River, cross my heart Read online

  It had been Alice's idea to leave North Carolina for Washington. She'd caught wind of better times in Washington from folks who'd moved and come back to carry the tale. The smell of the city's promise stayed in her nostrils until she'd been able to convince Willie. He hadn't wanted to chance it. But he'd been fearful that she would find a way to go without him and he didn't want — couldn't stand the thought — that the soft and pretty, dimpled Alice would leave him.

  Alice had wanted to come and here they were. It would always be between them that she had wanted to and so they had come. The white people here seemed the same to Willie as the white folks in Marabel. A different style of coat, but cut from the same cloth. He knew the realization of this bothered Alice. So he thought he'd spare her pride by denying it. "Taint quite as bad. These white folks aren't quite as mean as Carolina," he said softly. Lightning bugs chased each other in through the wide-open kitchen windows and back out into the pitch dark.

  In truth, Washington, especially Georgetown, was quite a bit different from the rural town in North Carolina they'd come from. There was work here — plenty of it — for folks who wanted to work at something besides farming. Here a man or woman could latch on to something other than the rear end o{ a mule or a cow's titties. There was better schooling for Johnnie Mae and Clara and no stepping off the sidewalks to let a white person pass. Still, the white people ruled the roost here. That was no surprise. But there were also many well-off colored people here: doctors, dentists, schoolteachers. And there was more quiet in the night here. No riders breaking up the calm with hooves and ropes and fire.

  Listening to her parents, hearing the angry resignation in their voices, did not help Johnnie Mae understand who the "they" were who circumscribed their lives. It didn't help her know whom to blame for being locked out of the magical coolness of the Volta Place swimming pool. This pool, so small in reality, but so much a symbol of the line drawn around her life by prejudice, had become an obsession. Throughout the stagnant July days, a clear but fanciful image of herself stroking lap after lap the length of the pool dominated Johnnie Mae's thoughts. She imagined the pale girls of the periphery gaping in surprise, not at the audacity of this colored girl using their playground and their pool, but at her absolute, consummate skill. The boys would fall back in wonderment too. In this picture Johnnie Mae mounted the diving board, threw back her head, brought her arms around and above her head, and sailed off the edge of the board. She was so fluent and graceful that she was able to glide under the blue-green water without causing even a ripple on its surface.

  It got caught on debris along the riverbank, still white, still tied in a bow. Before the onlookers came, before divers for the city came, before the dredging equipment was lowered into the water, Press Parker, a workhorse of a man with short muscular legs, dove in near where the white ribbon was caught on a piece of driftwood. Parker, who had been whitewashing a bungalow on M Street, was the first man on the scene after the five girls started hoo-rawing that Clara had been swallowed by the river. He didn't put down his paintbrush before he started running toward the commotion so there was a trail of white down M Street leading straight to the spot where he dove into the river. His paint-speckled cap flew off his head and landed in a tangle of weeds.

  Mabel, Lula, Hannah, Tiny, and Sarey had pulled Johnnie Mae to the bank and let her slip to the grass. Her chest rose and fell spasmodically. Her head thrashed about, and ropes of green water and mucus ran out of her nose. For a few moments the girls had simply run circles around one another,

  screaming. Hannah and Mabel had recovered first and scrambled up the hill, calling out for help.

  Word of the tragedy traveled in relay fashion up the street toward the St. Pierre house, where Alice Bynum was working that day. The coal-black boy whom people called Snow, whose name was really Clarence Simpson, had been wading with the girls earlier at Higgins Hole. He saw Mabel and Hannah come barreling over the rise to M Street. They called out that Clara was missing in the water. A moment later, Press Parker raced past him like a bullet. Snow took off down M Street bellowing, "That little girl done drownt! That little girl done drownt!"

  He shouted into the faces of passersby, setting off a tizzy of panic in each one. At the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and M Street, Snow stopped and told all he knew to a knot of people. Miz Belle Dockery, as soon as she got the scant facts, headed toward the riverbank with no regard for four-wheeled conveyances. The traffic cop in his narrow booth at the middle of the intersection blew his whistle at her back as Miz Belle Dockery careened in front of a car. She didn't stop, and the cop abandoned his post to follow her.

