Absalom's Daughters (18 page)

“New one costs twenty dollars,” said the one. “We can get you going for ten.”

“Good as new?” said Cassie.

“Good as new,” replied the other.

*   *   *

Charlie Mallard was the one with the red handkerchief. Junior was his twin. Their garage was in Porterville Township and took up the front yard of their family's house. The house was set well back from the road behind newly leafed locust trees and looked the same as the dozens they'd passed—rough boards with a tin roof and a sagging front porch. The garage was a different story. It was new, painted white, built of cinderblock, with a big glass window that looked in on a neat little office.
MALLARD BROTHERS AUTO REPAIR
was painted over the double garage doors in professional-looking script. The two dozen cars in the gravel lot beside it were parked in rows, washed and waxed. Even in the overcast afternoon, the cars gleamed like they were new.

Charlie got out to open the garage door. Junior smiled at them in the rearview mirror. “Have a bite to eat at the house while you're waiting. Dad'll take care of you.”

He led them past the garage, where Charlie had already shouldered into his stained blue mechanic's coverall and was untying their car from its tow rope.

Up close, the house wasn't as raggedy as Cassie had first thought. The boards needed paint, but they'd been scraped recently. One side of the porch did sag, but the other was covered with pine boards so new, they smelled of the sawmill. Junior opened the front door into a parlor crowded with furniture, an upright piano, and bric-a-brac. It took a minute for Cassie to see Mister Mallard the elder sitting in an armchair by the room's only window. He looked up from reading a newspaper, and Judith nearly stepped on Cassie's heels as Cassie stopped short.

His skin stretched tight over his wide cheekbones and the deep sockets of his eyes. He was so thin in the face, it made Cassie wonder if he could even stand, but it wasn't just his starved appearance that stopped Cassie in her tracks. It was his eyes, which were pink, and his skin, which was the color of chalk.

“You're like Jack!” Judith blurted.

Cassie caught Judith's shoulder to keep her from saying any more. “It's just—we know someone else who's—the same.”

“'Nother albino,” said Mister Mallard, in a tone too flat to tell if he was offended. “A true albino?”

“Yessuh,” said Judith, ignoring Cassie's grip. “He was as true an al-biner as I ever did see. Till now, course.”

“He a Negro albino?” said Mister Mallard.

“No, suh,” said Judith. “He just a white white boy.”

“We rare,” said Mister Mallard. “Negro albinos real, real rare. Prob'ly more albino white folks than you think. Hard to tell with some of 'em. Now, I knew two colored albino boys when I was comin' up; they both got lynched for 'tendin' to be white men. Wasn't neither one of 'em more'n sixteen years old.”

Junior cleared his throat. “These girls waitin' for us to fix their car. I said you'd give them somethin' to eat.”

“Sho, sho, I ain't inhospitable.” Mister Mallard folded his paper and laid it by the chair, revealing the rest of his body, which was just as thin and bony as his face. He lifted himself onto his feet and beckoned them into the kitchen but stopped Judith at the door. “You a white gal, ain't you?”

“Yessuh. I shore am.”

“Why you travelin' with this colored gal, here?”

“We sisters,” said Judith before Cassie could say anything. “We got the same daddy.”

Mister Mallard fixed his pink eyes on Cassie. “That true?”

“Yessuh,” Cassie said reluctantly and waited for Judith to bring up their being progeny and so on, but to Cassie's surprise, Judith showed more sense.

“Seen that,” said Mister Mallard, like this was just what he'd expected her to say. “All that mixin'. I seen plenty of that.”

He poured coffee for them from a battered metal pot, scrambled them some eggs, fried a ham slice, and put a big biscuit on each of their already loaded plates. Cassie thought his arms would snap, but he ignored her when she offered to help.

“Hope you ain't mind eatin' breakfast so late in the day,” he said when they were settled at the kitchen table. “That's all I cook since my wife done passed. If not for my boys, I'd be eatin' ham'n' eggs three times a day. Taste all right?”

The two of them nodded, mouths full.

“That's good.” Mister Mallard set his frame down at the third chair at the table and pulled the kitchen curtain aside. “You gals see the back of that garage?”

