One drop.
Jack climbed the stairs of 28 West 133rd Street and inserted his key into the lock. He walked into his small room and removed his hat and coat.
The voice sounded again: Who are you?
Jack ignored it and moved to the vent to warm his frozen hands.
Every day he gathered information on Marcus Garvey and the activities of the UNIA. The U.S. government had labeled Garvey an anarchist. He was to Negroes what Emma Goldman was to women. Dangerous Emma had called for access to birth control—how dare she suggest a woman be in control of her own reproductive system! And so, too, how dare Marcus Garvey suggest that Negroes develop and maintain their own economic system? How dare he put it into their minds that they could return to Africa, form their own government in Liberia, and unite the continent as one massive, indestructible force?
Africa for Africans!
Marcus Garvey’s words rang in Jack’s head. He moved across the room to the small looking glass that hung on the closet door and gazed wondrously at the man in the mirror. His mind shouted out: Who are you?
He was a black man encased in white skin who faithfully served a hypocritical government, which had expressed, through a variety of laws and lack thereof, its blatant loathing and disregard for its Negro populace, and had the audacity to become outraged when those same Negroes sought to pack up and leave these United States.
Africa for Africans!
Why couldn’t the government just let them go? Be rid of the lazy, nasty, stupid, murderous, thieving, raping, lying coons once and for all? Did white people need Negroes to make them feel good about themselves? To be their whipping boys, their entertainment? Certainly they could have one of their own scrub their floors, wash their clothes, and raise their children.
Why?
It always came down to that one word: why?
And when Jack arrived at that point—as he did every time he had this particular inward conversation—he found that he had no answer.
Who are you!
Jack finally responded: I am James Wormley Jones, the first ever Negro FBI agent, assigned by Hoover himself. I am Special FBI agent 800, James Wormley Jones, assigned to infiltrate the UNIA organization and to report on all activities!
The man in the mirror smirked. But who are you really? James Wormley Jones opened his closet door and pulled from the shelf a shoe box containing his special agent FBI pistol. He closed the door and his reflection was still waiting for an answer.
He released the safety on the gun.
I am a rat-fink, sell-out …
He cocked the hammer and pressed the nozzle to his temple.
An Uncle Tom house nigger.
He squeezed his eyes shut and rested the pad of his index finger against the trigger and found, just as he had numerous times before, that he couldn’t do it, because above all, he was weak.
CHAPTER 17
Eduardo Tomas gave his wife a sharp look. It had been months since her friend, the woman with the ridiculous name, had appeared on their doorstep. As far as he was concerned, Rain had well overstayed her visit, and had over-indulged in their food, liquor, and was taking advantage of Meredith’s generosity. Didn’t Meredith see that Rain was a leech? And now she was talking about taking Rain to Paris! It was more than Eduardo could bear and so he exploded.
“I won’t have it!” he barked, and brought his fist down onto the breakfast table. The eggs, bacon, and toast trembled on their porcelain plates and the coffee swilled over the edge of the gold-embossed cup.
Meredith batted her eyes. “You won’t have what, darling?”
And now there was another. A darker one with quiet ways who showed up every other evening and pecked mercilessly away on the typewriter until all hours of the night.
Who did Meredith say she was? Oh yes, her secretary.
What kind of spell did these changos have over his wife? She surrounded herself with them. She donated money to their useless causes, ladled soup in their poorhouses, cradled their babies in their orphanages, and now she had one living in their home.
“I won’t allow you to squander any more of my money on that puta!”
She dressed like a puta, spoke like one, drank like one, and moved like one. And the places she spent her time, down there in Jungle Alley singing and baring her breasts—only putas did that.
She was a bad influence on his wife.
Meredith lowered the newspaper she’d been reading and looked at her husband with a knitted brow. “Puta? Really, darling, such language so early in the morning?”
Eduardo bristled. “I am not making fun with you, Merry. I mean it, no more!” His arm swept through the air and knocked over a crystal vase filled with geraniums. The butler appeared in a flash, cloth in hand, and began to attend to the mess.
Meredith stiffened.
“When I come back from Havana, I want her gone.” He was absolute, and without another word he stormed from the room.
Rain never rose before noon. But that morning the commotion roused her and she removed the pink satin sleep mask from her eyes and peered into the milky darkness of her bedroom. Her head was heavy, her throat dry, and her feet swollen. The culprit was the excessive amount of gin she’d consumed before bed.
The front door slammed and the windows rattled. Outside her bedroom she could hear the tap, tap, tap of Bijou, the gray and white Malti-Poo, as he followed close on Meredith’s heels. One knock and the door slowly opened. Meredith’s distressed voice reached through the darkness. “Rain? Rain, darling, are you awake?”
Rain raised her hand and waved.
“No, Bijou, no,” Meredith chastised as she used her slippered foot to gently nudge the dog back out into the hallway. “Darling,” she breathed dramatically, rushing to the bed, “Eduardo is not at all happy with our little jaunt across the water. He is being a complete monster!”
Rain threw back the coverlet.
