The door to the recruiting station opened. A young corporal called out, “Next!” Five men went inside.
He asked a man standing nearby, “Sir? How do we know when to go in?”
The man flicked a cigarette into the street. “Five men go in together. How long you been here?”
“Since eight-thirty.”
“You’re next. Go stand by the door.”
“I don’t want to break in line.”
The man finally looked at him. “You want to join up?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stand on the steps.”
When the door opened again, he entered with four others. The room smelled of cigarettes and a tangy odor he couldn’t identify, maybe furniture polish. There was a compulsive neatness to the room, a bustling air of efficiency. Three desks, the corporal at one of them and sergeants at the other two. He was glad now that he’d studied army insignia, could identify soldiers by rank.
One of the sergeants motioned to him. A heavy man with slick black hair parted near the middle, icy blue eyes, an Errol Flynn mustache. “You’re next, boy. C’mere.” The tag on his chest said Lindsay. He pushed papers across the desk. “Fill these out.”
“Yes, Sergeant Lindsay. I believe I already have, if these are the same forms.” He put the completed papers on the desk, used the tips of his fingers to move them toward the sergeant. “Picked them up yesterday.”
With a flicker of surprise, Lindsay rotated the forms, studied them, grunted, “Chaplain?”
“Yes, Sergeant.” He pulled the letter from the pocket of his coat and held it out. Lindsay thumped the desk.
He dropped the letter, watched the sergeant pull it toward him, open it, read it. The man sat back in his chair, touched his mustache. “I might have just the thing for you. There’s a colored unit forming at Fort Bragg. Got a bulletin about it yesterday. They gonna need a chaplain, don’t you reckon?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Thus he became an official army chaplain, though not an officer, as he’d hoped. He swallowed the sting of the insult and focused instead on bringing solace to colored soldiers, wherever he was stationed.
On the way home, he thought about all he had to do in the ten days before he reported for duty, with the first order of business being to write Nettie, now settled in her mission work, but more and more receptive to talk of marriage. He hoped she would be pleased to hear from Sergeant Eben Polk, United States Army Chaplain.
CHAPTER 9
Persy’s first pregnancy was over almost before it started. She missed one period, was due for another when she expelled a bloody lump that would have been a baby if she’d been able to keep it. Early in her second pregnancy, she had a series of random aches, low in her back, which Dr. McInulty said were not unusual. He ordered bed rest for two weeks and during that time the woman who cleaned for Mother came over every other day to help out. For a while the rest seemed to have helped, but at three months a backache awakened Persy at midnight; she prodded Blaire out of a sound sleep. “I don’t know if we should go to the hospital, but I’m in a lot of pain.”
He held her till she fell back asleep near dawn.
The next night when she woke Blaire, he said, “Jesus, Persy, again?”
That time they did go to the hospital. She lost the baby.
In December of 1954, when they’d given up hope, she got pregnant once more, and all went well. In her eighth month neither of them felt there was any harm in Blaire going on his army reserve duty, a weekend of tactical maneuvers “in the boonies” with thirty other men. Such tours occurred twice a year, and she found herself welcoming his brief absences. She wasn’t due for another three weeks and her prenatal signs were healthy; they agreed he should go ahead. “After all,” he assured her, “I’ll only be half an hour away. Call, they’ll come get me.”
On Friday afternoon they stood in the driveway, waiting for Blaire’s ride to the departure point. She was never comfortable with him when he was dressed in his green fatigues, wearing an infantry cap with crossed rifles, the bill shadowing his eyes. His boots and brass belt buckle were polished to a high shine, his lieutenant’s bars gleaming on his collar. He smelled of cigarettes and English Leather. He kicked at his khaki duffel bag. “I may have packed too much.” A station wagon carrying four other uniformed men turned in the driveway. Blaire pulled her close, kissing her in a way she felt was for show. He hefted the duffel. “See you Sunday night!” Then he was gone.
Her labor started slowly the next morning, mild contractions that moved from her low back to her pelvis every hour or so. She left word with Dr. Mac’s answering service and dialed the number Blaire had left but got no answer. She called Mother, waited through a dozen rings before giving up on her.
