The Road to Memphis (25 page)

Again we thanked her, then got into the car, waved good-bye to them all, and headed back to the highway. It was late afternoon, almost dusk, when we reached the state line. Right on the other side of the line was Memphis. As we crossed into Tennessee, Little Willie rolled down his window, looked back and waved. “Good-byyyyye, Mississippi!” he shouted.

And I yelled: “Hel-loooo, Tennessee!”

Then the two of us laughed. Stacey and Moe, though, didn’t join in our revelry. They didn’t say a word.

Route 51, which we had taken straight up from Jackson, took us right into Memphis. The city, all aglow for Christmas, was massive and grand. Following Oliver’s instructions, we remained on Route 51 until we reached Union Avenue. There we turned west and soon found ourselves in the heart of downtown Memphis, and it was a wonder. Streetlights were bright. Huge neon signs hung along the sides and on top of high buildings. Christmas decorations blinked and glistened in store windows displaying scenes of a white Christmas wonderland, the kind we seldom saw in the South. We looked for the block-long building called the Peabody Hotel and turned left. A block later we turned onto Main Street, passed Beale Street, came to Calhoun and Main and were at Central Station, just as Oliver had directed, but there was no place to park, so for several minutes we rode up and down Main and Calhoun.

Finally we found a space, parked, got out, and walked back. As we approached the station, we slowed, then stopped to observe the entrances. Like the Jackson station, the Memphis station was segregated. In Jackson white folks had their street entrance to the station, their waiting room, their gate entrances and exits to the trains, and we had ours. The same was true here. We saw some other colored folks looking as if they were traveling and as if they knew what they were doing, and we followed them to the side of the building, and inside.

The colored lobby of the station was crowded, so I figured the white lobby had to be too. I supposed, though, a crowded station was to be expected a few weeks before Christmas. People were hurrying in and out of the exits and up the stairs to the waiting room carrying cardboard suitcases, some held together by rope and string. Many of the folks, like Moe, were carrying shoeboxes too. Everybody I knew who ever went on a train carried shoeboxes filled with chicken, sausages, boiled eggs, corn bread, biscuits, cakes and pies, and the like. After all, tickets were expensive enough, and there was no sense in adding a food bill to the price by buying food on the train. There were plenty of colored folks traveling and among them a number of soldiers. Outside we had seen white soldiers as well and a lot of white travelers. Ticket lines were long, and folks seemed impatient. We couldn’t get near the counter. It was a huge station and Memphis was a mighty city, so I assumed it was always like this.

“So many people,” I said to Moe as I looked around. “Hope you can get a train.”

“Got to find what time they leave from here first,” said Willie.

Stacey studied the schedule posted. “Looks like there’s a train for Chicago soon.”

“Well, it’s going to leave without Moe,” I said, “if we don’t get ourselves to the ticket counter.”

“Well, now!” said a voice behind us. “Y’all younguns lookin’ mighty lost! Where y’all think y’all headin’ off to?”

We turned. Sitting alone at a shoeshine booth, legs crossed and looking much as if he had always sat there, was an elderly colored gentleman. Over his clothing he wore an apron that looked once to have been white but was now heavily stained in shades of brown and gray and black; a shoebox full of polishes and brushes was at his feet. I assumed he was the shoeshine man.

Although it wasn’t any of the old man’s business where we were going, Stacey answered politely enough. “Chicago.”

“Chicago?” rejoined the old shoeshine man; then he laughed. “Chicago? Shuckies! Y’all crazy? Y’all ain’t goin’ to no Chicago or no other place t’night. Tomorrow neither most likely not with all these folks trying to get out. Sho not with all these soldiers here! They goes first. Gots to get back to they bases. Nope! Y’all ain’t goin’ nowheres, not till them soldiers get to where they goin’.”

Stacey looked around. “There always this many soldiers traveling?”

“Course not!” snapped the old man. “But after what done happened, ya know they gots to get to where they goin’. Only make sense. All they playtime is over now.”

Stacey glanced at Willie, Moe, and me. The man was making no sense. I shrugged, feeling we were wasting our time with him. Stacey looked back to him. “All we want to do is get a ticket for Chicago.”

“After what done happened?”

I could tell Stacey was losing patience. I knew I was. “After what happened?”

“What—what happened?” shrieked the shoeshine man. “Why . . . where y’all been?”

