Chapter One: Jaivon Johnson
As I crossed the square from the Casimir Inn, on the south side of Pulaski Square, to the General's Café on the north side, I shuddered as the big brute of a landscaper, Caleb, rose up from a flowerbed and glowered at me. He too? Would he too make me bend to his will as if by right?—not that I deserved better. But then I saw that he was looking beyond me, at Miz. Muriel standin' at the service door of the hotel. Lookin' at her like he'd like to eat her up. Still not a healthy thing to do in Savannah, a black man lusting after a married white woman.
That might be unfair, though, I thought. Caleb's thing for Miz. Muriel seemed from affection for the goodness of her—a wish to protect—thing. Miz. Muriel was good to everybody—even to the likes of Caleb and me. But the look caused me to shiver. He had the body of a god, workin' on the beds in Savannah's Pulaski Square day in and day out. If I had a choice of the man I was to lay under . . .
Everything in the square was just so—a world unto itself. And it all fittin' in with the Polish general the square was named after. General Casimir Pulaski, the Revolutionary War hero who fell in the battle to snatch Savannah back from the British in 1779. The inn's name came from the man's first name; the café's name from his rank. Flankin' both on the north and south sides of the square were row houses, some now turned into apartment blocks, mostly owned or rented by people havin' somethin' to do with the Savannah College of Art and Design, the main part bein' only two blocks away to the east. This helped make the people of the square both arty and eclectic. They's all—well, most of 'em—more free with themselves and open with pleasurin' themselves than most people are.
Maybe all this art and expressing themselves stuff made them a bit more, shall we say passionate, to make it seem less randy, than most folks were. They certainly was game for bein' open and not a bit shy and doin' what some other folks wouldn't have the guts to do. Mas. Terrence, his term for the lot of them was that they was fools. Well, if they was, so was he in this pleasurin' hisself bizness. Nobody knowed that better'n me.
The east and west sides of the square were dominated by the mansions of agin' white folk from moldering Savannah families that, rumors had it, went back to before General Pulaski was born. Now the two mansions glowered at each other, each possessed by a sole stiff-backed resident. They also glowered at each other from the two sides of the square, not havin' spoken a word to each other except through clinched teeth since they had divorced a good thirty years ago.
That said, both still had their teeth. They'd both aged well—probably from stubbornness, both of them.
Although Miz. Emily, livin' in the heap to the east, scared the bijezus out of me, it was Mas. Terrence, from the pile on the west, who possessed me and reminded me daily of the low worth of a young black man of little education in Savannah even in the twenty-first century. Mr. Martin, who owned and managed the Casimir Inn and who employed me as a porter and doeverything, wasn't like that, nor was his sister, Miz. Muriel, head housekeeper. 'Course, as far as Mas. Terrance and Miz. Emily stood, they both was too tainted themselves—on account of Leo—to have the true Savannah attitude on that.
It was Leo I was goin' to now, going straight across the square from south to north, tryin' to stay out of Caleb's reach, just in case, as I moved—the people loiterin' in the square today not even noticin' me go by; not even lookin' at me; treatin' me like I wasn't even there. But then it was my place in life to not be there until someone wanted to use me.
Leo, Leo Tinley—I think I was the only one from the square who knew him by another name, another life as well—was standing at the host's desk at the café—in the open-air section, where folks now were congregatin', the Savannah weather having fooled us all again that summer had come in early April. Leo was the one I'd come to see—for the breakfast rolls and such for the inn the next day—but when I saddled up to him, it wasn't me he was lookin' at. Mr. Martin was passing by the café from downtown on his way back to the inn. As always, though—the two fools—Leo made like he was going to say somethin' to Mr. Martin, even coming a step away from the host's podium, but he hesitated too long, and after a glance his way, Mr. Martin turned his head and marched faster past the entrance into the café, crossing the street, his expression set and focused on the inn across the square.
If only the two wasn't so pigheaded—especially Mr. Martin, who was so reasonable in all other ways. Sometimes I'd hear Miz. Muriel workin' on him about Leo, but he'd have nothin' to do with it. It was the twenty-first century. Those folks should be able to get past that, to my thinkin'. None of the three of them had caused the hurt between them to begin with. They all three was innocent of that hanky-panky.
But what was I thinkin', lettin' the nineteenth century rule me as well? That's what Miz. Muriel would say to me sometimes when I said I had to leave work for a while because either Mas. Terrence or Leo wanted me. Somethin' in my face, I guess, gave away what they wanted me for. She'd say I didn't give myself enough credit. I was being a fool, she said, but the sad smile she made when she said it kept the "fool" from stingin' so much. She said I didn't need to sell myself to other men like that if I didn't want to.
It weren't exactly sellin', though. The two of them just took what they wanted. They didn't pay me or nothin'.
How could I tell her that, on some level, I wanted to—even that I went all aflutter when I saw the big, black bruiser Caleb Freeman workin' on the landscaping out in the square, all shirtless and muscles. I wanted Caleb too, but he don't bend that way.
I couldn't really help myself. But then maybe the fool part she was talkin' about was in just goin' with who called me to their need—not pickin' and choosin' for myself. Truth be known, though, I'd probably choose someone cruel like Caleb. Not that he'd call, I didn't think, as much as he was takin' from the women hereabouts—all being pleased as punch to give to him, as far as I could see. Even some that would surprise the hell out of some folks. Not Miz. Muriel, there, and there's the rub that made Caleb a fool. With all that he could readily get, still he pined after a married white women, still married even if her husband ain't been seen around here in a pack of months.
