Rain. It began the afternoon of Ben’s death and came down day and night for an entire week, so Brewster Place wasn’t able to congregate around the wall and keep up a requiem of the whys and hows of his dying. They were forced to exchange opinions among only two or three of themselves at a time, and the closest they could get to the wall was in the front-room windows of the apartments that faced the street. They were confined to their homes and their own thoughts as it became increasingly difficult to tell a night sky from a day sky behind the smoky black clouds. The rains became the heaviest after dusk; water snaked down the gray bricks and flowed into the clogged gutters under sulfurous street lights like a thick dark liquid. Greasy cooking odors seeped into the damp apartment walls; cakes wouldn’t rise, and bed sheets remained clammy and cold. Children became listless, and men stayed away longer at night or came in and picked arguments to give themselves a reason they could understand for needing to go out again. The corner bar did a record business that week, and electric bills rose sharply as portable heaters, televisions, and lamps stayed on night and day as Brewster Place tried desperately to bring any kind of warmth and light into their world. By midweek, hopes for the block party started to disappear, the weeks of planning washed through the rusted drains with the gutters’ debris.
Although only a few admitted it, every woman on Brewster Place had dreamed that rainy week of the tall yellow woman in the bloody green and black dress. She had come to them in the midst of the cold sweat of a nightmare, or had hung around the edges of fitful sleep. Little girls woke up screaming, unable to be comforted by bewildered mothers who knew, and yet didn’t know, the reason for their daughters’ stolen sleep. The women began to grow jumpy and morose, and the more superstitious began to look upon the rains as some sort of sign, but they feared asking how or why and put open Bibles near their bed at night to keep the answers from creeping upon them in the dark. Even Mattie’s sleep was fitful, her dreams troubling….
“Miss Johnson, you wanna dance?” A handsome teenager posed himself in a seductive dare before Etta. She ran her hand down the side of her hair and took off her apron.
“Don’t mind if I do.” And she pranced around the table.
“Woman, come back here and act your age.” Mattie speared a rib off the grill.
“I am acting it—thirty-five!”
“Umph, you got regrets older than that.”
The boy spun Etta around under his arms. “Careful, now, honey. It’s still in working order, but I gotta keep it running in a little lower gear.” She winked at Mattie and danced toward the center of the street.
Mattie shook her head. “Lord, keep her safe, since you can’t keep her sane.” She smiled and patted her foot under the table to the beat of the music while she looked down the street and inhaled the hope that was bouncing off swinging hips, sauce-covered fingers, and grinning mouths.
A thin brown-skinned woman, carrying a trench coat and overnight case, was making her way slowly up the block. She stopped at intervals to turn and answer the people who called to her—“Hey, Ciel! Good to see you, girl!”
Ciel—a knot formed at the base of Mattie’s heart, and she caught her breath. “No.”
Ciel came up to Mattie and stood in front of her timidly.
“Hi, Mattie. It’s been a long time.”
“No.” Mattie shook her head slowly.
“I know you’re probably mad at me. I should have written or at least called before now.”
“Child.” Mattie placed a hand gently on the side of Ciel’s face.
“But I thought about you all the time, really, Mattie.”
“Child.” Both of Mattie’s hands cupped Ciel’s face.
“I had to get away; you know that. I needed to leave Brewster Place as far behind me as I could. I just kept going and going until the highway ran out. And when I looked up, I was in San Francisco and there was nothing but an ocean in front of me, and since I couldn’t swim, I stayed.”
“Child. Child.” Mattie pulled Ciel toward her.
“It was awful not to write—I know that.” Ciel was starting to cry. “But I kept saying one day when I’ve gotten rid of the scars, when I’m really well and over all that’s happened so that she can be proud of me, then I’ll write and let her know.”
“Child. Child. Child.” Mattie pressed Ciel into her full bosom and rocked her slowly.
“But that day never came, Mattie.” Ciel’s tears fell on Mattie’s chest as she hugged the woman. “And I stopped believing that it ever would.”
“Thank God, you found that out.” Mattie released Ciel and squeezed her shoulders. “Or I woulda had to wait till the Judgment Day for this here joy.”
She gave Ciel a paper napkin to blow her nose. “San Francisco, you said? My, that’s a long way. Bet you ain’t had none of this out there.” She cut Ciel a huge slice of the angel food cake on her table.
“Oh, Mattie, this looks good.” She took a bite. “Tastes just like the kind my grandmother used to make.”
“It should—it’s her recipe. The first night I came to Miss Eva’s house she gave me a piece of that cake. I never knew till then why they called it angel food—took one bite and thought I had died and gone to heaven.”
