She looked up from her notes. “Have you ever wondered about your connection to James K. Polk?”

  “It’s crossed my mind, but I haven’t wasted a lot of thought on how I might be connected to a white president.”

  She laughed. “Understandable. What do you know of your ancestry?”

  “My parents were both free; my grandparents were slaves.”

  “Mecklenburg County?”

  “Yes. So you’re guessing I’m related to President Polk?”


  “It’s possible. His father was a slaver, had large land holdings in Pineville before he moved his family to Tennessee. So . . .”

  “Doesn’t interest me. What about Quarry?”

  “I kept thinking about what Reverend Tilley said, that slaves ran off and those left behind said they’d died and were buried, the evidence being a gravestone.”

  “Yes, something like that. I didn’t doubt it.”

  Georgeanne said, “He also told you about things that seemed important—”

  “Vital, that was his word.”

  “Yes, vital, didn’t matter after enough years had passed.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “I wager you that the stone marked ‘JTQ 1926’ sits on an empty grave. A child named John Thomas was born in 1860; that’s in the register. In 1890 he worked in the town of Hillsborough, cutting stone for buildings being erected on the Duke campus. At some point in the early 1890s, John Thomas became John Thomas of the quarry, then John Thomas Quarry, a name apparently chosen by the man himself when he signed up to receive paychecks at his permanent address of 809 East First Street, Charlotte.” She paused. “Brooklyn.”

  “Returning home to St. Tim’s Second Presbyterian.”

  “Exactly. Oh, and by the way, I forgot one other detail about the Polk family. Presbyterian, all the way back to Scotland.”

  “Hmm, maybe there is a connection. Imagine that.”

  She went on. “In November of 1898 a John Thomas Quarry was arrested for assaulting a white man during the riots in Wilmington, but managed to escape in the confusing aftermath when dozens were jailed, poor records kept, many buildings burned to the ground. Quarry was not heard of again until a policeman tried to arrest him in Charlotte, in December 1925, for the crime of insubordination.”

  “He would have been an old man.”

  “Sixty-five, not much older than you are now.”

  “Well, yes. I wonder what he’d done, insubordination.”

  “He walked down Trade Street at ten in the evening, which was frowned on by the local constabulary. A scuffle ensued. Quarry got a billy club from the policeman and hit him with it, rendering him unconscious. The story in the Charlotte Observer indicated that he fled on foot and was being sought for inflicting bodily harm on an officer of the law.”