Magic City

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  Allen tugged his beard. “The sheriff’s handling it.”

  “How’d he find out? Did Pa tell him? No, it must’ve been Jody.”

  “Jody who?” Allen asked. The clocks rang 8:45, a disorderly series of chimes and bells. “Who are you talking about?”

  “My brother,” she scooted forward on the cot. “He must’ve told the sheriff about Dell.”

  “Dell?”

  “Our farm hand. He raped me. This morning.”

  “But the young man, the Negro boy—”

  Mary blinked. What was Al talking about?

  “The sheriff went after the Negro boy.”

  “What boy?”

  “The one in the elevator with you. Today. This afternoon. Joe Samuels.”

  “Joe?” she said dully.

  “Don’t you remember? My God, Mary.” Allen stumbled up, began pacing, kneading his forehead, repeating, “My God.”

  “Stop it, Al. You’re scaring me.”

  Allen staggered through the curtains into his shop. Mary ran after him.

  “Mary, did the Negro, Joe Samuels, hurt you? Touch you? Tell me the truth, Mary.”

  “No.”

  “God damn,” he yelled.

  Mary flinched.

  “Sheriff’s got him in the jail.” Allen collapsed on his stool. “I didn’t mean to yell, Mary. But a man’s life—” He licked his lips. “I yelled at him. Called him nigger. I never say that word. But I was afraid—” He paused, looking up, “Maybe you can’t remember. What happened in the elevator, I mean. People do that. They forget horrible things all the time.”

  “No, I remember. He frightened me. But he didn’t touch me. Didn’t hurt me at all.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No colored has ever touched me.”

  “Only—Dell?—touched you?”

  “Yes.”

  Allen rose, his arms wide, offering comfort. Mary hesitated, then awkwardly leaned into his embrace. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had just held her. Faces pressed side to side, she could see Al’s work bench. Her broken shoe lay amid a pile of brass wire and gold chains.

  “Then what happened in the elevator?”

  Mary closed her eyes.

  Allen held tight. “They’ll ask.”

  “He asked me about magic. Ghosts. Asked me if I knew what it felt like to die.”

  “He threatened you?” Allen pulled back, searching her face.

  “No. He was asking me.” She bit her lip, puzzling. “I think he thought I might help.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “You were screaming, Mary.”

  “Not about Joe. Not about him. I don’t believe he’d harm me any more than you would.”

  “Mary,” he whispered. “Mary.”

  Trembling, she buried her face in her hands. “Please hold me again.” He did.

  She remembered Joe standing like a shadow behind her. She remembered pushing the levers to make them go up, seeing them both reflected in the mirrors, thinking it strange a colored was riding the elevator, that he seemed as sad as her.

  “They’ll kill him, won’t they?”

  “If they haven’t already,” said Allen.

  Chimes sounded. Clock doors opened—red-crested, blue-bellied, brown birds jutted out, crying “cuckoo.” Nine times. The day was almost gone. The rhythmic ticking grew louder; Mary thought of all the time lost in her life. “Let’s go see the sheriff,” she said, putting on her broken shoe.

  She should’ve screamed when Dell had raped her.

  14

  Like he knew Houdini would, Joe measured out his cell three times. Three times he walked heel to toe. Three times, ceiling to floor, he ran his hands over bumpy concrete walls, slid them down cool metal bars. There was no mirror to see himself in, only a sink and a porcelain bowl filled with somebody’s urine. He took apart his bunk, lifted the mattress, scraped his fingers across the metal slats. Joe shook the sheets until they billowed like waves. Three times he glanced out the window at the seventy-foot drop to Courthouse Square. Tugging the window bars, he tested each for weakness. Three times he did everything. Three times he took calming breaths.

  They had dressed him in overalls. No pockets. No belt. Only buttons down his chest and on his fly. They’d taken away his socks, but left him his shoes (no laces), his deck of cards.

  The cell across from his was empty. He listened for other men—but heard no one.

