 
### Beneath Every Troublin' Stone

A Novel

### BY PAULETTE IVY HARRIS

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY

Paulette Ivy Harris at Smashwords

Copyright 2009 By Paulette Ivy Harris.

Cover Design and Photography

Copyright 2012 By Paulette Ivy Harris

For more information visit www.pauletteivyharris.com.

This book is a work of fiction. Historical events, names of locales and persons are either used fictitiously or changed. Other incidents, locales, names and characters are a product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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### Dedications and Gratitude

No matter how I am challenged, I believe God makes all things for my good possible. When I began writing this book, I dedicated it to God and all He allows me to accomplish when I faithfully walk the path He has set my feet upon. I dedicate this book to others who have found their path and to those still seeking it. Just believe. Lastly, I dedicate this book to my ancestral family. My research of how they coped, worked and managed to succeed through the history of America is what inspired me to create this fictional story.

Writing this story has been a long, loving journey. I would not have completed this journey so excellently if it were not for my test-readers who were like angels to me. I want to thank them for devoting their time to read and offer constructive comments about my manuscript at various stages of development. My utmost gratitude goes to: my mother Ruth Ivy; my great-aunt Eugenia Braithwaite; my sister Ruthanne Ali; librarians Suzie Grover and Cheryl Bevin; my spiritual friends Mary Leonard-Bohney, Barbara Kaiser and Bonnie Molloy from Bible study groups; Dawn Golden, who didn't know me at all before reading the manuscript; my very first test-reader Nancy Hubbard and Chasity Gouard my last. My gratitude extends to fellow authors and friends I have met along the way–you know who you are–who encouraged and inspired me to keep stepping forward with my writing. To every single one of you, I thank you with all my heart!

Lastly, I want to acknowledge the best spouse in the world, my husband Spencer, my sweet son Brandon, my beautiful mother, and all my. You are my biggest fans. Your love and support is a cherished part of what God has made possible and good in my life. I love you!

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### BENEATH EVERY TROUBLIN' STONE.

### PROLOGUE

At daybreak the skies cleared and introduced a colorful, sunlit October day, but despite all her praying for the nightmare to end, her mother remained dead. Madam Tulley was age eight when her mother, the person she loved most in the world, was lowered into the ground that afternoon. This horrid event was the onset of her spiritual defiance.

From then on, Madam struggled to have a heart after God's, and she had not reconciled her anger at the Lord for taking away her mother. Her flawed perceptions, not God, determined where she would cast her heart and her plans. As the years passed, some of the "troublestones" among the briars that line life's way became too attractive for her to ignore.

Madam was a proud, first-generation, freeborn African American. Named after her father, she was born Bernice Silverson in Charleston, South Carolina in 1885. However, she grew up in Savannah, Georgia. In those days, it was polite to call her Negro or colored. At birth, she was shackled by an inextricable "bag of burdens" that contained an inheritance of troublestones, the largest being the huge "rock of racism" she shouldered with other African Americans. Every day she walked on pebbles chipped from that rock and, as exasperating and painful as the pebbles were, they couldn't be shaken out of her shoes. "Painful shoes" kept her ever mindful of her inferior status in early twentieth-century American society.

She had teased and tempted fate, and on this July night in 1932, fate stood up to challenge her. Madam felt she had been yanked a hundred years backward into human bondage as she clinched her eyes and turned her back to long eerie shadows that sought to envelop her. With fingers pressed against her ears, she quieted strange far-off noises and hunkered in the corner of her bed pushed against an austere wall. Madam was unwilling to accept or comprehend the straw she had drawn at that point in her life-journey. In her own dark silence, she rummaged through her thoughts. She turned away from broken dreams suppressed, disappointments endured, and from images of lost loves unparalleled. She longed for rosier times, but fresh anger and resentment crushed any charitable thoughts she had left. And, Madam expected no consolation from her spirit petitioning peace from their Maker. She no longer consulted her spirit for such needs.

Her mind continued to sift through bits and pieces of bar and boardinghouse scenes of the establishment she owned. Two evenings ago, the bar had roared with jazz music and merriment. She had found new purpose, and bright promise had emerged over the horizon. But, processed and stripped of her pride, Madam fought to reconcile that hopeful future with her present reality inside an old, dingy prison cell.

Madam's traumatic arrest looped in her head and inflamed her. She denied the troublestones she had chosen to carry from her life-journey in defiance of her good conscience. The troublestones of self-reliance, self-fulfillment, and self-indulgence that she retrieved from the briars are what pulled her down the godless path which ended in conflict with the law.

### CHAPTER 1

Syracuse, New York–Sunday, July 3, 1932

Bernie's was the name of the speakeasy and brothel operation inside Madam Tulley's boardinghouse above her restaurant and bar establishment called the Star. On the eve of the holiday, the speakeasy's secret liquor stash was to be restocked for the rendezvous she arranged for her discreet guests on Fourth of July evening. Madam received an unexpected telephone call at the restaurant.

"Hello, Star Restaurant."

"It's Freddy."

"My, my you sound terrible. How you feelin'?"

"Not so good, kiddo. I can't meet the supplier tonight, but I've got a friend who can do it for me Bernie, if you're fine with that."

Madam was blindsided by this new troublestone Freddy had unearthed for her. In reality, it was one in a series of risky outcrops from the "boulder of trouble" she chose to carry eleven years prior, after she succumbed to spiritual deafness. She gave his suggestion a thought and decided that she couldn't trust anyone else. "No, I'll do it myself. Just tell me where and what time."

Freddy gave her the scheme. "Be on time," was the last thing he said and he hung up.

That holiday eve night, the Star Bar, Madam's public enterprise located in the boardinghouse basement, didn't close until past midnight because people were in party mode. She was happy because the bar had made a killing, which it hadn't done in many months. She felt that life for her was looking better.

Now that the bar was quiet, Madam Tulley had time to think, to get nervous about making Freddy's run in less than an hour. She decided not to change out of her party clothes.

The royal blue, silk chemise dress Madam had on was her favorite, and the way it fit tight across her bust and derriere brought a deluge of calls like "Hey, baby!" and "Honey, shake that thing!" The ankle straps on her black high heels accentuated her calves, while the seams of her black silk stockings drew welcomed imaginings up beyond her hemline from wishful, zoot-suited admirers.

In the quiet, Madam shook off her nervousness and her warning voice. She meditated, Ok now, I get there . . . turn off my lights . . . look for a man in a Yankee baseball cap . . . trade passwords . . . have the money ready . . . drive away slowly. In her mind she went over everything Freddy had told her on the telephone. She felt ready.

When one forty-five a.m. came, Madam Tulley drove her shiny, black Marmon sedan to the two o'clock pick-up location at the back of the alley next to a funeral home on North Salina Street. She was early. The supplier was late. It felt like forever as she waited in her automobile alone in a shadowy spot. Agitated, impatient, her fingers drummed the steering wheel: Where is he? A pair of headlights turned into the alley. Her breathing quickened, her knees knocked, she gripped the wheel. The headlights turned off and an old, olive-green truck parked beside her. A bearded white man in overalls and a baseball cap got out and inquired, "Ma'am, are you lost?"

"T-the . . . Yankees won y-yesterday . . . f-four to two," stumbled out of her mouth. Her answer, what Freddy had told her to say, signaled that she was not undercover for the cops and that she was safe to transact business with.

"Ok, Ma'am. You got the dough?"

Madam handed over the money. He leafed through it and signaled his partner. They placed two heavy cases of bootleg gin in her trunk and drove off. Madam lingered to catch her breath. Then, nice and slow, she drove away, too.

While exiting the alley, a black sedan cut in front and made her brake hard. Another one drove in behind to prevent her from backing up. A tall man in a brown fedora and a suit jumped out of the sedan in front of her, slammed the door behind him, hurried toward her and thrust a detective's badge in her face.

"Ma'am, my name is Detective Werner. Please step out of your automobile."

"Officer, what's the matter, what's this about?" Madam was frightened. What went wrong, what went wrong? Her thoughts searched over and over again for an answer. From the beginning, her gut had lodged a series of muffled protests against this latest haughty do-it-yourself idea, but she hadn't listened.

"Your name, please?"

"Bernice Tulley." She thought: Get your lousy hands off me! She was offended when his hands groped her cleavage, charged underneath her arms, patted her sides, and in between her thighs, frisking her for a gun or knife. Three or four other cops looked on.

"Now, open your trunk, ma'am."

This is it, I'm done for. She was helpless. She raised the trunk door and the cases of gin were revealed. Detective Werner arrested her on the charge of alcohol bootlegging.

After she was fingerprinted and booked, he allowed Madam a telephone call to her stepmother. Werner stood by and heard only her side of the conversation.

"Hello, Mama.

[Pause]

"I'm here at the police station. I've been arrested.

[Pause]

"I had to make Freddy's run last night, but they'd been watchin' him for weeks, and caught me instead.

[Pause]

"It's the Fourth. I gotta sit here until tomorrow when I go before the judge.

[Pause]

"No, you stay with Jerry. Send Ernie. So sorry, Mama. I'll be all right for now.

[Pause]

"Thank you, Mama.

[Pause]

"Mama, my time's up, gotta go. Kiss Jerry and Gabe for me. All right, Mama, good-b . . ." Werner had stepped in and hung up the telephone for her.

On the way to the lock-up, the jailer led Madam in handcuffs past an office with two men seated in conversation. The bearded one turned around to ogle her and she recalled the baseball cap he had on and realized that it was no Yankee cap, but one of some other team. She knew him as the man who sold her the gin. He was a cop working undercover as a booze runner. The revelation floored her and the jailer jostled her onward.

Placed in a cell next to a streetwalker, she and Madam Tulley immediately recognized each other.

"Well, if isn't 'Miss Star' herself!" The streetwalker swayed across her cell toward Madam, "If you're in here, where are your 'business partners'?"

It was Della, a former business partner that Madam fired nearly two years ago for the tryst with Al Tulley, Madam's husband. She looked at Della and didn't say a word. It goaded Madam to be in the cell next to her. Della was loud, glassy-eyed, and thick-tongued. Madam could tell that she was coming off a high from something.

Della started to drudge up the lurid details about the "roll" between her and Al that snowy afternoon two Novembers ago. She had harbored hostility for Madam Tulley ever since that day and now Della seized this chance to spit venomous barbs at her. Madam held her tongue.

"Bernie, you think you're gettin' over, don't ya! That you got all your business locked down tight, but ya don't. You got that fancy automobile and the best clothes and furs, but underneath all that, sugar, you pimped us the same as all the others. Ya didn't have to lift a skirt, I give ya that much, but you're no better than me. Even Al saw that, darlin'!"

Della continued her angry rant and Madam just sat there thinking: Della, I gave you a nice place to live, I protected you from johns and pimps, you had a doctor's care and a good income, but you threw it right back in my face by doin' it with my husband. Now, you're walkin' the gutters. No Della, I'm not the same as you. I pity you. But, Madam kept those thoughts to herself and continued to ignore Della.

"Hey, guard! Guard! I wanna see the detective on duty. Right now! Tell 'em I've got a news bulletin for 'em!"

Arrangements were made for Della to speak with Detective Werner and a jail guard escorted her out of the cell. Madam Tulley would never see Della again.

Madam had stomached Della's fierce hatred and hoped nothing further would come of their encounter. She hoped for naught because later that holiday evening, the guard brought Madam back to the interrogation room where Detective Werner and an assistant prosecutor waited for her.

"Sit down, Mrs. Tulley. We need to ask you more questions." Werner savored this opportunity to beef up a collar to add to his record.

"All right."

"Do you own the Star Restaurant Bar and Boardinghouse at 601 East Washington Street?" asked the assistant prosecutor.

"Yes." Her heart collapsed because she knew what was coming next.

"Our officers arrived at your premises this evening and found evidence of an alcohol sales operation. This is another federal violation of the Volstead Act. Furthermore, Mrs. Tulley, we found the brothel upstairs on the second floor of your boardinghouse, a violation of state prostitution laws. As I speak, we're booking four couples who were engaged in prostitution when we arrived."

"How did you know to go to my place?" Madam suspected, but needed to know for sure.

"We had an informant, ma'am. In addition to the crime of bootlegging, you'll be charged with operating in illegal liquor sales and also be charged as the manager of a house of prostitution." Werner was pleased that he netted a bigger fish than he had thought.

The assistant prosecutor added, "Because of the seriousness of these violations, I have assigned a public defender to meet with you tomorrow before your arraignment in police court."

Madam signed more processing papers which acknowledged the added charges against her. Then, she went back to the lock-up.

The next morning her stepbrother Ernie came to see her.

"How's Jerry and Gabe? Where is Gabe?" asked Madam about her adopted sons.

"Little Jerry's fine and so is Gabe, but he's awful worried about you."

"And Mother?"

"She's worried, too. We all are, Bernice."

"What happened, Ernie? Did they bust up the place?"

"Nope. The police knew where to go, like someone tipped them off."

"Remember Della?"

"Yeah," Ernie looked puzzled.

"When I was arrested, they put me in a cell next to her. Della rambled somethin' about solicitin' an undercover cop. Whatever drug she was on probably had somethin' to do with that. She ratted on me–I know it, Ernie–to save her own dusty butt. She told the detective about Bernie's because they didn't bring her back to the cell."

Ernie shook his head in disbelief. He told Bernice what else happened:

"The police came in lookin' for the person in charge. They told me that you were in their custody and showed me the papers to search the place. They started with the bar. Then, I had to let them upstairs to Bernie's. I didn't have time to warn anybody. They arrested everyone up there, busted open your stash, and carted out booze and everybody, includin' your accountin' books. They closed down everything, except for the restaurant. It was a hell of a scene outside when three paddy wagons pulled up. All the neighbors were out in the street tryin' to see if they'd see you comin' out. It's a good thing Mama and Jerry were upstairs in the apartment at the time. Gabe was away on a gig dancin' or he might've been in the middle of all that mess."

Madam listened and burned with anger toward Della, and she blamed Freddy for being too sick to make his run, even wondered if he'd set her up. But, Freddy had offered the help of a friend which she refused. Anyway, she was angrier about the alcohol ban for stealing her livelihood in the first place.

"I'm so sorry, Ernie."

"Do you want me to call a lawyer for you?"

"Not yet, I'm gonna talk to the public defender first before I decide what to do."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was such a backlog of cases on the docket from the Fourth of July holiday that most of the day passed before Madam Tulley met her freshman public defender for the first time. He's so baby-faced, . . . his suit sure is baggy and chestnut brown is so out of fashion, . . . does he know what he's doin'? His appearance challenged her fashion sense and her confidence in him as a knowledgeable attorney.

"Hello Mrs. Tulley, my name is Ralph Calloway. The court has appointed me to your case. Do you have any questions about the charges against you?"

Madam asked him about the kind of evidence they had, the witnesses, and the penalty that each violation carried. She asked, "Is there a way I can beat these charges by going to trial?"

"I don't think so. Mrs. Tulley, there are two federal charges against you and they carry heavy penalties. You were caught while under surveillance buying and transporting liquor. The police found a large quantity of alcohol on your premises and receipts of an illegal sales operation, hence the second violation. Plus, four couples were arrested while engaged in prostitution in your boardinghouse. Ma'am, the prosecutor will subpoena these people as witnesses and your accounting books will be used as evidence to support all the charges.

"Mrs. Tulley, the incriminating evidence the prosecutor has against you is substantial. I believe that if you plead guilty and seek the mercy of the court, your chances may be good for a sentence of less than nine months minus time served. Otherwise, you could receive eighteen months to two years if you go to trial."

Madam saw that luck had deserted her. "All right."

"I can have you arraigned in an hour, at four o'clock. I will meet you in front of Judge Schmidt at that time. Let's hope for the best, Mrs. Tulley," and then Calloway left her.

Madam thought she was prepared to go before the judge dressed in her fine blue frock and high heels. But, from the judge's perspective, her figure-hugging dress oozed of unsavory character. She felt his contempt char a large pock-hole in her forehead. The word "guilty" abraded her throat, but Madam Tulley entered pleas of guilty to all three charges. After her arraignment, they brought her to the state prison in Jamesville.

As a madam of prostitutes, a speakeasy operator, and a bootlegger, Bernice Tulley had the misfortune to be one of the last Americans arrested and imprisoned under the Volstead Act of the Eighteenth Amendment which had criminalized alcoholic beverages since 1920 in the United States.

During her initial days in prison, Madam was cut off from everything and everyone. You'd think she would be regretful, perhaps digging deep for a few prayers to plead for her sake. Not a chance. From then until sentencing day, Madam blamed everybody but herself for the dragnet that caught her. She steeped in self-righteousness for the next three weeks in her cell, irritated by the lack of privacy and by the regimen of prison life.

Nationwide, previous public and political outcries to rescind Prohibition had encouraged her, so she stayed with the hope the court would determine an extended sentence would be pointless. Madam Tulley was at the judge's mercy and she counted on it.

### CHAPTER 2

Syracuse, New York–Tuesday, July 26, 1932

At the reckoning hour on sentencing day, Madam Bernice Tulley bathed in the blunt reality of these words: "Sometimes a person has to sink to their lowest before they're able to behold the feet of Jesus." She recalled how often her devout stepmother repeated her own adage, and still Madam hadn't reached her lowest.

In the hallway outside the courtroom Madam was slumped forward over her knees, cradling her forehead in her cuffed hands. She looked dressed for an evening out. She was hapless–so stupid of me not to let Freddy's friend make the run–and perturbed–it was me who saved these women, pulled them off the streets–but outdone, because she chose to trust in only herself.

Armed, a fiery-haired prison matron stood over her. Madam was motionless, except for the rise and fall of her chest, winded by climbing four flights of stairs from the courthouse basement. The basement confined a menagerie of prisoners receiving their sentences that day, and though dank, it was the coolest level of the building. The temperature inside the courthouse grew warmer with the rise of each flight.

The hallway was noisy from chatter and footsteps of visitors and employees. However, Madam made no sounds other than the pants of labored breaths which revealed her physical unfitness. On a hard oak bench she had waited for more than twenty minutes, annoyed by an unexpected recess called by the judge. She hated to wait for anything, even to hear her prison sentence.

From inside the courtroom, at the right corner of the judge's bench, a limp-legged bailiff called out in a loud drone, "Ready for the next prisoner!" Prisoner Bernice Tulley, a title she hadn't yet grown accustomed to, was next.

When the pot-bellied officer of the court opposite the bailiff opened the heavy oak courtroom door, its hinges creaked and captured Madam's attention. She thought: Finally!

The officer stepped into the hall and gestured to the fiery-haired matron. The matron was thick-boned, solid in her uniform and black oxfords. She was a head taller and all business while she accompanied Prisoner Tulley. When they walked in the subdued courtroom, an errant shaft of sunlight sliced through a gap in the window shade and flashed in Madam's face causing her to squint. She raised her cuffed hands to shield her eyes. Her hands trembled.

The courtroom grew quieter. Tap, tap, tap went Madam's black ankle-strapped three-inch heels as they struck the marble floor. The gallery fluttered with people fanning away the heat and batting away a few pesky flies that came in. Madam glimpsed the flutter then stared straight ahead. For her, all that fanning mimicked the butterflies she felt in her stomach.

Gallery eyes scrutinized every move as she tapped past them. Madam heard some careless chat that twittered around the gallery.

"A raid? Is she a hooker?" one asked in the front gallery.

"A mighty uppity colored woman . . . fancy automobile," said one at the back.

"Probably . . . over on Washington Street . . . ," replied someone else.

"Is she the one who . . . ? We don't need the likes of her," answered another.

The gallery stared at an attractive latte-complexioned Negro woman of five-foot-two inches without her heels. She looked much younger than her forty-seven years. Her hair was wavy and dark except for a swathe of gray to the left of a center part above her forehead. Barely long enough, it was pulled back in a twist and held in place with a tortoise shell comb. Not permitted to wear her makeup or her silk stockings, they allowed her to change into the royal blue, silk chemise dress she last wore at her arrest and arraignment, her favorite despite what the judge had thought of it. The chemise hugged her bust line, but two hours earlier she giggled when she noticed how loose around the hips the dress felt since the night of her imprisonment.

The prison matron removed the handcuffs and seated Madam Tulley next to Defender Ralph Calloway. Madam called him "Baby Face Calloway" whenever she thought of him. Although he had not spoken with her since the arraignment three weeks prior, they had a brief visit less than an hour ago.

"Hello again, Mrs. Tulley," he said as the rigid matron took several steps aside.

The nation was in its twelfth year of Alcohol Prohibition and in the worst years of the Great Depression since the stock market crash of 1929. Baby Face Calloway struggled to make ends meet like everyone else. His suit, the same chestnut-colored suit he had worn when they met, showed excessive wear apparent from its shine at the elbows and knees. Two sizes too big owed to meatless meals with skimpier portions, his suit also needed a good pressing, further evidence that too many hot humid days had taken their toll on it. Dry cleaning services were a luxury.

Baby Face leaned to his left and under his breath he said, "You won't have to speak a word this time, I'll handle it from here. We'll get through this, Mrs. Tulley, don't worry."

Madam felt beads of perspiration collect in the fine hairs along her forehead, temples, and in the nape of her neck. She noticed wetness under her arms and inside her cleavage.

The Onondaga County Courthouse was an oppressive place to be in the summer. It smelled of old books and filed documents dampened over the years by inadequate ventilation, humidity, and the occasional leaky roof. That day the courthouse hallways were illuminated by natural light in an effort to lower electricity costs and in a vain effort to keep the upper floors cooler. On the bench outside the courtroom, Madam had caught a peek at the front page of the Syracuse Herald newspaper that someone had ditched there before she came. The large bold headliner screamed: RECORD 98 DEGREES TODAY. Forecasters predicted the warmest day of the summer.

By mid-morning the courtroom was hot beyond a beast's tolerance. The huge double-hung windows that lined the length of the outer wall were open, but drawing the shades to block the sun made little difference. The shades drooped like a pair of soggy bloomers as there was no breeze. The dark oak paneling that encircled the room and reached three-quarters up the walls swelled with moisture. The electric fan posted in front of the judge's bench circulated only warm humid air.

Madam's fingers were obsessed with her left earlobe when the murmurs of the gallery were interrupted by the bailiff.

"Court is now in session! The Honorable Judge John T. Schmidt of the United States District Court presiding. All rise!" the bailiff droned. A hush fell over the gallery and everyone stood.

The past weeks in prison caused Madam's hips and knees to "complain" from the uncomfortable beds and the concrete floors. Calloway extended his left forearm to her for support. She accepted his arm, which felt like a sapling inside her grasp. The courtroom had quieted when she stood and pushed the chair from underneath her with the back of her knees. The chair scraped across the floor and made an obnoxious sound. She shrank in apology. Madam was reticent beside her young wiry defender.

In a foul bent the judge trudged straight to his chair. He was surrounded in the voluminous pleats of his ample black robe billowed up by equatorial breezes from the oscillating fan that panned the bench. The gallery gave the judge a moment of respect and was reseated.

The judge looked harried by the years of cases that flowed in since alcohol was banned more than a decade ago. By the late 1920s, violations stemming from Prohibition clogged legal systems across the country and the Onondaga County Court was no exception. The bailiff had the judge's ear, perhaps about Prisoner Tulley. The judge took a minute to review the court papers to make sure he was on task.

During the lull, Madam Tulley stole a gaze over her right shoulder toward the back of the gallery where the families of Negro prisoners were seated. Her gazes were obstructed by all the fanning. She knew no one worried for her, she got desperate. Nobody cares what happens to me, her thoughts pined. Discouraged, she scanned the rest of the anxious faces in the front gallery. Her eyes fell on Eleanor, her sixty-nine-year-old stepmother as plain as day, seated in the front section among the white families. With her handbag poised upright on her lap, as if she was anticipating the closing admonition of a preacher's sermon, Eleanor appeared to be an ordinary white woman, maybe with a summer tan. She wore her hair of spun silver in a bun. The white cotton shift she wore emphasized her cubic figure. Their eyes met. Madam raised a brow and instantly conveyed that she recognized the small triumph of her stepmother getting a front-row seat.

Being seated at the front of the gallery among the whites was unintentional on Eleanor's part. Many times in her past, if mistaken for white, she let her beholder continue to think so. She didn't feel the need to explain her ethnicity in every situation she encountered. The courtroom officer, in his haste to seat everyone, ushered the whites to the gallery to be seated first and mistook her as part of the group. Eleanor didn't bother to correct him. She did notice that all the new and barely used hand-fans provided by the court were placed on seats at the front of the gallery. Printed on the cardboard fans, a lithograph of the courthouse building, and in bold black letters were the words:

PLEASE LEAVE THE FAN ON THE SEAT BEFORE LEAVING THE GALLERY

THANK YOU

THE ONONDAGA COUNTY COURT

"The People of the State of New York v. Bernice Tulley!" the bailiff announced from an official document.

Judge Schmidt dabbed the sweat from his wrinkled forehead, which receded beyond his natural hairline and shined like patent leather. Flanked to his left, the stack of previous weeks' sentencing papers waiting to be filed attested to a barrage of illegal alcohol cases, exemplifying that the temptation to profit from liquor was driven by massive unemployment and by impoverished citizens' unwillingness to give up the spirits they drank for amusement and used for retreat from their sorry lot in life. To the judge's right, a heavy mahogany gavel.

He turned toward the defendants' table and folded his arms upon the polished surface in front of him. The judge's mug could have been a model for President Theodore Roosevelt's face carved seven years later on Mount Rushmore; and, he had a heart of granite to match. He had hedges for eyebrows and the apples of his cheeks had dropped into his jowls. He spoke through a peppered walrus-mustache that obscured his upper lip. His deep husky voice matched his burly physique and he quaked a bit when he spoke. He leaned forward on his elbows, his broad shoulders hunched, and he lowered his chin to peer over his reading glasses into Defender Calloway's lineless face.

"Mrs. Tulley has previously entered guilty pleas for the three crimes against her and she has waived her rights to a trial. Is your client ready for sentencing?" the judge asked, but the question was a formality.

A lump lodged in Madam Tulley's throat making it difficult to swallow. Choked by prior refusals to heed her inner voice, a tightened throat stirred her attention. Soon after, the breath she had taken passed through her pursed lips like a deflating balloon and added to the torrid climate inside the courtroom.

Am I ready? She had a panicked thought: No, I'm not ready!

In that split second she revisited the day of her arraignment, in that same courtroom, with the same judge. The advice Defender Baby Face had given her echoed in her brain: Mrs. Tulley, the incriminating evidence the prosecutor has against you is substantial. I believe that if you plead guilty and seek the mercy of the court your chances may be good for a sentence of less than nine months minus time served. Otherwise, you could receive eighteen months to two years if you go to trial.

Then, there were more echoes of the discourse between her and the arraigning Judge Schmidt:

"How do you plead to this charge against you, Mrs. Tulley?"

"Guilty, your Honor," she muttered.

"Louder for the court to hear, Mrs. Tulley!"

"GUILTY!"

She recalled how her teeth clenched when she harped back at the judge before he finished speaking her name. He said her name with much contempt.

Madam regained focus in the present. Baby Face Calloway didn't dawdle nor did he give her a glance. He replied, "Yes, judge, we are ready," and again helped her to stand.

A second time she tried to wrap her brain around his answer: What do you mean, "Yes judge we are ready?" I'll be the one doing the time! The next instant she devised a desperate plot to end this madness: The windows are open; I can crawl out like a fly. Can two stories be that far a jump? Jumping out a window would be insane, but she went on with this foolhardy notion.

Madam sprung out of herself, bolted for the window, swiveled around on her bottom and swung her legs over the sill so her feet dangled outside, and she leaped before the matron guard could grab her. In midair she wished she had worn her prison oxfords since landing in her high heels was going to be difficult, but not impossible, she guessed.

Then, Madam Tulley heard the guard clear her throat, and her fantasy of escape dissolved back into reality. She continued with hope the judge would be merciful.

Turning toward her this time, Judge Schmidt recited the counts against Madam in a louder, huskier voice. He made the windows and her knees rattle.

"According to the record, Mrs. Tulley, you entered pleas of guilty to two Federal crimes and one crime against the State:

"Count 1: The Court finds you in violation of the Federal Volstead Act that prohibits the transporting or bootlegging of alcohol . . ."

Madam heard the judge repeat the law, the article, and the section of the code that each violation applied, but it all sounded like legal-schmegal to her.

"Count 2: The Court finds you . . . that prohibits the selling of alcohol . . ."

Again, it sounded like legal-schmegal.

"Count 3: The Court finds . . . that prohibits the management of a house for the purposes of prostitution . . ."

More legal-schmegal.

The crotchety old judge then gave Madam Tulley a bilious tongue-lashing. "You are an opportunist ready to profit from the thirsts and depravity of society!"

He scolded Madam for being a detriment to the law-abiding community and against public decency as a manager of prostitution. He also ran down his reasons to uphold the Alcohol Prohibition Laws more for the benefit of the gallery, but at Madam's expense. Judge Schmidt reveled in his power to pass judgment on her.

It makes no damned sense, Madam thought while she endured his reprimands, for the Government to pass laws to make criminals out of God-fearing people!

It was a fact that owners of breweries and distilleries were outlawed overnight, but Madam's fear of God or prosecution had not kept her from becoming a speakeasy operator and a madam of prostitutes. Instead, her defiance of authority made her what she was. Her freedom was already lost, yet she denied what she had made of herself. Madam Tulley was anxious to get on with the nine-month sentence Baby Face Calloway had promised and to get back to normal life.

Judge Schmidt finally stopped his rant and got to the business of her sentence. He took a cleansing breath, dabbed his forehead once again and bellowed:

"Now, the U. S. Court of Onondaga County is ready to render your sentence.

"For the People of the United States and the State of New York on this day of July 26, 1932, Bernice Tulley, you will serve eighteen months in the Onondaga County Correctional Facility at Jamesville minus the time already served. The Court will allow eligibility for parole in nine months."

Then, Judge Schmidt swung his heavy mahogany gavel, CRACK! He smashed it on its block. The fanning froze. The gavel's thunder assaulted Madam's ears and made her jump. It woke everyone in the gallery.

"I'm sorry Mrs. Tulley. God be with you," said Baby Face. The judge's sentence was twice longer than Defender Calloway had thought. The stiff sentence was another example of the courts lowering the boom on offenders to bolster law enforcement's efforts to arrest the manufacturers, sellers, and procurers in the social vices of alcohol, prostitution, and racketeering.

The atmosphere thinned and Madam's legs weakened like warmed pillars of wax and bowed beneath her. The prison matron rushed forward armed with smelling salts to prevent Madam from fainting dead away.

Madam's eyes darted across the gallery to her stepmother. "Mother, give the boys a hug for me! Tell them I'll be away for a while longer!" Her shouts reverberated through the courtroom and caused a commotion.

"Order in this court!" demanded Judge Schmidt banging his gavel.

Eleanor leaped from her chair and reached out for Bernice, but only her handbag was within grasp after it tumbled off her lap to the floor. She clutched the handbag to her breast instead of her daughter. The hubbub died the instant the entire courtroom realized the two of them were related and that Eleanor sat out of place in the gallery. Unconcerned about something so asinine at a time like this, she paid no attention to the despised looks and the surprised gawks she received from both ends of the courtroom gallery.

The matron took Madam Tulley from her seat, pulled her arms behind her this time and clasped on the handcuffs. She heard her stepmother's sobbing words, "We'll be waitin' for you, Bernie! We'll all be right here when you come home! We'll be here . . ." The gavel kept bang, bang, banging and the judge kept shouting for order. Eleanor's sobs grew fainter as her daughter left through the courtroom door. Its dry hinges creaked again as it shut behind her.

Prisoner Tulley was returned to the musty basement hold until all the day's sentences were done. She stepped into her cell and the prison matron removed her cuffs. The guard's keys clanged against the iron bars of the cell door when she locked Madam inside. The matron and the guard watched her change back into her drab shapeless inmate grays and clunky oxford shoes. Madam placed her blue chemise and ankle-strapped heels back in the brown paper sack and squeezed it through the bars to the prison matron.

The matron took the bag. "I don't think it'll be much longer, Mrs. Tulley." Then, she marched away. Madam flopped onto a flimsy cot.

The unexpected length of her sentence still didn't send Madam Tulley to her knees in repentance. Repentance was for those who had faith. Madam's faith was overshadowed long ago by misguided expectations about life. She was not like her slave grandparents whose faith blushed on their faces, grateful to be freed from their plantations where faith had no competitors, and a slave's faith was all he or she was allowed. It's not that Madam thought she shouldn't have any faith. Heck, she knew singing and preaching in church about having faith could stir some up inside you for a while.

The truth was, as a child, Bernice's faith was buried alongside her real mother. And, she never saw what having faith had done for her people on the outside. Her community was impoverished, denied the noblest aspirations, and everyone dragged around that burdensome rock of racism. She often pondered: Are we really free?

However, faith is not something that can be force-fed, it must be chosen. To have gained and strengthened her faith, Bernice had to experience for herself the spiritual connection between one's hopes, everyday life, and God's Providence which meets each expectation and need, big or small. Faith was thwarted for Bernice when her most urgent hopes and pleas for her ill mother went unfulfilled. And, when her father left, her prayers hadn't brought him back to Savannah to claim her and her sisters like he had promised.

Without a word, the cell guard hooked the ring of keys on her belt and left. Madam Tulley listened to the guard's keys jangle in a rag-like tempo with each step she took down the hall. When the jangling grew fainter, she toppled over on her side and pulled up her knees to relieve her sore back and joints.

The jangling keys caused Madam to recall an old neighborhood curiosity shop in Savannah called Sister Sadie's Whatnots & Fortune Telling. She hadn't recalled that shop in years, but her present circumstances beckoned her to revisit a time when she began making choices for herself, a time when her immature faith was untested. She drifted into a twilight drowse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sister Sadie, the granddaughter of a Haitian slave woman, was the original proprietress of the Whatnot Shop. When Sister Sadie died, she left the shop to her daughter Lydia. Lydia kept the shop's name in honor of her mother. However, her customers refused to call her by her given name and preferred to call her Miss Sadie. Lydia didn't mind assuming her mother's name since the shop did such great business. Eventually, everyone in the neighborhood adopted that name for her. Lydia relinquished and referred to herself as Sadie as well. Although Miss Sadie's accent was weaker than her mother's whose Haitian accent was diluted by her birth in the United States, a trace of Haitian lilt could still be detected in her speech.

When young folks teased Miss Sadie asking, "What's a 'whatnot'?" Sadie always replied, "Dey is what ch'you want an' wish you had!" She responded in the heavy Haitian accent of her grandmother, which elicited chuckles from them.

The shop was inside the house where she and her mother grew up. The front parlor was devoted to the shop and one of the rooms in the back was used for telling the future and reading dreams. When customers entered, the door disturbed a small bell rigged above it to let her know, if she was in the backroom with someone. Several locals rented space in the shop to sell their handicrafts such as jewelry, dolls and toys, small furniture, and other carved items. Her shop was one of the first ones in the neighborhood to have a telephone in it. Sadie thought it would bring in more customers and it did.

All manner of people, forward thinking people, purchased items from the Whatnot Shop. Others who found it hard to accept the new trends in individual expression, fashion, and glamour condemned the shop and stayed away.

Behind the candy counter on the wall, there were jars lined up one after another, shelf upon shelf, filled with roots, herbs, and spices. Other jars were filled with a variety of shells, tiny bells, feathers, and beads to create trinkets and jewelry. Sadie sold incense, perfumes, and little pots of lip color and rouge in the raciest shades. She also sold pipes of all shapes, and smoking and chewing tobacco in several flavors. And, of course there were lots of candles and a variety of other accoutrements for all the aforementioned articles.

Known to have the freshest herbs and spices in town, Sister Sadie's was fragrant with cinnamon and nutmeg, sage and thyme, garlic and curry to name a few. Some customers purchased just the spices to flavor their cooking and baking. Many people came to buy Sister Sadie's special lotions and salves. Miss Sadie created potions and ointments to heal the body, and other preparations to soothe the soul, still others for use in spiritual ceremonies or to protect against others' evil intents. Some preparations were made-to-order according to the needs of a customer. Others preferred to purchase the herbs to mix their own salves. In this case, Sadie offered these customers recipes and instructions on how to prepare and use the herbs.

Every once in a while someone asked Miss Sadie to concoct a potion to harm an enemy, but every time she turned them down. She told them, "If I did dat for everybody who asked me, I'd put myself right out of business 'cause dere won' be nobody left in Savannah!"

Sadie, Lydia that is, was also a root doctor and a Voodoo mambo. Like her mother, her grandmother, and great-grandmother, she was descended from a long line of mambos and they passed their knowledge to her.

Sadie did not practice black magic, however. She claimed that her work was good, because God had given her the gift of prophecy. She'd tell you that she was bound for heaven, a believer of the Gospel. Well, like for all mortals, Sadie was still testing out ingredients for that divine recipe, which was hers to figure out alone. Yet, some people thought Sadie capable of anything, even evil, and she received due respect from those people.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aroused by a chill, Madam Tulley pulled the cotton coverlet over her. As the chill left her, she drifted into a deeper state. Her body was in the cell, but her mind was again in Savannah, this time during the spring of 1902 before her seventeenth birthday later that autumn.

Madam dreamt of her younger sister Hannah and of Eleanor whom she had learned to love as her mother. When Eleanor ran out of an ingredient in the middle of cooking or an item in the middle of a sewing project, she'd send one of them to the store and they'd have to walk past the Whatnot Shop.

"Berneeeece!" Eleanor yelled to her. "I need you to go to the store!"

Bernice had come to the good part of a romance novel that her girlfriends had passed around at school and she didn't want to stop reading. But, then she saw the interruption as a chance to go to town alone and be on her own for a while.

On this occasion, more black thread was what her mother needed from the dry goods store to finish a quilt for her new baby due in the fall. As Bernice sauntered out of the house, making her way through the yard, she half-listened to her mother's chides, "Remember, I don't want you to be nosin' around Sister Sadie's!"

Eleanor was not one of those idolaters, as she called them, who bought potions on Friday, to cast a spell on someone on Saturday, and then got up and went to church on Sunday. Furthermore, she opposed fortune telling. You can be sure that Miss Sadie got Eleanor's cautious respect whenever they crossed paths.

"The Gospels say people like her ain't never gonna see heaven!" Eleanor parroted that sentiment often to her daughters, among others. "There ain't nothin' good that can come out of that shop. That's for sure!" Bernice heard her mother yell out a last minute thought, "And, take Hannah with you!"

"Aw shoot!" Bernice said under her breath. She turned away, her mother didn't see her roll her eyes. She called back with false enthusiasm, "Yes, Ma'am!"

With gleeful surprise, nine-year-old Hannah leaped from the patch of dirt she played in and skipped toward Bernice.

"Get some shoes on girl and brush that dirt off you!" Bernice yelled to her sister off in the distance.

Bernice sulked against the old chinaberry tree at the end of the yard which paid her attitude no mind at all. Its entire forty-foot crown was too busy heralding the arrival of spring as song birds nested in the sweet balminess of its profuse lilac blossoms. Too miffed to let the chinaberry's pageantry and song distract her, Bernice grew impatient for her little sister to meet her. When she did, Bernice continued on her way while Hannah, with the back of her dress covered by reddish dust, skipped round about waiting for her big sister to grace her with a word or two.

They had meandered a ways down the planked sidewalk. Hannah insisted on reaching out her hand to tap every tree they passed along the tree-lined cobblestone street. The street was busy as horse-drawn wagons traveled up and down, and shoppers came in and out of stores.

Now near enough, Bernice made out the black letters on the red cedar shingles that hung above the sidewalk in front of the curiosity shop's entrance. Sister Sadie's Whatnots read the first shingle, and hooked underneath, a second one which read & Fortune Telling. If the truth be told, the way Eleanor carried on made the Whatnot Shop more interesting to Bernice.

The distant sky behind them burgeoned with dark, greenish clouds and showed signs of a storm brewing. Bernice looked at Hannah, "Let's hurry, I think we're gonna get another gully-washer!"

The next moment, they were alerted by some voices coming from the infamous shop loud enough to be heard from the street. The closer the girls got to the shop, the more intrigued they became about the raised voices inside. The conversation was muffled, but one side of it was distraught. Then, the voices fell silent.

Bernice took Hannah's hand and crossed the street to sneak a look in the Whatnot Shop window as they passed by. When they were about to creep past the shop entrance, the little bell above the door rang, grabbing their attention. The shop door flung wide open with a jingle-lingle and then a loud CLUNK! as the door bounced against its doorstop. A second later, a young woman rushed out of it in sniffles and tears. If Bernice and Hannah hadn't stopped dead in their tracks, the woman would have run right into them. Clutching her pocketbook under her arm, she bounded across the street and down the sidewalk kicking up the ruffles of her petticoat with each stride. The ends of the red satin necktie flapped behind her as she turned the corner and disappeared.

Hannah looked up and Bernice could tell by her expression that what she saw concerned Hannah. Except at funerals, Hannah had not seen adults so emotional, but neither had Bernice.

They attempted to continue on their way, but something inside enticed Bernice to enter. Her knees stiffened, as if to prevent her, to no avail. She had caught a faint whiff of incense: hmm, that smells wonderful! That quickly, her nose had undermined her resolve to heed her mother's injunction. With her curiosity stoked, she stooped to Hannah's eye level and comforted her sister with a firm hug. Then, she reached in her pocket for the coins Eleanor had given her.

"Hannah, take the money and go buy the thread for Mama. Come right back here and I'll be waitin' for you."

"Are you goin' in the Whatnot Shop? Mama says its evil and it does look spooky in there to me!"

"Saw the look on your face. Weren't you worried about that woman?" Bernice played upon Hannah's empathy.

"Yeah, she was upset about somethin.' "

"Can I tell you a secret?"

Hannah thought it awesome to share a secret with her big sister. She smiled, "Why sure you can. Me and my friends keep secrets all the time."

"Good. Now, I'm gonna go in to see if Miss Sadie's all right, that's all. But, this has to be our secret. I don't want you to go tellin' Mama or Daddy."

"Hannah thought another second, "Fine, it's our secret!"

"Now go on, scoot! Remember, two spools of black thread and come right back here and wait for me."

"All right!" sang out Hannah and she skipped down the sidewalk. Bernice noticed that Hannah's love of skipping had worn holes in the soles of her school shoes.

Bernice entered the shop. No one was about. The candy counter attracted her first. Hard candies of all descriptions of stripes, swirls, and colors were displayed in jars and baskets. Her eyes luxuriated over all the bottles of flowery perfumes and goopy creams, and other spice jars filled with dried this and that, and ooooh, look at all these beads, and scooped some in her hand, and these bangles, she spied. All her senses were bombarded with the sights, smells, and textures inside the shop. So many things vied for her attention that she couldn't possibly analyze them all.

After several minutes, Bernice realized that Sadie might not have heard her come in since the door was still ajar. She called out, "Hello. Miss Sadie, you here?" No one answered.

Past the candy counter to the left was a doorway with a burgundy velvet curtain hanging across it. Since her older sister Rita was a seamstress, Bernice knew the names of many fabrics. She sidled through the soft curtains and into a narrow darkened hallway. The wafts of incense were stronger there. She stopped again to let her pupils flood into large, black pools in the center of her "so-ordinary-dark-brown" irises. At the end of the hall to her left she saw candlelight shimmering through a glass beaded curtain that hung from the door frame of a room missing its door. On her immediate right she saw two more closed doors, must be bedrooms, she reasoned. Ahead of her, the door to the kitchen, and she peeped in.

"Hello, is everything all right?" Again, no one answered her inquiry.

As she proceeded toward the room down the hall, the incense grew ever stronger until she stood at the doorway. She reached out with her right hand and parted the beads which tinkled pleasantly as they struck each other. She leaned forward in a stretch to see inside the room and called again, "Hello? Is anyone...?" Startled, she froze.

Sadie was perched on an emerald velveteen settee situated against the back wall. She smiled and waved hither to Bernice. Atop a table next to the settee, thin wisps of smoke rose from incense that smoldered on a saucer. The smoke accumulated near the ceiling and gave the room an ethereal quality.

"Come in, come in, my daughter. Don' be afraid." Sadie reached out her left hand to summon her. Bernice noticed the subtle lilt in her voice, and padded around a large table with several lighted candles and four chairs pulled up to it.

She hastened to explain, "My name is Bernice Silverson, Miss Sadie." She fumbled with her left earlobe. When Bernice was six, an insect flew in her ear and the wiggling, buzzing ruckus it made inside sent her reeling around the yard in screams. Her older sister Rita had to catch her and hold her head down while their mother poured linseed oil in her ear to drown the bug. Since then, Bernice pulled or fumbled with her ear when she was in a quandary or nervous about anything.

"Me and my sister heard loud voices and saw a woman rushin' away from the shop, and I wanted to see if everything was all right." She felt the thumps of her heart against her stomach. The warning was sent, but she ignored it.

"How sweet of you to come see 'bout me. Thank you, my child. But, no need to worry," said Sadie in an attempt to calm her. "My child, some peoples come in here wantin' me to tell dem only what dey wanna hear, not d'entire truth. Others hear da truth, but don' want to believe it, 'til it's too late. Dat woman was one of dose peoples. I tell her dat I cannot change what I see; only she can do dat."

