I. Lost and Found
Back o’ Town, 1937
Seem like this cold don’t want to leave me. Zee and I jes got done makin love, warmin from my toes to my thighs to my shoulders, so this wet June ain’t the only thing settlin in these bones. He give me goose kisses in my neck what make my whole body laugh and I can tell by the way he look at me he love me. Most nights since he been back, I can taste it on his mouth. And when we finish, I like to watch him lay there in the bed, backside turned toward me like he want to be decent, like he ain’t jes take me for a walk round the block the most unholy way he know how. And I think I love that bout him. Least here, we divine still.
I go to the window to let the love out, to let my chill join the wind, and trip over a heel stretched too wide with a sole nearly worn out. My fumble and yelp so loud I think it might wake Zee, but he used to all the groans of this house. Been knowin the aches and pains of this house since we was younger. But we older now. Older and wild with somethin we ain’t yet got the words for. Call it due, call it love—we silly with it.
Saturday nights at half past seven, the Negro Music Block start up on the radio, and so do the rain. The way it feed the soil bring back bad memories. When you seen the true power of a storm like we seen, the bigness of it, it tend to stay there behind the screen of your eyes, waitin. You start to smell the storm on the wind before it come. Like this earth here to remind us it’s alive and it got a mind to swallow us whole one day. I sit on the sill, pull out a Lucky from the deck and breathe fire out the window to the oak shadow and clothesline out back. I light up the night to let the world know right back that we here too, and we ain’t ready yet.
From the bed Zee grumble somethin, his mouth loose and lazy on the pillow.
“You talkin or you dreamin?”
“All that smokin. That’s why yo voice don’t work like it used to,” he say.
“Naw, it the reason my voice got all that grit they like so much. Me, I coulda been good as Bessie.”
“So you say.”
“Oh hush now, fool, and go on back to sleep,” I say. “You don’t want to jaw with me.”
He laugh and turn his head the other way. “Naw, but you was good,” he say. “Voice rang clear as a bell last time I went to see you at Economy Hall couple years back,” he say, “when you hit that high bit. Clear as a bell—” then drift off, sleep again before I run down the filter.
News to me. Hadn’t even known he was keen to hear Teeny Lou and the Fellas perform. Truth is, when the lights was in my face, and Roddy would count us in on the sticks, I went someplace else. I’d hear the hoop and holler from the crowd, sop it up like a sponge and nothin else mattered more than what I was singin. Wasn’t nothin like it. So nah, I ain’t seen him my last night playin the club, or any night. Wasn’t the need. Spose his was every face in the crowds I loved up on, and there was a tint of him in the face of every man fool enough to get close to me since.
I shoulda hitched my cart to Satch when we was comin up, but by then me, Jo, and Roddy already had a good thing goin, we did. Seems like there’s only ever room for one or two at a time—a Louis or a Mamie what get plucked from a honky tonk or jook joint, while the rest of us keep bidin our time, and I got tired of waitin.
When the last loops of smoke from my tongue meet the muddy air, it thicken up in my mouth, fill me up, and calm me a tick. It almost help me forget Zee got work tonight that I’m sposed to help him get gussied up for. Our lil arrangement, but I’ll take any piece of him I can get. So I finish slow. Cricket chirps and Fats Waller, soft on the radio, sing me back to bed, cooin sweet heartache. A ache without any pain.
On the bed, all the sheets is piled underneath Zee’s belly, and tucked under his arm he got the pillow my mama made years back, before she moved upriver. Lumpy and person-shaped but wrong, I member I tried to get rid of the thing but it jes kept comin back till one night she grabbed me up by my scruff and said, “Teeny, you better keep this. Might be the only thing to warm yo bed at night. Lookatcha, black as sin and ugly to boot.”
She told me no man would ever love me, but look, I got one in my bed lovin me jes fine.
