Tell Them Katy Did (4 page)

“You always was full of it.” She looked pleased anyway.

“Don’ you pay no mind to that shit, is what I’m sayin’. Jes somepin a man gets used to when he inside, is all.”

“Maybe. Tha’s what you say. What you did, last night, though, you didn’ get used to that in no prison.”

He tossed his head back and forth on the pillow, like he was tryin’ to get something inside it to come loose. “Fuck. I oughtn’ of done it, I know that, it was like I jes go crazy all a sudden. I don’ know where it come from. Just somepin got into me, come over me out of nowhere. Like the devil done took me over.” She looked unconvinced. “Tha’s the truth, I never even thought of nothin’ like that before, I swear it. It was like somebody else doin’ it, like I wasn’ even there.”

“Uh huh. Like the devil do it. Don’ make no difference, I’m tellin’ you, they gonna burn your ass for it, make no matter where it come from, burn the devil’s ass too an’ he say anything. Been different if’n it a colored boy. You mighta got away with it if he colored, nobody mind much about a colored boy. But a white boy…”

“I know, I know. An’ they finds me, they string me up for sure.”

“’Cept, they finds you here, they be stringin’ me up with you.”

“I jes didn’ have nobody else to turn to, you know what I’m sayin’?”

“You already say that. Won’t hep my neck none when they puttin’ a rope ‘round it.”

“I’m goin’, I swear it. Soon’s I can.”

She study him over good. “Don’ look to me like you goin’ anywhere, not an’ on your own. How’d you git here, is what I like to know?”

“I git here, is all. An’ I be goin’, too. I go right now, an’ you say I got to. Jes get me down them stairs, an’ you won’ see nothin’ but my ass on the way out the door.”

“They be shootin’ your ass, they see you, make no matter whether you is goin’ or comin’. You jes has to wait here till mornin’, is all. I have the boys bring you down later on, ’fore it git light, they carry you over by the railroad track.”

“Long as it okay with you, is all I’m sayin’.”

“An’ I ain’ sayin’ it okay, neither, I just saying tha’s how it be.”

“Tha’s okay, then, tha’s the best thing, what you say. We wait till mornin’, then I be outa here. Ole Rufus’ll hep, won’t he? He wouldn’ turn me in, would he?”

“Rufus know to keep his mouth shut. He don’ want strung up neither. You didn’ jes make trouble for yoursef, fool, you make trouble for every darkie ’round about here. Everybody scared.”

“I understan’. I ain’ wantin’ to make no trouble for nobody. They put me by the tracks, is all they gots to do, I can manage the rest of the way. Once it start to get light, I jump me a freight, be long gone, won’ see me no more ’round these parts, I swear it.”

She looked at the wound in his side. It had stopped bleedin’ but it looked ugly, all red and puffy.
Prolly,
she thought
, it infected already
.
For sure he wouldn’ be jumpin’ no trains. Mos’ likely he end up under one. Or he jes lay there an’ die where they leave him. Wasn’ no worse than what’d happen to him if they catched him, though. Nothin’ she could do ’bout that—’bout any of it. She like him well enough, always had. He be her first, and they say you always sweet on your first. Not sweet enough she wantin’ to get herself kilt, though.

He closed his eyes, breathin’ heavy. She thought maybe he pass out, till he say, his eyes still closed, “You ever hear tell of the Midnight Special?”

“Tha’s a song, isn’ it? By that Lead Belly.”

His laugh turned into a cough that left his lips lookin’ like he been eatin’ berries. “Huddie Ledbetter,” he said, smilin’ around his pain. “He the king of the twelve string guitar. Shit, that boy could play a guitar an’ tha’s no lie. An’ sing, he sing like the angels, didn’ he?”

He hummed a snatch of off-pitch melody, ended up with, “Haah.” She thought that was a groan, but he did it again, and say, “Used to grunt like that ’tween verses, ole Lead Belly, say it the sound the men make on the chain gang as they bringin’ the hammer down.”

“S’at so?” She figure his mind was wanderin’. He looked feverish, and he be feelin’ hot when they carry him up. She brought him a tin cup of rusty water from the bucket and held his head while he drunk it down. She hoped he didn’ die ’fore she got him out of the house. They burn the house down, they find out she shelterin’ him here, and her with it.

“It’s a train,” he say out of nowhere.

“What you talkin’ ’bout, wha’s a train?”