As Bernice listened to Sadie, she noticed other details about the small room. The walls were painted an inky blue and they were bare of decor, except for a wooden cross nailed above the settee. There was one opened window, but the panes were painted black meant to shut out the sunlight, and nosy people. In one corner of the room, an old oil lamp glowed as well. The beads in the doorway twinkled like prisms in the light from the lamp and candles. Their tiny reflections darted about the room when the intermittent breezes disturbed them.

To Bernice, Miss Sadie was as much a part of the room as everything else. Sadie had black kinky hair plaited in cornrows, which showed off her regal face. She wore a rawhide cord that was choker length. The little gold cross hanging from it settled in the hollow of her swan-like neck. She wore a long-sleeved cotton housedress, bleached white, starched and ironed, that draped to her feet. The dress was gathered and bound around her slim waist with long ties which were looped in a crisp bow behind her. The gleam of her clothing against the deep blue walls was so great that it created an aura about her. The woolen stockings that covered her feet were rolled around her ankles.

"Now, enough 'bout dat woman!" Sadie dismissed the subject by batting the air with her right hand. With a question in her voice, Sadie offered, "For your kindness an' concern, I'll do a readin' for you, Miss?"

"Miss Sadie, I'm sorry, but I have no money." Bernice listened to Eleanor's chides replay between her ears and hoped her reply dissuaded Sadie enough to save her from breaking her promise to her mother.

"Dis one, my daughter, is on me. Please come sit next to me, my child. Dis won' take long," she insisted. Sadie's teeth gleamed behind full crimson lips when she smiled and spoke. With her left hand she gave the cushion next to her a few firm pats. Beyond her point of resistance and unaware of her wrinkled brow, Bernice fumbled with her earlobe again.

She sat next to Sadie and turned toward her, their knees almost touched. Bernice gained a heightened sense of awareness when she looked in Sadie's eyes of kohl, lined with long thick lashes. The inky color of the room gave her ebony complexion a blueberry hue. Reflections from the beaded curtain danced across Sadie's face revealing its plum undertones. When she moved, candle glow swept over her chiseled cheek bones and accented her brow and jaw line, and also the edges of her pronounced nose and nostrils.

Bernice thought: What, no crystal ball?

Sadie leaned forward and in Bernice's ear she whispered the answer to her thought, "Some of my customers expect dose cards or crystal balls, but da Lord gives me da Truth with or without dose tings." Sadie's divulgence stunned Bernice and made her more nervous, but she tried not to show it.

With care, Sadie held Bernice's latte-toned hands inside of her own of blueberry, as if she caressed wary turtledoves. Then, Sadie's head drifted backward, her raven eyes moved about under their eyelids. The next thing, Sadie's ethos entered Bernice's immortal space and it was a little unnerving. In response, Bernice's palms got warm and tingly, but she remained fixed on Sadie. After a still moment, Sadie righted her head, looked through Bernice, down into the depths of her and spoke:

"My daughter, God gave you a merciful spirit. Mercy is your spiritual gift from God to share with others, but ch'you must be merciful to yourself, too. You are big-hearted, but ch'you should know dat not everyone will treasure your heart. Remember, keep your heart open an' seek your comfort in da Lord, not in tings." Sadie paused, took a deep breath then continued:

"You are full of desires, my child. You'll search for da love an' affection your mama and daddy couldn' give you. Remember dat true love don' hurt. God loves you better dan dat. Forget dis an' you'll have troubles in your life."

Bernice felt Sadie's grip become firmer, then it relaxed again. Sadie went on:

"You long to see your father, eh? Go see him, don' wait . . ."

A gust of wind from the approaching storm blew through the open window and rustled the beaded curtain at the doorway. It shimmered and tinkled; a second later more wildly as the tinkling warped into an unpleasant jangling that grew louder. A harsh voice from outside broke the ethereal ambience.

"Mrs. Tulley." Still louder and sterner, "Mrs. Tulley!" commanded the prison matron a second time disturbing Madam from her reminiscent slumber. "It's time to go now!"

Madam realized the guard's keys had made the unpleasant jangles against the bars when she unlocked her cell. Taking a deep breath, she struggled out of her fog and to her feet. The matron entered. Madam knew the drill and presented her wrists to be cuffed. They plodded down the hallway through the Prisoners Exit and out of the cool courthouse basement to a waiting bus, which felt like an inferno inside. The windows were blackened and bolted shut, except for the driver's. Madam, the only woman of nine prisoners sentenced that day, was the last to board the inferno-bus. The matron sat next to her on the first seat. Three white inmates had been given middle seats. The five remaining inmates were colored and they were seated in the back. Two unarmed prison guards stood in the aisle between each group and one armed guard manned the front. Everyone was accounted for and in place.

The warmest morning of the summer had blazed above the predicted ninety-eight degrees and into the late afternoon. Escorted by a police automobile, the prison bus left the courthouse for the six-mile drive to Jamesville. Like turnips steaming in a pot, the prisoners and the guards sweltered in that inferno on wheels for the entire trip.

Madam stared through the windshield undistracted by the roadside activity. Instead, she wallowed among of faces invoked by her memory, faces of loved ones, alive and dead. The remembrances of her girlhood had been like flint against her apathetic heart, a heart too frosted by self-reliance to tender a spark.

As the roadside cityscape turned to serene pastureland, she wondered where all the time had gone. Madam Tulley wondered how she'd be able to maneuver through the remainder of her eighteen months at Jamesville.

### CHAPTER 3

Bernice and her two sisters, Rita and Hannah, were born in Charleston, South Carolina. The sisters' biological mother, Cora Anders Silverson, died at age thirty-one, about two months after giving birth to Hannah in August 1893. Rita was eleven at her death and Bernice had enjoyed her eighth birthday that September.

The bright, cheerful morning that followed their mother's death insulted Bernice. Bewildered and self-conscious, she finally came out of her bedroom to join her family and the house full of other mourners; many she had only seen in church. Bernice erupted into tears at the first sight of the ominous, bare-wood coffin set in the middle of the front room, and which displayed the body of her mother. The crowd of mourners began to sway and warble a sorrowful spiritual. She hugged her father around his waist and buried her face into the softness of his belly. A healing had not been granted to her mother and the reality of it all was cruel to Bernice. Comforted by her father and sister Rita, sobs shook her as the mourners continued moaning their hymn.

In need of a mother for his young daughters, their father Bernard Silverson remarried within three months to a family friend named Eleanor Stout. She was from the town of Hopbush near Charleston. A babe of two when she was emancipated from slavery, Eleanor was a thirty-year-old spinster, four years younger than their father. They tried to make their marriage work, but in less than two years Bernard and Eleanor separated. There were no children born of their union, and it was unlikely that their marriage was dissolved by court decree. Ending a marriage without the legal details was common in those days.

In 1895 Bernard migrated north in search of industrial employment. He planned to send for his daughters when he found steady work and a place to live. A long period passed before the girls received news that their father had made it as far as St. Louis, Missouri. Soon after his arrival, Bernard settled in with a woman he met there, but failed to send for his children.

While in Charleston, Eleanor met and fell in love with John Morissette who came often to visit family there. At thirty-two, she was eight years younger than him. John had a wife with a long debilitating illness in Savannah where he lived, but had no children. In the summer of 1896, during their extramarital affair, pregnant Eleanor packed her three stepdaughters and her mother Harriet, who lived with them, and followed John to Savannah. Though Harriet wasn't a blood relative, the Silverson sisters loved her as their grandmother. Grandma Harriet, whom they called "Grammy," was the only grandparent they knew. When the girls arrived in Savannah, Bernice was eleven, her sister Rita was fourteen, and their baby sister Hannah was three.

Months later in December 1896, Eleanor bore her first child for John outside of marriage, a son named Jonas. In March of 1898 Eleanor gave John a second son named Malcolm.

In spring 1899 John's wife died. Before fall of that same year, John moved Eleanor Silverson and his two toddler sons into his home, along with Harriet and the three Silverson girls. Henceforth, they lived as a family. Eleanor took John's last name and became known in Savannah as Mrs. Eleanor Morissette.

The first three years in Savannah crept by for the girls and their hopes to reunite with their father faded. For Rita, the transition as John and Eleanor's stepdaughter wasn't smooth like it had been for Bernice and Hannah. Rita felt uprooted and demoted after Eleanor moved her away from Charleston, family, friends, and everything she knew. She felt even more detached when Eleanor and John began to have children of their own. Life with her stepparents was miserable. She didn't get along with John and the relationship between her and Eleanor was sometimes on and at most times off.

John supported his large family as a janitor for the Savannah Public Library near his home. Eleanor contributed to the household income with the money she made from her laundry business. Bernice helped their stepmother prepare the laundry orders. Rita also contributed to the family income as a seamstress. She darned and made other repairs requested with the laundry orders. The first dresses she made for pay were for several of Eleanor's laundry clients. Grandma Harriet contributed as well from her work as a private nurse for an undertaker's family.

Bernice went to school and was an excellent reader, and despite her southern and cultural inflections, she spoke well. In her free time when she wasn't looking after little sister Hannah and her baby stepbrothers, she devoured the steady flow of books and magazines that a kind librarian permitted her stepfather to bring home. In those years, only white patrons were allowed to enter the library to borrow books.

In mid-autumn 1899 Bernard managed to visit his daughters. He saw how John and Eleanor had provided for them better than he was able to do, and how Eleanor and the girls had grown attached to each other. He consented to leave them with her, but he never returned to visit. Though not often, Eleanor did write to Bernard about his daughters. In response, their father's infrequent letters enraptured the girls, especially Bernice.

In spring 1901 at eighteen, Rita snatched the opportunity to live elsewhere. She traveled to Syracuse, New York on an invitation from a family friend. Right away she found work as a seamstress in the booming women's garment industry there; and she soon built a part-time dressmaking business for herself.

In September 1901 Eleanor bore a third son John Jr. for her common-law husband. And, in October 1902 at thirty-nine Eleanor gave birth to their fourth and last child, a son named Ernest. Though they missed their older sister Rita very much, Bernice and Hannah couldn't have loved their four little stepbrothers more had they been of their own blood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The prison bus slowed and Madam realized that they had arrived at Jamesville Correctional Facility. It was set back at least a mile from the main road amid prison farmland. Three decades old by 1932, it was a gothic hulk of thick stone blocks stacked above the horizon, massive in its breadth, with arched entrances and octagonal turrets well-placed, which overlooked the yard and grounds in all directions.

When Madam Tulley was returned to a temporary prison cell, she couldn't help hearing the other inmates' hoots and calls to her.

"Hey Bernie! How much time they give ya?" squealed one inmate. Others chimed in with laughter and tried to belittle her with curses and snide jabs.

"Welcome back home, Miss Madam!" others sneered. Some inmates ignored her altogether and that was fine with her.

Supper for that evening was brought to her cell since it was customary for prisoners to be watched and isolated from other inmates on the day of sentencing.

Madam Tulley was in a minimum security wing of the facility, along with other female inmates who were given sentences for vice, petty offenses, and less serious felonies. Onondaga County had one facility. So, though the male and female populations were in separate blocks, they were housed on the same campus. Also, under minimum security, Bernice had more opportunities for work and recreation than female inmates who were imprisoned for capital crimes or other grievous offenses.

For the first weeks of her incarceration, Madam Tulley wrestled with whether she should be in Jamesville at all, though there she was. She had looked down her nose at the other inmates and complained about everything to the guards. She found it difficult to accept the personal and financial loss of the businesses she had built: her boardinghouse, bar and speakeasy, which the authorities deemed "a public nuisance and a house of prostitution." Despite the added weight of gravel that sexual favors, lies, and secrecy brought her, she had grown comfortable with the income. And, her family had also grown dependent upon the income from those enterprises. After the economy tanked, she was one of a few in the working class who was able to maintain a high standard of living, no matter that it was from an egregious occupation. Madam was accustomed to the luxuries most people weren't able to afford anymore, whether they were colored or white.

By day's end, the grim of her present quandary had seized her. This was a hopeful sign. She was on the brink of understanding the due wages of her occupational choices: a prison cell replaced the freedom to tool around in her expensive automobile; her shapeless "prison-drabs" replaced her fine clothes and silk stockings; cold concrete floors took the place of polished oak and the soft crush of hand-woven rugs underneath her feet; and crosshatches of metal beneath a lumpy mattress awaited her at the end of the day, instead of her own feather bed made with luxurious linens and lush down pillows. Yes, Madam's heart mourned the lost comfort of all her material possessions. But, besides these things and her precious freedom, what she missed most of all was the second baby that she had adopted six months earlier. After a series of disappointments, this baby was the bright horizon of promise and purpose she had longed for.

The previous February, Madam had received custody of her estranged husband's baby son named Gerald. She called the baby, Jerry. She promised Al Tulley that she'd care for his child, but now it was up to Eleanor, near seventy, to look after the eighteen-month-old. Lately, Madam hadn't recognized many of her blessings. In this most difficult year of the economic depression, she was fortunate to have her stepbrother Ernie and her first adopted, teenage son Gabe there to help Eleanor care for the tike and manage the restaurant.

That night after sentencing, she was more forlorn and her feelings of abandonment were profound. Tears crawled from the corners of her eyes and collected in the wells of her ears before spilling over onto a rolled up towel she used for a neck pillow. When she was this low, she reread the letters received from her mother. The inmates had no access to Bibles, so Eleanor always ended her letters with a verse or two of Scripture she thought would uplift her daughter. Because Madam was imprisoned in spirit as well as body, the Bible verses refreshed and comforted her.

Not until the lights were off and the cell block grew silent was Madam Tulley able to sift through the variety of troublestones which caused her to be in that very cell. She knew if she didn't unearth the telltale changes in her thinking, she might never be able to right herself again. At the start of this fourth week in prison, Madam began exhuming her past. The light of discovery started to glow just beyond the depth of perception. Later, she would find that talking about the past to her cellmate helped clarify things for her.

Overdue sleep crouched before Madam, yet she tossed and turned. Instead of the Bible verses from her mother's letters, it was Sadie's prophecy, "Not everyone will treasure your heart," that emblazoned itself on the interior flesh of her eyelids. She realized how true Sadie's words were as she looked back on some of her fateful decisions. Before sleep swooped down, her last conscious thought was: You warned me, Miss Sadie, but I didn't listen.

Madam Tulley once believed she could shake the pebbles of racism and segregation out of her shoes by leaving the South. She dreamt of a letter she wrote to her sister Rita in Syracuse which led to her train trip away from home:

August 9, 1903

My dearest sister Rita,

Congratulations on your recent marriage and the baby to come. The whole family was excited to hear that you are doing well. I think Mama is looking forward to being a grandmother. It's all she's been talking about ever since your last letter. Do you know how close in age your baby will be to its Uncle Ernie? He'll only be seventeen months older than your baby. They'll be in diapers together! Little Ernie has got so plump and he's full of personality. He won't go to sleep without the quilt Mama finished for him last summer. Our other little brothers are growing like tobacco sprouts.

Hannah talks about you a lot. Every night she takes the Raggedy Ann you sent to bed with her. Everyone misses you very much. Sometimes Mama's clients still ask about you making a dress for them when I pick up or deliver the laundry.

I miss you, too. To be honest, I'm miserable down here without you. Mama and Daddy are so set in their ways. They treat me like a child. They don't understand that I don't live in the same world their parents grew up in. We're not slaves anymore and our "freeborn" generation is expected to get what we need for ourselves. Speaking of slaves, people around here make me feel like one. Mama's clients are rude. The laundry is endless! I hardly have time to be with my friends or for much else. Mama watches me like a hawk! I'll be eighteen in a month and they still won't let boys call on me. My hands are so rough from doing laundry no boy would want to hold them anyway.

Sorry for all the complaining, but I'd rather be any place else but here in Savannah. If it wasn't for reading the books and magazines Daddy brings home from the library, there would be no escape for me. I'm taking your advice, though. I'm looking for a job in town that suits me.

Do you think after the baby comes it would be all right for me to come up for a visit? From what I've read, Syracuse is not far from New York City and I would love to see the tall buildings. Of course, I would also love to see you and my new niece or nephew, and to meet my new brother-in-law, too.

Hannah says hello. Until next time, I will keep you all in my prayers.

Your loving sister,

Bernice

One day a letter from Rita came and announced the birth of her daughter Flora Mae born in March 1904. The letter was in an envelope that simply read "To Mother" and tucked inside a large box addressed to "Miss Bernice Silverson, 764 Gwinnette Street, Savannah, Georgia."

Bernice was amazed when she opened the box. It contained a brand new parasol and a wardrobe of clothes Rita made for her. There were two of everything–wonderfully appointed blouses, skirts, and dresses. There was a brand new hat in her favorite color blue. On top of all this, there was a second envelope that read "To Sister." Inside of it, a bank draft for enough money to purchase a train ticket and a note from Rita saying:

"We would love to have you come to Syracuse, Sister. Hope you like the traveling clothes I made you. They're the latest fashion this year. Write me when you've made your plans. With love, Rita."

Bernice considered the money a stroke of luck, as she had saved some of her income from her part-time job as a domestic at a downtown boardinghouse to fund her secret plans to escape the South all together. Now, with the money her sister sent her, not only could she go to Syracuse, she could also include a trip to see her father in St. Louis during the 1904 World's Fair.

The World's Fair was scheduled to open a few weeks later on April 30 to commemorate the centennial of the Louisiana Territory the United States purchased from France in 1803. Because of construction delays, the Fair planners joined that commemoration with the centennial celebration of the Lewis and Clark Expedition that left St. Louis in May 1804.

Bernice gave her mother the envelope addressed to her unopened. Eleanor was pleased to learn that she did become a grandmother. Then, Bernice showed her the dresses and the money Rita sent her. Seeing how Rita had provided for most of Bernice's travel needs, Eleanor loosened the reins on Bernice and consented to her summer plans to visit her father and sister.

Bernice didn't want to let on how ecstatic she was about her trip away from home and away from Savannah. She thought an exuberant display might cause Eleanor to feel she might not want to return home, and thus stir up friction. So, as her departure grew nearer, Bernice went about her preparations in an unaffected manner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice's earliest memories of her father when they lived as a family in Charleston bled into one another. Bernice loved the idea of him. She missed her father so much that her longing to see him paralleled that of two lovers separated by war. Many times as a girl of eleven, twelve, and thirteen, she pretended to serve her father and dolls dandelion tea and mud crumpets from tiny, mismatched dishes she owned. The dishes became her spiritual connection to her absent father. One day to her chagrin, Eleanor gave her dishes to Hannah. Her mother decided Bernice had grown too old to play "tea party."

She remembered the autumn weekend when her father last came to see them. She was fourteen, Rita was sixteen, and Hannah was six. Bernard referred to them as "my girls." That visit was the only time Bernice could recall her father with any details, such as his keen, handsome features and cream-colored skin, his grayish blue eyes, his shiny coal black hair, and the funny way the ends of his handlebar mustache curled up.

She and Hannah romped with him in the piles of fallen leaves under the old chinaberry tree. Their ruckus that morning prevented the autumn birds from dining on its yellow berries. How Bernice yearned for the embrace of her father and to hear him tell her he loved her once again! His letters were nice, but she looked forward to seeing him again in the flesh, something she'd prayed so hard for after she realized that her father's visit was just that, a visit, and he was returning to St. Louis without her and her sisters.

Though grateful for the goodness and support her stepfather provided, she clung to the memory of her father's last visit through her adolescent years. The paternal bond she held onto was strong enough to allow the love for him to endure all the years they spent apart.

Now a teenager, I am a woman, thank you as Bernice thought of herself at eighteen, she would get the chance to reunite with her real daddy. She corresponded with him and planned her itinerary. Of course, her father invited her to stay with him when she arrived in St. Louis.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On July 29 the morning of her trip, Bernice wore one of the new outfits Rita sent her. She donned a white blouse with a high collar trimmed with ruffles that tickled her chin. It had intricate tucks and pleats across the bodice with pouf sleeves that gathered to four inch cuffs at her wrists. Her flannel skirt was the color of mocha and a brown leather belt cinched her tiny waist. The length of her skirt grazed the toes of her high button shoes. The bottom of her skirt flared out in the back and created a silhouette like that of an upside-down calla lily.

She packed her new hat in her trunk for another day. Instead, she wore an old one she borrowed from her mother which was more suitable for the long train trip. In a small drawstring purse that hung from her wrist, Bernice kept a pot of lip color she secretly purchased at the Whatnot Shop and a few coins. The rest of her money was stowed away in a silk pouch she kept in her bosom as her mother advised, safe from pickpockets.

Eleanor and ten-year-old Hannah had come to the station with Bernice to see her off. It was Bernice's first train trip; she was excited; it was understandable. She passed by the windows at the Central of Georgia Railway Depot and admired her reflection.

Hannah sang out to Bernice, "You look like one of those "Gibson Girls" in the newspaper!" Bernice was thinking it, too. Bernice was beautifully formed in figure and of face.

The railcars were crowded with passengers, some whose final destination was St. Louis to attend the World's Fair. The lone Jim Crow railcar, where the colored passengers were allowed, was far less crowded. After the Negro porter finished assisting the white passengers, he helped Bernice check her trunk and suitcase onto the train. She kept the overnighter with her. When it was time to board, she gave her mother and little sister big good-bye hugs and kisses.

"Last call for all passengers boarding the train for Atlanta and points in between, departing on Track Number 3. Last call!" the conductor's voice echoed through the depot.

"That's me!" exclaimed Bernice.

Hannah handed the parasol to her, "Don't forget this."

Eleanor gave Bernice a final repeat of her instructions to be careful and to write often. "Give Rita and the baby our love!" she called as Bernice boarded the train. Her mother and sister's muted goodbyes chased after Bernice on the air stirred up by their hands waving high above their heads.

Being the last passenger to board, Bernice was free to wave back and shout from the steps of the railcar, "See you soon!" If I'm lucky, this will be the last time I lay eyes on stiflin' old Savannah was what she thought, yet it saddened her to leave not knowing when she would see them again.

The railcar for the colored passengers was located behind the coal car. The floor of the car was sooty from the boots of coal engineers who passed through after fueling the engine. Every place the engineers touched left black coal dust. Between shifts, Negro porters sat in the front section of the car. The passengers sat here and there from midway to the rear.

Bernice looked about the railcar that would confine her for the next nineteen hours until she changed trains in Atlanta. Inside, it smelled of the engine's steamy exhaust and it appeared the windows hadn't seen water since the last rain. Bernice looked down at her hands–oh, cotton rot!–and was disheartened. The handrail she used when she climbed aboard had soiled the glove on her right hand. She plopped in the window seat facing the same direction the train departed the station. She placed her parasol and overnighter with her hat on top in the seat which faced her. She settled in and the train left the depot on schedule.

Bernice flattened out her ticket she had rolled up in her purse. An hour passed. She anticipated the conductor should have inspected her ticket a half hour ago and grew tired of the wait. She hated it when people made her wait. So, she rested her head against the window. The loud chugging and the intermittent whistling of the locomotive was a challenge to get accustomed to. However, the rocking motion of the train and the soft monotonous clacking of the wheels soothed her. She closed her eyes and tried a silent prayer, although it was not her regular habit: Lord, I have such a long way to go. I'm nervous. Please look out for me, and she ended it with an Amen.

Next, she recalled her father's face. Then, she thought of the magazine pictures she saw of St. Louis street scenes and also pictures of the Fair. She tried to imagine other activities she might do when she got there.

The chugging of the locomotive became louder as–WHOOSH!–the conductor had flung open the rear door to the railcar. A gust of wind swirled in. Then, a great suction caused the door to slam behind him with a hardy THUD! It sounded as if he'd been blown in on a tornado. Bernice snapped to attention and at the same time realized her ticket–darn it!–had slipped out of her hand.

"Tickets! All y'all get y'all tickets out and hold 'em up so's I can seez 'em!" the cantankerous conductor ordered.

Colored passengers were told to hold up their tickets so he wouldn't have to touch them, and Bernice was third in line to be ordered to present her ticket. The conductor flipped aside his stringy gray hair and adjusted his cap blown out of place. He looked scraggy and his ill-fitted navy blue uniform sagged on him like on a clothes hanger. His eyes were steely cold with large purplish bags underneath them. His complexion was ruddy, except for white streaks of un-tanned skin inside the furrows of his crow's feet. His mustache and chin hair were in need of a barber. The conductor was the sort that took great pleasure in making Negro passengers squirm.

Bernice tried to keep an eye on the scraggy conductor while she crouched between the seats in search of her ticket. She had difficulty because her skirt and petticoat took up a good deal of space, and the railcar rocked side to side. She didn't have time to worry about the fact that her beautiful skirt and petticoat were now sweeping the sooty floor.

"Ticket! Hold it way up!" yelled the conductor in utter contempt for the first passenger, a young man seated at the rear.

Bernice saw that her ticket had curled up and rolled under the seats in front of hers. She rose to see how far the conductor had progressed. Doing so, her eyes met those of a dapper gentleman passenger three rows ahead of her. Help me please, Bernice "telepathized" in his direction. The distress was written on her face. He realized her problem and looked under the seat behind him.

"Tickets!" The conductor moved closer and barked at the next two passengers. They were sweet, elder women and Bernice sat ahead and diagonally across the aisle from them.

After a long stretch, the dapper man retrieved the ticket for her. Quivering, grateful to the gentleman, Bernice knelt in the facing seat and held out her hand as far across the back of it as she could. The gentleman stayed at his seat because he did not want to raise the ire of the conductor by walking down the aisle to her. He was sure the conductor would misinterpret a step away from his seat as a threat. So, with the ticket in his hand, the gentleman stood and held it out to Bernice as far over the seats between them as he could. By the tips of her fingers, Bernice grasped the ticket from him.

Having spied what happened, the conductor stepped behind Bernice meaning to startle her, "Negress, where's yo' ticket!"

Bernice hunched and her fingers sought her earlobe. She turned around and came nose to nose with the conductor. She caught a whiff of his breath: Eeeyew! He stinks like an old cigar. And, she noticed the few teeth he possessed were tobacco stained and clumps of dandruff studded his navy blue shoulders. A lump lodged in her throat and she strained to breathe. Her eyes widened as she backed away from him.

"R-right h-here, sir," she stammered and unrolled her ticket. With both hands, she held it out for him to read.

The conductor took the liberty to glare at the dapper gentleman who risked helping Bernice and he drawled, "Boy! I'd advise you to keep yo' seat next time!" and then the conductor recorded on a pad the data he needed from her ticket.

The mood was quiet, but tense until the conductor finished his check of everyone's ticket. When he left, Bernice breathed freely again. She calmed down as she watched the Georgia pines in the distance drift by the filthy window.

Adherence to Jim Crow rules was the routine all the way from Savannah to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Chattanooga, up through Louisville to Indianapolis, westward across Illinois and the mile-long Eads Bridge over the Mississippi River to St. Louis. In total the trip took forty-eight hours of travel.

Bernice made sure she followed the segregation rules as this was what her mother's last words to her meant. Eleanor had her daughter's safety in mind. Bernice took note of the signs that read For Whites Only; she paid strict observance to the ones that read For Coloreds Only. She waited for the white passengers who were always catered to first. She disembarked and re-boarded the segregated railcars. At train depots along the route, she used the neglected colored restroom facilities and she stood in the cramped colored waiting areas. Though she had no choice, it was still difficult to ignore the differences in maintenance and amenities between the white and colored facilities and passenger cars. She dined in segregated eateries at train stops since Negro passengers were not allowed to eat in the dining cars. Some depots had no places for Negro passengers to dine. Therefore, she made sure to put aside something to eat so she wouldn't go hungry.

Although train travel was a new adventure for Bernice, segregation was familiar and second-nature to her. It sparked defiance, always having to wait behind and tiptoe on eggshells around white people. It was the painful pebbles of racism, sown in her shoes, which kept her on her toes to remind her to shrink from white folks' sight, like she ought not to be seen or leave signs that she had been in a place; like she ought not to breathe the same air; like she wasn't worth the effort to clean up behind or for. Jim Crow was a scheme by white society to keep her invisible, to keep her from coming into her own identity.

Bernice tried to ignore her second-class treatment. She looked forward to her arrival in the North, having left behind the troublestones that Jim Crow demanded she walk on. In the North her racism burden would be lightened.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice arrived at St. Louis' Union Station on Sunday morning July 31, within minutes after eleven. She recalled magazine photographs of Union Station's medieval white limestone architecture and its castle-like towers and spires. The entire structure was roofed with bright, apple red tiles. To Bernice, the black-and-white pictures hadn't captured the beauty and palatial charm of this grand depot.

Having to sleep seated upright during the entire journey exhausted her. There were no sleeping berths in the Jim Crow cars. She yearned to lie horizontal and that made her anxious to get to her final destination: her father's apartment home.

She noticed there were plenty of horse-drawn taxis for white passengers, but not many for the Negro passengers. Bernice again noticed the hem of her skirt was a sooty mess, as were the hems of other Negro women passengers. Neither did the men escape getting coal dust somewhere on their clothes. The soot on their clothes marked them and confirmed whatever negative musings white people shared about colored people. Well it's no wonder. They don't want soot in their taxis, but Bernice knew full well that segregation and discrimination was about more than dirty hemlines.

She claimed her luggage and took a place in line at the taxi stand signed For Coloreds. It took a while to procure a taxi on account of the crowd of passengers who arrived before her.

St. Louis' weather that day was sunny, hot, and humid, much like Savannah at this time of the year. Unlike Savannah, which enjoys refreshing breezes from the Atlantic, not one cool breeze found St. Louis. The noonday sun inched overhead, but Bernice was so enthralled by the street activity, she didn't mind the wait or the sun. It was tough to decide which attraction interested her the most. She opened up her new parasol that had black smudges on it, which she paid no mind. She was so excited, she could ignore the flies and several piles of reeking horse dung next to the curb in the vicinity of the taxi stand. Am I really here? I can hardly believe I'm standing in St. Louis. Bernice aimed to leave at the curb a few Jim Crow troublestones that had hitched a ride on her luggage, and that made her joyful.

The street hummed with a muddle of conversations, carriages in motion, and the footsteps of people and horses. In the background trains whistled and locomotives hissed steam. The sidewalks were jammed with tourists from all over the nation and the world in town for the Fair, as well as with locals who went about their normal Sunday routines. Nearly all the men wore yellowish straw hats with black grosgrain bands and the women wore hats of all description and color. Everyone rushed about as if they were late for an appointment.

Her first sight of "individual railcars" which traveled on tracks up and down the middle of the street puzzled Bernice, and they were crammed with passengers. Ad posters for cigarettes and health elixirs were plastered on their exteriors.

When her turn came, she climbed in the backseat of the taxi with her parasol. The driver, a stocky Negro man, secured her luggage in the space behind her seat.

My, my, it's as if they've walked out of the pages of the Sears & Roebuck Catalogue, Bernice fancied.

"Where to Miss?" interupted the driver.

The driver had caught Bernice admiring the womenfolk who were dressed in the height of fashion from their hats down to their shoes.

"Twenty Eleven Walnut Street, please," answered Bernice in the midst of a silent gasp when she realized that she wasn't able to see the tops of the buildings unless she craned her head outside the carriage. Of all the photographs she'd seen of St. Louis, she thought: Mercy, these buildings are much taller than I ever imagined.

The driver disengaged the carriage brake, signaled the horse with the reins, and mumbled, "Giddy up!"

Bernice's head bobbed backward when the horse clip-clopped away from the curb. As the horse trotted, the large wheels of the carriage rumbled over the cobblestone pavement like the roll of a bass drum. And, she rumbled, too.

"This your first visit to St. Louis, Miss?" The driver saw that Bernice's eyes were engrossed in the panorama of liveliness that this fleet-footed metropolis had to offer. He knew she was a tourist and was making polite small talk. From her drawl, he knew she was from somewhere down South.

"Yes, I'm visitin' family." Bernice looked behind her as they left the station. She watched buildings, taller than any Georgia pine she'd ever seen, pierced the sky in the distance.

Most out-of-towners in his taxi had never seen a "cable streetcar" before. The driver explained, "Streetcars are powered by electric cables strung high above them and ride on rails in the street." Oh, that's what they're called, and Bernice smiled. He pointed out several city landmarks along the way. He answered her queries, but for the most part he left Bernice to her own thoughts.

The driver took his time and turned west onto Market Street, down two blocks to Twentieth Street, and then turned south one block to Walnut Street. At every corner, he yielded to the streetcars which sped through the intersections, or screeched around corners on their way out of sight.

From Bernice's countrified perspective, the multi-story buildings that lined both sides of Market Street made the route feel narrow and cavernous, like riding through a canyon.

The taxi rumbled by two storefront churches, a barber shop, several saloons with boardinghouses above them, and other Negro businesses of various kinds. The business opportunities her people enjoyed in St. Louis compared to Savannah impressed Bernice. Along the four block route, she also noticed a corner newspaper stand with colored newspaper boys calling out the latest headlines; a horse-drawn wagon with colored men delivering blocks of ice; and a colored street vendor selling shaved ice treats.

As they turned onto Walnut Street in the Negro area of the Chestnut Valley neighborhood, the block buzzed with life. The locals were hanging out on the sidewalks and children played stickball in the street. Mixed among the storefronts were residential buildings down both sides. The taxi driver brought the carriage to a halt next to a five-story apartment building.

"We're here, Miss. Front or rear?"

"The rear, please." She recalled the directions from her father's latest letter.

The taxi continued several yards up the block and turned down the shadowy trash-strewn alley behind the apartment building, then pulled up to the rear entrance and stopped.

"I'll help you with your luggage, Miss." He first helped Bernice out of the carriage. "Miss? Your parasol," and he handed it to her.

"Thank you, sir!" Bernice had forgotten it.

The driver carted her trunk and suitcases to the stoop. Bernice followed behind him. She paid the fare and gave the driver a generous tip.

"Thank you, Miss! Enjoy your stay in St. Louie!" heralded the driver and he climbed back in the carriage. With a jiggle of the reins and an utterance from the driver, the taxi rumbled away to the clip-clopping of hooves.

The door opened and there stood her father. It took a second for Bernice to take him all in: I'm tall enough to look right in his face. Although Bernard was shorter and thinner than she had imagined, he didn't look much older than she had remembered. He had the same creamy complexion, those grayish blue eyes, but now his coal black hair had grown a swathe of gray to the left of center. His handlebar mustache had speckles of gray, but not many. Weeks ago, Bernard had his forty-fifth birthday.

"Bernice?" he asked in an incredulous tone of the young woman on the stoop.

"Yes, Daddy, it's me, your daughter!" They broke out in laughter and embraced in the doorway. Bernice's heart pounded inside her chest and surges of emotion spread from her head to her toes. Bernice's eyes welled up with joy remembering how long it had been since she last hugged her father under the old chinaberry tree.

Bernard was embarrassed by the doubt in his voice when he greeted Bernice. Yet, he knew he wouldn't have recognized her if he hadn't been expecting her. After all, he hadn't seen her since she was fourteen. Now, here she was a young woman.

"Come right on in, you must be hungry. I'll get your luggage. Marie!" he called. Then, Bernard filled the awkwardness of the occasion with nervous chatter. Marie, his common-law wife, was an excellent cook. She cooked for a prominent white family about a ten-minute streetcar ride away. She had prepared an early supper for the three of them.

After the supper dishes were put away, Bernice told her father everything she could about Rita and Hannah, and about some of her own dreams. They talked together for several hours until it was time for him to leave for work. Bernard worked evenings at a popular saloon near home.

"Tomorrow is 'Negro Day' at da Fair and everyone's been talkin' 'bout goin.' You wanna go?" her father inquired. He had put aside some money so he could entertain his daughter during her stay.

"Oh, yes! I've read there are many wonderful things to see at the Fair."

"Ok, den we'll get an early start as it'll be crowded."

Bernice, tired from her trip, looked forward to sleeping in a bed that night. She hung the clothes she planned to wear the next day, but grew too weary to continue with the rest. Her body clock was still on Savannah time, she turned in before dusk. Finally horizontal, Bernice couldn't shake the rocking sensations which felt as if she were still on the train. Her mind didn't want to cooperate either.

Bernice decided to try another prayer:

"Dear God, you were with me throughout my journey . . ."

["WHOOSH!, hiss, clip-clop, SCREEEECH!"]

Then that dapper gentleman's face from the train flashed into Bernice's mind. She refocused and continued her prayer:

"You smoothed the way for me . . ."

["Negress! Where's yo' ticket!"]

She tried again to concentrate.

"You relieved my worries . . ."

["Newspapers! Post and Globe! Get ch'your newspapers here!"]

She quieted her thoughts and tried yet again:

"You made this trip possible that I might see my daddy again and I thank you, Lord," she whispered out loud, in a hurry, before she was distracted again.

Sounds and scenes from her travels kept repeating in her head, interrupting her meditation, but she had made a sincere effort. After a while, she noticed that dusk lingered longer than she expected. Then she recalled some music she heard earlier, a lively piano rag. A few piano notes later, she realized the music was coming from outside her window and not from inside her head. It came from down the block, perhaps from the saloon where her father worked. Curiosity got the best of her. She got up and went to the window: Oh, my goodness, the lights are so beautiful!

It was the first time she saw electrified street lamps. The evening looked like early dawn. Bernice observed several couples arm in arm stroll the sidewalks dressed for the evening.

She stood at the window until it became too difficult to hold her eyes open. She climbed back in bed. Bernice had decided not to plan the details of their day at the Fair. She decided to let the day with her father happen as it would. With no expectations, she'd be game for anything. Bernice couldn't fathom all that the notion "anything" encompassed. She continued to listen to the music and soon she was lulled into a deep long-missed sleep.

The World's Fair occurred at the dawn of industrialization and scientific understanding. However, the Fair's scope and sophisticated presentations could rival twenty-first-century standards.

But, in the era of 1904, before the acceptance of racial equality and civil rights, nothing could have prepared Bernice for all she was to learn about society beyond Savannah, about her place in the world, about her father, and about herself.

### CHAPTER 4

By policy, even in 1932, Jamesville Penitentiary was a non-segregated institution, although it was their practice to have inmates of the same race share a cell. The inmates enforced segregation on themselves. During recreation periods they did not intermingle unless for some reason they were ordered to do so.

Madam Tulley resigned herself to fate and made the effort to adjust to prison life. It took weeks for her to figure out how she was going to do her time and maintain her sanity. She reread one of the Bible verses Eleanor quoted in her letters: "God is faithful. He also makes a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it." Madam was open to whatever could help her cope with life in prison.

One evening, Madam learned that her young cellmate couldn't read. Her name was Scarlett. Madam thought: Maybe I'm here to teach. It could take my mind off this horrible cockroach haven, be my way to cope. Madam began to think about somebody else's plight other than her own. She liked Scarlett and offered to teach her to read. Other colored inmates found out and wanted to join them, and some whites, too. Before she knew it, Madam had a small reading group. Soon the group earned a blackboard, paper, pencils, and was allowed to use the piddling library. Madam loved libraries, any library. Teaching inmates to read was what she found to do with her time at Jamesville. She gained new respect from these women and they stopped calling her Madam.

Between work details and tutoring, the only freedom Bernice had to search her soul was after the mess hour or after lights-out. She spent time inside her own head picking through contemplations of small importance, but when she spoke to her cellmates about her past, a deeper less controlled catharsis took place. Her stories brought forward the dilemmas she had faced and some of her motivations, virtuous or not, that she needed to review the most. The release helped sort out her life. However, for her cellmates, her stories were a source of entertainment, heart-wrenching or not.

This particular evening, Bernice had intended to give her stories a rest. Although Scarlett was a captive ear, she didn't want to seem conceited. Scarlett had other ideas.

"The other night you talked about goin' to the World's Fair in St. Louis with your father. How was he, did you like him? What'd you see at the Fair?"

From the anticipation she expressed, Bernice saw that Scarlett had whimsical images of Barnum & Bailey Circus posters and cotton candy in mind.

"Scarlett, not everything is as pleasant soundin' as it seems. The Fair was amazin' and beautiful, but underneath it all there was an ugliness I didn't expect."

Over a course of several evenings, Bernice told Scarlett everything she could recall about the summer of 1904, her father, and their day at the Fair. I loved my father, he was fascinatin' to me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernard Silverson, his friends also called him Bernie, had a buoyant personality, a real "live wire." This trait made him a great waiter and porter at the ever popular Rosebud Café two blocks from his apartment.

The Rosebud Café, a gentlemen's club and a saloon, was Thomas Turpin's joint. He was a rebellious piano musician and a colored businessman, though he looked white, which he used to his advantage because racial inequality ruled in those days. His saloon's success made him an unexpected celebrity in St. Louis and on the popular music scene.

Located at Twenty-Second and Market Streets in Chestnut Valley, the Rosebud Café was the hottest spot in town and in the Negro community. It provided food, a couple of bars, rooms for gambling, access to an upstairs brothel, and satisfied the vices of every "sportsman." The "sporting or sportin' women" who frequented this hot spot were the live game, the dancing entertainment, and most times the companionship, which completed the evening's bill of fare. Not everyone came for every piece of the action, but everybody came for the music.

Underscoring all this raucousness was the new, racy syncopations of ragtime piano music. These Negro inspired compositions were the rage in contemporary music to the dismay of the white status quo. To feed his patrons' insatiable appetite for ragtime music, Turpin used the Café to introduce his own compositions to much success.

Every colored musician who came through St. Louis wanted a play date at the renowned Rosebud Café. Pianist Scott Joplin, one of Turpin's most famous associates, made regular appearances at the Rosebud before he moved away from St. Louis. The musical score called Cascades, which Joplin wrote for the 1904 World's Fair, brought him back to St. Louis to perform at the famed Exposition.

The patrons of the Rosebud Café were shown the best saloon hospitality and service a Negro man could find in town. Bernard knew how to please a party of sportin' men and he gave impeccable service to each man in his charge. He kept every cigar lighted and every glass filled with the libations they were drinking for the evening. When they departed, he handled their hats and coats with respect and finesse. Whether or not he received an adequate tip, Bernard always laid a parting smile on his customers. He figured out long ago that if his graciousness and service were unforgettable, he might receive a great tip the next time.

It might take some concentration for an outsider to catch on to Bernard's slang, especially if you overheard him verifying change at the bar. Bernard referred to a five dollar bill as a five spot, a fifty-cent piece as a hard half, quarters were called cutes, a dime was a thin piece, and blues was the term he used for nickels.

"Bartender!" laying down a five-spot, "A round of brew for four, wid four spots, a cute, a thin piece, and a blue, please!" which meant Bernard expected to receive back in change, four dollars and forty cents with his four mugs of beer.

"Hey Bernie, how goes it my man?" Abe the bartender said and filled the order.

"Well, Saturday was perfect. I sat in da bleachers all day rootin' for my Cardinals, but dose dummies lost again. Dey ain't won a game in three weeks. Dey been really triflin' dese days."

"Well then what about our other ball team, the Browns? How they doin'?"

"Now dose are some real wise-guys. Dat team's a sure bet. Dey been winnin' games all summer. I been really gettin' da grapes wid dem. But makin' somethin' back on da Cardinals been like pickin' chestnuts out of a fire. Dere nothin' but bad luck."

Bernard was a gambling man and he loved betting on baseball games and he kept up with the daily sports news and finals. Whether they were saloon patrons or friends, everybody came to him for the latest dope on teams and players. Bernard was always ready with the scoop and the odds.

Many people saw Bernard as a good judge of truth, as well as a source for baseball statistics. Because he had the confidence of many, he often could sift truth from rumor. The night before Bernard was to take Bernice to the Fair, the saloon patrons who had been were rancorous. From them, he learned the truth and the rumors about the pervasiveness of racial discrimination at the Fair, and also what caused the latest humbug in the community about the Fair's Negro Days.

Bernard rose the next morning with the depressing saloon scuttlebutt on his mind. He worried how to tell Bernice what he had heard. The last thing he wanted was to break a promise to his daughter so soon after such a favorable reunion.

Bernard didn't know how else to tell Bernice the discouraging news; he let it tumble out in the middle of breakfast.

"Here's da dope, Bernice. I heard last night dat da leaders of da colored organizations are askin' everybody to stay home from our celebratin' at da Fair, because our people are bein' mistreated." Her father went on, "Like everywhere else, da white folks don't want us eatin' in da cafes and restaurants dere.

"D'Eighth Illinois Infantry from Chicago, one of da most decorated units dat fought in Cuba back in ninety-eight was invited to march in da Negro Day Parade today. I heard when da Fair people found out dat d'Eighth Illinois was all Negro, dey was told dey couldn't set up camp with da white regiments in da Fairground Army Barracks!"

Bernard balked and wondered if times would ever change; and started up again.

"Marie, dey told dem dey had to camp somewhere else. So, dey backed out of da parade. Dey didn't bother to come down here. Den da Fair people cancelled da whole parade because so many other colored units backed out, too."

Bernice listened to her father. She thought: I guess I haven't traveled far enough North, but she had dreamed of going to the Fair ever since she knew she was coming to St. Louis. She couldn't let the same old small-mindedness stand in her way.

"Daddy, please let's still go. We can pack our own lunch," suggested Bernice. "You know," she reasoned, "that's just what white people want, for us to stay home, so they don't have to pay us no mind. Why we could put a lot on their minds, if we filled the fairgrounds with colored picnickers, is what I think. Then those restaurants could see all that "colored" money they aren't gettin'!"

