The Meq (25 page)

Carolina had silently slipped in behind me. “Nicholas did this while I was pregnant. He said he wanted his son or daughter to have a real sense of place and not just know the address of their house.”

“It’s wonderful,” I said. “Can she place the stars on the wall with the ones in the sky?”

“Not yet, but she knows there’s a connection.”

I turned and looked at her. Her hair was tied in a loose bun and she wore a simple skirt and blouse. No jewelry or makeup. She resembled a schoolteacher and mother much more than a wealthy madam. “How do you make this work with that?” I asked and nodded toward the big house through the windows.

“It’s simple really, Z. I don’t know any other way. Nicholas approves and when Star’s old enough, I’ll answer any question she’s got. She’s loved, well taken care of, and later, she’ll be able to go to good schools. I can’t hide it from her. I’ll tell her it’s a part of life, in my case a business, but certainly not all there is to life. What she does with that information will be up to her.”

“You’ve done well, Carolina. I’m happy for you.”

“Come here,” she said. “I want you to see something.”

We walked to the mantel and she lifted up a small, framed photograph and held it for me to see. It was a picture of herself and a young man with a mustache sitting at a café table and smiling for the camera. They were holding hands under the table.

“This is Nicholas,” she said.

“That would be Nick Flowers to the rest of us, correct?”

Her mouth dropped open and she could only say, “How on earth . . .”

“I read the paper on the way over. You know me, sports page first.”

She paused and looked out of the window for a moment, shook her head, then turned back to me. “This was almost five years ago,” she said. “Look at my eyes and tell me what they say.”

I looked again. “You are in love. That much is plain.”

“Yes, and when I first saw you in the ‘Honeycircle,’ I could see it in your eyes. You have met someone, haven’t you? Someone . . . like yourself.”

I thought about everything I could say, everything I wanted to say, but that would just have made everything else less clear. I still didn’t understand it myself. “Yes,” I answered. “Yes, I have.”

She looked at me strangely, curious for more detail, but knew instinctively to leave it where it was. She drew in a deep breath, placed the photograph back on the mantel, and said, “Where to?”

Without hesitation, I said, “Take me to Solomon.”

“Right now?”

“Sure. Why not?”

She looked out of the window, confused at first, then laughed to herself and said, “You’re right, Z. I’ve never been there, but sure, why not?”

I didn’t get the inside joke. “You’ve never been where?”

“ ‘Chestnut Valley.’ It’s downtown along Chestnut and Market Streets near Twentieth. It’s our ‘red-light district.’ ”

“And that’s where Solomon is?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes, but not necessarily for what you may be thinking. He goes for the gambling and the music. He knew the original owner of the Rosebud Café, ‘Honest John’ Turpin, and next door, over a drugstore I’m told, is a gaming room. He’s got a permanent seat at ‘the wheel,’ as he calls it. He hardly ever wins, but he never fails to play. I’ve heard that the music coming from next door is terrific. Honest John’s son, Tom, runs it now. Evidently, he’s a gigantic Negro man, who is supposed to be very nice and play a very wicked piano.”

“Why have you never been there?”

“I’ve heard that there’s a certain amount of jealousy toward me from a few madams in the area. However, it’s never been a real problem, because Solomon spends all his money there and I stay away.”

Now it was my turn to laugh to myself. Some things, beside the Meq, never change. “How is the old man?” I asked.

“He’s fine, but he drives me crazy. Of course, Star loves him and Nicholas thinks he’s some legend out of the Wild West. I just wish he would slow down a little. Anyway, let’s go, and go now, before I think better of it.”

I followed her out of the door and down the stairs. She swung open the wide door at the far end of the lower level, and instead of horses inside, there was a bright yellow automobile. I didn’t quite know what to say and laughed out loud.

Carolina looked it over with pride and turned to me. “Stanley Steamer,” she said. “It’s the latest thing, Z. But first, I have to check on Star and I want you to come with me. I want you to see something.”

She led me to the back of the big house and a separate, private entrance. She said it was Li’s living quarters and the only place Star would take a nap. I told her I had met Li’s cousin, also named Li, in China.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Well, I hope he is a bit more sociable than our Li.”

“He does what he can.”

