Catfish Alley (23 page)

I realize I've grown so accustomed to the grandeur and
amenities of my church that I can't imagine sitting through Sunday service in
one of these hard wooden pews with no padding or listening to the organ without
an echoing sound system. Yet this church has the kind of warmth and
peacefulness about it that makes me want to sit down and stay. I feel a lump in
my throat remembering again that day so long ago with Mama. I've never had that
kind of emotional experience in my own church. I tell myself, even before
seeing any more, that this church has to be on the tour.

Grace decides to remain in the pew and "have some
quiet time with the Lord" while Reverend Mason takes me on a tour. There
isn't much to see. Two or three small rooms behind the sanctuary were the
original Sunday school rooms. Behind the sanctuary, a new fellowship hall was
constructed in the 1950s. Reverend Mason says it's used for everything from
choir practice to Sunday night socials. He points next door to a small
bungalow-type cottage.

"That's the parsonage over there. It was built in
1910 by the same man who helped Dr. Albert Jackson build his house."

"Does your wife like Clarksville?" I ask,
finding myself surprisingly curious about this man.

Reverend Mason grins and shakes his head. "Oh, I'm
not married. My house companions are a fourteen-year-old beagle named Ruby and
an equally old cat named Harriet. Believe me, though," he says, laughing,
"if the ladies in my church have anything to do with it, I'll be married
off before I'm here much longer. They just can't believe that I don't have a
woman to take care of me."

I find myself liking this young man from Chicago who
doesn't have one trace of a Southern accent, but the best manners and the
friendliest, not to mention most handsome, smile I have seen in a while.

"I recently met another of Grace's friends,"
I say. "Matilda Webster. She has a granddaughter living in Chicago.
According to the ladies, she's in some powerful city position up there. Maybe
you know her. I think Grace said her name was Billy ... Billy Webster?"

He laughs softly. "I never met Billy Webster while
I was living in Chicago, but I definitely know Mrs. Matilda Webster. She's an
interesting woman. I visit her in the nursing home every week, and she is
always talking about Billy."

"I'm hoping to get to meet Billy myself," I
say. "Are you familiar with the old Queen City Hotel?"

"No ...," he says, looking puzzled.
"Should I be?"

"No, no," I answer. "I was just
curious." I decide I'll keep my ideas to myself for now. Another thought
occurs to me. "Does a man named Jack Baldwin attend your church?"

"Yes, I do know Mr. Baldwin, and his wife, Rita.
Real nice folks. He's a banker, I believe. Why do you ask?"

My plan just might work, but I need to arrange a few
more details first. "Oh, just wondering. I had lunch with Rita a couple of
weeks ago and then I met Mr. Baldwin last week when Grace and I went down to
visit Clarence Jones on Catfish Alley." I sound so casual talking about
being social with blacks, I don't even recognize myself.

Reverend Mason smiles. "Yes, I know Clarence —
wonderful barber, but not much of a churchgoer."

We end our tour and return to the sanctuary, where we
find Grace dozing in the sunlight slanting through the stained glass window
over the choir loft. I gently touch her arm and she wakes instantly.

"Gracious, I must have dozed off. I was praying,
and before you know it, I fell asleep."

"We're done with our tour now," I say, feeling
a little sad to be leaving this peaceful place.

"Brother Daniel, thank you for showing Roxanne our
little church," Grace says.

I walk along behind them as we leave the church,
noticing how attentive he is to her and how much she seems to enjoy it. Why did
Grace never marry? Were there not other men after Junior? Did she wait all her
life for him?

I shake hands with Reverend Mason after he helps Miss
Grace into the car. Closing the car door, he peers into the window and looks
across at me.

"Let me know if there's anything I can do to help
with the tour, Mrs. Reeves. I'm just new enough in this community that I can
get by with asking for things that some folks won't." He grins. "At
least once anyway."

I look in my rearview mirror and see him waving as we
drive away. It hits me that my whole perspective on black men is changing. How
strange.

Billy
Webster

I love Chicago. I've got a great job and great friends.
No man yet, but I'm still hopeful. Today is one of those beautiful, crisp fall
days — at least it's not the dead of winter. I've never gotten accustomed to
the cold, windy winter weather here. On those days just walking from the
taxicab to the airport doors is enough to chill you to the bone. Even now, I'd
rather be home in my cozy downtown apartment, sipping hot chocolate in front of
a fire. Instead, I'm boarding a plane and headed to Mississippi to see Gran.

It's the right
thing to do,
I tell myself for the thousandth time.
It's just so depressing to go home. Gran sits in the Pineview Nursing Home day after
day. Just sits there. Granted, she has her room fixed up nice and it's her
choice to stay there. I've tried for years to convince her to come and live
with me in Chicago, but Mrs. Matilda Webster wants nothing to do with it. So,
every three or four months here I am on a plane to Mississippi.

Yesterday, on the phone, Gran mentioned the old hotel
again. This is the other bone of contention between us. I want to sell it and
at least get the money for the land it
's
on, but Gran refuses. She says all of her memories are there
and, as long as she's living, she will not sell it. Now Gran's talking about a
tour. Says some white woman from Clarksville is organizing an African-American
tour and wants the Queen City Hotel to be part of it. I snort at the thought of
that, and the woman sitting next to me in the airport waiting area looks at me
curiously.

That place is so rundown it looks more like some of
the projects on Chicago's South Side than a hotel. Daddy always said the Queen
City was fine by comparison to where blacks usually had to stay back in those
days. Of course I've heard all of the family stories about the heyday of the
Queen City Hotel. It's all interesting and nice, but I don't have much interest
in history. Why anybody would want to tour an old hotel that represented
segregation at its worst is beyond me.

