I’m not going to go on about your relationship with this young man. You and Sassafrass will have to discover on your own that there’s no kind of man that takes seriously what comes too easy. From his picture he seems to have nice features, a well-bred looking sort, but my goodness how could you lay your head on the same pillow with that mess he calls hair on his head? Artist or not, that boy’s got to cut his hair. Then you could bring him home for a holiday, but don’t bring him down here looking like he looks. It’ll set the race back a hundred years.
I think I recall Sassafrass mentioning this Leroy to me before. Is he a friend from California? From what you say, he doesn’t sound at all like that Mitch poor Sassafrass is tied to; I hope he’s not, for your sake. But she does carry herself a little different from you, Cypress. I’m not meaning to find fault, but you’ve always got to keep a little money of your own somewhere, because men come and go like the weather. It’s not respectable for a young woman to be totally beholdin to any young man, especially if she’s not married. In my day, there were names for those women and I didn’t raise you to be one of them. You continue to go to those auditions. Get yourself in a company and see if your “perfect” young man doesn’t improve as much as a “perfect” young man could. (smile)
Oh, I nearly forgot. Thank you so much for that kimona. The silk is so fine, I feel downright sinful when I wear it. Of course, no one’s here to see me in it, but I do think your father might have come home more often, if I’d had one of these.
Much love to you,
Mama
P.S. Don’t forget to have that boy cut that mess off his head—he’ll thank you for it later, when he doesn’t look such a fool.
Cypress hated the walk home from a Friday class. There were too many people in too much hurry. Things didn’t smell good after a week of wage-slavery. Folks looked stale and dishevelled until they accepted the weekend as a reality. Maybe she was being too hard on the general public. Maybe she was the one who was worn out from a week of hard physical labor. If that was the case, she deserved some treats. And treat herself grandly is what she did. Any boutique or vegetable stand worth looking at from Greenwich Avenue to Waverly Place, she graced with her consumer dollar: artichokes; leotards; silk scarves; barrettes; asparagus; Port Salut cheese; two bottles of La Doucette because Leroy liked that; and an honest-to-god laced corset like the ones in the nasty movies where men fantasize nasty things, or so she imagined. With these delicacies and this corset over her body smelling of almonds, she’d have her way with that insanely perfect man she lived with.
It annoyed her sense of anarchy, the way he worked. From seven in the morning until one, he practiced. Then from one o’clock until three he composed. Around four he’d meet somebody for a rehearsal or keep writing music. He did this every day, even Sunday. Cypress thought that was a bit much. He made her feel like she was lazy. Yet he never criticized her use of time. She got up with him and did her hieroglyphs in needlepoint to ease her mind and soothe her ancestors, then she was off to the dance studio of her choice for class until early evening.
“No, I guess I’m not lazy,” Cypress consoled herself. “Hey, wait a minute . . .” Stopping herself in front of Balducci’s with her bags of exotic vegetables, wines, and feminine apparel. “What the fuck are we living on?” Cypress was down to her last $750.00. That was all that was left from the stash she’d brought from California. Dealing coke in New York was out of the question; she had no connections, no customers, no protection.
“Oh, Jesus, he’s a dope dealer or something, a gunrunner. Who in the hell knows. Oh shit, what am I gonna do, say ‘Leroy, do you mind if I take a lil of your trade?’ What kind of mess am I in now. I let him give me the money and I never asked where it came from. I’m such a jackass.”
The wonderful bundles lost their favored status. Cypress walked toward the loft with the air of some demented bag-lady, who’d just been pushed off her corner.
Just as she thought. Leroy was still composing music, right on schedule.
“You know, you’re too predictable, Leroy,” she hollered in the quiet. Leroy realized Cypress must have had a very bad day to behave in such a manner first thing. He didn’t pick up on the querulous tones in her voice, but let them go right on by.
“Cypress, what’s the matter with you?” he said, without looking up from his work. Cypress stood still, holding her luscious treats specially chosen to seduce this man who wasn’t looking at her. She felt like she was three, and there was going to be no Sunday picnic, no swings, no watermelon. When Leroy took a glance at her, he burst out laughing.
