Royce (60 page)

The man at the car turned off his phone when he saw her holding his hand leading him, “This is Royce Harrington,” and the man’s shocked showed, “The one who’s been missing?” And he looked wide eyed at Royce and although he couldn’t speak Royce noticed that they knew him; they seemed very familiar with him as if they’d spoken his name many times and it rolled effortlessly off their tongue.  Holly Ann nodded and looked at him, “Can you drive?  Are you okay to drive?”  She said slowly as if speaking to a child and he nodded.  She squeezed his hand and smiled, “Follow us okay, you’ll get your answers,” and he squeezed back and walked to his car.

Oh he needed answers alright, what the hell was going on?  This was making no sense whatsoever
, he got in his car, his heart beating wildly, not understanding, but resolved now.  He’d come out of his stupor and shock now that he was in the car and he was determined to get to the bottom of this.

Royce followed the black SUV out of the cemetery and out into Amarillo.  They went up Highway 40 just past downtown and then turned down West 34th Street, and off Bell.  He’d never been to this part of Amarillo before so he was paying attention so he could find his way back and then they turned right on Holzer, then right on Tillman and they pulled in front of a two story yellow house.  It was built with yellow siding and he saw a red brick chimney running up one side of the house, the house was very well maintained with a large porch and red painted concrete stairs leading up to it with a black iron scroll banister.  All of them walked up the steps to the porch, Holly Ann opened the screen door, “Momma!  Momma!”  And he was thinking,
yes, I’d like to meet your mother
, and he walked into the house behind her and into what looked like a family room.  He could see the kitchen in the back of the house but standing everywhere were people.

There were people all around staring at him, adults, children, all stood looking at him.  All black and of different shades he noticed that, and even though he’d hated Sayeed Abdullah he’d said one thing right before he killed him, “Color does matter,” and he was right.  In all their travels that was the one thing that people noticed first.  People liked to put you in a category when they first laid eyes upon you, in Spain because of Joy’s coloring they assumed she was Spanish and they automatically put her in that box.  In South Africa he was English or Afrikaans, in France they assumed he was French.  People wanted to place you somewhere and when they couldn’t they stared at you wondering where you belonged, and color helped them put you where they thought you should be.  He stood looking back at them wondering who these people were and then an older woman, she was short, brown skinned, with gray hair styled like she’d just come from the beauty shop and dressed like she’d been to church with thick opaque stockings on her legs. 

She came slowly from around the corner, “Stop staring at him, ya’ll going to scare him to death.”  She walked up to him and looked at him, and he looked at her, “My you look so much like your father,” she said taking his hand between both of hers. “I thought the same thing when I saw him too,” Holly Ann said. “Come on in here so we can talk,” the woman said, “Bring us some iced tea would you,” she said to no one in particular and she led him to the formal living room.  “Have a seat Royce, I know this is shocking to you,” and he wondered how she knew his name and just like Holly Ann it seemed familiar to her.  She said it with ease, and he caught his voice now. “Yes ma’am, yes ma’am it is,” and she smiled at him and sat down in an upright chair, “Have a seat, have a seat,” and he sat on the sofa.

“I’m Hennie, Henrietta Johnson,” and once Royce was seated a woman brought in the drinks on a silver tray and while she set the tray down he looked around the room.  It was a house that looked like someone had lived there a long time, the furnishings bought a long time ago but kept in good condition.  She liked plants, they were all over the room and she liked pictures.  He saw pictures everywhere, on the wall, on the coffee table, end tables and over the fireplace, on the mantle.  He saw baby pictures, graduation pictures, wedding pictures, candid shots, professional shots and as he looked closer he recognized someone in a few of them.  He saw his father, a young version of his father and he stared.  The woman who brought the tray held out a glass to him, he took it, and she left.  “I guess you’re wondering what’s going on?”  And he nodded, he was back to being mute again. “Well the only place I can begin is at the beginning, that’s the only way to tell this story,” Hennie said.

