Читать книгу Forsaken - Ross Howell - Страница 12

5.

Maebelle’s Biscuits

There were wrought-iron stairs up to the little porch I had overlooking Lincoln Street. On the porch I kept a three-legged stool where I sat to smoke. There was a cuspidor by the stool where I put my cigarette butts. Mrs. Win­gate, the landlady, forbade smoking in her rooms, and flipping butts into her boxwoods would have been an even higher crime. Mrs. Win­gate lived in a handsome brick house with white columns on the other side of a boxwood garden from my rooms in the carriage house.

Maebelle told me Mrs. Win­gate’s late husband had been quite a cigar smoker. He was one of “them no-count rich folks in Richmond, think they all high-and-mighty,” she said.

Maebelle was Mrs. Win­gate’s house maid and she came with the rooms. She was a tall woman with a big bosom and she was as strong as a man. Her face was youthful, but she was born before the war to the house servants of a family in Portsmouth. She remembered her father loading her mother and her sisters into a dinghy one night and rowing down the Elizabeth River across Hampton Roads. They landed at Point Comfort. She remembered the Federal troops’ brass buttons shining in the firelight at Fort Monroe. The troops told them they were safe because they were now Confederate “cummerbund.” I told her she meant “contraband.” Maebelle was bundling my laundry. She said no, she knew what she remembered, since she was the one remembering, and was I one of them uppity white folks from Richmond, too? We left it at that.

Maebelle told me when Mr. Win­gate wasn’t smoking cigars, he was fishing. When he wasn’t fishing, he was duck hunting. He left behind two Chesapeake Bay retrievers when he died. Mrs. Win­gate moved the retrievers inside the house from the back porch where her husband had kept them “because them dogs was a sight easier to clean up after and better company than Mr. Win­gate ever was, him tramping round in muddy boots and smoking them cigars in every room of the house,” Maebelle said. The dogs were old and slept in their beds in the entrance hall most of the time, but they followed Mrs. Win­gate to whichever room in the house she was occupying. When she left the house for errands or church, the dogs peered out the front windows of the sitting room until she returned.

From my porch in the evenings I liked to watch the sparks of the trolleys dance along the lines at the stop. The sparks threw crazy shadows from the figures of people walking. A man would come by and light the gas streetlight. The light pooled from the last step of the iron stairs across the sidewalk into the street. A screen door opened into the kitchen and when the weather was good I left the inner door open for the breeze. Behind the kitchen was a good-sized room with a bed and dresser and a couple of chairs, and beyond that was the toilet with a sink and claw-foot tub.

“Mr. Charlie, that smoking ain’t good for you and it stinks up your clothes, too,” Maebelle said. She was standing at the foot of the steps. She had a cherry basket in her hand. “Come on down here and get you something to eat,” she said.

I put the cigarette in the cuspidor and trotted down the steps. She held out the basket. “Ham biscuits,” she said. She pulled back the cloth, then tucked it down. “They still warm. You didn’t eat a thing this morning, did you?”

I shook my head.

“Bony’s you is, ain’t no girl ever gone look at you twice. Lord!” She stuck the basket handle in my hand.

“Thank you, Maebelle,” I said.

“You welcome, Mr. Charlie. I got to get over to the house. Mrs. Win­gate wanting to clean her curtains,” she said. “Mr. Charlie?”

“Yes?”

“What you think gone happen with this Christian girl? Used to work with her momma over at the hotel, years back.”

“Well, there’s a good bit of evidence against her. She had Mrs. Belote’s purse, with some money.”

She shook her head. “It’s a bad thing, Mr. Charlie,” she said. “Colored folks got to be able to work in people’s houses. You take Mrs. Win­gate, living here all by herself. What she gone think?”

“I wouldn’t worry, Maebelle. The law will follow its course.”

“I seen all kinds of laws, Mr. Charlie. I seen laws come and I seen them go. Whatever gone happen, it best happen quick.”

Maebelle headed for the front of Mrs. Win­gate’s house. The wind had shifted to the southwest and the sky had cleared. The air was beginning to warm. I came up to the porch and ate a biscuit. Maebelle had sprinkled a little brown sugar and black peppercorns on her ham when she fried it. I thought I could eat the whole basket. I found a handkerchief and wrapped a biscuit in it for later in the day. I tucked the cover cloth back in the basket and set it on the table in the kitchen.

The cabinet above the sink in the bathroom was open, and from the doorway I could see my reflection in the mirror. I did look thin. And wan. When warm weather came on, I would go down to the Roads more, get out in the sunlight. Smoke fewer cigarettes. Maybe by fall I would be ready to go back to school. But now I needed to go by the newspaper.

