by Bill Harris
“Royale & Rhymes,” Vienna said.
“Royale & Rhymes’ Minstrels All Colored All The Time!” The boy said.
Then they must know Peck Morgan.
The boy beamed up, “Peck the cornet player? Bums cigarettes.”
Vienna laughed and clapped her hands.
“That’s who you are,” Vienna said. “Pearl and Son. He wrote me about you, maybe a year ago. Or more. You sew, and you sing.”
Yes, mother and son said together.
“Peck is my boyfriend.”
“You’re Vienna,” Pearl said. “He talked about you all the time.”
“They were just here. You missed them by about two weeks. Peck wasn’t with R.W. anymore either. Plays with Tate Dash now, first trumpet.”
“Tate Dash?”
“Tate Dash.”
Peck’s in the big time.
The money was better too, Pearl bet.
They laughed. Peck Morgan. Small world. “They’ll be back here at the end of November,” Vienna said.
Pearl and Son. Honest to Jesus! Vienna couldn’t get over it. What a small world. Just two weeks ago. She remembered he said they had had left the show—a while ago.
“And now here we are,” Pearl said.
Pearl described 560 to Son.
A big old four-story brick house set back about thirty feet from the sidewalk. Eight columns and five big windows across the first two floors, with banisters between. Third floor was narrower. Four windows wide. Fourth floor was like a box or lookout space set right on the edge. A big green grass lawn all around the house. Like white folks’ mansions they’d seen in various places. A high spiked fence with a double gate. Ironwork with scenes pictured in them. Look like somebody or something on fire on one side, and on this side something falling . . . She would tell him more about them later, she promised.
The house’s white trim all painted nice. Clean front and big side yards. There’s a small patch of flowers on either side of six sturdy wooden steps. No handrail. Then up the pavement to the house, with paths around both sides leading to the back.
Smells of supper met them on the porch; whispering through the screen door like Romeo calling to Juliet. Vienna called Luck, and introduced them. R.W. had sent them Pearl said, and they’ve been on the road a while, which was about as much as Vienna’d gotten out of Pearl on their short walk from the bus stop.
R.W. Boone said if they were ever up this way, Chap and Luck’d do right by them. R.W. had sent Chap a letter some months ago, Luck recalled.
“Luck?” The boy said. “Are you lucky, Ma’am?”
“Guess I am, for me,” she said. “But it started as Potluck; from the way I cook sometimes.”
“He’s not shy about asking questions,” his mother said. “He’ll ask about anything. Won’t stop until you quit answering. I prefer you not lie to him. But stop him when you want, or if he gets on your nerves.”
“Children supposed to be curious,” Luck said.
“He’ll abuse it though,” his mother said, stroking his head with a gentle gesture. “He’ll ask a duck how many feathers it’s got. Won’t you?”
“Yes ma’am,” he admitted slyly. “I can’t help it.”
Mama knows, she told him.
Luck called back into the house to Chap, who came with the easy, heavy-set flap-flap of his leather house slippers.
“I never looked for those that R.W. sent,” Chap said looking Pearl and Son over. “They either showed the hell up, or they goddamned didn’t.”
“Oh, Chap,” Potluck said with her gentle, disapproving way. “Maybe, now we got a child living here, you’ll quit your cussing.”
“He ain’t no goddamned child,” Chap told her, “look at him. His soul older than mine.”
Potluck laughed. “What you know about somebody’s soul, you old heathen?”
“Any goddamned way,” Chap said, “If they were with R.W. long as he said in the letter, then this boy could probably tutor me on some cuss words. Right?” Putting his hand on Son’s shoulder.
Showing no embarrassment, the boy smiled.
Chap, Vienna explained, cursed as natural as everybody else blinked or drew breath. It wasn’t meant to be profane or offensive, it was just the way he talked, in front of a child, a preacher, the police, one of his tenants, or a widow woman. All white people and most Negroes made you curse, was how he explained it.
Son held his hand out and Chap grasped it and they shook.
