No Crystal Stair (2 page)

She hoped Randy would make it from Tuskegee. She smiled. Another rebellion. Randy's fascination with airplanes, like a bolt from the blue, had disrupted their parents' plans for him. Despite his disagreements with them, Randy had been following their chosen path. He'd completed his college requirements and was already registered in medical school. Pearl Harbor and
the U.S. entry into the war hadn't disrupted these plans, since medical students weren't being drafted; it was Randy himself who rebelled.

Ann Elizabeth sat on her bed to slip on her pumps, remembering the day Randy had come in waving that newspaper with the headlines in bold type: ARMY TO ATTEMPT TO TRAIN NEGRO PILOTS. He read the article aloud. “Disastrous mistake... some Army planes fly at two hundred miles an hour, and it is well-known that Negroes can't think that fast.”

They had been indignant. Not Randy. He had howled with laughter, his eyes bright with challenge. “We'll show them!”

“We?” Dr. Carter's question had been an apprehensive gasp.

“I'm enlisting, Dad.”

“But what about medical school?”

“Saving you a bundle, Dad. The Army will pay for medical school... after they've taught me to fly!”

Her mother had cried. Her father had tried reason, and Ann Elizabeth's heart had ached for both, especially her father. He'd been counting on his son to join him in his medical practice.

But Randy had been adamant. Determined.

Dr. Carter had tapped a finger to the paper. “Such a waste. They'll take our best, our finest and brightest. And they'll never know what they have!” He'd shaken his head sadly.

But Randy had been excited, eager. He couldn't waste time being hurt or angry or confused. He was simply going to do what he'd always wanted.

Downstairs she heard the phone ring, and a moment later her mother called up to say her father was delayed at the hospital. Did she want Aunt Sophie to drop her?

“No, thanks,” Ann Elizabeth called back. She wanted no more advice. “I'll study up here and wait for Dad.” Then she curled up on the window seat and opened her sociology book.

When she heard her father's car in the driveway several hours later, she gathered her things and rushed downstairs.
She gave her mother a quick kiss and went out to the car. Her father stood holding open the passenger door, and as always she thought how handsome he was. Ann Elizabeth loved everything about her father. She loved his keen dark eyes, the rich brown of his complexion, the few strands of silver in the kinky black hair. Dr. William Randolph Carter was a tall man with a powerful build. The well-cut black suit so carefully selected by his wife was rumpled and the pockets bulged. He took a heavy gold watch from his vest pocket and glanced at it.

He smiled as he helped her into the car. “I'll have to stop by the hospital again, but we have plenty of time”

“Oh, Dad, Lynn can take me, then.”

“I want to take you. Besides, Lynn's studying. Biology exam tomorrow.” How did he know? But then, her father always knew each detail of the life of whatever college boy occupied the room over the garage. He always took an interest, gave them pocket money and advice. Advice far more valuable than the room and board they received in exchange for household chores, firing the furnace, mowing the lawn and such.

“Something bothering you, kitten?” her father asked as the car turned into the street.

“Do you think I should marry Dan?”

His laughter rang out. “So Dan popped the question, did he? That's Dan. Trust him to pick the best for himself.”

“I think... he says he loves me.”

“Of course he does. How could he help it?” He threw her a brief appraising look. “How do you feel about him?”

“I... I don't know. I like Dan. Love him, I guess. We're good friends.”

“Marriage is more than friendship honey.”

“Mother thinks that I—”

“That you should snap him up before someone else does.”

She retuned his smile. “Yes. Something like that. You know Mother.

They both did. And they both knew what the town said about her. That Julia Belle Washington Carter was proudest of three things—her Washington heritage, her fair skin and her husband's medical degree. They might snicker behind her back, but oh, how they catered to her. They smiled and sought to be included in her clubs, her parties. To be accepted by her was to belong.

Dr. Carter touched his daughter's hand. “Don't' be too hard on your mother. There's more to her than shows on the surface.”

“I know.” People forgot certain facts, like how hard Mother and Aunt Sophie had worked to establish a home for Negro orphans.

“She only wants the best for you.”

“I know. But Mother's so caught up in ... in things.”

“Yes, I guess that's true.”He hesitated as he parked the car in front of the modest Negro hospital, usually referred to as simply “Carter's” “You know, kitten, you've never been poor. Never had to do without.”

