Tumbling

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  She decided to stay in the kitchen until Herbie left. Just a passerby, she thought. Probably got a string of women all over the place. Women love those good-looking high-yellow men with the half-straight hair. Probably got a wife back home wherever he’s from that he runs around on. Wonder where he’s from, wonder what he does. No need in finding out, though.

  Noon’s mother interrupted her thoughts. She pushed a plate heaped with apple cobbler in Noon’s hands. “You see that boy over there, the light one, the visitor?” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Noon answered, not looking at her mother’s face.

  “Take that boy this plate of my cobbler, spiced it up ’specially for him. It’ll help him settle down some.”

  “Can someone else do it? I want to get the silverware washed down, and—”

  “You the one to do it,” her mother said firmly. She looked at her daughter, at her arms pulled too close to her sides, at her eyes that had lost their slant and turned to big circles filled with fear. She was relieved. Worldly though this visitor was, at least he had stirred Noon, made her nervous, made her smile and blush earlier. And she’d seen how he’d studied Noon, saw his eyes take her in all at once as his lean face expanded to have more room for drawing her presence in. Plus he had large ears, meant he’d be generous, giving; Noon wouldn’t have to want for much in material things. It was time, Lord, yes, it was time. She’d never have admirers from among the townspeople who’d gotten an inkling about what had happened. Tainted for life she was here after those devils got to her.

  She plucked a spoon from the silverware bin and buffed it dry in the pleat of her ruffled Sunday apron. She nestled the spoon along the side of the cinnamon-covered apples spilling from the crust. “Give the boy the cobbler, and you look right in his eyes when you give it to him too. You hear me now. And keep the spoon sitting just like I set it so he’ll see you twice, once when you give it to him and again in the reflection of the spoon. Go, go do what I tell you now.” She almost pushed Noon out of the kitchen.

  Herbie ended up staying for the afternoon service. He knew he had a gig that evening. Knew that he needed to be at rehearsal. But his feet had gotten heavy after the thick sweetness of the apple cobbler. He was drawn back into the sanctuary. The solid wooden pew almost pulled him down. He almost felt drunk. He smiled to himself during the service. He thought about how Noon blushed; that excited him. The women he was used to were beyond blushing. He hoped he wouldn’t scare Noon off. Don’t know much about church girls, he thought. The sun was going down, and the inside of the church was red from the sunfall pushing through the hand-painted windows. He realized then how late it was. He still didn’t leave. He reasoned that he could fall in on the band’s first set and be right in sync. “Might even have an usher on my arm,” he whispered.

  SEVEN

  Noon and Herbie celebrated their first anniversary with a hug and a kiss and a piece of thawed wedding cake. They feasted on roast duck and wild rice and broccoli spears. They giggled at Noon’s attempts to get down a swallow of champagne. They laughed out loud when she stepped on his feet when he tried once again to teach her to dance. Their bodies stiffened though when he carried her up the steps as if she were a bride. “Please, please, let tonight be the night,” they both prayed.

  But her healing hadn’t come. Despite Reverend Schell’s supplication that night on the altar on her behalf, despite the word “healing” folded neatly between the gold-trimmed pages of her take-to-church-Bible, her body went as cold as a block of dry ice.

  Herbie cried then. He loved her, he said, with all his heart, but he had physical needs, and he had to go. Noon cried too, and begged for his patience, and then used her hands like a teenage girl with her virginity intact just to relieve his pressure some. She closed her eyes tightly and prayed for the Lord to touch and heal, and imagined she was kneading dough for knock-knock rolls.

  It wasn’t enough for Herbie. He tried not to think about Noon two days later, as he whistled down in the locker room at the train station. He changed from his redcap’s uniform into his good navy pants and starched white dress shirt. It was Friday evening, payday, and since he knew he made a good living for a colored man in a job that was sought after by the young and strong, he usually whistled on Friday nights. Working with the railroad was much more stable than the under-the-table money he’d made playing drums in one club or the other. Even though his father had been a Pullman porter and a card-carrying member of A. Philip Randolph’s Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, not just a redcap, Herbie prided himself on having the good sense to know that he would have never made it as a Pullman porter. He didn’t have his father’s gracious, patient nature. Being a redcap suited him, though. He could move quickly, release his coiled energy in bursts, no long train rides to be filled with polite conversation. He could sing his favorite song out loud while he worked, or grumble if that was his mood. And the pay was actually quite good once he added his tips and considered that he had paid cash for their Lombard Street house with a portion of the war bonds from the First World War his father had bequeathed to him.

  So Noon didn’t have to hunt down a day job, and she could walk to Fourth Street and pick out the finest fabrics of eyelet lace, or taffeta, or even an occasional swatch of pure silk. They ate the best cuts of meat, the richest creams, and Noon tithed generously to support her church. Even the ruby cuff links that he pushed into his sleeves right now were a gift from Noon that she boasted were paid for with household money she’d managed to save by catching specials.

  But still, he tried not to think about Noon in the dullness of the locker room. He slapped a little Old Spice cologne along his neck and smoothed at his mustache and pinched at his nose. He whistled louder. He was on his way to see Ethel.

