by Pearl Cleage
“Okay, then here’s how we do it. You come up here and give your selection to Deejay Do Right over here.”
A short, muscular young man sporting a head full of dreads and one arm full of tattoos, waved his non-inked hand at the crowd, who chanted his name in affectionate greeting. “Do Right! Do Right! Do Right!”
“He’ll hook you up with your lyrics and then it’s on you!”
More applause. Brandi held up her hand for quiet. “Now, those of you who been here before know we got a tradition here at Brandi’s. We ain’t been here but a minute, but a tradition gotta start somewhere, right?”
“Damn right!” somebody called out from near the bar.
Brandi frowned slightly, but never stopped smiling. “Watch your language there, brother. This is a family place now!”
Laughter and some good-natured shouts of “That’s right!” echoed around the room.
Satisfied, Brandi turned toward Wes and Ida B still sitting near the stage finishing their drinks. “The tradition is, whoever is in the first seat, at the first table, gotta do the first number.” She held the mic toward Wes. “That’s you, baby!”
The crowd laughed and applauded. Ida B grinned at him and shrugged like it was out of her hands. On the stage, Brandi was twinkling at him with an I dare you smile and he wondered suddenly if she remembered him, too.
“Come on, brother! Show us what you got!”
He grinned at Ida B. “Well, at least this will give you a more current memory to draw on!”
Then he stood up very slowly and pushed back his chair dramatically to the delight of the crowd.
“Go ’head, brother! Do yo’ thang!”
He walked over to Deejay Do Right, made his selection, and accepted the mic from Brandi, who moved over to watch from the edge of the stage. It had been years since he’d done anything like this, but he thought he could still pull it off. Too late now if he couldn’t. The tiny light that in the old days had probably shone on hundreds of bouncing brown breasts was now shining on him. And there was his cue, the first few unmistakable bars of the R&B infidelity classic “Me and Mrs. Jones.” The crowd, recognizing his selection, roared their approval. As he stepped forward, he saw Ida B laughing and clapping, too. He gave her a wink and hit it.
“Me and Mrs. Jones, we got a thing goin’ on …”
THIRTY-NINE
Considering the Questions
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT,” I SAID, STILL LAUGHING, AS WE headed outside. Wes had offered to give me a ride and I accepted. I was so amazed by his karaoke performance, I welcomed a chance to compliment him as we drove the few blocks home.
Wes grinned. “I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t good at it.”
Good doesn’t begin to describe it. He had a great voice and very sexy stage presence. He was no Blue Hamilton, of course, the standard against which we West Enders measure every R&B singer, amateur or professional, but he was head and shoulders above anybody I’d ever seen in a karaoke bar and the crowd loved him.
“I’m surprised your fans let you get away with just one song,” I said, enjoying that golden moment known to all groupies of snagging the lead singer.
“That’s the key,” he said. “Always leave them wanting more.” The streets were pretty empty. It was too cold and breezy to be out strolling around. Everybody was hunkered down somewhere for the night. Everybody except us.
“I’m glad we had a chance to talk,” he said, when he pulled up in front of the Rev’s house and put his rental car in park.
“Me, too,” I said, wondering if I should ask him in or take his advice and leave him wanting more. Neither of us said anything for a minute, but the air was clearly charged.
He smiled. “Why does this feel like high school all of a sudden?”
I laughed, relieved that he felt it, too. Wondering if there was a possible post-karaoke exception clause in my celibacy oath. “It does, doesn’t it?”
He turned toward me as fully as he could and leaned in just a little. “Yeah, except that if it was high school, I’d be trying to talk you out of a good-night kiss.”
“Except that I don’t kiss on a first date,” I said. Like fun I don’t.
“But it wasn’t technically a first date since we didn’t actually plan it.”
I nodded, as if considering the questions. “You’re right. Nobody asked anybody to meet anywhere.”
“Exactly, it was just a fortunate coincidence, which means your reputation remains above reproach.”
“Good,” I said, enjoying the game, anticipating the smooch. “A girl can’t be too careful.”
And as I closed my eyes and leaned in to seal the deal, his cell phone rang. The first few bars of the Mission: Impossible theme. We both froze, opened our eyes, waited. The ball was in his court. He shrugged apologetically, reached for his phone, glanced at the caller ID, and said the words I surely did not want to hear at that moment.
“I need to take this.”
FORTY
Rocket Science
“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN NEXT WEEK?” WES SAID AS HE watched Ida B open her front door and disappear inside. Damn! Toni was still a sure thing, but new pussy was always welcome. Oscar’s timing was lousy. “I just talked to the guy!”
“Obviously you didn’t talk hard enough.”
“I handed him ten grand to cool the fuck out and wait for instructions. Is that hard enough for you?”
“Well, he said if we can’t give him the disk on Monday so he can run it that night, he’s out.”
“Monday?”
“That’s what he said. Somebody from the supervisor’s office called him when he got home, one of his gambling buddies or something. Totally spooked him.”
Wes pulled away from the curb. Any hope of wrapping this up and then seeing if he might still collect on that kiss was out the window.