She was silent, watching him. “Sometimes ‘things' make a difference.” He glanced at the one-story house he and some of his colleagues had converted into a hospital. “I've watched death, disease and poverty come in and out of this place day after day. I'd go crazy if I couldn't withdraw.”

“Withdraw?”

He nodded. “Your mother has made me a comfortable retreat. I like the touch of elegance, the pretty table, my big leather chair. Hell, I even enjoy her parties.”

That surprised Ann Elizabeth. She'd always believed that he never noticed. Or, at best, merely tolerated those events. A
comfortable retreat
. Would she supply that for Dan? Could she? Was that enough?

“Now listen, kitten. Don't worry about what your mother says or what I say or anybody else, for that matter. Only
you
can know what's best for you. And you'll make the right decision. You're definitely your mother's daughter.”

She stared at him, eyes wide.

He laughed. “Oh yes. You've got that same streak. That same core of inner pride, that sense of knowing you're somebody. And that's not a bad thing to have, Ann Elizabeth. It's the kind of confidence no outsider can shake. And when you're that sure of yourself, you're not likely to make the wrong decision.”

She watched her father disappear into the small hospital. She smiled at a woman who passed, waved to a boy on a bike. The boy was delivering medicine from her uncle's drugstore. This was her world, this West Side where the majority of Atlanta's Negroes lived. She felt comfortable within it. Reluctantly she opened her sociology book to do a little more studying. But she hadn't finished even a paragraph when she heard the door open. She looked up startled to see her father returning so quickly, his face tense and anxious.

“There's been an accident, Ann Elizabeth. I've got to go there right away.” He started the car and headed down Hunter Street. At first she thought he was going toward Auburn, but instead he skirted town and drove in the opposite direction through streets unfamiliar to her. Rain had begun to fall, and they day was growing as dark and dismal as her father's face.

“What happened, Dad?”

“It's Mr. Suber's boys. They've been in a fight.” He spoke as he always did of his patients. As if she knew them and would be as concerned as he. She had no idea who Mr. Suber was.
He cares so much for all of them...
She gazed out of the road in silence and felt the jolting as he turned down a cobblestone hill. Shortly after, he turned right into a dirt alley and stopped in front of a run-down house. He got a flashlight from the glove compartment and picked up his bag.

“Come along, Ann Elizabeth. I may need help.”

The door of the house opened before they reached it and a man emerged holding a kerosene lamp. “I'm glad you're here, Doc. I'm scared. Zeke's bleeding to death. Come this way.”

Ann Elizabeth followed her father and the faint glow of the lamp through one dim room into another, where she almost stumbled over a tin washtub that appeared to be filled with blood. A wave of nausea swept over her as she was confronted by the smell of blood and cooking cabbage and a spectacle too hard to grasp. A young man—no, a boy—was lying on a couch and a woman was kneeling beside him, staunching a gaping wound in his neck with a cloth she dipped repeatedly in the tub.

So much blood! Ann Elizabeth swallowed and tried to hold her breath. She mustn't be sick. The woman moved aside and began to mumble almost incoherently.

“Oh, Dr. Carter, Please! Save my boy. They cut Zeke. He wasn't doin' nothin'. Lenny—he's the feisty one—he turned back to help. I told them both they shoulda run.”

“There, there, Mrs. Suber. Try to be calm. You've done the right thing.”While she'd been talking, Dr. Carter had removed his coat and opened his bag. “Come over here, Ann Elizabeth.” He handed her the flashlight. “Hold this.”

Ann Elizabeth swallowed again, trying to keep form retching and shone the light full into the boy's face. Wide frightened eyes stared up at her. He couldn't be more the sixteen.

“I got good boys, Dr. Carter. They was coming home from work. Always come right home and bring me their money. That bunch of white trash had some firecrackers, and they threw one and tore up Lenny's pants leg. And they just laughed. Lenny was gonna jump'em cause he thinks he oughta fight back.”

“Anne Elizabeth,” Dr. Carter said sharply, “hold it this way. Steady now.” Her father touched her hand concentrating on the torn flesh. Ann Elizabeth stood mute, one hand over her mouth, the other holding the light steady. Dr. Carter worked quickly and efficiently, all the while speaking soothingly to the woman. “It's going to be all right, Mrs. Suber. We're lucky the missed the jugular. It looks worse than it is. Zeke's going to be fine.”

