Swimming Between Worlds

by Elaine Neil Orr

  Tacker put the ring back in the box, put the box in his pocket, tapped it, and went back to work. This week, Tom was moving from his studio to the office on North Cherry. Next week, Tacker would start part-time with Hammond, Smith, and Driskell. Maybe by August, he would have enough money to propose. He wasn’t sure Kate would say yes. Right now he felt he was skating on thin ice in every direction. Just then a woman came through the checkout with several cans of cat food. Da Vinci.

  * * *

  • • •

  SATURDAY MORNING, GAINES was late to work. “You let me down. You really let us down,” he said when he pushed through the swinging doors of the lounge.

  “What?” Tacker said.

  “A swimming pool. You’re working on that thing?”

  “Well, the bathhouse, actually.”

  “No difference.”

  “A slight difference.”

  Tacker felt his chest tighten. You always had to pay the piper.

  “My mama read it last night from the afternoon paper, nice little article in the local section about a pool in the park right over yonder. And then, lo and behold, it mentions a design by favorite son Tacker Hart. I said, ‘Mama, read that back to me.’ She goes to the beginning and starts over. I say, ‘No. Not from the beginning. That part about the design.’ So her eyes go down the page. I’m watching her. She couldn’t get the guy’s name right, whoever your design is reminiscent of. I say, ‘Skip it. Go on.’ She reads, ‘Tacker Hart, a name familiar to many for his high school fame . . .’ You get the picture. I say, ‘His true colors come out.’ And she says, ‘You talking about that white boy you work for?’ I say, ‘Yes, ma’am. That’s him in living color. White, white, white. White as snow.’ Man. I thought you were with us.”

  “I am,” Tacker said.

  “You are helping to build something I can’t go into. They won’t let me past the gate unless I’m cleaning toilets. Or Valentine. Just like Crystal Lake.”

  “I’m not building it,” Tacker said. “I only gave them a rendering. They’re making lots of changes. The building was going to be built anyway.”

  “A swimming pool. I couldn’t have dreamed this up,” Gaines said.

  “I’m not going to swim in the pool. I already decided.”

  “Oh. You’re going to take a vow of chastity. Keep your pinkies out of the water. And that’s going to make it okay for all the little Negro children who get to line up around the pool in the heat of summer and look in through some fancy wall or fence, watching the pretty white children play in the water.”

  “I didn’t actually want them to choose my design.”

  “Well now, that’s interesting. Your daddy send in a drawing for you?”

  “Look. I’m sorry,” Tacker said.

  “Forget it, man.”

  “You think I should give it up?”

  “Looks like it doesn’t matter to you what I think.”

  Gaines kept his distance and there wasn’t much Tacker could do, given how much he still had to explain to Connie, who would take over as assistant manager on Monday. She listened with what appeared to be a mix of pity and humor, as if he were still thirteen, explaining why Duke Snider was a better ballplayer than Mickey Mantle. (Tacker had turned out to be wrong.)

  * * *

  • • •

  THAT EVENING, TACKER got home to find da Vinci on the front porch, scraggly and limping.

  “Hey, fella. What happened?” A copperhead would have killed him; a trap would have left a wound. Tacker examined his front paw and found a splinter. “You get stuck in someone’s basement?” Da Vinci began to purr. Tacker called Kate. “You got a pair of tweezers? I need to get a splinter out of da Vinci’s paw.”

  She was there in ten minutes, wearing an old pair of pants, her hair tied back in a kerchief, smelling a little musty.

  “I was working in the yard,” she said.

  They stood at the kitchen sink, where the light was good. He held the cat. Kate leaned in to press the paw. The down over her lips was darker than he remembered. He noticed an acne scar he’d never seen before.

  “I got it,” she said, pulling back, proffering the splinter.

  Tacker put the cat down and he walked into the dining room with only a slight limp.

  “Probably still sore,” Kate said.

  “The porch door must have been unlatched when my mom came over.”

  “I hadn’t heard about that,” Kate said.

  “We cooked on the back grill. No special occasion,” Tacker said, remembering the ring in his top dresser drawer.

  “I’m sorry I can’t stay,” Kate said. “I’ve got to get home and clean up. Dinner with Mrs. McCall and the board.”

  “It’s okay. Thanks.” He leaned over and kissed her, her imperfections somehow sexy.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  MONDAY MORNING, TACKER got to the store at six. He sat long enough to drink a cup of coffee and when he stood, his vision went blurry, as if he’d been blinded by a camera flash. Gaines pushed through the delivery door not much later.

  “You’re not looking too good,” he said, eyeing Tacker.

  “Something’s wrong. I feel dizzy. I keep seeing white lights,” Tacker said.

  “You look pasty. What have you had to eat this morning?” Gaines said.

  “Nothing.”

  “You got low blood sugar.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Old Daddy. I’ll get you a Coca-Cola and a candy bar.”

  By the time he was back, Tacker felt himself shaking.

  “You think I have diabetes?” he said, feeling suddenly fragile and old.

  “Opposite problem,” Gaines said. “You just need to eat. You and your girlfriend seem to be forgetting that.”

