Although I don’t know why I am scared. Glidewell is my legal home now. Mary and James had their lawyer write up a paper that makes them my legal guardians. It’s for my protection, James said. Even though I’m eighteen, should something happen, things would be better for me. So my legal name is Maizie Sunday Glidewell Freedman. Mary said she was happy, but she sure was crying when we signed the papers. We all hugged, like a family—even James was emotional. I love them. I wish they could have been your guardian angels, Mama. I hope you’re happy they’re mine.
You know what I wonder most? I wonder what life would be like if you had lived. I feel guilty when I think that my life here was only because you died. What would we be doing now, Mama? That makes me sad. How can I be happy and sad at the same time?
Good night, Mama.
Bonn nuit, Maman,
Maizie
Chapter 88
Marital Discord
Tilly sat in her father’s home office. The sun was shining in the south side window causing a glare on her paperwork. Standing, she walked to the window. Shading her eyes with the palm of her hand she looked outside. Parked along the fence was Martin’s highly polished red truck, sun rays bouncing playfully off the hood. It was a beautiful truck, but in the short time she and Martin had been married, she began to see the truck in a new light. It was Martin’s escape from her and the drudgery of living on her parents’ farm. Martin was not the perfect partner. She never did love him really. He was just there, for the picking. He still had been unable to convince his father to buy or lease the farm and he did little to help out with the running of the place. Tilly’s father had taken Martin under his wing, but Martin was more interested in hopping into his truck, picking up his friends and heading out for a boys’ night out. Tilly pulled the window curtain closed and returned to the desk and her paperwork.
She tried to concentrate on her task at hand, but she had much on her mind. She thought of their small wedding at Churchill Downs. She thought of how unhappy Martin’s parents seemed, unwilling to share the joy of the young couple’s nuptials. She thought about the many times she and Martin made love, both of them so drunk that the deed was quite difficult and labored. Things were not working out, and now, after all these months, she knew she was pregnant. It was time to tell Martin. Maybe the news would help their union, make things more meaningful.
Just then she heard someone come in the front door. It was Martin. She could tell by the sound of his steel-capped boots as they tapped along the hardwood floor. It was an incessant sound when Martin was in the house. He seemed to pace, finding sitting difficult. Disgust began to fill her. Tilly walked to the office doorway.
“Martin, can we talk while my parents are gone?”
“Sure babe, after I shower. I’ve been working hard.”
“I bet. You’re such a workhorse.”
“What? You don’t think I work hard?”
“That’s right. You don’t.”
“Please, let’s not fight, Tilly the Filly.”
Tilly rolled her eyes. Martin approached her and pulled her toward him. She pushed him away.
“Not in the mood, Martin. I’ve some news. Pour me a whiskey and I’ll tell you.” She walked to the couch and took a seat. The grim expression on her face and her crossed arms resting on her breasts signaled her testy mood.
Martin walked to the drink cart situated near a large oil painting of a chestnut stallion named Warrior, the thoroughbred that had been the only great hope of the Coombs Farm. He was an impressive racehorse—at least his painting was, but that was about it. The horse had been put out to pasture years ago. Martin looked briefly at the painting and shook his head. Then he poured two shots, one for Tilly and one for himself.
Walking to the couch, his boots clicking all the way, he said, “Here.”
Tilly reached for the shot glass, gripped it with her thumb and index finger and set it on the coffee table in front of her, while Martin remained standing. “I went to the doctor last week.”
“Yeah,” he said, half listening.
“I haven’t been feeling my best.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it. Seems you always have a headache.”
“Do you want to know why I’m not feeling well?”
“Of course. I don’t know why you feel puny all the time. I figure you’re doing it for attention.”
“I’m going to have a baby.”
“You’re what?” Martin glowered and leaned toward her.
“I’m pregnant. Knocked up. In the family way. The rabbit died. Get it, Martin?”
“Damn you, Tilly. Why in the hell would you go and get pregnant? You know I’m not ready for kids.”
