The streetcar carries us off in our unnatural silence. I sit still as a bottle, attuned to every curbed whisper, every tight glance. Atlanta has always had her rules, but tonight, someone has planted a foot on her back and yanked the stays even tighter. I want to talk to Old Gin, but he looks busy in his own thoughts, his pupils tracking a fence heavy with snowy Cherokee roses.
At the second-to-last stop before ours, Old Gin nudges me and then points his nose to the front, where a man has just unfurled the Constitution. The headline reads: RESOLVED: STREETCAR SEGREGATION OK.
Eighteen
“It’s not right,” I whisper once we have reached the warm shadows of our basement. “The streetcars are for everyone.” I set about switching on our lamps while Old Gin boils water.
“There have always been lines drawn. Lines will just get darker.”
“When will it be enough?”
Old Gin glances at me holding my elbows, the kerosene lamp I’ve just lit moving the shadows. “In China, there are many social orders as well.”
“China is not a democracy.”
He alights on his milking stool and unties his laces. “Sometimes, things must get harder before they can change.”
“But why?”
“Pain drives progress, hm?” After removing his shoes, he takes our broom and sweeps the dirt we’ve tracked in. “When I was a boy, there was a drought in my village that lasted three years. Food was scarce for everyone. I remember seeing a dog wandering the streets, so hungry, he bit into his own leg. It was only after he drew blood that he let go.” He works the dirt into a neat pile. “Sometimes, we are so driven by our own needs, we do things that hurt ourselves. But eventually, the dog must let go.”
If there aren’t enough rows, the colored will have to give way, just as on the sidewalks. And where are Old Gin and I supposed to sit? Somewhere in the middle once again. Old Gin has always steered us away from trouble.
I rouse myself from my frozen state and fetch our rusty dustpan, holding it so Old Gin can sweep in the debris. An itchiness has crept into my soul, and it’s as if my insides are full of shifting debris that no broom can hope to sweep away. I wish the water would boil faster. I wish the Pendergrass would work quicker. I wish the dog would release its mangy, flea-bitten leg.
I pour tea, and my eyes catch on Shang’s letter, which I had set in the catch-all basket hanging from a wall hook. “Who is Shang?” I set the letter before him.
His glances at the letter, lingering on the loop of the signature. “Where did you get this?”
“It was in the pocket of the coat I found in the rug.”
Before speaking, he presses a thumb over a pressure point in his palm, then slowly lets it go. “Shang was a groom, like me. He left in search of silver in Montana, after the tragedy,” he says, referring to the hanging of the gentle fieldworker who paid for the Rabid-Eyes Rapist’s crime. He sighs, closing himself the way a heron collapses its neck and wings after a long flight.
“Was Shang the man who owed money to Billy Riggs’s father?” I can’t help asking.
He nods.
“How much did he borrow?”
“Much more than he could afford.” Something dark crosses his face, like a crow’s shadow as it passes over land.
“Who sent the letter?”
“Many questions. Sometimes it is better not to get involved. The river travels fastest—”
“Around the stones, yes, I know. But the river always feels the stones, no matter how it travels.” My voice tightens as wounds open. “And sometimes they are sharp, yet we are to pretend it doesn’t hurt, just keep our heads down as always. But how will things ever change if we always act like rabbits, hiding away and being afraid?”
“Jo!” His bright face rebukes me. “We are not rabbits.” He refolds the letter and slides it back to me. “Do not speak of this again.” His chest rumbles, and he retreats to his corner, removing the cough like a wayward child to its nursery.
I press my sleeves to my face, caging the sob that wants out. The only person who cares for me does not seem to care at all tonight.
* * *
—
THE NEXT MORNING the confusion on the streetcar has only grown. More protests are voiced and silenced; more people shuffle about. Some choose to walk, an avenue not open to the weak or infirm. Old Gin sits beside me in the middle row, his shoulder twitching, which only happens when he’s tired. I try to let go of the injuries of last night; however, the mystery of Shang still pulls at me. With Old Gin’s refusal to shed light on the matter, the mystery seems to double in size.
When we arrive at the Payne Estate, Noemi’s kitchen smells of bacon and . . . sour mash? At the kitchen table, Merritt hunches over a glass of something yellow. Noemi sits across from him, picking gravel from a sack of cornmeal.
“Good morning.” She gives me a tight smile. I wonder if the new streetcar rules are on her mind.
“Good morning, Mr. Merritt, Noemi.” I get busy assembling a tray.
Merritt claps his hands over his ears. “Quit hollering.”
He is the source of the sour-mash stench. Violet crescents hang under his eyes, and his hair leans to one side like wheat in a breeze.
“Hold your nose, and throw it back,” says Noemi. “Like you did your daddy’s good Scotch last night. I heard you told everyone about the first girl you were sweet on.”
Merritt groans. “What?”
Noemi drops an especially large pebble onto her pile, then gets up to stir a pot of oatmeal. “Don’t worry, you didn’t mention names, only that she had raven hair and pearls for teeth.”
Merritt squints at me through bloodshot eyes, then holds up the glass to me. “Well then, here’s to first love.” He gulps it down with several jerks of his Adam’s apple.
Merritt sniffs at his glass. “Smells like a sewer. What’s in it?”
“Egg yolks, Worcestershire, and a pinch of white pepper. Pepper is power. It solves a lot of problems you don’t expect it to—swelling, bruises, and hangovers.”
Merritt coughs, and his empty cup strikes the table with a thud. His chest heaves, and with one hand clamped over his mouth, he runs out the door to the courtyard.
Noemi shrugs. “Works every time.” She spoons oatmeal into a bowl. “Today’s oatmeal and peach preserves, and that porcupine can take it or leave it. August was the last straw, especially now with that mess of a streetcar. I needed that bicycle today.”
“She will send it back.”
Pots clang as she moves them around the stove. She sighs. “Fine. I made a ham. Cut a few slices if you want.”