Catfish Alley

by Lynne Bryant

  The nasally voice announces our flight and I board the plane with the other faithful folk returning to the South. I find my scat and sleep until the pilot announces our arrival in Jackson, Mississippi. My best friend, Travis Sprague, and I were out far too late and drank far too much last night. But the jazz was hot and Travis was buying, so I couldn't refuse. In Jackson, I rent a car, as usual, and drive down to Clarksville. I take my usual route down the Natchez Trace, admiring the fall color with the car's air conditioner on full blast, since it must still be ninety degrees down here.

  When I walk into Gran's room at Pineview, I'm surprised to see a tall black man facing her chair and holding her hand. She's looking up at him like he's good enough to eat, and I have to agree from what I can see from behind. That is one fine-looking man. Gran looks past him, sees me, and squeals in delight. He straightens quickly and turns. It's been a long time since I've seen a man who made me catch my breath. Most of the guys I've met so far in Chicago are players, not really serious. I've gone out with a few white men, but I quickly realized that I'm just not attracted to white men. But this man. Oh, my!

  Ease up there, sister, I tell myself. I settle down and focus on my grandmother. "Hey, Gran," I say as I move past the stranger to kiss Gran's cheek.

  "Hey there, baby girl," she says. Her obvious pleasure in seeing me always makes the trip worth every cent. "I want you to meet my new pastor, Reverend Daniel Mason. Brother Daniel, this is my granddaughter, Belinda Webster."

  I have to stifle my disappointment. A preacher? This must be God's idea of a joke. How could he put this gorgeous man right in front of me, close enough right now to notice how good he smells, and make him a preacher? I wonder what I did to make God angry. Probably not visiting my grandmother enough. I smile and take his hand. Those eyes! Even behind the glasses, they're warm and sexy.

  "Good to meet you, Belinda. Your grandmother has told me a lot about you. She's very proud of you, you know."

  "Please, call me Billy," I say. "Gran, I hope you haven't been telling this minister any of those made-up stories you like to tell."

  Gran laughs. "No, baby girl. Everything I've said about you and your high-powered job is true. I've just been telling the reverend about the Queen City and how I want him to help me talk you into taking a look at it again. Reverend Daniel says he'd love to see it."

  I haven't seen my grandmother this animated in years. What is that twinkle in her eye? Is it just from being around a handsome man or is it something else? And here we go with this discussion of the Queen City again. I think I might as well nip it in the bud, right now.

  "Gran, we've been over this before," I say, pulling up a chair beside her and plopping my bag down on the bed. I turn to the preacher. "Please, Reverend Mason, sit down, won't you?"

  "I can only stay a minute. I have other folks to see. Please, call me Daniel." He moves a chair near the two of us and I can't help but watch as he bends that tall muscular frame into the small chair. I look up and realize Gran is watching me. She actually winks!

  Oh, Lord. "Rev ... Daniel, what my grandmother doesn't realize is what poor condition the Queen City Hotel is in. You see, it's in an area of town that's not too great and it's been vandalized. The roof leaks.... Anyway, it's just not something you would want people touring —"

  Gran interrupts me. "There was a white woman over here the other day talking about putting the Queen City on a tour. An African-American tour. She just might have some ideas about what we could do with it. I was telling Brother Daniel about the days when your grandfather ran the hotel and all of the famous black musicians and athletes and such who stayed there. He still wants to see it for himself," Gran insists.

  "I believe I met her," Daniel says. "Roxanne Reeves?"

  Gran nods. "That's the one. Little bit uppity. Don't think she's very comfortable around black folks, but she's trying. I let her borrow a key to take a look at the place. Grace Clark tells me she's quite taken with it."

  Daniel nods in agreement. "Yes, ma'am, I agree. I got that impression from her, too." Daniel Mason looks at me with an expression as eager as a little boy's. I wonder what it would be like for him to act that interested in me. "I really would love to see the place, if you have the time," he says.

  There are those eyes again! I look from Gran to Daniel. It seems as if they are conspiring against me. And I'm so confused. Who is Roxanne Reeves and what African-American tour? Gran loaned out a key to the place? Gran reaches out and takes my hand.

