Some Sing, Some Cry

by Ntozake Shange

  “Ask anybody!” Tom hollered back, the horses at a run now. “Tell her Tommy Winrow sent ya.”

  “Thank you, thank you kindly, Mr. Winrow. I’ll be seeing you.”

  The summer sun had given way to a little breeze. As he watched the odd stranger amble down the boulevard, Tom sat up and let the air cool his skin. The pain in his side was gone. Mistah, I like that. His misgivings vanished. Tom had figured out a way to flee from what was ailin’ him. Suddenly failure was a long way from this colored man. He laughed at his own excitement just contemplating the prospect of earning a decent wage for a man. He would speak to Mr. Singleton again. He looked up at the sun and howled, then drove the horses with the fury of a man who’d discovered he was the son of gods. His bellowing singing voice faded into the bustle of Charlestonians in the midst of their day. With an itch in his fingers, he headed for Pilar’s.

  10

  Lizzie didn’t like to admit it, but the sheer sight of Charleston made her joyful. Staving off a lone truant’s boredom, she ran up and down the vaulted staircases colored were never to encounter. She could relax a bit more by the Diggs house, though. She wound her body through tulip balustrades imagining herself a raucous wildflower, a vision to behold, her tanned skin turned peach, tender and innocent smelling. If she found a guard rail detailed with the forms of the iris, she lingered, no longer imagining herself a flower but being one.

  She had to be careful because the Diggses had surrounded themselves with all sorts of flowers and imaginary creatures, like horses with wings and birds with teeth, who looked all the more beautiful because of the ebony shine of the ironwork itself. There was one flying stallion, just before the lock to the front gate, whose open mouth held the key. Lizzie couldn’t reach this key without possible injury, though she tried anyway. Somehow that key represented the secret, some secret that held her family and her relatives at bay, a dark, unknown fact that would be released to her if only she could reach it. She’d thought maybe a treasure existed somewhere down in the harbor where the Diggses got their money from. They weren’t actually all that smart they could live this much better than her family, especially Ma Bette, who claimed to have some gold bullion stashed away somewhere. All these thoughts and whimsies passed through her tough little body before she neared the Diggses’ front door. There she said a curse, mimicking the Gullah that she had often heard Ma Bette speak, and she scampered off.

  A bit winded, but full of energy from the early day, Lizzie decided to go visit Osceola, her friend down at Pilar’s place. That’d fix her relatives, the Diggses—a girl frequenting a dive like Pilar’s and being familiar to them as well. That was a great compensation for her not being able to reach the key to the secret of the family, whatever it was.

  Lizzie never knew which Osceola she’d find. He was enigmatic in a childlike way, wavering from Snake-Boy to the Beaver’s grandson or just another half-Cherokee colored from Lil Mexico. Never could tell which one. Snake-Boy took over Osceola’s bronze body with the flat, high cheekbones whenever he felt unappreciated, when he was not treated fairly. When he was angry, Snake-Boy appeared, glaring out of Osceola’s eyes. According to what Osceola’d told her when he was in a good mood one day, Snake-Boy was an excellent hunter who brought so much game back to his elders that his brothers and cousins got jealous of him and began to treat him contemptuously, so Snake-Boy stopped huntin’. That was it. He just didn’t hunt anymore, but he did go back to the woods, where he said his mother came from, and returned to the camp with a pair of deer horns and immediately went to the hothouse, the asi, where he explained to his grandma that he’d have to stay alone that night. So he stayed in the asi alone all night, while all the others were carousing and having family tradition in the cabin. Come mornin’ time the grandma went back to the asi to get her favorite grandson and found a huge serpent on two human legs that made an awful sound when it moved about. The creature mulled around the family for a while, but finally made its way to the river, where it stayed for many years. Then one day a fisherman caught a strange animal in the river and he brought it to the village for everyone to see. It hung huge and lifeless in the fisherman’s net as Snake-Boy’s grandmother came out to peer at it. As she reached out to touch the skin of the fisherman’s prize, the creature sprang to life. It was Snake-Boy! His eyes never leaving the grandmother, Snake-Boy scratched himself out of the netting, hissing and wriggling, and jumped back into the river. As if in a trance, Snake-Boy’s grandmother jumped into the water after him and was never seen again. So if Osceola was Snake-Boy today, then Lizzie’s job was to stay out of his anger and keep her own life intact, not get swallowed up in Osceola’s problems. If he was the Beaver’s grandson, that was somethin’ entirely different, but Lizzie could tell from the way Osceola was throwing crates around that Snake-Boy was out. In his form as Osceola, the youngster was not quite a year older than Lizzie and ’bout as wild and dreamy.

