Praise for Anna Jean Mayhew and Tomorrow’s Bread
“In her wise and empathic new novel, Anna Jean Mayhew returns to Jim Crow–era Charlotte, North Carolina, where the vibrant black community of Brooklyn is about to be demolished. Richly drawn and deeply felt, Tomorrow’s Bread is a haunting story of irreparable loss. It is also a testament to the sustaining power of resistance and the unexpected satisfactions of sheer endurance. This is a story for our time.”
—Kim Church, author of Byrd
“This is a moving, vivid story—historical fiction that’s both instructive and entertaining.”
—Pam Kelley, author of Money Rock
“A marvelous job re-creating the day-to-day life of a lost era and a vanished place. Mayhew’s careful historical sleuthing calls up the human and physical landscape of Charlotte’s old Brooklyn. But even more, she captures the flavor of daily life, especially the small details that may seem “off subject” but are true to how all of us think, feel and act.”
—Thomas W. Hanchett, author of Sorting Out the New South City: Race, Class, and Urban Development in Charlotte, 1875–1975
“In prose as gentle as falling snow, Anna Jean Mayhew spins a tale of two communities, one black, one white, adjacent and interdependent but worlds apart. Characters from each appear, drawn with remarkable sensitivity, and intersect with each other in ways that will leave them forever altered. Larger in scope even than her Dry Grass of August, the novel is an honest but affectionate account of a time long gone—not with the wind but with the dramatic changes the last fifty years have wrought in the racial landscape of American society. The story is at times lyrical, at times thrilling, but inherently important: a must-read for those who remember it and those for whom it is history.”
—Thomas Grant, author of Lake Pontchartrain
“Over 150 black neighborhoods were destroyed by the urban renewal program of the 1960s. Anna Jean Mayhew makes that loss personal in Tomorrow’s Bread through her empathy, her specificity, and her clean, vivid prose. It’s an important and sadly relevant story, one that I found deeply moving.”
—Lewis Shiner, author of Black & White
And praise for The Dry Grass of August
“Anna Jean Mayhew has a true ear for Southern speech . . . The Dry Grass of August is a carefully researched, beautifully written, quietly told tale of love and despair and a look backward at the way it was back then in the South.”
—The Pilot (Southern Pines, North Carolina)
“Once you’ve experienced The Dry Grass of August, you’ll swiftly see that Anna Jean Mayhew’s debut novel deserves all the early praise it’s getting . . . the power, bravery and beauty of Mayhew’s narrative is beyond contestation and well-deserving of a wide readership.”
—BookPage
“An extraordinary, absorbing novel.”
—Historical Novel Reviews “If you liked The Help, you must read The Dry Grass of August.”
—Ahwatukee Foothills News (Phoenix, Arizona)
“With her look back at a racial and cultural society in transition, Mayhew also delivers a coming of age novel that will touch readers’ hearts. Then she serves up a tragic moment that will give those same hearts a hurt that will be long remembered.”
—The Enquirer-Journal
“A superior book to The Help.”
—Christina Bucher, North Carolina Literary Review
Books by Anna Jean Mayhew
THE DRY GRASS OF AUGUST
TOMORROW’S BREAD
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Tomorrow’s Bread
ANNA JEAN MAYHEW
KENSINGTON BOOKS
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Praise
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Teaser chapter
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
“Democracy” from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF LANGSTON HUGHES by Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad with David Roessel, Associate Editor, copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Stand by Me
Words and Music by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller and Ben E. King
Copyright © 1961 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Copyright Renewed
All Rights Administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 424 Church Street,
Suite 1200, Nashville, TN 37219
International Copyright Secured All Rights Reserved
Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2019 by Anna Jean Mayhew
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-7582-5410-8
Kensington Electronic Edition: April 2019
ISBN-13: 978-0-7582-5410-8
ISBN-10: 0-7582-5410-5
For Jackson, Reese, and Scott
Democracy
By Langston Hughes
Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.
I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.
I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.
Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.
Retitled “Freedom” by 1967, and appearing this way in THE COLLECTED POEMS (1994), this poem was originally known as “Democracy.”