With each minute Zee stay sleep, we losin time, and I feel it, my chest keepin beat with the clock on the mantel, next to the box of Daddy’s letters and Mama’s portrait of the baby. When Daddy left, Mama told me it was “to secure us a fortune” some state over where his people from, so Daddy never got to know baby Numa, but in all his letters he liked to talk bout the things we were fixin to do together when he got back— jes him, me, and Numa. I like to think on how proud he mighta been to hear me play. Maybe it was Mama’s disposition what kept him away, but if I knew where he was now, I don’t know if I’d hug him or knock his block for leavin me alone with her for all them years. Still, in the letters, I like to imagine us daddy’s gals whole.
They be sayin you ought to marry a man who treat you like your daddy do, and maybe Zee do all that for me, take care of me after takin care of myself for so long. Maybe we keep findin each other for that reason. When Zee rolled through town three weeks back, I thought I was dreamin. When you known someone your whole life—when you used to seein them day in and day out, runnin round gettin into trouble—then they up and disappear for ten years? It mess the mind somethin fierce. But then there he go at my door, tall and right like no time had passed at all, speakin like he needed me, speakin like he been runnin and had nowhere to turn cept me. Cause me, I give him peace, he say. And then that—when someone you been lovin your whole life say they need you? –that mess you in the mind even more. I loved feelin needed by him. Almost every day since then, we been makin time— he spend days with me, and at night I gotta give him back again.
Soon the time gon tick him away into somethin else, someone I don’t know. So I hop back in bed and try to turn seconds into hours. I turn to stroke the curve in his back thinkin maybe he wake, hopin maybe he won’t. I trace the scar on his shoulder blade he don’t like to talk bout, and his lids flutter a lil like a baby after he get his fill. He not used to sleepin good and heavy, but I like to be the one give him somethin close to what feel like peace.
Man on the radio say “eight on the dot, keep it right at this spot” and play somethin a lil slower, so I let Zee sleep for half an hour more while I tidy up the room. My small house slippers is nowhere to be found, but there’s a skirt here, a stockin there, mess and more mess. I take the silk square off the lamp, and when I do, the red glow in the room ain’t there to trick us, so the room ain’t special no more. Ain’t ours. His shoes, here and there, I put right-side up by his end of the bed. I take the brassiere from off the floor, fold it, put it on the edge of the bed where the mattress meet the post, all the while playin our love back in my mind: the things he do he ain’t did the last time; the way he move through me.
“Quit all that fussin,” he say.
“Lil boy, if you don’t—”
“So damn loud.”
“What? You say you want me to sing you a lil somethin? Okay,” and I start singin a couple bars bout weatherin the storm long as I got his love to keep me warm, and he groan.
“What’s that? You say you want me to sing it louder? Well awright,” and I hop on the bed, shake the mattress, then get right in his neck and sing out.
He smile and hide his head under the pillow, sayin, “Damn, you worse than a child. Ain’t you got some place to be?”
“Baby, nowhere but here,” I say. I hop off the bed, and without me there to ruffle the sheets he fall away again. Easy as that I hear the growl of his snores.
I get back to tidyin. Miss Virginia had been expectin me at ten in the mornin, but the less she pay me, the less obliged I feel to show up, specially when what I got here feel worth so much more. I worked Miss Virginia’s house in the Garden District the last three years. Though she an odd one, that oddness made her halfway decent, till the Crash got her pretty good. Then we all had to make it any way we could.
I pick up the blouse, hold it up to my chest in the mirror. Somethin bout the softness against my bare skin make my bosom perk. Used to be I was right shamed of this skinny body and what the neighbor boys used to call “Teeny’s tiny chest” till Zee gave me reason not to be. The first time I shimmied down into my under garments in front of him, I covered my chest with one hand, and my stomach with the other to hide the birthmark round my belly button, yellow and round like a sun. Mama used to joke that if I scrubbed hard enough, I could get the rest of me to match my sunspot, color struck as she was. First time Zee seen it, he got right down on his knees, kissed it with his teeth, and it made me, all of me, feel toothsome too. That’s how it feel with him. He make me feel all my softness and none of the coarse; can make me an innarestin someone even to myself. Underneath him, I wasn’t the same gal he left in the lurch all them years back. Underneath him, I was pure love. And ridin on top, I was the sun.
