Till You Hear From Me: A Novel

by Pearl Cleage

  “What do you want me to do?” I said. “The Rev and I haven’t had much luck talking about politics lately.”

  “I know that, but this is what you do, right? Find the dirty tricks before they can play them?”

  “That wasn’t the part I was involved in,” I said. “I bumped up on a couple of things, but the campaign is over, remember?”

  “So you mean to tell me after all that time you spent with these people, day after day, for two years, you don’t have anybody you can call, just to check it out?”

  She was right, of course. All I needed to do was make a couple of calls and I’m sure I could put Miss Iona’s mind at ease.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Thank you, darlin’,” she said, sounding relieved. “I don’t think the Rev has any idea how many people would love to get their hands on that new voters list he keeps bragging about. Or what they’re prepared to do to get it.”

  “He seemed to know exactly how valuable it was last time I talked to him about it,” I said. “Don’t forget, this is the Rev we’re dealing with here.”

  She took a deep breath, pulled the scarf off of her head, and shook her hair out a little. Never at a loss for words, she seemed to be trying to figure out the right ones and not having much luck.

  “What?”

  “See, the thing is, Ida B, getting old is a lot harder than any of us thought it would be. It’s like becoming invisible a little at a time, and that’s the one thing these guys don’t know how to be.” She smiled almost to herself. “They used to face down the baddest white men in America, I’m talking about stomp down crackers with guns on their hips, and the cameras made sure the world was watching. Now they sit around at Paschal’s, drinking coffee and talking about the old days and there’s not a camera in sight. Once Black History Month is over, how many speeches you think the Rev’s got lined up?”

  I hadn’t thought about it, but I know a rhetorical question when I hear one so I didn’t say anything.

  “All those guys thought they were going to die in battle. In a blaze of glory.” She shrugged, picked up her sandwich, put it back down, and looked at me. “But they didn’t.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Weak for You

  SITTING AT THE KITCHEN TABLE, WATCHING HIS FATHER STRIP THE husks off of several ears of fresh corn and listening to the sound of Nancy Wilson floating in from the front room, Wes realized he didn’t need to worry. His father seemed genuinely happy to see him and their greeting held none of the awkward stiffness that Wes had been dreading. Mr. Eddie had come home from a day of driving the Rev with a bag full of fresh produce for dinner, a six-pack of Heineken, which he knew was Wes’s favorite, and a couple of pounds of the most beautiful pink catfish fillets Wes had seen in ages.

  They’d greeted each other warmly and moved to the kitchen so they could catch up a little while Mr. Eddie got dinner started. As was his habit, Mr. Eddie removed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and wrapped a big black kitchen apron around his middle, but he didn’t change his suit. Mr. Eddie liked to cook in street clothes, especially when he was cooking for company.

  Wes took a long swallow of the cold Heineken he was drinking as Mr. Eddie rinsed the corn in cold water and set it aside.

  “You remember Ida B?”

  “Sure I do,” Wes said. “She used to have a crush on me.”

  Mr. Eddie ignored that. “I’m surprised you two haven’t run into each other,” he said, reaching into the refrigerator for the catfish. “She worked in the Obama campaign.”

  “You know I stayed out of that one, Pop,” Wes said, the lie rolling easily off his tongue. “Too many die-hard Clinton folks on my client list.”

  Mr. Eddie nodded and laid the pale pink fillets out on the counter gently. “Well, they better get over it. The best man won and he needs all hands on deck.”

  Wes took another sip of his beer and didn’t answer. Mr. Eddie salted and peppered the fillets and added a spicy mixture of his own concoction.

  “You look good, Pop. Retirement agrees with you.”

  “Shoot, I’m working harder now than I ever did working for those white folks. The Rev is about to run me ragged. I’m thinkin’ about askin’ the president to suspend Black History Month next year. I’m gettin’ too old for this mess.”

  Wes grinned at his father. “That’s not what I hear.”

