Leaving Cecil Street

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  Actually he didn’t see Valadean, he heard her at first as she grew his monosyllabic name to two distinct, perfumed exhalations. “Jo-wo,” she called him, right as he was facing Yock’s Sandwichville that boasted the world’s thickest milk shakes. And that’s how her voice sounded right then, milky, and slow moving with that southern drawl. She was right up on him when he turned around, so close that they were breathing in the same inch of air, electrically charged air, Joe thought as he extended his hand and then stepped back half a foot so that it didn’t seem as if he was trying to reach out and feel her instead of shake her hand.

  “I’m so relieved I ran into you,” she said as she allowed Joe to hold on to her hand. “I seem to have gotten myself turned around trying to get to Lit Brothers on Sixty-ninth Street. Aunt Johnetta said the D bus would be easiest but the el would be quickest, and I guess I’m caught between easy and quick right now, might as well have settled for hard and slow ’cause I’m lost sure ’nuff, Jo-wo.”

  Joe squeezed her hand, then released it. He let his smile take its time forming as he focused in on her lips, what her lips were doing as she added length to his name. He didn’t even say anything at first, moved beyond her lips and took in all of her. He liked that she wasn’t self-conscious the way some women were when they were being looked at, admired. He thought she was actually guiding him by the way she touched the chocolate, flawless skin of her forehead, then smoothed her hand over her hair, pulled back in an Afro puff behind a hot pink headband, then dusted her off-the-shoulder cotton top, a loose-fitting top but short, so that it barely covered the space where her waistline dented in, where she rested her hand now, her fingers dipping, inviting a glance at the dramatic curve her hips made. She bent her leg to adjust her sandal strap along her heel, showing off her legs, big, like her thighs, big and tight and brown, rendering the pink shorts she wore almost red. When he got to the toenails painted pink like the shorts, there was nowhere else to go so he pulled his eyes back again to her face, her lips. Almost felt as if he should thank her for the guided tour. Laughed instead. Said, “Valadean, consider yourself turned around no more. I’ll not only escort you to the el, I’ll make sure you ride for free this evening.”

  She was headed to get stockings for church tomorrow, she told him as they walked. Said that Johnetta had insisted on going with her to the store, but she was emphatic that the only way to learn the area was to strike out on her own. “Though honestly, Jo-wo,” she said, “I’m downright suffocating on Aunt Johnetta’s stories. When I first got here, all I heard was Alberta is the devil. Now all the talk has to do with some strange woman who came onto the block and never left. You hear tell of her yet, Jo-wo? Aunt Johnetta insists she got something to do with your next-door neighbor.”

  Joe grimaced. If there was one thing he did not like about Cecil Street it was the treatment Alberta had suffered from the block once she’d converted to a religion that didn’t have a name. Though Joe believed like the rest that Alberta had been emotionally exploited by the suave, good-looking preacher who used to proselytize from his makeshift pulpit outside of the State store at Sixtieth and Locust, he didn’t think Alberta hardhearted and evil. Thought just the opposite. He had seen when Neet was a baby how Alberta’s face would cloud up after she’d reluctantly peel Neet from her arms to hand her over the porch banister so that Neet and Shay could play together. Alberta would rub her hands up and down her arms, as if she was suddenly chilled. As if she needed her baby’s body against her to keep her warm. Needy and soft, he thought Alberta, so he hadn’t been as shocked as everyone else when Alberta had fallen for the esoteric religion and begun snubbing them all.

  “What do you say about Alberta, Jo-wo?” Valadean asked.

  “I say that she’s at least bold enough to live the life she chose without conforming to what Cecil Street thinks, that’s not the worst trait a person could have. I say like my boys the Isley Brothers, you know, if it’s your thing, you gotta do what you gotta do, I’m surely not the one to be trying to tell anybody who to sock it to.”

