The Tragic Flaw (12 page)

Cicero follows his sister into the kitchen.

“You wouldn't be living your life this way if Daddy was around.”

“If Daddy what?” Lucia yells. “Look, Daddy already had a family and two daughters. He didn't need, or want, another one. Okay? Especially a black one!”

Ruth's quickly offended and she stops what she's doing to intercede, but Lucia's domineering personality is overwhelming, so she continues to rant.

“And if he already had a son, he wouldn't have
given
a fuck about you either!”

It's suddenly silent. Cicero, in deep thought, peers at the linoleum floor and considers what his sister just said. Then Ruth weighs in.

“Look, you two are family. Family is stronger than anything,” she says. “That's one thing your father believed in. Family is stronger than money, and stronger than the streets. You want to argue and fight? Save that for those so-called backstabbing friends of yours. But not in my house.”

Cicero's cell phone chirps and interrupts the discussion. He leaves the room and says a few words under his breath. Lucia sips her drink. Her toddler son is nowhere to be seen. Ruth finishes her housework then convenes to the living room for a tension-releasing cigarette. Her white blouse ebbs as she strides.

“Yea, okay,” Cicero confirms before ending his call. He slides into the living room and looks at his mother. She's clearly fatigued. Emotionally exhausted.

“I have to go,” he tells her. Lucia eyes him from the kitchen and merely shrugs, as her unsteady child tries to make his way up a thirteen-step flight of stairs.

C kisses his mother on the cheek, as he does every time he leaves her blessed presence. She always told him to cherish good-byes, because any one could be the last.

“Good-bye, Mother,” Cicero says. He then gazes toward his incensed sister, but she doesn't make eye contact. Drink in hand, he walks back into the small kitchen and tells her in his sincerest voice, “Good-bye, Lucia.”

He leans in to kiss her cheek, but she edges away. He's not offended.

“I love you anyway,
sorella
.”

Cicero walks out of the house, to be in the wind once again. But before he can get into his battered automobile, Ruth runs outside and catches him.

“Cicero. Wait a minute, Son.”

She gets close to him. Close enough to whisper.

“Son, you are not the master of the universe. You need to humble yourself.”

Cicero looks at her. Winds blow Ruth's hair into her face and she moves it away with her furrowed hands. Her thin nose and strong cheekbones help her remain as lovely as ever.

“There are forces at work greater than you, and you need to believe that. Call it God, Allah, Yahweh, or whatever, but you need to humble yourself, Son.”

He just smiles, then retrieves a knot of hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and slides it into his mother's hand.

“Take this,” he tells her, but she's reluctant.

He opens the car door and starts the engine. It purrs.

“Look, if you don't want it, give it to your church. I'm sure the preacher could use another Cadillac.”

And with that he drives off, leaving his mother standing there, clutching two thousand dollars.

Ruth saunters back into her home and shuts the door. Crestfallen, she peers at the collage of photographs over the fireplace, then edges closer as a small black-and-white snapshot catches her eye.

Her hair was longer then, fuller and with more sheen. His face didn't yet have the lines that cigarette smoke and scotch provide. She remembers that day, when she and Antonio first met and posed for this photograph. It was one of only a few.

At ninety-five degrees, it was a hot and humid midwestern day. Unleashed energy filled the air, the type of energy that only a Saturday can provide. This is when they met. Purple, red, blue, and green streamers flap from banners when the light breeze strikes them. It was officially titled “Nigger Day”: the only day of the year the local amusement park allowed blacks to attend. Ruth's prideful mother forbade her to go as she had every year she asked, but this summer she snuck and went anyway with her best friend.

Generally the piazza was about ninety percent black on this day, with a few European-descended stragglers sprinkled about, still demanding the usual unwritten courtesies and deference typical of this era.

But on this day, Antonio Romello and his crew were among the spread-out minority.

“Come on, Ruth, let's get some cotton candy,” her chubby friend Sandy demanded while tugging on her arm. Ruth was always easygoing and eager to please, so she went to the stand where the white vendors looked on with disdainful grimaces.

“What you gals want?” a gruff character asks.

“Two cotton candies, please,” Sandy says. The carnie prepares the girls' pink treats with obvious agitation. But their money is green just like that of the white kids who come there throughout the summer, so he serves them nonetheless.

The park is festive. Clowns and streamers and vivid colors are surrounded by laughing kids and cheerful teenagers.

Bobby socks, long straight skirts, French rolls, and straightened hair flood the park. Guys in pressed blue jeans and button-down shirts gaze at the young ladies as they stroll through the crowds giggling.

“Oh! Ruth! We just have to ride the Tornado,” Sandy insists with a mouth full of cotton candy, tugging on her friend's arm.

“No, Sandy, I can't. What if we get hurt or somethin'? If my momma found out she would kill me,” Ruth says. Her full breasts bulge through the off-white blouse her mother made.

“Oh, Ruth. It's just a little rolla' coaster. And yo momma ain't gonna find out. She's probably at home drunk.”

Ruth's face goes red. Her half-Cherokee mother grew up on an Oklahoma Indian reservation where drinking fire water and passing out or fighting was commonplace. And the mother of two carried that trait with her to Kansas City when she ran away from home as a teenager.

“That's not funny, Sandy.”

“I'm sorry, girl, but she won't know. Come on, let's ride it.”

Bouffant hair bounces and black-and-white saddle shoes kick up sand and gravel as the girls run to get in line for the popular Tornado. Sweat runs down their faces and backs with the sun beaming on them. Their virgin brown skin glistens in the heat.

