Redwood and Wildfire

by Andrea Hairston

  “Poetry’s good for the spirit,” Mrs. Powell said. “We can stand tall with poetry in us.”

  “A motion picture is quite an undertaking for a colored woman,” Dr. Harris said.

  “Hope is always a guest at our table,” Clarissa said. “We have high hopes for the colored woman.”

  Dr. Harris scrunched up his mouth and nodded politely.

  The Prince nibbled olives. “Yes, this is a young nation.”

  “And a flawed one,” Mr. Powell said.

  “But with great potential,” the Prince said quickly.

  “Redwood need to do a picture to uplift the white race.” George chewed a piece of flatbread. “She need to take all that talent and power and do something worthwhile! They burned down Reginald Jones’s grocery and the colored bank standing next to it.”

  “I saw it.” Aidan was seeing it again. “That Chinese laundry’s gone too.” He closed his eyes on images he’d rather not conjure up and focused on speaking the Prince’s name right. “Anoushiravan and I were there.”

  “Seeing it, that’s nothing.” George waved his hand at Aidan. His voice hardened. “Think of burning alive, your breath on fire and your heart sizzling away.”

  Aidan shuddered.

  “George, please, we’re eating,” Clarissa said.

  “Think of colored lives ruined. Hard-working people losing everything they got.”

  “It was a bitter sight.” The Prince drank down his wine.

  “Something like that is happening to a colored business every time you turn ’round.” George poured more wine.

  “I’ve made a wonderful dessert.” Clarissa smiled at everyone.

  “I know ’bout losing everything you got,” Aidan said, “the old times, the future, just living on the run, moment to moment.”

  George nodded. “Exactly, but you’d think the colored man had nothing better to do than go see my sister cut the fool in —”

  “It’s not the same ole story they make us do,” Redwood said.

  Aidan squeezed her hand under the table. “We goin’ make a picture nobody seen yet.”

  “Wonderful,” Clarissa and the Clubwomen said as a chorus.

  “I gave some money,” Mrs. Harris said.

  “I was against it.” Dr. Harris chuckled. “Bessie is always doing good deeds behind my back.”

  Saeed turned to Dr. Harris’s skeptical face. “I play a pirate and Aidan is a wise —”

  “Did he graduate from the coon academy too?” George sneered. “Or do Injuns get their own schooling?”

  “George!” Clarissa was so flustered she couldn’t say anything more.

  “What, my dear?” George’s lips were drawn in a tight smile.

  In the awkward silence, Farah worried over the teapot. Aidan picked at the last of his Kabab koobideh, but his hands were shaking so, he dropped the fork into saffron rice. He stood up slowly, feeling like a wounded bear, cornered into fighting.

  Redwood almost threw her knife at George but stabbed a fat fig instead. “Don’t make fun of who I am, Brother, of who I try to be, of the people I love.” Everybody looked uncomfortable ’cept for George. He wanted this fight. “I know you and what you do. Even so, I stand by you.” Redwood laced her fingers through Aidan’s trembling ones. George smacked a fly buzzing near his plate. Redwood jumped at the impact. “Don’t push me away.”

  Aidan looked her in the eye. “You stay and finish. The food is delicious. The company is grand, but I’m feeling poorly. If you ladies will excuse me.”

  Redwood started to protest, but Abbaseh grabbed her other hand. Aidan slipped away into the hallway, shaking with rage.

  Iris snagged him and whispered, “You can’t pay Brother no mind.”

  Aidan whispered as well. “When he jab at Redwood, I could just go wild.”

  “But you won’t.” She sure had faith in him.

  In the dining room as Farah poured tea, Abbaseh talked again. “My husband will not give money for moving pictures, but I give this to you.” She offered a ring to Redwood. Precious stones sparkled against gold. Iris stifled a squeal. Aidan fell on his butt. Farah and Akhtar murmured in Farsi. They seemed as shocked as everyone else.

  Redwood gently folded Abbaseh’s hands over the ring. “I can’t take your ring.”

  “Of course you can,” the Prince said. “It’s hers to give. Isn’t this a free nation?”

  “Indeed it is.” Clarissa set down her napkin and stood up. All the men stood quickly. She headed for the kitchen. “I need your help, George.”