  They laughed as they walked up the el steps and Joe pulled Valadean’s hand so that they could run because the el was coming into the station. His man in the booth nodded and hit the lever so that Joe and Valadean could push through the turnstiles. Joe hadn’t intended getting on the el with Valadean, was his intention just to walk her up to the platform headed west. But the station was somewhat crowded and he allowed himself to be pushed into the car when the train stopped and the swell of people converged around the opening doors. Plus, he considered it the neighborly thing to do. Valadean was obviously confused finding her way around in the city. Was thinking that’s how he’d explain it to Louise should word get back that he was riding the el with some fine, well-built dream of a woman. Just being a good neighbor, he convinced himself as he showed Valadean how to grab the poles so that she could make it to a seat without falling, unaccustomed as she was to the jerky motion as the train shook from side to side. He stood rather than sliding in next to her. Looked around the train and whistled, trying not to appear as if he was looking for someone who’d be quick to run to Louise and say, Guess who I saw riding the westbound el at six-fifteen with some young girl? Relaxed when he saw that people on this car were people he knew only vaguely. Chided himself now for even looking around him, reminding himself that he was doing absolutely nothing wrong. Asked himself why he should have to feel the need to explain himself to Louise anyhow. He was her husband, not her kid. He slid into the seat next to Valadean then. Asked Valadean if this was her first time on an el as he settled in and let the side-to-side motion push their bodies closer and closer and by the time they got to Sixty-ninth Street, Joe was inviting her out for a drink.

  NEET AND SHAY were in the next car of the el. They didn’t get off at Sixty-ninth Street even though it was the end of the line. They were going to ride back down to the eastern end of the line and then back to Sixty-ninth again. BB’s daughter, Sondra, told Neet she should ride the el as much as possible between now and a week from now when she’d set up the procedure with her mother. Sondra told Neet that sometimes, if it was early enough, continuous rides on a bumpy el could wash the whole thing down and negate Neet’s even having to go through the procedure. Shay said that she thought that was just an old wives’ tale. Shay and Sondra had never been fond of each other and were always looking for a reason to disagree. But Neet said what harm could it do and it might even help. So they planned to spend this Saturday evening riding the el back and forth from Sixty-ninth to Frankford, eating soft pretzels and talking about the people getting on and off the el.

  The train emptied at Sixty-ninth Street its mixed bag of riders: working-class middle-aged white people trying to get out of Philly before the sun went down; young mothers wrestling with tired children on a Saturday evening, headed to Buster Brown for new shoes for church; long-haired hippies weighted down with peace-sign medallions who’d pretended all day long as they’d grooved in the grass out in Fairmount Park not to be from the suburbs. The sounds of the Fifth Dimension singing “Aquarius” drifted in through the opened doors and ushered in a new wave of commuters, mostly black people loaded down with bags from Lit Brothers and JC Pen-ney, towing children stained with mustard, no doubt from hot dogs that had slipped through the roll. The conductor came through and roused a drunk sitting not far from Neet and Shay, told him to take what was left of his vodka and get off the train, or come up with the fare to ride it back downtown. He didn’t bother Neet and Shay though as they sat side by side chattering away, interrupting themselves to say hello as he passed. They had the looks of nice, well-raised girls with their polite smiles and carefully ironed clothes. Shay’s Afro was big, but freshly trimmed and neat looking; Neet wore granny glasses, her semibush barely passing because her hair was so straight. They were talking about whether hippies could be trusted to get involved in black causes. Shay said no way. Said she believed like her dad that a lot of them were CIA meant to thwart any real change to the
establishment. Neet said that a half dozen long-haired, raggedy-jean, torn-flag-adorned white boys and girls had come into Connie’s Cards ’n Gifts earlier and bought a full fifty dollars’ worth of cards and posters and gushed the whole time to her and Connie about how they were down with progress for the people. “So Miss Connie told them that the house next door to her was for sale, why didn’t they move on her block and live where she lived and help us progress from inside out. And they were all, like, ‘Cool, man, I could dig that.’ And after they left, Miss Connie said they were probably high off of acid.”

  “Probably were tripping,” Shay said.

  “I don’t know,” Neet said, turning to look out of the window. “They did spend a lot of money in there. I thought they were sincere.”

  “Neet, you think everybody’s sincere.”

