The Talking Drum

by Lisa Braxton

  “Yes. Malachi said you know everything there is to know about Bellport.”

  “I’m your man. Ask me whatever you want.” His eyes floated down to her cleavage.

  She looked away. “I can see why the city declared Petite Africa a blighted community, but it looks no worse than what I’m seeing out here.” She gestured toward the street.

  He scooped rice onto his fork and spread it on top of the fish. “You’re right. A while back, the city tried to declare Liberty Hill a blighted community. It fit the bill. The mayor was secretly talking to the developers about building the arena project here. I put together a committee of folks to protest the project. Our complaint was that the city was gonna go behind our backs and take our property without telling us what they were up to. We collected money, got an attorney, signed petitions. Then the newspapers got the story. City Hall was so embarrassed that they held a public hearing, which is what they should’ve done in the first place. We got four hundred people to show up at council chambers.”

  He took a bite of his fish.

  “So the city backed off under pressure?” Sydney asked.

  Kwamé shook his head. “The city was still gonna go through with it. The only thing that saved us was that one of the council members was doing payback on the mayor because the mayor didn’t do snow removal on his street the year before. Anyway, this dude on council defends our cause. He defended us better than our attorney did. The press had a field day with it. And that’s what got the city to back off of Liberty Hill.”

  Sydney cut the tail of the fish and then severed the head. As Kwamé had done, she spread rice on top of the fish. “So how did the project end up going to Petite Africa?”

  “The developer was getting impatient. He was threatening to pull out of the project and take it to Jersey. And the mayor didn’t want that embarrassment on his watch. In fact, he had grand plans for the Harborview Project to be part of his legacy. He wrote a letter to the planning commission recommending that the South End, Petite Africa, be the alternative site for the development. It’s a land grab. The city declares Petite Africa a blighted community, with rundown homes, bad streets, lousy schools. The people get burned out. The city gets state and federal funding to rebuild it. The immigrants get pushed out and the white folks with their money move in.”

  “How much of a chance do the people there have of stopping it?”

  He shook his head. “Slim to none. A lot of the people down there are immigrants. In some of their home countries, you do what you have to in order to stay away from the government, unless you want to get your head bashed in or blown off. The last thing you want is for the government to get in your face. So they’re not that vocal and don’t fight. Then you have the issue of split loyalties. They’re all from different countries, mostly first generation. Their loyalty is to their home country, not to each other. So they don’t want to unify. And there’s a language barrier. Many of them learn English growing up, but the American accent is so different from what they heard coming along. They have a hard time understanding the language, not to mention, the laws, municipal statutes, and rules.”

  Sydney was enjoying the fish with the rice mixed in. She topped it off with a little plantain.

  “Another factor working against them is the change in the makeup of city council,” Kwamé continued. “That councilman I told you about who was getting back at the mayor lost re-election by the time the city was seriously looking at Petite Africa, so they didn’t have him to advocate for them.”

  “That’s a shame. I mean, I guess it’s good for the economy to get this development, but it’s not right to take those people’s homes.”

  “There’s a restaurant owner over there from some African county. Senegal, I think. Mustapha Mendy. He’s the godfather of Petite Africa. At least that’s what they call him. He’s organized a committee of some of the other property owners and tenants on those blocks. They’re fighting eminent domain. They hired an attorney like we did. They say they’re not selling. They’re trying to preserve at least a little bit of the neighborhood.

  Kwamé wiped away flakes of rice that had landed in his goatee. “I went down there every so often to give them advice. I told them to be more strategic with the rallies and protests.” He shook his head. “They showed me no respect. I can’t worry about the immigrants anymore. More power to them.”

  Kwamé seemed to be involved in just about everything. She chased down her spicy greens with some iced tea.

  “You know, that used to be our neighborhood, ” he continued.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When black folks first started coming here from the South, they moved to that area, and that’s how it got its name.”

  “I thought it was because of the African immigrants.”