In a few minutes he'd finished stitching and turned to the other boy, Lenny. Ann Elizabeth had hardly been aware of him. Mr. Suber had been sitting by Lenny and dabbing at the cuts on his son's face while her father attended Zeke. Now Ann Elizabeth moved as directed to focus the light on the other boy. Two slashes, but not as deep as Zeke's Lenny was obviously younger and the look in his eyes wasn't fear, but anger. As Dr. Carter cleansed his wounds, he echoed his mother. “We wasn't doin' nothin',” he said, “but mindin' our business. And they jumped us. They was hangin'‘round down on Pryor Street, whole bunch of peckerwoods. If I'd had a knife or a gun—”

“Calm down, Lenny. I can't work when you talk, just keep quiet so I can stitch this.”

The boy stopped talking, but the anger was still there. Ann Elizabeth could see it banked behind those brown eyes. Suddenly there was a heavy pounding on the front door. It shook the whole house. “Open up. Atlanta police!”

Terror. She felt it invade the room. There was a hush broken only by Mrs. Suber's “Oh my God! They'll take my boys.”

“Shine the light this way, Ann Elizabeth.” Amazingly she did so while her father worked and Mr. Suber scurried to the door.

“Where are they? You trying to hide them boys?” She heard the question, loud and vicious, in an unmistakable cracker twang.

Then they were in the room. Two uniformed policemen, big, red-faced and burly, their billy clubs, handcuffs and guns menacing.

“Hold it steady, Ann Elizabeth.” Dr. Carter hadn't turned around but continued to work. She kept a firm grip on the flashlight, but couldn't take her eyes from the policemen. One walked a little ahead of the other and seemed to grin when he saw the condition of the boys.

“We're taking 'em in,” he said.

It was then that Dr. Carter stood up. He looked rather small facing the big policeman, and when he spoke his voice was different. Ann Elizabeth had never heard him speak that way before. Penitent. Almost obsequious. “Excuse me, sir, but I'm afraid these boys shouldn't be moved.”

“Why the hell not?” the first officer bellowed.

“Sir, they've lost a lot of blood. If you take them downtown I fear at least one of them might die.'

Now the officer rounded on Dr. Carter. “They gonna die anyway! They done jumped some white boys down on Pryor Street.”

Lenny started up from his chair. “They jumped
us
! We wasn't—”

Dr. Carter whirled around. “Sit down, Lenny. Don't you talk to this officer like that. He's here to do his duty.”

Lenny's eyes blazed, but he obeyed the doctor, who turned back to the officer. “Sir, the boys here tell a different story. They say the other boys started the fight.”

“That's a lie!”The policeman moved belligerently toward Dr. Carter, and Ann Elizabeth's heart pounded with fear.

Suddenly the other officer spoke. “That you Carter?”

Ann Elizabeth watched her father turn toward him and saw something pass between them she didn't understand. Something. Just a flicker. Recognition?

No. How could Dad know this... this... Coherent thought deserted her as the burly man, loaded with the instruments of death, loomed over her. They were closed in. Trapped.

Dimly, through the suffocating terror, she heard her father's voice. “Good evening, Officer Malloy.” He spoke quietly, his tone carefully respectful as he added, “It's good to see you again, sir.”

“Can you vouch for these boys, Carter?” Ann Elizabeth was amazed by the same tone of respect in the officer's voice. Hope stirred within her.

“Yes sir. Officer Malloy. I certainly can. They're fine boys.”

“That's good enough for me. Come on,Joe. Let's go.”

“Now, looka here, Frank. We can't let these niggers get away with this.”

“Take a look at these boys, Fred.” Malloy waved a hand toward the injured boys. “The Gregorys didn't have a scratch. Not so much as a stubbed toe. Let's go,” he said decisively.

As the officers departed, Ann Elizabeth expelled a breath. Quiet descended on the room; everybody was staring at her father. Mrs. Suber was the first to break the silence. “Praise the Lord! And thank God you were here, Dr. Carter,” she muttered as her knees gave way and she sank into a chair.