by Han Nolan
SEVENTEEN
I finally got the casting director to accept that I wasn't going to act in his play, and we settled down again to wait for Sophia's turn. Before long, King-Roy leaned forward and whispered that he ought to be running along to Harlem. He got up to leave, and I got up, too, and followed him to the empty lobby.
We could see through the glass doors that the rain had stopped. The sun reflected off of the wet roofs of the passing cars.
King-Roy moved to the doors and looked up and down the street as though getting his bearings. He still held the paper sack in his hand.
I said, "King-Roy, you'll be coming back, won't you?"
King-Roy turned to look at me. "I told you I would. I'm just goin' for the day, Esther. I'll meet you here at four, just like I said."
I looked at his sack, thinking that maybe it was just his gun and a lunch he had in there, and not his clothes, and he was returning the gun to Ax. That's what I hoped. I said, "Okay, then. Well, good-bye."
King-Roy started to turn, then he turned back to me and said, "You were real good in there the way you said those lines. I wanted to hear you say more of them. With all the other girls, I wanted them to hush up and move on off the stage already, but with you I wanted to hear more."
I smiled and brushed my bangs out of my eyes. "You think so? You think I was good?"
"I think you should have taken the job or the part, whatever you call it, yeah," King-Roy said, nodding. "You know someday your little sister's gon' have to learn that she's not the only shiny apple on the tree."
I noticed two men passing outside the theater with a huge sheet of glass between them. I watched them navigate their way through the stream of people bustling by and then I said, "Sophia won't learn it from me. She loves the stage, King-Roy. She lives for it, the same way Stewart lives for ballet and Auntie Pie lives for her animals and my father lives for directing, and maybe the way you lived for tap until your father killed that for you. Maybe you still love tap that way, or why else do you still do it when you think no one's looking and you have shoes with taps on them?"
King-Roy pushed his glasses up on his nose with his index finger and looked toward the exit doors. Then he turned to me and said, "Well, I'm gon' leave now."
We stared at each other and I felt I was looking at him for the last time. I could see it in his eyes, this distant, already gone look. I stepped up to him and grabbed King-Roy around his waist.
"Whoa," King-Roy said, lifting his arms up in the air, with the bag held high.
I didn't let go. "Bye, King-Roy," I said, squeezing his middle. "Thanks for everything."
"Well, now," King-Roy said, bringing his free hand down and stroking my head a couple of times. Then he said real softly, "Your hair feels real nice, Esther," and when he said that, I knew I was in love. I loved King-Roy for real. My heart just felt ready to burst with my love for him.
"You better let go now," King-Roy said, and I did. I stood back from him a little ways and he said, "Listen here, do you still want to learn how to tap?"
I smiled up at his beautiful, handsome, wonderful face and said, "Really? Yes! Of course I do."
"All right." King-Roy nodded. "We'll start tomorrow. Now do you believe I'm coming back?"
I put my arms around him again and leaned my head on his chest and squeezed him and King-Roy's arms came down around me with the bag pressed against my back and I said, "I love you, King-Roy."
King-Roy didn't say anything, but I thought I felt a little more pressure against my back before he let go of me and turned and walked through the glass doors.
EIGHTEEN
I floated back into the theater and sat down again next to Stewart. All I could think about was King-Roy and hugging him and hearing his heart beating in his chest and feeling his arms around me and smelling his Lifebuoy soap smell. I sat in the dimly lit theater, smiling and dreaming until Stewart leaned over and said Sophia would be up next. I sat up in my seat and noticed that the pretty little girl we had seen earlier that morning was on the stage reading her lines. Listening to her I knew that Sophia had real competition. They were both of a type—one blond, one brunette, but both bright and girly and slender. Both sounded older than they were; both had a similar way of delivering their lines. It was almost as if this little girl had been studying Sophia and was imitating her. In the end, I figured it would probably come down to whether they wanted a blond or a brunette for the part.
I looked over at Stewart and he was shaking his head.