"But tell me dis, y'all. How can dey have a World's Fair and welcome everybody in da world but us colored folks? Our backs built dis country!" Bernard questioned, but he wasn't expecting a justifiable answer.

By the end of breakfast, Bernard consented to accompany Bernice to the Fair. Maria chose not to go with them, but went to work instead. She thought they'd be plenty hungry when they returned and she would have supper ready for them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice made some final "primps" in the mirror. Her long, wavy hair was black, shiny, and frizzy at the ends. She secured her hair skillfully with long hairpins and arranged most of it under her new hat. Two well-placed hat pins were her hat's only defense against a sudden bluster. Ready to go, she and her father said their good-byes to Marie.

She and Bernard waited as several streetcars with room for more riders passed them by. A segregated streetcar, with standing room only, stopped and whizzed them straight to St. Louis' Forest Park, the site of the Fair. Over the main entrance a huge welcome sign greeted over twenty million people throughout the Fair's seven-month run. The sign outlined with electric bulbs read: "1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition–Saint Louis World's Fair."

As they approached the entrance and took their places in the line for coloreds, they were serenaded the same as everybody else by a distant pipe organ that bellowed the sweet Sterling and Mills tune, Meet Me in St. Louis. Bernice hummed along. Bernard placed a "spot" on the ticket counter which admitted them. He was handed back the World's Fair Map. They entered through the Fair's most popular gate that opened onto a mile long promenade called The Pike.

"Look Father! The exhibits are lined up as far as you can see on both sides. Let's go see what's comin' down the Pike," a new phrase Bernice picked up from the newspapers which meant she was asking to go see what's new.

The Pike was the amusement area of the Fair and one of several main areas within the Fair's 142 miles of exhibits. Exhibitors from forty-five nations participated. Assorted structures in a rainbow of colors and of varying themes were erected along the promenade, one after another.

Several thousand exhibits and shows made their debut on the Pike. Some were installed for the duration of the Fair, while others were moved in and out throughout the Fair's run. The Pike also served as the stage for parades, live performances, and a leg of the Third Summer Olympic Games Marathon.

The Fair planners tried to cross-pollinate the two spectacles by having the Marathon snake through the World's Fair venue. The rest of the Olympic events took place on the campus of nearby Washington University. At most, the contests were an intramural competition among American athletic clubs, since only six foreign nations were represented by athletes.

Monday, August 1, the kick-off for Emancipation Days, was Bernice's day at the Fair. Two days commemorated that momentous event in American history which had occurred thirty-nine years prior on April 9, 1865. It was the Fair managers' idea to have a large exhibit of memorabilia from the life and presidency of Abraham Lincoln. However, the Fair couldn't have a celebration of President Lincoln and not include the defining achievement of his administration: the abolishment of slavery.

Each day of the Fair commemorated some recent or historic event or famous person or group, especially if Fair planners thought it would drive up attendance from desirable segments of the populace. Republican and Democratic senators, representatives, and governors from every state and mayors from all the major cities in the nation attended the Fair. Most every state had an exhibit and a commemorative day. Universities, philanthropic groups, and political organizations of every kind had their commemorative days. Indigenous Americans as well as immigrant groups of various nationalities also had their days.

The colored community viewed Emancipation Days as their opportunity to inject their accomplishments and culture into the World's Fair which was otherwise without appreciation of colored people's ingenuity. This is why the colored community called them Negro Days.

As a rule, daily Fair attendance by Negro Americans was small. Scantier numbers of blacks were employed by the Fair; and, the only jobs offered to them were as actors to play slaves inside the Old Plantation exhibit or as porters and custodians. Fair managers turned down every request by colored businessmen to rent exhibit space. So, at the Fair there were no Negro Americans represented by any entrepreneurial or cultural enterprise.

Afro-American leaders across the nation protested, but despite their efforts to discourage attendance, more Negro Americans attended on Negro Days than all the other days of the Fair. Like most visitors, they were eager to see the new inventions and innovations. Many colored citizens had read about some exhibits which colored communities across the nation resented, and which stirred up great controversy around the world. Still, they wanted see for themselves if what they heard or read was true.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Arm in arm, Bernard stroll the Pike with Bernice. Above their heads meringue-dollop clouds floated in a smiling sky. The heat and humidity had not yet reached the expected high. Bernard carried the basket with their lunch inside, while Bernice twirled her opened parasol over her head.

"Dat's a mighty fine hat ch'you got on dere, Miss Bernice." Her father smiled and admired her youthful beauty. His daughter's face was radiant and without flaw.

"Thank you, Father," Bernice beamed with pride. "Rita sent it to me." Then, Bernice reciprocated, "And sir, you're lookin' very sharp yourself!"

Bernice's hat was very fine and she wore it as if it were a crown. Its color was sapphire blue and it had the widest brim she'd ever owned. Tied around the hat was a matching satin bow, ample enough to fill the entire front, a perfect complement to her dress. Bernice's dress was Wedgwood blue with wide lapels and she wore it over a crisp, white ruffled collar. Among the ruffles, she placed the cameo brooch Eleanor gave her before she departed Savannah.

Bernard preferred the sportin' style. He wore a white shirt with a light gray, three-piece suit, a complementary bow tie, his best white straw hat, and on his feet were black and white, cap-toe spectators. Anyone should have been proud to be in their company.

One of the first exhibits near the Pike entrance caught Bernice's attention, the Infant Incubator exhibit. It featured the nursing care of premature babies. Though she had helped care for her little stepbrothers since she was ten, Bernice loved little babies. She chose this exhibit to be her first. After a long wait, the colored fair visitors were allowed to enter.

Nurses attended about fourteen premature infants in glass incubators. The infants were from orphanages and poor families, and all were white. Two or three babies had matured enough to no longer need their incubators and were under observation. The guide explained how the incubators worked and how these new medical devices were able to save infants who would otherwise die without this treatment. The critical role nurses played in the development of these tiny babies was also a new concept. Bernice was impressed and found the nursing of these preemies fascinating work.

Her heart sank when an unimaginable thing happened. She became distressed when she watched a nurse gather up an infant who was outside of its incubator. It had died unnoticed. The nurse tried to conceal the infant's death from the audience by swaddling it before she took it into the next room. But, Bernice caught a glimpse and was staggered by the baby's blue tinged face and its lifeless little body. The gift of mercy made her sensitive to other people's suffering and her brow became gnarled by sorrow for the baby's mother who wasn't there.

"Why did it die, Daddy?" She dabbed her tears with her handkerchief. "Oh, how sad for its mama." Bernice suffered a familiar ache; the unforgettable hopelessness she had after her real mother passed away.

Bernard was moved also by what he had witnessed. He answered his daughter the best he knew how. "Well, some of us are on earth to learn, while others come to teach. Dat little one was here to teach us dat da road to glory is a rocky one." Bernard hugged his daughter, "Come on baby girl," and led her out of the exhibit.

There was much learning to be done. Fifty percent of the babies suffered and died inside the Infant Incubator exhibit because of the summer heat, and from a virulent microbe brought in by fair visitors which caused diarrhea and dehydration. In an effort to reduce infections, the exhibitors later installed a glass partition between the infants and the public.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At the entrance to the Pike was Music Park. Fairgoers crowded around the stage where piano man Scott Joplin was in the middle of an open air concert. Here and there, handfuls of colored fairgoers stood on the periphery beyond the crowd of whites to hear him play. He performed all his ragtime hits. Bernard and Bernice dallied a while to participate in the rousing reception of this beloved musician adopted by St. Louisans. The scene was joyful, upbeat, and punctuated with enthusiastic applause. Bernice giggled when she observed how much her father enjoyed the music, as everyone did. After several numbers, they strolled further down the Pike.

Every twenty paces or so, Bernard greeted and shook the hands of friends and acquaintances, and made introductions to her. Bernice loved to hear her father introduce her as his daughter. Because of his gregarious personality and his knack for "knowing the odds" on baseball games, Bernard knew many people. However, graciousness came natural to him. If in earshot, he spoke to people he didn't know. At other times, he nodded in a gesture of respect and solidarity as is still the custom among African American men.

Bernice saw many joyous scenes of happenstance reunions with family and friends, and some larger gatherings of families who planned to meet at the Fair as well.

From time to time, she observed several groups of colored fairgoers huddled together in deep dispute over something.

"Dad, those people over there look angry; and there's a woman cryin'. I wonder why they're so upset."

"I don't know, but goin' by what dey said at da Rosebud last night, everybody who went to da Fair left angry in some way or another."

Like most trouble, when you see it coming you can be on your toes and guard yourself against it. It's when you're unguarded, being yourself, walking confidently heel and toe, that you unexpectedly notice the crop of pebbles in your shoes, the troublestones that you can never shake out, which remind you that you're Negro in a white society.

Never close enough to decipher why, Bernice braced again for the discrimination she expected to encounter at the Fair and they strolled on undaunted.

The Pike was fragrant with a variety of exotic aromas from food vendors along the promenade and from fine dining rooms inside the cultural exhibits. Fair visitors were treated to an array of foreign cuisines prepared nowhere else, and all for the price of a dollar or two, cheaper from curbside vendors.

Bernice took note of some culinary delights the vendors hawked.

"Ground 'Hamburg' steaks here!" cried one vendor. They were served in restaurants like a regular steak with your choice of potatoes and a vegetable.

"Sausages here!" another vendor shouted. They served them wrapped in hot buns dipped in mustard.

"Pick up your pace with a bottle of Dr Pepper. This new healthy drink will restore your vim and vigor!" offered another.

Bernice saw children run by with several flavors of a fluffy treat called "fairy floss" which looked like cotton on a stick. Another new health food debuting at the Fair was something called peanut butter.

When the advent of Negro Days spread around the city and the country, white attendance fell for those days. Food vendors did not foresee the diminished turn out. Vendors with perishable products were faced with a decision–spoilage and profit loss or sell to the colored fair visitors. By noon the first day of Negro Days, several food vendors opened their counters to black fairgoers. More vendors sold food to them by the start of the second day.

Up ahead, a long line of whites were buying ice cream. Undeterred, the vendor solicited for still more white customers. "Get ch'your ice cream here! A cool and nutritious treat! Step right up and get ch'your ice cream here!"

When they got closer, they noticed the whites standing off to the side licking their ice cream from shallow glass dishes with handles that were held inside their fists.

Next door to the ice-cream stand, a Belgian vendor sold waffle confections to a line of colored people.

"Look over there, Dad. They're sellin' to some of our folks. Let's try somethin'!" Now, considering what her father told her at breakfast, Bernice was enthused about this opportunity to try some unusual Fair foods.

They took places in the line for waffle treats. Bernice considered her choices. There were puffy waffles with powdered sugar sprinkled on top. Some were drizzled with chocolate. Others were topped with nuts or candied fruit. Some were wafer-like and rolled in cigar shapes and dipped in deep dark chocolate.

Still, Bernice was not satisfied: I'd rather have ice cream. She couldn't keep her attention away from the ice-cream stand. The morning had gotten warm early, the streetcar ride was hot and overcrowded, and she was cotton-mouthed. Distracted by the heat, and by the whites whose tongues lapped their ice creams, she remembered the time when she was nearly vanquished by a fever two years prior.

At sixteen, soon after her first visit to Sister Sadie's Whatnot Shop, she fell ill. Bernice thought she was most unfortunate, maybe cursed, because her periods were normally uncomfortable and heavy. But, this time her symptoms alarmed her. She was green with nausea that afternoon and her cramps were more painful than they had ever been. It was as if her pubic area was set afire. As she pleaded with God to take the pain away, she worried about what Eleanor had told her dozens of times, "Ain't nothin' good can come out of that shop!" She also wondered if God was punishing her for having had her fortune read. Bernice had recalled the inner foreboding which warned her against staying in the Whatnot Shop.

In the throes of the illness, a high fever had made Bernice delirious for several days. She drifted into longing for her deceased mother as these sensations of surrender dulled the embers that smoldered deep inside her belly.

While in her delirium, a beautiful woman wearing a halo of cream and lavender clover materialized beside her bed. She looked like a queen. The apparition had a long thick braid which hung over her shoulder. The woman caressed Bernice's cheek and told her, "Not yet, my daughter, there is more for you to do." When she said that, the woman kissed her own two fingers and then placed the kiss on Bernice's lips. The apparition's touch made her lips cold and taste sweet. Rising out of her body, Bernice begged to follow the woman crowned with clover flowers, but the apparition just smiled, turned away from her, then dissolved into air. Bernice's essence rejoined her body as her fever had broken.

Bernice continued to wait for a waffle treat and imagined the taste of the flavors she overheard the white customers request like chocolate, strawberry, pineapple, or one of the more exotic ice cream flavors like cloves, peanut butter, or cucumber.

"Dad, that ice-cream man hasn't done much business, yet he's turned away every colored customer since we've been standin' here." Bernard acknowledged the truth of her observation.

Bernice analyzed further: Maybe the ice-cream vendor is willin' to sell to us colored folks, but isn't willin' to serve us in the glass dishes.

Colored customers wouldn't be able to leave the area until they finished their ice cream since the glass dishes had to be returned. Whites didn't want to eat from a dish a colored ate from, even after being washed, nor did they want to be in the company of them.

An idea came to Bernice and she wondered if it would work. She was next to order a waffle.

"If you'd be so kind, I'd like one of your thinnest and warmest waffles, plain please," she said to the clerk. He raised a brow at her, but gave the order to fill her unusual request.

The clerk sensed the two of them were together and said to Bernard in a Flemish accent, "And, what'll you have?"

"One of dose wid powdered sugar, please," Bernard said and he pointed to the one he wanted. The confections were five cents each. He fished a "thin piece" out of his change pocket and placed it on the counter. He received his waffle right away. After two other customers bought waffles, the clerk gave Bernice her warm wafer-thin waffle, and they started on their way.

Puzzled by the look on his daughter's face, he asked, "What's on your mind, Bernice?"

"I want to try gettin' some ice cream. Don't you want some, too?"

"How do you think you can get ice cream when he's been turnin' down colored people all mornin'? You said it yourself."

"I have an idea."

"Well, I do like ice cream, but it's made from milk, and whenever I drink milk I regret it." He had no idea why milk upset his stomach. "You go ahead, though. I'll wait for you over dere."

It disappointed her that Bernard couldn't share this fortuitous opportunity with her, but off she went toward the ice-cream stand. Bernard watched over her. It happened there was nobody in line for ice cream when she walked up. There were some white onlookers, but she pretended not to see them.

Bernice turned on some charm. "Please, sir, I'm mighty parched for a scoop of your delicious ice cream. I won't need a dish, I brought my own." At that instant, she held up her waffle, which she had rolled into a funnel, like she had done her train ticket, and placed a dime on the counter. She again pretended to be oblivious of the "color line" she was asking to cross.

The ice-cream clerk took a mental note of her and some time to think about the implications of her request. Bernice heard the wheels whir in his head. Then he snatched the dime off the counter and barked, "For you, all I have is vanilla!"

"Ok, that'll do, thank you." She was deflated because she was denied her choice of flavors. From one of the buckets packed in ice next to the counter, the clerk scooped a lump of vanilla and plopped it in her makeshift cone. She walked away.

She didn't know it, but other colored fairgoers stood back and also watched her to see if the vendor would sell to her. When they saw her success, they stopped her and asked how she was able to buy the ice cream. Bernice was more than happy to share her idea of the waffle cone with them.

She joined her father on a bench in the shade of a tree.

"Ooh, so cold," said Bernice when she took a big bite of her ice-cream cone and experienced the familiar ache in her forehead. The ice cream was smooth and sweet all at the same time. In between licks Bernice told her father about her waffle idea and the clerk's attitude. While Bernard enjoyed his powdered sugar waffle, he listened to his daughter and admired her poise and intelligence. Then, she told him why she enjoyed ice cream so much.

"Every spring the pastor has Newcomers Day, a special service of prayer and praise for new church members; and there's also a baptismal ceremony. The church has a big potluck supper afterwards. We never miss it.

"But, when I was sixteen, I was too sick with fever to go. A school mate heard I was ill and brought me ice cream. Back home we seldom had ice cream. Mama said it helped my fever, so church members brought me ice cream every day until my fever broke. I learned later that my life was among those prayed for at the Newcomers prayer service."

Bernice didn't tell her father how she had begged to follow the clover-crowned apparition, her chance to join her departed birth mother whom she still missed. Nor did she share the disappointment of awakening from her delirium and learning that she had recovered.

Bernice stopped talking to catch up with her melting treat. She remembered the moment she was baptized in the stream which ran behind the church that same spring. Members of the congregation, her stepparents, and siblings stood along the bank. Eleanor warned her not to swallow the water; it was unfit to drink without boiling first. The stream, swollen by the spring rains, was at her hips. She was excited and scared stiff, but she trusted the pastor. Hearing his words, "I baptize you, Bernice, in the name of the . . ." She was distracted by emotions and by her readying to be dunked. She lay back in the pastor's arms with her eyes closed as he lowered her. Bernice dug in her bare heels and soft mud squished between her toes. The cold water washed over her face, flooded her ears and nose, and a second later the pastor raised her. The water drained from her face and her white dress and head wrap were soaked. Bernice giggled and cried at the same time. Down deep she was joyous and airy, afloat like a helium balloon. Feeling in God's favor for the first time since her mother died, she had vowed to walk the right path. Something as simple as ice cream reminded Bernice of her vow of faith and of how it saved her from death.

After they finished their confections, Bernice looked back to where she bought the ice cream and already there were at least fifteen colored customers in line with cone-shaped waffles, waiting to buy a scoop or two of ice cream to be plopped into them. Bernice and her father resumed their stroll. As they passed by the ice-cream line of colored fairgoers, Bernice felt satisfied with herself, like she achieved something important. She had.

As the white fairgoers discovered that waffle cones allowed them to eat their frozen treat and continue their stroll, they, too, wanted their ice cream served in cones instead of in the glass dishes. Ice-cream vendors and waffle confectioners hustled to accommodate the demand and the waffle cone became the most popular way to eat ice cream at the Fair.

The newspapers would record only that the ice-cream cone was an idea of an ice-cream vendor at the St. Louis World's Fair, but Bernice and her father knew better.

She had a renewed exuberance. "Dad, I want to see everything!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There were numerous exhibits along the Pike. Most had one, two, or three story facades with magnificent details and entrances that enticed passersby to come in for a look. Ten acres alone were needed to replicate the Tyrolean Alps in Tyrol Village, complete with mountainous scenery, costumed inhabitants and singers. The concessions there featured Swiss and Austrian cuisines.

Asia Village brought the Orient to St. Louis. The exhibit offered fantastic life-sized examples of temple architecture, and showcased hundreds of Asian nationals demonstrating popular recreational activities. Bernard was more interested in the performance by an exotic dancer named Little Egypt. The fan and belly dancers were a hit with all the male fairgoers.

"Bernard! How ya enjoyin' the Fair?" a man shouted from a distance.

"Hello Leroy!" The man was an usher at church. He saw them as he came out of the Hagenbeck's Animals show. "Yes, indeed we are! Let me introduce you to my daughter, Bernice. She's visitin' from Savannah."

"Pleased to meet ch'ya, Miss. He tipped his hat and turned back to Bernard, "Have ya'll seen this one yet?"

"No, is it good?"

"Yeah, man. Have ya ever seen a real hippopotamus or a rhinoceros? You also get to see the big cats, and giraffes, and other African animals like they are in the jungle. And, if you're in time for a show, some animals perform tricks on command."

"Maybe the next show," said Bernard.

"Well, I gotta get back to the Missus. Nice to meet ch'ya Miss Bernice. Bernard, see you in church." Leroy left them and joined his wife and children.

The next attraction they came to was called Over & Under the Sea. This exhibit featured aquatic animals never before seen by most fairgoers. Bernice and her father were intrigued by the funny looking sea creatures, like the sea horses and anemones.

Japanese Village showed off some of Japan's famous architecture, but the more interesting features of this exhibit were the displays of exotic plant life and the ornate footbridges over the beautiful water gardens that swam with colorful koi fish.

Bernice and her father watched other fairgoers board the trams to ride or get in boats to float by exhibits like Old St. Louis which featured the city's early beginnings as a fur trading post. In graphic details the Galveston Flood exhibit reproduced the aftermath of that city's recent horrific hurricane in 1900. Other rides gave fairgoers a "firsthand" encounter with unusual phenomena like the Magic Whirlpool and of spiritual places like the imaginative Creation and the Hereafter. Other exhibits were "living" replicas of foreign cities such as the Streets of Cairo, Trip to Paris and Streets of Seville.

All those rides were popular and crowded by the time Bernice and her father arrived there. After standing in line for twenty minutes, it was Bernice's turn to purchase their tickets for the tram that would take them through the Trip to Paris exhibit.

"There'll be at least an hour delay to board the trams, Miss," the booth attendant said. Bernice looked over to where colored fairgoers waited with tickets in hand while white fairgoers, who had just purchased tickets, hopped into trams in front of them.

"No thanks!" Disgruntled, as the delay was unfair, Bernice returned to her father without tickets and they left.

Segregation caused colored folks to wait for extensive periods before they were allowed to enter the majority of these wonderful displays of human ingenuity and creativity. If the admission of colored fairgoers inconvenienced white fairgoers, the colored people were turned away from the mobile parts of the exhibits or from exhibits all together.

"Over dere looks like a fine place to have us some lunch, Bernice." He pointed toward the area where some colored families were having a picnic. "I'm hungry, aren't ch'you?"

Bernard could tell that Bernice was disappointed by not being allowed the full experience of some of the exhibits and that she was still in a funk over the death of the incubator baby. Full grasp of what he had told her about the purpose for the child's death eluded her. Well, Bernard had always said: "hunger is the master of reason," except he pronounced master as "massa."

His question distracted Bernice from her doldrums and she responded, "Yes, Dad, I think it's time to eat somethin'."

So they strolled in the direction of the picnickers and chose a nice bench facing the promenade. Bernice sat at one end and her father sat at the other. She unfolded the white table cloth Marie had beautifully embroidered with flowers and draped it over the bench seat between them. Marie had prepared a grand lunch of fried chicken drumsticks, biscuits, and apples. She had wrapped a canteen of ice-cold lemonade in thick layers of newspapers to insulate it from the heat.

On the space between them, Bernice placed the lunch, a matching embroidered napkin, and a tin cup for each of them. She poured her father a cup of lemonade from the canteen. No longer as cold as they liked it, but at least the lemonade was wet. They relaxed, talked more, and got to know each other further over their lunch.

"Father, when I was a little girl, I imagined you were home with me and I'd serve you, Hannah, and my dolls dandelion tea and mud crumpets," laughed Bernice.

"Mmmm, and dey sho was so good, baby girl!" he said and they laughed together. However, her comment evoked a pang of regret within him. "I'm sorry I wasn't dere for you girls. Eleanor's letters about ch'yall and da memories of my last visit wid ch'you back in ninety-nine was all I had to hold on to. I wish I could've brought ch'you girls home wid me, but I didn't have da means to take care of you, and I already knew dat ch'you and your sisters were settled in a new life wid Eleanor and John and da boys."

Bernard clammed up because to go further would've sounded like lame excuses.

"We missed you terribly when we were growin' up, but I'm just thankful I can be with you now." Nothing Bernice could say would relieve her father's regret.

"Your Uncle Charles is lookin' forward to seein' you. He's droppin' by tomorrow afternoon." The prospect of seeing her uncle again excited her. Bernard's brother, Charles Silverson, lived in the front apartment at the same address.

Bernice expressed how she enjoyed Joplin's piano performance earlier. "I've never seen anybody make notes fly all over the place like that," and she wiggled her fingers across an air piano in front of her. Of course, her exposure to live piano music was mostly from sacred music she heard in church.

"You should see him play at da Rosebud. It's standin' room only when he's dere and when he plays, da whole place starts jumpin'!"

However, his comment was not meant to be an invitation to Bernice, because the Rosebud Café was no proper place for a lady like his daughter. Nevertheless, she was enamored with Joplin's music.

"I'm assigned to Mr. Joplin's table when he's at da Rosebud. Matter of fact, he's dere tomorrow night. You know workin' don't seem like work when he's dere, and he tips great I can tell you dat."

Nearby, Negro children rolled in the thick, fresh-cut grass and ran from tree to tree playing a game of tag. A distance away, white children played on the latest style of equipment inside Model Playground, an area where colored children were not allowed. Hannah would love to be here now, thought Bernice when she recalled the days when her sister was content to play in the patch of dirt, yards from that old chinaberry tree back home.

Since the Negro Day parade scheduled that hour was cancelled, Bernice and her father enjoyed to the Olympic Marathon medals presentations within eyeshot. They watched the people crowded around the awards site and traded comments about the antics of some fairgoers that passed by them on the Pike. By the end of the meal, Bernice had regained her cheerfulness. They studied the World's Fair Map to decide what to see next.

"The Cliff Dwellers exhibit looks interestin'," said Bernice. This exhibit replicated the adobe communal dwellings and culture of American Indians of the Southwest. "So does the Moving Picture Theater." Bernice had never seen a "movie" and neither had most fairgoers. "Dad, I don't think we have time to see the "Palaces" at all."

These were exhibits devoted to the major disciplines of art, science, and technology and they were housed in whitewashed, semi-permanent buildings that were so large and so ornate, they were called palaces such as the Electricity Palace, the Transportation Palace, the Industrial Palace, and the Liberal Arts Palace to name four.

In the Palaces one could see the wireless telegraph in operation which sent breaking news stories from the Fair to newspapers around the country. Some people saw the telephone for the first time and other Edison wonders from his private collection. The entire Fair venue had electric lights and Thomas Edison himself oversaw the electrical installations. X-rays, fingerprint analysis, and batteries were on display, as well as locomotives and many gasoline, steam, and electric automobiles.

New advances in horticulture, farming, and food processing were exhibited. There were popular figures sculpted from a variety of foodstuffs including a sculpture of President Theodore Roosevelt carved from butter.

New education techniques and materials for the blind and deaf were presented.

Mining methods for copper, silver, gemstones, and fuel refinery were exhibited. A coal deposit was found during excavations, so the Fair planners developed it into a working coal mine to service the power needs of the Exposition.

The abundance and variety of our nation's forests, fish, and wildlife were presented. The Birdcage exhibit was constructed large enough to allow free flight for the specimens inside.

The works of famous artists from around the world were on display.

And, the Fair presented still more of every facet of society, from the industrial to the cultural.

After more study of the Fair Map, Bernice perked up, "Here's the Anthropology exhibit. The caption reads 'featuring Congo Pygmies.' " Bernice pointed to the area farthest west on the Map.

"I think dat's d'exhibit everybody's upset about, but if you want, we can go see what all da fuss is about for ourselves."

Bernice would figure out later the Fair was not only a showcase of American progress and innovation, the Fair also meant to uphold the intellectual superiority of white people to the exclusion of people who looked like her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anthropology had gained respect as a science by 1904. Anthropologists used the international stage of the World's Fair to reinforce their errant theories about racial hierarchy and to show the inferiority of indigenous peoples around the world. In this respect, the Fair managers did much to promote white colonialism as one of the underlying themes of this grand Exposition.

Bernard and Bernice ended their search of the Fair Map and left for the Anthropology exhibit a good distance away. For travel across the fairgrounds, some fairgoers rode burros, camels, and elephants. Others rode in carts pulled by ox-like animals from the Far East called zebus. Many people rode in authentic jinrikisha pulled by native Japanese people.

They hurried toward a young Japanese man with an empty jinrikisha parked next to the curb. Bernard tried to hail his attention.

"Good afternoon, sir," then he tried to hand the man two cutes, fifty cents, to cart them to the Anthropology exhibit.

"No can take. No take," as he shook his head no when he saw that Bernard and Bernice were together.

Boy, didn't they catch on quick! Bernice shifted her annoyance inward after the jinrikisha operator turned down their patronage. Discrimination against colored fairgoers by the non-white foreign exhibitors and operators surprised Bernice.

"Come on," Bernard said, "we can stop at some exhibits along the way," and took Bernice by the hand. They had to walk. A half-block later, when the same rickshaw operator trotted past them, they saw that a white couple had hired the rig.

Something else caught Bernice's eye, "Look Father!"

Standing guard outside the entrance to Cliff Dwellers were at least seven totem poles, eight to ten feet tall, marvelously carved and painted by the families they represented. In this living exhibit, Native Americans demonstrated beading, the weaving of rugs, baskets, and the sewing techniques of moccasins and clothes. They also performed courtship dances, the famed snake dance, and other ceremonial dances as well.

Bernice and Bernard walked on and were amazed by an outdoor ice skating rink where a snowstorm was created with real ice and it took place every day despite the ninety-degree temperatures.

Before long, their way intersected with the Fair train tracks. Whistles blew and electric lights blinked warning pedestrians to STOP for the Intramural Railway Train, another way to travel the Fair, that is, if you were white. Bernice and her father watched as the miniature train passed slowly in front of them and on down the tracks, which coursed throughout the fairgrounds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To give contrast to Anglo-Saxon achievement, various representations of endemic cultures were popular themes. Cultures unfamiliar to American citizens like Esquimaux Village on the Pike were big successes. Several Native Alaskan families were brought in to "populate" the exhibit. They brought their sleds and dogs with them, and also items made from sealskin such as tents and clothing. Real igloos were on display. They portrayed their customs as best they could and demonstrated tool use and hunting rituals.

However, "living" cultural exhibitions did not translate well for the Negro fair visitor. The reason was because of the Fair exhibitors' insensitivity toward the recent history of slavery in the United States.

Fair planners wanted Negro influences on American culture to remain invisible; because, to acknowledge the ingenuity of colored Americans meant white society couldn't reasonably promote Negro inferiority, nor be able to assume the credit for their inventions and innovations. For whatever reason, World's Fair planners were not interested in crediting discoveries or accomplishments by African Americans.

For instance, George Washington Carver went unrecognized for many patented items unrelated to his peanut research such as rubber substitutes, adhesives, dyes, and pigments.

Lewis Latimer, a contributing member of Thomas Edison's team of inventors, received no fanfare about his patent on the carbon filament which improved the incandescent light bulbs used throughout the Fair.

No credits were given to Granville T. Woods' patents which improved the telegraph and allowed trains in transit to communicate with their depots.

The first successful open heart surgery went unacknowledged, performed in 1893 by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams.

Numerous other life-changing inventions and innovations in every facet of art, agriculture, medicine, science, and technology that represented the ingenuity of nearly twelve percent of the American population were completely ignored by Fair planners.

So, what did Bernice and her father or any of the fairgoers, black or white, learn about black Americans' contributions toward the future at the 1904 World's Fair? Besides the ragtime innovations in music performed at the Fair by musicians like Scott Joplin and Thomas Turpin, they learned absolutely nothing. Instead, Fair planners chose to regurgitate the fresh memories of Negro Americans' enslavement.

Old Plantation was part of the Anthropology exhibit. White fairgoers were amused by the live reenactment of the days of slavery, but the Negro community found it offensive. Colored folks saw it as an antiseptic portrayal of dutiful cotton-picking slaves at work in the fields, while the paternal master and his family enjoyed the genteel life in the "big" house. Slavery was too recent in the lives of colored citizens to be an acceptable subject worthy of the live stage, and wouldn't be for a long time. Given this, the exhibit that colored fairgoers were most appalled by was the display of black peoples and culture from the African Continent inside the Anthropology exhibit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice and her father waited outside the Anthropology entrance until enough colored people gathered to fill the exhibit. They heard the African drums and chants. They also tolerated insulting chatter from some whites who left the exhibit. The whites laughed, jeered, and yelled out racial slurs loud enough to be heard by everyone in the area. Soon, Bernard and Bernice's turn came to file into the exhibit.

They were in the middle of the group. From a sheltered platform that stretched the length of the exhibit, Bernice and the rest of the group looked out over its entire breadth. Every detail: the tangles of trees, vines, and the undergrowth of shrubbery; the dome-shaped huts made from large oval leaves onto frames made of saplings; the fire pits; and every aspect of an African village and rain forest was recreated right in front of them, including its exposure to the weather.

Bernice had read little about Africa. She considered this an opportunity to learn. There were four African men. One played a small drum, two others sang and demonstrated ritual dances, and another reenacted hunting techniques. They were adorned with palm leaves and cloths covered their loins. Ornaments of bone hung about their necks and dusty clay soil covered their feet and ankles. Their heads were shorn and their ebony skin was greased with pomade which made them gleam in the sunlight.

The men lived in the huts of their simulated village. They were confined to these unnatural environs day and night throughout their stay in St. Louis, regardless of the weather. One night a thunderstorm drove the Africans from their Fair village and a nearby Indian school gave them temporary shelter.

The Africans were forced to stay longer in the United States, because of their popularity. They complained and spoke out about their dissatisfaction with being treated as if they were livestock. They demanded more food, blankets, warmer clothes, and better housing.

As the program got underway, the singing stopped and the drumming grew quieter, then the guide walked out and spoke in the fashion of a circus ring master.

"Ladieeeees and Gentlemennn! Today, I reveal to you the most recent anthropological discovery of primitive humans and their habitat."

The guide was astute. He avoided words such as "subhuman beings" and "monkeys" for the Negro audiences.

"The St. Louis World's Fair proudly presents African Pygmieeeees, one of the most primitive of beings on all the earrrrrth! They are all the way from the interior forests of the continent of Africaaaaah, from a place called the Belgian Congo!"

Bernice heard murmurs amongst the group.

"These Pygmy boyzzzzz were brought to the United States by Samuel P. Verner, a most honorable African explorer. Mr. Verner said the Pygmies greeted him with drums, songs, food, and palm wine, and they danced and carried him about the village in a hammock."

Bernice and everyone else in the group were frustrated by the term "boys" as these Africans were adult men despite their small stature. They empathized with the diminutive yet regal souls who had no earthly idea of the exploitative forum into which they were duped.

At the time, Bernice hadn't gained a broad enough perspective to understand that this reproduction was created to convey the imperialistic power and paternalism that Anglo-Saxon countries wielded over the aboriginal peoples in the territories they conquered. But, she knew how this spectacle made her feel: This "living" exhibit stuff feels like an excuse for a freak show, a human zoo! From that perspective, Bernice learned who this Exposition was about–them, not us. Then, those hateful words Bernice heard outside the exhibit ricocheted in her head, words like–the blackest savages I ever did see, chimps, goblins–and other familiar racial slurs meant to spite her and people of color. Now, she understood why Negro leaders across the nation were in such a rumpus about the Fair. She was not the only one shifting pebbles inside their shoes; she was not the only one enduring the drudgery of the "rock" on her back.

However, the show had just begun. The guide pointed to one particular African man and called him out, "This boy here is named Ota Benga! He was born in 1881 in the forest of the Congo. He stands four feet eleven inches tall and weighs not much more than one hundred pounds!"

More murmurs elicited from the group.

With a feigned sympathetic change of face and voice, the guide placated the audience. "Mr. Verner rescued Ota Benga from a slave market and paid for his freedom in salt and cloth." Then, with sarcasm he raised his voice, "Why, he even understands English!" The guide made a big sweep of his arm toward Ota and shouted to him, "Smile real big for the people, Ota!"

Ota complied and bared his teeth to them. His teeth looked like a whitewashed picket fence. Each tooth had been filed to a sharp point. Ota looked upon his audience from one end to the other, all the while he mugged as wide as he could. He pierced all their hearts. The group moaned in dismay, because unbeknownst to Ota, he was made to parody the racist caricatures in the newspaper comics that colored citizens had yet been unable to suppress.

The guide continued. "Pygmieeeees hunt elephant and hoofed animals with spears. They also set snares to trap small game," the guide added while shaking his finger at them, "but Pygmies are not above stealing from the "big" Negroes around them!"

That joke fell flat and he had made this travesty personal to everyone present. The guide's entire script preserved the negative stereotypical attitudes among the white fairgoers.

Bernice imagined the laughter that last remark drew from white audiences: Like the whites ain't stoled from every people they've come in contact with. She was defensive.

On the guide's cue, the African men demonstrated more domestic chores such as palm frond weaving and food preparation. While they "performed," they cooked their own exotic cuisines. The cooking aromas were one of the few pleasant features Bernice's group enjoyed at the exhibit. That was true, until the guide made a mockery of this, too. Some dishes included an assortment of live insect fare to everyone's surprise, which the guide described in ghastly details with the intention to horrify the Western palates of all the fair visitors.

"Oh, m' Lawd, m' Lawd," Bernice heard a woman's distinct pleas from the front of the group.

A man answered aloud, "How can dey get away with some'm like dis!"

Having had enough of the disrespectful expo of the Pygmy men and their culture, segments of the group filed out of the exhibit before the show was over. Bernice followed them led by her father. However, their sensibilities continued to be assaulted as they passed through the adjoining Philippines exhibit.

This exhibit was a similar, but grander collection of over eleven hundred indigenous Filipino peoples recently conquered by the United States in 1902. Moro Village and Luzon Village were re-creations of native villages to showcase the cultures of a variety of Philippine Islanders. The Igorotte and Negrito peoples were included among the representatives.

They left the Philippines exhibit area via a footbridge over Leguna de Bay, a beautiful man-made lagoon, yet a stark contrast to the way they were diminished spiritually. A long silence wedged between them as they tried to digest what they had experienced.

Bernice learned the Fair rumors going around were mostly true. She no longer guessed what angered the colored folks she saw huddled earlier. She knew. She battled for her own self-esteem having witnessed the blatant reality of how little American society valued the innate equality of people of color. She identified with her community's anger, but she was wise enough to know that anger was also a component of fear.

Bernice turned to her father and broke her silence, "Our people are held back from success. I think we fear it's true what white people say about us. The nerve of them usin' science to say they're better than us, just like they used the Bible against us back in the slave days."

Bernard was pleased to see that his young daughter had a good handle on the bigoted world they were living in.

A childhood memory bubbled to the surface for Bernice. One day, her reluctance to awake early made her mother late for a morning shopping trip. Eleanor liked to arrive when a store opened to avoid the awkwardness of having to wait until after white customers finished their purchases. She promised to take Bernice so she could spend a few pennies of her earnings for helping with the laundry. At age nine, a few pennies bought a sock full of hard candies. Her mother had finished her shopping, but by the time Bernice made up her mind, the store clerk ignored her to help white children who came in with their mothers. Bernice's enthusiasm was dashed. She came home in tears and had to return on another morning to spend her pennies.

"I think they see so much potential in our people they're tryin' to keep us from seein' it, too." Bernice looked in her father's eyes, "Don't white people know they won't be totally free of us until we're totally free of them? Free to take care of our own affairs and be who we really are!"

After that statement, Bernard knew his daughter was wise beyond her years.

She didn't realize what had spurred her from the inside. Bernice exclaimed to her father, "I was raised to know that I'm not inferior to anybody! God'll show me how to get around this devil's work." Somehow, she affirmed.

Bernard admired his daughter's spunk. He saw that Eleanor and John had raised her well and he would be forever grateful to them.

Bernice made herself a promise: No one will ever again try and tell me what I can and cannot do. She promised to rely on the gifts God gave her to be anything He wanted her to be. She tried to whip up her unconfident faith: I'm a child of God, He loves me.

Bernice had good intentions, but like every earthbound sojourner, she didn't know if when the inevitable tests and trials came, her faith would be ready or strong enough to stand on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the time Bernice finished her promises, they were in front of the Agricultural Palace next to another one of the Fair's splendid attractions, a gigantic timepiece called the Floral Clock. It actually worked and they were stupefied by it.

The clock face and numerals were fashioned from plants and flowers that opened up at specific hours of the day. The clock was 112 feet in diameter and the minute hand was 74 feet long. The hour hand was three-quarters that length. It was such a marvel to behold that Bernice and her father walked around its circumference twice. It smells pretty, like Savannah, and then many more thoughts of home invaded her mind, but she swept them aside for later.

Now mid-afternoon, the day's expected high temperature had arrived. Bernard was steamed, but he wasn't sure if he was steamed from the heat or from the Pygmy exhibit.

"Sho could go for some of dat ice cold tea he's yellin' 'bout over dere," Bernard signified in the direction of the Ceylon & India Tea Pavilion on the avenue in front of the Floral Clock.

"Me, too, but I don't see them sellin' to our folks," said Bernice after she panned the Tea Pavilion. She saw a queue of only white gentlemen.

Bernard gave her a wink. "Well, you wait over dere," and he eyed the empty bench in the opposite direction, "I'll be right back." Her father checked the points of his handlebar mustache, straightened his bow tie, and took the empty canteen out of the picnic basket.

When Bernice realized his plan, she became concerned as he walked away from her. She watched for signs of trouble and dared not take her eyes off him.

Bernard marched to the Tea Pavilion with the same entitled deportment he had observed in white men. He took his place in line and none of the whites ahead of him or behind him guessed he was any different from them. When his turn came, he stepped forward.

"Ah, welcome, sir!" the Ceylonese clerk said and bowed to the distinguished gentleman before him.

"Thank you, sir! A fine day isn't it?" said Bernard with crispness and clarity, and he gestured back with his hat.

"Yes sir! Perfect day. Perfect day. You, some ice tea? Cool down. Take order?" asked the clerk in broken English.

"Two glasses of your sweetest iced tea, sir!" Bernard handed the clerk a "cute" from his change pocket. Completely unaware that Bernard was a colored man, the clerk took the quarter direct from his palm and put a nickel in change in its place, then he bowed to him a second time. Bernard placed the "blue" in his pocket.

The clerk took two frosty glasses, filled them, and placed them on the counter. Bernard gripped the glasses of iced tea feeling as if he had recovered the Holy Grail. Triumphant, he stepped aside.

"Enjoy, sir. Return glasses . . . barrel on right, pleez."

"Yes sir. I'm sure this will be the best iced tea I've ever tasted. Good afternoon!"

"Have . . . good day. Next!" The clerk directed his attention to the next man in line.

Bernard emptied the first glass of tea into the canteen. The second glass filled the canteen to the brim and he drank what was left over. The tea was sweet and awesome. He placed the empty glasses inside the barrel marked "used glasses," and returned to Bernice with a full canteen.

"I got iced tea for us, baby girl!" Her father rejoiced as if he had slain a dragon for her.

Bernice looked lovingly at her father because she knew the trouble there could have been if someone recognized him as colored. He clicked her cup and toasted their victory, and she spilt over in giggles. They sat back and savored their frosty coup.

They had faced racial discrimination all day long and Bernard wondered if the Fair was a good idea for either one of them, but Bernice was determined to make the most of the rest of their day. They talked about pleasant things like the tallest structure at the Fair, the Observation Wheel, which stood 265 feet above the ground, and was visible from the streets outside the fairgrounds.

"Let's ride the Observation Wheel next." Bernard agreed and hoped they would be allowed to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They finished their tea and strolled their way to the Wheel. They were lucky enough to purchase two of the last seats in the passenger compartment reserved for colored fairgoers.

Each passenger car had a guide and once the ride was underway he recited his script. Bernice and her father grasped hold of their seats when the Wheel jump-started and gently lifted them into the air.

"The Observation Wheel was built by George Ferris," said the guide. "It has thirty-six passenger cars and each car can hold sixty people, thus the Wheel has the capacity to accommodate 2,160 passengers!" The passengers were astonished; they babbled for several seconds after his comment.

The guide pressed on. "The Wheel will make two revolutions and each will take fifteen to twenty minutes to complete. For those who desire, groups may rent the passenger compartments for longer periods for receptions and dining."

One of the passengers leaned across to tell Bernard, "Don't y'all believe that. Several of us tried to, but they wouldn't rent a car to us colored folks."

As the car neared its highest point, it became blustery. Everyone held on to their hats. Bernard and Bernice looked over the entire expanse of the Fair venue. They saw that every spire on each building was topped with the flutter of a flag. They noted how the paths and walkways intersected with the railway tracks and they observed the patterns made by the green spaces, pools, and lagoons. People in miniature scurried about the fairgrounds. It looks like an ant colony, Bernice imagined.

Meanwhile, the guide gave the history behind two or three of the one thousand magnificent white figures sculpted for the Fair that dotted the landscape below them.

The guide also introduced all the exhibit palaces, the major attractions, and the general layout of the grounds, as well as the more distant points of interest along the St. Louis skyline.

"Good gracious, Dad! You can see all the way to the Mississippi!" and Bernice saw the horizons in the other directions, too. A large flock of sparrows flew close by. Bernice experienced a rush of inspiration that she hadn't rejoiced in since being baptized. For a time, her soul bonded with all of creation and glowed in perfect harmony.

"Look up, Bernice!" her father said. A silver dirigible floated high overhead as it circled the Fair. In another direction, red, yellow, and green hot air balloons hovered over the fairgrounds–truly a beautiful sight.

On the Wheel's second revolution, Bernice and Bernard saw other things they missed the first time, like how the Fair venue was not on flat land. The land undulated around mounds and hills which created interesting vantage points and valleys. Every square foot of ground was artistically landscaped with shrubbery and colorful flowers. Each building was constructed for maximum drama as well as utility. The passengers were giddy with excitement, pointing, "oohing," and "aahing" over what they saw. Bernice wondered if her euphoria was caused by the altitude. Whatever the cause, she thought: I love bein' as high as the birds in the sky.

"Daddy, this is wonderful!" Up high, the world seemed harmonious and tranquil to her: I wish I could come up here any time I wanted. Then, much too quickly the ride ended.