  “In the kitchen?” George asked. “Why you send that gal home early if you need help?” She did not reply. He muttered something and after a moment followed behind her. The men sat back down.

  “Come on.” Iris dragged Aidan down the hallway to the kitchen door. “Don’t want to miss this.” She crouched to the side in dim shadows and peered through a crack.

  “You listen in on everything, don’t you?” Aidan hissed.

  Iris put a finger to her lips then his.

  In the kitchen, George paced. “This is my house. I’ll say what I want.”

  Clarissa stood over a large chocolate confection holding a knife. “The moving picture is the medicine I need to help your sister…be a full woman.”

  Aidan winced and hung his head.

  George sighed. “Since when you going to a conjure woman?”

  Aidan looked over to Iris, who shrugged at this.

  George wagged a finger at Clarissa. “You been throwing my money away on that Mambo Dupree?”

  “We have to believe in Redwood,” Clarissa said. “With money —”

  “Sis live in a dream world. I love her, but —”

  “Are you going to let that Persian Prince outdo you in your own country?” She sliced through the cake. “Hand me my mother’s silver platter.”

  “What?” George screwed up his face.

  “It’s on the third shelf.” Clarissa pointed.

  “He ain’t no Prince. He’s a rug merchant. Iris made that up.” George stood on a stool.

  Clarissa counted the slices. “They’ve raised most of the money.”

  George retrieved a brightly colored bundle from the top of the cupboard. “Here. Redwood and Aidan make more money than me.”

  “I know that’s a lie.” Clarissa unwrapped the platter and laid the chocolate pieces on it. “Redwood is ambitious, like you, and Mr. Wildfire believes in her.”

  “He laying up in her bed, ain’t he?” George licked chocolate from her finger. “Hoodooed like the rest of ’em.”

  “Don’t be so crude. He has his own magic too.” She wiped George’s mouth with a cloth. “People don’t know it’s a scandal unless we tell them.”

  “Who don’t know that cracker be up in her bed?”

  “I deny vicious gossip.” Clarissa kissed the chocolate on George’s lips. “Besides, Mr. Wildfire’s an Indian.”

  “He wasn’t Indian when we was growing up. You always take his side.”

  “I do not. You’re just unreasonable.” Clarissa cleaned the knife.

  “Tribes down home in Georgia — Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole — owned us, lived off our sweat, just like white folk. All them Indians claim when God made the races, when he cooked them up from fine clay, the black man came out burnt and foolish and good for nothing but slaving.”

  Iris stared at Aidan with wounded eyes.

  “Mr. Wildfire doesn’t believe such nonsense any more than you believe tales of pagan savages scalping innocent people!”

  “Aidan Cooper was an Irish redneck when they raped my mama and hung her from a tree to burn.”

  Iris’s fingers dug into Aidan’s flesh.

  Clarissa’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Are we just the horrible things that happen to us? Is that all we are, George?” She wiped her eyes on the cloth from the platter. “Investing in a motion picture is better than fooling ignorant white folks out of their homes and charging poor Negroes five times what they
can pay.”

  George’s face fell. “Red tell you ’bout that?”

  “What do you mean to do, George?” Clarissa picked up the platter and walked toward the dining room. “Your sister needs a loan from you, that’s all.”

  George followed her. “I can’t take it when you both gang up on me.”

  “So say yes.”

  In a cold attic room under the eaves, Aidan tucked Iris into warm blankets.

  She pulled him onto the bed. “Three girls jumped me on the way home.”

  “What you do?”

  “’Stead of whipping them good, I ran all the way to the Prince’s railroad car.”

  “You shouldn’t go bothering them…”

  “Miz Abbaseh say I can come anytime. We talk about everything.”

  “I didn’t know she spoke English ’til tonight.”

  “Miz Abbaseh’s teaching me how to hide in plain sight.”

  “That’s a good trick.” He kissed her forehead. “You go to sleep now.”

  “I’m not one bit tired.” Iris clutched him. “I want a story. Like when I was little.”

  “I thought you was too old, too sophisticated, for Georgia tales.”

  “Not if it’s good.” She tugged his sleeve. “You know lots of good stories.”

