Harlem Redux (41 page)

“My boy,” she whimpered. “He ain’t but fourteen. The police. They gonna put him away.”

“What do they say he’s done?”

“Robbed a store. Killed the owner.”

He took this in. A Negro teenager in a situation like that barely stood a chance. “You got a lawyer?”

“No money for one.” She hugged herself and rocked back and forth. “No money. And no way to get none.”

He was quiet. A squirrel scampered down the trunk of a nearby oak tree and found a tidbit in some last-minute pre-winter scavenging. The little animal grabbed it up and scampered away with a switch of bushy tail.

“I’m a lawyer,” David heard himself say. “I could defend your son.”

She looked at him, surprised, doubtful, and a bit alarmed. “You’s a crazy man, ain’t you?”

“I admit I don’t look like a lawyer.” He smiled apologetically. “But I am one. And if you want me to, I’ll talk to your son. My talking to your boy wouldn’t hurt him, now would it?”

“No ... I suppose it wouldn’t.” She scrutinized him. “And you say you’s a lawyer? You sure?”

“Yes, very sure.” His soft eyes twinkled.

They talked a little more about the details of the case and she seemed to feel better. She gave him her name, her son’s name, and where she could be reached. He scribbled it all down with a pencil stub on a piece of paper he’d found in his pocket. As he stood to go, he clutched that bit of paper like a man adrift who has found a life raft. He was flush with a new sense of purpose. She looked up at him, her face a mix of worry and hope.

“Why,” she asked, “would you want to help my boy?”

He was the one who looked away then. How could he explain that she was doing him a favor? He gave a little half-smile. “Because …” He shrugged, “because I can.”

“Well, maybe you can.” She was thoughtful. “Being a white man makes a difference in this city. Maybe you can make them listen.”

His smile froze. It had never occurred to him that she might take him for white. He started to correct her, then stopped. She thought he was white and that gave her hope. Why disappoint her? He was an experienced pretender. The Movement had given him the moral mandate to pass as white in order to investigate lynchings; he’d abused that trust when he disavowed Jonah. Now, he might once again put his lies to good use. He suppressed a bitter laugh. Passing was becoming a curse.

“I can’t promise you anything.”

“You promise to do the best you can?”

He nodded.

“That’s enough. That’s all anybody can do.”

He won that case. It became the first of many. They came to him because he was dedicated, inexpensive, and apparently white: an unbeatable combination.

The switching of identities required no effort. He simply let people take him for what he appeared to be. Many times, he wished he hadn’t had the freedom of choice, for it was a temptation and a responsibility. His father had always been adamant about “standing tall as a colored man,” about identifying himself, but what would his father have said under the present circumstances? What purpose would he serve in destroying his credibility and with it, his ability to help the people who needed him?

Most of his clients were small-time offenders. He was their main hope and the main one they lied to. He became used to them evading, denying, obfuscating—telling anything but the truth. By and large, they were gauche, uneducated, unemployed men—either too reckless to realize that they would end up in jail or too desperate to care. Most had never had a chance to be anything other than what they were.

When David had an odd moment to reflect, he would compare their lives to his sheltered upbringing. After what he had done with his life, he was in no position to criticize them. Streetwalkers, alcoholics, and thieves: It was an education to serve them. His previous life took on the blurred appearance of a dream. He changed his name and severed contact with everyone from his past, everyone but Lilian. He felt alive, challenged, and productive. This was his path to redemption—even though it meant living in exile, living a lie.

Now Lilian’s death had summoned him back to Harlem, back to Rachel. He would never find the strength to leave her again. And given what he now knew, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did.

He thought about his furnished room in a Philadelphia boardinghouse. The house sat back from lovely, inviting, well-manicured lawns, but the room itself was desolate and plain. It contained nothing for him to return to: a thin bed, a table, and a dresser; a sink attached to one wall; a closet with two extra suits, some simple ties, and his one luxury—a second pair of shoes. The room was a monk’s cell, a place to sleep. Alone. Night after night, alone.

He was concerned, however, about his clients, about the cases he had dropped. There were depositions to be taken, briefs to be written, court dates to be kept. He could not abandon his clients. He would write letters to them and to the courts, offering some explanation. And he would write his colleagues, asking them to take over his cases.

He turned his thoughts away from Philadelphia. It too now belonged to his past. It was his future in Harlem that worried him, and his marriage. Would it be strong enough to overcome the difficulties it would no doubt face?

27. Toby’s Mom

He found himself on the corner of 137th and Lenox, in front of a slightly battered-looking establishment called the Mayfair Diner. On impulse, he stepped up to the door and went inside. He simply wanted somewhere to sit down. The place was half-empty with the late lunch crowd; there was one waitress, wiping a table at the farther end. She seemed familiar. He recognized her when she turned around. It was the woman whose son he had saved, Toby’s mother. She came toward him. Her tired expression softened at the sight of him and his heart felt oddly lighter.

