Africaville

by Jeffrey Colvin

  Since working on the history report that earned him and Gerrick a B-minus, Warner has rarely thought about Gerrick’s life in Pathview. And he has never seen the house where Gerrick lives. Parked on the road near the Gilroy mailbox, he watches Gerrick walk up the long driveway, thinking his eyes are deceiving him. A brick house in Pathview? But he then notices places where the imitation brick tarpaper shingles have peeled away to reveal weathered gray planks. The two chinaberry trees in the front yard must once have been well pruned. The same for the spruce hugging one side of the house. But the front steps and the porch railing look as shabby as the rusted tin roof.

  How in the world can Gerrick believe that the two of them are in the same boat? Does Gerrick not recognize that the lawyers for Platinum Paper might well succeed in evicting him and his grandfather from that house? And that the people in the personnel office might refuse to accept his application? If Gerrick loses his job at the Kwik Mart, he will have far more to worry about than Warner will.

  But not everything Gerrick said earlier was without merit, Warner concludes when he is back on the blacktop. In fact, he may soon need to ask for the particulars of the NAACP lawyer Gerrick’s grandfather is hiring. The idea came to him the day he decided it was time to get serious about visiting his great-grandmother Zera at the prison in Mississippi. Prisoners are always in need of lawyers. He imagines Zera would require a special one. His desire to visit his great-grandmother had intensified in Halifax, when his aunt Luela showed him the weather-beaten grave marker of his grandfather Omar. He made the decision, however, when he held his daughter, Jennifer, near the shiny headstone that had been installed at Etienne’s grave in Vermont. He wants to make sure his daughter knows her relatives, even the colored ones.

  Etienne had always claimed that the problem he had with Zera had nothing to do with the fact that she was colored. The problem was that she was a well-known prisoner in Mississippi. According to a few of the articles Warner has read, she may still be well known. Nevertheless, Warner wants his daughter to learn that family is family. Will she want to get to know her colored relatives? Or will she rebuff them, as her grandfather Etienne had done?

  His great-grandmother must be eligible for parole by now. Had anyone ever tried to help her obtain it? The only trepidation Warner has about asking Gerrick about the NAACP lawyer is that Gerrick might ask why he wants the information. That he feels uneasy about that surprises him. He was quick to criticize his father for keeping family matters to himself. But now he finds that, outside the family, he is not yet ready to talk about this new part of his life. There are too many facts he still has to hunt down.

  Warner passes the first neat houses in Woodhaven feeling the weight of his journey to learn more about his people. His father’s death closed off one avenue he had to learn about himself. But a new avenue has opened. Still, what if he meets his great-grandmother at the prison only to learn that she is a despicable person, one neither he nor his daughter will want to associate with? What if he learns that Etienne was right: some family matters are better left buried?

  The Dilemma

  If the television forecasts are to be believed—and Warner doesn’t doubt them—the monthlong interlude between Thanksgiving and Christmas will be the hottest on record. The entire week after Thanksgiving, the temperature in Montgomery hovers in the high eighties. And this Saturday afternoon in early December, with his head still briny from all the rum shots he downed at a buddy’s house, where a party gathered to watch the Alabama-Georgia football game, Warner arrives home so wilted from baking in his Camaro that he doesn’t respond to what Minerva has said.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Minerva asks. “I said I forgot to tell you that Deedra Cummings called here for you yesterday.”

  “What did she want?”

  “She didn’t say. She wants you to call her back.”

  Warner carries in three large shopping bags filled with Christmas gifts and wrapping supplies, which Minerva left in the trunk of the Camaro the last time she borrowed it. The look on her face suggests she may have delayed giving him this message. She knows he is never happy talking to Deedra.

  “Jocelyn called me this morning,” Deedra says the next day, when Warner returns her call.

  “Probably wanted to check up on me,” he says. “That woman’s a worrywart. I hope you told her that I delivered the package you wanted.”

  “That is not exactly why your mother was calling,” Deedra says.

  “Well, what else did she want?”

