I’ve been standing at this very spot since the nurse left me ten minutes ago. The doctor would like a word with you before you go in, she said, rushing off like I got time to be waiting on words. This boy done asked me the same questions three times maybe more. Ain’t even writing down a word I say no how. I got questions too. You the one that put my boy here? Did you hold him down? Stomp him with them steel boots? “No, sir.” If I can just get past him and get to the end of the hall, I can be with my boy.
“Staying out late? Coming home early?” He tilts his head, licks his pink, cracked lips.
What that got to do with anything? “No, sir. Can I see him?”
“Your boy’s what, fortysomething?” He taps a black pen on a closed notepad.
Forty-five. “Yes, sir.”
“And he’s living with you over on Twentieth?”
“Edward takes care of me, always has.”
“He have any reason to do what he did today?” He leans close, his hot breath curdles into tiny drops of spit that sprinkle my face.
“Yes, sir.”
The officer’s green eyes brighten. I must have said no last time he asked. He steps back, flips open the notepad. “What is it?” Words and spit drop from his mouth. He licks his lips.
“Edward works every Monday, sir,” I say.
The notepad clicks shut. “Look here, gal, you know they don’t allow coloreds to operate trolleys. What was your boy up to? Was he trying to start a riot? Who put him up to it? You could make it easy on him, you know that? Just tell me what you know.”
My stomach clenches. My throat tightens. My mouth fills with chunks from last night’s dinner, bits of cornbread, a sliver of ham. If I open my mouth it will spill out, soil my words. He’ll take my sick and call it guilt, evidence. I swallow it all, hot and slimy, soured. He watches, waits.
“Take your time,” he says. Pen tapping against notepad.
What do I know? Who put Edward up to what? What was he doing in the trolley? Was there a reason? Of course there was. As soon as I get to him, I’ll ask him. After I hold him again. After I tell him it’ll be alright. After I believe it.
“Sir,” I say, “seems if Edward was operating a trolley like they say he was, it was a part of his job. Had to be. Edward loves that job and everything about it.”
“Enough to make sure he don’t lose it?”
I’m nodding my head yes.
“So he would work with the union to start a riot, if it meant keeping his job.”
I’m shaking my head no. He’s twisting the words soon as they drop from my mouth and I can’t do nothing but watch them fall.
“Auntie, how about this, you go see your boy and you see if you don’t remember anything he might have said about a job the union asked him to do. If you can remember a name, why that’s better. Now what’s better than that is if you can ask him who put him up to it. We tried to get him to talk but by the time we got to him, he didn’t have much to say.”
“Can I see him now, sir?” I’m near whispering. Can barely hear the words come out my mouth but I know they there. In the air, hanging.
You stay here asking permission. I’m going to see my boy.
“Stealing a trolley, tampering with the brakes, murdering innocent folks and all that property damage. Your boy’s in a heap of trouble. He couldn’t do this without help. If it wasn’t the union, it was the rails. They’ve been trying to force the city to negotiate and this sort of incident is just what they need. Just tell me who he’s working for.”
“He works on the rails, sir. I told y’all already. He gathers supplies, runs errands.”
“You find out who he’s working with and we’ll make it easier on him. All we need is a name, any name.”
They could have killed him. Could have swung him from a tree. Drowned him. Who would have stopped them? “Sir, I’m grateful y’all took it easy on him today.”
The officer rubs his chubby fingers along his razor-bumped throat. “He was thrown from the train. If the onlookers hadn’t gotten to him first, he might be dead right now.”
“I reckon you all saved my boy’s life.” They could have snatched him up. Locked him away God knows where. I wouldn’t never know what happened to him. Never got to say goodbye.
“You could say that.” The officer straightens his tie, puffs out his chest. “As soon as your boy wakes up, we’ll get him to answer some more questions.”
“The doctor is doing rounds,” the nurse interrupts. She’s out of breath. Must have run from ward to ward. “I’ll just get you settled in and then go look again. Y’all done?” she asks the officer while pulling me.
