by John Keene
Mr. Robins senior offered his round of introductions, and young Mr. Robins, Rev. Hodge and Mr. Linde all praised Professor Lowe’s lecture, thanking Dr. Cresson and Dr. Leidy, who I could see was circulating on the other side of the room, for inviting him. They launched into some small crosstalk until young Mr. Robins abruptly said, pointing to me with his near-empty sherry glass, “This boy here pays as much attention as we do, don’t you, Theodore?” and I immediately grew nervous because I had never ever said a single thing in front of Dr. Cresson beyond “Yes, Sir,” or “Thank you, Sir,” and usually only played young Mr. Robins’s “game” with his friends and the given month’s guest. I smiled, raised the tray, and smiled again, but young Mr. Robins persisted, saying, “Come on, Theodore, why don’t you tell our guest, Professor Lowe, at least one thing you heard him talk about?” Mr. Robins senior was looking at me, Dr. Cresson was frowning, and Rev. Hodge’s cheeks were deepening to wine, but Professor Lowe and Mr. Linde looked like they expected to hear me speak, to respond to young Mr. Robins’ request. I wanted to call Jonathan over, snare Horatio’s attention, even have Kerney bail me out by snatching me away, because the whole room appeared to be pausing until I uttered my reply.
I said, “Professor Lowe say—said—that when he flew the Pioneer balloon last year, watched even by the Japanese ambassadors and their retinue, it rose to two and one half miles above this city, Philadelphia, and he experienced a ‘mirror effect’ in the clouds, then he travel—traveled—all the way to New Jersey’s ocean-side before the lower currents brung it back about 18 miles to here.”
Professor Lowe’s eyes scoured my face, they all did, then he turned to young Mr. Robins and said, “This boy apparently took exceptional mental notes, I barely remember having said that, correct though it is, at all.” He clapped, then they all clapped, save Rev. Hodge, who appeared somewhat annoyed. After Professor Lowe patted me on the shoulder, nearly causing me to drop my tray, they dispersed toward another group, except young Mr. Robins, who told me, “That was splendid, Theodore. Before you leave today you will get quite a treat.” Mr. Edward Linde walked back over, and looking me straight in the eyes, said, “Like a little machine. I especially appreciated the details because my memory is like pumice stone—” to which young Mr. Robins said, “Though you can work anything out from first principles, Neddy, which is more than I or anyone else in this room can do.” Mr. Linde handed me a carte de visite, which I tucked in my pocket, continuing, “so if you find yourself seeking work, write me or call upon me care of that address and you can join me at the Aeronautic Corps, wherever we are.” Young Mr. Robins patted me on the head, as he usually did, and said to his friend, “You know, I’ll even put Theodore in a balloon and have him fly himself down there to you, or perhaps in a BOX to do the same,” at which he burst out laughing so hard he had to take out his handkerchief to wipe his eyes. He kept repeating “Box” to Mr. Linde, who did not appear to find it humorous, as they joined a nearby circle.
All the while I was wondering if Mr. Edward Linde was the son of or somehow related to Mr. Albert Linde, the host of the evening’s event, and I thought given how he had addressed me that maybe I should say something, yet we were forbidden to talk to the members or guests unless they spoke to us first. Later, when we were done, young Mr. Robins before he left gave me several crisp bills about which he said, Mr. Edward Linde standing right there, “Don’t tell a soul” although I knew Kerney, Jonathan and the others had seen him give me something extra after we played his “game,” and I thanked him profusely and replied that I wouldn’t. As he filed out Mr. Edward Linde, looking straight at me, once again tapped his temple with his notebook and stated in a clear voice, “Remember.”
Once all the attendees had left and I was in back changing, Kerney for a change didn’t pay me any attention, in part because he was busy counting out the money. Horatio, shirtless, looped his long knotty arm dark as roofing felt around me and said, “You going to meet me to hit the streets ’night, s’right?”
“I got a shift tonight, Ray-Ray,” I told him, adding, “Party for Dameron, where I’m heading once I get change again, then I head out to it before sundown.”
Horatio removed his arm from my shoulders and laid his immense hand on my knee. “Edray, I think you don’t love ya boy no more.” He directed this not just to me but announced it as if he was trying to make sure some of the other stewards sitting near us heard him. They chuckled but paid him no special mind, and continued dressing and cleaning up. Then he grabbed my goattee and pulled on it, hauling me forward until I slapped his hand.
“Watch it, now, ignay,” I told him, as I often did since he wanted to keep on roughhousing around like we had as children, “don’t be fooling like that.”
“See what I mean.” He rose and tucked in his shirt. “Y’ain’t got no love for ya boy no more. I’ma still come by ya place and drag you out there, even if you sound asleep. Can’t let these coins burn a hole in my pocket.” He flashed the beacon of his large white teeth and I couldn’t stay mad at him, but when he reached for my chin hairs again I put up fists, mock fighting, though I knew he could flatten me with a single punch if it ever came to that.
