by J. D. Horn
“Yes ma’am,” Willy said.
If his expression weren’t so grave, Jilo might have snorted over his calling her ma’am. But it was, so she didn’t. Instead, she swallowed, forcing herself to soften her tone. “Maybe someday, some place, things will be different. For your sake, I hope so. But for now, that’s what we can expect. In here, though, with that door closed, you’re safe. You do what you need to do.” She crossed back to the chifferobe. “These things on the left side.” She made a show of running her hand down the garments. “You can have them. They don’t fit me anymore anyway. The things on the right, though? Those are mine. Do not touch them.” She paused, casting a glance down at the boy’s feet. “And Willy?”
“Yes,” he said, his eyes welling up again, from relief, she hoped, or maybe even happiness.
“You scuff up or stretch my shoes, and everything I just said about you being safe is off. I will kill you myself.” His face froze. “Just so we’re clear.” She closed the chifferobe’s doors and headed back into the hall. She gave Robinson a slight bounce, then looked back over her shoulder. “Now get out here and help me finish making dinner while Binah does her schoolwork.”
The three of them sat on the wide front porch, beneath the artificial haint-blue sky. Beyond the porch’s overhang, night was fast approaching, replacing the blue with brilliant roses and oranges. Before today, Jilo would never have dreamed of nursing in front of Willy, who was sitting on the porch with his back to the front wall, but tonight they all felt like family. So while she rocked on the swing next to Binah, Jilo undid the buttons of her blouse and shifted her fussing baby to her exposed breast.
As Robinson nursed, Willy and Binah chattered on. Mostly about how bad they needed to buy themselves a television, so they could watch I Love Lucy along with the rest of the country.
Jilo used the ball of her foot to rock the swing back and forth. She looked down at Willy. “You already spend half your life listening to that damned radio.” Jilo was both annoyed and pleased that he’d forgotten how tenuous his living situation had been only hours ago. “Besides, if we don’t find a way to start getting some money in around here,” she said, giving voice to her own more pressing worry, “we may not have anywhere to put a television set.”
Binah locked eyes with her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean we have to pay taxes on this place. We don’t pay taxes, they’ll come and take the house away from us.”
“Who are ‘they’?” A vertical line formed between Binah’s brow, and her eyes narrowed. “This was Nana’s house. Now it’s ours. Nobody has the right to try and steal it from us.”
“The law. That’s who ‘they’ are. The law. And ‘they’ say we’re stealing from them if we don’t pay taxes. They take from us, and then they tell us we’re the thieves. That’s how it works, my sister,” Jilo said, regretting that she had brought the subject up. A tumultuous day had led into a pleasant—happy, even—evening. She should have held her tongue. It was just that she had begun to feel mighty alone when it came to dealing with the problems that life kept bringing.
“What about that fat woman? The one who smelled?” Willy asked.
Jilo pursed her lips, her nose wrinkling as she remembered the woman’s sharp onion scent. “She didn’t believe that I have any of the ‘root’ in me.” Jilo said, shifting Robinson to her other breast. He fussed a little as she did, but he settled down as soon as he realized dinner wasn’t over.
“But nobody does,” Binah said, her eyes bright with humor. “There’s no such thing as magic.”
“Yeah, well, you know that, and I know that, but if we’re lucky, the rest of the world isn’t going to figure that bit out.” She pushed the swing back again, then let go. “She said she could see I didn’t have the Hoodoo because of the way I look. The way I talk.” Jilo felt the woman’s words grate at her once again. “She said I was just ‘another uppity Negro.’ ”
“She didn’t believe in you . . .” Willy said in a hushed voice. Jilo twisted to get a better view of him. “She couldn’t believe in you, ’cause you didn’t match what she was expecting to see.” He stared forward into the deepening twilight. “Sometimes you just gotta show folk what they want to see.”
“Tell her,” Binah said. “Tell Jilo about Audrey.”
Jilo had believed she knew every person in these two children’s worlds, so the unfamiliar name surprised her. She was intrigued, but Willy fell silent.