“You’re blaming me when you’re the one bothering me all the time?”
“It’s your fault. We aren’t ready for kids. We can barely figure out how to make this work with just the two of us and your parents hanging around all the time. Truth told, I dislike it here and having a baby won’t make it better.”
“Is that right? It’s my fault. Well I’m not ready for kids either. I’ll be damned if I’m going to be tied down to a bawling brat now. Martin, we got to get your daddy to invest in this farm. We just got to. Help me Martin, please. Help me. My parents will move to town, soon.”
“Don’t beg me. Makes me want to walk out of here. I don’t like this married stuff. It’s too much for me.”
“Too much for you? Why, you poor thing. What are you going to do?”
“Tilly, I told you when I married you, no way was I wanting kids, and then you go and get pregnant? I’d say you’re the one who has stuff to do, not me.”
“But your daddy will be a granddaddy. I bet he’d…”
“Shut up, Tilly. And don’t you dare tell him!”
Tilly picked up her glass with trembling fingers and downed her whiskey as Martin stomped out the door. She walked to the drink cart and poured herself another. She knew what she would do. She’d take a quick trip to the pharmacy. She’d heard there was a man there, in the back, who could help her. Tilly walked to the bedroom she and Martin shared, found her purse and car keys, and then downed the whiskey shot. As she walked out the door, she saw Martin and his red pickup headed out to the highway. Where he was going was of no concern to her, because she was on her way to see a man about getting rid of a baby. The Garners would never have a grandchild from her womb.
Chapter 89
Vicksburg, Mississippi
April 15, 1934
The city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, sat high on a bluff near the eastern shore of the mighty Mississippi. Its history was riddled with racial strife, lynchings, and voter suppression. Economic, civil, and social inequalities were the norm. The word freedman came to represent the idea of suppressed men rather than people who enjoyed freedom. Things hadn’t changed much by the spring of 1934.
With the end of Prohibition on December 5, 1933, there was an awakening of hope among the masses. The miseries of the Depression could now be subdued by legal spirits in most states. Mississippi, however, was not one of them.
In early spring, Meadowlark and Maizie made plans to travel by train to Vicksburg. Sugar was to accompany Maizie as a friend and chaperone. It was Meadowlark’s plan to put on several performances around the Vicksburg area, featuring Maizie singing delta blues with himself on the piano. Meadowlark’s friend, Slick Jones, would join them with his saxophones, an alto and tenor, and drums.
“It’s like killing two birds with one stone,” explained Meadowlark. “We can poke around and see if anyone knows about Maizie’s early life and do a little performing at the same time.”
Mary and Meadowlark designed an announcement featuring the first names of the performers with photos, including the dates and venue of the concerts. The announcement showed Meadowlark at the piano looking into the camera with a welcoming smile; Slick was pictured pl
aying his alto sax. And they used Rye Fulton’s portrait of Maizie. If the two men didn’t get attention, Maizie’s portrait would. Mary had a few misgivings about using the photo, but she did want her trip to yield fruit. She was grateful that the negative belonged to them and they could use it.
The train trip was uneventful. When they passed the Mississippi state line, Meadowlark, Sugar, and Maizie were assigned to a new car; a car reserved for coloreds. The two women, both wearing brimmed fedoras, sat behind Meadowlark on a bench seat. Maizie looked out the window, her blue eyes registering the topography of the delta while she imagined herself, a little girl, and her mother on a journey upriver, just the two of them.
The landscape was verdant; the land, fertile. Since this was an area where the rivers flooded and enriched the soil, cotton plantations, rice paddies, and other farms were in their spring phase of growth. As the train traversed the landscape, Maizie could see a muddy river. Then the train moved away from the river, riding over swampy areas on bridges. Trees covered with low-hanging moss and lush foliage were abundant. The sound of the train’s iron wheels on the rails mesmerized her, and the train rocked and relaxed her. Her eyes grew drowsy.
