Lost Souls Recovered, page 33
Tilla was lachrymose, and had been so ever since she learned of Claude’s disappearance. Her eyes seem to grow more forlorn as each hour passed without word from Claude. Her temper grew short—John and the children knew to use words and a voice that would mollify her in some way.
But her soul was abrading, and her mind and heart were tormented. It had been three days and there was no sign of Claude. Her torment had increased as each hour elapsed to the countdown to Theo’s departure. John had told her not to think of it, but she had no control over her mind, which wandered to family members who left her too soon—her father who was murdered, her mother who died of a spider bite at age forty, her fourteen-year-old sister Caroline who was never found. Claude was still missing. The thought of losing Theo in a charnel region somewhere in Europe was too much for her to bear. She sat impassibly on a bench, barely moving, and unaware of the hoopla in the station, hoping God would release her from her nightmare.
A sergeant barked out the names of those whose turn it was to board the train, last name, then first. “Wallace, Gregory; Taylor, Jessie; Bean, Paul; Jackson, Burdette; Davis, Theo.…”
Theo stepped on the stool with his right foot and the left landed on the floor on the train. In a few months’ time, he’d be on his way to France to help make the world safe for democracy. He turned around and saw his family waving. With his mouth agape with excitement, he waved in turn. But his mouth closed when he saw his poor mother who had her head buried in her husband’s chest. Upon hearing the train’s piercing whistle, she unglued her head from John’s chest and looked in Theo’s direction. Her eyes had the look of a soldier who has a thousand-yard stare after he has been in heavy combat involving great casualties.
“Bye, Theo,” four-year-old Charlie burbled.
Tilla heard Charlie’s excitement and emitted a thin keening sound.
46 — Spring, 1920
As the wind rustled against his dilapidated two-story shed, George, who was Lawrence County’s best blacksmith, worked to put the finishing touch on a wrought iron gate that a wealthy insurance executive ordered for his antebellum home. Robert, his whiskey-swilling octogenarian friend, lumbered into the shed, exhausted after fighting the fierce March wind.
Noticing that George rubbed his hands together to warm them up, Robert handed a silver flask filled with whiskey to George and said, “That should warm you up.”
While clutching the flask, George said, “When did you start drinking?” He paused, then added, “Never mind, probably when you woke up.”
Robert assented with a couple of nods.
George felt the engraving on the flask, mindlessly looked at it briefly, and then took a long pull on the whiskey. “This some good stuff. Where’d you get it?” George said while evincing the strong taste of the whiskey by grimacing, revealing yellow-stained teeth that matched the color of his skin.
“Secret recipe,” Robert muttered.
“I heard you. It won’t be secret for long after I beat it out of you.”
“You try and I cut your throat with this here rusty knife,” Robert said, holding up the knife in a trembling hand.
“I was kidding, old man.”
“You’d be wise not to mess with this old man.” George rolled his eyes at Robert, who was a waif and bent over from age. He had a pair of coal eyes that were the only external signs of a crafty mind within. And he combined a defiantly idiosyncratic temperament with a universal approachability. Robert knew where people’s skeletons lie in town, and George liked imbibing all the gossip George served him.
George looked at the engraving on the flask again, a bit more carefully. “Looks like a man with a missing arm. What do the letters mean?”
“Don’t know. Wondered that myself.”
“You mean Uncle Remus don’t know?” George asked, mocking him.
Robert was slapped with the Uncle Remus moniker because he loved to tell stories. George loved to hear Robert’s parodies of slave plantation life. He particularly liked hearing Robert’s story about how Old Man Buchanan shot his wife in the rear end while she was bending down to retrieve something in the field. The way Robert told it, Buchanan mistook her rear end for a sow’s. Old Man Buchanan blamed the mistake on his failing vision. “It was such a wide target, I just knew I couldn’t miss,” Buchanan told Robert. “Buchanan’s old lady made him sleep in the barn with the pigs for a week.”
