Mary released the lever: The exterior doors, heavy and impenetrable, started to close. “Mary!”
Men behind Allen started buzzing, “Look at that. Did you see that?”
“A nigger. Riding the elevator.”
“I’ll be damned.”
Allen couldn’t see Mary. It was as though she were off-stage and the Negro, smiling, impressive, had moved center stage as the outer doors, like heavy velvet, squeezed shut.
The pulleys lurched into motion.
The lobby seemed suddenly crowded as men, heads uplifted, stood before the elevator doors, watching the arrow move from L to 2 to 3. The tenor of the lobby changed. Like a timepiece wound too tight, like the darkening of lights before the villain’s arrival. 4, 5, 6.
Allen surveyed the uplifted faces: jowled, angular faces. Some had broad cheekbones, others barely had chins. Eyes, blue and brown. Thick-haired men, balding men, some with sandy-colored curls. Lips stretched thin, some puffed, lips gleaming with saliva from their tongues. All of their faces, white as the moon—all of them marking the slow course of the elevator rising. 8, 9.
Aside, to the far right, the shoeshine was muttering, “He could’ve peed in the alley, Gabe. Damn fool.” A Negro in a battered army coat said something Allen didn’t catch.
10, 11. Washrooms for whites were on every floor; “coloreds only” was on the fourteenth. 12. No 13. Allen exhaled. He’d been holding his breath. The Negro boy would get off. Mary would come down. He’d convince her to quit work for the day and have dinner. He smiled. A small tempest—Tulsans getting riled because a Negro took an elevator to relieve himself.
14. The arrow hadn’t moved. 14.
“What’s she doing? Waiting for the nigger to piss?” Several men laughed.
Allen wanted to curse at them. He pressed the call button. “Come on down, Mary,” he whispered. “Come on down.” He pressed his ear against the metal doors; he heard nothing. Then he heard the clang of the gilded gates shutting. “She’s coming down,” he shouted to no one. “She’s coming down.” The pulleys whined into action again. 12. He smiled. 11, 10. He pressed the call button repeatedly, hoping to hurry the descent. 9, 8, 7. The elevator stopped. 6.
A woman screamed.
“Mary,” Allen shouted. Fear gripped him. He pounded on the doors. “Mary.”
A horrifying wail spiraled down the shaft. He remembered once making such a sound when he’d seen Reubens’ charred remains. “Mary.” He slammed his fist on the elevator doors, repeatedly pressing the call button, shouting, “Mary, Mary,” counterpointing the keening above.
“Stairs. Somebody take the stairs.”
Yes, thought Allen, but before he turned, the elevator groaned into motion. The wail had ceased and the lobby was quiet, all heads upturned, listening anxiously for sounds.
A man whispered, “She ain’t dead, is she?”
4, 3, 2, L. The engine and pulleys stilled.
Allen was clawing, trying to open the elevator doors. Fingertips bruised and pinched, he cracked the door. The boy’s back was to him. He was leaning over Mary, who lay sprawled on the floor. Grunting, Allen shoved the door wide.
“What have you done, nigger?” Outraged, Allen grabbed him. “What the hell have you done?”
“Sir, she—”
Allen saw the change: the split second in which the boy registered terror.
The crowd surged forward. “Nigger, you’re supposed to take the stairs.”
“Get away from that white woman.”
Allen almost toppled from the press of bodies, the hands clawing at the Negro. He couldn’t see faces. Only legs and feet jostling forward and, in the far corner, a pair of handcuffs which had fallen from the Negro’s pocket.
Then he heard a great roar followed by a powerful thrusting of hands, feet. Maddened, emboldened, the Negro boy fought his way outside the elevator. Startled, the crowd in the lobby parted before the fury. “Joe,” he heard someone shout. “Joe!”
The Negro ran, dodging hands, veering left, right, heading for the revolving doors.
“He’s escaping. Get him,” someone bellowed, mobilizing the well-dressed men. They were after him, sliding across the wide marble lobby, a raucous crowd tracking down a single man.
