Only the Strong

by Jabari Asim

  Satisfied that the Malibu was secure, Charlotte let herself into the house. She put the doctor’s dinner on a tray and carefully carried it up the long, winding staircase. When her knock went unanswered, she opened the bedroom door enough to see her benefactor dozing peacefully. She tiptoed in and set the tray on a table, in case she woke up hungry.

  ARTINCES STEPPED OUT OF THE CAB. The heat waves rising from her serpentine path made the front porch seem farther away than usual. She stopped and took a breath. Behind her, the ever-vigilant Wendell Reid, standing alertly next to his taxi, called to her.

  “You all right?”

  “Yes, I think so, Mr. Reid,” she replied, turning around. “I’m fine—”

  She squinted through the thickening ribbons of heat. Mr. Reid was no longer present. Instead, it was her father. “Pepper Pot,” he said. “My little Pepper Pot.”

  Artinces felt embarrassed to be standing in front of him holding the two Aldo’s shopping bags that had suddenly appeared in her hands. They were full of naughty underthings. She hoped he wouldn’t offer to carry them.

  “Daddy,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

  She clutched her bags. What if he found out what was inside? She’d explain that the lingerie was just an indulgence. After spending all day serving as a model of dignity and decorum, she needed to unwind a bit, take the pressure off, and fine silk helped her relax. Just one of her harmless diversions—like sleeping with a married man. But that couldn’t be helped, right? She couldn’t help herself. Like catching a cold.

  “Aren’t you happy to see me?” Luther Noel frowned and hooked his thumbs in the shoulder straps of his overalls.

  “Of course, Daddy. I just wasn’t expecting you, that’s all.”

  Her father looked over her shoulder and gestured with his chin. “Were you expecting them?”

  Artinces turned, following his gaze. The three women stood directly in her path, close enough to touch her, as brown and silent as they had been in the backseat of her car. Two of them stared back at her. The third, her dark braids half-unraveled, raised her long-fingered hands and shoved Artinces squarely in the chest. She grabbed the doctor’s shoulders and began to shake her.

  “You’re dreaming,” a vaguely familiar voice declared. Artinces exhaled, dimly aware of the pillow beneath her head. As she slowly stirred to consciousness, her relief turned to fear. She was aware of a presence in her room. It had to be the three women. Seizing her again. Shaking her shoulders. She moaned and pulled away.

  “Dr. N. Dr. N. It’s me, Charlotte.”

  Artinces opened her eyes. Charlotte held her shoulders, concern on her face.

  “You were making so much noise. I came to check on you. Bad dream?”

  “I guess so.”

  “What was it about?”

  “I can’t recall,” Artinces replied, the three women still vivid in her memory. She shook off the covers and sat upright. “What time is it?”

  “Late,” Charlotte said. “You slept right through the delivery men. They brought you flowers.”

  “So early?”

  “Like I said. It’s not early. I’ll slice you a grapefruit and make you some tea while you get ready.”

  “No need, Charlotte. I’ll grab something on the road. And just put the flowers in a vase.”

  Charlotte chuckled. “Umm, I don’t think we have enough vases.”

  Still puzzling over her dream, Artinces had nearly forgotten Charlotte’s comment by the time she made it downstairs. Then she saw that nearly every visible surface of the first floor was covered in flowers. Roses, lilies, orchids. Daisies by the dozens. The grand piano was buried beneath a mountain of zinnias. She half-expected to hear the hum of bees as they circled the blossoms. The library next to the parlor was so stuffed with tulips and gladioli that her bookshelves were almost completely hidden. Only a bust of Dr. Charles Drew, secure on its pedestal, peeked above the blooms. In the kitchen, perched on a stool surrounded by more flowers, Charlotte smirked and handed Artinces the accompanying card. “From a Grateful Patient,” it read.

  “What’s the occasion?” Charlotte asked.

  “It’s just a thank-you.”

  “Some thanks. You must have saved his life.”