Mr. Hobgood tossed back a glass as I walked in and placed it on his desk pad. He looked terrible. The circles around his eyes were always dark and this morning they looked like bruises.

“People are stirred up, Mears,” he said. “They want blood.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good job reporting on the inquest.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“What was the name of that colored lawyer? The one the father went to on Wine Street?”

“George Washington Fields.”

“Fields, that’s right. Better see what you can find out from him. Make sure he’s representing the girl before the grand jury.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Mrs. Belote’s brother. Hobbs.” He rummaged around on his desk. “Where’s that infernal note? Oh, here. Lewter F. Hobbs. Hobbs-Newby Equipment Co., Inc. Norfolk. Supposedly he’s friends with Montague. They went to school together or some damn thing. See what you can find out there.”

“He’s friends with the Commonwealth’s attorney?”

“Yes, yes, Edgar Montague. No need to shout, Mears!” Mr. Hobgood pressed his hand to his forehead.

“No, sir.” I leaned forward. “Would you like some water, Mr. Hobgood?”

“No, Mears, I’m fine. Oh, be sure to check with Sheriff Curtis. Heard a Negro assaulted a white girl on Buckroe Beach.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you have a cigarette, Mears?”

“Yes, sir.” I handed him my Luckies. He shook a cigarette out and returned the pack.

“I owe you,” he said. He took a wooden match from his desk drawer and scratched it on his shoe. After he lit the cigarette, he blew the match out. He studied the white smoke purling from the tip.

“I need to explain something, Mears,” he said. “This business. It’s about the truth, right?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Indeed it is, Mears.” He puffed at the cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “It’s about the truth. When the truth sells papers. Do you understand?”

When I asked Sheriff Curtis about the assault, he sighed and shook his head. He was slumped in his chair. He looked tired. “About the last thing we needed right now, Charlie. We had a couple folks outside again last night. What I’m worried about is a deputy going off half-cocked and shooting somebody.” He poured coffee from the pot on the stove.

“Well, the assault,” he said. “Lawyer’s daughter in Phoebus. Colored boy’s in the house. Turns out he’s the gardener. Neighbor lady decides to bring over some cornbread right out of the oven for supper. There he is, inside with the lawyer’s fifteen-year-old girl. Girl starts screaming, says he broke open the door, intending to have his way. Course he’s a good-looking young buck. Now you know and I know, Charlie.”

He looked at me sternly.

“Hell, maybe you don’t know.” He sighed. “Deputy said there wasn’t a scratch on the door. Hardware like new. Girl swore an affidavit, so that’s all there is for it. He’s there in a cell next to your girl. Name’s John Wesley.” He nodded. “That’s right, like the preacher.” He sipped his coffee and leaned back in the chair. “So we might get even more folks coming round, hollering. Colored girl’s scared half to death as it is. She asked for you, by the way.”

I looked at the jail door. “Go on, go on,” he said. “It ain’t locked. Just be quick.”

“Mr. Charlie!” Virgie spoke before I was to her cell. “You was right. I has me a lawyer. Mr. Fields, got his office right down the street from us. Mr. George Washington Fields.”

The colored boy stood in his cell and stared, but did not speak.

“That Johnny,” Virgie said, nodding toward his cell.

“Miss Hattie ask me come into the house,” Wesley said. “I ain’t breaking down no door.”

“Don’t talk, Johnny,” Virgie said. “That what Mr. Charlie told me, and he right.” Wesley slumped onto his cot.

“Can you read, Virgie?” I said.

“Miss Price taught me some,” she said. “But it been a while.”

“All right,” I said. “I have to go. I’ll be back soon.”

“See you then, Mr. Charlie. You ain’t talked to my daddy, has you?”

I shook my head.

Sheriff Curtis had the deputy’s report ready. I took down the full names of the individuals and the address for my story on the assault. Then I confirmed with the clerk of court that George Fields was representing Virginia Christian. Fields had named a second attorney, James Thomas Newsome. I had covered one of Newsome’s cases in Newport News. He was an excellent advocate. I could follow up on the attorneys later. For Lewter Hobbs and Montague, the Commonwealth’s attorney, I’d have to catch the ferry over to Sewell’s Point. I decided to head to the shipyards instead.

