The Bible some. And a book called The Growth of the American Republic.
Staples nodded and stood up. Hed gotten a case of the fidgets. Lets walk a while, he said, and then youll accompany me to my office, where Ill load you up with some new reading material. He brushed off the seat of his brown slacks. Hows that sound to you, Ledford?
Ledford stood and brushed himself off in the same manner. He nodded as the older man had. Sounds good, he said.
September 1947
THE CHILD WALKED UNSTEADY from one end of the little porch to the other. Her gait possessed a wild, untested confidence. Rachel stood guard, her foot on the first of three porch stairs. Boards were warped and nailheads surfaced. Rachel worried on splintersMarys feet were soft, though shed been walking for over a month. She lifted her knees to right angles and pounded against the half-rotten boards. Ledford pushed open the screen door with the box he carried. He let Mary pass before him, winked at her, and stepped down from the porch. The Packards trunk was up, Bill Ledfords blowpipe and punty rod jutting out the back. The suicide doors were swung wide open. A single spot remained among all the boxes crammed inside, and Ledford slid the last one there. Hed marked it Attic Junk, and its contents, mostly old books, had nearly caused him to sit down in the dark reaches of his boyhood home and reminisce one last time. But Mack Wells and his family were on their way over. The home had to be emptied.
Ledford slammed the Packards heavy doors tight against its contents. Inside those boxes were the remnants of a childhood in two partsthe first recalled in photographs, the second in pay stubs and grade cards that no one ever saw.
There was a sound from the porch.
Oh dear, Rachel said.
Ledford turned to see her bent and picking up Mary, who was on all fours, crying.
He pulled out his handkerchief on the way.
Little droplets of blood emerged round from the checkerboard scrape on her knee. Watch, Ledford told her. He pressed the white hanky against the skin and pulled it back, showed it to her. Whats that? he asked.
Mary quit crying and stared at the crimson mark on the white square.
Thats a big girl, Rachel said. She tickled Mary where she held her by the armpits, and the laughing came, harder than the crying. Ledford dabbed once more and the bleeding quit. He bent and brushed his fingers against the porch boards where shed fallen. A truck backfired, then rumbled past on the street. Its muffler dragged. Ledford watched it stop at Sixth Avenue, and then, still kneeling, he looked back to the porch boards. To the corner, where they met up in a chipped V. He pictured his fathers white buckskin mitt there, just as it had been all those years before, torn to hell by the dog. Then came McDonoughs face. Ledford shook his head and stood up. Mary walked a circle in the frontyard square of crabgrass. Rachel stood by the curb with her hands on her hips. She was turned so that he could see her belly in profile, stretched to full with another child. Best they could figure, shed gotten pregnant around New Years, and here they were, on the precipice of another one.
A car turned off the boulevard and rumbled toward them. Thats Mack, Ledford said. He stepped off the porch, picked Mary up, and stood next to Rachel. He waved as the car pulled up the curb, and then he rubbed at the small of Rachels back. Shed strained it pushing the stroller over railroad tracks.
Mack Wells stepped from the old Plymouth and nearly slammed the door on his boy, who had hopped the front seat to follow his father. The boy ran around the back of the car and opened the passenger door for his mother. She stepped out and thanked him kindly. For a month, hed opened all doors for his mother. Thats what a gentleman does, his grandfather had told him.
Mack put his hand to his flat cap and nodded. Ms. Ledford, he said.
Hello Mack. Rachel stepped toward them. You must be Elizabeth. She held out her free hand to Macks wife in greeting.
Yes. Everybody calls me Lizzie. Lizzie wore a rust-colored blouse and matching hat, tilted on her head.
The women shook hands.
This Harold? Ledford asked.
This is him, Mack said. He rubbed the boys head from behind.
Good to meet you Harold, Ledford said.
Pleased to meet you. Harold looked up at the white family before him. The baby drooled, and he watched it stretch well past her chin, then give and fall to the sidewalk. It made a quiet splat.
No one spoke for a moment. Then Mack inhaled deep through his nose. Mmm, he said. Smell that.
Bread factory, Ledford said. Youll smell it everyday.
Lizzie Wells sniffed the air and smiled politely. She looked mostly at the ground.
Rachel took Mary from Ledford. Let me show you the space in back for a garden, she said. Lizzie nodded and followed, leaving the men and the boy by the car.