Maybe he thought my big mouth mighta shrunk when I gave up singin (it ain’t). Maybe my eyes mighta sank even more, my nose gettin flatter (that’s true). Age made us both look smaller than we was, and with the Great Crash, eatin proper got harder. But even narrow with hunger—with the cage of my ribs so close to the paper skin that Zee could space his fingers out in the gap between bones—it’s good to know we fit like a glove still.
When I get done cleanin, I head up to the washroom to splash some water on my face, slick some loosened kinks with a dry hand, and slide them back into place with a bobby pin. Seem like every room in this house got somethin to say, a story it want to tell, and we been feedin it more. I dry my face and go on a piece further to the kitchen to fix us some supper and member the time he kissed me atop the lip of the sink so strong that my whole ass fell in. I took off my slip and wrung all that wetness back on his head, not carin then that the window there leave a good ole view for the neighbors. I can’t help but laugh now thinkin bout what it musta looked like to Samson next door: a month full of me bringin home shady folks— on some nights, leadin this six-foot-somethin dashin fellow to my door; on other nights, this lithe goddess of a woman. I smile till the secret make my cheeks hurt.
By the time Zee lift up his head, I got yesterday’s red beans and rice heatin on the range, and seein him there back in the bed, good and wild as the day I met him, I can't help but smile. I start hummin one thing, but it turn into somethin else. A ditty me and Jo was workin out years ago that we never finished cause we could never get the hook to fly. Jo an ole family friend born with music in him, like he was snapped on the ass by David’s strings stead of a doctor’s hand. Can’t nobody play the cornet like him. I thought I’d forgotten the tune after all this time, but the more I play around, scattin in the kitchen, the closer it feel to right.
“Cecilia?” Zee say, and his voice thick with the muck what come from a good sleep. He the only one that call me by my Catholic name, Cecilia, not CeCe, not Teeny, so it make me feel like a queen, like I rule some country on the other side of the world somewhere.
“I’m here. You hungry?” I call, but the kitchen ain’t but a stone step from the bedroom so I’m sho he hear me fine. Findin my way back toward the bedroom again, the mantel clock say it’s almost eight-forty.
He stretch and his eyes follow mine to the clock. He bolt up now, cussin under his breath. Lookin for his clothes, he find them there at the edge of the bed where I left them, all neat. Now is right round the time I hate: havin to watch him dress up and turn into that woman. He put his brown wig on— the one with the curls bunched up in the front like that Nina Mae McKinney he partial to— and shimmy back into the skirt, and all of a sudden he ain’t the man I love no more— he the woman I always wanted to be.
He turn his back to me and wait, and I do my part like I’m sposed to—help him snap his garter to his stockins; zip up the skirt; tie the silk square round his neck to cover the things ain’t meant to be seen; and sit back on the bed, mostly naked.
“There she go.”
“What?” he say and he tuck a strand of hair behind his ear like it’s his own. He fix the strap of the brassiere, the one he first took from me, and tinker with the cup.
“What day was you born, Zee? I was born on a Thursday, me.” My clothes is in a pile at the foot of the bed, but I don’t put em on yet. “You know how that go.”
“I reckon on a Tuesday cause I’m so graceful.” He do a lil twirl in the mirror.
“And her. What day she born to? Tell me her name one mo’gain.”
“Novien,” he say, and smile real sweet.
“And what kinda name that is?”
“It’s my name.”
“Well Zee Frederick Mumford is a mighty fine name too.”
The wind start to knock on the side of the house like it want to get in. He put a earring on. “I do wish more folks called me by my full name.” He tighten the scarf round his neck again and fan it out at the tails. If it wasn’t bad luck to stand together in the mirror, I figure we might find we look like sisters now—the exact same shade of brown, and somehow the weeks done carved his mama’s sharp cheekbones into his face and my own. So I won’t never tell him how pretty a gal he make. Like me, but better. Dainty-like and genteel, the way both our mamas would’ve liked, if they’d been round to see. But his mama dead and mine might as well be.
