Tambourines to Glory (5 page)

As Essie joined in, Laura hit her elbow with the tambourine—one-two! Three-four! in perfect rhythm to the song. Then one of the wine-o’s yelled, “Aw, play it, sister!” as he rose unsteadily to
participate. And it wasn’t a minute before a dozen folks had gathered there on the corner, the two running kids were dancing to Essie and Laura’s song, and an elderly woman had three times shouted “Amen!”

“Precious Lord, Take My Hand” followed. Essie prayed. Then Laura announced that it was Palm Sunday when she got the call. And that’s the way they started saving souls in Harlem.

BIBLE AND BONUS

“T
his is $11.93 more than we had this afternoon,” said Laura when they got home. “Now, I wonder who in hell put them pennies in that tambourine?”

“Blessed is he that giveth, and blessed is he that receiveth,” said Essie, “and pennies count, too. Maybe the poor soul did not have any more.”

“Yes, but how are we gonna divide up three pennies equal?”

“Divide up?” said Essie. “This is the Lord’s money, and we gonna put it all on the Bible—which means we can get the Bible out. We’ll only owe five or six more dollars to have it paid for in full.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Laura. “I will put $2 on the Bible—but the rest I need. Here, you take half—six, plus two for the Bible—which
leave me $3.93 for my earthly needs. I’m going downstairs right now with mine before the likker store closes and make an investment—minus what I’m gonna save to play 319 in the morning.”

“Laura!”

But Laura had gone on, out the door. Her feet were taking her down the stairs as fast as a child’s. Essie sat down on a kitchen chair and went into a pause. In her mind’s eye she saw the people stopping on that Lenox Avenue corner to listen to her and Laura sing. Out of their pockets had come this money on the table, and somehow Essie did not think it belonged to her. Essie thought it ought to go in some way to the works of God. So she gathered it up and put it into a spice jar marked
CLOVES
, on the shelf. The next morning she took it to Bernstein’s and turned it in on the Bible, a heavy and beautiful book which she brought home since it was now two-thirds paid for and the store had made its profit. As a bonus, the surprised clerk gave her a little framed motto which said: G
OD
B
LESS
T
HIS
H
OME
. Essie hung it on the wall beside the window.

She sat down and stared at G
OD
B
LESS
T
HIS
H
OME
and whispered, “Send me my daughter home. I know You will. But I got to have a nice place for Marietta to come to first. Lord, I know You will give me that, too.” And a still small voice said, “But you’ve got to get up off this chair and get your feet on the Rock.” In her mind’s eye the Rock was 126th and Lenox.

And Laura was there, too—Laura, who had managed to pull Essie out of her lifelong trance. Wine-loving, man-loving Laura. “I got to give Laura credit, Lord, for connecting me to You. Not that You wasn’t in my mind, Lord, and in my soul—but I hadn’t had no direct connections with You since my girlhood. Laura
reached out and called Your name, and a prayer come into my mouth then and there. It has stayed murmuring in my heart since Palm Sunday. That Laura lets her prayers float away like soap bubbles and bust. But my prayers stick here, Lord. Here, Lord, here!”

Essie beat a hand against her breast, and thought about Laura right then, no doubt joking with the likker store clerk as she bought a bottle of the cheapest wine—which she would share with whomever she met in the block. Laura would share whatever anybody owned, including herself, Laura, or herself, Essie. Except over men, Laura was not selfish. But a man, if she liked him, she wanted that man for herself alone.

Neighbors for five years. When you’re neighbors with people on the same floor in the same kitchenette roominghouse, you learn about them, just being neighbors. Only once in their seven years of friendship had Laura spent the night with Essie. That was the evening when a man who claimed he was real deep in love with Laura and had given her a dress, threatened to whale the living daylights out of her because she did not physically return his love. In fact, right on the public streets the man did bruise her a couple of times by planting his foot twice on the cheeks of Laura’s thighs as she switched scornfully away from him in the dress he had bought and paid for. If Laura had not screamed so loudly on the corner, he might have inflicted even more solid punishment on her in places where the bruises would show. At any rate, a passing taxi which drove off with Laura slamming the door saved her before the man could grab the handle. But that night Laura was afraid to go home down the hall to her own room, so she slept with Essie.

For about a year after that a nice young man lived with Laura
and was her protector, during which time older Negroes were scarce at Laura’s end of the hall. But young men won’t do right. They see a young girl and their heads get turned, no matter how nice an older woman is to them. No matter if she does give, rather than take.

When no man was around, Laura seldom liked to cook. Instead, she would put some change in with Essie’s change and together they would stew up a pot and both would eat—which was one reason she was in and out of Essie’s room so much. That was also why Essie’s garbage pail had a wine bottle or two in it almost every day, although Essie herself did not drink. Essie’s only bad habit was sitting. Just sitting.

“Girl, a pulpit chair is the very thing for you,” said Laura. “You can set whilst I preaches, and you don’t even need to get up to sing less’n you want to. When we get our own church, we gonna do just like we want to do.”

