“Excuse me, Miss.”
She turned to see a tall, plain-faced but exceptionally well-dressed man. He had amber skin and a salt-and-pepper beard. He said his name was Mindoo. He carried a guitar in a sling over his back.
“Let me play accompaniment to you.” He spoke with a firmness that caught Janie by surprise.
“Oh- are you sure?”
“No problem, Miss,” the man said. “Let’s see how we do.”
Janie stepped over to the mini-stage. Red-rimmed eyes and dull expressions greeted her.
“How y’all doin’ tonight?”
Grumbles.
Mindoo began to play. A tune Janie recognized- for a song in French.
Smiling, she sang along, slowly, languorously, the music coming out of her soul in low, strong, tones. Burke watched. Spellbound. Janie looked a vision: the flare of her waist emphasized by the close-fitting dress, the soft contours of her face illuminated by the barlight… Had he ever told her that purple was her color? Did she know?
Her voice, so unusually low, so even and pretty, trapped them all in its spell. Of course Burke recognized the song. It seemed it would always haunt him. She sang it in perfect French. Mindoo played silently along, his eyes never leaving Janie’s figure.
Wherever they went for the next week, somehow the mysterious man with the guitar appeared also. He only played for Janie, never saying much. He never asked for money, and he always left before they could get him with too many questions. Somehow he knew where they’d turn up, and every night he appeared there on time, right before Janie got up to sing.
When their intended stay was up, it was Burke’s idea that they stay another few days. The dullness of Rickshaw could not compete with the small, fast life they led in the city. In New Orleans, Burke and Janie could walk down the street together. They could eat together in some restaurants. He could kiss her cheek on the street, he could take her wherever they needed to go. Their lives were reinvented in the city. They were just two people in love, and nobody knew their names. When Burke suggested they delay their return, then, Janie brooked no disagreement. Neither did the Madame, who seemed to have developed a fondness for them after all.
On their last night they went to a place they’d been before. “Purple suits you,” Burke told Janie. She wore a lilac dress and a glittering blue shawl.
“You’re right,” Janie laughed, twirling so the short, swishy edges of her dress rose about her thighs. “I oughta make it my signature.”
The bar was mostly empty. Janie performed. Mindoo didn’t show up until she was done.
“Miss,” he said softly.
“Oh- hello!” Janie turned in surprise. At the sight of the other man, she beamed.
He didn’t return the smile, but produced a small, gold-rimmed card from his pocket. It read:
BIG EASY SOUNDS
RECORD COMPANY
TROILEFETTE ST., NEW ORLEANS, LA.
“When you’re ready, Miss, drop on by,” he said seriously. “You’ve got the prettiest voice this side of the Mississippi. I aim to make more people hear of you. Where you from, honey?”
Janie gawked at him, dumbfounded. “I live in Rickshaw,” she replied.
“Mississippi?”
“Yessir.”
“What you doin’ all the way out there?” He raised bushy silver eyebrows. “Don’t tell me you plannin’ on runnin’ off there again, now.”
“I gotta, sir,” Janie said. The fact of it hit her like a sack of potatoes. If only she could stay! “I’m relyin’ on someone’s charity just to be here. Findin’ honest work in this city ain’t easy. I gotta earn my bread.”
“I’ll give you a month to figure it out,” said Mindoo. “I ain’t patient, so it’s a lot fuh me to do this. Come back before then, we’ll go to my studio. We’ll see where we can take you, huh?”
“Thank you,” Janie said numbly. She grasped his arm and squeezed. “Thank you, sir.”
“Ain’t nothin’,” shrugged the older man. He smiled a brilliant, gold-studded smile. “Just show me some of that talent when you come again, and I’ll be thankin’ you.”
***
The ride back to Rickshaw was quiet. Janie’s eyes stayed fixed to the tops of the trees. They jutted against the sky. How did trees know to grow like that? What could you see, if you could stand on the very very top?
She imagined herself with soft white wings. She’d fly to the very top of the world and look out at everything. How did that verse from Psalms go?
Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away, and be at rest.
Burke came to bring her water- there wasn’t a cooler in the Colored car. The conductor eyed him beadily. Janie barely saw him. Her mind was elsewhere, soaring over the trees. Her heart was still in New Orleans, where she’d left it.
They returned to Burke’s cabin. Tired. Burke took a bath in the springs and came to the bed stark naked and dripping wet. Janie was ready for him; he entered her with one strong thrust. In the last few days he hadn’t spoken much. Such was his way. Sometimes he seemed to recede inside himself, lost in the workings of his mind. Still silent, now he claimed her with an urgent passion that Janie felt her entire being open up to like a hibiscus in bloom. He pulled her wetness out of her with his strokes. Sticky cream smeared all over her thighs. His hands fastened on her breasts, drawing them into his mouth and suckling, suckling. Janie twisted her hands in his black mane of hair. He fucked her mercilessly, roughly, holding her pinned beneath him like a butterfly. She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes: somewhere between extreme tenderness and savage lust. The same reflected back to Burke when he looked at her.