  Neet was about to go into her routine of you wanna know sincere, I’ll tell you about sincere, and detail for Shay the aberrant devotion of the congregation to her mother’s pastor and church. From a little girl she would have Shay in stitches when she’d perform one-person skits about the bizarre scenes at her church. Was about to go into one now, feeling the need to make Shay laugh after their devastating time on the porch banister this morning when they both allowed themselves to admit that Neet was pregnant. But right then Neet saw Valadean walking along the platform.

  “Look,” she said, pointing out the window, “there goes Miss Johnetta’s niece. Gosh, she’s pretty.”

  “But she knows it,” Shay said, dusting away at the salt falling from the soft pretzel she’d bitten into. “Takes away from the prettiness when somebody’s yelling out, ‘Look at me, I’m beautiful.’”

  “Well, we do it with black is beautiful,” Neet said, patting Shay’s ’fro.

  “That’s only ’cause our beauty’s been denied, we’ve been told we’re ugly for so long, we have to shout out that it’s not true.”

  “Well, maybe somebody told Miss Johnetta’s niece she was ugly growing up, so now she’s saying, ‘You a lie, I look good.’”

  “She does look good,” Shay had to agree. “Matching from head to toe too in all that hot pink.” Shay was about to go on and say that Valadean probably had every man in her el car ogling her, but right then she saw her father walking along the platform, saw Valadean turn to wait for him to catch up.

  “Look, there’s your dad,” Neet said. “Mr. Joe, Mr. Joe,” Neet called but the doors to the el had just closed, so Joe didn’t hear her. The el started moving in reverse then, toward Center City, so they were riding backward, which was actually putting them closer and closer to Joe and Valadean. Shay had a clear view of her father’s face, his smile, his eyebrows arched as if he’d just asked Valadean a soft and serious question. He reached out then and touched Valadean’s back and pointed her toward the revolving wooden slatted doors that were the exit from the platform. His hand seemed to move in slow motion to Shay, seemed not just to lightly touch Valadean’s back but seemed to caress it, and when Valadean turned around to look in Joe’s face, to smile back at him, it seemed to Shay as if they had leaned in and kissed.

  Neet pushed over Shay to try and tap the window to get Joe’s attention. “Aren’t you gonna wave to him?” she asked Shay. “Mr. Joe, Mr. Joe,” Neet said, hitting the window with her fist.

  “Stop it, girl!” Shay said, trying to pull Neet’s hand away from the window. “Just stop it. I don’t want him to see me.”

  The el had picked up speed and rounded a curve and left the sight of Joe and Valadean behind.

  “What’s wrong with him seeing you?” Neet asked as she got up and sat in the seat facing Shay because she said that riding backward made her dizzy these days. “We have our story together, right? We made a bet to see how long it takes to get from here to Frankford, if anybody asks where we’re headed, right? So it’s not like we’d have any explaining to do, right? So why didn’t you want your dad to see you, huh?”

  “Just because,” Shay said, breaking off another piece of pretzel.

  “Why you being all like that?”

  “Like what?” Shay asked, needing Neet to help her make sense of the what, the way they’d always done for each other.

  “Like you just caught your dad wrong just ’cause he got off of the same el with Valadean?”

  “Speaking of caught wrong,” Shay said, stuffing her soft pretzel back into the brown paper bag and punching her seat with the bag, “did you tell that dumb-ass Little Freddie yet about your condition?”

  “Everything is everything with Little Freddie and me,” Neet said, not allowing herself to be baited right now. She stared at Shay, watched Shay’s cheeks fill up with air the way they always did when her emotions were tangled. “You should have let your father know you saw him, Shay.”

