Chapter Four

Oh, yeah, and if you see J.D.’s skinny ass anywhere, tell that spook he’d better get on back here with my money. Tell him when he picks up Boots’ numbers, to get me one of them catfish dinners.”

“Sure thing, Miz Johnson,” Rowena’s errand boy, Billy, answered for the umpteenth time. Billy hated Thursdays. Most every colored maid had Thursday afternoon off, and it seemed like at least half of them came into Rowena’s then to get their hair “fried, pressed, and laid to the side.”

Billy hurried out the door before Rowena added ten more things for him to do. He needn’t have worried. This once, out of all the years her shop had been open, she was closing early. Her clients had been reminded every week for more than a month. Mildred Hawkins had been one of the lucky few to get an appointment and was Rowena’s last customer of the day.

“As I was sayin’, Sister Hawkins,” Rowena jabbered on, as she caught the kinky hair at the base of the woman’s scalp between the prongs of the hot iron, “I don’t care if them dickty heifers never come in here again. Matter of fact, they can just stay they imitation ofay selves right up on Welton all they want. They just wantin’ to be seen anyway.

Rowena worked the hot comb through Mildred Hawkins’s nape — or kitchen, as Colored women called it —like she was trying to straighten out coiled fence wire.

“‘Sides, just like Brother Garvey says, they money ain’t any greener than anybody else’s.” The hot comb grazed the skin on Mildred Hawkins’ neck.

“Good heavens,” Mildred hollered and jumped up. “Chile, forget them folks. You ‘bout to burn me alive.”

Rowena hated admitting when she’d made a mistake. She kept a stone face and looked at her customer like she didn’t know what in the world was the woman’s problem.

“Mildred, you gonna have to sit still now. I ain’t got all day. Amy’s train gonna be in at two forty-five.”

Mildred Hawkins started to respond, but J.D. banged through the door.

“Hey, Brown Sugah,” J.D. greeted Rowena, and blew her a kiss as he approached.

“Boy, don’t you ‘Brown Sugah’ me. Where’s my money? You more than an hour late.” Rowena slammed the curling iron back down on the heating plate and turned to J.D. with her hands on her hips.

“Calm down now, sweetness. Everything’s copasetic. I got most of your stash right here,” J.D. said, patting his coat’s breast pocket. “You know how old Miz Wilkes can get going. Man, that woman talks more than an RCA radio.”

He took a wad of dollar bills from his inside pocket, and deposited it in the lidless cigar box on Rowena’s counter. “Still gotta go by Boots’, though.”

Rowena cast a sharp glance at J.D. She didn’t like nobody playing with her money. She’d picked too much cotton, and washed too many floors, to take one measly cent for granted.

The arthritis swelling her hands was another reason she needed to keep track of her accounts. She didn’t know how much longer she was going to be able to do hair. Uh huh, wasn’t nobody gonna play with her money. She had Amy’s boarding school tuition to think about, and the mortgages on this duplex and the two apartment buildings.

“Look, J.D.,” Rowena said, “you already late paying back the fifty from last week. I’d done told you, whatever you do, don’t play with my money.”

“Speaking of which,” J.D. said, and slipped an arm around Rowena’s waist, “when you gonna stop working so hard and let me take you to one of them picture shows?”

“Go on now, boy,” Rowena said, and pushed J.D. away. “I ain’t got time for your foolishness.” She picked up the hot comb again and went back to straightening Mildred Hawkins’ hair.

“Oh, right,” J.D. said, as he looked at himself in the mirror and slicked back his do. “I forgot you done gone over to the other side. That Mr. Charlie, what be in the club every night, sure got your nose all open.”

Rowena pretended not to see Mildred Hawkins’ face light up with shock. Instead, Rowena just waved the hot iron in the direction of the front door.

“Now look, J.D., you crossin’ the line. Besides, I ain’t got time for no foolishness — yours or nobody else’s.”

Her dealings with a white man wasn’t nobody’s business anyway. She wasn’t even sure how it had gotten started.

“And while you on the door tonight, don’t be lettin’ them friends of yours in either. I ain’t in business for my health. I gotta make a profit.”

J.D. had helped her improve the speakeasy’s operations, but if he was thinkin’ he was back in Harlem, he’d better think again. Denver wasn’t no backwater, like Chicken Neck, Alabama, where they’d growed up, but it wasn’t no main street either. If she wanted to keep a decent clientele coming to the club, she had to be careful who she let in. As if bootleggin’ wasn’t a hard enough business.

J.D. picked up the copy of Reader’s Digest from Rowena’s counter. He was about to make a comment on an article when Lulu came down the stairs.

She was a young, petite redbone from Louisiana. She worked part time in the shop and full time in the club, and like the other girls Rowena hired, lived on the duplex’s third floor. The second floor was Rowena and her daughter Amy’s living quarters.

