“You know, I’m a businessman.”
“Like a pimp or some shit?”
“What? Hell no! I work at the bakery a couple blocks over. Gets pretty busy.”
“You ain’t got nobody else to help you over there?”
I stub out the last of my square. “Look you want a job or not? Better than waiting for someone to come put a bullet in your ass.”
He shrugs.
“Come by tomorrow. I’ll see if I can find something for you.”
“Cool.”
“I believe you mean, Thank you.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He offers his hand. He has a firm grip. Not too tight trying to challenge me, but strong. I like strong.
CHAPTER 7
LAYLA
The vanilla latte in my hands does nothing to warm me and even after taking two strong gulps, which burn my tongue, Ruby’s eyes still cause me to shiver. Every word I try out in my head sounds forced and all I do is worry about my friend who won’t look at me.
“I saw a couple of houses for sale around here.”
Ruby’s eyes leave the patterns on the wall and follow my voice. Her mouth turns slightly upward to a smile, thoughtful and sad. “Did you?”
“Yeah, one has a big front yard with an apple blossom tree and the other one looks like your grandma’s house. The street was quiet.”
My search for a parking spot took me a bit deeper than I planned, into the tree-lined blocks of the historic Beverly neighborhood, one of the few places seen as desirable to live on the South Side. Beverly or Hyde Park it seemed were the only two places subtly trendy enough to be livable by people other than blacks. This somehow gave those neighborhoods acclaim other South Side boroughs like Bronzeville and Washington Heights didn’t yet have, white acknowledgement, which always translates into positive attention and expensive real estate.
Small chic boutique shops and some recognizable chain restaurants nestled between the historic mansions on Longwood Drive and the well-kept lawns of the smaller Georgians, bungalows and raised ranch houses give the appearance of traditional American family living.
It is so strange that only a few blocks east, past Ashland Avenue, the homes and the schools and the streets are tougher, but more honest and real without the polish. I am proud of where I come from, but also, and I hate admitting this, I long for life those few blocks west.
Ruby and I talk about living here. Less now, but when we were younger, this neighborhood was movie picture-perfect in our minds, preserved like those insects in ancient amber tombs, a place to somehow distance ourselves from our fathers.
“You’re biting your lip,” says Ruby.
I let my lip go and find some Carmex in my bag and rub the menthol-smelling balm over the damaged portion of skin. Now I’m hot. Like my mind, my body temperature can’t figure out what it wants to do, liquid beads cascade from my temples down my cheeks, but my hands are still cold. The coffee shop door opens and closes every few minutes, the brass bell ringing and fading, the harsh breeze disrupting the still air in the room.
I can’t tell if the steam from the drinks being crafted a few feet away or if nervousness causes my forehead to remain damp. Finally, I decide to take off my coat.
“Aren’t you hot with your coat on?”
She stretches her arms slightly and I can see the darker, serrated mark down her left wrist, an almost smile-like path of puckered skin. A thick turquoise bracelet falls back into place after a moment, but the long, crooked path is still so visible. I know it ends about another inch below the sleeve.
She says, “We’re all just a collection of scars, you know.”
“What are you talking about, Rue?”
“The mistakes our parents make, the mistakes we make. We’re as much marked by the things we don’t do as the things we accomplish. Jagged skin pulled over jagged skin.”
“No, Ruby, I am not a scar. You are not a scar! You gotta stop thinking like that.”
When Ruby gets like this, dark and deep in her thoughts, I have a very low tolerance. Wallowing in melancholy, it wastes energy. Find a solution instead. I can find a solution. We can find a solution.
“I didn’t come here to listen to you feel sorry for yourself.”
“You came here to feel better about yourself. You came here to try and save me, didn’t you?” Ruby says, still not really looking at me.
“But you texted me, you’re the one who asked to meet me!”
“I do want to see you, Layla.”
She reaches for my hand, firmly wraps her fingers around my wrist. They are so cold.
“To pick a fight,” I say, snatching my hand away.
“No.” Ruby’s lips purse and open like she wants to say something more but thinks better of it.
I try to let my anger recede, try to place myself in my friend’s shoes, try to imagine the mix of sadness and freedom she probably feels now that she’s experienced a tragedy, or rather a public tragedy, as she and her mom no doubt endured an abundance of private ones. Why try to make polite conversation while you’re grieving?
“How are you doing since... It’s a stupid question, but I want to know,” I ask.
“I can’t think of any answers you want to hear right now.”
That damn bell chimes again. People walk in and out with cappuccinos, pastries. The wind cuts our exposed skin into buttery slices. I shudder and she looks past me, out the window. I don’t say anything in response but keep looking at her.
“Well, Layla, I guess I’m as I always am.”
“Which is what?”
“Surviving. I breathe in and out. You can’t ask much more from me than that right now.”
“I suppose not.”
To do nothing right now. Drink my overly sweet coffee. Nod my head and smile and leave Ruby the exact same way I found her, without doing something to help, it feels like being ripped in two. Is this how Momma felt when she talked to Auntie Alice?
