But that car was dandy. Real dandy. Red carpet. Lamps glintin on the ceiling. Leather seats soft like a pretty lady’s skin. This shiny-buttoned porter bawling out the stations. And the woogie conductor wit his shiny ticket puncher.
We stop to water the engine.
Water?
That’s right. Just like a horse. They ran on steam. (Live and learn.) And we go on.
That train snort and burp and cough and fart and ginny and shake. And the walls shove you and the ceiling shovel you on top of the head and people camped and cramped bout and the flo rollin this way and that spillin people into yo lap this minute and out the next.
Damn, Manfred, I say. Move over.
What? I ain’t on you.
See, I ain’t never been on a train befo. Wasn’t like no horse or no wagon or nothing else. That locomotion get in yo stomach and it spin round and round and round. I had no eyes, no ears, no nose, jus a mouth. Next thing I know, I spilled all over my brother’s shoes.
Yuck. Disgusting, she thought, not saying it.
Christ! Manfred said. Christ! Jus like that. Jumping back like it was hot water.
He hand me his initialed handkerchief. (Aunt T had stitched us both one.) I wipe my mouth.
Christ! he say. What bout my shoes?
I get my handkerchief. Clean his shoes. Then I throw both hankies under his seat. The train wuz still movin but I felt better. And the train started to slow down.
Then the train slowing down but your heart still rushing. Yes, the train slowing into town. And your body a gathering of tremendous effort. Cause this you must do and it can’t wait. A sea of faces white-waiting on the platform. Like hot stones, they draw the water from your body. Something breaks and rushes away.
I felt worse again. All I could do to dam my bowels and keep it from running down my leg. I tell Manfred, I gon get off.
What? he say.
I can’t stand it.
You seasick again?
Do fat ladies eat?
We proceed. See, the conductor said. That’s what yall get fo niggerin.
I was so glad to feel land again. But standin there on that platform, I feel something else too. Red eyes on me. Feel like a fish in a bowl and I’m hopin these woogies don’t kick the bowl over.
Manfred, you get back on the train. I’ll catch the next one.
Couldn’t you go on a boat? she asked.
Nigga, you crazy? Think I’m gon leave you here?
Why didn’t you go on the boat? she said.
You know what’ll happen if these woogies discover us? Better one than both. I’ll find you.
Yall should have rode a boat.
Know how many colored folks in that city?
I’ll find you.
So we talk like that, him fussin and me fussin. Manfred knew what I knew. Life don’t sit still. It may wait a minute. So when time come to get back on that train, he get on. He ain’t look back. And I ain’t seen him since.
Where was you?
Mobile.
Mobile, Alabama? She could find it on any map.
No. The other Mobile.
Oh.
I get me a room in a boardinghouse. Live regular wit the woogies. Every now and then, a wonderin eye peep you, but the mouth say nothing. If somebody woulda asked, I woulda told. That’s how I am. Always was, always will be.
Well, I got me a job workin on this bridge. Know how to build a bridge?
No, Pappa Simmons.
Well, you got to build both ends at once. It meets in the middle. Building backwards.
Why?
Ask me if I’m an engineer. Well, I ain’t. I jus knows it meets in the middle. Building backwards. Well, I eat cheap and sleep cheap and save my money.
When we finished the bridge, I get me a job hauling sugar sacks at the process factory. I work and save. I bought me a brand-new Model T with cold hard cash. A man has to get around. My barking Model T scared all the dogs. And all the woogies laugh. Ernest, what you got there? they say. An automobile? You think worse than a nigga. Soon, they come beggin me fo a ride. I oblige. Charge them a nickel to ride in it.
So I ride and work, ride to work, work to ride. Well it went like that fo months and years.
Then the Broad River Baptist Association held their annual picnic. I ain’t never been to the church. Like I say, I ain’t big on church. The Scriptures got mo religion. I pray. God, kill all the woogies but leave all the niggas. But I figured I’d go to this here picnic.
Why?
I was gettin on in years.
I don’t under …
How you today, white folks? All the niggas look at me. This here a Jim Crow picnic, they say.
I’m Jim Crow, I say. You see, I had let them believe what they believe.
Well, fix you a plate.
I joined in the hospitality. I saw this girl, sitting out under the chinaberry tree, legs stretched out white and stockinged. Eatin an apple. Takin lil polite bird bites. She was a small woman. Small. Bird bones. If you glance her with the tip of yo elbow she snap right in two.
Porsha thought about it. Mamma remembered his wife, Georgiana, as a sickly woman with olive-colored hair. (Pappa Simmons rarely mentioned her, the name trembling on his lips, rattling the cage of his flesh.)
Yes, distant stovewood am good stovewood. Her all dolled up in a choir robe with gold sash. Didn know that in a few weeks we become a divine institution. I’d been waitin fo the right gal to come along. Nothing should be plucked until it’s ripe.
I joined her under the tree. We talked. I invited her for a walk in the trackless forest. Then I took her rowing on the lake.
Her teeth and lilies are alike
Sing, fellows, for my true love and
The water will take the long oar strike
Come sundown, I drove her home in my Model T. We screamed above the barking engine. Simple as that.
If you want to catch you a gal, give her something nice occasionally to wear, and praise her up to the skies whenever she has anything tolerably decent.
When the woogies see me in town wit this girl, they knows I was a nigga. Mobile ain’t but neigh big. Everybody got one foot in they do and one in yours.
Come morning, I’m fired. (Each day begins wit a lesson and ends wit a lesson.)
I had worked my way up to foreman. I worked my people hard and ain’t tolerate no nonsense. Mr. Simmons, they say, he mean as the devil. I try to teach em to work and save, work and save, work and save. Don’t spend every fool penny.
Boss man say, Ernest, you a good worker and bout the best foman I ever had. And I ain’t got nothin gainst niggas. But—
I understand, suh, I said.
Here yo pay, and here yo half-day. I know you wouldn want me to give you mo.
No, suh.
And Ernest?
Yes, suh?
Good luck. A nigga need all the luck he can git.
GEORGIANA WAS A LAZYBONES. Her mother and father let her do nothing but sit around all day. Watch them work. Lazybones. And many a time I talk to her something fierce to get her to lift a light finger. A man should never strike a woman. Rather trespass on an angel.
Wasn’t but two things a nigga could do in that town, wash or field. Unless you was a preacher, but the town already had one.
Did yall share—
By and by, befo you could blink good, Georgiana swell up and start to totin her belly round. We work, bear a child, work. Cept them woogies never pay you what you earn. Georgiana pray. I complain. Pray. Complain. Ain’t much else you could do. Then the night riders—