She was tempted to drive herself to the emergency room for a medical opinion. Three weeks, not terribly early. Lots of babies made it earlier than that. But she got the bag she’d had packed for a month and called a taxi to take her to Memorial Hospital, a mile away, feeling great about how well she was handling things. At admissions, she gave them the contact information for Blaire: “Call him, please, right now, and if you don’t get an answer, keep trying.” The woman assured her she would. Persy decided not to try to reach Mother again, at least until things had moved further along.
When he arrived, Blaire would be confined to the waiting room, a smoke-filled room where men gathered to console one another on the misery of waiting.
Laboring women nearby moaned and screamed, unnerving her. The unit was so full that several, including her, labored on gurneys in the hallway. She watched a wall clock, timed her pains, and stared at the uneven perforations of the ceiling tiles, wondering if she could count the holes if she concentrated. She tried to read what was posted on a bulletin board on the wall above her head, but could make out little on the papers thumbtacked to the framed cork.
At one point they considered sending her home given how slowly she was progressing, but when the pains got five minutes apart, they let her stay.
A nurse stopped, took Persy’s pulse and blood pressure, put a hand on her belly, waiting for another contraction. Her starched bosom hovered above Persy’s nose as she leaned over her, reading something on the bulletin board. A name tag identified her as Nurse Maxwell. She straightened, pushed back a lock of gray hair, revealing a half-moon of sweat in her armpit. “Okay, hon, your vitals are great and you’re making progress. I suspect we’ll be moving you to delivery soon.”
“Soon” became an hour, an hour and a half. A man wandered down the hall looking dazed. Rumpled suit, tie loose at his neck, glancing anxiously around. She asked him, “Is your wife in labor?”
He nodded. “They won’t let me see her.”
“Yes, I know. That’s standard.”
“It’s been almost twenty-four hours.”
“Is it your first?”
“Yes.”
“That can take a while.”
He straightened his tie. “Your first?”
My first full term, my first that has a chance of living? “No.”
“Okay. Well . . .”
She asked, “Are you heading for the waiting room?”
“Yes.”
“Would you ask if a man named Blaire Marshall is there? My husband. He’s on army reserve duty this weekend and I don’t know whether anyone has reached him. I keep thinking they would say something if he’s here, but in case . . .”
He touched her shoulder. “Blaire Marshall. Of course I will. What should I tell him?”
“That I’m okay.” She couldn’t think of anything else.
“It’s my pleasure, Mrs. Marshall. I wish you the best.”
“You too, sir.”
He walked away, a lilt in his step.
Before she saw Mother, she heard her strident voice. “I know she’s here. I’ll find her—never mind, I see her.” She strode toward Persy, arm out as if fending off tacklers. When she reached her she said, “Why in the world didn’t you let me
know?”
Persy burst into tears. Someone who cared for her had come. She’d thought she could do this by herself. She was wrong. Mother put her arms around her. “Dear girl, I’m here now. I’m here.” She straightened. “So where are we? How close are the contractions?”
As Mother spoke, she felt that tightening in her back, around her hips to the front, and couldn’t speak. Mother held her hand until it passed, timing her on her wristwatch. For as long as Persy could remember, Mother had worn the same delicate gold band attached to a tiny watch that had been Grandmother’s, insisting it would run for another hundred years. Mother smelled faintly of L’Air du Temps.
“How long since the last one?”
She looked at the square black-and-white wall clock. “Five or six minutes.”
“Any pushing yet?”
“I feel like I should, but—”
“Believe me, you’ll know.”
A young nurse she hadn’t seen before rushed up, spoke to Mother in a stressed shrill voice, “Sorry, but we can’t have you here. The waiting room is down the hall.” She pointed.
Mother growled, “Not on your life.”
To Persy’s astonishment, the nurse scurried off without another word.
“I was working in the garden.” Mother’s silver hair was pulled back roughly into a disheveled bun. She had dirt under her fingernails. No makeup, no earrings, a sleeveless cotton blouse, plaid Bermudas. “I kept going inside to call you.” She brushed at a smudge on her shorts. “With Blaire gone, I wanted to be sure you were okay, but when you didn’t answer, I drove to your house. Called Memorial from there and found you’d been admitted. So here I am.”
