by Clara Nipper
“Uh-huh.” Max shrugged. “It’s the weather. I can barely open my doors, and if I wanted the windows open, I’d have to use a hammer. What is easy the rest of the year now requires a kick and a curse. Sometimes I just turn off the air conditioner, open the windows, and soak a top sheet in cold water and go to sleep with it on top of me.”
I nodded and stepped to the gleaming stainless steel refrigerator and opened it. “What do you have in here?” I opened numerous containers.
“I don’t know. Leftover stuff. Ruby cooks for me.”
I looked her up and down. “You don’t cook, huh?”
“Not at all, so drop your sexist hopes, you pig.”
“You don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I can read you like a little black book.”
“Don’t you have any meat? ” I was leaving containers all over the marble countertops.
“There should be something in there to satisfy you,” she said, laughter caught in her throat.
“You’ve got a couple of steaks. Why don’t you just grill those up for us real quick?” I smiled winningly and nudged her knee.
“You’ve got it all backwards, Leon. I don’t do for you. You do for me.” She vaulted herself gracefully off the counter, her soft robe parting and legs flashing.
The prospect made my mouth go dry, so I looked into dishes further. “Mmm, mmm, mmm, I like a woman who loves her meat,” I murmured into the cold refrigerator. At last, I found some brisket and took that to the table with bread. Max watched all of this, amused. As I settled in to eat, she retrieved the cold coffee from the deck and a fresh glass of ice, poured a cup, and came to sit with me.
“You are something else.” I grinned, my mouth full. Max said nothing, her eyes large. She sipped daintily from her cold mug. I did not want to appear too grateful, so I belched, put a toothpick in my mouth and my legs on the table.
“Ruby would appreciate you returning things to the way you found them,” Max said. I complied, feeling utterly pussy-whipped, but knowing that cleaning up after myself was the right thing to do. “So a story for your supper?” She smiled after I sat again.
“Yeah, okay. My experience here…my experience here…well, for one thing, Tulsa has got to be the most segregated place in the world. This is such a white town. Where are all my people?”
Max laughed. “Yeah, I know. It’s terrible. My neighbors think Sloane is my help. ”
“Not at all surprised.” I glanced out the window where the tiny buttery lights from the guest cottage were barely visible through the trees.
Lightning flashed in the distance. “Maybe a storm on the way.” Distant thunder.
“Yeah?”
“Spring and fall are our rainy seasons. We have massive thunderboomers, but we almost never have rain in the summer. The clouds just burn up. But maybe you brought stormy air with you.” Max bent, unwound the towel, and sat up again, her hair hanging in tousled strings. “You were saying?”
“Can I have a cigarette?” My infernal lung/hand/mouth itch started again.
“Sure, but do let’s go outside. Ruby hates a smoky kitchen.”
“Who’s master, you or Ruby?”
“No question, it’s Ruby.” She laughed.
I put a hand on the small of her back, marveling at the fuzzy down of her robe. “What’s her secret?”
“You take care of my home and me, you can have certain preferences honored too,” Max replied tartly, edging away from my hand and giving me a cigarette.
“Not in it that deep,” I replied sternly.
“Yes, you are,” she said buttery as cream.
“Now I’m certain you want me to be.” I smiled. She turned away quickly and we walked outside into the moisture-drenched air. I started sweating immediately, just a prickle at the small of my back, the nape of my neck, and a melting in my armpits.
Crickets filled the night with peaceful song. Max and I sat in a glider that she kept in constant motion. I was convinced that was due to her pent-up desire. On the horizon, cloud banks were piled so high, they looked like the Rocky Mountains. It gave me pause to recognize them as clouds.
“You were saying?” she prompted politely. On the side table, I noticed magazines puffed and curled from moisture, and books swelled and warped by humidity. Max stared straight ahead. I told her all about Michelle and the secret Jack shared. About the McKerrs and Greenwood and Michelle’s blackmail attempt. She listened intently.
“So I know it’s the family. Some power-hungry asshole offed her and got away with it.”
“Could be. What are you going to do?” Max asked.
