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Swimming Between Worlds

Page 16

by Elaine Neil Orr

“Not yet. It almost feels like he can tell there’s something bad and he’s staying away.”

  They meandered along, light glinting on the path.

  “I had a horrible dream that the house flooded. The big oak in the front yard was uprooted and all you could see was red clay all the way down the hill,” Kate said.

  They continued to walk, startling a blue jay to flight.

  “Ever try throwing stones at a target?” Tacker said. “It’s best if they’re tin cans and you can hear them clatter.”

  “No. But it sounds like a great idea.” She bent for a thumb-size stone. “See there?” she said, pointing to a knot on an old pine.

  She threw like a girl and missed.

  “Here,” Tacker said. “First widen your stance. Okay, now make your arm into an L.” He adjusted her arm upward so her elbow was shoulder high and then placed a stone in her palm. “Now lay your wrist back and snap it forward when you release.”

  She tried again. Her form was better but she still missed.

  “More follow-through,” he said, demonstrating.

  “We’re not leaving until I get this,” she said.

  Once she achieved her aim, she didn’t want to stop. She took her coat off.

  “Hold this,” she said, and she half slid downhill to gather more ammunition.

  She was a girl who would keep at something until she mastered it.

  Back in Winston they stopped at Staley’s, sitting in the restaurant a long time watching kids from Reynolds High cruise by in their parents’ cars. He put his arm around Kate’s shoulder and she settled back. At her door, he reserved the kiss he had meant to give her before hearing about the boyfriend. He had more than enough pride remaining not to lay himself at her feet.

  * * *

  • • •

  SINCE COMING BACK to Winston, Tacker listened religiously to WAAA on the radio, a Negro station playing R&B. The show was produced in a glass booth in a restaurant near Winston Lake, the Negro part of town. It came on at three in the afternoon and Tacker planned his lunch break during that half hour, sitting in the lounge, his feet on the coffee table. Rather than the jitter of “Rockin’ Robin” and the syrup of “This Magic Moment,” he could listen to James Brown’s “Try Me” and Fats Domino’s “Walking to New Orleans.” This music was how he imagined the Mississippi River, dark and deep and long. The DJ called himself Daddy-Oh. “Daddy-Oh on the patio. The black spot on your dial.”

  Tacker purchased his first album by a Negro musician, Ray Charles’s Yes Indeed! The sound of the title song was less river and more fountain, bursts of liquid energy filling the room. He had the album on two nights after Pilot Mountain, when he found himself sketching in an old drafting pad from college. He sat before the fire, legs akimbo, cocooned by lamplight, listening to Ray. He didn’t know what he was sketching at first. Loops, circles overlapping at the edges. It looked a little like segments of a caterpillar. He added a rectangle, wondering if whatever this was might have a veranda. He added another circle larger than the others and for some reason it occurred to him that the rectangular bit might cantilever out—over what? A lagoon? There were no lagoons in Winston. Over a lake? He thought of the booth where Daddy-Oh broadcast his program, the DJ sitting up in the glass box, Negro kids gathered in their cars in the parking lot after school. He and his friends used to drive by in the afternoon just to hear one song and Daddy-Oh would shout out, There go my white boys!

  Lagoon wouldn’t leave his head. Lagoon. Where? Tacker stroked da Vinci’s head, set the pad down, and headed to the kitchen for a cold beer. He popped it open using a bottle opener mounted on the frame of the back door, opened the door, and walked onto the porch and from the porch onto the steps leading into the backyard. The night was damp and the temperature had risen with the moisture, fog shrouding the bare hardwoods gauzelike. He pitched his shoulders up and then relaxed them. In a wet dawn in Nigeria, palm trees were so bathed in mist, a person could almost walk into one before he knew it was there. Lagoon, moon, monsoon. The Lagos lagoon, of course. It was the only lagoon he knew. And how did he know the lagoon and who had planned to erect a house on a plot of land overlooking it? Alan Vaughan-Richards, who had married a Nigerian woman and agreed to share her name—thus Vaughan-Richards—and who had come to lecture at UCI several times and shown Tacker’s team the plans for the house he was going to build on the Lagos lagoon.