  “She wanted to talk about you.”

  “What about me?”

  “Your mother feels it would be a dishonor if she comes down here to a ceremony for Etienne at the college where his son has failed to graduate. She wants me to hold off on any ceremony to honor Etienne until after you have graduated. She told me to call you to find out if you will be registering for the spring. Will you?”

  “My mother knows I don’t have the money right now to finish school.”

  “Your tuition’s free.”

  “Books and gas aren’t. Plus, I have to work. I’ve got a new baby.”

  “What’s the problem?” Deedra says, her voice rising. “I finished my degree raising two grandchildren. What do you want me to tell your mother?”

  “I’ll call her myself, damn it.”

  From the pause on the other end of the line, Deedra must be surprised, as she was on campus when he told her about his colored relatives. Warner hangs up, wondering what Deedra will do with that information.

  Deedra Cummings is not the only person in Alabama who knows that Warner has colored relatives. The only other person, outside of Minerva, is his best friend, Randy. When he broke the news, he noticed the way the gold flecks erupted in Randy’s slate-colored eyes. “That’s some crazy stuff you should keep to yourself,” Randy said.

  Why did he tell Randy, Warner wonders this evening, getting out of the Camaro at the Lucky Lounge bar. That boy’s mouth is as big as Texas.

  The usual Tuesday night crowd is here: members of the summer softball league and old classmates from high school, including Millicent Agnos, one of the other clerks at the Kwik Mart. At the bar, while Warner orders a beer, Millicent tries to keep Randy’s hands off her pack of cigarettes sitting on the bar.

  “Randy, if you be a sweetie and fetch me some pop-pop,” Millicent says, holding an empty teak bowl, “I might let you have a smoke.”

  Randy walks to the popcorn maker while Millicent catches Warner up on what happened at the Kwik Mart during the afternoon shift. “Gerrick’s daddy is in town,” Millicent says. “Betcha didn’t know that, did you?”

  “That beer’s got you tipsy,” Warner says. “Don’t you know Gerrick’s daddy is dead?”

  Millicent raises her chubby arm and wags a finger. “My daddy saw him. He swears it was Gerrick’s daddy.”

  Warner pays for his beer, confused. Why would Gerrick lie about that?

  “So what if he saw Gerrick’s daddy?” Warner says to Millicent. “What’s that to me?”

  “I’m just spreading gossip is all. Speaking of which, I hear Udall’s wife doesn’t think it will be good for business to promote a colored man at the store.”

  “Udall’s never going to promote Gerrick.”

  “I’m not talking about Gerrick, sweetie,” Millicent says. “I’m talking about you.”

  “Who said I was colored?”

  “Randy.”

  Randy, who has come back, sets down the bowl of popcorn onto the bar. “Didn’t your daddy teach you to keep other folks’ name out of your mouth, Miss Millisecond?” he says, grabbing the pack of cigarettes from Millicent’s lap.

  “Like you kept Warner’s name out of yours?” Millicent says. “Come on now, Randy. Ain’t that what you said? Didn’t you say Warner’s daddy had a colored mother?”

  “No, ma’am, it ain’t what I said.”

  “Well, that ain’t my point anyway,” Millicent says. “What I was saying is that if it’s true that Warne
r has a colored grandmother, then he’s colored enough for Udall and his wife to have a problem.” Millicent chuckles and offers Warner some popcorn. “I suppose we can tease you about your little problem,” she tells him, “because we know you.”

  “You think having a colored relative’s funny?” Randy says. “I don’t.”

  Warner washes down a mouthful of popcorn with a swallow of beer, looking at Randy. Who else has his friend told? Any advice Udall got about not promoting a colored man probably came not from his wife but from Millicent. She started a rumor in high school that Warner and Gerrick had the same relatives in Canada. And when she heard Udall was thinking about hiring Gerrick at the Kwik Mart, she asked him not to schedule Gerrick when she was working. Now, whenever Gerrick attends a clerks’ meeting, Millicent interrupts him every time he tries to speak. Of course, she may dislike him for reasons that have nothing to do with his being colored. That’s possible. Warner’s not too fond of Gerrick himself.