I whispered, "She's good, isn't she?" and Stewart nodded. He leaned in toward me and said, "You should have taken the part, Esther. At least one of us would be in this play and Mother would be happy."
I shook my head. "I don't want you to tell her what happened earlier. Don't tell Sophia, either. Especially not Sophia. I don't want you to tell anyone, okay?" I sat back in my seat and watched the little blond girl trot off the stage. Sophia's name was called and out she came, and I could tell by the way she walked, almost on tiptoe, that she was already in character. Sophia began to speak and I got lost in her performance.
Sophia was good, no two ways about it. I always liked seeing her on the stage. She was different somehow, more normal, I guess. It was like the sharp edges of her personality were gone and in their place was this other character, always a more even, lighter, gentler character than the real Sophia. No wonder she loved the stage. It wasn't just the applause and adoration of her audience. It was the fact that for the time she was up there reciting her lines, she knew who she was and what was expected of her. I knew that life never felt more certain to her than when she was playing somebody else. That day, she was playing the part of Clarissa for all it was worth, and I thought she was better than the other little girl. I only hoped that the casting director would agree.
After everyone had been seen, we waited to see if Sophia would be called back. Even though this was a closed audition, so Sophia and the others had been invited to audition, the directors had seen a lot of kids that day and I figured that they'd want to see how well some of the actors they picked interacted with one another, but this time it was different. This time we didn't have to wait. The director told Sophia that she got the part.
When Stewart and I went backstage to get her and congratulate her, I saw the other girl, the pretty blond girl, crying in her mother's arms.
When Sophia saw us, she ran up to us and at the top of her voice she said, "I got the part. I knew I would. I was the best, wasn't I?"
I looked over at the little blond girl and then at some of the other girls and boys still backstage, and I saw them all staring at Sophia. None of them looked happy, and as much as I wanted to root for Sophia, I knew this wasn't the time.
I whispered to Sophia, "Let's wait until we get outside, okay? These other kids' feelings are hurt."
"Why should I be sad when I got the part?" Sophia said, collecting her script and her Jane Austen book and the remains of her lunch and stuffing them into the satchel she had brought with her. "It's not my fault none of them can act."
I grabbed Sophia by the arm and hauled her out of there, saying loudly as we left, "I thought everyone was wonderful. They were the best child actors I've ever seen. You really had some stiff competition." Then I yanked Sophia out the door and Stewart followed us and we were back in the alley where we had begun the day.
Sophia was in a rage. She broke free of me and shouted, "Don't you touch me. How dare you do that in front of all those people, and they were terrible and you know it! You're just jealous of me. You've always been jealous of me, because I'm six and you're fourteen and I'm smarter and more talented and prettier and everything than you are. You're just jealous."
"Sophia, just shut up," Stewart said.
Sophia looked at Stewart as though he had slapped her. Her brown eyes flashed at him and she said, "What did you say?"
Stewart dug his hands into the pockets of his pants and, staring right at her, said, "Shut up, Sophia, just shut up and stop actin
g like a spoiled brat. You got the part, so shut up."
Stewart turned and walked away down the alley.
I looked at Sophia, then at my watch. It was almost four o'clock. "Come on," I said, "we don't want to miss King-Roy." The other kids and their mothers were now coming out the door, so I just started walking and hoped that Sophia would follow and not make another scene. Happily, she did follow, and the three of us went around to the front of the theater to wait for King-Roy. While we waited, Sophia talked our ears off about getting the part and how she had thought to play Clarissa one way but then at the last minute changed her mind, and on and on, and she was happy and no one was there to get their feelings hurt, so I was happy for her.
