“This is mine. I paid for it.” She sat on the bed, slipping on black pumps. “These too. I’m not going to marry Dell. I’m marrying nobody.” She whipped clothes out of a drawer, looking for a purple satchel buried deep. “Here it is.” She undid the drawstring, shaking out a vial of lilac perfume, a few bills, and red lipstick. She puckered her mouth and painted it. Dabbed perfume on her neck.
She counted eight dollars and stuffed them into her uniform pocket. She stepped back and looked at herself in the mirror.
“You look like a whore,” said Jody.
“That’s what Pa says I am.”
“You can tell you ain’t got underpants on.”
“Really?” She twisted and stared at her backside. “Naw. You just saw me without them. No one else would know.”
“I tell you you look like a whore,” Jody said softly, vehement. “Like one of them women in France, ready to do anything with anybody. Not caring about color. Women eager to show themselves off—to white or nigger. Acting like men were all the same or something.”
Mary was astonished. It was the most Jody had ever said about the war.
She touched her brother’s hair. Both of them had been lonely children—were lonely still, filling space in Pa’s house.
Jody laid his head on her breast. She cradled him as she had those first weeks, home from the war, a summer of nightmares, hollering for his lost leg. They’d never talked about his dreams come sunrise. Never mentioned sweat dampened sheets or his struggling with the memory of an ether cup clamped over his nose and mouth.
“I won’t help Pa steal the farm from you, Jody. I wanted to say yes to Dell. Part of me still wants to. Pa’s always talking about the Devil leading us to sin. About temptation. Dell tempts me.” Mary smoothed her dress over her hips. “But I know there’s no good in him, Jody. He doesn’t love me.”
She slid her hand under her mattress. Buried beneath it was a pin locket, a portrait of her mother smiling. She wanted pleasure, laughter. Is that what her mother had wanted?
All these years, she’d been waiting for love to come to the farm. Maybe she’d find it in town. She needn’t be so prim and proper. Maybe she’d smile more, stroll through Courthouse Square. Maybe she’d dance on Decoration Day. Maybe she’d see the man who gave her two dollars. Maybe they’d talk.
Mary walked out of the room, her heels clicking.
Jody shadowed her steps down the staircase.
At the landing, Mary spun on the tips of her toes. “I’m going to work.”
“You’re going to town to be a whore,” called Pa. She didn’t flinch when he threw his Bible at her. Didn’t flinch when Dell stood on the porch next to the dog, patting him gently while insisting fiercely, “You’ll be back. You’ll be missing me.”
She smiled gaily and said, echoing Pa, “I’m going to town to be a whore.”
When she got to the gate, she looked back at the three men. Pa had come down off the steps. She could tell he was damning her. His face blotched, his words were an angry gibberish. Dell stood tall, handsome on the porch, looking like he already owned the farm. The sun was barely up. Jody was in the background, caught by the doorway’s shadow.
Mary waved at her brother, then turned, her heels scraping on gravel, kicking dust onto her skirt. She didn’t wait to see if her brother waved back.
5
Joe leaped from the porch, his gait stretching until he was running swiftly down the alleys, between row houses and backyard vegetable gardens. He kept hearing: “Who do you think you are?” and he thought his heart would burst as he raced in the morning sun. Someone hailed him from a window and he pressed forward, afraid to stop and have anyone guess his fear—his fear that he’d always be afraid, that he’d never be a real man. Joe was ashamed he’d abandoned his gasping father, ignored his mother’s call.
He steered left, away from the stirring neighborhood and moved toward Lena’s River, a basin where drunks, whores, and ailing Indians lived in scattered, clapboard shacks and swapped tales about Lena who one moonlit night, lay face down in the stream and let herself drown in a foot of water. Some seasons the creek crested, displacing the squatters. Other times, it ran dry, exposing odd white stones, tree roots, and clay. Across the creek were lush acres studded with derricks—Ambrose Oil. As long as Joe stayed on the Greenwood side of Lena’s River, he was safe, Father had warned.
