by Joan Shott
He stood up in the aisle and took my carry-on from the overhead bin for me, and I walked in front of him as we headed off the plane, stepping down a metal staircase onto the steamy, hot asphalt of the airport. Inside the terminal, we followed the signs to the baggage claim area. Countless people passed us, heading back towards the gates for flights to places listed on the airline’s boards. Places that were foreign to me: Miami, Dallas, Honolulu. I didn’t want to think about the return flight. It would mean another white-knuckled four hours and the end of our few precious days together.
I stole a glance at him, and he looked back at me and he smiled and winked. And he called me old-fashioned. He was carrying his briefcase with his left hand and his right swung close to mine. I could have reached out and taken it, claiming a fear of the overwhelming airport chaos, but I didn’t. I walked quickly to keep in step with him, listening to the mesmerizing sound of the small, hard heels of my new sandals clicking against the tile floor when I heard the sound of someone behind us shouting in anger. It struck sideways against the friendly chatter of the other travelers. Matthew turned around and stopped. He grabbed my hand and pulled me behind him as the voice became louder, angrier.
A man in a soldier’s uniform, braids at his shoulders and ribbons on his chest, stood near a water fountain, and another man, with a beard and wearing a worn and faded t-shirt and tattered blue jeans, faced him yelling, “Killer, murderer.” The soldier stood without moving, but his face was red, his hands stiff at his sides. The other man’s back was partially to me, but I saw the spit fly from him and land on the soldier’s gleaming, black boots.
Matthew said, “Stay here.”
But of course, I couldn’t stay where he left me. I followed and stood close behind him. He grabbed the man with the beard by the back of his shirt and pinned him against the wall, put his face close to the side of the other man’s, and I thought I heard him say, You want to pick a fight with a soldier, pick one with me, but it made no sense. Matthew wasn’t a soldier. I wondered if he would, as he had done to the boy in the story he’d told me, beat this man senseless, too. But Matthew just stared at the man, and he and the soldier held him until a policeman arrived, pulling out a pair of handcuffs.
Matthew turned to me and put his arm around my shoulder. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Me? What about you?” I wilted, the bag in my hands suddenly weighing too much.
The soldier walked over and held out his hand to Matthew. “Thanks, man. You didn’t have to get involved, but I appreciate your support.”
“No one should dishonor a soldier,” Matthew said.
“Staff Sergeant William Mallory,” the man said, as they shook hands.
“Matthew Bluestone.”
The soldier saluted and Matthew returned the gesture, raising his hand with perfect balance as if he’d done it a thousand times.
“Bluestone? You related, sir?”
Matthew just smiled and I thought I saw an almost imperceptible nod. Then he took my arm and walked me towards the middle of the concourse, and we headed once again towards the baggage claim.
What was going on? Nothing made sense. I was lost in a house of mirrors, my own reflection coming back to me over and over with a look of bewilderment on my unsophisticated face. Diane, dancing is like life… “What was that all about? Why did that man ask about your name?” I asked, jogging to keep up with him.
“Can we talk about it later?”
“Later?” I stopped in the middle of the busy corridor. He walked a few steps ahead until he realized I wasn’t with him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, turning around and waiting for me.
Let’s see. What was wrong? I was afraid of the countless unknowns that loomed outside the walls of the airport, I had to get back on an airplane again in a few days, and the man I thought I was falling in love with might have more secrets than I did.
“Nothing,” I answered.
Chapter Twelve
Chicago cab drivers were on strike. Matthew put my suitcase down by the curb, just under a sliver of shade. “When I heard it was going to happen I made other arrangements,” he said.
I’d made reservations for limos for him when he’d traveled to cities where cabs were scarce, so I waited for the long, gleaming car to come. I imagined us riding into the city, stretched out in its big back seat, cool and safe behind tinted windows.
As we stood outside the baggage claim area with hundreds of other people in the ninety-degree heat, an old, yellow Volkswagen bus pulled up next to the curb. A tall, muscular black man got out and he and Matthew embraced. I thought I heard Matthew call him Superman, but I was busy watching my purse and our luggage in case someone tried to rob us as I had heard they often did in Chicago. I stole a glance at them as I tightened my grip on my belongings. Who was that person, and why was he looking at Matthew as if he’d just found a long lost friend?