  “What you hear about what?”

  “About two old guys in a big black Lincoln, tearing around the Georgia countryside, registering fifty thousand black folks to vote, just because they could.”

  Mr. Eddie looked at him and grinned. “You heard that, huh? All the way up there in New York City?”

  Wes grinned back at his father. “That’s what I heard. Any truth to it?”

  “More like one hundred thousand,” Mr. Eddie said, turning the fish and drizzling each piece with olive oil. “You can ask the Rev when he gets here.”

  Bingo! Wes thought. He had now officially hit the mother lode in less than twenty-four hours and without ever having to leave the house.

  “Congratulations, Pop,” he said, raising the green glass bottle in a salute. “That’s an amazing accomplishment.”

  “It’s all because of the Rev,” Mr. Eddie said, still drizzling. “I’ve never seen him work so hard or so long as he did to get these Negroes registered in time to cast a vote for Obama. The Rev was all up in people’s faces, scaring them half to death about being on the wrong side of history. They had no choice but to get themselves down to the courthouse.”

  “I saw the picture online of him standing on somebody’s front porch with a clipboard.”

  “Young people call that old-school. What they don’t know is, that’s the only school we know!” He laughed. “What did your mother used to say? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

  The front doorbell announced the arrival of the other dinner guests. Mr. Eddie was placing two slices of lemon on each piece of catfish and reaching for the dried parsley.

  “Go let ’em in, will you, Wes? You can see if Miss Ida B’s still weak for you.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Full Disclosure

  “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THAT NICE YOUNG MAN YOU BROUGHT around during the campaign?” the Rev said, apropos of nothing, as we stood waiting on Mr. Eddie’s front porch. We had been talking about his trip to Athens and how much more politically active the campus had become since the election. Many of the students had voted for the first time and they were anxious to find a way to stay involved. His question took me by surprise.

  “Archie?”

  I had crashed at the house with another campaign staffer one night when a line of serious storms grounded all the Atlanta planes headed west and there were no hotel rooms to be had for miles. Archie was an egotistical asshole and sometime sexual partner who spent the whole night trying to talk me into giving him a blow job in my baby girl bedroom. The degree to which even the possibility excited him sort of creeped me out and I don’t think he said ten words to me or the Rev before we pulled out early the next morning.

  “What makes you ask about him?”

  “Ed tells me Wes is single again,” he said and actually gave my arm a conspiratorial little squeeze. “You never know.”

  “Never know what?” I said, but before I could bust the Rev down on his matchmaking, the door opened and there was Wes, smiling and, according to the Rev, free as a bird, looking exactly like I remembered him from glimpses over the years when he’d be home for the holidays and we’d bump into each other at church after he had shed his adolescent chubbiness for the new body he was still carrying around.

  “Welcome, welcome,” he said, holding out a hand in greeting, which the Rev pumped enthusiastically. “It’s been too long!”

  “Longer than that,” the Rev agreed. “You remember my daughter?”

  “Of course,” Wes said, leaning over for a quick peck on the cheek. “Good to see you.”

  “You, too,” I sai
d and I blushed.

  Okay. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m sure my memories of him are much more vivid than his of me. Wes Harper was one of my favorite masturbation guys from about fourteen to seventeen. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. At fourteen, which I think is the age I was the last time I saw him, eighteen can be a legitimate object of sexual fantasy. Fortunately, I don’t think he ever returned my imaginary affections, since at eighteen, lusting after a fourteen-year-old is not only creepy but illegal, although I think some southern states still have some weird child-bride loophole. I’ll ask my mother the next time I see her. That’s the kind of stuff she keeps in her head just in case the topic ever comes up in otherwise pleasant conversation.

  “There’s my girl!” Mr. Eddie emerged from the kitchen carrying four wineglasses and a bottle of something. He was wearing an apron identical to the one Mr. Charles had been sporting last night. I wondered if all the men in West End had now taken to cooking, the way they had to driving those big black Lincolns.