Oh what a web we weave when trying to deceive
, that was the thought that hit Royce as he stared at the picture, the picture was old, it was black and white and his father was young, even younger than him now.  He looked over at Hennie and she smiled at him and began her story…,

“I was with your father for ten years before he married your mother,” his eyes widened and he wondered had his father even loved his mother or his brother, sister, him. “Oh don’t go thinking your father didn’t love your mother or any of you, because he did.  I had to tell your mother that when she sat in that same spot a few months ago.” “My mother knows about this?”  Hennie nodded, “She found out by surprise like you did after Wally passed,” and he raised an eyebrow, “We called him Wally, it was easier and it didn’t raise any suspicions, your father was a very important man around this area,” she sipped her tea, she paused and started again.

“I met your father in Boston in 1950, we were just nineteen years old and he was going to Harvard and I was in nursing school.  He came to a club in the Negro part of town called Freddie Macs, it was a popular club, had been around for years.  Freddie use to live in New York and came back home and opened the club.  Lots of greats had come through there to hone their skills, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Ray Charles and we was use to the Harvard boys coming out; they’d been coming out for years too.  They liked good music too, but in 1950 it was a place to dance, swing dancing had come out, and we’d put on our poodle skirts and Buster Brown saddle shoes and ankle socks and we’d hit the floor and the white boys from Harvard wanted to learn so they danced right along with us, and one night your father came in…,”

Walker Harrington would remember that night for the rest of his life like it was yesterday.  His buddies told him, “Hey there’s this club the boys are going too to learn to dance like the Negros, we need to go if we’re ever going to get the girls to dance with us.” All the boys at Harvard could waltz and do the ballroom dances their parents taught them, but new music was playing and the girls were only dancing with the boys who knew how to dance to it while the boys like Walker stood by the wall.  The boys who could twist and dance and move their feet were getting all the action, and being like any boy who liked girls Walker said, “Sure, let’s go,” and he drove his brand new red and white Cadillac Series 62, it was a graduation gift fresh off the assembly line when his father bought it and he knew he was cool. 

They drove to Roxbury, Boston’s Negro side of town.  They heard the music even before they entered the club, the scene was happening, it was hopping and rocking and it was full of college students, white college boys, they wouldn’t bring the white girls.  They feared what the Negros would do to them and that the white girls would like the Negro boys better when they saw how good they could move in their fancy clothes with their hair slicked back processed and styled.  Walker and his friends found a table and ordered drinks, and sat down in the loud place and started bopping their heads and watching and drinking and Walker saw this girl.

She was brown skinned and her smile lit up the room as her partner twisted, spun her and flipped her over his head, and she’d land and they moved their feet still on beat to the hopping music, and he watched her and when her partner flipped her he caught a glimpse of her white panties against her brown legs and he felt himself throbbing, and he kept watching and waiting for it to happen again and every time it did he saw those brown legs against that mound of white slips that girls wore to give their skirt the most flare and made their waist look tiny.  He drank and watched her, her smile, she was so exciting, and pretty, so damn pretty, and those legs.

Finally they’d worked up the courage, “Let’s try it!”  And they were up and bopping as they went onto the dance floor, “I’ll take her, the one in the light blue skirt,” he said nodding towards Hennie, and they bopped up on the dance floor and he said, “Excuse me may I cut in and dance with the lovely young lady,” and Hennie’s partner let him, it wasn’t because he was white, it was just the way it was done in those days, the Negro boys cut in too.  It was the young ladies who danced the night away and they seemed happy to switch partners at a moment’s notice, and Hennie smiled at him and Walker had to still himself for a moment. 

She was beautiful, her eyes bright, her hair short and waved with a little flip at the end, and her smile, those lips, and her little nose, it all came together beautifully with her brown skin and he was smitten, and Hennie had to slow down, he didn’t have a clue what to do.  “Get the beat, that’s what you got to do, catch the beat,” and she clapped the beat and Walker’s feet didn’t want to cooperate but Hennie was patience and when it was over she said out of breath, “Thank you,” and was about to walk away and he grabbed her hand and said, “Don’t go, I’d really like to learn,” and Hennie came back and said, “Okay, what’s your name?”  “Walker, Walker Harrington.”