Allen didn’t think the boy would make it. At the last minute, the Negro in the army coat came from nowhere and threw himself into the oncoming crowd. Seconds. He slowed the crowd by seconds. Some kicked and punched him. Others tripped over him. It was enough. The escaping Negro was out the door. The glass was spinning. The crowd’s bulk didn’t fit through the revolving door. More delay. A few precious seconds.
Allen felt like cheering, thinking the Negro just might make it—just might escape. Immediately, he felt guilty. He bent his mouth to Mary’s ear.
“Mary. It’s Al,” he whispered. She stirred and Allen forgot about the drama outside the Ambrose Building, on the streets of Tulsa.
He concentrated on awakening his beauty with a kiss.
9
Joe spun blindly through the revolving glass door, stumbled, and fell onto the sidewalk, rolling into the legs of a man carrying a suitcase. The suitcase skittered into the gutter, popped open, spilling shirts, ties, a shaving kit, and postcards. Joe lay face down on the pavement, blood dripping from his lip. He could hear the slap-slap of the revolving door, see cards of Tulsa’s skyscrapers, oil rigs, gingerbread homes, and herding cowboys, fluttering to the ground. Joe knew he was as good as dead.
“Son of a bitch.” The man was bending over him, shaking his fist, cursing, “Nigger, look what you’ve done.”
They’d take him now. He was good as dead. His legs felt weighted; he was sinking. “Run, Joe, run.” Was it his voice or Henry’s?
“Look what you done, nigger.” Stubby hands grabbed his collar.
“You gotta run, Joe. Escape.”
He might be as good as dead, but they had to catch him first.
“Who do you think you are, nigger?”
Scrambling up, Joe shoved the irate man and ran. Ran as if the devil was tracking him—ran, breathless, his heart racing, his mouth soured by fear. “Henry!” he called, thinking he might sight his brother. “Henry!”
He reached an alleyway just as an angry crowd exploded from the Ambrose. “Nigger took him a white woman!”
Joe nearly tripped as he skated around the corner into the alley.
“Catch him.”
“There he goes!”
Joe ran harder, dodging a delivery van coming up the alley, seeing the driver’s surprised expression, just managing to slip between the van and the building’s brick wall. The van’s brakes squealed as he flew down another alley.
A song started running through his head:
Run, nigger, run
The paterrollers come.
Run, nigger, run.
The paterrollers come.
Before his stroke, Tyler would circle the garden, singing: “Run, nigger, run. The paterrollers come.” Generations of slaves had escaped from the white man. Running from patrols of men and dogs. Tyler had done it—run through cotton fields, swamps, just like Joe was running. His shadow stretched like tar; clouds glowed yellow. Joe remembered celebrating Juneteenth, marching behind Tyler in the yard, chanting, “Run, nigger, run. Run, nigger, run.” Just ten, his voice mimicked Tyler’s bass:
Dis nigger run, he run his best,
Stuck his head in a hornet’s nest,
Jumped de fence and run fru de paster;
white man run, but nigger run faster.
Father had stripped his pants and beat him with his belt.
Joe exited the alley onto Main, drawing stares from pedestrians as he ran past the courthouse. He ran in the street, outpacing a carriage and its horse. He skirted round cars. Dodged produce trucks. Let himself fly.
“Over there. He’s over there. Near the courthouse.”
Joe looked back, seeing shadows of men pointing, hearing a steady pounding, feeling tremors beneath his feet. A car horn
blared. “Damn nigger. Get out the way.”
He cut across Courthouse Square leaping over a bench, frightening a Negro woman feeding crackers to a white baby. He flew over the grass, smacking his hand against the oak trunks, darting left, right. He ran past fashionable women, avoiding any men. Even old men resting their joints on benches. The wind carried voices: “What’s that nigger doing running?”
He’d been taught to fear this moment. Never be a colored boy hunted. Never have cause to run from a white man.
“You are Joseph David Samuels,” Father hollered between belt swings. “No paterrollers here.” Slap. “You are…” Slap. “Joseph David Samuels.” Slap. Slap. Welts grew on his back.
Joseph David Samuels. Like his brother was Henry Martin Samuels. They were supposed to be safe. Safe because they weren’t ordinary colored boys. They were Douglass Abraham Samuels’ sons.
Joe laughed harshly, his breath exploding in bursts. His side ached. What would Father think now? His brother dead, killed by pale-faced Germans, and him running for his life.
