The Waking (16 page)

“
Another day trip?”

“
Yeah,” she says. “They’re off to Maysville, which is supposed to be the oldest landing place on the Ohio or something. They go on a walking tour to look at some old buildings, so you know they’ll be hungry at dinner. I think even your girlfriend Mrs. Walker went this time, so you
know
they’ll be late getting back waitin’ on her.”

No twenty at lunch. The checks back to Pittsburgh are getting smaller and smaller.

“
Yeah, white folks never get enough of seeing
their
history up close and personal,” Rose says. “There’s plenty of
our
history floating by, but do they do walking tours to see it?”

“
Our history?” In this part of Ohio?

“
You ever hear of Ripley?”

“
No.”

“
Ripley, Ohio. Nice little town two bends of the river away. Ripley was where an Underground Railroad station was back before the Civil War. They say thousands of slaves crossed over the Ohio there, followin’ the North Star and walkin’ right up Liberty Hill to a little house all lit up like a beacon, walkin’ right to freedom. I’ve heard Ripley is where Harriet Beecher Stowe got some of her ideas for
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
.”

We take our sandwiches and Cokes outside to a rail, and I wish I had something to add, you know, some comment to make. I had heard about the Underground Railroad and read pieces of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
in school, but to see where it really operated … It gives me chills that I can’t explain.

“
There are lots of little towns just like Ripley, but we don’t stop,” she says as we watch the water flowing by and around a bridge to the Ohio side. “Hot today, ain’t it?”

“
Yeah.” I watch sunlight chasing shade around the boat, or is the shade chasing the sunshine?

“
The river’s high, too. It wouldn’t have been a good time to run away on a day like today.” She sips her Coke. “Just think. This little sliver of water was the difference between being called a man and being called a nigger, the difference between being called a woman and being called a wench, the difference between being human and being an animal.” She points at some weeds four feet tall on the shore. “That’s there’s horseweed. It’s not too tall now, but by the end of the summer, it’ll be near twenty feet high. Good place to hide in that horseweed. If you don’t have allergies, that is. Imagine having to hold back a sneeze with folks and dogs chasing you, and all you gotta do is wait for dark and cross the river to freedom.”

I close my eyes and try to imagine it, but I can’t. I only see the horseweed.

“
You ain’t fallin’ asleep, are you?”

I open my eyes. “No ma’am. Just trying to use my imagination.”

“
Hmm. See anything interesting?”

“
No.”

She nods. “It’ll come. It took me a good little while, too. You write your letters?”

“
Yes ma’am.”

“
You could mail ‘em here in Maysville.”

“
I have to put checks in them first.” I smile. “And I’d rather mail them from some place like Ripley.”

“
I hear you.” She finishes her sandwich. “You stay and try to use your imagination for a while. I’ll be in the galley.”

“
Need some help?”

“
No. You need you some sun. I’ll call you in when I need you.”

“
Okay.”

I roll up my sleeves and let the sun beat a tattoo on my arms as I walk the rail on the Ohio side of the boat. I see rich green hills like checkerboards, sunken boulders fifty feet from the boat, the slimy clay bank being flushed by muddy faucets of little streams, wild flowers of every color so plentiful that I feel I can reach out my hands and grab a bouquet, the purple mist of distant hills getting some more rain, rain that seems to be dripping right out of the sun. Moored as we are, it seems like the boat’s going backwards with the water still rushing by. I know it’s just an optical illusion, but it’s still strange. The entire world seems to be moving under my feet, but I’m not moving. Trees on both sides seem to be washing their leafy hair in the foamy water at the edge of the shore, and masses of debris carom from side to side out in the main channel like giant pinballs without the flippers. In my mind, I’m the first person to see all this, the first person to take it all in. “Take the world as it is,” I whisper as if I’m the captain of the boat. “Without hardship, there is no voyage.” Where’d I ever hear something like that?

This river’s getting to me, and I’ve only just got on it.

Ripley drifts by while I’m getting dinner ready, but I know it’s there, I feel it there, and whenever I’m making haste slowly busing tables or serving Mrs. Walker, who got her gray cheeks a little sunburned today, I look out the window at the land of freedom. I know it’s a cornball thing to do, but it fills me and makes me feel a little mighty.

Once we get through a lock and dam, we’re on the homestretch to Cincinnati where many passengers will get off for good. Rose gives me a short break from making cookies to write my checks, get my letters ready, and get forty dollars to go with Mrs. Walker’s fresh twenty. I hope the tattoo doesn’t cost more than sixty.

“
We won’t have much time once we get to Cincy,” Rose tells me, “so you’ll have to shower and get dressed quick.”

I sigh. The captain’s clothes have to stink. “My clothes—”

“
They’ve been cleaned.”

“
What?”

“
They needed ironing, too.”

“
You cleaned them up for me?”

“
Otherwise I wouldn’t be seen with you on our date.”

I want to hug her. “Thank you.”

“
And please shave or something. You’re lookin’ all ragged.”

Landing at Riverboat Row across from Cincinnati on the Kentucky side is wild. Both sides of the river are lit up with more neon than Pittsburgh, and the river seems busier, a sliver of moonlight floating on the waves. One thing I like about the
American Queen
is that every other boat on the river stays out of its way. It isn’t the most powerful or the biggest, but other boats part like, well, like waves whenever it shows up, many of them chugging or racing alongside so folks can take pictures.

During my shower, I notice that my postage stamp has shrunk, but it’s still nasty looking. I hope it heals on its own because Doc Agee might change his mind about that drug test. Then I shave using Rufus’s electric razor and wait while he showers and douses himself with some cheap cologne.

“
Heard Rose was goin’ with us,” he says.

“
Yeah.”

“
She’s good people.”

“
Yeah.”