“Oh I can hear the southern charm in your voice, where are you from?”  He smiled at her, his blue eyes penetrating hers, his thick dark hair short and combed back, “Texas, the Lone Star State,” he said still smiling at her. “I’m Henrietta, but most people call me Hennie,” she smiled and said, “Okay buy me a cola and I’ll show you how to swing okay,” and that night they talked.  They danced and Walker liked her and he came back the next night and it was a repeat of the same, and after that every weekend Walker was at Freddie Macs meeting Hennie and learning to dance, and no one thought anything of it, that’s what the white boys did.  Even though most didn’t pick one girl, they danced with different girls like the Negro men, but Walker he only danced with Hennie. 

He was a sophomore at Harvard and she was a sophomore at Our Lady of Sacred Heart’s a colored nursing school, and this went on all year long Walker driving up in his red and white Cadillac Series 62 with the sleek rounded sides and dancing the night away with her, and it was after summer vacation and they were juniors when folks started noticing he didn’t just come on the weekends, he came during the week.  Hennie didn’t stay in the dormitory, first of all she hated them, they were called cells and they were small and sterile and since it was run by nuns you had to pray an awful lot and the food was terrible so she stayed at home.  The Negros in the neighborhood would see her running off to meet him when his car pulled up and off they’d go, and everybody was scratching their chins wondering what was going on?

And they should have been, because once Walker was smitten that summer after his sophomore year he went home to the ranch and thought about nothing but Hennie, and he wanted her, wanted her badly.   His parents were trying to push him toward this socialite or that one and he dated them that summer, but his mind was on Hennie and when he went back to Harvard he had one thought on his mind and that was to make Hennie Johnson his, so every free night he had he went to see her.  He took her out to eat, he took her sightseeing, he took her to the movies, and then he started kissing her, kissing her lips, he held her, and pressed against her and finally one night as they parked and kissed and fumbled all over each other in the back seat of his Cadillac, he said, “I want to touch you so bad, just once Hennie, let me do it just once,” and Hennie let him do it, and she was a virgin and he was not, he’d done it several times with a few easy girls the ranch hands found. “Oh god Hennie,” he cried out as she let him have her, and he felt those brown legs open for him and he was lost, and after that they did it all the time, and at the end of summer when he came back Hennie was crying.

“What is it Hennie?”  “I’m pregnant Wally,” and he held her in his arms. “My father is making me give it up.  I have to go to this convent and stay there and they’ll take the baby.  He says I can’t come home if I don’t,” she cried against him, “Oh Wally, this is awful, I only had one more year to go and now I can’t finish nursing school.  What am I going to do?”  “It’s okay Hennie, I’ll take care of you,” he promised her and Hennie looked into his blue eyes and saw the love there, and she loved him too, had fallen so in love with him.  She loved seeing that Cadillac pull up and her father hated seeing it, “He can’t even come to the house, look at him that white boy, think he got all the privilege in the world at his fingertips, you watch yourself with that boy,” her father warned, and she didn’t watch herself close enough because her father was fit to be tied and hated the sight of Walker after she got pregnant.

Hennie was sent to a convent in lower Massachusetts and Walker came by the house and begged her mother and father, “Please tell me where she is, please!”  And her parents wouldn’t budge, his heart broken he went back again and again.  Hennie was having his child and he thought about it, and the more he thought about it the more he didn’t want her to give it away and he'd plead with them, “She can’t just give our baby away!  I’ll take care of her, I’ll take care of her!”  He knew he was rich, he could take care of Hennie, he didn’t know how though, but somehow he would find a way.  Hennie was gone and he didn’t know where and her father would glare at him and tell him, “Haven’t you caused enough trouble around here?  Hennie was doing fine until you came along!” 