Breathing hard, Joe maneuvered down the rocky embankment. Granite tore at his skin. He remembered playing here with his brother. Henry, ten years older than he, used to bring him every summer’s day to Lena’s River. When he’d been barely walking, Henry would carry him down the embankment and all day, they’d build dirt forts, float navies, and search out pebbles for cannon fire. As Joe’s limbs grew sturdier, Henry had taught him how to chase lizards, skip rocks and dig, like breathless prospectors, for Lena’s bones. Then Henry had stopped coming. Joe never lost the habit. He’d grown up counting the summers his brother didn’t come. He’d turned eight, nine, ten. Each summer day, from’ June to September, sunup to sundown, Joe waited—waited for his brother to bring ropes of licorice, bottle caps, cats’ eyes, or nick his thumb and smear blood across their brows, swearing, “Brothers. Always.”
Eleven, twelve, thirteen. He’d grown resentful. Occasionally, Henry surprised him. He’d unexpectedly appear, staggering, smelling of gin and roses. Joe always forgave him. And if the light was strong enough, Joe would step inside Henry’s shadow, zigzagging along the rocks, and pray for magic which could join him to his handsome, laughing, older brother. Always. Like Lena’s ghost and the riverbed.
Joe’s foot slipped and he fell flat on his back, his arms and legs spread-eagled. Pain shot through his spine. He tried to relax. He focused on each breath moving through his body. He missed his brother terribly. The sun warmed him. Rocks pressed like knives into his back.
“Clumsy this morning?”
Joe squinted. He couldn’t see the face—a dark circle haloed by sun, but he knew the buttery voice. “Henry?”
“Like hell.”
Joe’s eyes widened. He thought he’d heard Henry.
“You’re gonna need to move better than this if you expect to do magic. Box escapes and all that shit.” It was Gabe’s grating voice. “You can’t even walk.”
“Shut up, Gabe,” Joe said, suddenly angry. “Don’t mess with me.”
“Baby brother has shocked me this morning.”
“I’m not your brother.”
“True,” said Gabe, sliding down in a shower of rocks. “But I’m the closest thing you have. Can’t bring a dead man back to life.”
Joe shut his eyes.
“Want to talk?” asked Gabe.
“No.” Joe peered at Gabe. He still wore khaki pants and shirt. He had black, metal-tipped boots but no socks. Despite the heat, Gabe wore his trench coat and deep in the inside pocket, Joe knew, Gabe packed his Army .45. His clothes were frayed but clean.
Joe remembered his brother writing that Gabe had made corporal. Henry had been so proud of his friend. What would Henry think now?—the war long over and Gabe, still in uniform, living like a friendless dog, away from town and his folks. Joe wondered: How did he keep clean? Keep his shoes shined, his pants pressed? How did he eat?
“Do I pass inspection?”
Joe flushed. “Just wondering who shined your shoes.”
Gabe slowly smiled and Joe felt his mood lightening. There was a gentleness about Gabe. Joe watched him deftly draw the knife beneath his nail and flick away imaginary dirt. Henry, in his last letter, had said Gabe could be vicious too. “Fight with the best of them.” When Gabe had come home with Henry’s coffin, he wore a medal on his chest.
“What was it like?” Joe asked. “The war.”
“Blood-thirsty this morning.”
“No, I mean it.”
“I mean it too.” Gabe looked away, then got up wordlessly.
“Hey, man, wait up.” Joe was following, breathless. “Hey, Gabe, don’t be mad.”
Joe knew Gabe didn’t talk about the war. But this morning he felt impatient, angry that four years had passed and Gabe still had nothing to say. Joe didn’t really care about the war—he only cared that he’d been too young to go, cared that his brother died in the Argonne while he’d been in Tulsa. He was still trying to circle in on some truth.
“Gabe? Come on, man.”
Gabe headed toward his shack, his knife sheathed, his hands deep in his pockets.
“Come on, man.” Joe slipped and caught himself, scraping his hands on the rocks. “Shit. Don’t you sweat? Slow down, man. Damn you, Gabe.”
Other than “He’s dead,” Gabe had had nothing to say about anything.
The government letter had read:
PFC Henry Martin Samuels died heroically in an enemy engagement. Burial should be with full military honors.
But it hadn’t been because Henry was a Negro. Gabe had to get permission from Sheriff Clay just to play taps.
Be advised: Coffin should remain sealed.
