Dominion (47 page)

“How are my sisters? I’m glad you’ve finally met.” The three of them hugged.

“Want to tell you about my mission, Master. But before I does, I was just about to tell Dani one mo’ story, and you knows which one.”

“Yes. Tell her. I know she’ll want to hear it. So do I.”

“Well, I was just sixteen years old and Marse Henry, he say to us, ‘You niggers been seein’ the Federate soldiers comin’ by here lookin’ purty raggedy and wored out, but that no sign they licked. Them Yankees ain’t gonna get this far,’ he say to us, ‘but iffen they does, you ain’t gonna get free by ’em ’cause I’ll line you up on the bank of the creek and free you with my shotgun, you hear me?’

“Well,” Ruth said, “we never thought we’d get freedom till we comed home here. But one day a few weeks later, Granddaughter, we was all out in them cotton fields and then a kitchen negro come out on a hoss from Mistress, and he tell the overseer he should come right up to the big house. Well, he did and we wondered what was brewin’. Then the old bell rung, and we didn’t know what to do ’cause we never broke from work this time o’ day, and we was afraid we’d be whipped if we comes in. Well, finally one of the main negroes, ol’ Samuel, he says, ‘We best go on up.’ So we did, but we let Samuel go first!

“Well, sittin’ up there on the porch was a man we never seen, wearin’ a big broad black hat like the Yankees wore. Now, I’m a thinkin’, that’s it, we all been sold off in a bunch. But this man has a funny smile on his face. And he say to us, ‘Do you darkies know what day this is?’ We didn’t know, ’cept it was Wednesday, which couldn’t explain the bell ringin’. Then he says to us,” Ruth’s voice got low, ‘“Well, this the fourth day of June, 1865, and you always gonna remember this day ’cause today you is free. Free just like I is, just like all the white folk is. The war’s over and you’s free. You don’t need no passes to travel no more. You yo’ own bosses. You free as birds.’

“We stood there in shock, hopin’ this wasn’t no cruel joke and wonderin’ if those who danced a jig and sung a song was gonna get shot or whipped. But somehow we knew it was true, and all of a sudden there was whoopin’ and hollerin’ and dancin’ like you never seen.”

Dani watched through the portal and there it was, happening just as Ruth described it.

“I’s heard a lot greater whoopin’ and hollerin’ here, hasn’t I, Master, and seen a lot better dancin’ here, but not back there, not never.”

Ruth looked first at Dani, then at the Carpenter, and said, “Slavery was a terrible burden Elyon took off his black chillens, and I praise you for it. The years ahead wasn’t easy ones, but we was free. We kept talkin’ ’bout how Jesus of Nazareth come to set the captives free. And we laughed and shouted and cried and hugged each other. Because we was
free.
And I thank God always I saw that day, June 4, 1865. The only day better was October 8, 1924.”

“What happened that day, Grandma?”

“That’s the day the prison door swung open.” She gestured at the portal, where Dani saw Ruth old and shriveled, lying on her sickbed. “That’s the day I walked out of the world of pain and sufferin’, the world of bondage. That was the day I walked into the arms of my sweet Jesus. And then I knew, then I knew shore enough for the first time what it
really
meant to be free.”

The glow in her eyes penetrated Dani’s heart. The Master put his arms around them both, and from nowhere Zeke and Nancy appeared, worming their way into the group hug, punctuated by sobs of joy.

“Welcome, Mr. Abernathy. Jay Fielding. Good to see you again.” The principal extended his hand, which Clarence shook warmly.

“Thanks, Mr. Fielding. And thanks for setting things up for me.”

“Glad to. How’s Ty doing?”

“Not that great. We’ve got a curfew on him, try to watch the crowd he hangs with, but it’s awfully hard.”

“Yeah. Nothin’s easy anymore. His grades have been slipping.”

“Got him straightened out there. They won’t be slipping from now on.”

Fielding looked at him with uncertainty “Well the students are going to meet with you right here in my office. I’ve got plenty else to do in other parts of the building. Sorry only three signed up, but they don’t like to call attention to themselves. You know what it’s like being a minority—exposure can make it worse for you. They should be here any time. Oh, here’s Rachel and James. James Broadworth and Rachel Young, this is Mr. Clarence Abernathy from the
Tribune
.”

Nods and nervous handshakes followed. Rachel and James were obviously a couple.

“The other student is Gracie Miller. Here she is now. Gracie, this is Mr. Clarence Abernathy.” This handshake was warmer, more confident. Gracie was an attractive blonde, dressed as Clarence had always thought he would never let his daughter dress. After a few pleasantries, Mr. Fielding left.

