Standing at the Scratch Line (32 page)

“I ain’t been with but one man and we’d have got married if’en he hadn’t been killed. I ain’t lookin’ to live the life of no sinnin’ harlot!”

“Whatchoo got between yo’ legs ain’t as important as the lives of yo’ family! I done worse to feed you and yo’ sister!”

Journer stared at her mother with disgust. “So? That don’t make it right! What about what Papa says about doin’ things what makes you feel good about yourself and stayin’ from things that make you think you ain’t worth nothin’?”

“Look where all that pride and philosophizin’ got yo’ pappy. He lyin’ on the floor bleedin’. His life is in the hands of his daughter.”

“But look at him, Mama. He still got his dignity. Ain’t nobody doubt he’s a man.”

“When you’s dead dignity is just a word,” Mary sighed, weary of the discussion. “You decide whether we live or die. It’s on you.” Mary turned and walked away, but her heart felt crushed. The terrible look on Journer’s face when Mary had admitted to doin’ worse to feed her and her sister was still with her.

“Y’all work out somethin’?” Lester asked, checking his suit for stains. Mary was silent. He looked at Journer, who was still standing in the corner. “How you want it, little lady?”

“I’ll come, but I’ll come on my own. I’ll be at your building on Front Street at nine o’clock tonight.”

“How you think you gon’ bargain with me?” Lester demanded. “You ain’t got nothin’ but yo’ life. You some kind of crazy, if you think I’m gon’ let you tell me when you comin’?”

“Then come get me!” Journer challenged as she pulled a large cleaver and butcher knife from beneath her skirts. “I been workin’ preparin’ food all my life and I’ve learned to throw a cleaver or two,” she declared with a grim set to her jaw. “And the first one I’m gon’ throw at is you!” Journer cocked her arm until the cleaver was just behind her ear.

Lester’s men moved away from him as they sought to take positions around Journer. Lester was standing within fifteen feet of the girl and he didn’t think that she would miss him from that distance. Lester laughed. He didn’t want to show his fear to his men, so he said with a magnanimous gesture, “I’ll tell you what, little lady, I’m gon’ do you a favor and accept yo’ offer. If’en you don’t show you know what I’ll do to this restaurant, don’tcha?”

“Don’t worry yourself, I’ll come as I promised, but if you don’t get out of here now with your scum, I’m liable to have an accident with this cleaver!”

“It’s ’cause our business is over that I’m leavin’! I ain’t a-feared of you and yo’ little knife! I’m lookin’ forward to seein’ you at nine tonight, sweetheart!” Lester patted his hair once again to assure that the waves were even and signaled his men to head out the door. “Evenin’, Mama Braithwaite. Give my best to yo’ husband if he wakes up.” Lester laughed, enjoying his joke, and his men joined in with him.

As soon as they were gone, Mary knelt beside her husband and ordered for someone to bring her water. Journer spent a moment staring down at her father before she turned and went back into the living quarters. She quickly braided her hair into a long pigtail and wound it into a bun, which she fastened at the back of her head with a sharpened wooden dowel. She was not trying to pretty herself. She wanted to get her long hair out of the way. She didn’t want to give her enemies anything additional to hang on to, plus she knew that she looked more matronly with her hair in a bun.

Within ten minutes, Journer had a bundle together and was ready to leave. She reentered the dining area and watched as Willa and Sarah helped her mother carry her father to a chair. Blood was flowing down the side of his head and he seemed addled and confused. Journer waited until they had situated him comfortably before she spoke. “I’m leaving now,” she said.

Her mother looked up and asked quietly without rancor, “You leavin’ us to stand it alone or can we count on you?”

“Don’t worry about yo’ restaurant! I know what’s important to you! I’ll keep my appointment! You got yo’ restaurant! You don’t need me! I ain’t ever gon’ set foot in this place again! And I swear to God, I never want to see you or talk to you as long as I live!”

Mary wailed, “Don’t say that, Journer!”

Journer waved to her sister and aunt and walked back through the living quarters to leave by a seldom-used door that let out onto a small pathway that ran between several small buildings. She waited for several minutes, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness before she set out into the shadows of the night.

•  •  •

Ajax Braithwaite sat up with an effort. His head was pounding like a giant church bell and there was an attendant ringing in his ears. It hurt every time he took an intake of breath. His side felt as if there was a knife penetrating his rib cage and his vision was blurry. The pain caused him to have a sense of disassociation as his thoughts tumbled over themselves, like children rushing out of the confines of a classroom.