We looked at each other, not knowing why he was getting so excited. “We just got in town—” said Stacey.

“Y’all means t’ tell me y’all ain’t heard?”

“Heard what?” I said, ready to move on.

“We been bombed!”

Little Willie laughed. “Ah, come on, man!” he scoffed.

“Don’t you be laughin’, boy, ’cause ain’t nothin’ t’ be laughin’ ’bout this day! Japs done bombed some little speck of a place out in that Pacific Ocean ain’t nobody never heard of!”

“Well,” I said, still puzzled about why he was so concerned, “what’s that got to do with us?”

“What that got t’ do with us?
What that got t’ do with us?
Giiiirl, they done killed a whole buncha our soldiers over there! Done bombed a whole buncha our ships and planes and things, and these white folks is mad! Y’all see all them soldiers yonder? Well, all them’s headed back to they bases. Gotta go! ’cause we’s at war now!”

We stared at the man, wondering if he was crazy or if we were.

“Yeah! They done bombed this place, Pearl Harbor, and we goin’ to war, I tells ya that! Y’all can just take my word for that thing ’cause we sho ’nough goin’ to war!”

I couldn’t believe the old man’s words. I didn’t want to believe them. “That what the president said?”

“Humph!” grumped the old shoeshine man, as if I had insulted him by questioning his declaration. “The president, I ain’t hearda him sayin’ nothin’ yet, but he ain’t gotta say nothin’! Ain’t nobody gonna be bombin’ us and gettin’ ’way wit’ it! We goin’ t’ war, all right! Y’all can jus’ take my word for that thing! Yeah, we in it now! We goin’ t’ war!”

The Memphis Prince

“Well, what do we do now?” said Little Willie. “These folks are crazy! So what do we do now?”

We stood some distance from the shoeshine man, trying to figure out just what to do. Everything was upside down. We were away from home trying to be adult about things, trying to make decisions that a few days ago would have seemed impossible. We were trying to make decisions that, according to the shoeshine man, might already have been made for us.

“We going to war,” said Moe, “what happens to me I don’t ’spect much matters.”

“We don’t need to hear that,” I said and turned to Stacey. “What are you thinking on doing?”

“First, I’m thinking on trying to get a ticket for Moe to Chicago. We can’t just take that man’s word that there aren’t any. Then we’ll have to get the car checked. Can’t put it on the road for anywhere until we know for certain what’s the matter with it and get it fixed.” With that said, he stood in the ticket line and waited. We all did. But the shoeshine man had been right. There was no hope of getting on a train tonight, so Willie said again, “So what do we do now?”

“We can go to Chicago,” said Stacey.

“Now, wait,” said Moe. “Y’all ain’t taking me to Chicago.”

“May be the only way you can get there,” surmised Stacey. “That old shoeshine man, he could be right. Could be you might not get there another way, leastways not for a spell.”

“But what about Clarence?”

Stacey considered. “He’ll know to take the bus back.”

“Yeah,” agreed Willie. “Long’s his head okay and seem like it was.”

“No,” said Moe. “I can wait here till there’s a train. I can wait. I know folks here.”

“Who?” I questioned.

Moe didn’t answer.

“Well, what ’bout that fella Oliver told us ’bout?” said Little Willie. “Solomon somebody.”

“Bradley,” I finished.

Stacey glanced at me, then nodded. “Thing is, even if Moe stays here and wait on a train, we still have to get the car fixed. Can’t take a chance on the road.”

“We got money to get it fixed?” asked Little Willie. “We gotta pay for gas and maybe Moe’s ticket.”

Stacey turned to me. “Cassie, how much money you say you have?”

“Me? I . . . uh . . .” He had put me on the spot, and
for once I didn’t know what to say, seeing that my money had been in the purse.

“Didn’t you say you still had that money Cousin Hugh and Cousin Sylvie paid you for work at the cafe?”

“Well . . . I did have it. But I . . . I lost my purse.”

“Lost it? When?”

I looked away, trying to give myself time to say this thing right. I couldn’t have him going back to that station one day on my account. “Back at that gas station.” I looked at him again. “Lost it in the dark when I fell back there.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Boy, you forgetting all those men around that car and what I heard them say? I looked for that purse, couldn’t find it, then forgot about it when I saw them. Wasn’t that much money in it anyway!”