  Overhearing the talk, Lexter Gorson, who shined shoes in front of the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank, puffed north on Wisconsin Avenue. Eventually he grabbed a passing boy and held him in a viselike grip until the boy swore he'd go nowhere but up to the St. Pierres' house on Dumbarton Avenue and tell Miz Alice Bynum that one of her girls—this much they knew—had fallen into the Potomac at the Three Sisters.

  Alice felt a spreading panic in her stomach as soon as she saw the boy's bulging eyes. She put down the bowl of cake batter she had been stirring, knocked the boy against the screen

  River, Cross M} Heart - 29

  door, and ran out the back gate, setting the blood-red rosebush bucking and snapping. She swooped her skirt and apron up and held them against her chest.

  As the news spread, colored people rained down Wisconsin Avenue, the seventy-five steps from Prospect Avenue to M Street, and every other north-south artery in Georgetown, then turned west toward the Three Sisters. At the corner of P Street and Wisconsin Avenue, Mahmoud Hadad, a Syrian cobbler, stood in the doorway of his shop and attempted to piece together the crisis. He caught at words and snatches of words uttered by the people hurtling themselves toward the river. By the time Alice Bynum reached his store, he had summoned his youngest boy, Omar, and instructed him to unhitch the horse and cart tied to a post at the curb. "Boy, drive this cart!" he yelled. Hadad grabbed Alice around the waist as she was passing his doorway, and he swooped her into the back of the cart with him. "Drive down to the river, boy!" Alice fell back against Mr. Hadad, quickly righted herself, and gripped the sides of the cart. As they overtook people running in the street, the tassels and bells on the horse's bridle flew. Mr. Hadad yelled, "Move, ya! Move, ya!"

  A thin line of white paint led to a spot on the bank just a bit downstream of the three boulders. The surface of the river appeared closed, grim and unemotional. When Alice Bynum reached the crowded riverbank in the lap of Mr. Hadad's cart, she screamed sharply three times, then fell silent. It was not until this moment that she fully realized it was Clara who'd fallen in the river. Press Parker had plucked Clara's white ribbon, still knotted, from some jagged driftwood and held it in his hand like a flower.

  Ella Bromsen, partially hidden by the box elder tree that stood between her house and Ina's, watched the procession that brought Johnnie Mae to Ina Carson's house on Volta Place. The women escorting Johnnie Mae walked close together. The head of the semiconscious girl lolled back and forth. The women walked smoothly and evenly and allowed little space between them. Their hips brushed lightly against Johnnie Mae and they spoke quietly, encouragingly. "Come on, baby. Just a little ways more, sugar."

  It had been decided that Ina Carson would go ahead and ready the bed for her niece. Johnnie Mae would stay with her aunt Ina until someone could figure out what to do next. Ina huffed her short, plump body ahead of the other women as they walked from the riverbank, struggling to reach her house before them. Every now and then she paused to catch breath and turned back to look at Johnnie Mae's slumped-over body.

  At midnight, the sky was still bright. The full moon was a yellow dime — perfectly round, with no mottling. Willie Bynum stood as still as a flagpole. He had remained in one spot the whole time they were dredging the river. Alice had allowed Willie to say it seemed best for the womenfolk and children to go home and wait for word. She let the menfolk suggest
that whatever happened next, the women need not be there to see it. Bertha Howard, Elva Bemis, and Eva Copsey took Alice home. She was too wrung and twisted by this time to resist them. All her stalwart neighbor Eva had to do was gently touch her elbow and say, "Come on, let's go back to the house. Let the menfolk handle it from here." The women turned from the riverbank and walked homeward along the canal road, a line o{ children trailing them like solemn ducklings.

  Willie had stayed, occasionally sipping coffee pushed into

  River, (Jross My Heart - J]

  his hands by the men who waited on the riverbank. Despite the heat, the men built a bonfire, which threw up bright flame and giant shadow and provided light tor those working the river. One of the men broke driftwood with his foot and stoked the fire. Great ropes of sweat poured down the faces of the men facing the fire. Willie stood stock-still and cried and sweated.