“Get your pay and you got to clear out of here!” Kerney had stacked the money in piles for each of us on a table, so we lined up and collected what was ours. When I reached mine he said, baring the yellow kernels in his mouth as if trying to appear friendly, “Better not end up in the bottom of them rivers, boy, cause I spect to see you come September, y’understand?” and I answered him, “Yes Sir, Mr. Kerney, and you have a good summer too.” I grabbed my pay and raced outside, where Horatio and Jonathan were waiting.
“Where, you off to, Dameron?” Jonathan was rolling a moundlet of tobacco from a pouch he kept in his waistcoat in a piece of newspaper look like he took from the back room.
“Sure nough, what about you?”
“Bout to go relax these dogs for a little bit fore I go get Angie. She get off today round 4.” He was licking the end of his cigarette but didn’t have a light. “We sposed to be meeting up with Johnny and his lady, and Tut-Tut and Queenie, we probably go try to find a dance or something to get into.”
Horatio was quiet, looking like he wanted to leave but I could tell he was waiting till Jonathan did so first so that we could walk together and talk.
“Well if’n I don’t see you fore you head out I’ll catch you when I get in,” Jonathan said, “I don’t need to tell you but I’m going to, Red. Stay out of trouble.” We all slapped palms then he scooted off to light his cigarette at a pushcart down the street and cool wherever he cooled when he wasn’t at home or Angelica’s.
“You walking to Dameron right now?” Horatio asked, towering over me.
“Sure nough, I need them coins, what you doing?”
“Ain’t on for no upholstering this evening, prolly just going to go home, you know it be like the circus up in there, can’t hardly even breathe with all of them. Edray, I almost didn’t have no shoes this morning cause Franklin walking out the door with mines.” We laughed in unison at the thought of his brother, with even bigger feet than his, stumbling in Horatio’s boots out the door. As we did so he winched his long arm around my shoulders. I could smell his underarms cutting through the rosewater he had splashed on himself in the backroom, and the combination was not at all bad. “Why don’t we take some ladies out tomorrow after service for a stroll, that’ll get you to hang out with ya boy, no?”
I paused there on the walkway. “Rosaline sent my last note back, she ain’t want to talk to me at all when I seen her two days ago. Who I supposed to take out i
f I ain’t got no lady?” Horatio stood in front of me.
“I’ll talk to Rosaline, you remember how her sister Janie was sweet on me.” And he was right, Janie, a year older than us, had been utterly infatuated with my best friend for several years, beginning when we were thirteen so, until she gave her heart completely to Christ and chilled on everyone who wasn’t always in church except her immediately family, and strangely, Horatio. “Say yes and I’ll head over there right now.” I looked up at him and he cupped my chin, drawing his face closer and closer to mine until I pushed his hand away, though for a second I felt I wanted him to put it back. Horatio slid back alongside me and was now looking off into the Saturday crowds, all the human hustle and bustle up Broad, the horses and coaches and wagons, people alighting on or off the street cars. I seized both his big hands, which immediately grabbed his attention, and said, “You talk to her for me and we definitely roll tomorrow,” though I knew it probably would just be me and him in the park playing Takeaway or improvised cribbage.
“Bet, Edray,” he said and I answered, “Bet and better be, Ray-Ray,” we slapped palms, then I darted through the maze of traffic to Dameron’s.
When I had finished all my preparatory tasks for the soup and the desserts, which the main cooks would take charge of, I beat a path straight home and lay down, feeling the day’s work had wrung me out. My mother wasn’t there, Jonathan neither, so I spread out on the bed I shared with him and just let my mind float free thinking about Rosaline and what I might have done to cool her so, and about Horatio, who did know how to talk to or least get the attention of girls, though he didn’t ever really seem to want to. Jonathan also had that charm, girls and people in general had always flocked to him. I consoled myself by recalling that too much nectar, my mother would warn, would draw more than the butterfly. Always fumbling and stumbling and saying the wrong thing, I didn’t have whatever it was anyhow. I forgot to look girls in the eye, bring them something sweet, special, cajole and inveigle them to reach that sweeter spot. Rosaline nevertheless had used to like to spend time with me especially during our last year at the Institute. As I traced circles on my stomach and thighs I reminded myself that truth be told I didn’t want to be courting so hard yet anyway, although I knew having a sweetheart was best when the summer came and you could sit up on the riverbank and watch the steamboats streaming by, or walk the promenade late on a Sunday afternoon after services, and I liked when Horatio and me had gone courting together, I would be studying what he said and deploying my own version, and now I could feel my eyes leadening but I knew not to fall into a deep sleep, because I might miss tonight’s job—
—And I heard Mama calling out, “Theodore, if you sleeping wake up, sugar, and get dressed,” and I rose, washed up, scrubbed my teeth with baking soda even, donned my serving clothes. Before I left I gave Mama, who as soon as she set her sacks down had begun readying dinner, a big kiss on the cheek and some money then I headed off to Mr. Linde’s.
