Father Divine's Bikes

by Steve Bassett

  Elizabeth Davidson walked to the tree, reached down and lightly touched the shoulder of her husband. The effortless way that Davidson awoke, slowly opened his eyes, and yawned was instinctive.

  For seventeen years, half her husband’s life, Elizabeth Davidson had awakened her man the same way—a light touch of the shoulder. The last few weeks were no different. But they had moved fast, faster than she had wanted. They had also come farther than she would have ever hoped possible, if not for this man. She was frightened.

  This was not the little sharecropper’s cabin near Pinckard, nor was it the three-room shack that came with the handyman’s job at the mine. Elizabeth Davidson peered knowingly into her husband’s face. Not once had his features shown the anxiety that she knew gripped the man behind them. Her husband opened his eyes.

  He was immediately awake. “This is it. A few more hours, then Newark.”

  The wife said nothing. She stooped and picked up the greatcoat, then turned and walked back to the car.

  Davidson relieved himself behind a tree. In the distance, maybe a quarter mile away, some black angus were being driven through pasture gates. Prize stock. He could see that, even from where he stood. The bulky, well-fed black beasts were the pride of their dairyman owner. They were his clenched fist against the Teamsters and the increased cost of bringing milk to market. Things were easier once.

  In an adjacent pasture a dairy herd was feeding on lush grass. Davidson gawked at the greenness, comfortably enclosed behind a damp white fence. He reached out and touched the upper rail with his right hand. He pulled it back and looked at the beads of dew on his fingertips. He pressed his fingers together and the water trickled down the calloused gullies to his palm.

  Davidson lifted his hand to his lips. The water was sweet.

  The excited chatter of his children snapped Davidson from his reverie. He pulled out his tarnished pocket watch. It was 6:35. Davidson turned abruptly, strode quickly to the car, and took a piece of toweling from the back seat. He walked to the creek.

  His suddenly quiet sons walked beside him.

  Bill Davidson didn’t know how it happened. He had been real careful the entire way through New Jersey. Now he was on a bridge crossing a river to … to where? Once across, he picked up a road sign that said Newark was that way, to the south. The road ran along the east side of the river. The sun popped through the dark threatening clouds to the east. Bill hoped they would reach Joshua’s place before the rains came.

  “Can’t be long now, can it?” Marvin’s impatience underscored every word. He couldn’t wait to tell his cousins all about the trip.

  “Hush down. Your father will get us there best and fast as he can,” Elizabeth Davidson admonished her son.

  The tired old Hudson wheezed its way past an East Newark city limits sign. The road had veered away from the river and the Davidsons were now driving past the biggest factory they could ever imagine.

  “Look at that, will you?” Bill wondered aloud. “Bet there’ll be plenty a’ work there.” Up ahead and to the left was a Sinclair gas station, and the needle on the dashboard gauge was almost down to the E. “We’ll buy jes enough to get us to Joshua’s.”

  The Hudson pulled up to a pump. A white gas jockey in coveralls strolled lazily over and skeptically asked, “How much?” He hoped he hadn’t gotten up for only a couple of gallons.

  “Well, we’re in Newark now,” Bill said with his first grin in miles, “so I guess a dollar will do us jes fine.” The young attendant peered through Bill’s window, saw the two kids in the front seat, a woman and little girl in the back. God only knows what’s stuffed into the trunk of this old relic, he thought.

  “You ain’t in Newark yet. This is East Newark,” the attendant said. “Newark’s over there across the Passaic River. The bridge is straight ahead. Can’t miss it. Then you’ll be in Newark when ya cross it.”

  Another attendant, this one no more than a kid, had come over with a rag and spray gun and was cleaning the windshield. He leaned toward Bill’s window. “Need anything under the hood? Pop it, and I’ll take a look.”

  “Nope. No help needed there. Everything’s jes fine.” Bill’s amazement was reinforced once again, that white men all down the line in New Jersey washed his windshield, wiped the side mirror, and twice filled the radiator.

  Bill paid for the gas and asked, “Once we get across, do you know how we get to Avon and Clinton Avenues? That’s where my brother’s place is.”

