“Jean,” said Locke, “look and see what’s in the poor box.”
“He needs shoes too, John.”
There were none to spare, so they put four pair of socks and some ripped galoshes next to the sofa.
“Get some sleep, brother. You got a rocky journey ahead and I don’t just mean Georgia.”
Frank fell asleep between a wool blanket and plastic slipcovers and dreamed a dream dappled with body parts. He woke in militant sunlight to the smell of toast. It took a while, longer than it should have, to register where he was. The residue of two days’ hospital drugging was leaving, but slowly. Wherever he was, he was grateful the sun’s dazzle did not hurt his head. He sat up and noticed socks folded neatly on the rug like broken feet. Then he heard murmurs from another room. As he stared at the socks, the immediate past came into focus: the hospital escape, the freezing run, finally Reverend Locke and his wife. So he was back in the real world when Locke came in and asked how three hours of sleep felt.
“Good. I feel fine,” said Frank.
Locke showed him to the bathroom and placed shaving kit and hairbrush on the sink’s ledge. Shod and cleaned up, he rummaged in his pants pockets to see if the orderlies had missed anything, a quarter, a dime, but his CIB medal was the only thing they had left him. The money Lily had given him, of course, was gone as well. Frank sat down at the enamel-topped table and ate a breakfast of oatmeal and over-buttered toast. In the center of the table lay eight one-dollar bills and a wash of coins. It could have been a poker pot, except it was surely far more hard-won: dimes slipped from small coin purses; nickels reluctantly given up by children who had other (sweeter) plans for them; the dollar bills representing the generosity of a whole family.
“Seventeen dollars,” said Locke. “That’s more than enough for a bus ticket to Portland and then on to somewhere near Chicago. Still it sure won’t get you to Georgia, but when you get to Portland, here’s what you do.”
He instructed Frank to get in touch with a Reverend Jessie Maynard, pastor of a Baptist church, and that he would call ahead and tell him to look out for another one.
“Another one?”
“Well, you not the first by a long shot. An integrated army is integrated misery. You all go fight, come back, they treat you like dogs. Change that. They treat dogs better.”
Frank stared at him, but didn’t say anything. The army hadn’t treated him so bad. It wasn’t their fault he went ape every now and then. As a matter of fact the discharge doctors had been thoughtful and kind, telling him the craziness would leave in time. They knew all about it, but assured him it would pass. Just stay away from alcohol, they said. Which he didn’t. Couldn’t. Until he met Lily.
Locke handed Frank a flap torn from an envelope with Maynard’s address and told him that Maynard had a big congregation and could offer more help than his own small flock.
Jean had packed six sandwiches, some cheese, some bologna, and three oranges into a grocery bag. She handed it to him along with a watch cap. Frank put on the cap, thanked her and, peering into the bag, asked, “How long a trip is it?”
“Don’t matter,” said Locke. “You’ll be grateful for every bite since you won’t be able to sit down at any bus stop counter. Listen here, you from Georgia and you been in a desegregated army and maybe you think up North is way different from down South. Don’t believe it and don’t count on it. Custom is just as real as law and can be just as dangerous. Come on, now. I’ll drive you.”
Frank stood at the door, while the Reverend retrieved his coat and car keys.
“Good-bye, Mrs. Locke. I do thank you.”
“Stay safe, son,” she answered, patting his shoulder.
At the ticket window, Locke converted the coins into paper money and bought Frank’s ticket. Before joining the line at the Greyhound door, Frank noticed a police car cruising by. He knelt as though buckling his galoshes. When the danger passed he stood, then turned to Reverend Locke and held out his hand. As the men shook hands they held each other’s eyes, saying nothing and everything, as though “good-bye” meant what it once did: God be with you.