“Still can’t believe yo daddy called you ‘Zeus,’” I say finally puttin on my ratty chemise. It seem to sag off my body like it don’t want to be there.
“He was real important, the kind of fellow that got all sorts of respect. In fact, he was a god, Cecilia.”
“My my, White Jesus! Then what is you?”
He whip his head back real quick, his dark eyes lookin like the tar from a newly done street after it dried. His jaw tight, he start to fidget into his heels.
“My daddy used to tell me stories about him. He was great and powerful and the best out all them. They king. And Fred? My daddy named me after him cause he was a great man too. Frederick Douglass. Therefore, I was made for greatness.” His big smile bounce off the mirror and hit me square between my eyes. Make me a lil sleepy all a sudden. Foggy and a lil cross.
“But you still a nigga. And niggas ain’t made for greatness. Specially not no sometimes-woman ones.” I laugh and get the money from the drawer of my nightstand to pay him what I been owin him.
He snatch it out my hand and start to count. Zee all business. And even when he not Zee, he all business. “You short again, Cecilia. And I’m late.” I can’t tell whether the smoke between us is his or mine.
“Quarter to nine and we nearly out of time,” say The Radio Man. They ain’t got but two songs left, but it feel like the clock too loud to hear the music, to think. “You wasn’t sayin all that when we was clamorin to that new Paul Robeson. You wanna know where the money went? That’s where.”
The rain gettin heavy now, leakin from a spot on the corner of the bedroom ceilin to the floor. The room start to breathe, so I move to close the window. The oak shadow look like it movin towards us. The wind too strong. The clock too loud. The Radio Man yellin bout how bad I need a Chevy when I can’t hardly afford the vice what feed me.
“Zee, I need money enough to eat. I gotta save what I can. It’s been good seein you, sho, but I can't survive on this alone.” He of all people ought to know this only one kinda fullness. Truth is, money dried up twice as fast as the delta water, but that ain’t stop me tryin to buy up ten-years-worth of time we lost in a month. Seem like time the only thing special and free I got that he don’t.
“And you know Miss Virginia say things ain’t really settled at hers yet,” I say, but really don’t know. Maybe Miss Virginia ain’t caught wise to the money I borrowed from the hollowed out copy of the Bible she keep in her nightstand. Robbin Peter to pay Paul, Zee and whoever else sore with me. I grab him by his hands, not wantin to argue no more, but he snatch them away.
“Shit, I never thought the woman I was gon lose you to would be this one,” I say. “How bout this—I’ll stop all my dawdlin with these debts, when you stop all this. You ain’t even need to do this no more. You back. With me, you home. I know you gotta have a C or two saved up by now, and if you love me like you say, I reckon we could figure somethin out.”
He stuff my money in the brassiere that used to be mine. “You can’t hardly afford me, but we gon figure somethin out?” He start to laugh. “You don’t get it. When you gonna understand you just a Johnny missin some parts? Like sense, for one.” He stop to look towards the door. “This was a bad idea. We ain’t for each other, Cecilia.”
“But you—”
“You always do this. Take somethin good and make it rotten. I said, none of this never been real.”
I follow him through the livin room, past the pot of rice, burnt now and smokin up the house, sourin the air. “So what you gon do? You gon leave again? You good for that.”
“I ain’t yo mama and I ain’t yo daddy. Nobody gonna care for you, not like this.” He bend down to adjust his shoe, more stretched now, more worn at the sole. “A woman should be able to git a man and keep a man without havin to pay. A real woman at least. Thirty somethin and what you got to show for it?” Smoke cloud my eyes. “Clean up ya act, Cecilia!” He start headin for the door, takin heavy steps in them heavy shoes, so I can’t tell what’s thunder or what’s Zee, but I ain’t done with him yet and follow after him outside.
