The Reservoir (6 page)

On his own departure day, Aunt Jane kissed him on the cheek. “You’re such a man now,” she said, beaming proudly at him, her eyes crinkling into crescents; then she turned away a moment so she wouldn’t cry. She adjusted his bowler and necktie. “Don’t neglect your health in the city,” she said, gripping his shoulders.

He shook his brother’s hand, endured another squeeze from his aunt, and got into the cart. His father came just in time to see him off and give him a pocket edition of Shakespeare quotes, which he already owned, telling him it was from his mother who was not feeling well. Inside was a folded ten-dollar bill that Tommie knew better than to try to refuse.

He had not been to Richmond since the trip with his father, and the city had been growing ever since. It was after New Orleans the largest city in the South, and it was on the verge of change. The reluctant Confederate capital was still in some ways a war-scarred city, holding on for dear life to its past, with memorials popping up in cemeteries and public squares, and one-legged veterans swinging down the streets on crutches. The trauma of the war years was not easily shaken off. But the bitterness and despair the city had endured under the watchful eye of the conquerors was gone, and the city Tommie was entering was a changed place. Its ironworks were again preeminent in the South, its marketplaces hummed with life, and in nearly every way it was on the verge of industrial modernity.

He caught a horse-drawn omnibus heading west on Broad. At seventeen years old and on his own, he felt constrained in a new way, having to act the part of a man, like the dignified gentleman on the seat beside him. The man had nodded to Tommie when he boarded near the capitol, as though he knew Tommie were green, as fresh from the country as first-cut alfalfa. At the same time, Tommie was so caught up in his excitement at being in the city he could lose himself for blocks at a time in the passing show out the window: all the fine houses, the carriages clipping smartly along.

He took the bus to the end of the line, two miles from the station. The driver helped him with his trunk, and then he was alone, standing there not quite knowing what to do with himself. He began to drag his trunk toward the largest building he saw. A young black porter with a hand cart came running to help him. “Richmond College?” the boy asked him. Tommie said yes, trying to act as though he knew his way around. The boy nodded and said, “Ryland Hall, straight ahead.”

It was a massive new building, Second Empire-style, mansard roofs crowning ornate towers. It was what college should look like, and Tommie liked that it had the same name as his minister back home. The boy stayed with him until he found his room, then Tommie gave him a nickel and thanked him. Tommie’s roommate was already there. He introduced himself as Tyler Bagby from Essex. He had unkempt dark wavy hair, an open collar, and a droll smile about him, as if he found the entire world an amusing curiosity. He also had a sharp angular face, shadowed with evening stubble that made him look older than he was. After a few minutes of light conversation, Tyler put his hands behind his head and leaned back. “I think we’ll get along just fine, Tommie,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind if I call you that.” Tommie shook his head. “And you should call me Tyler. Bagby sounds too boarding school, and Mr. Bagby too formal. Help yourself.”

He tossed Tommie a package of what were labeled Richmond Gems. He watched with amusement as Tommie opened the thick paper pouch and slowly pulled out one of the pencil-thin cylinders. “What’s the matter with you?” he said. “Never heard of tobacco?” Tommie nodded and smelled the cylinder. He and his brother had tried cigars, but his aunt disapproved and he himself didn’t care for the taste. Moreover, Reverend Ryland had said in one of his sermons that tobacco was an addiction and therefore a vice and had only hurt the farmers who depended on it.

“It’s a cigarette,” Tyler explained. “Greatest thing this city’s ever produced. And when I get myself an education, I’m going to join my brother over in Manchester. He’s a floor manager at Allen & Ginter. I worked under him this summer, as assistant floor manager. They have twenty-two women rolling these beauties, which by itself is a good reason to get into the business. We’re going to make a fortune, and if you want in on it I could say a good word for you.”

He showed Tommie how to smoke it, but since smoking was a vice Tommie had a hard time taking pleasure in it. Still, he enjoyed watching Tyler hold the cigarette between two fingers as he slowly exhaled a cloud of smoke in apparent utter satisfaction.

