Glorious. Bernice L. McFadden
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to recruit workers for the Ford Motor Company. Ford was paying his employees five dollars a day and Southern states found their cheap labor streaming out of their towns and cities as quickly as sand through a sieve.
Some recruiters had been abducted and beaten. But Ford just sent more in their place and so the railroad officials had begun to systematically prohibit the sale of northbound tickets to Negroes or inflate the price to such an exorbitant level that it became unaffordable.
Easter followed Madeline into the colored waiting area. She’d promised to sit with her until the train headed to New York arrived. They bought two oranges, squeezed into a space on a long, wooden bench, and quietly worked at peeling the thick skin from the fruit.
“I really think you should come with me to New York,” Madeline suggested for the umpteenth time. “I can get you a job at the hair salon and I can’t see my landlady minding you staying with me until you got your own place.”
Easter bit into the wedge of fruit and the sweet juice coated the inside of her cheek. She didn’t have an excuse not to go and couldn’t rationalize why she felt so resistant to the idea.
“Easter, it’s not like anyplace you’ve ever been before.”
Easter laughed to herself. Where had Madeline been that allowed her to make such a grand statement? Waycross, Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida, that’s it.
Madeline pressed, “You ain’t got nobody here; at least in New York you’d have me and my aunt Minnie in the Bronx.”
Easter chuckled, “She still make ambrosia?”
Madeline nodded and her face brightened. She was wearing Easter down. “Oh, say you’ll come,” she whined. “If you don’t like it you can always leave.”
Easter thought about it for a moment. “Okay.”
The conductor rang his bell and hollered, “All aboard!” The whistle sounded and the train huffed great billowing clouds of steam. Easter clutched her ticket tightly in her hand. She was headed to New York. A quiet excitement percolated in her stomach and she felt a smile light on her lips. When the nose of the train edged across the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania, a young, dark porter appeared and unceremoniously removed the tin sign above the doorway that stated, COLORED.
The car exploded in applause and hearty whoops went up into the air. Couples kissed one another full on the lips. Parents grabbed hold of their children and squeezed. Easter felt something lift off of her shoulders and her leg began to bounce with anticipation.
With the Mason-Dixon line behind them, the train barreled at a reckless speed toward New York.
Nothing in the world could have prepared her—not Madeline’s descriptions, not anything she’d read in her beloved books, not even what her imagination had conjured up over the years.
Pennsylvania Station was brimming with people all in motion. The red caps moved fluidly between the masses as if they themselves traveled along an invisible track.
“Porter, ma’am? Porter, sir?”
Madeline clasped Easter by the hand, dragging her swiftly along behind her. “Keep up, girl. If I lose you in this crowd we’ll never find each other!”
Easter’s mind whirled and she realized that she was panting—sights, sounds, and the beautiful chaos of it all had literally snatched her breath away.
In the subway Easter and Madeline stood on the platform amidst dozens—no, hundreds—of other people of a variety of colors. Easter stared down the dark throat of the tunnel and saw a pair of dim eyes peering back at her. As the train chugged closer its eyes brightened and Easter’s body went still. The train leapt into the station with a thunderous growling wind that whipped Easter’s hair into her eyes.
They packed in.
The fans spun noisily above their heads as the passengers were swept along through the eerie darkness of the tunnels. A stop and more people piled in. Bodies pressed against the doors and each other. When the train began to scale an invisible incline, passengers planted their feet and tightened their grip on the poles and dangling leather straps. Up, up, up they went. Easter imagined that they were climbing into the sky, into the heavens. They climbed up and into glittering sunlight. The train came to a halt, the door slid open revealing a black and white sign: 135th Street.
Madeline nudged her toward the open door and whispered, “This is Harlem.”
The air up there, up south, up in Harlem, was sticky sweet and peppered with perfume, sweat, sex, curry, salt meat, sautéed chicken livers, and fresh baked breads. The streets teamed with automobiles, streetcars, and horse-drawn wagons. Brick buildings lined the sidewalks like soldiers. On the street corners young boys cried, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” An elderly woman beckoned people over to peruse her wagon packed with pots and pans, and a legless man stretched out on a slab of wood fitted with wheels used his hands like fish fins and swam through the streets begging for nickels.
Easter’s ears rang with the city sounds, the familiar twang of Southern tongues and the Northern strum that Madeline had adopted. They made a stop at a fruit cart and while Madeline fretted over the peaches, Easter was spirited away by the singsong language of a dark and gleaming West Indian couple. Mesmerized, she found herself walking alongside them, gawking like a child.
“Eh-eh,” the woman sounded, and pressed her purse firmly against her breast when she caught Easter staring.
Easter continued to stare, waiting for one or both of them to spout another beautiful word, but the woman just rolled her eyes and hastened her pace. The man, though, offered a broad smile filled with teeth as white as piano keys.
She and Madeline turned down East 133rd Street, which was a block in stark contrast to the frenzy of Lenox Avenue. Shaded and quiet, the street was lined with brownstone homes, with brass door handles that twinkled in the late-day sun.
As they walked Madeline raised her hand in greeting and called out to neighbors who watched from their front yards.
“Afternoon, Miss Trundle.”
“Hey, girl, yeah, I’m back. You ain’t working today? Oh, this here is my friend Easter.”
“Mr. Carson, your cat feeling any better?”
“Don’t get no ideas, Charlie, I already done warned her about the likes of you!”
Number 17 was a narrow brownstone home that sat between a redbrick horse stable and an identical brownstone. The slender hall held a stairway that spiraled up to the third floor. The wood floors creaked beneath their feet and the scent of lemon oil lingered in the air. Madeline knocked on the closed pocket door. When no response came she walked to the end of the hallway, leaned girlishly over the banister, and called down: “Miss Chappo?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Madeline.”
“Yes?”
“Can you come up here, please? I’d like to ask you something.”