it was a Saturday fall Willie stood in the back of the church holding our song book open with one hands she could Clap The Beat against her leg with the other sister Bertha and sister Dora were the soprano and Alto leads generous big bosomed woman who believed the Rapture was coming any day now Willie what you need to do is let yourself sing girl sister Bera said Willie had come in straight from cleaning a house she had rushed to remove her apron as she walked in but though she didn't know it a smear of grease was still lining her forehead Carson was sitting in the audience bored Willie figured he kept asking her about school but she couldn't let him go until baby Josephine got old enough to go he narrowed his eyes at her when she told him and sometimes she dreamed about sending him down south to stay with her sister Hazel maybe she wouldn't mind a child with that much hate floating around in his eyes but Willie knew she could never actually do it in her letters down home she wrote about how things were going well how Robert was getting on nice Hazel would write back so that she would come visit soon but Willie knew she never would the South was hers she wanted no part of the north yes what you need to do is let the Lord take that cross you caran sister Dora said Willie smiled she hummed the AL line you ready to go she asked Carson when she got off stage been ready he said she and Carson left the church it was a cold fall day a crisp wind coming toward them from the river there were a few cars on the street and Willie saw a rich mahogany colored woman walked by a raccoon coat that looked as soft as a cloud on Lennox every other Marquee said that Duke Ellington would be playing there Thursday Friday Saturday let's walk a little longer Willie said and Carson Shrugged but he took his hands out of his pocket and his step picked up so she could see that she had finally said the right thing they stopped to let some cars pass and Willie looked up to see six little children looking down at her from an apartment building window it was a pyramid of children the oldest tallest lining the back row the youngest in front Willie reached her hand up and waved but then a woman snatched them away and closed the curtains she and Carson crossed the street it seemed like there were hundreds of people out in Harlem that day thousands even the sidewalks were sinking with the weight some literally cracking beneath them Willie saw a white man with the color of Milky tea singing on the street beside him a tree bark woman clapped her hands and bounced her head Harlem felt like a big black band with so many heavy instruments the city stage was collapsing they turned South on Seventh past the barber shop that Willie swept from time to time and earned a few cents past several bars and one ice cream parlor willly reached into her purse and felt around until her hand hit metal she tossed niichel Carson and the boy smiled at her for what seemed like the first time in years the sweetness of the smile was bitter too for it reminded Willie of the days his endless crying the days when there was no one in the world except for the two of them and she was not enough for him she was barely enough for herself he raised in to buy a cone and when he came back out with it the two of them kept walking if Willie could have taken 7th Avenue South all the way back down to Prat City she probably would have Carson licked his ice cream cone delicately sculpting that round shape with his own tongue he would lick all the way around and then look at it carefully look again she couldn't remember the last time she had seen him so happy and how easy it was to make him that way all it took was a nickel and a walk if they walked forever maybe she would start to get happy too she might be able to forget how she'd wound up in Harlem away from Pratt City away from home Willie wasn't Cole black she'd seen enough coal in her lifetime to know that for sure but the day Robert Clifton came with his father to the union meeting to hear Willie sing all she could think was that he was the whitest black boy she had ever seen and because she thought that her own skin had started to look to her more and more like the thing her father brought home from the mines under his fingernails dust in his clothes every single day Willie had been singing the National Anthem at Union meetings for the past year and a half her father H was a union leader so it hadn't been very hard to convince him to let her sing the day Robert came in Willie was in the back room of the church practicing her scales you ready her daddy asked before Willie had begged to sing there was no Anthem sung at Union meetings Willie nodded and went out to the sanctuary where all the union members were waiting she was young but she already knew that she was the best singer in Pratt City maybe even in all of Birmingham everyone women men and children alike came to the meetings just to hear that old world weary Voice come out of her 10-year-old body please stand for the anthem H said to the crowd and they did Willy's father teared up the first time she had sung it afterwards Willie could hear a man say look at a two shovel getting soft ay now Willie sang The Anthem and the crowd watched beaming she'd imagine that the sound came from a cave at the very bottom of her gut that like her father and all the men in front of her she was a minor reaching down deep inside of her to pull something valuable out when she finished everyone in the room stood and clapped and whistled and that was how she knew she had reached the rock at the bottom of the cave afterward the miners went on with their meeting and Willie sat in her father's lap bored wishing she could