But I’d heard my husband and Gabe talking about the Jews finally getting a land of their own so they wouldn’t have to be treated like garbage anymore. Maybe she could find a home there. But Eve wasn’t too hopeful:
—They’ve barely begun to set up that new government in Israel. And even if they’re willing to accept her as one of their own, making the arrangements will take time. Like it or not, she’s ours for now. And my guess is that her baby will be due by next summer. I don’t mind admitting that worries me, Nadine.
I knew what she meant. A child has never been born on this street. And the closest thing we have to what you might call a youngster at all is Carrie’s daughter. But Angel is an odd thirteen, with those long skirts and stooped shoulders. Her distrust of anything natural and free. Her spirit was aged a long time ago. And it’s a shame that Carrie doesn’t realize she’s pushing that girl to the edge. Hasn’t she ever wondered how Angel can even follow her into this cafe? No point in trying to cue her in, though; you can’t tell Carrie nothing. Once Eve just remarked in passing that Angel was a strange name for the girl. And Carrie really flew off the handle, talking about how sweet and innocent she is, and missing Eve’s whole point: all the angels in the Bible are men.
I hope little Mariam will find a place to go before it’s time for the baby. A child isn’t supposed to be born on this street. I don’t care what kind of worlds we all came in from; there isn’t much of a prayer for life itself if a baby has to be born here. But maybe it’s meant for this baby to bring in a whole new era. Maybe when it gets here, it’ll be like an explosion of new hope or something, and we’ll just fade away. And maybe I should just stop talking and wait to see.
MISS MAPLE’S BLUES
I want you to know right off that Nadine lied on me. I did not run out of here because I knew she and Eve were gonna move into that duet. If you had seen the dirty looks she gave me just before—like I had something to do with what happened to that little girl. Like it was somehow my fault for just being a male. And I only used fixing the coffee grinder as an excuse to cover up the fact that I was sneaking out to buy her a Christmas present. It’ll be the first time since we’ve been married. Each year she tells me not to bother, so I don’t. But I found myself with the urge to do something nice for my wife. To let her know that she was appreciated. And underneath it all, I hoped that she would know I was saying that Mariam’s story hurt me too.
We don’t put up decorations here for the holidays. There are too many different kinds of people in and out, and to make it festive for one’s tradition is to give slight to the other’s. Everybody in the world isn’t a Christian. The truth is, most people in the world aren’t Christians. Nadine says I have the utmost authority to speak about that club since I joined it a long time ago. But I’m not about to let her spoil my goodwill this season.
Even me and Gabe make up around the holidays. You haven’t heard me mention him before because he gets on my nerves. When I’ve got him backed into a corner on some of his more farfetched arguments, he’ll always try to win by pulling rank with his age.
I am an old dog, Gabe says, and do not have patience for the whining of a puppy. He thinks he knows everything. It’s true, he’s old enough to have just about seen everything, but one don’t necessarily follow the other. Now, it was coming up to his Hanukkah, mind you, and I made him latkes. And he’s gonna take one hard look at them heaped up on the platter: My puppy, surely you do not want this to be my last Hanukkah? A fella can’t win for losing. I woulda told him just how much I resented those comments after all the trouble I went through, but then that woulda meant he woulda told me that he could care less, which means we’re off and running to a big blowout then and with it coming up to my Christmas Eve I didn’t want to risk his not dropping off my usual gift. A quart of Russian vodka so smooth it goes down like silk. Between his new year and mine, we try to keep our truce: no discussion of politics, religion—or food.
