Five Smooth Stones (2 page)

Then John's wife, Ruth, had died in a little room on the other side of town just twenty-four hours after giving birth to their son. There was sick sadness in Joseph Champlin's heart that morning as he sat with his mother.

"Ain't never thought I'd envy the dead," he said, and stood quickly, wanting to get away, to take his sadness outside where it would not worry his mother.

She went into the hall with him and said, "God's blessing, son," as he turned from her and started down the stairs, shoulders straight and thin under the clean, starched khaki shirt. She watched him from the top of the staircase, eyes on the nappy black hair kept as she had trained him to keep it, close cut and gleaming, and she put out her hand to him as he went from her. He did not see her, only felt along the back of his neck a prickle of warmth, for he knew without seeing it that she had made the gesture.

By ten o'clock that morning he could sense there would be no work. He was far more tired than he ever remembered being at the end of a day's work with pick and shovel, deep in a ditch; more tired than he had ever been after ten, twelve hours wrassling coffee sacks on the docks. He walked endlessly, without a dime in his pocket. His belly was beginning to cramp, as it always did when it was empty, but he could not bring himself to go home. He went to numberless restaurants, offering to wash dishes, and found no takers. One woman laughed sympathetically. "We've got a waiting list," she said. "Come back tomorrow afternoon. Maybe then." Something in the straightness of his shoulders as he turned away prompted her to call him back. "I'll send someone out with a cup of coffee," she said.

The coffee stopped the cramping for a while and chased the giddiness of hunger from his head. When there was no place left to go on that side of town, he turned toward Canal Street, heading for the depot and the area back of it. Ahead of him he saw a white man he knew, unlocking the door of a small nightclub where he had played gigs with Kid Arab's band in the good days when there was music to be played all over, and the streets of the Vieux Carré were alive and swarming with people. The man was Tony Guastella, and the club was called the Creole Club. It was a white club, a bootleg joint, and he stood now in the open doorway through which Guastella had disappeared, and knocked on the jamb.

Ten minutes later, equipped with dusting cloths, pail, mop, and broom, Joseph Champlin was attacking two weeks' accumulation of dirt. He had not asked what the pay would be; Guastella had not told him. He wrinkled a fastidious nose at some of the dirt, but went after it in the only way he knew how, as though the devil were riding him.

Stale coffee was in a pot on a battered electric plate on the shelf beneath the bar. The bartender had washed the glasses last night, but had left the coffee to grow stale in the pot. He asked Guastella if it was all right if he had a cup, and was told to take all he wanted, and help himself to the pretzels in a bowl on the bar. These and the knowledge he would not be-, going home that night with completely empty pockets gave him strength to make the job a good one. Do it good enough, he thought, mebbe I can get me a little work here now and then.

When he saw the end of the job in sight, could see in his mind's eye a can of coffee on the shelf, salt meat in the icebox, and enough rice and beans to last them a while, he began to sing. Singing was not one of his accomplishments; his musical talent was strictly instrumental. His voice was rougher, stronger than his size would indicate, and he let it out now, the rhythm helping his arm with the mop:

" 'Oh, Mary, don't you weep, don't you moan—

Oh, Mary, don't you weep, don't you moan—

Pharaoh's army got drownded—

Oh, Mary, don't you weep—

'"When we get to Heaven, gonna sing and shout—

Can't nobody in Heaven throw us out—

Pharaoh's army got drownded—

Oh, Mary, don't you weep—'"

He sang this song because it was on his mind. He had sat alone in his kitchen the night before, listening to a church "sing" in Conservation Hall, just behind their back window, in the next street. Emma Jefferson was playing the piano, anyone could tell that, playing it with a force so compelling, a touch so sure, and a sense of beauty so perceptive that her chording breaks made his flesh prickle, brought out goose-flesh on his arms. After they had sung about Pharaoh's army until he could see it, and the Red Sea swallowing it up, he waited hopefully for "He's My Lily of the Valley." It came finally, and as soon as he heard the opening chords he began to smile. In a little bit Geneva's voice would break away from the others and take off alone, take off and travel, not strong, but clear and high and sweet. The ensemble would be strong and close—" 'He's my lily of the valley, everybody knows—' "; then Geneva's voice would soar like the exultant song of a solitary bird flying high above its companions— " 'Everybody don' know—everybody don' know—what Jesus means—'" And then the ensemble would come under her voice and cradle it, and then it would break away again, soaring and swooping—" 'What Jesus means, what Jesus means —' " He could listen to it over and over, but it was the hymn about Pharaoh's army that lived with him for two or three days after he heard it.