  “Thanks.” He sipped on the Coca-Cola and finished the candy bar. Now he felt sweaty. “I’m really sorry about the bathhouse. I wanted the job with Tom. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what I’d done.”

  “Try me,” Gaines said, pulling up a stool.

  So he did: beginning with how Tom dangled the bathhouse in front of him; how Tacker felt boxed in; how he’d tried to kill it by turning in a rendering so bizarre he’d be hired out of pity but consigned to carports; how his plan had backfired.

  “That’s priceless,” Gaines said, laughing, though it seemed less at Tacker than at the Fates. “White boy can’t fail.”

  “But I did,” Tacker said.

  “How’s that?”

  “I got fired by Clintok. I haven’t told anyone. Only my folks know. Not even Kate, really.” Why was he telling Gaines all of this? He needed to go home and shower again. It was seven o’clock.

  “You pulling my leg?”

  “No. I was accused of going native, hanging out with Nigerians too much, living in the dorm with them, going to these ritual festivals and all.”

  “You serious?”

  “Dead serious. I got put in a straitjacket and loaded onto a plane.”

  Gaines looked at him hard. “You are serious.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Well, it makes more sense,” Gaines said.

  “What does?”

  “That you’ve tried to help us.”

  “Yeah. I’m still sorry to let you down.”

  “I’ll think of a way you can make it up to me,” Gaines said.

  Connie arrived at seven thirty and they had things in good enough shape for Tacker to run home and shower before heading over to his new job. Tom hadn’t yet hired a secretary. Tacker spent the first week filing, cruised to Hart’s for the afternoon shift, and felt pretty good that he got through his days without a catastrophe, though twice he dreamed of showing up at Tom’s office and realizing too late that he was naked.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  AT HART’S ON Saturday, Gai
nes said, “We have a couple of fellows coming to Winston to talk with us about picketing Thalhimers. They’re already doing it in Raleigh. Can you give them a place to stay tonight?”

  Tacker was exhausted from the first week of juggling two jobs, and all he wanted to do was get through the day and spend Sunday with Kate, thinking of nothing but her pulse—in her neck, at her wrist, and anywhere else he could find it.

  “I haven’t got beds,” he said, hoping to discourage the idea.

  “They’ll bring bedrolls,” Gaines said, settling it, as Samuel had.

  Where will you sleep?

  Don’t worry. I’m an African. I can sleep on the floor. I prefer it.

  * * *

  • • •

  THEY CAME AROUND dark. Tacker was surprised that one of the men was white. They carried backpacks and sleeping bags. Gaines came in to make the introductions. Valentine was with him, and she burst in before anyone could speak.

  “Da Vinci!” she called. The cat rose and stretched and Valentine yelped as she crossed the floor, scooped up the cat, and buried her face in his fur. “May I feed him?” she said.

  “Of course,” Tacker said.

  Gaines gestured as he spoke. “Tacker, meet Philip and Steven. Steven and Philip, Tacker.”

  Philip’s skin was darker than Gaines’s. The men took seats. Valentine settled in the music room on a cushion with da Vinci.

  “Tell me what’s happening in Raleigh,” Tacker said.

  “We’re picketing in Cameron Village,” Philip said. He seemed the leader. “I hear you were at State.”

  “Five years,” Tacker said. “Couldn’t afford much shopping at the time, but I took in a lot of movies in Cameron Village.”

  “You know the slogan for the shopping center?” Philip said.

  “Can’t say that I do,” Tacker said.

  “‘Shop as you please, with the greatest of ease, in the wonderful Cameron Village!’ It’s a jingle on the radio.”

  Gaines and Steven laughed.

  “We’re just trying to take them up on their offer,” Philip said.

  When the conversation lapsed, Tacker feared Gaines would say something about the pool and the bathhouse. Steven stretched his arms overhead.

  “Full day tomorrow,” Philip said.

  On the way out, Valentine gave Tacker a hug, and he watched as she and Gaines drove away in the borrowed car. He still didn’t know whose it was. The car was like Negro newspapers and Frances’s eulogy, a redolent reminder of a life he would never be part of.

  People who have lived deeply in two countries always bear the awareness of both, even in their physical movement, like a twin carries his second self even when separated. Showing Philip and Steven an upstairs room, Tacker bore in muscle and bone memory of an evening in Osogbo along the Osun River, settling in to sleep beside Samuel. The front room of the foursquare was furnished with only a dresser and low table. The men opened their bedrolls. Tacker showed them the bathroom—he wanted to say the “lavatory”—but it would require explaining and in his personal reminiscence he wanted no disturbance. It seemed to him he skated rather than walked, as one apprehends oneself in dream, moving noiselessly in a world that bears the trace of others, a country that is all countries and none.

  Early Sunday morning Tacker had coffee ready. The three men stood on the back porch, looking out onto the yard. Philip asked about the garage, whether it was a workshop.

  “Once maybe,” Tacker said. “I don’t know. I keep my bike there, an Indian.”

  “I’d love to see it,” Philip said. “Never ridden one of those.”

  “Of course,” Tacker said.

  “Maybe this afternoon,” Philip said.

  “Will you guys stay another night?”

