I am Not-Happy Hibernia.
I hate going for rations in winter, especially when the first snow of the season takes me by surprise. And I’m still not over being rained on last October, and missing my chance to audition for Smooth Teddy Wilson. That is a bad memory, stuck on me like the glue on a jelly jar label.
When I am famous, and richer than Madam C. J. Walker ever was, the only walking I will have to do will be from my house on Easy Street to my butter-colored Bentley parked out front on my driveway paved with glitter.
I sure hope Easy Street shows up soon. My coat is tattered at the hem, and is a flap door for my knees. I have mended this coat so many times that even the sturdiest thread can’t hold fabric so tattered.
Sister Wind is whipping hard, sending a chill to my bloomers even. There is no mercy for the gristle on my bones. If I could hurry up, I would. But the snowy streets make for slow going and icicle toes.
Come on, wagon!
I’m not pulling this time, I’m bent over, and pushing my wagon from its behind. Sister Wind is now playing my fingers like piano keys. She’s pressing hard on my pinkies and thumbs and all the other fingers in between, and blowing a mean rhythm right in my face. My cheeks have never had it so bad. Same for my nose, which is a faucet turned full on. My handkerchief is buried too deep for wiping off nose-run, so I don’t bother stopping.
Just keep pushing. And that’s what I do until I see the central pavilion up ahead.
As soon as Mr. Haskell’s relief truck comes into view, I stop.
The rations line is longer than I have ever seen it, even with the sun only starting to pierce the horizon. Sister Wind has slowed her roll, so I go back to pushing my wagon.
When I reach what I think is the end of the line, I park and settle myself in my wagon’s well. I dig for my handkerchief. It takes some fishing, but I finally get to it, forced into the ankle of my sock where I’d shoved it way down so it wouldn’t get lost on the way.
I waste no time mopping the place above my lip where my nose faucet’s dripped.
“Thankie, Hankie,” I murmur.
My handkerchief at least brings a little warmth to Not-Happy Hibernia.
Somehow wiping my nose makes me see better. When I lean out the side of my wagon to count the heads in front of me, I spot the sign, big as blazes, propped at the tailgate of the rations truck.
YOUNG PEOPLE SING FOR JOE!
JOIN THE BROWN BOMBER BOX CAMPAIGN
ALL IT TAKES IS A VOICE AND A DREAM
RAISE BIG $$$ TO WIN
AGES 12 TO 18
FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED
There is practically nothing that could ever make me leave my wagon, but when five special words—Sing, Voice, Dream, Win, and Big—wave at me with both hands and jump up like new friends ready to say hello, my wagon takes a fast backseat to anything else. Not to mention those dollar signs, which are pretty chorus dancers doing high kicks right next to Big.
Now, I know I’m supposed to be good and right and all the rest. But my butter-colored Bentley is waiting, and Easy Street is where I want to be. So I leave my wagon where it is and get out of line.
I rush past everybody else who’s waiting. I pretend to have lost my mama, which is really not faking anything, because even though my mama is nowhere near this coldest day ever, I truly don’t know where my mother is.
That makes it true. I’ve lost my mama.
Somebody shouts, “Hey, you girl, wait your turn like the rest of us!” and all I have to do is whine, “Mama. Have you seen my mama?”
I try to look a little lost. And confused. And—Thankie, Hankie!—I dab at my eyes.
“Maaaama!”
I don’t look over one shoulder or the other, and definitely not behind. My sights are on that sign, and I’m moving.
“Has anybody seen my mama?”
When I get to the front, Mr. Haskell is glad to see me. “Hibernia, what took you so long? I thought you’d be first in line.”
“First for what?” I’m back to mopping my nose with Thankie Hankie.
“I told your daddy last week after church, and I was sure he’d tell you.”
Thankie Hankie’s doing double time, and I’m shaking my head. “If this has anything to do with singing, the Reverend C. Elias Tyson has not told me.”
The people in line are growing restless. “Move it on, child. It’s cold out here!”
Thankie Hankie goes back to my alligator tears. “Maaaama. Where’s my maaaama?”