  I hugged him and handed him the pound cake Miss Iona had pressed on me when I told her we were coming for dinner.

  “That woman thinks nobody knows how to make dessert but her,” he said, turning to the Rev. “I don’t need to say anything to you. How many times a day can a man say hey anyway?”

  “I’m not studyin’ you,” the Rev said. “I’m here to have dinner with my godson.”

  “Then let your godson pour you and Ida B a glass of that high-priced wine he’s always sending me and I’ll be right back.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” Wes said as we followed him into the living room. “Red all right?”

  “Fine with me,” said the Rev. “My doctor said I can’t drink bourbon anymore, so it’s all the same to me.”

  “Well, maybe that’s just because you haven’t been drinking the good stuff,” Wes said, opening the bottle and pouring four glasses. “Try this.”

  The Rev took a swallow and wrinkled his nose. “This is the good stuff?”

  Wes laughed. “It better be, as much as they’re charging for it.”

  It was good wine. Not that I’m a connoisseur or anything. I tend to be a one margarita and I’m done kinda gal. A lot of places don’t carry a wine list, but every bartender alive can make a decent margarita. I sat down next to the Rev and smiled at Wes, who smiled back. The Rev was beaming, probably already picturing us walking down the aisle at Rock of Faith after we had promised ’til death do us part.

  “How long are you in town for?” Wes said.

  “Couple of days,” I said, refusing to be distracted by the slide show of fantasy flashbacks playing in my head. “Maybe a week. I was hoping to spend some time with the Rev, but he and Mr. Eddie have the busiest calendar in West End, so I may be here a little longer. See if he can work me in.”

  The Rev smiled at me like he hoped I’d stay until Christmas and turned back to Wes. “And how about you? To what do we owe this visit? Business must be good.”

  “Never been better,” Wes said. “I’m actually thinking about opening an office here in Atlanta. I’m here to check some things out before any final decisions are made.”

  Mr. Eddie came in wiping his hands on a dish towel, picked up the wineglass Wes had poured for him, and joined the conversation. “I told him you were the one to give him the lay of the land.”

  “I don’t know how true that is,” the Rev said, picking up his wine, deciding it still had not morphed into a glass of Jack Daniel’s on the rocks, and putting it back down. “I’m sort of out of the loop these days.”

  “I can’t believe that,” Wes said. “Any man who put fifty thousand new voters on the rolls …”

  “One hundred thousand,” the Rev corrected him.

  Wes smiled. “Exactly my point. Any man who put one hundred thousand new voters on the rolls is the loop.”

  The Rev laughed his big public laugh. “That’s what I keep trying to tell these Negroes, but you think they’re listening?” He shook his head. “Not likely.”

  “What’s the name of your group again?”

  “BAC-UP!” The Rev’s voice supplied the exclamation point.

  Black Activist Clergy United for Progress. How could he forget that?

  Mr. Eddie put down his glass and disappeared back into the kitchen. “I always thought that was a gutsy name for a group of preachers,” Wes said. “I’m glad you hung on to it for this latest campaign.”

  “Why wouldn’t I hang on to it?” the Rev said. “It was my idea.”

  “I should have known that.” Wes nodded. “It’s genius. When you hear it or read it, your mind immediately gives you the unspoken word, so you internalize it as back the fuck up even though you never say the word.”

  “We better not!” The Rev laughed.

  Wes looked over at me and smiled apologetically. “Excuse my French!”

  When was the last time you heard anybody actually say that? Especially anybody under seventy-five? I just looked at him.

  “That was exactly my intention,” the Rev said. “And here comes that fool from The Constitution asking me if it meant we were there to provide backup to some other Negroes who were actually leading the charge. And what Negroes would that be? I asked him. Have you seen any of them around here lately?”

  “It’s the age of the Internet,” Wes said. “Everybody gets to be a reporter.”

