A Moment in the Sun (57 page)

Isham Joyner has the gavel by now, rapping the gathering to order.

“Gentlemen, if you’d please arrange yourselves!” Isham loves his voice like a preacher, and is always the one chosen to recite epic poems or quote Patrick Henry’s exhortations on Emancipation Day. The men still standing begin to find seats.

“Brothers of the canton, honored guests, this is not an official meeting of our Lodge, and we will dispense with the customary observances and invocations.” He is the Noble Grand Sire and a stickler for protocol, Isham, a stern master of rites when Degrees are awarded. Dr. Lunceford is a Patriarch himself, Treasurer of the Lodge, but is uncomfortable with the swordplay and passwords, the mysteries and symbols, the play-acting around Abram’s Tent and the Oak of Mamre. He would be content to “
visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead, and educate the orphan
” without any of the baroque ceremony, but perhaps his Brothers’ secret, allegorical selves are preferable to their everyday ones.

“We have gathered instead to honor and to listen to remarks from a young man who not long ago was my pupil—” Isham tutors Latin in the foyer of his undertaking business, “—but, as we will see, he has survived that ignoble apprenticeship to become a guiding star among our youth.”

Isham spotted Junior first when the young boy’s oration on Remembrance Day overshadowed his own. What to do with the competition but take some part in, and therefore some credit for, its development? Latin was a must for a medical career, of course, but Junior has always exhibited more interest in the Doctor’s political efforts than in his profession.

“To introduce this paragon, I cede the floor to one who took part in his development at a much earlier stage than I—” laughter here, “—Dr. Lunceford?”

Polite applause as he steps to the podium they’ve pulled out from behind the bar.

An excellent turnout, really, Fusionists, many of the more wary Repub-lican die-hards, men who voted but chose to leave their allegiances unspoken, even a few who owe fealty to the Old Fox Crowd, employees or functionaries of powerful white men or those, like Dorsey Love, who are under their constant scrutiny. In light of the racial enmity that has been so publicly encouraged in the state, all will need to pull together to survive this next election, and he hopes this common celebration, this moment of shared pride, will help drive that idea home.

“When Mr. DuBois,” he begins, knowing that the mention of that controversial gentleman’s name will assure their attention, “speaks, as he often does, of the ‘Talented Tenth’—and I would argue that we can boast of a much higher percentage than that—he is being both practical and political.”

He sees that Alex Manly is already scribbling. A word to him later about editorial restraint.

“It does not ordinarily, in this section of the country, behoove us to celebrate our gains too openly. However, the showing made by our colored regiments in the recent conflict—” and here there is more hearty applause, “—brings credit to all of us. I confess my particular pride in sheltering one of these fine young men under my roof. Gentlemen, I present to you—Aaron Lunceford Jr.”

Men stand on their feet when his son takes the podium. Dr. Lunceford has made many speeches, has won election to a post vital to the community’s welfare, has saved lives even, in his professional capacity, but men have never stood to applaud him. He could be the one, Junior, to build it on. An orator, a tactician, a man with the sound of cannons on his record. A black Bryan, perhaps, a stirrer of men’s souls.

Junior looks the gathering over slowly before speaking.

“We are honored tonight to have in our midst men who defended the Union, and I need not add, freed our people, bringing us honor as they fought beneath the flag in the desperate days of ’64,” says Junior, bowing to old John Eagles sitting ramrod straight in the first row. “I have had the honor of carrying that banner to a foreign shore to liberate its oppressed citizens, many of them of our own hue, and can only hope that our performance there is a worthy reflection on the glory of those illustrious patriots.”

A black Lincoln, thinks Dr. Lunceford, but a handsome one.

Later, Alma will decide that she was just too weary to oppose it. Her own clothes are hanging between lines of the Luncefords’ sheets, Mrs. L never objecting as long as she keeps them hidden from the neighbors, and dry by the time Jessie reveals her plan. Or is it pure treachery? They pay her a bit more and treat her at least as well as any of the white folks she has worked for, but there is something about Doctor’s tone with her, about the way Mrs. L always says “a young lady of her standing” when she’s talking about Jessie. White folks don’t know any better, plus they’re white and don’t need to do anything to be sure nobody mistakes them for the help.

