“I ain’t got scabies or nuthin’. G’on head ’n clean up.”
Frank thumbed the straps of his blue overalls as he watched Elliot wipe the blood from his face. His dirty T-shirt suggested a man hard at work. That he wasn’t in stripes suggested he too got out of the clutches of St. Louis County.
“You wuzn’t runnin’ from no trouble, wuz ya?”
“Not the kind you’re thinkin’.”
“’Cuz I don’t want to see no parts of a cell ever again.”
“Don’t worry, Big Black. It’s all work related. Look here.”
“Yeah?”
“What’s the chance you noticed another car behind mine?”
“Black sedan?” Frank asked.
“That’s ’bout right.”
“Slowed down, saw me hollerin’ fo’ ya and kept goin’.”
“You see what he look like?”
“White.”
“Mmm hmm,” Elliot said. “See here, Big Black. What’s say you help me get ol’ Lucille out the ditch. I’ll get you to where you’re goin’.”
Elliot handed Frank back his bandana but thought better of it on account of the blood stains.
“I’ont thing you wanna ride me that far, White. I’m on my way to Gary, Indiana, but I’ll he’p you. You get in. Hit the gas when I say.”
Elliot didn’t have a clue what the man mountain thought he could do on his own, but he climbed back in through the passenger’s side anyway. He started her up. Frank pushed down in the front end, hoping to give her some traction, but she couldn’t dig in from the loose composition of the soil.
“Hol’ up a sec! Lemme try sum’n.”
Big Black scooted underneath Lucille’s undercarriage.
“Listen, Frank, that’s alright. It ain’t worth it. We’ll just call a tow.”
Frank didn’t listen. He was determined to clear away enough dirt to get both of the back wheels on the ground. Lucille slammed down with a slow, angry, creaking sound.
“Frank!”
Big Black’s head popped up over the front hood, smiling playfully, as if he enjoyed not only being useful but scaring Elliot out of his wits. Elliot noticed for the first time that Frank had good teeth.
“Don’t go takin’ any more chances, unless you got another bandana.”
Frank laughed gleefully and ran to Lucille’s trunk.
“Okay. Give ’er sum gas.”
Lucille rocked back and forth as Frank Fuquay tried pushing her forward. Elliot met him in kind by pushing gradually down on Lucille’s accelerator.
“Gotta give her more than that, White. Floor it!”
Frank dug in. The soft soil was up to his knees. He put that entire bear’s body of his into it.
“Go.”
Elliot put her all the way down. Lucille began to creep forward.
“That’s it. Keep at it!”
Frank loved the challenge. Elliot took Lucille nearly to her limit. Finally, she pulled forward, guided by Frank’s effort, until she jumped out in the dirt ahead on her own power. Frank fell face first in the soft soil. He hopped to his feet, screaming victory, fists raised. Elliot turned Lucille around on a flatter patch of earth and hit the brakes. Frank ran over to the passenger’s side, hopped in, and off they went back on the highway.
“Sorry ’bout tha dirt, White.”
“No harm there, Big Black. And it isn’t White. It’s Caprice. Elliot Caprice.”
Elliot held out his hand. Frank took it in his. Damn, it was big.
“So White is your—what they call it?”
“Alias.”
“Yeah, alias. Like in the crime stories in the papers.”
“Well, I’m no robber but that’s about right.”
“Pleased to meet you, Elliot Caprice. Has a ring to it. That other name o’ yourn was kinda plain.”
“Not as hip as Big Black, huh?”
“That was that fool Tony’s nonsense, man. Ain’t nobody eva called me that befo’ he did. It’s just Frank. My mama called me Big Frank, but that was just ’cuz o’ my daddy. I wound up big as him pretty early so she didn’t wanna call me Lil’ Frank. She just started callin’ him Bigger Frank.”
Elliot laughed aloud.
“What happened to your tiny buddy, anyhow?”
“He ain’t no buddy o’ mines. As soon as we got in front of the judge, he starts cryin’ and carryin’ on, tellin’ him how it was all my idea, and he did what I tol’ him to do. They musta figured he wuz lyin’, ’cuz once we pleaded guilty, they gave me ninety days hard labor ’n they sent him to tha big house for a year.”
“That’s gonna be some hard time for a little big mouth.”