There were very few passengers, yet Frank dutifully sat in the last seat, trying to shrink his six-foot-three-inch body and holding the sandwich bag close. From the windows, through the fur of snow, the landscape became more melancholy when the sun successfully brightened the quiet trees, unable to speak without their leaves. The lonesome-looking houses reshaped the snow, while a child’s wagon here and there held mounds of it. Only the trucks stuck in driveways looked alive. As he mused about what it might be like in those houses, he could imagine nothing at all. So, as was often the case when he was alone and sober, whatever the surroundings, he saw a boy pushing his entrails back in, holding them in his palms like a fortune-teller’s globe shattering with bad news; or he heard a boy with only the bottom half of his face intact, the lips calling mama. And he was stepping over them, around them, to stay alive, to keep his own face from dissolving, his own colorful guts under that oh-so-thin sheet of flesh. Against the black and white of that winter landscape, blood red took center stage. They never went away, these pictures. Except with Lily. He chose not to think of this trip as a breakup. A pause, he hoped. Yet it was hard to ignore what living with her had become: a tired cruelty laced her voice and the buzz of her disappointment defined the silence. Sometimes Lily’s face seemed to morph into the front of a jeep—relentless headlight eyes, a bright scouring above a grill-like smile. Strange, how she had changed. Remembering what he loved about her, the slight paunch, the backs of her knees, and her knockout beautiful face, it was as though someone had redrawn her as a cartoon. It couldn’t all be his fault, could it? Didn’t he smoke outside the apartment building? Put more than half his pay on the dresser for her to spend any way she wanted? Do her the courtesy of raising the toilet seat—which she took as an insult. And although he was amazed and amused by the female paraphernalia that hung from the bathroom door or cluttered cabinets, sink ledges, and every available space—douche bags, enema attachments, bottles of Massingill, Lydia Pinkham, Kotex, Neet hair removal, facial creams, mud-packs, curlers, lotions, deodorants—he never touched or questioned them. Yes, he sat on occasion for hours in the quiet—numb, unwilling to talk. Yes, he regularly lost the few odd jobs he’d managed to secure. And while sometimes being near her made it hard to breathe, he was not at all sure he could live without her. It wasn’t just the lovemaking, entering what he called the kingdom between her legs. When he lay with the girl-weight of her arm on his chest, the nightmares folded away and he could sleep. When he woke up with her, his first thought was not the welcome sting of whiskey. Most important, he was no longer attracted to other women—whether they were openly flirting or on display for their own private pleasure. He didn’t rank them against Lily; he simply saw them as people. Only with Lily did the pictures fade, move behind a screen in his brain, pale but waiting, waiting and accusing. Why didn’t you hurry? If you had gotten there sooner you could have helped him. You could have pulled him behind the hill the way you did Mike. And all of that killing you did afterward? Women running, dragging children along. And that old one-legged man on a crutch hobbling at the edge of the road so as not to slow down the other, swifter ones? You blew a hole in his head because you believed it would make up for the frosted urine on Mike’s pants and avenge the lips calling mama. Did it? Did it work? And the girl. What did she ever do to deserve what happened to her? All unasked questions multiplying like mold in the shadows of the photographs he saw. Before Lily. Before seeing her stand on a chair, stretch, reach up to a high shelf in her cupboard to get the can of Calumet she needed for the meal she was preparing for him. Their first. He should have jumped up, pulled the tin from the shelf. But he did not. He could not take his eyes away from the backs of her knees. As she stretched, her dress of a soft cottony flowered fabric rose up, exposing that seldom noticed, ooo-so-vulnerable flesh. And for a reason he still did not understand, he began to cry. Love plain, simpl
e, and so fast it shattered him.
There was no love from Jessie Maynard in Portland. Help, yes. But the contempt was glacial. The Reverend was devoted to the needy, apparently, but only if they were properly clothed and not a young, hale, and very tall veteran. He kept Frank on the back porch near the driveway, where a Rocket 98 Oldsmobile lurked, and smiled knowingly as he said, by way of apology, “My daughters are inside the house.” It was an insult tax levied on the supplicant for an overcoat, sweater and two ten-dollar bills. Enough to get to Chicago and maybe halfway to Georgia. Still, hostile as he was, Reverend Maynard gave him helpful information for his journey. From Green’s travelers’ book he copied out some addresses and names of rooming houses, hotels where he would not be turned away.