  “What devil brought yo’ behin’ down heah?” Osceola grumbled.

  Lizzie ignored his gruff greeting and jumped right in the midst of the sawdust Osceola had begun to sweep up.

  “Damn Geechee witch! Look what you’ve done now!”

  Lizzie just laughed and started to do a soft shoe in the mess of sawdust that finally made Osceola smile. This sparked Lizzie to invite the loosened-up Snake-boy to go take a quick swim with her. “Don’t you wanna walk on down by the bay and go in the water with me? Salt do you good.”

  Osceola shook his mane of thick-licked black hair, the only hair on his body Lizzie’d ever seen anyway, he shook his head no vehemently. “How can I go be in the water with you when I got to set up the whole place for tonight, tables n all? I got to get glasses cleaned, billiards set right, cards counted, the band rounded up. Just how’m I gonna take a swim?”

  Lizzie felt Snake-Boy rearing his head. “Oh, we don’t haveta. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll stay and help yo’ half-breed behin’, so there.”

  With that, Lizzie jumped into a vigorous time-step that spread the sawdust all over the floor as well as Osceola.

  “Deke’s gointa get us good if he sees us foolin’ ’round out heah,” Osceola said seriously, referring to his brother, who ran the honky-tonk the children were ’sposed to be cleanin’ since the musicians were starting to drift in.

  “Look, heah come Mr. Jocelyn and the others with their instruments. Cain’t wait for them to start practicin’,” Lizzie exclaimed. “And yo’ lazy brothuh ain’t even up yet!”

  Osceola stopped sweepin’ for a minute to address Lizzie in a firm voice. “Listen heah, Deke is up all night runnin’ this joint. He’s gointa be a really big man down here in Lil Mexico. He’ll soon take over when Miss Pilar let it loose. And that’s gonna be sooner than you think, too. A man like Deke needs his rest.”

  “He needs a fool like you to do alla his work for him, too,” Lizzie teased and ran into the club.

  Mingo had already started the bass line of the popular “Ball and the Jack” while the other fellas were tunin’ their instruments. While it was true that only Jocelyn and Thibedeaux from New Orleans could actually read music, the guys knew how to harmonize perfectly. They had perfect pitch, which Jocelyn claimed was more important than readin’ music. They could get the folks roused and ’side themselves with the rhythms of the drums and the syncopated choruses of the trumpets and trombones, the ticklin’ solos of the clarinet and fiddles. Lizzie was havin’ such a good time, even while the cacophony drowned Osceola’s voice screamin’, “Lizzie Winrow, get outta there. That ain’t no place for girls.” Instead, Lizzie’d made herself comfortable on the piano bench next to Jocelyn, who’d broken into a sweat already. Lizzie played right along with him on the rag, but had to follow more carefully when Jocelyn cued the band to begin a slow drag.

  Even though he still smelled of whiskey and musk, the high brown Jocelyn felt Lizzie’s passion for the music. Encouraging her, he said in a whisper, “Slow songs are always hard, baby, put yo’ ear to it like you been doin�
�� and you’ll get it.”

  Osceola heard a dirty, raunchy blues from inside, shook his head and his jaws got tight. He felt responsible for Lizzie in a way and was riled that she’d go on ahead against his wishes into a honky-tonk, even his brothuh’s, in broad daylight—well, in any kinda light. He stormed over to Lizzie, who was so focused on her piano playin’ she didn’t feel Snake-Boy’s presence till he grabbed her right hand off the pearly keys.

  “I’ve told you a thousand times you cain’t be seen in heah. This ain’t no place for ladies, especially not for little girls.”

  Lizzie retorted, “I go where I want and I want to be heah. The Professor’s showin’ me how to play the piano real good and I ain’t movin’ nowhere now!”

  The whole band fell out laughin’. Skipper Lou made his trombone howl at Lizzie’s smart response. Big Joe let his trumpet heehaw. Sam the Main Man slammed his high hat on the drums. Lizzie’s gumption got goin’ again. “Why you ol-fashioned thingamajig, women all over the country dance and smoke and gamble and sing in places just like this.” Lizzie looked around the barroom, which wasn’t as fancy as the ones she imagined playing in. Where she was gointa be someday, there’d be no sawdust on the floor or men in any kinda getup they saw fit. No. One day, Lizzie thought to herself, she’d play the piano where folks were grand, just like her sister Elma. The thought of Elma got her goin’ again.