sing again Willie you sang awfully pretty tonight A man said after the meeting ended Willie was standing with her little sister Hazel outside of the church watching the people walk home while H closed up Willie did recognize the man he was a new an excon who had worked the railroads before coming to work as a free man in the mines I'd like you to meet my son Robert the man said he's shy but boy does he love to hear you sing Robert stepped out from behind his father you go on and play for a bit the man said pushing Robert forward a little before walking on home his father was the color of coffee but Robert was the color of cream Willie was used to seeing white and black together in Pratt City but she had never seen both things in one family both in one person got a nice voice Robert said he looked at the ground as she spoke and kicked up a bit of dust I've been coming to hear you sing thanks Willie said finally Robert looked at her and smiled relieved it seemed to have spoken Willie was startled by his eyes why your eyes look like that Willie asked while Hazel hid behind her leg I and Robert from behind the bend of Willy's knee like what Willie searched for the word but realized there wasn't one to describe it his eyes looked like a lot of things like the clear puddles that stood over the mud that she and Hazel like to jump in or like the shimmering body of a golden ant she had once seen carrying a blade of grass across the hill his eyes were changing before hers and she didn't know how to tell him this so instead she just Shrugged you white man Hazel asked and Willie pushed her no mama say we got a lot of white in our blood though sometimes takes a while to show up that ain't right Hazel said shaking her head your daddy's old as dirt that ain't right either Robert said and before Willie knew what she was doing she pushed him she he stumbled fell down onto his butt and looked up at Willie with surprise in his brown green and gold eyes but she didn't care her daddy was one of the best miners in Birmingham he had had ever seen he was the light of Wily's life and she was his he told her all the time how he waited and waited and waited to have her and when she'd come he'd been so happy his big Cal heart had melted Robert stood back and dusted himself off oh Hazel said turning towards Willie never missing an opportunity to shame her I'm telling mama on you no Robert said that's all right he looked at Willie that's all right the push had broken some kind of barrier between them and from that day on Robert and Willie were as close as any two people could be by the time they hit 16 they were dating and by 18 they were married and by 20 they had a child the people of Pratt City spoke about them in one breath their names were one Robert and Willie the month after Carson was born Wily's father died and the month after that her mother followed miners weren't meant to live long Willie had friends whose fathers had died when those friends were still swimming in their mother's belly but knowing this didn't lessen the hurt she was inconsolable those first few days she didn't want to look at Carson didn't want to hold him Robert would take her up in his arms at night kissing her never-ending Tears while the baby slept I love you Willie he'd whisper and somehow the love hurt too made her cry even harder because she didn't want to believe that anything good could still be in the world and her parents had left it Billy sang lead in the funeral procession the Weeping and wailing of all the mourners carrying sound down into the very Minds themselves she had never known sadness like that before nor had she known of the fullness of hundreds of people Gathering to send her parents off when she started the song her voice quivered it shook something in her I shall wear a crown Willie sang her voice booming bouncing from the bottom of the pit and coming back up to meet them all as they walked around the mines soon they passed the old Potter's Fields where hundreds of nameless Faceless Men and boys were buried and Willie was glad that at least her father had died free at least that I shall wear a crown Willie said again holding Carson In Her Arms his muing cry was her accompaniment his heart beat her metronome as she sang She saw the notes float out of her mouth like little butterflies carrying some of her sadness away and she knew finally that she would survive it soon Pratt City started to feel like a speck of dust in Willy's eye she couldn't be free of it she could tell that Robert was itching to leave too he had always been a little delicate for coal mining at least that's what the bosses thought every time he got M to go ask them for a job which was about once a year since his 13th birthday instead he worked as a clerk in the Pratt City store then after Carson was born the story suddenly didn't seem like enough for Robert he could spend whole weeks complaining about it there ain't no honor in it Robert said to wheie one night she was seated stomach to stomach with little Carson while he tried to snatch the light that was reflecting off her earrings there's honor in mining Robert said Willie had always thought that her husband would die in the mines if he ever got a chance to go down her father had stopped working in the mines years and years before he died he was twice the size of robertt 10 times as strong yet still he almost never stopped coughing and sometimes when he coughed a string of black mucus would Escape his mouth his face would contort and his eyes bulge out so it looked like to Willie as though some Invisible Man were behind him hands wrapped around the large trunk of his thick neck choking him though she loved Robert more than she had ever