“Well, if that don’t beat all,” she said. “Take a seat.”

He slid onto a stool at the counter. “How’s your boy doing?”

“Fine. He asks about you.”

“Nah.”

“Sure he does. You his hero.”

David smiled. “Thanks.”

“What for?”

“For making me smile.”

She cocked her head to one side as she poured his coffee. “Had one of them days, huh?”

“You could say that.”

“Well, don’t worry. Whatever it is, it too will pass. That’s what my papa used to say.”

“Did he now?”

“Yes, he did. And he was a wise old coot.”

David chuckled. “Where’re you from?”

“Virginia. My folks was sharecroppers.”

“Big family?”

“There was nine of us kids. We was poor but we had a good time together. I guess you could say, we didn’t know no better.”

“Been here long?”

Her smile faded. “I come up here with my sister a few months ago—but she went back. Sister couldn’t take the city. She wanted to take Toby back with her, but he’s mine and I’m keeping him. His daddy don’t want him. He up and took off. I can’t have him thinking that his mama don’t want him, neither.”

Was this the way Rachel would’ve spoken about him if Isabella had lived? He would’ve wanted Isabella, though. If he’d had the chance, he would’ve protected her, given her everything he had.

“You really are having a bad day,” she said, looking at his face. “How about something to eat?”

He shook his head, glancing at the stitching on the pocket of her shirt. He hoped to see her name but it was simply the name of the diner. “Just a cup of coffee.”

For the next twenty minutes, he watched her move up and down the counter, exchanging lighthearted banter with the other customers: truck drivers, busboys on break, drunks, and drifters. He saw the way she managed to bring a crooked smile to even the saddest face. Finally, she paused in front of him.

“Anything more I can get for you?”

“Just more coffee, please.”

His gaze fell on her hands as she poured. In her rough skin and broken fingernails, he saw a lifetime of sewing and scrubbing, cutting and chopping. He watched her move away and again wondered what her name was. He could imagine her hands kneading dough for fluffy biscuits, patting a baby’s bottom, massaging her man’s back. She would give comfort and strength. She looked like a woman a man could trust, someone he could bare his heart to.

He blinked, suddenly aware and faintly disturbed at the course of his thoughts. He stood, signaled her. She caught his gesture out of the corner of her eye and moved down the counter toward him. He took out his wallet and gave her ten bits. She quickly returned with his change. He waved it aside.

“Keep it.”

She touched the money and looked up at him. “This is way too much.”

“It’s way too little for the price of a smile.”

She studied him with light amusement, as though she didn’t know what to make of him. He liked what he saw in her eyes and he liked the way it made him feel—like a man standing in sunshine after spending years in the rain.

“Good luck,” she said. “I got a feeling you need it. Maybe even more than I do.”

She tucked the money into her apron pocket. He watched her move away, then turned to go.

“Hey,” he heard her call to him. He turned around. “I get a break in five minutes,” she said. “You wanna take a walk?”

He paused. “Yeah, okay.”

She looked suddenly shy, perhaps realizing how “forward” she’d been. “Okay.”

He slid into a booth to wait and looked out the window. Some members of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association were parading down the street. The men were dressed in military-like uniforms with generous applications of gold braid. Many of the women wore long pale dresses with wide cloths tied about their heads like missionary sisters. These people were trying to keep up the spirit of Garvey’s Back-to-Africa Movement, but the UNIA was in tatters, and their leader, the Black Moses—a short, charismatic Jamaican who had galvanized thousands of Harlem’s poor with talk of returning to their ancestral homeland—was himself locked in the Atlanta federal penitentiary, serving a five-year sentence for mail fraud.

“I’m ready,” David heard a soft voice say and turned around. She was bundled up in her coat and had stuck her little cloche hat on her head. She looked adorable.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

As always, the Avenue was crowded. It was even more so that day because of the parade. Though small, the parade was enough to attract attention. They joined the onlookers for a minute, admiring the UNIA’s smart color guard, then turned away and headed downtown. On the left, they passed the Renaissance Casino & Ballroom.

“You ever go to a dance there?” she asked.

“A long time ago.”

“It’s real nice, ain’t it? I heard they got receptions and basketball games and everything.”

Directly across from them, on the corner of 135th, was Small’s Paradise, the place where Nella’s playwright friend had danced on the tables. Not a block away was Saint Philip’s. The last time David had been there, it had been for his father’s funeral. They reached the corner of 135th and paused for a stoplight.

“NAACP secretary James Weldon Johnson used to live around here,” he said. “I met him once.”

“What’s he like?”

“Got a good sense of humor.” The light changed and they started across the street. “Fats Waller and Florence Mills live only a couple of blocks down the way.”