  He shook his head. “The label was put on us by the white folks. It wasn’t no compliment. It goes back some fifty years. The men got jobs at the wharves and in the factories; the women worked mostly as domestics. By the early 1940s they were getting themselves together. The women went to secretarial school or community college, and the men worked up the ladder in the trades. There were a lot of Jews in Liberty Hill from Eastern Europe at the time. We had a little melting pot going—the Jews and the blacks. The blacks left Petite Africa and moved into Liberty Hill once they could afford it. The Jews moved to Brookline, Newton, Belmont. The Africans and West Indians moved into Petite Africa, replacing the black people. No other place would rent to them.”

  He raised his cup toward the waitress to get her to refresh his coffee. “You know how it is, once our people get a little something in their pocket, they think they have ‘arrived.’ They want to forget where they came from.”

  Sydney mulled this over for a while. She knew that her grandparents on both sides of the family had moved from Virginia to Western Massachusetts at the turn of the century. They rarely went back south for visits. She recalled her grandmother on her mother’s side talking about working hard to lose her southern accent because people made fun of her. Sydney wondered if there was a downside when people distanced themselves from their background.

  Kwamé wiped his hands on his napkin and checked his nails. They were perfectly straight with a clear polish finish on them. Sydney suspected that he’d had them professionally buffed.

  “We’ve had a serious problem with absentee landlords, slumlords,” he said. “That’s why the conditions around here are so bad. As it is now, Liberty Hill is isolated. You saw how it was when I drove you around. You have to deal with the one-way streets, dead ends, traffic patterns that make no sense, the potholes. Then there’s the drug problems and car thefts we’ve been dealing with. But Harborview will change it all. When they build that arena and off ramp, this will be a new neighborhood. Once the construction’s done, you’ll see thousands of people going to the concerts and the sporting events. Police patrols will pick up. The foot traffic will spill over into Liberty Hill. Having people like Tovah, like you and Malachi investing in Liberty Hill, revitalizing it, is critical to the future of this neighborhood.”

  Sydney finished her food. Then Kwamé reached across the table and squeezed her wrist. “So what do you think? You think you’ll have enough to keep you busy around here?”

  She was reminded of one of those dismal dates she had gone on early in college, when, at the end of the evening, the date grabbed her hand or accidentally brushed up against her in a desperate attempt to hold her attention.

  She told Kwamé about their plans to rent the basement of the Victorian and to solicit potential tenants through classified ads. He pushed back his plate and pulled a toothpick from his pocket and stuck it in the side of his mouth. Tacky, she thought, but she was relieved he didn’t start picking at his teeth.

  “Max Turner’s a buddy of mine,” he said in reference to the newspaper editor. “Mention my name and he’ll give you a good rate on that ad. He’ll give y
ou some freelance work, too.” He pulled a pocket calendar out of his army jacket and jotted something down. Then he looked up at her, grinning. “I’ve been hearing that you’re quite the writer.”

  She tried to suppress a smile. “Where did you hear that from? Malachi?”

  He winked at her. “You’re good. I’ve read your stuff. You should pursue your art more.”

  She stirred her tea. “Malachi must have shown you some of my clips.”

  He shook his head. “I came across your work independently. Harambeé is a widely read student publication, believe it or not.”

  She knew he was lying. There was no way that he had read a student publication and one that was on the other side of the state.

  “Those reviews, I just wrote because half the staff quit. They couldn’t get along with the editor. They needed someone to fill in.”

  “Which gave you an opportunity to shine.” Kwamé snapped open a lighter, a silver Zippo with the name ‘Jonathan’ engraved on one side, and lit another Viceroy.

  “Who’s Jonathan?” she asked.

  His brow creased as he flipped the lighter over on the engraved side to look at it. “That’s what my momma named me. But nobody’s called me that in years.”

  She had a hard time imagining some of the guys who hung around the street corners of Liberty Hill calling him “Jonathan.”