Mr. Haskell talks fast. “Mike Jacobs, Joe Louis’s fight promoter, is sponsoring a young people’s campaign in towns all over. It’s also a singing contest. They’re raising money for Joe Louis—to keep him on the road and in the ring—in the hopes that the Brown Bomber will become the next heavyweight boxing champion of the world.”
I’m eager to hear more. I point to the place on the sign that’s still waving and dancing in front of me. I ask, “What’s ‘ALL IT TAKES IS A VOICE AND A DREAM—RAISE BIG $$$ TO WIN’ mean?”
“The best singer will earn the most for Joe. Folks plunk down their money in a brown box during the contest. The winner doesn’t get the cash. That goes to Joe’s campaign. But there will be young singers from everywhere in the state, performing for hundreds of people. This is Mike’s way of gathering young fans for Joe Louis.”
Now the words on the sign are dancing the Kangaroo. “How will Mike Jacobs know who the best singer is?”
Mr. Haskell explains, “It’s done by a vote of everyone who comes to the campaign contest. The crowd, by stuffing the Brown Bomber campaign boxes with spare change, names the winner. The child whose box fills with the most money will be the champ.” He tells me, “The campaign will happen here in May.”
“Well all right, then,” I say. “I have time to practice.”
I march back to where I think my wagon waits. The line has moved some, so I don’t know the spot for sure. I look and look.
No wagon.
I’m forced to turn my searching into the truth. “My waaagon! Has anybody seen my waaagon?”
I spend much of the morning walking the fairgrounds, wiping my nose, begging Sister Wind to quit, and calling for my wagon.
I finally give up when I realize I have been gone too long. On my way home, I’m empty-handed. I’m not pushing or pulling anything. I’m also showing up near to lunchtime with no food rations, no wagon, and no good excuse.
Still, things don’t seem so cold. The trees are all shimmery and there are sugarcoated cars parked along the avenue. I’m working hard on what I will tell the reverend. Why am I always the victim of such temptation?
If I’m going to sing in the Brown Bomber Box Campaign, it will mean sneaking past the reverend, which is no fun.
I find a little bit of Happy Hibernia, though, when I get to thinking, Someday my butter-colored Bentley will sure look good in a lace coat of snow.
I don’t tell the reverend about the wagon right away. He finds me dusting Speaky, and he assumes I’ve put the rations in the larder, which I always do as soon as I return from the fairgrounds.
Later, when the reverend tells me he’s preparing for Sunday’s sermon in the vestry, I have no doubt he’s really sneaking off to listen to his radio. By now I know the routine. Sermons do not get written in the vestry on fight nights.
Sure enough, on the other side of the reverend’s sermon room door, I hear Speaky. Tonight there’s a boxing match charging from the radio. The reverend is talking to that little wooden box like he’s got front-row seats to the ring.
His voice is full of heat. “Bad Boy Johnston planned it this way. He wanted to mess up Joe’s knockout record!”
The reverend is agitated. Hearing him holler makes me the same way—bothered.
Tonight I don’t even need to put my ear to the door. The reverend is talking right out loud. He even turns up the radio’s volume.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this has been a night to remember in the history of Joe Louis’s boxing career. Here
in round ten, the Brown Bomber, king of the knockout, is named the winner against Bob Pastor. This is the first fight in nearly two years in which Joe Louis has not knocked out his opponent. Even though the Brown Bomber has won the decision, he’s come out of this fight looking bad.”
I press myself against the door and listen doubly hard.
“The Brown Bomber is tired and panting like a thirsty man in a heat wave. Bob Pastor refused to be knocked down—he’s taken some of the shine off Joe Louis’s KO glory.”
The legs on the reverend’s chair creak, then I feel the weight of him pacing the floorboards. My own feet want to take on the floor, and I’m getting pulled in by that messing-up-my-Savoy Skip Gibson!
“This fight was an insult to Joe. An affront to his skill,” the reverend grumbles. “What a waste of time!”
