Without inhibition, she danced. With passionate expression and force, pressing against something that needed to be defied. She threw around her toned arms and fought the air with closed fists. On the tips of her toes, she spun around so fast he thought she might knee the rim of the baptizing pool, but she didn’t. She was both power and serenity. Skill and rawness. Activism and patience. When she reached the center, the younger two girls fell to their knees around her to give her the spotlight she deserved.
To Isaiah, she was the girl who had faced those boys. Anyone else would have bolted immediately, Isaiah knew. But even when he whispered it into the curtain, the girl stood. Face-to-face with an evil so loveless. And then mere days later, she was able to find enough love within herself to spin a congregation fond. She was captivating. He’d seen her in a glimpse that day at the talent show, but he could press that down deep and deny it.
This? Only feet in front of him, he could not ignore a magic such as this.
Angel’s solo lasted for the entire second half of the song, but Isaiah could no longer hear Mother Evans’s singing. There was only Angel, spinning Greenwood’s thirty-five blocks into something much more confusing and complicated. He was a man of seventeen, best friend to Muggy Little Jr.: the self-crowned love king of Greenwood Avenue. He was an aspiring foot soldier in the swelling ground war of societal change led by the one and only W.E.B. Du Bois. And since his father died a few years ago in the big war, most important, Isaiah was the man of the house.
A real man wouldn’t notice Angel’s hair was wild and free and more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen in his life. A real man wouldn’t wonder if she liked Du Bois as much as he did or if she cared for activism at all. A real man didn’t watch the most peculiar girl in school dance as if she were some kind of an angel. And a real man certainly didn’t feel unworthy of watching her dance in front of him like she was living, breathing, moving poetry.
He forced his gaze back to the maroon carpet until the song had ended. When it did, everyone, even the elderly mothers of the church, stood to their feet. Some outright cried afterward, and others pretended not to. He stood along with them so he wouldn’t look odd, but didn’t dare look up at her. Real men surely didn’t cry.
MONDAY, MAY 23, 1921; 8 DAYS BEFORE
ANGEL
On the second-to-last day of school, Angel sat on the front stoop of her house, hugging five large books to her chest and humming the Lord’s Prayer. As usual, she was ready early, so she tucked her knees inside of her long navy skirt and listened to the crisscrossing groups of chirping birds perched atop her favorite weeping soapberry tree. Suddenly, the sound of her neighbor Mrs. Nichelle’s screaming infant punctured the peace of her quiet street.
Everyone else was sleeping or already off to work and school, including Mrs. Nichelle’s husband, the high school vice principal, Mr. Anniston. Angel’s heart went out to her neighbor, left alone with their colicky six-month-old baby boy, Michael. Peeking at her ticking pocket watch, Angel saw that she had twenty more minutes before she should set off for the schoolhouse. She jumped to her feet and went over to knock on her neighbor’s screen door.
“Who’s there?” Mrs. Nichelle asked frantically over Michael’s screams.
“It’s me. Angel. Anything I can help with? I’m a bit early again.”
“You’re a godsend,” Mrs. Nichelle said as she pushed through the screen door with Michael dangling from her hip. He was bright red from his yelling and as mad as a viper. “Few moments of privacy would do me good. I’ve been holding it all night.”
“Of course,” said Angel. She held her hands out for Michael to fall into them. Mrs. Nichelle squeezed her legs together, and she quickly walked toward the bathroom. “Take as long as you need.”
Angel rocked Michael on her neighbor’s front step for what felt like a while, and she glanced at her ticking watch to see that an hour had passed. Angel’s first mind told her to go check on Mrs. Nichelle, but Michael had finally dozed off on her upper shoulder. She decided to let him sleep. But then a second hour had passed. He was snoring, blowing tiny spit bubbles while he slept. Angel didn’t dare put him in his crib; he’d surely wake up raging.
Angel found peace in the simplicity of rocking a neighbor’s fussy baby to sleep and watching the smaller birds chase the larger ones away from their nests hidden in the soapberry. She thought of what her father had told her of the birds in that very tree. He’d said they were longing for rest within unrest. While gently rocking Michael, she thought, that’s all any of us long for really. Especially Black folks in these shifty times. So many had crossed the Frisco tracks in search of rest, and in Greenwood, they’d found it.
When sweat began dripping from the tiny tip of Michael’s nose, she headed toward the Williamses’ drugstore for a cold drink and cool air. As she walked, the sun scrambled in the approaching clouds, trying greatly to get a peek at the gorgeous Greenwood District. It was another one of those days just like the day before, phony storm telling people to stay indoors. But Angel knew there was nothing behind it—only the bluster of trickster gray clouds. Still, with tiny Michael resting on her now-aching shoulder, rolling sky two days in a row sent tiny chills up her back. Her papa had told her that God’ll send signs to the most observant among us. Most ignore them with blind, unreasonable faith. But the chosen few moved through life according to those signals, like a chimney train on its tracks, he’d say.
The pungent aroma of man-tall juniper lined the walkways alongside her quiet street, effectively taking attention from the ominous above. Mrs. Tate’s blue house on the corner was the origin of the smell. Her juniper won prizes all over. She’d nursed it through the driest Oklahoma droughts and even the fluke cold spell a few years back. Her husband owned and ran the Greenwood pharmacy, and when her only son, Timothy, went south for medical school, she’d shifted her mothering to the juniper. And Angel’s already-manicured street benefitted greatly. Mrs. Tate, however, was never nearly as pleasant as her juniper.
When Mrs. Tate peeked over a cone-shaped shrub taller than she was, Angel leaped back with her hand firmly on Michael’s rear end. She was a tiny woman, flitting around like a hummingbird. She wore wide-brimmed hats to keep the sun at bay and zip-front flowered housedresses.
“Just me, Angel,” Mrs. Tate called out in a whisper. “Nice of you to watch Nichelle’s boy. He’s a hollerer, that one.”
Feeling defensive of Michael, Angel ignored the slight affront and instead focused on the two things Mrs. Tate cared for in the world. “Your juniper is looking better than I’ve ever seen it. Oh, and how’s Timothy?”
As expected, Mrs. Tate’s face lit up with gladness. “Tim’s a dream of a son. An absolute dream. His letter came today, you know that? Handwriting of a champion. Always knew he’d grow up to be something special. He was a good baby. No hollering and carrying on like that one there you’re holding on to.”
“We should really get on our way,” Angel interrupted as respectfully as possible. “Little man’s sweating in his sleep. We’re heading on to the Williamses’ shop for a sip.” Angel began walking. “See you later on.”