The nasally voice announces our flight and I board the
plane with the other faithful folk returning to the South. I find my scat and
sleep until the pilot announces our arrival in Jackson, Mississippi. My best
friend, Travis Sprague, and I were out far too late and drank far too much last
night. But the jazz was hot and Travis was buying,
so
I couldn't refuse. In Jackson, I rent a car, a
s
usual, and drive down to Clarksville. I take my usual route down the Natchez
Trace, admiring the fall color with the car's air conditioner on full blast,
since it must still be ninety degrees down here.

When I walk into Gran's room at Pineview, I'm
surprised to see a tall black man facing her chair and holding her hand. She's
looking up at him like he's good enough to eat, and I have to agree from what I
can see from behind. That is one fine-looking man. Gran looks past him, sees
me, and squeals in delight. He straightens quickly and turns. It's been a long
time since I've seen a man who made me catch my breath. Most of the guys I've
met so far in Chicago are players, not really serious. I've gone out with a few
white men, but I quickly realized that I'm just not attracted to white men. But
this man. Oh, my!

Ease up there,
sister,
I tell myself. I settle down and focus on
my grandmother. "Hey, Gran," I say as I move past the stranger to
kiss Gran's cheek.

"Hey there, baby girl," she says. Her obvious
pleasure in seeing me always makes the trip worth every cent. "I want you
to meet my new pastor, Reverend Daniel Mason. Brother Daniel, this is my
granddaughter, Belinda Webster."

I have to stifle my disappointment.
A preacher? This must be God's idea
of a joke.
How could he put this gorgeous man right in
front of me, close enough right now to notice how good he smells, and make him
a preacher? I wonder what I did to make God angry. Probably not visiting my
grandmother enough. I smile and take his hand.
Those eyes!
Even behind the glasses, they're warm and sexy.

"Good to meet you, Belinda. Your grandmother has
told me a lot about you. She's very proud of you, you know."

"Please, call me Billy," I say. "Gran, I
hope you haven't been telling this minister any of those made-up stories you
like to tell."

Gran laughs. "No, baby girl. Everything I've said
about you and your high-powered job is true. I've just been telling the
reverend about the Queen City and how I want him to help me talk you into
taking a look at it again. Reverend Daniel says he'd love to see it."

I haven't seen my grandmother this animated in years.
What is that twinkle in her eye? Is it just from being around a handsome man or
is it something else? And here we go with this discussion of the Queen City
again. I think I might as well nip it in the bud, right now.

"Gran, we've been over this before," I say,
pulling up a chair beside her and plopping my bag down on the bed. I turn to
the preacher. "Please, Reverend Mason, sit down, won't you?"

"I can only stay a minute. I have other folks to
see. Please, call me Daniel." He moves a chair near the two of us and I
can't help but watch as he bends that tall muscular frame into the small chair.
I look up and realize Gran is watching me. She actually winks!

Oh, Lord.
"Rev ... Daniel, what my grandmother doesn't realize is what poor
condition the Queen City Hotel is in. You see, it's in an area of town that's
not too great and it's been vandalized. The roof leaks.... Anyway, it's just
not something you would want people touring —"

Gran interrupts me. "There was a white woman over
here the other day talking about putting the Queen City on a tour. An
African-American tour. She just might have some ideas about what we could do
with it. I was telling Brother Daniel about the days when your grandfather ran
the hotel and all of the famous black musicians and athletes and such who
stayed there. He still wants to see it for himself," Gran insists.

"I believe I met her," Daniel says.
"Roxanne Reeves?"

Gran nods. "That's the one. Little bit uppity.
Don't think she's very comfortable around black folks, but she's trying. I let
her borrow a key to take a look at the place. Grace Clark tells me she's quite
taken with it."

Daniel nods in agreement. "Yes, ma'am, I agree. I
got that impression from her, too." Daniel Mason looks at me with an
expression as eager as a little boy's. I wonder what it would be like for him
to act that interested in me. "I really would love to see the place, if
you have the time," he says.

There are those eyes again! I look from Gran to Daniel.
It seems as if they are conspiring against me. And I'm so confused. Who is
Roxanne Reeves and what African-American tour? Gran loaned out a key to the
place? Gran reaches out and takes my hand.

"Brother Daniel's father was a jazz musician and
he plays, too."

"Really?" I ask. "What instrument?"

Daniel looks embarrassed. "Oh, I just play a
little on the horn, nothing much. I grew up with jazz, and when I came in here
and saw all of these pictures" — he motions inward the pictures Gran has
hanging on I list about every inch of her walls — "I was amazed at all of
the jazz greats who came down here."

"I gather you're not from Mississippi," I
say.

"No, no. I'm from Chicago."

Now this is just too strange. Another cosmic joke. A
good-looking intelligent man who plays jazz and is good to old people, and he
leaves Chicago, where I live, and moves to Mississippi, where I wouldn't be
caught dead living,
and
he's a minister? It's enough to make a
grown woman cry. But Gran is looking at me with that pleading look in her eyes,
and this man is so handsome, how can I refuse? I can at least show him the
place; nothing has to come of it. But I'll do it on my terms.

"All right, Daniel. How about I come by and get
you and we'll go over to the Queen City? When do you get off work, uh ... I
mean, when are you available?" It occurs to me that preachers might not
keep office hours like regular people.