  A Brit, Vaughan-Richards consistently applied curvilinear geometries in his designs, sometimes as adornment but often as integral elements of walls and rooms. Modular designs were his staple, initially from blocks and roof sheeting, and then from timber framing. The design for his house was a series of overlapping circles, rooms annexed one to another like a set of beads: bedrooms, office, kitchen, living and dining rooms.

  Tacker pulled open the screen door to the porch and it clattered shut behind him. In the living room, he retrieved his sketch. Vaughan-Richards’s face might as well have been looking back at him. The caterpillar design was his, somehow channeled through Tacker’s brain on a winter’s night in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Memory was funny, how it slipped up on you. The southwest monsoon of the rainy season began on the Nigerian coast. Tacker had been in Lagos on a shopping trip two years ago when the first rain came in. They’d had to stop the van and wait it out. And even after the rain lifted, the fog was so dense, Abraham had gotten out of the bus with his torch and walked beside the driver to help him along the road.

  The fire was down to embers. Tacker threw in another log. Stroking da Vinci, the sketch tilted against his chest, he stared into the flame, wondering what it was all about, this lapping of shores one against the other: the Atlantic shore in Nigeria, the Atlantic shore of North Carolina. These rooms lapping one against the other. He conjured Kate’s mouth, her breasts. When he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, he switched off the lamp, stretched out on the couch, and fell asleep. In the morning, it came to him instantly that the sketch was inspired by the swimming pool in Hanes Park and the possibility of a bathhouse he might help design. He was half-awake, and the notion stirred him deeply, like the dream of a woman in the most intimate gesture imaginable.

  After a shower and cold cereal and two cups of coffee, he sobered up.

  He was hungry to build something. But not like that. He would get laughed out of town. He turned the design over on the couch. Later he’d start again on something more reasonable, something Craftsman-like, for example.

  * * *

  • • •

  JANUARY EVENINGS WERE slow at Hart’s. Five o’clock it was nearly dark. Customers thinned out. Gaines came up aisle five and cut over to Tacker at the register. “I’m heading out,” he said. “Unless there’s anything else you need.” He purchased eggs and two oranges.

  “No. We’re fine,” Tacker said. “Wish I had a car to give you a lift.”

  “A friend’s picking me up,” Gaines said. “Meeting me out back,” he added.

  Tacker wondered who was meeting him and was surprised by the envy he felt, watching Gaines saunter down the aisle and knock open the swinging doors, then a minute later hearing the slam of the car door. The loss of Nigeria poured through him and he bent over the counter.

  * * *

  • • •

  SOME DAYS, TACKER still woke expecting to see palms out the window, the sound of Samuel’s radio coming through the screen. Flipping through stations on the radio early the next morning, he picked up the English accent of the BBC. He tried to listen once a week, to see what news he could gain about Nigeria. Da Vinci jumped into his lap and he rubbed the cat’s head as he sipped his coffee. Tacker had to hear about the British economy and fluctuations in the pound, as well as news from Germany, France, and Italy, before he was rewarded with a story from West Africa.

  A recent report on the higher training of Nigerians advocates an expansion of educational facilities not only in the southern regions, bu
t in the North, the region slower to develop in this regard . . . would cost the federal and regional governments nearly fifty percent of their recurring budget . . . crucial for training citizens of a modern nation-state. The country’s independence . . . October 1. Hopes high for a country often called the giant of Africa.

  In other news from Africa, Patrice Lumumba, president of the Congolese National Movement . . . serving a sixty-nine-month sentence in Brussels for inciting an anticolonial riot in Stanleyville.