George moved the flask toward and away from his eyes to find the right distance to see the engraving. “It’s hard to make out. I see a letter A.” He squinted to refocus his eyes. “That look like U or O.” He turned the flask over and said, “Now I can see these letters, TB.”
“What does TB mean?” George asked.
“Don’t know. This flask been with me for at least five years. Never really paid it no mind. I found it outside the shed one day. I just liked what I keep inside.”
“Got any tobacca, Uncle Remus?”
“Only the best: Prince Albert.”
“I need some for my pipe,” George said.
Robert removed a large packet of tobacco from his vest pocket. He scraped a dollop onto a nearby table.
“I need more than that,” George said.
“People in hell want ice water,” Robert countered.
Robert relented and scraped some more tobacco on the table. George packed his pipe with the tobacco, lit it a few times, then blew a smoke circle.
With his corncob pipe dangling from his mouth, George mumbled, “What you say wrong with Miss Tilla? She ain’t been the same for a long time.”
“Yeah, you right,” Robert acknowledged. “Some say she ain’t forgiven herself for what happened to her boy, Claude.”
“What happened?” George asked.
“Ever since Claude disappeared, Tilla ain’t been right. Every so often, she’ll walk miles around town looking for him, calling his name. One day she walked too far, got lost, and did not return home for a day. A passerby found her sleeping outside of a barn. He gave her something to eat and helped her get home. Some say Claude had consumption and just passed out in a field somewhere. Some say he met his doom by looking cross at a white woman.”
“He was just a boy,” George said.
“Don’t matter. It’s 1920, we still ain’t free. May never be free,” Robert said.
“What do John and the kids think?” George asked.
“Don’t know the answer to that one.”
“Want some more of this here whiskey?” Robert asked.
“I really shouldn’t be drinking this hooch; doctor say it ain’t too good for my condition.”
“The doctor don’t know about my secret recipe,” Robert exclaimed proudly. “I guess I’m about eighty-five. Whiskey’s got something to do with it.”
It was weighing on George’s mind. He needed help. “Robert, my woman’s pregnant. She can’t go to no hospital around here. The midwife we once used moved; don’t know where. You know everybody. Who’d you recommend?”
“I’ll take a look at her,” Robert said chuckling.
“You won’t go near my woman, dirty old man.”
“Unless she got something no other woman got, I ain’t interested. I’ve seen plenty trim. I got twenty kids,” he vaunted.
“Yeah, by twenty different women,” George replied.
“You want my help, Robert?”
George’s silence indicated his assent. “Then watch your mouth.” He paused, then added: “They call her Minnie P. She can be found in Birmingham. She may can do it. Make sure the price is right.”
47 — Spring, 1920
A wan shaft of sunbeams broke through the darkness, slowly spreading soft rays through the bedroom. John opened his right eye first, then his left. He opened his mouth wide like a yawning hippopotamus and closed it just as slowly as he had opened it. Tilla was asleep, and he moved quietly to the bathroom.
It was Independence Day and he had promised Tilla that he’d take her and the children to Bessie’s house for a fish fry. But he had work to do first. And he did it. By the time the sun had reached its peak in the sky, John had plowed a half-acre of land for a second planting of vegetables, slopped the pigs, put out fodder for his two dobbins and two mules, and milked Clara, his dairy cow.
It was one o’clock, two hours before John would take Tilla and the kids to Bessie’s house. He sat in his favorite rocking chair, eating flummery and biscuits. Just as he stood up to return his dishes to the kitchen, he heard Theo yell, “Hey, Pops.”
John put the dishes on his chair and looked at his son. He hadn’t seen Theo in weeks and hugged him tightly for several seconds. Theo returned the affection by putting his arms around his father. John released his embrace first. John took a step back and looked over Theo. His pearlescent hazel eyes had an air of confidence that was unsettling to John.
“Come on in, son; say hello to your mama and the kids.”
