Stork Bite

by Simonds, L. K.

  “Then stay with us. We need you.”

  “Zachary, listen to me. Do you remember what Jesus told his friends when he had to leave and they wanted him to stay?”

  “No—I dunno.”

  David put his arm around the boy’s shoulder. “He told them he was just going ahead of them, to prepare a place for them so they could come and be with him someday. You remember that, don’t you? See, that’s what I’m doing too. I’m going ahead to Marshall, and there’s a college there. Do you know what a college is?”

  Zach shook his head.

  “It’s a school, a really big school, and people come to it from all over so they can learn. And they live at the school. How does that sound to you? Think you’d enjoy that? Living at a college and learning all the time?”

  Zach nodded, but his eyes looked doubtful.

  “You might miss picking cotton,” David said.

  Zach grinned.

  “I will come back for you. You just keep reading and learning. Pastor Mo will help you.”

  This was the first promise of any substance David had ever made to another human being, and the trust in Zachary’s eyes frightened him. He didn’t know how he’d ever keep his word, but he had to find a way.

  Chapter Eighteen

  1917

  The Tatums listened solemnly when David told them he was leaving the next day. Even Sherman, leaning against the sideboard with his arms crossed, did not say good riddance or have a look of satisfaction.

  “You know you’s always welcome here,” Big Sherman said. “You always gots a place to call home.”

  On the Sunday morning David walked off the farm, he woke early after tossing and turning all night. He stood and rubbed his face, stretched, and rolled up his pallet for the last time. Sherman was sitting at the table with a steaming cup in front of him.

  “Want some coffee?” Sherman asked.

  “Sure.”

  The young man who had been his enemy throughout his time on the farm motioned for David to sit at the table. He poured a cup of scalding coffee, added milk and sugar, and set it in front of him.

  “Thanks.”

  Sherman hesitated a minute, as if he had forgotten what he was about to do next. Then he walked to the door, opened it, and went outside. He returned with one of the washtubs that hung on the porch. He carried the tub to the fireplace and ladled hot water into it from the pot that hung there. David sipped coffee and watched him.

  Sherman carried the tub to where David sat and put it on the floor in front of him. The water steamed in the still morning air. Sherman took a clean rag from a drawer in the sideboard and picked up a bucket of drinking water that sat on the floor. He knelt and poured a little cold water into the tub and swirled it around with his fingers. Then he looked up at David.

  David set his coffee cup down.

  Sherman held out his hand. He wiggled his fingers. Finally he said gruffly, “Gimme.” David lifted one boot, and Sherman grasped the heel and loosened the laces. He slipped the boot off and set it aside. Then he lowered David’s bare foot into the warm water and ran his open palm along each side and across the bottom from heel to toe in a ceremonial washing. Then David’s enemy laid one hand across the arch, so gently that it felt like a caress, and he said, “Beautiful on the mountains is the feet of them that bring good news. Lord, bless these feet.”

  Sherman picked up the rag and wiped the foot dry. He set it on the floor beside the washtub and motioned for the other foot, which received the same washing and blessing. When he was done, he rocked back onto his heels and said, “Reckon that oughta do it.” Without another word he got to his feet, picked up the tub and carried it outside, balancing it against his hip as he opened the door. He shut the door behind him and did not return.

  David slid his feet back into his boots and tied the frayed laces. He went to the fireplace and topped off his cooled coffee. Then he returned to the Tatum dinner table to sip the sweet coffee and listen to the sounds Zach and Luke made while they slept.

  Book Two

  Shreveport

  Chapter Nineteen

  1927

  Cargie Barre was a twenty-three-year-old graduate of Wiley College when she took a deep breath and walked through the front door of Cole’s Dry Cleaning and Laundry on Prospect Street. Mr. Cole stood behind the counter reading the Shreveport Journal. He looked up, and surprise made a quick trip across his eyes.

  “Can I help you?” he said.

  “I’m a bookkeeper,” Cargie said. “I heard you need one.”

  “Well, I declare. How in the world—”

  “I have reference letters,” she said quickly, pulling three envelopes from her handbag. “Oh, and my name’s Cargie Barre.”