Carolina gave me a peculiar look and gently tapped on the door. She paused for only a moment, then opened the door. “He never says come in or go away. He never says anything to anybody, except I’ve heard him talking to Star when he wasn’t aware I was listening.”

Inside, it was clean, simple, and spartan in decoration. Li sat in the corner as still as a stone. He was gazing straight ahead at the opposite corner. He looked like a prizefighter between rounds with perfect posture. Star lay on the single iron-frame bed against the wall. She was curled up on her side, sound asleep and sucking her thumb. Under her head, as her only pillow, was Mama’s glove.

I watched her sleeping. I knelt down and listened to her breathing. Inside her breath, I could hear the steady clackety-clack of the heavy railroad wheels and feel the rocking motion of the car, and all the hours, and all the miles across Kansas resting in my mama’s lap with that same glove under my head.

“She won’t sleep without it and takes it with her everywhere,” Carolina said.

I got up and glanced at Li. He hadn’t moved an eyelash. Carolina kissed Star lightly on the cheek and we turned to leave. On the way out, I spoke without facing him. I said, “Your cousin wishes you well.” I paused at the door, but heard no response.

Carolina cranked up the Stanley Steamer herself, put on a wide bonnet that she tied securely under her chin, and we took off, loud and elegant, through the heavy traffic of the World’s Fair and downtown to Market Street and a different world. We didn’t talk much on the way. We couldn’t, it was too loud, but I did find out that Nicholas was in Pittsburgh with the Cardinals and the next day was Star’s birthday. A big celebration was planned along with a trip to the Fair. Carolina said I had to see the Fair without question. “There are no words to describe it,” she said. “It is a visual encyclopedia.”

Somehow, she found a parking place on Market Street. With the heat, the Fair, and all the action that follows such things, the streets and sidewalks were filled with people, mostly black and of every age from nine to ninety. Carolina shut off the engine and stepped down into the chaos as if she’d been there every day. People up and down the street took notice. Between Carolina and the setting sun glinting off the big yellow Stanley Steamer, I was invisible, or at least I thought I was.

“Z! Hey, Z, man!”

I heard my name being yelled from somewhere behind us in the crowd. I turned, and coming out of the shade of a storefront awning, I saw the shoeshine boy I’d seen at Union Station. He walked up to Carolina and me.

“Hey, Z, you remember me, man?”

“Yes, I do,” I said and turned to Carolina, who was staring at me in wonder. “Carolina Covington, I would like you to meet Mitchell Ithaca Coates.”

He wiped his right hand on his shirt and then held it out to her. “Nice to meet you, ma’am,” he said.

Carolina shook his hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Mitchell. How on earth do you know Z?”

“We met this morning at Union Station,” I answered. I didn’t think this was a good time for him to tell her everything he might have seen.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “But I got one question. What are you people doing here?”

“Do you live nearby, Mitchell?” Carolina asked.

“Yes, ma’am, at the moment, I do.”

“Well, Mitchell, we are looking for a place, actually a man in a place. He’s an older man . . .” She paused and Mitch was looking at her blankly. “He’s a gambler,” she added.

“Oh, you mean Solomon. Everybody knows Solomon. Come on, follow me. I know just the place he’s at.”

He took us down the street two blocks, past the Rosebud Café and around the corner, into an alley that had a flight of stairs rising up the side of a building.

“He’s up there,” Mitch said. “But you better tell ’em y’all are family. They’re kinda funny like that.”

“Thank you, Mitchell,” Carolina said. “I doubt we could ever have found it on our own.”

“I don’t know about that, ma’am. I think you might be able to find whatever you want.” He turned to walk back to the street and stopped halfway. “Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll watch your automobile for you for two bits. Make sure nobody harms it. What do you say?”

Carolina was already three steps up the stairs. “It’s a deal,” she said, laughing.

We walked up the stairs, and without really thinking about it, I put my hand in my pocket and found the Stone. I wasn’t expecting trouble, but neither of us had ever been here before. Carolina knocked and a black man in a bowler hat, smoking a cigar, opened the door. My worries were unfounded, because as soon as she mentioned Solomon, we were let in and told he was sitting by the back wall, at the roulette table. The man did ask about me and my youth and Carolina told him I was a foreign boy who had been left in her charge for the run of the Fair and I couldn’t be trusted to be left alone. That seemed to make sense to him and we walked into the noisy, smoky, crowded room.