  Artinces had insisted on discretion. It was just like him to push her boundaries. Every time she believed they’d reached an understanding, an acceptable rhythm, he’d start making trouble. Saying things like he couldn’t help himself and neither could she.

  She decided against asking Charlotte how she knew the flowers were from a man and not from thankful parents. And of course she couldn’t tell Charlotte who that man was. She couldn’t tell anybody.

  Forced to borrow the Malibu, Artinces dropped Charlotte at Abram H., where she worked as a summer fill-in at the registration desk.

  “Don’t forget to wait for me,” she reminded her as they pulled up to the yellow-brick complex. “I’ll come get you. I don’t want you picking fights on the streetcar.”

  “You mean the bus,” Charlotte corrected. “The streetcars are all gone.”

  “Oh yes, that’s right,” Artinces said. North Siders had conducted a bus boycott just four years ago, more than a decade after Rosa Parks had launched a similar movement farther south. That was just like black folks in Gateway, always slow to come to a boil.

  “I used to catch the streetcar all the time. Long time ago. Ride all the way to the South Side,” Artinces said.

  “The South Side? What’s over there? Were you seeing a white boy or something?”

  “What? No.”

  Charlotte looked openly skeptical. “Then where did you go?” she asked.

  “To the botanical garden. I loved the flowers.”

  Charlotte smirked again. “Now you got your own botanical garden right in your front room. And the kitchen. And the dining room. And the entry hall.”

  “You exaggerate, young lady. Beautiful as those flowers are, they’re dying already. At the botanical garden, the flowers were alive. The ones I admired are probably still there, still blooming.”

  Both women were silent for a moment.

  Charlotte opened her door. She turned to Artinces.

  “You know, Dr. N., a man who gives you all that might expect something in return.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah, he might want to engage in certain kinds of activities. You have any questions about that, I’ll be happy to explain.”

  “Get out of here, Charlotte. We’re both about to be late.”

  Charlotte flashed a smile. Artinces had forgotten how lovely it was. “Nobody can write you up for being late, Dr. N. You’re the boss. See you later.”

  Half a block from her office on Kingshighway, Artinces turned into the White Castle parking lot. Inside the cramped restaurant, onion-scented mist floated above the heads of the customers. Artinces tried her best to ignore it as she waited to order her coffee.

  “Morning, Doctor.”

  She looked up into the smiling face of Lucius Monday. The sign painter was born and bred in Gateway City, but he had something of the ancient and exotic in his face. His spectacularly bloodshot eyes, the result of years of living inside a bottle, remained a robust shade of crimson despite a half-decade of sobriety. His beard, surely one of the most impressive in town, was a dusty blend of black and white, flanked by scars deeply embedded in his slate-black cheeks. Artinces could easily picture him as a tribal chieftain, running through a rainforest naked except for a loincloth and a bone through his nose. It was wrong, she knew. Plenty of other folks had confessed to similar thoughts about Lucius, but that didn’t make her feel any less guilty.

  “Hello, Mr. Monday,” Artinces said, smiling. “How are you today?”

  “Just fine, ma’am.” He bowed and tipped his painter’s cap.

  “I’m surprised to see you here instead of at Stormy’s. Don’t worry, I won’t tell Mrs. Monday.”

  Lucius laughed. Artinces heard the distant rumble of drums, in spite
of herself.

  “The rest of the crew is next door,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the window. “I’m grabbing everybody some coffee while they stock up.”

  Artinces saw Reuben Jones and the other men of the Black Swan on the lot of the paint-supply store. Reuben’s Rambler station wagon was backed against the loading dock with the tailgate open. He wrote on a clipboard while the others loaded heavy drums of paint into the back.

  The painters had been the most honorable of her contractors when she built her new offices five years ago. Other workmen could barely contain their amusement (or was it skepticism?) as Artinces oversaw the demolition of a crumbling clothing store and pursued plans for her own establishment. Reuben and Lucius were exceptions, working hard and never failing to respond with a quick “yes, ma’am.” She singled them out for special praise when the Gateway Citizen photographer came out to cover her grand opening. Artinces insisted that he get a shot of the enormous mural the men had painted according to her design, a delights-of-the-garden panorama featuring the faces of black children smiling as they emerged like blossoms from an abundance of green leaves.