  Mr. Cole raised the counter flap. “Mrs. Barre, please. Come through here.”

  He opened a door to a small room, into which had been crammed a desk and swivel chair, and many wooden crates stacked floor to ceiling. Piles of paper receipts overflowed the desk onto the chair seat.

  “Oh Lord,” Cargie whispered, too loudly.

  “I know. It’s a mess.”

  Cargie picked up the nearest receipts and looked through them.

  “Centenary College,” Mr. Cole explained, even though she had not asked. “We’re picking up new business from the school every week.”

  The bell on the front door jingled, and a customer called, “Mr. Cole, are you in? Mr. Cole?”

  “Be right there,” Mr. Cole answered. “Excuse me, Mrs. Barre.” He left, closing the door behind him. The bell jingled again and again as more customers came in.

  Cargie brushed off the swivel chair and sat in it. She wiped a clean spot in the dust on one corner of the desk, took off her hat, and laid it there. The room was musty and sultry, despite the morning hour. She looked up at the single high window, in which a swamp cooler hung. “Well,” she said disapprovingly.

  Cargie straightened her back, scooted the chair forward, and began organizing the tickets. Soon she was lost in the ebb and flow of Cole’s Dry Cleaning and Laundry. The receipts told her everything she needed to know about Mr. Cole’s day-to-day business. Which days were busy and which were slow. Who brought in laundry, and who brought in dry cleaning, and how often. They tattled on Mr. Cole’s turnaround times too.

  Cargie had a talent for visualizing businesses by reading their accounts receivable and payable, and she remembered everything she’d ever read, even as far back as grade school. When Cargie was a child, she assumed everyone remembered things as she did. But when she got older, she realized that, given a little time, most people forgot almost everything except their names.

  “It’s a gift, baby girl,” her mother had said. “You gots to take advantage of it.”

  Cargie’s mother had put her money where her mouth was. She paid for Cargie’s college with the dollars she had saved from her job as a maid for a rich family in Dallas. And she took in ironing to make up what was lacking.

  Mr. Cole knocked on the door of his own office, twice. Then he opened it.

  Cargie looked up. “Yes sir?”

  “Looks like you jumped right in,” he said.

  “Yes sir. Plenty to do here.” Cargie put her attention back on the receipts.

  “Um, well, it’s mighty stuffy in here. Want me to turn on the cooler?”

  “Too damp,” Cargie said. She waved an arm toward the window without looking up. “It’ll have to go. An electric fan will do fine.” Mr. Cole stayed in the doorway long enough that Cargie looked up again. Why, he had not offered her the job yet! She felt a flush of embarrassment. “Excuse me, Mr. Cole. Does this suit you?”

  He smiled. “Why yes, Mrs. Barre, very well. I’ll have the boys take that cooler down.”

  And just like that, Cargie Barre had a job.

  At midmorning, two men came and wrestled the cooler out of the window, and Mr. Cole brought in a small electric fan. Cargie plugged it in and set it on the windowsill, where it could pull in fresh air without rustling the paper
s below. She did not let it oscillate lest it crawl right off the ledge.

  At noon, Mr. Cole knocked on the door again. “Mrs. Barre, it’s lunch time.”

  Cargie hated to break her stride, but she would fare better through the afternoon if she ate a bite. There were restaurants nearby, but Cargie did not like giving her money to merchants who thought she was second class. No thank you, ma’am. She would take the streetcar to Texas Avenue and eat at the soda fountain. Anyway, she wanted to give Hennie Filbert the news.

  “I’ll be gone a while,” she told Mr. Cole.

  “That’s okay. You’ve been at it all morning. Might be nice to stretch your legs.”

  “Yes sir, I believe it would.”

  Mr. Cole stepped back and motioned toward another door behind the counter. “Let me show you the cleaning hall on the way out.”

  Cargie had heard the machines all morning, but she was not prepared to be hit in the face with heat and chemicals when Mr. Cole opened the door. The acrid air did not smell of chemicals. It was saturated with them. She took a step back.

  “It takes a little getting used to,” said Mr. Cole.

