“I ain’t saying who stuck what where, but damn, that was almost as funny as this here. What in God’s name Ephram Roosevelt Jennings be thanking playing house with that, that—” Then he was off again, spitting out between guffaws, “Oh Lord!” and “Help me, Jesus!” until it became contagious and Percy and Sim let loose as well, followed by Charlie and finally, at long last, Gubber, the men giving one another fraternal handshakes and soldierly pats on the back. The cackling built like a storm brewing. When Chauncy had the pack of them howling and snapping, he grew quiet and glared at Ephram Jennings.
“Man, you should be ’shamed.”
Ephram kicked his feet into the ground and to his great shame said nothing. His stomach still turning. A little roll of thunder played in the distance.
“You a pitiful thing” was the worst Chauncy could think to say, but his eyes betrayed far more. Chauncy looked at Ephram with the utter disbelief that such a man could exist in their midst.
Then, leave it to Gubber: “Aw he ain’t no different from us; we all looking for a woman just like our mama.”
The crowd paused for a moment, deciding whether or not to draw blood.
Sim looked at Chauncy, then put the edge of a knife in his words, “My mama got straight teeth so I can’t abide a gal with a crooked mouth, likewise Ephram wouldn’t know what to do with no sane gal who keep her clothes on come Easter.”
At that Chauncy sank into a wizened laughter. “Y’all know that’s wrong.” Then with a flick of his cigarette ash, Ephram was dismissed. Ephram tried to lasso the right words but they hurdled beyond his grasp. Then the moment was gone as Chauncy slipped on his jacket and turned to the other men, “Now which one of you men’s fool ’nuff to think Cassius Clay got the stuff to win that there Thrilla in Manila?”
“The man’s name is Ali,” Percy corrected.
Charlie countered, “Hell, calling himself Mohammad like spitting in his mama’s face.”
Percy eased out, “Don’t matter, he already whooped Frazier once.”
“Fight was rigged,” Sim countered. “ ’Sides Joe knock him cold that first fight.”
“Truth is,” Charlie shot out, “yella man born weaker than brown. Joe gonna peel that nigga like a gorilla do a banana.”
“Yo’ own daddy’s a yella nigga,” Percy threw out.
Chauncy cut in, “Then I guess he know what he’s talking ’bout.”
Sim tried out, “Maybe we should ask Ephram ’bout yella niggas.”
Ephram leaned against a tombstone, great waves of self-disgust lapping against his heart. His insides twisted left and then right. He’d been called out three times in the last two minutes, he knew he couldn’t live in the town if he didn’t act now. He tried to muster his will, but something had cut into the trunk of his courage and he found his mouth flooded with saliva. Before he could stop himself, he’d heaved and vomited all over Weller Redding’s grave. The men glared at Ephram.
“Damn, that’s nasty,” Percy observed. In response, Ephram’s stomach pitched again and he heaved all over his shoes. The splatter deflected onto the cuffs of Chauncy’s pants.
“Damn!” Chauncy shot out. “Watch yo’ fool self!” and before anyone knew what had happened he’d shoved Ephram back over the tombstone. Legs akimbo, he looked too foolish to inspire laughter.
No one had seen the clouds overhead, but regardless of anyone’s notice they had knotted in a soft, gray tangle and now began to rain. They sprinkled for a second and then, as if a faucet had been turned, they let loose a nice steady pour. Ephram felt the water splash off his upturned shoes, wet his ankles, his hands and eventually his face and hair. And without Ephram ever knowing it was there, the last of the red powder washed clean. Chauncy was cursing Ephram and the rain all at once, looming over him, fists tight. A new power and strength shot through Ephram, as if from the soil itself. He leapt to his feet and pushed Chauncy back. Chauncy staggered, disbelief splashing across his face.
“I was playing but now you done made me mad niggah!” He charged, but a rivulet of water from Ephram’s direction stole under his size 13 Oxfords and Chauncy, the most surefooted of men, slipped and fell, chest flat upon Ephram’s vomit. The men exploded in rolling blasts of laughter.