“What do you mean? I ain’t gonna tell if that’s what you’re asking. I have the information thirdhand, no proof, no suspects, just gossip, a peek at an unsubstantiated letter, and an alleged motive. And I’m black. I’m nobody here. Just ask the KKK and all your neighbors and the people of Greenwood.”
“You are somebody.” Without looking at me, Max slipped her hand into mine. It was such a tender, innocent gesture, it almost undid me. My throat tightened around a lump. Lightning flashed closer. Thunder rumbled. The air was thick as treacle. I struggled to breathe, my lungs unaccustomed to percolating in all this wet.
“Well, I guess that’s your story for tonight,” she said, stretching as she stood. “I can keep you no longer. I’m sure you need your rest.”
“Yes, I do. I’m going to the library tomorrow to research this thing.”
“What thing?”
“The race riot on Greenwood in ’21. I need to know more.” I shrugged and added uselessly, “I need to.”
“Okay.” She walked me to the back door. I stared at her until she met my gaze.
“I’m checking out of my hotel. I’ll get my things and come back here. Leave the door unlocked.”
Her gaze softened and she nodded, seeming more and more like a demure Southern belle.
“I know there’s no lock on your bedroom door either.” I grinned.
Max raised her chin defiantly. “The lock is my intention and your obedience.”
I ran my tongue over my lips, considering this. I nodded and ignored her ripe, upturned mouth. I grabbed my keys and went to my car, still clad only in the borrowed robe and not caring.
Chapter Eighteen
When I returned, I found, to my suppressed triumph, the door unlocked and the house dark except for one light that led me to the guest bedroom. I locked the front door, dropped my suitcase on the bed, and tiptoed to Max’s room. Works every time, I thought. You top ’em right and before you know it, you got a beautiful bottom on your hands.
The door was closed, so I just stroked it and returned to my room. The thunderstorm was growling its way over the city, the rain just beginning. I closed my bedroom door, turned off the light, and collapsed into sleep.
I was awakened by a crack of thunder. Lightning flashed, rain was pelting the windows. Without moving, I opened my eyes a millimeter and saw Max’s outline in the doorway. I smiled, closed my eyes, and fell asleep again.
The next morning, food smells awoke me to a sweet sunny day loud with birdsong and rasping locusts. I ambled groggily to the kitchen where Max and Sloane sat with another woman at the table.
“Well, well, well, N. You finally got it together.” Sloane grinned.
“Nah, nah, I’m only a guest, ” I replied more bitterly than necessary.
Max and Sloane looked at each other. Max continued eating eggs silently.
“Closer, my man, closer. Closer than anyone’s been since—”
“Sloane!” Max barked. “Your burned muffins are stinking up this whole house.”
“I know, I’m sorry, Max. I’m just playing. You know me, I play too much. Nora, this is DeAndretta. DeAndretta, this is Nora, just passing through from LA solving mysteries on the PI tip.”
DeAndretta smiled shyly, the glow on her walnut skin unmistakable. I nodded to her, feeling jealous and miserable. Somehow, being in Max’s house was worse than yearning to be here from the hotel
. I had not gone this long without sex since…since I was a teenager. I glared at Max, who was oblivious.
“Nora, Ruby left quite a lot of breakfast. There are scrambled eggs, toast, juice, bacon, cereal—whatever you like. Help yourself. I’ve got to go get dressed. And did you hear? Electricity is out all over town from snapped tree limbs and severe winds. I bet the roads will be impassable from all the branches.”
“Guess we’ll go too.” Sloane stood, wiping her mouth. “I’ve gotta get this one home before her husband notices her missing.”
DeAndretta slapped Sloane’s arm. “She’s just playing again.” They laughed together. “Nice to meet you all.”
“See ya, N. Later, Max,” Sloane called.
“So…just us.” I looked at Max, who had the gall to look fresh and beautiful.
“Yes, and now, just you.” Max rose. “Enjoy your breakfast. Here’s a spare key; use it wisely.”
“For good and not for evil,” I promised, clasping it. Max smiled.