“Go on, I’m listening,” Jilo said. “Tell me about this Audrey.” Willy shook his head, drawing his knees up into his chest.
“Go on, Willy,” Binah coaxed him.
Jilo glanced at her sister before returning her attention to the boy. “Go on. Tell me. Who the hell is this Audrey friend of yours?”
“She isn’t a friend,” Willy said, then his mouth clamped shut.
“Go on, Willy,” Jilo said, softening her voice. “I want to hear about her. I do.”
Willy raised his eyes to meet hers. “You saw her. You saw her today.” He pushed himself up. “I know you think this is me,” he tugged on the tail of his shirt. “This boy you looking at, but he ain’t me. Not really. Willy isn’t the real me. He’s just someone I pretend to be. He’s a shell I wear. Audrey,” he said the name with reverence, “that’s who I really am. On the inside at least. To get by in this world, I make believe I’m Willy. But when I’m alone. When I’m really me . . .”
Jilo tugged her nipple from Robinson’s lips, surprised to find he was already sleeping. She handed the baby to her sister and buttoned her blouse, not quite sure how to react to the boy’s admission. Should she get on her knees and take Willy into her arms? Or should she pretend she’d never heard any of it?
Willy looked up at her. “You need to make yourself a shell. One you can wear when you dealing with people looking for Hoodoo. You need to give them what they’re looking for. When you dealing with them, you can’t just be Jilo. You gotta be Mother Jilo.”
Jilo froze. His words chafed her, but they struck her as the absolute truth. She’d been trying to sell candy in a box marked “soap,” and there weren’t many folk willing to believe it was candy on the inside. She needed to create a package that matched what she was selling. Jilo stood, pushing the swing back as she did. “So who is she then, this Mother Jilo?”
FOUR
June 1956
“It’s you. It is.” Jilo heard a voice call out from a shop she’d passed on West Broad. It didn’t even occur to her that the words might be intended for her. After finishing up a round of errands in town, she was focused on getting home to Binah and her boy.
She’d had to wait at the bank, so she’d been gone longer than expected. The colored service window had opened up an hour later than usual. No explanations. No apologies. Just a command for them not to lurk about before the bank was ready to receive them. Still, Jilo had been too happy about the fresh packet of cash she had ready to deposit to let herself focus on why she couldn’t just use the manned window where not even a single white person was waiting. No, she wasn’t going to let herself be bothered by that today. Things had started looking up for her, and she was going to hold on tight to each and every victory.
She struggled beneath the weight of her new nylon shopping bag, but she found she didn’t mind the effort. This bag wasn’t just full of needed groceries; no, there were a few things in there that her family simply wanted. Luxuries, which would have seemed like an impossible dream even a year ago. She wasn’t sure whose eyes she was more excited to see: Robinson’s at the sight of his new windup clockwork robot or Willy’s when he unwrapped the coral chiffon head scarf that she herself planned to borrow from time to time. For Binah, she had bought a book, featuring a red sun with gold and silver coronas on an otherwise black cover. Something dreadful about people blowing up the whole damned world, but Jilo felt certain Binah would like it.
Romance wasn’t her girl’s thing—Binah’s interests ran in just about every other direction. Jilo was proud
that her girl seemed more interested in books than she was in men.
“It is!” The voice grew closer, accompanied by the clapping of leather-soled shoes along the tabby sidewalk. Jilo nearly dropped her bag when a strange man grabbed ahold of her arm, but the man reached forward to keep the sack from falling. “It’s you.”
She looked up into the stranger’s gleaming eyes.
He smiled. “I mean, you look different. You’re dressed different.” He leaned back as if to take her in from head to toe. “Real pretty, though.” She’d taken to wearing her Mother Jilo costume—kaftans in bright, eye-catching shades, mostly blues and purples, with wide-brimmed sunhats or turbans in opposite and equally blinding colors. After a lifetime of trying to blend in, her income had become contingent upon her ability to stand out. Whenever she walked down West Broad, voices would drop, and crowds would part before her as the name “Mother Jilo” trailed behind her like a wake on the water. It had taken a while to build Mother Jilo’s reputation, but now every outing was an opportunity to advertise.