  “I can tell ya how to get to Broad and Market. Can’t miss that. But nope, after that, not much help,” the older attendant said.

  The attendant felt five pairs of eyes on him. “Wait a minute. Be right back.” He returned with a map on which he had clearly marked Broad and Market.

  “Here, take it. I’ve circled Broad and Market,” the attendant said, wondering if they could read. “Once you cross the bridge you’re on your own.”

  A somewhat bewildered Bill took the map and handed it to Elizabeth in the backseat. “Thanks kindly, we truly appreciate it.”

  Both attendants stepped back as the Hudson coughed to a smoky start and pulled out toward the bridge. “You gave him the map free? Sometimes I don’t get you,” the younger one said. “I know how you feel about niggers, but you gave ’em a fifteen-cent Sinclair city map for nothin’.”

  “Don’t worry yourself. If they’d run into some wise-ass nigger-hater over there, they’d probably be sent to Bloomfield or Irvington,” the older one said. “I don’t know. Just something I felt like doing.”

  They were right on schedule to reach Joshua’s before noon. Elizabeth used a pencil to trace the streets as the Davidsons made their way through downtown rush-hour traffic to Broad and Market. With his wife directing him, Bill edged the Hudson into the far left lane and prepared to turn onto High Street.

  A strong and steady rain had begun. It had started just as they crossed the bridge from East Newark. The Hudson’s worn windshield wipers could make only a feeble attempt to do their job. Bill cracked the two front vent windows. It didn’t help much; fog misted the windshield. With his son Benjamin helping him, they used rags to clear the glass as best they could. Horns were blaring, drivers were cursing.

  Marvin bent over the back of the front seat to monitor his mother working with the map. “Here’s where we are, and up here is Clinton and Avon.” Elizabeth was using the eraser end of the pencil as a pointer. “Appears to be not far, just up here.”

  “Not far now, we’re just about there.” Marvin lit up. “Can’t wait to see everybody. Lots to tell them.”

  The Hudson moved slowly forward, and with this kind of city driving, Bill hoped that the radiator wouldn’t start blowing steam.

  Twenty minutes later, the overheated, steam belching Hudson pulled to a stop in front of a three story tenement on Clinton. Joshua and Lucretia Davidson and their twin, ten year old sons Nathaniel and Paul, had been standing vigil for more than an hour at the front window of their first floor flat. They raced out the door to the curb, and despite the steady rain nine members of the Davidson clan were reunited with hugs and a chorus of “Glory be’s.”

  By the end of the day, the family’s belongings that Elizabeth reckoned to be worthwhile were unloaded from the Hudson’s trunk and carried up to the second floor flat. The electric would not be turned on until Monday morning, so some important matters had to be tended to before nightfall.

  “Able to get them both, like I described to you?” Joshua said. The four adult Davidsons were relaxing at the kitchen table after supper, the five kids were jabbering like crazy in the back bedroom.

  “These do?” Bill said taking two envelopes from Elizabeth and pushing them across the table to Joshua. “Ate some real crow, had to perform the nigger’s humble shuffle to get the one from the mine. For Elizabeth it was easy.”

  Joshua opened the envelope bearing the Warrior Mining Company logo, and pulled out a single typewritten page. He had cleared the company’s coal dust from his lungs fo
ur years earlier and never stopped urging his brother Bill to follow him. “Pay no mind that Carter Jennings made you crawl before signing this paper, you got it, and that’s all that counts.” The note read:

  “Bill Davidson is a good boy. He has been on our payroll for six years, and is trustworthy. Performed his duties as instructed and handled men well enough to be boss of our seven man tailings crew. He has some education, and handles numbers and work schedules well. Carter Jennings, Foreman, Warrior Mining Company, Carbon Hill, Alabama.”

  The second envelope contained a letter from the Reverend Wilbur Joiner, First Ebenezer Baptist Church, RFD, Walker County, Alabama. The Reverend heaped it on real good, praising Elizabeth’s bookkeeping skills and handling of the church’s soup kitchen that served more than fifty indigent church members daily.

