“Valor’s my real name,” he had said after Knot insisted that he eat her extra cheese sandwich. “I like for people to call me Valley, though.”
Valley, she thought. I think I like the sound of that.
She told Valley her names, real and preferred. Then she said, “Well, Valley, I guess you know I’m new ’round here. Won’t you come by my place this evenin’? I’ll cook, and you can tell me what I need to know ’bout this lil town y’all got here.”
Valley looked up at Knot from the new steps where he had sat down to eat, and he smiled.
“Try this idea on for size,” he said. His voice so raspy, it sounded as though he’d had his first cigarette at the young age of three and hadn’t been able to quit. “You come to my house this evenin’—since I probably cooks better than you, anyway. And when we get through eatin’, we’ll have us a drink and talk about things that’s usually for just womenfolk.” He winked at her. Knot could have been knocked over with a dry leaf.
She’d had to settle for Valley’s good cooking and good company. But even that had proven to be hit-or-miss: Valley had a lover in Washington, D.C., and was often gone for months at a time, to which Knot eventually grew accustomed.
A couple of weeks after meeting Valley, Knot asked him about her neighbor, Otis Lee Loving.
“We cousins,” Valley said. “Well, he ain’t my real cousin, but his aunt Gertrude’s been like a mama to me. Brought me here to West Mills with her when she got tired of New York City. I was still a boy.” Valley told Knot that Otis Lee’s a good guy. “He on the straight and narrow, though, Knot. Loves his wife and all.”
“I ain’t askin’ ’bout him in that way, Val,” Knot said. Otis Lee wasn’t her type. She wanted there to be no mistake about that. “What I’m gon’ do with that short man?”
When she’d first moved onto Antioch Lane, a couple houses away from Otis Lee, he had come over with his little boy on his hip. The welcome he’d extended was sincere, Knot had decided.
“If you need anything, anything at all,” Otis Lee said, “you just tap on our door. Me and Pep is there.” Knot could tell, on that very day, that Otis Lee was a good man indeed. A good man and a goddamn stick in the mud.
One evening, not long after Valley had misunderstood Knot’s question about Otis Lee, he told Knot that Otis Lee didn’t like him, and it wasn’t just because Valley liked men. It had something to do with Otis Lee’s aunt Gertrude. Otis Lee had always suspected his aunt of having part in some illegal business. She had come back to West Mills a while before the Depression with so much money, she had been able to buy a piece of land for Miss Noni, Rose and her husband, and Otis Lee to live on.
“The same land they live on now,” Valley said. “Them and all them goddamn chickens Otis Lee got. You know he steals them chickens from Pennington’s, don’t ya?” Knot could have cared less about those chickens.
Gertrude had also bought herself a separate piece of land, where she’d had her own house built. About that, Valley said, “All the land in this town and Gertrude had to buy herself the piece with red clay on it, knowin’ it was gon’ ruin every shoe she got.” Valley had a knack for adding details that Knot believed to be a waste of breath.
When Valley had become a teenager, Gertrude put him up in a rented place on Busy Street—an apartment above the general store.
“Well, how’d Gertrude make all that money?” Knot asked.
“Blackmail,” Valley said. “Plain and simple.”
He explained to her that in ’23, when he was ten years old, he had gone with Gertrude to Brooklyn to see Essie. It was not just an aunt going to visit her niece. Gertrude needed Essie’s help because her own small brothel, which was in Queens, had been suffering. The constable was hounding Gertrude for his weekly hush money payment. Essie’s brothel in Brooklyn was doing quite well, he said.
“Knot, I’m tellin’ ya. They had a big business goin’,” Valley went on. “Women, and numbers, and gamblin’, and liquor. You name it, Essie and her husband had it.”
Gertrude knew Essie and her police officer husband would have plenty of money to spare. Essie had secretly helped Gertrude before. When Gertrude asked for more help, Essie told her that if she couldn’t run a whorehouse, maybe she ought to try her luck with something different.