“Bag,” the officer says.
The nurse freezes.
“Tell the old girl to leave the bag here. Nothing in, nothing out.”
I pull the book from my purse, clutch it to my chest. I hold it up, an offering. Engraved, mahogany-skinned cover, thick pages stitched together by hand. Besides Tempe, it’s the only thing I have of Mama’s.
He nods, takes the bag and plops it down. My good compact rolls on the floor. The nurse is already pulling me down the hall.
“Edward’s the last bed on the right. I just want to warn you, he don’t look good. He’s broke up. His lungs are punctured, his spleen’s been ruptured, his—” The nurse stops, stares ahead. “I’m sorry. He’s bandaged up, plastered from head to foot. He’s in a coma.”
She squeezes my hand and slips out the door.
Chapter 4
10:00 a.m.
The room is a lot brighter than it should be. Sunlight streams through the lone window. The gray walls and chamber pots practically sparkle. Tempe’s glowing like a campfire. Lighting up the whole room. Six beds. I light-foot past the patients. They don’t pay me no never mind. Most of them staring after Tempe. She’s standing at the head of Edward’s bed, fidgeting. She don’t seem to know what to do with her hands, trailing wisps of smoke as she touches his head, caresses his cheeks. “Keep away from my boy.” I don’t yell it but five heads turn to face me.
Tempe stares at me like I lost my mind. I squeeze past her to Edward’s side. I barely feel his warmth. What isn’t covered in strips of white gauze and plaster is swollen with purple bruises or hidden beneath a starched white sheet and thin, scratchy blanket. His eyes are swollen shut. His skull, ears, nose, and chin are distorted beneath layers of cotton. His neck is rigged to a contraption connecting his back and legs. I don’t know where to put my hands.
He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you!
“Just let me get him home to fix him. You come back some other time, Tempe.”
I ain’t leaving without my boy.
“What you come for? To watch him die? To watch me watch him die? Save him!”
I can’t. She sucks the air from the room. I can’t hardly breathe. Beds rattle, charts flip, drawers open and close.
“Ain’t got no time for none of your tantrums, Tempe. If you ain’t here to help, go!”
I’m taking him home.
“It ain’t time. Take me instead.”
You? She spits the word like I’m not even good enough to be dead with her. Always second.
“Then let me save him.”
Like you saved me? The room bursts into flames. Fire leaps from the walls, the floor, the ceiling. It’s hotter than coal in a smokehouse. My heart would be racing if it hadn’t stopped. Brick walls slip into dripping wood beams, concrete floors melt into hardwood. Grand windows burst through, leaving Autumn in smoldering rubble. We’re back inside Walker’s place. Back to the day Tempe died.
She’ll kill him and me both. “No, I ain’t gonna do it,” I say. “I’m staying right here with my boy.”
Everything but the smell of burning wood disappears.
He can’t hardly hear you over everybody else calling his name.
“
I don’t hear nobody.”
Of course you don’t. When it’s your time, you won’t hear them either. You done forgot all about home.
“You ain’t talking sense.”
When’s the last time you talked about Mama?
“I think about her all the time.”
When’s the last time you talked about her? Edward know about her?
“No.”
Then he can’t hear her. That’s your doing.
“Then why can’t he hear me? He know me.”
You think Mama the only one trying to call him?
“Who else, then?”
Tempe stares at me for so long I’m not sure she’s going to answer.
All I can do is lead him home. And I can’t do that if he don’t know who I am.
The room spins round and round. I grab for Edward’s hand. “He’ll hate me.”
Selfish.
“Who want to die hating their mama?”
You ain’t no mama if you rather him go to hell thinking you his mama than go home with me.
I put my head where Edward’s heart should be. I listen. Nothing.
“I’m going to have to ask you not to touch the patient,” someone says.
