The Last Ballad(42)
Beal stared at her. Ella wondered if he was assessing something about her, trying to make sense of who or what he was seeing.
“You wouldn’t be working for me, Miss May. You’d be working for the union, for your fellow workers, for yourself.”
“Well, if I work for myself and whoever else you mentioned I want to organize colored workers. I’ll do it for ten dollars.”
“Sophia didn’t mention this to me,” Beal said. “But, knowing Sophia as I do, I can’t say I’m surprised. How’d you come to know so many Negroes?”
“I couldn’t get no recommendations from the mills I worked at around here. I missed too much work when my baby took sick. And the mill down in South Carolina—” She stopped, considered how to proceed. “I had a little trouble there. American Number Two was the only one in the county that’d take me on without no recommendation. And it’s the only one that has white and colored working together. So that’s how I come to know them.”
She stopped speaking, prepared herself for the comments that a man like Beal might make about a white woman living among colored men, her white children playing alongside colored children: breathing the same air, touching the same things, eating the same food. But Beal didn’t speak.
“They ain’t no different from me,” Ella said. “I knew that before I worked with them, but I know it for sure now.”
“What kind of trouble did you have in South Carolina?” he finally said.
“I’d rather not say,” Ella said. “My husband got into something, but he’s gone now.”
“Passed away?”
“Just gone,” she said. “The what-for and the where-to don’t matter.”
“It’s not my business anyway, is it?” Beal said. He cleared his throat. He looked around as if checking to see if anyone stood nearby. “The Negro question is a sore subject for people in this part of the country,” he said. “Most of them don’t think well of Negroes like you do, or like I do. This strike is for equal rights and equal pay, but most of these strikers aren’t quite ready for what that really means.”
“They’ll be ready soon enough,” Ella said. “Especially if they don’t got nowhere else to live.”
“Maybe,” Beal said. “Maybe not.”
“They’re getting turned out today,” Ella said. “And I know the tents ain’t here yet.”
Beal cocked his head and peered at Ella as if wondering how she had come to possess such information. He smiled. “You’ve been talking to Velma.” He shook his head, looked toward the end of the alley. He gestured for Ella to follow him. The two of them took the alley away from Franklin Avenue. Beal turned right and they walked along between the railroad tracks and the backs of the businesses that fronted Franklin. Beal turned left and climbed up the embankment, and then he looked back and offered Ella his hand. She acted as if she didn’t notice the gesture. They scrambled over the railroad tracks and picked their way down the embankment on the other side. Beal entered the woods, held back limbs so that Ella could follow him. She smelled mud, cold water.
When she stepped from the trees she saw the gulley she’d been able to hear from outside the headquarters that morning. The water ran clear and fast along a rocky creek. The land rose before her. She couldn’t see it, but she knew that on the other side of the hill was the field where she’d been onstage the night before, the headquarters just across the road.
“I received assurances that the tents are arriving on the train this afternoon,” Beal said. He swept his arm across the expanse of the meadow.
“Everybody’s going to live out here?” Ella asked.
“Yes,” Beal said. “We’re prepared to see this strike through. If that means housing and feeding evicted workers then that’s what we’re prepared to do.” He held his hand above his eyes, looked toward the sun as if judging the time by its place in the sky. “Are you going to help us, Ella?” He dropped his hand, looked at her. He waited. “Nine seventy-five a week if you’ll help us organize Bessemer City. Let things stabilize, let our numbers grow, let us reclaim some power from the bosses. We can welcome colored workers after that. We’ll need you to make it happen.”
“Nine seventy-five a week,” she said. “And I stay in Bessemer except for rallies and meetings and the trip to Washington, just like you said.”
“Yes, just like I said.”
“All right,” Ella said. She held out her hand and Beal took it. They shook.
“Welcome to the Gastonia Local of the National Textile Workers Union,” Beal said.
“Thank you,” Ella said. She felt herself smile, tried to fight it. “I’m glad to be here.”
He reached into his pocket and removed an old watch on a thin chain. “I hope you’re ready for your first official act of resistance as a member.”
Ella followed him through the field. They stopped where the creek narrowed, spotted a large rock in its middle, used it to step across. They crested the hill. The stage sat on their left, the headquarters just ahead. Perhaps one hundred men and women had gathered. Ella saw Sophia and Velma, recognized the old woman Hetty from the village the night before. An old man stood beside her.
Beal crossed the street. Ella followed behind, too insecure to walk beside him with the people’s eyes upon her. Beal stopped and surveyed the crowd. He ran his fingers through his red hair; it parted naturally at his pronounced cowlick. Ella walked past Beal and joined the other strikers, tried her best to blend in as if she’d been there all along.