“Who are they?” I point at the pictures on the wall.
“They are several of the authors from our lecture series. Of course, Chicago is home to many esteemed Negro writers.” She smiles. I nod like I know exactly what she’s talking about.
I don’t see a white person anywhere. “This a library for colored folks?” I whisper.
She stops and the smile is gone from her face. “A library for colored folks? It’s a library for Chicago residents,” she says, serious.
I don’t know what residents means. But sounds to me like that means it’s a colored library. We keep on walking.
“It is named for a colored man, however.” She keeps walking. She has a way of talking sounds like her lips are too tight for her face. “George Cleveland Hall was a local physician. He served on the board of directors as one of the Chicago Public Library’s first Negro members.”
“So he built this here library?” I ask, nearly out of breath trying to keep up with her, listen about Mr. Hall, and look at the books at the same time.
She stops short and I almost walk right into her back. “He didn’t build the library.” She looks serious again. “But it was because of his efforts to ensure this community had a library that this branch was built fifteen years ago. It was named in his honor.”
I nod again, pretending I understand. History ain’t one of my favorite subjects, but I ain’t ever learned any history about colored folks being physicians and directors.
Downstairs I see kids my age, some younger ones too with their mothers, sitting at smaller tables, looking though books.
When we get downstairs she says, “My name is Mrs. Kimble. I am the adult librarian, but Miss Cook at the desk will help you with your selections.” Her voice is so crisp and clear, she makes every word sound special. “Miss Cook is the children’s librarian.”
Librarian, selections. I don’t know what any of those words mean. But I aim to find out.
“Thank you ma’am.”
“Mrs. Kimble,” she says.
“Thank you, Mrs. Kimble,” I say, happy when she turns to go back upstairs.
I go back to the shelf and back to the book with the words from my heart. I take it from the shelf, looking around to make sure it’s okay. I sit at one of the empty tables close to the window and open the book.
I’m gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain.
I have to stop. I can feel the choking in my throat that always starts right before the tears. I look to make sure no one’s watching, but everyone is looking at their own books. Miss Cook is at her desk, busy sorting through cards. I stand so fast I knock over my chair. Miss Cook looks up.
“Would you like to check that out?” she asks.
Check out. More words I’ll need to learn.
“Ma’am?” I say.
She waves me over.
I stand in front of her at the desk and she tells me I can borrow any book I want with a library card. But first she needs my name and address.
A place where you can borrow books, I remember Mama telling me.
Before I give her my address I ask, “Are you a librarian?”
“Yes I am,” she answers with a smile.
A librarian is someone who lets you borrow books in a library. One word down, I think.
“Forty-five-oh-one Wabash.”
She writes that down. “And your name?”
“Langston,” I tell her.
Langston? Any chance your last name is Hughes?” She laughs.
I don’t get the joke. She points to the book in my hand. “Are you named after the poet Langston Hughes?”
“No ma’am. Just a name my mama and daddy picked out, I guess.”
“Well, he is a great namesake.” She stamps a card and puts it in the back of the book, then hands me a card inside a small yellow envelope. “This is your library card. Take good care of it, because it allows you to come back and check out books. This is due back in two weeks.”
“Two weeks? I can keep this book for two weeks?” I ask.
“Yes, then it needs to be returned.”
I don’t care now ’bout how many questions I ask. There’s things I need to know.
“Then I can take out more?”
“Of course. In fact you can take out up to five books at a time.”
“Five?”
I sound like a parrot, repeating everything she says.
“Would you like to make more selections?”
“No ma’am,” I say.
For now I just need this one here filled with pretty words.
This lady said the Langston who wrote these words is a poet. Seems more like a magician to me, pulling words from my heart I never knew I had.
“I’ll be back!” I nearly shout.
She laughs again. “I’m sure you will,” she says.
I walk fast as I can to get home ’fore Daddy and ’fore his questions. But I got questions of my own. I’m thinking so much about Langston Hughes, I get to my apartment before I know it.
Daddy’s not home yet, and for the first time I’m happy to be alone, with my book. I lie down on my bedspread and open it slowly just as I hear Daddy’s key in the door.
I squeeze the book ’tween the bed frame and the wall till it wedges in tight, then I jump up quick.
“What you doing?” Daddy asks, looking at me funny.
“Nothing sir, just thinking is all.”
“Well, think over here and help me get these groceries put away,” Daddy says. Fridays Daddy picks up some of our food shopping at the market on the corner. We got an account there when we moved here. The owner, Mr. Fields, is mean as can be, but Daddy says he’s honest with his books, don’t charge more than he has to, and that’s good enough for him.
“Yes sir.”
Tonight while we’re eating the chicken cooked too long and rice not cooked enough, I’m missing Mama’s neckbones, gravy, and cornbread bad.
Maybe that’s what makes me ask him, “Why’d you and Mama name me Langston?”
“Wasn’t me named you,” Daddy says, his mouth full. “That name’s all your mama.”
“Why’d she name me Langston?”
“S’pose she liked it. She told me one day, ‘We have a boy, I wanna name him Langston,’ and that was that.”