Still, this man was a complete stranger to her.
“Mother Jilo, she sorry,” Jilo said. “But you wrong. Mother Jilo, she don’t know you.” She tried to make her tone sound final, if not severe. She was still in too good of a mood to want to scare the poor fellow. Shrugging him off, she began to walk away, but he circled around her, his movements so full of joy it resembled dancing.
“Why are you talking that way?” he asked, his face scrunching up with confusion.
So much for her good mood. She shook her head and glared at him. “Mother Jilo done say she don’t know you. Now scat.”
“No, you know me. Well, you met me once. On the bus.” He stopped directly in front of her, looking down at her as if he were sure she’d recognize him and fling her arms around him like a long-lost friend. She tried to squeeze past him, but he blocked her escape. “You know. In Atlanta. The bus. You had a suitcase. I talked too much.” His shoulders slumped forward. “I’m talking too much now. I’m sorry. You don’t remember me. Why should you? A beautiful woman like you must always have one fellow or another trying to catch her eye.”
Most days, she would have snapped the head off anyone who dared to say such a foolish thing, but it had been a long time since any man had paid her any attention, let alone called her beautiful. The compliment near took the wind out of her. Jilo stopped and gave the man a good once over, and to her surprise, an encounter she’d all but forgotten surfaced in her mind. An encounter that had evidently left its mark on this poor jabbering fellow.
“Poole,” she said, “Private First Class Poole.”
A wide smile set up camp on his beaming face. “Yes. That’s right. Poole. But just regular old Tinker Poole these days.”
“Tinker . . .” Jilo said, the name almost coming out as a question.
“Well, yeah, my real name’s Joseph, but everybody calls me Tinker, ’cause I’m always taking things apart that don’t work right and putting them back together again so that they do. That’s what I do. For money, that is.” He pointed to an open doorway. “That’s my shop. Right there.”
She glanced over her shoulder in the direction he was pointing. When she turned back, it struck her that he had leaned in, just a tad. Not enough to be threatening. Not enough to assume an intimacy between them. Still, it felt as if the air that surrounded him was caressing the air that enveloped her.
He bowed his head, the lids of his happy eyes lowering, lending his gaze a more serious look. “I’m real good at it,” he said, “fixing things what’ve been broken.” For a moment she was captivated by his tender black eyes, so dark that she couldn’t be sure where the pupil and iris met. For a moment, she felt as if he had plumbed the depths of her soul, uncovering every hurt, every loss, every crack in her foundation. Without laying a finger on her, he had touched her, brushing up against an old wound. This was much like her first meeting with Tinker Poole, the one she’d almost managed to forget, or at least convince herself that she’d forgotten.
She stepped back, angered, clutching her shopping to her chest. He looked at her with such familiarity, spoke to her as if they’d known each other all their lives. How dare he?
He read the language of her body. “Please,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ve said something . . .” He took two steps back. “Done something to offend you.” Shaking his head, he continued, “I sure didn’t mean to upset you.”
His voice soothed her. She felt her shoulders relax. “It’s nothing. It’s fine.” She remembered herself, that she was out here in the guise of Mother Jilo. It wouldn’t be suitable for folk to see her crumbling before this ridiculous—no, that wasn’t fair—this unusual man, this kind man. This inconvenient man. She raised her chin and pulled back her shoulders. “Mother Jilo, she gotta be getting on now.” She paused, for a moment letting her act fall away. “I wish you well with your business.”
She stepped around him, feeling his eyes on her shoulders, willing her back.
“You got far to go?” He came jogging up along her side. “I’m just asking, ’cause I got my truck out behind the shop. Be glad to run you home. That sack looks might heavy and all.”
“Thank you,” Jilo said, still moving. “Mother Jilo, she fine. She don’t need your help.”