I put my hand on Edward’s chest. “Hold on, baby, I’ll be right here. I’m going to talk to the man a moment.” The doctor must be about six foot.
“He can’t hear you.” His crisp coat matches the words clanging to the floor. “He’s comatose. Do you know what that means?”
“How long till I can take him home?”
“Ma’am, I’m Dr. Ross. Mr. Freeman is dying. Is he taking any medicines,” he lowers his voice, “from a doctor or otherwise?”
“My son ain’t need no doctor since he left the army.”
“Did he get any pills then?”
“If he did, it isn’t likely he’s still got ’em. That was years ago.”
“Has he ever suffered any trauma to his head”—the doctor pauses to study the chart—“before?”
“I’m not sure what that has to do with him ending up here.”
“If we know what caused him to go into shock …”
“It wasn’t being thrown from the trolley?”
“Ma’am,” the doctor lowers his voice again and places a warm hand on my shoulder, “we want to make him as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. If we can help him make it through the night, he just might make it to morning.”
And then what?
“I’m going to look in on my other patients. I’ll be back to check in.”
“He’s gone,” I say when he is.
If he live, they gonna kill him. You know that, don’t you?
“Maybe they’ll leave him be. They’ll find out whoever did it and leave Edward in peace.”
Even in death Tempe’s laugh rattles my teeth.
“Maybe it was that boy, Jacob, got Edward all mixed up in some union mess. Edward didn’t want no parts of it and Jacob made him, forced him. That’s what happened, isn’t it, Edward?” I put my ear to Edward’s mouth and listen for moans, gasps, bursts of air, anything that sounds like a yes. Every so often a prick of breath tickles my earlobe. “Probably got wind of what they was trying to do, jumped board that trolley, wrestled it from that no-gooder, lost control and in trying to steer clear of folk, crashed. He’s a hero. They can’t kill a hero.”
Can’t they?
If they’d known, they wouldn’t have done him like this. “It’s cuz they didn’t know he was trying to save them.”
Why didn’t they ask him?
I close my eyes. Edward barrels down the street in a runaway trolley, arms waving wildly. He’s screaming for help. He can hardly reach the brake, the controls ain’t responding. He’s ten, a little boy in a big, flaming trolley wanting nothing more than to go home.
We wait. Around us, patients settle into heavy breathing, some slip in and out of fretful dreams and wake to their own screaming. Nurses jab, bandage, and shift bodies. They note charts, check vitals. Metal wheels squeak as dying patients are replaced with other dying ones. It can’t be long past midday but the clouds have hidden the sun. Rain beats down on the roof. Thunder rolls across the sky. Lightning flashes every so often. A thin stream of water leaks onto the floor. A nurse comes in with a bucket. Rain plops and keeps time, tick, tick, tick. Edward does not stir.
What if he didn’t do nothing? Will they leave him alone or just put something else on him? If he don’t die tonight, will they just kill him tomorrow? Even if he did it, if innocent people died because he was wrapped up in some union dispute over money, he wouldn’t deserve to die this way. With no name, no kin, nowhere to go. Whether he’s a hero or no, my boy is dying. “I can’t save him, can I?”
You can help me lead him home.
I settle down on Edward’s bed, lift his head onto my lap.
The weight feels good. I breathe the scent of bleach, soap, ammonia water, the faint smell of death. The book is heavy in my hands. Its soft cover is flesh beneath my fingers. The pages flip rapidly. I turn back to the beginning. They flip again, stopping on articles about the war, the emancipation, the fire. “Tempe, if I’m going to tell this story, I’m going to tell it my way,” I say.
You ain’t got much time.
“Either I’ll tell it my way or it won’t get told.”
Five stories below, the streets call Edward’s name. Tempe huffs but she leaves the book alone.
“Most of what I’m about to tell you ain’t in no history book, no newspaper article, no encyclopedia. There’s a whole heap of stories don’t ever get told. What I know comes straight from my sister’s lips to my heart and to this book. Some of it I seen with my own two eyes. Some with hers. You come from free people. From right here in Philadelphia. You wasn’t born here. It was me that brought you home.”
