May 2, 1938
Dear Peck,
Baby, you will never guess who showed up out of nowhere and is rooming here at 560 now. Two of your old friends that you wrote about. Pearl Moon & her boy! They’ve been here two days. I see what you meant about them . . .
V
Honest to Jesus, it wasn’t that Vienna wanted to know everybody in ‘lo’ Dunbar’s business. It wasn’t even that she was that interested, except maybe to have some gossip to speed up the time in the shop, and to write to Peck about. Most everybody heard what she heard, and maybe more, including ‘lo’ Dunbar’s barbers, bartenders, pool hall men, funeral parlor folks, bootblacks, hustlers, and who knows who all else, knew most of what there was to know about most everybody anyway. Same way the domestics, chauffeurs, yard boys, workers out at the plant, janitors who crossed Dunbar Avenue day to day into the white folks’ section, even out to the Henderson District, got to know their business, too.
Not much happened in Chilton’s ‘lo’ Dunbar Street colored section that somebody didn’t see, and that self-same somebody didn’t tell somebody else. And so on, until sooner or later what was told or what was heard, or what was said to have been seen, got around to Vienna in as close proximity as she was in the beauty shop, where talk, usually about other people’s business, was the lifeblood of daily communication.
Vienna. Vienna Minnifee. Future Mrs. Peck Morgan. First chair beautician in
The Colored House of Beauty, Potluck’s beauty salon.
Marcel Waving, Hair Dying, Facial and Scalp Treatments,
Shampooing, Manicuring, Eyebrow Shaping,
Always courteous treatment.
Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays
Except by appointment.
Now Pearl and Son’s arrival in Chilton, that was one occurrence that others had to hear from Vienna, because she was there when they arrived. Standing that evening after work on the corner of Everett and Chilton, where she crossed to head home to 560, the rooming house where she lived. Owned by Chap, run by his wife Potluck. A Wednesday it was, which meant it had been a light day for doing heads. Hardly worth being open. A day consisting mostly of a little light cleaning up, getting ready for the rest of the week. It was the day when stories and hearsay were sorted and sifted through most thoroughly to be set for the coming late week and weekend rush.
So any telling of Pearl and Son’s road weary arrival in Chilton, to be accurate, had to start with Vienna’s version of it.
Standing there were she, who they’d come to know as Pearl Moon, with a satchel in one hand, a note in the other, and Son, holding on to her sleeve with his free hand, his satchel in the other. Both of them, after what looked like some hard traveling, were as dusty and scuffed as two bundles dropped off some shinny man’s wagon.
Everybody in motion but the two of them. Women doing their last evening shopping before stores closed, men and women just rushing home after work, or men moving to the bar or the pool hall—moving around the two like streams of water around two rocks. Many of them giving the woman and boy a quick studying appraisal as they moved past, but none stopped, except Vienna, asking can I help you, point you somewhere?
Pearl nodding with that just-about-impossible-to-read half-smile people would come to know and puzzle over, thanking Vienna for her kindness, looking at her with the direct look they would also come to know and note for its intensity, taking Vienna all in, assessing and calibrating like Schlaffer the pawnbroker looking through his loupe at a trinket professed to be an heirloom with a pedigreed provenance, the final appraisal filed away to be referenced in all future evaluations and advisements.
Pearl held out the creased piece of paper. Did Vienna know this address?
Pulling her attention from the boy, Vienna looked at the paper. Not only did she know it, she said, it was where she was going. 560 Chilton. The boy nodded as if he knew it all along.
The three of them headed off, with Vienna a step or two in the lead, almost bumping into a light pole, listening and looking from Pearl to the boy as they were walking to 560. The boy clutching the woman’s sleeve, his head in a slow bob and swing, rolling right or left like he was catching scents, or listening to a slow motion tennis match as he took in the sounds: voices, traffic, and footsteps.
Pearl was carrying on two conversations, one with Vienna, mostly asking questions about points of interest. At the same time, in a slightly lower voice with the boy, she was appraising everything in the sweep of her vision that might be an obstruction or of danger to her child.