“Just to let you know,” Clarence told the students, “I was one of ten blacks in a white grade school back in Mississippi. So our skin color’s different, but I can understand what it means to be the minority at school. Okay, so, what’s it like for you here?”

“Teachers and students around here are always blaming white racism for everything,” Rachel jumped right in. “But then they treat me the same way they say whites always treated them. I’m tired of high school. Just want to finish up. James and I are getting married after we graduate, and we want to get as far away from the city as we can.”

“I feel a little different,” James said. “I mean, I understand what Rachel’s saying. Sometimes it’s a hassle. But I guess it’s a good education. I think I’ll always be more understanding of minorities because I’ve been one.”

Gracie, blonde with three earrings on each side and wearing a crop top that revealed a garish ring in her navel, appeared to be a classic sixties rebel with a nineties cynicism. Attitude seeped out of every pore.

“Mainly, it’s the black girls I have problems with,” Gracie said. “They’re always pickin’ fights with me because they say I flirt with their men, like they own them or something. Most of the guys here are black, so what am I supposed to do? That’s their problem. I like being with black guys.”

The discussion led to interracial dating, whites in sports at a black high school, educational quality, segregated tables in the cafeteria, “the white corner” of the locker rooms, and a host of other subjects, all the color-reversed image of what Clarence had always known. At 2:20 the bell rang.

“School’s out already? Thanks for your time. The column should be out next Wednesday or Friday. Appreciate your honesty.” James and Rachel walked out, grateful to have missed their last two class periods.

Gracie lingered. “Clarence, can I say something to you?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so.”

“I heard your sister was murdered. I’m sorry.” She seemed surprisingly thoughtful, defying his first impressions of her being self-absorbed.

“Thanks.”

“I heard they haven’t found the dudes who did it, huh?”

“No. Still looking.”

“Some of the guys talk to me. Bangers, I mean. If you want I could ask around, see if anybody knows anything.”

“Uh, well, the police department is conducting the investigation, of course.”

“Sure. But they haven’t found anyone, and it’s been, what, five weeks?”

“Six.”

“Well, if you don’t want me to, I won’t ask. Just offering.”

“No. Actually, what could it hurt if you asked?”

“Should I call you if I find out anything?”

“Yeah, please do. Here’s my card.” He pulled it from his wallet. “That’s my number at the
Trib
.”

“Okay. I work at Lloyd Center every afternoon till six. So I’d have to call you in the evening. Are you at this number then?”

“No. Here’s my home phone.” Clarence scratched it out on the front of his business card. “If you find out anything, please call.”

“I will. Really nice to meet you, Clarence.” She put out her hand, and he shook it, but her hand lingered on his. He pulled it back in surprise. He could see why the girls thought her a flirt. But he would take whatever help he could get.

She still stood close to him. He started to back away as the door suddenly opened. “Oh, excuse me, I thought you were done,” Mr. Fielding said.

“We are,” Clarence said, sounding defensive. “I was just leaving.”

“Clarence and I were just talking about some personal things,” Gracie said.

Why does she have to call me Clarence? And “personal things”?

Mr. Fielding forced a smile and reclaimed his office. Clarence followed Gracie out the door a full four feet behind her, determining that whichever direction she was going, he would go the opposite.

After stopping at the usual drop-off points and distributing product to a half-dozen dealers, GC cruised by Ty’s house in his Coup de Ville. As planned, on seeing his car, Ty ran down to the end of the street and met him around the corner. He jumped in the car.

GC had held his post much longer than the previous high rollers. Prison and death had a way of cutting short the reigns of most local drug kings. Pearly, Ba-ba, and Brain had all bit the dust in a few months. Capone was a legend for lasting over a year, and Li’l Capone who followed him went down in a month. GC picked up the mantle then, and he’d had it now for almost two years, making him the street equivalent of an eight-term senator.

Ty sat in the front seat fingering GC’s special brass knuckles with their built-in switchblade. The power and deadliness of it enticed him. GC drove down a wide section of MLK on the inside southbound lane. In the outside lane two boys, maybe eighteen year olds, drove up beside them.

“Watch this, cuzzin,” GC said to Ty. “I give ’em my crazy nigger face.”

GC looked across Tyrone to stare them down, narrowing his eyes in a way that transformed his face from the pleasant Denzel Washington demeanor to that of a serial killer. Tyrone trembled at the monstrous hatred in his eyes and wished GC was watching the road. Ty looked to the side at the boys in the other car, preparing himself to hit the floor if lead started flying. But their eyes went down, and they turned right, away from GC. They knew if they returned his stare for more than a moment, they had to be prepared to kill or die. Today they weren’t prepared to do either. Maybe next time.