  “Didn’t sleep much and I’ve been scalping white folk all day. I’m tired, honey bun.”

  She put her head in his lap. “It’s not you. Brother George just don’t like white folks.”

  “Good reason not to.”

  “But you ain’t like —”

  “Good sense not to trust a stranger right off. Color of the skin tell you a lot.”

  “Don’t tell you nothing for certain. Look at you.”

  Aidan sagged. “If you look too hard, you might not like what you see.”

  Iris sat up startled. “What you goin’ do?” She threw her arms ’round his neck. “Take me with you.” She knew what he was thinking before he did. “Please don’t go off and leave me here. Aunt Clarissa and Brother George want to turn me away from myself.”

  Aidan pulled her off his chest and looked into her eyes. “I don’t know where I’m going just yet, but when I get somewhere, I’ll come back for you.”

  “And Redwood too?”

  Aidan sputtered. His eyes darted ’round his head.

  “Seminole farmer in the motion picture was her idea. She figured you wouldn’t argue if you thought it was my idea.”

  “What you say?”

  “You can marry Sis if you can’t wait for me. I know you love her.”

  Aidan stood up and shook his head.

  “I was jealous at first. Where am I ever goin’ find someone who’ll love me just how I am? But I talked it over with Miz Abbaseh. She say, love is generous.”

  “She’s right, but —”

  “You can’t pull your own pain,” Iris said. “I ain’t a hoodoo yet, but Aunt Subie say a good conjurer should help lead people back to themselves when they be lost.” She sighed. “Redwood’s so worried you might just give up on her.”

  “How you know that?” He hunched under the eaves.

  “Iris got her nose in everything.” Redwood stood behind Aidan with a candle. He would have jumped at her coming out of nowhere like that if he wasn’t so weary. “She be chasing through dark nights snooping behind me.”

  “You won’t tell me nothing.” Iris tried to pout. “So I have to find out for myself.”

  Downstairs Aidan shivered by the drafty window seat. He packed clothes and books in his battered traveling bag. Too sad for words, he set a row of wooden aeroplanes on the bed and then watched Redwood swaying in the breeze.

  “Say something. Don’t just burn a hole in my skin, staring,” she said.

  Aidan shrugged and wrapped his banjo in an old blanket.

  “You ain’t goin’ take the case I give you?” She fingered her mama’s music box. “More than half this money is yours.”

  “That money is for the moving picture.” His eyes swept the room. “George is right.”

  “George is an ornery cuss. It runs in the family. He takes a mountain of patience.”

  “I’m a coward,” Aidan said simply. “Don’t argue.”

  Redwood bit her lip, hard.

  “I been meaning to give Iris this.” He handed her Of One Blood or The Hidden Self by Pauline Hopkins. “That was a good story.”

  She set the book on her desk. “Nicolai thinks we can start on the film next week, after Thanksgiving for sure.”

  “That’s good news.” Aidan gathered his things.

  “Money might run out ’fore we’re done.”

  “I suspect we’ll just keep on going.” He trudged to the door. “I think maybe Walter will let me stay with him, while we do the picture.”

  “He’s a good friend to you.”

  “What you thinking?” Aidan said just out the door. “Talk to me.”

  “I want to tell you don’t go. I want to hold you here. But I love you too much.”

  Aidan wanted to shout, come with me. “The aeroplane with the lady pilot is for Iris.” He headed over the soft Persian carpet and out the front door.

  The moon was a sliver on the horizon. Aidan pressed his lips together against the snowy air. He put one foot in front of another, his mind so blank he didn’t notice which direction he headed ’til twenty minutes from George’s house.

  Even so far, he felt Redwood’s sad eyes stabbing at his back.

  B O O K V I

  And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

  Walt Whitman

  Twenty-three

  Shooting the Moving-Picture Play, Chicago, 1913

  Nicolai was wrong. They couldn’t start filming after Thanksgiving. On a screen, Lake Michigan would do fine as the Atlantic Ocean off the Georgia Sea Islands, but not with thin ice crusting the surface, bald trees in the background, and snow spitting from a heavy white sky. They had to wait out winter and a cold spring to shoot The Pirate and the Schoolteacher in summer. The long holdup should’ve driven Redwood wild, what with money disappearing, respectable folk breaking promises or outright cheating the production, and then missing Aidan every blessed day, even when he was standing right next to her. But who could blame the man for getting out from under George? Indeed, Redwood would’ve left with Aidan, ’cept he was running from her as much as from George. And who could blame him for that either?

