Celeste's Harlem Renaissance (11 page)

After several days passed but neither Poppa nor Aunt Society sent me any clothes, Aunti said we couldn’t wait any longer. “Let’s go shopping. What would you like?”

At first I pictured myself with a whole new wardrobe, then I trashed those dreams. Where would Aunti get the money to buy so much? “If I could have some more stockings, drawers, another waist, and another skirt or two, that’d be fine,” I said.

“Oh, more than that. I know a fabulous little place called the Twice As Nice store, where I get lots of beautiful things dirt cheap. What’re you frowning about? You object to secondhand clothes?”

“But you said you got your clothes from Madame Mercifal, didn’t you?”

“The Twice As Nice is very well known, Celeste. No cooties, lice, fleas, bedbugs, ticks, or other moving, biting vermin. Costume people go there all the time to buy period clothes for productions.” She smiled, then her face turned sharp. “I’ve no need to lie to you, honey. Madame gave me things, and I bought things, all right?”

“Yes, ma’am. Momma bought me secondhand things and we altered them. It’s not that. But when Aunt Society took over, she’d buy the ugliest clothes and alter them so bad I’d have darts going every which way, and the hems would be crooked. She was a seamstress, but not a good one.”

“Oh, you poor baby. Miss D alters my clothes. I never got the hang of it like your Grammaw and Elizabeth did. Stuck my fingers with the needles too much. She’ll do yours.”

She handed me a skeleton key on a string. “I’ve been meaning to give you one. I hardly ever lock the door, but maybe I should.”

We dressed quickly and soon were outside in the warm air. Was spring here at last? When we passed Madam C. J. Walker’s shop, I saw ladies with bibs sitting in chairs, hair all over their heads or wrapped in towels. We walked and walked
and
walked, but I hadn’t got tired and my dogs weren’t barking yet so I guess I was getting stronger. We turned a corner and suddenly we were in the middle of a burst of stores, honking cars, tall buildings, and people.

We wandered in and out of shoe stores, tailor shops, men’s and women’s clothing stores. Some folks sold shirts, shoes, and ties out of sacks right on the sidewalk. A man in a large, crowded stall shouted and fussed at people eating grapes out of his baskets and squeezing mangoes. Spicy pork rinds and sweet potato odors from open-air carts mingled with the fragrance of baked bread and beer from restaurants. Signs swayed everywhere:
CABBAGE, HAM HOCKS, AND POTATO PLATE SERVED FRESH DAILY. GERMAN BEER HERE. HOT GARLIC BREAD AND SPAGHETTI LUNCH SPECIAL. CURRY GOAT AND FRIED RICE JUST LIKE HOME IN JAMAICA.
Cooked goat? Who’d want to eat a billy goat?

A woman cooking pig’s feet, corn on the cob, and other food at a small, steaming cart waved at my aunt. “How’re you doin’ on this pretty day that the Lord has made?” she said to us.

“I’m about as fine as frog hair.” Aunti laughed.

“Since a frog ain’t got hair, least not any you can see, then you got to be awfully fine,” the woman said, and laughed. She nodded at me. “Who’s this?”

“My niece, Celeste, from North Carolina. Celeste, this is Pig Foot Mary, one of our fine Harlem entrepreneurs,” Aunti told me.

“Have an ear on me,” Miss Pig Foot Mary said, and handed me an ear of corn. What a funny name! I thanked her and munched while she and Aunti talked. It tasted as good as our North Carolina corn.

“Miss Mary owns whole buildings that she bought with money she made selling food right here in the street,” my aunt said. “With all the money you got now, you could stop cooking.” Aunti slapped Miss Pig Foot playfully on the arm.

“Not quite. I got my eye on another place to buy and fix up here on Lenox before I quit my pots.” They jabbered some more, than we walked on.

Aunti said that Lenox Avenue was one of her favorite streets in Harlem. “You can see and buy or trade anything you want here. And just look at Pig Foot Mary! Buying buildings! You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but she’s rich. She’s an example of what a Colored woman can do.”

I clucked and marveled aloud, but inside I was thinking that it seemed like almost everybody but Aunti Val was making money. That was why I was saving the money that Poppa had given me, and trying to save the little bit I received from Aunti. Today, though, I planned to buy some licorice! I hadn’t got hold of licorice since I bought some at the pharmacy back home, seemed like months ago.

We edged around a grinning man in a red vest and hat, playing an accordion. A real monkey perched on his shoulder. It was brown and about as big as my shoe, with tiny paws and a wizened face. The monkey wore a matching vest and cap. It chattered and held out a tin cup to me, watching me with its beady black eyes.