Every once in a while I would look down at my watch. It was ten after four, then twenty after, then four thirty, and still no King-Roy. Stewart was sitting on the concrete ground, leaning against the front of the theater and reading his book, while Sophia paced back and forth in front of us, still going on about how she got the part and picking apart all the other children who had auditioned. I had stopped listening to her. I was looking down the street, hoping to see King-Roy coming. Where was he? It was a quarter to five, then five o'clock, and still no King-Roy. I didn't know what to do. What could have happened to him? I knew Mother would be expecting us home soon. We couldn't just stand around waiting into the night for him to show up. Where was he? I felt all jittery and nervous inside. Stewart looked up from his book. "I think we'd better give up on King-Roy," he said. "I don't think he's coming, do you?"
I didn't want to hear that. I didn't want to think it. Something must have happened. He must have gotten lost again, or maybe he got hurt. Something must have happened, because he was going to teach me to tap. He liked me; I knew he did. He wouldn't just leave and not say anything. I decided we had to go look for him. I knew where Ax lived. Well, I knew the address. I had never been to Harlem before, but I knew the subway to take because I had pointed it out to King-Roy before we left the station. I told Sophia and Stewart of my plans, and they both thought it was a crazy idea.
"King-Roy could be lost again or hurt," I said. "I'll just go call Mother and tell her we got delayed. Or I could put the two of you on the train and then go on to Harlem myself."
Sophia was all for that idea, but Stewart didn't want me to go alone to Harlem, so we agreed to stick together. I called home, hoping as the phone rang that Daisy and not my mother would pick up.
It was Auntie Pie who answered. "What's the holdup?" she asked me when I told her we would be delayed. I was a terrible liar, so I said all in a rush, "We're waiting for King-Roy and I'll call you when we're coming home. Tell Mother, okay? Good-bye." Then I hung up fast, before Auntie Pie could say anything else. I looked at Sophia and Stewart and took a deep breath. "Okay, then," I said, "we're off to Harlem." The three of us held hands and we set off down the sidewalk, to go find King-Roy.
NINETEEN
We came out of the subway at 145th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue and we were in Harlem. The sun had gone in again and the day had turned gray. We walked toward Eighth Avenue and everything around us looked gray; the streets, the sidewalks, the litter, the buildings—all gray.
Sophia had a grip on my hand that was cutting off my circulation. People stared at us as we passed—the only white people walking in that part of town—and I thought of how King-Roy must have felt being the only black man walking through our town. Most of the people we passed looked so poor, dressed in worn-out browns and oranges and blues, women in dresses that looked like cotton housecoats, and children in rough-looking bare feet, torn and scarred and looking as if they were coated in a layer of ash. I felt sad and frightened at the same time.
Sophia said, "I don't like this. It's all dirty and ugly here. I want to go home. We don't belong here."
Stewart said, "Yeah, this was a bad idea, Esther."
"It was a stupid idea. Stupid, Esther," Sophia said.
I looked at the two of them, one on each side of me, leaning in close to me, their eyes wide and wary. "You're both just scared," I said. "They're poor, that's all. There's nothing to be afraid of."
"Oh yeah?" Stewart said, looking up ahead.
I followed his gaze and saw a Negro man in a gold-colored suit and shiny black shoes and a white hat, sauntering toward us with a big-bad-wolf smile on his face. When he caught up to us he said, his eyes on Sophia, "Well, well, well, what we got here? You kiddies lost?" The man crouched down to get a better look at Sophia, and I got a better look at his hat, a white fur cowboy hat. "Ain't you a pretty thang." He reached out to paw at Sophia, but she tucked in behind me and said, "Make him go away, Esther." Stewart took hold of my other hand and squeezed it.
I swallowed hard and said, "Uh, excuse me, but maybe you could help us? We're looking for a man named Ax, or Accident, do you know him?"
The man kept his eyes on Sophia, peering around me to get a good look at her, but when I said the name Accident, he straightened up, put a hand on his hat, and threw back his head and laughed with his mouth open so wide we could see the gold in his teeth. Then he looked at me and said, "Girl, you don't want to find no Accident and he don't want to find you, that's for dang sure." He held out his hand and said, "Now, why don't you just come along with your Uncle Len and I'll show you—"
"No, thank you," I said, walking fast past him with Sophia and Stewart still clutching my hands. "I have an appointment," I added over my shoulder.