The sun was low in the sky and the afternoon heat was subsiding. The ride on the Wheel allowed them to recuperate from their long day and to begin what would be their last stroll before nightfall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As they left the area, Bernard was attracted by activity that made his heart gallop. He detected the familiar sounds of a game of chance taking place and he got excited to check it out. A crowd of whites were gathered around the Woolson Spice Company booth. He recognized the name because their brand of coffee, Lion Coffee, was served all day long in the Rosebud Café where he worked.

"Bernice, I gotta see what's goin' on over dere." So, they agreed to meet later at the West Lagoon near the Fair's most dramatic feature called the Cascades.

When he got to the Woolson booth, Bernard was handed an entry form. He read it and learned that Lion Coffee was sponsoring a presidential vote contest at the Fair and another one nationwide in the newspapers. The entry form read, "The grand prize is $2,500 or a total of $5,000 to the contestant nearest correct on both our World's Fair and the Newspaper Presidential Vote Contests." That total sum in 1904 is equivalent to $100,000 in Twenty-First-Century dollars. There was also a thousand-dollar prize, two five hundred-dollar prizes, and several lesser prizes.

All around him, everyone was in a jovial mood. The crowd bantered about votes in the millions, and speculated what might be the most intelligent guess. Bernard, himself a betting man, decided to enter the contest. He'd never voted before, he never had a reason to care how many votes were cast in any election. With no idea what to guess, he decided to eavesdrop to get "in the ballpark," to get a feel for the numbers people were wagering.

While her father was away, Bernice, with her parasol and the empty picnic basket in hand, went to see the centerpiece of the World's Fair.

Bernice joined the other fair visitors there and was awestruck by the grandeur before her. She stood in a sunken venue inside a bowl-like area that fanned forward up a hill and halfway around on both sides. At the pinnacle of the hill was the large, white, ornate Fine Arts Palace that housed 135 rooms with works of art from all over the world. The Palace overlooked a stair-stepped array of fourteen whitewashed columns which alternated with giant seated sculptures. Together they were called the Colonnade of States, because each figure and column represented one of the fourteen states carved out of the Louisiana Territory.

The Colonnades also included three buildings. Two of them were domed restaurants of cylindrical architecture that flanked each end. In the center of the Colonnades was the three-thousand-seat Festival Hall building, capped with a colossal dome where live theater and symphony concerts were performed. Stairs placed along the outside of the Colonnades gave fairgoers access to the buildings, sculptures, and the columns.

In a spectacular feat of engineering, water surged from each base of the three Colonnade buildings and created waterfalls. Each waterfall flowed separately down the hill and over sloping concrete tiers, gradually fanning out until the falls crashed into the Grand Basin in front of where Bernice stood. They made a powerful sound. These waterfalls were called the Cascades for which Joplin named his special musical score. For yet more drama, two fountains sprang from the center of the Basin.

Overhead, a sunset sky stained billowy clouds with coral and violet. Around the Basin's jabbering fountains, reflections of coral and violet mixed in percolating puddles. On each side of the Grand Basin, the colorful sky was quiet and perfectly reflected in the mirrored waters of the East and West Lagoons.

Bernice listened to the great pipe organ inside Festival Hall as it played a repertoire of waltzes that mesmerized everyone. The organ's richness and fullness resonated throughout the sunken area of the Basin. Speechless to describe the magnificence of what she saw and heard, she thought: no picture postcard could ever capture the beauty of all this!

After two more waltzes, she hurried to the West Lagoon to wait for her father. She didn't want him to have to search for her.

Meanwhile Bernard still studied the chatter around the contest booth. Then out of the clear blue he remembered some words from the Bible: Even the very hairs on your head are all numbered. Fear not! Ye are of more value than many sparrows . . . for the Holy Ghost will teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.

Bernard thought his recollection was most prophetic. He wrote down his estimate and completed the rest of the entry form and submitted it.

Still excited, he hurried to find Bernice seated on a bench waiting for him. Bernard huffed toward his daughter anxious to tell her what he had done.

"Bernice . . . dere was a contest to guess . . . da number of votes cast . . . for da president . . . in d' election dis fall," he said trying to catch his breath, "and I entered it!"

Skeptical, Bernice asked, "Dad, what's the prize?"

"Five grand . . . if you win both contests, da one at dis here Fair . . . . and da one advertised in da newspapers. Girl, dat's two and half grand each!

"Well, how did you know what to guess?" She was curious about his method.

"A Bible verse came to me. Remember dose birds dat flew by us when we was up on da Wheel?"

"Yes."

Bernard's eyes danced as he began, "Well, I was listenin' to everybody givin' dere opinions on da vote count, tryin' to come up wid somethin' dat made sense. I almost gave up, den dose words came to me sayin' da hairs on my head have been numbered, dat I shouldn't fear because to God I am worth more dan dose sparrows, and dat da Holy Ghost will teach me what to say."

"Really?" Bernice shifted toward her father. She was now paying closer attention.

"Bernice, dose birds had to be a sign of somethin' special comin.' I wrote down da number of dat verse, Luke twelve, seven, twelve, and den I put three zeros behind it and turned d' entry form in. And, dey took it!" Bernard was pleased with himself.

Though intrigued by his method, she hoped for his sake that God forgave her father for any disrespect. "I hope somethin' comes of it. We gotta wait a long time to find out, though."

"Yeah, God willin,' but if dis number hits, baby girl, we'll be gettin' da grapes den, now won't we!" and he laughed. Bernice spilled over in giggles once more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The afternoon had descended into dusk. By this time, the area around the Grand Basin was electrified with ten thousand light bulbs. Everything that was white, the buildings, the sculptures, the columns, and the monuments radiated a yellow incandescent glow against the sheer indigo sky. Colorful lights directed toward the Cascades waterfalls dissolved from red, to green, to blue, and back again; a sight to behold.

As they walked away from the Cascades and the Grand Basin toward the main exit turnstiles, Bernice kept looking behind her, trying to remember it all.

Outside the exit, a lone streetcar was taking on colored passengers, the last one of the evening. With their last ounce of energy, they scampered to get on. The two of them stood the entire way back and got off at Twentieth and Market. As inky dusk yielded to the black starry cosmos, they stroll to their home on Walnut Street, arm in arm in the light of the street lamps.

Marie, happy to see Bernard and Bernice back, offered them the stew and biscuits she had kept warm on the stove. They were hungry, exhausted, and excited to tell her everything they saw. Bernice kicked off her shoes, relieved of the pressure of walking on pebbles all day. She pondered how she would find her place in the world and be the kind of woman she wanted to be.

The display of culture and history at the Fair made Bernice aware of how little she knew about her birth mother and grandparents. She had always wondered about them. The slave generation was reluctant to talk about the old days. Bernice had questions and she hoped her father would tell her what she needed to know before she left St. Louis.

### CHAPTER 5

Mail day at the prison was a cause for Jamesville inmates to be either excited or depressed. For some inmates, too much time had passed since a letter came from someone who cared about them, if ever they got one at all. Bernice received her weekly letter from Eleanor:

October 21, 1932

Dear Bernie,

Gabe is well and he is doing a good job helping me keep things shipshape around here. Jerry took his first steps a few days ago and he's getting bigger by the day. He's such a happy baby. He loves to play outside in the leaves. Remember how you and Hannah liked to do that when you were little? The old maple out front has shed all its leaves now.

I have some sad news to tell you. Our friend Miss Ethel died last week. She was ninety-four the obituary said. Her granddaughter found her in bed laid up as if she were sleeping. Rita went with me to the calling on Thursday. Times are so bad that no one in her family could afford a marker for her grave. The restaurant donated what we could to help with the funeral supper. Out of town diners here for the funeral helped a lot since regular business is still slow.

The ad you told me to put in the paper finally worked. I sold your automobile to a young fellow from New York City. We had to accept less money for things lately, but I got more for it than you hoped. How does $2,500 sound?

We could use more long-termers, but I'm able to keep some rooms rented on the weekends. So please, don't worry about us. Me and Jerry are doing ok. We'll be fine until you're home again. You are in my prayers, daughter.

With all my love,

Mother

P.S. Cast all your cares upon the Lord; for He careth for you.

Miss Ethel was gone. Bernice was saddened by the news of her dear friend. Like always, Eleanor knew the right verses to feed her. Bernice meditated on the verse because she felt low, loveless, uncared about, and constricted by the small dimensions of her windowless cell.

Bernice had worshipped that classy sedan, her symbol of success, freedom, and defiance. When she drove it, Bernice could forget the pebbles in her shoes, and now the car was gone, too. However, letting go of some of the material distractions assisted her effort to discover her true calling. She had begun to search the depths for her spirit, but she'd have to do some heavy lifting of the troublestones which had buried her essence.

Scarlett saw the way Bernice looked after her letter, pensive and solemn.

"Everyone at home all right?"

"Yes and no. My mother and sons are farin' ok, but a neighbor lady who was very dear to me died. She delivered my older son. Her family couldn't afford a grave marker. My baby son is walkin' now and growin' like a weed!" She tried to end on something positive.

A few silent minutes passed between them.

"Bernice, how long was your visit in St. Louis?" Scarlett hoped to coax Bernice into continuing her story.

Bernice added the letter under the rubber band which held together nine or ten other letters from Eleanor. She put off her meditation until later and obliged Scarlett.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tuesday morning after the Fair, Bernice and her father slept in. Marie had left early for work. She planned to stay overnight in the servants quarters at her employer's home, because was to cook for an elaborate dinner party that was expected to end late.

Bernice and her father met in the kitchen for a late breakfast of oatmeal, toast and elderberry jam, and coffee. Now was her opportunity. She pounced on it.

"Father, what was my real mother like?" How did you first meet her?" Bernice anticipated a romantic story about her.

Bernard was stopped by her questions. In an instant some old memories flooded his head. Then, he looked up from his coffee cup and answered, "Your mother, Cora Anders, was da first love of my life. She and her mother Margie came to Wild Moor Plantation, called dat by Massa Richards, when she was a toddler. Dey was owned by da lady who married Massa's oldest son."

"After da war, Cora's family and my family lived next door to each other. Your mother and I grew up and went to school together, although she was four years older. Like many now-a-days, my mother believed da lighter da skin, da more opportunities for your children. So, she preferred one of dose wide-hipped, "high-yellow" toned girls in da neighborhood for me, but Cora–his smile lifted the points of his mustache–she was more to my likin.' Cora's skin was silky, an' da color of warm, roasted pecans. Your sister Hannah looks da most like her. She was only a sprig of a girl, but very sweet, and I wanted to take care of her."

As Bernard spoke of her mother, Bernice watched his demeanor soften. She was riveted by every word he said.

"What about your mother, Dad? And, did you know your father?" Because of her father's fair complexion, Bernice knew a story was there somewhere.

"Bernice, I didn't hear dis story myself until I was mostly grown because it's an ugly one. But I suppose you're grown enough for me to tell it to you now."

Bernard chose his words as best he knew how, but did not try to dress it up for his daughter. He told the following story the way his mother had told it to him, or at least he tried.

"My mother's name was Rebekah. She had a sister named Odelia and dere daddy was one of da light-skinned field slaves. They were both pretty, but Odelia was dark-skinned. My mother was "light-complected," and back in dose days she wore her hair in a long, thick braid over her shoulder. For parties on the plantation, she liked to pick da wild clover and weave da white and purple flowers into a ring which she wore on her head like a crown. She said da flowers was jewels dat made her feel like a princess.

"Rebekah and dere mother, my Grandma Maisie, worked in da big house; Odelia worked in da fields wid dere father. We was called "house-slaves" back den. Dere was rooms in d' attic where we was allowed to sleep as dey got up very early in da mornin' to start Massa's breakfast and da chores. Since me and Charles was still little, I guess sometimes our job was to keep Massa's young daughters occupied. His daughters treated us like livin' baby dolls.

"Massa John Bernard Richards was a South Carolina senator wid da Government and he was gone a lot on business. He was popular wid da southern folks before da war. Dey liked his speeches 'bout keepin' slavery, formin' dere own government, and separatin' from da Union.

"Mother told me dat when she was a teenage girl growin' up, before me and my brother was born, Massa's youngest son, who was a year or two older dan she was, liked to watch her when she went 'bout da house an' da yard tendin' to her chores. Of course, all dis watchin' was on da sly. He'd try to catch her eye as she served dem at supper. Sometimes he smiled or winked at her. He never let anybody see him be friendly or talk to her. Mother said she was flattered by all his attention.

"Meanwhile, his two older brothers was vile hateful men. Dey dreamed up a most hellish game. Dere idea of havin' fun was to force demselves on dere daddy's young pregnant slaves. Dey thought by takin' advantage of only da slave girls who was newly pregnant, dey could get what dey wanted widout sirin' little half-white babies. To keep da girls quiet, dey'd threaten dem, den nobody in da family'd know what dey'd been up to. Dey pulled dis despicable scheme whenever dey got da chance.

"When Mother was eighteen and pregnant wid her first child, she was so happy 'bout it dat she told everybody as soon as she was sure. She an' da baby's father wanted to "jump da broom." So, da Wild Moor slaves planned a big weddin' celebration. Da ceremony was to be a few weeks later at d' end of da harvest season.

"Massa's two vile sons also heard da news 'bout Mother bein' pregnant. Several weeks passed, but she wasn't yet showin' da night she found herself cornered by dem two men in da barn da night or two before d'oldest son got married. Dey told her what'd be done to her if she resisted or made a sound. Dey promised dey wouldn't leave no marks on her if she, nice and calm-like, gave dem what dey came for. Mother, thinkin' dat she herself was 'bout to be married, knowin' dat her husband-to-be would surely kill da both of dem if he found out, and dat would mean his death, too. So, she did what dey told her. She thought wid time she'd forget dat horrible night.

"Dey made Mother lay down in d'empty stall full of hay where dey took her. She let'em tie her hands to a hitchin' post. Right den dey began rapin' her, one egged on by d'other, each takin' a turn wid her. Wid each gut-wrenchin' whimper she made, dey got rougher, but it was difficult for her to remain all together silent. She said even da horses whinnied and kicked da walls of dere stalls frightened by such a savage disturbance. She said dey kept dere smotherin' hands over her mouth, and soon she gave up. Instead, she tried to distract herself wid da pain she caused her own self by diggin' her fingernails into da hitchin'post. When dey was done, dey let her loose and jus' left her dere.

"Hearin' such mournful sobs comin' from da barn, like a wolf caught in a trap, Massa's youngest son found my mother in a corner of da stall in a bloody heap. Da shock of what dey did caused her to lose dat baby shortly after da twosome left.

"She blamed her condition on da miscarriage, and kept da rape part to herself, but da youngest son had his own figurin's. Concerned for her, he scooped her up, brought her back to da house in a wagon, and carried her to da slave quarters, which was up da back stairs in d' attic of da big house. He checked on her everyday 'til she was up and about again.

"My mother stuck to da miscarriage story, but she felt so damaged dat she cancelled da weddin.' No amount of promptin' made her change her mind. Her intended husband gave up and married somebody else a year or so later.

"A day or two after d'attack, on d'occasion of his oldest brother's weddin' day, da youngest son learned da truth from his brothers 'bout what had happened to Mother, and it made him furious. Massa's sons showed up at da weddin' lookin' like dey'd been in a fight. No one guessed dey'd fought wid each other over my mother."

At the start of his story, Bernice was struck dumb as she listened to her father describe his mother Rebekah. The long thick braid and the clover crown of flowers reminded her of the apparitional queen that came to her when she was delirious with fever at sixteen. She realized the apparition had been the "spiritual inspiration" of Grandmother Rebekah. Then, she was awed and horrified by her father's recounting of this tragic event in her grandmother's life. Sorrowful images collected in Bernice's mind, as did her tears on the verge of overflowing: I've heard similar cruel stories before, but my lord, this was my grandmother they hurt so brutally. These must be the kinds of stories that kept Grammy Harriet from talking about Eleanor's white father from Hopbush. The circumstances were too painful to speak out loud.

Bernice was grieved by the story her father told. She sought her soul for answers to why such cruelty existed. Intuitively, she knew enduring cruelty was part of life in the world; a very unsatisfying answer to Bernice. Defeated, she stowed her unanswered questions away with other frustrations which girded the troublestones in her burden bag.

Bernard saw the anguish on her face and tried to absolve it for her. "Baby girl, dere's no sorrow among da believers in heaven, only great joy. Do butterflies mourn over their life as creepin' caterpillars on d'earth? No, ma'am. A butterfly celebrates its new colorful life by flutterin' above d'earth and inspirin' all who see it. So do da spirits of believers after dey been separated from da physical and emotional pain dey walked in on d'earth. In heaven diseases an' da people who hurt us can't touch us no more."

Bernard went on with his story:

"Secretly, da youngest son continued to befriend my mother, more den. At da time, he was d'only person she spoke to 'bout da rape. A year or more went by and I guess dey liked one another a lot because he eventually got her pregnant, and den again a year later. Massa's youngest son, Henry Richards, was our father. He musta won dat fight wid his brothers because dey never bothered our mother again.

"We was born in da big house. Mother named my brother Charles Peter after her daddy, and she named me Bernard Richard after our white grandfather. We saw our father every day, and because we looked so much like him, Massa's family treated us well enough. When we wore our cousins' hand-me-downs, we looked jus' like one of dem. We wasn't happy bein' slaves, but we was happy bein' together. However, Mother said she lived wid her own silent pain and grief. She had to continue to wait on dose vile sons of Massa's as da one was still at home, and d' oldest one brought his new wife home most every Sunday for supper.

"We lived dere in da big house wid mother and grandmother 'til we was freed by da war. I was six years old, Charles was eight. Not long afterwards, my father married a 'proper' white lady. My mother married our stepfather, a nice colored man named Zeke Silverson. I don't remember seein' our father much after dat and soon I stopped thinkin' 'bout him so much. But, mother confessed dat sometimes da voices of dose wretched men still intruded her thoughts and dreams."

Bernard took a breath and let it out. An abrupt silence fell.

Bernice suspected the circumstances surrounding her father's parentage couldn't have been ideal, but she had good feelings toward Henry Richards, her white grandfather who had "loved" her grandmother Rebekah: They might have stayed together if it wasn't for white people. Then, Bernice noticed the silence and realized her father had finished. She dried her tears with her sleeve.

"Dat's jus' da way it was in dose days, baby girl, and dere was nothin' to be done about it either."

Disconcerted, Bernice asked nothing else.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A rap at the door broke the melancholy. Bernard welcomed in her Uncle Charles.

"So dis is little Bernice!" he proclaimed with a smile. "My goodness how you've grown! I'm so happy to see you again!"

Now that her Uncle Charles was standing in front of her, it all came back how much her father looked like him. She gave her uncle a big hug. The three of them sat and reminisced about when they lived in Charleston before her birth mother died. Bernice listened . . . mostly.

When they spoke about the Fair, Bernice had a lot to say on that subject. Their anecdotes grew into long discourses about white people, colored people, the Pygmies, waffle cones and ice cream, the Wheel, and etcetera. Then Bernice blurted, "I wish I could hear Scott Joplin play again!" Her father and uncle paid that comment no mind and her wish faded from their consciousness, but not from Bernice's. Mischief had stepped up to the plate and deception was on deck. She was determined not to let her wish fade.

"Dat reminds me. Mr. Joplin's at da "Four Deuces" tonight." The Four Deuces was an affectionate name for the Rosebud Café because its street address was 2222 Market Street. "I gotta get ready for work," her father said. "But don't ch'yall mind me. Carry on." So, Bernice and her Uncle Charles carried on.

With her father occupied, Bernice whispered, "Uncle Charles."

"Yes my dear," he responded likewise in a whisper.

"I have an idea and I need your help." Bernice continued to speak under her breath and she looked serious, "I want to hear Joplin play tonight and I'd like you take me."

"Bernice!" Charles whispered back in disbelief at hearing what she had asked him to do. Then, her uncle added with a chuckle, "You know da Rosebud ain't no place for a young lady like you! Besides, Bernard wouldn't go for dat." Charles knew the music would be great, but the place was crude.

"Uncle Charles, I know who I am, and you know who I am. Trust me, I have a plan, but I do need your help."

"Ok, let me hear dis plan."

"Well, I can't tell you all of it right now. But, please come here around eight. When you see me, if you don't think it's a good idea, then you can refuse."

"Dat ain't enough information."

She implored, "Trust me Uncle, but you can't say anything to my father, ok?"

Bernard came through the parlor dressed like a waiter in a white collared shirt, a black bowtie, vest, and black pants.

"Can you make it tonight?" asked Bernard. "If you come, I'll save you a table right next to Mister Joplin's."

Bernice, standing out of her father's line of sight, shook her head affirmatively and mouthed the words, "Say yes," to Uncle Charles.

"Yep, I think I can."

"Ok, den. Joplin plays his first show around eight-thirty, be dere before den. Sorry, Bernice. Marie won't be home dis evenin.' She's stayin' over. Think you'll be all right by yourself tonight?"

"Oh, sure. I have a couple of letters to write. I'll be fine."

"Great. See you in da mornin'!"

Her father and uncle said their good-byes and left.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thankful for some privacy, she sat on the davenport under the window. As she planned what she was about to do, she heard children playing ball in the street–Crack! Run, Jack! He's safe! No he ain't! Yes he is!–I can do this. I have three hours to get ready. That's plenty of time.

Bernice first went to Marie's sewing chest for the scissors. Next, she went to the kitchen for a bowl and a bottle of glue she saw earlier in the pantry. Then, she retreated to her bedroom.

She sat in front of the mirror which hung over the dresser and stared at her long hair. She cut off some frizzy ends. Each clip of hair fell in the bowl. Bernice applied some glue to her upper lip. She took some hair from the bowl and carefully pressed it in the glue with tweezers. She laughed when she saw her hairy lip in the mirror. She recalled how often she had watched her stepfather groom his mustache. Confident she could do the same, she took Bernard's razor and evened out the hairy patch under her nose. Then she clipped the hairs back above the lip line and created a nicely trimmed mustache. She was pleased with the job she did.

Hmm, my face still needs more hair, so Bernice applied glue to her eyebrows and pressed more hair there to make them look coarser and thicker. Not yet satisfied that she looked masculine enough, she cut more from her hair, but this time in much shorter clippings. She spread the glue on her cheeks and around her jaw and chin, and she covered the glue with the clippings so it looked like the stubbles of a beard. She left the room and when she returned with soot from the wood stove, she gasped at the sight of how natural her beard looked in the mirror. She filled in the spaces with soot to even the stubble.

Bernice, figuring she was not much smaller than her father, went to his bedroom and looked through the clothes in his Chifferobe. Her father was a flashy dresser and she was lucky to find a solid black three-piece suit at the end of the wardrobe. This must be his funeral suit. Then, she chuckled.

Bernice found some gauze bandages which she wrapped around her chest to flatten her breasts. She selected a blue striped shirt, a pair of cuff links, suspenders, and a long tie from her father's bureau. Once she gathered everything she needed, she put on the ensemble. Thrilled the suit of clothes fit her well-enough, she stuffed newspaper in the toes of her father's shoes and pulled the laces tight. She donned one of his hats to cover her hair which she'd braided in thick cornrows. To her liking, the cornrows caused the hat to fit snug on her head. For the last touch, she placed his watch in the vest pocket and hooked its long chain through one of its button holes.

Bernice finished at quarter to eight and sat on the davenport to wait for her uncle to arrive. A bundle of nerves, she commenced to fidget and perspire. She had raided her father's wardrobe on a mission of deception and asked her uncle to help, all so she could have her own way. She checked the pocket watch again: It's past eight. Uncle Charles is late. Feeling her confidence wane, she got up and went to her bedroom to check her disguise. Bernice was bolstered by the thoroughness of her transformation.

Then, there was a familiar rap at the door. She rushed to the door, opened it wide, and took a step backward. It was her Uncle Charles.

His jaw dropped. "Whoa! Dat is you Bernice, ain't it?" He stood astonished on the stoop.

"Uncle! What you think? Can I pull it off?"

Charles took more time to study how his niece had transmogrified herself. "Dat's one hell of a 'get-up.' You didn't tell me dat ch'you had somethin' like dis in mind!"

"Well, I figured if I was goin' to a saloon, I'd rather go lookin' like a man. I also figured it won't be bright inside, no one will notice me. Besides, I only plan to be there for one show." Bernice explained it with so much logic.

Her uncle still couldn't get over how she looked, and that convinced him to go along with her plan to go to the Rosebud Café.

"Ok, niece, we'll go, but ch'you must promise you won't talk to nobody and dat ch'you'll stick by me da whole time we're dere."

Bernice was overjoyed and agreed to his conditions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice and Uncle Charles walked the two and a half blocks to the Rosebud Café and arrived minutes prior to the show. Joplin was already seated at the piano conversing with the audience about the cities and towns he'd been to since his last appearance there.

When they entered the saloon, a pungent blend of cigars, food, and alcohol cut through Bernice's nostrils. Thick tobacco smoke was aloft. Scarce light fixtures shone through the haze and illuminated the gloom. A variety of gentlemen enjoyed their dinner or puffed on pipes or cigars waiting for Joplin to begin his performance. Charles asked the doorman for his brother. As they waited, Bernice looked about her. She realized that she had stepped out of the feminine world, where corsets constricted women physically as well as symbolized society's constraints on their self-expression and political thoughts; and into the masculine world, where expression of opinions and ideas were valued, and sexual freedom was expected. The place was crude and at first she was offended by it.

"Bernie," Uncle Charles called her for the first time, "don't worry, you look handsome."

Bernice strained to keep a straight face and then settled right down.

A staircase faced them at the entrance. One flight of stairs led to the basement where the bathroom and storage were. The other flight rose to the second floor. As Bernice peered through the space above, she saw part of a row of doors. She observed the area around each door handle was soiled, evidence the rooms were rented often. She surmised the rooms were boarding accommodations. However, those rooms were the brothel.

The main level had two fully stocked bars, complemented by several shiny brass spittoons on the floor to catch the errant spews of the patrons who preferred to chew rather than smoke their tobacco.

Bernard recognized his brother at the entrance and recalled that Charles hadn't mentioned bringing a guest. He was amiable since the table he reserved could easily seat four gentlemen.

"Hurry on in my brother! I have a table waitin' for you. Joplin's 'bout to start. Follow me." In his eagerness to seat them, Bernard dispensed with the requisite intro and knew Charles would get to it after they arrived at their table.

The saloon expanded inside and a wall with a wide open arch in the center separated the saloon into two areas. The wait staff balanced trays of food and drinks, as they scurried back and forth through the archway.

Bernard led the two of them on an obstacle course through the saloon around several tables of patrons. Bernice followed closely behind her father and copied his manly gait to avoid curious stares. Charles stepped behind his niece to camouflage her from inquisitive eyes. She gaped at the walls covered by gaudy wallpaper. Framed pictures of voluptuous nudes hung about to titillate the men. She heard the soft tinkling of glasses and dinnerware, and the indecipherable din of heavy male voices as well as the occasional squeals of laughter from sportin' women.

Several thinly clad strumpets mixed with the patrons. Bernice was perplexed by the amount of gumption or poverty required for them to subject themselves to the crass advances of some of the men. She noticed an empty spot in a far corner. At times throughout the evening, the women entertained the patrons with songs and naughty dance routines. Otherwise, they bounced about the saloon and flirted with all the sportin' men and sold room rentals for late night companionship.

As Bernice plodded behind her father, some boisterous gentlemen at a corner of one of the bars were laughing, cussing, and smoking. Other men were seated in parties of twos, threes, and fours throughout the saloon. Young dandies at the bars and around the pool tables studded the scene in their colorful suits. Some older patrons were more subtly dressed, but all the men were "dressed to the nines."

Joplin and his quartette broke into a wild rag. In unison everyone in the saloon whooped and hollered and bounced in their seats.

The area on the other side of the archway was separated into two rooms. In the room ahead of them, Bernice observed men gathered around a roulette wheel and others played poker. Joplin was performing in the room to their left. Bernard showed them to a table situated behind the piano bench facing Joplin's back. Bernice didn't mind. She was satisfied just to hear him play. She blocked out everything else around her and only let the music into her soul.

So far, Bernice avoided a direct look at her father. She and Uncle Charles took their seats and Bernard was anxious to take their drink orders.

"You havin' the usual," Bernard asked Charles raising his voice over the quartette.

"Got no reason to change now." Then, Charles remembered Bernice and added, "Oh yeah, bring me some club soda on the rocks with a twist, please!" Too busy to let his strange request stop him, Bernard let it go.

"And you, young fella?" Bernard got a brief look, but did not recognize his daughter at all. Bernice lowered her head and the brim of her hat obscured her face. She shook her head no and waved him off. Bernard thought this fellow was most unfriendly and rude for not removing his hat. He considered that maybe he was underage and gave him the benefit of the doubt. Everybody wanted a chance to hear Joplin, and after all, he was Charles' friend.

When Bernard left, Charles told his niece, "I think you're all right. He don't have a clue." Bernice tried to mimic the posture of the men around her.

Bernard returned and placed a glass of beer and a whiskey chaser on the table, along with a glass of club soda donned with a lemon twist. Charles paid and tipped his brother, but Bernard refused the tip. He forgot about the introduction and left in a hurry to serve some other tables. Charles pushed the glass of club soda in front of Bernice. The smokiness inside the saloon had made her throat dry. She took several sips of soda and her throat was better, but then she detected a few lip hairs floating among the ice chips. She thought she better not have any more to drink or she might wash away the remains of her mustache.

More comfortable now, she got into Joplin's music, the reason she went through all this trouble. Though her view was of Joplin's back, she studied his hands each time he tickled the keys at the far ends of the piano. She learned how his left hand pounded out the low notes and kept the tempo, and the melody flowed from his right hand. She got how the notes played by each of his fingers imbued the composition with color and nuance, leaping around and through the melodies. Notes played on the upbeats, the downbeats, and the in between beats chased one another in spontaneous harmony. Joplin's music was rousing, defying and unpredictable. Bernice loved every minute of his performance. When the show was over, she thought her ruse had been worth it.

Joplin got up from his piano to a standing ovation. Tom Turpin thanked him and his quartette for their appearance at the Rosebud and for another incredible performance. Joplin took his bows and headed for the company of some friends seated at the table next to Charles and Bernice. Bernard stood by to greet him and he had Joplin's favorite drink at the table.

"Mister Joplin, another fine performance indeed, sir!"

"Thanks, Bernie. Nice to be home in St. Louis again."

"If you have a minute, sir, I'd like to introduce you to my brother and his friend." Charles and Bernice had remained standing after the ovation.

"Why sure, anything for you!"

"Dis is my brother Charles."

Joplin and Charles clasped hands for a hearty shake, "I am honored to meet ch'you, sir. Your music livens up da soul."

"I'm happy you enjoyed it."

"And, dis is our good friend 'Richard,' " said Charles turning to his niece in disguise. It was the first name that popped into his head. Charles continued to speak on Bernice's behalf and added, "Richard also thinks your music is great!"

Bernice looked at Scott Joplin and said in the deepest voice she could muster, "Please to meet you, sir!" The comment suspended time. Charles was mortified when Bernice broke her promise not to speak. The pitch of "Richard's" voice was–without a doubt–odd, and Bernard gave Charles a puzzled look. Bernice attempted to give Joplin's outstretched hand a good squeeze. But, she had held the glass of club soda for the entire performance, so her hand was ice cold and she was nervous. Then, she released her grip too early causing her hand to go limp in the middle of the handshake.

After that, Joplin turned back to his table and made some signal to his friends. Charles saw one of them raise his eyebrows and purse his lips indicating he understood something peculiar had gone down. The next instant, Charles heard a sputter of chuckles. He and Bernice turned back to their own table.

Bernice and her uncle listened as Bernard attended to Joplin with ease and finesse. He lit Joplin's cigar and made him and his friends comfortable. Then, they heard Bernard ask, "Is dere anything more I can get ch'you at dis time, Mister Joplin?" but, he was content in Bernard's care.

Charles looked at his niece. "Bernice, I think it's time we go, how about ch'you?"

Bernice shook her head yes and they weaved their way back through the saloon. The player piano, which she hadn't noticed before, revved up and played one of Turpin's rags. The sportin' women she saw earlier had formed a group and started a bawdy routine. As Bernice and Charles passed by, the women had lifted their skirts, were bent over like the ostriches she saw at the Fair, and they were shaking the tail feathers sewn across their half-bare rumps to the licentious delight of the patrons. When they arrived at the entrance, Bernard was there waiting for them.

"Charles, why don't ch'you give me a proper introduction to your young friend?" They knew Bernard had noticed something strange.

"Ok, but let's do dis outside." Bernard led the way and Bernice and her uncle followed him out.

Bernard couldn't wait any longer and turned to the mysterious young man. He looked dead into his daughter's face, but couldn't reconcile what was strangely familiar about the man in front of him. "Do I know you?"

Bernice looked at her Uncle Charles and she let go a nervous giggle.

Bernard recognized the giggle and shouted out, "Oh my God! Bernice! It is you under dere!"

"Yes, it's me, but Uncle Charles had nothin' to do with it. I wanted to hear Joplin play again and I didn't see another way to do that. I forced Uncle Charles to bring me, as I was comin' with him or without him."

To hear his daughter's voice come from underneath such a hairy lip was so absurd, he got tickled with her.

Bernice reminded him, "Besides, I got the idea from you when you pretended to be a white man so you could buy iced tea at the Fair." She sensed her father wasn't all that angry about the disguise.

"And I suppose dat's my old suit you have on young lady! Go on hurry home before someone else sees you. I'll talk to you in da mornin'. Take care of her, Charles!"

Charles made sure she was safe and he went home also.

Impatient for the kettle of water to heat, Bernice was anxious to wash the hair and glue off her itchy and irritated skin. She put her father's things back in their places, but she was too restless from her unusual evening to sleep. To relax, she caught up on her letter writing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning, which was Wednesday, two days after the Fair, Bernice had finished a letter to her sister Rita in Syracuse and one to her family in Savannah. She let them know she arrived safely and included some things she saw at the Fair.

When her father awakened, she gave him a sheepish apology for wearing his clothes without his say-so and for her mischievous behavior. By this time though, Bernard had long forgiven her and found her disguise idea comical. He did caution her to keep the incident between them as Marie would never understand why she would want to do such a thing.

"Bernice, I'm goin' to da post office before I go to work. You got any letters to be mailed?" Bernard called out while he got dressed. He was of cheerful character.

"I sure do, Dad, I have two. I'll get 'em."

Bernice returned with the letters and placed them on the cabinet shelf by the door. She sat and opened last evening's St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Invariably, a patron left behind a newspaper at the saloon. Bernard rarely had to buy one himself. His habit was to wind down by boning up on baseball news and stats when he came home in the wee hours. Before bed, he would leave the newspaper on the dinette table for Marie. Bernice liked the human interest stories. Every day there were several articles written about the Fair. One story reported "Today, a stunt man performing a high wire act fell to his death at the Old St. Louis exhibit. Trapeze artist . . ."

She couldn't finish the article because someone had removed an ad from the other side, she guessed, and left a hole in the middle of the page.

Her father came in, "I'll take dose letters now."

Knowing that at the end of the week she planned to resume her trip to Syracuse, Bernice walked over to her father and gave him a kiss on his creamy cheek and a long embrace.

"Despite everything, I had a lovely day with you at the Fair and a great time last night. I'll never forget these days we spent together. Thank you and Marie so much for havin' me here. I love you, Daddy!" She hugged Bernard a second time and lingered there again. The immortal being inside Bernice absorbed her father's warm, paternal ethos.

Bernard clutched her and looked deep into her so-ordinary-dark-brown eyes. "I love you, too, my beautiful daughter."

Bernice finally heard those three little words she longed to hear from her father. He spoke them so earnestly that he made up for all the past years he missed telling her. Her spirit soared higher than it had on the Observation Wheel.

"You're welcome here any time you like."

Bernard, too, was thankful for the chance to be with his daughter. Her sincerity and love touched him, though he felt he didn't deserve her love because of his absence from her childhood. He promised himself to cultivate his new bond with Bernice, and to renew ties with his other two daughters.

"Now, where's dose letters, baby girl? Marie should be home in a bit. See you in da mornin'!" Bernard added her letters to one of his own and then left for the post office.

Soon after he left, Marie arrived. Her employer gave her the afternoon off on account of her overnight stay. She brought home some leftovers from the party, she didn't have to cook.

Over supper, Marie gossiped about her employer's big dinner party. Several guests were Democratic politicians and Party leaders in town for the Fair. Other guests were local business associates who made significant donations to the Parker-Davis Presidential Campaign to help defeat the incumbent Republican President, Teddy Roosevelt. She retold some amusing political tales and rumors she overheard at the party. She and Bernice had great fun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Night descended in no time. The streetcars had made their last runs an hour ago, which meant that horse and buggy traffic along Market Street had picked up. And, the Rosebud Café was busy for a Wednesday night because of the on-going Fair.

"Hey, Bernie!" beckoned the manager at the bar holding two wooden buckets. Bernard came over right away.

"Yes sir! What can I do for you?" said Bernard at the ready.

"The dance hall across the street needs two buckets of beer. Can you run these over and keep them supplied tonight?"

"Yes sir!" And right away, he completed the first delivery. The price for a bucket of beer included a tip, triple the tip he could make by the glass, so he accepted this duty whenever he had the chance. But, it made him have to work extra hard. In between waiting tables, Bernard made regular beer runs back and forth across busy Market Street.

"Fill 'em up again, Abe!" Bernard asked the bartender and he placed two more empty buckets on the bar. The bartender filled them to the brim and placed the buckets on the floor next to the bar.

Weighed down by beer, Bernard trudged his way through the saloon. He tread lightly with his knees flexed, a technique he perfected to haul beer without allowing any to slosh over the lip of the buckets. He hardly ever spilled a drop.

Market Street was noisy from hooves and wheels of horse-drawn cabs and carriages which passed along the cobblestone avenue. Bernard lumbered out of the saloon laden with a bucket of brew in each hand. After a quick survey of the carriage traffic, he calculated the pace of his stride. He was adept at jaywalking between the traffic. He had to be because an abrupt stop meant some beer slopped out of the buckets; anything less than a full bucket caused customers to complain.

He concentrated on the beer and barely gave concern to a carriage which pulled around the corner from Twenty-Second Street onto Market. Bernard assumed the driver saw him. When he realized the driver was being reckless and hadn't restrained his horses, he simply quickened his pace a bit and avoided a collision. It was not unusual for a smart-alec driver to feign disregard for pedestrians intending to give them a scare. This rude game had been played on him many times before. A few expletives were in order and Bernard dashed on his way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The gaiety that Marie and Bernice were enjoying was interrupted by pound, pound, pounding and yelling at the door.

Uncle Charles was on the other side frantically repeating, "Marie! Bernice! Come quick!"

Marie dropped the dish she was washing and sprinted to the door. She saw the weird look on Charles' face and was frightened. "What's the matter? What's happened?" Charles babbled and then Marie hyperventilated.

Bernice was shaken, too. Her heart pounded so hard, her ears pulsed. She was too distressed to pray herself, but her spirit knew her angst.

Bernice and Marie hurried behind Charles. He led them toward the Rosebud. When they reached Market, the street gutters along the way were curiously fragrant with the smell of beer. As they arrived at the saloon, the street in front was darkened by a burned out street lamp. Bernice saw something shadowy in the street. She believed a sack of laundry had fallen off the back of somebody's wagon. Meanwhile, the traffic was halted and a crowd of a people from the Rosebud and the dance hall were in the street. Two men were shouting.

As they came upon to the scene, Bernice saw that it was no sack of laundry. It was Bernard lying quashed in the street. Devastated, she and Marie fell on their knees next to him, already drenched in anguish.

The sight of her father was magnified by Bernice's tears. His body was crumpled, his legs and arms rested at illogical angles. His hair and handlebar mustache were sloshed limp from beer. His creamy cheek and forehead were scratched with sooty black and crimson abrasions. Blood encircled the cobblestones underneath his head and mingled with an amber pool of beer and spume before it trickled away toward the street gutters. Uncle Charles could no longer hold back his tears. He put one arm around Marie and the other around Bernice. Together, they sat in the street beside Bernard's body and cried until help arrived.

Bernice was rocked by the horror of her beloved father there in front of her lifeless on the hard cobbles which looked like tiny islands surrounded by an ugly brown sea of blood and beer. Daddy was gone. She shuddered when Sadie's prophecy flooded back to her: "You long to see your father, eh? Go see him, don' wait . . ." Then, her sobs wrenched still deeper, heavier, expressing her feelings of lost opportunities, crushing and squeezing her into the reality that she would never again have a day with her daddy.

A witness came forward. It appeared Bernard had successfully avoided the team of horses pulling the carriage. Distracted however, he dashed into the path of an ice delivery wagon which came from the opposite direction. The ice wagon and its team ran down Bernard and continued on its way into the darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scarlett wiped away tears at this point in Bernice's story. Bernice was watery, too. She realized how many hopes and dreams about having her father's love dissolved that night into a sea of bloody beer.

That night, Bernice was ripe for spiritual consolation, like she had been after the death of her birth mother, but the roots of anger and resentment inside her heart wouldn't let her accept the comfort. Bernice had wanted more than consolation; she wanted her way; she wanted her father back. Not long after, she learned that all mortals are subject to death's grasp at any time, in any place. But on that night, death's timing was unacceptable to her.

Scarlett looked bummed, so Bernice thought she ought to skip the sad account of her father's funeral. Instead, she finished on a lighter note by saying, "A week after the funeral, Marie and my Uncle Charles brought me to Union Station and I boarded a Friday morning train to Chicago. I had connections to New York City on the 20th Century Limited. They called it the fastest long-distance train in the world."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice had left St. Louis raw. The world outside whizzed by, but inside her world strained to move. She wanted to be with her sister Rita in Syracuse right then, but hours of train travel in emotional pain was ahead of her. Blind-sided by her father's death, the tenuous faith she had left was rattled. That old black hole inside her heart, her mother left behind, was now twice larger.

Her time on the train to Syracuse was the most alone she had ever been in her life. During her journey, scenes of St. Louis haunted her. Flashbacks of her emotional reunion with her father and uncle, the Pygmies and the Cascades, Scott Joplin and the sportin' women, and scenes of the accident dissolved from one image to the next. Each time the image replayed of her father reposed in his casket in that same black three-piece suit she had worn to the Rosebud, she grew more remorseful, because she had chuckled about it being his "funeral" suit. Never did she expect to see him buried in it!

Bernice thought of her tiny play dishes she had as a girl, the ones on which she relied to bring the spiritual presence of her father home to her when she needed him most. But, the dishes had lost their magic years ago. Red-eyed, she held in her tears rather than make a spectacle of herself. So, her tears flowed backward, and she swallowed them, which made her to cough incessantly until she reached Chicago.

Bernice was not the same young woman who arrived in St. Louis fourteen days earlier. But, she could not have imagined the changes in the offing, after her arrival in Syracuse.

### CHAPTER 6

Another inmate joined Bernice's reading group in August 1932. Her name was Andie, short for Andrea. She was a young toughie about twenty. Andie had pleaded no contest and was sentenced to a year for her role as an accomplice to a robbery. She drove the get-away car while her two male friends held up a drug store.

At the end of three weeks in her group, Andie was about to open up to Bernice. The recent weeks of puking her guts out in the sink prompted Andie to want to talk.

Bernice casually asked her, "Are you pregnant, Andie?"

"No, at least I don't think so. I got my flow last month and I ain't been with a man since comin' in here. It's probably this stinkin' prison food."

The next day Andie was taken to the prison doctor when she fainted on laundry duty. Two weeks later she confessed to Bernice, "The doc says I'm pregnant all right, twelve weeks now. But, I guess I won't be able to do nothin' about it, now that I'm in this old place!" Then Andie walked away.

Bernice knew Andie was frustrated because prison prevented her from finding some hack to give her an abortion. At Andie's age, Bernice loved babies like crazy and had looked forward to several of her own.

Bernice lay back on her bunk and remembered the day she arrived in Syracuse twenty-eight years ago when she met her infant niece Flora Mae for the first time. She navigated as best she could through those recollections, but painful memories writhed forth without regard–memories that took her years to banish to the dark dungeons of her subconscious.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 1904 Syracuse's Negro community was miniscule, not much more than a thousand persons, a half of one percent of a heavily German and Italian population. However, a sizable Jewish part of the populace shared their community with these African Americans. Since their numbers were small, coloreds lived in the same neighborhoods as whites. They went to the same public schools, since New York schools were desegregated in 1898 under short-time governor Theodore Roosevelt. Not until Negro youths entered adulthood did job discrimination and taboos against race mixing create difficulties for them. Given that, a few married interracial couples were sprinkled around the confines of Syracuse. For the most part, coloreds and whites were on peaceful terms with each other, because colored people tolerated the tradition of the era.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After traveling thirty hours from St. Louis through Chicago and Detroit, Bernice's train chugged into New York City's Grand Central Terminal. From there, she boarded another New York Central Rail Road train and continued her trip through Albany, Utica and at last to her destination, the Central Rail Road Station at Syracuse. It was mid-August 1904.

"Rita!"

"Bernice!"

Elated, they raced to hold each other for the first time in three years. Their hearts were heavy and Bernice's was still tender.