“Turns out them people whose house we robbed wuz Adventists. They came down and saw me in the lock-up ’n asked me if I was sorry. I said yeah, on account I wuz. Am. Woun’ up only doin’ a couple months, tho’ it felt good to work instead doin’ bad stuff. Even if it was on a chain gang.”
Frank looked down at his hands out of shame. Elliot could relate.
“You hungry?”
“I wuz only able to make enuf money fo’ half a train ticket. I’m scared to spend from it.”
“It’s on me. Let’s find a bite.”
Normally Elliot could slide into most places without issues over his race. Hat pulled down, he could find a seat in the back and eat without trouble. Frank would have no such opportunity, so Elliot popped the glove box and took out his copy of The Negro Travelers’ Green Book.
“You up for barbecue, big man?”
“Am I colored?”
They opted for a roadside barbecue pit off a bypass near Lincoln that sold sandwiches out of a stand. Frank tried being polite, but Elliot insisted he order his fill. He asked for two large pulled pork sandwiches. He also ordered collards as his mama told him to always eat some roughage. He took only water for his drink. Elliot got a brisket sandwich on a Kaiser roll and joined Frank in a helping of greens. Elliot had a long night ahead of him, so he picked black coffee to wash it all down.
They walked back to Lucille and laid their wax paper wrapped goods on the hood. Frank made the sign of the cross, said grace softly, and looked over at Elliot.
“Eat up,” Elliot said, taking note of the young fella’s deference. Frank tore into his meal as if it were his last. Elliot tuned the radio until he stumbled upon a number from Big Joe Turner: “Cherry Red.”
Together they dined and swapped anecdotes, enjoying each other’s company like old buddies. It was common for colored men to forge their allegiances through fisticuffs. The means to overcome one’s own self-loathing long enough to see the actual person on the other side was the occasional a punch in the mouth. Rarely did you find a Negro whose ace boon coon wasn’t first a challenger. You’d get up, dust yourself off, and before one could offer the other a drink, you’d have forgotten what you fought about in the first place.
Elliot thought Frank was young, but in the dark of the jail, he hadn’t noticed just how much of a kid he was. He had a baby face. Underneath his strong brow sat very kind eyes. Once his hunger was sated, he slowed down opened up.
“If I had my way, I’d be back in Yazoo with my mama and sistuh but wuzn’t no work fo’ me. My daddy—he died some years back—got people in Gary. My Aunt Ruby ’n her husband. They say there’s good work in steel up there, ’n ’cuz I’m so big, I might be good at it.”
“So much good work up north, a colored fella can find his own way in life. My father and uncle came up from your mama’s parts together. My uncle stayed in Southville, but my pap went on to Chicago. From what I hear, he worked in slaughterhouses.”
“You didn’t know yo’ daddy?”
“Afraid not. Died before I was born. Big riot in Chicago. He was a fighter.”
“That’s where you get it from.”
Elliot was a bit embarrassed. Frank grinned.
“About that, Frank. I’m sorry. Jail can be a rotten place. It’s hard not to be rotten along with it.”
“I ha
d it comin’. You roughed me up real good. Figured I could fight befo’ that.”
“Aw, you can fight. I just know a different type of fightin’ is all, Frank. The sort folks don’t get to walk away from.”
“You wuz in the war?”
“Yeah. Before that, I was a young criminal up in Southville. After, I became a cop in Chicago.”
“That’s good work, huh?”
Elliot didn’t immediately answer. He just stared into his coffee, swishing it around in the paper cup, as if it were a vision pool.
“I thought it was as first. I learned otherwise.”
“What happen’?”
Again, Elliot remained silent.
“I’m sorry, Caprice. Should mind my own bidness.”
As reward for Frank’s boundless politeness, Elliot eased the grip on his secrets.
“You know how ya buddy Tony gassed you up, got you goin’ all about yourself?”
“Yeah. Let him tell it, I was gonna be sumthin’. Maybe a fighter. Some kind of tough guy.”
“Yeah, well I had a friend like that, too. Liked to go on about how colored folk could have better lives. How I was in a good position to help that happen.”
“I can see that. Just the way you talked to me in the jail after you put that whoopin’ on me. Like you wanted to make sho’ I learned my lesson. That was real kind, Caprice.”
