Father Divine's Bikes

by Steve Bassett

  “You didn’t see nothin’,” Gordo said as the three cops pushed past the three blacks. “You’re blind as bats. Make damn sure of that.”

  Marsucci was convinced that Gordo would have beaten him to death if not for the three interlopers. That was a few months ago. Since then he had moved in with his folks on South 8th, conned his uncle out of two hundred dollars for an old Plymouth, talked his way into a circulation job with the Beacon, and set up shop on Kinney. He had no idea how the phony barbers had tracked him down.

  The joke’s on them, Marsucci thought, they’ve got no idea there’s a real kick-ass circulation war going on right now. This kid is getting a new route straight into Clarion territory, and those fancy apartments. First time ever for the Beacon. If Richie the Boot and Longy are gonna knock heads for the Third Ward, no matter to me, just so long as I get part of the take.

  Marsucci’s delivery boys were streetwise enough to know that kissing his ass even a little could pay off. They fed him juicy tidbits picked up along their routes, and pieced with what he saw himself, left little doubt that the numbers game was changing and the three phony barbers were part of it. He spotted the big guy, God’s Tall Timber or Wilber Fontaine, whatever you call him, going into Milly’s Beauty Shop several times to set her up as a policy writer. Business was brisk and he wanted his piece of the action.

  Another tip-off that the policy game was changing was how often the new beat cop, Frank Gazzi, came snooping around real innocent like.

  “Just letting you know I’ll be poking my head in from time-to-time,” Gazzi explained on his first visit. “No big thing, just getting a feel for my beat. Already talked to Milly next door. She’s got something real good going, don’t you think?”

  “I’m kept kinda busy with all these kids I got working for me,” Marsucci said playing it innocent, “but yeah, I guess you could say that. Lots of people coming and going, even guys.”

  “For manicures no doubt,” Gazzi said. “Seems like clean and polished fingernails are a big thing in this neighborhood. Be seeing you, gotta hit the call box.”

  “Be seeing you.”

  Marsucci knew that Jim McDuffie did more than just deliver the Evening Clarion. Some of his kids, the oldest and toughest, carried with them a little pull apart notebook and pencil. By the end of their route they would have at least a dozen number slips and wagers to drop off with McDuffie for delivery to the Zwillman policy bank on Clinton. These kids would be lying in wait for Richie, especially after learning that he would be double-dipping into their numbers territory.

  The Clarion was a class act, and its affluent subscribers had money enough to include tips for the delivery boys, and even something extra at Christmas. There was no way they would allow a fishwrapper like the Beacon to take any of this away. McDuffie had fifteen kids on the street, their routes included the Lido, Westmore, Crayton Arms, and the Armstrong Apartments. The gem was the Riviera Hotel where Longy Zwillman had an entire floor.

  Richie retraced his steps across Kinney to Broome, then stepped it up on his way to the Peace Barber Shop on Spruce to find out about the bike. The three Divinites were waiting for him. Customers were getting trimmed by Darn Good Disciple and God’s Tall Timber, and Righteous Reckoning was in his usual spot near the front door. There were smiles all around.

  “Richie, my little brother. You set?”

  “Yeah. Marsucci’s driving me around this weekend to show me my route. I start on my own on Monday. But I need the bike.”

  “No worries. Righteous Reckoning has taken care of everything. Eli Simon has a bike waiting for you. Ain’t that right?”

  “Just like new, a Columbia Military,” Righteous Reckoning said. “Sturdy with a fresh coat of paint. You got your story straight with your folks?”

  Richie nodded. “As far as anyone knows, I’ll be paying it off a little each week to Simon, just like you said,” Richie said. “My dad ain’t easy to fool, so I need to know what’s a good price for a used Columbia Military.”

  “Did we pick the right boy,” God’s Tall Timber said. “You bet we did. The Jew said fifteen dollars.”

  “Sounds good. Don’t worry, I’ll pull it off,” Richie said.

  “Once you get your route down, we’ll talk business,” Righteous said.