Suddenly Joe wasn’t afraid. Being hunted, running like Tyler had, like so many others had from slavery, released him from his dread.
Joe stumbled, his hand scraped the ground. “Run,” he told himself. “Run.”
Maybe Henry had felt this too, the sheer exhilaration of knowing there was nothing left to dread. Joe felt free.
He cut left at the Square’s edge, heading northeast, away from the business district, toward Greenwood. He breathed, deep and even. He could feel the pain in his side easing. He could do this. Relax. Breathe like Houdini. He felt powerful, strong.
He’d escaped the Ambrose Building, outrun the crowd. He’d escape from Tulsa. Nothing bound him now. Not even his father.
His gait stretched. Inhale. Exhale. His arms swung free and easy. He was the center of a blur of motion. He left the main roads, avoiding Greenwood and Archer, cutting across the railroad tracks, down Tulsa’s back alleys. He was heading home.
Sweat dusted his neck and back.
He wanted to tell Tyler he’d heard the paterrollers. He’d heard: “Run, nigger, run.” And he’d done it. He’d done it good. He’d outrun the paterrollers. He’d outraced them all.
The sky was burnt orange. Day was nearly done. He ran skillfully, dodging clotheslines, vaulting fences, his breath roaring like surf in his ears.
10
“Let me through. Coming through.” Sheriff Clay elbowed his way inside the crowded elevator. The external doors were solid but the interior resembled a gaudy cage. Ambrose, the building’s owner, called his elevator girls canaries. Clay had always thought him crazy.
Bates, the building’s manager, thick-jowled, gut shaking like jelly, tapped his nails incessantly against the bars. Clay guessed Bates was already worried about losing his job.
A brown-haired girl lay flat on the cage floor. Another girl, Louise embroidered on her pocket, was trying to use smelling salts but a white-haired man blocked her, not budging from his position, hunched over the unconscious girl.
Several men—too old to chase the colored—lingered just outside the steel doors. Heads cocked, they were peering at the girl on the floor. Clay realized they were staring at the girl’s crotch. Her gray skirt was hitched to her thighs. Pushing to the front, Clay saw what the men were seeing—wisps of hair, pink thighs. Underpants gone.
Clay flushed. He said, more harshly than he intended, “Is she dead?”
Shocked, the man turned, his brows pinching upward. “No.”
Recognizing Allen Thornton, Clay muttered, “Damn.” His luck—a colored on the run and Albino Allen hovering over the woman like she was some baby bird. Allen didn’t know anything about how Tulsa worked.
Clay shook his head. Ambrose would have a fit. He was probably already strutting like a peacock, screaming about his reputation and honor. Everybody knew Ambrose plowed a different prostitute every night. Nonetheless, Ambrose and his oil men friends hand picked the railroad and school boards, even the county sheriff. Ambrose paid him to keep the peace.
Clay bent, laying his jacket over the woman’s legs. Mary, her pocket said.
“Does anybody know what happened?”
“They were alone in the elevator,” said Bates, his face pained as if “alone” explained everything. A colored man, a white woman. Together. In Tulsa.
“So no one knows what happened,” said Clay, irked by Bates.
“Just the nigger and her.”
“Shit,” muttered Clay, wondering how he’d ended up here. Clay’s job was to harass loiterers, keep the town respectable by jailing drunks and any coloreds who weren’t shining shoes or cleaning houses in Tulsa. And, as he was often reminded, to look the other way when the KKK did its haul. The worst had been the lynching of David Reubens. Ambrose told him to take a day off. To his shame, he’d gone hunting in the hills.
“Can’t this wait?” asked Allen. “She needs care.”
Clay remembered Allen coming to the jail after Reubens’ lynching and cursing him. Overturning chairs, Allen had bellowed repeatedly, “I demand justice. You know damn well who did it.” Clay had his deputies throw him out and he’d listened to them scuffling, battering Allen in the back alley, before letting him go. He hadn’t forgiven himself for that either.
“You know her?”
“Yes.” Allen crouched back on his heels.
“Bring her ’round,” said Clay.
Louise, flashing a triumphant glance at Allen, pressed the vial under Mary’s nose.