We full-yellin now, and the shotguns on either side is turnin on they lights like they in for the show.
“And that’s why you got that mark on yo back, Zee? Cause you a woman who know how to keep a man?” He down the street now, but I yell at him as he go, neighbors be damned. But with the swing of the porch door and the churnin of the wind, he ain’t hear me. We all got our ways, and I knew his and it never bothered me none. But the need. I could never admit I needed him too. So that the children we was could move on to somethin better. Look like all that needin finally come round to meet me where I lay, violent as this rain. Nine-twenty-seven and he gone, back to those unsavory parts of town we used to love, where he think he belong, and it smarts like nothin before it ever has.
When I turn round, Miss Dolores and her grandniece Peaches is rushin back in they house like they ain’t seen nothin, but here go Samson, still in his work clothes, on his front stairs with his arms crossed.
“What you lookin at?” His eyes hungry as an empty dish. “Where Delilah at?” I ask, knowin full well his wife name Ruby. But I want so bad to fight again, to have someone to fight with, to get the last word on top of the last word.
“So that’s who you been with,” he say as I open the door to the house, like he been keepin tabs. Samson and Ruby the kind to talk under my clothes, then spread it round the parish.
I go back inside to let the smoke out the rooms, let the pot cool, but I feel like I still can’t breathe. This the last of the rice and beans. I fan the air in the livin room, and dump the hard, black rice like dirt.
The room quiet cept for the angry rain turned to light sprinkle now. The house seem to bloat round me, then sigh like it’s sad to be so empty too. Sad enough to sing bout, riled enough to make it good. Zee said his last goodbye like a Mamie song. I thought he‘s lovin me, he’s leavin all the time. Now I see my poor love was blind. Mamie got me thinkin how funny it is how things I love always find a way to leave.
Like Numa, outside-child that she was. When Mama held her she would fuss and cry, but when I held her, and she looked up at me with them smilin eyes that said sister, she felt like mine. I’d pooch my lips out like a duck, blow air out them makin noises, and she’d giggle, and it was like we was speakin our own language. She was a pretty lil light thing when she was born. Pretty as a doll. So Mama made sho to parade her round the Square when she could, with me trailin behind on the cracked banquette. The Square used to be the place. We’d go there to see our people. To see and be seen. Them ole oaks on all sides of the park, tall and wide as a house, would reach up from the dirt to cup the Square like a brown hand. As a young thing, I thought those hands would carry us all into the sky like music in the air on Sundays, the drummin comin from every which way. The rhythm more real than prayer. I still like to think I hear it, me. The music and the sites made Numa’s big eyes even bigger. Made her feel swell to be there.
Mama thought she ain’t look nothin like her which I think made her smile. Cause lookin at me was too much like lookin in the mirror, but in Numa there was still scraps of the someone else Mama coulda been. She put most of herself in me and whatever else she put in Numa. But when all that paradin made her daddy take notice and come to get her, I watched Mama cry and cry till she didn’t look like herself no more. I member that afternoon Mama went to the statue of Saint Expédite on Rampart and gave whatall she could. Saint Anthony the one they say find things, but Expédite the one sposed to give you whatever you want lickity-split.
The night Numa got took, I got down on my knees like I seen Mama do every night, put my hands in the air and pray to Black Baptist God, Bleedin Catholic Jesus, Saint Expédite and whoever else got ears to listen that they bring Numa back. I tried believin for years. But when she ain’t come back, that’s when I stopped for keeps, me.
These days I ain’t one to believe in much anythin— not no god, boo-hags or hants. And I hate to think on Mama or Numa now. Make me think too much of all the things I lost I can’t name. But it’s hard not to when she everywhere in this house, cept in Daddy’s letter box.
**
When the rain settle, the house jes a house again, where nobody come to visit no more cept Zee. Hole-ridden screen windows was meant to keep out the skeetas once. I keep the raggedy carpet and handkerchief covered lamps for the warmth they give. And when it ain’t rainin or the air ain’t scorched, it do smell a smidge stale, like the house don’t much care for me livin in it after all these years. I put the pot down to catch what’s left of the ceilin drip in the bedroom and with the radio off, it make its own sort of music. Plip-plip, plip-plip.
