The two Greek brothers, Nick and Peter, had settled in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1935, three years after they emigrated with their parents from Patnos. Their father, Constantin, had worked in a grocery store for a Jewish family in New York City, where the immigrants had landed; but when the Great Depression cost Constantin his job, rather than join a bread line he used the few dollars he had saved to move his family south, where, he’d been told, it was cheaper to live. The Jewish grocers had a cousin who traveled in a wagon throughout Mississippi peddling household goods who apparently made a decent living, so Constantin informed his wife and sons, ages six and nine, to take only what they could comfortably carry, and they entrained to another, quite different, country.
In Jackson, the state capital, Constantin and his wife, Josefa, found part-time employment as night cleaners in government buildings, then Constantin got a job scrubbing down a diner frequented by local businessmen and politicians. After six months, he was hired on as a waiter, and within a year the owner died. With the assistance of several of the patrons, Constantin bought the diner, which he renamed The Athens Café. Josefa and their sons worked with him and soon The Athens was the most popular restaurant in town. After their parents died, Nick and Peter took over.
During the year or so that Roy’s mother had a boyfriend named Boris Klueber, who owned a girdle factory on the outskirts of Jackson, they often accompanied him when he traveled there from his headquarters in Chicago. Roy and his mother always stayed in the Heidelberg Hotel, as did Boris. The Heidelberg was the best hotel in Jackson, located only a few blocks from The Athens Café. This was in 1955, when Roy was eight years old.
Negroes were not allowed to eat in the diner, but all of the kitchen workers, including the cooks, were black. To get to the toilets, which were accessible only by a steep flight of stairs, customers were required to go through the kitchen. It was in this way that Roy became friendly with the employees. He was friendly, too, of course, with the owners, who enjoyed showing him photographs they took in Greece on their annual vacations. Neither of the brothers ever married, but Roy’s mother told him that according to Boris both of the brothers kept Negro mistresses.
“What’s a mistress?” Roy asked her.
“Women who aren’t married to the men who support them.”
“Why don’t they marry them?”
“Well, in Mississippi, it’s against the law for white and black men and women to marry each other. Don’t repeat what I’m telling you, Roy, especially to Nick and Peter. Promise?”
“I promise.”
“It’s a sensitive issue in the South.”
“Can Negroes and whites get married to each other in Chicago?”
“Yes, Roy. Laws are often different in different states. In Mississippi, and some other southern states, a white man can get arrested for dating a black woman; and a black man can be put in prison or even murdered for being in the company of a white woman. I know this doesn’t make sense, but that’s the way it is. As long as we’re here we have to respect their laws.”
“What if you went on a date with a Negro man? Would you be arrested and the man murdered or thrown in jail?”
“Let’s not talk about this any more, Roy. I shouldn’t have told you about Nick and Peter. And don’t mention it to Boris. Promise?”
“I already did.”
couple of days later, while Roy was cutting through the kitchen of The Athens Café to use the toilet, one of the cooks, Emmanuel, who was taking a cigarette break by the back door, said to him, “How you doin’ today, little man? You enjoyin’ yourself?”
“Sort of. There’s not much for me to do. I don’t have anyone to play with.”
“I got a boy about your age. His name’s John Daniel.”
“Can I meet him?”
Emmanuel removed his wallet from one of his back pockets, took out a photograph and handed it to Roy.
“That’s John Daniel, that’s my son.”
“He’s white,” said Roy, “like me.”
“That’s on account of his mama is white. He’s got her colorin’.”
“My mother says white and black people can’t get married to each other in Mississippi.”
“That’s right. John Daniel’s mama and I ain’t married, not to each other. I don’t get to see him except his mama sneak me a walk by.”
“There’s a Negro boy in Chicago I play with. His name’s Henry Cherokee, and he’s part Indian.”
“Me, too. My grandmama on my daddy’s side is half Choctaw.”
Roy returned the photo of John Daniel to Emmanuel, which he replaced in his wallet.
“Gotta get back to work,” he said, and tossed his cigarette butt into the street.
That evening Roy and his mother were having dinner with Boris in the dining room of the Heidelberg Hotel when Boris whispered to her, “See that waiter there? The one who looks like Duke Ellington.”
Roy’s mother looked at the waiter, who, like the other waiters, was wearing a tuxedo.
“He’s quite handsome,” she said.
“He’s Mrs. Van Nostrand’s back door man.”
“Sshh. Don’t talk that way around Roy. Why do you have your factory here, Boris? I don’t like Jackson.”
“Manufacturing’s cheap. No unions, no taxes. It would cost me four times as much to have a plant in Chicago like I have here.”
Roy watched the waiter Boris had said resembled Duke Ellington as he served an old white man and an old white woman at another table.
“Mom,” he said, “the next time we come here, could we bring Henry Cherokee with us?”