Carolina and Star cooked a dozen different Cuban dishes and Carolina blessed the meal with a silent prayer for Oliver “Biscuit” Bookbinder. And there were presents, too many presents, almost all of which were for Georgie. That Christmas, Georgie received everything she could ever want and more than she would ever need. Two weeks passed in a blur. The days were cold, but the nights were clear. Venus and Jupiter appeared close together in the southeastern sky, like a big sister and little brother carrying lanterns, lighting the way.
January began with Jack leaving for Washington, D.C., on New Year’s Day after receiving a telephone call from Cardinal. Fidel Castro and his band of revolutionaries had run the dictator Batista out of Cuba. They were now in charge of the government and Cardinal wanted Jack in Washington. Carolina kissed Jack good-bye in the kitchen, cursing Batista and the revolutionaries.
During the next few weeks Carolina and I spent a great deal of time together. On fair days when it wasn’t too cold, we took walks in Forest Park. The walks were not as long as in the old days, but in our hearts and minds they felt the same and were just as enjoyable. Carolina never once complained about her physical aches and pains or even mentioned them. I knew from Jack that she suffered from arthritis in her hips, and yet it made no difference. She always looked forward to our walks, which she began referring to as our “wanderings.” On one of our walks we encountered a woman who also was in her eighties, a woman Carolina had known for years. The woman smiled when she saw us coming. Her name was Millie Westinghouse.
“Hello, Millie,” Carolina said.
“How charming!” Millie replied. “What a gentleman you have there, Carolina. Who is this young man?”
Without hesitation or even a trace of irony, Carolina told the woman, “Why, this boy is my oldest friend, Millie … and he is not that young, by the way.” As we walked on, I glanced back at Millie Westinghouse and winked. Her mouth dropped open and she looked completely blank. She was sure she had either heard or been part of a joke, and simultaneously, she knew she didn’t get it.
Willie Croft took me flying on three occasions in January, mainly because he now owned three airplanes, including his beloved de Havilland, and he wanted me to fly in each of them. Star went with us twice and the third flight I was alone with Willie, all the way to Kansas City and back in his red Beechcraft Bonanza. Willie was sixty- seven years old and most of his red hair had disappeared, except for a little above the ears and in the back, and that had turned gray. He had enough wrinkles and lines on his face and forehead to prove that he’d had his fair share of experience. But when he was flying, none of that mattered. I could see it in his eyes and in the grace of his movements. He wasn’t just flying. He was out of Time.
Mitch Coates had opened yet another nightclub in a neighborhood now known as Gaslight Square. Gaslight Square covered the length of Olive Street from Pendleton to Whittier. Mitch owned two buildings, one on Olive and the other around the corner on Boyle. The nightclub was on the ground floor of the Olive Street building, along with the Mercy Whitney Art Gallery & Studio. They lived in a spacious apartment on the second floor of the building on Boyle. Mitch said there was good live jazz in his club, and he was anxious for Ray, Nova, and me to hear some of it. We all went together the first night and stayed close to Mitch. When somebody asked who we were, Mitch said we were his bartender’s grandkids from New Orleans. However, the ruse wasn’t necessary. Once the music started, no one paid attention to us anyway. Nova and I only went along a couple of nights. Ray went on a regular basis. He asked Mitch to take him to hear the rest of the music being played in St. Louis, especially rhythm and blues. One night Mitch drove Ray across the river to a club in East St. Louis, and after that Ray couldn’t stop raving about a group called the Kings of Rhythm with Ike Turner, and a young girl Ike introduced as Tina belting out the vocals. Ray started listening to music on the radio and buying record albums. He listened to everything, but his new hero was a black, blind piano player, singer, and songwriter also named Ray — Ray Charles. “Genius,” Ray said, “pure damn genius.”