  “Hey, Ossie, you don’t even know what you’re talkin’ ’bout. Why, my sister Elma’s been halfway ’round the world by this time. England, France. Name a country and she probably been there. New Orleans, Baltimore, Paris. She goes with the Fisk Jubilee Singers everywhere.”

  Osceola held his head in his hands, exasperated by his friend’s pronouncements. Slowly and quietly he turned away from the band and Lizzie’s taunts. Then his voice almost catapulted his friend to the ceiling. “Lizzie, why? Why do you lie so much? All the time lyin’. Yo’ sistuh ain’t been gon’ but fuh a year. Cain’t uh been all them places. You ain’t never been none of those places and you should be glad you ain’t. It’s no place for a girl, not here or anywhere. Talkin’ like you know somethin’ ’bout somethin’, New Orleans, Baltimore, now Paris! You ain’t even been all over Charleston, let alone the rest of the whole world.”

  Used to their frequent comic spats, the band went back to their rehearsal. Ossie went back to sweeping, Lizzie following behind him, getting in the way.

  “Well, I intend to go all over the world as well as all Charleston. If you’d stop makin’ jokes with me and be serious, you could go, too! . . . Find someplace where we’re ’preciated. Someplace fuh people just like us. Like my mama says, the world at our fingertips.” She wiggled her ten as if playin’ a mad scale.

  “What d’you mean? Ain’t no country where folks look like you! You sho’ nuf don’t look like anyone from ’round here. and I cain’t ’magine bein’ surrounded by a whole gang of folks look like you!”

  Lizzie was galled now. Then Osceola added, “Maybe that’s where Elma comes from, too? Yo’ country, all to yo’self.”

  Lizzie had been at the piano with the withered, drinkin’ Mr. Jocelyn until now. She’d left the work of setting up to Osceola, the music so much more enchanting than pushing heavy tables and chairs through sawdust that fell through the air like snowflakes when Osceola shook out the checkered red-and-white tablecloths. The band’s interest in the children’s squabblin’ waned, even though Lizzie’s face burned with anger.

  “You tryin’ to say somethin’ ’bout my family?” It was that secret again, curdlin’ in Lizzie’s stomach. That hunch she had that folks knew somethin’ ’bout the Winrows that she didn’t, somethin’ that made folks look at her funny.

  “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ that ain’t been said before—” Osceola never got a chance to finish his thought. Lizzie got ta chasin’ him and he moved. The band jumped in with a raucous nasty rag to underscore the touch-and-go chase Lizzie and Osceola were executin’ with life and death vigor.

  “You take that back, you half-breed niggah!” Lizzie yelled.

  “I will when you really know who’s the daddies in yo’ family.”

  The two were a tangle of limbs and fists when Deke burst out of his upstairs office. “Osceola, get yo’ girlfriend outta my establishment right this actual second!”

  A woman with a painted face like the dolls on jars for pomades and skin bleach, on her tip-toes, rested her chin on Deke’s shoulder to see what the commotion was. The musicians were layin’ bets on which of the two young fighters would come out the winner. But Sam the Main Man pulled ’em apart before Deke got to ’em. He didn’t want to see Osceola get another beatin’ on top of the one Lizzie’d just delivered.

  “I do believe it’s a draw, ladies and gents,” Mr. Jocelyn quipped, as Sam held both youngsters. Deke came on down the stairs, with his stocking cap and the painted woman hangin’ on him. Lizzie was strugglin’ to get free of Sam, while still tryin’ to get to Osceola. “You take that back about my family! And you!” she squealed at Deke, “You take that back about me! I ain’t no girlfriend of his.”

  Osceola tried one more lunge at Lizzie. This time Deke caught him and lifted him in the air, virtually droppin’ the boy on the floor. Osceola tried to regain face by sayin’ to Lizzie, “You better listen to my brothuh. He’s gointa be a big man in Charleston one of these days.”

