by Libba Bray
MEMPHIS CAMPBELL, HARLEM, NEW YORK CITY
It was morning in Harlem, and mornings belonged to the numbers runners. From 130th Street north to 160th Street, from Amsterdam Avenue on the West Side clear over to Park Avenue on the east, scores of runners staked out their turf, ready to write out slips for their customers and race those hopeful number combinations back to their bankers, operating from the back rooms of cigar stores and barbershops, speakeasies and brownstone basements. It all had to happen before ten AM, when the clearinghouse down on Wall Street published the daily financial number, and somebody beat the thousand-to-one odds and struck it big or, more likely, struck out. It rarely worked out in Harlem’s favor, but they played the game anyway, on the chance that someday their luck would change.
Memphis Campbell, seventeen, perched beneath the street lamp in his spot on the corner of Lenox Avenue and 135th Street, near the subway entrance, catching his customers as they headed off to work. He kept an eye out for cops as he wrote out slip after slip: “Yes, Miss Jackson, fifteen cents on the washerwoman’s gig.” “Forty-four, eleven, twenty-two. Got it.” “A dollar on the death gig, though I’m sorry to hear that your aunt’s cousin passed.” “Well, if you saw it in a dream, you’d be a fool not to play that number, sir.”
The numbers were all around them, patterns waiting to be discovered and turned into riches, luck pulled from thin air—from hymnals, billboards, weddings, funerals, births, boxing matches, horse races, trains, professions, fraternal orders, and dreams. Especially dreams.
Memphis didn’t like thinking about his dreams. Not lately.
When the work rush cleared, he took orders in apartment-building lobbies, stuffing the slips into a leather pouch he kept in his sock in case he got shaken down. He stopped in at the DeLuxe Beauty Shop, which was doing a brisk business in hair and gossip.
“So I told her, I may be a scalp specialist, but I am no miracle worker!” the owner, Mrs. Jordan, regaled the chuckling women in the shop. “Hey there, Memphis. How you?”
The ladies sat up straighter.
“Lord, that boy is handsome as Pharaoh,” one of the young women clucked, fanning herself with a magazine. “Honey, you got yourself a girl?”
“On every block!” Mrs. Jordan laughed.
Memphis knew he was handsome. He was six feet tall and broad-shouldered, with high cheekbones thanks to some Taino blood down the line. Floyd at Floyd’s Barbershop kept Memphis’s hair close-cropped and oiled sweet, and Mr. Levine, the tailor, made sure his suits were sharp. But it was Memphis’s smile everyone noticed first. When Memphis Campbell decided to turn on the full power of his charm, it always started with the smile: shy at first, then wide and blindingly bright, accompanied by a puppy-dog look that got even his aunt Octavia to relent sometimes.
Memphis employed the smile now. “Getting late, ladies.”
“So it is.” Mrs. Jordan kept her hot comb working, straightening the hair of the woman in her chair. “Put me down for my usual gig. Got those numbers from Aunt Sally’s Policy Players Dream Book. Gonna make me rich someday.”
“Gonna make you broke someday,” a large woman reading a copy of the New Amsterdam News announced with a snort.
Mrs. Jordan pointed the hot comb at her. “It’s going to pay off. You’ll see. Right, Memphis?”
Memphis nodded. “Just last week, I heard of a man playing the same gig for a year. Won big,” he said. Memphis thought again of his disquieting dream. Maybe it meant something after all. Maybe it was a portent of good luck, not bad. “Say, Mrs. Jordan, does Aunt Sally’s book say anything about a crossroads or a storm?”
“Oh, a storm means money coming in, I think. Storm is fifty-four.”
“Is not, either! A storm means a death coming. And it’s eleven you play for that.”
The ladies set to squabbling about the various interpretations of dreams and possible number combinations. No one could ever agree on any one right answer. That’s part of what made the game so exciting—all those possibilities.
“What about an eye with a lightning bolt underneath?” Memphis asked.
Mrs. Jordan paused, the hot comb still in her customer’s hair. “I don’t rightly know. But somebody else might could tell you. Why you ask, honey?”
Memphis realized he was frowning. He relaxed again into that charming smile people had come to expect from him. “Oh, just something I saw in a dream is all.”