“Yessuh,” said Cassie, around her biscuit.

“What you see in the back of that garage?”

“They got themselves a window lookin' out the back,” said Judith. It was so big and clean, Cassie could see the road on the other side.

“Window lookin' out the front make perfect sense. You got to see who pullin' into your lot. Who pays good money for a window in the back, where all you kin see is you own house? I'll tell you who—a man who's too sure that there's gone be money comin' in tomorrow, the next day, the next month. That's two men too sure that the white folks gone to keep bringin' in they cars to a coupla colored mechanics.”

“They only do work for white folks?” said Cassie.

Mister Mallard made a dismissive motion. “Sho, they got colored folks comin' in, but half them cain't pay and half they cars ain't fixable.”

“But if the colored folks cain't pay and they cars ain't fixable, who else they gonna get for work 'sides white folks?” said Judith. “Less'n you got some other kind of folk round here.”

Mister Mallard scowled. “We got other kinda folk round here. They start out humble, that's for sho. They family's been here since slavery times. Then they pick theyselves up and get a little money, and then they gone. Once they gone, they ain't never come back, not them, not they chillun, not they chillun's chillun.”

“You mean colored folks?” said Judith. “They make some money and move someplace better? There ain't nothin' wrong with that.” She nudged Cassie. “That what we're doin'.”

“Oh,” said Mister Mallard, sitting up in his chair, “there ain't nothin wrong with that, if
that
was what we talkin' 'bout, but
that
ain't what we talking 'bout.” He leaned over the table with fierce urgency. “We talkin' 'bout the future of colored folks. And 'scuse me, lil white miss, if I starts talkin' in a way you don't understand.” He turned to Cassie. “Now your white daddy ain't somethin' you planned on, but now you got to be thinkin',
If I so light now, if I git me a light-skinned man, maybe my chillun be light 'nuff to pass for white.
You ever think 'bout that, girl?”

“My grandmother thought 'bout it,” said Cassie. “That all she ever thought 'bout.”

“Well now, here the part she ain't thought 'bout,” said Mister Mallard. “She ain't thought 'bout things like knowin' the difference tween a damn yam an' a damn sweet potato. Like standin' up in church shakin' yo hands up to the sky. She ain't thinkin' 'bout things colored folks do that white folks don't cuz we coloreds and we come from some place there ain't no whitefolks.” He pointed toward the garage. “Them boys jus' come back from a funeral. They tell you that?”

“No, suh,” said Cassie.

Mister Mallard leaned over his elbows on the table, his frightening emaciation filling the space. “This mornin' they buried a man a hunnert and twenty-five years old. He born into slavery by a woman straight from Africa. He growed up in slavery but kep' his Africa in him. Not just cuz he black as tar—he was frightful black—but cuz he 'membered what his mama taught him 'bout Africa.” He gave Cassie a hard look. “Your mama teach you ennythin' 'bout Africa?”

“No, suh.”

“You think she know ennythin' 'bout Africa?” Cassie shook her head, and he said, “How 'bout her mama? Her mama 'fore that?” Mister Mallard eyed Judith. “You know where your folks come from, lil white gal?”

“Mississippi, suh.”

“I mean 'fore that.”

“Been there as long as I know, suh.”

“You there 'fore the injuns?”

“Far as I know, suh,” said Judith, and Mister Mallard made a
phfft
through his teeth.

“See now?” he said to Cassie. “Ain't no white folk in Mississippi 'fore the injuns, but white folks done put that fact outta they minds. It don't fit in with how they see theyselfs. Colored folks doin' the same thin' now. They gits whiter, and they fergits everthin' 'bout they past. One day they ain't gone to be no past, jus' folks behavin' like today the only day that ever was.”

“Maybe that's not such a bad thing,” said Cassie.

“Girl,” said Mister Mallard, “you shut your mouth.” He reached for her plate. “You done?” She wasn't, but he took it anyway and then snatched Judith's. “Now set yourself down in t'other room whilst I wash up.”

“You mighta insulted him,” Judith said in a whisper as they stood in the parlor.