  “Aim high. Everyone says won’t be long before the shooting starts,” Joshua said. “That means jobs, even for southern niggers. Lucretia and me, we’re set up just fine at Bambergers. Four years under our belts, we’re staying put.”

  Armed with the Reverend Joiner’s letter, Elizabeth made the rounds in Newark looking for work. She wore her best Sunday dress, her only pair of heels, and her sister-in-law Lucretia did up her hair. Her timing couldn’t have been better when she got to the Ronson plant on Mulberry. War was on the horizon and Ronson was girding for the shift from consumer goods to munitions. More help was needed. She filled out an application form, and was the only Negro among the five women ushered into a windowless room for verbal and math testing. After scoring was completed, she had a job as a checker in the shipping department. A job that would last for the duration.

  My big brother sure knows what he’s talking about. Can’t go wrong listening to what Joshua has to say. He figures if there be shooting overseas like the last war, then there be a big need for ships to get there. Let’s hope that old Hudson of ours will keep breathing. First, I got to do some sprucing up myself.

  “You’re next big fellow, step right on up and take a seat,” the skinny, little black man said as he snapped his shoe buffing cloth twice, laid it aside, and nodded toward one of the two chairs on the elevated shoeshine platform. “Ain’t seen you before. New around here?”

  “Family moved in last week, a flat around the corner on Clinton. Time to start looking for work, and it pays to look good. Shoes are a good place to start.”

  “How right you are, big fellow. And no better for the job than right here with ol’ Willy. What’s your name?”

  “Bill Davidson. Up from the coal mines in Alabama with my wife, two boys and a girl.”

  “Okay, Mr. Davidson, sit back and relax, and ol’ Willy will give your brogues his very best shine, a job huntin’ shine. Here’s something to read while I busy myself.”

  Bill was handed a dog-eared copy of a newspaper, its front page masthead reading Newark Herald, and learned from Willy that it was owned and operated by Negroes, for Negroes, and came out every Saturday with news you didn’t find in the white man’s papers.

  “Good place to start if you be lookin’ for work. This one’s a week old. Better you mosey over to their office on West Kinney. Ain’t far, and if there’s any jobs out there, it’s a good place to look.”

  Joshua sure knows his stuff. No jobs listed, but Lordy how this story backs him up. Says that the Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company is going to need men to meet the government contracts that are coming in. Now, if my rusty friend down at the curb is still alive, Federal Shipbuilding can expect a black man from Alabama to come driving to its door.

  Bill was not about to give all the credit to Carter Jennings’ note for him catching on at the shipyard. He could read. He could write. He was good with numbers. And other black men listened to him when he gave an order.

  Starting as a hot-rivet heater-boy, Bill quickly mastered the three remaining, teeth jarring steps needed to complete the hot rivet operation: catcher, riveter and holder-on. He was one of a growing number of blacks at the shipyard, a mandate from FDR that if you want Uncle Sam’s bucks, you better hire any able body man who applies regardless of color.

  Bill packed in all the overtime he could get, and within six months, he was an Assistant Shift Foreman, and within a year he bossed an entire riveting crew. Everyone, black, white and brown, liked him, and a few months after Pearl Harbor, he just barely lost the election for Shop Steward.

  By the time January of 1945 rolled around, Bill and Elizabeth had salted away enough money in their joint account at the New Jersey Fidelity & Trust for a down payment on a house. After two weeks, they found what they were looking for on Morton, a two-story with a good roof, attic and a rebuilt coal-burning furnace in the basement. It took a month for the paperwork to clear, and with the help of Joshua and friends the Davidsons moved their furniture and belongings into their new home.

  By this time the Hudson was history. Bill caught a bus to downtown Newark where he transferred to a Public Service electric trolley to Kearny Point, and his job at Federal Shipbuilding. Elizabeth was making good pay and as much overtime as she could handle as junior bookkeeper at a Ronson plant converted entirely to munitions. The Davidson kids just made the deadline to transfer from Somerset to Morton Street Elementary School.