And Jessie has treated her as a sister.

Nothing will come of it, of course, no matter what kind of goodbye they say to each other tonight. Soon enough they’ll ship her off out of sight to the school in Tennessee like they did with Junior, where she’ll play her piano and make friends with other “young ladies of her standing” and meet someone Doctor will approve of. Doesn’t hurt a girl to have a little heartbreak at her age, get used to what’s in store for her.

If Coop was coming he’d of been here by now.

“It fits me perfectly,” says Jessie, excited, turning in front of the mirror to see herself in Alma’s gray shift. It is, in fact, a little high at the ankle for her, but uncorseted and wearing a pair of old shoes Mrs. L has ceded to Alma, she even moves like a different person. “Are you sure about your coat?”

“I got all my clothes in a basket by the cookstove,” says Alma. “I’ll just bundle up.”

Mrs. Lunceford is at the Household of Ruth meeting, bragging about her son, and gave up looking in on her sleeping Jessie years ago. They have worked out which light will signal what in the house—Jessie has promised to be home at least by ten but there is some little risk of her running into Doctor or Junior when she’s sneaking back.

“Tell me which way you gonna walk, child. Don’t matter what you passin for, they places won’t no woman go by if she got sense.”

Jessie sighs dramatically, impatient, and crosses to her dressing table to read the crumpled note from Royal again. “This isn’t the worst part of the city,” she says.

“You don’t know the first thing bout what’s bad in this city. Let me hear the street names.”

“Why should I feel like a criminal?” It is one of her favorite sayings lately, along with “They’re determined to ruin my life.” Jessie stands next to Alma, looks at the two of them in the mirror. Jessie is lighter of course, younger, with the good hair and the way of holding herself that says Quality to folks who never seen her before. “Sometimes, Alma, I am so envious of you.”

Alma smiles. She will pay for this, maybe, if it ever becomes known, but now she is too tired or too weak or too low and contrary to deny her sweet baby Jessie this wish.

“You want to change places with me, darlin,” she says, “there’s a mess of dirty dishes waitin downstairs.”

Miss Loretta always says to Jessie that it is the things she never did that haunt her.

Ruth Hall, where her mother is meeting, is just on the corner. Jessie hurries by, hoping she looks like someone else. She plays at the Hall when there are musical programs, the ladies always very kind, but tonight she doesn’t want them to see her face. She hurries north on Seventh, passing the Williston School that somebody, and Father has his suspects, keeps trying to burn down, and wishes she had a shawl to cover her face with like in the books. Anyone who knows her family who sees her will report back—What was your daughter Jessie doing out alone at night, dressed in serving girl’s clothing? She hasn’t been allowed to walk alone like this since she was twelve and even if she were only to circle the block and return home right now it would feel like a wicked transgression. She crosses Ann Street, crosses Orange, then Dock, then stops at the edge of Market to look up and down. Across the way looms the MacRae castle where once as a little girl she stood outside with Father and was frightened by the screeling of bagpipes, Father telling her it was only a kind of music the white folks had played across the seas before they invaded America. Right next door is Mr. MacRae’s sister who married Mr. Parsley. It was on the street just in front that their little Walter Jr. had run out and been hit by a bicyclist last year, the shades pulled down in their windows ever since, a house in mourning. Jessie waits for a carriage to pass, then hurries across the broad avenue to the north side, tilting her face away as she sees the city lamplighter, Primus Bowen, with his ladder against a pole up on Eighth. Miss Loretta lives on that corner, and just beyond her Carrie Sadgwar who was famous with the Jubilee Singers and teaches at the Williston now, whose grandfather was a white man raised as a slave and whose father is building a house down on Fourteenth for her to live in with Alex Manly, the newspaper man, when they are married.