thought it possible to love when she looked at him she did not see a man who could handle hands around his neck she never told him this Robert began to Pace the room the talk on the wall was 5 minutes behind and the click of a second hand sounded to Willie like man clapping off beat at a church Revival awful but sure we should move go north somewhere I can learn a new trade ain't nothing in Pratt City for us now that your folks are gone New York Willie said just as soon as he had she had thought it Harlem the word hit her like a memory though she had never been there she could sense its presence in her life a premonition a forward memory New York huh Robert said with a smile he took Carson into his arms and the boys C Boy Cried Out startled missing the light you could find some kind of work I could sing you going to sing huh he dangled his finger in front of Carson's eyes and they followed him this way then that what you think about that Sunny Mama singing Robert brought the dangling finger down to Carson's soft belly and tickled the baby screamed with laughter I think he likes that idea Mama Robert said laughing too everyone knew someone who was headed north and everyone knew someone who was already there Willie and Robert knew Joe Turner back when he was just a little Joe Joy's smart boy in Pratt City now he worked as a school teacher in Harlem he took them into his place on West 134th Street for as long as she lived Willie would never forget the feeling of being in Harlem for the first time Pratt city was a mining town and everything about it was focused on what lay beneath the ground Harlem was about the sky the building buildings were taller than any willing Willie had ever seen before and there were more of them tense shoulder toh shoulder the first inhale of Harlem air was clean no cold dust traveling in through the nose to hit the back of the throat to taste just breathing felt exciting first thing we got to do is get me somewhere to sing Li Joe I heard these ladies on the street corner and I know I'm better than them I just know it they had brought in the last of their three suitcases and were finally sing it into the small apartment Joe hadn't been able to afford it on his own he had said that he was all too happy to have old friends to share it with Joe laughed you should hope you sing better than the girl on the street corner Willie how else you going to make it out there in the street and into a building Robert was holding Carson bouncing him a little bit so the boy wouldn't fuss that ain't the first thing we got to do first thing we got to do is set me up with a job I'm the Man remember oh you the man all right Willie said winking and Joe rolled his eyes don't you all bring no more babies into this house now he said that night and for many nights after Willi and Robert and Carson all slept in the same mattress laid out in the tiny living room on Fourth floor of the tall brick building on the ceiling above the bed there was a large brown spot and on that first night they lay there Willie thought that even that spot looked beautiful the building that little Joe lived in was full of nothing but black folks nearly all of them newly arrived from Louisiana Mississippi Texas on the way in Willie had heard the distinct draw of an alabamian the man had been trying to push a wide couch through a slim door there was a similar sounding voice on the other side of the door giving directions more to the left little little right the next morning Willie and Robert left Carson with Little Joe so they could walk around Harlem maybe look to see if any for higher signs were up in their neighborhood they walked around for hours people watching talking taking in everything that was different about Harlem and everything that was the same once they rounded the block past an ice cream parlor they noticed a hiring sign on the store door and decided to go in so that Robert could talk to somebody as they walked in Willie tripped on the lip of the door stoop and Robert caught her in his arms he helped her to get steady and smiled at her once she was on her feet kissing her cheek quickly once they were inside Wily's eyes met those of the store clerk and she felt a cold wind travel the sight line from his eyes to hers and then all the way down to the cold pit of her stomach excuse me sir Robert said I saw the sign outside there you married to a black woman the boy the store clerk said his eyes never leaving willly Robert looked at Willie Robert spoke softly I worked in a store before down south no job here I'm saying I have experience with no job here the man repeated more gruffly this time let's go Robert Willie said she was already halfway out the door by the time the man had opened his mouth a second time they didn't speak for two blocks they passed a restaurant with a sign hanging up but Willie didn't have to look at Robert to know that they would keep walking past it before long they were back at Little Joe's Place y'all back already Joe asked when they entered Carson was asleep on the mattress his little body curled up just so Willie just wanted to check on the baby she wanted to give you a chance to rest ain't that right Willie Willie could feel Joe looking at her as she answered yeah that's right Robert turned on his heel and was out of the door in a Flash Willie sat down next to the baby she watched him sleep she wondered if she could watch him sleep all day and so she tried but after a while a strange and helpless Panic said in about what she didn't know that he wasn't really breathing that he didn't recognize his own hunger and therefore he would not whine for her to feed him that he wouldn't know her from any other woman in this big new city