Memphis had been plenty proud. And his fall, when it came, was as spectacular as the Light Bringer’s. From Harlem Healer to numbers runner and bookie. He’d lost his mother, his father, his home, his healing powers, and his faith. And now that his healing power was coming back, for reasons he couldn’t begin to understand, he didn’t want to make the same mistakes.
“Well, well, well. Smells like somebody got himself a date,” Blind Bill Johnson called out from his perch on the couch in the parlor as Memphis entered.
“Evenin’, Mr. Johnson.”
Memphis wanted to like Blind Bill. The old man was a real help with Isaiah, offering to walk him home from school most days. But the way Bill sat on Octavia’s prized couch just now, like he owned it, gave Memphis pause. Looking at Bill, Memphis could almost see the outline of the powerful young man he must’ve been. Those stooped shoulders had once been broad and thickly muscled, and his veined hands were still plenty big enough to crush an orange to pulp. Bill was fifty-five, maybe even sixty if he was a day. But lately, he seemed stronger, more virile, and Memphis wondered if it was Octavia’s attention that gave him a younger man’s shine.
Octavia came into the room carrying a plate of meat loaf. She’d done up her hair even though Bill wouldn’t see it, and she smelled of Shalimar, which she usually only wore to church. She gave Memphis a pursed-lip appraisal. “Where you going dressed like that?”
Where you think you’re going dressed like that? Memphis wanted to say back.
“To the pictures with Alma,” he lied.
“Hmph. That Alma gets up to no good,” Octavia started, and Memphis sagged, bracing himself for the lecture to come.
“’Scuse me, Miss Octavia,” Bill Johnson interrupted. “Nobody in this world could raise these boys better’n you doin’. But, if you’ll pardon an old man’s opinion, a young man’s gotta be about a young man’s business. Gotta be a man in the world,” Bill said with just enough humility to settle Octavia. He smiled and bowed his head slightly. “I don’t mean no disrespect, ma’am. I know I’m not the boy’s kin.”
Octavia looked over at Memphis with a bit more kindness. “I expect you’re right, Mr. Johnson.”
“Bill, please.”
“Bill,” Octavia said, preening. “Go on, then, Memphis. Bill, let me get you some milk to go with that meat loaf.”
Octavia turned toward the kitchen but snapped back one last time, a finger pointed at Memphis like an arrow set to fly. “You better live at the foot of the cross and do right, Memphis John.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Memphis said. He didn’t feel like “Yes, ma’am”ing his aunt, but he recognized a reprieve when he heard one and knew it was the wise choice.
“Thank you, Mr. Johnson,” he said softly once Octavia had left the room.
Bill’s smile was a half-formed thing. “That’s all right, son. Old Bill is always happy to do a favor for a friend. After all, a man never knows when he might need to ask for a favor in return,” Bill answered, his smile finally unleashed.
“Memphis, where are you taking me?” Theta gasped as they traipsed through Fort Washington Park, dodging a sudden cascade of late-straggler leaves shaken down by the wind.
“Almost there, baby. I promise!”
They’d spent the evening dancing at the Hotsy Totsy, but Memphis had wanted to be alone, promising Theta that he’d take her straight to the top tonight. The booze had made them a little loose, and they laughed happily as they kicked at the piles of dead leaves, jogging tipsily past amused bystanders and grouchy old-timers clucking that that “wasn’t how you do.” Finally, they came to the very edge of the park, where it dead-ended at the stripe of gray that was the Hudson River and the small red lighthouse that sat perched at the tip of Manhattan.
“That?” Theta asked, her breath coming out in a chilly puff.
“Didn’t I say I’d take you straight to the top? Just so happens I know the password for that joint.”