“Like God wants, you mean,” said Essie.

“With His guidance, and
my
mind,” said Laura, “and you setting there looking all calm and sweet with not a cloud on your landscape. Essie, you can just set and look more unworried than anybody I ever seen. Me, I need to be doing something—good, bad, or indifferent—but something. No wonder you never has no misfortunes. You just sets.”

“I’m setting and thinking on God these days,” said Essie. “You better be thinking on Him too, Laura. Take our Bible in your room and read it tonight.”

“Can’t I read it here?”

“If you want to.”

“Where is that part about
begat?”
asked Laura.

POINTED QUESTIONS

“W
ho will come and walk with Him, talk with Him, sing with Him?” Laura cried as old folks, young folks, boys and girls passed up and down the lighted street. But enough paused, lingered, and stood for her and Essie to maintain a crowd. With their backs to the taxis and the passing cars, in the balmy summer air they had conducted a very happy meeting that evening and many voices had joined in their songs—a little unusual for street meetings, where people stopped to
listen
to singing but seldom joined in. Essie and Laura had a way of pulling voices right out of people’s throats and getting them to blend with their own in the old songs of the church that everybody knew, or in the more recent gospel songs folks heard on
their radios or records. Now, with practice, Laura was beginning to beat a tambourine with rhythms like Cozy Cole’s drums.

Playing and singing and talking were the only things about their corner that interested Laura, but these were the least that interested Essie. Sitting on her camp stool while Laura held forth, you’d think Essie had gone into a pause, but this was not true. Her eyes, that seemed to move so slowly, were studying faces, looking into other eyes, wondering what troubled this woman, what worried that man, what had hurt that young boy’s soul, or made so bitter that girl’s face. Essie, when the meetings were over, would linger and talk to folks until Laura would almost have to drag her away.

“Girl, you don’t have to stand on the curb talking to these people all night. Collection is took. Come on! I’m thirsty myself.” Laura would start off down the street, walking fast.

Behind her, Essie explaining, “Laura, seems like them folks think I can help them.”

“You’ve done helped yourself. You might
can
help them,” says Laura, “but why bother?”

Curving the corner of 125th and Lenox, Essie replies, “Because I think maybe that is the way to help ourselves—by helping others.”

“You better help
yourself
first,” passing the Lido Bar where the music’s coming out. Says Laura, “Smell that fried chicken in there? If this bar wasn’t so near our meeting corner, I’d stop and have me a wing and a Bud. That would help me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with helping somebody else besides ourselves, is there?” persists Essie. “You helped me to pull out. Now look at us, we ain’t hardly started in His work, yet already
we’re prospering in the Lord. This month we don’t have to worry.”

“Then why worry?” asks Laura. “Don’t worry about them folks on that corner after you get their donations. We’re straight tonight. Buy yourself some barbecue to take home. I’m gonna get me a quart of the very best sherry wine and get good and high so I can sleep it off. I’m also gonna buy Uly a red sport shirt in the morning, which kind I heard him say he wanted. I like that big old no-good stud myself, I swear I do. If the Lord just takes care of me, I’ll take care of my man. Aw, don’t look so shocked, Essie! You’re out here hustling just like me—in God’s name.”

“Laura,” Essie asks as they cross Fifth Avenue to reach the liquor store on the other side before midnight, “is we doing right?”

“Soon as we’re starting to get so we don’t have to worry about being wrong,
you
start worrying about being right. Girl, good night! Go on home. I’m gonna stop by Big John’s with my bottle and see is Uly playing cards up there. Are we straight on the dough?”

“I don’t know,” said Essie. “Keep what’s in your bag.”

“Then don’t blame me if I got a dime more than you. And don’t let nobody rob you on the way home.”

“I got the same knife I been had for twenty years.”

“I know it’s sharp, so you’re all right.”

“But I’m worried about what we’re doing, Laura. I’m going home and pray.”

Laura stopped in her tracks. “Essie, is your wig gone?”

ENTER BIRDIE LEE

“A
ll you loose-limbed sons and daughters of Satan, jumping-jacks of sin, throwing your legs every-which-a-way, dancing, letting your feet lead you every-which-a-where, sinning, playing cards by day and fornicating by night, turn! I say turn! Turn your steps toward God this evening, join up with us, and stand up for Jesus on this corner,” Laura commanded. “Talk, speak, shout, declare your determination. Who will stand up and testify for Him? If nobody else will, I will—me, Laura Wright Reed. Yes! Yes! I will! Folks, since God took my hand, I have not wanted for nothing. Rent paid, pots full, clothes on my back. Satisfied, praise God! Ain’t that right, Sister Essie?”

Essie from her camp stool affirmed, “True, true! Yes, bless God, true!”

Laura continued, “It’s God’s doings, so I ask you all to help me stay in His footsteps. Help me to stay on the right road, people. Help me, all you-all, until you find the road yourself. Put a nickel, dime, quarter, dollar in this tambourine. Put it here and help in the Lord’s work.”