“Look Cypress, whatever it is, come on out with it! Have you hurt yourself, or did one of your ‘marvelous’ teachers find you out of form?” Cypress started to cry, slow little girl tears, so her face stayed smooth and glowing.
“What do we live on, Leroy? How do we live here?”
Leroy seemed puzzled. “Well, I pay the bills and I give you money that you need to go to class, or whatever you want . . . I think . . . that’s all there is to it.”
Cypress slammed her fist on Leroy’s desk. “No that’s not what I mean. I mean where does the money come from? We don’t work. No—I know we work, but we don’t earn any money. We don’t have money to pay for a place like this, or my classes, or all this stuff I bought today.”
Leroy really thought she was funny, now. “Yes we do, honey, and there’s more where that came from.”
Cypress, totally befuddled, sat on Leroy’s lap while he whistled one of his tunes to her. The tune that meant there was nothing to fear. More than niggers could burn, more than blues and fury, found a voice in Leroy.
“Cypress, do you think you could hum ‘Air Above Mountains’? . . . Well, alright, let’s do a duet of ‘Theme of the Yoyo,’ the Art Ensemble’s soundtrack with Fontella Bass. I know you know it.”
Cypress said nothing.
“You think I might be doing something outside the law, huh? You think you might be in some mess like Sassafrass and that junkie of hers, don’t you?”
Cypress didn’t want to say, “Yes, that’s what I thought,” but she shook her head, yes, that’s what she thought.
“Wow, Cypress, do you think I’d be as good as you in a business like that?” Leroy had to rock her so she’d calm down, but she kept wrestling with him until he swore, “I’ll show you where the money comes from, okay?”
“Is it dangerous?”
“No darling, it’s benign.”
Cypress and Leroy followed the maitre d’ to a table for four by the windows of one of those restaurants advertised in the “Preferred” section of tourist magazines. What they were doing in a place like this was beyond her. It was just like being on the road, searching for a meal that wasn’t Howard Johnson’s Americana or terribly prepared French cuisine adapted to American tastes, available in the “better” hotels. Cypress kept looking around to see who was going to join them, but all she could set her eyes on was lace: ½ leno alternating with 2/1 leno; allover 2/2 Mexican lace in one, in ivory, natural cotton.
“My oh my, how they want us to know this is frequented by genteel society.” Lace table cloths, lace curtains . . . yes, Cypress checked, lace borders on the napkins. “Oh these poor people,” Cypress thought, “these poor people would never imagine that I grew up in all this goddamned lace. I’ve spent my life getting out of lace-y places.”
And the French accents grated, rather than soothed her. After all, foreign white folks were just as indisposed to the colored as American ones. But foreigners could be more dangerous, if you didn’t understand what they were saying. Yet this was where Leroy’s business was to be made clear to her.
Cypress had, to her mind, dressed for the occasion. Her shoulders lay bare under the thinnest of satin straps; the blouse fell over her bosom, sensually peach. Huge lime flowers that had never been seen on earth spread over the deep blue of her crepe skirt. Her eyes were shaded in greens, her lashes aqua. Lips, blackberry and ripe. Her hair flew about her
head in wafts held with ebony combs.
Between nibbles of peppercorn pâté and sips of Charbaut et Fils champagne, she slipped coyly into the role of the Southern belle being courted by a Northern industrialist. Cypress preened, blushed, giggled, and delighted Leroy with her antics: Tallulah at dinner; Zelda after cocktails; Miz Fitzhugh with an aperitif. What held her series of caricatures together was her expert use of a white laced hankie that her mother had given her. This hankie spun in the air, as Leroy and Cypress played damsel and gallant.
Cypress was just about to describe the antics of po’ white trash in Carolina when she noticed the maitre d’ showing a couple to their table. In a grey linen suit and ivory silk blouse with her initials on the collar, the woman carried a bone leather clutch-purse. Her hair was straightened by one of those permanents that never turn back—makeup straight out of Cosmo. The man was in an openweave beige jacket, with a flamingo shirt that opened easily at the neck. His shoulders were broad and highlighted by the startlingly white cravat that fell beneath his lapels. Cypress squirmed, trying not to make a face.