Now I really was invisible. Every man and woman in the place turned to get an eyeful of Carolina. Some of them obviously knew who she was and the rest of them wanted to. She ignored all of them and leaned over toward me, shouting, “Do you see him?”

I started to yell “no” and then heard a very distinctive and angry “Great Yahweh!” coming from somewhere in front of us. I pushed through the crowd, ahead of Carolina, and there he was, sitting in a straight-backed chair, leaning his elbows on the railing of the roulette table. He was laughing, cursing, counting his chips, flirting with a woman named Yancey, and trying to light a cigar. He still had a full head of hair and a full beard, all white. Even his eyebrows were white. He was sweating profusely and wearing a formal tuxedo. I smiled to myself and got an idea.

Looking around quickly, I spotted a boy about my size, carrying a tray of cigars, snuff, matches, toothpicks, and other assorted items. He was making his way around the room, but hadn’t yet reached Solomon’s table. I glanced back at Carolina, then slipped between the tables and stopped the boy, telling him if he’d let me borrow the tray, the man at the roulette table would buy the whole thing. The boy agreed, but warned that he’d be watching me, just the same. I put the strap of the tray around my neck and made my way over to the roulette table, stopping beside Solomon and lighting a match. He leaned over when he saw the lit match, still talking and laughing, not noticing who was holding the match.

I whispered in his ear, “You can’t beat the wheel, old friend. A muleskinner told me that a long time ago.”

He turned, dripping sweat and dropping his cigar on the floor. Our eyes were level and we looked into each other’s eyes. “Zianno,” he whispered back.

Carolina almost crashed into us from behind and knelt down, laughing and smiling. She looked back and forth between us. Solomon turned to her.

“Is zis true? Is zis Zianno or an impostor?”

“I am afraid it’s the real thing, Solomon,” she said.

“Good to see you, old friend,” I said. Then I glanced at the table and his dwindling stack of chips. “I see you are losing.”

He gathered his chips, put them in his pocket, rose out of his seat, and told the woman, Yancey, to hold his chair, that he would return another time. Then, he turned and took both of us by the arm, leading us out through the crowd. “I am no longer losing, Zianno. Partners know when to call it quits.”

Carolina and I both laughed and then I remembered the boy and the tray with matches. I told Solomon the situation. He found the boy and gave him a double eagle, a twenty-dollar gold piece. The boy said that was more than it was worth and Solomon told him, “So was the surprise.”

We walked out of the door and down the stairs, slowing a little for Solomon. He was still tall and vigorous, but time and his body were betraying him. I could tell it annoyed him more than anything else. On the way to the Stanley Steamer, he asked Carolina if her being down here was such a good idea. She said she could ask him the same thing herself. It was obvious this subject had come up before.

We reached our parking place and Mitch was on patrol, not allowing a soul within three feet of Carolina’s property, which looked golden in the light of the setting sun. She gave him four bits, tip included, and Solomon tossed him a double eagle when he turned around. Mitch looked at me and I gave him a wink. He winked back and Carolina drove the big car away, toward Forest Park and into the last light of a long day.

All the way home, Solomon went on about the wonders of the World’s Fair, all the aboriginal peoples that had been gathered from the far ends of the earth, the architectural and engineering feats of the canals, bridges, lagoons, and fountains, the palaces, pavilions, the ice-cream cones, and the Observation Wheel, also called the Ferris Wheel, and named after the man who had invented it, George Washington Gale Ferris. He said it was remarkable and called it “structure in motion.” He talked about Geronimo, the Igorots, the John Philip Sousa Marching Band, and the Pike with all its amusements. He said he’d leased a car all to ourselves on the Ferris Wheel, for Star’s birthday, and a private tour of Jerusalem, which he said I’d love because they made it “more real than it ever was,” whatever that meant.

He talked and talked and the more he talked, it seemed as if I’d never been away. Not once did he ask about my sudden appearance or the reason for it. I wondered how much Carolina, or even Owen Bramley, had told him. His sense of arrivals and departures, and the trivialities attending them, reminded me of Zeru-Meq.