Homeland

by John Jakes

  Paul drew the new derby from its round box. Doing that allowed him to collect his thoughts and reply carefully. “I have wanted to ask about him. I thought it wasn’t my place.”

  “It isn’t. I’ve never told anybody. Never been close enough to anybody. Let’s go in the back. We’ll sit down. Where I can look at the picture.”

  I have loved horses (Wex said) ever since I was raised up in Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston had a racecourse long before there was such a thing as the United States, did y’know? A respectable place it was, too. Highly favored by the gentry.

  So I was cursed early with the love for a fast horse. And I soon felt the need to put down a little money to show my faith in the speed, and the heart, of a fine animal. If you don’t understand the rage to gamble, to plunge all in order to win all—if you’ve never caught the fever, as some men call it—then I can explain neither the feeling nor the cause, for the first is like the wildest form of love, and the second is beyond comprehension. At least mine.

  Now across the sound from the little town of Beaufort, where I lived after the war with my wife Alice, and had my studio, and saw my son come into the world, there lies a wild, largely unpopulated barrier island by the name of Hilton Head. It was named for the navigator who found it, Captain Hilton.

  On Hilton Head the wind blew lonely, and a few impoverished plantation operators came slinking back after the war, and a great many colored freedmen wandered about, confused over their new rights and new status.

  A certain amount of trading in staples went on between Beaufort and the whites and blacks living isolated on the other island. It was the old colored man who swept my studio, Germanicus by name, who brought me word of the fabulous horse on Hilton Head. A sorrel horse, strong as Hercules and more red than brown; red as glory, they said, its mane and tail lighter, something like honey tinctured with a few drops of blood. This marvelous horse had incredible speed and was owned by a freedman named Alammelech Smalls, Lam for short. Lam Smalls had a reputation as a proud man; proud to be free at last and proud to be proud instead of ashamed of his black skin. In that year soon after the Jubilee, no wonder he named the great horse Liberator.

  On the same island, there was also this ruined planter who had lost virtually everything. His great house had been looted and smashed down to a hovel. This gentleman’s name was Colonel Prospero Drayton.

  Colonel Drayton had a fast horse, a black stallion. He hated the idea that the nigras were free, he hated what he called their uppity pertinacious ways—and so you won’t be surprised that he conceived a monstrous hatred of Lam Smalls, and Liberator, as soon as he heard of Lam’s bragging about the sorrel’s speed.

  Naturally a race was arranged. The word went out through all the Low Country. There was no question that I would go over on that Saturday, in my little sailing skiff, with oars aboard in case the wind failed. I wanted to see the spectacle. Most of all, I wanted to wager the contents of the studio cash box on Liberator. This I never said to my wife in so many words, but she understood; she was angry, as always.

  On the morning of the race the sun came up with a peculiar dead white color, the air was heavy and still, and Germanicus, who spoke the secret slave tongue of Gullah, most of which I could understand, said to me, “Mester Waxfud, uh debbil ob uh stawm cawmin dis daay, moy bone dun tall me. You battuh be cahpul crossin’ duh woyd wawtuh en duh small bowat.” I failed to heed a word, though Germanicus knew the good and bad humors of that coast far better than I, who had been away for many years. And also, I had the fever to bet on the race.

  My little boy, Wexford Junior, was at that time four and a half. Bright as a polished pebble. Knew all his letters by sight. Talked like an ancient philosopher—an astounding vocabulary. And pretty, pretty as an angel.

  Little Wex wanted to see the great race too. Alice objected, for Port Royal Sound is a large body of water, with strong tidal currents. Nevertheless, against my wife’s protestations, little Wex went with me into the skiff. Our passage to Hilton Head was swift and easy, for a nor’east breeze had sprung up, and I could sail virtually without effort or thought. Little Wex and I were mightily excited when we beached and secured the skiff on the mucky shore of Hilton Head. I noticed a certain dark gray hue arising on the northeastern quadrant of the horizon, but I was too flushed with the fever to care.

