So far they’d been anything but. He couldn’t understand what was wrong. Whenever he needed money in the past, it came to him like rust to iron. All he had to do was wait and keep his eyes open. Where his genius lay was in seizing whatever opportunity presented itself and wringing it dry of purpose. He wasn’t a visionary so much as an expeditor of the ideas of others. If you had something to sell, a problem to solve, an inside chance to coax into a sure thing, Magnus Bailey was your man. But these days, folk played their cards close to their vests. The word on the street was mum. Since the disaster, no one trusted the future anymore. Old gamblers had become hoarders. Entrepreneurs minded the store and kept their dreams small. The high life had gone low and hard. Beale Street was about nothing but the blues.
Magnus Bailey needed money. He needed lots to make things right. He wasn’t at all sure how he would do that. The only thing he was sure of was that he’d need to be flush. At first, the only work he could get was as a part-time doorman over to the Robert E. Lee Riverside Hotel, a place sparsely visited by parsimonious guests mean with a tip. He bided his time. He made inquiries, found out that L’il Red’s was still in operation after the flood, that in fact the doors had never officially closed. When her premises went underwater, L’il Red pitched tents next to the encampment of the government- and relief-worker guards, trading her whores’ services for food and medicine instead of coin. He wasn’t half ready to go to her place and confront her, although he knew such a confrontation was essential, the first step toward emancipation for them both. Then the angels of forgiveness smiled upon him. He secured a second part-time job, cleaning floors and toilets at the main library two nights a week. The regular janitor was a churchman who wanted one night for prayer meeting and Saturdays for his family. That man hid copies of the Chicago Defender in the maintenance closet between the mops and the buckets. It was still a dangerous matter in some quarters for a colored man to be found with the Defender in his possession. Magnus found them and read the papers in his spare time. Between articles urging Negroes to quit the South and move north, where equality and decent jobs awaited them like ripe fruit ready to drop from the trees—argument that to Magnus Bailey, veteran of the St. Louis riots, rang false—he read stories about Josephine Baker and Langston Hughes living the white-man’s life in Gay Paree, and these he swallowed whole. A dream was born. Why hadn’t he thought about it before? The world was bigger than the Mississippi. There were places he could take Minnie where they could be together without fear. He assembled the texts he needed to discover where those places might be and how to get there. Soon enough, Bailey’s grand design was in order. He took to dreaming about his inevitable meeting with the instrument of his redemption and the dozens of tricks he tucked up his sleeve to win her cooperation for what came next. Lack of funds kept everything in the future, a future he envisioned bathed in a rosy mist, spiked with dangerous challenge and bright with glory altogether. If ever he got the money.
He avoided contact with her father. He went by the old place at night to see what he could from the curb. The house was derelict, the paint a mess, chipped and riven with mold. One of the front windows was broken and patched over with board. The lawn was wild and full of weeds. Inside on the first floor, there were lights on, and another light glowed on the second floor where Fishbein’s bedroom had been. The thin, stooped shadow of a man crossed the bedroom window. It looked enough like his old partner to soothe his mind. He’s hangin’ on, Magnus Bailey thought. I guess me and Minnie haven’t killed him yet. Though this came as a relief, over the next few days he lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling while he adjusted his calculations to include the rescue of Minnie’s daddy, for it looked to him that rescue was required.
For the time being, he stayed with Thomas DeGrace, who was about the only family he had left. He slept on a cot near the stove. Thomas lived in a shotgun house built when Orange Mound was established as a colored district nearly fifty years before. He bought the place on the cheap from an unmarried ironmonger getting ready to die, ornamenting it with scraps of Italian molding and hand painted tile he scavenged from swankier neighborhoods. That was before the flood. Afterward, everything changed. Thomas was conscripted for levee work down in Greenville just before the deluge. While he was so bonded under the gun, unable to escape, his home was looted and stripped of everything the tides hadn’t swept away. Later, the house was sold at tax auction to a white man. When the levee let him go, Thomas rented his own house from the new owner. That just about broke him.