  As Richie headed to Simon’s, it sunk in that, for better or worse, there was no turning back. A deal was a deal. He had already lied to his parents, and that bothered him, but not enough to turn down the Divinites’ offer. He turned off Waverly to Quitman and went into the shop. The Jew was sitting behind the counter.

  “Yes,” Simon said, looking up at the tall teenager.

  “My name’s Richie. I’m here for the bike.”

  “Ah, I’ve been expecting you. I hear you got a paper route.”

  “Yeah, I got lucky.”

  “Luck is knowing the right people, boychik. Wait right here and I’ll get it for you.”

  “Here you go,” Simon said as he wheeled the bike around the corner. “It’s all yours.”

  Richie was impressed. The bike had a strong look about it. The dark blue paint job really made the chrome headlight on the front fender stand out. It looked almost brand new.

  “Thanks.”

  “Mazel tov.”

  “Huh?”

  “Good luck with it.”

  Richie pushed the bike out the front door, jumped on and pedaled back home. His folks would be impressed. So would the guys.

  Simon, once owner of a Monet and an envied collection of German impressionists, sensed that his future was about to spiral out of control. Already the purveyor of pornography, he feared that the “something big” inferred by John Travers, alias Righteous Reckoning, might easily be translated into “something bad.” And that the kid who had just left his shop would somehow be at the center of it all.

  Marvin poked his head from under a faded, heavily mended quilt. The clouds sweeping in over Newark from the northeast were still a long way from the lush green field where he and his family had spent that chilly night in early September of 1939. The feel of rain was already in the air.

  Marvin focused across U.S. 22 at the silhouette beside the highway. He didn’t know why, but it looked different this morning. Somehow bigger and stronger, not at all like the tired ’31 Hudson it was yesterday.

  Marvin rubbed the sleep from his eyes, reached over and shook his brother, Benjamin, who, at six, was three years his junior. Their bed had been the thick grass matted under and around a split-rail pasture fence.

  “Look at that, Benjamin. It looks like a statue.”

  Benjamin peeked out from under the quilt and followed with half-closed eyes his brother’s extended arm. The index finger seemed to rest on the roof of the Hudson.

  “Sure do,” replied Benjamin, his reply a mere expedient, as he promptly ducked his head back under the quilt.

  “That’s what it looks like, a great statue like the ones in Birmingham and all those places we just passed. Only this one moves when we want it to.”

  The lump under the quilt quivered slightly and contracted into a tight mound.

  “Yeh, man, that’s it,” Marvin continued, an idea shaping in his sleep-muddled mind.

  “It’s our great rollin’ statue that’s going to take us down this road, past all the green fields and all those oil tanks Uncle Josh said we’d be passing on our way to Newark. It ain’t far now. Then maybe we won’t need this old statue anymore.”

  A muffled snort came from under the quilt.

  The Hudson, all 153,275 miles of it when he checked last night, did indeed seem a thing of grandeur. Framed against the rising sun, its rusty shell candied with early morning dew, the car smiled benignly.

  Marvin placed his foot against the breathing part of the quilt and shoved.

  The brown sedan had cost Bill Davidson five months’ wages spread over a year’s time. Each week for twelve months, he and his wife divided his meager pay from the Alabama mine boss into pathetic little piles on their
linoleum-covered kitchen table.

  Through the good and lean months, two piles remained unchanged in size: there was always enough for the First Ebenezer Baptist Church and for The Trip, in that order.

  Davidson and his wife left unsaid their fear that if for one week, only one week, the visit to Old Man Crawford’s General Store and Gas Station was put off, their dream would die. Every Saturday, with The Trip money and handwritten payment sheet wrapped in a handkerchief, Davidson walked the six miles to Crawford’s.

  It had all come about, this unheard-of thing, after Davidson learned the car was for sale. He waited until Crawford was alone. Walker County niggers don’t ask white folks about buying their cars. Davidson had earned a reputation among the whites as “one of the good coons, not uppity at all.” He wanted no redneck hangers-on in the store when he talked to Crawford.

  “Ah hear the ol’ Hudson of yours is for sale.”

  Crawford was behind his cash register. He looked lazily at Davidson. “Yep.”