  Tacker looked at the clock. He stood; the cat leapt; Tacker rinsed out his coffee cup. Marxist Chukwu had admired Patrice Lumumba for his black nationalism. He will never kowtow to any colonial power, Chukwu had said. Not that man. He is a true African. Tacker could see Chukwu now, standing in an open corridor along the Science Building at UCI wearing a black beret as he spoke, a Bic pen resting on an ear. Lumumba may be killed one of these days. He will not stand down. Tacker’s thoughts shifted to Samuel and the proliferation of schools in Nigeria. How many secondary schools? Hundreds? Thousands? How many would use their design?

  By the time Tacker pulled his coat on, the broadcaster had moved to news from Asia.

  * * *

  • • •

  TWILIGHT OF ANOTHER day. Uninvited, Tacker stopped by Kate’s house after work. She opened her front door, holding a cooking spatula. He’d come with a few of his Nigeria pictures stuffed in his jacket pocket. It seemed she was returning his affection, but he wasn’t sure and he meant to proceed as he imagined a scout would move into unexplored territory.

  “Come on back to the kitchen,” she said.

  She wiped her hands against an old floral apron, the kind a grandmother might wear, tied at the waist, with pockets for handkerchiefs.

  “I brought some of my pictures,” he said.

  “Oh goody.”

  They stood in front of the counter as he handed them to her one by one.

  “How is one woman going to sell that many peppers?” she said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Look at this little girl. She wants to be in the front. She’s got her notebook to write down sales,” Kate said.

  Tacker had feared Kate wouldn’t care for the pictures or would call them primitive. But she was right there with him. He wanted to touch her—every part of her, starting with her hair and going down.

  “Oh, this river! Look at the monkeys. Do they bite?”

  “They’re treated so well they’re tame. In fact, they’ll go sit in the road and the traffic stops or goes around them. They’re sacred.”

  Even that she didn’t judge.

  Three times she went back to the picture taken the day the foundation stone was laid for the high school. Tacker and Samuel stood before an open field, a passel of chickens and goats in the foreground.

  “I like this one best,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s so like you.”

  “You can have it,” he said, his heart flooded.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  She propped it against the windowpane.

  Kate rinsed the spatula in the sink along with the mixing bowl and cup measures. She’d placed a recently baked cake on a pedestaled dish on the kitchen table. Maybe the resident had called. They were getting back together. He was probably already driving up here in a fancy new car and the cake was for him. Tacker ducked his head to look out the window, into the backyard. A post light revealed the structure of a garden.

  “Tell me more about Nigeria,” Kate said.

  He turned to look at her, surprised. “What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t know. I was thinking maybe I should go somewhere.”

  “You mean a vacation? I wouldn’t recommend Nigeria for that. But it would be a great place for taking pictures.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “It’s hard to describe. Everything is so, I don’t know, vivid. Not picture-perfect at all. But maybe because it’s at the equator, the light seems brighter and the trees are mammoth. There’s just so much going on. It’s kind of like a carnival all the time. Well, not at the college. UCI wasn’t that different from a college here.”

  “Maybe I could go teach in one of your schools,” she said.

  Tacker stared at the thumb-size indention where the bones of her clavicle met.

  “Want some cake?”

  So the resident wasn’t coming.

  “Yes.” It was a minty chocolate cake with white icing. “Wow. Great cake,” he said.

  Kate sliced a paper-thin piece of cake and ate it with her fingers.

  Every time Tacker imagined he might reach out and pull her close or lift his hand to her face and kiss her, he lost his nerve.

  At the door as he was leaving, Kate called his name. Maybe he had left something. But she just leaned across the threshold, though he was halfway across the porch. “Listen,” she said. “I’m giving a small birthday party for Brian next week. That’s why I’m practicing my cake baking. Want to come?”

  “I guess so,” he said, glad for the invitation, wondering if his face looked as puzzled as he felt.