“So now he’s all freaked out worse than he was before. He says it’s got to be Monday or no-go.”
“What I’m saying is it’s not doable, Oscar. It’s flat out not doable.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Wes waited. Monday! That was only five days from now. How the fuck was he supposed to make that happen? He was good, but he wasn’t a miracle worker.
“Listen, Wes.” Oscar’s voice was quiet, but firm. “We need this to happen.”
He remembered that old joke about the Lone Ranger turning to his faithful sidekick in a moment of peril and saying, “We’re going to die, old friend. We’re surrounded by hostile Indians.” And Tonto saying, “What you mean we, white man?”
“There’s still a lot of finger-pointing going on, you know that,” Oscar said when Wes remained silent. “Everybody’s playing the blame game and nobody’s in charge. Steele is a joke and Limbaugh is out of control. If we can make this happen—you and me—if we can put Georgia solidly back in our column for 2010 and 2012, nobody’s going to forget that, Wes. Most of all, I’ll really owe you one, buddy. I’ll owe you one big-time.”
Wes turned into the driveway of his father’s house. The motion-activated security lights flooded the yard and he squinted in spite of himself, feeling suddenly exposed. Oscar needed this personally, he thought. That’s why he was begging so hard. He’d heard a rumor around the campfire that Oscar had been slipping. From the desperate sound in his voice, Wes could only guess that Oscar was within a cunt hair of being shown the door.
Wes sighed loud enough for Oscar to hear him, like he was resigned to helping, but not enthusiastic about it. “What am I supposed to do? This guy’s list is still in a stack of shoe boxes in his closet. He hasn’t even given me permission to move them, much less make copies.”
“This isn’t rocket science, Wes. What the fuck do we always do when somebody’s got something we want and they don’t want to give it up?”
It was a rhetorical question. “We go get it.”
“Exactly.”
FORTY-ONE
Freedom High
WES’S PHONE CAL
L HAD SAVED ME FROM INDULGING A MOMENT OF weakness and I was grateful. What was I planning to do anyway? Climb in the backseat? Sneak him up to my baby girl room and hope the Rev didn’t decide to come home early? Exactly the kind of bad decision from which the celibacy oath was supposed to protect me. I thanked the goddess for her electronic intervention, hung up my coat, and went to take a look at the Rev’s stash.
I turned on the overhead light, opened the closet door, and there it was: the list. Thousands of cards in boxes, stacked up neatly from floor to ceiling, waiting patiently to be called into service by the man who had collected them. Wes had said they supposedly had the usual information and then a space for personal reflections. Unable to resist taking a look at what people might have written, I pulled out a box that wasn’t wedged in too tight, lifted off the top, and pulled out the first card.
Mattie Jenkins, it said, Madison, Georgia. No phone or email listed, but under comments, she had written. I am seventy-two years old and have never voted for president before. I sure do hope he wins.
That made me smile. I replaced it and pulled out the next one.
Mrs. Hugh Barnett, it said, Albany, Georgia. No phone or email on this one either. Her comment was: Come together, black people! Yes, we can!
I pulled out two or three more and they were all so hopeful and determined, it made me remember how people would come in the headquarters, asking what they could do to help, offering time or money or homemade chocolate chip cookies. Then I looked at all those boxes and I thought about all the hard work and love and faith that had gone into getting all those people to register. I thought about how great it feels to be freedom high and how hard it is to keep that feeling going when things get crazy and I thought about how long the Rev had been getting up every morning, rain or shine, doing what needed to be done. I thought about how much I owed him for it.
Even if he did miss a birthday party or two, and even if he was stubborn and defiantly old-school. Even if it was sometimes hard to get a word in edgewise. The Rev had given me and all of us a gift that no one could ever take away, our freedom. That’s when I knew I didn’t have to write a big long elaborate introduction for Founder’s Day. All I had to do was say two words on behalf of everybody who would be there: Thank you.
FORTY-TWO
Heart and Soul
WES AND HIS ASSISTANT WEREN’T DUE AT THE REV’S UNTIL LATE THAT afternoon since I had promised Flora I’d come by her house this morning so we could talk “off site.” That’s just fancy consultant speak for getting the subject of the interview out of their everyday work space for a few hours, which theoretically frees up their mind and allows them to see the long-term possibilities more clearly. I actually did my meditation, ate some Cheerios and the last banana, checked to make sure the downstairs bathroom was ready for company, and headed on over to Flora’s.
She lived about five or six blocks from us on Queen Street, but West End blocks are short so it only took me about ten minutes to get there, as the crow flies, but of course I rambled. I stopped at the West End News for two cappuccinos and when I came out, Aretha blew her horn at me in greeting as she headed down Abernathy in her bright red truck. Across the street at the grocery store, folks were already taking advantage of Wet Wednesday, when all seafood was half price.
I love walking through West End. It’s about the only place I know where things only change for the better. Too bad there’s no way to clone Blue Hamilton and send him to inner city communities from coast to coast to replicate the model. The problem is, some models can’t be replicated. Some models require such a specific set of skills or such a specific group of people or a specific visionary at the helm, that as hard as you try, it’s not possible to grow it anywhere else.