“The Midnight Special. It a train be takin’ the prisoners from New Awlins out to Angola prison in the middle of the night. At midnight. So’s nobody can see ’em, I guess.” He silent for a minute. “There’s a hell hole for you, Angola prison. I’s there. Lead Belly too, jes not the same time as me, I mean. Worst place on earth. You get solitary, they put you in a metal shed out in the sun, like to bake you to death. Going to Angola same as goin’ to hell, is what they say. Them as been there.”

“Didn’ s’pose it no country club.”

He was quiet for a spell again, and she was fixin’ to leave him, when he say, “They’s a thing men tell at Angola. They say you see the Midnight Special, you see its headlight shinin’ on you in your cell at night, it mean you gonna be free by the morning.”

“Huh. Well, I don’ know nothin’ ’bout that, but I am tellin’ you, for sure you gonna be free of this whorehouse by mornin’, an’ tha’s the Lord’s truth. You git yousef some sleep now. I send the boys up when it be time. Not for a spell, though, too many people ’round.” She hesitated at the door. “You be wantin’ some food? Or a whiskey? I send Sukie up with a bottle, an’ you want one. You allus fancied your whiskey, seems like.”

“Nah, that’s okay. ’Bout whiskeyed out. I gonna sleep, is all. Wouldn’t mind me a cigarette, though.”

She found a pack in his pocket, lit one for him, put it ’tween his lips. He puffed greedily. She waited, and when he began to snore, she took the cigarette out of his mouth and stepped it out on the floor, and went back downstairs.

* * *

She was sittin’ down in the parlor next to some pecker-headed redneck, jigglin’ her titties for him and pretendin’ he was Diamond Jim Brady; Booger man playin’ some fine stride piano over by the bar, place jumpin’ now, when she spot Sukie hangin’ back in the doorway. Sukie saw her look and give her head a jerk.

“Where you goin’?” pecker-head asked when she stand up. “I got somepin down here hot to handle, I was thinkin’ we’d mosey on upstairs for a spell.”

“You sit right there and keep that ole thing of yours hot for Miss Marilou,” she say, “an’ I’ll be back ’fore you even knows I’s gone.”

“He up there yellin’” Sukie say, rollin’ her eyes toward the stairs. “Best quieten him down, ’fore somebody outside hear him.”

She climbed the stairs, out of breath by the time she got to the top. “Gettin’ too ole for this shit,” she muttered, pullin’ herself up by the railin’, stride piano trailin’ after her like cigarette smoke. She heard him callin’ her name ’fore she got halfway up: “Marilou. Marilou.”

“What for you be makin’ all this racket?” she demanded, slippin’ into the room and closin’ the door firmly behind herself. “You wantin’ to bring every sheriff deputy in the county up here?”

He was halfway sittin’ up on the bed, his brow shiny with sweat like it been waxed and his eyes a-glitterin’. He smell all gassy too, or maybe that the toilet bucket. Green and yellow splotches leakin’ through the blind. Piano tinklin’ faintly below. Away in the distance, a siren wail. She hopin’ it not comin’ here.

“I seen it, Marilou,” he say, all excited. “I seen it.”

“You seen what?”

“That ole train. The Midnight Special. I seen its headlight.”

“You out of your head. Them tracks half a mile from here, three quarters more like, plus the blinds is down tight on the window. Aint no way you seein’ no light from no train, not clear up here.”

“I seen it, I did, it was a-shinin’ right in my face. I’m goin’ free, I tell you. I be free by morning.”

He dropped back down on the bed again, eyes closed, breath rattlin’ in his chest. She look down at him, at the face use to be handsome, ugly now from pain, way she didn’ want to remember him. She feelin’ scared, and sad, too, wonderin’ how he come to this, on the run, hidin’ away in an attic. Dyin’, most likely. Even he git out of here, they have the dogs lookin’ for him by now. Dogs be better off than him.

She had to go, couldn’ stay up here. White man waitin’ for her downstairs
. His kind gits impatient, they don’t git what they wants when they wants it.

More sirens on the street, didn’t seem to be comin’ here though. Room hot as a stove. Lights flashin’ behind her. Music down below. That ole bucket stinkin’. All of it wrong, seemed to her. Wasn’ no way for a man to die. Man ain’ had no chance to live happy, seems like he ought at least die happy.

She be knowin’ him a long time, too. He wasn’ a bad man, not like some she could name. Brought her flowers once, she remembered that like yesterday. He be sweet to her, too, most the time.

What chance he have, though, a colored man in a white man’s town? What chance any of ’em have?