She was Janie- his Janie. He made love to her fiercely, so she couldn’t hide the screams of pleasure. Let her shout it to the rafters. He hoped the whole town heard. He turned her over and took her from behind, the folds of her pussy drawing him in greedily. The pink of her steaming pussy overflowed with a heady-smelling cream that he could taste over and over again. He watched the curves of her ass move rhythmically over his cock, working for her orgasm. He cupped the smooth brown cheeks of her ass to control his thrusting, pushing all the way to that sensitive part of her that gave the greatest release. He used some of her cream to lubricate his thumb, and pushed the digit partway inside the brown rosebud of her asshole. Janie moaned and fell forward, he knelt over her, pounding into her from behind with practiced, even thrusts. God. Janie felt hot as a furnace when he was inside her; but tight and wet, a sensation that sent cum boiling from his testicles and shooting deep inside her pussy. He withdrew and watched it leak out of her puffy, chocolate pussy in a smooth white spill. She lay facedown, legs trembling. Ragged breaths tore out of her.
A sort of gentleness seized his heart. He turned her over to face him.
“You’re mine,” he whispered. One hand fastened gently around her throat. She could breathe, but still feel the pressure of it, the power latent in his grasp. Burke would never hurt her. And he knew, as he examined the tiny scar on her lip from where she’d been roughed up, that he’d kill anyone who ever did.
“I know. And so are you,” Janie whispered back.
He brought his lips down over hers.
***
He’s hidin’ somethin’ from you, oh, he sho’ is.
Who was his Mama? His Granny?
After I kept his secret- all that I’ve done for him…
They echoed in Janie’s mind like water in an empty cave. Eroding her focus.
She walked through Burke’s house. It was nighttime. She was completely naked, damp with perspiration from their lovemaking. Burke slept in the other room, lost in a deep, full sleep that only men could get.
His cabin was small. Only two rooms. It had been built many years ago, by hands just as capable as Burke’s.
The other room was a small, study, of sorts. Books, though Burke couldn’t read- perhaps they’d been his father’s. The thought gave Janie pause. She kept meaning to breach the subject of his illit
eracy. But she was scared to- what if he told her to mind her business? What if he resented her?
Ever nosy, ever curious. Two faults that Janie would never get rid of. She brushed the sides of the small oak desk, opening a couple drawers. Dust had settled inside them all. Of course, Burke would have no reason to open them. But the very fact that he’d hung onto these things maybe said something…
Letters in spidery old handwriting crawled across paper. She shuffled through them. They were all signed “Augustus Giraud.”
One paper caught her eye in particular, because the ink had run and blurred in places, as if someone had wept over it.
It read,
Augustus,
It grieves me to hear you speak this way. Our son is a healthy boy. The circumstances of blood do not bother me. In New Orleans you see many children like this. In France we do not judge on such things so small. Surely there is no shame. You must come see me. I am sending Burke on the train. He has desired to get to know his Papa. Such a smart little boy. I know you did not mean what you said last time. I will wait for you. Please come see me once in a while. It is lonely.
-Geraldine
Janie read the letter over. Something was missing here. She felt as if something had just clicked into place. But she couldn’t tell what it was. She folded the letter up neatly and tucked it back in the drawer.
Something broke in her heart. Burke could not even read this letter from his own mother. Would he let her teach him? Could she try?
Chapter 5
One Drop
THREE WEEKS LATER
“Emmett warned me again,” said Janie. She examined her hair in the dusty old mirror. The fact that Emmett was cross with her again didn’t seem to bother her. Unless he found a replacement for her- and soon- Janie would be all set to start teaching in a week’s time. He could bleat about “upholding the image of the race” all he wanted.
“Oh? Say Janie, what’s this word?”
“Sound it out, Burke.”
Burke mouthed the word out, his finger pressing so hard on the paper the bed of his nails went white. He raised his head.
“ ‘Effectively’ ,” He pronounced.
Janie eyed it. “Good job.”
Burke bent to the table again, one hand beating out a staccato rhythm on the tabletop. Over the last three weeks he’d made incredible progress. He preferred reading to writing, but he took to both quickly and eagerly. Sometimes he forced himself to sit down with a newspaper and painfully read each word of an article. This could take him hours and often left him with a headache.
Exhausted, Burke threw the paper down and launched himself on the bed. He tucked his palms under his head and looked up at Janie.
“I’m hankerin’ for a bath, Janie,” he sighed. “I feel like I’ve been kicked by a mule.”
“I can’t join you,” she said regretfully, eyeing the clock on the wall. “I’ve got a meeting with Emmett and the church board in an hour.”
Burke smacked her bottom as she crossed past him to get her dress, which lay in a crumpled heap on the floor.