  "Brother Daniel's father was a jazz musician and he plays, too."

  "Really?" I ask. "What instrument?"

  Daniel looks embarrassed. "Oh, I just play a little on the horn, nothing much. I grew up with jazz, and when I came in here and saw all of these pictures" — he motions inward the pictures Gran has hanging on I list about every inch of her walls — "I was amazed at all of the jazz greats who came down here."

  "I gather you're not from Mississippi," I say.

  "No, no. I'm from Chicago."

  Now this is just too strange. Another cosmic joke. A good-looking intelligent man who plays jazz and is good to old people, and he leaves Chicago, where I live, and moves to Mississippi, where I wouldn't be caught dead living, and he's a minister? It's enough to make a grown woman cry. But Gran is looking at me with that pleading look in her eyes, and this man is so handsome, how can I refuse? I can at least show him the place; nothing has to come of it. But I'll do it on my terms.

  "All right, Daniel. How about I come by and get you and we'll go over to the Queen City? When do you get off work, uh ... I mean, when are you available?" It occurs to me that preachers might not keep office hours like regular people.

  He smiles, and, of course, Gran looks extremely pleased with herself. "Would this evening work for you? I have a church meeting at five, but I'll be done around six."

  We settle on six thirty for me to pick him up at the parsonage. I assure him that I know where it is. It's been a long time since I was in church, but not long enough to forget its location. He kisses Gran on the cheek and says he will see her in a few days, politely shakes my hand, and makes his exit.

  I turn from walking the preacher to the door and Gran is watching me with a wicked gleam in her eye. "Enough to make you want to move back to Mississippi, isn't he?" she says.

  I act nonchalant, waving my hand. "Oh, Gran."

  "You have to admit, baby girl, that is one good-looking preacher."

  Some things, as hard as I try, I cannot hide from Gran. Interest in a man is one of them. I don't know what I'm worried about anyway. It's not like Gran is going to have a chance to interfere much in my life. I'll be gone in a couple of days and I probably won't see the preacher again for a year.

  It's starting to drizzle when I ring the doorbell at the parsonage behind the Missionary Union Baptist Church. Standing on I he porch looking over at the old church, I remember all of the Sundays and Wednesday nights I spent there as a child. There was always some activity — Sunday school, choir practice, dinner-on-the-ground, singings. It was such a big part of my life growing up. Next to the hotel, it was the place where I spent most of my time. But then, everything changed. When I was a senior in high school I lost both my parents in a car crash. I think I walked around in a fog for that entire year. It was Gran who saved my life, helped me decide on a college, was my rock when I started working in the Clarksville City Council office, and finally encouraged me to take the job I was offered in Chicago.

  College changed my view of the world, opened me up to new possibilities. Moving to Chicago was the best decision of my life, I'm not hampered there by being the same small-town girl, the granddaughter of Robert Webster, the girl who grew up at the Queen City Hotel. I'm just Billy Webster, an intelligent, well-educated administrator for the city of Chicago. It suits me. But every now and then I get a longing. I just can't quite put my finger on what it is.

  When Daniel Mason opens the door, I decide I have that longing figured out. It's sex. He stands there i
n a pair of faded jeans that fit just right, a soft corduroy shirt, and a smile that does that thing with my breath again. Dammit! I find my voice to respond vaguely to his invitation to come in. I stand in the doorway watching as he gently herds an ancient-looking dog away from the door.

  Now I have to add "loves animals" to the growing list of reasons why I like this man. Will it ever end?

  "You'll have to excuse Ruby," he says. "She's half blind and so she tends to want to stand and sniff everyone who comes to the door."

  "No problem," I say with a laugh. "I love dogs. I would have one if I could, but I'm never home."

  He smiles as he nudges Ruby toward a well-worn dog bed in the corner. "I can't imagine life without Ruby. She and I have been together fourteen years now."

  "No wife?" I ask, then immediately wish I hadn't. Of course, I want to know, but, as usual, I probably could have found a more tactful way to ask.