  Shay didn’t say anything. Just looked out of the window. They were speeding through West Philadelphia and Shay concentrated on the roofs and chimneys of the row houses and stores and row houses again that lined Market Street. A rush of James Brown singing “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” moved through the car when the doors opened at Fifty-sixth Street along with a stream of fried shrimp wafting up from the fish store below. More loud music at Fifty-second Street, this time a little Aretha Franklin, a little Wes Montgomery competing with sirens blaring and a raspy voice shouting, “Jesus saves,” through the type of megaphone that politicians made promises through at election time. A tall, slim brother in a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt sat next to Neet, said, “Hello, sister.” Neet looked at him and smiled though Shay barely acknowledged him even after Neet tried to introduce them. Neet and the brother engaged in light conversation about whether a man had really landed on the moon the other night. He said he had his doubts. Said the white man was a liar and a thief and would do anything to promote his image of superiority over the entire universe. Shay sucked the air in through her teeth. She was irritated that Neet was so nice, so trusting, so willing to give anybody the time of day, a second chance. Hated having to listen to Neet’s polite replies to this wannabe intellectual’s comments. So she was relieved when he got off at Thirty-fourth Street, especially since they were underground now and there were no more scenes for her to look out on.

  Shay got up then and sat next to Neet, telling herself that it would save her from having to listen to bullshit from the next brother who’d rush to sit there, attracted by Neet’s soft prettiness. Once she sat though, she knew that she needed the very thing that irritated her about Neet, her too-trusting nature. “So how do you know my father wasn’t wrong back there?” she asked Neet.

  “How do you know he was? I just think you should give him the benefit of the doubt. I swear, Shay,” Neet said as she put her arm around Shay and squeezed her shoulder. “And I don’t have to tell you what the consequences are in my mom’s religion if I were to be caught swearing.”

  Neet went into one of her church routines then. Imitated the Reverend Mister who this time she characterized as a rooster, then the flutter of all the hens who pampered him, mopping his brow and fanning him lest he get overheated even as they themselves were passing out from working overtime laying his eggs. What she did with her face, her arms, even her voice as she cock-a-doodle-dooed had them both laughing so hard that they were doubled over, prompting the occasional comment from some other young black commuter begging, damn, sisters, can I get a hit of what y’all been smoking.

  By the time they got to Frankford, the other end of the line, and the train emptied again, Neet had laughed so hard she was crying. She was really crying. She was telling Shay that she was afraid. She didn’t know if she could go through with the abortion. She’d gotten attached to the thickening in her stomach, she said. Had even developed the habit of rubbing her stomach softly, trying to soothe it and prepare it for the ensuing void. “Please help me, Shay. Please help me to go through with it, I have to go through with it. But I’m afraid. I’m scared. I’m so scared. I do want to have the baby, but I can’t have a baby. How can I even want to have a baby? I
want college. You know. I want a future. God. I must be crazy to want a baby. Please help me, Shay.”

  Shay was terror stricken herself listening to Neet cry that she did want to have the baby, even as she consoled her, told her she would get through it. “I’m here for you, girl. You know that. Don’t even let this mess with your mind. This is normal, what you’re going through. We’ll get through it. Yeah we will. Hell yeah we will.”

  THEY RODE THE EL until nine o’clock, though Neet said that she didn’t feel any different so that she couldn’t tell whether or not the jostling motion had done any good. Though it had done her some good just spending time with Shay. She told Shay that now as she stepped into Shay’s vestibule so that she could put her long black skirt on to wear into her house. The baggy skirt was actually a relief to her stomach after the Wrangler dungarees she’d had on. They kissed good night, said love you, the way they’d been saying it to each other since they’d first learned to talk.

  Shay stood at the door and watched Neet climb over the banister and go into her house. Now she allowed herself to fully realize the panic she’d felt at Neet’s admission that she wanted to have the baby. Her breaths were coming fast and tight and she thought she was about to hyperventilate. Suddenly she wanted to talk to her mother. Wanted to ask Louise was it right to coerce somebody into doing something that they didn’t want to do even if the thing that they didn’t want to do was the best for them. Louise would know what to do. She’d listen with a keen understanding and then direct Shay’s path through this ordeal. Her mother would interrogate her for specifics though and Shay couldn’t give specifics. Except, she thought now, she could invent a scenario. Somebody from work, she’d tell Louise. Some Irish-Catholic girl who found herself pregnant, a college student, she’d tell Louise. She felt unburdened already just thinking about talking it over with Louise.