  They did not pull the body from the river for twelve hours. Press Parker waded into the water when the dredging chains raised something to the surface. He grabbed hold of the chain to keep the body from swinging. There was little talk— only moans and "Lord have mercy"s from the bystanders. A cry went up from the group when the ropes and chains pulled Clara's body out onto the bank. It had been buffeted by the currents and by the dredging equipment so that it looked like badly bruised fruit.

  The policeman in charge, Sergeant Michael Cronin, didn't waste compassion on Willie when he ordered him to look under the tarpaulin that covered Clara's body. "Yes, sir," Willie said, then pulled a rumpled white handkerchief from his back pocket to wipe his eyes.

  Lexter Gorson, the shoe-shine man, spoke in a husky whiskey voice. "Here, man," he said and passed a flask to Willie. After Willie took a swallow, the bottle was passed around the circle of men. Even the white policemen standing around kicking dirt with their toes each took a swallow. Michael Cronin gladly drank some when the flask was passed

  to him.

  The police wanted to take Clara's body to the morgue for an autopsy, for reasons that they could not clearly convey to the men standing by to transport her small body to the

  32 ' Breena Clarke

  B. Jenkins Funeral Home. Reverend Buford Jenkins, black Georgetown's leading churchman and mortician, who was accustomed to dealing directly with white people in a way most of the other men were not, spoke up. "Sergeant Cronin, this is a baby. Her people couldn't hardly stand to have her cut up down at the morgue. Now you know this was an accident. Let me put her to rest like she is." Although Sergeant Cronin resented a colored man speaking up to white people, he agreed that it didn't make much sense to draw this matter out. He decided it was all right for Reverend Jenkins, Willie, and several o{ the other men to carry Clara up Wisconsin Avenue to the funeral parlor.

  The party that left the bank of the Potomac carrying Clara on a wooden pallet covered by a dull green blanket looked like a marching stand of trees. Their ranks were closed, their heads were bowed, they made no sound.

  Reverend Jenkins tossed Teaspoon Tyler a penny and sent him off to tell Miz Jenkins to go around to the funeral parlor, open things up, and ready his equipment. By the time the procession got to the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and M Street, Viola Jenkins was waiting there with a long, sanctified cloth of embroidered white silk. She lofted the cloth and it settled over Clara's body. The men did not lose step as they proceeded to the funeral parlor.

  Ina was surprised to see her next-door neighbor Ella Bromsen at her door around dusk o{ the next evening. Most everyone in Georgetown was over at the Bynums' house on O Street with Alice and Willie. Ina did not know that Ella had been

  standing out behind the tree, looking in now and again—biding her time before knocking. Ella carried a large mason jar containing an amber liquid and some stalks. She carried the jar reverently, and Ina stiffened a little, wondering what unholy mess was being toted up to her door. Hospitality won out over suspicion, and Ina opened her screen door and invited Ella into her parlor.

  Ella Bromsen wore a red trainman's bandanna tied around her head. Her arms were folded over her chest, guarding the large breasts on her narrow, muscular frame. Ella's was a slow face. Her eyes never darted. Her nose, cheek muscles, and eyebrows moved at the speed of molasses.

  Most of Georgetown was inclined to think o{ Ella Bromsen as a conjure woman of the dangerous sort. A few women were sure that she was the one who had put a hex on their man and run him off. But Ella made her primary living by making and selling brooms. She kept the tools of her trade — bundles of straw, driftwood, fresh-milled broom handles, and spools of cord—stacked about her house, outside and in. Ella Bromsen's uncurtained kitchen windows were lined with mason jars filled with decoctions in shades of green, pink, and amber and with satchels of seed and roots. With these, Ella supplemented her broom-making business by catering to folk who wanted a backwoods remedy for croup, constipation, insomnia, rheumatism, lack of vigor, or female troubles.

  "I won't stay, Miss Ina," Ella said, standing just inside Ina's front door. "Here is something for the girl. This is a potion—a decoction for tea—for the girl. This one will help her. Give it to her as a tea in morning and at night. This one will help her to sleep real deep and heal herself way down." Ella said all she

  had to say on one breath and handed the jar to Ina. Then she turned and left.