The customer in the chair bristled. “Ow! Fifi, you about to burn my scalp off with that hot comb!”
“I am not! You’re just too tender-headed is your trouble.”
“Good day to you, ladies. I hope your number comes in,” Memphis said and beat a hasty retreat.
Above Harlem, the morning’s gray clouds frayed into thin wisps, revealing a perfect blue sky as Memphis passed the Lenox Drugstore, where he and his little brother, Isaiah, liked to stop in for hamburgers and talk with the owner, Mr. Reggie. He crossed the street to avoid the Merrick Funeral Home, but he could not sweep away the memory. It crept up from deep inside, still with the power to squeeze the breath out of him:
His mother lying up front in the open casket covered with lily of the valley, her hands crossed over her chest. Isaiah asking, “When Mama’s gonna wake up, Memphis? She’s missing the party, and all these people here to see her, too.” His father sitting on the cane-back chair, staring down into his big, trumpet-playing hands while mourners cried and hollered and somebody sang, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The feel of the dirt in Memphis’s fingers as he dropped clods of it onto the grave. The soft thud as it hit the top of the coffin, the finality of the sound. He remembered his father packing up their apartment off 145th Street and sending Memphis and Isaiah to share the cramped back room of Aunt Octavia’s place a few blocks farther uptown while he went off to Chicago to look for work. He’d promised to send for them when he was settled. That had been two years, ten months, and fifteen days ago, and they were still sharing the back room at Octavia’s.
Memphis swiped a milk bottle from a stoop and took a big swig, as if he could chase away the past. His skin itched with restlessness, a feeling that the world was about to be ripped wide open. And he was sure it had to do with the dream.
For two weeks running, it had been the same: The crossroads. The crow flying to him from the field. The darkening sky, and the dust clouds rising on the road just ahead of whatever was coming. And the symbol—always the symbol. It was getting to where he was afraid to sleep.
A phrase came to him quickly. Memphis knew that if he didn’t write it down, it would be gone later, when he was ready to write. So he stopped and jotted this new bit of poetry in his head onto two blank numbers slips, then shoved them into a different pocket. Later, when he could head up to the graveyard, where he liked to write, he’d copy them into the brown leather notebook that held his poems and stories.
Memphis turned the corner. Blind Bill Johnson sat on a stoop with his guitar. His upturned hat lay at his feet, a collection of small change scattered across the hat’s worn lining. “Met a man on a dark road, he had a mark upon his hand,” the bluesman sang in his gravelly whisper of a voice. “Met a man on a dark road, he had a mark upon his hand. Said the storm’s a-comin’, rain down hard upon the land.” As Memphis passed, Blind Bill called, “Mr. Campbell! Mr. Campbell! ’Zat you?”
“Yes, sir. How’d you know?”
The old man wrinkled up his nose. “Floyd’s good with the scissors, but that oil he use could wake a dead man.” He broke into a hard, raspy laugh. His fingers sought the collection of change in the hat, touching each coin until he had two dimes. “Put twenty cents on my number, Mr. Campbell. One, seven, nine. Go on now, and put that in. Put it in for old Blind Bill,” he said with urgency.
Memphis wanted to tell him he should save his money for other things. Everybody knew Bill lived over in the Salvation Army mission, and sometimes on the streets, when the weather was decent. But it wasn’t his place to say anything, so he pocketed the coins and
wrote out a slip. “Yes, sir. I’ll put it in.”
“I just need a change of luck is all.”
“Don’t we all,” Memphis said and moved on.
Behind him, the bluesman took up his guitar again, singing about shadowy men on dark roads and bargains struck under moonless skies, and though they were in the heart of the city with its rumbling trains and bustling sidewalks, Memphis felt a strange twisting in his gut.
“Memphis!” another runner called from down the street. “You better get to it! It’s almost ten o’clock!”
Memphis forgot about his bad dreams. He tossed the empty milk bottle into a rubbish bin, shouldered his knapsack, and ran down the street toward the Hotsy Totsy to wait for the day’s number to come in.
On a street lamp, a crow cawed. Blind Bill stopped his song and tensed, listening. The bird cawed once more. Then it flapped its shiny wings and shadowed Memphis Campbell’s steps.
