Only the Strong (28 page)

She'd sworn off the world of cotton and cucumbers, confident she'd she soon be setting foot in a hot field for the last time. Back then, she thought she might eventually settle in Honey Springs after exploring distant shores. But when she came back to bury her mother, she knew she'd been kidding herself. Every family struggling in every shack had suffered some version of her loss. The ground, spongy beneath her feet, was soaked with sorrow. Sadness hummed through the air louder than honeybees. Only by leaving
and returning was she able to fully appreciate how pervasive it was. Each tree stump, hollow log, and bend in the road was a reminder of the long gone and the freshly killed, the broken and the missing.

Watching the people of North Gateway promenade and cavort on the green grass of Fairgrounds Park, Artinces allowed herself to briefly savor the joyful spirit of the day. They had fled the same history, known the same ruptures and defeats. But there was something daring and admirable about their willingness to take a chance on joy, even if only for a few sun-splashed hours. Everyone in Honey Springs who took similar risks had invariably paid for it. Upon reflection, Artinces conceded that Goode had been right: it did indeed take blood. She'd actually recognized the truth in his words as soon as he spat them out; perhaps that's why she became so upset. He was right, but she had no plans to tell him so.

Sometimes, PeeWee concluded, you just have to say fuck 'em. Fuck stuck-up females. Fuck fake motherfuckers who think they're better than you. Fuck Sharps too.
Needle-nosed nigger wants me to lay low—I know he's over there about to shit on himself—but fuck him. Let him come get me if he's that worried.

PeeWee strolled cockily down the main path of the park, straight through the revelers and picnickers, the performers and vendors. He and Sharps were parked across the street on Kossuth Avenue, close enough to keep an eye on things without being seen themselves, when PeeWee announced that he needed to take a leak and hustled off toward the portable toilets before Sharps could react. No doubt he was having a fit, but what the fuck could he do? It was a lovely day and there were plenty of fine bitches stretched out on blankets in the grass. Reasons enough for a close-up investigation. Besides, he could handle himself. Hadn't he proved that when he knocked that sucker out at the gym? No harm would come to him, he was certain. There was a good chance, he figured, that he was invulnerable.

He'd discovered hidden strengths since spending time with the ring. He'd persuaded himself that he hadn't stolen it from his sister; the ring, he now remembered, had found
him
. Clearly they were
meant to be together. It wasn't like Crenshaw needed it anyway. A big-bucks superstar like him could always buy more shine. When PeeWee went to his barbershop to get his growing natural shaped and blown out, the home team's slugger was on the grainy black-and-white atop the soda machine, strutting into the batter's box. PeeWee could tell that Crenshaw had all the power he needed. He was tearing up the league, with his sights on the team home-run record. Now, watching the All-Star sign autographs just a few feet away, he was more convinced than ever that Crenshaw could do without the ring. He was charming, confident, adored. For him, things were going along just the way they should. But amid PeeWee's barely tolerable circumstances, something had to give. He had been putting up with some inferior folk of late, but not for much longer. When the dust cleared he'd be the last man standing. And the ring would be on his finger.

He turned away from the home team's booth, idly caressing his treasure as Playfair passed by. PeeWee imagined Sharps in the Eldorado, fuming. Let him. Let him see how hard it is to sit still while other folks are having fun. Sharps had told him to watch and wait and, more insulting, to do it quietly while Sharps pondered his next move. That part, the silent obedience, was especially hard to take. But the ring told him to bide his time. He'd be in charge soon enough. The chump change Sharps doled out was more than he had been scoring on his own, that much he had to admit. It enabled him to keep the lights on during his sister's prolonged, mysterious absence. He didn't even feel lonely anymore, stretched out on her sofa at night with only his slick palms to keep him company. He felt more of a man than he'd ever been before, bigger and more powerful in his fist as he squeezed and rubbed himself to sleep. And when he woke in the night and watched moonlight stream through the window, it seemed as bright as the future he imagined. He had no stable income. No place to call his own. No woman. But that was all right. He had the ring.