It put Vienna in mind of the juggler in the amateur contest at King’s Theater once, tossing balls and plates and a top hat, all at the same time. Pearl was way more amazing than that as she and her son moved together like two halves of something, some being, that was more than the sum of their two parts. Him like the tail on a kite as she wove, stopped, started through the shoppers and pedestrians on Chilton Street.
Vienna walked them along that block of two-or three-storied professional buildings with their awnings unfurled, which housed the offices of two colored doctors, the lawyer; the three-story hotel with the druggist, barbershop, and beauty parlor on the first floor; the pool hall, pawn shop, ice cream parlor, meat market, fruit stand, King’s Colored movie theater, the café, the Baptist and Methodist churches (pointing to Reverend Leonard’s Spain Street Zion A.M.E., where she sang in the choir); the grocery store, women’s clothing and dry goods store, undertaker, insurance, and millinery; and the stoplights at the corners of Downing and Percival.
Vienna looked at the street from how the woman, a newcomer, must see it: the business district of ‘lo’ Dunbar. A street to be proud of. Almost 100% colored-owned and operated from one end to the other. Well kept. Clean windows. Fresh goods. Decent enough prices so that coloreds were satisfied or proud to do their shopping there. The merchants wheeling in their carts, sweeping down their sidewalks, cranking their awnings up, taking their aprons off. People speaking to Vienna, eyeing the couple with her, asking with scrunched-up eyebrows who the two new arrivers were, the woman with mouth going a mile a minute, the boy sniffing like a bloodhound. Vienna just smiling and nodding, as if she was too engrossed in what Pearl was saying to catch the meaning of their expressions, and them, thinking to themselves, Okay, don’t tell us, we’ll know anything worth knowing soon enough anyway.
The note with the address was from Mister R.W. Boone, the mother said.
“Royale & Rhymes,” Vienna said.
“Royale & Rhymes’ Minstrels All Colored All The Time!” The boy said.
Then they must know Peck Morgan.
The boy beamed up, “Peck the cornet player? Bums cigarettes.”
Vienna laughed and clapped her hands.
“That’s who you are,” Vienna said. “Pearl and Son. He wrote me about you, maybe a year ago. Or more. You sew, and you sing.”
Yes, mother and son said together.
“Peck is my boyfriend.”
“You’re Vienna,” Pearl said. “He talked about you all the time.”
“They were just here. You missed them by about two weeks. Peck wasn’t with R.W. anymore either. Plays with Tate Dash now, first trumpet.”
“Tate Dash?”
“Tate Dash.”
Peck’s in the big time.
The money was better too, Pearl bet.
They laughed. Peck Morgan. Small world. “They’ll be back here at the end of November,” Vienna said.
Pearl and Son. Honest to Jesus! Vienna couldn’t get over it. What a small world. Just two weeks ago. She remembered he said they had had left the show—a while ago.
“And now here we are,” Pearl said.
Pearl described 560 to Son.
A big old four-story brick house set back about thirty feet from the sidewalk. Eight columns and five big windows across the first two floors, with banisters between. Third floor was narrower. Four windows wide. Fourth floor was like a box or lookout space set right on the edge. A big green grass lawn all around the house. Like white folks’ mansions they’d seen in various places. A high spiked fence with a double gate. Ironwork with scenes pictured in them. Look like somebody or something on fire on one side, and on this side something falling . . . She would tell him more about them later, she promised.
The house’s white trim all painted nice. Clean front and big side yards. There’s a small patch of flowers on either side of six sturdy wooden steps. No handrail. Then up the pavement to the house, with paths around both sides leading to the back.
Smells of supper met them on the porch; whispering through the screen door like Romeo calling to Juliet. Vienna called Luck, and introduced them. R.W. had sent them Pearl said, and they’ve been on the road a while, which was about as much as Vienna’d gotten out of Pearl on their short walk from the bus stop.
R.W. Boone said if they were ever up this way, Chap and Luck’d do right by them. R.W. had sent Chap a letter some months ago, Luck recalled.
