by Londyn Skye
It was not anything that was noticeable to James, but the grimace on his father’s face had softened slightly. Inwardly, Jesse found himself suddenly wishing he could have been the one to bring that sort of genuine smile to his wife’s face in the years before she passed away. That secret desire suddenly had him on the verge of tears as he listened to the story of a child who seemingly possessed a sort of magical gift that was completely absent inside of him. Out of pure luck, James was tap dancing on a very sensitive subject and unknowingly breaking his father down on the inside with his blatant lie.
“So, with my motha’s dream in mind, I picked Lily up from the breeda’s afta’ a few days and brought ’er up to Ohio to audition for William’s orchestra. Mama always used to say Lily was special, and that she was far beyond her years as a pianist. And William absolutely agreed. He was amazed at the things she could do on the piano. He said she’s an anomaly amongst pianists.”
“You s’pect me to believe she was able to play just fine afta’ years of not playin’?” Jesse questioned with a lot less bite in his tone.
“Well, she was a bit rusty and nervous at first, yes. But William helped to get ’er back up to par. Afta’ that, it didn’t take long for her to prove that she was worthy of bein’ a part ‘a his show. I neva’ thought twice about whetha’ I’s willin’ to let ’er do it afta’ that. Figured I could kill two birds with one stone: honor my motha’s dream and make enough money to keep that farm in our family for years to come,” James lied, continuing to play on his father’s emotions. “Nine months lata’, here we are, makin’ a boatload ‘a money for the farm … far more than any damn slave breedin’, I can promise you that. In the last four months alone, I’ve made more than that entire farm has made in four years. So, you can bitch and moan about the decision I made to add Lily to this orchestra, or you can take this money that you know good ‘n well we’re in dire need of. But no matta’ what, don’t put any ‘a the blame on Lily. I forced her to do all ‘a this. ’Specially afta’ I saw how much money she was makin’ for the farm.”
Jesse could not stand how the whole story was making him feel inside. He, therefore, rebuked every word of it. “I don’t believe a goddamn word y’ur sayin’!” he erupted, trying to fight back against the unfamiliar emotions coursing through him. “Y’ur mama wouldn’t keep nothin’ like that from me!”
“She kept it a secret because she was afraid!”
“Afraid ‘a what?!”
“Afraid ‘a what you’d do to ’er for even mentionin’ the idea!”
“She ain’t neva’ had any reason to fear tellin’ me anything!”
“Afta’ the heinous things you did to her, you can’t possibly be delusional enough to believe that bullshit!”
“What the fuck’s that s’pposed to mean?!”
“When are you gonna stop livin’ in denial?! You know good ‘n damn well what I mean!” James replied, eluding to a very dark family secret.
“You always did think you’s betta’ than everybody else!” Jesse barked back, putting a finger in his son’s face. “You just rememba’ that me and you is cut from the same goddamn cloth. You need to learn to swallow the fact that you’ll end up just like me one day!”
“If that was true then mama neva’ would’ve shared her secrets with me. She wanted to share with you how incredible Lily was on the piano, but she knew what you would do to her if she eva’ uttered a word about it to you! So, it was me she entrusted her secret to! She knew I’d be loyal to her! She knew I cared about ’er! She knew I loved her! She knew I’d neva’ hurt her!” James lowered his eyelids. “I doubt she’d eva’ say the same about you,” he said through gritted teeth.
Jesse gritted his teeth too, grabbed the fancy lapels of his son’s suit, pulled his pistol from his holster, and put it against his son’s head for the second time in his life. “I said, you betta’ watch how the fuck you talkin’ to me, boy,” he warned, piercing him with cold eyes. “Say anotha’ word about y’ur mama, and I’ll blow y’ur goddamn head off!”
James never flinched or showed a single sign of fear. “Do it,” he replied calmly at first.
Jesse cocked his pistol.
“DO IT!” James demanded.
“I finally found a couple ‘a deputies!” Tucker shouted as he came trotting up out of breath with two uniformed officers by his side. Upon their arrival, Jesse quickly removed his pistol from his son’s temple and turned around to speak to the deputies.