  "Almost," he replies, not seeming to mind the question. "I came close back in Chicago, but it didn't work out. You? A husband, I mean." I feel my knees go a little weak when he looks at me.

  "No, too busy, I guess. My hours are long and ..." I realize I don't have much of an answer. "Well, anyway ... are you ready?"

  We chat about Chicago as we drive the short distance to the Queen City Hotel. I ask Daniel how he ended up in Mississippi after living in Chicago all his life.

  "My father is the reason I'm here," he says with a smile. "He was the minister of a small church in our neighborhood, so I grew up playing with my Matchbox cars under the church pews and helping him and my mother every Sunday get the church ready for service."

  I smile at the thought of Daniel as a small boy on his belly on the cold floor of some Chicago church, pushing toy cars through a city made of the underside of wooden benches. I turn up the windshield wipers to deal with the heavier rain.

  "... so I guess I came naturally to the ministry. But the reason I'm so drawn to the South is Saturday nights in our basement. That's when my father became a different man. Daddy and his cronies were all transplants from Mississippi or Louisiana, and they put together a small jazz band. As far back as I can remember, I would sit on the basement steps and listen to them play records of the jazz greats like Louis Armstrong or Miles Davis on this ancient turntable and then try to copy them. Daddy played the trumpet, and he had friends on the sax, the trombone, and the piano." He laughs. I think I could listen to the sound of his laugh every day and never get tired of it.

  "During college, after my father died, I made a road trip through the Mississippi Delta with some friends. We saw the towns and places where the blues were born and we visited the small churches along the way...." He drifts off, caught up in his memories. "Anyway, I knew then that I would pastor a church in Mississippi someday. And when this opportunity came up, I had no ties to keep me in Chicago. It seemed like the right time."

  I shake my head. How can an intelligent, well-educated — not to mention single — black man want to move from Chicago to Mississippi? "What about the racism, and the poverty, and just the general backwardness of things down here?" I ask, realizing my incredulity at his decision is probably showing.

  "Billy, I know about all of that." I'm thinking how I love the sound of my name when he says it. "But you and I both know there's racism everywhere. And being poor sure doesn't keep folks from coming to church around here. I've met several church members who are really proud of this community."

  "That I know," I say, sounding more sarcastic than I intend to.

  He leans forward to look as we turn on to Seventh Avenue. "Take this tour, for example. If this hotel was on the African-American tour, just think how exciting that would be for folks around here." His enthusiasm is almost contagious, but not quite. He hasn't seen the hotel yet. But I'm pleased to find him open and surprisingly normal. I realize I'm talking to him like a real person, not like a minister at all.

  When we arrive at the hotel, the drizzle has turned to steady rain. We sit in the car looking at the old dilapidated building. The wide front porch is sagging, as are the steps leading up to it. The boarded-up windows look bleak. I realize the rain is probably pouring in through leaks in the roof in several places.

  I reach over into the backseat and pull out an umbrella. "I'll come around to your side of the car and get you."

  "No, no, that's okay," he says, studying the hotel. "I'll just run for it."

  I find myself disappointed. I had been entertaining a brief fantasy about being under the umbrella with him. "All right, but be careful — those steps are caving in."

  I climb the treacherous porch steps just behind Daniel and dig in my bag for the keys to the hotel. I unlock the door and we step inside, shivering from the chill that's settled in. The dim light of the rainy afternoon casts long shadows across the wide lobby. I notice immediately that there is a new leak near the counter. I retrieve one of the buckets that I keep in the closet by the front door and place it strategically under the drip.

  "Looks like you've done that before," Daniel observes.

  "Yes, I don't know why we keep trying to hold this old place together. Gran won't let me sell it. Even though I want to get rid of it, I just can't stand to see these old wood floors get destroyed. Every time I come home, I come over here and empty the buckets and set out new ones."

  "Sounds like you've got some attachment to the place?" Daniel asks.

  "Well, I do have some good memories here of my father and my grandfather. But my life isn't here anymore. It's in Chicago."

