trade he started looking around for something else. He signed up with Conway ’s Employment Service, down on 6th Street, which listed him as “Cook, Colored,” and soon they had hooked him up with Mike Georgelakos, who had just let go of a good man who was bad behind drink. Georgelakos offered Darius forty dollars a week to start. Five years later, he was pulling in sixty-five.
“I’m finished,” said Derek Strange.
“Go talk to Mr. Mike,” said Darius.
Mike Georgelakos got off his stool behind the register. He was not much taller standing than he was sitting. He was bald on top, with patches of graying black hair on the sides. His nose was large and it hooked down over his mustache. Mike’s shoulders were broad, his chest barrel shaped. Both of these traits had been passed down to Billy.
Mike walked the house ceremoniously and inspected the floor. When he returned he gave Derek a clean dollar bill.
“Here you go, boy. Good job.”
“Thanks, Mr. Mike. Catch you around, Billy.”
“You, too, Derek,” said Billy, standing beside his father, smiling a little at his friend, sharing the secret of their day.
At the door, Darius Strange turned to give a short wave to Mike Georgelakos, as he always did.
“
“
Out on the sidewalk, Derek said to his father, “What’s that Greek talk mean, anyway?”
“
Derek Strange looked up at his father. Strong and handsome, with a neat mustache and closely cut, pomaded hair. He had to go six-two or six-three.
“Speaking of Hawaii,” said Darius Strange, “Globetrotters gonna be comin’ to Uline. They’re playin’ the Hawaiian team, the Fiftieth Staters? I just read the announcement in the paper. You feel like goin’, I can get us tickets.”
“Yeah!”
“Trotters got this young giant, Wilt Chamberlain, played for Kansas. They’re payin’ him sixty-five thousand dollars a year. I’d like to see what that boy can do to earn it.”
“He come out of Spingarn, too?”
“Stop playin’,” said Darius Strange in a stern way, but Derek could see a smirk breaking on the edge of his lips.
They got into Darius Strange’s car, a ’57 Mercury he had picked up at a lot on 10th and New York. It was a repossession deal, nineteen dollars a month on an eight-hundred-dollar balance. There had been a “special” interest rate put on it, a kind of penalty imposed on colored buyers. Darius was aware of it, and he knew it was wrong, but he accepted it just the same. Any way he looked at it, he would be paying on that car for the next four years.
DARIUS STRANGE DROVE up Georgia Avenue, his son at his side. They passed Ida’s department store, where Derek had found trouble earlier in the day. It now seemed to him to have happened a long time ago. He was safe with his father now, and all of that mess he’d gotten into was tucked far away.
Just up above Piney Branch Road, near Van Buren, Darius Strange pulled into the lot of the soft-ice cream place, had mirror chips embedded in the stucco of its walls. The name of the place was Beck’s, but everyone called it the Polar Bears because of the animal statues out front.
Darius killed the engine, gave Derek some change, and told him he’d meet him back at the car. Derek went to the service window, bought a tall swirl of chocolate on a cone, and had a seat on the curb. His father had walked to the Hubbard House to buy one of their layered chocolate pies. Derek Strange looked forward to this Saturday ritual all week long.
As he ate his ice cream, he watched his father cross the street with the pie box in his hand. A group of white boys drove by in a dropped-down Chevy and yelled something at his father from the open windows of their car. His father returned, expressionless, and made no mention of the incident. But Derek had heard their laughter, and the sound had cut him deep.
The last stop on their route home was Tempchin’s Kosher Meat Market, a butcher shop between Shepherd and Randolph, down on 14th. In the store, Darius Strange said hello to Abe Tempchin, the proprietor, a thick, balding man who always seemed to have a smile on his face. To Derek, the place smelled funny, and the customers in here, white folks but not exactly, talked funny, too. Kinda like Billy’s father, Mike.
“The holy man come in today?” said Darius Strange.
“Yes, he was here,” said Tempchin.
“Let me get one of those chickens he got to, then.”
Derek knew that Tempchin kept a shack full of live chickens behind the store. His father had told him that the rabbi, “the Jew version of a minister,” would come to the store and kill the chickens, an odd thing, Derek thought, for a man of God to do. His father had explained, “That’s what makes ’em kosher,” and Derek had asked, “What’s
They drove southeast into Petworth and Park View. Darius Strange parked the Mercury on Princeton Place, a street that graded up off Georgia. Row houses holding single and multiple families, mostly colored now, lined the block.
“Go on and get your mother some milk,” said Darius as he set the brake.
“Okay,” said Derek.
Derek went down the block to the east side of the Avenue. On one corner was the neighborhood movie house, the York, and on the other was a small grocery, one of many neighborhood markets scattered around the city. He picked up a bottle of milk and took it to the counter, where the owner, a Jew the kids called Mr. Meyer and the adults called just Meyer, sat on a high-backed stool. Mr. Meyer knew Derek and the other members of his family by name. He marked the purchase down on a yellow pad and thanked Derek for his business. Darius Strange settled his debt with Meyer on payday, or the first of the month, or sometimes whenever he could.
Derek came out of the market. A girl he knew was standing on the corner, wearing a store-bought dress. She was his age and his height, and she had breasts. She had dimples when she smiled. She was smiling now.
“Hi, Derek,” she said musically.
“Hey,” said Derek, stopping in his tracks. He had the milk bottle in one hand, but the other was free. That hand felt awkward hanging there, so he put it in the pocket of his blue jeans.
“Don’t you know my name?” the girl said. Lord, thought Derek, she has got some pretty brown eyes.
“Sure, I know it.”
“Why you don’t call me by it, then?”
“It’s Carmen.”
“
Derek felt his face grow hot. “Why you got a Puerto Rican name, girl?”
“It’s not Puerto Rican. My mama thought it sounded pretty, is all.”
“It’s all right,” said Derek.
Carmen Hill giggled and began to tap one foot on the sidewalk. She was wearing patent