I hopped on the streetcar that ran up Broad, since that one we could ride and the conductor was one I saw all the time, he never spoke but didn’t curse me either. I let the white folks climb inside then I held out my coin and he snatched it, I grabbed on, wondering as we rode whether I might not be too early. I glanced around for a clock in a pane, and seeing none, asked the conductor what time it was. He consulted his pocket watch and said, “Seven past six.” I had almost an hour and a half, so I rode up a few blocks to Prune. With the party two blocks east of Rittenhouse Square, I decided to kill time by walking a roundabout route down to the Schuylkill before circling back. Right outside the New Opera House I ran into Reverend Johnson, the pastor of our old church, who asked about my mother, and then once on Pine I saw the Holland twins, and Miss Catto, who wanted to chat for a good minute. On Aspen, I paused to talk briefly with my former classmate Simpson, shoveling up manure, who people called both Simple and Samson since he fell first off a horse, then off a roof, and had survived both. At S. 23rd I ran into another acquaintance and former classmate, Amos, sweeping the sidewalk outside a row of stores. He asked me why I was all dressed up, then said if Dameron had any openings to let him know. He also warned to watch myself near the river, but I assured him I already knew to be careful, and reminded him that steps from the Water Works near here they had slain my father one evening three months ago. I said goodbye to Amos, picking up my pace and counting down the blocks until I could see the wharves and boats, and be ready, if need be, to run.
A couple blocks from the river, near Cope, from behind the corner of a warehouse my first cousin on my daddy’s side, Daniel Lyons, emerged, smoking a cheroot as thick as a tree limb, and soon as he saw me he tipped his brim and called me over. He had been a few years ahead of Horatio and me in school, though after Jonathan, but he had always seemed as if he were much older. People in the streets called him “Dandylion,” though to me he was just “Dandy.” The blue serge suit he sported was as fine as anything the white gentleman at the Academy this afternoon had worn, and even in the evening light the rings glinted from every other one of his stubby copper fingers. I hadn’t seen him in a while but wherever he happened to be, my mother warned me constantly, so was trouble. Nevertheless I didn’t know anybody walking the streets of Philadelphia who could stay so close to danger yet outside the lasso of the law or always have as good a time doing so.
“Uzcay, where you rolling?” He extended his cigar. I declined. When he pulled a flask out of his inner pocket and offer me some after he took a sip, I declined again.
“Work, Uzcay,” I said. “An event. Near Rittenhouse Square.”
“Ahh.” He smoothed his full mustache, which looked like he had been trimming and waxing it for decades. He added, “Rittenhouse. That’s some fancy pish, Red. What you doing over here? Little play before you toil the night away?”
“Just got some time, taking a walk to burn it off before I got to sweat.”
“Sweet,” he said. “What time they expecting you? I want to show you something if you got just a few minutes.” His voice lowered, like he didn’t want anybody, not even me, to hear what he was about to say. A man on a horse trotted past and he grew silent. “Something real good. Only for my blood.”
“Oh no, Dandy,” I said, registering at that moment that I ought to slap palms and run straight to the event, even if I had to expend a half hour to spare just milling about outside the back gate or in the square itself. “I can’t be late for this, I swear.”
“Why you think I’ma make you late? Edray, my little man, come on now. All I axing you for is a few minutes. Just got something to show you. Know you’ll like it.” He took off his hat and stroked his perfectly parted and pomaded head of hair, the shine on the black bales setting off his beringed fingers.
“What is it? Where is it?” I looked around and wondered at that moment what Dandylion was even doing over in this neighborhood with all the toughs and bandits and everything else, especially since these west-side white folks were known for jumping out of alleys ready to fight. I told him, “Look, Dandy, I wish I could roll with you right now but I got to get to work. Plus, this area over here—”
“See, Uzcay,” he said, “you always wanna be like that. Hincky. Last time we cooled it ain’t you have a good time?” and he was right, we had gone to a house south of here, ten blocks perhaps past the Naval Asylum, where some people he knew had set up a gambling parlor, with enough free liquor for a shipload of sailors, several fiddlers, and hours of dancing. There were even white folks there too. Before that, right after I turned fifteen I had ridden the ferry with him to Camden to attend a cockfight, and had had
my first taste of beer there. “Rittenhouse Square is it?”
“Just east of there. I swear I can’t miss work, Dandy, you know how hard things is these days.”
“Red, cool your heels. You ain’t going to miss no work, we only going a few blocks away, in the direction of Rittenhouse. By the time we done you could crawl there and still wouldn’t be late.” So he started walking but I stayed where I was, until I spied these two white boys, men really, across the street, they were watching me, not frowning but not looking neutral either, and at the very moment they started to advance in my direction I thought it best to follow Dandy.
At a three-story building that on the outside looked like any other on the block but also like one in which no one had lived for a while, he knocked six times on the weathered front door. I started to turn around as soon as we entered because it was very dark, except for a single lamp, not even gas, in the foyer, but Dandy took my arm, guiding me up the stairs, past a brother I didn’t even see at first with a face so hard it could cut metal, though when our eyes met they contained the glimmers of assent, slightly reassuring me. We reached the second floor, which appeared empty though I could hear things going on in several of the rooms, cackling, flesh clapping against flesh, dice or marbles hitting a wall. Dandy proceeded up the stairs to the third storey, still holding my arm, and I knew then that I should turn around but I also wanted badly to see what he had in store.