Memphis had only buses. Surely city trains would shake her to pieces.
The three women boarded their train. Sat side by side. Gracie placed her Bible on her lap and folded her hands over it. The train began to move. Quicken. She stared out the green-flying window as a lens, clicking mental photographs at rows of shops and stores exposed to merciless morning sunlight, at streets boiling with life and trouble, pools of people linking into other pools, rivers of cars linking other rivers — things as common to northern city life as dog and dung on a ‘Sippi road. She dug her fingernails into the green leather seat.
Beulah and Sheila shuttled her all over the city, the ins and outs, from the (seemingly) penthouse-high elevated trains to the sewer-low subways. She saw a subway minister for the first time.
It is written in the Scriptures, Be not deceived God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man sows he shall also reap the same. Good for good and evil for evil. The Lord has sown his good seed into the world today and should it fall on good and pure hearts it shall bring forth much good. So you have the faith, but you must plant it in good soil in order for you to do great things. But mortal soil cannot produce eternal things. One must place his faith in God. This is the best soil.
She would learn, here in the North, many preachers carried pulpits in their voices. Even frail-bodied subway evangelists like Mother Sister could paddle you with wood words. They got wings for us to fly around. And water beds filled with blue rivers. But rent in heaven ain’t cheap. Nor are flying lessons.
Beulah found Gracie a job (day work) with the Sterns in Deerfield, a sharp, clean suburb a good hour north of the city. Train, carry me. Train, bring me back.
HER FIRST CITY WINTER. Snow. Pretty when it first fell. White and clean enough to eat, then later, gray and muddy with footprints or tire tracks. Snow coating the windows of cars, but the apartment windows heated from the warmth pulsing inside, free of frost, an occasional collar of snow on a ledge. Snow on the bare tree branches — bare branches curled, fingers reaching to grab the falling snow — half the branch white and the other half brown-gray, like flesh slipping out from a split pants leg or coat sleeve. The sky white — the fog white of after-snow — above the buildings. And cars making that washing sound you hear in rain or snow, beneath the motor’s hum the sound of water spilled from a pail. Then the first killing frost. The frozen steel of subway and apartment pipes. The asthmatic breathing of the radiators. (Better than a rusted yard pump and the carrying stones of the fireplace, flames licking — coals really — crackling with heat.) Jack Frost nipping at yo nose and peeking up under yo clothes. Hawk trying to snatch off your draws. Winter laid a sheet of ice between you and yo kinfolk in the apartment. You looking out the white window and thinking, thinking, perhaps of spring — because in this city, winter often carried over into mid-spring, or came back in spurts both spring and summer, like an unexpected relative. Spring: the trees a green maelstrom of mad leaves and brown movement because the city’s wind stayed with you year-round, folding into the seasons. And thinking further of autumn, your favorite season, when the city grew alive with color, the summer’s last fires flicking new flames of heat and pigment, red and green and blue and white and pink and red-pink and brown-red and yellow-brown and not just the pinks and greens and whites of budding May. But fall so far away, not like the babies who stand in the trees all day and night, a few feet from the building.
HER FOURTH CITY WINTER — so it seems to her now — she boarded the train and saw the Burned Man for the first time. A short man and fat, every space of his blue-jean jumpsuit covered with buttons — sermons, slogans, prayers. A few clumps of hair, like an unfinished bird’s nest. And his head a lump of clay kneaded onto his body. No neck, all head. Clean swathes of smooth brown skin — funny how burns leave brown scars, not black — and the face smooth too, no eyebrows or eyelashes or eyelids. He rattled his hot tin cup, the metal sound giving more momentum to the steel wheel grinding steel rails.
Brothers and sisters, I come from the Church on the Rock and I bring you these books—pamphlets, flyers—these revelations designed to bless each and every individual which shall read them seven straight days, seven days in a row. As of today, there are 916 confirmations of blessings, 916 people who had received glowing gifts from the hand of Christ. Just last night a woman phoned me, Brother Foot, I thank you. Christ reached out his hands and turned my rags to gold raiments. I won the lottery after reading your book seven straight days and seven days in a row. Sister, I said to her, All who believe in Christ shall hit the jackpot. There are no number runners fleeter of foot than the winged angels in our Father’s heaven.
God sent his only son to save man. Praise be to his only son, our Lord Saviour Christ. The burned man rattled his cup. Please give what you can. Read these Scriptures seven straight days, seven days in a row.
Gracie removed a dollar from her purse. Dropped it into the hot tin cup. Keep your book, she said. She never rode the train again.
HER SIXTH CITY WINTER, Sam and Dave arrived from Houston — on a fleeing locomotive — in summer’s clothing, and made all Englewood sweat from their sinful Houston heat. Daily they galloped from bar to bar, lounge to lounge, liquor store to liquor store; sundown, they posed against afterglow on corners, watching cars cruise down Church Street—
I gotta get me a car, Dave said.
The way you drive, Sam said. Huh.
What’s wrong wit the way I drive?
You don’t know? Sam shook his head.
I gotta get me a car.
— and rested at night, collapsed in the bug-ridden pastures of nasty women’s beds.
TWO YEARS LATER, Sam and Dave got sent up the river for stealing hogs from the factory, dressing the hog up like a man in a long coat and Dobb, leaning its legs over their shoulders and holding it up between them, Come on, Wheatstraw, you drunk fool, know you ain’t sposed to drink on the job. But of course, two years after that, after the arms of justice had released them, they needed a place to stay and crowded into the one-room apartment with Beulah, Sheila, and Gracie, Sam and Dave sleeping beneath the kitchen table on the red-and-white-checkered oilcloth — Damn, you niggas, Beulah said, get out from under my tablecloth. People gotta eat on it. Enough to spoil yo appetite—the same checkered oilcloth where, later, in the house here on Liberty Island, John would beat Lucifer and Dallas (his pig’s snout level with the board, as if this could improve his concentration) at chess, and still later, whip the pants off the boys, Hatch and Jesus, til Hatch mastered the game, beating John and Lucifer for their spare dollars. Wasn’t a week before every devil-may-care man on Church Street cussed their names.
You niggas need some work, Beulah said.
Them two Jones boys — Sheila began.
Lucifer, Gracie said. And John. The one wit those brown eyes.
Why you worried bout em? Sam wanted to know. You mus like them brown eyes.
— got jobs washing windows. In Central. Good money too.
Now, what we need with work? Sam said.
Tell her, uncle. We had plenty work in the joint.
Well, Beulah said, why don’t yall go back there and press some license plates.
License plates? Woman, I worked in the infirmary. And he assisted me. Sam hooked his thumb at Dave, who sat stretched back in the wooden chair, leg hooked over the arm.
Look, I don’t care if you—
Don’t say it, Sam said. Beulah, you know I know you. Don’t say it.
Beulah gave him a hard look.
Look, woman. Get it straight. We ain’t workin fo no chump change.