I think West End is like that. Newark, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, New Orleans, and Oakland will have to come up with their own way of figuring out how to get control of the men and renew the hope of the women and make these kids act like they got some sense. In the meantime, it was good to know there was still one place where you could ramble any hour of the day or night without looking over your shoulder.
When I balanced our two cappuccinos in one hand and rang Flora’s front doorbell, I couldn’t hear the sound it made because someone was playing The Sound of Music so loud I could hear it standing on the front porch. A lifelong movie musical fan, I recognized the scene where the lovely governess, Maria, comforts her charges during a thunderstorm by sharing a few of her favorite things. My mother loved the song. So did the Rev, although he was partial to the John Coltrane version, not the one Julie Andrews made famous.
Flora opened the door and hurried to turn down the DVD. The Von Trapp children continued to pile into Maria’s big featherbed, but now we couldn’t hear their voices or their seven-part harmony. “Come in! Come in! Is it ten o’clock already?”
“On the nose,” I said, handing her a cappuccino. “Didn’t know if you’d already had your coffee.”
“Bless you,” she said, taking my coat. “I didn’t even go by there this morning because I knew I’d find myself at the office and once I’m in, I can never seem to get out.”
“That’s why I thought we should meet over here,” I said, taking a seat on the couch.
“Well, I’m glad you did.” She took the rocking chair next to a large basket of bright orange and yellow yarn with two giant knitting needles sticking out of it. “My favorite chair,” she said, reading my mind, but her voice cracked just a little. “Good grief,” she said, raising her cup to her lips and taking a small sip.
“I’ve been weepy all morning. My hormones are all over the place. I keep trying to get a jump on the packing, but everything makes me sentimental, so I stop to catch up on a little housework and then I start worrying about Lu graduating high school and dating and I wonder if I’ve told her everything she needs to know.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “My mother told me more than anyone had a right to know and I’m still clueless.”
Flora smiled. “I’m going to be a basket case on moving day. I can see it now.”
“You’ll be fine,” I said. “D.C. is an amazing place. Especially in the circles you’re going to be running in.”
“I know, I know,” she said, not sounding like she knew anything of the sort. “It’s just that we’ve had such a great life here. All our friends, the gardens …” And she teared up again. “Here I go! Don’t tell Lu!”
I had come with a bunch of questions for Flora, but they could wait. She was in the midst of a big life transition, just like I was, and sometimes business just had to wait. Flora reached in her pocket for a Kleenex and blew her nose.
“You ever consider commuting?”
Flora shook her head. “No way. I had enough of that mess when me and Lu were here and Hank was going back and forth to Detroit for a year and a half. It drove me nuts.”
Clearly, she was one of that small percentage of very lucky women in this world who are crazy about their husbands.
“Besides,” she said, with a shaky smile, “I’ve heard there are some predatory sisters up there in our nation’s capital and a good man is hard to find.”
“You got that right,” I said. “I told Miss Iona yesterday I was getting tired of looking.”
“I know what I’ve got and I love Hank to death,” she said. “I guess the thing is, sometimes it just seems like such a retro position to be in. This is the only job I’ve ever been passionate about and I’m chucking it in to follow my husband to a city I don’t even like. No offense.”
“None taken,” I said.
“I’ll bet your mother would read me the feminist riot act.”
Funny how my mother keeps coming up as the standard of political correctness, but I didn’t want Flora to be too hard on herself.
“The truth is,” I said, “my mother is in no position to talk. She’s getting ready to take a job at Spelman and move right into the Rev’s backyard, so what kind of example is she setting?”
&nbs
p; “A great one.” Flora laughed.
“Well, I wish them the best,” I said, “but I’m glad I won’t be around for the fireworks.”
She looked at me and put down her cup. “Does that mean there’s absolutely no way I could talk you into taking over the Grower’s Association when I leave?”
The Von Trapp children, under clear skies, were now romping in the Alps, presumably singing their asses off.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s perfect,” she said, and I realized the idea had not just occurred to her. “You could do this job with one hand tied behind your back.”
“That’s not the point. I’m not moving back here, I just—”
She interrupted me gently. “I know, but I’m just saying if you end up … staying for a while. This wouldn’t even have to be full time. I know Precious Hargrove could use somebody with your expertise and you could spend some time with your parents, too.”
She was on a roll, so I didn’t point out that the parents thing wasn’t her strongest selling point.
“These gardens are the heart and soul of West End,” she said, “and you never have to raise a dime for operating expenses. We don’t even have a board!” She stopped suddenly then grinned at me sheepishly. “No pressure or anything.”
I smiled back. “Listen, Flora, I love West End as much as you do, and I know what an amazing job all of you have done rescuing this one small community, but that’s not the only work that needs to be done. We have to rescue the whole country! And maybe it’s crazy to love living out of a suitcase and flying all over the place talking to people I’ve never seen before and never will again, but I did love it, because I could see the difference it makes when people all come together to do something for themselves. I could see it, just like the Rev could see Atlanta as a city too busy to hate, and Dr. King could see that beloved community he used to talk about, and Blue Hamilton could see West End as a peaceful oasis.”