Jazz Moon (8 page)

W
illful. Too reckless to survive in Dogwood. He cracked at the seams of that nothing town. He needed more. But in church, the Sunday following the Trina incident, what Willful Hutchison needed was medical attention. The congregation speculated about his bandaged nose, the scar lighting up his forehead.

“Looks like some gal's pappy done gone upside his head,” an old woman said.

“Or maybe it was the
gal,
” her companion replied.

Trina sat with her new fiancé. Her ma beamed as if her daughter was marrying the prince of Ethiopia. The Reverend Glover was, in fact, the most eligible colored bachelor within twenty miles, and Trina should have been the giddiest girl in that church. But she looked bereft.

Mrs. Hutchison must have warned Willful to behave. He restrained his legs from their preferred capital
V
and kept his hands folded in his lap. During service, he looked over at Ben, his eyes begging forgiveness, Ben unwilling to bestow it.

He submerged himself in chores, but the vision of Willful embedded between Trina's legs boiled up again and again. It persecuted him. He tripped and dropped the bucket after milking the cow; let the grits burn when his ma told him to watch the stove; dropped a basket of eggs, breaking them all before wasting into tears. He thought his ma would yell, but he sensed from her something new—concern.

His pa spoke to him one day as they labored in the field, first time he'd said a thing to his son in forever.

“We's worried about you, boy. We's prayin' for you.”

For the first time in a long time, Ben knew his parents loved him.

In church several Sundays later, Willful and Trina remained numb. The bruises on his face had scabbed over and Trina held her fiancé's hand, but her eyes kept roaming across the church to Willful.

Services ended and in the mayhem of exiting the church, Willful closed in on Ben.

“Meet me at the swimmin' hole at four o'clock.”

“I don't want to.”

“Don't lie.”

Misery and love and desire. They played with Ben, flopped him back and forth. Misery produced pride and pride insisted he hold on to Willful's betrayal. But desire, addictive and unwieldy, reduced him to the brink of forgiveness. Ben began to understand the pitfalls of love, how it lured you, spoiled you with bliss, made you so dependent that you couldn't combat its pull.

He arrived at the pond, found Willful sitting on a large rock on the bank, staring out at the water as a couple of long-tailed ducks skated across.

“I'm dyin' without you,” Willful said.

Ben dropped his head onto his lover's shoulder. Willful's arm coiled around him, but only momentarily before he removed it. He looked around. He seemed nervous.

“The thing with Trina, it ain't gone happen again,” he said.

“Better not. She gettin' married.”

“Yeah. To that prissy preacher.”

They laughed, then looked out at the water, quiet, trying to feel comfortable with each other again. During the interval, Ben made his decision.

“Will? What you did with Trina . . . do that to me. I want you inside me.”

Willful smiled. “We ain't got no place we can go.”

“We got the woods.”

The flesh on Willful's neck and throat tightened. The veins swelled. “The woods ain't safe for us. Not no more.”

“What you mean, ‘not no more'?”

Willful took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face and the back of his neck. “The woods ain't private enough. We gotta be careful, Know-nothin'.”

“Did something happen? What—”

“I know a place we can go. You know that house on Ol' Cane Road? The one with the red door? Meet me there. Not tomorrow night, but the next. And be careful. Make sure don't nobody see you.”

Ben knew peace again. The blank space of the last few weeks was now refilled with his Willful. The next two days on the farm saw the return of his restless work ethic and he sensed relief from his folks as he executed his chores without spilling or breaking anything.

Willful inside him. He wouldn't need Trina Ledger or whores ever again. But they couldn't sneak around like this forever. If the groves of dogwood trees couldn't safeguard them, maybe the house with the red door could be
their
place. They could fix it up, plant a garden, live there together. And there was enough land there to start a farm. Ben would have to purge Willful of his lazy ways, but he could see them working their fields by day and spending their nights with their books, reading
to each other,
because Willful would finally let Ben teach him.

But this was fantasy. Two men couldn't live together like a husband and a wife.

The day he was to meet Willful, Mrs. Ledger called on his ma with a new parcel of gossip.

“Julius and Paula Sue Thurman's twin boys swear they seen Willful in the woods, kissin' and huggin' on a boy.”

Ben sat in his corner shelling peas. He started to sweat.