“There are alligators everywhere in the spring,” Meadowlark offered as a way to enlighten his travel companions about an area he knew so well. “It’s mating season. Keep your eyes open, Maizie. You might see one. There are water moccasins in those rice paddies. Now there’s a snake you won’t forget. Lots of other snakes around the delta.” Maizie opened her eyes, not sure if Meadow was talking to her. She looked disturbed by Meadow’s talk of snakes so he began to talk instead about the music of the delta. After a few minutes, Maizie’s eyelids fell and she gave way to a dreamless sleep.
When she awoke, she saw men and women working in the fields and rice paddies. She saw shanties standing near the tracks with goats and chickens in the yards. Children sitting on porches or playing games in the muddy earth. Some of the hovels were occupied by folks of color; others were white. These were the sharecroppers and tenant farmers that came to work the land when the plantations were divided up after the Civil War. They were all visibly poor, whether colored or white. Maizie looked down at her fashionable dress and shoes and straightened her stylish hat, realizing she had so much. She no longer felt poor or homeless, but she could relate. Her memories were sketchy, but she remembered clearly how poverty felt—the shame, the humiliation. Sugar glanced at Maizie and said nothing while Maizie took it all in.
When the train arrived in Vicksburg, Slick Jones was there to greet them. He was a thin man with kinky, graying hair. He walked with an energizing rhythm, his laughing eyes as warm as the summer sun. He escorted them to a boardinghouse where Maizie and Sugar were given Southern hospitality and room and board. The house was clean, the furniture old and sparse. Meadowlark stayed at Slick’s place so they could jam, talk about the old days, and drink Slick’s home-distilled liquor.
The following morning, after a simple breakfast of grits and honey, Maizie and Sugar walked down the street to Slick’s place. Sugar looked on while Maizie rehearsed with Meadowlark and Slick, getting comfortable with the songs on the program.
In the afternoon, Meadowlark and Slick put up small handbills and larger announcements all over the neighborhood and a bit beyond. Sugar joined them briefly to give Maizie a break. They placed handbills and posters in store windows, on lampposts, near a city park, on vacated properties, and outside the church where they were performing. Sugar was helping to nail a handbill near a small park, when she noticed a woman who came again and again to stare at a handbill nailed to a tree. Suddenly a strong breeze blew the handbill from the tree across the green, and the woman ran to retrieve it. She bent to pick it up, studied it and placed it in her pocket. She was a white woman, a rarity in that neighborhood. Sugar could only guess that she was interested in the concert. The woman stopped walking, removed the handbill from her pocket, and again studied the images on the paper. She smiled, carefully returning it to her pocket.
The next morning Maizie and Sugar were up early. After breakfast they walked to the fellowship hall of the church for rehearsal. It was a typical spring morning in Vicksburg, cool with the promise of higher temperatures in the afternoon.
“Have you been to Mississippi before, Sugar?” asked Maizie.
“No, I sho’ haven’t. Stayed in Kentucky my whole life before I come to Glidewell. Think I like Glidewell better,” explained Sugar.
“Why?”
“You know, child, Mississippi has a lot of racial problems. Hard for the colored man to feel free. It ain’t easy anywhere in the South, but here just seems worse. There’s no place like Glidewell. You know that fence around Glidewell is like a line of soldiers making us feel protected somehow. I sho’ do like seeing it.”
“Yeah, I noticed how colored folks here seem awful shy with white folks,” said Maizie. “Like afraid, almost.”
“That’s true. Men have been hanged for just looking at a white woman.”
“Yeah, like my dad. I wonder what they think of me?”
“Well, I do believe colored folks think you got an advantage ’cause of your blue eyes and light skin. They knows you got some colored in you. You can rest assured of that.”
“What about the white folks? Do they know I am colored?”
“Well, some probably see that you colored. ’Cause people here look for that. Your daddy dark?”
“My mama said he was light. You think it matters, Sugar? I’m both, white and colored.”