  Kwamé stuck the lighter back in his jacket pocket. “Inner City Voice is part of a national news service. You get published with them, and every black newspaper in the country gets it. How does that sound?”

  The idea of writing for the newspaper excited her. Maybe the editor would be interested in her photography too. Why was Kwamé being so helpful? she wondered.

  “Sure. I’m interested.”

  “I’ll talk to Max.”

  When they got to the sidewalk, a man with matted, bushy hair, and a belly large enough to hold a dinner plate staggered in their direction. He had a mangy German shepherd on a leash and stopped to let it pee at a fire hydrant. Sydney tightened the grip on her purse and crossed the street toward the car. Behind her she heard Kwamé greet the man and slap hands with him. If she kept going, she figured Kwamé would cut the conversation short and catch up to her.

  “This here’s Percy,” Kwamé shouted at Sydney. “Come on back. Let me introduce you.”

  Sydney wanted to go home. Kwamé seemed to know everyone, or at least acted as if he did. She found him exhausting. She resigned herself to not getting home anytime soon and crossed back to the other side of the street.

  CHAPTER 5

  SYDNEY TUNED the radio on the nightstand to the classical music station. She was pretty sure the station was playing Mozart. Sure enough, the announcer confirmed her guess—Symphony No. 29 by the London Chamber Orchestra. She was delighted. She’d made a game of being able to identify works by classical composers.

  She dragged boxes from the hallway into the bedroom and pulled back the flaps on one labeled “memorabilia.”

  It felt good to have time alone after her dreadful afternoon with Kwamé. He was creepy—the way he put his hand on her thigh in the car, squeezed her wrist, and winked at her as if she was some kind of a tart. It wasn’t worth mentioning to Malachi, at least not yet. But if Kwamé went too far, she’d let Malachi know. She’d stood in front of The Stewed Oxtail for another fifteen minutes. Kwame introduced her to Tovah Bright of the bridal shop and some of the other business owners as they were leaving. He talked to Percy, who’d been out walking his German shepherd, Bridgette. Sydney learned that Percy was also a Vietnam vet. Unfortunately he’d returned home with a heroin addiction.

  She was relieved when Kwamé finally dropped her off. Ever since she could remember, she needed time to herself. If she spent too much time around people, they sapped her energy. Growing up, she had playmates but enjoyed her own company better. She never minded playing with her dolls alone or opposing herself in a game of checkers.

  The radio announcer mentioned the time—five-thirty—and then played a symphony that she recognized immediately: Ave Maria, by Franz Schubert. She wouldn’t have much longer before Malachi returned. She wanted to empty as many boxes as she could to make way for more he’d be bringing from his old campus apartment.

  Sydney pulled a framed eight-by-ten sepia-toned photograph of Malachi’s grandparents—Pappa and Nunna, as he called them—from the box. It was taken around 1900 in Fayetteville, North Carolina. VeNorris Stallworth, Malachi’s grandfather, dressed in his Sunday suit, had a hand resting on the back of a Queen Anne chair in which his wife, Mercedes, sat. She was wearing a knee-length, high-collared ivory dress, her hands folded in her lap, her legs demurely crossed at the ankles.

  VeNorris, a sharecropper, picked tobacco. Mercedes, a domestic, washed laundry for white families on the weekends to earn extra money. Seeing no prospects in Jim Crow North Carolina, they eventually moved to Bellport and got assembly-line jobs at Bell Manufacturing. They brought their grandson, Malachi with them. His mother had died from a kidney disorder not long after she gave birth to Malachi. She had never disclosed who Malachi’s father was.

  Next Sydney pulled out a framed wedding portrait she and Malachi had taken on the grounds of Hamilton Estate Mansion in Old Prescott right after their ceremony. She was glad they’d had an autumn wedding. For the portrait, they’d posed on a bed of stunning burnt orange, purplish blue, and yellow leaves.