If it isnt the bread smell stirring your stomach, its the scrap metal clanging in your ears, Ledford said. He turned and walked to the house, motioned for them to follow. His limp had come back with all the box hauling. He ignored the burn radiating up his shinbone.
Mack looked back at Harold. He knew the look on the boys face. It was fear. Mack felt it too. There wasnt a black family for a mile in the West End, and he could scarcely believe hed agreed to rent the house. But when his home loan had fallen through, and his mother had sold her house to move in with his brother, Mack had acted fast. Ledford had told him over lunch one day, I got a place in the West End you could rent real cheap. Mack had quit chewing, looked at him like he was crazy. Ledford went on. There werent many neighbors, hed said. There was the scrapyard and the bakery. There was the filling station on the corner, whose owner, Mr. Ballard, was not a hateful type. He had a Negro in his employ, Ledford had told Mack. It had all seemed natural, what with Ledfords need to hold on to his old house and Macks troubles with the Federal Housing Authority. Inside a week, theyd drawn up a lease and shaken hands on it. Thered been some looks in their direction, but neither man paid much mind. Theyd become friends, as much as a black man could be with a white one. Mack was the only welcome visitor inside Ledfords office, the only glass man interested in hearing what Professor Staples had been teaching his young pupil.
The screen door squealed as Ledford opened it and stepped in. Gas and water and electric are all on and in your name, he said. The staircase before them sagged at the middle of each riser. It would be good to have a boy running up and down again. Ledford smiled, Wasnt always that way with the water and electric. We used to barrel-catch rain and heat it.
I know about that, Mack said. He surveyed the living room. You aint taking that big chair?
Its yours if you want it. Ledford regarded the wide upholstery. It had been his fathers drinking chair. On payday, hed pass out cold and spill all over it. The smell still turned Ledfords stomach.
Young Harold walked over past the chair. He looked at the builtin bookcase, the few books left there. He whispered, sounding out the spines.
Book on baseball there. Go on and grab it, Ledford said.
Harold took down the skinny book and opened it. He sat down cross-legged on the floor and turned pages.
Hes reading like a older child already, Mack said.
You like baseball? Ledford asked the boy.
Harold said, Yessir, without looking up from the book.
Good. Ledford smiled. Thats your book then. But if that baby in Mrs. Ledfords belly comes out a boy, I may borrow it back from you down the line.
Yessir, Harold said, and then he went back to sounding out the words. The Red . . . Head . . . ed . . . Out . . . field, he whispered.
Ledford fished the front- and backdoor keys from his pants pocket. His finger through the keyring, he whirled them a few times, Old West style, catching them mid-rotation with the snap of his hand. He held them out for Mack Wells to take.
The women came in the back door, Mary in the lead. She dropped to all fours on the cracked ribbon tile and picked at a loose piece of grout. Before she could get it in her mouth, Rachel reached down and snatched it.
Harold used to put everything in his mouth, Lizzie said. I caught him eating mud more than once.
In the backyard, Rachel had asked her about having more children, and Lizzie had explained she was no longer able. Im sorry, Rachel had said, and it seemed to Lizzie that unlike some white folks, she meant it.
Mary hasnt yet sampled mud, but I figured early I sure cant set out mouse traps. They laughed together. They watched Mary pull herself up by a loose drawer handle.
Strong, Lizzie said.
Rachel pointed out the ranges unsteady leg. She showed Lizzie how to bang on the refrigerators monitor top if it quit running. Loyal put some work in the kitchen over the years, Rachel said. Nothings new, but everythings fixed. She ran her finger over a long, glued crack in the tables porcelain top. It pinched at her insides to think of him alone in that house back then, still a boy, doing a mans job and a womans too. She rubbed at her round belly through the silk.
Lizzie was used to some age on her things. The hand-crank wringerwasher next to the sink was the same one shed grown up with, same one she still used. It was possible that Mack had not been crazy when hed agreed to rent this place.
When Lizzie knew it wasnt obvious, she stole hard looks at Rachels face. It seemed the woman was kind and genuine. She suspected the only black folks Rachel knew growing up were those who cleaned her house, those who followed the orders of her parents, but it was possible that such ways had not rooted in her.