  Joe went back to the window. The half moon was rising. He studied the square below; white folding chairs encircled a speaker’s platform. Lamplights glowed yellow; fireflies hovered among oaks; lovers strolled. A woman laughed. He heard a piano, clear tones rising beyond the park. Chopin. His mother loved the passionate, frenzied measures. Would she miss him at dinner? Row after row of tiny American flags were stuck in the earth. Greenwood folk would be home from work. Curfew was ten o’clock. He wondered if he was the only Negro left in Tulsa.

  White men were going to burn him alive.

  To the left, across the park, stood the Ambrose Building. He was nearly right back where he’d started running.

  Joe felt helpless. He wanted to howl, bray at the moon. He wanted to be at his attic window, staring across rooftops, knowing Miss Lu was mixing cinnamon and apples for her pies, and Charlie T. was rocking tirelessly on his porch, studying Orion. He wanted to see the fenced-in plots of lawn and backyard gardens of tomatoes, snap beans, and yams. He wanted to hear mothers calling for their children, see circles of light appear then disappear in houses, as families bedded down until morning. When blue-black darkness blanketed the town, he sometimes heard Lying Man’s harmonica wailing from his back room. Or he heard Hildy fixing tea in the kitchen, knowing she was up late reading about Moses leading his people to the River Jordan.

  Longing pierced Joe. He suddenly feared Greenwood no longer existed, that it wasn’t just three miles down the road. He’d conjured it up. He closed his eyes, feeling a rattling in his bones.

  There’d never be enough water to save him.

  He thought of all the tricks Houdini had done in water: chained upside down in a water tank; jumping handcuffed off bridges; being lowered into the depths in a locked box.

  Maybe his brother’s ghost had come to watch him die. He wouldn’t die a soldier. He wouldn’t be anybody’s hero.

  Joe swallowed his fear and, with his tongue, pushed out the thin metal pick he’d concealed in his mouth, gripping it between his teeth.

  Sheriff Clay rounded the corner, carrying a tray. “Hungry?”

  Joe waved his hand in front of his face. Lodging the lock pick between his two middle fingers, he slid it onto the window ledge.

  “Chicken and biscuits.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Clay shrugged and turned away, heading back to the front office.

  “Aren’t you going to interrogate me?” called Joe. “Ask questions?”

  “Should I?” Clay stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  Joe shrugged. He lifted his cards from the bed, shuffling them rapidly before cutting the deck. “Pick a card.”

  Clay set the dinner tray on the floor. “I know this trick.”

  Joe stuck his hands, holding the fan of cards, between the bars.

  Clay took one. “Now you’re going to tell me what I’ve picked. That’s the trick. Guess my card.”

  “No. Put it back in the deck,” said Joe.

  Clay slid the card into the middle of the pack.

  Joe handed him the deck. “Shuffle.” Clay did.

  Joe smiled. “Find your card.”

  Clay flipped through the cards. “Queen of diamonds. Two of diamonds. Joker. Ace of spades, seven clubs, three of hearts, eight of hearts.” On and on, he kept searching, his fingers shifting through the deck. “It’s gone. Flown the coop. How’d you do that?”

  Joe smiled grimly. Another trick he’d pulled off, but, so what? Here he was, caught. His dream seemed more and more l
ikely to come true.

  Joe, suddenly tired, laid on the bunk. Sweat beaded his forehead.

  “Are you sure you’re not hungry?”

  Joe didn’t answer.

  “You can’t be more than—what? Eighteen?”

  “Come Wednesday.” Joe wondered if the sheriff ever had nightmares.

  “Pretty young to be jailed for a capital offense.” Clay leaned into the bars, “You’re the only one on this row. Thieves, brawlers, drunks are jailed around the corner. You know what a capital offense is, don’t you?”

  Joe thought the sheriff looked like a prisoner: sad-eyed, his fists wrapped tightly about the bars.

  “Has my father telephoned?”

  Clay nodded. “I expect he’ll be here soon. He said he’d talk with Ambrose first.”

  Joe flipped onto his stomach, hugging the bed’s railing. “I’m in trouble,” he said dully.

  “Did you do it?”

  Joe looked up, guileless. “Can I have the chicken, sheriff? Thigh with gravy?”