“Can that monkey dance?” I asked my aunt. “I saw one dance at our fair back home.”

“Only if you put money in its cup first.”

Considering how hard I’d had to work to get those nickels, giving one to a monkey would be a waste of good money. Across the street three boys danced the ham bone, slapping their legs and chests with their hands. A man walking by threw some pennies to them. One boy stopped long enough to snatch up the coins.

Soon we reached the Twice As Nice shop. We were the first customers of the day. Aunti was right about the beautiful clothes! Thick otter, raccoon, and fox furs sprawled on tables, their tiny glassy-eyed heads and clawed paws still attached. Red, green, orange, and blue feather boas coiled like fuzzy snakes on shelves. High- and low-heeled women’s shoes and pumps, children’s high-top, black patent leather, and Buster Brown shoes, and men’s boots, brogans, and moccasins lined more shelves. Boys’ and girls’ blue sailor suits, boys’ knickerbocker knee-pants suits like the one Big Willie wore, dresses, floor-length hobble skirts, fancy embroidered middy blouses and other waists, and coats, sweaters, and jackets hung on hangers and on dress dummies. My mouth watered. I wanted them all.

“Pick out what you want,” Aunti told me, “and then we’ll sort through them and buy what I can afford. This’ll be my welcome to Harlem gift to you, even though I’m late.”

Loaded down with four skirts, underclothes, a dressy red waist with a lace collar, three fancy white embroidered waists, a white crinoline dress, and a yellow dress similar to the one I had lost, we finally left the Twice As Nice. “Is that better?” Aunti asked.

“Thank you, thank you! Better than my birthday and Christmas both,” I said happily. “I can’t wait to try them on.” On the way back we stopped by a little grocery and bought some food fixings, and my favorites, red licorice and lemon drops. We ended up at the Café Noir Le Grande for our main meal. Monsieur Le Grande kissed our hands again, fed us bread and oxtail soup, and gave us more food to carry home.

We passed a big building with a sign that read
UNIVERSAL NEGRO IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION.
Men in military uniforms stood outside the doors, and red, black, and green flags fluttered from the windows. “This is the headquarters of the Honorable Marcus Garvey,” Aunti said. She sounded excited. “He’s from Jamaica, working on being king of the Colored world. He travels all around the world, when he’s not in jail.”

“Is he a criminal?”

“Well, he has these plans and dreams, see, but the government doesn’t like him or his plans. He’s trying to buy boats the size of Noah’s ark so Colored people can take what we make in our factories to sell everywhere. I bought shares of stock when I still lived with Madame Mercifal.” She stopped. “Wonder what I did with those things? They’re supposed to make us rich. Hope I didn’t throw them away. See those red, black, and green flags flapping all over Harlem? Like my flag hanging on my door at home? That’s his flag. People love King Garvey.”

“I see,” I said, but I didn’t. I didn’t know whether to smile or frown. And how could he sell pieces of boats — Aunti called them “shares of stock” — to people and make money? How could she forget where she’d put stuff that was supposed to make her rich?

As we walked along, I thought about the Colored people I knew who owned businesses. Mr. Stackhouse, of course. The Bivenses with their wagon and herbs. Mr. Lightner. Mr. Berry O’Kelly, the mayor of nearby Method. He had his own high school, and was in charge of the Negro State Fair. We had Colored lawyers, and doctors like Dr. Pope, and teachers. Bishop Henry Delany was in charge of Saint Augustine’s School, and all his children were professionals. There was Shaw University. Over in nearby Durham was Dr. James Shepard, who started up a college for Negroes, too. I met him one time in the pharmacy. Poppa paid premiums to North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company every month. It was the biggest Colored insurance company in the world, right in Durham.

But I didn’t know anybody Colored anywhere who owned big boats or huge factories. In fact, the only big boats I had ever heard of were the
Titanic
and the
Lusitania,
and both of them sank. But maybe Mr. Garvey’s boats wouldn’t.

Once we reached home and rested, I modeled my new clothes and admired myself in the mirror. Aunti said I looked just like Momma, which made me stand even straighter.

“You got your glad rags today. You got coins jingling in your pocket. What else do you need to have to be a Harlem Queen of Sheba?” Aunti said, shaking her shoulders and slapping her hip.

I touched my greasy hair. “Can we —”

“Oh, my, yes, let’s get to that hair!”

