The Waking (22 page)
Authors: H. M. Mann
“
It’s just that …”
I am not going to sleep at all tonight.
9: On the
American Queen,
Louisville to Memphis
It’s raining again.
The dining room is more crowded than ever, and the windows and even some of the passengers are steamed because the service is slow.
And I’m the reason.
Mittie’s sick from too much partying, Rose says, and I end up serving an entire section while I’m trying to keep from yawning.
“
You can handle it,” Rose says. “Just make haste slowly and smile a lot.”
It is
so
hard to smile when you’re yawning. I’ll just have to get some earplugs if Rufus is talkative again tonight.
I end up mixing up several orders, pouring coffee over tea bags, and generally making folks mad. The humidity doesn’t help as glasses slip from my fingers with clunks, and cups and saucers rattle in my hands.
And, of course, Mrs. Walker sits in my section.
I approach her with a false smile. “Good morning, Mrs. Walker.”
“
But I thought—”
“
A server is sick, Mrs. Walker,” I interrupt gently. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be out here.”
“
Oh.”
“
And here’s your money back.” I hand the sixty dollars to her. “I don’t want it.”
“
But this is … This is
all
the money I’ve given you, isn’t it?”
“
Yes ma’am.”
“
My goodness, Emmanuel. I didn’t realize that you felt this way.”
I look over at several of my tables, plenty of empty coffee cups to fill. “I’d rather earn it than have it given to me.” As charity.
“
I see. Then how should I tip you? All the meals are included in the package.”
“
Just tip me what I deserve and nothing more. Your usual breakfast?”
“
Uh, yes.”
“
Coffee?”
“
Uh, no thank you.”
Even though I’m serving more people, I’m serving them badly. My collective tips so far barely break twenty. I need more hours. And after last night, the more hours I work, the fewer hours I’ll have to wander around listening to The Voice or to Rufus.
When I take Mrs. Walker’s order out to her, she says, “You’re awfully busy today.”
“
Yes ma’am.”
“
It must be so hard to serve so many.”
“
Yes ma’am.”
“
Emmanuel, do you really find it hard for people to be nice to you?”
What is this about? “I don’t have a problem with people being nice to me, Mrs. Walker.” I top off her glass of ice water. “I do have a problem when folks are being nice to fix their guilty consciences.”
I’ve just jinxed Mrs. Walker’s tip, too, but I don’t care. I approach Rose while waiting for the order for a party of eight. “Rose, I need more hours.”
“
You sure about that?”
“
Yes.”
“
I hear the laundry could use a hand.”
“
I’ll make beds, clean, anything.”
“
I’ll ask around. Oh. Did you find that money I put in your drawer?”
Did she just say— “What money?”
“
You haven’t found it yet? I put it in your top drawer.”
I close my eyes. “Uh, yeah, I did find it, but …” I open my eyes. “I just gave it to Mrs. Walker.”
“
Say what?”
“
I gave it to her because I thought that
she
gave it to me.”
She shakes her head. “You’re going to have to explain this one to me.”
I sigh. “I got tired of getting over-tipped, so I—”
“
There ain’t no such thing as over-tipping, if you asked me.”
“
Well, it hurt my pride. So when I saw the sixty dollars in the drawer, I thought it was for the three meals I
didn’t
serve her yesterday. You understand?”
“
Not at all.” She smiles. “So Mrs. Walker has my money?”
“
Your money?”
“
I knew you weren’t going out with us, and I wanted you to keep it so
I
didn’t have it. I’ve been feelin’ kind of motherly these days, know what I mean?”
I nod.
“
And trust me, in the old days I could drink sixty bucks’ worth of gin in a night at any bar in town. I gave you that money so I wouldn’t be tempted to drink.” She peeks out at Mrs. Walker. “And now a rich old white lady has it. Ain’t that the way of the world.” She lets go of the door. “I’ll see about some extra hours, for the
both
of us.”
An hour later, there is no transition from breakfast to lunch because I was so slow. I go around collecting tips, most of them in change, but when I get to Mrs. Walker’s table, I see the money I gave her plus another sixty. A hundred and twenty? What is this lady thinking? Didn’t she hear me at all?
Wait. I have a baby on the way. This money will help my future wife and child. This is my money. Well … half of it.
I hand Rose sixty dollars.
Rose just stares at the money. “She gave it back?”
“
And then some.” I shake my head. “What is wrong with her?”
“
I don’t know, but I hope it’s catching.”
The lunch shift goes a little better but not much. This time I have trouble remembering who gets sweetened tea, unsweetened tea, sweetened tea with lemon, unsweetened tea without lemon, or herbal tea with lemon and orange. The other servers keep everything in their heads, but I have to write everything down and I
still
get the orders wrong.
Mittie better get better by dinnertime.
On a much-needed break between lunch and dinner, I stand out on the rail in what one old man passing by calls “Scottish weather.” I don’t know about that, but it’s surely rotten traveling weather by any nickname. They seem to have a nickname for everything the further south I go. I grew up with baseball nicknames like “Blue Moon” Odom and Phil “Scrap Iron” Garner, and I heard the old-timers on Centre talking about Babe Ruth as the Sultan of Swat and the Bambino, and Josh Gibson as the black Babe Ruth. I’ve always wondered about that. Why wasn’t Ruth called the
white
Josh Gibson? Gibson had over eight hundred homers to Ruth’s measly seven hundred something.