His oversized, reflective sunglasses revealed my open-mouthed fear when he stepped next to me. His sleeveless shirt showed off his bench-pressing physique, and his tight pants, equipped with a gold buckle emblazoned with two crossed handguns, made me stare. His skin was so dark the midday sun was mirrored on his forehead. He scared me to death. I didn’t know if it was the heat or my fear that was making purple spots float in my vision.
“Diane, this is Rodney. He’s giving us a ride. You can usually trust this man with your life, but when it comes to his driving, you’ll be safer sitting in the back seat,” Matthew said, as he slapped the other man’s thick arm in jest and opened the van’s side door.
I nodded, sure I wouldn’t run to him if my life was in danger, but what was I going to do? I had to pretend to be grateful he had provided a ride from the airport, even if it wasn’t what I had expected or wanted. If I offered him my hand it would be swallowed by his, maybe crushed. I grabbed by purse even tighter and climbed into the back seat.
The van chugged onto the expressway entrance. Rodney’s gave Matthew a head-to-toe gaze. “You still looking the same, brother. You still stylin’ even in that little city of, whatzitcalled, Seattle?”
Matthew glanced out the window as a jet took off beyond the barrier of trees and buildings. “Everything’s going along. I’m just trying to get by one day to the next, but you know how it is. We all want the same thing.”
“Do we?” Rodney paused. “They’ll be quite a few in Chi-town wantin’ a whole lot different than you be thinkin’. It’s good Gerry’s here, but those fucking moron friends a yours from LA shows up yesterday and them mother-fuckin’fools is already looking for trouble. This ain’t the place to pick a fight unless you ready to rumble. It’s like they don’t learn nothin’ after what happened to Martin. And now we’s lost Bobby, too. Ain’t no hope no more. It’s war out there, and violence it’s like what fuckin’ happens when you don’t know what you doing. Shit.”
Matthew cleared his throat, and his eyes rolled back in my direction.
I saw my reflection in the rearview mirror, my brown eyes wide, and dread written across my scrubbed white face. I’d never ridden in a car with a black person, and I couldn’t recall ever hearing that kind of language.
“We have to stick to our agenda and not get embroiled in anything that will take the focus off the cause. And those idiots from LA are no friends of mine,” Matthew said. He undid his cuffs and rolled his sleeves up to his elbow. It was the first time I’d ever seen him sweat.
“Embroiled? That some Yale word you picked up Mista Pretty Pants? You get down with those people, and the big ol’ tidal wave of humanity’s gonna pull you unda. You stick around, and even you is gonna get your pretty, white hands dirty. You best be careful, brother.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Matthew said. “Just came here to lead the protest.”
A car in the next lane tried to cut in front of the VW, and Rodney leaned on the horn. “Fuckin’ right you better get outta my way.” He stuck his hand out of his window and made an obscene gesture at the other ca
r. The car in the other lane slowed down, and the driver yelled something I couldn’t make out, his accent so heavy it might as well have been another language and the put-put-putting sound from the engine behind me clouding the words. We pulled so close I could see the words Vice Lords tattooed across the forearm of the man in the passenger seat. Rodney reached out and rammed his fist against the other car’s door, leaving a dent.
“Don’t give me none a your shit, fool. You don’t know who you messin’ wit.”
Matthew reached over and put his hand on Rodney’s arm. “Hey, take it easy, man,” he said.
Rodney pulled back into traffic as if nothing had happened, the VW sputtering and backfiring warning shots that jolted me to attention. I swallowed the heavy, sickening smell of burning oil and gasoline.
“You and your damned protest,” Rodney said.
“What’s wrong with non-violent revolution?” Matthew asked.
“Maybe all that shit worked for the old Mahatma, but we don’t have the time to wait out the Man. You got thousands coming here who want to start some trouble, so they can show the world that the Man name of Daley is the devil hisself. That man got a big button and these people, they knows how to push it.”