Lulu walked up to J.D. and stared up at him. Like many men, his knees got weak looking at a colored woman with blue eyes. “How about you and me goin’ to the movies. J.D.?” Lulu said. “I hear there’s a swell Valentino flick at the Orpheum.”

“Sure, baby,” J.D. said, and looked over the top of the open magazine at Rowena, “why not?”

He tossed the magazine, sidled over to Lulu and chucked her playfully under the chin. “We can take in a matinee. Maybe, stop by Boots’ afterward for a little chow.”

Lulu smiled broadly at J.D. as he transitioned to the door.

“I’ll be back to pick you up,” he said. “‘Bout three.”

The door slammed, and J.D. was gone. Other than the sizzle of the hot comb working through Mildred Hawkins’ hair, the only sound in the shop came from Lulu humming as she gazed out the front window.

“Miz Johnson,” Lulu said without turning around, “why those cops walkin’ back and forth? They been strolling up and down this sidewalk half the morning.”

“Girl, ain’t you got nothin’ better to do? What about them sheets that need foldin’ and puttin’ away?”

Lulu rolled her eyes at Rowena, and went back upstairs. Rowena ignored Lulu’s attitude. The girl was always pouting about something.

Rowena continued twisting strands of Mildred Hawkins’ hair around the hot comb, and thought back. She had made her weekly payment, hadn’t she? Hmmm … Monday, like always. She had even doubled it, like Devin told her to. So what did the cops want? The shop door opened and shut. Rowena recognized her two uninvited visitors.

“Afternoon, officers,” Rowena said, looking at Sergeant Smith and Lieutenant Kirby in the counter mirror. “You gentlemen’s have a seat, if you like. I’ll be right with you.”

Kirby, a “Saint Nick” look-alike, acknowledged Rowena’s comment with a quick touch of his hat, and instructed his partner, Smith, to wait near the door.

Rowena knew a lot about Smith just by his sallow skin and bad teeth. He was probably a white-trash Okie anxious for any chance to make himself feel superior to at least a colored person. Only he really wasn’t and he knew it. He stroked his billy club like it was his manhood.

Mildred Hawkins didn’t bother to look at her finished hair in the mirror. She jumped out of the chair and threw two crisp new dollar bills into Rowena’s cigar box.

“Don’t worry about the change,” she nervously said, and grabbed her sweater from the wall hook. “Nice weather we’re having,” she said on her way past Lieutenant Kirby, but hurried out the door without waiting for his answer.

Rowena removed her apron and rinsed her hands under the washbasin faucet. After drying her hands on a towel, she turned toward Sergeant Smith. “You gentlemen’s care for coffee?”

“This isn’t a social call, Miss Johnson,” Lieutenant Kirby finally said. “We’ve got word there’s a moonshine operation in this neighborhood again. Now, you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

They both noticed that something about the shop’s cabinets had Smith’s attention. Lieutenant Kirby tried stepping in the sergeant’s path, but Smith walked around him. Rowena and the lieutenant stood looking at each other.

“Officer Kirby, sir, you’re talkin’ to a sharecropper’s daughter,” Rowena said, trying not to seem nervous. “I hears all kinda rumors, but my daddy taught me when I was knee high to a piglet to let what people say blow in one ear and out the other. He said life was always more peaceful that way.”

“We’re just asking, Miss Johnson. That’s our job. Gotta ask or we’d be remiss.” He watched as the younger man studied a framed stock certificate for Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association’s Black Star Shipping Line.

“Say, ain’t that that troublemaker?” Smith said, jabbing his billy club up toward the certificate.

Rowena started to answer, but Smith had already found something else to interest him. The bottles of peroxide lined up on a nearby shelf. He reached for one of the bottles, but it tipped over and crashed to the floor.

“Oops,” Smith said, feigning innocence.

Within minutes he had flung open the doors of all the cabinets, and emptied out or broken most of the bottles he’d found.

Kirby did nothing to stop him. The shop floor was awash with streams of liquid and globs of cream. The only shelf that hadn’t been touched was over the sink. Rowena held her breath as the sergeant took down one of the ceramic jugs on the shelf.

He started to twist out the jug’s cork, but Kirby snatched the jug from the younger man’s hands. “Look, Smith, quit dickin’ around. If you haven’t found anything yet, there’s probably nothing here. No use ruining the place.”

“But Lieutenant,” Smith said, “I’ll bet …”

“By the way, officers,” Rowena said, as she carefully stepped through the shards of broken glass on the floor over to the lieutenant, then rested a hand on his arm as she looked into his face, “I been meanin’ to ask you gentlemen’s, when do tickets go on sale for the Policemen’s Ball? There is a ball this year, ain’t there? I always like to support a good cause.”

“Why, that’s mighty generous of you, Miss Johnson,” the lieutenant said, and waved for Smith to move to the door.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Smith said, and walked away.