The owner of the club left before Joseph Champlin finished his job of cleaning. Guastella could do that because he had known Li'l Joe ever since Joe had been a spindle-shanked, brown-skin boy in short pants doing odd jobs wherever he could find them. Guastella had learned through the years that if you gave Li'l Joe a job to do he'd never quit until it was finished, really finished.

"There's money for you on the back bar, Joe," he said as he left. "Take a beer from the icebox when you finish."

Joseph Champlin smiled. "Sure will."

"Leave the key next door in the barbershop. Anyone comes in before you leave, tell 'em I'll open up at eight O.K., boy?"

"Sure. Sure. I'll tell 'em." He was not smiling now.

You never could tell with niggers, thought Guastella. Never could tell, even with the good ones like Li'l Joe Champlin. One minute they'd be smiling, and the next they'd be looking at something over your shoulder while you talked, eyes blank, and if there was a smile it would be teeth and that's all, and damned if anyone could tell what made them change. It was the first time Li'l Joe had not discussed the price of a job with him before he started it. It had been evident when the thin, anxious man had knocked on the door that he'd been looking for work all morning. The city was full of them these days, but he'd never trust a nigger he didn't know, and he always sent them away. Li'l Joe he could trust.

Joseph Champlin gave Guastella a few minutes after he left, then walked to the bar and looked over at the shelf behind it. He saw the gleam of a four-bit piece, looked for green and did not find it, not even after he walked behind the bar and searched the floor and the surface of the shelf inch by inch. "Sweet Jesus!" he muttered. "That what he's giving me for all this work?" He dropped the coal from his mental budget. He wanted to leave the fifty-cent piece on the bar. He'd damned well quit now, he thought. The hell with the men's room and the rest of it. All Guastella cared about was what showed. But he walked back to his pail and mop, muttering, "Four bits. A stinking four bits," and kept on with the small unmopped area in the main room, then started for the men's room, dragging the mop after him, tired now inline late afternoon with miles of walking behind him, and then the work here, and nothing in his stomach but coffee and pretzels.

He did not see the crumpled bill in the far corner of the room until he pushed his mop toward it. Even though he knew he was alone in the club, he picked it up with the quickness of a cat stealing a piece of meat from a plate, shoved it in his pocket, then hooked the door and took it out. He had thought it was a one; instead it was a ten, crumpled the way a gambler crumples a bill. Some of the men had told him there'd been a bunch of gamblers from Chicago around New Orleans lately; there was one gambler poorer by ten dollars.

He forgot his anger at Guastella. He was shaky with relief, and wished he dared pour a drink. He knew where Guastella kept the stuff but he was afraid to touch one of the bottles because as sure as he did someone from the neighborhood would come in and then tell Guastella he'd caught the nigger clean-up boy stealing liquor.

He settled for the beer Guastella had told him he could have, and took it into the back room where the colored musicians were forced to sit between sets. He had already cleaned that room, but no amount of cleaning could change the air, could make it anything but rank and fetid.

He sat down with the opened bottle of beer and a glass and relaxed for a minute, feeling the ten-dollar bill in his pocket with long, grateful fingers, thinking of Geneva's face as it would be when she had finished giving him hell about the four bits—he'd have to give her a chance to do that—and she saw him take the ten dollars out and lay it on the kitchen table.