Loyal raised himself alone from age thirteen in this house, Rachel said. Shed knelt to Mary, who was at the windowsill, pulling at an edge of unstuck wallpaper. She blurted something over and over that vaguely resembled flower, the papers pattern. Rachel looked through the windowpane, her eyes glazing over. I know he hopes your family will find the house suitable.
Lizzie did not answer. She listened to the baby girl talking in her own language. Down the hallway, Mack and Ledford laughed at a joke. From the scrapyard there came an extended squeal and crunch. Lizzies knees nearly buckled and her forehead popped with sweat. She was thinking how dangerous all this was. Her new job had come by way of Mr. Ledford. Her familys new home, the same. White folks. Those whom her father had raised her to be wary of. And here she was, talking kitchens and children, vegetable gardens and barren wombs, all as if the expectant woman across from her had been born into the same world as she.
CHARLIEBALL WAS eager to hand out the cigars hed bought. He walked the factory floor, sidling up to every man in sight with his box of White Owls, lifting the lid like it was a treasure trunk. Its a boy, he said. Little William Amos Ledford. Saturday morning. Mother and baby are just fine. Most men took a cigar and stuck it in a coverall pocket, then went back to work. Fishing for conversation, Charlie said to more than one, Im not real sure where that middle name comes from, but to each his own, I guess.
The name came from the Bible, a book Ledford had read yet again. Ledford arrived at half past noon. It was Tuesday, the last day of the month, and he needed to get a few things done now that Rachel and the baby were home from the hospital. Her aunt, a retired schoolteacher, was helping out.
Charlie caught him as he walked toward the office door. There he is, Charlie said, loud. His hair carried too much Royal Crown at the front. It clumped in spots. Cigar for the proud papa? He opened the box with flair.
Thank you Charlie, Ledford said. He pocketed the thing as the others had.
Hows Rachel faring?
Charlie spoke about his cousin as if he knew her. Ledford didnt care for such talk. She doesnt complain. Tough as ever, he said. He moved past the younger man and stepped into his office. Charlie followed.
Ernestine poked her head in the door. Shed just come back from lunch and carried a doggie bag. Congratulations Mr. Ledford, she said.
Thank you Ernestine.
Her smile was genuine.
Charlie watched her hips, and when she was gone, he leaned across the desk and whispered, How old is that gal?
What can I do for you Charlie? Ledford hung his jacket on the back of his desk chair. The air smelled damp and old.
Charlie straightened back up. My uncle would like to know when he might stop by and see his new grandson. Lucius had officially retired. He spent his days drunk at Chief Logans Tavern. Nights he was in bed by seven.
Well, he hadnt hardly come by for the first one, has he? Ledford was running short on sleep.
You can understand the excitement over a boy child, Ledford. There was nothing but the sound of his own swallowing. Cant you?
Sure Charlie. Tell him his daughter will phone him.
Ernestine poked her head in again. Mr. Ledford, she said, theres a man here to see you. Says his name is Admiral Dingleberry.
Ledford laughed. Ernestine didnt, and neither did Charlie. It occurred to Ledford that they werent familiar with the term. Well by all means, send in the admiral, he said.
Erm stepped through the open door. He spread his arms wide, brown-bagged bottle in the left one nearly knocking Charlie in the head. Private Leadfoot, Erm said.
Squirmy Ermie, Ledford answered. He couldnt wipe the smile off his face, and he didnt know why. The two had not spoken in more than a year, not since their awkward parting at the Chicago diner. What the hell are you doin here? Ledford came around the desk and they shook hands, clapped shoulders as if to injure.
Visiting my old friend is what Im doing. Erm hadnt acknowledged Charlie, who stood by the hat rack and swallowed and smiled wide. Whos the broad? Erm asked, motioning with his head to Ernestines desk in the hall. His breath smelled of gin and chewing gum and cigarettes. He wore a new scar across his right eyebrow.
Thats Ernestine, Charlie said.
Erm looked at him as if hed insulted his mother. How old would you guess she is? Charlies voice was pinched. Erm squared up on him. He cocked his head and smiled. Eightyseven, he said. Whats your guess?
Charlie laughed, then looked down at the cigar box. He opened it, looked in Erms general direction, and said, Cigar, Mr. Dingleberry? His voice cracked on the last syllable.