Vienna could see Pearl did not know exactly how influential the woman and big Negro were that she was addressing. Just to look at them they would not seem, at first, even to Pearl’s practiced eye, to be any more than a pretty well set colored couple, running a boarding house and a beauty parlor. But, throughout the ‘lo’ Dunbar colored community along the length and breadth of Chilton Street and the whole ‘lo’ Dunbar district, even on the west side across Anthony Avenue, it was rumored among the civic and law enforcement arms—in the middle-class White section of Henderson District, and as far uptown—that Chap owned property in his and Luck’s names. How much was known only to a few in Chilton, most of them bankers above Dunbar Street. That, plus his side business of loans to ‘lo’ Dunbar Negroes who didn’t trust or weren’t trusted by the banks or credit unions. Therefore most of the money that came into ‘lo’ Dunbar at least touched Chap’s hands before it got where it was going.
They’d seen and heard plenty, Pearl said, setting them straight right up front. Son’d taken it all in and remembered everything. He was going to do special before he was through.
Everybody was sizing everybody else up as Pearl asked about accommodations, house rules, mealtimes, and rent. Potluck gave her the rate and said they could settle all that up later, she wanted to get some food in them so they could go up and get some rest.
“No,” Pearl told her. “I’ve learned to take care of business first, ma’am.”
Chap didn’t say anything but he took notice and approved. Chap was first of all about business.
Pearl, from somewhere quicker than they could spot, and, Honest to Jesus, faster than a card shark could produce an ace, or a snap-blade knife, pulled out that rubber band-wrapped roll of money. She thumb-licked off a month’s rent, and without a word between them, passed it to Son. He moved to Chap and handed it to him without a missed cue or false step.
“We would like a receipt please,” the boy said.
Chap laughed. “Luck, baby, would you feed this little Negro while I try to figure out how I’m going to keep him from taking over all my properties?”
Luck moved off to the kitchen, telling their new tenants to follow her.
Potluck was a school-trained, state-certified beautician who had originally come to Chilton from Chicago to take care of her dying mother, Barbara Ann McIntosh, who had grown up with Martha Jean, Chap’s mama. Barbara Ann, ambitious as she was pleasant and charming, rented space from Tinhouse the barber in the back of his shop. Mama McIntosh, poor thing, didn’t last long—the cancer was cruel as a Mississippi prison guard. Barbara Ann, even in that short time, had built up a right nice clientele, being single and having no attachments back in Chicago, where she’d gone off to right after high school, mostly to get away from her daddy. She decided to stay on in Chilton and try to make the best of it.
She went to Chap for a loan to open her own shop. She had her eye on a storefront three blocks east on the northeast corner of Macy. It was, Barbara Ann explained, to be the first professional colored beauty parlor in Chilton. Not in somebody’s parlor or back room, smelling of whatever was being cooked for dinner that evening, with children running all through the house; but three or four stations with trained, state-licensed cosmetologists, in clean uniforms: appointments on time, latest magazines, coffee or iced tea while you wait. Clean as a Mercy Hospital operating room. Just like Chap ran 560: linen changed Saturdays, meals on time, respectable boarders, prestigious address. She hadn’t added the last part to flatter him but to let him know she had a bu
siness vision that was first rate.
Barbara Ann sold her family home soon after her mama died, refusing to live ever again within Big Walter’s walls. She was a boarder at 560. Barbara Ann and Chap had eyed each other when they were in high school, but Big Walter, Barbara Ann’s daddy, had wedged in between young Barbara Ann and young Chap and all of the rest of the young boys, and that was that. Chap offered her an option, a lease on the beauty parlor, or for Miss Barbara Jean McIntosh to become Mrs. Jasper Chap Metcalf.
For the longest time Potluck kept the beauty parlor, but finally, at Chap’s urging, she semi-retired, as she called it, and put Vienna in charge at the shop. Potluck still occasionally did a few exclusive customers’ hair on special occasions—weddings, proms—and by prior request, burials.