Gabe had folded the flag expertly and handed it to Joe’s weeping mother. The coffin was lowered. His sisters—Emmaline and Hildy—fluttered like wing-clipped birds. His father posed like a general and Tyler, trapped in his wheelchair, wailed and sang hymns.
Afterward, Gabe had gone to live near the dried creek. He’d built a one room shack, asking nobody for nothing.
Joe crossed the threshold and stopped. The shack was dark but neat. It held a cot, a desk with an oil lamp and unlined paper filled with a wide, open scrawl. A spent fire still glowed in the hearth. Joe felt lightheaded. Other than the draw on the fireplace, there wasn’t any circulation. Planks were nailed across the windows. Anything could happen here—no one need ever know.
“Emmaline defended you this morning,” Joe said.
“I don’t need her.”
“You used to.”
Gabe shrugged. “I needed a lot of things before the war.”
Joe stared at Gabe, his arms limp, his shoulders rounded like somebody had battered his spine. “I don’t understand you, man.”
Smiling, Gabe shrugged slightly, his palms upturned.
Joe was reminded of his brother. At thirteen, Joe had discovered Henry was going to war. For weeks, he’d badgered his brother, “Why do you have to go?” Henry had given him an odd smile, shrugged, palms upraised. Joe remembered the train station:
Hundreds of people—Negro and white—milling about, waving, shouting, murmuring, “Good-bye.” Men and women kissed. Children cried. The sky was pink and cloudless.
Everyone in the family, except Father, came to say good-bye. But Henry was nowhere to be seen. As the conductor shouted, “All aboard,” Joe had the wild idea Henry had deserted. When he caught sight of his brother lurching out of a cab, his head thrown back in laughter, Joe shouted, “Why do you have to go?”
Gabe shadowed Henry, helping him to stand as he shook hands with Tyler and hugged his adoring sisters and mother. Both men reeked of gin. Henry kept boasting, “We’ve been to bed but didn’t sleep. Ain’t that right, Gabe? Been servicing our country. Servicing all the women.”
Gabe shook him, muttering “Shut up.” But Henry didn’t care about offending his family. Emmaline glared at Gabe.
When the whistle shrilled, Gabe turned Henry toward the train. Watching them, Gabe’s hand on the small of Henry’s back, Joe felt rage. Felt the difference between being thirteen and twenty-two. Gabe acted more like Henry’s brother than he.
He yelled, “Why do you have to go?”
Gabe and Henry vanished inside the rear car overflowing with Negro servicemen, eager and anxious for war.
The train began moving, vibrating the platform. Chug. The final: “All aboard.” Steel clacking. Chug. Chug. The psst of steam. Joe cried, feeling abandoned.
Through windows, he saw his brother running down the coach aisles. Joe started running too, tasting steam, trying to catch the moving train.
Henry stood on the steps between cars, shouting.
“What? Henry! What?”
Henry’s face contorted, sound bellowing out of him. But Joe couldn’t hear his words.
His brother slouched against the rail.
Joe kept running: his lungs aching, gasping for air. He was almost there. Almost. Almost able to reach the rail and hurl himself aboard the train.
His brother’s mouth moved and Joe caught snatches of sound beneath the roar of steam, the clank of metal. Vowels floated back to him. The train gushed steam again. His brother disappeared in the mist.
“Hen—ry!” Knees buckling, falling, pressing against the pain in his side, Joe knew his brother wouldn’t return.
“Henry was a good soldier,” said Gabe.
Gabe’s fingers pressed against Joe’s shoulders. Joe knew he was supposed to feel comfort. But he didn’t. He felt hot and ill again.
“How’d he die?
“Like a man. He went down hand-to-hand.” Gabe sunk into his chair. “Hand-to-hand.”
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“You saw him die?”
Gabe nodded. Pain furrowed across his forehead. He closed his eyes and swallowed. “He told me to look out for you. Help you find Lena’s bones. Told me to kiss his mother.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Tell you what? Tell you I saw him die?” Gabe sprang from the chair, pummeling his fingers into Joe’s chest. “Tell you I saw blood spilling out his mouth like dirty water. Saw him trying to squeeze his intestines back inside. He was screaming my name. Hollering for his momma. Is that what you wanted me to tell you? Should I tell you I felt his spirit sifting through my hands? Felt his slippery insides? Felt his soul?”