  The race was scheduled for noon. Colonel Drayton’s cousin Midian was up on the stallion. Lam Smalls himself rode Liberator. I put everything, one hundred eleven dollars, on the sorrel and the former slave. Precisely at twelve the starting pistol shattered the silence. Liberator immediately sped ahead by a length, then two lengths—even a majority of the whites cheered the magnificent effort. Then, inexplicably, Liberator took a fall. Went down sidewise, bellowing in pain.

  Simple mischance, nothing more. Midian Drayton raced to victory, and the colonel flung his whiskey bottle against a rotting store front and laughed like a madman. Lam Smalls was all right but Liberator was not, both forelegs had snapped.

  Broke, and not wanting little Wex to see the beautiful sorrel put down, I hurried away to the beach with my son. Already the wind was up, blowing grits of sand in our faces. Small scallops of white water showed on the ocean and the sound. I made ready as fast as I could, because the northern sky was now very dark. I should not have put out from the beach then, but I thought I could make it across in time.

  We made excellent progress, even in the heavy chop. I talked constantly to my son, with the cheerfulest smile I could muster, for I saw he was frightened by the keening of the wind and the smacking of the waves. We were three quarters of the way to our destination when the full storm struck.

  The skiff capsized, a madness of water and foam, above which I managed to hear the thin little wail of my boy. I had his hand clasped tightly in my right fist, and my left flailed out to seize the gunwale of the overturned boat. The tide was flowing in, the breaking storm behind it, and the poor child was sobbing, though we were both so wet, constantly dashed and half drowned by waves, no tears could be seen.

  I held on that way for five or ten minutes, blown steadily inland, toward one of the many small bumps of land too small to be called an island. My wrists felt fit to break, my arms were afire with pain, but I held on, crying things like, “We’re all right, Wex, hold fast to Papa, we’re going to make it.”

  Another huge wave broke over us. And suddenly this awful feeling—

  (Wex raised his right hand, fingers spread, and as he looked at it, the horror showed.)

  Nothing there. He’d let go, or I’d let go, or we’d been sundered by the last wave—not a hundred yards from a scrap of ground where we could have survived.

  I went as mad as Drayton, shouting my boy’s name. Now the lightning came. The thunder crashed. If he’d piped a reply, how would I have heard? If I’d let go of the overturned skiff, I’d have died myself. With the salt spray burning my eyes, I searched everywhere for his curly head, a waving fist—

  Gone.

  The storm threw me half senseless onto that bit of land, that bitter refuge of sand and wind-lashed sea grass. I stood on braced legs and yelled his name into the storm—“Wex! Wex!” There was no answer.

  The storm blew out at four o’clock, and a beautiful golden sun sparkled the waters, which were calm again. A shrimperman who’d laid up in some inland channel during the blow came down toward the ocean and saw me, and took me off in the dory he towed behind the larger boat. Seventeen days later a small Negro girl gathering oysters at low tide found my son’s decomposing body, in the marsh not far from Beaufort.

  That’s the story of how I gambled and lost more than money. Alice never forgave me. It was the end. The end of my marriage—my studio—

  The end of the man I might have been, had I not had the fever.

  Do you want to know the worst part? I still have the sickness, God damn my soul. Explain it if you can.

  (Wex lowered his head into his hands.)

  I can’t.

&nbs
p; At length Wex recovered. Spoke calmly again. “There you are, face-to-face with my demon. And he never leaves me be. I still go to racetracks.”

  Paul brushed the brim of his new derby, which he’d set carefully on the cleanest spot on the table. “Well, I might go sometime, to see what it’s like. I’m very sorry about your son.”

  “Thank you, Dutch. I feel better for having got it out in the open after so long.” He rubbed a finger back and forth under his nose. “Now perhaps you understand why I take such pleasure in having you here. Teaching you what little I know—”

  “It isn’t little, it’s very much.”

  “All right, we won’t argue. It’s your turn for confession. Your mood’s been a lot sunnier this last week or so. Care to say why?”

  “I am working, I have money—”

  “And that’s why you bought those new duds?”

  “To look more American, yes.”

  Wex rolled the tip of his tongue in his cheek. “That’s all?”

  Paul flushed. “Well—no. I’ve met a girl. I think she wants me to take her out.”