she woke him up just to hear him cry and it was only then when the cry set in soft at first and then a shrieking Full Belly sound that she was finally able to relax they thought he was white Joe wiie said she could feel him watching her as she watched Carson Joe nodded I see he said soberly and then he walked away and let Herby Willie waited anxiously for Robert to return she wondered for the first time really if leaving P City had been a mistake she thought about hazel whom she hadn't heard from since leaving and a wave of missing hit her desperate and sad she had another forward memory this time of loneliness she could feel it approaching a condition she would have to learn to live with Robert came back to the apartment he had been to the barber his hair cut close he had bought new clothes with the last of their savings no doubt Willie thought and the clothes that he had been wearing when he left were nowhere in sight he sat down on the bed next to Willie rubbed Carson's back she looked at him he didn't look like himself you spent the money Willie asked Robert wasn't meeting her eyes and she couldn't remember the last time Robert had done that even on the first day she'd gone to play with him even as she pushed him even as he fell Robert had always kept his eyes steadily almost ravenously on hers his eyes were the first thing she questioned about him and the first thing she loved I ain't G to be my father Willie Robert said his eyes still on Carson I ain't going to be the kind of man who can only do one thing I'm going to make a life for us I know I can do it he looked at her finally he brushed her cheek with his hand then cued the back of her neck we're here now Willie he pleaded let's be here what being here meant for Willie every morning she and Robert would wake up she would get Carson ready to take downstairs to an old woman named Bess who watched all the building's babies for a small fee Robert would shave comb down his hair button his his shirt and then the two of them would walk out to Harlem to look for work Robert in his fancy clothes and Willie in her plain ones being here meant they no longer walked together on the sidewalk Robert always walked a little ahead of her and they never touched she never called his name anymore even if she was falling into the street or a man was robbing her or a car was coming at her she knew not to call his name she had done it once and Robert had turned and everyone had stared at first they both looked for jobs in Harlem one store had even hired Robert but after a week there was a misunderstanding when a white customer had leaned in close to Robert to ask him how he could resist taking any one of the black women who frequented the store for himself and Robert came home that night crying a Willie that it could have been her the man was talking about so he quit the next day they both went searching again this time they only walked so far south before splitting off and Willie Lost Robert to the rest of Manhattan he looked so white Now it only took a few seconds for her to lose him completely just one white face among the many all bustling up and down the sidewalks after 2 weeks in Manhattan Robert found a job it took Willie three more months to find work but by December she was a housekeeper for the morses a wealthy black family who lived on the southern edge of Harlem the family had not yet resigned themselves to their own Blackness so they crept as close to the white folks as a city would allow they would go no further their skin too dark to get an apartment just one street down during the day Willie took care of the Morris's son she fed him and bathed him and laid him down for his nap then she cleaned the apartment from top to bottom making sure to wipe under the calabra because Mrs Morris always checked in the early evening she would begin cooking the morrises had been in New York since before the Great Migration but they ate as though the South was a place their kitchen instead of one that was Miles and Miles Away Mrs Morris usually came home first she worked as a seamstress and her hands were often pricked and bleeding once she got home Willie would leave her for auditions she was too dark to sing at the jazzing that's what they told her the night that she'd come in ready to audition very slender and tall man held a paper bag up to her cheek too dark he said Willie shook her head but I can sing see she opened her mouth and took a deep breath filling up the balloon of her belly but then the man put two fingers to her and pushed the air out too dark he repeated jazzing is only for the light girls I saw a man's dark as midnight walk in with trombone I said girls honey if you were a man maybe if she were Robert Willie thought Robert could have any job he wanted but she knew he was too scared to try scared he'd be found out or scared that he didn't have enough education the other night he told her that a man had asked him why he spoke that way and he'd become scared to talk he would not tell her exactly what he did for a living but he came back home to her smelling like the sea and meat and he made more money in a mon month that she had ever seen in her entire life Robert was cautious but she was wild it had always been that way the first night he had Lain with her he had been so nervous that his penis had rested against his left leg a log in the river of his quivering thigh your daddy's going to kill me he said they were 16 their parents at a union meeting I'm not thinking about my daddy right now Robert she said trying to St the log she put each of his fingers into her mouth one by one had bitten the tips watch watching him all the while she eased him into her and moved on top of him