Antonin’s burgeoning little Adam’s apple, a few months ago just a seed against his throat, bobbed up and down as he gulped.
Before Evelyn could offer up a bit of snark to calm her father, the front door creaked open slowly.
“Walker Hayes! Is that you harassing Evelyn’s friends again? If you don’t get in here...” Mrs. Elsa Hayes stood at the threshold with her arms crossed. She wore a magenta housecoat speckled with tiny white lilies. The dress, which would typically skim her slim body, puckered in the middle, revealing her waist. After the sudden weight loss, Mrs. Hayes had taken to altering all her clothing. When she had the strength. As she frequently said, even before all of...this, life was much too short to wear anything unflattering.
“Mama! What are you doing up?” Evelyn raced to her mother’s side and took her arm. “Where are your crutches? Do you need any help?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Mrs. Hayes said. “I have polio—I’m not buried in a coffin. Besides, I wanted to get a feel of what I was working with now.”
She waved her daughter’s concerns away and cracked open the door wider. “Antonin? Well I’m glad somebody had a good vacation! Come here so I can admire you better.”
Antonin smirked at Evelyn as he bounded up the steps and presented himself before Mrs. Hayes. His eyes betrayed no surprise at seeing the woman’s thin arms and legs, a sliver of what they’d been just a few months ago. Evelyn’s mother had spent most of the summer doing what her doctors called “recovering” in a hospital. Evelyn never said it out loud, but what she was really doing was wasting away.
“Would you like to stay for dinner?”
Evelyn’s eyes widened as she shook her head vigorously at her mother.
“I would absolutely love to,” Antonin said as he smiled that outrageous smile.
“Perfect. I’ll take that help now!” Mrs. Hayes laughed at the frowns on her husband’s and daughter’s faces.
* * *
“Alma sends her best, dear,” Mr. Hayes mentioned as he folded a napkin neatly across his lap. He nodded gratefully at Evelyn as she put his favorite silver fork in front of him.
“Oh, I’m sure she missed me distracting her from all that boring mailman talk you and Victor are always doing,” Mrs. Hayes said ruefully. “But tell me, did the new copies come?”
“They sure did!” Mr. Hayes said. He pushed himself out of his chair and took wide steps to the coffee table, where the leather Bible case Mrs. Hayes had bought him last Christmas sat. He pulled out a crisp but skinny book. The curved black lines on the green cover emphasized its bold title: The Negro Motorist Green Book. Mr. Hayes handed it triumphantly to his wife and dropped a brief kiss on the top of her head. They had always been affectionate, but even more so lately.
“Oh, Walker, it’s beautiful!” Mrs. Hayes breathed. “They must be so thrilled.”
“What’s that?” Evelyn asked as she finished passing out the cups and utensils and finally took her seat. Antonin had set the dishes on their place mats without asking her if she wanted help. They’d laid the collards, the corn bread, the roast beef, the macaroni and cheese on the table together. She pretended to ignore him as he slid into her older brother Calvin’s seat, grinning pleasantly at her parents’ exchange.
“Last year, my colleague Mr. Green and his wife Alma, along with a fellow named George Smith, began publishing a little book of safe places Negroes in need of services can go to in New York,” her father explained. “It got so popular that he published it again this year and even expanded the locations.”
Evelyn took the book from her mother and slid her fingers over the boxes of auto repair shop addresses on the second page. Her gaze fell on a line at the top of the following page, an old adage she’d learned in school long ago: “An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.” The quote was a setup to explain the value of car tune-ups before arduous road trips, but Evelyn’s mind skipped a few paces beyond that, to what a lack of preparation would mean to a Negro motorist whose car stalled on the wrong side of town. Ben Franklin had not been thinking of the likes of them when he’d penned that famous line.
“That is a genius idea,” Antonin said. “Mother is always a little shaken up before she has to go on the road for a gig...you’re never sure what you might run into.” Mrs. Cerny was a lounge singer. Some people at church didn’t approve of her “lifestyle,” but she did, and that was the only thing that mattered. She was out of town performing in Washington, DC that weekend, which partly explained Antonin’s quick acceptance to dinner. (The other reason being that he loved to do anything that got a rise out of Evelyn.)
“Does that mean they think people will have money to spend, going out on the open road and stopping at restaurants and hotels?” Evelyn asked her parents.
The country was slowly recovering from the worst economic downturn in more than a generation. People had been hungry. Empty. They were still angry. Just when life had seemed to finally be getting back to a tentative normal, a new wave of recession had hit a few months ago and knocked everyone back off their feet. Grown folks on the block argued about a fresh deal, a new deal, flip-flopping on whether President Roosevelt had hurt or helped in the long run.
Somehow, through it all, the Hayeses had kept standing. By now, Mrs. Hayes’s stitching and styling were celebrated enough that the people who were so rich that the winds of the economy didn’t sway them this way or that (because they were the ones blowing) were loyal customers. As for Evelyn’s daddy, well, he was a postal worker, and that old creed held true: neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor a great depression would stop the mail from being delivered. A few other neighbors counted themselves blessed not to belong to that ever-inclusive unemployment club. The Donaldsons next door, the Washingtons the house over, the Fletchers across the street. No Rockefellers here, but they were doing okay.
