C
HAPTER 13
E
very spring Mama brought out the hand-cranked ice cream freezer and had Mary take it apart to make sure the wooden paddles hadn't rotted over the winter. In June, when strawberries appeared at the A&P, we began our weekly trips to Jackson's Ice House for rock salt and bag ice so Mama could make ice cream. When we got there, I looked across McDowell Street at the House of Prayer for All People, and the place where Daddy Grace stayed when he came to townâa red, white, and blue mansion with music floating from upstairs windows . . . a choir, a piano, tambourines, drums.
At Jackson's, men wearing heavy gloves used tongs to lift the dripping frozen blocks from a conveyor belt, stacking them into walls of ice in the delivery trucks lined up at the loading dock. Sweat ran down their faces, summer or winter. Puddin pestered the workers for slivers of ice and I shivered nearby, staring at the House of Prayer parsonage. Colored people dressed in their finest went up stone steps to a wraparound porch. I thought about climbing those steps, knocking on the door, being the only white person going into such a place.
One Saturday when we were at Jackson's, I saw a gray-haired Negro in a cream-colored suit in a rocking chair on the porch of the mansion. People milled around him, visiting with one another, overflowing onto the steps and into the front yard. Boys fanned the man as he rocked. He had a thin mustache, black curved lines that started at his nostrils and flared out over his top lip. From time to time he raised a knuckle to his face and nudged the tips of the mustache, first one side, then the other.
Daddy came to get me and he looked across the street. “What a mess.” On the way home he said, “The niggers donate their hard-earned money, and it's not even a real church. Daddy Grace, what kind of name is that? He's Daddy Give-Me-All-You-Got. I hear he's got a belt buckle made of solid gold.”
Stell was fascinated with the House of Prayer. When she read in the paper about the annual parade for Daddy Grace, she begged Mama and Daddy to let her go. “I want to learn about other religions. Jubie can come, too. Mary can take us.” She talked about it for days.
Mama said Stell was worse than water wearing away a rock. “I guess there's no harm in just a parade. Let me tell your father.”
I was ready early, sitting in the kitchen, drinking a Coke, when Mary walked in, cloth violets on the lapel of her purple dress, her chestnut hair pinned up under a pillbox hat of flow- ersâmauve, scarlet, lilac. Her eyes shone and rhinestones twinkled at her ears. She smelled of Cashmere Bouquet.
“You look beautiful,” I told her.
“Thank you. Where's Stell Ann?”
“Here I am.” Stell had on her pink cashmere cardigan, draped over the shoulders of her beige linen dress. She wore wrist gloves and carried a pocketbook that matched her beige heels.
“You a fine young lady,” said Mary. “And you looking good, too, Jubie.”
I was a mud hen in my brown corduroy jumper and white blouse. I stared down at my patent leather Mary Janes. They made my feet look bigger than ever.
We got on the Number 3 bus to ride downtown. Stell and I sat on the bench seat behind the driver, and Mary walked to the back. Her skinny calves and big purple shoes made me think of Minnie Mouse. A yellow line across the floor of the bus separated the front from the back. Farther toward the rear, the faded remains of an earlier line crossed the rubber floor mat. When the bus company realized there were lots more coloreds riding the buses than whites, they moved the line forward a few feet. Even so, the back of the bus was packed. A boy stood so Mary could sit. Stell and I, the only whites, were alone among the empty seats in front.
We got off the bus at McDowell and East Third, near the House of Prayer. Mary led us through a crush of people to a place she said would be the best for watching the parade. A few white spectators stood out in the sea of dark faces, and on every corner, white policemen watched the crowd.
Mary stopped. “This is good.” She looked up, squinting her eyes in the sunlight. “Hardly ever rains on Daddy Grace.”
I'd never seen so many colored people in one place, and all of them in their Sunday bestâmen in suits and ties, women in dresses, hats, and heels. They lined up along the curb, two and three deep, with children closest to the street so they could see, and older people sitting in chairs.
Mary leaned out. “Here they come!”
Colored girls in white dresses walked down the street, dignified, their faces solemn, tossing what I thought were scraps of paper. Little girls toddled alongside teenagers. One of the scraps fell at my feet. A flower petal. A group of boys followed, clapping their hands and dancing to the rhythm of the band behind them. “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” fast, loud. From around a corner, seven men playing trumpets and trombones joined the parade, dancing as they played, their horns swinging wildly in time with the music.
Across the street a policeman was putting handcuffs on a colored man who talked over his shoulder, shaking his head.
“What's happening?” I asked Mary.
“Probably drunk, but maybe not. Sometimes they just takes them.”
The street filled with people dancing, singing, jumping off the curb and back up again in twos and threes on the sidewalks, in yards, on porches, clapping and swaying to the music.
I saw a man pull a bottle from his suit jacket and pass it around. A woman behind him tapped his shoulder and shook her head. He pushed her aside and took another drink.
I felt a sudden wetness in my panties. I tugged at Mary's sleeve. “I got the curse and I don't have anything with me.”
“My goodness. Stay here. I be right back.” She walked away, looking around, then called out, “Sister Coley?”
Stell asked, “Where's Mary going?”
“To find a bathroom.”
Mary came up behind me. “This Miz Coley; she live right there. You go on with her. Sister Coley, this Miss June Watts.”
A tiny woman said, “How do. Come right with me.” I followed her, hoping I'd be back in time to see Daddy Grace.