until he was begging her to stop to not stop to Quicken to slow when he closed his eyes she had bidden him to open them to look at her she liked to be the star of the show it was what she wanted now too now that she was still thinking about Robert how could she put his skin to good use to be less cautious if she were him if she could she would put her voice in his body in his skin she would stand on that stage of a jazzing and listen listen to the glowing words of the crowd rushed back to her like the memories of her singing on her parents table often would boy can she blow you Ain never lied listen we got a job cleaning the place at night if you want it the slender tall man said rousing Willie from her thoughts before they could turn dark the pay is okay might get you somewhere a little later she took the job on the spot and when she got home that night she told Robert that the morrises needed her on night Duty she couldn't tell if he believed her but he nodded that night they'd slept with Carson between them he was starting to say a few words the other day when Willie had picked him up from bess's apartment to take him up to Joe's she' heard her son call The Old Woman mama and a terrible immovable lump formed in her throat as she clutched him to her body and took him up the stairs the pays okay she said to Robert then pulling Carson's thumb from his mouth he started crying he shouted at her no hey now Sunny Robert said don't speak to Mama that way Carson put his thumb back into his mouth and stared at his father we we don't need the money he said we're doing all right Willie we can get our own place soon even you don't need to work where' we live Willie snapped she hadn't meant to sound so mean the idea was appealing to her her own apartment more time to spend with Carson but she knew that she wasn't meant for that life she knew that that life wasn't meant for them there are places Willie what place what world do you think we live in Robert it's a wonder you make it out these doors and out into this world without somebody knocking you down for sleeping with the Stop Robert said Willie had never heard that much force in his voice before don't do that he rolled over to face the wall and Willie stayed on her back staring at the ceiling above them the large brown spot on the ceiling was starting to look soft to her as though the whole thing could come crashing down on them at any moment I haven't changed Willie Robert said to the wall no but you ain't the same neither she replied they didn't speak for the rest to the night between them Carson began to snore louder and louder like a rumbling from his stomach was escaping through his nose it sounded like the background music for the falling ceiling it started to terrify Willie if the boy was still a baby they were still in Pratt City she would have wakened him here in Harlem she could not move she had to lie there still with the rumbling the falling the terror cleaning the jazzing was not too difficult Willie could drop Carson off at bess's before dinner time and then she would head over to 644 Lennox Avenue it was the same work that she did for the morrises but different too the jazzing audience was whites only the performers who showed up on the stage every night were like the Slender Man said tall tan and terrific meaning as far as Willie could see 5 foot five light-skinned and young Willie would take out the trash sweep wipe the floors and watch the men as they watched the people on stage it was all so strange to her in one of the shows an actor had pretended to be lost in an African jungle he was wearing a grass skirt and had marks painted on his head and arms instead of speaking he would grunt periodically he would Flex his pecs and pound his chest he picked up one of the tall tan and terrific girls and draped her over his shoulder like she was a ragd doll the audience laughed and laughed once Willie saw a show through the shield of her work that was meant to be a betrayal of the South the three male actors the darkest Willie had ever seen in the club picked Cotton On Stage then one of the actors started complaining he said that the sun was too hot the cotton too white he sat on the edge of the stage lazily swinging his legs back and forth back and forth the other two went forward and stood with their hands on his shoulders they started singing a song that Willie had never heard before about how grateful they should all be to have such kind Masters to take care of them by the time they finished their singing they were all standing back up again back to pick and cotton this wasn't the South that Willie knew it wasn't the South her parents had known either but she could tell from the voices of the men in the audience that none of them had ever stepped foot in that South all they wanted was to laugh and drink and whistle at the girls it made Willie almost glad she was the one cleaning the stage instead of singing on it willly had been working there for two months she and Robert hadn't been doing very well since the night she asked him where they could live most nights Robert didn't come home when she got back from the club just hours before Sunrise she would find Carson sleeping alone on the mattress Joe had been picking him up from bess's Once he'd finished teaching and putting him to bed every night Willie would crawl in next to Carson and wait wide eyed for the sound of Robert's boots coming down the hall the clop clop CL that meant she would have her husband that night if she did hear it if he did come she would close her eyes quick and the two of them would play the game of makeb believe acting like the people on stage at the club did Robert's role was to slip in quietly beside her