Despite Jesse’s claim that he was Lily’s owner, he had been denied access into Winter Garden when he failed to produce tickets for the event. While Tucker had gone to look for help at the sheriff’s department, Jesse was lucky enough to run into James.
While his father stood there discussing the matter with Tucker and the deputies, James was quietly reaching into his carriage for his pistol. When he found it, he checked to be sure it was loaded and then slid it into his interior jacket pocket.
Jesse turned around and grabbed James by the throat when he was finished explaining his issue to the deputies. “Where’s Lily’s owna’ship papers?” he impatiently snapped after the deputies had demanded to see them.
James motioned his head toward his carriage. “In the briefcase unda’ the seat.”
Jesse scrounged around under the seats until he found the documents. He opened it and was shocked to find not only Lily’s ownership papers, but the thousands of dollars that James had just taken out of her account in preparation for her trip to the Old World. Jesse could not believe his eyes after seeing row after row of neatly stacked one hundred-dollar bills. He snatched Lily’s papers off the top of all the money and slammed the briefcase shut after silently proclaiming every dollar within it to be his. “I’ll deal with you lata’,” Jesse told James as he handed the deputies Lily’s papers.
After looking over the ownership documents, the deputies went to speak to one of the attendants at the front entrance of Winter Garden. Once the situation was explained, the attendant escorted the deputies, Jesse, James, and Tucker around to the back entrance of the building.
“Where the hell’re you goin’?” James asked his father, in a sudden panic.
“To claim the rest ‘a what’s mine! You got a fuckin’ problem with that?!”
“She’s in the middle of a show!”
Jesse grabbed James by the lapels of his suit coat again. “Does it look like I give a shit!” He shoved him aside afterward.
James lunged at him but the deputies both grabbed him by his arms. “Your fatha’ has the right to do whateva’ he wants with his property,” one of the deputies explained.
James tried to snatch his arms away, but they kept a firm grip on him.
“Don’t make us cuff ya’, boy!”
James did not heed the deputy’s warning and snatched his arms away anyway. He straightened his clothes while still looking coldly at his father.
“Like I said, I’ll be sure to deal with y’ur ass lata’, boy,” Jesse promised before turning and marching in step behind the officers.
Escorted by a nervous staff member, they all made their way into a back entrance of Winter Garden with the authorities keeping watch over all of them with eagle eyes. With the deputies there, James felt like his hands were tied. Even the pistol in his coat pocket was useless for the time being, unless he wanted to find himself facing the death penalty. With no way to get away with using it, his mind continued to race for a solution or even a way to stall. After wracking his brain, though, he simply had to accept that there was nothing more he could do to stop his father from retrieving his fugitive.
When the attendant opened the back doors, the beautiful sound of Lily’s orchestra hit their ears full force. Like a posse of bounty hunters, Jesse, Tucker, and the deputies all shuffled down the back hallway of Winter Garden toward the stage to go and stop the woman responsible for the beautiful music enveloping the theater, as if it were a crime for her to play the elegant melodies. Every second played out in slow motion to James. The sound of Jesse
’s footsteps and his beating heart trumped the classical sounds resonating through the theater. With every step his father made toward the woman he loved, the consequences of putting his six-shooter to use began to matter less and less. When Jesse approached the wings of the stage, James reached into his pocket. His hand gripped the handle of his gun the very second his father laid eyes on Lily, who was lost in the emotion of her final song. To James’s shock, however, it was Tucker who intervened. He grabbed Jesse by the shoulder, stopped him cold in his tracks, and flung him around. “Hey fuck stick! What the hell you think y’ur doin’?!” Tucker demanded to know.
“What the fuck does it look like ya’ little shit?!” Jesse barked.
“We had an agreement!” Tucker bit back. “I said you ain’t gettin’ that bitch one minute before you pay me my goddamn money! I ain’t about to let you snatch ’er and run off until my pockets are ova’flowin’ with green!”