At last! Her fingers massaged my scalp in sudsy Madam Walker shampoo she had on hand. She washed it the same way Momma had. My chest ached with remembering. I didn’t want her to stop.

“Don’t feel bad that you have short hair,” she was saying. “You’re right in line with that new ‘bob’ style. Lean your head back so I can rinse it with this rosemary and lavender water. That’ll make it smell really nice. After you dry it good, I’ll oil it with Walker’s pomade. I can’t imagine anybody smearing nasty lard in a child’s hair nowadays the way Society did. We’ll get your hair pretty again, and it’ll grow, too.”

“Just like Momma used to do.” Tears stung my eyes, but it wasn’t from the rinse.

“Just like Elizabeth would do.” She patted my cheek. “Don’t worry, Cece. Living with me in New York won’t be so bad. I promise you.”

Chapter
Nine

N
ow that the days were warmer, people paraded up and down One Hundred Thirty-sixth Street every Saturday and Sunday in their best clothes, just strolling! If we weren’t too tired, we strolled along with them, smiling and exchanging greetings. When we could afford it, we stopped at little restaurants and sampled their foods. One Sunday, Aunti persuaded me to try something purple at a Japanese place. It was kind of rubbery but tolerable — until she told me it was baby octopus. I imagined little arms wiggling all down my throat. I held that thing in my mouth until she turned her head. Then I spit it out in my napkin.

These days, when Aunti asked me if I liked being in New York, I’d say, “Oh, yes!” I wasn’t falsifying. Now that it was warmer, I
did
like New York more than when I had first arrived. But I surely hadn’t expected to come here without Poppa.

I wrote Aunt Society that we lived on the third floor in the middle of Harlem, to make her think we had a fabulous view. But you have to have a window to have a view. I still didn’t like scrubbing New York floors. I also remembered thinking about how I’d wished to get away from Aunt Society. I should have been more careful back home about what I wished for.

One night after we had wearily hoisted our backsides up the stairs into our mouse hole of a room, Aunti pulled a letter from her skirt pocket as she eased down to the bed. “I meant to give you this earlier. It came yesterday, but I forgot.”

From Poppa! “How is my girlio?” his letter began. I read his letter aloud while Aunti listened and rubbed her small, shapely feet. “ ‘I eat plenty of beef, oatmeal, and boiled eggs to build up my strength. The azaleas are blooming, and everything is green. I feel pretty good.’ ”

“That’s wonderful,” Aunti murmured.

“ ‘I sleep in a large room with three other men, but I don’t mind. We each have a corner for ourselves, and lots of windows. I get up at five thirty every morning to milk four cows. I was a fisherman, not a farmer, so I’m all thumbs with these cows. By the time I finish milking one cow, the milk in the bucket of another one’s turned sour.’ Oh, Poppa!” I giggled. I hoped a cow wouldn’t kick him.

“Taylor, Taylor.” Aunti chuckled, shaking her head.

“Listen, Aunti. ‘I got your letter and talked with Aunt Society on the phone. I told her about your clothes problem. She hasn’t come to see me yet. You know how she hates to travel by car, and she refuses to go anywhere in the Bivenses’ wagon.’ ”

“She never moved fast if she didn’t want to.” Aunti smeared face cream on her cheeks and forehead. “She’s so old-fashioned.”

“But so slow she can’t write to me or send me clothes? I wrote to her, too.” I sighed with a little bit of frustration, then read on. “ ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but I couldn’t have stood it at all if you’d had to be with those Hugelburger women out in the sticks. Talk loud when you speak, girlio. Say your prayers. I feel bad that your things were stole, but the Lord’ll make a way for you to keep on without them. Love to Valentina. Mind what she says. With more love than ever before, your dear Poppa.’ ”

“My dear Poppa. I miss you so much!” I wiped tears off my face so they wouldn’t wet up Poppa’s letter, and sighed again.

“I’m glad your father feels better,” Aunti said. “And see? Time’s flying by. You’ll be back home before you know it.”

“And maybe you can come back with me,” I said, still sniffling.

“But don’t you like it here?” She laughed. “Eating all that octopus?”

We talked some more about Poppa’s letter as we got ready for bed. I picked up my brush and began giving my hair one hundred strokes. Ever since Aunti and Madam C. J. Walker took over my hair, I’d made brushing it a habit, no matter how tired I was. I wanted to grow hair! I think it was growing, a little. It was a lot smoother, and smelled like lavender now. I wrapped a silk scarf around my head to keep my hair neat, and snuggled in by my aunt.