Four houses from where Chona lay dying, a slender elderly black woman named Addie Timblin stood at the front door of her tiny brown house and peered through its cracks into the cold darkness. Her eyes scanned the muddy road, looking for a lantern, which would mean her husband, Nate, was making his way up the Hill. Behind her, at the kitchen table in the front room, the monthly meeting of the Pottstown Association of Negro Men was going full blast, with the usual shouting and nonsense.
The association met every third Saturday night around her kitchen table, ostensibly to talk about ways for the Negro in Chicken Hill to get more jobs and opportunity, and maybe even one day running water and a sewer line, as opposed to the outhouses, cesspools, and wells that dotted the neighborhood like blisters. It was run by Pottstown’s concerned Negro men leaders—each one, Addie thought wryly, worse than the other. Mostly the men met to play cards, gossip, tell jokes, brag about cars they would never own, and figure out ways to slither around the white man’s rules without pissing off the white folks downtown.
There were three men at the table: Rusty, a wide-shouldered, brown-complexioned twenty-two-year-old in work overalls and a straw hat; Rusty’s uncle Bags; and Reverend Ed Spriggs, whom everyone on the Hill called Snooks. Next to Snooks sat his wife, Holly, who busied herself knitting. At the moment, the conversation focused around Miss Chona, whom every person in the room knew was dying, and to whom every person in the room, except Addie, owed money for groceries, favors, phone use, extra clothing, and all sorts of life bric-a-brac.
Addie stared out into the night as she heard cards being shuffled. She glanced behind her to see Rusty, a pack of cigarettes peeking out from the front pouch of his overalls, slide the deck over to Snooks and ask, “Snooks, do Jews cover the clocks in the house when one of ’em dies?”
Snooks, a heavyset man in a rumpled suit and bow tie, pulled the cards closer and winked at Bags as he shuffled. “Sho nuff, Rusty. They chew with their teeth, too. Plus, their women wear fur coats in winter. And the men pee standing up.”
Bags laughed, but Snooks glanced at his wife, Holly, who frowned.
Snooks shot a glance at Addie in the doorway. “Addie, make sure you dress Miss Chona in her finest. Don’t pleat her hair, nor comb it out in any way. Just leave it free. And put a dish of salt on her chest. It keeps the body from surging up.”
“She ain’t gonna pass,” Addie said as she stared into the night.
Snooks waved a fat hand in the air dismissively and turned back to the table, shuffling cards, then said, “If you growed up down home, you’d know about the old ways. Those are good ways. A dish of salt keeps the devil out.”
“Do Jews believe in the devil?” Rusty asked.
“I hope so,” Snooks said.
“Then why’d they murder Jesus Christ?” Rusty asked.
Snooks, momentarily flummoxed, turned to his wife for an answer, but Holly pretended to be too busy knitting.
“I didn’t say they murdered Jesus Christ,” Snooks said.
“Yes, you did. You said it in church. Many times.”
Snooks ignored him. “There’s sixty-six books in the Bible, Rusty. I can’t recollect all of ’em. Addie, if Miss Chona passes, put a bit of molasses at her feet and a piece of cornpone on her hair. And put quarters on her eyes.”
“For what?” Rusty asked.
“It keeps their eyes from popping open,” Snooks said. “Addie, do it before her kin shows. They might not cotton to that.”
“Ain’t no kin to speak of,” Addie said. “The father’s over in Reading. The mother died years back, before you come up to this country.”
“I don’t recollect the mother,” Snooks said.
“You wouldn’t want her around no how, Snooks. She was a rough shuffle for anybody who talked ignorant.” She wished Nate would hurry up. She spoke into the crack of the door again, but the bitter words were loud enough for the room to hear.
“If Miss Chona dies, every one of these sorry, half what-I-might-say men in this town is gonna roll up their pouting lips. They’ll cry their eyes out, pretending to be sad. Truth is, they’ll be glad to see her go.”
The words and a cold wind blew into the room together. An embarrassed silence descended.
“Addie’s wore out,” Snooks said cheerfully. “Holly, stand by the door and look for Nate. Addie, come set down here and feel some of the Lord’s quiet.”
Addie turned to him. “Spell it out, Snooks.”
“Huh?”
“Spell out how I’m gonna feel the Lord’s quiet while you busy setting here fending and proving ’bout nothing. Talking about devil in one breath and putting quarters on Miss Chona’s eyes the next. Spell it out. Where’s the Lord’s quiet in all that?”
“Take it easy, Addie,” Bags said. He was a stonemason, a stout, large-chested man. “Reverend don’t mean nothing.”
“He means just what he says, talking about the Lord while holding a deck of cards. Over on Hemlock Row, they runned a man out of town for doing that very thing. Called hisself Son of Man. They say he was a walking devil.”