  Clay cocked his head. He stuffed the cards in his shirt pocket, picked up the tray, and unlocked the cell. Joe watched him move forward slowly. Watched him balance the tray with his left hand, drop the key into his pants pocket with his right.

  Joe sat up. Wasn’t the sheriff worried he’d knock him down? Dash past him? Fly through the door, clear out of Tulsa?

  “I’ve got leg. Thigh. Gravy on the potatoes. Corn. Black coffee.” Clay placed the tray on the edge of the bed. He lifted his baton from beside the spoon. He slapped it into his palm, before slipping it inside his belt. “Precautions never hurt.”

  Joe folded his hands in his lap.

  Clay walked to the cell door. “The handcuffs in the elevator?” He slammed the door shut, locked it. “Were they a magic trick?”

  Joe didn’t answer. The sheriff was just another white man looking to hang him.

  “Why’d you frighten her?”

  “Did she say I did?”

  “Mary Keane will speak in court.”

  “That’s her name? Mary Keane? It’s a pretty name.” Joe sipped the coffee, his eyes glanced at the window ledge, hoping the sheriff couldn’t see his lock pick.

  Clay cleared his throat. “If you have something to say, you should say it now. I might not be able to help you later.”

  Joe stared at the sheriff. “Were you ever a paterroller?”

  “A what?”

  “Slave catcher.”

  “There haven’t been slaves in fifty years.”

  “Nigger catcher, then?”

  “Only if they’ve done something wrong.”

  “Ever make mistakes?”

  “I try not to.”

  Joe nodded. “One of your deputies—the one with the straw hair—said he knew what to do with the baton. Said he knew exactly where to put it.”

  “Lucas.” Clay rubbed his eyes. “He means what he says too. He hates coloreds. Or unionizers. Drunks. Anyone who looks at him too long. Or doesn’t look at him long enough. Lucas came with the job. He’s been deputy longer than anybody’s been sheriff.” Clay studied the motionless Joe. He started to speak, then shook his head, saying instead, “Someone will be back for your tray later.”

  “Sheriff,” Joe called. “Can I have my cards back?”

  “Sure,” said Clay, waving the deck through the bars. As Joe reached for them, Clay jerked the cards out of reach. “Remember the joke you told me? Last week, was it?”

  “I remember. You laughed hard. I remember you like Markam’s Black Paste too. Light. Not too heavy.”

  Clay flushed and said sharply, “You understand the handcuffs, your clothes, money are evidence. A white woman’s word counts for a great deal. You understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. I thought you might.” Clay let go of the cards.

  “Good-bye, sheriff.”

  Clay paused. “You mean good night. We’ll both be here in the morning.”

  “Sure, sheriff.” Joe blew across the top of his deck. An ace of spades lifted, fluttering in mid-air.

  “Well, well, well. You have finally exceeded all my expectations.”

  Joe turned to see his father, dressed in a three-piece suit, shoes waxed to a bright glaze, standing hat in hand like a rich John Henry capable of plowing through a mountainside.

  “I can let you inside.” Sully, pimple-faced and thin, swung his keys. “Might be more comfortable.”

  “I’ll not be placed inside a cell for any reason.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sully said, then bristled, realizing he’d said “sir” to a colored. He walked quickly down the hall.

  Joe tried to appear relaxed as his father glared.

  “Did you think white pussy was going to make you manly?”

  “That’s crude, Father.”

  “This is crude business. I’ve spoken with Ambrose. It was most inconvenient. For him and for me.”

  “That cost you, didn’t it?”

  “I never guessed I’d have to beg for my son’s life.”

  “At least not this one.”

  “No. I never thought you’d do anything out of the ordinary.”

  Joe inched toward his father.

  “Your brother, for all his faults, was the better man. He kept his randiness at home. When there were mistakes—”

  “What mistakes?”

  “A few dollars always took care of it—”

  “What are you talking about? Henry’s been dead four years and you’re talking about mistakes. What mistakes?” Joe gripped the bars.