The water below me looks angry. It’s a fast ride, but it’s a rough ride. The river’s getting more and more crowded with barges, and there’s almost a bottleneck. I look for the
Boonesboro
but don’t see it. I watch herons, so patient, so still, so controlled then BAM! They have a fish for dinner. Yeah, it’s an enchanted land filled with massive boulders, tall steeples, numerous islands, and so many colors. Soft grays, greens, and ivory whites float by. When we get to a river feeding into the Ohio, I see its green water spilling into the Ohio’s brown, and the mixture reminds me of spinach for some reason. I wonder what it’ll be like when the Ohio hits the mighty Mississippi.
Later, while I’m serving this old guy, he tells the folks at his table to “wait for it.”
“
Wait for what, dear?” his wife or mother says to him.
I can never tell with white people sometimes.
“
The Mississippi.” He turns to me. “Are we at Cairo yet?”
Kay-ro? That’s a syrup. “I don’t know, sir. I can check.”
“
Oh, I know we’re there,” the old man says. “Didn’t you all feel the boat pick up speed?”
This man is tripping.
“
Ah, the mighty Mississippi has taken over with a vengeance,” he says, “and I’m sure he’s way out of his banks.”
“
Ooh,” his wife-mother says. “I’m so glad
I’m
not driving this boat.”
He turns to me. “Your name isn’t Huck, is it?”
My name is plainly visible to him. “No sir.” I hate humoring these people sometimes.
“
Your last name isn’t Finn?”
“
Oh dear, stop,” the wife-mother says, twittering like a bird.
Three serving shifts like that makes laundry duty from six to eleven a slice of heaven. It’s not that hard because you work hard for a few minutes then rest while towels, sheet, uniforms, and tablecloths wash or dry. My own uniform gets a badly needed washing. I’m supposed to check all the pockets, supposed to make sure linens, which is a fancy name for sheets if you asked me, get taken “promptly” out of the dryer, and I’m supposed to fold everything “just so.”
Which is why I’m doing what I’m
not
supposed to do because all that bores me. I sit with my notepad and have a conversation with Mary. Well, it’s not so much a conversation as me telling her my life story so she can understand where I’ve come from:
Mary: There’s so much I’ve never told you. And not because I didn’t think you’d understand. I was afraid if you knew the truth about me, that you wouldn’t want to be with me anymore. I’m sure you heard about my mama being an addict. It hurts me to write that, but it’s true. Yet I don’t remember a day I went hungry, I don’t remember a day I wasn’t properly dressed, I don’t remember a day I was wishing for anything. I know I was only four, but I remember I was happy. She left me alone all night just about every night. I guess that’s why I don’t like being alone now. That’s probably also why I don’t like walls around me. Or the dark. I know grown men don’t admit stuff like that, but there it is. So she left me alone a lot, and I mainly stayed in my room playing with the toys she bought me until I fell asleep. Sometimes she brought men home, and I wasn’t allowed to go in her room. Sometimes the noises kept me up at night which is probably why I’m not a very sound sleeper now. But every morning we had breakfast together. Every morning, even though now I know how tired she must have been. And then we’d play or watch TV or just look out the window or go on walks. She even took me to Kennywood Park once. I rode all the little rides, but it was fun.
Only one dryer is spinning and all the washers have stopped, but I don’t care. I want Mary to know everything about me, even if it means that she won’t want me.
Then one morning Mama didn’t wake up …
And then I write out the entire story with tears in my eyes and childhood fears in my head and I don’t care how many clothes I have to fold until whenever it takes because for just a little while, even if it’s just on paper, I have my mama again.
And I’m not as scared anymore.
10: Memphis
On our way in to Memphis, we pass under an M-shaped bridge and slide by the Pyramid, where Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis fought for the heavyweight title. It isn’t exactly like Egypt, though, because there are million-dollar homes owned by the rich and famous nearby, none of them with any kind of yard.
Who’d want to live like that? If your neighbor farted, you’d not only hear it, but you’d smell it.
When we land in Memphis near Mud Island, very few passengers stay on, and that is a major relief.
“
We’ll be off after lunch, just you and me,” Rose tells me, and I smile. “We’ll chaperone each other, okay?”
“
What about Rufus and Penny?”
She raises her eyebrows. “They’ll be fine without us.”
“
Are they, uh, … you know, a couple?”
“
Rufus? He’s as pure as the Mississippi mud. They’re
friends,
Manny, that’s all. They’ve become fast friends since her, um, conversion. Can I call it a conversion? I guess I can. Anyway, he’s been a wonderful influence on her. Haven’t you noticed?”
Penny
has
been less street and more country. “She’s eating more, if that’s what you mean.”
“
Hush up, boy, and go get a shower.”
Maybe they’re more than just friends. Hmm. Penny and Rufus. Stranger things have happened, I guess. Like Emmanuel and Mary, which has to be the strangest relationship of them all.
During my shower, I notice that my postage stamp is still shrinking and almost closed. My tattoo looks like it’s completely healed, too. My body is coming together. I just hope I can also keep my mind in one piece.
I have never been anywhere quite like Memphis, mainly because it’s rare to see people of all races interacting in the same space at the same time. The only time that happened on the Hill, so the old-timers told me, was during the riots in ’68, only the interaction wasn’t exactly mutual or friendly.
“
We are
not
going to Graceland,” Rose tells me as we stroll downtown.
“
What’s that?” I ask.
“
Elvis Presley’s mansion.”
“
Oh.” He named his mansion? I knew Elvis was strange. I mean, you name a dog or a cat, but an entire building?
“
And he wouldn’t have had that mansion if it weren’t for Otis Blackwell.”