  “What about that society girl in Europe?”

  “I know, I shouldn’t look at anyone else. But I do get lonely—”

  Wex sidled around the table and threw a companionable arm over Paul’s shoulder. “Go on, it’s all right to have a date with this other one. You’re young, it’s spring, and just because you take her out for fun you don’t have to marry her.”

  “That’s right, I don’t,” Paul said. He was smiling again.

  Paul had flirted innocently with a lot of the young women who worked eleven-hour shifts in the heat and steam and damp at the laundry. Only one seriously caught his fancy. She was seventeen, and though she certainly couldn’t qualify as a beauty, he found her attractive. About five feet tall, she had a mass of red curls and a pert rump even a shapeless gray skirt couldn’t hide. She had a large well-proportioned bosom, too; it seemed even more prominent because she was small. She operated a steam mangle, ironing the bed and table linens of customers who paid extra for the service. Her round glasses were perpetually fogged. Her name was Nancy Logan. She brought a carrot cake to the laundry one Tuesday, saying she’d baked it for him. Her interest was clear.

  After the discussion with Wex and another day or two of agonizing, of weighing Julie’s remoteness, Wex’s advice, and his own pent-up need, he invited Nancy to go roller-skating the following Sunday.

  It turned out to be a wonderful warm day. The breezy outdoor rink, roofed in green slate with walls of white-painted lattice, was crowded. He and Nancy skated separately awhile, then with his right arm around her waist. A calliope blasted out tunes of the moment. He wore his new outfit, with derby. She’d pinned a sprig of artificial orange blossom to her seriously out-of-date bustle.

  Nancy pressed against him at every opportunity. Her breasts touching his sleeve aroused him. He felt mortally guilty, and at the same time he enjoyed it. He tried to be more careful about keeping space between them.

  Nancy was from Indiana. “I had to move out because ma and pa had thirteen of us kids, and the farm can’t produce enough to feed everybody. I came up on the Monon line from Reelsville a year ago last month. I almost didn’t get out of the Dearborn Street depot alive.”

  “Why not?”

  “There was this young fella, standing around and picking his teeth with a silver pick. After I asked directions at the newsstand, I noticed him watching me. I started for the door and he headed me off, all smiles. Not a bad-looking fella, but nothing special either. Tall, skinny, with a spit curl here.” She traced a corkscrew on her forehead with her little tan glove. Her description stirred something in Paul’s memory, but he couldn’t get hold of it.

  “He asks me if I’m new in Chicago, I say yes, I came to find work. He grabs hold of my arm and says he might be able to help. Might be able to find me a room, too. He smiles a big smile and says his name’s Jim. Something about that smile—something about him that I can’t explain to this day—it scared the life out of me. I ran out of the depot with my grip. I ran eight or ten blocks before I had nerve enough to look back. He wasn’t anywhere in sight. I never saw him again, and I’m thankful.”

  “You did the right thing. I will bet he was a roper from the Levee.”

  “What’s a roper?”

  “A man who loiters in train stations trying to round up young girls for”—reddening, he sought some tactful English—“illicit purposes.”

  “Oh my Lord. You mean they want girls for the places we work for? Houses of ill repute?”

  “That’s right. Young girls are picked up, then locked in a flat somewhere. Then they are—ah—Nancy, are you sure you want me to continue?”

  “Yes!”

  “The imprisoned young women are—ah—outraged by one or more men, over a period of several days.” Her green eyes grew huge. “It’s called breaking in. So I am told,” he added hastily.

  “Lord. I was lucky, wasn’t I?” She snuggled against him. They skated slowly among older couples and young men showing off solo. The calliope began “Tell Them That You Saw Me,” a sentimental hit everyone was humming.

  “Want to know something?” she said without looking at him. “I’m awful glad I met you. I really like you.”

  “I like you also, Nancy.”

  “Hope you don’t mind me speaking up. I’m pretty bold about important things. Guess it’s the farm. There’s a lot of plain talk on a farm. I mean, animals are right out in the open all the time, doing what animals do.”

  “Yes, I understand,” he said, awkwardly; he was aroused again.

  They skated to “Over the Waves.”