and hers was not to question to let him believe that she still believed in him in them Willie went outside the club to put the trash away and when she came back in her boss started walking toward her he looked annoyed but Willie had never seen him look any other way he'd been in the war and he was walking he walked with a staggering limp that he liked to say prevented him from getting more respectful job the only thing that seemed to make him happy was stepping outside to lean against the Ragged brick of the building and smoke a cigarette after cigarette after cigarette someone vomited in the men's room he said heading out Willie just nodded this happened to at least once a week and she knew the routine without having to be told she grabbed the bucket and the mop and made her way over she knocked on the door once then twice there was no answer I'm coming in she said forcefully she had discovered weeks before that it was better to enter rooms forcefully than it was to do so timidly since drunk men had a tendency to lose their hearing the man in the bathroom certainly had lost his he was hunched over his face in the sink mumbling to himself oh I'm sorry Willie said as she turned to leave and the man looked up caught her eye in the mirror will he asked she knew his voice immediately but she didn't turn she didn't answer him all she could think about was the fact that she had not recognized him there was a time when they were just sweethearts dating and at the beginning of their marriage when Willie thought she knew Robert better than she knew herself this was more a matter of knowing what his favorite color was or knowing what he wanted for dinner without him having to tell her it was a matter of knowing the things that he could not yet himself no like that he was not the kind of man who could handle invisible hands around his neck that Carson's birth had changed him but not for the better it made him deeply afraid of himself always questioning his choices never measuring up to a standard of his own making a standard that was upheld in his own father's generous love a love that had made a way for him and his mother even when the cost had been great that Willie could recognize these things in Robert be unable to recognize his hunched back his hanging head frightened her to white men walked in the room not noticing Willie one wore a gray suit the other one wore a blue one Willie held her breath you still in here Rob the girls are about to get on stage the blue suit said Robert sent Willie A desperate look and the gray suit who hadn't yet spoken followed his gaze to her body he looked her up and down a smile slowly spreading across his face Robert shook his head all right boys let's go he said he tried to smile but the corners of his lips tugged down almost immediately looks like Robert's already got him a girl the gray suit said she's just in here to clean up Robert said Willie saw that his eyes had started to plead and it was not until then that she knew she was in trouble maybe we don't even need to go back out the gray suit said his shoulders relaxed his body leaned against the wall the blue suit started grinning too Willie clutched the mop I should go my boss will be looking for me she said she tried to change her voice as Robert had she tried to sound like them the gray suit eased the mop away you still have cleaning to do he said he caressed her face his hand started to move down her body but before it could reach her breast she spit in his face Willie don't the two suits turned to look at Robert the gray suit wiping the spit from his face you know her the blue suit asked but the gray suit was two steps ahead of him Willie could see him collecting all the clues in his mind the dusk of Robert's skin the thick voice the nights spent away from home he sent Robert a withering look she a woman he asked Robert's eyes had started to fill up his skin was already sow from his being sick and he looked like he might be sick any again any minute he nodded well why don't you come over here and give her a kiss the gray suit asked he had already unzipped his pants with his left hand with his right hand he stroked his penis don't worry I won't touch her he said and he kept his word Robert did all the work that night while the blue suit guarded the door it wasn't more than a few tear stained kisses and carefully placed hands before the gray suit could ask for Robert to enter her he came a shuttering breathy thing then immediately after he grew bored with his game don't bother coming to work tomorrow Rob he said as he and the blue suit made their way out Willie felt a small Breeze come in from the closing door it raised the hairs on her skin her whole body was stiff like a piece of wood Robert reached for her and it took her a second to realize that she still controlled her body he was already touching her by the time she moved away I'll leave tonight he said he was crying again his brown green gold eyes shimmering behind the wet he left the room before Willie could tell him that he was already gone Carson was still licking his ice cream he held it in one hand his other hand held Willies and the feel of her son's skin on hers was enough to bring tears to her eyes she wanted to keep walking all the way to Midtown if need be she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her son so happy after that day with Robert Joe offered to marry her but Willie couldn't bear the thought of it she took Carson and left in the middle of the night found a place the next morning far enough away that she figured she wouldn't see anyone she knew anymore she couldn't leave har Harlem and that little corner of the great City had already started to feel like it