“You are who you are, is all. You can be proud you part colored and proud you part white. If it don’t matter to you, others should have no mind to care one bit.”
“But people do, don’t they? It’s confusing. I don’t think of myself as being one way or another. I feel guilty ’cause I have it good and these folks don’t.”
“Now don’t you go sayin’ that. There ain’t no reason for you to go feelin’ bad about being at Glidewell. If you feel guilty, should I feel guilty? No, that ain’t right. You and I work hard for our good life. You and I learned to get along.” She paused for a moment, looking at Maizie. “If you’s askin’ Sugar, I’d say you are makin’ the good things happen in your life all by yourself, ’cause you’s smart and a hard worker. I think good things happen ’cause people love you ’cause you’s Maizie. That’s all.”
As they neared the church’s fellowship hall, Maizie stopped and gave Sugar a hug. “Now why’s you hugging me, Maizie girl?”
“’Cause I feel better. Funny how words can make you feel better.”
Sugar took Maizie’s arm and the two continued on their way.
Meadowlark’s trio, dubbing themselves the Bluesy Band, were to give three concerts: Meadowlark playing and crooning, Slick on his drums and saxophone, and Maizie singing, her voice ringing in the crowded church hall, largely filled by the colored residents of Vicksburg and a few whites who loved the delta sound. The audience of music lovers was enthusiastic, and by the end of the second concert the trio had perfected their delivery and were anxious for their third and final evening.
Meadowlark began the concert by playing some of his new jazz compositions on the well-used upright piano. The old instrument didn’t do his music justice like the grand piano at the Glidewell ranch, but his music filled the room, the notes dancing off the whitewashed board and batten walls. The audience clapped politely at the end of each piece. Then at precisely eight o’clock Meadowlark stood and approached the microphone, introducing himself and his band members.
Slick Jones stepped from the side hall carrying his tenor sax in one hand and alto in the other. He took his place near Meadowlark and waved the tenor sax in the air. Setting the alto down, he placed the tenor sax to his lips and blew out some jazz. The crowd cheered. Slick set down his tenor, lifted his alto sax, and played an impressive trill. Then, laying the horns down, he went to the set of drums and began a ser
ies of snappy, bright, crack sounds on the snares, then beat the bass drum with a slappy, thuddy thumpadumpa. He pushed the pedal on his high hats, which clinked together in a tight, tinny sound. Continuing the beat established on the cymbals, he used his oak percussion mallets, unleashing a series of rhythms that soon had everyone clapping. Maizie waited behind the stage for her introduction, finding it difficult not to move to Slick’s rhythms.
Peeking through the curtains from backstage, Maizie saw a white woman in a simple belted green dress enter the fellowship hall. She was alone and walked with a sense of purpose. She found the last available seat near the front and sat down between two colored men. She drew some mild attention to herself, but those seated in front of her and behind quickly resumed watching Slick. She removed a folded handbill from her pocket and looked at it one more time, tracing something on the page with her index finger. She sat calmly in her chair, straight-backed with ankles crossed, and slowly looked up from her handbill.
Maizie saw Meadowlark return to the mic. This was her cue to step forward onto the stage, nodding hello to Meadow and Slick as she took her place. Meadow whispered into Maizie’s ear. She looked at him and nodded as he approached the mic. Again she looked at the woman sitting in the front, the woman’s eyes locked with Maizie’s, and she smiled and waved. Who is she? Maizie thought to herself.
“Please welcome a native of Vicksburg, brothers and sisters, Miss Maizie Freedman.”
The audience clapped politely as Maizie walked to the mic, touching a fabric rose in her hair as the crowd waited. She smiled briefly at both Meadowlark and Slick. Turning toward the audience she looked out into the hall and connected to every section, back and front, left and right and for reasons she did not understand, nodded at the white woman in the green dress sitting on the edge of her chair, the handbill still clutched in her hand.
Through Tender Thorns Page 30