Nova began visiting Mercy in her studio and they quickly became fast friends and confidantes. Three or four times a week, Mercy held art classes for kindergarten-age kids in the neighborhood, kids who couldn’t afford art supplies, and Nova never missed a class, acting as Mercy’s assistant. I knew she loved it and she was a natural at working with young children, but she tried to shrug it off, grinning and saying, “I only do it because they’re shorter than me.”
On February 1 the weather turned bitterly cold and a razorlike wind blew in from the northwest. Everyone stayed inside and Georgie got lots of playtime and an abundance of playmates. We kept the fireplace going day and night. About ten o’clock in the morning of February 4, Ray was tending the fire, moving new logs in with the old. The radio was on in the background, tuned to KMOX. A song by The Rays called “Silhouettes” was playing. Just as they sang the line,
Ray turned to me and said, “That’s the same airplane as Willie’s, ain’t it?”
“Yes. One of them.”
“Same color, too, right?”
“Yeah … what are you thinking, Ray?”
“This is a bad omen, Z … a bad omen.”
“In what way?”
Ray paused. “I don’t know yet.”
The next four days passed and the weather improved. By February 9 it was warm enough for Carolina and me to embark on one of our “wanderings” through Forest Park. Antoinette and Georgie stayed outside all morning playing hide-and-seek in and around the “Honeycircle.” Caine was out of town, lecturing at a seminar in Austin, Texas. Ray spent the day with Mitch, helping him build a new stage in the nightclub, and Nova and Mercy took their art class on the road, spending most of the day finger painting at St. John of the Cross Children’s Home. Willie and Star had flown to Rockford, Illinois, and were due back in the early evening. Because of its speed, Willie had chosen his red Beechcraft Bonanza for the trip.
At four in the afternoon, while Carolina and I sat in the kitchen drinking coffee, Ray suddenly burst through the door, with Nova right behind him. “We got to get hold of Willie and Star!” Ray shouted. “They got to stay in Rockford. They can’t fly home tonight.”
I looked at Ray and he was dead serious. “What’s going on, Ray?”
“I had one of my ‘forecasts,’ Z. Over at Mitch’s place, clear as a tear, I saw it and I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“A ‘big one’ is comin’, Z, and it’s comin’ soon. We gotta get hold of Willie.”
I glanced across the table at Carolina. She was worried. She knew Ray, the “Weatherman,” would not be mistaken. She had lost her sister the last time Ray had said a tornado was coming. Carolina rose from her seat and went directly to the telephone. Willie had left the number of their hotel and the number of the airport. She dialed the hotel and asked for Willie or Star. They had already checked out. She nervously dialed the next number, messing it up twice and having to start again. She got through to the airport and was put on hold for several minutes until she was finally connected to the proper person. She found out Willie and Star had taken off half an hour earlier. Carolina’s face dropped, but she didn’t panic. She asked the man if she could get a message to Willie now, while he was in the air. It was an emergency. The man told her he thought they were still in range and asked what she wanted to say. Carolina thought for a moment, then said, “Tell him Z and the ‘Weatherman’ said to turn back, do not come home. Repeat, do not come home.”
Carolina hung up the phone, sat down at the kitchen table, and waited twenty minutes before redialing the Rockford airport. Ray paced the room. When she called back, she had to wait again until the same man came on the line. She listened for a tense moment or two, then smiled and the blood came back into her face. The freckles on her cheeks and across her nose all seemed to jump out at once. “Thank God! And thank you, sir,” Carolina said to the man. “You have probably saved two lives.” She hung up the phone and told us Willie had received the message and was returning to Rockford.
“Yes!” Ray shouted. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Carolina walked over and gave Ray a crushing hug for an eighty-eight-year-old woman. “I am forever grateful, Ray,” she whispered.
Ray winked and whispered back, “We got lucky.”
Nova glanced at me and I knew what she was thinking — there could still be a tornado headed our way. “When is it coming, Ray?” she asked.
Ray walked to the window and looked out at the sky and the trees. The sky was cloudless and the trees