“Ain’t no such thing as Son of Man on Hemlock Row,” Snooks said. “That’s just some boogie joogie them country Negroes cooked up. They need a real preacher over there.”
“Go on over and preach at ’em then.”
“The Row’s three miles from here, Addie, and I got gout in my feet.”
“Whyn’t you leave off him, Addie,” Bags said. “God ain’t against a man playing cards.”
“It’s all right, Bags,” Snooks said. “We is all different. Women got their own understanding about things.”
“There’s men’s understanding and there’s women’s understanding and there’s wisdom,” Addie said. “You wasn’t singing them songs about the Jew when your son was sick and Miss Chona made Doc Roberts come see about him. And she can’t stand him no more than you and I can.”
“Doc Roberts ain’t come to Chicken Hill on Miss Chona’s account,” Snooks said. “He come to forget his amnesia. I paid him in advance and he forgot I was colored and thanked me.”
The men laughed.
Addie had had enough. She slipped out into the cold air, closing the door behind her.
She was a thin, pretty woman, with dark eyes that shone brightly, giving her face the innocence of a child—eyes full of surprise, glowing, expectant. They topped a wide nose and the high, gaunt jaws of a Native American. Her family had emigrated from the South to Chicken Hill when she was a tiny child. Unlike most blacks on the Hill, she had no memories of “back home,” the world of the South, chinaberry and pecan trees or dewberries or hearing laughter from the field truck that drove the Negroes out to pick cotton. Sometimes she wished she could remember the South just to have something pleasant to dream about, like the others in Chicken Hill who referred to North Carolina or Alabama or Georgia as “home.” Home for Addie was Chicken Hill, Pottstown, Pa.
She took a few tentative steps, peering down the dark road, her eyes scanning the darkness, looking for the familiar Irish schoolboy cap and short-sleeve white cotton shirt Nate favored even on the coldest days. The wind bit into her skin, but she stayed where she was, her eyes searching the road.
Nothing.
Just as she was about to head inside, a tall, thin shadow crossed under the lone streetlight that illuminated the far corner. She saw it was him, the long strides stopping as he carefully stepped over the narrow ditches that carried sewage and rainwater. As he approached, she walked up to him and placed a warm hand on his face. “Whyn’t you bring your lantern?” she asked.
Nate ignored that. He didn’t need a lantern. He’d been walking the same route from the theater for years. He stood for a moment as she held her hand to his face, and only after he brought his long hand up to touch hers did she move toward the house, Nate behind her.
The laughing and chatting ceased when Nate walked in. He looked about the room, then nodded toward the door of Chona’s Heaven & Earth Grocery Store and addressed Addie. “Is she passed?”
“No. How’s Mr. Moshe?”
Nate shook his head. “His cousin come all the way up from Philadelphia. Talking about putting her in a home of some kind.”
“What for? She got her right mind.”
Nate sighed. He pulled a chair out from the table and sat, draping his long frame across it. “Don’t matter what they decide. The Lord’s got His own plan for her.”
“That’s right,” Snooks said quickly.
A plume of embarrassment drifted into the room. On paper, Snooks was the “community leader” of Chicken Hill. When the city fathers wanted to make a donation or announce plans to do anything on the Hill, they approached Snooks, whom they referred to as “Reverend Spriggs.” But on the Hill, it was Nate Timblin’s opinion that counted.
Nate smiled at Snooks. “You still reading out the Book of Revelation, Snooks?”
Snooks nodded. “I am.”
“Tell me one then.”
Snooks shifted uncomfortably. Like most colored on the Hill, Snooks was a little afraid of Nate. There was a silent pool in Nate Timblin, a stirring that did not invite foolishness, a quiet that covered a kind of tempest. Like most on the Hill, Nate claimed the South as his home, but unlike his fellow Hill residents, he never spoke of his past. That was a dark hole. He was a light turned off. But to the colored of the Hill, a light switched off did not mean it could not be switched back on. Anything could happen in this world, especially on the Hill, where the occasional peace of chickens and goats squawking and bleating happily could disintegrate into a wild scramble of booze, bullets, spilled guts, and chaos. Nate was easygoing, quiet, deft, slow-moving, with a wide smile and hands that gripped hammers tightly and eyes that gazed at you dead-on, but he was, even at sixty, what the old folks called “much of a man.” Even Fatty Davis, the muscled, gregarious, gold-toothed force who ran the Hill’s only speakeasy and who fist fought the cops and wrestled with the Irish firefighters at Empire Fire Company in town, made it a point to steer clear of crossing Nate. “I’d rather die in a storm,” he said.