This season always gets to me. It’s bad enough we have to stay open. A vacation would be nice—winter or summer—but it’s one of the occupational hazards of running a business like this. Another is the suicides. We get more than our share this time of year, people who come in through the front door and head straight on to the rear of the cafe—and don’t come back. I try to mind my grill and stay put, although sometimes you’ll hear the most beautiful music. A chorus of Christmas carols. The blowing of a shofar. Ghantā bells. Jade gongs. Gong chimes. Or the silver sounds of Tunisian finger cymbals. I might peek through the rear door then, and there’ll be small parties or huge parties going on. Sometimes there’s mellow candlelight spread over dining-room tables or crystal chandeliers sparkling down on dancing crowds of people with children running among their feet. There’s not always a Christmas tree, but there is always laughter. I can tell if it’s gonna be a suicide when the whole thing starts to glow so brightly it hurts your eyes, and the beautiful music gets so dim it hurts your head to strain to hear it. I’ll turn away and come back inside, but I know what that particular customer has planned: they’re going to stay out back until a certain memory becomes just too much to bear.
In that way the sparseness of this place during the holidays can be a relief. It reminds no one of anything but the last time they had indigestion or the last time Nadine may have insulted them for expecting her to leave the cash register to wait a table. Business as usual at the cafe. Sugar Man is telling me that, tonight of all nights, I should keep Miss Maple out: It’s bad luck to ring in the new year with a faggot near a salt shaker. Now, I don’t think he pulled that superstition out of anything but his own mind. And it does no good to tell him for the thousandth time that Miss Maple isn’t a homosexual. Sugar Man has had to cling onto that or he would just about lose his senses when Miss Maple is around.
Miss Maple wears dresses. Light percale housedresses most of the time, because he’s Eve’s housekeeper. But in the summer, when he takes a day off he might show up in here with a backless sundress or a little cotton romper. We’re talking no wigs. We’re talking no makeup. No padded falsies. No switching. And if it’s near the evening, we’re talking a five o’clock shadow that he runs his hands over like any tired man after a day of hard work. In fact, it’s impossible to look at the way Miss Maple walks in here and not see a rather tall, rather thin, reddish brown man in a light percale housedress. And that’s about it, with the exception of a pair of flat canvas sandals to round off the outfit. He’ll straddle the counter stool like a man, order in a deep voice, and eat his meal in a no-nonsense fashion. And if you want a conversation—although most folks don’t—he’ll hold one with you in a very sane manner.
I’ll admit at first I thought it a little different—if not downright strange. But Sugar Man can’t bear it, just can’t bear it. He’ll start vibrating like one of those jackhammers, his eyes blinking fifty thousand miles a minute, and faggot has been the kindest thing he’s called Miss Maple. But he better not call him anything nasty within hearing distance; once was enough to make that mistake. He found out why Miss Maple doubles at night as Eve’s bouncer. When Miss Maple tells the gentleman callers it’s time to go home, print dress or not, they go. But as soon as he opens his mouth, you can tell he’s not from the rough side of town. If anything, it’s a cultured voice and it’s clear he’s had a lot of schooling. Still, those lean arms are muscled and those fists pretty large, and if he’s pressed, he’ll use ’em.
It doesn’t bother him to answer to Miss Maple, though, because I think it was Eve who started calling him that. Yeah, it must have been Eve, because she was the first person he met in here. Sugar Man swears he was wearing a crinoline skirt and high heels when he first walked in and announced out loud that his name was Miss Maple; had Sugar Man so upset he almost threw up his food. That is an out-and-out lie. To begin with, the man doesn’t own a pair of high heels or a crinoline skirt. And second, I was right where I’m standing now when he first came in. Dressed like a Wall Street banker. The only thing odd about his
clothes then was that he had his shirt unbuttoned and he was carrying the jacket to his gray flannel suit. I didn’t have time to strike up a conversation with him; it was busy as the dickens that day. But I don’t think Sugar Man was even in here. And if he was, he wouldn’t have been anywhere near Eve. And it was Eve who first used that name. Had to be Eve, because I remember her calling me over from the grill. Well, I’ve finally found the right housekeeper. Bailey, meet Miss Maple. And Eve isn’t one to make light—of nothing. So in that long talk they were having at the end of the counter, he must have told her that was his name. Or decided to let people use it as his name. Or whatever.