“Essie gave Gertrude forty dollars,” Valley said. “I was standin’ right there.” He told Knot that it all happened on Essie’s back stoop. Gertrude had dressed up in a maid’s uniform, to make their meeting look as normal as possible. “Essie told Gertrude that the forty dollars was to pay off the policemen, and that was all she had. So, when we got ’bout halfway down the block, Gertrude said, ‘Come on,’ and we was headin’ back to Essie’s. I was scared, Knot, ’cause Gertrude could be a piece ’a work when she wanted to be.” Gertrude threatened to tell Essie’s white police officer husband that his wife was a Negro. Gertrude was also prepared to tell the officer that Essie had a little Negro son.
“Otis Lee,” Valley said.
“What about Otis Lee?” Knot asked, confused.
“Otis Lee’s the lil Negro son.”
“No!”
“Yes!” Valley shouted.
“Otis Lee never tell me that Rose ain’t his mama,” Knot said. Valley stared back at her, silent.
“He don’t know, Val?” Knot asked. Valley shook his head no. “Val, you lyin’!”
“I wish I was,” he replied.
He swore her to secrecy.
Valley visited Knot a few times during her pregnancy, before he was to leave for one of his long stays in Washington, D.C. She tried the pillow-holding trick with him, too. Valley looked at her and said, “This pox bullshit you got Otis Lee and Pep tellin’ people ain’t hittin’ on nothin’. I lived with womenfolk most of my life, Knot.” He lit a cigarette. The smell almost made her sick. “So you can drop that damn pillow when I visit. You kept the secret I told you ’bout Otis Lee’s real mama, so I’ll keep yours.”
Before Valley left for his long trip, he told Knot to write down the name of the author she liked so much. He promised to send her a new book. Maybe two, he said. Now Valley was back in West Mills, and they were at Miss Goldie’s Place having a good time, as though the past year hadn’t happened.
“We glad to see you back in here, Knot,” Valley said. He shook the dice, called out a number, and dropped them on the table.
“Speak for yo’self,” one of the other men at the table teased. Knot couldn’t remember his name. He’s a lot of fun to drink with, though. “I saved up a whole heap of money while you was sick and shut in.” Everyone at the table, including Knot, laughed.
“Well,” Knot said, “since you got so much saved up, go buy me a drink. You know what I like.”
More laughter.
When the man whose name Knot couldn’t remember returned to the table after getting Knot’s fresh drink, he told her that he, too, was glad to see her alive and well. They clinked their glasses together. She still couldn’t remember his name.
There must have been eight or ten dice rolls before Milton Guppy came in and stood next to their table.
“Well, if it ain’t the good teacher,” Guppy said. There was no question in Knot’s mind—which was foggy by now—that Guppy had had more to drink than she. “Beat the pox, did ya?”
Knot did not care for his tone—especially the emphasis he had put on pox.
Motherfucker. He wrote the letter, Knot thought. But how the hell he know?
“I made it through,” she replied. She sat up straight in the chair and squared her shoulders—just as Dinah did when someone was being disagreeable.
“You did more’n make it through,” Guppy shot back.
I’m gon’ put this drinkin’ glass upside his head tonight. I can already see it. Knot looked around the table. Everyone was sitting quietly, frowning.
“Look to me like you come out of it better,” Guppy went on. A bit of saliva ran from his mouth. “Better off than you was ’fore the pox got to
ya.”
“Nice of ya to stop by and speak, Mr. Guppy,” Knot said. He laughed a dark, mean laugh. “Now go on. I ain’t in the mood for it.”
“Oh, come on, now,” he said. “No need to be like that, good teacher. We go way—”
“They got another game goin’, Milton,” Valley cut in, “over there at the corner table.”
Guppy took a step toward Valley. “Well, I don’t reckon I asked to know where the other game’s at,” he said. “But thank ya. What I do want to know is this here, Knot …”
And for every step Guppy took toward her, her fist drew tighter around the drinking glass she was holding.
“… What make you think you can up and quit the job you took from my wife?” he finished.
“Okay, now, Guppy,” the man whose name Knot couldn’t remember said. “That’s enough.”