There’s no such thing as a free Negro in America, DeGrace told his cousin. I was mindin’ my business, buyin’ up supplies downriver to take to Tulips End. I knew the folk back home would be in trouble. My daddy and mama, my aunties. They never would leave when the river got high. I rode all over three states lookin’ for what I needed. Finally, I had a cart loaded up and a mule. The day I was headin’ back to Tulips End, I was stopped on the road by militia, they called themselves. Foulest, evilest-lookin’ crackers you can care to imagine, ten of ’em on horseback and totin’ rifles, each one pointed in my face. They took my cart and put me on the levee. Oh, dear God. What a hell. We slept in the mud with near nothin’ to eat. They put tags around our neck like we was livestock. When we got sick with the dysentery and the fever, they just let us rot and waited to see who nature would save and who not. I got assigned to unloadin’ the relief boats after the flood. I stole what I could, and that’s the only reason I’m alive today. That and Jesus. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord Almighty. You comin’ to church?
Thomas DeGrace had got religion. He dressed like a country boy now, his home was without creature comfort, and every spare cent he got hold of he gave to the Miracle Church of God’s People, the congregation set up over a storefront by the Rev. Dr. Willie Smalls, a minister arrived in Memphis just as the water receded, a man looking to preach penance to unworthy survivors. Though sometimes he felt he might like a taste of some old-time religion, sing a hymn or two, and pray for his mama, Magnus Bailey would rather die by lightning than stand up and clap hands under the sway of a man like Dr. Willie—in Bailey’s opinion a big-bellied, sweet-tongued fraud bleeding the poor while he danced on the graves of their dead.
Wednesday nights were for prayer meeting above McCracken’s Cash Groceries, held to keep the burnish of vows made on Sunday gone and keep them bright ’til Sunday next. One Wednesday night Bailey felt like a walk and kept Thomas DeGrace company as he headed over to Pendleton Street to warm up his soul. When they got there, DeGrace tried to persuade him to come in. Bailey glanced at the sign to the right of the front door. free trip to heaven it read, second floor.
Nothin’ free about any trip Dr. Willie’s takin’ you on, he said.
His cousin pursed his lips and lifted his chin, pointing it high in the air with righteous defiance.
Church got to pay the rent, just like you and me. Dr. Willie got to eat and put clean clothes on too, he said.
Magnus put a hand up to the sky, gave him an amen to shut him up, and made to walk on toward the river, maybe pass L’il Red’s just to torment himself, which he did often enough. Nights when a certain mood stole his good sense, he stood on the street opposite L’il Red’s, hiding from the light of a gas lamp in a doorway. If the weather demanded the windows be closed, he could not hear the whores’ laughter and shrieks, the piano man pounding out furious pleasure on the keyboard, or the whoops and bellows of the clientele within. So he watched them dance, embrace, and fight in pantomime and hoped for a glimpse of Minerva Fishbein passing through the room to settle an argument or make a match. He never managed to spy her, but he kept on hoping. That night, as he quit Thomas’s company and put up his collar against the night air, his head was turned by a sight that would stop a pack of rapine marauders in its tracks and wake the dead at the same time.
A woman crossed the street, the sight of her stopping traffic from every direction near or far. She was a large woman, a very large w
oman with skin as black as Bailey’s own, evidence of an African heritage undiluted by the lust of white men. She stood half a head taller than he himself and was so wide at the hip and the breast he imagined she could bear twins and suckle triplets all at once. Her clothes were rich, her blouse a brilliant yellow silk ruffled at the neck and cuffs, her suit cut in the latest fashion to expose her legs from the calves down. Its plush gray wool was tailored against her frame in a way that confirmed she’d still a waist despite her girth and smooth, if enormous, thighs. She wore a great, broad-brimmed hat with a veil such as women rarely embraced after the Great War. Its netting came down to her neck and was tied by velvet ribbons at the back of her head. Its brim tilted slightly to the left so that it resembled wings in flight. The crown was studded with ropes of pearls entwined with feathers and topped by a pair of hummingbirds so artfully stuffed they looked about to burst into song. Beneath that remarkable hat, a mountain of thick black hair was piled up, secured by a dozen pins whose knobby heads were also of pearl. At the distance from which Bailey first saw her, it was impossible to see her face, but her size, her dress, the confident, almost military, strength of her stride—all of it created a tableau of spectacular feminine power and beauty. He wondered who she was, why she was in Orange Mound. If she’d strolled the streets of his neighborhood at any time before the flood, he’d know her. He’d have to. She would not go unnoticed or forgotten anywhere. He guessed she was a voodoo queen visiting out of New Orleans or an heiress through a lover to a vast sugar plantation somewhere in the islands. But what, he continued to wonder, was she doing here?
