Counternarratives (24 page)

“Now Red,” he said, “you been with a woman, right?” I nodded, even
though I never gotten any further than kisses with Rosaline. Dandy studied my face
in the darkness. “That hinky midnight girl I seen you with before, she probably
ain't really give you any, though. Nothing like this.” Then: “You go first, my
treat.” I shook my head, which felt so light it might separate from my neck, and
again started toward the door, but Dandy said, “You gonna get you some of this grade
A first.” I was trying to decide what to do when I saw the lady putting her
hand between her thighs, saying something I couldn't understand, it was in a foreign
language and I was already dizzy but getting excited too, I knew being in this room
with this white woman was forbidden and if they caught us they would hang us, but
Dandy was stroking the outside of his pants and saying “She and I is both waiting,
Red,” so I looked for a place to put my clothes. I untied my cravat and removed my
shirt and waistcoat, then started to remove my boots when Dandy said, “Naw, leave
everything on but tie and shirt, put them on this chair right here, we gotta hurry
and I sure 'on't wanna see ya little red ass.” He pulled a long knife from
somewhere in his suit coat, which he draped over the edge of the chair. Following
his lead I left my shirt, tie and waistcoat there, unbuttoned my pants, and shuffled
to the bed, where the woman kept saying “Leave, leave.” I told Dandy that she was
telling us to go away and he said, “Fool, she saying she want you in German, hurry
up.” I climbed onto the bed, I could smell her woman smell, and from somewhere shit
and vinegar, the sheets were damp but not soaked, I couldn't really see her face
because she still was concealing it under a pillow, maybe I didn't want to see it, I
could see her back curving up white as soapstone in front of me, her behind as fair
arching, the thick fair hair on her sex, I leaned closer, kneeling, my knees sinking
into the soft mattress, and—

—Dandy was next to me saying, “Put it in, Red,” as she hiked her
buttocks up to me and threw her head around to see me, I glimpsed her face and saw
she was probably the same age as the brother at the door, her long brown hair
falling all over her back as she took me in her, Dandy putting me hard in her,
pressing us together and I thought of Rosaline and how this felt. I started to push
into the softness, the woman sliding back and forth, I reached down to grab her hips
and at that moment I thought about Horatio and how he had described this all once, I
could see him and kept pushing harder, my hands on her sweaty hips, she pulling my
insides out of myself and I shot out everything like I had never done before and
cried out as Dandy pulled me away, handed me the knife and a handkerchief and said,
“Use that bowl of water there to clean yourself up good,” and I stepped off the bed
as he clambered onto it, telling me, “Soon as you done cleaning up good guard that
door,” and she barked out something and he grunted and started pumping and I almost
forgot to wash myself, his pants fell around his knees and he gripped down between
her thighs and still hard and aroused again I couldn't stop watching them, his dark
mounds hammering back and forth, her legs clamping onto his. “Red,” he said glancing
at me and I checked the door, it was still closed and he howled real loud and shook
and she screamed out “Leave, leave” till he jumped up and said, panting, “You
cleaned up completely?” and “That was good, right?” and “Way we did it she won't get
knocked up by neither of us bulls,” and he grabbed the handkerchief from me and
scrubbed himself several times, as the woman sat up in the bed, now calling out to
us. Dandy said, “See, you done made her forget her real man,” then “Red, tie your
tie, “ he straightened it for me, took the knife, donned his suit jacket, when all
of a sudden we heard a street whistle and banging—

—Dandy threw open the door, his eyes darting, “I seen stairs,” I said,
he seized my hand and I led him to them, there was a white cop's voice, maybe two,
below us, no sign of the brother outside our door, we could hear chairs being
overturned below us and somebody screaming as something tumbled down the stairwell,
we were halfway up to the roof when Dandy said, “My hat, Cuz, you go on!” and I told
him, “I'll wait, I can't leave you,” and he say, “No, you got to get to your job,”
and I realized I forgotten all about it, I was probably already late, but I told
him, “I can't leave you,” the white voices were ascending, nearing us, we could hear
the batons or maybe tire irons hitting the walls, bannisters, flesh, I stayed there
on the stairs as he ran back and I heard a cop voice holler, “It's a god-awful hive
of 'em,” and Dandy yelled from the room, “You got to go, I don't want you to
get sent up, they'd break our necks for that white girl,” but I did not move till he
came barreling up behind me pushing me through the hatch onto the roof, it was
evening now, the roofs of Philadelphia like silver-black waves, strewn with pearls
and gold.