“The twins say they seen Willful and this boy touchin' each other,” Mrs. Ledger said. “Intimate-like.”

Ben's ma frowned. “Who the boy?”

“The twins never got close enough to see clear.”

“When this happen?”

“Paula Sue say the twins just told her and Julius. But they seen Willful and the boy a few times over the last few months.”

Ben's ma cut another piece of pie for her guest. “Few months. Hmm.”

“The Bible say, ‘A man shalt not lie with a man, as with a woman. It is an abomination: They shall surely be put to death.' ”

 

Those words raked through him as he languished under the streetlamp across from Teddy's. They had cursed him often, and always in Mrs. Ledger's pious voice.

Rain fell. The music behind Teddy's door competed with shouts and laughter and records from the second floor of an apartment half a block down. A dim lamp lit the apartment. The silhouettes of partiers darted across the window.

But he was dying
now
. And he hadn't touched a man since Willful. The rain continued, a little heavier, a little colder. Ben's least favorite weather: cold, wet, and windy. He scrunched his hands down into his coat pockets for the journey home or maybe to a bar. Then Teddy's door opened and out stepped Baby Back. Surprised and annoyed by the rain, he crumpled his hat down on his head before walking toward Seventh Avenue with the same undaunted gait as the night he ignored Ben.

It was only midnight on a Friday. He wondered where Baby Back was headed. The trumpeter would normally be jamming till all hours. Before he had a chance to argue himself out of it, curiosity angled Ben's feet toward Seventh Avenue, and he followed Mr. Baby Back Johnston.

B
aby Back carried his trumpet case.
Means he left Teddy's for the night,
Ben thought. He stayed far enough back so Baby Back wouldn't see him, but close enough that he wouldn't lose him. Rain fell steadily, but not enough to deter Harlemites on a Friday night. Ben had to wind through crowds bundled up in coats and huddling under umbrellas. He kept his eyes on the trumpeter as he tailed him. His height and his big, broad back stood out like a beacon. The rain poured harder now. Ben wished he had an umbrella.

It had rained the night he went to meet Willful at the house with the red door. What started as a pitter-pat of drops soon toughened into a downpour with thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure. By the time he reached the place, he was sopped.

The house was more of a hut. Small. Dirty. Gloomy. The wood was aged, the red paint on the door fading and chipping off. From outside it looked uninviting, but there was a glow in the window and Ben went inside to a hearty blaze in the fireplace.

And then he saw Willful, on the bed, naked. He came to Ben.

“How's my Know-nothin'?”

“Wet.”

“Come here.”

Willful undressed him, wrapped him in a blanket, held him as they stood in front of the fire. Then he took him by the hand and led him to the bed. Ben's heart trounced as Willful unwrapped the blanket and laid him on his back on the thin, linen-less mattress. It gave off an odor, stale and musty.

Willful touched him all over, finessed him to a sense of safety. He spread Ben's legs apart with his knees, released a stream of saliva onto his penis, then penetrated him.

It was like being split open from the inside. Ben cried out as his body resisted the intrusion.

“Know-nothin', relax.”

Ben hadn't known it would hurt this bad. Willful jabbed in and out with excruciating speed. Ben wanted to stop, but also wanted to be strong for Willful. It hadn't hurt Trina Ledger—she couldn't seem to get enough. He shut his eyes to block the tears and grinded his teeth together so hard, he thought they'd break. Finally he screamed, “Stop! Willful! Will! Stop!”

But Willful pummeled him. He didn't let up. Drops of his sweat pelted Ben's face and chest. Ben opened his mouth to scream again just as Willful growled—a feral, uncurbed sound—and fell on top of him, sweaty and spent. It was minutes before he regained his strength and withdrew. He used the blanket to wipe himself off.

Ben's tears ballooned. His body shook.

“Shh. Shh,” Willful said, rocking him.

Ben got up, started to dress. Willful sat on the edge of the bed, watching. He opened his mouth, then shut it. He opened it again and said, “It ain't gone hurt that bad next time. I promise.”

Ben slipped into his clothes. They were heavy from all the rain they had absorbed. Cold, too. His shoes were soaked and muddy. It would probably take days for them to dry out. They would never be clean again.

“Know-nothin'?” Willful said. “Ben? You hearin' me? Next time'll be all right.”

