by AJ Sikes
The one thing she’d sworn not to do was to let her and Eddie’s love turn into the kind of thing she’d seen happen to so many girls back in Chicago City:
The guy comes along and it’s nice for a while. And then it’s back in the house while he’s out in the world earning his keep and yours.
“Eddie,” she said, half asking and half demanding his attention.
“Yeah, Lovebird. What’s what?”
He was happy. Dammit, why did these questions come to her mind when he was in a good mood? It’d be easier to challenge what they had if he showed some sign of discomfort, too.
“Eddie, what about me finding some work? I mean tonight. Do you think Bacchus—”
“You like to asking the krewe boss? You’re crazy, girl.” He grinned as he said it, but Emma couldn’t ignore the sincerity in his voice.
“What’s crazy about it?” she said. “I’m sick of warming the home fires while you’re out every night. If you’re afraid of upsetting the man, why not let me ask him? What’s the worst he can do?”
Eddie’s face went hangdog dark. “Emma, you don’ wanna know what’s the worst he can do. Look, Lovebird, lemme get us on our feet again, hey? Get something under us, like we used to have.”
“When did we have something under us? When I wasn’t on the run for killing Archie Falco? Or for loving you?” She kept her voice down, but the last words came off her tongue with more force than she’d expected. Eddie’s face showed it, too.
“I’m sorry, Eddie. I didn’t mean . . .”
“I know, Lovebird. Don’ mean nothin’. You just tense is all. Come on join the dancin’ tonight. You can hear me play and dance with whoever you like. Just remember whose lips are for kissin’ and whose for sayin’, ‘Thank you for the dance.’”
He laughed and stroked her under the chin with this finger. Emma laughed, too. Inside, she still felt that same bubbling joy of love for him, and his touch never failed to remind her of the way it had once been. In Chicago City, their love was a secret saved for late nights after speakeasy sessions, and it had been fabulous. Fun and forbidden. But fabulous. Sure it wasn’t perfect, but the city streets were only dangerous if they were seen together.
Now, in New Orleans, they could cuddle and kiss on a streetcar in plain view and nobody’d bat an eye. But was it better than what they’d had before?
The streetcar slowed and rolled to a stop in front of a high house with tall windows and a set of steps leading up to an open door that spilled light and laughter into the night. A heavy in a suit waited by the door with his hands clasped in front of his belt.
“Our stop,” Eddie said. “Come on in with me, Lovebird.”
“I can’t, Eddie. Not tonight. Maybe next time.”
Emma looked away from his eyes to take in the nearly empty car. Up front, by the conductor’s box, the lone man stepped off.
The other couple stood and made their way to the exit doors, too.
“Gotta go now, Lovebird,” Eddie said. “You sure you don’t wan—”
“I’ll walk you in, Eddie,” Emma said, feeling her gut go tight all of a sudden. Her mind flashed to a memory of the last words Mitchell Brand had for her.
“When his pals down here find out you’re around, it’s as much your head as mine.”
Emma let a shiver run through her and take those memories with it.
“You okay, Emma?”
“Fine, Eddie. Just a little cold I guess,” she said, and hoped he wouldn’t see the fear she felt behind her eyes.
Together, she and Eddie rose and stepped off the car through the same door the other couple had used. The gala house rose before them like the greatest mansion in the city, but the shotgun shacks to either side of it said different. They’d come to an older portion of the Central City district. Across the way, shopfronts stood in a row, decorated with hand-painted signs and sandwich boards proclaiming all sorts of finery for sale.
Gaslight glowed from within a few of the shops, but most had the steady warmth of electric lighting spilling out of windows and doorways. Emma wondered why the shops were open at first, but soon enough a parade of couples emerged from every nook and cranny. The women wore gowns and seemed to perch on the arms of their male companions. Some couples were dark-skinned but it was mostly mixed couples moving among the throng.
As the crowd approached, Emma had to stifle a gasp. The women weren’t women at all. Just girls, and not one of them could be much past age yet. They were close, sure, but it was clear enough from their wide eyes and tight lips that these girls were on the town for damn near the first time in their young lives. And the men. They were all of them easily twice the age of any girl in the bunch.