Now the reverend sounds out of breath, and desperate for something. And even though all I’m doing is standing and listening, I’m breathing hard, too. I’m whisper-repeating after the reverend. “Waste of time!”
Right then the reverend flings open the door and sends me tumbling. I’m nose-to-toe with the reverend’s shoelaces. It’s hard to think fast when you’re smelling leather.
The reverend says, “Get up, Bernie. Speak in defense of yourself.”
I’m on my feet, smoothing wrinkles from my nightie. I’m all dried up for an excuse this time. My excuse list keeps growing, and I’ve got to save my energy for the one about the wagon.
What comes out of my mouth surprises us both. “ ‘A thirsty man in a heat wave’—ha! Joe was probably thirsty for a real fight, not a Lindy Hop!”
This is the moment I know prayers are truly answered. The reverend is holding back a chuckle. He can’t even look at me. He’s pressing a bent knuckle to his lip to keep from letting the chuckle go. He can’t keep it in. It escapes when he says, “Get in here, child, sit down.”
I cross my legs when I sit in the reverend’s chair, which has been shoved back from his writing table, close to Speaky. I say, “Well, it’s true. Joe Louis most likely wanted to show his stuff, not prance around. I know how it feels to want to display your talents.”
The reverend is leaning against the table’s corner. “Oh, do you now,” he says.
I cup both hands over my crossed knees. “How’s your sermon coming?”
The reverend is sure not chuckling now. He says, “Eavesdropping is a form of deceit, Bernie.”
The Lord of letting the right stuff come out of my mouth is with me tonight. I say, “You had the radio turned way up. That’s not eavesdropping, it’s overhearing. Besides, I only overheard the end, when the commentator said Joe won the fight by a decision.”
The reverend shakes his head. His knuckle is back at his lip. That chuckle is threatening him again. “Just like your mama,” he says. “She could soften any dereliction, and melt me at the same time. That was Pauline’s way. She was clever. Even when she sang in the choir, she would spice up any harmony and turn a hymn into something that was more suited to a nightclub.”
“My mother sang in a church choir?”
The reverend nods. “She was a singer in the choir over at the Star of Hope Church in Ithaca. That’s where I met her. I often traveled to Star to hear the minister, Reverend Colson Diggs. He was a fine preacher. I wanted to be just like him.”
I say my question a second time, more like a truth, not like I’m asking. And when I speak the words, they make me warm. “Mama sang in a church choir.”
“She had the prettiest voice of them all, Bernie. Sweet as candy.”
This talk about my mother makes me call the reverend something I hardly ever call him. Something that doesn’t come natural. But tonight I just say it, and it sounds right. “Daddy,” I say, “Daddy, please, tell me more about Mama. What was her favorite color?”
The reverend, my daddy, gets quiet.
“Pink,” he says. “Your mama loved pink. Not that soft pink, either. She liked a color she called deep-fried pink.”
I scoot my chair closer to my daddy. I don’t want to miss a word he’s saying.
“What was Mama’s favorite food?”
This time Daddy answers fast. It’s an easy question for him. “Taffy.”
“What did she like to do most of all?”
Daddy answers this one quickly, too. He looks sad when he speaks, though. “Sing,” he says. “She loved to sing, Bernie. But there was more to it than just that. Your mama sang like her favorite color—deep-fried. She had a voice that was too hot for the Star of Hope Church.” Daddy sighs. “Pauline had sizzling dreams, too. Dreams I couldn’t make come true. She wanted a fast, glittery, hot life, far away from here. Far away from me.”
Daddy pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Far away from me?” I ask.
Silence falls hard.
Daddy doesn’t answer right away. When he does speak, the words come slowly. “Your mother may be far from you, Bernie, but she left you two very special things—her love for singing, and the voice of an angel.”
Then Daddy does something that startles me. He folds me in his weighty arms. He holds me a whole long time, and rests his chin on the top of my head. Daddy is strong, but there is so much gentleness in the way he’s hugging me.
Next thing I know, I’ve got my arms around Daddy’s middle. I’m squeezing him with all I’ve got. “Is she ever coming back?” I ask. My heart is a sand timer, the top filled with hope that’s sifting down slowly.