Jesse intimidated Tucker with his eyes for a moment longer and then snatched James by the shirt sleeve. “Show me who’s in charge ‘a this shit,” he demanded. He then pushed him in his back to make him lead the way.
The deputies continued to follow them all to be sure there was not any sort of confrontation while money was exchanged between parties. While explanations were made to the manager of the theater, James stood there in silence wondering what had tipped his father off to his whereabouts. He knew southern newspapers would never have written a story about a successful slave. He had only been gone a little over nine months, which was barely enough time for Lily to be impregnated and give birth, so he felt timing could not have been a factor either. He was not surprised to see that Tucker had led Jesse to the theater but doubted that he would have overextended himself by reaching out to his father as a means of revenge. He felt that would be a stretch for a low-life man who had just gone bankrupt. Feeling completely blindsided and confused by the entire disaster, James continued to watch from the corner of the room as his father’s mouth moved while talking to the event coordinator. His mind was so flushed with worry, however, that it all sounded like gibberish to him. At that point, money was the least of his concerns. He looked at the two deputies who were clearly his father’s allies. His eyes moved down to their waists and noted the pistols hanging there. He glanced over at his father and remembered that his six-shooter had just been tapped against his skull. He was outnumbered by brawn and weapons and there was not a damn thing he could do about it. If he was lucky, he felt he might be able to shoot two of them before the third put a bullet between his eyes. James closed his eyes and saw himself cowardly waving the white flag. When he opened his eyes, his triumphant victor was being handed his winnings in the form of neatly stacked one hundred-dollar bills. Still, their exchange of words failed to make sense in James’s muddled mind; the impending shrills of the woman he loved echoed way too loudly in his head. He closed his eyes again to escape the nightmare in front of him and was bombarded with visions of the devastated look on Lily’s face that he knew was shortly to come. No matter how tightly he closed his eyes, though, he simply could not envision a way to save Lily from the ugly scene that was about to take place in the back halls of Winter Garden.
By the time the confusion about money was cleared up between the theater manager and Jesse, The Dream Symphony had ended. James was heartbroken that he had missed it all but was somewhat relieved that Lily was at least able to complete her show without being humiliated in front of thousands of people. He turned and peered down the hallway when he suddenly heard the post show celebrations beginning. The sound of champagne corks popping, and joyous laughter radiated through the back halls like rays of beautiful sunlight; James got sick to his stomach knowing that his father was about to be like an unexpected tornado that quickly blew away every ounce of warmth and joy permeating the atmosphere. Fortunately, Lily had long since gone into her dressing room on the opposite side of the theater, buying herself a little bit of time before her run-in with the man she was convinced was the devil. While Lily was in the midst of speaking with Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Tucker was in the midst of receiving a portion of her hard-earned money.
Once Jesse finished counting the cash the manager had given him, he took out what he felt Tucker’s help was worth. “Here! Now get the hell on!” he snarled at Tucker, dropping his money on the desk.
Tucker thumbed through his cut. “We agreed on twenty percent! This ain’t enough!”
Jesse grabbed him by the throat. “I said take this and get the hell on, ’fore I stomp y’ur pesky ass into the ground!” He fearlessly made his threat in front of the officers and neither of them bothered to do a thing about it. After less than an hour of dealing with Tucker, both were already annoyed by the way he constantly ran his mouth. They would have been more than happy to turn a blind eye if Jesse decided to make good on his threat.
Tucker never said another word, mainly because his air supply had been cut off. When Jesse released him, he took a deep breath and his money and left without any more complaints.
For nearly a half an hour after receiving his cut, Tucker waited out in the cold of a darkened alleyway near Winter Garden, pacing back and forth. Hiding in the shadows, he watched as hundreds of people filed out of the theater, eyeballing every person that passed, cursing, and shivering at the bitterly cold wind ripping through his overcoat. While filling his mouth full of sunflower seeds, he finally heard footsteps crunching in the snow behind him. In his typical rude manner, Tucker turned around and greeted who he had been waiting for. “It’s ’bout time you showed y’ur ass up! It’s colder ‘n frozen shit out here. Five more minutes and I’s gon’ skip town with y’ur cut,” he chastised, angrily spitting out a wad of chewed up sunflower seeds afterward.
