Violet looked surprised to see him holding the watch. “Let me see that,” she said. He passed it to her. She looked at it for a long time, draped it over her wrist, held it so that the sunlight caught it.
Hampton wondered if she’d ever held a piece of jewelry as fine as his watch. He’d saved up for the watch for more than a year, and he’d owned it for less than that, but something urged him to give it to her. He could not tell if he wished to impress her or to prove to himself that he was capable of such giving. “You can have it,” he finally said.
She stopped playing with the watch and looked up at him. She smiled, shook her head.
“It’s yours,” he said, “if you want it.”
She laughed, handed it back to him. “What do I need a fancy watch for?” she said. “I only care about four times: waking up time, going to work time, getting off time, and going to sleep time. I know when to do what.”
Hampton held the watch for a moment, shame creeping over him as he realized that he’d offered the watch knowing that Violet wouldn’t accept it. He draped it over his wrist and began to fasten it. Violet put her hand over his.
“Put that back in your pocket,” she said. “You already sound like a city boy half the time. No use looking like one too.”
Violet did not return for the night shift at American Mill No. 2 that evening, and over the next four days the four of them canvassed Gaston County in advance of Fred Beal’s Loray rally on Friday night. Four days of heat and rain and Hampton’s ruined shoes traipsing from shack to shack, from lunch counter back rooms in the stark daylight to darkened juke joints set off in the dense woods at night. Hampton’s head buzzed with the names of people he’d met and the names of the communities he’d visited: Ranlo, Booger Mountain, Shuffletown. He’d sat through a Wednesday night church service, smacked mosquitos against his skin that were so fat and full of blood that it looked like he’d been shot, and witnessed a baptism at a muddy creek near a place called Cramerton. He’d eaten things he’d never considered eating before, seen more guns than he’d ever seen in his life. More than once he’d been pulled aside by an older gentleman and asked how he’d come to be wandering through town with three women—two of them white—in tow.
Late Friday afternoon, Hampton found himself holding Violet’s hand while standing shoeless and calf-deep in cold spring water. Along with Ella and Sophia, they’d spent the morning in Bessemer City handing out leaflets outside the gates of American Mill No. 2 and telling black workers about that night’s integrated rally in Gastonia. Then they’d visited the back room of a diner where a group of Negro railroad men hunched silently over their cooling lunches while Ella talked about the union. The afternoon had been devoted to sitting on porches and porch steps in and around Stumptown, until Violet’s mother finally invited them all over for supper. After that they planned to gather as many black workers as they could and head for Gastonia at dusk.
While Violet’s mother made dinner, Hampton stood out in the dirt road that ran through the middle of Stumptown and tossed a baseball back and forth with Ella’s son Otis. Neither of them wore mitts. The boy’s arm was surprisingly strong and accurate given his slight frame. He was nine, but, to Hampton, he looked no older than six. He’d learned that Hampton was from New York, and he’d asked him all about the Yankees.
“Babe Ruth’s my favorite,” the boy said. He threw the ball to Hampton. Each time he caught the baseball, Hampton’s hand wanted to recoil at the feel of it. It was sodden and near rotted, the frayed stitching coming loose. Sweat poured off his forehead.
“Babe’s pretty good,” Hampton said.
Otis caught the ball, stared at Hampton, his mouth hanging open as if portraying shock. “Pretty good?” he said. “Pretty good?”
They tossed the ball back and forth. Ella and Sophia and Violet sat talking on the porch. Ella’s daughter Rose was sitting on her mother’s lap, and Hampton could hear her raspy cough. Violet cradled Ella’s baby boy in her arms. Occasionally Hampton could feel Violet’s eyes on him, but he did not raise his head to look at her. Hampton watched the boy toss and catch the ball and caught himself wondering what it would be like to have a son.
“Yankees played a spring training game over in Charlotte just a few months ago,” the boy said.
“Oh, yeah,” Hampton said. “You go see them?”
“No,” the boy said. “I didn’t get to.”
“We’ll go see a Yankees game if you ever visit New York,” Hampton said.
The boy’s face exploded in a grin. Hampton did not have the heart to tell the boy that he would never visit New York, that he might never leave North Carolina or even Gaston County. He did not have the heart to tell the boy that he’d never even been to a Yankees game himself, could not afford both the ticket and the time off work, and even if he could, he could not imagine taking this white child along with him.
Hampton looked toward the porch, saw Violet hand the baby over to Sophia. She stood, walked down the few porch steps, and continued out into the yard. Hampton turned his eyes back to Otis and their game of toss. He was aware of Violet coming to a stop only a few feet away, aware of her watching him as he caught and threw the ball. He fought the urge to look at her, her dark skin against her pale blue dress, her hair now unbraided and pulled up and tied back with a white sash. She was beautiful, the kind of woman he believed he would have fallen in love with had he never left Mississippi, the kind of strong, country-hewn woman his mother may have been before she left, the kind of woman his younger sister Summer could have become had she grown up in the South.
“Hot, huh?” Violet said. She passed her hand across her forehead, shifted her weight to the other leg, put her hands on her hips.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says. “It is.”
“You got heat like this up where you’re from?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes we got heat like this.” He looked at her and smiled.
Violet raised her eyebrows, smirked as if she doubted everything he’d ever said.
“Is it too hot for a stroll?” he asked.
They walked side by side to the end of the dirt road and followed a path behind Ella’s cabin that led to a spring nearly hidden by willows. Hampton’s body welcomed the shade. The heat stripped itself from his skin as if being peeled away. He bent to the clear, cool water, cupped a handful to his mouth, took a drink. It ran down his chin. Violet laughed. He looked up at her, flicked his damp fingers at her legs.
“You not supposed to drink it?” he asked.