  Ina called after her, "Thank you. I say thank you. I give it to her when, you say?"

  Halfway between the two houses, Ella turned around. "A cup in the morning. A cup in the evening. Start this evening."

  "Thank you. Thank you," Ina called out.

  Many another person would have been reluctant to give much credence to the power of a potion as sickly looking as the liquid Ella gave Ina. But Ina had a feeling that Ella knew something about herbs and teas and such and that this brew might help to drive away the demons pulling at the fragile stalk of what was left of Johnnie Mae. The girl had thrashed about on the bed the previous night—in fact, ever since she'd been brought to the house. Her eyes, under the tightly shut lids, seemed to be fluttering backward up into her skull. She had not opened her mouth to let in food or drink. Ina was puzzled as to how she'd be able to get Ella's brew down the girl's throat.

  After Ina warmed a bit of the brew in a cup and tested it on her own lips, she put Johnnie Mae's head in the nest of her elbow and slid small teaspoonfuls between her teeth. The first two spoonfuls dribbled down her chin, then the girl's lips parted slightly. After several spoonfuls, Johnnie Mae's mouth opened more. Ina poured the rest of the decoction down the girl's throat. Johnnie Mae shuddered and her breathing be-came soundless. Her body sank into the doughy mattress.

  A Clara came into the room. A Clara whose head was swollen to twice the size of what had been her normal size, a

  Ruer, Cross M Heart - 35

  swollen-headed Clara with large prune-colored eyes. The face was a face of eyes only. The large face had no mouth or nose, hut it made a laughing, snorting sound that infected the room. The face played a game and laughed at its own game—a game of dancing over cobblestones. Johnnie Mae struggled to see the feet oi the figure but she could not. She heard the feet clearly and her eyes ached in their sockets with the effort o( trying to locate the source of the sound. She heard the feet strike cobblestones like horse's hooves. Clip-clop, clip-clop. The huge head — the face full of eyes, Clara's eyes — laughed at the clip-clop sound the feet were making and seemed to laugh also at the great effort Johnnie Mae was making to locate the feet. The face laughed uproariously, pulling Johnnie Mae's body off the mattress with its manic energy, drawing Johnnie Mae into the game. "Step on a crack, break your mother's back."

  After sitting with Johnnie Mae for eight straight hours, in which time the girl did not move a muscle, Ina became worried. She jumped up, ran next door, and banged on Ella Brom-sen's back door. Ella made her way to the kitchen suspiciously and opened the door a crack. Ina's voice was a fluttery whisper. "She's sleeping so deep I think she's going to slip away."

&
nbsp; "That tea is s'posed to take the river water out ot her blood. She needs to sleep deep until this is over with," Ella said. Ina looked at Ella's face and was startled to see amber flecks in eyes that she remembered as coal black. Ella's eves appeared like a brackish stream—full of organic matter, and slowly moving.

  Ina said nothing more, and Ella closed the door on her. Walking back across the yard, Ina fussed at herself for being

  gullible, for not having the doctor come look at the girl, for not being patient enough to let God work his will.

  When Ina returned to the bedroom, the smell of urine was strong. The bedclothes under Johnnie Mae were soaking wet. Ina undressed her, undressed the bed, changed the sheets, washed the girl. She washed her gently all over, and Johnnie Mae did not flutter an eyelid all the while. Her muscles were completely limp, her face as smooth and unworried as a baby's. Ina massaged petrolatum on the girl's arms and legs and belly, and put a cool cloth on her head. She sat on a chair between the bed and the highboy and twined her fingers together but would not peak them. The rest of the night she slept in the chair and left it only to make her water. Periodically Johnnie Mae sucked a sharp breath through partly opened lips and the breath rattled at the back of her throat, escaping as a small gasp. Ina plumped and straightened the bedcovers and patted her head but observed no change in the girl's condition.

  Sculling the surface of her dream state, Johnnie Mae's thoughts rose to a penumbral sphere one rung below full consciousness even- so often throughout the night and day and night that she lay in Ina's bed. Her eyes remained firmly closed, but Ina's whispered words occasionally broke through. Johnnie Mae smelled salves, soaps, bleaches, and coffee. She felt soft things brush her skin.