  Redwood was a whirlwind, going too fast to feel sorry or stew in heartache.

  Colored folk, escaping Jim Crow nightmares in the south, were hitting the rail and busting into Chicago’s Black Belt. More and more families were stacked on top of each other in rickety tenements fixing to fall over when the El rattled by. Redwood was mending broken bones, broken hearts, and hiring hard-luck cases to build costumes and properties. These ex-southerners knocked themselves out day and night to turn their world right side up. They flooded the schools, factories, shops, and docks with hope. Of course, these hardworking dreamers were looking for good times too, for a colored pirate-picture-show on a Saturday night. Redwood was goin’ do ’em proud.

  Aidan, costumed as a respectable Irish businessman, bargained with stingy merchants for cloth, paint, wood. The lilt on his tongue was charming and threatening. He got the price they needed and carpentered what they couldn’t buy or borrow. The man fussed over every joint and nail, ’til each platform, stick of furniture, set piece was sturdy and looked good too.

  At first, out-of-work Eddie refused to act the villain in a scenario written by fourteen year-old Iris. He didn’t see why Saeed should play the lead. Aidan wanted to throttle Eddie, but Iris promised Eddie swordplay and acrobatics on land, sea, and horseback in his final scene, and Eddie relented. Milton was happy to play a minister, just to be performing again, ’stead of working in the Dry Cleaning. George Jr., Ellie, Belle, and even Frank were thrilled to be cast with Iris as Redwood’s pupils. Clarissa clicked her tongue over the propriety of a pirate romancing a teacher, yet agreed to pl
ay a good Christian woman if the scenario ended in a wedding. Walter Jumping Bear wanted a love story with Rose of the Hutalgalgi, Wind Clan. Rose acted in Shakespeare at boarding school in Pennsylvania where they Americanized Indians. She never liked the boarding school, still, she loved acting.

  Iris worked all these wishes and demands into the scenario without a fuss. After Aidan moved out, ’stead of pitching a fit, Baby Sister was a moving picture wonder — organizing much mess, smoothing ruffled feathers, keeping peace and calm. She was never too tired for one more task. Iris conjured a convincing character at school too. Teachers couldn’t tell her from the model students. She spoke any grammar they wanted and didn’t pout, fight, or slink out in the night, chasing behind haints. Even so, Redwood was like to have lost her mind.

  Iris wanted a lion to chase the villains and eat them for the climax.

  “Even bad men shouldn’t have to pay with their flesh,” Aidan said to her, laughing. “Where we goin’ find a lion to playact for the camera?”

  “I can’t wrassle with no big cat.” Redwood might as well have been wearing a corset, her breath was so shallow. “I’m at the end of my tether with the likes of Eddie, fancy-pants Nicolai, and all these unskilled folk who don’t know diddly ’bout theatre magic.” Aidan laughed on, and Iris wagged her head and said hmm-hmm. Redwood could tell she wasn’t giving up on the lion-idea. “We should get us a big cat to eat the landlords charging more for rent than folk can earn,” Redwood muttered.

  Iris put her hands on her hips and jutted her jaw out. “You mean Brother?”

  Redwood didn’t have nothing to say to that. At least Aidan stopped laughing.

  “I’ll talk to him,” Iris said, rocking her head back and forth.

  When the weather finally warmed up, Nicolai’s crew ran off with arc lights, mercury vapor lamps, reels of film stock, and new cameras. The police didn’t bother to investigate. Redwood put on silk and satin, painted her face like a brilliant sunset, and hoodooed Mr. Payne out of a terrible cough. In return she got replacement equipment for cheap before he moved his picture factory to California. Yet, what good were the cameras or building the sets or rehearsing if they didn’t have folks to take the pictures and develop and process the film? After chasing hinkty white professionals for weeks with no luck, Nicolai balked at hiring two colored cameramen and an Indian apprentice to replace the thieves, supposedly ’cause he hadn’t worked with them.