I can get inside a lot of heads around here if I’ve got the time or inclination. But how Miss Maple first got tagged with that name isn’t high on my list of priorities. And he hasn’t a bit of trouble speaking for himself; if he wanted to explain it to folks, I’m sure he would. What’s real interesting to me is that he came in here two years ago with a worn briefcase and a wrinkled gray flannel suit, and set on using the last money he had in his pocket to buy a pawnshop revolver—and just one bullet—while now he’s about to ring in the new year worth close to fifty thousand and counting. Not bad for a housekeeper.
My name is Stanley. My middle names are Beckwourth Booker T. Washington Carver. The T is for Taliaferro. Most people don’t know that’s what the initial stands for in Booker T. Washington’s name, and they don’t know that James P. Beckwourth was a scout who discovered the lowest point for wagon trains to cross the Sierras, getting the Beckwourth Pass and the town of Beckwourth, California, all thrown in for the effort. Someone like Sugar Man, who thinks he has the right to ridicule me for my choice of clothes, doesn’t even know where the Sierras are, or that colored pioneers like Beckwourth existed, or that George Washington Carver did a lot more for the world than refine peanut butter. Whenever he licks a postage stamp this season to send out those misspelled Christmas cards to whoever has the misfortune of his knowing their address, he gives no thanks to Carver for it not falling off the envelope. That’s because he’s only been taught what we call American history.
Papa named me after great men because he expected the same from me. I like to think I didn’t disappoint him. But I sure wish he’d had more than one son so I wouldn’t have to carry all these names. Since there never was enough space on job applications, I’d just abbreviate it to Stanley B. B. T. W. C. and then my surname. Sure, I could have left out the B. B. T. W. C., but that gave me a chance to give a miniature and, I hope, memorable history lesson to whatever miseducated individual was sitting behind a desk deciding whether I could make a decent living or not. Thinking back, I’m sure they probably thought I was lying, the rest of my application being outside the scope of their miseducation as well.
Colored people weren’t born in California—second generation no less. And colored men didn’t have Ph.D.’s. A few grew more comfortable with the fact that I claimed it was southern California, and we did grow cotton on the farm. I guess that, along with the expensive cut of my suit and vest, made them comfortable enough to risk offering me the job of head custodian at a firm where I’d applied for the position of statistical analyst. B. B. T. W. C. The history lesson would have to be repeated a bit more tersely, condensed into language that even they could understand: My training had been in the application not of mops and brooms, but of variance, square roots, and bell curves. Well, there was no need to get huffy—the offer was head custodian. Ah, so now it was much clearer: the job brought along the responsibility of counting the mops and brooms. And this was in Los Angeles. San Francisco. Sacramento.
And later, as I rode the bus east along the paved highway that now ran through Beckwourth Pass, it was Denver, Kansas City, Chicago, Philadelphia. I didn’t travel below the Mason-Dixon for what I thought then were obvious reasons. A victim of my own stupidity—anywhere that bus could have taken me in the forty-eight states was all south of the Canadian border. The offers accumulated: bellboy, mailroom clerk, sleeping-car porter, elevator operator. And after all, who was I to turn down an honest living? There were other Negroes with Ph.D.’s doing this work. Who was I indeed?
Well, my grandfather made it to California in 1849 through the Arizona desert. And where he came from before then is sort of hazy. I know he wasn’t a slave, because that’s how Aunt Hazel used to phrase it: My daddy wasn’t a slave. There were only two types of Negroes then, she would say, those who were slaves and those who weren’t slaves. She knew enough never to call him free. And from what I gather, he wasn’t real smart. There were thousands on that same trail with him, heading for Box Canyon on their way to either disappointment or untold riches up near Sutter’s Mill, but after making it through the most hellish part of the trip, he called it quits near the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers. He struck gold anyway when he met my grandmother. At the time he didn’t know it, figuring he’d come into the clutches of some crazy Yuma squaw.