A last breath rattle in his throat and he be gone. He was right, she figure—he be free at last…. Only kind of freedom a man like him ever know.

She lean down, close his eyes. Saw where one of her tears fell on his cheek, but she left it glistenin’ there and went out the room.

Changing Views

“It isn’t much, I’m afraid.” Cliff held the door for Angela.

“I wonder that you live here, then,” she said with some asperity, going in before him. The short hallway went past the open door of a bedroom, past a small kitchen, and led into the living room. He took her coat from her and hung it on the back of a chair. She laid her purse on an end table, and looking around, wrinkled up her nose. There was a lingering smell of cooked food—onions, she thought. Cliff couldn’t boil water. Who on earth could have been cooking onions?

He shrugged. “It’s home.”

“Home,” she said, “is Chicago. And, speaking of which,” she added, turning to face him and lifting one eyebrow, “when are you coming home?”

He shrugged again and went past her, to the window overlooking the street. “It’s not much of a view, but you can just see the hills from here,” he said. “The lights are spectacular at night.”

“I did not come to San Francisco to enjoy the views,” she said.

He turned from the window, framed in the fading light. “But you should,” he said. “Enjoy the views, I mean. They’re here anyway, and so are you, and they’re lovely. It’s a lovely city.” He paused just a second or so too long before he added, “And you are lovely, too, Angela.”

She looked hard at him. He was still handsome, the handsomest man she had ever known. And they had only been apart a year—how much could anyone change in a year? He had, though, she could see that, even if she could not altogether put her finger on just what the changes were.

“Look at you, the way you’re dressed. I thought we were going to dinner?”

“We are.” He looked down at himself, spreading his hands. “What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?”

“For dinner? Jeans and a tee shirt? You would hardly have gone out the door without a jacket and tie, in Chicago.”

He smiled. She had a disconcerting feeling that he was amused—but by what? By her? As if she were overdressed, rather than the other way around.

“San Francisco is less formal, really. And the place we’re going, well, no one would be wearing a jacket and tie. Believe me, I’ll fit right in.”

“And maybe I won’t?”

He seemed to take that seriously. “You could leave the hat here, and the gloves. As a matter of fact, leave the jacket off your suit, and I’ll find you a sweater to put on.”

“I don’t think I need to change my costume. And you didn’t answer the question I asked you earlier. When are you coming back to Chicago?”

He sighed. “I don’t know, Angela. Truly, I don’t.”

“I went by the office.” She paused, waiting to see if he would offer an explanation. When he did not, she went on, “They told me you don’t work there anymore. They said you haven’t been there for six months or more.”

He smiled again. “It’s true. I was going to tell you about it at dinner.”

“But, that was the agreement. That was the plan. A year in Daddy’s office here, and then back to Chicago, and he would make you a division manager.”

“Yes. I decided actually that I found insurance boring.”

“What are you doing, then?” She did not ask the obvious: why he had not informed her that he had left her father’s company? Why, in fact, if he had decided he found the work boring, he had not come back to Chicago?

“I’m…I’m tending bar.”

“That’s ridiculous. What kind of money could you possibly make doing that? How could you think we could live on it?”

He turned to the window again. The sunlight had all but gone. On the street outside, a horn honked. “Look,” he said, pointing. “The lights are coming on up in the hills. Aren’t they beautiful? Like fireflies, I always think.”

She was about to make a sharp reply—and since when had he given any thought to fireflies?—when a key grated in the lock and a moment later, the front door opened, and a young man came in. He was slim and young and handsome, and he carried a laundry basket filled with neatly folded clothes.

“Oh, I’m sorry, excuse me,” he said, pausing at the bedroom doorway. “I thought you’d be gone.”

“Not yet,” Cliff said. There was an awkward moment as the three of them looked at one another. His remark notwithstanding, the newcomer did not look in the least surprised to have found them there. He looked, in fact, as if he had expected to.

“Well,” he said, “I’ll just put these things away.”

“Oh,” Cliff said, remembering his manners, “this is my wife, Angela. Angela, Joey.”

“How do you do?” she said, and he said at the same time, “Pleased to meet you,” and did not look it.

Another silence. The two men exchanged looks that she could only think of as significant—but of what, she had no idea.

“Well,” Joey said again.

“Yes,” Cliff said.

Joey went into the bedroom. They heard dresser drawers open and close loudly. A closet door slid on its track with a bang. Angela and Cliff stood in silence, both staring toward the bedroom. After a few minutes, Joey reappeared.