He puts on a FUBU shirt, matching shorts and a hat, and some Timberlands that have to be size nineteen. A country boy can dress well? He makes me look bad. “Also heard Penny’s goin’, too.”

“
Not sure,” I say.

“
Saw her gettin’ her hair done at the salon, so she goin’.” He flattens his shirt over his chest. “How I look?”

“
You look all right. I need me some clothes like that.”

He covers his mouth and coughs. “Yeah, you do.” He rummages through the top drawer of the dresser, pulls out another FUBU shirt, and tosses it to me.

Though I’m angry that a country boy is trying to teach me how to dress, it’s a nice gesture. “It won’t fit.”

He shrugs. “Still better than what you’re wearing, right?”

I hold it to my chest. “It’s gonna hang down to my knees.”

“
So? Baggy is the style now, right?”

I take off my shirt and put it on. Though it’s short-sleeved, the sleeves almost reach my wrists. I look down and don’t see my knees. “I look ridiculous.”

“
We all friends, right?”

“
I guess.”

“
So it don’t matter none.” He laughs. “Though Rose gonna talk about you all night long.”

We meet up with Rose near the front gangplank, and she looks so beautiful in regular jeans and a simple pink top. “You are looking fine, ma’am.”

“
And you look like you’re wearing a tent.” She frowns at Rufus. “Bet you told him he’d look fly wearing this thing.”

Rufus smiles. “Yep.”

“
If the wind picks up, he gonna blow away.” She points at a cab. “That’s our cab.”

“
We ridin’ in style tonight!” Rufus says.

“
Wait up!” I hear Penny call, and she joins us looking very un-Penny-like with flowing brown hair down to her shoulders without the fake piercing in her nose. She looks plain wearing jeans and a nice white blouse.

“
She comin’?” Rose says too loudly.

“
I invited her,” I say.

“
Hmm,” Rose says.

Rose isn’t happy.

The ride to Covington, Kentucky, takes us across the Licking River down Fourth Street, and I see one-way signs all over the place. The same fools who designed downtown Pittsburgh must have designed this place. We get out on Scott, where I find a mailbox and mail my letters, and then we go into Mysterious Tattoo. It’s weird to see a tattoo parlor right near the Daystar Christian Worship Center, but I guess they don’t do business at the same time.

Once inside Mysterious Tattoo, Penny, who hasn’t said a single thing so far, takes over while Rose and Rufus check out all the designs, and there are hundreds to choose from.

Penny pulls over a guy who is tattooed from head to foot. “This is the guy,” she tells him. She nods at my arm, and I push up the sleeve. Thankfully, the guy doesn’t say a thing. I guess I’m not the first junkie to come in here. “What can you do for him?”

He turns my arm side to side and looks at me. “Could probably put a cross on it.”

A cross. I’ve seen lots of fellas with them, though most of them weren’t religious in the least, and a cross makes sense because the lines almost form one on their own.

“
Or a spider’s web,” he adds.

A snake on one arm and a spider’s web on another? I’ll scare my son to death! “The cross sounds good. How much?”

“
One color?”

“
Yeah.”

He looks at my arm again. “Fifty.”

“
That’s way too much,” Penny says. “You did my rose in two colors for fifty.”

“
Got a lot of work to do on this one because I’ll be working without a pattern.”

“
What you talkin’ about?” She runs a finger on my lines. “The pattern’s already there.”

“
I could maybe go forty, but that’s as low as I’ll go,” he says.

“
That’s still too high for only one color.” Penny takes my arm. “Come on. We’ll go somewhere else.”

“
Just a sec,” the guy says. “I’ll throw in some gold around the edges.”

I look at Penny and shrug. “Sounds good to me.”

“
Make it fancy,” Penny says.

“
I’ll try,” the guy says.

And then I have a guy needle me to death for the next hour while only Penny watches. Rose and Rufus glance over every now and then, but I can tell they’re wincing. It hurts some but not too bad, I guess because I’ve built up calluses or something. After he edges the cross with gold and even fills it in for free, I don’t see the lines anymore. He slaps a bandage on it and tells me not to get it wet for at least a week, and I pay him forty dollars.

“
Anybody else?” he asks.

Rufus waves his hands and says “No way.”

Rose shakes her head.

Penny shrugs and says, “Maybe next time.”

“
Where to?” Rufus says, and he rubs his stomach.

“
Is that all you think about, boy?” Rose asks.

“
Ain’t me thinkin’,” he says. “It’s my stomach.”

“
How about Jack Quinn’s?” Penny suggests.

Rose frowns. “That Irish place? We look Irish to you?”

“
Just a suggestion,” Penny says, and she pushes through the door to the street.

“
The nerve of her suggesting that,” Rose says. “Jack Quinn’s is an Irish ale house.”

“
Oh.” Where gin could flow. “It doesn’t matter to me,” I say, peeking under the bandage at my new arm, “as long as it’s a place to sit down and be served for a change.”

“
I hear you,” Rose says. “How about the fish bar?”

Rufus rubs his hands together. “Now you’re talkin’.”

We sit in a booth and eat at B&J Fish Bar where Rufus sucks down a school of flounder filets and a bushel of fries. No one talks much, which is fine by me, because I am throwing down on a sampler platter of every kind of fish in the sea, dipping whatever I’m eating in cocktail sauce and tartar sauce and ketchup.

“
Try this,” Rufus says. He dumps a stream of malt vinegar onto one of my filets, and it doesn’t taste too bad. “Wish they had some Louisiana Lightning up in here.” He twists his head, and the whole booth moves. “Somethin’ hotter than this stuff.” He grins.

“
Glad I ain’t roomin’ with you, Rufus,” Rose says. “Better get you some matches, Emmanuel.”

“
I got night watch again,” Rufus says, “so only Cincinnati will know what I been eatin’.”