Ciel laughed. “Yeah, Grandma could cook. We really had some good times in that house. I remember how Basil and I used to fight. I would go to bed at night and pray. God, please bless Grandma and Mattie, but only bless Basil if he stops breaking my crayons. Do you ever hear from him, Mattie?”
Mattie frowned and turned to baste her ribs. “Naw, Ciel. Guess he ain’t been as lucky as you yet. Ain’t run out of highway to stop and make him think.”
Etta came back to the table out of breath. “Well, looka you!” She grabbed Ciel and kissed her. “Gal, you looking good. Where you been hiding yourself?”
“I live in San Francisco now, Miss Etta, and I’m working in an insurance company.”
“Frisco, yeah, that’s a nice city—been through there once. But don’t tell me it’s salt water putting a shine on that face.” She patted Ciel on the cheeks. “Bet you got a new fella.”
Ciel blushed. “Well, I have met someone and we’re sort of thinking about marriage.” She looked up at Mattie. “I’m ready to start another family now.”
“Lord be praised!” Mattie beamed.
“But he’s not black.” She glanced hesitantly between Etta and Mattie.
“And I bet he’s not eight feet tall, and he’s not as pretty as Billy Dee Williams, and he’s not president of Yugoslavia, either,” Etta said. “You know, we get so caught up with what a man isn’t. It’s what he is that counts. Is he good to you, child?”
“And is he good for you?” Mattie added gently.
“Very much so.” Ciel smiled.
“Then, I’m baking your wedding cake.” Mattie grinned.
“And I’ll come dance at your reception.” Etta popped her fingers.
Mattie turned to Etta. “Woman, ain’t you done enough dancing today for a lifetime?”
“Aw, hush your mouth. Ciel, will you tell this woman that this here is a party and you supposed to be having a good time.”
“And will you tell that woman,” Mattie said, “that hip-shaking is for young folks, and old bags like us is supposed to be behind these tables selling food.”
“You two will never change.” Ciel laughed.
“Ain’t it lucky you got your vacation around this time?” Etta said, tying her apron back on. “Woulda been a shame if you had missed the party.”
“No, I’m not on vacation.” Ciel looked around slowly. “You know, it was the strangest thing. It rained all last week, and then one night I had a dream about this street, and something just told me I should be here today. So I took a few days off and came—just on an impulse. Funny, huh?”
Mattie and Etta willed themselves not to look at each other.
“What kind of dream, Ciel?” Mattie gripped the basting brush she was holding.
“Oh, I don’t know, one of those crazy things that get all mixed up in your head. Something about that wall and Ben. And there was a woman who was supposed to be me, I guess. She didn’t look exactly like me, but inside I felt it was me. You know how silly dreams are.”
Etta fingered the money in her apron pocket. “What did the woman look like?”
Ciel shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, like me I guess—tall, skinny.” She frowned for a moment. “But she was light-skinned and her hair was different—yes, longer, but pinned up somehow.” She looked at Etta as the words began to leave her mouth with a will of their own. “And she had on a green dress with like black trimming, and there were red designs or red flowers or something on the front.” Ciel’s eyes began to cloud. “And something bad had happened to me by the wall—I mean to her—something bad had happened to her. And Ben was in it somehow.” She stared at the wall and shuddered. “Ah, who knows? It was just a crazy dream, that’s all.”
She smiled at Etta and Mattie, but something in their faces stifled it. “Why are you looking at me like that? What’s wrong?”
Mattie became intent on basting her ribs, and Etta answered, “Nothing, honey. I was just trying to figure out what number I could play off your dream. Now, I know snakes is 436 and a blue Cadillac is 224, but I gotta look in my book to see what a wall is. What do ya play off a wall, Mattie?”
Mattie kept looking down at the grill. “Woman, you know I don’t bother with that foolishness. If I wanna throw my money away, I can just toss it out the window. Don’t have to give it to no number runner. Ciel, these ribs are ready now. You want a sandwich ’fore they all gone? These folks are eating up a storm today.”
“Not right now, that cake filled me up.” She looked around the street and snapped her fingers. “Now I know what’s missing—where’s old Ben? Downstairs sleeping off a hangover?”
Mattie suddenly decided that her meat still needed more basting, and she busied her eyes looking for the sauce. “Honey, Ben died last Saturday.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. The wine must have finally got him.”
“You might say that.” Etta’s jaws were tight.