"I'm so happy you're here. Let me look at you," said Rita.

Bernice opened her parasol and spun around to show Rita the outfit she made her and how well it fit.

"I see where I can put in a few tucks. Girl, you're thinner than I imagined."

"Oh, I love the way it fits, everything you made is fine. Thank you so much." She hugged Rita again.

Rita and Bernice bore a great family resemblance. Rita was a smidge taller. She had a pecan complexion, like their sister Hannah, and a bit more frizz in her hair than Bernice. From underneath the hat which shielded Rita's face from the afternoon sun, a set of curly bangs spilled forth and scalloped her forehead–a forehead that was more prominent than Bernice's. Still nursing, Rita was buxom and carried baby-weight around her belly and hips.

Rita had a methodical, meticulous, and authoritative personality, and was creative with her hands. Bernice could be direct, impetuous yet cautious, empathetic, and loyal, as well as creative when she wanted to have her own way.

"Bernice, this is Lenny."

"Glad to finally meet you Lenny." She let Rita go and gave her brother-in-law a hug.

She found him warm and cordial, and she thought he seemed the perfect choice for her sister. Lenny Volten had a tawny complexion from sun exposure on his job as a teamster. He delivered goods by horse and wagon for a typewriter manufacturer, which took him out of town for several days at a time.

"And, this little one is Flora Mae Volten." She was five months old and peevish at this juncture. Rita called her by her full name when she was cranky, otherwise she called her Flora. Bernice extended her hands to her baby niece, but wasn't the least bit discouraged when Flora turned away and clung to Rita. Bernice loved being an aunt.

Lenny led the entourage back to the horse and wagon he'd borrowed from his job. The station was west of the city, so they traveled through downtown to the Eastside where they lived. Lenny drove the scenic route along the Erie Canal–the famed man-made waterway–passing by the equally famous Clinton Shopping District.

As they meandered on Clinton Street to the intersection at Washington Street, they yielded to one of New York Central Rail Road's enormous passenger trains called the Empire State Express. Its 999 locomotive engine groaned deep whistles–whoooa!–at close intervals–whoooa!–and its smokestack belched plumes of black smoke and steam. It thundered slowly eastward right down the middle of Washington Street, through the canyon of buildings which was Syracuse's main business district. As the monstrosity rumbled past, a tremendous lump-thumping from its hefty iron wheels vibrated windows and doors as they crossed over rail joints. Its massive weight reverberated through the streets under every foot and hoof within two blocks of the tracks. Whether these locomotives pulled passenger cars or freight cars, every steed and pedestrian along Washington Street halted to pay respect to these colossal, black iron dragons when they chugged through downtown day and night.

As the enormous Empire passed by, it reminded Bernice of when she and her father waited for the miniature World's Fair train to pass in front of them. She described the occasion to Rita and Lenny and its contrast to the mighty Empire made them chuckle.

Lenny and Rita described "points of interest" as they came to them. While Baby Flora napped on Rita's lap, Bernice shared tidbits about the family back in Savannah, but was apprehensive about sharing more of her visit to St. Louis. Yet, a lively banter kept up between the three of them until they reached home.

The reunion between the sisters was joyous but dampened by their father's death. Repercussions of the trauma preoccupied Bernice. She would begin to tell Rita about her wonderful time with their father, but after a few sentences, her enthusiasm was subdued by flashbacks of the accident scene or the funeral. Bernice kept these flashes to herself for the moment. However, she looked forward to when she could get Rita alone and unload some of the suppressed emotions she brought with her from St. Louis.

"I quit my job at that old sweatshop after Flora was born. I've got my own dressmakin' business now. I can't wait to show you," Rita said.

As they arrived home, Bernice saw a wooden sign posted in the yard alongside the street. Lenny had carved it for Rita. It read "Rita's Dressmaking & Alterations" in painted green letters on a white background.

Rita and Lenny rented their home on East Water Street. She used the back parlor as her studio. She met clients there, colored and white, to have their garments measured and fitted. In this room, the windows were draped; and when the drapes were open, it was bright and cheery. It had upholstered chairs, side tables with lamps, a chaise, and thick area rugs over the hardwood floors. In one corner there hung a pair of full-length mirrors. In another corner were stairs to an elevated landing where her clients stood to have their hems pinned, which saved Rita's knees. Two doors were on the opposite side of the room. One door led to a changing room. The other door led to her work room and office. In this room she kept her appointment and accounting books. It also had two sewing machines, all the accessories she needed, an inventory of fabric swatches, and numerous patterns for a variety of clothing. Rita was building a reputation for creating fine ladies garments.

Over the next two weeks, Bernice enjoyed her sister's family, and she was great fun for Rita and Flora. Rita took her on the streetcars to all the touristy spots, always with little Flora in tow. From the tours, Bernice became familiar with the city.

In exchange for their hospitality and time, Bernice helped with chores or entertained Flora, thereby giving her sister some uninterrupted periods to catch up on a dress order.

When the ninth of September came, Rita surprised Bernice with a three-layered chocolate cake to celebrate her nineteenth birthday, purchased from Weis Bakery, one of several German bakeries in town. It was the first time Bernice had seen a cake so artfully decorated. Its white fondant icing looked like a sculpture of fine porcelain with pink and yellow lifelike roses on top. The cake rivaled the Italian Capodimonte floral figurines she had seen in shop windows. And, Bernice had never eaten a cake that wasn't home-baked or potluck. The celebration brought her to tears, grateful tears, that Rita and Lenny would do that for her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day from her work room window, Rita could see the ice wagon stopped up the street. "Berneeeeece!" she called out in a mild panic. Bernice came running with Flora in her arms.

The ice delivery wagon made daily runs through the neighborhood. Residents put an "ice card" in their front windows to signal the iceman that a block of ice was needed. The color of the card indicated the size of the block. If no one was home, the iceman wrapped the ice in thick layers of newspapers and left the block inside a special wooden box outside the door. The customer left payment in a discreet place where the iceman could find it.

When she arrived, Bernice was relieved to see her sister in good form, only draped in measuring tape and yards of fabric with stick pins pursed between her lips.

"What's the matter, Sis?"

"The iceman's comin' and I forgot to put the card in the window," Rita said through her pursed lips. "Could you do that for me and let the iceman in the back door, please?" From the pocket of her pinafore, Rita gave her a quarter–a "cute" was the word their father used. "Put this in the usual place for him."

"Ice wagons!" fretted Bernice. The uneasy reaction was expected and it didn't disappoint. Bernice became panicky as her father's body materialized in her head, as did olfactory memories of fragrant lager and tiny islands of cobblestones surrounded by froths of bloody beer.

Rita ran an efficient household. Until now, Bernice had avoided the thought and the sight of ice wagons and icemen. I hate ice wagons and I hate icemen, she repeated this mantra to herself. Yes, it was irrational for her to assume that all icemen were like the ones who: killed my daddy and left him in the street. In her mind, hating them was her way to avenge her father.

With Flora on her hip like an appendage, Bernice placed the ice card in the front parlor window. The card was white and meant her sister needed a twenty-five-pound block of ice. She went through the kitchen and dropped the quarter in the little tin box on the stoop outside the kitchen door.

Bernice entertained Flora on the front porch as the abominable ice wagon pulled up. She turned suspicious, keeping one eye on Flora, the other on the wagon. It was black; the horses that pulled it were ebony. The company name was painted on the sides of the wagon in broad white letters which her mind translated as DADDY KILLERS.

Bernice's mind had fallen into the hole in her heart as she juxtaposed the Coroner's wagon–the one that collected her father's broken body from the darkened St. Louis street–over this innocuous scene of the icemen and their ice wagon. She perceived their business as something gruesome.

Bernice saw the wagon's suspension sag underneath the dead weight inside. An ogre slithered from the driver seat and got right to the icy undertaking. A younger troll skulked out of the back of the wagon eager to carve more gelid slabs. They put on their heavy rawhide gloves and went to work. Bernice heard the rasps and creaks of the hacksaws and picks they used with ruthless fervor to dissect twenty-five and fifty-pound slabs from the remains of a gigantic glacier. They kept it under a rimed shroud of canvas and newspapers to insulate and conceal it from the light of day. The creatures' efforts to hide the frozen monolith were undermined because a cold, lifeless fluid wept through drainage holes in the bottom of the wagon and splattered the cobbles below.

With huge menacing tongs of iron in their hands, the icemen pierced and lifted each weighty slab which splat, splat, splat as they delivered them first to Bernice's neighbors across the street. On each trip back to the wagon, the younger troll's stealthy eyes watched her every move. She was annoyed by his gawks–remember, he's a daddy killer–her mind told her once more. On second thought, Bernice had tried to be annoyed. She wasn't successful.

Before Bernice knew it, her psyche had climbed to a brighter summit in her heart and allowed the younger creature to morph from a troll back into a young man. She found herself pulling at her earlobe unable to resist a peek at him when his back was turned.

This young man didn't look like the boys she knew in Savannah. He was a least five-ten in height and about two or three years her senior, she guessed. His hair was jet black, cut short, and with silky S curves in it. The day was warm and sunny, so he wore a shirt with the sleeves torn out of it, exposing his arms which were muscular like the arms of a hardscrabble laborer. Bernice noticed his well-developed physique. His face and skin were clear and hairless with a rosy blush beneath its caramel pigment. He appeared to be of Negro and Indian parentage. The ethnic mixture bestowed his face with features that were very charming and engaging.

Before the icemen made deliveries to her side of the street, they stopped to hand out ice shards to the children on the curb who had begged for the frozen morsels. This made the children gleeful. The gesture of kindness softened Bernice's attitude toward the icemen and further lightened her mood.

Then, they went back to their work. The driver made a delivery next door while his younger partner proceeded around to her sister's back door with a "twenty-five-pounder" gripped in his tongs. Bernice, with Flora in her arms, had the doors to the kitchen and the icebox open by the time the iceman arrived. He bounded in and hoisted the fresh block into the top chamber of the icebox.

Before he left, the iceman saw an opportunity under the guise of business courtesy and took it. He turned to Bernice and introduced himself.

"Hello, Ma'am, my name is Jacob Spears and from now on we will be deliverin' your ice and also your coal this winter."

Back home in Savannah, if Bernice had been allowed to court, an interested fellow would first introduce himself to her stepfather, and of course her stepfather would have already known the fellow's parents, and maybe his grandparents. Then, a formal introduction would have been orchestrated at the next church social overseen by several discerning sisters-of-the-church who would have chaperoned the activities of all the young adults.

Feigning disinterest Bernice replied, "I'm not the lady of the house. Mrs. Volten is. I'm visitin' from out of town. Your payment is in the little box outside."

At that reply, the kitchen cooled like an icebox. "My apologies, Miss. Well, please tell Mrs. Volten one of us will meet her day after tomorrow."

Though embarrassed, Jacob was relieved that Bernice was not the missus, but disappointed to learn that she was an out-of-town guest. He stooped to retrieve the payment from the tin box and walked away.

Bernice noticed Jacob's slackened demeanor and called out, "Oh, Mister Spears!"

Jacob stopped in his tracks and turned toward Bernice. Her bottom lip quivered.

"It's Miss Silverson. My name is Bernice Silverson. Mrs. Volten is my sister and this little one is my niece, Flora." Then the corners of her mouth lifted. A smile had spread across her face and betrayed her.

He smiled back acknowledging her, "You can call me Jake, Miss Silverson," and he walked away.

The iceman intrigued her. His smile was perfect and she often dreamed of being on the receiving end of a gentleman's smile, yet at the same time she remained guarded. After all, she knew nothing about him or his family, and as much as she relished independence from her stepparents, in this instance, she might have appreciated a small measure of their circumspection.

Bernice scampered to the front parlor window to get a good look at Jake this time. She watched him walk toward the ice wagon. Her mind went to the edge of that dark place within and let out a silent scream at the sight of the wagon. It conjured a bitter taste on her palate as if to remind her of the covenant to hate icemen she had made to her late father. Bernice screamed back in silence: But, I need a friend!

Bernice's happiness was important, but caution was in order as she was vulnerable. She drew closer to the window to gaze at the breadth of Jake's back and shoulders. Then, everything around him paled. Jake's walk turned into a slow-motion glide that synchronized with a racy Joplin tune that Bernice replayed in her head. I wonder if the rest of him is as chiseled as his arms and the aberrant thought surprised and amused her.

Little Flora, blasé toward Bernice's reverie, cried for some attention and nixed her aunt's amorous interlude. The icemen no longer were so sinister to her; but as she watched the horses pull up to the next block, the ice wagon, which in reality read UNITED ICE & COAL, was still questionable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Autumn pressed on into winter and brought Bernice her first sight of snow on Halloween morning. For weeks Jake had delivered coal for the furnace and she looked forward to seeing him on those afternoons she was home. During those brief encounters, they exchanged sparse words, although it was about as much as Jake dared because he sensed her uneasiness. Jake wanted to call on Bernice when seeing her became sporadic after she found employment. To this aim, he was careful to help her feel comfortable in his presence whenever her saw her. Jake hoped his patience would one day lead her to trust him.

When Bernice became employed, she worked out an agreement with Rita and Lenny to stay through the winter and spring. She wrote her family about her desire to remain in Syracuse for a while longer. She considered herself fortunate not to have to return to Savannah right away.

As time went on, Bernice reconciled her phobia for ice wagons and for icemen, or at least she made an exception with Jake. She opened her heart to the possibility that he might be good for her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Election year 1904 climaxed in November when newspaper headlines announced that Republican Theodore Roosevelt was re-elected President the day after the polls closed.

By Thanksgiving, the city was ankle deep in snow. Bernice had known Jake for two months. She invited him to Thanksgiving supper. It was the first time Jake came to the house as a guest. Over supper, Jake shared more about himself and his family with Rita, Lenny, and Bernice.

"My father, Frederick Spears, was born free in 1860 right here in Syracuse. I was told his mother was pregnant with him when she and her family went underground to escape slavery in North Carolina. After his birth, they continued on to Canada where he grew up near the Indian reservation on the Canadian side. At nineteen, my father crossed the border to New York, where he met and married my mother.

"My mother, Dorrie Rose, was a full-blooded Mohawk, a member of the Turtle Clan, the most revered clan of the Mohawks, and they adopted my father into the family. She had me in 1881 on the St. Regis Reservation in Franklin County where I grew up. She named me Jacob Spears, but on the Reservation they called me "Running" Spear because when I was little, an angry pair of geese chased me when I tried to steal some eggs from a nest."

Laughter erupted and he shared more stories about learning to hunt deer and rabbit. Afterwards, he continued on.

"Mom and Pop didn't get along, so he left us when I was about eleven. I went to Indian School on the Reservation. I was sixteen when I quit school and found my first job takin' care of horses and cleanin' stables. My next jobs were distillin' salt, workin' coal mines, or whatever honest work I could find. I got married at nineteen to a girl I'd known my whole life on the Reservation. But, two years ago I lost her and the baby she was deliverin' durin' birth. Now I've been workin' for United Ice & Coal for nearly a year."

Flora began to cry wanting her diaper changed, which provided a welcomed adjustment to the moment. Lenny was not much older than Jake, yet he needed to play the father figure for Bernice by cross-examining Jake's ambitions. By the end of supper, however, Lenny and Jake had become fast-friends.

While the men continued to get acquainted over a smoke in the front parlor, Bernice and Rita were left to the after-supper chores. Rita put Flora to bed early because she had been fussy all through the meal. Bernice dried and put away the endless parade of washed dishes and utensils, pots, serving platters, and the like. Later, she joined Jake and Lenny in the parlor. She brought with her a pot of hot tea, some cups, and a slice of sweet potato pie for each of them.

Stuffed from supper, but too early to turn in, Lenny gathered the newspaper and his pipe, made an excuse to part their company, took his pie with him, and headed for the back parlor where Rita was.

Although skittish, Bernice was happy to sit alone a spell with Jake for the first time.

"Thank you for invitin' me to supper and please thank your sister for the best turkey supper I've had in a long while."

"You're welcome. I think Rita and Lenny liked you very much. Some tea?"

Jake answered yes. The cup and saucer rattled in Bernice's hands. Jake saw his chance to touch her and placed his hand underneath hers to quiet the china. It worked, but the warmth of his palm right away set Bernice's stomach to quivering.

Jake replied, "I liked them, too. And, little Flora doesn't wanna be left out of the conversation does she?"

As they sipped tea and nibbled pie together, more chit-chat continued between them for an hour. Each straddled the line between being respectful and being brash. Jake didn't want to offend Bernice and she didn't want to risk Jake's noble view of her by encouraging bolder attention from him. However, both wanted to know–and wanted the other to know–that what they were feeling had grown way beyond a casual fancy. So, underneath their chit-chat there was a current of longing to embrace the other, to kiss the other.

Jake liked Bernice when he first saw her. And, when she smiled at him, he was smitten. She had a fetching combination of feminine attributes that beguiled him. She was the right height, willowy, yet well-proportioned. Her features were symmetrical and regal. Her so-ordinary-dark-brown eyes melted him and her long dark tresses framed her latte complexion sweetly. The time Jake used to spend thinking of his late wife was now spent thinking of Bernice. Since his wife, he had not met a more buoyant, kinder, or more beautiful woman than Bernice. His wish was coming true.

Bernice was naïve. What she knew about the wiles of the opposite sex couldn't fill a thimble. If a man was kind and polite to her, she assumed he had character until proven otherwise. Every idea she had about the love of a man stemmed from girl talk or from reading dime romance novels. Any sensual responses she had ever experienced were from those she elicited herself. For Bernice, physical love was still a daydream, but the prospects of loving Jake awakened her to all the sensual realities that marriage to the right man could bring. Jake was handsome, beautifully muscled, polite, kind, and he made an honest and steady income. Perfect, she thought of him.

An hour alone in the parlor with Bernice was about the limit for a gentleman's first call. An unspoken courtesy to Rita and Lenny, but well understood. Wanting to stay cordial with them, Jake rose from his chair.

"If I wanna catch the last car," meaning the streetcar, "I'd better get along now."

Bernice went to the hall wardrobe for his wraps. She wondered how she could let him know that she wanted to be kissed without seeming pert. On her way back, she held her gaze into his brown eyes a touch too long, and then she averted them. Bernice was flirting. She held on to Jake's furry cap until he put on his cloak. When he reached for it, she put her hand out instead. He kissed it like a Victorian prince. They laughed and the longing between them subsided.

At the door, Jake stopped to ask, "When may I call on you again, Miss Bernice?"

"How about supper here after church?"

Jake hadn't been inside a church since his wife passed away, but agreed to meet her there. No longer able to hold back his impulses, he pulled Bernice closer, "I need to kiss you for real. Is that all right with you?"

Bernice had not fully spoken the word yes when Jake cradled her head in the crook of his elbow and wrapped her in his arms. His cloak fanned out swathing her inside his embrace. His clothes didn't reek of earthy coal dust like the ones he worked in–no–instead she was treated to the spicy musk scent of his shaving lotion.

Jake pressed his lips softly on hers which quivered like her stomach. Startled by the spontaneity, she tensed and held her breath at the start of his respectful dry, but warm sweet kiss. When she was more secure in his arms, her body relaxed against his, and the floor disappeared beneath her feet. In their sacred space, only a gossamer veil separated her essence from his. Jake melted Bernice's heart.

Then as swift as it began, the kiss was over. Jake hugged Bernice before letting her go. He straightened and buttoned his cloak, and smiled at her when he put on his cap.

"See you on Sunday," he said and walked out into the stiff, snowy Thanksgiving night.

A frosty wind blew past Jake into the parlor before Bernice could shut the door. She was bitten by the gust, but her lips remained warm where Jake had kissed them, as did her heart. She could still feel the places on her body where he had held her.

"We're turnin' in, Bernice. Good night," Rita said on her way to bed. Then she stopped and added, "Jake seems to be a nice fellow."

"I like him very much. There's somethin' soulful about him. He says when he looks into my eyes he sees the majestic spirit of a young doe. He said, like me, deer are quiet and graceful animals, and the Mohawk people respect them, because like the Creator who provides the deer, they depend on it for food and clothes. He believes we were meant to meet each other. Rita, I believe Jake can see right into my heart."

"Girl, you may've found your soul mate. I am so happy for you."

"I've invited him to supper on Sunday after church, if that's all right."

"Sure, sure, that's fine," Rita said.

Sleep was the furthest thing from Bernice's mind that night. She tried to revisit the rapturous kiss by enfolding herself in her own arms, closing her eyes, and replaying it, trying to recapture how it felt, and planning how she might kiss him with more passion the next time.

Bernice was in love for the first time. Jake called on her every chance she gave.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As soon as Christmas passed, shots rang in the New Year of 1905. Preparations for Roosevelt's Inaugural festivities were front page news.

A few weeks later, a large envelope postmarked in St. Louis came for Bernice. Nestled inside, a letter from Marie and another envelope from a company she did not recognize. As Bernice read Marie's letter, she had to sit to finish it. Afterwards, she clutched the letter and the auspicious envelope, and ran squealing to tell Rita about what she had learned.

"Rita! I've received the most unbelievable news!" Bernice grabbed her sister's hands and together they squealed and frolicked about with Rita following Bernice's lead, since she had yet to tell Rita what had made her so animated. Frightened by the ruckus, ten-month-old Flora burst into tears.

"What is it, Bernice? Tell me or I shall die," pleaded Rita while she comforted Flora.

Bernice gasped for breath, "Ok, ok, let's sit first." She took a deep breath in an effort to calm herself. "A letter came today from Marie and . . . heck, I may as well read you the letter." She took another deep breath and began aloud:

January 20, 1905

Dearest Bernice,

It seems that your father made a bet that finally hit the jackpot. Remember the Lion Coffee Contest he entered at the fair last summer? Today, I received a letter from the Woolson Spice Company. When I opened it, the letter read "Congratulations! Bernard and Marie Silverson are our Grand Prize Winners of the 1904 World's Fair Presidential Vote Contest."

The letter explained that there were 12,712,684 votes cast in the 1904 election for president. Bernard estimated there would be 12,712,000 votes and his guess was the closest. The Woolson Company sent us a check for the $2,500 Grand Prize. I was so excited over receiving the check that I immediately sat down and wrote this letter to you. I wish Bernard was here to see that he is finally "getting the grapes" as he was sure he would someday.

There's more Bernice. Another envelope from Woolson's came in care of Bernard, but it is addressed to you. I have enclosed it. It looks like you are a prize winner, too. Do let me know of your good fortune, my dear.

Bernice, God has heard me and blessed me today. Maybe he's done the same for you. Write me soon. You are in my prayers.

Sincerely,

Marie

Bernice commenced to telling Rita all about their father's love of baseball and his penchant for betting on games; and how he came up with his guess of the vote total by using a Bible passage. Rita was fascinated by what Bernice told her.

As she told her sister the story, something else became clearer to Bernice. She revealed to Rita why on the day of their father's accident a hole was in the middle of one of the pages from the newspaper he had left on the kitchen table. It dawned on her that it was Bernard who had cut out what was a contest entry form from the Woolson Lion Coffee ad. Her father had entered the contest in her name, which was his reason for going to the post office before work that day. Bernice explained it all to Rita and she was awed.

"I had long given up on anything ever becomin' of father's entry into that contest."

Desperately wanting her to end the suspense Rita asked, "Well, have you opened the Woolson envelope yet?"

"Not yet, I wanted you to be with me when I did." Her hands trembled as she opened the envelope and pulled out the letter. She unfolded it and a check dropped out and drifted to the floor. She read the first phrase aloud, "Congratulations! Bernice Silverson is our Grand Prize Winner . . ." In mid-sentence she sank in the chair feeling giddy.

Rita crawled beneath the table to retrieve the check and exclaimed, "Pay to the order of Bernice Silverson two thousand five hundred dollars!" and rose, placing the check on the table in front of Bernice.

Bernice became weepy. She had tears of joy over what her father had done for her and tears of sadness that he was unable to hold the biggest bunch of grapes he had ever chanced to win. She looked again at the check and couldn't believe her eyes, but it was true. God does work all things for good came to her mind. Bernice even thanked God for the blessing that Marie had suggested it was.

Early the next morning she left for the bank, the First Trust & Deposit Company on South Warren and Washington Streets. She was the first customer of the day. When she presented her prize check, she created a stir among the bank employees. She was amused by the bank manager wanting to meet the Grand Prize Winner of the Lion Coffee Contest and noticed how friendly he was to her while she completed her transactions.

She obtained four bank drafts for one hundred twenty-five dollars each payable to her sisters Rita Volten and Hannah Silverson, to her stepmother Eleanor Morissette, and the final draft to Bethany Baptist Church, her new church in Syracuse. She deposited the remaining two thousand dollars in her new savings account, her first ever. Bernice did not yet know how she wanted to use the prize winnings, but she knew she wanted to do "something big" when the right time came. The bank manager congratulated her and thanked her for her business. Bernice knew that it wasn't her he was happy to see, but her money.

Later that week, the Woolson Spice Company published a follow-up ad with the names of all the prize winners. In large type, the names, "Bernard & Marie Silverson of St. Louis, Missouri" and "Bernice Silverson of St. Louis, Missouri," were listed as the Grand Prize Winners. Because of her father's address on her entry, the Woolson Company assumed Bernice lived in St. Louis.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miss Sadie had forewarned Bernice at sixteen that she'd be driven to find a love to replace the love and affection her birth parents couldn't give her. For a brief moment, she had found her father's unconditional love only to see that love crushed before her in the street.

Though Bernice didn't think so at first, she believed that God had sent Jake to love her. Jake had made the dark empty wound in her heart smaller and the warmth of his spirit radiated around it so that she noticed the wound less. If a father's love is a young daughter's first example of how a man's love should feel, then being the woman that Jake desired exceeded the love she lacked because of her father's absence. Bernice knew that Jake was her heart's true desire. She recalled Sadie's prophecy and told herself: Jake is the love for me; my search is finally over.

Bernice decided to settle in Syracuse. She and Jake continued to get along and their love grew serious. He wanted to marry her and Bernice would've preferred a June wedding, but he needed more time.

When Jake made the final payment on a wedding ring, he asked Bernice for her hand in front of Rita, Lenny, and little Flora on the day of her twentieth birthday. Jake was twenty-four. They'd known each other for over a year.

Bernice was anxious about the wedding night. She sought Rita's encouragement and advice.

"Bernice, lovemakin' is not like it is in those dime novels you read. The first time, it'll be uncomfortable and seem like it'll never be over," Rita cautioned, "but you'll get through it fine, we all do. And, I must tell you that men enjoy it much more than women, not like those sirens in romance stories. The desire for most wives gradually gets less, but husbands want to make love all the time. When a wife just wants to cuddle, husbands think it's a signal that you're in the mood. The rewards for being a dutiful wife are the blessings and the love a new infant brings, which, thank God, also keeps the frequency of her husband's desires manageable."

Rita answered her concerns about what to do and what not to do on the wedding night, but Bernice wasn't encouraged at all by her sister's review of marital intimacy.

At this point, worry made Rita feel left out of the joys of intimacy with Lenny. They were not intimate often during the eighteen months since Flora was born; but, when they did abandon caution and gave in to the manner that made babies, she'd worry afterwards about being pregnant again. Rita wasn't ready for another blessing. Her business demanded more of her time and their finances were doing well because of it. However, a month later, Lenny and Rita learned they were blessed with a second child due the summer of 1906.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice didn't want a long betrothal because the one thing she learned over the past year was that life could be fleeting. The next month, on a cool autumnal Saturday in October 1905, Jake and Bernice were married at sunset in a simple ceremony at Bethany Baptist Church.

Jake wore a black second-hand suit, his one and only suit he last wore to his first wife's funeral. He waited at the church for his bride to arrive.

Bernice wore a tailored white brocade dress she borrowed from Rita. She wore her favorite wide-brimmed sapphire blue hat, the one her sister gave her with the big satin bow that her father said was "mighty fine." She could feel her father's approving presence beside her as Lenny brought them to church in the wagon.

When they pulled up to the modest red brick church, a crisp gentle breeze carried a lone organ's hallowed notes of praise beyond the building. Sonorous chords floated through the red oak and sugar maple trees which surrounded the church. They were ablaze with the pigments of ruby, amber, and sienna. The setting sky was resplendent in a celebratory opus to Bernice and Jake's nuptials. It looked as if God had dunked cotton-ball clouds in the autumn foliage and used them to stroke the heavens with gold and fuchsia to betoken the advance of the sable evening.

Inside the church, there was no pompousness from fancy flowers, no array of attendants, except for Rita and Lenny, nor was there a crowd of guests for Jake and Bernice, just a handful of Lenny's local relatives, and a sprinkling of friends. Yet, the church was enchanted by glorious beams of light which entered through a procession of colorful stained glass windows placed high above on the church's west side.

After everyone took their places, Jake and Bernice stepped out of the shadowy vestibule into the light. To a sacred accompaniment, they strolled down the aisle and passed through each successive multi-colored beam cast on the aisle through the stained glass windows. Dressed in a navy blue suit, the Reverend waited for them between two pedestals, each topped with a large lighted candle. He opened his arms to greet them as they stepped onto the altar. They stood in the beam of the last window which turned Bernice's white dress into a kaleidoscope of color.

Lenny took his place next to Jake, Rita next to Bernice, and their father's spirit hovered beside the Reverend. When the accompaniment ended, the Reverend got right to the Lord's business of matrimony. By the time the colored beam from the last window drifted beyond the altar and dimmed, Jake and Bernice had completed their marriage vows to each other. They unified their spirits with a symbolic embrace and the traditional kiss. Then turned about and "jumped over the broom," a remnant slave tradition that signified their new status as a married couple. Everyone clapped.

When they left the church, it was near dark. The wedding party returned home where Rita and Lenny received the small gathering and celebrated over cake and coffee.

Jake and Bernice Spears didn't go on a honeymoon, however Bernice didn't care. Her dream was a lifetime with Jake and to start giving him the babies they both desired. Bernice thought because she lost her mother at an early age, it was her calling to give a mother's special love to children of her own. So, lots of babies are what she wanted. But, she'd have to get through her first intimate night with Jake.

Because of social segregation and the plethora of "disorderly" hotels downtown, Jake rented a room for their connubial night at the nicest alternative he knew of in the area. It was a two-story bed and breakfast house on James Street three blocks north of East Washington Street, beyond the confines of Syracuse's red light district. The house was old, but quaint and well-kept, and they did not rent rooms for illicit liaisons. This house was one place where Negro families and their friends found decent lodging in Syracuse. It hardly filled the demand for rooms needed by the colored community. If a fresh steamy cup of coffee, bacon and eggs, or some hotcakes were your hankering, you could look forward to a great breakfast at this establishment.

The nuptial night was starry and cold when Jake and Bernice arrived to their room. It was furnished simply: a writing desk and a chair, a double bed, a highboy, a wardrobe with a mirror, and a chair rail defined the space. Behind a threefold screen was a vanity with a removable enameled pan for water. There was one window with heavy drapes and the walls were painted in a neutral color instead of fancy wallpaper. The room also had a cozy fireplace and a coal stove with a kettle to heat water for washing, or for an early morning cup of tea or coffee.

The bed made Bernice nervous, but its ruffled bed skirt, downy comforter, and chenille coverlets made it look warm and inviting. The room had a chill in it, so Jake stoked the fire.

"Would you like to turn in while I shave?" He wanted his face to be smooth for Bernice and besides, he needed to occupy himself while she got accustomed to the idea of their first night together.

In her mind, she questioned his need to shave, but what did she know except that maybe he wanted to respect her modesty and to let her have some privacy.

"All right, I'll only be a few minutes." Then, they parted.

Bernice took off the woolen dress she put on before they left the wedding celebration. Next, she doffed her corset and all her underpinnings as her sister had advised, which made her feel vulnerable.

She brought from home a perfume bottle filled with rose water and rubbed it all over her body. Then she put on the early wedding present Rita had made her, a long-sleeved, empire waist gown made of ivory satin. Blue satin ribbon weaved through the lace on the cuffs, around the waist, and at the neck line. Bernice stood in front of the wardrobe mirror admiring herself–oh my, look how pretty!–then a draft came from nowhere. It gave her a nip as there was nothing between her and her satiny gown. The wooden floors were cold, too. Despite what her sister told her, she put on some woolen socks.

Bernice combed out her long braid and let her crinkled mane fall over one shoulder. Then, she tied a bow at the ends of her hair with ribbon that matched the ribbon in her gown. When she was done, she fluffed the feather bed, sprinkled it with the rose water, and climbed in. She sat with her back against the headboard, twisting the slender gold wedding band around and around her finger while she waited for Jake. Bernice was timorous and therefore appreciated his thoughtfulness to let her get in bed first. She was more secure underneath the bedcovers because she felt naked in her loose fitting gown.

After Jake finished, he turned off the only lamp. With the heavy drapes drawn tight, the only light in the room was from the fire which crackled and smelled of cherry wood. Shadows jumped about as the firelight flickered. He removed his undershirt. The firelight washed over his caramel skin, accentuating every prominence across his back and chest, and every ripple of his stomach. And, like his arms, his chest was smooth, without much hair. He was chiseled all over like she had imagined him.

Jake undressed except for his long underwear bottoms. For a moment, he let his eyes rest on the sight of his new wife. The gown Bernice had on gave her a pearly iridescence. Her complexion reflected the fire's glow and its flames danced in her not-so-ordinary-to-him-dark-brown-doe eyes. She looked stunning.

Sensing her shyness–Bernice was fiddling with her ear–Jake mindfully climbed in bed and sat next to her. Rose scents wafted when he disturbed the bedcovers. He held and caressed Bernice's left hand. The iceman's palm was roughened by his labors over ice and coal, but she welcomed the warmth that radiated from it. Tension urged her to talk. Jake was patient and let her lead with whatever topic came to her mind. When Bernice drifted to aimless chatter, he leaned over and surprised her with a loving smooch and she quieted down. They heard nothing but the snapping and popping of the fireplace, and the distant intermittent groans of trains passing through downtown. However, Bernice thought Jake could hear her heartbeat.

Then, with the right measures of bravura and tenderness, Jake took Bernice in his arms. For the first time he could feel through her gown how soft and delicate she was. He held her close to his naked chest and gave her a deep succulent kiss. He kissed her gently behind her ear, and then on the place where her gown slipped exposing her shoulder. She was adrift in Jake's sweet redolence and submerged in the nurturing warmth of his embrace. Following his lead, she returned his kisses and this time she withheld nothing from him.

Bernice gave her fragile heart to Jake, the whole of it, and he treasured it. In body and spirit, Jake communicated his love to her and strengthened her assurance of him. Bernice surrendered stage by stage to each of his sensuous advances. All the while, he was gentle and careful not to cause her discomfort, and then their nuptials were tenderly consummated. When it happened, the gossamer veil that separated their souls dissolved and Jake's essence merged into hers. And, when it was over, they had left a spiritual memory of each other in the sacred space they now shared.

After their lovemaking, Jake spooned Bernice and cuddled her. She'd never had such love, passion, and oneness with another soul in her life. Her emotions overwhelmed her and tears seeped out. Bernice was grateful to Jake. Her heart, nearly whole, was warm and full. Jake kissed the tears from her cheeks until they fell asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day Jake moved in with Bernice. Lenny helped Jake get a teamster job where he worked. Jake was away more, but he brought in more income. They lived with Rita and Lenny for the first year of their marriage.

In the winter of 1906, Jake and Bernice settled in the vacated flat next door. Space in her sister's home became cramped after Rita's second child named Ina was born that June. Bernice was happy to have her own abode.

When Jake was out of town, Bernice worked extra hours at the grocery store. When he returned, the homecomings were sensual and glorious. They were happy. By their first wedding anniversary, they were more dedicated than ever to produce their first child. Bernice wondered why her sister and their other married friends had made sex sound like a chore. Unlike them, she found intimacy with Jake wholly pleasurable and she enjoyed making love to him as much as he did with her. Jake, the gentleman that he was, made sure she did. Meanwhile, they eagerly waited to be blessed with a baby.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In February 1908, Rita bore her third child, a son she named Leonard after his father. This last time, as Bernice watched Rita's belly swell, she thought: We're sisters. Why is it that she's havin' babies and I'm not? Rita's pregnancy had made Bernice more jealous than she let herself admit.

October came and Jake and Bernice entered their third year of marriage. Having a baby became their intense focus and Bernice's yearn for a child created impatience between them. Bernice resented the wait for the blessed event to happen.

At her urging, they saw a physician about their infertility. Bernice told the doctor what she knew about her family's medical history. Jake did the same, except he knew little about his family.

The doctor asked Bernice more about her own personal health. Bernice recalled the chicken pox and the measles, along with that one serious bout with fever when she was a teen. She told him about the burning pains she had in her lower abdomen, and the doctor gave her a thorough physical examination. They made a follow-up appointment for the next week.

The week dragged. Jake and Bernice were anxious when they returned to the office to hear the doctor's diagnosis. They held each other's hands while they listened to his report.

"First of all, Mr. and Mrs. Spears, your general health is excellent."

They were encouraged by that assessment.

Then, the doctor's demeanor turned serious. He explained, "I've determined the inflammation you, Mrs. Spears, had as a young girl scarred your fallopian tubes. I'm sorry, but . . ."

When Bernice heard the doctor say "I'm sorry," she became undone, wept on Jake's shoulder, and she heard nothing more. Hope was gone. Her heart bled. Bernice became depressed because having babies was the one thing she most hoped to give Jake.

Jake heard the rest of the doctor's devastating words.

". . . but the scarring will prevent you from having babies," as his voice dropped lower.

A baby was what Jake wanted, too. They left the doctor's office sad and disappointed for each other.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Married life changed for Bernice and Jake. Though infertility happened to her long ago, Bernice suffered as if the most important part of her being a woman had just died. Her body had played the worst trick possible on her: What was God thinkin'! She added more troublestones of resentment and self-pity to her bag of burdens.

Learning that she could never have children was a killjoy for her intimacy with Jake. Though she loved him with all her heart, her puritan upbringing said that sex was for procreation and since she couldn't produce children, she shouldn't indulge in sex for the pure pleasure of it. No matter what Jake tried or said, she didn't let herself enjoy making love with him the way she had before.

Through the rest of 1908, they mourned their childlessness. Jake changed jobs to be home with Bernice every night during this sorrowful period. He went to work at the docks loading and unloading barges on the Canal.

However, not only did Bernice have to cope with the repercussions of her childlessness, but also with the sudden death of her oldest stepbrother Jonas back in Savannah. Eleanor wrote that he died from a respiratory illness. Jonas was twelve. Bernice collected another stone of loss.

By summer 1909, Bernice and Jake had come through the worst of their troubles with a stronger love for one another. Though the roots of resentment grew deep inside Bernice, she and Jake chose to enjoy life and each other again. They were like godparents to Rita and Lenny's three children, especially to five-year-old Flora.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The biggest news sensation at the start of the year 1910 was Halley's comet which returned to the sky from its three-quarter-century orbit of the sun. Doomsday rumors circulated about whether or not the atmosphere might be poisoned by the toxic gases in its tail, and of other catastrophic portents it might bring with it.

Bernice kept herself abreast of the phenomenon by the articles that appeared in the newspapers. She believed various assurances by Syracuse University scientists, and others, that fear of the comet was unwarranted. When it became visible in the night sky on April 20, Jake and Bernice were among the flock of Syracusans who wanted to view it from beyond the glare of the electric lights. Both agreed the sight of the comet was exciting and memorable. Then, they made a wish upon it.

The next day, the newspapers reported that one of her favorite authors, Mark Twain, died on the day Halley's comet returned, just as Twain had predicted, having been born on the day it last appeared in the sky in 1835. The news made Bernice fearful, but by summer's end, her anxiety resolved.

As Jake and Bernice accepted an alternative outlook on their purpose in life as a couple, their paths were about to diverge. Jake, the love of Bernice's life, was killed at age twenty-nine in a freak barge accident on the docks of the Erie Canal on October 22, 1910. Jake was gone. His path on earth ended and he was called to his immortal destiny. Bernice's path was to continue without him.

Despite what the scientists thought, Halley's comet had brought Bernice more loss and grief. She recalled the wish that she and Jake made on the celestial phenomenon. It was to start their family through adoption, but their wish evanesced into space along with the comet's tail. Their marriage had spanned five years. She had recently celebrated her twenty-fifth birthday.

Death became a real and dark companion for Bernice. Death first showed up in her life seventeen years ago that same month when her birth mother passed away. Death didn't spare her from witnessing the demise of the incubator baby six years ago at the Fair. Looking back on it, Bernice had thought the baby's fate was the prelude to death barreling over her cherished father two days later. Death stood nearby when the doctor pronounced that her womb was dead. Still unrelenting, death smothered her young stepbrother. Had she known she'd be death's witness on so many occasions, she would've chosen to succumb to death during the feverish delirium as a teen which caused her to be barren. She wondered why the clover-crowned spirit of her Grandma Rebekah had inspired her to live back then. What work was left for her to do? Yes, Bernice and death were well acquainted. But this time, death snatched the very best part of her, her dream of a lifetime with her beloved Jake. She was wounded and alone, a doe without her buck. The burden of death weighed heaviest of all the troublestones in her bag, but the lure of death challenged her desire to live on.

Bernice spent the first days and weeks waiting for Jake to breeze through the door from a road trip. Then as autumn 1910 shriveled under frost and snow, the change of seasons paralleled the way she grieved for Jake. She continued to question and to beg answers for why God allowed her to go through such pain and sorrow. Why was my mother taken from me, then my father, and even my ability to have babies? Why send Jake into my life only to take him away so soon? Bernice searched within, but there were no answers that satisfied her. She wanted things her way; she wanted Jake back. Brackish tears parched her lips. Her disposition grew sullen. Her natural vibrancy dulled. When the finality of Jake's death became real, her tissue-thin faith shrank further like the autumn and her resentment turned to wintry anger with God. The hurt festered within; her heart had ripped its seams.

As the snow deepened outside, a pall of depression blanketed Bernice inside. It ached to speak Jake's name out loud. She loathed each dawn with sleeplessness, and the holidays were the worst. She received many letters from Eleanor and Hannah, but she answered few of them. She functioned well enough to do her work at the grocery store or in sight of Rita and their friends, but nights alone in a cold dark empty bed continued to test her courage to live.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Next!" The prison matron startled Bernice out of her daydream and also alerted the other inmates who stood in line behind her. The terse voice raised their attention since complete silence was mandatory during this distasteful, but needed task of prison life. They were lined up for their turn in the barber chair.

Two prison barbers were poised over chairs with combs and scissors oblivious about the next inmate to be examined for head lice and a haircut. Once a month to control outbreaks, every inmate was inspected for nits and received a trim. Those found with lice were temporarily separated from the inmate population and their scalps were treated with a mixture of kerosene and cottonseed oil that stayed in the hair for twenty-four hours. It seemed that head lice favored the straight tresses of white inmates more than the kinky-textured variety that Negro inmates possessed; one of the unanticipated features about themselves that colored inmates could gloat about.

Bernice sat in the barber chair. She had "good" hair, the envy of any woman. Now short, it used to flow past her shoulders in soft gentle waves and needed no pressing comb or rag curlers to make it alluring. Jake used to brush her long mane before bed when he was being extra sweet to her. As she submitted to the soothing, yet humiliating inspection of her hair and scalp, she thought back three months ago to the July evening when she first arrived at Jamesville Penitentiary and bondage had become her reality.

That first evening, the prison barber's pale bony fingers weeded through her dark roots, and finding no nits, he gathered the entire lot of her hair in a tight fist, and with one stroke of his scissors, he lopped off her hair at the nape. He let the sheaf of hair drop to the floor in a dark, wavy gulf. The swathe of gray that rippled through it froze in the midst of the spilt blackness. Seeing her cascade of hair pooled on the floor appalled Bernice. She felt stripped of her pride and identity. She felt the same when death disconnected her from Jake and widowhood claimed her.

Bernice was awakened from her pity session by a brusque grunt from the barber at present. After a half-dozen blunt snips with his scissors, he had refreshed her Buster Brown-ish hairstyle and was finished. Cleared of nits, Bernice was moved along and returned to her laundry detail where boredom again reeled her back to reminisce about the first months of 1911.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the New Year of 1911, the first three months pressed on. Although the winter held on fast, each day lengthened signaling spring. Jake was five-months gone and the shadow that enshrouded Bernice was retreating. There was nothing more she could do for her beloved Jake, only accept her life without him and journey on.

She went on, though in her mind, visits from Jake's spirit remained her reason for staying on earth. Bernice held on to Jake's spiritual presence in this fashion. In self-defense she had gathered her heart, except for the missing pieces, placed it in a silk pouch and stuffed it way down in her bosom for safekeeping. It was the place where Eleanor, over six years prior, had advised her to stash her "real" money when she left Savannah. After Jake, Bernice wondered little if she'd ever have a reason to fetch her heart out again. In the meantime, bitterness would dine on it.

So, what about her finances now that Bernice was on her own for the first time in her life? This worry worked itself out to Bernice's favor. And, if she was willing to recognize the "true source" of her favor and see her good fortune as a blessing, her faith in God could be restored, also.

### CHAPTER 7

For the past three weeks, Bernice had kept an eye on her fellow inmate, Andie, who was in her third month of pregnancy. She recognized that look, that steeled attitude, and Bernice suspected the reason for the silent treatment Andie gave the other inmates. She had dreaded the news of her pregnancy and tried to hide her desperation. Besides all this, she wasn't thrilled about the baby's father. The father, Cesar, was her pimp and also one of the men she'd been nabbed with.

