by Terry Persun
Leon skipped and danced and twirled his arms careful not to slip. He hooted with joy to be through the brush. The sun leaned heavily into noon. The loudness of the birds had remained in the brush. Leon smelled the clean river-water air.
A few hours later, Leon glimpsed a road on the other side of some brush. Where that road came from was a mystery, but where it headed was the south bank of the Susquahanna River opposite the great town of Williamsport.
He jogged, twisted his ankle and halted. His ankle ached. He rubbed his briar-pricked, timber-scarred hands together. They were rough and tender at the same time.
The late afternoon sky began to cover over with clouds. Breezes from the north chilled Leon’s skin. This night, he was sure, he’d be inside.
Leon leaned into the road. Grass grew down its center and choke cherry grew at its edge. He limped. He couldn’t place all his weight on his ankle. Occasionally he’d skip on his other foot to propel himself forward a little faster. That is how he made his way into town.
Five children saw Leon. They ran out to him. The two oldest looked to be ten, while the other three, ragged and energetic, were somewhere between four and seven, Leon guessed.
“Mister? Mister?” A dark haired boy with bowl-cut hair said.
“Yes,” Leon said, but he did not halt his progress.
The children followed.
“You in the war, Mister? You get wounded?”
Leon slowed to reduce the need to limp so noticeably. “Nope. Twisted my ankle.”
“Naw, you joshin’. You was in the war weren’t you, Mister?”
“Ah huh,” one of the smaller kids said.
“Why would I josh you?”
The five of them looked around at one another as though some silent communication took place. Then the spokesperson said, “You don’t want no pity.” He said it as if it were the most logical reason, as if the statement rang true.
“Well, I’m sorry to say it, but it’s not true.”
“Ah huh,” one of them said again.
“Nope,” Leon said. “I wish I could claim some pity, but I can’t do it and be honest.”
“Twisted then,” the older boy said.
“Twisted. It’ll be fine in the morning.”
“Oh.” That disinterested response was followed by, “We best be going.” Then all five of the kids ran down the road, turned off into an alley, and were gone from sight.
Shacks and houses were set back from the road. Some were well-built while others were barely standing. Little paths broke off from the road and led down skinny, weed-lined lanes or into a small cluster of buildings.
Dogs barked. Crows cawed. A woman came out a doorway and threw a pail of water to the side of her shack. She looked tired. She looked right at Leon and then went back inside. Evening followed Leon into town.
When Leon got into the heart of South Williamsport, he passed several men who nodded. “Howdy,” Leon said to each one in turn.
Another few people stood along the street and Leon asked for directions to where he could buy something to eat and maybe get a room for the night.
One man, dressed in a wool suit with a wool overcoat, pointed diagonally across a few streets. “About there. Go two more streets and turn left. Five more streets and you’ll see the Timberline Pub. They got cots in the back you can rent, and food you can eat.”
“Thank you sir.” Leon held out his hand and the man took it reluctantly. Leon shook the man’s hand hard, then went on his way.
Leon surprised himself when he got to the Timberline Pub and couldn’t get his feet to take him inside. He’d never been inside a pub. He’d never been anywhere that he had to ask for a room and a meal even though he had the money to pay for both.
Another thing stopped him too. There was a sign, written plainly, the first word underlined. Still, he thought, after the war. It read, “Negroes use back entrance.” So, Leon hesitated.
All things black and white ran through his head. Another man stepped past him and walked inside, then two more came up. One said, “Can’t read?”
Leon pulled out of his daze. “No, I can read. I just. . .”
“I know. It’s hard to believe, but there’s still folk with an odd opinion as to who is part of mankind and who ain’t. And here, in this Quaker-built town, makes it even odder. I figure it’s their opinion. The food’s still good.” The man stepped back and waited a moment. “You goin’ in?”
Leon stepped forward, white once again. White with a black heart and a black family. White with a black memory and a black father who died to save his life.
Leon didn’t know what to do once he stepped inside. The man who had gone in before him sat at a table along one wall, while the two who came in behind him ambled over and sat at a more centrally located table.
Leon shuffled into the room, then made his way to the side and bumped into an empty chair. Embarrassed, he sat down and placed his bedroll on the floor under the table.
A middle-aged woman brought two steaming plates of food to a table, then walked over to the man who entered right before Leon.
“Biscuits and gravy,” the man said.
The woman nodded and walked toward Leon. “Dinner?” she said.
“Biscuits and gravy sounds good,” Leon said. His mouth rushed with anticipation.
The woman nodded at him as if he were a regular customer. Then she checked on the two men who came in after Leon. One of them ordered biscuits and gravy, but the other ordered chicken and dumplin’s.
That sounded good. Leon would enjoy chicken and dumplings much more, but he couldn’t urge his hand to wave the waitress over. He couldn’t moisten his throat enough to get sound out. He really wanted that chicken. He hadn’t had chicken in a long time. Growing up they often had chicken. There were chickens cackling all over the place now that he thought about it. He had never noticed how many chickens there were in his life. It was too late, though. There’d be no chicken tonight.