GC looked at Ty and said, “Yo, got to teach you that stare!”

“Yeeeah,” Ty replied, stretching it out like he’d heard some of the homeboys do.

“Takes heart to kill fo’ yo’ set. Makes you tall. You know? They kill our homies, we kill them. What go around come around. And some that comes around comes around quick, so you got to be ready, you know.”

“Yeeeah.”

They drove up to the next light and GC tried his stare again, moving to the right lane and looking to his left. This time the teenager in the passenger seat of the car stared back. GC rolled down his window with his left hand and with his right reached down to the piece lying beside him on the front seat. He lifted the gun and pointed it at the boy. Ty watched in horror as the red beam appeared on the boy’s forehead. The kid’s eyes almost popped out of his head. He ducked low, and the terrified driver stepped on it, running the red light. Cross traffic dodged and honked as the car screeched through. A police car popped out of a side street a block away and pursued the driver.

GC laughed and laughed. “Hey, Li’l GC. I like it! I got to get me one of these!” He tossed the Glock 17 into Ty’s lap. Ty picked up the gun, handling it gingerly, afraid it might go off on its own. He’d make sure he got it back in his uncle’s dresser before he got home from work.

Clarence drove up to the Westside Racquet Club. It was an exclusive club, much more elitist than the one he belonged to in Gresham. It looked like something Norcoast would be part of.

They hit strokes back and forth for the warm-up. After the third hit, Clarence knew he was in trouble. Norcoast was a 5.0 player, strong and consistent, heavy top-spin, hitting every ball deep. Clarence studied his opponent’s practice serves—hard, deep, with a variety of spin. Norcoast’s service routine was the same. He’d rub his left sweatshirt cuff across his open mouth, perhaps to wipe off sweat or excess saliva. Then he’d bounce the ball twice, go into his high toss, and bring down a commanding serve.

Norcoast took the net and volleyed powerfully, putting away balls with sharp angles and solid overheads, beating Clarence 6-3 the first set. Clarence adjusted his strategy, trying more passing shots low over the net. He’d underestimated his opponent coming into this match. He wouldn’t do it again.

The second set was a dogfight, neither player losing his serve. At 6-6, it came down to a twelve-point tiebreaker. Clarence lost it 5-7, ending the match, which had gone eighty minutes, the most demanding eighty minutes he’d played in years.

They shook hands at the net, Clarence pretending he wasn’t tired.

“Nice effort, Clarence,” Norcoast said. “I’m impressed. We had some great rallies, terrific points. I’m ready for a shower and dinner. How about you?”

“Yeah. Sounds good.” Clarence acted as if it didn’t bother him to get beat by Norcoast. “Let me ask you something, Reg.”

“Yes?”

“Do you play chess?”

“Used to play quite a bit, in fact. My father was a champion. I’ve got a handcrafted chess table in my office at home. Do you play?”

“Yeah, occasionally Maybe we could pull out a board sometime.”

“I’d like that. You know, my father always told me what I learned in chess would pay off in politics.”

“I’ll bet it has.”

Clarence and his family, including Dani’s kids, arrived at his brother Harley and Sophie’s house at 4:00 P.M. It was their annual fall family-wide gathering. Harley’s family didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, so this late October get-together was the last before December.

Harley opened the door, greeting them with, “Here they are, black by popular demand!” His face was framed by Malcolm X style glasses. He often wore his suit and Black Muslim bow tie, but tonight had on a striking brown and yellow kente cloth. Clarence couldn’t help but admire it, even though he sometimes made fun of his brother’s Africa fixation. Black triangular designs fanned out across the kente cloth, each with one line thicker than the other two. It struck Clarence as familiar. Where had he seen that design?

“Hey, Harley. What’s happenin’ bro?” Clarence reached for his brother’s hand and each tested the other’s strong grip. Though Clarence was two inches taller, Harley—at 6′2,″ 250 pounds—was an imposing figure himself. Clarence hugged Sophie and the rest of the family. He listened to the music. Harley had put more money in his stereo system than almost anything he owned. It played black music, the kind that turned every holiday into a soul holiday. It was a refreshing change from dentist office music. Clarence didn’t know how people could stand that stuff. This was the music he was nursed on. He’d never been weaned from it.