She looks down at her left wrist and then asks, “What do you think happens when you die?”
“You can’t expect me to answer that.”
“It’s a question that deserves an honest answer. You’re an honest person, or you try to be sometimes,” Ruby presses.
“We go to Heaven.”
Her eyes all but stop just shy of rolling themselves. “I said an honest answer, Layla.”
“Fine! My honest answer is I don’t know!”
“I think there’s nothing,” says Ruby. “Well, nothing for people who are bad. There’s black and that’s it. For good people, maybe there’s something. Some light. Some peace. Anything’s better than what I’m dealing with now.”
My skin starts to break out and long skinny portions of my right arm raise and bump and turn red. There is a burning in my belly and some unsettling quiet emotion I don’t want to own.
“I can’t say I know about God like that or death, but I know about being a friend, showing up.”
“Yes, you show up. After. Like everybody else, when there’s nothing left to do but stare or gossip and say things are going to be okay when they’re not going to be.”
“So, you asked me to come here to put your shit on me, Rue? No. You don’t get to do that. I know you’re in pain. But we all have choices in this world. I made my choice to come here, and you’re making a choice now, to do what? Do you want to stay with him, with Lebanon? Do you wanna come be with us for a while?”
Ruby remains silent.
“What do you want, Ruby?”
Is she going to try to kill herself again? Is she looking for some kind of subconscious approval from me? I don’t have a response to her question.
Her eyes search mine for something deeper, something that resembles hope and I want more than anything to give that to her. I wonder if I’m coming up short. I probably am.
“We can find somewhere safe,” I blurt out.
“I have less than five hundred dollars which won’t get me far in this city. I have a job as an office assistant where I’m invisible and the people call me Rachel or Rosey instead of Ruby, because they can’t remember my name and barely pay me a living wage.”
“There are ways we can help. My dad—”
“Your dad helps my dad. Without thought. Without question. He’s not gonna stand up to Lebanon. Your dad always caves to him.”
Heat invades my face. I keep my tone low.
“Excuse me?” I counter. Ruby is right, but she doesn’t know everything about my dad. Maybe he’ll surprise her, surprise me. Grow a backbone and stand up. Even if he doesn’t, Ruby talking about my father without respect I can’t abide. Only I can do that. “What you won’t do is talk about my dad like he’s some kind of lap dog. That’s what you’re not gonna do!”
Ruby sighs. “Make up your mind, Layla. Either you’re going to see Reverend Potter for everything he is or build a fantasy about the man you want him to be.”
“Is that what your mom did? Build a fantasy about Lebanon. Is that why she stayed?”
“Don’t have an answer to that question. I’d like to know myself.” Ruby looks at the door, like she expects Lebanon or my dad to walk through any moment. “Look, I’m not... I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Fine, then let’s figure this out, Rue. I can take you somewhere, not our house. Maybe someone at church will—”
“Lebanon will find me. You know that.”
Ruby started referring to her father by his first name when we were about eleven. I always thought it strange she said his name and it sounded so right on her lips and the word dad or father so wrong.
“We can call the police.”
“This conversation we’re having, I’ve heard your mom saying the exact same words to my mom.”
“I’ll tell them what he’s done.”
“You have no idea what he’s done.”
“I know he killed your mom. You don’t have to hide it.”
Ruby’s bottom lip trembles. She lays her head on the fake wood table and gazes at me, eyes puncturing me full of holes, like a voodoo doll.
“I know you’re living with a monster,” I continue.
“I am.”
“So let me help you. I believe you can start over.”
“You believe a lot of things.” She said it to cut me a little, impress upon me some lesson she’d learned long ago: hope in too many things is as frivolous a luxury as a genuine Louis Vuitton bag.
“It’s nice to wish for new things, but it’s too late for new beginnings. We have now and we make the best of it,” Ruby says and looks down at her arms. “Scars don’t go back into not existing again. You have them. You live with them. You live with them like you live with monsters, or fathers.”
“There’s a difference between monsters and fathers, between their lives and the scars they pass along.”
“You’re preaching at me, like your dad.”
I hate it when people compare me to him and though most mean it as a compliment, I rarely take it that way. She knows this.
My nails dig into the palm of my hand. The image of her blood lurks behind my eyes. The scene of her near-death projects itself in my mind. It’s something only I can see. Her smile. She seemed so at peace on that bathroom floor. My eyes are blurring with tears, so I look up and to the left. The red pendant light above us could use some dusting. The table is wobbly and knocks against the floor when I pick up my coffee to sip it again. The temperature is just right, but it tastes like syrupy, vanilla-flavored dirt. I added too much sugar.
“How will you make the best of your scars then, Rue?”
“How will you make the best of yours?”
The mug feels like a ceramic rock. I look back in Ruby’s eyes and see nothing, just pretty brown-jade glass.
“I know why you’re talking about dying,” I say.
“No. You don’t.”
“I worry about you.”
“I know.”
“Is that all you’re gonna say?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That you’re not gonna hurt yourself.”