This block was special. Beyond special. Mr. Hayes called it unction, a holy anointing. Evelyn felt blessed that, when her stomach growled, she had enough food to sop up the acids bubbling within her. However, the idea of God sprinkling favor on her family and friends but withholding it from others who were just as pious and worthy made her uncomfortable. Even the ones who weren’t pious or worthy—did they deserve to starve? To freeze? To lose everything? She knew it made her father uneasy too, because the one time she’d asked him about it, he’d ordered her to hush. And if she was thinking about the disparity, they must be as well.
All that to say, Evelyn wasn’t particularly surprised when a frantic BANG BANG BANG cut into their dinner just as she pierced her fork into her final morsel of roast beef. Her pulse quickened as her father walked to the door. She sucked in a breath when he turned the knob after recognizing the silhouette in the peephole.
“Th-the Kress on 125th!”
Brother Draymond poured himself into the foyer, not bothering to wipe his sweaty brow or remove his hat. He was the owner of the dog that Evelyn had been looking after and, like much of the neighborhood, he attended First Baptist, where he served as a deacon with Evelyn’s daddy.
“What? Slow down, Draymond!” Mr. Hayes commanded.
Mrs. Hayes looked at the disheveled man across the room in alarm. “Come in, come in, have a seat,” she said. “Evelyn, fetch him some water.”
Evelyn was up, with Antonin on her heel. She walked slowly to the kitchen, hoping to catch more of Brother Draymond’s frenzied words.
“The city’s gonna burn to the ground! They got a new owner down at the five-and-dime, and the man claimed a Negro boy came in and stole a knife worth ten cents.”
Evelyn stopped what she was doing. Antonin had been over enough times in search of free food to know where they kept their glasses. He brought one down from the pantry and scooped a few ice cubes into the cup before filling it with water from the pitcher in the refrigerator. She nodded at him gratefully as they walked back to the dining
room, where Brother Draymond now sat staring blankly at his hands.
“The boy denied everything...but the white folks shopping in the store swarmed him and demanded he put the knife back. They brought in an officer who was patrolling out front and shouted ‘arrest him, arrest him,’” he said hopelessly. “The boy wasn’t much taller than Cerny here was a few weeks ago.”
Evelyn’s and Antonin’s eyes met across the table. She rubbed her hands over the goose bumps that sprang up on her arms.
“They dragged that young man outside with him crying ‘I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it’ the whole way. Some other folks got into it and started throwing rocks, and another man had a gun and shot it in the air. Last I heard was some white men were going to round up their people and weapons to light up the neighborhood.”
“This unlawful arrest was just an excuse,” Evelyn said in realization.
Brother Draymond looked at her in surprise.
“There’s been talk about putting us in our place for a while now,” she said slowly. “To prove there was nothing special about us, to show there was no reason this neighborhood got to keep our jobs when they’d lost theirs.”
“That is an astute observation, young lady,” he said. “And now they mean to set our world on fire. Thank you for the water. I just came to collect my dog here for protection, and I got more folks to warn. A few of us are knocking on doors so everyone is aware.”
Mr. Hayes cleared his throat. “I’ll join—”
For the first time, Brother Draymond took in Mrs. Hayes’s frail body, noticed the legs that did not really move, the sturdy sticks propped up on the wall behind her.
“Take care of yours, Hayes.”
* * *
The air froze for just an instant. Their minds came up with every possible scenario of what could happen if they stayed in that house, if they guarded what was theirs. Evelyn sensed the smoke already. Felt the heat on her skin, anticipated a pain much deeper than the brief singe on her neck from the hot comb that morning. The terrible words that would be hurled at them like rocks. The physical pain that would reach their bodies. Her parents whispered urgently between themselves for a moment before her father hurried upstairs to grab the folder of birth certificates and the like that they kept in a drawer in their bedroom.
They filed into the car in a trance, no question that Antonin would be coming along, looking up at the darkening sky clouding with gray and black and licks of yellow-red. Mr. Hayes muttered a prayer and turned on the car. The shouts of the rioters were getting louder.
Evelyn didn’t think. She jumped out and ran back into the house.
* * *
Elsa and Walker Hayes had never felt terror the way it exploded in their chests when their only daughter left the relative safety of their automobile. The relief that slowly crept in when they saw her appear seconds later waving a green book over her head could never make up for that fear.
* * *
To the untrained eye and mind, leaving a percolating race riot in the northeast and heading into the heart of the South was...unwise. At least Jonah had been running away from Nineveh when he was swallowed up by the giant fish. But Mrs. Hayes was desperate to make sure her baby boy Calvin was fine. She needed to confirm with her own eyes that the current horrors of Harlem hadn’t somehow oozed their way to him by a sixth sense of knowing that he was from their block. A glance at the map Mr. Hayes begrudgingly kept in his glove compartment had shown Georgia was just as close (or far) as their relatives in Illinois. So they were going to Georgia. Evelyn blinked back tears of happiness and patted her pocket.
* * *
“Evelyn, did you bring a comb with you?”
Evelyn grunted an of course not.