She didn’t mention it to Peck in her letter, but thinking about the new roomers was exhausting, Vienna realized, just traveling the few little blocks getting to 560, and she thought about the toll it must take on the mother hour by hour, day after day. For a moment she had a little flash of fear at the thought of what would become of Son if something were to happen to his mother one day. The world would likely disappear. It was a sad and scary thought. She was sorry she’d had it and tried to not linger on it as she fell off to sleep.
May 7, 1938
. . . They haven’t said where they’ve been since they left being with you guys. But some of it must have been pretty rough. They’ve been here a week now and have met everybody. Pearl watches everything & everybody like a mama lion. We all, including Chap & Luck, still kind of tiptoeing around her.
But everybody has taken to Son. Even Chap. It’s hard not to. He’s like a sponge & bright as a 500-watt bulb. All the men, Chap, Tinhouse, Cecile & String, they’re like uncles to him. I’m starting to see already how he’s using them all in different ways. The more he asks the more you want to answer. He’s something.
Miss you,
Love
Your V
July 11, 1938
. . . Son couldn’t ask for a better or more devoted mother.
Chap calls Son Butch, and keeps him busy when he’s not doing something Pearl tells him to do. Son winds clocks, empties the pan under the icebox, helps Fletcher with emptying the ashbins, runs errands. The other morning he beat the rugs hung over the back fence, wailing on them with the baseball bat like Gosh Gibson.
Chap made it plain early on to everybody that Son is to come and go without being messed with from any sonofabitch out there. There is to be no running starts and bumps from behind, or cuffed hands to the back of Son’s head to dislodge his cap, no outthrust legs meant to trip. No tight-packed snowballs, or water balloons, or soot-filled paper bag bombs. No bullying or they’d have to answer to Chap himself.
Potluck and I were wondering the other night just how he navigates like he does, mostly without stick or stumbling. Does he count steps, or is he like a bat, sending out silent signals? Does he have some kind of x-ray vision? Anyway—like I say, they’re settled in and it’s hard to remember a time when they weren’t here.
Japan and China going to war
Bet that German still feels the Brown Bombers’ right & lefts. That’s the way you knock me out!
Miss you,
Love
Your V
P.S. It’s hard to remember a time when you were here. Hurry up Nov.
X X X X
19
Mr. Amalfi
Spring through Fall 1939
Vienna’d just drug in one evening from being on her feet all day long. It had been busy because Tate Dash’s band, with Peck now filling the first trumpet seat, was coming to town. Women wanted to look their best for the Dash band’s Friday and Saturday night appearances. There was always a jumping time when Tate and his boys came blasting the blues.
Vienna sat there on the porch with Chap until she could get up enough strength for that last climb up to her room and to wash before dinner. When Mr. Amalfi, Carlo Amalfi, the produce man with the horse-drawn wagon, his hat tilted at the angle favored by the Negroes themselves as they angled against the walls and streetlamps along Dunbar Street, came walking up, whistling. During the winter he delivered coal and his wagon was for hire for moving and cartage.
He had on a suit jacket and clean shirt. His horse was nowhere to be seen. They spoke. Naturally, it was Chap he wanted to talk to. And Vienna wasn’t about to get up to move. She wanted to see what had brought the I-talian, half-no-English speaking man who reminded her of somebody in the movies whose name she could not remember, late in the evening to talk to Chap.
He stopped whistling as he approached the porch, reminding Vienna of the way our colored men approached white men with say-so. The Italian was apologetic, humble, and respectful. Chap invited him up.
There were just the two chairs on the porch. Chap gave Vienna a look and she, over the protestations of the vegetable man, excused herself, but didn’t go any further than just inside the screen door. The vegetable man took her vacated seat. He was very formal. He said, with obviously rehearsed language, how he had great admiration for Chap and his position on Dunbar Street. And he wanted to speak to him businessman to businessman. What it turned out to be was he wanted to ask permission for Son to come work for him. Ride along with him when he made his morning rounds. He had heard of the young man’s singing from around the neighborhood and thought it might prove beneficial to all concerned if the young man—Son—did his singing to attract buyers for the grocery man, Mr. Carlos Amalfi’s, produce. With the Italian’s broken English and Chap’s total lack of Italian, it took a while to get it all out.
