Mystery of the Dark Tower (4 page)

“What k-k-kind of leg is she talking about f-f-fixing?” Eddie asked.

“She might be talking about
your
leg,” Bessie teased.

“Shhh. You
must not tease about that,” Lillian said. “She might hear you.”

“How?” Bessie said. “She's all the way inside her house.”

“I told you,” Lillian said. “She has great hoodoo power.”

“I didn't mean to let Miss Flo know you'd been talking about her,” Bessie said. “I'm sorry.”

“We will all be sorry if we are
ribbiting
tonight,” Lillian said.

Suddenly a deep croaking sound came out of Eddie's mouth. It sounded just like a bullfrog in the spring.

Lillian gasped. “He sounds just like a real frog.”

“Eddie's good at imitating,” Bessie said.

Just then, the gray-haired man came out of Miss Flo's house and down her steps. Bessie and Eddie stared, speechless, as the man walked past them. He hobbled along, supported by a crutch. He slowly made his way up the street.

“What in the world is the matter with you two?” Lillian asked. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

Bessie could not find her voice. Keeping her hand low, she pointed at the man.

“What?” Lillian said. “You've never seen a man like that before?”

“B-b-but h-h-h-h-he …” Eddie began.

“Hurry, what are you saying?” Lillian said.

Bessie finally whispered, “That man had two legs when he went inside Miss Flo's house. And now—he only has one!”

They all three gawked. His right pant leg was tied neatly in a knot at the knee. Bessie shivered. Eddie grimaced. And Lillian looked like her eyes would pop out. She made a cross over her heart with her right hand.

“I told you,” she whispered.

Bessie wanted to get inside, away from the scary woman who put spells on people. “I hear Aunt Nellie calling us,” she fibbed.

“I didn't hear anything,” Lillian said.

“I-I-I did,” Eddie said, pulling Bessie by the hand into the house. “C-c-come on, Bessie.”

Inside the door, Bessie squeezed Eddie's fingers. “Thanks,” she whispered, just as she heard Aunt Nellie calling them for real.

C
HAPTER
3

S
OUNDS IN THE
N
IGHT

That night Bessie dreamed of hoodoo women and one-legged men. She awoke from the fitful dream, startled by an unfamiliar sound. Bessie heard the sound again. Was someone downstairs?

She shook Eddie. “Come on. I heard something.”

Eddie frowned and turned over, pulling the covers up over his head. It was no use. When Eddie was asleep, he was hard to wake up.

Bessie pulled on the robe Aunt Nellie had given her and tiptoed slowly downstairs. She listened, but she didn't hear the sound again. The heavy drapes pulled shut made it difficult to see. Bessie felt her way by touching the wall. She didn't want to bump into anything and wake Aunt Nellie or Papa.

Bessie moved to the parlor window and parted the drapes to peer out. Outside, a few feet away, was Papa. He was leaning on a shiny black car, talking to a tall woman in a fancy dress with a fur slung around her shoulders—and it wasn't Mama. Papa stopped for a moment, having a coughing spell, and turned toward the window.

Bessie slid back and quickly pulled the drapes shut. Then, peeping through them, Bessie watched the woman patting Papa on his back. When he finally stopped coughing, the woman hugged him.

A hot burning flame jumped into Bessie's stomach. Why was this woman hugging Papa? No one should hug Papa but his family Then Papa hugged the woman again.

Bessie felt lower than a scolded dog. She couldn't tell Eddie about this. Not only were Mama and Papa separated, but now Papa was seeing another woman. Why else would Papa hug this woman who wasn't his relative?

Bessie wished she hadn't come downstairs. This room used to be her favorite room in the house. But she would never feel the same about it again. Bessie slid down beside the window. She pulled her knees into her chest. Bessie could see the pretty rose satin settee in front of the fireplace, but she hated it now. The heart-shaped white lace pinned on the arms of all the chairs looked silly, the fancy carved tables ugly. The curtains on the windows and the flowered rugs looked heavy and suffocating. Bessie would rather be back home, where all the furniture was hewed from plain old wood, and the curtains sewn from muslin by Mama.