Dandy replaced the hatch, but we could still hear voices just below us
and he said, “Red, we gonna to have to jump,” and I said, “Where, off the roof?” not
even thinking about how we would reach the street, and he pointed, “Over there,”
from the stretch of roof we stood on to one lower, then there was another with a
parapet, and the hatch started to open and he stomped it back closed and said,
“Let's go,” so we rared back and sprinted and soared—

—Onto the next roof half a story below, I hit the surface first and
skidded to a halt, Dandy did the same thing, we stood and ran and jumped again, onto
the parapet roof, rolling as we landed, “One more,” he said and we leapt, over a gap
my whole body length, closing my eyes upon as we crossed it, I spotted a chimney and
a water tank and we hid ourselves behind them, Dandy clutching his hat and laughing,
“Red, even in the dark it's clear you black as a chimney sweep,” and I looked at
myself and him, he appeared to be all smeared in tar, his face and palms and shirt,
like my cravat and tie and waistcoat, my pants and palms all black and sticky, even
my hair, a thick layer of pitch from one of the roofs all over both of us, and we
could hear the cops yelling from the building but they couldn't see us, and they
were not about to jump. I knew once we somehow came down there was no way I could
show up like this at Mr. Linde's, and I tried to think of an excuse to tell Dameron,
but began formulating plans to talk to his rival, Mr.
Th
omas Dorsey, first thing Monday about joining his catering company
since I already foresaw what was going to happen. Dandy was still laughing and
saying in a low voice that rode the blackness, “You hear them cops still up there
trying to figure where we disappeared to?” and “You know I want to do that with you
again,” and “Red, Cuz, you really flew!”

D
ameron fired me and must have sent word to Mr. Dorsey, who refused to
bring me on, so I got only a few jobs here and there with the smaller caterers.
Sometimes when I was julienning carrots or making a roux I formulated the extreme
idea of working down on the docks, though I also thought it was a good idea to avoid
being anywhere near the Schuylkill, because if the cops didn't spot me one of them
from that house might, while the Delaware side, brimming with far more wharves, was
not only locked down by immigrants, but Dandy's usual territory. Jonathan wanted to
know what had really happened, though I would not tell him, but I considered asking
if he could get me on with his boss, Mr. Kahnweiler, though in truth I didn't want
another job in his shadow nor be a stockboy. I recounted the story to Horatio, only
I said the woman was one of us, I was ashamed to tell him the truth, just like I
didn't tell Dandy I'd thought of Horatio when I was with her. Nevertheless Horatio
asked me to describe it over and over, to paint a spoken picture of me and then
Dandy inside her. I tried not to think about what happened though whenever I patted
my empty pockets I cursed and then grinned at the memory of that evening with my
cousin.

Wherever I went now during my searches for work, everybody, black and
white, seemed to be talking about the war, how the Southern states just kept leaving
and the Confederates were eventually going to invade Pennsylvania, how there would
soon be no more slavery and how, they said at the barber, they'd put us all in bond
if Richmond was not defeated. There were appreciably more white men in uniforms in
the streets. Sometimes the white people even seemed to treat us a little better than
usual, sometimes, as I found in Independence Park or on the streetcars, worse. Once
I was shoved off after paying, another time a rider, decrying the fact that there
was a war going on at all, spat a brown stream of tobacco juice in my direction. The
summer came and then was nearly gone, I all the while doing my occasional cook prep
jobs, because there weren't that many special events or parties, hoarding every
penny, just waiting for the Academy lectures to start again. Mostly I walked the
avenues looking, for jobs, for something, anything, from one end of the city to the
other, checking in at the Gas Works and the Arsenal, the railway stations and the
hospitals, but nobody wanted to sign me on because they already had workers or
weren't hiring us or because I was still too young.