  “Friday night around seven,” she said. “Thanks for bringing the pictures.” On the bike riding home Tacker thought again about how he’d lost his instinct for timing even though he seemed preternaturally aware of time, as if he might run out of it. He wanted to go back and leap up Kate’s steps and knock on her door and push his way into the house, possessing her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  FIRST OF FEBRUARY. Tacker and his folks sat at the dining table. He’d come over to help his dad hook up a new washing machine and stayed for spaghetti supper. It was so much easier to visit them now that he had at least the outline of his life back. He thought he might mention Kate if the right moment showed itself. The television was turned to the news. It was a new ritual with Tacker’s parents to watch the news during dinner. Their stainless flatware clinked against the everyday plates. His mother refilled their water glasses. David Brinkley’s face with its slightly tilted mouth filled the screen. He was talking about North Carolina. In a moment, shifting images of a lunch counter came into focus. A gaggle of angry people. And then four Negroes were in the spotlight, a reporter talking with one of them. “What do you hope to accomplish?” The four men were dressed in coats and ties, but other than that they looked so different from one another, it was difficult to comprehend what the story was about. “We want to sit down at the counter and pay for a cup of coffee and a plate of food,” one said. Another of the men leaned toward the microphone. “We come in and make our purchases. The cashier takes our money. But if we get hungry, we can’t order our food and sit down to eat. We have to go all the way back home to eat or stand in the street. It’s not fair.”

  The footage of the four men cut off and the screen switched back to David Brinkley in the studio. Tacker was still hearing the second man who had spoken. We have to go all the way back home to eat. He placed his hands on the table as a wave of excitement and doubt swept over him.

  His parents didn’t say a word. The plates clanked loudly as Tacker’s mother stacked them. She washed and his father dried. Tacker leaned against the doorway. At last his mother said, “I don’t know why they want to stir things up.”

  Tacker was gathering his words when she turned and looked at him.

  “What do you think, son? I suppose you agree with them.” Tacker had the sense that his family was on television.

  “Pure logic would say they’re right. The store sells to them. Why can’t they order and sit down to eat lunch?”

  “Of course you’re right. You’re always right about things like this. I guess I’m behind on the times.” Her tone was angry and hurt. Tacker didn’t mention Kate.

  * * *

  • • •

  A COUPLE OF evenings later, Tacker was c
losing the cash drawers when Gaines asked about the back room. “Some folks. We need a place to meet,” he said as he sifted copies of news magazines into racks at the checkout lanes. Vice President Nixon’s face dominated the cover.

  Tacker was trying to close the store. Why had Gaines waited so late to bring this up? He was due at Kate’s for her brother’s birthday party.

  “Is Nixon running for president?” Tacker said.

  “You’re asking me?”

  “Look at the story,” Tacker said.

  “Says he’s considering it,” Gaines said. “That means yes.”

  Tacker should take something over to Kate’s, but he hadn’t had time to think about what it might be.

  “Wonder if we could use the back of the store,” Gaines said. “Tonight. I can lock up.”

  A prayer meeting maybe? On a Friday night? “What are you meeting about?”

  “Might call it an information session,” Gaines said.

  Wasn’t there a church or school near Frances’s house where they could meet? “I don’t know,” Tacker said.

  “Just a few people,” Gaines said. “My friend’s car can hold us.”

  “What exactly are you doing?”

  “You hear about what’s happened in Greensboro at Woolworth’s earlier this week?”

  “You mean those four college boys at the counter?”

  “Yeah. We’re talking about doing it here.”

  Tacker sensed he was on the edge of something vast, poised at the threshold of a continental divide.

  “Here in Winston?” he said.

  “Yeah,” Gaines said. “In Winston.”

  Tacker recalled the swinging bridge in Osogbo. Before he crossed he was still American. After he crossed, he was something else. And later still, in Ibadan, there had been that incident with Chukwu refusing to sit at the less desirable tables when he had asked for the veranda. “It’s my dad’s store, not mine,” he said, torn between asking if he could stay and join the meeting and going to Kate’s.

 

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