  She still marveled that the two of them had gotten together. Growing up in Old Prescott, Sydney had been labeled a “white girl” by most of the black students she met on Whittington University’s campus. They mimicked her “proper” diction and vocabulary. Most black guys avoided her. The few who asked her out on dates inevitably asked her why she spent so much time in the photo lab and why she liked to read so much. Malachi was one of the few black guys she felt comfortable with. The assistant professor in the sociology department was different from the others—refreshing. After one of their first dates, he asked if he could borrow some of her books. He didn’t seem to mind her so-called “whiteness” and instead took her to cultural events and lectures. He played his favorite jazz albums for her—Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane. He encouraged her photography.

  He’d come to an exhibit at the university museum during her first semester at law school where some of her photography was featured. Malachi was one of the few visitors who seemed interested in talking to her about her work.

  “You’ve got a good eye,” he told her over coffee at the student center after the exhibit closed for the day. “Tell me about the other shows you’ve had.”

  She laughed. “I haven’t had any. I’m only doing this one because my undergrad journalism professor asked me to.”

  He took off his horn-rimmed glasses and leaned across the table. “You’re kidding me, right? You’ve got talent. People need to see your work.” He arranged to have some of her photos published in Harambeé, the black student newspaper for which he served as faculty advisor. He also asked her to write articles and music reviews for the publication.

  She instantly loved his easygoing manner. For the first eight months of their relationship she insisted on meeting only in public for their dates—at the movies, restaurants, coffee houses, concerts. He respected that she was traditional and agreed to wait until their wedding night to consummate their relationship.

  She put the now-empty box with the other empty ones in the hallway. Soon, she heard the familiar sound of the engine of Malachi’s Mustang as the car drove up Liberty Hill Boulevard and turned into the driveway. As she headed downstairs, the phone rang. She ignored it, curious to see what Malachi had decided to bring from the campus apartment and what he had decided to toss out. She stopped when she heard voices coming from the porch. Malachi wasn’t alone. Hopefully it wasn’t Kwamé. When Sydney got to the foyer, she was relieved to see Lawrence Briggs, Malachi’s former student, whom she’d g
otten to know over spaghetti dinners at Malachi’s apartment.

  “Miss Syd, what’s happening?” Lawrence held out his hand to her. Sydney was surprised at how much he’d filled out since she’d last seen him. He was at least a couple of inches taller and his shoulders had broadened. He was dressed in his usual attire, a Celtics jersey over a white T-shirt, jeans with one leg rolled up, and black and white high-top Chuck Taylors. The right side of his hair was braided in corn rows, while the left was a curly Afro.

  She brushed past his hand and stood on tiptoes to give him a quick hug. Even so, he had to bend slightly to reach her.

  “I saw Professor Malachi at his old apartment trying to put all of this stuff in his car, and I told him I could help him out,” Lawrence explained.

  “You rode all the way here from the university?” Sydney asked. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  Malachi walked in carrying a couple of large paintings. “Ronald Bridgewaters,” he said, referring to the prominent black artist. Bridgewaters’ works—oil paintings of vivid, swirling colors, focused on black American, West Indian, and South American themes and symbols—also hung in the Smithsonian Institution. It had taken years for Malachi to acquire works by Bridgewaters, which he had proudly displayed in his university office.

  Lawrence shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m gonna surprise my grandma.”

  “Did Lawrence tell you he’s coming to work for us?” Malachi added, while catching his breath.

  Lawrence laughed. “I hadn’t gotten that far yet.”

  “On the way here I was telling Lawrence that we’re looking for an intern, and he says he wants the job,” Malachi said.

  “But he’s going to school, Malachi.”

  “Not a problem, Miss Syd.” Lawrence followed Malachi back onto the porch. Sydney joined them. “I’ll come out on weekends,” he explained. “I can be here during the summers and spring break. I can always stay with my grandma. The class credit will help me finish my degree sooner, and the pay sounds good.”