“Oh no, not all night, not with them,” she thought. “Enter the Black Bourgeoisie, the Talented Tenth and all that,” turning to Leroy to save her. But Leroy was obviously excited to see these two. Everybody was glad to see everyone. Cypress was the loner. Leroy stood, to kiss the woman on her cheek.
“Cypress, this is Mahlon Burbridge, and Towbin Owens; old classmates of mine.”
Cypress could tell from the way Mahlon shook hands that the girl hadn’t been raised properly. There was no force to the grip, no energy. Lord help women who shook hands like dead fish. Don’t they know their handshakes are a sign of the verity of their word; if you can’t shake hands, you can’t be trusted. “No backbone,” she could hear her mama say. But Mahlon smiled warmly, so Cypress did her best to put off making a judgment so early in the evening.
Now, Towbin Owens was a different matter. His handshake held authority, as did his voice. Everything about Towbin Owens was all right with Cypress. She looked back and forth from Leroy to Tobin, because they were so alike in a way, yet so different. While Leroy was the more refined of the two—even with his dreadlocks and casual attire—Tobin’s irrepressible enthusiasm complemented his formal demeanor.
Once they were all seated, Cypress and Mahlon fell into conversation.
“So Towbin tells me you’re an artist, too.”
“Yes, a dancer.”
“I’ve always wanted to be an artist, but I guess I don’t have any talents, that way.”
Cypress had been waiting for this. The moment when the nice girl who did what mama had told her to do would begin to wish and want that she had not done what her mama told her. Cypress asked quite genuinely:
“Well, what did you end up doing with the talents you do have?”
“I’m a stockbroker.”
Cypress didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t say, “Oh that’s too bad, you Capitalist Pig,” because this was Leroy’s friend. “Do you deal in napalm after six?” would be too caustic, and, “Tell me, does money actually burn up in niggahs’ hands?” would be too familiar. So Cypress didn’t say anything but “How nice for you.”
Cypress was giving Leroy the “rescue-me” eye, when her food arrived. Duck baked in black cherries with brandy, wild rice, string beans with almonds. Leroy was having poached salmon with garnished potatoes; Mahlon and Towbin were sharing a rack of lamb, medium rare. “Thank God,” Cypress sighed to herself, now Leroy could handle the repartee. Cypress didn’t want to talk to Mahlon alone any more; she wanted this duck, and more cherry sauce.
Apparently, Leroy, Mahlon, and Towbin had all gone to some experimental prep school in New England, Mahlon and Towbin on scholarships, Leroy by grace of his father’s fortune. Even now, Mahlon looked at Leroy with the kind of awe that translates: “How could he exist, in the U.S.A.” But the death of Leroy’s parents (by local lore, an act of the Mafia; according to the insurance companies, an act of God), had left Leroy the sole survivor of his family. As they recounted their pasts to Cypress, Leroy said little. Mahlon was determined that Cypress understand.
“You see, as an eighteen-year-old, Leroy had control of his property in the state of Missouri, so Towbin advised Leroy to invest the money from the sale of the house and the insurance. He was our first client, and we’ve been looking after him ever since.”
“Oh my,” Cypress thought silently, “the Whiz Kids. No wonder Leroy never mentions family. He doesn’t have any damn family.” She glanced at Leroy. Now he’d explained where this money they lived on came from, but he hadn’t explained so much else . . . no mention of this school, his parents, his loneliness and anger after such a thing.
Dr. McCullough and his wife Eleanora had been found burned to death in their car, on the way back to St. Louis from the family farm south of Independence. Officially, the brakes failed. Leroy winced, as Towbin laid out the details.
“We think Dr. McCullough had been set up by organized crime, since he was running a successful campaign against gambling and vice in East St. Louis.” Leroy waited for Towbin to say more. The two friends stared at each other; Towbin dropped his eyes first.
“Why don’t you tell Cypress the rest,” Leroy demanded.
“Leroy, you on that again? That was vicious hearsay, man. Let it be.”
“No. Cypress, besides championing the rights of the decent citizen, they say my father had taken up with some white woman who was none other than the sister of some cracker in the rackets.”