“Lay back, Ajax. You got to rest,” admonished his wife. “You gon’ kill yourself if’en you don’t let your body heal.”

“Is they gone?” he asked through the red haze that seemed to come to rest just above his eyebrows.

“Yes, thank God. They left about an hour ago.”

“What did they take?” he asked, fighting to stay focused.

“They . . . uh . . . uh—”

“What did they leave with!” Ajax demanded. His voice was louder and more insistent. “What did they leave with?” He started calling. “Sarah? Journer? Willa?” Sarah and Willa came to the doorway of the bedroom.

“Can I get somethin’ for you, Papa?” Sarah asked with a husky voice. Even though he couldn’t see her, Ajax could tell that she had been crying. It was her voice that gave her away. “Where is Journer? Where is Willa?” He asked, forcing himself to speak clearly.

“I’m here, Brother Ajax,” Willa answered from the door.

Ajax looked in Willa’s direction. He could barely make out her shape in the doorway. She seemed to be part of the blurred darkness of the room. “Where is Journer?” He demanded. “Mary, what have you done?”

“I’m just tryin’ to help the family survive, Ajax.”

“What price have we paid for this?” Ajax asked, his voice suddenly soft.

Mary stuttered as she answered. “Journer is gon’ stay with Lester as a hostage until we give him the money for this week’s business.”

“Willa, Sarah, I need to talk with my wife in private,” said Ajax. He heard the shifting and shuffling of feet and then there was quiet. His wife was still sitting at the foot of the bed. He could hear her breathing. He took several breaths and asked in a trembling tone, “What did we get for Journer?”

Mary was infused with a growing sense of dread. With each question Ajax asked, she saw her plans falling apart at the seams. The very thing she had sought to avoid was going to occur. “This weren’t my idea, Ajax,” she explained. “It was Lester that brought it up. I offered myself first, but he wanted her. He was gon’ burn down the whole place with us in it. We had to give in.”

“Might as well have burned the damned place down. Every time I look at it from now on, I’m gon’ think, ‘Was it worth a daughter?’ ”

“You got to listen to me, Ajax,” Mary pleaded. “They was gon’ kill us! Not just me and you, but Sarah and Willa too.”

“What kind of lives they gon’ have now, under Lester’s foot? If he want ’em, he just gon’ take ’em. You think I can live with that? A man’s got to be a king somewhere in his life. Otherwise he got a pack of trouble keepin’ his dignity.”

“You and Journer always talkin’ about this here dignity. You just putting crazy notions in her head and mixing her up, makin’ her think she’s gon’ be more than just another hard-workin’ colored woman.”

“A notion is a powerful thing, Mary. ’Specially if you mix it with blood. It’s ’cause of notions and blood, this here country was born; ’cause of notions and blood, we’s free from slavery. Colored people need mo’ notions. And dignity is a mighty fine notion to have in yo’ chest. Anyway, ain’t much I can give my daughters but notions.”

“Them notions gon’ cost Journer somethin’ terrible,” Mary said.

“Not more’n she gon’ pay now!” Ajax rejoined as he pushed himself erect and stood, swaying stiffly. “Did he take her with him?”

“No, she told him that she’d be at his house by nine o’clock.”

“Ain’t got much time,” Ajax said. “Where are my clothes?”

“Whatchoo gon’ do, Ajax? Lester’s got a whole army. You’s just one man. You just gon’ end bein’ killed or hurt somethin’ terrible! Why can’t we try to get some members of the Merchants Association to help?”

“Ain’t time for all that jabberin’ before actin’. I got to go save my daughter now! Where is my clothes, Mary?”

“It ain’t the end of the world, Ajax. If’en you remember, I sold myself to a lot more than four men and we still had a life after it.”

“We was starvin’. I couldn’t get no work. Our chil’ren was gon’ die. We didn’t have no choice then, but we don’t want that life for our daughter!”

“She too good to do what I did for the family?”

“That ain’t it, ’cause ain’t nobody too good to sacrifice for the family, but this kind of sacrifice is one we wants to leave in the past. We don’t want that for our chil’ren. We wants things to be better for them than it was for us. Otherwise, why is we workin’ so hard day after day?”

