Redwood and Wildfire

by Andrea Hairston

  “What?” the Prince asked. “What do you see?” Flames painted the air smoky red.

  “Nothing.” Aidan made sure the Prince was standing fine and then ran toward the fire. He almost collided with a Chinaman. “Sorry,” they said in unison.

  “People are still inside,” a wounded colored woman screeched, blood drizzling from her ear. “I can hear ’em in there but nothing much else.”

  Everybody heard them as the building collapsed. Aidan followed two men to the door, but the heat forced them back. Wind encouraged the fire to race through the grocery and grab hold of the Chinese laundry on one side and the colored bank on the other. Laundry workers and bank clerks watched with stony, soot-covered faces. Inside the grocery, folks screamed for Jesus’ mercy as fire ate into them. Aidan raced back and forth, looking for an opening in the wall of flame and smoke. The ground burnt through the soles of his shoes to his feet. Shots rang out, and voices inside grew silent.

  A black horse, his eyes spooked wide, his teeth gnashing dirt, dragged a junk wagon down the cobblestones and scattered the crowd. Aidan jigged ’round the wheels toward the door. The Prince gripped his shoulder and stopped him. “What is done cannot be undone,” he said. “But you need not share their fate.”

  “What was that?” Redwood stood up from her chair in the back of the Club meeting room, scratching at her dress. The boned bodice and stiff lace chaffed. Her hat weighted her head down. “Did you hear that?”

  “No,” Clarissa hissed as several heads turned their way. “Sit. It’s nothing.”

  Redwood couldn’t hear anything now. “Maybe it’s nerves.”

  Clarissa pulled Redwood back in her seat and looked anxiously ’round the room of prominent colored women — college educated, professional women: social workers, doctors, truant officers, teachers, and the wives of important colored men, women who now thought less of Clarissa ’cause of George, and Redwood too. A singing, dancing wonder didn’t belong in a respectable family, a hoodoo witch neither. Chicago was no different than Peach Grove on that. Redwood was a fool for dressing up and coming here. These fine ladies would never support her artistic adventure. How could a pirate moving picture uplift the race?

  “They’re just about to call on you,” Clarissa whispered.

  “Naw, it’ll be a while,” Iris said to Abbaseh, who frowned. The Prince’s third wife wore no veil and from her expressions followed what was said quite easily.

  Mrs. Powell, the Club president, was making introductory remarks. That might last fifteen minutes. “Over sixty percent of our women in Chicago work in laundries or as domestic servants, but too many of our girls are walking the streets in gaudy attire.”

  Abbaseh was a foreigner forgiven her brassy yellow and pink. Iris had no excuse wearing gold slippers, a green and gold hat, and Redwood’s bright red Oriental robe with a gold feather design. At least she and Redwood both wore dresses.

  Mrs. Powell continued. “Too many of our young men are gambling and drinking their lives away and offer no shelter for our young women.”

  Prickly heat burned Redwood’s cheeks. Foul air made her choke. A scream, coming from a few streets over maybe, twisted her gut. Iris sat up straight, listening to something other than Mrs. Powell too. Trouble flitted ’cross her face. She clutched Abbaseh’s hand. Redwood darted past Clarissa for the windows, trying to figure what trouble they were feeling. She pulled back heavy drapes and looked out on the street. The new electrically operated traffic lights blinked on and off. Motorcars and horses were backed up beyond the intersection. Nothing else to see.

  “I didn’t realize you were in such a hurry.” A flustered Mrs. Powell frowned at Redwood. “You all recognize Sequoia Phipps from her many appearances on stage and in moving pictures too.”

  Disapproving murmurs rippled through this elegant set.

  “I got a show tonight.” Redwood didn’t, but her lie cooled a few hot faces.

  “I believe she is here to speak for poetry, that we should add poetry and artistic training to our educational/vocational plan,” Mrs. Powel said.

  “For poetry, are you?” A very dark woman with sleek, straight hair piled in storm clouds sneered. Redwood remembered her as a volunteer at the settlement house. “More likely, she’s speaking for singing and dancing and cutting the fool. Negroes waste too much time on that already. Or perhaps you will tell us how to jinx white folk off our backs.”