“Naw, it ain’t enough, Max,” Guppy declared. “I lose my wife and my son ’cause she got that teaching job. And she got nerve to quit? I oughta knock her—”
Knot drank the last of what was in her glass, ready to throw it at Guppy. But before she could feel the warmth of that last swallow move down her throat, Valley had jumped on Guppy. She could hear the blows, one after another.
She tried to stand, but she stumbled back into her chair. And the juke joint spun until she closed her eyes. When she reopened them, Miss Goldie had appeared with her club. Valley and Guppy were both dealt a lick on their behinds—hard enough to stop them from fighting.
“Go on up the lane with this shit, boys!” Miss Goldie shouted.
Neither man looked into Miss Goldie’s eyes. It was as if they had turned into little boys listening to their mothers yell threats of punishment.
“I want to hear some ‘I’m sorrys’ right now!” Miss Goldie said. “To me! And to one another! And to my other customers! Or y’all can get out and stay!”
Guppy turned and walked toward the big, heavy door. Knot was certain he was going to call Valley a sissy-fag. So it came as quite a surprise to her when he screeched, “Fuck you and yo’ run-down joint, Goldie.”
Miss Goldie tapped her club on the floor twice, and her sons-in-law came from their corners. They escorted Guppy out by his arms.
“Walk him all the way home, y’all,” Miss Goldie instructed.
Before the heavy door had closed all the way, Knot heard Guppy yell, “Fuck you, too, Miss Centre for comin’ back here! A good fuckin’ teacher, you are!” Knot could hear him beginning to cry. “My family’s gone ’cause of you and that damn teachin’ job.”
At the bar a few minutes later, Miss Goldie said to Knot, “I wonder if it ain’t time for him to move away from here.” She was sitting on her stool, smoking a cigar, legs crossed at the knees. Knot sat next to her, on the stool where Guppy often sat.
“Maybe I oughta be the one to go,” Knot mused.
“He been in here talkin’ to me ’bout yo’ pox, Knot,” Miss Goldie told her. Discreetly, she pointed at Knot’s stomach. She had never been one to beat around the bush. “I don’t know who else he mighta told.”
“My people,” Knot said. “Went there and took ’em a letter.”
“How you figure that?”
Knot told Miss Goldie all that had happened while she was in Ahoskie, including the wrapped-up man who had passed Dinah the note before running off.
“You hear what he say to me?” Knot asked. “Said, ‘Fuck you for comin’ back.’ That’s how I know. He gon’ be on my case ’til I’m gone, I believe.”
Miss Goldie now sounded even more certain that it was time that Guppy leave West Mills. “They’s a lot of things I hate in this world, Knot. But I really hate to see a man try to bring a woman down. Now, that shit there, that gets me real mad.” She put the cigar out. “Whole lot o’ these bastards ’round here got mad at me when I opened this lil shack we sittin’ in right now. Told me it should be my husband ’stead of me.” She stood up to demonstrate for Knot how she had stood up to one of the men. “You know what I say to that fucker, Knot? I tell him, ‘My husband likes that I make my own money so I won’t bother his.’ ” Miss Goldie laughed. “Don’t worry yo’self about Guppy, child. Goldie’ll ’tend to it. We womenfolk has to stick together, ain’t we?”
Knot wasn’t sure what that meant, so she didn’t say yes.
“You ain’t gon’ hurt him, is ya?”
“No, child,” Miss Goldie reassured her. “I ain’t in that kinda business.” She looked offended. “Guppy owe me a favor or two. Anyhow, if he don’t want to listen to me, I know somebody he will listen to.” She picked a piece of lint from Knot’s collar. “I’ll ’tend to it.”
For reasons Knot couldn’t put her finger on, thanking Miss Goldie didn’t seem like the right thing to do. And Miss Goldie didn’t appear to expect gratitude. Whatever she was planning to do would be done. Miss Goldie don’t beat ’round nobody’s bush.
Knot watched as Valley plunged his right hand into a silver pail half filled with iced water. The pail was much like the one she’d seen outside of Otis Lee’s chicken coop, half filled with corn.
“This shit’s cold,” Valley said, clenching his teeth. He looked as though he were smiling. Then he averted his gaze from the pail, which made Knot wonder if there was something nasty in it—something aside from his puffy fist.
