Mrs. Owens knocked on the doorframe, called quietly, and came in with a large pitcher-shaped container and a removable screen.
"If you need to go in the night." She put the jar on the floor on its own throw rug in the corner. She raised the side window and adjusted the portable screen, then turned to leave again, eying the photos on the dresser. "Your people?" There was a slight surprise behind the question.
"My daddy and my brother." She said it too fast and didn't know why, felt foolish, and cast her eyes down. "That's my mother and her second husband. Out west." She wished she had a photo of her mother alone, it would be easier to explain. Wilamena looked like she could be anything.
Mrs. Owens continued towards the door. "Nice looking people you have. You favor your mother."
"Thank you," she lied. "She's out in New Mexico. I'm going out there for Christmas." She lied again to design a tradition that didn't exist. Christmas and family closeness, all those occurrences went with Momma Bessie, not with Wilamena. No way she'd slave in the kitchen fixing a massive dinner for a steady stream of people all day long.
"New Mexico. I guess I heard of it." Mrs. Owens closed the curtains behind her. "Nighty night."
Celeste stumbled over her own "Goodnight." She "favored" her mother. She'd been hearing that all of her life, though she couldn't see it herself. She cast it off to a genetic tree whose root system snaked into unknown soils for more years than anyone could remember. There's some Cherokee back in there. There's a few different white folks, too, and some blends of this and that, some African. She should've said something more about her mother and her second husband, anything. She could create whatever mother she wanted for Freshwater Road. No one would ever know. She thought again of storing the Wilamena-Cyril photo in her drawer or her suitcase. Too late. Mrs. Owens had seen it, was surely thinking her mother was married to a white man. God only knew what she thought of that. She left the photos on the dresser. This was the south, and slavery was about more than economics. There probably wasn't much that Mrs. Owens hadn't seen or heard before.
Nightjar. Momma Bessie had used that term when she talked about the old days in Kentucky. If she used it, she'd have to empty it in the outhouse in the morning, but she'd have to smell it all night in the stifling heat. There was a kerosene lamp by the back door for night trips to the outhouse. Celeste grabbed up her metal basin of dirty water, shoved a wad of Kleenex into her pocket, and walked through the short hall to the kitchen. A narrow line of light angled out from under Mrs. Owens's curtain-door. She lit the kerosene lantern and made her first trip to the outhouse in the dead of night, walking hard on the sandy earthen path to scare off any night creatures lurking along the way.
The shed-like room was small and had one curtained window. She held the lantern high at the door, stepped up the one step, and entered what would be her toilet facility for the rest of the summer. There was a roll of toilet paper and a stack of newspaper torn into uneven squares. She poured out her dirty basin water then lined the wood platform around the black hole with toilet paper and sat, the lantern in her hand like a weapon. She heard her urine fall into the pit. Thank God, she thought, it's too dark to see. She hurried back to her room.
The slightest catch of a breeze whispered in the curtains as black night leaned against the house. She pulled J.D.'s postcard out of her book-bag. He chided her to be careful, wrote of the humidity in Paris, said to write him, and ended with Wish you were here, JD. Not Love, JD. The love was over. One year of love. The return addresss was c/o American Express, Paris, France. The color picture on the other side showed a narrow winding street. The designation read "Montmartre, Paris." He said there were streets so old and narrow you had to walk sideways to get through. She could see him in some window, large canvas on an easel, the light streaming in.
She put the postcard back and shoved her book-bag under the nightstand. What would she write him? Of how Matt was beaten at the hands of state troopers on the way down from Jackson? Or of humidity so thick her body felt clumsy when she stood perfectly still, heat so ferocious her internal organs struggled to function? Of outhouses in the back, water spigots in the front? He wouldn't be able to say a word about how Negro she was or wasn't now. A calm settled over her that made her feel giddy. She had the distinct feeling that she was knocking them dead all over the place. She'd won Matt over, Mrs. Owens had softened, and now J.D. would know who she really was. To say nothing of Wilamena.