“Luck?” The boy said. “Are you lucky, Ma’am?”
“Guess I am, for me,” she said. “But it started as Potluck; from the way I cook sometimes.”
“He’s not shy about asking questions,” his mother said. “He’ll ask about anything. Won’t stop until you quit answering. I prefer you not lie to him. But stop him when you want, or if he gets on your nerves.”
“Children supposed to be curious,” Luck said.
“He’ll abuse it though,” his mother said, stroking his head with a gentle gesture. “He’ll ask a duck how many feathers it’s got. Won’t you?”
“Yes ma’am,” he admitted slyly. “I can’t help it.”
Mama knows, she told him.
Luck called back into the house to Chap, who came with the easy, heavy-set flap-flap of his leather house slippers.
“I never looked for those that R.W. sent,” Chap said looking Pearl and Son over. “They either showed the hell up, or they goddamned didn’t.”
“Oh, Chap,” Potluck said with her gentle, disapproving way. “Maybe, now we got a child living here, you’ll quit your cussing.”
“He ain’t no goddamned child,” Chap told her, “look at him. His soul older than mine.”
Potluck laughed. “What you know about somebody’s soul, you old heathen?”
“Any goddamned way,” Chap said, “If they were with R.W. long as he said in the letter, then this boy could probably tutor me on some cuss words. Right?” Putting his hand on Son’s shoulder.
Showing no embarrassment, the boy smiled.
Chap, Vienna explained, cursed as natural as everybody else blinked or drew breath. It wasn’t meant to be profane or offensive, it was just the way he talked, in front of a child, a preacher, the police, one of his tenants, or a widow woman. All white people and most Negroes made you curse, was how he explained it.
Son held his hand out and Chap grasped it and they shook.
Vienna could see Pearl did not know exactly how influential the woman and big Negro were that she was addressing. Just to look at them they would not seem, at first, even to Pearl’s practiced eye, to be any more than a pretty well set colored couple, running a boarding house and a beauty parlor. But, throughout the ‘lo’ Dunbar colored community along the length and breadth of Chilton Street and the whole ‘lo’ Dunbar district, even on the west side across Anthony Avenue, it was rumored among the civic and law enforcement arms—in the middle-class White section of Henderson District, and as far uptown—that Chap owned property in his and Luck’s names. How much was known only to a few in Chilton, most of them bankers above Dunbar Street. That, plus his side business of loans to ‘lo’ Dunbar Negroes who didn’t trust or weren’t trusted by the banks or credit unions. Therefore most of the money that came into ‘lo’ Dunbar at least touched Chap’s hands before it got where it was going.
They’d seen and heard plenty, Pearl said, setting them straight right up front. Son’d taken it all in and remembered everything. He was going to do special before he was through.
Everybody was sizing everybody else up as Pearl asked about accommodations, house rules, mealtimes, and rent. Potluck gave her the rate and said they could settle all that up later, she wanted to get some food in them so they could go up and get some rest.
“No,” Pearl told her. “I’ve learned to take care of business first, ma’am.”
Chap didn’t say anything but he took notice and approved. Chap was first of all about business.
Pearl, from somewhere quicker than they could spot, and, Honest to Jesus, faster than a card shark could produce an ace, or a snap-blade knife, pulled out that rubber band-wrapped roll of money. She thumb-licked off a month’s rent, and without a word between them, passed it to Son. He moved to Chap and handed it to him without a missed cue or false step.
“We would like a receipt please,” the boy said.
Chap laughed. “Luck, baby, would you feed this little Negro while I try to figure out how I’m going to keep him from taking over all my properties?”
Luck moved off to the kitchen, telling their new tenants to follow her.