The music and noise dimmed in Mattie’s ears, and she saw the sliding and twisting bodies beating at the air in a dull vacuum. Teeth were tearing into meat and throats were draining the liquid from aluminum cans while children ran wildly among the crowds, forming muted screams and kicking aside loose paper and empty bottles. Dark faces distorted into masks of pleasure, surprise, purpose, and satisfaction—thin masks that were glued on by the warm air of the October sun.
“Oh, God,” Mattie begged silently, looking up at the sky, “please don’t let it rain.” She saw out of the corner of her eye that Etta was also looking toward the heavens with an expression on her face that was the closest to prayer Mattie had ever seen on her friend.
A red and yellow beach ball flew into the middle of Mattie’s grill, and the noises of the street rushed back in on her. “Mercy!” She snatched the ball from the rack before it melted over the coals.
“Sorry, Mattie.” Kiswana ran up to the table. “I was playing with Brucie and he threw it too far.”
“That’s all right, child. Just didn’t think anyone was gonna want barbecued rubber.”
Kiswana took the ball and went back to Cora Lee’s stoop.
“See what I told ya?” Cora said, sitting on the steps with her hands resting on her protruding stomach. “He can’t do nothing right.” She called to Bruce, “Now come on over here and sit down. No more ball for you.”
“I don’t wanna sit down. I wanna piece of cake.”
“I ain’t got no more money for cake.”
“You got Dorian a piece of cake—I wanna piece of cake!” Bruce started kicking on the stoop railing.
“That’s right, break your foot. You weren’t happy enough breaking your arm—now you wanna break your foot.”
“I’ll buy him a piece,” Kiswana offered.
“No, he’s already had one. And if he don’t get away from here, he’s not gonna have any teeth left to eat nothin’ with!” Cora made an attempt to lift herself off the stoop.
“You ole big belly!” Bruce yelled and ran up the street.
Cora sat back down with a sigh. “Miserable. Just plain miserable. You think they take any pity on me being in this condition? Not one bit. They almost drove me crazy last week and with all that rain I couldn’t send ’em outside. And I never got a minute’s sleep. When you pregnant you can’t sleep good at night—kept having all kinds of weird dreams.”
“I know.” Kiswana nodded. “I hoped it would stop raining for the party today. Isn’t it great? You know, we’ve already collected over a hundred dollars.”
“That much?” a woman nearby asked.
“Guess after we get a lawyer and haul that landlord’s butt in court, he’ll be more than willing to give us some heat this year,” another one said.
“Imagine, he only delivered oil twice all last winter.”
“I know,” Cora said. “Had to keep my oven burning and my gas bill was something ridiculous.”
“Guess he figure niggers don’t need no heat.”
“Yeah, we supposed to be from Africa, anyway. And it’s so hot over there them folks don’t know what oil is.”
Everybody laughed but Kiswana. “You know, that’s not really true. It snows in some parts of Africa, and Nigeria is one of the most important exporters of oil in the world.”
The women stopped laughing and looked at her as you would at someone who had totally missed the point of a joke that should need no explanation.
Theresa came out of the next building and put some boxes on top of the garbage cans and went back inside.
“I thought she had moved already,” someone whispered.
“No, I think she’s leaving today.”
An uneasy quiet fell over all the women on the stoop.
“So how much more we need ’fore we have enough for a lawyer?” Cora Lee asked Kiswana.
“Huh?” Kiswana had been staring at the wall, as if trying to remember something important that had escaped her. “Oh, well, maybe another hundred or so. But that won’t be a problem at the rate we’re going.” She looked up quickly at the sky. “As long as the weather doesn’t break.”
“Yeah,” the mothers mumbled.
“Better get back out here and help sell some more stuff.”
“Yeah, I got more ice cubes up in the freezer. Folks don’t wanna buy warm sodas.”
“Anybody see Sonya?” Cora Lee suddenly realized that her baby was gone. She pulled her bulky body up from the steps. “Lord, it was the worst day of my life when that girl started walking.” She began moving through the crowds calling to her. “Sonya! Sonya!”
Kiswana sighed. “Guess I should go around and collect some more money.”
A cloud had almost completely covered the thin strip of blue sky that lay between the two sets of buildings, and a cold wind started pulling at the thin strings on the balloons and uncurling the crepe paper entwined on the stoop railings. The colors on Brewster Place had dissolved into one mass of leaden gray that matched the bricks of the buildings. The crowd was rapidly thinning out as people from the neighboring streets gathered their children and began hurrying toward home.
Kiswana went over to one of the tables. “I guess we better start clearing up—it’s going to rain.”