  “Wait now, that’s a trick worth knowing,” Clarissa said. A few women nodded.

  “You aim to teach us hoodoo conjuring?” the dark woman said.

  “Wilma, hush. I’ve seen you at Mambo Dupree’s,” Clarissa said. “You too Bessie.”

  “I haven’t said anything, but I do have a question.” Bessie was a wiry, fretful woman who followed behind Wilma, trying to do good. She’d worked the settlement too. “What makes you think you can tell a story that anybody wants —”

  “Or needs,” Wilma added.

  “Or needs to hear?” Bessie chewed her lip. “What I mean is, who needs to hear poetry, if you’ve come up from Georgia, Mississippi, and you’re hungry and poor and got gambling in your soul and violence in your heart?”

  A reporter for the Broad Ax wrote furious notes.

  “Remember ladies, Miss Sequoia Phipps is our guest.” Mrs. Powell had taken her sweet time admonishing Wilma and Bessie for their rude interruption. “She will answer your questions later. Right now, let us welcome her.”

  Halfhearted applause died out before it got started. Iris squeezed Redwood’s hand. Clarissa gave her a pat as well. Abbaseh bowed her head over a smile. Redwood crumpled her prepared speech and left it on the chair as she strode to the front of the room. It was like going to church, when George used to say, smile at them hinkty fools, Red, and you be surprised. She let anger at Wilma and Bessie drain away and looked into everybody’s eyes, trying to see to their hearts, trying to feel full of their good will. As Mrs. Powell listed her many appearances and accomplishments, Redwood offered her warmest smile, full of sunshine and swamp breezes.

  “I cannot speak for poetry.” She acted modest, mimicking Clarissa. “I cannot speak for singing and dancing and telling good stories.” They looked surprised. She wasn’t what they expected. Even if a few women still frowned, most everybody else leaned forward. “It’s what I do, like easing someone’s pain if a leg is cut or broke, or bringing a baby into this life. Who can tell you what it’s like to give birth?”

  All the mamas and grandmamas in the room murmured and nodded at this.

  “Being on stage is a conjuration for sure. There’s magic in show people, I won’t deny it. Why would anyone come see a show if there wasn’t? Don’t we believe in actors more than someone walking by on the street? ’Cause there’s a poem in your body up on stage. Ain’t there, I mean, isn’t there beauty and magic in an osprey soaring high? Don’t it make your heart feel free? But I can’t tell you what that means. You have to come see me or do it your ownself if you don’t like my shows — or even if you do. We make the world up, in our dreams and in our songs. Would you have a life with no music, no poetry, and just the factory snarling at you, just the blood and guts on the killing floor or dirt and filth running down the laundry drain? Would you have nothing but chicken-coop comedies and Wild West lies?” She paused. All the Clubwomen held their breath. A good improvisation meant surprising yourself with truth you knew when you heard it. “I say, why only a rock smashing through the window of our dreams or flames burning our hearts down? Will we get anywhere if that’s all we can see? Singing and dancing we turn ourselves into what we want.”

  Feeling faint, she gulped the glass of water sitting on the podium. “So I invite you all to the Ace of Spades Hotel. It’s not a den of iniquity or whatever you’re imagining, but a good place to feel alive. We’re putting on a show tomorrow at midnight. Go on and be scandalized if you want — and come anyhow.”

  The Clubwomen stared at her, stunned.

  “Will you soar for us?” Bessie asked,
sounding genuine, hopeful even.

  “That’s all I got to say. The show will answer your questions.” Redwood hurried down the aisle. The skin on her back was burning up.

  “Thank you for that lovely invitation,” Mrs. Powell said.

  “Something’s wrong,” Redwood whispered to Clarissa.

  Iris agreed. “Something bad happened.” She and Redwood headed out the door. Abbaseh scurried after them. Clarissa grabbed her things and followed.

  Redwood, Iris, Abbaseh, and Clarissa paraded into the Dry Cleaning and surprised George. Iris threw her arms ’round his neck and hugged him like she hadn’t just seen him this morning, like she’d almost lost him for good.

  “Y’all fancy ladies coming to check up on me?” He hugged his sisters, squeezed his wife a good long measure, then tilted his head to Abbaseh.

  “Do you need checking on?” Clarissa asked.