Finally, Celeste pulled on a sleep shirt and settled on the bed, which felt more broken-down than broken-in, lumps leading to a caved-in middle, thinking that here, where bodies disappeared like lunary rainbows, containers of human waste sat around in plain sight all night long. The old photo above the bed told her Mrs. Owens had vacated her own room. Such a private place, so much of the past wearying the corners, hanging on the walls, dappling the well-worn bedspread. Old beds hid great secrets of the mind, body, and spirit, prayers at night and in the morning, loving for pleasure and for child-making, ceiling-staring thoughts that hung like crystals in a cave, and Bible reading by the dim of old lamps.
Celeste felt sleep coming, her ears pressed against a quiet so profound she thought she heard the stars twinkling in the sky. She focused on a memory of cool weather, that last ride on J.D.'s motorcycle in a late spring snow, the sideways skid near the apartment in Ann Arbor that had them laughing and crying at the same time. Would these plank-board shacks provide any protection from wind and rain? There were no basements, no fireplaces or furnaces, just kitchen stoves. The people must huddle around them if the air blows cool. She imagined people hibernating like the exotic koi at the botanical gardens on Belle Isle, sleeping at the bottom of a frozen pond, their eyes closed, their senses curbed. A solemnity of need, a ritual of denial.
A car turned onto Freshwater Road, gnashing the gravel. Celeste turned out the light, her heart in a gallop. Matt wouldn't dare come back here from Bogalusa in the dead of night. The car passed the house, tires pulverizing small rocks and any shell-backed night creatures. She slid off the bed and crawled to the window. No lights. It might be a truck with guns racked across the back window. Maybe Sheriff Trotter himself. Not a streetlight anywhere, but a sky of stars, a quilted sky, and a moon so clear and white it seemed it really was a face. No competition from the haranguing neon fractures of Detroit, advertising everything from White Castle hamburgers to laundry washing powder. She listened until her ears ached. The sounds faded. It was the slow pace of the vehicle that riveted her mind, as if the driver designed a return, scoping the darkness. Freshwater Road went somewhere, though when you stood outside, it seemed to be a road without end, or a road to nowhere, just narrowed into its own horizon. She crept back across the linoleum and climbed onto the high bed. Perspiration pooled and soaked her thin cotton nightshirt. This mattress smelled old, though she had seen the sheets were clean.
Matt said Reverend Singleton would be in touch tomorrow, come to take her to the church where she'd be working. There was no phone here. Mail would be forwarded down from the Jackson office. What would the Freedom School children think of her? Would she be able to get through to them? Who were these people in this godforsaken place at the end of the earth? The Freedom School books were stacked close by. If she read, it would calm her down, help her sleep, but she didn't want to turn on the light. She began counting backwards from one hundred, her ears keyed to the sounds outside. The power lines crackled in a high pitched staccato. She got lost dreaming of cool-edged winds on tree lined country roads, the soft spread of new snow.
Shuck dressed in a pale yellow summer shirt, brown slacks, and a tan linen jacket. He lowered the convertible top sitting in the driveway, cruised the tree-lined streets to Woodward Avenue, and turned south. Early evening was his afternoon. When he passed the old Fox Theatre, he slowed. There were days when he avoided this stretch of Woodward Avenue altogether. Too many memories. He and Wilamena used to dance in the aisles to Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Cab Calloway, who wore a big white su
it and smiled across the whole damned stage while jamming the night away. The palace had fallen on hard times. Shuck continued south on Woodward to Jefferson and out East Jefferson, the radio music a monotone in the wind. Nothing in the world as fine as the breeze on his face riding in that Cadillac toward the water on a summer evening.
The river air whose glory lay in Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair struggled between the buildings and warehouses before succumbing to the unforgiving concrete, black tar, and car fumes. By the time that air got to Grand Circus Park, not an iota of coolness or freshness was left in it. To penetrate the city, it needed a cold rush from Canada or some ghost-blast from the Upper Peninsula. In summer, you had to get up close to the water to know it was real.