“You like the name?” I ask, looking down into my plate.
“Like it enough,” Daddy says. “Wish you could have been named after me. Henry Junior.”
I laugh then, but Daddy doesn’t laugh back.
We eat the rest of our meal in silence.
Later in bed when I hear Daddy’s snores I squeeze my hand next to the bed and get the book. The light coming through the front window is enough so I can just barely read the words. I turn the pages slow so Daddy can’t hear. He rolls over and I quickly hide the book under my bedcovers. When the snoring starts again, I take it out. Know I should be sleeping. Know I’m going to be tired tomorrow when Daddy wakes me up. But the words make me turn page after page after page.
I wake up to Daddy fussing. “C’mon, son, we gotta get a move on.”
Just like back at home, Saturday is the day me and Daddy run errands. When I roll over on top of my book I look, but Daddy’s back is turned to me, buttoning his suspenders. I tuck the book away and pull on my clothes.
I eat my burned toast and Daddy gathers up some papers and folds them into his jacket. Out in the hallway, loud music is coming from the apartment next door. Down two flights our neighbor on the second floor has her apartment door open and the smell of eggs and bacon frying in the skillet on the stove makes my stomach growl. We step around younger boys playing marbles on the sidewal
k. Makes me wish my Saturdays were my own with nothing on my mind but friends and marbles. We start off down Wabash, cut through the alley and walk behind the buildings, over to Indiana. Out on the sidewalks in front I can pretend Chicago ain’t so bad, but in the alleys and around in back of the buildings, ain’t no hiding the dirt. We got to jump over puddles of dirty water and busted-up furniture, piles of trash. I hate walking in back of the buildings but it’s a shortcut. Back home, we couldn’t see a neighbor for miles. I’ll never get used to people living on top of each other. I’ll never get used to everybody knowing what time you get up in the morning and what you’re cooking for breakfast. And everyone too busy to say a decent “Mornin’” when you see them on the street. Back home I had space to breathe. Had to walk down the road a ways to get to our nearest neighbor, but if somebody got sick, or was in need of a hand, folks were there to help ’fore you knew it. I knew I had to act right, because someone was always watching, waiting to get word back to my folks. Here, in a city filled with people, I can count on one hand how many know my name.
First we go to the bank so Daddy can cash his check. Then he drops off the rent money. Then Daddy tucks some bills into an envelope he mails at the post office. It’s the money he mails to Aunt Lena back home. She’s all alone with her three girls plus she’s watching out for Grandma too. I asked Daddy once why he sends money every week when sometimes it means we gotta go without.
“A man takes care of his family,” is what he said. But I thought, Ain’t I family?
I don’t mind being outside running errands, even with the days getting colder. Can’t stand being cramped inside with nowhere to turn and missing Mama hanging between me and Daddy. Makes our small apartment feel like a closet. Plus, I know when we get back to our apartment Daddy will fill the small sink with water and soap powder to wash our clothes. The sink in the corner of our room is hardly big enough to wash our dishes so it sure ain’t fit for washing clothes. They never get as clean as Mama could get them with her washtub. Daddy hangs a rope across the room to hang the clothes till they dry, stiff and hard. No matter how hard Daddy wrings them, they still drip on the floor. We just gotta shake them smooth, ’cause we don’t have an iron.
Saturday was always Mama’s wash day. She’d sort all the clothes into piles and start to washing early in the morning before cooking breakfast. Once we got up, she stripped the sheets from the beds and washed them too. It would take near the whole day to wash, hang the clothes out on the line, and iron them, but I loved the way the house smelled clean with wood polish and soap. And on Saturday night, after my bath, when I lay in my bed, my pillowcase, worn thin from washing and sun, smelled sweet.
Our last stop is the fish market. Line is out the door, but we line up too, making our way to the counter and leaving footprints in the sawdust on the floor. Daddy likes to have fish on Saturdays, like Mama fried up back home. Fresh porgies, dipped in egg, a little cornmeal and flour, and fried in a big pot of hot grease till they were golden brown and crispy on the edges. Time Daddy finished eating, nothing but a pile of bones left on his plate. Mama would boil vinegar on the stove later to get rid of the fish smell, but Daddy don’t bother about the smell in our apartment. And his fish don’t taste nothing like Mama’s, but I eat it just the same. Mama used to smile as she watched the bones pile up on our plates. She’d rub Daddy’s back as she sat at the table, talking nonstop when our mouths were full and keeping an eye out to make sure we had enough. Tasted so good, I didn’t stop eating till I felt sick.
“Next!” fish man calls out, and Daddy steps forward.
“Pound of porgies,” Daddy says, “head and tails on.”
“Country…,” someone snickers from behind. I think it’s one of the kids from school till I turn and see only grown-ups in line behind us. I look at Daddy. Don’t think he heard, because he doesn’t say anything and doesn’t turn around. The fish man hands him the fish wrapped in brown paper.
Out on the sidewalk I say, “Ever make you mad when people call you country?”
“Ain’t no shame in being from the country,” Daddy says, not slowing down.