  The acclaimed children’s hospital on the city’s South Side had received far more attention for its own mural, which had as its centerpiece a lollipop “tree” that dispensed real lollipops when children pressed a button. Artinces had been offended by the very notion of giving out cavity-causing treats to kids the hospital treated. Youngsters who endured her examinations and treatments with admirable poise never received anything as wildly inappropriate as candy. Instead, they were rewarded with pencils, bright-colored erasers, crayons, and other school supplies. Occasionally she even gave out copies of The Snowy Day, one of the few children’s books she could find with illustrations of dignified black characters.

  After a bit of easy banter with Lucius, Artinces hopped in the Malibu and pulled onto her parking lot. Her coffee was still steaming when she walked through her door and nodded at Jennifer, her receptionist. The placard on the front desk, also painted by Black Swan, declared, Every day is black day.

  “Nine appointments and two walk-ins already,” Jennifer called as her boss breezed by.

  By lunchtime, Artinces had administered four vaccinations, conducted two well-baby examinations, issued a prescription for a sinus infection, pierced a pair of ears, and given three lectures on the virtues of breastfeeding. She’d see one more patient before having a sandwich at her desk.

  The young woman wore tight cornrows that curled neatly against her neck, just below her ears. She held her baby, a toddler, as if she was afraid she’d crush her. The baby had consumed nothing besides water and juice over the past 24 hours. The mother feared the worst, but Artinces could see that the child was in the bloom of health. Clad in a dark purple jumper, little Paulette wore her hair in tight, shiny pigtails divided by sharp parts that revealed a gleaming scalp. Artinces made sure to examine the child carefully, moving as slowly as possible so that the mother could see how thorough the procedure was. “Oh, you’re plenty feisty, aren’t you? A real handful,” she said as she pressed gently on Paulette’s stomach. She’d already learned from the mother that Paulette’s bowel movements were regular and normal.

  “Wanna know something? I used to be a handful too. My daddy used to call me his little Pepper Pot.” Artinces turned to the mother, who hadn’t breathed since the exam began. “She’s fine, Mom,” she said. “She’s just not hungry. When she decides she wants something, she’ll it gobble it down. Trust me, hungry children eat.”

  The mother exhaled, a long dramatic sigh that brought with it a trickle of tears. “Praise God,” she said. “I was so worried.”

  “It’s okay to be worried,” Artinces said. “It means you’re paying attention.”

  “Bless you, Doctor. Your kids must be so lucky.”

  Artinces’s reassuring smile briefly faltered, just long enough for Paulette’s mother to notice. She frowned.

  “Did I say something wrong? You do have kids, don’t you?”

  “No, in fact I don’t.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No need to be sorry,” Artinces said quickly. “Not your fault. Billie will be in to finish up with you. Then talk to Jennifer about Paulette’s next check-up.”

  She left the room, mad at herself. The question was not a new one, after all. Her response hadn’t made sense either. “Fault” implied an error, a transgression. She’d never wanted a child of her own—not after Brady. After seasons of great pain, she was at peace with the choices she’d made and the choices that had been made for her. Maybe she was just out of sorts because of the ghosts. Back in her office, she spun around in her chair and looked at the picture on the wall. It showed her standing on the steps of Abram H., a newly anointed intern clad in a modest white dress and a long white lab smock. By her side stood four nurses, similarly dressed.

  Taken in 1945, that same photo had accompanied her throughout her career. It had also graced a wall at her first private practice, launched 20 years ago in a rundown office suite above a steakhouse on Easton Avenue. When she moved to Kingshighway 10 years later, the photo was one of the first items she hung in her office, along with her diplomas and a quote from Dr. Rebecca Crumpler, author of one of the earliest medical books published by an African American. “There is no doubt,” Crumpler had written, “that thousands of little ones annually die at our very doors, from diseases which could have been prevented, or cut short by timely aid.”