The woman had just taken the plastic wrap from around a fresh coconut cake. “It ain’t gonna rain,” she said, and started slicing the cake and putting it on paper plates.
“Don’t do that—it’ll get wet! You can save it for later.”
The woman looked straight into Kiswana’s eyes with the knife poised in the middle of the cake. “It ain’t gonna rain.” And she brought the knife down with a whack that made the girl jump, and she backed away.
The large rectangular speakers were still flinging music out into the street, but the heavy air was weighing in against them and muffling the sound. The only people who were dancing were those who lived on Brewster Place. They didn’t look up at the rapidly darkening sky or stop moving when static would override the music. They danced from memory, until the measured beat caught up with them again.
Kiswana darted among the dancers and went to the boy playing the records. “You better unhook your stereo before the rain ruins it.”
“People are still dancing.”
“I know they’re still dancing,” she cried. “But it’s going to rain soon!”
The dark clouds had knotted themselves into a thick smoky fist, and the wind was so strong now that it blew her braids into her face.
“I have to keep playing if people wanna dance.” The boy reached for another album.
Kiswana pushed her hair out of her eyes. “This is insane!” And she ran to Mattie’s table.
“Don’t bother with that chicken now.” A man from another street was saying, “I better be getting home. Don’t wanna get caught in a downpour.”
Etta kept wrapping the sandwich. “Look, this here is a party to help our block. Now you asked for this sandwich, and you gonna stand here and eat it!”
“Lady, look, I’ll give you the dollar, but I’m not gonna catch pneumonia out here.” He put the dollar on the table and started walking away.
“No, wait. You don’t have to pay. Just stay here and eat it—please!”
He threw her a puzzled look over his shoulder and almost ran down the street.
“Ain’t he a fool?” she said to Kiswana and angrily threw the chicken sandwich on the table.
Kiswana slowly edged away from Etta and, her heart pounding, she turned toward Mattie.
“Mattie, it’s going to rain,” she pleaded. “Please, we’ve got to get the money collected. We’ve got to…” And her voice dissolved into tears.
“Now, don’t fret yourself, child.” Mattie seemed to be rearranging the ribs on the grill in slow motion. “See, you’re a city girl. Where I come from we know clouds don’t always mean rain—ain’t it so, Etta?”
“Sure is. Many a day I was working in my daddy’s fields and would spot a cloud and pray for it to send some rain so I could rest. And nine times out of ten I prayed in vain.”
They both turned toward Kiswana and smiled. It seemed to take an eternity for her to shake her head at them, and she numbly appealed to the young woman in the trench coat who was standing beside them.
“It’s going to rain.” The tears were streaking Kiswana’s face.
“I know,” Ciel whispered, and she pulled her coat tightly around her and looked slowly up and down the street at the wilting crepe paper hanging from broken stoop railings and the loosened balloons climbing up the building fronts past rotting windowsills and corroded fire escapes. When her eyes had come full circle to the sagging brick wall, she shuddered, “Oh, God, I know.”
The first light misting of the wind hit Kiswana on her arms as Cora Lee melted in front of them.
“Sonya! Anybody seen Sonya?”
The little girl was crouching in front of the wall, scraping at the base with a smudged Popsicle stick. Cora’s swollen body flowed toward the child.
“I been looking all over for you—put that down! I ain’t got enough worries without you playing with filth in the streets.” She bent over to snatch up the child and spank her hand.
A heavy drop of water hit Kiswana’s face like a cold wad of spit.
Cora pulled Sonya’s hand away from the wall and uncovered a dark stain on the edge of the brick that the child had been scraping. The stain began to widen and deepen.
“Blood—there’s still blood on this wall,” Cora whispered, and dropped to her knees. She took the Popsicle stick and started digging around the loose mortar near the brick. “It ain’t right; it just ain’t right. It shouldn’t still be here.” The fragile stick splintered so she used her fingernails, the gravelly cement lacerating her knuckles. “Blood ain’t got no right still being here.”
As she yanked the brick out, the boy who had been playing the stereo ran past her with one of his speakers in his arms; two more men hurried behind, carrying the other sections. Another man grabbed Sonya up and took her under the eaves of the building. All of the men and children now stood huddled in the doorways. Cora ran to Mattie’s table and held out the brick.
“Oh, Miss Mattie—look! There’s still blood on that wall!”
“Oh, God,” Mattie said as she watched the rain splattering on the hot charcoal, sending steam up through the iron grill. She saw it drumming down on their backs and shoulders, blowing into their faces and up their nostrils, soaking the paper tablecloths, and turning cakes and pies into a sodden mass of crumbs and fruit.
