Belle City

by Penny Mickelbury

  "People are getting back to work," Jonas continued. "That's what matters."

  She wrinkled her forehead in thought. "You're right, I suppose. Of course you're right, Jonas. Nobody would build a new bank if they thought it would fail."

  "Besides," Jonas said as he was pondering whether he'd have apple pie à la mode or bread pudding for dessert, "with a bank right here in town, especially one owned by Mr. Allen, I might even make a deposit or two myself."

  That roused Horace. "Since you and Grady Allen are such good friends and all, any reason why you don't already have your money in his bank?"

  "His bank is in Belle City. Like I just said, when his bank opens here, where I live and work, I'll give some thought to depositing some of my money in it." Jonas didn't want to be rude to Horace in front of his daughter, but he was tired of the man's moody and childish behavior. "What do you all want for dessert?"

  "What are you having?" Audrey asked.

  "Bread pudding, I think."

  "Oooh. Me too."

  "Any reason you can't tell us how it is you happen to know the man?" Edwards all but spat the words, shocking his daughter who'd probably never seen this side of him.

  "It's none of your business," Jonas said calmly, politely even, shocking Audrey even more. Her breath caught and she looked from one man to the other, confused and a little bit frightened, which aroused a strange sympathy within Jonas. He looked at her, and when he spoke, it was to her that he said, "A mutual friend introduced us, a man who had survived The Great War and thought that we could, I don't know, comfort each other since he had a son and I had a brother who had not survived it. And he was right: We did and probably still do provide an odd kind of comfort for each other, even though we no longer need to talk about it."

  "Oh, Jonas, I'm so sorry." Audrey looked truly sorry, as if the death of his brother had just happened. "How old was your brother?"

  "Nineteen," Jonas said, as he tried—and failed—to conjure up an image of his long dead older brother. He barely remembered his name. He looked at his watch and stood up. "I'm sorry but I don't really have time for dessert. I need to get home to change clothes and get back to the store." He put some money on the table. "You all stay as long as like, have tea or coffee or dessert—whatever you like—no need for you to rush." He finally looked at his new partner. "I'll see you in the morning, Horace." Then he looked at Audrey and smiled. "It was a real pleasure meeting you, Miss Edwards. I hope to see you again. Soon."

  Horace stood up quickly. Audrey did too, still looking distressed. "We'll give you a ride home, Jonas," Horace said.

  "Why do you have to change clothes?" Audrey asked, then blushed at the look her father gave her.

  Jonas laughed. "I don't wear a suit and tie every day like Mr. Allen and your papa because I work in a grocery store, not a bank or a real estate office."

  "Speaking of which," Horace said as they headed for the exit, "we're gonna need us an office here in Carrie's Crossing so we can figure out where all those road workers are gonna live."

  "I think I can help with that," Jonas said, leading them out of the restaurant and toward the three buildings he owned on the street. They passed the furniture store and the grocery store and stopped in front of the defunct pub. He unlocked and opened the door and switched on the light, then stood back for Audrey and Horace to enter. Audrey stood beside him. Horace walked all around, front to back, even pushing his way through all the boxes of canned goods, to see every corner of the space. "What do you think?" Jonas asked when Horace finally completed his inspection.

  "I remember you told me about this place the first time we met. You remember that?" When Jonas nodded, Horace said, "I think you better get used to wearing a suit and tie every day" and clapped him on the back, as if there hadn't been a moment of tension or hostility between them. "This is perfect. And right in the heart of downtown."

  "I'll find new warehouse space and get this place cleaned out," Jonas said. "And I guess I'd better buy some new suits."

  "Come on, we'll take you home," Horace said, and Jonas stopped himself from refusing the offer. He knew that Horace wanted to see where he lived, and he could avoid that for only so long. After all, the man now was his partner. He'd have to invite him and his wife to dinner…or whatever it was that high class business people did. He'd need to learn the rules.

