“Well, this baby feels like throwing up, so I best stay right where I am, case I do.”
Flynn said, “Looking down at the water, Justine, will only make it worse.”
“What I tell you?” Justine quipped irritably. “You tend to your wife. Let me tend to me.”
“Have it your way,” Flynn replied, then turned to J.D. “Why don’t you go stand with her?”
“Ah, shoot, man, naw. I’m sick to death myself,” said J.D.
“Maybe you’d better take a bucket then,” advised Señor Peña as he waved over to Jorge to pass an empty bait bucket to J.D.
I felt a tug on the line and jumped up. It had just begun to rain. Excited, I ignored the rain as I watched the line tugged downward. I tried to reel it in, but the tension was too great. I cried out to Flynn. “Help me!”
Flynn slipped his rod back into its holder and quickly came over. “Keep a firm grip on the rod, Cassie,” he ordered as he stood behind me. He wrapped his arms around me and placed his hands over mine.
Señor Peña came rushing over. “If it’s a big one, you might be in for a long fight.”
“Could be,” said Flynn. His hands pressed down upon mine as I reeled in my catch.
“Flynn, you’re hurting my hand!” I protested. “Why don’t you just take the rod?”
“Because,” he said, “it’s your catch, Cassie.” And he kissed the side of my face. I turned to look at him. He was smiling that glorious, golden smile down at me.
Then the scream came.
We both quickly turned.
“Oh, my God!” cried J.D. “She’s gone overboard! Justine’s gone overboard!”
I felt the pressure of Flynn’s hand leave mine as he let go of the rod and ran over to the side of the boat. Without hesitation, he tossed off his shoes and jumped into the water after Justine. The rod, now belonging to whatever was towing it, was torn from my grasp, and as the rain pounded down, I stood frozen, waiting for Flynn to come back over the side of the boat. Señor Peña and Jorge were already at the side, tow lines in hand, peering over. J.D. was as useless as I was, muttering over and over again, incoherent words.
I managed to move. The boat was rocking.
“Get back, Cassie!” ordered Señor Peña.
I ignored him and hurried to the side of the boat and looked over. I could see Flynn in the rush of foamy waters swimming with one arm over his sister’s chest, towing her back to the boat, the other treading the waves. Jorge, with a line tied around his waist, climbed over the side, rope in hand, splashed into the water, and looped the rope around Justine. Jorge pushed Justine upward from underneath. Señor Peña pulled from the deck. “J.D., help me!” yelled Señor Peña. But J.D. remained useless. I ran over, caught the line, and together we managed to get Justine’s heaving and water-weighted body back onto the deck of the boat, knocking both Señor Peña and me down. As Justine lay on the deck she coughed up water and blurted out, “My brother! My brother! Where’s my brother?”
I jumped up and looked over the side. I didn’t see Flynn. “Where is he?” I screamed. Jorge, wild-eyed and still on the boat’s lifeline, looked around in dismay. “Where is he?”
Jorge dove back into the water.
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” I found myself screaming, crying, as Jorge dove repeatedly and each time came up alone.
Then, from some distant place, I heard Señor Peña order his son back onto the boat, and I heard someone whose voice was mine cry out, “No!” And a body that was mine leapt over the side of the boat into the freezing water.
I had to find Flynn. I had to find my husband.
This man.
GOING HOME
(1951–1952)
I was in Colorado.
I had come in the spring through the Colorado Rockies on a bus from L.A. I had witnessed the majestic peaks of the Rockies still capped with snow, the emerald plush grasses of the mountain meadows dotted with bluebells and yellow lilies, and even a late spring snowstorm that coated the pines and brought even more splendor to the land. After three years of sunshine or occasional rain in Los Angeles, with no hope of snow, and, before that, two years in the flatland of Toledo, the high peaks of the Rockies, the crisp air, the altitude, and the prospect of snow were welcome to me. When the bus pulled into Denver for a rest stop, I got off, and although I had a ticket all the way to Toledo, with a change of buses in Chicago, I did not get back on.
I had not made any plans to stop in Colorado, but I didn’t think twice about my decision. I saw a colored woman cleaning the station restroom and asked her if she knew a good place I could stay. “You got the money, the Rossonian Hotel. It’s a colored hotel over in Five Points, that’s where I live, most other colored folks too. Lots of famous colored folks stayed at that hotel—Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington. Couldn’t get rooms at the white hotels downtown. Could play there, but couldn’t stay there.” She laughed. “You know how it is.”
I thanked the woman and took a taxi to the Rossonian. That evening I studied the brochures about Colorado I had picked up at the bus station, and the next morning I walked the Five Points neighborhood, then took a bus to downtown Denver and walked it too. I passed the bus station, walked to the train station, then back toward Civic Park and the gold-domed capitol. I took in the mountains west of Denver that I had come through the day before. I wanted to be nearer to them. The following morning I boarded a bus and headed to the university town of Boulder, nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. The bus rolled through the countryside of the plains dotted with ranch houses, horses and cattle roaming freely. As the snowcapped mountain range spreading from north to south as far as the eye could see drew nearer, the bus driver announced that we were approaching the scenic overview of Boulder Valley. The bus was on an incline and only the mountains were in view, not the town. Then the bus reached the peak of the hill and began to descend. The town of Boulder lay below. The bold red-tiled roofs of the University of Colorado at the immediate entry of the town were striking in the distance.
It was all spectacular.
The bus driver pointed toward the mountains known as the Flatirons, which were now so close it seemed as if I could reach out and touch them. Above, the sky was cloudless, a cobalt blue. As I stared out at the beauty before me, at the pristine town, the cobalt sky, the rugged Flatirons, the infinite mountain range, for a few moments, I forgot my sorrow.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
After the boating trip, Uncle Hammer and Aunt Loretta had been called, and they had come to Los Angeles. I hardly spoke during the days following. Uncle Hammer took charge of things. It was Uncle Hammer who called all the family to let them know what had happened. It was Uncle Hammer who claimed Flynn’s body when it was recovered after Señor Peña and Jorge had pulled me, crazed and delirious, from the water. Another boat had approached, and divers, along with Jorge, had assisted in bringing Flynn from the water. At the time I knew nothing of this. Flynn had been taken to the other boat.