Because there were no other ears to assault but his own, he sang out loud and strong as he walked to the front door to leave, " 'Pharaoh's army got drownded—Oh, Mary, don't you weep—'"

CHAPTER 2

As he approached the house on St. Philip Street where he and Geneva lived, Joseph Champlin thought that he must be sure and remind his wife to save enough out of the ten dollars to buy rat poison. It would do little good but it was an effort; it was better than giving in to the rodents—aggressive, obscene, and dangerous—that swarmed through the houses of the French Quarter. He had met them on the stairs, and had them face him and not run; he had battled them in the outdoor privy that was the only toilet he and Geneva had, had awakened in the night to the feel of a rat running across his shoulders. He pitied his neighbors with babies and small children; theirs was a battle that never ended.

He sighed, and thought that he could have spent fifty dollars and still not had enough with which to buy the things they needed to make life more bearable: a decent stove to keep them warm in winter, oil to burn in it, a fan for the humid, breathless nights of summer, a decent cookstove for Geneva. Or maybe take the fifty and pay up the back rent and move across the river, or over the lake, rent a shack with room enough for his mother, raise their own vegetables and chickens. God knows, he thought, I don't want much. And then felt guilty that he had even wished the ten dollars was more. His mother would give him hell if she knew what he was thinking, right after God had met a present need.

When he walked into what passed for the living room of their small quarters, he stopped. The night was not unreasonably cool, was, in fact, pleasant and springlike, but the tiny apartment felt like an oven. He could see Geneva in back, in the kitchen-alcove, bending over something on the table. There was a sudden wailing, and he stopped in stride, then moved forward quietly, not speaking. He stood just behind his wife until the shock had worn off, then said: "Neva. You has to put your finger under the pin where it goes through.

You don't do that you're going to pin that pore chile's skin right into the diaper."

Geneva jumped, startled, then turned to him, her face wrinkled with anxiety. There was a sound from the baby on the table, and she turned back and picked the child up, holding it against her breast, rocking it gently. "You ever seen a sweeter baby, Li'l Joe? You ever seen a sweeter?"

"You better get that diaper on that chile, woman, or you're going to be sorry. Who's that baby belong to? Who you taking care of it for?" Then, when she laid the baby on the table, "Sweet Jesus! That baby ain't more'n two, three days old."

"It's your grandbaby, Joe. Can't you see? That's Ruth and John's pore little motherless chile. Can't you see?"

"Lawd Gawd!" said Li'l Joe. "What's he doing here?" He moved closer, took the powder can from Geneva's hand, dusted expertly, and then with quick, deft fingers secured the diaper, spare safety pins in his mouth. The baby made a contented sound, and Geneva, standing by silently, said, "He said something, Joe. You hear him?"

"That chile didn't say nothing. You lost your senses, woman?" He stood looking down at the infant, smiling into its vague, unfocused eyes. "Sure a fine baby," he said. "Sure a fine boy. Look at them shoulders."

"Now can you see?" asked Geneva. "Now can you see he's your grandbaby? Shoulders just like John's. And long hands like yourn."

He had forgotten the ten dollars in his pocket, and the fifty cents, and even his hunger. He eyed his wife warily. "Where'd you get him, Geneva? Why'd you-all bring him here?"

"Listen, Joe, I ain't saying this because Josephine was your first wife, because she was your wife before you and me married up. That baby stays at Josephine's he's going to die sure as he's an inch long. All them kids there, handling him like he was a puppy or a kitten or something, crying his little heart out, all wet, and Josephine so fat and lazy she can't do nothing but sit on her fat butt and carry on about Ruth and John. And this pore little chile like he ain't never been born."

"Josephine's his grandma."

"And you're his grandpa."

"Jesus have moicy!" Like many New Orleanians of both races, there was, in certain syllables, an accent close to Brooklynese in Li'l Joe's speech. "Jesus have moicy!" he said again, and backed away from the table. "What you saying? What you
saying?"

Geneva picked the baby up, wrapped a worn piece of blanket around him, and carried him to the chair beside the stove. There was a carton on the chair, and Li'l Joe could see that it had been lined with another piece of the same blanket so that the folds hung over three sides and could be brought over to cover the baby. He let out a long breath. "You planning to have that baby smothered for supper, like an old hen? My Gawd, it's hot enough in here to kill him. We ain't got all that kind of coal. Speck of air never hurt a young un. He's no incubator baby."