She walked directly toward him. A thrill enlivened his blood. He straightened his back and widened his smile, prepared to bow his head and kiss her hand when she got near. He could not believe his luck and thought, Ahhh. Big rich woman comin’ right at me. My money troubles are over.
Then she walked directly past him to the door Thomas DeGrace held open and ascended the stairs for her free trip to heaven.
Thomas made to follow her, but Magnus Bailey’s hand on his sleeve pulled him back.
Who is that woman, Thomas? She is surely the most curious lady I have ever seen.
Thomas jerked his head back and looked at him with surprise.
Why, you know her. I’m sure of it.
I could not forget such a creature. Tell me. Who is she?
Why it’s Aurora Mae Stanton, Thomas said. From those Missouri Stantons I know you spoke of when you first got back home.
Magnus Bailey thought he was beyond astonishment in life, but the identification of that woman as Aurora Mae Stanton stunned. He could not imagine how she’d come by such physical transformation except through either the greatest misfortune or the greatest effort. When last he’d seen her, she was a lean and languid country marvel. There was a virginal succulence about her that dried every man’s mouth with desire. Now she struck him as an epic goddess of sensual energy. Her copious flesh evoked both the fertile sustenance and the deadly menace of the Delta itself. Her material transformation was a deeper mystery. Then he remembered Mags Preacher McCallum’s story about the night riders and Aurora Mae’s escape from a life of the most vile servitude thanks to Minerva Fishbein. He remembered more. He remembered that after the flood, she’d returned to the family farm with money, lots of it, the origins of which were secret, no doubt connected to a crime of blood. His mind whirred and clicked like the gears of the slickest engine.
Perhaps I’ve been hasty in judging your Dr. Willie, he told Thomas, taking him by the elbow to enter with him the Miracle Church of God’s People. He summoned his most irresistible smile. Let us ascend to the gates of paradise together, he said.
Thomas was excited, thinking he’d finally made a dent in his cousin’s resistance to deliverance. When they got upstairs to the room Dr. Willie had consecrated, Bailey took note of a plain hall with rows of folding chairs, a plywood platform with a pulpit flanked by pots of lilies, and a modest homemade cross hanging on the wall. DeGrace said, Let me introduce you to the great man. Oh, you’re gonna be impressed, I promise you.
But the great man was preoccupied.
Dr. Willie sat on a stool pulled up opposite a front-row chair occupied to overflowing by Aurora Mae Stanton. Magnus put a hand out to stop Thomas from approaching him. He wanted to step back and observe the man he suspected would be his chief competition for access to the woman’s sizable purse. Dr. Willie was a short, stocky, bald man in parson’s black. His hands were folded over a sizeable stomach round and hard as a barrel. He tapped his fingertips against his belly while talking nonstop, unless he paused to nod and smile, nod and smile whenever Aurora Mae Stanton managed to get a few words in edgewise. His eyes raised themselves toward the ceiling often, presumably whenever he called upon Jesus to make a point. He had small feet in shiny black shoes that jigged against the floor from time to time. Magnus thought maybe he was loosening them up for the prayer service. He surely looked the type that pranced back and forth, up and down, filled with the spirit, he’d say, although to Magnus’s mind, Dr. Willie looked more likely to be filled with impatience for supper. Aurora Mae appeared fascinated by him. As their conversation drew to its close, Dr. Willie rose, bowed a little, dipped his head, and all but clicked his heels, like an actor in a picture show. Magnus critiqued the gesture as superfluous since the woman already had her hand in her purse to withdraw the inevitable envelope. Besides which, that particular piece of hoity-toity flair never worked its best magic without a monocle. Sloppy, he judged his rival, envying the fat little man of God who’d staked an early claim on territory properly his. An amateur.