Potluck was a school-trained, state-certified beautician who had originally come to Chilton from Chicago to take care of her dying mother, Barbara Ann McIntosh, who had grown up with Martha Jean, Chap’s mama. Barbara Ann, ambitious as she was pleasant and charming, rented space from Tinhouse the barber in the back of his shop. Mama McIntosh, poor thing, didn’t last long—the cancer was cruel as a Mississippi prison guard. Barbara Ann, even in that short time, had built up a right nice clientele, being single and having no attachments back in Chicago, where she’d gone off to right after high school, mostly to get away from her daddy. She decided to stay on in Chilton and try to make the best of it.
She went to Chap for a loan to open her own shop. She had her eye on a storefront three blocks east on the northeast corner of Macy. It was, Barbara Ann explained, to be the first professional colored beauty parlor in Chilton. Not in somebody’s parlor or back room, smelling of whatever was being cooked for dinner that evening, with children running all through the house; but three or four stations with trained, state-licensed cosmetologists, in clean uniforms: appointments on time, latest magazines, coffee or iced tea while you wait. Clean as a Mercy Hospital operating room. Just like Chap ran 560: linen changed Saturdays, meals on time, respectable boarders, prestigious address. She hadn’t added the last part to flatter him but to let him know she had a business vision that was first rate.
Barbara Ann sold her family home soon after her mama died, refusing to live ever again within Big Walter’s walls. She was a boarder at 560. Barbara Ann and Chap had eyed each other when they were in high school, but Big Walter, Barbara Ann’s daddy, had wedged in between young Barbara Ann and young Chap and all of the rest of the young boys, and that was that. Chap offered her an option, a lease on the beauty parlor, or for Miss Barbara Jean McIntosh to become Mrs. Jasper Chap Metcalf.
For the longest time Potluck kept the beauty parlor, but finally, at Chap’s urging, she semi-retired, as she called it, and put Vienna in charge at the shop. Potluck still occasionally did a few exclusive customers’ hair on special occasions—weddings, proms—and by prior request, burials.
She didn’t mention it to Peck in her letter, but thinking about the new roomers was exhausting, Vienna realized, just traveling the few little blocks getting to 560, and she thought about the toll it must take on the mother hour by hour, day after day. For a moment she had a little flash of fear at the thought of what would become of Son if something were to happen to his mother one day. The world would likely disappear. It was a sad and scary thought. She was sorry she’d had it and tried to not linger on it as she fell off to sleep.
May 7, 1938
. . . They haven’t said where they’ve been since they left being with you guys. But some of it must have been pretty rough. They’ve been here a week now and have met everybody. Pearl watches everything & everybody like a mama lion. We all, including Chap & Luck, still kind of tiptoeing around her.
But everybody has taken to Son. Even Chap. It’s hard not to. He’s like a sponge & bright as a 500-watt bulb. All the men, Chap, Tinhouse, Cecile & String, they’re like uncles to him. I’m starting to see already how he’s using them all in different ways. The more he asks the more you want to answer. He’s something.
Miss you,
Love
Your V
July 11, 1938
. . . Son couldn’t ask for a better or more devoted mother.
Chap calls Son Butch, and keeps him busy when he’s not doing something Pearl tells him to do. Son winds clocks, empties the pan under the icebox, helps Fletcher with emptying the ashbins, runs errands. The other morning he beat the rugs hung over the back fence, wailing on them with the baseball bat like Gosh Gibson.
Chap made it plain early on to everybody that Son is to come and go without being messed with from any sonofabitch out there. There is to be no running starts and bumps from behind, or cuffed hands to the back of Son’s head to dislodge his cap, no outthrust legs meant to trip. No tight-packed snowballs, or water balloons, or soot-filled paper bag bombs. No bullying or they’d have to answer to Chap himself.
Potluck and I were wondering the other night just how he navigates like he does, mostly without stick or stumbling. Does he count steps, or is he like a bat, sending out silent signals? Does he have some kind of x-ray vision? Anyway—like I say, they’re settled in and it’s hard to remember a time when they weren’t here.
Japan and China going to war
Bet that German still feels the Brown Bombers’ right & lefts. That’s the way you knock me out!
Miss you,
Love
Your V
P.S. It’s hard to remember a time when you were here. Hurry up Nov.
X X X X