  Davidson hesitated, then in a voice a little too loud, too bold, said, “Ah want to buy it.”

  Crawford, suddenly interested, walked from behind the register.

  “Can ya drive?” asked Crawford, his face all smiles at Davidson’s interest. “Well, hell, sure ya kin. Yur that number one handyman over at the mine, ain’t ya?” They walked outside.

  “Bill, it’s more than good enough to get y’all out of this gawdawful Walker County coal dust,” said Crawford, leaning comfortably against the Hudson. It was perched on cinder blocks in a shed behind the store.

  “Sure it ain’t been used for a year. But don’t go poor-mouthin’ this ol’ beauty. Guarantee it’s had the best o’ care. Why ya s’pose I put it in the shed? Ta keep it out o’ the elements, ya know, rain ’n all.”

  Davidson came close to turning his back on the old man and the relaxed way he had of talking down to him. He had been in the store many times when Crawford was talking to his own kind. And he had seen other white shopkeepers, like the one in Jasper, talking to white men. There wasn’t any of the molasses-smooth “y’alls” and “yah suh boys” that punctuated Crawford’s mocking nigger talk.

  “Ain’t just an ordinary Hudson, it’s a Great Eight.” Crawford sensed he might be losing a chance to finally unload the rusting relic. “Cost big money when it hit the road back in ’31, almost a thousand Yankee dollars. But that was then, and this is now, and we got some bargaining to do.”

  Crawford tugged on Davidson’s sleeve drawing him closer to the car.

  “C’mere,” said Crawford, “Know how these two holes got up there in the ceiling, don’t ya?”

  Davidson had heard the story, how the white mine foreman and his high yellow would park out on the bluff over the Southern tracks. Folks said they’d spend two, sometimes three hours out there, going at it all the time, her with her sharp high heels poking through the car’s overhead lining. The foreman left a few years ago, a promotion they said. He took his woman with him. He left the car behind for new owners to take their shots at the backseat. As with Davidson, the car’s path to Crawford’s shed had not been an easy one.

  Crawford, still holding Davidson’s sleeve, reached through the rear window with his other hand, poked a finger into one of the holes in the upholstery and grinned. “Always put them in the same place.”

  Davidson, unable to gracefully free his arm, peered into the rear of the car, clearly annoyed.

  Crawford misread the black man’s troubled face. He released his hold. “Come up with $150, and I’ll guarantee it’ll kick over.”

  It was more than Davidson expected to pay. A small fortune. “I don’t think …” The words trailed off as Crawford pulled him once again to the side of the Hudson.

  “An’ lookee here, at these tires. Good rubber ’n even a spare. A chariot to the promised land. Lordy, yeh.”

  Davidson turned and strode slowly from the shed. He was disheartened. Could it be done? Could he get the $150?

  “To the promised land. Lordy, yeh,” Crawford’s mocking words followed Davidson all the way home.

  That night, long after the kids had been put to sleep, Davidson and his wife discussed Crawford’s offer. But their two sons and one daughter had been affected by their parents’ unspoken anxiety. They huddled in their bedroom, their ears pressed against the door.

  Elizabeth Davidson, who, like her husband, had stretched her education through the sixth grade. Her knack for figures served the family well. She jotted figures on pieces of paper, some were discarded, while others were transferred to a large notebook, the family ledger.

  Elizabeth had developed the cynicism and craftiness common to poor men’s wives. While their husbands, faced with the tradition of menial labor, toiled at humble tasks or ways to avoid them, the women were cursed with a different fate.

  Home with a growing brood of children, day after day of decay and growing despair, the women have ample time to question their doomed existence. The honest poor man dies with the unanswered, eternal WHY on his lips. His wife had always known why and cursed the reasons for it.

  “Bill, can we trust ’im? This ain’t some grub for the week. This is $150.”

  “He’s as honest a white man we kin expect. He said no interest, jes a straight $150. That means somethin’, don’t it?”

  “Lordy, won’t ya ever learn? No interest on a piece o’ rusty junk. Won’t ya ever learn?”

  “We got a chance to get somethin’ better?”

  “No.”