They started going to church together at Grace Street Baptist, where the college chaplain, Reverend Hatcher, preached on Sundays. One Sunday they met the widow Carlotta Henry, who invited them to a Saturday tea dance. On the appointed day they strolled down Broad to her brick-and-stone mansion, its turreted bay and columned portico making it, in Tommie’s mind, a castle. A short lively bird of a woman, Mrs. Henry was a society matron who thrived on the company of young gentlemen; the locket she wore around her neck was said to contain a shard of her husband’s shattered thigh bone. She grasped Tommie warmly by the hand and introduced him and Tyler to a group of older students. The women were mostly from the Richmond Female Institute. He danced with a pretty, blond-haired girl, and since he was homesick he asked if he could visit her sometime. She told him matter-of-factly that she was not allowed to go carriage riding with a young man unchaperoned and that anyway she expected to be engaged shortly after her coming-out party in the spring.

Thus schooled and chastened, Tommie rejoined Tyler and a group of upperclassmen who had decided, as soon as the dance was over, to go to a place called Garolami’s on Mayo Street. One of the young men, a medical student named Randall Croxton, had a cousin who worked there. And so Tommie found himself swept along in the camaraderie of a boisterous group heading to the east side of town. There was Bobby Valentine, of the Valentine meat juice family, a law student named James Courtney, and Sid and Harry Aylett from King William.

The farther east they proceeded, the rougher-looking the people they passed—painted women on corners openly leering, scruffy men carrying illegal sidearms. It was a cool evening, with moisture beaded along the bases of gaslight globes; Tommie felt the growing warmth of his herd. By the time they got to Garolami’s it was as if they were well into their third round already. Bobby’s arms were draped around Tommie and Tyler and they were singing “O dem golden slippers.” At the saloon, Randall’s cousin seated them near the back. He wiped his hands on a dirty apron and told them in a friendly way he hoped they were all eighteen years old, which Tommie was not, nor was Tyler, though Tyler, in an offhand way, claimed he was. They ordered drafts of lager, except for Sid, who asked for porter. Then after his first sip, he told the group about a cadaver raid on Oakwood Cemetery with Randall when he was a freshman. “They never found out who it was, but it was thanks to us that the legislature finally decided to donate corpses to the medical school. That’s progress, gentlemen!” He raised his glass and everybody cheered.

Then Bobby Valentine told the group about a duel his uncle fought in Oakwood with a newspaper editor who was against paying back the war debt to the federal government. “He got hit in the jaw by a flying piece of somebody’s headstone. I believe it was an Aylett.”

“Naw,” Sid said, “my folks ain’t buried around here.”

“Anyway,” Bobby went on, “he took it on the chin for Virginia’s honor.” This led to another chorus of bellowing in simulated outrage. Bobby told the group if anybody needed a job at his father’s plant, he would see that he got it.

Tommie and Tyler were mostly quiet, listening to the tales of the older boys, though Tommie was able to pitch in a few wry little remarks that got some laughs. Harry, also a freshman, entertained the group with remarkably accurate imitations of their professors. James was the quietest of all, and Tommie saw that he was able to maintain his composure and place within the group without a great deal of effort. Perhaps, Tommie thought, he should model himself after James, who had a dignity the others lacked. He was also the best dressed, and Tommie could picture himself studying law someday and behaving in a similarly modest manner.

A blind negro fiddler was playing at the front of the room, his foot tapping time in the sawdust on the floor. At the table next to theirs a group of rough men were playing cards. The man closest to Tommie had a purple wen on his forehead; he called out, “Play ‘Chicken in the Breadtray.’ ” Tommie looked over and saw him removing his wooden lower leg so that he could scratch his stump. The man shot him a murderous look and as Tommie turned back he heard the cardplayers laughing. His own kind were around him and he felt that never had he known such a fine group of fellows—he wanted to belong to them forever.

Sid told Tommie and Tyler that they would make excellent candidates for the Bell Ringing Society. By tradition, at midnight during final examination week one member of the group would ring bells and holler like mad for a brief time. No one knew exactly who was in the society and where the next bell ringing would occur. Tommie said he would be proud to be a member. Then Sid suggested they all go over to Locust Alley to Lizzie Banks’s house. After a few minutes of spirited innuendo and guffaws, Tommie deduced that Lizzie Banks ran a brothel, where you could have the woman of your choice for five dollars. Students were welcome. James and Harry decided to save their money and go on home. Tommie did not have five dollars on him, nor could he afford to spend it, but his curiosity was so inflamed now that he quietly asked Tyler for the loan of a few dollars.