After breakfast, I sat on my bed, contemplating the map. The closest library was downtown so I decided on that one.
I got a cup of ice and crunched it viciously as I dressed. I popped more allergy meds. I left without seeing Max. I drove downtown. I couldn’t find a parking space close so I walked three blocks, simmering the whole way. By the time I arrived, I was angry and slimy wet and sunburned.
Chapter Nineteen
The library was four floors, and a kind librarian helped me find the right section.
“You may want to look at the old newspapers too. That’s on the third floor.”
“Okay, thanks.” I settled in with avid curiosity. I randomly picked two books. One entitled Greenwood: America’s Tragedy and another called Broken Dreams: The Undeclared War on African-Americans.
The story pulled me in. Due to segregation, there was a thriving black economy in north Tulsa, the center of which was the street called Greenwood. The blacks were entirely self-sufficient: their own doctors, lawyers, and bankers as well as craftsmen, entrepreneurs, skilled and unskilled labor, grocery stores, a movie theater, restaurants, barbers, retail shops, everything. It was a place booming with success and expanding. Racial tensions had been simmering for years before the riot and there had been beatings and lynchings. But because blacks had served in World War I, they had returned with an intolerance for abuse and there was much more anger and mobilization to fight back.
“We just mind our business and try to get on with life and Whitey just won’t have it,” I muttered. I was beginning to feel anxious reading this terrible tale.
Then, on May 31, 1921, after a silly, hysterical white woman falsely accused a black male elevator operator of assault, it was gasoline on the smoldering coals of racist hatred.
First, the accused man was put into jail “for his own protection” as there was already a white mob gathered to lynch him. Next, the honorable black veterans and other movers and shakers in Greenwood went to meet the mob downtown at the jail to prevent the lynching. Then every white man that cared to be was deputized, including many members of the Ku Klux Klan, of which the police chief and fire chief were rumored to have been members. That entitled them to be armed against a peaceful, unarmed black population. The majority of black men were systematically rounded up and jailed, also “for their own protection.” Included in the sweep were also some women and children carted off to prison when no one had committed any crime. Next, whatever arms the police could find were confiscated, so the remaining residents were unable to defend themselves against the building assault. Then, several hours after many incendiary editorials published in the Tulsa Tribune and Extras, including one infamous headline that read: to lynch a nigger tonight (the original of which has mysteriously disappeared, no trace having been found of it even in the archives), the looting, bombing, and murdering began. Most of the black men were unarmed and helpless in jail while the rest of the families battled it out the best they could, often just hiding until the whites had stolen what they wanted and set fire to the house before leaving. The atrocities were inconceivable. A black man was tied to the bumper of a car and dragged down the street until dead. His head exploded like a melon, witnesses reported. Children watched as their parents were shot in front of them; businesses and shops were looted and destroyed; a whole world, carefully, lovingly built, was annihilated.
Jack was right. Tulsa never asked for help to contain the conflagration or to manage the mob of white people. Tulsa never applied for aid for the remaining black citizens after the massacre. And it hadn’t admitted any fault or parted with one thin dime since. Even the graves remained unmarked.
I slammed the book down, and ran to the bathroom, shaking. Luckily, it was empty, so I was able to lock myself in a stall and tremble and coach myself into calming down.
To put a hasty patch on my broken race heart, I thought of basketball. I ran a series of flashbacks through my head as I gulped air.
I was running to the basket; oh, yeah, I drained it; I’m into the paint; I stroked it; a good one right into the bucket, I hit the tres. Oh, a stellar pass by Nora Delaney and I get it back and drive it to the hoop! Oh, yeah, it’s Delaney with the double double!
My breathing started to slow down. Thoughts turned to my team and coaching them, yelling at them as they pounded up and down the court.
