Whisper Town (19 page)

Mt. Zion Church bloomed at the culverts of those dried fields.

A ladies’ choir rehearsed a song about heaven. Jeb wanted to march, but, as a guest, he kept his feet still. They might take
offense. A soloist led the women and they echoed her chorus, a rising and falling of voices of an oceanic quality. Her blue
sleeves rose and fell along with the undulating vocals, the sound coming out of the choir was like strings pulled by her fingertips.
The ladies’ mouths formed into faultless, open ovals. The ladies’ swaying gave the choir loft a tidal feeling, a swelling
from the bottom octave rising into the eaves. The chief singer clapped her hands and those women stopped, not moving so much
as a toenail.

“Mister, you looking for someone?” she said to Jeb.

“Reverend Williamson, if I’m in the right place.”

A woman whose cotton-white hair pillowed around her temples and cheeks laughed.

“Sister Williamson, you want to tell this man where he can find your dear husband,” said the choir director.

The cotton-haired woman pointed way left and Jeb followed her signal into a short corridor. At the end of the hall, a sign
read
MINISTER’S STUDY.
Jeb knocked in a gentle manner. The door came open a hair.

A row of candles lighted along a primitive altar blazed in front of Reverend Williamson. He prayed in that light facedown.
His shoulders shuddered.

Jeb removed his hat. He took a chair a few feet away from the minister to wait for him to finish his morning prayers.

“Father, help my people. They going through some business that I can’t fix for them.” Williamson spoke trancelike, his voice
coming from the floor like a man hunkered down in a trench. “Evil is dwelling in our land. We don’t know which way to turn,
so we turn to you, Savior.” His fingers stroked the threads on the rug as though he gathered scattered grain into his palms.
“Help us to forgive them who throw stones at our children. Show mercy to men who torch our houses and take our little girls
for evil deeds.” His left arm stretched out behind him. His fingers waved in Jeb’s direction like a man giving the all clear.

Jeb bowed his head. He came down on one knee and then knee-walked until he reached Williamson’s altar. He felt like the new
man crawling into the trench, dumb to yesterday’s blood on the ground; still, he whispered, “God, you made your life breakable
so that we could eat from its bread. Make us breakable bread and then show us how to feed others.”

“Yes. Make our life a feast for hungry lives,” said Williamson.

Jeb prayed for God to give his people more love. Williamson prayed for God to give his people more grace.

Williamson’s hand rested on top of Jeb’s hand.

Jeb cried. Williamson slid him a handkerchief. Jeb didn’t care if he knew.

“I’d fix your coffee for you, but Louie says I don’t cream his enough,” said Jaunice Williamson. She gave both men black coffee.
“You got to hear our women’s chorus, Reverend Nubey. We got a nice sound, don’t we?”

Jeb told her, “I might have joined you, but you would’ve asked me to quit, right off.”

Jaunice had changed from her better dress into a housedress. “I hope you don’t mind fried chicken legs. We out of the other.”
She retied her apron. “Our daughter and her six live with us, and we run clean out of food by the weekend.”

“You got that dough rising, Jaunice. Make him up some bread. He’s our guest,” said Williamson. “She cooks all the time. Company
gives her a way to show off.”

Jaunice halved boiled eggs over a dish and creamed the yolks with mustard and pickle relish.

“Call me Louie,” he said. “We’re both clergy.”

“Of course, and call me Jeb. I hoped we could talk some more about the Blessed family.”

“I knew that was coming,” said Jaunice.

“Woman, keep to your kitchen chores,” said Louie. He kept his voice to a tender level.

“You in my kitchen. You respect me, beloved.” She could smile without moving her face.

“My apologies, dearest.” Louie let out a breath. “Jeb, the Blesseds have pride, John especially. He’s Lucky’s daddy. Growing
up black means you got to fight to hold on to things like self-respect. John takes it to degrees that is hard on a girl like
Lucky. He held that little girl’s feet to the fire so long, he might never get her back. Same with her sister, Jewel.”

“Jewel lives in town.”

“She and another girl rent a shack outside town. Jewel don’t have the kind of money to get herself anything better. Worst
of all, that place is only a mile up the road from the High Cotton Club.”

Jaunice let out some kind of undefinable noise, like air seeping from a tire.