  George laughed too hard at this.

  “I had a bad feeling,” Redwood said. “Somebody was walking ’cross your grave.”

  “I’m still alive, Red. Don’t go hammering nails in my coffin.” George patted her hand. “Nobody can spook you like your ownself.”

  “I seen the baron. He the one spook me,” Iris said.

  “You would have been proud of your sister today,” Clarissa said.

  “I wrote Red’s speech all down. I’m making a record of our lives.” Iris strutted and hopped ’round Abbaseh.

  “Don’t all talk at me at once,” George said. “I can’t hear nothing.”

  “Your sister spoke at the Club meeting, it was beautiful to see,” Clarissa said.

  “She invited all the ladies to Spades for tomorrow night,” Iris said.

  George chuckled. “That’ll be something.”

  “I’m goin’ do it, George,” Redwood said. “You don’t think I can, but you’re wrong.”

  “You mean the pirate moving picture?” He slipped behind his desk. “You been talking ’bout it long enough.”

  “It takes a lot of conjuring!” Iris said. Serene Abbaseh nodded.

  “I’ll bet.” George picked at a stack of papers. “Them ole backcountry hoodoo spells don’t work so well on hardheaded business men. You got to deliver the goods.”

  Redwood put a hand on his pile of receipts. “You haven’t seen my shows in awhile. I’m not just a clown, somebody’s joke.”

  Clarissa set George’s hat on his head. “We’re collecting you and taking you home,”

  “I got plans.” He pointed to the back rooms. “Work to do.”

  “George Phipps, you are coming home tonight,” Clarissa said. “Miss Akhtar is cooking food from her homeland. We will all show up and dine like a decent family.”

  “Well, you got Sis in a dress. I guess I don’t have to work ’til dawn.”

  The streetwalkers were skinny and ragged. One gal barely had any hips to shake, and her tiddies looked hard. Aidan stood under a glowing streetlamp and shivered in the cold air off the lake. Winter was coming. Maybe even snow this night, and these poor gals were still showing bare skin.

  “Don’t stand there scowling at us. You’ll scare the other prospects away.” This one had legs as long as Redwood’s, but she was pale as ice and her hair was bloody red. “Or maybe you think you’re enough to handle us all.” She had an Irish accent, not as strong as Aislinn O’Casey, but Aidan could hear the lilt all the same.

  “I don’t know what I think, Ma’am.” Aidan had been half the night digging through rubble, pulling out charred bodies, trying not to think.

  “Honey’s my name. Are you a Christian reformer come to show us the error of our ways?” Her breath was sour. She smelled musty, like a rag that never dried out.

  “Wasn’t planning to get here. Just walking,” Aidan said. “Trying to find a bit of green, some fresh air.”

  “A fancy man such as yourself must have a wife,” Honey said. “Bet you need more than her, don’t you?”

  Wet sloppy snow fell on her neck. She didn’t shiver how he did, probably used to the cold. After the heat of the fire, Aidan should have been grateful for the north wind and ice from the sky. He wasn’t. He longed for a warm swamp storm, some hot rain to rinse his ashy mouth. The other women scattered, leaving Aidan to Honey.

  “Why aren’t you home, snuggling with her?” she said.

  “Coincidence I run into you. Wasn’t looking for company.” Aidan started to leave.

  “Don’t go.” Honey’s fingers grazed his sleeve.

  He pulled his arm away, but halted. “Is your name really Honey?”

  “Let’s have a drink, darling,” she said. “Your pockets look full. I know you can afford to buy us one wee drink.”

  “I don’t drink, Ma’am. Used to, but not no more. Not a drop.”

  “Have I found a saint then? Am I wasting my time?”

  Aidan pulled money from his coat pocket. “I ain’t a saint.” He placed twenty dollars in her hand. Her pale face flushed at this windfall. “I appreciate a hard-working woman,” he said. “Find yourself a warm place.”

  She balled the money up in her fist. “I got a warm bed big enough for two. And a private bottle we could share.” Honey smiled, like she wanted him, not just his money. “You’re a handsome fellow. Not my usual customer.”

  “Really?” Aidan smiled too. “Who’s to say you don’t have a knife at your bosom and wouldn’t rob me blind in that warm bed?”