Bessie could see Mama in her mind. Had Papa forgotten Mama already? What was happening to Mama and Papa? Back home, they used to be so happy. Every night at supper, Papa would say something like, “I bet y'all children don't even know you got the most beautiful flower in the world sitting right here at the table with you.”

Bessie and Eddie would just smile, because they knew what Papa was going to say next.

“Your mama. She make a rose look like a wilting weed on a hot summer night.” Then Mama would giggle just like a little girl.

But in the weeks before they left for Harlem, Papa would eat the entire meal without saying one of his “sugar-sweets.” In fact, he would hardly say a word at supper. Yes, Bessie could see it now. Things between Mama and Papa had changed even before Papa brought them to Harlem. Bessie twisted her hair while thinking. Aunt Nellie never mentioned Mama coming to Harlem. And now Papa never said it anymore. Bessie was beginning to think Mama wasn't coming to Harlem.

Bessie decided not to tell Eddie what she had seen tonight. No, there was no need to put that picture in Eddie's head, like it sat in hers. Maybe her parents were right. Maybe children shouldn't be in grown folks' business, because it sure did hurt.

The next day Bessie moped around, keeping her secret to herself. After they'd eaten supper, Bessie and Eddie settled down in Aunt Nellie's sewing room. “I have a few things to show you in my trunk. It just might cheer you up,” Aunt Nellie said. “I want y'all to know about what your people doing here in Harlem.”

Now Bessie sat up, alert.

Aunt Nellie pulled out a magazine. “Bessie, I bet you ain't never seen a magazine written all by coloreds, have you?”

Bessie shook her head.

Aunt Nellie read a poem from it written by a man named Langston Hughes. “That was written by what they are calling the ‘New Negro.' Folks like Langston Hughes are proud to be colored and even outright talk about
liking
to have black skin.”

Bessie had never heard a colored person calling somebody “black” unless he was trying to be mean. Now Aunt Nellie was saying the “New Negro” liked being black.

“Here in Harlem, colored people can write poetry, be doctors and architects, sing and dance in clubs, and even be policemen,” Aunt Nellie said proudly.

She gathered up a few things from the trunk. “One second,” she said. “I'll be right back.” When Aunt Nellie returned, she had on a different dress. It was bright yellow and covered with beads and fringe. She spun around so they could see it, and everything on the dress spun with her.

“This is called a flapper dress,” Aunt Nellie said. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”

“No, ma'am,” Bessie said.

“N-n-not me,” said Eddie.

“I used to dance in it at Small's Paradise over on Seventh Avenue,” Aunt Nellie said. “That's a fancy nightclub, let me tell you.”

“What's a nightclub?” Bessie asked.

“Well, a nightclub is a place where grown folk can dance and laugh and talk together. Sometimes clubs have shows where folk perform—you know, dancing and singing on a stage.”

“Are you a d-dancer?” Eddie asked.

“Oh, not really,” Aunt Nellie said. “See, when we waited tables we'd dance like this.” She put a record on the Victrola and began to swing her hips. “We'd do the Charleston as we sashayed on up to the table. Come on, let me show you how to Charleston.”

Aunt Nellie pushed back a coffee table. “Put one of your hands on your hip like this,” she said. “Now swing your right leg around behind your left leg. And then give your right foot a little twist and whip it out like so, then swing your left leg behind your right leg. That's it. Y'all got it!” All three of them swirled, pretending to hold a tray up in the air with one hand, as they danced around the floor.

“Small's Paradise is a nice club,” Aunt Nellie said, while they pranced back and forth to the music. “Not like the Cotton Club.”

“What's the Cotton Club?” Bessie asked, imagining a bunch of people all holding bundles of cotton.

“The Cotton Club is a fancy uptown nightclub where coloreds can perform, but we ain't allowed in to
see
the show.”