  The drive from his stores to his home was a brief one. Horace was driving now—too fast—and he skidded to stop just past the driveway, requiring him to back up and then turn in. He drove all the way up beside the house, threw the car into gear, and got out. Then he walked all the way around the house, the way he'd walked all the way through the warehouse just a few moments ago. The house sat atop a small rise and there were no other houses visible, though one of Horace Edwards's developments would, one day in the not to distant future, rise on the other side of the woods.

  "This is a very nice house, Jonas," Horace finally said.

  "It's a very beautiful house, Jonas," Audrey said. "A bit unusual, but beautiful."

  Jonas didn't say anything because what he wanted to say would do nothing but cause upset and trouble, and there was no point to that. And anyway, his house was none of their business. "If you take a right turn out of the yard here, Horace, the road will run you right into the Belle City Road. You won't have to go back through town unless you just want to."

  Horace gave him a look he was learning to understand all to well. It was the look of a balking mule: Stubborn, recalcitrant, rebellious, hostile. Horace wanted to ask about the house, but he was learning a bit about Jonas too: To ask about what was none of his business likely would earn him the kind of stinging rebuke his ego was loathe to accept. "I didn't know there was a shortcut to the Belle City Road."

  Jonas gave him a conciliatory smile. "Nobody but us old-timers knows about it. It wasn't even paved for a long time, nothing but wheel ruts and mud."

  "This is the road Grady Allen was talking about, isn't it? Colored Town Road, isn't that what he called it?" Horace stared at the road behind Jonas's house. "Colored folks lived 'round here? This close to your house?"

  "That's right," Jonas said, spoiling for the fight he'd been avoiding all day. Horace looked beyond the road and pointed toward the empty fields and the acres of wild growth beyond it. "Who owns all that land yonder?"

  "I do," Jonas said.

  "All of it?" Horace asked.

  "All of it," Jonas answered.

  "Well," Horace said and lifted his hat and scratched his head. "Well, now," he said, and let his eyes scan the horizon. Then he turned away, walked to his car, got in and started the motor. If his daughter hadn't run to open the door and fling herself into the passenger seat, Jonas thought the man would have left her. He watched them disappear down the road, his thoughts a jumble of contradictions. He was flat-out glad to see the back of Horace Edwards and was not looking forward to the following day when he'd have to see him again. On the other hand, he'd have liked to spend more time with Audrey, and he hoped that she would accompany her father to the bank in the morning.

  He walked to the road and looked beyond the emptiness into the past. He could see Maisy Cooper's house and barn, and the houses and farms of the other Colored families who had lived there. He allowed himself a momentary delight as he realized that Horace thought that he had lived on Colored Town Road across the street from Colored people. The thought took hold and, as he recalled the look on the man's face, he laughed out loud. Then, as always happened when he looked across the road and remembered, the shade of sadness dropped down. He had bought up all the houses and land stolen from the Colored people the night that his own pa had stolen Will Thatcher's land, and the KKK thieves were happy to sell it, especially those like the police chief who were, themselves, being run out of town. He'd driven over to Belle City, to First Freeman's house, with the five property deeds in his pocket, proud to be able to return the land to the rightful owners. He would never, if he lived to be a hundred, forget the look on the
old man's face: Stunned amazement that quickly turned into disbelief that just as quickly was replaced by something that felt to Jonas like pity. "They don't want that land, Jonas. They don't want no parts of the Crossing, not no more and not ever again. They call Belle City home now. They forgot all about a place called Carrie's Crossing, like it never was."

  Jonas shook himself back to the present. He needed to go get his car and to begin cleaning out the warehouse so that it could become a real estate office and he could become—what?

  He shook hands with Grady Allen and Horace Edwards after all the contracts were signed. Both men clapped him on the back. "How does it feel to be a real estate developer, Jonas?" Allen asked him.

  "Is that what I am? A developer?"

  The two older men chuckled in a worldly, all knowing kind of way. "What do you think we should call you?" Horace asked in a challenging kind of way.

  "How about builder?"

  "You plan on building something, Jonas?" Allen asked.