Yes, here she was in her gardening shorts with her alligator bag hanging over her shoulder, wearing her L’Air du Temps.
Within a few minutes, she felt a fullness between her legs. A need to push, as if she’d reached the end of prolonged constipation. There was no longer a clock on the wall. No perforated ceiling tiles or muffled screams and groans from the labor suites. Only Mother, feeling her belly.
After a couple of contractions when she began to push, Mother lifted the sheet, dropped it immediately and shrieked, “She’s crowning.”
Nurse Maxwell appeared as if she’d been ten feet away, looked between her legs, shouted, “Delivery, stat!”
Mother kissed her and spoke to the nurse. “Now I’ll go to the waiting room.”
Nurse Maxwell got behind the gurney, rolled her down the hall away from the bulletin board, the clock, beneath a procession of overhead fluorescents, and into a busy bright room. She was transferred from the gurney when the nurse barked, “On three. One, two, three!” They lifted her by the sheet she’d been on for hours, deposited her onto a table. Rolled her to remove the sheet, soiled with amniotic fluid and shit. Lifted her legs, put her feet in the stirrups. A pain hit her. She groaned. Nurse Maxwell called out, “I’ll deliver this baby if I have to, but where the hell is McInulty?”
“I’m here.” Dr. Mac’s voice from the hallway.
“Just in time to catch it,” said Nurse Maxwell.
Another pain. She grunted, pushed, and felt the baby leaving her. Immediately she heard a high-pitched bawl.
“Good job, Mother,” said Nurse Maxwell.
Mother. She was a mother. She’d made it.
“It’s a boy,” another voice said.
“Let me have him,” said Nurse Maxwell. “I’ll pink him up.”
Someone else called out, “Four-eighteen p.m., six pounds, two ounces.”
In the bustle and clatter she said, “I want to see him.” Her voice came from a great distance, from some other woman who’d become a mother.
Dr. Mac said, “In a bit, Persy. You’re not done here. Got to get the afterbirth.” He patted her cheek with a hand that smelled of soap.
Later, much later, she was alone in a room when Dr. Mac walked in carrying her baby in his large square hands.
She held out her arms. “Give him to me.”
“There’s a problem, Persy.”
“Give him to me.”
He handed her the wrapped bundle. She smoothed the blanket away from her son’s face. Saw brown hair like Blaire’s, a blue tinge to his skin. Nurse Maxwell hadn’t pinked him up at all. She looked at Dr. Mac. “He needs another blanket. He’s cold.”
“There’s nothing we can do, Persephone. It’s a congenital heart defect, a valve problem. He won’t make it.”
“Yes, he will,” she said, touching his cheek. “Hello, Whitney.”
He breathed in gasps, struggling for life. She wanted to cover his mouth with hers, breathe into him.
She looked up at Dr. Mac. “Please help him.”
“I can’t.”
He always knew what to do and now he didn’t.
“Help my baby!” she screamed.
Dr. Mac shook his head, tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Persy. Be with him now. It won’t be long.” He turned off the overhead light as he left the room, leaving them in the glow of the bedside lamp.
“No,” she said to the baby. “No, no.”
The door opened. A uniformed man came in, hurried toward her. She clutched the baby close.
“No,” she said again. “You can’t have him.”
“Persy?” The man touched the baby’s head. Blaire, the bill of his folded cap sticking out of his pants pocket. He kissed her forehead, stretched out on the single bed with her, his booted feet nudging her bare toes through the sheet. She leaned into him, inhaled his dependable scent. He laid his head on her pillow, one hand holding hers, the other caressing their son. And it wasn’t long. Not long enough.
CHAPTER 10
Ablustery day, after a week of rain, been cooped up by the weather too long. “C’mon,” I say to Hawk. “Let’s get Desmond and go to the playground at school. How about it?”
“Oh, boy! What you think about that, Bibi?”
Bibi is shelling peas at the kitchen table. “A fine idea.”