  Daniel nods as if he understands. "Will you show me around?"

  We go through the first floor, starting with the lobby and ending with the kitchen and the bar with the small stage. He stands for several minutes on the stage, looking around, completely engrossed in some picture that seems to be playing in his mind. I wander around the room I have seen so many times before. Occasionally I steal glances at Daniel. He seems to be completely at ease, no pretense, no attempt to impress me. This both disappoints and pleases me. He's probably just imagining the famous jazz and blues musicians who once graced this stage.

  "Let's do this, Billy," he says suddenly.

  This man has no idea where my thoughts went just then! Quickly I realize he's referring to something about the hotel.

  "What do you mean? Do what?"

  "Let's turn this place into a community center. It could be great," he says as he starts pacing around the old lobby, pointing. "We could put meeting rooms over here, maybe a little coffee shop ...I'm sure we could find some funding. And I'll work in my spare time. Maybe I'll get some of the teenage boys in the community to help me. It will be good for them. We could get this place back in shape, fix the roof, replace those doors...." He seems lost again in his thoughts and his excitement about the possibilities for the old hotel.

  I can't find any words. I never in my wildest dreams expected the preacher to offer to fix up my old hotel. This is crazy.

  "Oh, I don't know, Daniel. I couldn't let you do that. There's so much work to be done, and then who's going to take care of the place? I'm in Chicago and Gran's at Pineview...."

  He steps close to me and interrupts me by taking my hand. Suddenly, I can't breathe. "Don't worry, Billy — it will be great. Don't you see? We could get the community involved and we could save this place. It would be great to have it on a tour. Just think what kind of boost that could be for the black community." He's even more handsome when he's excited. What is happening to me? I have to get out more often.

  "Okay, okay," I say, pulling my hand away. "We'll talk about it. I still don't see how you're going to salvage this place, but we can talk."

  "I tell you what," he says. "Let me buy you dinner over at the catfish place, and we'll talk about it some more before we approach your grandmother."

  I agree. I have to eat, right? After a quick tour of the upstairs rooms, we're on our way to the Catfish Cabin. What am I getting myself into?

  Grace

  We finally have
ourselves one of those cool fall days. I think how nice that is because Halloween is usually so hot around here. I'm having my second cup of coffee on the front porch so I can look at the pecan trees that line the road up to my house. Those old trees are glowing gold today and the ground is just covered up with pecans. I'm going to have to get Brother Daniel to make an announcement down at the church for folks to come out here and pick them up. It would be a shame for them to go to waste, but Walter can't keep up with all of them.

  The pecan pie for the cake walk at the church Harvest Festival this afternoon is in the oven, and I've sent Walter out to cut some flowers. I didn't really get to enjoy my first cup of coffee this morning like usual because Mattie Webster was calling me on the telephone before the sun was even up good, all excited about her granddaughter Billy and Brother Daniel.

  "Grade, you ain't going to believe what happened yesterday," she said.

  "What's that?" I said, a little irritated because I usually don't like to talk that early in the morning.

  "Brother Daniel was here visiting me when Billy got in from Chicago, and you should have seen the eyes she was making at that man! And him studying her, too, like she was the finest thing he'd seen in a very long time."

  "Now, Mattie, that's the preacher you're talking about."

  "Well, he's a man, ain't he? And you know how good-looking my Billy is. Anyway, Brother Daniel and I talked her into showing him the Queen City Hotel."

  This surprised me. "I thought you didn't want the Queen City on the tour."

  Mattie snorted. "To tell you the truth, I don't give a plug nickel whether the hotel is on that so-called African-American tour or not. What I care about is Billy, and as far as I can tell, she couldn't find a better man than Brother Daniel. If I was a little bit younger, I'd have a crack at him myself. Why, he's so fine, he reminds me of the time ..."

  Mattie had me laughing like she always does and I told her to be sure and let me know how it goes with Billy and Brother Daniel. I can't see Billy leaving Chicago to move back to Mississippi for a man. And it would be a sad day if we lost Brother Daniel. But these things tend to work themselves out. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.