  It had been six weeks since he’d seen Ethel under that tent at Gert’s. Six weeks since she’d given him the slip using the back-massaging waitress as her accomplice. He still held on to a tinge of anger just beneath his flesh that irritated him like an insect bite, and continued to irritate him, even after Ethel had given him a message through Big Carl where and when to pay her a visit. But right now his excitement doused the sting as he hung his uniform in his locker.

  He could hardly contain himself as he walked through the station under the high dome ceilings and into the thick, sweet scent of chocolate coming from Schrafft’s candy store. The aroma reminded him of the cocoa butter bar Ethel would slide along her skin after a bath until it melted into the pores on her arms and legs. He hurried into the store and bought a double-decker box of Whitman’s chocolates. “Just give me the one on display,” he told the clerk, too impatient even to wait for a fresh box from the back. He picked out twelve long-stemmed multicolored carnations and rushed through the throngs of people at the Thirtieth Street Station: Friday shoppers heading home with bulging bags from department stores, assorted travelers lugging duffel bags and metal trunks, the going-out crowd strutting their sharpest threads, and domestics carrying big brown double-handled bags. He stepped outside into the fading sunlight and found more crowds to work through. Shifts from the post office loaded buses hardly stopping. Cabs stopped, but mainly for little old ladies in white lacy gloves. He decided to walk. Bucking the foot traffic, he headed east, passing those downtown bound and worked up a good clip and a sweat to match.

  The late-day May sun was pushing out its final rays. Again he tried not to think about Noon as he walked across the bridge. He sensed the currents of the river rushing just below the surface that wouldn’t let the sunfall penetrate. She hadn’t even asked that morning why he’d packed his best navy pants for changing into after work. She didn’t even fuss when he roused Fannie before he left so he could tickle her under her chin and make her laugh. He was relieved. He didn’t want to have to lie and tell her he’d be late because he was stopping off at Royale. He hated lying. But it was this, or join the other men toting suitcases and memories as they boarded trains leaving home.

  He walked faster, trying to
outwalk thoughts of Noon. Past the Christian Street Y, where girls in billowy dresses and pearls and heels streamed in for the Summer Cotillion. Daughters of upper-crust colored folk, doctors and lawyers and teachers, hoping to meet sons of same. He wondered if there was a porter’s child among them; a satin belt, a wrist corsage, the interest on his daddy’s bonds might get Fannie in fifteen years from now. Noon’s refinement would surely help. He shook his head again to dissolve the image of Noon. Came to Father Divine’s, Noon again when he thought about their fifteen-cent special: smothered chicken buried in onions and peppers and cornmeal gravy. The showboat across the street was turning on the lights. Chased Noon from his head as he crossed to see who’d be warming up there tonight. Had caught Dizzy there the month before. Maybe he’d stop back through, depending on how things went with Ethel.

  Ethel. His heart stopped. He was on the way to see Ethel. Kater Street, where Ethel lived; he paused to breathe and dab at the sweat that was dripping down the side of his face.

  Herbie took the six steps in two skips and held his finger against the bell. He looked up smiling, wanting to be sure that when she saw his reflection in the Nosey Susie, the mirror that hung just outside her second-floor window that allowed her to see who her callers were, she would see the smile. She laughed when she opened the window. She laughed a lot, he thought. Her laugh had a melody and a tone that he guessed came from singing all the time.

  “I’ll drop the key down,” she said. “Let yourself in, and come on up.”

  He fit the key in, impatiently jiggled it around, cursed, then put it in the other way and the door slid open. Somebody in the first-floor apartment was cooking turnip greens, and the scent was all in the vapors that rested along the dull yellow walls in the foyer. He clicked on a light switch to see his way up the steps. He strummed his fingers along the box of chocolates as he tried to slow his pace. He concentrated on the ceiling where upside-down bouquets of pink flowers raced across the white background, a spiderweb spread out between the brown wooden banister spokes. The brass doorknob came into view as he neared the top of the stairs. He just needed to focus on everything around him to still his heart some.

  But then he heard the click of the door lock, saw the brass knob turn, and the rush of red and blue lights as the door opened wide. The laugh again, a smooth trumpet blaring through the red and blue, and then Ethel, as she stepped out from behind the opened door, the red and blue lights in the chandelier a fitting backdrop to her silky lounging robe belted tight at the waist, her short hair brushed back, giving a show to her wispy eyes and her pursed lips. He was jelly. She would have to take over from here until he could recover from the first sight of her.

  This time when Ethel laughed it was to herself. Herbie’s honesty made her feel like a little girl sometimes. The way everything showed on his face helped her reclaim her innocence for a while. She was a young girl all over again and her face was soft brown and clear of hell-fired red rouge. No men yet that needed saving. No man after man that could have been the same man in whose arms she found redemption while she saved his life. Herbie had always been among the most honest. Like he needed healing as much as he needed his physical release.

  “Well, come on in, Mr. Herbie. Long time, so long I guess that if I were in a singing mood, I’d break out into a song.” She laughed again and pulled him into the living room and closed the door behind him.