Me and Zee ain’t got any people left to lean on; I ain’t seen or heard from Mama in years, from none the gals what used to work Miss Virginia’s or the fields with me, nobody. Hell, the soil ain’t been the same since the flood and the ground too filled with heartache for anyone to want to stay. Lots of folks used to live round these parts moved up north—they think it safe up there and I don’t blame em. The Boot ain’t been touched the same, but we makin.
An hour later when all the smoke clear, my stomach get to rumblin. If openin and closin the icebox didn’t waste the cold, I swear I’d keep on poppin the closet till somethin good turn up. Down to two slices of bread and a jigger of milk. Got a stalk of celery, and a grimy pepper. Ain’t the first time I suffer for love, won’t be the last. I’ve loved a man here and there, but Zee the type to get stuck in you, in all the creases of your joy. Couldn’t let it go then or now. When me and Zee get to it, it make a night feel like a week. Even more when we get to tusslin—make an hour feel like years. Like tonight, and still I never seen him blow his top like this. I never felt more awful for the things I said.
So I get down on my knees at the edge of the bed and pray like I used to that Zee might come back cause somethin ain’t right this time, but with the feelin God ain’t really in the room. And when I come to stand, Zee’s shawl fall from the edge to the floor and it seem like answer enough. Overhead, the spot where the water come through the ceilin is turnin brown and blinkin, bruised like a busted eye, but I fetch my things quick, tuck Zee’s shawl under my arm and head for the Square.
Outside, them dryin raindrops got Miss Dolores’ sweetbay to come alive, and it smell so good it make me dizzy. Crossin the street—sweetbay smell turned to piss— I see Don Dicky hurrywalkin the neutral ground with a cigarette in his hand, fresh from throwin bones down at the den like he do every Saturday night. He tip his hat when I pass, his bug eyes lookin at me crazier than usual. And on the banquette down Dumaine, Gail Richard and her man Robert walkin reckless, like maybe they had too much fun tonight. Gail and him laughin, but she usin all her strength to hold him upright. She nod her head at me, I ask her how she doin, and we each go on.
Used to be I washed dishes at a juke joint on Rampart by day, sang at night with The Fellas, till I quit. Then my throat went and shriveled up. The problem was all it took was one person to tell me I wasn’t no good once and I believed em. When I finally got a good job tendin house at Miss Virginia’s, I went and mucked it up the minute I found out Zee was back. Needed a way to pay him, needed a way to get him to stay.
I make the Square from the back, where they put up gates to keep us Colored folk out, like this place ain’t for us since they startin buildin that white folks’ music hall. I try to listen for the drums of my younger days, but all I can hear is the tune I worked out earlier. The Square alive tonight with somethin else. A couple musicians and a couple junk-heads laid out on the banquette outside, though sometimes it get hard to tell the difference. I do see my boys Jojo and Jim Bean, horns in hand, at the center of the Square, probably cuttin through on they way to the club on Basin.
I make my way to them and the uneven cobblestone make me wish I’d left the house in jes my stockins. I ain’t got but one good pair of heels left, and every time I come down here the concrete fit to scrape the sole down to nothin. When they see me comin, Jo stop to wave his cap, and seein his jolly ole face make me almost forget what I came for.
“Well awrite nah, if it ain’t Miss Tiny Teeny Lou!” Jo say with a lil yip in his voice, eyes always wet. He smile his real big smile, so I can see his gap; I call it his coin slot. I always joke with him that one of these days I’m gonna stick a penny right on through it. “Look here, rose like Lazarus,” he say.
“Ain’t seen you down here this late in a dog’s age. Where you been, you?” Jim Beam tuck his clarinet under his armpit. His eyes is flat as slits. His mustache make a thick, straight line across his face stiff as a freshly starched shirt.
