Gumbo

by E. Lynn Harris

  Eddie's truck was so clean, I could see my reflection in the passenger door. The truck was old, but its bright red exterior was polished to a high gloss and the inside was spotless. The old fabric on the seat was soft and smooth when I accepted Eddie's hand, hopped in, and slid over to pop the lock for him.

  I'm sorry automatic door locks eliminated the necessity to lean over and open the door for your date after he helped you get seated. In my younger days, I liked that lean because you could arch your back a little and push your breasts up and out just enough to make sure your boyfriend noticed. I didn't do it this time, though. It's a little late for all that now.

  “Do you always keep your truck this nice, or were you expecting company?”

  He smiled to acknowledge the compliment. “Don't you recognize it? This is Mitch's truck.”

  I was amazed. That meant this was the truck I learned to drive a stick shift on the summer I graduated from high school. I was on my way to Detroit as fast as I could get there and I was honing my survival skills. I didn't want to ever find myself needing to make a quick exit from someplace I probably had no business being in the first place and find I couldn't because the getaway car wasn't an automatic. Mitch agreed to teach me and we spent a day lurching up and down the road until I finally got the hang of it.

  “Joyce gave it to me after he died. She knew I wanted it and I think she likes the way I restored it.”

  I guess she does. To say he restored the truck implies that it once looked this good and had now been returned to its former glory. No way. Mitch ran this truck so hard it would rattle your teeth. Now it rode soundlessly over the bumpy road.

  I was wondering what Eddie had been doing for the last couple of decades, but I couldn't figure out a polite way to ask without opening myself up for a lot of questions in return, so I just looked out the window as we rode. Things didn't seem to have changed much around here, despite Joyce's conviction that her church group was all that stood between Idlewild and the Apocalypse. I was always amazed that Joyce had chosen to make her life here. You can't help where you get born, but as soon as I was old enough to know there was a world outside the confines of Lake County, I started making plans to get there.

  “How long since you been home?” Eddie said.

  “Almost two years,” I said. “How about you?”

  “This is home,” he said. “I moved back for good.”

  “That sounds pretty final,” I said, but he just shrugged.

  “It was time.”

  He didn't offer to tell me why it was time and I didn't ask him. Timing is truly a personal thing. It's not such a bad place, I guess. Some people really love it. Look at Joyce and Mitch, but they're probably not a good example since when you're in love like that it doesn't matter as much where else you are.

  The two-lane highway into town still offered cheap motels for vacationers on a tight budget, fast-food joints, and bait shops with vending machines out front where you could put in a dollar's worth of quarters and pull out a small box of live crickets or a ventilated container full of fat night crawlers. The smell of sweet grass was blowing in the window and I was remembering what I wrote on page one of the diary I bought when I first moved away: “Good-bye, Idlewild! Hello, world!”

  • 4

  When you first come to Idlewild, there are two stories the old-timers will tell you. It's strange, too, since it's an all-black town and both the stories are about Indians, but the place has never been known for making much sense. The first story is about The Founder.

  The Michigan history books were always full of stories about courageous Indians and wily fur traders and white guys who wore stiff uniforms and built forts and thought there could really be such a thing as Manifest Destiny. We still said Indians back then. Not out of any disrespect. We thought they were cool. It was the word we knew.

  Pontiac was one of the most famous of the Indian chiefs, according to the books we read anyway. He was also one of the baddest, but he still got tricked. When it came down to the final moment, he negotiated with the stiff white guys from a position of as much strength as he could muster and did the best he could, but it was all downhill from there.

  Once Pontiac signed the papers and got his picture painted for the history books, nobody seemed to need him anymore and gradually his people died off, or moved away and left the guys in the stiff uniforms to their own devices. Except for one. This one Indian stayed around because he had decided to try and figure out what happened. He wanted to understand how his people had been defeated so rapidly and displaced so completely. And he wanted to structure his life in such a way as to avoid as much future contact with his enemies as humanly possible.