Belle Isle was a good place to find some relief. Relief from the heat of summer and from the twist of old memories and new worries that crowded his mind. He was in a perpetual state of distraction, and he didn't like it. Before he turned to go over the Belle Isle Bridge, the signal light changed to red and caught him. A rabbly group of boys, their loud voices sounding in eruptions of profanity as they dip-walked in circles in the street, oblivious to the summer evening traffic, stopped in front of Shuck's Cadillac. They evil-eyed him, licking their lips at the brilliantly white car. High on "boy," Shuck figured, arms loping up and down, dancing in place like marionettes whose strings had too much play, carrying on their pitched conversation as if they were alone in the world. Shuck clutched the steering wheel, the quiet idle of the sleek car's horses ready to blast ahead, run over their drug-wired bodies. In that moment, he hated their listless, undefined existences, their shirts slopped out of their pants, their pants drooping down like they might fall off, their conked hair with do-rags askew and congolene dripping. He wondered why these boys burned their own brains with drugs, ground their parents down to powder, dishonoring their lives with not a thought to history or tomorrow. They probably couldn't identify one person in his bestof-Negro-life wallpaper at the Royal Gardens Bar. Wouldn't know Lester Young from Earl "Fatha" Hines and forget Thurgood Marshall. Probably couldn't even say it. When the light changed to green, the boys stayed in front of his car like they were on stage about to break into some rag-tag dancing doo-wop song. Shuck watched them, his breath lifting up to a shallower place, heart beginning to pump harder. He put the car in park, revved the engine, foot solidly on the brake. "Get the fuck out of the street. You don't own it. You don't own a goddamned thing including yourselves." Shuck stared at them with ice in his eyes. It was as if they were the reason for his summer anxiety, as if it was all their fault. He could blame them for the plight of the city, for the spiraling downward of the good things he'd hoped for. He could step on them like they were roaches. But in one of their young faces, he saw himself as a boy who had a choice to make, who knew that something in the air meant him no good, that too much stood to break him down. Shuck lowered his head.
Cars lined up behind him waiting to make the same turn, horns honking, people hot and impatient, wanting a breath of relief from the humid stifle of the city. This new breed of unused young men drifted and turned rancid before they reached eighteen. "Bad pennies," Momma Bessie called them. "Too many boys coming up under women." They'd kill their own mothers for drugs. It was all he could do to not get out of the car, drag them by their shirttails to the curb, and beat the shit out of them. He locked his doors and wished he'd put the top up on the car. Beating them would make no difference at all. The world as he knew it was stacked against them, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.
The boys jerked around, faces frozen in a sneer, seemed to float for a moment. "Old man, what you looking at?" one boy yelled. "You better watch who you talking to."
Shuck wished he'd brought his gun. He would've shot into the air, tried to scare them sober. He caught himself thinking like a young man, a man ready for a fight. Reality hit him like a thunder clap. He was old, certainly too old to fight five young men whether they were high or not. He tightened his hold on the steering wheel, his foot ready to accelerate. "I may be old, but I can run your asses over with this car." He didn't yell it this time, said it out loud to himself.
With all the traffic, no telling who would get out of a car and join in and whose side they'd be on. They might side with him, they might not. The boys doubled over laughing, fell against each other then moved to the curb. The streetlights flared on. Their faces stretched like reflections in a funhouse mirror.