“Wait till Uncle Ray gets home before you start cooking, okay?”
“Okay.”
I hope she remembers. Last week she burned the bottom out of a pot when she turned on the stove and forgot it.
We stop for Desmond and head for the tunnel the city built when they cut big Independence Boulevard through our neighborhood. The underground crossing worked well when it was first carved out, giving folks a way to navigate six lanes of traffic. Stoplights weren’t enough, and after two fourth-grade boys were killed on the way to school, the city finally paid attention to the awful intersection at McDowell and Independence.
“C’mon,” Desmond shouts. He and Hawk race down the steps ahead of me.
“Y’all wait,” I holler, my voice echoing. Before I’m down the concrete stairs, a stench rises up to meet me. The boys stop at the entrance.
I take them by the hand. “Hold on till we get across.” The city put four lights in the tunnel, but it’s still too dark. I look into the gloom, try to see if anyone’s sleeping there. In bad weather bums use it for a shelter, for a bathroom, too. Now the city’s talking about putting up gates at both ends, with school principals having keys to lock and unlock them.
“Yeah,” Uncle Ray say when I tell him about that plan. “It’ll hold them off about a week till somebody picks the locks.”
We near the middle when a man’s voice say, “Hey, honey. You got some cute boys there.”
I whirl around, see him sitting against the wall, a wine bottle in his lap. He holds it out. “Want a sip, young lady?” He’s filthy, with a gray beard down his chest.
Hawk shouts, “You leave my mama alone, mister!” He sounds much older than he is.
The man lowers the bottle. “No offense, young fella. Just being friendly.”
I pull the boys along to the other end, where we race up the steps.
At the playground I sink onto one of the metal benches, cold on this early June day. “Okay, y’all go have some fun.”
Hawk say, “If my
daddy was here, he would take care of us.”
I’m too surprised to say a word.
Desmond say, “You got a daddy?”
“He doesn’t live with us,” Hawk say. “But someday he will. Right, Mama?”
“We’ll talk when we get home, okay?” I need to think. The boys climb the monkey bars, leaving me wondering how in the world I’ll explain Mr. Griffin to Hawk. I could start by telling him how I got my name, how he got his. Go from there.
Loraylee Alexander Hawkins, Lo-Ray-Lee, named for Auntie Lorena, for Uncle Ray, and for my cousin Lee who lived three hard years before I was even born. Granddaddy Vester believed that naming me for Lorena would fix Bibi’s hurt—got my daddy to write it on my birth certificate and in the family Bible.
Vester has been gone nineteen years. But when Bibi carries on about Uncle Rupert, her first sweetheart, it’s as if her forty-year marriage to Vester never happened. What she doesn’t want to think about is that Uncle Rupert chose Auntie Lorena.
I like Auntie Lorena and Uncle Rupert, but Bibi throws a fit at the mention of them. They live out near Johnson C. Smith, where he teaches history, another thing that bothers Bibi. She say they think they’re too good for us. But I take Hawk to see them, want him to know that enough schooling can get you a fine brick house.
Then there’s Hawk. Alexander Clarence Hawkins, who got to be “Hawk” shortly after he was born, a sweet baby with reddish fuzz that grew into curls. Uncle Ray said his gray eyes and silky auburn hair reminded him of a hawk. That stuck. If anybody calls him Alexander, like on the first day of school, he’ll say, “You call me Hawk.” I’ve heard him do it, proud of his name. He has never asked about “Clarence,” but he will.
Mr. Griffin is Archibald Clarence Griffin. I put Clarence as Hawk’s middle name on the birth certificate, telling Bibi and Uncle Ray, “It’s a name I like.” Clarence means bright, shining, clear. Like both Mr. Griffin and Hawk. Alexander, our family name, goes back as far as we know to when Bibi’s grandfather was emancipated on the Alexander plantation that’s long gone now. As far as we know.
On the way home from the playground, after we say goodbye to Desmond, I cross our yard with Hawk, sit on the back steps. “How come you said what you did about your daddy, that if he was here, he’d take care of us. Don’t I do that?”
Tomorrow's Bread Page 7