While I waited outside the dry docks, I took Maebelle’s biscuit from my pocket and ate it. Then I smoked a cigarette. As soon as the shift whistle blew, men began to emerge. Cahill was not nearly as tall as the others walking down the steel ramp, but somehow he took up space. The denim cap he wore flopped back on his head. A man walking next to him said something and Cahill laughed heartily, throwing his chin up. His white teeth flashed under his thick moustache. He put his hand on the man’s shoulder and laughed again. His forearm was thick and pocked with burns. A red bandanna was tied around his neck. His denim overalls were dirty with oil and grease below the line where his welder’s apron would fall.

“Mr. Cahill? May I speak with you?” Cahill paused and studied me.

“Well, Jack, it seems you’re quite the celebrity,” the big man next to him said. He slapped Cahill on the back and walked on.

“Sure, son, it’s a free country,” Cahill said. He grinned and started walking. “This about the widow woman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, come on then. I’ll buy you a beer. Talked to one of your buddies yesterday. Young fellow, about your age.”

“Was his name Pace?”

“Yes, that’s it. Pace. Real go-getter. Here we are.” The entrance to the saloon was level with the street. Men in greasy overalls lined the bar. Two made room immediately.

“Belly up, Jack,” they said.

“Draft?” the bartender asked.

“Yes, and for my friend—what’ll you have, friend?”

“A soda.”

“A draft and a soda it is,” the bartender said. He drew the beer and a sarsaparilla and set the mugs on the bar. Cahill gave him some coins. “Let’s go over here where it’s quieter,” he said. We went to a small table by the entrance. “What’s your name, son?”

“Charlie Mears.”

“What do you want to know, Charlie? I didn’t kill the widow woman, if that’s what you’re inquiring about. The deputies had quite a few questions for me about it.” He took a deep swallow from the mug and wiped his moustache. The muscles rippled in his arm.

“About your neck cloth?” I took a sip of the sarsaparilla. It was bitter.

“Yes, the neck cloth. The finger marks on her throat. The cuts and bruises on her face and head. The broken spittoon. She was a tiny woman, Charlie, and frail. I could’ve crushed her skull with one hand.” I knew he wasn’t bragging.

“They wanted a man around the house, Charlie,” he said. “The widow flirted like a girl. They wore my neck cloths, they wore my navy blouse, danced around, teasing each other. They wanted a little romance in their lives, Charlie.”

“Do you think the Negro girl did it, then?”

“I don’t know. She’s little, too. But stout. I’ve seen her lift a kettle of wash water it would make a man grunt to do. She could’ve killed the widow. But it don’t seem likely. If she did, something must’ve happened. The widow could be hard on that girl. But the girl always took it.”

“I appreciate your time, Mr. Cahill.”

“Sure thing, Charlie.” He lifted the mug and drank it dry.

“Did you find a new place to live?”

“A room,” he said. “Just down the street. Expect I’ll shove off soon. I saved up a little money.”

“Where do you think you’ll go?”

“Subic Bay,” he said. “Man can live like a king. I have a wife there.”

“Why didn’t you bring her with you?”

“She’s Filipino,” he said. “Colored. We got a little boy. He’d be colored too, way the damn government sees it.”

I went to the paper and wrote up the story about the assault in Phoebus. Then I wrote a sidebar story about Cahill and suggested the headline, “Navy Veteran Unsure About Killer.” On the way to my rooms I saw a bookshop with the lights on. Inside I found an illustrated edition of The Pilgrim’s Progress for Harriet and A Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, a picture book I thought Virgie and John Wesley could share.

When I got back to Lincoln Street it was past hours for the trolley. From the porch I could hear frogs calling in the marsh near the church. The air was still. Then I heard what sounded like a chain jangling on the cobblestones. In the twilight I couldn’t make out a thing. At the edge of the pool of light from the street lamp, a shadow seemed to move. It could have just been the darkness. With the unrest on the streets, I felt anxious. The shadow was low, not upright like a man.

I put my cigarette in the cuspidor. I opened the screen door quietly and went to the kitchen table. If Maebelle knew my intent I would never hear the end of it. I took one of the biscuits from the basket. I closed the screen door carefully and walked down the iron steps as quietly as I could. I set the biscuit on the far curb, just at the edge of the light from the street lamp. I came back up the steps and sat down on the stool.

The sound of the frogs grew louder. I thought I heard the chain. I focused on the biscuit. In the dim light my eyes were playing tricks. The biscuit vanished, reappeared. I thought of wiping the lenses of my glasses, but I might miss something. My eyes were getting heavy. I took a Lucky from the pack and struck a match. A snout as broad as a gator’s snapped up the biscuit from the curb. A shadow merged into the darkness. I listened to the sound of a chain jangling in the distance until the match burned my fingers.