Deuce drained it and cleared his throat. “Lil C, right?”
Cornelius nodded. “Mr. Deuce—”
“Just Deuce,” Deuce interrupted.
“We gotta git you somewhere. You need me to fetch somebody for you?”
Deuce sat up quickly. It was the most alert Cornelius had seen him. “Nawl, Lil C. You ain’t got to fetch nobody for me. I need to lay low for a while. Git myself together. Let’s let folks think that ol’ Deucey is outta the picture for a while.”
Cornelius nodded unsure of what Deuce meant. “So, what you gonna do? Where you gonna go?” he asked, fearing the answer.
Deuce grimace-grinned wide and chuckled before grabbing his side. He looked down at the stitches. “Not bad, Lil C, not bad at all. You got ol’ Deucey in yo’ favor, and trust me, it’s a good one to have. I just need one mo’ thang.”
Cornelius’s small frame shook as he helped Deuce to his feet and then down the path to the chicken coop. He hoped that Grandmere didn’t come out of the house and catch them or there would be holy hell to pay. As they slowly made their way, Deuce explained that he was a “bidnessman,” which meant numbers runner. There had been a “disagreement” (fight) between Deuce and a “client” (gambler) over whether the client had bet on the number that hit. The client “got the best of” (stabbed) Deuce.
“But,” Deuce said as he settled in the corner of the chicken coop, “dis will all blow over soon ’nuff. I got plans to expand my bidness, and I thank that I could use a lil soldier like you, Lil C.” With great effort, Deuce dug into his pocket and retrieved a five-cent piece and handed it to Cornelius. “Whatcha thank ’bout that?”
Cornelius took the coin and smiled. Other than selling produce in town, he wasn’t allowed to have any money. “What I gotta do?”
Deuce’s eyelids began to droop. “We’ll talk about it when you come by and feed these chickens. I know Ida Mae ain’t gonna brang her hummin’ ass out here and do it.”
Cornelius’s eyes widened. He wanted to know what else Deuce knew about Grandmere. Before he could say a word, Deuce was out again. Cornelius silently crept out of the coop. Ten-year-old Cornelius figured that he had time.
Eleven
hell on wheels
John Henry hammered on the right-hand side.
Steam drill kept driving on the left.
John Henry beat that steam drill down.
But he hammered his poor heart to death, Lord, Lord,
He hammered his poor heart to death.
—“The Ballad of John Henry”
The history of the railroad is analogous to the development of the country. By the time the Civil War began in 1861, there were thirty thousand miles of track. Chinese workers blasted through mountain rock in the west to create tunnels. Irish immigrants, former Confederate and Union soldiers, and ex-slaves worked side by side spiking down tracks. The Central Pacific Railroad Company moved from west to east while Union Pacific worked from east to west. Coal-fueled, the trains literally puffed as they advanced toward their goals. Wherever it went, people flocked and boomtowns—gambling houses, brothels, and saloons—sprang in its wake. These portable towns catered to the railroaders and sprouted and withered along with the railroad’s arrival and departure. They were havens for outlaws and violence, which prompted a Massachusetts newspaper editor to label the towns “Hells on Wheels.”
Railroad company names often included “Pacific” or “Western” to boldly imply their destination, although many never actually delivered on it. The Mobile and Gulf Railroad, a mere eleven-mile stretch, wasn’t anywhere near Mobile or the Gulf. The Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic became AB&A, and eventually the “Bee Line.” Although it may have begun as hundreds of separate companies, mergers from its inception well into the twentieth century saw the individual railroads drawn to each other like drops of mercury combining into one solid puddle: the Railroad. The Railroad revealed itself to be the Frankenstein-stitched seams of America, connecting land and corporate interests.
The Railroad named towns. Townspeople renamed railroads. Railroads renamed towns. In 1907 two AB&A executives stopped in a little town in Macon County, Georgia. One said to the other, “Now this is an ideal place for a railroad.” The other replied, “I agree. I also think you’ve just named it.” Ideal, Georgia, was christened, which is what happens to things, people, and places that have already been born but have yet to be accepted. In naming it, the Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic Railroad Company had literally placed Ideal on the map—a cartographic illustration of the value parceled out to tracts of land that have business interests tied to them. Specifically, Ideal was placed on the main line between Birmingham and Brunswick.