“Bring me one of those little treats Miss Esther sells, while you’re at it,” he said. “Them custard things.”
“You ate enough to bust yesterday,” Janie laughed.
“So?”
He pulled her onto the bed in one smooth motion, settling her bottom comfortably against his thighs. The dress hung about her neck.
“Burke,” she begged. “I gotta go. Don’t make me late.”
He pulled her down to him anyway, taking one of her breasts in his mouth. Somehow Janie had gained weight, which he thought made her even more stunning. Her curves slid easily under his hands. He palmed each breast, brushed the swell of her hip, then pressed a thumb to the wet button of her clitoris.
“Burke,” She groaned.
Laughing, he bit gently on a nipple then set her free.
“Tell me what they talk about,” he said.
“I will.”
Janie blew him a kiss before she swept out the door.
***
“We warned you, Janie,” were the first words out of Emmett Freeman’s mouth. She’d been ambushed. Two people were assembled in the little room of the schoolhouse. They cornered her against the door. The intentions of this were plain.
“About what?” said Janie smoothly.
She’d already made up her mind to tell the truth, if this was about Burke. She was tired of this town and tired of their obsessions. Did anyone ask her if she was happy with Burke? If he made her smile?
“We heard about what happened with Curtis.”
“That was three weeks ago,” Janie said. “I don’t get your meanin’.”
“We mean to say, you’ve already made yourself a target,” intoned Ubaldus Smith, the Pastor. A paunchy, balding older man who could never keep his spectacles on his nose.
“What do you mean?”
“Liftin’ your skirts for that white man. They all know about you, and what you’re doin’. No secrets in this town, Miss Ross.”
“I must be deaf,” said Janie. A black temper was rearing in her. “I know you ain’t about to start talkin’ under my clothes, Mr. Smith. And that ain’t even why these white men came after me. I just happened to be a black woman in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“What he’s trying to say,” Emmett broke in quickly, “I think, is what I’ve been trying to tell you, Janie. It’s a bad example for the children. It makes them think they’re invincible, that they can just frolick with white people whenever they please-”
“No child growin’ up in Rickshaw would ever think that,” Janie retorted. “And no child gives a flyin’ hog about what I’m doin’ in my spare time. You hired me to teach these children. I’ve hardly done that yet- you can’t even know what I’m worth until I prove it!”
“What you need to do is-”
“All I do, Mister Freeman, is mind my black-ass business. I don’t throw nothin’ in nobody’s face. I keep my head down and I do my dirt in private.”
“You’re supposed to be the jewel of this town, Janie,” Emmett gritted. “They’re all supposed to look up to you and see what they can become. Your behavior should be without fault. Without criticism. You must be perfect.”
“My place is here, in this schoolhouse. I’m here to educate.”
“A woman’s place is with her man, and the man must be of her people,” droned Ubaldus Smith. “Plenty of brothers in Rickshaw can meet your womanly needs. You don’t have to be hangin’ your backside out for the enemy.”
“And a man’s place is with his wife,” Janie snapped, the last threads of her self-control breaking. “You would know that if you paid attention to them sermons you preach instead of bandicootin’ with the choir director durin’ rehearsal.”
A stunned silence followed her words. Ubaldus turned purple as a plum.
“Apologize,” sputtered Emmett.
The fury was on Janie Ruth Ross, though, and she would speak her piece. She had a few words for Emmett Freeman.
“I accept any criticism on my teaching,” she said clearly. “I have nothin’ but those kids’ best interests in mind. I won’t beat ‘em. I won’t shout. And I got a whole pile of lesson plans right here.”
She flung her arm to indicate an impressive stack of papers on the desk. “I want to teach these kids to think for themselves. To live lives outside the damned rules of this place. There’s a whole big world out there but y’all want to squish people’s heads into your own narrow ways of thinkin’.”
She rounded on Emmett. “Shame! Wantin’ to make women bend and bow and lick yo’ heels. A black woman ain’t a mule, and she ain’t a prize hog you can show off, Emmett. She’s a thinkin’ human being. And I spend time with Burke because he makes me feel like one. If that ain’t a good lesson for children I don’t know what is- learn to treat people like human beings. To know what kind of treatment they deserve. If that’s a problem for you, fire me!”
The men g
athered themselves and left. Janie collapsed on one of the benches. Guilt wracked through her so fiercely she felt like sobbing.
She was being selfish. In all her gallivanting with Burke, she could have prepared more for the upcoming school year. She could have done more work, seen some of the children individually….She could have opened the schoolhouse anyway- for Christ’s sake, it was already complete enough to teach lessons!
The fact was simply that Janie did not like Rickshaw. She saw that plainly now. She hated it here as a child, and she hated it here now. Every move of hers was watched. Too much suffering. The white people had the black people of Rickshaw in an iron death-grip, and the black people, with no other outlet, began tearing each other apart. It nearly broke Janie’s heart.
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