Mrs. Coley took me up tall brick steps, across a porch. What would Mama think if she could see me going into a colored person's house? Mrs. Coley was so dark-skinned that in the dim hallway her eyes and teeth seemed to jump out of her face. “The bathroom's just down the hall. I'll bring what you need.”
The door she'd pointed to opened into an enormous, sunny bathroom, filled with light that bounced off tile walls and floor. A photo of a white-haired colored woman hung over the toilet. Violets in ceramic pots sat on the sills of the windows to either side of the sink. A fresh, sweet odor. Mama would love this bathroom.
“Miss Watts?” Mrs. Coley held a paper bag through the doorway. “I brought you what you need. You can use the bag for your panties.”
“I'm sorry you're missing the parade.”
“I'm going right back out. Take as long as you need.”
The underpants Mrs. Coley brought were a little big, but the sanitary belt and napkin were the same as what I had at home. I left the house, closing the door behind me, carrying the paper bag. Two colored girls, teenagers, stood at the bottom of the steps.
The taller girl was all in lime greenâhat, dress, and pocketbook. She teetered on green high heels. Her hands were on her hips and she glowered from under the floppy brim of her hat. “What you doin' in Miz Coley's house?”
The other girl, shorter, with a red hat and a mass of black curls, stepped forward. “What you got in that bag?”
I backed up a step or two, looking around for Mrs. Coley. “I had to use the bathroom.”
The tall girl said, “And the bag?”
Mary stepped between the girls. “Hey, June.”
The girl in the red hat said to Mary, “You know her?”
Mary took my hand. “This Miss June Watts.”
“What she been doin' in Miz Coley's house?” the girl in green asked.
Mary looked at her. “Is Valora okay these days?”
The tall girl said, “You know my mama?”
Mary held out her hand. “I'm Sister Luther from McDowell Street Baptist. Your mama's a friend from when I were at the House of Prayer.”
The girl looked down at the sidewalk.
“I believe everything all right now.” Mary took my arm and we walked back to the curb.
I looked around for Mrs. Coley to thank her again but couldn't see her in the mass of people.
“You okay?” Mary looked at the paper bag.
“Yes.” I wadded up the bag and stuffed it in my purse.
Two yellow convertibles came down McDowell side by side. Colored men sat across the tops of the backseats, with more men in front, all waving.
“Fathers of the church,” said Mary. “Yessuh, Deacon McHone,” she shouted, waving to one of the men. He waved back.
I almost didn't recognize George McHone. He had on a navy suit, a green bow tie, and a white shirt. It didn't seem possible he was the same man who cut our grass.
A group of women in choir robes marched down the street, singing slow and mournful,
“Shall we gather at the river?”
I heard someone right behind me, and turned. People had filled the space between us and the stone wall, and were pressing forward to see the parade. A woman tapped Mary on the shoulder. “Afternoon, Sister Luther.”
“Sister French,” Mary said. “You looking good.” The air smelled of tobacco and perfume.
How many people who belonged to Myers Park Country Club would ever get to see such a sight as the Daddy Grace parade? This was Stell's idea, something I wouldn't have thought of, and I was glad to have her as a sister. I looked at her. Her cheeks were red, her hazel eyes shining, her honey-brown bangs plastered to her forehead. She snapped her fingers, moving her feet to the music, utterly happy.
Another band marched by, all brass, playing “When the Saints Go Marching In” as if it were a trumpeted announcement from God.
“Here he come,” said Mary, “Bishop Grace.” A white Cadillac convertible, trimmed in gold instead of chrome, went by so slowly I could see the crowns on the hubcaps. Daddy Grace sat in the backseat, his arms raised, the same as Jesus blessing the multitudes. I recognized him as the man I'd seen on the front porch of the House of Prayer. His hands tapered off to fingernails so long they curled under at the end. How did he dial the telephone or button his shirts? There was no way he could pick his nose. The driver and two other men in tuxedos sat in the front seat, looking back and forth at the crowd.
“His bodyguards,” Mary said.
I asked, “Why's he got bodyguards?”
“Not everybody favor him. In Philadelphia somebody tried to stab him.”
“You were there?” Stell said.
“Sister Vellines was. She told me.”
A wave of excitement swept through the crowd as Daddy Grace went by.
“You like Daddy Grace, don't you?” I asked Mary.
“He all right.”
“Colored people are emotional about religion,” Stell told Mama and Daddy when we got home. “We should show more feelings in church.”
“Ha!” Daddy said. “That'll be the day.”
“Stell makes a good point, Bill. We really are sedate.”
“I loved the music,” I said, “and the way people danced, clapping and singing.”
“Did you see the man himself?” Daddy asked.
“We did,” said Stell. “Daddy Grace and his bodyguards.”
“Bodyguards?” Daddy said. “Ye gods.”
I said, “His fingernails are so long they curl under.”
“Really?” Mama looked astonished.
“Uh-huh,” said Stell. “It's sort of freakish.”
At supper I asked Mama, “If a colored girl needed to use our bathroom, what would you do?”
“I'd let her, of course.”
That made me feel good.
Mama put down her napkin. “We have Mary's toilet, downstairs.”
Stell said, “Jubie used a colored family's bathroom.”
“You went inside a Negro house?” Mama asked.
“Yes. A friend of Mary's. The bathroom was huge.”
“Was it clean?”
“Yes, ma'am, and beautiful.”
“Hmm.” Mama shook her head as though she couldn't imagine such a thing.