“Same place I always been: jookin through your mind, sounds like,” I say, cool as I can, and the boys ooo and aah. Last thing I need is Jim Bean speculatin, like I’m sho Samson been.
I ask after they mamas and ole ladies first, then ask what I came for. “Hey Jo, you heard from Zee?”
Jim Bean raise his brows high enough to touch Heaven, and it cut up his face so all the parts of it don’t match no more. Jo lower his eyes, put the mouthpiece of his horn up to his face like he bout to play, then scrunch up his mouth like he in pain.
“Naw, he know betta den to show his ass up round here since Cane done beat de shit out him,” he tinker with his cornet a lil . . .
“…in de middle of de Square,” he put his mouth on it . .
“…in broad daylight,” he stick his tongue through his coin slot to wet his lips a bit,
“…but you ain’t hear dat from me, dawlin.” His cheeks fill a bit when he blow on the mouthpiece.
“I ain’t know ya’ll still kept up,” Jim Bean say. “Boy like that got trouble stitched in the skin, Teeny. You don’t want all that.”
I look down at Zee’s shawl, wrap it round my body and say, “Yeah, Jim, I know. I’m jes curious is all.”
“Real question,” Jo say, pushin Jim out to come back close, “is what we got to do to get you out here playin wit us again?” And his coin-slot-smile seem so pure, I could cry. He ask me the same thing almost every time I see him, and every time I say that there ain’t no way, but with the hook of our last song ringin in my head, I have half a mind to tell him otherwise.
Before I can answer, Jim Bean cut between us, put a hand on Jo’s chest. “Sound like maybe she ain’t got the time,” he say and start to lead Jo away. I can’t help but think maybe Samson and Ruby already been to work, tellin my business before they knew it. I reckon everything got a price and this the price for bein loved up.
We say our goodbyes and I head deeper into the Square. More junk-heads, hustlers and the sportin gals. Seem like gals of every color represented down here, specially since Storyville died, but the night bout the only thing don’t care what color you is.
The closer I get to that auditorium in the park, the air get a lil warmer, start to taste different. It’s the kind of balmy heat of too many bodies made for pleasure, gathered in one place. The gas lamps that line the outside of the banquette bright enough to make nobody knowable, but I go in the gaggle of gals neath a slouchin oak anyway. I can’t tell what’s fog and what’s cigarette smoke, but I breathe it in all the same. The other gals look me up and down, then away, and my throat ache for one of they cigs when I say, “Any you ladies seen Ze—Novien, I mean?”
One gal shake her head naw, one gal say to try Lafitte, and one coffee-bean-colored gal with her garter showin, her eyes covered by a black fascinator and her lips real taut round the cigarette, puff and point behind me. I turn and bump into a hard chest and a high-up face I can’t see in full.
“Novien? Is that you?” I ask, ready to make up.
He grab my chin and tilt it up. But when the smoke clear, I see it ain’t Zee at all.
“Well, hello there, cher,” he say with a thick speakin-tongue. All the warmth left, and in its place, a chill that go to the bone. My brow stretch to look up at him. A high yellow man, in a dark blue pinstripe suit, casket sharp, and the lightest eyes I ever seen. He got thick black hair conked and parted down to the side, shiny shoes, and straight sharp features, like his blood go way back and far away. He still holdin my chin with one hand, and with the other he got a poplar cane.
“I ain’t seen you before,” he say. “What’s a pretty negress that I ain’t seen doing down in these parts tonight?” The way he got me, I can’t pull my face away from his hand without crackin my neck good. Zee’s shawl start slippin down my shoulders.
“I’m lookin for someone,” I say, his eyes still holdin mine.
“You looking for me then,” he say firm, more a report than a request, and my spit get caught in my throat when I try to shake my head naw.
When I ain’t say none else, he say “Etienne Canelle, but er’one round these parts calls me Cane.” He finally let go of my face to kiss the back of my hand then hold it.