“Saints preserve us,” Irene Monday said. Feeling plucky, the sibling quartet onstage had abandoned the Jackson Five for the Five
Stairsteps. From their lips, the opening notes of “O-o-h Child” sounded like four asthmatics straining for air.

Artinces was grateful when Playfair appeared and captured her attention. “Afternoon, ladies,” he said. “How wonderful to see you both.”

“Hello,” Artinces said.

“Playfair,” Irene said with a wink. “I hardly recognized you without your Buick.”

Playfair laughed. “Oh, she's parked right outside the gates. As usual, I've got anything a brother—or sister—needs, at my usual cut-rate prices. I just didn't want to pay for a vending permit. Of course, I have a few nice things in my vest pockets, if anyone's interested. By the way, Doctor, how's Shabazz?”

Irene sat up, intrigued. She'd figured Artinces had a boyfriend tucked away somewhere, a Bob or a Milton, maybe. But a Shabazz? She wondered if he was the bow-tied Muslim who sold bean pies in front of Katz Drugs.

“He's fine, I guess,” Artinces replied. “I think Charlotte's falling for him, but she won't admit it.”

Irene's eyebrows shot skyward, visible above the cup of soda she held to her lips.

“Well, he's enough for the both of you,” Playfair said, “as long as you train him up right.”

Irene choked on her soda, dribbling a little on the front of her apron.

Playfair, whose roving eyes missed nothing, pretended not to notice. He settled his eyes on a young woman studying a brochure at a booth run by Ardell's Beauty Salon. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said apologetically. “Opportunity knocks.”

He hustled over to the woman, whose floral sundress stuck closely to her modest curves. “Afternoon,” he said. “I've seen you someplace before,” Playfair added before she could reply. He squinted. “Zodiac?”

“That's right. You have a good memory.”

“How could I forget a face like yours? They call me Playfair,” he said, and tossed her a smile.

“I'm Gladys,” she said, returning it.

“It is completely my pleasure to meet you, Gladys. Anybody ever tell you that you look a lot like Nichelle Nichols?”

Irene and Artinces watched as Playfair offered his arm and Gladys, grinning shyly, accepted it. Together they strolled toward the bandstand.

Irene sucked her teeth. “He better watch it,” she said. “When a woman that pretty is walking around all by her lonesome, something ain't right. People used to say the same thing about my Lucius. They'd say, ‘How can a man that pretty be on his own?''' Artinces stole a look at Lucius, hard at work behind his easel. She thought it would be quite a stretch even to call him ruggedly handsome, with an emphasis on rugged.

“He's too pretty for his own good,” Rhonda Treadway pronounced, stirring her milkshake with her straw.

“Nothing against pretty,” Kendra Lee chimed in. “But my mama said never trust a musician.”

“You all talk like I'm about to marry the man,” Artinces protested. “I'm just taking lessons from him, that's all.”

Artinces, Rhonda, Kendra, and Kozetta Harris were the only female second-years at Howard University Medical School. In addition to living and studying together, they often met at a soda fountain for milkshakes and gossip.

The topic of discussion was Brady Ross, a local piano teacher. Ross was lean and elegant, with prominent cheekbones and wavy hair that gleamed under a thick layer of pomade. He wore stylish short-sleeve shirts and ribbed silk socks that never failed to catch Artinces's eye when he leaned back and crossed his legs.

“All the same,” Kendra shot back. She looked around before cupping her breasts. “A Negro who strokes piano keys will never stroke these.”

An article in
The Crisis
magazine about a pioneering woman surgeon mentioned that she'd studied piano to strengthen her fingers. So when Artinces saw Brady's ad in the
Afro-American
, she resolved to take up the instrument. After a while, she found other ways to make her fingers strong, such as using them to trace
the outline of Brady's sleek, muscular loins. He lived in a neat bungalow with an upright piano in the front room, a kitchen, a book-crammed bedroom, and little else. She usually waited on his porch while the student whose appointment preceded hers ran through his scales a final time. The student, a handsome man with a warm smile and twinkling eyes, would grin and tip his hat. Brady would welcome her in, and before she knew it he was teaching her many fascinating things about rhythm, melody, counterpoint, and call-and-response. They just had little to do with playing the piano.