Meredith unknotted the belt of her silk robe, slipped her arms from the belled sleeves, and allowed the material to crumple to the floor. “You must see Paris—everyone must see Paris before they die!”
She was stark naked. Her small breasts curved upwards, the nipples were erect and pink. She climbed into the bed and wrapped her sinewy arms around Rain’s neck.
“He spoke to me in the most horrendous manner,” she said, bringing her face close to Rain’s. “And he called you a puta!”
Rain kissed her, a deep, passionate kiss that sent a lightning bolt of excitement through both of their bodies.
“He wants you to go. He says you must be out by the time he returns.” Meredith’s voice was full of sadness. She pressed her palm against Rain’s cheek. “I won’t allow it, I won’t,” she sobbed.
Rain pulled Meredith to her and laid her head against her breasts. “Shhhh,” Rain consoled as she lovingly stroked Meredith’s hair. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”
CHAPTER 18
When Colin first complained, Easter brushed it off, called him silly, wrapped her arms around his neck, and used baby talk to assure him that he had nothing to be concerned about. She told him that he was her big strong husband and all she and Rain were doing was getting reacquainted and reminiscing about old times.
Colin had acquiesced, but could not ignore the perpetual bliss that Easter had worn like a cloak ever since Rain stepped back into her life. She was positively buoyant; it was as if Easter was living on a great body of water. Colin half expected her to leave puddles of salty water in her wake. He’d never had that type of effect on her and he was her husband. His ego imploded.
The second time he broached the subject, Easter’s response was cutting and she accused him of being childish and selfish and pointed out that she never uttered a word about all the time he spent down at the UNIA headquarters.
When she began working over at Meredith’s apartment, he held his tongue. But what started out as one night a week had progressed into two and then three, and now she was spending her one day off over th
ere with them instead of with him, her husband. And when she was home all she talked about was Rain and Meredith.
Colin looked at Easter, really looked at her, and for the first time he saw her naïveté. It was shining like a star right in the center of her forehead. How had he missed it all this time?
“I don’t understand why you don’t hate them.”
They’d had this conversation a million times. And the thought of revisiting it yet again made Easter weary.
“They raped your sister. They lynched and burned your friend—you saw it with your own damn eyes!”
Easter sat down on the sofa, reached for one Colin’s cigarettes, and lit it.
“What they do to your people here in this country is disgraceful, yet you run to the buckra in her fancy apartment in the sky and you lick her ass.” His chest heaved and he bared his teeth like a wild animal.
Easter didn’t know what language she needed to make him understand. Did she love white people? She would not go so far as to say that, but she couldn’t say she hated them, not as a race. She tried to judge all people on an individual basis.
But Colin needed her to hate, he needed her to feel what he felt and know it. “Come with me,” he said, and grabbed his hat.
She had never been to the Bronx, not once in the few years she’d been living in New York. He said they were going to the zoo, but his face was solemn and dark, an expression best suited for a visit to a funeral parlor or gravesite.
They boarded the train and Easter rested her head on the window and watched the scenery peel by. Her thoughts were not on their destination, but on Rain. She wondered what she was doing at that very moment.
Colin took her hand and practically dragged her through the arched gates of the zoo. They sped past the caged sea lions, the sleeping leopards, the yawning tigers, and the cages filled with chattering rainbow-colored birds, until they found themselves at the entrance to the monkey house. Easter opened her mouth, a question balanced on her tongue, but Colin raised a finger to her lips.
Once they were inside his grip tightened around her hand as he edged his way through the throng of fascinated onlookers. Easter could see bright orange fur and huge droopy eyes pressed into an elongated face. An orangutan? He brought her all this way to see an orangutan?
They moved closer until they were right up front and Easter found herself staring at a man, who gazed back at her from the opposite side of the metal bars. She thought her mind was playing a cruel trick on her eyes, but when she blinked he was still there. The orangutan threw his arms around the man’s shoulders and hugged him. The man hugged him back and then shrugged him off.
The white people laughed, and some of them hunched their backs, pushed out their bottom lips, and made whooping monkey sounds.
Easter’s eyes roamed to the sign posted on the enclosure:
The African Pygmy, “Ota Benga.”
Age 28, Height 4 feet 11 inches.
Congo Free State, South Central Africa.
By Dr. Samuel P. Verner.
The natural emotion should have been anger and embarrassment, but all Easter wanted to do was cry. She looked up at her husband and her eyes asked what her mouth couldn’t: Why did you bring me here?
Ota Benga was naked except for a loincloth. And as was the custom of his people, his teeth had been filed to sharp and precise points. In his hand he held a child’s bow and arrow, which he trained first on the orangutan and then squarely on the crowd. Some of the male onlookers clutched their chests and stumbled backwards on the heels of their expensive leather shoes, crying, “Ow, you got me!”
The ladies twirled their parasols and giggled behind hands encased in delicately embroidered gloves as they watched their children toss peanuts through the bars, even though there was a sign that read, Please Do Not Feed the Animals.
Ota Benga spotted Easter and Colin—the only two dark faces in the sea of white—and pleasure spread across his face in a smile. He rushed excitedly to the front of the cage, wrapped his fingers around the bars, and proudly announced: “I. Am. Man.”