“What a surprise,” Mrs. Hayes said. “Luckily, I always carry one in my purse. You have to wrap your hair if you want it to last.”
Evelyn took her mother’s comb and started guiding the strands (just a tad frizzier than they’d been earlier that day...the scalp sweat from the sheer nerves of escaping an impending attack by white people intent on burning the world to the ground would do that to anyone) around her head. She let her hair fall like a curtain over her face when she caught Antonin staring at her. “What?”
“Don’t you think Evelyn’s hair is so beautiful?” Mrs. Hayes interjected.
“It sure is, ma’am.” Antonin grinned.
Mr. Hayes harumphed from the front seat. “Careful.”
“Doing my hair is my own special ritual, but lately I’ve avoided it, what with it falling out from stress,” Mrs. Hayes explained, turning in her seat to face Antonin. “Never mind that—” She waved her hand, to advance to the part of the story she really wanted to share. “I mentioned to Evelyn how I liked pressing my hair because it allowed me to focus on one task for a while, and that it gave me time to think. And how the smell reminded me of my own mama...then Evelyn asked me to press her hair this morning. Isn’t that thoughtful?”
“That sounds like something our Evelyn would do all right,” Antonin said.
Evelyn bit the inside of her cheek to stop from smiling.
9
HAPPI
THURSDAY, JULY 26—
3 MONTHS, 9 DAYS SINCE THE ARREST
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
I knew Genny would make her way to my bench. I think I was subconsciously waiting for her to drag me back to the real world. To the sadness.
“Who’s happy? I don’t see no smiles,” Marcus says to Genny.
He chuckles at his joke but stops abruptly when he sees the disappointment on my sister’s face. She doesn’t need to say excuse me or elbow her way closer to me. The boys just fall away to give her room.
“Your mom breaks down in front of I don’t know how many people in the middle of a speech about your dead sister, and you walk out to talk to a bunch of random dudes? For real? You need attention that badly?”
Her words are a slap.
I get up before she tells me to, suddenly self-conscious about how I’m coming off to these strangers.
“Talk about what interests her,” I mumble to Titus as I hitch my purse onto my shoulder.
I walk quickly away before Genny says anything else.
“Oh shit! I knew she looked familiar,” I hear Titus whisper. “I think they’re related to that girl who died out in LA a few months back.”
“Sorry to ruin your group date,” Genny sneers as she follows me.
My face burns and my eyes sting as I blink back tears.
Her certainty is what frustrates me most. She really believes I was flirting instead of trying to escape my frenzied thoughts and the panic that has invaded my body since April. That’s the type of person I am to her.
Well. She doesn’t deserve to see that part of me. The truth.
“I needed to take a break and get away from everything,” I say in my most apathetic tone, sliding my mask back in place. “I can’t act like I’m perfect all day like you can.”
“What is wrong with you?”
I stop walking.
When Kezi first died, there was a brief moment when I thought things would change between me and Genny. For essentially my entire life, we’ve been superglue and sandpaper in a toolbox. Stuck together but only by happenstance. At first glance, someone might say it was the almost ten-year age gap, but that wasn’t the case for her and our middle sister. It was just our problem. Mom and Dad were obsessed with each other and growing the church. And even though Kezi always tried to reach out to me... I wasn’t the most receptive. She and Genny meshed. They had things to talk about. Follow-up questions to ask. Lunch. But that didn’t happen with us.
“This isn’t about looking perfect, Happi. What kind of perfect family travels around reminding people the police killed their kid? What sounds perfect about that?”
“You’re twisting my words and you know it.”
“I’m not twisting anything. But we’re about to have dinner with our parents, and I need you to not do anything to stress out Ma any more than you already have.”
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and adjust my face, but instead of entering the theater again, Genny walks purposefully toward the back of the building, where a few cars are still parked. She unlocks the door of a lemon-yellow Mustang convertible. The car is decorated with enormous plastic sunflowers and red, yellow, white, and pink tulips. Black power fist decals and 3-D peace signs are studded along the bumper and body.
I refuse to ask where it came from and pretend to be unimpressed as I slide into the back seat.
“You better get in the front. I’m not your Uber driver.”
I stare at her in the rearview mirror, ready to argue. Dinner with my family is the last thing I want anyway.
As though she can sense it, Genny sucks her teeth loudly and rolls her eyes as she pulls out of the parking spot. “For someone who tries to act so grown all the damn time, you’re being real immature.”
I ignore her and glance down at my phone. Nothing.
The ride is as silent and charged as you would expect it to be. Genny has one of her annoying meditation session apps playing, which I try to drown out with my earbuds. I don’t need another person to tell me how to inhale and exhale. Nothing can push this weight off my chest.
Genny doesn’t say a word as we pull up to the hotel. She hands her keys to the valet in the driveway and smiles like her car is the most average-looking vehicle ever and then heads inside. She doesn’t look back to see if I follow, or watch the valet circle the car in bewilderment.
The hotel floor is bustling with bellhops and people checking in while others stumble to and from the bar. The restaurant a few steps away is just as popping, but I spot my parents immediately, at a table tucked in a dimly lit corner.
One of the Good Ones Page 6