  “I reckon so.”

  The high-ceilinged, bricked hall housed tumblers and steam presses, washing and drying machines, and other machines Cargie could not decipher. Electric cords were everywhere, hanging from the ceiling and snaking across the floor. There were canvas bins lumpy with clothes, long tables piled with clothes, and steel racks on which hung cleaned and pressed clothes. A dozen sweating men and women toiled in the heat. Big windows lined each side of the hall, and oversized electric fans pulled in fresh air and pushed it across the room. Even so, the air was thick.

  Mr. Cole motioned toward a doorway that led to the alley behind the tiny office where Cargie had been working. The evaporative cooler sat against the wall below the open window. The alley was short and ended on Line Avenue, where she could catch the streetcar.

  “Take your time,” Mr. Cole said. “We’ll be here.”

  “May I bring you something?”

  “No ma’am. Mrs. Cole packs me a lunch, seeing as I can’t leave the counter.”

  Cargie had eaten at the soda fountain every day that week, and Hennie Filbert had served her. When Hennie had learned that Cargie was looking for work and not finding it, and that she was trained as a bookkeeper, he had a suggestion. His wife cooked for a white banker who was a long-time friend of Bill Cole, proprietor of Cole’s Dry Cleaning and Laundry. Mrs. Filbert overheard the two men talking over lunch recently, and Mr. Cole said he needed to look into hiring a bookkeeper because his business was growing so.

  Cargie had pursed her mouth at Hennie’s idea. Her college professors encouraged their students to seek employment in colored-owned businesses. “Black folks cooking and cleaning and raising babies, that’s fine with white folks, but they get a little particular when it comes to professional work,” one professor told the class. “Why, the Protestants and Catholics and Jews won’t even mix when it comes to business,” he said with a chuckle.

  Hennie thought Mr. Cole might be different. “It cain’t hurt to ask,” he said. “He ain’t the type to make trouble.”

  Cargie said she would think about it. That evening, she talked over Hennie’s idea with her husband, Thomas, who made no bones about being against it, although he stopped short of telling Cargie what to do. Cargie woke up the following morning and thought, What have I got to lose?

  “I got the job,” Cargie told Hennie as soon as she perched her narrow behind on a stool.

  Hennie grinned. “Well, how about that?”

  “Yes sir. You tell Mrs. Filbert I said thank you, now, hear?”

  “I sure will. How about that?” Hennie patted the counter. “She’ll be tickled pink. Egg salad and Orange Crush?”

  “Yes sir. And I believe I’ll have a slice of that buttermilk pie to celebrate.”

  “Comin’ right up, Miss Cargie. Comin’ right up.”

  At closing time that evening, Mr. Cole opened the office door without knocking. “Front’s all locked up,” he said. “Let’s go out the back.”

  Cargie stood and retrieved her hat. It would be nice to hang a mirror behind the door to check herself. She had a way of becoming disheveled while she worked. She picked up a slip of paper from the desk and handed it to Bill Cole. “Mr. Cole, we could use these things.”

  “Four double-entry general ledgers,” he read.

  “I can pick them up in the morning on my way in. I think it’ll be best to plan one ledger for each quarter, way your business is picking up.”

  Mr. Cole reached into his pocket. “I’ll give you some money.”

  “I’ll bring the receipt and take it out of petty cash.”

  “Petty cash?”

  “Next thing on the list. We’ll need a money box to keep cash for small purchases.”

  “I usually just buy the small things myself.”

  “Muddles everything. Best to keep business funds separate from personal money.”

  “Okay. Petty cash box. And three fireproof, four-drawer file cabinets?” he said.

  Cargie tapped her toe against one of the crates of solvent, on which “FLAMMABLE” and “STODDARD SOLVENT” were stenciled in large black letters.

  “Of course,” said Mr. Cole.

  “This place is a tinderbox.”

  “God forbid.”

  “Yes sir. God forbid. Sears and Roebuck will have the best prices on cash boxes and file cabinets. I’ll look at the catalogue tonight and bring you numbers and prices tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Barre. I believe the business is in good hands.”