Walker cried and left wanting Hennie, his grades suffered and his father came and tore into him about that, and he straightened up and got back on track even as he worried about  Hennie and he wouldn’t give up.  He did his studies and went to her house hoping her parents would give in and tell him where she was, it had been months and he hadn’t seen her, and every time he left her house he wiped tears, and now the folks in the neighborhood rubbed their chins in wonder but this time they were thinking,
Is the boy in love with her?

It was her best friend Juanita who saw him coming back time after time and leaving wiping tears and she called him over and said, “Look I know where Hennie is.  Promise me you mean to do right by her,” and he said, “I do, I promise, I’ll take care of her,” and she told him where she was even as she saw Hennie’s father come outside and stand on the porch and glare at her and Walker hopped in his car and drove the two hours south of Boston.

“…I didn’t see your father for months and my belly grew and I felt the baby move and knew my father was right.  I couldn’t raise a baby alone and I was ready to do as he said,” Royce listened enchanted as she told her story, “And then I saw the red and white Cadillac driving up fast to the convent and I couldn’t believe Wally was there and that he’d found me,” Royce saw her smile, and she continued... 

Walker knew one thing in the months he hadn’t seen her and that was that he loved her, desperately loved her and he didn’t know how he could do it, but he knew he was going to graduate and work for his father and he knew somehow he would take care of her.  He knew he couldn’t marry her, she was a Negro, but he could take care of her and he told her so.  He ran up the convent steps, “Hennie, don’t do this Hennie! I’ll take care of you I promise, I promise Hennie, come with me please Hennie,” he begged her and at first she wouldn’t listen, she thought her father’s plan was best.  She could go back to nursing school, move on with her life, but Wally came back and kept coming back and each time she grew bigger.  The baby moved and kicked inside her and she felt it and she knew how that baby was made. 

It wasn’t some fly by night one night stand.  They’d been doing it for months in the back seat of that Cadillac fogging up the windows before that baby was made, it had been made out of hot passion, heat, sweating, panting and declarations of love, and she knew they’d made that baby the day before he was leaving to go back to Texas for the summer.   It was in June and he came to pick her up and he wanted to love her as much as possible he said, so they picked up hamburgers, French fries and a couple bottles of root beer from the local diner and drove out to the make out spot they frequented.  After they’d eaten they climbed in the back seat and made love and when they were done the first time and she lay in Wally’s arms, they draped his shirt over them and talked and he stroked her body and kissed her and he couldn’t stop kissing her and when he was ready they did it again, and when he was ready a third time they did it again. “I want to love you enough to last all summer,” he’d said, and they’d stayed too long because he took her home late and her father was fit to be tied.  She knew that baby was made from love and she loved Wally she really did.

“…I loved your father and I loved that baby growing inside me.  I knew that baby had been made with love and I knew how brave he was being to take this on.  We couldn’t marry I knew that and so did he, his father would have disowned him as mine had done me.  My father said I couldn’t come home if I didn’t give our baby up, so we were realistic about that, we couldn’t marry, but Wally promised he’d take care of us.  That he’d work for his father and take care of us if I’d just agree to come with him he’d take care of us and finally I put my faith in Wally and I said yes, yes I’ll come with you.  And that March, just before my birthday I gave birth to Wallace, and Wally lied and told the nuns if they tried to take my baby his daddy was a big time lawyer he’d sue them, so they didn’t touch my baby they let me hold him and touch him and they showed me how to take care of him and he paid them to keep me until he graduated and that June after he marched down the aisle he came and got me and the baby.

He loaded us up in his Cadillac and we drove to Texas and I was scared to death.  I’d never been down south, but I’d heard stories.  We traveled pretty much without incident, he drove and when he stopped for food he went and got it and if it was a white place sometimes I’d hide down on the seat with a blanket over me and the baby, if it was the Negro part of town we both got out and went inside.  We stayed the night in the Negro part of town too and we only had one scare and that was in Tennessee.  I was laying on the backseat under our blanket nursing the baby.  I did that so big truck drivers wouldn’t see me and this one time I raised up and right beside us were police officers and I saw them look surprised to see me pop up like that and they pulled Wally over.