One hot August Sunday evening I met up with Horatio near Washington
Square. We were just ambling and sharing a cigar and, as if an invisible fuze
exploded in my head, I said, “I'm going to go work with Mr. Robins' friend,” and he
said, “Who?” and I said, “'Member, at the last Academy talk, about the air
balloons?” and he said, “How you even recollect that?” and he laced his arm around
my shoulders and took the cigar from my lips and rolled it in his and said, “Colored
can't fight in this war, specially not no 16-year-old,” and I said, “I heard them
talking at the barber about it, they asking the president to allow colored
volunteers and troops,” and he traced something on the back of my neck and said,
“Well, you ain't even grown enough to muck out stables yet,” and I pushed him away
and said, “I'm telling you, I'm going to go work for Mr. Robins' friend, I still got
his carte de visite,” and I thought about showing it to Horatio, since I had been
walking around with it in my pocket for weeks, but instead I said, “I'm even going
to go to Washington if I have to,” and he yanked me back to him, pushing the cigar
in my mouth and said, “You can be a admay li'l ignay, Edray, know that?” then “What
that white man name again?” and I say, “Mr. Edward Linde,” and he asked, “Ain't he
related to that man reason you got fired?” and I said, “Maybe”—though from the card
I knew they shared the same address—“but the old man was throwing that party
and he ain't know who was supposed to be there, Dameron got rid of me cause I never
showed up
and
ruined them clothes, plus my latenesses, even though I only
ever missed one other party and was late just a handful of times.” Horatio paused,
observing me, then said, “He give you your job back come September, can't nobody
stay angry at you long,” and I said, “Nobody cept Rosaline, though I don't care,”
and Horatio winked at me and said, “We both know why.” But I didn't. Instead of
asking what he meant I said, “Well, I'm going to go work with Mr.
Edward
Linde, and that Professor Lowe,” and Horatio laughed and hugged me so tight I
couldn't breathe and I wrestled him off me and punched him in his chest, he chasing
me, still laughing, all the way up Locust.

The next morning I woke early, scrubbed myself completely, and put on my
nicest shirt and trousers. As soon as Mama and Jonathan had left the house I headed
up Broad to Mr. Linde's near Rittenhouse. I tried not to get all sweaty but it was
hot as a griddle outside, and I was nearly soaked through when I reached the front
door, so I patted myself down with the handkerchief Dandy had given me, my souvenir
of our last adventure.
Th
e house sat back from the
street behind a stone wall, broken by a black wrought iron gate with the letters
AVL
, in a circle, in its center. I let myself in since
it was not locked, and walked down a brick path through a garden full of flowers and
statues. Using the gold-plated knocker I rapped gently. A man with gray hair in a
blue livery suit opened the door, looked at me then behind me, curiously, and said,
“You got a delivery for Mr. and Mrs. Linde?” and I answered, “I am here to speak to
Mr. Edward Linde.” At this the man scrunched up his face, shook his head and said,
“Boy, come again?” and I repeated, “I am here to speak to Mr. Edward Linde, Sir, the
scientist.”
Th
e man stared at me, then said, “Wait
here,” and I remained there, half-watching coaches passing, small groups of
elegantly dressed people heading toward the square, wagons making deliveries.
Th
e man returned to the door and hissed, “Go out the
front and come around the alley, I'll meet you at the gate near the stable.” He was
still looking like he couldn't believe I was there, but I obeyed his instructions,
walked all the way around the wall till I found the alley, where he was waiting for
me at another black gate, this one locked. I could see through it that the rear
garden was even bigger than the one in front and the house, which was three stories,
was immense too.

“What you want with Mr. Edward Linde, ‘the scientist'?”

“I work at the Academy—” and before I finished he cut me off.

“If you got a message for him from them tell it or hand me the paper.
I'll pass it on to him.”

“No, Sir,” I say, “I ain't—didn't—finish. I work at the Academy and I
met Mr. Linde there, and he told me he going to work with Professor Lowe, who also a
scientist working with balloons, and—” Shaking his large head, the silvery tufts
rising like wings from the bluish-brown crown, he waved for me to stop.