She continues up Seventh, using the sidewalk on the east side, and realizes she knows who lives in almost every house, black or white or Jew—the Solomons and the Davids and the Bears all off to her left within a few blocks of each other—knows who is related and what their businesses are, knows, from hearing Father and Junior talk, where each of the men stands in the complicated tangle of city and state politics, and she feels a wave of hopelessness course through her. How can she imagine being anyone but Miss Jessie, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Lunceford, who plays piano and sings passably well, soon to be presented in colored society for the consideration of young men whose fathers know and have the deepest respect for her own? “We must set a standard,” he is always saying, mostly to Junior, but she is included within her more circumscribed sphere of activity, “that others will strive to raise themselves to.”

But here she is walking unaccompanied and “unbraced” as the Shake-speare play put it, in an increasingly strange part of the city, to meet a man she loves—

The gas lamps end at Red Cross Street. Jessie finds herself caught in a flow of people, mostly older women, making their way into the Central Baptist for an evening service. They are dressed for church, of course, and she is not, but they might expect her to be one of them—floor-scrubbers and pot-washers, laundresses, seamstresses, cooks and caretakers. Aunt Sassy—she never learned the woman’s proper name—who was her great friend Fannie Daltrey’s nanny when Fannie lived on Front Street, passes within a foot of her, walking with difficulty on swollen legs, a hat with glistening raven feathers fastened on her head. The woman barely glances as she goes by. Mrs. Sharpless, who Father treated for palpitations and who sold pecan clusters at the train station for years, looks her full in the eyes with no recognition, no “How we doin, Miss Jessie?” and maybe it is working, maybe the clothes and Alma’s simple, fraying straw hat tilted low over the eye have transformed her. She rushes to cross the street away from the church entrance, and has only taken a few steps into the darkness beyond the spill from its open doors when the crazy man blocks her way.

“Tender chicken,” he says, smiling with all his face, “pitter-pat away from her roost.”

His clothes are filthy, his face streaked with grime, his hair hangs in gnarly ropes past his narrow shoulders. He is the skeleton of a man who calls himself Percy of Domenica, King of the Creole, and appears throughout the city with his message of Repentance.

“You frighten of Percy, child?”

She could run, turn and run back toward the Baptists shouting for help, but that would be the end of it, would mean explanations and recriminations and the end of trust and liberty. “No sir,” she tells him.

“Little chicken tell me proper.” He waves a Coca-Cola bottle in his hand, the liquid inside it not the right color. “Only ting we got to fear now is the Wicked One come out when sun is down, work himself into our heart.” People say he is from the islands, which ones they don’t know, and his speech is like song. “You let the sun shine on your body, child?”

“I do.”

“
All
your body?”

He is blocking the sidewalk but not crowding her. She saw him almost on this very spot, last year when she talked Alma into taking her to the tent that had been set up to exhibit the Nightingale. It was ten cents admission, collected by a man who claimed to be a Doctor of Deformity and sold the sisters’ pamphlet, “Written by One of Them,” which contained the details of their unfortunate birth and subsequent adventures. But once inside Mille-Christine McCoy herself recounted those events. Mille, who was on the left as you faced the Nightingale, concentrating on the harrowing incidents of kidnapping and privation, while Christine countered with tales of rescue and impressions of European nobles they had met in their travels. As they demonstrated their facility with six languages, sang prettily in close harmony, employing all four legs and all four arms as they moved about the platform, Jessie was so enthralled she did not notice who it was who took the seat beside her. It was his odor that distracted her first, sweet and thick, like overripe pears, and then his constant chuckling drew her to look.

“God make a joke,” he said as the sisters were reciting
The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
, Mille in English and Christine in German. “Bond two woman together, give them only one hole for pizzle, one for poop.”

Tonight he smells of persimmons.

“Do you let the sun shine on
all
your body?”

“Whenever possible,” she answers.

The King of the Creole smiles again with all his face. “The High Spirit loves you, child. How many year you got?”

“I’m sixteen.” She thinks of telling him she’s older, to seem less vulnerable perhaps, but his gaze, guileless and unblinking, has her transfixed.

“Then you must fast for sixteen day, purify the soul. You promise Percy this?”

“I will do my best.” She has fasted once for two days, after reading
Robin-son Crusoe
, pushing her plate away at every meal until Father gave her a dose of ipecac, thinking she had been poisoned by tinned fruit.