Soul music was flowing, swinging, the rhythm enveloping and hypnotic. Lots of bass, pulsing, antiphonal. Spontaneous and innovative. The syncopation and pulsating beat made you want to clap and keep time, as he found himself doing with his right hand as he sat on the couch. The vocalists responded to each other, someone calling, someone answering. It wasn’t monologue, it was dialogue, it wasn’t just performance, it was experience. It wasn’t a commentary on life as much as it was life itself. A jazzy, emotionally intense song, where the women bordered on screaming and the men on shouting, would be followed by something soft, drifting up out of the room like a child’s prayer to heaven. It wasn’t all nice and neat, processed and packaged, timed to the second. You didn’t know when most songs would end. And when they did end, often abruptly, the song continued inside you. That was black music, so central to black culture—full of depth, permeated by sorrow and joy.

“Hey, Marny. How’s my big sister?” Clarence asked.

“Don’t you ever call me
big
sister, Antsy Abernathy! If I ever get to be half your weight, I’m takin’ out a lifetime membership with Jenny Craig!”

Clarence smiled at her. She was two years older than he. He’d never had as close a relationship with her as with Dani. Marny still hadn’t gotten over losing her son Bobby to leukemia two years ago. He listened as Marny drifted back into the kitchen and resumed an argument with the women that
this
was the way Mama used to cook that turkey. Dani wasn’t there to end the arguments now. Clarence peeked into the spacious kitchen as they put ham hocks in the pot and Geneva poured in some bacon grease. She’d threatened to stop this to keep the men from dying of heart attacks, but Clarence had said if she did, she just might as well kill them outright. She warned him about the problems with hypertension among black men. Maybe, Harley had suggested, it was another white plot to exterminate blacks.

Aunt Ida washed the greens, a ritual designed to get out every stubborn worm that might be clinging to the leaves. While Ida cut up the greens, Cousin Flora mixed up the cornmeal. Then Ida added the greens to the pot of ham hocks and bacon grease. Water drops sizzled, the grease started soaking up, and the scent was heavenly, taking Clarence back to Mississippi. Just about everything he loved, short of breakfast grits, would be served up tonight. Obadiah poked his head in beside Clarence, eyes closed, nostrils flaring, breathing in the aroma with conspicuous delight. Harley stood behind both of them, trying to lean in too.

“I swear, brother,” Harley said, “you stand in a doorway and it’s a total eclipse.” The women turned and gave mocking looks at the men.

“Now you manfolks jus’ get away from this kitchen, you hear me now?” Aunt Ida shooed them off as though they were stray cats. “Go on in and discuss yo’ politics and solve the problems of the world so we can do what’s important—fix up dinner!”

After forty minutes of small talk and lots of laughter, the family sat down for the meal. Mama’s dressing, loaded with onions and peppers and celery, positioned itself for the center of attention. Big plates of greens filled the table—collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens. There was a big side of macaroni and cheese, candied yams, a mixture of butter beans and peas, and the crowder peas along with the ham hocks. Though Harley’s family didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, most of the family treated the fall gathering as an early Thanksgiving, so turkey was served, and as Daddy always said, “You don’t want that bird gettin’ lonely.” A heaping plate of catfish, fresh from Marny’s husband’s recent trip to Mississippi, raised eyebrows, while a huge bowl of succotash and servings of okra and corn and peas, and a few spices the menfolk couldn’t identify vied for attention. All the dishes laid out next to each other reminded Clarence of a favorite soul food smorgasbord in Jackson, where the sign said, “When You Can’t Go to Mama’s, Come See Us.” Mama. How he missed her. Nothing would bring her back for an evening quite like the smells and tastes on this table.

There was fried chicken, fried okra, fried potatoes, deep fried pork chops, and Clarence’s favorite, fried green tomatoes. “Just fry it up and you can’t go too wrong,” Mama always used to say Clarence wasn’t a seafood fan, especially not oysters, but Aunt Ida would deep fry ’em up every year along with the gizzards, and every year he’d eat ’em. Clarence still couldn’t abide the smell of chitlins, but it brought back a flood of memories, as did each of the dozens of competing aromas. He took just one slick rubbery bite of chitlins, for nostalgia’s sake. The eye-watering Cajun pepper and hot sauce served as a recourse in case something objected to being eaten. It was always easier to ingest anything than to have to explain to the aunts why you didn’t. This family was southern, and when a southern woman, black or white, goes to the trouble of fixin’ up a meal, you eat it till it’s comin’ out your ears and you enjoy every moment of it and when she asks if you want more you say, “Yes, ma’m,” and that’s all there is to it.