Delta Belles

by Penelope J. Stokes

  “I hear you’ll be hanging around after graduation,” he said, “starting your master’s program. How would you feel about having dinner with me next week, getting to know each other better?”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Delta realized she had been praying he’d ask. Well, maybe not praying, exactly, but wishing. Wanting.

  “Sure,” she said casually, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other. “Why not?”

  It was a minor deception, downplaying her enthusiasm, but in the face of his openness it felt like betrayal. “I’d like that very much,” she amended.

  “Good. I’ll call you.”

  “Don’t you need my number?” Delta asked.

  “I’ve got it,” he said. “But I should give you mine in case you need to get in touch.” He fished in his pocket and handed her a small card. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have something I need to do.”

  Delta watched him move toward the front of the crowd, then glanced down at the business card.

  FIRST COMMUNITY Church

  REV. RANKIN BALLOU, PASTOR

  “Holy shit,” Delta muttered. “I’ve got a date with a preacher. ”‘

  BUT HE WAS LIKE no preacher she had ever heard. He mounted the steps of the administration building two at a time, and when he turned back toward the quad, a rippling murmur ran through the crowd. The shouting and jeering died, and on both sides of the invisible barrier, all eyes turned toward him.

  “Some among us,” Rankin began, “would have us believe that God hates those who are different from the majority. That people who do not live the way we live or love the way we love are an abomination.” His voice rang with confidence and authority across the green, and his eyes rested on the group to his right with an expression not of hatred or contempt, but of compassion. “We are afraid, and in our fear we strike out at those who threaten the beliefs we hold dear.

  “Fear expresses itself in words and deeds of hatred,” he continued. “Ugly, embittered words like dyke and faggot ”.’ He lifted his eyes. “Dyke, by the way, is spelled with a y, and faggot with two g ’s.” A titter began to thread its way through the crowd. “Just for future reference,” he said. “You might want to correct your sign before the next protest.”

  The laughter increased, and whoever was carrying the poster in question put it down. Rankins gaze swung around toward the left, and he caught Deltas eye and gave a solemn nod.

  “I am sometimes ashamed of being a Christian,” he went on, “because of what Christians have done to the name. I am sometimes ashamed of being a minister because of how ministers have abused their power. I am sometimes ashamed of claiming the Bible as my sacred text because of how it has been misused to hurt millions of people.

  “But it remains my sacred text,” Rankin declared, “because the voices of hatred and hostility do not tell the story of who God is.”

  The crowd had fallen silent now, mesmerized. No one moved or spoke. Delta felt a presence at her side and turned to see Rae Dawn standing next to her, with Tabby Austin in tow.

  RAE, STILL FURIOUS with Tabby, pushed in beside Delta. She refused to stand next to the traitor who, in her utter stupidity, had shot her mouth off and caused this commotion in the first place. But it didn’t take long for Rae to forget her irritation. Peace emanated from the man who was speaking, a peace that had to do with his inner spirit as well as his words.

  “Who is this guy?” she murmured to Delta.

  “His name is Rankin Ballou, and he’s the minister at”—she glanced down at the card she was holding—“First Community Church.”

  “Jeez,” Rae breathed. “I’ve never heard of a preacher who would stand up for gay folks. That’s the kind of church I might actually want to go to.”

  “I’ve seen him around at protests and rallies,” Delta whispered. “He’s very involved in social causes. But I never met him until today.”

  Rankin Ballou was speaking again, his words gaining momentum, rolling over his listeners like the waters of righteousness.

  “God’s voice,” he said, “is not the voice of violence and malice. God’s voice is the voice of love.

  “The voice of love is heard in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., who declared, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’

  “The voice of love is heard in the words of a Holocaust survivor, who wrote, ‘Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.’

  “And the voice of love is heard in the words of Jesus of Nazareth, who proclaimed, ‘Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.’ ”

  The silence deepened. “Jesus was not a bystander. Not only did he speak with the voice of love, he lived by the law of love. He ate with sinners, drew outcasts into his circle of friends, embraced those whom society called unclean. He touched. He healed. He forgave. In the end he died for it, but while he lived, he lived the best example of the love of God the world has ever seen. An example not of hatred and exclusion, but of acceptance and affirmation.”

  Rankin’s eyes roamed over the assembled multitude. “Who will cast the first stone?” He looked into the eyes of one person, and then the next. “Who among us is so pure of heart and so perfect in love as to dare to judge another? Who among us is so righteous as to condemn another’s love, when God’s own name is Love? Who will cast the first stone?”

  His voice had grown quiet now, but the crowd had no difficulty hearing him. “Who will cast the first stone?” he repeated.

  A murmur ran through the knot of those gathered on the opposite side of the green. Some of them were shaking their heads, and a few threw angry glances in the minister’s direction. But many were shifting, walking away. The knot unraveled, and Rankin Ballou stood there in silence, unflinching, as most of them returned to their cars and drove away.

  Rae Dawn watched as the protesters on the other side of the quad dispersed. A breath of hope blew into her soul. Hope for Frankie Bowen and Suzanne Hart. Hope for herself. Hope for the future.