“What I’m talkin’ about wasn’t kind. He talked me into doin’ bad, in order to do good. After it went all kinds of wrong, he left me twistin’. I wound up havin’ to dangle out of Chicago. By the time we met in St. Louis, I was on the run almost a year. Couldn’t get home to my uncle. Lost the family farm. I was already in prison, if that makes sense?”
“At least you and him wuz gonna help people. That’s sum’n, right?”
“That’s the thing. It wasn’t my choice. It wasn’t the choice of the people we were supposed to be helping. It was his choice. The choice of powerful people. Politicians ’n such. Take that meal I bought you.”
“Fine meal, too. I really ’preciate it.”
“I know you do,” Elliot said. “Point is, I asked you to help me, you did everything you could, it worked out. I offered a meal. You accepted. That puts us on the same level, know what I mean?”
“You weren’t payin’ me back wit’ a meal. You were offerin’ me a meal.”
“Right. You could’ve said no. I’d be eatin’ alone.”
“I could’ve kept on walkin’, but you made me an offer, to he’p, and you give me a ride.”
“Exactly,” Elliot said. “We set terms. Now, sometimes folks catch you when you have no choice but to accept their help. Maybe you’re sick. Or broke. Maybe you’re in trouble with the law. You ain’t gonna turn that help away, but if it ain’t your choice, and you owe them after…”
“That’s a setup.”
Elliot nodded.
“The only way to truly help someone is to give them a choice and let them make it. Everything else is a hustle.”
“You wuz hustled?”
Elliot considered the question as he stared down at the last of his coffee.
“I let myself get hustled.”
Elliot began cleaning up the mess. Frank watched but didn’t help—not out of rudeness, but wonderment. Elliot seemed odd to him. Buys a fella a meal, teaches him a lesson, plus cleans up after him? He remembered his mother telling him the story of how Jesus anointed the feet of his friends.
“Don’t really matter nun how thangs turn out. You got caught up doin’ bad thangs for the right reasons. Beats my trouble. I did bad fo’ no reason a’tall.”
Frank looked down at his feet.
“My mama raised me up right. My people are good folk. I just didn’t know what to do wit’ myself, is all.”
Elliot went silent at how simple Frank made everything seem. He punched him on the arm. Frank looked up.
“Those who know better do better, Big Man.”
Frank nodded. Elliot slapped him on the shoulder. They got in Lucille and took off.
They pulled up outside the train station in Lincoln. The colorful prairie sunset—and their full bellies—left them both quieted.
“Thanks again for helping me back there,” Elliot said.
“Well, thanks for dinner, and not knockin’ my block off. Wouldn’t have figured you’re so tough.”
“That’s the idea.” Elliot winked. “How’re you fixed, Frank?”
“Well, I’m half-way to buyin’ a one-way to Gary. I was gonna panhandle for the rest. Maybe sumbody be nice. That, or I’ll hop on a boxcar, try to get most of the way.”
“Hoppin’ boxcars will get you arrested by the railroad cops, Frank. Or worse.”
“It’s wurf it,” Frank said. “I gotta do sum’n wit’ myself, Caprice. I’m afraid I’ll get myself in trouble again.”
Realizing Frank was too earnest for his own good, Elliot reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the envelope of cash. He snatched out two sawbucks—more money than Frank Fuquay had seen in his life—and pressed it into Frank’s hand. Frank couldn’t believe it, but then thought better of it.
“Ain’t this like what you said about helpin’?”
“Not if it’s a loan. There are terms.”
“Terms like what?”
“You only spend it on gettin’ ahead. No drinkin’ or gamblin’ or anything like that. You check in and let me know how you’re livin’. At some point, I’m sure you’ll be doing well enough to pay me back. Deal?”
“That’s all?”
“Ain’t as easy as it sounds. I’m at Evergreen seven, two-three, two-four, in Springfield. Easy to remember, yeah?”
“Evergreen seven, two-three, two-four. Gotcha, boss.”
“Good people there will answer the phone. You tell ’em you want to speak to me. They’ll find me.”
Frank smiled. Tears welled in his eyes. Elliot reached over, opened his door, and gently pushed him out. Frank shut the door and put his head in the window.