Each of the girls wore a corsage on her wrist, and the men all had boutonnières pinned to their lapels. The flowers looked fresh and sparkling clean, like they’d just been bought across the street. As the last couple passed by and went up the stairs, Emma’s breath caught in her throat and she spun to the side.
That man.
She knew him. He was a banker from New York City. He’d been at a party her father hosted for the mayor back home, almost a year before her debutante. The Great Lakes Governor had been there, along with the governors from the Southern Territory and Eastern Seaboard, too.
That man came with the Eastern Seaboard group, and when her father had introduced them, the man shook her hand for a good long time. Long enough for his eyes to take off every piece of clothing she’d had on.
“Eddie,” Emma whispered as the couples lined up with the doorman, waiting to get into the gala house. “What is this? They’re just debs. And the men—”
“Just how they do things down New Orleans way,” he said. “Mr. Bacchus run the balls down here. Debutantes come out with daddies and uncles. Big brothers, too. Learn a few steps ‘fore they go findin’ a man of they own.”
“Eddie, most of those men are white.”
“I know, I know. And how do you think a white man calls a Negro girl his daughter or his niece? You ever look at me and you in a mirror, Lovebird?”
Eddie smiled and kissed her. She let his lips press against hers and she pushed back to make sure he didn’t mistake her feelings, even though she wasn’t so sure of anything she felt at that moment.
They separated and Emma waited while Eddie straightened his jacket and smoothed his slacks. With a quick jerk, he shot his cuffs and, Emma noticed, only winced for half a second or less.
He is getting better.
Then Eddie looked Emma in the eye. He kissed her again and went up the steps to speak to the doorman.
Emma let him go even though she wished he’d stay. She couldn’t ignore the stabbing worry building in her gut like tangled barbed wire.
Maybe it was like Eddie said. Just how things were done down here.
But that man from New York . . .
Lights glowed behind sheer drapes in every window and silhouettes moved in rhythm to a soft lilting piano played somewhere deeper in the house. The tinkling strains of the music came to Emma’s ears as if on a breeze that sighed and sang at once, melancholy as can be.
Emma stepped back onto the streetcar. Other passengers boarded at the far end, by the conductor’s box, each one flashing a badge of passage to the little gray-haired man who drove the streetcar. The couples looked like they’d just left the gala house, some of them stumbled and all of them laughed, even the girls. Emma felt her heart relax, but her gut kept up its twisting and turning.
Up on the steps, Eddie was going inside. Emma called out to him.
“Good-bye, Eddie. Good luck tonight.”
Her heart grew heavy in her chest when Eddie stepped through the door and disappeared inside, not even turning to look back and wave.
Chapter 22
Mama Shandy, the house mother, shook her head at Aiden, who stood in the middle of the dance hall, feet sopping wet and his pants soaked up to his knees. He had his eyes on her knees, but she was a lot shorter than him,
so he could still see the way she snarled her dark face. She narrowed her eyes at him. Behind her little gold-framed glasses, those eyes looked like knives she’d stick him with if he put one toe out of line.
“Boy, you need learnin’ you wanna keep this job. Who the hell taught you to work a mop that way? Your momma? Your daddy?”
Aiden held his tongue, forcing the anger to stay in his chest where it belonged. Earlier that same night, he’d seen what happened to boys who spoke out of turn or “gave sass” to a house mother. But he couldn’t deny everything he felt, and a few tears of rage leaked out.
“Oh, you gonna cry on me now, boy? Damn if you ain’t worth half the money I paid for you. Now get on with the moppin’, an’ don’ you go addin’ them tears to the bucket. Ain’t no good cleanin’ a floor with tears, boy. And you think twice before raisin’ them eyes to me, Dove. Damn Birdman gonna take one of ‘em. You can count on that.”
Aiden kept his eyes on the floor until the house mother left by the far door.