“It’s not a real club like in the city, or one of them places operating over in Hot Springs. They high rollers over there.
This is a small-potatoes club. Wayne Jackson took an old cotton house and put in a bar and a jukebox and named it a club.
They got poker and gin. Lots of men looking for girls, like Jewel and her friend Colleen, who need a free meal and their beer
paid for and a body to dance with.”

“What did she do with Lucky nights?”

“That’s the question of the hour, Jeb.”

“Jewel left her sister and went honky-tonking,” said Jaunice. “That’s what!”

“I’ll tell it, beloved. Lucky is a good girl. She is a lot like her mother, that one. Maybe that’s why John and Lucky had
so much trouble. Vera is strong-minded. Lucky and Jewel fought every night Jewel and Colleen went out that door.”

Jaunice slid a plate in front of Jeb.

“Can’t tell you the last time I had fried chicken and potato salad,” said Jeb.

Jaunice gave them both a look of pure examination. “I’ll eat mine in the parlor. You men about to get into some things, I
can tell.” Jaunice gave her husband a sideways glance.

“I’m not divulging, Jaunice, not what I can’t divulge,” he told her. “My pumpkin forgets she can trust me,” Louie said to
Jeb.

“I understand you feel a need to protect the Blessed girls,” said Jeb. “What
can
you tell me?”

“How about I tell you how to get down to the High Cotton Club? Long about seven this evening, Wayne Jackson will bring in
a live band. You play the banjo. If I was you, I’d act like I was there to meet the musicians.”

“Banjo’s in my truck.”

“If you talk their talk, they’ll give you a chair to listen. If you see a thin, pretty black girl, a scar on her left cheek,
hair tied up with a flower, that’s Jewel. She’ll come prancing in, wearing a fur.”

“It’s fake fur.” Jaunice leaned out of her chair to say it.

“Big gold earrings. Bangles all up and down her wrists. She knows how to get attention.”

“Jewel might talk to me about Myrtle?”

Jaunice huffed. Both her feet lifted—heels down, toes up.

“See if she brings up the subject,” said Louie. “I’m not saying she’ll tell you everything. John Blessed still has control
of his girls even if they’re no longer under his roof. That family has its own code. Only way she’ll ever tell you anything
is by winning her trust.”

“Code, my foot!” said Jaunice.

Daylight lingered, a pale blue January sky near the color of twilight. The moon’s surface could almost be made out, a watery
blue and pale. The lights of the High Cotton Club flickered like swamp mosquitoes against the sunset. The club’s name shone
in bright white letters on a blue background. Neon pink cursive spelled out Wayne Jackson’s name above the club name and a
silhouette of a cheek-to-cheek dancing couple hung off the sign, fastened by iron rings.

A guitar player swayed through a back door, hugging his instrument case. He and someone unseen clapped hands. Another fellow
came right behind him, carrying two sets of drumsticks. Both men wore dark fedoras and the second wore a vest the color of
orange rind.

Jeb picked up his banjo case and approached the door.

A man whose size filled the doorway raised his chin. He stared down at Jeb. “What you doing here?”

“Wayne Jackson hired a band, didn’t he?” Jeb’s face lost all feeling except for a tingling around his ears that reminded him
of a beating he had taken as a boy.

“I’m Wayne Jackson.” The voice came from behind Jeb. “But I don’t know you.”

The bouncer dislodged himself from the doorframe. “Want me to remove the white boy, Wayne?”

Wayne Jackson was dressed in dark trousers, something like navy blue but it could have been black. The blue shirt he wore
covered his belly like a tent. No jacket off the rack could have fit those shoulders.

The guitar player stepped sideways into the doorway, twisting the keys, making eye contact with the white interloper. He looked
Jeb up and down and then said something to one of the men inside.

Jeb wanted to send a signal to the guitar picker, a code shared by musicians, something that said that musicians don’t let
other musicians get dropped off a bridge or tied to a train track.

“Is that a banjo?” the guitar player asked.

Jeb fumbled for the case. He flipped open the latch and pulled the banjo out by the neck.

“Joe, we got us a banjo picker,” he said.

The bouncer looked disappointed.

Wayne Jackson and the band leader, a guy everyone called Joe Geronimo, discussed the set. Jeb stuck out his hand and nearly
inaudibly thanked the guitar player for saving his hide.

“Joe’s been moaning about a banjo player. Here you show up. It was like magic.” He introduced himself as Harry.