“Quit your bitchin’ McCormick! Where’s the damn money?!” Elijah barked. With the extreme mental strain of seeing to it that his plan with Tucker came together perfectly, Elijah was not in the mood to hear his whining. After the fallout between Jesse, James, and Lily in the back hallways of Winter Garden, Elijah had quickly fled to meet up with Tucker at their predetermined meeting spot near a deserted building. With their plan having worked flawlessly, Elijah now wanted his money to finally seal the rest of their deal and part ways with Tucker as quickly as possible.
Tucker and Elijah’s current alliance had formed just a few hours after Jesse’s unexpected visit to William’s property six days prior …
After questioning Samuel about his confrontation with Jesse at the front gates of Werthington Estate, Elijah headed off to his scheduled business meeting with a venture capitalist. He was desperate to secure the funds for an entertainment bar and restaurant that he planned to name Blazing. He intended for it to be a far more upscale version of what Tucker’s bar, McCormick’s, once was before it went bankrupt. The only thing that stood between Elijah and his dream establishment was money … and lots of it. He hoped that the capitalist would resolve that issue with a hefty investment.
Wanting to achieve success on his own merit, Elijah had declined the many offers from William to help him financially in the past. Instead, he drafted a well-written business plan and sent it to several venture capitalists. He included a letter of recommendation from William to further prove that he was worthy of receiving the much-needed financial boost. After receiving the business plan, three interested investors had written back. Elijah had already met with two of them. However, both were unwilling to give him a single penny upon seeing that they were dealing with a Negro. Despite being rejected twice, Elijah remained optimistic, viewing his failures as valuable lessons that would ultimately help lead him to success in the future.
Now here Elijah was, having traveled all the way back to Ohio from New York, prepared to face the third and final capitalist. After having practiced and perfected his verbal sales pitch for months, he confidently made his way into the investor’s office, walking with an air of pride in his step. He approached the capitalist and extended his hand to greet him. However, the man never
moved a muscle to raise his hand in return. The look on his face transitioned into a grimace as he stared at Elijah. Due to his previous experiences, Elijah had become all too familiar with the immediate change in the capitalist’s facial expression. The moment he saw that look, he knew to prepare himself for the inevitable. Despite it, he sat down to give his elaborate sales pitch. But simply because of the dark tint of Elijah’s skin, it did not matter that he spoke eloquently and knowledgeably about the world of business, even sometimes using words that were beyond the capitalist’s vocabulary range. Nor did it matter that Elijah was confident, savvy, and possessed enthusiasm and charm. For no other reason than his complexion, Elijah was immediately dismissed as not being worth the financial risk. But that was a fact that Elijah well knew long before he ever uttered a word, simply from the telling look on the capitalist’s face.
“Thank you for your time,” were the last words Elijah said before leaving the office of the third venture capitalist to reject him. Despite the anguish of yet another failure, Elijah smiled and maintained his professionalism long enough to show his dignity in the capitalist’s presence. But the moment he set foot onto the dusty road in front of the building, his fury over yet another setback in his journey toward success was very evident. As he walked across the road, he balled up his business proposal and threw it to the ground, just in time to watch a horse trample it into the dirt on its way by. While he walked, he thought of Lily and the fact that her success seemed so effortless. That fact made his bitterness grow exponentially.
Needing a way to settle his anger over the matter, Elijah stomped into Buck’s Tavern for a drink. He sat down at the bar and blew out a breath of pure frustration.
“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked.
“A shot ‘a whiskey,” Elijah replied, sounding annoyed. He closed his eyes and rubbed them hard with his forefinger and thumb. As soon as the bartender sat the whiskey in front of him, Elijah immediately scooped it up, swallowed it in one gulp, slammed the empty glass back down, and slid it back toward the bartender. “Anotha’ one, please!” he demanded. As he sat impatiently waiting on his second drink, an uninvited patron meandered over and took a seat beside him.