Bernice quit shuffling around Andie and came out with her suspicions. "Andie, are you tryin' to figure out some kinda way to get rid of your baby in here? Maybe eat some lye soap or let somebody try and poke it out of you?"

"If me and Cesar wasn't sittin' here in Jamesville, he woulda long done beat it out of me by now!"

"Then you should be glad you're in here away from him and safe," Bernice told her. "Tryin' to kill your baby, if you did, would only depress you more and might make you barren forever."

"What can I do for a baby? Nothin'! I can't care for no child!"

"You're right, there's nothin' you can do for a baby once it's born as you're in here right now, and maybe you can't take care of one, but maybe someone else can love your baby, someone who's hoped for a little blessin' to care for."

Andie looked at Bernice and was bewildered, wondering how she could possibly know what was going on inside her head and why it should matter to her. But Bernice knew how it pained to be denied a child. She knew what Andie was thinking because she'd seen her kind of desperation long ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before Bernice worked for Kline's General Mercantile & Grocery, the store had lapsed into disarray since the Gen! Slocum sight-seeing vessel caught fire and sank in the East River in June of 1904. A combination of profit-squeezing shortcuts and ignorant neglect of passenger safety caused the catastrophe, which burned and drowned over one thousand German immigrants on holiday, including Kline's wife and two adult children. The store looked as dispirited as Kline.

In 1905 old man Kline accepted Bernice's job application when she came in one March day, because another employee had quit. As the janitress, she swept, she cleaned, and she also kept the shelves restocked. Later, because of her own initiative, she did everything except for the cashier duties–old man Kline considered cashiering a job for whites. Lucky to have a job, she let her feet grow thicker callouses against the pebbles in her shoes which allowed her to cope with the "better-than-thou" attitudes from Kline and the customers. However, beyond public view, Kline taught Bernice to do the ordering and bookkeeping for when he was too ill to do it himself. Kline also had a small pawn business, so she did some pawn brokering for the colored customers with his final approval. As the years passed, Bernice had learned Kline's grocery and pawn business as well as the old man, and as his health declined, he had grown to rely on her.

When Jake died, Bernice had worked at the store for over five years. Helping to manage the store is probably what kept her from "giving up the ghost" to follow Jake. Spring 1911 was about to arrive and Bernice, emerging out of her gloomy cocoon of bereavement, read a newspaper story that tempted her to crawl back there again.

The Syracuse Herald printed the names of one hundred forty-six victims, nearly all women, who died a week earlier on March 25, 1911 in the tragic fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City. The article exposed the garment industry's deplorable working conditions such as locking employees inside their work stations and numerous violations of building fire codes. Plus, the buildings had no fire escapes and the city fire departments had inadequate life-saving equipment. A line stated: "Safety lapses in the work place culminated in one horrific conflagration which resulted in unnecessary human loss."

Bernice read each name on the list of victims and found one name that looked familiar. She went next door to ask Rita about it.

"Have you seen the newspaper today?"

"You kiddin', girl, I've been too busy around here to read. Why? What's goin' on, now? And, Bernice read her the article about the Triangle fire. Then she showed her the name on the list of the dead.

"You know this woman?"

"Oh my God, it's my friend! This can't be true." Hurt reddened Rita's eyes and the blood drained from her face. Rita knew the woman better than Bernice did.

"You mean it's our Velma? The one who came to my weddin'?"

Velma and Rita had always been girlfriends. She was the daughter of the family friend who had invited Rita to come to Syracuse all those years ago. When Bernice first arrived in Syracuse, Rita reintroduced Velma to her. Bernice had remembered when they were young teenagers in Savannah, before Velma moved away with her parents. Rita and Velma used to work together in a Syracuse sweatshop.

"Yes, Estervelma, but she never liked her full name. It's been a year since she moved to New York City with her husband and children. A while ago, she wrote and told me how she hated the Triangle, and that she hoped to find something else soon." Then, the starch in Rita's countenance left and she was reduced to a puddle.

This latest episode of dire news might have set Bernice back if a magnificent opportunity hadn't been presented at the right time to rescue her. Though, Bernice wouldn't acknowledge the Providence in the opportunity.

That spring, old man Kline decided to sell the business, retire, and leave Syracuse to live with his brother's family in Albany. He had several reasons to sell and retire: his poor health for sure, but also because the neighborhood had changed from Jewish to Negro and no other family member was interested enough in the business at its present location. So, he put it on the market.

To old man Kline's surprise, Bernice had secured a business loan from her bank and paid the earnest money with part of her Lion Coffee prize winnings, which after six years had grown with interest into a tidy sum. When the deal went through, Bernice became the proprietress of her own grocery store. Since she required a pawnbrokers' license to continue the pawn shop part of the business–and pawn broker licenses were difficult for women to obtain, let alone a colored woman–Bernice decided to sell off the inventory.

With Rita and Lenny's help, she added little touches to the store to make Kline's her own. Bernice invested a bit more to freshen its appearance. Lenny helped her repaint the interior walls and shelves white, the store sparkled again. Rita donated remnants of velvet fabric in royal blue to gussy up the jewelry display case in the pawn section of the counter. Rita also made café curtains in light blue for the windows. Bernice covered the floors with new linoleum that looked like black and white tiles from Italy. And, Kline's had such a long tradition in the East Water Street neighborhood that she kept the name.

Foot traffic in the store increased as spring grew warmer and turned into summer. The one problem above all others for Bernice was how to keep herself out of the red without the income that old man Kline made off the local madams, prostitutes, and cadets–or pimps–who frequented the store. She couldn't. The offer that Kline accepted didn't entirely diminish the impact of that business. He had calculated in those profits when he negotiated the sale price of the store. Bernice had some great ideas to improve store sales to compensate, but that would take time. Many hustlers she recognized and those she didn't, she could tell what they were up to on sight. Right now, she had to be tolerant so long as when these ill-famed personalities came in, bought what they needed and left without making illicit contacts or bothering her regular customers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One night, as Bernice was closing, a young girl slinked in the store bedraggled and wiping tears off her face. She looked about fourteen or fifteen. Bernice didn't recall this girl. She looked well-fed, although far from overweight. A terrain of pimples covered her forehead, cheeks, and chin, and upstaged her mocha complexion and copper-colored eyes. Two scrawny black pigtails barely stuck out from beneath the triangle of white muslin she wore as a scarf. The front of her white apron was stained and her black skirt was wet below the knees.

"The store's closin' Miss," Bernice informed the girl.

"Can I stay here for a few more minutes, please ma'am?"

"You can if you tell me your name."

The girl stood where she thought she couldn't be seen from outside. "Uh-huh, it's Callasandra, but I go by Callie."

"I'm Mrs. Spears and I own this store. Is somebody chasin' you?"

"Uh-uh, not chasin' me, but I'm sure they're lookin' for me." Bernice was curious about the girl, and if by chance she was in danger, Bernice let her stay for a while.

"You look thirsty. Sit over there and let's have somethin' to drink. My treat," said Bernice as she walked over to the electric icebox filled with frosted bottles of soft drinks. She looked Callie's way. "There's cola, root beer, and ginger ale. What'll you have?"

Callie's face and shoulders relaxed more. "Ginger ale is fine, thank you, ma'am," Callie answered softly. Then she added, "If it's ok, I like mine straight from the bottle."

"Me, too," agreed Bernice and chose root beer for herself.

She joined Callie in the corner and placed the bottles of soda on the table. Right off they had a couple of big swigs together. Some soda dribbled out the corner of Bernice's mouth and fizzed down her chin. She caught most of it with the back of her hand, but several drops landed on her blouse. A smile erupted across Callie's face when she saw that Bernice was amused by her own sloppiness.

"Now, that's better. And, what a pretty smile you have, Callie." Bernice always noticed if someone had nice teeth: Why, it indicates that a person takes care of themselves.

Callie blushed.

"Does your family live around here?" Bernice inquired.

"Uh-uh, my family lives near Troy. I've only been here for a few weeks."

"How come you're up here all by yourself?"

"No ma'am. I ain't by myself. I came here with my boyfriend and found work bein' a chambermaid over at Miss Barrett's boardin' house." Then she teared up again.

Bernice now thought Callie closer to thirteen. She was a runaway, like hundreds of young girls who came to Syracuse to escape an abusive home life, or parents who were too poor to care for them, or had gotten pregnant and were thrown out on their own.

"What's the matter, Callie? Aren't things workin' out there?" Bernice knew that Mrs. Barrett's place was a sportin' house, no place for a child.

"Everything was 'til Miss Barrett beat me somethin' fierce just now. I ran off to get away from her, just 'til she cools off."

"What happened to make her want to whip you?"

"One of her customers complained because I whopped him one for grabbin' my chest and not lettin' go of me when I told him to. So, she took a strap and started beatin' me with it sayin' I can't be punchin' her customers. I told Miss Barrett she hired me for domestic work, not to be no mattress for those mens that stroll up in there."

Bernice felt for the girl. "Why don't you go back home, Callie?"

"Uh-uh, no ma'am, can't do that. Me and my boyfriend'll be gettin' married when I'm older, and anyhow, the job at Miss Barrett's only for the time bein' 'til he can find somethin' steady."

"What's he doin' for work?"

"Ma'am, he works on the tow road along the Canal pullin' the excursion boats."

As they were about to finish their sodas, Callie saw a young woman outside the store window insisting that she come out.

"Miss Barrett's sent one her girls to fetch me back. Gotta go now, Miss Spears," Callie said and pushed away from the table.

Bernice reached out and took Callie by the arm, "You come back to see me any time you want somebody to talk to, you hear?"

"All right," she promised. "Oh, and thanks for the soda, Miss Spears."

"We're friends. From now on, you call me Bernice."

Bernice unlocked the door and watched Callie leave with the woman. She went home that night thinking about her encounter with the girl. Callie continued to visit Bernice at the store from time to time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Syracuse's red light district was well defined. A portion was located on Washington Street and the New York Central trains ran through the middle of it. Houses of ill-repute dotted both sides of the tracks at the frequency of eighteen houses within three blocks. At night, red lanterns were visible on parlor house porches or shone from inside hallways as beacons to "traveling" men. The parlor houses and the sale of sex were obvious for all–man, woman or child–to see by looking out of the train windows. As trains passed, half-clad women–many were runaway teens–draped the front stoops of houses and entrances of sleazy hotels displaying and soliciting their availability. Most parlor houses dealing in commercial vice had saloons and dance halls equipped with player pianos to lure men and women seeking sexual liaisons. As expected, all these ill-reputed houses had local police officials in the pockets of their pinafores.

Another prostitution district was concentrated around the old Soldiers & Sailors Memorial at Montgomery and Harrison Streets. Its radius fanned out a half-mile from there to the east and blighted the shopping and business districts.

As there was no law on the books against streetwalking in 1911, solicitation was blatant on the sidewalks of Syracuse. "Day girls" congregated outside ladies' rooms. Other working girls, like well-appointed housewives, had regular routes through one end of a building such as the post office, a bank or department store, and out the opposite end. They picked up willing well-dressed johns.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Bernice announced that she had become the owner of Kline's, the one employee she had, a white cashier, quit on her. She didn't care; she thought: It's high time this store had a colored cashier. In less than a week she had hired a tall woman several years older than her with three children. Her name was Mrs. Martha Jefferson. She, her husband Ron, and their children moved to town a few months earlier from Manhattan.

Weeks went by and Bernice was pleased that she'd found such a good employee the first time around. Martha was punctual, honest, and friendly with the customers. During slow periods, she and Martha talked with each other like they had known one another for years.

"Bernice, I told my brother all about you. Hope you don't mind."

Martha had already talked a lot about her family and about one brother in particular. He was a real estate agent and worked at an office that recently opened in the community. He was a widower and had no children, and he lived with her family. He was thirty-five and six-foot-four. Bernice learned that all the males in Martha's family were at least that height.

On past occasions, Bernice had reciprocated and traded facts about herself, about her own family in Savannah, and that she had a married sister, two nieces, and a nephew in town. But, today Martha sprung the truth of why she was telling Bernice all about her brother.

"You tryin' to fix me up, Martha?"

"I'm not sayin' this because he's my brother, but he is a nice person. I know you'd like each other."

"Hmm, I don't know. It's only been eight months since my Jake passed. It's still too soon to think about seein' somebody else. It wouldn't be fair to him."

"It's not good to keep yourself all hemmed up in this store, you'll go crazy! You have to get back out in the world again some time."

"Time is what I'm askin' for. At this point, I wouldn't be much fun to be around."

"Nonsense! He's not lookin' for a new bride, just someone to go about town with. You know, show him the tourist spots."

"Let me think on it, Martha, and I'll let you know." Bernice hoped to discourage her.

Several days passed until Saturday noon came. It was the busiest shopping day of the week and the busiest hour of the day. A tall, slight figure of a man came in the store. Bernice was busy at the cash register and Martha had gone to the backroom for more stock. Bernice glanced and took notice of the man lighting a cigarette. He was dressed in a grey Stetson hat, a vested navy suit and tie, standing by the barrels of loose potatoes and onions. She refocused on her register tabulations. That's when Martha entered.

"Hi Will," she called out to her brother, "be with you in a sec!" And she went over to help Bernice. Will waited and when he finished the cigarette, he flicked the butt out the door and into the street. Martha bagged groceries for a parade of customers until Bernice was free to be properly introduced.

"Bernice, I'd like you to meet my brother William Martin, we call him Will. Will, this is Bernice Spears," said Martha smiling at them.

"It's my pleasure to meet you Mrs. Spears." Will smiled at her and put out his hand for a shake. Bernice shook his hand with authority, and when her eyes raised to look at his face, her chin followed because he was the tallest person she had ever met.

"Very nice to meet you, also." Will's nice smile relieved some of Bernice's dread. Will's unassuming face and close cropped hair resembled the newspaper pictures of Jack Johnson, the famous boxer.

Johnson was the man who made headlines last year, the first Negro Heavy-Weight Champion of the World, the one who out-boxed Jim Jeffries whom the media dubbed the Great White Hope. In a split second Bernice recalled a news article which reported how the outcome of the bout caused riots. White folks went on a rampage through colored neighborhoods across the country to retaliate against the surge in racial pride among colored folks who rejoiced in the sound trouncing Johnson had given Jeffries.

"Bernice, how about supper at our home tomorrow?" Martha suggested. Bernice's heart tumbled over a few beats as she tried to squelch memories of Jake that were stirred by the question.

Will added, "Yeah Sis, that's a great idea," and turned back to Bernice, "then you can meet the rest of the family. We feel like we know you already."

Bernice's left arm stiffened as she resisted the urge to fiddle with her ear. Her conscience nudged her to make an excuse not to accept their invite, but this time she ignored it. "I'd be happy to join your family for supper."

"Wonderful, I'll pick you up, say about two," Will said. Six-o-six East Water Street isn't it?" and he waited for Bernice to confirm her address. Then, with his Stetson cocked at a natty angle, he bid them both a farewell and was gone.

The next day Will arrived for Bernice at two o'clock sharp like he promised and this impressed her. At the last minute, she wrestled off her wedding band and placed it in a jewelry box she kept in a drawer and left with Will. When she arrived, she met Martha's husband Ron and her three children. They made her feel right at home.

Meanwhile, Martha bustled around the kitchen to finish the last minute preparations for supper. Bernice offered to help wherever Martha would let her, but Martha was as efficient in her kitchen as she was at the store.

Supper conversation was bright among them all. There were lots of polite get-to-know-you questions, and equally polite replies going from one to the other, and back and forth between them. Stories about the children and each other's families caused great hilarity at times. For the first time since Jake died, Bernice suspended all thoughts of him. She let herself be in the moment. She let herself have fun.

Their first afternoon together came to a satisfying end and Will brought Bernice home. By then, she had discerned where Will wanted to take their friendship. Before she went inside, she invited him to sit with her on the porch swing.

Bernice had been struggling about whether to share this intimate detail about herself so soon after making acquaintances.

After an awkward pause, she told Will straight out, "When I was a young girl, an illness caused me to be childless. It's taken me a long time to accept this. I considered adoptin' children before my husband died. But, I guess God didn't see me fit for that purpose either." Bernice had inadvertently revealed her resentment, one of her troublestones. But, Will had already learned this fact about Bernice from Martha.

"I appreciate you tellin' me all this," he said and empathized with her, "but so be it, God didn't see fit to give me any children either. So, let's not have that stop us from gettin' to know each other. I still would like to call on you, if you'll let me."

Bernice fell silent at his reply. Will took a cigarette from the metal case he kept in the breast pocket of his suit coat, lit it, and puffed a few times to try to alleviate the awkwardness.

"Bernice, believe me, I've been where you are now, the place where you're afraid that you're betrayin' your husband if you start to feel somethin' for somebody else. All I can tell you is that what you're feelin' is all right to a point, but after that you'll start to feel worse. You'll know it when you reach the point where your need for companionship becomes more urgent than you tryin' to hold onto the spirit of your husband."

It was difficult for Bernice to sever her unity with Jake, though she realized Will was right. She remembered how Jake, after his first wife died, made room in his heart for her. He showed her that it was possible to fall in love with someone new if she were brave enough to take the chance. She had a choice: continue to carry the stone of loneliness or lay it down for Will. Bernice agreed to let Will call on her and before long their friendship bloomed. His kindness and attention was kindling in her heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More Negro families from the South migrated to Syracuse which meant they needed places to rent and buy groceries, goods, and services. Whites felt invaded by the growth of the Negro community and moved out of the areas east of downtown. They became absentee landlords by converting their single-family homes to multi-family rental properties and turned them over to real estate offices to manage.

Business prospects for Bernice's grocery store and Will's real estate office improved for a while. As time ensued, however, inadequate wages, coupled with absentee landlords unwilling to reinvest and repair their rental properties, caused the standard of living in colored neighborhoods to become more and more depressed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In November 1911, after five months of dating, Will asked Bernice to marry him on New Year's Eve. Only weeks more than a year since Jake's death, she wasn't ready for another marriage. A widower himself for more than three years Will understood why Bernice wanted–no–why she needed to wait. He could be as patient as she needed him to be.

Another five months had passed when the nation and elite society was walloped by an unfortunate maritime accident that reminded Bernice that only a fool puts off her happiness until tomorrow. On April 16, 1912, the Tuesday evening edition of the Syracuse Herald headlined the terror-laden story. In thick bold letters it read: 1,341 GO DOWN WITH TITANIC–Awful Tragedy Shocks the World.

The tragedy caused Bernice to reconsider Will's marriage proposal that very day. She talked to Rita about it.

"Some time ago, Will asked me to marry him."

"Well, do you love him?"

"I didn't think I could love anybody else as much as I loved Jake, so I didn't think I was in love with Will. But when I imagined Will on the Titanic, I knew it would've broken my heart if I'd lost him."

"Will does have a lot going for him. He's a fine real estate agent, and he has a good name in the community."

"Yes, he does." Like their father Bernard, Bernice admired how people liked and respected Will. The quest for life-long love, which Miss Sadie said she was destined for, was awakened by him. "Will says he loves me and he proves it by being totally devoted to me. He spends his money on expensive gifts, and if I casually state a desire for something, he surprises me with it. What more can a woman want from a man?" Will loves me more than God does, but she kept that thought to herself.

"But do you really love him, Bernice?"

"In a way I do love him, though it's different from my love for Jake. However, Jake's been gone for eighteen months now. Since meeting Will, or because of him, the loneliness has become more than I can bear."

"Everybody needs somebody. You'll come to the right decision."

There were no more second thoughts. Bernice met with Will and agreed to marry him. He was pleased.

Martha Jefferson was gleeful about her match-making success and ecstatic that she and Bernice were to become sisters-in-law. Rita and Lenny were happy for Bernice when she announced her marital plans to them. She received letters from Eleanor and Hannah expressing their joy for her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A year after they met, the Reverend of Bethany Baptist Church presided over the marriage of Will Martin and Bernice Spears in June 1912 with the Martins, the Jeffersons, and the Voltens present, along with a host of friends and business acquaintances from the community. Bernice was twenty-six and Will was thirty-six. She brought Will home where they began their new marriage.

At the wedding reception, Bernice had been kittenish toward Will and her body language signaled great enthusiasm for the nuptial night to come. Bernice hadn't been intimate with anyone since Jake, making this night the first time she let Will in her bed.

Though unconscious of what she was doing, she tried to recreate the magic that she had with Jake on their wedding night. As it was the middle of June and much too warm for a fire in the fireplace, she lit a dozen or more candles and placed them around the bedroom.

Then Bernice dressed in a sateen nightgown with spaghetti straps that bared her shoulders, which she purchased from O'Malley's Women's Shop for the occasion. She was attracted to the gown's coral color because it matched the hue of the autumnal sunset as she had remembered it on her first nuptial with Jake.

Bernice was caught up in a romantic simulation of innocence that she recalled before she had "known" Jake. But, how do you "un-know" something? You can't. You can't get your innocence back. Besides, Jake taught her to feel emotions she could never forget, emotions she longed to feel again. To make sweet, passionate love to a man, although a different man, was something to which she looked forward.

Bernice remembered to scent the bedding and pillows with rosewater she kept in a cut-glass atomizer on top of the bureau. Woolen socks? The fact that she wore them on her first night with Jake popped into her head, but this time there was no need of those or her sister's advice. Her heart, though it bared sutures and scars, had sufficiently incubated and she was ready to fetch it from safekeeping. Like a gift, she would give her heart to Will to treasure.

When Will appeared at the bedroom doorway, he let his robe fall to the floor. His skin was as swarthy as the color of walnut hulls. His physique was long and lanky. Unlike the heavy-weight champ, however, he had the slackened muscle tone of a man with no need for brawn to make his livelihood. Bernice was still perky and lithe, but her petite, creamy frame was curvier now.

She responded with complete openness to Will. Right away he began with gentle kisses on the back of Bernice's neck. His lips were luscious. Kissing Will was like a culinary exploration into a warm mug of deep dark, chocolate pudding. When his chin brushed against hers, Bernice noticed the prickles from the day-old growth of beard. Yet, Will's hands were soft as suede, not calloused at all.

Bernice felt joy as her ethos communed inside Will's inner sanctum. After the nuptial union, their limbs were heavy as if they were plunged into a tepid pool of royal jelly. Their lungs begged for air as their coupling ebbed into sweet tranquility. But then, something caused a distraction. Will's sudden lack of focus stung Bernice. His desire was no longer fixed on her.

Unexpectedly, before his breathing calmed, Will rolled himself away from her and sat on the side of the bed. It turned out the distraction was Will's crave for a smoke. From a nearby candle flame, he lit a cigarette and took a deep drag while his heart still raced which enhanced the nicotine's effect and quenched his addiction.

For Bernice, the magic crashed. Her tranquility, interrupted: It's much too hot to stay all hugged up. She created an excuse for him and tried to guard her feelings. With Will beyond her reach, she laid there like a felled log, disconnected. Her eyes trailed behind a bead of sweat when it started from Will's neck and meandered down his back–and what she would've given to have been that bead of sweat, to be close to him. No, Bernice's heart wasn't feeling so treasured, not at that juncture. She longed for the intimacy, when she enjoyed the sensations of her soul melting into her husband's. This was the part that made her feel the most loved and treasured. However, in his routine, Will ended their lovemaking with a cigarette. These would be the times when Bernice missed Jake the most. She took her heart back. A few sutures were broken. She returned it to its silk pouch where it stayed until she grew accustomed to Will's ways.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice settled into her marriage with Will. She was Mrs. Bernice Martin now. Although she gave up the independence of widowhood, she gained the physical and financial security that a husband afforded a wife. Having Will in her life helped her stand under the weight of her emotional baggage and also meet her financial burdens.

As Negro entrepreneurs, Bernice and Will lived exceptional lives. Besides being intelligent people and self-learners, they were fortunate to take advantage of meager opportunities to build business skills.

A major portion of U. S. citizens had poor education. This was especially true for colored migrant sharecroppers from the South. In the normality of job discrimination, colored men and women had little incentive to stay in school, even if the school was adequate. Therefore, not many were educated enough to qualify for university, and of those that did, fewer still were accepted for college enrollment. Those who graduated college were barred from positions for which they were qualified. Jobs with the lowest pay, or were the dirtiest and the most dangerous, were the only jobs available for colored people. Furthermore, most jobs of these sorts were seasonal or temporary. A person didn't need much education to find one of those kinds of jobs.

So, when Bernice's eighteen-year-old sister Hannah wrote about her plans to enroll at a boarding school in Rock Castle, Virginia, she replied back immediately:

June 25, 1912

Dear Hannah,

Will and I are happy and doing well, please tell Mother.

In your last letter, I was excited to learn of your enrollment at the Saint Francis de Sales School. Rita was also thrilled about your opportunity and your interest in dressmaking.

I have read about this Mother Katherine you spoke of, and of her Order which runs that school. Her schools have excellent reputations and are a great opportunity for our people. The society pages report that she uses millions of her own inheritance to open schools as well as sponsor new priests from the Negro and Indian communities.

Hannah, you would tell me if you were thinking about becoming a nun, wouldn't you? Tell Mother not to worry about your tuition. I will help them pay for your schooling. Just promise me that you will work hard and graduate. Write as soon as you arrive in Rock Castle and are settled in your new school.

Give my best to Mother and Father and also to Malcolm, John Jr., and Ernest.

With all my love,

Bernice

When Bernice first came to Syracuse, she learned of Katherine Drexel, one of Philadelphia's wealthiest socialites. Drexel became a Catholic nun and took vows of poverty. She established the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament Order whose mission was to build schools and educate Native Indian and Negro children.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Though only a year had passed, Callie had matured. She'd grown two or three inches and her bosom had filled out. The camouflage of pimples was nearly gone, and uncovered a pleasant face. She learned to navigate around the sportin' house and made sure she didn't put herself in a spot where she'd have to clobber another one of Mrs. Barrett's customers.

As Bernice befriended Callie, they traded many stories about their day to day lives. However, Callie didn't let Bernice know how rough life and work were at Mrs. Barrett's.

In the late afternoon when Mrs. Barrett's girls prepared for their "dates," sometimes Miss Lucy, one of the girls, would let Callie come in and pick out a dress for her. All Mrs. Barrett's girls–five of them when she had a full house–wore fine dresses to start out the evening, which they borrowed from Mrs. Barrett's collection. But, Callie was more intrigued by the girls' variety of lingerie, which they were required to buy for themselves. As the chambermaid, her job was to keep their lingerie laundered and ironed. She also kept track of what belonged to whom. Miss Lucy had tons of beautiful lingerie in every color, some with lace and fancy trims. One night Lucy gave Callie one of her old nightgowns because she said Callie was always so sweet to her.

At night when the parties started, Callie sometimes sat on the upstairs landing and watched Mrs. Barrett's girls as they served drinks or danced in front of the men. The gaiety from below was noisy and filled with vulgarities on all levels. The men hovered about the girls like hummingbirds undecided about which flower to sip from and who would be the first to do it. She couldn't spend much time on the landing, because before long the girls started bringing their dates to their rooms. Before that point, she went to her own room, locked the door behind her, and crawled in bed. She always locked her bedroom door ever since a patron came in by mistake, excused himself, and left. That incident happened the first week she worked for Mrs. Barrett.

Callie could still hear the music from the player piano downstairs and imagined what might be going on. Like a game, sometimes she counted the doors slammed each time a date entered one of the girls' rooms. Not only did she learn which girls did the most business, she could estimate how much each girl made on a given night if she wanted to. She couldn't be sure to the penny because she didn't know what kind of trick–straight or the more expensive perverted kind–the date paid for. One Saturday night she counted as many as twenty-two dates before she fell asleep.

One particular day Callie came in the store to talk to Bernice. She was proud when she had stood up for herself, despite the salacious circumstances she lived in. When she spoke, her words spilled forth like front-page news hot off the printing press.

"Miss Barrett offered me a job as one of her girls. I said you want me, a little old chocolate girl like me to be one of your girls? And, she said that some of her daytime customers had already asked about me several times and that I could make a lot more money for myself. Seems some of those white mens like a different flavor now and then. I told her no, that I wasn't gonna be turned into no hay-maker. She went back to her own business in a huff."

"Good for you," said Bernice. For several weeks after, Callie came to Kline's more often so Bernice could lay eyes on her and know that she was all right. But when Callie hadn't showed in a long while, Bernice grew concerned.

One November afternoon in 1912, Callie hurried into the store. Bernice knew something wasn't right about her. Whatever the problem, it laid just beneath the surface.

"How have you been?" asked Bernice happy to see her again.

"I only have a few minutes before somebody from Miss Barrett's will come lookin' for me. I gotta get back. Can I meet you here after you close?"

Bernice agreed to meet her, but Callie was evasive and it worried her. When Callie returned that evening, she told Bernice what troubled her. This time her words were labored and exuded from her like raw, week-old steak through a meat grinder.

"I went to my room for the evening like I always do. I decided to try on the nightgown that one of Miss Barrett's girls had given me a while ago. I was admirin' it on myself, and enjoyin' how silk felt so smooth, when I heard my bedroom door unlock. A man came in and slammed the door behind him. I told him that he had the wrong room, but he held the key in his hand, wavin' it in the air and said my name. I tried to reason with him, but he wouldn't listen and I commenced to fightin' with him. He slapped me hard, then ripped my gown off and shoved me on the bed, sayin' he had paid good money for me. I stopped fightin' because that blow made me see stars.

"Miss Bernice," her next utterance was sodden with tears, "h-he r-raped m-me."

Callie strained to continue through her sobs. Bernice draped her arms around her and held her until she recovered enough to begin again.

"When he finished, I heard the door slam behind him. I found the extra key to my room he tossed on the floor and I locked the door back again and cried myself to sleep. The next mornin' I went to ask Miss Barrett about how that man got a key to my room and that he raped me. She admitted right off that she'd sold it to him. Then she threatened to tell my boyfriend that I was hookin' if I quit or said anything to anybody. She said she'd hurt me so that nobody would want me. She threatened to have me arrested for stealin' if I didn't give her back the extra key to my room. Then she stuffed two dollars in my apron pocket and told me to get to my chores!"

Callie's story made Bernice furious. "How are you doin' now, Callie, are you hurt?" Bernice asked concerned about her.

Callie dried her face with the embroidered kerchief Bernice gave her and replied, "The bruises on my face are gone, Miss Bernice. I didn't want you to see me like that. That's why I stayed away from the store, but I don't think I'll ever feel the same inside again."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Bernice saw Callie next, several more weeks had passed until mid-December 1912. She was distraught and more desperate than before. Callie confessed to Bernice the awful dilemma she faced.

"I've been feelin' poorly these days, Miss Bernice. Miss Barrett says I got all the signs and symptoms. Looks like I'm gonna have a baby. She says I got to decide right now to have it or not. And, if I don't want it, the doctor can fix it on his regular visit next week, and then I can work off the doctor bill later. But if I keep it, then eventually I have to go 'cause ain't no room up in here for raisin' no baby,' she warned me. Miss Bernice, I seen the shape them girls are in after Doc gives 'em that operation. I've nursed several of them myself and one got so sick she almost died. After the operation, some girls can't work for Miss Barrett no more because of their pain, and some of the girls say they don't ever have to worry about getting pregnant again."

"What do you want to do about the baby?"

Callie became tearful. "If I get rid of it, the operation might ruin me. If I keep it, I'll lose my job and a roof over my head. I ain't told my boyfriend yet. Miss Bernice I ain't sure the baby is his. What if I got pregnant by that man who raped me? Besides, my boyfriend still ain't found steady work yet. I think there ain't nothin' else for me to do, but see Doc about this. My boyfriend won't have to know about the baby at all. Hell, I'm just fifteen, what can I give this baby? Nothin'!"

"Oh, Callasandra."

Bernice was woeful while she listened to Callie talk herself into something she might regret. She would never forget how thorough the desperation was on Callie's face, in her voice and posture, and how she was resigning to endanger the baby and herself.

"You got somethin' that every mother can give when she gives birth to a baby, it's called love. Your baby could have everything, but without the unconditional love of its mother, it'll have a hole so big in its heart that you could drive a freight train through it. You can give your baby a deeper kind of love nobody else can."

At that moment, Bernice was experiencing her own private agony over missing the unconditional love of her birth mother in her childhood, and more agony over her inability to have children of her own.

"How Miss Bernice? I know I could love the baby if my boyfriend is the father, but how could I love it if it looks like that wretched white man who raped me?" Callie wept again.

"Won't you let yourself see how you feel after you have the baby? You can give up the baby for adoption, you know. What if your boyfriend really is the father? And if he's not, who's to say that he wouldn't help you raise the baby as his own?"

The wheels in Bernice's head had been turning ever since Callie began. Bernice offered to help her in the only way she knew how.

"Callie, please come live with us, in my home with my husband and me. You can stay with us until you have the baby, until you get back on your feet." Bernice held back some of her enthusiasm as not to scare off the poor girl.

Callie's demeanor lifted, but in an instant it plummeted again.

"But, Miss Barrett would never let me go without payin' what I owe her for my keep."

"Now, don't you worry about that. Go get your things together and I'll pick you up in the mornin.' Meanwhile, say nothin' of this to Mrs. Barrett or her girls, ok?"

The next morning there were several knocks on the door of Mrs. Barrett's sportin' house. Callie was already in the main parlor hard at work. Her white apron was stained and the black skirt of her uniform was wet below the knees from swabbing Saturday night's spilt beer, tobacco spittle, and cigar ashes off the floor. Mrs. Barrett sat at her desk in the next room reconciling her books for the week and tabulating the cash receipts from last night's dates that she collected from her girls.

"Callie! Answer the door! Don't you hear that knockin'!" Mrs. Barrett shouted.

She approached the door and through the wavy glass panes she recognized the figure outside as her friend. Callie opened the door with a big smile across her face. She was so happy to see Bernice on the stoop.

"It's Sunday and I'm not expectin' anyone. If there's somebody out there sellin' somethin,' send them away!" There was a period of dead silence. "Well, who was it?"

Callie's smile disappeared. She called back, "It's for you, Miss Barrett!"

Still in her housecoat and slippers, the dour Widow Barrett barged into the parlor. "Callie, I told you to send whoever it is away!"

When Callie stepped aside, Mrs. Barrett's eyes probed up and down for a reason why this straitlaced mulatto woman was at her door. The look of scrutiny on Widow Barrett's face made Bernice aware of the pebbles in her shoes. Bernice lifted her chin and stood erect in the doorway in a woolen tweed coat, a lamb's wool hat which matched the collar and cuffs of her coat, complemented by a black leather pocketbook and gloves.

Mrs. Barrett didn't know what to make of Bernice: Was she a neighbor? A church lady soliciting for donations? Someone needing directions? A mother looking for her wayward daughter?

"Who are you and what's your business here?"

"My name is Mrs. Bernice Martin and I've come here for Callie, ma'am."

"What do you mean, you come here for Callie? What trouble is she in with you?" asked Mrs. Barrett as she glared down at Callie who had resumed her place on the floor.

"I come to take her with me. If you'll tell me what she owes you for her keep, we'll be on our way."

Mrs. Barrett stood with her mouth hanging open as if to catch flies. She searched for words. "How can that be? She's employed by me and she can't leave before payin' all her debts, and givin' me two weeks' notice."

"How much do you pay Callie each week?"

"Five dollars a week, plus room and board!" grinned Mrs. Barrett, knowing she had inflated her answer. Callie scowled behind her. Then Mrs. Barrett went over to her desk to check her ledger for Callie's debts. Callie got off her wet knees when Bernice gestured to her to step out on the stoop beside her.

Scanning the parlor for Callie, Mrs. Barrett rejoined Bernice at the door. "Callie owes me eight dollars, plus two weeks' notice! I bid you good-day, Madame," sniffed Mrs. Barrett. She craned her neck and saw Callie outside on the stoop behind Bernice. "Now Callie, get back to your chores!"

Bernice stopped her. She went in her pocketbook, leafed through her bills, and handed Mrs. Barrett eighteen dollars. Widow Barrett bristled at Bernice and snatched the money out of her hand.

"Callie, don't bother to come back in here for your things!" Mrs. Barrett shouted.

Bernice put her arm around Callie's shoulders as they turned and left the stoop.

"Did you know she's got herself knocked up?" Mrs. Barrett yelled across the yard at them.

Will was waiting at the curb in their Ford automobile. Before Callie climbed in, she stopped at the maple tree at the front of the yard to retrieve a bag of her things she had hidden there earlier. The last sound they heard from Mrs. Barrett was her slamming the sportin' house door. Together, with the biggest grin on Callie's face, the three of them drove away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Callie settled in with Bernice and Will, and she was what they needed. Their home was filled with all the positive energy that an expectant baby brings. Bernice couldn't wait to close the store each night. She loved watching Callie's belly grow bigger through the winter and spring.

If it wasn't for Callie being so young, you might say pregnancy looked good on her. Callie's acne cleared and her skin radiated. Her hair thickened and grew longer. Her eyes shined like new pennies, illuminating her sweet smile.

Their friendship grew closer. Bernice rallied behind Callie as she dealt with the dark cloud which hung over her about the baby's parentage. Bernice was confident that she had saved the baby from destruction. Callie's boyfriend took the news of the rape hard and was still on the fence about his feelings toward the baby if it turned out not to be his. All this and the impending responsibilities were tests that his love couldn't pass. He came to visit Callie less and less and this depressed her.

Bernice and Callie discussed her options about the baby's care. She asked Callie once about letting her and Will adopt the baby. But as she neared delivery, Bernice detected some sensitivity from Callie about the adoption subject, so she steered clear of it.

Callie's pregnancy had reached the second week of June 1913; her time was about three weeks away. She went to bed early, which was unusual for Callie. Then, at two a.m., she awoke in terror.

"Miss Bernice! Come quick!" she screamed. "Come quick, Miss Bernice!"

Bernice and Will ran to her room and found Callie doubled over on the floor drenched in her nightgown for her water had broken, the baby was coming.

"Run Will. Go get Rita and Miss Ethel," said Bernice in an urgent, but calm voice. Miss Ethel, a neighbor lady in her seventies, had been a slave midwife. She had delivered many babies, white and black, in Tupelo, Mississippi where she was from, and also in Syracuse to this point in her career. She was skilled, compassionate, and she had a reverent devotion to her work, which she called God's work.

Callie's belly tightened and she let out another scream in pain and fright. Bernice held onto her. Before the next contraction, Bernice helped her into a dry gown and back to bed. By the time Bernice returned with an armful of clean rags, Callie was suffering another ripple.

"Don't be scared, Miss Ethel's on her way." When she said her name, the midwife entered and she immediately attended to Callie.

"Hello Callie, my name is Miss Ethel and together we're gonna have a baby this morning. God bless you, honey."

Rita brought in a pan of hot water with her. Bernice looked on unaware that she was pulling at her ear.

"Callie darlin'," said Miss Ethel, "your baby's breech. But don't you worry none. As the Lord's my helper, we can fix that." Ethel washed her hands in the pan of hot water. "Roll up a rag tight to give her somethin' to bite on," she told Rita.

Then another ripple came and grew to a wave inside Callie's belly. She let out a gut-wrenching groan through her teeth.

"Hold on Callie, but don't push until I can get the baby turned proper," Miss Ethel said. "Bernice, you hold her arms down."

For the next wave, Miss Ethel was ready with one hand inside Callie holding back the baby's crowning bottom and the other hand on the outside of her contracting tummy. She gently tried to manipulate the baby to a face downward breech position. Again, Callie screamed to defy her pains.

"Don't push, Callie. Give me some good deep breaths." Miss Ethel demonstrated the breaths to her, and Bernice and Rita took the deep breaths with Callie. "Now relax, my dear. Keep breathin,' don't push."

Throughout the ordeal, the rag muffled Callie's screams. Bernice dried her brow at the end of each wave.

"I know it hurts, honey, but it's not time to push yet." Callie braced for another wave of pain. "Remember, deep breaths and relax, don't push," Miss Ethel said and continued to position the baby inside Callie's womb.

Several more excruciating contractions later, Miss Ethel had coaxed the baby's body into a safer breech position. "Alleluia, praise God," she said.

Meanwhile, Will brought in a bucket and two chairs as ordered by Miss Ethel. Rita arranged the chairs to face each other and then placed the bucket underneath the space between them as Miss Ethel instructed.

"Callie, are you ready to have this baby?" Miss Ethel asked her.

"Yes ma'am. Please, get it out, it hurts bad!"

"Y'all get her up now, and get her straddled over the space between the chairs, a thigh on each chair." Bernice and Rita helped Callie out of bed and into place on the chairs.

"Now, Callie you scoot forward to the edge. Bernice, you stand behind her and support her back."

Miss Ethel had donned a clean white pinafore and draped a clean sheet in front of her. She knelt in front of Callie, between her knees, and she positioned her lap and hands underneath Callie to ready herself to catch the baby. Rita stood nearby and watched.

Callie felt the next painful wave coming. It swelled to a tsunami.

"Ok Callie, now you can push!" said Miss Ethel, "I can see the baby's butt."

Callie, contorted every muscle in her face, dug her nails into the top rail of each chair and growled through the rag clenched between her teeth. Bernice held on to her for dear life as Callie braced against her so hard that Bernice felt, in empathy, as if she was also in labor.

Callie was weakening.

"Honey, you got the pull of Mother Earth workin' for ya, but you have to help, too." Miss Ethel encouraged Callie to push harder the next time. Another tsunami came soon after the last one. She snarled and bore down harder.

"The baby's almost here, it's past the hips," said Miss Ethel, supporting the baby's bottom in her hands.

Then another tsunami came in the wake of the previous one and it swelled to a crescendo. Holding a deep breath, Callie summoned every muscle and wrung every last fiber of strength from them and out spurted the baby, butt first, into Miss Ethel's grasp. The baby drew its first breath and let out a strong cry. Callie was relieved. So was Bernice.

"It's a boy!" Miss Ethel announced, "Praise the Lord!" She washed him off in the pan of warm water and quickly swaddled the infant. Several more painful contractions took Callie by surprise and she expelled the afterbirth into the bucket below her. Will took it away and buried the bloody contents in a deep hole in the backyard vegetable garden.

Callie was too weak to acknowledge the birth. Bernice and Rita helped her back to bed. Bernice noticed that Callie soaked her obstetrical pads as fast as she could make them from the clean rags. Before leaving, Miss Ethel encouraged Callie to let the baby take his first suckles. Bernice promised to stay in the room with them until they were stronger. When Miss Ethel and Rita left, it was dawn. From that day onward, Miss Ethel remained a dear friend to Bernice.

An hour later, the sun had risen in full strength. While Callie slept, Bernice bottle fed the little newbie as she sat in the rocker which had a monotonous creak. She listened to a nest of baby robins outside the bedroom window. The birds squawked each time their mother returned with a plump morsel. Bernice remembered the Infant Incubator nurses at the St. Louis World's Fair. She was as attentive to the newborn as she recalled the nurses were to the babies on exhibit. When the infant fell asleep, Bernice swaddled him again and placed him in the large basket that Callie had prepared for him only one week prior.

Callie squeezed out a question, "Miss Bernice, what did I have?"

Bernice barely heard it, but perked up, pleased that Callie had awakened.

"A gorgeous little ole boy." Bernice anticipated her next question and looked into her eyes, "A sweet, little Hershey Bar he is, too, and he wants his mama!" Bernice gave Callie some reassuring pats on the shoulder. "There now."

Callie mustered a smile that showed a sliver of teeth.

"He's asleep in the basket at the foot of the bed."

"Can I hold him?"

"Why sure you can." Bernice fluffed the pillows behind Callie and laid the infant in her arms.

"He's beautiful," mouthed Callie.

"Now tell me dear, what's his name gonna be?"

Callie's decision was easy, now that she knew. In a breathy voice she said, "Gabriel, after his father."

Callie was pleased by the rich color of Gabriel's complexion, like her boyfriend's. She unwrapped him, counted his tiny, but perfect fingers and toes, and touched his little button nose. Though he slumbered, his tiny lips practiced suckling motions. She wondered how she had ever considered not having him.

"Take him now, I'm awfully tired," said Callie, barely above a whisper.

As Bernice picked up Baby Gabriel and cuddled him, Callie admired the two of them and she knew she shouldn't delay.

"I want to take you up on your offer if you and Will still want to." Her words pricked Bernice, made her stop and peer at Callie to understand what she thought she heard. "Gabriel needs a mother's love and if I can't give it, there ain't no other person who could love Gabriel more than you," her voice trailed off at the end of her breath.

"Don't talk that way, Callie. Why, the three of us can raise him together," said Bernice returning Gabriel back to the basket. She sat next to Callie and held her hand. "It'll be answered prayer to hear tiny feet around this house." Then Bernice embraced Callie, cheek to cheek.

That afternoon Callie's face turned anemic and she was unresponsive. A familiar putrid shade of olive gray cloaked the bedroom and Bernice was enveloped by fear. Will sped them to St. Joseph's Hospital less than a mile away. Callie had already lost a good deal of blood and the doctors were unable to stem the internal hemorrhaging in time. She bled out. Callie was gone.