Shuck turned onto the bridge. In his rearview mirror, he saw the boys climb onto the bridge railing and fake throwing one of their group into the river. He wished they'd all jump. He had an urge to go back and help them, and in the same heartbeat, he wanted to take them all over to Momma Bessie's, clean them up, and set them straight. Shuck's heart beat like he'd just played a Miles Davis high note for one long breathless year. He wanted a cigarette but his hands were glued to the steering wheel. His fingers cramped from the pressure. If he didn't loosen his grip he'd break something. Wondered if he could break the steering wheel. He remembered when he and Posey had been offered a so-called opportunity to sell drugs and had turned it down. Praised the day they turned it down. Back in the forties and fifties, when musicians nodded out on stage or found themselves soaked in urine in Harlem doorways, in the alley leading to Manfred's After Hours Joint, in back bedrooms all over town, he knew then that he didn't want to have anything to do with selling something to Negro people that killed them. He wanted to sell them dreams, numbers, at least a chance for a good time, not this-this sinking down to the pavement with drool at the corners of their lips and eyes hooded in an odd sleep that might leave a man with one foot just hanging in the air. He lit a cigarette, the smoke curling down his throat. What difference did it make now? He didn't sell the stuff, but somebody else sure did.
Shuck drove around the still-crowded island, the river breezes holding people reluctant to return to their hot houses and airless apartments. Their trash lay in crumpled bits near cans, as if the effort to put it in the can required one step too many. Shuck parked, put the top up, walked to the river's edge, and sat down on a picnic table. The city lights of Windsor sparkled on. Hard to fathom how this strait of water separated two places with such different histories. What, he thought, were Negro people doing here, struggling and fighting for a place to be after all this time? The numbers rackets never as lucrative there as here. Not as many desperate Negro people playing hunches, studying dream books like pocket bibles. Whiskey came across this river during Prohibition. Even now he'd go over to buy booze and cigarettes, too. Cheaper and calmer over there.
Shuck knew this island, this Belle isle, had come here on summer days for his whole life, swam from the beach to the city side and back, rode horses, canoed and ice-skated in winter. Momma Bessie called summer to order with a picnic on Belle Isle and dismissed it the same way every Labor Day. These were the things to look forward to until age and death crept in with a different plan. Momma Bessie couldn't stand in her kitchen making potato salad for fifteen people anymore, packing picnic baskets, ice chests, gathering everyone around, cooking ribs on the park grills. Sometimes they'd be on the island for breakfast, too, then a day of softball, swimming, walking through the zoo and dinner outdoors. It was an all-day thing. But the children grew and left, the old people started dying off, and those who remained sat on porches all over the West Side wondering what the hell was going on. Shuck felt a slipping away like the muddy riverbank at his feet.
Sailboats lined up on the river heading in for the night, bows shadowing as the last orange streak of light sank beneath the horizon. He remembered that day years ago when he and Wilamena carved their initials in the gray bark of an old beech tree. He always loved the way she looked in the shade with sunlight filtering through the trees, her skin browner in summer, dark golden brown.
When he first saw Wilamena at Lakeview High, he thought she was a vision from some island paradise. She stood out. The other boys circled, asking her where she lived, and could she go to
the movies or for a ride on the streetcar. The white boys stole glances at her, too. He stayed back. Almost lost her when her head starting turning this way and that. He found out she was a small-town girl who knew how to climb out of a bedroom window. Wilamena had an edge. She wanted out in a way he didn't understand.
Shuck walked along the riverbank. No sand beaches on this side of the island. Too much water moving too fast. A quick look back at his Cadillac gleaming in the near dark. He hoped those boys wouldn't come this far around the drive, find it, slash his convertible top. He pushed forward, the water sploshing up on the grass and rocks making a small slapping sound. Cars on the drive lolling by, radios loud, voices kicking through the evening air. Then quiet. The light dimming to true darkness. He stood in a small grove of mature trees yards back from the river's edge, went from tree to tree tracing his hands on the thin bark, searching for the initials he hoped would still be there, fingers gliding towards the past. He saw himself, a welldressed man digging around for the past like a teenager who still loves the girl he took to the prom. He laughed then ignited his cigarette lighter and went from tree to tree until he found the beech with their initials carved, bigger now, stretched in effigy. They'd dug deep with his pocket-knife. He stood there tracing the initials and finally snapped his silver-plated lighter closed. In the dark, he walked on the grassy earth away from the water toward his car, his creamy yellow shirt a soft light in the night.
Freshwater Road Page 9