  And then she saw him. In the back of the crowd, almost hidden at this angle by the tall bronze fountain. A thin, wiry figure with a shock of unruly white hair.

  “HOW COULD YOU?” Rae Dawn demanded. “How could you advocate the dismissal of two of your own colleagues? How could you betray them like that? How could you stand there on the side of bigotry and injustice? You, of all people!”

  Dr. Gottlieb sank down into his leather office chair and ran his hands over his face. “Why me, of all people?” he asked in a weary voice.

  “Because you were there. You survived. You saw it firsthand, the result of blind hatred and inequality.”

  “This is not the same.”

  Rae towered over him, and he seemed to shrink. “Tell me why it is not the same. Why is it evil for Jews to be persecuted and ostracized and murdered, but it is not evil to do the same to any other group?”

  Gottlieb managed a wan smile. It seemed a monumental effort. “You are like a daughter to me, Rae Dawn. God’s gift to an old mans heart. When I look at you, when I hear your music, hear your laugh, I can almost believe you have been given to me as a gift, a reparation for those years behind the barbed-wire fences. I would willingly throw my body between you and the Nazis’ rifles, between you and the gas and the ovens. But you are young. Young and innocent and impressionable. Do not be angry with me. You do not understand the ways of the world.”

  “I understand a hell of a lot more than you give me credit for,” she snapped.

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Trust me, this issue of homosexuality—it is different.”

  “You haven’t answered my question. Why is it different?”

  A momentary fire blazed in his eyes, and his jaw clenched. “Because I could not choose no longer to be a Jew.”

  The words, clipped and precise, beat a staccato rhythm against her eardrums. She wanted to respect him, to love him. But the implications of his position burned like acid in her gut. “A
nd they could choose not to be gay?”

  He stood suddenly, slamming his hands down flat on the top of his desk. “I saw them there, in the camps, those pink triangles!” he shouted. “They defied the laws of God and human nature, and they were punished. They chose their fate!”

  “So it’s their fault that they died?” She held his eyes and would not look away. “Or is it God’s fault?”

  All the fire went out of him and he sagged into his chair like a deflated balloon. “They chose,” he repeated stubbornly.

  “They did not choose,” she whispered.

  “And how are you so certain, daughter of my heart?” he said in a cracked and shaky voice.

  Rae Dawn leaned on the edge of the desk and gazed down at him. Her answer would hurt and confuse him, but she spoke the truth anyway.

  “Because I would have worn a pink triangle,” she said, “and I did not choose.”

  PART 3

  LOSING TOUCH

  Frozen, captured in the dark,

  we take an arbitrary step,

  squint our eyes and strain our ears

  but cannot see or hear

  what lies beyond,

  shrouded by fog and shadows.

  And so we stumble forward,

  oblivious to how one small diversion

  veers us toward a different path,

  or how one voice

  can lure us to our doom

  or to our calling.

  EIGHTEEN

  WOMAN ON THE WIRE

  NEW Orleans

  SEPTEMBER 1994

  Upstairs, in the spacious apartment on Dauphine Street, the memory returned to Rae Dawn in such vivid clarity and detail that it might have been a movie reel spinning out inside her head. That day in his office, when they had argued, had been the last time she had seen Manfred Gottlieb alive—really alive, anyway They had both gone through the motions until graduation, speaking with caution and restraint when they had to speak, keeping silent and avoiding one another when they didn’t. Rae had completed the final revisions of “Woman on the Wind” and played it at her senior recital to a rousing ovation. She had sat through the mind-numbing commencement speeches, received her diploma and the music departments coveted composition award, played one last concert with the Delta Belles at the graduation banquet—events that should have been highlights, and yet her recollections of them were grainy and faded. In those final weeks between her confrontation with Gottlieb and her departure from the college, Rae had apparently been on autopilot.

  Still, Gottlieb had been true to his word. He had contacted an old friend from New Orleans, the owner of a small club called Maison Dauphine. The man hired Rae Dawn, sight unseen, on the strength of Gottliebs word alone.

  “Manny said I wouldn’t be sorry for doing this,” Chase Coulter said the first time Rae met him. “Don’t make a liar out of him.”

  “Manny?” Rae almost laughed, then caught herself. She had never heard anyone refer to Gottlieb with a nickname, and the idea that he’d be friends with a man like Chase Coulter was almost beyond belief. Chase was a beefy, red-faced tough guy who looked more like a bouncer than an owner. Rae suspected he probably still did double duty during Mardi Gras and on weekends. “How did you two meet?”

  Chase ducked his head. “My unit, we were the guys who went in to liberate the camps in Germany,” he said in a low, choked voice. “Jesus, what a mess. Bodies piled up everywhere. People caged like rats.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, Manny was there, all skin and bones and looking like he was a hundred years old, but alive. Once we secured the camp, we took the survivors into the officers’ quarters to get them some food. There was a piano in there. Everyone else was chowing down, but Manny, he went over to the piano and started to play. In a daze, almost. Like he had been starving for music.”

  “Yes,” Rae said. “That’s exactly how he’d put it, I bet.”

  “I liked him,” Chase went on. “Gave him my address and told him to look me up after the war. When he came to the States, well—” He shrugged. “You go through something like that, you become friends for life.”