Unlike its western cousins, Ideal was no boomtown. Still, the Railroad imparted power. A town that had a depot had a portal to the rest of the world. This was of particular interest to those who needed to move large quantities of goods. To look closely at the seams of America is to see not only railroads as the stiches, but corporations, banks, and criminal enterprises as the inextricably twined filaments of the stitching thread. The Railroad delivered casks of liquor until Prohibition in January 1920, and America quickly learned that enacting a law and enforcing it were two violently different processes as big-city white mobsters found a more profitable, if risky, business venture.
Mobsters stole two freight cars’ worth of alcohol from a Chicago rail yard and four casks of grain alcohol from a government warehouse. Prohibition agents became compromised. Violence was on the rise. And small-time racketeer Deuce learned that alcohol had become more currency than commodity when he was unable to pay back a debt in whiskey and was stabbed.
Seven years later, Italian mobsters like Al Capone could move Tennessee whiskey into Chicago via rail. Nucky Johnson illegally imported Irish whiskey into Atlantic City. But in 1927, seven years into Prohibition, local Black racketeers relied on a series of bootleggers and runners to manage small-scale local markets. Deuce had seventeen-year-old Cornelius.
The church service at the Holy Gethsemane Rock of Jesus Church of God in Christ began later than most. The choir started their first hymns just as other congregations in the area were filing out of the pews. In Ideal the roar of the trains drowned out chorus and message. Instead of competing, the church had pushed back the start of its morning service. The voice of God—via Bishop John St. Paul Delano Washington—could not compete with the roar of the coal-fired engine that shot through Ideal on Sunday mornings. Railroad time was precise. In fact, the Railroad had established standard time. How could a small-town church compete with that which gave the town life, name, and time itself?
Cornelius sat in the back pew of the church next to Deuce. Cornelius had grown tall and wide, while Deuce seemed to have shrunk. They sat glaring at Bishop Washington as he sauntered across the small floor at the front of the church.
“To the gamblers!” he screeched at the small congregation, startling a timid man with his pointed finger, “dere is Jeeeeesus!”
“To the whoremongers!” Bishop pounced toward the row of elderly women clad in all white, “dere is Jeeeeeeeeesus!”
Cornelius and Deuce sat stoically, continuing to stare at Bishop and the five-member choir that swayed behind his every movement, singing exclamations of “Yes, Jesus!” The ten-pew church swayed, and Bishop danced. Cornelius could see Grandmere in the front pew with the rest of the mothers board, her white dress gleaming, her hat enormous. When Bishop slid to that side of the church, most of his massive body was obscured behind the hats of the mothers board.
Cornelius and Deuce were not there for Jesus. The good minister had some bad habits. A faint scar ran down his face like the Mississippi River. Slightly discolored, it squiggled diagonally across from his widow’s peak, crossed the space between his left eye and nose, and hit the corner of his mouth before dropping off at the cliff of his chin. He had received the scar and his call to ministry during
the same experience. But the scar more than likely preceded the calling.
“If you don’t know Jeeeesus,” Bishop continued, “then come know him through me!” Bishop was not a religious title. It was his first name. Years before and several towns away, it had saved his life. Throwing back his arms, Bishop lifted his head toward the wooden rafters. A quick motion of his hands started the choir singing, “Come to Jeeeesus . . . Come to Jesus . . . just now . . .”
“Come to Jesus,” Bishop beckoned, and the congregation rose. Entranced, they marched toward him. His new flock had replaced those previous associations of adulterous rendezvous. When he was caught dangling from a married woman’s bedroom window, the husband mistook Bishop’s name for a title. He spared what he thought was a wayward preacher’s life but left the scar as a reminder. It couldn’t have been any clearer to Bishop that it had been a sign.