  "Yep," Jonas said, looking at Horace. "Me and my real estate partner are gonna build some places for those road construction workers to live. On some of that land I own on the old Colored Town Road. And we truly do need to give it a new name."

  They looked at him, each in a different way. Allen's look was speculative. He was imagining the housing. Horace's look was belligerent and defiant, and he was shaking his head back and forth. "One thing we don't want in Belle City, not now, not ever, is low class people, and you build some place for construction workers to live and it starts out as low class and goes down from there. You might as well keep the Colored Town name."

  Jonas studied him for a moment, then turned to look at Grady Allen, who was studying him. Jonas let him and waited for him to speak.

  "What's your thinking, Son?"

  "We're going to need to run water and electricity through there anyway. You know there isn't any because we didn't put it in for the Colored." Allen flushed a bit at those words, but nodded for Jonas to continue. "We can build some dormitory-like places for the workers—nothing but men anyway, right? But they'll have hot and cold running water and toilets and kitchens and heat. We can put those up cheap and when the road is finished, we can pull 'em down and put up something better, something nicer. Something more high class, Horace. And they'll be paying rent, the road workers, which should off-set the cost of building the places and tearing them down."

  Allen was nodding. "Can probably get the government to pay to level the land and cut the road through."

  "Maybe run the water and electricity, too?" Jonas asked.

  "Then we better get started," Horace said. "Weather is holding pretty good for it being almost winter, but it won't last. Nobody but that damfool Roosevelt would start to build a road in the winter time."

  From the Diary of Jonas Farley Thatcher

  Christmas 1934. I wish I had a friend, somebody I could talk to about things, about what I think and feel. About whether I should marry Audrey Edwards. I do truly like her a lot, more than I ever liked a girl, and people keep telling me it's time to get married and start a family. Until I met Audrey I didn't agree with that but now I do. Except I don't know if she loves me more or loves her pa more and I don't think a man should have a wife he cannot trust. I also donnot like her mother. Alice is her name and she calls colored people niggers and coons all the time. She did it so many times at dinner tonite at Mr. Allen's house that Mrs. Allen had to ask her to stop that kind of talk at the dinner table. She was talking to Mrs. Allen's help, calling them things right when they were in the room serving the food. Mr. Allen said he didn't like that kind of talk either, like his wife. Then I said I didn't like it either and Audrey looked at me, then she looked at her pa. I never heard her talk like that so I don't know if she thinks that way but I will have to find out. I think I will have to ask my sister what I should do because I donot have any friends. I wish Beau thought I was his friend but he does not. Si either. I wish Mr. First was still here but he is gone now--him and Miss Maisy Cooper both. I tell myself I should be more happy. I am rich. I have maybe more business than a man needs. The men are ready to start building Mr. Roosevelt's road. The CCC it is called and it will be one place in Georgia where The Great Depression will be over. No matter what Horace Edwards says or thinks, Mr. Roosevelt is a good president. He is doing good things for everybody.

  ***

  – Belle City –

  Ruthie

  "It might be a new deal for some people, but it's the same old deal for us." Little Si paced back and forth, fists tight balls at his sides. "No Colored men will be hired to help build that road from Carrie's Crossing to Belle City. What exactly do we have to do to get a fair deal?"

  Big Si held up several newspapers—the Chicago Defender, the Amsterdam Daily News, the Pittsburg Courier—newspapers that he could not read but which his two children who could read would read to him in their entirety almost every day. "But I thought it said that Colored were getting work in that CCC and WPA." He looked over at Little Si, who was still pacing, and at Ruth, who was sitting beside her husband, head on his shoulder, almost asleep. "Isn't that what y'all read in these newspapers? And didn't I hear that same thing on the radio? Isn't that what you read to me, Ruth?"

  Ruthie roused herself. "Yes, Pa—" she began, but Beau cut her off.

  "Roosevelt's paying for it, Pa, but he's letting the local governments do the hiring, by their own rules, and no government down here is gon' hire Colored. So Si is right: It's the same ol' deal for us."