was pressing in on her every face was Rober s and none was his Carson wouldn't stop crying it seemed like for whole weeks at a time the boy just wouldn't stop crying in the new apartment Willie had no best to leave him with and so she left him by himself on day she went to work making sure to shut the windows and lock the doors and hide the sharp things at night she would find that he had put himself to sleep the mattress soaked with his everpresent tears she worked odd jobs mostly cleaning though every once in a while she would still go out for an audition the auditions would all end the same way she would get on stage feeling confident her mouth would open but no sound would come from it and soon she would be crying and begging the person in front of her for forgiveness one auditioner told her she had better make her way to a church of forgiveness is what she wanted and so she did Willie hadn't been to a church since leaving Pratt City but now it seemed she couldn't get enough of it every Sunday she would drag Ken who had just turned 5 years old out with her to the Baptist Church on West 128th between Lennox and 7 it was where she met Eli he was only a once in a while churchgoer but the congregation still called him brother Eli because they thought he had the fruit of the spirit in him which fruit Willie didn't know she had been going for about a month sitting in the very last row with Carson on her lap even though he was too old to be a lap baby and his weight hurt her legs Eli walked in with a bag of apples at his side he leaned against the back door the preacher said the fire of God is fallen from heaven and hath burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them and I only am escaped alone to tell thee amen Eli said Willie looked up at him then returned her gaze to the preacher who was saying and behold there came a great wind from the W Wilderness and smoke the four corners of the house and it fell upon young men and they were dead and I only am escaped alone to tell the bless God Eli said the bag crinkled and Willie looked up to see Eli I pulling out an apple he winked at her as he spoke as he took a bite and she quickly snapped her head back as the preacher said the lord gave and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord amen Willie M murmured Carson started to fuss and she bounced him on her leg a bit but that only made him squirm more Eli gave him an apple and he held it in his hands opening his mouth very wide just to take a tiny bite thank you Willie said Eli tipped his head towards the door take a walk with me he whispered she ignored him helping Carson to hold an Apple so that it wouldn't drop to the floor take a walk with me Eli said louder this time and Usher shushed them and Willie worried that he would have to say it again but louder and so she got up from her seat and left with him Eli held Carson's hand as they walked in Harlem Lennox Avenue was impossible to avoid it was where all the dirty ugly righteous and beautiful things were the jazzing was still there and they past it Willie shuddered what's wrong Eli said just caught a little chill is all ulie said it seemed to Willie that they had walked all of Harlem she couldn't remember the last time she'd walked so much and she couldn't believe that they had gone so far without Carson crying as they walked her son kept working on his apple and he seemed so content that Willie wanted to hug Eli for giving her that little bit of Peace what do you do Willie asked Eli once they had finally found a place to sit I'm a poet he said you write anything good Willie asked Eli smiled at her and took the apple core Carson was dangling from his hand no but I write a lot of bad Willie laughed what's your favorite poem she asked he scooted a bit closer to her on the bench and she felt her breath catch something it had not done for a man since the day she first kissed Robert the Bible's the best poetry there is Eli said well why don't I see you in church more often seems like you should be studying the Bible this time Eli laughed a poet's got to spend more time living than he does studying he said Willie found out that Eli did a lot of what he called living in the beginning she called it that too it was a rush being with him he took her all around New York City to places she never would have dreamed of going before him he wanted to eat everything try everything he didn't care that they didn't have any money when she got pregnant his adventurous Spirit only seemed to grow it was the opposite of Robert Carson's birth had made him want to set Roots whereas Josephine's birth made Eli want to grow things the baby was barely out of her stomach before Eli flew the first time it was for three days he came home to her smelling a booze how's my baby doing he said wiggling his fingers in front of Josephine's face and she followed them with wide eyes where you been Eli Willie said she was trying not to sound angry though anger was all she felt she remembered how she had stayed quiet on the nights Robert used to come home after being gone a while and she didn't intend to make the same mistake twice a you mad at me Willie Eli asked Carson tugged on his pants leg you got any apples Eli he asked he was starting to look like Robert and Willie couldn't stand it for she just cut his hair that morning and it seemed the more hair he lost the more Robert started to peek through Carson had kicked and screamed and cried the whole time she cut she had spanked him for it which had quieted him but then he had given her a mean look and she was not sure which was worse seemed like her son was starting to hate her as much as she was fighting not to hate him sure I got an Apple for you