“Harry, I’m Jeb.” Jeb could not add a lie on top of his arcane presence with a false name.

“We do dance numbers, at least that’s what we do at the High Cotton Club. That’s all these people want, at least. You trying
out for the band?”

Jeb had not gotten up the nerve yet to talk to Joe, so he kept talking so that only Harry could hear. “I’m not really here
to join the band.”

“Don’t tell that to Wayne Jackson.”

“Do you know a girl named Jewel Blessed?”

“This is only my second time to play this club. Maybe ask Daniel. He’s our drummer. He’s from around here.” Harry initiated
their meeting, talking quietly to Daniel before backing up and allowing Jeb into their circle.

“Daniel, nice to meet you,” said Jeb.

“Jeb, let me give you a one, two, three, and then, Harry, you do some riffs, and then banjo man here will take us into the
night. Jeb, you do know jazz banjo, right?”

“I can pick some jazz,” said Jeb. He felt idiotic trying to talk jazz with real musicians.

Daniel let out a whoop and tore into his drums like a man driving bats from the rafters.

Jeb picked up the key from Harry and hung with them on the song.

The waitresses listened outside the kitchen doors.

Wayne Jackson mouthed to Joe,
“White boy can play a’ight.”

Joe picked up the bass guitar and took a spot opposite Jeb.

Car lights flooded the front windows. Evening sunk the daylight into a corner pocket and the High Cotton Club opened for business.

Several women slinked in together, threads of purple and blue, grouped like fillies at auction and sharing lights off one
another’s cigarettes.

The club had yet to see the likes of Jewel Blessed.

“Where’d you get him?” a young woman talked Joe up during the break. Her black dress and the amethyst jewelry around her throat
gave her a starlinglike quality.

“Jeb, meet Colleen,” said Joe.

Jeb set down his banjo and stuck out his hand.

She took hold of his fingers with both hands, like she planned to hold on for a while. “You play good banjo, Jeb,” she said.
“Want to buy me my very own glass of gin?”

“My money can’t buy gin anymore,” he said. “You live around the club, Colleen?”

“You’re kind of fast, aren’t you, already checking out where I stay?”

“Colleen, stop hitting on Jeb. This man’s about to get hisself engaged,” said Harry. “Ain’t that right?”

“I’ve got a girl,” said Jeb. “Pretty as they come.”

“Better-looking than me?”

“You’re at least as pretty. Too pretty to come here alone.”

“You ain’t my daddy and I ain’t alone. My friend is parking the car. Hey, Wayne, you need to make more parking room. Jewel
had to park halfway down the street,” she told the owner. She turned back to Jeb and said, “That’s her coming through the
door now.”

Jewel Blessed owned the floor. Two women turned away when she walked through the doorway, ladies who had danced every dance,
but they made way when Jewel showed up. Jewel wore a fur, just like Louie had said. It fell open, revealing a green dress
that shook with sequins and beads. Her neckline dipped and she let the coat fall off one shoulder so the dress could have
its best showing.

“You, banjo man, take your break for this first set’s opener,” said Joe. “It’s a slow number.”

Jeb propped the banjo against the wall. “Colleen, introduce me to your friend.”

“Why? You’re engaged.” Before she could walk away, Jeb took her by the arm. He pulled out some cash and put it in her hand.

“You’re strange, aren’t you?” Colleen smiled anyway and took the money. She led him to the table in the back of the room.

Jewel glanced at Colleen and then at Jeb. Part of Jewel’s hair fell across her face, Jeb figured, to hide the scar. She pushed
the other side of her hair back with a flowered comb.

“This man wants to meet you, Jewel.”

Jewel told Jeb right off, “I ain’t no whore.”

“Jewel, I’m Jeb Nubey.”

Jewel waved Colleen away.

Jeb sat across from her. “I thought we could talk about Lucky.”

“You give my sister room and board. She works for you. I don’t have no say anymore in what she does.”

“I visited your minister this afternoon,” said Jeb.

“My mother’s minister.” She laughed. “I don’t guess I have no minister. What’s wrong anyway, is Lucky in trouble?”

“I hate to see her taking care of a baby at her age. Sure be nice to find the mother.”

“What did Louie Williamson tell you?”

“Nothing. I told him I wanted to speak with you. He sent me here.”

“Where I go is none of that man’s business. He thinks he knows me.”