On the way back home, Colin was satisfied that he had accomplished what he’d set out to do. He didn’t have to ask Easter if she finally felt the hate. He knew she did, he could see it oozing out of her like pus.
CHAPTER 19
That night Easter dreamed of blood. The next day she went to work and did not smile for the entire day. When Mattie Mae—now-Madeline asked what her problem was, Easter pressed her lips together and shrugged her shoulders. One woman after the next came to her sink and she scrubbed, rinsed, and massaged their scalps, but she did not make small talk and uttered a barely audible “Thank you” when they dropped the quarter tip into her open palm.
She could not erase Ota Benga from her mind. He was stuck there, nailed into her memory for all eternity—him and those three little words that crushed her heart.
And what had the white people done when he spoke those words? They laughed and clapped their hands and shouted, “Now say ‘Polly wanna cracker’!”
The morning stretched into afternoon. The clock on the wall struck noon and with it came a squeal from one of the hairdressers. The entire shop shuddered and Easter looked up to see that Lumpkin had Mattie Mae—now-Madeline pinned against the paned glass wall of the shop. One hand was flat against Mattie Mae—now-Madeline’s chest, while the other held tight to the wooden handle of a hot comb; its metal teeth glowed crimson and hovered just inches from her jugular.
She didn’t utter a word, she didn’t even breathe, as Lumpkin screamed into her face, “I told you he’s mine!”
Without thinking, Easter snatched up a pair of barber’s scissors from a nearby station. In a flash she was behind Lumpkin, the business end of her weapon pressed against Lumpkin’s neck.
A collective gasp went up from the women in the shop.
“This don’t have nothing to do with you, Easter,” Lumpkin sneered.
Easter shifted her eyes to Mattie Mae—now-Madeline and smiled assuredly at her friend. “It’s got everything to do with me, Lumpkin.”
“Well, then I guess me and Madeline both going to meet our maker today.”
Lumpkin moved the hot comb closer and Madeline’s skin went tender and pink beneath the heat. Soon it would begin to blister. Easter applied pressure, piercing Lumpkin’s flesh. A thin stream of red spilled from the puncture and pooled in the hollow curve of her collarbone.
Lumpkin’s face contorted with pain. “Your friend? This roach ain’t got a lick of respect for me. I done told her time and time again to leave be my man. But do she mind what I say? No! She throw herself at him every chance she get. She ain’t nothing but a hussy, and I’m gonna take care of that, cause those who can’t hear will feel!”
Lumpkin’s face disintegrated right before Easter’s eyes and was replaced with a collage of white faces belonging to people who had hurt her family and friends. Blood flooded Easter’s ears and she howled inwardly, and she almost did it, she almost stuck Lumpkin like a pig.
“Look here, Lumpkin, Mattie Mae is a fool for sure. You right, you done told her numerous times to leave be your man and she ain’t mind. But her hard ears don’t call for this. Mattie Mae is like family to me. We come from the same town, played in the same dirt, swam in the same lake. Her mama whipped my ass like I was her’n and my mama did the same to Mattie Mae. We got history, ya hear? So when you say I ain’t got nothing to do it with it, you dead wrong. Me and Mattie Mae is wrapped up tight like a ball of string. So if you burn her, I swear ’fore God I will cut you.”
Lumpkin swallowed hard and when she spoke again, most of the fight had left her voice. “You better tell her to mind then, Easter. She better mind what I say or next time …”
Easter nodded her head. “There won’t be no next time,” she said smoothly, her eyes fixed on Mattie Mae—now-Madeline, “will there?”
“N-no,” Mattie Mae—now-Madeline stammered.
“You hear what Lumpkin say, right Madeline? Fats is her Jo
dy not your’n.”
Madeline slowly nodded her head.
Satisfied, Lumpkin lowered the hot comb; it slipped from her fingers and went clanging to the black-and-white tiled floor.
After that Easter wet a towel and told Mattie Mae—now-Madeline to hold it against her neck. She did the same for Lumpkin and then went to sit down for a spell. She looked around the place she had worked since she came up north and the shop suddenly seemed small and cramped and that familiar feeling began to creep through her.
It was time to move on.
Easter stood, removed her apron, rolled it into a ball, and dumped it into a hamper. She had her pocketbook slung over her shoulder and was halfway to the door when Mattie Mae—now-Madeline called out, “Where you going?”
“Home.”
“You coming back?”
“No.”
Minutes later, she was hit with the shakes so bad that she barely made it up the stairs and into bed.
When Colin finally came home, his eyes were bloodshot and watery. He found Easter buried under layers of blankets, shivering so badly he could hear her teeth chattering. He stumbled over to the bed and glowered down at her. “You sick?”
Easter opened her mouth to answer, but Colin cut her off and spat, “My mum is dead,” and with that he tossed a crumpled ball of paper at her, staggered over to the table where Easter had laid her purse, snatched it up, turned it over, and dumped out the contents. The only money she had were the tips she’d made that morning—one dollar and fifty cents. He raked the bill and the coins into his hand and left.
Glorious Page 9