Independence Square
THE BROOKLYN AREA
1. Loraylee, Hawk, Bibi, and Uncle Ray
2. Boyce, Veola, and Desmond Whitin
3. Dooby Franklin
4. Tunnel Under Independence Blvd.*
5. Savoy Movie Theatre*
6. Stone’s Grocery
7. St. Timothy’s Second Presbyterian Church, Manse, and Cemetery
8. House of Prayer for All People*
9. Stirewalt Flowers
10. Myers Street School*
11. Talford Park
12. Tocky’s Nightclub
13. Roberta Stokes (“Blue Heaven” Neighborhood*)
14. Law Building*
15. Second Ward High School*
16. Mecklenburg County Courthouse and Jail*
17. Charlotte City Hall*
18. Wholesale Auto Parts*
19. Queen City Pharmacy*
20. Lamarr Beauty Shop*
21. Tyler’s Shoe Repair
22. Brevard Street Library*
23. Edward Wilkins, MD
24. College Street Parking Lot*
25. S. H. Kress & Co.*
26. Independence Square*
27. S&W Cafeteria*
*In existence in 1961
CHAPTER 1
Down in the gully Little Sugar whispers, sliding through the night like a ghost. On a pretty day it calls my boy to it. If I don’t catch Hawk first, he’ll be halfway to Pearl Street, a bucket in one hand, a net made from a stocking in the other, bent on frogs or crawdads or whatever pulls him down to where that creek lives. He’s breathing steady in his bed across the room, not knowing how slippery the mudbank gets in early March, how quick the water could drag him under.
Uncle Ray’s chickens clucking in their coop. Day coming on. Got to rouse Hawk soon, get him fed and dressed. Bibi, my grand, say when he was born, “Enjoy him being a baby, Raylee. It won’t last.” He’s six now, long legs, knobby knees, in first grade.
I walked to Myers Street School with him for a week last September to be sure he knows the way. I tell him about traffic lights, got to look up and down the street before he crosses, use the tunnel under the boulevard. We leave the house and he takes my hand—his small in mine—tugging on me to stop so he can holler, “Hey!” to Dooby Franklin next door or Jonny No Age, waving to us from his delivery van, or Mayrese Hemphill, heading downtown in a new coat and hat.
At the corner of South Myers, Hawk tilts back his head to stare at the school building, two stories, chimneys on top. We go inside, down a rackety hall to a room that’s different day to day because Miss Madison keeps changing the maps and pictures she hangs on the walls, sets the desks in rows one day, a circle the next. She is short and full built, in dresses that hug her waist and stretch tight across her backside. Hawk say she smells good. She calls me Mrs. Hawkins, thinking a mother must be married.
The day I drop in to take Hawk his lunch he forgot, I see him leaning against Miss Madison, her hand on his back, like he’s special to her.
Now he gets to school on his own, with Desmond, his friend that lives behind us. I stand out front and watch him going away from me. Slim, like his daddy, his round head bobbing while he talks to himself the way he does, then around the corner and out of sight.
* * *
I’m with a bunch of people under the awning on the Square, trying to stay out of the rain. Most days I walk home from my job at the S&W, saving the bus fare. Unless it’s a drencher like today. I got a paper bag tucked under my arm for when I have to get off the other side of the boulevard.
A white man in the crowd say, “No justice in that,” in a loud voice. He wants people to hear him, making me glad I don’t know what he means so I won’t get riled. I board behind him and speak to Gus, been driving for the city most of his life, always say, “Hey, Loraylee,” when I drop my dime in the box, his blue eyes shining beneath the bill of his cap.
The noisy man is on the bench seat next to the door, with a bunch of men going home from work. I walk on by. The mat that runs down the middle of the bus use to have a line on it and coloreds had to stay behind that line, like we wouldn’t still be breathing the same air as the whites up front. All that changed when the lines disappeared four-five years ago. But I like the back of the bus, the long seat under the big window, even if I am allowed to ride up front now with those stiff-necked men in their hats and suits.
My stop is four blocks from home in the chilly rain. I hold the bag over my head, running from alley to alley through backyards, getting mud on my shoes, my legs, my uniform. I step over the magnolia branches that cover our front walk. Uncle Ray planted that tree when I was born and he say it’s the prettiest one in Second Ward. I go up the sagging steps, drip on the mat, toss the wet bag on the rocker.
In the living room I call out, “Hey, y’all.” Nobody home, not even Bibi. No telling where she is. Uncle Ray must of taken the umbrella and gone to meet Hawk, the kind sort of thing he does. Nice being alone in the house so I can shuck my uniform to the kitchen floor. Even my slip is soaked, my cold nipples showing through.