  That had been more than twenty years ago, and never once had Rae Dawn given Chase Coulter reason to regret his decision to hire her. From backup pianist, she had gradually moved up to headliner, with her photograph posted out front on Dauphine Street. Word spread, and customers had flocked in droves to hear her sultry, smoky renditions of the old blues and jazz pieces, love songs, torch songs. Eventually she had begun to work her own compositions into the act, attracting the attention of talent agents and music publishers. Contracts followed, and gold albums, and concert tours. Rae Dawn had become the new Billie Holiday, and everybody adored her.

  Still, she never forgot her beginnings. Wherever she went, her heart drew her back. Back to New Orleans. Back to Maison Dauphine, to Nate the bartender, to Chuck Coulter, Chases son, who now managed the place since his fathers death, to the fans who jostled in the street trying to get in. Back to the place she called home.

  Rae crossed the wide living room of her apartment to the old mahogany baby grand that sat in the front window. She sat down at the keyboard and played a few runs, only to be interrupted by a voice drifting in the open window.

  “Helloooo?”

  Rae went to the wrought-iron balcony that faced the street and looked out. On the other side, Mrs. Beaulieu stood at her own balcony, waving a shaking hand. “Hellooo,” she called again. “I’m so glad you’re home, Rae.”

  “Do you need something, Mrs. B?” Rae shouted back. “Is everything all right?”

  “Oh no, dear, I’m fine. Just fine. I was just wondering….”

  Here it comes, Rae thought. Mrs. B was a grand old lady, and Rae loved her company. But since her husband’s death, she had been seeking Rae out more and more. Of course she was lonely. Of course she needed someone to talk to. But—

  Rae was about to make up an excuse to get herself off the hook when Mrs. Beaulieu spoke again. “I was just sitting here thinking,” she said, “and then I heard you at the piano. Would you—could you,” she stammered, running a claw through her thin white hair. “Would you mind very much playing that song for me? The one I like so much? It was our song, Roberts and mine….”

  She drifted away again, back into her apartment, and Rae Dawn could see her through the open window as she sank into her chair and began to rock.

  Rae knew without question what song Mrs. B wanted to hear. The song she had refused to play since—

  She sighed. What difference did it make now? It was just a song. A favor for a sweet, sad, grieving old lady.

  Rae barely got through the first line of “Come Rain or Come Shine” before her voice cracked. The tears came. And with the tears the memories she desperately wanted to suppress, memories dragged to the surface by Deltas telephone call. Memories of a certain December, nearly five years after she had first come to sing at Maison Dauphine….

  CHRISTMAS 1973

  Rae Dawn aimed her eight-year-old Honda into the December darkness and sped toward Picayune, a reluctant missile launched northward against her will. The night was black and chilled, the waning quarter moon already set over the Crescent City, but now that she was outside the range of the city’s pink glow, she could make out a spangle of stars overhead. Just north of Bayou Sauvage, she crossed the eastern tip of Lake Pontchartrain. To her left, on the surface of the dark lake, she could see the distant dance of glimmering lights—not stars, but artificial lights, human lights. And on the shore, reflected in the placid waters, a Christmas tree strung with red and green and gold.

  On the radio, Bing Crosby was crooning “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” With a grunt of disgust Rae Dawn snapped it off and was plunged immediately into a claustrophobic silence, broken only by the Doppler whine of the occasional car whizzing by and the thud of her tires on expansion cracks in the pavement.

  Rae hated Christmas. She ought to love it, given the increase in business for Maison Dauphine and the resulting increas
e in her own meager revenues. New Orleans was a favorite holiday destination, and from Thanksgiving to New Year’s the Quarter was alive with twinkling lights and festive music, concerts and plays and laughter and costumed carolers in the streets. Not to mention money—the ching of the cash registers, the tips pressed down, shaken together, and running over in the large brandy snifter on top of her piano.

  But Christmas also meant that she got endless requests for those sappy Christmas songs, the ones about love and family and how wonderful it is to be home again. Never mind that most of the folks who asked for these tunes weren’t home at all, but rather drowning their loneliness in a French Quarter bar, waxing nostalgic about Christmas past and inventing memories out of pure imagination.

  Never in her life had Rae Dawn experienced the kind of Christmas portrayed in the songs or depicted on Christmas cards. Even as a child—especially as a child—she had not known the tantalizing excitement of an interminable Christmas Eve waiting for Santa Claus, or the thrill of colorfully wrapped presents under a glittering tree, or the warmth of friends and family gathered around a table groaning with the weight of the Christmas feast.

  No, Christmas at Hobo Creek had been nothing like the photos in the advertisements. No tree, no stocking, no presents—unless you counted the new underwear from the Dollar Store or a secondhand coat or sweater from Goodwill. Once, years ago, Rae Dawn had taken it upon herself to try to make the Airstream a little more festive. She had found a couple of strings of old multicolored Christmas lights in the dumpster and, by switching bulbs, had gotten one string to work. The flame-shaped bulbs looped across the front of the trailer did make the place a bit more cheerful, until her father came home drunk and used the lights for target practice.