  A noble quest, and one that still engages great minds from Atlanta to Capetown, but this one remaining Indian was not concerned about all that. He was looking to understand some things a little closer to home as he settled in for a long period of intense contemplation in the section of the Great North Woods that is bounded by towns with names like White Cloud and Wolf Lake and Big Rapids. Places where the lakes freeze solid and the first big snow is already old news by the middle of November.

  One early fall morning, he was walking along through the woods and the day was perfectly clear and absolutely quiet and every once in a while he would see deer melting off into the trees of either side of him, and suddenly he understood. He went back to his house and took out all the money he had saved doing all the things he had been doing and bought up as much land as he could and wrote into his covenant that no white folks would be allowed to live in this small but identifiable sector he was bringing under his control. He welcomed his own blood brothers and sisters and any black people who would promise not to act a fool. And then he went back and sat down on his porch and sighed a deep sigh because he was finally at peace. He had not only figured out who and what the problem was. He had figured out a solution.

  By this time, most of the remaining Indians had been moved farther west or had walked on over into Canada, but there were a lot of black folks with new money in their pockets crowded up in Detroit and Chicago and Cleveland who didn't know anything about The Founder's vision of an all-colored paradise, but who were soothed by the beauty of the lakes and moved by the mystery of the pine trees. First came one-room cabins for men-only fishing trips. Then, maybe a little reluctantly, summer cottages for the whole family. Enterprising Negro entrepreneurs opened businesses and stayed on year-round to keep things ready for the summer folks who always came flocking the first of June with lungs full of city grit and fists full of factory dollars, ready to enjoy the all-black paradise in the middle of the Great North Woods.

  No one is sure how The Rajah came to Idlewild, but people always talked about his arrival as if The Founder had passed things on like Carl Lewis leaning into the last leg of the relay even though he and The Founder weren't even the same kind of Indian. The Rajah was supposed to be a Bombay Indian, as opposed to an Iroquois, or a Lumbee, or a Sioux, so he didn't come from generations of people who had lived and hunted and wandered in these woods. One day he was just there, his big square head wrapped in a snow white turban, and shoes on his feet that seemed to turn up at the toes even if they really didn't. He bowed low when he talked and he was traveling with a not-so-young white lady who seemed to be his wife or his business partner or both, but ultimately it didn't matter. She was white. That was the critical thing about her.

  Everybody knew right off The Rajah was a regular Negro and not an Indian. Bombay by way of Hastings Street, they used to say. Why would a real Bombay Indian bring a white woman all the way to Idlewild, Michigan, to open a restaurant? He wouldn't. But this brother was laying it on thick, with an accent and everything, and what the hell? He wasn't the first Negro to opt for exotica as the most viable protective coloration and he sure wouldn't be the last one.

  Back then, the place more than lived up to its name with idle men, wild women, and unlimited night life featuring stars like Dinah Washington and Jackie Wilson and Sammy
Davis, Jr., before he went solo. For his part, The Rajah was convinced that Idlewild could support his establishment in much the same way that the community sustained The Paradise Lounge, The Flamingo Club, The Purple Palace, and a boardinghouse called The Eagle's Nest, renting exclusively to young Negro women, looked after by a large, handsome matron who never knew that after she rolled her hair at ten o'clock and went to bed, the ones who were working as shake dancers in the big nightclubs sometimes went skinny-dipping in the moonlight.

  The Rajah's place was too small for shake dancers and too intimate for live musicians. There was only room enough for eight couples at a time, a modest number, but one that allowed The Rajah to treat each customer like the royalty he seemed to believe they were. Obsessed with service, The Rajah was the kind of host who hovered.