  “The best,” Cargie said.

  “It ain’t bragging if it’s true,” said Mr. Cole. He motioned toward the open doorway. “After you, Mrs. Barre.”

  On the streetcar going home, Cargie was lost in her thoughts about the next day’s work and missed her stop to change to the Hollywood line. She had to backtrack and wait for a long time for another car, and it was almost dark when she walked the last few blocks to the house. She smelled supper before she reached the back door that led directly into the kitchen.

  “Was getting worried about you,” Thomas said when she opened the screen door. “Thought you’d run off with another man.”

  “Can’t anybody fry chicken like you, Thomas. You know how I feel about your fried chicken.” Cargie slipped off her shoes right there in the kitchen and sat at the table. She picked a drumstick off the cooling platter. “Mm, mm! Fried green tomatoes too? You outdid yourself tonight, sir. Where’d you get the peas?”

  Thomas sat down across the table from Cargie. “Mrs. Bishop,” he said. “I mowed her yard this afternoon. Your turn to say grace.”

  The couple bowed their heads. “Dear Lord,” Cargie said, “bless this food we’re about to receive. Bless the earth that provided it and the hands that prepared it. Oh, and thank you for giving me a job today. In Jesus’s name. Amen.”

  “Looky here, what’s this?”

  “Yes sir. Worked all day.” Cargie took a bite of peas and a bite of hot water cornbread. “Thomas, you make the best cornpone I ever put in my mouth. Better than Mama’s.” She bit into a fried green tomato, crunchy corn meal crust around firm, buttermilk-soaked flesh. “These are delicious.”

  “Go on now. Where’s the job?”

  Cargie glanced up at him. “Steady now. Cole’s Dry Cleaning.”

  “No. You don’t say. The white fella?”

  “Yes sir. Marched right through the front door and went to work like I owned the place.”

  “You did not.”

  “No, I mean it. I just sat right down without even asking and went to work.”

  “Cargie Barre!“

  “I don’t think Mr. Cole knew what to do with me.”

  “Lord God Almighty! Who would?”

  They both got tickled then and could not eat their food for laughing. “Stop! Stop it, now!” Cargie cried. “I’m starved. Honestly!“

&
nbsp; “Cargie Barre, you tell me right now that you did not go in there and start bossing that white man around.”

  Cargie wiped her eyes. “I surely did.”

  “How much is he paying you?”

  Cargie’s hand flew to her mouth.

  Thomas howled. “Oh Lord, girl! They only made the one of you. You won’t do. You just won’t do!“

  “I forgot to ask about the wage!”

  They hardly got through supper for all their laughing.

  Chapter Twenty

  1928

  Cargie was working in the third general ledger for Cole’s Dry Cleaning and Laundry when she came to terms with being pregnant. She’d been hoping against hope that it wasn’t so, despite missing her cycle twice. But when her lean middle rounded out with a mind of its own—even after she’d cut out pie in desperation—there was no denying it. She was with child.

  Cargie told Thomas over breakfast on a Friday morning. She looked down at her plate, where the yolks of her half-eaten eggs ran up against the grits. For the first time in Cargie’s life, sunny-side-up eggs repulsed her. “I thought I might escape motherhood,” she said without looking up.

  “Oh, Cargie.”

  Thomas got up and came around the table to kneel beside her. He pushed her plate away, as if he knew it made her sick, and took both of her hands in his. Cargie looked into her husband’s face. He grinned and said, “It’ll be an adventure.”

  Cargie laughed, but tears spilled down her cheeks. “For you, maybe,” she said. “For me it’ll mean quitting my job, and I don’t want to quit working. Not ever.” She put her hand on Thomas’s cheek. “I’m sorry, honey. I know how I feel isn’t right. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “It’s okay, Cargie.”

  “No, it isn’t. I should’ve told you I didn’t want children. Before, I mean.”

  “Do you think that would’ve mattered to me?”

  Cargie looked away, her face hot with a fresh wave of tears.

  “I love you, Cargie,” Thomas said. “With or without children.” He took her in his arms and held her tightly. When he released her, he said, “You won’t have to quit.”