As John grabbed the screen door, Theo put his right hand on John’s left arm. “Wait, I need to talk to you.”
“What is it, son?”
“I need to borrow your revolver.”
John was silent.
“Say something, Pa.”
John said nothing.
Outwardly, John struck a nonchalant pose, which irked Theo, whose face was now as sour as an unripe pippin. “Look, Pa,” Theo said, “I see the way you look at me. You want me to be what you want me to be.”
“Son, it’s not that simple.”
“It is that simple. Can I borrow your gun? Just tell me.”
“I just want the best for you, son. You survived the war in France, and it would be a shame if you didn’t survive back home. I don’t like the life you’re living. I hear things.”
“You hear things?” Theo said with a twisted look on his face. “Ain’t you supposed to love me no matter what, right?”
John believed Theo was gaming him and dismissed Theo’s words as folderol. He was tired of Theo’s excuses; an adult life of neglect and contempt didn’t cut it with John. “Son, I do love you. Please know that. I’ve been thinking. I’d like for you to help me with the farm. I have all this land; we work it together, raise and sell the crops … With your help, we can bring in more money. It’ll be good for you.”
Theo had seen an eye-popping cultural change in France. He shook his head slowly and said, “I’m not working on no farm, not after I’ve seen gay Paree.”
Although some colored soldiers fought under the command of the United States, most fought under the command of the French government. While Theo never saw the front line in the war—he did support work like building railroads, latrines, and serving as a mess man—he, like the rest of the colored soldiers, was treated like a hero in France.
The French thanked the colored soldiers for their efforts on and off the field. Theo had gone to many nightclubs in cities like Montmartre where he found the color of his skin to be an asset. He tasted French wines, mingled with French women, and enjoyed the jazz music being played in the nightclubs. It was the 369th Infantry Band from New York that brought the jazz germ to France, and the French were swept up in the rollicking melodies.
For the war efforts of the colored soldiers, one French newspaper said, “Posterity will be indebted to you with gratitude.” Another newspaper referred to the colored soldiers as les enfants perdus, which the soldiers were happy to accept. Theo was swept up in the marvels of being a colored soldier in France. But the reality was that a rolling wave of hope from the Western front was met with a rising tide of fear and intolerance in the country that had sent the colored soldiers to fight in France. Nonetheless, when he returned home, Theo wanted to live the exciting life he had witnessed in France. He was trying to live that life, but things were moving too slowly for him. He had seen what other young men in Lawrence County were doing—from partying to wearing fashionable attire. He wanted what they had, even if he had no reputable income or way to obtain it.
John shook his head at the way Theo talked. John had prided himself on using standard English language; he and Tilla had taught the children not to use double negatives and especially not to use ain’t. John looked at his son again and wondered who was standing in front of him. He told himself that Theo had a Davis soul, but that his son’s mind was still fixated on slumming.
John thought that Theo had been searching for an individual identity before he was shipped to France. But it was apparent that nothing had changed: Theo was slumming before the war, and he was doing it after the war. Theo needed a new direction in life. “What are you, twenty-five? I’m twice your age. The fact of the matter is I’m going to need some help with the farm, and I’m offering it to my oldest child.”
Theo shook his head in disappointment and said, “Goodbye, Pa.”
“Son, you never told me why you need the revolver.”
He thought for a second of telling his father that a man threatened his life, accusing Theo of talking to his woman. Instead, Theo said nothing.
k
Theo sat in a booth in a barbecue joint, still sore about the conversation he’d had with his father two weeks ago. Although the danger had passed and he no longer needed to borrow John’s gun, he felt a widening gulf between himself and his father. He finished tearing a piece of meat from a rib bone and pushed the plate away. Perhaps his father was right, he thought. He had no steady work. He made some money here and there by washing dishes, running errands for local businessmen, selling goods he had stolen. Ever since he returned home from the war, the good life he sought continued to elude him.