I know his ilk by the looks of him. The sellin kind. The shameless kind. Still, I play like a Dumb Didi in case I need a way out— you meet a gator in the swamp, you run away; you meet a bear in his neck of the woods, you play dead. Either way, you makin for the moment.
“What business you got here?”
“A business indeed. Import and exports, you could say. And if you’re lookin to buy, I have a fine assortment of . . .imports,” he say and I shake my head naw.
“If you ain’t lookin for me, then who you lookin for?” He let go of my hand and circle round me. “Cause I'm sure I got some gals here that’d be happy to give you what you need.” My knees shake in the new cold, so I wrap myself tighter in the shawl.
“Novien,” I croak, and he stop walkin. Jojo said they had business and it seem like it’s true. He standin directly behind me now. His breath tickle my shoulder.
“Novien?” he say, and his voice get a lil higher than it need. When he say it again he almost sound like he laughin at some joke no one told.
“I’m sorry but I don’t know anybody by that name. And what would your name be, cher?” He come to stand in front of me again.
“Teeny,” I say.
“But you look like a grown woman to me, huh Teeny?” he say circlin again. “Maybe those old wivestales I hear are true. There’s something special here in that Mississippi water that keep all the Negroes down here looking fine.” He rest his hot hand cross the back of my neck. I feel my ears get hot. The spot where he got my neck sizzle its way up and down cause I want to run away, but I stay stuck to the concrete anyhow, like my body don’t work for me no more. I figure this what it must feel like gettin fixed, like maybe I did someone dirty and they gettin me back now. Some part of me know better than to run. Maybe some part of me jes don’t want to yet.
“And what’s your real name? To get us better acquainted.”
“Cecilia,” I muster and he come round front and nod and smile so I can see them caramel-candy dimples. He brush some lint from his shoulders and put both his hands on the top of his cane.
“What do you think about coming and working for me, Miss Cecilia?” he ask and all a sudden my name feel somethin close to wrong.
“Like one of these here gals?”
“All of these ladies are working for me cause they want to,” he say.
“I don’t want to,” I say, and as the words come out, they sift from a breeze to a gale, angry he think I’d sell my body to any ole Dollardaddy or JukeJimmy what come round. I swallow, and for a second taste blood in my mouth and that offerin make my stomach churn and snarl back at me loud enough for us both to hear.
I start lookin round, cause the need to run ain’t so quiet no more. Right behind him, I see two smaller groups of gals waitin round for sports on the steps to the auditorium.
One of the groups start to clear way, cept one gal who stay under the gas lamp light. She gotta be a teen, maybe ten years less than me, with one arm holdin onto her shoulder like she hurt. I don’t know no white gals like that, me, but I keep starin at her strong, like my mind tryin hard to pull her face from a photograph after all the edges curled in. The big clock in the face of the auditorium stare down at her sad, like a disappointed papa.
Cane click his tongue and wave his finger in my face. “Ma’cherie, now don’t go saying that. You don’t want to work for me now, but sounds like you gonna.” He look down, back up, then turn his head cause he see me starin behind him, and when I finally make to push past him, he grab me by my wrist so hard I think it might snap. I’m facin him again. I look down at his hand swellin my wrist and the fatness of the ring on his fingers scare me. He tighten up and pull me in close.
“When you change your mind, you know where to find me, Miss Cecilia.” And with that, he let my hand go to adjust his tie, and I run towards the light and don’t look back if I want to keep my wits right. The gal is still there, but she look so frail and weak, I’m frightened she might crumble by the time I reach her.
She a small thing, the color of spoilt milk. But with a lil somethin different bout her. She got long lashes coverin em, but I can tell she got some big eyes. It’s only when I get real close to her that I finally think I remember where I seen her before.
“Numa?” I say, and she look up jes as the clock in the Square chime us into Sunday.
Contributor Notes
Delia Selina Taylor is a writer and editor from Brooklyn, New York. Her work is largely concerned with voicelessness, myth, and the performativity of race and gender. She is both a Kimbilio and Kweli Fellow and her writing has been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and Tin House Summer Workshop. She is working on a novel.