As each person made their way in turn to Bishop, he blessed them, grasping their foreheads just long enough for the cold metal of his prominent pinky ring to press uncomfortably into the skin, and then nudging them headfirst toward the collection dish. They obliged by digging out coins and crumbled bills before making their way to the crowded exit to wait for Bishop, hoping to snatch a moment of additional time for counsel or a handshake.
Deuce’s eyes opened slowly as if emerging from meditation. He rolled his head, allowing his neck to crack. He had mentored Cornelius closely over the years, and neither corrected anyone who mistook them for father and son. As they made their way in line toward Bishop, Deuce switched places with Cornelius pushing him in front. “This one’s all you, Big C. Make it good.”
Cornelius’s stomach churned with excitement. He had been waiting for Deuce to give him the opportunity to step up. Already at seventeen, he had three young runners working under him. He had helped expand Deuce’s “bidness,” first serving as a runner and then as a collector for those who didn’t have trouble settling their accounts. Now it seemed he was finally making his way to being muscle. He reached Bishop, and as the “hand of Jesus” reached toward his skull, he grabbed it and clasped his other hand to Bishop’s shoulder drawing him close into a confidential hug. He dropped his shoulders to lend the appearance of one humbly seeking counsel, yet the words he whispered into Bishop’s ear did not match his physical demeanor. When he pulled away and released Bishop’s hand, fear was on the preacher’s face. He and Deuce walked past the collection plate and out of the church. They climbed into the Model T and did not speak until they had made their way about a quarter of a mile down the road.
“Bishop John look like he was gonna shit hisself,” Deuce laughed. “What you say to him?”
“I tole him he was gonna git to Jesus sooner than he liked if he ain’t have that money by tonight,” Cornelius chuckled, maneuvering the automobile on the small dirt road.
“Boy, you movin’ up in the world. I knew you was good luck from when you stitched me up,” Deuce’s laugh became a hacking cough. He grabbed a handkerchief and spat, balling it up and shoving it into his pocket.
“Deuce—”
“Don’t,” Deuce warned. “I ain’t dealin’ wit no damn doctors. When it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go. And I ain’t goin’ jes yet.”
“But I think you should—”
“Boy, when the hell I ever give rat’s ass ’bout what you thank?” Deuce growled, silencing Cornelius. He sighed and lightened his tone. “You downright ornery, you know. Yo’ mama could be the same way.”
Cornelius’s hands tensed on the wheel. He had asked Deuce many questions about his mother over the years but was scarcely rewarded with anything more than what he’d already known. Now, Deuce was volunteering information. “Tell me.”
Deuce nodded. “Yeah, I guess it’s ’bout time.”
“You my daddy?” Cornelius asked. Fear crept into his stomach. It was the one question he hadn’t previously been able to ask. He’d never wanted and not wanted anything so much. The not knowing, for him at least, strengthened their relationship. The possibility was stronger than any definitive answer, and Cornelius feared the loss of it.
Deuce chuckled. “I guess I got ’bout as much of a chance as anyone in dis county. But I ’spect you know that yo’ mama was . . . friendly.” Yet his mother, Luella, had not been friendly in the way that Deuce implied. She had been young and somewhat foolish for the times. But in the tradition of Romeo and Juliet, she had fallen for the wrong man.
Cornelius nodded, but he could not have understood the full ramifications. Luella was a young colored girl and the presence of the Railroad had provided a number of wrong men. But Luella’s wrong man was a white foreman who had his sights set on her father’s land. History rewrites conquests as love stories in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Who knows if the foreman loved Luella. What is true is that he courted her. He impregnated her. What is also true is that he continued to be with her even when it was clear that he would not get her father’s land. And he remained in Ideal far longer than was required. He stayed through Luella’s pregnancy, right up to the birth of Cornelius, the surprisingly dark child that shared his first name instead of his surname. When the child was born, he left for the evening train and did not return.