Chap explained he wasn’t the boy’s father. Mr. Amalfi understood that. It was out of some kind of I-talian or old country courtesy to Chap, as the head of the house, that he was asking. Chap nodded.
Chap said he would speak to Son’s mother on Mr. Amalfi’s behalf. But there was one thing. For Chap to intercede on Mr. Amalfi’s behalf, Mr. Amalfi would have to start his deliveries on Dunbar Street at least once a week, before he went uptown to Lewis Heights. What Chap was talking about was those on Dunbar getting the freshest vegetables first thing and not having to wait and end up with the picked-overs late in the afternoon. Mr. Amalfi didn’t bristle. He didn’t balk. Without missing a beat he had a counter offer. He said he would alternate his days. And, Chap added, Mr. Amalfi would charge no more on Dunbar Street than he did in Lewis Heights. A deal.
Standing in the foyer of 560, watching them on the porch, Vienna witnessed how Chap was his daddy’s son. She had always known it. But again felt pride swell in her at witnessing once again the evidence of it. She thought of Peck and how she loved colored men who carried themselves like men.
Chap and Mr. Amalfi stood up together. They shook hands.
“Rispetto per rispetto,” Mr. Amalfi said.
“Respect for respect,” Chap said, understanding.
The first part was settled.
Now they had to convince Pearl. Chap asked Vienna if she would ask Pearl to come to the door.
Pearl joined them on the porch and Mr. Amalfi bowed from his waist as they shook hands. He told her how he wanted to offer Son a job. Pearl told him that Son had a job. She said Son had asked her back when they first arrived what he could do to help; what would his job be? She said she told him to listen and learn. She wasn’t sending him to school, she said, and this was the way she was getting him to learn. Learn to talk like them, meaning President Roosevelt and most of the white men on the radio. Because that’s how the educated talk. Listening is his job. Listening to everything they say, they being white folks, and how they say it. And learn what they think matters. Listen to the news and the soap operas and comedy programs and quiz shows and adventure shows. Learn that. That was his job she said.
Yes, Missus, Mr. Amalfi agreed. Being able to speak good was important. It was important to being a good American. But, he said, relaxing enough to make his first joke, earning money was important too. A good American was an American with
an earned wage in his pocket. They laughed at his wisdom and wit. And being outside in the air, he added, rather than cooped up inside. That was good too.
What did he really want? Pearl asked him, direct. He could get any or a whole bunch of colored or Italian or white boys to ride with him. There were a plenty that could sing, and see. What did he really want with her son?”
“Your son is special, has accortezza,” the vegetable man told her, shaking his head at not knowing the correct translation.
“Oculato . . .” Tapping his forehead with his index finger. “Sagace.”
“Smart?” Chap asked. It wasn’t exactly what Mr. Amalfi meant, but he didn’t know a better word in English. He told her how he had not been able to speak any English when he arrived in American. How he had come with a dream of doing better.
“Good sense?” Vienna said.
“Si! Good sense,” the vegetable peddler nodded. “Oculato. Sagace. Graci.”
“Shrewd,” Chap volunteered, making a maneuvering motion with his hand.
“Si, Si.” That, Mr. Amalfi thought, was even closer to the word the Italian was looking for. Accortezza. Shrewd. Yes. And her too, he told Pearl. She was a wise lady, for she knew the value of speaking well.
He was, he said, too old and too busy to attend school. “I want your son to learn me to speak as he is learning to speak. Our true arrangement,” he admitted, “will be that he will teach me to improve to speak good. And I will teach him what I have learned about the ways of my customers, and about music, and about—” He made a gesture indicating everything. “I will be his pupil. He will be mine.”
“And,” Son said, “If I teach you as I am learning, you will pay me—si?”
They laughed.
“A smart man,” Mr. Amalfi said, quoting from memory, “knows what to say. A wise man knows whether or not to say it. I say, si. I will pay you. Wages.”
They laughed, acknowledging his wisdom.
“For what is in his head,” Pearl said. She put her hand on Son’s head, him not shying away. “This,” she said, “is where he will do the work he does.”