Over the bar, three meals were listed on a slate. The chicken bore the most expensive price, then the biscuits and gravy, then beans and bread. A few tattered-looking men ate beans and bread, more who had biscuits and gravy, and only a few with chicken and dumplings. Leon could have been one of the few.
A moment later his meal came out. The plate emptied steam into the air. Leon reached out and took the plate from the waitress before she could set it down in front of him.
“Hungry?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Want a beer with that?”
Leon had never had a beer, but had seen enough drunk farmhands to dislike the idea.
“Water, then,” she said before he could answer.
“Yes, please.” He looked at her, something he had to do consciously. “And, do you have a room I could rent?”
She laughed, then got more serious. “Ain’t got rooms to rent, but we got a cot in a room you can rent.”
“Then I would like one.”
“You ain’t asked how much?”
“How much?”
“Half-dollar.”
“I’ll take one. In fact, how about I stay two nights.” Leon didn’t want to stay two nights. He wanted to find his way across the river.
“Pay the bartender when you pay for your meal.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She brought his water and set it down. She lingered a moment as though she were trying to figure something out and the answer was written all over Leon. When she deciphered the code, she shook her head and walked away.
Leon only stopped lifting the fork to his mouth for that moment the waitress hesitated. The rest of the time he managed to chew and swallow long before the next forkful entered his hard-working jaws. He scraped the plate the best he could without lifting it up and licking it. Then he downed his water. He sat back in his chair and glanced around the room. He took a few deep breaths and reached for the money from inside his bedroll. He pulled out what he needed without exposing what he had. He counted it out. He st
uffed the rest back farther inside the pack, deep into his burlap sack. Leon grabbed his bedroll and stood. The chair squealed across the floor. Several people looked up for a moment, but didn’t linger. It had been nothing but noise. Leon wasn’t different. He wasn’t anyone to be watched or concerned about, and he felt better about that than ever before.
As he paid for his cot and meal, the bartender said, “Cot’s in the back. Room three. You can sleep anywhere there ain’t already a body.”
“Thank you, sir.”
As Leon gathered his pack, the bartender looked over his shoulder and said, “Hey, you ain’t left nothin’ for Mary. You get bad service?”
Leon didn’t know what the man meant, but he met a set of flaming eyes stuck into a square head with a week’s beard on it.
“Left what?” Leon managed to say.
The bartender leaned closer to Leon’s ear. “A tip for her good service.” The man nodded toward the table.
Leon turned in time to see another customer leave a coin near an empty plate and got the message.
“I forgot,” Leon said. He reached deep inside his bedroll and grabbed two coins. Without looking at them, he walked back to his table and placed the coins next to his empty plate. He stepped away quickly and went past the end of the bar and out the back door.
A dark hall led him ten feet where there were four doors, two on each side. A number was painted on each door. At the end of the hall was another door, which stood open. Leon guessed that it led to the outhouse.
He opened the room three door. Cots lined each wall. The center of the room opened to enough space for another three cots if needed. Not one window breached the wall space. Three cots were occupied. Leon took an empty one to his left. Next to each sleeping area lay a candle and three wooden matches. The well-swept room smelled of food cooking from the pub in front. One man’s candle flickered in the half-dark.
Leon unrolled his bedroll in a careful manner, tucking his wages deeper into the burlap sack and shoving the sack against the wall. While maneuvering his collected wages, Leon pulled out his book and placed it on his cot. He sat and bent to light his candle.
The room was the most comfortable and clean space he had ever occupied. He had a full stomach, a cot to sleep on in a clean room, and a candle to read his book by. The air inside the room was chilly, but not cold, not in the open weather. Leon settled back on his cot. He raised the book above his head and turned slightly to catch the candle light across the page. He read.
“You. What you readin’ there?”
Leon turned and the man in the other cot with his candle lit, across the room, had a newspaper in his hands.
“Henry Longfellow.”
“A fine poet,” the man said. Then he snapped his paper and returned to his reading.
Leon returned to his reading as well.
As the evening wore on, the room filled with boarders. Before Leon blew out his candle to go to sleep, he grabbed his sack and went to the outhouse. The acrid smell lifted from the pit. He sat down, protected from the rising wind. After finishing his own business, Leon stepped outside and around to the back of the building. He took a deep breath. Down over the bank rolled the Suquahanna River. The water sparkled as if there were stars in it. The familiar smell, the familiar sound, rose from the strength of the never-ending movement of water. Trees overhead stood black against the cloud-covered sky. A bright spot where the moonlight tried to creep through the clouds intensified the contrast between the black of the trees and the white of the clouds. It intensified Leon’s feeling of being grounded in his blackness and also in the whiteness he had been forced to reach for in the clouds. The trees knew no more of the white cloud than the cloud knew of the trees. Always visible to each other, they could never really touch.
Leon went back to his cot, blew out the candle, tucked his sack next to his chest, and fell asleep.
The next morning, he woke to the sound of an argument.
“You stole my money!”
