Memphis(64)

“Ain’t done yet,” she said, and she laid a hot towel across Bird’s face.

He groaned underneath it. “I needed this.” He sighed.

Maybe that’s what did it. Something about hearing the moan of a man under her made August hurry to her shop door and lock it from the inside. Made her undo the beet-purple man’s necktie that held her cream kimono together. Made her climb on top of Bird in that chair, cup his hands around her dark, waiting breasts, and ask him what else exactly he needed.





CHAPTER 28


    Hazel


   1968


Hazel loved that throughout the many years, Stanley’s had remained the same. Small changes were acceptable to keep up with the times. The Victrola was replaced by a coin-operated jukebox. A television—a luxury—was mounted above the door. And in 1964, Stanley, finally, was able to pry off the colored signs. But other things were imprinted in memory. The fresh cuts of prime meats, the Southern delicacies found in jars—pickled beets, hot chow chow, hot pepper sauce—still lined the cedar shelves. And every Friday afternoon, Hazel would stop in and order three butter pecan ice creams and hand one each to Miriam and August. Then the three’d walk to the home Myron had built.

Hazel pulled her blond mink coat tighter around her as she made the short walk to Stanley’s. It was freezing for April. But she needed a few groceries in preparation for the fish fry she was set to host on Friday. It would be partly to honor Dr. King, who had been killed a week ago now, and partly a planning session for what steps to take next.

Since Myron’s death, Hazel’s house had become a mecca for young anti-segregationists. Preachers and college students stayed in the quilting room en route to register voters farther south in Mississippi or Alabama or Georgia. The house was packed whenever there was a wave of sit-in protests. April was always a busy month—protestors came to the house intent on supporting the first Black students enrolled at various institutions throughout the South. Hazel opened her home to the hopeful, to the idealists of the world. She loved it all and hoped, prayed every night on worn knees, that Myron would be proud of her.

Myron. Hazel grew to know grief as well as a sister. The first year after Myron died, she had refused to speak to God. Whenever she passed by the spot near the large sleigh bed where she had usually bent knee and spoken to her Father, she would spit at it instead. The second year after Myron’s death, when Miriam caught whooping cough, Hazel finally broke down and spoke to God. Demanded He save her child. Said she would come there herself, come to those pearly gates and shake them down with her own two hands, if He dared, dared, take another human being from her. She vowed she’d haunt God. Stalk the Son of a Bitch throughout the decades, if He dared take her daughter. When Miriam pulled through, after nights of Miss Dawn chanting over the toddler and burning frankincense, Hazel dropped to her knees and recited her favorite psalm: “I will tell the world of all thy marvelous works.”

No matter how many years had passed since Myron’s murder, Hazel’s conversations with her dead husband never ceased. She spoke to him often. As if he were still alive, just hovering over her shoulder as she made dinner.

But she was still a woman. And from time to time, amid the students, there’d be a man. A professor maybe, or one of the preachers. They’d pass through her parlor, and the fire in their eyes would match the burning in her heart. Their righteous anger could become, temporarily, a safe harbor for her. She’d never love someone the way she loved Myron, but she didn’t mind taking someone to bed once in a while. Then, five years ago, she’d had August. Hazel hadn’t told August’s father. He’d been one of the more charismatic leaders she’d met in the movement, but he had started going ’round the country by the time she realized she was pregnant, and she didn’t feel any need for him to be anything more than he was for now: a conduit for this new little girl, for Miriam to have a sister. When August asked who her daddy was, Hazel would tell her the truth, that he was off doing God’s work and that all her family was already here: she and Miriam. Miss Dawn, Miss Jade, and all the women in their neighborhood. Hazel wasn’t opposed to revealing August’s father someday, but she wouldn’t force it before then. It would happen in God’s time.

Hazel’s gloved hand held her list: cornmeal, two pounds of perch, two pounds of whiting, two pounds of catfish, green onions for the spaghetti. She scanned the shelves for the cornmeal.

“Hand me your list, and I’ll get it for you, Mrs. North.”

Stanley had come from the back meat freezer. His long white fingers brushed off a bit of something slaughtered from the front of his apron.

“How’s that clone of yours?”

“All A’s and one B last six weeks.” Hazel smiled and handed over the grocery list.

Stanley frowned. “What was the B in?”

“Geometry.”

Stanley’s face grew severe. His German accent became dominant. “That won’t do. I’ll talk to her.”

Hazel laughed. “You harder on her than I am. You and Miss Dawn. Miss Jade. All y’all.”

Stanley shrugged in fake outrage. “Miss Miriam’s our jewel,” he said.

Hazel shook her head. “That jewel got you wrapped around her finger.”

“And how is little August? She still following Miriam around like a shadow?”