“At school…,” I start. But I can’t say it.
“At school what?” Daddy asks.
“Nothing,” I answer.
We’re just about at the fourth floor when I see Ms. Fulton coming out of her apartment with her shopping cart, and my chest gets tight. I’m so tired from staying up last night reading, I just want to get into bed and close my eyes.
“Afternoon, Miss Fulton,” Daddy says.
“Afternoon, Henry,” she says back, sweet as can be.
I ain’t seen Daddy smile this hard since we moved to Chicago.
“Langston be happy to help you with your cart.”
Langston would not be happy to help with your cart. Langston is tired and…
“That’s so kind.” Her smile at me ain’t nothing like the one she had for Daddy. So it’s back downstairs, to the market and back again, her wide behind swinging in my face all the way up the stairs with me dragging a heavy cart step by step.
Time I get back the clothes are hanging from the line and Daddy’s already started frying the fish. I close the door soft and make my way to the bed when he says, “We need to get this floor swept and mopped.”
I get the broom from the closet and start sweeping. As the pile of dirt grows bigger, I keep thinking, I’m never going to stay up late reading again.
But when the fish is gone, the plates are washed, the floor is swept and mopped, and Daddy is snoring, all I can think of is how much I wish I were back in Alabama in a house that didn’t smell like fish and sound like a honky-tonk on a Saturday night, and how I wish I could hear the night sounds of crickets and feel my Mama’s soft lips on my forehead. My eyes are heavy, but I still pull out the book from my hiding spot and read.
Folks, I come up North
Cause they told me de North was fine.
I come up North
Cause they told me de North was fine.
Been up here six months—
I’m about to lose my mind.
I’m not the only Langston was lied to.
* * *
—
Every Sunday morning we walk down the block to church. Not like the church at home, painted white with pews inside. This church got a sign painted out front says PRAISE TABERNACLE. Daddy and I sit all the way at the back of the church that don’t feel nothing like a church. More like a store, but the folks inside are dressed like church folks. And praising like church folks, jumping from their seats when the music gets good and the preacher gets to preaching loud. With hats so tall I can barely see up front. But I can hear the preacher shouting from the stage. Daddy brought along his Bible, so we read Proverbs 3:5 along with the deacon’s scripture reading:
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart;
and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Daddy used to read his Bible every night after supper. Since Mama died, only time he picks it up is Sundays when he head to church. Got a feeling we’re here ’cause he feels Mama would have wanted it for me. But his heart ain’t here and neither is mine. It’s like our faith got buried right along with Mama and now it’s covered over with dirt and a tombstone back in Alabama.
I found the letter came in the mail last week. Daddy been hiding it under his bed. I’m up late for school and Daddy left me behind. Usually we walk together to the end of the block, then he goes left for the el and I go right for school. Today I turn the apartment upside down looking for my key. I find four pennies fell out of Daddy’s pocket, and one of my old marbles I been looking for. In a crack between the floorboards I finally find the key. But while I’m looking under Daddy’s bed, I see a shoebox pushed all the way into the corner. I know it isn’t right. Can hear Daddy’s voice in my head saying looking at something don’t belong to you is same as stealing. A sin. Folks always say my daddy is a godl
y man, but he don’t leave much room for things that ain’t a sin.
So even though I know it’s a sin, I open the box and take a look. I see a couple of letters with the wiggly writing. And other letters at the bottom tied with a ribbon. These don’t have envelopes, just girly writing, smell like perfume. I’ll get to those later, but first I open the letter I want.
Dearest Henry,
God’s blessings on you and Langston hope you both are well in chicago bet it’s cold there now. Henry I’m sorry to tell you mama is doing poorly. Since she got that cold last month she just can’t seem to get right. Keep me up half the night coughing not that I’m complaining God has blessed me with the strength to carry on in good times and bad. We sure appreciate the money you been sending but with her cough getting worse I may need a little something extra to get her to the doctor if you have it to spare.
Tell Langston be good for his daddy.
prayerfully yours,
Lena
Grandma is sick? I never seen my grandma sick a day in my life. I barely saw Grandma sit down, let alone take to bed. Mama said that was because she was used to taking care of herself after Daddy’s daddy died. Since then, she had to be a mama and a daddy. A man and a woman I guess. She cooked just as good as she farmed. Sundays after services, seemed like half the church would come by for supper. Grandma had a long table and she’d lay out dish after dish on her old lace tablecloth. After the ham, macaroni and cheese, fried okra, biscuits, green beans swimming in butter, and sweet tea, Mama and Aunt Lena cleared the table and brought out the pies. Grandma sat at the head telling stories.
When Mama took sick, was Grandma came and tended to her when me and Daddy couldn’t. Treated Mama like a newborn baby. Washing her, feeding her, changing the sheets when she wet herself. And at night, after Grandma cooked our dinner and cleaned up too, she sat by the bed, brushing and plaiting Mama’s hair, and singing songs so sweet my eyes filled with water. She loved Mama near as much as me and Daddy.
Finding Langston Page 3
