R.L. made it his business, Gracie says.
Why don’t yall hush, Sheila says. Hush.
You know they don’t want us down there.
Who cares what they want.
Those crackers out there lynched him. Probably was waitin for him at the bus station.
Hush, Beulah. Hush.
No one could afford the train ticket West to attend R.L.’s funeral. R.L.’s wife sent a single letter (translated through Robert Lee Junior, their seven-year-old son) which said he’d been buried in … Beulah had stuffed that letter in her bosom too.
It was too much fo them white folks, Beulah said. A black cowboy with some white-lookin Indian woman from Brazil.
Hush, Sheila said. You know that R.L. was killed in a car accident. You know he liked to drive wild.
That’s what those white folks said. Can’t no cracka stand to see a black man wit no white woman. And that black man speakin Latin too.
Portuguese, Porsha said. The girl blinked. People in Brazil speak Portuguese.
Beulah, you don’t know what you talkin bout. Gracie shoved the words in Beulah’s face. R.L. died in California. He weren’t in no South.
Anything south of Canada is the—
That’s not right, Porsha said. Geography is my best subject.
Anyway, Gracie put down her plate of pig’s feet, how R.L. even know bout Brazil?
I don’t know, Lula Mae said. He sent me jus that one letter. Them cowboy friends in California told him bout it.
California? Porsha said. California on the other coast. West. The Pacific, not the—
Where the letter?
Beulah said nothing.
See, they gots lots of cowboys down there in the pampers.
Pampas? You mean—
That’s what I said.
Aunt Beulah, Porsha said. Beg yo pardon. Ain’t no pampas in Brazil. Daughter, close yo mouth, Sheila said. What I tell you bout talkin grown?
Yeah. Go geography somebody else.
Hush, Sheila said. You know ain’t nobody killed nobody.
And I bet they didn’t kill Nap either?
Hush.
Down there in that Houston jail.
Hush. I don’t want to argue with you.
Shit, Dave said. You know how white folks is. Jealous.
You said that right.
R.L. famous all over California.
Yeah. Rodeo man.
Say he could rassle a steer by his balls.
And ride a horse—
What you know bout it? Who tellin it?
…
You know how white folks is. Jealous. They kick him and that Indian girl off the train. And they spend the night out in the desert, that Indian girl snapping her umbrella open and shut open and shut to scare off them coyotes.
Gracie stayed out of it. Far as she was concerned, California was Brazil was Paris was Timbuktu cause it was so far away she’d never go there. Beulah knew (Lula Mae had mailed her R.L.’s letter, the letter that Beulah showed no one, like the letter from R.L.’s wife that she hid in her bosom, repeating the message out loud for everyone’s ears), it was on a spring green day that R.L. galloped off to Brazil, and it was on a summer green day that Beulah told war-bound Lucifer and John, See if you can find his grave. Robert Lee Harris. And don’t forget to look up Robert Lee Junior. Harris the name.
Damn, Beulah, Dave said. San Francisco is a long ways from Los Angeles. So I’ve heard. One south, the other north.
Yeah, Sam said. And how you spect them to find em when we couldn’t find R.L., when we tried and tried after the war, after they discharged us.
All I’m sayin is they can try, that’s all.
We’ll try, Lucifer said.
Yeah, John said, mouth tight, we’ll try.
I can’t believe yall, Sheila said. These boys are going off overseas, they are going off to … Don’t you think they got enough on they minds?
We’ll try, John said.
A few days later, George — the man whom John refused to call father, who made John frown and spit at the thought — issued his request. Don’t forget to look up Port Chicago. They have it all cleaned up now. But still …
We’ll try.
And don’t forget my buddy on Leidesdorff Street, if yall need a place to stay.
We’ll keep him in mind.
Steam and hiss rose from the tracks. Redcaps fetched luggage for tips. Lucifer kissed Sheila long and heavy, tongue working. He planted a kiss on Gracie’s cheek, then boarded the train without looking back. John kissed Gracie, his tongue diving through her body. He handed her his car keys.
Houston, Fulton, Memphis, the city, Decatur, Houston again, St. Paul — Beulah changed towns and cities as easily as she changed the colorful hats she wore each day. (She had a coatstand in every room of her Decatur house, octopus arms reaching for every visitor’s jacket.) It seem like when I came North something cold crawled over my skin, she said. Standing on the icy platform after she stepped down from the frozen train. The cold crawl up inside you and try to weigh you down. But I ain’t no ways tired. And this cramped-up chicken coop don’t bother me none. Cause she was on T Street then. I done lived worse.
Newlyweds, she and Andrew came up from Houston to the city, where they found jobs in the war plant—You and Sheila stayed back home in Houston, for how could Beulah take you with her when she had a new husband? And there was a war to fight. Them krauts hate niggers, Daddy Larry said. They got airplanes too, so ain’t no hiding place. But you hid under the bed from those flying Klansmen, arms over your head to protect you from their steel lynch ropes that could drop down from the heavens and yank you back up into them—bringing everything with them, both the seen and the unseen. But Andrew could not escape the draft. They took him, flat feet and all. When the war ended, Beulah moved to Decatur, and Andrew took to the Pullman car.
And was the best man I ever had, Beulah said. After he got that Pullman job, his pockets were always filled to the brim with gravy. And he spread it thick, even if he was skinny, and forget sometimes, and was no-hearing.
Gracie remembered. And had a lean and easy frame. He was forever losing his hearing aid, dropping it in the sink or flushing it down the toilet like some wedding ring; sides, what good was it? Wearing it, he still could barely hear. The war did that to him? she asked.
The war? Beulah shook her head. From the day I met him And couldn hear. That war mighta made it worse. I can’t tell. All told, I had three kin overseas, three fighting.
Sam and Dave enlisted. R.L. caught the Panama Limited west for New Mexico and ended up in California and became a cowboy and made enough money to buy a brand-new Eldorado and a big farm and a lounge, and traveled to Brazil and brought him back a white-looking woman called China the Indian. Nap was too young to follow. (And you know he had those seizures.) Koot say — and she would know cause she was his mamma — she had to strap him in a seat and sit on him to keep him from going off with Sam and Dave.
Sam and Dave were some dang fools, Beulah said. Couldn tell them nothing. Hardheaded. Most peaceful days of my life when they went off to the service. Them niggas needed giant feet to kick up enough dust to reach me from overseas.
These two cutthroats troubled my days when I first came here, Beulah said. Miss Glencoe paid me every Friday and these two cutthroats use to lay fo me Friday nights on my way from the Currency Exchange. She shook her head. Never will forget them two. Tweed golf caps. Long wool coats that stopped jus above they puffed-out knickers and long skinny silk socks. They see me. Hey, downhome, they say. They tackle me, and roll me round in the snow like a rolling pin or something. I didn’t tell And cause I didn’t want him to jump in and get hurt. Sides, lotta times he worked nights. Now, these two devils bout tired me out after four or five weeks of they mess. I puts me a bread knife in my pocket and the next time I sees those two devils, I cut them every which way but loose.