“But, nawl, I ain’t yo’ daddy. Probably been the closest thang you had to one though,” Deuce continued. “She got knocked up wit you, and dere was some talk ’bout who the daddy might be, but when you come out all dark like you done . . . well, ain’t nobody know nothin’. Yo’ mama shole did thank the sun rose and set on them yella niggas.”
Luella had waited for the pigment in her child to set. It was widely known that babies were born lighter and became darker. She had hoped that the opposite could be true. Having endured the whispers about her interracial affair, the birth of her child incited new rumors. It was a horrible offense to sleep with the enemy. It added salt to injury to sleep around as well. To the people of Ideal, Luella was not only a traitor but a whore. There was no need to place a scarlet letter on her bosom. The dark child she carted with her was the constant reminder. After three years of shame, she left Cornelius with his grandmother and fled to New Orleans with a man who made more promises than she could hold in mind at one time. Luella didn’t care whether he could keep them. She just wanted out.
“Well then, who was around that coulda been it?” Cornelius pushed.
Deuce grew quiet and thoughtful. “Ain’t nobody I know of.”
Yet that hadn’t stopped people from openly speculating. Wives accused husbands. Men mockingly teased their friends. And a few who had their intentions rebuked in the past by Luella, braggingly credited themselves. Small-town conspiracy theorists of the time even posited that her own father had taken advantage. It was this particular idea that caused Deuce’s silence.
A surge reached into the pit of Cornelius’s stomach and hurled up his next words. “I’m goin’ to Nawlins.”
“Sho you don’t wanna save yo’self the trip and try talkin’ to Ida Mae again?”
“Grandmere ain’t talked about it this long. She goin’ to the grave wit it, I guess.”
Deuce lifted his left eyebrow but said nothing at first. “You even remember what she look like?”
Cornelius shook his head no.
Deuce clucked his tongue. “Well, I wouldn’t go round there messin’ around wit any yella womin down there till I was sho. Zebras cain’t change they stripes, boy.” He strolled away, leaving a look of bewilderment on Cornelius’s face.
When the AB&A pulled out of Ideal the next morning, Cornelius was on it. In LaGrange he transferred to the Louisville and Nashville’s West Point line with its luxurious vestibule equipment. The Crescent Limited brochure boasted about the vestibule experience—movement between cars via enclosed vestibules. Passengers could move freely from one car to the next without exposure to high winds and the train’s eighty-mile-per-hour speed. The addition of vestibules and
intercar movement soon brought dining cars and parlors to the rail-travel experience. But Cornelius did not experience any of these features.
The arrangement of train cars reflected 1927’s social hierarchy. The locomotive engine emitted large amounts of smoke and cinder, and privileged-class passengers were seated as far away from it as possible. After the locomotive engine was the mail and baggage car. Cornelius sat in the first passenger coach, the “Jim Crow car.” Designed by the Pullman Company for short-distance travel, the basic car consisted of two rows of bench seats able to be reversed depending on the direction of travel. When used as a Jim Crow car by the Railroad, signs marked “Colored” were displayed at the entryways. Cornelius sat in the packed car and gazed at the sign.
Pressed next to him on the bench, a Pullman porter struggled to free his foil-wrapped lunch with minimum motion. The bench wasn’t ideal for its two solidly built occupants. Despite his cautious movements, the porter periodically jabbed Cornelius with his elbow, smiling apologetically each time. As a peace offering, he held out a drumstick to Cornelius. Cornelius shook his head and muttered a thank you, but his growling stomach drowned it out. He accepted the chicken and quickly devoured it.
“Where you heading?” the porter asked, offering a biscuit and his extra bottle of Coca-Cola.
“Nawlins,” Cornelius answered between bites.
The porter smiled. “’Fraid not, my friend.”
“Don’t this train go there?” Cornelius reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and retrieved the train schedule.
“Well, normally.”
“What you mean?” Cornelius frowned.
“New Orleans is under water, son. Nothing’s going in or out of there. And if you want my advice, from what I’ve seen, colored men need to stay far away.”
“Well, from what I’ve seen,” Cornelius responded, “there many places colored men need to stay away from.”
The porter chuckled. “That’s the God’s truth.”
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