THE MUSEUM OF THE CREEPY CRAWLIES
Evie disembarked from the train with a wave to the porters and conductors with whom she had played poker from Pittsburgh to Pennsylvania Station. She was now in possession of twenty dollars, three new addresses in her brown leather journal, and a porter’s hat, which she wore upon her golden head at a rakish angle.
“So long, fellas! It’s been swell.”
The conductor, a young man of twenty-two, leaned out from the train’s stairwell. “You’ll be sure to write me, won’t ya, sweetheart?”
“And how. Just as soon as I practice my penmanship,” Evie lied. “My aunt will be waiting. She’s legally blind, so I’d better fly to her side. Poor dear Aunt Martha.”
“I thought her name was Gertrude.”
“Gertrude and Martha. They’re twins, and both blind, the poor, poor dears. Farewell!” Her heart thumping, Evie rushed up the stairs from the platform. New York City—at last!
Uncle Will’s telegram had been quite specific: She was to hail a taxi outside Pennsylvania Station on Eighth Avenue and tell the driver to take her to the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult on Sixty-eighth Street, off Central Park West. She had been sure it would be no trouble at all. Now, in the hubbub of Pennsylvania Station, she felt more than a little lost. She went the wrong way twice and finally found herself in the enormous main room, with its floor-to-ceiling arched windows and the giant, center-placed clock whose filigreed arms reminded passengers that time was fleeting—as were trains.
Nearby, a very glamorous woman wearing a full-length Russian sable despite the heat was drawing an ever-thickening crowd of followers and shutterbugs. “Who is that?” Evie whispered urgently to one of the admirers.
He shrugged. “Don’t know. But her press agent paid me a dollar to stand around and gape like she was Gloria Swanson. Easiest buck I ever made.”
Evie scurried to keep up with the hustle and bustle of the crowd and nearly wiped out a newsboy hawking the Daily News. “Valentino poisoned? Read all about it! Anarchists’ bomb plot goes bust! Teacher goes ape for evolution! All the news right here, right here! Only two cents! Paper, Miss?”
“No, thank you.”
“Nice topper.” He winked and Evie remembered the porter’s hat.
A mirror hung in the window of a druggist’s shop, and Evie stopped to fix her hair and replace the porter’s hat with her own brimless gray cloche, turning her head left and right to make sure she was at her best. She took the twenty-dollar bill she’d won playing poker and, after a moment of deliberation, stuffed it into the pocket of her red, summer-weight traveling coat.
“I can’t say I blame you for taking in the view. I’ve been looking for a while.”
The voice was male, and a little gravelly. Evie caught his reflection in the mirror. Thick, dark hair with a longer piece in front that refused to stay swept back. Amber eyes and dark brows. His smile could only be described as wolfish.
Evie turned slowly. “Do I know you?”
“Not yet. But I hope to remedy that.” He stuck out a hand. “Sam Lloyd.”
Evie curtsied. “Miss Evangeline O’Neill of the Zenith O’Neills.”
“The Zenith O’Neills? Now I feel underdressed. Let me just get my dinner jacket.” He grinned again, and Evie felt a little off balance. He was of medium height and compact build. His shirtsleeves had been rolled to his elbows; his trousers were worn at the knees. Faint black smudges stained the tips of his fingers, as if he’d been shining shoes. A pair of aviator’s goggles hung around his neck. Her first New York admirer was a bit rough around the edges.
“Well, it was nice to meet you, Mr. Lloyd, but I’d better—”
“Sam.” He picked up her case so quickly she didn’t even see his hand move. “Let me carry that for you.”
“Really. I can—” She made a swipe for her case but he held it up.
“I insist. My mother would skin me for being so unchivalrous.”
“Well”—Evie looked around nervously—“just as far as the door, then.”
“Where ya headed?”
“My, you ask a lot of questions.”
“Let me guess: You’re a Ziegfeld girl?”
Evie shook her head.
“Model? Actress? Princess? You’re too pretty to be just anybody.”
“Are you on the level?”
“Me? I’m so on the level I can’t get off it.”
He was flattering her, but she was enjoying it. She loved attention. It was like a glass of the best champagne—bubbly and intoxicating—and as with champagne, she always wanted more of it. Still, she didn’t want to seem like an easy mark.
“If you must know, I’ve come to join a convent,” Evie said, testing him.