Mary woke up howling. Everyone fell back; the sound redoubled in the tight space. Louise retreated, pressing her salts to her bosom. Bates slammed his fist into his palm. The howl crescendoed, flying out through the lobby. Clay gritted his teeth. He remembered such screams from the war, remembered himself howling like a fiend when a man’s head landed in his lap.
An old man murmured, “Nigger better run. Better run good.”
“Hush.” Mary gulped air. “Hush.” She covered her mouth with her hands.
“Mary—” Allen reached for her.
“Let go. Let go my hands.” She scooted backward, her hands striking the air, her eyes wide and staring. “Please. Please let me go.”
“Mary—” Allen’s arms snaked around her.
“Let go,” she screamed. “Let me go.” She clung to the bars, sobbing.
“Let her go,” said Clay.
Allen flinched. “She’s upset, can’t you see that? She thinks I’m—”
“I’d feel the same way if a colored touched me,” said Louise. “Wouldn’t trust any man.”
Arms across her abdomen, her brow touching her knees, Mary whimpered, “Ma. Please, Ma.”
Clay felt sorry for her. There were scratches on Mary’s legs and hands. Bruises on her wrists. Bring the nigger in. Case solved. Simple. Mud speckled her hem. Tangled hair curtained her face. Her shoe was missing its heel. Clay knew nothing was simple. He stooped low.
Allen was cooing, “Mary, Mary.” She wrestled away her hands. “Let go my hands. I’m not beautiful. I’m not.”
“It’s a damn shame,” said Louise.
Mary sobbed harder. Clay reached forward and slapped her.
Allen swore. “There’s no need to hit her. She’s been through enough.”
“She’s hysterical,” said Clay. “I need her to talk.”
Mary hiccuped, “Hush.”
“I’ll take care of her,” said Allen.
Ignoring him, Clay moved close to Mary. “There’s a boy running for his life. Can you tell me anything?”
“He touched you, didn’t he? Took your panties and touched you,” said one of the old men.
Mary bit her lip.
“I need you to answer me, ma’am.”
“A proper woman don’t talk about such things,” said Louise, pulling at her collar.
Clay studied Mary. She must be in shock, he thought. She looked at him strangely, lines furrowing her plain face.
“We’ve never h
ad anything like this before,” said Bates. “Niggers always take the stairs. He should’ve been on the stairs.”
“How long were they together?” asked Clay, looking up at Bates.
“Long enough,” said Bates.
“Two minutes. Maybe four,” said Allen. “Not long enough—”
“Yes?”
Allen shook his head.
Whimpering, Mary collapsed against Allen. Clay thought it curious that Allen buried his face in the girl’s hair. Kissed her dull strands. Clay shrugged. He didn’t care who aroused Allen’s interests, even a vacant-eyed girl. Everybody had their tastes: Ambrose for big-bosomed girls; his friend, Gainey, wanted them black. Colored men supposedly liked them light-skinned or white.
Clay could see Miss Louise’s toes, Bates’ perfectly shined shoes, Mary’s bruised knees. The elevator was hot. Airless. Maybe six by four, if that. Clay looked up. A minichandelier dangling from the apex cast slivers of light.
Why take a woman here? A cage within a box. The chute was lined with mirrors. When the “bird cage” rose, everyone got to see themselves behind gilded bars. Ambrose’s fancy. Images multiplied like fun house mirrors. A white man would be mad to rape a girl here. A colored would have to be desperate to die.
Clay stood. “I can think of smarter places for a rape.”
“Nigger’s got to pay,” said Bates.
“Are you telling me my job?”
“You’re wasting time.” Bates squinted. “Ambrose won’t like it.”
“The girl hasn’t accused anybody.”
“We all saw it, didn’t we?” Bates said, his hand sweeping, taking in the nodding, elderly men who on ordinary days rode the elevator to offices where they bartered oil rights, managed trust accounts, and discussed wills.
“What did you see?” asked Clay, softly. “I mean, that you can testify to? Can you see past events? Can you see through steel?” He stared the men down. Glances shifted, feet shuffled. Funny fools, salivating at the thought of sex. “I’m in charge of this investigation.”
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