  Deke lovingly grabbed Osceola’s shoulders, startlin’ the boy. “Who’s to say we’re not big in Charleston now, brothuh?” Then Deke looked at Lizzie, who was a scraped and scratched mess of a girl at this point. He indicated to the painted woman he called Billie, “Do somethin’ with Lil Red ’fore her daddy gets a mind to come and whip my behind.” The whole bar laughed at that, knowing all Tom Winrow could do was halfway carry himself home after a night of drinkin’ and mishandled gamblin’. Lizzie thought the patrons and musicians were laughin’ at her because Deke called her Red. “My name ain’t Red! It’s Elizabeth Mayfield Winrow.”

  Deke laughed, fussin’ with his stockin’ cap. “Umph. Winrow, is it? I’d never have known,” he said slyly. “Musta got your backbone from you mother’s side.” And the whole bar started laughin’ again—even Mr. Jocelyn, whom Lizzie counted as a friend, was chucklin’ away. Now Lizzie was truly piqued.

  “Doesn’t matter where my backbone comes from, long as it works.”

  Billie added coyly, “That does come in handy, chile. Now come with me and we’ll get you fixed on up so you can go home respectable like.” Then Billie took her hand, as if she were the handmaiden of a princess, and led Lizzie to her room up the stairs.

  “Really, Miss Billie, I should be gettin’ home, or my ma will know I cut from school.”

  “I think it’s a bit late to be concerned about that, darlin’. You spent half the day on the piano with Jocelyn. I heard you myself. Sounded good, too. Hot music comin’ from a lil bitty thing like you. That’s somethin’ to see, I tell you. Now set down and let me wash some of this dirt off and get to those bruises.”

  Downstairs Deke was plannin’ his future, which included Osceola’s. That was why he was sometimes hard on the chile. Nothin’ Deke ever did to Osceola was as bad as what white folks could do. He wanted him hard as a rock on every level, including with women. “Osceola, how’d you let that lil gal get you in a tussle, boy?”

  Osceola didn’t like Lizzie bein’ referred to as his “gal.” Right now he didn’t like his brother at all. Only thing on Osceola’s mind as he became his other self, the Grandson of the Beaver, was to apologize for Deke and yes, for what he’d done as Snake-Boy to embarrass and hurt Lizzie. Snake-Boy knew from the way folks treated him they didn’t respect the time he spent with his Cherokee mother up in the mountains and what he learned from his people, the ones they called Injun or redskins. He knew his origins weren’t respected either, and folks could tell by lookin’ at him that he was a half-breed. And no, he didn’t know the whole story of Lizzie’s family, but he knew enough to know talkin’ about it hurt her. So,
when Lizzie came down the stairs lookin’ a little timid—though neat enough—Osceola said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things, or let Deke talk to you like that.”

  From her time with Miss Billie, Lizzie’d discovered a new part of herself, the girl Lizzie, so she just nodded her head, accepting the regrets of her very best friend. But then, the ol’ Lizzie jumped out just to warn him, in case he thought she was gettin’ soft on him, “Leave me alone! I don’t have to take nothin’ off you. I don’t haveta take nothin’ off nobody.”

  Osceola, miffed since Lizzie had rebuffed the Beaver Boy’s entreaty, scoffed, “Save that for your ma. It’s way past time for you to meet her.”

  Lizzie felt a sharp tingle up her spine. Late for Ma, oh no! As she ran out of the bar Osceola just smiled to himself, thinking how much a little girl Lizzie still was.

  She ran right past the scruffy Marcus Singleton, white and wrong to be where he was. The whole bar took on a hostile quiet. Folks lowered their voices. Nobody knew what this white man was listening for or who he was looking for or why. No reason to tell him either. Just a lowering of voices accomplished this feat. At Pilar’s, whites had their special hours and this wasn’t one of them. Singleton could feel the fear and the anger his presence generated to the extent that Jocelyn over at his piano played such a slow blues, everybody in the place looked like they were moving in slow motion. But Singleton was not put off. He was familiar with the colored, he liked to think, knew the ways and reasons why, he thought.

  Deke broke the mood first, though. He’d never let a white somebody determine what went on when he was in charge. He just could not allow that to happen. He wanted folks to move when he said move. And a nasty-looking white man with run-down heels wasn’t gointa determine nothin’. Pilar’s Palace was his kingdom.

  “What do you want in heah, sir?” Deke asked, with his face so straight his jaws were tight. His blood rose up in his cheeks and his temple was pulsing, his broad flat face ancient, almost Olmec.