Frank shoved the list in the pocket of the coat the Reverend gave him and, beyond Maynard’s view, stuffed the bills inside his socks. As he walked to the train station his nervousness about whether he would have another incident—uncontrollable, suspicious, destructive, and illegal—was shrinking. Besides, sometimes he could tell when a break was coming. It happened the first time when he boarded a bus near Fort Lawton, discharge papers intact. He was quiet, just sitting next to a brightly dressed woman. Her flowered skirt was a world’s worth of color, her blouse a loud red. Frank watched the flowers at the hem of her skirt blackening and her red blouse draining of color until it was white as milk. Then everybody, everything. Outside the window—trees, sky, a boy on a scooter, grass, hedges. All color disappeared and the world became a black-and-white movie screen. He didn’t yell then because he thought something bad was happening to his eyes. Bad, but fixable. He wondered if this was how dogs or cats or wolves saw the world. Or was he becoming color-blind? At the next stop he got off and walked toward a Chevron station, its black flames shooting out from the V. He wanted to get into the bathroom, pee, and look in the mirror to see if he had an eye infection, but the sign on the door stopped him. He relieved himself in the shrubbery behind the station, annoyed and a little frightened by the colorless landscape. The bus was about to pull away, but stopped to let him reboard. He got off at the last stop—the bus station in the same city where he had disembarked to the sight of singing high school girls welcoming the war-weary vets. Out in the street in front of the bus station the sun hurt him. Its mean light drove him to look for shade. And there, under a northern oak, the grass turned green. Relieved, he knew he wouldn’t shout, smash anything, or accost strangers. That came later when, whatever the world’s palette, his shame and its fury exploded. Now, if the signs of draining color gave notice, he would have time to hurry up and hide. Thus, whenever a smattering of color returned, he was pleased to know he wasn’t going color-blind and the horrible pictures might fade. Confidence restored, he could abide a day and a half on a train to Chicago without incident.
Signaled by a redcap, he entered a passenger car, pushed through the green separation curtain, and found a window seat. The train’s rocking and the singing rails soothed him into a rare sleep that was so sound he missed the beginning of the riot, but not its end. He woke to the sobbing of a young woman being comforted by white-jacketed waiters. One of them nestled a pillow behind her head; another gave her a stack of linen napkins for her tears and the blood pouring from her nose. Next to her, looking away, was her silent, seething husband—his face a skull of shame and its partner, rigid anger.
When a waiter passed by, Frank touched his arm, asking, “What happened?” He pointed to the couple.
“You didn’t see that?”
“No. What was it?”
“That there is the husband. He got off at Elko to buy some coffee or something back there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “The owner or customers or both kicked him out. Actually. Put their feet in his butt and knocked him down, kicked some more, and when his lady came to help, she got a rock thrown in her face. We got them back in the car, but the crowd kept the yelling up till we pulled away. Look,” he said. “See that?” He pointed to egg yolks, not sliding now but stuck like phlegm to the window.
“Anybody report to the conductor?” Frank asked him.
“You crazy?”
“Probably. Say, you know a good place to eat and get some sleep in Chicago? I got a list here. You know anything about these places?”
The waiter took off his glasses, replaced them and scanned Reverend Maynard’s list.
The waiter pursed his lips. “To eat go to Booker’s diner,” he said. “It’s close to the station. For sleeping the YMCA is always a good idea. It’s on Wabash. These hotels and what they call tourist homes can cost you a pretty penny and they might not let you in with those raggedy galoshes on your feet.”
“Thanks,” said Frank. “Glad to hear they got high standards.”
The waiter chuckled. “You want a shot? I got some Johnnie Red in my case.” C. TAYLOR was printed on his name tag.
“Yeah. Oh, yeah.”
Frank’s taste buds, uninterested in cheese sandwiches or oranges, came alive at the mention of whiskey. Just a shot. Just enough to settle and sweeten the world. No more.
The wait seemed long and just when Frank was convinced the man had forgotten, Taylor returned with a coffee cup, saucer and napkin. An inch of Scotch trembled invitingly in the thick white cup.