  The front doors of the Lucky Lounge swing open, letting in more of the warm December air. Hearing a familiar laugh, Warner scans the bar. Is that Millicent’s sister, Pinky, playing darts with the VFW softball team? He caught up with Pinky yesterday when she came by the store. A toenail clipper, a bottle of Mercurochrome, and a box of peanut brittle are much cheaper at the Plaza. So why had Pinky driven the extra miles to the Kwik Mart?

  “I know I don’t have big tits,” Randy says to Warner, “but could you pay attention?”

  “Did you say something important?”

  “I said where has Gerrick’s daddy been? Shouldn’t he have come down here sooner to see about his son and his father?” Randy shakes his head. “Niggers, I tell you.”

  Randy takes a drink of beer, looking embarrassed about his slipup. When Millicent’s boyfriend walks up, Randy heads to the bathroom.

  Millicent’s boyfriend takes the half-full beer out of her hand and drains it in a few gulps. After setting down the bottle he shakes a set of car keys.

  “That’s my cue,” Millicent says. She slides off the bar stool and follows her boyfriend out of the bar. Warner remains, and when Randy returns from the bathroom their conversation is not as easy as it usually is. Warner is deep in thought when Randy taps him on the shoulder.

  “Are you still mad at your daddy?” Randy asks.

  “I was never mad at my daddy.”

  “You said you were. You said your daddy kept a lot of secrets.”

  “Nobody’s perfect.”

  “Is that the colored in you talking?”

  “Boy, give that a rest.”

  Randy uses the butt of a matchstick to prod the wick on his cigarette lighter. Warner watches him work, wondering what became of the crazy idea Randy had that the two of them lease a docking station at one of the garages in Woodhaven. They both had been recently laid off from their jobs at the Montgomery Hotel and Conference Center. Warner had worked his way from parking lot attendant to concierge. Some days he wore a tie for work. Minerva liked that. These days, Minerva likes nothing he does. It is well past eleven. If he does not leave right now, she will be in bed when he gets home, and tomorrow there will be trouble.

  “Not ready to go home yet,” Randy says when Warner produces the keys to the Camaro.

  “You are if you want me to give you a lift.”

  Randy looks toward the back of the bar. “You hear Pinky?”

  “Who’d miss a girl with a laugh like that?”

  “Not coming back here after you drop me, are you?”

  “Now why would I do that?”

  Warner slides off the stool, feeling a pleasant rush of heat down his face and neck. His thoughts of Pinky’s laugh are disrupted by the stifling air outside and by his irritation—not at the distasteful things Randy says about colored people, but at his nerve for suggesting that Warner is still mad at Etienne. Obviously Randy was too drunk to remember he had asked that question several days ago.

  Warner opens the car door, thinking about the news that Gerrick’s father has come home. Even in high school he detected anger in Gerrick toward his father. Odd, he thought at the time, to carry around hate for a man who was dead. But if he is alive, the anger was clearly for a different reason. Is it because his father was absent for so long? He wonders again why Gerrick lied. Whatever Gerrick wants or needs from his father, with the man still alive at least there is a chance to get it.

  Warner is not so lucky. Whatever gifts he wished to continue getting from his father will never arrive. At least not in a form he expects. He can only search out traces of his father in Halifax, Montreal, and Mississippi. Angry? Hardly. Last month in Vermont he looked through boxes in Jocelyn’s basement for hours until he found the articles and old photographs his mother thought Deedra Cummings might need for the college’s planned tribute to Etienne. And he delivered them all to Deedra eagerly. Are those the acts of a son angry with his father?

  Registration for seniors ended yesterday,” Deedra’s voice on the answering machine says. “I see that you have not signed up for classes. I guess this means we will not be doing the ceremony for your father this spring. Tell your mother I’m putting away the paperwork. Let me know when you’re ready to proceed. Next year, maybe?”