The preacher stuffed the envelope inside his vest, checked his pocket watch, and moved to greet the other worshippers just entering the room. He blessed them profusely, claiming the day as one blessed by the Lord. Magnus Bailey sidled up to Aurora Mae and took the seat next to hers. He did not acknowledge her but sat with his eyes straight ahead, holding his hat in his lap, gripping its sides tightly as if anxious for the service to begin. He breathed deeply, slowly, and waited, waited for her eyes, still obscured from his observance by the veil, to sneak a look at him.
Up in front of the pulpit, Dr. Willie Smalls pitched his Jesus rant with a clap of hands and a rat-a-tat-tat of toes against the plywood floor. Oh, I am so delighted to see you all ready to praise the Lord, he started out with clarion voice in a rhythm that approached song. He who is the only Place where His children shall find respite from this valley of sorrows known as life and the Mississippi!
Amen, Aurora Mae Stanton murmured. And Magnus Bailey echoed her. Amen.
And who is that Lord I’m talkin’ about? Dr. Willie continued.
From the back came a single uninhibited voice. Jesus! it said with conviction, although the rest of the people murmured indistinctly as they were not yet fired up.
You are His children! His darlin’ baby girls and boys! Dr. Willie said. Don’t you know your Daddy’s name?
Then, Jesus! Jesus! cried out the whole congregation, all twenty-five of them, including Magnus Bailey and Aurora Mae Stanton, who found themselves speaking the holy name in concert, which excited them both. Each time they responded Jesus! Jesus! together under Dr. Willie’s baton they could feel the heat rising from the other’s flesh, and so a heady bond was formed between them. Dr. Willie went on to quote scripture from Noah and his flood, from the trials of Israelites in bondage, and at last, he preached salvation through King Jesus, then knit everything together in a convincing line of entreaty that culminated in a passed collection plate. Making an investment not in the Miracle Church of God’s People but in the mind of the woman beside him, Magnus Bailey reached inside his pocket and withdrew three dollar bills for the plate before passing it to the row behind. His movements gave him the opportunity to look her square in the face, feign a great but not excessive surprise, and exclaim:
Why, Aurora Mae Stanton. Is that you? Is it even possible? Under a
ll that net and feathers?
The lady in question made a deep trilling sound that came from somewhere between her mighty bosom and her strong, thick neck. She raised her arms and untied her veil, lifting it so that it folded artfully over the magnificent hat’s brim like a cloud of spun sugar. Her face revealed, she tilted her head and gave him the wry look of a woman of the world, not that of the gangly wood witch of years before. The look said, or so he thought, Why’d you hold back so long, honey?
Yes, it’s me. And you are Magnus Bailey, late of East St. Louis, are you not?
He rose and bowed before her in a quiet, graceful manner, with none of the ostentation of Dr. Willie Smalls.
At your service, he said.
They looked at each other for a moment or two, assessing the changes time and the flood had brought. He was relieved to see that despite the obvious ravages to her figure, her face was as handsome as ever. She put a hand on his shoulder and rose.
Life has not been kind to either of us, has it, she said.
He sighed then opened his arms and shrugged, a gesture he’d learned from the saddest man in the world.
Life is never kind to anyone for much of a stretch, my dear. How is your brother?
She took his arm and said, Why, he’s well but settled in another town after the flood. Why don’t you walk me home, and I’ll tell you all about him.
Just like that, they left together and thereafter began working nearly every day side by side, as it turned out Aurora Mae was as much in need of a capable man as Magnus Bailey was in need of her money. She was building a house from which she hoped to operate a business in healing herbs and liquid remedies and having an awful time of managing her carpenters and plumbers, who were unaccustomed to listening to a woman on the job. All I do is throw money at the place and nothing much gets done, she told him. Magnus promised to help and help he did with a great and abounding joy as the money she threw at him in payment brought him closer and closer to his goal.
Marching to Zion Page 13