No one but Sid and Randall seemed to have been there before, or to any such place. But the other three were game for the experience, and off they all went, no longer singing, nor quite so boisterous. When they got to the row of jammed-together houses, Sid went up and knocked on one that was indistinguishable from the others. A middle-aged woman, her hair wound into a severe knot, let them in as though she were ushering them into Sunday school. She introduced herself as Lizzie, and offered them sherry from a crystal decanter sitting on a table beneath a winding staircase. A tall mirror stood on one wall, half its silver missing, its carved gilt frame suggesting an opulent past; another wall held a convex mirror that afforded views down the hall and up the stairs.

As nonchalantly as they could, the young men took seats in boot-scuffed wing chairs and sprung sofas artfully covered with antimacassars. They sat drinking superfluous, weak sherry, until presently a group of young women materialized from different parts of the house. The one who came to sit with Tommie had short reddish hair, plump arms, and an upturned nose; she called herself Gretchen. He liked Tyler’s girl better, a wispy woman with big sad eyes and long straight black hair. Seeing him looking at her, Gretchen pouted, “You don’t like me?” She had a hint of Irish in her accent.

“No,” Tommie said. “I like you fine.” His voice seemed muffled and far away, but he felt pleasantly free of himself and he took another big sip of sherry. He banished Nola from his mind for the hundredth time, as well as visions of the crucifix, his mother, Reverend Ryland, the flames of hell, Reverend Hatcher, and semi-naked sinners moaning in eternal darkness as depicted in an old Sunday school booklet. In their place he put an image of Sid walking happily up the stairs with a laughing, buxom young lady, and he reminded himself that God expects us to sin, in order that we may be forgiven—a formula that had been lying ready for use in his brain since the day he’d conceived it at a long, otherwise dull revival at the Stratton Parish Episcopal Church.

Gretchen led him upstairs past a red velvet wall hanging with gold tassels. As he passed, he ran the back of his hand along the plushness of the velvet for reassurance that his money was going to a worthy cause. The little room they entered was high-ceilinged and furnished with a low iron bed, a wooden chair, and a nightstand with a ceramic pitcher and wash basin. She went around to the other side of the bed, her back to him, and began unlacing her beaded basque; he sat on the chair watching her in the candle glow. Her back was suddenly bare, the basque hanging from her waist like a carapace she’d emerged from.

She half turned, smiling in a coy way that struck him as artificial. “Need some help?”

“No,” he said, pulling off his shoes. His fingers fumbled over his buttons. Finally he was down to his underwear, and, not sure what he was supposed to do, he came over and sat on the close side of the bed.

Gretchen had used the time to strip down to nothing but pale skin and a gold necklace. She twisted half around again and placed a hand gently on his chest. “You’re a very handsome man,” she told him. No one but his aunt had ever called him a man before, much less a handsome man. Her breast swayed as she stroked him down to his navel. Then she was on the bed facing him, squatting on her heels, and the room seemed full of flesh. He was afraid of disappointing her even as she stroked between his legs and he felt himself swelling. He let her be in charge—let her slip his drawers down, place a rubber condom on him, as though she were a nurse and he afraid to look too closely at his injury. He touched her breast as she worked on him, and she didn’t seem to mind. But as she slipped the condom down he could not help letting go. She held him and murmured, “Mm-hmm, junior’s excited. That’s a good boy, that’s a good boy.”

She handed him a towel, then lay beside him and told him how strong he was. “Next time,” she said, “I’ll be quicker. You’ll see.” She tapped his nose. They lay there awhile, and she told him about how she was going to earn enough money to go to New Orleans by riverboat; she’d had a gentleman customer from there, a man with a white suit, who told her she could have a job as a dancer if she wanted it. But she’d only just come to Richmond, so she didn’t want to leave quite yet. She was from Alexandria, and had left as soon as she could because she didn’t get along with her aunt and uncle who had raised her, her parents having too many of their own. While she talked, she let Tommie play with her breasts, until he felt the sadness of the world slipping away and desire coming back. He leaned in toward her as she was sitting up.