“What the hell you talkin’ about?”
One man shoved another against the door.
Leon checked his own stashed wages and felt satisfied to find it in place.
The man with the newspaper broke up the fight pretty quickly. “Take this outside. It’s between you two, not the rest of us.”
Leon could tell that the accuser didn’t want to listen, but the newspaper man stood over six and a half feet and was as broad as the door. He didn’t look threatening, not in his demeanor, but he could have ripped both men’s arms off if he had wanted to. The two arguers could see the big man’s potential and decided to take their argument outside.
“Well, that’s a night,” the newspaperman said.
The others laughed.
Leon pulled his things together. The smell of bacon and eggs filled the air. He put his bedroll under his arm and went out back to the outhouse. It was occupied, and Leon could hear someone groaning inside, so he stepped to the back of the outhouse and peed down over the bank. The river seemed to have picked up speed even from the night before. Leon felt a stronger urge to get across where he felt there’d be more opportunity for work.
The noise that occurred in room three must have awakened the rest of the place. As Leon came back inside the other room doors leaned open and the men inside milled around packing their things and leaving to go into the dining area.
The pub was as much a dining hall as anything. Mary was back on the floor taking orders. Only a few people had food. The tables filled quickly. Leon sat against one wall, taking his seat before anyone else could. The newspaper man came through the back door, looked around the room, and headed for the same table where Leon sat.
“Mind if I sit here?”
“Not at all,” Leon said.
The man strained the chair when he sat down. The groan of the wood sounded deep and gutteral.
“Name’s Hugh. Hugh Richardson, ‘cept my pa’s name ain’t Richard.” He laughed and held out a broad hand.
Leon reached across the table. Hugh’s hand was big and rough, even to Leon’s battered palms. Hugh wore his dirty-blond hair a little long and shaggy. He fashioned two intensely deep blue eyes. His look intimidated, but his manner did not. Hugh opened a broad smile that cut through his oddly square head and showed off his mixed bag of multi-colored teeth, everything from white to black and most colors between.
Looking at that smile, Leon wondered what his own teeth looked like. He ran his tongue over the back of them and they felt rough. He rubbed at his face and felt the soft texture of a beard past prickly.
“I come here to work,” Hugh said.
“The same,” Leon said.
Mary stepped up to the table. “Breakfast, boys?”
Leon looked to the slate at the end of the bar.
“Ain’t no specials. Just two breakfasts. Meat an’ eggs,” Mary said, “or bread an’ coffee.”
“Meat and eggs,” Leon said.
“Bread and coffee,” Hugh said.
Leon looked at the size of the man in front of him, then looked at Mary. “He’ll have meat and eggs, too. I’ll pay.”
She turned away.
“Much obliged,” Hugh said.
“That’s all right. You look like you need the energy.”
“Read in the paper there’s jobs all over. Gettin’ ready for the flood time,” Hugh said. “There’ll be timber flowin’ soon.”
“If you can read, you don’t have to work with the other men, do you?” Leon said, his hopes exposed.
“Lot of men can read. Besides, hard work don’t hurt nobody. Wages are good. Jobs is plentiful.”
“There must be something else.”
“I hear the mill owners bring their own men to the job, but the paper says there’s openin’s.” Hugh paused, then added, “Bet you can get one.”
Leon felt his face brighten. “I bet I can.”
Mary headed for their table with two plates of eggs and bacon.
“Coffee be right up,” s
he said.
Both men dug into their eggs and each had two cups of coffee.
Hugh sat back in his chair at the end of his meal. “Easiest way to cross the river is to walk the tracks a little ways east of here.”
“You thinking we’ll go together?”
Hugh looked hurt right as Leon said that.
“I’d be proud to,” Leon said.
Hugh’s disappointment slipped away. “I’d like to travel with somebody smart for a change.”
“You can read.”
“I’m built for hard labor, nobody ever goin’ to see otherwise. I’m used to that and don’t really mind, truthfully.”
“Well, if you don’t mind, that’s fine, but I’d rather not wrestle with dead trees.”
“You be the right size to go either way. And you talk smooth enough to get what you want.”
“I never thought of myself as talking smoothly,” Leon said.
“Well, you do.” Hugh slapped the table and several people looked up.
Leon liked the idea of himself as a smooth talker in the educated sense. Leon felt healthy having eaten, and felt qualified even though he didn’t know in what. He got up and paid a dollar for breakfast and told Mary as he handed it to her that the rest was hers. She smiled broadly. Leon had no idea what breakfast really cost, but he was sure it was less than a dollar for the two of them.
He felt a little bad about paying for a second night in room three when he had no intention now to stay the night. But he felt rich and he felt lucky, and only the day would tell where those feelings would lead him. Traveling with Hugh, even for a short distance felt like the right thing to do.
Outside the Timberline, Hugh asked Leon for his name.
Leon thought back to the friends he traveled with through the woods. He thought about Jacob and wanted to end that memory. He didn’t want any more questions about his name or what nationality he was. “Bob,” he said. “My name’s Bob White.”