I open the book and begin.
Chapter 5
Ella’s neck is stiff but she won’t rub it. What’s five more minutes of discomfort compared to what other folks have to bear? Has it been five minutes yet? Time doesn’t seem to be moving. If it wasn’t for the sound of grinding and scraping and now the smell of fresh baked bread, Ella would swear time wasn’t passing at all. Maybe not swear. She leans forward on her crate at the end of the row of West Philadelphia’s Third Baptist Church wondering if the sermon would have been over already if she had gone over to East Philadelphia’s. With her head still bowed, she peeks. All she can see is a row of shoes, some spit-shined, some lightly dusted, some rooted to the floor, others tapping. None seem to be itching like hers to run.
“God loves even the slaves,” the preacher says. His voice fills the small store/pharmacy/church, one of the few places they can speak freely. “Their suffering and pain has paved their way to the Heavenly Gates. Their earthly burdens will be replaced, their souls restored, and they will suffer out of love for our Lord.”
Ella shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “By the time service ends today, we’ll all be meeting the Lord,” she mumbles.
Sister Adelaide, the oldest woman Ella has ever seen, whispers hot and spitty in her ear, “Hushhhhh.”
“The life of the heathen is full of despair,” the preacher continues, “until our slave brothers and sisters let loose their shackles and embrace the Lord.” He pauses and throws off his thin sweater. With the windows shut and the congregation of thirty-five free men and women held captive until service ends, the preacher launches into last Sunday’s service. “Won’t none of us be free till we all free. Can I get an amen?”
“Amen!” the congregation yells.
One hour later, after slipping the thin pamphlet, The Price of Freedom: The Guide to the Young Christian Woman’s Role in Saving the Heathen, the Slave, and the Less Fortunate, into the fold of her frock, Ella turns to leave. She has just enough time to get home before supp
er. Sister Adelaide starts twitching. Unless Ella can stop her, in a few minutes the twitch will reach her bones and her eighty-seven-year-old body will spring off of the hard bench and dance up the aisle for near an hour.
“My God is an awesome God,” Ella sings out. Her voice is soft and clear like her mother’s. “He’s truly amazing. My God gave his Son for me. With my voice I praise him …”
“He laid down his life for me,” a deep voice takes up the refrain.
Within minutes the entire congregation rocks and sways to the familiar song of benediction. The collection plate passes around. Folks hoping for an extra blessing surround the preacher. A nickel later, Ella slips out the back.
It’s near dark. Mama will skin her alive if she’s late again. Now, the only way to get home before sunset is to cut through the woods. The path is short: a thin trail, thick trees. She can cut right through and be almost home. She’ll just have to run the rest of the way. If someone sees her she’ll be in trouble for sure. Mama’s told her not to cut through the woods near a thousand times. Almost as many times as she’s told her to say her prayers, set the table, sit like a lady, and act like she had some common sense and home training.
Ella slips into the woods. The path is worn down by feet. Her leather soles barely leave a print. The thin trail is riddled with weeds. In the spring, lush patches of bright colored bluebells, honeysuckles, and cherry blossoms carpet the wood; it would be near impossible to find the path. But today, a breezy mid-fall evening, the brown grass, crisp leaves, and thin branches bow and crunch. Before long the wood thins, the weeds part. Ella can just about see the dirt road. The sky is still light. She can make it. She slips out the wood, shaking leaves and dirt from her clothes.
“What you doing in them woods?” He’s not from around here. Thin shoes instead of work boots, the words scattering slow enough to pick them up if she wants to. His mouth twists like he tastes something rotten. He’s a stranger, a white one. Trouble.
“Walking,” Ella says. She stares at a slippery puddle of chewed tobacco at his feet. His toes seem about to burst through the thin leather.
Remembered Page 3