“Listen,” he said, reaching out for her, but pulling back before he could lay hands on her. “I’m doing this all wrong. I know I’m doing this all wrong. And I’m sorry. I don’t do this all the time. Chase after women, I mean. Especially a woman who’s looking at me like she just wants me to go away.” He shifted from foot to foot, nervous, maybe embarrassed, too. “Do you want me to? Just go away?”
Jilo looked the poor man over. Her head said she should tell him to take off. But she hesitated, and in so doing, the moment for her to make a quick, decisive break slipped past her. Even if she told him to go away now, he’d know, deep down, just as she knew, deep down, that a part of her wanted him to stay right where he was. She held the bag out to him. “Don’t think this is more than a ride home,” she said as he pulled himself taller, tilting his head to the side and smiling. Jilo liked his smile. He took the bag from her. “Where’s that truck of yours?”
“So what is this ‘Mother Jilo’ bit?” Tinker asked, casting a cautious look her way as they drove south.
“Business,” Jilo said, not willing to offer more.
“Business,” Tinker echoed her. “All right, I respect that,” he said, his tone telling her he knew better than to push for more. His truck, an ancient Ford held together by not much more than baling wire and a good man’s faith, lumbered down West Broad toward West Gaston. Jilo kept her eyes fixed forward, but in truth her peripheral vision was focused on Tinker. The truck lurched forward and jerked, coughing out—Jilo felt certain without looking back—a plume of black smoke.
“She a good truck,” Tinker said, his tone wavering between pride and apology. “Took a bit to fix her up, but I picked her up for almost nothing from my friend Henry.”
Jilo couldn’t resist turning toward him as she made the connection between the name and the jalopy. “Henry Cook?”
Tinker looked at her, then let out a surprised laugh. “Yes,” he said, turning back to the road, “Henry Cook. You know him?”
“ ’Course. He used to court my sister Poppy. Years ago. Back when I was little girl.” She turned her focus to the storefronts they were lumbering past. “Didn’t end well, I reckon. Don’t know why. I was too young at the time, and well, it doesn’t seem worthwhile digging up old bones to ask.”
“Old Henry’s married now anyway.”
“So’s Poppy,” she said, happy to be able to say so, although she had never yet met her brother-in-law, Isaiah.
“Of course she is,” Tinker said, sounding so sure of himself Jilo turned back. He was looking at her rather than the road. “She’s a beautiful woman.”
“You’ve never seen her.”
“No, ma’am, I have not, but I’ve seen her sister
.” He flashed her a big smile, and Jilo was surprised to feel the blood rush to her cheeks. Though she tried to fight the impulse, she found herself returning his smile.
She forced herself to look away. She was making a fool out of herself. She should just tell him to pull over. Let her out. She could walk the rest of the way home.
“I got a bit of a confession to make,” he said, interrupting her attempt to decide whether to give him the shove off now or in a location a bit closer to home. Folding her arms over her chest, she refused to look at him. She did not care to hear any revelations. “That night, after I saw you on the bus. I was supposed to go home, but I didn’t. I stayed on for a week, riding that darned bus back and forth every day, just hoping you’d get back on it. I talked to everyone who’d answer me, asking if any of them recognized you from my description. But no one did. So, I went on home. Tried to get settled. Tried to forget I’d ever laid eyes on you.”
He reached over and placed his hand near hers. They didn’t touch, but she still felt his energy once more. She turned toward him, transfixed by the slim space between them. “Oh, I know how it sounds. I sound like some crazy man.” She let her gaze drift up to his face, surprised to see his eyes fixed on the road before them. “But tell me. Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“Turn here,” Jilo said, pointing west as they approached West Anderson. “Then go south on Ogeechee.”
He did as he was told, but remained silent, evidently waiting for a response. She wasn’t sure she had a response to give, so she said nothing at first. She felt disappointment descend on him like a dark cloud. “Look,” she said, her tone heated, impatient. She took a breath and began. “What I believe is that it’s easy to imagine things about someone you don’t know. And what I know is you don’t know me.”
“You’re right. I don’t know you. I . . .” He paused, shaking his head a little side to side. “This is not how I planned this . . .”