Sam Lloyd looked her over and shook his head. “Seems a waste to me. Pretty girl like you.”
“Serving our lord is never a waste.”
“Oh, sure. Of course, they say now that we’ve got Freud and the motorcar, God is dead.”
“He’s not dead; just very tired.”
The corners of his mouth twitched in amusement, and Evie felt the warmth bubble up again. He thought her clever, this Sam Lloyd with his knowing grin.
“Well, it’s a big job,” he shot back. “All that smiting and begetting. Say, which convent you heading to?”
“The one with all the ladies in black and white.”
“What’s the name? Maybe I know it.” Sam bowed his head. “I’m very devout.”
Evie held back a small ha! “It’s… St. Mary’s.”
“Of course. Which St. Mary’s?”
“The absolute most St. Mary’s you can think of.”
“Listen, before you commit your life to Christ, maybe you’d let me show you around the city? I know all the hot spots. I’m a swell tour guide.” He took her hand in his, and Evie felt both excited and unnerved. She hadn’t been in the city for even five minutes, and already some young man—some admittedly quite attractive young man—was trying to get her to go off alone with him. It was thrilling. And a little terrifying.
“Listen, I have to tell you a secret”—he looked around—“I am a scout for some of the biggest names in this town. Ziegfeld. The Shuberts. Mr. White. I know ’em all. They would string me up if I didn’t introduce a talent like you.”
“You think I’m talented?”
“I know you are. I can tell. I have a sense about these things.”
Evie raised one eyebrow. “I can’t sing. I can’t dance. I can’t act.”
“See? A real triple threat.” He grinned. “Well, there goes the St. Mary’s talent show.”
Evie laughed in spite of herself. “All right, then. You with your keen observations—what, exactly, do you find special about me?” she asked coyly, glancing up at him through her lashes the way she’d seen Colleen Moore do in We Moderns.
“There’s just something about you,” he said without really saying anything at all, which disappointed her. Sam rested his hand on the wall above her head, leaning closer. Evie’s stomach fluttered. It wasn’t that she didn�
��t know her way around the fellas, but this was a New York City fella. She didn’t want to make a scene and come off as a complete rube. She was a girl who could take care of herself. Besides, if her parents heard about this, they’d yank her straight back to Ohio.
Instead, Evie looped under the handsome Sam Lloyd’s arm and snatched her valise back. “I’m afraid I have to go now. I believe I see the, um, top nun going into the ladies’ lounge.”
“Top nun? Do you mean the Mother Superior?”
“And how! Sister… Sister, um…”
“Sister Benito Mussolini Fascisti?”
“Exactly!”
Sam Lloyd smirked. “Benito Mussolini is prime minister of Italy. And a fascist.”
“I knew that,” Evie said, her cheeks flushing.
“Of course you did.”
“Well…” Evie stood uncertainly for a few seconds. She stuck out her hand for a shake. With a smirk, Sam Lloyd drew her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth. She heard the shoe-shine men chuckling as she pulled away, red-faced and disoriented. Should she slap him? He deserved a slap. But was that what sophisticated Manhattan moderns did? Or did they shrug it off like an old joke they were too tired to laugh at?
“You can’t blame a fella for kissing the prettiest girl in New York, can you, sister?” Sam’s grin was anything but apologetic.
Evie brought up her knee quickly and decisively, and he dropped to the floor like a grain sack. “You can’t blame a girl for her quick reflexes now, can you, pal?”
She turned and hurried toward the exit. In a pained voice, Sam Lloyd called after her: “Best of luck to the nuns. The good sisters of St. Mary’s don’t know what they’re in for!”
Evie wiped the kiss from her mouth with the back of her hand and pushed her way out onto Eighth Avenue, but when she saw the majesty of the city, all thoughts of Sam Lloyd were forgotten. A trolley jostled down the center of the avenue on steel tracks. Motorcars swerved around the throngs of people and one another with the furious grace of a corps de ballet. She craned her neck to take in the full view. Far above the busy streets, men balanced daringly on beams of steel, erecting new buildings like the ones whose tops already pierced the clouds, as if even the sky couldn’t hold back the ambition of their spires. A sleek dirigible sailed past, a smear of silver in the blue. It was like a dreamscape that could change in the blink of an eye. A taxi careened to the corner and Evie got inside.