Once all the attendees had left and I was in back changing, Kerney for a change didn’t pay me any attention, in part because he was busy counting out the money. Horatio, shirtless, looped his long knotty arm dark as roofing felt around me and said, “You going to meet me to hit the streets ’night, s’right?”
“I got a shift tonight, Ray-Ray,” I told him, adding, “Party for Dameron, where I’m heading once I get change again, then I head out to it before sundown.”
Horatio removed his arm from my shoulders and laid his immense hand on my knee. “Edray, I think you don’t love ya boy no more.” He directed this not just to me but announced it as if he was trying to make sure some of the other stewards sitting near us heard him. They chuckled but paid him no special mind, and continued dressing and cleaning up. Then he grabbed my goattee and pulled on it, hauling me forward until I slapped his hand.
“Watch it, now, ignay,” I told him, as I often did since he wanted to keep on roughhousing around like we had as children, “don’t be fooling like that.”
“See what I mean.” He rose and tucked in his shirt. “Y’ain’t got no love for ya boy no more. I’ma still come by ya place and drag you out there, even if you sound asleep. Can’t let these coins burn a hole in my pocket.” He flashed the beacon of his large white teeth and I couldn’t stay mad at him, but when he reached for my chin hairs again I put up fists, mock fighting, though I knew he could flatten me with a single punch if it ever came to that.
“Get your pay and you got to clear out of here!” Kerney had stacked the money in piles for each of us on a table, so we lined up and collected what was ours. When I reached mine he said, baring the yellow kernels in his mouth as if trying to appear friendly, “Better not end up in the bottom of them rivers, boy, cause I spect to see you come September, y’understand?” and I answered him, “Yes Sir, Mr. Kerney, and you have a good summer too.” I grabbed my pay and raced outside, where Horatio and Jonathan were waiting.
“Where, you off to, Dameron?” Jonathan was rolling a moundlet of tobacco from a pouch he kept in his waistcoat in a piece of newspaper look like he took from the back room.
“Sure nough, what about you?”
“Bout to go relax these dogs for a little bit fore I go get Angie. She get off today round 4.” He was licking the end of his cigarette but didn’t have a light. “We sposed to be meeting up with Johnny and his lady, and Tut-Tut and Queenie, we probably go try to find a dance or something to get into.”
Horatio was quiet, looking like he wanted to leave but I could tell he was waiting till Jonathan did so first so that we could walk together and talk.
“Well if’n I don’t see you fore you head out I’ll catch you when I get in,” Jonathan said, “I don’t need to tell you but I’m going to, Red. Stay out of trouble.” We all slapped palms then he scooted off to light his cigarette at a pushcart down the street and cool wherever he cooled when he wasn’t at home or Angelica’s.
“You walking to Dameron right now?” Horatio asked, towering over me.
“Sure nough, I need them coins, what you doing?”
“Ain’t on for no upholstering this evening, prolly just going to go home, you know it be like the circus up in there, can’t hardly even breathe with all of them. Edray, I almost didn’t have no shoes this morning cause Franklin walking out the door with mines.” We laughed in unison at the thought of his brother, with even bigger feet than his, stumbling in Horatio’s boots out the door. As we did so he winched his long arm around my shoulders. I could smell his underarms cutting through the rosewater he had splashed on himself in the backroom, and the combination was not at all bad. “Why don’t we take some ladies out tomorrow after service for a stroll, that’ll get you to hang out with ya boy, no?”
I paused there on the walkway. “Rosaline sent my last note back, she ain’t want to talk to me at all when I seen her two days ago. Who I supposed to take out if I ain’t got no lady?” Horatio stood in front of me.
“I’ll talk to Rosaline, you remember how her sister Janie was sweet on me.” And he was right, Janie, a year older than us, had been utterly infatuated with my best friend for several years, beginning when we were thirteen so, until she gave her heart completely to Christ and chilled on everyone who wasn’t always in church except her immediately family, and strangely, Horatio. “Say yes and I’ll head over there right now.” I looked up at him and he cupped my chin, drawing his face closer and closer to mine until I pushed his hand away, though for a second I felt I wanted him to put it back. Horatio slid back alongside me and was now looking off into the Saturday crowds, all the human hustle and bustle up Broad, the horses and coaches and wagons, people alighting on or off the street cars. I seized both his big hands, which immediately grabbed his attention, and said, “You talk to her for me and we definitely roll tomorrow,” though I knew it probably would just be me and him in the park playing Takeaway or improvised cribbage.
“Bet, Edray,” he said and I answered, “Bet and better be, Ray-Ray,” we slapped palms, then I darted through the maze of traffic to Dameron’s.
When I had finished all my preparatory tasks for the soup and the desserts, which the main cooks would take charge of, I beat a path straight home and lay down, feeling the day’s work had wrung me out. My mother wasn’t there, Jonathan neither, so I spread out on the bed I shared with him and just let my mind float free thinking about Rosaline and what I might have done to cool her so, and about Horatio, who did know how to talk to or least get the attention of girls, though he didn’t ever really seem to want to. Jonathan also had that charm, girls and people in general had always flocked to him. I consoled myself by recalling that too much nectar, my mother would warn, would draw more than the butterfly. Always fumbling and stumbling and saying the wrong thing, I didn’t have whatever it was anyhow. I forgot to look girls in the eye, bring them something sweet, special, cajole and inveigle them to reach that sweeter spot. Rosaline nevertheless had used to like to spend time with me especially during our last year at the Institute. As I traced circles on my stomach and thighs I reminded myself that truth be told I didn’t want to be courting so hard yet anyway, although I knew having a sweetheart was best when the summer came and you could sit up on the riverbank and watch the steamboats streaming by, or walk the promenade late on a Sunday afternoon after services, and I liked when Horatio and me had gone courting together, I would be studying what he said and deploying my own version, and now I could feel my eyes leadening but I knew not to fall into a deep sleep, because I might miss tonight’s job—
— And I heard Mama calling out, “Theodore, if you sleeping wake up, sugar, and get dressed,” and I rose, washed up, scrubbed my teeth with baking soda even, donned my serving clothes. Before I left I gave Mama, who as soon as she set her sacks down had begun readying dinner, a big kiss on the cheek and some money then I headed off to Mr. Linde’s.
I hopped on the streetcar that ran up Broad, since that one we could ride and the conductor was one I saw all the time, he never spoke but didn’t curse me either. I let the white folks climb inside then I held out my coin and he snatched it, I grabbed on, wondering as we rode whether I might not be too early. I glanced around for a clock in a pane, and seeing none, asked the conductor what time it was. He consulted his pocket watch and said, “Seven past six.” I had almost an hour and a half, so I rode up a few blocks to Prune. With the party two blocks east of Rittenhouse Square, I decided to kill time by walking a roundabout route down to the Schuylkill before circling back. Right outside the New Opera House I ran into Reverend Johnson, the pastor of our old church, who asked about my mother, and then once on Pine I saw the Holland twins, and Miss Catto, who wanted to chat for a good minute. On Aspen, I paused to talk briefly with my former classmate Simpson, shoveling up manure, who people called both Simple and Samson since he fell first off a horse, then off a roof, and had survived both. At S. 23rd I ran into another acquaintance and former classmate, Amos, sweeping the sidewalk outside a row of stores. He asked me why I was all dressed up, then said if Dameron had any openings to let him know. He also warned to watch myself near the river, but I assured him I already knew to be careful, and reminded him that steps from the Water Works near here they had slain my father one evening three months ago. I said goodbye to Amos, picking up my pace and counting down the blocks until I could see the wharves and boats, and be ready, if need be, to run.