I get the percolator going for a cup of hot coffee, head for the room I share with Hawk, and there is Bibi, in Hawk’s bed, under his plaid spread, snoring. If she sleeps all day, she’ll be up all night, a problem for me or Uncle Ray, but I leave her be, put on dry clothes, empty the hamper to start a load before I fix supper. I toss the dirty clothes in the washer on the back porch, get it going. I like smelling soap powder instead of mildew or ashes, or the coal bucket by the door.
At the sink, popping leaves off a cabbage, I’m glad I have a clean uniform for tomorrow; that load of wash not gon dry in this damp house overnight. All us who work at the S&W wear uniforms, except Mr. Griffin. Retta Lawrence, my friend girl there, say uniforms save wear and tear. They sure save time, and S&W pays for them.
Bibi complains she always had to buy her own uniforms. Last lady she worked for docked her pay four dollars if she needed a new one. Bibi talks about that like it’s yesterday, not two-three years ago. “Miz Easterling misplace something and she fire me, say, ‘Girl, you stealing.’ Then she kep those uniforms I paid for, like she gon get another maid same size.”
Bibi’s the one misplacing stuff, same as she does here. Without a reference from the Easterlings she couldn’t find another job, but I come to like having her here with Hawk when he’s not at school. Before she got so bad off I was afraid what she might forget next. Don’t know what I’d do without Uncle Ray, Bibi’s younger brother, keeping an eye on things when I’m at work.
The screen door scrapes the front porch. “Raylee!” Bibi shouts. How’d she get through the living room without me hearing her?
“Raylee!” She never say Loraylee, won’t put the Lo in my name, which is for my Auntie Lorena. The way Bibi’s mind is bent, a little bit sticking and a little bit not, maybe someday she’ll forget she’s mad at her sister.
I find her standing in the yard in the drizzling rain, stupid from not remembering why she’s there. “Bibi, c’mon back inside. You getting soaked.”
She grins like I’ve promised her ice cream. “Okay.” I hate seeing her lose her sense, makes me want to take her shoulders and shake her and tell her try, you’re not trying. But that would do no good.
I bring her up from the yard, onto the porch, and before I can get her through the door she settles into the rocking chair. “I loves to rock on a summer afternoon.” I don’t bother saying it’s March and almost sundown, leave her rocking so I can get supper ready before Hawk gets home. He is fierce about food, like he’ll never get another meal. Fast as he puts it down, he works it off running in the yard or making a fort under the magnolia or feeding Uncle Ray’s chickens. Gon be tall like his daddy, judging by his feet. But except for his gray eyes and rusty hair, that boy is me, my high cheeks, my wide flat nose, my mouth.
I hear Uncle Ray and Hawk talking to Bibi, glad they’re home, out of the rain.
We having hot dogs, which Uncle Ray favors. I make slaw and baked beans, chop onions, heat a can of Bunker Hill chili. The trick is opening the bottom of the can; all the fat rises to the top while it’s been sitting on the shelf, and that grease tastes bad. Last thing is steaming the buns. Bibi likes a soft bun for h
er hot dogs, and Hawk wants everything exactly the way she does. I watch him next to her at the table, leaning on her arm, looking up at her to ask a question. She has got a temper since she started forgetting, but she’s always gentle with Hawk.
* * *
I sit on the porch with Uncle Ray while Hawk helps Bibi do the dishes. The air is clean, cool, when the rain stops. Even the muddy street looks washed. Uncle Ray sets his glass of tea on the rail. His seventy-two years show in the wrinkles on his face, the skin hanging under his chin like a rooster. Bibi pushes food at him, trying to put some fat on his bones. But he’s fit, can clear the yard after a storm if his lumbago isn’t acting up.
The setting sun flows through the magnolia branches, making the ice in his glass sparkle. “Would you look at that?” He runs a hand over the top of his head where his scalp shows through, shiny walnut under a light snow. “Reminds me of when I saw the light.” I know what’s coming. I sit back in the rocker, stare down toward the creek.
“After I took that bad fall, I left this world, saw something like that sunbeam.”
His tobacco sack, a box of wooden matches, and his pipe sit on a barrel between us. He tamps his pipe, puts it in his mouth, fires it up. “Dr. Wilkins brought me back and the light faded.” He flicks the match over the rail to see how far it’ll fly before it lands in the wet grass. “I was dead, don’t you doubt it, but St. Peter wasn’t calling yet.” Puff, puff, smoke rising. “The light is what a baby sees when it squeals out from its mama. Souls get to start all over in a newborn child, don’t you see?” He looks at me. “Death. Is. Birth.” He gets up, goes down the steps toward the street, stopping to pick up the match.
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