  “Sometimes Henry slipped in the back door when a husband left by the front. Sometimes he drank too much. Hit a man too hard. But he was never fool enough to take a white woman.”

  “You believe I did?”

  “That’s what Gabe told me.”

  “Gabe would never say that.” Joe turned from his father. “And I don’t believe Henry hurt anybody.”

  “You don’t have to believe it. It didn’t cost you anything. I paid for Henry’s troubles. But I don’t have enough money to undo what you have done today.”

  “That bothers you, doesn’t it?” he said angrily.

  “You were always dreaming. Ignoring what I had to offer. A throwback to Tyler. Illiterate, dreaming Tyler. Painting pictures when there’s gold to be made in land.”

  “He’s your father. You talk like he’s nothing.”

  “He was—is—a man without vision.”

  “What was Henry’s vision?”

  “He was coming round to it,” his father responded warily.

  “So he went to war.”

  “To serve his country.”

  “To get away from you,” Joe hollered.

  “I will not be disrespected, Joe.”

  Joe stared at his father’s well-shined shoes. “You should’ve taken me fishing.”

  “Fishing?”

  “Other fathers took their sons fishing.”

  “I was hoping you could buy the damn pond. I was building a future for you and your brother that most whites would envy. A business. A house. Education.”

  Joe shook his head.

  “I was dreaming of having a son in business with me. If your magic could’ve made gold, I might’ve taken you fishing. You might’ve been useful.”

  Joe slumped against the bars. “So hard, Father. Why’ve you got to be so hard?”

  “It’s a hard world. If you want to be a man, I’ll treat you like one. But I will not hide my feelings. I will not hide the truth. We are one generation from slavery. The only thing the white man respects is money. Money and property. Tyler would’ve turned his land into wheat. I made gold. I provided for the family. And whether you admit it or not, everything you have, wear, eat—I paid for. Even your feelings. You want to rebel by shining shoes? Fine.” He paused to catch his breath. “But without the food and bed I give you, you’d have a miserable existence. Me and my money make all things possible for you. You’ve never had to survive on your own. Never
had to scrape two dimes together while someone called you ‘nigger.’”

  “You could’ve pretended you loved me. At least when I was a boy, couldn’t you, Father?”

  Joe watched his father clench his hands, shut his eyes.

  “You might not realize this, but I did try. There’s no rule that says a father has to like his son.”

  “Or a son his father.”

  His father opened his eyes. “No. I might not be the best father. But I provide. I take care of my own.”

  “You went to Ambrose.”

  “Yes. I begged for his mercy.” He massaged his chest. “Damn these lungs. You are my son. There were no promises. But it’s possible you may be moved. To another jail. Another county. Ambrose plans to announce for governor tomorrow. So the issue is,” he searched for the word, “sensitive. But I do not think you will be hanged.” He wheezed. “I do not think I can bear two sons dead.” He turned.

  “Father,” Joe called, trying to squeeze his face through bars, trying to see him as he moved around the corner. “Don’t you want to ask if I’m innocent?”

  “It wouldn’t matter if you were. Either way, I’m still going to pay.”

  Joe stumbled to his cot and lay down. The cell seemed smaller. He concentrated on feeling his ribcage expand and contract. His father had never believed in him. Never would.

  Someone turned off the lights in the hall; moonlight bounced off the pale walls. He felt so tired. If he went to sleep, would he dream? Maybe it didn’t matter. He was going to die. His father had never loved him. The darkness lulled, Joe closed his eyes. He slept without dreaming.

  The sound of breathing woke him.

  Henry’s face, thick-browed, dark as loam, was inches above his. He was splendid in his uniform, healthy and strong.

  Crying out, Joe jerked away.

  “Easy, little brother.” Henry sat on the cot’s edge, his arms crossed over his chest.

  Joe knew Henry wasn’t there, yet he was there. He ached with loneliness.

  “You left me.”

  Henry nodded.

  “I don’t need you anymore.”

  “I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need me.”

  “Don’t you say anything. Just shut up.” Inexplicably, Joe wanted to hurt Henry. Plow a fist into his face.