  The place did good business right from the very beginning. The lighting flattered sun-kissed faces. The food was delicious, and the service, exquisite. Even when the place was full, The Rajah made each patron feel pampered. The water glass was never empty. The napkin was always freshly laundered. The butter rested in individual pats on beds of crushed ice in fluted silver dishes. The Rajah had class and a clientele who recognized and appreciated it. From the carefully made-up doctors' wives who no longer had to do their own manicures, to the misplaced romantics who spent all their time and hard-earned vacation money trying to impress the unimpressible showgirls, The Rajah's place was the place to see and be seen.

  Now, the white woman was pretty much out of sight during this time, so everybody just assumed she was the cook because somebody was back there cooking up a storm and it wasn't The Rajah, who was forever out front being smooth. But nobody can say for sure whether that had anything to do with what happened. Everybody said it was a shame, too, because the place was doing so well.

  The story is that one night, long after closing time and cleanup, a big party of folks came strolling over, drunk and happy and wanting something good to eat. Although he was locking up for the night and the white woman was already standing at the foot of the porch steps, he couldn't say no. He graciously unlocked the door, turned on the lights, and ushered them inside to a table.

  The woman didn't move. The Rajah went to the door and spoke to her firmly. The woman still didn't move. The Rajah spoke to her again, more sharply this time, and it is at this point that the two versions of the story diverge. In one version, she hisses “nigger” at him from outside so loudly that the patrons can hear the insult from where they sit. In another version, she comes back in and shouts it at him from across the room.

  In any case, wherever she was when she said it, she said it, and The Rajah narrowed his eyes and turned away from the chair he was holding for a bronzed beauty in a calico sundress and leaped at the white woman like a for-real Bombay tiger. They fought all the way out the door and down the steps and disappeared into the Great North Woods with her hollering and him hollering and that turban and that accent and that shouted charge of secret negritude flying every which-a-way, and nobody ever saw either one of them again.

  Which just goes to show you, the oldsters would say, leaving you alone to consider all this while they eased off to pour themselves another drink, wherever you go, there you are.

  Mourning Glo

  BY LORI BRYANT-WOOLRIDGE

  What's happened? Clinton again?” Esme inquired following my lackluster hello.

  “He just called to un-invite me to his client dinner tonight. He claims none of the other wives and girlfriends are going, so I shouldn't either. This is the second time this month,” I explained, trying to wave off the niggling thought that Clinton was becoming a practiced liar. “Es, what's going on here?”

  “I don't know, but I'll be over in a hour to help you figure it out.”

  “Okay, but it's going to be one of those nights. You bring the ice cream. I'll take care of the rest.” I hung up the phone, grateful that Esme Bass, my best friend since the sixth grade, was coming over to rescue me from stewing in my own suspicions. With her uncanny knack for comprehending all the little nuances of people and situations that seemed to slip past the rest of us, hopefully I'd gain some insight into why it felt like my boyfriend of fifteen months was starting to give me the big ig.

  Sixty minutes gave me plenty of time to whip up a pan of Esme's favorite double-chocolate chip brownies. More fat calories were the last thing my 5′ 4″, 171-pound frame needed, but I was depressed so my desire for chocolate was truly medicinal. Plus, serious fuel was required for the exhaustive and torturous evening of conclusion-jumping that lay ahead.

  Half hour later, the glorious scent of cocoa saturated the air as I sat in front of the television taste testing the brownies and wondering about Clinton. I was enjoying my chocolate buzz when the ever perky voice of Mary Hart announced that world-renowned photographer, Glodelle, a.k.a. Glo Girard, was in the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, dying from an undisclosed illness.

  At first I didn't really pay much attention when the nut-brown, dreadlocked-framed face of this art world icon filled the screen. She looked familiar, but I was sure it was because the woman was a celebrity. And of course I knew of her work. Anybody acquainted with black art knew that Glo Girard was famous (or infamous, depending on which conservative city official or museum curator you spoke to) for her outrageous takes on cultural and religious symbols that the world held sacred. Her lengthy career was filled with as much controversy as genius, and her reputation for being quirky and bold was legendary. Glo Girard was the black, female Andy Warhol, whose fifteen minutes of outrageous fame had audaciously spanned over two decades.