  “Crawford ever done us dirt?”

  “The stones in the bottom of the feed bag? Ten pounds’ worth. An’ how ’bout the chopped stalks and roots in the loose burley?”

  “Woman, that’s only stealin’ our pennies. He ain’t yet gone for our blood. Or any other nigger’s that I know of. I think we kin trust ’im.”

  So after a last check of their meager budget, the Davidsons decided. Their children went to bed. But there was little sleep for anyone that night.

  The first Saturday of September 1939 was the long-awaited day. Final payment was made, and true to his word, Crawford got the car started. He even greased it, changed the oil, and filled the gas tank—free.

  It took more than a week for the Davidsons to put together all the loose ends and cut them. One of the first things Elizabeth did was send off a letter to Bill’s brother in Newark, New Jersey. Joshua Davidson had taken his family north four years earlier, and had been asking his brother to join him for some time now. The last letter exchange was a month earlier. A second floor flat in the tenement had become vacant, and Joshua was ready to put down some money to hold it if Bill and his family were on their way. His wife, Lucretia, would tidy it up and get it ready.

  The next day, Elizabeth took the early bus into Jasper, went to the post office and handed over twenty-five cents for a registered, special delivery letter to Joshua giving him the go ahead. Four days later, she received confirmation, and the next day Joshua’s return special delivery informed her that he had slapped down twenty-five dollars to hold the flat for them.

  The Hudson burned almost as much oil as gas. It was in a continual state of near-disintegration. It held together amid a cacophony of rattles, the variety increasing with each mile. Absence of a familiar metallic whimper led to the greatest of fears—that a part of the car had fallen off. But as the miles ticked off, the children discovered to their delight that the orchestration shifted back and forth across the car. A timid squeak, now gone from the front right fender, became a grating screech in the left rear.

  The family, never before out of Alabama, gaped incredulously as the old car carried them through one state after another. Not fast, but steadily. Bill Davidson occasionally allowed himself the luxury of a few low-whistled notes, as he guided the car through Georgia, across the Carolinas, up through Virginia and across the bituminous tail of West Virginia. Then they rattled through Pennsylvania, crossing the Delaware on a Thursday night. Right on schedule. Davidson had planned to arrive
in Newark on the last Friday of the month, giving him a weekend of rest before he looked for work.

  Now, Friday morning, the entire family began to stir beside the road. Marvin had finally succeeded in prodding Benjamin from under the quilt.

  Then the seeming impregnability of the Hudson’s silhouette was suddenly broken. It caught Marvin by surprise. Blankets placed over the windows during the night were lowered. A beam of sunlight burst through the car and broke itself on the cracked highway. A window lowered.

  “Marvin! Benjamin! Come over here ’n wash up. There’s water up the road a piece. C’mon, hurry.” The boys’ mother didn’t get, nor did she expect, an answer. Only action.

  “Shake it, brother,” the older boy said, feeling excitement once again. He was wound-up so tight his stomach jumped. Marvin wondered if Benjamin felt the same way. He doubted it.

  Marvin, in undershirt and shorts, rolled from under the quilt onto the grass. He shivered when the cold wetness touched his legs and arms. He saw that his brother had once again retreated under the quilt and angrily pulled the cover from him. Benjamin sat up. The two boys began putting on their clothes.

  It didn’t take long. Benjamin, with one oversized, high-topped work shoe already on, grew impatient with his lack of progress with the second. He stood up, slammed his foot twice on the ground and felt with satisfaction his sole slapping against the makeshift cardboard bottom.

  Marvin grabbed the quilt, walked to the shoulder of the road, groped for his brother’s hand, and stood frozen as a semi-trailer rig rumbled past. Once across, Marvin couldn’t resist a last glance to the other side.

  “Our last night before Newark,” he said airily. His words were lost in the chill morning air. Benjamin had already disappeared behind the car to join his sister.

  Bill Davidson, as had been his practice throughout the trip, did not sleep in the car. The vehicle was shared by his wife and daughter. He had found himself a comfortable spot under a nearby elm. His blanket was an old brown greatcoat that had been his father’s.