I’d probably swallowed enough chemicals to make me light-headed. Had Rodney really said that? Mayor Daley, the devil? I’d never considered such a well-known person would be so hated by someone from his own city.
“He just might be the devil, but that won’t help our cause,” Matthew said. “Don’t get involved with this just to get back at the cops for your homegrown social injustice. And remember…we’re focusing on ending the war over there, not here.” He paused and looked at Rodney until he looked back. “Both of us.” He held up crossed fingers, a sign of some sort of brotherhood I didn’t understand.
“I’m just tellin’ you how I sees it.” Rodney looked back over his shoulder. “How’s the ride back there, My Lady Diane?”
“Um, it’s better than walking,” I said, not wanting to comment on the lack of air, the nauseating stench of dirty bodies, and old smoke and gasoline caught permanently in the sagging headliner. Another bead of sweat rolled down my neck, soaking my shirt and gluing it to my back like a second layer of dirty skin.
“By the way, you can call me Superman,” Rodney said. “That’s the name just ‘bout everybody calls me. My bro says you work together - pretty close. How’d he go and get hisself so lucky? Well, I guess he’s about due for a lucky spell. Had him some baaaaad luck wit women.”
“Don’t listen to him, Diane.” Matthew said.
“You don’t need to take my word for it.” He glanced at Matthew as he spoke. “Your bitch friend, Amelia the Wicked Witch a da West Coast, is here, my man, and she’s just waitin’ for you to show up.” Then he turned his head to speak to me in the rearview mirror. “She’ll tell you stories ‘bout our boy Matthew. Sure ‘nuf ask dat Wimpheimer dame. Ameeel-e-a Wimfiiiiemer,” he said, and then spit out the window.
“Well, that’s good to know,” I said cheerily, although my stomach was in a knot. I imagined she was some old girlfriend. Matthew was so smart and handsome there had to be a number of women in his past. As much as I hated the thought of him being with anyone else, I wondered how I would compare to this Amelia with the curious last name.
I was lost in my daydreams when the van pulled sharply off the highway and onto a narrow city street. We drove under the elevated trains, past street vendors, and transient hotels, their boarded doors and windows plastered with peace signs and political slogans. I followed the reflection of the battered bus in the windows of darkened storefronts until I spied the sign for Michigan Avenue, and the sky opened up before us as if we’d come out of a tunnel.
The buildings were so tall I couldn’t see the tops of them from where I sat. In the shadows of the skyscrapers, great crowds roamed across an open expanse of a city park like a migration on the African savannahs. With their long, untamed hair and so many men with great beards, they could have been mistaken from above as herds of dangerous beasts on the move. Would I really be part of that wild, frightening crowd? I looked down at my neat white blouse and pressed skirt and doubted we spoke the same language, never mind seeking the same outcome.
We turned onto a wide avenue bordered by the crowded park on one side and Lake Michigan on the other. Matthew pointed out the window, “Diane, that’s Grant Park. That’s where we’ll be on Wednesday night.”
People were climbing on a larger-than-life statue of a Civil War soldier as if it were a playground toy. Out the other window was the great lake, serene under a platinum sky, the sun a white pearl fixed in its center like the rare jewel it was to someone from the Pacific Northwest. Sailboats worth more than I could imagine bobbed in unison with the calm breezes that belied the mood of what I presumed was coming. It was a city of contrast; a place of great promise and powerful dangers.
We turned down a side street, once again into the shadow of tall buildings. Rodney leaned close to Matthew and said, “Hey man, any news about your brother?”
“No, nothing,” Matthew answered, his voice falling like lead. He rested his head against the door.
Brother? He’d never mentioned his family to me, and then again, I’d never asked. I wanted answers about so many things, but I’d wait for the right time to ask. I felt the pressure of my need to know bubble up inside me.