Leroy swallowed some cognac, and looked about absently. Towbin was exasperated.
“Listen, Leroy. All that was talk, man, just talk. Of course, they couldn’t let a niggah die without spoiling his reputation. Another fool dying for a white woman, that’s what they’d like us to think; but I knew your folks, Leroy, and you know that’s not what happened.”
“So you see, Cypress, according to the school therapists—or one of them—my father’s adventures killed my mother and left me a wealthy orphan. Is that Oedipal enough for you?”
Cypress didn’t know who to believe. Leroy had never expressed any hostility toward anybody as long as she’d known him, but now he was verging on bitterness. Mahlon caught Cypress’ attention.
“I’m sorry this is happening, but each time Leroy sees us, he re-examines his parents’ death. We were all together when the news came. Leroy’s convinced his father sent him to Mountain Trust in order to protect him. Sometimes he thinks he was sent away because his father could feel something about the danger they were in. But he knows better.”
Towbin flashed on the twenty-eight of them, the colored kids. The Experiment in International Living, they’d called themselves. Twenty-eight out of nine hundred. And they were supposed to be in heaven, lolling about New England with the blue-bloods. Mountain Trust was never the same after them. Them, the Other. Who wore their ties under their turtlenecks, so the mentors would have to touch their varied skins. Them, in tennis shoes at chapel. Them, demanding invitations to public schools for socials so they would meet some folks who’d been colored all their lives and didn’t have to talk about “how does it feel?” Mahlon, Leroy, and Towbin guarding their table in the dining hall, lest some good Samaritan white kid sat down wanting to expand his or her cultural horizons. Black kids living in a socialist dream world that cost upwards of $4,000.00 a year. All of them raised a ruckus when they learned they had to work in potato fields and tend animals, even though they were on scholarship, everybody except Leroy and some of the Africans. Even so, what the fuck did they have to milk cows for, or paint barns. Towbin recalled saying, “Sheeeit, muthafuckah, I’ll go to town and get you some goddamn milk.” That was before the solitude seduced them, and let them have the right to struggle with the land. Thoughts they had no rights to be anywhere they chose, blew away with the coming of winter, until that day the telegram about Leroy’s folks had arrived.
“Towbin,” Leroy called out, “stop whispering to Cypress.”<
br />
“We weren’t whispering, man, I was giving her background information.”
“Oh, my background. I come from a long line of civil rights activist doctors and preachers, who have always managed to get killed at home, never while fighting for their country . . .”
Towbin could stand no more, and with all his authority ended Leroy’s flippant histrionics. Cypress wanted to hug Leroy up close to her; rub away the mean lines that had grown across his forehead. He looked toward her, like she might leave him too, the way his parents did—without a word, in the middle of the night. She smiled to let him know that he was still the most perfectly perverse man she knew; the man she loved.
Leroy and Towbin eased over the past into current business and varieties of cognac: Courvoisier, Hennessey, V.S.O.P., Remy Martin. Towbin had left Mountain Trust to go on to Harvard, then Yale Law. Like Mahlon, he’d grown to be Leroy’s family. And like family, there was pain between them. Cypress was relieved to talk with Mahlon now. She was the only other person not emotionally overwhelmed by the history of Leroy McCullough. Through all the evening’s revelations, Mahlon became more tender, less severe than at first. Cypress wanted to tell her that, strange as it was, her father had died in a fire at sea. She was sure Leroy should have been the one to hear her say, years ago, that loss is not a crime, nor death a vendetta.
Every time her father went to sea, she and her sisters and her mama would wait, hoping he’d come back the way he left: with all his limbs, the quick gullah accent, how he’d laugh when he saw all three of them waiting for him on the stairway, peeking over the bannister to see Daddy. But one time he didn’t come. One time there just was no more daddy but what you could remember, what you could make up in yourself that would be like him. That’s why Cypress didn’t mind travelling all the time, doing without a home of her own when she had to, collecting odds and ends from round the world, because that’s what her father would have done. Maybe she was a dancer because her father couldn’t stand being still.
Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo Page 16