Alma called them to dinner. It smelled good from the kitchen and looked good on the nice china: a big ham with sweet potatoes and greens. Carney slid May into Elizabeth’s old high chair, courtesy of a defunct mail-order company that the Jones family held in high esteem, from how they cooed and clucked at its name. It creaked. Leland sat at the head of the table and tucked a light blue napkin into his shirt. He asked when the baby was due.
The conversation permitted Carney a return to his dilemma. That morning, Rusty had asked why he wanted the front door closed on such a hot day. Carney felt exposed with the store open to the street, not that an unlocked door provided any defense. He steeled himself each time a customer stepped inside. No one stayed long—the store was too hot, the owner’s twitchy approaches off-putting. The dead time allowed Carney to run scenarios, like the ones performed at the end of the month to find the combinations of sales that’d put him into next month’s rent: One dinette, three couches…one complete Argent living-room set, five lamps, and a rug…
Scenarios:
Chink Montague discovers the identity of the thieves and takes his revenge but it doesn’t reach Carney. Freddie is killed.
Chink Montague roots out the crew, including tangential party Ray Carney—is he off the hook if he’s merely the fence? Freddie is killed. Or just maimed, squeaked an optimistic voice that sounded like Aunt Millie.
Chink Montague roots out the crew, but there’s enough time for Carney to get out of town. With his family? By himself? Freddie is killed.
Carney goes to Chink Montague himself, tells the mobster he had no idea what was going on. Carney is taught some variety of lesson. Freddie is killed. Or just maimed.
“What happened to you?”
“Oh, I got maimed a little once.”
He closed the store an hour early and stalked Riverside Drive to calm himself down. This apartment, that apartment, he couldn’t focus. A sedan nearly hit him as he stood in the street looking up. Then he picked up the girls for the trip to 139th Street.
Alma reeled him into the dinner table with a mention of Alexander Oakes.
“Alexander was accepted into the Dumas Club,” Alma said. She dabbed at the corner of her mouth. “Your father said it was unanimous.”
“It was,” Leland said. “He’s been doing very well for himself. We’ve been trying to recruit that younger generation for a long time.”
“Good for him,” Elizabeth said. “That’s the sort of thing he likes.” She and Alexander had grown up together. His family lived three doors down and socialized in the same hoity-toity atmosphere. Alexander had gone to a Catholic high school, so Carney didn’t know him from those days, but over the years Alma had filled him in. Football team, president of the debate club, then on to Howard where he continued his Talented Tenth scrabbling. His law degree got him a prosecutor’s job with the Manhattan district attorney. He’d be one of the city’s Negro judges when it all came together, write-up in the Amsterdam News with a grainy photo. Shady enough to go into politics. Membership in the Dumas Club meant he’d get help from fellow members—and lend a hand if trouble came someone else’s way.
He attended Carney and Elizabeth’s wedding. The look in Alexander’s eyes when Carney shook his hand on the receiving line: still in love with her. Tough shit, buddy.
“Perhaps one day you’ll join, Raymond,” Alma said.
“Mommy,” Elizabeth said, glaring. The Dumas was a paper bag club, so this was a dig: Carney was too dark for admittance.
“The store keeps me pretty busy,” Carney said. “Though Leland makes it sound very enjoyable. From all his stories.” A bunch of stuck-up mummies, as far as he was concerned. Even if he had lighter skin, his family story was another barrier. Also his profession. His humble store wouldn’t cut it—he’d have to own a whole department store, a black Blumstein’s, to join their fraternity.
The Jones family lineage was impeccable. By their own standards, anyway. The preacher grandfather had been one of the Seneca Village elders, ministering to the free Negro community downtown. Carney had never heard of the place before he met the Joneses, but they maintained the legend. Seneca had been a couple of hundred people, mostly colored with a bit of Irish—the mongrels always lived on top of one another. Landowning free black men and women staking out a life in the new city. Three churches, two schools, one cemetery. Nothing like it anywhere else in the country, Mr. Jones said, although Carney knew that wasn’t true. He’d read about thriving colored communities back then in Negro Digest. Pockets in Boston, Philadelphia. Black people always found a way in the most miserable circumstances. If we didn’t, we’d have been exterminated by the white man long ago.