  Somerset was still fifty-percent white during the war years, so the transfer to Morton Street was a shock to Marvin, Benjamin and their sister, Melissa. Their new school was almost all black, and they found it hard to fit in. Ben and Melissa found new Negro friends, but Marvin wanted more.

  The day he sashayed into Milt’s and astounded everyone when he took a seat at the counter and ordered a glass of Spur was the starting point. It didn’t take long for him to notice three of the white kids were buddies and about his age, so he gave them a try. He didn’t much care that Richie Maxwell, Joey Bancik, and Billy Spratlin were Catholics, he hadn’t known any before. By March and the warmer weather, they were tossing a ball around together and Billy even asked him to partner up in a stoop ball game.

  The three white boys were a mixed bag, and Marvin wondered why they pal’d around like they did. Richie was the friendliest, but only up to a point. He saw early on that Richie was always careful not to talk with him too much so that the other white kids hanging around Milt’s, especially Profanity Pump, would not have a reason to come down hard. The Pump’s mouth could be wicked, no doubt about that.

  Billy didn’t seem to care about anything. It was almost like he was there, but not really there. Everything seemed to be a joke. He didn’t live on the block, but lived on High Street the other side of Court, in one of those big old homes. Billy was always generous with the change he had in his pocket, and wore really fine duds that Marvin’s folks could never afford. And he seemed to be along just for the ride, a take it or leave it kind of thing that Marvin couldn’t understand.

  Joey was different from the other two, the only one that Marvin could see really had it in for Negroes. It was easy to see why. The Banciks were one of three white families still living in that rundown tenement near the corner. It was no secret they were having it tough, and for the first time Marvin saw how cruel white kids could be to their own kind. He had never heard anyone say “white nigger” before. It was just outside Milt’s when bully boy, Stan Wysnoski, spit the words into Joey’s face after mocking his family for buying their groceries at a Father Divine Peace store. Joey took it and with several other kids looking on silently walked away. Marvin couldn’t get those two words out of his mind whenever Joey was around.

  One Saturday morning Marvin was sitting on the stoop of his house minding his own business when he spotted two young white ladies stroll into Milt’s. Their clothes were tight and their make-up heavy. He was old enough to recognize sex when he saw it.

  Inside Milt’s, Richie was sitting alone, sipping a lemon coke while studying the latest Baseball Digest. It was a habit for Richie, coming into Milt’s at midmorning, buying a five-cent coke, helping himself to one of the new magazines, then sprawling out in the rear bo
oth.

  As he was going through the latest stats, two pretty young women strode through the front door, and plopped themselves down on two swivel stools at the counter. Richie had never seen them or anyone like them in Milt’s before.

  “Hi, sugar,” said the big-titted, peroxide blonde in a purple blouse and white skirt.

  “What can I do for you ladies,” Milt said, his eyes stroking her chest.

  “Eyes up here, hon. How about coupla Cokes?”

  “Yeah and could you squirt a little vanilla in mine?” said the other babe, a hot little redhead. Her hair reached her ass. She put her hand inside her blouse and scratched her left tit.

  Richie sneaked a few glances up from his magazine.

  The redhead swung halfway around her stool, and crossed her legs slowly in Richie’s direction, showing off her bare legs. She smiled at him, “Like the view, killer?”

  Richie huddled behind his magazine.

  Milt placed the Cokes in front of them, “Leave the kid alone.”

  He called over to Richie, “Richie, why don’t you take a hike? Your soda’s on the house.”

  Richie slid across the booth and was about to stand up when he noticed it, a huge hard on clearly visible in his jeans.

  He had to walk past the counter to the magazine rack. The practiced eyes of the two girls caught everything.

  “Shame on you, honey,” said the blonde, laughing.

  “You’re in big trouble if a door slams on that thing. You’ll be needing it for a long time, stud,” the redhead said.

  Richie, his face flushed, limped toward the front, threw the Baseball Digest back on the rack and went out to the street, without even closing the door.

  The two whores giggled as they sucked down their Cokes, then got up from their stools and confidently minced their way toward the door.

  “Hey, that’ll be two bits…ladies,” Milt called out after them.