“It’s your job when you’re going for penetration to get square to the hoop. We have no mid-range game; it’s either a layup or a free, let’s work on that, girls. I used to have a deep team, a Cinderella team, but I lost my seniors, so now I have a young team, a rebuild year, but that’s no excuse for how you’re playing out there. Now, Lindsay has outstanding execution and feeds to the post well, but she can’t carry us. Morgan, you had fifteen rims and eight boards, let’s get that number down. Jackson, you’re just throwing junk, sit down. Help me out, I can’t win these games by shouting; I need you to actually play basketball. Come on, be powerful. Be strong; be invincible; don’t think you are, be that you are!”
Those last viciously whispered words rang in my head as I finally stood and unlocked the stall. I washed my hands and splashed water on my face.
“C’mon,” I said to myself. I strolled outside, my lungs aching for the stinging pollution of smoke, my nerves shredded, my fingers and mouth unbearably empty. The blazing sun hit me like a wall when I opened the door. At every office, there were always legions of exiled smokers, standing around bullshitting and glaring righteously at passersby. I hoped to find them to bum a cigarette. At this library, there were none. Or perhaps I chose the wrong door. I needed a cigarette immediately. Even though I was perpetually quitting, I was ready to buy a pack right now if only a machine would rise up out of the concrete. I hadn’t bought cigarettes in a year, but Greenwood had snapped me. I had borrowed cigarettes in my briefcase in the car that was parked through the heat so far away. I would rather bribe one off someone now than delay my need any further with an exhausting walk.
There was a homeless man sitting on a bench in the shade. He was smoking. I approached him. “Hey, man, what’s up?” The shade didn’t help.
The man nodded.
“Listen man, I ain’t gonna front. I need a smoke and you’ve got some. I’ll buy one off you for a good price.”
The man looked at me, waiting. I did some quick estimations in my head. In LA, the guy would probably want five bucks for a cigarette, so here, I should be able to get it for a buck or two.
“I’ll give you a dollar for one cigarette.” I held out the bill, my back steaming.
The man shook his head.
“Two?” My voice went high.
The man removed a crumpled pack from his pocket and removed one cigarette. “I can’t get a pack of these for less than three,” he said.
“Bullshit!” I cried. But my jones spoke louder. “Okay, three.”
“Twenty.” The man smiled.
“Twenty! Are you outta your motherfucking mind?”
“Nope. But you are.
” The man tenderly replaced the cigarette into the pack and into his pocket. I watched it disappear. My desperation made this bargain okay.
“All right, asshole, here,” I held a twenty in my fist. “But I get two at that price.” I wiped my face on my sleeve.
The man laughed. “No, you don’t. You get one. You want two, I’ll give you the second one for fifteen more. Yield marketing.”
“Yield marketing,” I exclaimed incredulously. My chest was wet.
The man nodded. “What the market will bear. I don’t care whether you buy from me or not. I’m not trying to sell to you, so that’s the deal. Now, with this money, I won’t have to eat at Sally’s tonight.”
“Sally’s?” I asked, taking my precious cigarette and handing him the money. I felt through all my pockets. Damn. No matches. They were in my briefcase too.
“Salvation Army.”
I was flooded with shame that I had been so stingy. “Here’s another twenty. I’ll take a second one and a light.” I sat on the bench in the shade with him. I smoked my sweet cigarette slowly, taking it in deep and holding on to the smoke. I felt calmer, but suddenly Tulsa made me so sad. Homeless people, Greenwood, Michelle, while overhead, beautiful old trees swayed and waved in the roasting wind, leaves dropping like confetti. Green grass gone brown was underfoot. Flowers nodded in agreement, traffic flowed evenly. It all looked so peaceful.
“Well, look, I gotta go.” I said at last. “And I’m sorry—”
“It ain’t no thing,” he said. “We’re cool. Thanks for your business. Come again soon.”
I smiled. Once I reentered the library, I walked with shaking legs back to my seat. I felt nasty, like I had just done a drug deal and besmirched the hallowed halls of learning. It wouldn’t have mattered what that guy would’ve asked for a smoke, I would’ve paid. Do the tobacco companies know that? I sat at the table, flipping idly through the books, becoming freshly horrified at the graphic photos and feeling utterly lost, grief-stricken, powerless, and so angry. I understood Jack’s rant and had a lot more to add to it.