We rode in silence for a couple of blocks until we turned a corner, and the bus sputtered up to the front entrance of The Drake. It was the biggest, fanciest hotel I’d ever seen. And since I’d never stayed in an actual hotel, having spent one night in a motel with my mother when I was eight years old, I had no idea what might lie beyond its big brass doors. A man in a red suit with gold braids at the shoulders opened the bus’s door, and more of the humid air of the city rushed in like an ocean wave, pushing me backwards. His white glove closed over my hand and pulled me out, up from underwater where I’d been hiding with my thoughts.
Rodney shook Matthew’s hand, and when Rodney looked at me, maybe hoping for some gesture of friendship, I was tongue-tied, unable to move. I nodded at him and lowered my eyes. I was sure he sensed my reticence as he nodded back and jumped into the VW and the old bus percolated down the street.
“Rodney’s a good man,” Matthew said.
I watched the VW join the traffic flowing along the avenue. It disappeared into the quivering mirage of the baking asphalt, twisted into the distance, a black ribbon fluttering on the rising heat at the edge of the cold Lake Michigan.
“So he’s involved in the movement?” I asked, wondering how Matthew knew him, someone who seemed his exact opposite.
“He stays on the edge of it. His older brother died in Vietnam.”
“Oh no, I’m sorry.” I’d judged him too quickly and hadn’t seen the pain in his eyes which I was sure hid behind those sunglasses he wore, the aching in the pit of his stomach veiled by his rough language.
“Rodney’s a mover and a shaker in the black neighborhoods of the city’s south side. There aren’t many black people from those neighborhoods who don’t know him or whites who don’t hate him.” Matthew put his hand at the small of my back and gave me a nudge to let me know I should follow the man in the red suit. “He makes sure his people get taken care of, and he doesn’t want to see any more young black men being sent off to Vietnam just because they can’t afford to go to college.”
“I understand why they call him Superman,” I said, although I couldn’t imagine myself calling him that. I fanned my face with my open palm as we reached the front door. “My God, it’s hot.” But as we walked into the lobby of the hotel, all thoughts of the heat vanished, floating away into the chandeliers above the cool lobby. My feet sank into the thick oriental carpet. The size of the bouquets of flowers that stood on each side of the doorway left me speechless.
“Yes, Mr. Bluestone. We have the two rooms you reserved,” the man behind the reception desk said. “Those are on the tenth floor with views
of the lake. I trust this will be satisfactory.”
Matthew pulled a pen out of his pocket to sign the hotel register. It was the gold pen from his desk. He’d carried it with him. Maybe for luck.
The clerk behind the marble counter handed two keys to a man in a dark blue suit also trimmed with gold braids. He scurried over to take our luggage. My poor little scuffed and bruised suitcase traveled silently on his brass cart. We rode to the tenth floor in a mirrored elevator car trimmed with dark wood and silk. Classical music played and the smell of lemon oil rose in the air. Matthew bumped me with his hip, and when I looked up at him, he winked and mouthed the word nice.
My pitiful, little suitcase was carried to my room and placed carefully upon a special seat made just for luggage. The bed itself was as big as my side of the bedroom in the duplex. The curtains were made of red silk and fell to the floor in puddles that shimmered like little pools. Silver wall sconces flanked the windows. The bellman pointed out the oversized bathroom and told me the number to call if I needed anything they had overlooked. I was dizzy with excitement. Then he walked with Matthew to let him into his room just next door. I left the door to the hallway open and Matthew walked in a few minutes later.
“This is the most beautiful room I’ve ever been in,” I said. I ran to the window and looked at the lake, pushed open the casement window and let the warm breeze envelope me. Sailboats danced atop pea green swells as the shadows of the cumulus clouds chased the nimble boats in and out of the ballet of whitecaps. It seemed too beautiful compared to the gritty causes that had brought us there. “We’d better get unpacked. Can we walk from here to the Amphitheatre to see the convention?” I asked.
“Slow down. The Amphitheatre’s on the south side. We’ll stick to Lincoln Park, just down the street, and later in the week we’ll get to Grant Park and the Hilton Hotel where most of the politicians and the press are staying. I didn’t plan on meeting with anyone tonight. The only person I want to see is my friend, Gerry. Maybe tomorrow.”