Stacey gave me a hard look, and for a moment I was afraid he would question me further. I could feel he didn’t believe me, not fully, anyway; he knew me too well. I knew that one day I would tell him the truth, but not today.

“Look,” said Moe, without knowing it coming to my rescue, “it don’t matter ’bout Cassie’s money. Y’all done enough spending money and losing money on my account. Now, I been thinking maybe best thing to do is for y’all to go ’head and take this ticket money and fix the car, and I’ll just stay on here a few weeks and get a job. I get some money, then I’ll buy my own ticket.”

Stacey refused to consider that. “Unh-unh, you be better off in Chicago,” he decided. “I’m going to call Uncle Hammer, ask him to wire us the money—”

“Now, look—”

“You get to Chicago and get a job, then you can pay him.”

Moe shook his head. “It’s time y’all gone on.”

“Not till you’re safe.” With those words Stacey finished the discussion. Moe, tired of arguing with Stacey, said nothing else. We left the station, returned to the car, and made our way once again through the streets of Memphis. We had no trouble finding the address Oliver had given us. It was a four-story building. Businesses were located on the ground floor and what looked to be apartments on the other three. Although lights burned brightly on the top three floors, the ground floor was dark except for one of the offices, where we could see several people hurrying about through the uncurtained windows. On the glass doors of the office was carefully painted lettering identifying the offices of Memphis Valley Enterprises. In smaller lettering were listed the various divisions of Memphis Valley Enterprises. Hanging on the inside of the door was a sign that proclaimed the offices closed until Monday at eight
A.M.
But we didn’t have time to wait until Monday at eight
A.M.
Stacey knocked on the door. A couple of folks turned, saw us, shouted something we couldn’t make out, then went on about their business. Stacey knocked again, this time with more urgency.

Finally a heavyset middle-aged woman looking irritated took note and came to the door carrying a stack of papers held against her chest. She didn’t open the door. She merely hollered through it. “We’re closed! Didn’t you see the sign?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Stacey replied. “But we were looking for a Mr. Solomon Bradley. Was hoping he might be here.”

“He’s busy. We’ve got a newspaper to get out.”

“He works for the paper?” I said.

“He
is
the paper,” she said. “He owns it.”

“Oh.”

Stacey looked at me as if that was of no matter, then told the woman, “We just came up from Mississippi, and we need
to talk to him. Be obliged if you could tell him we’re out here.”

“Well, what’s your name?”

“Logan. Stacey Logan. Tell him we’re kin to Oliver Reams in Jackson.”

She looked us up and down. “Y’all wait here.”

“Should’ve told her we were kin to Jasper and Jessie too,” I muttered, shivering in the evening chill. “More folks he know we know the better.”

Stacey tapped on the glass and shouted that information to the woman. The woman glanced back, nodded, and went on. She turned a corner and was gone. A few minutes passed, and then Solomon Bradley appeared. He looked even more handsome than I had remembered. He wasn’t wearing a suit jacket now and the top of his shirt was unbuttoned. He was wearing a tie, but it hung loosely. His sleeve cuffs were undone and rolled up. He looked tired but good. When he crossed the room to the door, my heart began to race, and I felt suddenly nervous. He unlocked the door and looked out. As his eyes glanced over us I stepped back, wishing I could escape so he wouldn’t see me looking like this. I knew I looked a mess.

“Stacey Logan?” he said.

Stacey nodded. “That’s right.”

Solomon Bradley extended his hand. “I’m Solomon Bradley. Oliver called this morning.” He ushered us in. I don’t think he noticed me. “Sorry you had to wait out there in that chill. What with Pearl Harbor, it’s been a hectic, news-filled evening. We’ve had a number of people stop by for news, and I’m afraid my staff has gotten a little brusque, seeing that we’re trying to get a paper out. You’ve heard about the bombing, of course.”

“Just heard it.”

“Well, we’re a weekly newspaper and we’re not supposed to publish until Friday, but we’re trying to get a paper ready for tomorrow morning to let our community know how all of this is going to affect us.”

“And how you think it is going to affect us?” I asked, losing my momentary shyness.

Now Solomon Bradley looked at me, and he smiled in recognition. “I’ll let you read the paper . . . but, in short, a lot is going to be asked of us during this war, and a lot of our boys are going to have to go fight. Seeing that we don’t know how long it’s going to last, we best prepare ourselves to fight overseas and on the homefront too.”