Callasandra had died the morning after giving birth to Gabriel on June 18, 1913. She was sixteen. As Bernice wept next to Callie and made silent promises to her, she chastised God and added another troublestone of resentment to her burdened heart.

Callie left no information about her parents. Will spotted her boyfriend at the internment, but he never came around again. Notices placed in several newspapers around the Troy area went unanswered. Will and Bernice kept Gabriel and "adopted" him as their son, fulfilling Callie's wishes. They named him Gabriel Martin and soon shortened his name to "Gabe."

At twenty-seven, Bernice finally had a child of her own. Callie had left behind the most wonderful blessing for her to care for. Bernice believed that she deserved Gabe, and she was convinced that their friendship was the only reason she had custody of him, so she gave thanks to Callie only.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice was more than ready to care for an infant. She had often babysat Rita's children, and she half-raised her stepbrothers back home in Savannah. When Eleanor was too busy with laundry orders, she helped Grammy feed, bathe, and diaper them.

Because of Bernice's work at the store, Gabe spent each day next door in Rita's care. Bernice looked forward to being with her new son in the evenings.

One year following Callie's death, Bernice sat in the creaky rocker next to the open window in Callie's old bedroom. Gabe was asleep across her lap on his tummy when Will brought her a letter from home. Always eager to receive letters from family, she tore into it. The creaking stopped as she read the letter, then she cried. It read that days ago Grandma Harriet died at sixty-four and was buried in the old cemetery for coloreds, which was located across the dirt road opposite the church.

Bernice remembered how she liked to sit next to Grammy in church. Bernice thought of how Grammy loved to listen to her to read the novels that her stepfather brought home from his janitorial job at the library. Grandma Harriet lovingly called young Bernice a "Quizzy Lizzy," as she was always full of questions. Her grandmother answered her queries as she saw fit, except for the ones about the old days. She would simply say, "Honey, we's free now. What's da use in goin' back dere?"

Grammy was gone. Sweet memories of her turned misty and soon glistened into droplets. Bernice blinked and a "memory" fell from her eyelashes and trailed down the half-page letter. Another rolled off the end of her nose, sopped by Gabe's thin, cotton shirt. The others she wiped from her face. Her Grandma Harriet was the last tether which connected Bernice to the roots of her scant faith. Now that tether was severed.

A warm breeze came in through the window and kissed Bernice's left cheek dampened by watery memories, and ruffled the curls poised along her forehead. With a soft hand, she comforted Gabe when he began to stir. Doleful, Bernice leaned back and resumed her rhythmic rocking and creaking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By 1915, Negro migration to Syracuse neared its peak. White flight continued. Buildings and homes east of the downtown Clinton Shopping District were put up for sale.

At the same time, war talk escalated. The United States halted European immigration which triggered a national shortage of white immigrant workers much to the advantage of Negro Americans. Northern factory managers encouraged colored migrant laborers to apply and fill low level jobs, while white union workers organized against factory managers for using colored workers as leverage in strike-breaking. For Negro men, these were welcomed opportunities for steady work and dependable incomes, but they were caught in the middle. Tension between management and the unions enhanced whites' hatred toward colored citizens. The animosity that simmered on their lips in the pre-war years boiled over to racial skirmishes in streets across the country; and national newspapers printed the stories in graphic detail.

The worst incidence of mob brutality happened in East St. Louis, Illinois in July of 1917. Set off by a racial incident where two white policemen were killed, whites stormed through colored neighborhoods leaving behind them entire city blocks devastated by arson. Over one hundred fifty Negro citizens were lynched, beaten to death or killed by the fires.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The United States had entered the European War in spring 1917. Months later Bernice received two letters that made her stop and appreciate bygone years. The first was from her eighteen-year-old stepbrother Malcolm Morissette. He told her of his enlistment in the Army and that he was due to ship off to Europe in six weeks. Bernice hadn't seen him since she left Savannah. He was age six then: and now he's man enough to go off to war? She found that notion difficult to visualize.

The second one was from Hannah, now twenty-four, though it wasn't an actual letter. She received a formal announcement of Hannah's graduation with the Class of 1917 from Saint Francis de Sales Institute on June sixth. She had earned a Grammar School Certificate, and a Domestic Science Certificate. Bernice was proud of her and pleased to see the name, Hannah Gertrude Silverson, in print on the roster of graduates.

Meanwhile, the manufacturing of military goods triggered an economic boom for nearly all kinds of factories and merchants, including Will's real estate business and Kline's Grocery. That same summer, a prime piece of property was listed for sale and Will was one of the first agents to learn of it.

The three story clapboard building was located at 601 East Washington Street, only a block south of their current residence. The building was more modern. It had a restaurant with a gas range on the first floor and the two floors above it could be used for room rentals and a residence. It had indoor plumbing with a gas water heater and steam heat in every room.

The Martins jumped at the opportunity to purchase their own home and new business. Bernice sold Kline's and used the proceeds for the down payment on the new mortgage. She, Will, and four-year-old Gabe moved into the third floor residence of their new building.

The Syracuse Herald printed more stories about the European War when the United States became allied with Great Britain against Germany. Bernice read many of them because Malcolm was overseas. Allied European troops had suffered enormous losses early in the conflict with Germany. When U. S. troops entered the fray, the Allies viewed them as a godsend. Then, influenza swept over Spain first and next throughout the European populace on both sides of the conflict.

Within the first year of U. S. action, the first battalions of survivor soldiers were welcomed back home by patriotic crowds which lined parade routes to show their support for the troops. The soldiers were unaware they had brought back a virulent, mutated strain of influenza misnamed the Spanish Influenza. Years later, the milder cousin of this deadly strain was proven to have originated at Fort Riley, Kansas with American military personnel who had carried it overseas to Spain early in the U. S. deployment.

Influenza next spread among the soldiers received at Boston as early as July 1918. At the start of September, military casualties from combat and from the flu epidemic prompted Congress to expand the Selective Service Act to include all men eighteen to forty-five, from the previous mandated ages of twenty-one to thirty.

Efforts failed to limit the disease to the military. The military delayed getting precautionary measures out to the public. Yet, had they done so, it wouldn't have stopped the epidemic.

By mid-September the influenza epidemic had entered the civilian populations of Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, and Syracuse, then taking lives throughout the country.

The newspapers printed stories about new ordinances against spitting in the streets and new health department notices warning citizens to cover up sneezes and coughs. Activities that drew people together were shunned, which meant that people stopped going to the theater and to troop rallies. Many were afraid to go to church.

Bernice's restaurant business dried up. And, people also stayed put, afraid to search for new housing for fear of catching the flu from properties where previous tenants had died inside. So, the rental and real estate business slumped. Everyone was in a state of panic.

"Keep Gabe inside, Bernice. Everybody's sneezin' and coughin'," Will warned, "and please keep him away from customers! All the undertakers along Salina Street and all over the city have caskets stacked outside. You can't see over them. They can't bury them quick enough."

"Where you off to so early?"

"Gotta go downtown to register before it gets too crowded. Then, I'll see you two for lunch."

Will was forty-two, which required him to register for the military draft. When he got there, he was issued a protective face mask and ushered to a large room already crowded with men waiting their turn. Anyone with a cough was processed in a separate room.

Not long after registering for the draft, Will developed a fever and a headache that sent him to his sickbed. Terrified of the worst, Bernice nursed him at home the best she could–there being no empty beds in the hospitals–but her efforts were useless. Being a heavy smoker, Will's lungs were already at a disadvantage to pneumonia caused by the influenza virus. Bernice looked upon his face which languished under the diaphanous veil of death. She couldn't help but recall the death vigil for her mother and she again felt like a powerless child.

"Don't leave me Will. Please, God! Not again! Not this time! Will, you gotta fight this. Darlin' don't give in! We need you." Bernice was frightened for him, for herself, and for Gabe. But Will grew weaker and more breathless as his lungs became bogged by russet sputum which suffocated him inside of a few days.

After six years of marriage, William Martin died on September 26, 1918 at forty-two. Will was gone. Bernice's deficient faith couldn't comfort her; she wanted things her way; she wanted Will back.

Bernice decided against a traditional church funeral. For fear of catching the flu, no one was attending funerals or burials, except for immediate family members. She arranged for a viewing of Will at a nearby funeral home for anyone who wanted to attend. When she arrived, the viewing salon was crowded with the family members of two other corpses on display next to Will. Afterwards, he was unable to be laid to rest for several weeks.

Bernice's thirty-second birthday had arrived two weeks prior to Will's death and Gabe was five. Will died at the most inopportune time. His death made her a single mother. He left Bernice under great financial pressure because business had soured. She didn't bother to consult her spirit for guidance. Like a soldier, she already knew the mourning widows' drill. But, when she was alone she cursed God in her grief. Her heart was scarred even deeper. The guilt-stone she carried for not knowing how to make Will better burdened her further.

Without prejudice, death waved its terminal hand throughout the neighborhoods of Syracuse, plucking out a baby here, an adolescent or senior citizen there, and returning for a parent or both. Many died on the same block, and maybe one or two souls on other blocks, but it was rare that a block was untouched by death. There were so many dead, that undertakers ran out of caskets. The icehouses along the Erie Canal were used as makeshift morgues and they became offensive to eyes and noses.

At any time of day or night Bernice could stand at her third floor bedroom window and see ambulances and trucks tooling Washington Street with shrouded bodies of the dead heaped inside like large gunnysacks of potatoes. With her earlobe between her thumb and index finger, she fought back the thought that maybe Will's body was in the back of one of them.

Wails from the whistles of the enormous locomotives, which passed down Washington, parroted the people's collective grief over Syracuse's dead love ones. Yet, the New York Central trains kept to their schedules and continued to rumble by as if all were well.

The path Bernice took at this fork in the journey tested the resolve of her chilled heart. How she chose to cope with her parental, emotional, and financial burdens would affect her future–or rather, her eternal destiny.

### CHAPTER 8

Inmate Andie had reached her fourth month of pregnancy by mid-October 1932, and she was showing. Standard procedure required that she be reassigned to a wing away from the regular population for her and her unborn child's safety. She received light duty in the Jamesville sweatshop where pregnant inmates helped make prison garments.

"Well Andie, this'll be the last of our readin' lessons for a while. Take care of yourself and that baby," Bernice said.

Andie let her tough exterior go and gave Bernice a quick hug. The next morning the guards escorted Andie out of her cell.

Bernice was adjusting to Andie's absence when her cellmate Scarlett was released from Jamesville a few days before Thanksgiving. Bernice was pleased that when she left, Scarlett could print the alphabet and read simple words by sounding them out.

Bernice now had the prison cell to herself.

December 1932 began the sixth month of Bernice's prison sentence. She was issued woolen versions of the drab prison clothes, extra pairs of socks, and an extra blanket to help cope with the draftiness inside the block.

Over the past year, the newspapers reported numerous debates around the country between temperance leaders and federal law-makers about whether or not the alcohol ban should be relaxed. The public saw Prohibition as the stimulant rather than the fix for crime and recent clamor to rescind Prohibition had emboldened people. This letter from Eleanor upset Bernice:

January 5, 1933

Dear Bernice,

Christmas was not the same around here without you. But, we're all fine. Don't you worry yourself none.

I wish you could read the newspaper stories about how much liquor was flowing on New Year's Eve since it's still supposed to be illegal. Those "high-seditty" folks at the Waldorf-Astoria celebrated with Champagne toasts. There were also stories about bars around the country jacking up cocktails prices. Ernie said some saloons here redistilled the alcohol and sold it mixed with water for ten cents a glass.

We can hardly wait for your return home. We won't celebrate this New Year until we are together again. I'm praying that you will get your parole in April. Until then, remember how much we all love you.

Mother

P.S. Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.

Despite the Bible verse her mother added, Bernice had lost confidence and went to bed with renewed anger at those rich, high-profile society types who can get away with alcohol violations. The upper classes could get all the liquor they wanted. Instead of sleeping, she brooded about how Prohibition caused her to fall so deep into the abyss.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice recalled the summer of 1917 when she and Will were excited about their new business venture, the restaurant and boardinghouse. Bernice was well-qualified to run it. She drew on her grocery store experience, and on what she learned from her mother's old laundry business, and from her job as a domestic while a teenager back in Savannah. Another source of inspiration was her memories of the defunct Rosebud Café in St. Louis.

The Martin Restaurant and Boardinghouse became the talk of the colored community. Folks recommended their friends and family stay at the Martin House when they visited. Will steered real estate clients who sought temporary lodging to their establishment.

Three vaudevillians, a comedienne, and two tap dancers were some of the first roomers. In no time, word about the Martin House traveled around the colored entertainment circuit. It was a popular place to board among show people when they were in town. That's when Bernice and Will came up with a new name for their business, the Star Restaurant and Boardinghouse.

The Star Restaurant was open for breakfast, lunch, and supper. Soon after, they opened the Star Bar, the basement pub. Along with bar service, live music and dancing were featured. A frenetic place, show people came there to hang out with the public after appearances elsewhere or before they retired to their rooms. The Star Bar was the place to see and be seen.

By the end of 1918, Bernice's business fortune was reversed by the downturn of the postwar economy, and by Will's death. His sister Martha stopped by to invite Bernice and Gabe to the family Christmas supper the next week.

"How ya fairin,' Bernice?" Martha reached for her hand.

"Well, it's been hard gettin' used to being on my own again."

"Hmm, I can't believe Will's dead. Sometimes I pretend he's comin' home from the war and that one day he's gonna walk right in the door."

"Yeah, this big old house is empty without him. And, things couldn't be much worse around here since Will's gone."

"Bernice, how's business?"

"Business? There's not much of it these days. The papers say the worst of the flu is over, but people are still afraid to be in the same room with each other, still afraid of gettin' sick."

"And, the factories are layin' colored folks off right and left," added Martha.

"Yeah, and I need boarders who are workin'. I'm gonna have to evict some of my boarders because they're weeks behind in the rent. I hate to do it, but I have a mortgage and bills to pay, too. I had to sell Will's old Ford."

"Money's tight all over."

"Now they want to put another monkey on everybody's back by tryin' to ban alcohol. Shoot. Sellin' booze is half my business. How'm I gonna make up that loss?"

Martha had no answer, and after a brief delay, she went ahead with the reason she came by. "Ron and me want you and Gabe to have Christmas supper with us again this year."

They finished their holiday plans. Bernice and Gabe had their Christmas meal with Martha's family late on Christmas Day. The holidays were miserly for everyone and left without fanfare.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Year 1919 dawned with foreboding, and rightly so. Alcohol Prohibition Law was being ratified by state after state, and life for Bernice was about to get much worse. She clung to Gabe and to her business. It was harder to stay ahead of her electric and gas bills. She dismissed most of her domestic help and some of her restaurant staff. Every month she came close to not making her mortgage.

Sometimes things arrive right when you need them. You don't understand how or why. You're just thankful for the rescue. Bernice received another rescue, yet she didn't see God's hand in it:

February 17, 1919

My dear Bernice,

The words that could take the pain of Will's death away from you still haven't come to me. Please know that I pray that one day soon your grief will be lessened.

Malcolm returned home from the war in one piece, thank God. He won't talk much about it, though. He's looking for work, but the pickings are slim around Savannah. You should see him. He's so grown up you'd hardly know him.

I got a letter from John Jr. He's in Des Moines, Iowa working as a porter for a hotel, he says. And, Hannah tells me that despite the long hours looking after her lady during the day, she generally has her evenings and weekends free. She says she is learning her way around St. Louis and to tell you that she went to Forest Park and saw some of the buildings left from the World's Fair.

I can't believe your Grammy has been gone for over five years now. I still miss mother terribly. I didn't know how much support she was to me and John. After she died, I came to understand how much me and him had grown apart. The truth is we are separating. I think we would've done it long ago if it hadn't been for your brothers being so young. Everyone has their own lives now, except for Ernie.

I know this is more sad news, but I've given this a lot of thought and I guess now is as good a time as any. Instead of a visit, how about I move up there permanently? Ernie wants to come with me. It would be nice to be near you, Rita and my grandchildren. We can help you out around there and I can look after little Gabe. Write me soon to tell me how that sits with you.

My love to you and Gabe,

Mother

Bernice was astounded: I remember when I wrote Rita wanting the same thing, to leave home and Savannah, and now here's Mother writing to me. How unreal!

Bernice sent a letter right off to encourage Eleanor and to reassure her there was room at the house for her and Ernie. She wrote how excited Gabe was when she told him the news that his grandma and uncle were coming to live with them. Bernice didn't tell Eleanor how dire things were, she welcomed the company, and the Lord knew she needed the help.

Eleanor was fifty-six and Ernie was sixteen when they left Savannah and moved to the boardinghouse with Bernice that April 1919. When Eleanor arrived in Syracuse, she was impressed by the Jewish citizens. She looked like a member of their community, so she dropped her Morissette surname, but preferred the name Silverstein over Silverson. She thought the Jewish ending "stein" would earn her status and respect in both the Jewish and Negro communities. Thus, in Syracuse her name was Eleanor Silverstein. Furthermore, she insisted that Ernie, since he lived with her, and Hannah, because she was unmarried, also adopt the new Silverstein surname and they did, but her other adult children did not. If anyone was bold enough to question her surname, she told them the name came from her late husband.

Bernice's financial burdens grew apparent to Eleanor and she took Bernice aside.

"Ernie can help with the housekeepin' chores for the boardin' house," volunteered Eleanor, "and while Gabe's at school, I can help out in the kitchen–I got some down-home recipes we can try out. That way you only have to keep a cook for the late afternoon and evenin.' And, when Gabe's home from school, I can keep him out of your hair."

Jobs and wages were not the only things that dried up after the War. The Volstead Act, called Prohibition, took effect in January 1920. In a matter of months, the citizenry drank through their private stockpiles of liquor. Though distilling, transporting, and selling liquor was banned, the law didn't prohibit consuming or possessing liquor in minute quantities. As a result, the underworld seized the opportunity to fill this niche, and alcohol trafficking was off and running. Prohibition devastated Bernice's bar and restaurant income.

"Mother, I'm behind in my bills, whatever you can do to help will be fine with me," lamented Bernice, "I don't think I'm gonna make the mortgage on time again this month. This place has gotta make more money some way!"

Every week during 1920 a business went under, even the mainstays of the neighborhood. Bernice was economically challenged and desperate. She dreaded bill collectors and feared breaking the promises she had made to Callie, to Gabe, and to herself. Like a mousey stench, the fear of failure lingered in her nostrils, abided her day and night, and permeated everything.

Deep down, Bernice felt abandoned by Jake and Will, and most of all by God. She resented her husbands' departures and was jealous of God's right to decide who to take and not take.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before the flu epidemic, Bernice's attendance at church was sporadic. After the epidemic, she disconnected from the church community altogether. She no longer listened to or sought God, choosing to bare all of the responsibility for the outcomes of her decisions.

Well into 1921 now, Bernice had months ago chosen to sell illegal alcohol to keep her businesses afloat. The task of having to evade the law and deal with unsavory characters was sticky, but she took it on.

"By the way, a truck's comin' in tonight, Bernie, you in?" bar manager Freddy asked, meaning does she want to purchase another case or two of bootleg whiskey. Freddy was from Harlem and he had connections with moonshine suppliers.

"Yeah, we got a private party comin' up from New York on Wednesday night and we gotta be ready." Bernice was confident that Freddy could get whatever liquor her money would buy, avoiding the rotgut.

The Canadians kept U. S. port towns like Detroit and New York City well supplied with alcoholic cargo. Alcohol contraband was controlled by gangs such as the Burnstein Brothers' Purple Gang in Detroit or bankrolled by notorious mobsters like Al Capone in Chicago, and Dutch Shultz and Bugsy Segal in New York City. By the time the liquor got to the booze runners, it was diluted and rebottled, then sold to bar contacts like Freddy or to defiant citizenry. Money exchanged through lots of hands along way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Bernice evicted her deadbeat boarders, too few reliable tenants replaced them. Most of her rooms remained empty and weekend business petered out. The depressed economy continued to affect jobs, wages, travel and entertainment, and the cost of everything. Now, even the money from illegal liquor sales wasn't enough. Still, Bernice carried her burdens alone.

One summer evening in 1921, she had come upon another troublestone on her earthly sojourn, more like a boulder of vice. She had lost sleep over this dilemma: What do I do to keep my family out of the poorhouse? With careful thought and a lot of rationalization and denial, Bernice decided to add that hefty stone to her bag when she chose to use her location to her advantage, just in a more merciful way, she told herself. Bernice looked around her. Her business was smack dab in the middle of Syracuse's red light district. She knew prostitution was degrading, but women were out there prostituting and endangering themselves already.

With hope and faith abandoned, she turned to the seedy underworld of prostitution for more income. Rather than discussing it, Bernice told her mother about her new plans for the boardinghouse. Bernice called it mercy, but her idea of mercy stunned Eleanor and no amount of her mother's reciting the Gospels could convince her to reconsider.

"I'm freeborn, Mama! That means nobody's gonna give me anything, and if they do, it's the crumbs." She became aware of the pebbles inside her shoes, which again reminded her of her racial place. "They see to it we don't get ahead or take it from us if they think we're about to. They don't want to have to look at us, we're second-class or no class, not fit for decent jobs, decent homes, or a decent meal in their restaurants." She unlaced her shoes and kicked them off. "I gotta worry about today, who knows if there'll even be a tomorrow."

"You're God's child, Bernice. Nothin' good can come from doin' that." Then Eleanor remembered her own decisions to have the extramarital affair including the out-of-wedlock children she had with John during his wife's illness and she stopped preaching.

"I'm not naïve anymore, Mother. I have to keep a roof over our heads." Cautious about expressing her irreverent attitude to her mother, Bernice kneaded her earlobe. "And, as for God, where was God when everybody was dyin' of the flu, when the dead couldn't be buried quick enough? Where was God for Will, and where's he ever been for me? I lost not one, but two husbands! I'm strugglin' here Mama with all these bills. Where's God right now? Where is the mercy for those poor women out there on the streets?"

Bernice believed she was enduring punishment for reasons she didn't know and didn't deserve. Her inner voice, now a distant whimper underneath the accumulated rubble of troublestones, beseeched Bernice to rely on God, but she couldn't hear it. She showed little respect for the belief in a divinity wiser than herself or the world. The internal lamp meant to light her path was nearly extinguished. A flicker elicited only a twinge of guilt from Bernice.

Shortsighted to the consequences and under a weight of despair, Bernice's mind was made and Eleanor saw that and stayed out her way. Bernice went off in a direction that took her further away from her intended path. She chose to walk through life her own way, on her own terms. She set out to "rescue" at least some of those poor unfortunate women by the power of her own will.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice got industrious after she decided a speakeasy and an escort service in the boardinghouse was what she needed to stay afloat. She withdrew all the funds left of her Lion Coffee prize money and invested it in this newest venture. It turned out that a speakeasy and escort service was the "something big" for which Bernice had saved her prize winnings.

She tore down a wall between two rooms on the second floor of the boardinghouse to make one large parlor area. Bernice decorated the area as if it were the front parlor of her own residence, except it accommodated a bar, poker and pool tables, a player piano, and space for a limited party of guests. The new room was opulent, inspired by some of the exhibits she remembered at the World's Fair; no detail was ignored. The walls were appointed with tasteful wallpaper and trimmed with dark woods. The floors were polished oak and covered with cushy oriental rugs. Cigars and cigarettes were offered for purchase, but nasty smokeless tobacco products were not allowed.

Bernice knew prostitutes were vulnerable to violence from their johns and pimps, and were cheated out of their wages by their pimps and madams. Like slave masters from previous centuries, pimps and madams wielded unfair control over these women's lives. She decided her escort service would be different.

Bernice met potential candidates for her escort service whose beats were Syracuse's fine department stores. To keep her service below scrutiny, Bernice screened each woman, black and white before she hired her, with questions like: Do you have proof of your age? Are you or have you ever been married? Do you have any children? Are you wanted by the police for anything? Have you ever been arrested for prostitution? Who is your pimp? Do you owe money to anyone?

The answers to those and other queries weeded out women that were too risky. Bernice's girls were unmarried women, over twenty-one, already in the business, but working independently. She preferred independents because she avoided conflicts with previous pimps and madams, and the independents were less spoiled by the business.

Bernice reserved four rooms of her boardinghouse for her new venture. Each woman had her own room and they were required to live full-time on the premises. That way she avoided public suspicion of the women's comings and goings, which would draw attention to the boardinghouse. Bernice gained each woman's allegiance and silence by offering them a small percentage of the escort profits in bonuses and gave them full disclosure of the books. The women shared the operating expense of paying hush money to local beat cops.

Her girls were literate, well-spoken and knowledgeable, had nice teeth, and showed first-class manners to their dates. A woman was taught etiquette if Bernice saw potential in her. If a woman had children, no child was allowed beyond the restaurant. The girls could make referrals, but they had to present the referral to Bernice first and she had final say.

Every woman Bernice hired signed a contract that stated the terms of her employment, which included clauses that addressed conduct, the exclusivity of her services, secrecy, clothing requirements, wages, and time off. If a part of the contract was breached, the woman was dismissed. Her girls earned more than a livable income; they had a stake in the operation; they were protected on the premises by a bouncer; they received regular medical and dental check-ups. Bernice referred to her girls as "business partners" and treated them with dignity and respect. Thus, Bernice became a first-class madam. However, she never thought of herself in that low-brow term. She was too arrogant. She considered herself their "protector."

The speakeasy, which included the escort service, was called Bernie's. Not much of the public suspected that another enterprise existed upstairs above the Star Restaurant. Those who knew had been previous guests. Bernie's was reserved only by a discreet well-heeled clientele. Entrance to Bernie's was granted by Bernice's invitation or by prearrangement only with her. Men needed jackets and ties. It demanded complete decorum, the utmost secrecy, and a wad of cash. Bernice sold alcoholic beverages and female companionship there, and guests paid extra to consume both in the intimacy and security of a private locale.

Her guests lounged on fine davenports, settees, and wing-backed chairs upholstered for beauty and comfort. While they sipped on cocktails, guests had full access to restaurant services. From Washington Street below, the window treatments and lamp lighting appeared like that of normal bedrooms or living rooms. There was never a whiff of anything amiss. As a result, Bernie's was one of the quietest speakeasies in Syracuse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After her impromptu meeting with a beat cop, Bernice walked over to join Freddy seated at the opposite side of the dining room.

"Everybody ready downstairs?" she asked him, referring to the Star Bar staff.

"Yep, Joe's behind the bar, we have two waitresses tonight, and the band is due shortly. Freddy read the furrows in her brow. "You're runnin' late aren't you kitten? Did everything go all right with that copper?"

"We came to another agreement. Every once in a while these guys like to throw their power in your face when they want more cash. He ate the most expensive dinner on the menu, the nerve of him. Then, there was no negotiatin' with him this time." Bernice knew she and her business was at this cop's mercy. He coerced her and she had to pay him what he demanded.

By eight that Wednesday evening, business at the Star Bar still hadn't picked up. To maintain her ruse of legitimacy, Bernice kept the Star Bar strictly dry. Only near beer and other soft beverages were served. Two or three couples, a few singles who were friends hung out at a table, and one or two lone characters sat at the bar hoping to make a new acquaintance. The trio played music, but the dance floor was empty, a dismal scene for a weeknight.

An hour later, Bernice greeted the private party she expected. This little soiree was arranged by a fellow Bernice had found interesting. Referred by a friend, they met at the restaurant a week prior. He was young and his cologne had a pleasant woodsy fragrance. His chivalry was unexpected and his style was smooth, yet there was a hint of danger about him. The timbre of his baritone voice had a satin quality like his conked-straightened hair. When he first introduced himself he said, "Hello Mrs. Martin, I'm Alvin Tulley." He reserved the speakeasy and eight rooms. Four of the rooms came with business partners and he paid for it all with cash.

The party arrived at the alley entrance in a fleet of shiny black sedans. Tulley and two of the men had dates, one woman was unescorted. The other four men, obviously business associates, were also unattached. When they exited their automobiles, the chauffeurs drove away.

Bernice greeted Mister Tulley and led him and his entourage through a short hallway and up the back stairs to Bernie's. This party was dressed in finely tailored suits, silken dresses, and fur stoles. They had come from a vaudeville show and they were ready to relax and be quenched. Right away two waiters in white shirts, black trousers and bow ties, brought trays of hors d'oeuvres and offered drinks to them. The player piano cranked out a roll of ditties at a low volume as the hour was late. Dressed in the latest flapper fashions, Bernice's business partners availed themselves to the unattached gentlemen and flattered them. When everyone was kicked back and contented with a cocktail, Bernice sat at the bar. She enjoyed the hum of conversations as her guests talked and laughed about the vaudeville acts they saw earlier.

"Bernie, you got some royalty up in here tonight," Freddy whispered and slid a drink over to her.

"Yeah?" asked Bernice. "Like who?"

"Well, on the couch over there is none other than the Bolito King himself. He's known all over Manhattan. They say he brought the numbers game to Harlem when he moved here from the Islands."

Casper Holstein was called the Bolito King, because he was considered the most reliable and richest "banker" in the numbers game. He wanted to escape the spotlight of Harlem and maintain a low profile. He came to Syracuse where the pace was slower and where he wasn't well-known.

For many years the numbers game went unnoticed by organized crime bosses who instead concentrated on the black market liquor business. Law enforcement was unconcerned about this gambling sport because the numbers was mostly a colored folks' game. Of late however, crime families caught on to this lucrative trade and aimed to take it over.

"The lady sittin' in the green chair across from him is Madame St. Clair. She's from Harlem, too. Some people call her Queenie," said Freddy.

A native of the Caribbean Island of Martinque, Queenie's given name was Stephanie St. Clair. With ten thousand dollars of her own money she opened a numbers bank and became the most well-known female banker, if not the only female banker in the game.

"The tall man standin' next to Queenie is Bumpy Johnson, her protector and right hand man, and a rough hot-headed mug. He went to prison more than once for stickups and knifin' people," Freddy added.

Ellsworth Raymond Johnson was nicknamed Bumpy because of a large fleshy bump on the back of his head.

"See the fella he's talkin' to?" inquired Bernice. "He's the one who set up this party. He said his name is Alvin. You know him?"

Her eyes followed the pinstripes down the back of his otherwise black suit, which he wears very well, right on down to his wingtips. The lemony cream-colored fedora he held in his hand and the matching tie and pocket scarf that accessorized his suit spoke to his "coolness" and personal flair. Tulley turned toward the bar and caught Bernice staring. She uncrossed her legs, took a sip of her highball, and held her gaze. He smiled at her and revealed one dimple, then he turned away.

"Not sure I seen him before, but he's probably one of Bumpy's men," replied Freddy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice's nineteen-year-old stepbrother Ernie Morissette Silverstein married a girl from the neighborhood in July 1921 and all the family in Syracuse attended. His daughter was born two months later in September.

Bernice saw her sister Rita Silverson Volten several times a week and her husband Lenny less often. She saw her niece Flora, age seventeen, and her teenage siblings Ina and Len Jr., fifteen and thirteen, whenever they dropped by the restaurant together or with friends.

Bernice kept up with her own out of town siblings by reading the letters Eleanor received from them. But, her mother didn't receive many letters from her third son John Morissette Jr. Eleanor assumed he still lived in Des Moines and, as of yet, he hadn't informed her about any children.

Bernice's sister Hannah was a more frequent letter writer: Hannah's in love with a man named Neb Irving she met in St. Louis; he's originally from Mississippi; Hannah's pregnant; she married Neb in May 1920, became Hannah Silverstein Irving, and gave birth nine days later to a son named after his father; a letter received in June 1924 told of Neb Jr.'s recent fourth birthday and his recovery from measles.

Her stepbrother Malcolm Morissette in Savannah got married in March 1924 to the mother of his son born ten months earlier.

As of the summer of 1924, Eleanor had six grandchildren, including adopted Gabe, now age eleven.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice and Mister Tulley kept a strict business relationship for four years, but Mister Tulley had intrigued her more than any man since her first husband Jake. During that period, Tulley reserved the speakeasy many times for friends and business associates. Bernice recognized his baritone voice the minute he telephoned.

"Hello, Star Restaurant." She listened and repeated the caller's instructions, "Yes sir, that's reservations for Ball, a party of four, at six o'clock on Saturday. Thank you, sir. Good-bye."

As she wrote the reservation in her book the telephone rang again.

"Hello, Star Restaurant."

"Hello Bernie, this is Alvin Tulley." She was surprised to hear his low satiny voice as it had only been days since his last party there.

"Oh, hello Mister Tulley. When would you like to reserve Bernie's?"

"No, not at this time, but is there room on your ticket any time soon?" Bernice's body flushed with warmth. She was glad he couldn't see her flustered.

"Sounds like you're askin' me out, Mister Tulley," answered Bernice in a softened more breathy tone.

"I am."

"Well, I only go out with men who are unattached and I've never seen you without a woman on your arm." She was right. He wore women like cuff links. And, Tulley had never used her escort service. He never had to.

Tulley ran it down to her. "If you're wondering if I'm married and out cheating, I'm not on either account. But I do like women and they usually like me. However, to answer your question, right now there's no particular woman I'm attached to."

Now Bernice was a busy lady. Between running the restaurant, the basement bar, plus the speakeasy and the escort service upstairs, Bernice had little time for pursuits like dating. Sundays and Mondays, when the Star Bar and Bernie's were closed, were the only days she had time for herself, and even on Mondays, she did the bookkeeping and her errands.

"Bernie, let's make it simple. How about we get to know each other better over supper? You do take time out to eat don't you?"

Bernice let a girlish giggle slip out. "Ok, let's have an early supper here on Sunday."

"Time?"

"Is two thirty fine with you?"

"Fine, I'll see you then." Click. He hung up.

Bernice sat there with her end of the telephone in hand thinking of what just happened. The second she put the receiver back on the hook it rang again.

"Hello, Star Restaurant," she eased back to her business voice and took another supper reservation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice checked the seams in her black silk stockings one last time, went over to the window, and looked out over Washington Street three stories below. She saw Mister Tulley's sedan pull in a parking space across the street: He's on time, she sang to herself. For Bernice, punctuality was a good sign. She watched him run for the restaurant as the clouds started to spit rain.

Tulley made it inside the vestibule, his charcoal overcoat and hat hardly dampened at all. He rang the doorbell next to the door that led upstairs to Bernie's and the residence. This door was always locked to protect the privacy of her residence and of course for the privacy of her speakeasy guests.

Bernice kept her nervousness at bay, unlocked the door, and opened it: Mmm, he always smells sooo wonderful.

"Please come in Mister Tulley. I thought we'd have supper at Bernie's."

The speakeasy was quiet and they could enjoy supper without much interruption. She was not yet comfortable enough to invite him up to her apartment residence.

"Bernie, you look lovely this afternoon."

As he followed her up the stairs, Mister Tulley was entranced by the sway of pleats in Bernice's cranberry red dress; the pleats fanned in and out like an accordion with each step she climbed. Bernice could feel his eyes feasting on her. She was flattered and self-conscious at the same time. She grasped the long strands of beads she wore to quiet them.

When they entered Bernie's parlor, she hung Tulley's coat on the rack at the entrance. He placed his hat on top. Bernice switched on the player piano and it began a roll of soft melodies. Tulley helped seat her in the chair opposite him.

"Call me Al, all my friends do. Quite an operation you're running here Bernie."

"Did you ask me to dinner to talk shop?" She wanted to get to the crux of his interest in her.

"No I didn't. After all this time, I just wanted to be with you outside of business, without anyone else around."

"Tell me what you do for people like Bumpy Johnson and Madam St. Clair?"

Smiling at Bernice he reminded her, "I thought we weren't talking shop?"

She chuckled. "Let's call it self-preservation. You already know what it is I do. That gangster lifestyle scares me."

"Me? I'm no gangster."

"How is it that you're arrangin' parties and payin' cash for those flashy New York City types?"

"Well, I do run a numbers game around here, but I'm small-time compared to those people. People like the Bolito King don't carry a lot of money in their pockets, it gives robbers ideas. And, they rarely make party plans for themselves. They want to stay incognito and they don't want to leave paper trails. So, one of their people contacts someone like me. They wire the money and I make the arrangements."

Bernice found all that interesting, although she sensed he wasn't telling her everything. Over supper they continued their tête-à-tête.

"I'm from South Carolina," said Al.

"So am I. I mean, born there, but I grew up in Savannah."

"I came here with my aunt when I was thirteen. After a while, school wasn't happening for me. I was bored. I wanted to get out of Syracuse and see the country. At sixteen I got a job as a porter for the railroad.

"What brought you back?"

"My aunt. I was home when she came down with the Spanish flu and I stayed to take care of her, but she died in a matter of days."

Bernice understood and sympathized with him.

"When I went back to the railroad office for my next assignment, they told me they let several porters go and I was one of them."

"How did you get started in the numbers business?" Bernice recalled the charge she got watching her father's joy from betting in games of chance. The fact that Al was also a betting man aroused in Bernice an affinity for him. Her heart began its probe of Al.

"Back to talking shop, huh?" but he obliged her. "I learned about the numbers when I started with the railroad. All the porters played it in one city or another hoping to make a few extra bucks, and sometimes they did. Numbers always made sense to me and arithmetic was my best subject in school. I put up a hundred dollars from the payout of my aunt's life insurance policy to see if I could run my own game. I sold the tickets myself to all the porters and their families and friends. That's how I started and it sort of mushroomed."

"Ok, no more shop talk for now. But I do have a question to ask you. Why after all this time are you interested in me?" Bernice saw herself twice widowed, older than Al by ten years with a twelve-year-old son, and the opposite of him: very "un-cool."

"Why wouldn't I be? You're beautiful, smart, you know what you want out of life, and you know how to get it. You know I've sent parties your way just so I can see you."

At the end of supper and before night fell, they parted ways. Together they walked toward the coat rack and traded compliments about supper and each other's company. When Bernice tip-toed to reach his hat, Alvin sneaked both arms around her, pulled her against him, and stole a kiss from her. She didn't resist. She submitted knowing full well what she was doing. Bernice wanted to be loved again.

After the kiss, he was gone. As Bernice passed through the speakeasy on the way to her third floor residence, she heard voices squealing from the rooms down the hall.

"Woo-hoo! Bernie," yelled one of her business partners, "he sure is a fine lookin' 'pair-of-pants'!"

"We can all see he's sweet on you, Bernie," said another, "I've seen the way he's looked at you before. He's not interested in us, neither!"

"Looks like he's a ladies' man lookin' to be tamed," exclaimed another.

Bernice gave them a wave and a smile and left them giggling amongst themselves. Before she settled early to bed, she listened to the Amos 'n' Andy program on the radio while she thought about her afternoon with Al.

Eleanor knocked.

"Come in!"

"How was supper? Did you have a good time?" Eleanor was happy that Bernice had begun to date again.

"I like him, Mother."

"You do? Now what is it you think he can do for you?"

"Al is smart, got a head for numbers. He's prosperous, has good contacts, and he is sooo easy to look at. I could really use a man around here."

Alvin Tulley could fulfill many things Bernice missed in her life: a clean shaven cheek next to hers, the oneness of two bodies melting into each other, "chocolate-pudding" kisses, and the suede touch of a man's palm. She thought: I can make him love only me. She hungered to be cared for by someone, for physical companionship, as well as for some brawn around the boardinghouse and the speakeasy. She concluded they could help each other do better in their businesses. Although Bernice was physically attracted to Al, she did not love him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three months later, Bernice Martin and Alvin Tulley were married by the justice of the peace at city hall on January 2, 1926. The marriage license recorded both their ages as thirty-two. Bernice fibbed, as she was forty. Not that it mattered because their marriage was short-lived. How they kept it together for four years before the marriage crumbled, time would tell.

Their married life went well for eleven months until greater powers decided the town was too small for Al Tulley to do business. An arm of the New York City crime syndicate had turned up the heat on the numbers bankers in Syracuse and muscled Al out of his numbers game. One night a gang of thugs battered him bloody, left him with broken ribs, a two-inch crescent scar under his left eye as a reminder, and a deep-rooted fear of being mugged again. After the beating, he vowed to "shoot the next bastard" who tried to take anything else from him. Al never again left home without his pistol.

The numbers bankers in New York City were next, including the Bolito King himself. Though the King held on for as long as he could, his reign was usurped in 1928 when he was kidnapped. A fifty thousand dollar ransom was paid and he was set free unharmed. Then, he also gave up the numbers game.

Bumpy Johnson helped Madam St. Clair fight over turf with gangster Dutch Schultz, but eventually she lost out, too.

With all that Al worked for gone by the start of 1927, he became dependent on Bernice. Dependence on a woman was something he hadn't been since his aunt. He had lost his self-control over alcohol, gambling, and women.

"Here you go, baby. Buy a new hat or something." Al handed Bernice a twenty dollar bill. "I got lucky last night."

She took the bill, but decided not to bring up the subject of his gambling this time. Bernice had something else more pressing on her mind.

"Al, I looked over the liquor supply this afternoon and we're short. If you drink up my booze, I can't sell any to my customers."

"You accusing me? Instead of me, you better keep an eye on your business partners."

"You're the one around here smellin' like booze all the time."

"I wouldn't have to be turning to booze if you'd be a proper wife to me." That crack made Bernice feel like she'd been slapped in the face with a pee-soaked diaper. This quarrel was during one of the many times when Al was on the "outs" with Bernice, as in "out in the cold" and out of her bed.

"Let's not start that again, Al. You don't think I hear about the floozies you're runnin' around with?"

"Bernie, people like to mess in your business. Don't believe everything people say about me. They don't know what they're talking about. I know lots of people, male and female. It don't mean a thing."

After Al had a chance to think about his behavior of late, he pulled himself together once again. Over the next probationary months, Bernice didn't have a complaint where Al was concerned. She was encouraged.

On one occasion, after they had been affectionate with one another more than they had been in several months, she was in a mood and wanted or needed to be close to him, so she had invited him to their bedroom.

Al was settled and reading in bed when Bernice leaned against the post at the foot of their bed. With a hand on her hip, she waited for Al to notice her from behind his newspaper.

Missing Bernice's ritual pirouettes around the bedroom, Al lowered his newspaper and the sight of her beheld him.

"Don't tease me, Bernie."

She sat on the bed next to him.

"Al, I want our marriage to work. We have to work at it, though. I know I haven't been here for you, but that can change if you and I could go back to the way we used to be."

"Are you sure we can start over?"

"Yes, we can do anything we set our minds to."

Al wrapped his arms around Bernice and pulled her down over the crackle of newspapers and nuzzled her. Al's advances toward her never varied, nor did the way she succumbed to them. At the start, Bernice always craved more affection, but Al always moved on ahead of her. She thought, why did I think he would be different after all this time? Bernice was desperate to be loved, but Al's vanity and selfishness sapped the energy from her. So, again the communion between their two spirits was lackluster. As mechanical as their lovemaking had become, at least afterwards, Al stayed cuddled next to her, although contented and asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The year 1929 spiraled into an economic depression, but Bernice's escort business was brisk. She kept the income from her speakeasy and the escort service in a safe at home so as not to expose Bernie's. When banks ran out of money and shut their doors because of poor investments in Wall Street, her cash flow was unaffected. A few Wall Street investors may have been suicidal, but men who had always been poor took the market crash in stride and preferred to seek consolation in a cocktail and a warm body when they could afford it.

Also needing a boost of courage, Al went to the liquor stash for some consolation of his own at the bottom of a bottle. He became angry at Bernice's mistrust of him when he discovered the liquor storage was padlocked.

"What you looking for Al?" sparkled Della, one of Bernice's business partners. She was wide-nosed and full-lipped, and her pressed hair was short and molded in large waves that hugged her head. Her complexion radiated a rich shade of umber. She was youthful and enchanting. She wore low-heeled, white, pompon slippers. A slender umber leg beckoned from underneath the overlap of her quilted orange sherbet morning coat made of silk. A wide sherbet ribbon cinched her waist.

"She's locked up all the damned booze. You wouldn't happen to have any whiskey, would you?"

"Can Lindberg fly? I keep a little in here for myself. You're welcome to have some." She lusted for him from the doorway of her bedroom. The glass doorknob warmed in her palm.

Al hesitated.

"No, guess I'll get back to my chores. I promised to finish some repairs around here while Bernie's away for the afternoon." Al's high view of himself as a slick-haired player had been reduced to that of a common broom-pusher and that caused him to feel insignificant.

"Aw, come on in for a minute, you look like you could use a break."

Still resentful of Bernice, Al followed Della into her bedroom.

Della's room was neat. The bed was made. Everything was in its place. The sunshine poured in and made everything gay and crisp. The bedroom smelled of lavender potpourri. An enameled basin and a stack of folded white towels sat on the table next to it. She had no reason to keep a timepiece near since her dates booked an entire night. They could leave when they wanted, however check out was eleven a.m.

Sashaying first to her dressing table, Della took a cigarette out of a wooden box that sat amongst a galaxy of lip color in pots, and pans of powders, jars of creams, and bottles of perfumes, and combs, brushes, and applicators. The reflection in the mirror over the table doubled it all.

She stuffed the cigarette in the end of a long slim holder and Al lit it for her. She took in the first draw and exhaled it gently. With no time for a smoke, Al declined the cigarette she offered him. He dared not relax in the overstuffed boudoir chair opposite the bed though she invited him to. Rather, he chose to stand next to it. Al knew his toes were grazing a dangerous line.

