Home > Angel of Greenwood(5)

Angel of Greenwood(5)
Author: Randi Pink

“Come on back by soon!” Mrs. Tate reluctantly waved. “So I can finish up telling you about my boy. And this juniper, too!”

By the end, Mrs. Tate was yelling her words. Angel made a mental note to take the long way home.

 

 

ISAIAH


There was no room left in Isaiah’s mind—only Angel.

But this was not the fate of the Black boys of 1921. This was for daydreamers who walked through life tripping over their own loafers. This was for woolgatherers, aimlessly grinning at nothing. This, most of all, was for white boys.

White boys could get away with an all-consuming kind of love. They could learn every meticulous baritone note within “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” gather a quartet, and serenade their loves with no consequences to follow. No impending smack at the nape of the neck from steely fathers or philandering best friends. With no worry of looming revolution or invasion, they got to fall in love. And love, after all, was the only thing in the world that mattered. Love could lead a man to long for much more than mediocrity. Love of family. Love of community. It was a force stronger than hate, Isaiah realized. It was also, for him, not allowed.

And then there he was. Walking to school, surrounded by the excellence of the formerly enslaved—the very demonstration of that type of powerful, perseverant love. Those who pulled themselves up to build and create and manufacture for the sake of community and family. Yet still, Isaiah toiled internally from the wrongness of the us and them. Envying a simplicity existing a mere stone’s throw over the Frisco railroad tracks. Isaiah was not one man, but two—himself and his black shadow—following him, sometimes pestering him, to utilize his own ingenuity in order to navigate the world made complicated by the color of his skin.

Through the concept of double consciousness, Du Bois had said as much in Souls:

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

 

A sharp slap at his nape snapped Isaiah back to the mundane reality of walking to school with his best friend, Muggy Little Jr.

“Get your dreamy head out the clouds,” Muggy told him, twisting his unlit cigar between thumb and index finger. “Have you heard a word I’ve said?”

Isaiah shrugged in return. “I believe you were talking about … Frances.”

“That was last week,” Muggy said, very proud of himself. “Try again.”

“Helen?”

“Two months ago.” Muggy laughed. “Again.”

“Okay, Gladys.”

Muggy doubled over in hysterics. “Am I really this much of a dog?”

“Just tell me,” Isaiah replied. “And no, I wasn’t listening.”

“Dorothy Mae,” Muggy said before twisting a spin in the middle of the street. “Foxy broad. And more than willing, if you know what I mean?”

“I do,” Isaiah replied. He’d been necking around with Dorothy Mae for many months now. Beautiful she was, but not much for conversation.

“Oh, yeah.” Muggy chuckled. “You and Dorothy had a little something, you mind if I…”

Again, Isaiah shrugged and walked ahead.

This was what was expected of Black boys like him, Isaiah thought. He was to be a Muggy, uselessly spreading himself around like the whites of a dandelion on the wind. What was he to dare do? Challenge Muggy? Never. If he did, there would be hell to pay.

Muggy’s family butcher business was booming. Even white folks crossed the tracks to get their hands on his father’s cuts. The Littles had more than they needed, and after Isaiah’s father fell in the war, they’d agreed to pass along some of their extra to Isaiah’s mother. Most of the district did. From the neighborhood pharmacist to the growers, Greenwood chipped in to help prop up Isaiah’s household. He, therefore, was quietly indebted to them all, even his best friend. Isaiah could never show himself as he truly was on the inside. He could only acquiesce and get through the day.

“She’s a fine dame,” Isaiah said of Dorothy Mae, still walking ahead so Muggy couldn’t read his face. “But not mine alone to have. Do with her what you will.”

Isaiah hung his head slightly, and Muggy leaped into the air and onto Isaiah’s back, nearly pulling them both to the ground. “Attaboy!” Muggy hollered. “What were you daydreaming about anyway? Looks like your mind’s lost in your own dame.”

“Actually…,” Isaiah said, leaning sideways to ease Muggy, who was a head shorter than him, off of his back. “Have you heard much about double consciousness?”

Muggy let out an audible huff. “Not this Du Bois foolishness again,” he replied. “Look around you!” Muggy held his arms open and spun around twice. “We’re living in a Black man’s paradise. We’re free to come and go as we please, walk down our own streets, sipping our own cola and smacking our own broads on the backside.”

“Yes,” Isaiah replied, facing Muggy. “But for a Black man in a stranger’s nation, are we ever truly safe? And too, whose nation even is this? Whose land are we walking on right now? Sure isn’t theirs.” Isaiah motioned toward the white side of Tulsa. “Look at this…” Isaiah lifted his well-worn copy of Souls from his innermost jacket pocket. And in response, Muggy dramatically plugged his ears.

“If you tell me one more thing Du Bois said in that damn book, I’ll scream,” Muggy snapped, and then grabbed Isaiah by the shoulders to stare him directly in the eyes. “Nothing ever happens in the Greenwood District. If revolution comes, it doesn’t even need to come here. We’re Black folks governing Black folks. Minding our own damn business, just like them.” Muggy pointed across the Frisco tracks to a small group of white teenagers leaning against a soda machine. “Long as we keep to ourselves, we could live like this forever. Now tell me about the dame you’re daydreaming about. No man looks at the sky like that if it isn’t about a dame.”

Isaiah peered over to the group Muggy had just pointed out. These were the same boys who’d broken Angel Hill’s belongings. Minding their business, they were not. That much was so apparent, and Isaiah couldn’t understand how Muggy didn’t notice it, too.

 

 

ANGEL


With two blocks left to walk, Angel’s upper arm was nearly numb from Michael’s weight. Small but solid, he was beginning to feel like a stack of heavy books, and she longed to shift him to another shoulder. Also, his baby sweat shone through his tiny clothing and now began to saturate her school shirt. She quickened her steps; he needed cool.

With one and a half blocks remaining, she heard her name again. “Angel, Angel!” Mr. Morris called out from his porch swing across the sidewalk. Angel knew his voice without seeing him. He peeked over his own impressive garden, filled with blooming pink evening primrose and freshly popped basket flower. Mr. Morris was one of her favorites of Greenwood. So very kind and patient, he’d recently retired, passing on his wood-carving shop to his eldest son, George.

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