In between, she gleaned a few facts. He'd gone to Wilberforce. Toured with a few combos. Claimed to have been narrowly bested by Count Basie in a “cutting contest” when the latter came through town with his big band. He was working on a song cycle based on the poems of Countee Cullen. He taught her selected couplets while pleasuring her in his bed.

“
I whom sun-dabbled streams have washed
,” he'd say, lowering his lips to her breasts, “
whose bare brown thighs have held the sun
.”

While prepping Artinces for her upcoming test in her Nervous Systems class, Kozetta insisted that Brady was not showing all his cards. “I'm telling you, there's more to that bear than his curly hair. He's not in school, so how did he avoid the draft? What's he doing with that nice little house with no family in it?”

“He's taking his time, exploring his music,” Artinces said. “He wants to get established as a composer before he makes that kind of commitment.”

“Oh, is that what he told you? I bet he's got a wife and kids right under your nose. Buried in that backyard, maybe. I'm telling you, girl, you need to ask him some questions.”

“Why? It's not like I'm seeing him.”

“Artinces? It's me, Kozetta. From
Harlem
. I can see what you're doing with that man. It isn't just all over your face. It's how you walk and sit too. You're stuck on him.”

Artinces merely shook her head and returned to her notes. She wasn't stuck on Brady; she simply had an appetite for his body. As for his personality, she didn't know enough, hadn't seen enough, to form an opinion. All she knew was that she liked the way he smelled when he leaned over her to demonstrate a difficult
sequence. She inhaled, he noticed, and that was that. She had been a virgin, which surprised him, but they both quickly got over it.

It was then that Artinces learned how to keep up appearances. She never stayed for more than a couple of hours.

Talkative men didn't appeal to her. She liked a bit of mystery, unlike Kozetta, whose boyfriend Bert Dudley never shut up. Her few conversations with Brady took place while they were side by side on the piano bench, apparently the only place where he was entirely at ease. The men she knew growing up, the boys with whom she'd shared clumsy adolescent grappling, could talk of little besides crops, livestock, and Joe Louis. To Artinces, Brady was jazzy and sophisticated, a free-flowing improviser who also provided a sharp contrast to the men in her med school class, most of whom stubbornly adhered to a predetermined script. He'd open up about poetry, music, and world events, even going so far as predicting a postwar prosperity expansive enough to include Negroes. “I'm like Langston,” he'd say, “dreaming me a world.” He'd take her hand in his and lead her to his bed.

For her part, allowing Brady his secrets enabled her to keep her own cards close to her vest. Ultimately, that involved less about improvising and more about avoiding a destiny she'd strived so hard to elude. As much as she loved her mother, as much as she was grateful for her uncomplaining sacrifice and her patient tutelage, she could not shake the enduring memory of Sadie stumbling to her feet, white-haired and delirious, helpless as a newborn babe. She would never fall to earth for any man, not even one as wonderful as Luther Noel. So she stuck to her books and kept her distance. No matter how much she grew to crave Brady's scent or marvel at the way he easily spanned an octave with his long, sensitive fingers, their couplings would be just a pleasant diversion. They could never be more than that.

It seemed a plausible philosophy until she got pregnant.

She saw herself stepping off the train at the Honey Springs depot, dragging an overstuffed suitcase and groaning behind a bulging belly. She saw herself trudging up the dirt path to the shanty where she first drew air. Then she woke up sweating.

What she felt for Brady Ross couldn't in any way be twisted into the shape of love. She didn't want to be the wife of an aspiring composer. Still, a life of improvisation was, she conceded, far more stable than any kind of life in Honey Springs.