Sunny Eli said fishing one from his pockets don't call him that Willie hissed through her teeth remembering again the man she was trying to forget Eli's face fell a little bit he wiped his eyes I'm sorry Willie okay I'm sorry my name's Sunny Carson shouted he bitten to the Apple I like to be sunny he said bits of juice squirting from his mouth Josephine started crying and Willie grabbed her up and rocked her see where you done started she said and Eli just kept wiping his eyes the kids Grew Older sometimes Willie would see Eli every day for a month that's when the poems were flowing and the money wasn't too bad Willie would come home from cleaning this or that house and find scraps and stacks of papers all around the apartment some of the papers would just have one word on them like flight or jazz others would have whole poems Willie found one that had her name on top and it made her think that perhaps Eli was there to stay but then he would go the money would stop at first Willie took baby Josephine to work with her but she lost two jobs that way so she started leaving her with Carson whom she couldn't ever seem to keep in school they were evicted three times in six months though by that time everyone she knew was getting evicted living with 20 strangers in a single apartment sharing a single bed each time they got evicted she would move what little they had no more than a block down Willie would tell the new landlord that her husband was a famous poet knowing full well that he was neither husband nor famous one time when he'd come home just for a night she had yelled at him you can't eat a PO Eli she said and she didn't see him again for nearly 3 months then when Josephine was four and Carson 10 Willie joined the choir at church she had been wanting to do it since the first day she heard them sing but stages even those that were Alters made her remember the jazzing then she'd met Eli and stopped going to church then Eli would leave and she'd start going again finally she went to the rehearsal but she would stand in the back quietly moving her lips but letting nothing Escape them Willie and Carson were nearing the limits of Harlem Carson crunched in his cone and looked up at her skeptically and she just smiled back reassuringly but she knew and he knew that they would have to turn soon when the colors start changing they would have to turn but they didn't now there were so many white people around them that Willie started to feel scared she took Carson's hand in hers the days of Pratt City mixing were so far behind her she almost felt as though she had dreamed them here now she tried to keep her body small squaring her shoulders in keep her head down she could feel Carson doing the same thing they walked two blocks like this past the place where the Black Sea of Harlem turned into the white Rush of the rest of the world and then they stopped at an intersection there were so many many people walking around them that Willie was surprised she noticed it all but she did it was Robert he was bent down on one knee tying the shoe of a little boy of maybe three or four a woman was holding the little boy's hand on the other side of him the woman had finger curled blonde hair cut short so that the longest strands were just barely licking the top of her chin Robert stood back up he kissed the woman the little boy smushed between them for only a moment then Robert looked up and across the intersection Willy's eyes met his the cars passed and Carson tugged on the end of Willie's shirt we going across mama he asked the cars are gone we can pass he said across the street the blonde woman's lips were moving she touched Robert's shoulder Willie smiled at Robert and it wasn't until that smile that she realized she forgave him she felt like the smile had opened up a valve like the pressure of anger and sadness and confusion and loss was shooting out of her into the sky and Away Away Robert smiled back at her but soon he turned to talk to the blonde woman and the three of them continued on in a different direction Carson followed Willy's gaze to where Robert had been mama he said again Willie shook her head no Carson we can't go any further I think it's time we go back that Sunday the church was packed Eli's book of poems was set to be published in the spring and he was so happy he had stayed put longer than Willie could remember him ever staying before he sat in a middle Pew with Josephine in his lap and Carson at his side the pastor went up to the pulpit and said Church ain't God great and the church said amen he said Church ain't God great and the church said amen he said church I tell you God done brought me to the other side today church I put down my cross and I ain't never going to pick it back up Glory halleluia came the shout Willie was standing in the back of the choir holding a song book when her hands began to tremble she thought about H coming home every night from the mines with his pickaxe and his shovel she would set them down on the porch or he would set them down on the porch and take his boots off before he came because Etha would give him an earful if he tracked cold dust into the house she kept so clean he used to say the best part of his day was when he could put down that shovel and walk inside to see his girls waiting for him Willie looked into the pews Eli was bouncing Josephine on his knees and the little girl was smiling her gummy smile Wily's hands trembled still and in a moment of complete quiet she dropped the song but down on the stage with a great thud and everyone in the sanctuary the congregants and the pastor sisters Dora and Bertha and the whole choir turned to look at her she stepped forward trembling still she sang