“Get that thing out of here!” She grabbed the brick and gave it to Etta, who took it over to the next table. And it was passed by the women from hand to hand, table to table, until the brick flew out of Brewster Place and went spinning out onto the avenue.
Mattie grabbed Cora by the arm. “Come on, let’s make sure that’s the only one.”
They ran back to the wall and started prying at another stained brick, Mattie digging into the crumbling mortar with her barbecue fork. She finally got it out and threw it behind her. Etta picked it up and began passing it down the street.
“This one’s got it, too!” Cora started tearing at another brick.
“We gonna need some help here,” Mattie called out. “It’s spreading all over!”
Women flung themselves against the wall, chipping away at it with knives, plastic forks, spiked shoe heels, and even bare hands; the water pouring under their chins, plastering their blouses and dresses against their breasts and into the cracks of their hips. The bricks piled up behind them and were snatched and relayed out of Brewster Place past overturned tables, scattered coins, and crushed wads of dollar bills. They came back with chairs and barbecue grills and smashed them into the wall. The “Today Brewster—Tomorrow America” banner had been beaten into long strands of red and gold that clung to the wet arms and faces of the women.
Ciel’s coat had blown open, and muddy clay streaked the front of her blouse. She tried to pass a brick to Kiswana, who looked as if she had stepped into a nightmare.
“There’s no blood on those bricks!” Kiswana grabbed Ciel by the arm. “You know there’s no blood—it’s raining. It’s just raining!”
Ciel pressed the brick into Kiswana’s hand and forced her fingers to curl around it. “Does it matter? Does it really matter?”
Kiswana looked down at the wet stone and her rain-soaked braids leaked onto the surface, spreading the dark stain. She wept and ran to throw the brick spotted with her blood out into the avenue.
Cars were screeching and sliding around the flying bricks that came out of Brewster. The side window of a station wagon exploded into a webbed mass of glass and it skidded into the back of a black Datsun, pushing it off the street into a telephone pole.
Theresa came out of her building with a suitcase in her hand.
“Over here!” A cab pulled up and she opened the back door. “I have another bag in the house—I couldn’t carry it with the umbrella. Wait a minute.”
“Lady, are you crazy? There’s a riot on this street!” And the driver sped off, a brick just missing his hubcap.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” she called behind the cab. “You still have my suitcase in that car!”
She turned and looked down the street. The women had started dragging furniture out of their apartments, shattering it against the wall.
“Dumb bastard, they’re only having a lousy block party. And they didn’t invite me.”
Cora Lee came panting up with a handful of bricks, her stomach heaving and almost visible under her soaked dress.
“Here, please, take these. I’m so tired.”
Theresa turned her back on her.
“Please. Please.” Cora held out the stained bricks.
“Don’t say that!” Theresa screamed. “Don’t ever say that!” She grabbed the bricks from Cora and threw one into the avenue, and it burst into a cloud of green smoke.
“Now, you go back up there and bring me some more, but don’t ever say that again—to anyone!”
The blunt-edged whoop of the police sirens could be heard ramming through the traffic on its way to Brewster Place. Theresa flung her umbrella away so she could have both hands free to help the other women who were now bringing her bricks. Suddenly, the rain exploded around their feet in a fresh downpour, and the cold waters beat on the top of their heads—almost in perfect unison with the beating of their hearts.
Mattie turned over in bed, the perspiration running down her chest, gluing her nightgown to her arms and back. She brought her hand up to her sweating forehead and wondered why it was so hot in the room.
Forcing her eyes to open, she saw that the sun had finally come out, but her electric heater was still set on high.
“Lord, be praised. I ain’t gonna need this today.” She turned the heater off and went to her front-room window and pulled up the shades.
After a week of continuous rain Brewster Place was now bathed in a deluge of sunlight. People were already out in the street setting up. Long crinkled strands of crepe paper were being unrolled and balloons were being tied to the stoop railings. Kiswana was taping her banner up on the wall and the gold lettering glowed so brightly in the sun, it was almost painful to look at.
“It’s just like a miracle,” Mattie opened her window, “to think it stopped raining today of all days.”
The sun was shining on everything: Kiswana’s gold earrings, the broken glass out on the avenue, the municipal buildings downtown—even on the stormy clouds that had formed on the horizon and were silently moving toward Brewster Place.
Etta came out on the stoop and looked up at Mattie in the window.
“Woman, you still in bed? Don’t you know what day it is? We’re gonna have a party.”