Snooks, seated at the kitchen table, was angry at himself for noodling with Addie, for she was, everyone knew, a serious woman and also Nate’s wife. He managed to spurt out, “ ‘We shall not all sleep, but we’ll be changed at the last trumpet in a moment.’ ”
Nate nodded. He removed his cap and tossed it on the table. Addie, standing at the stove behind Holly, decided to drop the bomb quickly.
“Dodo’s missing,” she said.
Nate’s dark eyes locked on Addie’s face. “He’s what?”
“Gone missing.”
“When?”
“Today. They say he’s gone fifty miles. All the way to Philadelphia.”
“How you know he’s gone that far?”
“That’s what they say.”
“Who’s they?”
“Yula’s boys—CJ and Callie. They was out fishing in the Manatawny Creek this morning, behind that new tire factory. They seen him riding on the freight shuttle to Berwyn, hanging on the ladder. The road from that yard there runs straight to Philly, ’bout ten or twelve miles. He can walk it. Or ride another freight train. He’s tried that before.”
The three men at the table stared in alarm at Addie. “Why didn’t you say something?” Rusty said.
“Which one of y’all got a car?” she asked. None did.
Nate was incredulous. “The boy’s deaf as a pole. Them boys didn’t think enough to snatch him?”
“They jumped up to get him, but a white man from the tire factory came out and runned them off. They had to circle all the way round the other side of the Manatawny and cut through the Hill School to get here. It was dark by then.”
“Ain’t none of ’em had a nickel to call?”
“What phone they gonna use?” Addie asked. “Miss Chona’s got the only pay phone here on the Hill that the coloreds free to use. Them children ain’t going into no white folks’ place asking about nobody’s phone.”
Nate pursed his lips as frustration and irritation moved across his smooth face. He stood up and reached for his hat.
“Who’s up that got a car at this hour?”
“Fatty.”
“Lloyd’s busy selling sip sauce at this time of night,” Nate said. The room noted that Nate called Fatty, owner of the local jook joint, by his real name. He turned for the door.
“Where you going?” Addie said.
“Fabicelli’s bakery. Mr. Fabi got a truck.”
“He’s gone,” Addie said.
“Since when?”
“Two weeks ago. He sold his store.”
“To who?”
“Jewish fella.”
Nate searched his memory. “I know every Jew in this town. Ain’t heard of nobody buying no new business.”
“New man. Mr. Malachi. Rusty helped him put up a sign just yesterday,” Addie said.
Nate’s hard stare turned to Rusty. “What’s he like, Rusty?”
“He’s all right,” Rusty said carefully.
“All right then. I seen Mr. Fabi’s truck parked outside the bakery on the way up here. I reckon the new man must’a bought it.”
“I’ll go with you,” Snooks said.
“No, you won’t,” Nate said. “One colored knocking at night is enough.” To Addie, he asked, “Where’s my long coat?”
“I washed it yesterday. It’s drying in the shed out back. I don’t know that it’s dry yet.”
But Nate had already grabbed a gas lamp from the stove, stepped out the back door, and was gone.
Nate moved silently down the dark garden rows behind his house. There was no moon, and the lamp shone eerily on the rows of okra and collard greens. He moved past them with the swift ease of familiarity. He’d dug that garden with his own hands. He and his wife had planted every vegetable there.
A tiny creek flowed at the far end of the yard behind the shed, which was also used as a curing house for tobacco and ham. He unlatched the shed door, stepped inside, pulled his long coat off a meat hook hanging from the ceiling, closed the door, and thrust one hand up the sleeve of his coat.
As he did, he heard a splash in the creek just a few yards behind him. He froze, suspecting it might be a beaver. He listened but heard nothing else, so he stepped away from the door, then heard another splash.
He extinguished the lamp, slipped his coat all the way on, and moved around the side of the shed toward the creek.
He peered into the darkness, seeing nothing at first. The water was illuminated from the light seeping out of the houses on the top side of the Hill, the reflections creating short shadows in the trees on his side of the bank. From where he stood, he could see the bank for a few yards. But nothing farther.
Then twenty-five yards out, less than twenty steps away, he saw the boy.
Nate Timblin was a man who, on paper, had very little. Like most Negroes in America, he lived in a nation with statutes and decrees that consigned him as an equal but not equal, his life bound by a set of rules and regulations in matters of equality that largely did not apply to him. His world, his wants, his needs were of little value to anyone but himself. He had no children, no car, no insurance policy, no bank account, no dining room set, no jewelry, no business, no set of keys to anything he owned, and no land. He was a man without a country living in a world of ghosts, for having no country meant no involvement and not caring for a thing beyond your own heart and head, and ghosts and spirits were the only thing certain in a world where your existence was invisible. The truth was, the only country Nate knew or cared about, besides Addie, was the thin, deaf twelve-year-old boy who at the moment either was riding a freight train to Philadelphia or was a full-blown ghost wearing a schoolboy cap, old boots, and a ragged shirt and vest, standing ten feet from him and tossing small boulders into the Manatawny Creek before his eyes. Which one was it?