“I was sayin' what I thought. He was sayin' what he thought.”

“Ol' folks ain't innerested in what you have to say. Like your granny. You ever have enny real kinda conversation with her?”

Back in the kitchen, Mister Mallard banged pots and ran water and didn't seem like he was going to come out. Judith glanced around the jammed little parlor and squeezed between a pair of ladderback chairs to look at the framed black-and-white photos lined up on top of the upright piano. “Here them two boys when they was little.”

Cassie made her way over to see. One photo was of Junior and Charlie with Mister and Mrs. Mallard when the boys were three or four. Mister Mallard was younger looking but as thin as ever. The black and white of the photo picked up the highlights of his face and deepened the shadows until he looked positively skull-like. Mrs. Mallard was a dark, pretty woman with high, round cheeks and fetching eyes. The boys looked just like her—
thankfully
, Cassie thought. The other photos were from baseball teams Junior and Charlie had played on.

“Lookit how cute.” Judith pointed to a row of serious-looking little colored boys in striped shirts and pants. “I cain't see which ones is them in this'n. But see here in this high school picture?” Junior and Charlie were off to the left, distinctly identical and noticeably lighter than any of the other young men. “How kin they be dark as the dickens when they was little and turn out so light in high school?” Judith raised an eyebrow at Cassie. “I never noticed y'all get lighter.”

“It's just a bad picture,” said Cassie, but there was really no arguing it. The most recent photo showed Junior and Charlie grinning in front of the gleaming white garage, arms over each other's shoulders, lighter-skinned than they were in any of the other photos. A banner stretched over the office door behind them which read,
GRAND OPENING!!

“When you think that was took?” Judith said and answered her own question. “Not too long ago. See? The trees're all leafed out like summer.”

The brightness of the white paint should have made their darkness even darker, but it didn't. It obviously didn't.

“It's just a bad picture,” said Cassie again. “It's jus' how they look in front of that white garage.”

The front door opened, and Charlie came in. “Turns out you threw a rod,” he said. “Means we got to order some parts, an' that means we ain't gone be able to fix it till tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” said Judith. “We got to be in Virginia in less than a week!”

“Don't see how you'd get there even if that trap runnin' smooth,” said Charlie. Judith started to object, but Charlie said, “You need somewhere to spend the night, and it ain't proper for y'all in a house fulla men. We gone take you to the minister, the Reverend Glade. His wife'll fix you up.” Charlie sniffed the air, which was still heavy with the smells of their late, short breakfast. “Daddy feed you?”

“Yessuh,” said Cassie.

“He let you finish eatin'?” Cassie looked down at the plain brown carpet, and Judith twisted her fingers together. “I 'pologize,” Charlie said. “Daddy got some real set ideas. You think you havin' a discussion. He think you dead wrong. I cain't tell you how many dinner plates I had yanked out from under my nose. Mama wouldn't put up with it.” He opened the door. “Come on. We'll drive y'all down to the church.”

The church was at the other end of town, which, in Heron-Neck, would have put it on the wrong side of the tracks. But the railroad didn't seem to pass through Porterville or anywhere near it, even though Ovid Beale had shown them the speck of the town in relation to the tracks. Cassie tried to shake Ovid Beale and his wrongheaded directions out of her thoughts and study the town passing by. The houses were modest, well-kept, and most had a car in the driveway. Back home on Negro Street, Lil Ma would point out the places where people paid rent to landlords and how those places were always more run-down than the places people owned for themselves. In Porterville, Cassie saw no renters. She also saw no white people.

“At the church,” said Junior, who was driving, “there's a wake goin' on for Mister Legabee. That's the fella we done buried this mornin'.”

“The man who's a hunnert and twenny-five years old?” said Judith. “The fella borned into slave-ry?”

“That's right,” said Charlie.

“If you don' mind, I'll stay here in this nice ol' car.” Judith ran her hands over the smooth leather upholstery. “I ain't impolite enough to make a big disruption.”

“You'll be welcome,” said Junior. “Both of you'll be welcome. There'll be plenty white folks.”