  “I should be glad they even sent somebody to talk to me,” the Rev said. “It’s like pulling teeth for me to get any coverage these days.”

  “From what Pop tells me, you’re drawing standing room only crowds everywhere you go.”

  “Well, if that’s who you’re trying to meet, I’ve got you covered, but folks who fly in on private jets aren’t usually looking to talk to the usher board at the First Baptist Church of Moultrie.”

  I couldn’t tell if my father was signifying or just stating a fact. The hardworking people the Rev could always count on didn’t usually show up as a desirable demographic no matter who compiled the list.

  “The people who own that jet don’t want to talk to them either,” Wes said. “They want to sell them something.”

  And that, I thought, is the big difference between politics and business. If they’re constituents, you have to actually go out there and speak to them. In business, all you have to do is take their money. Suddenly, I had a question.

  “Whose jet is it?”

  Wes turned and looked at me the way people do when you ask them how much money they make, which, of course, only makes you more curious. “Just a client of mine,” he said. “Company out of Texas. They had a plane coming to Atlanta so I caught a ride.”

  “Now, that’s a state I never wanted to take a drive through,” Mr. Eddie said, coming back in and picking up where he left off. “Too big and too flat. You can go for miles in Texas with no place to turn off if you need to.”

  “Too many mad white folks,” the Rev said.

  “Can’t fault ’em there,” Mr. Eddie said. “If I lived in Texas, I’d be mad, too.”

  Beside me, the Rev’s stomach growled so loud that I heard it. He grinned at me and patted his stomach. “That catfish smells done to me. What do you think, Brother Harper?”

  Mr. Eddie stood up and put down his glass. “I think that’s good enough for me. Dinner is served.”

  As we headed to the kitchen for the feast Mr. Eddie had prepared, Wes fell in next to me.

  “Oil,” he said, still smiling. He was taller than I remembered, or maybe just not as heavy.

  “Excuse me?”

  “My client with the plane,” he said. “He’s in oil.”

  When we got to the table, he pulled out my chair.

  TWENTY-THREE

  A Morning in Hell

  THEY ATE EVERY PIECE OF CATFISH, DEVOURED EVERY EAR OF CORN, AND waved off Mr. Eddie’s apologies for the store-bought tomatoes that couldn’t match his own homegrown. They lingered for a few more minutes, enjoying coffee and Miss Iona’s pound cake. O
ver the course of the meal, Ida B and Wes had successfully established an easy familiarity that acknowledged their past interaction, but didn’t hold it against each other.

  Wes felt like he knew a lot of women like Ida. Smart, attractive, sexually active, and unattached. She said she was “between jobs,” which usually meant frantically looking for one, but he assumed she was just being evasive. She answered his questions about her campaign involvement pleasantly enough, but when he confessed that he had decided to sit it out, for business reasons, she just smiled and changed the subject. It was the same look he had gotten from his friends who had seen action in Iraq or Afghanistan whenever he ventured an opinion about the war. It was the way you would look at a five-year-old trying to talk about the stock market. No chance of understanding, so why bother to engage?

  That was, of course, exactly how he wanted her to think of him. As an ambitious young businessman, prepared to sit out the election of a lifetime in order to avoid offending his clients, but not above taking advantage of the new racial space that was Obamamerica. Her question about the owner of the plane was to be expected. It had just caught him off guard because he had been so focused on the Rev. His initial feeling had been right on target. The Rev was still feeling the blowback from the whole Wright episode and his exclusion from the new president’s national orbit was as painful as it had been when he realized he had not been invited to the inauguration.

  “Can you believe that?” he had asked at dinner. “I still can’t believe it. Who the hell do these Negroes think they are?”

  Wes noticed that when the Rev started slamming the president, Ida B kept her eyes on her plate or on her cup; anywhere but her father’s face.

  “The thing he’s got to understand,” the Rev was saying, “is that this can’t be about a cult of personality. It has to be bigger than loving Obama. We can’t keep building our movements around one man.”