Joe’s back pressed against the plaster wall. He felt sick, horrified.
“Is that what I should tell you?” Gabe’s fingers poked deep in Joe’s abdomen.
“Don’t do that, man.”
“Don’t do what? This.” Gabe poked again. “This. This.”
Joe shoved him.
Gabe pushed against Joe’s chest so hard he couldn’t breathe.
Joe punched him.
Gabe staggered, then lunged and the two fell to the floor in a fierce grip, rolling on the dirt. Joe flailed wildly.
“That’s right. Hand-to-hand. That’s right.”
Joe didn’t understand why they were fighting. Gabe was on Joe’s back, pinning his arms, pummeling his face into the dirt like they were old enemies instead of friends, nearly brothers. Joe roared, using his legs as leverage to topple Gabe. Straddling him, Joe struck Gabe’s face, beating back the smile, the mocking gaze, the guttural encouragement, “That’s right. Hand-to-hand.”
It was crazy—all of it—his dreams, his brother dead. A spray of blood washed across his face. When had Gabe stopped fighting? Gabe’s nose was draining red and his left eye was swelling, discoloring. Joe’s hands were bruised and bleeding. Forcing back his anger, fists still clenched, Joe rolled off Gabe’s chest.
Gabe got up and found a clean rag and held it to his nose, head thrown back. “You fight mean, little brother. I thought that magic shit had made you soft.”
“How’d he die, Gabe? I want to know everything. How’d he get hit? Where? How’d it happen?”
Gabe looked at him, arrested. “What could I possibly tell you that you don’t already know? I thought you knew everything. How to do magic. How to beat back the white man.”
“Stop it, Gabe.”
Gabe cocked his head and squatted, the bloody rag dangling between his legs. Joe faced him, cross-legged, on the dirt.
“You know all about me, don’t you?” asked Gabe.
Puzzled, Joe heard a soft threat behind the words. “No,” he said carefully. “But I think I can guess.”
“Do tell.”
“I’m your friend, Gabe.”
Gabe waved his hand, dismissive. “What do you know?” he asked softly.
Joe felt small again. He didn’t want to be fighting Gab
e. “I already figured Henry was hurt bad. That’s why the closed coffin. I figured you told them government people to write that, knowing how vain Henry was about his looks. How upset Mother would be.”
Gabe had his knife out, digging a hole. Joe looked at the small well Gabe was making—sloping and deep in the center.
“I know war must be bad. Terrible things must happen. All you needed was to tell Mother Henry was calling for her. That’s all. But you never said a word. We—I wanted to know it wasn’t a lie.”
Joe swallowed, staring at the triangle of dirt between Gabe’s legs. “I was only fourteen. I kept expecting the coffin to open and I was mad ’cause it wouldn’t. I was mad at you. Mad you had nothing to say. You wouldn’t even praise Henry. So I figured it was all a lie. Someone else in the coffin. Henry wasn’t dead. There was some trick like Houdini’s boxes. All I had to do was open the coffin, find the magic key—” He shook his head. “I tried it when folks were asleep. I went down to the viewing room and tried to pry open the coffin. Prove to everybody that Henry had disappeared. He wasn’t dead.”
Joe remembered the haunting sounds of wood beneath his feet, moths beating at the window, and his own ragged breath. He’d stared at the gleaming coffin until dawn. He’d sworn he’d find a way to bring his brother back—some magic, some trick. He’d make his brother reappear.
Joe looked up, realizing Gabe was staring at him.
“I’ve grown up now. I realize Henry’s dead. I ain’t crazy. But we all would’ve believed it better if you’d been the one to tell us, Gabe. A government letter don’t mean nothing.”
Joe let his head thump against the wall. “No one speaks of Henry anymore. Father won’t allow it. It’s like he never was.”
Joe feared he’d always be less than his brother packed in a coffin under an avalanche of dirt. He needed a man’s recognition to find his place in the world. Houdini helped. Staring at his eyes could make Joe believe in anything, believe in himself. He could never see himself in his father’s eyes. He simply disappeared. Joe looked but he couldn’t find his reflection in Gabe’s blood swelling eye.
Magic City Page 5