Back and forth he worked the mop, slow and careful, like his pa showed him the few times he’d gone to the Field Museum to watch the man work. His pa had been gone a week now. His ma worried herself to sleep every night, and Aiden didn’t know how to help. When he’d run out on Mr. Brand he’d gone to the church, hoping Father James would offer up a hand. Instead, the man sent word to the house mother, who came around lickety-split, almost like she was waiting in the vestry.
Or maybe she was one of them. Like Mr. Brand and the man who’d marked Aiden’s pa. Or like Aiden himself? But he knew that was crazy as crazy can get.
What if Mr. Brand wasn’t fooling, though? What if he meant it, about the letter?
Aiden didn’t feel any different, though, and he sure as heck couldn’t slip in and out of a room like a ghost. If he could, he’d have disappeared the minute Mama Shandy came stepping into the church with a hand on her hip and trouble on her tongue.
Father James had offered words of comfort to Aiden and held him while he cried. That must have been when the priest had made a signal at the altar boy who was there. Because that boy came back in with Mama Shandy in tow.
She’d handed Father James a few coins and some folding money, then waltzed out the door wagging a finger for Aiden to follow.
“C’mon now, Dove. You work for Mama Shandy now.”
The priest offered Aiden a quick prayer before he spun on his heel and disappeared out a side door. With thoughts of his father lying drunk on the street like a no-good tramp, and his mother drifting around their little room like a ghost herself, Aiden did the only thing he could do.
He’d followed Mama Shandy out of the church, stepping lively to keep up. Even as short as she was, she moved fast and too strides that made Aiden have to step fast to stay with her. Now, instead of fifteen cents for cleaning the workhouse for that colored couple, Aiden would earn eight cents from Mama Shandy for cleaning the floors in her gala houses.
Nobody’d told him, but Aiden put two and two together. The workhouse he’d cleaned that first night was like a practice joint where musicians would work up their acts for the gala houses. The couple who owned it was probably in debt to Mama Shandy. The gala houses she owned weren’t like the workhouse, either. They had something special that went on, something different. Aiden didn’t know how different, but he knew enough not to ask Mama Shandy to explain it to him.
Aiden cleaned the floor with even strokes, just like he’d seen his pa do, all the while thinking of how much he’d like to take the mop to Mama Shandy’s head. He quickly pushed that thought away, because if anything he did would lead to him to a bad end, that would be it.
When he’d finished, Aiden hoisted the bucket of grimy water onto his cleaning cart and rung out the mop until it was dry as could be. The floor didn’t sparkle, but it was clean.
He’d earned another eight cents at least, maybe ten if Mama Shandy felt generous. Aiden sniffed at the idea. Like Mama Shandy would ever feel generous toward a white boy like him. A white boy she’d had to buy off the church. He’d meant to tell his ma all about what happened, but he figured it was better to save it, or just pretend like nothing had changed at all. His ma didn’t need more worry to bend her back.
Aiden snugged his wool cap down tight, buttoned his coat, and patted the pocket where he kept his badge of passage. Then he opened the pay box outside the door. Aiden felt around in the box and came up with . . .
Six cents.
He swallowed his anger and pocketed the coins. Then he pulled the now ripped and tattered little green book out of his pocket and checked his way home. He’d learned the streets well enough, but still needed to know for sure he was going the right way.
Once he’d settled his mind, Aiden stuffed the book down into his pocket again and wheeled his cart down from the house to the street. A block along, Aiden poured his mop water into the gutter and watched it race away toward the river, wishing he could move half as fast.
Just another ten blocks to home.
A whisper caught his attention when Aiden passed an alley a little ways on. He peered into the dark space between two shotgun shacks and spotted a collection of houseboys, just like him, except they were all Negroes. They were bundled in coats and caps and huddled around a window. Their carts stood in a tangle, jumbled together behind them.
“C’mon, Dove,” said one of the boys who spotted him. “C’mon, now.” The boy smiled at Aiden right enough, and waved him forward, like he was a friend.
Aiden knew he should just push his cart home. But Mama Shandy’s words echoed in his head.