  “You know like I know you’ll save it for the stage, and come give me a hug.” He grabbed her, forgetting all about the carnations and Whitman’s chocolates and hit himself in the chin with the box and broke off several of the multicolored blooms.

  “Here,” she said quickly, taking the carnations from him. “Let me put these in my fanciest jar, those jelly jars have those nice scallops along the edges, let me put these in one right now before you break all the heads off.” She kissed him on the cheek lightly.

  He watched her back as she walked into the kitchen, the way her hips moved from side to side in the lounging set that looked orange under the red and blue lights. It occurred to him that he spent a lot of time watching her back, watching her walk away from him. The way she’d just flit in and out of town, not available more often than she was, no explanations, just business, “Had some things to take care of” was all she’d say. He guessed that was what she’d say this time, so he promised himself he wouldn’t bring it up as she walked back into the living room with the carnations in a tall, slender vase.

  “Thought you was putting those in a jar?” he asked, trying to keep his irritation at bay.

  “Just playing with you, Herbie. You know I got to keep one nice something around me, so I keep this vase. Besides, if I put the flowers in my jelly jar, won’t have nothing to drink my ice water out of.” She laughed again.

  “Have a sit down.” She pointed to a high-backed velvet couch that was shaped like a throne and looked purple under the red and blue lights. She set the vase with the carnations on a low coffee table. “Rented this place furnished so I had to settle for what was already here. Couch is faded, can’t see it now. That’s why I put the colored bulbs in the chandelier. Coffee table all scratched up. Chandelier globes got cracks in them. Stuffing starting to peek through the little slits in the kitchen chairs. Used shit. Everything in here is used. It’ll do for now, though, until I can go shopping. Except for my bed. I can’t be sleeping on nobody else’s mattress. Went down to Aaron’s soon as I got back and bought me my own bedding. And my music box. Lug that Victrola with me wherever I settle. Thing still pushes out a pretty good sound. You want to hear something special?”

  “Sounds good what’s on there. ‘Body and Soul,’ right? I know that’s Coleman Hawkins, nobody does a tenor sax like him.” He was still standing in the middle of the room, still holding on to the chocolates.

  Her eyes looked beyond him and stared off into the red and blue air that hung over them like sunfall. “Yeah, I still love my music soft and slow come evening, you know everything’s winding down before the fire of night erupts, nice little wind-down music playing now.”

  Herbie cleared his throat to bring the dreaminess of her eyes back to him. “Bought you some chocolate.”

  “I see,” she said as if called to attention. She laughed and took the box and led Herbie to the couch.

  They sat with knees facing as she tore through the clear cellophane covering the yellow box of Whitman’s chocolates with her long, sharp nails done up in the newest shade of nude. She lifted the box cover and then the white waxy sheet covering the candy. Liquefied chocolate colored the sheet. Misshapen clumps of tan, and brown, and near-black chocolate oozed their cherry or white cream centers and looked like lava sliding down a hillside.

  “Melted,” she said. And then she snickered. “What you do, carry these too close to your waist?”

  Herbie didn’t laugh. He was too embarrassed. Had walked so hard and fast to get to her he hadn’t considered that the display box would contain melted candy.

  Ethel cleared her throat when she saw Herbie’s face; embarrassment raced across it like a red shadow. “I was just teasing you, Herbie. The chocolates will be fine. I’ll stick them right in the icebox right now. Even taste sweeter after they been melted down once and then hardened back to shape.”

  “Fine,” he said, waving his hand in the most nonchalant way he could.

  He watched her back again and then her return into the living room. This time she held a tall bottle of Beefeater gin, a short, thick shot glass, and a jelly jar filled with ice water.

  “Still remember your drink, Herbie. It ain’t been that long.” She set the glasses down and cracked the seal on the gin and poured it into Herbie’s glass. “Also bought a quart of Ballantine beer if you want a chaser.”

  “Just the gin is fine for now. You still on that ice water, I see.” He raised his glass in a toast.

  “Still got to have it out of a jelly jar too,” she said as she clinked her glass against his. “Just don’t taste right out of anything else. H
ad to get that through to your buddy Big Carl’s head last night. I told him I ain’t signing no long-term contracts to sing at that Club Royale unless he can assure me I get my ice water in a widemouthed jelly jar.”

  “So I guess that means you here for a while. Is that what you saying?”

  “Awhile.” She said it matter-of-factly. “So”—a sudden pitch of excitement in her voice now—“tell me ’bout your new baby. Heard all of downtown celebrated for two days over that child.”

  “Baby’s fine.” He said it impatiently, wanting to hear about her plans instead. “Named her Fannie, cute little thing. Happy baby too, laugh every time she look at me.”

  “Awl, that’s so sweet,” Ethel said as her eyes went soft and she sighed lightly. “Must be nice having a cute little baby ’round.”

  “Nice, real nice,” Herbie said, cutting her short. “So what you say about a contract at Royale?”

  “Ain’t said nothing about it except that I might settle back here and sing at the club.”

  The matter-of-fact tone was back in her voice and brought Herbie’s under-the-skin irritation to the surface. “Till you just up and leave again, right?”

  “My good buddy,” she said as she slapped at his knee. “You all right? You know that’s important to me, that you be all right.”