She next sashayed over to the middle drawer of the bureau and dredged up a large Mason jar of crude spirits hidden underneath a hoard of filmy lingerie. The liquor was a grotesque swill of gin, bourbon, and whiskey cocktails left over from previous dates, which she added to the jar every morning. It was her private stash. After Bernie's bar closed for the night, Della sold some of it to her dates if they wanted something more. She didn't report this extra cash to Bernice.

She wiped clean two used teacups and poured them each a drink. She sat at the foot of the bed and again revealed her slender leg to Al. As they began their small talk, the bedroom lost the sunlight and turned ashen and somber.

"Guess we're gonna get that snowstorm they predicted," Della said.

Al lit another cigarette for her. By the time they divulged where they were from and how they came to the boardinghouse, they were at the bottom of their second cup of swill, sniggering together.

Without the holder this time, she lit a third cigarette herself and put it to her pout, claret lips. Al was caught up and transported back to younger, more indulgent times, as he watched her suck the end of the cigarette leaving behind red lip impressions. Then, she sashayed toward him. Al took hold of her left wrist. Placing his lips where hers had been, he took a long hit from her cigarette, which dangled between her fingers. He exhaled and created a cloud above her head. She leaned against him, getting right in his face, so close that they inhaled each other's distilled breath. She gave the scar under Al's eye a graceful stroke with the tips of her two middle fingers.

"You're a fine looking brother, but I suppose you already know that." Al's demeanor softened to putty. Della said, "This one's on me." Al's libido peaked and he attempted no reply.

With two drags drawn from the cigarette, Della abandoned it in a nearby ashtray. Their mouths rushed to meet and next they were into each other against the bedroom wall, Al fully dressed and tromping on Della's sherbet morning coat which had fallen to the floor underneath them. Before the cigarette burned into a straw of ashes, their romp was over. They covered up, straightened, and smoothed out their clothes.

"Any time you feel another thirst coming on, I've got more here for you, sugar."

Al felt worse now and vowed not to let that happen again. He turned and walked out of the bedroom, stepping right in Bernice's path on her way through the parlor.

"Now Bernie, I was just tightening some loose bolts on the radiator in there." The look on Bernice's face told him that his lie had bombed.

"With one of my own partners, Al?" was all she said.

Bernice wasn't naïve when it came to Al. In truth, the reason she put up with him until then was because she had accepted the "ways of the world out there," but she was no doormat. Bernice wasn't going to tolerate his doggish indulgences under her own roof. "Love don't hurt," she recalled what Sadie had said to her many years ago. Strangely, the connection between her wanton escort service and Al's betrayals of intimacy, which he'd brought home to roost, went over Bernice's head.

Bernice fired Della who then put on an ugly scene. Al moved out and took his automobile, their only, with him. That incident happened on a snowy day in November 1930, one year after the stock market crashed.

That evening, Bernice sat at her vanity table staring through a portal in the mirror that took her into the cold void inside her own battered heart; that dark empty wound had crowded out the budding faith that had once made her feel loved by God. Laughter echoed in the nothingness there and mocked her loneliness and disappointment. She cried in self-pity.

Brushing her long tresses, she couldn't avert her eyes from the swathe of gray hair left of center which used to be a trickle. She had reached forty-five, the age of her father at his death. Then, she wept more thinking: boy, I look so much like you Daddy. I wish you were here. In the next instant Bernard's presence drew near her: I was lonely, Daddy. I mistook his good-looks for love. I thought he was stronger. I thought I could count on him. Now here I am, alone again.

### CHAPTER 9

Bernice's marriage was finished. Dead. She staved off plaintive mumblings that rustled beneath her troublestones. The post mortem reviews of her marriage wearied her. She ended further examination and decided to concentrate on cheering herself up. If affairs of the heart weren't working out, she'd surround herself with the things that could make her happy.

First, she sought solace in a brand new automobile, a 1930 black sedan with white sidewall tires, manufactured by Marmon Motor Company. It had the latest engineering and a V-16 under the hood. The Marmon V-16 was open-wheeled with huge front fenders, spare tires on the sides, large Crouse-Hinds headlights, the best in its day, and a tall chrome grille. The automobile salesman hooked Bernice when he said, "The Marmon's Wasp racecar won the first Indianapolis 500 back in 1911."

Bernice purchased the classy sedan at a good price, as sales were slow because of the economic depression and the winter cold. She paid five thousand dollars in cash for it. The car puffed her with pride, increased her profile and freedom, and relieved her of a chip or two from the heavy rock of racism that pushed against her. Her Marmon automobile was one thing she didn't worry about disappointing her and she loved to cruise around town in it. Now, at least she was a colored woman cruising in a flashy automobile, instead of a colored woman of no account, limping on pebbles in her shoes. Bernice never walked anywhere she could drive and that contributed to her breathlessness when she climbed the stairs to her third-floor apartment or walked more than a block.

As the calendar entered 1931, the second year of the depressed economy, Bernice flaunted her ten-year business success and had developed a florid lifestyle. While too many people stared into empty cupboards and wore threadbare clothes, Bernice had the means to fill her emptiness with luxuries afforded by her enterprises.

She took Ernie's pre-teenage daughter and her school pals on shopping sprees in her automobile. These excursions always ended at an ice cream parlor. Bernice still loved ice cream and now she had any flavor she wanted, when she wanted. However, ice cream no longer reminded her of her young brush with death, nor of her vow of faith.

Bernice shopped the finest department stores like Kalets on South Warren Street and W.I. Addis Company nearby, and catalogues like Sears & Roebuck or Montgomery Wards for the finest table and bed coverings of linen and down. The floors of her residence were softened and warmed with Persian rugs. The rest of her apartment was also well-furnished. If there was a new phonograph, radio, or a new appliance that eased women's work in the kitchen, she bought those, too.

She purchased the latest in fine clothing, hats, and shoes. She couldn't resist a fancy bottle of perfume, a pair of silk stockings, or a frilly article of lingerie. Stoles made from red foxtails were the rage. She had one or two of those and a mink coat, too. Whatever the ladies in the society pages wore, she wore also. She gave herself everything.

Fine clothing and a big fancy automobile made Bernice a peacock among starlings in her impoverished neighborhood. No love was lost between her and some of her neighbors. They gossiped and speculated about her though the Star Restaurant and Bar employed members of several families and kept them out of the soup lines.

What Bernice didn't have was someone loving her in that close special way that was for her alone. Her son Gabe was now eighteen and a tap dancer in the vicinity. He often performed on the same playbill as the Will Mastin Trio when they came through Syracuse. The Trio included pre-teen Sammy Davis Jr. and his father Sammy Davis Sr. Gabe had many friends and was becoming his own man. She was proud of him, but he didn't need her attention as a mother anymore.

However, an early evening telephone call in February 1932 once again changed Bernice's life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hello, Star Restaurant."

"Hello, may I speak with a Mrs. Bernice Tulley, please?" said the male voice.

"Speaking. When would you like to make a reservation?"

"Mrs. Tulley, this is Detective Dan Morelli of the Newark Police Department in New Jersey."

"Yes?"

"Are you the wife of Mister Alvin Tulley?"

"Yes." The hairs at the nape of her neck stood on end.

"We have your husband in custody and it's urgent that you come here as soon as possible."

"Why? What's the matter? What's he done?"

"I prefer to answer your questions when you get here."

Too nervous to drive herself, she asked her brother Ernie to drive her to New Jersey. Her earlobe was sore by the time they arrived at the Newark police station about noon. Detective Morelli greeted them.

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am. Sorry to be so dodgy over the telephone."

Bernice couldn't return the pleasure of meeting him. She said, "This is my brother Ernest with me," and left it at that. Detective Morelli led them to one of the interrogation rooms and they sat at the table.

"Mrs. Tulley, we've arrested your husband."

"Why, what has he done?"

"He is the subject of a homicide investigation."

"A homicide? My God! There must be some mistake, an accident. Was he in a fight or somethin'? Is he hurt?"

"Yes, ma'am. He was injured, but it's not serious. But, I don't want to mislead you. We arrested him at the crime scene. He reported it himself."

"What crime scene? Where was it? How did it happen?"

"I can't discuss the details with you right now as we are still investigating the case. However, I can tell you the victim's name and where it occurred."

"Who?"

"Her name is Jewel Everett, and it occurred in her apartment."

"I don't know her. Who is she?"

"Ma'am," Detective Morelli hesitated, "Mister Tulley said she was his girlfriend."

"Well, he and I have been separated for more than a year now." Bernice hadn't thought of Al as her husband anymore, but as far as the law was concerned, they were still married.

"Oh, I see." A flood of new questions came to Morelli's mind.

The room fell silent except for the pitter-patter and ding of someone using a typewriter on the other side of the wall.

"Please let me explain why I needed you to come so urgently."

Bernice wondered why else, if what he had told her wasn't the reason.

"Someone else was at the crime scene, a thirteen-month-old."

Bernice looked at Ernie, puzzled.

"Mister Tulley asked me to call you as the child's next of kin. We need you to take temporary custody right away."

"Who's child is it?"

"It's their child. Your husband told us that he is the father."

"Can I talk to him first?"

"Yes, ma'am, we can arrange that." Then Morelli left.

"Thank you," she said then turned to Ernie, "How in the world could he have done this? And, in front of a baby, too?"

"I don't know, maybe he'll tell you what happened."

An hour went by. The room was drafty. Bernice had been pacing the floor for the last ten minutes.

"Oh, I hate this waitin'!"

Morelli came back.

"We're ready for you Mrs. Tulley."

"I'll wait here for you," Ernie said.

Morelli led her down the stairs to another room and seated her at a counter and left. A guard brought Al to the room, cuffed at the wrists and shackles on his ankles. His left hand was bandaged. Al looked hangdog as he waddled over and sat across from her. She stared at him through the heavy-duty cage wire that separated them.

"Al, is it true what they told me?"

"It happened so fast, Bernie. I wasn't myself."

"Tell me, what did happen?"

"Where do I start?"

"Try the beginnin'."

"Well, ok. I met Jewel one night at the Star Bar during one of those times I was on the outs with you. Jewel was sad, she was crying. Her marriage was hell. She even served time for second degree battery after she fended off her husband with a knife during a fight. Then, her husband was sent to prison on a Prohibition charge. I guess a neighbor tipped the police off to a large quantity of alcohol inside their house. With no one to care for their five kids, they were placed in an orphanage. You know the one, Saint Joseph's House of Providence on Onondaga Street. When Jewel returned home from jail, she wanted her kids back. The day we met she had been to see them at the orphanage and was upset since she had to leave them there.

"After that night, whenever she came to the Bar we'd talk. She had a nasty scar down the side her face so I asked her about it. She told me an intruder had attacked and slashed her with a knife the previous year. Jewel had had a difficult life and I understood her hurt. I felt so sorry for her. We became friends and well, I guess one thing led to another. . . ."

"And the baby?"

"In the summer of 1930 Jewel told me the child she was carrying was my child. She was four months pregnant by then. When you and I split up that November, I went to live with her. The baby came two months later, last January. We named him Alvin Gerald after me and my father. We call him Gerald. He is my one and only child. I love him. I decided to love Jewel since she was his mother. Bernie, I'd messed things up with you, but I vowed this time I was going to do right."

"What happened between you two?"

"I stopped drinking and gambling, so as the months passed, Jewel and I found fewer things to argue about. I had a family now. I thought we had worked it out between us. But, we hadn't. I found out she was meeting some travelin' man. One evening I came home to a note on the kitchen table. It read she and my son were gone. It took months, but I found out they were living here in Newark where this other man lives. I just wanted to talk to her, to tell her that I wanted her and Gerald to come home with me, and that I wanted to try again to be a family."

"What did she say when you told her that?"

"I went to her apartment. She wouldn't let me in. She didn't want to listen to anything I had to say. She made me sooo angry. She wouldn't let me see Gerald either. I gave up and went to a bar down the block to stew about it.

"Later, I went back to her apartment to apologize, I told myself. I knocked. She opened the door partway, yelling at me to go away and leave them alone. Instead, I busted through the door, chain and all. We argued about her not telling me where they'd gone, about her other man, and about this, that, and the other. Gerald's diapers were soaked and he cried in his crib. I just wanted to hold him. She didn't want me to. I shoved her aside hard and she hit the floor. I was angry and drunk. When she got up she pulled a switchblade out of her bosom and tried to stick me with it. She got me on the hand. But, when she screamed she'd leave and take my son someplace where I couldn't find them, I said, 'Naw, you're not taking my son anywhere!'

"Next, it seemed as if a fog drifted into the room. I remembered when those hoodlums broke up my numbers business, how they kicked me in the face and ribs and left me for dead in the alley. When they took my business, they took everything from me.

"I swear, Bernie, the next sound I heard was a BANG! Gerald stopped crying. The sudden silence jarred me more. I felt the weight of the gun in my hand and it was warm.

"Seeing what I'd done, I knelt to help Jewel. I balled up my shirt and pressed it over the wound in her chest, not realizing she was bleeding faster from the wound in her back. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't help her. I held her head and she looked at me unable to say a word. Her eyes drifted toward Gerald. Then her eyes returned to me, but she was no longer behind them. Jewel was gone and I was the cause.

"Gerald began wailing, he wanted his mother. I took him with me and went to the payphone at the end of the hall. I placed the call for an ambulance and the police. I sat outside the apartment with Gerald until they arrived. . . . "

When Al ended, his head dropped like a bowling ball.

"My God Al, did you have to shoot her?"

"I was angry. She was gonna take Gerald away from me and I wasn't gonna let her do it. I was scared I'd never see him again, and I wanted to stop that from happening." Al flashed his shiny bloodshot eyes at Bernice. "Bernie, my gun is always on me, I didn't intend to shoot her when I went there."

There was a patch of silence. They were at a loss for words.

"Al, we haven't talked in over a year, why do you want me to take Gerald? Where is Jewel's family?"

"Jewel's parents are dead and she has no family members who could afford to take him in. Last I heard, her other children are still at Saint Joseph's. I don't want Gerald to end up in an orphanage, too. I know I have some nerve to ask you to do this, to take care of my child by another woman, and I can't blame you if you refuse me. But, I had no one else to turn to. You are my only hope. I know you adore babies. If you can find it in your heart, please forgive me for the way I treated you and our marriage. Take care of my son while I am away. I know he'll be in good hands with you."

Bernice listened to Al plead. He did have a lot of nerve. She was in shock, outraged, and she had this unexpected sense of anticipation, all at the same time. She had made up her mind.

"All right, Al. I'll take Gerald home with me and raise him. Don't worry about him anymore. He's gonna be fine with us."

"Thank you, thank you, Bernie." Al's tears surfaced and he let go several sobs.

"Al?"

"Yes."

"Gerald is gonna want to know about his mother someday. Tell me what you know about Jewel's background?" Bernice remembered when she asked her father Bernard this same question. It occurred to her that this awkward and tragic situation needed some objectivity on her part or she might never be able to answer Gerald's questions about his real mother. Al told Bernice all he knew.

"Before she married, her name was Jewel Graham. She is part Mohawk Indian," he was still thinking of her as alive. "Jewel grew up near the Canadian border in Franklin County on the St. Regis Indian Reservation. Her father John Graham was a Mohawk chief. Her mother's name was Naida and Jewel told me her mother was white. Her parents had seven daughters and a son. Jewel was their seventh child. She talked a lot about her closest sisters Minnie and Mabel, but I can't remember the names of the others. Jewel married Arthur Everett shortly before their first child was born in 1921. She had three sons and two daughters. Gerald is her sixth child. That's about all I can tell you."

"Time's up," said the guard.

"Thank you, Bernie, you've saved me. I won't blame you if you don't tell Gerald much about me . . . I mean since I'm the reason his mother's not here. I'm so, so sorry about it . . . I know that'll never be good enough for him. If you could please write me about how he's doing every now and then, I would be grateful to you."

"It's time, Mister Tulley," the guard said again.

Bernice agreed and watched Al get up and waddle back to the clutches of the guard. Al had long ago been stripped of the smooth exterior that once attracted her. Now, completely unmasked, she pitied him. Yet, his last request sunk down to her core because if it hadn't been for Eleanor's letters to Bernard, she and her father might have become strangers.

Then, Bernice turned more pensive. She recognized the present nightmarish predicament as one more tragedy, another troublestone heaped on top of all the others that already burdened her. She saw her life, thus far, as a very bitter journey. She wept.

Learning of Jewel's Mohawk ancestry caused a gamut of emotions to swirl through Bernice's body. Memories of her late first husband Jake Spears came to mind while she listened to Al speak about Jewel's family. Jake was also part Mohawk and grew up on the same reservation. She got goose bumps as she realized that Jewel's father Chief Graham probably knew Jake's family. Bernice felt as if receiving custody of Jewel's child somehow reconnected her with her beloved Jake. The link was immediate. Bernice's sacred space raised up the spiritual memory left behind by Jake's essence. She was comforted by his presence. Her tears turned sweeter.

Detective Morelli gave Bernice more time and then came in to get her. He led her back to the interrogation room where Ernie had grown anxious for her return.

"Ernie, it looks like we're bringin' home a new little baby boy. His name is Gerald."

"Is that right? Well, I'll be darn!"

Bernice sat at the table with a woman from New Jersey Child Services and she signed several legal papers agreeing to "the temporary custody of Alvin Gerald Tulley" the papers read.

"If you should want full custody later, it will require court papers to document Mister Tulley's waiver of his parental rights to the child and the parental rights reassigned to you. Is that clear?"

"I understand," Bernice said.

"Then, I'll get the child. It will only be a few more minutes," and the woman left.

Another twenty minutes went by. Then the woman returned with Gerald cradled in her arms, wrapped in an Indian patterned blanket. Bernice was charmed by the sight of the child. She smiled for the first time since she arrived at the police station when the woman handed Gerald to her. Ernie left the room to place a telephone call home to give everyone the news of the baby.

In an instant, she put all the "why-did-yous?" and the "how-could-yous?" that surrounded Gerald's birth out of her mind. She fell in love with the child. He had peach-colored skin, ringlets of coal black hair, and the darkest of eyes. She didn't think she'd ever seen a more beautiful baby in all her life.

Sudden unfamiliarity with Bernice made Gerald cry. So, she sat with him and gave him his Binky pacifier. She sang him a lullaby and did everything she could until he settled down again.

"That's it Mrs. Tulley, we're done," said Detective Morelli at the door, "You're free to leave now." He added, "If your husband wants, he can have his court-appointed attorney mail you information about his next court appearances. It's up to him."

"Detective Morelli, can you recommend a place for us to stay the night?"

"I'll check on that for you, ma'am."

Morelli came back in with lodging choices with directions and the three of them left the police station. Child Services provided Gerald with warm clothes, blankets, and enough canned milk, food, and diapers for several days.

Before bed that night, Bernice wrote down everything that Al told her about Jewel. Then she went through the box Child Services gave her which contained a hodge-podge of information, medical and general, about Gerald and his mother. From the papers, she learned that Jewel was born in April of 1899 and was thirty-three. She came across an old photograph of Jewel. At first glance, Bernice was sure she had seen her before at the Star Bar. This picture showed no scar. She must have looked like her mother thought Bernice. In the picture, Jewel's hair looked dark, stick-straight, and she wore it loose, cropped at the jaw line. An attractive woman and Gerald resembled her.

An hour flew by and she put everything back in the box and crawled in bed alongside Gerald. She hardly slept. Thoughts swirled in her head about everything that happened, thoughts about Al, about Jewel, about Gerald, and especially about her beloved Jake. Bernice thought: the name Gerald is too formal for such a wee one, and Alvin is out of the question. She decided to call him Jerry.

Early the next morning, they left Newark with more than they had brought with them, and returned to Syracuse with a lot more to tell.

Eleanor, Gabe, Rita and her husband Lenny gathered inside the restaurant to wait for Bernice and Ernie. Rita's children were present, as was Ernie's wife and daughter, and Bernice's sister-in-law, Martha. For the occasion, the kitchen staff prepared Eleanor's famous oxtail soup, fried chicken, rice and gravy, some collard greens, biscuits, and a couple of sweet potato pies.

When they arrived, Bernice presented the new baby to the family.

"This little fella's name is Alvin Gerald Tulley, but I'm gonna call him Jerry."

Eleanor was the first to inspect the child. She smiled when she saw his peachiness all bundled up inside of the woolen Indian blanket. The rest of the family followed.

That February of 1932, Bernice's life was filled with a new purpose–a baby boy–in whom she placed her remaining hope, while Alvin Tulley was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to twenty years in a New Jersey prison for the death of Jewel Graham Everett. Three weeks later, Bernice received the court papers which assigned permanent custody of Jerry to her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bernice met the dawn of January 11, 1933 in her cell fatigued from lack of sleep. She had spent the entire night in a fret about Jerry. He would celebrate his second birthday on this day and she wouldn't be there. She had missed little Jerry everyday since she came to prison, and without Jerry the connection to her beloved Jake was impossible to conjure. That entire day Bernice was sullen while she performed her chore of mopping the concrete floors of the cell block. She cancelled her reading group.

### CHAPTER 10

In mid-January 1933 Bernice was assigned to a different cell. Her new cellmate's name was Sedonia. They were about the same age and she was a member of Bernice's reading group. Sedonia had been serving time for aggravated assault when Bernice first arrived. The victim was her husband. It seemed that she grew tired of his carousing and knocking her around. One night when his back was turned, she hit him on the head with an iron skillet. Realizing that she outweighed him by fifty pounds, she sat on him and then beat the crap out of him. He suffered a concussion and a fractured jaw.

"Bernice, what'd you do before you came here?" asked Sedonia.

"I own a restaurant, the Star, you know it?"

"Oh yeah, me and my husband ate there several times," then she cursed him and his evilness. The thought of him was enough to raise Sedonia's ire. Since her husband may well have frequented the Star Bar, Bernice wasn't sure if in the next instant Sedonia's anger would be directed toward her.

"You own that place? Your red beans and rice is the best in the city."

Bernice relaxed after that response.

"When y'all was raided, we heard about it in here."

Sedonia didn't know about the speakeasy upstairs in the boardinghouse until the raid. Everything surrounding that ruinous day over seven months ago was still fresh in Bernice's mind. She changed the subject.

"You're comin' along fine with your readin' Sedonia."

"You're a good teacher." Changing the subject back again, Sedonia said, "You know by the time you get out of here, you'll be able to knock back a cold beer, no problems."

"My parole hearin's comin' up the first week of April. I hope you're right!"

Bernice made good marks performing work details and she was trusted to help "orientate" new inmates. The guards liked her and most inmates respected her, but she was the most proud of her reading group. It helped her hold on to her self-reliance. The group was the talk of the prison. She learned from a guard that even the warden had praised her example. Bernice was confident and ready for parole.

On February 20, 1933, the Twenty-First Amendment to repeal Prohibition was proposed for ratification by the states. The favorable news of the recent legislation made Bernice eager for her audience with the New York State Parole Board in two months.

After the ninth month of her incarceration had ended, Bernice's case was the first brought before the Parole Board on April 5. She presented an excellent record of behavior, and tutoring fellow inmates to read in her free time was impressive, but the Board turned down her request for parole.

The Board concluded: "Bernice Tulley, you were ingenious in your enterprise to circumvent the laws meant to protect the morals, the decency, and the health of the community. Your crimes were willful and well-thought. For more than a decade you skirted the law. The Parole Board sees no reason to overrule the People of New York, by not allowing you to serve out the nine months that remain of your sentence."

The Board's denial cut the last tendril of self-reliance Bernice had and she hit the bottom of her abyss. Dejected and sapped, she was removed from the room and assisted back to her cell. In a corner between the head of her bed and the wall, she folded down to the concrete floor; she drew her knees close to her chest and sobbed inconsolably. Let me be done with it, Lord. I can't fight anymore, I've tried everything. I see no way to prove to them how deep my regrets are. There's nothin' good I can do to please them in here. Bernice was thoroughly flattened and despondent.

Then she lifted her eyes and saw the sweet spiritual inspirations of her Grandma Rebekah, and of her father Bernard, and of her beloved Jake standing in the cell with her. Their arms were stretched out to her and they spoke in unison, "Are you ready to come to God, Bernice? He loves you!"

She realized the only forgiveness left to seek was forgiveness from God. Bernice moved to her knees, the stiffness in her joints unnoticed, and through tear-filled gasps she spoke out loud to God which she hadn't done since she was a child:

"Almighty Father, I've searched my whole heart and soul in this here prison. I've turned over all the troublin' stones in my life; and engraved beneath every one of them was a sin I had tried to deny or forget. But, my wrongs were not forgotten by you."

Bernice confessed how she had blamed and cursed God for her physical frailties and for the deaths of her loved ones; that she had let worldly temptations spawn errors in her thinking and in her selfish decisions. Still tearful, she continued to pray out loud:

"I was warned to cling to you, Lord, and that not everyone would treasure my heart. Yet, when I should have sought you, I turned away. I sought love only from people and happiness only from luxuries I could see and touch, though time after time those people and things died, left me, or wore out. For your blessin's, I was thankless. I misused your gifts and encouraged other women to sell themselves for my benefit. Lord, I'm ashamed to recall my life as it really was."

Bernice's spirit was still out of reach. So, on her own, she groped deeper inside her thickened heart for more courage. After she found the courage to admit that she didn't deserve it, she asked, "Lord, please grace me with your love and forgive me!"

Instantly, suspended before her, there appeared the spiritual inspiration of bronzed feet from underneath the translucent hem of a dazzling white garment. Bernice could not see more of the Spirit because brilliant beams emanated through the wounds in its feet and pierced each of her so-ordinary-dark-brown eyes. The light melted the frost and softened her heart. Bernice was ready to accept the Spirit's answer.

"You are mine and I am with you. No one who comes to me will I ever reject," were the tidings conferred to her by the Spirit.

Bernice sensed an infusion of sacredness throughout her body, a brightening of her immortal space. Time had stopped. She thought of Eleanor's words: Sometimes a person has to sink to their lowest before they're able to behold the feet of Jesus! And, she finally understood.

Bernice emptied her burden bag. She laid down the graven troublestones that she had chosen from the world: spiritual defiance; immorality; anger and bitterness at God; irreverence and pride; ingratitude; arrogance to think that she could control the world that surrounded her; and still more. As for the troublestones she inherited by birth, she asked the Lord for help and guidance to overcome them, too. The Lord had lifted the guilt from her consciousness and Bernice felt as light as the feathers of a sparrow. Then, she collapsed over her knees, overtaken by relief and serenity. In her moment of peace, she thought, Lord, let my past forever remind me of the bitterness that life is when it is journeyed without you. . . . Her meditation was interrupted.

"Hello Bernice."

Bernice looked up surprised to see her friend at the cell door. "Hello Andie!" During the recreational period, all the cell doors were open. Andie helped Bernice to her feet. The next thing Bernice did after she wiped away some tears was check out Andie's middle and hug her.

"You had the baby!" and then they sat on her bed together.

"Yep, a girl. I named her Callasandra Bernice after you and that young gal you told me about."

"You did?" Bernice was surprised again, and flattered.

"Had to. I couldn't forget all you said about a mother's love."

I can't believe I spoke about what a mother's love is and failed to see God's love for me. Father, she heard your words, not mine. Bernice continued to listen and saw the change in Andie. Her voice and behavior had softened.

"I felt that love. I had my baby for six weeks and it killed me to have to give her up. I hope she's with people who'll love her. I want to get custody of her when I'm out."

"Only God knows the future, but I'll pray about that for you," said Bernice. They held on to that hope for a brief spell.

Was that what God hoped for me, to see me come back to him someday? Lord, grant her this blessin'. And, she thought about the heartbreak Andie described when the authorities came to take her infant daughter from her: Lord, you must have felt the same way when I let go of you. I get it. There is no one and nothin' I can possess that can replace the faith that I am loved by my heavenly Father and Lord. Bernice broke the silence.

"Is this your first day back?"

"Yes. I'm so anxious to get back to your readin' group. I gotta make up for lost time. I wanna be able to read to my daughter when I get her back. Now, tell me what's goin' on with you. You were sitting on this cold floor when I came in. Are you sick?"

"Oh Andie," she took a deep breath, "I'm just back from my parole hearin'."

"Parole! That's great news! What'd they say?"

"My parole was denied, but I'm not troubled about it anymore. I'm trustin' in the Lord to see me through the rest of my time here. Prayin' is what I was doin' when you found me. Andie, do you believe in God?"

"Before my baby, I didn't care one way or the other about havin' religion. But after my belly got bigger and feelin' the baby move inside, I started to feel closer to God. I thought about how much you loved your friend Callasandra and her baby. And, after my baby was born–she's so beautiful–it made me feel happy and blessed to be her mother. The stories you told taught me about love between a mother and a child. God was so good to put me here, to've saved my baby from the harm I was thinkin' of doin'."

"You're blessed to find faith in God while you're still young. For me, as a child, it was hard for me to trust God when my mother didn't get well like I thought she should, since I'd prayed so hard for her. And, when I continued to lose my loved ones, I stopped trustin' altogether. I thought I had a handle on the world out there all by myself, doin' what I pleased, ignorin' whether it was right or not. But in the end, Andie, the world handled me. The kind of comfort and love the world offers eventually melts through your fingers like a scoop of ice cream on a hot summer day.

"I hadn't realized until this morning that even if I had made parole, I couldn't get the kind of forgiveness I needed from the Parole Board, nor could they fill this hole inside me. It's up to me," then Bernice looked Andie in the eye, "it's up to you and me to refuse to accept our fate as helpless, but to change our direction and journey toward the place where true hope and everlasting love is abidin' for all of us."

Andie stayed and talked with Bernice until evening lock-down.

When all was quiet, Bernice resumed praying. She had finally crawled out of her spiritual desert and stepped back onto her intended path. And, though she was still in prison, she was free in spirit and in mind.

She ended her prayer with, "Lord, why should I fear anything with you waitin' for me? I'm ready to follow in the footsteps of my loved ones who believed in you. Amen."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Six weeks after they denied Bernice's parole, the New York Parole Board reconsidered and decided in her favor. At the end of her eleventh month of incarceration, Bernice Silverson Tulley was released from Jamesville Penitentiary on the twenty-fifth of May.

She walked out of prison into a gentle early-afternoon rain that fell from a canopy of gray clouds which drifted overhead. Bernice left the unsavory persona of Madam Tulley behind her. Clothed in her favorite royal blue silk dress, which hung from her shoulders like a sack, the tapping sounds of her black ankle-strapped high heels on the concrete path amused her. With no impulse to rush, Bernice let the rain soak her. She moseyed down the long sidewalk that led away from prison toward the Visitors Parking Lot where Ernie waited for her. The wetter Bernice got, the freer she felt. She used the brief moment of solitude to send up petitions for Scarlett, Sedonia, and Andie, the women she tutored and who had listened to her stories. Through them, she discovered the truth about her past and the hope of her future.

Life had been a hard, but valuable teacher. Having abandoned the burdensome stones of sin and guilt, Bernice strode on a new path with renewed life. Yes, still ahead of her was the work of avoiding and resisting new temptations; and, discrimination and racism continued to be formidable. But, after she had excavated the rubble of troublestones, her faith was going to shine through these new challenges.

Ernie gave Bernice, dampened by rain, a long heartfelt hug and they got right in his automobile. As he drove away from Jamesville, she stared straight through the windshield, she didn't look back. Ernie answered her questions about family members and answered those about old friends like Freddy and her business partners.

"Since the raid, Freddy's been workin' as a janitor at a high school. Your business partners got thirty days in the city jail since they didn't have a record. One of them is married now and I see the others around town sometimes."

Bernice was satisfied that everyone was well.

After Ernie let it slip about the surprise party planned at the restaurant, he blurted out some unexpected news, "Yesterday, Della was found in an alley dead from a drug overdose."

Startled by the news, Bernice broke down in sobs for Della and for the role she had played in Della's life. Della was gone. It became clear to Bernice that Della had forced her to examine how spiritually barren she'd become. She also sobbed over the years wasted on empty illusions, as well as for the present joy of her physical freedom. Bernice released it all. Warm rain had cleansed her on the outside, and salty tears did the same for her on the inside. As the canopy of rain passed over, it peeled back and exposed the blue sky in the distance.

Ernie drove to the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial at Montgomery and Harrison Streets where they stopped and talked until Bernice regained her composure. When her emotions had ebbed, they continued home.

Bernice walked in the Star Restaurant, and instead of shouting "Surprise!" everyone shouted, "Happy New Year, Bernice!" and they banged pots and pans and created a big commotion for her. She saw that everyone was there as Eleanor had promised. She was also in the spiritual presence of passed loved ones. They all enwrapped her in their embraces. Her tears flowed yet again, but these were sweet, joyful tears. She and two-and-a-half-year-old Jerry had to get reacquainted, but Bernice was thankful to be finally home.

A month later on June 27, the State of New York ratified the Twenty-First Amendment, the ninth state to do so. On December 5, full ratification of the new Amendment was accomplished and Prohibition was repealed.

### EPILOGUE

The Journey After 1933

By letters and telephone calls, Bernice would learn that Scarlett married, moved to St. Louis of all places, had two sons, was widowed, and remarried. Sedonia served her time, moved in with a relative in Albany, and found happiness there with a man who treated her with more respect. Of the three, Andie's path of life satisfied Bernice the most. Andie not only learned to read well, but she also learned to type. She was employed by a Government office as a member of a typing pool. Andie regained sole custody of her daughter Callasandra Bernice, which she raised beautifully by herself. Her old pimp boyfriend wanted nothing to do with his daughter, which suited Andie.

Bernice found work that exemplified her spiritual strength, the capacity to show mercy to others. She became a nurse assistant at Crouse-Irving Hospital. She did the "scut work." She emptied bed pans and helped the nurses with the bodily needs of patients. She volunteered to give hospice care to the terminally ill. The nurses recognized the gentle way Bernice attended to patients and their families. She encouraged a more spiritual acceptance of the end of life.

As for knocking back a cold beer, Bernice never again drank alcohol, though Prohibition had ended. She attended and served her church. She was a member of a colored fraternal organization and rose through its ranks. This organization worked to promote racial equality, to improve the health of pregnant girls and their babies in Syracuse's Negro community, and helped needy families obtain assistance from city and state relief programs.

The years ensued and Bernice met the challenges of life by living with a faith that continued to mature.

Marie Silverson, Bernard's common-law wife, and her Uncle Charles Silverson passed away in St. Louis without Bernice's notification.

John Morissette Sr., Eleanor's ex-husband, also father and stepfather to her sons and stepdaughters, died of congestive heart failure in 1934 at seventy-nine.

Stepbrother Malcolm Morissette and his family moved away from Savannah to Cleveland, Ohio after his father passed. During World War II, at age forty-three, Malcolm re-enlisted in the Navy this time. When he returned home, he worked as a U. S. postal employee.

Stepbrother John Morissette Jr. eventually settled in Cleveland as well.

The Star Restaurant and Boardinghouse regained its reputation as a wholesome hostel, a place of fellowship in the community, and a meeting place for colored social clubs and organizations. In 1935 Bernice sold the restaurant and boardinghouse, but kept the third-floor residence.

Eleanor Silverstein went to work in 1935 at seventy-two as a ladies room attendant for the Crouse-Hinds Company, the light fixture manufacturer.

Stepbrother Ernest Morissette Silverstein was widowed in 1935. On a chauffeur's wages, he continued to live and raise his daughter at the Star Boardinghouse. Later, he became active in the resolution of various neighborhood issues through his affiliation with the local Republican Party.

Sister Rita Silverson Volten died in 1936 of heart disease at fifty-three. Soon after, her husband Lenny Volten moved to Manhattan to live with siblings. Their three adult children and their families remained in the area.

Sister Hannah Silverstein Irving raised her son with her husband Neb in St. Louis. She made frequent visits to Syracuse during the intervening years.

Adopted son Gabriel "Gabe" Martin became an accomplished tap dancer and appeared on vaudeville stages in cities around the East Coast. Because of the popularity of moving pictures, his dancing days were over by the mid-1940s and he went to work in the iffy blue-collar labor force.

Adopted son Alvin Gerald "Jerry" Tulley grew up knowing about his birth parents. At nineteen, he entered the Army and served in Korea in the early 1950s. Inspired by Bernice's example, he volunteered his time to promote Native American civil rights and issues.

Alvin Tulley, Senior received a letter from Bernice about his son each year until Jerry turned eighteen, as promised. Al completed his prison sentence and was released from prison in 1954. He moved to Indianapolis without establishing further contact with his son.

Martha Jefferson, the sister of her late second husband Will Martin, remained in Bernice's life until Martha died in 1952.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eleanor Silverstein hadn't seen a sick day in all her ninety-plus years. But, by early July of 1955, she was in the middle stages of stomach cancer first diagnosed three months earlier in April.

Bernice had earned her license in practical nursing and worked in that capacity for fifteen years. For the last five, however, arthritis and her sixty-nine years caused her to accept part-time, private nursing jobs. The rest of her day and evenings were devoted to hospice-care she gave Eleanor at home. This time, Bernice knew exactly what to do. She had the skills she lacked when she tried to care for her late second husband Will. She was sure that Eleanor benefited from her nursing.

On a day off, after dressing, Bernice lingered for a moment to brush her hair. What used to be a swathe of gray left of center now engulfed her entire head in silvery waves. She gathered it back into one long, thick braid. At work, she needed to pin her braid into a bun to keep it out of the way. The hair pins made her head sore, so on her days off, she let her braid hang over one shoulder, the way her Grandma Rebekah had worn hers. Ready for her outing, she looked in on Eleanor.

"I'll be leavin' to run those errands, Mama. Gabe'll be here soon to take me. We won't be long. You need anything before I go?"

Eleanor let the question dally while she noticed the brooch on Bernice's lapel. It prompted her to tell Bernice the story behind the brooch. Eleanor gestured for her daughter to come closer. Bernice sat in the chair next to the bed and rested her hand on top of her mother's weak, frail hand. Both their hands were freckled with age. Eleanor's memory was sharp, though she turned a bit wistful.

"The last time I saw that brooch was on the day I gave it to you when you left Savannah. I thought maybe you'd lost it."

"No Mama. I hadn't worn it because I was afraid of losin' it. I woke this mornin' and decided to put it on. Cameos are very stylish these days."

"It was your Grammy Harriet's cameo, you know. Back in Hopbush, they called her Mary Harriet so they could tell her from all the other servant slaves named Mary on the Stout Plantation. Mama was the servant to the oldest Stout daughter. After Mama gave birth to me, Miss Stout gave her the cameo. Mama was thirteen at the time and by me comin' out lookin' so white, she said it was Miss Stout's way of makin' up for her brother takin' liberties with her. The truth was your Grammy had loved that boy and was a willin' participant. She said the cameo, in its gold setting and surrounded by those tiny pearls, was the most beautiful thing she'd ever owned. She said whenever she wore it, she felt like Princess Anne. Mother gave the brooch to me on my eighteenth birthday. And when you left Savannah, I wanted you to take a piece of me and Grammy with you."

All this time, Bernice had thought it was that old "mighty-fine-sapphire-blue-widest-brimmed-hat-she'd-ever-owned" she wore to the World's Fair all those years ago that made her feel like royalty. Perhaps her spirit had felt the vibrations coming from Grammy Harriet's cameo which she had nestled within the ruffles of her collar that day.

"I have always cherished it, Mother."

"Bernice."

"Yes."

"I'm sure God's proud of how you've turned your life around." Perhaps Eleanor thought her time on earth was about to end and she wanted Bernice to know how much she admired her.

"Mother, I acted like a ravin' lunatic back then. I was hell bent on doin' what I wanted, so God let me have my way, 'til I made my way to prison. I'll never understand it, but God still loved me enough to give me the children I couldn't bear for myself. Then, he protected Gabe from the loose behavior I allowed around here, and when God wanted it different for Jerry, my ways needed correctin'. It took goin' to prison for me to get right. He put an end to my sinful ways, instead of puttin' an end to me. He showed me mercy, Mother, and every day I thank the Lord for that."

This was evidence that Bernice's faith had matured. Her habit of pulling on her earlobe had disappeared. When anxiety drove her to the urge, she knew what to do. It was her cue to go meditate on God.

Eleanor said, "Sometimes a person has to sink to their lowest . . ."

Bernice interrupted her lovingly, "I know Mother." Then, she and Eleanor continued the rest of the adage in unison.

". . . Before they're able to behold the feet of Jesus!"

"That's right!" Eleanor sang out in a brightened disposition. Bernice kissed and embraced her.

Two months later Eleanor Morissette Silverstein was gone. She died on September 7, 1955 at ninety-two.

Two days later, Bernice turned seventy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After choosing a new obedient life, continued faithfulness and service, Bernice Silverson Tulley passed on, also. At seventy-nine she succumbed to death and released her divine assigned energy on the sixth of June, 1965. The spirit-entity left her body in sight of a mournful bedside group. This spirit of mercy had defeated Bernice's temporal nature and the Lord bestowed victory on it. Then, a jubilant crowd of citizen-spirits who reside in the realm of eternal glory welcomed her transformed spirit home.

Truth-seeker Bernice Tulley had laid down her burdensome troublestones at the end of a bitter journey and chose a sweeter path. Let the journeys of every earthbound traveler be sweetened by their faith in the Lord who opens the way to God's everlasting love and makes a glorious destiny possible.

### THE END

See Discussion Questions for your reading group.

(on following pages)

### Reading Group Questions for Discussion

1. Historically, the lives of African Americans were culturally linked to the Christian Church. In church slaves found solace from the sting of slavery; and at church, they used the opportunity to assemble and organize their efforts toward obtaining freedom, education, and their civil rights. Because of this fact, our heroine, Bernice Silverson Tulley, has an inherent spiritual anchor in Beneath Every Troublin' Stone. In what ways does this knowledge of the Christian tradition for African Americans help you understand the relevance of the story's spiritual content which frames Bernice's decisions, behavior, and emotional conflicts?

2. Throughout the story, Bernice's inner voice expressed itself, whether or not she was aware of her spirit voice or heeded it. How did the clashes between Bernice and her spirit voice show the compromises she made between the choices her upbringing dictated and choices that her world offered?

3. Metaphors such as troublestones, pebbles in her shoes, and bag of burdens were used frequently in the story. How does this imagery help you understand and feel the depth to which Bernice was preoccupied, consciously and unconsciously, with the daily societal, economic, and racial restraints of her era?

4. The early twentieth century was a period when class-ism, sexism, racism and discrimination were status quo in the United States. With regard to each of these issues, how might have Bernice's story been different or the same during this time if she were a white woman? Think in terms of the social, financial, and political opportunities available to white women in that period.

5. Fortune teller Sister Sadie revealed Bernice's her special spiritual gift. What was it? Even during her lack of faith and disillusionment, in what ways did Bernice use her spiritual gift to help other women around her? Did she have any other spiritual gifts?

6. The substance of Bernice's attraction and love for each of her husbands was different. How does each husband's character and marriage to her reflect the deterioration of her faith and spiritual condition?

7. Considering the historical time period, what do you think of the variety of portrayals of African American men in the story, in terms of their character traits, such as their levels of ambition, their attitudes toward women, and as providers for their families? What about the variety of portrayals of White American men in the story?

8. Other than to become a bootlegger, a speakeasy operator, and a brothel madam, what other choices do you think Bernice could have made to cope with the economic hardships she faced? Of the different choices you named, what do you think the outcomes might have been for Bernice and her family?

9. Bernice was an early twentieth-century woman. In what ways do you think the gender or economic issues of her time have improved or not improved for today's women, in general? What safety nets does today's society provide that would have helped Bernice avoid some of the decisions she made?

10. As its main themes, the author sees Beneath Every Troublin' Stone as a story about discarding one's faith, ignoring one's role in one's own difficulties, and whether faith in the Power that is greater than one's self is regained; a faith which leads to a forgiveness and spiritual fulfillment. What other themes did you see about life and society in the story?

End of Questions

### About the Author

Paulette Ivy Harris is a graduate of Loyola University in Chicago earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. Below are her previous works.

Always a Blessing in the End: The Chronicles of the Four Ancestral Lineages of Ben Ivy & Ruth Thompson, (2005) a nonfiction family biography, based on fourteen years of research of her ancestry. Those who enjoy reading American history will learn about the struggles of a family of African Americans back to 1790. Beginners and seasoned family history sleuths will be able to glean its noted sources to help them with ancestry searches of their own.

Ms. Harris wrote the narration for Through Their Eyes: The History of African Americans in Beloit, Wisconsin from 1836 to 1970 (2011) which reverently remembers Beloit's pioneering scholars, youth supporters and social activists who illuminated the way toward civil fairness in Beloit society. The DVD was produced by The Jim and Cheryl Caldwell Foundation, members of the NFL (former Indianapolis Colts Coach) family. For more information about this DVD, click title link to contact the Beloit Historical Society.

Ruma, Warrior Princess (2012) is Ms. Harris' first children's book is appropriate for pre-school ages and young readers. The story is inspired by a real puppy that brings joy back into the lives of a family who lost a pet. Ruma is a free spirit and has many lessons to learn about her environment, home and her new human family. She is amusing despite her determined personality. Her family loves Ruma, and you will too.

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Thank you for downloading this work. Please look for additional information about Ms. Harris, her research and other books at the author's official website: http://www.pauletteivyharris.com and select online book retailers.

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