“Why don't you work for Small's Paradise anymore?” Bessie asked.

“You don't know your Aunt Esther. She still calls me ‘Baby Sister,'” Aunt Nellie said. “You ought to be glad she's off to Boston seeing about her daughter. Lord, if she was here you think she'd be letting us listen to what she calls the devil's music? No. And God knows she's worse since her husband, Reverend Henry, died. Much worse. After he died she found out he hadn't paid—” Aunt Nellie stopped dancing. “Where's my mind? I can't talk about that with y'all.”

“She found out he hadn't paid what, Aunt Nellie?” Bessie asked. “We're big children, remember? Our secret.”

Aunt Nellie glanced nervously at the mantle clock. “Lordy, it's after nine o'clock.”

“Please tell us. Please,” Bessie begged.

“All right,” Aunt Nellie said, sitting down with Bessie and Eddie on the floor. “See, Reverend Henry wasn't allowed to buy this house, because the owners didn't want to sell to coloreds, so he used the down payment to rent the house. But he didn't tell your Aunt Esther because he didn't want to break her—”

Just then Papa walked into the room. Bessie barely recognized him. He looked worn out. And he looked like he was mad about something.

Bessie and Eddie ran to him and wrapped their arms around him. “Hey, Papa,” they said together.

“Hey, Bessie and Eddie,” Papa said, stooping down to hug them.

“Where you been, Papa?” Bessie asked. In her mind she saw him hugging the woman the night before outside the window. She hoped he would say something that would explain it all. Her heart sank when he answered—with a fib.

“I been getting up early for work and coming in late. I just left work,” Papa said, staring at Aunt Nellie.

“W-w-we missed you, Papa,” Eddie said.

“I know. I missed y'all, too,” Papa said. “Y'all been good like I told you?”

“Yes, sir,” Eddie answered. Bessie didn't say anything. Instead she dropped her head and thought to herself,
Have
you
been good, Papa?
She took a long look at Papa. He didn't have on his work clothes, and he was still clean. Papa was always dirty when he came from work building things and digging wells.

“I'm glad you been good. That's more than I can say for your aunt.” Papa straightened up his tall body and looked directly into Aunt Nellie's face. “These children don't need to be hearing nothing like that, Nellie. You don't talk to children about grown folks' burdens, girl. What else you been telling them?”

“I ain't told them nothing,” Aunt Nellie said, slinging her stuff back into the trunk. She yanked the record off the Victrola. “Don't come in here accusing me of something I ain't done, Ed Coulter. At least I ain't told Esther what
you
been doing, now have I?”

“I been working,” Papa said.

“Yeah. What
kind
of work, though?” Aunt Nellie said, biting her lower lip.

“Work's work. Something
you
ought to think about. Leastways, I ain't let her run me out of doing what I want to be doing. You so scared of her, Nellie, that—” Papa stopped and looked at Bessie and Eddie. “I'm tired,” he continued. “Look, I'm sorry, Nellie. I know you doing the best you can. And I appreciate it.” Papa slumped down on one of the stuffed chairs.

“Well, just because you tired don't give you no call to say all that. You worse than Esther sometimes,” Aunt Nellie said.

Papa broke into a fit of coughing.

“Ed, are you all right?” Aunt Nellie asked, then covered her mouth with her hand.

“All I'm saying is,” Papa said, coughing in between breaths, “I done told you, I want both my children in bed before this time of night, Nellie. You done promised me you'd look after them.”

Aunt Nellie grabbed Bessie and Eddie by the shoulders. “All right, then.” Bending down in front of them, she whispered, “You two go on to bed. You take this, Bessie,” she said, slipping a sheet of paper into Bessie's hand.

Bessie looked at the paper as she walked upstairs. It was the poem Aunt Nellie had read. It was called “The Weary Blues.” Bessie was so busy reading it that she didn't even realize until she was in the bedroom that Eddie wasn't with her. When she went back downstairs to get him, he was standing outside the sewing room.