  “Same as a ride on the Ferris Wheel, darling. Danger’s half the fun.”

  Aidan chuckled, almost feeling good. “You remind me of someone.”

  “This is a cruel world. Snatch comfort where you can.” Honey touched his arm again. He didn’t pull away as she purred at him. “What’s she like, your ladylove? Tell me how to be and I know I can be just like her. Close your eyes and all the parts feel the same. It’ll be just like doing her, so you won’t have to feel guilty or sad or lonely. I’ll do what she won’t do, but it’ll feel just like her.”

  Aidan was late. The ballroom of the Ace of Spades Hotel was jammed and they were supposed to go on in five minutes. He never came home last night. If Iris hadn’t said Aidan was fine, Redwood would’ve been worrying all night and all day. If she set her mind to it, Iris could look out and see people, even if they were far away. She didn’t recognize where, but she saw Aidan standing by dark water, shivering in cold snow, and talking Irish to someone. That was yesterday. Redwood didn’t want to ask Iris to spy on him too much. It wore Baby Sister out. Besides, knowing wasn’t always better than not knowing.

  Redwood stood behind the audience stretching her tight calf muscles, telling herself Aidan deserved a woman who could be a woman with him even if just for a night. Didn’t she love him no matter what? If you loved somebody you wanted the best for them.

  “Are you all right?” Saeed asked.

  “Cramp.”

  “I meant you and him.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We can go on without Mr. Wildfire, can’t we?”

  “I guess.”

  “Sometimes I am jealous of him.”

  “Oh?”

  “More than one way to feel that someone is yours.” Saeed squeezed her hand.

  “We have enough of our own routines to fill the time.”

  “You don’t want to though.”

  Redwood blew air out her lips. “It took us over a year to put this show together. Where is he? This is our night for theatre magic.”

  “Magic? Good. Aida Overton Walker is in the audience.”

  “I thought she was in New York on Broadway.” Redwood’s heart pounded. The leading lady of colored theatre, His Honor The Barber, Salome, sitting out there somewhere to see their little show? “Are you just saying that?”

  “Why would I do that? I hear she’s come incognito, in her husband’s clothes.”

  “You see her?” Redwood peered at the audience. “Where is she sitting?”

  The crowd, cheering and laughing for the comedy act, was the usual mix, r
owdy working folk taking a night out on the town. Aidan’s Indian buddies from the motion picture factory teased Walter Jumping Bear and an Indian woman on his arm. Nicolai and his camera crew cussed at the lights and cranked away. Saeed’s family and Mr. McGregor sat among tourists hunting down exotic entertainment. Saeed’s handsome friend, a union organizer name of Carl or Corey, drank black coffee from a tiny cup right next to Prince Anoushiravan. Club ladies nibbled sweet cakes and sipped bright beverages. Bessie Harris wore a somber gray dress and was sitting proud. Plump Mambo Dupree flaunted bright red satin robes. She sat beside a skeletal old gent in black, stabbing at her food with a large knife and gulping rum. A hot Loa was riding her tonight. A few women were dressed as gents but their faces were cloaked in shadows. Redwood spied two men who could’ve been Doc Johnson and Subie’s nephew, Clarence, but with Nicolai’s lights glaring up and her blinking away tears, she lost them in the crowd.

  “You shouldn’t be crying. That’ll make you too hoarse to sing.” A hand on her shoulder had her almost jumping out her skin.

  “How you sneak up on me like that?” She turned and hugged Aidan, so fiercely it would’ve knocked someone else over.

  “Where have you been?” Saeed asked. “You shouldn’t do her, do us that way.”

  “Sorry, there was that fire at Jones’s Grocery yesterday.”

  “You were there!” Redwood got a whiff of smoke from him. “You saw it.” The grisly scene raced over his face.

  “Tell us later. At least you’re in costume,” Saeed said.

  Aidan and Redwood both wore Seminole patchwork coats belted at the waist, and Saeed was dressed as a fine Persian gentleman.

  “We got us a full house,” Aidan said. “Five hundred souls and no cooning tonight.”

  “Are you a little bit happy at least then?” Redwood whispered to Aidan.

  “Why only a little bit?” He pulled out Subie’s tin.