“Here you go,” said Taylor, then he rocked along the aisle to the sway of the train.
The abused couple whispered to each other, she softly, pleadingly, he with urgency. He will beat her when they get home, thought Frank. And who wouldn’t? It’s one thing to be publicly humiliated. A man could move on from that. What was intolerable was the witness of a woman, a wife, who not only saw it, but had dared to try to rescue—rescue!—him. He couldn’t protect himself and he couldn’t protect her either, as the rock in her face proved. She would have to pay for that broken nose. Over and over again.
With his head back on the window frame he napped a bit following the cup of Scotch and woke when he heard someone taking the seat next to him. Odd. There were several empty seats throughout the car. He turned and, more amused than startled, examined his seat partner—a small man wearing a wide-brimmed hat. His pale blue suit sported a long jacket and balloon trousers. His shoes were white with unnaturally pointed toes. The man stared ahead. Ignored, Frank leaned back to the window to pick up his nap. As soon as he did, the zoot-suited man got up and disappeared down the aisle. No indentation was left in the leather seat.
Passing through freezing, poorly washed scenery, Frank tried to redecorate it, mind-painting giant slashes of purple and X’s of gold on hills, dripping yellow and green on barren wheat fields. Hours of trying and failing to recolor the western landscape agitated him, but by the time he stepped off the train he was calm enough. The station noise was so abrasive, though, that he reached for a sidearm. None was there, of course, so he leaned against a steel support until the panic died down.
An hour later he was scooping up navy beans and buttering corn bread. Taylor, the waiter, had been right. Booker’s was not only a good and cheap place to eat, but its company—diners, counter help, waitresses, and a loud argumentative cook—was welcoming and high-spirited. Laborers and the idle, mothers and street women, all ate and drank with the ease of family in their own kitchens. It was that quick, down-home friendliness that led Frank to talk freely to the man on the stool next to his who volunteered his name.
“Watson. Billy Watson.” He held out his hand.
“Frank Money.”
“Where you from, Frank?”
“Aw, man. Korea, Kentucky, San Diego, Seattle, Georgia. Name it I’m from it.”
“You looking to be from here too?”
“No. I’m headed on back to Georgia.”
“Georgia?” the waitress shouted. “I got people in Macon. No good memories about that place. We hid in an abandoned house for half a year.”
“Hid from what? White sheets?”
“Naw. The rent man.”
“Same thing.”
“Why him
?”
“Oh, please. It was 1938.”
Up and down the counter there was laughter, loud and knowing. Some began to compete with stories of their own deprived life in the thirties.
Me and my brother slept in a freight car for a month.
Where was it headed?
Away, was all we knew.
You ever sleep in a coop the chickens wouldn’t enter?
Aw, man, shut up. We lived in a ice house.
Where was the ice?
We ate it.
Get out!
I slept on so many floors, first time I saw a bed I thought it was a coffin.
You ever eat dandelions?
In soup, they good.
Hog guts. They call it something fancy now, but butchers used to throw them out or give them to us.
Feet too. Necks. All offal.
Hush. You ruining my business.
When the boasts and laughter died down, Frank retrieved Maynard’s list.
“You know any of these places? I was told the Y was best.”
Billy scanned the addresses and frowned. “Forget that,” he said. “Come on home with me. Stay over. Meet my family. You can’t leave tonight anyway.”
“True,” said Frank.
“I’ll get you back to the station on time tomorrow. You taking a bus south or the train? Bus is cheaper.”
“Train, Billy. Long as there’re porters, that’s the way I want to travel.”
“They sure make good money. Four hundred, five a month. Plus tips.”
They walked all the way to Billy’s house.
“We’ll buy you some decent shoes in the morning,” said Billy. “And maybe a stop at the Goodwill, okay?”
Frank laughed. He had forgotten how raggedy he looked. Chicago, braced by wind and a smug twilight sky, was full of strutting, well-dressed pedestrians moving quickly—as though meeting a deadline somewhere down sidewalks wider than any Lotus road. By the time they left downtown and entered Billy’s neighborhood, night was on its way.
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