  Warner hits the stop button on the answering machine, shaking his head. There is no way he is going to call his mother with that news. He had not realized that the deadline for winter registration had passed. Surely Deedra knows that he can register late. It is obvious she could care less about any celebration honoring Etienne.

  The desk in the spare bedroom used to belong to Minerva’s grandfather. Everyone in her family talks about the man as if he had been a professor at a fancy college, but Warner knows the facts: he substitute-taught one college course at a so-called industrial junior college. Most of his teaching was of physical education and civics at a high school up in Limestone County. Warner retrieves the Cumberland College Catalog of Spring Courses from the desk drawer, certain that there’s no sense in complaining to Minerva about the message from Deedra. “I don’t expect you to understand my predicament,” he told her months ago, when all the news—the death of his father, meeting Luela, finding out about Zera—was piling up in his brain. “Nor do I expect you to fully understand what I am trying to figure out about my life.”

  Minerva had nodded and said, “You’re right, I don’t understand your predicament. But what I do understand is that your predicament might improve if you finish your schooling while you run around trying to understand yourself and chase down family stories and mementos.”

  Inside of an hour Warner has written down the course codes for all four classes he will register for tomorrow. He closes the catalog, not yet able to see himself receiving a diploma at a June graduation. And the little satisfaction he feels about completing this task is tempered by the fact that the job application he picked up from the personnel office at Platinum Paper is still sitting on his desk.

  He promised Gerrick that he would deliver both their applications to the company office. His is only half completed, but he has not been fretting about the delinquency. For one thing, the woman in the personnel office said the hiring managers would not come over from Germany to look at applications until the beginning of April. That is still three months away. And for another, he did not think Gerrick would ever complete his application. How could Gerrick concentrate with all the turmoil at his house? His grandfather is getting sicker but still refuses to leave home. And now Gerrick is trying to reunite with a father he has not seen for a decade. Warner thought Gerrick would surely drag his feet on filling out the job application until well into spring. But as Warner left work last week, there was Gerrick’s completed application sitting on the front seat of the Camaro.

  Better finish mine, he thinks, taking up the application again. Most of the boxes to be checked are preceded by explanatory sentences, all ending with a question mark. At the top of the first page of the application is the one-word query to which Warner has yet to offer a response.


  RACE?

  In the past such inquiries never caused him the slightest trepidation. He would check the box that said WHITE with barely a thought. But now he wants to think over his answer. When he notices that the form says this information is optional, Warner decides to leave the box unchecked—although he suspects that if he is called for an interview, he will be asked his race. He might say that his father was adopted and he doesn’t know his race. That is technically true—enough. If pressed, he could insist on leaving the matter at that. He is from up north, he can say. We don’t have such rigid views on race.

  But is that true? He attacks another question, recalling a few derogatory comments he has heard over the years about colored people. During his yearly visits to his grandparents in Vermont and New Hampshire, he cannot recall them voicing many slurs against blacks, but he does recall a few. Before leaving Vermont last month, he asked Jocelyn if, during the months before her marriage, she knew that Etienne was colored. She said she did. But there had been a moment of hesitation.

  Deedra Cummings may not be happy that his registration has put her back to work planning his father’s commemoration, Warner thinks, as he leaves his morning class and heads to his afternoon shift at the Kwik Mart. But most certainly his wife and mother are elated that he is back on campus.

  Warner gets out of the Camaro at the Kwik Mart to find Gerrick beaming over a letter from Platinum Paper. “The letter says I need to come into the personnel office again,” Gerrick says. “They tell me I need to fill out some more papers.”

  “You and a hundred other guys, no doubt,” Warner says. He skims the letter. “Industrial technician? What is that?”

  “Don’t know,” Gerrick says. “But I’ll bet it pays better than Udall. Did you get a letter?”

  Warner shakes his head. “But I’m putting in for something better than technician. Maybe they are still reviewing the job application for those types of jobs.”

  “If you say so.”

  “It says here that they won’t bring on any new hires until August,” Warner adds. “That is a long way off.”