“You want a happy ending and there are none. There are no resolutions. No happy endings. There’s just a bunch of shit that’s all fucked and I have to deal with it. Me.”
“How?” I ask, my voice extending to the other side of the café. Two white ladies glance in our direction, their mouths slightly pursed and eyes narrowed.
“I have two weights in my hand, Layla. Both of them are really heavy and if I let one go, then I fall to one side, tip over and disappear.”
“So be free. Let both weights go.”
“Then what will I have to hold on to?”
I want to flip this table over. All she has are words and nonanswers. Dismal riddles and sad eyes. “You don’t want to change. You don’t want to have Lebanon arrested. You don’t want to talk about that night! What’s the point of—”
“I just want you to see I’m still here. I wanted you to listen for once instead of talk so... I could do something for you, for myself.”
Ruby gazes again at me and past me. Like she can see our futures and where all the dirt lanes and forks in the road lead. I want her to promise she won’t kill herself. I want her to give me that assurance because she owes me at least that!
“Protection. I’m trying to protect you,” she answers.
“From what?”
No answer.
“From Lebanon? What are you going to do? Am I going to find you on the bathroom floor again?”
No answer.
The slivers of ice that pass for her fingers reach out again and squeeze my hand hard. She gets up from the table and walks out of the door and maybe out of my life. I am letting Ruby walk and I’m not running after her, tackling her to the ground. I’m just sitting in this coffee shop full of white people and watching her disappear. The odd, high tinkling of the bell above the wooden door summons in me a silent rage.
CALVARY
September 23, 1960
Sara wills her face to remain calm. She wills her stomach to as well, but the urge to vomit steadily rises when she sees her father’s face as he shakes each hand, kisses each cheek, laughs like he is human, frowns like he is human. When he is not, he is the thing she must escape. Violet and Naomi will help her do this after Revival.
Ushers in crisply pressed burgundy-and-pink uniforms with snow-white-gloved hands and shining gold pins on lapels guide visitors and members alike to seats, quickly and efficiently. Down my three aisles on the main floor, each row can easily seat ten people, or for those who like more room, eight. Today, ushers try to seat ten to each row. Feet press into carpet and it cushions the weight on my floors. Reverend Saul wants as many bodies as can fit. “Pack them in,” he orders. “All God’s children need to be here for this occasion!” So, they place worshipers where they can as if it’s their sole duty and one in which they take tremendous pride.
Reverend Saul King sits, a ruler amid the congregants in front of him on the floor and above him in the balcony. A midnight-black robe, complete with hand-stitched bright gold crosses flank his right and left sides. Two gold rings adorn his left hand and a pinkie ring with diamonds ornaments his right.
“Passa just looks so regal up there. Makes me proud I’m here. Got the best representin’ us tonight,” someone says from behind Sara. The lazy drawl of the word Passa instead of crisp enunciation of Pastor reminds Sara most of the older members are barely a decade or two removed from the South, from Florida and Mississippi and New Orleans, from Tennessee, where she’ll find herself soon.
The Best. The church member’s words rollick across her mind as Sara claps to the music on this second night of ce
lebration and redemption. Revival.
Under a dozen old robes, a turquoise suitcase is hidden in the back of the choir room closet. It holds a few dresses, pants, tops and shoes. Fifty dollars remains folded in Sara’s purse. She places none of the money into the fake brass collection plate as it glides past her and she finds within herself the faintest glimmer of a smile.
Naomi passes Sara a scrap of paper. Carefully, unfolding it she sees the words scribbled in Violet’s barely legible handwriting: “10:30, 42nd & State.”
Glancing at Violet, she nods. Her friends are willing to do what few others, probably no others, would do for her and for this Sara is grateful. Clutching that piece of paper is like holding a bit of sunlight, some form of hope Sara can carry in the palm of her hand, and at that moment, she’s humbled by Violet and Naomi, her best friends, her sisters. There is love. There is also jealousy and low tides of animosity, but mostly love because what is love without a little hate?
Naomi whispers in Sara’s ear, but the music and praises of the people nearby make it almost impossible to hear. Sara presses her body closer, her left ear almost touching Naomi’s lips. “Fake like you’re sick. Violet’s gonna tell her parents you’re going home, that she’ll take you. We’ll all meet and get you out.”
Sara nods her head in agreement. Naomi takes her hand and squeezes, a tentative half smile ending the conversation. After this service of celebration, Sara will leave on a bus to Tennessee, and she hopes to never see King Saul again.
Hands clap on beat. Tambourines keep tempo. Hymnals stay tucked in the backs of my pews for these songs aren’t ones written down. These are the songs passed down from the elders and from their elders before them. The organ and piano find their root in the melodies of old spirituals, words whose origin isn’t always clear, but the undertone of suffering is, and in this there is something sacred and ancient and timeless. A people, especially ones whose trajectory is set and reset by those in power, a people trying to break patterns of injustice through votes and protests, through marches and sit-ins, a people like this knows about suffering. Blacks in America are the modern-day Children of Israel. They walk through a seemingly endless desert where the sun beats down at its highest point in the sky.
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