“They your krewe now, Dove. All them houseboys workin’ this town. They the only friends you got, so you better learn to keep ‘em.”
He’d nodded and said, “Yes’m.” But he hadn’t needed Mama Shandy’s lesson. The word krewe told him well enough where he belonged. This bunch of dirty, rag-bare, underfed kids who pushed mops for pennies were his krewe. Whatever they didn’t have, they were still the only friends he had in New Orleans.
“C’mon now, Dove,” the boy said again, coming closer to the alley mouth. He smiled big and waved Aiden forward again. Looking once more down the street in the direction he should be going, Aiden wheeled his cart around and followed the boy into the alley.
Leaving his cart next to the others, Aiden joined the huddle. The boys all circled the space outside the window that let a glow of warm light into the alley. Craning his neck to see, Aiden got a view inside the room. A single man wearing a white jacket and trousers sat at a table shuffling a deck of cards. The brim of a white fedora hid the man’s face.
“Who is he?” Aiden asked.
The other boys all chuckled and broke into a fit of laughter.
“You ain’t heard ‘bout the Ghost, an’ you a houseboy?” said one.
“Ain’t been out in the dark long enough yet,” said another. “Dove got skin still white like rice. Maybe he a ghost, too.”
A third boy, the biggest of the bunch, laughed loud and long, his voice ringing rich in the alley like the sound of a man shouting into a barrel. “Oh, Dove. You best fly away home now ‘fore you get plucked.”
Aiden shook, both from fright and anger. He’d gotten used to being called a “dove,” but the way these boys used the word it felt like being socked in the gut and slapped across the mouth.
“I ain’t no damn dove and I ain’t a gambler,” he said, turning on his heel to go. The first boy, the one who’d called him in, grabbed him by the wrist and pleaded with him to stick around.
“C’mon now. Ain’t like that, Dove. We don’ mean nothin’ by it. Just what you called, you know? You new in town, any fool know that. We just tryin’ to learn you how it go round New Orleans.”
Aiden felt his heart settle its rhythm, but he still had nothing but angry eyes for the bigger boy who’d warned him about being plucked. The first boy let go of Aiden’s wrist and held out his hand instead.
“Name’s Julien Durand. Call me Jules if you wanna.
Call me Julie an I take your eye quicker’n the Birdman do it.” The boy still smiled at Aiden but with a look in his eyes that said he wasn’t fooling.
“Aiden. Or Conroy, if you want.”
“Conroy. All right. Hey y’all. This here’s Conroy. Greet him up.”
One by one the boys looked up and waved, some extended hands that Aiden shook. They all said names that Aiden heard but couldn’t keep stuck in his mind. Aiden did his best to keep up with them; he could tell they were all younger than he was, and some younger than Julien, too. But try as he might, Aiden couldn’t focus on the boys around him. His eyes kept going back to the man with the cards.
The boys all seemed to understand, or at least didn’t care if he caught their names or not. Finally the big one who’d talked about plucking Aiden’s feathers came up and stuck out a hand, and Aiden was forced to draw his attention from the man in the white suit.
“Theo Valcour,” the older boy said, his voice heavy and rich as before, but with less of the malice Aiden felt the first time. They shook hands and then Julien put a hand on Aiden’s shoulder, turning him to the window. The other boys had settled back into position around the patch of light that came into the alley. Inside, the man stayed rigid, almost like a gearbox that had been turned off.
“What’re we watchin’ him shuffle cards for?” Aiden asked, nudging Julien.
“Man called the Ghost,” Julien said. “He used to be way up in Bacchus’s krewe, but now he down low. Ain’t nobody seen him around for almost two months gone.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Nobody know. Ain’t the first time he go missin’ like that, though. Birdman take his eye back when, right about New Years time. Then Ghost come back and win Mr. B’s debutante game. And he let the girl go. Least that what everybody sayin’ he did. Then he go away again, and that was two months back. People sayin’ he off earnin’ for some other krewe, but me, I think he off with that girl he won.”
“Girl? What—?”