Daddy holds me out in front of him. He looks at me square. “No, Bernie Lee. No. Your mother is off chasing a dream. She was clear when she left that Elmira would never see her again.”
That sand timer drains fast now. My hope is disappearing, speeding to the bottom.
Daddy says, “It is a shame she’s gone, but I pray every day that she finds whatever it is she’s looking for.”
“I know about having a dream,” I say. “And I understand how Mama could chase after the dream she wants.”
Then I admit something I didn’t even know was there. “But some of me is angry, too. Mad at Mama for just leaving.”
I ask Daddy, “Are you mad at her for going off the way she did?”
Daddy’s thinking, carefully picking the words he wants to say to me. “Bernie, I stayed angry for a long time. Mad at Pauline for what she did by depriving our child of the guidance of a mother.”
He rests his palms on both my shoulders. “But I’m not angry at Pauline for who she is. Over time, the mad feelings I’ve had have passed like a slow-moving dark cloud.”
I’m listening to Daddy in the same way his parishioners pay close attention to what he says. I don’t want to miss a word. “Whenever I get to thinking about Pauline, all I have to do is look at you. She left so much of herself here by leaving you with me. How can I stay angry at someone who’s given me such a special gift?”
“Daddy,” I want to know, “how come you wouldn’t tell me about Mama before now?”
“I was trying to push her away, Bernie, working to push away my missing her. But as hard as I try, my memories won’t leave me alone, especially as you get older and grow to be more like your mother.”
I go back to hugging Daddy. “Where’d Mama get the nickname Praline?”
Daddy blinks. There’s a question in his eyes, then, suddenly, knowing.
I tell him about the picture I found in his Bible, and how I’ve been keeping my mama with me by sleeping with her picture under my pillow.
Daddy doesn’t get mad when he hears this. All he says is “I called your mother Praline because she liked taffy so much, and because her singing was so sweet. And calling her Praline was my own special way of playing with her name, Pauline.” There’s a happy memory in Daddy’s eyes.
Daddy says, “The name Praline stuck. When she left, she even took that special name with her. She called herself Praline Supreme. That was going to be her show-business name.”
“Where’s Praline Supreme now?”
“I don’
t know, Bernie,” Daddy says softly.
There they go. The last grains of my heart’s hope-sand. Gone.
More quiet settles between Daddy and me.
Daddy fiddles with the dial on his radio. He finds Swing Time at the Savoy. We listen together.
I tell Daddy about my lost wagon, and about the Brown Bomber Box Campaign. I don’t have to ask him why he didn’t tell me about a chance to sing on the radio. That’s a question I already know how to answer.
I’m super ready with a list of good reasons why Daddy should let me sing for Joe Louis. I’ve got at least ten strong arguments. Before I can even pull reason number one out from my pocket, Daddy cups my cheeks in both his hands.
By the look of his eye-on-me stare, I know he’s about to give me an order. I’m ready to get scolded about the wagon. Daddy’s words are firm. “You are to go back to that fairground.”
I nod.
“You are to be the first in line.”
I nod twice.
“You are to sing.”
Five nods fast. “For Joe,” I say.
“For you,” says my daddy.
OTiS
“WILLIE, LET’S GET BACK AT THE BLEACH man.”
“How?”
“Beat him at his own game.”
“What game?”
“The game of taking things that don’t belong to you.”
I motion for Willie to follow me. “Shhh—walk quiet.”
We make our way up a set of back stairs that lead from Mercy’s kitchen to a place we’re not ever, ever allowed to go—to the bleach man’s room and privy, where he’s got his own bathtub.
I once went into that tiny room when Lila sent me to collect the bleach man’s dirty towels for washing. Lila told me then that the bleach man takes his bath on Saturday evenings, eight o’clock.
When we get to the top of the stairs, we hear him. The sound of water being wrung from a washrag is our clue. He’s whistling, and swishing water, seems like. Lila was right. Saturday-night bath for the bleach man.
Bird in a Box Page 8