“Dodo.”
It was surprise that caused him to utter the boy’s name, for he knew he might as well have been talking to himself. The boy couldn’t hear. Even so, the child was busy, moving with the swiftness of an athlete, sorting through stones at the riverbank, stacking large ones to make some kind of embankment along the creek’s edge, tossing smaller rocks into the water.
Nate knelt, relit the lamp, and held it high, waving it to get the deaf boy’s attention. With Dodo, everything was sight, feel, and vibration, not sound. The light cast an eerie glow on the water. Yet the boy was so involved in what he was doing that Nate had to wave the light several times.
The boy saw the lamp’s reflection in the water first, then dropped the rock he was holding, turned to the source of the light, and stood up straight, a thin arm raised in a shy hello as Nate approached.
Nate pointed at the rock formation. “What you doing, boy?”
Dodo smiled. He motioned Nate closer. He drew a wide circle with his arms, demonstrating a circle of rocks, then aped holding a cradle like he was rocking a baby.
“Say what now?”
The boy rubbed his hands together, as if creating magic or heat, then cupped his hands to his ear, as if he could hear sound.
Nate shook his head, not understanding. He stepped inside the embankment of rocks, which formed a wall about two feet high. They were shaped like a kind of five-by-five box.
“What kind of foolishness you workin’ on here?”
Dodo looked at him blankly, then rubbed his hands on his pants, drying them.
“You got a hole in your head, son? Was you riding the train this morning? Was that you?”
Dodo blinked, standing patiently, still rubbing his hands on his pants. Nate gently touched one of the boy’s hands. They were freezing. He placed the lamp high, holding it so that his lips could be seen. The boy had not been born deaf. An accident killed his hearing. A stove blew up in his mother’s kitchen when he was nine. Killed his eyes and ears. His eyes came back. His ears did not. But he could read lips. Nate held the lamp next to his face so Dodo could see them.
“What you doing?”
The boy’s eyes danced away, then he said, “Making a garden.”
“For what?”
“To grow sunflowers.”
“CJ and them said you was on a train this morning.”
Dodo looked away. It was his way of ignoring conversation.
Nate calmly reached out and slowly turned the boy’s head so that the boy faced him. “Was you on that train or not?”
Dodo nodded.
“All right then.” Nate looked about, then pointed to a dogwood tree nearby. “Tear me off a branch from that tree yonder and make a switch. Then come on in the house. Your auntie’ll even you out.”
Nate turned to move back toward the house. He took several steps, then noticed that he was alone. Dodo remained where he was, amid his rock embankment.
Nate waved him on, irritated. “C’mon, son. It’s cold out here. Your auntie’ll warm your little toasters and it’ll be over.”
Dodo’s breath quickened, but he stood where he was.
Nate took several quick steps to close the distance between them, knelt, and placed a big hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Taking a lickin’ is to your benefit, son. The truth never hurt nobody. That was you on that train, right?”
“Yes.”
“You picked a poor time to go jollying. You know that, don’t ya?”
Dodo nodded.
“Well then. When you hauls trouble to circumstance, you got to pay. Your auntie’ll heat up your little cookers for a minute. The lesson behind it will last, and that’ll do it, I reckon.”
He reached for the boy’s hand, but instead of reaching out, the boy drew from his pocket a folded and wrinkled white piece of paper.
Nate gently removed it from the boy’s hand and, unfolding it, held it up to the lantern. He read the words slowly, running his eyes closely across the paper. When he was done, he lowered the paper and his gaze settled on the boy. “I can’t read fancy words, Dodo. But Reverend Spriggs inside reads good. We’ll ask him to figure them out.”
Dodo spoke. “I know what it says,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“My ma’s dead.”
Nate was silent a moment. He peered up the slight embankment, toward the shed and the house, thinking to himself of all that was wrong in the world. So many of God’s dangers, he thought, are not the gifts they appear to be.
“You don’t need no paper to tell you your ma’s got wings, son.”
“Then why I got to leave?”
“Who says you leaving?”
“This paper says it.”
Nate gently took the paper from the boy, crumpled it, and tossed it in the creek. The tall man leaned down and tapped the boy’s chest gently. “God opened up your heart when He closed your ears, boy. You got a whole country in there. Don’t fret about no paper. That paper don’t mean nothing.”
He took the boy’s hand, and led him up the slight embankment, around the shed, and toward the house.