Rowena took the jug from the sergeant and put it back on the shelf.

“Whew,” Kirby sighed as he removed his cap then mopped his forehead with his uniform sleeve. “Now, where were we?” he asked Rowena.

“The Policemen’s Ball,” Rowena said.

“Ah, yes. I wish more of our commerce people were so civic minded. We’ll be sure to send the tickets right over. How many did you say?”

“Ten. Twelve. I got lots a friends that I’m sure are interested too.”

“Sure thing, Miss Johnson,” Kirby said, then tipped his hat to Rowena and headed to the door. “Come on, Smith, let’s move on. It’s time for us to get back to the station.”

The sergeant looked frustrated and confused, and seemed reluctant to go, but the lieutenant was insisting. Smith did an about-face and followed on the heels of his superior.

The officers’ exit from the shop coincided with someone bamming on the front door.

“Anyone here who can sign for these encyclopedias?” a man with a dolly full of boxes yelled through the screen door. “The people they’re for, ‘cross the street ain’t home.”

“Sure,” Rowena said, “come on in, just look where you step. Things are a trifle messy in here right now.”

Kirby held the door open while the deliveryman hoisted the load of boxes over the door ledge and pulled them inside. Smith waited on the sidewalk.

“We’ll get back to you real soon about those tickets,” Officer Kirby said, and then left.

Rowena turned her attention to the next matter. “You can set them boxes behind that curtain, Mr. Uh?”

“MacDuff. Just MacDuff. No fancy titles for me.”

“If that’s what you say. Don’t make me no mind.”

Rowena waited for MacDuff to move, but he just stared at her like he was waiting for something. Finally he said, “It’s c.o.d., sister. I’ll put ‘em anywhere you want after I get my money.” MacDuff looked at Rowena and watched intently as she reached into the bodice of her dress.

“Here it is,” Rowena said, and pulled out a roll of cash as big as her fist. “Hope we’ll be able to do business again sometime.” She handed it all to him.

“Don’t see why we shouldn’t,” MacDuff said, taking the money, and then counting it. True to his word, MacDuff moved the boxes to the back room, but then left just as abruptly as he’d arrived.

The morning had been wearisome for Rowena. She went behind the curtain into the dining room, which now served as a storage area, and switched on the overhead light. MacDuff had stacked the boxes in two columns of three boxes each.

In the top bureau drawer she found a pair of shears, took them out and opened the blades into a wide “V.” She chose one of the top boxes, and pulled one of the blades along an edge of the box to cut an opening.

Too impatient to cut the whole way around the box, she reached her hand into the slit she’d cut in the box and tore the top of the box back.

The box appeared to be filled with straw, but after quickly scooping the straw out with her hands, Rowena made her find—a handsome new set of leather-bound books.

She lifted one of the books out and rubbed her hand across its smooth, dark brown leather cover. She cracked the book open and flipped through its pages. Having so many words about so many things in her very own hand intoxicated Rowena.

She laid her palm against one of the pages. The paper felt deliciously cool. Then she lifted the book to her face and smelled. She inhaled the book’s scent as if it were fresh plowed earth and opened it. The page had a picture of a girl riding a bicycle down a tree-lined road.

Rowena stared for a long while at the words under the picture. “I’m not scared of no stupid words,” she said, finally. “I ain’t no dummy.”

A well of tears brimmed in her eyes, blurring her vision. One of the tears dropped onto the page and wrinkled one of the words under the picture.

She sounded out the first letter in the first word.

“B-b-b …” she said, paused, then tried again. “B-b-b …”

A light seemed to go on in her head. “Bicycles,” she declared with the delight of a child. “Bicycles were in … vented. Invented. Bicycles were invented in … in 1816.”

She looked at the rest of the paragraph and slammed the book to the floor. “Oh, forget it,” she cried. “I ain’t got time for this foolishness.” She had gotten this far without knowing how to read, hadn’t she?

She reached into the box for another book, quickly opened it, and readily discarded it. In minutes a dozen books lay in a mangled heap on the floor.

Only two books remained unopened in the box. She reached in for one of the books, and nearly tossed it onto the pile of others, but something about it felt the oddest bit different. She opened it.

“Hallelujah,” she hollered. It was exactly what she had been looking for. This book was carved out in the middle, and in the carved out space was a perfectly fitted silver flask. Rowena took the flask out, twisted off its cap, and took a drink of its contents. She swallowed hard, then drank again. “Now, we’re in business,” she said, and set the flask and the book on the counter.

Rowena removed the last book from the box and found that it also had carved out pages and a flask. She set that book and its flask aside on the counter.

She grabbed the shears again and pushed the empty box off of the sealed one underneath.

There were four more boxes to open, but she had to hurry. She wanted Amy’s visit home from school to be perfect.

Rowena smiled as she ripped the blade through the next box.