And as far as Miz. Muriel was concerned, she had her hand in on the fool bizness her own self, if you asked me. I knew it, because I had to pick up medicines and such for her—and I did much of the cleanin' around the staff areas of the inn. I don't know why she just didn't tell folks—especially her brother, Mr. Martin, why she was gittin' so draggy—and why her husband, Buddy Roberts, was off in Memphis playin' his saxophone every hour of the day he could get gigs. I don't know why she let folks in the square gossip that he'd walked out on her for good—although maybe he has. What do I, an unlearned black porter in a small hotel, know about such things among the white folks?
But here I was, entering the café, already being guided by Leo's wavin' hand toward the shadows of the café, away from the patrons—all of who I knew by name, livin' on the square just like they did—to wait for what I came for. The folks sittin' in the middle, the younger people, most who worked at the art college—SCAD—briefly nodded to me in passing. It was the old-family royalty of the square who gave me no mind—putting me in my place.
Just like the houses they moldered in in the square, Miz. Emily Goodwin sat at one end of the café, with a gaggle of the elderly widows living in the row houses or apartment blocks made out of row houses—the little world of Savannah matrons Miz. Emily lorded it over. Meanwhile, sittin' at the other end, looking out toward the square and so self-important that he looked at no one else—other than Caleb, as, shirtless, the muscular black hunk worked the soil of General Pulaski's square—Mas. Terrence Rowland was lost in a world of his own.
It was the middle ground that gave me some hope—although I knew, or could see, the problems and foolishness that trapped these folks too. The two young blonde SCAD students who always seemed to be here at the café rather than in class, were there. Of course, the older one, Miz. Tracy, was doin' all she could to look like the younger, fizzy one, Miz. Donna, and mooning over Miz. Donna so obviously—without Miz. Donna, havin' much goin' on in her brain that I could see—not seeming to have any idea that Miz. Tracy wanted to be more than just friends. I had never seen one without the other, and, with each passing day, Miz. Tracy was lookin' so much like Miz. Donna, that I expected to see her disappear into the younger woman at any moment. I sort of thought that was what Miz. Tracy was hopin' for, though.
Then there were the newest residents of the square. Two lovers, or so some—not necessarily me—would think. Mr. Mark and Miz. Kathy. As I heard it, both came down from Richmond way together to teach at SCAD—Miz. Kathy right away in the fine arts department and Mr. Mark by the summer in textiles. They had moved into the row house, made into apartments, right next door to the café to the west. They lived on the second floor, and the two SCAD blonde students on the third. The other woman sitting with them—and doin' a good job of disappearing into the landscape without the others noticin' her much, Miz. Olive, lived on the first floor. She was a librarian at the SCAD art library. She had her eyes boring into the back of Mas. Rowland's head in unmistakable worship. That had fool's errand writ all over it, as I well could have told her. Not that I would.
Talk about a woman pining after somethin' she'd never had and only dreamed about, which was kinda funny on a square like this where the sexy business was just below the crusty surface. No telling who was doin' who this week.
Anyhow, although Mr. Mark and Miz. Kathy had come here together and were livin' together, I could see there was some foolishness in that as well—and, for the life of me, I couldn't see why others couldn't see it, although maybe it was just because I was a nobody fly on the pillar that I could see what was what when other, more important—or more self-important—folks couldn't. Miz. Kathy was almost as attentive to the scatterbrained Miz. Donna as Miz. Donna's shadow, Miz. Tracy was—but I saw the looks she gave Miz. Tracy too. And Mr. Mark's mind was off somewhere else entirely, as if the man was struggling hard with something. The furtive looks I saw him give Leo, though, a fine figure of a half black and half white man, having gotten the best attributes of each race, screamed at me, if at no one else.
'Course I had more reason than the next person to know all about those looks.
The folks in the middle were talkin' about Miz. Muriel, who they had seen at the door of the inn across the square. The newcomers, Mr. Mark and Miz. Kathy, seems as how they hadn't seen her before, and Miz. Tracy, with Miz. Donna's head wagging in agreement, had said what she did in the square—it was a close-knit community in Pulaski Square—and everyone soon learned who everyone else was and what they did.
And everybody got into everybody else's bizness. No surprise there. This was the South. This was Savannah.
"That's Martin Lewis' sister, Muriel Roberts," Miz. Tracy said. "He's the owner of the inn across the square—you saw him pass by just now, I'm sure."
"He's a dreamboat," Miz. Donna said, her own voice showing dreamy.
"She used to take coffee with us here regularly, Muriel did," Miz. Tracy said. "Don't know why she stopped, though. She hasn't been around in a while. Maybe it's her husband. He plays the sax. Used to work in the clubs downtown—some of those drag queen clubs, I think. He's been gone for a while, though. I heard he went to Memphis or something."
"She's looking ill," Miz. Olive said, and the other heads at the clutch of café tables in the middle swung toward her table as if they only now knew that the quiet, mousey SCAD librarian, Olive Odom, was sitting among them. "Maybe she's pining away for her philandering husband," Miz. Olive continued. "Romantic and sad at the same time. She's always been the one to help others deal with their ills. Now it looks like she's the one with the problems."
"Or maybe if you people took the time to really look, you'd see that the illness goes beyond a husband problem and that we should be doing something about it." The rough, baritone voice cut through the softer conversation that had been transpiring. We all, including Mas. Terrence, looked about to see who had intruded so cuttingly into the café atmosphere. Caleb Freeman stood at the entrance into the outdoor café, shirt on now, obviously intending on entering the café, when he'd overheard the conversation about Miz. Muriel.