“Hold it there for at least two—three minutes if ya can,” Max told him. “Then you be ready for ya next match.” He patted Valley on the back.
Valley and Max would not stop talking about the fight, so Knot went to the bar, ordered a drink, and sat there to enjoy it. Alone. The whiff of familiar cologne interrupted her second swallow of brandy, a drink she’d grown to like more than she’d expected. The arousing scent made her think of Pratt.
Why, though? Pratt ain’t wore a drop of cologne the whole time I knew him. Goddamn Pratt Shepherd.
Knot asked the man tending the bar—his was another name she’d forgotten—if he would open another window to let more cool air in. It was steaming hot in there, she said.
“Look around, Knot,” he said. And she did, but it was the people talking, laughing, dancing, and drinking she noticed more. Not the windows. “They’s all open. Every last one of ’em is open to ya.”
The night’s cool fall air met Knot at the door, kissing her on both cheeks. The danger she’d always been warned about all her life—You’ll catch your death, child, going outside damp—was for those who didn’t spend time in small juke joints. Knot sat on the one chair Miss Goldie allowed people to bring outside. She closed her eyes and aimed her face toward what stars might be looking down on her.
“I would escort you home,” a man said, “but your husband might not take too kindly to it.” Knot opened her eyes. Delaware William stood there with his hands in his pockets, that nice familiar scent standing there with him.
Knot looked him over and wondered if he lived in a barbershop or a tailor shop. Got to be one of the two.
“I ain’t got no damn husband,” she replied, trying to get up. Delaware William helped her to her feet. Without thanking him, she turned and walked toward her house. When she didn’t hear him following her, she said, “Come on, if you comin’.”
Knot was famished.
In her kitchen she sat across the table from Delaware William, her eyes transfixed on his beauty—a beauty she’d forgotten, though he had not forgotten hers, he said.
“You a pretty woman, Knot.”
“How you know to call me by that?” she asked.
“I listened, that’s all.”
They shared the Granny Smith apple Delaware William had cut into two unequal pieces. Knot used the smaller chunk as a spoon to scoop the custard she’d made earlier that day—she was tired of making bread pudding—into his mouth. He rolled his eyes toward the back of his head, causing Knot to smile, unable to pull her lips together. With the other apple chunk, Delaware William returned the favor.
Now on the same side of the table as him, Knot straddled him in a way she did
n’t even know she could. She wrapped her arms around his wide back and pulled his chest against hers. Her breasts were no longer sore and she liked their new size.
Delaware William pulled away slightly and began to unbutton her dress. For every button he unfastened, Knot felt tiny tremors all over. Once the top half of her dress was around her waist like a belt and he had tilted her back, Knot felt his warm mouth on her left nipple, his tongue swiveling. The breast quivered on the inside.
Don’t let no man in yo’ bed for a good while, Knot remembered Pep saying to her a few weeks after she’d given birth to Lady Waters’s baby. You’ll be big again, easy.
“You know what to do when ya love comin’, don’t ya?” Knot said to Delaware William. He nodded his head yes and they went to bed.
Knot had her way with Delaware William, and she allowed him to have his way with her. He fell asleep smiling.
In the morning she heard him stirring around in the kitchen. He was humming, too. He hummed and sang as though he knew she was enjoying it. When she kissed the crease in his back—he hadn’t heard her approach—he stopped. He was spreading butter on pieces of white bread.
“What ya stop for?” she asked. “You don’t sound half-bad.”
He laid the butter knife and bread on the table, turned to face her, and sang a beautiful melody she’d never heard. She backed up into the bedroom, leading him, and he sang all the way.
Delaware William was Knot’s guest for almost a week. As much as she enjoyed his company, she was not unhappy to see him go. And she loved the good-smelling scent he had left on her sheets.
EIGHT
In mid-November of ’42, Otis Lee invited Brock and Ayra Manning over for dinner. By mistake, he had mentioned the upcoming gathering to Ma Noni. She tried to invite herself, but he told her he wanted to talk to the Mannings about a private matter, which only made her more persistent.
In West Mills Page 8