Papa ended up inheriting 3,000 acres of what was to be some of the richest land in Imperial Valley because his father had been afraid of his wife. Seen-yae-n’ye-hanàc, the marriage broker said, pointing to my grandmother; and indeed she was: a handsome girl, with her oiled mahogany skin and jet black hair, and dressed only in a girdle of bark fringed at the thighs. But it was probably her incredible breasts with nipples the size of silver dollars that sealed the bargain. My grandfather would have been just as happy to stay where he was, even though he found out he’d been cheated in the dealings for my grandmother. Although she was a shaman’s daughter, that same string of pook shells could have gotten him a mule to help plow the fields for his corn and melons. And a mule wouldn’t have talked back. My grandmother spoke some Spanish and her native tongue, Cuchan. My grandfather set about teaching her the most important phrases in English: I am the man. You—woman. But he found himself learning her language a whole lot quicker: co-barque. That meant no, and he was to hear it often.
Even after she had learned English, she resorted to Cuchan when she had a point to make. And she made the point over and over that she wanted them to head farther west. And here I’ll have to side with my grandfather. There was nothing on the other side of the Yuma settlement but mountains and desert. But just before their wedding, my grandmother had done the dream dance: She saw the meeting of the red river and the black river, the waters swirling and forming straight as an arrow to leap through the hills and spring up, flooding the desert. And she saw her sons, dark as the night, proud as the eagles, picking white gold from the ground. Translation: I could have had one of my own kind. But now that I’ve married you, Negro, take me west.
She gave him no peace, as she insisted she was going to California: N’yahap me-ye-moom. No help with the crops: N’ya-hap me-ye-moom. No cooked meals: N’ya-hap me-ye-moom. And finally, no sex. But you’re already in California, you damn fool, my grandfather would hold his aching balls at night and rage. But he knew what she meant and he also knew better than to try beating her into submission. That was how he’d learned the Cuchan words for his nose—e hotche—because she’d broken it.
They went into the desert to live on mesquite beans, the roots of the wild maguey, and my grandmother’s dream. The adobe hut they built kept them shaded when the midday temperatures tipped over 110 degrees, and provided shelter from the night winds that were cold enough to make their teeth chatter. My grandfather cursed his fate as he hauled enough water from a nearby stream to irrigate a small garden; my grandmother drew a circle on the ground, sat through the bitter night as meteors lit up the southwestern sky, and arose at dawn to say: We must claim this land. If there had been a way to do that, they certainly wouldn’t have had much competition. But the problem was that the Mexicans had recently lost it in war to the United States, and neither of my grandparents was an American.
That didn’t stop their first child from being born. By the time the second one came along, all of those Negroes who supposedly weren’t living in California had held a state convention in 1855 and
raised enough money to kick up enough dust in state courts to give my grandfather the right to buy that patch of desert—if somebody had owned it. But nobody did, which put it in the public domain. And while he was now allowed to buy all the private property in California that anybody wanted to sell him, public property belonged to all of the united states in America, and it would take him another war, another thirteen years, and two more children to become a paper American. That’s how Aunt Hazel used to phrase it: In 1868 my daddy became a real American—on paper. My grandmother was to live and die an alien. So anything to be done with that land had to be done through him. Not that the two of them were affected by all of the anguish going on in the cedar halls of Sacramento or the marble halls of Washington, D.C., to decide who and what they were. They knew what they were: a man and a woman with four children to feed and another one deciding to be born in the middle of a sandstorm. My grandfather caught that one daughter with his own hands, my grandmother unable to go off as usual and squat by the creek.
I’ve just brought all this up to say that when they finally took the long trip to San Diego to register the first 160 acres, the Homestead Act was not another boulder standing in their way. Marking off the boundaries on the map, the federal clerk asked my grandfather if he was crazy. He said no, but that his wife was. After work, the clerk had a drink in the saloon with his buddies and a good laugh over the stupid dust ball who’d let his squaw henpeck him into staking a claim in the middle of the desert cause she’d dreamed about white gold. The saloonkeeper heard them out of one ear and repeated the story to a group at the other end of the bar. It got repeated later at the blackjack table, the next evening at the local whorehouse, and then at the Methodist Sunday service. By noon Monday morning, the claims office was mobbed.
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