  I watched disinterestedly as they flashed examples of her work across the screen, that is, until they displayed a photograph that I'd never seen before but shared an immediate connection with. Through a magical mix of light and technique, Glo had captured on film a winged archangel, adorned like an African warrior, holding an infant. The body was ethereal and otherworldly, but the angelic face was definitely human and instantly recognizable. It belonged to Michael Henry Taylor—my father.

  My fork clanged on the floor as I hurdled over the coffee table to get a closer look, but by the time I got my nose to the screen, the image was gone. What was going on here? Why was my father the subject of a Glo Girard photograph and why had he never mentioned that he knew her? Another topic to add to tonight's agenda.

  “So you held out on me, old man? What other secrets did you take to the grave with you?” I asked, my words floating toward the ceiling. God how I missed that man. Ms. Girard had certainly captured my father's true essence. He had been such a special person and certainly my angelic hero.

  I was the only child of two only children. My mother died when I was three years old. I grew up with my father, a rock-steady tax accountant whose single mission in life was to keep his little girl safe and happy. He never remarried, but instead learned to expertly blend the roles of mother and father, and perform both with loving grace. He was the one who dried my tears when bullies teased me about growing up motherless and he held my hand through measles and menstrual cramps. It was Daddy who helped pick out my prom dress, guided me through the minefields of teenage love, and warned me about the delights and dangers of sex. There wasn't a day I regretted not having a mother to love, but my father tried so hard I never complained.

  When he passed suddenly from a massive heart attack two years ago, I was devastated. Between his insurance and social security, I was financially set for life, but without a family. Six months after his death, I met Clinton. I was convinced that he was a parting gift sent from Daddy to keep me from being alone, which was all the more reason I had to figure out how to hold on to his love.

  E.T. moved on to a story about Will Smith and I sat back to enjoy the man's charm and wit but was interrupted by a loud thumping. I jumped up and threw open the door to find Esme hugging a quart of vanilla Haagen-Dazs. For such a sprite of a girl, she had the knock of a lumberjack.

  “No need to bang the thing down. Get
in here. You won't believe who and what I just saw on Entertainment Tonight,” I said and proceeded to tell her about the photo of my father.

  “You're kidding me. When did Michael meet Glo Girard?” Esme asked, stepping inside and throwing her wrap on the nearest chair.

  “I have no idea. He never mentioned he knew her.”

  “Do you think they were lovers?”

  I could already see the wheels turning beneath Esme's mop of tight curls. Inside that pharmaceutical saleswoman was a mystery writer dying to be born.

  “Who knows?”

  “This is too good not to investigate further,” Esme declared.

  “Let's look her up on the Internet,” I suggested. “If she took one picture of him, maybe there are others.” Thanks to my status as a professional student (other than a one year break between graduate school and going back for my Ph.D. in history last year, I'd never not been in school), I was confident in my ability to locate anything on the Web.

  I went to my makeshift office in the corner of my dining room and turned on my laptop. By the time Esme had fixed us both a plate of brownie a la mode, I'd logged on to Google.com and a long list of articles about the woman and her work appeared.

  “These are incredible,” Esme said, commandeering the mouse and clicking through the virtual gallery. Filling the screen in a dozen two-inch squares were several evocative portrayals of the female nudes that Glo Girard was famous for. We moved on to another site and pulled up further examples of the woman's contentious talent. It was a series of black angels, posed as winged guardians in a variety of positions—most compromising, a few divine. As with all the others, the light and shadows combined with her compositional inventiveness begat visual poetry.

  “Wait a minute. I've seen these photos,” I said, inspecting each image as it came through the printer. “They were on exhibit at the Whitney about five years ago. I thought they showed the entire series, but the one with my dad wasn't displayed. I wonder why?”