He stood up and walked to the back of the rib joint to say goodbye to Joe, the owner.
“Ain’t that right, chief,” Theo heard a man say.
Theo continued his walk to the back of the joint. “Chief, I’m talking to you.”
He turned and looked to his left and saw a nattily attired man sitting in a booth between two colored women. “Come here, boy,” the man said.
As Theo closed in on the man’s booth, the man said, “I said, ain’t that right.”
Theo didn’t know how to respond, other than just nod.
“Why the long face, chief?”
The man eyed Theo’s green fustian pants, black brogan boots, and white linen shirt. “You can stand some new duds,” the man said.
Theo looked at the young women on either side of the man. Each wore a strawberry-colored straw hat with picot ribbons. The woman to the man’s right had cream-colored skin, and the one to his left had deep-chocolate skin. The man’s skin color was somewhere in the middle of his companions, whose bosoms were high and stood at attention as though they were held up by racks. He turned his attention back to the man and said, “I reckon you’re right.”
“I’m Charlie Capstone,” the man said. “They call me Cappie.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Capstone,” Theo said.
“Where you working?” Capstone asked.
Theo shook his head.
Capstone elbowed the young woman to his left and lifted his head upward. She scooted out of her seat to allow Capstone to stand up. Capstone drew himself up to all five foot, three inches. He wore French-style pointy shoes, high-waisted trousers, a long black jacket, and a green fedora embellished with an egret’s plume. Two shiny rings adorned fingers on his right hand and three shiny ones were on the fingers of his left hand. Capstone blew smoke from his Cuban cigar in Theo’s face.
“Here, take a puff?” Capstone said using his pudgy fingers to extend the Cuban cigar to Theo. Theo hesitated. Capstone stabbed the air with it, saying, “Go on, boy, it’s from Havana; it’s some good stuff.”
Theo took two slow drags. “Yeah, Mr. Capstone, it is.”
“Call me Cappie.”
Theo continued to look at Capstone’s attire. “Cappie,” Theo said, “You’re a sharp dresser.” Pointing to Capstone’s shoes, Theo said, “I saw shoes like that in France.”
“I see a man who knows taste,” Capstone said while extinguishing his Cuban cigar with the bottom of his right shoe.
Theo chuckled.
Capstone removed a small comb from his pocket and combed his walrus-sized, brindled mustache. He turned to look at his two bosomy escorts and winked. He then moved his head toward the front entrance for Theo to follow him. Capstone shifted his fedora to block the sun’s rays from his eyes. Theo squinted as he listened to Capstone offer him a job in his numbers business.
“Numbers?” Theo asked.
“Yeah, numbers. I need someone to run my numbers for me. Tell you what; meet me tomorrow in the shed located on the corner of Moulton and Leaves. Be there after sunset. I’ll be there with my boys.”
Theo looked down and found his eyes drifting to Capstone’s shiny black shoes. He looked up and squinted and saw the face of a man who was used to getting his way.
Theo wanted a hat like Capstone’s. “I’ll be there.”
Capstone lumbered his wide body over to his 1919 burnished black Model T. He stepped inside and waited for his driver to start the car by turning the hand crank on the front of the vehicle. After hearing the engine roar, the driver walked over to the right side of the car and held open the door as Capstone’s two female companions joined him in the back seat.
Theo watched them leave, then went back inside the joint to talk to Joe. Before Theo could say anything, Joe said, “I saw you talking to Cappie. Stay away from him. I hear things working in this joint.”
“Don’t worry about me, Joe. I’ll be all right.”
48 — Spring, 1920
Theo walked with a pep in his step as he closed in on the building at Moulton and Leaves. He had seen Capstone’s lifestyle and wanted to be suffused in it. He stopped at the front door and looked himself over. If he wanted the job, he figured he had to dress the part. The brown derby that his father had given him was cocked slightly to the left. The crease in his tan trousers was so sharp it could draw blood. And the matching jacket fit nicely over his torso.