“Next time.”

“See you soon?”

Ben left the house, left Willful sitting there on the bed, naked.

The storm was mostly over; only a few vagrant drops sloshed onto the ground now. The air smelled damp and muddy. Dazed, he inhaled deeply to clear his head so he could get home, sneak back in the house undetected.

He was sore, back there.

The verse stabbed at him again the following morning when he realized he had bled back there. Had Trina bled?

The next Sunday in church, when Willful looked over, Ben aimed his sight straight ahead, refusing him a crumb of hope. In his periphery were Trina Ledger and her fiancé, set to be married within weeks. Her eyes were fixed on Willful.

Life returned to its mundane, pre-Willful regularity. Ben worked himself to death, to purge the sins of the past year. The soreness from that night was gone. Shame blossomed in its place.

The next three Sundays, Mrs. Hutchison and the daughters attended church without Willful. Ben hoped he had gone to the brothel in Robertville and would stay there. On that third Sunday, Julius and Paula Sue Thurman's twin boys tugged at their ma and pa and pointed at something on the other side of the church. The Thurmans followed the line of their sons' pointing fingers. It led to Ben.

The twins say they seen Willful and this boy touchin' each other. Intimate-like
.

The gossip spread like an epidemic. On a trip to town with his pa two days later, men poked each other, cocking their heads in his direction. When his ma dispatched him on errands, neighbors received him cordially as they stashed their children indoors. The rumors reached his folks. One night at supper, they confronted him.

“There's a ugly story goin' around 'bout you and that Hutchison boy,” his ma said. “You heard it?”

“Yes'm.”

“It true?”

“No'm,” he said, careful to sound decisive, but not overdo it.

His folks exchanged glances, then went back to their supper.

Next evening, they went to church for a revival meeting to be presided over by the Reverend Glover, Trina Ledger's fiancé. As they waited for the service to begin, the couple dozen congregants watched Ben like he was new in town. The allegations revolted and titillated them. The Thurmans were there, wallowing in their status as the originators of the story.

But Reverend Glover hadn't arrived for his own revival. Trina and her folks hadn't either. Folks grew impatient. A few had gone home, resigned to finding the Holy Spirit some other time, when the Reverend Ledger vaulted into the church with a shotgun.

“She's dead!” he shouted. “My Trina's dead! Willful Hutchison—he as good as killed her. She was with child. By Willful. She died trying to get rid of it. It's Willful's fault. Him and that mother of his. She knew about them.”

Nobody moved. Nobody talked. The only sound was the reverend's wild panting. And with that shotgun in his hands, the people didn't know whether to console their beloved preacher or take cover.

“I need some good men. I'ma run that whole Hutchison family out this town. Who'll come with me?”

An ensemble of men trooped forward, Ben's pa among them.

“I'll come.”

“Count me in.”

“We gone rid ourselves and our womenfolk of that Hutchison boy once and for all!”

The reverend held the shotgun in quaking hands. “Lord Jesus, keep me from killing that boy, though I know you wouldn't count it a sin.”

It hit Ben: These men intended to tear the Hutchisons from their home, banish them to the open road with no money, no food. But that wouldn't appease the Reverend Ledger. He wanted blood for blood. The injustice sent Ben spiraling at him.

“No!” he screamed. He tried to wrest the shotgun from the preacher's hands. “Don't kill him! Don't kill Willful!”

The gun swung here, there, and everywhere as they battled over it. The women screamed and flung themselves into the pews, joined by most of the men. The reverend, powered by hysteria and aided by sheer bodily size, clobbered Ben to the ground where he cried and writhed like someone hit with the Holy Spirit on a threshing floor. The tussle for the shotgun over, people left the pews. They circled Ben as he blubbered on. His screams devolved to sobs.

“Please don't hurt Willful. Please.”

By the time his ma lugged him out of the church, the Reverend Ledger and his posse had gone.

They didn't kill Willful. But they did expel the Hutchison family from Dogwood with just the tattered clothes on their backs. Ben never knew what became of them. He never saw Willful again.