  "So it's only the Colored people up North who're getting' the New Deal?" Big Si asked.

  They all nodded, and Beau added, "We won't see the end of this Depression 'til all the white folks in America is back to work. Maybe the white folks in Italy and France and Germany, too. Then maybe we can find ourselves a job."

  "I hope it's soon." Mack, Ruth's husband, stood and began to pace, but had to stop because the living room wasn't large enough for both him and Little Si. "I can't build houses if people don't have money to buy 'em."

  "You should've been hired to help build that road, or those new school houses," Little Si said. "They're closing schools for Colored children 'cause they say they can't pay the teachers, but they're building new schools for white children. It's wrong, Pa. It's just plain wrong, and I'm sick and tired of it."

  "But the law," Big Si said, still brandishing the newspapers. "Don't the law say they got to let Colored get some of this gov'ment money?"

  "They make laws to fit their wants and needs, not ours," Little Si said bitterly.

  "I wish that wasn't the truth," Mack said, "but the truth is: It is."

  Big Si looked up at them. "Why don't y'all sit down," he said in his steady, calm voice, but it was not a request, and both men sat, Mack beside his wife and Si beside his wife, and for a brief moment there was no sound but the crackle and pop of the fire that roared in the grate. Though it was just a little past three in the afternoon, wintertime dusk was falling outside, so the fire did double duty: Heat and light.

  This after-church Sunday dinner was rare in its peace and quiet because all the children were elsewhere—with grandparents or aunts and uncles. Rare also because it was just Big Si's children and their spouses at Big Si's house—the house that had belonged to First Freeman until his death four years earlier. Big Si had added a second sofa to the living room and had Mack build a dining table long enough to seat twenty adults, and there still wasn't enough room when the whole family gathered. Only Mack's parents had a house that large, and they had hosted the New Year's celebration five days ago, though there wasn't much joy or merriment. The only good thing about the arrival of 1935, they all agreed, was it brought an end to 1934. The Depression, however, was still going strong.

  "Are you ready to eat, Pa?" Ruth asked, getting so slowly to her feet that Mack had to help her. She was exhausted; it was her natural state these days and Mack stood beside her, supporting her. Despite the fact that she loved her children to distraction,
she was glad to have them parceled out today: Nellie at Mack's parents' and the boys at Tobias and Little Si's mother-in-law's. As much as Big Si appreciated the huge extended family that his offspring's marriages had produced, he got real pleasure from having them to himself on occasion. It meant he got to see how they were doing, and Ruth looked about to fall over. He stood up at the same time that Tobias's wife, Belle, pushed herself to her feet, one hand to her lower back, the other cradling her eight months of pregnancy. That got Toby to his feet and they all headed for the kitchen. Big Si turned to see if Little Si and Catherine followed and what he saw hurt him more deeply than he had words to express: They sat side by side, not looking at each other, not talking to each other, not touching each other. Two granite statues.

  "Pa, do you know what's troubling Little Si and Cathy?" Ruthie was at his side, leaning into him, as she placed bowls of food on the table to join those that he'd already placed there. There would be a lot of food. Whoever served food these days made extra for the visitors to take home. Whoever had food these days shared, as a matter of course, and Big Si Thatcher had more than most: His entire backyard was a garden. All his years of experience as a farmer had been recalled, thanks to the depression.

  "I was thinkin' maybe you knew," he said sadly. "Whatever it is, it's bad."

  "Belle's baby?" Ruth whispered the query. That Little Si and Catherine remained childless was a pain borne not just by them but by the entire family. Belle's baby would make three for her and Tobias. Ruthie and Mack had four. Only the unmarried Beau and Belle and Cathy's unmarried baby sister, Helen, had no children. Both said, with obvious and heartfelt relief, that they were content to be auntie and uncle.

  "Her Ma said she wasn't upset by that anymore."

  "Then I don't know, Pa," Ruthie said. "I can ask Mack to ask Si—"

  Big Si was shaking his head. "Don't do that. Just leave it be."