“You ever get up my way in Gary, come find my auntie. She’s on Baker Street at Fifteenth. Right on the corner. I got sum cute cousins, man. They can cook, too.”
“Take care, Frank.”
Frank ran off to the station house. Elliot watched until he was out of sight before he headed back to Southville.
He avoided the farm because he just couldn’t bear the sight of it. Every route was planned to keep it from view, to avoid all thought of the property, like a drunk on the wagon, steering clear of his old haunts. Now he stood on the access road, the gate shackled by the bank, in chains forged from his naivety. A link for each of his poor decisions once leaving Southville. “WARNING—KEEP OUT, UNDER PENALTY OF LAW” read the admonishment from the bastards from the bank. The sign was for everyone in general, but spoke to Elliot in particular. It told him don’t go in. Don’t go any further. He climbed over the fence. Another sign ignored.
The crunch of the gravel underneath his shoes mimicked the sound of his crumbling heart. He could see it in the distance, the small white farmhouse with an oak tree that was twice as high. When he got older, he could reach its branches from the extra half floor. It was his preferred means of escape when he was confined to quarters. As he stepped closer, he noticed the gutters were overgrown. The downspout had broken off. Tending them was his job per Uncle Buster, “You like climbin’ out ya window and runnin’ across the roof so much.”
Some very harsh winters had passed after he left. The house lay there like a sad relative. The roof needed fixing. The house frame hadn’t been primed or painted. Cracked panes of glass in his bedroom window through which he would stare out as he dreamed of freedom. In Southville, his father was a ghost. His mother didn’t want him. In Southville, he was born no good. Probably would stay that way. In Southville, he traded on his lighter skin to find favor with the Jews over in Roseland. And on and on and on.
He made his way to the barn to find it relatively intact. The burnt orange of rust outlined the Dutch
door, most likely from corrosion of the joists that supported the gothic roof. Elliot automatically considered the time and materials for their repair before the knot in his stomach reminded him it was all on the line. Used to be, Elliot was dragged off to the barn for beatings. Now he was finding a way in so he could stop beating himself.
There hadn’t been an animal inside for years. The mule was replaced by a Farmall C series that looked relatively new. It made Elliot proud that the old man was thinking ahead, though he liked that old mule. He just didn’t like his strap. He walked through the drive bay until he reached the tack room. Once there, he kicked aside old hay until he cleared away a cross ring tie. Elliot pulled it hard until the trap door released, casting a cloud of dust. He had dug it out himself, as a hiding place for the contraband he accumulated over the course of his duties to Izzy. It was a compromise, a place to keep the items in his charge secure while conforming to his uncle’s expectations. He laid down on his stomach to reach the handles of the trench safe he kept underneath. He was alone yet, out of habit, checked his surroundings before turning the single dial to his father’s date of death. The tumblers gave. He opened the lid. The one photo of his parents together back in Chicago seemed to stare at him, he flipped it over. He sorted through his commendations, just to remind himself he could be brave when need be. He opened his honorable discharge letter from the War Department to check that no one else’s name was on it. Finally, he came to a bindle made of his old point blanket. He unfurled it on the barn floor and took in its components: Army issue M1911A .45, three full magazines. John Moses Browning’s finest design.
This particular model was manufactured by the Singer Corporation. His company commander Hap Hinshaw joked that after the war, they’d all become seamstresses. He loaded a clip, took aim and hit a galvanized pail on the opposite end of the drive bay. He fired three times. The first hit dead center. The pail leaped for its life, tumbling in the air. The last two shots hit before it fell to the ground. Skills confirmed he reached down once again into his hiding place for his duffel which held his HBTs. He put on his greens and his leather shoulder holster that still fit without adjustment. The two-buckle boots hadn’t been dabbed. He himself always picked up on tells like that, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. He had a great deal more hair than he was used to squeezing into his HBT cap. It didn’t come down over his eyes enough to conceal his entire face. Best not to take any chances. No direct eye contact. No conversation if engaged. Tonight, he would play the part of the GI, just looking for a good time until his redeployment. His weapon was very useful for killing Germs in George S.’s bastard outfit of colored soldiers. It was at least good for a few more bodies should some poor unfortunates come between him and Willow Ellison.
A Negro and an Ofay (The Tales of Elliot Caprice Book 1) Page 11