I felt bad for being so afraid of the man. I knew that was prejudiced thinking, but he had a gleam in his eyes that frightened me and I had never seen a gold suit or a fur cowboy hat before, and they scared me, too.
I hurried along the avenue, ignoring Sophia's squeals when we came to a splatter of fresh blood on the curbside and later when we witnessed a man who stepped out from a doorway and vomited right in front of us. Nobody else stopped to see if he was all right, and nobody else stopped for the beggar with the missing eyeball, either. I stopped both times, and the sick man spat at us, and the beggar waved the dollar I had given him in the air and asked if that was all I could give him. When I said yes, he got angry and yelled curse words at us until we reached the end of the block.
When we came to Eighth Avenue and West 148th Street, which was the address King-Roy had mentioned, we found a row of apartment buildings. All of them looked as if they should have been condemned long ago. There were dark holes for windows, some with clothes and rags hanging out of them, some with people sitting in them or leaning out, propped up on their elbows and staring down at the street with bored expressions on their faces.
On the sidewalk a group of girls were skipping rope with a double set of ropes, and a couple of fat women sat outside on a sofa with three legs, smoking and fanning themselves with folded-up newspapers.
I stopped in front of the women and I said, "Excuse me, but could you tell me if a man named Accident lives here?"
"Who wants ta know?" one of the women asked me.
"I do," I said. "I'm Esther Young and this is Sophia and Stewart." I pointed at my brother and sister. "We're looking for his apartment."
"No you ain't," the other woman said. "You ain't lookin' for no Accident." Then she chuckled and said it again, "You ain't lookin' for no Accident."
"Why not?" I asked.
"' Cause he don't got nothin' to do with no gray girl."
"Gray girl?"
"She talkin' 'bout you, child," said the first woman. "Accident, he Muslim. He won't talk to no white devil."
"I'm really looking for our friend, King-Roy, King-Roy Johnson. He was visiting Ax—Accident—today."
"Yeah, we know. We seen him."
The two women eyed each other and smiled, and I knew they thought he was handsome. I just knew that's what they were communicating to each other. I felt relieved that we were at least in the right place. I asked, "Do you know which apartment building he's in? Would it be all right if we went inside?"
Both women found this funny. "Yeah, you can go o
n inside. He up on the fifth floor of that building there." She pointed to her right. "Don't got no elevator, though. You gotta walk up."
"Thank you," I said, turning around to find that the girls with the jump ropes had stopped skipping and were staring at us.
One of the girls, dressed in a pink dress and wearing pigtails in her hair, waved at me and I waved back.
"You wanna jump?" she asked. She smiled and shook the ropes in her hands.
I wanted to jump with them. I wanted to learn how to do double-Dutch jumping and maybe impress Kathy and Laura, but I knew it was getting late and we needed to find King-Roy, so I said, "No, sorry. Thanks, anyway, but we've got to go find a friend of ours."
"Some other time, then," the girl said.
"Yeah, some other time." I nodded, wondering if we'd ever see each other again. I turned back around and led Sophia and Stewart along the sidewalk until we came to the apartment building the woman had pointed to. I looked back at the women to make sure I was at the right one, and when they nodded their heads, I nodded back, took a deep breath, and went inside.
The building smelled sour—just like piss and vinegar, exactly like piss and vinegar, and I felt sorry that I had ever described my Auntie Pie in that way.
The stairwell was hot and airless, and the higher we climbed, the more sour the smell. I didn't know how anyone could stand it. The smell made my mouth salivate. I wanted to spit, but I swallowed my saliva and kept climbing.
Sophia was making a whimpering sound that grew louder with each flight of steps we climbed. Once we reached the fifth floor, Sophia said, "I'm going to tell Mother and Daddy on you. Wait till they find out what you've done. You shouldn't have brought us here."