  Artinces realized she could no longer remember the names of three of the nurses in the photo. She conceded to herself that she’d probably forgotten them on purpose. They had been resentful, she recalled, because she expected them to get off their rear ends and work. She required them to bathe every child every morning before she made rounds. She also made a nurse accompany her on rounds and take notes on her observations.

  “You’re not gonna save every baby,” one of them had the nerve to say. Artinces had stared at her, intensely, for several long minutes until the woman, a good four inches taller, visibly shrank under her gaze. “No,” Artinces replied, finally, “we are not going to save every baby. But we are going to try.”

  Those nurses were gone by 1948, when she became chief resident. All of them except for Billie, who was still with her today. It was Billie’s voice that broke through her momentary funk.

  She stuck her head in the door.

  “There’s a man out here wants to see you.”

  “Another walk-in? What’s the trouble with his child?”

  “He’s by himself. Says he’s got something for you. Says his name’s Playfair.”

  “All right, tell him to come in.”

  “He wants you to come outside.”

  Artinces stepped briskly through the door, prepared to brush him off. She would be polite and quick, cite her busy schedule. She’d been more than generous with him, after all. What more could he want?

  Playfair didn’t want a thing. The doctor’s unfortunate collision with his Buick had proved to be a merely temporary setback, and business continued to be brisk. The transactions he’d conducted that morning on the lot of the Gateway Cab Co. had been reliably lucrative and he’d come to share a portion of his bountiful trade. In addition, his conversation with Guts had left him in buoyant spirits. When he entered the big man’s office, he had known right away that something was different—something besides the gleaming scalp and neatly trimmed beard, and the crisp white shirt that had replaced his well-worn tees.

  “Cufflinks,” Playfair decided. “That’s what’s different about you. Check you out.”

  In his chair behind his desk, Guts raised his forearm and studied his sleeve as if he’d never seen it before. Sunlight slid through the window over his shoulder and appeared to dance directly on the gleaming link.

  Playfair leaned over and squinted at it before sitting down. “Onyx? Man, you got ’em shining like diamonds. Black diamonds.”

  “Pearl’s doing,” Guts said sheepishly. “She
rubs them until they sparkle.”

  “I didn’t take you for a cufflinks man.”

  “They belonged to my father. He liked to dress up.”

  Playfair stared. Guts had never mentioned family.

  The big man shifted in his seat. “I had been saving them for a special occasion,” he said. “Mostly, I just kept them in a box. Pearl told me every day’s a special occasion.”

  “I can see she’s got you looking at things differently.”

  Guts nodded. “I suppose.”

  “That’s what happens when you let a woman get ahold of the family jewels.”

  Guts grunted amiably. “Listen, speaking of jewels.”

  “Right, right,” Playfair said, hunching forward. “I went by Crusher’s gym like you asked me to. It’s true—PeeWee clocked some glass-jawed sucker while wearing a big ring. He got out of Dodge while the getting was good. Funny, I see him at Stormy Monday’s a lot, but he never eats in. Lately, though, he’s been scarce.”

  Guts raised his forearm again, turning it this way and that in the sunlight. “At first I couldn’t see why Crenshaw could get so wound up over a ring,” he said. “Turns out I’m not so different. I’ve been carrying around a box of cufflinks since I was a kid. They might not mean much to anybody else, but I can’t picture not having them.” He looked up at Playfair. “That’s how Rip is with that ring. I get it now.”

  “My guess is PeeWee’s still holding on to it.”

  “I wonder why he hasn’t tried to move it?”

  “Doing what you used to do, maybe.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Saving it for a special occasion.”

  Playfair was leaning against a shiny Electra 225, his arms folded comfortably across his safari vest. Sunglasses rested atop his head. He jumped when he saw the doctor.

  She couldn’t help admiring the Buick. It looked brand-new. “How did you manage to get your car fixed so fast?” she asked. “That Mr. Cherry really is a wizard.”