Mary burst out, “Don’t go! Please don’t go, Ajax!”

“Ain’t no way I could hold my head up if I didn’t go after her,” he said as he pulled up his pants and strapped his best wooden leg onto the stump of his thigh. “Mary, you notice how people respect me, not treatin’ me like they treats other amputees? That’s ’cause I works at it. I works hard at pulling my share and I works on my spirit too. I knows no good can come from bitterness, but I can’t live with knowing that, while I drew breath, that DuMont dog had my daughter. What do I got that’s mo’ important than my chil’ren? Ain’t nothin’ I can think of; not even my life! I got no choice here. I got to go!” Ajax stood up and pulled a broadcloth tunic over his head. It was a homemade garment with two huge side pockets. Ajax turned back to his wife and said softly, “I couldn’t live with myself, Mary, if I let things lie. It’s the price of a backbone.”

“What good is that, if’en you’s dead? What good is it to me?” Mary asked, the tears trickling down her face.

“What good am I alive, if I ain’t got no insides? I wouldn’t be nobody you know or want to know! I lost my leg in the Battle of San Juan Hill. So I know the color of my own blood and I know seein’ it ain’t a bad thing if that’s the cost of doin’ right.” Ajax stumped over to the closet. He opened the door and pulled a twelve-gauge shotgun from a recess. He opened the breech and checked the action. He took a box of shotgun shells and emptied them into his tunic pockets. “I got to go now. If the Lord wills, I’ll return.”

At approximately the same time as Ajax was leaving the restaurant, Journer found King. She hadn’t really given thought as to what she would say or even what she might ask. As she was stewing over this problem, standing in a small waiting room on the first floor of the Beau Geste, King passed through the curtains that served as the door and entered the room. There was no recognition in his eyes when he looked at her, and his expression was not inviting. Journer stammered out an explanation. “Uh, sorry to trouble you, Mr. Tremain, but uh, I’m, I’m . . . I need help real bad. The DuMonts have my family in a squeeze.”

“So why are you telling me?” King asked.

Journer was speechless. King acted like he didn’t know her. A friend had told her that King was one of the high-rolling gamblers playing that evening in a big card game somewhere on the edge of Algiers. She had gone frantically to four different gambling establishments before finding the card game and she never once considered that King would not help her. “I came to you because you helped me before and because it’s the DuMonts that I got troubles with. They beat up my papa and they gon’ take me hostage ’til we pays protection money.”

“Okay, I helped you once,” King shrugged. “I still don’t see what makes this my business now.” He recognized her, but did not feel that there was any bond between them. Yet in one sense he was grateful to Journer for interrupting his card game. The cards had not been going his way and he had lost three hundred dollars. He thought perhaps the break in play would be sufficient to change the direction of the cards. Now he was staring into Journer’s beautiful face, listening to her tale of woe.

“You one of the few colored mens in this parish that ain’t afraid of them. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Look, I’m in a card game. There’s a two-thousand-dollar pot on the table and four hundred of it is my money. We took a five-minute break so that I could come out here. If I ain’t back in five, I lose my money.”

“Please,” Journer begged. “I don’t know what else to do, Mr. Tremain. Do I just give myself to them so they can use me until my family gets their money collected? What happens to me after I go to them, Mr. Tremain?” She dropped to her knees on the floor and sobbed.

The Braithwaites were one of the few families that stood up to Lester DuMont. King admired their courage. It was only right that he should come to their aid. “Let me finish this hand and I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’ll give you anything you want.” She started lifting her skirt slowly to insure he understood what she meant. “I’ll give you anything!”

“Drop your skirt, gal,” King said with a wave of his hand. “I’s helpin’ yo’ family! Ain’t no use in you humiliatin’ yo’self. I’m gon’ finish the hand and I’ll be back.”

“Thank God,” Journer gasped.

From outside the curtains, a voice called out, “Journer? Journer, where are you? Journer?”

Journer looked toward the door with anticipation. Phillip Duryea’s head pushed through the curtains and he saw her sitting on the floor. He stepped into the room with his fists balled. “What’s going on here? Journer, are you alright?” he demanded as he rushed to kneel at her side. The man wore his kinky hair close-cropped and appeared to be in his midthirties, about average height and build. He looked at King with an angry gaze. “Did you hurt her? The DuMonts pay you to hurt women?”

King looked at the man and said, “I ain’t the enemy!”