Trina's death shattered colored Dogwood. Different versions of the events circulated—some plausible, some preposterous—but when all the various and varying stories were distilled down to their essences, the facts added up to this:

Trina Ledger, a preacher's daughter and a preacher's betrothed, had been three months' pregnant. Facing disgrace at best, exile at worst, Trina settled on a third option: her ma's knitting needles. On her deathbed, she admitted that Willful was the only man she'd ever been with. Then she implicated his ma and sisters in the hiding of the affair. She did not implicate Ben. Why would remain a mystery. The tragedy was compounded when the Reverend Glover said he would have taken the blame for the pregnancy and married her anyway. He loved her that much.

 

“They touched each other the way a man and woman touch each other.”

“Willful's older. He must'a been the one instigated it.”

“They was doin' it in the dogwood groves.”

“Willful sodomized Ben.”

Dogwood shunned the Charles family. Visitors no longer called. His ma was ousted from the roster of church-cleaning women. Folks who'd known his pa for decades walked by without a word or a nod. At church no one spoke to them or even sat in the same pew.

He heard his folks murmuring behind the barn and in their room, conspiring. At supper a week after Trina's funeral, they disclosed their plan.

“Ol' man Zachary's plantation need cotton pickers,” his ma said. “We sending you there for the season. You'll bring your wages home. Maybe by the time you get back, folks'll forget this mess. Or at least forgive a little.”

The Zachary plantation sat twenty miles east of town. A contingent of colored folks from Dogwood was heading there to seek work, traveling in a caravan of wagons. Ben's ma packed him some salt pork and a canteen of sassafras tea for the trip. Sitting in the back of the flatbed wagon, some of his neighbors stared at him or whispered to one another or laughed. Others turned eyes, heads, whole bodies away in disgust. Trina Ledger had sinned, but her sin had been natural. Ben's marked him a degenerate.

Picking cotton was hard, hard, hard work. A picker needed quick, agile hands and flinty skin on his fingers to repel the burrs from the cotton stalks. A strong back was a blessing since the stalks were low and you had to bend down to pick. Ben's first few days were wretched. His fingers bled and his lower back ached so bad, he had to stagger on his knees to pick in the damning heat. The plantation paid forty cents for each hundred pounds picked. In his first week, he couldn't even get to a hundred pounds a day.

But blockheaded determination prevailed. His hands became impervious to the burrs. He heeded the advice of veteran pickers who advised him to stretch his back in the morning and at night to fend off the soreness. He soon upped his totals to three hundred pounds a day and more.

The workers hailed from a medley of nearby towns. Ben barely spoke to any of them, afraid that Dogwood tongues had wagged about him. At night, he slept under the spreading branches of the laurel oak trees, like most of the workers. He could have rented floor space in someone's shack, but that would cost. He didn't want to spend any more than necessary.

He had a plan. One that required money.

One night after a particularly brutal day of picking, he lay motionless under the trees, trying to catch what there was of a breeze. The night was cave-black except for a quarter slice of moon, the stars strewn across the sky. Snores and whispers of the other workers thrummed around him, while only vague outlines of bodies were visible. He listened in on two men's conversation.

“Where
you
wanna go?”

“Philly.”

“Where's that?

“I don't know.”

“How you gone go someplace and you don't even know where it's at?”

“It's up north. All I gotta know.”

They talked Boston, Newark, Pittsburgh. Aside from being Up North, neither man knew the particulars of any of these utopias, with one exception.

“They say New York City ain't nothin' but pretty lights, pretty girls, and some pretty loose women!”

“Is it big?”

“Ten thousand of people live there.”

Ten thousand people
.
I could get lost among ten thousand, be anonymous, start over.

“And they got lots of jazz music.”

“What's jazz music?”

“What? Boy, you ain't never heard jazz?”

“Is it like church hymns?”

“No, it ain't like no church hymns!”

“What's it like?”

The man considered. “Fire. Magic. Dancin'. You ever read poetry?”

“You know I can't read.”

“Pretend you can. Then take fire, magic, dancing, and poetry, mix 'em all together, throw in ragtime and a banjo, and that's what jazz sounds like. And they got plenty of it in New York City.”

Ten thousand people and a music that sounded like poetry.

Cotton-picking season ended and the folks from Dogwood boarded the wagons to go home. Ben didn't join them. He made his way on foot to the nearest train station. He bought a ticket on a northbound train. He didn't send word to his ma and pa that he was never coming home.