  “If that’s all right,” Steven said. “We came on the bus; probably start back tomorrow morning.”

  Tacker thought about the bus. The two men having to separate when they took their seats. He wondered how folks at the depot saw them: Steven, white, getting out of an old car with Philip and Gaines. In the morning light that was like a gloaming, Tacker wanted to tell them he’d been to Nigeria. But he didn’t, because it would take hours and he wasn’t sure himself what the relationship was between what they were doing and what he had done there.

  “We’ll see you tonight,” Philip said.

  “Right,” he said. Only after they left did he consider how they had shared the upstairs bath with the claw-footed tub. At least one bathroom in Winston-Salem was now integrated.

  He called Kate. “Can I come see you?” he said.

  “Now?” she said, her voice unpracticed. This was how she would sound if he woke up in bed with her.

  “Yes, now.”

  She was waiting for him, sitting on the top step of her porch. They spoke little, using instead a language of touch. At noon they took Kate’s car to a family restaurant in a square white building that served a Sunday smorgasbord. They got there before the crowd.

  He parked the car. A coil of hair had escaped her ponytail and he reached across the seat to stroke it. He hadn’t brought the ring but he imagined that he had. What would he say? I’ve never loved anyone else. He imagined her eyes growing large and solemn. We don’t always agree, she would say. Which is why we’ll never grow bored, he would answer. But he felt some sadness in the daydream, some foreboding that he and Kate would never quite connect. He attributed the feeling to the general sadness he often felt on Sunday. In haste he told her instead about Philip and Steven staying overnight with him, about the new protest.

  “It’s okay,” she said, smiling.

  “It’s okay with you?” he said, not sure she’d heard him.

  “Yes. Are we going to eat?”

  “Let’s go in,” he said, buoyant with joy.

  * * *

  • • •

  WHEN TACKER GOT to the office Monday morning, the place had a new sign—HAMMOND, SMITH, AND DRISKELL ASSOCIATES, ARCHITECTS—and a secretary named Molly. Molly brought in sandwiches at midday and the men ate sitting on stools in Fred Hammond’s office. Tom was bidding on an entire cul-de-sac in one of the new subdivisions. Almost offhandedly, as if somehow he knew there was fire in it, he said, “We’re breaking ground for the bathhouse next week and opening the pool to the public early August.”

  Tacker’s mouth was full of sandwich. When he could speak, he stuttered. “You’re—you’re kidding. When was that de-decided?”

  “The mayor wants to open the pool. There’s an election coming up this fall. The city’s putting in privacy tents temporarily.”

  Tacker started to hiccup.

  “Hope you can be there, Tacker,” Tom said, eyeing him.

  “I’ll do my best,” Tacker answered, setting the rest of his sandwich aside.

  * * *

  • • •

  A KNOCK ON his front door; Miss Smith from next door. She peered into the house.

  “Would you like to come in?”

  “Oh no.” She waved a handkerchief at the air. “I wondered if you could fill my grocery order,” she said, handing him a slip of paper.

  “Happy to,” he said. “You can always call the store.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Mr. Hart, do you have Negroes living in there?”

  “I live here alone, Miss Smith,” he said. “I’ve had a Negro guest on occasion.”

  She lifted her hand and appeared ready to retrieve her grocery list. “I’m an old woman. I hope you’ll spare me any unpleasantness.”

  “I’ll have your groceries this evening,” Tacker said. “Glad to help.”

  * * *

  • • •

  MID-JULY, WINSTON WAS thick green, shade beneath trees so deep it looked like water. Tacker was depositing his paychecks, spending little, working up his nerve to ask Kate to marry him. In the evenings, he rode out of tow
n, the sky long and blue, skirts of white cloud. Heading east, he found himself amid fields of corn as tall as he was, leaves flying up to show the pale undersides. Against a stand of trees deer grazed, mothers with fawns, occasionally a second-year male, antlers not yet full. One evening, Tacker lifted Valentine onto the Indian and took her for a ride, West End to Hanes Park and around it and then Reynolda all the way out to Wake Forest College and back, and then they stopped on the bridge where Glade empties onto Hawthorne, Peters Creek flowing beneath. They picked up pebbles and threw them in, one after another. Back on the bike, they headed uphill so he could show her Kate’s house. They climbed her yard steps and reached the porch and rang the doorbell, but no answer.

  Tacker turned the cycle around and let the bike glide back toward West End.

  “Stop!” Valentine said.

  He pulled to the curb.

  “What’s that?” she said, pointing to the south lawn of the park.

  “That’s the park,” he said.

  “No. That.” She pointed again.

  The white canvas tent was still up. “It’s just a tent,” Tacker said.

  “What’s that next to it?”

  “A swimming pool,” Tacker said.

  “Oh,” she said. Her brow furrowed and she turned her head sideways. “Let’s go back to your house,” she said.

  * * *

  • • •

  “PHILIP AND STEVEN are back in town. Wonder if they can crash with you,” Gaines said.

  “You bet.”

  They were quiet when they came in, as though it were an evening before a solemn witnessing. They carried their placards upstairs. DON’T BUY SEGREGATION. BOYCOTT FOR FREEDOM.