Even Chauncy got the mean knocked out of him and surrendered to disgust. “Shit, man!” he said upon rising. “Shit! I got to walk home and change.” To Percy he called out, “Tell Mama I’ll be back directly.” He headed down the small hill, to the road, and once out of sight, veered left, in the distinct direction of Bell land.
The rest of the men ran and sought refuge under the leaves of a barclay tree. Ephram stood his ground, getting soaked through to the bone, heaving and strong, all tingling washed away, a steady calm surging through his body.
Chapter 17
Otha Jennings’s grave rested five headstones to the right and four up from where Ephram stood. A simple cement curved block with praying hands etched into the gray. Ephram tended it most Sundays after church, keeping the grass trim and flowers watered. The roots of buttercups and verbena wound atop the casket where Otha Jennings had been laid to rest. The coffin itself contained nothing of the woman, no bones, no teeth, not even a brush with a few strands of hair. Instead it contained her most dog-eared books, the Complete Works of Emily Dickinson and Call of the Wild by Jack London, a pair of her favorite gloves and her best lacing tat.
Ephram had been sixteen, Celia twenty-two when they had gotten the letter from Kindred Mental Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, telling them of Otha’s death in the hospital fire in July of 1945. The Colored wing had burned down to its pilings, leaving nothing but white ash. After Ephram had sent a total of twelve letters requesting her records, some kind clerk had finally sent them. Full of words like “psychotic break/schizophrenia” and “delusional episodes.” A list of medications that neither Ephram nor Celia had ever heard of. When they showed it to Dr. Tully, the visiting Colored doctor from Beaumont, he’d never heard of half of them either. He’d closed Otha’s file, shaken his head and said a little curse and the words “lab rats” under his breath. When Celia had asked him what he meant, he’d just pressed his lips tight and said to be grateful she’d gone to her glory.
Otha Jennings had been born in Baltimore, in May of 1900, to an educated father and seamstress mother. She came from a long history of freedom. No great-grand nor grandmother, aunt nor uncle, had ever lived under the trace and toil of slavery. There was at the time, a very small yet substantial legacy of landed Negroes in America, Negroes who had achieved the unthinkable and had become doctors, lawyers, politicians, scientists, college presidents, businessmen. No one in Otha’s family had belonged to this group either. They were simple, striving people. Her father taught third grade at Washington Elementary, but before he died of consumption when Otha was fourteen, he’d already set aside enough money for her to continue her education at Fisk University in Tennessee. Otha was the only child of two only children. At seventeen she worked part-time with her mother after school and excelled in all things related to sewing, especially lace-making. Otha loved it so that she often dreamed in lace, delicate patterns covering her nighttime landscape. She was only a bit tall with skin as deep and rich as a plum. Her straight black “Indian” hair was from her mother’s side. It fell to her waist until she cut it, the summer before college, like Claudette Colbert. The hair on the floor had made the beautician cry. The next day she met the Reverend Jennings, a man twelve years her senior, on her way to church. She had just made a navy low-waisted shift dress for school and was feeling very grown up when he told her she looked like a new penny. She was shy until he told her he was a reverend visiting from Texas and that he was guest preaching at the Jesus First Name Holiness Church on Tinkle Street. He invited her to that evening’s revival. Since she was already on her way to a church choir meeting, Otha didn’t see the harm and walked with him to Tinkle Street. Otha, who had always attended a calm, quiet Episcopal church, had never heard a first class Holiness preacher when he got riled. He slung words around her like comets soaring. She was in awe and waited for him after service as he had requested, so he could walk the star struck teenager home. He asked her questions about her life, her mama, her deceased daddy, her neighborhood, her friends. He asked her about the university when she told him she was to be the first Colored woman she had ever known of to get a college education. She told him of her plans to be a nurse in a Colored hospital. He listened with great earnestness, eyes deep and wide, nodding in tune to her yielding voice. He took her home and mentioned that he would be in town three more days until Friday, so she’d invited him to dinner the next night without asking her mother.