And that's when they make eye contact. He would tell his friends it was her eyes that fascinated him the most, and she would say the same.

“Jimmy, you see her? She's fuckin' beautiful,” Antonio says of the voluptuous Ruth. He's clean-cut in a snug white T-shirt and blue jeans. His black hair is slicked back.

“Who you talkin' about, Tony?” a chubby Jimmy asks.

“That colored chick over there, she's unbelievable. I don't know what it is, but she's fuckin' gorgeous.”

His friends laugh.

“Get the fuck outta here. You bring her to the neighborhood and you'll both be runnin' for your fuckin' lives,” Jimmy yells. The guys stand in line for the Tornado with Ruth and Sandy right behind them. The park's segregation policy was out the window this day, allowing unheard-of first glances to evolve into affection, passion, and new life.

Ruth notices Antonio's gaze, and she becomes flushed in response.

Not one to be shy, Antonio speaks up first.

“Hey, how ya doin'?”

Ruth and Sandy are shy, and unsure of how to react.

“I'm fine,” she answers with a wide grin, looking down. Her teeth are snow-white and perfectly aligned. Since Ruth's family never complimented her on her looks, she fails to realize she truly is beautiful, and a compliment from an Italian boy was the ultimate form of praise, especially in Kansas City. These were the days when a black woman was usually a maid, or a nanny, or a housekeeper. Dolled up in her veiled hat and white gloves, she was docile, but quietly courageous. And often, in the concealed thoughts of others, she was seen as beautiful, by all races.

“Oh yea? So you been here before?”

“No,” Sandy butts in. “Ruth's momma won't let her.”

Ruth just smiles.

“Oh really?” Antonio asks. A red-and-white pack of Marlboros protrudes out his back pocket.

“So you're a good schoolgirl, Ruth?”

“Yes, I am.”

The line moves and Jimmy slaps his friend's arm.

“Come on, Tony, leave them colored broads alone.”

Sandy gives Jimmy an evil look, and he turns back around.

“So your name is Tony?” Ruth asks.

“Antonio. But my friends call me Tony.”

Ruth laughs.

“So what do you want me to call you?” His interest has unleashed a never-before-seen flirtatious side of her. Sandy is dumbfounded.

“You can call me whatever you want, gorgeous.”

The ride's operator opens the gate and motions to Jimmy and his crew to board the ride.

“Come on, you two are riding with us.”

Tony pushes Sandy into the two-seater car with Jimmy and he takes Ruth by the hand and leads her to their car.

Jimmy is pissed, as is Sandy, and they frown at each other.

The unlikely foursome spends most the day together. Riding rides, and inviting stares from everyone in the park, black and white. One park employee went as far as to deny them access to the Ferris wheel.

“We don't allow that here,” the old bearded man said, meaning interracial mingling.

For years, like many American cities, Kansas City's design was that of segregation. Certain streets were and still are well known as racial barriers. Twelfth Street to the north, Twenty-Seventh Street to the south. Indiana to the east, and The Paseo to the west. Crossing them could mean jail time, beatings, or filed missing persons reports.

Despite years of master-slave rape and even love affairs such as that of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, miscegenation was the worst taboo, publicly anyhow. Even cavorting with the olive-skinned Italians and Sicilians, who ironically had mixed blood with the Ethiopians, Egyptians, Moroccans and other Africans for centuries, was grounds for ostracism.

But on this day in the park, Ruth and Antonio fell for each other, for all of the Show Me state to see. He liked her innocence. She liked his charisma. He liked her beauty, she the power he exuded. Jaws dropped at the sight of them together. A few whites contemplated phoning the nearest KCPD precinct.

Jimmy and Sandy were the most uncomfortable, but they respected their friends too much to interrupt their fun, even though the tension was enough to suffocate a small child. Besides, it was one year after Alan Shepherd made his historic visit to space, so an inculpable Ruth thought anything was possible.

A young couple of fifteen or so pops out of a tiny photo booth grinning as wide as the Missouri River. Their snapshots, taken behind the shield of a yellow, orange and red-striped curtain, would be a treasured reminder of the glorious time they had in the hot sun at Nigger Day.

Antonio spots the booth.

“Hey, Ruth, would you like to take a picture?”

She thinks for a moment, then answers with a smile, “Yea, sure.” Short bangs hang just above her slanted eyes.

The sixteen-year-olds run over to the booth, take a seat, then pull the colorful curtain closed, leaving only their lower legs and feet exposed. Antonio drops a shiny dime into the machine, then
flash
.

They laugh.

Flash!

Antonio kisses Ruth's cheek.

Flash!

She blushes.

Flash!

They smile.

Kids of all ages and sizes run freely through the park eating nickel pretzels and hot dogs, toting huge stuffed animals with adult-like arrogance. They cherish this scrap of a day thrown to them.

The four prints come out, and the black-and-white technology helps further distinguish the couples' opposite skin tones.

Sandy steps in. “Ruth, we have to go. It's getting late, and yo momma's gon be lookin' for you.”

Ruth looks at her friend and realizes she's right. Lost in Tony's aura, she'd forgotten about her strict mother and that switch she used to tan her hide.

“What are you doing tomorrow, Ruth?” Antonio asks.

“I have to go to church with my momma,” Ruth tells him. “My daddy's the preacher.” Ruth's father was an uncaring philanderer who was rarely home, but he preached the Word with the enthusiasm of a homebound Israelite. Ruth loved him regardless.

Later that same year, the Supreme Court would decide that prayer in the public schools was unconstitutional, even though just a few years earlier the phrase “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. But in those days, religion was seen as an indicator of anti-Communism, not a conviction of the soul.