  “Dutch, I need to ask you something. Have you got a regular girl?”

  Julie’s eyes haunted him. “Yes, Nancy. But she’s a long way from here. All the way across the Atlantic Ocean.”

  “Did she leave you?”

  “Not exactly. Her parents didn’t like me, they took her on a trip.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  “I do.”

  “Will you get over it?”

  He couldn’t answer. She read his face. “That means no. Hell. My bad luck.”

  She picked up his left hand and turned toward him, letting him watch for other skaters. The metal-shaded rink lights set her eyes to glowing like jade. “All right, you were honest, and if that’s the cut of the cards, what can I do? Here’s a proposition. You can love her and me too. So come on, let’s go to my place. It’s just one room, but it’s private.”

  “Nancy, I don’t think—”

  “I’m strong for you, Dutch. Awful strong. I won’t try to take you away from her. I promise.”

  He tasted the spring air. He savored her nearness. His body was raging. Without a word, he led her from the floor of the rink.

  “Oh my God,” he said, bolting up in the narrow bed in Nancy’s mean little room on Jackson, within sight of the West Branch of the river.

  “What’s wrong?” She threw off the sheet and clambered to her knees. The light of a spring moon through the small window silvered her belly and thighs. In the shadows her nipples looked like black cherries.

  “I am so slow—”

  “Not with me you aren’t,” she said, flicking his privates gently, in a teasing way. They had made love twice, each of them pouring into it a need of a different kind.

  “I’m talking about the roper. The one you met at the station. I think I know him.” He described the delivery boy from Frankel’s and the theft of some of Aunt Ilsa’s fine china. “His name was Jimmy too.”

  “Jim, Jimmy—there must be thousands in this town.”

  “Not tall and thin, with a spit curl here.”

  She clasped his hand as it came away from his forehead. “Well, if it’s him, I hope you never meet him again, once is enough for anybody. There was something bad about him. Something awful. Lord, I’m cold all at once. Think you can do something about that?”

  60

  Jimmy<
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  HE WAS BORN JAMES Aloysius Daws, in one of the poorest Irish patches on the West Side. His mother, Bert, insisted her son was legitimate. Insisted he had a father. Jimmy never saw him. At least in later life, he couldn’t remember him.

  When he was small, they moved in with his Uncle Francis, on Grand Avenue, west of the river. This was an original Irish neighborhood from which the Irish were moving as soon as they could better themselves. Practically every week the neighborhood received a new detachment of dagos fresh off the cars from New York. The dagos moved in with relatives who had already taken over the hand-me-down houses of the departed Irish. The Irish who stayed behind, unable to afford a nicer neighborhood or the suburbs, were silently scorned by the older Italians and mistreated by the younger ones. Jimmy soon added dagos to the list of people he hated.

  He hated his relatives, too. Uncle Francis had a wife sterner than most nuns, and eleven children. Even at four and five, Jimmy had to punch and kick ferociously to protect his few inches of sleeping space on the floor.

  He assumed that his mother had some kind of regular job during those years, but she never talked about it, then or later. Uncle Francis was a bellman at the Palmer House. Most of his wages came in the form of tips. Sometimes he brought home next to nothing, and when that happened he went off to mass, muttering that God would provide. Which was a stupid way to look at it, Jimmy decided. All you had to do was notice the raggedy clothes Uncle Francis and his family wore, or the pitiful food they ate. No better than slops at a workhouse.

  Uncle Francis was the one who turned Jimmy against God and the Catholic faith, forever.

  Uncle Francis was devout to the point of mania. He had a favorite article of punishment, a piece of quarter-inch lumber. Nothing Jimmy ever felt on his scrawny ass hurt as bad as that flat board in the hand of Uncle Francis.

  His uncle beat him for impertinence or for slothfuiness, but he beat him most often for transgressions involving the Church. Uncle Francis ordered his children, and Jimmy, to attend the 9 A.M. children’s mass every Sunday morning. The priest always gave a little homily about obedience, usually couched in some story about meek and mild bunnies, forgiving jackasses, and other animals and attitudes wholly foreign to Jimmy’s experience.